by Nick Mariano
SHOVELS AND METAL DETECTORS
Nazari, Aisha, Hassan and Bob met the previous night at the hotel, ate a nice dinner at a local seafood restaurant and then came back to the motel to discuss how they would proceed with their search. Nazari again laid out his research about the cargo containing the virus and what he had learned through both the Nazi diary entries and from files concerning Mengele that had been released recently by the American government. They studied the coordinates and land marks written in the diary and compared things with Google Earth photos they had obtained on the Internet. Bob, who had grown up in the area agreed that the areas they intended to start with were a good choice. Bob had previously bought four metal detectors that could be fine tuned to eliminate small masses of metal and therefore make the search a little easier. He gave his three new friends a quick lesson on how the detectors worked and how they should go about doing their searches. They would each take a grid that Nazari had plotted on his map and search the area as thoroughly as possible.
They all agreed that the big question, if they should locate the container, was whether the container had maintained its integrity over all these years and if the virus could possibly still be potent, although Mengele’s notes seemed to indicate that he and his team had figured a way to preserve the virus so that it would still be effective, even if a long period of time had elapsed since they prepared it.
They were also each given a small radio that allowed them to talk to each other over short distances. They could alert each other if outsiders were coming or if they found something that might be promising. Each also got a small shovel to do any digging that might be necessary.
They started out at 7:30 am and drove the short distance to the shoreline and proceeded to try to locate the correct coordinates that Nazari had mapped. They parked their SUV and walked for about 25 minutes before they appeared to be at the right location. The group split and began searching their given grids. After the grid was completed, they crossed off the area and moved on to the next location on their maps. Throughout the day each of the searchers picked up metal objects but all were false alarms. They found a lot of old soda and beer cans and some scraps of metal but nothing that resembled any kind of case or a part of it. As dusk began to descend on the beach Bob decided to call it a day and they packed up their gear and headed to a local restaurant for some food and drinks. They talked among themselves and they became slowly aware that this process could take several days, if not weeks. They tried to figure out a better way to search the areas but Bob said that using the metal detectors was their best bet despite that the fact that it could be a long process. Nazari said that he would reread the diary and make sure that he had translated the entries correctly and not missed anything of importance that might help them locate the lost cargo. They said their good nights and each headed to their room for some much needed rest and sleep.
DAY 2 OF THE SEARCH
Day 2 started much as Day 1 with the four ISIS followers gathering their equipment and going to their assigned grids to start the search for the cargo buried from almost half a century ago. Nazari rechecked his translation of the diary and made a few adjustments to the coordinates and the crew started out in a different area that day. They began to realize that the coastal outline had changed over the years and that finding the cargo may be like finding a needle in a haystack. They arrived at the beach early that morning and started another day of scanning the sands of North Carolina. So far the group had been lucky in not attracting any attention from outsiders and they were able to go about their business without any prying eyes watching them. Halfway through the day they still had found only stray pieces of metal and old cans for their labors. Bob suggested that they quit early and return to the motel so that the whole group could help analyze the diary entries. He had read some of the notes from Nazari but thought that something was still missing from the diary’s entries. Perhaps some landmark or coordinate was translated incorrectly and a more thorough study was necessary.
After lunch the group met in Bob’s room and Nazari produced the famous diary and began to translate and convey the narrative to the group. So far nothing seemed to differ from their original findings and after a few hours they hadn’t discovered anything new that might help them. Bob produced some old nautical maps that he had gathered on the Internet and the group compared the old maps with the coordinates to see if they were missing something. Finally they discovered a short sentence in the diary that mentioned some landmarks that the commando had noted. The new maps failed to show these areas, however, the older maps clearly showed some landmarks that they hadn’t explored yet. Armed with the new information the group decided to take a break and start up fresh the next day.
Meanwhile Special Agent Viechec had heard back from the Wilmington Police Department, who had located Hall at a cheap, out of the way, motel. The manager had told the police that Hall had reserved a total of four rooms and that three Middle Eastern looking persons had checked into the rooms along with Hall. The manager added that the group usually left very early in the morning, returned late afternoon and were carrying what looked like shovels and metal detectors when they left on their first day. The reservation was open and Hall didn’t give a checkout date and had tentatively booked the rooms for a month. Viechec thought the information was a bit strange and he decided to do a discrete surveillance of the group rather than approach Hall and interview him as he had at first thought to do. He called the Resident Agent in Charlotte and explained to him what he planned to do and requested that he come down to Wilmington to assist. Al Cominsky, a veteran Special Agent, agreed and said he could be there in about four hours and they agreed to meet that evening at a local restaurant for dinner and to discuss this case. Viechec started to wonder what a reported ISIS sympathizer and three Middle Eastern individuals were doing in Wilmington, NC, and why they were carrying shovels and metal detectors with them. Something just didn’t seem right with this picture.
SURVEILLANCE
Viechec and Cominsky met later that day at a local seafood restaurant and had a nice dinner and a few drinks before getting down to business. Although they had never worked together before, Viechec had heard a number of war stories about Cominsky and some of the successful arrests he had made while working at the New York Field Office. He had been one of the first responders to the original attack on the World Trade Centers in 1993 and had helped gather evidence along with the FBI that would lead to determining who was behind this attack on America. Terrorists had driven a van into the basement of one tower and tried to collapse the building by parking the van, loaded with explosives, next to a support beam, however, they were unsuccessful in their attack. Diplomatic Security quickly arrested them on passport and visa violations until the FBI could bring more formal charges against them. He had also served at a number of overseas posts and while at the US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, terrorists had attempted to assassinate him and his assistant one-day on their way to work. Only quick actions on both Agents’ parts kept them from being killed that day and having their names placed on the plaque at the State Department where fallen comrades are honored. He was nearing retirement and so had chosen Charlotte as his final assignment before he retired in 2016. He had over 30 years with Diplomatic Security and was ready to take it easy and play golf at some sunny place down south.
They agreed to start their surveillance early the next day and see what this group of students and their leader Hall were up to. They would use two cars and follow the group from their motel and alternate following the vehicle throughout the day. Viechec mentioned to Cominsky that the group had been carrying shovels and metal detectors during the course of their travels and had no idea what they could be searching for or if in fact this was in any way related to the fact that Hall had reportedly attended an ISIS training camp in Syria. Viechec had been in the area for about ten years and wasn’t aware of anything of significance being located in the area other than a number of shipwrecks dating back to the World Wa
rs and sunk off the shores of NC. Viechec had called the passport folks in Charleston after he found out that three of the people staying with Hall at the motel were of Middle Eastern decent. He had found out that all three students had traveled from Frankfurt and checks with the American Embassy’s Security Officer there revealed that the three names listed at the motel had recently been identified by German Intelligence as possible ISIS trainees. The Bundesnachrichtendienst, which handled foreign intelligence, had tracked the three to Istanbul a few months earlier before they had disappeared, only to reappear back in Turkey six weeks later. German sources theorized that they may have traveled into Syria for ISIS training as this was becoming a common avenue of travel for ISIS recruits to take. The six-week gap also was the typical length of time that basic ISIS training took. The Germans had surveilled the three upon their return to Frankfurt although nothing out of the ordinary was noted with the exception of some cryptic e-mails to a Robert Hall in North Carolina following their return. The Germans thought this might be their American handler although they had no idea why the group would travel to the United States if they were on an operation versus doing something in their native Germany. In any case German Foreign Intelligence thought that surveillance of the group was warranted by the Americans.
Viechec and Cominsky planned to meet early the next day and begin their surveillance of the group. Viechec also informed Cominsky that he had recently obtained a drone equipped with a camera from the State Department for use in covert surveillance. He thought that it might prove useful if the group eventually ended up in the area of the dunes and beaches near by. Foot surveillance might prove hard to do without detection by the group and the drone could send a video signal back to Viechec’s government car where they could watch a picture on a built in TV screen. Both agents agreed that this investigation was starting to look like it might lead to something important. Viechec had also been in contact with Nick Howard at Diplomatic Security’s Headquarters in Virginia and his colleague, Lee Foster, at Homeland Security. Their office would take over the investigation if something significant materialized during the surveillance. Howard and Foster, both planned to travel to Wilmington the next day to assist in the investigation after Viechec had passed on his new information from the Germans. One ISIS sympathizer was something that might or might not be important, but four possible ISIS soldiers all in one place and searching for something definitely merited further attention by the US Government.
DAY 3 OF THE SEARCH
Day 3 started with the students and Hall having an early breakfast at the motel and getting on their way before the sun had started to come up. Meanwhile Viechec and Cominsky were already in their vehicles and watching for the group to leave the motel. They waited until the SUV was about a block away and began their tail of the suspected ISIS members as they headed east toward the beaches off Wilmington. After about 40 minutes the SUV made a quick left turn onto a sandy road that lead toward some dunes in the distance. Viechec radioed Cominsky to drive past the turnoff and the two agents met down the road and tried to decide how best to continue their surveillance in this remote area. They could pose as tourists, as both were dressed in jeans and t-shirts, and just stroll up the beach and try to appear inconspicuous but doubted that this would look normal given the early hour. Viechec suggested that they try launching the drone and see if they could watch the groups’ activities from above. The drone was one of the newer models and had a control range of over one and a half miles. The Parrot Bebop Drone came with a dual control panel and built in video screen and could also be monitored from Viechec’s government car. It had GPS and satellite base geo locators so that they could later check the areas that the ISIS group was at with pinpoint accuracy. It had a 14-megapixel HD action camera and four-3 bladed polycarbonate propellers that enabled the drone to fly silently at heights over 600 feet. Viechec had played with the drone when he first received it at his office and had eventually become proficient in flying and maneuvering it and so watching where the group was going should not be very difficult.
The drone was launched from about half a mile down from the turnoff the group used and quickly climbed high and slightly out of sight. Even if the group they were tailing noticed it they would think it was only kids playing around the beach with their new toy. They would never suspect that two government agents were watching them while they went about their business.
The two agents watched as the drone moved toward the turnoff on the road and began to move down the road until eventually it spotted four people standing around a dune and examining what appeared to be a map while another person seemed to be reading something from a book and directing the others to various locations. They then began sweeping the sand with their metal detectors and moving in an orderly pattern as they increased their fields of coverage and moved further and further away from their starting points. Occasionally someone would get what appeared to be a hit on the metal detector and begin to dug into the sand, looking for what had caused the detector to alarm. It appeared that none of the hits were what they were looking for and the group continued their searches well into the afternoon before they packed up their equipment and headed back to town, stopping at a fast food restaurant along the way for some food. The Special Agents continued to follow the group until they were back at their motel around 4:00 pm.
The group met in Hall’s room to discuss their progress that day and it was decided that between the new diary entries and Hall’s map from the 1940s they were on the right track and just had to be patient and continue to search the area until they either found the cargo or were fairly positive that it had not made it through all these years buried by the beach. They met later for dinner and more conversation before everyone headed to bed. Another early start was planned for tomorrow.
Meanwhile the DS Agents concluded their surveillance as they now knew that the group was mainly interested in trying to find something that was buried in the general area of the beach. They too had dinner, talked about how they would continue tomorrow and waited for Special Agent Howard and Foster to arrive that evening so they could brief them on today’s activities and make plans for tomorrow.
DAY 4 THE FIND
Day 4 started out much like the last three days had. The ISIS members got up, had breakfast and headed for the beach area where they had searched the previous day. The federal agents were already positioned in three vehicles and followed at a safe distance to the turn off and proceeded down the road half a mile to set up. Viechec set up the drone for another fly over and Cominsky had dressed in running clothes and headed down to the beach and planned to run past the general area to see if the drone was missing anything. Howard, Foster and Viechec talked about the recent ISIS hit from German intelligence and tried to figure out what the group could possibly be doing digging holes in the beaches of North Carolina. Could it be drugs, weapons, or something buried for them by another ISIS operative? If it was the latter, surely they would know exactly where the item was and where to dig, which didn’t appear to be the case. They would just have to wait and see what materialized during their surveillance.
The ISIS group again split up the area into grids and started their systemic search of the area. Nazari was sure that between the old nautical maps and the additional information they had discovered from the diary that they were in the general area of where the Nazi cargo had been buried. He felt that it was just a matter of time before they made a discovery. Nazari, Aisha, Hassan and Bob scanned the beach area in concentric circles and worked their way up and down the dunes trying to find something of substance that might have been buried almost a half century ago. Meanwhile Viechec launched the Parrot Drone and slowly guided it up toward where the ISIS group was located. The drone hovered about 400 feet in the air and Viechec zoomed the powerful camera lens so that he could get a close-up of what the group was doing. They appeared to be searching in the same type of pattern as the previous day and were now concentrating on a particular area instead of fanning out
throughout the whole dune. It was a cloudy day and so the drone lost visual contact on a number of occasions but Viechec didn’t want to bring the drone down too low for fear that someone might spot it. Cominsky had made his way down to the beach and was casually jogging up and down the beach trying to see if he could spot something that the drone might be missing. The search continued throughout the morning and finally the group decided to take a break and drive up the coast for some lunch before resuming the search in the afternoon. Everyone was starting to wonder just how long they would have to go before they either found something or finally gave up. As soon as the group departed, three of the federal agents moved up to the beach to check out the area of the search while Foster followed the group to see where they were headed.
The agents looked over the area and still couldn’t figure out what the target of the search was. Drugs or weapons seemed the most logical thing, however, why didn’t the group have the exact coordinates if ISIS had buried something here to use in an attack. It just didn’t make sense. Foster radioed them and said that the group was now at a local restaurant having lunch and so the agents decided to do the same.
About an hour later the ISIS members headed back to their starting location and started up their search again with the agents watching from overhead with their flying drone. The search continued throughout the afternoon and just when Nazari was ready to call it quits for the day, Bob yelled that he had detected something with a larger mass than their previous finds. The group converged on Bob’s location and began to dug slowly around a two-foot area that appeared to be some sort of metal mass. Digging deeper and deeper an object was hit about 24 inches from the surface. Using the utmost care the group slowly moved sand from the hole until the top of a metal box was finally exposed. Finally after 30 minutes of careful digging a box measuring about 24 inches by 18 inches was lifted from the hole. Closer examination showed that top was secured by a number of latches and the faint outline of a Nazi emblem could be seen etched into the top. Although the immediate urge was to rid open the container to see what the contents were and if it had survived throughout the years, Nazari instead instructed the group to carefully carry the cargo back to the SUV so that they could discuss what the next course of action would be. Nazari thought back to the description of the virus and what it was capable of doing and so he knew that they had to exercise extreme care in both handling and opening the newly found cargo.