by Tom Lowe
“You coming, Dave?” O’Brien asked.
“My service might be more helpful with the task force. I’ll start briefing them on the phone en route to the federal building. Between the old woman’s memory and the images Anna sketched … let’s hope there is something under that sand.”
“We’re about to find out. Max, I’ll see you later.” Max jumped from the couch and stood behind the sliding glass door, watching until she could no longer see O’Brien as he ran down the dock.
CHAPTER SIXTY
O’Brien pulled the Jeep off the road right before the Matanzas Inlet Bridge, drove down an embankment and across fifty yards of sand to the inlet. The moon was now higher, a pastel mist lying low over the pass like flat smoke from a smoldering campfire.
“How close can you get?” Nick asked.
“Close as I can. Let’s unload the Zodiac, grab the flashlights and shovels. We’ll put the boat in the water next to the bridge piling. Looks like an in-coming tide. That’s good. Less fight to get the inflatable to the island.”
They pulled up on the island’s sandy beach and got out. Nick said, “Rattlesnake Island. You never said how this place got its name?”
“I always heard that when they were dredging the Intracoastal on the other side of the island, the men would take a break and bring their bagged lunches to the island to eat. Place was so full of rattlesnakes it was difficult to find a safe spot.”
“Damn,” Nick said, shining the flashlight around him. “Any snakes still left in here? Sure are plenty of sand fleas. Little shits are crawlin’ in my hair.”
O’Brien looked at the crude sketch Anna Sterling drew. “I hope she’s accurate … for Jason’s sake. Maybe what Billy Lawson saw is still here.”
“How much time do we have?”
O’Brien looked at his watch. “A little over thirty-six hours. Let’s find this stuff. Glenda Lawson said the old tree was on the island.” O’Brien slowly panned the flashlight from the beach to the interior. He looked at the drawing and back up at the terrain. A fat raccoon waddled between the mangrove bushes. O’Brien stared at the south end of the island.
“If Billy Lawson stood somewhere in here out of sight, watching the Germans unload their stuff not far from where our raft is … they walked inland a little piece … and Billy saw the rotation of the lighthouse … the beam illuminating the window in the old watchtower ….” O’Brien kept moving, Nick following silently. “He said it was in the path of light coming through the opening in the tower. Then, right here, we’re in the same path, the same trajectory that Billy apparently saw. Now, if we take the drawing that Anna sketched and walk about to where Glenda says the live oak was, maybe two hundred feet south of the fort … what will we find?”
O’Brien stepped through the sand and palmetto bushes, looking back and ahead, keeping in the path of the light from the tower. “Then,” he said, gesturing west, “the big oak would have been here to our left … and just maybe …”
O’Brien aimed the light toward a slight bowl-shaped indentation in the undergrowth. He said, “If a large oak was ripped out during a hurricane, there would be a big root ball. Through the years, the plants that grew from a hole deeper than the surrounding ground would be shorter than those around them.”
Nick said, “This is like tracking Mother Nature.”
“Let’s use the metal prod and see if we can get lucky.”
“I’ll start in one part and work around ‘till I’ve covered the area.” He stuck the prod in the sand, using his weight to work the point deep into the soil. Nothing. He tried again in an area about five feet to the east. Nothing. He slapped at biting sand fleas and mosquitoes and said, “I’m gonna use the treasure finder.”
O’Brien picked up the prod and began working it into the sandy soil. He looked toward the watchtower, the light now like a firefly in the misty air. After several prods and in keeping an eye on the rotation of the light coming through the tower, he worked his way closer to the beach, “Bring that thing over here, Nick. Think I found something.”
Nick moved the metal detector just above the surface where O’Brien pointed. “Not a peep,” Nick said.
O’Brien picked up a shovel and removed a few large scoops of sand. “Try again.”
As Nick moved the detector over the hole, there was a faint beep … beep. “Pay dirt! Lemme help you.” He took the shovel and started digging. Within a minute, Nick hit something. It was metal clashing against metal, the dull sound of iron against an anvil. Nick dropped to his knees. “Hit me with the light!” O’Brien pointed the flashlight beam into the hole as Nick scooped out the sand with his hands. “We found it! We fuckin’ found the rest of the magic dust!” Nick used both hands to brush the sand from one canister, reaching in, struggling to lift it from the hole.
Within twenty minutes of intense digging and prying, they had removed eight canisters from the hole. “Hand me the prod,” Nick said. After a few more stabs through the sand, Nick hit something. He dropped back to his knees and, again, began moving the loose sand with his hands. “This one doesn’t feel like a canister. Hit me with some light.” O’Brien aimed the light where Nick dug. “Mother Mary!” Nick shouted, dropping the object and making the sign of the cross.
The vacant eye sockets of a human skull stared up from the bottom of the pit.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
O’Brien called Dave Collins. “We found them. We’re pulling them out of a hole on Rattlesnake Island about eighty yards north of the Matanzas Bridge.”
“Excellent. We’ll send agents. Mike Gates doesn’t want to alert the locals. He doesn’t want a lot of blue lights flashing or media getting wind of the pick up. It’s too dangerous. Couple guys he’s sending are bomb experts.”
“Dave, these aren’t bombs. They’re the fuel for bombs.”
“FBI folks have their way of doing things.”
“Maybe they have their own medical examiner.”
“You found a body?”
“Buried under the canisters.”
“State of decomposition?”
“Sixty-seven years. Picked clean.”
“We’ll send some people.”
“The vic’s probably what’s left of the German sailor Billy Lawson saw shot. They must have tossed him in the hole and buried him with the HEU.”
Andrei Keltzin and Zakhar Sorokin received the call as they were entering the parking lot of a Waffle House. Keltzin answered. In Russian, the voice said, “They are leaving now. Coming south from Washington Oaks. Destination … Bank of America at the corner of Beach and Oakridge in Daytona.”
“How many?”
“Four. One vehicle. Dark blue, Ford van. Tag … J79K1S5.”
“Very good.” Keltzin disconnected and drove slowly around the parking lot. At 5:00 a.m. there were only three cars in the lot, and one was a Florida Highway Patrol car. Keltzin said, “I see two officers at the counter paying their check. Do you think they know it was their last meal?”
Sorokin smiled. “I hope to keep blood off the uniforms.”
Three FBI agents handled the canisters like they were touching fully rigged nuclear bombs. They carefully loaded them in the back of a dark non-descript van they’d parked beside O’Brien’s Jeep. When the final canister was braced in the reinforced crate, Special Agent Bridges said, “We’ll get these into a secure area. Task force wants them stored in a bank vault. They’ve made arrangements to have the Bank of America opened tonight by the manager.”
“What are the plans for the dummy transfer?” O’Brien asked. “We have less than thirty-five hours.”
“Gates wants to extend the window as long as possible to give us more time to find where these unsubs are.”
A second van pulled near the first FBI vehicle. Two men got out, their dark windbreakers marked in bold white letters: FBI. They removed a gurney and body bag from the van. One asked, “Where’s the body?”
“Nothing left but bones,” Nick said, glancing toward the island.
O’Brien said, “Take our Zodiac. You can’t miss the hole. It’s about half way up the island. I left a shovel stuck in the sand, vertical. You’ll see it.”
“Appreciate that,” said the agent. They boarded the Zodiac with their gear and headed through the pass toward Rattlesnake Island.
The other four agents got into their van. The driver, Agent Bridges, lowered his window and followed the men in the Zodiac with his eyes before locking them on O’Brien. He said, “You guys made a hellava find over there. Nice bit of police work; we’ll take it from here.”
“How about if we follow you to the bank? You might need more back-up.”
The agent glanced at Nick, looked at O’Brien, and shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. Orders from the top.”
“I need to be there for the transfer,” O’Brien said. “Their hostage is my employee. More than that, he’s the son of my close friend.”
“I understand. Take it up with Gates. We’re the messengers and right now, the delivery wagon. Why don’t you guys get some sleep?” He put the van in reverse, turned around, and headed south down highway A1A.
The blue van passed by Marineland, which was closed and dark except for a few security lights catching the acrobatics of bats. The FBI agents continued south through Washington Oaks and drove the highway hugging the beach, the moon reflecting off the breakers. Agent Bridges pushed the van to seventy-five miles-per-hour. He glanced up in his rearview mirror. Blue lights. “Shit!” he said.
“What’s wrong?” an agent in the back seat asked.
“We’ve got the locals pulling us over for speeding.”
“Probably one of the Barney Fifes looking to make his quota.”
“It’s the end of the month,” said the agent sitting on the front passenger side. “These guys have to make the town’s budget.”
“Yeah, but not on our time,” said Agent Bridges. He pulled over, lowered his window and waited. In the side mirror, he watched as the state trooper got out of the car, the strobe of blue lights crossing A1A and fading against the dark sea, the sound of the waves breaking over sand illuminated by the moon.
The trooper stepped to the window. “Sir, is there a reason you’re speeding?”
Agent Bridges said, “We’re FBI heading into Daytona in an emergency status.” He handed his ID to the trooper. The agent in the passenger side noticed something in his side-view mirror. He sat up, lowering his window. The trooper holding Agent Bridges’ ID, handed it back and said, “We’d be happy, sir, to offer an escort under blue light.”
“No thanks,” Agent Bridges said, placing his ID back in his pocket. He never made it. A nine millimeter bullet entered his right temple and exploded blood and brain matter on the agent in the passenger side. The side panel doors jerked open. The two agents in the back seat hit with 12-gauge buckshot to their chests. The agent in the front passenger seat had just cleared his gun when a bullet entered his neck, shattering the spinal column. He was still alive as his door was opened, strong hands pulling him out, dragging him to a canal. He was thrown down an embankment, the water covering his face, the flash of blue lights fading to black as he sank in the dark water.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Eric Hunter stood at the end of the Sunglow Pier on Daytona Beach and watched the pink glow of a newborn sun yawning over the Atlantic. It was 5:45.a.m. He thought about the phone call he was going to make. They wanted him to wait until the sun was up: 6:15 a.m. Make the call from the beach. Wear a red shirt, they’d instructed. No hat. No sunglasses. Come alone. Hunter watched an auburn sky in the east slip into a burgundy scarf wrapped above an indigo sea. A pelican sailed low across the water, flapping its wings only when it had reached the breakers.
Hunter walked down the old wooden pier behind a lone fisherman with a four-day growth of salt and pepper whiskers. The man stopped and threaded a shrimp on a hook. A cigarette dangled from his lips. To concentrate on what he was doing, he cocked his head and closed one eyelid to keep out the smoke. He cast the line, propped a foot on the rail, and opened the lid on a steaming cup of black coffee. He sipped and nodded as Hunter passed.
Two people sat in Crabby Joe’s Restaurant, a restaurant built on the pier, about one hundred feet from the entrance. Hunter could smell the eggs, grits, fried whiting and fresh coffee. He walked through the open-air restaurant and over* to the steps leading from the beginning of the pier to the beach directly below it. The sun broke over the ocean, bathing the beach in a hue of copper off the water. As Hunter walked across the dunes, he knew a Volusia County beach webcam would pick up his image. The camera, mounted atop a concrete utility pole, fed a live picture of Daytona Beach to the Internet. Beachgoers and surfers logged on to check weather and surf.
Hunter knew one man watching was not a surfer. He was a killer, and he would be watching Hunter’s every move. When he got in the area that he thought was about the center of the image picked up by the camera, he took out his cell phone and sat on the sand. Then he waited for the phone to ring.
Mohammed Sharif watched Hunter on the computer screen twenty miles away. He sat in the posh hotel room with Rashid Aamed and Abdul-Hakim, each man on the opposite side of the computer screen. Sharif said, “He appears to be alone, at least from this angle. No one else on that part of the beach except an old man walking.”
“I still do not trust him.” Aamed said. “He has not proven himself enough.”
“He’s an American. He can never prove himself,” said Sharif, “which means you can never trust him. You can only use the infidel for Allah’s wishes. We extract information once more, he comes to collect the money, and you cut his throat.”
Aamed smiled. “Inshallad. It would be an honor.”
Sharif dialed his cell phone. “It appears to be a nice morning on the beach.”
Hunter said into his cell, “It’s a beautiful day on the world’s most famous beach.”
Sharif’s lips curled into a smile, his marble-black eyes watching the live picture of Eric Hunter. He asked, “What can you tell me?”
“The remaining material was found and then captured by someone.”
“Who?”
“I thought you might have that information.”
“Why would I know this?”
“Because you’re a buyer”
“How do you know whoever stole the HEU is a seller?”
“Because these people believe they own the uranium-think they bought it once and they can sell it.”
“How did the thieves accomplish this?”
“Somehow they knew we’d found the HEU, and their men were disguised as state police. They killed four of our agents and two state troopers.”
“How did the men who stole the HEU know your men had found more of it?”
“I thought you might have a suggestion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone, one of our people, must have tipped them off.”
“Perhaps you have another mole … one besides yourself. Americans, there is no badge of honor among thieves.”
Hunter glanced toward the camera mounted on the pole. “You need the HEU. I need information. If you are working with someone else, fuck off.”
“If I was employing one of your agents, why would I tell you?”
“Because you’d want me to kill him. He’d be a double agent. And that means he’s smarter than us and a hell of a lot smarter than you, because he’s managed to fool whoever stole the HEU and you.”
Sharif was silent a long moment. Then he leaned closer to the computer screen. “How do I know what you tell me is true?”
“It will be all over the news. When four FBI agents are killed, it’s big news.”
“How many canisters total?”
“Ten. Two from the sub and eight taken from a remote area on the beach.”
“That is all of the cargo on the submarine when it left Kiel, Germany, correct?”
“Yes. Look, Mohammed, these men are holding a kid.”
&
nbsp; “There is no guarantee that the sellers will contact us, and if they do, there is no assurance I will be the highest bidder.”
“Maybe you can bid as an option, or you can simply take it. Regardless, I want a guarantee the kid isn’t harmed.”
“What do you mean, simply take it?”
“There was a transmitter in the FBI van they stole. It’s hidden so deep they’d have to be a mechanic to find it. We know where it is.”
“Where?”
“Who’s the mole?”
“If you tell me where the van is, there is no guarantee the HEU is still in it.”
“Yes it is.”
“How?”
“Because one of our agents took a canister from the hole we’d dug and glued a microchip tracker near the screw cap, looks like a big thermos bottle. We ran a quick analysis on HEU inside a canister. Ninety percent pure. God love the Germans, eh.”
“Where is the HEU?”
“Three conditions if I tell you: one is you don’t harm the kid, you give me the ID of the person who can compromise us both, and you confirm for me who’s the mastermind behind the theft of the HEU.”
“How would I know who stole this material?”
“Because we know the first two canisters are up for auction, with a possibility of the highest bidder getting the rest if the U-235 canisters are located. Now, they’re found, and you’re one of the bidders.”
“Perhaps I am. Although we have done business together, I cannot trust you.”
“No, and I can’t trust you either. You do know that if you divulged my association with you, I will be killed. Give me the name!”
“What if there is no other contact … no other mole? What then, Hunter?”
“Then our business is finished. Find the HEU yourself.”
“And, if I told you I know the name of the man who found the HEU in the sand, what would that mean to you?”
