Authors: Island of Dreams
“And you?” she said.
“Back to war, I expect. If they will take me back now. The leg has healed better than they thought.”
“Was it very bad then?”
He shrugged as if the wound was of little import. “It was…rugged, I suppose,” he said, a little surprised at his own words. He had never expressed the extreme fear he’d once felt at the possibility of amputation. “At one time they thought…” The words died off, but Meara could imagine the rest.
“And after the war?” she said, wanting to drive the sudden desolation from his eyes.
“The sea, I suppose,” he replied. “I’m a sailor by profession as well as by circumstance of war.”
“With the navy?”
“Commercial shipping,” he answered somewhat curtly, but his smile softened the words. “I would much rather talk about you.” He was, he knew, slipping into dangerous territory. But then from Connor’s attitude earlier, he knew he should be prepared for a much stronger interrogation this evening. One slip and he could well face a death penalty here as would his mother and younger brother in Germany. His hand unconsciously dug into the sand, and when he looked up again he saw a question in her eyes.
“A girl in every port?” she asked impishly, but with a hint of wistful seriousness in her voice.
“That’s a slander,” he replied lightly, some of the tension sliding from his body. “There’s never enough time. I seldom left the ship when we docked.”
“How did you come to my island?”
“Your island?”
Meara’s grin flashed with humor and a little embarrassment. “I’ve always thought of it that way…my island of dreams.”
Michael looked along the beach and toward the great trees hanging with moss. “I can understand why. It’s very lovely. Anything seems possible here.”
“At night, huge turtles come up and lay their eggs, and deer wander across the paths,” she said. “And the moon paints the water with silver.”
“Will you show me tonight? After dinner?” He hadn’t intended to ask the question. He had what he wanted from her. He had what he must have. Anything else was reckless and dangerous and stupid. But his heart slowed as he waited anxiously for her reply, half hoping she would refuse.
“Yes,” she said simply. He had never met a woman with so little guile, with so much openness.
And obviously one that could be so easily hurt, he told himself. He would, in some way, end this tomorrow. Tomorrow. But tonight, he would enjoy her company, relish the pleasure she created in him.
“I have one of those strange little cars. Would you like a ride back?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I don’t think there’s room for all of us,” she said, “but I would like to see you in one.”
“I feel like an overgrown child.”
“Don’t.” She chuckled. “I have it on very good authority that the mightiest of the mighty have ridden them.”
“Not the Goulds, or Joseph Pulitzer or the Rockefellers,” he said in mock horror.
“Ah, you know our history then.”
“Some. Not all. Perhaps you’ll tell me more.”
“Perhaps I will.” She consented with a smile.
He stood reluctantly, awkwardly, with the help of his cane, his eyes never leaving hers, sketching in his mind that odd combination of intelligent curiosity, humor, and vulnerability. The latter was a strange quality for a journalist, but he suspected she could be very good. She had a way of drawing people out; she had done it very skillfully with him without ever appearing to do so.
Michael gave her a crooked half smile and waved to the children playing farther down the beach before turning toward the little red bug. His breath caught as he heard the children’s laughter, and he tried to calm the sickness rising in him, even as he wondered at the new, even tender, feelings he was experiencing. He had shut himself off from them for a very long time, since the last violent argument with his father, and the blow that had sent him across the room while his mother had watched. He had run away and hired on the first ship he found, a Canadian freighter. The life of a common seaman was both hard and violent. He had become a violent and ruthless man in order to survive. He had thought nothing could ever really touch him again.
In the space of a few hours, he was discovering differently, that there was an opening, a vulnerable spot, in the protective shell he’d acquired long ago.
Duty, he reminded himself. Duty to country. Duty to the only family he had left, to a sick mother and a small brother whose lives he held in his hand.
Michael Fielding. Eric von Steimen. It was Eric von Steimen who had entered Admiral Canaris’s office months ago; Michael Fielding who left it.
He’d had a feeling of dread when he was singled out at the military hospital and sent to specialists at an exclusive Berlin hospital, and he knew even more disquiet when an SS colonel and staff car picked him up when he was discharged. He’d immediately been suspicious of the fawning pleasantries and concern, qualities he had rarely noticed in that branch of the German military. He had disliked the man. He had distrusted the attention. He had soon discovered his instincts had been disastrously correct.
“I’m a sailor, not a spy,” he argued an hour later in Admiral Canaris’s spacious office.
“You’re much more than a sailor,” Canaris had said. “What is it…four, five languages you speak fluently?”
Eric had been silent, not wanting to confirm or deny anything. He detested the current leadership of Germany, yet it was his country and his duty to serve it. When war had broken out between England and Germany, he’d returned to Germany, knowing he would be interned if he stayed with the Canadian shipping line. His father was a German staff officer. He knew he couldn’t stand to be imprisoned in any way, and so, with mixed feelings and divided loyalties, he had returned to the country of his birth.
He had joined the German Navy, hoping to avoid the politics and fanaticism of some of the other services and had been assigned as an officer on one of the destroyers. The navy, more than any other service, allowed some limited independence of thought. He had steadily risen through the ranks, drawing excellent reports from superior officers, although he was suspiciously
quiet
in his
support
of the Third Reich and the Führer. Still, he had a way of instilling loyalty and bringing forth the very best in the men he led, and fitness reports were invariably glowing. Because captains did not want to lose him, they omitted his often caustic references to the Nazi party and less than enthusiastic allegiance to Hitler.
“You have an opportunity to do a great service for your fatherland,” Canaris said.
Eric forced his face to remain emotionless as the German admiral outlined his plan. Stifling his growing distaste and apprehension, Michael tried reason. Personal desires, he knew, would get him nowhere. “I’ve had no training in espionage,” he demurred, “and my leg is still damned weak.”
“We can give you all the training you need. Your injured leg is one of the qualifications for this particular job, that and your Canadian background. It’s a perfect entrée onto the island…a wounded war hero.”
“I know nothing of spying.”
“All the reports on you emphasize quick thinking and ingenuity. Those are, my dear von Steimen, the two most essential ingredients of a spy. You also speak English flawlessly and have a knowledge of Canada. Your background and that of Michael Fielding match perfectly.”
“Michael Fielding?” Eric queried.
“A prisoner we picked up from an English destroyer. He was from a well-to-do family in Canada, now all dead. Like you, he was with a Canadian shipping firm as an officer. Perhaps you’ve even met.”
“Fielding?” Eric searched his memory. He knew the name, but he didn’t ever remember meeting the man. “Where is he now.”
“Dead of wounds.”
“And his family is dead,” Eric said wryly. “Convenient.”
“Not really. We have been searching for the right prisoner and the right counterpart for months. Someone whose background could be checked thoroughly. No guest is allowed on Jekyll Island without investigation. This combination was particularly fortunate.”
“I would prefer to return to the navy.”
“
I
would prefer you would not.” Canaris’s voice was no longer pleasant. “Your father would have been most disappointed in your attitude, von Steimen.”
Eric knew his face had tightened. “If you know so much about me, you would know that I never sought my father’s approval.”
Canaris turned keen ruthless eyes on him. “And your mother. She is Canadian, is she not?” The words held a slightly veiled threat.
“She is a German citizen. She chose to stay here with father when the war started.”
“But your father is no longer alive, no longer able to protect her, and some might, well, question her loyalties.”
The threat was no longer veiled, but open and ominous. Canaris looked at a file on his desk, and Eric knew it belonged to his family. “And your brother…how old is he now? Thirteen?”
Eric felt a cold chill run down his back. Heinrich had been conceived and born after he had left home, an unexpected arrival and never very strong. Eric had met him on visits to his mother, always when he knew his father was absent. The boy had been thin and sensitive, and Eric knew he probably went through the same hell he had as a boy. He had once warned his father about ever hurting Heinrich, and he had been strong enough and openly ruthless enough to be heeded. Dear God, he wished he had been able to get the two of them, his mother and brother, out of Germany, but his mother wouldn’t leave her husband. When the older von Steimen was killed in France, Michael was at sea and it was too late.
“Your answer, Commander?”
Eric had nodded curtly. He’d had no choice.
It was Michael Fielding who left Germany weeks later in a submarine and landed in Canada.
A flock of birds flew up from the dunes in front of him, jerking him from his thoughts. He looked around toward the direction from which he had come. Meara O’Hara was watching him, her head tipped slightly as if she were analyzing something. Michael didn’t smile this time as he moved on.
Dinner was every bit as exacting as Michael had thought it would be. He now fully understood the intensive training he had been required to take. He wondered, not for the first time, at the far reach of German intelligence. All his credentials could be verified: the shipping company with which the real Michael Fielding had been associated, the Chicago stockbroker who had been blackmailed into submitting Michael’s name as a guest on the island, his distinguished family background. In addition, some secretary in British headquarters had changed the records of Michael Fielding to show a medical discharge rather than missing in action.
Michael had read dossiers on every member of the Jekyll Island Club and every likely guest who might be visiting during the Easter holidays, although their numbers had dwindled because of the war. There were other demands on their time.
Still, though many members had declined to spend the entire winter season here, some had decided to return for the few weeks around Easter. They knew this might be their last opportunity, since rumors abounded that the club would soon close for the duration of the war.
Connor, Michael knew, was among the shrewdest of the current membership of the Jekyll Island Club. Many were the sons and grandsons of the so-called robber barons, living off the fruits of their ancestors. But Connor was self-made, and had climbed elevated rungs of the economic and, eventually, social ladders despite his Irish ancestry. If Michael gained Connor’s trust, he should pass muster with anyone else.
The inquisition started almost immediately over drinks and not very subtly.
“How does a Canadian come to our small island?”
Michael didn’t have to fake amusement at the description. Jekyll Island might be small in terms of geographical size but certainly not in scope. He had seldom before seen such understated yet well-designed luxury in one location, and he had traveled the world.
The drinks were being served in the library with only Connor, his wife, Elizabeth, and himself present. Meara was no place to be seen, and again Michael felt a certain inexplicable loss.
He lifted his glass of very excellent Scotch. “To more small islands,” he said wryly.
Cal Connor’s expression relaxed slightly. “You like our little club, then?”
Michael chuckled. “Golf, skeet shooting, bowling, swimming, tennis, yachting, sailing. I don’t think it’s exactly what my doctor had in mind by restful.”
“What doctor?”
“A surgeon at a military hospital in Canada where I was sent for some additional surgery. The hospitals in London were becoming too crowded.”
“And your family? Did you not want to spend this time with them?”
Michael’s eyes clouded. “There is no family. My mother and father died in an accident. There is no one else.”
Probably nothing he could have said would have disarmed Cal Connor more, for Cal had grown up alone and now valued family above all else. But he wasn’t quite ready to admit this stranger to his own family yet. He had seen Meara’s face on the club cruiser as she had looked up at the Canadian, and Meara was dear to both him and Elizabeth, almost as dear as their own children.