VATNAJÖKULL GLACIER,
SUNDAY 31 JANUARY, 0000 GMT
He lost control – Kreutz, that is. He looks like he must
be the youngest, in spite of his rank. At first he was talking
calmly to his companion, but he grew more and more agitated until
he was screaming at him. I couldn’t understand a word they were
saying. I don’t know what it was but something made him go
completely crazy. He jumped to his feet and began pacing back and
forth, hammering the cabin door, shouting and thumping on the
fuselage. In his madness he knocked over one of the kerosene lamps
and we haven’t been able to relight it since. The other German
tackled him and eventually overcame him after a hell of a fight in
the cramped space. I kept out of it in the cockpit. There isn’t
really enough light left for writing as we only have one lamp that
works now. The kerosene is running low. Soon we’ll be in total
darkness.
Maybe they were arguing over whether it had been a mistake
to sit tight, instead of following Count von Mantauffel. The storm
and cold were so severe when we landed that you couldn’t stand up
outside, though von Mantauffel didn’t let that hinder him. Our
attempts to force the door off its hinges are in vain. The plane
will be our tomb and I suppose that fact has started to come home
to us all. We’re slowly dying inside a coffin made of metal and
ice.
We’ve lost track of time. It could be two or three days
since we landed. Maybe longer. Hunger is becoming an increasing
problem. There’s nothing to eat and the air in the cabin is very
stale; I suppose the oxygen’s not being replaced quickly enough.
The Germans are dozing. They haven’t taken any notice of me since
the crash. At the time they were mad at me, yelling until von
Mantauffel ordered them to shut up. I wish I understood more
German. I would have liked to know what this mission is about. I
know it’s important, otherwise you wouldn’t have sent me, but
what’s it all about? Why are we collaborating with the Germans?
Aren’t they our enemies any more?
Ratoff’s reading was
interrupted.
‘Phone call from
Carr, sir,’ a soldier called into his tent. Ratoff trod the same
short walk back to the communications tent and took the
receiver.
‘The Icelandic
government are coming under increasing pressure over the military
exercises on the glacier,’ Carr began, without preamble. He was
speaking from the base in Keflavík where, twenty minutes earlier,
his plane had landed and taken off again immediately after
refuelling. Carr himself planned to personally accompany the
Junkers back across the Atlantic in the C-17. He had had a brief
meeting with the admiral who had told him of the Icelanders’
mounting anger at the presence of the army on Vatnajökull. The lie
about the volcanic eruption alert would not work for long. Time was
running out and the situation was deteriorating with every passing
minute. He was afraid of being stranded here with the German plane
and the bodies and the secret connected to them. The Icelandic
government was growing ever more impatient and a diplomatic
catastrophe loomed which would send shockwaves around the
world.
‘We’ll be gone from
here in no time, sir,’ Ratoff reassured him. ‘We’re just waiting
for the choppers.’
‘We don’t want any
more bodies,’ Carr said. ‘We don’t want any more disappearances.
Get yourselves off that glacier and vanish into thin air. Is any of
that unclear?’
‘None, sir,’ Ratoff
replied. He avoided any mention of the rescue team or
Kristín.
‘Good.’
Ratoff handed the
phone to the communications officer and stepped outside. In the
distance he heard the massive rotors of the Pave Hawk helicopters
beating as they came powering in from the west, two pricks of light
growing larger in the darkness. His men had prepared a landing site
on the ice with two rings of torches, and launched four powerful
flares that hung in the air like lanterns and blazed for several
minutes, throwing a bright orange-yellow light over the entire
scene. The Pave Hawks flew into the glow cast by the flares and
hovered for a moment above the tents before settling with infinite
care on the ice like gigantic steel insects, the noise deafening,
clouds of snow whipping up all round. The men on the ground took
cover until the engines had died and the blades finally stopped
turning, their whine fading in the cold air. When the doors opened
and the crews clambered out, they were directed straight to
Ratoff’s tent. Soon all was quiet again.
The pilots looked
around in astonishment at the floodlit scene: the city of tents
pitched in a semicircle around the plane, evidence of its
excavation from the ice, the swastika instantly identifiable below
the cockpit, the camouflage paint flaking off to reveal the
gunmetal grey beneath, the special forces personnel swarming all
round and over the wreckage. The fuselage had been cut in half but
they were unable to see inside because plastic sheeting had been
fitted over the yawning mouth of the exposed cabin. They glanced at
one another and back at the wreckage. They had been given no reason
for their summons in the middle of the night to Vatnajökull; their
orders were simply to airlift some heavy equipment off the ice cap
and ask no questions, their destination the C-17 transport that had
been on standby at Keflavík Airport for three nights.
Ratoff greeted the
helicopter crew members. There were four men, two per machine, aged
between twenty-five and fifty and clad in the grey-green uniform of
the US Air Force. They had already removed the thickly lined
leather jackets and helmets they wore on top when they entered
Ratoff’s tent. They did not recognise the operation director and
plainly had no idea what was happening on the glacier. They looked
from Ratoff to one another, exchanging puzzled
glances.
Ratoff studied the
pilots. He could tell from their expressions that they had had
minimal briefing on the purpose of the mission. They seemed unsure
of themselves, shifting from foot to foot and looking about
uncomfortably, but he had no intention of putting them at their
ease.
‘We’re going to
airlift the wreckage of an old plane from the glacier to Keflavík
Airport,’ he announced.
‘What plane is that,
sir?’ one of the pilots asked.
‘A souvenir,’ Ratoff
replied. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ve cut it in two, so the
helicopters can take one half each. We’re grateful for your
assistance but the operation should be straightforward. I recommend
you stay put in the tent as it would be best for everyone if you
avoided compromising your plausible deniability. Is that
understood?’
‘Compromising our
what?’ one of the pilots queried, looking at the others to see if
he was alone in being baffled by these instructions. ‘May I ask
what’s going on here?’
‘That’s precisely
what I mean,’ Ratoff said. ‘The less you know, the better. Thank
you, gentlemen,’ he concluded, indicating that the conversation was
over. But the pilot was not satisfied.
‘Is it the German
plane, sir?’ he asked hesitantly.
Ratoff stared at him,
amazed that this man sought to question him. Had he not been
adequately clear?
‘What do you mean,
“the German plane”?’ he asked.
‘The German plane on
Vatnajökull,’ the pilot answered. He was young, fresh-faced, and
his lack of guile made him hard for Ratoff to read. ‘I’ve heard
about it before. I saw the swastika.’
‘And just what have
you heard about this German plane?’ Ratoff asked, moving
closer.
‘In connection with
the astronauts, sir.’
‘What
astronauts?’
‘Armstrong, sir. Neil
Armstrong. He went looking for it in the sixties. Or so the story
goes. It’s supposed to have a bomb on board – a hydrogen bomb. If
that’s the case, if I’m going to be flying with it strapped to me,
I’d like to know about it. From an operational point of view, of
course, sir.’
‘Is that the rumour
on the base?’ Ratoff mused. ‘Nazis, Armstrong and a hydrogen
bomb?’
‘So is there a bomb?
Can we see inside the plane? Regulations mean I need to verify what
we’re going to be transporting, sir.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll
just have to trust me, Flight Lieutenant, when I tell you that
there is no bomb in the plane. The aircraft is German, obviously,
and dates from World War II, but it’s completely safe. This is the
first I’ve heard of Armstrong looking for it and certainly the
first I’ve heard of any Nazi bomb. We haven’t found anything of the
sort. Satisfied?’
‘I guess so, sir,’
the pilot said uncertainly.
‘If it’s so
harmless,’ another pilot asked, ‘why can’t we watch, sir? Why do we
have to stay cooped up in the tent?’
‘Jesus Christ,’
Ratoff exclaimed under his breath. He sighed. ‘How many different
ways can I put this, gentlemen? I am not required to give you any
explanations.’ He went outside and beckoned three soldiers into the
tent. ‘Shoot anyone who tries to leave,’ he ordered.
The pilots stood in a
huddle, shuffling together like stunned livestock, utterly baffled
by this latest development. Brought to the middle of nowhere,
witness to some inexplicable excavation, bound to secrecy and now
held hostage by their own side, they stared speechlessly at one
another and at their captor.
‘What’s the meaning
of this?’ demanded their leader at last. ‘What kind of treatment do
you call this? How dare you? Who’ll fly the helicopters
now?’
‘We have people for
that. You’re surplus to requirements,’ Ratoff said and stalked out
of the tent. A man stood waiting to join him as he walked down to
the plane.
‘How was the
flight?’
‘Like a dream,’
Bateman answered with a grin.