Bear Grylls: Ghost Flight

by Bear Grylls

Genres: Action & Adventure; Crime Fiction; Spy Thrillers; Military Thrillers; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

'Unputdownable!' Sir Ranulph Fiennes * * * * * * * A murder. A mystery that will change everything. Will Jaeger's family are gone, and they're not coming back. But there's one thing he can fix. His best friend has been found dead, and he's going to catch the monsters that killed him. To do it, Jaeger assembles an expert team of ex-SAS soldiers. They must head deep into the Amazon rainforest. It seems his friend was on the trail of an old Nazi bomber. And someone definitely wants it kept secret. As things go wrong, and Jaeger closes the net on his friend's killer, he comes to realise one thing. Everything is connected. And, for one man, the War never ended . . . A modern, edge-of-your-seat thriller, shrouded in the shadows cast by Nazi Germany. Great for fans of Gregg Hurwitz, James Swallow, and I Am Pilgrim. * * * * * * * What readers are saying about BEAR GRYLLS: GHOST FLIGHT: 'A gripping thriller set in the darkest of days', Jonathan Ross 'Men don't come much tougher than daredevil climber and adventurer, Bear Grylls', SUN 'A great adventure, superbly written!' Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'If you want a page-turning, action packed adventure story with hints of WWII then look no further ', Amazon reviewer, 5 stars 'Will resonate with fans of classic spy thrillers ', MAIL ON SUNDAY ' I loved it from beginning to end, and I can't wait to read what happens next', Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'Once I finished this one I went straight back & got the next in the Will Jaeger series!', Amazon reviewer, 5 stars

Release date: June 4, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 464

Sample

Harper’s Magazine, October 1946

SECRETS BY THE THOUSANDS

By C. Lester Walker

Someone wrote to Wright Field Airbase recently, saying he understood this country had got together quite a collection of enemy war secrets . . . and could he, please, be sent everything on German jet engines. The Air Documents Division of the Army Air Forces answered:

‘Sorry – but that would be fifty tons.’

Moreover, that fifty tons was just a small portion of what is today undoubtedly the biggest collection of captured enemy war secrets ever assembled. If you always thought of war secrets – and who hasn’t? – as coming in sixes and sevens . . . it may interest you to learn that the war secrets in this collection run into the thousands, that the mass of documents is mountainous, and that there has never before been anything quite comparable to it.



Daily Mail, March 1988

THE PAPERCLIP CONSPIRACY

By Tom Bower

The Paperclip Conspiracy was the climax of an astonishing battle between the Allies in the aftermath of the war to seize the spoils of Nazi Germany. Just weeks after Hitler’s defeat, men classified as ‘ardent Nazis’ were chosen by senior officers in the Pentagon to become respectable American citizens.

While in Britain political controversy inhibited plans to hire incriminated Germans in the drive for economic recovery, the French and Russians took on anyone regardless of their crimes, and the Americans, through a web of deceit, sanitised the murderous record of their Nazi scientists.

The proof of German technical prowess is overwhelmingly established in the hundreds of reports written by Allied investigators, who do not shy away from describing the Germans’ ‘astonishing achievements’ and ‘superb invention’.

Hitler does indeed have the last laugh on his enemies.



The Sunday Times, December 2014

VAST SECRET NAZI ‘TERROR WEAPONS’ SITE UNCOVERED IN AUSTRIA

By Bojan Pancevski

A secret underground complex built by the Nazis towards the end of the Second World War that may have been used for the development of weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear bomb, has been uncovered in Austria.

The vast facility was discovered last week near the town of St Georgen an der Gusen. It is believed to be connected to the nearby B8 Bergkristall underground factory that produced the Messerschmitt Me 262, the first operational jet-powered fighter, which posed a brief threat to Allied air forces in the war’s closing stages. Declassified intelligence documents as well as testimony from witnesses helped excavators identify the concealed entrance.

‘This was a gigantic industrial complex and most likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich,’ said Andreas Sulzer, an Austrian documentary film-maker who is in charge of the excavations.

Sulzer assembled a team of historians and found further evidence of scientists working on the secret project, which was managed by SS General Hans Kammler. Kammler was in charge of Hitler’s missile programmes, including the V-2 rocket used against London in the latter stages of the war.

He was known as a brilliant but ruthless commander, who had signed off the blueprints for the gas chambers and crematoria at the Auschwitz concentration camp complex in southern Poland. Rumours persist that he was captured by the Americans and given a new identity after the war.

Sulzer’s excavation was stopped last Wednesday by local authorities, who demanded a permit for research on historic sites. But he is confident that digging can resume next month. ‘Prisoners from concentration camps across Europe were hand-picked for their special skills – physicists, chemists or other experts – to work on this monstrous project, and we owe it to the victims to finally open the site and reveal the truth,’ said Sulzer.

1

His eyes opened.

Slowly.

Peeling apart eyelash by eyelash, straining against the thick crust of blood that fused one with the other. Cracks sprung a fraction at a time, like broken glass over bloodshot eyeballs. The brightness seemed to scorch into his retina, as if a laser was being focused on to his eyeballs. But who by? Who were the enemy . . . his tormentors? And where in God’s name were they?

He couldn’t remember the slightest damn thing.

What day was it? What year was it, even? How had he got here – wherever here might be?

The sunlight hurt like hell, but at least his sight was returning to him, little by little.

The first concrete object that Will Jaeger became aware of was the cockroach. It swam into focus, looking blurry, monstrous and alien as it filled his entire vision.

As far as he could tell, his head seemed to be lying sideways on a floor. Concrete. Covered in a thick brownish scum. With his head at this angle, the cockroach appeared to be approaching as if it was about to crawl right inside his left eye socket.

The beast flicked its feelers towards him, at the last moment drifting out of sight, scuttling past the tip of his nose. And then Jaeger felt it claw its way up the side of his head.

The cockroach stopped somewhere around his right temple – the one that was lying furthest from the floor, fully exposed to the air.

It started feeling around with its front legs and mandibles.

As if it were searching for something. Tasting something.

Jaeger felt it begin to chew; biting into flesh; insect jaws carving their way in. He sensed the hissy, hollow clacking of the roach’s serrated mandibles, as they ripped away shreds of rotten meat. And then – as the scream left his lips soundlessly – he sensed that there were dozens more swarming over him . . . as if he were long dead.

Jaeger fought down the waves of nausea, one question crashing through his brain: why couldn’t he hear himself scream?

With a superhuman effort he moved his right arm.

It was just the barest fraction, but still he felt as if he were trying to lift the entire world. Each centimetre that he managed to raise it, his shoulder socket and elbow joint screamed out in agony, his muscles spasming with the puny effort he was forcing from them.

He felt like a cripple.

What in God’s name had happened to him?

What had they done to him?

Gritting his teeth, and focusing on the sheer force of will, he drew the arm towards his head, dragging his hand across his ear, scrabbling at it, desperately. The fingers made contact with . . . legs. Scaly, spiny, insect-savage legs, each twitching and pulsing as it tried to force the cockroach body deeper into his ear hole.

Get them out of there! Get them out! Get them OUUUUTTT!

He felt like vomiting, but there was nothing in his guts. Just a shitty dry film of near-death, which coated everything – his stomach lining, his throat, his mouth; even his nostrils.

Oh shit! His nostrils. They were trying to crawl in there too!

Jaeger cried out again. Longer. More despairing. This is not the way to die. Please, not like this . . .

Again and again his fingers scrabbled at his bodily orifices, the roaches kicking and hissing their insect anger as he prised them free.

At long last the sound started to bleed back through to his senses. First, his own desperate cries echoed through his bloodied ears. And then he became aware of something mixed in – something more chilling even than the scores of insects that were intent on feasting on his brains.

A human voice.

Deep-throated. Cruel. A voice that revelled in pain.

His jailer.

The voice brought it all flooding back. Black Beach Prison. The jail at the end of the earth. A place where people were sent to be tortured horribly and to die. Jaeger had been thrown in here for a crime he’d never committed, on the orders of a crazed and murderous dictator – and that was when the real horrors had begun.

Compared to waking to this hell, Jaeger preferred even the dark peace of unconsciousness; anything rather than the weeks he’d spent locked away in this place worse than damnation – his prison cell. His tomb.

He willed his mind to slip away again, back towards the soft, formless, shifting shades of grey that had sheltered him before something – what was it? – had dragged him up to this unspeakable present.

The movements of his right arm became weaker and weaker. It dropped to the floor again.

Let the cockroaches feast on his brains. Even that was preferable.

Then the thing that had woken him hit again – a rush of cold liquid to the face, like the slap of a wave at sea. Only the smell was so different. Not the ice-pure, bracing aroma of the ocean. This smell was fetid; the salt tang of a urinal that hadn’t seen a lick of disinfectant for years.

His tormentor laughed again.

This was real sport.

Chucking the contents of the toilet bucket in the prisoner’s face – what could be better?

Jaeger spat out the foul liquid. Blinked it away from his burning eyes. At least the blast of putrefying fluid had driven the roaches away. His mind searched for the right words – the choicest expletives that he could fling in his jailer’s face.

Proof of life. A show of resistance.

‘Go and . . .’

Jaeger began to speak, croaking out the kind of insult that would for sure secure him a beating with that same flex hose that he had learned to dread.

But if he didn’t resist, he was done for. Resistance was all he knew.

Yet he didn’t get to finish those words. They froze in his throat.

Suddenly, another voice cut in, one so familiar – so brotherly – that for several long moments Jaeger felt certain he had to be dreaming. The incantation was soft at first, but growing both in power and in volume; a rhythmical chant replete somehow with the promise of the impossible . . .

‘Ka mate, ka mate. Ka ora, ka ora.

Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!’

Jaeger would know that voice anywhere.

Takavesi Raffara; how could he be here?

When they’d been teammates playing the British Army at rugby, it had been Raff who’d led the haka – the traditional Maori pre-match war dance. Always. He’d rip off his shirt, ball his fists, and ripple forward to get eyeball-to-eyeball with the opposing team, hands thumping his massive chest, legs like pillared tree trunks, arms like battering rams, the rest of his team – Jaeger included – flanking him, fearless, unstoppable.

His eyes had bulged, tongue swollen, face frozen in a rictus of warrior challenge as he’d thundered out the lines.

‘KA MATE! KA MATE! KA ORA! KA ORA!’ Will I die? Will I die? Will I live? Will I live?

Raff had proven equally relentless when standing shoulderto-shoulder on the battlefield. The ultimate fellow warrior. Maori by birth and Royal Marines Commando by destiny, he had soldiered with Jaeger across the four corners of the earth, and he was one of his closest brothers.

Jaeger swivelled his eyes right, towards the source of the chanting.

Out of the corner of his vision he could just make out a figure standing on the far side of the cell’s bars. Massive. Dwarfing even his jailer. Smile like a shaft of pure sunlight breaking through after a dark storm seemingly without end.

‘Raff?’ The single word was rasped out, ringing with a barely suspended disbelief.

‘Yeah. It’s me.’ That smile. ‘Seen you looking worse, mate. Like that time I dragged you out of that Amsterdam bar. Still, best get you cleaned up. I’ve come to get you, mate. Get you out of here. We’re flying BA to London – first class.’

Jaeger didn’t respond. What words were there? How could Raff be here, in this place, seemingly so close at hand?

‘Best get going,’ Raff prompted. ‘Before Major Mojo your buddy here changes his mind.’

‘Yah, Bob Marley!’ Jaeger’s tormentor forced a mock joviality from behind evil slits of eyes. ‘Bob Marley – you the real joker man.’

Raff grinned from ear to ear.

He was the only man Jaeger had ever seen who could smile at someone with a look that could freeze the very blood. The Bob Marley reference had to refer to Raff’s hair – worn long, in braids, the traditional Maori way. As many had learned on the rugby field, Raff didn’t take well to anyone disrespecting his choice of head apparel.

‘Unlock the cell door,’ Raff grated. ‘Me and my friend Mr Jaeger – we’re leaving.’

2

The jeep pulled away from Black Beach Prison, Raff hunched over the wheel. He handed Jaeger a water bottle.

‘Drink.’ He jerked a thumb at the back seat. ‘There’s more in the cooler. Get as much down you as you can. You need to rehydrate. We’ve got one hell of a day ahead of us . . .’

Raff lapsed into silence, his mind on the journey that lay before them.

Jaeger let the quiet hang in the air.

After weeks in that prison, his body was a mass of burning. Every joint screamed with agony. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since he’d been thrown into that cell; since he’d travelled anywhere in a vehicle; since his body had been exposed to the full blast of Bioko’s tropical sunlight.

He flinched in pain with every jolt of the vehicle. They were following the ocean road – a narrow stretch of blacktop that led into Malabo, Bioko’s one major town. There were precious few surfaced roads in the tiny African island nation. Mostly, the country’s oil wealth went into funding a new palace for the President, or another of his fleet of giant yachts, or to further inflating his Swiss bank accounts.

Raff gestured at the vehicle’s dash. ‘Pair of shades in there, mate. You look like you’re struggling.’

‘Been a while since I’ve seen the sun.’

Jaeger flicked open the glove compartment and pulled out what looked like a pair of Oakleys. He studied them for an instant. ‘Fakes? You always were a bloody cheapskate.’

Raff laughed. ‘Who dares wins.’

Jaeger let a smile creep across his battered features. It hurt like hell to do so. He felt as if he hadn’t smiled in a lifetime; as if the smile was cracking his face right in two.

In recent weeks Jaeger had come to believe he was never getting out of that prison cell. No one who mattered had even known he was there. He’d become convinced that he would die in Black Beach, unseen and forgotten, and that, like countless corpses before, his would be thrown to the sharks.

He couldn’t quite fathom it – that he was alive and free.

His jailer had let them out via the shadowed basement – the place that housed the torture cubicles – sliding wordlessly past blood-spattered walls. The place where the trash was dumped, plus the bodies of those who’d died in their cells and were ready to be thrown into the sea.

Jaeger couldn’t imagine what kind of deal Raff had cut, to enable him to walk.

No one walked from Black Beach Prison.

Not ever.

‘How did you find me?’ Jaeger let his words fall heavy into the silence.

Raff shrugged. ‘Wasn’t easy. Took a few of us: Feaney, Carson, me.’ He laughed. ‘You glad we bothered?’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘I was just getting to know Major Mojo. Nice guy. The kind you’d want to marry your sister.’ He eyed the big Maori. ‘But how did you find me? And why . . .’

‘Always there for you, buddy. Plus . . .’ A shadow fell across Raff’s features. ‘You’re needed back in London. An assignment. We both are.’

‘What kind of assignment?’

Raff’s expression grew darker still. ‘I’ll brief you when we’re out of here – ’cause there ain’t gonna be no assignment until we are.’

Jaeger took a long pull on the water. Cool, clear bottled water – it tasted like sweet nectar compared to what he’d been forced to live off in Black Beach.

‘So what’s next? You got me out of Black Beach; doesn’t mean we’re off Hell Island. That’s what they call it around here.’

‘So I heard. Deal I cut with Major Mojo – he gets his third payment once you and I are on our flight to London. Only we won’t be making that flight. The airport: that’s where he’ll grab us. He’ll have a reception party waiting. He’ll claim I busted you out of Black Beach, but he recaptured us. That way, he gets two paydays – one from us, and a second from the President.’

Jaeger shuddered. It was the President of Bioko – Honore Chambara – who’d ordered his arrest in the first place. A month or so back there had been an attempted coup. Mercenaries had seized the other half of Equatorial Guinea – Bioko being the country’s island capital – the half that lay just across the ocean, forming part of the African mainland.

In the aftermath, President Chambara had rounded up all foreigners on Bioko – not that there were many. Jaeger had been one of them, and a search of his digs had turned up the odd memento from his time as a soldier.

As soon as Chambara had heard, he’d figured Jaeger had to be in on the coup; their man on the inside. Which he wasn’t. He was here in Bioko for an entirely different – and innocent – set of reasons, but there was no convincing Chambara. On the President’s orders, Jaeger had been thrown into Black Beach Prison, where Major Mojo had done his best to break him; to force him to confess.

Jaeger slipped on the shades. ‘You’re right – we’ll never make it out of here via the airport. You got a Plan B?’

Raff threw him a look. ‘Way I heard it, you were here working as a teacher. Teaching English. At a village in the far north of the island. I paid them a visit. A bunch of fishermen there figure you’re the best thing that ever happened on Hell Island. Taught their kids to read ’n’ write. More than President Chugga ever did.’ He paused. ‘They’ve readied a canoe so we can make a break for Nigeria.’

Jaeger thought about it for a second. He’d spent close to three years on Bioko. He’d got to know the local fishing communities well. The journey across the Gulf of Guinea by canoe – it was doable. Maybe.

‘It’s thirty klicks, or thereabouts,’ he volunteered. ‘The fishermen do it now and then – when the weather’s set fair. You got a map?’

Raff gestured at a small flight bag lying at Jaeger’s feet. Jaeger reached for it, painfully, and rifled through the contents. He found the map, unfolded it and studied the lie of the land. Bioko lay in the very crook of the armpit of Africa – a tiny island thick with jungle, no more than a hundred kilometres long by fifty kilometres wide.

The nearest African country was Cameroon, lying north and west of there, with Nigeria set further to the west again. A good two hundred kilometres south lay what had been, until recently, the other half of President Chambara’s domain – the mainland part of Equatorial Guinea – that was, until the coup plotters had seized it.

‘Cameroon’s closest,’ Jaeger remarked.

‘Cameroon? Nigeria?’ Raff shrugged. ‘Right now, anywhere’s better than here.’

‘How long till nightfall?’ Jaeger queried. He’d lost his watch to Chambara’s thugs, long before he’d been dragged into his Black Beach cell. ‘Under cover of darkness, we might just make it.’

‘Six hours. I’m giving you one hour max at the hotel. You spend it scrubbing all that shit off, and necking water – because no way are you gonna make it unless you rehydrate. Like I said, big day still to come.’

‘Mojo knows which hotel you’re staying at?’

Raff snorted. ‘No point trying to hide. Island this size – everyone knows everything. Come to think of it, reminds me a bit of

home . . .’ His teeth flashed in the sunlight. ‘Mojo won’t cause us any trouble – not for a good few hours. He’ll be checking if his money has cleared – by which time we’ll be long gone.’

Jaeger drank the bottled water, forcing gulp after gulp down his parched throat. Trouble was, his stomach had shrunk to the size of a walnut. If they hadn’t beaten and tortured him to death, the starvation diet would have done for him pretty soon, that was for certain.

‘Teaching kids.’ Raff smiled, knowingly. ‘So what were you really up to?’

‘I was teaching kids.’

‘Right. Teaching kids. You got nothing whatsoever to do with the coup?’

‘President Chugga kept asking me the same question. In between the beatings. He could use a man like you.’

‘Okay, you were teaching kids. English. In a fishing village.’

‘I was teaching kids.’ Jaeger stared out the window; the smile had fallen from his face completely. ‘Plus, if you’ve got to know, I needed somewhere to hide. To think. Bioko – the asshole at the end of the universe. I never thought anyone would find me.’ He paused. ‘You proved me wrong.’

The hotel pit stop had done Jaeger a world of good. He’d showered. Three times. By the third, the water that swirled down the plughole was just about clean.

He’d forced a dose of rehydration salts down him. He’d sliced off his beard – a five-week growth – but stopped short of shaving. There hadn’t been the time.

He’d checked himself over for breaks; miraculously, there didn’t seem to be many. He was thirty-eight years old, and he’d kept himself fit on the island. A decade in the military elite prior to that – he’d been pretty much at the peak of physical condition when they’d thrown him into his cell. Maybe that was why he’d emerged from Black Beach comparatively unscathed.

He figured he had a couple of broken fingers; ditto his toes.

Nothing that wouldn’t heal.

A quick change of clothes and Raff had them back in the SUV, heading east out of Malabo into the thick tropical bush. At first he drove hunched over the wheel like an old granny – 30 mph top speed. He did so to check for a tail. The few who were lucky enough to own a car in Bioko all seemed to drive like the proverbial bat out of hell.

If a vehicle had stuck to their backside, it would have stood out a mile.

By the time they turned on to the tiny dirt track threading towards the north-east coast, it was clear that no one was following.

Major Mojo had to be banking on them leaving via the airport. In theory, there was no other way off the island – not unless you wanted to take your chances amongst the tropical storms and the sharks that circled Bioko, ravenously.

And there were precious few who ever did that.

3

Chief Ibrahim gestured towards the Fernao village beach. It was close enough for the sound of the surf to echo through the thin mud walls of his hut.

‘We have readied a canoe. It is provisioned with water and food.’ The chief paused and touched Jaeger’s shoulder. ‘We will never forget, especially the children.’

‘Thank you,’ Jaeger replied. ‘I won’t, either. You’ve all saved me in more ways than I can explain.’

The chief glanced at a figure standing at his side – a young, finely muscled man. ‘My son is one of the best seamen in all Bioko . . . You are sure you will not let the men ferry you across? You know they would gladly do so.’

Jaeger shook his head. ‘When President Chambara finds out I’m gone, he’ll take revenge any way he can. Any excuse. We say our goodbyes here. It’s the only way.’

The chief rose to his feet. ‘It has been three fine years, William. Insh’Allah you will make it across the Gulf and from there to your home. And one day, when the curse of Chambara finally is lifted, insh’Allah you will come back and visit.’

‘Insh’Allah,’ Jaeger echoed. He and the chief shook hands. ‘I’d like that.’

Jaeger glanced momentarily at a line of faces that ringed the hut. Kids. Dusty, scuffed up, semi-naked – but happy. Maybe that was what the children here had taught him – the meaning of happiness.

His eyes returned to the chief. ‘Tell them why for me, but only when we’re good and gone.’

The chief smiled. ‘I will. Now go. You have done here many good things. Go with that knowledge, and with lightness in your heart.’

Jaeger and Raff made their way towards the beach, threading through the cover of the thickest groves of palm trees. The fewer people who saw them make their getaway, the fewer who were likely to suffer any reprisals.

It was Raff who broke the silence. He could tell how much it pained his friend to abandon his young charges.

‘Insh’Allah?’ he queried. ‘The villagers round here – they’re Muslim?’

‘They are. And you know what – these people, they’re some of the best-hearted I ever met.’

Raff eyed him. ‘Three years alone on Bioko Island, and bugger me if the mighty Jaeger-bomb has gone soft.’

Jaeger flashed his friend a wry smile. Maybe Raff was right. Maybe he had.

They were approaching the pristine white sands of the beach when a figure ran up beside them, panting breathlessly. Barefooted, bare-chested, and dressed only in a pair of raggedy shorts, he looked to be no more than eight years old. The expression on his face was one of panic approaching terror.

‘Sir, sir!’ He grabbed Jaeger’s hand. ‘They are coming. President Chambara’s men. My father – someone radioed through a warning. They are coming! To find you! To take you back!’

Jaeger crouched down until he was at the boy’s eye level. ‘Little Mo, listen: no one’s taking me back.’ He slipped off the fake Oakleys and pressed them into the kid’s hand. He ruffled the boy’s dusty, child-wiry hair. ‘Let’s see them on, then,’ he prompted.

Little Mo slid the sunglasses over his eyes. They were so large that he had to hold them in place.

Jaeger grinned. ‘Dude! You look awesome! But keep them hidden – at least until Chambara’s men are gone.’ A pause. ‘Now, run. Get back to your father. Stay inside. And Mo, tell him from me – thanks for the warning.’

The kid gave Jaeger one last hug, full of reluctance at their parting, before he scuttled off, tears pricking his eyes.

Jaeger and Raff melted into the cover of the nearby bush. They crouched low, whisper-distance close, Jaeger grabbing Raff’s wrist so as to do a quick time check.

‘Around two hours to last light,’ he murmured. ‘Two options . . . One, we make a break for it right now, in broad daylight. Two, we hide up and sneak away come nightfall. From what I know of Chambara, he’ll get his fast patrol boats out scouring the ocean, in addition to whatever force he’s sending direct to the village. It’s no more than forty minutes by boat from Malabo: we’ll barely have hit the water before they’re on top of us. Which means . . . no choice: we wait for nightfall.’

Raff nodded. ‘Mate, you’ve been here three years. You got the local knowledge. But we need a hiding place where no one will ever think to look for us.’

His eyes scanned their surroundings, coming to rest upon the dark and brooding vegetation lying at the far end of the beach. ‘Mangrove swamp. Snakes, crocs, mosquitoes, scorpions, leeches and waist-deep shitty mud. Last place anyone sane would ever want to hide.’

Raff delved deep in his pocket, pulling out a distinctivelooking knife. He handed it to Jaeger. ‘Keep it handy, just in case.’

Jaeger slipped it open and felt across the five-inch semiserrated blade, testing it for keenness. ‘This another fake?’

Raff scowled. ‘With weaponry, I don’t cut corners.’

‘So, Chambara’s men are on their way,’ Jaeger mused, ‘no doubt to drag us back to Black Beach. And we’ve got one blade between us . . .’

Raff pulled out a second, identical knife. ‘Trust me, even getting these through Bioko airport was a miracle.’

Jaeger gave a bleak smile. ‘Okay, one blade each: we’re unstoppable.’

The two men flitted through the palm grove towards the distant swampland.

From the outside, the maze of wild, tangled roots and branches looked impenetrable. Undeterred, Raff dropped to a belly-crawl and squirmed his way ahead, slipping through impossible gaps, unseen creatures slithering out of his way. He didn’t stop until he was a good sixty feet inside, Jaeger crawling closely behind him.

The last thing Jaeger had done on the beach was grab some old palm fronds and scuttle backwards across the sand, wiping their footprints away. By the time he’d wriggled his way deep inside the mangroves, every last sign of their passing had been swept clean.

The two men proceeded to immerse themselves in the evil-smelling black mud that formed the base of the swamp. By the time they were done, just their heads remained above the surface, and even those were coated in a thick film of muck and filth. The only thing that picked them out from their surroundings was the whites of their eyes.

Jaeger could feel the dark surface of the swamp bubbling and seething with life all around him. ‘Almost makes me homesick for Black Beach,’ he muttered.

Raff grunted an acknowledgement, the flash of his teeth the only thing that revealed his position.

Jaeger’s eyes roved around the latticework of wood that formed a tight-woven cathedral above their heads. Even the largest mangrove was no thicker than a man’s wrist, rising to little more than twenty feet in height. But where the roots thrust out of the mud and were washed daily by the tide, they grew arrow straight for a good five feet or more.

Raff reached for one and sawed through it at ground level, using the serrated edge of his knife to do so. He made a further cut at around four feet, handing the length of wood to Jaeger.

Jaeger flashed him a questioning look.

‘Krav Maga,’ Raff growled. ‘Stick-fighting skills with Corporal Carter. Ring any bells?’

Jaeger smiled. How could he forget?

He took his blade and began to hone one end of the hard, tough wood, tapering it into an arrow-like point.

Slowly, a short, sharp stabbing spear took shape.

Corporal Carter had been the doyen of weaponry, not to mention hand-to-hand combat. Both he and Raff had t