practically nothing to Jaeger. He’d googled both mystery references, ‘Operation Werewolf’and ‘Relocation Commando’, in English and in German.
They had turned up nothing.
Not one single reference out there anywhere in the ether.
That was about as far as his investigatory efforts had got, for the darkness – and his flight to Bioko – had descended shortly thereafter. But it was clearly a document that had been of extremely high sensitivity at the time of the war, one that had somehow fallen into his grandfather’s hands.
Yet it was the page that followed which had triggered Jaeger’s memories, drawing him from London to Wiltshire, back to his – largely abandoned – family home.
He turned the cover with a heavy sense of foreboding.
Looking up at him from the title page was a stark image stamped in black. Jaeger stared at it, his mind reeling. Just as he’d feared, his memory hadn’t lied or played tricks on him.
The dark image was that of a stylised eagle standing on its tail, wings outstretched below a cruelly curved beak – its talons gripping a circular symbol etched with unreadable markings.
11
Jaeger sat at his kitchen table, his gaze turned inwards.
Before him were ranged three photographs: one, that of Andy Smith’s body, eagle symbol carved deep and bloody into his left shoulder; two, a photo that Jaeger had taken on his smartphone of the eagle symbol on the inside cover of the Operation Werewolf document .
And the third – the photo of his wife and child.
During his time in the military, Jaeger hadn’t exactly been the marrying type. A long and happy marriage and a life in special forces didn’t often go together. Every month was a new mission – pitting himself against a sun-blasted desert, a sweaty jungle or an ice-clad mountain. There had been little time for prolonged romances.
But then the accident had happened. During a high-altitude freefall jump over the African savannah, Jaeger’s ’chute had malfunctioned. He was lucky to have survived. He’d spent months in hospital with a broken back, and though he’d fought his way back to physical fitness, his days in the SAS had been numbered.
It was during that time – the long year’s recovery – that he’d first met Ruth. They were introduced via a mutual friend and at first they hadn’t got along at all well. Ruth, six years his junior, a university graduate and a diehard wildlife and environmental campaigner, had assumed Jaeger to be her polar opposite.
As for Jaeger, he’d presumed a tree-hugging type like her would despise an elite soldier like him. It was down to a mixture of his razor-sharp, teasing humour and her feisty attitude, coupled with her striking good looks, that they’d gradually grown to appreciate each other . . . and eventually to fall in love.
Over time they’d realised they shared a common bond – a burning love of all things wild.
Ruth was three months pregnant with Luke on the day of their wedding, at which Andy Smith had been best man. And via Luke’s birth and the months and years that followed, they’d experienced the miracle of having brought a mini version of their two selves into this world.
Every day with Luke and Ruth had been a wonderful challenge and an adventure, which made the void of their dark loss all the more impossible to bear.
For close to an hour Jaeger stared at those three images – a mouldering yellow Nazi document and a police photo of an alleged suicide victim, both displaying that same eagle symbol; and the photo of Ruth and Luke – trying to fathom the connection that lay between them. There was a feeling he couldn’t shake that somehow that eagle symbol was linked to the death – no: the disappearance – of his wife and child.
In some unknowable way – some way that he couldn’t for the life of him seem to grasp – there was a disturbing sensation of cause and effect here. Call it a soldier’s sixth sense, but he’d learned to trust that inner
They had turned up nothing.
Not one single reference out there anywhere in the ether.
That was about as far as his investigatory efforts had got, for the darkness – and his flight to Bioko – had descended shortly thereafter. But it was clearly a document that had been of extremely high sensitivity at the time of the war, one that had somehow fallen into his grandfather’s hands.
Yet it was the page that followed which had triggered Jaeger’s memories, drawing him from London to Wiltshire, back to his – largely abandoned – family home.
He turned the cover with a heavy sense of foreboding.
Looking up at him from the title page was a stark image stamped in black. Jaeger stared at it, his mind reeling. Just as he’d feared, his memory hadn’t lied or played tricks on him.
The dark image was that of a stylised eagle standing on its tail, wings outstretched below a cruelly curved beak – its talons gripping a circular symbol etched with unreadable markings.
11
Jaeger sat at his kitchen table, his gaze turned inwards.
Before him were ranged three photographs: one, that of Andy Smith’s body, eagle symbol carved deep and bloody into his left shoulder; two, a photo that Jaeger had taken on his smartphone of the eagle symbol on the inside cover of the Operation Werewolf document .
And the third – the photo of his wife and child.
During his time in the military, Jaeger hadn’t exactly been the marrying type. A long and happy marriage and a life in special forces didn’t often go together. Every month was a new mission – pitting himself against a sun-blasted desert, a sweaty jungle or an ice-clad mountain. There had been little time for prolonged romances.
But then the accident had happened. During a high-altitude freefall jump over the African savannah, Jaeger’s ’chute had malfunctioned. He was lucky to have survived. He’d spent months in hospital with a broken back, and though he’d fought his way back to physical fitness, his days in the SAS had been numbered.
It was during that time – the long year’s recovery – that he’d first met Ruth. They were introduced via a mutual friend and at first they hadn’t got along at all well. Ruth, six years his junior, a university graduate and a diehard wildlife and environmental campaigner, had assumed Jaeger to be her polar opposite.
As for Jaeger, he’d presumed a tree-hugging type like her would despise an elite soldier like him. It was down to a mixture of his razor-sharp, teasing humour and her feisty attitude, coupled with her striking good looks, that they’d gradually grown to appreciate each other . . . and eventually to fall in love.
Over time they’d realised they shared a common bond – a burning love of all things wild.
Ruth was three months pregnant with Luke on the day of their wedding, at which Andy Smith had been best man. And via Luke’s birth and the months and years that followed, they’d experienced the miracle of having brought a mini version of their two selves into this world.
Every day with Luke and Ruth had been a wonderful challenge and an adventure, which made the void of their dark loss all the more impossible to bear.
For close to an hour Jaeger stared at those three images – a mouldering yellow Nazi document and a police photo of an alleged suicide victim, both displaying that same eagle symbol; and the photo of Ruth and Luke – trying to fathom the connection that lay between them. There was a feeling he couldn’t shake that somehow that eagle symbol was linked to the death – no: the disappearance – of his wife and child.
In some unknowable way – some way that he couldn’t for the life of him seem to grasp – there was a disturbing sensation of cause and effect here. Call it a soldier’s sixth sense, but he’d learned to trust that inner
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