Chapter 40

While the two friends were sitting on stools at Murphy's Wing and a Prayer Pub on Campus Drive ... now ... there's an interesting name ... Wing ... because they serve Buffalo Wings and Prayer because they are the hottest wings in history and God is often called upon to cool them down ... She never does. Beer just makes them hotter. The only thing that works is buttermilk and no self-respecting Pub would stock milk. Anyway, while they were in the big middle of a discussion about appearing and disappearing twin redheads ... Vee and Junior were in Konstanz.

If it's 5PM in Mount Pleasant it's 11PM in Konstanz ... and the EDTZ - Flugplatz Konstanz is closed ... that's the glider and small aircraft field on the southish side of Konstanz. Vee had hangar space for her aerobatic single-seat Russian built aircraft. Junior rented space in the same hangar for her Merlin powered, British built P-38.

Vee had the key and they took both planes.

Junior said, "Tell your watch where and when you want to go."

"Just Tell it?"

"Yeah, Speak to it. That's a Patek Philippe Celestial case with the Powers Works ... just say something like Randolph's or Glowaki or even Lansing Muni, when you have the exact location and time entered, wind the watch ... No! wait ... Shit, too late. Welcome to 1902 ... depress the stem, quick ... before somebody sees us."

Eventually, they got it right and went to Mount Pleasant ... with consequences:

The P-38 that never was and the Sukhoi 45 were missing when the glider pilots came to fly the following morning. Remember Hans? The German Federal cop? Since he knew the parties involved he got the case ... German swearwords are nearly as descriptive as Hungarian and sound even worse. There's a lot of spitting and hacking in German swearing.

And nobody knew what to do.

The hangar folding door was closed, the planes were gone, the padlock was locked on the hasp of the side door, the two glider tugs in the hangar hadn't been touched. The Kriminalität Szene Detektve collected prints and photographed the site.

"Hans?"

"Albert?" The Crime Scene Investigator was Albert Kesselring. Albert preferred to be called Bert but Hans knew Albert's mother called him Albert, 'good enough for the hausfrau ... good enough for me.'

"The footprints in the dust reflect the size and sex of their owners. Very small women."

"Women?"

"Two different prints."

"Small?"

"Barely 160 cm and not heavy."

"Not heavy? How can you tell that?"

"By the depth of the prints. Look here. The glider tug pilot who discovered the missing aircraft was wearing size 44 Vibram soled shoes ... almost 28 centimeters." He pointed out the distinctive sole and cast in name. "Look how deep the shoe print is. And his prints are crisp ... the wind hasn't smoothed the edges."

The two small feet were slippered soles and 16 cm long.

"Americans ... see how the stance is different? Only Americans stand like that. Two small American women or children," Albert explained. "Last night after the evening breeze. The edges are crumbling."

"Americans?"

"Yup."

Hans whipped out his pad and connected with Berlin. He soon had both directions and connected.

"Hello, Vee."

"Who is this?"

"Hans ... from Konstanz."

"Hans? Oh ... the storm trooper ... Hello, Hans."

"Your aircraft are missing. What do you know about that?"

"Junior and I came and picked them up last night."

"When were you going to tell the Authorities?"

"Oops."

"Ja, oops," Hans said, "We'll send you a bill."