But even so, Jaeger, Narov and Dale had only a matter of seconds remaining to them.
‘Okay, here’s the plan,’ Jaeger yelled. ‘Any moment now, the Airlander’s cutting us free. Like any fine aircraft released with a little forward momentum, she’ll pick up speed as she falls, then start to glide. As soon as we’re cut loose, we hurl out the rest of those,’ he jabbed a hand at the remaining parachutes, ‘and then we jump.
‘Do not pull your chute until you’re well into the clouds,’ he continued, ‘or the Black Hawk will be able to follow. Try to stick together and link up in the fall. Order of jump: Dale, Narov, myself. Ready?’
Narov nodded. There was a glow of battle lust and adrenalin burning in her eyes.
As for Dale, he looked as white as a sheet, and as if he were about to vomit his guts up for a second time. But still he gave a half-hearted thumbs-up. Jaeger was amazed at the guy: he’d been through enough to faze the most battle-hardened of soldiers, and yet he’d stood the test pretty damn well.
‘Don’t forget your camera, or at least the memory cards,’ Jaeger yelled at him. ‘Whatever happens now, we’re not losing the film!’
He pulled out the remaining parachutes and stacked them by the cockpit’s side, then threw open both windows so they had maximum room to make their exits.
He turned to Narov. ‘Don’t forget your documents, whatever they are. Get that satchel strapped on tight, and don’t let it out of your…’
He was forced to swallow the rest of his words as the Ju 390 gave a sudden sickening lurch and plunged into the fall. The Airlander had released her, and for a few horrible seconds the Ju 390 seemed to shoot vertically downwards plummeting like a stone, before her wings caught the air and the drop bottomed out into a steep but breathtaking glide.
‘Go! Go! Go!’ Jaeger yelled, as he started stuffing the parachutes out of the window.
One after another he hurled the spare Fallschirms into the howling void.
Dale reached for the window, thrust the top half of his body through, and then promptly froze. The slipstream was tearing at his torso, but his feet seemed glued to the aircraft’s metal floor.
Unmoving.
Jaeger didn’t hesitate. He dropped his powerful shoulders, grabbed Dale’s legs, and lifted him with all his might, forcing him – screaming – into thin air.
He could hear voices yelling from the far side of the bulkhead now. The black-clad operators were preparing to blast their way through. Narov jumped on to the pilot’s chair, grabbed the cockpit roof, and swung her legs through the window.
She glanced back at him. ‘You are coming, yes?’
She must have read the indecision that flashed through Jaeger’s eyes. For an instant his mind was back on that dark mountain side as his wife and child were stolen away from him. He hadn’t done all he could – hell, he hadn’t done anything – to search the warplane for clues as to who had taken them, and why.
For an agonising second that voice from behind the gas mask – the voice that Jaeger had half recognised – seared through his mind: ‘Don’t ever forget – you failed to protect your wife and child. Wir sind die Zukunft!’
Jaeger felt riveted to the spot; unable to move.
Deep in his heart, he was desperate for answers.
And if he abandoned the warplane, he’d maybe lost them for ever.
‘Get to the window!’ Narov screamed. ‘NOW!’
Jaeger found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Narov had whipped out a short-barrelled, compact Beretta pistol and had it levelled at his head.
‘I know all about it!’ she yelled. ‘They killed your grandfather. They came for you and your family. Something you did triggered them to do that. That’s how we’ll find the answers. But if you go down now, with this plane, they’ve won!’
Jaeger tried to force his limbs to move.
‘JUMP!’ Narov screamed at him, her finger bone-white on the trigger. ‘I AM NOT HAVING YOUR LIFE WASTED!’
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting roar from behind. The bulkhead blew, the cockpit filling with a blinding cloud of choking smoke. The force of the blast threw Jaeger against the side window, and it served to bring him to his senses. As he reached for the exit, Narov opened fire with the Beretta, pumping shots into the mass of black-clad figures that were surging through the opening.
Moments later, Jaeger hurled himself out, plunging into the thin and howling blue.
84
An instant after he had jumped, Jaeger found himself tumbling over and over in the freefall, just as he’d done during the near-death plunge from the C-130. He forced his arms out wide and arched his body to stabilise himself. That done, he adopted the delta-track profile – arms tight by his sides, legs stretched out behind him – to get into the cloud bank as quickly as possible.
But as the speed of his fall increased, he cursed himself for having been such a bloody fool. Narov had been right. If he’d died on that warplane, what good would it have done anyone, least of all his wife and son? He’d been an idiot to hesitate, and he’d put Narov’s life in danger. Hell, he didn’t even know if she’d made it out of the warplane alive, and there was no way he could check now – not in the crazed maelstrom of the freefall.
The Ju 390 had been accelerating ever since the Airlander had released her. She would be speeding into the skies ahead at pushing 300 kph, like a massive ghostly dart – and he just had to hope and pray that Narov had made it out alive.
Seconds later, he was swallowed by the clouds. As the thick water vapour enveloped him, he reached for the chute’s deployment handle, tugged hard… and prayed. If ever he hoped that the Nazis had built something to last, it was now.
Nothing happened.
Jaeger glanced around to check he was pulling the right handle. Nothing was easy in the half-light of this swirling whiteout, especially when being thrown around like a rag doll. But as far as he could tell, the main chute seemed to be stuck fast.
A phrase flashed through his head as the ground rushed up to meet him: look-locate-peel-punch-pull-arch. It was the drill he’d been taught years earlier, for emergency procedures in the freefall when your main chute failed.
Same principles, different system, he told himself.
He grabbed for what he figured was the reserve. It was an old-fashioned system, but there was no reason why it wouldn’t work just fine. It was now or never, for the ground was fast approaching. He pulled extra hard, and the reserve parachute – an expanse of German silk; silk that had been folded away for seven decades awaiting the chance to fly again – billowed into the air above him.
Like most things German, this Fallschirm had been built with quality in mind, and it opened like a dream. In fact, it was a joy to fly under. Had Jaeger not been in such a world of turmoil right now, he might have found himself enjoying the ride.
The Germans had used a chute design similar to that employed by British airborne units in the Second World War. It had a high-domed mushroom-shaped profile, and was stable and solid in the air – as opposed to the flatter, faster, more manoeuvrable design of modern-day military parachutes.
At around five hundred feet of altitude, Jaeger emerged from the clouds. His first thoughts were for Dale and Narov. He glanced west and figured he could just make out the distinctive scar of a parachute at ground level, marking where Dale appeared to have made it down.
He glanced east just as a flash of white popped out of the base of the cloud.
Narov. It had to be. Somehow she must have made it out of the Ju 390’s cockpit, and by the look of the body slung beneath the chute, she was still alive.