Burning Angels (29 page)

Jaeger didn’t doubt that Kammler had somehow recognised him. The blonde makeover seemingly wasn’t as foolproof as its Falkenhagen creators had intended it to be.

‘I just don’t know what to do. I had to tell you.’ Konig hunched over his knees, as if in severe pain. Jaeger figured it was the tension and nerves twisting up his guts. He lifted his head slightly and gazed at the two of them. ‘I do not think he wants you kept here for any good reason. I fear he is lying. There was something in his voice . . . Something . . . predatory almost.’

‘So, Falk, what do you suggest?’ Narov asked.

‘You must leave. At times Mr Kammler has been known to have a . . . long reach. Leave. But take one of the Katavi Lodge Toyotas. I will send two of my men in a different direction, driving your Land Rover. That way, we will have a decoy vehicle.’

‘Surely those guys will be bait?’ Jaeger queried. ‘Bait in a trap.’

Falk shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But you see, not all of our workers here are what they seem. Almost all of us have been offered bribes by the poaching gangs, and not all have stayed strong. For some the temptation proves too much. The men I will send have sold many of our secrets. They have much innocent blood on their hands. So if something happens, it is . . .’

‘Divine retribution?’ Narov suggested, finishing the sentence for him.

He smiled weakly. ‘Something like that, yes.’

‘There is a lot you’re not telling us, isn’t there, Falk?’ Narov probed. ‘This Kammler; his warplane beneath the mountain; your fear of him.’ She paused. ‘You know, it always makes it easier to share a burden. And maybe we can help.’

‘Some things can never be altered,’ Falk muttered, ‘or helped.’

‘Okay, but why not start with your fears?’ Narov pressed.

Konig glanced around nervously. ‘All right. But not here. I will be waiting by your vehicle.’ He got up to leave. ‘And do not ask for help when you leave. No one to carry your bags. Who we can trust – I do not know. The story I will tell is that you stole away secretly, in the night. Please – make it convincing.’

Fifteen minutes later, Jaeger and Narov were packed. They’d travelled light, and they’d already given Falk all the kit and weaponry they’d used to execute the assault. He was going to drive it out to Lake Tanganyika shortly, where he would dump it, never to be discovered.

They made their way to the lodge’s vehicle park. Konig was waiting, a figure at his side. It was Urio, the co-pilot.

‘Urio you know,’ Konig announced. ‘I trust him absolutely. He will drive you south, towards Makongolosi – no one ever leaves that way. Once he’s got you on to a flight, he’ll return with the vehicle.’

Urio helped them to load their kit into the Toyota’s rear, then grabbed Jaeger’s arm. ‘I owe you. My life. I will get you out of here. Nothing will happen with me at the wheel.’

Jaeger thanked him, and then Konig led him and Narov into the shadows, talking as he did so. His voice was barely above a whisper. They had to lean in close to hear.

‘So, there is a side to the business you know nothing about: Katavi Reserve Primates Limited. KRP for short. KRP is a monkey-export business, and it is Mr Kammler’s baby. As you’ve seen, the monkeys are like pests around here and it is almost a blessing whenever they do a round-up.’

‘And?’ Narov prompted.

‘Firstly, the level of secrecy surrounding KRP’s business is unprecedented. The round-ups happen here, but the exports go out from some other place – one that I have never seen. I do not even know its name. The local staff are flown there blindfolded. All they see is a dirt airstrip, where they unload the crates of animals. I have always wondered: why the need for such secrecy?’

‘Have you never asked?’ Jaeger probed.

‘I have. Kammler just says the trade is highly competitive and he doesn’t want his rivals to know where he keeps his monkeys immediately prior to transport. If they did, he claims they could give the animals some kind of sickness. And exporting a batch of sick primates would not be good for business.’

‘Where do the exports go?’ Jaeger asked.

‘America. Europe. Asia. South America . . . All the world’s major cities. Anywhere with medical laboratories involved in testing drugs on primates.’

Konig was silent for a second. Even by the faint light, Jaeger could tell how troubled he looked. ‘For years I chose to believe him – that it was a legit business. But that was until the case of . . . the boy. The monkeys are flown to the export house by a chartered aircraft. A Buffalo. Maybe you know it?’

Jaeger nodded. ‘Used for getting cargo into and out of difficult places. The US military flies them. Carries about twenty thousand pounds of freight.’

‘Exactly. Or in primate terms around a hundred crated monkeys. The Buffalo shuttles the primates from here to the export house. It flies out loaded, and returns empty. But six months back it flew in here with something unexpected. It had a human stowaway.’

Konig’s words were coming faster now, almost as if he was desperate to unburden himself now that he had started to talk. ‘The stowaway was a kid. A Kenyan boy about twelve years old. A kid out of the Nairobi slums. You know of those slums?’

‘A little,’ said Jaeger. ‘They’re big. Several million people, so I heard.’

‘One million at least.’ Konig paused, darkly. ‘I was away from here at the time. On leave. The kid sneaked off the aircraft and hid. By the time my staff found him, he was more dead than alive. But they build them tough in those slums. If you live to the age of twelve, you are a true survivor.

‘He didn’t know his exact age. Kids tend not to in the slums. There is rarely any reason to celebrate birthdays.’ Konig shuddered, almost as if he was sickened by what he was about to say. ‘The boy told my staff an unbelievable story. He said he was part of a group of orphans who’d been kidnapped. Nothing so unusual there. Slum children being sold like that – it happens all the time.

‘But this kid’s story – it was unreal.’ Konig ran his hand through his wild blonde hair. ‘He claimed they were kidnapped and flown to some mystery location. Several dozen of them. At first things weren’t so bad. They were fed and looked after. But then came a day when they were given some kind of injections.

‘They were placed in this huge sealed room. People only ever entered in what the kid described as spacesuits. They fed them through these slots in the walls. Half the kids had had the injections, half not. The half who had no injections started to get ill.

‘At first they started sneezing and their noses ran.’ Konig gave a dry retch. ‘But then their eyes turned glazed and red and they took on the look of a zombie; of the living dead.

‘But you know the worst thing?’ Konig shuddered again. ‘Those kids – they died weeping blood.’

59

The big German conservationist fished in his pocket. He thrust something at Narov. ‘A memory stick. Photos of the kid. While he stayed with us, my staff took photos.’ He glanced from Narov to Jaeger. ‘I have no power to do anything. This is way bigger than me.’

‘Go on. Keep talking,’ Narov reassured him.

‘There’s not much more to say. All the kids who weren’t injected died. All those who were injected – the survivors – were herded outside, into the surrounding jungle. A large hole had been dug. They were gunned down and shovelled into that hole. The kid wasn’t hit, but he fell amongst the bodies.

Konig’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Imagine it – he was buried alive. Somehow he dug his way out again. It was night. He found his way to the airstrip and climbed aboard the Buffalo. The Buffalo flew him here . . . and the rest you know.’

Narov placed a hand on Konig’s arm. ‘Falk, there has to be more.
Think
. It is very important. Any details, whatever you can remember.’

‘There was maybe one thing. The kid said that on the flight in, they headed over the sea. So he figured this all took place on some kind of an island. That was why he knew he had to board the aircraft to have any chance of getting out of there.’

‘An island where?’ Jaeger probed. ‘Think, Falk. Any details – anything.’

‘The kid said the flight out from Nairobi took around two hours.’

‘A Buffalo’s got a cruising speed of three hundred m.p.h.,’ Jaeger remarked. ‘That means it’s got to be within a six-hundred-mile radius of Nairobi, so somewhere on the Indian Ocean.’ He paused. ‘You have a name? The kid’s name?’

‘Simon Chucks Bello. Simon is his English first name, Chucks his African. It’s Swahili. It means “great deeds of God”.’

‘Okay, so what happened to this kid? Where is he now?’

Konig shrugged. ‘He went back to the slums. He said it was the only place he would feel safe. It was where he had family. By that he meant his slum family.’

‘Okay, so how many Simon Chucks Bellos are there in the Nairobi slum?’ Jaeger mused. It was as much a question to himself as to Konig. ‘Twelve-year-old boy with that name – could we find him?’

Falk shrugged. ‘There are probably hundreds. And the people of the slums – they look after their own. It was the Kenyan police who rounded up those kids. Sold them for a few thousand dollars. The rule in the slum is: trust no one, and certainly not those in authority.’

Jaeger glanced at Narov, then back at Konig. ‘So, before the two of us do our Cinderella act, is there anything else we need to know?’

Konig shook his head morosely. ‘No. I think that is it. It is enough, yes?’

The three of them made their way back towards the vehicle. When they reached it, Narov stepped across and embraced the big German stiffly. It struck Jaeger that he had rarely seen her offer anyone simple physical closeness. A spontaneous hug.

This was a first.

‘Thank you, Falk – for everything,’ she told him. ‘And especially for all that you do here. In my eyes you are . . . a hero.’ For an instant their heads collided, as she gave him an awkward farewell kiss.

Jaeger climbed into the Toyota. Urio was behind the wheel with the engine running. Moments later, Narov joined them. They were about to pull away when she put out a hand to stop them. She gazed at Konig through the open side window.

‘You’re worried, aren’t you, Falk? There’s more? Something more?’

Konig hesitated. He was clearly torn. Then something inside him seemed to snap. ‘There is something . . . strange. It has been torturing me. This last year. Kammler told me that he had stopped worrying about the wildlife. He said: “Falk, keep alive a thousand elephants. A thousand will be enough.”’

He paused. Narov and Jaeger let the silence hang in the air.
Give him time.
The Toyota’s diesel engine thumped out a steady beat, as the conservationist mustered his courage to continue.

‘When he comes here, he likes to drink. I think he feels safe and secure in the isolation of this place. He is near his warplane in his sanctuary.’ Konig shrugged. ‘The last time he was here, he said: “There’s nothing more to worry about, Falk, my boy. I hold the final solution to all our problems in my hands. The end, and a new beginning.”

‘You know, in many ways Mr Kammler is a good man,’ Konig continued, a little defensively. ‘His love of wildlife is – or was – genuine. He speaks about his worries for the earth. Of extinction. He talks about the crisis of overpopulation. That we are like a plague. That humankind’s growth needs to be curtailed. And in a way, of course, he makes a fair point.

‘But he also enrages me. He speaks about the people here – the Africans; my staff;
my friends
– as savages. He laments the fact that black people inherited paradise and then decided to slaughter all the animals. But you know who buys the ivory? The rhino horn? You know who drives the slaughter? It is
foreigners
. All of it – smuggled overseas.’

Konig scowled. ‘You know, he speaks about the people here as the
Untermenschen
. Until I heard it from him, I did not think anyone still used that word. I thought it had died with the Reich. But when he is drunk, that is what he says. You know of course the meaning of this word?’

‘
Untermenschen
. Sub-humans,’ Jaeger confirmed.

‘Exactly. So I admire him for setting up this place. Here, in Africa. Where things can be so difficult. I admire him for what he says on conservation – that we are ruining the earth with blind ignorance and greed. But I also loathe him for his horrific – his
Nazi
– views.’

‘You need to get out of here,’ Jaeger remarked quietly. ‘You need to find a place where you can do what you do, but working with good people. This place –
Kammler
– it’ll consume you. Chew you up and spit you out again.’

Konig nodded. ‘You are probably right. But I love it here. Is there any place like this in the world?’

‘There isn’t,’ Jaeger confirmed. ‘But still you need to go.’

‘Falk, there is an evil here in paradise,’ Narov added. ‘And that evil emanates from Kammler.’

Konig shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But this is where I have invested my life and my heart.’

Narov eyed him for a long second. ‘Falk, why does Kammler feel he can trust you with so much?’

Konig shrugged. ‘I am a fellow German and a fellow lover of wildlife. I run this place – his sanctuary. I fight the battles . . . I fight his battles.’ His voice faltered. It was clear that he was reaching the absolute heart of the matter now. ‘But most of all . . . most of all it is because we are family. I am his flesh and blood.’

The tall, lean German glanced up. Hollow-eyed. Tortured. ‘Hank Kammler – he is my father.’

60

High above the African plains the General Dynamics MQ9 Reaper drone – the successor to the Predator – was preparing to gather its deadly harvest. From the bulbous head of the UAV – unmanned aerial vehicle – an invisible beam fired earthwards, as the drone began to ‘paint’ the target with the hot point of its laser.

Some 25,000 feet below, the distinctive form of a white Land Rover – ‘Wild Africa Safaris’ emblazoned on its doors – ploughed onwards, those inside utterly oblivious to the threat.

Woken in the early hours, they had been sent on an urgent errand. They were to drive to the nearest airport, at Kigoma, some three hundred kilometres north of Katavi, to collect some spares for the replacement HIP helicopter.