Operation Napoleon Part 21

'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 doc.u.ments.'

'It couldn't be avoided, as I believe you antic.i.p.ated, 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 doc.u.ments 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 pa.s.sed 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 doc.u.ments.'

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 s.p.a.cE,

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 alt.i.tude 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 f.u.c.k are you?' Kristin spat, rearing up out of the bag.

C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR s.p.a.cE,

SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0515 GMT

She had kept up her ceaseless struggle with the zip ever since she had been left alone, but in vain. Now and then her mind drifted back to the stomach-turning noise of a rifle b.u.t.t making contact with Julius's face, followed by the dull thud of his body landing on the ice. More soldiers had entered the tent and soon she had felt herself being picked up and carried outside.

She had heard Ratoff telling Bateman that the body-bags were to be placed in the wreckage of the German aircraft and taken away by the choppers. For a brief moment no one was watching them in the tent as the helicopters were taking off. Julius tried to tear her away from Steve but he was not strong enough. He yelled in her ear but she behaved as if he did not exist. Bending down, he struck her hard on the face and she finally broke off her howling. He prised Steve's body out of her grasp and laid him gently on the snow. Kristin came to her senses and started frantically looking for a way out and saw some empty body-bags by the wall in the corner where the corpses were laid out. Julius did not understand when she indicated the body-bags to him; he merely tried to drag her out of the tent again. Still resisting, she pointed to herself and then to the body-bags, put her mouth to his ear and shouted: 'Help me into one of the bags.'

He stared at her, dumbfounded, then shook his head.

'No way,' he shouted back.

Tearing herself away from him, she ran to the bags by the wall and started opening the first one she reached. Julius knew their time had run out. His only thought was to save Kristin. Running over, he helped her unzip the bag and climb inside, then zipped it up again, leaving only a small gap. He laid the bag against the wall beside the other bodies just before the soldiers arrived.

The body-bag was very roomy, with handles at each corner. Four soldiers lifted it easily. She lay on her back, trying to keep still, making herself as rigid and inflexible as possible, regardless of what happened. Through the zip that Julius had left slightly open a tiny ray of light entered. She glimpsed the starry sky overhead.

The bag was dumped roughly on the floor of the plane and before long the light disappeared from the zip opening. She heard the noise of a helicopter again, this time directly above her head. There was an abrupt jerk as the wreckage began to lift away from the ice, then swung in the air beneath the helicopter as it set off on its westerly course.

She tried to open the zip and managed to force it down a few centimetres before it jammed. After that, no matter how hard she tried, she could budge it no further. Although she had sufficient oxygen to breathe, she was enveloped in impenetrable blackness.

She hardly felt the impact when the helicopter gently laid down the rear half of the plane on the C-17 transport pallet at Keflavik Airport, nor when it was driven into the yawning hold of the freight plane. She tried to envisage what could be happening, only guessing that she was on board a plane when the C-17 took off and she experienced that hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach that she always felt when she travelled by air. Her ears popped and the ba.s.s roar of the engines warned her that she was embarking on a much longer journey than she had imagined. She was still wearing the thick winter snowsuit but, although better than nothing, it provided limited protection against the cold that now penetrated the body-bag.

The d.a.m.n zip was still stuck fast and she was beginning to doubt she would ever get out of the bag. At this rate, she thought to herself grimly, she would indeed end up in a mortuary, ready-wrapped. Her fingers were b.l.o.o.d.y from her battle and she was growing afraid that she would freeze to death from the cold when suddenly she heard a rustling sound from within the cabin of the German plane. Someone was close by. She saw a small beam of light through the gap in the bag. Could it be Ratoff?

She heard asthmatic wheezing and groans as if someone were struggling with something nearby, then all of a sudden there was fumbling at her bag. Ham-fisted attempts were being made to unfasten the zip. When it finally gave, Kristin closed her eyes and held her breath until she thought her chest would burst. As she opened her eyes at last, it was to find Miller leaning over her with a look of utter bewilderment on his face.

'Jesus Christ!' Miller cried, starting back, his eyes fixed on Kristin as she reared up out of the body-bag. Corpses coming to life it was enough to kill a man.

'Who the f.u.c.k are you?' Kristin demanded, before he could gather his wits. 'Where am I? Where are you taking the plane?'

'Who are you?' Miller asked, stunned. 'And what are you doing here?'

She had climbed out of the body-bag and was on her feet, looming over the old man who had fallen back on to the floor.

'Your people killed my friend on the glacier,' Kristin said accusingly. 'My brother is hardly expected to live. I would like to know exactly what is going on.' Her voice rose: 'What's happening, for Christ's sake? What's so important about this plane that you're prepared to kill for it?'

She came close to kicking the old man in her desperation, her foot drawn back and her thigh tensed, but thought better of it just before she allowed herself the release of lashing out. Miller, p.r.o.ne and vulnerable on the ground, did not dare move a muscle. She was glaring at him as if demented and long moments pa.s.sed before she regained control of herself, her features softened and some of the tension left her.

Miller had recovered a little from his shock and sat up on one of the two crates of gold that were on board the plane. She glimpsed the outline of a swastika on the box.

'For G.o.d's sake, tell me why this plane is so important to you,' she begged Miller, then abruptly her mood seemed to change to alarm. 'Who are you? Where are we?'

'We're on board a US army C-17 transport plane on our way across the Atlantic,' Miller said in a level, soothing tone. 'You have nothing to fear from me. Try to calm down.'

'Don't tell me to calm down. Who are you?'

'My name's Miller.'

'Miller?' Kristin repeated. A memory stirred. 'Are you the man Jon talked about?'

'Jon?'

'The farmer, Jon. The brothers from the farm at the foot of the glacier.'

'Of course. Yes, I'm that Miller. You've met Jon?'

'He told us about you. Steve and me.' Her voice quavered but she bit her lip, forcing the repugnant image of Steve sprawled across the ice from her mind, and continued: 'You were in the first expedition. You had a brother on board the plane. Is that right?'

'I was looking for him when you...'

'You're looking for your brother?'

Miller did not speak.

He could not imagine who this dishevelled stowaway could be. But judging by her appearance and her troubled state of mind, he understood that he must be direct and polite, do whatever he could to rea.s.sure her. He had no idea who she was, did not know the ordeal she had endured, her flight from paid a.s.sa.s.sins, her search for answers, but little by little he managed to elicit her story.

There was something rea.s.suring about this weary-looking old man, something trustworthy that Kristin responded to. He had said he was looking for his brother, just as she was they had something in common and she sensed that he genuinely wanted to hear her story, to know who she was and how on earth she came to be hiding in a body-bag in the wreck of the German aircraft. He listened patiently as she recounted the barely credible series of events, culminating in the tale of how Ratoff had killed Steve in front of her. She was to blame for Steve's death. He was gone because of her her impetuosity, her selfish, pig-headed pursuit. Only now could she begin to absorb this awful truth. Her tale told, she hung her head, sunk in despair.

Miller sat and studied her. He believed her. She had been through an indescribable ordeal and he had no reason to doubt that she was telling the truth. She was obviously near the end of her endurance, yet she seemed calmer now and had taken a seat opposite him on another box. He shook his head over the absurdity of their situation.

'This Steve, did he work at the base?'

'Yes.'

'But they shot him anyway?'

'It was because of me. It was personal somehow. It didn't make sense. Ratoff said he would leave me something to remember him by. Then he shot Steve. He didn't need to. He just did it to torment me. Steve was nothing to him. Tell me, please, what's going on? I need answers. And where is Ratoff? Is he here?' she asked, looking distractedly around the dark recesses of the fuselage.

'You needn't worry about Ratoff any more. And as for the rest, you don't want to know,' Miller said after a pause. 'You won't gain anything by knowing. I a.s.sure you, you won't be any better off.'

'That's for me to judge. I haven't come this far to give up now. Do you even know what it's about?'