After the two women had been underwater for ten minutes, she swam to their boat and rummaged though the cabin, under every cushion, in every cubby and storage, and through the women's personal belongings. No book. She heard the faint echo of banging under the water and felt the vibration through the boat's hull. She made the decision to return and eliminate the friend and capture Ashley Regan. She would torture her until she relinquished the book.
It took her almost two hours to find suitable dive equipment in the small town of Butler, but she managed, as she always did. A lesson she learned long ago, anything could be bought if the price was right.
When she returned, she anchored her boat on the opposite side of a point separating the cove from the main section of the lake, which meant an underwater swim of three hundred yards. She was in excellent physical shape and knew it would not be a problem after she descended in the water.
She kicked to the edge of the point and watched as the two women dove into the water. There was something more troubling though; the fisherman had joined them. She noticed the small bass boat was anchored next to the larger boat and realized the fisherman must be the man from Charleston, Jake Pendleton.
This was unexpected. Despite what Makley ordered, Pendleton would die along with Regan's friend.
After the three submerged, Love pulled out her dive computer with an integrated compass and took a bearing to the spot where they dove. 160 degrees. While she descended toward the bottom, she set her timer and tracked the bearing toward the spot. If her calculations were correct, a hard kick at 2 MPH should get her close in five minutes.
She tracked the same bearing and followed the sound on the metal banging. Even though direction of sound was difficult to gauge underwater, volume and vibration wasn't. She could tell she was getting closer.
Visibility was worse than she anticipated but she realized that also offered her an advantage. If it was harder for her to see them, then it was harder for them to see her. She was coming in silent and unexpected. They, on the other hand, were making a lot of noise, which gave her the upper hand.
When the three of them came into view it looked like an underwater construction site. The two women were holding dive lights on something while the man was turning a wrench. Each turn made a grinding sound painful to her ears.
When the man, whom she presumed was Jake Pendleton, stopped, they all seemed to show some sign of happiness with high fives and fist bumps. Then Pendleton grabbed a crowbar and started prying off something that looked like the top of a concrete box. It appeared to be a large metal plate loosely anchored at one corner. He slowly rotated it until it was clear of an open space in the center of the concrete box.
The women looked at each other. Both women wore matching black dry suits and identical scuba gear. With both of them crouching over the metal plate, she couldn't distinguish one woman from the other in the murky waters.
Pendleton reached into the concrete box and pulled up on something, which appeared hinged on one side. She couldn't discern what it was from her position, but an object rose from the box and floated to the surface. He picked up the crowbar and smashed it down into the box. More debris floated out of the box.
He buried his arms down into the box to his elbows. Both women leaned over with the dive lights. He rose up and she saw small bright objects glistening under the bright dive lights as they slipped through his gloved fingers.
Something shiny.
Something gold.
She readied her spear gun and made her move.
38
He didn't know which was harder, loosening the bolts or rotating the heavy metal plate covering the concrete vault to the side. Jake left one bolt in place so he didn't have to lift the metal plate. He used Regan's crowbar to wedge the plate away from the concrete vault then, using it as a lever, rotated the metal plate away from the opening.
Inside was the casket.
The same make and model as all the others.
He hesitated. Did he really want to disturb Norman Reese's grave? He didn't, but his orders were to acquire the book and stop any further marauding of WWII graves. Regan had offered him a deal and he took it.
He was a man of his word.
When the deal was consummated and the book in his hands, the grave robbing would stop. If President Rudd wanted to pursue what happened to the contents of the graves, she could do that through other means. His objective was to retrieve the book. He thought about Wiley's words to him last year when he was pursuing a terrorist, Meet the objective, the how doesn't matter.
Jake reached into the concrete vault and lifted both lids to the casket. Pieces of Welkin Twill, braided cords, and tassels floated out with a few escaping air bubbles. Beneath the glass he saw more air bubbles and remnants of a tattered uniform. He lifted the crowbar and slammed it into the glass seal.
Thud.
The glass didn't break, but it did crack. He watched the cracks move from the impact point outward toward the edges. He raised the crowbar again but before he could take a swing the glass seal exploded. Pieces of glass peppered his dry suit, none compromising its integrity. He looked at the women, Regan was fist-bumping Barnett. Debris spiraled upward toward the surface. He recognized pieces of uniform mixed with decayed liner.
The casket was empty—nothing inside.
No corpse.
No bones.
Nothing.
He looked at Regan who motioned for him to lift the bottom. It made no sense but he did it anyway and soon realized the casket had a false base. He ripped out the remaining liner and removed the base. Fontaine had not prepared him for what he saw under the dive lights.
Built into the base of the casket was a grid of compartments, two widthwise, six lengthwise. Each compartment contained a leather pouch with a leather drawstring top. He lifted a pouch and emptied its contents into the compartment.
Gold ingot bars. Each with an inscription. He picked one up and rubbed his thumb across the engraving.
Deutshe Reichbank
1 Kilo
Feingold
999.9
At the bottom of each one was inscribed a serial number. Each different from the next. There were dozens of ingots, glistening in the light. He grabbed another pouch.
Silver Reichsmark coins.
With the playfulness of a child, he emptied each one in the compartment it came from. Amazed at the dazzling display of gold and silver. Under the bright lights it reminded him of a pirate's treasure. In a sense, it was. This time the pirate was Major Don Adams.
All total, he emptied one bag of Silver Reichsmarks, three of gold ingots, two of gold English Sovereigns, one of gold Napoleons, one of U. S. $20 gold coins, and four of gold Swiss Francs.
He cupped his hands, scooped out Swiss Francs, and held them up into the light. He let the coins slip through his fingers as he watched in amazement at the brilliance of the metallic gold reflection under the dive lights. He didn't know how much the cache was worth, but in today's commodities market, he figured it was well into the millions of dollars. No wonder Regan wanted to negotiate for the book.
Barnett motioned to get his attention. He looked and saw her unzip an outside pocket on her dry suit. She pulled out a clear dry bag and extended it in his direction. He recognized it immediately.
The journal.
Suddenly a glint of light, a flash of metal reflected by a dive light, and then the book fell to the muddy bottom. A shadow moved behind Barnett. A torrent of bubbles escaped from behind her head. Her air hoses had been severed. Her eyes bulged and she streaked upward. Her dive light fell from her hand and started rolling down toward the bottom of the lake. He tried to grab her fins but was too late.
He turned to Ashley Regan. An ever-expanding halo of red encompassed her body. Blood oozed from the hole in her dry suit. A metal spear tip protruded from the center of her chest. The grimace on her face said it all; there was nothing he could do for her now. He recognized the look in her eyes.
As
hley Regan was already dead.
Her body floated upward until it reached the end of the tether.
A shadow moved toward him, gobbling the book from the muddy bottom. He blocked the dive knife with his right forearm as the shadow swam past him, over the grave and the gold, and down toward the deep bottom of the lake. The same direction his dive light fell last night. He should have anticipated it, but he didn't and now Regan was dead. At the hands of the assassin Abigail Love.
He looked upward as Christa Barnett's silhouette ascended toward the surface. She was on her own now. Love had the book and was swimming away. She was his number one priority. With the low visibility in the lake, he couldn't let her get out of sight or he might never find her or the book again.
With every passing second, Abigail Love's shadow grew fainter in the murky depths of Watauga Lake. He propelled himself off the lip of the concrete vault and kicked furiously over the muddy mound that was once the dry knoll where Norman Reese was born. The deeper they dove, the dimmer the ambient light and the fainter her image appeared.
She was a strong swimmer and he began to think he was chasing a mermaid. He wasn't losing ground but he wasn't gaining either. She was faster than he'd anticipated and his extra tank was slowing him down. As they approached the bottom, he knew she could use the silt as a cover. He kicked harder hoping his Navy endurance training would give him an edge. He'd stayed in good shape, but his Navy days were a long time ago.
The lakebed flattened out, as he knew it would, and Love's fins stirred up silt further restricting his visibility. He ascended a few feet to get out of her wake and could barely discriminate her fins kicking fifteen feet in front and below him. He kicked harder.
Jake knew he had an advantage over Love, several of them actually. Even though she was still swimming at a fast pace, she was tiring and had slowed. He knew he still had plenty of kick left in him. And with only one tank at a depth of 115 feet and, at this furious pace, she would soon run out of air. He had two tanks, which gave him a longer bottom time. More time to recover the book, and still make his decompression stops with air to spare.
Out of nowhere a four-foot stone wall appeared on the bottom outlining a raised foundation. Halfway down the wall he saw five wide steps leading down to what he assumed was an old street. They had stumbled on Old Butler. The old town that was relocated prior to the flooding of the valley.
Love doglegged around the felled skeleton of a large tree and doubled back leaving him no alternative but to circumnavigate the tree as well. He closed the gap to ten feet when Love turned again. His leg muscles burned. He felt like he had run a marathon but he refused to slow his pace. Now it was an underwater race—winner takes the prize—only in this race, the stakes were much higher.
Her gray figure stayed the same distance in front of him. No closer. No farther. Every few seconds she would make a slight course change. Each time turning her head to see where he was.
She swam past a large concrete support structure and her shadow almost disappeared in a shadow from the structure above. He glanced up. The remnants of an old metal bridge loomed overhead.
Love turned hard around the concrete support footing and disappeared in the murky waters. Jake followed her around the concrete structure but she was gone.
Nothing.
Vanished like a ghost in the murky waters.
Jake relied on his Navy training. A trick he'd learned to locate his dive buddy after being separated was to stop scanning the bottom and look higher—for bubbles. Within thirty seconds, he'd picked up Love's bubbles and feverishly kicked in her direction. Another thirty seconds later, he reestablished a visual on Abigail Love.
Jake checked his air pressure. Between the two tanks, he had over 2500 pounds. That meant Love probably had less than 1000. Her air was running out. And so was her time.
She slowed and now Jake had a clear view of her when a small stone and cement building appeared, becoming distinctly visible as he approached. Built with the same type stone as the wall he'd just seen, the building sat alone on the barren muddy bottom. Love swam inside a large window opening. He guessed the small building was only about fifteen feet wide. He slowed as he followed her inside only to discover she was already exiting out of a rear opening. She has to be getting tired.
He'd lost precious ground and needed to move faster in order to catch her. The structure had no roof so he swam up between the few trusses that had remained intact from years of decay and looked in the direction Love turned. She had stopped and was wielding her knife. She was prepared to attack as soon as he followed her through the door.
His sudden appearance above caught her off guard and she swam away, but not before Jake closed the gap to less than ten feet. Once again the sprint was on.
He checked his gauges, 1750 pounds. Love was getting dangerously low on air. No way could she have enough for proper decompression stops. A critical mistake.
Two minutes later another structure from the flooded town of Old Butler appeared—a covered concrete building with walls on three sides and windows in the rear. Love was heading for one of the two openings on the front. She was slowing. The gap closed to five feet and when he extended his long arms, he felt the wake of her kick. With his outreached hand, he could almost touch her fins.
This race was almost over. She swam into the structure as Jake closed in. When he entered behind her, he knew the chase had ended.
She was trapped.
Bars.
The building appeared to have been an old jail. There were bars on the windows and no way out except the way they came in. Behind him. She stopped suddenly and he crashed into her. She spun around wielding the dive knife.
Her right arm thrust down toward him with a powerful slash. He blocked it with his left forearm then jabbed the butt of his palm into her abdomen. Her BCD absorbed most of the blow but the impact knocked her against the concrete wall.
He kicked backwards and motioned for her to stop but she came at him again.
She slashed her knife from side to side. He countered each swipe with a deflection until the blade tore across the arm of his dry suit. At first he felt the trickle of cold water soaking his arm. He hesitated, and it cost him the upper hand. She whipped the blade left and right at his midsection like a Samurai with a sword. He jerked back but not before the blade made contact and sliced a ten-inch cleft in his dry suit. The gash gaped open and his dry suit swallowed the cold lake water.
Jake grabbed Love's knife hand as it passed through his suit pulling her arm. The cold water washed down his legs and across his chest. Concentration on the battle with Love was being countermanded by the shock of the cold water to his body.
He had to end this now.
He never got the chance.
He squeezed her hand until she dropped the knife. He held her mask-to-mask and saw terror in her eyes. At that moment they both started tumbling as their legs were swept from beneath them. He caught a glimpse of the culprit. Another monster catfish. Or perhaps the same one from last night. Their underwater battle had spooked him from his hiding place. His sheer size and strength upended them both.
He lost his grip on Love and, for a split second, had forgotten about the cold water licking its way around the inside of his dry suit. She broke free and swam toward the opening. He reached out with one hand and grabbed her fin. She kicked him with her other fin. He tried to hang on, but she kicked his hand free and swam out of the old stone jail. He followed her and watched as she made a beeline for the surface. He made two kicks to follow then stopped.
Looking up, he saw her break the surface and start swimming. He followed her from below, slowly ascending until his dive computer signaled a deco stop at 60 feet. He stayed at that depth and continued following.
The shivering started within a couple of minutes, but he couldn't surface. Not yet. He held his depth as he tracked her from below. He knew the water would warm as he ascended above the thermocline. His only chance against the cold. At this temperat
ure, hypothermia wasn't far away.
She swam toward the hull of a boat and disappeared from the water. Moments later he saw the anchor being hoisted and simultaneously felt and heard the vibration of the boat's engine. Within seconds, the boat was gone.
And so was the book.
He ascended to 30 feet, his next deco stop, waited, then ascended to 15 feet, his safety stop depth, and waited again. His shivering was almost uncontrollable but he kept on. His Navy training had taught him several techniques to prolong his time to hypothermia—he used them all. When he surfaced he was on the outside of the cove. The water on the surface was much warmer than below.
His bass boat was anchored alone in the cove and Barnett had taken Regan's boat.
Ashley Regan.
In the frenzy, he'd forgotten about her.
39
After today's events, Abigail Love swore she'd never get in the water again. Not even a swimming pool. And scuba dive? She'd rather jump off a cliff than strap on another tank. The last twenty minutes had been the most harrowing of her life. The fear of being eaten alive by the monster fish had overwhelmed her. In her fifteen years as a hired gun, she'd never had an emotional jolt like she'd experienced today at the bottom of Watauga lake.
The knife fight she could handle but the monster at the bottom of the lake with the long barbell whiskers hanging from its lower lip, no way. She saw it as soon as she entered the second small building on the bottom of the lake. But when she stopped, Pendleton slammed into her from behind. All she wanted to do was get the hell out of there, but he kept blocking her path.
He left her no choice but to come at him with the knife to get him away from the exit. She grabbed her titanium dive knife in case she needed it to fend off the fish. The monster fish made its move right after Pendleton knocked the knife from her hand. The knife fell on top of the fish, spooking him. She saw the monster's muscles contract on alternate sides as it whipped its mighty tail back and forth. The fish charged the exit and didn't seem to care that it was blocked. It wanted out, and so did she.
Breach of Power (The Action-Packed Jake Pendleton Political Thriller series Book 3) Page 23
