The Black Bullet (Sean O'Brien mystery/thriller)

by Tom Lowe

  “Why?”

  “Because FBI agent Robert Miller never died. He’s alive and we’re working on a story about the Manhattan Project, we thought Lyons might share his remembrances.”

  “He might not have anything to say.”

  “Possible. But he’s in his mid-to-late eighties. If he thinks Miller is alive and well, there could be some smoldering animosity inside Lyon’s gut. He may want to talk.”

  “Hold on, Sean. I’m pulling his address up now … just a sec … it’s 5740 Cardinal Circle in St. Cloud, Florida.”

  “Thanks.” O’Brien disconnected.

  ***

  DAVE COLLINS ALMOST DIDN’T answer his cell phone. He didn’t recognize the number. On the fourth ring he answered. It was Eric Hunter. “Dave, we need to talk.”

  “Okay. What’s this about?”

  “Sean O’Brien.”

  “What about Sean?”

  “Not on the phone.”

  “Is he on his boat or back at his river house?”

  “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Don’t know. Look, Eric—”

  “We’ll be on your boat in a half hour.”

  “Who’s we—“

  Hunter was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  O’Brien parked near a large banyan tree adjacent to a city park and a lake. He could see the old man standing next to the water’s edge on a peninsula-strip of land that jutted into the lake like a large thumb.

  O’Brien kept his eyes on the man who was feeding ducks pieces of bread. As O’Brien got closer, he could hear the quacking that the ducks made each time the man tossed a sliver of bread onto the water’s surface.

  Ethan Lyons looked up when O’Brien approached. He wore thick glasses, his face withered from age and sun. He wore a baseball cap with the NASA logo on it, and beneath it protruded pieces of thin white hair that resembled broken cobwebs floating in the breeze.

  “Do you have enough bread for all of them?” O’Brien asked.

  “Hope so. I try to scatter it pretty well so the little ones get some, too.”

  “I’m Sean O’Brien. I appreciate you agreeing to meet with me.”

  “Your editor said you wanted to talk about Robert Miller.”

  “Yes, we’re trying to get a little more background information. After all these years, his life will make a good story. I understand he played a principal role in your conviction. Can you paint a picture of those times? How’d Agent Miller catch you?”

  “Let’s sit on the bench behind me. My legs aren’t so good anymore.” Lyons threw the remaining pieces of bread to the ducks and sat down. O’Brien sat a few feet away from him. The old man’s eyes looked toward the lake, following a small sailboat on the horizon. “All these years, I thought he was dead. Not that I feel angry he’s alive, if that makes sense.”

  “I understand.”

  Lyons sighed then inhaled though his nose like the breeze across the lake would clear his sinuses. He began slowly, voice throaty, a strained whisper. “During the war, Russia was our partner … part of the Allies fighting an enemy of diabolical cleverness and resourcefulness. I was young, saw the world through rose-colored glasses. At first I had no intention of selling or sharing our Los Alamos diary, if you will, to Russia.”

  “What happened?”

  “Bob Miller, happened, that’s what. He said he remembered me from Harvard. Met me a few times for a beer. I didn’t make much money working for the government. He always had money, and he was a G-man. We had lots of evenings, not only me, but other physicists … we gathered with Miller talking about philosophy, drinking, and trying to make sense of the times. We worked hard to try to beat Germany or Japan to the punch with atomic weapons. But I never liked the fact that America would have all of these world-annihilation eggs in its basket alone. Neither did Miller. When Robert Oppenheimer, he was in charge of the Manhattan Project, saw the first test in the desert, I remember him saying “Now, we become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He said it was a quote from a Hindu scripture. Anyway, Bob Miller said we didn’t have to provide the Russians with every detail, only such things as our capacity for U-235 production on a monthly basis, plutonium levels and so on. We could give them just enough to let their scientists figure it out, thought it was a fair way to usher in this very dangerous new weaponry. We didn’t want to see something happen in America like what we’d just witnessed in Germany … power-hungry politician turned dictator, tyrant and killer. So it made sense to bridge the gap with the Russians, our allies, so they could develop their own atomic bombs ensuring that we, or no one else, would use them.”

  Lyons raised his disheveled eyebrows and turned his body toward O’Brien, his fingers splayed on his knees. “Bob Miller always laughed and called it mutually-assured destruction, and that’s what it was.”

  “How did he work as a courier to take the information from you to the Russians?”

  “We’ll, he’d meet me in a bar or its parking lot. I’d give him an envelope, whatever information they were asking for—”

  “Such as?”

  “Let me think. They wanted to know about such things as fission burn rates, compression, and production methods of centrifuge.”

  “How much did you make?”

  “Not as much as I was promised. I had a new wife. We needed the money desperately. Bob said the Russians would pay five-thousand dollars for information I delivered twice a month.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Varied. Sometimes I got around a thousand for each delivery, sometimes less.”

  “Where was the rest of the money?”

  “Good question. Bob told me the Russians were starved for cash, they had a hard time converting to the dollar and I was lucky to get what I received.”

  “Do you know who he was working with in Russia?”

  “Wasn’t somebody in the Kremlin, at least not directly. Was a Russian spy named Ivan Borshnik. I didn’t know it at the time, the Soviet counterpart was always Mr. X. But, during his trial, he said he’d paid Bob more than a half-million dollars for the information. Our government said that was a lie. Hoover called it a joke, but I don’t know. Why would Borshnik have lied about the amount? America’s security was compromised.”

  “Do you think Miller took a cut of the money?”

  “I do. People like Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass went to jail. But Bob Miller, who was the one who arranged the meetings on both sides, he was dealing in cash. His hand could have been in the till.”

  “Why couldn’t you just quit?”

  “Because Miller said he’d turn me in, report everything, and I’d be looking at the electric chair. He was the one who kept extracting information, coming back for more water after the well was dry. I’d given out and given up.”

  “No one could help you?”

  “The FBI. Hoover, G-men everywhere. I tried telling my side of the story, but no one in any position believed me. Miller said he’d ask for prison time rather than the electric chair if I shut my mouth. I did. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg didn’t, and they were electrocuted. The Russian, Borshnik, followed them.”

  O’Brien watched a mother duck lead three ducklings across the lake. “Did Miller ever contact you in prison?”

  “No.”

  O’Brien was silent.

  “Put this in your story: tell the people we might have won the war, but in the long run, we lost the battle. Not just America, but mankind. I’m not bitter with Bob Miller, not anymore. I’m angry with myself. You know the worst part Mr. O’Brien?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m one of the apocalyptic bastards that delivered Armageddon to Earth, and one day we’ll open the package on a global scale.”

  ***

  AS O’BRIEN DROVE EAST on State Road 46, his cell rang. “Mr. O’Brien,” said the man in a slight German accent, “I have restored the Luger. It is a beautiful gun. You can pick it up anytime you like.”

&nbs
p; “How late are you open?”

  “Until seven.”

  “I’ll have the police pick it up.”

  “The police? Why?”

  “It may be a murder weapon.”

  O’Brien called Detective Dan Grant. “Can we do a ballistics test?”

  “What are we testing?”

  “That German Luger. Last time it would have been fired was 1945.”

  “I can’t wait to test it.”

  “It’s at the gun shop you recommended, restored. Ready to be fired. Please pick it up, Dan, and test it with one of the black bullets the gun shop owner has.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  It was about 5:45 p.m. when Eric Hunter arrived at Gibraltar with Lauren Miles and Senior Special Agent Mike Gates. They got to the point quickly with Hunter leading the questions. “How much of Sean O’Brien’s history do you know?”

  “What I’ve told you,” Dave Collins said, speaking in a measured tone, holding back any animation in voice or body. “He was an extraordinary homicide detective with Miami-Dade. Married for a few years until cancer took his wife. Did a couple of tours of duty in the Middle East. Delta Force. Guy can swim like a dolphin.”

  Mike Gates said, “You know anything about his background in Pakistan?”

  “Pakistan? No.”

  “He was so covert, even we had a hard time getting our hands on everything he did, primarily because after the service he stayed over there.”

  “So, what the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Come on Dave,” Hunter said, “you were in the Agency too long not to be curious as to why a guy, top of his class, trained to be the best-of-the-best, doesn’t come home after a long tour of duty and re-connect with friends … family.”

  “His parents are dead. Raised by an uncle who is dead. No siblings. He hadn’t met his wife yet. Not a lot to re-connect to.” Dave turned to Lauren. “You know Sean well. What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t know, Dave, some things have come up.”

  “What things?”

  “Bad things,” Gates said. “We believe O’Brien worked as a mercenary, a hired gun, if you will, ostensibly for the Trident Company. They’re a multi-national corporation primarily hired by companies like Halliburton, Shell and others to keep the peace, to make sure their workers aren’t hurt in those global hotspots they do business.”

  Hunter added, “O’Brien was in and around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for three months, unaccounted for.”

  “Says who?” Dave fired back.

  “Says the top people he reported to at Trident.”

  “You can’t rely on that, and you know it. If a contract employee goes MIA, they either don’t acknowledge he was on the payroll or certainly don’t broadcast his last whereabouts. I’m going to need more than that.”

  “Okay,” Gates said, pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes heavy with fatigue. “We believe O’Brien was recruited or sold his expertise to supply terrorists groups along the Afghan border with U.S. troop information, movements, insurgent levels, whatever— we don’t believe he ever fully left their payroll when his services were up.”

  “So,” said Dave, weariness and anger in his voice, “O’Brien hung up his Soldier-of-Fortune card and decided to become a Miami cop to gain a little respectability all the while hanging out as a plant or a homegrown G.I. Joe sleeper cell just waiting to spring a big ol’ nine-eleven again.”

  “Something like that, my friend,” Gates mocked, “but this time he was springing weapons-grade uranium from a German U-boat and finding the stuff buried on the fucking island. Come on, pal. Nobody’s that good! We think he’s in a position to make it look like an innocent find while he was working with Mohammed Sharif, probably getting a huge ‘finder’s fee,’ and then along comes a badass Russian weapons broker who’s screwed up the big plans and is as mercenary as O’Brien. So now O’Brien has a big dilemma … he’s got to find a way to retrieve the HEU, and do it while acting like his goal is to keep alive a kid who he could care less about saving. Like I say, nobody’s that good. O’Brien has stepped in shit no al Qaeda camp could have prepared him to handle.”

  “That good?” Dave raised his voice. “He’s that unfortunate! Training camp? For crying out loud, Sean’s not a terrorist anymore than he’s a treasure hunter. That stuff has been hidden out there for decades. To find the remaining canisters on the island, he used the directions a dying man gave his wife in 1945, and I tapped in an old friend, someone with Remote Viewing talents, to help. Between the two, we came close enough for Sean and Nick to use a magnetometer to get a hit. O’Brien gave you guys the goods to use as a bargaining chip for a kid’s life. You lost it. Now you’re blaming him for being too good at what he does!”

  No one spoke. The only sound came from the breeze causing the spinnaker rigging to clink against the mast of a sailboat across the dock.

  “What is it he does?” Gates asked.

  “He finds things … he finds people … dead or alive. And that’s what you and your fucking task force should be doing up there in that great big command center right now rather than pointing fingers at O’Brien.”

  Hunter stepped to Gibraltar’s open sliding glass doors. He turned back to Dave and said, “Mohammed Sharif admitted he had O’Brien on the payroll.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because we cut a deal with him.”

  “What deal?”

  “Offered him the location of the HEU in exchange for the name of the person we suspected might be an agent or even a double agent.”

  “Do you know the location of the HEU?”

  “No, but Sharif doesn’t know that yet. He named O’Brien.”

  “Bullshit! Told who?”

  “Me.”

  “That’s interesting, Eric, because O’Brien is suspect of you and your motives.”

  “Of course he is. Deflect suspicions to anyone he thinks could get in his way.”

  Dave said nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” Lauren said.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Dave.

  Gates said, “Bring O’Brien to the command center.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to capture or kill as many as we can—Islamic extremists or Russians that are part of this power play. They’re all terrorists on American soil. The deal we cut is to have Mohammed and his fanatics go to where Yuri Volkow and his group are hunkered down with the HEU. If we can lead him to the location, we’ll have the perimeter surrounded with the best snipers we have. We know that Mohammed will try to take out Volkow. All we have to do is make sure, when the smoke clears, we take no prisoners. Then we’ll secure the HEU for disposal. We get two for one.”

  “You think this is some kind of a fucking video game!” Dave yelled. “You can’t predict what’s going to happen, if anything. In the meantime, the Russians are going to hold an international auction.”

  “Bring O’Brien to us,” Gates said.

  “Why should I?”

  “To alleviate suspicion on his part. We can arrest him—charge him as an enemy combatant. Try him in a military tribunal. I think you know the outcome of that. Or we can send him to fight for Jason Canfield’s life, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means O’Brien, the traitor who finds things, can find his own way out.”

  “Or it means he gets caught in friendly fire and your team takes him out.”

  “Either way,” said Gates, “he has a better chance than facing a tribunal.”

  Lauren said, “That’s murder!”

  “And this is war! Nobody likes it,” Gates barked. “But O’Brien made these choices. He can take his chances. He could come out alive.”

  “Maybe,” Dave said, “or Sean and Jason will both be hit with so many rounds you won’t even recognize their bodies.”

  “Don’t get an overactive imagination,” Gates said. “Bring him in at eight tomorrow morni
ng or we go find him.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Detective Dan Grant loaded eight black bullets into the clip and slid it in the Luger. He was in the Volusia County Sheriff’s forensics lab in a room where a steel-lined, three-hundred gallon water filled tank sat in front of him. Grant called O’Brien and said, “I’m about to fire one of the black bullets through the Luger. If this thing blows in my face, tell my wife I didn’t commit suicide.”

  “It’ll fire,” O’Brien said. “I have faith in the old German gun shop owner.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Grant pointed the barrel toward the center of the tank and squeezed the trigger.

  The water exploded. “Bull’s-eye!” Grant said. “Hold on, Sean.” He set the Luger and phone on a table and then used a net on a long handle to retrieve the bullet. He picked up the phone and said, “The bullet’s a heavy sucker. We’ll compare it to the one removed from Billy Lawson. Just eyeballing it, I can tell it’s a match. I’ve never seen bullets like these.”

  “The Germans were resourceful. How quickly can you compare the bullets?”

  “Joe ought to nail this one without much trouble. Where are you going to be?”

  “South of you.”

  “Okay, so that would be where?”

  “Hopefully, with the guy who knew about these black bullets sixty-seven years ago.”

  ***

  DAVE COLLINS WAITED AT LEAST TEN minutes after they left his boat before he called O’Brien. He climbed up to the fly bridge and used his cell. “Sean, where are you?”

  “Heading to the location south of you.”

  “You managed to do what few people, at least people in this country, do … you’re wanted by every government intelligence agency at the same time.”

  “Should I feel honored or paranoid?”

  “They want me to bring you into their command post where, for all practical purposes, you’d be a sacrificial lamb.” Dave told O’Brien everything that was said on his boat and he added, “We need to come up with a plan.”

  “I may have one.”

  “I’m listening.”