The Savannah Project (Jake Pendleton series)

by Chuck Barrett

  McGill looked at Kaplan and then over to Jake. “Is that accurate?”

  “Yes, it is. I haven’t been able to brief you on equipment outages,” Jake said.

  McGill shook his head and turned hard brown eyes back to Kaplan. “Well. I guess that lowers your culpability. For now.”

  McGill turned his glare to Annie, but his order was for Jake: “Get them out of here.”

  McGill walked away.

  Jake was about to speak to Kaplan when he heard Ben Lewis yell, “Remains.”

  Without thinking, Jake, Annie, and Kaplan turned to see Ben hold up a portion of an arm with a hand attached.

  Annie’s face turned white. She hunched over and vomited.

  Jake felt his stomach tighten. This is getting out of control fast.

  CHAPTER 26

  The two tractor/trailer flatbeds that delivered the lattice-boom crawler crane, loaned by the Savannah Port Authority, were moved as close to the Challenger’s crash site as possible so the wreckage could be loaded for transport to the Gulfstream hangar. The crane, with its two-hundred-thirty-foot boom length and one-hundred-ton lifting capacity, slowly lowered the Challenger’s main fuselage on the first flatbed. The cockpit and tail section pieces, along with some of the scattered debris were loaded on the second flatbed.

  The site would be scoured over the next hours and days to collect any remaining debris, using metal detectors and other equipment deemed necessary to locate anything still buried in the marsh.

  Dave Morris pulled away from the site following the two flatbed rigs heading for the hangar. Kowalski walked over to McGill and Jake with a Cheshire cat grin. “The Civil Air Patrol found the wreckage of the Skyhawk.”

  McGill asked, “Well, don’t keep me in suspense—how far away is it?”

  “As the crow flies, maybe a mile or two, but by road several miles. The Jasper County deputies are en route as we speak. Here are the coordinates the CAP radioed in.”

  McGill whistled for Jake and Ben to follow. The four men walked over to McGill’s Suburban where McGill pulled out an area map and laid it across the hood.

  “All right, here we are.” He pointed to the spot on Hutchinson Island. “If we follow these coordinates … that puts the Skyhawk right around here.” He tapped his finger on a spot on the map, then circled it with his pen.

  Jake watched as McGill ran his finger from the coordinates fix of the Skyhawk location toward the Savannah International Airport.

  Looking up at Jake, McGill said, “Almost in a direct line from the end of Runway 27.”

  McGill’s argument of a midair had just gained credence. The gaping hole underneath the cockpit could easily be explained away by other causes, even though the outward ripping and rearward curled strips of the metal hull were usually indicative of an outward blast. Even the royal blue paint transfer might have been explained away by a careless aircraft tug operator, but Jake knew there were now too many coincidences.

  His earlier assertions of an explosion had damaged his credibility with McGill and shaken his own confidence in his ability to maintain an objective assessment of all the evidence. The evidence was telling him one thing but his instincts were telling him something entirely the opposite. Too many things were happening too fast and they seemed connected somehow. The man in the pub and the man in Dallas.

  His thoughts drifted back to the man’s words from the night before in his room. Things aren’t as they seem. The enemy is closer than you think.

  He jolted back to the present. He was about to tell McGill about the man in his room, but then had second thoughts. He knew McGill would be furious he hadn’t reported the incident to hotel security, the police and to him. McGill would see it as a potential compromise to the investigation and would likely have Jake dismissed.

  McGill said, “Take the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder to Carol. Have her ship them out ASAP to D.C. Then go back out to the TRACON and pull all the maintenance logs for the last three months. I want to know everything about that radar.”

  He turned and looked at Ben, “Ben, you and Kowalski are going with me to check out the Skyhawk.”

  * * * Jake loaded the two chests in the back of the black Mustang. He was driving toward the Westin when his cell phone rang.

  “Jake, it’s Dave.”

  “Yeah, Dave, what’s up?”

  “Can you get over here right away? I’m at the Gulfstream hangar. I was unloading the fuselage and … well, there’s something here you really need to see.”

  “Come on Dave, don’t keep me in suspense. What is it?”

  “I think you might have been onto something but I’m not sure. You’ll have to look at it yourself.”

  “Okay, Let me drop off the recorders for Carol to ship out and I’m on my way—”

  Dave’s line went dead.

  He had barely hung up his phone when it rang again. He recognized the number of Donna Greene in Dallas and answered.

  “Ms. Greene, what’d you find out?”

  “Jake, things have turned into a mess here. The police originally couldn’t find either of the mechanics. Their names were Duane Sanders, he’d been at Longhorn for a couple of years, and of course, Ian McDonald.”

  “Were?” Jake asked. “What do you mean were?”

  “As I was about to say,” Greene said, “the police entered Sanders’ home and no one was home. It looked like he hadn’t been there in a few days. Eventually they tracked down where his girlfriend lived, but no one answered the door.

  “They heard some groaning and knocked down the door only to find an extremely gruesome scene. The girlfriend was tied to the bedposts of the bed, blindfolded, gagged, and naked. Sanders was duct-taped to a chair with a bullet through his left temple. They’d both been hit with Taser darts. When the girl settled down, she told the police that she couldn’t remember much about the last couple of days.”

  “The last couple of days? How long had he held them?”

  “We don’t know for sure. Never will, probably. Anyway, Sanders had told her about the new mechanic. He came over to her apartment under the guise that he was meeting Sanders there. As soon as she opened the door he met her with the Taser in the chest, then it was lights out. She remembered hearing him talking on the phone and moving around the apartment. She can’t remember anything he said, though. She’s suffering from post-traumatic shock.”

  “Did he drug her or something?”

  “Apparently so. The medical center is pulling a tox screen to see what he gave her, but the doctor said she was unconscious for most of it. She remembers being raped, though. She said she knew she was being raped but her body wouldn’t move. And he did it more than once, she remembered that much. Not much else. They took semen samples and hope to find a match from the DNA database.”

  “He sounds like a monster.”

  “He is. He drugged her and raped her while she was incoherent. The cops think it was some sort of an Ecstasy and sedative cocktail.”

  “What about the FBO manager? What did he say?”

  “He said the guy he hired had brown eyes, quite certain of that, was quiet, kind of an introvert but did excellent work … in the short time he was there. He said McDonald and Sanders became friends right off the bat. They would go out after work for drinks. Nothing really out of the ordinary.”

  She went on, “There’s something else too. I ran a check on his Social Security number and it checked out with an Ian McDonald living in Tacoma, Washington. The locals there are going to check him out.”

  “Donna, fax everything you can over to Carol, police reports, descriptions, everything. Do it right after you get off the phone. I’ve got someplace to go first, and then I’ve got to find Pat.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Jake pulled into the Westin’s front entrance, identified himself, and gave his keys to one of the attendants with instructions to put the two chests in the hotel manager’s office under lock and key. He then headed to the Riverscape meeting room, where
the NTSB had set up its command center. The room cluttered with telephones, fax machines, copy machines, files, and file cabinets with Carol sitting in the middle of the mess.

  Phone lines ringing, copy machine printing, and a fax machine negotiating an incoming fax call. Carol was punching the buttons on the phone, stating, “NTSB, hold please.”

  She shot Jake an exasperated look. “Jake, what’s going on out there? It’s been like this all morning.”

  He looked down at her, the most efficient administrative assistant he’d ever seen, and said, “I’m here to save you, come with me. Just let the phones ring. Better bring your cell though.”

  “What about all this?” she waved her arms over the room of actively buzzing business machines.

  “Leave it. They’ll call back if it’s important. I need you now.”

  He walked Carol downstairs, showed her the chests and gave her McGill’s instructions. He grinned. “Pat said make this your number one priority, so I guess the madhouse will just have to wait.”

  “Yes! Thank the Lord,” she replied, giving him a big hug. “I could use a break.”

  Jake hugged her back. “Also, Donna Greene from Dallas will be faxing some information here soon. It is very important. Can you let me know as soon as it gets here?”

  “Sure, Jake, I’ll call you the moment I get it.”

  “And Carol,” Jake said, “for the time being, this is strictly between you and me, okay?”

  “Why, Jake? We don’t keep secrets.”

  He smiled. “I’m not keeping secrets but I need to check out a few details first to make sure the information is…credible.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Please Carol. As a favor to me. You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

  “Okay, Jake. I’ll do it for you.”

  As he left the manager’s office, Beth was walking back in from the front of the hotel. She came straight to him, smiling.

  “I thought that might be your Mustang outside,” she said.

  “Yeah, I just stopped by to drop off the recorders so Carol can ship them to DC. I’m on my way back out to the airport now, to Gulfstream, then over to the TRACON. What are you going to do today?”

  “I was about to go get lunch—can you go with me?”

  “No, I don’t have time. I’ll just grab a burger on the way and eat it in the car. Where are you going?”

  With a disappointed look, she said, “I’m going over to River Street. I want to check out the shops and eat lunch at Tubby’s Tankhouse. The valet said they have a good shrimp basket.”

  “How about I walk you to the ferry and catch you up on everything that’s happened so far?”

  They walked slowly toward the ferry landing while he explained all the gory details of Donna Greene’s call, his strange phone call from Dave, and the overwhelming evidence that McGill had about the midair collision.

  Beth slugged Jake as hard as she could on his arm. “Dammit, Jake, I told you to call security last night. We could have been killed.”

  He looked down at her while rubbing his arm. Her face was pale. “Wha— I thought you trusted me!”

  “This isn’t about trust. That guy last night was a nutcase, babbling on about some dead man you don’t even know. And he spoke in riddles, too. Who talks like that anyway? He was crazy.”

  Jake grabbed her trembling shoulders and turned her toward him. “Baby, this isn’t something you need to worry about. You go shop and try to take your mind off last night. Okay?”

  “You should tell Pat.”

  Jake looked up as the ferry announced its arrival at the dock. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Jake,” Beth called out over the ferry’s engine, “please be careful.”

  He grinned. “Me? I’m always careful.”

  * * * Jake grabbed a burger, fries and a soft drink at a drive-through on the way to Gulfstream. As he turned on Gulfstream Boulevard, several police cars and an ambulance passed him, going the same direction. Lights flashing, sirens wailing. The emergency vehicles pulled into the Gulfstream entrance. He got an uneasy feeling in his stomach, so he sped up to the guard shack and flashed his credentials at the guard.

  “Terrible thing about that accident,” the guard said. He motioned Jake through the gate.

  When he saw which hangar the vehicles went to, the sudden implication of the police cars and ambulance hit him. A wave of nausea swept over him as he saw the paramedics running over to the crumpled fuselage lying on the hangar floor. Jake skidded to a stop outside the entrance of the hangar, jumped out of his Mustang and ran toward the hangar.

  A policeman moved toward him with his hands up, motioning for him to stop. Jake flashed his credentials and pushed his way past the police. He fought his way through the people huddled around one side of the wreckage.

  Then he saw the body. Only Dave’s head and left shoulder were visible from underneath the wreckage. A paramedic nearby was shaking his head, giving a “no” signal to the police officer, indicating Dave was already dead.

  Jake stepped closer to one of the policemen. “What happened? How did this happen?”

  “One of the Gulfstream workers, that guy over there,” the policeman pointed toward a small Hispanic man. “His name’s Hector Rodriguez. He saw this man standing underneath the wreckage while it was suspended in the air. He said he didn’t think anything of it until he heard a crashing sound. He came over here to see if he could help and that’s what he saw.”

  The officer went on, “The wreckage had been unloaded off the flatbed over there by this crane, an all-terrain lift and carry crane that moved it into the hangar.”

  “How did it fall?” Jake stared up at the crane, his eyes hard.

  “We don’t really know yet. Maybe it lost hydraulic pressure or something.”

  Jake looked at the officer. “Is this everybody that was working here?”

  “As far as I know. Mr. Rodriguez said there was no one else around at the time he heard the crash.”

  “One question, where’s the lift operator?”

  CHAPTER 28

  The NTSB Suburban whisked past an old farmhouse on the South Carolina gravel road, leaving a quarter-mile trail of dust behind it. Following the directions of the CAP aerial crew, the Suburban pulled up to the crowd of vehicles parked near a tidal creek. Three Jasper County deputies, an ambulance with two EMTs, and the farmer were awaiting the arrival of the Go Team.

  McGill approached a deputy, “What have you got?” The deputy pointed to the creek. “The Cessna Skyhawk is located about thirty feet from the creek bank. It’s low tide right now so it’s exposed. It’s also inverted and its tail is missing.”

  The elder EMT spoke up. “The body’s still intact with massive head trauma. Probably what killed him. I’m sure there’s internal damage too. We didn’t remove the body just like you ordered.”

  “Fine. I guess we’ll wade out there and take a look.” McGill pointed Ben to the Suburban.

  McGill and Ben sat with Kowalski on the tailgate of the Suburban donning their boots over their coveralls, then pulling the Velcro straps snug so the boots wouldn’t slip off in the mud. They put on their gloves and grabbed walking sticks, then made their way down the embankment and into the marsh.

  The men made slow progress toward the aircraft and keeping their balance in the mire proved a challenge. Ben fell into the thick mud twice before reaching the Skyhawk, Kowalski three times. McGill was the only one who didn’t fall.

  Arriving first at the aircraft, McGill noticed the propeller and half of the engine nacelle buried in the muck. The Skyhawk struck at a vertical angle, nose down. The wings bent forward from the impact. The pilot and passenger doors ripped off and lay beside the aircraft. The accident occurred just after high tide.

  The tidal slough, full of brackish water, dampened the impact. Some debris could be seen farther down the slough as the falling tide washed some of the lighter debris toward the main river channel until it also bec
ame lodged in the mud.

  The inside of the Skyhawk was full of fiddler crabs that went skittering as McGill approached the cabin. The body of the old man hung upside down, suspended by his seatbelt. The shattered windshield and smashed dashboard covered in blood. His face covered with the marsh creatures that will feed on anything dead. The man’s arm looked strange, somehow shredded, but not from the impact.

  McGill reached in the cabin in an attempt to unbuckle the seat belt. He noticed something large moving toward him from the rear of the cabin.

  “Shit!” he yelled as he jumped back out of the cabin, falling against Ben, who was leaning in to get a look. They both fell backwards, landing in the soft mud.