“Wrote it on the other side of the envelope. He lives near Orange City in an old house that’s been part of his family for a lot of years. Lives alone. That’s all I know.”
“Soon you’ll know a lot more.”
“Maybe.”
“When they pry the lid off the box back at the ME’s office, you’ll soon know if what deputy Ford wrote was the truth.”
“I just hope to God we’re not opening some Pandora’s Box.” Dan shook his head. “But, I guess you already found that one in the sub.”
O’Brien was silent, watching the men load the casket into the back of full-sized cargo van. “You know anybody who’s good at restoring old guns?”
“What do you mean?”
“One that’s seen salt water.”
“There’s a guy who runs a little gun shop off Ninth and Lilac. He’s damn good. Getting up there in years but knows guns and how to bring them back to life. Still has a slight accent, although he’s been here for years. Grunts more than he talks.”
“The accent, what is it?”
“German.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Jason Canfield watched as the men lined the ten canisters along the warehouse wall and took pictures. Two of the five Russians were still dressed like state troopers. One had a dark stain on the back of his shirt. The man with the stained shirt, Zakhar Sorokin, walked over to a laptop computer and began uploading the images.
Yuri Volkow entered the room, glanced at Jason, said nothing and then stood over Sorokin’s shoulder. One Russian stepped to a window, peered out, and walked to Volkow. Another man stood at the door, all men carried pistols, and six assault rifles were on a table in the center of the room.
Andrei Keltzin sat at another table and typed in information, fingers rapidly moving over the keys. In Russian he said, “We have a total of six bidders. Five have been certified. The sixth, a new Islamic group. Most of its members are fifteen years younger than their top leader. They ask for time to be extended to raise the necessary funds.”
“No!” shouted Volkow. “Sunday at four. No exceptions. Either they can or cannot bid. It is that simple.”
“Understood. The representatives come from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, one in Pakistan, one in Lebanon, and one here in the U.S. Do you want to begin the bids at a minimum of five million U.S. dollars for each cylinder with the condition that all must be sold together?”
“Yes,” Volkow said.
“We have transportation, a Liberian liner, waiting for us at Port Canaveral. It will be in port for five days or until we arrive.”
Jason sneezed. Volkow turned and looked at him. “Do you want water?”
Jason shook his head quickly. “I’m okay.”
Volkow laughed. “No water? Why? Is that so you don’t have to piss, or is it because you think we will poison you?”
“Neither. I’m just not thirsty, that’s all.”
Sorokin asked, “What do we do with him after the transaction?”
Volkow looked at Sorokin and studied him for a few seconds, caught by the image of the light from the computer screen reflecting off the surface of his black eyes, which looked ominous, like small, burning white coals. “You eliminate him.”
O’Brien loaded Max into his Zodiac, started the electric motor, and eased away from Jupiter, heading toward the center of the marina, and then into the Halifax River and the Intracoastal. Max stood at the bow, wind blowing her hound dog ears like socks on a clothesline, her wet nose testing the air. O’Brien could smell the scent of garlic and blackened grouper coming from the Tiki Bar as they were gearing up for the lunch crowd. As he cut toward the canal leading to the river, the smell shifted to the odor of oyster bars drying at low tide. It was late morning, almost cloudless, sky like a cerulean bowl over the world.
O’Brien skimmed the dinghy across the flats. He was glad to be out on the water, the wind in his face and the warm sun on his back. But Jason Canfield and the fate of the HEU were on his mind, a presence that might as well have been sitting next to him in the rubber Zodiac.
He pulled the little boat alongside the floating Styrofoam ball indelibly marked in black: A-111. The ball had a hole in the center where a quarter-inch rope was knotted. O’Brien leaned over, grabbed the ball, and began pulling the rope, hand-over-hand, into the Zodiac. Max paced the boat, eyes animated with excitement.
He lifted the crab trap over the rubber wall of the Zodiac, set it down, and opened the trapdoor. A large blue crab scurried out. Max almost jumped off the boat. She balanced herself on the rubber side-wall, like a cat on the back of a couch, ears flat, eyes wide. Her barks sounding more like pleas.
O’Brien caught the crab and dropped it into the water. “Come on down, Max.” She did and began sniffing the spot the crab had landed. O’Brien reached in the trap, got the holster and checked it. The Luger was there. He lowered the trap back in the water and started toward the marina.
Dan Grant stood fifteen feet away from the autopsy table and watched Dr. Julia Barnes cut through mummified human tissue and bones, the remains of Billy Lawson. Dan tried not to look at the face, half skeleton and half atrophied tissue resembling tawny leather stretched over exposed cheekbones.
Dr. Barnes examined the fresh MRI transparencies she had taken earlier of Billy Lawson’s body. “I see two objects that aren’t supposed to be there,” she said to Dan as the saw cut through rock-hard tissue, a chemical smell like moth balls in the puff of human dust. She stuck a gloved finger into a small hole in what was left of a concave stomach, similar to a collapsed tent draped over exposed ribbons. She said, “They used a lot of embalming fluid in 1945. I see one entrance wound to the abdomen … one in the chest … and one beneath the left armpit. Three shots and at least two bullets because here’s an exit wound.”
She used a tiny camera attached to a long prod, pushing though the dusty body cavity, her head glancing up at the flat plasma screen for reference.
“There,” she said, “see that?”
Dan stepped closer and looked at the color screen. Buried in the opaque honeycomb of cadaverous, emaciated body parts was a dark object smaller then the tip of his little finger. “Looks like a bullet,” he said.
Dr. Barnes used a long, tweezers-like prong to retrieve the object. Removing the piece of metal from the body, she held it in the light, her eyes studying it. She said, “It’s a bullet. But it’s a most peculiar one at that. It weighs more than most its size. And this is the first time I’ve ever removed a black bullet.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
O’Brien finished tying the Zodiac to the support near Jupiter’s stern when Nick Cronus approached. “I’ll get hot dog,” Nick said, Max’s reflection in his dark sunglasses.
“Thanks.” O’Brien got out of the dinghy and stepped up to the dock.
Nick lifted Max gently and set her on the dock. Immediately, she began stalking a lizard sunbathing on the side of a piling, throat extending like a cherry tomato.
“What’s wrapped in the wet towel?” Nick asked.
“Just got the Luger we left in one of your crab traps.”
“I didn’t leave it there, you did. Number A-111. I never pull up that trap again. I’m leavin’ it on the bottom of the river.”
“Why?”
“That Luger was on one of those skeletons. Now any crab that comes outta that trap is no good. You’ve heard of deviled crab, right?” Nick grinned.
O’Brien smiled. “Have you seen Dave?”
“He left a few minutes ago. A couple of FBI types walked out of Gibraltar, and none looked too happy, especially Dave.”
O’Brien was silent. He looked down the long dock toward the Tiki Bar. A pelican sailed across the dock alighting on the fly bridge of a Grand Banks trawler.