Restricted Distribution
TO: R. F. Sloane, Regional Supervisor, Boston, Department of the Interior
FROM: W. W. Atkins, Department of the Interior, Camp Carpenter Transit Station, N.H.
RE: Interrogation of Special Interest Prisoner #434
The following is a synopsis of the interrogation conducted 10 May 1943 by this official of CURT MONROE, Special Interest Prisoner #434. (A full transcript is attached.) MONROE, a former employee of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, was arrested 09 May 1943 while attempting to cross into Canada via the border station in Newport, Vermont.
MONROE was advised that he had been under surveillance for a number of months and that it was known to this office that he was involved in a plot against the nation’s interests with TONY MILLER, late of the Iroquois Labor Camp (see previous report, dated 07 May 1943). MONROE denied any such activities.
MONROE was subjected to a number of enhanced interrogation techniques.
Upon the conclusion of the first set of enhanced interrogation techniques, MONROE admitted he was involved with TONY MILLER and had been so since the two were employed together at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
MONROE also admitted that MILLER is now in possession of a rifle and is still located somewhere in the Portsmouth area. MONROE was interrogated as to the possible target and placement of MILLER as a gunman. MONROE was also interrogated as to other participants in this plot, including MILLER’s brother, SAM.
MONROE requested a brief moment to use a bathroom. Said facility was searched and secured, as was MONROE. MONROE visited the bathroom in full presence of J. K. Alton, Interior Department Officer. At the time of using the toilet facility, MONROE distracted Officer Alton and removed an object from his mouth, said object to be a small razor blade. MONROE sliced veins in both wrists.
MONROE was declared dead at 1930 hours on 10 May 1943 by the on-duty medical officer at Camp Carpenter Transit Station, N.H.
The next morning was Sunday. Sam had a quick breakfast of tea and toast, tried to make a call to Moultonborough and was once again blocked by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, then drove to St. James Church for weekly Mass. He managed to catch most of the eight A.M. service. He sat in the back, listening to the ancient Latin phrases, ready to sneak out after taking communion. The parish priest, an elderly Irishman named Father Mullen, preached the Gospel about charity and faith, and despite all that was going on, Sam felt the soothing power of the old man’s words. It was an odd world, he thought, where a hardworking parish priest like Father Mullen would labor in obscurity while a rabble-rouser and anti-Semite like Father Coughlin got a radio audience of millions.
Yeah, he thought, leaving quickly after receiving the communion wafer, an odd world where a Cajun thief was President of the United States.
After passing through the army MPs stationed outside the Rockingham Hotel, he went into the lobby crowded with luggage in piles in the corner and shouting men in uniform and out of uniform, pressing in on the overwhelmed staff. The shouts were in a mixture of English and German. Sam skipped the slow-moving elevator for the carpeted stairs. He checked his watch.
He knocked on the door of Room Twelve, waited, staring at the bright brass numerals. Voices came from the other side, but no one answered. He knocked again.
The door swung open. LaCouture stood there, phone to his ear, dressed in white boxer shorts and a dingy white T-shirt. “Yeah?” he said. Behind him, sitting at the table, was Groebke, sipping from a cup of coffee, reading a German magazine called Signal, glasses perched on the end of his nose. The Gestapo man had on a blue robe that looked like silk.
Sam said, “It’s nine A.M. The time I usually show up.”
LaCouture held the phone receiver to his chest, looked annoyed. “We’re busy now. Come back later.”
“When—”
The door slammed in his face.
Sam went back down to the lobby.
The noise and confusion of the lobby made his head throb. Sam went outside to the granite steps, near the MP guards, took in some deep breaths. He thought about going to the police station, maybe coming back to the hotel in another hour or so.
But… after last night’s raids, the station was probably crawling with friends and relatives of those seized, people desperate for justice or just a sympathetic ear. The thought of trying to explain to some Dutch woman who could barely understand English that her husband was in the custody of the feds and not the city—the thought of doing that all day made him queasy.
What, then?
He looked at the men in uniform, the army trucks rumbling by, the checkpoint just down the street, and it came to him.
What Tony had said.
He would do his job.
His real job, one he had overlooked for the past few days.
He stepped briskly down the steps on his way to his parked car.
The drive to the outskirts of the state’s largest city, Manchester, took almost two hours along a poorly paved two-lane road heading west through small towns—Epping, Raymond, Candia—that looked like they hadn’t changed much since the turn of the century. Little clusters of shops and buildings about the town center, the obligatory churches with white steeples and volunteer fire departments.
Along the way were billboards advertising the latest Ford model or a resort area up in the White Mountains. There were two billboards showing a grinning President Long, clenched fist raised up in the air. One billboard said EVERY MAN A KING and the other said SHARE THE WEALTH. Sam was pleased by the first billboard, for somebody had blacked out the last word and replaced it with another so that it said EVERY MAN A THIEF.
There were hitchhikers on the side of the road, standing either defiantly or in bowed exhaustion, arms and thumbs extended. Plenty of solitary men, faces hooded by battered hats. A few women with children, most of the time the kids hiding their faces in the women’s skirts, as if ashamed to be out there. There were a couple of families slowly moving along, pushing their belongings in metal or wooden carts, heading from God knew where to who knew what.
He passed them all. He couldn’t afford to stop. As he quickly passed through the little communities, he knew that by day’s end, he would be in a lot of trouble, a hell of a lot of trouble. Somehow the thought cheered him.
But he didn’t remain cheered for long. As he entered Manchester, he approached an intersection. There were two men in worn overalls and a woman in a faded yellow dress, staring at something on the ground. And then he saw what they were staring at: a shirtless man stretched out on the ground, facedown, his hands bound behind his back, the rear of his head a bloody mess.
A political, the first he had ever seen. As a sworn peace officer, he knew he should stop—but a political. He was already up to his chin in politics. So Sam kept driving, taking a series of turns he recalled from last year, having visited this location on official business, transporting a prisoner who belonged to the feds. Back then going to this place had been unsettling, like going into the basement of a haunted house, goaded into the shadows by your boyhood chums.
Now it was worse. Last time he had been here on official business. Today he was going into the belly of the beast itself, armed only with half-truths and lies.
Up ahead, a wooden sign, dark brown wood with white painted letters.
He turned right, went down a road that was smooth and well paved, going to a sentry booth with a black-and-white wooden crossbeam across both lanes. On either side of the booth, a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire stretched off into the distance. There was a smaller sign as he approached: NIGHT VEHICLES DIM HEADLIGHTS. He stopped, and a National Guard sergeant stepped out of the booth, wearing a soft wide-brimmed hat, his face sunburned. He had a clipboard in one hand. “Yeah?” he growled.
Sam passed over his police identification. “Going to the Administration Building as part of an investigation.”
The sergeant looked at the clipboard. “Not on the list. Sorry, pal. Back up your car and—”
Heart thumping, Sam passed over his National Guard identification with his rank of lieutenant. “Sergeant, you’re going to open that gate now, aren’t you.”
The sergeant’s mood instantly changed. “Sorry, Lieutenant,” he said, passing back both pieces of ID. “Didn’t realize that—”
“Sergeant, you’re making me late.”
“Just one moment, sir.” The man went into the shack, came out with a thick cardboard pass, and said, “Place it on your dashboard, sir, all right?”
Sam took the pass, which said VISITOR—NO ACCESS TO RESTRICTED AREAS.
The sergeant gestured to someone inside the sentry booth, and the wooden arm was raised. “Take this main road a hundred yards to the secondary gate,” he told Sam. “About a half mile after that gate, turn left. Keep your speed below twenty miles an hour and don’t pick up anybody walking or hitchhiking. You see anybody walking or hitchhiking, report it to the administration staff. All right, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, thank you,” and then he accelerated the Packard past the sentry booth, moving fast so the sergeant couldn’t see his hands trembling.
He drove the indicated hundred yards, and the thumping in his heart increased as he saw the gate up ahead. He knew his bullshit story wouldn’t work for this National Guard crew, but a phone call from the sentry booth must have been made. The gate was open, and two National Guard enlisted men, .45-caliber Thompson submachine guns slung over their shoulders, waved him through. The fence on either side of this gate was higher, with more rolls of barbed wire, and floodlights and guard towers were spaced along the fence. He passed through the gate and down the road. Ahead was a cluster of buildings; there was another sign, ADMINISTRATION, and he took a left.
The building was wide, one-story, with a porch. The place was built with logs and rough-hewn wood. Army trucks and jeeps were parked to one side, and he found an empty spot. He got out of the Packard and walked up to the building on a gravel path. The porch steps creaked and he went through the front door.
Another National Guard sergeant, his uniform tight against his thick body, looked up at Sam from behind a wooden desk. Behind him were desks manned by uniformed clerks. On the near wall hung a framed photograph of President Long. Sam pulled out his police and National Guard identification and set them on the desk.
The sergeant picked up the cards with blunt fingers that had chewed fingernails and asked, “Well, Inspector—Lieutenant—what can we do for you?”
“I need to talk to someone here. A prisoner. Taken from Portsmouth a couple of days ago.”
The sergeant slid Sam’s identification back across the desk. “You got clearance? An appointment? Some paperwork?”
“No, Sergeant, I don’t. This is… a matter of some discretion.”
The man smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “A dame?”
“No, not a dame. Look. I need to see whoever’s in charge of the prisoners.”
The sergeant scratched an ear. “Not sure if I can be much help.”
Sam picked up his National Guard card, held it front of the man’s face. “The rank is Lieutenant, Sergeant. I want to see an officer, somebody in charge, who can locate a prisoner. Now.”
The sergeant got up, still looking bored, and ambled back into the office area. Sam stood there, quiet. If it went well, then who knew what might happen. And if it didn’t go well, then he might not be leaving any time soon. He’d always thought he might end up here because of Sarah and the Underground Railroad. Not because of his own bullheadedness.
The sergeant came back, motioned with his hand. Sam followed him past the occupied desks to a glass-enclosed office with a frosted glass door. Painted on the door were the words CAPT. J. C. ALLARD, COMMANDANT. A brief knock and the sergeant opened the door and Sam walked in.
The office was cramped but tidy, with framed photos of soldiers and artillery pieces on the paneled walls. A balding officer in a pressed National Guard uniform was sitting behind a bare wooden desk. Knowing he was on thin ice indeed, Sam stood straight and said, “Sir, Inspector Sam Miller, Portsmouth Police Department. I’m grateful you’ve agreed to see me.”
“Have a seat, Inspector,” the captain replied crisply. “Or is it Lieutenant?”
Sam sat down in the wooden chair across from Allard. “Well, sir, it’s going to be whatever it takes for me to see someone who’s in custody here.”
“I see.” Allard leaned back, putting the fingertips of his thin hands together. “That would be me, Inspector. What can I do for you, then?”
“You have a prisoner, name of Sean Donovan, an employee of the Portsmouth Police Department. He was taken into custody two days ago. I’d like to see him.”
“Of course you would,” Allard said, his voice soft and soothing.
A pause, the air heavy and warm. Sam felt he had to sit still, that he was being observed, so he stared back.
Allard gave a brief shake of his head. “No. You can’t see him.”
“Captain, he’s involved in a—”
Allard held up a hand. “Inspector, I’ve got a hellish job here, probably the crappiest job in the state. You know why? Because we’re the funnel where all the creeps, hoboes, dissidents, shitheads, and illegals get dumped. We process them, give them paperwork, and then ship them out to New York or Montana or Nevada. Day after day, night after night. And if this hellish job isn’t bad enough, you know what makes it worse?”
“Sir, I’d like to point out that—”
Allard continued, “Every day I get people like you streaming in here. They say it’s always a mistake, always an oversight, papers got lost, stolen, eaten by the family dog. You wouldn’t believe what has gone on in this office… why, once I had this housewife come in, her husband had been smuggling Jewish refugees north into Canada, and she opened up her coat and there was nothing on underneath, and she—”
Sam said, “Captain, with all due respect, shut the hell up.”
The captain’s face colored scarlet right up to his bald spot. “What did you just say?”
“I said shut up.” Sam kept his voice sharp and to the point. “You moron, don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I know it’s irregular to come here without paperwork? Fool. I’m here without paperwork because of the sensitive nature of what I’m involved with. So shut up already or your ass will be on a boxcar before the day is out.”
Allard’s breathing quickened, making his nostrils flare. “I cut you some slack coming in here, you being an inspector and a Guard lieutenant, but consider that slack gone. Your ass belongs to me, mister.”
Sam pulled a card from his coat pocket, tossed it across the desk. “Then read that, Captain. We’ll see whose ass belongs to who.”
Allard picked up the card and said, “FBI. How sweet.” He reversed the card and read aloud, “ ‘Bearer of card detached to federal duty until 15 May.’ Yeah? So?”
Sam forced himself to smile. “Card says it all, Captain. I’m not just up here on a whim, trying to get somebody out. I’m here on official duty, detached to the FBI.”
“That doesn’t impress me, pal. All that means is that—”
“Yeah, right, you’re not impressed. Look at the agent’s name again, Captain. LaCouture, one of President Long’s trusted Cajun boys, up here to work on the summit. You know about the summit, don’t you? Or is your head so far up your ass that you can’t hear the radio?”
“I just might give this guy a call,” Allard said, but his voice wasn’t as cocksure.
Sam pressed on. “Sure. Go ahead. Call him. He’s probably figuring out what kind of table President Long and Herr Hitler are going to sit at. Or reviewing their menu. Or about a thousand other things. I’m sure he’s going to want to drop everything for the privilege of talking to some National Guard flunky so dumb he’s running a transfer camp. Oh, that’ll impress him. Make the call.”
Allard examined the card as if looking for proof it was a forgery, then gently slid it back across the table. “You could have told me this at the beginning.”
“Yeah, I could have.” Sam picked up the card. “But then I would have missed all this charming conversation.”
The captain took the remark as a joke and managed a smile. “Yeah. Well. There you go.” He opened the center drawer and came up with a pencil and a scrap of paper. “The name of the prisoner again?”
“Name’s Sean Donovan, from Portsmouth. He was arrested two nights ago.”
The captain scribbled something and yelled out, “Sergeant Sims!”
The sergeant came through the door in seconds, Sam thinking the guy had been outside, eavesdropping. Allard passed over the scrap of paper. “Locate this prisoner. Pass him over to… Lieutenant Miller here.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. As he left, Allard leaned back in his chair and said, “Always glad to assist the FBI and their people.”
Sam said, “Thanks, Captain. I’ll make very sure that goes into my report.”
About fifteen minutes later, Sam sat in a small cabin that was bare wood, beams and rafters, with a table and four chairs set in the center. Light came from three bulbs dangling from the peaked roof. The door opened and a pale Sean Donovan was led in, handcuffed, wearing a worn dungaree jumpsuit with the white letter P stenciled on each leg and on the chest. Two National Guard soldiers in white MP helmets with blue brassards on their shoulders flanked him, and as one uncuffed him, the other told Sam, “Sir, this prisoner is now in your custody. We’ll be outside waiting. When you’re through, you’ll knock on the door and we’ll retrieve him.”
Sam stood up. “No doubt you will be at the door, but Mr. Donovan and I won’t be here.”
The older MP said, “Sir…?”
“I’m going outside with the prisoner.” He stepped out and saw a picnic table in a grove of pine trees about fifty yards away. “That’s where we’ll be, in plain view.”
The younger MP protested, “Sir, this is highly irregular, and I can’t—”
Sam showed them his National Guard ID, thinking how useful that stupid piece of cardboard had turned out to be. “That’s where we’re going. And tell you what: If either of us makes a break for the fence, you have my permission to shoot us both.”
“Why the hell did you want to sit out here, Sam? Warmer back in the cabin.”
Sean looked awful. Heavy bags of exhaustion were underneath the record clerk’s eyes, and one cheek was puffy with a bruise. His red hair was a greasy mess. Though he had been gone only a few days, it looked like he had lost twenty pounds.
“I’m sure it’s warmer back there, Sean,” Sam said, sitting at the picnic table. “I’m also sure it’s bugged with microphones and wire recorders. I don’t want our conversation to be overheard.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s real good to see you, Sam, but don’t screw with me. You’re not here to get me out, are you?”
“I wish I was. I’ll see what I can do, but you know how it is.”
“Ha. Yeah, well, thanks. It’s a fed beef they’ve got me here for, and when it comes to that, there’s not much anybody can do. Even your cop coworkers.”
“So what’s the charge?”
Sean gave a short, nasty laugh. “You want the official or the unofficial charge?”
“Both.”
The air was cool and smelled of pine. Sam had a quick twinge of nostalgia, remembering camping out in the White Mountains, he and Tony in the same Boy Scout troop, rivals but not yet enemies. Where in hell had it all gone wrong?
“Official charge is that I released classified information to a third party without the government’s permission.”
“What the hell kind of classified information is that?”
Sean looked sheepish. “My wife’s brother is a stringer for the newspaper up in Dover. I heard the FBI was staying at the Rockingham Hotel, and I told him. Big fucking mistake. Here I am, looking at a year cutting trees in a labor camp.”
“That wasn’t too bright.”
“Shit, I know that, but to think LaCouture’s name and hotel room number was a big damn secret… it must be, because that’s what they’re hanging me out there for.”
“And the unofficial charge?”
“You got any smokes?”
“No, I don’t. Didn’t know you smoked.”
Sean folded his arms tight against his chest, as if trying to stay warm. “I don’t. But cigarettes are the unofficial currency around this joint. Be nice to buy a little protection until I get assigned to a boxcar.”
“You’ll get some before I leave.”
“Thanks. Anyway, the unofficial charge. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Where was that?”
“My desk, if you can believe that. Look, remember I told you earlier the FBI guy and his goose-stepping buddy were snooping through personnel files?”
“I do.”
“Okay, they came back, and that time looking for arrest files. With the summit coming up, makes sense, huh? There was a list of people they wanted—and guess who was on the list?”
“Tony?”
“Bingo.” Sean sighed. “So you think I was dumb enough to ask the FBI and the Gestapo why they’re requesting your brother’s arrest file? The hell I was. And his file is a special one, since it ended with him going to the labor camp. So I was a good little boy and got the records they wanted, and they told me to leave them alone, which I did. Except…” Sean paused, looked to where the two MPs were standing at attention, watching. He lowered his voice. “Except I left a file on my desk. One that was on the list. Shit, I suppose I should have waited for them to come back. But I figured if I brought the file over, that would get them out of my hair that much quicker. So I hopped on over, and that’s when I got my crippled ass in a sling. They were both pawing through this file, and I heard what LaCouture said to the Kraut. Then LaCouture looked up and saw me standing there, and that was that.”
Sam thought back. He said, “That’s when you told me you needed to see me. The day before the summit was announced. Because LaCouture and Groebke were looking at Tony’s file.”
“Yeah.” Sean looked tired, shrunken.
“And what did LaCouture say to Groebke? What did you hear?”
“I’ll tell you, but Christ, it doesn’t make sense… something like that to get me in a labor camp.”
“Sean, what did he say?”
He shrugged. “The FBI guy said something like ‘Right from the start, he’s our man.’ ”
“ ‘Right from the start, he’s our man’? That’s what he said? What in hell does that mean?” Sam asked.
Sean said, “If I knew, do you think I would be here?”
They talked for a few minutes more, with Sam trying to jiggle something, anything from Sean’s memory of what he’d overheard. But the records clerk kept insisting the same thing: Right from the start, he’s our man. Sam looked at the MPs, ready to take Sean back. And if ordered, ready, no doubt, to take Sam prisoner as well.
He asked, “How’s it going here? How are you treated?”
Sean had one dirty hand on top of the other on the picnic table. “There’s been stories, you know. In Life and The Saturday Evening Post. And movies. I Was a Fugitive from a Labor Camp. But that’s all bullshit. Nothing like the real deal, my friend.”
Sam was silent.
“The real deal is, you get picked up and then tuned up slapped around, that kind of shit. Driven out here, dumped in a compound. Lined up, names checked, and first lesson you get, some of the older prisoners, they’re on the other side of the fence. They whisper to you, ‘Hey, toss over your watches, your extra shoes, food packages,’ that sort of thing. The guards will confiscate everything you’ve got. So some of the guys—hell, some are just kids—they toss stuff over just like that. You know what happens next.”
“They never see their things again.”
“Of course. And then you get shaved, deloused, showered, and given these lovely clothes. Another tune-up here and there, and you meet your bunkmates. Oh, really trustworthy fellows. What wasn’t taken at the fence is stolen during the night. Off to work the next morning… chopping wood, making furniture, waiting for your billet for a train out west… oh yeah, you learn a lot. Food is rotten, the bunks have fleas, and it’s every man for himself.”
Off in the distance, a burst of gunfire followed by another. Sean winced. Sam said, “What the hell was that?”
“Officially, weapons practice. Unofficially, guys decide that being here in a transit camp is their best chance to get out before being sent out west. Most of ’em have relatives in easy driving distance. So you get the occasional breakout attempt, the occasional shot-while-trying-to-escape. All unofficial, of course.”
“Yeah.”
Tears welled up in the record clerk’s eyes. “Other thing you learn, Sam, is what kind of coward you are. All the talk of being brave and not knuckling under our new government order, it’s all bullshit. You get dumped here, pretty soon all you care about is a good sandwich for lunch, hot water for a shower, and being able to sleep without getting beaten up. Stuff like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, that’s all crap. Just keeping your own ass well fed, warm, and safe. That’s all you care about.”
The wind shifted, and instead of hearing gunfire, Sam heard a man’s scream. It seemed to go on and on and then gurgle off. Sean looked at him and said, “Bad, I know, but at least it’s not as bad as the other camps.”
“What other camps?”
“Shit, I think I’ve said too much already.”
“Come on, Sean. What do you mean? What other camps?”
“Word is, there are other camps out there. Not officially part of the system. Highly restricted. Here, at least, and the regular labor camps, you get in, you’re serving a sentence. These other camps, they work you to death.”
“Where are they?”
“Mostly in the South, from what I hear, but Jesus, the rumors are something else. If you step out of line, just for one second, you’re shot on the spot.”
“Who’s in these camps?”
“Who the hell knows? Not regular political prisoners, that’s for sure. Word is, there are special trains that take the prisoners to these camps.”
“What the hell do you mean, special trains?”
“Sealed. With markings painted on the side, so they get priority through all stations and sidings.”
That damnable memory of when he was a patrolman, hearing that train roar through with no identifying marks save the yellow stripes painted on the side, hearing the screams and moans from within…
“Another thing, Sam. The prisoners in those special trains… they’re tattooed. Numbers on their wrists. Can you believe that? Tattooed, like fucking cattle.”
Sean was looking at him expectantly, but Sam couldn’t say a word. He was thinking furiously.
Peter Wotan.
Special trains.
Tattooed wrists.
He had to leave.
Had to leave now.
Sam stood up and motioned the MPs over. As they started walking toward them, he said softly, “I’ve got to go, Sean. But I’ll do my damnedest to try to get you out.”
Sean said, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. And remember this. You get their attention, both you and your family are targets. Not just you. My wife and her brother—they’re not here, but they’re on a list. One more screwup and they’ll be right here with me, chopping wood and scratching flea bites.”
The warning chilled him as he thought of Sarah and Toby. Sam told the MPs, “I’m finished with this prisoner. You can bring him back to his quarters.”
“Very good, sir,” said the older MP, who still looked displeased at having been told to stay away. The younger one produced a set of handcuffs. Sam said, “Oh, I need something from you both. Give me your smokes.”
The MPs looked at each other and then reluctantly reached into their shirt pockets. Full packs of Camels and Lucky Strikes were brought out. Sam passed them over to Sean, who made them disappear into his jumpsuit. The MPs didn’t look happy.
Sean put his hands out, and as the handcuffs were clicked into place, Sam said to the MPs, “I know you don’t like what just happened. But if I get word that this man’s been mistreated, I’ll have both your asses. Got it?”
Allard looked up at Sam, a sharpened pencil in his hand. “Was the prisoner cooperative? Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes, sir, on both counts,” Sam said.
“And you’ll make note in your official report of the cooperation you received here today?”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
Allard tossed the pencil to the desktop. “Very good. Now, mister, get the hell off my post.”
From the captain’s tone, Sam thought a salute might be in order, but since he was in civilian clothes, he didn’t know what to do. So he got the hell out of the building. A black Chevrolet sedan was parked next to his Packard. As Sam went down the steps, two men in dark brown suits emerged from the sedan, putting on gray snap-brim hats, and went inside.
Sam went to his Packard and stopped when someone called out, “Inspector? Inspector Miller?”
He turned. Someone was sitting in the back of the Chevrolet. Sam went over, saw the rear window halfway down. The shape moved closer to the window, and Sam stopped, shocked. It was Ralph Morancy, the photographer from the Portsmouth Herald. His right eye was swollen shut, a bruised streak along his jaw. The photographer looked like he had been weeping.
“Ralph… what the hell happened to you?”
“Hazards of the job, I suppose. Took photographs that I shouldn’t have, of trucks with prisoners heading out of one of the poorer neighborhoods in town. Two Long’s Legionnaires and an officer from the Department of the Interior took offense. They ordered me to stop, told me to turn over the film, and I said fuck you and mentioned the First Amendment. One of the Long boys, he slugged me, told me he didn’t know shit about the First Amendment. Here I am.” Ralph edged closer to the open window. “Inspector, please. I only have a minute or two before they take me in and process me. Can you help me out? Please? For the love of God, I can’t believe I’m being sent to a labor camp for doing my job… for taking photos… God, what’s the world coming to…”
Sam looked up at the building’s closed doors. “Ralph, I don’t know what I can do.”
“You’re a cop. You could tell them I’m your friend. I’ll pay you. You could say it was all a mistake, a misjudgment, I’ll do anything they want. Please, can’t you help me?”
Sam’s mouth tasted of old pennies. Go back in there? Plead Ralph’s case while he was here on a pretense? He lowered his head, turned away. “No, Ralph, I can’t help you.”
Ralph called out, “But I can’t go with them… your brother, I’ve got to tell you something about your brother—”
There were more yells, but Sam got into his car, and the engine started up after the third attempt. He ground the reverse gear as he backed up, suddenly sweating. One phone call… Allard had to feel grumpy enough to make one phone call to LaCouture, and then he’d never leave this place except in a boxcar stuffed with straw, shit, and sweat. Never to see Sarah or Toby again.
In the rearview mirror, he saw the two men come out and go to the black Chevrolet, saw them drag Ralph Morancy out, the poor man’s legs giving way as they went up the steps, carrying him like a sack of cement.
He forced himself to look straight ahead as he accelerated. Poor Ralph, sweet Jesus… and what was that babbling about Tony? What had Ralph been trying to pull? He didn’t know. But he now knew something: The FBI and Gestapo were interested in his brother. More important, he also knew more about Peter Wotan. He wasn’t sure how and why the man ended up dead in Portsmouth, but he sure as hell knew where he had come from.
Special camps that worked people to death, populated from sealed trains traveling at night with no identifying marks, just a few swabs of paint…
He kept the speed down as he approached the first gate, where the MPs stood. One held up his hand and he slowed. He rolled down the window and the MP leaned over and said, “Vehicle inspection, sir. I’ll have to ask you to step out.”
Sam put the car in idle, engaged the parking brake, got out into the late-afternoon air. Working quickly and professionally, no doubt having done this hundreds of times, one MP searched the car, going into the trunk, lifting up the rear seat, even checking the undercarriage. The other stayed motionless, submachine gun ready in his hands. He tried not to think of what Ralph was going through now, what was happening. He had gotten close enough to the photographer to smell the stink of fear on him.
What had he done? What in God’s name had he done back there?
A matter of minutes, and then the one doing the searching stepped back and the other went to the gate. “Very good,” the tall MP said. “You’re clear to leave.”
Sam climbed into the Packard, conscious of how moist his back was against the leather seat. The gate swung open and he released the parking brake, put the car into first gear, and drove out on the road, heading for the last gate.
The sentry box. The only obstacle between the camp and the outside world. The outside world, where at last he could work on this damn homicide, a case he had been ignoring—
The black-and-white crossbar was raised, one MP was talking to another, it looked pretty damn clear, and he let the speed increase a bit—
The guards were looking at him.
A gentle push on the accelerator.
The Packard sped up.
One of the guards stepped out. The man still wasn’t out in the road…
Twenty, thirty feet and he’d be out of the camp. Just a few feet, really.
An MP was now in the middle of the lane.
Holding up his hand.
Caught?
Caught.
Either Allard had made that phone call, or Ralph, in his terror, had shouted out something that had gotten their interest…
He braked, rolled down the window.
This was it, then.
The MP leaned down. “Sir?”
“Yeah?”
“Your vehicle pass. We need it back.”
“Oh.” Sam reached to the dashboard, grabbed the piece of cardboard, almost dropped it as he thrust it through the open window.
The MP took the cardboard and dipped his chin. “Drive safe, sir.” He smiled.
“Thanks.”
Sam drove out to the country road, turned left, and drove about two hundred feet before stopping and letting the shakes come over him.
Then he got over it and got the hell out.
Nearly an hour away from Camp Carpenter, Sam turned in to the Route 4 diner in Epsom. The lot was packed dirt, and there were two Ford trucks parked at the far end, black and rusting. The diner’s aluminum siding was light blue and flecked with cancerous rust spots. Stuck in one of the windows by the doorway was a faded poster of President Huey Long. Underneath his fleshy face was the decade-old slogan: EVERY MAN A KING. The ongoing motto of the true believers, or those pretending to be true believers to get along.
Sam got out the car and looked around. No kings in sight. The story of his country, he thought.
Inside, he sat at the counter and ate a dry hamburger and drank a cup of coffee that tasted like water. He ignored the waitress and the cook and the truck drivers and thought about what he had learned about Sean and LaCouture and Groebke and his brother, Tony.
And more than anything else, the story of the hidden camps. The ones that held tattooed prisoners supplied by secret trains. Somehow one of those prisoners, Peter Wotan, had ended up murdered in his town.
He finished his meal, left a dime tip. Near the doorway was a public phone box. He pulled the glass door shut, pumped in some nickels, and got the long-distance operator. At least in this part of the state, in a different county, he could get through without that damnable Signal Corps oversight. On the floor was a copy of the President’s newspaper, The American Progress. Someone had left a muddy bootprint on the first page.
That other thing Sean had said… about family. An idea was coming together about what to do next, and he had to make new arrangements. Had to. The phone at his father-in-law’s cottage in Moultonborough rang and rang and then—
“Hello?”
He leaned against the side of the booth. “Sarah?”
“Oh, Sam, I was hoping it was you! I can’t believe I—”
“Sarah, there’s a problem.”
“What is it?”
Sam turned, made sure he wasn’t being watched. “You’ve got to leave. Right away.”
“You mean… back to Portsmouth?” Her voice was puzzled. “Are you going to come up and—”
“No, not Portsmouth,” he said, thinking fast. “You’ve got to go somewhere else up there. A neighbor, a friend, anyone who can put you and Toby up for a few days.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What do you mean I—”
“I don’t have time now. Trust me on this. It’s very important. You’ve got to get out of there. With Toby. Do you understand?”
Even across the crackling static, he could hear from her voice that she was trying not to cry. “Oh, Sam—”
“Can you do it? Can you?”
“I could go to—”
“Don’t tell me who,” he interrupted, thinking of wiretaps. Who knew where the FBI could be tapping. “Don’t tell me a thing, Sarah. Just take our son and be safe. We’ll figure out how to get together once this summit is done. But you and Toby, you’ve got to go now. I mean it.”
“All right. I understand.”
She hung up. He stood there, holding the useless receiver in his hand.
Outside, as he was walking to his dust-covered Packard, he heard something clattering around the side of the diner, where there was a small wooden porch. Underneath the porch were cans of trash and swill. The lids to the metal cans were chained shut. Two old women were there, in tattered cloth coats, shoes wrapped in twine, wearing filthy kerchiefs over their gray hair. Both gripped rocks as they tried to break the locks.
One noticed Sam and said something to the other, and they both looked at him, cheeks wrinkled and hollow, mouths sunken from no teeth. Their eyes were filmy and swollen.
Sam slowly reached past his coat to his wallet and slipped out some bills. He had no idea how much money he was leaving.
He knelt down, put the money under a rock, and left.
The time driving back to the coast seemed to fly by, for he was thinking things through, knowing what he was going to do, what had to be done to make it all right. When he got back to Portsmouth, he passed through one checkpoint without any difficulty, then drove to the police station and parked nearby. Run in, see if there were any important messages, and run out. It was going to be a long and dangerous night.
In the lobby, he gave a quick wave to the desk sergeant, who was talking to a drunk hobo going on about how he’d like to join the George Washington Brigade overseas and fight those Bolshies, and why couldn’t he sign up here, there was good money and hot meals and so forth. There was also a slight woman in a long coat and pink scarf about her head, speaking with a British accent, trying to get the sergeant’s attention.
By the stairs, Clarence Rolston was sweeping. “Sam! Am I right? Sam, good to see you.”
Sam knew the seconds were slipping away, but he stopped. “Good to see you, too, Clarence. How are you?”
Clarence blinked and smiled, a dribble of saliva escaping. “Doing good. And thanks about that other thing. I didn’t get into trouble. Thanks a lot, Sam.”
“Glad it worked out. Take care now, okay?”
Sam sprinted up the stairs. The door to Marshal Hanson’s office was closed. He looked up at the clock. Nearly seven P.M. He went to his desk, saw a pile of yellow message slips, all of them in Mrs. Walton’s neat cursive, and all saying the same thing: Agent LaCouture of the FBI needs to talk to you. The messages were an hour apart. He flipped through to see if there was anything else, like a phone call from Lou Purdue, but no.
Just the FBI. He would take care of LaCouture later.
He crumpled the message slips, tossed them in a trash can.
The door to Hanson’s office swung open. He came out, staring at Sam. “Inspector,” he said tonelessly.
“Sir,” Sam said, cursing himself for being stupid enough to get caught like this. Dammit, the man was getting ready for the Long-Hitler summit, of course he’d be working late.
“In my office, if you please.”
Sam walked in, and Hanson gently closed the door behind him.
Hanson went around his desk, sighing loudly and running a hand across the top of his hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he sat down heavily. “How’s it going, Sam?” he asked.
God, what a question. And what kind of answer? Sam said, “It’s been a busy day.”
“I’m sure. Look, do you smell anything unusual?”
Sam waited just a moment. “No, I don’t.”
Hanson said, “Well, you should. You should smell something charred. The phone lines between here and the Rockingham Hotel have been burning up all day with the damn FBI and his Gestapo buddy looking for you. What the hell is going on?”
Sam said, “I’m doing my job.”
“Your job right now is doing what the FBI tells you to do.”
“Which is what I’ve been doing,” Sam replied. “LaCouture told me this morning he was busy. He told me to come back later. He didn’t say when.”
Hanson stayed quiet, gently rocking his chair. Then he said, “So what were you working on? Besides being a wiseass.”
“Other cases. Trying to catch up. As you’ve instructed me.”
The room was so quiet, Sam thought he could hear a clock ticking somewhere else in the building. Hanson seemed to stare right through him.
A slow creak-creak as Hanson moved his chair back and forth. “Then it’s your responsibility to tell the FBI where you’ve been today. Not mine, is it?”
Sam thought, Nice job, Harold. Sam was the FBI’s boy now, and Hanson was all hands-off. If he was going down for anything he did today, Hanson wouldn’t be next to him.
“That’s right, sir.”
“Very well. When this summit is over, you’re going to catch up on your casework. In addition, you’re going to run for the district council for the Party later this month, and you’ll win.”
Sam bit at his lower lip. “I… I’m not sure I’ll have the time to be more active.”
“You’re going to find the time,” Hanson told him. “Let’s avoid all the bullshit, all right? Sam, you’ve caught some people’s attention. People you don’t want to irritate. Some Legionnaire officers find it curious that two of their people in Portsmouth had their car vandalized, and the same two were later beaten up. Both events happened when you were in the vicinity. Do you have anything to add to that?”
Sam looked evenly at his boss. “Not a thing.”
“Glad to hear it,” Hanson said. “But if these same officers see an enthusiastic, active, and respectful Sam Miller involved in the Party, it would ease their concerns. It would also be helpful to me and not helpful to your father-in-law. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to understand,” he said. “I just want to do my job.”
“You’re going to keep doing your job, and you’re going to be active in the Party, and you’re going to succeed at both. You know why? Because you’ve shown me what you can do. You ignore rules when you don’t like them. You go out on your own. And when push comes to shove, you’re not above administering a bit of street justice. All skills that the Party could use. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong,” Sam said. “Absolutely one hundred percent wrong.”
Hanson smiled. “You may fool yourself into thinking that, but I know better. So when the summit is concluded and you’ve caught up on your casework, you’re going to take a little time off. There’s a special training session for up-and-coming Party members down in Baton Rouge. And when you come back, I’ll make sure you win the council election. How does that sound?”
“Sounds like nonsense,” Sam snapped. “I’m not leaving Portsmouth, I’m not going to Baton Rouge, and I’m sure as hell not becoming a whore for the Party.”
“Too bad it sounds like nonsense,” Hanson said evenly. “But in the end, it’s going to sound very good to you, your wife, and your son.”
“Leave my family out of it.”
Hanson’s eyes bored through him. “I’ll leave your family out of it if you will.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
Hanson said slowly, “You know exactly what I mean, and we’re going to leave it at that. That way we both can deny later that we discussed such a forbidden topic, even though your promised report on the demise of the Underground Railroad station hasn’t yet reached my desk. A subject I know that you’re intimately familiar with. Care to say anything more?”
Sam knew exactly what Hanson meant. The Underground Railroad. The marshal knew. Had always known.
“No,” he said slowly. “Not at the moment.”
“Very good.” His boss nodded. “And when the summit is over, I expect and will receive your enthusiastic participation in the Party, correct?”
Hating himself, Sam said, “Yes. Correct.”
Hanson opened his top drawer, reached in, and tossed something across at Sam, who looked down, saw the despised Confederate-flag pin. “And you can start by showing your loyalty, Probationary Inspector Miller.”
Sam picked up the pin. He looked over and saw the marshal’s suit coat hanging on its rack, the same pin on its lapel.
With his fingers trembling, he put the pin in his lapel. “There,” he said. “Satisfied?”
“Quite. Now get the hell out of here and make the fucking FBI happy, all right?”
Sam did just that.
He barely made it down the stone steps of the police station before ducking into an alleyway. The spasms were hard, sharp, and the lousy diner meal splattered against brick. When he was done, Sam pressed his forehead against the cool brick. Busted. The marshal and the Legionnaires knew about the Underground Railroad station at the house, had known for some time.
So why hadn’t it been shut down? And Sarah and he arrested?
Because they wanted more. They wanted a compliant and obedient Sam Miller, son-in-law to a connected politician, someone they could use for more important things down the road, helping out the Nats, disrupting the Staties in the Party structure.
He took out a handkerchief and wiped at his lips and walked out onto the sidewalk. He looked down at his lapel. Now an official member of the oppressors. How delightful. Sarah would be so goddamn proud.
There was singing. Across the street, four Long’s Legionnaires stumbled along, laughing, drunk. They were spread across the sidewalk, bumping people—hell, neighbors who paid his salary—out of the way as if they were worth nothing. Any other night, he’d chase after those clowns, pull them up short, and show them what the law was all about, what they couldn’t do in Sam’s hometown. Make them go back and apologize to everyone they had bumped and jostled.
Any other night.
He looked down at his lapel.
But on this night, he was one of them.
He got into his Packard, started the engine. Waited. Before coming to the station, he had plans.
Yeah, plans, he thought. But the good police marshal Harold Hanson had plans of his own.
So what now?
Go home and be a good boy?
Or…
He reached up, gently undid the lapel pin, and dropped it in his pocket. He shifted the Packard into reverse, then into first gear, and went back to being a cop.
Just a goddamn cop.
It took a few minutes of driving in an upscale section of town before he found what he was looking for, a turn-of-the-century Victorian house with light yellow paint. He parked in front and went up to the front porch, turned the doorbell, and waited.
A man opened the lace-curtain-covered door. Pat Lowengard, manager of the Portsmouth office of the Boston & Maine railroad.
“Oh,” Lowengard said, crestfallen, as though he’d been expecting anybody but Sam. “Inspector Miller.”
“Pat, you don’t look like you’re happy to see me.”
“We’re about to have supper, and my mother is visiting, and—”
Sam stepped in, forcing Lowengard back. Sam said, “I need a few minutes of your time. Then you can go back to supper and your happy family.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“It certainly can’t. Now, we can talk here, or I can drag you down to the station. Your choice.”
A woman’s voice called out. Sam couldn’t make out the question, but Lowengard yelled, “It’ll only be a minute, Martha! Just a bit of business to take care of.” Lowengard closed the door. “This way. My office.”
The station manager led Sam down a carpeted hallway. Sam looked at the nice furniture, the framed photos on the wall, and a thought came to him—that old phrase about how the other half lived. During these tough times, it was more like how the fortunate few lived.
At the end of the hallway was an open polished wooden door, and inside the small room were bookshelves, a desk, a typewriter, and two leather chairs. On the bookshelves were a collection of model trains and some leather-bound volumes, and on the floor was a small leather suitcase. After Sam entered the room, Lowengard closed the door and sat down and said, “Inspector, please, make it quick. What do you need?”
“You know trains, Pat, am I right?”
“Yes, I know trains. Is that why you came here? To ask me a stupid question like that?”
“Special trains.”
“What?
Sam put his hands on top of Lowengard’s desk. “Special trains. And don’t bullshit me, Pat. I’m talking about trains that don’t officially exist, trains that have no outside markings, save some yellow stripes. Trains that move at night—trains full of people. What are they?”
Lowengard’s face seemed to pale, as though the blood had suddenly stopped flowing to the skin. He licked his lips and said, “Sam, please… I could end up in a camp. Or someplace worse.”
“The other camps, right? The ones that are worse than the labor camps. Where are they? You must have an idea. The trains, where do they come from?”
“I… I can’t say anything, Sam. Please. I’m begging you…”
This close, Sam couldn’t help himself. He struck Pat across the face, the sound of the blow sounding sharp and loud in the small room. Pat gasped and brought his hand up to his cheek, and Sam said, “I’m investigating a homicide. And you’re impeding my investigation, which is a crime. Now. You may or may not get into trouble by telling me what you know, but I can guarantee you a shit-load of trouble right now unless you talk to me. It’ll make me very happy to drag your fat ass out of this nice, comfortable house and toss it in a county jail, or a state jail, or, if I get enough dirt on you, a labor camp. Think a guy in your shape will like cutting down trees at sunrise every morning?”
“Sam, please—”
Sam reached into his pocket, took out the flag pin, stuck it on his lapel. “Check it out, Pat. Know what this means? It means I’m part of something that’s not a goddamn club like the Elks or the Kiwanis. Something powerful. Something that can put you in a world of hurt if I just say the word. So. Should I say the word?”
Pat slowly rubbed his cheek, looking like a chubby child who could not believe what Daddy had done to him. “I… I’ll talk. Just for a few minutes. And you never tell anyone you talked to me, and we’re done. All right?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. We’re done.”
Pat blinked, and Sam saw tears in his eyes. “The trains… they started a few years ago. Top priority, we had to clear tracks and sidings for them, no delays, no questions. They departed from navy installations up and down the East Coast. You hear things, you know? In this business, you hear things.”
“Was the shipyard one of the departure points?”
“Yes, but not often. Maybe two, three times.”
“Who are in the trains?”
Pat shook his head. “People. That’s all.”
“Where do they come from? And where do they go?”
“Transport ships, that’s all I know.” Pat rubbed his cheek. “From there, they mostly go to small towns down south. A few out west. And just a while ago, a place in upstate Vermont. That’s it. The trains go to these towns, and poof, they disappear. As if Mandrake the Magician made them go away.”
“What’s the name of the town in Vermont?”
“Burdick. Up near the Canadian border. I know a couple of the special trains went there in the past year. And that’s it, Sam. I swear to God, that’s it.”
Sam looked at the plump station manager, could smell the dread coming off of him. Something inside felt sour as he remembered how thrilled he’d been to be named an inspector, to better fight crime. And here he was, slapping a scared railroad manager, a man who had done nothing save what he could to keep his job and support his family.
Sam said, “I’m leaving. But only if you can get me a round-trip ticket out to Burdick as fast as you can.”
The man was almost pathetic in his eagerness as he picked up a pen and scribbled something on a slip of paper. “Of course, Sam, of course. Give me a call, seven A.M. tomorrow, and you’ll be all set.”
Pat put the pen down and then burst into tears. He swiped at his eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry… it’s just that… when I was a kid, I loved trains. My uncle worked at B and M in Boston, managed to get me a job as a luggage clerk, and I worked my way up. God, I loved trains, and look where I am… and what I have to do.” He fumbled under the desk, came out with a handkerchief, honked his nose. “Look at me. A job I should love… and I hate it, Sam, hate it so much. Nobody loves trains anymore. They’re crowded, dirty, and share tracks with trains full of prisoners. See that?” He pointed to the suitcase by the door. “It’s gotten so bad, I’ve got a suitcase packed, just in case. Like every other station manager I know, one foul-up, one bad decision on my part, and I’m riding one of the trains I’m supposed to love to a labor camp.”
He wiped his eyes and his nose with the handkerchief. Sam heard the voice of Pat’s wife calling. Ashamed at what he had done to the woman’s husband, he left as quickly as he could.
Fifteen minutes later, Sam stood in front of a three-story tenement building surrounded by others, all with light gray paint that was flaking and peeling. The air smelled of salt air and exposed mudflats, and radios blared jazz and swing from the windows, and somewhere, a baby was wailing. Clotheslines spanned the alleyways. There was shouting in the distance and a sharp crack as somebody fired off a revolver. He jumped a bit at the sudden noise, then ignored it. Another shot in the dark to be overlooked unless it was reported, and he was going to ignore it. He had more important things to do.
Sam went up the front door of the building, which was open, the doorknob having been long ago smashed out. A single bulb, dangling from a frayed cord, illuminated the interior of the hallway and a second door. He went up to the door and knocked on it.
No answer.
He pounded with his closed fist. A muffled voice from inside, then the snapping sound of locks being undone. The door opened an inch, then two inches, held back by a chain. A woman in a dark red robe, her hair bristling with curlers, glared at him. “Yeah?”
“Need to see Kenny Whalen. Now.”
She said, “He’s not here,” and started to close the door.
He jammed the toe of his shoe between the door and the frame and pulled out his leather wallet, showed the badge to the woman. “Kenny Whalen, dear, or if I think you’re lying, I break the door down, tear the place up, looking for him. And then you can ask the city to reimburse you for the damages I cause, and they might get back to you. By 1950 or thereabouts.”
She muttered something, turned, and yelled, “Kenny! Get over here!”
Sam spotted Kenny coming over, buttoning a flannel shirt over a soiled white T-shirt, his hair uncombed. “Ah, shit, hold on, Inspector.”
Sam said, “I pull my shoe back, that door better be open in ten seconds. Clear?”
“Oh, yeah, Inspector, I don’t want no trouble.”
Sam pulled his shoe back, the door clunked shut, and there was a tinkling sound of a chain being worked. Before the door opened, Sam took the lapel pin off. Party membership, to a guy like Kenny, wouldn’t mean shit. Kenny stood there, managing a smile, but on his face the expression looked as inviting as that of a mortgage officer reviewing a foreclosure.
“Inspector, what can I do for you?”
“I need a few minutes to talk to you. In private.”
Kenny glanced back toward the living room. “Dora has ears the size of saucers. Let’s go out in the hallway, okay?”
The two men stood in the hallway, a breeze making the dim lightbulb sway. Kenny said, “Well?”
Sam thought about lines crossed, about what was to be done, and why he was doing it, and thought of that dead man, dead and alone and cold in his city’s morgue, with that tattooed wrist. Branded like fucking cattle, Sean had said. Why?
“I need you to make me some documents. Official identification.”
Kenny stared at him in disbelief. “Shit, I don’t know what’s going on, but no way. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but it sounds like entrapment to me. No way in hell.”
It was as if somebody else were mouthing the words, for Sam couldn’t recognize his own voice when it answered, “You do this for me, and I’ll knock off one of those felony charges for uttering a false instrument. Get you to serve in the county lockup instead of state prison. Sound fair, Kenny?”
“Sounds crazy, that’s what. Couple days ago, you almost arrested me for requesting the same thing. What’s different?”
“Times have changed. That’s all you need to know.”
Kenny stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “You mean that, right? You’ll broom one of those felony charges, let me get a lesser sentence?”
“That’s right.”
“Shit… All right. What kind of papers you looking for? A check? Birth certificate? Union card?”
“I need FBI identification. And something sharp and good, Kenny, something that will pass muster.”
“Are you nuts? The FBI? Jesus Christ… and whose mug should I put on it? Huh?”
“Mine.”
Kenny burst out laughing. “Hey, Inspector, feel free to put that felony charge back on my sheet, ’cause there ain’t no way I’m messing with the feds. Do you think I’m a loon? I get caught making paper like that, that’s a federal beef, that means my ass gets in a labor camp, and that’s it, story finished. Good night. And I’ll see you when my trial starts.”
The forger turned back toward the door. Sam blocked him. Kenny stopped.
“All of it,” Sam said, still not believing what he was saying.
“What do you mean, all of it?”
“All of the charges. They get dropped. Swept away. You never serve a day in jail, don’t even have to face a judge.”
Kenny kept on looking at him, blinking. “Man, you must need this something awful.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
“Then you got yourself a deal, Inspector. Let’s get to work.”
Work was in the crowded and dark basement of the tenement, in a corner that had been blocked off by a wooden wall that swung out on hidden hinges, revealing an area of about twelve feet by twelve feet, with a dirt floor and walls made of fitted rocks. There was a long workbench, a small printing press on top of another table, rows of cast-lead letters, bottles of ink, and cameras and tripods. Kenny brought Sam into the room and sat him down on a stool and said, “Just to be clear here, Inspector, what you see here… it’s um, going to stay here, right?”
“Yes,” Sam replied. “Everything I see here will stay here.”
Kenny rubbed his hands. “Very good. We’ll get to work,” and then he laughed.
Sam said, “What’s so funny?”
“Funny? What’s so funny is that I was right last time we talked. You told me you couldn’t be bought, and I said you had a price. Lucky for me, you came up with a price.”
The forger busied himself, gathering up film and camera lenses. Sam bit his lip. Then he said, “Kenny, you say anything like that again, I’ll break your nose. And then you’ll still make me that FBI identification, but you’ll be doing it through a broken and bloody nose. Okay?”
“Oh, of course, Inspector. Now, if you need this tonight, let’s get to work.” Kenny sounded apologetic, but there was no missing the glee in his eyes.
About twelve hours after Kenny had produced an FBI identification card that looked as good as the one Sam had seen earlier in LaCouture’s pudgy and manicured hands—“Lucky you’re in a grim mood, so I didn’t have to take another picture,” Kenny had said—Sam sat in a passenger compartment on the Green Mountain local, going up into Vermont. His train travels had begun in Portsmouth, then to Boston, then to a train going west, to Greenfield, Massachusetts. From there, he caught the local, heading north, one of the stops being a small town called Burdick. Before leaving Greenfield, he had rented a small locker at the B&M station, where he had placed his real papers and identification. Now he was traveling with his new FBI identification, which named him as Special Agent Sam Munson.
Kenny had helped him choose his new last name. “One of the many things I have learned over the years, Inspector, is that a false name should be similar to real one,” he had advised.
Sam cupped his chin in his hand, watching the rural landscape rush by. What a world he now lived in, where he was following advice from a forger he had promised to keep out of jail. What a world.
The train car was mostly empty, the other passengers farmers and a few traveling salesmen, and one heavyset woman with two young boys sitting in front of her. The boys were barefoot. She wore a coat made out of a gray wool blanket. There were just a few pieces of lonely luggage in the overhead racks. Sam sat alone, hungry, for he hadn’t the urge to take breakfast. All he cared about was getting up to Burdick, and then…
That was a good question. What then?
He continued looking at the small farms, the forests, and the distant peaks of the Green Mountains, the sisters of the White Mountains in his own home state. He thought about the special trains that had come up here, carrying its secret cargo of tattooed people. How had one of them escaped and ended up in Portsmouth? Why?
The train shuddered, slowed, as they entered a town, a few automobiles here and there, even some horse-drawn wagons. The train shuddered again and, with a great belch of steam and smoke, came to a halt. There was a station out there, even smaller than his home, and a wooden sign dangling beneath the eaves.
He got up from his seat, grabbed his hat, and walked down the grimy aisle. The pavement outside was black tar, cracked and faded. He looked up and down. Nobody else was getting off. Nobody, as far as he could see, was getting on. Smoke and steam streamed from the engine. He felt an urge to climb back on the train.
He waited.
The train whistle blew.
Another shuddering clank.
The train started moving.
He watched the cars slide by.
He could still make it if he wanted to. Just climb up and get inside, find a conductor, make arrangements for a return trip to Greenfield, then Boston and home to Portsmouth. If he was lucky, he could be home tonight.
Sam stood still.
The track was empty.
It was time to move.
He walked into the station, found it deserted. From his coat pocket, he took out the lapel pin, snapped it into place on his coat. There was a counter at one end, and he walked up to an older man working behind it. The man was wearing a stained white shirt and a black necktie that barely made it down his expansive chest, a black cap with the B&M insignia. He was doing paperwork with the nub of a yellow pencil and barely glanced up as Sam stood before him.
“Yep?” he finally asked.
Sam put his hands on the countertop. “Is there a taxi in this town?”
“If Clyde Fanson answers the phone, I s’pose there is.”
“Then I need a cab.”
“Where ya goin’?”
“To the camp,” Sam said.
At that, the man looked up, his eyes unblinking behind his black-rimmed glasses. “ ’Fraid I don’t know what you’re talkin’ ’bout.”
Sam pulled his new ID from his pocket, silently displayed it. The man swallowed. “You fellas… usually, you have your own transport, you know? Usually.”
Sam put the identification away. “This isn’t usual.”
“Guess not,” the man said, reaching over to a black phone. “I’ll make the call to Clyde, he should be outside in a few minutes.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
He walked outside into the late-morning sun. From here it looked like he could make out all of Burdick: a service station, a brick town hall, a white clapboard building that announced it housed the Burdick Volunteer Fire Department, and a grouping of two-story wooden buildings. A horse-drawn wagon clomped by, carrying scrap metal. He couldn’t imagine a train dumping its load of scared people at this station. There must be a spur farther down. Would it have made more sense to go that way, to walk the line?
No, he decided. Who knew how long a walk it could be and what he would find at the end.
An old Ford Model A came down the street, rattled to a halt. On its black doors, someone had painted in sloppy white letters FANSON LIVERY & DELIVERY. A small man came out, dressed in white shirt, necktie, and overalls, his brown hair slicked back. He looked over the hood of the Model A and asked, “You the fella needing a ride?”
“I am.”
He pointed to the passenger side. “Then get yourself in.”
Sam opened the door, sat on the worn and torn leather upholstery. Clyde Fanson shifted and the car engine coughed, stalled, and then caught as Clyde made a U-turn and started out of town. He glanced over at Sam. “First time here?”
“Yeah.”
“Good for you.”
Sam thought about peppering the guy with questions about the camp and decided it was too risky. Sam was an FBI agent. He should know what was going on. Too many questions could make this taxi driver suspicious, and a suspicious driver could make a phone call or two, and then this little quest would be over before it started.
Now they were out of the town, climbing a poorly paved road up into the hills. Pine trees and low brush crowded against the narrow road. Sam said, “What goes on here?”
His driver hacked up some phlegm and expertly spat out the window. “Not much of anything, but for a while, it was stone. Marble. Granite. Had some of the finest quarries in this part of the state. Now… well, you know.”
“Sure,” Sam said, thinking of all the horrors that had emerged from the Crash of ’29. “I know.”
The road widened, and Clyde pulled over on the right to a dirt road that led up into the woods. He let the engine rumble a bit and said, “Here ya go.”
Sam tried to hide his surprise. “You sure?”
He spat again through the window. “ ’Course I’m sure. Right up that dirt road.”
“The road looks pretty good. Why don’t you haul me up there?”
“I’m no fool, pal. You’re a fed and all that, which is fine, but we know enough to stay away. ’Nuff people over the past months got into lots of trouble, pokin’ around, never to be seen again, so I won’t be goin’. It’s up to you.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “I understand. How much?”
“Twenty-five cents.”
Sam passed over a quarter and a nickel. As he stepped out, Clyde called, “Hey, hold on.” He passed over a slip of paper. “I know how you feds work. Expense account and all that crap. Your receipt.”
Sam took the torn piece of paper. “Thanks,” he said, but Clyde had already pulled out and sped up the road, as if even being at the entrance to whatever was in the dark woods would bring him bad luck.
Sam adjusted his hat, started walking.
After about ten minutes, he could hear the sound of machinery up in the distance. While the dirt road was well maintained, there was evidence that lots of heavy trucks or equipment had passed through. By now the heat was getting to him, and he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his jacket.
The rumble of machinery grew louder, and then there was a wooden sign up ahead.
He paused, licked his dry lips. A hand went to his pocket, where his fake ID rested. It had been good enough to fool a B&M railroad clerk. He would soon find out if it was good enough to fool whoever was beyond that sign.
He kept on walking, the weight of his revolver no comfort at all.
The dirt road circled and widened to a small wooden gatehouse painted bright white, with chain-link fence. Another gate, another barrier. The chain-link fence had barbed wire around the top, and the center of the fence was on metal wheels, serving as the gate. Two men stood in front of the guardhouse, watching him. Sam kept his face impassive. The men weren’t local cops or National Guardsmen; they wore the leather jackets and blue corduroys of Long’s Legionnaires. They also weren’t the kind of young punks he had seen in his hometown: They were lean, tough-looking, and hanging off their shoulders were Thompson submachine guns with drum magazines.
One stepped out from the shadow of the guardhouse. His face was freckled, and his hair was a sharp blond crew cut. “You lost, boy?”
Sam said nothing, walked closer. The other guard came out. His hair was black, slicked back, and parted in the middle. “He asked you a question, boy.” His gumbo-thick accent was the twin of his companion’s.
Sam kept quiet. The closest guard unshouldered his gun. “On your knees, now, boy!”
Sam stopped about four feet away from the two guards. “Names.”
“What?” the blond guard asked.
“I want your names. The both of you.”
The second guard muttered, “The fuck you say.”
Sam said, “No. The fuck you say. I want your name and your buddy’s name. This whole day has been a fuckup since I came to this little shitty town. Both of your names are going in my official report when I get back to Boston.”
The two Cajun guards looked confused. The one with the crew cut demanded, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the report on my trip here, starting from when I got to the station and there was no automobile waiting for me.” Sam kept his voice low and determined. “I had to arrange for a taxi up here, in a piece-of-shit Ford that nearly broke my back. And once I got here, I get you two morons ready to shoot me instead of finding out who I am.”
“Who the hell are you?” the second guard asked, his voice not as harsh as before.
Now, Sam thought, now comes crunch time. He opened up his wallet and flashed his fake credentials. “Sam Munson, Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’ve spent the better part of a day on a train coming up to this little dump. I was told when I started that I’d have full cooperation for my investigation. So far all I’ve gotten is crap.”
“We weren’t told anything ’bout an investigation,” the first guard protested.
“Fine, glad to hear that,” Sam said. “But I don’t give a shit. Right now I want both of your names, and after, I want that gate open and a car to get me up to the administration building. Or whatever you call it.”
The guard with black hair said, “The name’s Clive Cooley. This here is Zell Poulton.”
Sam made a show of taking out his notebook, writing down both names. He cocked his head and said, “Well?”
Zell went into the guard shack and lifted up a phone, while Clive went to the gate and slid it open with a satisfying clank and rattle. Sam waited, arms crossed, willing his legs not to shake, knowing he was close, oh, so close. A memory charged into his mind, of skating one winter on Hilton’s Pond with Tony, going farther and farther out on the ice, hearing it creak and moan, knowing with cold hands and colder heart that he was so close to falling in.
There came the sound of a motor, and a dusty Oldsmobile appeared around the corner. It stopped, and another Long’s Legionnaire stepped out. Clive went over and talked to him, then called out, “Agent Munson? This way, sir. I’m gonna drive you up to headquarters.”
Sam walked up to the car, hearing within his mind the sound of ice cracking once he passed through the gate.
The inside of the Oldsmobile was surprisingly clean, and Clive climbed in, putting his gun on the rear seat. He made a three-point turn and said, “Hear me out, will ya?”
“Sure,” Sam said. “I’ll hear you out.”
“Don’t put no blame on me or Zell, okay? We were just doin’ our job. If we knew you was goin’ to show up, we’d’ve taken care of it. But we didn’t get told now, did we? Minute you showed us your badge and stuff, we cooperated, didn’t we?”
“That’s right,” Sam agreed. “You cooperated. I’ll make sure I mention that.”
Clive looked back at the road. “ ’Kay, that’s fair enough, then.”
The road rose up and then leveled off. Even over the car’s motor, Sam could make out other sounds, of engines working and tools pounding on stone. There was another gate up ahead, but this one looked ceremonial: just wrought iron with an arch. In the arch was a series of letters. Sam made out the words as they drew closer:
Sam said, “That’s some kind of slogan.”
“Yeah,” Clive said. “Some kind of bullshit, if you ask me.”
The far slope of the road suddenly fell away, clear of brush and trees, opening to a wide hole in the ground, bare rock and dirt. Looking over, Sam realized that it was deep, very deep, with terraced rocks and roads, cranes overhead, smoke and steam rising, the cranes raising great blocks of stone. A quarry, he thought. “What kind of rock are they cutting out down there?” he asked.
“Marble,” Clive said. “Supposedly the best in the country. Ships all over the world. Real pricey shit, get lots of money for it.”
Then he saw the workers. Long lines of men in the distance, dressed in white prisoner clothing with thin blue stripes, wearing flat cloth caps. The road swerved to the right, and Sam wondered what he had just seen. They weren’t dressed like the prisoners at Camp Carpenter—they were different. Like Sean had said. A camp beyond the camp. Up ahead were buildings, and then another line of men, carrying pickaxes over their thin shoulders, overseen by two Long’s Legionnaires at either end, riding horses, pump-action shotguns at the ready. Sam stared at the prisoners as they went by. They were gaunt and they shuffled, as if each step was as hard as lifting a hundred pounds.
To a man, they looked as though they could be brothers of Peter Wotan.
Clive said, “See you lookin’ at our guests.”
“What?”
Clive said, “Guests. You know what I mean, right?”
Sam thought quickly. He was FBI. This sight shouldn’t be strange to him. “Sure, I know what you mean.”
He resisted an impulse to turn in the seat and look at the men again.
Clive braked hard at the largest building, where white poles out front flew an American flag, what looked to be the flag of Vermont, and the standard of Louisiana. “That there’s the camp director’s building. They’ll take care of you in there. Just ’member, okay? Me and Zell, we cooperated.”
As he opened the door, Sam replied, “I’ll remember. You cooperated.”
He went up the wide steps. There was a bulletin board posted beside the doors, but he ignored it. Unlike his visit to Camp Carpenter, he didn’t have to force his way past a waiting sergeant. Another Long’s Legionnaire—this one wearing a leather Sam Browne belt with a holstered pistol—was already waiting for him as he went through the double doors. Offices and desks spread out from behind the lobby, but the man, short as he was, dominated the place. He had thick hair, slicked back and combed to one side, a prominent nose, and an equally prominent five o’clock shadow. Unlike those of his counterparts at the gate, his uniform seemed tailored and well made. Silver stars gleamed on his collar tabs.
“Agent Munson?” His Southern accent was smooth and polished.
“That I am,” Sam said, shaking the man’s hand.
“Apologies for not havin’ things set up for you. The name is Royal LaBayeux, Burdick commandant. I understan’ you’ve got somethin’ you’re investigatin’, so why don’t you come into my office.”
Sam followed him through a set of outer offices with other Long’s Legionnaires at work, filing, typing, talking on the telephone. It looked so formal and clean and efficient, and yet he couldn’t shake the memory of those gaunt men in the striped uniforms, trudging along the dirt road just outside.
The office held leather chairs and a couch, a wet bar and bookshelves. Windows, the drapes closed, dominated one wall. The desk was wide, with intercoms and telephones, and LaBayeux sat down in a black leather chair. On the nearest wall were photographs of President Long. Two of the photographs, Sam noticed, were of the President standing next to a beaming LaBayeux.
“Always willin’ to help out one of Hoover’s boys,” LaBayeux said. “Whaddya got?”
Sam withdrew two photographs. He set them on the polished desk and watched as LaBayeux picked them up and examined them.
“First photo is of a man found dead a few days ago in Portsmouth, New Hampshire,” Sam told him. “The locals didn’t know what to make of it. Further investigation revealed he was traveling under the name of Peter Wotan, which we believe is fake.”
“I see,” LaBayeux said. “And why do you think this… man has anything to do with us?”
Sam pointed to the second photograph. “Tattooed numbers on his wrist. And your facility is the closest one. To see if anyone’s missing, and to find out his real name and how he ended up in Portsmouth.”
LaBayeux picked up the second photograph. “Central Registry couldn’t help you?”
“Excuse me?”
“The Central Registry. They couldn’t trace the tattoo number for you?”
Sam had no idea what the man was asking. “You know how bureaucracies work,” he said, improvising desperately. “First they deny they can do anything. Then they say maybe. And then they say check in next week. But we don’t have time. We have a tattooed dead guy in Portsmouth, where the President and Hitler are going to hold a real important meeting. Dead men raise a lot of questions. We want this cleared up as soon as possible. Which is why I’m here.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” the Southerner said. He let the photo drop and picked up a phone receiver, clicked a button on the intercom. “Jules, come in here a sec, will ya?”
A plump man came in, the blue corduroys tight around his thick legs. LaBayeux passed him the photograph of the tattooed wrist. “Jules, run this number through Records. See if this yid belonged to us, and if not, let’s help out the FBI here and see if y’all can’t get Central Registry on the line to give us a hand. All right, son?”
“Absolutely, sir,” Jules said, backing out of the office and closing the door.
LaBayeux leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head. “You look a bit peaked, Agent Munson. Bet you haven’t eaten or drunk much since you been travelin’.”
“No, I haven’t,” Sam said.
LaBayeux eased the chair forward. “Then come along. The grub here might not be much, but it’s ours.”
Sam couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do less than to leave this man’s office, but he got up and followed him outside.
LaBayeux kept up a running commentary as they headed to the mess hall. “Not bad duty, but it can be a chore, ’specially when cold weather socks us in. I’m from the bayous, and let me tell ya, we never have cold weather like this.”
“I’m sure,” Sam said. The buildings were clean, neat, painted white, and looked like they belonged to a military reservation. But always there was the noise, of the machinery thumping, the crane engines whining, and cutting tools biting into stone. Sam could think of dozens of questions he wanted to ask the camp commandant but knew he was walking through a minefield of danger. Any hint of ignorance would raise suspicion, and he could soon be down there in the quarry pit, cutting stone with those skeletal men.
Up ahead was a wide, low building. Sam followed LaBayeux through a set of swinging doors. It was a dining facility with long rows of tables and benches, and LaBayeux spoke to a cook in soiled white pants and T-shirt. Then he took the nearest table, and Sam sat across from him as the camp commandant stretched his legs out. “Like to get out every now and then. This gives me a good excuse. Bet you like getting out of the office every now and then, too, am I right?”
“That’s for sure,” Sam said, desperately wanting to change the subject. “Tell me, how long have you been here?”
LaBayeaux shrugged. “Just over a year ago, when the Department of the Interior seized the quarry and the surrounding lands. I got here with a boxcar of lumber, shingles and nails, and a couple of dozen camp inmates from Nevada and got to work. Muddy, rainy, mosquitoes biting your ass, but we got the place set up ’fore the first train got here. Hell of a thing when that train got here, though, all these people stumbling out, hardly a one of ’em speaking English. Hell of a thing.”
“I guess it was,” Sam agreed.
“Yeah, built this place from nothin’, one of the first set up in the Northeast, and a year later, we’re one of the most productive. So there you go. You been with the feds long?”
“Looks like our meal’s coming.” Sam was happy to see the cook approaching with a tray. “Long enough.”
“So it is. Shit, I hear that some of our guests down there cuttin’ stone are world-class chefs, but who am I to say? ’Sides, with our luck, the cranky bastards might put ground glass in the pots. Lord knows, as it is, we have our share of docs and engineers and other professionals down there. Ah, here we go.”
The plates were heaped with fried ham steak, mashed potatoes, beans, and chunks of white bread. The cook brought mugs of coffee. As they both ate, the camp commandant kept up a running commentary. Sam was thankful that LaBayeux was a man in love with his own voice.
He sliced off a piece of ham and frowned. “Nothin’ like the cookin’ back home. Tried lots to get a real chef up here from Baton Rouge or New Orleans, but they’d rather stay home and stay warm, and who can blame ’em?” LaBayeux put the ham into his mouth. “Mmm, not bad. But what I would give for some shrimp gumbo. Yum, that would be something.”
Sam ate quickly, wanting to get what information he could about Peter Wotan, then get the hell out of this place. The ham steak could have been made by a Waldorf chef, for all he cared; the stuff was practically tasteless. So far, he knew these camps were real, more secret than the run-of-the-mill labor camps, and full of foreigners. But why was Long taking in refugees from Europe? And why were they being worked like this?
The plump Long’s Legionnaire strolled in. He handed a sheet of paper over to LaBayeux and went out again, his corduroy pants making swish-swish noises. LaBayeux wiped his lips with a napkin. “Well, lookee here. Your dead boy didn’t come from our camp—which I was pretty sure of from the start, we keep a close eye on our guests, though they do try to slip out—but the Central Registry came up with a hit. What did you say your man’s name was?”
“Peter Wotan.”
LaBayeux shook his head. “Fake. Real name was Petr Wowenstein. Originally from Munich, transferred to a place over there called Dachau, then sent here nearly two years ago, out to New Mexico. Worked in some sort of research facility, reported missing just over a week ago.” He put the paper down. “Congratulations, Agent Munson. You’ve got your man. Just like the Mounties from up north.”
Congratulations, Sam thought. He now knew who his dead man was. Knew where he came from, knew where he had been. But still didn’t know why. Still didn’t know what Wowenstein was doing in Portsmouth, why he was killed, why—
LaBayeux started picking at his teeth with a toothpick. “Now what?”
Sam wiped his hands on the napkin. “If I can impose upon you, I’d like a ride back to the railroad station. I need to get to the Boston office, compile a follow-up report, and my report will include the fine cooperation I received from you and your staff.”
LaBayeux grinned. “That’s pretty white of you. If you’re finished eatin’, let’s go.”
Sam got up, heart pounding, the lunch just rolling around in his stomach, thinking, Almost there, almost there, let’s just keep it cool and get out of here.
He didn’t it make it past the dining hall.
Six Long’s Legionnaires stood watching him. LaBayeux grabbed his right arm and said quietly, “Now, whoever the hell you are, I know you’re carrying a piece. Probably a revolver in a shoulder holster. Get it out with your left hand, drop it on the porch.”
Sam looked at the ring of faces about him, all of them staring, unfriendly, waiting. With his left hand—and part of him was proud that his hand wasn’t quivering—he reached in under his coat and grabbed the butt of his revolver. He let it fall to the porch steps.
LaBayeux said, “Okay, now kick it off the porch.”
Sam did that, watching his weapon clatter to the ground. Oh, what a mess, what a goddamn mess.
LaBayeux twisted his arm, and Sam grunted in pain. The camp commandant leaned in and said, “What, you think we’re from the South, we’re stupid, son? Huh?”
Another twist of the arm, and Sam was silent this time, not wanting to give the man any satisfaction by asking him to stop. LaBayeux said, “Minute you got in this camp, the phone calls started up. You ain’t from the Boston FBI office. They don’t got no one comin’ up here to check on us. So who the fuck are you?”
“I’m a police inspector from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”
“You Sam Munson?”
“No, the name is Sam Miller.”
“Why the fuck are you here, Sam Miller?”
“Because of Wotan… Wowenstein… he ended up dead in my hometown. I’m a cop. It’s my job. To find out why he was murdered there.”
LaBayeux let his arm go abruptly. “And it’s my job to do what my President tells me to do, and keep it secret, and keep shit asses like you out of the way if I have to.”
“You said earlier, do I think Southerners are dumb?”
“And?” LaBayeux had a merry grin on his face.
“No, most Southerners I meet are okay guys. Not dumb.”
LaBayeux’s grin got wider. “Nice to hear.”
“So why don’t you be an okay guy and let me out of here so I can do my job?”
“Guess I don’t feel like being an okay guy today, Yankee.”
LaBayeux punched Sam in the face, and after he fell to the ground, the kicking started.
After a few long minutes the kicking stopped, and then he was picked up, ears ringing, nose bloody, ribs aching, and LaBayeux called out, “Process him, boys, take ’im away and process ’im. His ass is now ours.”
And so he was processed.
He was dragged off the porch, and he struggled, fighting, and cried out as two burly Legionnaires twisted his arms back and cuffed him, then threw him on the ground. He tried to get up and was kicked in the head. He fell flat, eyes blurry, spit running down his chin. A car came up, and more hands grabbed him, threw him in the rear, his head and torso on the floor. A Legionnaire climbed in and Sam winced, feeling cold metal at the back of his head.
“Move or fight me, bud, and then what little brains you got are gonna be splattered o’er this fine leather, got it?” came a thick Southern voice.
Sam closed his eyes, thinking, God, what a screwup, what a total and complete screwup. “Look, I’m a cop… okay? Get ahold of my boss, this’ll all be straightened out.”
The pistol barrel pressed into his skull. “Shut up. Last month I had to clean blood ’n’ brain off this leather, don’t wanna do it again.”
He shut up.
The car sped along, taking corners and dips, and Sam was thrown back and forth. The car stopped, words were exchanged, and the car sped up again, then quickly braked.
The door flew open, hands came in, and dragged him out, stood him up. He was in a fenced-in area, facing a building, concrete and stone, letters on a wooden sign outside: PROCESSING—NO TALKING.
“Let’s go,” and he was shoved in the back, then half dragged, half propelled into the building. He was slammed through an open door and was halted on a concrete floor with a drain in the center and gray metal benches on either side of the stained plaster walls. Before Sam was a metal counter with a slim man sitting on a stool, a leather-bound ledger open before him. Bare lightbulbs hung from the concrete ceiling.
The thin man coughed, picked up a fountain pen. His Legionnaire’s uniform hung off him as if it had once belonged to a heavier man. “Name?” he said, his voice reedy.
“Sam Miller. Look, can I see LaBayeux again, the commandant, there’s been a mistake—”
A slap to the rear of his head. He tried to turn, but the Legionnaires held on to him vise-tight.
The man with the pen laboriously wrote something down in the ledger. “Son, just to make it easy for you, these be the rules. I ask you a question. You answer. You give me more than an answer, then Luke back there, he’ll whack your thick head. And each time he’ll whack you harder. You keep it up, you’ll be on the cee-ment down there, bleedin’ from your noggin. So let’s go on. Address?”
“Fourteen Grayson Street, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”
“Occupation?”
“Police inspector, city of Portsmouth.”
The man looked up. “Religion? You don’t look Jewish. What be you, then?”
“Catholic.”
The man scribbled again. “Thought so. All right, fellas, you know the drill. Get ’im through.”
His arms were twisted up, and they pushed him past the counter. Sam thought sourly of how many times he had brought prisoners to be booked back in Portsmouth, back when he was in charge, back when the prisoners weren’t people, weren’t anything save the offenses they had done: public drunkenness, brawling, petty burglary. Sam’s offense? A simple one, a new one, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A smaller room, also made of concrete and soiled plaster, stinking of chemicals, another drain in the center of the room. Lockers and laundry baskets and another blow to the head. “Here. Strip.”
Sam didn’t move.
Another, harder blow. His knees sagged and then the cuffs were freed, and he was lifted back up. A Legionnaire said, “You’re gonna be naked here in a sec, and your choice whether you’re gonna be bleedin’ hard or not.”
Sam fumbled at his buttons while three Legionnaires watched him, and he had a quick, sharp memory of his first time in a locker room in high school, his first time being naked in front of other men, feeling awkward, shy, embarrassed, like everybody was staring at him.
He stripped. Stared at a brown spot on the far wall that looked like old blood spatter. His legs started shaking. “Stand still,” and a hand on his shoulder, the hum of an electric razor, and his hair was on the floor. “Keep still.” A man with a hose in his hand stood in front of him, laughed. “Poor bastard’s hung like a hamster,” and sprayed him with a cloud of dust. Sam coughed, his legs shaking harder, and some clothes were tossed at him. Thin cotton, not even thick enough to be called pajamas, striped blue and white, and his shoes fell at his feet.
“Feeling generous today,” one of the men said. “You get to keep your shoes.”
“But no socks!” another one called out. “Don’t want people think we’re goin’ soft.”
Sam awkwardly put his bare feet into his leather shoes. “Guys, let me make one phone call, to the FBI, a guy named LaCouture, and—”
The Legionnaire who had disinfected him raised his truncheon. “Shut up or those new clothes of yours, they’re gonna be stained. Now let’s go. And it’s your lucky day, asshole, our tattoo man is gone for the day. So no number on your wrist. Tomorrow.”
Aches and pains everywhere, Sam walked out into the cloudy sunshine, the sound of the equipment thumping in his brain. Up ahead, a gate opened at a fence, and he was pushed in.
“Barracks Six, your new home. Work hard, and you’ll have a nice life.”
More laughter, and he walked unsteadily forward, by himself knowing he was no longer Sam Miller, police inspector for the city of Portsmouth. He was cold, he ached, and his ribs and jaw hurt. He was inside the camp for real, in an area filled with barracks, the ground packed dirt. In the distance the walls of the quarry rose up on three sides, smoke and dust in the air. He stood before one of the barracks, shivering, the thin clothing providing hardly any protection. He rubbed at his eyes, crusted from the stone dust in the air. Barracks Six, the numeral painted in dark blue. It was made of rough-hewn wood and built on square concrete piers. His new home. He opened the door. It creaked.
Darkness.
Strong stench of unwashed bodies, other odors as well.
He took a step in, his eyes adjusting to the weak light. There were bunks crammed tight, floor to ceiling, four beds up. Movement as well, as men turned to stare at him, raising their thin shaved heads. He took a step forward, winced at the sharp pain in his ribs and hips.
“Hello?” he said.
Voices murmured in his direction. He took another step forward, the boards creaking underfoot.
The heads turned away. He kept on walking, trying to breathe through his mouth, to block out the stench that seemed to surround him like an old blanket as he went deeper into the barracks. Two small coal stoves with chimneys going up through the roof, more bunks, and in the very rear, what had to be the latrine, for the stench was thicker there. By the latrine was an empty bunk. He saw a bare mattress, a single blanket folded at the end, and a threadbare pillow.
One man unfolded himself from a nearby bunk and came over, favoring one hip. “You new, eh?” the man said.
“Yeah, I am,” Sam said.
“Thought so. Look too clean, too fresh. American?”
“Yeah.”
The man was about six inches shorter than Sam, his head close-shaved. He had a thin dark beard and a prominent Adam’s apple. His prison uniform hung like old laundry on his thin body. “My name is Otto,” he said.
“I’m Sam. Are you German?”
Otto shook his head. “Netherlander. Dutch. Though originally German. Are you Juden?”
“Excuse me?”
“Juden. Jew.”
“No, I’m not.”
Otto looked nervous. “Ah. So why are you here?”
“Because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and asked the wrong questions.” Sam looked at the faces and said, “Why are they staring at me?”
Otto glanced back and said, “They are nervous. You are clean, an American, and you say you’re not a Jew. They think you are a spy. An informer. Who can blame them?”
“And you?”
The Dutchman cocked his head. “Not sure. Maybe I’m more trusting. Who knows, eh?”
Sam said, “Look, are you all Jews here?”
“Of course.”
“From where?”
Otto shrugged. “Everywhere. Germany. Poland. Holland. Even some English in another bunkhouse, all Jews.”
“How did you get here?”
Another shrug. “How else? We were taken from other camps, brought into trains and then ships. Ships across the Atlantic. All of us got very sick. And then to a military port. Virginia, I think, and then another train here.”
Sam could barely believe what he had just heard. “You mean you all came here from Europe?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But why are you here?” Sam asked.
Otto smiled, his lips twitching mirthlessly. “We all volunteered.”
“Volunteered? To come here to this camp?”
Otto’s smile remained. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why would you volunteer?”
“America. We were told we would come to America to work, to survive, and even if we came here to work, who would not want to come to America?”
Sam looked to the man’s wrist.
It bore a series of tattooed numbers.
Sam was in his bunk, breathing in the stench, listening to the wheezing and snoring from his bunkmates. Every now and then somebody would crying out in a dream in a foreign language. His shoes were off and tied about his neck—earlier Otto had warned him, “Thieves everywhere, so keep your shoes close”—and he stared up into the shadows.
At last he knew the secrets of the camps. Refugee Jews from Europe were being transported to America to work in quarries, mines, and forests. Slave labor, long hours, long days, and all they got was poor food—supper had been oatmeal and chunks of stale bread—and a place to sleep. They had all volunteered to come here.
Petr Wowenstein had escaped from a research facility in New Mexico and had been murdered in Portsmouth.
But why?
Sam rolled into his pillow, his shoes striking the side of his face, trying to get comfortable and failing.
Did it matter anymore?
Petr Wowenstein had escaped from a camp and ended up in Sam’s hometown.
Investigating his murder had brought Sam to the same kind of camp. But as a prisoner, not an investigator.
He woke with a start, hitting his head on the overhead roof frame, the shoes nearly strangling him. Men were shouting, banging gongs, yelling, “Out! Out! Raus! Raus! Everybody out! Jeder heraus!”
He dropped out of his bunk, pulled his shoes off his neck, and struggled to put them on his swollen feet. The bunkhouse was still unlit, so he bumped into his bunkmates as he moved outside into the assembly area. The morning air was frigid and he started shivering, rubbing at his arms. He could not believe what he saw. Long’s Legionnaires were there, overseeing the rows of prisoners, but they had been joined by German soldiers… No, not soldiers. Their uniforms were black, with polished black boots, caps with skull symbols in the center. SS. German SS were there, helping the Legionnaires, laughing and joking, carrying short whips.
“Bunkhouse Six, Bunkhouse Six, at attention!” yelled a tall, thin Legionnaire who was joined by an SS trooper who yelled out, “Bunkhouse Sechs, Bunkhouse Sechs, an der Aufmerksamkeit!”
The Legionnaire counted out the number of prisoners before him, making notes, and Sam kept on shivering, thinking, This can’t be real, cannot be true, German SS and Long’s Legionnaires, stormtroopers from each side of the Atlantic, cooperating and working together as one in the mountains of Vermont. There had been a few news reports of Long’s Legionnaires traveling to Germany to visit their compatriots, but never had there been mention of the reverse. It was like some nightmare that his upstairs neighbor would be writing for one of those fantasy magazines.
The Legionnaire yelled something to a camp official, and then Sam joined his bunkmates as they marched out to the quarries, flanked by Long’s Legionnaires and SS stormtroopers.
His job was simple. By an area where cutting tools and drills made incisions into the marble wall, he had a shovel to scoop up marble chips that were processed later for some other use. The stone reared above him for scores of feet, and other prisoners scrambled up and down scaffolding, carrying tools. Only a few Legionnaires and SS men watched, content to sit in wooden chairs and gossip among themselves. Sam’s hands quickly blistered as he shoveled marble chips into open wooden wagons. Once during the morning, he had a few words with Otto, who was carrying lengths of wood scaffolding.
Sam said, “You volunteered for this?”
The man laughed. “It is easier work than before, over there. The food, not good, but enough. And here, the guards are forbidden to shoot us unless we try to escape. We may be beaten here and there, but to live, we are living here better than in the camps in Germany and Poland. And you? Why are you here?”
Sam shoveled up some chips. “I’m a cop. From a city called Portsmouth. In New Hampshire. Came here investigating a murder back home.”
Otto said, “You should have stayed home, eh?”
Sam coughed, leaned on his shovel. “Maybe so. What about you?”
Otto’s face darkened. “Ach, we are the lucky ones. You see there are no women and children here, eh? Only we capable of work were allowed to leave. Our family members, left behind. For them, who knows how they are…”
The Jew scurried away. Sam picked up his shovel and went back to work.
Breakfast came after two hours of work, a soup wagon pulled by a tired horse, ribs showing, plodding along. Thick oatmeal, cold toast smeared with foul-tasting margarine, and a mug of weak coffee. It was filling but something Sam would have sneered at earlier.
God, he thought, earlier. He went back to the marble chips, picked up his shovel, waited a moment. Look at what doing his job had gotten him. Right in the very heart of hell. His brother, Tony, would probably bust a gut laughing. Tony the hell-raiser, the criminal—Tony was a free man. And his Eagle Scout and high school football star brother, his Goody Two-shoes brother, he was in a camp, a place worse than Tony’s, a place where—
The blow to his back knocked him to the ground, the marble chips shredding his clothing, bloodying his knees. He got back up quick, shovel held up, facing the SS officer who had just belted him with his whip. The officer had fair skin, blond hair, and a sharp nose, and snapped, “Zurück zu Arbeit, Juden!” Beside him was a Legionnaire wearing glasses and a thick mustache, his uniform muddy and worn. Sam choked out, “I don’t know what that fucking Nazi just said.”
The Legionnaire laughed. “Man, I guess you’re not from away, ’cause no guy here would raise a shovel to a Kraut. He said, ‘Back to work, Jew,’ so I suggest you do that. Even if you are an American, you ain’t an American here.”
Sam was going to say that he wasn’t Jewish but didn’t. He lowered his shovel.
Lunch wasn’t as rushed as breakfast. The prisoners were allowed to sit and stretch their legs and eat from metal bowls of stew with water and chunks of stale bread. Again Sam found himself next to Otto, who was leaning up against a pile of lumber. Sam said, “What did you do before the war?”
“Before the war? Ran a business in Amsterdam. Nice, safe, boring job. Someday I hope to be picked for my skills and get away from this stonework. They do that, you know. If they have a need—electricians, plumbers, university professors—they get picked and sent where they’re needed at special camps.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Eight months. Before that, I was somewhere in the South. Very hot. We cut trees in the swamps. Lots of bugs, too.”
“And before that?”
He shook his head. “Don’t want to remember that. It was a camp in Poland, very bad. Then one day an officer came in with an American in a nice suit. Volunteers for labor in America. Who would go? All of us, if we could, and here we are.”
Sam shoveled in a few more spoonfuls of stew. “What happens to the marble? Or the wood that was cut? Where does it go?”
“Trains,” Otto told him. “Loaded on trains. And why do we care? We work, we survive, we even get paid.”
“Paid? Money?”
“Yes, one dollar a week. We can use the money to buy things at a camp store on Sunday. Like soap. Razors. Tea.”
Sam finished his stew and wiped the bowl clean with a piece of bread. “Otto, have people escaped?”
“There have been attempts, yes. But how far can someone go, someone who is a stranger here? Eh? And dressed like this?”
“Have any attempts succeeded?”
Otto stared at him. “Are you thinking of escaping then, eh?”
Sam thought for a moment, not sure he could trust this fellow prisoner. “Just thinking aloud, that’s all.”
“Then think about this, my friend. If someone escapes from our barracks, everyone is sent to the cooler for punishment. Water only, no food for a week. And then one man from the barracks, he is chosen by lot and shot. For it is thought by the guards—helped by the Germans, of course—that shooting one from a barracks will discourage the others. It works. Most time.”
Sam kept quiet, stopped eating.
“So I ask you, my new American friend, is that what you will do? Try to escape? To sentence me or one of my bunkmates to torture and then death?”
Sam said, “I don’t know what I’ll do, but I need to get out and—”
“We all need to get out.” The voice was harsh. “We all want to leave. But where to go, eh? To be a Jew in this world now… there are no longer any safe places. None! So we live to live another day, and that is what we do. And here we are reasonably safe. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” the Dutchman shot back. “Here. I will tell you a tale. Mmm, no, not a tale but a true story. In the South, cutting trees, I knew a schoolteacher from a village in Poland. His name was Rothstein. One day, months after the invasion, special German police units came to his village and took out all the Jews and brought them to the town square. There, in the hot June sun, they made them sit still. No water. No shade. No food. And the Germans laughed. And they took photographs. They told the Jews, ‘You move, you will die. Understand?’ An old man, he couldn’t help himself. He tried to stretch his cramped legs. They shot him. A woman screamed. They shot her. Near Rothstein, his two-year-old nephew, he squirmed out of his mother’s arms, tried to run away, and the mother cried and a German policeman, he picked up the boy by his ankle, dangled him before everyone, and put a pistol to the child’s head and shot him. Rothstein, he was splattered with his nephew’s blood and brains. That happened in a place where Jews had lived for hundreds of years in safety and sanctuary. Now… nothing. Even here, in your America. We are no longer safe. So tell me, are you going to have me killed? Or one of my bunkmates? Are you so important that this will happen?”
Sam didn’t reply. Otto said, “And about your Jews. They have moved themselves to ghettos, haven’t they, afraid of what might happen to them. We know that news as well. Your Jews have not been rounded up, eh, not yet the pogroms and the arrests. But will their time come? Like ours?”
A whistle blew, sending them all back to work, ensuring Sam didn’t have to come up with an answer, for he had none to give.
The afternoon dragged by, monotonous and backbreaking work, splinters from the shovel handle digging into his palms, blisters breaking into blood and pus, keeping his head down, just shoveling, trying not to breathe in the stone dust kicked up by the drilling and cutting. When the whistle blew again, he trudged back to the barracks with his new bunkmates, and he understood the look of those prisoners he had seen. It was the look of hopelessness, of giving up and knowing one’s place. What was real was what was before one’s nose, and nothing else. To live was to get through a day without being beaten, without being shot, and to eat as much food as possible, all to live one more day.
That was the life inside the wire.
And to get out, to successfully escape, was to doom some stranger in his barracks to death. Up ahead was Barracks Six, and the line of men moved in. A Legionnaire he recognized from yesterday was standing by the door; he crooked a finger at Sam’s direction.
“You, cop.” The Legionnaire’s face was pockmarked from old acne scars. “Time to finish some business.”
The Legionnaire grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled him out of line. Sam’s bunkmates cast their eyes down, as if afraid that by paying any attention they, too, would be dragged away. Sam shook off the man’s arm and the man laughed easily. “All right, pal, just come along and there won’t be no problem.”
He walked with the Legionnaire, each step heavy and painful, seeing a wooden and wire gate ahead of them open up, with watchtowers on every side. Now they went to the right, to a small concrete building that stood next to yesterday’s processing facility. Inside it smelled of chemicals and sweat, and an older man in a white coat and with wavy gray hair sat at a wooden table, glasses perched on the end of his nose. Nearby were bottles of ink and shiny instruments. The old man looked up and asked in a German accent, “He’s not a Jew, is he?”
“Nope,” the Legionnaire answered. “But he’s a guest here, just the same.”
The old man laughed. “Knew he wasn’t a Jew. Can always tell. All right, bring him over.”
At the man’s elbow was an open thick leather-bound ledger, and Sam saw rows of names and numbers. It was as if icicles were tracing themselves up and down his back. He knew what was planned for him. He was about to be branded as a hunk of meat, like the poor bastards around him, like his homicide victim.
“Hey, now,” the older man instructed. “Hold your wrist out. And be quick, I’m late for my supper.”
Sam didn’t move.
The Legionnaire slapped him. The pain shot through him. The Legionnaire urged, “Now, boy, hurry up!”
Sam glared at the Legionnaire, then rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. He held his wrist out, the man pulled a humming metal instrument close, a tattooing needle at the end of a handle, brought it down to Sam’s wrist, and he felt the harsh sting as the painful marking began, branding him forever as a prisoner—
Sam balled his other hand into a fist, punched upward, caught the old man under the chin. The old man grunted in shock, and Sam heard the Legionnaire call out. Sam grabbed the needle, seized the man’s right hand, pulled it forward, took the needle, and slammed it into the hand. The man howled and then the Legionnaire was on him, beating him, and Sam hurt as he punched and kicked, and through the pain, it all felt good.
He had fought back.
Hours later, Sam lay on his side, breathing shallowly, his ribs hurting. He had been dragged from the tattoo room to a place called the cooler, and damn, that was a good turn of phrase, because it was fucking freezing. It was a concrete cell block without a mattress pad, blanket, or pillow, just a covered bucket in the corner for shit and piss, and right now, even though his bladder was screaming for release, he couldn’t drag himself the four or five feet to the bucket.
But he was smiling. Even through the blood and the bruises and the throbbing pain, he was smiling. He had fought back, had caused the German tattooist some serious pain. Sure, maybe someone else would be along eventually to finish the tattoo, but at least Sam Miller, Portsmouth police inspector, hadn’t been completely branded like some barnyard animal.
He tried to shift again, groaned as something stabbed in his side. So, in under two days as a prisoner, what had he learned? A lot. In remote areas of the nation, Jewish refugees were at work, clearing wood, mining ore, cutting stone. Among these refugees, one Petr Wowenstein—aka Peter Wotan—had lived and worked until successfully escaping.
The refugees—how and why did they end up here?
Another intake of breath, another moan.
Yet Sam smiled, for even though he didn’t have all the answers, he had found out a lot. He wondered if ol’ Marshal Harold Hanson would be proud of his probationary inspector. After all, not only had Sam properly identified the city’s latest homicide victim, he had also uncovered a national secret.
Damn, if that wasn’t worth passing probationary status, what would be? Maybe even help him in the Party. Who knew?
He coughed.
Damn, he hurt.
Somehow he had managed to doze, and when he woke up, he stumbled over to the bucket, aimed into it. Daylight coming through a high barred window allowed him to see that his urine wasn’t stained with blood, which was a good sign. He held up his left wrist. There. A blue numeral three. A permanent reminder of the horror he and so many others were living in. Sam lowered the sleeve and replaced the cover to the bucket and sat down, grimacing at the thudding pain in his ribs.
He looked around the small cell. Something was near the bottom of the wall. He looked closer, saw a set of initials—R.S.—and a Star of David carved in the stone.
A noise, a slight thump.
Something was on the floor. He crawled over, saw it was a hunk of bread with a string wrapped around it. He undid the string, saw the bread open up, and among the smears of margarine was a note:
From O. Good luck.
Otto. The Dutch businessman from Barracks Six. Be damned.
He ate the bread, wincing as his sore jaw worked, and then he tore up the note and ate that as well. The piece of string went into his bucket.
He sagged against the wall, feeling just a bit better, trying to think of what he could possibly do next.
Survive, he decided. Do what the Jews here were doing. Stay alive. Somehow get out and get back to Portsmouth and—
Condemn a man to death, then? Is that what you’re thinking? To escape and condemn someone, hell, maybe even Otto, who befriended you? Is that what you’re going to do? Kill him on the off chance that you can get through the fences and wire and past the guard towers and—
The door was being unlocked. Two Long’s Legionnaires came in, staring at him, wooden truncheons pulled from their belts.
One said, “Get your ass up, come with us, or we’ll beat you somethin’ awful. Got it, boy?”
Sam got up, hurting but happy he could hide his pain from these two thugs.
They escorted him to a building set apart from the rest, a wooden cottage that wouldn’t look out of place at a lake resort. About him were the sounds of the quarry at work, the growl of the cranes, the thump of the drills, the whine of the cutting tools, and—underneath—the shouted voices of the guards and overseers.
At the cottage, both men stopped. One pointed to the front stoop. “You go on up there, boy, and there’s someone to see you. You step lively, and if you run out by yourself, jus’ so you know…”
The man jabbed an elbow into Sam’s ribs, making him gasp. The man went on, “Up there, at the southwest guard tower, there’s a man with a scoped rifle, and if you come out of that there cottage by yourself, he’s gonna blow your head clear off. You understand?”
Sam said nothing, shook off the other guard’s grasp, and went up the steps. It was cold, and he could feel shivering starting in his legs and arms. He took hold of the doorknob, wondering what was on the other side.
He opened the door, stepped into a tiny foyer with stained Oriental carpeting and a bureau and lamp. Through an arched opening was a living room with a thick couch and two easy chairs, the arms covered with dainty doilies. A picture window gave a view of the distant fence line, and way beyond that, the tree-covered peaks of the Green Mountains. A man in a military uniform—it looked to be army—was standing with his back to Sam, looking out, his hands clasped behind him.
“Well,” the military man said, and turned around.
Sam stood stock-still, as if someone had nailed his feet to the floor.
Before him, in his Army National Guard uniform, was his boss, Marshal Harold Hanson.
“Sam,” Hanson said, shaking his head. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
Sam closed his eyes, then opened them right up. “I… I was doing my job.”
Hanson stood there, hands on his hips. “Look at you. Christ, how in hell did you end up here?”
“The dead man… by coming here, I found out who he was—”
“Dammit, Sam, you were told several times to leave that case alone. You know it belongs to the FBI and the Germans.”
“Still my case, sir. No matter what you say or what the FBI says. It’s still my case, and I found out where he came from. I know his real name, and—”
“Do you have any idea the problems you’ve caused?” Hanson interrupted. “What kind of trouble you’re in?”
Sam ran a hand over his shorn head. “Yeah, I guess the hell I know what kind of trouble I’m in. Sir.”
Hanson’s face flushed. “That’s enough of that, then.”
“What else did you expect me to say? Or do?”
“I expected you to be smart, for one,” Hanson said. “And you’re lucky I’m here.”
Sam said, “How did you know where I was?”
His boss said, “Allow me some intelligence. One reason I became marshal is because I keep my ears and eyes open. You don’t think I knew about the deal you cut with Kenny Whelan to get a false FBI ID? He called me just after you left his apartment. Pat Lowengard sold you out, too, the minute you went out the door. That’s our world. Spies and snitches everywhere. It was a simple matter of tracking you from Portsmouth to Boston and then to Burdick, Vermont. Knowing what’s in Burdick, I knew you were going to get into serious trouble.”
Even in this pleasant room, Sam could still hear the thudding of the stonecutting equipment, could still smell oil and stone dust. “Why are they here? All these Jews? Here and New Mexico and other places across the country? There must be thousands, am I right?”
Hanson said, “You don’t need to know what’s going on here.”
Something sharp sparked inside of him. “The hell I don’t!”
“Sam, look—”
“No,” Sam insisted, “I’ve been beaten, stripped, and worked as a slave. I came close to getting a tattooed wrist like the rest of the poor bastards out there. I’ve got a right to know, and you’ve got to tell me. I demand it.”
Hanson folded his arms over his uniform. “You don’t look like you’re in a position to demand anything.”
“Maybe so, but I think this would prove embarrassing for you, sir. After telling people in the Party you’re sponsoring me for bigger and better things, having me imprisoned in Burdick wouldn’t look good for you. But tell me, and you’ll be thrilled at what I’ll do for the Party and you if I get out.”
Hanson stared at him, and Sam wondered what was going on behind those evaluating eyes. Then the marshal said, “What makes you think I know anything?”
“You’re here in full National Guard uniform in order to gain access. That means you have pull in a place that doesn’t officially exist. Which means you must know why it’s here.”
That brought a thin smile. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Hanson waited, let a breath out, and said, “It’s a couple of years old. It started small and then grew once it became apparent it was a deal that worked to everyone’s advantage.”
“Must be one hell of a deal,” Sam said. “How did it start?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I deserve to know, that’s why. And you know I’m right.”
A pause. “It began in occupied Paris, with a trade delegation led by the secretary of the Treasury, Morgenthau. Probably the smartest Cabinet officer Long’s got. He’s also done his best since the war to get more Jewish refugees here, with no success. Too much resistance from Congress and everybody else. Nobody wanted them here, competing for jobs and housing. But in Paris, Morgenthau and some businessmen came upon a train shipping French Jews out to the east. There was a confrontation, and the ranking SS officer said to Morgenthau, ‘Fine, you’re so concerned about the Jews, take them.’ Which is what he did. They got off the train and found their way here.”
Sam said, “The news I saw before I came here said Morgenthau couldn’t get any more Jews into the country. He’s been trying and trying.”
“Sure, publicly,” Hanson said. “But he and his friends in industry have been doing it secretly for years. All that stuff you hear on the radio or see in the newsreels about him fighting Congress is all a lie. He makes a fuss in public, while in private, he makes it happen.”
“How do they get here?”
Hanson said, “After England was defeated, the Germans took possession of one of the largest merchant fleets in the world. English ships, crewed by Germans and a few American overseers to make sure the Jews arrive here alive, bring them over. They land in military ports, so security is maintained.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Sam said.
“When you get right down to it, the Germans want the Jews out of Europe, by either expelling them or killing them,” Hanson explained. “Hell, even the guy running the SS, Himmler, said something like that in a book a year or two back, about sending all the Jews overseas. They’re only doing worse to them because they can’t ship them out easily.”
“But the expense…”
“Sam, the Germans are locked in a death struggle with the Soviets. Once the offer was made for us to take the Jews, what made sense to them? To use their army and their train systems to ship Jews to concentration camps out to the occupied east, or to use their army and their train systems to supply the eastern front against the Russians?”
“And the secretary of the Treasury went along with this?”
“Morgenthau eventually came up with the arrangement, as tough as it was. The Jews would come here secretly, not as refugees but as labor. The Nazis get their Jew-free Europe, and we get workers.”
“Slave labor, you mean.”
“They get paid.”
“A dollar a week!”
Hanson said, “Which is more than they got back in Europe. A few thousand came out here at first, to work in some copper pits in Montana, and it started succeeding. They’re hard workers, Sam, happy to be here and not there. They clear lumber, work in mines, quarries, and even some scientific facilities and shipbuilding. So money was made, and you know how President Long operates. He gets a kickback on everything, just like when he was governor. Donations were made to his campaign funds as well as the program grew.”
“Money? This is all for money?”
Hanson nodded. “Yes, money, as crass as that might sound. For Christ’s sake, this country is broke. It’s been broke for years—even with Long’s nutty wealth confiscation and redistribution plans and everything else, we’re broke. We’ve been in this Depression for over a decade. So the country needs money. These laborers make money for exports. Hard currency. Money we couldn’t get if those jobs went to the regular workforce at regular wages.”
“Why can’t the money be used to put people back to work?”
Hanson had a grim look on his face. “What’s worth more to Long and the Party? Free Americans working at real jobs, or Americans on the dole who have to sign a loyalty oath to get relief money, who’ll vote the right way when the time comes?”
“Sweet Jesus,” Sam muttered.
“Some of the money goes to other things as well. You’re a smart fellow, Sam. Look around your hometown, you’ll see where it goes.”
Sam didn’t know what Hanson was getting at, and then it came to him. The Navy Yard. The fleet expansion. The new buildings, cranes, docks…
“For the military? That’s it?”
“Mostly,” Hanson said. “But it goes to other places as well. Some relief. Road and bridge work. The President and his boys get their cut, as well as the Party. Sam, Long is a fat, drinking, whoring criminal who happens to be our President and will be our President for the foreseeable future. But the future has something else waiting for us, and it’s a man with a funny mustache and an army uniform. Once Hitler crushes Russia and takes a breath, he’s going to look across the Atlantic. Maybe his slant-eyed friends in Tokyo will look across the Pacific at the same time. So we need to be ready.”
“This summit deal coming up with Long and Hitler,” Sam said. “There’s more than just money being made. We’re going to get our aircraft and arms factories up and running so we can be ready down the line—is that it?”
Hanson said, “True. And these poor Jews, they’re our seed corn. Our way of funding what we can… and there’s the humanitarian side.”
Sam laughed. “Humanitarian! Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I’m not. Every Jew here is a Jew that’s saved.”
“Some saved,” Sam said. “Worked hard, barely dressed, barely fed—”
“But saved nonetheless, compared to what awaits them in Europe,” Hanson insisted. “Morgenthau doesn’t like it much, either, even though he’s running the program, but… it’s better to be here, overworked and underfed, than to be back in Europe, slaughtered.”
Sam kept quiet. He didn’t know what else to say. Hanson sighed. “Look, Sam. You’re in a very dangerous position. You now know one of this country’s deepest and darkest secrets. And you need to tell me: What do you plan to do about it if you get out?”
Sam said, “Nothing.” He waited, then added, “For the moment.”
Hanson said sharply, “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Sam said, not liking the smooth way Hanson was talking, how comfortable and clean he looked in his uniform. Sam was sure his boss had eaten a good breakfast before coming here. Sam went on. “Maybe I’ll keep quiet. Maybe I won’t. Maybe the American people need to know what the hell their government is doing and how they’re treating refugees here. Maybe they have a right to know these poor bastards are being worked nearly to death.”
“Who gave you that right to say anything?”
Sam said, “I’m a free American, that’s all the right I need.”
Hanson shook his head. “Maybe that was right years ago. But not now. And you’re making an assumption. That you’re getting out of here.”
“You didn’t put on your dress uniform and travel a couple of hours by train to just to have a talk with me, did you?”
“That’s exactly what I did. To have a talk with you and see how smart you are. Let’s say Sam Miller, crusader of the truth and defender of whatever, convinces the Boston Globe or New York Times or New York Herald Tribune to break this story. What happens then?”
“I don’t know.”
Hanson reached into his uniform jacket, pulled out a sheaf of black-and-white photographs. “I’ll tell you what happens then. Chaos. Violence. The camps are discovered, and maybe some of our jobless, they break into these camps and beat up or kill the Jews because they’re stealing jobs at slave wages that they feel belong to true Americans. Maybe the ghettos in California and New York and Miami are attacked, and there’s a pogrom here in the United States. That’s one thing. The other is that the deal between Hitler and Long to ship the Jews here, the deal is dead. It only works if it’s kept a secret, and with the secret out, Long will drop it like the proverbial hot potato. Then the Jews stay in Europe. No more cargo ships across the Atlantic. This is what awaits them. Look. I got these photographs from a friend of mine in army intelligence.”
The first photo showed a country landscape, a hillside overlooking a ditch. There were German soldiers, laughing, rifles in hand. The next photo showed a line of people herded into range. Men with long beards, young boys, grandmothers, women, some of the women carrying children, and young girls as well.
They were all naked.
Another photograph, Hanson silently dealing them out as if they were some obscene set of playing cards. Most of the men, desperately trying to be modest, cupped their genitals with their hands. The women held one open hand below their bellies, others holding an arm across their breasts, some of the women using the infants to shield them.
Another photo. Sam forced himself to look. The Germans had lined up in good military order, rifles up, and were shooting at the line of naked men, women, and children.
Shooting at them all. The rustling sound of photo paper was all that Sam could hear. Most of the naked men and women had fallen forward into the open ditch, but others had crumpled to the ground. An officer holding out a service pistol was standing in the pile of bodies, aiming down to shoot the nearest ones in the head.
The final photo. One German soldier, grinning widely, was kicking at the body of a bloody infant, as if kicking a football.
Hanson held that last photo out the longest, then put the photos back in his pocket. He wiped his hands together as if they had been soiled.
Sam looked away, bile in his throat. Hanson said softly, “We can’t save them all, Sam. But we can save a lot, and we can continue to save a lot. This truth gets out about the camps here in the United States, and the deal is done.”
“Deals?” Sam forced himself to speak, even though he felt like throwing up. “We’re making deals with a government and army that can do that?”
“We deal with who we have to, even if it’s the devil himself,” Hanson replied. “You saw those photos. If we hadn’t brought over the refugees working in this quarry, that’s the fate waiting for them.”
“But we’re better than that.”
“Maybe so, but none of us have clean hands. None of us.”
Sam said, “Speak for yourself.”
Hanson said carefully, “I like to keep a close eye on all my officers, both on duty and off duty. I don’t like surprises. The Police Commission doesn’t like surprises.”
“I’m sure.” The nausea had been replaced by something harder.
“So you know, there’s a limit to our interest, you realize. We know what’s on the streets of Portsmouth, the temptations, the flow of booze and money. We do what we can, and as a sergeant, you were pretty straight and narrow. But then there are circumstances that get to the level of us paying close attention.”
Sam looked out the window.
Hanson said, “Do you have any idea how many cops can afford a home on their own? With just a few years on the job? And with a pregnant wife to boot?”
Sam looked back. “I saved a lot. Worked overtime when I could.”
“Certainly,” Hanson said. “But a few weeks before you bought your house, there was an amazing coincidence. William Cocannon. Never made a formal complaint, but he let people know that somebody whacked the shit out of him early one March morning, stole several hundred dollars, just about the time you managed to scrape together enough money to get your house. I know the president of the First National. He told me you were short for the down payment, and then the day after Wild Willy got whacked, you showed up with enough money to make up the difference.”
Sam felt the room getting colder. Hanson said, “So have I made my point? Or do I need to talk again about your wife and her friends?”
“You’ve made your point.”
Hanson said, “Good. So there’s no misunderstanding. I’m getting your sorry ass out of here, though a lot of strings are being pulled, favors are being called in, and I’m getting you back to Portsmouth. Where you’ll resume your duties as probationary inspector, including working as a liaison with the FBI. Who, by the way, claim that they miss you very much. Which is one of the reasons I came out to fetch you. To keep the FBI happy.”
“And the department’s Log… who gets to write about what just happened to me? Or you?”
Hanson said carefully, “The Log will be correct. It’ll say you and I were in a small town in Vermont as part of an investigation. An investigation, I’ll remind you, Probationary Inspector Sam Miller, that is closed. Forever. Do you understand?”
“But I know who he was. And where he came from. And—”
“Sam.” His voice was sharper. “Drop it. That’s an order. You promise me it’s dropped, and you’re back in Portsmouth tonight. You say anything else, and so help me God, you’ll be back on the other side of the fence in sixty seconds. Do you understand?”
“Sir… it’s a homicide. In your city. Our city.”
Hanson said, “A refugee from New Mexico, previously from Europe, who had his neck snapped by someone and got dumped from a railroad car passing through our city. That’s all it was. All right? Leave it to the FBI. Or you can stay here.”
Sam wiped at his face, looked at his boss. Maybe it was the hunger or the exhaustion or the bitter realization that he was giving up, but for a moment or two—or maybe longer—it seemed there were ghost images on his boss’s chest, as if Sam could, through the fabric, see the photos again. The German soldiers lined up with rifles, smiling. The Jewish men and women, forced into a line. The shooting. The German soldier at the end, kicking at a baby’s corpse as if it were a delightful sport.
Sam struggled to gain his voice and said, in almost a whisper, “The case is dropped. You have my word.”
“Good,” Hanson said, coming over, slapping him on the shoulder. “Like I said earlier, when this summit is all wrapped up, you’ve got a bright future in the Party, even with these stunts you’ve pulled.”
Sure, Sam thought. A bright future tattling on my father-in-law for your benefit, for the benefit of the Nats against the Staties.
Hanson said, “Now. One more thing. You realize that whatever I tell you here stays here? Do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
Hanson shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do. What I mean is, everything stays here. Nobody else gets told. Not any other cop, not your wife, no one. If it’s ever found out that you’ve blabbed about this place, then you and anyone else you’ve talked to—even if it’s your boy, Toby, by mistake—you come back here. Forever. Now. Tell me you understand that.”
In answer, Sam rolled up his left sleeve, showing the numeral three. “And this? How do I explain this to Sarah?”
“You’ll think of something,” Hanson said. “A drunken late visit to a tattoo parlor off the harbor, I don’t care. But the secret of Burdick remains a secret. Understand?”
“Yeah. I understand it all.”
“Good.” Hanson took a breath. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
There was a moment when the guilt struck him so hard that he almost turned around to go back into the camp. Now, dressed in his civilian clothes—which felt odd and constricting after the few days in the striped clothing, except for his hat, which was loose on his shorn head—and walking with Hanson, he saw a line of prisoners heading off to another part of the camp. The starved men stared him. He stared back and recognized his bunkmates, one face in particular. Otto, the Jew from Holland, the man who had risked so much to toss in a chunk of bread to Sam.
Otto stared at Sam in disbelief, and Sam could just imagine what was going through the prisoner’s mind. Sam must have been a spy. Sam must have been a turncoat. Now everyone in Barracks Six was at terrible risk, for the friendliness shown an American who was going to betray them all.
He thought of shouting something to them, but realized it was a waste of time. Instead, he watched the line of men shuffling away to their work, and then he returned to whatever freedom awaited him.