Amerikan Eagle

Frank peeled the top off his coffee. “Suit yourself. I’ll have yours, then.” He made a big slurping noise and looked around at the harbor and the downtown. “What a goddamn circus. I’ll be glad when everybody gets the hell out of here and goes home.”

“Me, too.”

“Yeah, and then it’s back to work. Here and with the Party. Hey, congrats to you. I understand you’ve got a county position.” Sam kept his mouth shut. There was another noisy slurp from Frank, and Sam was about to tell him to go away when the officer said, “Boy, you sure do move fast.”

“What do you mean?” Sam said, now getting a much better view of Hitler and the SS and his cronies through the binoculars. A fat man by the side, there, who looked like Goering.

“Hell, you know what I mean,” Frank said. “The North Church.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Frank laughed. “Shit, play games if you want. You were there not more than ten minutes ago.”

“I was?”

Frank looked confused. “Christ, yes. You were heading in there, flashed your pass at the guards, and went inside. Even gave me a wave. What kind of game you playing?”

“Just dicking with you, that’s all,” he answered, forcing his voice to stay even his mind was racing. He turned in his chair, looked a few blocks away. The white steeple of the North Church, rising above everything, everything in view.

A very good view.

No doubt that place was well guarded and sealed, like every other tall building in Portsmouth. But a man dressed in a suit and looking professional and with forged documents, a man who looked very much like him, if he was quick and moved with confidence.

Tony. He was in the North Church steeple.

Sam looked back at everyone looking at the harbor, everybody looking at the Yard.

Frank had wandered off, was talking to one of the marines manning the radio gear.

If Sam said there was a gunman in that steeple, he knew what would happen. The two sleepy-eyed killers over there would trot to the other side of the roof and draw their weapons up, and at the slightest movement anywhere from the North Church, they would chew the place up with rifle fire. Maybe they’d get Tony, and maybe not, and who knew what would happen to Sam’s family.

He stood up. And any pleas on his part, any attempt to tell LaCouture—

He dropped the binoculars on the chair. Started to walk away.

“Inspector?” a voice called out.

He said, “Gotta run out for a sec. Be right back.”

He walked briskly but not without panic to the door. Don’t let them see you run. You run, they get concerned, they start asking questions, they get excited.

He opened the door.

Stairwell. Concrete steps.

By the time he reached the fourth step, he was running hard.

INTERLUDE XI

It was lonely as he waited, but he knew he wasn’t on his own. The spirit of Joe Hill was there with him, as well as those of Big Bill Haywood and Samuel Gompers. All men who had worked and bled and died for the workingman, fighting against the government, against the entrenched powers that be, the industrialists who saw men in the labor movement as nothing more than parts to be used and replaced. The same industrialists who supported the fascists and the union busters because the fascists promised fat contracts and trains that ran on time.

He listened to the radio. Picked up the rifle. It was getting close to time. He took a breath, knowing he would do the job no matter what. So many others out there were depending on him.

Some of those others were here as well, keeping him company in this supposed holy place. The Russian peasant with a rifle, fighting off the invader, making him pay with blood for every inch of ground. The French partisan, sabotaging panzer tanks along the Normandy coast. The British pub owner, secretly poisoning a pint of bitters for an SS officer.

He knew he was just one cog in one wheel, moving along, trying to change things, and as he gripped the cold metal and wood, he hoped those other cogs were doing their job. God knew he was about to do his part, and he supposed that should have scared him. Instead, it almost inspired him.

Someone was beating at the door downstairs.

He stood up, went to the hole he had cut out of the wood, allowing an opening for the rifle. Whatever happened, it would be over soon.

Somebody started running up the steps, calling out his name. He felt a sense of relief, recognizing the voice. It would all work out as planned. He lifted up the rifle, looked through the Weaver scope, waited for his destiny.

PART SIX