'We should be, too' I McFedrics actually chortled.
'If you can rig a jury, so can we He beamed.
'I'd say we can put you away for thirty years, Sandler.
Maybe forty. And our hotshot mouthpiece here will do seven or eight.
In the bargain you lose your property and your crazy sister lands in a padded room. Think it over,'-he offered calmly.
Sandler looked at McFedrics.
'All right. What do you want?'
'Help 'From me? 'asked Sandler.
'You want help from me?'
'You and your government are in a position to help each other,' said McFedrics slowly.
'You know your way in and out of Germany rather well. You speak the language perfectly. You know German society. German business. Even the military.'
'So?'
'So you are in a unique position' said M@Fedries.
'You can contact German agents within the United States. As an American with access to money and power, you can offer help to them.
Eventually, when and if the United States becomes involved in Europe, you will choose to flee. You will return to Germany. And you will continue to work for this government Sandler sat there feeling the screws turn and wondering if it was actually happening. Then he looked at the four F.B.I. agents, his attorney, McFedrics, and the locked door.
'You fucking bastards ' he cursed in a low bitter voice.
McFedrics sat down and hauled his feet up onto the desk.
'I'm glad you see it our way,' he said.
'After all, it's us or prison. And when it's all over Uncle Sam will owe you a favor or two.'
Thomas Daniels's legs were stiff from sitting and listening. The sun outside had vanished under an afternoon's worth of clouds. The Nantucket sky had changed from blue to gray.
'So thirty-five years ago Arthur Sandler was recruited as a U.S. spy,' said Thomas.
'And my father could have gone to jail for jury tampering. So what?'
Zenger smiled.
'That's only half of it. Sandler turned out to be an excellent spy, far surpassing anyone's expectations. It's remarkable ' he chuckled, 'how the criminal in society is always so patriotic. But then again, Sandler didn't just have a lot to lose. He had a lot to gain.'
Meaning?'
'Sandler was, or is, a man of endless ingenuity. He could always emerge from a situation in a position of maximum strength. For example, within one year of the time he was recruited 'The end of 1941?'
'Yes. By that time he was the number-two German intelligence agent in New York. And he had the perfect cover. A third-generation American businessman with a chunk of the established order in America. But Sandler was never content in a subservient role. And yet he could only move up to be head of New York operations if tragedy should befall Karl Hunsicker, the number-one agent. So Sandler studied Hunsicker. He learned the man's habits. And he arranged the perfect accident.'
Zenger cleared his throat. A slight smile crossed his face as he continued.
'Hunsicker was a meticulously clean man who bathed before midnight each evening. Lived in a duplex floor through in an old apartment building at Eighty-fourth and Second. In the bathroom there was a large electric heater, equipped with a cone-shaped wire coil at its center.
Sandler called on Hunsicker late one evening.'
Adolph Zenger, apparently amused, toyed with the handle of his cane again. His eyes twinkled.
'Hunsicker got his hot bath that night, all right. They found him two mornings later, still sharing his bathwater with the heater. But, hell. He was up to no good, that damned Nazi. Civic improvement.'
'What happened to Sandler?' Thomas Daniels asked.
'He was moved up to number one in New York. Then about two months later things got hot for several Axis agents in the northeast.
Several of them were recalled to Germany. Sandler went'home'with them, traveling first to Mexico, where a submarine picked him up.
Fine instruments, those submarines,' he added parenthetically.
Then he concluded,
'Ultimately, Sandler drifted into German intelligence. Doing what, I don't know. He was a chemist, an engraver, a financier, and a pretty fair assassin. A man like that might have many uses..
Zenger hesitated, then actually stopped. His attention seemed to lag abruptly, his gaze drifting out the window to the ocean beyond.
'Funny thing about those submarines,' he said. A slight pause, then,
'Do you know that this island was blockaded during the war?
Sometimes bathers could see smoke rising on the horizon. U.S. merchant boats torpedoed by Hitler's submarines.'
The man's eyes were sad and distant.
'Fucking foreigners' Zenger grumbled.
'Do you know what you can see from these windows now? Fishing fleets!
Foreign fishing fleets, especially the Commie ones, catching everything that swims.
Imagine. They come in here and catch American fish and we don't do a damned thing' He thought about it.
'Ought to blow their fishing tubs right out of the water,' he concluded.
'Send out our Coast Guard ' 'What about Victoria?' Thomas asked.
Zenger puffed his cheeks thoughtfully.
'She got along. Thanks to estate management by Zenger and Daniels.'
The old man managed a sly grin.
'Naturally,' said Thomas.
'The money was there 'Interesting point ' said Zenger quickly.
'The money wasn't there.
No one had ever suspected, but the Sandler family had been almost flat broke' Thomas frowned.
'How could they have been?'
'Taxes. They were land poor. Real-estate assessments were eating up the money as fast as Arthur Sandler could make it. After the war it was a different story. When he came home in 1946 he was loaded again.
He had millions. And it couldn't have been through his companies.
They'd stagnated' 'The government?' asked Thomas.
'Maybe ' said Zenger.
'But there's a darker possibility. Somehow he made a fortune during the war. The logical guess is that he continued to do it after the war.' Zenger paused. The excitement was gone from his eyes.
'Whatever it was, I didn't know then and I don't want to know now.'
Zenger looked at Thomas carefully, then added, 'Your father knew. But he never told ' Thomas rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He got to his feet, stretched, and walked to the window. He watched the water in the distance, as if in thought over how to phrase the next question.
'What about the man who was killed in 1954?' Thomas asked.
'Obviously it wasn't Sandler.'
Zenger shook his head, almost sadly.
'No, of course not. Sometime after the war, early on in the fifties, some former members of Axis intelligence discovered that Sandler had sabotaged a major operation in Austria. There were a few old Nazis around North America and they attempted their retribution. Twice they came close enough to shoot at Sandler. Twice they missed. Sandler used his government contacts to gain time. He asked for a stand-in, someone to pose as him. He got one. And while the double remained in New York, Sandler traveled to Oslo, where he laundered his identity. A
