Ghost Flight by Bear Grylls Read Free Book Online

across to Jaeger.
    ‘Police gave it to us. We went to the morgue anyway, to double-check. That mark; that symbol – it was carved into Andy’s left shoulder.’
    Jaeger stared at the image, an icy chill running up his spine. Cut deep into his former second-in-command’s skin was a crudely stylised eagle. It was standing on its tail, cruelly hooked beak thrown to its right and wings stretched wide, talons grasping a bizarre circular form.
    Feaney reached forward, stabbing a finger at the photo. ‘We can’t place it. The eagle symbol. Doesn’t seem to mean much of anything to anyone. And trust me, we’ve asked.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘Police argue it’s just some arbitrary pseudo-military image. That Smithy did it to himself. Self-harm. Part of the case they’re building for suicide.’
    Jaeger couldn’t speak. He’d barely registered Feaney’s words. He was unable to tear his eyes away from that image. Somehow the sight of it eclipsed even the horrors he’d suffered in Black Beach Prison.
    The longer he stared at that dark eagle symbol, the more he felt it burn into his brain. It summoned terrible memories hidden deep within him.
    It was so alien yet so familiar somehow, and it threatened to drag those long-buried memories back to the surface, kicking and screaming.

 
    8
    Jaeger grabbed the heavy bolt-croppers and clambered over the fence. Luckily, the security at east London’s Springfield Marina never had been too hot. He’d left Bioko with the clothes he stood up in. He’d certainly had zero time to grab his keys – including those that opened the gates leading into the marina.
    Still, it was his boat and he saw no reason why he shouldn’t break into his own home.
    He’d brought the bolt-croppers at a local store. Before leaving Raff and Feaney he’d asked them – plus Carson, Wild Dog Media’s MD – for forty-eight hours. Two days in which to decide if he was up for taking over from where Smithy had left off – leading this seemingly ill-fated expedition into the Amazon.
    But despite the time he’d asked for, Jaeger knew he really wasn’t kidding anyone. Already, they had him: for so many reasons, he just couldn’t refuse.
    First off, he owed Raff. The big Maori had saved his life. Unless Pieter Boerke’s mercenary forces had liberated Bioko in record time, Jaeger would have perished in Black Beach Prison – his passing unnoticed by a world from which he had so utterly withdrawn.
    Second, he owed Andy Smith. And Jaeger didn’t leave his friends hanging. Not ever. There was no way Smithy had taken his own life. He intended to triple-check, of course. Just to be absolutely certain. But he sensed that his friend’s death had to be linked to that mystery air wreck lying deep in the Amazon. What other reason – what other motive – was there?
    Jaeger had an instinctive feeling that Smithy’s killer was amongst the expedition team. The way to find them had to be to join their number and flush them out from the inside.
    Thirdly, there was the aircraft itself. From the little that Adam Carson had been able to tell him over the phone, it had sounded intriguing. Irresistible. Like the Winston Churchill quote Feaney had attempted – it absolutely was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
    Jaeger found the draw of it utterly compelling.
    No. He was already decided: he was going.
    He’d asked for the forty-eight hours for entirely different reasons. There were three visits he intended to make; three investigations to undertake – and he would be doing so without breathing a word to anyone. Maybe the last few years had left him deeply distrustful. Unable to put his faith in anyone any more.
    Maybe the three years in Bioko had rendered him something of a loner; too at home with his own company.
    But maybe it was also better – safer – that way. It was how he would survive.
    Jaeger took the path that skirted around the marina, his boots crunching through the slick, rain-soaked