The Black Bullet so-1

by Tom Lowe

  “Thank you,” O’Brien said. He could tell that Miller was a man used to giving orders. In the stylish kitchen, O’Brien set the groceries down and took his Glock out of one bag. He opened and closed the refrigerator door, then entered the living room and pointed the pistol directly at Miller’s head. “Close the door.”

  “You’re making a very stupid mistake,” Miller said, his voice calm, like a man who just said he was taking his dog for a walk.

  “You made a mistake in 1945 when you lied about how Billy Lawson died.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Miller’s eyes narrowed, icy gray now hard as medieval armor. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m the ghost of Billy Lawson, you asshole. I just may be your worst nightmare coming to haunt you. But to be haunted you have to have a conscience-something you sold to the devil a long time ago.”

  “Whoever you are, you have a choice. You can put that gun away and walk out of here and, maybe, you’ll live to be as old as me. Or you can stay, but be advised: you will be hunted down like a dog. Hunted by men who have a license to kill insurgents like you. And, I promise you, no one will ever find your body. What will it be? You have five seconds to decide.”

  “Don’t need five seconds. Is that the spiel you used on Ethan Lyons when you blackmailed him, sold out our nation’s security, pocketed money, and used your cover and plausible denial to achieve the American dream by cheating?”

  “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “I have more than ideas. I have evidence and answers to your injustices and lies. You wrote that Billy Lawson died from a single.38 caliber gunshot wound. When, in fact, he was killed by three gunshots, and the bullets were from a German Luger, an officer’s special edition. Bullets pulled out of Billy Lawson’s exhumed body matched the gun I found in that German sub. So we had a young man, back from fighting overseas, he calls in to report a U-boat sighting, and he’s killed by the enemy on U.S. soil-and it’s covered up. Why?”

  Miller said nothing.

  O’Brien aimed the Glock in the center of Miller’s forehead. “Tell me why!”

  “You have nothing!”

  “I have your lies on a sixty-seven-year-old FBI report. Tell me why!”

  “National security.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “We were at war. If the general population knew the Germans had landed a sub on American shores, off-loaded two Japanese spies, and hidden enriched uranium somewhere, there would have been wide-spread panic.”

  “The average American had never heard of enriched uranium. The bomb had yet to be developed or dropped. There would have been no reason for panic. The real reason you hid the truth is because you wanted it buried with Billy Lawson.”

  “You’re insane!”

  “Billy Lawson saw a third man that night. But this man didn’t get off a German sub. He got out of an American car, met with the Germans, and allowed two Japanese spies into this country. You left the HEU in the hole because you knew the man you sold it to, Russian agent Ivan Borshnik, would never live to get it. Why’d you leave the HEU in the hole? Why didn’t you go back and get it?”

  Miller was silent. His lower jaw tightening, arms locked across his shirt. He said, “Russia had paid me, they simply never took delivery-those under Stalin, the regime I was working for, they were all killed. The war ended. Japan was in ruins. So was Russia and much of Europe. The commercial market for HEU today is far greater than it was in those days. Russia was my original buyer, and they got knocked out of the game. As time went by, I didn’t want to risk digging up the stuff, storing the canisters for God knows how long, and trying to fence the merchandise for sometime in the future. So I left them there. Besides, I’d made my money. Today, of course, Iran, Iraq and a dozen other countries would love to have it. But I grew too old to care one way of the other.”

  O’Brien said, “Sit!”

  “You don’t order me around.”

  “Sit! Or they’ll smell your body before they find it.”

  Miller sat back on his leather couch. “How much do you want?”

  “Is that what you asked Mike Gates when he found out?”

  Miller said nothing.

  “He trained under you the last two years you were a field agent. While you recruited Ivan Borshnik, his son, Boris Borshnik, later recruited Gates … told him everything his father had told his mother before his death. And guess what, Miller? The damage you did in 1945 had its ugly scab knocked off. Borshnik’s son is here. He’s got the HEU, and believes he has ownership because the motherland paid for it. Paid you for it! You give the Russians the fucking recipe for nuclear disaster, and now they have the ingredients to make the bomb. You had the German sub bombed, men who probably were going to turn themselves in anyway, like their sister U-boat did ten days earlier. Germany had surrendered, but the Soviet Union was trying to arm itself with atomic bombs. Lucky for the U.S. the Russians couldn’t get their hands on it then. ”

  Miller stared at the Atlantic Ocean beyond his sixth floor balcony, the fight gone from his face, eyes softer, shoulders rounded. Defeat opening sealed pores. He turned and looked at O’Brien like he would view a body in an open casket, eyes dispassionate. “I’m an old man. They found two spots on my lungs last month. I have one kidney left. There’s nothing you can do to me. You want money?”

  “I want the truth!”

  “You’re the type with illusions! I had to leave that kind of baggage at the door in a covert world. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lived long.”

  “Miller, the only difference between you and Stalin is you spoke English. At one time, you may have convinced yourself that being a double agent was about the distribution of power. Although delusional, as a young college kid, you could convince yourself it’s idealistic. So, then, you get a taste of the nicer things in life, and you justify selling out your country for the money. But, in reality, it’s always been about control-you’re nothing more than a power hungry asshole.”

  “You mind if I pour myself a scotch?”

  “Don’t move.”

  “It’s right there on the bar, in the decanter. I don’t have a gun hidden in there.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “While you’re at it, have one for yourself.”

  O’Brien poured about an inch of scotch in a heavy lead crystal glass and handed it to Miller. He sipped, savoring the taste for a moment, exhaled like his lungs hurt, and said, “I used Borshnik like he tried to use me. Sure, I sold him secrets from the Manhattan Project. They would have acquired them anyway. The whole damn Manhattan Project was fueled, in part, by German HEU that Robert Oppenheimer took off the U-boats. America was crawling with Russian spies. Most of them had their aliases compromised when Meredith Gardner figured out their encryption during the Venona Project. He was one smart bastard.”

  “Spell Venona.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it?”

  “V-e-n-o-n-a.”

  O’Brien stared hard at Miller. “How’d you know about the U-boat?”

  “Navy knew another one was out there. They’d radioed us. We told them they could surrender at Mayport near Jacksonville, but when I heard they had two Japs aboard, two who would have committed suicide had the Germans formally surrendered, I instructed them to drop off the Japanese on a remote strip of beach. They had information I needed.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They were eventually executed.”

  “How convenient. What about the U-235?”

  “We figured they were carrying some, just like the sub that we took in Portsmouth. German Admiral Otto Heinz spoke English. I told him to off-load his cargo with the Japanese south of Fort Matanzas. Bury the stuff, and we’d take it from there.”

  “Why was a German shot and buried in the hole?”

  “One of Heinz’s men protested. Said he couldn’t surrender. He was silenced.”

  “Why was their sub hit with depth charges?”

&
nbsp; “Because of Billy Lawson. He saw too much. We didn’t know who he had spoken to before he was killed, but he became, as they say today, collateral damage.”

  O’Brien held back his anger as he watched the old, arrogant man sip the expensive liquor, eyelids half closed.

  O’Brien said, “What I do know without a doubt is, it wasn’t about the war, the one in ‘45 or the approaching Cold War. Power was your drug of choice so that you and others like you could run amuck in the world. Did J. Edgar Hoover know, or was he in on it?”

  “Hoover told President Truman what he wanted Truman to hear.”

  “So you drift along three decades, about ready to retire until a young agent named Mike Gates trains under you. The poetic justice comes when Borshnik’s son manages to get in the game with Gates and tips him his cards. All Gates has to do, at that point, is blackmail you. Figures a guy like you-never married, no children, probably has stashed away enough of the motherland money to live well without raising suspicion. FBI fakes your death and obit. Knowing you’re off everyone’s radar, Gates taps you for hush money. He continues his pen pal relationship with Borshnik junior, and along comes the buried treasure, the HEU when my crew stumbles across it.”

  Miller swirled the scotch in the bottom of the glass. “You never told me your name. I thought you were delivering groceries, but you just delivered a death sentence.”

  “Six decades too late.”

  “Your name?”

  “O’Brien, Sean O’Brien.”

  “Mr. O’Brien, I suppose you just caught the oldest spy in our nation’s history. And I was beginning to think I’d take it to my grave. All this time, no one really knew.”

  “Gates knew.”

  “But he didn’t learn it on his own. As you just said, he was tipped off. You managed to discover him, too. Gates would have gotten caught, sooner or later.” Miller sipped his drink. “When you’re not delivering groceries, what do you do?”

  “I fish, but I’m not very good at it.”

  “Let’s see how good you are at proving all this. I won’t live long enough to be brought to trial, not that you have anything tangible. I know you’re not wearing a wire. The T-shirt, shorts. No place for it. So what you heard was the hallucinogenic ramblings of an old man taking morphine washed down with very fine scotch. Maybe you’ll have better luck with Gates. Too bad I won’t be here to see that. He’s an incompetent idiot.”

  O’Brien unclipped the cell phone from the back of his belt, adjusted the speaker phone button and asked, “Dave, did you get that?”

  “Loud and clear. All recorded in digital sound.”

  Robert Miller stared at the cell phone. The light flickered and faded from his eyes. They became hard, the cataracts like two diffused crescent moons floating just beneath the veiled surface of a turquoise sea.

  “Dave,” O’Brien shouted. “If you spell Venona backwards you get a-n-o-n-e-v. Anonev.com is the website where we saw the hostiles holding a knife to Jason’s throat.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  It was almost ten when O’Brien returned to the marina. Nick Cronus, bottle of beer in one hand and a long fork in the other, was turning a steak over on his small grill perched in the cockpit. O’Brien could see him chatting with Max like she could understand every word.

  Nick looked up though the thick smoke and poured some beer on the coals to douse flames. “Sean, where the hell you been? Man, you look like shit. When’s the last time you slept?”

  Max barked and ran to where Sean was stepping from the dock into the cockpit. She danced around O’Brien’s legs, tail blurring. He bent down and lifted Max. She ran her tongue over his unshaven face. “Is Dave on his boat?”

  “Saw him about an hour ago. He looks like somebody told him his ex-wife is in town. What’s gonna happen? We got no idea if Jason’s still on God’s earth.”

  O’Brien scratched Max behind the ears as she watched the steak cooking.

  “Why are you cooking so late?”

  “Couldn’t eat earlier with all this stuff goin’ on … worried ‘bout Jason.”

  “Me, too. Thanks for keeping an eye on Max.”

  “No problem. Women love her, especially the outdoors types, you know?”

  “I have to talk with Dave.”

  “How ‘bout a steak?”

  “Don’t have time.”

  O’Brien stepped on Gibraltar’s cockpit and heard jazz coming from the open sliding-glass door.

  “Come on in, Sean,” Dave said. “Hello, Max.”

  O’Brien stepped into the salon, eyes taking a second to adjust to the reduced light. Dave was hunkered over his laptop, staring at text on the screen. He leaned back and looked above the top of his reading glasses. “I’ve been digging in a few Agency drawers and discovered some Yuri Volkow socks mated with Boris Borshnik socks amongst the soiled underwear.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “After listening to Miller’s confession, I started scratching at old files. By the way, here’s a flash drive copy of your conversation with him. Your cell had amazing clarity inside that condo.” Dave lifted a flash drive off his desk and handed it to O’Brien. “Ivan Borshnik, father of the man holding Jason, spent seven years undercover in the states. He, like the German would-be saboteurs caught in ‘42 after they disembarked from the two U-boats, got justice in front of a military tribunal. The only witness in Borshnik’s case was none other than Robert Miller, whose testimony nailed the coffin for Borshnik. Verdict was delivered in less than fifteen minutes. He was executed three days later.”

  “Does it say anywhere in your CIA sock drawer how much money Borshnik paid Miller, ostensibly the FBI, for the HEU?”

  “No. Here’s how a guy like Robert Miller could manipulate the system. The system was all about finding communists, the witch-hunt fire that Joseph McCarthy brought to a boil. Miller was acting as a double agent in the early saber rattling rounds of the Cold War. Now we know he indeed was a real double agent. Stalin, one never to trust Americans, had spies coming out of the woodwork over here. The Venona Project, that Miller alluded to, was a secret program, a precursor of the NSA, where our best cryptographers deciphered Soviet cables trying to attach real identities to fake names. They used the cover name of Kapian for President Roosevelt. The Manhattan Project was labeled Eormoz. We managed to catch a few covert operatives. They included people like Alger Hiss and Klaus Fusch.”

  “Class acts.”

  “Indeed. Young Congressman Richard Nixon, acting on information from the FBI, pushed for indictments, especially in the Hiss case. But it was the husband and wife spy team of Jules and Ethel Rosenberg who got the death sentence. They were the only Americans executed as Soviet spies during the Cold War. Both were strapped to the electric chair, as was Ivan Borshnik. He’d been in the states, undercover, as a record producer, working with some of the Big Band and jazz artists.”

  “Robert Miller had a Tommy Dorsey tune playing in his condo.”

  “Yes. From what we know, the Venona Project indicated that a lot of the big fish got away. Names we couldn’t decipher. We do know considerable damage was done to our security, especially in the atomic arena.”

  “And much of that courtesy of one Robert Miller.”

  Dave nodded. “One of the ones that got away.”

  “Not completely. So, in his final years in the FBI, a rooky agent, Mike Gates receives training from Miller.”

  Dave nodded. “Miller taught Gates fieldwork operations because Gates was being assigned to our embassy in Moscow.”

  “Where he was recruited by Boris Borshnik, the single child of the only Russian ever tried by a U.S. military tribunal and executed. Wonder if Miller has spoken to Gates?”

  “You mean since he retired?” Dave removed his glasses and rubbed his temples with the palms of his hands.

  “I mean today, after I left him.”

  “I don’t know how we’d find out.”

  “I do.”

  “How?” Dave asked
.

  “You’re supposed to bring me to the command center at eight in the morning. That’s when we’ll know.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  With Max half asleep in his arms, it was five minutes after midnight when O’Brien unlocked the salon doors on Jupiter. He ate a banana and called Lauren Miles. “We got Miller, and more importantly, we’ve got Mike Gates. He’s your double agent. In the pockets of the Russian Volkow, a.k.a. Borshnik, and Mohammed Sharif.”

  “My God … are you sure, Sean?” she said.

  O’Brien told her the story. “I’ve got the flash drive with his confession. I’m coming in tomorrow morning to hang Gates. I’ll try to get from him the location where Borshnik is hiding.”

  “What can I do?”

  “If I can’t get him to admit it, do what you have to do.”

  Lauren was quiet a beat. “I hope you can get a few hours sleep.”

  O’Brien pulled his last Corona from the refrigerator and took it in the bathroom with him. He set the Glock on the back of the toilet seat, turned on the shower, climbed in and closed his eyes as the hot water pelted his shoulders and the back of his neck. Exhaustion pooled around him like dark clouds. He braced his hands against the walls of the stall, his thoughts focused on Robert Miller’s face.

  He stepped quietly into the master stateroom. Max was sleeping in the center of the bed. She barely opened her eyes as O’Brien slipped from the room into the salon. He saw a blur, a quick flash of muted color through the starboard porthole. A large cat jumped from a fish cleaning station, its mouth clamped on a discarded fish head.

  Lying on his back, he could see clouds through the skylight. He watched them ride the wind like ghosts performing a nocturnal ballet against an inky backdrop.

  Then O’Brien dreamed he heard a noise.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN