Amerikan Eagle

Yeah. Tough enough. So far he had been.

So here he was.

There was the sound of a large engine, then the screech of tires as a vehicle braked to a halt.

He rolled to his knees, went to the window, and saw a Black Maria stopped on the street below. He froze, thinking no, he couldn’t go through the house, too much of a chance to get caught in the stairwell, no, he’d go to the window on the other side of the attic, smash it through, and—

The doors of the Black Maria flew open; two men with hats and long coats got out and started running.

Not to Curt’s house. To a house across the street.

He took a breath of stale air. Watched it unfold beneath him. The front door of the small house broken open, the men rushing in. Just a few seconds passed and the two Interior Department men emerged, one escorting a handcuffed man, the other leading a handcuffed woman, both prisoners only partially dressed, feet bare. The man’s head hung down in despair while the woman was yelling, twisting against her captor’s grasp. The pair were dragged across the street, the rear doors of the Black Maria van were opened up, and—

More screams. He bit his lower lip as children ran out of the house in pajamas, two girls and a boy, racing after their mom and dad. Could he get there in time? Could he? The Interior Department men wouldn’t expect an ambush, somebody like him emerging from Curt’s house, maybe with a hammer or a club. Whacking the shit out of them and then getting those parents free and back to their kids, telling them to run for it, run now…

He shuddered, moved away from the window. Sat on the sleeping bag. Heard the doors to the Black Maria slam shut, the engine start up, and the squeal of tires as it raced away.

No, stay focused. Concentrate. He had to think of the mission, what was ahead of them.

He put his hands against his ears, stared down at the dirty wooden planks beneath him. Oh yeah, stay focused, but that was so hard to do, with those terrified children out there, screaming and sobbing for their disappeared parents.

Maybe he wasn’t that tough after all.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Water was rushing up his nose, he was drowning, he was being tortured by an SS officer and a Long’s Legionnaire, laughing at him, holding him down under the water—

Sam woke up.

He had fallen asleep in the claw-footed tub. The water had long ago gone tepid. He coughed and took a washcloth and ran it across his face, then gently touched his bruises and scrapes and the old blisters on his hands. He felt cold. Up in Burdick, they would be in the cold barracks, hungry, unwashed, shivering, wondering what tomorrow would bring, Jewish prisoners held here in the supposed land of the free—

Sam held up his wrist again. The number three. He was now marked for life.

What kind of life, he didn’t know.

The phone rang.

Sarah?

He stumbled out of the tub, counting the rings for the party line—

One long ring followed by three short rings.

The Connors again, just down the street.

It wasn’t for him.

* * *

Before going to bed, he went back to the living room, saw the little mound of books with their covers torn off. Some of them were from the Book-of-the-Month Club, from a flush time a couple of years back when Sarah could afford the monthly mailings. And there was his Boy Scout handbook, the one he had used to confirm Tony’s signals, mutilated.

He flipped through it, seeing the merit badges, his first official list of accomplishments, of what he had been able to do. He had gotten scores of merit badges on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout. Not like Tony, who had given up after only three. Tony’s three versus his own thirty, the number needed to reach that magical pinnacle of Eagle Scout.

He tossed the torn handbook back into the pile. Some accomplishment, some record. Eagle Scout, quarterback, cop, sergeant, probationary inspector, and a freed inmate from a secret concentration camp.

It was time for bed.

* * *

In the morning Sam got dressed slowly, ignoring the raw marks on his hands. He thought about Barracks Six, going to work in the ice box confines of the quarry. He was hungry and surprised at how deep he had slept. No nightmares this time, just a sleep so deep that he woke up tired, not refreshed at all. When he was dressed, he did one more thing, as much as it disgusted him: With chilled fingers, he put the Confederate-flag pin on his lapel.

Breakfast. Sam looked around the mess of a kitchen and decided not to stay. This place should be filled with the laughter and smiles of his Sarah and Toby. No, he didn’t want to be here. He’d go out and quietly do his work for LaCouture and Groebke, members of governments who could torture, imprison, and kill Jews with all the difficulty of someone buying a newspaper or ordering breakfast.

He went out the front door, didn’t even bother locking it behind him, and took two steps before he saw someone was waiting for him.