CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

At the station, Sam went to his desk and, seeing the time, went to the basement, where fellow cops and National Guardsmen were bunking on army surplus cots with scratchy green wool blankets. He claimed an empty cot and went in search of supper. The evening meal was apple juice and spaghetti with lukewarm tomato sauce, served by women auxiliaries of the American Legion post. He ate off a metal plate, grunted one-syllable answers to anyone who spoke to him, then went back to his cot, the scents of gasoline and motor oil in his nostrils.

The lights were on, and some of the other officers and National Guardsmen were sipping bottled beers from paper bags while others smoked and talked among themselves. A radio in the corner was set low, dance music coming from some Manhattan club. Sam stretched out and pulled the blanket up over him. He stared up at the cement ceiling and tried not to think much, as the men murmured, as he inhaled the cigarette smoke. The lights were finally off at eleven P.M., and the radio was clicked off, and Sam was left there in the darkness and silence.

* * *

A coughing jag from one of his bunkmates woke him. Sam rolled to his side. A dim light showed the huddled and sleeping forms. Now that he was awake, he made out the snoring, the heavy breathing, the coughing from the sleeping men about him.

He wondered about Petr Wowenstein, the tattooed man. Forget about him. That’s what he should have done days ago. Forget the whole damn thing. Close the case and move on. Think instead about Tony the marksman, rifle in hand, out there hunting for Hitler. Tony, the key to getting his wife and son free.

But where was he? The city, the Navy Yard, all were sealed tight, tight, tight. All buildings had somebody on guard, someone to keep watch, all buildings.

All buildings.

He sat up on the cot, let the blanket fall away.

But what separated Portsmouth and the Navy Yard?

The river and the harbor.

An old memory of Tony going down to the harbor—without Mom or Dad’s permission, of course—and spending the day out there on a borrowed or stolen rowboat, fishing.

Hitler was coming to the shipyard tomorrow on an admiral’s gig from his luxury liner, coming up to a dockfront reception.

That’s how it was going to happen.

All the focus, the concentration, the attention on securing buildings and roadways and bridges.

But what of Tony, in a boat, under one of the docks, scoped rifle in hand, watching for the approaching gig flying a Nazi flag, a mustached man coming out on the dock …

One shot, maybe two …

A quick escape on the water, upriver to Eliot or Dover to a cove …

Sam sat up and quickly left.