Broken Honor

by Potter, Patricia;

  The cover on the top one had been taped down, but carelessly. It took her only a moment to undo it. She pulled it open and looked at the file folders inside. They were messy, with wrinkled papers stuffed indifferently in bent folders. She looked at the first folder. April 1945. The month before the train was captured. She opened the second box. The date on the folder she extracted was three months earlier.

  She didn’t have to time to go through them all. She wanted to get away from here before she did that.

  Amy went into the kitchen. She’d already packed the dog food and Bo’s dishes. She added a package of crackers and several sodas, then carried those out to the car. No one there. No Army colonel. No police. No lurking villains.

  At least none she saw.

  In another five minutes, she’d transferred the boxes, the files she’d copied from her office computer, and finally her new laptop to the car. It took all the energy she had. When she finished, she had to lean against the car for a moment. She was breathing hard, and her side hurt.

  You can do it.

  She went back to the room and took one last look. It was paid through the end of the month, but she would not miss its bland contents. Then she left the room, Bo beside her.

  A feeling of excitement started to fill her, shoving aside the loneliness. She was still sore. Still hurting. Still afraid. But she was taking her life back. For the next ten days, she intended to be a wild goose, going where instinct called. And, in that time, she hoped she would become less important to whoever was haunting her. Or perhaps she would find a clue as to who or what was behind it.

  Once in the car, she drove out of the parking lot, keeping both eyes open and roving. It was nearly ten. She planned to drive to Jackson, about ninety miles east. She could find a hotel there after taking several out of the way roads; she knew the area well.

  Amy knew she couldn’t go any farther than Jackson. She didn’t have the physical strength. Not tonight. Any place, though, would be better than this hotel, this city.

  After Colonel Flaherty had left her at the hotel the first time, she’d gone to the bank around the corner and withdrawn half her savings—ten thousand dollars—so she wouldn’t have to use a credit card. She also bought a certified check, and mailed it to a post office in Savannah, Georgia, under the name of Susan Weir. It was an identity her mother had used, and she still had a Social Security card with that name on it. She had taken every conceivable precaution outside of selling her beloved VW. She wasn’t ready for that. It and Bo were the only familiar possessions she had left.

  She was confident she could disappear. She’d learned any number of how-to-get lost techniques from her mother and other miscreants during her childhood years. Although, as far as she knew, her mother had never tried to bomb anything, she had, on occasion, harbored fugitives, friends from the “glory days.” Anyone who showed up on the doorstep received sanctuary—along with what little money her mother had. Sometimes it was given. Sometimes stolen.

  Amy wished she could stop the thoughts flashing through her mind as she pulled onto the main highway. Concentrate, she ordered herself. Concentrate.

  She looked in the rearview mirror. No one behind her. She drove toward the interstate, detouring once down a side street, then taking several more turns. Still no one behind her.

  She hoped no one—not even the colonel—had believed she would leave the day she was discharged from the hospital. That hope brought back his face to her mind. She wished it wasn’t such an attractive one.

  A few more turns and she was on the interstate, heading east.

  For the first time in a week, she felt free. Mistress of her own fate.

  She only hoped it wasn’t an illusion.

  MARYLAND

  Sally was unusually quiet on the drive up to Maryland’s eastern shore.

  Dustin would have to be back at work in the morning, but the next day was Saturday and he hoped he could find a better place for her. At the moment, though, he’d decided on a condominium rental unit. He had engaged the apartment in Cecil Ford’s name, using the man’s credit card. He’d repaid Cecil with cash and sworn him to secrecy.

  “I don’t have to stay inside, do I?” Sally asked.

  “If I said yes, would you do it?”

  “Probably not,” she said with what sounded like forced cheerfulness. Still, his own urgency seemed to have seeped into her. At least a little. He was grateful, and saddened. Some of her joie de vivre—her essence—had faded.

  He didn’t want her to go out, but he knew he couldn’t keep her locked up. It would be best to suggest what she might agree to. “I think you can go out if you don’t use your name,” he said. “But I don’t want you to make any calls to me. I’ll call you.”

  She was silent for several moments, and he knew she understood the implications of his words. They did sound ominous, but he hadn’t known how else to frame them. “I don’t like this,” she said. “Why don’t we just go to the police? They can have the darned painting.”

  “We have no proof someone was in your apartment,” he explained. “And probably no one was. I just don’t want to take chances.”

  “The woman in Memphis.…”

  “It could be just what the police there think it is: a simple burglary. It may not have anything to do with us. I’m just being cautious.” He forced a smile. “You know that side of my nature.” He hesitated, then added, “If we go to the police, we’ll be telling the world our grandfather was a thief. God knows what else might surface.”

  “I don’t care about Grandfather’s reputation.”

  “I do,” he said quietly. “It can destroy us.”

  Destroy you. The idea was in her mind. He knew it. Sally cared less about what other people thought. In fact, she had made a career of not caring. One of her first stabs at independence had been bartending, mainly because she knew it would upset her mother.

  And she was right. He was concerned about his family’s reputation. He’d worked too hard to throw it away now. He couldn’t rid himself of the expectations drilled into him since he was a toddler. Strive. Produce. Make your life count. Counting meaning achieving. Power. Prestige. He had both now, and he could have a great deal more in a few years.

  But only if he quieted the damned investigation. Only if he could keep this Flaherty from inquiring further. Perhaps if the interfering fool ended his queries, the story would just fade away.

  There had to be a way to stop him. Dustin turned on the compact disc player. The music of Beethoven filled the car, and the silence between them. Several minutes later, Sally was asleep.

  He glanced toward her. Even in the dim light of the interior, he could see the blond hair that framed her lovely face. His heart jerked. He wanted so many things. Some he could have only at the loss of others. Expediency over honor. Power over friendship. And he could never have Sally. Perhaps if he could … then other things wouldn’t be so important.

  But “ifs” had no value. “Ifs” represented failure.

  He turned his attention to the road ahead.

  ten

  GEORGIA COAST

  With every mile that passed, Amy felt safer.

  She was stiff. Every time she made a rest stop, she knew there would be one agonizing moment when she stepped outside the car. But Bo needed his walks, and she would be unable to walk herself if she didn’t take occasional breaks from one position.

  She never stopped, though, unless she saw other people about.

  She’d spent the night in Jackson, just ninety miles east of Memphis. Atlanta was approximately seven hours farther, and the Georgia coast another seven, depending on her speed. She kept under the limit and left the interstate several times to take country roads. She was convinced she wasn’t being followed, and she didn’t want to risk a ticket and questions.

  She’d been to Jekyll Island years ago, so long ago that no one would know about it. She suspected it would be a good place to get lost. There were many motels, and she’d called from a pay
phone to check on availability at the one she remembered. Rooms there had two doors, one to the parking lot and the other to the beach. They also had kitchenettes so she wouldn’t have to go out. Best, of all, they didn’t object to dogs. And because it was one of the few hotels that did not, there was always a large assortment. She’d be just another woman with her dog. She wouldn’t stand out.

  She shook her head to stay awake. She’d stayed in a motel just past Atlanta on the second night, but she came fully awake at every sound and didn’t get much sleep. She’d also been too tired and sore to take more than a cursory look at the boxes, though she had lugged them in. At this point, she wasn’t letting them out of her sight.

  But her brief scan revealed little. There were no diaries, no written memoirs. She saw some scribbled notes, but the writing was barely legible. It would take time and concentration to decipher them.

  Had Jon been through them? He’d certainly never indicated he’d found anything of interest, but then they had both been extremely busy the last weeks of the semester.

  She thought about exactly when he’d asked about her grandfather. Not so long ago? They had worked together for five years, then three months ago.…

  Three months ago.

  The commission would have been working then. Had Jon heard of it? His field was World War II, and he’d been particularly interested in the efforts to trace the money trail between Nazi Germany and Switzerland. Had he chanced upon the commission report? Had he investigated further?

  If so, wouldn’t he have told her? Wouldn’t he have warned her?

  Wouldn’t he have shared any suspicions he might have had about her family? Bring her into whatever project he planned?

  Dread filled her. Had he used her? Had he been after something more than simply perusing the papers of a general to get more insight on him?

  Is that why he’d died?

  She couldn’t bear to think that. Jon had been one of the two close friends she’d had.

  Paranoia. It was smothering her.

  She rolled down the windows. She relaxed as she passed over grassy marshlands, and the aroma of sea was like a drug. She’d always loved the sea. The constancy of it. The sense of renewal she always felt. One day, she hoped, she could live next to the sea.

  An hour, and she would be in her room. She would take a hot bath, order a pizza, then start looking at her grandfather’s papers. Maybe a walk on the beach to clear her head, especially since no one could have followed her. “We’re almost there, Bo,” she said. He wagged his tail and put his head in her lap. How nice, she thought, to be so oblivious.

  She took another look in the rearview mirror. No familiar cars. She left 1-16 to take a meandering route through south Georgia. Sometimes she went twenty miles or so without seeing another car.

  Anticipation started to build as the smell of the sea grew stronger. A warm breeze blew through the car.

  Safety. Just a few more miles, and she would feel safe again.

  Where in the hell was she going?

  Irish tried to stretch in his rental car, but this model was too cramped for comfort—or maybe he had been in it too long.

  He’d spent the last two nights sleeping in his car outside a motel where he could keep an eye on her room. He hadn’t really slept, merely dozed. His instincts were such that the slightest noise would wake him. But though he was used to sleeping anyplace under any circumstances, he now longed for a bed.

  She had protected herself well, though. He’d been impressed at the precautions she had taken, the way she had doubled back several times. He would not have been able to follow her without being seen had he not had the electronic transmitter. He still didn’t know if anyone else had put one on her car. He couldn’t make a thorough check without being obvious. Neither did he know whether she had told anyone where she was going.

  He would not stay with her much longer. If there was no attempt on her in the next few days, he would consider her reasonably safe. He would probably knock on her door, and let her know that there were still ways for people to find her—as he had—and leave his cell phone number again. She wouldn’t be happy, but he would know he had done everything he could.

  He couldn’t help feeling a responsibility toward her. Guilt still gnawed at him. His questions could have caused her problems. And if they had, then someone had profited from the captured trains years ago. It hadn’t just been carelessness or sloppiness or expediency that sometimes happened in the midst of war.

  Or even minor theft by more than one individual during massive and rapid movement of troops. He’d seen it in Bosnia and Kosovo. Confusion in moving supplies. Someone takes one thing, and then another. Just a souvenir. Word gets around that it’s easy picking. The command staff is more concerned with the next objective than securing enemy—or even friendly—possessions.

  He supposed that’s what he hoped to find. Some indication of carelessness rather than venality. The only way he could discover that was to find the names of those in charge of inventorying and guarding the contents of the train. Who had day-to-day access? That was something he’d been unable to find in the commission report. It placed blame in the command structure, which, of course, did have ultimate responsibility. But Irish wanted to know more. How much direct knowledge did the command have? When did the thefts actually occur? He wanted to know how the goods were inventoried and warehoused. Was the shipment intact when his grandfather left the area? None of these questions had been answered by the commission report, at least not what he’d been able to see.

  The recent attacks on Amy fostered the idea that something far more sinister than piecemeal theft had occurred, and that someone was afraid a continuing investigation might lead to them. He wondered then whether the commission had been hampered in any way. He planned to ask them. He certainly had had problems when he’d requested supporting documentation. He would have to go through the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that he was an Army investigator.

  It hadn’t made sense then. It was beginning to make sense now.

  If someone was trying to limit the investigation, then it had to be someone very powerful. Someone powerful enough to influence a government commission. Someone with enough money to hire a professional killer. Someone ruthless enough to burn down a woman’s home.

  Powerful and wealthy. Dustin Eachan fit that description.

  He passed over a marsh, then a bridge, and finally another bridge, where he paid a toll. The sign read Jekyll Island. He’d never been to the Georgia coast and he was pleasantly surprised. The island was heavily wooded with windswept oaks trimmed with gray moss. He followed the tracking signal to a two-story motel that seemed to stretch a half-mile between the road and beach.

  He pulled into a restaurant parking lot next to the motel lobby. He was probably about ten minutes behind her. He didn’t see a car in the lobby area, so she must have registered. Then he saw her V.W. halfway down the row of buildings. He took note of the room number, then went into the motel office.

  “Do you have a room?” he asked. “I have a friend staying in 226, and would like something near him.” Room 226 wasn’t hers, but the one next to it.

  The clerk looked at his computer. “I have one four doors down,” he said.

  “I’ll take it.”

  He wanted to lean over and look at the computer. Had Amy Mallory used her name? She hadn’t at the motel near Atlanta. He had placed a call to an Amy Mallory and found no one with that name was registered. Unless he’d missed another tracking device on her car or she’d told someone where she was going, or used a credit card, she would be difficult to find.

  She was damned smart.

  He gave her another fifteen minutes for unpacking her car, then went to his own room. He noted warily that his unit, and thus hers, had two doors. It wouldn’t be easy to keep track of her.

  He’d brought along a cooler of soft drinks and extra coffee, along with bread and some sandwich meats. After splashing water on his face, he set a ch
air next to the window where he could watch.

  He wondered whether he was crazy. Whether this was a wild goose chase. Still, he had time. And all his instincts told him that Amy Mallory was the key to what he wanted—no, needed—to know.

  He had his laptop with him. Time to find out a little more about the Eachan descendants while keeping an eye on the parking lot.

  It was going to be a long evening.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The meeting seemed to last forever. Dustin fidgeted, something he never did. One of the reasons he was successful was his policy of always, always paying attention to whomever he was with. Or, at the very least, appearing to do so.

  But Brian Jordan, chief executive of one of the country’s largest defense contractors, had asked to meet with him. He had a major contract with the new leader of the African country now dominating most of Dustin’s time.

  “He is a friend of this country,” Jordan said.

  “He’s a friend to whoever fattens his Swiss bank account,” Dustin replied dryly.

  Jordan shrugged. “They all are. But in this case he is the lesser of two evils, and he needs a loan to arm his military.”

  And you are going to provide it. At a hefty profit. Dustin didn’t put his thoughts into words. Jordan was a friend and supporter of the current president. He was also a major campaign contributor.

  But damned if he was going to recommend sending more money to another dictator.

  He stood and extended his hand. “Thank you for your time and your recommendations. I’ll be sure to follow up on them.”

  It was standard Washington speak, but Jordan very nearly crushed his hand with his handshake. “By the way,” he said as he finally relinquished it, “I’ve been reading about that commission report.”

  Dustin knew exactly what commission report he meant. There was a smug knowledge in the man’s eyes. He knew why he had never liked the man despite his surface charm. There was a shark underneath it, and Dustin had always recognized it. He’d tried to stay away from him, but this time the blasted man had insisted on talking to him, and he’d used the vice president’s name to get the appointment.