by Tom Lowe
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
Max uttered a low growl. “Shhh,” whispered O’Brien. He sat up, reaching for the Glock on his nightstand. He stood, the glow from the moon falling softly through the Plexiglas skylight. Max growled again. “Don’t bark,” O’Brien whispered.
O’Brien held the Glock up and stepped into the short passageway from the stateroom to the salon. He could see a silhouette on the other side of the blinds in front of the salon door. He walked back in the stateroom, closed the door, stood on his bed, and slowly opened the skylight. Max whined. “Shhh … I’ll be right back.”
He quietly pulled himself straight up and through the open skylight. He could hear the breakers across the road and the rumble of a storm somewhere over the Atlantic. O’Brien held the Glock and stepped in his bare feet down the center of the bow, and inched his way around the catwalk beam until he was almost to the cockpit. He heard the man picking the lock. Just as O’Brien cleared the exterior of the salon, the man opened the lock and entered.
Max.
It would be a matter of a few seconds before she barked. O’Brien slipped down from the beam and silently followed the intruder. The man slowed. He stepped without a sound through the salon. A moving shadow. O’Brien saw the pistol in the man’s hand.
Max scratched the closed stateroom door.
The man extended his pistol arm and stood ready to kick open the door.
“Another step and you’re dead,” O’Brien said, touching the Glock’s barrel to the back of the man’s neck. “Drop the gun! Slowly raise your arms.” The man released the gun and started to raise his hands.
“Can I turn around?”
O’Brien recognized the voice.
Eric Hunter turned around and half smiled. “Nice job, O’Brien. Surprised you heard me. Must have been the dog.”
O’Brien was silent. He suppressed the urge to slam the pistol grip in Hunter’s teeth. “I should put one between your eyes.”
“I have no doubt you could, considering your background. Was
it Afghanistan, that where they got to you? Selling your conscience, your soul.”
“Conscience? You break into my boat. Gun in hand, and you want to analyze me? Fuck you, Hunter, or do I call you Wes Rendel?” O’Brien shoved the Glock under Hunter’s chin. “You enjoy lying to Maggie Canfield and Jason?”
“I’ve never lied to them. Frank didn’t die immediately in the bombing. He died in my arms. I promised him I’d keep an eye on his family.”
O’Brien pressed the gun barrel deeper into Hunter’s skin. “Who’re you working for? Tell me!”
“The U.S. government. Who’re you working for?”
“An eighty-eight-year-old lady and her granddaughter. On top of that, I’m trying to keep Jason Canfield alive, and I never met his dad, but I care about his mother.”
“How much did Mohammed Sharif pay you?”
“What?”
“Money, O’Brien. Sharif says you’re the mole.”
“And you’re incompetent!”
“I spent two years infiltrating them. He says you sold out to him, gave him the location of the U-boat before you had to retrieve the goods. He said I’d have to go through the gates of hell to make you admit it. And that’s what will happen. You’ve been classified as an extreme enemy combatant. They’ll use a blowtorch on your back to convince you to talk. When did they recruit you, O’Brien? Was it when you were in Pakistan?”
O’Brien shoved Hunter across the salon and into the couch. “Sit down! I’m not your double agent. It’s Mike Gates!”
“What?”
“Mike Gates. Sharif played one on you. Gates of hell. He was talking about Mike Gates.”
“You’re out of your mind!”
“Am I? Here’s a quick history lesson for you, Hunter. Mike Gates trained under an agent named Robert Miller. Miller was directly responsible for the death of Ivan Borshnik during the cold war. Ivan was Yuri Volkow’s father. Volkow’s real name is Boris Borshnik, and he’s here to avenge his country and his father’s death by execution in America. Mike Gates was recruited by Boris Borshnik because Borshnik knew of Gate’s tie to Miller.”
“Miller probably trained a lot of agents through the years.”
“But not any as money hungry as Gates. He looked for the chink in Miller’s armor and found it—the cover up of Billy Lawson’s murder, the covert corruption during the Manhattan Project, culminating in the selling of secrets to the Russians and sending Ivan Borshnik to the electric chair. Miller’s the oldest living double agent in America. It was Miller who met the Germans that night when they were burying the HEU. He had already sold the Russians the “how to” and now he had cut a deal to sell the stuff to Ivan Borshnik. But he kept the money instead while he pushed to have charges brought against Borshnik in front of a military tribunal.”
“If this is true, why’d Volkow or Borshnik, if that’s his name, wait until now to avenge his father’s death or retaliate for his country being ripped off?”
“Maybe he thought Miller was dead. Miller had been deep, so deep that the bureau faked his death rather than retire him. Obit column in the Washington Post said he died as a result of a coronary, two months before his retirement. And Miller was the only one who had a clue where the HEU was until Nick and I stumbled upon it.”
Hunter said nothing, looking down at the salon floor.
O’Brien heard Max whining. He picked up Hunter’s pistol off the floor, pocketed it and turned to open the door. Max scampered out as Hunter reached inside his pant leg and pulled a .25 caliber Beretta out of a holster.
“My orders are to take you dead or alive,” Hunter said. “I have a pistol pointed at your spine. Drop the Glock and turn around slowly.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
“That little gun won’t do much against this shotgun. Drop it!” Dave Collins stood in the open door of the cockpit, a 12 gauge shotgun aimed at Hunter.
Hunter looked hard at Collins. He slowly lowered the pistol. “Kick it to the center of the floor,” Dave ordered.
“You’re making a big mistake, Dave,” said Hunter.
“Do it!”
Hunter did as ordered, and O’Brien turned around. He said, “Your timing couldn’t be better.”
Dave nodded. “Light sleeper. I heard a cat in the trash by the cleaning station and woke to see someone approaching your boat.” He stepped into the salon. “Eric, I overheard some of the conservation from the open window. Everything Sean told you is the truth. Gates has breached. He did it a long time ago. We recorded Robert Miller admitting it.”
O’Brien said, “Gates is good. Very smart. Maybe smarter than anyone in the bureau for years, because he’s been doing this for years. Miller admitted Gate’s connection to Borshnik.”
Dave said, “We didn’t know Gate’s tie to Sharif until he tried to frame Sean. A plan, no doubt, laid by Gates to get Sean out of the picture. Only a fool would underestimate Mike Gates. He’s brilliant.”
Hunter shook his head, eyes focused beyond Jupiter’s porthole, gazing at the lights of the marina. He said, “We had our suspicions. Gates leaves no trails. I can’t imagine the damage that’s been done.”
“That’s nothing compared to the damage that will be done if they can turn the HEU into a real bomb,” Dave said.
“What do we do?”
O’Brien set his Glock on the bar. “We use Mike Gates just like he’s used and abused the trust of the people he swore to protect, the American people. Tomorrow the breach is broken. But, right now, we can set the trap for Gates.”
“How?” Dave asked.
“Borshnik may have removed the tracking devices from Jason’s mobile, but the phone can still receive text messages, which Borshnik will no doubt read. Let’s send him something that will hit him right between the eyes.” O’Brien punched the keys on his cell phone and read aloud as he wrote: “Borshnik, yes, I know your real name because I got it from the man who set up your father, Ivan. His name is Robert Miller, alive and well. Can you guess who also knows this? Mike Gates. Have a nice day!”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
O’Brien and Dave got to the federal building at 8:00 a.m., cleared security at the front door and took the elevator up to the sixth floor. O’Brien said, “I’ll use this opportunity to get closer to freeing Jason, but I won’t let Gates take me out.”
“Remember, Gates thinks they’ve convinced me you’re a mercenary.”
“We don’t know what Gates thinks or why. But I’m exposing him.”
A Volusia County Sheriff’s deputy stood guard outside the door leading into the task force command center. FBI, Homeland Security, ATF, U.S. Marshals and people O’Brien assumed were CIA, NSA or a combination of each, entered and left the room constantly. O’Brien and Dave Collins approached the guarded door.
“ID please,” requested the deputy.
Dave handed a picture ID to the guard. The deputy studied it a moment, his eyes glancing from Dave to the photograph. “Says this expired in ’03.”
“We’re consultants,” Dave said.
“You’ll need somebody with a current valid ID to—”
“This is current and valid,” said Lauren Miles, coming up behind O’Brien and Dave, holding her ID between the two men. “They’re with me.”
“No problem, Ms. Miles.”
“Gentlemen, please follow me.”
Inside the cavernous room was a huge bank of phones, computers, long white boards, flat-screen monitors, and makeshift desks. Four boxes of doughnuts, a few eaten, were on the first table. Agents worked the phones, typed keyboards, and drank coffee.
Mike Gates, cell phone in his ear, sleeves rolled up, tie down, sweat stain growing like a blooming flower in the center of his blue shirt, looked up as O’Brien entered.
“Have a seat over there in the corner,” Lauren said.
They walked by a wall that displayed photographs of the four slain FBI agents and the two state troopers. The photographs were of the agents in suits, smiling like they’d graduated fro
m the academy, the troopers in their dress blues. Above the pictures was a large digital clock, the time, down to the second, flashing in bright red.
“Coffee or anything?” Lauren said before she sat at the table.
Dave grunted and shook his head no. O’Brien said, “Sounds good.”
Lauren smiled and went across the room to pour two cups. Dave said, “Gates looks like he smelled a fart.”
“So does Paul Thompson,” O’Brien said as he watched Thompson at the white board glance his way, cap the black marker and approach Lauren. While he spoke to her, he looked at O’Brien, again, then turned back to face Lauren. She sipped coffee from one of the Styrofoam cups, eyes darting toward O’Brien.
“I wonder where Eric Hunter is,” Dave said, eyes scanning the room.
O’Brien was silent. He watched as Gates ended his call, glance at the clock on the wall, and approach Lauren and Thompson. They huddled; Gates had his arms folded across his chest.
A minute later, Lauren returned to the table and sat down. “Careful, coffee is a bit hot.” She lowered her voice. “We’ve got to stop Gates before this thing goes to hell.”
“Then do it,” O’Brien said.
“The audio recording from your meeting with Robert Miller, it’s more than enough for me, but I’m not a grand jury. Defense might say it’s the ramblings of a sick old man without all his faculties. If we could get something else to corroborate it—”
“Not easy,” Dave said. “Considering the situation.”
O’Brien looked across the room at Gates who checked his watch against the clock on the wall. “Is the HEU auction still supposed to happen at 4:00 p.m.?”
“Yes,” Lauren said.
“If we can nail Borshnik, have him implicate Gates, we’d have something else.”
“Or even Sharif,” Lauren said. “If Gates is that good, playing both of them—”
“He’s apparently that good,” Dave said.