CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
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
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.”
INTERLUDE VIII
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:
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
