The Denali Deception

by Ernest Dempsey

  "Wyatt didn't have anything, so we took him out. Just as ordered."

  Trench Coat nodded. "Yes, I read the report. But that isn't the whole story, is it?"

  Porter clenched his teeth. He hated bureaucrats. They drove him nuts with all their questions. He doubted this particular one had ever spent any time in the field. He knew the man had never served in the military, so that was one strike against his credibility right off the bat.

  "Are you referring to the men I lost during the mission?"

  "No," the older man shook his head. "In case I need to remind you, I said I read the report."

  "Yes, you did say that, sir. So, what else do you want to know?"

  The man drew in a long breath and released it through tight lips. The air almost made a whistling sound as it passed through the little hole. "Oh, I don't know. How about the fact that the man you were supposed to kill, and reported as dead, is actually still alive?" He turned to face Porter for the first time.

  Though the man's eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, Porter knew they were narrowed with irritation. What he didn't know was what the guy was talking about.

  "Alive? That's impossible. You must have gotten some bad information, sir."

  Porter hadn't confirmed Wyatt was dead. In the sudden chaos to get away, there wasn't time. He knew Wyatt took two to the chest. It was highly unlikely he could have survived.

  "You know," Trench Coat said, "I thought you might say something like that, which is why I brought you this."

  He tossed a black-and-white photo into the passenger seat, close enough for Porter to clearly see the image. He tilted his head to make sure he was seeing correctly before returning his gaze to the older guy.

  "Where did you get this?" Porter asked.

  "Atlanta. Traffic camera. It was taken last night—in case you were going to ask when, too."

  "Last night?"

  "That is correct. You mind telling me how in the world Sean Wyatt was shot twice in the chest and managed to show up in Atlanta, healthy as can be, almost a week later? He wasn't wearing a vest, was he?"

  Porter shook his head. "No. He definitely was not." He stared in disbelief at the photo.

  "So, what are you going to do about it?"

  "I'll take care of it," Porter said, trying not to show his frustration. He hated being wrong about something. This was a bad time for him to be wrong. The people he was working for didn't accept failure.

  "Oh?" Trench Coat raised both eyebrows. "You'll take care of it, huh? Because you've done such a bang-up job of that so far? Sorry, but I'm going to need a little better than 'I'll take care of it.' Come on, Porter. You don't even know where he is."

  "You just said he's in Atlanta."

  "So? He could be anywhere by now. What if he left the country? Then what are you going to do?"

  Porter sighed. His employer had a tendency to panic, overreact, and just be plain impatient. It was understandable. He had a lot riding on this mission. If Wyatt was able to find anything on the Denali Project, there would be big trouble.

  "He didn't leave the country, sir. We took precautions."

  "Precautions? What kind of precautions?"

  "Wyatt is on a national watch list. If he so much as tries to take a leak across the river in Canada or look at a churro in Mexico, we'll know, and we'll grab him. Every airport will be on the lookout for him, too. All of his credit cards, his bank accounts, even his mortgages have been frozen. So, sir, he couldn't have gone far. Odds are he's still in the Atlanta area. I'll have my team check all his contacts in and around the city. More than likely, he is lying low at a friend's or colleague's place. That's what I mean by I'll take care of it."

  "You burned Wyatt?" Trench Coat asked, sounding mildly impressed.

  "This is why you pay me, sir. I get things done. So, if Wyatt did survive and he is in Atlanta, he won't be around for long. I can promise you that."

  Trench Coat turned his head, facing toward the street beyond the cemetery fence. "I hope I don't need to remind you the price of failure, Porter. I realize you're a tough guy with lots of resources and know-how. But if you screw this up—"

  "Yes, sir. I understand. Don't worry. I said I'll take care of it, and that's exactly what I intend to do."

  Trench Coat seemed to accept the response and gave a curt nod. "Good. See to it you do."

  He turned and started walking back down the winding sidewalk.

  Porter watched him disappear around the bend on the path before he rolled up the window and looked ahead.

  One more reason to hate bureaucrats, he thought.

  They thought they knew everything.

  He flushed his anger deep down inside and thought about the problem at hand. His team had been decimated in New York. He still had two men he knew he could count on. Luckily, they were in Washington awaiting further instructions. So, they would be easy enough to pick up.

  Porter would also need someone he could trust in Atlanta. And he'd need it immediately. Getting to Atlanta would take time. Time wasn't something he had in spades at the moment.

  Fortunately, he knew a guy. Porter just hoped he was available.

  Like the man in the trench coat said, he and the men he worked with didn't take failure lightly. It wasn't an option, and Porter knew it. He'd seen what those men were capable of. It made what he'd done to Sean Wyatt look like child's play.

  Porter hadn't mentioned his plan for the president to the guy in the trench coat. He thought it better that way. The less his employer knew, the better. He'd be thanked later on, of course, once the president was out of the way. The vice president would be a puppet, easy to manipulate.

  He pulled up his phone contacts and found the first name he needed. It was time to put the presidential plan into action. As soon as he issued the order to take down Dawkins, Porter would take care of the situation in Atlanta.

  Sean Wyatt might be alive, but not for long. And soon, he'd have every person in the country with a badge looking for him.

  Chapter 9

  Cartersville, Georgia

  Sean didn't sleep much during the night. When he finally drifted off after an hour of tossing and turning, it was into a fragile, troubled sleep.

  He, Tommy, and June arrived at Joe and Helen McElroy's place late into the night. Sean lost his phone in New York and had been forced to pick up a burner phone. At his request, Tommy and June both shut off their devices and removed the batteries—further insurance against being tracked.

  He knew the hour was late, but Sean also knew that Joe and Helen wouldn't mind them showing up at a moment's notice. They'd been friends for a long time, and eventually Tommy ended up hiring them to work for the IAA. That fact turned out to be a problem when the three arrived at the McElroy cabin in the woods just outside Cartersville.

  Joe and Helen were gone on a trip, taking a little vacation time to tour around the county and do some camping with their dog.

  Luckily, Sean and Tommy both knew where the spare key was and helped themselves into the home. The alarm started beeping, but as soon as everyone was inside, Sean reset the alarm.

  They were all too tired to discuss things further and went to bed.

  Sean woke early, after scraping together a tight five hours of rest. The sun still hadn't come up over the mountains to the east. There wasn't even the residual rim of light yet.

  The utter exhaustion had been no match for his overactive brain. Hundreds of ideas and hypotheses about James Andrews and his Raiders blitzed his mind. Some were wild, fanciful notions that had absolutely no plausibility. A few, however, were certainly worth checking into.

  He looked out the window from his seat at the computer desk, staring into the darkness for several minutes until the caffeine from his coffee kicked in. His fingers wrapped around the computer mouse, and he moved it around on the desk, bringing the monitor to life. The most promising theory revolved around an old story he'd heard from his dad when he was a child. He'd heard it several other times throughout hi
s life, due to the fact that his father told and retold tales without knowing who'd heard them and who hadn't.

  According to the story, during the Confederate retreat from Chattanooga, the army had to take the Old Federal Road and pass through a gap between White Oak Mountain and Taylor's Ridge, where Interstate 75 South cut through in the present day.

  The legend went on to say that some of the men in the retreating army had loot they'd taken earlier in the war. Knowing that time was of the essence and they'd need to move fast, some of the soldiers broke ranks and made their way up the side of Boy's Mountain, two miles to the southeast. A Confederate hospital wasn't far away, located by Cherokee Springs. Knowing the group would rendezvous at the hospital before heading south toward Atlanta, they ran up Boy's Mountain to a cave.

  During their occupation of the area, Confederate forces had built trenches on the side of the mountain from which they could fire upon the enemy from a high vantage point. The cave was just below the trenches, having been seen by almost everyone who was assigned to that area, so hiding anything in there before then wouldn't have made much sense.

  The story suggested that these men hid gold, money, and other valuables inside the cave. Another detail that made the tale less credible was that it suggested the fleeing men stuffed their treasures inside the barrel of a cannon.

  The legend certainly had some blurry spots to the tale. Things got twisted, added, and lost through the passage of time.

  There had been other stories about hidden Confederate gold somewhere along the Old Federal Road. They seemed far less credible than the one about the fleeing soldiers, however, and it wasn't the treasure in a cannon that had Sean's interest. It was a story about the men from Andrews' Raiders.

  Sean heard the story from his grandfather, which told him early on in life exactly where his dad got the habit of spinning long yarns.

  According to Sean's grandfather—and history—the Raiders ditched the locomotive in the valley near White Oak Mountain. The few men who ran toward Chattanooga ended up safely behind Union lines. Some ran toward the mountain, hoping they could get the high ground and have a defensive advantage or perhaps find better hiding places to wait out the pursuit.

  Most of those men made the mistake of running straight into the Confederate forces on the other side of the ridge. One who evaded the pursuers for two days was eventually captured in the hills outside Ringgold. The story suggests he tried to make a deal with one of the soldiers and even told him he'd be handsomely rewarded if he'd been let go.

  The Confederate guard refused the bribe. The prisoner was tried and hanged in Atlanta shortly after. Whatever secrets he may have been keeping died with him. Unless he'd left something somewhere in a place few people would look or think to look.

  Sean had been down inside the cave on one occasion. Neither time did he think it was possible or practical to get a cannon in there.

  He'd been in high school the last time he ventured down into the darkness of the cave. He didn't remember seeing anything unusual, but he also hadn't explored as deeply as he would have liked.

  With the strange events of the last few months, Sean couldn't help but wonder if there was something in the cave, something that would help shed some light on the Seward mystery.

  It was a long shot, and Sean knew it. Unfortunately, he and Tommy didn't have a ton of good leads, so they needed to give it a try. If they found nothing helpful in Ringgold, they'd keep digging until another lead presented itself. That's how it went in their line of work. Sometimes you hit a home run, and sometimes you swing and miss.

  Sean moved the arrow on the computer screen and clicked on a link. The computer lagged for a second before zipping him to a web page with a black-and-white map at the top. A red line was drawn from Atlanta to an area just east of Ringgold. He took a sip of the coffee as June and Tommy entered the room, dragging their feet and rubbing their eyes.

  "Good morning," he said. "Coffee's ready if you want some. There's milk and creamer in the fridge. I left the sugar on the counter."

  "Thank you," the other two said in tandem.

  Outside, the sun still hadn't peeked over the horizon, leaving the cabin bathed in darkness. The thick forests surrounding the place made it seem even darker.

  "How long you been up?" Tommy asked from behind the kitchen counter as he fumbled through a collection of coffee mugs.

  "A while," Sean said as he took a sip from his steaming cup.

  "I figured."

  "Did you sleep okay?" June asked.

  "Okay enough for me," Sean answered. "I don't usually sleep much anyway. Too many thoughts running through my head to get any rest. Especially right now."

  "Any of those thoughts useful to our current predicament?" Tommy asked. He finally chose a mug and started pouring.

  "Maybe," he said, pointing at the screen. "We don't have a lot to go on in terms of Operation Iron Horse."

  "Yeah, I was thinking about that. What's that?" Tommy motioned at the computer.

  "A map of North Georgia. The line represents the starting and ending point of the Great Locomotive Chase."

  "So, that's where we're headed, huh?"

  "The first thing we need to do is get June out of here." He shifted his gaze to the blonde, who was taking a sip from her cup.

  She swallowed and shook her head. "Hey, I'll be fine. I can handle myself."

  "I know you can," Sean said. "But these guys are dangerous."

  "As opposed to the ones we dealt with before? Pretty sure it doesn't get much more dangerous than that."

  "That may be, but if we can avoid it by getting you back home, I'd prefer that."

  "He's right," Tommy agreed. "I'd feel much better knowing you were back across the pond. Whoever these people are, they probably don't know about you and me. I'd rather keep it that way for now."

  She tilted her head forward, and her eyebrows pinched together. "Sounds like you're trying to get rid of me."

  Tommy shook his head vigorously. "No, that's not it."

  "I'm messing with you," she said. "Really, it's okay. I have to get back to work anyway. I have to say, though, I don't like the fact that you might be in danger."

  She pulled close to him and wrapped her arm around his back.

  "Okay," Sean said, interrupting the intimate moment. "As I was about to say, I have an idea about where we should go after we take her to the airport."

  "Oh yeah?"

  Sean nodded. "Yeah. There's an old legend about a cave in Ringgold. I think we should start there."

  "Cave, huh?"

  "I know. Another cave. But it's the only thing I can think of. It's less than three miles from the place where the General ran out of fuel, and it butts against White Oak Mountain, where several of the Raiders tried to escape. It's worth a shot."

  The other two listened for a moment, considering the idea.

  "You said it's a legend," June spoke up. "Do you two normally chase after any random myth that comes along?"

  Tommy was in the middle of taking another sip of coffee and froze in place. He looked over the rim of the mug at his friend.

  Sean chuckled. "Sometimes. But only if we don't have any other options. This is one of those times."

  She shrugged and raised the coffee mug to her lips. "Just asking," she said with a playful smirk.

  Sean turned his attention back to Tommy. "After you take her to the airport, get yourself a burner phone. We can't make it easy for these guys to follow us."

  Tommy nodded. "Gotcha. Wait..."

  "What is it?"

  "The kids. You think they'll be okay?"

  "They'll need to hunker down for a few days, but they should be fine. I'm sure the men coming after us will be watching the building. As long as they stay put, they'll be okay. I doubt anyone will try to go in."

  "I hope you're right," Tommy said, dubious.

  "Tell you what," Sean said. "You take June to the airport, and I'll make sure the kids are okay."

  Tommy wasn't sur
e he liked the second part of Sean's idea. Going back into the city could be dangerous. The new IAA building would be under surveillance, and if either one of them so much as showed their face within a block of there, they'd have trouble.

  "So, you're going to go back into the hornet's nest?" Tommy asked.

  "You got a better idea?"

  The long pause after the question told the tale.

  "I'll do it," June said suddenly.

  The two friends jerked their gaze to her.

  "No," Tommy said. "You need to get out of the country. And besides, you said you have to get back to work."

  "I have some extra paid time off. There will be a fee to change my flight this late, but I can handle it. I can go into your headquarters and let the kids know what's going on."

  The kids, Tara Watson and Alex Simms, pretty much lived at IAA headquarters. Constantly embedded in research with new artifacts or historical oddities, they each kept a bed and several days' worth of supplies on hand in case they ever needed to stay put. This situation fit that description perfectly.

  The two men exchanged uncertain looks.

  "Come on," she pushed. "You need someone to let them know what's going on. And who knows, maybe I can help out in case you guys need something. In fact, my phone is probably the only one that isn't being traced right now. If you have a question, you can call me, and I'll relay the information to Tara and Alex."

  Her offer made a lot of sense, so much so that Sean and Tommy were having a hard time coming up with a reason not to let her do it.

  "Fine," Tommy said after a long moment of thought. "I suppose we do need someone on the inside to keep the kids safe."

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence," she said with a caked-on layer of sarcasm.

  "I just don't want you to get hurt."

  She stepped closer to him and put her hand on his chest. "I appreciate that. But I'm a grown woman. Like I said, I can take care of myself."

  He ignored her comment, focused on the task at hand. "You'll need to lock up the building."

  "The kids and I will be fine," she said with a warm smile. "You boys run along and figure out this mystery."