Bear Grylls: The Hunt (Will Jaeger Book 3) Page 10

  ‘Myself. Daniel Brooks,’ Miles confirmed. ‘Plus a few other highly placed and trusted individuals. The usual suspects.’

  Over the decades, the Secret Hunters had cultivated a network of powerful backers, encompassing the elite military and intelligence agencies of the major Allied governments.

  ‘But I’ll level with you,’ Miles continued. ‘Brooks is worried. If Kammler’s DNA sample was doctored, then he’s got problems in his own agency. Until he proves Kammler’s back in business, he can’t do much about it. Hence his need to keep this low-profile.’ He ran his gaze around the room. ‘Hence the desire to use you.’

  ‘I am curious about one thing,’ Narov volunteered. ‘How much is the final payment the Moldovans are waiting for? To green-light the shipment?’

  ‘Tens of millions of dollars.’

  ‘The kind of money Kammler’s trying to grab via Hitler’s literary estate.’

  ‘Indeed. Using the revenues from Mein Kampf to wreak some kind of nuclear carnage in memory of the Reich. Well, it would appeal to Kammler’s ego, not to mention his sense of the dramatic. But we won’t know for sure until—’

  ‘He is smarter than that,’ Narov cut in. ‘If he aims to spread terror, it won’t be only revenge he is after. He will do so to light a fire, one that will scorch the world, from the ashes of which he will build anew. Bringing back the Reich, that was always his aim. A Fourth Reich. With him as Führer. I don’t believe it will have changed.’

  ‘Quite,’ Miles agreed. ‘But as I was saying, we won’t know for sure until we get eyes on, and that’s down to you guys.’

  Jaeger, Raff and Narov glanced at each other. Either they agreed to Miles’s proposition, or potentially they’d have the blood of millions on their hands. But beyond that, this was deeply personal.

  Narov had her own reasons to hate Kammler, reasons rooted deep in her family’s dark past. As for Raff, he’d seen good friends die horribly at Kammler’s hands. And for Jaeger, this was the man who’d murdered his best friend, and very nearly succeeded in doing the same to his wife and child.

  They broke for a brew. Jaeger found a quiet place where he could make a private call via his computer. He needed to let Ruth know that he wasn’t about to make it home any time soon. He steeled himself for what was coming: he didn’t figure this was going to be easy.

  Predictably, her mobile went to voicemail. He decided to call home. Maybe she was there. A woman’s voice answered. For the briefest of moments he was hopeful, but it wasn’t her.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded. What was a stranger doing answering the home phone?

  ‘It’s Jennie, Will.’

  Jaeger felt a sinking feeling. Jennie was Raff’s long-term partner, and one of Ruth’s closest friends. She’d proved a constant support. But why was she there now, at their home?

  ‘Is everything okay? Where’s Ruth?’

  ‘No easy way to say this, Will: she’s disappeared from the clinic. I’ve been trying to call you for hours. It kept going to voicemail.’

  No surprise she couldn’t reach him: the Falkenhagen Bunker had zero mobile coverage. Jaeger’s mind started to race. Ruth had been acting increasingly erratically. But pulling a disappearing act? What on earth was going on?

  ‘Will? Are you there?’

  Jennie’s voice dragged Jaeger’s mind back to the present. He forced himself to speak. ‘I am. Tell me – how long has she been gone?’

  ‘It happened yesterday. The clinic people tried calling. They couldn’t raise you, so they got hold of me. I’ve been trying to reach you ever since.’ A pause. ‘Plus there’s this. They say she left in the company of a suspicious- looking individual.’

  ‘Suspicious like how?’ Jaeger queried. ‘Any description?’

  ‘Not much. Big shaven-headed guy. Man of few words. “Scary looking” was how they described him. But the clinic’s not a prison, so they couldn’t exactly stop her.’

  Jaeger felt punch-drunk. What the hell was going on? There was more than a hint of Steve Jones in the description of the individual who had taken Ruth away. Maybe she’d been kidnapped by Kammler’s people. But Jones couldn’t be in two places at once – the tunnels under St Georgen and the London clinic.

  Jaeger thrust out a hand to the wall to steady himself. He had a terrible feeling that history was repeating itself.

  ‘Any idea where she went?’ he asked desperately. ‘Any clues as to where she might be? Anything? It’s important, Jen. Vitally so.’

  ‘No. Nothing. Just what the clinic people said. Plus the fact that she’s gone.’

  Jaeger thanked her and killed the call.

  Another thought struck him, one so dreadful in its implications that it was almost as if he couldn’t breathe. Fighting to keep his hands from shaking, he punched speed dial for his sons’ mobile; Luke and Simon shared the same phone.

  It rang out and went to voicemail. It was lesson time, so the phone would be off.

  With a mounting sense of panic, he called school reception.

  ‘Luke and Simon Jaeger, Year 8,’ he blurted out. ‘They’re both still at school? No one’s come to pick them up in the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Just a moment . . . Mr Jaeger, is it?’

  ‘Yes, it is. And it’s urgent.’

  ‘Just one moment while I check.’

  Music began to play. Jaeger had been placed on hold. The tune was supposed to be comforting. Calming. Well, no parent had ever called as stressed out and messed up as he was right now, of that he was certain. Come on. Come on.

  If felt like an age before the receptionist was back on the line. ‘Their mother came to see them yesterday evening. She took them for a bite to eat by the sea.’

  Jaeger felt his blood run cold. The school lay on the Somerset coastline, and Jaeger was in the habit of taking the boys for fish and chips by the harbour. But Ruth’s visits had been few and far between, for obvious reasons.

  ‘Apparently she came to say goodbye, before she went off on an overseas trip. The boys were back before lights out. They’re both here. If you’re worried, I can get them to call you once class is finished.’

  Jaeger forced himself to speak. ‘Please, I’d really appreciate it. As soon as they’re able to.’

  ‘Of course. They’ll call around three forty-five.’

  ‘One more thing: did my . . . wife leave any indication as to where she might be going?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. But the boys may know more.’

  Jaeger thanked the woman and sank back against the cold concrete of the wall. How had life come to this – to a point where he was worried that his own wife might snatch their sons and return them to their tormentor? She’d been acting so unpredictably recently, and if she’d fallen under the influence of Kammler’s people anything was possible, that’s if it was them who’d taken her.

  Jaeger’s mind was spinning. He didn’t know what to think anymore. But of one thing he was certain: it was Kammler who had done this to them. Directly or indirectly, it was his fault. In his dark, fucked-up, vengeful fashion, Kammler was behind it all.

  It was time to end it, once and for all.

  24

  Hank Kammler bristled as he eyed the figures in the room, his gaunt face cloaked in shadow, his gaze distinctly predatory.

  ‘You don’t like it?’ he demanded. ‘It offends your sense of entitlement? Your precious positions of influence? Let me ask – what is the point of influence, of power, if you never see fit to use it for the sake of the Reich?’

  A man of around Kammler’s age – Ferdinand Bormann, the son of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s banker – knitted his brows. He was a very different character from Kammler, as he himself was well aware. Where Kammler was driven, merciless and utterly single-minded, Ferdy, as his friends called him, was a little more circumspect and conservative. A banker by nature. Something of an accountant. A ‘bean counter’, as Kammler had once so cuttingly said. Well, Kammler might be Grey Wolf, but they were still a team, and that demanded a certain accountability.

  ‘It is only that the Mein Kampf settlement brings with it certain dangers, risks, in the form of scrutiny,’ he ventured. ‘A mystery figure claiming the Führer’s royalties: press interest is inevitable. We must anticipate that it will bring attention our way. Which could prove . . . difficult.’

  Kammler stalked across the room, throwing open the curtains. Light flooded in; the fine sunlight of an early spring day. He ran his eye around the perfectly manicured grounds. Yes, Ferdinand Bormann had done well for himself. You didn’t run a Zurich bank of such global reach without being amply rewarded – this fine country estate being a case in point.

  But that was just the problem. Bormann and the rest of the Kameraden had grown fat and bloated, seduced by the trappings of wealth and power. None of that did anything to bring back the Reich. To reclaim the Führer’s legacy. To purge humanity of its present sickness.

  And by God, was it sick.

  By contrast, he, Hank Kammler, son of SS General Hans Kammler, had sacrificed so much. His position as deputy director of the CIA. His friends. His freedom. His very face, even. He ran a hand across the recent scarring. He had sacrificed his looks – the hawkish, aristocratic Kammler features – and all for the cause.

  Yet still greater sacrifice was required, and he was ready. To start a fire. A fire to burn and sear the dead wood. Destroying all to start anew. He for one would enjoy sitting back and watching it burn.

  But the men in this room: how would he galvanise them?

  He glanced at his watch. ‘It is six forty-five p.m. on the fourteenth of March. Tonight, the Moldovan flight will take to the air. If all goes to schedule, I expect delivery in seventy-six hours.’

  He paused. ‘I should be there, overseeing the building of the last of the devices. Instead, you call me here to quibble about the Mein Kampf settlement? To complain that it may attract a little unwelcome publicity?’

  His eyes flashed a momentary rage, verging on the brink of madness. ‘Mein Kampf, the Führer’s masterpiece, banished! His royalties going to fund the very causes we abhor! They try to do this with his message, his glorious inheritance, and I am surprised – and disappointed – that you are not as incensed as I am, Kameraden.’

  Boorman and his fellows remained silent. Kammler’s words had stung them. There was a sense that they had hit home.

  ‘Look at us,’ Kammler continued. ‘Eight men. Eight, the sacred number of the Schutzstaffel. Eight men in the sunset of our days, yet we are so very, very close. So close to fulfilling our pledges to the Führer. And yet you call me halfway around the world to tell me this? That the Mein Kampf settlement is a little risky?’

  ‘You cannot act alone,’ a figure sitting to Bormann’s right objected. ‘You did so with the Mein Kampf settlement, and out of what motive? Hubris? We do not need the money. The sum is paltry compared to the finance and power in this room. I repeat: you cannot act alone. You are not yet the Führer of the new Reich. We are the Kameraden. The Brotherhood of the Death’s Head. We act as one or not at all.’

  Kammler couldn’t hide his scorn any longer. ‘Well there hasn’t been much action to date! Seventy years of inaction, by my reckoning. What do you suggest? We dither for another seventy? You think we can pass such responsibility to a new generation? You really think they will care? Understand?’

  He paused and tapped his chest steadily. ‘You think they will feel it? In their hearts? Do you think they will even remember?’

  ‘Heady rhetoric,’ the figure retorted. ‘You have your father’s flare for oratory. But that doesn’t alter the fact that we act as eight, united, or not at all. That is the way.’

  Josef von Alvensleben – son of Ludolf von Alvensleben, the SS Gruppenführer who had run the infamous Valley of Death, an SS extermination camp in Poland – wasn’t about to be bullied by anyone. His father hadn’t exterminated hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews and communists for his son to scare easily.

  ‘We share your sense of urgency,’ he continued. ‘The world must be purged of the Untermenschen. We Aryans must take our rightful place. And we will, of course. But cautiously. And with proper planning. Don’t mistake our caution for reluctance to act.’

  Kammler fought to suppress a sneer. He had grown accustomed to their reticence. To the snail’s pace at which they tended to act. To their cursed caution. And he abhorred it.

  ‘Eight devices; that we are agreed upon,’ von Alvensleben continued. ‘But do we have enough raw material? How much was retrieved from the tunnels at St Georgen?’

  ‘Two hundred and forty kilos,’ Kammler volunteered. ‘That was before the idiot film crew stumbled upon the tunnel complex. From that we hope to isolate a hundred and twenty kilos that is highly enriched and usable.’

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but each device requires twenty kilos of HEU?’ The speaker was Walter Barbie, son of SS and Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, the so-called ‘Butcher of Lyon’.

  At war’s end, Klaus Barbie had been recruited into the CIA to serve as an agent in South America. He’d led a long and happy life, raising a family in the southern Argentinian town of Bariloche. Hence Walter, his eldest son, spoke German with a strong South American accent.

  ‘It does,’ Kammler confirmed.

  ‘Eight devices each of twenty kilos: the St Georgen haul leaves us a shortfall, does it not?’ Barbie pressed.

  Kammler found the inquisitorial tone grating. He did his best to hide his resentment. ‘It does. Hence the need to go ahead with the deal offered by our friends in Moldova. Once we take delivery, we should have more than enough for our plans.’

  ‘You are to be congratulated,’ von Alvensleben remarked. ‘This is certainly progress.’ He paused, running his gaze around the others in the room. ‘But we also understand your plans have altered somewhat. Is that true?’

  Kammler’s eyes grew cold. ‘Plans evolve, Josef.’

  Von Alvensleben’s gaze didn’t falter. ‘Yes, and with each evolution we need to be kept informed. Fully briefed. We are your paymasters, your protectors. You know the protocols.’

  ‘Those who have money will always make money, no matter what catastrophe may befall humankind,’ Kammler remarked by way of answer. ‘The more dire the catastrophe, the more money there is to be made. This we all understand. And crucially, we have unrivalled finances and we will have ample forewarning.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ von Alvensleben countered. ‘But still we need to be kept informed. We are hitting purely military and political targets, as agreed? That has not changed?’

  ‘It hasn’t,’ Kammler confirmed.

  ‘So what has changed?’ von Alvensleben pressed. ‘I have word that you have altered our plans significantly.’

  Kammler eyed von Alvensleben. Who had given him word? Could there be a mole in Kammler’s set-up; a leak? He would check. Root it out mercilessly.

  He brought himself to his full height. ‘It is a work in progress, Josef. Eight INDs simultaneously detonated at the targets we have agreed upon. I’m proud to say that we have managed to accurately predict the radiation envelope from each strike. We can now forecast precisely where the devastation will fall.’

  Von Alvensleben gave a curt nod. ‘This is only as we intended.’

  ‘But it means we can better protect ourselves. Greater safety equals greater predictability for us all. A vital evolution, as I think you’ll agree?’

  ‘This is an improvement,’ Von Alvensleben conceded. ‘This is what we had hoped for.’

  ‘It is.’ Kammler smiled. ‘As for those who are not forewarned – those who are not the chosen – the results will be exactly as we intend.’

  ‘But this is still nothing new,’ von Alvensleben pressed.

  Kammler feigned a smile. ‘I was holding back the best to last. Consider where the blame will fall. I have made certain arrangements so that responsibility will be placed at the feet of the North Koreans. Or at the very least, rogue elements in the North Korean regime.’

  He gazed around triumphantly. ‘By fingering North Korea, we prove how communism really is a scourge on the earth. Doubly fertile soil for fascism to triumph. A stroke of genius, don’t you think?’

  ‘A stroke of genius,’ a figure sitting to the right of von Alvensleben confirmed. It was Wolfgang Eichmann, son of Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. ‘But how will you achieve it?’

  ‘North Korean teams are building the devices,’ Kammler replied. ‘Their expertise has proved critical. Without it, our plans are impossible to achieve. I’ll make sure the evidence is in place to reveal their involvement.’

  The Kameraden nodded their approval. The North Korean factor was indeed a stroke of genius.

  With it, Kammler figured he was winning them over.

  25

  ‘We shall light a fire,’ Kammler announced, excitement burning in his eyes. ‘In the chaos and panic that ensues, we will seize power in all the ways we have planned. Between the eight of us in this room, we control a good slice of the world’s media. We will pump out the message even before the dust starts to settle: it is time for a new world order, one that only we can provide.’

  Kammler gesticulated wildly. ‘Economies will lie in ruins. We will show that iron law and order is needed to build a sustainable future. And that is something that only we – the global Nazi brotherhood; fascism – can deliver.

  ‘The world’s public – bloodied, reeling, thrust into a terrible recession – will be ready! At last, right-thinking people will be ready. The message of liberalism and tolerance – of equality – will be exposed for what it is. A sham that has robbed the Aryans of our birthright.’

  ‘And the targets – they remain the same?’ von Alvensleben queried pointedly. He was nothing if not persistent. His repeated circling back to this question was starting to grate. Maybe he did know something.