‘Forest of bones,’ Jaeger muttered, indicating the area of dieback all around the mystery aircraft. ‘Any idea what did that?’
‘None.’ Carson smiled. ‘Must be something pretty toxic, but there are any number of potential candidates. You’ll be taking NBC suits, plus respirators, obviously. You’ll need proper protection – that’s if you are going.’
Jaeger ignored the dig. He knew that everyone was waiting on his answer. The forty-eight hours were up. That was why they’d gathered here at Wild Dog Media’s plush Soho offices – Adam Carson, a handful of TV executives, plus the Enduro Adventures team.
Apparently, anyone who was anyone in TV had to have a base in Soho, a glitzy slice of central London where the great and the good of the media seemed to gather. Carson, typically, had gone for gold, hiring a suite of offices in Soho Square itself.
‘The aircraft looks remarkably intact,’ Jaeger pointed out. ‘Almost as if she landed there. Do we have any idea where she was flying to and from, and in what year?’
Carson slid across a third set of photos. ‘Close-ups on her markings. You’ll see they’re badly weathered, but it appears she was decked out in US Air Force colours. Suffering that kind of weathering, she’s clearly been lying there for decades… Everyone suspects she’s Second World War-era. But if she is, she’s utterly unique: a phenomenon, decades ahead of her time.
‘Compare her to a C-130 Hercules.’ Carson glanced at the TV execs. ‘The C-130’s a modern transport aircraft used by most NATO forces. Our mystery aircraft is a hundred and twelve feet nose to tail, as opposed to a C-130’s forty feet – so that makes her three times as long. Plus she’s got six engines, as opposed to four, and a far wider wingspan.’
‘So she’d carry a far heavier payload?’ Jaeger queried.
‘She would,’ Carson confirmed. ‘The only vaguely comparable Allied Second World War plane is the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, of the type that dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this aircraft’s shape is utterly different – far more aerodynamic and streamlined – plus the B-29 was about half her size. And that pretty much sums up the enigma: what the devil is she?’
Carson’s smile grew wider; more confident, almost cocky. ‘She’s been dubbed “The Last Great Mystery of World War Two”. And indeed she is.’ He was in full-blooded salesman speak now, playing to his audience. ‘So all we need is the right man to lead the mission.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘Are you up for it? Are you on?’
Jaeger did a quick scan of the faces gathered around him. Carson: uber-confident that he’d got his man. Raff: inscrutable as ever. Feaney: face tinged with worry, Enduro Adventures fortunes very much hanging in the balance. Plus the assorted TV execs. Early thirties; sloppily – trendily? – dressed; looking anxious – their TV extravaganza resting on a knife edge.
And then there was Mr Simon Jenkinson, the archivist. In his late fifties, he was by far the oldest in the pack, his demeanour like a hibernating honey bear, all salty beard, jam-jar glasses, and moth-eaten tweedy jacket, his dreamy head stuck very much in the clouds.
‘And you, Mr Jenkinson,’ Jaeger prompted. ‘I understand you’re the expert in the room? You’re a member of LAAST – the Lost Aircraft Archaeological Society Trust – as well as being an expert on all things Second World War? Shouldn’t we hear what you think she might be?’
‘Who? Me?’ The archivist glanced around as if waking from a long sleep. His whiskers twitched worriedly. ‘Me? Hear from me? Probably not. I’m not good at group discussions.’
Jaeger laughed good-naturedly. He’d warmed to the guy immediately. He liked his lack of pretension, of guile.
‘We are in something of a hurry,’ Carson cut in, glancing around at the TV execs. ‘Makes sense to talk to the archivist once we’ve dealt with the key agenda item, don’t you think – which is, are you on for this, or not?’
‘Whenever I make a decision, I like it to be an informed one,’ Jaeger countered. ‘So, Mr Jenkinson, your best guess. What’s it to be?’
‘Well, erm – if I might be so presumptuous…’ The archivist cleared his throat. ‘There is one aircraft that conforms to the specifications of this one. The Junkers Ju 390. German, obviously. A pet project of Hitler’s, as it happens. She was intended to spearhead the Amerika Bomber project – Hitler’s programme to fly transatlantic bombing raids against America, towards the end of the war.’
‘So did they?’ Jaeger queried. ‘New York? Washington? Were they ever bombed?’
‘There are reports of such missions,’ Jenkinson confirmed. ‘None absolutely verified. But suffice to say, the Ju 390 had the specifications to achieve it. She boasted in-flight refuelling capabilities, and the pilots operated her using cutting-edge Vampir night-vision equipment, which rendered night into near-daylight – meaning they could take off and land in utter darkness.’
Jenkinson tapped a finger on one of the aerial photos. ‘And you see that: the Ju 390 was fitted with a dome atop the fuselage, for celestial observations. The aircrew could navigate over vast distances using the stars, and without resorting to radar or radio. In short, she was the perfect warplane for making covert, untraceable flights halfway around the world.
‘So, yes, if they’d wanted to drop sarin nerve gas on New York, it was quite within her capabilities.’ Jenkinson glanced around the room nervously. ‘Erm… sorry. That last bit. The sarin on New York bit… Got a little carried away there. Are you all still with me?’
There was a series of nods in the affirmative. Oddly for Simon Jenkinson, he seemed to have his audience absolutely gripped.
‘Fewer than a dozen Ju 390s were ever built,’ he continued. ‘Fortunately, the Nazis lost the war before the Amerika Bomber programme could become a frightening reality. But the odd thing is, none of the Ju 390s were ever traced. At war’s end they… well, they disappeared. If it is a Ju 390, it’ll be a first, obviously.’
‘Any idea what a German warplane would be doing in the heart of the Amazon?’ Jaeger prompted. ‘And painted with American markings?’
‘Not a clue.’ The archivist grinned self-deprecatingly. ‘In fact, I must confess that’s what’s been preoccupying me, while locked away in the vaults. There’s no record anywhere that I can find of such an aircraft ever having flown to South America. As for it being in United States Air Force markings: well, the mind boggles.’
‘If there was such a record, you’d have found it?’ Jaeger queried.
The archivist nodded. ‘As far as I can tell, she’s the plane that never was. A ghost flight.’
Jaeger smiled. ‘D’you know something, Mr Jenkinson, you’re wasted in the archives. You should be dreaming up ideas for TV programmes.’
‘The plane that never was,’ Carson echoed. ‘The ghost flight. Pure genius. And Will, doesn’t that just quicken your appetite for the mission?’
‘It does,’ Jaeger confirmed. ‘So, I’ve got one final question and one caveat, after which I guess I’m on.’
Carson spread his hands invitingly. ‘Fire away.’
Jaeger let the question fall like a bomb into the room. ‘Andy Smith – any news on why he was murdered?’
Carson’s face remained an inscrutable mask, just the faintest twitching of a muscle in his cheek revealing how the question had unnerved him. ‘Well, it’s death by misadventure or suicide, as far as the police are concerned. So, whilst it’s certainly cast a malaise over the entire expedition, it’s one from which we will recover and move forward.’ A beat. ‘And the caveat?’
In answer, Jaeger slid a folder across the table. It contained a number of glossy brochures, each with a space-age-looking airship displayed on the front. ‘I called in at Cardington Field Hangar, Bedford, this morning, the headquarters of Hybrid Air Vehicles. I guess you know Steve McBride and the other people there?’