The Black Bullet (Sean O'Brien mystery/thriller) Read online

  THE BLACK BULLET

  ALSO BY TOM LOWE

  A False Dawn

  The 24th Letter

  The Butterfly Forest

  THE

  BLACK BULLET

  A Sean O’Brien Mystery/Thriller

  TOM LOWE

  K

  Kingsbridge Entertainment

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  The Black Bullet – Copyright © 2012 by Tom Lowe. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, Internet, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Published in The United States of America. For information, address Kingsbridge Entertainment, P.O. Box 340, Windermere, FL 34786

  Library of Congress Cataloging in–Publication Data. Lowe, Tom 1952-

  The Black Bullet by Tom Lowe – 1st edition

  1. World War II—Fiction. 2. Manhattan Project—Fiction. 3. FBI espionage—Fiction. 4. Ocala National Forest—Fiction. 5. Cold War—Fiction Title: The Black Bullet.

  The Black Bullet is distributed in ebook and print editions. Printed books available from Amazon Inc. and bookstores.

  Cover design: Marty Martin, Jade Graphics, www.jadegraphics.net

  Formatting and digital conversion services by FormattingExperts.com

  First Edition: December 2012. Published in the U.S.A. by Kingsbridge Entertainment.

  Table of Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  CHAPTER NINETY

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

  BLOOD OF CAIN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As much as I enjoy writing a novel, this section, the section I write last, is the part I enjoy the most. Because it’s here where I can thank and recognize those people who have helped me bring this book to you.

  The Black Bullet is a work of fiction that got its impetus from history, a clandestine page of American history that began one moonless night when two German U-boats crept up on unguarded American shores.

  Many people today aren’t aware of how close Nazi Germany was patrolling the waters off America’s coast at the start of World War II. German U-boats sank more than seventy-five American ships directly off United States shores from New York to Florida, and into the Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Lousiana and Alabama.

  Fewer people know that two German U-boats came ashore in the dead of night on the remote beaches of Amagansett, New York and south of St. Augustine, Florida. And they dispatched saboteurs into the heart of America. This obscure footnote in U.S. history is where The Black Bullet begins.

  A special thank you to Gerhard Weinberg, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina, for sharing his deep knowledge of U.S. military history. Thanks to John Wortman for his consultation on guns and ballistics, in addition to his expertise on the history of firearms in World War II. Thumbs up to Tom Greenberg and Greg Houtteman of EO MediaWorks for the design of my website, tomlowebooks.com

  I want to thank my family for their strong support for each novel that I write. This includes Natalie, Cassie, Christopher, and Ashley. My wife, Keri, is a talented editor with a strong eye for attention to detail and a great ear for dialogue.

  I’m grateful for her suggestions, patience, and sense humor. Thank you, Keri, for all you do -- sharing your talent and giving your heart.

  And now to you, the reader. If you’ve read other books in the Sean O’Brien series, I raise my glass to you. Welcome back. If this is your first venture into the journey, I hope you enjoy The Black Bullet.

  For my father, Thomas M. Lowe, a World War II veteran who served America well.

  “There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

  - Robert Oppenheimer

  (“Father of the atomic bomb”)

  CHAPTER ONE

  May 19, 1945

  Billy Lawson smelled it before he saw it. Something was out there. Beyond the breakers and hidden in the veil of night. When the silhouette appeared, he wasn’t sure it was really there. Clouds smothered a three-quarter moon over the ocean, and the image, a hundred yards off shore, faded to black. The breeze let
Billy know it was near. The odor of diesel fumes, salt and baitfish blew across the surface of the ocean—a ghost wind delivering something felt but obscured in the dark.

  There was the drone of engines, throaty growls similar to a pride of lions after a fresh kill, mixing with the crash of the breakers. Could be a boat in distress stuck on a sandbar, he thought. But there were no running lights. Maybe just hearing and seeing things again. Couldn’t tell sometimes, not since the injuries in the war. Smells and tastes all messed up—a ringing in the left ear that only stopped when sleep came.

  The wounds on his chest had beaded into scar tissue, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, the horror in his dreams was as deafening as the night a mortar exploded in the center of Company C. He’d left that world—that war—in Europe. Back in Florida, after a month of rehab, he could walk with only a slight limp, and he could throw a cast net with the best of them. He readied his net once more. Maybe get it a few feet beyond the breakers. Let it fall around the fat mullet and flounder. He had only three mullet in the bucket behind him wedged in the sand. He thought of his pregnant wife, Glenda, and he threw with all his strength. Casting to put food on their table.

  As the net hit the dark surface, a cloud parted in front of the moon. Before the net could sink to the bottom, Billy saw the thing.

  Something long and dark.

  No lights.

  His pulse pounded, hair rising on the back of his neck. It looked like some sea serpent lying about a hundred yards off shore. “Jesus,” Billy muttered. He ignored the punching of fish in his net and stared at the ship. But it was no ship in the traditional sense. Billy Lawson knew it was a submarine. It wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Neither was a life raft.

  The raft was maybe eighty yards off shore and coming toward the beach.

  Who were they?

  Billy watched for a moment, the flashes of white in the water on either side of the raft, the paddles breaking the surface, creating a phosphorescent green glow in the ocean, the smolder of the moon leaving a trail of broken light.

  “Time to get,” he whispered.

  Billy felt his heart in his throat. He pulled in his cast net. It was heavy with fish, the night air thick and humid, mosquitoes orbiting his head. The salty sting of sweat rolled into his eyes while he tugged at the net. No time to sort the fish. “Ya’ll got lucky,” he mumbled, emptying his catch back into the sea.

  Something wasn’t right. The war had been over for two weeks. Was it a German U-boat? Japanese? American? Who was in the life raft?

  Seventy yards away and coming.

  He could feel it—a signal buried in his heart, almost like the night he could feel the impending destruction when Company C was caught off guard. But tonight Billy had seen the men in the life raft and hoped they hadn’t seen him. He slung the net over his shoulders, lifted his fish bucket, and tried to run up the beach, ignoring the pain in his knee. In less than one hundred feet, he’d be where his old truck was parked under a canopy of palms, next to Highway A1A.

  Billy set the fish bucket in the corner of the truck-bed, laid the net around it for support, and searched for his keys.

  Gone.

  In his haste to leave, he’d left his keys and his Zippo lighter on the beach. He crept behind palms and sea oats. The men were now close to the breakers. Too near to get his keys. He thought of Glenda. Saw her growing stomach, a stomach he placed his hand against only a few hours ago, feeling the kick of the child inside. He heard Glenda’s laugh when he’d asked if it hurt when ‘she’ kicked.

  “How do you know it’s a she?” Glenda had asked.

  “Just feel it inside. Gonna be a daughter.”

  The sound of German broke his thoughts. The men were rowing through the breakers, and one man was giving orders, trying to keep his voice down, but having to shout over the waves.

  German. Billy was damn glad he’d left quickly. He squatted down and watched the men get out of the raft. Six of them. Four looked to be dressed in German military uniforms. Two other men, shorter, were in civilian clothes and looked Asian. The men carried canisters, each about three feet long. One German sailor carried a shovel.

  Had they come to bury something?

  Billy held his breath as the men walked right past his keys and lighter. They were in a hurry, the weight of the canisters slowing them in the sand. The two men in civilian clothes walked in front. One tall sailor, who Billy assumed was an officer, pointed towards Matanzas Inlet and said something in quick German.

  Although the war in Europe had ended, this was American soil, and Billy Lawson was no longer on active duty. He was serving his last six months of his enlistment on a disability deferment. Maybe he was out of uniform, but he felt something in his heart that was protective—a defiance. They were not supposed to be here. But they were. What the hell did they think they were doing here? He hadn’t lost half his Army buddies, part of his left knee, some of the flesh on his ass, to sit and watch a small squadron of German sailors come to hide something on American soil. Hell no.

  Billy Lawson reached under the seat of his truck and found the short-nosed .38 he’d carried for safety. He stayed in the shadows of the palms and followed the men.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Just get the keys and go, Billy told himself. Go! Run! The Germans would see him if he walked down near the water’s edge to search for his keys. Just wait them out. See what the bastards are doing and report everything as quickly as possible to the Navy base in Jacksonville. If he could reach them, they might capture or bomb the U-boat.

  Billy kept behind the trees and sea oats as he followed the men around a bend at the mouth of the inlet. In the distance, a wink of light popped over the horizon from the St. Augustine lighthouse. A green sea turtle crawled from the surf. She would dig a hole to lay her eggs. The men ignored the sea turtle. They were near the 250-year-old Fort Matanzas. The old Spanish fort, with its tower and coquina stone, was a dark gothic sentry, and now a silent witness to another round of military history. The men sloshed through ankle-deep water in the inlet, stopped near a live oak gnarled from time and weather, and started digging.

  Billy hid behind sea oats, watching the men finish the hole. Gotta phone Glenda.

  There was movement.

  Someone hiding behind dunes and palmettos approached the men. They stopped digging and spoke. Under the moonlight, he could tell that the man who walked up to the Germans was dressed like an American. It looked like they were exchanging something.

  As they began shoveling sand back into the pit, one of the men dressed in civilian clothes stopped and said something to the German officer. The officer shook his head and dismissed whatever it was the shorter man had said. Billy could hear the shorter man raise his voice. And the words were not German.

  He spoke heated Japanese.

  Billy mumbled to himself, “Japs and Germans here on American soil ... why?”

  One of the other German soldiers stepped in and raised the shovel like he was going to hit the Japanese man standing next to him. The tall German officer pulled a pistol out of his holster and shot the German sailor in the head, his body crumpling next to the hole. The two Japanese men made a cursory bow to the officer and the man dressed in American clothes, before walking quickly toward Highway AIA.

  Billy felt his heart hammer in his throat. He had to work to control his breathing. Calm. Stay calm.

  He ran toward his truck. Could make it to get the keys. He turned and darted down the beach, dropping to his knees to search for his keys. The tide soaked his pants. Where are the keys? His hands fanned sand and rushing water. The keys seemed to tumble into his hand. Headlights from an approaching car punched through the tree line, and Billy became a moving shadow in the sand. He heard the Germans yell as he tried to run up the beach to the truck.

  Run! His rebuilt knee snapped causing Billy to fall face down. He spat sand out of his mouth, lifted himself up, ignoring the pain, running as fast as he could. He saw the remaining
sailors moving back in the direction of the life raft. They’d spotted Billy, no doubt. A German was missing. Maybe he left with the Japs. Deserted.

  Billy jumped in his truck. The engine strained, sucking the life out of the old battery. “Start! Just fucking start!” The engine turned over and roared. Billy burned rubber going from sand to pavement.

  He drove a mile to the A1A Bait ‘n Tackle, which he knew was closed. He pulled up to a phone booth and searched his pockets. One dime! Who to call? Glenda or the Navy? Phone Glenda and tell her what’s happening and tell her to call the Navy and the sheriff. What was his damn phone number? His index finger shook so hard he could barely get it in the rotary dial.

  “Glenda!”

  “Billy, what’s wrong?”

  “Just listen. I just saw a murder!”

  “What?”

  “A German soldier shot another German soldier on the beach. There were six of them—four Germans and two Japanese. Another guy I think was American. He walked outta the bushes after the Germans and Japs came ashore in a life raft from a German U-boat sitting off the beach—”

  “A what—”

  “Listen, baby! They buried something on Rattlesnake Island! South of the fort. It’s in line with the light from the lighthouse passing through the tower window. Six o’clock position—maybe two hundred feet from the old fort. Call the Navy! Tell them there’s a German submarine lying about a quarter mile off Matanzas Pass. Tell them there’s been a killing on the beach. Tell them two Japs ran away! And tell them it looks like an American—maybe a spy—met them. The Japs headed north on A1A on foot. I don’t know what this is about. War in Europe is over, but the Japanese haven’t surrendered.”

  “Oh God, Billy. Sweetie, this isn’t one of those flashbacks from the war—”

  “Glenda! It’s real! Call them! I’m outta change. I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

  Billy saw the reflection in the phone glass, a dark figure leaping from the truck-bed. Billy dug for his pistol as two bullets shattered the glass and slammed into his body.

  “Billy!” The tiny voice came through the receiver. “Billy! Dear God, no!”