Ghost Flight

36

What Jaeger wouldn’t have given to have Raff alongside him now. Had the big Maori been here, Narov might have lived. There were no guarantees, of course, but Raff would have helped him fight off the killer caiman, and one or other of them would have likely escaped unscathed from that first attack, and so been able to safeguard the raft and its precious cargo.

But Jaeger was alone, Irina Narov was gone, and he had to steel himself to the hard facts. He had no choice. He had to go on.

He continued with his kit check. He had two full bottles of water slung in his belt rig – although the Katadyn filter was gone. He had a little emergency food, the roll of paracord that he’d used to lower Narov and himself from the canopy, plus two dozen rounds for the shotgun.

He dumped the shotgun shells. They were a useless deadweight without the weapon.

Amongst the few other bits and pieces that the kit check revealed, his gaze came to rest upon the shiny form of the C-130 pilot’s coin. The Night Stalkers’ motto glistened in the sunlight: Death Waits in the Dark. No doubt about it – death red in tooth and claw had lurked in the dark waters of the Rio de los Dios.

And it had found them; or at least, it had found Narov.

But that wasn’t in any way the pilot’s fault, of course.

The pilot of that C-130 had got them out of his aircraft at exactly the right release point. That was no mean feat. The disaster that had followed – it was none of his doing. The coin went with the rest of Jaeger’s meagre possessions – deep into his pocket. Hope was what kept people alive, he reminded himself.

The last piece of equipment that he contemplated was also the most difficult: it was Irina Narov’s knife.

After he’d used it to cut them free from the abseil line, Jaeger had slung it on his own belt. Amidst all the chaos, and with Narov so incapacitated from the spider bite, it had seemed like the right thing to do. Now it was all he had that linked him to her.

He held it in his hands for a long moment. His eyes traced the knife’s name, stamped into the steel hilt. He knew all about the history of the blade, for he’d researched his grandfather’s.

In the months following Hitler’s spring 1940 blitzkrieg – his lightning war that had driven the Allied troops out of France – Winston Churchill had ordered the creation of a special force, to launch butcher-and-bolt terror raids against the enemy. Those special volunteers were taught to wage war in what was then a very un-British way – fast and dirty, with no holds barred.

At a top-secret school for mayhem and murder, they’d been shown how to hurt, maul, injure and kill with ease. Their instructors had been the legendary William Fairbairn and Eric ‘Bill’ Sykes, who over the years had perfected the means to terminate silently, at close quarters.

From Wilkinson Sword, Sykes and Fairbairn had commissioned a combat knife to be used by Churchill’s special volunteers. It had a seven-inch blade, a heavy handle to give firm grip in the wet, plus razor edges and a sharp stabbing profile.

The knives had rolled off Wilkinson Sword’s London production line. Etched on the square head of each were the words: ‘The Fairbairn–Sykes Fighting Knife’. Fairbairn and Sykes had taught the special volunteers that there was no more deadly weapon at close quarters, and most importantly, ‘It never runs out of ammunition.’

Jaeger had never got to see Narov use her blade in anger. But the fact that she’d chosen to carry such a knife – the same as his grandfather had used – had somehow drawn him to her, though he’d never got the chance to ask her where she had got it, or what exactly it might mean to her.

He wondered how she’d come by it: a Russian; a veteran of the Spetsnaz, with a British commando knife. And why that comment she’d made – good for killing Germans? During the war, every British commando and SAS soldier had been issued with one of those knives; doubtless the iconic blade had accounted for more than its fair share of the Nazi enemy.

But that was many decades and a whole world ago.

Jaeger replaced the knife on his belt.

For a brief moment he wondered if he’d been wrong; wrong to insist that Narov come with him. If he’d done as she’d asked and left her, she more than likely would still be alive. But it was in his DNA never to leave a man behind – or woman, for that matter – and anyway, how long would she have lasted?

No. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that he had done the right thing. The only thing. She’d have perished either way. If he’d left her, she’d just have died a longer, lingering death, and she’d have died alone.

Jaeger forced all thoughts of Narov to the back of his mind.

He took stock. A daunting journey lay ahead: twenty-plus kilometres through thick jungle with only two litres of clean water to sustain him. A human could survive without food for many days; not so water. He’d have to ration himself strictly: a gulp every hour; nine gulps per bottle; eighteen hours walking, max.

He checked his watch.

Last light was barely two hours away. If he was to get to that sandbar in time to make the emergency RV, he’d most likely have to keep marching through the night hours, which was a big no-no in the jungle. It was impossible to see in the pitch black beneath the night-dark canopy.

He had nothing with which to defend himself, apart from his bare hands and his knife. If he stumbled into serious trouble, the only thing to do would be to run. He had one advantage: with Narov gone, he no longer had her weight to slow him down.

He was equipped only with what he stood up in, which meant he could move fast. All things considered, he figured he stood a half-decent chance. But even so, he dreaded the coming journey.

He got to his feet, placed the compass in the palm of his hand and took a first bearing. The point he’d aim for was a fallen tree trunk lying more or less due south – the direction in which he needed to travel. He replaced the compass, bent down and picked up ten small pebbles, placing them in his pocket. Every ten paces he’d transfer one pebble to his other pocket. When all had been moved across he’d have completed a hundred paces.

From long experience Jaeger knew that it would take seventy left footfalls for him to cover 100 metres of terrain, on the flat and under a light load. With a full pack, plus weapon and ammo, it would take him eighty, for the legs made less of a stride under a heavy load. When going steeply uphill, it might take him one hundred left footfalls.

The passing of the pebbles was a simple system that had worked for him countless times during epic yomps across tough terrain. And moving them from pocket to pocket would keep his mind focused and busy.

He did one last thing before setting out: he grabbed a pen and marked his present position. Next to it he wrote: ‘Last known location of Irina N.’

That way, if he ever got the chance, he could return to this spot and search methodically, with time and manpower, for her remains. At least that way they’d have something to return to her family – not that Jaeger had any idea who or where her family might be.

He set off walking; walking and counting.

He moved deeper into the forest, clicking a stone from one pocket to the other with each ten paces. One hour in and it was time for his first quick gulp of water and a map check.

He marked his position on the map – two kilometres due south of the riverbank – took a bearing and pressed onwards. In theory, he could navigate his way the whole distance through the jungle to that sandbar using the simple process of pacing and bearing. Whether he’d make it or not, with two litres of water and no weaponry, was another matter entirely.

Even as his lone form was swallowed by the gloom of the dense jungle, Jaeger could sense that those mystery eyes were upon him still, watching from the shadows.

As he pushed ahead into the dark, brooding forest, his left hand gripped his pocket full of pebbles, his lips moving as they counted out his footfalls.