by Tom Lowe
O’Brien was motionless, ignoring the mosquitoes. He watched for the light to return and the dark opening in the tower to shine for a moment. Again it was there. He stepped twenty feet toward the west and stopped. When the beam returned it wasn’t visible from the opening in the tower. He retraced his steps.
“Show me the light,” he said as the lighthouse winked in the distance, sending light through an opening on the tower’s north face to a stone window on the south side.
O’Brien looked at his bare feet and wondered if he might be standing on top of the U-235. Eight canisters of the stuff could turn everything from here to the lighthouse, a distance of fourteen miles, into ashes. He used his right foot to mark an X in the sand and then found a large rock and lifted it onto the center of the X. He fished the cell phone out of his wet pocket and tried to call Dave. The phone was dead.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Forty-five minutes later, O’Brien stepped onto Gibraltar. Max jumped off Dave Collins’ couch in the salon and trotted to the sliding glass door. She whined a note as O’Brien slid open the door.
“Hello, Max,” O’Brien said, stepping inside. She ran around his feet, panting, tail blurring. He picked her up, and she licked his face.
Dave and Nick sat at the bar. CNN news was on the television behind them.
Nick said, “Whoa … you look like you been on a safari in the jungle.”
Dave stood. “How’d it go?”
“I think I’m close to a lot more HEU. Enough to blow Florida in half.”
Dave said, “You look like you could use a cold beer. Plenty in the fridge.”
O’Brien sat in a canvas director’s chair in the salon, Max curling at his feet. He told them the story from his meeting with Glenda and Abby and of his surveillance on Rattlesnake Island. “I feel I was close to that stuff, sort of like the feeling I had before swimming into the sub. Something eerie, but you don’t quite know what.”
“You got that right,” Nick said, lifting his glass in a toast.
Dave said, “So you found an area where the lighthouse beam was actually hitting the back window-you said the north side of the tower and shining through from the south side window, right?”
“Yes. When the light sweeps through the tower and aligns with the front and back opening, it shoots down a narrow, but long path. To find the U-235, if it’s there, you’d have to know where along the path they may have dug the hole. Maybe 200 feet south of the fort.”
“Let the stuff stay there,” Nick said. “An island named after rattlesnakes.”
“If I knew where Billy stood that night, knew what the inlet and the island looked like sixty-seven years ago … it might be easier.”
“This,” Dave said, fixing a fresh drink, “may sound strange to you-”
Nick shook his head. “Nothing we do, from this point, will sound strange to me.”
Dave said. “Have either one of you ever heard of remote viewing.”
“From what I read,” O’Brien said, “it was some kind of ESP used by the military. Some debate over its accuracy.”
Dave grunted. “It depends on the talents of the person doing it. We did tests in the mid-nineties. Bottom line: the person who is doing the remote viewing is using his or her subconscious to locate or find something. Could be a target like a missile silo, maybe some detail of a military base, whatever the individual is trying to locate. Time, space and geography are meaningless, have no bearing, no borders, no walls, if you will.”
“Sounds like psychic stuff,” Nick said
“No, no it’s not. It takes practice with specific techniques and protocols. But the trained viewer sort of taps into a universal mind where all things are allegedly filed, connected, stored in some way … past, present and future. Some people have called it a form of traveling via virtual reality.”
“That’s soul travel,” Nick said.
O’Brien asked skeptically, “So you think this might help us find the buried U-235 canisters?”
“Maybe. But we’d have to find the right person.”
“Plenty of psychics out there … way out there,” Nick said.
“They’re not psychics. They’re people, most of ‘em trained though the Defense Department, who often can get a fix on the location of something … something lost. They sketch the object on a piece of paper.”
O’Brien said, “I’m assuming you know someone with this talent.”
“I do know someone.”
“Time’s our biggest problem.” He looked at his watch. “We have thirty-nine hours to save Jason’s life. How quickly can you contact this remote viewing person?”
“Her name is Anna Sterling. She lives in an old farmhouse in Michigan. If we show her a picture of Fort Matanzas, give her the date Billy Lawson saw the Germans and Japanese bury the stuff, she might give us a location.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Sounds like this woman’s got to tap into the subconscious of a man who’s been long dead, maybe find his spirit.”
“Wrong idea, Nick. Time and space are irrelevant. It’s just how and where the event is floating in the universal filing cabinet, and whether Anna can open that drawer.”
“How do we find her?” O’Brien asked.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Dave Collins called Anna Sterling and told her what was at stake, and what they needed. She agreed to go online and speak with O’Brien via a camera between Dave’s laptop and the camera on Anna’s computer.
As the connection was made, O’Brien thought the woman on the screen looked like Suzanne Sommers. She said, “It’s been a while Dave. The project sounds intriguing. I don’t know if I can give you anything. I’ve had a long day. My brain is firing with more visual noise than I can cap, but for old time’s sake, I’ll give it a go.”
“Great, Anna. This is Sean O’Brien. He’s been to the site. At least where we think the site might be after all these years.”
Nick slid off the barstool and stood between Dave and O’Brien, looking at the screen. Anna asked, “And who is the handsome fella you have hidden behind you?”
Nick grinned and leaned toward the camera. “Nick Cronus … you come to Florida, I give you a boat ride. The ocean helps you see things better.”
“I’ll remember that,” Anna smiled.
Dave said, “We have a link to a picture of Fort Matanzas. I just sent it to you.”
“It’s here,” she said.
“Good. Sean, give Anna what you have.”
“Billy Lawson saw the men bury the material at night, May 19, 1945. We think it’s on a place called Rattlesnake Island. It’s national monument land, and it hasn’t been developed. Before Lawson was killed, he told his wife, a woman named Glenda Lawson, who’s still alive, that the men buried it on the island aligned with the path of light as it shines through the tower. The light comes from the old St. Augustine lighthouse.”
Anna stared at the image on her screen of Fort Matanzas, her eyes burning into the symmetry of the building. She didn’t blink for fifteen seconds. Intent. Concentrating. Then she squinted slightly, like she was seeing something at a great distance. She kept her focus, her body motionless.
Nick took a long pull on a bottle of beer and started to speak, but Dave held up a hand. Anna began sketching then paused, looked into the camera and said, “Give me a half hour. If I can complete something, I’ll scan in my drawing and e-mail it to you.”
“Anna, we really appreciate this.”
“No problem. It’s a lot different from what we did at Langley. I’m going to fix a hot tea and see what the leaves tell me.” She smiled, pressed a button and her image in the box on Dave’s screen went black.
“Tea leaves,” Nick said.
“She’s kidding,” O’Brien said. “Let’s see what the woman can do. Dave, do the intelligence agencies or DOD use anyone like Anna today?”
“I don’t know. The project, called Stargate, closed shop in 1996 amid controversy over costs versus real results. However, A
nna was at the top of the class.”
Nick snorted. “So our government was training people to do this remote stuff?”
Dave sipped his drink. He said, “Some of this goes back to the study of quantum and theoretical physics during the second world war. A guy by the name of Ethan Lyons, who was working on the Manhattan Project at the time, first wrote a paper on Remote Viewing potential. He didn’t call it RV … called it universal perception and did some experiments with subjects drawing sketches of photos he sealed in envelopes. He had a success rate about twenty five percent over the average.”
“That’s impressive,” O’Brien said.
“Ethan Lyons may still be alive. One of the physicists we’d worked with in the beginning on the Stargate Project was Lee Toffler. He’d studied Lyons’ work and added to it. Toffler was a professor who used to work at a nuclear facility in Georgia. I recently read where his only daughter was killed in a car accident. Damn shame. He had raised her by himself.”
“Do you know what became of Lyons after the war?” O’Brien asked.
“Sad story. Arrested by the FBI for selling some of our atomic secrets to the soviets. He did a long stretch in prison. I only know this because I researched it before we hired Toffler as a consultant. He had great admiration for Lyons’ grasp of physics, not so much for his concept of politics and government.”
“How’d they catch him?” O’Brien asked.
“FBI sting. It didn’t take the FBI too long to nail him and others. There were at least two physicists working on the Manhattan Project who sold secrets to the Russians. One of the FBI agents was working undercover, posing as a soviet or communist sympathizer. The agent was acting as a courier, getting the secrets from Lyons and others and then reportedly meeting with Soviet spies.”
O’Brien scratched Max behind the ears. “Do you remember the name of the agent acting as the courier?”
“Not off the bat. I’ll check online.”
“And I’ll check the box for a beer,” Nick said.
Dave put his glasses on, keyed in the names, and began to read the information. “Oh, I remember now that I see it. The agent’s name was Robert Miller. The irony is that Miller went to Harvard the same time Lyons was there. May have been classmates, and he had to bust him. Had to testify against him. Lyons is lucky he wasn’t executed.”
“Did you say Robert Miller?” asked O’Brien.
“Yes, why?”
O’Brien stepped over to the computer and read the name. “Because Glenda Lawson told me that Robert Miller was the young FBI agent who investigated the killing of Billy Lawson. The one who said Lawson died as the result of a mugging … said he died from one bullet. I’m betting an autopsy will prove it didn’t happen that way.”
“Is this FBI guy still alive?” Nick asked.
“Let’s find out,” O’Brien said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
O’Brien spent a few minutes searching online for information about FBI agent Robert Miller. “There’s a brief mention in relation to something called the Venona Project,” O’Brien said. “In 1950 it was a project designed to catch Soviet spies in the U.S.”
“If he’s still alive, wouldn’t take much to find him,” Dave said. “We have two dozen FBI agents here now. I’m sure one of them could locate him or his grave.”
“Let’s not mention to the FBI, yet, what we’ve discovered so far. After what Glenda Lawson told me, we may need access to FBI records, information we might want to corroborate all this. Let’s see what Billy Lawson’s autopsy reveals.”
“Could prove nothing, Sean. FBI files from 1945 should be declassified by now.”
“What does that really mean? Regardless, let’s see what we can find on Ethan Lyons.” O’Brien keyed in Ethan Lyons’ name with dates and data. His eyes scanned the information. “Lyons was released from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut … 1964 after serving eighteen years on four counts of espionage. After his release, he moved to England, taught physics at Cambridge. It says he never publicly apologized for compromising America’s nuclear weapons program. When asked why he provided the Russians with details of our Manhattan Project, Lyons was quoted as saying he didn’t believe America, or any nation, should ever be in a position to dominate the rest of the world by imposing the monopolistic threat of nuclear annihilation. He believed the prospect of mutual destruction would be the safety mechanism the world needed to contain atomic weapons. It says he and his wife, Sarah, moved back to the U.S. in 1996, due to her failing health and the couple’s desire to be with grandchildren. Last known address, Jacksonville, Florida.”
O’Brien stood and looked out Gibraltar’s port window. He watched a shrimp boat leave the marina, the boat’s running lights bleeding white and red over the dark surface.
Dave asked, “What are you thinking, Sean?”
“I’m thinking that if one of J. Edgar Hoover’s agents, Robert Miller, was undercover acting as a courier transferring information to the Soviets … how could he be undercover when he went to the same university, same time, as Ethan Lyons?”
“Doesn’t mean that Miller knew Lyons.”
“No, but there is irony there. Why would Miller say that Billy Lawson was shot in a mugging … shot once, and shot with a.38 caliber bullet?”
“Maybe he was,” Nick said.
“The autopsy will speak for the dead,” O’Brien said.
“If he was shot more than once, and it wasn’t a.38 that killed him, how will you approach that?” Dave asked.
“We find three old men: Ethan Lyons, Robert Miller, and Brad Ford.”
Dave heard the bong of an in-coming e-mail. He said, “Anna’s sent us something.” Dave put on his glasses and read aloud the e-mail. “Gentlemen, this is the best I could get … don’t know if it helps much. I’m seeing the fort and a small embankment. I’ve attached my drawing. It’s rather simple, but the image is, too. I’m not sure if the embankment might be where the stuff is buried, or the spot where Billy Lawson stood to view the things being buried someplace else. Or it could be near the big tree near my stick people.”
“What tree?” O’Brien asked.
Dave continued, “She says … ‘good luck, please let me know what happens, Anna.’ Well, let’s see what she sent us.” Dave opened the attachment. “I wish it was as easy as X marks the spot.”
“Looks like a little kid’s drawing,” Nick said.
Dave chuckled. “They never look polished. Images without a lot of form. With remote viewing there is no coloring between the lines. It’s creating the lines as quickly as you can before the part of the human conscious that’s seeing them is blocked.”
“Gives etch-and-sketch a new meaning,” O’Brien said. “Anna’s drawing looks like stick figures, maybe a big tree … and a shape that could be Fort Matanzas at the top of the island. The tree is gone. I will ask Glenda Lawson if she remembers one on the island.”
Dave said, “Anna’s sketch comes from what the place looked like at the time Billy Lawson viewed it. The island could have changed some in six decades.”
Nick said, “Might be the magic dust is sittin’ under somebody’s house near there. They coulda built right on top of it. And people with mold think they got problems.”
O’Brien said, “Looks like the Germans buried it on the island. Anna’s sketch indicates seven stick figures. Six, I assume, are German and Japanese sailors, the seventh-a mystery man … this is something that could have been a life raft. If we dig in the general area where the figures are on the drawing, we might find something”
Dave hit the print button. O’Brien said, “Here’s our treasure map. Nick, that tool you use to spear flounder may do the trick in the soft sand.”
Dave said, “We should call the federal task force, let them know what we found.”
“We haven’t found anything yet.” O’Brien punched numbers quickly on his cell. Abby Lawson answered. “Abby, sorry to call so late, but can you wake your grandmother?”
“Sh
e’s been asleep for several hours, Sean. You okay? Are you still at Matanzas?”
“No. But, it’s important-I need to ask her something.”
“Hold a sec … I’ll get the phone to her.”
O’Brien looked at his watch: 2:07 a.m. Thirty-eight hours remaining.
“Hello,” Glenda’s voice was like words coming through water.
“Glenda, I know it’s late. But, can you think back to the time you and Billy spent on the beaches of Matanzas Inlet and Rattlesnake Island. Do you remember a large tree on the island?”
“I do, and I remember it because it was the only live oak on that island. Rattlesnake Island had palms, but the live oak, it was big and really old back then, probably saw the massacre of the French. As it was the only oak tree there, I always wondered if it was lonely. The tree was about five blocks from the south end of the island, about half-way to the fort. I believe it was knocked out by a fierce storm”
“Thank you, Glenda.” O’Brien disconnected. “Let’s go.”
“Whoa, where we goin’?” Nick asked.
“Rattlesnake Island.”
Dave said, “Sean, we have to let the task force know. They need to be there.”
“Okay, tell whoever is coming, someone you really trust, to bring a van or truck in case we find this stuff. Nick, let’s tie a zodiac to the Jeep. If we find the canisters, we’ll need to float them to the road. I know this is a stupid question, but anyone got a shovel on his boat?”
Dave shook his head. Nick said, “There’s at least one in that tool shed the dock master has behind the Tiki Bar. He keeps one of those metal detectors locked in there, too. I’ll get the prod and meet you at the tool shed.” Nick left.
