She didn't understand why the Charleston Police Department had released Pendleton so quickly, she assumed it must be his connection to President Rebecca Rudd. One thing seemed clear to her, he was reckless.
She smiled.
And reckless people have accidents.
Scott Katzer followed the same black car he'd followed for the past eight hours. He noticed the man from Charleston at the Pizza Place and again at the museum. He was pushing seventy years old and growing tired of this game of cat and mouse. He was following the woman who was following the man who was trying to find Ashley Regan. That's all he knew about either one of them. But the woman seemed to have an inside source for her information. There was no other explanation for it. She pulled away from the police station in Charleston, jumped on Interstate 26, and drove to Butler, Tennessee.
With both the man and the woman in Butler, he had to presume that Regan and the book were nearby. Acquiring the book was all he cared about. He'd never seen it, only heard a narrative description from his mother. She had recounted its contents to him several times over the years, always expressing her concern that if the book ever became public, the aftermath of what was written in the book would be devastating to their family. The gain from the fortunes, if there were any, would be no consolation compared to the blow the Katzer name would receive.
She referred to it as a journal. A leather bound book filled with blank pages that was given to his real father on his birthday by the fuehrer.
A gift from Adolf Hitler.
The father he never knew.
Wolfgang Fleischer.
Katzer learned volumes when he researched Wolfgang Fleischer on the Internet. His father had been commandant of Dachau prison and crematorium in Germany during the Third Reich. It seemed an odd coincidence that he too, like his father, was charged with the disposal of dead bodies. Katzer's was a more civilized and accepted practice.
During the fall of the Third Reich, his father fled south into Austria where he was captured. He was tried as a war criminal in a fast-tracked post war justice system — tried, convicted, and executed. By then, Fleischer's lover, Heidi Scheller, was already impregnated with twins.
According to his mother, she and Wolfgang had been secret lovers for three years while he was commandant. The long-term affair started when Fleischer stayed at Schneefernerhaus Hotel for the first time. He was walking across the grounds when he slipped on a patch of ice and twisted his ankle. Heidi, a resort nurse, attended to his injury. The passionate feeling of attraction started during his treatment. While wrapping his ankle, Wolfgang grabbed his mother's arm and pulled her toward him. The kiss ignited their lust for each other. Their affair was a secret he took to the grave.
After the journal was lost, Heidi Scheller moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where she met and married Matthew Katzer, the man Scott thought was his father until he was fifty years old.
Katzer had learned to be a patient man and he knew if he waited in the shadows, the journal would reappear. And when it did, he would reclaim his family's property. As much as he initially abhorred his mother's brutality, he knew he would eventually have blood on his hands too in order to protect the family.
31
Jake picked up the tails right away.
As soon as he left the Butler Museum, he noticed both vehicles were parked in a way deliberately chosen not to draw suspicion. Which was exactly why he noticed them. At The Farm he was trained to observe his surroundings in survival situations, assess what he saw for threats, and determine his best course of action. A process drilled into him until it became second nature.
It was the same black BMW 750 Li with Virginia plates and the same white van that were parked across the street from Ashley Regan's house in Charleston.
After he thanked the museum director for opening up after hours, something else prearranged by Fontaine, he pulled out of the parking lot and verified the front license plate on the BMW was from the State of Virginia. What were the odds that identical models — both with Virginia plates — would be in Butler, Tennessee the same day he saw one staking out Regan's house in Charleston? He knew it was a stake out in Charleston when he noticed the silhouette of a woman through the tinted windows holding a camera with a long-range lens.
After the Charleston police arrested him and hauled him in for questioning, he'd noticed both the BMW and the van when he got out of the police car at headquarters. He didn't think anything more about it until now, when he noticed both vehicles outside the museum in Butler, Tennessee.
He ran the math in his head and knew both vehicles could have driven the distance from Charleston to Butler with little time to spare. The question looming in his mind was whether or not they were working together. It didn't appear that way, but after the events of the day, anything was possible. He knew there was only one person in the BMW, but couldn't tell how many were in the van. One thing was certain, he was outnumbered.
The fact that both vehicles were in Charleston, South Carolina this morning and have shown up 300 miles away in Butler meant one thing.
There was a leak.
Someone on the inside had informed them where he was going. Doubtful the leak came from within Commonwealth, Elmore Wiley's vetting procedures were unsurpassed by anyone. The more likely probability was the leak came from the White House, which pointed to only one person — Evan Makley.
Jake drove a steady speed toward the cabin he'd rented, always keeping track in his rear view mirror of the two vehicles following him. Cars pulled between them periodically, but eventually it was just the three vehicles on the lonely stretch of road.
Jake hit the familiar speed dial on his cell phone. "George, I need you to run a plate." He gave Fontaine the license plate number he'd captured in Charleston when the taxi pulled away from the police station. "Couldn't verify the numbers now, but I could tell it was a Virginia plate."
"Got it." Fontaine blurted after a few keystrokes. "Black BMW?
"Yep. 750 Li."
"Belongs to a Deborah Layne of Leesburg, Virginia. Mean anything?"
"No. Mean anything to you?" Jake heard Fontaine pecking at his keyboard.
"Oh, shit."
"That doesn't sound good." Jake looked in his mirror. Both vehicles were still there. The BMW was maybe a half a mile behind him. The van, slightly farther. "What did you find, George?"
"Facial recognition matched Deborah Layne as Abigail Love. Love is on both the FBI and Interpol's most wanted lists. This lady is bad, Jake, she's an assassin. I'm sending a photo. And Jake?"
"What?"
"According to an entry from Francesca, Evan Makley instructed Abigail Love to get the book and kill anyone who got in her way…your name was specifically mentioned in his communiqué to her."
Jake was quiet for a few seconds. "Guess I'll have to take care of that weasel when I get back to D.C."
"That is if Francesca doesn't beat you to the punch."
He checked his mirror when Roxanne, his GPS voice, announced the distance to his destination as one mile ahead on the left. The BMW was in sight but no van. Within seconds the van appeared from around the curve. He reached behind him to the small of his back and pulled out his Glock, cocked and locked, just the way he was trained. Professionals always kept a round chambered with either the mental or mechanical safety engaged. And on a Glock, that meant the mental safety. Chambering a round made noise, which could alert your opponent.