Amerikan Eagle (37 page)

“You’re here in full National Guard uniform in order to gain access. That means you have pull in a place that doesn’t officially exist. Which means you must know why it’s here.”

That brought a thin smile. “Thanks for your vote of confidence.” Hanson waited, let a breath out, and said, “It’s a couple of years old. It started small and then grew once it became apparent it was a deal that worked to everyone’s advantage.”

“Must be one hell of a deal,” Sam said. “How did it start?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I deserve to know, that’s why. And you know I’m right.”

A pause. “It began in occupied Paris, with a trade delegation led by the secretary of the Treasury, Morgenthau. Probably the smartest Cabinet officer Long’s got. He’s also done his best since the war to get more Jewish
refugees here, with no success. Too much resistance from Congress and everybody else. Nobody wanted them here, competing for jobs and housing. But in Paris, Morgenthau and some businessmen came upon a train shipping French Jews out to the east. There was a confrontation, and the ranking SS officer said to Morgenthau, ‘Fine, you’re so concerned about the Jews, take them.’ Which is what he did. They got off the train and found their way here.”

Sam said, “The news I saw before I came here said Morgenthau couldn’t get any more Jews into the country. He’s been trying and trying.”

“Sure, publicly,” Hanson said. “But he and his friends in industry have been doing it secretly for years. All that stuff you hear on the radio or see in the newsreels about him fighting Congress is all a lie. He makes a fuss in public, while in private, he makes it happen.”

“How do they get here?”

Hanson said, “After England was defeated, the Germans took possession of one of the largest merchant fleets in the world. English ships, crewed by Germans and a few American overseers to make sure the Jews arrive here alive, bring them over. They land in military ports, so security is maintained.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Sam said.

“When you get right down to it, the Germans want the Jews out of Europe, by either expelling them or killing them,” Hanson explained. “Hell, even the guy running the SS, Himmler, said something like that in a book a year or two back, about sending all the Jews overseas. They’re only doing worse to them because they can’t ship them out easily.”

“But the expense …”

“Sam, the Germans are locked in a death struggle with the Soviets. Once the offer was made for us to take the Jews, what made sense to them? To use their army and their train systems to ship Jews to concentration camps out to the occupied east, or to use their army and their train systems to supply the eastern front against the Russians?”

“And the secretary of the Treasury went along with this?”

“Morgenthau eventually came up with the arrangement, as tough as it was. The Jews would come here secretly, not as refugees but as labor. The Nazis get their Jew-free Europe, and we get workers.”

“Slave labor, you mean.”

“They get paid.”

“A dollar a week!”

Hanson said, “Which is more than they got back in Europe. A few thousand came out here at first, to work in some copper pits in Montana, and it started succeeding. They’re hard workers, Sam, happy to be here and not there. They clear lumber, work in mines, quarries, and even some scientific facilities and shipbuilding. So money was made, and you know how President Long operates. He gets a kickback on everything, just like when he was governor. Donations were made to his campaign funds as well as the program grew.”

“Money? This is all for money?”

Hanson nodded. “Yes, money, as crass as that might sound. For Christ’s sake, this country is broke. It’s been broke for years—even with Long’s nutty wealth confiscation and redistribution plans and everything else, we’re
broke. We’ve been in this Depression for over a decade. So the country needs money. These laborers make money for exports. Hard currency. Money we couldn’t get if those jobs went to the regular workforce at regular wages.”

“Why can’t the money be used to put people back to work?”

Hanson had a grim look on his face. “What’s worth more to Long and the Party? Free Americans working at real jobs, or Americans on the dole who have to sign a loyalty oath to get relief money, who’ll vote the right way when the time comes?”

“Sweet Jesus,” Sam muttered.

“Some of the money goes to other things as well. You’re a smart fellow, Sam. Look around your hometown, you’ll see where it goes.”

Sam didn’t know what Hanson was getting at, and then it came to him. The Navy Yard. The fleet expansion. The new buildings, cranes, docks …

“For the military? That’s it?”

“Mostly,” Hanson said. “But it goes to other places as well. Some relief. Road and bridge work. The President and his boys get their cut, as well as the Party. Sam, Long is a fat, drinking, whoring criminal who happens to be our President and will be our President for the foreseeable future. But the future has something else waiting for us, and it’s a man with a funny mustache and an army uniform. Once Hitler crushes Russia and takes a breath, he’s going to look across the Atlantic. Maybe his slant-eyed friends in Tokyo will look across the Pacific at the same time. So we need to be ready.”

“This summit deal coming up with Long and Hitler,”
Sam said. “There’s more than just money being made. We’re going to get our aircraft and arms factories up and running so we can be ready down the line—is that it?”

Hanson said, “True. And these poor Jews, they’re our seed corn. Our way of funding what we can … and there’s the humanitarian side.”

Sam laughed. “Humanitarian! Are you out of your mind?”

“No, I’m not. Every Jew here is a Jew that’s saved.”

“Some saved,” Sam said. “Worked hard, barely dressed, barely fed—”

“But saved nonetheless, compared to what awaits them in Europe,” Hanson insisted. “Morgenthau doesn’t like it much, either, even though he’s running the program, but … it’s better to be here, overworked and underfed, than to be back in Europe, slaughtered.”

Sam kept quiet. He didn’t know what else to say. Hanson sighed. “Look, Sam. You’re in a very dangerous position. You now know one of this country’s deepest and darkest secrets. And you need to tell me: What do you plan to do about it if you get out?”

Sam said, “Nothing.” He waited, then added, “For the moment.”

Hanson said sharply, “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said,” Sam said, not liking the smooth way Hanson was talking, how comfortable and clean he looked in his uniform. Sam was sure his boss had eaten a good breakfast before coming here. Sam went on. “Maybe I’ll keep quiet. Maybe I won’t. Maybe the American people need to know what the hell their government is doing and how they’re treating refugees here. Maybe they have
a right to know these poor bastards are being worked nearly to death.”

“Who gave you that right to say anything?”

Sam said, “I’m a free American, that’s all the right I need.”

Hanson shook his head. “Maybe that was right years ago. But not now. And you’re making an assumption. That you’re getting out of here.”

“You didn’t put on your dress uniform and travel a couple of hours by train to just to have a talk with me, did you?”

“That’s exactly what I did. To have a talk with you and see how smart you are. Let’s say Sam Miller, crusader of the truth and defender of whatever, convinces the
Boston Globe
or
New York Times
or
New York Herald Tribune
to break this story. What happens then?”

“I don’t know.”

Hanson reached into his uniform jacket, pulled out a sheaf of black-and-white photographs. “I’ll tell you what happens then. Chaos. Violence. The camps are discovered, and maybe some of our jobless, they break into these camps and beat up or kill the Jews because they’re stealing jobs at slave wages that they feel belong to true Americans. Maybe the ghettos in California and New York and Miami are attacked, and there’s a pogrom here in the United States. That’s one thing. The other is that the deal between Hitler and Long to ship the Jews here, the deal is dead. It only works if it’s kept a secret, and with the secret out, Long will drop it like the proverbial hot potato. Then the Jews stay in Europe. No more cargo ships across the Atlantic. This is what awaits them.
Look. I got these photographs from a friend of mine in army intelligence.”

The first photo showed a country landscape, a hillside overlooking a ditch. There were German soldiers, laughing, rifles in hand. The next photo showed a line of people herded into range. Men with long beards, young boys, grandmothers, women, some of the women carrying children, and young girls as well.

They were all naked.

Another photograph, Hanson silently dealing them out as if they were some obscene set of playing cards. Most of the men, desperately trying to be modest, cupped their genitals with their hands. The women held one open hand below their bellies, others holding an arm across their breasts, some of the women using the infants to shield them.

Another photo. Sam forced himself to look. The Germans had lined up in good military order, rifles up, and were shooting at the line of naked men, women, and children.

Shooting at them all. The rustling sound of photo paper was all that Sam could hear. Most of the naked men and women had fallen forward into the open ditch, but others had crumpled to the ground. An officer holding out a service pistol was standing in the pile of bodies, aiming down to shoot the nearest ones in the head.

The final photo. One German soldier, grinning widely, was kicking at the body of a bloody infant, as if kicking a football.

Hanson held that last photo out the longest, then put the photos back in his pocket. He wiped his hands together as if they had been soiled.

Sam looked away, bile in his throat. Hanson said softly, “We can’t save them all, Sam. But we can save a lot, and we can continue to save a lot. This truth gets out about the camps here in the United States, and the deal is done.”

“Deals?” Sam forced himself to speak, even though he felt like throwing up. “We’re making deals with a government and army that can do that?”

“We deal with who we have to, even if it’s the devil himself,” Hanson replied. “You saw those photos. If we hadn’t brought over the refugees working in this quarry, that’s the fate waiting for them.”

“But we’re better than that.”

“Maybe so, but none of us have clean hands. None of us.”

Sam said, “Speak for yourself.”

Hanson said carefully, “I like to keep a close eye on all my officers, both on duty and off duty. I don’t like surprises. The Police Commission doesn’t like surprises.”

“I’m sure.” The nausea had been replaced by something harder.

“So you know, there’s a limit to our interest, you realize. We know what’s on the streets of Portsmouth, the temptations, the flow of booze and money. We do what we can, and as a sergeant, you were pretty straight and narrow. But then there are circumstances that get to the level of us paying close attention.”

Sam looked out the window.

Hanson said, “Do you have any idea how many cops can afford a home on their own? With just a few years on the job? And with a pregnant wife to boot?”

Sam looked back. “I saved a lot. Worked overtime when I could.”

“Certainly,” Hanson said. “But a few weeks before you bought your house, there was an amazing coincidence. William Cocannon. Never made a formal complaint, but he let people know that somebody whacked the shit out of him early one March morning, stole several hundred dollars, just about the time you managed to scrape together enough money to get your house. I know the president of the First National. He told me you were short for the down payment, and then the day after Wild Willy got whacked, you showed up with enough money to make up the difference.”

Sam felt the room getting colder. Hanson said, “So have I made my point? Or do I need to talk again about your wife and her friends?”

“You’ve made your point.”

Hanson said, “Good. So there’s no misunderstanding. I’m getting your sorry ass out of here, though a lot of strings are being pulled, favors are being called in, and I’m getting you back to Portsmouth. Where you’ll resume your duties as probationary inspector, including working as a liaison with the FBI. Who, by the way, claim that they miss you very much. Which is one of the reasons I came out to fetch you. To keep the FBI happy.”

“And the department’s Log … who gets to write about what just happened to me? Or you?”

Hanson said carefully, “The Log will be correct. It’ll say you and I were in a small town in Vermont as part of an investigation. An investigation, I’ll remind you, Probationary Inspector Sam Miller, that is closed. Forever. Do you understand?”

“But I know who he was. And where he came from. And—”

“Sam.” His voice was sharper. “Drop it. That’s an order. You promise me it’s dropped, and you’re back in Portsmouth tonight. You say anything else, and so help me God, you’ll be back on the other side of the fence in sixty seconds. Do you understand?”

“Sir … it’s a homicide. In your city.
Our
city.”

Hanson said, “A refugee from New Mexico, previously from Europe, who had his neck snapped by someone and got dumped from a railroad car passing through our city. That’s all it was. All right? Leave it to the FBI. Or you can stay here.”

Sam wiped at his face, looked at his boss. Maybe it was the hunger or the exhaustion or the bitter realization that he was giving up, but for a moment or two—or maybe longer—it seemed there were ghost images on his boss’s chest, as if Sam could, through the fabric, see the photos again. The German soldiers lined up with rifles, smiling. The Jewish men and women, forced into a line. The shooting. The German soldier at the end, kicking at a baby’s corpse as if it were a delightful sport.

Sam struggled to gain his voice and said, in almost a whisper, “The case is dropped. You have my word.”

“Good,” Hanson said, coming over, slapping him on the shoulder. “Like I said earlier, when this summit is all wrapped up, you’ve got a bright future in the Party, even with these stunts you’ve pulled.”