Burning Angels

by Bear Grylls

  71

  ‘Little Mafia – Plague Island – is Kammler’s primate export facility,’ Holland explained. ‘The air traffic control records alone prove that. What else it may be, and what we do about it . . . well, I guess that’s up to you, the action men – and women – in the room, to decide.’

  His eyes sought out Jaeger. ‘And before you ask, my friend: yes I did leave my usual signature: “Hacked by the Rat”. No matter how much more mature one is supposed to get with the passing years, I just can’t seem to resist.’

  Jaeger smiled. The same old Ratcatcher. A maverick genius whose life had been defined by anarchic rule-breaking.

  Holland made his way back to his seat, Peter Miles taking his place. ‘Jules makes it sound easy. It was far from that. Thanks to you, we have a fix on the location. Now, consider the nightmare scenario. Somehow Kammler ships his virus off this island and releases it worldwide. He and his cronies are inoculated. They sit out the coming global meltdown somewhere safe. Somewhere underground, no doubt: in fact, probably in a facility similar to this one.

  ‘Meanwhile, the Gottvirus gets to work. The nearest equivalent pathogen that we know of is Ebola. The lethal dose of Ebola Zaire is five hundred infectious virus particles. That number could hatch out of one single human cell. In other words, one infected person whose blood has been transformed into a viral soup can infect billions of fellow humans.

  ‘A tiny amount of Ebola, if airborne, could nuke an entire place. Airborne Ebola would be like plutonium. In fact, it would be far more dangerous, because unlike plutonium, it is alive. It replicates. It breeds, multiplying exponentially.

  ‘That’s the nightmare scenario with Ebola, a virus that we have been able to study for close on three decades. This – it’s a total unknown. A hot-zone killer of unimaginable ferocity. It has a total fatality rate. Human beings have zero immunity.’

  Miles paused. He could no longer keep the worry from his eyes. ‘If the Gottvirus gets into the human population, it will wreak utter devastation. The world as we know it will cease to exist. If Kammler manages to unleash it, he can sit it out as the virus works its dark evil, and then emerge – inoculated – to a brave new world. So please forgive the melodrama, ladies and gents, but for the sake of humankind, Kammler and his virus have to be stopped.’

  He gestured toward a grey-haired, grizzled-looking man seated amongst his listeners. ‘Right – I’m going to hand over now to Daniel Brooks, the director of the CIA. And by way of introduction, I’d just like to mention that our top cover has just got a whole lot more serious.’

  ‘Gentlemen. Ladies,’ Brooks began gruffly. ‘I’ll keep this short. You’ve done great work. Amazing work. But it still isn’t enough to nail Hank Kammler, the deputy director of my agency. For that we need absolute proof, and at the moment that island facility could just conceivably be a bona fide disease control centre for a monkey export business.

  Brooks glowered. ‘Much as I hate it, I have to tread carefully. Kammler has powerful friends, right up to the level of the American President. I cannot go after him without absolute proof. Get me that proof and you will have every support – every goddam asset – the US military and intelligence community can bring to bear. And in the meantime, there are a few dark assets we can push your way, unofficially I might add.’

  Brooks took his seat, and Miles thanked him. ‘One final thing. When Jaeger and Narov left the Katavi Reserve, they did so in a Katavi Lodge Toyota 4x4. Their Land Rover was driven out at the same time by two of the lodge staff. Several hours after its departure, it was taken out by a Reaper drone. Hank Kammler ordered the kill mission, no doubt believing Jaeger and Narov were at the wheel. In short, he knows we’re after him. The hunt is on – you for him, and him for us.

  ‘Let me remind you: if you use any personal communications devices, he will find you. He has the services of the CIA’s most technologically accomplished people at his disposal. If you use insecure email, you’re as good as done for. If you return to your home addresses, he will track you there. It’s kill or be killed. Use only the comms systems as provided: secure encrypted means. Always.’

  Miles eyed each of them in turn. ‘Make no mistake, if you speak on open means; if you email on open networks – you’re dead.’

  72

  Five thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean, the architect of the evil was putting the finishing touches to a momentous message. Kammler’s Werewolves – the true sons of the Reich; those who had remained steadfast for over seven decades – were poised to reap their rewards.

  Stupendous rewards.

  The time was almost upon them.

  Hank Kammler ran his eye over the closing paragraphs, polishing them one final time.

  Gather your families. Make your way to your places of sanctuary. It has begun. It is unleashed. In six weeks it will start to bite. You have that time, before those who are not with us will start to reap the whirlwind. We who are chosen – we precious few – stand on the brink of a new age. A new dawn.

  It will be a new millennium in which the sons of the Reich – the Aryans – grasp our rightful inheritance once and for all.

  From here we will rebuild, in the name of the Führer.

  We will have destroyed to create anew.

  The glory of the Reich will be ours.

  Wir sind die Zukunft.

  HK

  Kammler read it, and it was good.

  His finger punched the ‘send’ button.

  He leant back in his leather chair, his eyes drifting to a framed photo on his desk. The middle-aged man in the pinstriped suit bore a striking resemblance to Kammler: they had the same thin, hawkish nose; the same ice-blue eyes brimful of arrogance; the same gaze betraying an easy assumption that power and privilege were theirs as a birthright, and due them long into old age.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine them as father and son.

  ‘At last,’ the seated figure whispered, almost as if speaking to the photo. ‘Wir sind die Zukunft.’

  His gaze dwelt upon the framed image a moment longer, but his eyes were looking inwards; menacing pools of thick darkness that sucked in all that was good. All life – all innocence – was drawn into them, suffocating mercilessly.

  London, Kammler reflected. London – the seat of the British government; the site of the late Winston Churchill’s War Rooms, from where he had orchestrated resistance to Hitler’s glorious Reich when all defiance had seemed futile.

  The cursed British had held on for just long enough to draw the Americans into the war. Without them, of course, the Third Reich would have triumphed and ruled as the Führer had intended – for a thousand years.

  London. It was only right that the darkness had begun there.

  Kammler tapped his keyboard and pulled up his IntelCom link. He dialled, and a voice answered.

  ‘So tell me, how are my animals?’ Kammler asked. ‘Katavi? Our elephants are thriving, despite the greed of the locals?’

  ‘The elephant populations are stronger by the day,’ Falk Konig’s voice replied. ‘Less attrition – especially since our friends Bert and Andrea—’

  ‘Forget them!’ Kammler cut in. ‘So they snuffed out the Lebanese dealer and his gang. Their motives weren’t entirely altruistic, let me assure you.’

  ‘I had been wondering . . .’ Falk’s voice tailed off. ‘But either way, they did a good thing.’

  Kammler snorted. ‘Nothing compared to what I intend. I mean to kill them all. Every last poacher, every last trader, and every last buyer – all of them.’

  ‘So why not hire Bert and Andrea?’ Konig persisted. ‘They’re good people. Professionals. And especially in Andrea’s case, a genuine lover of wildlife. They’re ex-military and in need of work. If you want to defeat the poachers, you could use them to run an anti-poaching drive.’

  ‘It won’t be necessary,’ Kammler snapped. ‘You liked them, did you?’ His voice was laced with sarcasm now. ‘Made some fine new friends?’

  ‘In a wa
y, yes,’ Konig replied defiantly. ‘Yes, I did.’

  Kammler’s voice softened, but it was all the more sinister for it. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, my boy? I know our opinions can tend to differ, but our key interests remain aligned. Conservation. Wildlife protection. The herds. That is what matters. There’s nothing that might threaten Katavi, is there?’

  Kammler sensed his son’s hesitation. He knew he was afraid of him, or rather of the kind of people – the enforcers – that he at times sent out to Katavi; like the present incumbent, the fearsome shaven-headed Jones.

  ‘You know, if you’re holding something back, you really shouldn’t,’ Kammler wheedled. ‘It will be the wildlife that suffers. Your elephants. Your rhino. Our beloved animals. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s just . . . I did mention the kid to them.’

  ‘What kid?’

  ‘The slum kid. Turned up here a few months back. It was nothing . . .’ Again Konig’s voice tailed off into silence.

  ‘If it was nothing, no reason not to share it with me, is there?’ Kammler wheedled, a real edge of menace to his tone now.

  ‘It was just a story about some boy who stowed away on one of the flights . . . It didn’t make any sense to anyone.’

  ‘A slum kid, you say?’ Kammler was silent for a long second. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this . . . Well, I will be out there with you soon. Within the next forty-eight hours. You can tell me everything then. I have just a few things to deal with here first. In the meantime, a nurse will be flying in. She needs to give you an injection. A follow-up booster for a childhood illness. You were too young to remember much, but trust me, it’s worth doing as a precaution.’

  ‘Father, I’m thirty-four,’ Konig protested. ‘I don’t need looking after.’

  ‘She is already on her way,’ Kammler replied, with finality. ‘I will be flying in shortly thereafter. Returning to my sanctuary. And when I get there, I’ll look forward to you telling me all about this boy – this slum kid. We have much to catch up on . . .’

  Kammler said goodbye and finished the call.

  Falk wasn’t exactly the son he would have wished for, but at the same time he wasn’t wholly bad. They shared a key passion: conservation. And in Kammler’s brave new world, wildlife, the environment – the health of the planet – would once again be ascendant. The dangers facing the world – global warming, overpopulation, extinctions, habitat destruction – would be dealt with in an instant.

  Kammler had used computer simulations to predict the death count from the coming pandemic. The world population would experience an almost total eclipse. It would be reduced to a few hundred thousand souls.

  The human race was a veritable plague upon the earth.

  It would be wiped out by the mother of all plagues.

  It was all just so perfect.

  Some isolated peoples would doubtless survive. Those on remote, rarely visited islands. Tribes in the deep jungle. And of course, that was as it should be. After all, the Fourth Reich would have need of some natives – Untermenschen – to serve as their slaves.

  Hopefully, once the pandemic had run its course, Falk would see the light. In any case, he was all that Kammler had. His wife had died during childbirth, and Falk was their first and only child.

  Come the rise of the Fourth Reich, Kammler was determined to make him an heir worthy of the cause.

  He dialled up another IntelCom ID.

  A voice answered. ‘Jones.’

  ‘You have a new task,’ Kammler announced. ‘A story about some kid from the slums did the rounds of Katavi Lodge. I have a particular interest in this. There are two members of staff who will do anything for a few beers. Try Andrew Asoko first; if he knows nothing, speak to Frank Kikeye. Let me know what you find.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘One more thing. A nurse will fly in today with an inoculation for Falk Konig, my head conservationist. Make sure he allows her to administer it. I don’t care if you have to forcibly restrain him, but he gets his injection. Understood?’

  ‘Got it. An injection. Some story about a kid.’ He paused. ‘But tell me, when do I get to do something really pleasurable, like hitting Jaeger?’

  ‘The two tasks you’ve just been given are of key importance,’ Kammler snapped. ‘Get them done first.’

  He killed the call.

  He didn’t like Jones. But he was an efficient exterminator, which was all that mattered. And by the time he would be ready to claim his first – very handsome – pay cheque, he would be as good as dead, along with the rest of humanity . . . bar the chosen.

  But this story about a slum kid was worrisome. A few months back Kammler had received reports that a grave on the island had been disturbed. They’d presumed it was the work of wild animals. But was it just possible that someone had survived, and escaped?

  Either way, Jones was sure to get to the bottom of it. Kammler put his worries to one side, and refocused.

  The resurrection of the Reich – it was almost upon them.

  73

  As Jaeger was well aware, if you wanted to get a small force of elite operators on to a distant target ultra-fast and ultra-low-profile, a civilian jet airliner was the way to do it.

  A force could be flown across nations and continents on a bog-standard airliner, following a flight path and altitude open to commercial carriers, and posing as a bona fide flight of one of those airlines. Once over the target, they could leap from the aircraft in a high-altitude parachute jump, remaining immune to detection by radar, the airliner continuing on to its destination as if nothing untoward had ever happened.

  Taking advantage of CIA director Daniel Brooks’ offer of tacit support, Jaeger and his team had been made last-minute additions to the passenger list of BA Flight 987, routed from Berlin’s Schonefeld airport to Perth, Australia. Upon arrival at its destination, BA 987 would be six passengers short. They would have exited en route – at 0400 hours local time and somewhere off the coast of East Africa.

  An airliner’s doors cannot be opened in flight, because of the massive pressure differential between the interior and exterior of the aircraft. The exits are ‘plug doors’; they’re closed from the inside and kept shut partly by the higher pressure in the cabin. Even if someone did manage to unlock a door during flight, the pressure differential would make it impossible to pull it inwards and open it.

  Not so the specially adapted hatch and ‘jump cage’ of this Boeing airliner.

  In a top secret deal with UK Special Forces, one or two supposedly standard BA airliners had been modified to facilitate such covert high-altitude parachute jumps. In an isolated section of the fuselage a reinforced steel cabin had been constructed, complete with a man-sized jump hatch. Flight 987 was one of these specially adapted aircraft, and it was via this means that Jaeger and his team would be leaping into the thin and screaming blue.

  With the team scattered in pairs around the aircraft, Jaeger and Narov had lucked out. They were flying club class – the only seats available at a few hours’ notice, which was all the time Brooks had had to muscle them on to the flight. It was indicative of the quiet cooperation from high-level corporations that the CIA director enjoyed. When someone of his influence asked, people tended to accommodate.

  The pilot of BA 987 – a former air force fighter jock – would be opening the jump hatch over a specific set of GPS coordinates. He would make sure to override any warning systems. It wasn’t a dangerous manoeuvre, and the door would only be ajar for a matter of seconds.

  Jaeger and his team would change into their high-altitude survival and parachutist gear in the aircraft’s crew quarters, well away from the other passengers’ view. In the Boeing 747-400’s jump cabin – which could be depressurised independently from the rest of the aircraft – a row of six bulging rucksacks had been laid to one side, along with a heap of high-altitude parachutist kit and weaponry.

  After they’d tumbled free of the aircraft, the jump hatch woul
d swing shut, BA 987 continuing on her way as if no unscheduled unloading of passengers had ever taken place.

  The reasons for making such a rapid and ultra-secret insertion were simple. Time was of the essence, and if Little Mafia Island was all that it was suspected to be, Kammler’s surveillance and security was bound to be second to none. He’d doubtless have co-opted some CIA hardware – satellites; UAVs; spy planes – to keep a permanent watch rotation over the island, not to mention whatever security systems he had in place on the ground.

  Any assault would be up close in the jungle, where visibility was never more than a few dozen yards at best. Stashed in the 747’s jump cabin were half a dozen Hechler & Koch MP7s, an ultra-short-barrelled sub-machine gun. With a total length of just twenty-five inches, it was perfect for close-quarter battle and jungle warfare.

  Each weapon was fitted with a suppressor, to silence its distinctive bark. Equipped with a forty-round magazine, the MP7 packed a real punch, especially as it fired bespoke armour-piercing bullets. The DM11 Ultimate Combat round boasted an alloy-plated steel core, making it ideal for penetrating any buildings or bunkers that Kammler might have sited on the island.

  Jaeger’s team numbered six, and they expected to be heavily outnumbered. Nothing new there, he noted.

  Lewis Alonzo and Joe James had organised the jump kit, plus parachutes. Leaping from an airliner at some 40,000 feet required seriously specialist high-altitude gear. Hiro Kamishi – who was something of a CBRN defence specialist – had sorted the protective suits they’d need.

  Any attack on such a place was a truly daunting proposition. The jungle was one of the most hostile of environments in which to operate, but this was no ordinary jungle. It was bound to be teeming with Kammler’s guard force, plus his laboratory workers.

  Plus it could well be overrun with sick and infected primates, in which case it would have to be treated as one huge Level 4 biohazard zone. A Level 4 biohazard is the most dangerous of all, denoting contamination with a pathogen of unprecedented lethality.