“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
“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
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 Fuhrer, he is a great admirer of your industry, so much that his private train, it is called
Sam kept quiet.
“So, our nations—so similar, like you and I. So please extend me some courtesy,
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.
Paperwork.
Records.
What had Sean said back at the labor camp?
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?
“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.”
