by Tom Lowe
Glenda said, “His truck, it would have been close to AIA. He’d park off the shoulder, under some palms, and then walk down to the surf to cast his net. He liked to fish in the area because of the inlet. Sometimes Billy would cast directly into the surf. Other times he’d fish the inlet, usually on the north side of the pass.”
“The north side is still undeveloped today. Maybe it’s still there,” O’Brien said.
“Do you think you could find it?” asked Abby.
“I have to try. The kidnappers are holding Jason.”
“I’ll pray,” Abby whispered.
O’Brien said, “They know of the possibility of the remaining uranium hidden somewhere on the beach, maybe Rattlesnake Island, the island where Fort Matanzas is located. The men holding Jason might comb the sand on the island with sophisticated metal detection equipment. The advantage I may have right now is what you’ve told me about the lighthouse, but if you can remember anything else Billy said that night, something might give me another lead.”
“I’m so sorry about the young man,” Glenda said. “Unfortunately, I’ve told you all that my husband told me. He didn’t have a lot of time to get out details.”
“I understand.”
“Maybe you can find it with the information grandma gave you.”
“I don’t know,” Glenda said. “Matanzas doesn’t give up its secrets easily. It’s a beautiful place, but it is a place of suffering and a lot of bloodshed.”
“Matanzas Inlet has quite a horrific past,” Abby said, serving more food. “Not a good story at dinner, horrendous.”
O’Brien nodded. “I remember some of the history.”
“It was where the Spanish, in 1565, slaughtered the French Huguenots.” Glenda’s eyes enlarged. “More than two-hundred-fifty settlers died. The waters of the pass ran red with their blood. Happened at the inlet on Rattlesnake Island. In Spanish, Matanzas means massacre.”
Abby said, “Years later, the fort was built by the Spanish to keep the British from entering the inlet, coming upriver and attacking the back side of St. Augustine.”
O’Brien said, “A few centuries after that, the Germans enter the inlet and, somewhere on the beach, they bury a deadly cargo. Glenda, who investigated Billy’s murder?”
“Let me see … umm … there was a young man, a FBI agent. His name was Robert Miller. Never forgot him. A nice person. Professional, but he had some sort of anxiousness about him I didn’t quite understand.”
“How do you mean?”
“Each time I asked him about the investigation he became more evasive. Finally, he stopped returning my calls. I never heard from him again. In St. Johns County, Sheriff Walker investigated it. He thought Billy was killed by a highway robber. He couldn’t explain why Billy’s truck was abandoned. Sheriff Walker died about twenty years ago. One of his deputies is still alive, I think. Deputy Brad Ford said he had kept the investigation going as long as he worked in the department, about twenty-five years. However, he never found anyone either.”
O’Brien took a bite of food. “What was the general reaction, both on the federal and local levels, when you told them about Billy’s sighting of the German sub and the burying of something on the beach?”
“They were polite but not really interested in talking with me. I never got the chance to tell them what Billy said about the beam of light from the lighthouse. A few days after my call, I was told the Navy dispatched planes but never saw the submarine. Government men said they dug all around Matanzas Inlet but only found turtle eggs buried in the sand.”
“Sean,” said Abby, “my grandfather said that the Japanese men took off running. Grandma, you never heard if the government caught them or what, right?”
“No, I didn’t, and I never saw anything in the papers. Agent Miller told me the FBI never turned up anyone.”
O’Brien was silent. He asked, “Did they do an autopsy on your husband?”
“Told me they did.”
“The newspaper report you showed me when you came to my house indicated Billy had been shot once and, yet, you said you heard three shots.”
Glenda coughed, her eyes watering. “Yes, and sometimes I still hear them.”
“Did they tell you, or did they know what kind of gun was used to kill Billy?”
“I do remember the FBI telling me it was a .38 caliber bullet that killed him.”
“Would you allow your husband’s body to be exhumed? I’d want to know if he was shot more than once and whether all the bullets were removed from the body.”
Abby bit her lower lip and sipped some wine. Glenda looked beyond the dining room to a framed picture of her husband on the wall. Billy Lawson, dressed in his Army uniform, was smiling. Forever twenty-one. “Okay,” Glenda said. “If you do find evidence of more gunshots, what do we do? What if Billy wasn’t killed by a .38 bullet?”
“Then we find out why Billy’s murder was covered up by the U.S. government.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The Phoenicia restaurant was crowded for a Thursday evening. Mohammed Sharif liked it that way. Easier to blend in with the people—his people, he felt. The scent of garlic chicken, braised lamb, baklawa, and Turkish coffee drifted over the tables. Sharif and Rashid Aamed sat in a back corner of the restaurant, watched a belly dancer, and spoke Arabic in hushed tones. They ate grape leaves with rice and lamb, hummus, and tabouli, and drank a Château Musar white wine grown in the Bekaa Valley.
Sharif said, “The Russian, Yuri Volkow, he already has images of the material on the Internet, offered to select dealers who have been vetted for their lists of private buyers. Our dealer has invited us to bid. The bidding is to begin at ten million U.S. dollars. However, they boast more is expected. The person who offers the highest bid for these two will have an even more exclusive first-bid option for the other canisters.”
“It confirms what the old German told us. But the Russians have yet to produce the rest of the canisters,” Aamed said.
“How would they know where more material is anymore than we might? They must know something. It would be information they could only have received from one of the three men who discovered the submarine.”
“The one who was kidnapped, the younger one. No doubt that Volkow extracted information from him.”
“Perhaps,” said Aamed, biting into a stuffed grape leaf. “So if the younger man knows the possible location of the remaining canisters, then the two other men, the one named Cronus—the Greek guy, and the American, Sean O’Brien, would know the location as well.”
“Indeed. O’Brien, we learned, owns the boat.”
“Your thoughts, Mohammed?”
“Allah will guide us, hamdulillah. I feel we must find O’Brien.”
“If we find the material before the Russians, how shall we deal with them and recover the canisters they have?”
“We become the highest bidders. Upon retrieving the material, Waahid will become a martyr, inshallad, God willing. As the smoke clears, we leave with the material.”
Aamed’s jaw noticeably popped from controlled tension. He smiled just as the reflection of the belly dancer’s supple body moved across his dark eyes, and said, “It would seem the time is approaching to kidnap the girl as well.”
“Not yet, not until we have the material. After that, take her. We have takfir—complete authority. Then her father will come without a sound.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“Sean, you’re not going up to Rattlesnake Island tonight, are you?” Abby Lawson asked.
“The kidnappers have given Jason forty-eight hours unless we can produce the rest of the HEU. A few hours have passed already. If the stuff is there, I need to find it before they do.”
“HEU?”
“Highly enriched uranium. Maybe I can get my bearings, see the lighthouse beam coming through the fort’s watchtower. If I can find what the Germans buried that night, it will corroborate what your grandfather saw.”
Glenda looked at her watch. �
�It’s almost 8:00. Billy wasn’t killed until almost midnight. If you are trying to follow the evening as close as it was when he saw the men on that beach, you need to wait a few more hours.”
“I don’t have a few more hours.”
“Please,” said Glenda, touching O’Brien’s arm, “stay for coffee. The caffeine will help your vision on Rattlesnake Island. How do you take it?”
“Black’s fine, thanks.”
“Let’s take our coffee out on the back patio for a few minutes. It’s such a nice evening. I’ll tell you a quick story about Billy.”
O’Brien started to excuse himself to leave, but her face was aglow with trust, her spirit rising above the cancerous tissue and signaling the need to be heard—for Billy to be understood.
“Okay,” O’Brien said.
“Good,” nodded Glenda, holding her coffee cup in two weathered hands and stepping to a door leading into the backyard.
Abby beamed a wide smile. “We’ll join you outside in a moment, Grandma.” The old woman smiled and started humming as she walked slowly to the French doors. “My grandmother is humming, Sean. She only does that when she’s very comfortable. She’s at ease around you. She likes you and believes you can help.”
“She never remarried, right?”
Abby held her eyes on O’Brien, and then she looked at the photograph on the wall for a second before letting her gaze drift back up to O’Brien’s face. “She never found the right man. Not that she would compare every fella to Granddad. She knew what she wanted, what she had, and she didn’t want to compromise or settle for less.”
“I don’t want to sound crude, but do the doctors know how much time she has?”
“A year ago, they gave her three to six months. She’s still here. You go out there, slay a few dragons at sea, and then bring her something our government has refused to and what none of her doctors could.”
“What do I bring her?”
“Hope.”
“Please, I don’t want you or your grandmother to have any illusions about what was found in that submarine. Today, a young woman died. She was about the same age as your grandfather at his death. A German U-boat and a deadly cargo seem to be the cosmic path between the two, but like any theory of the universe, I don’t know what, how, or if it’s connected.”
“Hope is eternal and universal.” Abby pointed to a black-and-white framed photograph of a young man smiling and dressed in an Army uniform. “That’s my grandpa. He looks too young there to be a grandfather, but Grandma was carrying his baby, my mother, when that picture was taken. Mom and I should have had the privilege of knowing him, and that sweet lady out there still misses him and deserves to know who killed him.”
“I agree, Abby. But, two canisters of enriched uranium are missing. A kid I gave a summer job to is being held hostage. I don’t know if coming here tonight may be placing you and your grandmother in danger, too. You need to be on alert”
“What do you mean?”
“I was followed earlier. I lost them, but they could be back.”
“Do you believe anyone followed you here tonight?”
“I don’t think so. But, nevertheless, I want you and your grandmother to be very aware of your surroundings. They may have tortured Jason, and he could have mentioned you and your grandmother by name. He heard me tell the story of what happened to your grandfather.”
Abby hugged her arms. A shiver went through her body. “Let’s join Grandma.”
Glenda looked up as Abby and O’Brien appeared and said, “I was just listening to a nightingale across the yard in the live oak. The male nightingale is the singer, you know? When most birds are long into their nightly roost, he’s throwing his head back like the fine Italian tenor Caruso.” She paused and listened. “Hear him?”
“I haven’t heard a nightingale in a while,” O’Brien said. “At my place on the river, I hear owls at night.” O’Brien could smell gardenias blooming in the yard, the scent musky and yet feminine. He looked at Abby’s striking profile under the soft light, and admired her dedication and love for her grandmother.
She sat down by Glenda. “Grandma, Sean was just telling me about a lot of the things … really bad things that have happened since he found the U-boat. We, you and I, just need to be careful who we speak to and where we go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Glenda,” O’Brien began, “there are some very forceful people who want to get their hands on weapons-grade uranium. Nick and I hooked our anchor on the past and may have opened a door leading back to your husband. I feel responsible for what’s happened the last six days.”
“I hope you can find these people.”
“I’m going to try.”
“Maybe, when you do, in some way, it’ll shed light on a sad, dark place in my heart.”
“How do we exhume my grandfather’s body?” asked Abby.
O’Brien said, “I have a detective friend at the sheriff’s department. He’ll ask for a court order. Then the medical examiner will have a look.”
“How long will this take?” asked Glenda.
“It can be expedited, done within couple of days.”
O’Brien stood. “Thank you both for dinner.”
Glenda smiled and coughed. “It’s getting a little cool. I think I’ll go inside and read some before bed.” O’Brien opened the French doors and Glenda entered her home just as the nightingale began another song. “Good night, sweet bird, sing one more for me,” she said, vanishing into the house.
“Let me walk you to your Jeep,” Abby said
“That’s not necessary. I’ll just walk around the side yard and be on my way.”
“Please, I insist.” She strolled around a birdbath and the blooming bougainvillea.
“Wait, you are a stubborn lady.”
She paused, looked back, and smiled. “Yes, yes I am. Now, are you going to walk with me or stand there listening to the bird sing?”
O’Brien grinned. “What I’m going to do is walk you to your front door. When you go inside, make sure everything’s locked and the alarm’s set.”
“Are you trying to scare me?”
“Yes.”
At the front door she said, “Thank you for being such a good listener around my grandmother. I’m here as often as I can. She gets lonely.”
“I enjoyed her company, and yours.”
“I guess this is where we say goodnight.” She paused and looked up at O’Brien, the smolder of a three-quarter moon casting them in a serene glow. “Thank you for doing what you didn’t have to do. After all these years, you come along and really give a damn. Hopefully, you’re the one to right this wrong. I admire that, Sean.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Yes, you have. You’ve given her hope. Tonight, she’ll sleep better.”
“Goodnight, Abby.”
As O’Brien started to leave, she said, “Sean … .”
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
She laughed nervously. “Maybe it’s the wine … maybe it’s the damn nightingale singing his silly head off … or maybe I’m just afraid something will happen to you out there tonight. Please be very careful.”
O’Brien was silent. He thought he heard a car engine on the next street.
She said, “Let me go with you. I can help—”
“No. It’s too dangerous, and you need to stay with your grandmother.”
“Matanzas is an inlet where the sands are always shifting due to the swift currents and the fact that there are no manmade jetties or embankments. Matanzas Inlet also has an evil past. My grandfather saw it. Between the location and those cruel people out there, I don’t want anything to happen to you either.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
O’Brien drove away from Glenda Lawson’s home and checked his mirrors. Nothing. No sign of car lights. No movement. He called Dave Collins. “How’s Max?”
“She’s lying on the sofa watching the news with me.”
“Can you keep an eye on her a little longer?”
“She’s not a bother. Nick wants to take her up to the Tiki Bar. He says women approach him when Max is sitting in his lap.”
“Is Nick there?”
“He’s in the galley cooking and drinking.”
“I hate to ask you to watch Max and Nick at the same time, but—”
“We’ll stay up talking. Are you going to make it back here for some food?”
“Just ate. I’m driving to Matanzas Inlet.”
“Sean, it’s dark. What the hell are you going to find in the dark?”
“The light, Dave, I hope. Now I have a better idea of what Billy Lawson saw that night when the Germans and Japanese came ashore after he spotted the U-boat.”
“Sean—”
“I’m going to call Dan Grant at Volusia SO and ask him to get a court order to exhume Billy Lawson’s body.”
“Between all the federal and local agencies, there must be a hundred people chasing leads while you’re chasing ghosts.”
“What’s Eric Hunter chasing?”
“Sean, you have him wrong.”
“It’s not a question of right or wrong, it’s grasping what motivates him.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he’s in as deep as you say, and he’s as good as you say he is, where are his allegiances? He may be legit … or he may be ready to score a crime of global consequences.” O’Brien could hear Dave exhale slowly.
“I hope you’re wrong about him,” Dave said.
“I do too.”
***
O’BRIEN CALLED VOLUSIA COUNTY Sheriff’s Detective Dan Grant. Grant, middle aged, African-American, with twenty years on the force said, “Sean O’Brien, looks like you still have my number programmed. Are you doing okay?”
“Dan, I have a big favor to ask of you.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask … what is it?”
O’Brien brought Grant up to date and said, “Billy Lawson was shot and killed in Volusia County May 19, 1945. He’s buried in Sea View Gardens. His widow, Glenda, has given us permission to exhume the body. There’s no statute of limitations for murder.”