Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

“Man,” Nick said. “A possible nine-eleven-type catastrophe almost six decades before nine-eleven.”

“The potential would have been much worse if they had about three times the amount of uranium that you two found, assuming that is indeed what you found.”

“Does it say what happened to U-boat 236?” O’Brien asked.

Dave scanned the data. “No.”

“Does it say what happened to the other six U-boats in the Sea Wolf pack?”

“Navy sent five of them to the ocean floor north of the Azores. One surrendered.”

“Anything about weapons-grade, HEU?”

“Hold on a second … umm … shortly after Germany surrendered in early May 1945, Admiral Donitz instructed the commander of U-boat 234 to give up and report to whichever Allied port it was nearest to at the time. That U-boat was escorted in by two U.S. Navy destroyers, taken to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And, gentlemen, it did have more than seven hundred kilos or almost two-thousand pounds of U-235, highly enriched uranium on board.”

“What happened to the stuff, the uranium?” Nick asked.

Dave nodded. “This report doesn’t say. I do know that three months later we dropped the same stuff, as you say, over Japan and closed the curtain on the whole damn war. If you two found HEU, the only way to know for sure is to dive back down and bring it up.”

“No freakin’ way!” Nick said. “Only one man can ever find what’s been lost out there. And that man killed the GPS numbers before Jason and I could look at them.”

“It was the best thing to do,” O’Brien said.

“Nick,” said Dave, his voice barely audible, “if that’s what you found, Sean may have done you the greatest favor in your life.”

Nick grinned. “See no evil, hear no evil, and tell no evil. Let’s eat.”

Dave opened three bottles of Corona and they sat at the bar to eat. Dave said, “Nick, the combination of sauteed grouper, melted cheese, diced tomatoes, and the Vidalia onions in your recipe is as treasured as Plato’s Republic.”

“Same old recipe,” Nick said, chewing a mouthful of food. “I just gave it a new name, sixteen fathoms sub sandwich.” He tossed a bite to Max as O’Brien’s cell rang.

“Jupiter Charters,” O’Brien said.

“Are you Captain O’Brien?” a woman asked.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“I saw the news tonight. Did you find a lost German submarine out there?”

“Who’s this?”

“May I meet and talk with you, please. It’s very important.”

“What’s your name?”

“Abby Lawson. Sixty-seven years ago, my grandfather saw something on the beach that got him killed. If you found a German sub, that discovery could help my family bring closure to his murder.”

“Murder?” O’Brien thought he heard the voice of someone else in the background. “What murder?” he asked.

The call disconnected.

Nicole Bradley slowly raked her long blond hair across Jason Canfield’s bare chest. He sat in his swimsuit on the second floor of her parent’s beachfront condominium balcony, the setting sun breaking through coconut palm trees, the scent of grilled fish coming from a courtyard. Nicole stood, leaning over him, hair trailing to his chest. She had full lips, the lower lip with a slight pout, dimples, thick hair backlit from the sun. At that moment, Jason thought her hair was spun from pure gold.

In a toast, she said, “Happy birthday!” They touched glasses, sipped wine and she kissed him. Nicole, a college senior studying journalism at the University of Florida, was home for the summer. Her parents were gone for the weekend, and she and Jason had the run of the beachfront condo. She sipped chardonnay from a crystal glass. “Have some more wine, Jason.”

“I really shouldn’t. I sort of made a promise to my mom and Sean-”

“Come on, it’s your birthday!”

“Yeah, but wine makes my head hurt.”

“Wine’s healthy.” She sipped. “Good for your heart.” She touched his chest.

“Lemme taste.” He passionately kissed her.

She broke the kiss and said, “I’m just trying to like broaden your tastes, that’s all. C’mon, birthday boy!”

He grinned. They touched glasses again and both emptied their wine. It was Jason’s fourth glass, and his head was beginning to feel numb.

“Aren’t you the charmer?” Nicole asked, straddling Jason’s lap. She ran her fingers through his blond locks. “If we ever did get … don’t get all weird on me or take this the wrong way, but if we ever like got married and had kids, they’d have blond hair.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. You looked cute on the news yesterday. I couldn’t believe the Coast Guard actually boarded your boat. It was like watching reality TV.”

“It was crazy. The chief, he goes like … ‘Son, were you the one that radioed in the find of the submarine?’ He’s the most hyper dude I’ve ever seen.”

“What’d you tell the chief? Did you guys like really find a submarine on the bottom of the ocean?”

“What do you think?” Jason smiled.

“I think it’s kind of romantic and adventurous? Like the History Channel meets Lifetime TV.”

“I met that reporter, Susan Schulman. Doesn’t she work at the same TV station where you’re doing your internship?”

“Same place. I haven’t met her yet. I hear she’s like a ball buster. Intense.”

“She tried to bust Sean’s balls, but he wasn’t gonna let her. He really knows how to keep his cool.”

“He’s cute, way too old for me, but he’s got that something.”

“What’s that something?”

“It’s the way you do what you do, like how you walk, talk … kiss.” Nicole sipped her wine and kissed Jason deeply. “You have it. Now, did you or didn’t you find a long lost sub? ‘Cause if I’m about to have a famous boyfriend, I want to know.”

Jason looked out over the royal palm trees and watched sea gulls flying down to the beach. “Do I look like a pirate? We don’t go around salvaging old ships.”

“Yeah, but these aren’t some old rotten Spanish galleons sitting out there. Subs are made of steel. That will last in the ocean. Just like bones.” Nicole smiled, her lips wet.

“You mean skeletons?”

“Yeah, if the sharks didn’t take them off way back when the sub went down.”

“You have a great imagination.” Jason grinned.

“Did you guys see skeletons? Oh tell me Jason! Please!”

“I didn’t say we saw skeletons. I can’t say anything.”

“And that means you saw something. I can tell.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“If you tell me you saw skeletons, I might jump your bones.” Nicole poured more wine in their glasses. “Maybe that’s like where the word boner came from,” she said laughing. She kissed his ear and neck, her lips warm, her perfume traveling through Jason’s brain like a shot of adrenaline.

He drank more wine and reached for her breasts. “Not yet,” she said. “If we’re gonna trust each other in every way, you have to be honest with me and tell me if you guys found that U-boat.”

“What if I showed you pictures of it?”

“You’ll get a birthday present you’ll remember for a really long time.” She ran her index finger across his lips.

Jason reached over to the table beside them and picked up his cell phone. “Take a look at these.” He brought the images up on the small screen. “I loaded these off Sean’s camera while he was on the bridge talking with Nick. I’m just glad the Coast Guard didn’t find them.”

“Is that some kind of engine?” Nicole asked.

“A German jet, I think. Sean and Nick found crates with jet parts and a small rocket.”