All three of them looked in amazement at what was being displayed on the small screen. The sergeant walked up the track to join them, having finished his coffee, and looked over Tom’s elbow at the screen.
“That will make things a bit easier.” He stated obviously not understanding the true significance of what they were looking at.
Tom sent the video file to Barry and then looked at Heinrich and Claire.
“That explains how they managed to bury the car so quickly doesn’t it. They obviously only needed to cover the existing structure and disguise it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Buried Treasure
The video footage showed the inside of a what appeared to be a rectangular shelter or cabin, the walls made from interlocking logs in the traditional style and with a flat roof made from rough-cut thick timbers laid side to side. It was obviously built to house equipment or tools for maintaining the road and snow clearance. Just discernible against one wall was the remains of a wide snow shovel obviously pushed away to make room for the shelter’s main occupant, a virtually intact vintage Mercedes motor car. They could see that it was a 2 seat, 2 door model with a central binnacle of instruments on the dashboard. The long, rakish tail carried the spare wheel and they could see the lines of the small hatch which obviously covered the dicky seat. The windscreen appeared to be in 2 halves with a central vertical pillar and exotic, swooping wings which projected beyond the Mercedes radiator mascot flanked the long bonnet. It was impossible to discern its colour in the dim light from the phone or to see any great detail however what was obvious was that it appeared to be fairly intact and still sitting on its wheels.
They ran the video several times, with them pointing out some different aspect of the car’s design or the shelter’s contents on each run. The sergeant had gone back down the track to mobilise his troops who reconvened. There was now little point in excavating anything from the roof of the shelter, all they had to do was remove the rocks blocking the entrance. Progress accelerated now that they had seven soldiers plus Tom clearing the entrance with the others finishing the track clearance. Tom estimated that they would ‘break through’ in less than an hour. The sergeant had been in deep discussion with Heinrich for a few minutes and, waiting for Tom to drop his latest rock, they beckoned him to join them.
“The sergeant here has made the sensible suggestion that we halt the clearance for today and carry on tomorrow. If there is indeed gold in that car we need to make proper arrangements for its transport away from here, especially in light of recent events with the bomb. I don’t want there to be any risk of another hijack. Another issue is the car itself. If we gained access today and confirmed the existence of any gold, the soldiers would be obliged to escort it away leaving the car exposed and stuck halfway up a mountain. If we leave it all until tomorrow I can get a proper escort team here releasing the soldiers to help with the car. We will also need to get some transport to move it away from here. The soldiers will establish a proper guard here all night and we will have time for the rest of this afternoon to make the arrangements we need to.”
Whilst Tom was considering Heinrich’s suggestion his phone rang.
“Hi Barry, did you get the video?”
“Mate, I certainly did. What sort of condition is the car in?”
“No idea yet I’m afraid as we haven’t actually dug it out. I took that video through a hole in the roof.”
Tom listened to Barry’s appraisal of the Mercedes in silence for several seconds and then interrupted.
“Barry, hang on a minute I need to record this.” He tapped a key on his phone. “OK, can you start again, I need others to hear what you’ve got to say?”
Tom listened intently to Barry without further interruption until he’d completed his soliloquy smiling occasionally at whatever Barry was telling him.
“Say that again, how much?” He suddenly blurted out.
Barry repeated the figures to Tom who was stunned by the valuation Barry had just imparted. His mind whirling and being incapable of proper conversation he said a brief thanks and mumbled goodbye to Barry with a promise to call tomorrow and closed the connection.
“Well?” Claire and Heinrich asked in almost perfect unison.
From about half a kilometre up the pass sitting on a rock outcropping to where he’d clambered, Valentin, the swarthy man sporting the brightly coloured ski jacket, was watching the proceedings around the rockpile through a pair of high-powered binoculars. He called Vassili Urosov who answered in typical fashion without preamble.
“Report.”
“They have started to excavate an area some 10 metres above the Stelvio Pass road. There is a contingent of armed military with them in a single truck, probably 10 or 12 soldiers. Stroud, Owens and the local man from the factory have all now left the site in their car and it looks as though the soldiers will be staying here for the night. They have posted guards near the excavation itself but I haven’t seen them actually unearthing anything.”
Vassili Urosov considered the report.
“The fact the military are staying there and have posted guards suggests they know something of value is definitely there. A team of four will join you soon with weapons and equipment, is there any possibility of you getting a closer look at the excavation site when they arrive?”
“It will be almost impossible to do it discreetly and I think there are too many soldiers for us to attempt anything using force.”
“Stay on site and report any change, the other team will be with you shortly. You will need to formulate a plan for relieving them of a quantity of boxes they may unearth from that excavation. If this could be achieved with stealth that would be preferable however if you have to resort to a forcible assault as the only option so be it. Whatever method you employ I absolutely must have those boxes.”
Urosov hung up leaving Valentin to contemplate his instructions, madness! There was no way he could see that the 5 of them could successfully overcome 10 or more trained, young and well-armed soldiers if it came to a fight. Their only chance would be to either reduce the enemies numbers through stealth, create a distraction to pull soldiers away from the site or to beg for a miracle. There was no way he would contemplate calling Urosov to tell him they’d failed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A Revelation
Tom sat down heavily on a nearby rock, held his phone out face up in front of him and and set it to playback through its tinny internal speaker. Claire and Heinrich moved close to catch every nuance of Barry’s disembodied voice.
“What you indisputably have is a Mercedes 500K or 540K open-topped cabriolet or roadster. They only ever made a few hundred of these during the 1930s and very early 1940s in several body designs and two different chassis lengths. I can’t tell from the video which body style you have there and it does make a huge difference to its potential value. If it’s a cabriolet, and they made three different versions of these, as a restoration project it could be worth a hundred thousand or more. If it was one of the few roadsters made it could be much more, maybe a quarter of a million. If it’s one of the almost mythical Spezial Roadsters, you could be looking at over a million even as a wreck. Not to get your hopes up but a 540K Spezial-Roadster sold at auction a while back for nearly 10 million US Dollars. Admittedly this was in perfect original condition with 11,000 miles on the clock and had a famous original owner. Whichever one you have you’ve definitely struck gold. Please tell me that you’re not just winding me up and it does exist and that you have some sort of formal provenance and indisputable ownership of it.”
After the stunned silence that followed this revelation had eventually been broken they all concurred that calling a halt for the day was the most sensible option whilst they considered the best way to proceed. Heinrich made a brief call to his office giving instructions to his assistant.
“My assistant is forwarding you the email I have received from the Minister, as he promised, which unequivocally gives you absol
ute ownership of that car, minus its contents of course.” He addressed Tom.
The three of them watched the soldiers pack away their equipment and establish a camp of sorts in the lay by with guards posted on the track close to the excavation itself. With nothing logically for them to do at the site they packed away their gear into the car and departed, rather reluctantly in Tom’s case, and headed back to the hotel in Graun.
Arriving back at their hotel, and having cleaned themselves up, they once again found themselves the sole occupants of the lounge. Tom had unusually forgone his usual beer and was sipping coffee whilst trawling the internet on Claire’s laptop looking at everything he could find relating to Mercedes 540K cars. He kept flicking back and forth between pictures he’d found of different models and comparing these to the video footage he’d uploaded from his phone. Nothing looked quite right though somehow. He abandoned his search when his phone rang, it was the proprietor of a garage in Bormio, the nearest major town just to the South of them. In exasperation Tom handed his phone to Heinrich when his poor German language skills matched to the garage owner’s similarly poor English failed to achieve a useful negotiation.
“Please ask him if we can organise a breakdown truck for tomorrow afternoon, a covered truck preferably, and I’d also like some secure, covered storage for the car for maybe a week or more while I organise transport back to the UK.”
Heinrich achieved the negotiation with the minimum of effort and confirmed that the garage would store the car securely in the rear of their main showroom which was alarmed and had CCTV monitoring.
Claire had been making calls almost continuously since their return to the hotel. Finally putting the phone down she took a sip of her drink and declared, “We have a bit of a potential problem.”
Heinrich looked up from the newspaper he was reading and Tom looked at Claire and wound up the phone conversation he was having with his shipping company in the UK.
“What’s up?”
“That was Big Brother. They have established that as many as five of Vassili Urosov’s thugs are somewhere close. One man is believed to have been here in Graun for at least a couple of days although his car, which he stole from the rental return car park at Innsbruck Airport was discovered yesterday in a ski rental shop’s car park in Bormio. They are checking all car rentals and thefts from Bormio at the moment. The other four men all flew by private aircraft into Bolzano Airport and left by rented car this morning heading West. They were tailed by our local MI6 man and at the last report had actually driven down the Stelvio Pass road and past our excavation site, without stopping I might add. They are currently also in Bormio so the smart money says they’re linking up with the other fella.”
Tom and Heinrich were silent as they digested this information.
Heinrich had listened to Claire’s recital of her conversation and immediately called the captain at the factory. After a brief exchange he hung up and answered the questioning look from Claire, “He’s calling back after talking to his superiors, I’ve asked for reinforcements.”
“They can’t surely be daft enough to think they can take on the military and pinch the gold from under all of our noses can they?” Tom asked nobody in particular.
Before anybody could answer Tom’s phone rang and set him off on a flurry of calls to and from shippers, agents and Barry back in London to organise the collection, transportation and delivery of the Messerschmitt and the Mercedes. Barry, it seemed, had also contacted a recognised expert in pre-war Mercedes who had agreed to fly from Sweden to London to check the provenance of the car when it eventually arrived.
They enjoyed a light dinner in the hotel restaurant washed down with just a single bottle shared between them not wanting to dull their senses for the excitement of whatever tomorrow might bring. Whilst consuming the last of a particularly splendid chocolate concoction Heinrich took a call from the captain who confirmed that an escort was being provided for the transportation of any gold they might find. A platoon of soldiers would be on site by 9am the next day to supplement those already there, and they’d be prepared for any trouble.
With obvious relief at the news, Heinrich wished them goodnight and disappeared off to his room. Tom and Claire finished their coffees and rose from the table to follow suit when Tom’s phone chirped signalling an incoming text. He pulled out his phone, checked the text and Claire saw the expression change on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
“No idea,” Tom replied, “it’s Barry, and he’s telling me to check my email.”
“Well go on then.”
Tom opened his email app., “Good God!” he exclaimed and passed the phone over to Claire to read.
CHAPTER FORTY
Pee
The soldier standing guard at the front of the truck in the lay-by paid almost no attention to the small Volkswagen driving towards him down the Stelvio Pass road. It was just another car out of the many that had passed during his spell on duty. When it slowed down as it approached he took slightly more notice and could see that it contained two men. The car slowed to a stop off the road and directly in front of the truck. The passenger got out and closed the passenger door and the driver would down his window.
“Hello there. Sorry, my passenger has a weak bladder and needs to relieve himself urgently.” The driver said to the guard nodding his head sideways as a gesture towards his passenger who had walked around the back of the car and over to the face of the hillside where he’d partially hidden himself behind a scrubby bush in an effort to shield himself from view. The guard and the driver could hear the distinct splashing noise cease and a much happier looking man walked back to the car apologising to the guard for his uncouth behaviour. He got back in the car, the driver bid farewell to the guard, wound his window back up and drove away.
The guard returned to his dull sentry duty making a mental note to avoid going near a particular part of the lay-by’s foliage when stretching his legs later.
In the car the driver turned to the passenger. “Did you place the device OK?”
In response the passenger pulled a small box from his bag on the back seat and flicked a switch and the LCD display on the front lit up.
“I attached it to one of the trucks chassis rails on the inside, they’ll never see it. It’s working OK but just showing background levels, nothing out of the ordinary.”
The driver continued on until they got to Trafoi where they bought a coffee at a roadside restaurant.
“I think we’ve left it long enough now, if we’re spotted going back that guard shouldn’t be suspicious.”
They returned to their car and headed back the way they’d come, not bothering to stop this time at the lay-by but continuing on all the way to Bormio. They could now not only track the truck’s movements but would also know if anything radioactive was being carried in it.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Exhumed!
Tom and Claire had arrived in the restaurant for breakfast at the agreed hour of 7 to find Heinrich already tucking into a plate of cold meats oblivious of the contents of the email Tom had received last night.
Grabbing coffees and a couple of pastries they sat down at Heinrich’s table and offered the customary ‘good mornings’. With the pleasantries completed, and without another word, Tom took his phone from his pocket selected the email program and slid it across the table right under Heinrich’s nose so that Heinrich had no option but to read it.
It was an email from Tom’s auctioneer friend Barry and had been forwarded by him with the previous extensive email trail included. The email to Tom started off by saying that Barry had apparently sent the video Tom had taken to a recognised Mercedes expert and the following was his response:
‘Barry, we have known each other a long time and I have always found you honourable and trustworthy. That video you sent is obviously some kind of prank as it pretends to depict a vehicle which I know never existed. I have spent over 50 years researching the Mercedes cars made
until the end of World War 2 and have found no real evidence that they made the car that the subject of that video purports to be. At first glance it appears to be a Sindelfingen-built long chassis Spezial-Roadster which would make it an absolutely stunning discovery particularly as the coachwork is slightly different to any of the others we know. Out of the very limited production run only 6 of these are known to have survived until today and are hugely valuable as I’m sure you are aware. These cars used a straight 8 cylinder supercharged engine with the exhausts on the right-hand side of the engine viewed from the drivers seat. They all had 2 exhaust pipes exiting the bonnet on that side, generally with ribbed heat shrouds. When I look at your video, it appears that there is only a single pipe exiting on that side plus another identical one on the other side, this would be totally illogical. The only reason to have exhaust pipes either side would be if the engine was in a ‘V’ configuration. Mercedes designed a 6 litre V12 engine just before the war which they intended to be a replacement for the straight 8 but it never went into production. If the car in that video was actually real it would be an absolutely unique example as it would have to be a hitherto undocumented prototype. I will call you tomorrow to discuss but I hope you can extricate yourself from whatever fraud is being attempted.’
Heinrich looked up and held Tom’s stare. “Is he saying that this car, assuming it exists and we haven’t just dreamt all this, is not only unique but also very valuable or have I missed something?”
“That’s what he’s saying. Barry sent another email last night saying he’d contacted the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart who, when he finally got through to his contact, confirmed that the car absolutely did not exist. Let’s hope they’re all wrong.”
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