After the Charleston police arrested him and hauled him in for questioning, he'd noticed both the BMW and the van when he got out of the police car at headquarters. He didn't think anything more about it until now, when he noticed both vehicles outside the museum in Butler, Tennessee.
He ran the math in his head and knew both vehicles could have driven the distance from Charleston to Butler with little time to spare. The question looming in his mind was whether or not they were working together. It didn't appear that way, but after the events of the day, anything was possible. He knew there was only one person in the BMW, but couldn't tell how many were in the van. One thing was certain, he was outnumbered.
The fact that both vehicles were in Charleston, South Carolina this morning and have shown up 300 miles away in Butler meant one thing.
There was a leak.
Someone on the inside had informed them where he was going. Doubtful the leak came from within Commonwealth, Elmore Wiley's vetting procedures were unsurpassed by anyone. The more likely probability was the leak came from the White House, which pointed to only one person—Evan Makley.
Jake drove a steady speed toward the cabin he'd rented, always keeping track in his rear view mirror of the two vehicles following him. Cars pulled between them periodically, but eventually it was just the three vehicles on the lonely stretch of road.
Jake hit the familiar speed dial on his cell phone. "George, I need you to run a plate." He gave Fontaine the license plate number he'd captured in Charleston when the taxi pulled away from the police station. "Couldn't verify the numbers now, but I could tell it was a Virginia plate."
"Got it." Fontaine blurted after a few keystrokes. "Black BMW?
"Yep. 750 Li."
"Belongs to a Deborah Layne of Leesburg, Virginia. Mean anything?"
"No. Mean anything to you?" Jake heard Fontaine pecking at his keyboard.
"Oh, shit."
"That doesn't sound good." Jake looked in his mirror. Both vehicles were still there. The BMW was maybe a half a mile behind him. The van, slightly farther. "What did you find, George?"
"Facial recognition matched Deborah Layne as Abigail Love. Love is on both the FBI and Interpol's most wanted lists. This lady is bad, Jake, she's an assassin. I'm sending a photo. And Jake?"
"What?"
"According to an entry from Francesca, Evan Makley instructed Abigail Love to get the book and kill anyone who got in her way…your name was specifically mentioned in his communiqué to her."
Jake was quiet for a few seconds. "Guess I'll have to take care of that weasel when I get back to D.C."
"That is if Francesca doesn't beat you to the punch."
He checked his mirror when Roxanne, his GPS voice, announced the distance to his destination as one mile ahead on the left. The BMW was in sight but no van. Within seconds the van appeared from around the curve. He reached behind him to the small of his back and pulled out his Glock, cocked and locked, just the way he was trained. Professionals always kept a round chambered with either the mental or mechanical safety engaged. And on a Glock, that meant the mental safety. Chambering a round made noise, which could alert your opponent.
"Bring Wiley up to speed. Let him know Love is here in Butler. I gotta go." Jake disconnected the call before Fontaine could respond. He pulled into the drive and watched through the rear-view mirror as the BMW passed the driveway. Within seconds the van did the same.
Gun in hand, Jake jumped from the Tahoe, ran to the hedges lining the street using them as cover, and searched for the BMW. In the distance he saw the BMW's brake lights. The BMW made a k-turn, and then he watched as the headlights returned. The van kept going. He lay on his belly, peering through the base of the hedges as the BMW slowed. He readied his grip on the Glock. The BMW cruised past the driveway then accelerated. A minute later the BMW rounded the bend in the road and disappeared from sight. Jake panned back in the opposite direction. The van had turned around and was accelerating. It blew past the driveway, down the road, and out of sight around the curve.
Jake couldn't tell if the van was tailing him or the BMW. Either way, the situation just got a lot worse.
Earlier in the afternoon, Jake had launched the boat and motored it to the dock behind the cabin. He checked and loaded his equipment in the boat for tonight's dive. He needed his truck and since it was still at the boat ramp, he talked a nearby neighbor into driving him the fourteen miles back to the marina to pick up the Tahoe, keeping the conversation focused on the fishing tournament. When the old man dropped him off, he told Jake there was another boat ramp closer to the cabin, less than a half a mile down the highway. Jake thanked him and promised to use the closer ramp when he got ready to trailer the boat.
With the BMW and the van out of sight, he let himself into the cabin and set safety traps on the doors and windows. Traps too small and nondescript for anyone but him to notice unless they knew what to look for. More tradecraft skills he'd learned at The Farm. It was precaution. When he returned from the dive, Jake needed to know if anyone had been snooping around in the cabin. One last check of his messages revealed an urgent message from Elmore Wiley advising him there was a problem, which would delay the arrival of his backup. He was ordered to sit tight and wait for their arrival. Wiley's timetable wouldn't get backup to Butler until almost noon tomorrow. That was unacceptable. He hated to defy Wiley's orders, but too much could happen in the meantime and he couldn't chance the possibility Ashley Regan and her friend would get to the casket and disappear again.
He deleted the message from Wiley, turned off the lights, set the final door trap, and made his way in the darkness to the dock fifty feet below and one hundred feet behind the cabin. The steep steps reminded him of his own cabin in North Georgia. His retreat on Mountaintown Creek in Ellijay was over three hundred vertical feet above the creek. It had a lot of steps. This was nothing in comparison.
A full moon in a cloudless sky highlighted the shoreline guiding him as he motored the boat away from the dock. The vast contrast between the glittering water and land made it easy to navigate through the waters. The small outboard hummed like a sewing machine as the boat sliced through the calm waters of Watauga Lake.
Jake followed his programmed handheld GPS. The unit, customized by Wiley's lab, was precise to within two lateral feet. If Fontaine's coordinates were accurate, he should descend on top of the grave marker of Norman Albert Reese, Jr.
When his GPS beeped, he flipped the windlass switch, which automatically plunged the anchor toward the bottom of the lake while he kept the boat centered over the coordinates. A few seconds later, the anchor line went slack indicating it had hit bottom. He set the anchor so the boat wouldn't drift off while he was underwater, shut off the engine, and waited.
He didn't move for fifteen minutes. Driving a boat in the dark without running lights was illegal and, for the most part stupid. But tonight, stealth was necessary. He had to ensure no one saw or heard him, got curious, and came to investigate. While he waited, he slipped into his polar shell under-suit and then into a dry-suit sealing each with meticulous care.
In the Navy, he'd learned the difference between a dry-suit and a wetsuit. Although both were designed to keep the diver warm, a wetsuit allowed water inside. The water formed a layer between the neoprene suit and the diver's skin. Heat from the diver's body warmed the water inside the suit. A wetsuit was good for cool and moderately cold water only.
A dry-suit, on the other hand, was just that—dry. Gaskets at the neck, legs, and arms were designed to keep the water out and the diver's body dry. When used in conjunction with a polar-shell insulated under-suit, the diver could safely dive in extremely cold waters for long durations.
The water wasn't too cold on the surface, but according to Fontaine, at sixty feet it could be around fifty degrees and upper 40's near the bottom. And that was cold. He knew about hypothermia from his Navy dive training and, most recently, when he had to abandon a sinking vessel off the northern coast of Spai
n and swim nine miles to shore in the cold waters of the Cantabrian Sea.
That was ten months ago. And it was still fresh in his memory.
Jake lifted the hatch on the bow compartment and retrieved the rest of his dive gear, checked its working condition, geared up, and eased into the cold lake water. He used the low side rails of the boat to pull himself along the side of the boat until he reached the anchor line. He pulled his mask over his face, made a final equipment check, put the regulator in his mouth. With one hand on the anchor line, he deflated his buoyancy compensator and sank into the dark lake.
32
Jake descended in the water using the anchor line and felt the water temperature dropping fast. He was nervous and the cold, dark abyss didn't help. It had been a long time since he had been scuba diving. He felt his chest tighten and his respiration increase. He held his lighted computer closer to his face, 27 feet below the surface. He tightened his grip on the anchor line and stopped his descent. He was sucking air from his tank. He needed to calm down and get his breathing under control. Mind over matter discipline was what the Navy had taught him. The power to control and influence his body with his mind. He closed his eyes and let his mind go someplace calm.
It took him to the infinity pool in the Maldives tree villa with Kyli. He envisioned her smile. Her eyes sparkled. The gentle ocean breeze blowing through her hair. Just the thought of her image seemed tranquil.
His pulse slowed, returning to normal. Breathing slowed.
His tense muscles relaxed, his respiration under control. He was no longer nervous. He relaxed his grip on the anchor line and once again descended toward the bottom. At 35 feet below the surface, he turned on his dive light. The high beam was designed to put out 400 lumens of light for nearly fourteen hours. Much longer than he'd need it, but he had a backup in the boat just in case.
He flashed the beam downward, from side to side and saw nothing. Fontaine had indicated the visibility varied between 15 and 25 feet year round. Not great, but not bad either. At 50 feet below the surface his light beam found a cut off tree trunk. He followed it down with his light. The trunk was brown and blended into the brown mud bottom. Finding the marker might be harder than he had anticipated.
At 62 feet, he hit the muddy bottom, stirring up a slight plume of silt with his fins. It wasn't level. It sloped rapidly to one side of the tree and rose on the other. He'd carried with him a guide rope with one end attached to his weight belt and the other to a carabiner. He slipped the oval-shaped straight gate carabiner onto the anchor line, let out 20 feet of guideline and started making tethered, partial circle search passes to try and locate the marker, a search and rescue technique he learned in the Navy. Essentially the bottom was barren except for the occasional tree stump, which he had to circumnavigate so the tether wouldn't tangle.
On the 40-foot pass, at 56 feet below the surface, the bottom leveled out. He scanned the area with his dive light. Moments later the beam found the marker. It looked like what it was, a concrete monument, brown from decades of exposure to the mud and turbidity of Watauga Lake. It stuck out of what could be considered a knoll on the side of a hill now flooded with water. Jake swam toward the marker spraying the beam to find the capstone. Not an easy task when everything looked the same. A desert of brown mud.
As soon as his light found the metal plate capstone, it happened. Something rose from the gravesite and moved at him in slow motion. Like the apparition of Norman Albert Reese Jr. rising from the depths in protest of being disturbed. It was as big as he was, maybe bigger. Then it sped up, moving straight for him. His heart pounded, he inhaled rapidly through his regulator. It was almost on him. At the last second, Jake jerked to the side to avoid the collision. Something powerful struck his left arm causing him to drop the tether and the light. The impact knocked him fins over mask. The dive light struck bottom and tumbled toward the depths of the lake. He watched the beam bounce like a lopsided ball off the sloping bottom. It grew dim and stopped. He could barely see the beam shining on the bottom of the lake. He knew he had enough tether so he headed deeper to retrieve his light. He'd been careless not to secure the wrist strap.
On his way to the bottom he thought about what he'd seen. He'd heard the stories and had just assumed they were just that, fish stories. As he replayed it in his mind, he knew he'd spooked a giant catfish. A catfish with a mouth almost big enough to swallow him whole.
As he descended, the light got brighter. He reached the light and checked his dive computer. 127 feet. Shit. Now he was in the decompression mode instead of merely a safety stop. He grabbed his light, secured it to his wrist with the bungee strap, and started his slow ascent. At 60 feet, his dive computer signaled a decompression stop. He waited while the computer counted down. Ignoring the computer warning to stop could bring with it dire consequences. He had a buddy in the Navy who got the bends and had to spend a lot of time in a hyperbaric chamber recovering. His buddy still walked with a limp.
At 56 feet, he relocated the grave marker with his dive light and found the metal capstone. He waved his hand over the metal plate to clear the silt and read the inscription. He now understood why Reese was buried here and not relocated.
Norman Albert Reese Jr
Born January 14, 1925
Died December 14, 1944
World War II took our beloved son.
Born here, under this tree.
May he rest for eternity.
Jake studied the capstone; eight bolts secured the metal slab to the vault. Regan and the other woman would need a large wrench to remove the capstone and he doubted that either one of them would be able to free the bolts from the vault. Even if they did, could they remove the steel capstone itself? It probably weighed over a hundred pounds alone. No easy task underwater where leverage wasn't the same.
He'd seen all he needed to see. Jake pulled himself back to the anchor line and slowly ascended. At 30 feet, his dive computer signaled another deco stop. He checked his pressure gauge. He was in the red and had no idea how long he had been there. At 15 feet, the computer signaled a 5-minute safety stop. He doubted he'd make it without running out of air.
33
Her cell phone alarm beeped—4:30 a.m.
Startled out of a deep sleep, it took her a few seconds to wake up. She rolled over and picked the sleepy crust from her eyes. Ashley Regan and Christa Barnett hadn't gotten to bed until midnight and for a woman who needs at least eight hours sleep, Regan thought she did good just to hear the alarm. She pushed herself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed and tried to clear the cobwebs from her head.
"Christa." She shook the bed next to hers. "Christa. Time to get up."
"I've been up." The bathroom light came on behind her. "Been checking emails and stuff for the last thirty minutes."
"Have trouble sleeping?" Regan asked.
"No. I slept fine. I'm just used to getting up early."
"I'm having trouble waking up." Regan used the bed to push herself to her feet.
"When you get dressed we'll go get coffee and breakfast," Christa said. "A good breakfast before a day of diving is a must."
Now she was glad they had loaded everything in the car the night before. At least Christa had the forethought to suggest doing it to make the morning a little easier. But that's the way she'd always been. Even as teenagers, when everyone else was stumbling around wondering what to do next, Christa had already planned every detail. They spent several hours the night before reviewing the scuba equipment, its function, and how to use it. Christa had made sure Regan knew what to do. Christa had drilled scuba diving procedures with her until she felt comfortable she knew what to do. At breakfast, the drill continued.
The drive from Banner Elk, North Carolina to the marina in Butler, Tennessee was exactly 42 miles and took 59 minutes, which put them at the marina at 6:05 a.m. The sky was clear and starting to brighten in the east. To the west, the full moon had slipped behind a mountain creating a bright halo around its summit.
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She expected the marina to be quiet at this hour, but she was wrong, very wrong. Two pickups were launching boats side by side while eight other vehicles were waiting their turn in line. Fortunately she had rented a boat from the marina, which was waiting for her in the slip marked 15. It took the two women fifteen minutes and two solo trips apiece in the predawn light to move the dive gear and supplies to the 20-foot Bayliner cuddy cabin rental boat. The third trip they took together to move the heaviest piece—a filtered air compressor.
Within minutes of placing the compressor on the rear deck, Christa had the boat underway. Regan, an expert in navigation acquired from years of extensive hiking, studied the map and, coupled with the use of the onboard GPS, guided Christa toward the spot the old man had circled on the map, a notch in the shoreline on the western bank at the mouth of where the Watauga and Elk Rivers meet the rest of Watauga Lake. According to the old man in the bait store, Old Butler was located at the confluence of the Watauga River and Roan Creek. The Reese property was on the southern bluff, overlooking the old town.
Twenty minutes later they had traveled the four miles from the marina to the bluff. Regan had rented the expensive boat because it came with a GPS linked, bottom-mapping depth sounder and a swim platform, both of which would simplify their diving. She set up a grid pattern and tracked it in a northwest/southeast manner until she located what appeared to be the knoll the old man described. Then she signaled Christa to drop anchor.
Christa wasted no time slipping her dry suit on over her polar shell under suit. After it was sealed tight, she strapped on her Buoyancy Compensator with a full tank attached and pulled it snug. She walked onto the swim platform and sat down. She slipped into her twin jet fins, pulled on her hood, and donned her full-face mask. After a quick equipment function check, she grabbed a buoy bag and stepped off the platform feet first into the water while keeping one hand on her mask.
Breach of Power (The Action-Packed Jake Pendleton Political Thriller series Book 3) Page 20