LaCouture said, “With you whining all the time, how can I fucking forget?”
The Bow Street generating station was a five-story brick building that held coal-fired generators for Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest utility. After parking in a space between two army jeeps, Sam made his way through another set of checkpoints and guard stations. From one MP he got directions to the roof. There was no creaky elevator like the one from his visit to the shipyard, just a set of concrete steps going up and up and up. Along the way there was the sound of the generators, a constant hum that seemed to burrow into his ears. He felt out of time, out of place, wondering where his brother was, wondering how Sarah and Toby were doing, dreading what might happen on this supposedly historic day.
When he reached the roof, it felt as if his chest was going to explode, and he stopped to catch his breath as he took everything in. Amid piping and vent shafts, there was a group of men at the eastern side, closest to the river and the harbor. He walked across the tar-paper roof, his shoes making grinding noises among the tiny stones.
About a dozen men, mostly marines in fatigues and soft caps, kept watch over the harbor. A fat man with a sweaty face and a soft homburg pushed on the back of his head came over. His white shirt was sweated through, and his black tie fluttered weakly in the breeze. “You Inspector Miller?” he asked, his voice tired.
“That’s right,” Sam said, shaking the man’s moist hand.
“Name’s Morneau, Department of the Interior.” He motioned Sam to join him. “For the rest of this day, this stretch of overheated paradise belongs to me and these poor leathernecks.”
Binoculars on tripods were set up along the roof edge, and the marines were slowly transversing them, gazing out on the waters. Just about a hundred yards or so away was the Memorial Bridge, and from the rooftop, all of the shipyard and most of the harbor was visible. Nearby a metal table had been set up, and other marines sat in front of radio gear, headphones clasped over their ears. Two marines were sitting on the edge of the roof, chewing gum, scoped rifles in their arms. The rest of the squad sat a bit distant from them, as if they didn’t like being so close to the snipers, hunters waiting patiently for targets.
Morneau blew his nose into his soiled handkerchief as a marine with sergeant’s stripes broke away from the binocular stands and came over, his face friendly but bright pink, as though his blood pressure was twice that of a normal man.
“Sergeant Chesak,” he said, and another round of handshakes ensued.
Sam said, “Can one of you tell me what’s going on here?”
The marine looked to the Department of Interior man, and Morneau said, “There’s about a half dozen observation posts here and across the river, most of them with overlapping fields of view. Our post has the most area to cover, which is why we’ve got the most spotters.” He pointed to the binoculars. “Spotters look for anything that don’t belong. Boats popping out of nowhere, people walking where they shouldn’t, that sort of thing. Anything suspicious”—and he cast a thumb toward the radiomen—“gets put out on the net, and then it’s taken care of.”
“And those fellows?” Sam gestured to the two snipers.
Morneau grinned. “Only a handful of places where there can be guys with guns. We know those places. Our spotters find anybody else out there with a rifle or pistol or somethin’ that don’t look right, and me and the sergeant concur, and the snipers get to work. Those boys are from Georgia. Stone-cold killers, you can be sure. They see any guy out there with a gun who don’t belong, they’ll blow his fucking head off.”
One of the spotters backed away from his vantage point. “Care to take a look, sir?”
“Thanks,” Sam said. He pressed his eyes to the soft rubber of the eyepiece. The shipyard snapped into view, the buildings, the cranes, the sleek dark gray hulls of the submarines being built. Flags were flapping in the morning breeze, the red, white, and blue contrasting with the red, white, and black. With the high power of the binoculars, it was easy to make out the dock set up to receive Hitler and his delegation: The platform was practically overwhelmed with bunting and banners. White-clad U.S. Navy officers stood on one side of the dock, while another group—dressed in white pants and gray jackets, the Navy’s counterparts in the
He swiveled the binoculars, looked out to the harbor entrance, where he could just make out the
Hard to even think it. His brother. Here to kill him.
Sam backed away, looked to the spotter, a man in his late teens, thin and tanned, with a prominent Adam’s apple. Sam gestured at the Nazi flags flying on the street corners and from the girders of the Memorial Bridge. “Hell of a sight.”
The marine was wiping down the lens with a soft gray cloth. “What do you mean by that, sir?”
“Hitler and his Nazi buddies coming here, to an American navy yard. You must hate seeing that Nazi flag.”
“Don’t bother me none.” The marine bent, put his face to the binoculars again. “What bothers me… it’s my ma and pa and younger brothers. I’m from Oklahoma originally, sir, and you see, the dust bowl drove us out of our farm. Grew up in a hobo camp in California, outside Salinas. A real shitty place. We got treated no better than dogs. Picking peaches and apples for fifty cents a day. I’m the oldest, so I got into the marines, send most of my paycheck home every month. If having Hitler and Long meet means my pa and my brothers can get jobs in those new aircraft factories, that’s fine with me.”
Sam folded his arms, said nothing, and the marine pulled his head back. “Sounds bad, don’t it? I know what the Nazis done in Europe and England and Russia… and how they treat their Jews… but you know what? Me and my family, we don’t live in Europe, we ain’t Jews, and we need jobs. Simple as that.”
“Maybe it’s not that simple.” Sam looked down at his sleeve-covered wrist, sensing the tattoo representing everything hidden and rotten about Burdick and the secret camps.
The young marine shrugged. “Maybe, but all I know is this: Me and my buds, we see a guy with a gun gonna screw up this deal, we’ll kill him deader than last year’s calendar.”
INTERLUDE X
For the first time in a long, long time, he was walking in daylight, right on the sidewalks of his hometown. His back felt exposed, as though at any moment, he might receive a punch back there, or a gunshot square in the spine. He had on a suit and tie, and it had been years since he had worn anything so fancy, and the clothing itched something awful.
In daylight, Portsmouth looked nice enough, but there were too few people and too many cops and National Guardsmen, and men in suits and snap-brim hats with a hard-edged look about them.
A uniformed National Guardsman wearing a round campaign hat and a holstered pistol and Sam Browne belt stepped from a doorway, joined by a man in a dark brown suit. The civilian said, “Afternoon, sir, just doing a routine check. Can you show me some identification, please?”
He paused, put his hand slowly inside his coat jacket, pulled out a thin leather wallet, passed it over, thinking,
The civilian opened the wallet, glanced inside, looked up, and passed it back. “Sorry to bother you, sir. Go right ahead.”
He smiled back, thinking,
He waved back, walked into the building as if he owned the place, and in a few more minutes, he was where he wanted to be, where he had to be. The floor was wooden and one of the planks seemed loose. He pried the plank up with his pocketknife, found a blanket-wrapped shape underneath. He pulled the blanket away, exposing a long cardboard box.
