Breach of Power (Jake Pendleton 3)

by Barrett, Chuck

  Adam Marshall greeted Jake and Francesca in the office lobby. He was Jake's size except more of his chest had given way to gravity and moved to his waistline. He had short dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses and wore a uniform.

  "You must be Jake Pendleton and Francesca…" Marshall paused. "I won't try your last name, I'm sure I'd butcher it."

  "Catanzaro." She extended her hand as a greeting.

  Jake and Marshall shook hands. "What is your job function at Andersonville?" Jake asked.

  "Chief of Resource Management," Marshall said. "Most people see the uniform and just assume I'm a Park Ranger. After all, this historic site is part of the National Park Service and most people have been to a national park so they've seen the uniform."

  "I take it you've already been briefed on the purpose of our visit?" Jake asked.

  "I received an email from the Director of Park Services in D.C," Marshall explained. "He said I was to give you full access to the file of the deceased and the police report. He indicated there had been other instances similar to this." It was more a question than a statement. "I can show you the pictures but the grave is actually still open if you'd like to take a look for yourself. It had been scheduled for covering and repairs this morning but after the email, I postponed it until after your visit. Figured you might want a first-hand look."

  "That would be great." Jake looked at Francesca. "Let's take a look."

  Marshall picked up a folder from the receptionist desk. "If you'll wait out front," he pointed to the door, "I'll pick you up in the groundskeeper's cart. The grave is in the northeastern corner of the cemetery in Section P. No need to walk when we can ride."

  Five minutes later the cart pulled up to an open grave surrounded in yellow warning tape. A canopy covered the site. The casket hung suspended in midair by straps attached to a lowering device.

  "Looks like the exact same casket from Arlington," Francesca said.

  "There's a reason for that, Ms. Catanzaro," Marshall said.

  "Francesca," she corrected.

  "Okay, Francesca it is." Marshall continued. "The Springfield Metallic Casket Company, now defunct, made thousands of these for the United States Government to ship back remains from World War II. Armco ingot iron, lead coated, glass sealed in patented cement. Each casket was packed in a wooden crate and stuffed with a wood curl packing material then transported by ship to a receiving station in the States. From there, the crates were transported as freight in rail cars to a depot nearest their destination, usually the soldier's home or national cemetery."

  Marshall pointed to the open grave. "As you can see, this casket was buried in the ground. Sometimes caskets were buried in brick or concrete vaults with a concrete cap. Some even had a steel vault placed over the casket before it was covered. The casket is preserved better inside a vault, especially when there is no water intrusion."

  "Are all of your World War II soldiers buried here?" Jake swept his arm across the landscape.

  "Absolutely not. And that's probably why this is such a big deal." Marshall pointed to an old section of the cemetery where small white headstones were lined tightly next to each other. "Until this soldier, the only colored soldiers buried at Andersonville were those who died during the Civil War. They are buried in trenches like all the rest that died here during the war prison days."

  "You buried them in trenches?" Francesca asked.

  "Yes, ma'am. During the Civil War, 45,000 prisoners were sent to Andersonville. Almost 13,000 died here. The casualty rate was so high they decided it was easier to dig long trenches and inter the soldiers side by side. Even in the mid-1940s, no section plot had been set aside for colored soldiers from World War II, or World War I for that matter, until this man's family made the request for him to be buried here."

  "It seems barbaric that black and white soldiers couldn't be buried next to one another," Francesca said. "They died equally, they should be buried equally."

  "Keep in mind," Marshall continued, "this is the Deep South, and in the mid-1940s, racial prejudice ruled the day. The superintendent of the cemetery at Andersonville didn't want to make the decision so he kicked it up the food chain. Even in his letter you can detect a hint of a prejudicial mindset. Fortunately the decision came down from the Quartermaster General of the U. S. Army that all persons who served in the armed forces of the United States and honorably separated are entitled to burial in a national cemetery without regard to race or religion."

  "I guess it goes without saying," Jake rifled through the folder Marshall had given him, "that if they died in the line of duty, the same privilege is extended as well?"

  "Correct." Marshall rubbed his chin. "Shall I open the casket so you can see first hand?"

  "I'll pass." Francesca stepped back.

  "Jake?" Marshall asked.

  "Was there any damage to the inside?"

  "None the police or the park service could detect. That glass was still sealed and the clamps had not been tampered with. There was substantial decay and the top liner had fallen loose. The log roll cap was rusted as well."

  "Is that unusual?" Jake asked.

  "For a casket that had been placed directly in the ground over 65 years ago…I'd say no, not really, that wouldn't be odd. Matter of fact, I expected much worse. This casket held up remarkably well over the years."

  "The casket at Arlington had the same thing. The top liner was loose in the pictures."

  "It happens," Marshall said. "Not very often, but it does happen. And I wouldn't say it would be too unusual for both caskets to have similarities. They are the same model, by the same company around the same year. Was the Arlington soldier buried in the ground like this one, or in a vault?"

  Jake opened his folder and studied the pictures. "I don't know. How do you tell?"

  "May I look?" Marshall asked. Jake handed Marshall the photos. "He was buried in the ground. See here in this picture?" Marshall pointed to the photo of the grave with the casket at the bottom. "It's all earth and casket, no vault of any kind. Below the glass, the casket is sealed tight with clamps. The lower portion of the casket is an airtight barrier to better preserve the remains. Not so above the glass. Moisture can work its way in over the years and liners decay and rot. I wouldn't even call it a coincidence. I'd say it should be expected."

  "Better go ahead and open it." Jake looked at Francesca. "Sure you don't want to look?"

  "I'm sure."

  Marshall opened the casket. The glass had clouded over the years but Jake could still see the partial remains of the dead soldier.

  Marshall pointed to the edges of the glass. "You see these clamps pull the glass against a rubber seal underneath. The only way inside is to remove these clamps and lift out the glass."

  "Or break it," Jake said.

  "This glass is pretty thick." Marshall rapped on it with his knuckles. "You'd need a sledgehammer and a strong arm to break it."

  Marshall pointed to the headliner on the casket lid. "Notice how the mold and mildew has grown in here?"

  Jake nodded.

  "It adds to the decay of the material. All caskets this old will show some degree of decay. It varies, of course, with ground conditions. Dry, arid climates like the western states would show less sign of decay. Hot, humid, and rainy conditions like we find here in the South, the decay is much faster. Below the sealed glass, where the remains are contained, there is very little decay in comparison to above the glass."

  "I've seen enough," Jake said. "Francesca, got anything else?"

  "No." She looked at Marshall. "Adam, you've been a tremendous help. This has been very informative, as well as interesting."

  "No problem. This is my interest. I have a master's degree in history. It's one reason I wanted to work here."

  Adam Marshall dropped Jake and Francesca off in the parking lot.

  The two slipped inside the hot Charger.

  "Whoa. It's hot as hell in here," Francesca said, "turn on the A. C."

  Jake started the engin
e and turned the air conditioner on high. It was amazing how stifling the inside of a car could get in such a short time, especially in the South in September. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead in a matter of seconds.

  Jake turned to face Francesca. "Did you notice the similarities?"

  "You mean how the liner came loose from the same corner and was neatly folded back in the same two-fold pattern?"

  "Yeah. You know what that means, don't you?"

  "Someone was looking for something," Francesca said, "and it is the same someone."

  "Which means there will be more." Jake's eyes lit up. "Or have been more."

  17

  The car's engine was idling but Jake hadn't put it in gear.

  "Jake, what are you thinking?" Francesca asked.

  He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his car door. "Get out."

  "What?"

  "Get out of the car, Francesca. You're driving."

  The two exchanged places in the black Charger and buckled their seat belts. Jake grabbed his iPad from the back seat with an outstretched arm. "Drive back to the airport while I give George a call."

  "What about?" Francesca had a puzzled look on her face. "Jake, what about?"

  Jake didn't respond, just punched away on his iPad, logging in to the secure network of Commonwealth Consultants. Within seconds, George Fontaine's face appeared on the tablet's screen.

  "Jake." Fontaine acted somewhat surprised he'd logged in. "How can I serve you today, oh Master?"

  "Funny." Jake dismissed Fontaine's attempt at humor and got down to business. "I need you to look something up for me."

  "All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy." Fontaine paused. "What's going on?"

  "Is there any way you can search for other instances in the area for disturbances of graves of soldiers who died in World War II?" Jake looked at Francesca. She made a 'what's up' gesture with her hands on the steering wheel. "I'm thinking that the Arlington and Andersonville disturbances might not be isolated incidences."

  "If you'll give me a minute," Fontaine said, "I'll log into the NCIS LInX server first."

  "Linx? What is that?" Francesca asked.

  "Law Enforcement Information Exchange. LInX, for short," Fontaine said. "It is what it sounds like. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service built it but they don't own it or control it. It's a tool to log information into, perform searches…basically it's just a database. Not intelligence gathering, information gathering."

  Jake waited while Fontaine typed and Francesca drove. As the car pulled into Souther Field airport, Fontaine smiled.

  "What do we have here?" Fontaine said. "Jake, I got some hits. Three actually. Two in Georgia and one in Florida."

  "Recent break-ins?" Jake asked.

  "All within the past few days."

  Jake felt his stomach tighten. He thought it was too much of a coincidence and it seems he was right. "Where in Georgia?"

  Fontaine looked into the camera. "Mt. Hope Cemetery in Dahlonega and Osborn Cemetery in Hiawassee. Also Bosque Bello Cemetery in Fernandina Beach, Florida."

  She must have seen him smile. "Mean anything to you?" She asked.

  "I know all three places. I looked at property in both Dahlonega and Hiawassee before I bought my cabin in Ellijay. And Beth…" Jake paused, memories of his fiancée and her death flashed through his mind. "Beth and I vacationed on Amelia Island a couple of times. Fernandina Beach is a quaint little town."

  "Francesca, tell the pilots we're going to Gainesville, Georgia. I'll turn in the car." Jake waited until Francesca was out of the car. "George, would you mind getting someone to reserve us a car in Gainesville for the day with a late turn-in. It'll be a long day for Francesca and me. Also have them reserve two rooms at the Hampton Inn in downtown Fernandina Beach. Not on the waterfront side either. I don't want to listen to trains all night."

  "Sure Jake. Anything else?"

  "Is there any way we can search for more of these instances without arousing suspicion?"

  "We, can't." Fontaine paused. "But I, can. I'll also program notifications so if any similar incident reports get filed, I'll be alerted."

  "You can do that?"

  "I might not slip out nights killing bad guys like you two, but I can do a lot with technology. Without me, you would be in the dark." Fontaine playfully rebuked. "Is that all?"

  "One more thing." Jake looked across the tarmac. The pilots were starting a preflight inspection in preparation for departure. Francesca looked impatient standing at the top of the air stairs on the Citation. "Ask Wiley to schedule us a meeting with POTUS for tomorrow night."

  * * *

  From wheels up to wheels down, the flight from Americus to Gainesville lasted 33 minutes. It was nice having one of Wiley's jets at his disposal. As a team, Jake and Francesca had traveled from mission to mission primarily using the same jet. Twice they had flown on commercial airlines posing as a couple and once when the jet wasn't available for travel to Wiley's electronics factory outside of El Paso. Usually they flew on the Citation to El Paso and landed on the strip at Wrangler's Steakhouse, where they were escorted to the factory floor beneath the restaurant. The same place Jake first met Wiley a year and a half ago when his then boss, CIA Director Scott Bentley, left him with Wiley because of Jake's bungled mission in Australia the week before. A move Bentley had to make because of pressure being applied by Senator Richard Boden.

  Jake briefed Francesca on his follow-up conversation with Fontaine. "I also asked him to have Wiley hook us up again with President Rudd. We should probably tell her what we know."

  "We don't know anything yet, Jake." Francesca argued. "What will we tell her, somebody just wanted to take a peek to satisfy their own morbid curiosity?"

  "We'll know something by then," Jake said. "There are three more cemetery invasions to investigate. By the time we put the five together, we'll have some hard facts. I guarantee it."

  "Evidence doesn't always provide clear motive, Jake. We need to be cautious or we'll look inept in front of the President of the United States. There's more, Wiley's reputation is at stake as well."

  "Don't you think I'm aware of that?"

  "Sometimes I wonder, Jake. Sometimes I wonder."

  Jake gathered his backpack as the airplane's turbines spooled down. "We're burning daylight, let's go."

  The rental car was waiting for them when they arrived, Jake took the keys and they drove off. Forty minutes later he stopped in the alpine resort town of Helen, Georgia for lunch. One hour after that they met the Towns County Sheriff at the Osborn Cemetery on the east side of Hiawassee.

  The sheriff was young, maybe thirty, tall and skinny with short dark hair. Jake wondered if the young man could even hold his own in a scuffle. He doubted it.

  Jake had been to Hiawassee several times when he was scouting for a mountain cabin. The vistas far surpassed any other place in North Georgia. The backdrop of mountains surrounding Lake Chatuge provided breathtaking views year round.

  When he heard Fontaine mention Hiawassee, he figured the odds were in his favor that the grave invasion was not a black man's grave—not in Hiawassee. Minorities in Hiawassee accounted for only a small fraction of the overall population.

  The sheriff led them to the recently covered grave of Arthur Chastain. "Mr. Chastain's body was shipped here in November of 1945. The family never opened the casket because he was disfigured from an explosion in World War II."

  Having been away for so long, Jake had forgotten about the accents in North Georgia. The long drawn out syllables conjured memories of his grandmother when he was a child. She always seemed to be busy cooking something special in the kitchen at her home in Blairsville, Georgia. She was born in that home. It was sad that her mind was ravished by dementia by the time she turned seventy.

  "You took pictures, correct?" Jake asked.

  The man pulled out a folder. "Right here."

  He took the pictures out of the folder and flipped through them one at a time, passing
them to Francesca as he finished.

  "I imagine it was just some kids having fun." The sheriff said. "We have vandalism like this from time to time. Not a lot for kids to do around these parts. Basically harmless. Just causes us to spend a few taxpayer dollars to clean up. Chastain's grandkids didn't seem too upset that the casket was busted open. They're the last living relatives, far as I know."

  "Was Chastain Caucasian or African American?" Jake asked.

  "The Chastains are white folk." The sheriff looked puzzled. "Is that important?"

  "Not really, no. Just wondering."

  "Did you investigate this crime at all?" Francesca asked. Jake noticed how sarcastic she sounded. "I mean you did have presence of mind to at lease log it into LInX."

  "The incident report said this occurred night before last. Who discovered it?" Asked Jake.

  "Alabama man named Darrell Blanton. Came out to visit a relative's plot early yesterday morning and saw the mess. Called it in, so I sent a deputy out to have a look. He took the pictures, said he thought it was kids just messing around. I told our County Manager, Smiley Lee, to buy a new casket and put Chastain back in the ground."

  "You didn't get a funeral home to do it?" Francesca asked.

  "No. Cheaper if the county did it. Just scooped everything out of the old casket and stuffed it in the new one. Didn't need a PhD. to figure it out."

  Jake and Francesca walked around the perimeter of the cemetery looking for anything that might be of interest in their investigation but nothing was obvious. Any evidence left by the culprit had long since been destroyed by county vehicles and workers.

  "We're done here." Jake motioned toward the car. "Let's go to Dahlonega. If we get there early, maybe we can get finished early and won't be so late getting to Florida."