by Tom Lowe
O’Brien skimmed the dinghy across the flats. He was glad to be out on the water, the wind in his face and the warm sun on his back. But Jason Canfield and the fate of the HEU were on his mind, a presence that might as well have been sitting next to him in the rubber Zodiac.
He pulled the little boat alongside the floating Styrofoam ball indelibly marked in black: A-111. The ball had a hole in the center where a quarter-inch rope was knotted. O’Brien leaned over, grabbed the ball, and began pulling the rope, hand-over-hand, into the Zodiac. Max paced the boat, eyes animated with excitement.
He lifted the crab trap over the rubber wall of the Zodiac, set it down, and opened the trapdoor. A large blue crab scurried out. Max almost jumped off the boat. She balanced herself on the rubber side-wall, like a cat on the back of a couch, ears flat, eyes wide. Her barks sounding more like pleas.
O’Brien caught the crab and dropped it into the water. “Come on down, Max.” She did and began sniffing the spot the crab had landed. O’Brien reached in the trap, got the holster and checked it. The Luger was there. He lowered the trap back in the water and started toward the marina.
Dan Grant stood fifteen feet away from the autopsy table and watched Dr. Julia Barnes cut through mummified human tissue and bones, the remains of Billy Lawson. Dan tried not to look at the face, half skeleton and half atrophied tissue resembling tawny leather stretched over exposed cheekbones.
Dr. Barnes examined the fresh MRI transparencies she had taken earlier of Billy Lawson’s body. “I see two objects that aren’t supposed to be there,” she said to Dan as the saw cut through rock-hard tissue, a chemical smell like moth balls in the puff of human dust. She stuck a gloved finger into a small hole in what was left of a concave stomach, similar to a collapsed tent draped over exposed ribbons. She said, “They used a lot of embalming fluid in 1945. I see one entrance wound to the abdomen … one in the chest … and one beneath the left armpit. Three shots and at least two bullets because here’s an exit wound.”
She used a tiny camera attached to a long prod, pushing though the dusty body cavity, her head glancing up at the flat plasma screen for reference.
“There,” she said, “see that?”
Dan stepped closer and looked at the color screen. Buried in the opaque honeycomb of cadaverous, emaciated body parts was a dark object smaller then the tip of his little finger. “Looks like a bullet,” he said.
Dr. Barnes used a long, tweezers-like prong to retrieve the object. Removing the piece of metal from the body, she held it in the light, her eyes studying it. She said, “It’s a bullet. But it’s a most peculiar one at that. It weighs more than most its size. And this is the first time I’ve ever removed a black bullet.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
O’Brien finished tying the Zodiac to the support near Jupiter’s stern when Nick Cronus approached. “I’ll get hot dog,” Nick said, Max’s reflection in his dark sunglasses.
“Thanks.” O’Brien got out of the dinghy and stepped up to the dock.
Nick lifted Max gently and set her on the dock. Immediately, she began stalking a lizard sunbathing on the side of a piling, throat extending like a cherry tomato.
“What’s wrapped in the wet towel?” Nick asked.
“Just got the Luger we left in one of your crab traps.”
“I didn’t leave it there, you did. Number A-111. I never pull up that trap again. I’m leavin’ it on the bottom of the river.”
“Why?”
“That Luger was on one of those skeletons. Now any crab that comes outta that trap is no good. You’ve heard of deviled crab, right?” Nick grinned.
O’Brien smiled. “Have you seen Dave?”
“He left a few minutes ago. A couple of FBI types walked out of Gibraltar, and none looked too happy, especially Dave.”
O’Brien was silent. He looked down the long dock toward the Tiki Bar. A pelican sailed across the dock alighting on the fly bridge of a Grand Banks trawler.
“Was Eric Hunter one of them?”
“Yeah. What are you gonna do with that gun?”
“Right now, I’m taking it with me in the shade, going inside Jupiter until Detective Dan Grant arrives, and that should be any minute. He called me and said they dug two bullets out of Billy Lawson’s body, a man who supposedly died from a single gunshot wound.”
Nick followed O’Brien and Max into Jupiter. “What does all this crazy stuff mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Jupiter moved. Max barked once running toward the cockpit. Detective Dan Grant knelt down to pet her. “Hello, little dog. You haven’t changed much.”
“Come in,” O’Brien said. “You remember Nick Cronus?”
“Of course,” Dan said, extending his hand. “Good to see you.”
“You, too.”
“Nick’s okay,” O’Brien said. “He found that damn U-boat with me. Whatever you can tell me about the autopsy, he can hear.”
Dan nodded. “Not much more to tell you than what I said on the phone. But I wanted to show you what the ME found. Lawson was hit in the chest, the gut, and one slug entered near his left armpit, lodging next to his heart.” He reached inside his sports coat pocket and took out a Ziploc bag with two dark objects in it. Dan stepped to the bar, opened the bag, and carefully set the bullets on the bar top.
“What the hell are those?” Nick asked.
“They’re two of the three bullets that killed Billy Lawson,” Dan said. “But they’re different from any bullets I’ve ever seen. Seems to be from a nine millimeter, but they’re heavy. Definitely not lead or brass. I’d like to see the gun that allegedly shot Lawson.”
O’Brien unfolded the damp towel, opened the holster and slowly removed the Luger, placing it next to the bullets. “Now you have it,” O’Brien said.
“Jesus Christ,” Dan said, letting out a low whistle. “Are you sure?”
“A Luger clip holds eight rounds. I’m betting that, when we remove this clip, we’ll see bullets that match with only four rounds left in the clip. Three used on Billy and one on the guy buried in the hole under the HEU canisters.” O’Brien put the bullets back in the Ziploc, folded the bag, and placed it in his pocket. “Thanks, Dan. Nick, can you keep an eye on Max for a couple of hours?”
“Sure. Where you gonna go?”
“To the man who can take this gun apart and put all the pieces back together again.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
O’Brien was less than half way to the Black Forest Gun Shop when Lauren called his cell. “It took some pretty deep digging,” she said, her voice upbeat, “but we found a couple of a.k.a. names for Yuri Volkow, not that two aliases have much bearing on what’s going on right now.”
“What do you have?”
“Yuri Volkow isn’t his real name, of course. We believe he’s Boris Borshnik, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in1951. He was educated at Moscow State University and did graduate work in theoretical physics at Oxford. He’s fluent in English, Chinese and German. He had a German passport, we discovered, that had his ID listed as Heimlich Schmidt. In Russia, he worked in a number of lower-level Kremlin jobs. He’s suspected of being a player in the hit on Alexander Litvineko. We’ve worked with Scotland Yard, MI-5 and SISMI in Italy.”
O’Brien was silent a moment. “Did this come from CIA files or FBI?”
“What difference does it make? You know everything I told you is classified anyway. Let’s say it’s a combination-all packaged from NSA. So why am I telling you? Maybe it’s because we have just under twenty-five hours to find these jerks before they have their insane version of a Sotheby’s auction. Maybe it has something to do with the fact we have two separate terrorists cells, mujahideen and Russian-probably within a few miles of one another. One has enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb. The other thinks it has a legitimate reason to do so.”
“Who’d you consult, Lauren? I just want to know who in the circle there at the command center knows you’ve been looking under stones.�
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“Mike Gates, of course, Paul Thompson, and Eric Hunter. Dave Collins also was helpful, although in an unofficial capacity. Outside this immediate circle, as you called it, about half dozen analysts, Soviet specialists at Langley and Quantico.”
O’Brien was silent.
Lauren said, “Everything I’m telling you I’ll disavow if I have to. Eric Hunter was questioning me hard about your background. For some reason, you’re on his radar. I don’t know a lot about him. Deep CIA cover I suspect. He looks like he could hide bodies in places they’d never be found. It’s smart to tread around the guy.”
“Thanks, Lauren.” He disconnected and called Maggie Canfield and filled her in with what he knew. He added, “Maggie, remember I’d asked you about Eric Hunter? You said you didn’t know him. But apparently Jason does. I think Jason called this guy.”
“Why? Who is he?”
“I’m not certain. But somehow he befriended Jason, and his number is on Jason’s phone. I believe Hunter is a federal agent.”
“What?”
O'Brien was silent, his mind trying to connect the hidden dots.
"Sean, are you there?"
“Maggie, Hunter is about forty. Maybe six three. A darker shade of blond hair combed back. A small Navy Seal tattoo high on his upper arm. Blue eyes, eyes that never stray when he’s looking at you.”
“That sounds like Wes Rendel.”
“Who’s that?”
“He served with Frank. And he’s a friend of the family, although we don’t see him much. We never know when he’s in town. He just sort of appears. Why is he calling himself Eric Hunter?”
“Maggie, I have to go. I'll call you as soon as something breaks. I'm so sorry this has happened to you and Jason."
“It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice now flat and resolute. "These sick bastards have my son, and all I can do is to pray that God will wrap his arms around Jason and shelter him. Why is this happening to him? He's just a kid.”
“I don't have all the answers, but I think I know how some of this is connected. And if I’m right, I might diffuse it.” O’Brien could hear the television news on in the background. “I’ll bring him back to you, Maggie.”
Her voice was only a whisper, a lost echo in a seashell. “Please, bring him back to me alive.”
There was only one car in the small parking lot of the Black Forest Gun Shop when O’Brien arrived. He got out of his Jeep and walked inside, removing his sunglasses in the low light. A Bavarian cuckoo clock was chiming four times as O’Brien opened and closed the door, a bell on the door handle ringing. No one appeared. The dimly lit store smelled of gun oil, leather, and dark coffee.
There was a long glass case filled with dozens of hand guns, some with hand-carved grips, most in the.38 and 9 mm categories. O’Brien spotted two.44 magnums and one.357 revolver. The wall behind the case was lined with vintage Mauser rifles and shotguns, a small chain laced through the trigger guards.
A door leading to the backroom opened and a man appeared dressed in faded blue jeans, white T-shirt, and red suspenders. Mid-sixties. Shaved round head. Shiny wide face. Thick chest, sausage fingers and a lumberjack’s forearms. A half foot shorter than O’Brien, he looked up through blue eyes deep as the Caribbean Sea. “Can I help you?” he said in an accent right out of Munich.
“Maybe. I came on Detective Dan Grant’s recommendation.”
The man grunted. “I know Grant well.”
O’Brien opened the towel and set the Luger on the glass case.
The man’s eyes instantly filled with delight. “Where did you get that?”
“Bottom of the ocean. Do you think you can restore it?”
The man used a tissue to pick up the gun. He held it under a gooseneck lamp on the counter, carefully turning it over, like a jeweler. His breathing was labored, breaths sounding as if air was being pushed through a wet sponge. He set the pistol on a clean rag, squirted some gun oil on another rag, and began rubbing a light coat of oil over the barrel and stock. “Perhaps I can restore it. I do not know if it will ever fire again, but I might be able to restore it enough for display.”
O’Brien pulled the Ziploc out of his pocket, opened it, and set the bullets on the glass next to the gun. “Can you tell me if these bullets came from that Luger?”
The man’s eyebrows arched. He held one of the bullets in his palm, sniffed it, and said, “This is made out of iron and lead. They called them mit Eisenkern.”
“Iron?”
“Yes, made in Germany at the time of the last war. They were trying to conserve lead, so they made the core of the bullet out of iron encased in a lead jacket. The way they would identify these rounds was the jacket, black as ink.” He worked the oil slowly in and around clip, reached under the counter and laid a leather gunsmith apron on the glass, unfolding it. He used a small wrench and knife to ply the corroded button that controlled the clip. In a few seconds, he leveraged the clip from the pistol grip. He held the clip under the lamp. His voice just above a whisper, “They’re in there like sleeping children. Look.”
O’Brien closed one eye to see the round in the clip. “The jacket is black.”
“Yes, looks like there are four rounds left. Someone fired four.” He looked at the bullets on the glass. “You think these are two of them?”
“I do.”
“Give me a minute.” The man disappeared in the back room and returned with a cigar box. He opened the lid and removed eight bullets. All had black jackets. “These are some I’ve saved, collected, I suppose. They were made for a gun like this. You have a German officer’s gun. The eagle and cross on the bottom … look, you can see it here. Remarkable. I have never found a gun like this, but I did come across nine millimeter parabellum bullets. Parabellum is Latin and it means if you seek peace, prepare for war. Inside that Luger, my friend, during World War II, these bullets were very accurate … had enormous knock-down power. Today, they could shoot right though some bullet-proof vests. They are the black bullets.”
O’Brien lifted one of the rounds off the counter. “How long before you can have the gun cleaned?”
“Give me a full day.”
“Thank you. Here’s my cell number.” O’Brien turned to leave.
“Can I ask you something?”
O’Brien stopped at the door. “Sure.”
“You said you found this in the ocean … can I ask where?”
“On a German U-boat.”
“The one that’s in the news, correct?”
“Right.”
“I knew it! So this Luger came from Hitler’s last sub, Germany’s last mission?”
“Looks that way.”
“This is a very special gun.”
“It probably is the last Luger fired in World War II.”
The man looked down at the gun like it possessed a soul.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
O’Brien started his Jeep and entered Brad Ford’s address into the GPS. As he pulled out of the Black Forest Gun Shop, he called Glenda and Abby Lawson. Abby answered on the first ring. “I’ve got some interesting news,” O’Brien said.
“What’d they find?”
“Your grandfather was shot three times. Just like your grandmother said. The bullets that killed him didn’t come from a.38. They came from a German Luger.”
“Oh my God,” Abby screamed, “Grandma!”
Abby repeated what O’Brien had told her. He could hear Glenda speaking in the background, and then Abby came back on the line. “Grandma had to sit down.”
“Tell her that Billy’s body and casket will be placed back in the grave tomorrow.”
“We can’t thank you enough, Sean. Where do we go from here?”
“The suspect, the guy who actually shot your grandfather, one of the German sailors, has spent the last sixty-seven years in a watery grave. Now I try to find out why the people who investigated the murder wanted it to look like something it wasn’t.”
It took O’Brien less
than an hour to locate the house where Brad Ford lived. The home was 1950s ranch style, shingles long overdue for replacement, and white paint the shade of dinosaur bones, cracked and peeling. Chinch bugs had sucked the life out of the St. Augustine grass, leaving knee-high patches of brown weeds. The home sat under century-old live oaks, each sporting thick branches holding Spanish moss, extended like hand towels. The yard reeked of dog shit and urine.
O’Brien knocked at the door. No response. He knocked a second time, louder. He heard someone stirring inside. A minute later, a man with white hair and tumbleweed eyebrows looked suspiciously through the glass panels.
“Hello, Mr. Ford. My name is Sean O’Brien.”
The door cracked open, a tarnished brass chain visible against the dark room. “What do you want?” The old man’s voice was gruff and strained at the same time.
“I want to ask you a couple of questions about an investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“May I come inside?”
“Show me your badge.”
“I don’t have a badge … PI. I do have a young man who’s being held hostage by some people who have nothing to lose by killing him. Please, can we talk?”
The door opened. “Come in.”
O’Brien walked into a home that smelled like fried eggs and dog food mingling with the odor of a carpet that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Brad Ford was tall, almost O’Brien’s height. Rail thin. Round shoulders. Uncombed white hair. Guarded eyes that squinted in the light entering the room. He looked like a man who’d slept through the last century and was abruptly awakened by a stranger who wanted to know the time.
