Burning Angels

15

‘So, what exactly is this place?’ Jaeger ventured.

A few days after his visit to the school, he found himself in a vast concrete edifice set deep within the heavily forested countryside to the east of Berlin. The team from his Amazon expedition was filtering in from various scattered locations, and he was the first to arrive. When all had reached here they would be seven in number – Jaeger, Raff and Narov included.

Jaeger’s guide, a silver-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard, gestured at the dull-green walls. They rose to a good twelve feet on either side, the oblong windowless tunnel having an even greater breadth. Massive steel doors branched off to either side, and overhead ran a squat duct. The place was clearly military in design, and there was something sinister about its empty, echoing passageways that put Jaeger’s nerves on edge.

‘The identity of this place depends upon your nationality,’ the elderly man began. ‘If you are German, this is the Falkenhagen Bunker – after the nearby town of the same name. It was here, in this vast complex – most of which is underground and was thus immune to bombing – that Hitler ordered the creation of a weapon to finally defeat the Allies.’

He glanced at Jaeger from under silvery brows. His transatlantic accent made it difficult to place his nationality. He could be British, or American, or a citizen of any number of European nations. But somehow a simple, basic decency and honesty shone out of him.

There was a calm compassion about his gaze, but Jaeger didn’t doubt that it masked a core of inner steel. This man – Peter Miles as he’d introduced himself – was one of Narov’s top people, which meant that he was bound to share some of her unique killer instincts.

‘You have heard perhaps of N-stoff?’ Miles queried.

‘Afraid not.’

‘Very few have. Chlorine trifluoride: N-stoff – or Substance-N as it would be in English. Imagine a fearsome dual agent: napalm crossed with sarin nerve gas. That was N-stoff. So volatile was it that it would ignite even when tipped into water, and as it burned it would also gas you to death.

‘According to Hitler’s Chemicplan, six hundred tonnes were to be manufactured here every month.’ He let out a gentle laugh. ‘Thankfully, Stalin rolled in with his armour long before more than a fraction of that amount could ever be produced.’

‘And then?’ Jaeger prompted.

‘Post-war, this place was transformed into one of the Soviet regime’s foremost Cold War defensive sites. It was where the Soviet leaders would sit out nuclear Armageddon, safely ensconced one hundred feet below ground and encased in an impregnable steel and concrete sarcophagus.’

Jaeger glanced at the ceiling. ‘Those ducts; they’re for piping in clean, filtered air, right? Which means the entire complex could be sealed off from the outside.’

The elderly man’s eyes twinkled. ‘Indeed. Young but smart, I see.’

Young. Jaeger smiled, his own eyes crinkling with laughter lines. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called him that. He was warming to Peter Miles.

‘So how did we – you – end up here?’ he queried.

Miles turned a corner, ushering Jaeger down another interminable passageway. ‘In 1990, East and West Germany were reunified. The Soviets were forced to hand back such bases to the German authorities.’ He smiled. ‘We were offered it by the German government. Very discreetly, but for as long as we might need. Despite its dark history, it suits our purposes admirably. It is utterly secure. And very, very discreet. Plus, you know how the English saying goes: beggars can’t be choosers.’

Jaeger laughed. He appreciated the guy’s humility, not to mention his turn of phrase. ‘The German government offering up a former Nazi bunker? How does that work?’

The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘We feel it is somewhat fitting. There is a certain delicious irony about it all. And you know something: if there is one nation that will never forget the horrors of the war, it is Germany. They are driven and empowered by their guilt – still, to this day.’

‘I guess I’ve never really thought about it,’ Jaeger confessed.

‘Well perhaps you should,’ the old man chided, gently. ‘If we are safe anywhere, we are perhaps most safe hiding in a former Nazi bunker in Germany, where all of this began. But… I get ahead of myself. These are discussions best to be had when the rest of your team is here.’

Jaeger was shown to his sparse room. He’d eaten on the flight, and in truth he was dog-tired. After the whirlwind of the past three weeks – the Cuban mission, the edit suite bombing, and now mustering his team – he was looking forward to a long sleep secreted deep below ground.

Peter Miles bade him goodnight. Once the massive steel door had swung shut, Jaeger became aware of a deafening silence. This far underground, and encased in several feet of reinforced concrete, not the slightest sound could be heard.

It felt utterly unearthly.

He lay down and focused on his breathing. It was a trick he’d learned during his time in the military. A deep breath in, hold it for several seconds, followed by a long breath out again. Repeat. Focus on the act of breathing, and all other worries would dissolve from your mind.

His last conscious thought was that, lying here beneath the ground and in utter darkness, it felt as if he had been consigned to his own grave.

But he was exhausted, and it wasn’t long before he drifted into a deep sleep.