"Only if I catch a flight to Denver," he said.
From the radio came a tinny roar as somebody had hit a home run over the Green Monster. I had lost track of who was up. I said, “Colorado/”
"Very good," Felix said. "That's where she is, and that's where she's going to be for a few weeks. Then Montana, and then Wyoming. All summer long. She's on some horse exhibition tour that goes on the whole summer, state to state, out west."
"Oh," I said.
"Don't say it like that," he said. "It's not like she's dead or anything. It's just that ... " And Felix's words, so unlike him, just dribbled off.
"It's just what?" I asked.
He shrugged, though his shoulders didn't move much, as if they were weighted down. "She wanted me to come along with her. Go on the road, go to these horse shows, keep her entertained at night in motel and hotel rooms. I tell you, I was tempted, very tempted, to take her up on it. She’s quite the woman.”
"And why are you here, and not there?"
He took another swig from the bottle, looked around at my house and the deck and the big ocean. His voice got quiet. "Because I belong here, my friend. That's who I am. I'm content in who I am and what I do. Sometimes what I do doesn't make sense. Sometimes what I do 1 can't share with anyone at all. Sometimes what I do involves violence. But I'm content with all that. Finding a woman to share things with who can say the same... well, I doubt she's out there."
"So what's left?" I asked.
"What's left?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "What's left are the moments, the special times, the encounters. That's all, my friend. And I'll tell you a secret. You know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you."
Another roar from the crowd on the radio. I wish I had been paying more attention to the damn thing. I spoke up. "Maybe. Maybe I do."
He laughed and juggled the rock again. "Speaking of secrets... Tell me you're not lying to me."
"Okay, I'm not lying to you."
He held the rock up to the April sun. "This rock, this is an honest-to-God moon rock?"
"It surely is."
He tossed it over to me and I caught it with one hand, and then rubbed at it gently, thinking of the many hundreds of thousands of miles it had to travel to end up in my grasp. Felix said, "I thought moon rocks were controlled tighter than the gold at Fort Knox. National treasures, and all that."
"You are correct, sir," I said.
''Then how did you get it? Steal it?" "Not hardly," I said. "I made a deal."
He laughed. "Over the uranium and that woman who wanted to debrief me a few nights back. Am I right?"
"1 can't say," I said. "Not right now. Maybe later. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s just listen to the game and drink our beers. Does that sound all right to you?”
“It sounds perfect,” Felix said.
So that’s how we spent the afternoon on the first warm day of April, relaxing and letting the sun caress our faces, while I held a chunk of the universe in my fist and watched the waves softly roll into the cove beneath me, killer waves no more.
Author’s Note
The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to Ron Thurlow, for his technical advice; to the staff of the Exeter, New Hampshire, Public Library for their cheerful assistance; and to his wife, Mona, the best first reader an author could ever wish for.
The Porter Submarine Museum as mentioned in this novel does not exist. However, the
USS Albacore
is on display and can be visited in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The story of the German U-boats being interned in New Hampshire after World War II is true, as is the tale of the U-234 and its cargo, including the uranium to be used for a Nazi atomic bomb.
This uranium did in fact disappear after the U -234 was brought to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Its whereabouts are still unknown.
Afterward
I’m often asked “Where do you get your ideas?”, and while it’s sometimes hard to explain the thought process, here, it was ridiculously easy. Years ago The Boston Globe ran a front-page article about the main plot point in this book: the missing uranium from the U-234 U-boat, which had been interned at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The uranium went missing, and has been missing ever since.
There, that was it, all wrapped up in a pretty pink bow, an idea for the next Lewis Cole novel. A friend of mine who knows a lot about things nuclear told me that even a half century or so later, the uranium oxide that the Germans had processed could still be used in a dirty bomb, or the development of an atomic weapon.
I wish all my novel ideas came so easily.
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Brendan DuBois of New Hampshire is the award-winning author of sixteen novels and more than 135 short stories. He is also a one-time “Jeopardy!” game show champion. “Fatal Harbor,” his latest novel, was published in May 2014.
His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and numerous other magazines and anthologies including “The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century,” published in 2000 by Houghton-Mifflin. Another one of his short stories appeared in "The Year's Best Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection" (St. Martin's Griffin, 2005) edited by Gardner Dozois
His short stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and have also earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America. Visit his website at
www.BrendanDuBois.com
.
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