by Alex Archer
Annja nodded. “I bet you’re right. And what’s the one currency accepted anywhere in the world?”
The two looked at each other.
“Gold,” they said simultaneously. “Gold.”
Paul clapped his hands together. “That’s why the plane was flying so slowly when Mitchell’s patrol happened upon it. It was loaded with what was probably a fortune in gold,” he said excitedly.
“That would also explain why Doug’s kidnapper is so interested in finding it.”
Now that they knew what they were likely looking for, they could turn their attention to locating it, which wasn’t going to be easy, Annja knew. They had a general location where the dogfight had taken place, but no idea how far the pilot had managed to fly the crippled aircraft or in which direction he had ultimately headed.
“We need a map,” Annja said.
Five minutes later they had her laptop out and open on the table, a map of Germany displayed on the screen. The Alps stretched across the southernmost part of Germany, along the border it shared with Austria and Liechtenstein. They were about seventy-five miles wide and rose to heights of nearly 10,000 feet in the region around Salzburg, which was the general area that they were concerned with. The wreckage of the Junkers, if it had even survived this long, was somewhere in the midst of all that.
Paul summed it up nicely with a single word.
“Damn.”
Annja had to agree. It was a lot of ground to cover, too much, in fact. They would barely scratch the surface in the week that they’d been allotted. A thorough investigation would take years, decades even.
There had to be a better way.
She sat back, considering the information they had found. Mitchell’s report indicated that the Junkers had been moving in a southeasterly direction when he had last seen it. If they could pinpoint where Mitchell had been at the time, then they could at least come up with a theoretical flight path for the aircraft and could limit their search to that area. It would give them a much smaller area to cover.
So how to accomplish that? Annja wondered.
There was nothing in the report to suggest that Mitchell had known where he’d bailed out of his aircraft except in the most general of terms, and the wreckage of his P51 had never been found.
But they did have the next best thing…
Annja snatched up the report and flipped to the last page, reading the notes in the margins a second time. The wreckage of the second P51 Mustang involved in the incident, the one belonging to Lieutenant Hartwell, had been located back in 1946.
Annja knew that the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, the military unit that was in charge of recovering the remains of US servicemen and servicewomen worldwide, kept very precise records of the location of any bodies discovered on one of their missions. Unfortunately, JPMAC hadn’t been formed until 2003. It was unlikely that they would have any information on the remains of a soldier recovered during World War II. But that line of thought made her consider another alternative.
The military never did anything without documenting it in triplicate. If a recovery team had been sent to Salzburg to bring home Lieutenant Hartwell’s remains, then there was almost certainly a record of it somewhere. They just had to find out where.
The best place to look for that, Annja knew, would be Hartwell’s service records.
The only problem with that was the fact that unless a person was next of kin, the military service records of former soldiers were sealed.
So how to get access to those?
“Earth to Annja, come in, Annja.”
With a start she realized that Paul had been trying to get her attention for several minutes.
“Sorry, I was thinking.”
“Yeah, I could see the smoke coming out of your ears,” he said with a laugh. “Want to tell me what is so engrossing?”
“I know how we can get the fix we need on a general search area,” she said, and told him about her idea. “So if we can somehow get access to Hartwell’s service records,” she went on, “we could probably track down more information about the mission to recover his remains, which in turn would get us a starting point for our own search.”
“So what you are saying is that you need a source inside the national military records center to help you get Hartwell’s records, which tends to be frowned upon since it’s a wee bit illegal, never mind a federal crime,” Paul said.
“Yep, that about sums it up,” Annja said with a sigh. “Know anyone who would commit a felony for you?”
Paul smiled. “As a matter of fact, I do. Hand me your cell phone.”
Half an hour later they were in the hotel’s business center watching as the pages of Lieutenant Nathan Hartwell’s military service records came over the fax machine. Annja could scarcely believe it.
“You forget that I’m a senior correspondent for one of the biggest magazines in the world,” Paul said with a laugh when he saw her expression. “Our network, the people we know, are our biggest assets. We couldn’t do our jobs without them.”
“And who might you know at the National Archives?” Annja asked, only half teasing.
Paul winked at her. “Sorry. A journalist never reveals a source.”
Annja’s curiosity was still poking at her, but she let it go. The fact that they had the records was more important than who they had gotten them from, wasn’t it?
Of course it was. Besides, she didn’t care if it was from a woman. Or that he’d probably had to call her at home to get the information given it was well after hours.
She kept telling herself that all the way back to her hotel room.
Once there, they began going through the file, looking for information on Hartwell’s death and the recovery of his remains. Fortunately, they found what they needed. While the file only listed Salzburg as the location where Hartwell had been killed in action, it did note the name of the recovery mission and its commanding officer. That was all they needed; from there, it was just a question of making a series of phone calls to the record keepers at the National Archives in the morning and having one of them dig up the information they were looking for.
The dinner hour had long come and gone, but the resort had twenty-four-hour room service. With nothing more to do until morning, they put the files away and relaxed for the first time all evening.
Even though they’d made good headway, Annja couldn’t help but feel the minutes wasting away, each one bringing them that much closer to the deadline.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Chapter 7
The next morning Annja, with the help of an archivist, was able to track down the file number of the recovery mission that had retrieved Lieutenant Hartwell’s remains. Since information on that type of operation had been declassified decades ago, she was able to submit a request for information about the mission and sweet-talked the archivist into filling it right away. A few hours later an email arrived in her in-box containing the scanned file.
The longitude and latitude of the location where Hartwell’s plane had come to rest, and where his remains had been recovered, was right there in black-and-white on page three.
While Annja was on the phone, Paul bought a series of digital topographical maps from a vendor online. He called them up on-screen, selected the one that covered the region the best and used the coordinates Annja supplied to pinpoint the location of the wreckage on the map. Given the damage to the Junkers that Mitchell had reported, both Annja and Paul agreed that it probably couldn’t have flown more than another ten or twenty miles from its last known position, so he electronically drew a circle on the map with a radius of twenty miles.
“There it is,” he said when he was finished. “There’s our search area.”
Annja stared at it with a mixture of excitement and dismay. The thrill of the hunt had caught up with her overnight, and she was feeling exactly as she usually did at the start of a new dig. Archaeology was her one true love, the thing that she came back to again and agai
n. She relished that feeling it gave her of reaching back into the past and the sense of satisfaction she got when she located something previously thought to have been lost forever in the mists of time. She’d felt that way on her first dig at Hadrian’s Wall years ago, and she still felt that way today. Finding an aircraft that had been missing since World War II was the type of challenge she normally would jump at.
Although, the life of one of her friends didn’t normally hang in the balance, completely dependent upon her success, and that’s where the dismay came in.
The deadline was the problem. Given enough time and materials, Annja knew that she could probably find the airplane. She didn’t have any doubt about it. If it was there, she would find it. But with only seven days to do it—actually six, now—it was going to be nothing less than a Herculean task. They needed help; it was as simple as that.
Good thing she knew where she could get some.
Normally she’d be worried about the price tag that would come with that help, and she would carefully consider the pros and cons of picking up the phone and getting him involved, but she didn’t have the luxury to worry about such things at this point. Time was too precious a resource to waste. Whatever the price, she was willing to pay it in order to rescue Doug.
Paul looked over at her. “I’ve got be honest, Annja. I don’t know how we could search an area of that size even with an army at our disposal. An army that, I should point out, we don’t have.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m working on it.”
With only a trace of reluctance, Annja picked up the phone and called Garin Braden.
“Hello, Annja,” he said, when he answered the call. “To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”
“I hate to say it, Garin, but I really need your help.”
Garin laughed. “The mighty Miss Creed needs my help? You must be joking.”
Annja gritted her teeth. “I’m serious, Garin. I really need your help.”
“Well, in that case let me drop everything I am doing and rush to your aid.”
His sarcastic tone made her wince, but she pushed on anyway. “Please, Garin. A friend’s life is at stake and time is of the essence.”
Garin Braden was over five hundred years old. When she thought about it, that sounded crazy even to her, but she couldn’t deny the fact that it was true. Garin had been squire to a French knight named Roux, who in turn had been assigned to watch over Joan of Arc. Roux and his squire had failed in their mission, and when Joan’s sword was broken in the moments before her execution, the lives of the two men had been mysteriously lengthened. Over the next few centuries Roux searched for the fragments of the blade, intending to bring them back together, while Garin fought to keep that from happening, convinced the fragmentation of the blade was the very thing that assured his extended life span.
Annja was aware Garin had since come to realize that his efforts had likely been wasted, as her custodianship of the blade so far had had no ill effect on him. In fact, he seemed to be growing quite fond of her. Annja had diligently resisted his efforts to flirt, despite her attraction to him. The fact that he was the perfect example of tall, dark and handsome, never mind ridiculously rich, constantly battled with her understanding that Garin cared first and foremost about himself. He was determined, ruthless and used to getting what he wanted, no matter what the effort or cost. It made him dangerous in more ways than one.
She knew it was in her best interest to stay as far away from him as she could and yet here she was, reaching out to him for help in her moment of need.
Apparently my heart and my head aren’t seeing eye to eye again, she thought.
Knowing his nature, Annja expected Garin to ask what was in it for him and, frankly, she didn’t have an answer. The last time she had asked for his help he’d insisted on taking her to dinner and she’d had no choice but to agree. She was afraid of what he would require this time around.
To her great surprise, he didn’t do anything of the sort.
“What do you need?” he asked.
Given the nature of some of the expeditions she’d been on in the past, Annja had learned not to talk about them too much over an open telephone line, for you never knew who might be listening in. Instead she told him that she needed to find a certain object within a certain specified time frame and left it at that, knowing he would read between the lines and understand that she was after an artifact of one kind or another.
That was close enough for what she needed until she could see him.
Garin was silent at first and then asked, “Where are you now?”
“The Hotel Planita in Negril, Jamaica.”
“Okay, stay there. I’ll send a chopper for you.”
Garin hung up before she could thank him. He always did like having the last word.
* * *
JUST UNDER THREE hours later, a massive AW101 VVIP AgustaWestland helicopter settled onto the hotel lawn, inviting stares from more than a few observers. Annja didn’t blame them; this was the same helicopter used to transport the President of the United States under the designation Marine One, and just seeing it up close was pretty awe-inspiring. Given that it was one of Garin’s helicopters, Annja had no doubt that the interior would be even more lavish than she could imagine.
She and Paul watched as the door opened and a set of steps unfolded from inside the aircraft. Seconds later a black man with a shaved head and a soul patch on his chin appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a sharply cut suit and dark sunglasses. He scanned the small crowd assembled on the other side of the lawn before his gaze settled on Annja and her companion. He gestured them forward without hesitation.
Annja crossed the lawn and climbed the stairs. “Hello, Griggs,” she said, as she stepped aboard the aircraft.
Matthew Griggs, head of DragonTech Security and Garin Bradin’s right-hand man, nodded to her. “Miss Creed,” he said, with that lilting British Caribbean accent of his. “Please make yourself comfortable.”
The interior of the helicopter resembled that of a private jet more than any helicopter Annja had ever been in, with mahogany fittings, lush leather seats and even thick carpet underfoot to help absorb the sound of the rotor blades.
Griggs turned just as Paul came up the steps. The DragonTech Security man interposed himself between Paul and the interior of the aircraft. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but this is a private flight.”
“It’s all right, Griggs. He’s with me.”
Griggs spoke over his shoulder to Annja without taking his eyes off Paul. “Is Mr. Braden aware of this?”
He wasn’t, but Annja wasn’t about to admit that to Griggs.
“Of course.”
“Very well.”
Once both guests were settled, Griggs said, “Help yourselves to the refreshments. We’ll be in Miami in about three hours.”
With that, he pulled in the stairs, secured the door and returned to the cockpit. Five minutes later they were airborne.
Glancing around the cabin, Paul gave a low whistle. “You said you were going to get us some help, but this is a bit more than I expected. Dare I ask who it belongs to?”
Annja didn’t see any reason not to tell him, especially considering the fact that Paul was likely to be meeting him in a few hours.
“Garin Braden.”
Paul started in surprise. “Garin Braden?”
“Yes.”
“Garin Braden the industrialist?”
Annja would have been more prone to call him Garin Braden the scoundrel, but that was splitting hairs, in her view.
“Yes.”
An uneasy expression crossed Paul’s face.
Seeing it, Annja asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Braden and I had a bit of a run-in at a press conference when I asked him some uncomfortable questions,” Paul replied.
“When was this?”
“A year, maybe eighteen months ago.” He shrugged, then waved it off. “I’m sure he’s forgotten about it by now.�
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Annja wasn’t so sure of that—Garin tended to carry a grudge longer than anyone she knew—but she agreed and left it alone for the time being. If it was an issue, they’d deal with it later. “Might as well relax,” she told him. “We’ve got a few hours of flight time ahead of us, it seems.”
While Paul wandered around, checking out the cabin, Annja pulled her laptop out of her backpack and fired it up. She connected to the flight’s onboard Wi-Fi and began researching the Junkers aircraft and its capabilities. Getting a better sense of its strengths and weaknesses would allow her to better pinpoint how far it might have gone after being damaged in the dogfight with Captain Mitchell and his wingman, which in turn might allow them to narrow their search area.
Or, if we’re particularly unlucky, make it even bigger.
She was thankful that there was a fair bit of information available.
The Junkers Ju 88 was a twin-engine multirole combat aircraft built by the German firm Junkers Flugzeugund Motorenwerke for use by the Luftwaffe in World War II. It had been intended to be a fast bomber that could outrun any Allied fighters that tried to chase it. According to most of the sources Annja checked, it had been moderately successful.
Despite being plagued by several problems in the later part of its development, the aircraft and its many variants were in constant production from 1939 to the end of the war in 1945. More than 160,000 were built, more than any other German twin-engine aircraft of the time period. It served successfully as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, heavy fighter and reconnaissance aircraft. They had seen heavy action during the Battle of Norway, the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain, as well as in various campaigns on the Eastern Front.
The Junkers had a top speed of 292 miles per hour, a ceiling of 29,000 feet, and a maximum range of 1,700 miles. It had been built to be flown by a crew of either three or four, though one man could manage it on his own if the rear-facing cockpit guns and the weapons bay under the nose were left unmanned. Annja’s research told her that one of the key features of the Junkers aircraft was its ability to keep fighting even after taking heavy damage. That explained how the target aircraft had managed to stay aloft despite being savaged by the pair of P51s under Mitchell’s command. That concerned her somewhat, as the Junkers’s hardiness might mean it had managed to go even farther than they suspected after the destruction of the Mustangs.