by Dan Walsh
As he turned off Bay toward President Street, he realized he’d only begun to feel normal these past six months. Since he’d met Claire. He’d still had to play the actor, but at least he got to tell the truth about some things, about the man he was inside. The man she’d come to love.
He banged the steering wheel. “What are you doing?” He was torturing himself.
Up ahead the lights from the shipyard glowed above the rooftops at the edge of town. He lifted his watch toward the windshield, trying to catch the time. Good. He’d made it. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he decided to start near the gate. He knew thousands of workers would be clocking in around 7:00 a.m. He’d already grabbed his binoculars, one of the few spy tools he hadn’t buried in the sand dunes that night.
He planned to find a secluded spot where he could watch the workers as they filed in through the gate, hoping to catch a glimpse of either Graf or Kittel.
Hoping he hadn’t come all this way, and given up so much, for nothing.
Claire sat out on the wraparound porch in the same rocker she had sat in so many evenings these past few months. These past few wonderful months. She looked to her left at the empty rocker. Ben’s rocker.
She didn’t feel wonderful now.
It was probably mid-morning, although Claire had no idea what time it was. Her father had gone off to work. She’d never seen him so distraught. At breakfast he went through all the motions and routines he did every morning, but it was like he wasn’t there. He drank his coffee, ate his toast, and stared at the newspaper. He never turned a single page. He looked at her once then quickly turned away. When it was time to leave, he’d gotten up without saying a word and kissed her and her mother on the cheek. His face smiled, but his eyes did not. He said he’d be home around 6:00 p.m., as usual.
A blue heron swooped down from somewhere between the trees and stood in her front yard. It didn’t move for several moments, except its head, slowly back and forth, as if on guard. She loved looking at them. Normally they stood near water, in the reeds around ponds or by the river’s edge. Why had it come here just now? Beautiful birds, she thought, but so lonely. Even when in the company of other herons, they seemed to stand by themselves.
The screen door creaked open, then slapped shut. “Claire, you okay? I brought you a cup of coffee.”
How did her mother do it? She always found some small reserve of strength to stay positive, no matter what the challenge. Claire looked up. “Thanks.” Coffee wasn’t nearly as satisfying these days, since the best beans were no longer available because of the war. But she welcomed it, more for the love behind it.
Her mother sat in the rocker where Ben always sat. “Your father and I talked a little before he left. We both had a rough night. We talked a lot last night—I suppose you didn’t get any sleep either.”
“No, actually, I did,” Claire said. “Exhaustion, I guess. But it didn’t do me any good. I woke up just as tired.”
“We’re all pretty weary,” her mother said. “Guess that’s to be expected.”
“So what did Dad say?”
“Well, one of the last things he said was he felt that FBI agent . . .” It seemed she’d forgotten his name.
“Hammond,” Claire said.
“Right, well, he felt Agent Hammond sounded pretty sincere there at the end yesterday. I thought so too.”
Claire wondered if Hammond had just been manipulating them to get more information.
“But I can tell your father’s worried sick. It’s just all so big and so sudden.”
Claire sipped her coffee. She hadn’t even thought about what all this was doing to them. “I’m sorry, Mother. For getting you both mixed up in this.”
“It’s not your fault, Claire. You had no way of knowing Ben’s past. Who would have ever guessed such a thing? And we came to love Ben too, both of us. I liked him from the start. Your dad was excited when he asked about marrying you. You should have heard him go on about Ben that night. It’s one of the big things parents hope for . . . or dread, the person their child picks to marry.”
The implication seemed pretty clear: Ben was the wrong person, as wrong as a person could be. “I still love him, Mother.” Tears welled up in her eyes.
Her mother reached over, put her hand on top of Claire’s. “I know you do, sweetheart.”
Claire braced for the gentle lecture she knew was coming. How she had to be sensible, to let him go. There was no way she and Ben could be together now.
“The thing is,” her mother said, “we still love Ben too.”
Claire looked up. A tear slid down her mother’s cheek. “We don’t want to lose him. But we don’t have a choice.”
Okay, here it comes, Claire thought.
“Your dad followed the trial of those other German spies, the ones who got caught last June. He knows we didn’t get the whole story, you never do in wartime. But one thing was very clear . . . Americans were outraged. He said everyone wanted the spies dead. He’d heard rumors that the two they didn’t execute were kind of like Ben. They weren’t Nazis and cooperated with the investigation. That’s why they didn’t get the death sentence. But they both got very long prison terms. They’re in prison now.”
Claire didn’t know what her mother was trying to say, but what she was saying wasn’t helping.
“Your father thinks Agent Hammond believes us, and you, that we really didn’t know anything about Ben until yesterday. But it might not matter. He said if he decides to drag us into this, we still . . . we still could go to jail. He thinks we’d be exonerated if that happened, at a trial. My goodness, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”
Claire sighed.
“You know, all the people who know us, and know Ben, they’d all say nothing bad was going on, that we weren’t doing anything against our country. The thing is—and this is what made us both so sad—whether we get arrested or not, we don’t see any way we can still be around Ben . . . ever again.” She pulled a hanky from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes. “If he gets caught, even if he escapes. We don’t see how we can ever see him again.” She was crying now. “And that breaks my heart.”
“Oh, Mom,” Claire said. She buried her face in her hands and cried. She felt her mother’s hand resting on her shoulder.
“But Claire . . . we don’t feel it’s right to ask that of you.”
Claire wondered if she’d heard correctly. She tried to get hold of her emotions. “What?”
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
She did.
Her mother wiped the tears from her eyes. “We love Ben. We don’t feel he’s done anything wrong, not before God, anyway. We don’t think he should have to pay for crimes he didn’t commit. And we know how much you love each other. Your father broke down last night when he said this, but he can tell Ben loves you the same way he loves me. A once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, he said. It was so sweet. We can’t take that away from them, he said. Meaning you and Ben. We talked about it, prayed about it, and we don’t think God wants us to.”
“What are you saying?”
“Your dad remembered a verse in the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 13. Real love, it says, doesn’t think about itself. That’s how we love you, Claire. We don’t want to lose you, or Ben. And we don’t know why all this has happened. But we’ve decided we have to let you go.”
“I don’t understand.” Claire was trembling.
“If Ben comes back, if he . . . if he doesn’t get caught by the FBI . . .” Her mother started crying again. “You can go with him, if that’s what you want. It has to be your decision. We’ll miss you . . . both of you, so much. But we’ll make it. If God’s in this, and we think he is, he’ll give us the strength neither one of us have right now.”
Claire burst into tears and held her mother close. They just sat there and cried for several minutes.
When Claire looked up, she noticed the blue heron was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Five
That first morning in Savannah, t
wo days ago, Ben had hidden in some bushes by the security entrance to the shipyard, far enough back to stay out of sight, keeping his binoculars focused on the front gate. So many workers had come through, hundreds of cars, and hundreds more came in by bus. Maybe thousands.
He hadn’t seen Graf or Kittel among them.
He was pretty sure, though, that he’d seen a half dozen or more FBI agents come through the gate. Black cars, black suits, white shirts, dark ties and hats. He saw these same men walking around the different buildings, stopping people, writing down things they’d said. Their presence would make it more difficult to stop Graf and Kittel. Of course, there was always the chance the FBI might catch them first, freeing him from his duty.
So far, he’d seen no evidence of that, no signs of anything out of the ordinary.
It was now close to 3:30 p.m., quitting time. After two days of this, he was beginning to wonder if Graf and Kittel were not responsible for the explosion. If they worked here, if even one of them did, why hadn’t he spotted them yet? He’d come back to this spot over the last two days on both shifts: at 7:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. when the shifts started, and even at midnight when the second shift clocked out.
He wondered if the FBI had scared the men off. Maybe they’d already gone to their next target, the shipyards in Brunswick a few hours south of here. If so, he’d have to start his surveillance all over again there.
A loud horn sounded in the shipyard, indicating the shift had ended. Men and women poured out of every building toward the front gate. Ben reset the binoculars. He panned past a row of three city buses and people lining up to get in. Wait, was that . . .
Among a group of men who had just stepped in line for the middle bus, a certain face. A large man had stepped in front of the man he was trying to see. “Move!” Ben muttered. “Get out of the way.” The man dropped his hard hat, bent over to get it. It gave Ben a clear view of the man behind him. It looked like Kittel.
He followed the man a few moments, trying to get a better look. The man was turned around now, talking to a co-worker behind him. Ben noticed a lunch box in one hand, a hard hat in the other. He wore blue dungarees and a plaid red shirt. A few moments later, he turned back around and faced Ben, laughing at something the co-worker behind him said.
It was Kittel! There was no doubt in Ben’s mind.
Ben watched a few seconds more, then shifted his focus to the bus. He needed to read the bus number in case he lost it in town. He scooted down a brief incline and ran a few feet farther south to get a better angle. There it was on the back, Bus #113. Only a handful of people stood in front of Kittel. Ben had to get to his car before the bus took off.
He’d parked on a deserted dirt road about fifty yards away. He got in and headed north, keeping the bus in sight out the right window. He had to catch it before it pulled out of the shipyard and drove downtown.
Bus #113 was still in sight, three or four cars ahead of him in traffic. It had weaved its way through downtown Savannah, and Ben had pulled over at every stop it made. Still no sign of Kittel. It had just pulled over again, after turning on Jefferson Street, not far from Tellfair Square. He followed the sidewalk up ahead toward a row of two-story apartments.
Graf!
Ben slid the car in a parking space behind a large Buick and ducked. Standing not fifty feet in front of him was Graf, Kittel’s partner, leaning on an iron railing in front of the nearest apartment building, smoking a cigarette. Ben reached up and lowered the sun visor, then lifted his eyes just enough to see over the dashboard.
An old man with a cane got off the bus. Kittel stepped down behind him. He nodded at Graf, who tossed the cigarette in the street. Kittel walked toward him, around the old man, as the bus pulled out and drove away. When he reached Graf, Kittel said something that caused Graf to smile. Graf showed him a piece of paper. Kittel looked at it, got instantly serious, then both men walked up the few steps and through the front door.
Ben’s heart was beating fast. That was it, then. He’d found them. God give me the strength to do this, he prayed, unsure if God would help him or even listen to such a prayer.
When the door closed behind the two men, Ben pulled out into the street, enough to read the address above the door frame. He wrote it down then drove off quickly, heading toward the little apartment he’d rented for the week off East Oglethorpe Avenue. He decided to get something to eat and wait until dark. Then he’d come back on foot. He didn’t have a plan worked out yet but knew it would be easier to get away on foot. No witnesses could identify his car. The dark, narrow streets of downtown Savannah would provide plenty of cover.
When he got within half a block of his apartment, he was startled to see a black car double-parked in front. It looked just like the cars he’d seen the FBI agents using at the shipyard. He pulled into an open space by the curb. A man in a dark suit walked out the front door. Then another, dressed the same. They talked on the sidewalk, put on their hats, then walked to the car. One got in right away, the other walked around the car, opened the driver-side door, then stopped. He looked up and down the street.
Ben instantly slid down the car seat, out of sight. He felt his heartbeat in his temples. When he heard the car drive off, going the opposite way, he sat up. The coast was clear. But his plans were anything but clear.
They had to be FBI agents. What should he do? He couldn’t head back to his apartment. Not now. What if they’d left another agent sitting in a car nearby, awaiting his return? He’d have to come back after dark, take his chances then. He couldn’t just abandon the place. Not yet. He’d left his suitcase in the trunk of his car, but his gun was upstairs in his apartment.
So was his picture of Claire.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“That’s kind of risky, Vic, don’t you think?” Nate Winters said as he and Hammond drove down Price Street toward the river. “Shouldn’t we at least stake the place out, leave someone watching the door? What if he gets spooked when he reads your note and takes off?”
Hammond looked at his partner. They’d been through a lot these past two years. He trusted Nate’s instincts second only to his own. “It’s just a hunch, Nate. But I think it’s solid. You’d feel better about this if you’d been with me on all those interviews. This guy’s not a killer. He’s not going to want to take these two guys out if there’s another way. But he’s not going to turn himself in. Doesn’t trust us, knows what’ll happen if he does. He’s here because he thinks it’s the right thing to do, the only thing he can do. We gotta show him there’s another way.”
“But Vic, you just said it, he doesn’t trust us. What makes you think he’ll call? We’re the authorities.”
“I’m banking on two things. His Abwehr training, and that he’s the kind of guy everyone says he is. He’ll know we’re on to him and that we’ve even figured out where he’s staying. He’ll wonder why we didn’t just arrest him the moment he got back to the apartment. He’ll look around outside, expecting to find us keeping him under surveillance. He’ll see we’re not, like I promised in the note, and that we’ve left the door wide open for him to run.”
“You think he’ll come running to us.”
“Exactly.” He looked at Nate, not sure if he was buying this. “Okay, it’s a risk. I could have this all wrong, and . . . we lose him.”
“So what,” Nate said, “we just go back to the hotel and wait?”
“Got no other choice. I left the hotel phone number and our room number. Figured that way he can reach us without us getting others in the Bureau involved.”
Hammond knew this whole thing could sour on him quick. But he also knew that all his promotions at the Bureau came from cases just like this, where he played his instincts. He’d still be out there beating the bushes, working the lowest rung if he’d played it by the book. He respected those guys, the ones that did, and knew they had their place. In fact, these same guys turned up this lead. Good old-fashioned police work, by the book. He should say something. “The guys
did good turning up this address for us.”
“They just did what you said.” Nate referred to what most of the guys in town had been doing the last two days. Hammond had given them Coleman’s description and told them to check every place in the south end of Savannah that rented apartments by the week. Get a list of names of anyone who’d rented a place in the last two days.
“But that was a lot of leg work, running down all those names.”
“I’ll tell them you said that,” Nate said.
“Well, not yet,” Hammond said. “We gotta keep a lid on this, see how it plays out. I’ll buy ’em all a round of drinks when we wrap this up.”
“You mean, if it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”
It took Hammond a minute. “That joke’s getting old, Nate.”
Ben was thankful it was a moonless night. The roads still had streetlights, but everything was dimmed due to blackout regulations. Plenty of shadows. After grabbing a bite to eat, he walked around the neighborhood until it became completely dark, then closed in on his apartment building. He checked and double-checked but didn’t see anyone watching the place.
It didn’t make sense.
He started to wonder if he was just being paranoid, thinking those two men were FBI agents. He walked to the front door and paused before going up the steps, half expecting to be rushed by federal agents. But no one came. He breathed a sigh of relief and made his way up the stairs, unlocked his door, and clicked on the light. He could see both rooms from the front door. No one inside.
But something was out of place. What was it?
He stepped inside and locked the door behind him. Panning the room, he finally saw it. Claire’s picture. It was now on the end table, sitting under the lamp he’d just turned on. Underneath it, a note.
