The Hunt

20

The Falkenhagen Bunker: it was a while since Jaeger had been here. It brought back memories both good and bad. It was from here that they’d masterminded the destruction of Kammler and his co-conspirators, or so Jaeger had thought; but after the last thirty-six hours, he was assailed by doubts.

The Secret Hunters had been gifted the use of the bunker by the German government. As Miles had reminded Jaeger, if there was one nation who would never forget the excesses of the Nazi regime, it was the Germans. It was a somewhat ironic venue: a vast subterranean complex where Hitler had manufactured his most fearsome chemical weapons.

At war’s end it had been seized by the Russians, who had transformed it into a Cold War headquarters complete with a command bunker that could survive a nuclear meltdown – a massive domed structure set six storeys below ground.

Peter Miles had made this the nerve centre of the Secret Hunters.

There were few creature comforts in the bare and echoing concrete chamber, and Miles liked it that way: it kept meetings short and focused. There was one bare wooden table, bearing Miles’s laptop, with some plastic chairs arranged in a semicircle facing it. That was about all.

Apart from Jaeger, Uncle Joe and Miles, there was one other figure present: Takavesi ‘Raff’ Rafarra, long hair braided Maori-style. Maori by birth, Royal Marines by training, and a fellow veteran of the SAS, Raff was larger than life in every sense. Jaeger and he had gone through their commando training and SAS selection together, and they were inseparable.

Tough, resourceful, a natural-born warrior, Raff was the kind of guy Jaeger would choose to fight back-to-back with every time. There was no better soldier or more loyal friend. He was also a fearsome drinker, hopeless where women were concerned, and incapable of accepting orders from those he didn’t respect, which had pretty much done for his prospects in the military.

Jaeger and Raff had left the SAS at around the same time to found an executive adventure company – though that had taken something of a back seat once they’d been drawn into the world of the Secret Hunters. They’d just started trying to resuscitate the business when the present unforeseen developments had transpired.

Considering what had happened over the past few days, Jaeger was doubly glad of Raff’s presence. He was the man to have beside you if the likes of Steve Jones were back on the scene.

It seemed odd not to have a fifth figure present: Irina Narov. Jaeger had asked. Miles hadn’t been able to shed much light. A few weeks back, Narov had disappeared: no email, no phone contact, nothing. Miles wasn’t overly concerned. She had a habit of doing this. She’d be back in her own good time.

As succinctly as he could, Jaeger proceeded to deliver a briefing on all that had happened in the St Georgen tunnels. Once he was done, they played the footage from the smashed camera.

Neither Raff nor Miles had laid eyes on Steve Jones before. It was only Jaeger who had got close enough to the man, and the more he watched the footage, the more convinced he was that it was Jones giving the orders. Which begged the million-dollar question: what had he and his team been seeking at St Georgen? What had they retrieved?

With Jones back on the prowl, did that mean that his employer was too? Had his mission been ordered by his erstwhile boss, Hank Kammler? It seemed possible, and it was a deeply disturbing proposition.

Kammler’s death had been confirmed by none other than Daniel Brooks, the director of the CIA and a good friend and ally to their cause. Likewise, Jones had been left for dead by Jaeger: shark food, or so he’d presumed.

But had both returned to haunt them?

It seemed unthinkable, but footage didn’t lie.

Miles powered down his laptop. He turned to Jaeger. ‘You say you’re certain it’s Jones. Is there any way we can get absolute proof?’

‘Even if we do, it doesn’t prove that Kammler’s alive,’ Jaeger reasoned. ‘One doesn’t follow from the other.’

‘It doesn’t,’ Miles agreed. ‘But I have a separate – as yet uncorroborated – report suggesting Kammler may still be with us. More of that shortly. If we can be certain this is Jones, we may be able to use him to lead us to Kammler.’

Miles was right. Jones was a fighter and a killer, but he wasn’t necessarily the sharpest tool in the box. He might blunder, and that might lead them to the kingpin.

‘I reported the murders forty-eight hours ago,’ Jaeger announced. ‘The police investigation will be well under way. It’s got to be high-profile: eight people – a film crew and historians – murdered in a secret Nazi bunker. It’ll hit the press, and that will flush out more detail.’

‘It should,’ Miles confirmed. ‘I’ll use our sources and dig up as much as I can. Plus I’ll find a way to quietly pass them a copy of this film, if you don’t mind.’

‘Please do. It’s been bugging me. Feeling kind of guilty.’

A steely look came into Miles’s eyes. ‘Well don’t. What we’re about here – trust me, it’s far bigger than whatever happened at St Georgen.’

Silver-haired, blue-eyed and with a neatly trimmed beard, Miles had to be in his late seventies. His air of calm compassion masked an iron will and an unshakeable determination to do the right thing. A young Jewish boy during the war, he’d been saved from the Nazi death camps at the eleventh hour and brought to Britain, though his family had all perished in the camps. The experience of losing a family had been his bond with Jaeger. With his quietly spoken transatlantic accent, Miles was a citizen of the world and Jaeger trusted him absolutely.

‘We can hoover up whatever media coverage there is,’ the older man continued. ‘If Kammler is alive, we have to find him…’

He left the rest unsaid. For a moment, a dark quiet settled over the room.

They all knew what such a man was capable of.