Frank Curtiss entered the large corner office and dropped a red folder in the center of Tom Stanick’s desk. “Here you go, Tom. Got a hot one all the way from D.C.”
Tom opened the folder. “How soon, Frank?” he asked his supervisor.
Curtiss settled himself in a chair facing Stanick’s desk. “Logistics is putting together a personnel roster and equipment list. Transportation should be arranged by the end of the day.”
“That soon? I’m only on the first page here but I have to ask you, why have we been given the responsibility of recovering an old aircraft from World War II? This certainly doesn’t fall under our normal duties.”
Curtiss nodded at the folder. “Keep reading.”
The men were assigned to the Agency for Military Technology & Scientific Initiatives, or MTSI (pronounced MITSY). The agency had been created under the Central Intelligence Agency, but the military branch of the United States government had eventually taken it over in a classic Washington, D.C. power grab. It was a shadowy bureaucracy whose function was to discover, evaluate, and in some cases, obtain through legal, or illegal means if necessary, any science and technology that could be used for national defense. They were a modernized version of Watson’s Whizzers from World War II, except they were not limited to collecting enemy aviation secrets. They were empowered to explore every technological possibility their allies and enemies possessed.
Stanick continued to read the report. It stated a pair of young hikers had stumbled upon the site. Normally, it would have been just another old wreck in the woods, but remains were found onboard. This was still not enough to assign it to MTSI. The hikers left immediately without disturbing the scene and contacted the local sheriff, who reached out to the United States Air Force. The Air Force checked the aircraft ID number and that’s when things got interesting. Official military records showed this particular aircraft was lost in action in Europe in 1943.
“And you don’t think this could have just been a simple bookkeeping error during World War II, given the fog of war and all that?” Stanick asked.
“Maybe,” Curtiss replied, “or maybe someone was diverting resources for other operations off the books.” He stood. “I know. Sounds like a strange thing to even suggest it. Read the entire report and then we’ll talk.” He turned to face Stanick. “By the way, Simonavitch and Pirolli arrived on scene this morning. They confiscated the hiker’s camera and had the two hikers and the sheriff sign nondisclosure declarations under threat of prosecution for jeopardizing national security if they mentioned anything about the wreckage.” Curtiss tapped his watch. “Be ready to roll by close of business today.”
Thirty minutes later Tom Stanick stood before his third floor office window, arms crossed, looking out on the peaceful Virginia countryside. After reading the entire report, he now understood why this assignment had been dumped in MTSI’s lap.
“I take it you’ve finished?”
Stanick turned from the window to see Frank Curtiss standing in his doorway. “I did.”
Curtiss closed the door. “Any questions, concerns?”
“I can understand why our government wanted this kept hush-hush during World War II. They couldn’t have people thinking the Nazis had really become the master race, capable of unleashing two-legged murder machines, living creatures they could create upon demand like rifles, tanks, and planes. So the United States stole the technology for their own use, but they lost it and now it might be in that wreck in Colorado. If it is, you’re telling me our military may want to resurrect the project for the United States to use against our current enemies? Who the hell came up with that brilliant decision?”
“I don’t know, Tom, and honestly, it’s not for us to say. The secret in that wreckage has remained hidden since 1943. The people in charge have decided that the time and conditions in the world deem it right to explore this technology again.”
When Stanick responded with silence, Curtiss continued. “There’s a bus waiting to take your team to Langley. Your equipment should be loaded on the C-130 by the time you get there.” Curtiss extended his hand. “Good luck, Tom. Call if you need anything.”
Stanick retrieved his go bag. He checked its contents: clothing, toiletries, everything he needed for an impromptu out of town trip for MTSI. He hung his suit in the closet and changed into the jeans, khaki shirt, and brown combat boots he kept for times like this. Stanick put on his navy blue baseball cap with the MTSI name and logo. He strode out of the office, bag in hand.
By the time the sun began to set, Tom Stanick found himself wedged in the belly of a C-130 with his team. He flipped through his mission brief as they waited for clearance to take off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.
First stop was Buckley Air Force Base, a few hours away in Aurora, Colorado. From there, the MTSI team would proceed to the crash site by all-wheel drive vehicles. They had forty-eight hours to remove every piece of wreckage from the remote crash site. Luckily, the weather was in their favor. After each piece of wreckage was examined and documented, it would be raised from the woods by heavy-lift helicopters and brought down the mountain where flatbed trucks waited. Most of the MTSI personnel would drive back to Buckley Air Force Base and return to Virginia by C-130 while Stanick and a few key staff members would accompany the wreckage to its next destination.
The portly C-130 touched down, sending a resounding shudder through the aircraft. The engines reversed thrust, pushing Stanick against his safety harness. The aircraft rolled onto a taxiway and lurched to a stop in front of a large hangar. The engines shut down as the rear loading ramp started to drop.
Over the next thirty minutes, a small army of forklifts cleared all of the MTSI gear from the C-130, depositing it in a huge stack in the middle of a hangar that had been cleared for their use. Humvees and trucks were fueled and ready to go. Folding chairs had been set up for a final team briefing. Cots were lined up for last minute naps. Meals would be served before they left the base. After that, it would be MREs only.
“Any questions?” Tom Stanick said, his voice echoing off the metal hangar walls. “Good. Then try to relax, get a little sleep. We’ll be leaving with the morning sun.”
They rose and moved to different parts of the hangar, some to sleep, some to recheck their equipment, others just to grab a quick meal. Stanick had repeated that no one was to enter the wrecked aircraft until he gave the okay. He was the only one who knew what they were looking for. When he thought about the maniacal experiment that may have survived the crash, his stomach twisted in fear. In his heart he hoped it was gone forever.
Tom Stanick ran his hand reverently over the faded yellow numbers on the twisted rudder of the aircraft. The remnants of the C-47 transport lay scattered like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The main fuselage was jammed against a rock formation jutting up from the ground under a huge canopy of trees. Both wings had been torn off and rested upslope, the once powerful Pratt & Whitney radial engines just two huge beat up chunks of mangled metal.
MTSI staff searched the area with metal detectors and rakes. The items they recovered were photographed, catalogued, and then deposited into large numbered containers. When the site was deemed sterilized, the full containers would be lifted out by the same helicopters that had dropped them in. The containers, along with the larger sections of the wreckage, would be moved down the mountain by helicopter where they would be loaded onto trucks and transported almost 800 miles to a hangar assigned to MTSI in the infamous and mysterious Area 51 in southern Nevada.
The aluminum skin surrounding the cockpit had been carefully peeled away and agency personnel were slowly removing pieces of wreckage as they sought to recover the remains of the two pilots.
Stanick was the first person to step inside the main fuselage since the aircraft went down in 1943. The force of the aircraft hitting the stone formation had shifted everything forward against the bulkhead. That was where he located five skeletons in a pile. He was no forensics person, but he could tell two were
human. The other three were bigger than human skeletons, even the arms were longer and out of proportion. He looked closer with his flashlight. Each of the three not-quite-human skeletons had an oversized rotted leather belt around its waist with short lengths of chain and manacles that attached the belt to their wrists.
Further digging uncovered two crumbling suitcases. He slipped on latex gloves and pried open the first suitcase, its rusty hinges squeaking in protest. It contained a stack of yellowed photographs, some personal items, and a number of shattered glass vessels. Whatever the glass containers had once held was long gone. He checked the lining, finding nothing. The other suitcase had a latch that wouldn’t release. He poked at it with the sharp point of his knife blade. It finally let loose. Stanick eased the lid open. More photographs, a pair of glasses without earpieces, and a few pieces of rotted clothing. He carefully dug through the scraps of cloth and found himself staring at a pile of journals, their leather covers dotted with mold.
He brushed off the cover of the first one, revealing writing, still faintly visible. It read Projekt Teufelskralle. He recognized the words as German. Under the title was an imprint of the Nazi eagle and swastika. Stanick eased the cover of the journal open with the tip of his knife. The page was yellowed and brittle. Definitely more German writing inside. Some faded anatomical drawings. He sealed the journal in a clear Ziploc bag, then delicately laid it in an aluminum briefcase with foam lining. He repeated the process with the rest of the journals. Two had the same Nazi emblem and were filled with similar German notations; the rest had plain covers and were written in French. More work for the MTSI linguists.
He gazed at the journals, still not sure he agreed with the government’s plans to explore and possibly develop the technology started by the Nazis. If it was wrong for the Nazis then, wouldn’t it be wrong for us now? All he had to do was get rid of the journals and that would be the end of it. Problem was, it wasn’t his place to make those decisions. Projekt Teufelskralle. It even sounded sinister. He lowered the lid and locked the latches.
Stanick stood up, brushing dirt and dried pine needles from the knees of his jeans. He moved back out of the dark cabin and into the daylight. The aluminum briefcase was handcuffed to his left wrist. MTSI personnel in sky blue coveralls milled about, waiting for Stanick.
Dr. Ben Lomaestro led his forensics team into the fuselage and combed through the cabin, photographing everything. A number of large camouflage tents had been erected near the main fuselage. The remains would be placed in the tents where they would be examined, documented, and prepared for transportation.
Stanick watched as the various groups of MTSI personnel performed their tasks. His sweeping gaze hesitated on the cockpit, where the pilots’ remains were being lifted out.
“Mr. Stanick, sir?”
It was Chad Kasey, the crash expert they had recruited from the National Transportation Safety Board. The young man rushed down the slope, waving his clipboard. “Mr. Stanick, sir, I have the crash profile for you, sir.”
“Chad, how many times have I told you. Call me Tom. And never sir. We’re not in the service, okay?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Stanick. I mean, uh, yes, sir, Tom.”
“Just tell me what you’ve got,” Stanick said.
“Well, sir, I mean, Tom, first of all, it appears the aircraft was blown way off course, so far, in fact, that they probably had no idea where they were. I checked weather records when they took off and sure enough they ran into a whopper of a storm. The pilots must have felt the mission was so important that they did not want to turn back or divert so they tried to get around it.”
Important? Tom thought. If only you knew. “That’s good, Chad, but I was looking for the actual crash profile, not so much the background.”
“Oh. Yes, sir, uh, Tom. It seems that the aircraft glanced off that ridge up there.” He pointed upslope. “Both wings were sheared off when the fuselage came down and continued its slide between trees there.” He pointed with a pencil he had withdrawn from behind his ear. “The tail assembly most likely came off after the fuselage hit a number of large trees along this path.” Again he pointed. “And finally, the fuselage came to rest against that rock outcrop there.” He smiled. “Your earlier assessment appeared to be spot on, sir. I mean, Tom.”
“What do you think brought them down?”
“Well, Tom,” Kasey smiled, proud he hadn’t said sir, “given the distance they traveled, and assuming the fuel tanks were completely full when they departed, this was just about as far as they could have flown before running out of fuel. My best guess is fuel starvation after being blown way off course. If they had crashed into the other side of this hill they would have been splattered all over it instead of riding the downslope like they did.”
“Okay. Go ahead and finish up,” Stanick said. Kasey galloped back up the hill.
The next morning, Stanick gave the OK to lift the wings, the stray engine, and the tail assembly out. By the afternoon of the second day, the fuselage was the last piece of wreckage left. Bill Beaudin was in charge of retrieval and removal. His team was dressed in yellow coveralls and white hardhats with the MTSI logo. But not so with Beaudin. True to his offbeat nature, he wore a beat up bucket hat, with a MTSI shoulder patch stapled to the front, perched atop his snow white hair.
“All set with the fuselage, Tom,” Bill said. “The chopper should arrive any minute. You ready to release it?”
“You got everything that was up here?”
“I stake my rep on it, buddy.”
Stanick smiled. “That’s good enough for me, Bill.” History had shown Tom Stanick that Bill Beaudin was the best recovery man in the business.
Stanick and Beaudin watched as the fuselage was lifted through the canopy of trees, branches thrashing wildly in the rotors’ downdraft. The C-47 nicknamed Chuck’s Wagon rose into the air one last time. Stanick removed his baseball cap and held it over his heart. Welcome home, boys. You finally made it.
With the sound of the helicopter fading in the distance, Bill Beaudin gathered his team and headed for the Humvees that would take them down the mountain. Ben Lomaestro appeared at Stanick’s side.
“Remains are loaded and ready to go, Tom.”
“Go ahead, Ben. We’ll meet up at the flatbeds and convoy out together.”
Lomaestro began to walk away. He glanced back at Stanick who continued to look out over the area where the C-47 had quietly rested for decades.
“You okay, Tom?”
“Yeah, Ben. Fine.” He paused. “I’ll be along in a second. Make sure they hold the last Humvee for me.”
“Sure thing,” Lomaestro answered. He stood for a moment, tugging at his salt and pepper moustache, observing Stanick, then strode off to join the rest of his team.
Stanick took in the scene one last time, seeing no hint the aircraft ever existed. He stood with the briefcase in his hand, looked up at the blue sky, savored the smell of pine. With any luck, this project would be put on a shelf in MTSI’s secure vault for safekeeping as so many others had been. Sometimes it was good enough just to be in sole possession, and therefore, in control of technology.
“I hope these folks do the right thing.” Stanick walked to the waiting Humvee. The aluminum briefcase handcuffed to his wrist felt like a two-ton anchor dragging him down.
The career army general, his uniform covered with campaign ribbons and pins, the stars on his shoulders and buttons on his uniform gleaming under the harsh lights of the room, presented his case one last time. His patience was running out.
In front of each of the twelve men seated around the table in the bowels of the Pentagon was a red folder, its cover marked Top Secret. “Gentlemen,” General Calhoun Attwood said, “as you can see, a great deal of the groundwork for this project was already done by the Nazis in World War II. Their notes prove the Nazis’ early successes in starting to create an army on demand. We can build on their work and perfect it for our own use.”
“Are we really to
believe you can create a life form that can be taught to fight our wars for us, General Attwood?” asked a paunchy man in a rumpled suit. A placard in front of him said: H. David Bachman.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you, Mr. Bachman.”
“It sounds like cheap science-fiction to me.”
General Attwood pressed on. His aide handed out new folders. “I believe this new information will lend even more legitimacy to my proposed project. Please review the material. I will return in five minutes and answer any questions.” It took all his willpower not to slam the door.
Exactly five minutes later, the general took up his position at the head of the conference table. “Questions?” Attwood asked. A wave of voices burst forth. “Gentlemen, please, one at a time.”
Anthony T. Manzillo angrily shook the new folder. “General! Do you expect us to believe this nonsense?”
Attwood had expected a reaction, but not one like this. He locked eyes with Manzillo. “I assure you, sir, that the information you have just been given is absolutely true. The information in this new report details a project developed by the Nazis in the 1930s. We believe it was one of the building blocks for the project known as The Devil’s Claw. And as you know, The Devil’s Claw is the foundation for our own project.”
“How reliable is the source of this new information?”
“Honestly, Mr. Manzillo, you can consider this breaking news. First reports tell us that details are sketchy, given how long ago it occurred and the lack of record keeping back in those days, but the names, dates, and locations seem to lend credence to its authenticity.”
Attwood had their attention. “A cache of Nazi documents was recently discovered in a dwelling on the outskirts of Berlin. It is believed that the building was occupied by a high-ranking member of the Gestapo during the war. Although a complete inventory is not yet available, one report in particular is of considerable interest.”
The Devil's Claw Page 6