Amerikan Eagle (38 page)

Sure
, Sam thought.
A bright future tattling on my father-in-law for your benefit, for the benefit of the Nats against the Staties
.

Hanson said, “Now. One more thing. You realize that
whatever I tell you here stays here? Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Hanson shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do. What I mean is, everything stays here. Nobody else gets told. Not any other cop, not your wife, no one. If it’s ever found out that you’ve blabbed about this place, then you and anyone else you’ve talked to—even if it’s your boy, Toby, by mistake—you come back here. Forever. Now. Tell me you understand that.”

In answer, Sam rolled up his left sleeve, showing the numeral three. “And this? How do I explain this to Sarah?”

“You’ll think of something,” Hanson said. “A drunken late visit to a tattoo parlor off the harbor, I don’t care. But the secret of Burdick remains a secret. Understand?”

“Yeah. I understand it all.”

“Good.” Hanson took a breath. “Let’s get out of this dump.”

* * *

There was a moment when the guilt struck him so hard that he almost turned around to go back into the camp. Now, dressed in his civilian clothes—which felt odd and constricting after the few days in the striped clothing, except for his hat, which was loose on his shorn head—and walking with Hanson, he saw a line of prisoners heading off to another part of the camp. The starved men stared him. He stared back and recognized his bunkmates, one face in particular. Otto, the Jew from Holland,
the man who had risked so much to toss in a chunk of bread to Sam.

Otto stared at Sam in disbelief, and Sam could just imagine what was going through the prisoner’s mind. Sam must have been a spy. Sam must have been a turncoat. Now everyone in Barracks Six was at terrible risk, for the friendliness shown an American who was going to betray them all.

He thought of shouting something to them, but realized it was a waste of time. Instead, he watched the line of men shuffling away to their work, and then he returned to whatever freedom awaited him.

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.

Respectfully submitted,

Royal LaBayeux, Commandant

__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.