was big, and it’s why I haven’t plugged you for more.’
‘Okay. I’ll bring you into the picture. There was another outcome to that bombing raid. Where the north end of the base now lies was a small Arbeitslager, a labour camp. The Allied troops thought it was a satellite of Belsen, but we now know it had another purpose. By April 1945 it was overflowing with Jews who had survived the death march from Auschwitz. A small British force liberated the camp the day before the raid, and cleared out the last of the survivors just before the bombing began. It pretty well obliterated the camp, and the remains were then buried under the concrete and asphalt of the runways.’
‘Good God. A concentration camp here? I had no idea.’
‘In all the publicity about the death camps that so shocked the world in 1945, this one was never revealed. In this vicinity, the world only knew about Belsen.’
‘I take it the excavation site is under that camouflaged bubble?’ Paul asked. ‘But that must be a good two thousand metres from the northern perimeter of the base, well away from the location of the camp as you describe it.’
‘The bubble covers the site of an underground bunker that lay deep in the forest, linked to the camp only by a concealed track.’
‘How do you know all this?’
Jack paused. ‘When we were excavating at Troy last year, we were on the trail of treasures dug up by Heinrich Schliemann that found their way to Germany and may have been hidden by the Nazis. You remember my old classics tutor at Cambridge, James Dillen? Well, the guy who had taught Dillen Greek and Latin at school had been a wartime British army officer, and was one of the first soldiers into this camp. That was what led us to this place. He’d done some archaeology in Greece before the war, and saw something here he recognized. But after the war he was one of those people who put a lid on it. The camp must have been a horrific experience. He talked for the first time about it to Rebecca and James when they visited him in his flat in Bristol last year.’
‘Only last year? He must have been getting on a bit.’
Jack paused. ‘His name was Frazer. Captain Hugh Frazer. He’d bottled it up all those years, and I think it was a great relief to let it out. Afterwards we took him to Poland to see one of the survivors of the camp. It was very moving, but you can never talk about closure. That’s the hard truth of it. Hugh was already very ill, and he died six weeks ago.’
‘Sorry to hear it. He was with 11th Armoured?’
Jack paused. ‘30 Commando Assault Unit. A forward reconnaissance outfit.’
‘ Jesus, Jack. I know all about 30 AU. They were part of T-Force, searching for Nazi secret weapons. This isn’t just about stolen antiquities, is it? Take a look down there now. You don’t usually get guys in full CBRN suits at an archaeological site.’
Jack saw two figures in white chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear suits disappear into the camouflaged enclosure in front of the bubble. ‘All I can tell you is this. A lot of the Nazi propaganda about wonder- weapons was exactly that. As for the real stuff, some of the scientists located by T-Force were spirited away and re-emerged at the forefront of Cold War rocket and weapons technology, even in the technology of swept-wing aircraft design like the Tornado. That’s been common knowledge for decades. But some secrets remained. You were right to wonder about the hidden truth of those final months of the war. But you shouldn’t just have been concerned about history. You should have been terrified for the future.’
The Tornado levelled out at three hundred feet. ‘Okay, Jack. I’m switching to VHF airband, so everything we say is now being overheard. There’s a skeleton air-traffic-control crew in the tower. My orders are to land, power down, drop you off and fly out immediately. You copy?’
‘Copy that, Paul. And thanks for the ride. It’s been fantastic.’
The external intercom crackled. ‘NATO XJ4, this is RAF Tornado fiver niner kilo seeking clearing to land. Over.’
‘Fiver niner kilo, you are clear to land. Observe agreed protocol. Over.’
‘NATO XJ4, this is Tornado fiver niner kilo. Roger that. Over.’
Jack felt the landing gear lock and the increased air resistance as the Tornado angled upwards for its approach. A few moments later they touched down with a screech of rubber on asphalt, and the reverse thrusters roared into life. The aircraft came to a halt less than halfway down the runway. Paul increased the throttle, swung the Tornado round and taxied it back down to the start of the runway, then pulled it round again so it was poised for take-off. The camouflaged dome was about five hundred metres to their left, and Jack could see two figures beside a jeep with its lights on, watching them.
Paul powered the engine down and popped the canopy so that it rose above them. Jack took off his helmet and felt the cool breeze coming down the runway. He realized that he had been bathed in sweat, and he ruffled his hair. He unstrapped himself and clambered out of the cockpit and down the steps on the side of the fuselage, then hopped off and struggled out of the pressure suit. He climbed back up and put the suit on the rear seat, then clambered down again and jumped on to the tarmac. He gave the fuselage a pat, then stood back, looking at the sooty streak on the tail fin caused by the thrust reversers, and the light grey camouflage that showed the effect of months in the punishing conditions of Afghanistan. ‘She’s a fine old warhorse,’ he called up. ‘Let’s hope she finds a new master as good as the one she’s got now.’
Paul raised his arm in acknowledgement, then clamped his visor back down. Jack walked a few paces away, then turned round again. ‘Paul, I’ve been thinking. You flew helicopters once, didn’t you?’
Paul raised his visor again. ‘It’s what stalled my promotion for so long. Instead of going to staff college when I should have done, I jumped on an RAF vacancy at the Army Air Corps helicopter school, and then volunteered for an RAF placement scheme with the Royal Navy. I spent six months flying a Lynx helicopter off a frigate in the Caribbean on drugs interdiction. It probably ruined my chances of ever becoming Marshal of the Royal Air Force, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
Jack grinned. ‘Well, if you ever get bored at that desk in Whitehall, there’s a job for you at IMU. We’ve got an Embraer and three Lynxes, so there’s always plenty of flying. I want to expand our aerial survey capability, with the new technology for archaeological site detection now available.’ He paused. ‘But I’d be looking for more than that. Someone with your experience of command and control and your international contacts could be invaluable. We seem to get ourselves involved in some tricky situations these days, far more so than I envisaged when I founded IMU. Far more than I want. But it’s reality, and we need to beef up our security capability. Let me know if you’re interested.’
Paul eyed Jack. ‘Not just a charity job for a sad old fighter jock?’
Jack grinned. ‘Not a chance. You might even get to fly Maurice around Egypt again in a biplane.’
‘He still owes me for that little trip. He was going to take me to the Munich beer festival. Then he got distracted by some mummies.’
‘Sounds oddly like Maurice. I’ll remind him.’
‘I wouldn’t mind getting wet again either, you know. Only I’d be a little rusty.’
‘We’d soon get you up to speed. Rebecca will probably have her instructor rating by then and can fill you in on all the latest diving technology since the 1980s.’
‘The good old days,’ Paul said, grinning. ‘None of this nonsense about mixed-gas diving and rebreathers. Just good old compressed air, and a wing and a prayer.’
‘A wing and a prayer,’ Jack repeated. ‘I’d forgotten it was you and Peter Howe who used to say that. The good old days indeed.’
‘I’ve got great memories of him. We’ve got to hold on to that.’
Jack paused. ‘His death has really hit me again, diving at Atlantis where it happened. That’s why the good old days are exactly that. Things happen, and you can’t go back.’
‘Jack, seriously. I’m worried about you. This place, this bunker. This wasn’t what you got into archaeology for. Remember what you said about my flying. It was my passion, and always will be. Your passion is archaeology and diving, what you’ve just been doing at Atlantis and Troy. That’s the kind of adrenalin you thrive on, what makes you tick. Keeping that going is exactly what Peter would have wanted. The greatest discoveries are yet to come. Don’t ever lose sight of that.’
He dropped his visor again, waved and lowered the canopy. Jack put his hands over his ears as the twin turbofans started up, and hurried off the tarmac to be away from the blast of the exhaust. The whine of the engines rose to a scream and the Tornado rolled down the runway, its jet exhaust distorting the air for the length of the
