The Black Bullet (Sean O'Brien 1) Read online

  O’Brien scrolled to the next number, memorizing it before returning the phone.

  Dave handed Jason a bottled water and O’Brien a Corona.

  Jason said, “I’m really sorry. I did something I shouldn’t have. I wish I could take it back or make it up to you. If you want to fire me, Sean, I understand. I deserve it.”

  O’Brien was silent. Max trotted over to Jason and he rubbed her head.

  O’Brien said, “You’re right. I should fire you. But I won’t. You’re a young guy who made an old mistake. You let your small head think for you.”

  Dave grunted, “A mistake like that, Jason, can easily get you killed. This is a hell of a breach—”

  “I’m sorry, Sean,” Jason mumbled, blinking back tears.

  O’Brien looked at Jason a long moment. He felt compassion for the kid—a young man who took his mistakes to heart. “I hope you’ve learned a lesson.”

  “I have. I swear.”

  “Call your mom. Tell her what’s happening before she sees the news.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll get through this. You’ll have something to tell your grandkids in a few decades. In the meantime, we need to think through how to minimize the risks.”

  Jason tried to smile. Max sat at his feet, her eyes half closed.

  O’Brien added, “We need to get Nick in here so that all of us can talk about what to do next. We’ve got to form a plan.”

  Dave grunted. “This is about to get way out of our control.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Nick Cronus stood in Dave Collins’ galley and poured himself a tall glass of Ouzo. He said, “Never in my life have I ever wanted to slap a woman. They are God’s most special creations. I give her a compliment. But she kept askin’ me questions, even after I said there was nothing I could say.” Nick walked up the two steps from the galley to the salon and sat in a canvas director’s chair with the words ‘Key West, FL’ on the back. He leaned over and scratched Max’s head, her tail thumping.

  Dave said, “This Susan Schulman is on a mission, no doubt.”

  Jason looked at his watch. “News will be on in an hour. I don’t want to watch my stuttering face on TV.”

  O’Brien peered out of an open slat in the blinds. “I see their satellite news truck in the parking lot. The other TV stations, the papers, and the national news, will be here soon. We have to plan for that and deal with it the best we can.”

  “So what we gonna do?” Nick asked. “Just tell ‘em where the ghost sub is and let’s go on and let our lives get back to normal.

  Dave said, “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why?” Nick asked.

  “Because the ghost sub, as you so aptly put it, is indeed a ghost sub.”

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked.

  “It’s a phantom. Officially, it doesn’t exist. You gents opened Pandora’s Box. Now the evil genie is out. The German U-boat 236 has no documentation in unclassified U.S. war documents. It seems that somebody didn’t want a record of it. Sean and I are working on a time-line. We’re not sure exactly when the sub you found was sunk. Probably May 19, 1945. The same day an eyewitness spotted it from Matanzas Inlet. He saw men leave the sub in a life raft and bury something on the beach. Perhaps more of the uranium canisters. I did some digging, spoke with an old contact in Germany. The manifest on file in Germany from U-boat 236 indicates there were ten canisters of U-235 on board. You spotted two. Maybe the other eight were buried that night on the beach.”

  O’Brien said, “The eyewitness Dave mentioned was an American not much older than you, Jason. He was shot and killed after he reported the presence of the sub and a party of four German sailors and two Japanese men burying something in the sand. This man saw one of the Germans shoot another. He said a man, maybe an American, came out of the bushes that night and met them.”

  “The FBI and Navy,” Dave said, standing, “have no unclassified record of the sub’s existence. Why? Because they took down a sub with nuclear material on it, and they never found it. This was almost the twelfth hour before the dawn of the nuclear age. With the race to see who was going to make the bomb first, the least amount of information out there, less chance for a leak or to cause a breach. The other reason could have been connected to the shooting death of the young man or the mystery man who met them. I hope you now understand you have to be quiet about his. No more information to anyone. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I understand … I won’t say a word,” Jason said.

  Nick’s eyebrows arched. “I hope our guys didn’t kill the fella about Jason’s age who saw this thing goin’ down.”

  “Authorities at the time reported he died in a mugging,” O’Brien said. “His surviving family—his wife, who’s now in her late eighties, and his granddaughter, have reasons to believe otherwise. Both live here and told me the story.”

  “What reason?” Jason asked. “Was it some kind of a conspiracy?”

  O’Brien said, “Maybe. But at this point, probably the least you know about things, Jason, it will be smartest and safest for you.”

  “No problem—I don’t think I want to know anything else.”

  “Good,” O’Brien smiled. “These news stories will be all over the planet in a matter of minutes, both on the Internet and international TV. There are ruthless people who would do anything to get their hands on weapons-grade uranium. Dave and I are going to give all we know to the FBI. You two don’t know the sub’s coordinates. That’s a good thing.”

  “But,” said Nick finishing the ouzo, “nobody knows that. They see our faces all over the news and people will think we’re out there huntin’ for lobsters between the rib cages of human skeletons. Especially after that reporter tricked me and I told her I knew where the sub was and would take her there. When they show the story, they’ll cut out the part about her havin’ to wear a bikini.”

  “Jason, where did you park?” O’Brien asked.

  “My truck is on the north side of the lot.”

  “Go up L dock, cross over to M dock, avoid the media in the parking lot near the Tiki Bar, and head on home. Tell your mom “hi” for me. We have a charter coming up.”

  “Cool, maybe it won’t be so bad when the TV news is over.”

  “Maybe not,” Dave said. “But just in case, be very careful. Say nothing to anyone and be aware of your surroundings.”

  O’Brien stepped to the port window and watched Jason walk quickly down the dock. He saw two more news satellite trucks roll up in the far parking lot. He thought about Maggie’s face, heard her voice from the morning when she walked out of his past into the present. “Sean, I remember you as somebody a boy might look up to.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dave moved to the couch, sank into the cushions, and let out a deep sigh. “The more we understand what was going on in the summer of ’45 the better—1945, by the way, was the year I was born.”

  O’Brien smiled, “’45 eh? Hope with age you got some wisdom.” Then he said, “Looks like Germany’s nuke world was in high gear at that time.”

  “Indeed. If my old contact in Germany was right about the listing on the manifest, we have eight canisters MIA. They still could be somewhere on the sub.”

  “Or they might be found on the beach where Billy Lawson watched the German sailors bury something. Maybe it was something they intended to use later. Who was the guy waiting for them, and what sort of deal did he cut?”

  “So this Billy Lawson, he was the one shot, right?” Nick asked.

  “Yes,” O’Brien said. “He was a PFC, sent home from the front for rehab. He may be the only U.S. soldier in World War II killed on American soil.”

  Dave said, “In the intelligence world, you have selective information, disinformation and silence. This falls in the category of a void. Nothing. Not even up there on the same shelf with UFO sightings.”

  “A void or avoid,” O’Brien said. “Or maybe disavow.”

  Dave used a toothpick to s
pear a loose olive out of his martini. He chewed it and said, “A lot was at stake. Literally, our nation.” He looked down at a legal pad where he’d scrawled notes. “It’s now believed that Germany probably had gaseous centrifuge machines in 1945. Uranium oxide was mixed with fluoric acid to form uranium-hexafluoride gas. U-235, or HEU, was produced from the spinning gases.”

  “But why carry the HEU on that sub?” O’Brien asked. “Were they going to try to somehow launch it over Washington?”

  “When Germany was down and out, Japan was still in the fight. If they could have acquired this material, it may have changed the outcome of the war if they’d dropped it on say … New York or even San Francisco.”

  “Is seven hundred kilos enough to make two bombs?”

  “Enough to make a couple moderate-sized nuclear bombs.”

  O’Brien stood. “Since Glenda Lawson said Billy saw two Japanese men, both dressed as civilians, with four German sailors that night … what’s the connection? What’s the tie to Japan receiving the deadly cargo you mentioned earlier?”

  “There may be a connection.” Dave looked at his scribbled notes. “Here’s why: on U-boat 234, the one escorted into Portsmouth a few days before Billy Lawson was killed, there was an all-German crew that surrendered. Under interrogation, one of the officers admitted they had two Japanese officers aboard when they left from Kiel, Germany. When the crew of U-boat 234 got word of Germany’s surrender in the war, they could have turned themselves over to the Brits rather than the U.S. However, Commander Johann Fehler elected not to surrender in England, but to turn themselves in to the Americans. Fehler said when the two Japanese men on the sub heard the Germans were going to surrender to the U.S. Navy, the Japanese men said they could not. The honorable thing for them to do was commit suicide or hari-kari. They overdosed on pills and died in their bunks. After a couple of days, the Germans tossed their bodies overboard.”

  “I can’t say I’d blame ‘em,” Nick said.

  “So along comes yet another sub,” O’Brien said. “The one Nick and I found, U-boat 236, and it’s carrying Japanese, too. But these guys don’t commit suicide. They slip into the U.S. undetected. Well, undetected until Billy Lawson sees them, and then he’s killed as he makes a call to his wife. Maybe one of the Japanese shot him.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Dave said.

  “Abby Lawson told me her grandfather saw only two of the Germans walking back to the life raft. One was dead. So where was the third?”

  “Good question,” Dave said.

  “Maybe he’d hidden in the bed of the truck, hoping to kill Billy Lawson as he drove off. But he didn’t get a chance until Lawson stopped at that closed bait and tackle store where he made the call to his wife from the phone booth.”

  Dave asked, “What happened to Billy Lawson’s truck that night?”

  “Glenda said the sheriff told her, after Billy was mugged and robbed, that the perp stole Billy’s truck only to abandon it near the beach.”

  “What if the shooter joined his comrades and got back in the life raft to row out to the U-boat?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Nick said. “End of the big war. Maybe it did happen. Was some American really involved?”

  “Maybe. How’d that sub go down?” O’Brien asked.

  Dave grunted. “Couldn’t find that. But I’d be willing to wager that if Billy Lawson’s call was taken seriously, the Navy, so close at the Jacksonville Air Station, could have dispatched one of its planes and dropped a lot of depth charges on the sub.”

  “Would they do that knowing it was carrying weapons-grade uranium?”

  “Maybe they didn’t know, figured it was safer to sink it than take the chance.”

  “Then why didn’t they recover the material Nick and I found?”

  “Maybe they couldn’t find it.”

  “I caught it on my anchor. How hard would it have been for the Navy to find it?”

  “This was way before sophisticated underwater topography reading equipment. They could have hit the sub closer to shore and it managed to limp a long way out before finally striking bottom. After searching and not finding it, the Navy may have assumed they never hit it. Years drift by, Atlantic storms partially bury the twisted sub, and that footnote in the war fades away with those who died on the U-boat.”

  “And along comes my boat, its anchor snags a World War II relic, not just any bottom dweller, but rather one that may be sitting with the earth’s deadliest luggage.”

  Dave opened his laptop and looked at the photos he’d loaded from O’Brien’s camera. “I think these canisters are the real deal, U-235 or HEU. And I think if they somehow fell into the wrong hands today, they could inflict as much damage on us as they could have in the hands of the Japanese or Germans. Maybe more.”

  Nick said, “But today it could be anybody—any sick-ass group or nation with a hard-on against the good ol’ U.S. of A.”

  “And,” Dave said, “with a half-life of a million years, it’s good as new. We have some calls to make. Sean, it’d be a good idea to keep a close eye on Jason.”

  “He’s learned his lesson.”

  “That’s not what I meant. He may need protection.”

  O’Brien looked at the media growing like a mob in the parking lot and said nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  At five minutes to six p.m., the Channel Nine control room filled with people. The general manager stood in the back of the room with the news director, group vice president, and the executive producer. They watched the monitors as the camera focused on the anchor team fitting earpieces in their ears, checking copy for last minute changes.

  “Coming to camera one, ten seconds,” said the director. “Roll opening.”

  “Rolling,” said a technician.

  “Standby Mark and Angela,” said the director into the small microphone that fed the tiny earpiece in the news anchors’ ears.

  The general manager leaned toward his news director and whispered, “This is going to be Peabody Award stuff.”

  “Five seconds,” barked the director.

  The anchor team said, “Good evening, I’m Mark Linsky.”

  “And I’m Angela Franklin.”

  “We have breaking news tonight.”

  “This story sounds like a Hollywood script, but it’s real. We have dramatic pictures, images from the bottom of the sea taken inside a German U-boat that’s apparently been on the ocean floor since World War II. Was that U-boat carrying enriched uranium, the material used to make a nuclear bomb? Susan Schulman will tell us what her investigation is uncovering in terms of the potentially dangerous cargo. Amber Rothschild is at the University of Florida, where she has a historical perspective on the time the U-boat went down and how it may have gone down. Todd Knowles is at the Navy base in Jacksonville where he’ll have a report on what the Navy is doing about the situation, as well as what Homeland Security is saying tonight. But first let’s go to Susan Schulman.”

  “Mark and Angela, the sub is said to be off the coast of Daytona Beach down about ninety feet,” Schulman began her report. “We want to show dramatic pictures of canisters stamped as U-235. This is a name enriched or weapons-grade uranium was called before the cold war had ended. The label was known to people working on the Manhattan Project, the top secret work done to build an atomic bomb to bring World War II to a fiery close. What was this dangerous material allegedly doing on a German U-boat just found off the coast of Florida? That’s the question a lot of people would like to have answered tonight. As Channel Nine first reported, Captain Sean O’Brien, Nick Cronus, and a college student hired as a deckhand, Jason Canfield, were fishing in the Atlantic, somewhere in the Gulf Stream, when they got their anchor caught on something. O’Brien and Cronus dove down to free the anchor and found it caught on some twisted metal from a German U-boat that one member of the crew, Jason Canfield, told us was blown apart. Here’s some of what they found … .”

  ***

  O’BRIEN
STOOD IN DAVE’S salon with Nick and Dave, watching as the news reports unfolded. The images were of the pictures he’d shot on the sub. Nick stood, his black eyes tired, his voice a grunt, “We’re screwed.”

  ***

  SUSAN SCHULMAN’S REPORT continued, “These are pictures taken by Captain O’Brien. The canisters are labeled U-235. The outside of the submarine is marked 236. There are human remains on board. The sub also was carrying parts of what is believed to be M2 German fighter jets. Where’s all this potentially disastrous cargo right now? Still out in the ocean, east of the world’s most famous beach, Daytona Beach. Cronus said he knows the location.”

  The video cut to Schulman’s ambush interview with Nick.

  Cronus: “I can take you there, sure. Come on, TV gal.”

  Schulman: “Perhaps Mr. Cronus isn’t fully aware of the magnitude of this find. Nonetheless, Captain Sean O’Brien told us yesterday he didn’t find the U-boat. When presented with pictures we managed to obtain from Canfield’s girlfriend, Nicole Bradley, a Channel Nine intern, the dam of secrecy broke apart. And Captain O’Brien is none too happy about it.”

  O’Brien: “Seems to me, Miss Schulman, you are the one compromising the safety of the nation by your zeal to be the first to put this on television rather than to be responsible and shut the hell up.”

  Schulman: “Mark and Angela, Captain O’Brien says he did not bring up the canisters marked U-235. So, as far as we know, they’re sitting out there where they’ve been hidden since World War II. We spoke with a physicist at nearby Lockheed Martin, and she told us it would take about two-thousand pounds of enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb the size of the one that leveled Hiroshima.”

  Anchorman: “Thanks, Susan. Before we go to Todd Knowles’s report, a programming note, Susan will be appearing via satellite on CBS national at nine o’clock tonight fielding questions. Now, let’s go to Todd in Jacksonville.”

  ***

  DAVE COLLINS TURNED to O’Brien and Nick. “Not good gentlemen. The woman’s obviously very subjective. What she’s managed to do in three minutes is pop the top on a sixty-seven-old secret and place you two and Jason in the middle of what she’s painting as something almost akin to smuggling nuclear weapons.”