The Black Bullet

CHAPTER SEVENTY

O’Brien parked near a large banyan tree adjacent to a city park and a lake. He could see the old man standing next to the water’s edge on a peninsula-strip of land that jutted into the lake like a large thumb.

O’Brien kept his eyes on the man who was feeding ducks pieces of bread. As O’Brien got closer, he could hear the quacking that the ducks made each time the man tossed a sliver of bread onto the water’s surface.

Ethan Lyons looked up when O’Brien approached. He wore thick glasses, his face withered from age and sun. He wore a baseball cap with the NASA logo on it, and beneath it protruded pieces of thin white hair that resembled broken cobwebs floating in the breeze.

“Do you have enough bread for all of them?” O’Brien asked.

“Hope so. I try to scatter it pretty well so the little ones get some, too.”

“I’m Sean O’Brien. I appreciate you agreeing to meet with me.”

“Your editor said you wanted to talk about Robert Miller.”

“Yes, we’re trying to get a little more background information. After all these years, his life will make a good story. I understand he played a principal role in your conviction. Can you paint a picture of those times? How’d Agent Miller catch you?”

“Let’s sit on the bench behind me. My legs aren’t so good anymore.” Lyons threw the remaining pieces of bread to the ducks and sat down. O’Brien sat a few feet away from him. The old man’s eyes looked toward the lake, following a small sailboat on the horizon. “All these years, I thought he was dead. Not that I feel angry he’s alive, if that makes sense.”

“I understand.”

Lyons sighed then inhaled though his nose like the breeze across the lake would clear his sinuses. He began slowly, voice throaty, a strained whisper. “During the war, Russia was our partner … part of the Allies fighting an enemy of diabolical cleverness and resourcefulness. I was young, saw the world through rose-colored glasses. At first I had no intention of selling or sharing our Los Alamos diary, if you will, to Russia.”

“What happened?”

“Bob Miller, happened, that’s what. He said he remembered me from Harvard. Met me a few times for a beer. I didn’t make much money working for the government. He always had money, and he was a G-man. We had lots of evenings, not only me, but other physicists … we gathered with Miller talking about philosophy, drinking, and trying to make sense of the times. We worked hard to try to beat Germany or Japan to the punch with atomic weapons. But I never liked the fact that America would have all of these world-annihilation eggs in its basket alone. Neither did Miller. When Robert Oppenheimer, he was in charge of the Manhattan Project, saw the first test in the desert, I remember him saying “Now, we become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He said it was a quote from a Hindu scripture. Anyway, Bob Miller said we didn’t have to provide the Russians with every detail, only such things as our capacity for U-235 production on a monthly basis, plutonium levels and so on. We could give them just enough to let their scientists figure it out, thought it was a fair way to usher in this very dangerous new weaponry. We didn’t want to see something happen in America like what we’d just witnessed in Germany … power-hungry politician turned dictator, tyrant and killer. So it made sense to bridge the gap with the Russians, our allies, so they could develop their own atomic bombs ensuring that we, or no one else, would use them.”

Lyons raised his disheveled eyebrows and turned his body toward O’Brien, his fingers splayed on his knees. “Bob Miller always laughed and called it mutually-assured destruction, and that’s what it was.”

“How did he work as a courier to take the information from you to the Russians?”

“We’ll, he’d meet me in a bar or its parking lot. I’d give him an envelope, whatever information they were asking for-”

“Such as?”

“Let me think. They wanted to know about such things as fission burn rates, compression, and production methods of centrifuge.”

“How much did you make?”

“Not as much as I was promised. I had a new wife. We needed the money desperately. Bob said the Russians would pay five-thousand dollars for information I delivered twice a month.”

“What’d you get?”

“Varied. Sometimes I got around a thousand for each delivery, sometimes less.”

“Where was the rest of the money?”

“Good question. Bob told me the Russians were starved for cash, they had a hard time converting to the dollar and I was lucky to get what I received.”

“Do you know who he was working with in Russia?”

“Wasn’t somebody in the Kremlin, at least not directly. Was a Russian spy named Ivan Borshnik. I didn’t know it at the time, the Soviet counterpart was always Mr. X. But, during his trial, he said he’d paid Bob more than a half-million dollars for the information. Our government said that was a lie. Hoover called it a joke, but I don’t know. Why would Borshnik have lied about the amount? America’s security was compromised.”

“Do you think Miller took a cut of the money?”

“I do. People like Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass went to jail. But Bob Miller, who was the one who arranged the meetings on both sides, he was dealing in cash. His hand could have been in the till.”

“Why couldn’t you just quit?”

“Because Miller said he’d turn me in, report everything, and I’d be looking at the electric chair. He was the one who kept extracting information, coming back for more water after the well was dry. I’d given out and given up.”

“No one could help you?”

“The FBI. Hoover, G-men everywhere. I tried telling my side of the story, but no one in any position believed me. Miller said he’d ask for prison time rather than the electric chair if I shut my mouth. I did. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg didn’t, and they were electrocuted. The Russian, Borshnik, followed them.”

O’Brien watched a mother duck lead three ducklings across the lake. “Did Miller ever contact you in prison?”

“No.”

O’Brien was silent.

“Put this in your story: tell the people we might have won the war, but in the long run, we lost the battle. Not just America, but mankind. I’m not bitter with Bob Miller, not anymore. I’m angry with myself. You know the worst part Mr. O’Brien?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m one of the apocalyptic bastards that delivered Armageddon to Earth, and one day we’ll open the package on a global scale.”

As O’Brien drove east on State Road 46, his cell rang. “Mr. O’Brien,” said the man in a slight German accent, “I have restored the Luger. It is a beautiful gun. You can pick it up anytime you like.”

“How late are you open?”

“Until seven.”

“I’ll have the police pick it up.”

“The police? Why?”

“It may be a murder weapon.”

O’Brien called Detective Dan Grant. “Can we do a ballistics test?”

“What are we testing?”

“That German Luger. Last time it would have been fired was 1945.”

“I can’t wait to test it.”

“It’s at the gun shop you recommended, restored. Ready to be fired. Please pick it up, Dan, and test it with one of the black bullets the gun shop owner has.”