“Was Eric Hunter one of them?”
“Yeah. What are you gonna do with that gun?”
“Right now, I’m taking it with me in the shade, going inside Jupiter until Detective Dan Grant arrives, and that should be any minute. He called me and said they dug two bullets out of Billy Lawson’s body, a man who supposedly died from a single gunshot wound.”
Nick followed O’Brien and Max into Jupiter. “What does all this crazy stuff mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Jupiter moved. Max barked once running toward the cockpit. Detective Dan Grant knelt down to pet her. “Hello, little dog. You haven’t changed much.”
“Come in,” O’Brien said. “You remember Nick Cronus?”
“Of course,” Dan said, extending his hand. “Good to see you.”
“You, too.”
“Nick’s okay,” O’Brien said. “He found that damn U-boat with me. Whatever you can tell me about the autopsy, he can hear.”
Dan nodded. “Not much more to tell you than what I said on the phone. But I wanted to show you what the ME found. Lawson was hit in the chest, the gut, and one slug entered near his left armpit, lodging next to his heart.” He reached inside his sports coat pocket and took out a Ziploc bag with two dark objects in it. Dan stepped to the bar, opened the bag, and carefully set the bullets on the bar top.
“What the hell are those?” Nick asked.
“They’re two of the three bullets that killed Billy Lawson,” Dan said. “But they’re different from any bullets I’ve ever seen. Seems to be from a nine millimeter, but they’re heavy. Definitely not lead or brass. I’d like to see the gun that allegedly shot Lawson.”
O’Brien unfolded the damp towel, opened the holster and slowly removed the Luger, placing it next to the bullets. “Now you have it,” O’Brien said.
“Jesus Christ,” Dan said, letting out a low whistle. “Are you sure?”
“A Luger clip holds eight rounds. I’m betting that, when we remove this clip, we’ll see bullets that match with only four rounds left in the clip. Three used on Billy and one on the guy buried in the hole under the HEU canisters.” O’Brien put the bullets back in the Ziploc, folded the bag, and placed it in his pocket. “Thanks, Dan. Nick, can you keep an eye on Max for a couple of hours?”
“Sure. Where you gonna go?”
“To the man who can take this gun apart and put all the pieces back together again.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
O’Brien was less than half way to the Black Forest Gun Shop when Lauren called his cell. “It took some pretty deep digging,” she said, her voice upbeat, “but we found a couple of a.k.a. names for Yuri Volkow, not that two aliases have much bearing on what’s going on right now.”
“What do you have?”
“Yuri Volkow isn’t his real name, of course. We believe he’s Boris Borshnik, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in1951. He was educated at Moscow State University and did graduate work in theoretical physics at Oxford. He’s fluent in English, Chinese and German. He had a German passport, we discovered, that had his ID listed as Heimlich Schmidt. In Russia, he worked in a number of lower-level Kremlin jobs. He’s suspected of being a player in the hit on Alexander Litvineko. We’ve worked with Scotland Yard, MI-5 and SISMI in Italy.”
O’Brien was silent a moment. “Did this come from CIA files or FBI?”
“What difference does it make? You know everything I told you is classified anyway. Let’s say it’s a combination-all packaged from NSA. So why am I telling you? Maybe it’s because we have just under twenty-five hours to find these jerks before they have their insane version of a Sotheby’s auction. Maybe it has something to do with the fact we have two separate terrorists cells, mujahideen and Russian-probably within a few miles of one another. One has enough weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb. The other thinks it has a legitimate reason to do so.”
“Who’d you consult, Lauren? I just want to know who in the circle there at the command center knows you’ve been looking under stones.”
“Mike Gates, of course, Paul Thompson, and Eric Hunter. Dave Collins also was helpful, although in an unofficial capacity. Outside this immediate circle, as you called it, about half dozen analysts, Soviet specialists at Langley and Quantico.”
O’Brien was silent.
Lauren said, “Everything I’m telling you I’ll disavow if I have to. Eric Hunter was questioning me hard about your background. For some reason, you’re on his radar. I don’t know a lot about him. Deep CIA cover I suspect. He looks like he could hide bodies in places they’d never be found. It’s smart to tread around the guy.”
“Thanks, Lauren.” He disconnected and called Maggie Canfield and filled her in with what he knew. He added, “Maggie, remember I’d asked you about Eric Hunter? You said you didn’t know him. But apparently Jason does. I think Jason called this guy.”
“Why? Who is he?”
“I’m not certain. But somehow he befriended Jason, and his number is on Jason’s phone. I believe Hunter is a federal agent.”
“What?”
O'Brien was silent, his mind trying to connect the hidden dots.
"Sean, are you there?"
“Maggie, Hunter is about forty. Maybe six three. A darker shade of blond hair combed back. A small Navy Seal tattoo high on his upper arm. Blue eyes, eyes that never stray when he’s looking at you.”
“That sounds like Wes Rendel.”
“Who’s that?”
“He served with Frank. And he’s a friend of the family, although we don’t see him much. We never know when he’s in town. He just sort of appears. Why is he calling himself Eric Hunter?”
“Maggie, I have to go. I'll call you as soon as something breaks. I'm so sorry this has happened to you and Jason."
“It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice now flat and resolute. "These sick bastards have my son, and all I can do is to pray that God will wrap his arms around Jason and shelter him. Why is this happening to him? He's just a kid.”
“I don't have all the answers, but I think I know how some of this is connected. And if I’m right, I might diffuse it.” O’Brien could hear the television news on in the background. “I’ll bring him back to you, Maggie.”
Her voice was only a whisper, a lost echo in a seashell. “Please, bring him back to me alive.”
There was only one car in the small parking lot of the Black Forest Gun Shop when O’Brien arrived. He got out of his Jeep and walked inside, removing his sunglasses in the low light. A Bavarian cuckoo clock was chiming four times as O’Brien opened and closed the door, a bell on the door handle ringing. No one appeared. The dimly lit store smelled of gun oil, leather, and dark coffee.
There was a long glass case filled with dozens of hand guns, some with hand-carved grips, most in the.38 and 9 mm categories. O’Brien spotted two.44 magnums and one.357 revolver. The wall behind the case was lined with vintage Mauser rifles and shotguns, a small chain laced through the trigger guards.
A door leading to the backroom opened and a man appeared dressed in faded blue jeans, white T-shirt, and red suspenders. Mid-sixties. Shaved round head. Shiny wide face. Thick chest, sausage fingers and a lumberjack’s forearms. A half foot shorter than O’Brien, he looked up through blue eyes deep as the Caribbean Sea. “Can I help you?” he said in an accent right out of Munich.
“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.”