Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

“I rendezvoused with those FBI agents before they were killed last night. Nick Cronus and I had found the remaining HEU buried on Rattlesnake Island.” O’Brien watched the casket being lifted from the grave. “We found it where the man buried in that hole saw it.”

Dan looked at the casket. It was gently lowered to the ground next to the open grave. “So the guy in that box was the last person alive to see German troops bury those canisters on Rattlesnake Island. Now we’re digging him up, and, in turn, we’ll be burying men who just saw the stuff after it was pulled out of the ground all these years later. Some evil irony, Sean.”

“Feds think the Russian mafia is behind the killings and HEU theft, a guy named Yuri Volkow. If it’s him and the same thugs who took the first two from the storage building, they now have ten. So, in addition to a nuclear arsenal, they have Jason Canfield as their hostage.”

“Why weren’t you with the feds during transport?”

“Same reason they pulled rank on your guys: national security, Homeland rules, whatever excuse they manufacture at the moment. I was told my services were no longer needed.”

Dan looked down and shook his head. “What do you do now?”

“I don’t know … I’m not sure who I can trust.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure one of the feds is who he’s supposed to be. There isn’t anybody I can raise a red flag with because it’s hard to tell who’s working for whom.”

“How about Lauren Miles? Man, you two worked well together when you found the asshole that killed the supermodel. You and Lauren went out, right?”

“For a while. She’s doing some digging, and she’s very good at it.”

“Oh, almost forgot.” Dan reached into the left, inside pocket of his sports coat and retrieved an envelope. “Here are the homicide reports Brad Ford did. He was a deputy investigator who worked the case of the man inside that coffin. Pulled them off microfiche, which we had stored in our digital files, and printed them for you.”

“Thanks. What’s it say?”

“The Reader’s Digest version is that Billy Lawson was shot by an ‘unknown assailant or assailants.’ Ford questioned dozens of people. Ran down possible leads. But the murder weapon was never recovered. No real suspects. No witnesses.”

O’Brien opened the report and scanned it. “There was a witness.”

“Who?”

“Glenda Lawson. You saw her leave with her granddaughter.”

“But she wasn’t there, Sean, at the time of the murder.”

“No, but she was on the phone and heard something that differs from this report. Brad Ford writes, ‘one shot fired from a.38 caliber handgun; victim died from a single gunshot wound to the stomach.’ Do you have a current address for Brad Ford?”

“Wrote it on the other side of the envelope. He lives near Orange City in an old house that’s been part of his family for a lot of years. Lives alone. That’s all I know.”

“Soon you’ll know a lot more.”

“Maybe.”

“When they pry the lid off the box back at the ME’s office, you’ll soon know if what deputy Ford wrote was the truth.”

“I just hope to God we’re not opening some Pandora’s Box.” Dan shook his head. “But, I guess you already found that one in the sub.”

O’Brien was silent, watching the men load the casket into the back of full-sized cargo van. “You know anybody who’s good at restoring old guns?”

“What do you mean?”

“One that’s seen salt water.”

“There’s a guy who runs a little gun shop off Ninth and Lilac. He’s damn good. Getting up there in years but knows guns and how to bring them back to life. Still has a slight accent, although he’s been here for years. Grunts more than he talks.”

“The accent, what is it?”

“German.”

Jason Canfield watched as the men lined the ten canisters along the warehouse wall and took pictures. Two of the five Russians were still dressed like state troopers. One had a dark stain on the back of his shirt. The man with the stained shirt, Zakhar Sorokin, walked over to a laptop computer and began uploading the images.

Yuri Volkow entered the room, glanced at Jason, said nothing and then stood over Sorokin’s shoulder. One Russian stepped to a window, peered out, and walked to Volkow. Another man stood at the door, all men carried pistols, and six assault rifles were on a table in the center of the room.

Andrei Keltzin sat at another table and typed in information, fingers rapidly moving over the keys. In Russian he said, “We have a total of six bidders. Five have been certified. The sixth, a new Islamic group. Most of its members are fifteen years younger than their top leader. They ask for time to be extended to raise the necessary funds.”

“No!” shouted Volkow. “Sunday at four. No exceptions. Either they can or cannot bid. It is that simple.”

“Understood. The representatives come from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, one in Pakistan, one in Lebanon, and one here in the U.S. Do you want to begin the bids at a minimum of five million U.S. dollars for each cylinder with the condition that all must be sold together?”

“Yes,” Volkow said.

“We have transportation, a Liberian liner, waiting for us at Port Canaveral. It will be in port for five days or until we arrive.”

Jason sneezed. Volkow turned and looked at him. “Do you want water?”

Jason shook his head quickly. “I’m okay.”

Volkow laughed. “No water? Why? Is that so you don’t have to piss, or is it because you think we will poison you?”

“Neither. I’m just not thirsty, that’s all.”

Sorokin asked, “What do we do with him after the transaction?”

Volkow looked at Sorokin and studied him for a few seconds, caught by the image of the light from the computer screen reflecting off the surface of his black eyes, which looked ominous, like small, burning white coals. “You eliminate him.”

O’Brien loaded Max into his Zodiac, started the electric motor, and eased away from Jupiter, heading toward the center of the marina, and then into the Halifax River and the Intracoastal. Max stood at the bow, wind blowing her hound dog ears like socks on a clothesline, her wet nose testing the air. O’Brien could smell the scent of garlic and blackened grouper coming from the Tiki Bar as they were gearing up for the lunch crowd. As he cut toward the canal leading to the river, the smell shifted to the odor of oyster bars drying at low tide. It was late morning, almost cloudless, sky like a cerulean bowl over the world.

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.