That way, the experts could lift it in due course and fully disable the mechanisms. Retrieve any HEU and fully neutralise the threat.
Jaeger stabilised the drone, then banked it around, bringing it away from the coastline. When he judged it was far enough from land, he put it into a dive, and it plummeted towards the surface of the sea. There was a flash of white in the darkness, and it ploughed beneath the waves.
Moments later, the noise of the drone’s engines died as it was sucked into the sea’s hungry depths.
The Hunt was over.
Jaeger dropped the console and rushed to the ship’s rail. His eyes scanned the dark water desperately, though he knew that it was hopeless.
Irina Narov had done her work well. There wasn’t the slightest sign of Ruth Jaeger anywhere.
Her bloody form had been dragged into the icy depths, just as Kammler’s final nuclear device had been.
Also by Bear Grylls
Ghost Flight
Burning Angels
Facing Up
Facing the Frozen Ocean
Born Survivor
Great Outdoor Adventures
Living Wild
To My Sons
Mud, Sweat and Tears
A Survival Guide for Life
True Grit
Your Life – Train For It
Extreme Food
Fuel for Life
How to Stay Alive
Gold of the Gods
Way of the Wolf
Sands of the Scorpion
Tracks of the Tiger
Claws of the Crocodile
Rage of the Rhino
Strike of the Shark
Lair of the Leopard
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to the following: literary agents at PFD Caroline Michel, Annabel Merullo and Laura Williams, for their hard work and effort to support this book; Jon Wood, Brendan Durkin, Bethan Jones and all at Orion, for their courage and faith to help bring this story to life – & Malcolm Edwards and Leanne Oliver.
Thanks also to the following: Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Ollie Morton and Iain Thompson of Avon Protection, for their invaluable insight, advice and expertise on all things CBRN, and their input into the chemical, biological and nuclear aspects of this book, including the defence and protection measures.
Chris Daniels and all at Hybrid Air Vehicles, for their unique insight and expertise on all things Airlander, and for pushing the envelope in terms of what is possible with such an airship; to Paul and Anne Sherratt, for such potent insight into Cold War relations immediately following World War Two; to Peter Fawbert, of Shindo Wadokai, for his self-defence and unarmed combat expertise; to Bob Lowndes, of Autism Wessex, for his psychology input.
And a final special thank you to Damien Lewis, trusted friend and author about many UKSF operators. Thank you for helping to build upon what we discovered together in my grandfather’s war chest marked ‘Top Secret’. Bringing those World War Two documents, memorabilia and artefacts to life, in such a modern context, has been the adventure of a lifetime.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is inspired by the true life exploits of my grandfather, Brigadier William Edward Harvey Grylls, OBE, 15/19th King’s Royal Hussars and Commanding Officer of Target Force, the covert unit established at Winston Churchill’s behest at the end of World War Two. The unit was one of the most clandestine ever assembled by the War Office, and its mission was to track down and protect secret technologies, weaponry, scientists and high-ranking Nazi officials to serve the West’s cause against the world’s new superpower, the Soviet Union.
No one in our family had any idea of his covert role as Commanding Officer T Force – ‘T’ standing for ‘Target’ – until many years after his death and the release of information under the Official Secrets Act seventy-year rule – a process of discovery that inspired the writing of this book.
My grandfather was a man of few words, but I remember him so fondly from when I was a child. Pipe-smoking, enigmatic, dry-humoured and loved by those he led.
To me, though, he was always just Grandpa Ted.
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
This ebook first published in 2018 by Orion Books
Copyright © Bear Grylls Ventures 2018
The right of Bear Grylls to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters in this book, with the exception of those already in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 5692 5
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