BUILDING 312, WASHINGTON DC,
FRIDAY 29 JANUARY, AFTERNOON
General Vytautas Carr
was sitting in his office when a call came through on his private
line. His thoughts had been wandering while he waited for Ratoff to
make contact. Carr had parted from the defense secretary having
given an assurance that no news about the plane in the ice would
ever reach the public domain. The young Democrat had pronounced
with great solemnity that the operation was to remain clandestine
and that he did not want to know the details; in fact, he did not
want to hear another word about it until it had been successfully
concluded. Then, and only then, would he apprise the President of
the essential facts. That way, if anything went wrong, the
President would not have to tell any lies but could claim in all
honesty that he had had no idea about any plane full of Jewish gold
stolen by the US army. Nevertheless, the secretary could not
restrain himself from asking for clarification of a few
points.
‘What are you
planning to do with the plane?’ he asked as they wrapped up the
meeting.
Carr was prepared for
the question, as well as the inevitable follow-up.
‘We’ll remove it from
the glacier along with any wreckage we find, including bodies and
other contents, and bring it back to the States. That’s what the
C-17’s for, Mr Secretary. It has unlimited weight-bearing capacity.
It’ll depart from Keflavík and fly without refuelling stops to our
facility at Roswell, where the Nazi plane will disappear
permanently.’
‘Roswell?’ the
secretary queried. ‘Isn’t that the alien town?’
‘I can’t think of any
better hiding place. After all that alien nonsense anything
reported about Roswell and what goes on there is dismissed as
bullshit, except by a tiny minority of UFO nuts. If the news gets
out that we’re hiding a Nazi plane at Roswell, it’ll raise an even
bigger laugh.’
‘And the gold?’ the
secretary asked.
‘No need to waste it.
I imagine it’ll disappear into the Federal Reserve Bank, unless you
have another suggestion.’
They had parted on
better terms than before. The defense secretary’s appreciation of
the role of the secret service had improved dramatically, creating
a new degree of understanding between them. Not that that mattered
a damn to Carr, though he did derive a private satisfaction from
having brought the secretary to heel. By the end of their meeting
Carr could have ordered him to stand on one leg and stick out his
tongue and he would have obeyed without hesitation.
Carr had come a long
way from his Lithuanian origins. His original surname had been
Karilius but in an attempt to integrate into his adopted country he
had shortened it to Carr. His parents had emigrated to the US in
the 1920s and he was their only child; he was eleven years old when
the US entered the Second World War and used to follow the news
reports from the frontlines avidly. As soon as he was old enough,
he joined the army and was rapidly promoted through the ranks,
being appointed US army liaison officer to NATO. But desk work did
not suit him and he had himself transferred to active duty when the
Korean War broke out, going on to set up the covert operations
service there, and undertaking numerous missions behind enemy
lines. After Korea, he joined the army intelligence
corps.
Carr inherited the
aircraft on Vatnajökull in the early seventies when he took over as
chief of the organisation, and during the five years it took him to
learn his role fully, his predecessor gradually filled him in on
the background to the presence of a German plane in the ice. By the
end of that time, Carr knew all about the plane and what it was
carrying and how to act if the plane was ever found. What they were
following now was a prearranged procedure that Carr reviewed every
few years. Only a handful of individuals in the highest echelons of
the army were aware of the plane’s existence or the procedure for
dealing with it. For fifty-four years the knowledge had been kept
strictly confidential, successfully limited to this tiny group,
passed down from generation to generation, from one incumbent of
office to the next. Even Carr did not know the whole story, though
he knew enough. Enough not to want to imagine the fallout if news
about what the plane was carrying ever got out.
The phone on his desk
purred and he picked up the receiver.
‘We’re on schedule,
sir,’ Ratoff announced.
‘No trouble locating
it?’
‘It was buried but
the coordinates were correct. We’ve already uncovered half the
fuselage. I estimate that we’ll have it in Keflavík in three to
four days at the outside.’
‘No
hitches?’
‘Nothing significant.
There’s a rescue team from Reykjavík conducting a training exercise
on the glacier. It’s located some distance away but two of its
members managed to stray into our area.’
Carr tensed:
‘And?’
‘They lost their
lives in an accident about thirty-five miles from here. Drove their
snowmobiles into a deep crevasse. We’ll ensure they’re found
quickly so the team doesn’t wander into our area looking for
them.’
‘Were they
young?’
‘Young? I don’t
understand the relevance, sir. They were old enough to see us and
the plane.’
‘So everything’s in
hand then?’ Carr concluded
‘One of them had a
sister in Reykjavík.’
Carr’s disappointment
was impossible to conceal.
‘He made contact with
her by phone after he entered the area. We know who she is but she
gave us the slip. We’re tracing her now.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Ripley and Bateman.
The best available option in the circumstances.’
‘For Christ’s sake,
Ratoff, try to control yourself. The Icelanders are our
allies.’
Carr put down the
receiver, picked it up again immediately and started dialling. It
was time to put phase two of the operation in motion. The defense
secretary had been concerned about Ratoff’s involvement and now
even Carr was beginning to have his doubts about his choice of
mission director. Carr knew the alarming details of his army career
better than anyone. Ratoff undeniably delivered results but he
tended to be over-zealous.
He had to wait a good
while for his call to be answered, and spent the time mapping out
his next moves. He would have to fly to Iceland. But first he would
honour an old promise.
‘Miller?’ he said.
‘It’s Vytautas. The plane’s turned up. We need to
meet.’