London Stormbird

by Martin J Cobb

  “Looks like it was on fire when it arrived here, did the gun camera film show it burning?” he asked.

  “Too hard to tell I’m afraid as the footage finished as soon as the pilot took his finger off the firing button.”

  After another hour of digging all around the truck they had completely unearthed the remains and stood around the perimeter of the almost 3 metre hole admiring their handiwork. The front of the truck had been totally stove in with the bodywork and radiator crushed over the engine which in turn looked as though it had been pushed off its mounts and downwards. Both front wheels were still attached although bent almost out of recognition. The cab itself was barely recognisable although they could see a badge on the end of the steering column amidst the tangled mess of the roof, which had been crushed down almost to the floor chassis rails, although the rest of the steering wheel was missing. It was obvious the truck must have rolled as it careered down the mountainside, probably front to back looking at the state of the cab.

  Tom jumped down into the hole to get a better look and the sergeant did likewise on the opposite side of the truck. The wooden base of the truck’s load area had almost totally disappeared, either through the original fire or from rot in this damp environment. The wooden frame of the cab had obviously also suffered a similar fate. This allowed Tom to see straight into what remained of the crushed cab and its contents which frankly wasn’t much. The charred remains of upholstery material from the seats and bits of what must originally have been its instrument panel, but of the wooden crates and their gold contents there was no sign. The sergeant called a request over to Tom who threw him his small pocket maglite torch in response. Tom saw him thread his arm into an area somewhere around where the driver’s feet would have originally been, directly behind the engine, and pull out a small rectangular object about the size of a modern smart phone covered in mud. He gently rubbed filth away with his other hand, looked up and beckoned furiously for Tom to join him.

  Tom scrambled round in the soggy hole to where the sergeant was standing who handed him the filthy object. Tom turned the surprisingly heavy object over in his hands, wiping more of the mud away as he did so, and uncovered the unmistakable Nazi swastika emblem being held in the claws of an eagle with spread wings. Underneath this the engraved print read ‘DEUTSCHE REICHSBANK’ and under this ‘1 KILO FEINGOLD 999’ and at the very bottom ‘DR032481’.

  The two men stared open-mouthed at each other for several seconds until Tom broke the silence.

  “What chance is there that more of these could be in or under this truck?”

  The sergeant shouted orders to his men, one of whom went back to the helicopter.

  “We have to inform my CO of this immediately and before we do anything further. It is the law in Austria that all such finds must be reported as they become the property of the State.”

  The squaddie returned carrying the sergeant’s mobile phone which he took and made the necessary call. Tom watched on whilst they concluded the brief conversation.

  “they have instructed us to secure the site pending arrival of a representative from the Department of National Antiquities who will decide on how to proceed. This is unlikely to happen for a couple of days so my captain has suggested we fly you back to Trafoi which is just a few kilometres down the road on your route back to Graun where Miss Owens can meet you in the car. He has promised that he will call you as soon as there’s likely to be any progress here.”

  Tom called Claire to tell her the good news about the discovery of the gold bar in the wreckage and the plan to return to Graun temporarily. After Claire delivered the inevitable barrage of questions, mostly remaining unanswered, she started the car up and exited the lay-by heading East to Trafoi to meet Tom as they’d agreed.

  Claire had parked the rented car right outside the Bella Vista Hotel in Trafoi in a large open square which was apparently the location of a regular market on certain days although this wasn’t one. Today it was doing service as a car park although not enjoying too many customers. Claire was casually half sitting on the bonnet watching the sky to the South and enjoying the sunshine. The increasing volume of the clatter from the helicopter’s rotors made several of the people milling around the square look up. When the menacing outline of the camouflaged Black Hawk appeared following the valley floor and apparently intending to approach the town, it became impossible for anybody to ignore the din. The pilot halted the helicopter a couple of hundred feet above the square and started slowly descending. As it neared the ground those below could see two soldiers sitting on the helicopter’s floor by the large cargo hatch with their legs dangling outside the helicopter’s fuselage. The small dust storm being generated by the down-draught was joined by the contents of a rubbish bin which was blown over in the maelstrom. The skids touched down, and a figure dressed in muddy jeans and jacket jumped out and calmly walked across the square towards the hotel. The helicopter immediately lifted off again and disappeared up the valley the way it had come. A crowd of startled people in the square were, almost to a man (or woman), staring at the bedraggled figure in amazement and curiosity.

  Tom walked over to Claire, kissed her in greeting, and got in the passenger side of the little car without a word. Claire drove away from the hotel heading East leaving a gaggle of people staring after them in amazement.

  “Well that’s certainly the way to make an entrance, I could feel everybody's eyes on us when we departed. Now tell me exactly what you found.”

  Tom gave Claire a detailed account of the dig and the unearthing of the AFN truck. When he got to the part about finding the gold bar she interrupted his monologue, “so show me then.” Tom laughed but Claire seemed genuinely surprised that he hadn’t kept hold of it.

  “It’s all in the hands of the government now although my agreement should cover a finder’s fee at least. What do you reckon a kilogram of pure gold is worth these days?”

  As he said that Tom reached onto the back seat and retrieved the laptop which he fired up and connected to the internet through his phone’s service.

  “According to this a kilo of pure gold is worth around £32,000 as bullion. Let’s hope they find some more in the wreckage. We can dismiss any idea that there might be the rest of the original shipment in that wreck though, sadly. We could see most of what’s left of the truck and there’s no way any real quantity could hide there.”

  “So we have to assume the Bolzano prisoners unloaded the truck and shoved it into the ravine empty, or nearly empty?”

  “I think they must have shifted the gold to the car after they were shot up, shoved the empty truck off the road and carried on into Switzerland to live a happy and wealthy life amongst the cuckoo clocks and chocolate.”

  They drove back to Graun and the gasthaus with Tom making call after call on his phone until the battery finally expired.

  “What was all that about?” Claire queried.

  “I wanted to make sure that the Messerschmitt transport was all in place and hear how Heinrich is progressing with the Arado. They seem to have sorted everything and, according to Heinrich, the man from the Ministry will be actually be arriving tomorrow morning. He says we should aim to be on site sometime after 11 if we want to be involved.”

  Claire pulled the car into the hotel’s small car park and found a space. They gathered up their possessions, collected their room key from reception and went upstairs for a shower and change.

  An hour later found them both clutching glasses of their favourite tipples in the lounge bar with Tom’s laptop, maps and a bundle of papers once again strewn all over a small coffee table. Tom was idly tracing the likely route from the Stelvio Pass through to Switzerland.

  “It’s only about 25 miles, as the crow flies, from where the truck wreck is to St. Moritz in Switzerland although the distance by road is around 60 miles as it winds its way through the mountains. Doesn’t sound too far but could a pre-war car carrying a full load of people and over half a ton of gold manage to negotia
te the twisty, presumably poor quality, road with huge changes in elevation along its length, I just don’t know?”

  Claire had been tapping away on the laptop’s keyboard whilst Tom was talking and she now looked up and, completely ignoring Tom’s question, pointed to the screen. “Tell me what you can see there.”

  Tom moved so that he could see the screen which was displaying a static picture, obviously a single frame from the paused video taken by the drone that afternoon. He joggled the video back and forth a few times to try to get a better look, without too much success. He had obviously taken this part of the video when He had flown the drone up past the road to the slope above and could see what looked like another narrow track or road which had obviously not been use for a long time. Alpine plants and scrub grew through what must have once been a prepared hard surface. He ran the video on past this anomaly as the drone flew back to the road and Tom’s waiting hand. Tom absently wondered why he hadn’t turned off the video recording before flying the drone ‘back to base’ as he usually did. He stared hard at the screen and could see the track or road descend sharply to the West dipping towards the main road.

  “It looks like they built a new road at some point bypassing this particular part. I guess that could explain the extra rocks dislodged down at the bottom, they could have come from the excavation when they built this road.”

  “Yes, maybe, but if you look at the map and follow the route the old road must have taken, the new road would have to be almost a half mile long because of the different route it takes around the mountain. Why do we only have a denser fall of rocks in this small 50 metre length? If you also assume that rocks falling would inevitably spread out widthways as they fell this would suggest that the source of the dislodged rocks must have been quite small in width.”

  Tom considered Claire’s logic and nodded slowly. “I can see your logic, so what do you think caused the rockfall and where?”

  Claire just shrugged her shoulders in answer.

  “Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

  They packed up the laptop and papers, left their empty glasses and marched off into the restaurant in search of some local gastronomical delights.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The Old Road

  Early the next morning Tom and Claire were back in their bedroom packing up, having eaten a hearty breakfast and now preparing to check out. Today would be interesting. They planned on getting to the truck wreck site early as they wanted to be on hand when the man from the Ministry arrived. Tom also hoped to investigate further up the valley, if the opportunity arose, to see if he could establish the reason for the heavier rockfall and to check out the old roadway. As he finished packing his rucksack and hoisting it onto his back the phone on the bedside cabinet rang.

  “Mr Stroud I have a gentleman here who would like to see you.”

  “Really, what’s his name?”

  “I’m sorry, he didn’t give it to me and he is now in the restaurant having coffee and I cannot leave this desk to ask him.”

  “OK, we’ll be down in a minute, can you please prepare our bill?”

  Claire had finished her packing and closed the bag. A quick glance around to check they’d left nothing, and they both walked down the stairs to reception. Tom paid the bill and handed over the key leaving their bags near the front door. They walked into the restaurant to find a grinning Heinrich sitting at a table with coffee and pastries in front of him.

  “What are you doing here?” Tom asked without preamble.

  "The Department of National Antiquities have appointed me as their official representative for this excavation. Just let me finish this and we can all go together. I’m afraid they drove here me, and the driver has taken the car back so we must go in yours.”

  With Heinrich fully breakfasted, they left the gasthaus and drove South once again down the winding valley road alongside the lake bordered by soaring mountains towards the Stelvio. As they approached the centre of Trafoi, they could clearly see the Black Hawk squatting rather menacingly in the car park outside the Bella Vista Hotel attracting quite a lot of attention from passersby. Two soldiers carrying machine pistols loosely at their sides stood casually either side of the helicopter keeping the public from getting too close. Tom parked the car in the public car park opposite the hotel and all three of them walked purposefully across the square. Nodding at the soldiers they climbed in the Black Hawk which immediately started its engines and the rotors spun up. The soldiers clambered in and the helicopter rose noisily up off the square throwing dust and debris over a wide area. Minutes later they were hovering over the wreck site as the pilot chose his landing spot and gently lowered the Black Hawk onto the valley floor. Peace once again descended on the valley as the helicopter finally shut down.

  Heinrich introduced himself to the sergeant in charge of the dig. After a brief conversation, orders were shouted, and the scene became a hive of activity. They attached large slings to the remains of the truck whilst soldiers with shovels dug the remaining soil and rocks from around the truck wreck. The micro digger was positioned on the slope above the wreck and attached to the slings. Slings were attached to a long steel cable attached to a stanchion on the bottom of the helicopter. The Black Hawk powered up and lifted off and the cable grew taught. As the slings creaked the truck was slowly prised from the ooze at the bottom of the muddy trench. The micro digger then slowly climbed the slope dragging the suspended truck with it. Rapid radio conversation ensued between the digger driver, the helicopter pilot and sergeant to maintain the synchronised lift and drag until the wreck was finally clear of the hole at which point the helicopter lowered it back to the ground and then landed and shut down.

  The whole party, with one exception, then descended on the wreck and started poking and pulling at it in an attempt to untangle some of its structure to get visibility of the interior. Another soldier jumped into the recently vacated hole and swung a metal detector back and forth over the whole area. They used the micro digger to pull major parts of the structure apart until the whole area was spread with an assortment of pieces of rusty, mangled steel and iron. One soldier probing the remains suddenly shouted and waved an arm in the air clutching something the size of a mobile phone. Tom turned to Claire, “Looks like another £32,000 worth!”

  Heinrich took possession of the find and, having studied it briefly, looked across at Tom and nodded in confirmation. Almost immediately the man with the metal detector called out and two soldiers with shovels joined him in the hole to unearth the various ‘hits’ he’d identified. They pulled up various small parts of the front of the truck and its interior from the hole and then one soldier held up a small bar in each hand waving them furiously.

  Over the next hour and a half, to the delight of all the team, the total of kilogram bars of fine gold discovered climbed to 18.

  “That’s over half a million pounds worth and Heinrich says that our agreement with the Department of National Antiquities is very specific that we will receive 5%. That should help the Focke Wulf restoration fund.” Tom declared happily.

  “They’re not finished yet. The sergeant reckons they’ll be at least another hour before they’re satisfied that they’ve found everything there is to find. How about having a look at that old bit of roadway once they’ve finished off here?” Claire said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  A Rockpile

  “Well, this is the spot.” Tom said as he switched off the car’s engine having parked up in the same small lay-by from where he’d flown the drone earlier.

  The whole team had packed up the truck excavation site, loaded the helicopter with the equipment and the recovered gold bars and flown back to Trafoi to drop Tom and Claire off. A short drive back to the Stelvio Pass Road and into the now very familiar parking lay-by. They both exited the car and set off on foot in opposite directions as they’d arranged on the drive. The idea being to try to find where the original road branched off onto the newer one and thus each end of
the bypassed old road section. Claire was the first to reach her goal. As she turned a gentle bend in the road, she could see the gap in the otherwise continuous slope and the now overgrown track liberally strewn with small granite rocks and stones. She carefully threaded her way through the undergrowth and rocks and made her way slowly up the steep track. She called Tom on her phone who answered with a curse.

  “What’s the matter?” Claire could still hear subdued swearing on the other end of the phone.

  “I’ve just cracked my shin on a bloody concrete bollard hidden by vegetation.” Tom answered when he’d recovered sufficiently to answer.

  “I’ve found the end of the road though,” he continued, ” how about you?”

  Claire told him that she was now following the old road from the West side towards him.

  “Just keep an eye out for anything that looks out of place or could be the source of all those rocks below in the valley.”

  Stumbling frequently, they both met at a point almost halfway along the track. Having found nothing that either of them considered unusual or out of place, Tom unslung his backpack and started assembling the drone. After completing the startup ritual he flew it straight up until it was hovering some 30 feet above them both. Claire was staring unblinking at the video feed from the drone being displayed on Tom’s phone atop the transmitter whilst Tom watched the progress of the drone as he manoeuvred it away out from the track and pointed it towards them. Having centred the video image on themselves he then flew the drone along the line of the track looking at the old road and the wall behind it from a height. Claire suddenly called “Stop!” and Tom halted the drone which now hovered some 60 metres from them to the East. Having made sure the drone was stable he gave the monitor his full attention and could see what Claire had spotted. From the air he could see that there was an area of the wall behind the track which looked slightly different from the rest. Although the rock colour was the same there appeared to be far less vegetation growing on a specific section.