Amerikan Eagle (50 page)

“Who cares? Its just labels, that’s all. Progressive, liberal, Communist, socialist, even Republican … labels. Call us the resistance, if you like. But what counts is the fight, what people bring to the fight, and I’ve been in the fight for years. Sam, do you know what it’s like to see children at your school, children in what’s supposed to be the richest and safest nation in the world, wearing scraps of blankets? To see brothers and sisters take turns eating breakfast because there’s not enough food at home? And who’s helping them?
Nobody
, that’s who! If that makes me a bad woman, someone who uses her family to help, then damn it all to hell, I’m proud to be a bad woman, a bad wife, a bad mother—”

“But what—”

She shook her head, furious. “So when I’m told to prepare for a guest from that scheduled train, I do just that. And when I’m told to give myself up to the FBI so that you do what has to be done for the greater good, whatever that is, then I do it. I’m sorry, and maybe you don’t believe me, but I didn’t know it was going to end with Tony being killed. And I didn’t know Tony was going
to try to shoot Hitler. I just knew he was in terrible danger, that he was part of something I belonged to as well.”

“And what about Toby?”

She looked toward the boy’s bedroom, and her sharp voice faltered. “He’s a brave boy. A very brave boy … He did what I asked him to do, whether it was delivering messages or trusting his mother, and I wish he had a brave father to look up to.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

Her sad eyes pierced him. “What do you think? From what you’ve told me, what I’ve seen in the papers, Tony was ready to sacrifice all to get himself killed in an attempt to assassinate Hitler to draw attention from what was being planned for that bastard Long, and there you are,
protecting
both Hitler and Long. Two fascists destroying what’s left of civilization. I secretly saw Tony a few days ago. He said he was doing it all for Toby and what kind of life our son was going to have. Can you say the same thing?”

“I was doing my job,” he countered, knowing how weak it sounded.

“That’s some job you’ve got there, Sam Miller.” She walked away from him, then turned, eyes wet with tears. “I’m going to my dad’s place, Sam. And I’m taking Toby with me.”

He was chilled, as if his blood had been replaced by salt water from the harbor. “For how long?”

“However long it takes for me to think things through. I need to be with someone committed to our fight, someone who wants to change things, to make things better. You’re just part of the system, and … and I’m not sure if I can live with someone like that. Over the
years, you’ve done some things here and there—giving money to refugee kids, looking the other way at our basement station, ignoring some of the stupid laws from D.C.—but I need more.”

“Sarah, you’ve got to—”

“Sam, please,” she interrupted. “I feel guilty about a lot of things, and one of those things is your brother. Right now I want Toby to be proud of his dead uncle, a man who sacrificed himself for everything, and I’m not sure what Toby has to be proud of when he sees you. And I don’t like feeling that way.”

“So your dad’s place is the answer?”

Again a sad look that went right through him. “I don’t see why not. I’ve always trusted Dad even when you’ve had nothing but contempt for him. I admire him, too. He’s put everything on the line to do what’s right.”

Then it made sense. The visit to the store days ago from the man called Eric the Red. The encounter at the island:
You think you know everything about me, everything about how I think and work. Kid, you know shit
.

Sam said, “Your dad is your connection, isn’t he? The one who told you what to do. On the surface, he’s a full-fledged member of the Party. Underneath, he’s something else.”

“Very good, Inspector. You figured that out all on your own.”

With his newly minted inspector’s badge weighing in his coat pocket, he found he could not say a word. And what about Pierce Island, he thought, should he tell her about Pierce Island and her father and the sailor?

No, that would sound like cheap revenge and nothing else.

Again saying words he couldn’t believe he was saying. “So you’re off to be with your father, your resistance leader.”

“For now.”

He could hear the sobs from his son, weeping over his shattered models, crying over the broken dream that his father could protect him.
Sorry, kid
, he thought,
so very sorry
.

“Tell Toby … tell him I have to go out on a case, all right? I don’t want to make a scene. Tell him I’ll make it all right.”

Her arms folded tight against her chest, she didn’t reply. He went to the door, stopped. “You’re pretty good at thinking you know what drives me and what I do, but in the past few days, I’ve seen things and done things I can’t tell you about, Sarah. Important things that have made more of a difference than you and your friends could ever dream of.”

“So says you,” she said coldly.

“Yeah, so says me,” he said. “And despite what you think now, we can work this out. It’ll take time, but I know we can work it out.”

“I’m not so sure, Sam. I’m really not. It would take a lot.”

“Okay,” he said. “I get the message. It’ll take a lot, and that’s what I’ll do.”

Outside, the damp air from the harbor chilled him.

The day was cold and windy, and Sam stood by himself on a knoll at the Calvary Cemetery in Portsmouth, near the border of the small town of Greenland. The previous night he had once again slept in Hanson’s office. He drew his coat closer, watching the ceremony finish up. There was a plain wooden casket, and a priest was saying prayers over the mangled body of his brother. Except for two cemetery workers standing by themselves, shovels in hand, this part of the cemetery was empty. The ceremony was supposed to be secret, but somehow the news had gotten out.

On the other side of the iron gates there were newspaper reporters and a couple of newsreel crews, all eager to record the burial of the attempted assassin of Adolf Hitler, but the priest—his parish priest, Father Mullen from St. James Church—had denied them entrance. Sam supposed he should have attempted to tell Sarah about the funeral, but he was going to let that rest for now. Sarah would have to mourn Tony at her own time and pace. And he wasn’t surprised that he was the only mourner present. Being known as an associate of an assassin, someone who almost destroyed the summit that promised so much, was just too dangerous.

The priest finished, made a sign of the cross, and then came over, his vestments flapping in the breeze. Sam
shook his hand and said, “Thanks, Father. I appreciate that.”

The priest nodded. “I knew your brother back when he was active in the shipyard, trying to make things better for the workers.”

Sam felt the words stick in his throat, knowing his brother and what he had done. “Excuse me for saying this, Father, but he could be a pain in the ass. But sometimes he was a good man, wasn’t he?”

“We’re all good men, Sam. But these are trying times, and all of us sometimes make compromises, sometimes make decisions … It’s not an easy time.”

Sam watched as the cemetery workers came out and, with a set of straps, lowered his brother’s body into the unmarked grave. He didn’t answer the priest.

* * *

He stood there for a while, then started walking to another gate of the cemetery, where he could avoid the crowd of reporters. He saw a man standing near a solitary pine tree. The man was watching him, and Sam changed direction to join him.

“Hello, Doc,” Sam said. “Sorry I’ve been avoiding you. It’s been a shitty few days.”

Dr. William Saunders, the county medical examiner, nodded in reply. “Yeah, it sure has. Sorry about your brother.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, don’t be so smug. I think you did a shitty thing, saving that asshole Long’s life.”

Sam replied evenly, “You and a bunch of others, I’m
sure.” The medical examiner kept quiet. Sam said, “Doc, don’t play any goddamn games with me. I’m not in the mood. Why are you here? What’s so important?”

Saunders looked over Sam’s shoulder toward the downtown. “You know, we medical examiners, we sometimes pass along information to one another, little bits of professional knowledge that doesn’t get out to the public. Especially for those of us working in cities that have a large refugee population. You tend to look for odd things you don’t otherwise see in the course of your day-to-day work.”

Sam said, “What did you find? And how did you miss it the first time out?”

Saunders sighed. “I’m old, and I’m tired, and things get missed. I didn’t miss a damn thing on that autopsy. The poor guy’s neck was snapped, he was malnourished, he had that damn tattoo, and oh, by the way, his blood work came back normal. No poisons or toxins in his system. But I did miss something in his clothing …”

He reached into his pocket and took out a metal cylinder, less than an inch wide and perhaps two inches long. Saunders said, “In these troubled times, refugees use these capsules to transport important things. Diamonds, rubies, or a key to a safe deposit box. Women—God bless them, they have two receptacles available to hold such tubes, while we men have to do with just one. Ingenious, isn’t it? And when I was finally sorting through your dead man’s clothing, I found this tucked away in his underwear. When a man—or woman—dies, the sphincter muscles relax, and what’s up there, Inspector, will always come out.”

Sam took the cylinder from the medical examiner,
looked at it, and then unscrewed the top. He looked inside. “Was it empty when you opened it?”

“No.”

“What was in it?”

Saunders looked at him; the scar on his throat was prominent. He said, “Sam … can I really trust you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shit, I know that’s a tough question to ask, especially these days. What I’m getting at … can I trust you to keep my ass out of a labor camp, and to do something important?”

“You can trust me to keep you out of prison, as long as I have anything to say about it. What’s so important beyond that?”

The medical examiner coughed, a harsh sound coming from deep in his chest. “The last war, I spent months in those godforsaken trenches, trying to save the lives of men being gassed, shattered by shrapnel, and shot … and for what? To make the world safe for democracy. Corny, I know, but we believed it back then, and some of us, even in these worst of times, still believe it.”

“Just tell me, what was in that cylinder?”

Another pause, and the wind seemed to cut at him even deeper. He pushed aside the thought of how cold Tony’s grave must be.

Saunders said, “A special kind of film called microfilm. A process that reduces pages of documents to a single filmstrip.”

“A courier,” Sam said. “I’ll be damned. What kind of documents was he carrying?”

Saunders reached again into his coat pocket, pulled out a business-size envelope. “That’s for you to find out,
Inspector. I processed the film, was able to make readable copies for you. I’ve looked at them, and I can’t figure it out. But I’m sure you will.”

“Was it another language?”

Saunders smiled. “Yeah, it was. But you’re an inspector. Just do the right thing, okay?”

Sam held the envelope. Made of paper, it seemed to weigh a ton. “That I’ll do. But Doc, after we talked last, just after that FBI guy and Gestapo guy met you, did you discuss the case with anyone else?”

“Nope. Not a soul.”

Sam lifted the envelope again. “Thanks, Doc. And I’m sorry I didn’t get to you earlier.”

The medical examiner said. “It’s okay, Sam. I’m sure it will work out.”

Sam said, “I’m glad you are. I’m not.”

The day after Tony’s burial, Sam stood in the football field of the Portsmouth High School, watching the FBI and the local contingent of Long’s Legionnaires processing arrested people and conducting interrogations over the assassination attempt on President Long. The matter of the attack on Hitler was over and complete, Tony Miller being the designated patsy. But the investigation into the attempted killing of the President was still going on, and it was a chance for the Legionnaires and the FBI
to conduct a nice purge of the surrounding towns, using the assassination as a cover to arrest anyone and everyone who had pissed off the government.

Temporary barbed-wire fencing had been strung around the perimeter of the field, and canvas tents had been set up. The turf had been churned into a muddy mess by all the feet trampling through. Sam used his newly minted ID to gain access to one special prisoner. And as he had walked across the chewed-up field, the finger he had broken back during that championship game started aching again, like a reminder of what had been, what had been lost.

He remembered how, days ago, the night the body was discovered, he’d recalled the sweet memory of winning that game … and immediately that taste of victory being overcome with a taste of ashes, of seeing his dad triumphant over Tony’s acceptance at the Navy Yard, the bad son, the one who was always in trouble, the one always in Dad’s favor. And now Mom at a rest home, Dad and Tony buried, and this field where Sam had first become someone, had done something to be proud of, had now been turned into something else, just another prison. Like this country, he thought, going from a nation of laws to a nation of labor camps. When he had been a senior at this school, it had been a more innocent time. It had all been so black and white. To defeat one’s opponent, that’s all. Just to win.

Black and white. No shades of gray. God, how he missed those days.

A dozen men were being herded along in front of him, their shoes and boots muddy, their eyes downcast, each with one hand on the shoulder of the man in front, as they
were prodded along by Long’s Legionnaires carrying pump-action shotguns. At the end of the line, a Legionnaire caught Sam’s eye, and he didn’t look away. He remembered that face. It was the Legionnaire who had strutted into the Fish Shanty so very long ago, the night he had first come across the dead man.

The Legionnaire grabbed the last man in line, brought him over to Sam. The Legionnaire grinned, breathing hard, his face bruised. “You’re that police inspector. The one that saved the President.”