by Alan Glenn
Breakfast. Sam looked around the mess of a kitchen and decided not to stay. This place should be filled with the laughter and smiles of his Sarah and Toby. No, he didn’t want to be here. He’d go out and quietly do his work for LaCouture and Groebke, members of governments who could torture, imprison, and kill Jews with all the difficulty of someone buying a newspaper or ordering breakfast.
He went out the front door, didn’t even bother locking it behind him, and took two steps before he saw someone was waiting for him.
Hans Groebke, leaning against the fender of Sam’s Packard, a paper package at his elbow, on the car’s mud-spattered hood.
Sam’s first instinct was to charge over and punch out that smug face in a series of hammer blows, but he wondered if he was strong enough. If he wasn’t, what then? He started for his revolver, to shoot the Nazi son of a bitch right then and there, but there was something in the man’s eyes that stopped him. A look that didn’t belong. Sympathy? Concern? What was it?
Groebke straightened, performed his courtly, tiny bow. “Guten tag, Inspector Miller.”
“What the hell are you doing at my home?”
The Gestapo man said, “Things have changed since you went away. At midnight a new—how you say—permit process has been implemented.” From his coat pocket, he removed a square of cardboard gilted on the edges. “All vehicles must now have this pass. Without it, you would have not been able to go work for us today, which would be unfortunate.”
“How did you get here?”
“Herr LaCouture drove me here on his way to the naval shipyard on some sort of inspection.”
“A favor? You’re doing this to me as a favor?”
A brief nod. “Something like that, yes.”
“Do you know where I’ve been these past few days?”
Groebke studied him for a moment. Then he said, “Against orders from your own boss, you have been investigating the matter of the dead German found by your railroad tracks. You left town as part of this investigation. That’s all LaCouture and I know. And eventually, you will be punished for that … oversight.”
“Even with that, you want me?”
“Yes, we do. We have come to depend on what you can provide for us.”
“That’s bullshit,” Sam said.
“Excuse? Bull what?”
“Crap, nonsense, that’s what I meant. Any cop on the force can do what I’m doing for you. Which is why what you said is crap.”
Groebke reached over to the package. “You may call it whatever you like, Herr Miller, but there is work to be done. And here. Some breakfast for you.”
Sam took the paper bag, looked into it. A cardboard container of coffee, a plain doughnut. Groebke said, “After being with your police after all this time, I think I know what you like, am I right?”
Sam looked at Groebke, the smooth features, the blue eyes, the blond hair. In his mind’s eye, he saw other things. The SS men at the Burdick camp. The newsreels of German troops burning and slashing their way through Europe and Russia. The photos he had seen yesterday of the massacre of the innocents.
Sam dropped the bag at Groebke’s feet, the coffee spilling through the brown paper. “You don’t know shit.”
* * *
The scent of Groebke’s cologne was strong in the confines of Sam’s Packard as he drove to the Rockingham Hotel. Groebke said, “Your punishment—has it begun with your haircut?”
“No,” Sam said, holding the steering wheel firmly with both hands, feeling self-conscious for a moment, that his sleeve may slip and reveal the tattoo.
“I see. And why did you get this haircut, then?”
“None of your business.” Sam slowed for a checkpoint up ahead. There was a striped wooden barrier across the road, two MPs and a Portsmouth cop he recognized as Steve Josephs, one of the newer guys on the force. The MPs saw the cardboard pass on the dashboard, lifted the barrier, and waved the car through. The streets were nearly deserted.
After a bit, Groebke said, “Such a drive, with not much to say.”
A flood of memories started churning through Sam, all tinged with the memory of that sickening fear of being in the camp, of not knowing if he would ever get out, would ever get to see Sarah and Toby again.
Sam said, “There’s not much to say to someone like you. The Gestapo. Secret police. Torturers, killers.”
Groebke scratched at his clean-shaven chin. “Oh, yes. How we’re portrayed in the cinema, in books. But we are mostly cops, Herr Miller. Enforcing the laws.”
“What do you know about cops?”
“That’s what I was years ago,” the German said reflectively. “A cop in a Bavarian village, taking complaints, investigating burglaries, part of the Kriminalpolizei. That’s all I wanted to do, eh? Be a cop. But in 1936 changes came—all of the police forces came under the rule of the state, under Himmler, and the Kriminalpolizei, we were absorbed into the Gestapo. That’s what happened to me.”
“Sounds ordinary. But however you call it, you’re still Gestapo.”
Groebke said mildly, “Yes, still Gestapo. The stories about torture, killing, it’s just a minor part. The rest is police work. Do you understand? Just cops doing the job of their government. It’s what I do. It’s what you do.”
“Sure,” Sam said, hearing the bitterness in his voice. “And what about the Jews? Being slaughtered by the tens of thousands, branded, dumped into camps. Is that just a job?”
Another checkpoint, with two cars ahead. Groebke pointed to the left. The city’s sole synagogue was there, boarded and shut, covered in posters of President Long. “Your Jews … no longer here, eh? In ghettos in New York, Miami, California. So let us speak of death, then, Sam. Who slaughtered the red Indian last century, who stole their lands and put them on reservations? Who is shooting auto workers in Detroit, fruit pickers in Oregon, strikers in Manhattan, yes? Your own hands, how clean are they, Herr Miller? Did you not participate a few days ago in a … a cleansing, is that the word? Of refugees and undesirables? And are these people not on their way to camps because of you? Of your job? Yes?”
The first car moved, then the second. Sam eased the Packard to the checkpoint. Groebke continued, “I do not judge you for what you do. I may judge your government, but not you. We are similar, you and I. Our nations. We each have made empires on the back of other peoples. We each have destinies. Even our symbols are the same. The eagle, yes? And our Führer, he is a great admirer of your industry, so much that his private train, it is called Amerika. Amerikan Eagle, both of our nations, so similar.”
Sam kept quiet.
“So, our nations—so similar, like you and I. So please extend me some courtesy, ja?”
The MP waved them through, and Sam shot forward so fast he almost ran over the man’s booted foot.
* * *
As Sam and Groebke walked toward the Rockingham Hotel, Groebke lit a cigarette with a gold lighter and said, “You know, I so love your tobacco. You cannot believe what we are forced to smoke back home—street sweepings, leftovers from France and Turkey. It’s a good thing our countries will become friends, eh?”
“Don’t count on it lasting,” Sam said. “Long isn’t one to be trusted. Also, we remember what Hitler did with Stalin. Peace treaty in ’39, invasion in ’41.”
“You believe, then, no honor among thieves, eh?”
“Sure seems that way.”
Up the granite steps of the hotel, with MPs checking everyone’s identification, and as Sam displayed his police ID, he thought of what Groebke had said earlier.
They needed him.
The FBI and the Gestapo.
And the Portsmouth Police Department. His own boss in full-dress uniform as a colonel of the National Guard, had come out—or was he sent?—to retrieve Sam from Burdick.
Why? Why was he needed?
Groebke put his identification away as they went into the crowded lobby. “So it is, eh? Paperwork and records, such is the way we all must operate,” he remarked.
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Paperwork.
Records.
What had Sean said back at the labor camp?
Everything. They know everything about you, all of your records, everything.
Some records, as he went with Groebke up to the second floor, he was sure his records—
Tony.
What would be in Tony’s records?
His arrest, of course, and his time in the illegal union at the shipyard, trying to make it all right after Dad’s death, and more, of course. The Gestapo and the FBI, they were relentlessly thorough. He had no doubt that they had pawed through his files all the way back to high school, grammar school, hell, even the Boy Scouts. Tony’s three merit badges. Sam remembered each of them, remembered how he had teased Tony about being such a lazy son of a gun, until one night Tony had slugged him in the coal room, where they had gone to get a bucket to keep the furnace going.
First aid. Astronomy.
And the third one, the one Tony had delighted in most, a craft he had continued to enjoy years later and which he still missed. Hell, hadn’t Tony even told him so during their last talk?
Sweet Jesus, he thought. Sweet holy Jesus.
“Come,” Groebke said, “let’s get to work.”
He followed the Gestapo man into Suite Twelve.
LaCouture sat at the round desk, his feet up, the polished black shoes and white spats looking as if he had just stepped off an MGM soundstage. He was looking at some papers and raised his eyes as they entered. “Glad you could make it, Inspector. Tell me, did you enjoy your time off? I hope so. For Christ’s sake, you’ve gotten us behind. And shit, look at that haircut of yours.” He glanced back down at the papers.
Sam walked over to the desk. LaCouture looked up. “Didn’t you hear what I said, boy?”
“I did, and I don’t particularly care.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I’m done here. I’m no longer an errand boy.”
LaCouture grinned. “Pretty bold talk for a boy who’s been AWOL a few days, comes back with his hair trimmed and bruises on his face. Somethin’ bad happen to you, boy? Hmm? You go somewhere you weren’t suppose to, got tuned up a bit?”
“None of your business,” Sam shot back.
“Everything’s my business, Sam. You’d be surprised at what I know. Like where you live. Like that commie ex–college professor illegally livin’ at your house. Shame, your house gettin’ broke into the other night. Some of Long’s Legionnaires, it looks like, figured you were a shithead and decided to pay you a visit. You piss off any Legionnaires lately? Still feel like you’re not an errand boy, Inspector?”
“I know why you’re here,” Sam said. “I also know why I’ve been picked to work with you.”
LaCouture’s smile didn’t falter. “You do, do you? Why don’t you tell us?”
“You’re here because of my brother. He’s escaped from the Iroquois Labor Camp. You’re looking for Tony.”
There was a brief look between the Gestapo agent and the FBI agent. LaCouture said, “What makes you say that?”
“Because you hammered a file clerk from my police department who knows you were looking at his records. Because you said something about Tony being right from the start. Meaning you were looking at his paper trail from way back when. When he got his merit badge for marksmanship, when he was head of the shooting team in high school. He’s good with a rifle, he’s been a hunter all his life, and I’m sure you know he’s here in Portsmouth, right ahead of the summit.”
LaCouture’s eyes stayed locked on his. Sam continued, “And here you are. An FBI agent and a Gestapo agent. Why the Gestapo? To protect Hitler, that’s why. And you’re here to follow me to Tony.”
The words scalded Sam’s throat, but he said them. “My brother … he’s going to assassinate Hitler tomorrow, isn’t he?”
LaCouture looked to the Gestapo man, looked to Sam, and then set his papers down and straightened in his chair. “Very good, Inspector. Welcome aboard. You’re no longer just an errand boy.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Groebke muttered something in German, and LaCouture replied. In English, LaCouture said, “All right, where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you’ve seen him.”
“Twice since he escaped. Once in a city park and another time at my house.”
“Did he say what he was doing here?”
“No, of course not,” Sam said. “He said he was just biding his time. Ready to go someplace else once the summit was over and the heat died down.”
Groebke spoke up. “You kept this a secret from the authorities? Even though it is a serious offense?”
Sam tried to ignore the Gestapo agent. “He’s my brother. What else was I going to do?”
The German persisted. “This brother of yours. He is intent upon killing the most important man the German nation has ever produced, and you chose not to help us?”
Sam said sharply, “Just a few minutes ago, on my own, I determined Tony was here to kill Hitler, genius. If the two of you had let me in on what was going on, maybe I could have helped you. But you decided to keep your secrets. Why’s that?”
“Procedures, policies,” the FBI man said. “We were told to keep an eye on you, to keep you close, but I guess it’s not a secret. Speaking of secrets, why give him up now? Why not keep it to yourself?”
“Because I’ve seen what’s out there. All those cops, National Guardsmen, Interior Department goons—I don’t want him killed on some stupid suicide mission.”
“Aren’t you being the good brother.” LaCouture said. It wasn’t a question.
Sam ignored his condescension. “Whatever you say. But an assassination? Who’s behind it?”
Groebke said something quick in German and LaCouture listened, cocked his head for a moment, then told Sam, “A variety of troublemakers, we’re sure. Communists, either homegrown American Reds or NKVD agents sent here from the Soviet Union. It’s impossible to get at Hitler on his home turf. Many have tried, and all have failed. But in the States, it’s easy for someone to blend into a crowd. So probably the Russians. But maybe the Jews. Or the Brits, French, Poles … Christ, the guy’s pissed off enough people, could be any of the above!”
“And my brother?”
“An ideal choice,” LaCouture said, and once the FBI man started talking, Sam knew with a sick feeling how right he was. “A good hunter. A union organizer in jail for opposing the government. Someone whose hatred of Hitler and the quote, oppressors, unquote, is well known. And someone who knows Portsmouth like the back of his hand. An ideal combination, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sam could only nod. LaCouture said, “We have no doubt someone helped get him out of Fort Drum. There’s been an FBI squad up there for weeks, interrogating prisoners. And he had help getting to Portsmouth. We know there’s a conspiracy, we know who the shooter is, and we know the target. Now we must stop it.”
LaCouture picked up his cup of coffee. “Your little city and the Navy Yard are now the most tightly controlled and secure area in North America. In addition to your fine police force”—LaCouture’s voice dripped with sarcasm—“we have the New Hampshire State Police, the Maine State Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of Interior, the navy, and oh, yes, a contingent of marines from the Navy Yard. Not to mention the Gestapo, the SS, the SD, the RSHA, and all those other German-alphabet security forces. All of them here to protect President Long and Chancellor Hitler. There’s no way your brother will get close enough to do any harm. Not in a million years. However …”
Groebke leaned forward and spoke again in German, but LaCouture ignored him. “However, this is still a delicate time, having the summit in Portsmouth. Besides your nutball brother, we have Jews, Communists, labor leaders, the press, and every asshole who thinks he has a grudge against Long or the Nazis planning to be here. Fine.”
LaCouture put his cup down, clattering it in the saucer. “But what’s not fine is you
r brother, who knows this city backward and forward, making trouble and bad press. Trust me, Inspector, the President knows exactly what kind of press he wants for these next couple days. He wants a new era of peace and understanding between the Long administration and the Third Reich. He wants trade agreements that put millions of Americans back to work. And if it helps crush the Bolsheviks, than that’s just a nice bit of extra credit, isn’t it?”
“I see,” Sam said, looking to Groebke. “First killing the Jews, then killing the Bolshies. Some credit.”
Groebke smiled. “Nobody cares. That’s what I read in your newspapers, hear on your radio broadcasts. It’s Europe’s business, not yours. We can do anything we want and the world doesn’t give a shit. Except the Reds.”
LaCouture frowned, “You’re off point, Inspector. I agree with Hans. Europeans have been slaughtering each other in creative ways for thousands of years. Why should we care how they’re doing it this year? We care about us. All the closed banks and businesses, all those damn hobo camps. With a few signatures and a trade agreement, all that’s gonna change. You and me and Hans here, along with everybody else guarding this town, are going to make sure your brother doesn’t fuck that up. Got it?”
Sam said, “Yeah, I got it. But one condition.”
LaCouture crossed his legs. “Not sure if you’re in a position to ask for conditions, but go ahead. Amuse me.”
Sam knew it was a long shot, but still he had to say it. “I don’t want Tony hurt or killed. Just pick him up and bring him back to the labor camp. Let him serve out his sentence.”
LaCouture laughed. “That was two conditions.”
“One condition, two conditions, I don’t care,” Sam said. “That’s what I want. Nothing bad to happen to Tony.”
