Operation Napoleon (26 page)

KEFLAVÍK AIRPORT,

SUNDAY 31 JANUARY

The helicopters took off ten minutes apart but the second made better progress and had narrowed the gap by the time they reached Keflavík Airport. They flew straight to the C-17 at the end of runway seven, where each half of the German aircraft was lowered on to a special pallet which was then rolled into the transport plane. There would be no other cargo on this trip. It took no more than half an hour to load the old Junkers into the hold where it was swallowed up by the cavernous interior.

Ratoff strode hurriedly down the runway towards the C-17. He knew Carr was waiting for him on board but no other passengers would be crossing the Atlantic with them. The Delta Force operators would report back to the base over the next fifteen hours, bringing their equipment and vehicles, and the C-17 would make a return journey to fetch them.

By the time Ratoff reached the C-17, the rear section of the German aircraft was in the process of being loaded. He followed in its wake up the ramp and into a hold half the size of a football pitch, lit by powerful strip-lights. The Junkers’ front section was already on board, looking tiny in the belly of the machine. Ratoff stopped to watch the manoeuvres, breathing in the stench of metal, oil and high-octane fuel.

‘Everything went according to plan, I hope,’ said a voice behind him. Turning, he came face to face with Carr. The general had aged since the last time they met, his ashen face was withered and his uniform hung loosely on his frame despite his imposing height. His eyes looked dull and weary behind his glasses and his shoulders sagged.

‘For the most part, sir,’ Ratoff replied.

‘For the most part?’ Carr queried.

‘That girl is unbelievable. She managed to escape from the camp after we caught her, but it’s irrelevant now. She won’t be able to expose this,’ Ratoff said, jerking his head in the direction of the Junkers.

‘Has she found anything out, do you know?’

Ratoff thought.

‘She’s gotten hold of the name Napoleon,’ he said eventually, ‘but I don’t think she knows its significance.’

‘But you do?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Ratoff’s gaze was steady.

‘You’ve read the documents.’

‘It couldn’t be avoided, as I believe you anticipated, sir.’

Carr ignored this.

‘Where on earth can she have heard the name linked to the plane?’

‘Maybe someone on the base told her their suspicions. I didn’t have time to interrogate her properly but I gather that she and her companion, Steve, had visited a retired pilot who fed them some half-baked gossip. When she mentioned Napoleon, it was a last-ditch attempt to play for time. I don’t believe she knows what the name in the documents signifies.’

‘She was lucky to get away from you alive. Not many do.’

‘You knew what you were doing when you put me in charge of the operation, sir.’

‘And what do you think of Operation Napoleon?’

‘I haven’t formed an opinion as such, but I do have the information,’ Ratoff said, holding up the briefcase, ‘and hope that we can come to an agreement.’

‘An agreement?’

‘Yes, an agreement, sir.’

‘I’m afraid there’s no question of any agreement, Ratoff. I thought you understood that.’

Three men suddenly materialised from the shadows and formed a ring around Ratoff. He did not react. As he watched them, he noticed that the other personnel had melted away and they were the only ones left in the hold. The only aspect that took him by surprise was how quickly Carr had acted. The general extended a hand for the briefcase and Ratoff passed it over without resistance.

Carr opened the case, took out some papers and examined them. They were blank, every page of them. He looked back in the case. Nothing.

‘As I say, I hope we can come to an agreement,’ Ratoff repeated.

‘Search him,’ Carr ordered, and two of the men held Ratoff while the third frisked him from head to toe. He found nothing.

‘I prepared an insurance policy for myself,’ Ratoff said. ‘I don’t know if the operation mentioned in the files was actually carried out – I don’t have a clue about that, but I know about the operation and I’m guessing that knowledge is dangerous – as you’ve just confirmed. All that fuss: satellite images, expeditions to the glacier. The rumours about gold, a virus, a bomb, German scientists. All designed to mislead people over a few old papers. You must have known that I would read them, Carr. I knew as soon as I’d looked through them that I was in danger, so I have taken precautions to insure myself against whatever you have planned for me.’

‘What do you want?’ Carr asked.

‘Why, to get out alive, of course,’ Ratoff said, laughing drily, ‘and hopefully somewhat richer.’

‘Money? You want money?’

‘Why don’t we make ourselves more comfortable and discuss this?’ Ratoff asked, eyeing the men surrounding him. ‘I’ve been looking for a way to retire and I believe I may have found it.’

Carr made a final attempt.

‘What are you going to do with those papers? As you say, the operation was never carried out. It was only an idea. A crazy idea, one among many, formulated during the dying days of the war. It has no relevance today. None at all. Why should anyone be interested? We can easily deny the whole affair as an unholy blend of rumour and demented conspiracy theory.’

‘The papers name the island,’ Ratoff said. ‘Imagine a live broadcast from the island.’

‘Even if we did pay you,’ Carr said, ‘and left you in peace, what guarantee would we have that you would leave it at that? That you’re not concealing copies?’

‘What guarantee do I have that you won’t hunt me down and pay me a visit one day?’ Ratoff asked. ‘And how could I have made copies? We didn’t take any photocopiers with us to the glacier and I don’t carry a camera.’

Carr looked even wearier. He had predicted this scenario. After considering the negligible range of alternatives, he nodded at the three men. He did not have time for games, nor any intention of making a deal. Besides, he had never been able to tolerate insubordination, let alone this kind of subterfuge and betrayal. With the mission this close to completion, Ratoff’s conduct seemed, if anything, pitiable.

‘You’re right,’ Carr said, his patience audibly exhausted. He addressed the soldiers: ‘Take him and find out what he’s done with the documents.’

For the first time, Ratoff looked momentarily unsure of himself. Skittering across his unattractive face was the ghost of something that might have been fear.

‘If I don’t make contact by a designated time to confirm that I’m safe, the papers will automatically be released,’ he said quickly.

‘Then get to work fast,’ Carr told the three men and turned on his heel. He did not hear Ratoff’s protests of surprise and alarm because the aircraft’s tail-ramp had begun to lift, sealing the aft door.

C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR SPACE,

SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0500 GMT

At precisely three in the morning the C-17 took off and, after an hour’s flight due west over the Atlantic, changed course, swinging in a smooth curve southwards. It was cruising at an altitude of 35,000 feet, making steady progress in perfect conditions, the thunderous drone of its engines filling the hold which stood empty but for the wreck of the German aircraft.

A heavy steel door connected the flight cabin to the hold. About two hours into the flight, the door opened and Miller appeared. He stepped forwards, closing the door carefully behind him. From where he stood, he could see that the floor of the hold consisted of dozens of rows of thick, mechanised steel rollers that worked like conveyor belts, over which military equipment and armaments could be moved. He was aware that CCTV cameras lining the hold made it possible to monitor the cargo from the flight deck but he would have to take that risk.

The temperature inside was several degrees below freezing and small fluorescent strips provided only a dim illumination. Miller shuffled carefully over to the German aircraft, his breath clouding around him, and began to loosen the tarpaulin from one of the sections, on the side where he believed the fuselage was open. He cut through the ties but, unable to pull the heavy sheeting from the wreckage, resorted to hacking at the plastic until he had made a hole large enough to crawl through. Groping his way forwards, with the aid of a powerful torch which he now switched on, he discovered that he was in the front half of the plane. He did not know which section they had stowed the bodies in. The roof was much lower than he had expected, the cabin surprisingly narrow. Once he reached the cockpit, he panned his torch around, taking in the broken windows, the old instrument deck with its switches and cracked dials, the joystick and levers with which the pilot had once flown the plane. His thoughts strayed to the young man who had last handled those controls and he pictured again, as he had countless times before, the moment of the plane’s impact with the ice. After lingering briefly he turned and retraced his steps.

He tackled the ties and plastic sheeting on the other half of the wreck in a similar manner, not caring if anyone discovered that he had entered it. Being already surplus to requirements lent him a recklessness that he was oddly pleased to discover within himself. A lifetime’s waiting was now at an end. Nor could he persuade himself to wait until they reached their destination; after all, he had no guarantee that Carr would keep his word – that he would be able to keep his word.

Carr had been minded to send him straight home to the States but he had managed to talk him round. Miller knew Carr of old: he had selected him to be his successor, a man of incredible resourcefulness and daring, utterly lacking in sentimentality. Carr had eyed him for a long time as they stood there in the draughty hangar before accepting that Miller could come along for the ride. Miller had no right to be there, even as former chief of the organisation, no right to interfere, no right to make any demands, and he knew it. But he also knew, as did Carr, that the circumstances were highly unusual; they were beyond protocol.

The unrelenting din of the C-17’s engines had taken its toll on Miller by the time he finally succeeded in hacking a hole in the sheeting covering the rear half of the plane. Crawling inside, his head throbbing, he switched on his torch again, shone its beam into the tail-end and immediately spotted the unmistakable outline of the body-bags in the gloom. There were several, each two and a half metres long and the width of a man’s shoulders, fastened with zips running their length. They had been set on the floor of the aircraft. The bags were unmarked, so Miller got down on the floor and began to struggle with the zip on the nearest.

He was met by the blue-white face of a middle-aged man in German uniform. His eyes were closed, his lips black and frostbitten, his nose straight and sharp, a thick mop of hair on his head. Miller half expected the figure to come alive and felt a renewed trepidation at the thought of finding his brother. He dreaded seeing the face he had known so many years ago, lifeless, bloodless, deep frozen.

Hesitantly, he opened the second bag but it was another stranger. By the time he reached the third he was beginning to have doubts – perhaps his brother’s body was still lost in the wastes of the glacier, undiscovered and now surely destined to remain so for ever? He balanced the torch so as to illuminate the bag and, steeling himself, tried to unfasten the zip but it proved to be jammed. It was not completely closed though: a fairly large opening had been left. Not enough to enable him to see inside but enough to push his hands through and grip the sides of the bag. Tugging at the zip with all his might, he managed to haul it up, but when he tried to pull it down again, it jammed. He wrenched again and again until finally the zip gave way.

He was met by a face so different from the first two that his heart lurched. In the dim light of the torch and with his mind ablaze with memories, he believed for an instant that he was seeing his brother as he had been half a century ago. His lips were red, his cheeks ruddy, his skin pale pink. For an instant Miller was gripped by this unnerving illusion. Then it occurred to him that his brother must have grown his hair since their final meeting. This mouth, this nose, the shape of the face – it was all unfamiliar. In fact, he did not remember these features at all.

Miller reeled back, losing his balance, as the corpse, to his stunned amazement, opened its eyes and glared at him. He sprawled on the freezing metal floor of the hold.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Kristín spat, rearing up out of the bag.