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.