by Tom Lowe
“Not much of an accent,” said Paul Thompson. “Could be some German.”
O’Brien watched Eric Hunter as his eyes darted from Lauren to Thompson. Hunter said, “His hands, large, light skin. Very non-Middle Eastern in appearance.”
“I noticed that,” Lauren said. “Like the unsub had Scandinavian or German stock.
“He wasn’t Greek,” chimed in Nick. “And what the hell’s an unsub?”
“Unknown subject,” Dave said. “A frequently used FBI term.”
O’Brien shook his head. “It’s what the guy holding Jason said that might be our biggest clue. He said, ‘my father was only twenty-five when your people killed him,’ and he added, ‘It is rightfully ours … the rest of the cargo.’ If his father was twenty-five when he died, where did he die? How’d he die, and when did it happen? What was, or is, ‘rightfully ours?’ By ours, does he mean a country, a group of people, or is he talking about himself, like a claim on a property inheritance?”
“All good questions,” Dave Collins said.
“Yes,” added Lauren, “and right now we don’t have any of the answers.”
“Maybe some are outside,” O’Brien said. “Let’s take a look.”
“Wait a minute,” protested Thompson. “We have plenty of expertise here. We don’t need or want your assistance. Take your friends and go back to the marina.”
O’Brien ignored Thompson and started for the parking lot. He walked to the spot under the tree where the kidnapper’s van had been parked. He knelt down a few feet from the trunk of the tree and looked at the soil, his fingers touching a small dark spot about the size of a half dollar. He smelled the stained grains of sand.
The others approached, Paul Thompson visibly angry. “Go home, O’Brien.”
Thompson looked at Lauren. She said, “Sean, we can take it from here.”
Thompson said, “There’s no shoe or tire print. That’s enough, leave.”
“The stain is transmission fluid,” O’Brien said. “Their van probably has a leak. Maybe the lab can match the chemical analysis of this fluid with the van, if we find it-”
“We will find it,” Thompson said. “But we-”
“We’ll get forensics back out here,” Lauren said, dialing her cell. “Ron, stay here until they arrive. We’ll head back to the federal building.”
As the others started for Dave’s SUV, Eric Hunter walked to his truck. O’Brien pulled Dave aside and asked, “Who’s Hunter?”
“What do you mean?”
“Dave, I saw him recognize you. What nailed it for me was when you looked the other way. Who is he?”
Dave watched Hunter get in his truck and leave. “I can’t get into who he is. Suffice to say he’s deep undercover. Let’s just leave it at that, Sean, all right?”
“No. Hell, no, it’s not all right. A kid we both know has less than forty-eight hours to live. His girlfriend is dead. A storage manager is dead. Two men in a boat at sea chasing us are blown to hell out of the water. And, today, two guys were tailing Nick and me before I found the U-235 missing. I don’t think they were the hostiles who kidnapped Jason. I need to know who Hunter is and what’s going on.”
“Eric Hunter is one of the Agency’s best field agents. I don’t know what he’s involved in or how deep the layers are.”
“Then who’s this Paul Thompson?”
“He’s with the Agency, liaises between Homeland and the FBI.”
“And he has no clue who Hunter is, come on, or is all that a charade?”
“I doubt he knows what I’ve told you, if that.”
“But you can’t ask because there are only so many lies that a human brain is capable of processing before plausible denial doesn’t work. And the CIA is the best at this kind of-”
“Look, Sean-”
“I think Hunter tipped the media, maybe called the reporter Susan Schulman that day we found the U-boat and the cargo. Jason had called Hunter, a man Maggie, Jason’s mom, says she doesn’t know. I saw the number on Jason’s cell. Hunter knew we were bringing the boat back after the find. Maybe he contacted the Coast Guard. Maybe he had the boat blown up when we went back there and got the HEU.
“Remember, I’d radioed you guys that day you found it. You were on the bottom exploring the sub and Jason answered the radio. Coast Guard could have heard that.”
“How’d Hunter get here so fast?”
“He’s been here. Working undercover in Florida. This is a hotspot for hostiles. We saw that with 911. I do know he’d been part of the investigation that brought charges against Awwab Bakir.”
“Hunter says he knew Jason’s father. His dad died in the Cole bombing.”
“Maybe they worked together. We have no way of verifying that.”
O’Brien said nothing.
Dave asked, “Did you get a look at the hostiles following you and Nick?”
“Dark features, from what I could tell. They weren’t bald or blonde.”
“Looks like we have two factions. If the guys in the van stole the HEU after they kidnapped Jason, then who were the men tailing you? Maybe Abdul-Hakim’s men?”
“I don’t know. Ask Hunter. Right now we’ve got to find the men who kidnapped Jason and stole the HEU. It could be loaded onto a container ship in Port Canaveral in a couple of hours and shipped to just about anywhere. Possibility of it being shipped out creates a greater urgency.”
“Whoever gets it, they’ll have to know how to turn it into an atomic bomb. That’s not an easy thing to do unless you’re a nuclear physicist.”
“I have to go. Keep an eye on Nick. He’ll be safer with you.”
“Where you going?”
“You remember how we were talking, trying to make sense out of this-you, me Jason and Nick? Then I told you about Abby Lawson and her grandmother, Glenda?”
“What about them?”
“If the men who kidnapped Jason managed to get that out of him, Abby and her grandmother could be in danger. If Glenda’s story is true, we could have a repeat today.”
Dave looked at the others waiting by his SUV. “What do you mean, repeat?”
“I think what Billy Lawson saw before he died in 1945 caused two things: it brought down the German sub after Lawson called his wife … and it exposed something or someone.”
“As a nation, we were trying to end the war.”
“Maybe Billy Lawson’s report that night had something to do with that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What if Lawson wasn’t killed in a mugging? What if he was killed in a cover-up and the cover-up has a direct connection to Jason being held hostage today?”
“How could that be?”
“The hostile on camera-it’s what he said about his father and the rightful ownership of the U-235 canisters. Why would he say that? Maybe his father was around the time Billy Lawson was shot. What if there’s a connection?”
“Sean, what connection? Any witnesses in the Lawson case are probably dead. Evidence is long gone.”
“Not if Billy Lawson was buried with it.”
“What?”
“Bullets. An old newspaper story indicated Lawson died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. Glenda Lawson, on the phone with her husband at the time of the shooting, said she heard three shots.”
“Maybe she was mistaken. Regardless, what can you do at this stage?”
“Exhume Lawson’s body from the grave.”
“Do what? If you find evidence of more than one shot, what have you proved?”
“That the newspaper story, taken from the police and FBI reports, was a lie. If they didn’t remove all the bullets in an autopsy, assuming they even did one in 1945, I might be able to identify the type of murder weapon.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Glenda Lawson’s home was cast in dark olive green shadows when O’Brien pulled into her driveway, which was long ago built of aged bricks. The home was turn-of-the-century old Florida: coquina stone, one story, and a tile r
oof the tint of rust. A large banyan tree stood in the small front yard flanked by philodendrons along one side of the home.
When O’Brien parked his Jeep and walked across the small, faded limestone blocks, the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine and magnolia blossoms escorted him to the door. He knocked once; and in the dying light, Abby Lawson opened the door and greeted him.
“Sean, I’ve been watching the news,” she said, holding her hands in front of her, fingers locked. “They say two people died … the manager of a self-storage building and the girlfriend of Jason who works on your boat. They also said Jason was kidnapped … is he …?”
“He’s alive. What your grandmother might tell me could keep him that way.”
“Please, come in.”
“I won’t be long.” O’Brien looked at the road beyond the home before entering.
Abby closed the door. “Things are happening at a frightening pace since you found that U-boat.”
“Good evening Mr. O’Brien,” said Glenda Lawson entering the living room. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Mrs. Lawson-”
“Please, dear, call me Glenda. We heard about the deaths of that poor young woman, the kidnapping of her boyfriend and the death of the storage place manager.” She was quiet a moment and said, “This is all happening because of what my Billy saw that night, isn’t it, Mr. O’Brien?”
“I think it might be connected.”
Glenda coughed once, inhaled, a wheezing sound bubbling from her lungs, and said, “Is there anything we can do for you? Please stay for supper.”
“I need to ask you some questions about the night Billy saw the U-boat.”
“Okay, but I must ask you a question first, when was the last time you ate?”
“Yesterday.”
“You look like it. Abby makes the best lasagna you’ll ever have. We just took it out of the oven half hour ago. Please join us.”
“I don’t have a lot of time-”
“Young man, if you have time to talk, you have time to eat, too. I insist.” She turned and went into the kitchen. “Come join us, don’t keep an old woman waiting.”
As Abby served lasagna, warm garlic bread, and salad, O’Brien, who was sitting across the oak table from Glenda, asked, “When your husband told you where the men had buried the cargo, what did he say? You’d mentioned the old Fort Matanzas, remember?”
“I’ve never forgotten it,” Glenda said, looking out through the glass French doors onto her small garden. Holding her gaze on the fireflies floating in the philodendron, she added, “He told me they buried it maybe two hundred feet south of the old Spanish fort. When the light from the St. Augustine lighthouse comes across the fort’s watchtower at the six o’clock position, it shines through the window. Billy said they buried something in the sand along the line of light.”
“Do you know where Billy was standing when he saw the light on the fort?”
“No.”
O’Brien was silent. “Billy told you that when the light from the St. Augustine lighthouse rotates across the fort’s watchtower at the six o’clock position and shines through the window, that’s where something is buried in sand. The watchtower would have at least two openings, observation points, for the light to shine through it. If someone were to position themselves in the general area and walk it until they see the beam from the lighthouse through the observation opening on the south side, maybe-”
“But that area has dramatically changed since 1945. There are million dollar homes through there now.”
“Two things have not changed. The fort has been there for two-hundred-sixty-six years. It hasn’t moved. Neither has the lighthouse, which has been there at least a century. I used to surf fish there. There are no homes on the island, it’s a national park. I’d have to retrace, or try to retrace Billy’s steps that night.”
Glenda said, “His truck, it would have been close to AIA. He’d park off the shoulder, under some palms, and then walk down to the surf to cast his net. He liked to fish in the area because of the inlet. Sometimes Billy would cast directly into the surf. Other times he’d fish the inlet, usually on the north side of the pass.”
“The north side is still undeveloped today. Maybe it’s still there,” O’Brien said.
“Do you think you could find it?” asked Abby.
“I have to try. The kidnappers are holding Jason.”
“I’ll pray,” Abby whispered.
O’Brien said, “They know of the possibility of the remaining uranium hidden somewhere on the beach, maybe Rattlesnake Island, the island where Fort Matanzas is located. The men holding Jason might comb the sand on the island with sophisticated metal detection equipment. The advantage I may have right now is what you’ve told me about the lighthouse, but if you can remember anything else Billy said that night, something might give me another lead.”
“I’m so sorry about the young man,” Glenda said. “Unfortunately, I’ve told you all that my husband told me. He didn’t have a lot of time to get out details.”
“I understand.”
“Maybe you can find it with the information grandma gave you.”
“I don’t know,” Glenda said. “Matanzas doesn’t give up its secrets easily. It’s a beautiful place, but it is a place of suffering and a lot of bloodshed.”
“Matanzas Inlet has quite a horrific past,” Abby said, serving more food. “Not a good story at dinner, horrendous.”
O’Brien nodded. “I remember some of the history.”
“It was where the Spanish, in 1565, slaughtered the French Huguenots.” Glenda’s eyes enlarged. “More than two-hundred-fifty settlers died. The waters of the pass ran red with their blood. Happened at the inlet on Rattlesnake Island. In Spanish, Matanzas means massacre.”
Abby said, “Years later, the fort was built by the Spanish to keep the British from entering the inlet, coming upriver and attacking the back side of St. Augustine.”
O’Brien said, “A few centuries after that, the Germans enter the inlet and, somewhere on the beach, they bury a deadly cargo. Glenda, who investigated Billy’s murder?”
“Let me see … umm … there was a young man, a FBI agent. His name was Robert Miller. Never forgot him. A nice person. Professional, but he had some sort of anxiousness about him I didn’t quite understand.”
“How do you mean?”
“Each time I asked him about the investigation he became more evasive. Finally, he stopped returning my calls. I never heard from him again. In St. Johns County, Sheriff Walker investigated it. He thought Billy was killed by a highway robber. He couldn’t explain why Billy’s truck was abandoned. Sheriff Walker died about twenty years ago. One of his deputies is still alive, I think. Deputy Brad Ford said he had kept the investigation going as long as he worked in the department, about twenty-five years. However, he never found anyone either.”
O’Brien took a bite of food. “What was the general reaction, both on the federal and local levels, when you told them about Billy’s sighting of the German sub and the burying of something on the beach?”
“They were polite but not really interested in talking with me. I never got the chance to tell them what Billy said about the beam of light from the lighthouse. A few days after my call, I was told the Navy dispatched planes but never saw the submarine. Government men said they dug all around Matanzas Inlet but only found turtle eggs buried in the sand.”
“Sean,” said Abby, “my grandfather said that the Japanese men took off running. Grandma, you never heard if the government caught them or what, right?”
“No, I didn’t, and I never saw anything in the papers. Agent Miller told me the FBI never turned up anyone.”
O’Brien was silent. He asked, “Did they do an autopsy on your husband?”
“Told me they did.”
“The newspaper report you showed me when you came to my house indicated Billy had been shot once and, yet, you said you heard three shots.”
Glenda coughed, her eyes
watering. “Yes, and sometimes I still hear them.”
“Did they tell you, or did they know what kind of gun was used to kill Billy?”
“I do remember the FBI telling me it was a.38 caliber bullet that killed him.”
“Would you allow your husband’s body to be exhumed? I’d want to know if he was shot more than once and whether all the bullets were removed from the body.”
Abby bit her lower lip and sipped some wine. Glenda looked beyond the dining room to a framed picture of her husband on the wall. Billy Lawson, dressed in his Army uniform, was smiling. Forever twenty-one. “Okay,” Glenda said. “If you do find evidence of more gunshots, what do we do? What if Billy wasn’t killed by a.38 bullet?”
“Then we find out why Billy’s murder was covered up by the U.S. government.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The Phoenicia restaurant was crowded for a Thursday evening. Mohammed Sharif liked it that way. Easier to blend in with the people-his people, he felt. The scent of garlic chicken, braised lamb, baklawa, and Turkish coffee drifted over the tables. Sharif and Rashid Aamed sat in a back corner of the restaurant, watched a belly dancer, and spoke Arabic in hushed tones. They ate grape leaves with rice and lamb, hummus, and tabouli, and drank a Chateau Musar white wine grown in the Bekaa Valley.
Sharif said, “The Russian, Yuri Volkow, he already has images of the material on the Internet, offered to select dealers who have been vetted for their lists of private buyers. Our dealer has invited us to bid. The bidding is to begin at ten million U.S. dollars. However, they boast more is expected. The person who offers the highest bid for these two will have an even more exclusive first-bid option for the other canisters.”
“It confirms what the old German told us. But the Russians have yet to produce the rest of the canisters,” Aamed said.
“How would they know where more material is anymore than we might? They must know something. It would be information they could only have received from one of the three men who discovered the submarine.”
“The one who was kidnapped, the younger one. No doubt that Volkow extracted information from him.”
