2 3 6
O’Brien nodded to Nick and pointed toward the surface. He looked at Nick who seemed delighted to be leaving the dead. O’Brien hoped the labels on the box they’d found in the cage were some kind of misprints. He knew the numbers on the conning tower were accurate, and they didn’t match the labels on the two mysterious cylinders.
Maybe the German’s loaded the cargo into the wrong sub. Maybe the cargo was meant for a U-boat named U-235. If not, O’Brien thought that he and Nick just chiseled the top off a modern Pandora’s Box. That thought alone sent a chill down his spine in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Because below them might be enough uranium to make an atomic bomb.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You guys were down a long time!” Jason almost shouted, helping O’Brien and Nick out of their SCUBA tanks. “What’d you see? How many skeletons?”
“Too many,” Nick said, running a hand through his wet hair.
“Get some pictures?”
“Sean did. Just like a crime scene photographer.”
Jason grinned, “Can I see whatcha got?”
O’Brien set the camera next to his wet fins and SCUBA tank in the corner near the salon door. He said, “I shot a few pictures of some stuff we found on the sub, at least the half of the sub we explored. We didn’t have enough air to venture into the other half. Looks like it was blown apart. Severed by a huge blast. Bombed, maybe.”
“What’d you guys find?”
Nick shook his head. “A friggin’ jet engine-”
O’Brien interjected. “Jason, why don’t you take Max to the bow and bring up the anchor. You shouldn’t have any problems with it now.”
“Okay … did you see a jet engine down there, too?”
O’Brien smiled. “We’re not sure what we saw. Probably just some long lost relic from World War II.”
“That’s awesome. If the charter fishing biz fizzles, we can bring divers out here. Wreck diving is huge. C’mon, Max.” Jason walked to the bow and started the windlass.
“Nick, you’ve earned that beer,” O’Brien said, motioning for Nick to follow him into the salon. O’Brien entered the galley and brought two cold Coronas from the refrigerator. “Salute. You make a hell of an adventure diver.”
Nick swallowed a mouthful of beer. “Yeah, I can do without these kinds of adventures. Nothing in Poseidon’s big ocean ever bothered me like what we just saw down there. And that sure looked like a jet engine to me.”
“That U-boat was carrying more than pieces of jets. The less a kid like Jason knows the better. I promised his mom I’d keep an eye on him. It’s more than just a summer job … he had a rough time after his dad was killed. He’s already tried to numb the pain with drugs, now she suspects he’s drinking too much. He’s a good kid, and I don’t want to jeopardize his safety. And his mother’s an old friend of mine.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean by safety?”
“We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Let’s be cautious. We think it’s a German sub because of the emblem on that dinner plate we found. There could be some dangerous material inside those canisters marked U- 235.”
“What kind of material?”
“When I first saw them, with the U-235 markings, I assumed the sub was a German U-boat, U-235. But when we scraped the barnacles off one side of the conning tower and I saw the number 236, I knew the sub had to be U-boat 236.”
“Maybe the Germans just got the numbers wrong on the boxes.”
“Based on the size of this sub and the other cargo it was carrying, the jet fighters in crates, the sub may have been on a secret mission, especially if it went down toward the end of the war.”
“Talk to me, Sean. I’m just a fisherman, you were the cop.”
“I’d read once that Nazi Germany was very close to developing the atomic bomb. We managed to beat them and the Japanese. Nuclear bombs sealed the end of the war.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Those canisters marked U-235 could be carrying enriched uranium.”
“You mean the shit they put in the bombs?” Nick shook his head.
“Exactly. U-235 is the accepted abbreviation for Uranium-235. It’s highly enriched uranium. Some call it HEU.”
Nick took a long swallow from his beer, his face blooming with heat and alcohol, eyes watering a second. He glanced out the salon window, watched Jason with the anchor for a moment. “Sean, man, you did drop the hook on the gates of hell. What do we do? Who can we tell? This could be some big damn deal.”
“You can’t say anything to anyone about this. Not until we can clear up what may be down there. If it’s HEU, terrorists would like to get their hands on it.”
Nick let out a slow whistle and went to the galley for two more beers. He said, “Maybe the stuff in the boxes expired. World War II was a long time ago.”
“That stuff doesn’t expire. Let’s get
“You mean because of his background with the government?”
“That, and because he’s the only one we can trust right now.”
Nick popped the caps off the Coronas, handed one to O’Brien, and then sat in the captain’s chair in the lower station. He sipped his beer and set it near the control panel. Nick’s eyes narrowed. “What happen to the GPS down here? Looks dead?”
“I turned if off.”
“Sean, you don’t even trust me? C’mon.”
“It has nothing to do with trusting you. If you don’t know exactly where this thing is located, and Jason either, then you two won’t be able to tell anyone … under any circumstances.”
“You know I won’t say nothin’ to nobody.”
“I believe you. But no one knows what you’d say when someone starts cutting your fingers off-one by one.”
Jason held the digital camera in his hands as he walked inside the salon with Max at his heels. He said, “Cool, pictures. That does look like a jet engine. You should let me build a website for you. We could stick these pictures on it. You know … advertise for fishing and wreck diving. What’s this U-235 mean? Is that the name of the U- boat?”
CHAPTER NINE
O’Brien gunned
O’Brien said, “Jason, we’ve got a charter next Friday. We need to be through the pass and heading for open water by seven a.m. You should have everything prepped, rods, bait, and ice ready by six. We’ll need to have the food stocked the night before the charter.”
“No problem,” he said, eyes scanning the horizon as
“I have an elderly couple, neighbors, near my place on the St. Johns River. Great dog sitters, so she’ll be with them.”
