Amerikan Eagle

A plan to make sure that Peter Wotan—or whoever the hell he was—was dumped and later found in Portsmouth.

He put the Packard in reverse, backed up the street dodging one kid going to the school, the transmission whining, and when he came to the intersection, looked both ways.

Gone.

Gone for now, he thought. But how many yellow Ramblers could there be in the Portsmouth area? He should be hearing soon from the motor vehicle division about the Rambler listings, and it wouldn’t take much to match that list with addresses in Portsmouth.

The blare of a car horn made him curse.

A Portsmouth police cruiser drew up next to him, engine idling, and he rolled down his window. An older officer leaned out, a guy named Mike Schwartz, with a thin, drawn face. “Sam, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but we’ve all been recalled to the station. On shift, off shift, even those on vacation. Everybody to report in.”

Sam shifted the Packard into first. “What’s going on?”

“Who the hell knows? But it sounds important, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to be late.”

The cruiser pulled away, and after performing a highly illegal U-turn, Sam followed him in.

* * *

At the station, he was stunned at what he saw: every patrolman, sergeant, and officer in the department was milling about in the crowded lobby. Frank Reardon stood by the door, and Sam went up to him. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Cripes, who knows.” Frank cupped a lit cigarette in one hand. “Got a phone call, just a few minutes ago. Everybody to report to the station. Even the guys on shift are rolling in. Shit, now’s gonna be a good time for every second-story guy or bank robber to hit us.”

Sam looked around for a certain young cop. “Where’s your buddy Leo?”

“You didn’t hear?” Frank replied. “Gone. Two nights ago a Black Maria came by his apartment and took him away.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Wish I was. Kid obviously screwed up along the way, and he got picked up. You saw him back at the tracks. Liked to ask lots of questions. That’s always a dangerous habit.”

“You going to do anything to help him out?”

Frank dropped his cigarette butt on the dirty tile floor, crushed it under his heel. “Like what? Too late for Leo. That’s just the way it goes. Asking questions, poking around, just leads to more trouble. Leo was okay, but I’m not putting my ass on the line for him. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, Frank, I know how it is.” Sam broke away from Frank, knowing very much how it was. Stay out of trouble. Keep your head down.

There was a loud murmur of voices that went on for a few minutes, and he was going to head up to his desk when Marshal Hanson appeared, carrying a large Philco radio. Mrs. Walton was with him, notepad in hand. Hanson put the radio on the desk sergeant’s counter and raised a hand. “Okay, listen up, fellas, all right? Christ, shut your mouths back there.” The room fell silent. Hanson looked satisfied and turned to the desk sergeant. “Paul, plug her in, will you?”

“Hey, boss, what’s up?” came a voice from the rear of the room. “We at war or something?”

“Or something,” Hanson said, pulling out his pocket watch from his vest and checking the time. “All I know is I got an urgent message from Party headquarters in Concord that there’s going to be a national announcement coming across at nine A.M., an announcement that everybody—and I mean everybody!—needs to hear. Okay, my watch says it’s one minute till, so everybody keep your yap shut. Paul, put that radio on and turn the volume on high.”

There was a faint crackle and then a click as the switch was thrown, a hum as the vacuum tubes warmed up. Then a shot of jazz music burst from the speaker, making a couple of the guys laugh, but Sam didn’t feel like laughing.

The music suddenly stopped, replaced by the familiar three musical tones for NBC, and a voice said, “We interrupt our morning program with this special news bulletin. Flash from Washington, D.C., we bring in our special correspondent Richard Harkness.”

A burst of static, and then the voice, fainter, began to speak, and in a split instant, Sam knew just how accurate the phrase was that you could hear a pin drop. In a crowded room with nearly thirty men and Mrs. Walton, the only sound was coming from the radio.