Choker by Frederick Ramsay (2009, Hardcover)

Investigating the disappearance of a pilot whose plane vanished over Chesapeake Bay, Sheriff Ike Schwartz encounters signs of a terrorist plot that could endanger the entire country.

Nick Reynolds, his pilot's rating barely a month old, drops off the radar one 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.
While on vacation nearby, Picketsville, VA, sheriff Ike Schwartz is approached by Charlie Garland, an old friend from his CIA days, 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 important, just before his disappearance, Nick had placed a puzzling call to Charlie.
Ike's wide-eyed entry into a simple missing persons case soon catapults him into an international investigation with intimations of terrorism that could threaten the nation and its leaders.
Meanwhile, back in Picketsville, The Rev. Blake Fisher and Acting Sheriff Frank Sutherlin must sort out the mystery of the missing communion silver and a possible occult group operating in the high school.