Amerikan Eagle

In a stunning move, Walter struck him, and Sam rocked back on his heels. “No!” Walter shouted. “Not a president! A dictator, an emperor: A fraud who just pledged our lives, our sacred honor, to help one of the great monsters of our time to slaughter millions. That’s what’s out there, about to leave Portsmouth. Washington, Lincoln, Wilson—those were presidents. Not that freak of nature, that accident of circumstance!”

Sam broke free, plunged again into the crowd.

What to do?

A phone in this chaos?

He looked around. No cops. No National Guardsmen.

Where the hell was LaCouture when you needed him?

The crowd swept him closer. There was the platform, and the President stood up there, waving his hat, wrapping up a speech whose words couldn’t be heard, and cheering. Sam felt his body go rigid, bracing for the platform to disintegrate in a cloud of flames and broken wood.

Bang.

He flinched.

The band started playing a Sousa march, the bass drum banging. There were more cheers, and then Long moved out of view and Sam’s throat clenched up.

This was the man who had imprisoned his brother, had imprisoned and killed so many others, and whose thugs found great joy in using his brother as a pawn to be tossed away, destroyed when he was no longer needed. Walter was right. The man wasn’t his President. He was a criminal.

And Sam’s wife and son were in a prison controlled by this man and his people.

But let him die, to stand here and let it happen… A rush of emotions surged through him, led by revenge. Let the goddamn Kingfish get killed. Why not? The bastard deserved it as much as Hitler did.

He stood still, frozen, among the happy, jostling crowd.

And yet… and yet…

There were thousands and thousands of Jewish refugees alive in the United States because of Long. Tens of thousands of Jews who hadn’t been killed, hadn’t been gassed, hadn’t been shot. And thousands more were on their way.

But Long was the key, as his boss had said. Without Long, there was no agreement. With Long dead—maybe things would improve. Maybe.

But with Long dead, thousands more—without a doubt—would die.

Sam kept moving, shouldering through the crowd, holding up his inspector’s badge, pushing ahead, seeing in his mind’s eye poor Otto, starved and beaten and away from home, Otto and his barracks mates, depending on Long’s decision, depending on the Americans, depending on Sam, goddammit.

On the platform there was a knot of people at one end, waiting to get onto the Ferdinand Magellan. The Portsmouth cops let him through, thank God, and now he was on the platform, running, the stench of fear and burnt coal in his nostrils, and up ahead were men carrying submachine guns under their coats, other people, newsreel men, and waving a boater, President Long, whooping it up, laughing—

Joining the crowd, walking deliberately, limping, Reginald Hale, carrying Walter’s old valise, walking straight toward Long and the crowd of people—

A Secret Service agent, large and wide in a black suit, shoulder holster visible under his coat, tried to block Sam, who shouldered him aside like the football player he once was, and he elbowed and spun—

“Hale! Stop! Right there!”

Reginald Hale turned at the sound of his name, his face suddenly white and frightened. He carried the valise with both hands. Sam pulled his revolver out, holding up his badge in the other hand, yelling loudly, “Bomb! He’s got a bomb! He’s got a bomb!”

Yells and screams and a phalanx of armed men grouped around the President, their submachine guns held up like spears of some old Roman guard. Hale was moving forward, too, the valise held against his chest like a prized possession, moving faster.

Sam shot once, and Reginald stumbled, fell to his knees. Men and women on the platform flattened to the ground, screaming as the guns opened up. Sam saw it all as the British army officer, his body jerking from the blows of the .45-caliber slugs, fell backward and rolled off the platform to the railway bed below, and as a couple of the braver guards stepped forward to fire again at him, the shattering boom! of the explosion tore them to pieces.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Sam sagged against a cement pillar, opening and closing his mouth, his ears ringing. A man came into view, kneeling next to him. Sirens were wailing. The man’s suit was soiled with coal dust and blood. He mouthed something, and Sam said, “Huh? What?”

The man yelled into Sam’s ear: “I said I need you to come with me.”

“I can’t move.”

“You better move,” he answered, “because you’re putting the President’s life in danger, you moron.” The man grabbed Sam’s arm, and Sam angrily shook it off and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“Parker. Agent in charge of the President’s Secret Service detail.”

“Is he okay? The President?”

“Oh, shit yeah, but he’s had to change his underwear. Do me a favor and forget I told you that.”