After stopping in Scottsboro, the train climbed away from the main valley and up into the hills. It stopped in Larkinsville but not at Lim Rock, which looked like a ghost town. A few minutes later it passed the point where the old mining spur diverged, and Kuznetsky had a brief glimpse of the narrow Coon Creek Valley stretching north toward a high ridge.
Thirty-five minutes later the train pulled into Huntsville. Kuznetsky got off, had some lunch, and spent several hours sitting on a park bench with nothing but his thoughts. He remembered how, when he’d first lived with Russians, their slowness, their ability to sit doing nothing for hours, had infuriated him, partly because they could, partly because he couldn’t. Since arriving back in America he’d had the opposite sensation: everyone seemed so impatient, so determined to be doing things, so incapable of just being. It was sad. Amusing as well.
He walked back toward the station and was about to cross the road outside when a familiar black Buick cruised past. He and Amy exchanged indifferent glances.
Amy felt relief at seeing Kuznetsky. She had no doubts about his efficiency, but it was still good to be certain that he was around. That morning she’d suddenly imagined his being killed in some ridiculous accident and Joe coming back to the lodge with the Germans. What would she do then?
She checked in the mirror to see that the camper Joe was driving was still following her as she took the Scottsboro road. Everything was going so smoothly, it was almost too good to be true. She and Joe had spent the day driving to and from Birmingham, where they had picked up the camper, complete with fishing rods, hunting rifles, and enough food for a businessmen’s sporting holiday. Unknown to Joe, Amy had also been checking out their eventual escape route, making sure that there would be no unexpected impediments to their flight. According to the radio, some bridges along the route had collapsed in the summer storms, but the road to Birmingham was clear.
They arrived back at the lodge as the last rays of the sun cleared the ridge, and Joe started preparing supper. He obviously enjoyed cooking, if only from cans. Amy pulled some water up from the well and washed herself. In thirty-six hours the Germans would be here.
“Where are you headed when it’s over?” Joe asked.
“Back to Washington.”
“It’ll be a bit tame after this, won’t it?”
“Joe, what are you in this for?” She hadn’t meant to ask, hadn’t wanted to know, but the question came out just the same.
He stirred the corned-beef hash thoughtfully. “Funny you should ask that,” he said finally. “Don’t get me wrong – I believe in the German cause, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize that they’ve lost this war. Maybe what we’re doing will change things, but to be honest, I doubt it. It’s a mixture, I guess. Idealism, adventure, getting my own back …”
“Own what?”
“My family used to own a farm up the valley, near Louden. It wasn’t big, but it was beautiful. My folks just lived their life, hell, my pa was even good to the niggers, lot of good it did him. Then one day, just like that, man from Washington knocked on the door. It was 1935. Told us that in a coupla years time our land would be at the bottom of a lake. Nothing we could do about it. Pa just gave up, died rather than see the land drowned. And Ma died because she couldn’t live without him. Government killed them both, men in Washington who didn’t give a damn about people.”
Amy couldn’t think of anything to say.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m a German.”
“Yeah, but there’s a lot of Germans fighting for the U.S. of A.”
“Not real Germans.”
“Maybe.”
“And my father died in the first war.”
“Where?”
“Tannenberg.”
“It must be worse dying in a battle that your side’s won.”
“I doubt if he knew.”
“No, I meant for the relatives. Seems more of a waste somehow. Crazy, I know. Tannenberg was a fascinating battle …” He went on to discuss the merits of Ludendorff’s strategy, stirring the hash, completely oblivious to the fact that Amy might find the topic distressing.
She wasn’t even listening. He died rather than see the land drowned. She couldn’t understand a person feeling like that. She’d lived in big cities all her life. She looked at Joe, suddenly seeing him as a farm boy in city clothes. They shared a need for revenge if nothing else.
After supper they played checkers again, but this time she didn’t win a single game and there was no tap on her bedroom door. She lay in bed and tried to consciously relive the past, those dreadful nights in Berlin that now seemed so long ago. But the anger that had lain so long so close to the surface had either burrowed deeper or been eroded by time; she wasn’t sure which. Images of Effi kept interrupting her thoughts, images of her as a seven-year-old, happy, laughing, running through the Tiergarten with her socks around her ankles and one pigtail half-unraveled.
Forty miles up the valley, on the stroke of midnight, Kuznetsky called the number in Washington.
“Yes?” the voice asked.
“American Rose.”
“Melville says that train will do fine.”
He put back the receiver, walked along the corridor to tell the night clerk that he wanted an early call. Tomorrow – no, today – he would kill Joe Markham. Only what will be is a flower, what is crumbles into fragments.
* * *
By midmorning Joe was driving the Buick south toward Atlanta. He knew the road well, having spent two vacations visiting the old battlefields where Johnston had fought his brilliant rearguard campaign against the butcher Sherman. Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peach Tree Creek – rolls of glory reflected in the road signs. Confederate flags still fluttered on flagstaffs in the gardens of suburban Atlanta.
He didn’t feel the slightest bit nervous or tense, which surprised him. This was by far the most dangerous part of the operation; it needed only one pair of unwelcome eyes to spot the surfacing U-boat and the FBI would be pouring into Georgia like Sherman’s army. But Rosa had said the spot was well-chosen, and she hadn’t been wrong yet. She was quite amazing, though about as human as a block of ice. He wondered how the man in New York had found her. Or had she found him? Not that it mattered.
Beyond Atlanta he followed Sherman’s route to the sea. He imagined the smouldering barns, the blazing fields, the women raped in the plantation mansions while the torches were laid. But he had to admit that militarily it had been a brilliant move. If Lee had shown such ruthlessness, things would have been different. Might have been, anyway.
The Buick purred onward. He loved driving, was proud of his skill behind the wheel. In his late teens he’d entered dirt-road car races as far away as Memphis and won quite a few of them. Trouble was, there were too many kids who didn’t care whether they lived or died, and though you could outlive them, they were hard to beat. He’d never been able to understand kids like that, kids who just ignored the odds.
Savannah lifted his spirits with its beautiful buildings. It was how a city should look. He stopped by the old harbour, checked his watch and odometer. Just over four hundred miles in under nine hours, and Rosa had been worried he’d be late! He had a doughnut and coffee in an empty diner and took to the road again. Another sixty miles.
At Richmond Hill he took out the map she’d marked and perched it on the dashboard. Turning off the main highway, he followed the route toward the coast, crossing the long trestle bridge that connected the mainland to Ossabaw Island. There was hardly anything on the road, and the island’s only town boasted few vehicles or people. The final stretch of road to the sea was hardly a road at all. The coastline was an unspoiled wilderness, heavily vegetated low cliffs and a rocky beach pummeled by the Atlantic waves.
He parked the Buick under the trees and took the signal lamp out of the trunk. The sun had almost set; there were four hours to wait. He clambered down the cliff and settled himself in a comfortable niche between two large rocks. Remembe
ring the extra doughnut in his pocket, he devoured it with relish, the jelly oozing out over his fingers. Still feeling stiff after the day’s driving, he lifted himself out of the niche and went to wash his hands in a tidal pool. Leaning forward to splash his face, he caught a momentary glimpse of a shadow crossing the sky before the bullet exploded through his brain, knocking his body forward into its reflection.
Kuznetsky dragged Joe’s body out of the pool, across the rocks and up the bluff. Markham wasn’t heavy but it was still hard work. At the top he stopped to get his breath back, then pulled the body through the trees, past Markham’s car, and well into the woods. Then he returned for the car and brought it forward to the same spot. He got into the backseat and fired a single shot through the windshield above the steering wheel, hoisted Markham’s body into the front seat with the head pushed down on the wheel, resisting the temptation to close the staring eyes. After checking the car’s visibility from twenty yards away, he lightly camouflaged the chrome bumper with vegetation. He looked again and was satisfied. Anyone looking for it would find it, but it was unlikely to be found by accident.
It was quite dark now, and he had some difficulty in picking out the spot where he’d concealed his own car. He moved it out of the trees and onto the flattened area where the road reached the cliff. Judging by the empty bottles littering its perimeter, it was used as a picnic area.
He next eased the crate out of the backseat and carried it across to Markham’s car. There he jimmied it open and, using his weight, cracked one of the sides in half. It looked convincing enough – provided that Matson’s description of the uranium crates was accurate.
Clambering back down to the beach, he took up position in the niche Markham had found. It was a quarter past eight – three and a half hours still to go. He lit a Lucky Strike, leaned back against the rock, and inhaled deeply. He’d killed three men in America, two he’d never even spoken to, but his conscience remained untroubled. He supposed that most people would consider Duncarry and Lee innocent victims, but as far as he was concerned, innocence had vanished with mass newspapers and the radio. No one could claim innocence anymore. Except children and animals perhaps. Everyone else had been free to choose sides, consciously or not.
The evening star was sinking toward the ocean. He guessed it would be dawn in the Russian forest, wondered if Nadezhda was still faithful to him. The thought didn’t disturb him; if she wasn’t, it wouldn’t change anything.
He sat up suddenly, listening to the sound of an approaching car, then ran nimbly across the rocks to the base of the low cliff, watching the light from the car’s headlamps illuminating the air above the rim, and flattened himself against an outcrop.
He heard a door open, the last indistinct words of a conversation. Footsteps walking toward the cliff’s edge, a silhouetted figure above him appearing and disappearing.
“Who the fuck is it?” It was a young voice, a boy of fifteen, sixteen.
“No one local. It’s got D.C. plates.” A young girl, a Georgia peach of an accent.
“Shit.”
“C’mon, Jeff, there’s no sense in gettin’ fired up. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Like where?”
A giggle. “Well, we can’t do it here, can we?”
“I’ll flatten the bastard. This is our place.”
“There might be more than one of them.”
“Umm.”
“C’mon, I’ve got to be home by ten.”
“Okay, okay.”
The footsteps receded, car doors slammed, a revving motor. The headlamps drew a circle of light as the car turned and headed back inland. Kuznetsky put his gun in the shoulder holster. What had he been thinking about children and animals? If they’d found the other car … He hoped they were the only young couple who thought they owned this trysting place.
But there were no other interruptions as the hour hand on his watch crept slowly forward. At 11:30 he started flashing the signal lamp at five-minute intervals, straining his eyes for a sight of the submarine. Several times he thought he glimpsed a periscope slightly to the north, but it must have been something else for, at precisely a quarter to midnight and directly ahead, U-107 broke surface with disconcerting abruptness. He flashed the light again, and thought he could glimpse figures climbing down from the conning tower onto the hull.
Breitner and Russman shook hands with the captain and launched the inflatable raft. Paul eased himself in and held it fast for Breitner to follow. Conscious of the U-boat descending behind them, they paddled for the shore, a dark wall that gradually resolved itself into a forested line of cliffs. The light blinked again and they shifted direction toward it.
“There’s not many who’re going to be able to say that they took part in the Wehrmacht’s invasion of America,” Gerd whispered.
“Or the strategic withdrawal.”
“Optimist.”
When they were nearly there they could see the man waiting on the rocks. He waded out into the surf to help them beach the dinghy and indicated that they should follow him. He’d dug a hole for their boat and all three shoveled the sand back in on top of it.
“The clothes will do,” he said after looking them over. “I’m Jack Smith. Call me Jack,” Kuznetsky said in English.
“Gerd Breitner, and this is Paul Russman,” Gerd said, holding out his hand. The stranger’s grip was brief but strong.
“My German’s not very good,” Kuznetsky said, “but we speak English only from this moment in any case.”
“Understood.”
Kuznetsky led them up the cliff to the car. Gerd took the seat beside him, Paul the back. As they drove inland Paul watched the strange shapes of the foreign trees silhouetted against the sky. Here they were, he thought, casually driving through the American night, two officers in an army that was losing battles almost everywhere else. The whole business was absurd. Daring, perhaps, but if the Führer and his friends hadn’t yet learned that daring had its limits, then they were even madder than he’d thought.
Paul looked at the back of the stranger’s head. Who the hell was he? An Abwehr agent obviously, but he wasn’t a German. What reasons could any non-German have for supporting the Nazi cause? There were enough Germans with doubts. He didn’t suppose it mattered – the man seemed to know what he was doing. There was an air of authority about him that was almost chilling. And most un-American. Paul closed his eyes and listened to the purr of the car.
He was awakened by a prod from Gerd. They had stopped outside a hotel. Kuznetsky handed him a collection of documents: driver’s license, military deferment, there were about ten of them. “Memorize them,” he said.
“Where are we?” Paul asked.
“Savannah,” Gerd replied.
“We’re staying the night here,” Kuznetsky said.
He led them into the hotel, where rooms had already been booked. A sleepy clerk showed them up, explaining that he got a tip for carrying the luggage even if there wasn’t any. “It’s the principle,” he said. Kuznetsky gave him one, pointed the two Germans into one room and disappeared into the other.
They didn’t bother to undress. “Very strange,” Paul murmured, looking down from the window at the empty street.
“Ja. Yeah.”
“Very good.” Paul indicated the next room. “He’s not what I expected. He’s no amateur.” He lay back on the bed. “I wonder how he’s avoided the Army.”
“Too old,” Gerd answered. “The Americans have still got some young men to spare.”
“It feels strange wearing these clothes. Do you know how long it is since we were out of uniform?”
“Too long, Paul. Go to sleep.”
It was a blazing hot morning, the heat of Africa wrapped in a clammy Georgian blanket. Paul was glad to see that their driver was sweating as profusely as he was, and that he’d had the sense to place a case of beer on the backseat.
Smith didn’t say much though. They learned that he’d had military experience in South Amer
ica and Spain, but beyond such bare facts he offered nothing. He refused to discuss the operation until the fourth member of the unit – a strange name for it, Paul thought – was present.
“We have to know everything each other knows,” Kuznetsky said.
They asked him about the fourth member. He was a she. A German woman who’d lived twenty years in America. It was at this moment that Paul wondered if it were possible, only to dismiss the idea as ridiculous. She would never fight for Hitler’s Germany. “How old is she?” he asked.
“About thirty-five.”
That fit. But it couldn’t be. “What’s her name?” he asked.
“Rosa, as far as we’re concerned.”
Rosa. She’d had a doll called Rosa. “Is she attractive?”
“I suppose so. Why do you ask?”
There seemed no reason not to explain. “I knew a German girl who lived in America. She’d be about that age now. Just curiosity. It couldn’t be the same woman.”
“Why not?”
Was he imagining it, or was there an edge to Smith’s voice? “She had no reason to help Germany, rather the opposite.”
“What did she look like?”
“Slim, dark-haired, a lovely face. Full of life.” It was funny, he could see her so clearly, even after all these years. “Amy,” he murmured.
Kuznetsky could hardly believe his ears. His mind raced. How could this have happened, how could something so vital have been ignored? Question followed question. When had they known each other? How much did he know about her – was her cover blown? The German might be talking about a chance meeting at a party when they’d both been in America. He might be talking about a love affair lasting months. He knew she had “no reason to help Germany.” What did he know? Christ, what a mess.
The Red Eagles Page 14