Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

“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 morning or we go find him.”

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.”

“I believe that one of the reason’s Mike Gates wants my head on a platter is because he knows I’m about to deliver his. I will call you back shortly. My phone will be on speaker, so don’t say a word. Feed the audio into your laptop, record an MP3 file. Make copies and hide them.”

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Just do it, Dave. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a confession that is long overdue.”

O’Brien drove around the perimeter of the Olde Club Condominiums in New Smyrna. The covered parking lot was filled with Mercedes, Jaguars, BMWs, and SUVs larger than some kitchens. He watched an older man and woman, both dressed in beach clothes, use a side entrance to enter the six-story building. The man had used a key, holding the door open for his wife.

O’Brien drove off the lot and headed to a grocery store across the street. His cell rang. It was Agent Lauren Miles. “Sean, I dug up a buried and still classified FBI report on the death of William Lawson, age twenty-one. Died May 19, 1945. Report reads that, I’m quoting here, ‘Lawson was shot and killed as he made an alcohol-induced telephone call to us wife. In an incoherent manner, he is reported to have told her he saw something strange on the beach. Subject, in a delirious state-of-mind, said German soldiers were invading the beach. Subject may have been suffering from a warfront related psychosis or paranoia. He died as a result of an armed robbery. Subject expired from a single.38 caliber gunshot wound to the chest. No suspects could be produced, and there is no indication his story of invading German soldiers was real. Until further notice, the case is closed and remains a homicide.’ The report was filed by Agent Robert Miller.”