Sabotage: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 2 Read online

  The car was yanked dangerously in that direction, and Reece slammed on the brakes as he veered free of a clump of trees. The SUV dove down a slight hill before the brakes finally brought it to a sudden stop in the woods.

  Somewhere off in the distance, the gunman roared out of their grasp.

  Chapter 4

  A sleek brown four-door motorcar slowed at Gate 6-B. The guard within the security booth pulled back the window and stuck his head out. Nevius watched him impatiently, wondering what was taking him so long. A few moments later the mechanical actuator for the gate let out a deep groan, and the twelve-foot chain-link fence slid left. The driver waited until it was fully open before inching his car past and stopping beside the booth.

  “Good afternoon,” the uniformed security guard said, wearing a dark blue ball cap, pressed white shirt with a small unintelligible three letter logo, and a plastic name badge over his heart.

  “Good day?” the driver of the car said in a thick British accent, handing over a plastic badge. The guard snatched the badge and disappeared back inside his shack.

  “You’d think this fool would know my face by now,” Professor Nevius said from the rear. “I am, after all, the head of this entire program.”

  “It’s protocol sir.”

  “Protocol. Is that what you call it?” Nevius said.

  “Okay, everything looks good. They’re waiting for the professor inside the hangar,” the guard said, handing back the badge and waving them on.

  The car sped away down a narrow lane of asphalt bordered on both sides by equally spaced ornamental trees. A mile farther stood a second entry gate and beyond that a large three-story aviation hangar big enough to house a squadron of military aircraft. On both sides of the road a thick mat of well-manicured grass spread as far as Nevius could see.

  The driver came to a smaller, unmanned gate left over from when the base was used during World War II. His team was all dressed in long white lab coats just inside the small opening between the large hangar doors. Ah, that’s good, they’re all waiting for me and they can see that I’m being driven to work each day by my chauffeur.

  He waited for the driver to turn off the car, put his hat on, and walk back to open his door for him. A single paved runway ran east and west for as far as he could see with a thick expanse of trees on the horizon.

  “Shall I pick you up tonight at the usual time?” the driver said.

  “Yes,” Nevius said as he exited the car and walked toward the hangar.

  “Professor Nevius, it’s good to see you, sir,” one of his team members said.

  “How is everything coming along?” Nevius said.

  “We’re half a day ahead of schedule sir.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Nevius went up to one of the sleek aircraft. It was triangular-shaped with its engine and intake duct situated on top of the drone’s airframe. A white speed probe stuck out from the pointy nose of the unmanned aerial vehicle. He squatted down behind the nose gear, removed a small flashlight from the side pocket of his white lab coat, and peered up into the opening. This was the location of the rotary bomb unit he’d designed a year earlier. Within the bomb bay doors curled multiple bundles of electrical cables, and up at the top the hydraulic lines ran back toward the control surfaces of the drone’s tail.

  Nevius had come up with the idea for the rotary unit while watching a TV show about the Gulf War. Many of the modern military bombers had been built with rotary units to make the best use of space within the confines of the aircraft fuselage. He moved out from underneath the drone and stared at the nose, inspecting the workmanship as he made his way around the airplane in a counterclockwise circle.

  One of his team members, wearing a similar lab coat and carrying a clipboard covered in notes, approached. “Any questions, sir?”

  “Yes, how did the landing gear testing go on this unit?” Nevius said.

  “Just fine. We used the three-point hoist like you told us and performed multiple cycles of both gear extension and retraction with no failures.”

  “How about the timing? Did you use a stopwatch?” Nevius said.

  “We did sir, and each cycle was within two to three seconds of the previous one.”

  “Very well, then.”

  He continued to walk around the drone. From the front the wings swept back in a triangle until they met the square flat wingtips. The top view looking down at the drone from up above revealed the shape of an isosceles triangle in the front and sides until you got to the wing stubs. They stuck out a few feet and then after running back the bottom of the triangle went in at an indention until it came to the single nosecone of the CF700 turbofan engine. Nevius had specifically chosen this power plant because he knew the engine had once been used to train Moon-bound astronauts in the Apollo program for the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle. With its 4,500-pound thrust it could propel the drone and its payload for as long as it was supplied fuel.

  In this configuration the engine produced more than enough thrust to enable the drone to both reach its target, weaving through the streets of downtown London, and to launch its deadly payloads.

  Chapter 5

  Haisley pushed open the passenger’s side door and climbed out.

  “Good driving, Culver. You barely missed a tree on each side.”

  Reece climbed over the seat, grabbed his duffel bag, and pulled out the twin tennis shoe to the one on his left foot.

  “I got three dots of reception on my phone,” Haisley said as he used the flashlight feature on his smartphone to light up the front of the truck. “Looks like that bugger was shooting an AK-47 at us.”

  The ground felt uneven as Reece stepped down and joined his friend. In his search for his father’s killer, he had become a private investigator, so he didn’t shy away from gunfire. People shooting automatic rifles, though, was another level for him. “How do you know it was an AK?”

  “Check these out on your side. They’re thumb-sized holes running all the way down the side of the truck. Good thing he missed wounding one of us.” Haisley stopped. “Oh hell, look at this.”

  “Look at what?”

  “He missed hitting the gas tank by a couple of inches.”

  “I wonder if that’s what the shooter used to take out the driver in that red BMW,” Reece said.

  “Speaking of which, I should call this in,” Haisley said, raising his phone.

  Reece was still thinking about the man in the blue pickup truck who had come close to killing them. The front and sides of the SUV were riddled with a crisscross pattern of bullet holes. The heater in the truck and the adrenaline of the chase had warmed him up enough that his teeth were no longer chattering.

  “The local police said they know the spot. I gave them the coordinates off the map application on my phone,” Haisley reported after he clicked off.

  “So, they’re on their way?” Reece said.

  “Yeah, I could hardly understand the woman’s Scottish brogue, but she said they’d come get us.”

  *

  Several hours later, the two men sat on a guardrail, staring out toward the Atlantic Ocean. On the ride back from their bullet-riddled rental to the murder scene, the two constables had listened to Haisley’s version of what transpired. The highway was blocked off now with yellow crime scene tape, and the darkness replaced by flashing red and blue lights.

  A tow truck had backed up across the lane to the spot where Reece earlier watched the red SUV smash into the guardrail and into the sea. Several men in diving suits had entered the water earlier, and he thought they might have hooked a chain onto the rear bumper of the truck to winch it out.

  A local detective approached Reece and Haisley.

  “So, you saw a pickup truck pull out onto the highway. Did you get a make and model?”

  “It was a blue Toyota Tundra,” Reece said.

  “Did you get a plate?”

  “No, we never got close enough to get a plate, and also there were no taillight
s,” Reece said.

  “No lights? How do you suppose the driver could see to lead you on that wild goose chase all over the countryside if he had no headlights?”

  “I said no taillights. He had headlights. I saw them light up the side of the road when he first turned left into the bush,” Reece said.

  “That’s odd,” he said.

  “Yeah, I thought that too,” Haisley said. “Maybe he had the truck rigged up that way.”

  “So, Mr. Averton you’re thinking this guy was expecting to be chased in the dark and had rigged up his truck that way so he could escape. Let me ask you. Do either of you know the victim from the maroon BMW?”

  The tow truck had managed to pull the truck out of the water. The rear end was facing them. Reece watched as several policemen walked up behind the truck shining bright lights.

  “We don’t know anyone. We’re tourists,” Haisley said quickly, and Reece could tell he was warding off any possible sniffing in their direction. “But if you ask me, that hit, it was professional.”

  Chapter 6

  Late on Sunday afternoon, Karl Rhodes climbed out of the bed in his luxury apartment high above the city of London. The sheets still carried the scent of his Clive Christian No.1 mixed with her Hermes’ 24 Faubourg. Through an open door he could hear the water falling from the twin showerheads. Karl caught a glimpse of himself in the dresser mirror as he walked toward the bathroom and liked what he saw. His habit of visiting Draecon’s executive gym was paying off. Marie doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I haven’t aged a bit. Look at this.

  He glided past the door, rounded the corner of the large bathroom and saw the naked woman’s soap-covered image through the glass shower walls. Wow, look at that. Now, that’s what I’m talking about. She was humming a tune he didn’t recognize, but Karl didn’t care. Just thinking about her excited him.

  “How’s the water?” he called.

  “It’s splendid. What took you so long? Come join me.”

  Karl stole a look at his muscled thighs, arms, and four pack in the long mirror that spanned both sinks opposite the shower. He combed back his thick blond hair with his hand and then pulled open the glass shower door, releasing a large plume of steam.

  “Hey, hurry up and get in. You’re letting all the heat out,” she said.

  He advanced to the second circular showerhead in the huge marble shower area. The water felt good on his shoulders and face, but was a little on the hot side. Karl reached for the stainless steel handle and nudged it.

  The woman came up behind him and Karl felt her plentiful breasts touch his back. They were soft, bringing a smile to his face.

  “So how are the proceedings coming along?” she said, planting her lips on his back and kissing her way up toward his neck.

  “The proceedings?”

  “Your divorce proceedings. Have you met with your attorney again?”

  That question again. Was she ever going to give him peace about what was a done deal? “That’s going well. I have another meeting with him next week.”

  “That’s good. So what took place during the last meeting?”

  Did I mention a previous meeting? “My barrister told me about the divorce law in the UK and how there are five legal grounds for divorce,” Karl said, reaching for the soap. “I’ll need to pick one of the five.”

  “All you discussed was grounds?” she said, pulling away. He turned around

  Her long dishwater blond hair was matted to the right side of her head. The lipstick she’d worn to bed for their earlier nap had long since washed off, and the heavy makeup she’d applied to her eyes and cheeks was gone. She looked pale and defenseless in the falling water. He ran his hand down her hip, over her buttocks, and up onto her lower back. Her skin was soft and glowing from the heat.

  She recoiled from Karl’s touch and stepped out of reach. She raised her hand as if she were going to slap him. He was about to speak when she lowered it and smiled.

  “Look, I’m taking care of the divorce. It’s not as easy as you’d think.”

  “Jesus, so now you’re going to lecture me on the law? It doesn’t sound like you’ve taken care of anything. Could it be you’re staving me off while you figure out your next move?”

  She exited the shower and wrapped a towel around her long hair. Karl didn’t like where this was going. He bolted from the shower, grabbed the last remaining towel, and walked out of the bathroom behind her. He could feel his hand balling up into a fist. He might as well be back home, arguing with Marie. Karl headed toward the living room, to the glass globe that held his liquor bottles, posted beside the window wall that overlooked the city.

  “So tell me, Karl, have you even filed the papers yet?”

  He ignored her, irritated and in no mood to defend himself. Karl pulled open the top half of the globe, exposing twenty different bottles of booze. It had been a present from his friend Joseph Woodbine back when he’d first been promoted to Chief of Strategy. He snatched the bottle of his favorite bourbon and quickly poured himself three fingers.

  “Okay, it’s obvious that all you want from me is sex,” she said. “I get it.”

  Karl raised the glass to his lips and drained half of it. The bronze liquid was smooth going down, but he could feel the heat of it. In the kitchen she was standing buck-naked with her hands on her hips. It reminded Karl of the way she stood when she’d address the board of directors at his company, Draecon International—in slightly more formal attire.

  “I’ve been advised to draw up the financial agreement first before doing anything else,” he said making eye contact.

  “That seems like prudent advice. How’s that coming along? Have you decided how to keep her from robbing you of all your worth?”

  “It’s a slow process,” he said, not wanting to get into the particulars.

  “I don’t follow you,” she said.

  “I have a daughter in college. If it were just Marie, I’d have filed last winter. I’d have given my ex-wife enough to get on her feet and go back to work, but there are other matters to consider.” He was growing bored, and he addressed not her but all the buildings lying at his feet.

  When he turned back around, she was gone. Hopefully to put on that fetching pink negligee. With a slight groan he downed the last of his drink, for fortification whichever way the wind blew.

  Chapter 7

  The headlights of a passing truck lit the red lane with its diagonal white slashes that separated the two sides of the narrow road. Reece considered it cute, like the row of rock-walled houses with white-framed windows in Tarbert. Your ideal vacation spot, if you leave out the roadside murder.

  “So, you definitely think this was a professional hit?” Reece said.

  “What else could it be? That guy in the truck fired at least two different weapons at us.”

  “Okay, so if it was a professional hit, we need to find out who the target was,” Reece said.

  “Yeah, or we could just mind our own business and go fishing tomorrow.”

  “We could, but there’s one other thing that caught my attention.”

  “Yeah, what was that?” Haisley said.

  “When that guy questioned us the second time… what was his name?”

  “Inspector MacDonald.”

  “Yeah, that MacDonald guy fielded a telephone call,” Reece said. “I heard him say the name Marie. Actually, it was Marie Rhodes.”

  “So you got a name,” Haisley said, not disguising his skepticism. “Did you hear anything else while MacDonald was on the call?”

  “Yeah, from what I caught of his conversation, it sounded like Mrs. Rhodes was expecting a visitor at her house tonight.”

  A steady rain was falling as Reece and Haisley walked toward Harbor Street, where they’d earlier left the replacement rental car. They had just left the police station.

  “That was a complete waste of time,” Haisley said.

  “Did you expect anything different?”

  “No, I gu
ess not, I just thought that MacDonald guy might fill me in out of professional courtesy.”

  “You mean because you were once a cop back in the U.S?” Reece said as he watched the other man frown. “Don’t get me wrong, buddy, it’s really cool that you had such a long and prestigious career as a St. Louis police detective, but I don’t think you should expect that your being a retired cop will get you more than a cup of coffee here in the UK.”

  Chapter 8

  Sunday

  Margaret Charles dashed into the Draecon International parking garage, escaping the sudden rain shower. She used her key card to access the lift. On weekends it was the only way to enter the London offices of Draecon. As she rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, she hoped she’d still be able to catch her friend Bernadette in cost accounting. She’d been there earlier when she’d called, preparing for the upcoming quarterly forecast.

  She thought about their meeting a few days earlier, when the woman elaborated on her hunch that someone was embezzling funds. This time she’d narrowed it down to someone on the seventh floor. At their first meeting Margaret had just listened, suspecting it was some kind of computer error. After the second time they met, though, Margaret began to worry.

  To Margaret this was very personal. The seventh floor was where all ten of Draecon’s executives kept their offices, and where she sat in the first office past the elevators. It had always been her job to guard the upper echelon of Draecon International, one of London’s largest corporations, with offices on all seven continents.

  The doors to the lift opened and Margaret stepped out, glad to see that the fourth floor was lit up as it would be on any weekday. She walked quickly to Bernadette’s office and found the woman rifling though a large stack of folders at her desk.

  “Hi dear. I’m glad you’re still here,” Margaret said.

  “Oh, hello, come in,” Bernadette said, looking up with a smile.