by Alan Glenn
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.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
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 thin
k 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.
CHAPTER FIFTY
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?”