The Savannah Project (Jake Pendleton series) Read online

The next message was sent to Belfast. The message was short and to the point:

  LO sanctioned. The interest in Laurence O’Rourke from so many different parties in Belfast had aroused his interest from the onset. It was a risky game he was playing—pitting several dangerous parties’ interests against each other, all for the sake of the money—a lot of money. If he was successful in executing his plan, he would collect from all three parties and they would get what they paid for. If he failed, he was virtually out of business and would have a contract placed on his head.

  The final message also went out to Belfast:

  Phase one complete. Savannah Project progressing as planned. Sullivan in Savannah, location unknown. He hit the send button as the courtesy van pulled up to the curb. The driver tried to take his bag to place it in the baggage area but he refused. Finding a seat in the front row, he placed his bag in his lap. As the van pulled into the parking garage, he received a reply from his last message.

  Sullivan deemed a liability to Savannah Project. Additional sanction. Commensurate supplement as previously agreed. The elimination of Michael Sullivan didn’t really come as a surprise to the assassin. It was something he was prepared to do but wanted to avoid. The Savannah Project was going to cost him enough personally as it was. The betrayal of his childhood friends was already a struggle. He didn’t need the additional burden of eliminating another, even closer relationship.

  CHAPTER 13

  McGill’s cell phone rang. Jake could see the caller ID. It read “Headquarters.” McGill answered, “Pat McGill.”

  He could only hear McGill’s side of the conversation but it was enough for him to know that more details about the accident were available.

  He saw a sheepish grin come across McGill’s face. McGill spoke into the phone, “Really? The Westin, huh? Wow. Okay, we’re just south of Macon now so we should be there in a couple of hours. I’ll have Carol call you with our arrival time.”

  McGill hung up the phone and glanced at Jake. “Well, Junior, it looks like Daddy came to the rescue again. He called the mayor of Savannah and found out they always book extra rooms downtown for dignitaries and VIPs.

  “JP snagged us six rooms at the Westin Savannah Harbor Resort located on none other than Hutchinson Island. He also arranged for two conference rooms and the Westin is furnishing dedicated phone lines, a fax machine and a copier.”

  McGill added, “The Westin is right across the Savannah River from the historic district with water taxis running back and forth all day and most of the night. It’s even better for us because we can stay out of the historic district mob.”

  Jake clenched his jaw and muttered under his breath, “That meddling son of a—”

  McGill interrupted. “Come on, Jake, give the old man a break. It’s in his blood. You, of all people should know that by now. He’s just trying to be helpful. It’s hard for your father to let go. It’s killing him that his health took him out of the game.”

  “I know, I know. He just won’t leave my life well enough alone. It’s a hard shadow to get out from under and just when I think I’m almost there, he does something like this.”

  “Why don’t you call Beth and have her come down,” McGill said. “She’ll have a good time. Just tell her she will only get to see you at night.”

  “Good idea, I think I will.” Jake smiled as he picked up his cell phone.

  While he was talking to Beth, McGill’s phone rang again. Jake didn’t notice the caller ID this time but from the snippets of conversation that he overheard, he could tell McGill was meeting someone in Savannah.

  He and McGill ended their conversations simultaneously. Jake said, “That girl was already packed. I guess she must have known. Did headquarters call you again?”

  McGill held up his cell phone. “My cousin in Savannah returning my call.”

  He picked up the radio and asked, “Are you guys ready for the briefing?”

  “Whenever you are, Pat,” was the reply through the speaker.

  “This morning at approximately 1510 Zulu or 1110 Eastern daylight time, a Challenger 604 en route from Dallas Love to Savannah crashed while shooting a GPS approach to runway 27,” McGill said, flipping through the initial accident report.

  “The controller had switched the aircraft over to the tower frequency and subsequently heard a ‘Mayday.’ He noticed the Challenger fly about a mile off the final approach course when the radar target disappeared. The flight plan indicated six souls on board. The fixed base operator stated there were two male pilots, a female flight attendant, and three male passengers.

  “The aircraft was equipped with all the latest and greatest avionics, a full glass cockpit, the Collins ProLine 4 EFIS system, I believe, including a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder, which we’ll concentrate on locating first. The aircraft’s equipment list showed dual ELTs, a 406 MHz, GPS enabled and a TSO-91A transmitting on 121.5 MHz.”

  Jake listened intently. So far, it was all basic facts.

  “The crash site is solely contained in a brackish water marsh. I want everyone in coveralls, boots, rubber gloves under leather gloves, facemask and goggles. The DC Go Team can’t make this one until later in the week, if at all, due to the snowstorm in the mid-Atlantic and New England states. They have their hands full with a regional jet that crashed departing Reagan National and the two airliners that slid off runways this morning in Dulles and Boston.

  “Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in Savannah will be in on this one as an industry volunteer and they have made an old empty hangar available for us. Gulfstream indicated they won’t need the hangar for at least a couple of months. They have been granted Party status. Others granted status as parties to the investigation are Bombardier, General Electric, Collins, Honeywell, and NATCA for ATC. There are others but those are just a few.”

  McGill folded the report and placed it in his lap.

  “The FAA will no doubt have someone there waiting for us on site, thinking he’s in charge. I’m sure there will be other parties showing up tomorrow. I think that about wraps it up except for one more thing.”

  He looked over at Jake and grinned. “It looks like Junior’s dad got us all rooms at the Westin by pulling a few strings with the mayor.”

  Before Jake could even say a word, the jokes started flying from the radio. He just shook his head and shot McGill a dirty look. “Thanks a lot, asshole.”

  McGill laughed, then continued talking to the group over the radio, “We’ll head straight to the crash site and start stakedown procedures. Carol went ahead this morning in a company car and will set up the conference room and pressroom at the Westin. Since there were no survivors—this is recovery only, so we’ll be working daylight hours only. There will be an organizational meeting this evening in the hotel at 1830 and a short press conference at 1900.”

  Traveling to Savannah about thirty minutes ahead of the team was Carol Martin, McGill’s administrative assistant. Her superior organizational skills kept the office running smooth regardless of the chaos at hand.

  McGill had told Jake that he first met Carol when he worked in the D.C. office as part of the D.C. Go Team. As he was promoted through the ranks, he came to rely on Carol’s ability to handle all the small details. When McGill became manager of the Atlanta office, he offered her a job as his assistant. At first reluctant to leave the D.C. area, she refused until her husband died of a heart attack a month later. When McGill called with his condolences, Carol asked if the job offer was still available. Even though he had already hired someone, he gladly told Carol the job was hers for the asking.

  McGill continued, “We’ll meet back in the morning at 0700, just the Board members. At 0730 I will call all the groups together and we’ll officially kick this thing off at that point. I’ll inform you as to who is the leader of which group at the organizational meeting tonight. Some of you will no doubt be leading more than one group. We’ll talk again as we get closer to Savannah.”

  As McGill spoke to t
he team, Jake sensed edginess in his voice. Edginess that he’d never heard before.

  This investigation would be different from all the other investigations.

  CHAPTER 14

  He pulled into the alley behind an old three-story duplex on the edge of Savannah’s historic district. He unlocked the gate with his keys and drove his Fat Boy into the back yard, parking it underneath the second floor balcony.

  As soon as he turned off his motorcycle Kaplan heard a familiar female voice call out, “I called the facility. Mac said you already left. Come on up and tell me all about it.”

  He hung his black half-shell Harley helmet on one of the motorcycle’s mirrors and walked through the garage next to her Miata, climbed the stairs to the second floor and entered into the kitchen. Annie kept her house spotless, and the modern kitchen lined with white cabinets was where she spent most of her time. The bright sunny room always energized her, and that’s where he found her, sitting on the bench in the oversized bay window next to the kitchen, a book in her hands, Scout in her lap. The cat jumped down from Annie’s lap, landed on the floor with a thud, then walked over to Kaplan and purred as she rubbed against his pant leg.

  Annie’s face had a youthful glow—younger than her thirty-nine years. She looked up at Kaplan. “Rough day at the office, I hear.”

  “I’ve had better.”

  He took in her sweat pants, form-fitting short-sleeved crop tshirt and white socks, her hair pulled into a ponytail. She smiled at him, her green eyes sparkled in the light from the bay window. A splash of faded freckles ran across the bridge of her nose.

  “And to top it off, I have to go in tomorrow for interviews with an FAA lawyer and the NTSB,” Kaplan said. “It shouldn’t take long. Then it’s just you and me and thousands of visitors.”

  The crowds attracted by St. Patrick’s Day wouldn’t be clearing out for a few days.

  “That sucks. Why do you have to go in when you’re on leave?”

  “The manager ordered me in to meet with the NTSB and relieved me from ATC duties until the investigator clears me back to work. I didn’t even know they did that kind of thing. I think he’s just flexing his muscles to piss off Cookie.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Oh yeah. When I left, Cookie was in his office giving him an earful.”

  “I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.” She stood, and threw her arms around his neck. “How about a beer?”

  ”Two. Get me two beers, please. I think I’ll skip Barry’s tonight— I’m not really in the mood. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, I don’t mind. I kinda figured we’d stay in tonight anyway.”

  “Great. So what’d you do all day?” he asked.

  “The usual, pined for you all day, wondering when you would get here to tell me about your day.”

  Kaplan walked into the living room and fired back, “Liar.”

  Scout followed him into the living room. Kaplan found a seat on the long leather sofa. Scout jumped into his lap, padded her paws on Kaplan’s leg, then settled in for a comfortable nap.

  Kaplan first met Annie when she transferred to the Savannah facility from Augusta, Georgia. On her first day at the Savannah facility, she went into the radar room to observe and ran right into him as he was walking out. They stood an inch apart, staring at each other in the doorway to the dark radar room.

  Kaplan looked down at her and said, “Are you coming or going?”

  Flustered, she said, “Depends.” It was the only response Annie could think of.

  “Depends on what?”

  “On you.” She smiled.

  “Well, I’m going to the break room—care to join me?”

  “Sure, I’d like that.”

  Annie’s confident, brash manner intimidated a lot of men, but not Kaplan. He was the only man who ever made her feel “weak in the knees,” she had told her best friend soon after the relationship with Kaplan began. Her demeanor was different around him. Subdued. Submissive. Even their coworkers remarked about the different tone in her voice when he was around.

  The day they met, the two of them talked for thirty minutes until Kaplan’s break was over. Annie asked him if she could sit and observe him in the radar room while he was plugged into position—an opportunity neither of them let pass by.

  After work, they went out for dinner, and later sat on a bench on River Street for hours talking. That was more than fourteen years ago.

  Annie walked into the living room with the beer bottles and placed them on the coffee table. “Here you go—for my two-fisted drinker.”

  Waving her arm down towards Kaplan’s lap, she said, “Okay, Scout, scram. Shoo. This is my time with Gregg.”

  Scout ignored her and didn’t move, so she picked her up and moved her to the opposite end of the sofa where the cat curled up in a ball. Positioned just right so she could see Kaplan and Annie.

  Annie unbuttoned Kaplan’s shirt down to his navel, started rubbing his chest and said, “Now, tell me about the accident. And don’t leave out any details.”

  Kaplan removed her pony tail holder, letting her hair fall to her shoulders. Placing his hand on the back of her neck, he ran his fingers through her thick red hair.

  “Well, it all started when I let a good-looking redhead off position so she could go home and goof off.”

  “Goof off!” She punched him in the stomach lightly with her fist. “I’ll have you know I came home and did my workout, cleaned up around this house, and … well, I did take a little nap right after lunch,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. Then her smile faded and she grew serious. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I had a Challenger coming from the west. I set him up for the approach to runway 27. Everything seemed fine until I tried to switch him to the tower. Then I heard a couple of maydays. He just disappeared from radar.”

  “No other signs of trouble?”

  “No, actually, he had been the least of my worries.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t really have a clue, but I can only guess that since he was slowing and lowering his gear and flaps for final approach, he had some sort of mechanical issue that caused him to lose control of the aircraft.”

  Annie nodded and reached for her beer bottle. “The news said there was an Irish bigwig on board. He seemed sort of controversial, the way they described him.”

  “That’s what they said at work. They came out and made me pee in a cup and blow in the tube,” Kaplan said.

  Annie chuckled.

  Stretching out on the couch, she accidentally kicked Scout, who jumped off the couch, letting out a squawk in protest.

  Looking up into Kaplan’s eyes, Annie finished unbuttoning his shirt and said, “You look tense ... why don’t you let me help you relax a little?”

  She slid her fingers down his chest, stopping at his belly button. “We could play good cop, bad cop,” she murmured.

  “Not tonight. I’m a little stressed, you know how we hate to lose one. Maybe I’m just tired and need some time to think. No games tonight.”

  Grinning, she jumped up amid his protests and said, “What you need is a distraction.”

  “Annie, not now.”

  “I’ll be right back.” She jumped off the sofa and removed her tshirt, revealing her firm, round breasts. “I won’t need this.” She tossed the shirt onto his lap.

  He watched her strut topless towards the stairwell and up the steps. She stopped midway, removed her sweatpants and tossed them over the balustrade. They landed on the sofa next to Kaplan. She turned and disappeared into the bedroom wearing only her white socks.

  Kaplan flipped through the channels on the TV and found another news broadcast on CNN Headline News about the accident. He fell deep into thought about the next day’s interview with NTSB and how that would pan out.

  Focused on the information the newscasters were reporting about Laurence O’Rourke and the accident, Kaplan didn’t notice
Annie come down the stairs.

  “Ahem,” she called from the stairway.

  She stood there in a black thong, thigh-high black fishnet nylons and black stiletto heels. On her head perched a dark blue police hat. Smiling, she turned her back to him and slowly held up a pair of shiny silver handcuffs and dangled them.

  In a sultry voice she taunted, “I’ve been bad—very, very bad.”

  He laughed. “Annie, you sure know how to take a man’s mind off of his troubles.”

  He got up and walked over to her.

  She pushed out her derriere.

  The sound of the handcuffs clamping around Annie’s wrists sent Scout darting down the hall and out of sight.

  CHAPTER 15

  Jake spotted the accident scene as the Suburban crested the top span of the Talmadge Memorial Bridge toward Hutchinson Island. As they crept across the bridge, McGill pointed to the smoke rising from the still smoldering crash site. “There it is.”