Amerikan Eagle

Another checkpoint, with two cars ahead. Groebke pointed to the left. The city’s sole synagogue was there, boarded and shut, covered in posters of President Long. “Your Jews… no longer here, eh? In ghettos in New York, Miami, California. So let us speak of death, then, Sam. Who slaughtered the red Indian last century, who stole their lands and put them on reservations? Who is shooting auto workers in Detroit, fruit pickers in Oregon, strikers in Manhattan, yes? Your own hands, how clean are they, Herr Miller? Did you not participate a few days ago in a… a cleansing, is that the word? Of refugees and undesirables? And are these people not on their way to camps because of you? Of your job? Yes?”

The first car moved, then the second. Sam eased the Packard to the checkpoint. Groebke continued, “I do not judge you for what you do. I may judge your government, but not you. We are similar, you and I. Our nations. We each have made empires on the back of other peoples. We each have destinies. Even our symbols are the same. The eagle, yes? And our Führer, he is a great admirer of your industry, so much that his private train, it is called Amerika. Amerikan Eagle, both of our nations, so similar.”

Sam kept quiet.

“So, our nations—so similar, like you and I. So please extend me some courtesy, ja?”

The MP waved them through, and Sam shot forward so fast he almost ran over the man’s booted foot.

* * *

As Sam and Groebke walked toward the Rockingham Hotel, Groebke lit a cigarette with a gold lighter and said, “You know, I so love your tobacco. You cannot believe what we are forced to smoke back home—street sweepings, leftovers from France and Turkey. It’s a good thing our countries will become friends, eh?”

“Don’t count on it lasting,” Sam said. “Long isn’t one to be trusted. Also, we remember what Hitler did with Stalin. Peace treaty in ’39, invasion in ’41.”

“You believe, then, no honor among thieves, eh?”

“Sure seems that way.”

Up the granite steps of the hotel, with MPs checking everyone’s identification, and as Sam displayed his police ID, he thought of what Groebke had said earlier.

They needed him.

The FBI and the Gestapo.

And the Portsmouth Police Department. His own boss in full-dress uniform as a colonel of the National Guard, had come out—or was he sent?—to retrieve Sam from Burdick.

Why? Why was he needed?

Groebke put his identification away as they went into the crowded lobby. “So it is, eh? Paperwork and records, such is the way we all must operate,” he remarked.

Paperwork.

Records.

What had Sean said back at the labor camp?

Everything. They know everything about you, all of your records, everything.

Some records, as he went with Groebke up to the second floor, he was sure his records—

Tony.

What would be in Tony’s records?

His arrest, of course, and his time in the illegal union at the shipyard, trying to make it all right after Dad’s death, and more, of course. The Gestapo and the FBI, they were relentlessly thorough. He had no doubt that they had pawed through his files all the way back to high school, grammar school, hell, even the Boy Scouts. Tony’s three merit badges. Sam remembered each of them, remembered how he had teased Tony about being such a lazy son of a gun, until one night Tony had slugged him in the coal room, where they had gone to get a bucket to keep the furnace going.

First aid. Astronomy.

And the third one, the one Tony had delighted in most, a craft he had continued to enjoy years later and which he still missed. Hell, hadn’t Tony even told him so during their last talk?

Sweet Jesus, he thought. Sweet holy Jesus.

“Come,” Groebke said, “let’s get to work.”

He followed the Gestapo man into Suite Twelve.

LaCouture sat at the round desk, his feet up, the polished black shoes and white spats looking as if he had just stepped off an MGM soundstage. He was looking at some papers and raised his eyes as they entered. “Glad you could make it, Inspector. Tell me, did you enjoy your time off? I hope so. For Christ’s sake, you’ve gotten us behind. And shit, look at that haircut of yours.” He glanced back down at the papers.

Sam walked over to the desk. LaCouture looked up. “Didn’t you hear what I said, boy?”

“I did, and I don’t particularly care.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I’m done here. I’m no longer an errand boy.”

LaCouture grinned. “Pretty bold talk for a boy who’s been AWOL a few days, comes back with his hair trimmed and bruises on his face. Somethin’ bad happen to you, boy? Hmm? You go somewhere you weren’t suppose to, got tuned up a bit?”

“None of your business,” Sam shot back.