“I was thinking that we’d start with where my friend found the single bar of gold bullion, and fly an aerial reconnaissance first. Perhaps the answer will present itself from the air?” Sam said.
“That’s pretty optimistic, my friend.”
“You never know. We both know how much clearer these things are from the air.”
“And you don’t think your friend might have already hired a helicopter to do just that?” Tom was quick to point out.
“Maybe he did and that’s what got him killed, but there’s only one way to find out and at least it’s a start.”
After breakfast, Sam loaded his daypack and some rope into the chopper, while Tom prepared it for the day.
They took off just as the sun penetrated the valley deep below. It looked beautiful as the rays of sunlight reflected off the snow-capped mountains.
It was only a little over fifteen minutes flight along the Tyrol valley until they reached the northern entrance, where Kevin had first come across the gold bullion, which had started this entire treasure hunt.
About a thousand feet above the place, Sam examined the location.
It was a steep wall of limestone, which made the face of the mountain, below which was a slight saddle through which another could be seen, and far below that, lay a small lake. Dotted along the mountain face, about halfway up, were thousands of enormous pine trees.
Kevin, he recalled, was an avid free-climber. Someone who still believed that the mountains were sacred places, which should be reserved for those few whose skills allowed them to ascend without ropes. Looking at the rocky slope below, Sam imagined that only a few rock climbers had ever scaled this mountain’s walls in the decades since the Magdalena had first left Munich.
He found it virtually impossible to think that the mystery of the Magdalena had remained hidden for so long, simply because no one had bothered to climb this particular mountain, especially since it was located so close to the entrance of the popular Southern Limestone Alps.
Tom made the decision to broaden the search area, and began to fly in increasingly wide circles around the location.
“I can understand how a single gold bar managed to remain hidden for so long up here,” Sam said.
He was about to continue when Tom interrupted, “But you’ve no idea how a 150 foot dirigible could?”
“Exactly,” Sam laughed. The two of them were still thinking the same as each other.
As the circles widened, Tom said, “I can’t see any place down there where such a large airship could have set down and yet remained unseen from the air. I mean, there’s the river down at the very bottom, but it’s nowhere near large enough to hide such a craft.”
They continued their reconnaissance from the air, until the helicopter needed to be refueled.
On the way back, Sam figured out how they would find the lost Magdalena. They had been coming at the problem from the wrong angle, but starting tomorrow, he would rectify that.
That night, while sitting before the warmth of the fireplace, Tom poured Sam and himself a snifter of rich cognac.
“Look at us, Sam,” he said, while pouring.
“What?” A grin came across Sam’s face.
“Two old men, sitting here in front of this fire, drinking cognac, the rich stench of expensive cigars scenting these leather seats.” Tom laughed, his white teeth reminding Sam of the Cheshire Cat. “Are we getting old, my friend?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam sighed as he took another small sip of the expensive drink in his hand. “We’re only just entering our thirties.”
“I mean, it wasn’t all that long ago that we would have camped on the mountains and climbed our way through them until we discovered our lost Magdalena.”
“That’s true, but I bet we wouldn’t have found her,” Sam was quick to point out.
“Yes, well buddy, after today, I’m not so convinced that we’re going to be the ones to solve this 75 year old riddle, anyway.”
“Oh, let’s not write this thing off just yet. We’ve only just begun,” Sam replied.
Tom had seen that same look in Sam’s eyes many times before. It was a look that said, fuck the odds, I’ll have it my way.
“We’ll see.”
“Tom…”
“Yeah, Sam?” Tom filled their second glass.
“Don’t forget, we’re still having one hell of an adventure.”
“That we are. And, as I hope will always be the case, I will join you on your crazy escapades.” Tom drank more of his cognac, and then asked, “So what’s our next move?”
“Okay, so I’ve been thinking about it and this is what I’ve come up with,” Sam said, handing Tom the grid map of the western side of the Alps. “There’s little point in trying to fly over every single point on this grid, because for the majority of it, an airship would have been clearly visible from a helicopter.”
“I agree.” Tom looked dubious. “So, where are we going to search for her?”
“We’re going to do a reconnaissance of the area within this grid, of course. But we’re not going to be looking for the Magdalena.”
“What are we going to be looking for?”
“Any areas where such an airship could conceivably disappear for three quarters of a century.”
“There must be hundreds of places to hide something in these mountains.” The wrinkling of Tom’s brow showed that he expected Sam to come up with a better plan than this.
“Not hundreds capable of concealing the 150 foot canopy of the airship.”
“No?” Tom still looked doubtful.
“Just five.”
“Five?” Tom was incredulous.
“Yep, just five.”
Sam handed Tom a second version of the same topographical map. Superimposed over this one, he had highlighted places where something as large as the airship could potentially have been kept hidden for years.
Tom’s pale green eyes scanned the markings on the map.
There were a number of rivers and lakes, and the constant erosion of the predominantly porous limestone rocks that formed the mountain range would, in all probability, have created numerous limestone caves. A quick study of any topographical map would inform you that only a few of them were large enough to hide something as big as the Magdalena.
In fact, there were only five places on this side of the Alps that were even worth considering.
Three of these were large caves, and two were covered by deep sections of snowpack, which wouldn’t thaw out in a thousand years. Although large portions of the mountain were covered in snow, there were only two locations where the snowpack remained virtually unchanged year round. All of the lakes, although certainly large enough for an airship to disappear into, thawed out in the summer, and were too clear and unspoiled to obscure anything beneath their waters from above.
“I think you’re on to something, Sam,” Tom said. “That is, unless the entire Magdalena has been concealed by seventy five years’ worth of tree growth.”
“These are predominantly pine trees which cover these mountains. A thousand years of their growth would have trouble concealing the crippled remains of the Magdalena.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m right. And I’m going to prove it,” Sam said, with his signature certainty.
And I sure hope you do…
Chapter Eleven
Tom conducted a number of flights over the course of the next two weeks. But with each new day, he confirmed what he’d believed from the start — a ship that wants to stay hidden, will.
The available landing sites were generally pretty poor, but the Robinson 44 was capable of landing on the even the smallest locations.
There were many large caves, tunnels, and snow fields, but none of them were quite large enough to hide the Magdalena.
Despite the constant hum of the engine and the whine of its rotary blades, there was a melancholy quiet inside the cockpit on their return. Both men knew that they had exhausted their initial theories, and that their subsequent ones had come to nothing.
In truth, Tom realized that they still knew very little about what they were looking for. Their specialty was in sea-related searches, not in treasure hunting in the Alps.
Sam was the first to break the silence.
“What about a lake?”
“What about it?” Tom looked at the glassy lake below, and he could see the reflection of the helicopter on its clear surface. “We’ve already discussed lakes. They’re too clear.”
“Might it have sunk into any of these lakes?” Sam was serious.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. Why?”
“Look down at that lake there, Sam. What do you see?”
“I see giant rocks, holes, and even some fish. What do you see?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Sam. If there were an enormous airship in that lake, or even something the size of one, in an area which is frequented by so many tourist choppers, it would have been spotted long before now.”
“You’re right, Tom. It would have been impossible to lose the Magdalena on this side of the mountain for any prolonged period of time,” Sam said, as though Tom had been agreeing with his train of thought, instead of disputing it.
“So, it was never here, then?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I believe it definitely passed over this area; the location of the gold Kevin found confirms that.” Sam’s confident grin returned as he spoke.
“Then where did it end up?”
“I have an idea Tom, and I think it’s time to take this search elsewhere.”