Choker (Ike Schwartz Series)

His pilot’s rating barely a month old, Nick Reynolds drops off the radar at night over the Chesapeake Bay. Investigating agencies call it another tragic pilot error accident. No trace of the plane is found in the Bay’s murky waters.
Ike Schwartz, erstwhile sheriff of Picketsville, on vacation, is approached by Charlie Garland, an old CIA friend, to look into the disappearance. The missing pilot was engaged to Charlie’s niece and the family is not dealing well with the lack of closure. More importantly, Nick, just before his disappearance, had placed a call to Charlie. Was something other than pilot error invovled in Nick's disappearance?
Ike accepts the assignment as a favor to Charlie and also because vacations do not work for him. Ike’s wide-eyed entry into a simple missing persons case catapults him into an international thriller á la Robert Ludlum with intimations of terrorism that might threaten the nation and its leaders. Clandestine operations, angry watermen and out of place dredging spoil complicate Ike’s efforts to unravel the mystery.
While this activity thrusts a reluctant Ike into harm’s way, back in Picketsville, The Rev. Blake Fisher and Acting Sheriff Frank Sutherlin sort out the mystery of the missing communion silver and a possible occult group operating in the high school.