Deepkill

by Michael Kilian

  “Just keep on.”

  “Okay.” She was trying to figure out how she’d make this little Cessna 150 behave like Burt’s old cargo behemoth on two engines.

  “Now,” he said.

  She pulled back on the throttle. The engine slowed and the nose dropped a little.

  “It was night, but the lights marked Cape May clearly. I remember it pretty good. Never forgot that sight. I thought it was going to be my last.”

  “Now what?”

  “Just keep on steady, losing power.”

  “I don’t want to stall. That’ll screw everything up.”

  “Don’t stall. Make a slow turn to the right, then fly parallel to the shore.”

  She dropped the nose more, decreasing the power. The altimeter was unwinding steadily.

  “Now what?”

  His eyes were on the beach to the right. “In a minute, I want you to start a turn to the left. I’ll call out the altitude I want.”

  “We’re almost to Rehoboth.”

  “That’s right. I remember the lights of the boardwalk.”

  “You know where we are?”

  “Turn now! And we’re too high. Lose a few hundred.”

  She fiddled with the throttle, pushing the control column forward. He kept giving her new commands. Struggling to keep up with him, she found this worse than her most frustrating Navy check ride. But Burt had come fully alive. He was all but flying the plane himself.

  “This is it!” he said. “Circle here.”

  They were almost in the water. Pushing the throttle to the wall, she banked hard. She could see the ocean straight out her window. Burt was craning to see the shore.

  “You’re sure?” she said.

  “Yes. I could see that old World War II machine gun tower.”

  These old, odd concrete monuments to a long-ago Atlantic threat could still be found all along the Delaware shore from Henlopen to Fenwick Island—five-story-high cylindrical towers with curving slits cut into their walls at the top for machine guns and light cannon. Put there to resist a German invader who never arrived, they had a 180-degree field of fire. Now pointless and useless except as tourist curiosities—their entrances bricked up and lower walls covered with graffiti—they stood as silent sentinels, much like the famous stone heads of Easter Island.

  “You can see them from a lot of angles.”

  “I know. I forgot about that. But now I remember.”

  “You trust your memory?”

  “On this.”

  “Mark the chart.”

  “I just did.”

  She pulled harder on the control column and eased the bank, causing the Cessna to climb. At a hundred feet, she leveled and headed south.

  “You’re absolutely sure?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’ve been wasting your time,” she said. “We’re south of Deepkill Shoal. By several hundred yards.”

  He considered this, not happily. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m little Miss Navy, remember? I was first in my class in navigation.”

  He swore, then put it behind him. “I’m going to take the Roberta June out today. This afternoon. Can you come out?”

  “Not sure, Burt. I’m a little beat. We need to think about what we want to do.”

  “What we’re going to do is find those damn bombs.” He stared ahead, impatient.

  Once past Bethany Beach, she cut in over the highway and flew cross-country the rest of the way, keeping just above the trees and power lines.

  Turning on final just south of Ocean City Airport, she set the Cessna down quietly and rolled to stop near one of the hangars.

  It was then that she noticed the police cars.

  Chapter 17

  Once again Westman was compelled to make a laborious journey via the Cape May-Lewes ferry down to Ocean City. He was recognized at the police station and treated collegially, but there was a terrific mess to sort out.

  Both Catherine McGrath and Burt Schilling were in the lockup. Before asking to see them, Erik sat down with the lieutenant on duty as watch commander.

  “What are you holding them on?”

  “You know them?”

  “Yes. She’s ex-Navy.”

  The policeman consulted the sheet on his desk before him. “Theft of aircraft.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s all we have on them. I’m not even sure the aircraft owner is going to press charges. The woman claimed she had his permission to fly the airplane as long as she paid for the fuel. He said he didn’t give her permission to fly in violation of a federal shutdown of the airport.”

  “Her trouble ought to be with the FAA then—not local law enforcement,” Erik argued. “As for Schilling, all he did was sit passenger, right?”

  “That case could be made.”

  “Schilling runs a head boat out of Lewes. They’ve been helping us with an investigation.” This was a mammoth exaggeration, but Erik thought it worth the risk.

  “Investigation?”

  “The Bay Bridge.”

  “You came all the way down here again to spring these two?” the police commander asked.

  “Yes, I did. She’ll be in big trouble with the FAA as it is. I imagine she’ll lose her pilot’s license. But that’s not a matter for the moment.”

  “I’ll call the aircraft owner. It shouldn’t be a problem. But there’ll have to be paperwork, and I’ll have to hang it on you.”

  Westman nodded. “Okay.”

  The lieutenant picked up his phone.

  Cat was surprised to see him. Rewarding him with a tentative little smile and a quick handshake, she turned to assist her friend Schilling, who looked as though he had crawled out of a culvert.

  “Would you like to get something to eat?” Erik asked as they exited the police station.

  She looked to Burt. “I’d better get him home. He needs about a year’s sleep.”

  “I’m all right,” Burt said.

  “A cup of coffee,” she said. “We can do that.”

  Erik followed her Jeep Wrangler to the restaurant, which sat across the highway from a miniature golf course decorated with cheesy-looking dinosaur figures. She hopped out. Schilling remained in the Jeep.

  “I’m going to catch some Zs here,” Schilling said. “You go on in.”

  Westman talked her into some breakfast, and ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee for himself.

  “How did you pull off that miracle?” she asked.

  He responded honestly. “I lied.”

  “About me?”

  “I said you and your friend were helping us with an investigation.”

  “And which one is that?”

  “We’re looking for suspicious vessels after the Bay Bridge explosion. You’ve been helping with that.”

  “How so?”

  He grinned. “You were a suspicious vessel. We checked you out. Now you’re not.”

  She cradled her face in her hands. “Whatever you told them, I’m grateful. I knew I’d get into trouble, but I didn’t think I’d end up in the brig.”

  “You’ve ended up in a restaurant.”

  Cat lifted her head, her eyes seeking his. “Yes. Well, thanks.”

  “Down the line, you could be in some trouble. I’m afraid you might lose your pilot’s license. And not just for operating out of a closed airport. The regs call for a thousand feet out from the beach and a thousand feet minimum altitude. You were observed at about fifty—over the sand.”

  “Twenty feet actually.”

  “And you violated restricted airspace—on the perimeter of Dover Air Force Base. It’s a wonder they didn’t try to bring you down. It’s a jumpy time.”

  She sipped her coffee, then leaned back as the waitress set her ham and eggs before her.

  “Why did you do it?” Westman asked.

  “The low-level flying? I wasn’t hotdogging. We were attempting to reenact Burt’s flight—the one where he dropped th
e bombs. I stayed low to avoid radar detection so we’d have a chance to pull it off.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll succeed if we can find the bombs. We were able to determine that they probably went in a lot farther south than Burt had thought. All these years, I think he’s been working the wrong end of Deepkill Shoal.”

  “And now you really have a chance to find them?”

  “A chance, yes. A better chance. But not a very big one.” Another small smile, then she went back to eating.

  “I believe you about your abandoned bombs—after the risk you took today.”

  “You didn’t believe me before?”

  “I wasn’t sure I believed Mr. Schilling.”

  She made a face. “All we need to do is locate them. Then we’ll turn everything over to the Air Force. They’ll have no choice but to come get them.”

  “I meant what I said about helping you.”

  “I’m not sure what you can do.”

  “Just let me know.”

  “Can you provide us with a search vessel and some diving equipment?”

  He shook his head. “I’m merely an investigator—and a warrant officer at that. The service is pretty hard-pressed right now. And …”

  She put her hand on his—briefly. “I was just kidding. Burt’s been trying to get the federal government to do something about this for years. No one’s going to listen to us until we come up with something tangible.”

  “I’ll listen. I’ll bring it up with my superiors. I know an admiral.”

  She looked away, down at the floor. “Burt’s so dead set on this.”

  “You two seem very close.”

  “He and my uncle were pals as well as neighbors. I’ve come to like him a lot. He’s had a rough time of it. He surely got the shaft from the Air Force, and now he’s just trying to do what’s right.”

  Westman made some calculations. “There’s forty, fifty feet of water out there—running five miles out.”

  “Twenty-seven feet along the shoal at mean tide. Maybe less.”

  “Have you any idea how much that bottom’s been rearranged after all these years? The bombs could be buried deep by now.”

  “Or uncovered. They wouldn’t have moved. No more than those wrecks on the bottom all along the shore have. They’ve all been on the charts since I was a little girl.”

  “How are you going to be able to determine you’ve found those things?”

  “Burt says he’ll know. He was going to hire this salvage outfit in Wilmington, but now he’s got a metal detector and he’s talking about renting some high-tech sonar gear.”

  “Can he afford that?”

  “He’s paid off his boat. I guess he means to mortgage it again. He even talked about selling it.”

  Westman’s cell phone jangled. He smiled, politely, and took it from his pocket.

  “Westman.”

  A pause. “This is Admiral dePayse. Where are you?”

  “Just a moment.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I think I’d better take this outside, if you don’t mind.”

  She seemed surprised. “Sure.”

  He walked out to the parking lot, leaning back against the hood of his Grand Cherokee. “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself, Special Agent. Where the hell are you?”

  “Just up the shore from Ocean City. I was at the police station there.”

  “Any developments?”

  “The FBI lifted some good prints from the crime scene. I think that by now they’ve traced a rental car and a driver’s license to one of the bridge-case attackers. They should have a photo ID on him by now. I don’t know if it’s going to be distributed. I haven’t checked with my friend in the task force yet.”

  “Why aren’t you aboard the Manteo?”

  “It was headed up the Delaware. I think the action’s down here.”

  “But you’re no longer part of the FBI task force.”

  “I don’t know that I need to be.”

  There was a long silence. “I wonder if you ought to come back in.”

  “Headquarters in Arlington is not exactly where the action is.”

  “I mean back here—Buzzard’s Point.”

  He had no immediate response to that. “Joan, what if I told you there was some nuclear ordnance lying in maybe thirty feet of water off Cape Henlopen.”

  “I’ve seen nothing about that in any reports. How have you come by this knowledge?”

  “I’ve met the former C-130 pilot who jettisoned two of those things somewhere in that location back in the sixties. He’s trying to find them.”

  “Air Force pilot?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I think we’d better leave that to them.”

  “Those bombs are in coastal waters, Admiral. Our jurisdiction.”

  She gave a pronounced sigh of exasperation. “Erik. We have a very high-priority matter before us. How long did you say these bombs have been there—if they actually exist?”

  “Forty years. A little less.”

  “They can wait a little while longer, don’t you think? Get back on the bridge case, please. And until we can sort out your problem with the FBI, get back on the Manteo.”

  “Admiral, there’s nothing going on up the Delaware.”

  “Consider that an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And report in more frequently, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She clicked off.

  Westman looked up to see Catherine come out from the restaurant. “This was supposed to be my treat.”

  “Next time,” she said. “You saved me a lot of money today. I was afraid I was going to have to hock my car to raise bail.” She briefly put her hand on his arm. “Thanks.”

  “I have to get back to my ship.”

  “I know that drill.” She looked back to her Jeep. “Burt wants to head out to Deepkill as soon as we get back, but I’m going to make him wait until tomorrow. Let him get some sleep.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Call my Navy lawyer and find out how much trouble I’m in.”

  “I wish I could help.”

  “You already have.” She hesitated, then reached into her purse. She wrote something quickly on a piece of notepaper, then handed it to him. “Call me.”

  He pocketed the number. “I will.”

  “Tonight.”

  “All right.”

  She waved from her Wrangler. She had turned into the street and was speeding north by the time he got his Grand Cherokee started.

  Turko had not wished to risk crossing the Delaware River at any of the Interstate bridges for fear the police might have established roadblocks or checkpoints—a strong possibility at the tollgates at the Delaware Memorial Bridge just south of Wilmington. He doubted they’d have any high-priority watch for the cheap stolen car he was driving, but it was a chance he shouldn’t take.

  He kept to the Pennsylvania side of the river all the way to Trenton, crossing on an old bridge north of the Interstate. There was a sign at the edge of the highway saying George Washington and his army had crossed the Delaware at this point en route to his victory there. They’d taken the drunken Hessians by surprise and slaughtered them. The British had looked upon the Americans as little better than terrorists. The Americans had wanted what the people of Chechnya wanted. Independence. Freedom.

  Holding his speed to five miles an hour over the limit, he took Interstate 295 back down the river on the Jersey side, switching to Highway 49 at Penn’s Grove and following it around a wide curve of the Delaware until the huge tapered towers of the Farmingdale nuclear power plant came into view.

  Pulling off to the side, he went to the backseat to turn on the video camera he had bought that morning and placed it on the ledge at the rear window, adjusting a windbreaker jacket over it. Then he continued on.

  Careful now to keep his speed exactly at the limit, Turko drove by the huge, sprawling complex with his e
yes fixed on the road ahead of him. The highway did not come very near the plant, but some knowledge was better than none.

  He’d read the report on nuclear power plant security Pec had given him, three times through. The anonymous testimony it contained from security guards never made clear which plants they were talking about, but he’d acquired a fair idea of their general plan and security arrangements. At several of them, perhaps even this one, guards were made to work twelve-hour shifts and there was a problem with sleepiness toward the end of the shift.

  The guards had nine-millimeter automatics, shotguns, and semiautomatic civilian versions of the military M-16 rifle. The latter were kept in cases, however, and not instantly available.

  At some of these sites, the guard force had been trained only to deal with small, single parties of intruders coming from one direction. The only reinforcements they could expect were local first responders—meaning small-town cops and state troopers. The people from the other twelve-hour shift were not allowed to take their weapons home with them.

  This was possible. But with only four men?

  He drove on to the next town, then made right turns until he was headed back on the highway again. Approaching the main gate, he on impulse hit the brakes and carefully pulled up to the guards’ station. Two men in dark uniforms quickly came up to him.

  “You can’t stop here, sir,” said one. He was wearing a side arm but it remained in his holster.

  “I’m sorry,” Turko said. “I’m trying to find Farmingdale Beach.” He remembered the name from a long study of the road map.

  “Go back the way you just came. At the next town, make a right and follow the road to the end.”

  “Thanks,” said Turko, smiling. “Sorry to trouble you.”

  “That’s all right. But in the future, get your directions somewhere else.”

  “Yes, sir.” He drove away as instructed. Instead of making a right at the intersection, he went left, heading east cross-country until he came to a major north-south highway.

  In Camden, New Jersey, he sought another bad neighborhood and pulled into a debris-strewn vacant lot. He had no idea whether they had had closed-circuit surveillance cameras at the power plant gate, but it was a worthwhile precaution to ditch this vehicle and obtain a new one. Taking out his shoulder bag and putting his video camera in it, he left the car in the lot, certain it would be stripped clean by morning. Unbothered by local residents this time, he walked some twenty blocks to a main street with an open gas station and called a taxicab to take him to Philadelphia.