Treasures of the Lochs
PRAISE FOR TREASURES OF THE LOCHS
“Hunter White skillfully weaves well-researched historical mysteries into a taut, modern thriller that propels his characters and this novel’s readers along a journey to a rewarding and entertaining payoff.”
— ERIC L. HARRY,
author of the best-selling novel Arc Light
“Hunter White has written an exciting, genre-crossing tale of mystery, murder, and myth. Treasures of the Lochs is a page-turner, and I really enjoyed and admired it.”
— MARC GROSSBERG,
author of the #1 Amazon best-selling novel
The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by River Grove Books
Austin, TX
www.rivergrovebooks.com
Copyright © 2023 Hunter H. White
All rights reserved.
Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.
Distributed by River Grove Books
Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible,
New International Version® NIV®
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
Print ISBN: 978-1-63299-687-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63299-688-6
First Edition
For Carson & Garrett
Contents
Praise for Treasures of The Lochs
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Author’s Note
About the Author
PROLOGUE
LEWIS OLIVER SLIPPED through the heavy door of the darkened United States Naval Academy Chapel and gave the order to go. Enough light from the moon and outside security lights seeped through the stained-glass windows for him to see his team in their dark gray tactical gear and balaclavas. His five men moved stealthily through the sanctuary toward the stairs. Unlike the chapel, the stairwell remained well lit.
Lewis knew this was the most dangerous part, when they would be the most exposed. Craning his neck, he listened for movement or voices downstairs. Based on his prior surveillance, he’d learned the navy guarded the exhibit near the base of the stairs twenty-four hours a day, but at this hour, only three guards would be on duty. He nodded to his men crouched near the edge of the steps.
After readying their weapons, his team descended in pairs. They slithered on their stomachs and stopped seven or eight stairs from the bottom. The man closest to the railing slowly raised a microthin fiber optics wire with an imbedded camera a few millimeters above the lower edge and used a small piece of tape to hold it in place.
Lewis remained at the top landing and a few yards back, with his second-in-command. He’d known Gavrie for over twenty-six years, from their time in the Russian military. That was when Lewis’s name was still Dmitri Obabcov, before he emigrated from Russia to the United Kingdom and changed it. Gavrie had joined him five years afterward, and they could still grasp what each other thought with a mere look.
The camera’s images of the exhibit area below the chapel danced in front of Lewis’s face in the virtual headset he’d slipped on. He saw three navy guards dressed in their pressed uniforms and white gloves. Two remained stationary. One was standing at attention near the front of the exhibit, and another stood farther away, with his back to the first guard. Roaming the outer edges with a slow, uneven gate was a lieutenant he recognized.
Without removing the headset, Lewis used hand gestures to indicate the guards’ positions to his team and then, with a slashing motion, instructed them to proceed. The two men closest to the bottom of the stairs pulled their weapons from their side holsters and leaped to the floor, with the other pair close on their heels.
The first guard gasped and opened his mouth, but he was unable to get a word out before one of Lewis’s team raised his XREP and fired. Almost simultaneously, the other man next to him shot the second guard in the back. No loud gunshots rang out, and no blood was spilled. The compressed-air pistols emitted little sound, and the guards grunted and fell hard to the ground, their bodies spasming from the wireless tasers.
Just as Lewis had planned, the second pair targeted the remaining man, the lieutenant. The third taser shot missed this last guard and hit the large marble pillar in front of him.
The lieutenant didn’t appear to have seen the intruders or heard the barbed taser shell hit the pillar near him. He ran and knelt next to one of the downed guards, then turned toward the closest of Lewis’s men. Clearly surprised, he jumped up and lunged toward the invader but seemed off-balance and stumbled, only shouldering the side of the intruder’s hip. The lieutenant rolled off and fell, hitting his head hard on the tile floor.
Lewis watched his team member swing his pistol back, about to strike the guard, but another fired his XREP into the lieutenant’s chest. The man spasmed and writhed before he stilled.
Lewis would have preferred bullets instead of tasers. They rarely malfunctioned and provided greater certainty of a result, but the “old man,” as he referred to his employer, insisted on nonlethal weapons for this part of the mission. Lewis did not agree. Nor did he agree this part of the mission was necessary or worth the risk, but he did not have to agree. He followed orders and collected his check. After he saw that the lieutenant was among the guards this evening, he knew the old man was right about using these weapons.
Lewis tore off his headset, and he and Gavrie raced downstairs, reaching the bottom just as his men finished zip-tying the hands and feet of the first two guards. They taped their mouths closed and placed cloth covers over their heads. He checked his watch. “We have six minutes.”
He had to admit he loved seeing three United States soldiers incapacitated, lying helplessly in front of him. He wished he had more time to relish the scene, but he helped Gavrie quickly remove the two scanners and tripods from the thick shoulder sack he carried.
Lewis perused the exhibit celebrating John Paul Jones, whose remains rested at the center in an extravagant sarcophagus sculpted from black-and-white marble and covered in brass outcroppings of barnacles. With the soft lighting, he thought the coffin hinted at something that had been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for hundreds of years.
His team took several readings around the perimeter of the sarcophagus before scanning above and around the base, including the brass inlay on the surrounding marble floor embossed with the names of the Continental Navy ships captained by Jones during the American Revolutionary War.
“Make sure they remain secure,” Lewis ordered another member of his team, Mikhail, who stood watch over the subdued guards.
“They should give us no trouble. I even smell alcohol on this one.”
Mikhail chuckled, kicking the lieutenant’s legs. “There was almost no need to tase him. He fell over when he charged me.”
How did these people ever win wars? Lewis shook his head in wonder. He checked his watch again and monitored the others, who were taking pictures and scans of the crypt and memorabilia.
“Get a scan of that too.” Lewis pointed to a plaque secured to the wall. While Gavrie repositioned the equipment, Lewis read the plaque.
For more than a century, the mortal remains of our first great sailor lay in an unknown grave, lost to his country. The nation is indebted to General Horace Porter for his patriotic efforts in the discovery and identification of the body.
He sneered at the men on the floor. Americans, Lewis thought with more than a little disdain. So arrogant that they honor a thief and his descendants for digging up bones.
Gavrie stowed the equipment back in his shoulder sack and nodded to Lewis. He checked the time again, satisfied that this part of the operation had taken only five minutes and forty-nine seconds.
Within eleven minutes, the men reached their stolen SUV and casually pulled away from the naval academy grounds. They removed their balaclavas, and
Gavrie turned to Lewis. “I saw nothing inside crypt. I think this was waste of time, but we must study the images to be sure.”
“Understood. I will tell the old man.” Lewis scratched the thick, black stubble masking his badly pockmarked face. “We still need to watch bank and wait for our chance. No need for tasers.”
Chapter 1
LIEUTENANT CARTER PORTER felt dizzy and disoriented; his upper lip bled a little from where the tape had been ripped from his mouth. Rubbing his temples did nothing for the pounding in his head, and his eyes still struggled to adjust to the lights. He and the cadet midshipmen had remained bound, with their legs zip-tied and their hands secured behind their backs, until the next shift arrived.
After the intruders departed, Carter heard the other honor guards call to him and roll over to his position. They’d tried to free themselves and Carter. After a few minutes and several failed attempts, they’d stopped and just lay there. He had been half-asleep when he was jostled by one of the replacement guards and his headcover removed.
With his zip ties cut away, Carter sat propped up against one of the outer walls of the exhibit and tried not to move as a parade of investigators and bomb-sniffing dogs inspected every inch of the area. He fumbled as he loosened the wrinkled khaki tie around his neck. Then, he rubbed at the tufts of black hair jutting from the edges of a bandage on the back of his head. He wracked his brain, trying to remember who had placed the bandage there and when.
“Does it hurt much?” Gordon Booker asked, his muscular arms straining against the fabric of his uniform as he squatted next to Carter.
“Hey, Gordo. I assume you’re here as the master-at-arms and not because of a bump on my head.”
“Correct, but does it hurt much?”
“Not as much as the concussion you gave me from that illegal hit a few years back.”
Gordon smiled. “No way, man, that hit was totally legal.”
“It was touch football, buddy.”
“Right, and my forearm touched the side of your head before I stripped the ball from you. It was a ‘welcome to the navy, young man.’” He chortled. “Well, the extra pounds you put on since then probably could have helped pad your fall.” He poked Carter on the side of his stomach, which strained against his belt.
Carter snorted in response. Over the last three years, he’d seen the scale rise to almost 215 pounds, and it wasn’t muscle. Even for his six-foot-one-inch frame, it was too much. But he knew the reason, and he knew his friend knew it too.
Gordon leaned in and whispered in Carter’s ear. “Damn, man, what were you thinking? I smelled the booze on you from ten feet away.”
“Sorry, Gordo,” was all Carter could offer. There was no reason to deny it. He had lost discipline in so many areas of his life, particularly with drinking. He knew he had guard duty, and he still thought he could handle one drink at dinner, but, as happened far too often, one drink became five or six.
“You know what’s about to happen to you, right?” Gordon whispered with a sincere sadness in his voice. “The other two cadets confirmed they smelled alcohol on you too. I already would’ve taken you away for testing, but some guy from Homeland Security and a couple boys from CID still need to ask you a few questions.”
Carter allowed his aching head to swivel to either side as he realized for the first time that the cadet midshipmen guards were no longer next to him. He didn’t remember them getting up or leaving. Other than the security personnel inspecting the exhibit and the bomb-sniffing dogs checking for explosive materials, he was alone.
Not even the replacement guards remained. He had an uneasy feeling about what was to come.
Gordon stepped away as a thin man in a gray pinstriped suit and gold wire-rimmed glasses approached and introduced himself as Agent Dwayne Abrams, with the Department of Homeland Security. Two uniformed CID men stood on either side of him.
“Lieutenant Porter, we can do this someplace more private, if you prefer,” Agent Abrams said.
Carter was not sure what the man meant by “this,” but he didn’t want to get up until he had to. “That’s okay.”
“Very well, then. Lieutenant Porter, you were the ranking officer on guard duty this evening, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“The other guards mentioned the intruders arrived from the stairs, but none of you saw them until they reached the bottom, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Carter confirmed. “After that, they were on us pretty fast and popped us with tasers. There were six or so, maybe eight of them.”
The investigators nodded and jotted notes on small pads.
“The other guards also said the intruders all wore dark gray tactical gear, with hooded masks, is that correct?”
Carter lifted his hand and rubbed the bandage on his head. “Yes, I think so.”
“Did they also strike you on the head?” one of the CID officers asked, pointing to Carter’s bandage.
“No, I got that when I hit the floor.” He wasn’t going to volunteer that he hit the floor after stumbling into, and rolling off, one of the interlopers. He shifted, and the throbbing in his head intensified.
Agent Abrams tapped his pen on the notepad. “Did you see anything else that could help us?”
Feeling a little more disoriented and not sure whether it was from the taser or the alcohol, he asked, “What?”
“Did you see anything else, Lieutenant Porter?” Abrams sounded frustrated at having to repeat himself.
“Oh, sorry. No, not much. They were in and out pretty quick and looked pretty organized. After they zip-tied us, they put hoods over our heads.” Carter pointed to his head but had to put his hand back down to keep from flopping over. He intended to say more, but he lost his train of thought when he righted himself.
“Lieutenant Porter!” The agent’s face flushed.
“Sorry,” Carter said, exhaling and slightly slurring the word. “I could still see a little out of the bottom of my hood, but only their legs and feet, for the most part. I think they may have set up something on tripods around the sarcophagus. Maybe cameras. I don’t know. I have no idea what they were doing or why.”
“Before you were covered, were you able to make out any discernible features? Height, weight, or markings of any sort?” The agent moved his arms as though he wanted him to use his own height and width for proportions.
Carter didn’t immediately respond, and his eyes dropped to the floor. He felt nauseated and wondered if he might throw up. “Lieutenant Porter, have you been drinking?”
“Yes,” Carter said. “I did see something. When one of them zip-tied me, his shirtsleeve separated from his gloves. The man had a tattoo. I think it was manacles circling his wrist and, just above, it looked like the tops of a spired cathedral or something.” He ignored the question about his drinking.
“Good.” Agent Abrams scribbled in his notepad. “Did they speak? Did you hear any accents or dialects?”
“Yeah, I heard a couple of them talking. They sounded Russian or Eastern European. The one who barked most of the orders had a very deep, gravelly voice, like someone who enjoyed sipping on an exhaust pipe.” He chuckled. “I only got a glimpse of his lower half out of the bottom of my hood, but he looked like a very large guy.”
“Yes, good.” The agent nodded, his tone subtly changing. “Well, we are still confirming this, but at the moment, it doesn’t appear anything was stolen, and the sarcophagus doesn’t seem to be vandalized or damaged. We haven’t discovered any explosive materials or communication devices planted yet.”
“Good,” Carter grunted.
“Yes, it is good. Why do you think these intruders did this?” he asked in an accusatory tone.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“If all they wanted were pictures, they could have taken a tour at any time during the day. Why do something so elaborate?”
“I don’t know,” he said more emphatically.
“We’ll see.” The agent gave a sideways glance to the other two CID officers before returning his gaze to Carter. “Do you think these men could have had any insider help?”
“Inside?”
“Yes, I mean this group invaded this institution, easily subdued three military personnel, and escaped with little trace. That would be pretty hard to do without someone here helping them, wouldn’t you agree?”