Keltzin grinned, teeth like a predator, a small crescent moon scar visible under a nostril. He closed the razor and set it on the bench beside them. “Does your phone have a tracking chip inside it?”
“I’m not sure-”
“Another lie!”
“Please ….” begged Nicole. The instant she glanced down at the razor, Zelkin drove his fist into her left temple. The blow slammed her head against the metal panel, cracking her skull. She slumped down to the van floor, her blue eyes horror-struck, locked, disbelieving under the welling of tears.
Keltzin smiled as he reached for Nicole’s head. She made wet murmurs in her throat. His massive hands held her skull as if he were feeling for the ripeness in a melon. He stared into her pleading eyes, grinned and twisted, the sound like a dog biting through a chicken wing. Three pops as muscle, ligaments, and bone ripped apart. He dropped her head to the cargo floor.
Keltzin cut off the duct tape. He pulled her out of the van and lifted the body over the side of the dumpster. A large rat scurried beneath a cardboard box. He dropped the body on top of broken glass, used condoms, and discarded McDonald’s bags. The stench from human urine rose from the dumpster like sulfurous gas.
Zakhar Sorokin drove to a strip shopping center. A Sam’s Club store was in the middle of the complex. “Stop here,” Keltzin said. He got out of the van and set the dead girl’s purse in a shopping cart someone had left next to a light pole. He got back in the van and said, “Find this Chapman’s fish place. He will be easy to recognize.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
O’Brien was pouring fresh water into Max’s bowl when the man approached. O’Brien set the bowl in a corner of the cockpit. The man was late forties, hawk nose, veiled eyes, two-day growth of salt and pepper stubble, blue jeans, black T-shirt, and deck shoes right out of the box. He stopped walking on the dock behind Jupiter and said, “Nice boat. I always liked a Bayliner. It’ll take a wave. Cute dog. What’s his name?”
“Her name’s Max.”
“At the bar, they told me I could charter your boat.”
“Looking to catch some fish?”
“What do you offer, trolling or bottom fishing?”
“Depends on what the customer wants to catch.”
“Bottom fishing, grouper, maybe. I hear they’re biting.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
The man motioned toward the Tiki Bar. “Guy at the bar … said his name’s Eric Hunter. He told me he knew you, and a kid he knows works for you. Thought you guys could probably use the business.”
“Maybe, if you’re really here to fish. Nice shoes.”
“What if I wanted to catch a U-boat?”
“They’re extinct.” O’Brien glanced at the man’s lower pant legs. No indication of a strap-on pistol.
“I’m not carrying. Rarely do anymore.”
“Who are you?”
“Paul Thompson. I was sent by an acquaintance of Dave Collins. I suppose that’s Dave’s boat over there?” Thompson gestured toward Gibraltar. “I was going to stop there first, but I saw you and decided to come over. Sean O’Brien, correct?”
“If you’re with the CIA, I’m sure you know all you think you know about me.”
“No need for the defense screen,” Thompson said. “We’re trying to quickly neutralize this. Get you and your friends out of the spotlight. I’m going to let Dave know I’m here.”
Mohammad Sharif checked into a Best Western motel. There he knew he could blend easily among the millions of tourists who make the pilgrimage to Orlando to pay homage to a mouse. A rodent, he thought. The Mecca of America, a castle made from fiberglass and a theme taken from European fairytales. He walked the steps up to his second-floor room overlooking International Drive and its long line of rental cars. It was a sea of lost drivers changing lanes at the last second, cutting each other off, heading for restaurants tucked between T-shirt shops, timeshare condos, and theme parks.
As he put the card in the slot to open the motel room door, he hesitated for a moment, waiting for a family walking toward him to pass. The man wore his shirttail tucked inside baggy shorts, legs milky white, sandals, and dark socks pulled up to his mid-calves. The wife wore a tank top and a swimsuit bottom. “Nathan, stop running!” she yelled to her son in a British accent. As they herded past, Sharif could smell the swimming pool chlorine and hamburgers on their skin and clothes.
He entered the room, and his cell rang. It was Rashid Aamed. He said, “Faysal Hazim, Kareem, and Ishmael have arrived from Washington, Jacksonville and Atlanta, doing what you requested-coming by separate routes.”
“Good, “Sharif said. “I checked in where I said I would stay. Room 2191. The boat Ata and Mansur where trailing has returned to the marina. Unfortunately, the boat they were in did not make the return. We believe the two Americans recovered the product and have hidden it somewhere off the boat. It may be easier to track the Russians. If they find it for us, we surprise them, avenge the deaths of Ata and Mansur, take the product, and begin preparing for the event. Imam Majd al Din wants to talk with us about the kidnapping. He has it planned to the minute. Once the man’s daughter is in our hands, the bomb is good as built.”
Dave Collins made a pot of coffee in Gibraltar’s galley and said to Paul Thompson and O’Brien, “The two canisters we placed in the storage unit are essentially the proverbial tip of the iceberg. U-boat 236 was carrying ten. So they’re either hidden under a lot of bottom sand, beach sand, or somebody recovered them sometime before or after World War II ended.”
Thompson said, “We’ll dive the wreck in the morning. Our guys will use the most sophisticated magnetometers and super sonar to comb the bottom.”
“Don’t think you’ll find anymore,” O’Brien said.
“Why?”
“Because the canisters Nick and I found were locked away in a secure spot on the sub. There was plenty of room for more, at least enough room to accommodate eight more like them. But they weren’t there.”
Dave poured three cups of coffee. “Paul, you still take yours black?”
“Good memory, Dave.”
“I do a lot of crossword puzzles in my spare time.”
O’Brien felt Gibraltar move. “Troops are here.”
“FBI and they’re a half hour late,” Dave said.
Thompson chuckled. “Maybe the GPS in their car took them the scenic route.”
Dave opened the sliding glass doors of Gibraltar’s cockpit and let a man and a woman enter. O’Brien knew the woman, Lauren Miles, Special Agent, Miami office, and a one-time special person in his life. He’d met her about a year after the death of his wife. He always thought Lauren resembled Sandra Bullock, chestnut brown hair, curvaceous body, and a smile that turned heads. She entered the boat with a man in his late thirties, straw-colored hair swept back, eyes red, irritated from something.
Lauren Miles said, “Hello, Sean. Why am I not too surprised to see you here?”
“I don’t know, Lauren. Luck of the Irish, I suppose.”
Max trotted up from the galley when she heard Lauren. “Hi, Max. I’ve missed you.” She introduced herself and Special Agent Ron Bridges to Paul and Dave who reciprocated.
“We’ve already seen other members of the FBI,” O’Brien said. “Special Agents Mike Gates and Steve Butler. I guess you guys are sharing notes?”
“Why?” asked Agent Ron Bridges.
“Because we’ve gone over this with them. Hate to be redundant.”
Lauren smiled. “Agents Gates and Butler are back at the Federal building where we’re setting up a command center with Homeland. They’ve briefed us. But humor us, Sean. Perhaps you guys can take it from the top.”
Dave briefed everyone, and O’Brien filled in the details from the discovery of the U-boat, his conversation with Abby Lawson and her grandmother, Glenda, and the recovery of the canisters and where they were stored.