Breach of Power (The Action-Packed Jake Pendleton Political Thriller series Book 3)

by Chuck Barrett

  Regan scanned the area. A red and white striped bass boat she recognized from the boat ramp whizzed across the middle of the lake sending a small wake toward her boat. Dawn had brightened the morning sky but the sun still hid behind the mountains to the east; the glow from the full moon had long disappeared due to the brightened sky. A small metal bass boat driven by a younger man motored into the cove and anchored nearby. He wore khaki colored pants, a long sleeved shirt, and wide-rim safari hat. The man promptly cast his fishing line in the water. She inspected the water and wondered if the man could see Christa's bubbles rising from below.

  For the next few minutes, boats of all shapes and sizes went by. Mostly fishing boats, it seemed, but she saw two houseboats and, across the lake, a group of kayakers. Watauga Lake was a popular place. She checked her watch; 35 minutes had elapsed since Christa slipped out of sight beneath the boat. She knew from the safety drills she had gotten from her friend that she couldn't stay down too long. She leaned over to check for bubbles just as Christa's head broke the surface.

  "Found it." Christa pointed toward shore.

  Regan looked up and saw an inflatable marker buoy bobbing in the wake of a passing boat. "How long's that been there?"

  "Six or seven minutes, maybe. I made a five minutes safety stop on the way up. I'll need to off-gas for at least an hour before I go back down." She threw her mask and fins on the swim platform. "This is going to be a lot of work. Metal plate bolted down. Looks real heavy." She was taking short choppy breaths. "Glad I brought those tools. Looks like we're going to need them."

  "We got company." Regan pointed with a nod of the head. "Been here about thirty minutes."

  "Fishing the whole time?"

  "Yeah. He's already caught three or four that I've seen. Threw 'em all back in though."

  "We'll raise the dive flag before we go down. That way he won't hook one of us."

  Regan laughed. "That'd make for one hell of a fish story, wouldn't it?"

  * * *

  Jake admired Regan's choice of boats, a Bayliner 192 cuddy cabin inboard/outboard with canvas Bimini top and full swim platform. A much more suitable boat for scuba diving than his metal-hull bass boat that didn't have a swim ladder. The name written in bold green script across the transom was Miss Debi. He checked his watch when he pulled into the cove where the grave of Norman Reese was located, 7:00 a.m. He hadn't anticipated the women would arrive this early. There was only one woman on board the boat now, Ashley Regan, so he assumed her friend was already underwater trying to locate the grave.

  He anchored 150 feet away near a tree that had fallen into the water. He cast two lines, one on each side of the tree, letting one sink to the bottom while he used a top-water plug with the other. He'd noticed Regan was watchful until he caught his first fish. Then her interest in him seemed to wane.

  Jake smiled; he'd used the same ruse off the northern coast of Spain last year in the Cantabrian Sea while he was chasing a terrorist. The terrorist was lulled into the same false sense of security when Jake and two CIA agents caught their first fish.

  A slight breeze worked in his favor and weathervaned his boat so he had clear vantage point of the Bayliner without having to turn his head.

  The second and third fish strike came in rapid succession. By the time he had reeled in his top-water plug which had a large mouth bass, his bottom fishing rod had doubled over. All the excitement caused him to divert his attention away from the Bayliner. When he looked back up, an inflatable marker had surfaced. Shortly after that a diver climbed onto the swim platform. He knew by the location of the marker they'd found Reese's grave.

  A few hours prior he hadn't even surfaced when he ran out of air. Fifteen feet below the surface with less than a minute left on his safety stop, he exhaled and when he tried to take a breath, there was nothing left in the tank. He had expected it and surfaced anyway. He knew he'd have plenty of time to rid any excess nitrogen from his blood before he was forced to dive again and knew he was well within Navy safety margins.

  When he had returned to the cabin after the dive, none of his safety traps had been sprung. He checked his email. He found a photo of Abigail Love from Fontaine and a terse message from Wiley about waiting for backup.

  He knew he couldn't wait on Wiley to send reinforcements. There wasn't time. This might be his only chance to find out what Regan was doing and what she possessed that had morphed her from accountant to grave robber.

  At 8:30, both women put on their dry suits. He knew it was time. He noticed a deck boat driven by a woman pull into the open cove. She was alone. Jake used his miniature spyglass to get a better look. He recognized her immediately and lowered his head blocking his face with the rim of his hat.

  He knew she could jeopardize the entire mission.

  He also knew that Abigail Love could recognize him.

  34

  George Fontaine sat down at his desk when the alerts flashed across two of his four big screen wall-mounted monitors.

  The tracker program Evan Makley had installed on his computer courtesy of Abigail Love did more than she'd advertised. In a sense it was a Trojan virus with specific non-malicious tracking capability. Every email he sent had the virus attached, even the ones to himself allowing him to work from his home computer. And each recipient's computer was now accessible by Love's servers.

  That meant Love's servers could have had access to every bit of data stored on over fifty national security computers, most in the D.C. area.

  Could have had being key if Fontaine hadn't hacked the virus code and rerouted the pathway to the Commonwealth Consultants servers. Now, Love's servers saw nothing. Taking her out of the loop was his number one national security priority. Fontaine developed algorithms that not only allowed him to reroute the pathway from Love's virus but also installed a similar track back virus of his own construct, revealing her IP routing.

  The first alert on his screen pinpointed the exact physical location of Love's servers. Within the hour, Wiley's team would take down the servers, remove the hard drives, and destroy the complex.

  The second alert listed every IP address Makley sent emails to. Computers that now had Fontaine's tracking virus attached. The virus enabled him to see and download everything on each of those computers. He scrolled through the list until he located the server he needed. Now the back trace began.

  After hacking through the firewalls of 27 anonymous servers around the globe, Fontaine located the server that sent the blackmail message to Makley. To his good fortune, the computer was still online and within a few seconds he had captured the physical address of the computer, a Starbucks. Moments later he commenced a download of the contents of its hard drive.

  Only minutes into the transfer, the download stopped. Fontaine smiled. He already knew two important things about the blackmailer, she or he was using a portable device and it wouldn't be long before the computer came back online.

  Half an hour later he was alerted the computer was back online. The physical trace revealed the computer accessed the Internet from a Cadillac dealership less than a mile from the Starbucks. Wiley's assets were a minimum of two hours away. He needed the computer online in a single location when they arrived. He knew this wasn't going to be it.

  Thirty minutes later, the download stopped again. Fontaine partitioned what he had obtained on his computer and started sorting through the bytes of information. He was amazed at the lack of precaution this person had taken to protect the information on the computer. No encryption. No hidden files. It seemed the only precaution was the use of several anonymous servers and email clients.

  Almost everything on the computer was standard and straightforward. The person's identity revealed, Fontaine started a background check while he combed the remainder of the data.

  Midway through the data, he found something that shocked him. Jake's guess had been correct. After a background search, another name popped up.

  The threat against the President was real.


  "Holy Crap." Fontaine reached for the phone. "Mr. Wiley, I think you need to see this."

  Wiley entered through the secure complex two minutes later. "What is it, George?"

  Fontaine showed Wiley what he had uncovered when he processed the hard drive's contents. Now they knew the reason why caskets had been broken into and what was in them. "Where should we go from here?" Fontaine asked.

  "Get a hold of Jake. Tell him what he's looking for. His number one priority is to acquire that book. I want Regan and the other woman alive." Wiley turned to leave, then stopped. "Inform Jake to consider Abigail Love a preemptive sanction. And bring Francesca up to speed. She might need to cover his back."

  "Yes, sir."

  Wiley stared at Fontaine without saying anything.

  "Sir? Something wrong?"

  "Wrong? No. Nothing wrong. Just thinking." He paused. "Tell Jake to be discreet. I don't want all of northeastern Tennessee in turmoil because of a shootout on that lake. And, no repeats of Charleston." Wiley opened the door to leave.

  "Sir?" Fontaine asked. "In case I run across anything else, where can I find you?"

  Wiley looked at his watch. "I'll be in the building for a few more hours, then I'm going to Nashville."

  * * *

  Abigail Love idled the deck boat as she pulled into the cove on Watauga Lake.

  She made a quick situation assessment. On the far side of the cove was a man fishing in a bass boat, just one of the dozens she'd seen so far. Not expected, but not unusual, especially in light of the fishing tournament. She could deal with him if need be. The Bayliner cuddy cabin with two women onboard was the only thing of interest to her. She saw a short woman with dark hair lower the antenna, attached a dive flag, and raised it back up again.

  Moments later a second woman appeared from the cabin—Ashley Regan. She recognized her from the photos Makley had emailed her. Game on.

  She pulled the bow of the boat closer to shore, about seventy-five feet from Regan's Bayliner, walked through the split windshield and let out the anchor line. She walked to the helm, put the boat in reverse and backed up about thirty feet then threw out a stern anchor. She cinched them both snug and shut off the engine.

  She stripped off her clothes, revealing her bikini bathing suit underneath, hopped over the transom onto the swim platform and dipped a foot into the water. She scanned the cove. The fisherman was on the other side, maybe a hundred yards distance, looking in the opposite direction. Regan and her friend kept glancing her way.

  The morning sun had cleared the mountains and its rays penetrated her skin. She felt its warmth on her dark tanned skin. Beads of sweat lined her forearms. It was already hot and would only get hotter as the day wore on. She glanced at Regan and saw her putting on a dry suit and could only imagine how hot she must be. Love dove into the water and swam out twenty feet and then back.

  The water was much colder than she expected. She pulled herself back on the swim platform. Goose bumps covered her from head to toe.

  Her ruse had worked. The women were now ignoring her, which is what she was counting on.

  * * *

  Jake didn't like what he saw unfolding in front of him.

  Ashley Regan and her friend were gearing up to make a dive to the bottom. They took turns zipping up and sealing each other's dry suit. The smaller woman, Christa Barnett, hoisted the tank and BCD combination onto Regan's back, helping her secure it, then escorted her to the swim platform. Barnett slipped her arms into her own BCD and stood. Within seconds, both women were sitting on the swim platform slipping on their fins. Each pulled on their full-face masks and fell forward into the water.

  In the meantime, Abigail Love had shed her clothes down to her bathing suit, took a quick dip in the lake, and had lathered herself with sunscreen. She spread a towel on the bow cushion of the deck boat and lay on her stomach. Jake noticed Love had positioned herself for a vantage point to watch Reagan's boat. And his. No way he could dive with her watching without raising her suspicions.

  He started weighing his options when his phone vibrated.

  Fontaine.

  He slipped his Bluetooth earpiece in and answered the phone while he continued fishing. "Go George."

  "It's confirmed, Regan does have a book, a journal of some sort that she found inside the glacier. Perhaps on the corpse itself. You were right…again. I read Wiley in on everything I've found so far. He's not pleased. Looks like the communicated threat to the President is real."

  "My instructions?"

  "Priority one is the book. Find it and secure it."

  "Regan and her friend?" Jake had another strike on the fishing line.

  "Wiley wants them both alive." Fontaine paused. "Seen Abigail Love?"

  "Looking right at her." Jake watched the deck boat. Love was moving toward the stern with towel in hand. "She hasn't made me. What about her?"

  "Expendable civilian target."

  "Seriously?" Jake pulled another large mouth bass to the side of the boat.

  "Jake, this woman is an assassin. And as a reminder, with instructions to kill you if you get in the way. Wiley's exact words were for you to consider her a "preemptive sanction.'"

  "Anything else?" Jake had heard all he needed to hear.

  "He said to be discreet. I know that's hard for you."

  "You're a regular comedian, you know that, George?"

  "I know. Sounded important to Wiley, and I think Rudd as well. He was adamant there was to be no blowback from this at all. Can you do that?"

  "Tell Wiley not to worry. I'll sanitize the target area. Where is he now?"

  "Said something about going to Nashville. He didn't say why, but if I was a betting man—"

  "Spill it, George. I'm sure it's related to my overall mission."

  Jake got the abbreviated version from Fontaine and understood the renewed urgency of the situation. He hung up and started connecting the pieces to the puzzle when he heard the ignition of a boat motor.

  He turned and saw Abigail Love and the deck boat accelerate away from the cove. He pulled out his mini spyglass and scanned the boat when something caught his eye. The swim platform on Regan's Bayliner was wet and neither Regan nor Barnett had come back onboard.

  Which left only one explanation.

  Abigail Love had been on Regan's boat.

  35

  "Christa, what just happened?" Regan noticed the large drop in water temperature.

  "Stay calm, Ashley. Nothing happened. Everything is fine."

  "No. Why did the temperature drop so fast?" As soon as she submerged Regan noticed how different it was breathing underwater. It wasn't difficult just different. Uncomfortably different. The underwater communication system allowed them to speak to each other, which was helpful, but at times it was troublesome to understand what Christa was saying.

  "It's called a thermocline. It's where the water temperature drops faster below the line than above it."

  "Is that normal?"

  "Yes, perfectly fine. Just means it's going to get a lot colder before we get to the bottom. The good news is we should only have to deal with one thermocline. There might be another one deeper in the lake."

  She looked at Christa who was descending down the line attached to the grave marker below. Attached to Christa's BCD was a five-pound mallet. Regan carried the adjustable wrench.

  Regan had never been exposed to the underwater world, at least not in a lake. She and Sam Connors had snorkeled in the Keys a few times and once on a reef in Jamaica when they went to the Sandals Resort in Ocho Rios. She'd never been farther than a breath underwater. She was never a strong swimmer, and although adventurous on land, she was skittish in the water.

  She kept descending, keeping the same distance above Christa. Every few feet, she cleared her ears as the water pressure built against her eardrums.

  Last night Christa showed her several techniques to equalize the pressure in her ears while underwater. She suggested she try flexing her jaw first. If that didn't w
ork then try either the Valsalva or Toynbee methods—pinch and blow or pinch and swallow—Christa's tried and true methods. Or she could simply tilt her head back while looking up. That was the method Regan preferred.

  She looked up and noticed the bottom of the boat bobbing in the water against another boat's wake. The world above her seemed so bright in contrast to the darkness below.

  A tree appeared a few feet from where the rope attached to the marker, its limbs cut short and trunk covered in a brown muck. She imagined it was the same tree the old man described with the rope swing attached when he was young.

  Seconds later, she hit bottom.

  Christa removed the mallet and placed it on the metal capstone. With her gloved hand she waved the silt from the plate. "Ashley, hand me the wrench and let's get to work."

  Regan stared at the grave. A metal capstone bolted to a concrete vault. The muddy bottom had receded over time revealing the top six inches of the vault. "These bolts haven't been touched for a long time. Metal to metal, in the water, they're probably fused together. We might be able to loosen the grip by banging on the bolts first with the mallet."

  "Let me try my luck with the wrench first." Christa insisted.

  "Remember, I'm the one who knows how to work on cars. I think you're just being stubborn." Regan said. "But go ahead, knock yourself out."

  Regan snickered as she watched Christa fumble with the adjustable plumbers wrench. "You may have to take your gloves off to tighten it." Regan said.

  Christa struggled with the wrench for a few more seconds then looked up at Regan. "Alright, Ashley, you win. You do it."

  Regan started at one corner and worked her way clockwise around the metal plate attempting to loosen the bond between the metal bolts and the steel plate. Each strike of the mallet sent shock waves through her fingers and up her arm. The sound thundered in her ears.