Bear Grylls: The Hunt (Will Jaeger Book 3) Page 11

  ‘They do, Josef, as I’ve already said. Why would they have changed?’

  ‘The countries to be attacked?’

  ‘We’ve been through all of this before,’ Kammler snapped.

  ‘The countries?’ von Alvensleben pressed.

  ‘China. Russia. The US. Britain. France. Canada. Then Israel, as the grand finale. You’ll be pleased to know the prevailing winds will ensure that much of Israel is enshrouded in fallout.’ Kammler flashed a thin smile. ‘Gentlemen, what Hitler began, we will finish in one fell swoop.’

  ‘That’s seven by my count,’ von Alvensleben pointed out. ‘Seven nations. Eight is the sacred number.’

  ‘China will be hit by two.’

  ‘Why China?’

  ‘The Americans and British like to perpetuate the myth that they won the war. More lies. The single greatest loss of life was suffered by China. Over twenty million dead. In essence, the Chinese – along with the Russians – bled us dry. For this, we will make them suffer disproportionately.’

  ‘And the targets – they remain exclusively political, military and economic?’ von Alvensleben pressed. ‘There will be no mass murder for mass murder’s sake?’

  Kammler eyed the man. He was nothing if not sharp. ‘Correct.’

  ‘Please send me an up-to-date target list. Indeed, you might circulate it to all.’

  ‘Gladly.’

  ‘Timings,’ von Alvensleben remarked. ‘Has there been any impact upon the schedule?’

  ‘None. We go ahead as planned. We strike on the thirtieth of April, the anniversary of the Führer’s death. And in doing so we prove that he did not die in vain. Quite the contrary: his legacy lives. The Reich will rise anew and conquer!’

  ‘That’s only six weeks from now. You can still meet this deadline?’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘Timing is utterly critical,’ Bormann interjected, a hint of excitement in his voice. ‘This is our chance to seize control financially even before we do politically. From finance all else flows. Stock markets, currency trading, futures – the financial system will survive. We can profit massively, as long as we know the day and hour of the strike!’

  Kammler smiled. ‘Exactly. And trust me, we will.’

  It was a high-risk strategy, one that could backfire. The world might spiral into a dark chaos from which it would never recover. It could spell the end of humanity. Of civilisation.

  But what true civilisation was there left that was even worthy of the name, Kammler mused. Jews, blacks, Muslims, Asians, homosexuals, the disabled: all had been raised up with the fall of the Reich to a perverse equality with their obvious masters.

  The natural order of things had been turned on its head, and it enraged him. Tortured him. In short, all of Hitler’s warnings had come to pass, as the human race, plague-like, devastated the natural world. On balance, what was at risk? The present unnatural, sick order of things wasn’t worth saving.

  Now, to seal the support of the Kameraden. Kammler pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket.

  ‘At this juncture it seems opportune to remind us of the final words of the Führer,’ he announced portentously, ‘written just hours before his death. From his last will and testament, I quote.

  ‘“This war will one day go down in history as the most glorious and heroic manifestation of the struggle . . . Centuries will go by, but from the ruins of our towns and monuments, hatred of those ultimately responsible will always grow anew. They are the people whom we have to thank for all this: international Jewry and its helpers!”’

  On hearing those words, a reverential silence had settled upon the room.

  ‘“Do not give up the struggle under any circumstances”,’ Kammler continued, ‘“but carry it on wherever you may be against the enemies of the Fatherland . . . The surrender of a district or town is out of the question . . . Above everything else the commanders must set a shining example of faithful devotion to duty until death.”’

  He paused for effect.

  ‘He wrote those immortal words even as Russian troops advanced to within five hundred metres of his Berlin bunker and his men were all but out of ammunition. Such defiance. Such purity of vision. That, Kameraden, is our inheritance. Our legacy. That is what the Führer charged us to fulfil.’

  Kammler glanced at each of the figures in turn: Bormann; von Alvensleben; Barbie; Eichmann; Gustav Heim, son of Aribert Heim, who’d earned the nickname Dr Death in the concentration camps; the two Mengele brothers, sons of the infamous Angel of Death. From each he received a solemn nod of approval, his appeal to the Führer’s memory a master stroke.

  They broke for refreshments, Bormann and Kammler drifting into a private corner. ‘What of this Narov woman?’ Bormann queried, a hint of worry in his voice. ‘Was it her in Dubai? Is she on to us? On to you?’

  ‘I’m unsure. Whoever did this was a consummate professional. Not a trace of CCTV footage to identify the culprit.’

  ‘And Isselhorst? The lawyer. Is his death linked somehow? Surely it has to be?’

  ‘Ferdy, you worry too much. It will end up killing you.’ Kammler gave a thin smile. ‘But yes, we assume the two are linked. Whoever was spying on that meeting, we presume they got to us via our unfortunate – and very dead – lawyer.’

  ‘So those who hunt us, are they on to us again? And if so, how close are they?’

  ‘We have to presume they are. And that means we can afford no delay. No dissent. So I’m doubly glad to see we have reached firm agreement.’

  ‘Indeed, but . . .’ Bormann paused. ‘If we are forced to take the kind of action we have discussed, it will be hugely expensive, not to mention risky.’

  Kammler stiffened. ‘Then perhaps it is time to dig deep into your own pockets. After all, just look at what our efforts have cost me. We are on the brink of the final solution. By the end, we will have finances and power beyond our wildest dreams. No cost is too great.’

  ‘I have funds that can be made . . . available,’ Bormann conceded. ‘But even my resources are not inexhaustible.’

  Kammler smiled. ‘They won’t have to be. Not long now, Ferdy. Not long.’

  A third figure joined them. They made space for von Alvensleben. Kammler the mastermind; von Alvensleben the intelligence chief; Bormann the banker – these three formed the inner circle of the Brotherhood.

  ‘We would do well not to underestimate them,’ von Alvensleben remarked. ‘The Secret Hunters. They frustrated us once before, remember.’

  ‘They did.’ Kammler’s face grew cruel. ‘If we sense they are too close, we must resort to the ultimate sanction. We have people in place. We must hit them where it hurts most. We must cut the head off the snake.’

  ‘We must,’ von Alvensleben agreed.

  Kammler eyed Bormann. ‘It is the only way. Whatever the cost and whatever the risks.’

  Somewhat reluctantly, Bormann signalled his agreement. He was a banker; he knew the costs would prove exorbitant. But so too would be the profits he would reap, armed with the foreknowledge of what was coming.

  ‘Warn your contacts to be doubly vigilant,’ Kammler continued, speaking to von Alvensleben. ‘Even if the agencies of the enemy are officially doing nothing, that means little. They are smart. They’ll run any operation off the books. Covertly. Get your people asking the right questions, in the right places. If the Secret Hunters get too close, we hit them without delay and without mercy.’

  Von Alvensleben nodded. ‘Understood.’

  ‘One thing,’ Bormann ventured. ‘This person we have on the inside. Is now not the time they should be used? Surely they must know how close the Secret Hunters are.’

  ‘Ordinarily speaking, yes,’ Kammler agreed, ‘but right now, they’ve dropped off the radar. I believe it’s only temporary. I will let you know. We will determine then how best to act.’

  An hour later – he could afford to linger no longer – Kammler strode out of the front entrance of the Chateau de Laufen and slid into the rear seat of a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes. The vehicle pulled away from the grand turreted building, which was enshrouded in thick forest overlooking the waters of the Rhine.

  He allowed himself a thin smile. He’d won the Kameraden’s blessing.

  But unbeknownst to them, he had so much more in mind . . .

  26

  Sometimes contacts could save your arse.

  Contacts and the shared brotherhood of warriors.

  In Jaeger’s world – the world of black ops – it was often down to who you knew.

  The Colombian narco gang – the one scheduled to receive Kammler’s Moldovan flight – called themselves Los Niños – ‘The Children’. It was a piss-take of a name, of course. There was nothing remotely childlike about their activities – not unless you included kidnapping kids from the jungle villages and recruiting them as foot soldiers.

  When a child was forcibly taken from his community – having first been made to commit unspeakable atrocities, often against his own relatives – there tended to be little he wouldn’t do for his new family.

  The narco chief was the infamous Camilo Abrego, whose gang name was El Padre – ‘The Father’. He was rumoured to have a squad of teenage soldiers as his personal bodyguard.

  There was one upside, as far as Jaeger was concerned: the gang’s main base lay close to the remote border with Brazil, and in Brazil Jaeger had some of the best contacts imaginable.

  During his time in the military Jaeger had trained the elite Brazilian Special Operations Brigade (BSOB), their equivalent of the SAS. The BSOB were commanded by Colonel Augustine Evandro. When one of the colonel’s patrols had gone missing in the jungle, Jaeger had led the team that went in to rescue them from the narco gang’s clutches.

  Colonel Evandro had never forgotten what Jaeger had done for his men, and he’d been only too happy to help when he’d got in touch explaining the nature of their present mission. The Colonel’s keenness was also driven by his own recent experiences: he, too, had crossed swords with Kammler, some of his people getting burnt in the process.

  As a result, he was keen for payback.

  Just days after the Falkenhagen meeting, Jaeger, Raff and Narov had flown into Cachimbo airport, situated in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. Colonel Evandro was waiting for them. Reserved exclusively for military operations, Cachimbo was a perfect jumping-off point for their mission.

  From there, they’d deployed to a remote airstrip on Brazil’s north-western frontier, just a few kilometres short of the border with Colombia. That place – Station 15, one of many such dirt airstrips that the colonel maintained for anti-narcotics work – would be their forward operating base.

  Upon arrival, they’d boarded a chopper for the flight onwards into ‘Dodge City’, as Jaeger and his crew had nicknamed Los Niños’s base. If all went to plan, they would be in and out without anyone in Colombia being any the wiser.

  Prior to take-off, Jaeger had given the helicopter pilot a short briefing over his maps. ‘We need you to get us into here.’ He’d pointed out a clearing in the dense jungle, some seven kilometres east of Dodge City. ‘Get us in there, or as close as you can. We’ve ID’d a second LZ here, in case the first is a no-go.’

  Now they were whipping over the jungle canopy at 130 knots airspeed, the Brazilian Air Force CH-34 Super Puma cutting through the dawn sky, rotors seeming to skim the very treetops. Any lower, Jaeger figured, and the pilot would be slicing the tops off the tallest of the rainforest giants.

  Mist swirled around the helo as the heat started to build and the jungle sucked moisture from the forest floor. The Puma’s side doors were wide open, the wind noise killing any chance of talk. Occasionally there was a break in the forest cover, revealing a stretch of open water or a cluster of huts.

  But mostly it was impenetrable jungle.

  Narov was seated with her back to the cockpit, silent and utterly composed, as she always was when going into action. Raff was perched on one of the fold-down canvas seats that ran along the helo’s side, equally calm and collected. Jaeger was on the rearmost one, next to the pile of bergens – military rucksacks – and weaponry netted down on the Puma’s floor.

  Sandwiched between Jaeger and Raff was a third figure, a massive African American named Lewis Alonzo. CIA chief Brooks had insisted on there being an American on Jaeger’s team – his eyes and ears on the mission. Alonzo, a former SEAL now working in close protection, had been the obvious choice.

  Alonzo had formed a part of Jaeger’s team on his previous Nazi-hunting operations, and had more than proved himself. With Mike Tyson’s physique and Will Smith’s humour, he liked to act the fool; the big muscle-bound oaf. In fact, his mind was as sharp as a pin, as Jaeger had soon learnt.

  Fearless, generous-hearted and trustworthy, he was a man who liked to fight fire with fire. Oddly, his one bête noire was fish. Alonzo hated fish. Set upon by piranha during their previous Amazon venture, he’d been one unhappy dude. He’d agreed to the present mission as long as rabid shoals of piranha were well off the menu.

  Jaeger settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. The last few days had been a crazed whirl. He’d spent much of the time trying to trace Ruth. He’d heard nothing and had failed to locate her at any of the obvious places she might have gone. The police had been informed, but they too had zero leads.

  He felt guilty at abandoning her in the clinic while he’d crawled around those Nazi-era catacombs. He hoped her doing a runner was a fleeting moment of madness, that maybe she just needed space and time alone, after which she’d come to her senses. But in truth, he feared the worst – that she had been abducted; in which case he was chiefly to blame.

  Hence he was doing the only thing that made any sense: hunting the source of the threat.

  27

  A day earlier, they’d been flying across the Atlantic on an airliner routed to Rio when Narov had levered open the topic of Ruth’s disappearance with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.

  ‘I have been thinking about your wife’s condition,’ she had announced flatly. ‘I know about the diagnosis of PTSD. That might be a part of what she is suffering. But I don’t believe that is all that is wrong with her.’

  As she’d been speaking, Narov had rearranged the food on her plate. For dinner she’d chosen grilled salmon fillet with bulgur wheat and green mango salad. Typically, she’d separated out the foodstuffs so that none touched, sorting them into their various colours.

  As Jaeger knew, Narov was autistic; high-functioning, but autistic nonetheless. It explained so many things about her: her apparent icy reserve; her odd, robotic way of speaking; the fact that she seemed to mimic so many different accents – American, English, Russian – her speech a total mishmash.

  And of course, her absolute perfectionism about the thing she did so very well, which was soldiering; or more specifically, man-hunting.

  Plus it explained why foods of differing colours should never be in contact with each other, especially green on red. By way of answer, Jaeger had prodded the fish so that it touched the salad – a real no-no as far as Narov was concerned.

  She’d glared at him. ‘Look, you know why I do this. With my food. I have explained it to you, so why mock?’ She paused. ‘You may not understand it, but equally I cannot understand why you bury your head in the sand. Nothing about your wife’s disappearance makes any sense, yet you stay loyal to her, blindly.’

  Jaeger’s face hardened. He could sense Raff shrinking in the seat beside him. There were clearly far gentler ways to broach such a topic – not that Jaeger agreed with her in any case. Narov was hardly unbiased. She’d never warmed to Ruth, and he figured the reasons why were anchored in the attraction she’d felt towards him from the get-go – one that Jaeger had found it hard not to reciprocate.

  But right now, she was really riling him. ‘She was escorted out of the clinic by an unknown male,’ Jaeger grated. ‘She was abducted the last time. Taken captive. Stands to reason it’s the same now.’

  ‘And her visiting your boys? How do you explain that? How does that fit with an abduction?’

  They’d lapsed into a moody silence. It had given Jaeger more than a moment to reflect. He was stressed – tight as a razor blade. For a moment he’d wondered whether he should continue with the mission. Wasn’t it more important to be at home with the boys, to protect them? Maybe start the search for Ruth from that end?

  But if she had gone after Kammler, then this was the only way to find her. On balance, he had no choice.

  Or maybe this was all total bullshit. People suffering from PTSD tended to act irrationally. Unpredictably. Maybe she had disappeared as a veiled cry for help, taking herself off for some quality ‘alone’ time. It wouldn’t be the first time. There was just no way of knowing.

  Jaeger forced his thoughts back to the present: he could feel the Super Puma starting to lose what little altitude it had.

  Moments later, it flared out, the rear end dropping into a jungle clearing some ninety yards across, the turbines screaming at fever pitch. The Puma’s loadmaster – the guy who looked after the passengers and cargo – was hanging out of the doorway, checking the rotors weren’t about to slam into one of the massive trees that fringed the clearing.

  A sudden jolt signified that the rear wheels had made contact with the hot earth. The loadie spun around and gave a thumbs-up – the universal signal for ‘go, go, go’. Keeping low, Jaeger and Narov leapt off the helo and Raff and Alonzo started hurling packs down to them.

  They grabbed the bergens and got down in a crouch, covering Raff and Alonzo with their weapons. The Super Puma was still turning and burning, the downwash of the rotor blades kicking up a storm of choking dust and vegetation. Jaeger flashed a thumbs-up, and seconds later, the chopper had pulled away from the clearing and was gone.