Ghost Flight (39 page)

Jaeger glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She seemed more concerned for the dead snake than she was for Leticia Santos. He figured if she was an assassin it made it far easier if all she really cared about was animals.

The ground rose as they neared the dead zone.

Ahead, Jaeger could see where the vegetation fell away on all sides. It was replaced by ranks of bare tree trunks bleached white in the sun, like endless rows of gravestones. Above lay a skeletal latticework of dead wood – what remained of the once verdant canopy – and above that again, a bank of low grey cloud.

They gathered on the brink of the zone wherein all life had died.

From ahead of him, Jaeger could hear the rain drumming deafeningly, instead of dripping from the leaf cover high above. It sounded unnatural somehow, the area of the dead zone seeming horribly empty and exposed.

He sensed Puruwehua shiver. ‘The forest – it should never die,’ the Indian remarked simply. ‘When the forest dies, we Amahuaca die with it.’

‘Don’t go dying on us now, Puruwehua,’ Jaeger muttered. ‘You’re our
koty’ar,
remember? We need you.’

They stared into the dead zone. Far ahead, Jaeger could just make out something dark and massive, half obscured among the bony fingers reaching towards the clouds. His pulse quickened. It was the barely discernible silhouette of a warplane. In spite of the previous night’s vision – or maybe because of it – he longed to get inside it and uncover its secrets.

He eyed Puruwehua. ‘Your people would warn us if the enemy were anywhere close? You’ve got men shadowing that Dark Force, right?’

Puruwehua nodded. ‘We have. And we move faster than they do. Long before they get near we will know.’

‘So how long d’you think we’ve got?’ Jaeger asked.

‘My people will try to give us one day’s warning. One sunrise and one sunset before our work here must be done.’

69

‘Okay, heads-up,’ Jaeger announced, calling his team together.

They’d gathered in the cover of the last few yards of the still living forest. They were on higher ground, and it didn’t look as if the flood waters ever reached this far.

‘First, no one goes any nearer without full NBC gear. We need to ID the threat, at which stage we’ll know the severity of what we’re dealing with. Once we know the toxicity, we can work out a regime to better safeguard against it. We have three full NBC suits. I’d like to be first aboard, to take samples of water and air and whatever else we find. We can then rotate protective kit around the team, but we’ve got to keep the risk of cross-contamination to a minimum.

‘We’ll set a base camp here,’ he continued. ‘Sling hammocks well away from the dead ground. And understand the urgency: Puruwehua reckons we have twenty-four hours before we get a visit from the bad guys. We should get early warning from his people, but I’d like a cordon of security thrown around the site as well. Alonzo – that’s something I’d like you to get sorted.’

‘You got it,’ Alonzo confirmed. He nodded towards the distant warplane. ‘That thing – man, it gives me the creeps. Don’t mind if I’m the last to see inside.’

‘You okay to stand security?’ Jaeger asked Leticia Santos. ‘Or you need us to sling you a poncho and hammock? That was one hell of a snake you picked a fight with back there.’

‘As long as I can keep out of the water,’ Santos replied bravely. She eyed Narov. ‘And as long as the crazy Cossack keeps her sniper rifle pointed in someone else’s direction.’

Narov’s attention was elsewhere. She seemed utterly transfixed; unable to tear her eyes away from the distant silhouette of the warplane.

Jaeger turned to Dale. ‘I presume you want to film this – and make no mistake, I want it filmed. The first opening of this aircraft after seven decades – this needs to be recorded. You take the second NBC suit so you can follow me in.’

Dale shrugged. ‘How bad can it get? Can’t be worse than facing down a shoal of piranhas, or a crotch full of leeches.’

It was the kind of response Jaeger had come to expect from the guy. Dale wore his fear on his sleeve, but it wasn’t about to stop him from doing what was necessary.

Jaeger eyed Narov. ‘I get a sense you know more about this warplane than anyone: you take the third suit. You can help guide us around whatever we find in there.’

Narov nodded, but her gaze was still fixed on the distant plane.

‘Puruwehua, I’d like you to get your guys out deep into the forest, forming an early-warning screen in case of trouble. The rest of you – you’re on Alonzo’s security cordon. And remember, zero use of comms or GPS. Last thing we want is to send a warning signal to whoever’s keeping watch.’

That agreed, Jaeger broke out the nuclear, biological, chemical protective gear. The threat from whatever toxic material was leaking from that aircraft was twofold: one, breathing it in; two, ingesting it via a living porous membrane like the skin.

With the need to carry all their kit on their person, they’d only been able to bring three full NBC suits. They were a lightweight design, made by the British company Avon, and would protect the body from any droplets or vapour that might remain in the air.

With the suit went the Avon C50 mask – which with its single eyepiece, high protection and close-fitting design was a superlative piece of kit. It was the mask – the respirator – that shielded the face and eyes and prevented the lungs from breathing in any toxic material.

Once fully suited up, they’d be shielded from just about any chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological threat, plus toxic industrial chemicals – which should encompass every conceivable hazard lurking on that warplane.

As a bonus, each Avon mask carried an embedded transmitter-receiver, which meant that those wearing them could speak to each other via a short-range radio intercom.

Having fought his way into the cumbersome suit, Jaeger paused. He figured he’d power up the Thuraya and check for any data-burst messages. Once he pulled on the bulky mask and gloves, there would be no easy way to use such equipment.

Jaeger held the satphone in the open, and a message icon appeared on the screen. He stepped back beneath the cover of the jungle to read Raff’s missive.

0800 Zulu – called all satphones. One + 882 16 7865 4378 answered, then immediately killed call. Gave a call-sign (?) sounded like White Wolf (?). Voice Eastern European accent. KRAL?? Come up comms – urgent confirm locstat.

Jaeger read the message three times over as he tried to fathom its import. Clearly Raff was worried as to their location and status (military speak: ‘locstat’), or he wouldn’t have risked making a voice call. Jaeger would have to send a quick data-burst response to let him know all were present and correct at the site of the air wreck.

Or rather, all bar one – Stefan Kral.

And in light of the message, Jaeger sensed that a dark cloud had fallen over their absent Slovakian cameraman.

He scrolled through the numbers held in speed-dial on his Thuraya, checking those of the other members of his team. In theory, they only had three satphones with them – his own, Alonzo’s and Dale’s – the rest having been left in the cache above the Devil’s Falls.

Sure enough, number + 882 16 7865 4378 was a Thuraya that supposedly had been left behind.

Jaeger cast his mind back to 0800 Zulu that morning. They’d just broken camp and recommenced their trek. None of his team would have been able to receive Raff’s call. But if Kral had hidden a Thuraya in his kit, he was quite capable of taking a call at the Amahuaca village clearing.

Not to mention making calls as well.

The question was – why would he have hidden a satphone? And why the code name – if Raff had caught it right – White Wolf? And why had he immediately killed the call upon realising that it was from Raff in the Airlander?

Jaeger felt a horrible suspicion taking hold of him. Viewed in conjunction with Kral’s failure to disable the GPS units on Dale’s cameras, the only possible conclusion seemed to be that the Slovakian was the enemy within. If he was indeed a traitor, Jaeger felt doubly betrayed. He had been suckered right in by Kral’s hard-done-by family-man act.

He called Puruwehua over. As quickly as he could, he explained what had happened.

‘Can one of your men head back to the village and warn the chief? Tell him to hold Kral until we can get to him to question him. I’m not saying he’s definitely guilty – but all evidence points that way. And remove all but his bare essentials, to prevent him making a break for it.’

‘I will send one,’ Puruwehua confirmed. ‘One who can move fast. If he is an enemy to you, he is also an enemy to my people.’

Jaeger thanked the Indian. He sent Raff a brief update by data-burst, then returned to the task at hand.

He threw his shoulders forward, pulled apart the rear of the Avon gas mask and dragged the thing over his head, making sure that the rubber formed an airtight seal with the skin of his neck. He tightened the retaining straps, and felt it pull closer around the contours of his face.

He placed his hand over the respirator’s filter, his palm making an airtight seal. He breathed in hard, sucking the mask tighter on to his face, so making doubly sure the seal was good. That done, he dragged in a few gasps of air through the filter, hearing the rasp and suck of his own breathing roaring in his ears.

He pulled the hood of the suit over his head, the elastic sealing around the edge of the mask. He dragged the bulky rubber over-boots on so they encased his jungle boots completely, then laced them up tight around his ankles. Last but not least, he pulled on the thin white cotton under-gloves, plus the heavy rubber over-mitts.

His world was now reduced to whatever he could see through the eyepiece of the gas mask. The dual filter sat to the front and the left, in an effort to prevent it from impeding the view, but already Jaeger was feeling claustrophobic, and he could sense the heat and the stuffiness starting to build.

Suited up, the three figures stepped out of the living jungle and into the wasteland.

70

After the chattering of birdlife and the buzz of insects in the green and leafy jungle, their entry into the dead zone seemed eerily quiet. The steady patter of the rain against Jaeger’s hood beat out a regular rhythm to accompany the suck and rasp of his breathing, and all around, the terrain appeared devoid of life.

Rotten branches and bark squelched underfoot.

Where Jaeger’s over-boots kicked aside such debris, he could see that insects had started to recolonise the dead zone. Swarms of ants with iron-clad skin scuttled about angrily beneath his footfalls. Plus there were his old friends from Black Beach Prison – cockroaches.

Ants and roaches: if there were ever a cataclysmic world war using nuclear or chemical weapons, it would be insects that would very likely inherit the earth. They were largely immune to man-made toxic threats, very likely including whatever might be leaking from that warplane.

The three figures pressed onwards in silence.

Jaeger could feel the tension emanating from Narov at his side. A step or two behind came Dale, filming. But he was struggling to keep the picture properly framed, with his hands encumbered by the thick gloves, and the gas mask restricting his vision.

They came to a halt fifty feet short – from where they could try to take in the enormity of what lay before them. It remained half shielded by cadaverous tree trunks – denuded of leaves and bark, and dead to the core – but still there was no mistaking the sleek, elegant lines of the gigantic aircraft that had lain hidden in the jungle for seven decades or more.

After the epic journey to get here, they were left gazing at it in silent wonder.

Even Dale had stopped filming to stare.

Everything had been building to this moment: so much research; so much planning; so many briefings; so much speculation as to what the aircraft might actually be; and, after the last few days, so much death and suffering along the way, as well as the cold steel of betrayal.

As he gazed upon it in wonder, Jaeger marvelled at how intact the aircraft appeared to be. He almost felt as if it simply needed that vital refuelling it had missed all those years ago, and it could fire up the engines and be ready to take to the skies once more.

He could quite understand why Hitler had trumpeted this aircraft as his Amerika Bomber. As Jenkinson, the archivist, had declared, it looked custom-made for dropping sarin nerve gas on New York.

Jaeger stood entranced.

What in God’s name was it doing here? he wondered. What had its mission been? And if it was the last of four such flights, as the Amahuaca chief had told them, what was it –
what were they all –
carrying?

Jaeger had only ever seen one photo of a Junkers Ju 390.

It was an old black-and-white shot that Jenkinson had emailed to him – one of the very few images that existed of the warplane. It had shown a dark and sleek six-engined aircraft – one so massive that it dwarfed the soldiers and airmen who were busy all around it, like so many worker ants.

It had a nose cone shaped like a cruel eagle’s head in side profile, and a raked, streamlined cockpit, with a score of porthole-like windows running along its sides. The only major differences between the aircraft shown in that photo and the one now lying before them were the location and the markings.

That photo had shown a Ju 390 at its last known destination – a frozen, snowbound airstrip in Prague, in occupied Czechoslovakia, on a bitter February morning in 1945. Painted on each of the aircraft’s massive wings was the distinctive form of a black cross set against a white background – the insignia of the German Luftwaffe – with similar markings on the aft section of the fuselage.

By contrast, the aircraft now lying before Jaeger displayed an equally distinctive roundel – a five-pointed white star overlying red-and-white stripes – the unmistakable markings of the United States Air Force. Those roundels were sun-bleached and weathered almost to the point of having disappeared, but to Jaeger and his team they were still clearly recognisable.