C-17 TRANSPORT PLANE, ATLANTIC AIR
SPACE,
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 altitude 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 cockpit, 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 circumstances 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 fuck are
you?’ Kristín spat, rearing up out of the bag.