Ghost Flight

41

‘Mind if I film?’ Dale gestured at Jaeger.

Jaeger was crouched by the water’s edge doing his evening ablutions – his shotgun propped to one side, just in case of trouble.

He spat into the water. ‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. Expedition leader cleans his teeth. Gripping stuff.’

‘No, really. I need to capture some of this stuff. Background colour. Just to establish how life goes on amongst…’ He waved a hand at the river and surrounding jungle. ‘Amongst all of this.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Be my guest. Highlight coming up: I’m about to wash my stinking face.’

Dale proceeded to take a few shots covering Jaeger’s attempts to use the Rio de los Dios as his bathroom. At one point the cameraman had his boots in the water and his back to the river, filming a low-level shot, his lens thrust halfway down Jaeger’s throat.

Jaeger half hoped a five-metre caiman would come grab Dale by the balls, but no such luck.

Apart from Alonzo, who’d typically wanted to go hunting for the bad guys directly, the vote had been unanimous. Option number three – to continue with the expedition as planned – had been everyone’s choice. Jaeger had had to clear things with Carson, but a short call via a Thuraya satphone had got it sorted.

Carson had made his priorities very clear very quickly: nothing was to stand in the way of the expedition’s progress. From the get-go, everyone had known and understood the dangers. All team members had signed a legally binding disclaimer, recognising that they were going into harm’s way. The five missing people were just that: missing, until proven otherwise.

Carson had a twelve-million-dollar global TV spectacular to keep on track, and Wild Dog Media’s fortunes – not to mention those of Enduro Adventures – were very much dependent on its success. Come what may, Jaeger had to get his team to the site of that air wreck, uncover its secrets, and if possible pull the mystery warplane out of there.

If anyone got injured or died in the process, their misfortune would be overshadowed by the awesome nature of the discovery, or so Carson argued. This was, after all, the Last Great Mystery of the Second World War, he reminded Jaeger; the plane that never was; the ghost flight. Funny how rapidly Carson had made the archivist’s, Simon Jenkinson’s, phrases so completely his own.

Carson had even gone as far as trying to upbraid Jaeger for standing in the way of some of the filming – which meant that Dale must have called him to complain. Jaeger had given Carson short shrift: he was in charge of the expedition on the ground, and here in the jungle his word was law. If Carson didn’t like it, he could fly out to the Serra de los Dios and take his place.

Call to Carson done, Jaeger had placed a second – this to the Airlander. The giant airship had taken a while to fly out from the UK, but it was now moving towards its point of orbit high above them. Jaeger knew the pilot, Steve McBride, from when their paths had crossed in the military. He was a good, safe pair of hands to have at the Airlander’s controls.

Jaeger had another reason to trust the Airlander’s crew absolutely. Before leaving London, he’d cut a deal with Carson: if he couldn’t have Raff with him on the ground, he wanted him as his eyes in the sky. Carson had capitulated, and the big Maori had duly been appointed McBride’s operations officer on the Airlander.

Jaeger had put a call through to the airship, getting a heads-up from Raff on all aspects of the expedition’s bigger picture. There was no further update on Andy Smith’s death, which didn’t exactly surprise him. But the one thing that was a shocker was the news about Simon Jenkinson.

The archivist had had his London flat broken into. Three things had gone missing: his file on the Ju 390 ghost flight, the iPhone on which he’d taken the recent – surreptitious – photos of the Hans Kammler file, and his laptop. Jenkinson had been spooked by the robbery, and triply so once he’d checked with the National Archives.

The reference number for the Hans Kammler file had been AVIA 54/1403. The National Archive claimed there was no record of any such file ever having existed. Jenkinson had seen it with his own eyes. He’d sneaked some photos of it on to his phone. But with his flat being burgled, and the file having been expunged from the archives, it was as if AVIA 54/1403 had never even existed.

The ghost flight now had its own ghost file.