by Tom Lowe
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The following morning the FBI arrived at 8:00 a.m. Two men. One wore blue jeans, knit golf shirt, sneakers, and a nine millimeter on his hip. The other man dressed in a blue sports coat, kakis, and a button-down, white shirt. They walked toward Jupiter.
Jason was hosing down Jupiter as O’Brien and Dave shared a pot of coffee on Gibraltar’s cockpit. O’Brien saw them approaching and said to Dave, “We have some company. Are they your guys?”
“Not my guys, although I am retired, remember? However, one of our guys would be somebody who looked like a marine diesel mechanic. Those two have to be Homeland or FBI.”
“I have a close friend, an agent in the Miami Bureau.”
“Lauren Miles?”
“Yeah, Lauren. Wonder why they didn’t send her. Because of what Abby Lawson and her grandmother, Glenda, told me … I’m not eager to volunteer a lot of information to the FBI at this point. I see no use in showing every card in a deck that might have been marked a long time ago.”
“The days of J. Edgar Hoover, eh? Let’s hope that’s not the case.”
As the men got closer to Jupiter, O’Brien stood. “Good morning.”
The one in the sports coat said, “Sean O’Brien.”
“That’s me.”
The one in the blue jeans said, “Recognized your face from TV. You mind coming over here so we can talk?”
“You mind telling me who you are?”
The man in the sports coat took off his sunglasses and stared as if he needed to see O’Brien with his naked eyes. He stepped close to Gibraltar. The morning light wedged in his black eyes. Square jaw shaved so close his skin was still red from his razor. “I’m Special Agent Steve Butler. And this is Special Agent Mike Gates.” Gates was in his mid-sixties, thinning grey hair combed straight back, eyes cool and detached. O’Brien thought he resembled the actor Anthony Hopkins.
O’Brien said, “Sure, I can come up there on the dock, but it might be more comfortable if you fellows joined us down here for coffee. This is Dave Collins. The kid hosing off my boat, right over there, is Jason Canfield. The lady sitting in her deck chair on that nice trawler right behind you is Mrs. Pittman. Sweet lady. Has ears like an elephant and the personality of Henny-Penny, you know, the sky’s falling.”
The men looked around them to the marina community awaking, people moving, watching. They walked down the side dock and stepped onto Gibraltar’s cockpit.
“Coffee?” Dave asked.
“No thanks,” they said in unison.
O’Brien said, “I imagine you might want to chat with Jason. He’s my deckhand. I’ll call Nick. He’s in the boat on the other side of Dave’s boat. He was with us when we found it. That way you can ask whatever you want, get it all out of the way at once.”
“We’ll decide who we question and when we question them,” said Special Agent Gates, his voice chilly, just above a whisper.
“Let’s not get off on the wrong foot,” Dave said. “Please, sit down. The deck chairs are pretty comfortable. Or if you want, we can go inside.”
“This is fine,” said agent Butler. He and Gates sat. Agent Butler began the questioning, “Tell us how you found the German submarine.”
“Okay,” O’Brien said. “It started when I decided I’d get into the charter fishing business.” O’Brien told them the story as they scribbled notes, nodded and broke in with a question from time to time. When he finished, O’Brien asked, “Anything else?”
“What did you bring up from the sub?” asked Gates.
“Nothing.”
“Did your dive partner, Nick Cronus, bring up anything?”
“No.”
“Would you submit to a polygraph?” asked Butler.
“Yes.”
“Could you find the sub again?” Gates asked.
“Maybe.”
Agent Butler raised his left eyebrow. “What do you mean by maybe? Aren’t the coordinates in your GPS?”
“No, they’re not. We were at anchor, fishing. Catching nothing. I didn’t see a need to mark numbers. When we caught the sub, there was so much excitement, we forgot.”
“And your men will concur with that?” Gates asked.
“Yes.”
Gates stared over the marina water, the reflection off the bay bouncing in his olive green eyes. For a moment, O’Brien saw a detached glimpse of absolute power. He knew he was looking at a man used to getting his way. Gates moved only his eyes to O’Brien. He didn’t blink.
“Mr. O’Brien, we know of your background with Miami-Dade homicide. Some of our Miami agents speak highly of you and your investigative talents. But let me get one thing very straight, and put you on notice, too. If enriched uranium is, in fact, on that sub, then this is a very serious investigation. We won’t need, nor ask for your help in conducting any portion of it. The FBI has the manpower to nip this quickly, and we’re not looking for any soldiers to help or hinder us. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as a bell,” O’Brien said with a smile.
Dave said, “There is nothing territorial here. I’m retired CIA. I’m sure the agency will be in the thick of things, too. Because Sean and I understand your challenges, if there is anything that we can do or add to your investigation, please let us know.”
“Do you know if anyone from the agency is here yet?” asked Butler.
“No, not in an official capacity.”
Agent Gates looked over at Jason washing down Jupiter and said, “It would have been more appropriate if you and your crew had come to us before all this hit the media.”
“If you’re implying that Jason screwed up by having too much to drink and letting his girlfriend get it out of him, you’re right. But that’s happened, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I assure you, he feels awful.”
“The unfortunate part is, with the Internet, this kind of stuff gets around the world in a matter of a few clicks,” Gates said. “What we know, the bad guys know. I’d hate to see one of them question that kid. If you did find weapons-grade uranium out there, the salvagers you’ll see can make sharks look like guppies.”
Dave said, “We’re aware of the gravity.”
“Are you?” asked Gates, standing. “O’Brien, you need to figure out where you were when you hooked that U-boat, and then take us out there.”
“Could take a long time. Atlantic’s a big ocean,” O’Brien said.
“Mike, you want to question the kid?” asked Agent Butler. “I’ll walk over and get to know Mr. Cronus.”
O’Brien said, “Knock loudly on Nick’s door. He’s a sound sleeper.”
The first reporter arrived at 10:00 a.m. It was an online newspaper reporter, bearded, plaid shirt, sleeves pushed up above his elbows, in tow with a pudgy photographer. The reporter stepped aboard Jupiter’s deck and knocked on the salon door. The photographer stayed dockside, both hands on his camera, ready.
A TV news crew, reporter, and camera operator were coming down the dock, followed by a freelancer from the Associated Press.
CHAPTER THIRTY
From inside Gibraltar, Dave Collins watched the media converge around Jupiter. He looked at Sean, Nick and Jason. “Gentlemen, the only way to combat the damage done is to do what politicians and pundits would do in these circumstances.”
“And what would that be?” asked O’Brien.
Dave sipped black coffee, grinned, peered out an opening in the curtains on the starboard window and said, “Spin it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Nick
“What I mean is survival.”
“So what do we do now? Those FBI agents haven’t been long gone and now we got the news people coming around like gnats.”
“We hold a news conference,” Dave said.
“Where?” Jason asked.
“Right here on the dock. We’re well represented by our esteemed fourth estate. They’re crawling out there, sniffing. It may be our only chance to shake this thing off your backs like little Max w
ould shake water off her back. You three have had your faces plastered on international television, blogs and social media sites around the planet, courtesy of Susan Schulman. So you go out there, stand next to Jupiter and take their questions. What it’ll give you is an opportunity to distance yourselves with what could be a worldwide powder keg, so to speak.”
“What do we say?” Jason asked.
“You don’t say anything until asked. Then, it’s best to let Sean answer the questions. He is, after all, the captain of the vessel that locked horns with a submarine.”
“The facts are,” O’Brien began, “we have no clue where the sub is. We didn’t get a GPS reading. We were using our fish-finder looking for rocks and other places where fish could hide, and the next thing you know, we hooked a German U-boat.”
“What if they ask us about the skeletons?” Nick asked.
Dave said, “Be truthful. Human remains are part of shipwrecks.”
“But the HEU isn’t,” O’Brien said. “That’s where the questions will be directed.”
“Probably,” Dave nodded. “However, all you saw were two canisters. Snapped a picture, everything else was twisted remains of a U-boat.”
“What about those jet parts and some kind of rocket?” Jason asked.
“What about them? You don’t know for sure what they are, so there’s nothing to say,” Dave said, sitting at his salon desk. “Remember, you guys are just fishermen stumbling across something. You’re not salvaging divers or treasure hunters. You’re just a bunch of average Joes excited about what you found, but ready to return to your livelihood, fishing, which is suffering.”
“You comin’ out there with us?” Nick asked.
“It wouldn’t be prudent. Add to more confusion and personal jeopardy.”
Nick shrugged. “I got nine lives. You have to when you dive for sponges.”
“Come on Max,” O’Brien said. “You run interference as we meet the media.”
“How many bodies did you see?” asked a TV news reporter.
“Looked to be half a dozen or so,” O’Brien said.
They stood on the dock next to Jupiter and fielded questions. The journalists now numbered seventeen. Fox News, CNN, ABC, NBC, BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, A.P., local TV reporters and freelancers. Nine satellite news trucks beamed the interviews live to television and news websites. “Did you bring up the cylinders marked U-235?” asked an A.P. reporter.
“No,” O’Brien said.
“Can you find the sub again with GPS readings?” asked a Fox reporter.
“Didn’t get them, it was all a little overwhelming.”
To Jason, a reporter asked, “How did your girlfriend get pictures from inside the U-boat on her Facebook page?”
Jason glanced at O’Brien for a second. “Umm, she sorta downloaded it off my camera-phone to her computer and posted them.”
“Weren’t you quoted as saying you thought you could go back out there and find the U-boat?” asked a local TV reporter.
“Umm, I may have said that … I was kinda bragging in front of my girlfriend … but I really couldn’t … you know … I wasn’t operating the boat. I’m not exactly sure where we were when the anchor got caught.”
“Mr. Cronus, we understand you were the first to discover the U-boat,” said a CNN reporter. “How many cylinders of U-235 did you see?”
“Same as what Sean saw, two. No more, no less.”
The New York Times’ reporter asked, “Why did you all tell the Coast Guard you didn’t find a U-boat when, in fact, you’d just come from diving around one?”
O’Brien said, “As a sailor, you have reverence for ships and those who went down with them. Nick dove down there, found the sunken U-boat. We figured the sub and its sailors had been lying out there since World War II, so we might as well leave them alone. I’m sure the families back in Germany would appreciate that. Thank you, we’ve got to be moving on and get ready for a charter.”
Rashid Aamed stood in his posh Miami Beach condo and turned the sound up on the television. He was tall, with dark hair perfectly parted, and eyebrows like wire stitched in his coffee-colored skin. He watched the conclusion of the live interview from the marina, his black eyes following every word, every gesture from the men being interviewed. Two are lying, he thought. However, the tall one, the one who did most of the talking, his body language was too natural to indicate deceit. Aamed scribbled notes on a piece of paper and punched numbers into a cell phone. “Listen closely,” he began in Arabic. “There may be an opportunity to retrieve what we’ve been waiting for.”
“I understand,” said a staccato voice.
“I will explain in detail later. But for now the place is called Ponce Marina, near Daytona Beach. Go there. The boat is named Jupiter. You know what to do.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was mid afternoon when Dave Collins finally had more than he could stomach of the all-news cable channels. “Hitler’s last sub,” said a voice-over with an image of the conning tower that had the number 236 on it. “Could Hitler’s last U-boat have carried nuclear bomb material? We’ll have more on the find off the coast of Florida and whether you and your family could be at risk today. Stay tuned for Fox Report tonight at six.”
Dave lifted the remote and turned off the small television in Gibraltar. Five seconds later his cell phone rang. No caller ID. The man said, “Dave, there’s been some internet chatter that concerns us.”
“What kind of chatter, Hamilton?”
“In reference to the find your friends stumbled upon.”
“Who’s talking?”
“We suspect an Iranian connection through an extremist, a man by the name of Abdul-Hakim. He has strong ties to Hezbollah. Suspected connections to those who took over after bin Laden was killed.”
Dave was quiet a beat. “Oh, what a lovely bunch. They can’t make their own stuff so they want to steal it from Nazi ghosts. I appreciate your help earlier in sending the documents to me. I know some are still classified.”
“No problem. Sixty-seven years ago, the Navy suspected the sub was Germany’s last. Its’ cargo was suspect, too. A similar cargo on one of the two surrendered subs confirmed what was listed on the manifest. They were carrying HEU. Your marina pals found what the Navy never did after they dropped depth-charges on it.”
“Maybe, in recent years, one of these underwater burps, a small quake or a storm, shook the sand off it. A lucky find, I suppose.”
“Not lucky if it falls into the wrong hands. The chatter indicates movement is happening right now. We don’t have time to immediately neutralize the area and remove the material. It’s not dangerous unless it’s opened, and it can’t ignite unless it’s detonated with high-speed electrical switches.”
Dave nodded. “I understand.”
“Can we trust the two men who found the HEU to deliver it to us, all of it?”
“Sean O’Brien and Nick Cronus are standup guys. Both come with a strong sense of ethics and patriotism. O’Brien’s a former homicide detective. The guy can read people, faces, the most minuscule stain on a shirt, even a trace of grease in a knuckle that wasn’t washed off. He can replay a crime backwards in his mind, retrace the trajectory of bullets, and formulate quickly where perpetrators stood-the talent to see what others often don’t.”
“Sounds like the remote viewing we did at the agency in the nineties.”
“Similar, I think. I believe people like O’Brien can somehow perceive things on a near subconscious level and make them rise up to connect with the conscious mind.”
“Most of us try to go the opposite direction, regress in some way to tap into the subconscious by various mediation techniques. You said he’s a former homicide detective, did he retire?”
“Resigned. The very talent he has to sense a crime scene, I think, allowed him to get so close to the criminal mind, to evil, he often found himself in a place he didn’t want to be.”
“The evil in the minds of peo
ple like Hitler and his band, some of whom I’m sure are buried in that sub, isn’t a place to dwell too long. Let’s have them quickly get back down there and remove the U-235; we’ll come pick it up for secure storage. We need it done immediately, and I mean tonight. This is of utmost national security”
“I understand. I’ll contact them.”
“Keep us posted. Sort of like old times, eh, Dave? Remember, you’re supposed to be drawing a pension and fishing in Florida.”
“I’ll get back to that. Contact you when I have something.” Dave disconnected, called O’Brien and Nick, and explained the conversation he had with the CIA and the urgency to retrieve the canisters marked U-235.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
When Nick stepped into Gibraltar’s salon, Max trotted over and greeted him, tail wagging. “Little Max, even in that tiny head of yours, you have more brains than the people on this boat.” Nick looked at Dave and added, “The only reason I’d go back out there, back to that ocean graveyard, middle of the freakin’ night, is ‘cause I don’t want to see Sean try to do it alone. Too dangerous. Currents. Sharks.”
O’Brien said, “Can’t say I’m overjoyed to be working for the CIA.”
Dave said, “They’ve done more good than bad.”
“I’d rather give this stuff to the CIA than the FBI, considering the FBI might possibly have a sixty-plus-year connection with the incident on the beach with Billy Lawson.”
Dave grinned, “Who knows what Hoover did or didn’t do. Regardless, you found the sub in international waters anyway. It’s in the jurisdiction of the Agency.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick said, folding his arms across his chest. “When Sean and I start pulling that H-E-U stuff outta there … what if it blows up in our faces?”
Dave said, “It can’t be ignited unless it’s detonated in a way that delivers a very fast charge to the material.”
O’Brien said, “I don’t know how much each canister weighs, but I do know this: it’s probably not a good idea to take Jupiter back to the spot. Somebody could be watching it. Nick, let’s take your boat. It’s got a winch, which we’ll need to lift the canisters on board. You’ve got dive gear. Do you have guns aboard?”