Ghost Flight

by Bear Grylls

Jaeger’s mind was racing. The enemy must have overrun one of his ambush parties and captured at least some of them alive. From there it would have been easy enough to load them aboard the helicopter, using the Ju 390’s former resting place as a convenient landing zone.

  ‘I believe some of you may know this savage,’ the Black Hawk commander sneered. ‘His name means “the big pig”. Highly appropriate. Now, watch him fly.’

  Moments later a stick-like figure tumbled out of the lead Black Hawk.

  Even from such a distance, Jaeger could tell that it was an Amahuaca warrior, silently screaming as he fell. He was quickly swallowed by the cloud mass, but not before Jaeger figured he’d recognised the collar of short feathers strung around his neck – the gwyrag’waja – each feather signifying an enemy killed in battle.

  He felt a blinding blaze of rage sweep over him, as the body of what appeared to be Puruwehua’s brother plummeted out of sight. Gwaihutiga had saved Jaeger’s life on the rope bridge, and now he’d very likely been hurled to his death as a result of Jaeger and his team trying to save their own skins. Jaeger smashed his fist into the wall of the aircraft, his mind a whirl of sickening anger and frustration.

  ‘I have several more of these savages,’ the Black Hawk commander continued. ‘For every minute you do not agree to alter course and bearing to grid 497865, another will be thrown to his death. Oh, and your expedition team – they will also follow. Do as ordered. Alter course. One minute and counting.’

  ‘Wait out.’

  Again Jaeger’s phone bleeped with a message: Response?

  Jaeger glanced at Dale and Narov: what the hell was he supposed to say? As if in answer, Narov waved the satchel full of documents at him.

  ‘There’s something they want on this warplane,’ she declared. ‘Something they need. They cannot shoot us down.’

  Jaeger’s hand hovered over the Thuraya’s keypad as he willed himself to type what he knew he had to. With a wave of bitter nausea rising from the base of his guts he punched out the message: They need warplane intact. Will not shoot us down. Do not comply. Resist.

  ‘We are proceeding to destination as planned.’ Raff’s voice came up on the airwaves. ‘And be warned: we are filming your every action and beaming it live to a server, where it’s being uploaded to the internet.’ It wasn’t entirely true, of course, but it was a classic bit of Raff improvisation and bluff. ‘You are being filmed, and you will be arraigned and charged for your crimes—’

  ‘Bullshit,’ the enemy commander cut in. ‘We are a flight of unmarked Black Hawks. Don’t you get it, asshole? We are beyond deniable. We – don’t – exist. You think you can try ghosts for war crimes? Asshole. Change course as ordered, or face the consequences. The blood is on your hands . . .’

  Another stick figure plunged from the helicopter.

  As it tumbled through the blinding blue, Jaeger tried to blank from his mind the thought of Puruwehua slamming into the jungle far below. It was impossible to identify exactly which Indian the Black Hawk crew had tossed into thin air, but death was death; murder was murder.

  How much blood would lie on his hands?

  ‘So far so good,’ the Black Hawk commander continued. ‘We have used up two of our quota of savages. We have one remaining. Will you comply with my orders, Mr Raffara, or does this last one have to learn to fly as well?’

  There was no response from Raff. If they changed course and put the Airlander – and the Ju 390 – down on the grid as given, they were finished. They both knew that. During Krav Maga training, Raff and Jaeger had been taught the two orders never to comply with: one was being relocated; the other being tied up. Both spelled disaster. To obey such an order now would not end well for anyone.

  Jaeger averted his eyes as a third figure spun through the sunlit skies, arms flailing helplessly as they tried to grab at the thin atmosphere. A memory flashed through Jaeger’s mind: it was of Puruwehua telling him how often he had flown like the topena, the big white hawk that soared over the mountains.

  I have flown high as the topena, Puruwehua had told him. I have flown over wide oceans and to distant mountains.

  The memory tortured Jaeger almost beyond his capacity to withstand.

  ‘So now, Mr Raffara – now we move on to the really interesting part. Act Two – your fellow team members. First up, look at the figure in our open doorway. He does not look very keen to learn to fly. Alter course towards the grid as given, or he is going to take a one-way journey to splattergeddon.’ The Black Hawk commander laughed at his own joke. ‘One minute and counting . . .’

  Jaeger’s satphone bleeped. Response?

  Jaeger could see the shock of white-blond hair glistening in the sun as a figure was forced towards the Black Hawk’s doorway. Though Jaeger believed Stefan Kral to be the traitor in their midst, he couldn’t be absolutely certain, and the thought of Kral’s young family at home in Luton further twisted and cramped his guts.

  He forced himself to punch out a reply. Warn them that CE has fast jets on the way. Keep him talking.

  ‘We are proceeding to destination as planned.’ Raff’s voice came up on the air. ‘And be warned – we have an escort of Brazilian air force fast jets inbound—’

  ‘We know all about your B-SOB friends,’ the Black Hawk commander cut in. ‘You think you have friends in high places!’ He laughed. ‘You would not believe where we have friends. In any case, the colonel’s aircraft are a good ninety minutes away. Comply with my orders, or more will die.’

  ‘Negative,’ Raff repeated. ‘We are proceeding to our destination as planned.’

  ‘So, I bring my aircraft a little nearer,’ the Black Hawk commander announced. ‘That way, you can wish your friend a pleasant ride.’

  The three helicopters closed in, sticking to their tight formation, until they were no more than 250 yards away from both the Airlander and the Ju 390. When they were in position, the distinctive figure of the Slovakian cameraman was forced to the very brink of the Black Hawk’s open doorway.

  ‘Last chance,’ the Black Hawk commander rasped. ‘Alter course as ordered.’

  ‘Negative,’ Raff repeated. ‘We are proceeding to our destination.’

  Moments later, Stefan Kral was forced out.

  As his body tumbled earthwards, cartwheeling through the blinding blue, Jaeger could hear Dale vomiting on to the floor behind him. Jaeger himself felt ripped apart.

  Traitor or not, this was no way for anyone’s life – let alone that of a young father – to end.

  82

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Raffara,’ the Black Hawk commander announced. ‘You have been happy to see four of your friends die. So, the last candidate for the death ride – it is Ms Leticia Santos! Oh yeah – and we all know how those Brazilian ladies love to ride. Alter course, Mr Raffara. Obey my orders. Or the death of the delightful Ms Santos will haunt you for the rest of your days.’

  The satphone bleeped: Response?

  Jaeger stared at the screen, his mind whirling at breakneck speed. Whatever way he looked at it, he was all out of options. The killing had to stop. He would not let Leticia be thrown to the wolves. But what alternative was there?

  Involuntarily his free hand went to the carnivale scarf that he had knotted around his neck. A sudden idea flashed briefly through his eyes, coming back to centre itself more solidly in his consciousness. It was a crazy, warped idea, but right now he figured it was about the best they’d got.

  He punched out a message on the Thuraya’s keypad. Act as if complying. Alter course. Standby.

  Raff’s voice came up on the air. ‘Affirmative, we are complying with your orders. Altering course to bearing 0845 degrees. ETA at your grid as given in fifteen – repeat one-five – minutes.’

  ‘Excellent, Mr Raffara. I am glad to see you are finally learning how to keep your people alive . . .’

  Jaeger didn’t wait to catch the last words. He grabbed Narov, unbolted the door leading into the Ju 390’s hold, and sprinted for a cargo
crate lying in the far reaches of the aircraft’s shadowed rear.

  He bent over the long packing crate that held the Fliegerfaust shoulder-launched missiles. For a moment he reached for his knife, before remembering that he’d given it to Puruwehua. An instant later Narov was beside him, hacking at the crate with her seven-inch Fairbairn–Sykes blade.

  The tough rope fastenings fell away, and – having prised the nails out with the blade – the two of them wrenched the wooden lid aside.

  They reached in and lifted out the first of the two crated rocket launchers. It was surprisingly light, but it wasn’t the weight that concerned Jaeger right now. It was the weapon’s mechanism. Most modern shoulder-launched missiles used a battery-operated electronic firing system. If the Fliegerfaust employed something similar, the batteries would have long gone flat and they were done for.

  Jaeger was banking on the launcher working on a simple mechanical system, in which case it should still be usable. He ran his eye over the forward handgrip and the trigger mechanism to the rear. He placed the launcher on his shoulder and laid his eye against the cold steel of the sight: it consisted of a basic metal rail running the length of the dorsal surface, to look along and aim.

  Just as he’d hoped, the Fliegerfaust’s operating apparatus appeared to be one hundred per cent mechanical. The rocket launchers had been left well oiled and there didn’t appear to be a speck of rust upon them. Even the multiple barrels seemed smooth and crystal clear. After seven decades in a box, there was no reason why they shouldn’t work just fine.

  Narov reached into the crate and fished out the nine-round missile set – each a 20 mm projectile measuring about eight inches long. As Jaeger held the weapon steady, she slotted the rounds into the launcher’s tubes; they gave a resounding thunk as they slid home.

  ‘You pull the trigger, it fires two salvoes,’ Narov explained, her voice tight with urgency. ‘One of four, followed by one of five – the second a split second after the first.’

  Jaeger nodded. ‘We need both launchers locked and loaded. You good to operate the second?’

  Narov’s eyes blazed with a killer smile. ‘With pleasure. They were right to nickname you the Hunter.’

  They readied the second launcher, then moved across to the cargo door set in the Ju 390’s hold. Only an hour or so earlier, Jaeger had closed it in preparation for their lift out of the jungle. Little had he imagined that he’d need to throw it open again any time soon, and for the kind of action that he now had in mind.

  He grabbed his Thuraya and typed a message. Engaging Black Hawks from rear of Ju 390. Will not hit Santos aircraft. Stand by.

  His phone beeped once. Affirmative.

  Jaeger eyed Narov. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Ready,’ Narov confirmed.

  ‘I’ll go for the one at nine o’clock, you go for the one at three. Do not hit Santos’s aircraft.’

  Narov nodded curtly.

  ‘Soon as we kick the doors open,’ Jaeger added, ‘let rip.’

  He reached out and unlatched the cargo door, then sat back on the floor of the warplane and braced his boots against his side. Narov did the same. Jaeger didn’t believe for one moment that the Black Hawk commander knew there was a force manning the Ju 390.

  He was about to learn otherwise.

  ‘NOW!’

  Jaeger booted hard, and Narov did likewise. The doors flew open and Jaeger raised himself on one knee, the Fliegerfaust braced on his shoulder. The nearest Black Hawk was no more than two hundred yards away. He lined the simple iron sight up with the cockpit, said a brief prayer that the launcher would work, and pulled the trigger.

  Four missiles streaked away, the backblast from their eruption punching a fiery cloud of choking fumes into the Ju 390’s hold. Jaeger held his aim, and a split second later the five remaining projectiles blazed towards their target. Beside him, Narov unleashed with her weapon, nine missiles blasting through the heavens towards the second Black Hawk.

  Armour-piercing and high-explosive, each rocket was stabilised by a set of small holes drilled around its tail. A tiny amount of the rocket’s exhaust fumes voided through those holes, spinning the projectile along its axis. It was the spin that ensured the rockets would fly true to their target – in the same way that a bullet fired from a gun was set to spin via the barrel’s rifling.

  Jaeger saw five of his veer wide of the mark, but four struck home. The 20 mm projectiles sparked grey puffs of smoke along the Black Hawk’s flank as the armour-piercing tips sliced through the metal skin. A split second later, the high-explosive charges detonated, raking the inside of the aircraft with a storm of burning-hot jagged shrapnel.

  The blast punched out the windshield of the cockpit and shattered the side windows, shrapnel lacerating the bodies of those riding inside. Moments later, the helo veered off course and fell into a steep dive, trailing a column of angry grey smoke in its wake.

  To its rear, target number two had fared even worse. In the moment of maximum need, the sniper – the assassin? – within Narov had come to the fore. Eight of her missiles had struck home, just one lone projectile veering wide of the target.

  At least one of the 20 mm rockets must have pierced the Black Hawk’s fuel tank. Full enough to complete a 600-kilometre combat sortie, there was fuel in there to burn and burn. A gout of angry orange flame erupted from the helicopter, and a moment later it disintegrated in a massive, blinding fireball.

  Jaeger felt the heat of the blast wave wash over him, as fingers of burning shrapnel reached out from the epicentre of the explosion. For a moment, the fiery conflagration seemed to menace the Airlander above, before the plumes of burning debris tumbled towards the cloud bank far below and were lost from view.

  The blasted carcass of the second Black Hawk plummeted to earth like a stone. All that remained of the two aircraft was a dark cloud of smoke drifting on the hot tropical air.

  They were down to one Black Hawk versus an Airlander/Ju 390, thundering through the open skies.

  The surviving Black Hawk had veered off sharply, putting a safe distance between it and any further rocket salvoes. Not that Jaeger and Narov could unleash any: they were all out of Fliegerfausts. In any case, Leticia Santos was aboard that helicopter, and Jaeger for one was not willing to see her life sacrificed too.

  ‘Mr Raffara, you will wish you hadn’t done that!’ screamed a voice wild with rage. ‘Now I start shooting out your engines!’

  ‘You do that, we’re going down,’ Raff countered, ‘and with us your precious aircraft. It’ll smash into the jungle—’

  A burst of deadly-accurate fire from the surviving Black Hawk’s GAU-19 drowned out Raff’s words. Rounds tore into the Airlander’s front starboard propulsor. The instant they did so, Jaeger felt the Ju 390 lurch horribly to the right, as one of the airship’s four giant rotors was torn to pieces.

  Inside the Airlander, the crew would be struggling to keep her airborne on three propulsors, adjusting thrust direction and power to try to even up the stricken aircraft’s load, and pumping helium back and forth between the airship’s three giant hulls.

  ‘Airlander to Black Hawk.’ Raff’s voice came up on the air. ‘You shoot out another propulsor, we are no longer airworthy with this load, and we will be forced to jettison the Ju 390. Ten thousand feet straight down. Back the hell off.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ the Black Hawk commander countered. ‘You have a team aboard that aircraft, and I really don’t think you’ll let them fall. Comply with my instructions, or I will shoot out a second engine.’

  A message bleeped on Jaeger’s Thuraya: Response?

  Jaeger didn’t know how to respond.

  Now they really were all out of options.

  Stalemate.

  83

  For a third time the Black Hawk’s GAU-19 spat fire.

  A vicious burst tore into the Airlander’s rear port propulsor. Jaeger and Narov were back in the cockpit by now, and they felt the Ju 390 give a sickening jolt to the left as a
second set of rotors was put out of action.

  For a few frantic seconds the giant airship fought to right herself, the two surviving propulsors set at opposite ends and sides of the craft struggling to even out the impossible load. But when the Airlander finally reached some kind of new equilibrium, it was clear that she no longer had the grunt to manage the weight she was carrying.

  Almost instantly, the airship’s speed started dropping dramatically, deprived as she was of half her forward propulsion. Added to that, she was losing altitude. With the Ju 390 slung beneath her, she was slipping towards disaster.

  The Black Hawk shifted position, dropping behind and moving out of sight of those in the Ju 390’s cockpit. Jaeger didn’t think for one moment that the commander had called off the attack: what the hell was he up to now?

  A message pinged through on the Thuraya. BH moving around to your rear. Closing in towards your port wingtip. About to board your aircraft???

  Jaeger stared at the message for an instant: the Black Hawk was doing what?

  He glanced out of the port window.

  Sure enough, the helicopter pilot was inching his aircraft’s side door towards the Ju 390’s port wingtip. Jaeger could see a dozen heavily armed operators clustered at the doorway, clad in black NBC suits and respirators.

  He felt Narov appear beside him. ‘Just let them try!’ she snarled, as she caught sight of the black-clad figures.

  A split second later, she’d grabbed her Dragunov sniper rifle, ready to nail anyone who tried to board the Ju 390.

  ‘Don’t!’ Jaeger forced the barrel of her weapon down. ‘Right now, they don’t have a clue where we are. You open fire, they’ll mallet the cockpit. They’ll chew us to pieces.’

  ‘Then let me take out the Black Hawk’s pilot!’ Narov protested. ‘At least that!’

  ‘You take out the pilot, the co-pilot takes control, and they still mallet us with fire. Plus Santos – she’s aboard that aircraft.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to take a life to save a life,’ Narov responded coldly. ‘Or as in this case, you take a life to save many lives.’