Amerikan Eagle

by Alan Glenn

  On the other side of the iron gates there were newspaper reporters and a couple of newsreel crews, all eager to record the burial of the attempted assassin of Adolf Hitler, but the priest—his parish priest, Father Mullen from St. James Church—had denied them entrance. Sam supposed he should have attempted to tell Sarah about the funeral, but he was going to let that rest for now. Sarah would have to mourn Tony at her own time and pace. And he wasn’t surprised that he was the only mourner present. Being known as an associate of an assassin, someone who almost destroyed the summit that promised so much, was just too dangerous.

  The priest finished, made a sign of the cross, and then came over, his vestments flapping in the breeze. Sam shook his hand and said, “Thanks, Father. I appreciate that.”

  The priest nodded. “I knew your brother back when he was active in the shipyard, trying to make things better for the workers.”

  Sam felt the words stick in his throat, knowing his brother and what he had done. “Excuse me for saying this, Father, but he could be a pain in the ass. But sometimes he was a good man, wasn’t he?”

  “We’re all good men, Sam. But these are trying times, and all of us sometimes make compromises, sometimes make decisions … It’s not an easy time.”

  Sam watched as the cemetery workers came out and, with a set of straps, lowered his brother’s body into the unmarked grave. He didn’t answer the priest.

  * * *

  He stood there for a while, then started walking to another gate of the cemetery, where he could avoid the crowd of reporters. He saw a man standing near a solitary pine tree. The man was watching him, and Sam changed direction to join him.

  “Hello, Doc,” Sam said. “Sorry I’ve been avoiding you. It’s been a shitty few days.”

  Dr. William Saunders, the county medical examiner, nodded in reply. “Yeah, it sure has. Sorry about your brother.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t be so smug. I think you did a shitty thing, saving that asshole Long’s life.”

  Sam replied evenly, “You and a bunch of others, I’m sure.” The medical examiner kept quiet. Sam said, “Doc, don’t play any goddamn games with me. I’m not in the mood. Why are you here? What’s so important?”

  Saunders looked over Sam’s shoulder toward the downtown. “You know, we medical examiners, we sometimes pass along information to one another, little bits of professional knowledge that doesn’t get out to the public. Especially for those of us working in cities that have a large refugee population. You tend to look for odd things you don’t otherwise see in the course of your day-to-day work.”

  Sam said, “What did you find? And how did you miss it the first time out?”

  Saunders sighed. “I’m old, and I’m tired, and things get missed. I didn’t miss a damn thing on that autopsy. The poor guy’s neck was snapped, he was malnourished, he had that damn tattoo, and oh, by the way, his blood work came back normal. No poisons or toxins in his system. But I did miss something in his clothing …”

  He reached into his pocket and took out a metal cylinder, less than an inch wide and perhaps two inches long. Saunders said, “In these troubled times, refugees use these capsules to transport important things. Diamonds, rubies, or a key to a safe deposit box. Women—God bless them, they have two receptacles available to hold such tubes, while we men have to do with just one. Ingenious, isn’t it? And when I was finally sorting through your dead man’s clothing, I found this tucked away in his underwear. When a man—or woman—dies, the sphincter muscles relax, and what’s up there, Inspector, will always come out.”

  Sam took the cylinder from the medical examiner, looked at it, and then unscrewed the top. He looked inside. “Was it empty when you opened it?”

  “No.”

  “What was in it?”

  Saunders looked at him; the scar on his throat was prominent. He said, “Sam … can I really trust you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Shit, I know that’s a tough question to ask, especially these days. What I’m getting at … can I trust you to keep my ass out of a labor camp, and to do something important?”

  “You can trust me to keep you out of prison, as long as I have anything to say about it. What’s so important beyond that?”

  The medical examiner coughed, a harsh sound coming from deep in his chest. “The last war, I spent months in those godforsaken trenches, trying to save the lives of men being gassed, shattered by shrapnel, and shot … and for what? To make the world safe for democracy. Corny, I know, but we believed it back then, and some of us, even in these worst of times, still believe it.”

  “Just tell me, what was in that cylinder?”

  Another pause, and the wind seemed to cut at him even deeper. He pushed aside the thought of how cold Tony’s grave must be.

  Saunders said, “A special kind of film called microfilm. A process that reduces pages of documents to a single filmstrip.”

  “A courier,” Sam said. “I’ll be damned. What kind of documents was he carrying?”

  Saunders reached again into his coat pocket, pulled out a business-size envelope. “That’s for you to find out, Inspector. I processed the film, was able to make readable copies for you. I’ve looked at them, and I can’t figure it out. But I’m sure you will.”

  “Was it another language?”

  Saunders smiled. “Yeah, it was. But you’re an inspector. Just do the right thing, okay?”

  Sam held the envelope. Made of paper, it seemed to weigh a ton. “That I’ll do. But Doc, after we talked last, just after that FBI guy and Gestapo guy met you, did you discuss the case with anyone else?”

  “Nope. Not a soul.”

  Sam lifted the envelope again. “Thanks, Doc. And I’m sorry I didn’t get to you earlier.”

  The medical examiner said. “It’s okay, Sam. I’m sure it will work out.”

  Sam said, “I’m glad you are. I’m not.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  The day after Tony’s burial, Sam stood in the football field of the Portsmouth High School, watching the FBI and the local contingent of Long’s Legionnaires processing arrested people and conducting interrogations over the assassination attempt on President Long. The matter of the attack on Hitler was over and complete, Tony Miller being the designated patsy. But the investigation into the attempted killing of the President was still going on, and it was a chance for the Legionnaires and the FBI to conduct a nice purge of the surrounding towns, using the assassination as a cover to arrest anyone and everyone who had pissed off the government.

  Temporary barbed-wire fencing had been strung around the perimeter of the field, and canvas tents had been set up. The turf had been churned into a muddy mess by all the feet trampling through. Sam used his newly minted ID to gain access to one special prisoner. And as he had walked across the chewed-up field, the finger he had broken back during that championship game started aching again, like a reminder of what had been, what had been lost.

  He remembered how, days ago, the night the body was discovered, he’d recalled the sweet memory of winning that game … and immediately that taste of victory being overcome with a taste of ashes, of seeing his dad triumphant over Tony’s acceptance at the Navy Yard, the bad son, the one who was always in trouble, the one always in Dad’s favor. And now Mom at a rest home, Dad and Tony buried, and this field where Sam had first become someone, had done something to be proud of, had now been turned into something else, just another prison. Like this country, he thought, going from a nation of laws to a nation of labor camps. When he had been a senior at this school, it had been a more innocent time. It had all been so black and white. To defeat one’s opponent, that’s all. Just to win.

  Black and white. No shades of gray. God, how he missed those days.

  A dozen men were being herded along in front of him, their shoes and boots muddy, their eyes downcast, each with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front, as they were prodded along by Long’s Legionnaires carry
ing pump-action shotguns. At the end of the line, a Legionnaire caught Sam’s eye, and he didn’t look away. He remembered that face. It was the Legionnaire who had strutted into the Fish Shanty so very long ago, the night he had first come across the dead man.

  The Legionnaire grabbed the last man in line, brought him over to Sam. The Legionnaire grinned, breathing hard, his face bruised. “You’re that police inspector. The one that saved the President.”

  “Yeah, I am,” Sam said, looking at the prisoner. His suit was well cut, and he had a trimmed black mustache and haircut. Sam recognized him as a businessman from the next city up the coast, Dover. Woods, was that his name?

  The Legionnaire twisted the man’s arm, and Woods winced. The Legionnaire said, “Yeah, and you’re the inspector that was in that greasy-spoon restaurant the night me and Vern had to get new tires on our car ’cause some asshole knifed ’em. Vern and me, we got ambushed and tuned up a couple of days later.”

  Sam said, “Look, I don’t—”

  The Legionnaire said, “You may be so high and mighty, boy, but remember this, me and Vern and everyone else like us, we’re runnin’ the show. No matter if you like it or not.”

  The young man pushed Woods hard in the small of the back. “Run, you son of a bitch, run,” and Woods, stumbling a bit in the mud, started running after the moving line of prisoners. Sam saw what was going to happen next, started to yell out, “No!” In one smooth and practiced motion, the Legionnaire lifted his shotgun and fired at the back of the running man. The hollow boom tore at Sam’s ears, and Woods crumpled to the muddy earth.

  “So maybe you’re a hero today, bud,” the Legionnaire said, “but you and everyone else who don’t fall in line, you’re still shitheads, and you can still get shot while tryin’ to escape, and there’s nothin’ anybody can do about it. Understand?”

  Sam felt his face burning. He had just seen a first-degree murder right in front of him, and been powerless to do anything. Not a goddamn thing. He walked away.

  * * *

  He sat in one corner of a small green canvas tent smelling of dampness and mildew. Inside were a table and a couple of wooden chairs sinking into the soil. The flap of the tent opened, and another Long’s Legionnaire peered in. “You Miller?”

  “Yeah,” he said, not wanting to see again in his mind’s eye a man murdered to prove a point. That was all. A man dragged from his home today, accused of God only knew what, and because he was last in line and easy to grasp, he was shot dead.

  “Your prisoner is coming,” the Legionnaire said.

  The guard seemed to be in his early twenties, with close-cropped blond hair and Legionnaire’s uniform complete with Confederate-flag pin on the lapel. The look on his face seemed to indicate he would be equally comfortable in the uniform of the SS, just like his shotgun-wielding partner. “You the same Miller who saved the President?”

  “I am,” Sam said, looking out at the mass of prisoners.

  “Then it’d be an honor for us to buy you a drink or six when the day is through, if you don’t mind.”

  Sam fought to keep a friendly smile on his face. “That sounds great, but my schedule’s pretty packed. I tell you what, you tell your friends here that I said hello. Okay?”

  “Sure,” the Legionnaire said, and then another arrived, holding a man by the elbow. The man had on a light brown tweed suit but no necktie. His shoes had no laces. His hands were cuffed, and the second Legionnaire said, “The cuffs are comin’ off, boy, but you best behave. You got that?”

  The man whispered, “Yes,” and Sam noticed his left eye was bruised and swollen. The prisoner rubbed at his wrists as the cuffs were removed, and both Legionnaires left.

  “Hello, Walter,” Sam said.

  “Sam, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “Have a seat.”

  The former science professor sat down in one of the chairs, breathed an apparent sigh of relief. “It feels good to be in a real chair. The interrogations … sometimes they ask you question after question and make you stand for hours … it doesn’t sound like much, but do it for hours, and you’ll see what kind of torture it is.”

  “I can imagine,” Sam said.

  Walter shook his head. “No, you can’t. Unless you’ve been here or someplace similar, you can’t.”

  Sam looked to his wrist, where the hidden numeral was tattooed into his skin, was. “Walter, I’m not here to debate.”

  His former tenant smiled wanly. “Of course, yes, of course. How in the world did you get in here? Lawyers and family are all being kept out while we stumble through our version of Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives. Remember that, back in the ’30s? It was decided it was time for Hitler to kill or jail all his opponents, and they did. Oh, that was a time—”

  “Walter, for once, will you shut the hell up?”

  Walter did just that. Sam said, “I got in because I called in a favor from the Secret Service. Told them I needed to see you.”

  “I take it you’re not here to free me.”

  “Hardly. I’ve got two things I want to talk to you about. Remember the night I was called out for the body by Maplewood Avenue?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Of course you do. I had to come upstairs and unclog your sink. Who told you to do that, Walter? A couple of weeks earlier you had pulled the same stunt, clogging the sink with potato peels. You’re scatterbrained but not that scatterbrained. So who told you? Was it Sarah?”

  Walter blinked. “She asked me to do something to get you upstairs for a while.”

  “Did she say why?”

  Walter squirmed in his seat, and Sam went on. “Sarah had a guest coming, right? Someone to go in the cellar, someone she didn’t want me to know was there. And she wanted me upstairs at a certain time so she could sneak the man in.”

  “That’s what I surmised.” He wiped at his bruised eye with a soiled hand. “She didn’t say it so plainly, but yes, I believe that’s what she wanted. So who was that dead man?”

  “Not your place to ask questions,” Sam said curtly. “Only to answer them.”

  From his coat pocket he took out the papers the medical examiner had given him. “Take a look these, tell me what they mean.”

  Walter looked puzzled, but he did as he was told. He unfolded the sheets and examined each one, sometimes holding them close to his undamaged eye. “There are some serious mathematical formulas in here. Even with my teaching background, I’m not sure I can puzzle them out.”

  “You better try. I need for you to look at those equations and tell me what they mean.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” Walter insisted, his voice plaintive.

  “Then, dammit, tell me why they’re important. Tell me why someone would be willing to die to protect these pages.”

  Walter stared at him a moment. Then he bent again on the pages, pursing his bruised lips. Finally, he gathered the pages together and pushed them back across the table. “Can I ask you where you got these?”

  “No.”

  “Some research facility? A physics laboratory of some sort?”

  “Walter …”

  He moved in his chair, winced from something paining him. “A guess, that’s all. An educated guess.”

  “I’ll take that. Tell me.”

  And Walter told him.

  * * *

  Sam shoved the papers back in his coat, tired and cold and feeling as if he were climbing the slope of a mountain that kept on getting steeper and steeper. Walter put his hands together and said, “What now?”

  Sam said, “I go back to work, and I’m sorry, you go back to your interrogators.”

  Walter shivered. “They caught me as I was driving up to Maine, Sam, trying to get to the Canadian border. I suppose a brave man would have raced through the roadblock, but I’m not. And later, when they brought me here, I had illusions of trying to resist, trying to be strong, trying to hold out as long as I could … I held out for five minutes before I started crying and answe
ring every question they asked me. Do you want to know how they did it?”

  “No, I don’t,” Sam said.

  Walter ignored him. “They put you on a board, tie your hands and feet together, and then tip you back, put a wet cloth across your face, and pour water over you. They laugh as you think you’re drowning. A nice little treat they learned from the Nazis. It worked, but still, the questions keep on coming.” Walter cocked his head. “Is it true, what I’ve heard? That you got to Hale before he got to Long? That you shot Hale, and he blew himself up, but not close enough to hurt Long?”

  “True enough,” Sam said.

  “You son of a whore. Do you have any idea what you did in preventing that monster’s death?”

  Sam got up, thinking of his tattoo and of his nameless camp companions, alive and spread out across the nation, thought about that dead businessman out there, dead on a muddy playing field, all because of him. “Yeah, Walter, I think I do.”

  * * *

  When he left the tent, a young Legionnaire stood waiting, his red hair closely trimmed, patches of wispy orange hair about his chin.

  “Mr. Miller?” the Legionnaire asked. “Somebody needs to see you right away.”

  The man took Sam’s left arm, and Sam angrily shook it off. He thought about striding out of the camp, ignoring this young punk, but with all the shotgun-toting Legionnaires and angry-looking FBI agents about, how far could he go?

  “All right,” Sam said. “Take me there, but keep your damn hand to yourself.”

  The Legionnaire glared at Sam but kept quiet, and Sam kept stride with him as they went to a larger tent. “Right in there, sir,” he said. Sam hesitated, then ducked his head and walked in. This tent had a canvas floor, chairs, a dining room table, a wet bar, and a desk with matching chair and a black metal wastebasket. Lights came from overhead lightbulbs, and a small electric heater in one corner of the tent cut the chill. Sitting in the chair was another Long’s Legionnaire, older, his uniform crisp and clean, the leatherwork shiny, and on the collar tabs, the oak leaves of a major.