CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Miller’s eyes narrowed, icy gray now hard as medieval armor. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m the ghost of Billy Lawson, you asshole. I just may be your worst nightmare coming to haunt you. But to be haunted you have to have a conscience-something you sold to the devil a long time ago.”
“Whoever you are, you have a choice. You can put that gun away and walk out of here and, maybe, you’ll live to be as old as me. Or you can stay, but be advised: you will be hunted down like a dog. Hunted by men who have a license to kill insurgents like you. And, I promise you, no one will ever find your body. What will it be? You have five seconds to decide.”
“Don’t need five seconds. Is that the spiel you used on Ethan Lyons when you blackmailed him, sold out our nation’s security, pocketed money, and used your cover and plausible denial to achieve the American dream by cheating?”
“You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I have more than ideas. I have evidence and answers to your injustices and lies. You wrote that Billy Lawson died from a single.38 caliber gunshot wound. When, in fact, he was killed by three gunshots, and the bullets were from a German Luger, an officer’s special edition. Bullets pulled out of Billy Lawson’s exhumed body matched the gun I found in that German sub. So we had a young man, back from fighting overseas, he calls in to report a U-boat sighting, and he’s killed by the enemy on U.S. soil-and it’s covered up. Why?”
Miller said nothing.
O’Brien aimed the Glock in the center of Miller’s forehead. “Tell me why!”
“You have nothing!”
“I have your lies on a sixty-seven-year-old FBI report. Tell me why!”
“National security.”
“Bullshit!”
“We were at war. If the general population knew the Germans had landed a sub on American shores, off- loaded two Japanese spies, and hidden enriched uranium somewhere, there would have been wide-spread panic.”
“The average American had never heard of enriched uranium. The bomb had yet to be developed or dropped. There would have been no reason for panic. The real reason you hid the truth is because you wanted it buried with Billy Lawson.”
“You’re insane!”
“Billy Lawson saw a third man that night. But this man didn’t get off a German sub. He got out of an American car, met with the Germans, and allowed two Japanese spies into this country. You left the HEU in the hole because you knew the man you sold it to, Russian agent Ivan Borshnik, would never live to get it. Why’d you leave the HEU in the hole? Why didn’t you go back and get it?”
Miller was silent. His lower jaw tightening, arms locked across his shirt. He said, “Russia had paid me, they simply never took delivery-those under Stalin, the regime I was working for, they were all killed. The war ended. Japan was in ruins. So was Russia and much of Europe. The commercial market for HEU today is far greater than it was in those days. Russia was my original buyer, and they got knocked out of the game. As time went by, I didn’t want to risk digging up the stuff, storing the canisters for God knows how long, and trying to fence the merchandise for sometime in the future. So I left them there. Besides, I’d made my money. Today, of course, Iran, Iraq and a dozen other countries would love to have it. But I grew too old to care one way of the other.”
O’Brien said, “Sit!”
“You don’t order me around.”
“Sit! Or they’ll smell your body before they find it.”
Miller sat back on his leather couch. “How much do you want?”
“Is that what you asked Mike Gates when he found out?”
Miller said nothing.
“He trained under you the last two years you were a field agent. While you recruited Ivan Borshnik, his son, Boris Borshnik, later recruited Gates … told him everything his father had told his mother before his death. And guess what, Miller? The damage you did in 1945 had its ugly scab knocked off. Borshnik’s son is here. He’s got the HEU, and believes he has ownership because the motherland paid for it. Paid you for it! You give the Russians the fucking recipe for nuclear disaster, and now they have the ingredients to make the bomb. You had the German sub bombed, men who probably were going to turn themselves in anyway, like their sister U-boat did ten days earlier. Germany had surrendered, but the Soviet Union was trying to arm itself with atomic bombs. Lucky for the U.S. the Russians couldn’t get their hands on it then. ”
Miller stared at the Atlantic Ocean beyond his sixth floor balcony, the fight gone from his face, eyes softer, shoulders rounded. Defeat opening sealed pores. He turned and looked at O’Brien like he would view a body in an open casket, eyes dispassionate. “I’m an old man. They found two spots on my lungs last month. I have one kidney left. There’s nothing you can do to me. You want money?”
“I want the truth!”
“You’re the type with illusions! I had to leave that kind of baggage at the door in a covert world. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have lived long.”
“Miller, the only difference between you and Stalin is you spoke English. At one time, you may have convinced yourself that being a double agent was about the distribution of power. Although delusional, as a young college kid, you could convince yourself it’s idealistic. So, then, you get a taste of the nicer things in life, and you justify selling out your country for the money. But, in reality, it’s always been about control-you’re nothing more than a power hungry asshole.”
“You mind if I pour myself a scotch?”
“Don’t move.”
“It’s right there on the bar, in the decanter. I don’t have a gun hidden in there.”
“I’ll get it.”
“While you’re at it, have one for yourself.”
O’Brien poured about an inch of scotch in a heavy lead crystal glass and handed it to Miller. He sipped, savoring the taste for a moment, exhaled like his lungs hurt, and said, “I used Borshnik like he tried to use me. Sure, I sold him secrets from the Manhattan Project. They would have acquired them anyway. The whole damn Manhattan Project was fueled, in part, by German HEU that Robert Oppenheimer took off the U-boats. America was crawling with Russian spies. Most of them had their aliases compromised when Meredith Gardner figured out their encryption during the Venona Project. He was one smart bastard.”
“Spell Venona.”
“What?”
“Just do it?”
“V-e-n-o-n-a.”
O’Brien stared hard at Miller. “How’d you know about the U-boat?”
“Navy knew another one was out there. They’d radioed us. We told them they could surrender at Mayport near Jacksonville, but when I heard they had two Japs aboard, two who would have committed suicide had the Germans formally surrendered, I instructed them to drop off the Japanese on a remote strip of beach. They had information I needed.”
“What happened to them?”
“They were eventually executed.”
“How convenient. What about the U-235?”
“We figured they were carrying some, just like the sub that we took in Portsmouth. German Admiral Otto Heinz spoke English. I told him to off-load his cargo with the Japanese south of Fort Matanzas. Bury the stuff, and we’d take it from there.”
“Why was a German shot and buried in the hole?”
“One of Heinz’s men protested. Said he couldn’t surrender. He was silenced.”
“Why was their sub hit with depth charges?”
“Because of Billy Lawson. He saw too much. We didn’t know who he had spoken to before he was killed, but
