by Tom Lowe
“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.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
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.
“Hello, Mr. Ford. My name is Sean O’Brien.”
The door cracked open, a tarnished brass chain visible against the dark room. “What do you want?” The old man’s voice was gruff and strained at the same time.
“I want to ask you a couple of questions about an investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“May I come inside?”
“Show me your badge.”
“I don’t have a badge … PI. I do have a young man who’s being held hostage by some people who have nothing to lose by killing him. Please, can we talk?”
The door opened. “Come in.”
O’Brien walked into a home that smelled like fried eggs and dog food mingling with the odor of a carpet that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Brad Ford was tall, almost O’Brien’s height. Rail thin. Round shoulders. Uncombed white hair. Guarded eyes that squinted in the light entering the room. He looked like a man who’d slept through the last century and was abruptly awakened by a stranger who wanted to know the time.
“C’mon in the living room,” Ford said.
O’Brien followed as the old man led him to a small living room. He walked by a bar in the kitchen where an old, black lab slept on a cushion below. The bar had opened cans of sardines, beans and crackers. A tomato was sliced on a paper plate, a fly crawling across it. Oil paintings hung on every wall. O’Brien could see most of the paintings were signed by the same person. “Who did the paintings?” O’Brien asked.
“My wife, Nancy. She began painting when she turned sixty. She always took exception to any birthday with a zero in the second digit. She said when that happened, it was time for self-reflection, see where you were and where you wanted to be.”
“I heard that an artist mixes a little of his or her soul on the palette with the paint.”
Ford stared at a painting of an old windmill under the moonlight. “Yeah, she did … lot of her is in them.” He turned to O’Brien. “How can I help you?”
“I’m investigating a murder. It was a murder you investigated in 1945.”
Ford’s bushy left eyebrow cocked. His mouth turned down. “What murder?”
“Billy Lawson.” O’Brien watched every detail of the old man’s reaction.
Ford looked at the floor, memories firing and misfiring in his aged brain. He crossed his arms and grunted. He looked over O’Brien’s shoulder, his eyes clinging to one of his wife’s paintings, his thoughts like a stiff deck of cards that hadn’t been shuffled in sixty-seven years. He said slowly, “What about the killing?”
“You remember it?”
Ford nodded.
“What can you tell me about the night you found Billy Lawson?”
“Glenda.”
“Yes, that was it, Glenda. She called dispatch, said her husband had been shot. It was in a phone booth off A1A by a bait and tackle shop that’s been long gone. He was dead when I got there. I found his truck parked about three-quarters a mile north. Keys still in the ignition. Motor was off, but the engine was warm. Weren’t any signs of anybody either. We had no witnesses. No weapon was recovered, and as far as we could tell, that boy, Billy Lawson, didn’t have any enemies.”
“Glenda said she told you that Billy said he saw men, German sailors, burying something on the beach. Near or on Rattlesnake Island.”
“Yes, I remember. There was a nor’easter that blew through that night. We combed the place in the morning. Couldn’t find one print in the sand. Dug up lots of turtle nests looking for whatever Billy saw, but we found nothing.”
“How about the Navy base in Jacksonville, weren’t they alerted that there was a German sub off the coast?”
“It was called in. They sent out a couple of planes and scoured the coast from near the St. Augustine lighthouse to Ponce Inlet in the south. We heard that one of them thought he spotted a U-boat, dropped some depth charges. Next day the Navy said they couldn’t find a thing.”
“Was an autopsy done on Billy Lawson?”
“You’re talking 1945. They didn’t do autopsies unless they had no damn idea how somebody died. In this case, it was obvious. He died from a gunshot wound.”
“Why did your report indicate he was shot once when a post-mortem done after the body was exhumed today revealed Billy had been shot three times?”
Ford was silent; his nostrils flared slightly, the carotid artery jumping beneath the sagging turkey neck skin. “I didn’t have much of a choice in those days.”
“What do you mean?”
“The investigation wasn’t compromised … at least I don’t believe it was.”
“How could that be true when you lied on the report?”
“War was still going on. The FBI came in and took over the investigation. They found evidence that Billy was shot with a bullet, or bullets, from a nine millimeter. Probably a German Luger.” Ford paused, his mind drifting off somewhere. Then he came back. “Because the country was at war, and because Billy had told his wife he saw the Germans and Japs diggin’ on U.S. soil, and the Japs escaping, the FBI thought it would be smart to hold their cards close to their chest. They were investigating all kinds of espionage at that time. Japs, communist groups, Russians stealing secrets … you name it.”
O’Brien said nothing, only nodding.
“I remember them telling me and the sheriff that if we let the public know that the Germans pulled a U-boat up to our shores, dropped off Japs, possible saboteurs, it could cause widespread panic. They were especially concerned because this country was in the eleventh hour of a top-secret mission to end the war. Today, I know that was the Manhattan Project, the dropping of the atomic bomb over Japan.”
“What happened to the Japanese that Billy Lawson saw that night?”
“I heard they were eventually caught and put to death in the electric chair, just like the Germans caught landing a U-boat in East Hampton, summer of forty-two.”
“So, Billy Lawson’s widow, a woman who delivered his baby six months after his death, never had closure. Never knew that her husband was killed by Germans.”
“Many a day went by that I thought about that. And I don’t feel too damn good about it. But, we were told things had to be that way because of national security. When everything had played out, we could have gone back and said we believe he was killed by Germans, but we really couldn’t prove that either. So the investigation remained open. You’ve come along to close it. I’m glad.” His voice trailed off.
“Mr. Ford, who in the FBI worked the case?”
“Can’t remember all their names. I do know it went as far up as J. Edgar Hoover. I think, by and large, he might have been calling the shots. The man who was the field agent … he was a real smart feller. Talked fast. He had his own way of doing things. I know he didn’t spend a whole hellava lot of time on the German connection.”
“Does the name Miller ring a bell?”
The old man’s eyes ignited. Even through the cloud of cataracts, a spark burned. “Yep, Robert Miller. Never particularly cared for his style. He was the one who said it was a federal case. Told us to back off and for our report to say Billy Lawson was killed from a .38 caliber bullet. Shot by a mugger.”
“Did you ever see Miller again after the war ended?”
“No, but I followed his career, best I could. Miller was on a fast track with the FBI and what was then the OSS, before they were called CIA. He was one of the agents that busted communist sympathizers. He brought down a Russian spy exchanging money for atomic secrets. They executed the Russian in a federal electric chair. I remember it because my oldest daughter was born in ‘51. And I remember the Russian’s name ... on account it rhymed with Sputnik … you know, the first Russian satellite. Man’s name was Borshnik … Ivan Borshnik.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
O’Brien backed his Jeep out of Brad Ford’s driveway, stopping at the mailbox. He opened his laptop and logged online. In less than five minutes, he traced much of the public history surrounding Ivan Borshnik. He called Lauren Miles. “The name you gave me, the real name for Volkow, you said it was Borshnik, right?”
“Yes.”
“What was his father’s name?”
“I have to check the dossier.”
“In 1945, FBI agent Robert Miller was the courier between Ethan Lyons, he’s the former physicist, the one who did twenty years on espionage convictions—”
“Okay—”
“He handed off his dirty little secrets to Agent Miller who, in turn, sold some or set up a Russian spy. A guy named Ivan Borshnik.”
“What?”
“If Volkow is the son of Ivan Borshnik, he’d be in his late fifties.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the elder Borshnik was a Russian spy. Sentenced to death in 1951. If he was married or had a girlfriend, the last time they could have been together was in 1950. Factor in nine months for a pregnancy and you could have the birth of a baby. In this case, Borshnik would be the son of the only Russian to have been put to death in an American electric chair.”
“Oh my God,” Lauren said.
“Which means, our rouge weapons broker, Yuri Volkow, may be Boris Borshnik. And he’s here to avenge the death of his father. I want to know how he got here so fast to steal the HEU. If Robert Miller’s alive, could he answer that question?”
“Miller’s alive. Lives in the Olde Club Condos in New Smyrna. Although he’d retired twenty-five years ago, the official notice of his departure from the bureau was death caused by a massive heart attack. He’s one of the old timers that entered what is essentially a witness protection plan. But rather than change the ID and relocate a witness, in the case of deep cover people like Miller, a death was plausible. What crazy irony—”
“Nothing ironic about it. It’s planned, Lauren. I’m going to New Smyrna.”
“You’ll never get in to see him.”
“I’ll figure it out … maybe it’ll close more than six decades of mystery.”
“But we’ve got less than twenty-three hours before the auction, and we’d like to find Volkow, or whatever his name is, before his buyers do.”
“Call me when you get a specific address. Lauren … ?”
“Yes?”
“How long has Mike Gates been with the bureau?”
“I think he’s coming up on this thirtieth year. Why?”
“See if he knew or trained under Robert Miller.”
“Sean, for Christ sakes! What are you suggesting?”
“Tell him you reached me and I had asked you if he, Gates, had worked with Mil
ler. Try to gauge his reaction, however microscopic it might be.”
“Sean—”
“See if you can find Miller’s report of Billy Lawson’s death.” O’Brien disconnected and called Dave Collins. After he’d finished telling Dave about Yuri Volkow’s history, he said, “Maybe it’s not Hunter … maybe its Mike Gates. I’m convinced someone inside has an ear to the wall and he or she is passing the information to Yuri Volkow, Mohammed Sharif, or maybe playing them both.”
“Gates? He’s a living legend within the bureau.”
“He could be living a lie. What if Volkow, whose real name is Boris Borshnik, is Ivan Borshnik’s son? There’s your motive, Dave. And if junior recruited Mike Gates, maybe we can tie it back to Robert Miller who may have trained Gates. Take it back to what he knew and what he did from the time Billy Lawson saw the Germans and the mystery man on the beach that night. Let’s take it through the conviction of the physicist Ethan Lyons, to the execution of Ivan Borshnik in an American electric chair.”
“Sean, how in God’s name, in the middle of this terrorist manhunt … how can we investigate Mike Gates?”
“By finding and tricking Robert Miller into admitting what happened.”
“I don’t know—”
“Listen! It’s our best shot because if it’s Gates, he’s responsible for the deaths of Jason’s girlfriend, the storage manager, the four FBI agents, the two state troopers … and Jason if we don’t find him. We stop what’s happening by trapping Gates.”
“What can I do?”
“I need you to find Ethan Lyon’s address?”
“If he’s alive—”
“He should be. His death would probably warrant an obit. Text the address to me when you get it. If you can find a phone number, call him.”
“And tell him what?”
“Tell him you’re an editor with any news organization you want to use, and you have a reporter in the area who’d like to stop by for a brief comment.”
“Why would this reporter want to stop by?”
“I’m sure he’ll want to know, and he might even have something to say when you tell him why I’m seeking a comment.”