London Stormbird

by Martin J Cobb

  Vassili Urosov sank back into his leather chair and sighed. That particular problem would appear to be somewhat nearer being resolved, he thought. All he had to do now was somehow appease the Russian President and his cronies if he was to avoid some distinct unpleasantness from that direction soon. He didn’t fancy ‘accidentally’ being exposed to ricin or some other deadly toxin courtesy of a Russian State hit squad.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Blinded by Gold

  Tom, Claire and Heinrich settled themselves into a booth in one corner of the bar, ironically the same spot recently vacated by a swarthy man in a ski jacket. Claire placed her laptop on the table in front of them and loaded up the video files taken that afternoon. Despite now having the benefit of a much better screen to view it on the quality of the video taken by the endoscope was still poor and difficult to interpret. She slowed the playback down so that they had more time to digest each little snippet as the camera on the end of the cable flicked nervously around the interior of the pile of rocks. Suddenly the image of the three-pointed-star shot into view and Claire paused the playback.

  “That’s definitely a Mercedes badge for sure.” Heinrich stated. Claire ran the video sequence on while all three of them struggled to discern any details until the shot with the presumed bullet hole appeared. By shuffling the video back and forth a frame at a time they all saw what looked like another similar hole a little distance away from the first. Tom made quick mental calculations about the relative positions and distances of the holes to the Mercedes logo and then leaned over and ran the video of the gun camera footage in slow motion.

  “Look at the rear of the Mercedes just in shot as the bullets strike. You can see the first impacting to the left and slightly above the level of the Mercedes badge on the spare wheel’s hub on the boot and then subsequent rounds running in a line roughly forwards and diagonally to the right. It definitely follows the pattern and rough location of what the endoscope recorded. From the film it looks like maybe 4 or 5 bullets impacted the car itself and, luckily for everyone, none of them apparently tracer rounds.”

  “Claire looked up from the screen, “What are tracer rounds?”

  Heinrich turned to Claire. “Tracer rounds are incendiaries which leave a visible, fiery trail when fired and tend to set fire to whatever they hit. It was common for the machine guns in aircraft to have the belts loaded with a mix of normal and armour-piercing rounds but with a tracer round every so often so that, when fired, the pilot could see where his bullets were going. That’s why we can see the stream of bullets in the gun camera footage. It’s lucky that none of the tracers actually hit the car as it would have set it on fire, which is probably what happened to the less fortunate truck.”

  Just as he finished his explanation and turned back to look at the endoscope footage that Claire had now put back on the laptop screen Tom’s phone rang.

  “Barry, hi! Thanks for calling back, what do you reckon then?” Tom listened intently to what his friend Barry from the auction house was saying without interruption for at least two minutes. Heinrich and Claire could hear the excited tone of Barry’s voice as it’s volume increased towards the end of his monologue. Having given his thanks and a promise to keep him informed of progress and the offer of a beer when he was next in London, Tom hung up and without a word forwarded the displayed video on the laptop onto the section where the two chrome trims came into view. He carefully paused the video at a frame where one of the chrome trim pieces was full frame and sank back in his chair.

  “Well?” Claire asked impatiently.

  “Barry says that the Mercedes logo mounted on the hub of the spare wheel on the boot would be absolutely correct for a pre-war car, not a truck. The chrome trim pieces we saw in the video are almost certainly hinges for the dicky seat cover and quite distinctive. The shiny round thing with the conical end is also quite distinctive and almost certainly a windscreen-mounted spotlight. It all points to the car being a 1930’s built 8 cylinder model and thus very desirable. Barry got excited at this point although he made it clear that he wouldn’t guarantee his deductions without seeing much more of the car. Those hinges were apparently only used on open topped 2 seater cars which had dicky seats recessed into the rear deck. Mercedes designed and built them, rather than bespoke coachbuilders, on either the 500K or 540K chassis. The numbers representing the engine size. He is of the belief that what we probably have here is a model called a 540K and one of the most expensive cars of it’s time. It was obvious that Heinrich fully appreciated the potential rarity and value of their find but Claire was not as informed when it came to vintage vehicles, never having enjoyed an interest in that particular direction. She asked the inevitable question for which Tom had the prepared answer, thanks to Barry.

  “Similar models, admittedly in perfect original condition, have sold at auction for up to a million US Dollars. Even as a wreck Barry reckons ours could be worth over a hundred thousand dependent on exactly which model it is.”

  Claire’s mouth hung open in total astonishment and even Heinrich appeared staggered by the potential value. Tom had to ask Heinrich a question for which he was dreading the answer. “So, if it is what Barry reckons it could be and we successfully extract it, who would it belong to legally?” Before either of them could answer he continued, “And if it’s being treated the same as the recovered gold will I get 5% of its value?”

  Heinrich stroked his jaw, presumably to aid his thinking process, and considered his response. He said something, stopped and extracted his phone from his pocket and made a call. Less than thirty seconds of rapid German later he returned the phone to his pocket, looked at Tom and grinned.

  “I have just discussed the situation with the Minister of the Department of National Antiquities, who is personally supervising this whole project. I told him we may have found the Mercedes used to transport the gold, and it was possible there may still be gold within the wreck. I thought it unnecessary to burden him with too many details about the car itself especially as he seemed totally focused on the prospect of further gold being found. I told him you had an interest in old cars and had casually asked if you could keep the wreck as a memento. He thought you were crazy but happily agreed as it would save the Department the cost of removing and disposing of it. His one proviso was that you make good the excavation when you’d finished. I told him I’d make sure you did but again didn’t think it prudent to tell him we’d commandeered assistance from the military which the Department was ultimately paying for, anyway. I asked for a formal confirmation by email which he promised to provide on the excuse British customs may need something when you carted it back to the UK.

  Tom looked admiringly at Heinrich, almost incapable of speech. Claire broke the silence,

  “Does that mean we are now the proud owners of a battered Mercedes, assuming we can get it out?”

  “Heinrich, I could kiss you!” Tom exclaimed having recovered his voice, “Are you happy for an equal 3-way split?”

  Heinrich thrust his hand out which Tom shook enthusiastically, “Deal! I’ll probably place it in the hands of Barry as I’m sure he’ll do the proper job marketing it. I suggest we form a company specifically for this project with us each holding equal shares,. It will make the eventual share out easier and should avoid us paying tax on the profits more than once. Now all we have to do is get our hands on it.”

  Heinrich disappeared off to the bar returning with a tray containing a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and 3 glasses.

  “Not my favourite tipple however I think the occasion calls for it.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not premature.” Claire responded putting a slight dampener on the proceedings.

  Despite this they toasted each other enthusiastically watched from the hotel reception by the swarthy man with the ski jacket.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A Mountain Shelter

  The next morning found Tom sitting alone, head in his hands, in the hotel restaurant with a mug of steaming c
offee and little else on the table in front of him. He just couldn’t face the prospect of eating the sausages, scrambled egg, bacon and toast which was his normal breakfast fare when away from home. He’d left Claire still in bed, despite it being past 8 o’clock. She had mumbled a warning to him not to talk to her and something about never drinking again. The bottle of Veuve Clicquot had seemed to disappear almost immediately once they’d toasted themselves a couple of times. It had been essential that it was immediately followed by a second bottle which suffered a similar fate. By the third bottle all three of them were, to put it mildly, quite euphoric. The fourth bottle had been the mistake, and it was a mistake Tom was paying a heavy price for this morning. He presumed he was not alone in suffering a banging headache as Heinrich’s failure to materialise for breakfast spoke volumes.

  The second mug of coffee seemed to bring about the slight improvement in his general demeanour sufficient for him to put a call through to Barry in London to update him on the proposed arrangements for the car should they manage to recover it safely and it turned out to live up to their high expectations.

  Tom decided he was sufficiently recovered to attempt breakfast and, as he returned to his table clutching a plate adorned with scrambled eggs and toast, he saw Claire slowly shuffling across the restaurant shoulder to shoulder with Heinrich. They both had their heads down and walked in silence to Tom’s table where they sat down without even a ‘good morning’. Tom rose and brought a coffee each for them back from the buffet. As he sat down Heinrich’s phone chirped announcing the arrival of a text. He languidly scooped the phone from the table, looked at it and declared, “A team with digging equipment are going to be waiting for us in Trefoi in less than an hour, we have to get moving.”

  The drive to Trefoi was extremely subdued but somehow the sight of the camouflaged military truck sitting in the square outside the hotel in Trefoi, and the gaggle of soldiers standing around the truck in work fatigues, managed to galvanise the car’s occupants into a more optimistic mood.

  Arriving at the lay-by, now seriously churned up by all the recent, and unusual, activity Tom parked the car away from the truck which the soldiers were now busy unloading. The sergeant walked over to Tom who was surveying the scene.

  “Please take me to where the excavation needs to be done and talk me through what exactly how you’d like us to do this.”

  Tom stepped over the small bush at the entrance to the steep track, avoiding the concrete bollard, and led the sergeant to the pile of rocks.

  “Somewhere in there we think there is a motor car which, conceivably, could be valuable both as a car but also for what it might contain. We need to dig it out without doing it any further damage if that’s at all possible.”

  The sergeant surveyed the small mountain of rocks and stones then climbed up the slope to get some idea of the total volume needing to be removed.

  “We’ll take the rocks from the top, by hand, all the way back to where the grass density changes, layer by layer. We’ll set up a chute from the top to the track and drop them down to a point where the digger can then push them into a pile away from the excavation. Which is the shortest route back to the road?”

  Tom considered the question for a few seconds. “Probably the way we’ve just come although the track is steeper that way.”

  The sergeant considered for a moment. “Show me the other way.”

  As he started off along the track, Tom in tow, he called up his corporal on his radio and gave instruction to clear the access junction to the old road and to evaluate whether he considered the track too steep to drive a standard vehicle along.

  Having established that the East route was far longer, and the track appeared to be in a worse condition, the sergeant issued further instructions on his radio. Two soldiers clambered up the slope carrying bundles of rope and a rubber mallet which they used to drive large spiked anchors into the hillside directly above the target rock pile. They drove another spike in nearer the edge of the slope slightly to the East of this and then looped a rope through the eyelet on it’s top. Having thrown one end of the rope down to their mates below they both then heaved the rope back, now dragging a long, yellow articulated tube with it. With the chute in place the two soldiers then roped themselves to the two anchors up the hillside as a safety precaution and, working from the back to the front, started removing rocks and dropping them into the chute. Down below the little digger was shoving the continuous stream of rocks away from the chute’s opening down the track to the East. Thirty minutes of this and the soldiers all switched around with the ones clearing the track now on rock removal and vice versa. The corporal called up on the radio to report that the junction and lower part of the track was now clear and they’d pulled the truck off the road into the small lay by they’d exposed.

  Tom, Claire and Heinrich watched on as the soldiers laboured away feeling rather useless and redundant. At this stage there was little they could do, and it was obvious that, despite the soldiers’ efforts, this excavation was going to take many hours. Tom walked down the track ostensibly to check on the progress being made clearing the track. Reaching their car he removed the drone’s backpack and walked back to where Claire was standing.

  “We have a team of strong, well organised and properly equipped men here digging this pile out and it looks like it’s going to take them all day, if not longer. Back in 1945 the car was buried by a rag-tag bunch of probably emaciated ex-prisoners with a fraction of the strength of these men and presumably no equipment and they had to do it quickly. How on Earth did they manage it?”

  As he said this he’d been unpacking and assembling the drone which he now fired up and brought to a hover a little above their heads. It was Claire who first spoke.

  “I guess the only way would have been to create a rockfall above and somehow channel the falling rocks into the cutout. They would have only had to finish the job by hand making sure everything was totally covered up. That might also explain the higher density of fallen rocks down in the valley below here.”

  Tom had flown the drone up over the rockpile and further up the slope, past the rope anchors, and had the camera pointing mostly forwards.

  “Look there, you can see a giant nibble taken out of the vertical wall directly above the slope.” He said pointing at the live picture transmitted from the now stationary drone.”

  Claire and Heinrich craned their heads over Tom’s arms to look at the small phone screen clamped to the remote control transmitter.

  “So, how do you reckon they broke that lot away and then controlled the direction of its fall?” Heinrich asked.

  “I guess a couple of grenades scientifically placed might do the trick although I’ve no idea how they got the rocks to go where they wanted.”

  Claire chimed in, “I don’t suppose they could direct the stream where they wanted. I guess they just blew up a pile and hoped some of it ended up in the right place. Maybe they put up some kind of barrier to stop at least some rocks from going all the way down. They could then have moved some of these to the pile by hand fairly quickly.”

  Tom flew the drone round the site and up and down the track taking a few pictures as mementos of the occasion and bought the drone back. Whilst he was packing it away there was a shout from one of the soldiers on the slope above. An exchange of rapid German ensued between the soldier and his sergeant which Heinrich translated.

  “He’s just removed a particularly large rock from near the front of the area and it looks like there’s timber underneath.”

  Tom and Claire both immediately started scrambling up the pile. Tom stopped and climbed down, took the endoscope out of the backpack and followed Claire up to where the soldier was pointing. Sure enough they could clearly see a very rough, weathered timber no more than a metre below the line of the slope and about 2 metres back from the edge.

  “Can you please concentrate on clearing around this area as it would be good to see exactly what this is?” Tom asked the sergeant who ha
d now joined them on the slope. The two soldiers did as requested and started moving rocks away from the hole that had been created exposing the timber. Tom grabbed a pair of gloves and joined in the toil. After fifteen minutes they had cleared the rocks above the timber from one side of the rock pile to the other and proved the timber was continuous. They had then started clearing back from this and found the edge of this timber and another similar timber butted up to it. Progress was slower now as the further they went to the rear the more material they had to move as the slope rose upwards and the thickness of the rock covering increased but the timbers appeared to remain horizontal.

  The sergeant called a temporary halt for them all to have food, drink and a bit of a rest. Tom stayed on the top of the slope and carefully smoothed away the remaining small stones and dust from the exposed timber. It was obviously old and very hard. The weather had bleached it to a light grey colour which rather suggested to Tom that it had been out in the open for a long time before it was unceremoniously buried. Along a few inches of the edge of one of the boards Tom could see that the timber had gone very soft and he could pick pieces off with this finger. He called down to Claire now on the track and gripping a mug of coffee in one hand and a bread roll in the other.

  “Can you ask the sergeant if they have any crowbars or chisels or something similar in their toolkit please?”

  Claire dutifully obeyed and returned a few minutes later wielding a 2 foot long crowbar. “Will this do?”

  She threw the crowbar up to Tom who set about the rotten timber prising pieces away with the crowbar until he’d opened up a gap sufficiently large to get his hand in. He started the video recorder app. on his phone with the front light also running and fed his hand, still gripping the phone, into the hole. He rotated the phone around and tilted it up and down in an attempt to get the full 360 degree coverage of whatever it could see. After a couple of minutes he withdrew his hand and turned off the video recorder. He sat down on a particularly large rock and eagerly viewed the phone’s video footage. Before he even got halfway through the clip, he shouted an involuntary “YES!” and clambered down the pile to show Claire and Heinrich.