Burning Angels

70

Peter Miles stood up to speak. Bearing in mind the intense pressure they were all under, he appeared remarkably calm. Right now, Jaeger wasn’t feeling that way at all. The challenge was to drive from his mind that terrible image of his wife and child – DADDY – HELP US – so that he could focus on what was coming.

At least this time he had gleaned something potentially useful from the image; something that might help him track down his family and their captors.

‘Welcome, everyone,’ Miles began. ‘And especially a returning William Jaeger and Irina Narov. There are several new faces in the room. Rest assured, all are trusted members of our network. I will introduce them as we go, and feel free to fire in any questions.’

He spent a few minutes summarising Jaeger and Narov’s discoveries, both at the Katavi Reserve and in the Nairobi slums, before reaching the crux of the matter.

‘Falk Konig revealed that his father, Hank Kammler, runs a highly secretive primate export business – Katavi Reserve Primates – from an island off the coast of East Africa. The primates are air-freighted around the world for medical research purposes. The level of secrecy surrounding this island operation is unprecedented.

‘So, how likely is it that this monkey export facility doubles as Kammler’s bio-warfare lab? Highly likely, as it happens. During the war, Kurt Blome – the godfather of the Gottvirus – set up his germ warfare testing facility off Germany’s Baltic coast, on the island of Riems. Reason being, you can test a pathogen on an island with a reasonable likelihood that it won’t escape. In short, an island is the perfect isolated incubator.’

‘But we still don’t know what Kammler intends to do with the virus,’ a voice cut in. It was Hiro Kamishi, as ever the voice of measured reason.

‘We don’t,’ Miles confirmed. ‘But with the Gottvirus in Kammler’s hands, we have the architect of a conspiracy to bring back Hitler’s Reich possessing the world’s most fearful weapon. That alone is an utterly terrifying scenario, regardless of what exact use he intends to make of it.’

‘Do we have any better idea what the Gottvirus is?’ a voice cut in. It was Joe James. ‘Where it came from? How to stop it?’

Miles shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not. From all our research, there is no record anywhere of it ever having existed. Officially, the two SS officers who discovered it – Lieutenants Herman Wirth and Otto Rahn – are both recorded as deceased due to “death by misadventure”. According to official records, the pair went hiking in the German Alps, got lost and froze to death in the snow. Yet by Blome’s own account, those two men were the discoverers of the Gottvirus, and finding it killed them. In short, the Nazis had the Gottvirus purged from all official records.’

‘So, the million-dollar question,’ Jaeger ventured. ‘Where is Kammler’s island? I understand we may have a fix on it?’

‘You don’t need a great deal of land for this kind of work,’ Miles replied, by way of an answer. ‘Working on the basis of a landmass the size of Riems, there are approximately a thousand possible candidates off the coast of East Africa – which did make finding it something of a challenge. That is, until…’

He cast around his audience until his gaze came to rest upon one distinctive individual. ‘At this stage I’ll hand over to Jules Holland. He is his own best introduction.’

A dishevelled figure shuffled forwards. Overweight, scruffily dressed and with his greying hair tied back in a straggly ponytail, he looked somewhat out of place in the former nuclear command bunker of the Soviet Union.

He turned to face the audience and smiled his snaggle-toothed smile. ‘Jules Holland, but to all who know me well, the Ratcatcher. The Rat for short. Computer hacker, working for the good guys. Mostly. Quite an effective one too, if I might say so. And usually rather expensive.

‘It’s via Will Jaeger’s good offices that I’m here.’ He gave a slight bow. ‘And I must say, I’m very glad to be of service.’

The Rat glanced at Peter Miles. ‘This gentleman gave me the gen. Not a lot to go on: find me an island of anything more than postage-stamp size where this Nazi lunatic may have sited his germ warfare laboratory.’ He paused. ‘I’ve had easier briefs. Took a bit of lateral thinking. Whether or not it’s a germ warfare lab, the one thing we do know is that it’s a monkey export facility. And that is what cracked it. The monkeys were the key.’

Holland brushed back his lank hair, wisps of which were falling free. ‘The monkeys are captured in and around the Katavi Reserve, and flown from there to the island. Now, every flight leaves a trace. Numerous flights leave numerous traces. So I… erm… paid an unauthorised visit to the Tanzanian Air Traffic Control computer. It proved most accommodating.

‘I found three dozen KRP flights of interest over the past few years, all to the same location.’ He paused. ‘Around one hundred miles off the coast of Tanzania lies Mafia Island. Yes, “Mafia” as in the Sicilian bad guys. Mafia Island is a popular high-end tourist resort. It is part of an island chain; an archipelago. On the far southern end of that chain lies tiny, isolated Little Mafia Island.

‘Until two decades or so, Little Mafia was uninhabited. The only visitors were the local fishermen, who stopped there to repair their wooden boats. It is heavily forested – jungle, obviously – but it has no natural water source, so no one could afford to stay for long.

‘Twenty years ago, it was purchased by a private foreign buyer. Pretty shortly, even the fishermen stopped visiting. Those who had occupied the island weren’t exactly friendly. More to the point, a population of monkeys moved in alongside the humans, and they proved less than welcoming. Many were horribly, terribly diseased. Glazed eyes. Walking-dead killer zombie look. Plus lots and lots of bleeding.’

Holland eyed his audience darkly. ‘The locals coined a new name for the place, one that I fear is aptly suited. They call it Plague Island.’