Ghost Flight

14

Great Uncle Joe reached into his desk drawer and rummaged around. He pulled something out, unwrapped the tissue paper and handed it to Jaeger. ‘The original badge of the SAS. A white dagger; WHO DARES WINS beneath it. It was worn with our parachutist’s wings, which together became the famous winged dagger of today’s unit.

‘As you’ve no doubt surmised, your grandfather and I served in the SAS. We soldiered in North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and finally in southern Europe. There’s nothing so revelatory about that. But understand, my boy, that our generation just didn’t speak about such things. That’s why we kept our unit insignias – and our war stories – tucked away and hidden.

‘It was in the autumn of 1944, in northern Italy, that we were both injured,’ he continued. ‘A behind-enemy-lines operation; an ambush, a bloody firefight. We were evacuated to hospital, first in Egypt and then to London. You can imagine – neither of us was much inclined to take it easy recuperating. When the opportunity arose to volunteer for a top-secret unit – well, we jumped at the chance.’

Great Uncle Joe glanced at Jaeger, uncertainty clouding his eyes. ‘Your grandfather and I were sworn to secrecy. But… well, in light of all this…’ He waved a hand at Jaeger, the phone. ‘Your grandfather was more senior in rank; by then he’d been promoted to colonel. In January 1945 he was appointed Commanding Officer, Target Force. I became one of his staff officers.

‘Make no mistake, my boy, I’ve never spoken about this before. Not even to Ethel.’ The old man took a moment to collect himself. ‘Target Force was one of the most secretive units ever formed. That’s why you’ve doubtless never heard of us. We had a very specific mission. We were charged to hunt down the Nazis’ foremost secrets: their war technology; their Wunderwaffe – their extraordinarily advanced war machines; plus their top scientists.’

Now that the old man had started, he didn’t seem to want to stop. The words tumbled from his lips, as if he was desperate to unburden himself of the memories; the secrets.

‘We were to find the Wunderwaffe ahead of the Russians, who were – even then – seen as the new enemy. We were given a “black list” of key sites: factories, laboratories, testing grounds, wind tunnels, plus the scientists and foremost experts, that were not at any cost to fall into Russian hands. The Russians were advancing from the east; it was a race against time. One that we largely won.’

‘That’s how he came upon the document?’ Jaeger queried. He hadn’t been able to resist posing the question. ‘The Operation Werewolf report?’

‘It’s not a report,’ Great Uncle Joe murmured. ‘It’s an operational plan. And no, actually. A document of that level of secrecy – deniable; emanating from the deep black – that was way beyond even our remit; beyond even Target Force.’

‘So where—’ Jaeger began.

The old man waved him into silence again. ‘Your grandfather was a fine soldier: fearless, intelligent, morally incorruptible. During his time with T Force he realised something so shocking, so utterly dark, that he rarely spoke of it. There was an operation beyond T Force: one formed in the deniable, black world. Its mission was to spirit away the most high-profile and undesirable Nazis – the absolute untouchables – to places where we could still profit from them.

‘Needless to say, your grandfather was appalled when he learned of it. Horrified.’ Great Uncle Joe paused. ‘Most of all, he knew how wrong it was. How it would corrupt us all if we brought the worst of the evil into our living rooms. He believed all the Nazi war criminals should stand trial at Nuremberg… But now we move into realms wherein he swore me to absolute secrecy.’ He cast a momentary glance at Jaeger. ‘Am I to break my word?’

Jaeger placed a comforting hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Uncle Joe, what you’ve told me already – it’s far more than I ever knew, or hoped to know.’

Great Uncle Joe patted his hand in return. ‘My boy, I appreciate your patience, your understanding. This… this is far from easy… At war’s end your grandfather re-joined the SAS. Or rather, there was no SAS by then. Officially it was disbanded immediately after the war. Unofficially, Winston Churchill – the greatest leader a country could ever have wished for – kept the unit alive, and thank God that he did.

‘The SAS had always been Churchill’s baby,’ he continued. ‘After the war he ran the unit secretly, completely off the books and from a hotel in central London. They set up clandestine bases all across Europe. Their aim was to wipe out those Nazis who had escaped the dragnet; to hunt them down, especially those who were responsible for such terrible abuses during the war.

‘You’ll perhaps have heard of Hitler’s Sonderbehandlung – his Commando Order? It decreed that all captured Allied special forces should be handed over to the SS for special treatment – in other words, torture and execution. Hundreds disappeared into what the Nazis called the Nacht und Nebel – the night and fog.’

Great Uncle Joe paused for a moment, the effort of reaching so far into the darkness proving an exhausting one.

‘Churchill’s secret SAS set about hunting down those Nazis still at large. All of them – no matter what their level of seniority. The Sonderbehandlung came direct from Hitler himself. The very top people in the Nazi regime were right in your grandfather’s sights, and that put him in direct conflict with the people tasked to spirit those selfsame men to safety.’

‘So we were fighting against ourselves?’ Jaeger queried. ‘One part trying to finish off the very worst of the evil, the other trying to safeguard them?’

‘Quite possibly,’ the old man confirmed. ‘Quite possibly we were.’

‘How long did this go on for?’ Jaeger queried. ‘Grandpa Ted’s – Churchill’s – secret war?’

‘With your grandfather, I don’t think it ever stopped. Not until the day he was… he died.’

‘So all that Nazi memorabilia,’ Jaeger ventured. ‘The SS Death’s Heads; the Werewolf insignia – he acquired it in the course of the hunt?’

Uncle Joe nodded. ‘He did. Trophies, if you like. Each speaking of a dark memory, of an evil snuffed out, just as all should have been.’

‘And the Operation Werewolf document?’ Jaeger prompted. ‘He came across that in the same way?’

‘Possibly. Probably. I really can’t say.’ The old man shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘I know precious little about it. And needless to say, I didn’t know your grandfather had kept a copy. Or that it had passed to you. I’ve only ever heard mention of it once or twice, and then only in whispers. Your grandfather – he doubtless knew more. But he took his deepest, darkest secrets to the grave. An early grave, at that.’

‘And the Reichsadler?’ Jaeger ventured. ‘What does that signify? What does it stand for?’

Great Uncle Joe stared at Jaeger for a long moment. ‘That thing on your phone – that’s no ordinary Reichsadler. The standard Nazi eagle sits above a swastika.’ The old man glanced again at Jaeger’s phone. ‘That – it’s markedly different. It’s the circular symbol below the eagle’s tail that you need to pay special attention to.’ The old man shuddered. ‘Only one… organisation has ever used such a symbol, and it did so after the war, when the world was supposedly at peace and Nazism dead and buried…’

It was warm in the study, the heat from the wood-burner in the kitchen drifting through and keeping it toasty, but even so, Jaeger detected a dark chill that had crept into the room.

Great Uncle Joe sighed, a haunted expression etched across his eyes. ‘Needless to say, I haven’t seen one in, well, close to seventy years. And I’ve been happy not to.’ He paused. ‘There. Now I worry that I’ve gone too far. If I have, your grandfather and the others – they must forgive me.’

He paused. ‘There is one other thing I feel compelled to ask: do you know how your grandfather died? It’s part of the reason I moved up here. I couldn’t bear to be around the area where we had been so happy as children.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Only that it was unexpected. Untimely. I was only seventeen – too young for anyone to tell me much.’

‘They were right not to tell you.’ The old man paused, turning the SAS cap badge over and over in his frail hands. ‘He was seventy-nine years of age. As fit as a fiddle. Feisty as ever, of course. They say it was suicide. A hosepipe through the car window. The engine left running. Poisoned by the exhaust fumes. Overburdened by traumatic memories of the war. What complete and utter rubbish!’

Bitter anger was burning in Uncle Joe’s eyes now. ‘Remind you of anything? Hosepipe through the car window? I’m sure it does! He wasn’t of course a Lebensunwertes Leben – one of the disabled; one of the Nazis’ “life unworthy of life”.’

He glanced at Jaeger despairingly. ‘But what better way for them to take their revenge?’

Jaeger gunned the bike, the powerful 1200 cc engine howling with the throaty soundtrack of a Triumph at speed on a deserted, night-dark highway. Yet as he headed south on the M6, he was feeling far from triumphant. Indeed, his visit to Great Uncle Joe had left him reeling.

It was the old man’s final revelation that had really hit him.

Grandfather Ted had been found dead in his fume-filled car, apparently having suffocated to death from the exhaust fumes. The police had argued that self-harm and suicide were most likely the cause of death. Chillingly, a distinctive image had been carved into his left shoulder: a Reichsadler.

The parallels with Andy Smith’s death were unnerving.

Jaeger had left it as long as he could before leaving the cabin. He’d helped Ethel in from the snow. Shared a supper of smoked kippers with the two of them. Seen them both to bed, his great uncle seemingly more exhausted and troubled than Jaeger had ever known him. And then he’d made his excuses and hit the road.

He’d promised Raff, Feaney and Carson a decision in person, within forty-eight hours. The clock was ticking, especially as he had one last stop-off to make on the long journey back to London.

He’d left the cabin deep in the snowy woods hoping that in their isolation, Joe and Ethel were at least safe. But for the whole of the long drive south, Jaeger felt as if the ghosts of the past were chasing him through the darkness.

Hunting him through the Nacht und Nebel – the night and the fog.