Yet nothing seemed to come as the least shock or surprise to Irina Narov.
73
They probed further into the darkness.
The heat inside the fuselage was stifling, the discomfort tripled by the cumbersome suit and mask, but Jaeger didn’t doubt that the NBC kit was proving an absolute lifesaver. Whatever toxic fumes filled the aircraft, should either he, Narov or Dale have tried to enter without such protection, they would be in a whole world of hurt right now, of that he felt certain.
For an instant, he turned to check on Dale.
He found the cameraman attaching a portable battery-operated lamp to the top of his camera. He flicked it on – light by which to film – and the interior of the warplane was cast into stark, knife-cut light and shadow.
From every corner stared horrible, glowing twin pinpricks of light: Phoneutria eyes.
Jaeger was half expecting the ghosts of whoever had crewed this warplane to be woken by the glaring light and to step from the shadows, Luger pistols raised to defend their darkest mysteries to the last.
It seemed almost inconceivable that the aircraft could have been so utterly abandoned, complete with all its hidden secrets.
Narov crouched before a third crate, and almost instantly Jaeger sensed the change in her demeanour. As she traced the lettering, she let out a strangled gasp, and Jaeger figured that here at least was an element even she hadn’t quite been expecting.
He bent to read the words stamped on the crate’s side.
Kriegsentscheidend: Aktion Adlerflug
SS Standortwechsel Kommando
Plasmaphysik – Dresden
Röntgen Kanone
‘This we did not expect,’ Narov muttered. She glanced at Jaeger. ‘Every line is obvious, but the last? You understand line three?’
Jaeger nodded. ‘Plasma Physics – Dresden.’
‘Exactly,’ Narov confirmed. ‘As to the Röntgen Kanone, there is no direct translation into English. You might call it a death-ray or direct energy weapon. It fires a particle beam, or electromagnetic radiation, or even sound waves. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but the Nazis were long rumoured to have had such a weapon, and to have used it to down Allied aircraft.’
Narov’s gaze met Jaeger’s through the eyepiece of her mask. ‘It seems as if it is true, and that they held on to their Röntgen Kanone until the very last.’
Jaeger could feel the sweat pouring down his face. The heat was building to intolerable levels, and the perspiration was starting to condense inside his mask, blurring his vision. He figured they should head for the rear and try to open one of the side doors, which lay just aft of the tailplane.
As they fought their way through, Narov pointed out further crates packed with an array of staggeringly advanced weaponry. ‘The BV 246 gliding bomb. It had a two-hundred-kilometre range, and it would home on to the target’s radar signal… The Fritz-X guided bomb, with a heat-seeking or radar/radio homing warhead. Basically, these are the forerunners of our modern-day smart bombs.’
She bent beside a row of long, low crates. ‘The Rheintochter R1 – a surface-to-air guided missile for shooting down Allied bombers… The X4 – an air-to-air missile, guided to the target by the pilot. The Feuerlilie – the Fire Lily – a guided anti-aircraft rocket…’
She paused before a group of smaller packing cases. ‘A Seehund active night-vision unit – used in conjunction with an infrared searchlight, it had unlimited range… And here, stealth materials made by IG Farben, for their Schwarzes Flugzeug – Black Aircraft – programme. It was the precursor to our modern-day stealth warplanes.
‘Plus, here – materials for coating their XXI submarine. The coating absorbed radar and sonar, making the XXI all but immune to detection.’ She glanced at Jaeger. ‘It was so revolutionary that the Chinese navy’s copy – the Ming class submarine – is still in operation today. Plus the Russians’ Project 633 – their Romeo class submarine – was a direct copy of the XXI, which lasted through the entirety of the Cold War.’
She rubbed the dust off another crate, revealing the words stamped thereon. ‘Sarin, tabun and soman. The Nazis’ cutting-edge nerve agents – ones still stockpiled by the world’s major powers. We had no effective defences against them in 1945. None – and largely because we didn’t even know they existed.’
Narov gave a sharp intake of breath. ‘And next to it – a crate of bio-agents. Hitler code-named their biological weapon programme Blitzableiter: Lightning Rod. It was Nazi scientist Kurt Blome’s brainchild. They always denied its existence, disguising it as a cancer research programme, yet here we have the absolute proof that Blitzableiter existed: plague, typhoid, cholera, anthrax and nephritis-based agents. Clearly, they wished to continue after war’s end.’
By the time they’d reached the tail section of the warplane, Jaeger’s head was spinning – both from the suffocating heat, and from all that they had discovered. Hitler’s absolute belief in technology – that against all odds it would win the war for the Reich – had borne fruit, and in ways that Jaeger had barely imagined.
Both at school and at the Combat Training Centre Royal Marines, where he’d completed his officer training, Jaeger had been taught that the Allies had outfought the Nazi enemy both militarily and technologically. But if the contents of this warplane were anything to go by, that lesson seemed to be anything but true.
Guided rocketry and missiles; smart bombs; stealth aircraft; stealth submarines; night-vision kit; chemical and biological weapons; death rays even – the Nazis’ stunning advancement was evidenced by the crates packed into this warplane’s cavernous hold.
74
The Ju 390’s rear cargo hatches turned out to be typical pieces of solid German engineering. On either side were double doors around six feet in height, which opened outwards. They were fastened by twin metal bars that ran the length of their centre, slotting into holes in the floor and ceiling.
The hinges and locking mechanism looked well greased, and Jaeger figured they should move easily. He applied force to one of the levers, and it barely creaked as he pulled it upwards, freeing the doors. He put his weight against them, and the next moment they swung wide. The instant they did so, the thick sludge of mist that clung to the aircraft’s interior began to leak into the open.
Jaeger was surprised to see that it appeared to be heavier than air. It poured out of the aircraft, snaking to the ground and pooling like a dense toxic soup. When a shaft of sunlight hit the gas cloud, it appeared to glow from the inside with a strange metallic shimmer.
It reminded Jaeger that he had been also tasked to carry out some tests, to establish the source of the toxicity emanating from the warplane. He had been so caught up in the search it had almost slipped his mind.
But time enough for that later.
Right now he was burning up, and he needed a few minutes’ breather and some air. He took a seat on one side of the open doorway, Narov taking up a position opposite him. From the corner of his eye he could see Dale filming away, as he tried to suck every last frame of this awesome discovery into his camera lens.
By the light streaming in through the open hatch Jaeger noticed what looked like a picture of a MANPAD stencilled along one side of a nearby crate. He bent to inspect it. Sure enough, it showed what appeared to be a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile.