Breach of Power (11 page)

T
he car's
engine was idling but Jake hadn't put it in gear.

"Jake, what are you thinking?" Francesca asked.

He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his car door. "Get out."

"What?"

"Get out of the car, Francesca. You're driving."

The two exchanged places in the black Charger and buckled their seat belts. Jake grabbed his iPad from the back seat with an outstretched arm. "Drive back to the airport while I give George a call."

"What about?" Francesca had a puzzled look on her face. "Jake, what about?"

Jake didn't respond, just punched away on his iPad, logging in to the secure network of Commonwealth Consultants. Within seconds, George Fontaine's face appeared on the tablet's screen.

"Jake." Fontaine acted somewhat surprised he'd logged in. "How can I serve you today, oh Master?"

"Funny." Jake dismissed Fontaine's attempt at humor and got down to business. "I need you to look something up for me."

"All work and no play makes Jake a dull boy." Fontaine paused. "What's going on?"

"Is there any way you can search for other instances in the area for disturbances of graves of soldiers who died in World War II?" Jake looked at Francesca. She made a 'what's up' gesture with her hands on the steering wheel. "I'm thinking that the Arlington and Andersonville disturbances might not be isolated incidences."

"If you'll give me a minute," Fontaine said, "I'll log into the NCIS LInX server first."

"Linx? What is that?" Francesca asked.

"Law Enforcement Information Exchange. LInX, for short," Fontaine said. "It is what it sounds like. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service built it but they don't own it or control it. It's a tool to log information into, perform searches…basically it's just a database. Not
intelligence
gathering,
information
gathering."

Jake waited while Fontaine typed and Francesca drove. As the car pulled into Souther Field airport, Fontaine smiled.

"What do we have here?" Fontaine said. "Jake, I got some hits. Three actually. Two in Georgia and one in Florida."

"Recent break-ins?" Jake asked.

"All within the past few days."

Jake felt his stomach tighten. He thought it was too much of a coincidence and it seems he was right. "Where in Georgia?"

Fontaine looked into the camera. "Mt. Hope Cemetery in Dahlonega and Osborn Cemetery in Hiawassee. Also Bosque Bello Cemetery in Fernandina Beach, Florida."

She must have seen him smile. "Mean anything to you?" She asked.

"I know all three places. I looked at property in both Dahlonega and Hiawassee before I bought my cabin in Ellijay. And Beth…" Jake paused, memories of his fiancée and her death flashed through his mind. "Beth and I vacationed on Amelia Island a couple of times. Fernandina Beach is a quaint little town."

"Francesca, tell the pilots we're going to Gainesville, Georgia. I'll turn in the car." Jake waited until Francesca was out of the car. "George, would you mind getting someone to reserve us a car in Gainesville for the day with a late turn-in. It'll be a long day for Francesca and me. Also have them reserve two rooms at the Hampton Inn in downtown Fernandina Beach. Not on the waterfront side either. I don't want to listen to trains all night."

"Sure Jake. Anything else?"

"Is there any way we can search for more of these instances without arousing suspicion?"

"
We
, can't." Fontaine paused. "But
I
, can. I'll also program notifications so if any similar incident reports get filed, I'll be alerted."

"You can do that?"

"I might not slip out nights killing bad guys like you two, but I can do a lot with technology. Without me, you would be in the dark." Fontaine playfully rebuked. "Is that all?"

"One more thing." Jake looked across the tarmac. The pilots were starting a preflight inspection in preparation for departure. Francesca looked impatient standing at the top of the air stairs on the Citation. "Ask Wiley to schedule us a meeting with POTUS for tomorrow night."

F
rom wheels
up to wheels down, the flight from Americus to Gainesville lasted 33 minutes. It was nice having one of Wiley's jets at his disposal. As a team, Jake and Francesca had traveled from mission to mission primarily using the same jet. Twice they had flown on commercial airlines posing as a couple and once when the jet wasn't available for travel to Wiley's electronics factory outside of El Paso. Usually they flew on the Citation to El Paso and landed on the strip at Wrangler's Steakhouse, where they were escorted to the factory floor beneath the restaurant. The same place Jake first met Wiley a year and a half ago when his then boss, CIA Director Scott Bentley, left him with Wiley because of Jake's bungled mission in Australia the week before. A move Bentley had to make because of pressure being applied by Senator Richard Boden.

Jake briefed Francesca on his follow-up conversation with Fontaine. "I also asked him to have Wiley hook us up again with President Rudd. We should probably tell her what we know."

"
We
don't know anything yet, Jake." Francesca argued. "What will we tell her, somebody just wanted to take a peek to satisfy their own morbid curiosity?"

"We'll know something by then," Jake said. "There are three more cemetery invasions to investigate. By the time we put the five together, we'll have some hard facts. I guarantee it."

"Evidence doesn't always provide clear motive, Jake. We need to be cautious or we'll look inept in front of the President of the United States. There's more, Wiley's reputation is at stake as well."

"Don't you think I'm aware of that?"

"Sometimes I wonder, Jake. Sometimes I wonder."

Jake gathered his backpack as the airplane's turbines spooled down. "We're burning daylight, let's go."

The rental car was waiting for them when they arrived, Jake took the keys and they drove off. Forty minutes later he stopped in the alpine resort town of Helen, Georgia for lunch. One hour after that they met the Towns County Sheriff at the Osborn Cemetery on the east side of Hiawassee.

The sheriff was young, maybe thirty, tall and skinny with short dark hair. Jake wondered if the young man could even hold his own in a scuffle. He doubted it.

Jake had been to Hiawassee several times when he was scouting for a mountain cabin. The vistas far surpassed any other place in North Georgia. The backdrop of mountains surrounding Lake Chatuge provided breathtaking views year round.

When he heard Fontaine mention Hiawassee, he figured the odds were in his favor that the grave invasion was not a black man's grave—not in Hiawassee. Minorities in Hiawassee accounted for only a small fraction of the overall population.

The sheriff led them to the recently covered grave of Arthur Chastain. "Mr. Chastain's body was shipped here in November of 1945. The family never opened the casket because he was disfigured from an explosion in World War II."

Having been away for so long, Jake had forgotten about the accents in North Georgia. The long drawn out syllables conjured memories of his grandmother when he was a child. She always seemed to be busy cooking something special in the kitchen at her home in Blairsville, Georgia. She was born in that home. It was sad that her mind was ravished by dementia by the time she turned seventy.

"You took pictures, correct?" Jake asked.

The man pulled out a folder. "Right here."

He took the pictures out of the folder and flipped through them one at a time, passing them to Francesca as he finished.

"I imagine it was just some kids having fun." The sheriff said. "We have vandalism like this from time to time. Not a lot for kids to do around these parts. Basically harmless. Just causes us to spend a few taxpayer dollars to clean up. Chastain's grandkids didn't seem too upset that the casket was busted open. They're the last living relatives, far as I know."

"Was Chastain Caucasian or African American?" Jake asked.

"The Chastains are white folk." The sheriff looked puzzled. "Is that important?"

"Not really, no. Just wondering."

"Did you investigate this crime at all?" Francesca asked. Jake noticed how sarcastic she sounded. "I mean you did have presence of mind to at lease log it into LInX."

"The incident report said this occurred night before last. Who discovered it?" Asked Jake.

"Alabama man named Darrell Blanton. Came out to visit a relative's plot early yesterday morning and saw the mess. Called it in, so I sent a deputy out to have a look. He took the pictures, said he thought it was kids just messing around. I told our County Manager, Smiley Lee, to buy a new casket and put Chastain back in the ground."

"You didn't get a funeral home to do it?" Francesca asked.

"No. Cheaper if the county did it. Just scooped everything out of the old casket and stuffed it in the new one. Didn't need a PhD. to figure it out."

Jake and Francesca walked around the perimeter of the cemetery looking for anything that might be of interest in their investigation but nothing was obvious. Any evidence left by the culprit had long since been destroyed by county vehicles and workers.

"We're done here." Jake motioned toward the car. "Let's go to Dahlonega. If we get there early, maybe we can get finished early and won't be so late getting to Florida."

An hour and fifteen minutes later Jake pulled into the entrance of the Mt. Hope Cemetery in Dahlonega, Georgia. The older part of the cemetery was built on a hill that overlooked the historic town and campus of North Georgia College and State University. It soon became apparent that Dahlonega law enforcement had treated this incident as a serious crime, protecting the scene with the same care and diligence as Arlington and Andersonville. Jake pulled the car to a stop near the yellow flagging tape that cordoned off the scene. Jake noticed a man in uniform walking in his direction. He was mid-thirties with dark hair cut in a flattop and a physique like a linebacker.

"May I help you?" The man called out as Jake and Francesca got out of the car.

"I'm Jake Pendleton. This is Francesca Catanzaro." Jake motioned her direction. "We're looking for Sheriff Klicker."

"I'm Klicker." He looked at his watch. "I wasn't expecting you so soon but earlier is better than later."

This sheriff had a professional, calm demeanor and seemed the polar opposite of the sheriff in Hiawassee.

"You two come on." The sheriff motioned by swinging his whole arm. "I'll give you a full briefing."

Klicker led them to an old section of the cemetery where a wrought iron fence was attached to the top of a small two-foot high concrete wall outlining a large family burial plot of at least a dozen headstones. "This is the Elliot family plot. Roy Elliot Sr. was a pillar in the community back in the 30s and 40s. And this…" Klicker pointed to a destroyed brick vault. The vault was half above and half below the ground. The concrete vault cap had been busted and moved to the side. "…is Roy Elliot Jr.'s grave. Or what's left of it."

"When did this happen?" Jake asked.

"Three nights ago. One of my officers was patrolling and saw a car up here. Figured it was teenagers making out. Been known to happen from time to time. He followed the access road this way." His finger outlined the deputy's route following the road. "Then the car sped away from here and out the exit over there." He pointed toward the main gate. "He used his spotlight to scan the area, noticed the broken capstone, and called it in."

"Did he get the license plate?" Francesca asked.

"No, I'm afraid not. He couldn't identify the make and model in the dark either. Just headlights and taillights."

Jake walked closer to the grave. The casket was covered with a tarp. "Elliot still in there?"

"Haven't moved a thing, it's exactly like we found it. The perpetrator broke into the sealed part of the casket and moved the remains."

"You think it was kids. Practical joke, maybe?" Jake asked.

"Not many practical jokers would go to this much trouble. They had to have brought along a hell of a big sledgehammer to break that glass, it's pretty thick. And there are some other peculiar things about it as well."

"Such as?" Francesca had deliberately stood back but now she walked over to the grave, lifted the tarp and looked in.

"Let me show you." Klicker pointed to small circular areas that had been marked to keep people out. "We had two people digging." He pointed to the footprints inside the marked off areas. "We took impressions. I have one of my officers searching a database to match the tread to the brand of shoe. Notice anything substantial?"

Jake looked at the footprints. "Two people with small feet. Could be kids."

"Or women," Francesca interrupted. "I recognize this tread. The multi-directional raised tread pattern is characteristic of hiking shoes. Looks a lot like the tread on my Keen hiking boots. Not a lot of kids wear hiking boots"

"That's what we ascertained as well," Sheriff Klicker said. "I'll have my deputy run down the Keen tread."

"What about fingerprints?" Jake asked. "Did you lift any from the scene?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Gloves or wiped down?" Francesca asked.

"Gloves, for sure. Even then, with these surfaces, prints would have been difficult to lift. But we gave it the old college try." Klicker rubbed his chin. "I was surprised to get a response on my LInX report so fast. What else is going on?"

"Similar case in Hiawassee." Jake leaned down next to Francesca and lifted the tarp. Broken glass littered the bottom of the casket, Elliot's mangled remains covered in shards of glass. His mind was racing with questions. Not for the sheriff, but about who would be raiding World War II caskets after nearly seventy years and why? It was the 'why' that troubled him the most. "Except the sheriff in Hiawassee had already re-interred the remains. At least he had sense enough to take pictures. That's all we got to go on." Jake paused. "Was Elliot white or black?"

"Is that relative?" Klicker asked.

"We also had disturbed graves down at Andersonville and at Arlington."