The Office of the Commandant
Department of the Interior
Burdick, Vermont
Sir,
As a follow-up to our phone call earlier, I am compelled to yet again protest in the most serious terms of the release of the prisoner Sam Miller of Portsmouth, N.H., on 10 May. Due to the intercession of others and the presence of Harold Hanson, Colonel, New Hampshire National Guard, Miller was released into the custody of Hanson at this duty station on the above-referenced date.
However, I still strongly believe that the release of Miller seriously jeopardizes the security of this facility. Notwithstanding this concern, I do understand that Miller’s release was also due in part to his importance to the upcoming Portsmouth summit. I therefore recommend, upon the completion of Miller’s duties of the summit, that
A. Miller be arrested and returned to this facility forthwith and;
B. That within the next twenty-four hours, the occupants of Barracks Six, which worked with Miller, be turned over to German authorities for immediate deportation to their respective internment facilities in Europe, so that security is maintained here as well.
__x__ Approve
_____ Disapprove
Royal, wait until the summit is over before deporting those yids. Things are complicated enough without taking this step. But agreed, let’s get Miller back where he belongs; sticks in my craw that a mere flatfoot got away with this. Tom
Sam’s front door was open.
His hand fumbled as he reached down for his revolver, liberated that morning from the Burdick camp. “Sarah?”
Nothing.
Thinking, he said, “Tony?”
Still no answer.
He pushed a switch to turn on the light.
Disaster.
Before him was the living room, with the chairs and couches that Sarah had so carefully picked from her father’s showroom, jumbled, fabric ripped and stuffing torn out.
“Oh, Sarah,” he whispered. His feet crunched on broken glass from shattered picture frames. Books and papers were tossed in a pile, the torn pages looking like crumpled leaves. In the kitchen, plates and saucers and cups and glassware were broken. Their bedroom… clothes ripped, the bed tossed on its side, the bureau drawers broken open…
Toby’s room. Something harsh clamped in Sam’s throat at what they had done to his boy’s room. Toby’s precisely made models, most constructed with Sam’s help in the kitchen, working carefully over sheets of the Portsmouth Herald, paint carefully applied… his son’s proud models had been yanked from the ceilings and crushed. His chemistry set, his collection of fossils, even the model police car with the Portsmouth police markings destroyed. He tightened his jaw, remembering the promise he had made to Toby seemingly a century ago when he was leaving.
He heard footsteps in the living room and strode out, revolver in his shaking hands, ready to shoot, ready to do violence, ready to—
“Sam? Is that you?”
From the gloom, his upstairs tenant gingerly walked forward. Sam let a breath out. “Walter. Damn. Yeah, it’s me.”
Walter looked around, his eyes wide from behind his glasses. “My word, I heard the noise down here, but never did I—Sam, I am so deeply sorry.”
It took two tries before Sam could put his revolver away. “When did they come?”
The older man folded his arms tight across his chest, as though trying to prevent himself from running away. “Two days ago. It was a squad of Long’s Legionnaires. The bastards came upstairs and looked through my belongings, but not like this. They were brusque, they were cruel, but they didn’t… do this. What in the world were they looking for?”
“I don’t know.”
Walter peered closer. “Sam, what happened to you? Your hair’s nearly gone, and it looks like you’ve been in a fight.”
Sam was silent.
“Sarah?” Walter said. “And your son?”
“Out of town for a while. Until the summit is over.”
“I see.” Walter shifted his feet and said, “I’m sorry to say this, and it isn’t a good time, but… Sam, I’m sorry,” he continued, his voice plaintive. “The Legionnaires… they frightened me. Frightened me so much I was afraid I was going to soil myself. When they left, I decided I never wanted to be that scared again.”
Sam looked at his tenant and kept quiet.
“I hate to do this to you and Sarah, but I’m moving out next week. You’ve gotten the attention of Long’s Legionnaires, and that scares me. They might come back and put me in a labor camp.”
Sam kept his eyes on the mess that used to be his living room. He knew what he was about to say wasn’t fair, but suddenly, he didn’t care. “What about all that talk about being brave, protesting, a dissenter?”
“Look, be reasonable. I… I’m a coward, we both know that. I’m going to move out, and I’m really sorry about the rent money. I know how you and Sarah depend on it, and I—”
“Walter, you can shut up. I get the idea.”
“I’m sorry, Sam,” Walter repeated feebly. There was a crunch as his heel snapped a shard of glass. “Well, one other thing. I heard you helped my friend Reggie Hale escape the clutches of the National Guard. You have my thanks and gratitude.”
“Sure,” Sam said. “Whatever you say.”
Another pause that lengthened in the shadowy room, then Walter said, “I must be leaving. Again, so sorry. But Sam… Did you hear the news tonight?”
“No,” Sam said brusquely. “My radio’s not in good shape.”
“Yes, yes, of course. It’s just that they’ve arrested Winston Churchill in his hotel room in New York City.”
“What the hell for?”
“Official reason, a number of violations of the Neutrality Act. Unofficial reason, it’s a gift from Long to Hitler to help grease the summit, make it even more profitable for Long and his cronies.”
Sam thought of Burdick and that damn camp. Walter opened the door and continued, “Churchill can be so many things. A drunkard, a blowhard, a knee-jerk defender of the Empire and its old Victorian ways. But the man’s voice… his writings… he kept it alive, you know. The idea of a free, independent Europe, supported by a United States that still lived by its Constitution. And now that he’s arrested… when he’s executed, the resistance in England and elsewhere, it will collapse. Who will speak for freedom then? Long? Our collection of idiots and misfits in Congress? Our ward heeler Vice President? Our public spokesmen, a collection of isolationists and Jew-haters like Lindbergh? Father Coughlin?”
Sam looked to his tenant and said sharply, “I know one thing. It won’t be you, Walter.”
In Curt’s attic again this stifling morning, he rolled over on his side, thinking that even with the heat and dust and wooden floor, this was a much better place than the Iroquois Labor Camp. He remembered, back at the camp, how a group of men he knew and trusted—hard men who not only had contacts with the outside but had contacts halfway across the globe—had come to him with a proposal, something that would get him out of the camp and into a mission that would change the world.
In the dim early light, he recalled with a smile his answer: Shit, of course. Where do I sign up?
He remembered as well, when Phil had asked him, whether he was tough enough to do his job, to kill one of the most guarded men on the planet.
Yeah. Tough enough. So far he had been.
So here he was.
There was the sound of a large engine, then the screech of tires as a vehicle braked to a halt.
He rolled to his knees, went to the window, and saw a Black Maria stopped on the street below. He froze, thinking no, he couldn’t go through the house, too much of a chance to get caught in the stairwell, no, he’d go to the window on the other side of the attic, smash it through, and—
The doors of the Black Maria flew open; two men with hats and long coats got out and started running.
Not to Curt’s house. To a house across the street.
He took a breath of stale air. Watched it unfold beneath him. The front door of the small house broken open, the men rushing in. Just a few seconds passed and the two Interior Department men emerged, one escorting a handcuffed man, the other leading a handcuffed woman, both prisoners only partially dressed, feet bare. The man’s head hung down in despair while the woman was yelling, twisting against her captor’s grasp. The pair were dragged across the street, the rear doors of the Black Maria van were opened up, and—
More screams. He bit his lower lip as children ran out of the house in pajamas, two girls and a boy, racing after their mom and dad. Could he get there in time? Could he? The Interior Department men wouldn’t expect an ambush, somebody like him emerging from Curt’s house, maybe with a hammer or a club. Whacking the shit out of them and then getting those parents free and back to their kids, telling them to run for it, run now…
He shuddered, moved away from the window. Sat on the sleeping bag. Heard the doors to the Black Maria slam shut, the engine start up, and the squeal of tires as it raced away.
No, stay focused. Concentrate. He had to think of the mission, what was ahead of them.
He put his hands against his ears, stared down at the dirty wooden planks beneath him. Oh yeah, stay focused, but that was so hard to do, with those terrified children out there, screaming and sobbing for their disappeared parents.
Maybe he wasn’t that tough after all.
Water was rushing up his nose, he was drowning, he was being tortured by an SS officer and a Long’s Legionnaire, laughing at him, holding him down under the water—
Sam woke up.
He had fallen asleep in the claw-footed tub. The water had long ago gone tepid. He coughed and took a washcloth and ran it across his face, then gently touched his bruises and scrapes and the old blisters on his hands. He felt cold. Up in Burdick, they would be in the cold barracks, hungry, unwashed, shivering, wondering what tomorrow would bring, Jewish prisoners held here in the supposed land of the free—
Sam held up his wrist again. The number three. He was now marked for life.
What kind of life, he didn’t know.
The phone rang.
Sarah?
He stumbled out of the tub, counting the rings for the party line—
One long ring followed by three short rings.
The Connors again, just down the street.
It wasn’t for him.
Before going to bed, he went back to the living room, saw the little mound of books with their covers torn off. Some of them were from the Book-of-the-Month Club, from a flush time a couple of years back when Sarah could afford the monthly mailings. And there was his Boy Scout handbook, the one he had used to confirm Tony’s signals, mutilated.
He flipped through it, seeing the merit badges, his first official list of accomplishments, of what he had been able to do. He had gotten scores of merit badges on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout. Not like Tony, who had given up after only three. Tony’s three versus his own thirty, the number needed to reach that magical pinnacle of Eagle Scout.
He tossed the torn handbook back into the pile. Some accomplishment, some record. Eagle Scout, quarterback, cop, sergeant, probationary inspector, and a freed inmate from a secret concentration camp.
It was time for bed.
In the morning Sam got dressed slowly, ignoring the raw marks on his hands. He thought about Barracks Six, going to work in the ice box confines of the quarry. He was hungry and surprised at how deep he had slept. No nightmares this time, just a sleep so deep that he woke up tired, not refreshed at all. When he was dressed, he did one more thing, as much as it disgusted him: With chilled fingers, he put the Confederate-flag pin on his lapel.
Breakfast. Sam looked around the mess of a kitchen and decided not to stay. This place should be filled with the laughter and smiles of his Sarah and Toby. No, he didn’t want to be here. He’d go out and quietly do his work for LaCouture and Groebke, members of governments who could torture, imprison, and kill Jews with all the difficulty of someone buying a newspaper or ordering breakfast.
He went out the front door, didn’t even bother locking it behind him, and took two steps before he saw someone was waiting for him.
Hans Groebke, leaning against the fender of Sam’s Packard, a paper package at his elbow, on the car’s mud-spattered hood.
Sam’s first instinct was to charge over and punch out that smug face in a series of hammer blows, but he wondered if he was strong enough. If he wasn’t, what then? He started for his revolver, to shoot the Nazi son of a bitch right then and there, but there was something in the man’s eyes that stopped him. A look that didn’t belong. Sympathy? Concern? What was it?
Groebke straightened, performed his courtly, tiny bow. “Guten tag, Inspector Miller.”
“What the hell are you doing at my home?”
The Gestapo man said, “Things have changed since you went away. At midnight a new—how you say—permit process has been implemented.” From his coat pocket, he removed a square of cardboard gilted on the edges. “All vehicles must now have this pass. Without it, you would have not been able to go work for us today, which would be unfortunate.”
“How did you get here?”
“Herr LaCouture drove me here on his way to the naval shipyard on some sort of inspection.”
“A favor? You’re doing this to me as a favor?”
A brief nod. “Something like that, yes.”
“Do you know where I’ve been these past few days?”
Groebke studied him for a moment. Then he said, “Against orders from your own boss, you have been investigating the matter of the dead German found by your railroad tracks. You left town as part of this investigation. That’s all LaCouture and I know. And eventually, you will be punished for that… oversight.”
“Even with that, you want me?”
“Yes, we do. We have come to depend on what you can provide for us.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sam said.
“Excuse? Bull what?”
“Crap, nonsense, that’s what I meant. Any cop on the force can do what I’m doing for you. Which is why what you said is crap.”
Groebke reached over to the package. “You may call it whatever you like, Herr Miller, but there is work to be done. And here. Some breakfast for you.”
Sam took the paper bag, looked into it. A cardboard container of coffee, a plain doughnut. Groebke said, “After being with your police after all this time, I think I know what you like, am I right?”
Sam looked at Groebke, the smooth features, the blue eyes, the blond hair. In his mind’s eye, he saw other things. The SS men at the Burdick camp. The newsreels of German troops burning and slashing their way through Europe and Russia. The photos he had seen yesterday of the massacre of the innocents.
Sam dropped the bag at Groebke’s feet, the coffee spilling through the brown paper. “You don’t know shit.”
The scent of Groebke’s cologne was strong in the confines of Sam’s Packard as he drove to the Rockingham Hotel. Groebke said, “Your punishment—has it begun with your haircut?”
“No,” Sam said, holding the steering wheel firmly with both hands, feeling self-conscious for a moment, that his sleeve may slip and reveal the tattoo.
“I see. And why did you get this haircut, then?”
“None of your business.” Sam slowed for a checkpoint up ahead. There was a striped wooden barrier across the road, two MPs and a Portsmouth cop he recognized as Steve Josephs, one of the newer guys on the force. The MPs saw the cardboard pass on the dashboard, lifted the barrier, and waved the car through. The streets were nearly deserted.
After a bit, Groebke said, “Such a drive, with not much to say.”
A flood of memories started churning through Sam, all tinged with the memory of that sickening fear of being in the camp, of not knowing if he would ever get out, would ever get to see Sarah and Toby again.
Sam said, “There’s not much to say to someone like you. The Gestapo. Secret police. Torturers, killers.”
Groebke scratched at his clean-shaven chin. “Oh, yes. How we’re portrayed in the cinema, in books. But we are mostly cops, Herr Miller. Enforcing the laws.”
“What do you know about cops?”
“That’s what I was years ago,” the German said reflectively. “A cop in a Bavarian village, taking complaints, investigating burglaries, part of the Kriminalpolizei. That’s all I wanted to do, eh? Be a cop. But in 1936 changes came—all of the police forces came under the rule of the state, under Himmler, and the Kriminalpolizei, we were absorbed into the Gestapo. That’s what happened to me.”
“Sounds ordinary. But however you call it, you’re still Gestapo.”
Groebke said mildly, “Yes, still Gestapo. The stories about torture, killing, it’s just a minor part. The rest is police work. Do you understand? Just cops doing the job of their government. It’s what I do. It’s what you do.”
“Sure,” Sam said, hearing the bitterness in his voice. “And what about the Jews? Being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, branded, dumped into camps. Is that just a job?”
Another checkpoint, with two cars ahead. Groebke pointed to the left. The city’s sole synagogue was there, boarded and shut, covered in posters of President Long. “Your Jews… no longer here, eh? In ghettos in New York, Miami, California. So let us speak of death, then, Sam. Who slaughtered the red Indian last century, who stole their lands and put them on reservations? Who is shooting auto workers in Detroit, fruit pickers in Oregon, strikers in Manhattan, yes? Your own hands, how clean are they, Herr Miller? Did you not participate a few days ago in a… a cleansing, is that the word? Of refugees and undesirables? And are these people not on their way to camps because of you? Of your job? Yes?”
The first car moved, then the second. Sam eased the Packard to the checkpoint. Groebke continued, “I do not judge you for what you do. I may judge your government, but not you. We are similar, you and I. Our nations. We each have made empires on the back of other peoples. We each have destinies. Even our symbols are the same. The eagle, yes? And our Führer, he is a great admirer of your industry, so much that his private train, it is called Amerika. Amerikan Eagle, both of our nations, so similar.”
Sam kept quiet.
“So, our nations—so similar, like you and I. So please extend me some courtesy, ja?”
The MP waved them through, and Sam shot forward so fast he almost ran over the man’s booted foot.
As Sam and Groebke walked toward the Rockingham Hotel, Groebke lit a cigarette with a gold lighter and said, “You know, I so love your tobacco. You cannot believe what we are forced to smoke back home—street sweepings, leftovers from France and Turkey. It’s a good thing our countries will become friends, eh?”
“Don’t count on it lasting,” Sam said. “Long isn’t one to be trusted. Also, we remember what Hitler did with Stalin. Peace treaty in ’39, invasion in ’41.”
“You believe, then, no honor among thieves, eh?”
“Sure seems that way.”
Up the granite steps of the hotel, with MPs checking everyone’s identification, and as Sam displayed his police ID, he thought of what Groebke had said earlier.
They needed him.
The FBI and the Gestapo.
And the Portsmouth Police Department. His own boss in full-dress uniform as a colonel of the National Guard, had come out—or was he sent?—to retrieve Sam from Burdick.
Why? Why was he needed?
Groebke put his identification away as they went into the crowded lobby. “So it is, eh? Paperwork and records, such is the way we all must operate,” he remarked.
Paperwork.
Records.
What had Sean said back at the labor camp?
Everything. They know everything about you, all of your records, everything.
Some records, as he went with Groebke up to the second floor, he was sure his records—
Tony.
What would be in Tony’s records?
His arrest, of course, and his time in the illegal union at the shipyard, trying to make it all right after Dad’s death, and more, of course. The Gestapo and the FBI, they were relentlessly thorough. He had no doubt that they had pawed through his files all the way back to high school, grammar school, hell, even the Boy Scouts. Tony’s three merit badges. Sam remembered each of them, remembered how he had teased Tony about being such a lazy son of a gun, until one night Tony had slugged him in the coal room, where they had gone to get a bucket to keep the furnace going.
First aid. Astronomy.
And the third one, the one Tony had delighted in most, a craft he had continued to enjoy years later and which he still missed. Hell, hadn’t Tony even told him so during their last talk?
Sweet Jesus, he thought. Sweet holy Jesus.
“Come,” Groebke said, “let’s get to work.”
He followed the Gestapo man into Suite Twelve.
LaCouture sat at the round desk, his feet up, the polished black shoes and white spats looking as if he had just stepped off an MGM soundstage. He was looking at some papers and raised his eyes as they entered. “Glad you could make it, Inspector. Tell me, did you enjoy your time off? I hope so. For Christ’s sake, you’ve gotten us behind. And shit, look at that haircut of yours.” He glanced back down at the papers.
Sam walked over to the desk. LaCouture looked up. “Didn’t you hear what I said, boy?”
“I did, and I don’t particularly care.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I’m done here. I’m no longer an errand boy.”
LaCouture grinned. “Pretty bold talk for a boy who’s been AWOL a few days, comes back with his hair trimmed and bruises on his face. Somethin’ bad happen to you, boy? Hmm? You go somewhere you weren’t suppose to, got tuned up a bit?”
“None of your business,” Sam shot back.
“Everything’s my business, Sam. You’d be surprised at what I know. Like where you live. Like that commie ex–college professor illegally livin’ at your house. Shame, your house gettin’ broke into the other night. Some of Long’s Legionnaires, it looks like, figured you were a shithead and decided to pay you a visit. You piss off any Legionnaires lately? Still feel like you’re not an errand boy, Inspector?”
“I know why you’re here,” Sam said. “I also know why I’ve been picked to work with you.”
LaCouture’s smile didn’t falter. “You do, do you? Why don’t you tell us?”
“You’re here because of my brother. He’s escaped from the Iroquois Labor Camp. You’re looking for Tony.”
There was a brief look between the Gestapo agent and the FBI agent. LaCouture said, “What makes you say that?”
“Because you hammered a file clerk from my police department who knows you were looking at his records. Because you said something about Tony being right from the start. Meaning you were looking at his paper trail from way back when. When he got his merit badge for marksmanship, when he was head of the shooting team in high school. He’s good with a rifle, he’s been a hunter all his life, and I’m sure you know he’s here in Portsmouth, right ahead of the summit.”
LaCouture’s eyes stayed locked on his. Sam continued, “And here you are. An FBI agent and a Gestapo agent. Why the Gestapo? To protect Hitler, that’s why. And you’re here to follow me to Tony.”
The words scalded Sam’s throat, but he said them. “My brother… he’s going to assassinate Hitler tomorrow, isn’t he?”
LaCouture looked to the Gestapo man, looked to Sam, and then set his papers down and straightened in his chair. “Very good, Inspector. Welcome aboard. You’re no longer just an errand boy.”
Groebke muttered something in German, and LaCouture replied. In English, LaCouture said, “All right, where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’ve seen him.”
“Twice since he escaped. Once in a city park and another time at my house.”
“Did he say what he was doing here?”
“No, of course not,” Sam said. “He said he was just biding his time. Ready to go someplace else once the summit was over and the heat died down.”
Groebke spoke up. “You kept this a secret from the authorities? Even though it is a serious offense?”
Sam tried to ignore the Gestapo agent. “He’s my brother. What else was I going to do?”
The German persisted. “This brother of yours. He is intent upon killing the most important man the German nation has ever produced, and you chose not to help us?”
Sam said sharply, “Just a few minutes ago, on my own, I determined Tony was here to kill Hitler, genius. If the two of you had let me in on what was going on, maybe I could have helped you. But you decided to keep your secrets. Why’s that?”
“Procedures, policies,” the FBI man said. “We were told to keep an eye on you, to keep you close, but I guess it’s not a secret. Speaking of secrets, why give him up now? Why not keep it to yourself?”
“Because I’ve seen what’s out there. All those cops, National Guardsmen, Interior Department goons—I don’t want him killed on some stupid suicide mission.”
“Aren’t you being the good brother.” LaCouture said. It wasn’t a question.
Sam ignored his condescension. “Whatever you say. But an assassination? Who’s behind it?”
Groebke said something quick in German and LaCouture listened, cocked his head for a moment, then told Sam, “A variety of troublemakers, we’re sure. Communists, either homegrown American Reds or NKVD agents sent here from the Soviet Union. It’s impossible to get at Hitler on his home turf. Many have tried, and all have failed. But in the States, it’s easy for someone to blend into a crowd. So probably the Russians. But maybe the Jews. Or the Brits, French, Poles… Christ, the guy’s pissed off enough people, could be any of the above!”
“And my brother?”
“An ideal choice,” LaCouture said, and once the FBI man started talking, Sam knew with a sick feeling how right he was. “A good hunter. A union organizer in jail for opposing the government. Someone whose hatred of Hitler and the quote, oppressors, unquote, is well known. And someone who knows Portsmouth like the back of his hand. An ideal combination, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sam could only nod. LaCouture said, “We have no doubt someone helped get him out of Fort Drum. There’s been an FBI squad up there for weeks, interrogating prisoners. And he had help getting to Portsmouth. We know there’s a conspiracy, we know who the shooter is, and we know the target. Now we must stop it.”
LaCouture picked up his cup of coffee. “Your little city and the Navy Yard are now the most tightly controlled and secure area in North America. In addition to your fine police force”—LaCouture’s voice dripped with sarcasm—“we have the New Hampshire State Police, the Maine State Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of Interior, the navy, and oh, yes, a contingent of marines from the Navy Yard. Not to mention the Gestapo, the SS, the SD, the RSHA, and all those other German-alphabet security forces. All of them here to protect President Long and Chancellor Hitler. There’s no way your brother will get close enough to do any harm. Not in a million years. However…”
Groebke leaned forward and spoke again in German, but LaCouture ignored him. “However, this is still a delicate time, having the summit in Portsmouth. Besides your nutball brother, we have Jews, Communists, labor leaders, the press, and every asshole who thinks he has a grudge against Long or the Nazis planning to be here. Fine.”
LaCouture put his cup down, clattering it in the saucer. “But what’s not fine is your brother, who knows this city backward and forward, making trouble and bad press. Trust me, Inspector, the President knows exactly what kind of press he wants for these next couple days. He wants a new era of peace and understanding between the Long administration and the Third Reich. He wants trade agreements that put millions of Americans back to work. And if it helps crush the Bolsheviks, than that’s just a nice bit of extra credit, isn’t it?”
“I see,” Sam said, looking to Groebke. “First killing the Jews, then killing the Bolshies. Some credit.”
Groebke smiled. “Nobody cares. That’s what I read in your newspapers, hear on your radio broadcasts. It’s Europe’s business, not yours. We can do anything we want and the world doesn’t give a shit. Except the Reds.”
LaCouture frowned, “You’re off point, Inspector. I agree with Hans. Europeans have been slaughtering each other in creative ways for thousands of years. Why should we care how they’re doing it this year? We care about us. All the closed banks and businesses, all those damn hobo camps. With a few signatures and a trade agreement, all that’s gonna change. You and me and Hans here, along with everybody else guarding this town, are going to make sure your brother doesn’t fuck that up. Got it?”
Sam said, “Yeah, I got it. But one condition.”
LaCouture crossed his legs. “Not sure if you’re in a position to ask for conditions, but go ahead. Amuse me.”
Sam knew it was a long shot, but still he had to say it. “I don’t want Tony hurt or killed. Just pick him up and bring him back to the labor camp. Let him serve out his sentence.”
LaCouture laughed. “That was two conditions.”
“One condition, two conditions, I don’t care,” Sam said. “That’s what I want. Nothing bad to happen to Tony.”
LaCouture said. “Interesting offer. Here’s my counteroffer.” From the paperwork on his desk, he pulled out an envelope. He slid out a black-and-white photograph and tossed it over. “Take a look. Even though it is a government photo, you can see the faces pretty well.”
From the time he reached over to the photo, Sam could sense it all go wrong in an instant, like riding alone on a snowy night and feeling the Packard’s wheels slip on the ice and snow.
The photograph showed Sarah standing with her arm across Toby’s shoulders, pulling him tight to her. Her face was almost empty of emotion, gaunt with some terrible burden. Toby’s head was buried in her waist, as though he were hiding from the bogeyman.
On either side of them were frowning National Guardsmen. All four figures were standing by a gate. It shouldn’t be familiar, but it was. The photo blurred then, as his eyes stung with tears.
His wife and son were at the Camp Carpenter Labor Camp.
LaCouture’s smile was sharp, as if he were a happy predator facing a bleeding and three-legged prey. “So here’s the deal. Nonnegotiable, of course, since I hold all the cards, from the deuce to the ace of spades. We’re looking for your shithead brother. So far we’ve come up with squat. And you’re going to help us find him.”
“Why… why are Sarah and Toby there?”
“In federal custody pending the outcome of an investigation.”
“They didn’t do anything!”
“They never do, do they?”
Sam’s hands started shaking. He put them in his lap to hold them still and out of sight. The FBI agent went on. “This is the deal. You find your brother. That is your sole job. Nothing else matters. How your son and wife are handled, how much food they get, how your wife is… treated all depends on you.”
Sam said hoarsely, “How long are they going to be kept there?”
LaCouture shrugged. “Up to you, boy, ain’t it.”
“And Tony…” Sam felt like the room was slowly closing in on him.
“If you can get him to us with no fuss or muss, he’ll be on his way back to Fort Drum with a few more years tacked on. I’ve looked at his file, and a few more years won’t make much difference. Hell, with your new haircut, you even look like the traitor. But I’ll tell you this, Inspector Miller, if there’s any problem at all, any problem whatsoever, we’re not playing around. We’re here to protect Hitler, protect this summit. If we have to cut down your brother to do that, then we will.”
Groebke shifted in his chair, said something in German. LaCouture replied in German. Then in English he said, “Enough chitchat. So. What’s it going to be, Inspector?”
“Like you said, you’ve got all the cards, Agent.”
LaCouture grinned. “Then let’s get to work.” From his sheaf of papers, he tossed over a gilt-edged cardboard pass. “Temporary pass for the next two days allows you entry through all checkpoints. Better than the one Hans gave you this morning. This pass gets you through checkpoints controlled by our German friends, even in the Navy Yard, where our esteemed leaders will be meeting tomorrow.”
Sam picked up the pass. “All right. But one more thing. I get Tony to you, you get my wife and son out of that labor camp. If they’re hurt in any way, I’ll kill you, LaCouture. You hear me?”
“That’s threatening a federal officer. You be careful.”
“No,” Sam said, his voice low. “You be careful.”
There was silence, and then LaCouture, his face reddened, said, “Get the fuck out and go find your bastard brother.”
At his desk, Sam went through a small pile of phone messages and dumped them all in the trash. There was also a note from an Englishwoman who wanted to make an appointment to help find her lost husband. That note went into the trash, too. He had to find Tony. A scent of lilac overpowered him. Mrs. Walton was there, frowning. “Here,” she said, holding out another slip of paper. “Will you please call him back?”
“Who?”
She slapped the message on his desk. “Dr. Saunders. He’s called three times for you since you went on your… investigation.” She stomped back to her desk, started typing away, attacking the keys as if their very presence insulted her.
Sam looked at the message, written in Mrs. Walton’s precise handwriting: 3rd call from Dr. Saunders re: your John Doe case.
He stared at the slip of paper, and what he saw was a photograph of Sarah and Toby stranded at Camp Carpenter. He noticed Mrs. Walton looking over at him, her thin hands poised over the keyboard. He crumpled up the note and tossed it in the trash. “Mrs. Walton?”
“What?” she snapped.
“If Dr. Saunders calls again, tell him I’m out of the office. Forever.”
She scowled. “I can’t tell him that.”
“Oh. Okay. Tell him this: I’m the fuck out of the office. Forever. Got that?”
Mrs. Walton returned to pounding the keyboard, but the back of her neck was scarlet.
He rubbed his head, feeling the unfamiliar bristle. The door to Marshal Hanson’s office was closed, but he could hear voices inside. He thought about going in there, pleading his case, but no. Wouldn’t work. It was all his now, and he had only one thing to do, to be a good investigator, be a good Party member, and find his brother. Find Tony.
The phone rang. “Miller. Investigations.”
“Inspector Miller? Sam Miller?”
“That’s right.” He couldn’t identify the male voice.
“This is Sergeant Tom Callaghan from the Dover Police Department. I’m conducting an investigation, was looking for your help.”
Sam rubbed at his eyes. Dover was the next city up from Portsmouth, whose school his team had defeated in the state championship so many centuries ago. The two cities had always had a friendly rivalry, especially since that city was known for its leather and shoe mills. One of the sayings from when he was a kid: “Portsmouth by the sea, Dover by the smell.”
“Yeah, sure, Sergeant, what is it?”
“We pulled a body out of the Bellamy River yesterday. Hobo, no identification or anything. Except one thing: He had your business card stuck in a pocket. It was pretty soaked through but legible enough.”
Sam stopped rubbing his eyes. The sergeant went on, “So we were hoping maybe you know this guy, can give us a lead on him, how he ended up here.”
Lou Purdue, he thought. Lou from Troy.
“Inspector?”
“Yeah, right here.”
“Can you help us?”
Sam looked at the door to the marshal’s office. Saw lots of other things as well. Sarah and Toby at the labor camp. The secret camp at Burdick. Promises and threats made by his boss here, and his other boss, the one at the Rockingham Hotel.
“No,” he said. “No, I can’t help you. Sorry. My card gets passed around a lot, and I don’t remember giving it to some hobo.”
He could hear the sergeant sigh. “Too bad. You see, the guy drowned, but we’re pretty sure it was foul play. The guy’s fingers were broken. Like he had a secret and somebody wanted him to talk.”
Sure, Sam thought. The ones behind Petr Wowenstein’s murder. Eliminating a witness to the death of that mysterious, well-dressed man standing by the Fish Shanty that rainy night.
“Sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “I wish I could help you. Good luck.”
He hung up, sick at what he had done, what he had to do. He got up and left.
Several hours later, stomach growling and feet hurting, he took a break for lunch at a restaurant by the harbor called, in someone’s fit of imagination, the Harborview. The place was packed with reporters, government officials, shipyard personnel, and military officers, but his identification got him a small table in the corner that was probably used for piling up dirty dishes but on this day was being used to squeeze every dime and dollar from the visitors crowding Portsmouth. As he took his seat, he tried to keep focused on the task at hand and not think of a drowned and tortured Lou Purdue, killed because of one of the oldest stories, seeing something he shouldn’t have seen.
Sam ordered his lunch from a waitress who seemed to chew gum in time with writing down his order; the girl’s young face reminded him of another waitress, his friend Donna Fitzgerald. He hoped she and Larry were keeping low during this circus. For some reason, thinking of that sweet, innocent smile cheered him for a moment. To have a life and love so simple… He looked around at the customers. So many new faces in his little city since that damn summit was announced. He recognized a newsreel reporter, a couple of U.S. senators, and by the windows overlooking the harbor, a cluster of German Wehrmarcht officers, their boots polished, eating and apparently enjoying the view of the Navy Yard.
He wondered what the Germans were thinking. In just under four years, they and their comrades had turned the world upside down. All of Western Europe flew their flag, and their armies patrolled from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. In the Atlantic Ocean, U-boats still prowled, as did other warships of the Kriegsmarine, while the U.S. Navy tried to maintain some sort of presence. But the Germans—hell, they had even set up a tiny base in a couple of French-owned fishing islands up near Quebec, and they had bases in the Caribbean, in Martinique and Aruba and the British Virgin Isles.
They were in other places as well, in Burdick and other secret camps, helping the Americans with their knowledge of imprisoning, torturing, and exploiting the Jews. A secret deal that was to benefit both countries: one dumping the enemies of their state to a faraway land, said faraway land making a tidy profit from their slave labor. Fascist Germany and fascist America, soon becoming twins themselves, while nearly nothing stood in their way.
Except for Russia. Russia was still hanging on, not buckling under, not giving up.
As for giving up, he’d almost done so it a couple of times today. The whole of Portsmouth had changed, had locked down to a place he barely recognized. Every few city blocks, there were barriers manned by National Guard troops, accompanied by men in suits who were FBI, Department of the Interior, German security. Squads of Long’s Legionnaires slapped up posters with Long’s toothy grin and unruly shock of hair. Sam had begun by checking out the tallest structures in Portsmouth—where better to station a marksman like Tony?—but every building in the city had a security contingent at the door.
Every building!
Even with his own set of passes, he had been scrutinized as he went into the warehouses down by the harbor, just to see how tight the security was, and at the top of each roof, he found U.S. Marines from the barracks at the Navy Yard, keeping watch with binoculars and communicating with one another through handheld radios.
Just walking from block to block, he’d been stopped three times by roaming patrols of National Guardsmen and Interior Department officers, and it was only thanks to his own identification that he wasn’t extensively questioned.
Once he had seen a couple of Long’s Legionnaires arguing with a man in a doorway, poking at him with their fingers, and he had recognized the cowering figure as Clarence Rolston, the police department’s janitor. The Legionnaires had left him alone when Sam had produced his identification, and Sam had told a weepy Clarence, “Better stay inside for the next couple of days until this clears up.”
The janitor had wiped his dripping nose with his hand, complaining, “It’s not fair, Sam, not fair… I just wanted to get some chocolate milk. That’s all. It’s not fair.” Then he had gone back into his walk-up apartment, blowing his nose in a handkerchief.
Sam’s fried-shrimp lunch arrived, and he picked up a fork and dug in. As he started to eat, his left sleeve slid back, revealing the fresh blue numeral three. He pushed the sleeve back and ate his lunch quickly, with no real appetite, wondering what Sarah and Toby were eating, what his former bunkmates were eating, while he dined in a restaurant.
Where to find Tony?
He looked out the window at the narrow expanse of river and Portsmouth Harbor and, across the way, at the shipyard, the place where Tony had once worked.
The Navy Yard.
Where Tony had once worked. Where Tony gotten arrested for his union organizing.
The Navy Yard—not the city.
He threw down a dollar bill and ran out of the restaurant.
He retrieved his Packard and drove out to the Memorial Bridge, a drawbridge connecting New Hampshire to Maine that spanned the fast-moving Piscataqua River. The bridge had been built to honor Great War veterans, no doubt including poor old dead Dad. The drive across usually took under five minutes; today it was nearly an hour, and as Sam crawled across the bridge in heavy traffic, he saw marines and armed sailors standing along the bridge, one every six feet or so. Hanging from the bridge were American and Nazi flags, secured on both ends, flapping in the breeze. He wondered what his bunkmates back at Barracks Six would think, seeing a Nazi flag honored in America.
On entering the state of Maine, he turned onto Route 1 and made his way to the main gate of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, built on an island in the center of the river. The island was claimed by both his home state and Maine. A marine guard in formal dress khakis halted him at the entrance, glared at his identification collection—his inspector’s badge, his National Guard commission, the business card from Special Agent LaCouture, and the gilt-edged pass he had just received—said, “Who are you seeing, sir?”
“Twombly. Head of security.”
The guard checked his clipboard. “Sir, you’re not on today’s list for visitors.”
“I know,” Sam replied. “But this is time-critical. I have to see Twombly concerning the summit.”
The marine’s face was young, and pale under his uniform cap. “Very well. Pull over to the side, sir, and please wait inside the car.”
Sam did as he was told, leaving the engine running. About him were the brick buildings of the administration and engineering and design offices of the shipyard, and beyond, he could make out cranes and temporary scaffolding. Men passed him wearing identification badges on their dungaree jackets, carrying lunch pails, wearing hard hats. There were piles of wooden beams, steel plates, rust-red chunks of metal. He tapped the steering wheel. This was where his father had worked out his life after serving in the Great War, and this was where Tony had gone and had… well, had gone where? Had entered the twilight world of union organizing at a time when unions were slowly being squeezed to death. Tony. Arrogant, pushy, self-righteous Tony. Seeing Dad cough himself to death, the doctor at the Yard not doing a thing to help him, and Tony seeking to avenge what had happened, now seeking to do so much more.
The marine guard strolled over, still carrying his clipboard. Sam rolled down his window. “You’re cleared to see Mr. Twombly,” the marine said. “Do you know where his office is?”
“Yes, I’ve been there before.”
“Very good, sir. Please take a direct route to his office. He’s expecting you.”
Sam put the car into drive and headed into the shipyard.
The security office was in a row of brick buildings. Sam pulled in to a parking spot, and when he got out, he saw Nate Twombly standing in the doorway. He had encountered Twombly a half dozen times over the years for a variety of minor criminal matters involving shipyard workers.
Twombly ambled over, smoking a cigarette. He was just over six feet tall, his black hair shot through with gray, hollow-eyed and thin, as though he had just come out of the hospital after a monthlong liquid diet. “Inspector Miller. This better be good. Haven’t had a good night’s sleep in… shit, I can’t remember.”
Sam passed over the business card from LaCouture, and Twombly glanced at it, then passed it back. “Poor bastard. Working for Hoover’s boys, huh?”
“Looks that way.”
Twombly eyed his coat, spotted the flag pin. “See you’re now part of the true believers, eh?”
“Just trying to get along.” It hurt to admit it.
“Yeah,” Twombly agreed. “Ain’t we all. So, what’s up? And please don’t waste what I don’t got enough of. Time.”
“My brother—”
Twombly took a drag of his cigarette. “Tony Miller. Sure. Departed our fair shores a few years back for unauthorized union organizing here.”
“Is there any authorized union organizing?”
Twombly gave him a pinched smile. “Don’t ask dumb questions. Why are you here about Tony?”
“He’s escaped from the labor camp at Fort Drum. He’s been spotted in Portsmouth at least twice.”
Somewhere, a series of horns blasted out a long tempo, echoing among the buildings. Twombly sighed. “And you think he might be back here on his old stomping grounds, with his working-class buddies?”
“That was the general thought.”
Twombly laughed bleakly, reached into his pocket, pulled out a leaflet. He passed it over, and Sam unfolded it. Looking up from an old photo was Tony. The message printed under the photo said Tony was to be refused admittance to the Yard, and if he was spotted, to contact security at once.
“About a couple thousand of these have been printed up and passed around. Workers, administrative staff, naval officers, even the marines—every one of them has gotten this leaflet. Each guard station has it posted, too.”
“Impressive.” Sam passed the leaflet back. “When did you get word he was an escapee?”
“Two days ago. Like I need one more goddamn headache to worry about.”
“Still—”
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe he got smuggled by a sympathetic coworker. You can forget that crap. When your brother was sent up to Fort Drum, about a dozen other guys were fired and blacklisted. No offense, but if your brother shows up at the Yard, he should wish I get to him first. Come on, let’s go for a walk.”
Sam walked with Twombly while the security man started talking randomly, as though he needed a sympathetic ear. “Heard somewhere that summits like these, big-time meetings, usually take weeks or months to put together. And us lucky bastards got just under a week to put something together involving the goddamn President of the United States and Herr Hitler himself. Up there, see that building?”
The three-story brick structure ahead looked like an elementary school. Twombly gestured to it with his burning cigarette. “That’s where it all happened back in 1905. Russians and Japanese did their thing here, with Teddy Roosevelt leading the negotiations. Building Eighty-six, the administration building. That’s how TR got his Nobel Peace Prize the next year, for ending that war. Lucky for him, there’s no process for revoking a peace prize. Seeing how the Russians and the Japs are both busily butchering thousands on a monthly basis.”
In front of that building, Sam saw his first German flag on shipyard soil. Something inside of him chilled, seeing the swastika flapping in the breeze on an American military base.
“That’s where they’ll be tomorrow afternoon,” Twombly continued. “Long and Hitler. See by the door? That’s a plaque, commemorating Roosevelt’s peace treaty. Think they’ll put up another plaque when those two clowns finish their bloody job?”
Sam said, “No, not really.”
“Yeah, that’s a vote of confidence if I ever heard one.”
Two marines guarded the entrance. They looked ashamed to be standing underneath the flapping swastika.
“Come with me,” Twombly said, leading Sam into another, taller, brick building. Twombly shut the sliding metal door, and the open-grill elevator made a rattling, hollow noise as it ascended four stories. At the darkened top floor, Twombly opened another door, and they went outside to a tar-covered roof.
A squad of armed marines stood in one corner, dressed in dungarees and fatigues. Their squad leader looked over at Twombly, and Twombly waved a greeting, took Sam to the edge of the roof.
From there, they had an expansive view of the shipyard, river, harbor, and Portsmouth itself. Off to the east, where the river widened, were the dark gray smudge of the Atlantic Ocean and the island community of New Castle. Before them were the cranes and docks and scaffolding, and Sam could make out the hulls of two submarines under construction. Nearby were the massive concrete and turrets of the Portsmouth Naval Prison, and there, across the river, rising above it all were the brick buildings of Portsmouth and the North Church spire.
“That’s the way it is,” Twombly told him. “Marines on every roof, observing everything coming and going. More marines and shore patrol in the buildings and on the grounds. It’s the same over in Portsmouth. In a few hours, the day shift ends and the second shift is canceled. Only security and summit personnel will remain behind. Trust me, Inspector. Your brother may be somewhere around here. But he’s not in my Yard.”
It was cool up on the roof, a strong salt-tinged breeze coming in from the ocean. Twombly said, “Hold on a sec. Going to borrow something from these leathernecks.”
He walked over to the marines and returned carrying a pair of high-powered binoculars. He brought the binoculars up and, after a few seconds, said, “Ah, there you are, you little bastard. Here, take a look. Out by the horizon, to the north of the main harbor entrance buoy.”
Sam took the binoculars. A passenger liner came into focus, at anchor by the shoals just outside of the harbor. From the stern, a large Nazi flag moved in the breeze. There were other ships out there, cruisers and battleships, off in the hazy distance.
“There he is,” Twombly said. “Herr Hitler and his task force. The liner Europa and accompanying warships, including the Tirpitz and the Bismarck. Resting for the night… and tomorrow he and the President meet. See that dock down there with the bunting and the flags? That’s where the motor launch is going to bring Hitler in. Fact is, I just heard Long might be coming into Portsmouth within the hour. Hell of a thing, don’t you think? All this history happening in our fair little city and shipyard.”
Sam kept the binoculars up to his eyes. From here, it seemed so peaceful, so innocuous. A passenger liner at rest just outside the harbor of his hometown. A passenger liner that held one of the most powerful and most hated men on the globe, a man Sam’s brother was here to kill. And to save his own family, he had to save Hitler.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Twombly said.
Sam lowered the binoculars. “Wish the goddamn ship would weigh anchor and head back to Germany. Tonight, if possible. Would make a lot of things easier for me.”
“Nice thought,” Twombly said. “I wish you luck finding your brother. But I don’t think you’re going to find him here.”
“Probably not, but thanks anyway, Nate.”
“Sure,” Twombly said. He took the binoculars back and raised them again. Sam wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if the security chief sighed. “I do hope you find Tony. And that it all works out. Ever hear about my brother Carl?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“Carl was a couple of years younger than me. With youth comes ignorance, and with youth also comes passion. So when Germany invaded France and the Low Countries back in 1940, Carl went up to Canada and enlisted. Thought it was important to help England stand up against the Nazis. Lots of people thought like he did, but others, like me, thought we should stay out of it. Why was it our fight? Right?”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam’s wrist with the tattoo itched. He left it alone.
“Carl was with the RAF. Flew a Hawker Hurricane fighter plane against the bombers burning London to the ground. Nabbed a Heinkel bomber during one of his missions. And during the first landings, he was shot out of the air. A couple of Messerschmitts blew him up. Exploded in midair. No parachute. No chance of survival. So my little brother turned into burnt chunks of meat over the English Channel.”
Now the binoculars came down; his voice turned bleak. “You said you wished the Europa would weigh anchor and go back to Germany. You know what I wish, Sam? I wish one of our submarines down there would go out tonight for sea trials and fire four torpedoes into the Europa’s belly and send all those miserable bastards to hell. That’s what I wish.”
Sam kept silent, and Twombly shook his head and smiled ruefully. “That’s what I wish—and what’s my job? To make sure the Kraut bastard out on that boat gets here and leaves here safely and in comfort. Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, a hell of a thing,” Sam agreed.
Back in Portsmouth, Sam parked his car at the police station and started walking downtown. Block after block, building after building, he looked at the doorway to each structure, seeing National Guardsmen or Portsmouth police officers or even state police officers standing guard. Tony. Where would he be?
One of these buildings? Doubtful, with all the security. And the shipyard was out.
He smelled coal smoke. He was approaching the Portsmouth rail station. More people were about him, a mix of residents and police and Guardsmen and reporters and military from both the United States and Germany, some Long’s Legionnaires scattered through. He could hear a brass band playing a tune.
The President was arriving.
He let the crowd move him forward to the train station. At a lamppost he stopped, arm wrapped around the metal to prevent him from going farther. Before him was the station, and to the left, a parking lot had been cleared. A new wooden platform, set with bunting and flags, had been raised there. At least there were no Nazi banners. A band was playing a Sousa march, and from his vantage point, he could make out the khaki uniforms of National Guardsmen and upheld rifles with bayonets attached. An honor guard, though he didn’t see any honor out there.
Up on the platform, men were starting to appear, including a line of the Kingfish’s good ol’ Legionnaires. He hoped a couple of them still had bruises from the whomping he had given them the other night. Even at this distance, he could make out his father-in-law, fresh from his furniture store, and it was good the bastard was up there. How to explain to him what had happened to his daughter and grandson? The thought made him physically ill.
There was the deep whistle of a train. The whistle sounded twice more, and then, coming down the tracks, belching smoke and steam, rumbled the Ferdinand Magellan, the official train of the President of the United States. The train ground to a halt in a storm of steam, and another Sousa march started up. There were cheers and shouts and waves, and he looked around at his fellow citizens and thought, Don’t you see it? Don’t you see what has come to us? There was no difference between this man here and that man out on his ocean liner. Both crushed and imprisoned their opponents, both had bloody hands, both did what they wanted. Both had Jews behind barbed-wire fences.
Didn’t these people see that?
There. Men filed off the train, and there was the familiar roly-poly figure with its florid face and shock of hair. President Huey P. Long, the mightiest Kingfish in the world. When he raised both arms in greeting, the crowd roared.
No, Sam thought. What they see is what they desire most. Jobs, safety, and a way of keeping the bloody fields of death out there on the opposite side of the oceans. Just end this damn Depression, get people back to work, stay out of war, and right now, President Long was promising that.
His father-in-law, Lawrence, came up to a microphone and said a number of words, most of them drowned by feedback and overamplification, and then he shook the hand of Long, and the President came to the microphone as though chatting with an old pal.
“My friends, my very dear friends,” he said in his rich gumbo-flavored voice, “I’m so very happy to receive this warm reception, even if you are a bunch of Yankees.”
There was laughter and more applause. The President started talking in his seductive voice, but the words had a sour sound. More blather about the Rockefellers, the Mellons, the Carnegies, the moneyed interests he had fought ever since Winn Parish in Louisiana, and how the rich parasites had tried to sabotage him in all his years, in all he wanted to do, merely to serve the people.
More blather. Sam forced his way back out of the crowd.
He made his way back to the center of the city, the sidewalks emptying as he got away from the train station. He was there as the President went by.
First were the sirens, and then a brace of New Hampshire State Police motorcycles came roaring up, followed by three convertible black Ford sedans, the tops rolled back. It looked like staff or newsmen were in the lead and following cars, for President Long was in the center car, waving to the few people on the sidewalk, and Secret Service agents were on the running boards, two of them holding submachine guns. Taking up the rear were two more state police motorcycles. The sound quickly rolled on, dust and newspaper scraps spun up by the speeding vehicles.
Sam reached the police station, looked up at the old building, and realized there was nothing there for him. He went to his Packard, started it, and went back to the Rockingham Hotel.
LaCouture looked as though he were being held together by coffee and cigarettes. His usual dapper style had left him; his clothes were rumpled and stained. Even Groebke looked exhausted. There was none of the manly banter or ballbusting or usual bullshit. LaCouture just looked up from his eternal paperwork and said, “Well?”
“Nothing,” Sam answered. “This place is so tightly sealed, I can’t see him gaining access anywhere to make a shot. I even went over to the Navy Yard. If anything, it’s tighter over there.”
“Friends? Acquaintances?”
“None. Tony pretty much kept to himself. And the Yard security chief said Tony’s not popular with most of the workforce. I just don’t know—”
Groebke said, “You wouldn’t be protecting him, eh, so that he could shoot our chancellor?”
“No, not a chance,” Sam said, his voice biting. “Getting him gets my family free, and if that’s what it takes, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Groebke’s pale eyes stayed on him. “Still, I know how you hate my country, hate my leader. I believe you would not mind seeing the Führer get shot tomorrow, even if it means your wife and son remain in prison. Perhaps such an exchange, a trade, would be worth it. Eh?”
“You’re right,” Sam said, keeping his voice under control with difficulty. “I wouldn’t mind seeing your Führer shot tomorrow. Or stabbed. Or drowned. But I’m a cop, a cop assigned to you characters, and I’ll do my job. Protecting Hitler, finding my brother, and getting my family free.”
LaCouture yawned, waved a hand. “Go on. Go home or go out on the streets again, but get out of here.”
“That’s fine,” Sam said. “What about tomorrow?”
“Come back at eight. We’ll figure something out then.”
Sam stood there, tired and soiled, and he said, “My wife and boy. I want to talk to them. Now.”
LaCouture shook his head. “Can’t do it.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want to, all right? Because it doesn’t suit me. Because I’ve got dozens of things to do before I get to bed tonight, and worrying about your family is not on that fucking list. What’s top on that list is finding your criminal brother, so I suggest you get your ass out of here and find him if you want your wife and son out of that camp. Bad enough what can happen to a woman in one of those camps. I’ve heard stories about young boys and—”
Only Groebke leaping up and grabbing his arms prevented Sam, in a white-hot fury, from leaping onto the FBI agent. LaCouture kicked back his chair and stood up, nostrils flaring, and said, “That’s right, son, you hit me and that might feel right, but your family will still be in that camp. I got the fucking lock that keeps ’em there, and your brother is the key. So find that key. Don’t come beatin’ up on me; that won’t serve you none.”
Sam broke free from Groebke’s grasp. “You better pray they’re okay. You got that, Jack?”
“I stopped prayin’ to God above the day I got into the FBI, ’cause my savior then was the Kingfish, who got me there. Get out, Sam. I don’t have time for you bullshit.”
Outside, Sam was still shaking with anger. He strode over to the Packard and got in and slammed the door. He lowered his head, thinking about Sarah, frightened, imprisoned… And poor Toby. Sam’s heart ached so hard he was dizzy, thinking about his boy there, away from his home, his bedroom, his radio, his models.
He stared blankly out through the dirty windshield. All the models broken, shattered, by those thugs of Long’s, breaking into his home without worry or legal warrant. The bastards.
He knew he should keep on looking for his brother, but for Christ’s sake it was dark, and what could he do? Just flail around from one well-guarded building to another, going through checkpoints, hopefully not get shot by some trigger-happy National Guardsmen. And going home to that violated place, no, that wasn’t an option. He put the Packard into drive and edged himself out on the streets, drowning in his troubles.
And then it came to him.
Where did he and Tony always go when they got into trouble?
That little island in the harbor. Pierce Island.
He was surprised to see two cars parked at the far side of the island’s dirt parking lot. It looked like more people than he thought had those prized windshield passes. He got out and took his flashlight, played it around the interiors of both cars. One was empty. In the other was a man and woman in the backseat, so busy that they didn’t even notice Sam’s presence.
He scanned the lot. Called out, “Tony? You out here?”
He moved down the path, the flashlight beam slicing a wide area ahead of him, and then—
A noise. He whipped to his left, let his light play out.
A man stood there, trying to move away.
“Freeze! Portsmouth police! Don’t move!”
He drew his revolver, held the flashlight out, saw a man standing there, his back to him.
Another man scrambled to his feet before the first man, holding a hand up to his face to block the light. He wore the dress blues of a sailor. “Hey, pal, get the light outta my face, will ya?” came the sheepish voice, with a thick New York accent.
Sam saw the other man adjust his pants and shook his head at what he had just interrupted. He lowered the light. “All right, sailor, beat it.”
“Uh…” The sailor backed away, “Not sure how to get back. This fella gave me a ride.”
“Oh, Christ, the both of you just beat it. You, turn around.”
Now something was familiar, something was wrong, for he knew this man, knew him very well.
The mayor of Portsmouth, his father-in-law, the honorable Lawrence Young. With his pants around his knees.
“Sam.” His head was tilted so he wasn’t looking at the man who had married his daughter.
“Pull your pants up, all right?”
Lawrence bent over, yanked up his trousers, drew the zipper up, and fastened the belt. “Look, this isn’t what you—”
“Larry, you never gave a damn what I’ve thought, so why start now?”
“It’s just the pressure, you know? The summit and the President coming and—Just a onetime thing, that’s all. Something to take the pressure off.”
Sam edged the flashlight beam back up to his father-in-law’s face, knowing he couldn’t tell the bastard anything about Sarah and his grandson, for LaCouture had made it clear: Only by getting Tony would they get out of Camp Carpenter. Bringing in Lawrence… Christ, who knew how that could complicate things? But there was something else that had to be said.
“Larry, you ever hear of a street over in Kittery called Admiral’s Way?”
“Perhaps… I’m not sure… Why?”
“Cut the crap. Some months ago I went along with some Maine state troopers and Kittery cops on a raid at a whorehouse on Admiral Way. Nice, quiet Victorian house. I was just observing, but you know what? Something I observed was you coming out in handcuffs. How the hell did you think you got freed that night? Because of your voting record? No, I asked a favor from one of the Kittery cops. So he went over and uncuffed you.”
Lawrence’s face was ghostly white, and he was trembling. Sam added, “Oh, and another thing I observed was the staff of that particular whorehouse. Young boys dressed as girls.” His father-in-law rubbed a hand across his face as if hiding his eyes. “So don’t tell me lies, okay?” Sam said.
“Look, can I get the hell out of here?” Lawrence’s voice was raspy.
“Yeah, you can go. And you know what? Don’t come back. Ever. I never want to see you at my house.”
“Why? Because you know one of my dark, deep secrets? Is that it? You too good to have secrets you’re not proud of, Sam?”
Sam clenched the flashlight tighter. “Go. Get out of here.”
“Some inspector. You think you know everything about me, everything about how I think and work. Kid, you know shit—”
Lawrence pushed past him, heading back to the parking lot, and Sam spent a fruitless hour longer on the dark island, looking for his brother.
He waited outside the Laughing Gull, one of the many bars near the harbor. The windows were blackened, and the wooden sign dangling outside was cracked and faded. Even with the summit crackdown, business was doing all right at this bar and its neighbors. Every time some cops or guys in good suits strolled by, he made sure to stay in the shadows. He waited, watching, in the spill of loud jazz music, the smell of beer and cigarettes and cigars. Sailors in dress whites came stumbling down the cobblestone lane, and when the laughing and singing group of men passed on, a man was standing at the street corner. He watched as the man took a cigarette out and tried to light it three times with a lighter that didn’t catch.
He walked across the street, offered him a book of matches. The man looked at him and said, “Thanks, mate.” His accent was English.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “That a Lucky Strike?”
“Nope, a Camel.”
“I see.”
The man lit the cigarette, gave him back the matches, took a drag, then dropped the lit butt on the ground. “C’mon, let’s talk private, all right?”
He followed as the man walked around the corner into another alley that stank of trash and piss. The Englishman said, “Not much time, so here it goes. Tomorrow’s the day.”
“I figured,” he said. The words seemed as heavy as stones coming out of his mouth.
“Good on you,” the man said. “But there’s been a change for tomorrow.”
The whole damn street seemed to tip on its side, making him feel like he was going to fall over. “What kind of change?”
“Target change.”
“The fuck you say.”
“Bloody hell, mate, I’m just the messenger, all right? All I know is, it’s got to be done, and I got to know, are you going to do what you’re told? Because that’s the deal you signed on for, right?”
He clenched his fists tight, then thought for a moment and said, “Yeah. That’s the deal I signed on for. You’re right. So what’s the change?”
The Englishman said, “We go for a walk. We see someone. You get told there. All right?”
He thought again of everything he had planned, everything he had gone through to reach this point, to hear it was all being altered.
“All right,” he said. “As long as what I’m doing tomorrow is not a waste.”
The other man chuckled. “Oh, it might be something, but it won’t be a waste. I got something going on as well… and I can’t say more than that. Another thing—your brother.”
“What about him?”
“You’ll be briefed about him and everything else, just so you’re not surprised.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, thinking, Sam, poor Sam, being part of something he knew nothing about.
The Englishman said, “C’mon, we’ve got to get moving. Look, can I borrow those matches again?”
“Sure,” he said, passing over the pack. The man lit a match, let it flare up in the darkness, then dropped it.
“What the—” Suddenly, it all made sense. “A signal?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“And if you hadn’t lit the match?”
“That meant you didn’t agree with the target change.” The Englishman sounded apologetic. “And it meant that some nasty gentlemen watching from the other side of the lane here wouldn’t have let you live.”
“I see,” he said. “Nice to see you’re serious. All right, let’s get going.”
The Englishman led the way, limping slightly on one leg.
At the station, Sam went to his desk and, seeing the time, went to the basement, where fellow cops and National Guardsmen were bunking on army surplus cots with scratchy green wool blankets. He claimed an empty cot and went in search of supper. The evening meal was apple juice and spaghetti with lukewarm tomato sauce, served by women auxiliaries of the American Legion post. He ate off a metal plate, grunted one-syllable answers to anyone who spoke to him, then went back to his cot, the scents of gasoline and motor oil in his nostrils.
The lights were on, and some of the other officers and National Guardsmen were sipping bottled beers from paper bags while others smoked and talked among themselves. A radio in the corner was set low, dance music coming from some Manhattan club. Sam stretched out and pulled the blanket up over him. He stared up at the cement ceiling and tried not to think much, as the men murmured, as he inhaled the cigarette smoke. The lights were finally off at eleven P.M., and the radio was clicked off, and Sam was left there in the darkness and silence.
A coughing jag from one of his bunkmates woke him. Sam rolled to his side. A dim light showed the huddled and sleeping forms. Now that he was awake, he made out the snoring, the heavy breathing, the coughing from the sleeping men about him.
He wondered about Petr Wowenstein, the tattooed man. Forget about him. That’s what he should have done days ago. Forget the whole damn thing. Close the case and move on. Think instead about Tony the marksman, rifle in hand, out there hunting for Hitler. Tony, the key to getting his wife and son free.
But where was he? The city, the Navy Yard, all were sealed tight, tight, tight. All buildings had somebody on guard, someone to keep watch, all buildings.
All buildings.
He sat up on the cot, let the blanket fall away.
But what separated Portsmouth and the Navy Yard?
The river and the harbor.
An old memory of Tony going down to the harbor—without Mom or Dad’s permission, of course—and spending the day out there on a borrowed or stolen rowboat, fishing.
Hitler was coming to the shipyard tomorrow on an admiral’s gig from his luxury liner, coming up to a dockfront reception.
That’s how it was going to happen.
All the focus, the concentration, the attention on securing buildings and roadways and bridges.
But what of Tony, in a boat, under one of the docks, scoped rifle in hand, watching for the approaching gig flying a Nazi flag, a mustached man coming out on the dock…
One shot, maybe two…
A quick escape on the water, upriver to Eliot or Dover to a cove…
Sam sat up and quickly left.
On summit day, dawn was breaking when Sam got to the Rockingham Hotel, easily passing through the checkpoints, the National Guardsmen yawning and drinking from paper cups of coffee as they waved him through. Surprise of all surprises, when he knocked on the door of Room Twelve, both the Gestapo and FBI agents were awake, in dress pants, polished shoes, pressed shirts, and neckties. Their clean clothes belied the tension about their jaws, the shadows under their eyes.
LaCouture said simply, “Whaddya got?”
“I know how Tony is going to do it,” Sam said. “He’s going to shoot Hitler from the water.”
An oval breakfast tray was on a side table with the scraps of a morning meal. LaCouture poured a cup of coffee from a metal pot and passed it to Sam, who sat down and said, “Do you have maps of the harbor?”
“Sure,” LaCouture said. “Hold on.”
Groebke pushed aside the papers and made room at the table as LaCouture unrolled a map and held it down with his manicured hands. Sam sipped at the strong coffee and pointed. “Look here. Piscataqua River comes down from Great Bay. Splits Maine and New Hampshire in two. Here’s the harbor and the shipyard on the island. Now, the Europa, she’s moored just outside the harbor, right? What time is Hitler coming in?”
Groebke frowned, but LaCouture told him, “Christ, can’t be much of a secret anymore, not with the way the tides are running. He’ll be here in three hours.”
“What’s the schedule like? Is he meeting the President at dockside?”
“No,” the FBI man said. “The shipyard commander will receive him and then escort him to the yard’s administration building. Hitler will meet Long inside. That’s where the official reception begins.”
Sam looked down at the map, at the little drawings marking buildings and docks and bridges. “Tony knows the harbor pretty well. Used to fish there a lot as a kid.” He put his finger in the center of the harbor. “He’s smart. He won’t be in a building. Too secure. No, he’s going to be on the water.”
Groebke shook his head. “Difficult shot to make. Out there bobbing on water. Extremely difficult.”
“He’s a marksman,” Sam said. “He’ll make the shot. And the docks… he might have set up a sniper’s nest somewhere down there.” It came to him that he was setting up his brother, telling these men with their hard eyes and hard ways how best to capture him. But what else could he do?
He had to say the words, even though he had no bargaining power over these two. “Remember our deal—if possible, he gets captured. He doesn’t get hurt. And my family gets out of Camp Carpenter.”
LaCouture’s lips thinned. “I remember the deal, Inspector. And I hate to admit, especially to a son of a bitch like you, but this is good information.” He walked to the house phone and said, “Connect me with what’s-his-name, Commander Barnes. Navy liaison officer over at the yard. Yeah, I’ll wait, but not forever. Get on it.”
There was a long moment, and then LaCouture spoke. “Barnes? LaCouture here. We have late information that our shooter may be somewhere on the harbor. Or the river. Uh-huh. I don’t care what you’ve already done or what’s out there on the water, triple your efforts. We’ve got just three hours. I want places on and around the docks searched and any moored watercraft… uh-huh… I know the harbor’s in lockdown, but this is what else you’re going to do.”
The FBI man paced back and forth. “Good… grab a pencil. You’re going to have gunboats out there, right? Fine. Latest order. Any unauthorized watercraft out there, you’re going to seize it. Don’t care if it’s MovieTone, Dad and the kids out for a sail, or some forgetful lobsterman, and if the gunboats can’t seize, they’re going to sink. One warning from you and that’s it—seize or sink and rescue the occupants. Don’t want the newsreels showing us shooting swimmers… the President wouldn’t like it, okay? Yeah, well, I know it’s a bitch, being bossed around by the FBI, but handle it.”
LaCouture slammed the receiver down. “We’ve got the joint covered. Inspector, you have a plan for today?”
“To do whatever I need to to get Sarah and Toby out. That’s my plan.”
The FBI man said, “That sounds fine. I’ve got just the place for you.” He reached over, grabbed a city map, and pulled it across the harbor map. “Bow Street generating station. You know it?”
“Of course.”
“Nice tall brick structure, directly across the river from the shipyard. Our main observation point is going to be there, with watchers and gunmen. That’s where I want you. You see anything out of the ordinary, you contact the duty communications officer and he’ll contact me. Me and Hans here, we’re gonna be at the shipyard.”
“You just remember your promises. Both of them.”
LaCouture said, “With you whining all the time, how can I fucking forget?”
The Bow Street generating station was a five-story brick building that held coal-fired generators for Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest utility. After parking in a space between two army jeeps, Sam made his way through another set of checkpoints and guard stations. From one MP he got directions to the roof. There was no creaky elevator like the one from his visit to the shipyard, just a set of concrete steps going up and up and up. Along the way there was the sound of the generators, a constant hum that seemed to burrow into his ears. He felt out of time, out of place, wondering where his brother was, wondering how Sarah and Toby were doing, dreading what might happen on this supposedly historic day.
When he reached the roof, it felt as if his chest was going to explode, and he stopped to catch his breath as he took everything in. Amid piping and vent shafts, there was a group of men at the eastern side, closest to the river and the harbor. He walked across the tar-paper roof, his shoes making grinding noises among the tiny stones.
About a dozen men, mostly marines in fatigues and soft caps, kept watch over the harbor. A fat man with a sweaty face and a soft homburg pushed on the back of his head came over. His white shirt was sweated through, and his black tie fluttered weakly in the breeze. “You Inspector Miller?” he asked, his voice tired.
“That’s right,” Sam said, shaking the man’s moist hand.
“Name’s Morneau, Department of the Interior.” He motioned Sam to join him. “For the rest of this day, this stretch of overheated paradise belongs to me and these poor leathernecks.”
Binoculars on tripods were set up along the roof edge, and the marines were slowly transversing them, gazing out on the waters. Just about a hundred yards or so away was the Memorial Bridge, and from the rooftop, all of the shipyard and most of the harbor was visible. Nearby a metal table had been set up, and other marines sat in front of radio gear, headphones clasped over their ears. Two marines were sitting on the edge of the roof, chewing gum, scoped rifles in their arms. The rest of the squad sat a bit distant from them, as if they didn’t like being so close to the snipers, hunters waiting patiently for targets.
Morneau blew his nose into his soiled handkerchief as a marine with sergeant’s stripes broke away from the binocular stands and came over, his face friendly but bright pink, as though his blood pressure was twice that of a normal man.
“Sergeant Chesak,” he said, and another round of handshakes ensued.
Sam said, “Can one of you tell me what’s going on here?”
The marine looked to the Department of Interior man, and Morneau said, “There’s about a half dozen observation posts here and across the river, most of them with overlapping fields of view. Our post has the most area to cover, which is why we’ve got the most spotters.” He pointed to the binoculars. “Spotters look for anything that don’t belong. Boats popping out of nowhere, people walking where they shouldn’t, that sort of thing. Anything suspicious”—and he cast a thumb toward the radiomen—“gets put out on the net, and then it’s taken care of.”
“And those fellows?” Sam gestured to the two snipers.
Morneau grinned. “Only a handful of places where there can be guys with guns. We know those places. Our spotters find anybody else out there with a rifle or pistol or somethin’ that don’t look right, and me and the sergeant concur, and the snipers get to work. Those boys are from Georgia. Stone-cold killers, you can be sure. They see any guy out there with a gun who don’t belong, they’ll blow his fucking head off.”
One of the spotters backed away from his vantage point. “Care to take a look, sir?”
“Thanks,” Sam said. He pressed his eyes to the soft rubber of the eyepiece. The shipyard snapped into view, the buildings, the cranes, the sleek dark gray hulls of the submarines being built. Flags were flapping in the morning breeze, the red, white, and blue contrasting with the red, white, and black. With the high power of the binoculars, it was easy to make out the dock set up to receive Hitler and his delegation: The platform was practically overwhelmed with bunting and banners. White-clad U.S. Navy officers stood on one side of the dock, while another group—dressed in white pants and gray jackets, the Navy’s counterparts in the Kriegsmarine—waited on the other.
He swiveled the binoculars, looked out to the harbor entrance, where he could just make out the Europa. On that ocean liner was a man set to motor his way into the United States and history, and waiting on the other end…
Hard to even think it. His brother. Here to kill him.
Sam backed away, looked to the spotter, a man in his late teens, thin and tanned, with a prominent Adam’s apple. Sam gestured at the Nazi flags flying on the street corners and from the girders of the Memorial Bridge. “Hell of a sight.”
The marine was wiping down the lens with a soft gray cloth. “What do you mean by that, sir?”
“Hitler and his Nazi buddies coming here, to an American navy yard. You must hate seeing that Nazi flag.”
“Don’t bother me none.” The marine bent, put his face to the binoculars again. “What bothers me… it’s my ma and pa and younger brothers. I’m from Oklahoma originally, sir, and you see, the dust bowl drove us out of our farm. Grew up in a hobo camp in California, outside Salinas. A real shitty place. We got treated no better than dogs. Picking peaches and apples for fifty cents a day. I’m the oldest, so I got into the marines, send most of my paycheck home every month. If having Hitler and Long meet means my pa and my brothers can get jobs in those new aircraft factories, that’s fine with me.”
Sam folded his arms, said nothing, and the marine pulled his head back. “Sounds bad, don’t it? I know what the Nazis done in Europe and England and Russia… and how they treat their Jews… but you know what? Me and my family, we don’t live in Europe, we ain’t Jews, and we need jobs. Simple as that.”
“Maybe it’s not that simple.” Sam looked down at his sleeve-covered wrist, sensing the tattoo representing everything hidden and rotten about Burdick and the secret camps.
The young marine shrugged. “Maybe, but all I know is this: Me and my buds, we see a guy with a gun gonna screw up this deal, we’ll kill him deader than last year’s calendar.”
My brother, Sam thought bleakly, walking away from the spotter. My brother.
For the first time in a long, long time, he was walking in daylight, right on the sidewalks of his hometown. His back felt exposed, as though at any moment, he might receive a punch back there, or a gunshot square in the spine. He had on a suit and tie, and it had been years since he had worn anything so fancy, and the clothing itched something awful.
In daylight, Portsmouth looked nice enough, but there were too few people and too many cops and National Guardsmen, and men in suits and snap-brim hats with a hard-edged look about them.
A uniformed National Guardsman wearing a round campaign hat and a holstered pistol and Sam Browne belt stepped from a doorway, joined by a man in a dark brown suit. The civilian said, “Afternoon, sir, just doing a routine check. Can you show me some identification, please?”
He paused, put his hand slowly inside his coat jacket, pulled out a thin leather wallet, passed it over, thinking, Well, we’re going to see real shortly how good our people are.
The civilian opened the wallet, glanced inside, looked up, and passed it back. “Sorry to bother you, sir. Go right ahead.”
He smiled back, thinking, Yep, our people are pretty good, especially that newspaper photographer, and he kept on walking to the target building, saw a couple of cops and three National Guardsmen, and damn, one of the cops waved at him. What to do? Dammit, what to do?
He waved back, walked into the building as if he owned the place, and in a few more minutes, he was where he wanted to be, where he had to be. The floor was wooden and one of the planks seemed loose. He pried the plank up with his pocketknife, found a blanket-wrapped shape underneath. He pulled the blanket away, exposing a long cardboard box.
Fresh Flowers, the label on the box said in script. He undid the twine and paper, counted out the cartridges, picked up the rifle, and loaded it for the day ahead. He took the battery-operated radio out and dropped the wooden plank back in place. He switched the radio on, and after the tubes warmed up, he turned down the volume and listened to the day’s news, knowing that if it all went well, his news would be the biggest of the day, week, month, decade.
Morneau from the Department of the Interior said, “Word I got from the FBI is to give you cooperation. What do you need?”
Sam started to speak, then stopped. Now it made sense. LaCouture and Groebke and everybody else, they had it all under control. They didn’t need him to identify Tony. All LaCouture did this morning was shuffle him off, get him out of the way. These spotters knew their jobs, knew exactly what to do.
What Sam was going to do was to make sure those two good ol’ boys from Georgia didn’t have the opportunity to blow off Tony’s head, so his brother could be spared, so Tony could be the key to unlock Camp Carpenter’s gates.
Sam answered, “I’m here to observe, that’s all. If you can give me a chair and a spare set of binoculars, that’ll be fine.”
Morneau nodded. “Yeah, we can do that.”
In a few minutes he was in a chair that looked as if it had been borrowed from one of the PSNH offices below, and he was handed a pair of binoculars that were dented on one side. One lens was out of focus, meaning he had to squint with his right eye. The lousiest set of binoculars in the bunch but good enough for what he needed.
He scanned the Navy Yard and harbor again, taking everything in, the buildings, the people, the activity below. The naval officers at the dock had been joined by a brass band, and behind a rope barricade, newsreel cameras had been set up. There was also the drone of aircraft going overhead, P-40 Army Air Corps pursuit planes, it looked like. Sam imagined they would do some sort of ceremonial flyover at the proper moment.
During his surveillance, he tried his damnedest to listen to the spotters, to get a jump on anything if they saw Tony, but the spotters were quiet and professional. One would talk to the other, they would confer, and that would be that.
The farthest spotter said, “Man on the roof. Warehouse Two, Navy Yard. Something in his hand.”
Another spotter moved his binoculars and said, “Dungaree jacket, dungaree pants. Confirmed.”
“His hands. What’s he got?”
The other spotter waited. “Length of galvanized pipe, it looks like.”
Sergeant Chesak called over to one of the radiomen. “Tucker?”
“Sergeant?”
“Contact the Navy Yard, tell ’em to get that jerk off the roof of Warehouse Two before another spotter team sees him and shoots him dead.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Morneau was smoking a cigarette and the marine sergeant joined him, and then there was a burst of laughter. Sam tried his best to ignore them. He kept on looking and looking, though his hands grew heavy and his eyes ached from the strain. Tony… Tony, you miserable fool, where the hell are you?
Morneau’s voice grew louder, and Sam heard him say, “But the best was in Los Angeles. Stationed there last year. Worked in a transit camp… man, some of those California girls, what they would do to get their men out. Had one honey, swear to Christ, built like a movie star, gave me the best head ever… it made my fucking toes curl…”
“Yeah?” Chesak asked. “Then what?”
Morneau laughed. “What do you think? Thanked her very much and sent her hubby off to Utah. What else was I going to do? Get my ass in a labor camp for a piece of tail? I don’t think so.”
Somebody chuckled, but Sam was pleased that it wasn’t the marine sergeant. He was silent and went back to the binoculars. Perhaps sensing he had gone a bit too far, Morneau said, “Hey, how about some coffee? Been up late so many nights, hate to fall asleep now.”
Silence again. Then Chesak said, “Yeah, some joe sounds good.”
Morneau went to the communications table, picked up a phone, and started talking. Sam saw something at the farther reaches of the harbor. One of the marines said, “Sarge, looks like we’ve got an admiral’s gig inbound to the harbor.”
The sergeant swiveled his binoculars, and Morneau did too, and Sam was impressed by the professionalism of the other marines: They ignored the approaching boat and kept on scanning the Navy Yard and the harbor. In Sam’s binoculars, the approaching boat bobbed into focus: a white craft with a canopied roof, flying the Nazi flag at the stern. Flanking the small boat were two gunmetal-gray navy gunboats, white numerals crisp on the bow, armed sailors both fore and aft.
“There you go,” Morneau murmured. “Herr Hitler, coming in for a visit. Think the Kingfish is gonna make him eat shrimp gumbo ’fore the day is out?”
The marines laughed. Sam didn’t. He was thinking of a desperate wife in California, giving herself away to try to save her husband, his own frightened family in a labor camp in Manchester, and a secret camp in Vermont, where half-starved Jews slaved under the eyes of fascists, both homegrown and imported.
The boat grew larger in view. Sam focused. Standing in the bow, hands folded before him, was Adolf Hitler. He had on a long gray coat and a peaked cap. The binoculars—damaged as they were—even allowed Sam to see the bastard’s tiny black mustache. Black-clad SS officers were on the deck, some holding on to the canopy, but Hitler stood alone. There had been stories in Time and Life about how Hitler hated the water, but it looked like the son of a bitch was out there, almost defiant, to show that a will that could conquer Europe could also handle a twenty-minute boat ride.
All these American men were up here to protect a bloody dictator who had killed so many and was planning to kill and conquer more. Sam lost the admiral’s gig and the accompanying navy escort, and as he was seeing the jumble of buildings and docks, something moved.
Something quick.
A small boat was darting out of the docks, heading straight toward the admiral’s gig, its engine kicking up a tail of spray.
Sam froze.
The boat was moving fast. There was movement on board. He thought he recognized a shape, saw something protruding.
Tony, he thought, you miserable jerk.
He cleared his throat. Hesitated. One word from him and the boat might be halted, but this close, maybe the damn thing would be sunk and the people on board machine-gunned. If that happened, what would happen to his family?
“Sergeant,” one of the spotters called out quietly. “From the south quay. Small craft, moving fast.”
“Got it,” Chesak said. “Tucker, raise the Yard, tell ’em what we got.”
There was a murmur of voices from the communications table, and Sam’s hands tightened on the binoculars as one of the gunboats flanking the admiral’s gig put on a burst of speed, moving out to intercept the smaller craft. Sam quickly shifted his view to the intruder boat, looking for Tony, seeing what was at the bow, something on a tripod. A weapon? Pretty bulky to be a weapon.
“Newsreel,” Sam called out. “It looks like a newsreel crew.”
The smaller boat chugged to a crawl as the navy gunboat approached and came alongside. Three armed sailors leaped from the gunboat, rifles in hand, and then the navy gunboat churned back to its place, escorting the chancellor of Germany.
Morneau said, “Nice call, Inspector, but that’s not a newsreel crew.”
Sam was surprised. “It isn’t?”
Morneau laughed. “Nope. It’s the newest residents of a labor camp in Utah, about one day away from starting their twenty-year sentences. Freedom of the press, my ass. Morons.”
Chesak said, “Lucky morons. If they had gotten any closer, they would’ve been sunk.”
Sam put the binoculars on his lap, ran his palms across his pants, trying to dry them off. Oh, what a ball-buster of a day it was turning out to be. He heard a door open, footsteps on the gravel, and turned. Somebody familiar was approaching, in a Portsmouth police uniform. It seemed like a century ago when he had met Officer Frank Reardon and Leo Gray, poor disappeared Leo Gray, out there in the rain by the railroad tracks, examining the dead body that turned out to be an escaped Jew, escaping to God knew where.
Frank was carrying a paper bag, and a passing breeze brought the scent of coffee over to Sam. Frank said, “Hey, Sam. How’s it going?”
“Not bad,” he replied, remembering what LaCouture had said days ago about what the Portsmouth police would be doing on this historic day: directing traffic and fetching coffee. But if Frank looked embarrassed or humiliated at being a gofer, he was hiding it pretty well. Proudly pinned to his Portsmouth police uniform was the familiar Confederate lapel pin.
The cardboard cups of coffee were passed around, and when Frank approached him, Sam waved him off. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
Frank peeled the top off his coffee. “Suit yourself. I’ll have yours, then.” He made a big slurping noise and looked around at the harbor and the downtown. “What a goddamn circus. I’ll be glad when everybody gets the hell out of here and goes home.”
“Me, too.”
“Yeah, and then it’s back to work. Here and with the Party. Hey, congrats to you. I understand you’ve got a county position.” Sam kept his mouth shut. There was another noisy slurp from Frank, and Sam was about to tell him to go away when the officer said, “Boy, you sure do move fast.”
“What do you mean?” Sam said, now getting a much better view of Hitler and the SS and his cronies through the binoculars. A fat man by the side, there, who looked like Goering.
“Hell, you know what I mean,” Frank said. “The North Church.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Frank laughed. “Shit, play games if you want. You were there not more than ten minutes ago.”
“I was?”
Frank looked confused. “Christ, yes. You were heading in there, flashed your pass at the guards, and went inside. Even gave me a wave. What kind of game you playing?”
“Just dicking with you, that’s all,” he answered, forcing his voice to stay even his mind was racing. He turned in his chair, looked a few blocks away. The white steeple of the North Church, rising above everything, everything in view.
A very good view.
No doubt that place was well guarded and sealed, like every other tall building in Portsmouth. But a man dressed in a suit and looking professional and with forged documents, a man who looked very much like him, if he was quick and moved with confidence.
Tony. He was in the North Church steeple.
Sam looked back at everyone looking at the harbor, everybody looking at the Yard.
Frank had wandered off, was talking to one of the marines manning the radio gear.
If Sam said there was a gunman in that steeple, he knew what would happen. The two sleepy-eyed killers over there would trot to the other side of the roof and draw their weapons up, and at the slightest movement anywhere from the North Church, they would chew the place up with rifle fire. Maybe they’d get Tony, and maybe not, and who knew what would happen to Sam’s family.
He stood up. And any pleas on his part, any attempt to tell LaCouture—
He dropped the binoculars on the chair. Started to walk away.
“Inspector?” a voice called out.
He said, “Gotta run out for a sec. Be right back.”
He walked briskly but not without panic to the door. Don’t let them see you run. You run, they get concerned, they start asking questions, they get excited.
He opened the door.
Stairwell. Concrete steps.
By the time he reached the fourth step, he was running hard.
It was lonely as he waited, but he knew he wasn’t on his own. The spirit of Joe Hill was there with him, as well as those of Big Bill Haywood and Samuel Gompers. All men who had worked and bled and died for the workingman, fighting against the government, against the entrenched powers that be, the industrialists who saw men in the labor movement as nothing more than parts to be used and replaced. The same industrialists who supported the fascists and the union busters because the fascists promised fat contracts and trains that ran on time.
He listened to the radio. Picked up the rifle. It was getting close to time. He took a breath, knowing he would do the job no matter what. So many others out there were depending on him.
Some of those others were here as well, keeping him company in this supposed holy place. The Russian peasant with a rifle, fighting off the invader, making him pay with blood for every inch of ground. The French partisan, sabotaging panzer tanks along the Normandy coast. The British pub owner, secretly poisoning a pint of bitters for an SS officer.
He knew he was just one cog in one wheel, moving along, trying to change things, and as he gripped the cold metal and wood, he hoped those other cogs were doing their job. God knew he was about to do his part, and he supposed that should have scared him. Instead, it almost inspired him.
Someone was beating at the door downstairs.
He stood up, went to the hole he had cut out of the wood, allowing an opening for the rifle. Whatever happened, it would be over soon.
Somebody started running up the steps, calling out his name. He felt a sense of relief, recognizing the voice. It would all work out as planned. He lifted up the rifle, looked through the Weaver scope, waited for his destiny.