Burning Angels

‘If you cannot answer my question, at least tell me this: what are you doing here? Why are you in my country?’

Jaeger’s mind reeled. His country. But this was Germany. Surely he hadn’t been in the truck long enough for them to have crossed into some eastern European state? Who in God’s name had he been taken by? Was it some rogue arm of the German intelligence services?

‘I don’t know what you’re talking—’ he began, but the grey man cut him off.

‘This is very sad. I helped you, Mr Will Jaeger, but you are not trying to help me. And if you cannot help, then you will be returned to the room with the noise and the pain.’

The grey man had barely finished speaking when unseen hands whipped the bag over Jaeger’s head again. The shock of it made his heart skip a beat.

Then he was hauled to his feet, spun around, and without another word he was marched away.

18

Jaeger found himself back in the white-noise room, leaning at a crazy angle against the brick wall. During SAS selection, they’d referred to such a place as ‘the softener’ — the room where grown men became weak. All he could hear was the empty, meaningless howl tearing through the darkness. All he could smell was his own sweat, cold and clammy against his skin. And in his throat he could taste the acid tang of bile.

He felt battered and exhausted and utterly alone, and his body was hurting like it had rarely hurt before. His head was throbbing; his mind screaming.

He started to murmur songs in his head. Snatches of favoured tunes remembered from his youth. If he could sing those songs, maybe he could block out the white noise, the agony and the fear.

Waves of fatigue washed over him. He was close to his limit and he knew it.

When the songs faded, he told himself stories of his childhood. Tales of his heroes that his father used to read to him. The feats of those who had inspired him and driven him on when he had faced his hardest tests; both as a kid, and later during his worst trials in the military.

He relived the story of Douglas Mawson, an Australian explorer who went through hell and back, starved and alone in Antarctica, yet somehow managed to haul himself to safety. Of George Mallory, very possibly the first person ever to climb Mount Everest, a man who knew for certain that he was sacrificing his life to conquer the world’s highest peak. Mallory never made it down alive, perishing on those ice-bound slopes. But that was the sacrifice of his choosing.

Jaeger knew that humankind was capable of achieving the seemingly impossible. When the body was screaming that it could take no more, the mind could force it to go on. An individual could go way beyond the possible.

Likewise, if Jaeger believed strongly enough, he could beat the odds. He could get through this.

The power of the will.

He began to repeat the same mantra over and over: Stay alert to the chance to escape. Stay alert…

He lost all track of time; all sense of day and night. At one moment the bag was lifted to free his mouth, and a cup was thrust to his lips. He felt his head being forced backwards as they poured its contents down his throat.

Tea. Just like before.

It was followed by a stale biscuit. Then another and another. They rammed them in, pulled down the bag, and shoved him back into position.

Like an animal.

But at least for now they seemed to want to keep him alive.

Sometime later his head must have dropped, jerking downwards into sleep and slumping on to his chest. He felt himself torn into savage wakefulness as he was forced into a new stress position.

This time he was made to kneel on a patch of gravel. As the minutes passed, the sharp, jagged stones dug deeper into his flesh, cutting off the circulation, causing bolts of pain to shoot up into his brain. He was in agony, but he told himself he could get through this.

The power of the will.

How long had it been? he wondered. Days? Two or three, or more? It felt like an eternity.

At some point the white noise died abruptly, and the insanely inappropriate tones of the Barney the Dinosaur theme tune began to blast out at full volume. Jaeger had heard about such techniques: playing kids’ cartoon tunes over and over to break a man’s sanity and his will. It was known as ‘psyops’ — psychological operations. But for Jaeger, it had something of the opposite effect.

Barney had been one of Luke’s favourite TV characters when he was an infant. The song served to bring the memories flooding back. Happy moments. Ones to grasp hold of; a rock upon which to tether his storm-lashed soul.

He reminded himself that this was what had brought him here. Chief amongst his motives, he was here on the trail of his missing wife and child. If he let his captors break him, he was abandoning that mission and giving up on those he loved.

He would not betray Ruth and Luke.

He had to hold on and hold firm.