Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

“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.

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.