Ghost Flight

37

Far away, across several hundred miles of jungle, another voice was speaking.

‘Grey Wolf, this is Grey Wolf Six,’ the voice intoned. ‘Grey Wolf, Grey Wolf Six. Do you copy?’

The speaker was hunched over a radio set in a camouflaged tent positioned at the edge of a rough and ready airstrip. To all sides lay a sagging fringe of trees, with hills in the distance rearing up against a ragged grey sky. A rank of black helicopters with drooping rotor blades lined the dirt runway.

Otherwise, it was empty.

The scenery was reminiscent of the Serra de los Dios, but somehow not the same.

Close, but not too close.

This was the South American jungle, but somewhere higher in the mountains; somewhere remote and undisturbed, hidden amongst the wild and lawless Andean foothills that rolled onwards into Bolivia and Peru. Somewhere perfect for the kind of black operation that was designed to make a Second World War aircraft disappear forever; to vanish off the face of the earth.

‘Grey Wolf, Grey Wolf Six,’ the radio operator repeated. ‘Do you copy?’

‘Grey Wolf Six, this is Grey Wolf,’ a voice confirmed. ‘Send, over.’

‘Team inserted as planned,’ the operator announced. ‘Awaiting further orders.’

He listened for a few seconds to whatever was being said. Whoever this man – this soldier – was, there wasn’t a single mark of unit or rank, or even of nationality, to be seen on his plain, drab-green jungle fatigues. To either side of him, the tent was equally lacking in identifying features. Even the helicopters lined up on the airstrip were devoid of decals, flight numbers or national flags of any sort.

‘Yes, sir,’ the operator confirmed. ‘I have sixty sets of boots on the ground. It wasn’t easy, but we got them in there.’

He listened for a few seconds to his instructions, then repeated them back to confirm he’d understood them

‘Use all means to secure the coordinates of the warplane. Spare no one in the search for its exact whereabouts. Understood.’

There was a further short burst of message before the operator gave his final response.

‘Understood, sir. Their force is ten strong, of which all are to be eliminated. No survivors. Grey Wolf Six, out.’

That done, he killed the radio call.