Dave Collins called Anna Sterling and told her what was at stake, and what they needed. She agreed to go online and speak with O’Brien via a camera between Dave’s laptop and the camera on Anna’s computer.
As the connection was made, O’Brien thought the woman on the screen looked like Suzanne Sommers. She said, “It’s been a while Dave. The project sounds intriguing. I don’t know if I can give you anything. I’ve had a long day. My brain is firing with more visual noise than I can cap, but for old time’s sake, I’ll give it a go.”
“Great, Anna. This is Sean O’Brien. He’s been to the site. At least where we think the site might be after all these years.”
Nick slid off the barstool and stood between Dave and O’Brien, looking at the screen. Anna asked, “And who is the handsome fella you have hidden behind you?”
Nick grinned and leaned toward the camera. “Nick Cronus … you come to Florida, I give you a boat ride. The ocean helps you see things better.”
“I’ll remember that,” Anna smiled.
Dave said, “We have a link to a picture of Fort Matanzas. I just sent it to you.”
“It’s here,” she said.
“Good. Sean, give Anna what you have.”
“Billy Lawson saw the men bury the material at night, May 19, 1945. We think it’s on a place called Rattlesnake Island. It’s national monument land, and it hasn’t been developed. Before Lawson was killed, he told his wife, a woman named Glenda Lawson, who’s still alive, that the men buried it on the island aligned with the path of light as it shines through the tower. The light comes from the old St. Augustine lighthouse.”
Anna stared at the image on her screen of Fort Matanzas, her eyes burning into the symmetry of the building. She didn’t blink for fifteen seconds. Intent. Concentrating. Then she squinted slightly, like she was seeing something at a great distance. She kept her focus, her body motionless.
Nick took a long pull on a bottle of beer and started to speak, but Dave held up a hand. Anna began sketching then paused, looked into the camera and said, “Give me a half hour. If I can complete something, I’ll scan in my drawing and e-mail it to you.”
“Anna, we really appreciate this.”
“No problem. It’s a lot different from what we did at Langley. I’m going to fix a hot tea and see what the leaves tell me.” She smiled, pressed a button and her image in the box on Dave’s screen went black.
“Tea leaves,” Nick said.
“She’s kidding,” O’Brien said. “Let’s see what the woman can do. Dave, do the intelligence agencies or DOD use anyone like Anna today?”
“I don’t know. The project, called Stargate, closed shop in 1996 amid controversy over costs versus real results. However, Anna was at the top of the class.”
Nick snorted. “So our government was training people to do this remote stuff?”
Dave sipped his drink. He said, “Some of this goes back to the study of quantum and theoretical physics during the second world war. A guy by the name of Ethan Lyons, who was working on the Manhattan Project at the time, first wrote a paper on Remote Viewing potential. He didn’t call it RV … called it universal perception and did some experiments with subjects drawing sketches of photos he sealed in envelopes. He had a success rate about twenty five percent over the average.”
“That’s impressive,” O’Brien said.
“Ethan Lyons may still be alive. One of the physicists we’d worked with in the beginning on the Stargate Project was Lee Toffler. He’d studied Lyons’ work and added to it. Toffler was a professor who used to work at a nuclear facility in Georgia. I recently read where his only daughter was killed in a car accident. Damn shame. He had raised her by himself.”
“Do you know what became of Lyons after the war?” O’Brien asked.
“Sad story. Arrested by the FBI for selling some of our atomic secrets to the soviets. He did a long stretch in prison. I only know this because I researched it before we hired Toffler as a consultant. He had great admiration for Lyons’ grasp of physics, not so much for his concept of politics and government.”
“How’d they catch him?” O’Brien asked.
“FBI sting. It didn’t take the FBI too long to nail him and others. There were at least two physicists working on the Manhattan Project who sold secrets to the Russians. One of the FBI agents was working undercover, posing as a soviet or communist sympathizer. The agent was acting as a courier, getting the secrets from Lyons and others and then reportedly meeting with Soviet spies.”
O’Brien scratched Max behind the ears. “Do you remember the name of the agent acting as the courier?”
“Not off the bat. I’ll check online.”
“And I’ll check the box for a beer,” Nick said.
Dave put his glasses on, keyed in the names, and began to read the information. “Oh, I remember now that I see it. The agent’s name was Robert Miller. The irony is that Miller went to Harvard the same time Lyons was there. May have been classmates, and he had to bust him. Had to testify against him. Lyons is lucky he wasn’t executed.”
“Did you say Robert Miller?” asked O’Brien.
“Yes, why?”
O’Brien stepped over to the computer and read the name. “Because Glenda Lawson told me that Robert Miller was the young FBI agent who investigated the killing of Billy Lawson. The one who said Lawson died as the result of a mugging … said he died from one bullet. I’m betting an autopsy will prove it didn’t happen that way.”
“Is this FBI guy still alive?” Nick asked.
“Let’s find out,” O’Brien said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
O’Brien spent a few minutes searching online for information about FBI agent Robert Miller. “There’s a brief mention in relation to something called the Venona Project,” O’Brien said. “In 1950 it was a project designed to catch Soviet spies in the U.S.”
“If he’s still alive, wouldn’t take much to find him,” Dave said. “We have two dozen FBI agents here now. I’m sure one of them could locate him or his grave.”
“Let’s not mention to the FBI, yet, what we’ve discovered so far. After what Glenda Lawson told me, we may need access to FBI records, information we might want to corroborate all this. Let’s see what Billy Lawson’s autopsy reveals.”
“Could prove nothing, Sean. FBI files from 1945 should be declassified by now.”
“What does that really mean? Regardless, let’s see what we can find on Ethan Lyons.” O’Brien keyed in Ethan Lyons’ name with dates and data. His eyes scanned the information. “Lyons was released from federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut … 1964 after serving eighteen years on four counts of espionage. After his release, he moved to England, taught physics at Cambridge. It says he never publicly apologized for compromising America’s nuclear weapons program. When asked why he provided the Russians with details of our Manhattan Project, Lyons was quoted as saying he didn’t believe America, or any nation, should ever be in a position to dominate the rest of the world by imposing the monopolistic threat of nuclear annihilation. He believed the prospect of mutual destruction would be the safety mechanism the world needed to contain atomic weapons. It says he and his wife, Sarah, moved back to the U.S. in 1996, due to her failing health and the couple’s desire to be with grandchildren. Last known address, Jacksonville, Florida.”
O’Brien stood and looked out
Dave asked, “What are you thinking, Sean?”
“I’m thinking that if one of J. Edgar Hoover’s agents, Robert Miller, was undercover acting as a courier
