trains came in, filled with your enemies, and everything they had was seized, and then they disappeared. They just disappeared. Your enemies came in full and alive, and then they didn’t exist anymore, and what a wonderful thing. We’ve barely begun here in the States, Inspector. We’ve just barely started to catch up to what the Germans can do, and they’re going to teach us so very much in the years ahead.”
Sam stayed silent.
“Do you understand now? Do you?” LaCouture pressed.
Sam looked up, thought of his tattoo, of Burdick, of Sarah and Toby, of his betrayed and murdered brother. “Yeah. I understand everything.”
He swung the binoculars at the end of their leather strap, breaking LaCouture’s nose.
LaCouture howled, brought both hands up to his bloodied face, and Sam dropped the binoculars, was back in high school, tackling the Southern son of a bitch, pounding him against the walls of the steeple, now on the filthy floor. He started punching the bastard in the ribs, in the jaw, in the ribs again, punching, flailing, getting punched in return, footsteps, shouts, and he was yanked up and off LaCouture, breathing hard, sobbing, one cheek bleeding, FBI agents holding him back.
LaCouture struggled to his feet, a lace-edged handkerchief against his face, smeared with blood. Sam wasn’t thinking, was just trying to break free, to get at the FBI guy, the one who had killed his brother, imprisoned his family. LaCouture came up to him, speaking thickly. “Through… that’s it… you and your family… they ain’t never gettin’ out of that camp, not ever, and you’ll be with ’em before sundown, your wife and kid… they’ll get beat up and raped, and it’s all your fault, fool, all your stupid fault, asshole…”
Sam tried to get at him again, and LaCouture said, “Out. Get him out of here.”
Sam tried to at least to spit in the FBI man’s face, but two agents were already dragging him through the door.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
He sat still, cheek bleeding, wrists aching, heart aching, everything aching. He was in the back of one of the FBI’s Ford sedans, handcuffed, deposited there by the FBI agents who had dragged him down from the steeple. A brother killed in a supposed plot to assassinate Hitler, and here he was, in a parking lot near the North Church with other FBI sedans and army trucks, waiting. Arrested for assaulting an FBI agent, and not just any agent—the agent who had saved Hitler’s life on this vital summit.
He shifted his weight, conscious of the pain in his body and of the tears that would not stop. His brother. Angry, committed, and blindly dedicated Tony. His burning sense of righteousness used against him in a plot he believed would set everything straight but in the end just made it worse. Sam could imagine President Long, bragging to Hitler about the plot, showing him the afternoon headlines, proving how dedicated the Americans were to this new arrangement, this new world order. Like LaCouture said, this new wave was about to drown the old ways of democracy and individual liberty.
Damn that Tony, ready to sacrifice Sarah and Toby to kill Hitler. What right did he have?
That bastard. Because of him, they would all be in a labor camp. He lowered his head. He couldn’t stop crying.
The rear car door opened, and Sam looked over, bracing for another blow.
“Inspector,” Hans Groebke said, his eyes emotionless behind his glasses.
“Come here to gloat?”
“Hardly.” The Gestapo man held up a tiny key. “If you lean forward, I will release you.”
Sam stared at the man. “Not a chance. Get me uncuffed, and then I’m shot while trying to escape. Oldest trick you clowns have come up with.”
Groebke shook his head. “No, no trick. Lean forward, I will uncuff you. And then we can talk for a moment before I send you on your way.”
Sam struggled to gauge what was going on behind those quiet blue eyes, and then he gave up. He was just too damn tired. They’d finally defeated him. He had no fight left in him. He leaned forward. Groebke bent toward him, and there was a
“Sure,” Sam said bitterly. “You assholes used my brother as a tool, set him up. He had no chance at all. You got him out of the labor camp and here to Portsmouth, where he could get killed like a dumb cow at a slaughterhouse.”
Groebke shook his head. He took out a packet of Lucky Strike cigarettes, pumped one out. “No, that was LaCouture’s business. Not mine.”
“Oh? What was your business?”
A wry smile as he placed the cigarette between his lips and lit it with a gold lighter. “To see that your brother succeeded. And in that, I failed very much indeed. I knew of many things, but not of the disabled rifle.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam demanded.
“Sorry, I thought I made it clear. Although I will always deny that this conversation ever took place. You see, I wanted your brother to succeed, to kill my chancellor. That’s why I was here in Portsmouth, to make such things happen… to keep an eye on you… and to assist your brother if necessary. But I failed. He was contacted by LaCouture and his crew, the disabled rifle was provided, and now Hitler, that beast, will live, and many more innocents will die.”
“But… you’re goddamn
“True. But first, remember, I am a cop. Just like you. A cop in a small Bavarian village, with obligations and duties, until I was promoted to where I am, eh? So what you see, what you think you see, may not always be the truth.”
“Some goddamn cop!”
“But I am also a German patriot, Inspector,” Groebke said quietly. “There are not many of us left, but we have tried to kill that monster. What he is doing to the innocents, in the camps and in the cities, he is doing in the name of the German people. If we lose this war, our name and our culture will be stained for a thousand generations times a thousand.”
Sam was speechless. Groebke took another drag of his cigarette. “But there are other reasons. I had a brother, too. He was killed in the British landings. And for what? For the ravings of a madman who has the power to seize a people and their destiny.”
The Gestapo man turned slightly, as if he were trying to see the shipyard through the nearby buildings. “Now my madman is meeting your madman, to divide the world between them, to make it a place for their visions and appetites. And the one chance we had today, that single chance, is no more.” Groebke dropped his cigarette on the pavement, twisted a foot hard against it.
“Thanks for cutting me loose,” Sam told him. “I owe you one. But I’m going to be in a labor camp before this day is over.”
The German smiled. “It will be, as you Americans say, handled. Your FBI man, I have learned some things about him and his trip to my home country, and he owes me some things as well. Don’t worry, Inspector. You won’t be in a labor camp. He and I will no longer be in your lives.”
“My wife and boy…”
“I will try, but I don’t think I have that influence,” Groebke said. “Maybe later, but believe me, it is safer for them to be there and not here. I wouldn’t go to the camp to get them out by yourself—that would be far too dangerous. Too easy for you to get arrested there. Go back to your police station, Inspector. Your job here is done.”
Sam didn’t move. His cheeks were still wet from his tears. “Why are you telling me all of this? What’s the point?”
Groebke shrugged. “LaCouture and the others, they think of me as the perfect Gestapo officer, eh? But you —I wanted you, Inspector Miller, to know who I really am, so when I leave this country, I will have the satisfaction that at least one American knows the real Hans Groebke. This is for you as well.”
The Gestapo man reached into his coat pocket and took out a revolver. Sam recognized it as his own. He
