Chapter 5

Reiner Kurzbach was regarded by ACIS as one of their best pilots. At 53, he had over 20 years experience in the first seat and was selected as one of the first to fly the new generation 747s. He was a training Captain and IATA's representative for all of ACIS's flying staff.

All of the freight company's staff worked long hours, but Kurzbach had racked up more hours than anybody. His life was flying and he had very little time for anything else. In short, he was a workaholic.

But, at 53, he was tired. His marriage had ended 5 years ago and his ex-wife and two children had moved to Hamburg. He had tried to maintain contact with his children but time and distance made it difficult. He had never the time to be a proper Father to his kids in any case, and his time with them had been awkward.

Kurzbach would admit he found it hard to express love for anything or anyone. His colleagues regarded him as old fashioned and reserved. But he did have feelings, they lay behind his dignity.

His family had been minor aristocracy, once, in the former German province of Pommern or Pomerania. However, the post Great War peace had shifted the Polish border westward and they became ethnic German citizens of Poland. In 1939, Hitler 'reunited' them back to the Reich before, 5 years later, the Russians pushed them westwards. There was no going back to Poland, Pommern was 'Pommorz' and Germans weren't wanted.

Reiner was born into poverty in Frankfurt am Main. Their Polish estate was now a State farm and their old house lay derelict and forgotten. The young Reiner was reared hearing about 'how things might have been if it wasn't for the Russians.' His parents were bitter about what they'd lost and never stopped reminding him about it.

He was, perhaps, the last person you'd expect to walk into the Polish Trade and Consular Office in Los Angeles in November 1986 and request an entry visa.

The Hernandez house in the middle class Alamo Lakes suburb of Austin had once featured an extensive attic area. Raul, though, had converted it to guest bedrooms to accommodate their frequent visitors. In one bedroom, Arnim Krauss of Berlin-Neustadt watched amused as a naked Ariana Hernandez played with his Toshiba laptop computer.

She sat on his bed crosslegged, a look of concentration on her face, as Arnim directed. She found in his photo collection pictures of his family and Petra, his ex-fiance. Looking at the tall, slim blond she couldn't help but wonder what Arnim saw in her.

Petra was busty and in view of her general body type, possibly a result of a breast enlargement. Her legs were long and her face was classically beautiful. Her long blond hair fell loose around her.

Arnim had been reluctant to talk about her but she'd insisted. He told her that he was well and truly over her but his voice lacked conviction. If that was the case, she thought, then why did he still carry photos of her?

"I never got around to deleting them," Arnim explained.

"Are you going to put some photos of me on there?" she asked. With that, Arnim reached into his bag and produced a digital camera. He asked her to pose on the bed, but she complained she didn't want her naked body being available for him to show to all his friends.

"These are for my eyes only," he grinned and gradually he coaxed her to remove her hands from her breasts. Later, he even got her to pose lying back with her legs open. Her body shook from giggling, but he made the shot.

"My turn!" she insisted, and after Arnim gave her a quick lesson, she snapped off a few of him. For the last one she zoomed in on his dick, lying flaccid between his legs.

Arnim downloaded them straight on to his computer while Ariana, again, marvelled at the technology.

Ariana Hernandez had only three lovers since she'd become sexually active. Unlike her sister, Ella, she tended to have long-term relationships. There were few men that made the grade. They had to be at least as smart as her yet still be able to turn her insides to mush. Many applied, but few got the job. Ella described her as an 'under achiever' while she complained her sister was 'too keen to open her legs.'

Her youngest sister Rica, she believed, was going to follow in Ella's footsteps, being 'too interested' at thirteen. Ariana was sure she was already 'fooling about' with some of the local boys.

"Arnim?" she said a little later. She wore a puzzled expression. "Arnim? Are these supposed to be dates on here? What does this mean? It looks like 2006?"

"Ariana?" he replied, sucking his breath between his teeth, "I have to tell you some things. Promise me to reserve judgement till I have finished?"

She looked into his face, saw the serious expression, and nodded slowly.

The seabed of the Gulf of Mexico had long been extensively mapped by oil exploration companies. These companies' business had given rise to specialist diving firms, well equipped with the latest technology. Ben Shepherd, his investigation flush with Federal funding, hired a Florida company, Ferruno Diving and Salvage.

Ferruno owned their own Remote Submersible Vessel, an RSV, equipped with the best underwater cameras available. In addition, the RSV came with a Magnetic Anomaly Detector and other high tech devices. Ben stared into the blue water of the gulf from the deck of the 'Ferruno Sawfish' as the crew went about their business, quickly and efficiently.

Ari Ramcke had declined to come. He told Ben he saw little point and advised that the Navy knew their job and should be left to get on with it. In Germany, such interference would be frowned upon.

"What exactly are we looking for?" the Sawfish's Captain asked. He was a big man with long experience of diving and the sea. This had to be the strangest request he'd ever had.

"Anything," Ben shrugged, "anything that shouldn't be there."

"What? Someone's lost anchor? You, maybe, dropped a dime while out fishing? My boys would like to know what they're doing."

"Buck? You know the gulf like no-one else. Tell me? Is there anything strange down there?"

"Well, sir? Y'know, when you've known the sea, first hand, for as long as I have, it still holds surprises. Can you give me an area and I'll tell you what I know."

"Ok," Ben replied, taking a chart out of his pocket, "what can you tell me about here?" he pointed, "this circular area. What do you suppose made that?"

"That, sir, looks to be either an ancient sunken volcano crater or maybe an old meteor strike."

"The Navy took some magnetic readings," Ben explained, "they got a strange track." Ben took the tape from his pocket and showed him. "What do you make of these fluctuations?"

"Hmm," Buck pondered, "you expect some deviations, especially if there's an old meteor down there... cos of the iron, y'see? Those things are mostly ferrous."

"It seems to be pulsing at a constant frequency."

"Well, I've seen something like that before. Mostly it's wave action. Y'know, that can have an effect? Did the Navy do a sonar scan?"

"Yep, flat as a pool table... here?"

"Infra-red?"

"2 degrees above normal. It shows a kind of ring pattern, like a hot plate on a stove. It corresponds more or less to the magnetic scan. The Navy think its a volcano, but say both the heat and the magnetic forces are receding, trending down. Their instruments are very sensitive. They say the thing's probably been cooling down for 100 years."

"Yeah, well, they may be right. But you don't think so, do you?"

"Well, Buck, they're not volcanologists and they're looking for a missing piece of aircraft, not craters. I kinda think they shrugged their shoulders then moved on to another piece of ocean."

"So what's your angle? What are we really looking for?"

"A portal," he told him, almost apologetically.

"What's that? What the Hell does it look like?"

"No idea," he shrugged, "but it has volume, some kind of mass..."

"Ben, you just described my icebox. Y'suppose it's full of Buds?"

"Let's have a look, shall we?"

"You're payin'."

Arnim Krauss sat nervously fidgetting in the anteroom. He had been well-schooled by Representative Hartman's PR guru about how to answer the questions. The reporters, he was told, had been specifically invited because of their newspaper's 'sympathetic' opinions. They shouldn't give him too hard a time. In any case, a minder would be with him to close down any 'controversial' questioning.

It was understood that no photographs were to be taken and he was to be known simply as 'George.' The Press were told that the pilots had families back in East Germany who may suffer if the real identities of the men were released. Similarly, the Press were instructed not to request any details about their miraculous escape lest it prejudice future similar attempts. Arnim was pleased with the conditions. It stopped them being recognised and spared them questions about the weakest link in their story.

But that left general questions about life behind the iron curtain and political ones about the Reagan government's policy towards the Soviet Union. How was he to answer?

He was only a child when Germany reunified. For him, his memories of Thurgau were of friends and the happy times of a child. He'd known little of Cold War politics and even less of the West. His real nightmare had been struggling in inner city Berlin schools, post reunification; of poverty, of people who didn't want him there.

The checkpoints had been thrown open and streams of East Germans flooded West. Many wanted to see for themselves what they only heard as rumours. West Germany was glittering, the shops full of merchandise and the streets teemed with luxury cars. But they'd found that the East German Mark was worth next to nothing and many spent their life savings on a Western television or microwave, then headed home.

Others, of course, searched for their friends and relatives, in the joyous knowledge they could spend as much time with them as they wanted. Still others, with useful skills, sought a Western wagepacket and lifestyle. But after the euphoria of family reunions, many had found they were not wanted by their Western counterparts. West Germans claimed they depressed wages because they were willing to work longer hours for less pay. Easterners had found it hard to cope with a liberal society that tolerated extremism, youth gangs, public drunkeness, drug taking and prostitution. They'd found themselves the victims of exploitative landlords and employers. For many East Germans, life in the West hadn't lived up to the promises.

Arnim, naturally, couldn't explain all this to the journalists of the pro-Republican Press, it hadn't happened yet. Blinking, he stepped out into the auditorium believing he had to lie his head off.

The Press conference was carefully stage managed. Hartman sat on his left and, to his right, his Press Officer controlled the questioning.

"Sir?" the first reporter answered the call, "welcome to the United States." There followed a murmur of agreement followed by a lengthy, and embarrassing, applause. "First of all, I'd just like to congratulate you boys for your courage in escaping Communism." There was another loud applause. "What do you think, sir, of America?"

"The girls are very nice!" Arnim replied. The room burst into laughter and Hartman slapped him on the back. He'd dodged the first bullet by telling the truth. He laughed along with them.

"You like our Texan women?" another asked.

"Yes, sir?" Arnim grinned. This was easy, he thought. He'd imagined hard political questions but all they wanted was soft candy.

As the questions continued, Arnim realised they knew even less about East Germany than he did, as a child, of the West. What's more, they didn't care either. He could say that DDR President Erich Hoenecker walked around in a kaftan wearing a clown's nose singing the 23rd Psalm and he'd little doubt they's just pass on to the next question.

"What about food queues?"

"What about them?" Sure, he'd heard Russians had to queue for some commodities in some Soviet cities, but he couldn't remember that happening in Thurgau.

"Why'd you escape to the West?" another asked.

"To meet you!" he smiled, and there was more laughter.

Afterwards, he realised he'd told them absolutely nothing. Hartman told him not to mind, it had gone very well indeed and besides, 'they'll make up their own copy anyway.' He told him they just wanted to find out whether they liked you. 'They did, and they'll take care of the story.'

Bobby McClone walked around it before calling Chet to help him pull down some of the dust covers. He seen enough, though, to conclude it had been there a long time. The cockpit windows were cloudy with age and neglect, the Red paint dull and flaked.

It looked as though someone had neatly sawn it off from the rest of the aircraft. A section of framing showed signs of a gas axe. There was a faint trace where evidently tie-downs had been used to secure it to a flat-bed trailer.

But, remarkably, it was in pretty good condition. He could see some of the cockpit instruments and he had no doubt in his mind it was a late model, probably built after 2000.

He pulled out his cellphone and dialled Ben Shepherd. "It's here!" he told him.

"Anything else?" Ben asked.

"No, Ben, just the cockpit. No trace of the rest of it."

"Well, I guess, that's our missing piece of jigsaw."

"What do you want to do with it?"

"I... I got to figure this out. We should transport it to Houston, but, Godammit, what the Hell do I tell the investigation? 'Hey, we located the cockpit section. Damned, if it wasn't in Austin all this time'!"

"I can't help you there, Ben."

"No. Hell, I'm beginning to believe in stuff I'd thought were the ravings of lunatics and science fiction addicts. I kinda wish a flying saucer would beam me outa all this."

"You goin' to tell 'JF'?"

"I guess. Hey, y'know, I wonder if this has ever happened before? You think 1070 was the only one in all the time this thing's been down here?"

"I dunno. You found the portal?"

"Listen, Bobby, I don't know what I've found. Everything the divers have discovered so far can be explained geologically. What if someone or something's turning this thing on and off?"

"Extraterrestrials?"

"Why not? Folks, here, are beginning to think I'm crazy anyway. Might as well do the whole enchilada."

"Well, see you on Betelgeuse?"

"Yeah, sure, bye!"

Ariana Hernandez had been in a dream all day. She felt that her whole life, all that had kept her grounded, had been shifted sideways. She went home from UTA early, unable to concentrate on class.

Arnim hadn't returned home yet from the Press conference. He had warned her he may be held up pressing palms with local politicians. She desperately wanted to see him, hold him, as if to reassure herself he hadn't faded back to his own time.