The Black Bullet

CHAPTER NINE

O’Brien gunned Jupiter, the twin diesels churning and heading back to port for more than an hour before he turned on the GPS. He called Jason up to the bridge and let him take over the wheel. Nick sat on one of the cushioned chairs, beer in hand, Max sleeping beside him.

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 Jupiter plowed across the azure surface. “Are we bringing Max?”

“I have an elderly couple, neighbors, near my place on the St. Johns River. Great dog sitters, so she’ll be with them.”

Jason flashed a boyish smile. “She’s a cool dog. She really likes it when Nick starts cooking. Amazing what that little dachshund can hold in her stomach. Mom told me you had a dog. How’d a big guy like you pick such a small dog?”

O’Brien laughed. “My wife bought Max, unknown to me, as her buddy. When Sherri died, it was just Max and me. Sherri named her Maxine. The name Max just stuck when I started taking care of her. Now we’re partners in the fishing biz. Don’t let her know she’s not a Labrador.”

Jason laughed. “You have a good teacher in Nick.” He glanced back at Nick. “He’s sleeping. Cutting Zs, like Max.”

“I’ve been lucky to have Nick show me the ropes, the best places to fish, and you to help. Sounds like the making of a powerhouse team.”

“Cool. I really appreciate you hiring me. I know you didn’t have to do it.”

“We’ll make a good band of brothers. For your own good, don’t tell anyone what we found out there today. Not even your mom. Promise me you can keep a secret. I need to notify the proper authorities at the right time. The worst thing that could happen is for the media to know about this. It’d be a circus out there.”

“It’s just an old World War II U-boat. I’d read there were a bunch of them in the Battle of the Atlantic during the early part of the war. Looks like you and Nick found one that wasn’t lucky enough to limp back to Germany.”

“Just keep it under your hat.” He watched Jason’s eyes, the wavered movement, the licking of lips, tightening of hands on the wheel. “Want to talk about it? What’s on your mind, Jason?”

“Before you told me not to say anything to anybody, Dave Collins called on the marine radio. You and Nick were down on the bottom. Dave was asking me how fishing was. I told him we hadn’t caught much, a few snappers. Then I said we might have caught an old submarine with skeletons in it. He was like real cool, you know? He said he was looking forward to Nick making Greek submarine sandwiches when we got back to the dock. I said we ought to be coming through Ponce Inlet in a few hours, but he’d already gone off the radio. I don’t think he heard me.”

“I wonder how many others did. Which channel?”

“What?”

“The frequency. Which channel did you use?”

“Thirty-six, I think.”

“On the bridge or below?”

“Below.”

“You sure? Go check. See what channel the radio’s set to.”

“Okay, sorry. I didn’t-”

Jason got out of the captain’s seat and started down the ladder. Nick opened one eye and grunted. “Jason hit a buoy?” he asked.

“We’re not that close in yet. But he might as well have hit an iceberg.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dave Collins called on the radio when you and I were underwater. Jason told him we’d found a submarine with bodies. Dave, with all his years of training, ignored it with a casual comeback about you making submarine sandwiches.”

Nick leaned back in the cabin, rubbed his chest. “We could be screwed.”

Jason, cheeks flamed, breathing heavy, flew back up the steps. He made a dry, forced swallow. “It’s channel thirty-six.”

Nick said, “If you and Dave talked on thirty-six, that’s good. Not many people on that frequency.”

O’Brien said, “It’s the channel used by some of the commercial boats. Maybe a drug runner or two. Which means it’s monitored by the Coast Guard.”

Nick stood and stepped closer to one of the rolled up isinglass windows, the breeze in his face, his hair rising like bird wings flapping on the side of his head. He lifted binoculars from the console and looked at the horizon in all directions. “You ever feel like uninvited company’s comin,’ you just don’t know when?”

“Let’s get something straight from this point forward,” O’Brien said. “We saw nothing. The casual remark you made was because we couldn’t figure out what snagged the anchor and you were goofing around, joking. It could have been a submarine or any ship or plane wreck on the bottom of the ocean. Understand?”

Jason nodded. “I apologize. I didn’t think … just being dumb.”

O’Brien couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. He said, “The genie’s out of the bottle. Don’t beat yourself up, okay? You got the call from Dave before I saw what was down there and told you not to say anything.”

“You’re right about that ol’ genie,” Nick said. “Looks like we got a boat coming north outta Jacksonville. That’s where the Navy keeps the real subs.”

“Is it Navy?” asked O’Brien.

Nick stared through the binoculars for a long moment. “Don’t think it’s Navy. Still way too far off. But whoever it is, they’re in a big hurry.”