London Stormbird

by Martin J Cobb

  Tom pulled the car over at a roadside fast food diner. “I need a coffee and the car needs fuel, shall I get us both a takeout or do you want to go inside?”

  Claire picked up the laptop from the floor which she handed to Tom and then exited the car closing the door behind her. “I need the ladies, can you get me a latte and a Danish?”

  Tom sat down at a window booth in the diner, ordered coffees and pastries, and started up the laptop which responded with a series of beeps signifying emails being received. Claire joined him at the table and spun the laptop around to face her and opened her email.

  "They have granted Permission to dive and I have the contact details for the diver in Innsbruck. It gets better, he has all the gear you’d need and will come with us, apparently, to be your `buddy’. The lake has a maximum depth of 28 metres and they demolished most of the buildings in the submerged village before being flooded.”

  “Let’s finish our coffees and go find this diver.”

  “No need, he will meet us in Graun im Vinschgau the day after tomorrow with the gear. It gives us a little time to see what we can find out from the locals.”

  Tom drove on along the autobahn towards Innsbruck, the terrain now becoming increasingly rugged. Towering snow-capped mountains appeared on either side of the valley they were driving through and the road was no longer straight as it negotiated the increasingly dramatic scenery. Reaching Innsbruck they negotiated the town without stopping and continued West until they reached Landeck. Here they took the road South through a valley towards Graun and ultimately the Stelvio Pass and Italy.

  Claire peered at the passing scenery and the ever-increasing height of the snow-capped mountains either side of the road.

  “This is not a place you’d want to be in an aircraft with failing engines, there’s absolutely nowhere to put down with half a chance of walking away afterwards.”

  The valley floor was very uneven and completely strewn with rocks and boulders, there wasn’t more than a few yards of flat ground at any point. The road climbed and became even twistier. At a place called Naudersmühlen they took the road East which rose even further into the mountains, twisting around every rise in elevation forcing Tom to drop down to 1st gear on several hairpin bends. After 20 minutes and an altitude increase of about 400 metres, according to the car’s satnav, they reached the peak. The road straightened perceptibly and began downwards towards the village of Nauders which quickly became visible set into the bottom of the wide valley below. Claire pointed unnecessarily out of the windscreen.

  “Look how wide the valley is here, would there be enough room to put an aircraft down safely?”

  “The problem is the river meandering down the valley. If it kept to one side of the valley, it would be fine but it doesn’t. There isn’t a sufficiently long straight section without water or rocks running down the line of the valley and they would have had to follow the valley contour.”

  They drove on through the village still heading South down the valley floor. Reaching a small hamlet less than 2 miles from the lake at Graun, according to the satnav, the valley floor suddenly straightened and became appreciably wider.

  “On the other hand look at this. The river runs down the West side of the valley leaving what must be a mile or more of pretty flat ground with just a few farm fences obstructing things. I reckon you could put a plane down here and probably walk away from the landing.”

  Tom stopped the car, and they both got out to study the terrain.

  “Let’s assume for the moment that the Arado landed here, or somewhere similar further along this valley, although the further you go the less likely it becomes as we know they were in trouble and would likely have taken the first chance they saw to put the plane down. The pilot would almost certainly have landed wheels up and I would have thought, from the design of the aircraft, that the wing-mounted engines would probably have fouled the ground and dug into what would have been soft grass. If that happened either the engines would have been torn from the wings or the wings themselves would have been ripped off the fuselage. Either way it would probably have ended up torn into large, separate component parts. We’re in a farming area and presumably the farms would have had tractors and other useful heavy machinery to remove the cargo and plane wreckage and to move it somewhere safe and out of sight.”

  Claire studied a map she had downloaded onto her laptop.

  “Remember though that the real bottom of this valley now lies under that lake ahead and is around 28 metres lower than here, surely that is where they’d have put down.”

  Tom looked at her map and the probable path of the original river down the valley.

  “You’re probably right as the valley is very wide for around the whole 4 mile length of the lake although this reservoir was created by joining up several existing smaller lakes. Despite this though they’d certainly have the space for a last-minute approach and a forced landing with room to spare.”

  Claire pulled the printed sheet of paper from her bag with the gasthaus booking confirmation and entered the address into the satnav. Pausing for the satnav to work out the route, Tom put the car in gear and set off South down the valley.

  The road wound its way down the East side of the lake until they were presented with the bizarre spectacle of a church spire thrusting through the lake’s water about 50 metres from the shoreline.

  “You don’t see that every day!” Tom said rather facetiously.

  They carried on to the town of Graun itself following the arrow on the satnav’s screen.

  “Look at that!!” Claire exclaimed pointing out of her side window. “There’s a museum, I bet it has more than a few pictures of the village before they flooded it, let’s stop.

  The museum was actually quite a large affair in a white three-storey building. They entered a small reception area and deposited some Euros into the honesty box they found by the door. As Claire had predicted it appeared to heavily feature the area’s most dramatic event, the building of the dam and creation of the reservoir. They ambled from room to room looking at the various small exhibits in glass cases and the framed pictures that adorned nearly all the walls. It was obvious that the majority of the villagers had been distinctly unhappy with the Italian authorities who’d destroyed their village and this anti-Italian sentiment seemed to have survived through the years. Claire called Tom over to a large photo obviously taken from somewhere up the slopes as it showed much of the village just before flooding commenced.

  “Look at the village and even the church. They obviously stripped all the buildings of anything useful. Roof tiles, gutters, windows, doors and I bet the interiors are the same. They had sufficient time to completely gut the village. I can’t see that anything would have remained to give a clue to a crashed German aircraft 5 years previously can you?”

  Tom peered hard at the picture and nodded his agreement. “You’re right, I don’t think diving on this is going to be very productive, I think I’ll save myself the effort. Can you contact our man in Innsbruck and stop him travelling down here, it would just be a waste of time.”

  Tom rather dejectedly continued his stroll around the exhibits.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Bombs Away!

  Heinrich stood in the car park alongside the partially dismantled visitor centre watching the scene unfolding before his eyes. All work in the underground factory had come to a halt and the military contingent had been joined by a special force sent from Munich to oversee the removal of the bomb and its onward safe transport to a secure facility in Germany. Heinrich thought it was rather ironic that a German-made bomb originally designed to obliterate London was being given back to the Germans for safekeeping. As his mind wandered to the Arado inside and how this exhibit would elevate his museum to World Class stature, the white-painted containment vessel mounted on a purpose-built motorised cart emerged through the hangar doors into the sunshine. Several men accompanying the cart.wearing full hazmat suits peeled off and entered the mob
ile shower block they had bought with them for the necessary precautionary wash-down.

  He watched the hiab operator attach slings to the containment vessel and lift it clear of the trolley, swing it over and lower it onto the centre of the flatbed trailer unit that had been manoeuvred into position. Within minutes the slings were off and they had locked the vessel down onto the trailer and a tarpaulin stretched over the load. There was an exchange of clipboards and paperwork between the army captain and the driver who climbed in alongside his mate and set off slowly out of the complex.

  “Herr Schröder!” The voice called from across the car park emanating from a figure exiting the shower block dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket.

  “You will be pleased to hear that the radiation readings we have recorded from around and inside the aircraft in the hangar are below danger levels. The bomb casing itself was very efficient and had remained intact with no discernible radiation leakage. The higher levels you saw were no more than you could expect from the vicinity of such a device. My men are currently disassembling parts of the bomb release mechanism which have local levels of unsafe radiation and we will take these away. We can effectively hand the hangar back to you now, I’m sure you will be keen to remove the sad remains of the men inside. By the way I can tell you that they did not die of radiation poisoning, I believe they were gassed as our instruments showed minute traces of Zyklon B. Not very pleasant the Nazis were they?”

  Heinrich spontaneously grimaced at the thought. “That explains why they didn’t attempt to dig themselves out when the tunnels were blown up.”

  Heinrich walked over to the captain who was deep in conversation with two of his men. The men saluted and departed and Heinrich relayed the conversation he’d just had. The captain immediately called over to his departing minions and delivered a rapid stream of orders.

  “We will recover the bodies and take them to the Wien-Stammersdorf Military Hospital in Vienna for identification. Once completed they have ordered us to remain on site only long enough to restore the visitor centre and secure the hangar and its remaining contents pending inspection by the Department of National Antiquities.”

  In something of a panic Heinrich suddenly realised that with the rebuild of the visitor centre 'his' Arado would never leave the hangar. “I need to get the aircraft out before you replace the building outside, can you help?”

  The captain stroked his chin in that age-old gesture suggesting deep thought. “I cannot officially help you must understand, my orders have been quite specific. How long would you need to get the aircraft out?”

  Heinrich briefly calculated the likely work involved. “If we can either move it on its own wheels or jack it onto trollies as we did with the Messerschmitts it’s just a case of clearing a path for it through the hangar and out of the doors. The problems start when it’s outside. We will have to carefully remove any weapons and ammunition, drop the engine pods off the wings, remove the wings and horizontal stabiliser and then secure everything for lift onto flatbed trailers. Getting it into the open should only take a day but even with all the volunteers and use of some of your equipment it will take at least two further days to get it out of the way.”

  The captain considered Heinrich’s guesstimate. I have a large contingent of troops here with almost nothing to do until we rebuild the visitor centre. If I was to give them all 48 hours leave, you could probably bribe them with cigarettes and schnapps to help. I will tell the authorities that we have to be certain we have removed all the irradiated items from the hangar before proceeding and, if pressed, I will tell them that the aircraft is one such item.”

  Heinrich smiled and held out his hand, “Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.” He then scurried off to round up his volunteer army of engineers.

  On the hill overlooking the factory complex Pietr and Gennady lay in their camouflaged hide and studied the scene below them through binoculars. Pietr’s phone suddenly rang.

  “Hello, it’s Lukas. Are you watching what is going on?”

  Pietr loathed the ministry man. In his World Lukas was a Judas and contemptible for that reason. Although Lukas was effectively on their side and assisting them complete the task they had been instructed to undertake by Vassili Urosov he found it hard to even be civil to him.

  “Report!” He almost spat down the phone.

  “The bomb is inside the white containment unit on the back of the truck which just left the hangar and is currently parked up awaiting it’s escort. There is a driver and his mate, unarmed I think. The escort will apparently be an unmarked dark blue Audi with two military police. They will almost certainly be armed. They have found no further radioactive material in the factory.”

  “Stay where you are, I need instructions from Vassili Urosov.”

  With that Pietr closed the connection and dialled Vassili who answered on the first ring. The conversation was brief and to the point.

  “Take it!”

  Pietr redialled Lukas immediately the phone connection to Moscow had been closed.

  “Where is the escort vehicle now?”

  “The soldiers are with one officer, presumably getting route instructions. They will follow the truck when it departs. The truck doesn’t have military radios so they’ll be reliant on mobile phones.”

  Pietr pocketed his phone and gestured to Gennady, “hurry, we need to get down there before they depart.”

  They both ran for the car which spat gravel as Pietr dropped the clutch before Gennady had even closed his door. Less than four minutes later they parked in the main car park less than 50 metres from the truck with the radiation signs painted on its doors and with similar danger signs across the back. They could see a faint black haze emanating from the twin exhaust pipes above the cab of the truck which had hinged flaps gently bouncing up and down in the exhaust's gas flow. The hazard lights were flashing and they could see the driver with his head down obviously texting on his phone whilst waiting for the escort.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Graun Im Vinschgau

  Tom and Claire had split up and taken different routes around the multitude of rooms that comprised the Graun town museum. There didn’t appear to be a specific theme for each room to help them, the exhibits had probably been sited based on their size or a requirement to fit into a specific room’s furniture.

  Slightly disheartened by the discovery that they would likely find nothing under the lake, Tom was only half concentrating on the exhibits as his mind tried to work out a new strategy for the search. He walked past the large glass case full of ancient rusting farm implements when something inside unconsciously triggered a memory. He took a step backwards and stared at the discoloured, bent metal sheet enveloping a little twin cylinder petrol engine. Almost hidden beneath a weird looking animal harness by almost lying on the floor Tom could see the name ‘Riedel’ on a little plate bearing a serial number attached to the motor.

  “Claire, come and have a look at this!” Whilst waiting for Claire to join him Tom hastily searched the internet on his phone for confirmation. Claire now stood alongside him looking over his arm trying to see the phone’s screen.

  “So, who was Norbert Riedel and what does he have to do with our current project?”

  Tom read from the page he’d loaded upon his phone.

  “Norbert Riedel developed a starter engine for the first German jet engine-powered combat aircraft's power plants. The starter system, which comprised a Riedel 10 hp (7.5 kW) two-stroke flat engine hidden in the intake, essentially functioned as a pioneering example of an auxiliary power unit (APU) for starting a jet engine.”

  Tom then pointed at the slightly mangled example in the display case.

  “And there is a classic example attached to the remains of a BMW-003 engine intake housing. The BMW-003 engine was only fitted on production Heinkel He-162s, one version of the Arado 234 and a few prototype versions of the Me-262. Now which of those models do you think could possibly end up here?”

 
Claire turned and walked rapidly off returning moments later in company with a robust woman probably in her sixties but looking like she spent her days chopping wood.

  “Frau Trumbauer here is the curator of this wonderful museum and the fount of all knowledge regarding the exhibits.”

  Tom shook the lady’s hand, her grip matching the perception of strength she exuded.

  “Aha, you want to know where the contents of this particular display came from, is that correct?”

  “Thank you, yes. We would particularly like to know where that little motor was found.”

  “Everything in that case was found in the barn belonging to the Kahler Family which they emptied when they flooded the valley.”

  “What happened to the family?”

  “They left before they built the dam, very strange affair. They left their farm and everything in it and just suddenly moved North. It was a real mystery but local rumour is that they inherited a great deal of money.”

  Tom and Claire looked knowingly at each other.

  “When they left do you know how they travelled, did they drive?”

  “No, they took the train up the valley with just some suitcases, my Father actually drove them to the station in his truck. I remember him asking why they didn’t take their own truck, but they said it was broken. After they left my Father went to their farm to see if he could fix it but it wasn’t there. He never saw either them or the truck again.”

  “I suppose nobody would have a forwarding address for them?”

  The curator shook her head, “The hydro electric company tried to trace them to pay them compensation when they flooded their farm but couldn’t find them.”