Moments later, the canopy appeared to thin noticeably, light flooding into the cockpit. With a tearing of deafening proportions, the mighty warplane broke free, and was catapulted into thin air. To left and right a cloud of rotten wood and debris tumbled from her wings and upper surfaces, spinning towards the forest below.
With the canopy sudden letting go of her, the warplane swung ponderously forward, sailing past the point where she was directly below the Airlander, then rocked back again until she came to rest suspended right below the airship’s flight deck. No sooner had the oscillation slowed to manageable proportions than the Airlander began to reel her in.
Powerful hydraulic winches lifted her upwards, until she fell under the Airlander’s shadow. Her wings came to rest on the underside of the air cushion landing system – the airship’s hovercraft-like skids. The Ju 390 was now effectively attached to the bottom of the Airlander.
With the warplane locked into position, the Airlander’s pilot set the propulsors to full speed ahead, and swung her around to the correct bearing, starting the long climb to cruise altitude. They were Cachimbo-bound, with barely seven hours’ flight time ahead of them.
Jaeger reached triumphantly for the co-pilot’s seventy-year-old flask, jammed into the side of his seat. He waved it at Dale and Narov. ‘Coffee, anyone?’
Even Narov couldn’t help but crack a smile.
‘Sir, the aircraft just isn’t there,’ the operator known as Grey Wolf Six repeated.
He was speaking into his radio sat at the same remote and nameless jungle airstrip, the rank of helicopters with sagging rotor blades lined up awaiting orders; awaiting a mission.
The operator’s English seemed fluent enough, but it was clearly accented, at times having the harsh, guttural inflexion so typical of an Eastern European.
‘How can it not be there?’ the voice on the other end exploded.
‘Sir, our team is on the grid as given. They are in that patch of dead jungle. They have found the imprints of something heavy. They have found smashed-apart dead wood. Sir, the impression is that the aircraft has been ripped out of the jungle.’
‘Ripped out by what?’ Grey Wolf demanded, incredulously.
‘Sir, we have absolutely no idea.’
‘You have the Predator over that area. You have eyes-on. How could you miss an aircraft the size of a Boeing 727 getting lifted out of the jungle?’
‘Sir, our Predator was on orbit north of there, awaiting a clear visual on the tracking device location. There is cloud cover up to ten thousand feet. There is nothing that can effectively see through that. Whoever has done the lift has done so observing complete communications silence, and under cover of the overcast.’ A pause. ‘I know it sounds incredible, but trust me – the aircraft is gone.’
‘Right, this is what we’re going to do.’ Grey Wolf’s voice was icy calm now. ‘You’ve got a flight of Black Hawks at your disposal. Get them airborne and scour that airspace. You will – repeat will – find that warplane. You will retrieve what needs to be retrieved. And then you will destroy that aircraft. Are we clear?’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘I presume this is Jaeger and his team’s doing?’
‘I can only assume so, sir. We Hellfired their river position, targeting the tracker device and cell phone. But—’
‘It’s Jaeger,’ the voice cut in. ‘It has to be. Terminate them all. No one who is a witness to this gets out alive. You understand? And rig that warplane with so much explosive that not a shred of it will ever be found. I want it gone. For good. Don’t mess up this time, Kamerad. Clean up. Every single person. Kill them all.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘Right, get your Black Hawks airborne. And one more thing: I myself am flying out to your location. This is too important to leave to… amateurs. I’ll take one of the Agency’s jets. I’ll be with you in under five hours.’
The operator known as Grey Wolf Six curled his lip. Amateurs. How he despised his American paymaster. Still, the money was good, as were the chances of wreaking bloody mayhem and murder.
And in the coming hours he, Vladimir Ustanov, would show Grey Wolf just what he and his so-called amateurs were capable of.
79
Jaeger powered down his satphone. The data-burst message he’d just received read: Col. Evandro confirms preparing sanitised LZ. ETA at LZ 1630 Zulu. CE sending air escort to cover remainder of journey.
He checked his watch. It was 0945 Zulu. They had six hours and forty-five minutes’ flight time ahead of them before they put down on whatever part of Cachimbo airport Brazil’s Director of Special Forces had prepared for them. By ‘sanitised’, Evandro meant an area where Jaeger and crew would be free to fully decontaminate themselves, and, in due course, the warplane. He was even sending some kind of an airborne escort to shepherd them in – most likely a pair of fast jets.
It was all working out beautifully.
For the next hour or so they steadily gained altitude, as the Airlander climbed to her 10,000-foot cruise ceiling. The higher they got, the thinner the atmosphere, and the more fuel-efficient the airship became – which was crucial for ensuring she had the range to reach Cachimbo.
Finally, they broke free of the cloud cover, sunlight streaming in through the cockpit windows. It was now that Jaeger could get a proper look at what an awesome spectacle they made – a space-age airship and the sleek Second World War aircraft clamped beneath her, flying as one.
With the rounded shape of the Airlander’s undersurface, the Ju 390’s wingtips stuck out a good fifty feet to either side, tapering off to narrow knife-edge points. Jaeger figured the wings would be producing their own aerodynamic lift as the Airlander pushed ahead at approaching 200 kph, helping the airship to speed them to their destination.
With Narov deep in her documents, and Dale filming for all he was worth, Jaeger found himself with little to do but admire the view. A blanket of fluffy white cloud stretched below them as far as the horizon, the blue heavens opening wide above. For the first time in what felt like an age, he had a moment to reflect on all that had happened, and on what might lie ahead.
Narov and her shock revelations – that she had known and worked with his grandfather; that she’d been treated as family almost – needed some serious investigating. It opened up a whole world of uncertainties. Once they had boots on the ground at Cachimbo – and were truly safe, as she had put it – he needed to have a long chat with Irina Narov. But at 20,000 feet and through radios and respirators was hardly a very private or fitting way to do so.
Jaeger’s priority number one had to be to work out how exactly to deal with the Ju 390 and her cargo. They were riding on a Nazi warplane stuffed full of Hitler’s war secrets, painted in US Air Force markings, discovered within what was arguably Brazilian territory, but could equally be Bolivian or Peruvian, and retrieved by an international expedition team.
The question was – who had the foremost claim upon her?
Jaeger figured the likeliest scenario was that a whole alphabet soup of intelligence agencies would descend upon Cachimbo once the discovery became known to them. Colonel Evandro was a smart operator, and he was sure to have chosen a part of the vast air complex set well away from watching eyes – the public and the press.
In all likelihood, those intelligence agencies would demand – and get – a media blackout, until they had assessed what version of the story to release to the world’s public. In Jaeger’s experience, that was generally how these things were done.