Burning Angels (11 page)

Jaeger flicked his eyes up to the grey man’s face and back to the mug again. Then he reached out and grabbed it. From the smell, it just seemed to be hot, sweet, milky tea. He raised it to his lips and gulped it down.

There was no adverse reaction. He didn’t collapse or puke or go into convulsions.

He placed the mug back down.

Silence descended once more.

Jaeger took a momentary glance at his surroundings. The room was a stark, utterly featureless cube devoid of any windows. He felt the grey man’s eyes upon him, staring intently. He returned his own gaze to the floor.

‘You are cold, I think? You must be. Cold. Would you like to be warm?’

Jaeger’s mind raced. What was this – a trick question? Maybe. But Jaeger needed to buy himself some time. And in truth he was sitting there in his boxers freezing his nuts off. ‘I’ve been warmer, sir. Sir, yes – I’m cold.’

The ‘sir’ bit was another lesson ingrained during Jaeger’s military training: treat your captors as if they warranted some respect. There was just a chance that it might be repaid; it might persuade them to view you as a fellow human.

Yet right now Jaeger held out little hope. All that he had experienced here was designed to reduce him to the level of a defenceless animal.

‘I think you would like to be warm,’ the grey man continued. ‘Look beside you. Open the bag. Inside, you will find dry clothes.’

Jaeger glanced down. A cheap-looking sports bag had appeared beside his chair. He reached for it and did as instructed, unzipping it. He half feared he would find the severed, bloodied head of one of his Amazon team lying inside. Instead, he discovered a set of faded orange work overalls and a pair of threadbare socks, plus some battered plimsolls.

‘But what were you expecting?’ the grey man asked, a faint smile playing across his features. ‘First, a nice cup of tea. Now, clothes. Clothes to make you warm. Get dressed. Put them on.’

Jaeger slid into the overalls and buttoned up the front, then slipped on the shoes and sat back down again.

‘Warmer? Does that feel better?’

Jaeger nodded.

‘So now I think you understand. I have the power to help you. I can truly help. But I need something in return: I need
you
to help
me
.’ The grey man left a weighty pause. ‘I just need to know when your friends will be arriving, who we are to expect, and how we are to recognise them.’

‘I cannot answer that question, sir.’ It was the standard response that Jaeger had been trained to give: a negative, but as polite and respectful as he could make it in the circumstances. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about either,’ he added. He knew he had to stall.

The interrogator sighed, as if he had been expecting that response. ‘It does not matter. We have found your . . . equipment. Your laptop. Your cell phone. We will crack your security codes and passwords and soon these things will reveal to us your secrets.’

Jaeger’s mind was whirling. He was certain he’d not brought a laptop with him. And as for his cheap pay-as-you-go mobile, that would reveal nothing of any great import.

‘If you cannot answer my question, at least tell me this: what are you doing here? Why are you in my country?’

Jaeger’s mind reeled.
His country.
But this was Germany. Surely he hadn’t been in the truck long enough for them to have crossed into some eastern European state? Who in God’s name had he been taken by? Was it some rogue arm of the German intelligence services?

‘I don’t know what you’re talking—’ he began, but the grey man cut him off.

‘This is very sad. I helped you, Mr Will Jaeger, but you are not trying to help me. And if you cannot help, then you will be returned to the room with the noise and the pain.’

The grey man had barely finished speaking when unseen hands whipped the bag over Jaeger’s head again. The shock of it made his heart skip a beat.

Then he was hauled to his feet, spun around, and without another word he was marched away.

18

Jaeger found himself back in the white-noise room, leaning at a crazy angle against the brick wall. During SAS selection, they’d referred to such a place as ‘the softener’ – the room where grown men became weak. All he could hear was the empty, meaningless howl tearing through the darkness. All he could smell was his own sweat, cold and clammy against his skin. And in his throat he could taste the acid tang of bile.

He felt battered and exhausted and utterly alone, and his body was hurting like it had rarely hurt before. His head was throbbing; his mind screaming.

He started to murmur songs in his head. Snatches of favoured tunes remembered from his youth. If he could sing those songs, maybe he could block out the white noise, the agony and the fear.

Waves of fatigue washed over him. He was close to his limit and he knew it.

When the songs faded, he told himself stories of his childhood. Tales of his heroes that his father used to read to him. The feats of those who had inspired him and driven him on when he had faced his hardest tests; both as a kid, and later during his worst trials in the military.

He relived the story of Douglas Mawson, an Australian explorer who went through hell and back, starved and alone in Antarctica, yet somehow managed to haul himself to safety. Of George Mallory, very possibly the first person ever to climb Mount Everest, a man who knew for certain that he was sacrificing his life to conquer the world’s highest peak. Mallory never made it down alive, perishing on those ice-bound slopes. But that was the sacrifice of his choosing.

Jaeger knew that humankind was capable of achieving the seemingly impossible. When the body was screaming that it could take no more, the mind could force it to go on. An individual could go way beyond the possible.

Likewise, if Jaeger believed strongly enough, he could beat the odds. He could get through this.

The power of the will.

He began to repeat the same mantra over and over:
Stay alert to the chance to escape. Stay alert . . .

He lost all track of time; all sense of day and night. At one moment the bag was lifted to free his mouth, and a cup was thrust to his lips. He felt his head being forced backwards as they poured its contents down his throat.

Tea. Just like before.

It was followed by a stale biscuit. Then another and another. They rammed them in, pulled down the bag, and shoved him back into position.

Like an animal.

But at least for now they seemed to want to keep him alive.

Sometime later his head must have dropped, jerking downwards into sleep and slumping on to his chest. He felt himself torn into savage wakefulness as he was forced into a new stress position.

This time he was made to kneel on a patch of gravel. As the minutes passed, the sharp, jagged stones dug deeper into his flesh, cutting off the circulation, causing bolts of pain to shoot up into his brain. He was in agony, but he told himself he could get through this.

The power of the will.

How long had it been? he wondered. Days? Two or three, or more? It felt like an eternity.

At some point the white noise died abruptly, and the insanely inappropriate tones of the Barney the Dinosaur theme tune began to blast out at full volume. Jaeger had heard about such techniques: playing kids’ cartoon tunes over and over to break a man’s sanity and his will. It was known as ‘psyops’ – psychological operations. But for Jaeger, it had something of the opposite effect.

Barney had been one of Luke’s favourite TV characters when he was an infant. The song served to bring the memories flooding back. Happy moments. Ones to grasp hold of; a rock upon which to tether his storm-lashed soul.

He reminded himself that this was what had brought him here. Chief amongst his motives, he was here on the trail of his missing wife and child. If he let his captors break him, he was abandoning that mission and giving up on those he loved.

He would not betray Ruth and Luke.

He had to hold on and hold firm.

Eventually he felt himself propelled into motion again. He was barely able to walk now, so they half carried him, out of the door, along the switchback corridor and into what he figured was the same room as before.

He was slammed into the chair, the bag was ripped off and the light flooded in.

Seated before him was the grey man. From where Jaeger was sitting, he could smell the stale sweat on the guy’s clothes. He kept his eyes glued to the floor as the grey man did the bored staring act.

‘This time, sadly, we do not have any tea.’ The grey man shrugged. ‘Things will only get better for you if you can be helpful. I think you understand that now. So can you? Can you be helpful to us?’

Jaeger tried to muster his muddled thoughts. He felt confused. He didn’t know what to say. Helpful like how exactly?

‘I wonder, Mr Jaeger,’ the grey man raised one eyebrow questioningly, ‘are you willing to be helpful? If not, we have no further use for you.’

Jaeger didn’t say a word. Confused and exhausted though he might be, still he sensed a trap.

‘So tell me, what is the time? Tell me the time. Surely that is not too much to ask. Are you willing to help me by simply telling me the time?’

For an instant Jaeger went to check his watch, but it had been ripped off him just moments after his capture. He had no idea what day it was, let alone the hour.

‘What is the time?’ the grey man repeated. ‘You can easily help me. I just want to know the time.’

Jaeger didn’t have a clue how he was supposed to respond.

All of a sudden a voice was screaming in his ear: ‘ANSWER THE BASTARD QUESTION!’

A fist made contact with the side of his head, punching him out of the chair. He landed awkwardly. He’d not even known there was anyone else in the room. The shock of it set his pulse hammering like a machine gun.

He caught a glimpse of three muscular, crew-cut guys in dark tracksuits reaching down to grab him. They slammed him back into his seat before melting back into the silence.

The grey man remained utterly inscrutable. He gestured to one of the muscle-bound thugs and they exchanged a few words in a guttural-sounding language, one that Jaeger didn’t understand. Then the chief enforcer pulled out a radio and spoke into it briefly.

The grey man turned back to Jaeger. He sounded almost apologetic. ‘There is really no need for any of this . . . unpleasantness. You will realise shortly that we are not to be resisted, because we hold every card – every single one – in our hand. Helping us will only mean helping yourself, and also your family.’

Jaeger felt his heart miss a beat.

What in God’s name did he mean –
his family
?

19

Jaeger felt a surge of vomit rising from within his guts. By sheer strength of will he forced it back down again. If these were the people who were holding Ruth and Luke, they were going to have to kill him. Otherwise he would get free and rip every last one of their throats out.

There was a click from behind him as the door opened. Jaeger heard someone enter the room and walk past. His eyes bulged disbelievingly. He’d feared as much, but still, surely to God this had to be a dream. He felt like smashing his head against the cold grey wall in an effort to wake himself from the nightmare.

Irina Narov came to a halt with her back to him. She handed something across the desk to the grey man. Wordlessly she turned. She went to hurry past, but as she did so, Jaeger managed to catch a glimpse of the consternation – and the guilt – burning in her eyes.

‘Thank you, Irina,’ the grey man said quietly. He turned his empty, bored eyes on Jaeger. ‘The lovely Irina Narov. You know her, of course.’

Jaeger didn’t respond. There was no point. He sensed there was worse – much worse – to come.

Narov had left a bundle lying on the table. Something about it struck Jaeger as familiar. The grey man pushed it across to him.

‘Take a look. You need to see this. You need to see this to understand why you have no choice but to help us.’

Jaeger reached out, but even as he did so, he sensed with chilling certainty what lay before him. It was Luke’s
SAVE THE RHINO
T-shirt, the one he had got during their family safari to East Africa a few years back. The three of them had trekked across the moonlit savannah amongst herds of giraffe, wildebeest and, best of all, rhinos – their favourite animal. It had been utterly magical. The perfect family holiday. The T-shirts some of their most precious mementoes.

And now this
.

Jaeger’s aching, bloodied fingers grasped at the thin cotton. He lifted it up and held it close to his face, his pulse pounding in his ears. He felt as if his heart was going to burst. Tears pricked his eyes.

They had his family – the murderous, merciless, sick bastards.

‘You must understand – there is no need for any of this.’ The grey man’s words cut through Jaeger’s tortured thoughts. ‘All we need is some answers. You give me the answers we seek, and we reunite you with your loved ones. That is all I ask. What could be easier?’

Jaeger felt his teeth grinding against each other. His jaw locked solid. His muscles were taut with tension as he fought against the blind urge to lash out; to strike back. He knew where it would get him. His hands had been bound with duct tape again, and he could feel the thugs’ eyes upon him, willing him to make the first move.

He had to await his chance. Sooner or later they would make a mistake and then he would strike.

The grey man spread his hands invitingly. ‘So, Mr Jaeger, in an effort to help your family, please tell me: when will your friends be arriving? Who exactly are we to expect? And how are we to recognise them?’

Jaeger felt a war explode within his head. He was being torn in opposite directions. Was he to sell out his closest friends? Betray his fellow warriors? Or lose the only chance he had of seeing Ruth and Luke again?

Screw it, he told himself. Narov had betrayed him. She was supposedly on the side of the angels, but it had all been an act. She had sold him out as no one ever had before.