Burning Angels

53

Jaeger and Narov passed the hip flask back and forth between them. It had been a bonus finding that amongst the wreckage of the HIP. Though Narov rarely drank, they were both exhausted, and in need of the whisky for the psychological boost.

They’d made it back by close to midnight, to discover the place utterly deserted. Even the baby elephant was gone, which was good news. At least hopefully they’d saved one animal. They’d emptied the HIP of water, sodas and food, sating both their thirst and their hunger.

That done, Jaeger had made some calls on his Thuraya. The first was to Katavi, and he had been elated to speak to Konig. The reserve’s chief conservationist was made of strong stuff, that much was clear. He’d regained consciousness and was back on the case.

Jaeger had explained the basics of what he and Narov were up to. He’d asked for a flight to come in and pick them up, and Konig had promised to be airborne by first light. Jaeger had also warned him to expect a delivery of cargo on the next flight in, and told him not to open the crates when they arrived.

His second call had been to Raff, at Falkenhagen, giving him a shopping list of hardware and weaponry. Raff had promised to get it shipped out to Katavi within twenty-four hours, courtesy of a British diplomatic bag. Finally Jaeger had briefed Raff on the tracking device that he needed them to keep eyes on. The moment it went static Jaeger and Narov needed to know, for that would mean the poachers had reached home base.

Calls done, they’d sat back against an acacia tree and broken out the hip flask. For a good hour they’d sat together sharing the drink and making plans. It was well past midnight by the time Jaeger realised the flask was nearly empty.

He shook it, the last of the whisky sloshing about inside. ‘Last sippers, my Russian comrade? So, what do we talk about now?’

‘Why the need to talk? Listen to the bush. It is like a symphony. Plus there is the magic of the sky.’

She leant back and Jaeger followed suit. The rhythmic preep-preep-preep of the night-time insects beat out a hypnotic rhythm, the stunning expanse of the heavens stretching wide and silken above them.

‘Still, it’s a rare opportunity,’ Jaeger ventured. ‘Just the two of us; no one else for miles around.’

‘So what do you want to talk about?’ Narov murmured.

‘You know what? I think we should talk about you.’ Jaeger had a thousand questions he’d never got to ask of Narov, and now was as good a time as any.

Narov shrugged. ‘It is not so interesting. What is there to say?’

‘You can start by telling me how you knew my grandfather. I mean, if he was like a grandfather to you, what does that make us – some kind of long-lost siblings or something?’

Narov laughed. ‘Hardly. It is a long story. I will try to keep it short.’ Her face grew serious. ‘In the summer of 1944, Sonia Olschanevsky, a young Russian woman, was taken prisoner in France. She had been fighting with the partisans and serving as their radio link to London.

‘The Germans took her to a concentration camp, one that you already know of: Natzweiler. It was the camp for the Nacht und Nebel prisoners – those that Hitler decreed would disappear into the night and the fog. If the Germans had realised that Sonia Olschanevsky was an SOE agent, they would have tortured and executed her, as they did all captured agents. Fortunately, they did not.

‘They set her to work at the camp. Slave labour. A senior-ranking SS officer was visiting. Sonia was a beautiful woman. He chose her as his bedfellow.’ Narov paused. ‘Over time, she found a means to escape. She managed to wrestle some wooden slats off a pigpen and built herself an escape ladder.

‘Using that ladder, she and two fellow escapees clambered over the electrified wire. Sonia made it to the American lines. There she met a pair of British officers embedded with US forces – fellow SOE agents. She told them about Natzweiler, and when the Allied forces broke through, she led them to the camp.

‘Natzweiler was the first concentration camp found by the Allies. No one had ever imagined such horrors could exist. The effect of liberating it was incalculable for those two British officers.’ Narov’s face darkened. ‘But by then Sonia was four months pregnant. She was carrying the child of the SS officer who had raped her.’

Narov paused, her eyes searching the skies above. ‘Sonia was my grandmother. Your grandfather – Grandpa Ted – was one of those two officers. He was so affected by what he had witnessed, and by Sonia’s fortitude, that he offered to be the godfather to the unborn child. That child was my mother. And that’s how I came to know your grandfather.

‘I am the grandchild of Nazi rape,’ Narov announced, quietly. ‘So you will understand why for me this is personal. Your grandfather saw something in me from an early age. He honed me – he shaped me – to take up his mantle.’ She turned to Jaeger. ‘He schooled me to be the foremost operative of the Secret Hunters.’

They sat in silence for what seemed like an age. Jaeger had so many questions, he didn’t know where to start. How well had she known Grandpa Ted? Had she ever visited him at the Jaeger family home? Had she trained with him? And why had this been kept a secret from the rest of the family, Jaeger included?

Jaeger had been close to his grandfather. He’d admired him, and he’d been inspired by his example to join the military. He felt hurt, somehow, that he’d never once breathed the slightest word.

Eventually the cold got the better of them. Narov moved in closer to Jaeger. ‘Pure survival, that’s all,’ she murmured.

Jaeger nodded. ‘We’re grown-ups. What’s the worst that can happen?’

He was drifting off to sleep when he sensed her head drop on to his shoulder, and her arms snake around his torso as she snuggled in tight.

‘I’m still cold,’ she murmured sleepily.

He could smell the whisky on her breath. But he could also smell the warm, sweaty, spicy tang of her body so close to his, and he felt his head spinning.

‘It’s Africa. It’s not that cold,’ he muttered, as he slipped an arm around her. ‘Better now?’

‘A little.’ Narov held on to him. ‘But remember, I am made of ice.’

Jaeger suppressed a laugh. It was so tempting just to go with it; to go with the easy, intimate, intoxicating flow.

A part of him felt tense and jumpy: he had Ruth and Luke to somehow find and rescue. But another part of him – the slightly inebriated part – remembered for a moment what it was like to feel the caress of a woman. And deep within himself he longed to return it.

After all, this wasn’t just any woman he was holding right now. Narov had a startling beauty. And under the moonlight, she looked utterly arresting.

‘You know, Mr Bert Groves, if you play an act for long enough, sometimes you start to believe it’s for real,’ she murmured. ‘Especially when you have spent so long living close to the thing you really want, but you know you cannot have it.’

‘We can’t do this,’ Jaeger forced himself to say. ‘Ruth and Luke are out there, somewhere beneath that mountain. They’re alive, of that I’m certain. It can’t be long now.’

Narov snorted. ‘So, better to die of the cold? Schwachkopf.’

But despite her signature curse, she didn’t relinquish her grip, and neither did he.