Burning Angels

Wirth forced out a reply. ‘Yes, Herr General.’

Kammler glanced from Wirth to Rahn. ‘If you do not — if you fail in this task — on your heads be it.’

He yelled an order for the cage to be lifted skywards. They rose together in silence. When they reached the surface, Kammler turned to face the Deutsche Ahnenerbe men.

‘I have little stomach for breakfast any more.’ He clicked his heels together and gave the Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’

‘Heil Hitler,’ his SS colleagues echoed.

And with that, General Hans Kammler stalked across the ice, heading for his aircraft — and Germany.

3

Present day

The pilot of the C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft turned to eye Will Jaeger. ‘Kinda overkill, buddy, hiring a whole C-130 for just you guys, eh?’ He had a strong southern drawl, most likely Texas. ‘There’s just three of you, right?’

Through the doorway into the hold Jaeger eyed his two fellow warriors, seated on the fold-down canvas seats. ‘Yeah. Just the three.’

‘Bit over the top, wouldn’t you say?’

Jaeger had boarded the aircraft as if ready to do a high-altitude parachute jump — decked out in full-face helmet, oxygen mask and bulky jumpsuit. The pilot had not the slightest hope of recognising him.

Not yet, anyway.

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Yeah, well we were expecting more. You know how it is: some couldn’t make it.’ A pause. ‘They got trapped in the Amazon.’

He let the last words hang in the air for a good few seconds.

‘The Amazon?’ the pilot queried. ‘The jungle, right? What was it? Jump that went wrong?’

‘Worse than that.’ Jaeger loosened the straps that held his jump helmet tight, as if he needed to get some air. ‘They didn’t make it… because they died.’

The pilot did a double take. ‘They died? Died like how? Some kinda skydiving accident?’

Jaeger spoke slowly now, emphasising every word. ‘No. Not an accident. Not from where I was standing. More like very planned, very deliberate murder.’

‘Murder? Shoot.’ The pilot reached forward and eased off on the aircraft’s throttles. ‘We’re nearing our cruise altitude… One-twenty minutes to the jump.’ A pause. ‘Murder? So who was murdered? And — heck — why?’

In answer, Jaeger removed his helmet completely. He still had his silk balaclava tight around his face, for warmth. He always wore one when leaping from thirty thousand feet. It could be colder than Everest at that kind of altitude.

The pilot still wouldn’t be able to recognise him, but he would be able to see the look in Jaeger’s eyes. And right now, it was one that could kill.

‘I figure it was murder,’ Jaeger repeated. ‘Cold-blooded murder. Funny thing is — it all happened after a jump from a C-130.’ He glanced around the cockpit. ‘In fact, an aircraft pretty similar to this one…’

The pilot shook his head, nervousness creeping in. ‘Buddy, you lost me… But hey, your voice sounds kinda familiar. That’s the thing with you Brits — you all sound the goddam same, if you don’t mind me sayin’.’

‘I don’t mind you saying.’ Jaeger smiled. His eyes didn’t. The look in them could have frozen blood. ‘So, I figure you must’ve served with the SOAR. That’s before you went private.’

‘The SOAR?’ The pilot sounded surprised. ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, I did. But how… Do I know you from somewhere?’

Jaeger’s eyes hardened. ‘Once a Night Stalker, always a Night Stalker — isn’t that what they say?’

‘Yeah, that’s what they say.’ The pilot sounded spooked now. ‘But like I said, buddy, do I know you from somewhere?’

‘Matter of fact, you do. Though I figure you’re gonna wish you’d never met me. ’Cause right now, buddy, I’m your worst nightmare. Once upon a time, you flew me and my team into the Amazon, and unfortunately no one got to live happily ever after…’

Three months earlier, Jaeger had led a ten-person team on an expedition into the Amazon, searching for a lost Second World War aircraft. They’d hired the same private air charter firm as now. En route the pilot had mentioned how he had served with the American military’s Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers.

The SOAR was a unit that Jaeger knew well. Several times when he’d been serving in special forces, it was SOAR pilots who’d pulled him and his men out of the crap. The SOAR’s motto was ‘Death waits in the dark’, but Jaeger had never once imagined that he and his team would end up being the target of it.

Jaeger reached up and ripped off his balaclava. ‘Death waits in the dark… It sure did, especially when you helped guide in the hit. Very nearly got the whole lot of us killed.’

For an instant the pilot stared, eyes wide with disbelief. Then he turned to the figure seated beside him.

‘Your aircraft, Dan,’ he announced quietly, relinquishing the controls to his co-pilot. ‘I need to have words with our… English friend here. And Dan, radio Dallas/Fort Worth. Abort the flight. We need them to route us—’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Jaeger cut in. ‘Not if I were you.’