London Stormbird

by Martin J Cobb

  The lady walked off returning, presumably, to her curator duties. Tom appeared deep in thought.

  “I guess there’s a couple of possible scenarios I can think of.” Tom proclaimed.

  “Option 1: Plane crashes, everybody in it is killed and a local farmer finds the gold. He hides the bodies and the remains of the plane and disappears in a hurry with the loot and his family never to be seen again. This doesn’t explain the missing truck though. Alternatively, option 2; plane crashes, at least one person walks away and gives a load of gold to a local farmer for help hiding the aircraft remains and to purchase the farmer’s truck. Farmer takes gold and family and disappears as before. Any other options you can think of that match what we know?”

  Claire thought hard for several moments but couldn’t come up with any feasible alternatives.

  “I don’t think the first option makes sense unless one of the plane’s passengers or crew wasn’t actually dead and stole the truck. This doesn’t really work though because surely the farmer wouldn’t have said it was broken, he’d have been indignant that somebody had pinched it. I’m going with option 2.”

  “Me too. The assumption therefore must be that one or more of the Germans took the truck and a quantity of the gold and headed South towards Italy. The search continues!”

  They both continued around the museum heading towards the exit and, as far as Tom was concerned, a welcome beer in their hotel. Claire suddenly grabbed his upper arm and pointed at a photo on the wall mounted on a sepia coloured board. It was an old picture showing a man and probably his wife standing alongside a flat-bed truck with a caption in handwritten pen ‘Herr Kahler and his new lorry - 11/7/1933’.

  “Isn’t that the name of the missing family?” Claire asked rather rhetorically.

  Tom looked closely at the picture. “I can’t make out the model of the truck, I’m really no expert when it comes to commercial vehicles.” He used his camera to take a photo of the picture which he then sent to somebody from his phone’s address book. “I’ve sent it to a chap I know called Mike, he a bit of an anorak when it comes to old lorries and buses.”

  As Tom put the phone back in his pocket and turned to follow Claire out of the museum, his phone bleeped signalling a received text.

  “Blimey, that was quick! Mike says it’s an Austro-Fiat AFN with a load capacity of 1.75 tons, can’t say I’m feeling very enlightened though.”

  They both strolled through the late afternoon sun back to their car and headed off to that promised beer in their picture postcard pretty hotel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Grand Theft

  Pietr walked casually up to the driver’s door of the truck holding a clipboard in his right hand resting in the crook of his arm. He reached up and tapped gently on the window to catch the driver’s attention once he saw Gennady similarly reaching the passenger door. The driver looked up from his phone and opened the door, “Kann ich Ihnen helfen?”

  As the driver asked the question, Pietr dropped the clipboard to reveal an automatic gripped in his hand and pointing unwaveringly at the centre of the driver’s forehead.

  “Vorsicht!” the driver’s mate shouted and his door was yanked open by Gennady holding another automatic.

  “Please get into the rear compartment and keep your hands where I can see them at all times. You,” Pietr said looking at the passenger, “stay where you are.”

  The driver climbed out of his seat and moved backwards into the rest compartment at the rear of the cab with Pietr following. A roll of gaffer tape appeared in Pietr’s hand with which he expertly bound the driver’s hands and legs together and then to each other with the driver huddled in a foetal position. He then bound the whole thing to the grab handle on the rear of the driver’s seat.

  “Your turn,” he directed at the driver’s mate who dutifully clambered into the rear and was similarly trussed. Pietr and Gennady then climbed in to the front just as the driver’s phone on the dashboard rang. Gennady picked up and answered the call from the escort who apparently were now ready to leave. Pietr put the truck into gear and slowly edged out of the car park onto the main road heading South towards the highway to Linz and then Wels, their final destination. He checked his mirrors and easily spotted the escort Audi now directly behind them. A few kilometres down the road, just outside a hamlet called Bernascheksiedlung, he pulled the truck off the road into a long lay-by and, leaving the engine running, got out of the cab and walked to the rear of the trailer where he crouched down and appeared to inspect one of the inner tyres. Gennady got down from the cab and walked back to the escort vehicle, hands in pockets. The passenger window was lowered, and he explained that the driver was just checking something on the trailer. Pietr rose from his inspection and walked to the Audi, obviously to explain the brief stop. As the driver’s window came down, he pulled the automatic from his pocket and shot the driver in the head in one fluid motion. The look of astonishment on the other escort was short lived as his face disintegrated from the close-range shot from the automatic which had suddenly materialised in Gennady’s hands. Both Russians calmly walked back to the truck, climbed back in and drove off unhurriedly.

  It was over an hour later when two off-duty members of the military contingent at the factory drove past the lay-by on their way into Linz and spotted the Audi with military number plates. Reversing back down from where they’d screeched to a stop they halted in front of the escort car and got out. Seconds later one of them was shouting hysterically into the Audi’s radio connected to the command truck back at the factory. Within minutes a major alert had been raised once the realisation that a quantity of fissionable material had been stolen by a person or persons unknown who were quite prepared to commit murder to accomplish this theft. Another few minutes later the regional traffic office had confirmed sighting of the truck on traffic camera footage heading West on Highway 1 for Linz. Another camera recorded them on the outskirts of the city heading around the Southern ring road. Police and military vehicles, lights flashing and sirens wailing converged on the city of Linz from every direction. The police and military scrambled helicopters to join the search, there was no way the thieves could avoid the net closing in on them and the stolen truck.

  At that moment in Berlin the current Federal Minister of Defence was in conference with many of his NATO colleagues when his aide interrupted to give him news of the hijacked Nazi bomb in Austria. The meeting descended into uproar when he passed the information on to the room in general and they all realised the potential repercussions. Aides were rapidly dispatched with orders for their respective military leaders. The thought of a potential nuclear weapon loose on European soil in the hands of criminals or extremists was definitely not a comfortable one.

  Abdul Wahed Al-Sa’eed carefully reassembled the Glock 19 Gen5 polymer handgun from the parts arrayed on the bed cover in his hotel room in Bucharest. Dressed in a pink polo shirt, light blue chinos and brown deck shoes he looked the epitome of the wealthy tourist he undoubtedly wasn’t. He shrugged on the brown leather bomber jacket carefully inserting the Glock into its custom holster stitched into the lining where the breast pocket was usually located. The genuine 1970 Aviator sunglasses completed the picture of sartorial elegance.

  Leaving his hotel he strode casually the few blocks North East and across the Kiseleff Park to the address he’d been given. This was merely a preliminary reconnaissance mission to establish exactly how he could complete his mission should it be sanctioned. He was a careful and very professional man who liked to never leave anything to chance. He sincerely hoped the order would come to eradicate the infidel Russian who had shamed his master.

  As he strolled around the high iron railings which surrounded the opulent mansion, he could see signs of activity inside, many of the rooms had lights blazing and through the open rear gates he could see a large panelled truck with Ukrainian licence plates unloading furniture and crates which were being carried into the house. For a brief moment he considered
just walking into the courtyard for a closer look but decided this wasn’t worth the risk. His circuit of the house allowed him to inspect all four sides as the house and its grounds occupied the whole block. He could see numerous cameras at first floor level which appeared to cover the perimeter excluding possible entry by stealth. If it became necessary to gain access, it would have to be deception. He walked across the road and stood on the opposite street corner from where he could see the rear mansion’s rear courtyard and the unloading truck. Using his phone he surreptitiously took several pictures of the rear and sides of the house. As he turned away to leave, his reconnaissance complete, a black Mercedes S65 with tinted windows swept into the courtyard and halted alongside the truck. The driver immediately got out and opened the rear door for the car’s other occupant who Abdul immediately recognised from the photo he had been sent.

  “So, the Master is now in residence.” He thought to himself whilst taking several more pictures with his phone. He stayed on the street corner for several minutes until a small white van with a large logo on its side featuring the name ‘La Polonice’ pulled into the courtyard and unloaded several small plastic crates which it’s driver carried into the house. He walked across the road and strode past the house again to get a closer look at the van. He could see the logo now in better detail featuring two food ladles intertwined with the letters. He managed to elicit, even though he couldn’t read the Romanian words, that this company delivered ethnic food from Eastern Europe and Russia in particular. He made a mental note of the company’s website address and continued walking around the block and back across the park to his hotel. He now had what he required, all he needed was an instruction to proceed. He carefully disassembled the Glock again, checked it carefully and re-assembled it ready for immediate use.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  War Profiteering

  Tom and Claire had settled themselves in to their quaint mountain gasthaus, or more accurately had settled themselves into the cosy bar of their quaint mountain gasthaus. Their commandeered table now groaned under the weight of laptops, tablet, phones, maps and various piles of documents both old and new. Tom had a notebook on his lap and was reading through the scribbled notes he’d made.

  “We have to make quite a few assumptions but this is how I see it.”

  Claire stopped tapping on her laptop’s keyboard, picked up her gin and tonic and sat back in the chair looking at Tom.

  “We are fairly confident that an Arado with its pilot, two ranking Nazi officers and a civilian plus around 520 kilogram bars of gold left Mauthausen and flew as far as the start of the valley North of here. Experiencing engine problems they could not maintain height so they must have put down somewhere close to here. The only option that makes sense after that is that at least one, and probably more of them survived the landing, ‘bought’ a truck from a local farmer who then went on his way far richer. Somebody then removed the plane wreckage and hid it in pieces somewhere. The surviving Nazis and most of their gold then must have headed South away from Graun towards Italy and their route out of Europe. There’s only one road they could have taken which would have taken them to Mals.”

  Tom pulled out the map of Southern Austria and spread it out over the carnage on the table. Pointing with his finger he traced the road down to just South of Mals where the road split.

  “OK, they had a choice here. Did they take the road West over the Stelvio pass and head through the mountains to Brescia eventually or East to Bolzano, Lake Garda and Verona?”

  Claire traced the two routes with her finger. “I think East as the Stelvio route is very slow and twisty and very exposed and they were driving a truck which could be dodgy on the mountain roads.”

  “I agree so let’s assume they went to Bolzano then South to Trento and Verona. I still don’t understand why they seem to have disappeared without a trace. Could they have negotiated this truck through all the fighting on the front lines all the way to Genoa? I don’t think so. There were also US and British specialist units advancing up that valley ahead of the main forces trying to secure various buildings before the retreating Germans could destroy documents, etc. There was even an SS-run concentration camp at Bolzano they wanted to get to before the inmates were all murdered, look.”

  Tom dragged the map off the table onto the floor and tapped away on the keyboard of his laptop.

  “Look, it says here that Bolzano was full of Jewish and political prisoners. Apparently the SS officers who ran the camp destroyed incriminating evidence of the atrocities they had committed there when they realised the end of the war was close. The prisoners also knew the Allies were advancing and staged a mass breakout in April 1945 with many of them escaping recapture.”

  Claire pulled up several pages on the internet relating to the Bolzano concentration camp which all described similarly the events at the end of World War 2 and the fate of some prisoners who escaped. Tom, meanwhile, had been furiously tapping out emails.

  “Some of these stories are so sad.” Claire said finally shutting the lid on her laptop. “A group of escapees tried walking East over the mountains and all perished in the cold. Nazis summarily executed another group of prisoners they stumbled over on the road going North. Yet another lot stole the prison camp Commandant’s staff car and drove West but were attacked by a lone US Mustang fighter who strafed them on the mountain road leading to the Stelvio. At least a few of them ended up walking to the railhead at Mals.”

  Tom looked up from his screen. “That’s interesting, that last bunch you mentioned must have come along the same road as our escaping Nazis but in the opposite direction. When did you say they broke out?”

  Claire lifted the lid on her laptop again and checked the site she had been reading from. “It just says April 1945 although one of the other pages says they recaptured another group on the 14th South of Meran which is fairly close so my guess would be the breakout was somewhere between the 10th and 14th.”

  Tom shuffled stacks of papers finally extracting one which he held aloft in triumph. “This is the Arado signal log which has a date of the 12th April, bang in the middle of your time estimate. If both groups were travelling this narrow road in opposite directions at the same time, they must have met. What do you think would have happened?”

  “I don’t think they’d have shared a coffee and cigarette somehow.” Claire replied sarcastically. “We don’t know how many survived the plane crash but even with all four, one being a civilian, I think they’d have come off worse against a bunch of desperate escapees who you’d have to assume had armed themselves by that time” Claire paused for thought then continued, “Assuming ‘our’ Nazis didn’t survive this engagement the escapees would now have a truck with a load of gold, several dead bodies and a staff car. We know that they were on foot when they arrived at Mals so what happened to the truck, the staff car and most importantly, the gold?”

  Tom immediately tapped away on his laptop’s keyboard again not even pausing to reply to Claire.

  “You just said they were shot up by a US Mustang fighter near the Stelvio and we know it was between the 12th and 14th April 1945. I’m just sending another email to my mate at The Smithsonian to see if he can pull out any records relating to an aerial action somewhere near Stelvio between those dates.”

  Tom hit the ‘send’ button, closed the laptop’s lid and picked the map off the floor and spread it back out on the table.

  “This is what I propose. We pack up here and go to the restaurant where we can sample the local cuisine and reward our brilliant research with a couple of bottles of Italian nectar of the Gods, namely Amerone. In the morning we should check out and head down to the Stelvio to see what we can find and hopefully one of my recent emails will have prompted a useful reply.”

  Without bothering to reply Claire started to pack up their gear and shut down her laptop. Tom gathered the pile of electronics and paper and headed off to their room to deposit everything whilst Claire headed off to the restaurant.


  Tom returned downstairs and was greeted by the welcome sight of a huge glass of dazzling red liquid at the place setting opposite Claire in the predominantly pine wood adorned restaurant.

  “One bottle of Amerone delivered, another uncorked and breathing and I’ve ordered Schnitzel for us both, OK?”

  Tom sank onto the chair and took a larger swallow than would have been necessary just to taste the wine and sighed in contentment. As he lowered the glass from his lips, his phone bleeped signalling an incoming message.

  “Listen to this,” he said reading the text. “Lucky boy. Not only full combat report on file but also gun camera footage. Am digitising it now and will send video file to your email within the hour. You owe me.”

  “That’s got to be worth a look.” Claire said as she refilled her glass with the excellent wine.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

  Pietr steered the truck into the vast lorry park on the outskirts of Linz and drove down between rows of parked vehicles to just short of the rear boundary fence. He carefully manoeuvred the trailer directly alongside a parked hiab-equipped trailer with a 20 foot shipping container on its bed. No sooner had they stopped than the hiab crane unfolded itself, moved over to the top of the container and halted. Gennady jumped up onto the trailer’s bed, grabbed the chains hanging from the crane’s hook and connected them to each corner of the container. The container was then lifted up and over until it was hovering over the containment unit. Pietr looked up to see the opening where the floor of the container should have been just as it was lowered over the containment unit. Gennady jumped across from the hiab’s trailer and released the chains which were immediately whisked away as the hiab was folded back down again. In the few minutes this whole operation had taken the danger signs had been removed from the trailer and graphics had been applied to the truck's doors proclaiming it to belong to some fictitious Czech company. With a change of number plates the transformation was complete and Pietr and Gennady got back in the truck and drove slowly out of the truck stop and back onto the highway towards Wels.