“I watched a friend die.”
“That would do it to anyone. Sue Weiler wants to press charges against you.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that one.”
She chuckled. “My thought, too. I was told you can handle yourself under pressure. It’s good to see the intel was correct. You flew fighters, right?”
That I had. For a while, at least. Until I was talked into a career shift by friends of my late father. Two admirals and a captain who seemed to have made it their life’s mission to look after me. My father would have been flag-rank-eligible by now, too, if not for his submarine sinking with all hands lost. No bodies had ever been recovered, little known about the mission. In fact, the whole thing was stamped classified. I knew that because I’d tried, without success, to access the court of inquiry’s investigative report. I’d been ten when the men in uniforms came to the house and told my mother the bad news. Nothing about it made sense then, and it would be many more years before I learned the truth.
“I read your personnel file,” she said. “You specifically requested flight training, and your skills were top-notch. Mind telling me why the shift to law?”
I trained my eyes on her like gun barrels. “You already know the answer to that question.”
She smiled. “I apologize. I won’t insult you like that again.”
“How about you get to the point.”
“I have a job for you.”
“The Navy has first dibs on my time.”
“That’s the great thing about working for the attorney general of the United States, who works for the president of the United States, the commander in chief. Jobs like yours can be changed.”
Okay. I got the message. This was important.
“The job I have in mind for you requires skill and discretion. I’m told you possess both qualities.”
I decided to do a little testing on my own. “Was it the two admirals or the captain who told you about me?”
“All three, actually. One led me to another to another. They sang your praises. But the question is, do you live up to that advance billing? Your CO doesn’t think so.”
Screw that idiot. He was an ass-kissing paper pusher and always would be. A career officer focused on doing his twenty years, then retiring out with a pension while he was young enough to double-dip in private practice.
That path had never interested me.
But over the past few years I’d started to wonder if that might be my fate, too. Those friends of my father always liked to tell me they had a plan. Just go to law school, get the degree, then opt for JAG. Which I’d done. But I’d been beginning to wonder if they’d forgotten about me.
Now here was an opportunity.
Sent by them.
What did I have to lose?
Most likely my CO was going to strap me to a desk for at least the next month as punishment for drawing attention to his command. Forget about the fact that a friend died and the other person fired first.
“Am I off the hook for Sue Weiler?”
She nodded. “I had a talk with the sheriff. No charges will be filed.”
I was impressed. “The sheriff himself?”
“I saw no reason to start any lower.”
That was my first of many later moments appreciating Stephanie Nelle. She was a person who could make things happen. On that day, though, I only saw her as a way to make an end run around the asshole waiting for me back at Mayport.
“Okay,” I said. “You did me a favor. I’ll do you one.”
My second in twenty-four hours.
And nothing was ever the same.
Chapter Three
I slid into a booth across from Stephanie Nelle. We’d left the jail and driven east in a rental car out Atlantic Boulevard toward the naval station, bypassing the road for the base and ending up in Neptune Beach. Pam and I lived nearby, and being the curious sort that I am, I’d learned that the name dated back to 1922 when an enterprising resident built a train stop next to his home and christened it Neptune. He’d been told that if he built a station the train would be required to stop, which would eliminate his walking two miles to Mayport every day in order to catch a ride to work into Jacksonville.
Smart guy.
It worked.
Now Neptune Beach was a lovely seaside community lined with brick-paved streets and lots of artsy shops and crowded bars and restaurants. A happening place year-round, but especially from Memorial to Labor Day.
The Sun Dog Diner was one of my favorites. It had the metallic, tinny look of an old-time roadside café decorated with the obligatory slick vinyl and shiny linoleum. Friendly, too. The people treated you like a neighbor, the kind of place where if they hadn’t seen you lately they’d pour you a free drink, offer a seat, and chat awhile. It sat on the main drag, across from another of my favorite places, The Bookmark, a local independent haunt. Its owners, Rona and Buford Brinlee, had become friends. I loved books, and always had. Eventually they would become a livelihood, but back then my collection was only beginning.
“Have you ever heard of a 1933 Double Eagle?” Stephanie asked.
I shook my head.
“It’s the rarest coin in the world. Ninety percent gold, ten percent copper. Millions of Double Eagles were struck from 1850 to 1932. They were America’s gold pieces, and they’re still prevalent in the coin market. But in 1933 something different happened. 445,500 Double Eagles were struck that year, but none of those were ever issued to the public. FDR banned the private holding of gold in April 1933. Since the coins had already been produced when that happened, they were simply held at the Philadelphia mint and eventually melted down.”
A waitress sauntered over.
“What’s good to eat?” Stephanie asked me.
“The meat loaf is top-notch.”
“Then we’ll have two,” she told the server. “I’ll drink water.”
“Iced tea for me.”
I could tell Stephanie Nelle was comfortable being in charge, so I let her be in charge.
The young girl left.
Out through the front window I watched as people walked in and out of The Bookmark. I could already see her problem, so I asked, “How many of the 1933 coins managed to escape the smelter?”
“That’s been a mystery for a long time.”
I listened as she explained how the 1933 Double Eagles had evolved into the Holy Grail of numismatists. Only two of the coins were intentionally kept back at the mint, both given to the Smithsonian. They should have been the only two in existence anywhere.
“But more surfaced,” she said. “Twenty that we know of. Best guess is they were stolen by an employee at the Philadelphia mint who sold them to a local jeweler, who sold them to collectors, until the Secret Service got wind of it in 1944. Eventually nineteen of the coins were reclaimed.”
“And the last one?”
“That’s where you come in.”
I liked the sound of that.
“The Secret Service has been tracking that coin for decades. It’s at the top of their most-wanted list. I know. I know. It seems silly. A sixty-plus-year-old gold piece. But they take their job as protector of the nation’s currency seriously. They hunted the others for decades.”
“What’s it worth?”
“That’s hard to say. Best guess is around $10 million. But remember, it would still be illegal to own it, as it’s stolen government property. So any buyers would be limited to rich collectors content never to show it to anyone. Right now, that last 1933 Double Eagle, that we know of, is in south Florida.”
She explained that it had been brought north by boat from the Caribbean two days ago. But the boat broke anchor and foundered on a reef, settling in about forty feet of water. The coin’s owner had learned of the sinking and was en route to try to retrieve his property.