the sleeve and the man’s name was embroidered on a strip of black linen on his left breast. The name was American too; there was no mistaking it. He could not have been much more than twenty-five years old.
It was inexplicable. What was an American fighter pilot doing flying German officers and an American general across the Atlantic in a Nazi plane painted in US camouflage colours?
To reach the innermost part of the Junkers’ tail, Ratoff had to bend double. With the help of his torch it did not take him long to find two wooden boxes the size of beer crates, one of which he dragged towards the front of the plane where the light was better. The lid was nailed down but he found a severed piece of iron stanchion on the floor and, using it as a lever, was able to force the lid, the nails screeching as they were slowly torn from the wood. Soon the box opened fully to reveal rows of small white bags, each tied at one end. There must have been about twenty of them. Ratoff picked one up, discovering that it was made of soft velvet and felt heavy in his hand. Releasing the drawstring, he slid out an ice-cold gold bar with a swastika, the emblem of the Third Reich, stamped in the centre of it. Ratoff stared at the bar, weighing it in his hand with a smile, then cast his eyes around.
But only two crates, he thought. A tiny haul. So where was the rest? Ratoff had been anticipating far more than these two boxes; he had expected the plane to be packed with gold bars bearing the Nazi seal. He slid the bar back into its bag and replaced it in the crate, closing the lid and hammering the nails back in again.
Could they have moved it out of the plane? Moved the entire cargo and buried it in the ice somewhere nearby? Or somewhere further afield even? When Ratoff considered it, however, it dawned on him that the plane was hardly big enough to have carried all the gold he had been assured it contained: he had been expecting at least several tons. So if Jewish gold was not behind the organisation’s interest in monitoring this godforsaken, frozen desert for half a century, he reasoned, what on earth was? Two crates of gold would hardly trigger the Third World War. Two pathetic boxes. What other secrets did the plane harbour? What was this icy tomb carrying that caused his superiors to have a heart attack every time they thought it was re-emerging from the ice?
Ratoff’s eyes had by now adjusted to the gloom inside the wreckage, but although he searched high and low, he could find no more boxes. The only personal item he discovered belonging to any of the passengers was the briefcase. Carr had given him special orders to remove all documents from the plane, of whatever type. Frustrated by the absence of the treasure trove he had pictured in his mind’s eye, he attacked the briefcase with the scrap of metal that he had used on the crate, and with some difficulty succeeded in forcing the lock. Nothing but worthless files and papers. He would take a better look at them later. A search of the bodies also yielded an unremarkable cache of wallets and passports. The men in German uniform ranged in age from forty to sixty. One bore a rank that Ratoff thought might be that of a general. He wore several unfamiliar medals on his chest, and like the man who had been laid beside the plane, had an Iron Cross fixed at his throat between the points of his collar, the German army’s highest honour in the war.
On re-emerging despondently into the light, Ratoff noted that his men were already preparing to transport the front section of the plane down to the base. He gave orders for the corpses to be removed from the wreckage and taken to the tents to be placed in body-bags, then returned to the front section of the Junkers, heading straight for the cockpit, intent on piecing together a fuller picture. There were seats for a co-pilot and navigator but from the bodies of the other personnel on board, it appeared that the American had flown the plane single-handedly. Spotting the flight chart the pilot had made, he shoved it in his pocket, along with the log book and was just turning to leave the cabin when he caught sight of a small red exercise book protruding from under the co-pilot’s seat. He scooped it up and put that in his pocket as well.
Carr was on the phone as he crawled out of the aircraft again.
‘Are you spying on me, sir?’ Ratoff rasped when he had taken the receiver.
‘Why waste billions on all this equipment if we don’t use it?’ Carr retorted. ‘Well, what have you found?’
Ratoff gestured to the communications officer to leave the tent. All communication from the glacier was conducted on the Delta Force closed channel. Ratoff waited until he was alone, then spoke again.
‘What’s going on, sir?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve found only two crates of gold. You said the plane was full of it. Two boxes! That’s the lot.’
‘Maybe they buried it in the ice. Maybe it’ll never be found.’
‘Maybe the gold’s not what it’s about,’ Ratoff suggested.
The line filled with static.
‘You never told me there was an American pilot on board,’ Ratoff continued. ‘And a two-star general from our side.’
‘Be careful, Ratoff. I’m under no obligation to tell you anything.’
‘It looks to me as if some of them survived the landing,’ Ratoff said. ‘Our pilot and two of the Germans. Judging by the numbers you gave me, one of the Germans is missing. In any case, they can’t have survived long up here in the depths of winter – they had inadequate clothing and no provisions. And somehow I doubt they kept themselves warm by lugging gold around. Anyway, the plane’s too small to have been carrying a heavy cargo. So if you’re not looking for gold, what are you looking for? Maybe you’d like to tell me what I’m doing in this shit-hole.’
‘You say there are only six bodies?’
‘Correct.’
‘There should be seven on board.’
‘Is that something to worry about?’
‘Well, the seventh man has never come to light. Perhaps they buried him further away. Perhaps he tried to get to civilisation.’
‘If the plane wasn’t carrying gold,’ Ratoff repeated, ‘what is it that you’re after, sir?’
‘Ratoff,’ Carr said warily. ‘If I wanted someone to ask questions I wouldn’t have come to you. You know that.’
‘Is it the briefcase?’
‘Ratoff.’ Carr’s voice had fallen to a low growl. ‘Don’t fuck with me. Just do as you’re told. You were chosen to lead this operation for a reason.’
Ratoff decided not to push it any further for the time being.
‘The only thing I found was the general’s briefcase, which I haven’t opened. Then there’s the pilot’s log book and another book. I don’t know what it contains. I haven’t looked at any of it.’
‘Fine. I repeat: bring out all documents, briefcases, books, passports, names, anything in writing that you find on board. Take it into your safekeeping, Ratoff; do not allow anyone else access to it and deliver it to me and only me. Observe the procedure. Bring me the lot. Every last scrap.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Take my advice: you’d be doing yourself a favour to remain ignorant of those documents. We’ve been over this already. Follow the plan.’
‘You’ve always been able to rely on me, sir.’
Carr ignored the edge he believed he could detect in Ratoff’s voice. ‘When will you be in Keflavik?’
‘We’ll be airborne in two days’ time, assuming the storm doesn’t delay us.’
‘Excellent.’
They ended the conversation. Ratoff considered the briefcase, chart and books he had piled on a chair. Over the years, he had heard innumerable stories about the plane’s contents but when he had to accept that it was nothing but documents, it was as if all suspense, all anticipation and all his hunger for the mission had died within him. No gold. No bomb. No biological weapon. None of the more recognisable of the missing Nazi war criminals, as far as he could see. No art treasures. No diamonds. Only documents. Worthless documents. Scraps of yellowed paper.
Still angered and disorientated by disappointment, he took the documents to his own tent. Inside stood a camp bed, a chair and a collapsible desk at which he sat down. First he examined the log book, noting where and when the plane had taken off and the intended flightpath. Then he turned to the red exercise book; leafing through it, he was surprised to see that the pilot had kept a diary during his last days on the glacier. Putting it aside for the moment, he opened the briefcase and took out three files, bound with thin, white straps. He opened the first and flicked quickly through the pages which turned out to be in German; the yellowed paper felt stiff and brittle to the touch. The second contained similar documents. He knew a little German, having been stationed for two years in his youth at the US base in Ramstein, but not enough to grasp the precise meaning of the pages.
The third file contained several more documents, all marked confidential, whose entire text was in English.
