Cache 72 (A Jaxon Jennings' Detective Mystery Thriller Series, Book 2)

by Richard C. Hale

  “It’s shut down right now.”

  “Sounds like you need a new security company.”

  “We manage it within the Navy.”

  “Like I said, it sounds like you need a new security company.”

  The man glared at him and handed him the badges.

  “You will be escorted while on the base. Do not wander away from the escort or you risk being subject to apprehension with deadly force. You have thirty minutes.”

  “Thank you.” Jaxon couldn’t help but grin at the man.

  “I don’t know what you pulled to get in here, but I hope it’s worth it.”

  “Me too,” Jaxon said. “Me too.”

  The same Marine who had handcuffed Jaxon to a chair a few hours before was their escort. He walked them to a waiting Humvee and he signaled for them to get in. Jaxon rode up front with the Marine and he pulled the GPS out and looked at the display.

  “Where to, sir,” the Marine said, emphasizing the word ‘sir.’

  “The Navy base.”

  The Marine gave him a look and put the Humvee in gear. He pulled through the gate and headed down the main thoroughfare.

  “What’s the lockdown all about?” Jaxon asked.

  “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  “Let me guess. You had an intruder.”

  The Marine slammed on the brakes and pulled over. He looked at Jaxon and then the three in the back.

  “What is it you four are looking for?”

  “Someone has left us a message of some kind here on the base. We have a GPS coordinate that gets us within a few feet. Then we have to find it. A woman is relying on us to continue on this kind of scavenger hunt to save her life.”

  The Marine sat back absorbing this information. “Why is she in danger? Is someone trying to kill her?”

  “We believe she hurt someone in his family in the past and this is a payback.”

  “Why you?”

  Jaxon paused. “We don’t know that. My wife thinks he knows me somehow. I thought it was just some random thing.”

  “How could it be random? He had to contact you, right?”

  “Sort of. I was GeoCaching and found the first clue in his game. It was her severed finger, along with a note.”

  “GeoCaching?”

  “It’s like a scavenger hunt. People do it as a hobby for fun. Only this time, somebody’s life is at stake.”

  The Marine thought about this for a minute and then put the Humvee in gear. “Keep this to yourself. You didn’t hear it from me. We had a breach a few days ago.”

  “Who?”

  “We don’t know. We caught it on a security tape. He was dressed all in black and wearing a mask. He gained access through a sewage pipe on the other side of the base.”

  “He made you guys look bad,” Gil said. “Didn’t he?”

  The Marine didn’t even acknowledge Gil. “We don’t know what he did, so we’re searching right now.”

  “We can probably find what you’re looking for. He’s left this for us.”

  “Seems like an awful lot of trouble for all of this. He must really hate this girl. Or you.”

  Jaxon thought about that and couldn’t agree more. He already decided the guy had been harboring this grudge for a long time and it had built to something he could no longer contain. Like a vat of acid boiling over. It had to spill on someone and that someone was Jaxon. And Bethany.

  The GPS started to track to the left.

  “What’s over there?” Jaxon pointed. “We need to head that way.”

  “It’s the airfield. Nothing but hangars and runways. If you hand me your tracking device, I’ll follow it to the spot.”

  Jaxon handed it over. He turned to Ray, Gil and Mel in the back. “Everybody ok?”

  He realized he hadn’t really talked to them much over the last hour. Too much bullshit going on and they had been along for the ride.

  “I’m tired,” Mel said, leaning up against Gil. “And I know he’s exhausted.”

  “I’m fine,” Gil said, but the look on his face told Jaxon otherwise. The kid was a trooper and if Jaxon had gotten bitten by the Mamba, he didn’t know how he’d be fairing right now.

  “I’m sorry Mel,” Jaxon said. “This has been a nightmare for everybody. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done so far and how much I admire you for helping. You didn’t have to do all this. I know curiosity got the better of you two, but you’ve really made a difference and I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you.”

  Mel smiled and touched his hand.

  Ray said, “Any warm and fuzzies for me?”

  Jaxon laughed and nodded. “I owe you. I have a tendency to get off track. Thanks for keeping me on the course.”

  “Seems like you do whatever you want anyway. I’m just here for the ride.”

  “I hope that’s not what you really think.”

  Ray didn’t say anything else.

  “Looks like this is as far as it will take us,” the Marine said.

  They had stopped in front of the airport control tower and the runways themselves sat a few hundred yards beyond. An F-18 was spooling up on the runway and then it blasted down the length of it, pointing its nose to the sky and climbing almost straight up. The jet blast was deafening. Even inside the vehicle.

  They all got out of the Humvee and Gil headed directly for a small door that stood at the bottom of the control tower. It was only half the size of a regular door and Jaxon thought it either an electrical access hatch or a small storage area. Gil was reaching for the handle when the Marine yelled, “Don’t touch that!” Gil froze and turned with his hand on the handle. He let it go and stood there.

  “This is where the cache is probably located,” Gil said as they all moved toward him.

  “You need to let me open it,” the Marine said.

  Gil moved out of the way and shrugged.

  Jaxon stood next to him and watched as the Marine grabbed the handle and turned it slowly. The door popped open slightly, as if it was on a spring and Jaxon yelled for him to stop.

  “Look,” Jaxon pointed.

  The Marine peeked inside and saw the red wire that Jaxon had seen as soon as the door sprung open.

  “Move back!” he ordered and slowly let the handle go.

  The door stayed in place and he backed away. Herding them all back away from the tower, he got on his radio and called for assistance including the EOD, the military’s equivalent of a bomb squad. He told Jaxon to keep his people back and then ran for the door to the control tower and entered. A few minutes later, all the personnel within the structure came streaming out and running for cover. Jaxon heard sirens in the distance. They were growing closer.

  “We need to evacuate to this hangar,” the Marine said and nudged them toward the hangar door. Jaxon heard one of the air traffic controllers talking on a portable radio instructing some aircraft to abort its landing, that there was a possible bomb on the airport surface. Jaxon heard a garbled response and then the controller was on his cell phone calling other air traffic facilities to inform them they had an emergency and had evacuated the control tower. The airport was temporarily closed to all military and civilian aircraft.

  The navy firefighters showed up and shortly afterward a squad that dealt with mines and booby traps made their way to the small door to evaluate the situation. They grew excited quickly and moved back away from the area.

  A few minutes later, a guy dressed up in a suit that resembled the Michelin tire man approached the door with a blast shield and a long tool with a grasping hook on the end. He kept his body behind the shield and the door. Jaxon could not see behind the door. The device, or whatever was there, was hidden behind it.

  Michelin Man worked the door open wider and then used the long hook and pulled the device clear of the building. When he stepped to the side, Jaxon got his first good glimpse at it and was surprised how small it was.

  About the size of a softball, it sat on a wooden board, w
ires protruding from various places, a small block of some compound sitting at the center. Probably C4.

  Michelin Man knelt behind his shield and took a tool from his belt. It was another grasping mechanism but much shorter and much more adept at closer, more subtle work. He extended it toward the device and held it steady as he positioned the jaws of the device to sever a red wire. He activated the cutter and the wire was severed.

  Nothing happened for a second and then the device started to smoke.

  Michelin Man jumped back with the shield held in front of him and everyone else on the squad yelled and took cover. Jaxon moved behind the wall of the hangar and he pushed Melanie and Gil back behind him.

  The device smoked on the tarmac for a few more seconds, but did not detonate.

  When the smoke cleared, the device looked different. Michelin Man approached warily again and knelt next to it with the shield held in front of him. He bent to get a closer look, then sat back. He pulled his helmet off and stood up, moving around the shield to the device. He bent to it and grabbed something off of it. He turned and held it up.

  “We’re clear!” he said and smiled. “It’s a joke. We’re good.” The rest of the squad moved toward him.

  Jaxon stepped out from behind the hangar wall and started walking toward the EOD squad. Their Marine escort caught up to him and grabbed his arm.

  “We haven’t been given the all clear yet, sir. Please. Move back behind the wall.”

  Jaxon yelled at the EOD squad. “What is it?”

  Michelin Man held up his hand and waved a piece of paper in the air.

  “It’s just a scrap piece of paper with a message on it.”

  “What does it say?” Jaxon shouted. The Marine was pulling on his arm.

  “‘Jaxon sucks pricks.’ That’s it.”

  The Marine stopped pulling on him. “That’s your name, right?”

  Jaxon nodded and started to move toward the EOD squad again.

  A blinding flash erupted in front of him, and Jaxon and the Marine were tossed backward onto the ground. Jaxon stared up at the blue sky not sure exactly what happened. There was a ringing in his ears and the brightness of the blast remained burned into his retina for a few seconds more. The Marine was over him yelling if he was all right and Jaxon felt déjà vu. He’d been here before.

  He sat up and checked himself but didn’t find any injuries. Mel was next to him with a worried look on her face and she knelt there on the tarmac and hugged him. He heard her ask if he was ok. Gil stood above him extending his hand.

  Michelin Man took the brunt of the blast from behind and his body had shielded his other squad mates from most of it. He had been tossed forward into one man and the third member of the squad sat bleeding from his head.

  Michelin Man was working himself back up into a sitting position and the squad mate who had landed underneath him squirmed to his feet and helped him up.

  The fireman ran up to the wounded EOD squad guy but he waved them back and Jaxon thought he was yelling it wasn’t safe yet.

  “Stay back!”

  The firemen halted in their spot and then moved back again. The Marine pushed Jaxon, Gil, Ray, and Mel back behind the hangar wall and then inspected himself. Jaxon looked him over and pronounced him ok.

  After fifteen minutes, it was determined that everything was safe.

  There were no more devices and the one that had detonated had done little damage beside knock a few people down and scorch the tarmac. The EOD squad member who had been bleeding was being attended to by the paramedics and would be fine. The bleeding had even stopped. Michelin Man was out of his suit and Jaxon approached him.

  “Do you still have the message that was in the device?”

  The man nodded and produced a plastic baggy with the note inside. Jaxon looked at it and noted it contained his name just as the man had said. Nothing else. The letters were consistent with a set of lat/longs but it was going to be another puzzle to solve.

  “Thanks.” Jaxon said and started to walk away.

  “Do you know who did this?”

  “Yes and no.”

  The guy looked at him, puzzled, but let Jaxon walk away toward his group.

  “We need to go,” Jaxon said to the Marine. “I’ve got what he wanted me to have.”

  “This guy is psycho,” the Marine said. “I can’t believe he did this just to give you a message.”

  “I don’t think I was meant to survive,” Jaxon said. “I don’t think I’ve been meant to survive any of this.”

  “We got lucky. Glad you were able to lead us to this and you saw the booby trap. Who knows what would have happened if that door was opened by some innocent maintenance man.”

  Jaxon thought somebody would have had to be scraped up off the tarmac with a shovel.

  * * *

  It was daytime again in her prison and the little box was starting to heat up.

  The water had risen again during the night and she was still wet from it filling the container almost halfway. If she had still been tied to the floor, she would have drowned. Maybe that had been the plan.

  She wandered the small box again, trying to find anything that would help her get out of this thing, but she found nothing but trash and little skittering crabs that dashed out of her way as she approached. She watched them scatter and then crawl under cracks where the floor met the wall and she wondered where they went.

  She pushed on the walls near the deteriorated sections that were separated from the floor, but they would only flex a little. The remaining metal held. She banged on the sides and even kicked them with her bare feet, but she only succeeded in bruising her heel and making the crabs run around in a panic. When she stopped, they found their hiding place again and did not return.

  She was down to her last two bottles of fresh water and as she stared at them, she grew thirsty again. She had to ration them or she would become so thirsty she risked drinking the seawater which she knew would kill her. Not right away, but she’d fall into delirium, and finally lose consciousness. Then she would die of dehydration.

  The picture of Danielle sat atop one of the bottles. She had held it during the tidal surge that had flooded the compartment and it had stayed mostly dry. She glanced at it again. A single tear fell down her cheek and she looked away, trying to push the memory from her head. It was hard to do, trapped in this little dark space with nothing to think about but death. Danielle’s death, her death. It all seemed to merge and she knew she would probably perish in this place, holding on to the picture and staring into the face of the one she had killed. It only seemed fitting.

  She felt so weak, her legs shaking, so she sat on the floor and cried. She knew she needed to stop, she had to conserve as much moisture in her body as she could, but the tears kept coming.

  The wave of grief and guilt overtook her and she remembered everything that had happened after Danielle’s suicide. All the scorn, and the pain. Her family devastated in the eyes of the community and the torture she had put her own parents through.

  The press had been especially bad and they had stalked her relentlessly, to the point of her staying home from school for weeks on end. She had almost failed her junior year. They camped out in front of her house and shouted things at her all through the day and night. The police had been little help in controlling them. They were responsible for keeping the peace, she knew, but when even they scorned her and gave her looks she caught out of the corner of her eye, she knew they would not put forth their best effort. It would take over an hour for a car to arrive after the crowds became unruly in front of her house, and her father would have to shout into the phone at the dispatch officer until he nearly collapsed. She had been worried he would have a heart attack.

  The people of the community came out in droves to condemn their actions and they carried signs pronouncing them as evil and vile creatures on whom God would surely dole out his own punishment in time. The religious zealots had been especially bad and even though they spout
ed their righteous ways, they had been the first to condemn and the last to forgive.

  The worst had been the ones who had supported the teens in their actions against Danielle and her lover. God had condemned anyone who could commit such vile actions against their own sex and used Bethany and her friends to punish the sinners. Bethany had been so angry at those people, she had even started shouting back at them through her window. They had not understood why she did not appreciate their support.

  Rocks had been thrown through the windows of her house and smashed the windshield on her father’s new car. Her dog had been fed some kind of poison and the vet had barely been able to save it. A fire had been started in her front yard and the house had been spray painted with the words “KILLER” in huge red letters. It went on for weeks.

  Danielle’s family had been devastated, of course. Her mother had been the one to find her and Bethany swore she had awakened early the morning Danielle had died and heard a voice wailing in the distance. Of course, that could not have been. The family lived on the other side of town.

  For weeks afterward, Bethany would wake in the middle of the night, a noise like that of small fingernails scraping along the thin glass of her bedroom window pulling her from her sleep. She would sit up in her bed, thinking the girl had come for her, but it had only been a dream or her imagination. As she slowly drifted back off to sleep hours later, the soft mournful wail of Danielle’s mother led the way to her dream world and she would relive that morning over and over again as the rest of the night bore on.

  Danielle’s mother had been the worst. She had not fixed blame on anyone or any group. She had barely said anything afterward. The funeral had been held a week later and Bethany heard Danielle’s mother would not even move during the ceremony. She had remained silent and mournful, tears quietly streaking her face. Her husband tried to console her, but it had been futile. She had taken a bottle of pills in the night on the fourteenth day after her daughter’s suicide and followed her into that blackness that had enfolded her only little girl.