Nick’s eyebrows arched. “I hope our guys didn’t kill the fella about Jason’s age who saw this thing goin’ down.”
“Authorities at the time reported he died in a mugging,” O’Brien said. “His surviving family-his wife, who’s now in her late eighties, and his granddaughter, have reasons to believe otherwise. Both live here and told me the story.”
“What reason?” Jason asked. “Was it some kind of a conspiracy?”
O’Brien said, “Maybe. But at this point, probably the least you know about things, Jason, it will be smartest and safest for you.”
“No problem-I don’t think I want to know anything else.”
“Good,” O’Brien smiled. “These news stories will be all over the planet in a matter of minutes, both on the Internet and international TV. There are ruthless people who would do anything to get their hands on weapons-grade uranium. Dave and I are going to give all we know to the FBI. You two don’t know the sub’s coordinates. That’s a good thing.”
“But,” said Nick finishing the ouzo, “nobody knows that. They see our faces all over the news and people will think we’re out there huntin’ for lobsters between the rib cages of human skeletons. Especially after that reporter tricked me and I told her I knew where the sub was and would take her there. When they show the story, they’ll cut out the part about her havin’ to wear a bikini.”
“Jason, where did you park?” O’Brien asked.
“My truck is on the north side of the lot.”
“Go up L dock, cross over to M dock, avoid the media in the parking lot near the Tiki Bar, and head on home. Tell your mom “hi” for me. We have a charter coming up.”
“Cool, maybe it won’t be so bad when the TV news is over.”
“Maybe not,” Dave said. “But just in case, be very careful. Say nothing to anyone and be aware of your surroundings.”
O’Brien stepped to the port window and watched Jason walk quickly down the dock. He saw two more news satellite trucks roll up in the far parking lot. He thought about Maggie’s face, heard her voice from the morning when she walked out of his past into the present. “Sean, I remember you as somebody a boy might look up to.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dave moved to the couch, sank into the cushions, and let out a deep sigh. “The more we understand what was going on in the summer of ’45 the better-1945, by the way, was the year I was born.”
O’Brien smiled, “’45 eh? Hope with age you got some wisdom.” Then he said, “Looks like Germany’s nuke world was in high gear at that time.”
“Indeed. If my old contact in Germany was right about the listing on the manifest, we have eight canisters MIA. They still could be somewhere on the sub.”
“Or they might be found on the beach where Billy Lawson watched the German sailors bury something. Maybe it was something they intended to use later. Who was the guy waiting for them, and what sort of deal did he cut?”
“So this Billy Lawson, he was the one shot, right?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” O’Brien said. “He was a PFC, sent home from the front for rehab. He may be the only U.S. soldier in World War II killed on American soil.”
Dave said, “In the intelligence world, you have selective information, disinformation and silence. This falls in the category of a void. Nothing. Not even up there on the same shelf with UFO sightings.”
“A void or avoid,” O’Brien said. “Or maybe disavow.”
Dave used a toothpick to spear a loose olive out of his martini. He chewed it and said, “A lot was at stake. Literally, our nation.” He looked down at a legal pad where he’d scrawled notes. “It’s now believed that Germany probably had gaseous centrifuge machines in 1945. Uranium oxide was mixed with fluoric acid to form uranium-hexafluoride gas. U-235, or HEU, was produced from the spinning gases.”
“But why carry the HEU on that sub?” O’Brien asked. “Were they going to try to somehow launch it over Washington?”
“When Germany was down and out, Japan was still in the fight. If they could have acquired this material, it may have changed the outcome of the war if they’d dropped it on say … New York or even San Francisco.”
“Is seven hundred kilos enough to make two bombs?”
“Enough to make a couple moderate-sized nuclear bombs.”
O’Brien stood. “Since Glenda Lawson said Billy saw two Japanese men, both dressed as civilians, with four German sailors that night … what’s the connection? What’s the tie to Japan receiving the deadly cargo you mentioned earlier?”
“There may be a connection.” Dave looked at his scribbled notes. “Here’s why: on U-boat 234, the one escorted into Portsmouth a few days before Billy Lawson was killed, there was an all-German crew that surrendered. Under interrogation, one of the officers admitted they had two Japanese officers aboard when they left from Kiel, Germany. When the crew of U-boat 234 got word of Germany’s surrender in the war, they could have turned themselves over to the Brits rather than the U.S. However, Commander Johann Fehler elected not to surrender in England, but to turn themselves in to the Americans. Fehler said when the two Japanese men on the sub heard the Germans were going to surrender to the U.S. Navy, the Japanese men said they could not. The honorable thing for them to do was commit suicide or hari-kari. They overdosed on pills and died in their bunks. After a couple of days, the Germans tossed their bodies overboard.”
“I can’t say I’d blame ‘em,” Nick said.
“So along comes yet another sub,” O’Brien said. “The one Nick and I found, U-boat 236, and it’s carrying Japanese, too. But these guys don’t commit suicide. They slip into the U.S. undetected. Well, undetected until Billy Lawson sees them, and then he’s killed as he makes a call to his wife. Maybe one of the Japanese shot him.”
“That’s a possibility,” Dave said.
“Abby Lawson told me her grandfather saw only two of the Germans walking back to the life raft. One was dead. So where was the third?”
“Good question,” Dave said.
“Maybe he’d hidden in the bed of the truck, hoping to kill Billy Lawson as he drove off. But he didn’t get a chance until Lawson stopped at that closed bait and tackle store where he made the call to his wife from the phone booth.”
Dave asked, “What happened to Billy Lawson’s truck that night?”
“Glenda said the sheriff told her, after Billy was mugged and robbed, that the perp stole Billy’s truck only to abandon it near the beach.”
“What if the shooter joined his comrades and got back in the life raft to row out to the U-boat?”
“Anything’s possible,” Nick said. “End of the big war. Maybe it did happen. Was some American really involved?”
“Maybe. How’d that sub go down?” O’Brien asked.
Dave grunted. “Couldn’t find that. But I’d be willing to wager that if Billy Lawson’s call was taken seriously, the Navy, so close at the Jacksonville Air Station, could have dispatched one of its planes and dropped a lot of depth charges on the sub.”
“Would they do that knowing it was carrying weapons-grade uranium?”
“Maybe they didn’t know, figured it was safer to sink it than take the chance.”
“Then why didn’t they recover the material Nick and I found?”
“Maybe they couldn’t find it.”
“I caught it on my anchor. How hard would it have been for the Navy to find it?”
“This was way before sophisticated underwater topography reading equipment. They could have hit the sub closer to shore and it managed to limp a long way out before finally striking bottom. After searching and not finding it, the Navy may have assumed they never hit it. Years drift by, Atlantic storms partially bury the twisted sub, and that footnote in the war fades away with those who died on the U-boat.”
“And along comes my boat, its anchor snags a World War II relic, not just any bottom dweller, but rather one that may be sitting with the earth’s deadliest luggage.”
Dave opened his laptop and looked at the photos he’d loaded from O’Brien’s camera. “I think these canisters are the real deal, U-235 or HEU. And I think if they somehow fell into the wrong hands today, they could inflict as much damage on us as they could have in the hands of the Japanese or Germans. Maybe more.”