by Tom Lowe
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dave moved to the couch, sank into the cushions, and let out a deep sigh. “The more we understand what was going on in the summer of ’45 the better-1945, by the way, was the year I was born.”
O’Brien smiled, “’45 eh? Hope with age you got some wisdom.” Then he said, “Looks like Germany’s nuke world was in high gear at that time.”
“Indeed. If my old contact in Germany was right about the listing on the manifest, we have eight canisters MIA. They still could be somewhere on the sub.”
“Or they might be found on the beach where Billy Lawson watched the German sailors bury something. Maybe it was something they intended to use later. Who was the guy waiting for them, and what sort of deal did he cut?”
“So this Billy Lawson, he was the one shot, right?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” O’Brien said. “He was a PFC, sent home from the front for rehab. He may be the only U.S. soldier in World War II killed on American soil.”
Dave said, “In the intelligence world, you have selective information, disinformation and silence. This falls in the category of a void. Nothing. Not even up there on the same shelf with UFO sightings.”
“A void or avoid,” O’Brien said. “Or maybe disavow.”
Dave used a toothpick to spear a loose olive out of his martini. He chewed it and said, “A lot was at stake. Literally, our nation.” He looked down at a legal pad where he’d scrawled notes. “It’s now believed that Germany probably had gaseous centrifuge machines in 1945. Uranium oxide was mixed with fluoric acid to form uranium-hexafluoride gas. U-235, or HEU, was produced from the spinning gases.”
“But why carry the HEU on that sub?” O’Brien asked. “Were they going to try to somehow launch it over Washington?”
“When Germany was down and out, Japan was still in the fight. If they could have acquired this material, it may have changed the outcome of the war if they’d dropped it on say … New York or even San Francisco.”
“Is seven hundred kilos enough to make two bombs?”
“Enough to make a couple moderate-sized nuclear bombs.”
O’Brien stood. “Since Glenda Lawson said Billy saw two Japanese men, both dressed as civilians, with four German sailors that night … what’s the connection? What’s the tie to Japan receiving the deadly cargo you mentioned earlier?”
“There may be a connection.” Dave looked at his scribbled notes. “Here’s why: on U-boat 234, the one escorted into Portsmouth a few days before Billy Lawson was killed, there was an all-German crew that surrendered. Under interrogation, one of the officers admitted they had two Japanese officers aboard when they left from Kiel, Germany. When the crew of U-boat 234 got word of Germany’s surrender in the war, they could have turned themselves over to the Brits rather than the U.S. However, Commander Johann Fehler elected not to surrender in England, but to turn themselves in to the Americans. Fehler said when the two Japanese men on the sub heard the Germans were going to surrender to the U.S. Navy, the Japanese men said they could not. The honorable thing for them to do was commit suicide or hari-kari. They overdosed on pills and died in their bunks. After a couple of days, the Germans tossed their bodies overboard.”
“I can’t say I’d blame ‘em,” Nick said.
“So along comes yet another sub,” O’Brien said. “The one Nick and I found, U-boat 236, and it’s carrying Japanese, too. But these guys don’t commit suicide. They slip into the U.S. undetected. Well, undetected until Billy Lawson sees them, and then he’s killed as he makes a call to his wife. Maybe one of the Japanese shot him.”
“That’s a possibility,” Dave said.
“Abby Lawson told me her grandfather saw only two of the Germans walking back to the life raft. One was dead. So where was the third?”
“Good question,” Dave said.
“Maybe he’d hidden in the bed of the truck, hoping to kill Billy Lawson as he drove off. But he didn’t get a chance until Lawson stopped at that closed bait and tackle store where he made the call to his wife from the phone booth.”
Dave asked, “What happened to Billy Lawson’s truck that night?”
“Glenda said the sheriff told her, after Billy was mugged and robbed, that the perp stole Billy’s truck only to abandon it near the beach.”
“What if the shooter joined his comrades and got back in the life raft to row out to the U-boat?”
“Anything’s possible,” Nick said. “End of the big war. Maybe it did happen. Was some American really involved?”
“Maybe. How’d that sub go down?” O’Brien asked.
Dave grunted. “Couldn’t find that. But I’d be willing to wager that if Billy Lawson’s call was taken seriously, the Navy, so close at the Jacksonville Air Station, could have dispatched one of its planes and dropped a lot of depth charges on the sub.”
“Would they do that knowing it was carrying weapons-grade uranium?”
“Maybe they didn’t know, figured it was safer to sink it than take the chance.”
“Then why didn’t they recover the material Nick and I found?”
“Maybe they couldn’t find it.”
“I caught it on my anchor. How hard would it have been for the Navy to find it?”
“This was way before sophisticated underwater topography reading equipment. They could have hit the sub closer to shore and it managed to limp a long way out before finally striking bottom. After searching and not finding it, the Navy may have assumed they never hit it. Years drift by, Atlantic storms partially bury the twisted sub, and that footnote in the war fades away with those who died on the U-boat.”
“And along comes my boat, its anchor snags a World War II relic, not just any bottom dweller, but rather one that may be sitting with the earth’s deadliest luggage.”
Dave opened his laptop and looked at the photos he’d loaded from O’Brien’s camera. “I think these canisters are the real deal, U-235 or HEU. And I think if they somehow fell into the wrong hands today, they could inflict as much damage on us as they could have in the hands of the Japanese or Germans. Maybe more.”
Nick said, “But today it could be anybody-any sick-ass group or nation with a hard-on against the good ol’ U.S. of A.”
“And,” Dave said, “with a half-life of a million years, it’s good as new. We have some calls to make. Sean, it’d be a good idea to keep a close eye on Jason.”
“He’s learned his lesson.”
“That’s not what I meant. He may need protection.”
O’Brien looked at the media growing like a mob in the parking lot and said nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
At five minutes to six p.m., the Channel Nine control room filled with people. The general manager stood in the back of the room with the news director, group vice president, and the executive producer. They watched the monitors as the camera focused on the anchor team fitting earpieces in their ears, checking copy for last minute changes.
“Coming to camera one, ten seconds,” said the director. “Roll opening.”
“Rolling,” said a technician.
“Standby Mark and Angela,” said the director into the small microphone that fed the tiny earpiece in the news anchors’ ears.
The general manager leaned toward his news director and whispered, “This is going to be Peabody Award stuff.”
“Five seconds,” barked the director.
The anchor team said, “Good evening, I’m Mark Linsky.”
“And I’m Angela Franklin.”
“We have breaking news tonight.”
“This story sounds like a Hollywood script, but it’s real. We have dramatic pictures, images from the bottom of the sea taken inside a German U-boat that’s apparently been on the ocean floor since World War II. Was that U-boat carrying enriched uranium, the material used to make a nuclear bomb? Susan Schulman will tell us what her investigation is uncovering in terms of the potentially dangerous cargo. Amber Rothschild is at the University of Florida, where she h
as a historical perspective on the time the U-boat went down and how it may have gone down. Todd Knowles is at the Navy base in Jacksonville where he’ll have a report on what the Navy is doing about the situation, as well as what Homeland Security is saying tonight. But first let’s go to Susan Schulman.”
“Mark and Angela, the sub is said to be off the coast of Daytona Beach down about ninety feet,” Schulman began her report. “We want to show dramatic pictures of canisters stamped as U-235. This is a name enriched or weapons-grade uranium was called before the cold war had ended. The label was known to people working on the Manhattan Project, the top secret work done to build an atomic bomb to bring World War II to a fiery close. What was this dangerous material allegedly doing on a German U-boat just found off the coast of Florida? That’s the question a lot of people would like to have answered tonight. As Channel Nine first reported, Captain Sean O’Brien, Nick Cronus, and a college student hired as a deckhand, Jason Canfield, were fishing in the Atlantic, somewhere in the Gulf Stream, when they got their anchor caught on something. O’Brien and Cronus dove down to free the anchor and found it caught on some twisted metal from a German U-boat that one member of the crew, Jason Canfield, told us was blown apart. Here’s some of what they found ….”
O’Brien stood in Dave’s salon with Nick and Dave, watching as the news reports unfolded. The images were of the pictures he’d shot on the sub. Nick stood, his black eyes tired, his voice a grunt, “We’re screwed.”
Susan Schulman’s report continued, “These are pictures taken by Captain O’Brien. The canisters are labeled U-235. The outside of the submarine is marked 236. There are human remains on board. The sub also was carrying parts of what is believed to be M2 German fighter jets. Where’s all this potentially disastrous cargo right now? Still out in the ocean, east of the world’s most famous beach, Daytona Beach. Cronus said he knows the location.”
The video cut to Schulman’s ambush interview with Nick.
Cronus: “I can take you there, sure. Come on, TV gal.”
Schulman: “Perhaps Mr. Cronus isn’t fully aware of the magnitude of this find. Nonetheless, Captain Sean O’Brien told us yesterday he didn’t find the U-boat. When presented with pictures we managed to obtain from Canfield’s girlfriend, Nicole Bradley, a Channel Nine intern, the dam of secrecy broke apart. And Captain O’Brien is none too happy about it.”
O’Brien: “Seems to me, Miss Schulman, you are the one compromising the safety of the nation by your zeal to be the first to put this on television rather than to be responsible and shut the hell up.”
Schulman: “Mark and Angela, Captain O’Brien says he did not bring up the canisters marked U-235. So, as far as we know, they’re sitting out there where they’ve been hidden since World War II. We spoke with a physicist at nearby Lockheed Martin, and she told us it would take about two-thousand pounds of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb the size of the one that leveled Hiroshima.”
Anchorman: “Thanks, Susan. Before we go to Todd Knowles’s report, a programming note, Susan will be appearing via satellite on CBS national at nine o’clock tonight fielding questions. Now, let’s go to Todd in Jacksonville.”
Dave Collins turned to O’Brien and Nick. “Not good gentlemen. The woman’s obviously very subjective. What she’s managed to do in three minutes is pop the top on a sixty-seven-old secret and place you two and Jason in the middle of what she’s painting as something almost akin to smuggling nuclear weapons.”
“Well fuck you very much,” Nick said toward the television. He shut off the sound. “What are we gonna do now? I feel like a wanted man, a freakin’ criminal, and we haven’t done anything wrong.”
Susan Schulman appeared live on CBS, in a news/talk show format that was broadcast nationally. Sean O’Brien, Nick Cronus, and Jason Canfield’s faces, along with the underwater photos O’Brien took, on television for the world to see. In addition to Schulman, the host’s guests included a U.S. senator to hypothesize, a retired Pentagon general to “put things in perspective,” a doomsday minister to lose perspective, and a Columbia University physicist to tell how nuclear bombs are made. O’Brien and Nick left, Nick swearing he’d never watch television news again.
Dave poured a scotch and wondered how long it would take before he got the first phone call.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The 11:00 p.m. newscasts had O’Brien, Nick and Jason’s face on every channel, the stories going viral and getting millions of views on the Internet. Five minutes later, O’Brien’s cell rang. It was Maggie Canfield. “Sean, Jason told me what happened, how his girlfriend managed to get and give those pictures of that submarine to the news media. I am so very sorry.”
“It’s okay, Maggie.”
“No, no it’s not okay. I know it’s late, and I feel bad for even asking, but can we talk? Not on the phone. Are you at the marina?”
“Yes, I was just about to take Max for her walk.”
“Maybe I could join you. I can be there in ten minutes.
“We’ll be in the parking lot in front of the Tiki Bar.”
As he opened the sliding glass door leading to Jupiter’s cockpit, he looked at his Glock lying near the boat’s helm. O’Brien picked up the gun, wedged it under his belt in the small of his back, and stepped out onto the dock with Max at his heels.
The pier was damp from heavy dew. A vapor rose off the surface of the marina water and drifted eerily above the flickering security lamps, the sound of an eighteen-wheeler fading in the distance, the breakers across the road like a whisper from a seashell. O’Brien followed Max down the long dock. The soft flash of light from the lighthouse made him smile as it oddly looked like a firefly lost in the rising mist.
Maggie Canfield was just getting out of her car when they approached. “Thank you for letting me join you and Max on your walk.”
“It’s not always a walk, lots of stopping and starting, but it’s always an adventure, especially when ol’ Joe, the boatyard cat, is around.”
Maggie walked beside O’Brien, both following Max as she sniffed beneath the coconut palm trees, the fronds rustling from a sudden breeze across the water. Maggie said, “Jason told me what happened, how you got your anchor caught on that submarine and found those things. He also let me know he promised you confidentiality. That trust was broken. Trust is something his father and I always tried hard to instill in our son. I’m sorry this got out of hand so quickly.”
“Don’t sweat it, Maggie. Jason’s a good kid.”
“What’s all this on the news about some kind of nuclear material? Is that what you found out there?
“Maybe.”
“Dear God … what are you going to do?”
“Where’s Jason now?”
“He’s home in his room, playing video games on his computer. Why?”
“Keep a close eye on him.”
“Is my son in some kind of danger … please … after Frank’s death-”
“Maggie, just tell Jason to be aware of his surroundings. If he even suspects he might be followed, call me immediately.”
“I’m scared now. I haven’t felt this way in a long time.”
“It’ll be fine. Hopefully, it will pass in a couple of days.”
They stood next to one of the docks and watched a forty-two foot Chaparral enter the marina, its green and white running lights diffused in the mist above the water. Maggie turned toward O’Brien. “Jason is so looking forward to working on your boat with you this summer. Thank you, again, for giving him a greater sense of purpose.”
“It’ll be a good summer. We need to catch fish, and leave sleeping subs alone.”
Maggie smiled and pulled a loose strand of dark hair behind one ear. She watched Max a moment and said, “I’d love to have you over for a home-cooked meal. I can broil a great fish, that’s assuming your crew can catch a few.” She laughed and touched O’Brien’s arm.
“I’d like that, Maggie.” He glanced toward the Tiki Bar. “Would you like a dri
nk? I think we can make last call.”
Maggie smiled, the revolving light from the lighthouse illuminating the tops of sailboat masts and the highest coconut palms. “I’d love that, but I better head home. I have an early day tomorrow, and I told Jason I’d be back soon.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
Max followed them, stopping only once across the parking lot, the sound or laughter coming from the Tiki Bar. At the car, O’Brien said, “Maggie, tell me what you know about Eric Hunter?”
“Who?”
“He said his name’s Eric Hunter.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He said he knew you and your husband, Frank, knew him before the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole.”
“Sean, I don’t know this man, and I never heard Frank mention his name. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
Maggie studied him for a second, and then said, “I need to get home.” She leaned in and hugged O’Brien. He could smell the shampoo in her hair, the perfume she always wore twenty years ago, the way she used to hold him close, her head on his chest.
She brushed her hand against the Glock. “What’s that on your back? Is it a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Do you always wear a gun when you walk Max?”
“Upon occasion.”
“Just tell me one thing … is my son safe with you?”
“Yes.”
She leaned up on her toes and kissed O’Brien on his cheek, and then she drove away. O’Brien watched her taillights swallowed in the fog. He heard the wail of a siren in the distance and saw the beam from the lighthouse rake across the rising mist, giving symmetry and animation to ghosts climbing the masts of sailboats.
