The American government would want to completely sanitise its role in sponsoring such a flight, as would those of her allies – most notably Great Britain – who doubtless had been party to it.
As Narov had intimated, at least some of the technology held in the Ju 390’s hold was very likely still classified, and it would doubtless need to remain so. It would have to be written out of whatever statement was released to the world’s public.
But Jaeger could well foresee the kind of story that would eventually hit the press.
After seventy years lying forgotten in the Amazon jungle, the markings on the Second World War aircraft were barely legible – but only a few such mighty warplanes ever flew. To those intrepid explorers who discovered her, she was instantly recognisable as a Junkers Ju 390, although few could have imagined what a breathtaking cargo she would contain, or what it might tell us about the final death throes of Hitler’s Nazi regime…
Kammler and his cronies would be portrayed as trying to save the best of their technology from the ashes of the Third Reich, acting independently of the Allies. Something like that anyway. As for Wild Dog Media’s TV extravaganza – Dale was filming away like a madman, aware that he had the story of his life.
As a gripping adventure-mystery yarn that would out-box-office Indiana Jones, Jaeger figured this was about as good as it got. He didn’t much fancy playing the Harrison Ford character, but Dale did have a serious quantity of interview material with him in the can.
What had been filmed had been filmed, and Jaeger could see a sanitised version of the TV series – one glossing over at least some of the aircraft’s contents, not to mention those US Air Force markings – going out on the air. Indeed, he figured it would make for gripping viewing.
The one other thing that would doubtless need to be edited out of Dale’s film was the Dark Force that had been hunting them. There had been enough drama with ‘lost tribes’ and the Lost World of the jungle to contend with – both of which were far more palatable to a family TV audience.
Jaeger figured that the Dark Force would have to call off the hunt now – the prize having fallen out of their grasp. But given that they had at least one Predator and a heavily armed ground unit at their disposal, he didn’t doubt that the force was some US-generated black agency, one that had gone rogue.
When you sanctioned that many clandestine agencies, giving them total power and zero accountability, you had to expect ‘blowback’, as they called it in the trade.
At some point, somewhere, you would lose all control, and one of those agencies would step right over the line.
80
Even if the Dark Force commander had called off the hunt, Jaeger could hardly do likewise. His instinct had proven unerringly right: at the end of the expedition trail he figured he’d nailed Andy Smith’s killers. Jaeger felt certain that Smith had been tortured and thrown to his death in an effort to get the Dark Force to that warplane first.
Jaeger had lost two other members of his team – Clermont and Krakow – to that same Dark Force. He had a score to settle – at the very least with whoever had ordered the torture and execution of his best friend, and thereafter two members of his expedition. As he had pledged to Dulce – back in what had once been her and Andy’s Wiltshire family home – he didn’t leave his friends hanging.
But first he had to get the remainder of his team – those led by Lewis Alonzo – safely out of the Serra de los Dios, which meant he had something of a logistical nightmare on his hands. And amongst all of that, he somehow had to find the time to search for the answers he most wanted – needed – those that might lead him to his missing wife and child.
He felt a nagging certainty that Ruth and Luke were alive. He had no absolute proof – just the memories awakened by a draught of psychotropic liquid – but still he felt convinced that the clues to their fate lay somewhere on this warplane.
A tap on his shoulder broke his reverie. It was Dale.
The cameraman gave an exhausted smile. ‘Figure you could give me a few words? Kind of summing up what it feels like to be sat here right now, in the cockpit of this aircraft, flying out to show it to the world?’
‘Okay, but let’s keep it short.’
Dale was framing up the shot when Jaeger noticed Narov’s head rise abruptly from the navigator’s desk. The rearmost windows of the swept-back cockpit looked out over the sides of the aircraft, and she was staring out of hers intently.
‘We have company,’ she announced. ‘Three Black Hawk helicopters.’
‘Colonel Evandro’s escort,’ Dale remarked. ‘Got to be.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘Just a second. Hold the interview while I grab some shots.’
Dale moved across to that side of the aircraft and began filming. Jaeger followed.
Sure enough, three squat black helicopters were keeping pace with the Airlander, set maybe five hundred feet off the airship’s starboard side. As Jaeger eyed them, something struck him as being amiss. The helos were painted in some kind of a matt-black stealth material, and none of them were showing any markings.
The Brazilian air force did operate Black Hawks. Maybe they did have a fleet of unmarked stealth variants, but this was far from what Jaeger had been expecting. It made sense for Colonel Evandro to have scrambled some fast jets out of Cachimbo – most likely F16s – to see them safely home in a blaze of glory.
Unmarked Black Hawks – in Jaeger’s mind it just didn’t compute.
While the Black Hawk came heavily armed, it was mostly a troop transport, and it wouldn’t have anything like the range to make Cachimbo airbase. The helo’s combat reach was less than 600 kilometres, under half of what was required.
No way did Jaeger believe this was Colonel Evandro’s escort.
He turned to Narov. Their eyes met.
Jaeger shook his head worriedly. This isn’t right.
Narov reciprocated.
He flicked the Thuraya satphone to the ‘on’ position and dialled Raff. Keeping off-comms was an irrelevance now. Either this was a friendly escort, in which case they were safe, or they had been found by that hostile force. Whichever it was, there was little point in trying to remain hidden.
The moment the satphone acquired a signal, Jaeger heard the ringtone, followed by an instant answer. But it wasn’t Raff’s voice that came on the line. Instead he could hear what sounded like incoming radio communications from whoever was commanding the mystery flight of Black Hawks. Raff was using the Thuraya link to relay the message to Jaeger and his team.
‘This is unmarked Black Hawk calling Airlander on open means,’ the voice intoned. ‘Confirm you are receiving me. This is unmarked Black Hawk calling Airlander: acknowledge.’
‘Open means’ referred to the non-encrypted general traffic radio frequency that all aircraft monitored. Oddly, the pilot’s voice sounded as if it had a slightly Eastern European – Russian – timbre, the flat, guttural accent for an instant reminding Jaeger of… Narov’s way of speaking.
Narov was glued to the voice blaring out of the satphone, but just for an second she flicked her eyes up to meet Jaeger’s. And in them he detected a look that he had never once expected to see.
Fear.
81
Jaeger punched out a quick data-burst message: I am live to your comms.
The moment he’d sent it, he heard the gravelly tones of the big Maori come up on the air. ‘Black Hawk, this is Airlander. Affirmative we hear you.’