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.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
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.
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.
He tossed the torn handbook back into the pile. Some accomplishment, some record. Eagle Scout, quarterback, cop, sergeant, probationary inspector, and a freed inmate from a secret concentration camp.
It was time for bed.
In the morning Sam got dressed slowly, ignoring the raw marks on his hands. He thought about Barracks Six, going to work in the ice box confines of the quarry. He was hungry and surprised at how deep he had slept. No nightmares this time, just a sleep so deep that he woke up tired, not refreshed at all. When he was dressed, he did one more thing, as much as it disgusted him: With chilled fingers, he put the Confederate-flag pin on his lapel.
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. “
“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—
“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?”
