Submerged

by Thomas F Monteleone

  “I’m betting he’s still at the target address,” said Entwhistle.

  “Sounds like a winning play.” Sinclair threaded the Lexus through the crowded streets until he reached the next restaurant that offered valet parking. “Let the college boys dump this thing.”

  As the valet approached, Sinclair gave him a bill several times larger than a generous tip, then walked up Stiles Street toward the home of Thomas Chipiarelli. With Entwhistle at his side, Sinclair weaved his way along the sidewalk, automatically surveying the pedestrian traffic for any signs of suspicion or worse, potential aggression. But they were thoroughly ignored by everyone who passed, and that was either very good or very bad—depending on too many other factors to weigh and consider.

  “Are you thinking the direct approach is the plan?” said Entwhistle.

  “Modified. I’ll knock via the front door. Casual. Unassuming. You get in the back entrance any way you can.”

  As they reached the corner of High Street, Sinclair watched his exec continue up the block toward the alley behind the block of row-homes, then he turned left and headed directly for the address of the firefighter. Passing the entrance to an upscale restaurant and a departing crowd of patrons, Sinclair reflected on how totally oblivious the average citizen remained to what was taking place all round them. From the vague, wondrous mysteries of quantum physics to the covert thoughts and actions of shadow people like himself, the range of existence beyond the scope of most people would be truly terrifying if they ever caught even a glimpse of it.

  Ascending the absurdly small front steps to Chipiarelli’s residence, Sinclair knocked with his left hand while placing his right inside his jacket to the Taurus in his underarm holster. It was a small, powerful weapon, fitted with the latest noise suppression technology which rendered it almost silent in even the most quiet environments. It was his instrument of choice whenever he had the need to perform in public places.

  He knocked on the door, waited, knocked again, and was not surprised to get no response. He stood before the door, looked at his watch as if a visitor who could be too early or too late, and waited patiently for Entwhistle to gain entrance and make contact.

  His cell phone rang, and he answered it with no greeting because he recognized the ID. “I’m in. I’ve got Spruill.”

  “Alive or dead?”

  A tersely mannered chuckle, then: “Very much the former. Stand by. I’m opening the door now.”

  Just as the connection ended, the sound of a thrown bolt accompanied the opening of the door into deep shadow. Entwhistle could barely be seen in the absence of light. But as soon as Sinclair stepped inside, sealing the door behind him, he toggled a wall switch.

  The sudden splash of light from a small table lamp revealed his exec pointing into the kitchen at the rear of the narrow house. Walking into the space, Sinclair looked down at Spruill curled up on the ancient linoleum trying to manipulate a paring knife into a position that would sever some of the duct tape trussing him up like a turkey.

  “Are you going to cut me loose,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or am I part of the show?”

  Sinclair nodded to his exec and Entwhistle produced a small Spyderco Raven from his back pocket, slicing expertly through the layers of tape.

  “You want to tell me how you managed this?”

  “They were waiting for me. ‘Navy’ is a competent man. Nothing fancy or complicated. He was business.”

  “How much business? Did you have to tell them anything?”

  Spruill shook his head, reached down to start yanking the tape off his ankles after Entwhistle had freed his hands. “Nah. He’s the best kind of adversary—one with a conscience and a moral code. He’s not going be hurting anybody unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Any idea where they’re going?”

  Spruill pulled a considerable amount of hair off his left wrist, swore like a Scotsman. “None. But the tape’s missing from the answering machine. They may have gotten a call from somebody we should know about.”

  “Extremely likely,” said Entwhistle. “Why else would they get rid of it?”

  “I’ve got Winter on his way to McCauley’s place. He may find something there.”

  Entwhistle shook his head. “I don’t know—that guy seems to be pretty sharp.”

  “Something goes snafu sooner or later.” Spruill’s tone was a subtle blend of anger and embarrassment.

  “For now,” said Sinclair. “I’m going to assume they removed something of value from the sub.”

  “And why is that?” Spruill winced as he yanked the remaining tape from his other wrist.

  Sinclair shrugged. “Because it was picked clean.”

  “Quite,” said Entwhistle. “Whether it’s of value remains to be determined.”

  Spruill nodded. “What’s to stop them from turning it over to the Pentagon?”

  Sinclair grinned. “Other than extreme paranoia and fear…nothing.”

  “Echelon really gave this one a royal blue fucking,” said Entwhistle. “If they hadn’t been so inclined to terminate, we wouldn’t be in this bloody hound and hare game.”

  “Yeah, it ups the ante, doesn’t it?” Spruill eased up to his feet, stretching out muscles constrained by the hog-tie. “Do we start tossing this place?”

  Sinclair nodded as the tall, broad-shouldered Spruill joined Entwhistle in a thoroughly professional examination of the premises. They moved with a slowness that bespoke a meticulous eye and touch rather than the silly ransacking and mayhem depicted in cop dramas. The men knew they would find nothing of value from the submarine still here. But if they were careful, they might at least uncover indicators of what was missing and what they might be looking for.

  As Spruill and Entwhistle worked small quadrants of space with practiced precision, Sinclair tried to decide what would be the best way to pick up their trail. The missing answering machine tape might be the key.

  Punching a number into his cell, he waited until connected to a routing center, then tapped in his encryption key, followed by a voice recognition password. After a very short pause, he was connected to an ops center.

  “How can I help you, Sinclair.” The voice was young, female, professionally bored.

  “Need a download to my onboard. All calls logged to the following landline for the last forty-eight hours.” He provided the phone number feeding into Chipiarelli’s answering machine. Behind him, Entwhistle emerged from the cellar, moved through the front room and ascended the stairs to the top floor.

  “Done. Anything else?”

  He provided her with McCauley’s landline and cell numbers. “I also need the call logs on these too. If there’s voice mail, I need all messages from the digital services on both numbers.”

  “Done,” said the voice which could not sound more disinterested.

  “School me—is there a way to retrieve digital messages once they’ve been erased by the citizen?”

  “Is that a legal query or a technical one?”

  “I don’t give a damn about anything legal, so what do you think?”

  The voice chuckled ever so softly. “Retrieval may be possible—depending on the type of system still employed by the carrier.”

  “Execute on both numbers, forty-eight prior.”

  “Done. What else?”

  “Could you have a Grey Goose martini delivered? Three olives.”

  Another soft chuckle that ended in a purr. “Goodbye, Sinclair.”

  As he pocketed the cell phone, he looked up to see Spruill’s wide frame emerge from the narrow door leading to the cellar stairway.

  He held an index card. “Not a complete strikeout.”

  “What’d you find?”

  Spruill placed the white card on the kitchen table where tiny dark spirals and jagged fragments lay. “This is from a drill press on a workbenc
h down there. Looks like it was recent. These are metal chips from the bit and maybe some traces of paper or cloth.”

  “Suggesting exactly what?” Sinclair looked at it as Spruill rummaged around the kitchen pantry shelves.

  “Who knows? If the lab can determine what they were drilling, or ID the paper or cloth, we may be able to draw a few conclusions.” Spruill grabbed a plastic self-sealing food bag from a box, inserted the index card and the forensic artifacts, then pinched it closed. “It’s all we’ve got.”

  “How much longer in here?” Sinclair glanced at his watch.

  Spruill shrugged. “I’m done. It’s up to your Brit buddy.”

  “I have some downloads waiting for me that may get us off the square,” said Sinclair. “Go up there and facilitate. We need to at least act like we’re doing something productive.”

  Fifteen minutes later, all three were in the Lexus looking at the laptop screen. Entwhistle had decrypted the record of calls on the logs of both Chipiarelli and McCauley. He set up the data on a split screen and compared incoming calls with times and originations.

  “Here’s a bit of a heigh-ho,” he said, pointing at one list of numbers, then the other. “To each of the two numbers—all within five minutes of each other. Looks like all from the same location.”

  “Which is where?” said Sinclair.

  Entwhistle massaged the keyboard, punctuated by a few mousepad slides. “Pay phone. Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”

  “Not far from here at all,” said Spruill.

  “Doesn’t tell us enough,” said Sinclair. “We need to know who made the calls. What’s the latest on McCauley’s voice mail?”

  Entwhistle shook his head. “He erased everything. We have people working on it. No way to know if they can find anything yet. We’ll know when they know.”

  “Can’t sit around waiting for data that may not exist.” Sinclair keyed the ignition and the hybrid hummed into a state of readiness.

  “I presume Lancaster is in our future?” Entwhistle said with a tired expression.

  Spruill cleared his throat. “What about me? I’m going to need to be re-supplied.”

  Entwhistle laughed lightly. “Is that what they call it these days?”

  “What?” Spruill scowled.

  “Getting your tail yanked out from between your legs—or in your case, directly out of your arse.”

  “You think I should have played hero? Fuck you.”

  Entwhistle laughed heartily. “Just a bloody joke, Spruill. You need to relax or kindly bugger off.”

  Spruill said nothing.

  As Sinclair drifted the Lexus through the narrow neighborhood street, he looked back at Spruill. “Get yourself debriefed at the nearest OC. Then stand by until you hear from us.”

  Spruill nodded, waited until the vehicle stopped alongside his matching Lexus, then departed without a word.

  “He’s cranky,” said Entwhistle.

  “We need to catch these clowns,” said Sinclair. “They’re a couple of amateurs and they’re making us look helpless. They both got calls from the same pay phone in Lancaster. Not a coincidence.”

  Entwhistle nodded as he keystroked a few connections. “Confirmation from the phone data retrieval—the erased voice mail not available.”

  Sinclair was getting pissed. No way they were going to hit the wall on this one. “All right. Get us the names of all the residences and businesses within a square mile of that target pay phone.”

  “On it,” said his exec, and he started the onboard printer. “It’s going to be a big list.”

  Sinclair watched the pages filling a tray in the console between them. “I also want a list of the names of the citizens behind the business names—owners, partners, corporate officers.”

  Entwhistle began keying in the searches. “That’s going to take some digging.”

  “So, dig. We have a little bit of a ride ahead of us.” He exited Little Italy and took a right on President Street following it to the beginning of Interstate 83.

  “Okay, then what? Once I get the list, what exactly are we looking for?”

  As he accelerated onto the elevated highway, Sinclair considered the question. “I don’t know yet. I just have a feeling the answer is on one of those lists.”

  “Quite so, but we need some sort of winnowing factor, don’t you think?” Entwhistle finished keyboarding, and now waited for the printouts.

  “I’m working that out.” Actually, Sinclair was working out not much of anything.

  He felt like he was stumbling around in the dark, hoping to touch something that felt even vaguely familiar. The calls from Lancaster were the only ones shared by McCauley and Chipiarelli—that was significant. What else? They occurred in the afternoon after the story on the dive boat explosion hit the news. Did that mean anything? Maybe.

  If they could find out the identity of the caller, it was possible everything else might fall into place…or not.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Dex

  Interstate 83

  Dex, Tommy, and Augie had cleared the town of York and were heading east on US-30. They were less than a half hour from the Bruckner residence. Augie had slipped into a doze while Dex and Tommy tried to anticipate what their pursuers might be doing. While neither of them had become anything close to comfortable with their situation, they had at least accepted it.

  “So you gonna do it?” said Tommy when he noticed Dex holding the disposable cell phone and looking at it like it was some kind of artifact.

  He and Dex had come to an agreement—they were up against forces and interests who would eventually overwhelm them. Big Bald Guy’s employers had power and access, and even though Dex may have won Round One, he was scared of starting Round Two. They needed to widen the loop, get more people on their side, or they were going to end up like the rest of guys on the Sea Dog—an event Dex would be trying to forget the rest of his life.

  “Do what? You mean call up some old friends?”

  “Yeah.” Tommy continued to negotiate the traffic which was getting heavier now.

  Dex looked at him nodded. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. It’s too big to deal with on our own. We’ve got to trust somebody.”

  “You gonna get things rollin’ before we get to Bruckner’s place?”

  “I’m going to try. I’ll start with my old C.O. If I can’t trust him, then we can just forget about it.”

  “Yeah—what’s his name again.”

  “Whitehurst. He came from a military family in Virginia. All Navy all the time.”

  “Yeah, there’s fireman families like that.”

  “I just hope I can track him down. It’s been years since I even talked to him.” Dex dialed directory assistance and started the byzantine process of finding the right office that could help him track down Captain Parker Whitehurst. Countless numbers, phone carousels, and receptionists later, he discovered the old guy had finally been kicked into a Rear Admiral’s office at the Pentagon. And of course, he was unavailable when Dex finally reached his aide, a Commander Pye Hanson. Dex gave him a cryptic message with a few tantalizing details and buzzwords, and Hanson promised a callback from the Admiral as soon as he returned from lunch.

  Dex looked at his watch after disconnecting the call. “Jesus, twenty minutes to get through to somebody—what a joke.”

  “What’s the deal?”

  Dex shrugged, held up the Trac Fone. “He’s supposed to call me back.”

  Tommy cocked an eyebrow, trying to look quizzical. “Think he will?”

  “If he gets my message, yeah. Whitehurst knew me a long time—we’ve got history. We respect each other.”

  “How much you gonna tell him?”

  Dex shrugged. “Well I was thinking of starting with everything.”

  Tommy laughed. “Yeah, that oughta do it
.”

  Dex looked ahead on the highway; they were entering what looked like some smaller farms and suburbs.

  “We’re about ten minutes outside of Lancaster,” said Tommy. “This is gonna be somethin’, huh?”

  No doubt. Despite the distractions and paranoia, Dex anticipated the meeting with the man who’d written the logbook stashed in his backpack. It was one of those things that didn’t seem possible when you really thought about it.

  “Yeah. I guess we should wake Augie, huh. He’s been out like a bad light bulb.”

  Dex regarded the little old guy tilted into the corner on the truck’s jump seat, his mouth open, a series of soft snores rippling every breath. When he tapped him lightly, Augie stirred into wakefulness.

  “We there yet?” he said. “I could use a candy bar or somethin’.”

  “Almost,” said Tommy. “We’re coming to the 283 junction right now.”

  Dex went over the directions as they negotiated the streets of the Pennsylvania town, which had an interesting blend of new and old on every corner. It was one of those places with character and instant appeal, and he could see why people would like living here. With each turn and the passage of each block, he felt his pulse getting stronger.

  But when Tommy pulled up in front of the archetypical suburban house, Dex laughed out loud—as much to dispel the anxiety that had been stewing in him for the entire trip up I-83 and across Route 30. There was something ironically humorous in going to meet a Nazi U-boat captain in Home-Depot-Ville. Early evening sunlight cast everything in warm shadows, and the neatly landscaped colonial looked prototypically American.

  Parking at the curb, Tommy helped Augie down to the sidewalk. Dex walked up to the front door carrying the backpack and knocked. Tommy and Augie stood silent behind him. Almost immediately, the door was opened by a guy who looked around thirty. He was dressed in jeans and a golf shirt and had a nice honest looking face.

  “Hey, you must be Mr. McCauley. I’m Jason Bruckner.”

  They shook hands.

  “Just call me Dex.” He turned and tilted his head toward his friends. “This is Tommy Chipiarelli, and…his Uncle Augie.”