Ghost Flight

78

For several seconds the Ju 390 seemed to hang there in her nest of wooden bones.

From above, Jaeger heard the howl of the propulsors changing pitch, the downdraught dropping off to a faint breeze. For an instant he feared the pilot was giving up; that he’d been forced to admit that the dead wood had defeated him – in which case Jaeger, Narov and Dale would be facing a sixty-strong enemy force pretty damn quickly.

He risked flicking on his Thuraya, and instantly there was a data-burst message from Raff.

Pilot will reverse to make a forward run, using hull’s lift to break you free. STAND BY.

Jaeger flicked the satphone off again.

The Airlander’s hull provided almost half of her lift: by reversing and taking a run-up she could double her pulling power.

Jaeger shouted a warning to Narov and Dale to hold on tight for the ride. No sooner had he done so than there was an abrupt change in the direction of the force being exerted on the Ju 390, as the airship accelerated into forward motion at full power.

The cutting edges of the Ju 390’s wings were driven into the dead wood, the sharp nose cone drilling forward. Jaeger and Dale ducked below the flight panel as the cockpit speared its way through a tangled wall of tree limbs bleached white by the tropical sun.

Moments later, the canopy appeared to thin noticeably, light flooding into the cockpit. With a tearing of deafening proportions, the mighty warplane broke free, and was catapulted into thin air. To left and right a cloud of rotten wood and debris tumbled from her wings and upper surfaces, spinning towards the forest below.

With the canopy sudden letting go of her, the warplane swung ponderously forward, sailing past the point where she was directly below the Airlander, then rocked back again until she came to rest suspended right below the airship’s flight deck. No sooner had the oscillation slowed to manageable proportions than the Airlander began to reel her in.

Powerful hydraulic winches lifted her upwards, until she fell under the Airlander’s shadow. Her wings came to rest on the underside of the air cushion landing system – the airship’s hovercraft-like skids. The Ju 390 was now effectively attached to the bottom of the Airlander.

With the warplane locked into position, the Airlander’s pilot set the propulsors to full speed ahead, and swung her around to the correct bearing, starting the long climb to cruise altitude. They were Cachimbo-bound, with barely seven hours’ flight time ahead of them.

Jaeger reached triumphantly for the co-pilot’s seventy-year-old flask, jammed into the side of his seat. He waved it at Dale and Narov. ‘Coffee, anyone?’

Even Narov couldn’t help but crack a smile.

‘Sir, the aircraft just isn’t there,’ the operator known as Grey Wolf Six repeated.

He was speaking into his radio sat at the same remote and nameless jungle airstrip, the rank of helicopters with sagging rotor blades lined up awaiting orders; awaiting a mission.

The operator’s English seemed fluent enough, but it was clearly accented, at times having the harsh, guttural inflexion so typical of an Eastern European.

‘How can it not be there?’ the voice on the other end exploded.

‘Sir, our team is on the grid as given. They are in that patch of dead jungle. They have found the imprints of something heavy. They have found smashed-apart dead wood. Sir, the impression is that the aircraft has been ripped out of the jungle.’

‘Ripped out by what?’ Grey Wolf demanded, incredulously.

‘Sir, we have absolutely no idea.’

‘You have the Predator over that area. You have eyes-on. How could you miss an aircraft the size of a Boeing 727 getting lifted out of the jungle?’

‘Sir, our Predator was on orbit north of there, awaiting a clear visual on the tracking device location. There is cloud cover up to ten thousand feet. There is nothing that can effectively see through that. Whoever has done the lift has done so observing complete communications silence, and under cover of the overcast.’ A pause. ‘I know it sounds incredible, but trust me – the aircraft is gone.’

‘Right, this is what we’re going to do.’ Grey Wolf’s voice was icy calm now. ‘You’ve got a flight of Black Hawks at your disposal. Get them airborne and scour that airspace. You will – repeat will – find that warplane. You will retrieve what needs to be retrieved. And then you will destroy that aircraft. Are we clear?’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘I presume this is Jaeger and his team’s doing?’

‘I can only assume so, sir. We Hellfired their river position, targeting the tracker device and cell phone. But—’

‘It’s Jaeger,’ the voice cut in. ‘It has to be. Terminate them all. No one who is a witness to this gets out alive. You understand? And rig that warplane with so much explosive that not a shred of it will ever be found. I want it gone. For good. Don’t mess up this time, Kamerad. Clean up. Every single person. Kill them all.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Right, get your Black Hawks airborne. And one more thing: I myself am flying out to your location. This is too important to leave to… amateurs. I’ll take one of the Agency’s jets. I’ll be with you in under five hours.’

The operator known as Grey Wolf Six curled his lip. Amateurs. How he despised his American paymaster. Still, the money was good, as were the chances of wreaking bloody mayhem and murder.

And in the coming hours he, Vladimir Ustanov, would show Grey Wolf just what he and his so-called amateurs were capable of.