dead! Jason's missing! Sean, please tell me Jason's alive! ”
“Maggie, listen to me. Jason's been kidnapped-”
“Kidnapped! Who? Who took my son?”
“I'm not certain. But I am certain of this-I will find him. Trust me.”
“Bring him back to me, please Sean. He's all I have.” Her voice cracked, deep sobs coming through the phone.
“I have to go, Maggie. I'll find Jason, I promise you.” He disconnected and felt his pulse hammer in his temples, his lips dry, stomach churning.
“Sean, man I'm so damn sorry,” Nick said, running a hand through his dark hair. “Look, I'll fight these bastards with you-”
O'Brien's cell rang again. He recognized the number. It was one of two on Jason’s cell phone the day they found the sub. It was someone whom Jason had called from
“Who’s this?”
“You and I met. Eric Hunter, remember me?”
“How’d you get this number?”
“Jason gave it to me. I thought I might send you two some business.”
“I’m a little busy right now.”
“Look, Mr. O’Brien, I’m the kind of guy that gets to the chase real fast. I saw the news. Jason’s in deep trouble. I want to help you find him.”
“I have no idea where he is. You’re better off working with the police.”
“We both know Jason has little time left. Depending on what the kidnappers want, his life is protected only by the time it takes them to get the info out of him.”
“No thanks. I never liked riding with a posse.”
“Jason was kidnapped by two men.”
“How do you know that?”
“Across the street from Chapman’s is a church. A homeless man was on a bus stop bench. He was waiting for the church to open its soup kitchen. I sat down on the bench next to him and asked him if he saw anything. Said he saw two men toss a guy in a van and peel off.”
“Why didn’t he tell the police?”
“Because they didn’t bother to ask him.”
“How do we know this homeless guy is telling the truth?”
“Chapman’s lot is covered by a security camera, north end. When the detectives go through the hard drive, they’ll see what the homeless man saw. But, by then, it might be too late for Jason. Whether you like it or not, you need my help.”
Dave Collins drove with operative Paul Thompson on the passenger side of the car and FBI agents Lauren Miles and Ron Bridges in the backseat. Dave said, “We’re not far from the storage units. Sean may be there by now. I’d suggest calling the local authorities. Have the bells and whistles sounding. That may ward off any hostiles approaching the target area.”
Lauren said, “We don’t know if the hostiles have found out the location of the HEU. They certainly don’t know we’re headed there.”
“I agree,” Thompson said. “Our first objective is to secure the HEU and remove it. The second is to capture the hostiles. If we can manage to do both at the same time, great. I have back-up coming. The armored truck is on the way from Orlando. Jet is on stand-by. I hope your pal, O’Brien, doesn’t screw this up.”
“Sean won’t screw it up,” Dave said. “Trust me. He’s one of the best.”
“I don’t like his rebel style.”
Lauren said, “It’s not a style with Sean, it’s a talent-”
“All we have to worry about is O’Brien’s Greek friend doing something dumb.”
O’Brien looked in his rearview mirror and saw the driver trying to stay far enough behind but making the last three turns he had made. “Nick, we have a tail.”
“What?”
“Don’t look back! Two guys. Black Lexus. Following us since we hit A1A.”
“Can you lose them?”
“Maybe.” O’Brien cut the wheel and drove though a convenience store parking lot. He pulled out onto Atlantic Boulevard, hooked a quick left on Silver Beach and a fast right on Beach Street. He gunned the Jeep, and as he was cresting a slight incline, he could see the Lexus turn onto Beach. “These guys are good.”
“How good?”
“Good enough that I’m going to have to do something to shake them.”
“Oh shit,” Nick tightened his seatbelt.
“Yeah.” O’Brien made a sharp left, stopping at a long line of cars.
“Holly mother!” Nick shouted. The sound of multiple sirens seemed to converge from all four corners.
“Looks like a bad wreck,” O’Brien said.
The intersection was blocked by a dozen police cars and emergency vehicles. O’Brien looked in the rearview mirror. “They’re three cars back. Damn!”
“What do we do?”
“Whatever we have to do.”
O’Brien cut through traffic, driving over a sidewalk, into a cemetery. Nick said, “You got some kind of dead thing happening, you know? We swim through a graveyard on the bottom of the ocean and now you’re driving on top of dead people.”
“I’ll try not to wake them,” said O’Brien, adjusting his dark sunglasses.
O’Brien pulled into the Ponce Storage Center lot, his eyes scanning for movement. There was a Toyota in the lot. “Wish I had a gun, like you,” Nick said.
“Stay hidden in the Jeep. I’ll go in there.”
“You’re gonna need me to help you carry the magic dust to the Jeep.”
“Okay, but stay outside the door.”
They moved toward the unit. Nick said, “I hope nobody’s in there.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Mohammed Sharif sat in a chair next to a small table and read his incoming e-mails. He looked up at Abdul- Hakim who stood by a window, peering through a small opening in the drapes at the traffic. In Arabic, Sharif said, “Raashad writes that our sources in Germany indicate the submarine was carrying the largest of Hitler’s U-235 cargo. An old man there told the German news that he was supposed to have been on the voyage of this vessel. He became ill a few days before and was left behind. From his home in Nurnberg, he told a reporter that the submarine carried 700 kilos of U-235. He says the materials CNN reported recovered are only part of the cargo. The man said, in Kiel, he was assigned to the radio room. The last contact he had with his friend, Jacob Friedrich, the sub’s radio operator, was that most of the U-235 was left on a beach in Florida, south of St. Augustine. Raashad said that Allah smiles on us,
“
“How?”
“The traffic came to a stop at an accident. Police everywhere. That O’Brien, drove like a man possessed, around police-”
“Enough! Incompetents!”
“GPS says they are near Speedway Boulevard. They have come to a halt in the nine-hundred block. We should
