Stealing Trinity

Chapter 14

Two weeks. Two frustrating weeks. Thatcher again made his way down the hall to the Records Section. He'd averaged six hours a day there, pouring over rosters from the British and American POW camps. There were millions of names, thousands of lists. Some were organized alphabetically, some by rank, and others not at all. So far he'd found no Alexander Braun. It weighed on Thatcher that the man might have used a false name. It weighed on him that Braun could have been taken in a Red sector — if so, he'd likely never be heard from again. Even with a lack of new arrivals, other work was accumulating on Thatcher's desk. Perhaps it was a wild-goose chase, as Roger had insisted. As the American Jones would have him believe.

He decided to give it one more day. If he didn't find anything, he'd move on. Passing through the office entrance, a lethargic young sergeant greeted him.

"Mornin', Major. Back for more?"

Thatcher was about to answer when he stopped abruptly. He turned and glanced at the open door. Something, but what? He stared at the words stenciled onto the wood: records section. He then shifted to what was beneath. C-18. Room C-18. Something about it stirred his gray matter. U-801. Letters and numbers. They could be used for many things. U-801. Klein had assumed it was a filing note. Thatcher scurried into the room.

"I must know if the Germans had a submarine designated U-801. If so, I need to find out where it is now."

The clerk at the desk yawned, his breath laced with coffee. "I thought you was lookin' for a bloke, sir."

Thatcher gave a hard stare.

"Right," the sergeant said. He meandered into a back room, reappearing five long minutes later. He plopped a file on the counter. "If it's the German Navy you're after, these'd be all the messages we have. They're not separated — some are confirmed sinkings, some ships were captured, and the rest surrendered. Goes back for years."

"What if I need to find the crew of a particular boat?"

The man shrugged. "Best of luck, sir. One or two might have crew manifests attached."

"If I want to find a specific captain?"

"I suppose most mention the commanding officers, aside from the ones that went down."

"And if I find a name, can we locate that person?"

The sergeant smiled wryly. "If we got to him before the Russians? Piece of cake, just like that other one you're lookin' for. Only about two million names on the prisoner of war rosters."

"All right. First we'll concentrate on the boat."

The sergeant's smile evaporated as Thatcher cut the thick stack and shoved half his way.

"We? You want me to get on with this?"

"We're looking for U-801. With any luck, she's surrendered or been captured in the last few weeks."

Thatcher pulled up a chair and dove into his stack. When the enlisted man didn't follow suit he shot the man a pointed look. Soon both were scouring a thousand messages in search of a single boat.

The break came after four hours.

"Bollocks!" The sergeant waved a message. "U-801. She surrendered to an American destroyer off the coast of Cape Cod, in the States. Two weeks ago. They escorted her to the Naval Air Station Quonset Point. The boat was given up and the crew interned."

"So she did go to America!" Thatcher said excitedly. He thought it through. "And she turned herself over in America for one of two reasons. They were either low on fuel, or they didn't know which adversary had occupied their home port in Germany — if surrender was inevitable, the Americans or British would have been much preferred to the Russians."

He took the message and saw that it had no reference to U-80Vs captain or where he and the crew were being held. Thatcher felt a stirring in his blood. He had to find out, and there was only one sure way.

"Absolutely not!" Roger Ainsley slammed a palm down on the bar. "I need you here Michael, not traipsing around America looking for ghosts."

It was mid-afternoon, but the usual crowd at the Cock and Thistle had come early. The celebration had been nonstop since victory over the Jerries had been declared, and Ainsley's raised voice was lost amid a room buzzing with raucous chatter. Thatcher sat calmly in the face of it all.

"It's the only way, Roger. This mission was something big. We have to be sure it's ended."

"It has ended. This U-boat surrendered."

"The boat was lurking off the coast of America. And it was there to deliver Braun."

"We know no such thing!"

"He's probably in a prisoner of war camp," Thatcher reasoned. "If not, the crew can tell us what became of him. Either way, I can't miss this chance to close the book on Alexander Braun."

"It's too thin," Ainsley argued. He then changed tack. "Anyway, I need you here, Michael."

"No you don't. You told me they're closing the place down. It's only natural that the pipeline will slow. And besides, I haven't been off station in two months, since I tracked down that cutthroat Smoltz."

The bartender slid a pair of replacement pints in front of the two officers without asking, and removed the first-round empties. It was the final installment of their customary order.

"Roger, it's my job to hunt down the ones that have slipped through — the high-profile cases. Let me get on top of this one while it's still fresh."

Ainsley shook his head and took a long draw on his mug.

"My mind is made up," Thatcher said. "You know what a nuisance I can be when my mind is made up."

"You've really slipped your moorings, Michael. I should deny it just for the sport. And make you take a week's leave."

"If you give me a week's leave, you know where I'll go straightaway." Thatcher waited patiently.

"Bloody hell! Two weeks. Not a minute more."

Thatcher grinned. "I'm sure it won't take any longer."

Chapter 15

The next morning Thatcher took his tea with honey, hoping to soothe the unmistakable rawness that was building in his throat. His body ached — more than usual — and the pressure in his sinuses sealed it. He was coming down with a cold. The timing was miserable, but there was nothing to be done.

He stood with his hands on his hips wondering what he might have forgotten to pack. Thatcher had done his best, but it still looked like an eggbeater had been turned loose in his suitcase. For so long it had been Madelines chore. She would have had the spare set of briefs on top, followed by the extra uniform trousers, undershirt, and shirt. Done that way, he could dress more quickly, donning each item straight out of the case. She'd always had a wonderful economy with things like that, the simple practicalities that so often escaped Thatcher.

He went to his nightstand and lifted the small framed picture of Madeline. It had been taken in late '43 at a Christmas bash, only three days before the Heinkel, still laden with its bombs, had crashed into their Chelsea flat. It was the last picture taken of her, but that wasn't why he liked it. It was her demeanor, the effervescent spirit that had enveloped her during those last days, captured in a moment of irreverence near an overdone Christmas tree. Madeline had turned positively buoyant during some of the darkest days of the war. Only later did Thatcher find out why. Doctor Davies had come to the funeral to pay his respects.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Michael It must have been doubly cruel given her condition."

"Condition, doctor?"

"Oh God — hadn't she told you?"

Thatcher had changed the subject, not wanting to hear any more. Yet the truth would not be put down. Days later he found it in the unopened Christmas card she had prepared for him — a horrible dagger preserved in a dressing table drawer in the rubble of 27 Kingston Street. Dearest Michael Let's enjoy our last Christmas alone. Congratulations!

She had been waiting, holding her most precious gift for the perfect moment. A moment she would never live to see. The loss of one life so dear had seemed unbearable. Yet the second, never even to be realized, had put Thatcher over the edge. He made every effort to ignore the thirst for revenge, but it was quite impossible. It was, he supposed, the essence of most wars.

As the Ordnance Officer for 9 Squadron, he was in charge of twenty-eight men who loaded bombs and bullets on the unit's Lancaster Mk II heavy bombers. It was not outside the purview of his job to tag along on flights, the intent being to verify the accuracy and performance of weapon systems. Prior to Madeline's death he had been aloft a number of times on maintenance test and training sorties. But never across the channel and into action.

His opportunity arose from a series of malfunctions — the new five hundred pounders were developing a nasty tendency to hang up, not releasing properly from their bomb racks. This created an inherently dangerous condition, and Thatcher suggested to the squadron commander that he should go along on a few combat missions to diagnose the problem. The commander was less than enthusiastic, but Thatcher had done his homework. He made a strong engineering case for solving the issue, and the commander had little choice but to approve his request for limited combat flight status.

The first five missions passed easily. He had watched the bombs on every release, finding one hang-up due to a broken lug. But Thatcher had still not gotten what he really wanted. He'd spent hours behind the guns, regularly volunteering to relieve the gunners from their tedious watches, and quietly hoping they'd get jumped while he was on the trigger. His chance finally came on the sixth mission. Over the target area, Bremen, they came under heavy attack from the air. The tail gunner took a round from an ME-109, killing the lad instantly. With the fighters still swarming, Thatcher took up the position and returned fire at the swooping machines. Unfortunately, while he knew the mechanics of the .303 Browning intimately, he'd never been trained to fire it at a moving target. He only knew from bar talk that you had to lead the target.

One after another, the Messerschmitts dove in with guns blazing. Thatcher responded in kind, forcing himself to fire in front of the fighters, hoping they'd crash into his own deadly stream. Pass after pass, bullets raked into the thin skin of the Lancaster. Smoke burned into his lungs and he heard crewmen screaming, but the huge beast kept lumbering ahead.

Finally, one of the Germans got impatient. Instead of a slashing attack from a high angle, the fighter pulled directly behind the Lancaster and closed in. Thatcher and the fighter pilot eyed one another straight on, no angular movement to complicate the firing solution — it was simply a battle of nerves as the much faster fighter closed in. At one hundred yards both began firing. Thatcher's bubble canopy shattered, and he fell back as bullets ripped viciously into his leg. There was blood everywhere, his own now mixed with that of the original gunner. His fate seemed sealed, but he clawed his way back to the station, praying the gun would still work in the next seconds. The Messerschmitt filled the sky as Thatcher squeezed the trigger, not even trying to reference the sight. An orange fireball erupted, enveloping everything, and shrapnel from the screaming fighter peppered the Lancaster's tail. It was the last thing he remembered.

The copilot later filled in the rest. The bomber had managed to lumber back and ditch in the English Channel. Thatcher, a tourniquet around his mangled leg, had been picked up with the three surviving crewmembers. Two months in hospital followed.

There, Thatcher was able to reflect on his actions. Madeline had been killed by the crash of a German bomber, shot down by a British fighter over London. He'd then found his own way to the fight, shooting down a German fighter over Bremen. Time and again he had wondered — had the remnants of that aircraft crashed into a building below? Perhaps, in the great circularity of war, killing a German soldier's pregnant wife? There were moments, disturbingly, when he hoped it was so.

These were the thoughts Madeline would have hated, but he couldn't shake them away. While on the mend, he'd been surrounded by others who had lost limbs or their sight. But Thatcher was sure he had lost his mind. He wanted nothing but to go back and shoot down another Messerschmitt. And another and another. He wanted nothing less than full settlement for the death of his wife and their unborn daughter — somehow he knew it had been a daughter. Thatcher couldn't sleep, and while his body mended, his soul festered.

His chance for salvation came by way of Roger Ainsley, one of his old professors from King's College. Roger had visited him at the rehabilitation center and offered a transfer to a new section — MI-19. It was part of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, responsible for interrogating prisoners of war. Thatcher, the nearly solicitor-at-law, saw it as an ideal means to his end. Uncover the worst offenders and hold them responsible. No bullets or explosions, but a guaranteed gallows for the deserving. And as the war in Europe ground to a messy stop, the time had come for accountability.

Thatcher slid the photograph carefully back onto the night-stand. He washed his teacup and put in on the drying rack. He then eyed a struggling, withered plant by the window. It was the only survivor, the rest of Madeline's crop having already fallen to rot under his care. Along with the once productive garden out back. She had turned it over to vegetables for the war effort. Now it was a horticultural disaster, a muddy tangle of weeds and vine.

Thatcher sighed. Perhaps he could salvage something when he got back.

His flight, the first available, would leave from RAE Farnborough in two hours. It was an American B-24 being repositioned to the Pacific theater. The third landing would deposit him at a place called Westover Field, a U. S. air base in Massachusetts. From there he would track down the crew of U-801. Alexander Braun might still be among them. Or perhaps not.

Thatcher would simply have to find out.

Chapter 16

The three flights took two days, slowed by a broken oil cooler that had grounded them for twelve hours in Halifax. The B-24, designated Big Red by her nose art, touched down in America at six in the morning and deposited Thatcher on the tarmac of Westover Field in Massachusetts. To his surprise, he was informed that a message was waiting for him at Base Operations. He took his bag, thanked the crew, and trudged wearily across the ramp.

The American bomber had proven no more comfortable than the Lancasters Thatcher was familiar with. Deafeningly loud, it had a heavy vibration when the propellers weren't perfectly synchronized. This, complemented by a temperature well below the freezing point, had resulted in no sleep whatsoever during the journey. To top it off, Thatcher's head cold was ratcheting up. His throat was raw and his joints ached.

Base Operations was a small, hastily erected clapboard building that hardly owned up to its lofty title. Inside, he found an enlisted man at the reception desk. The soldier stiffened slightly, and Thatcher suspected he probably had no comprehension of British rank insignia. He put the man at ease.

"I'm Major Thatcher. I was told you have a message for me."

"Oh, yeah," the man smiled and began fishing into a drawer.

"Here you are, sir."

Thatcher unfolded the paper to find what he'd been hoping for: crew of u-801 held at fort devens massachusettes.

Sergeant Winters had done well, Thatcher thought. But nothing about Braun. In a perfect world they might have already found him. He turned back to the enlisted man. "How can I get to Fort Devens?"

"Devens? Its about eighty miles northeast, almost to Boston. If its on your orders, they'll set you up with a car at the motor pool. Otherwise, the bus station is a few blocks outside the main gate."

Thatchers initial reaction was to go with the bus, but as he walked out of Base Operations he decided that a car might speed things considerably. He'd always heard America was a big place and getting around might be a problem.

The sergeant in charge of the motor pool was of British descent, bored, and took right away to the amiable major who needed a car for a day or two of the king's business.

"I have a sedan, sir. The only thing is, I've got to have her back by midnight on the third day."

"Of course," Thatcher agreed, having no idea if he could keep the bargain.

Ten minutes later, map in hand, he drove out the main gate and concentrated on his driving. He owned a car, a dilapidated Austin 7, but since the start of the war he'd rarely driven it for lack of petrol. Now came the added complication of staying on the right side of the road.

Once comfortable, he allowed his eyes to drift to the surroundings. The traffic was heavy, like he'd only seen before in London, but absent were the bombed-out buildings, blackout curtains, and sand-bagged batteries of antiaircraft artillery. The stores along the street were all open and seemed well stocked with goods. There were signs of the war, of course. Soldiers strolled the sidewalks with girls on their arms, and patriotic posters were plastered in the shop windows. Still, he had the impression that the war's influence here was less direct, a distant threat that touched all but harmed few.

The drive to Fort Devens took over two hours. On arriving, his first order of business was to establish approval for an interview. Thatcher lacked any official, written authorization to conduct his investigation, so he tread lightly with the request. Fortunately, the camp commander was a disinterested sort who saw nothing wrong in an Allied officer pursuing a distant inquiry. "If you've come all this way," the man decided, "you must have a good reason."

Thatcher next talked to the captain who had already investigated the case. He confirmed that U-801's entire crew was incarcerated at Fort Devens, except for her executive officer, who'd been taken elsewhere for medical attention. He also learned there was no Alexander Braun on the crew roster. The American officer had questioned U-801's captain once, but the results were limited, giving Thatcher none of what he was after. Not wanting to waste time, he requested that Kapitanleutnant Jurgen Scholl be brought right up.

If the interrogation rooms at Handley Down were utilitarian, those at Fort Devens were minimalist. Inside a tent, three chairs sat on wet dirt. They were the folding metal type, sure to inflict equal discomfort to the backsides of all participants. The table separating the chairs was nothing more than a thin sheet of laminated wood resting crookedly on two uneven stacks of bricks. Thatcher took a seat and did not rise when Jurgen Scholl was guided into the room. The guard looked inquiringly at Thatcher, who shooed him off with a wave of his hand. "No need, Sergeant. You may wait outside."

The man did as instructed. Thatcher switched to German.

"Have a seat, Kapitanleutnant."

The Kriegsmarine man moved guardedly to a chair. He was small, slightly built, though not in the sense of being malnourished as were so many of the prisoners Thatcher had seen. He wore an unkempt beard, but behind the mask a pair of piercing blue eyes held strong. Thatcher reached into his pocket and offered up a cigarette and a light.

The German accepted with a nod of appreciation. "Thank you.

"I am Major Thatcher of the British Army. I am not assigned to this facility. Are they treating you and your crew well?"

Scholls eyes sparkled. "Each of my men has his own bunk, we shower every day, and the food is excellent. We might not wish to leave."

Thatcher smiled thinly. Civility established, he set his course. "I have come here seeking information about a man, and I think you may be able to help. After today, Captain, you will not see me again. That is, assuming what you offer is found to be — accurate."

The U-boat commander showed no reaction, and Thatcher realized that any attempt to instill fear would fall flat on this one. Years under the Atlantic had certainly deadened whatever nerves he still possessed. Other means would be necessary.

"You are from Kiel?" It was one of the few facts established from the previous session. That was where Jurgen Scholl would want to go.

"Yes."

"And you have a wife and son there?"

"Who knows." The German shrugged and took a long draw on his cigarette. "Major, tell me what it is you wish to know. The sooner we settle these things, the sooner we can all go home."

"Indeed." Thatcher leaned forward and interlaced his fingers on the wobbly table. "I wish to know about your last mission, the one that brought you here to America." Thatcher saw little reaction. "Did you deliver a spy?"

"Yes. A Wehrmacht captain. I do not know his name — not his real one. Our instructions were to make best speed and deposit him ashore at the place they call Long Island."

"And you did?"

"Yes. We received a message regarding the war's end only moments before the drop-off. The spy insisted on going ashore anyway. We sent him topside with his things and a raft, three miles out. It was the last we saw of him."

"I see. The conditions were good? The weather?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

"So in all likelihood this man is now in America."

"I suppose. And don't bother asking me what his mission was, Major. As I said, I did not even know his true name."

"All right." Thatcher raised his voice, "Sergeant!"

The guard peered in the door.

"I need the best map you can find of the United States. The northeast coast in particular."

"Yes, sir."

Thatcher turned back to the prisoner. "What did he look like?"

"Rather tall. Blond hair, blue eyes. And a scar, here." He drew a slash across his temple.

"Tell me, what time of day was this drop-off?"

"Shortly after dark. Once the drop was complete, we went back out to sea. However, I could not make contact with headquarters. We were very short on fuel and would never have made it back to Kiel. I thought it best for my men to surrender here."

The questions ran until, ten minutes later, the guard returned with a schoolboy's geography book in his hand.

"This was all I could find, Major. Sorry."

"We'll make do." Thatcher took it and leafed through to a page that showed the northeastern United States. He turned it on the desk to face Scholl, and U-80Vs captain tapped a finger straight on the spot.

"Here. Just off the eastern end of Long Island."

Thatcher saw a town called Hampton. "All right. I'll double-check the position with your executive officer."

The German suddenly seemed hesitant. "Fritz? He is not here with the rest of the crew."

"No. He's in a hospital, over in Rhode Island. Recovering nicely from his infection, I'm told."

Thatcher watched carefully as the man who had battled the sea for so many years shifted slightly in his seat. It was a classic interrogator's tactic. He knew that with the crew interred together, any story line could have been concocted among them.

The executive officer was conveniently outside, an unassailable cross-check to the captain s story. The two men locked eyes and a new atmosphere fell into place. The captain had either lied or not told the entire truth. Was he doing it for the good of the fallen Reich? Thatcher doubted that. More likely he had done something improper, perhaps even criminal.

Thatcher lowered his voice and spoke slowly, suggesting a departure from the previous track. "Kapitanleutnant — I suspect there is something more. I'll offer two options. First, I can go to every man on your crew, including the executive officer, and compare their stories. This will waste a great deal of my time, which will make me angry. If anything should be brought to light that is questionable under the rules of this war, I will push very hard to have you and any culpable members of your crew prosecuted. On the other hand, if you tell me everything here and now, and I believe it to be true, you will not hear from me again. On this, you have my word as an officer. I will tell the Americans you have cooperated fully." Thatcher paused. "We have just finished a long and very nasty war. I am dedicated to cleaning up the loose ends, and this man you delivered to America may be a very significant one."

The U-boat commander found his balance. Far from being cowed by the ultimatum, he grinned, the blue eyes piercing into his interrogator. "I am glad, Major, that you spent the war in places like this and not in command of a destroyer. You might have given me trouble."

"We all have our uses. Now, what have you not told me?"

The German studied his adversary, a luxury he must rarely have had when he'd guided a ship under the ocean, Thatcher thought.

"The Wehrmacht captain is dead, Major. Put your mind at ease."

"What happened?"

"He was a bastard, but I only did him a favor. If he had been captured with the rest of us, he would have been identified as a spy and hanged." The German dropped his spent cigarette to the floor and twisted the toe of his boot over the remains. "We surfaced three miles from the shoreline, right where I showed you, and sent him above. Then we shut our hatches and dove. He had nothing. None of his equipment — and no raft."

"You don't think he could have swum ashore?"

"I can t imagine it. The water was cold. The currents. He is gone, Major."

Thatcher now understood Scholl's omission. It was certainly a crime, and as captain he was responsible, notwithstanding the logic that the spy would have been executed in any event. Yet by its very criminal nature, the confession was dressed in truth. They had thrown Braun overboard with almost no chance of survival. Almost no chance.

"But how can I be sure?" Thatcher wondered aloud.

The Kriegsmarine skipper grinned and shook his head. "Major, there were many times when I heard my torpedoes hit their mark, yet with destroyers buzzing around like angry wasps above, I could not venture a look to verify the kill. You must do what I did. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. And move on to the next target."

The two weeks had passed like two years. Braun drifted through the currents of leisure — golf and tennis, lunch at the Newport Country Club, and even a formal dinner at the Van DeMeer's. Each affair was little more than a tease, like studying the design of a magnificent castle, knowing all along that a wrecking ball was imminent.

He was enjoying breakfast for once, so far alone in the huge dining room. As Braun gorged himself, he studied the abomination on the wall behind Sargent Cole's place at the head of the table. An exquisite Renoir was on display, one of the master's latter works emphasizing volume and contour. Hanging next to it was the most god-awful piece of modernist trash Braun had ever seen. That was what money allowed, he decided. Take something extravagant and, if the whim strikes, spit in its face.

He was tired, having been up nearly all night contemplating his course. He would have to leave soon, if for no other reason than to carry his false existence to a natural conclusion — the Japs were on the back foot, but not done yet, and Alex Braun, the soldier of obscure rank and service, had work to do. With Harrold House soon to be a distant memory, he needed something new, a plan to take him forward. Unfortunately, his only other connection with this country involved a rendezvous in New Mexico — for a mission he had no intention of completing.

He was taking his coffee when Edward bustled in.

"Good morning, Alex."

"Good morning, Edward."

Edward scooped sausage and a hard-boiled egg onto his plate. "What are your plans today?"

"Oh, the usual. A bit of tennis, then maybe lunch on the terrace." On his last day, Braun thought, he might add, And screwing your wife as a nightcap. Lydia had come to his room each night. After the first liaison, Braun had been unsure of what to do. He found Lydia s passion frustrating, distracting given the current circumstances. Continuing the affair carried risk, yet he had always answered her knock, satisfied her impulses. To what end he had no idea.

Edward said, "I'm taking Mystic out this afternoon. Care to come along?"

Braun would have preferred pistols at dawn. He'd already been out on the boat twice. It was a tedious affair as Edward blathered about his work and nautical exploits in inverse share to the demands of the boat — the greater the wind, the less he talked.

"Hows the weather?" Alex inquired.

"Should be a strong breeze today. A storms working its way up from the Carolinas."

"Might be fun." Braun weighed the thin positives of wasting another day at sea with Edward. But then his thoughts ricocheted down a very different path. He found himself saying, "Perhaps Lydia would come along."

"Lydia7. Good heavens, she hates heavy seas. It's all I can do to get her out on the bay."

"Well, we'd be good sports to ask." "Ask if you like, but I know what the answer will be." Braun got up to leave, taking a cup of coffee with him. "What time?"

"Oh, let's say three." "Right."

Chapter 17

With Edward at the office and her father tied up with business, Lydia decided it would be an ideal day to invite Alex to lunch at the Newport Country Club. And while she desperately wished she could spend the time alone with him, there was no choice — she had to bring mother. Lydia was an awful liar. If it were just she and Alex, the old hens roosting at their regular tables would see it in her eyes, and their tongues would wag mercilessly.

She found Alex in the library, standing in front of a large wall map of the United States, one finger planted on a spot to the lower left.

"Hello," she said.

Alex turned sharply, but then his eyes softened. His gaze drifted over her body in that open appraisal she so enjoyed. "You look fetching," he said.

Lydia brushed by him as if not hearing the comment, and hoping he'd get a whiff of her new perfume. She went to the map, which displayed two dozen red and green dots, all in the northeastern states. "Father keeps track of his holdings, all the factories and projects."

Alex looked at the display. "These circles?"

"Yes. I can't tell you exactly what they represent, but Father likes visual things. I suppose in another ten years the whole map will be covered with his dots" She went next to him, closer than was necessary. "What were you doing?"

"Oh, just checking the route Til be taking when I head out West."

Lydia s mood sank. Another reminder — soon he'd be gone.

"But let's not talk about that." His hand fell and brazenly cupped her bottom.

Lydia heard footsteps outside the library door. She pulled away, and moments later a uniformed maid appeared at the entrance.

"Sir, your whites are ready now. Mr. Cole is waiting on the tennis court."

"Thank you," he replied.

The woman disappeared. Lydia leaned back against the sofa and heaved a sigh. "Oh, Alex—"

"I know, darling. I know." He started toward the door. "Your father doesn't like to be kept waiting."

She'd nearly forgotten why she'd come. "Alex, wait."

He paused.

"Can you come to the club for lunch?" Lydia felt the need to add, "We'll bring Mother along."

His smile was an answer. "Of course. Oh, and what about you — are you doing anything this afternoon?"

"No, why?"

He hesitated. "Well… just keep it free. I may come up with something."

Lydia watched him leave. She crossed her arms tightly. It was all so insufferable. She knew the status quo was doomed to ruin. In particular, if her father ever found out all hell would break loose. Edward had not yet become suspicious — the two of them kept separate rooms at Harrold House, and she'd been feigning headaches in the evenings to ensure her privacy — but sooner or later she'd slip up. On one hand, she hoped Alex would never leave. On the other, Lydia wished she could abandon the affair. She felt wretched about having been unfaithful to Edward. He'd done nothing to deserve it. If only Alex would do it for her, she thought. Perhaps one morning she'd wake to find a sincere, agony-swept good-bye-my-love note slipped under her door.

Lydia looked again at the map on the wall. In one corner was Newport, her home, surrounded by dots. The rest was a tremendous open expanse — and it would soon swallow the man who had turned her heart inside out. A thin sheet of glass covered the map, and her attention was drawn to where she'd seen him pointing. There was a smudge where his finger had been. Lydia read the name of the town underneath and, while she was not a worldly traveler, it made instant sense.

Of course, she thought. He's traveling by train.

Thatcher kept his word. He dismissed Scholl without relaying the confession about Braun's fate. He knew from vast experience that war crimes of the type were viciously hard to prove. Scholl could easily excuse his actions by saying that he felt his ship was exposed or threatened. The crew would back him up. In any event, the war was at an end, and prosecutors would be inundated with cases that were both far more deserving, and far easier to establish in a court of law.

The morning spent, his next step was obvious. Thatcher would drive to Long Island and search for anything about a German spy who might have come ashore three weeks ago. A look at the map told him it would be a considerable drive, stretching well into the evening, and so he stopped at the first roadside restaurant he came across. It would be his first true meal since leaving England. Thatcher needed it — he felt listless, weak, and his head throbbed from the congestion. After parking, he again studied the map and decided he would also order a sandwich to take away, thus avoiding another stop later.

He went into the diner and was immediately told by a middle-aged woman in a tired dress and splattered blue apron to, "Sit anywhere." Thatcher was halfway down the row of worn booths along the front window when he sneezed.

"Gesundheit!"

The voice came from the booth he had just passed — and it was vaguely familiar. He turned to see Jones, the irritating American he'd met in Ainsley's office. Jones pointed across the booth to an empty seat and a suspicious Thatcher eased himself down.

"Welcome to America," Jones said. A thin smirk edged across his lips as he reveled in his little ambush. The man had the subtlety of a rock crusher.

"So you've taken to following me."

"Let's say I found you, Major. And you're awfully far from the office. On vacation?"

Thatcher would not play games. "You know damned well why I'm here."

"Pursuing the case you were ordered to drop?"

He eyed the American defiantly. "Precisely."

"Really? So you think your ghost is here somewhere, sabotaging our factories, stealing information for — no, wait. Who would he be working for now?" Jones chuckled as a waitress skidded to a stop at their table.

"What'll it be, boys?"

Jones ordered coffee. Thatcher forced his attention to the menu and saw that breakfast could always be had. "Eggs, sausage, toast, and tea, please. And a ham sandwich to take away." The waitress scribbled on a pad before scurrying off.

Jones lit up a cigarette. "Fueling up for a long day?"

"How long have you been watching me?"

"How about I'll ask the questions — what were you doing at that POW camp?"

Thatcher bristled, but strove for patience. Jones had some measure of authority, and antagonizing him would not help matters. He pulled the sharpness from his voice. "I discovered that our German agent, Braun, might have been sent to America on a U-boat. In particular, one that surrendered here in the states recently. I went to Fort Devens to talk to the captain of that ship."

"And?"

"I was right. They dropped Braun off along the coast of Long Island three weeks ago."

Jones' humor faded. His high, freckled forehead gained new creases. "He actually got here?"

"He got to within three miles of your coastline." Thatcher added deftly, "From there we can only guess." The American fell quiet and Thatcher pressed his advantage. "Worried about your Manhattan Project?"

Jones cut a swift glance over his shoulder before locking eyes with Thatcher. His voice was low and harsh, "Do not mention that name again!"

"All right. Under one condition — you tell me what it is."

"Tell you what it is?' Jones stuttered incredulously. "Just like that?"

"Mr. Jones, or whatever your name is, our interests are mutual. We don't want this man anywhere near your precious secrets. But to find him I must know what he's after."

The waitress arrived with cups of tea and coffee. When she left, Jones raised his mug in a mock toast. "God save the King. Now listen, Thatcher—"

"FBI."

"What?"

"You're FBI," Thatcher repeated. "All that nonsense about the War Department."

The American rubbed his temples. Thatcher hoped he was giving the man a headache.

Jones aimed a finger at him. "I can have you sent back to England under armed guard within the hour."

"And I'll be back on the next B-24."

The two locked glares.

Thatcher continued, "In England you didn't even talk to Corporal Klein. It was me you were after. This project is something big, and the mere mention of the code name threw up a red flag. You only wanted everything swept clean and shuttered."

"Can you guess why?"

Thatcher considered it. "Because the whole thing is nearing fruition. It won't be a secret much longer."

Jones sat back and took a long draw from his cup. "You're a smart man, Major. As we say here in America, maybe too smart for your own good."

"I can help you find Braun," Thatcher implored. "He could still be a threat, couldn't he?"

Jones set down his cup and looked across the room again. When he spoke, it was in a voice only Thatcher could hear. "This is the biggest secret of the war. And it's also the biggest single industrial program ever undertaken. Billions of dollars."

It was Thatcher's turn to fall nonplussed. "Surely you didn't say—"

"Yes, billions. Without the approval of Congress, I might add."

"What does it involve?"

"That I'm not telling you. I like my job. Let's just say it's a weapon, and it's taking an incredible amount of resources to build. My job is to make sure nothing gets in the way. And there are a hundred guys like me out there, not to mention the Army."

Thatcher filed away this information. "It's almost complete?"

"Almost."

"Will it be used against Japan?"

"How would I know? The point is, this project is expansive, and so far along that one lone saboteur could never make a difference. He'd have to destroy huge facilities all over the country. With the security that's already in place — it would be absolutely impossible."

Thatcher chose not to argue the point. "But then why?"

"Why what?"

"Why this whole mission? The Nazi's knew the war was over. What would be the point of sending Braun here? It's not the kind of thing they could steal?"

"No way," Jones said. "But they say it's something that will change the way wars are fought."

Thatcher chewed on that — change the way wars are fought. How many times in the history of armed conflict had that happened? The bow. Gunpowder. Mustard gas. In this war it had been the airplane. The goddamned airplane. And now some new terror to trump them all. He wondered what it could be. Did Jones even know?

The waitress rushed up with Thatchers food, a heavy plate clanking onto the table. When she left, he said, "What about Die Wespe? Klein said there was an agent."

Jones shook his head definitively. "Nobody could threaten a program of this scale." He slurped crudely from his cup. "You really think this Braun guy is here?"

"I'm sure he was dropped off. But… I do have doubts as to whether he made it ashore."

"Why?"

"Leaky raft, nasty weather. The captain of this U-boat seemed skeptical, but no one can really say." Thatcher began cutting his sausage into neat, half-inch cylinders. "You just need to get out to the end of Long Island and start looking."

"I need to start looking?"

"Yes. You represent a large law enforcement agency — you could find out a great deal, probably with no more than a few phone calls. And while you work on Long Island, I'll take a different tack."

Jones' amusement was evident. "I'll bite. What's that?"

"If he made it here, Braun might be difficult to track down, especially since he's gotten a big head start. I want to find out more about him."

"How?"

Thatcher's answer made the FBI man laugh. "So you want me to do your leg work while you prance off to an Ivy League school to look at yearbooks? I'll give you this, Thatcher, you got big brass ones." He shook his head and crunched his cigarette into an ashtray. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't have you sent back to England right now."

Thatcher took a knife and meticulously trimmed the edges from his toast. "I'll give you two. First, because I'm right. And second, because, if he's here, I'll find him."

Thatcher was back in his car thirty minute later. His map held a new fold, now showing the road east to Boston. Jones had succumbed, agreeing to search for any evidence of the last German spy coming ashore on Long Island. He had also given a telephone number where he could be reached. It would be an uneasy partnership, he and the crass American — the man was like a barnacle, a scraping irritant. But Thatcher was on foreign ground. He needed help, and he hoped that Jones, for all his arrogance, was at least proficient at his job.

As Thatcher drove, the rolling countryside and small towns he passed through would have been an easy comparison to home. He never noticed. Instead, he stared blankly at the road ahead, his head aching. A doctor, if he had one, would have prescribed rest. Madeline would have prescribed hot soup. He should have ordered the soup.

Never one for self-pity, his thoughts moved on. Miles passed quickly as bits and pieces of information turned in his mind. The Manhattan Project. Three high-ranking Nazi intelligence men plotting a mission in the Reich's dying days. But what was it all about?

The only way to know for sure was to find Alexander Braun.

Chapter 18

A waiter produced a tray of scones as the feast wound down. Mother demurred, while Alex took two. Lydia had hoped lunch would be a distraction, but so far the time with Alex had only served to muddle her nervous thoughts further. She couldn't speak without examining every word, lest anything incriminating slip out. A cinnamon scone fell to her plate.

"You act like you're eating for two, dear," her mother remarked.

She had indeed taken a full lunch, but the words sent Lydia reeling. God, I never even considered it — what if I should become pregnant by Alex?

"They're quite good," Alex remarked.

"Take another," Mother said. "You still have to deal with those dreadful Japs. I know the Army takes care of its troops and all, but you may not see a proper scone for some time."

"Indeed," Alex agreed.

"And when will you be heading out, dear? How much leave have they given you?"

Lydia thought the question seemed casual enough, nothing pointed to suggest that Alex's welcome had thinned. Still, it got her thinking. Had her parents been talking? Of course they had. She reached for her mimosa.

"I have to be out west in ten more days. Of course, I might take some time in Minnesota."

Her mother said, "And how is your father?"

"Actually he s away, in Europe," Alex said breezily. "There's a lot of reconstruction to be done — he's a businessman at heart, you know."

Lydia watched her mother smile at this perfect logic. Mother knew little about business. It was simply what rich men did. It came to Lydia's mind that she should try to learn more about Edward's dealings. A good wife would understand such things. A good wife.

Alex said, "I'll stay just a bit longer, assuming I haven't challenged your gracious hospitality." He smiled rakishly. Lydia knew he was always at his most engaging with her mother.

Mother giggled, having had three mimosas herself. "Oh, dear boy. It's a pleasure to have someone around who can beat Sargent at his games. You do vex him." She giggled again before adding, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go powder my nose."

When Mother was gone, Lydia turned to Alex. His gregarious mood had already descended — he was feeling the stress just as she was. Both his hands were wrapped around a water glass on the table, and he studied it intently, as if deciding something.

"So you really will go soon?" Lydia asked.

He spoke without looking up. "Yes."

The ensuing silence was harsh, and Alex finally spoke in a low voice, "Darling what we're doing — you know it can never last."

She nodded, then more silence before he announced the news she'd been both hoping for and dreading.

"I'm going to leave tomorrow."

"Oh, Alex! Then tonight will be—"

"No! Not tonight." He looked at her and his expression softened. "There's too much at stake. I can't allow you to ruin your life for my own selfish —" he stopped and once more studied his glass. Then his tone was lighter, almost glib. "Listen. I'm going sailing this afternoon with Edward. Come with us. There's nothing untoward as long as Edward is there. That way we can at least be together."

"Sailing? Well, its not my favorite. But if it's our only chance — then all right."

"Good."

Lydia saw that Alex was pleased. It might be her last chance ever to spend time with him. She couldn't possibly have said no.

After lunch, Braun borrowed a car, telling Lydia he had to run errands to the bank and the cleaners. On returning to Harrold House, he separated himself for a stroll to the water's edge. A winding path worked through gardens and toward the shore. At the edge of the property an offshoot continued to one side, meandering to the northern boundary where a rocky point jutted defiantly into the ocean. From there, the shoreline curled back inward and receded into a small, natural cove where Edward's boat Mystic lay protected at a dock.

Braun eased slowly down the stone steps that led to the dock. He surveyed the boat, familiar now after two outings, and studied her layout. She was solidly built and attractive, if a bit square, and her upkeep was top-notch, thanks to a gardener who doubled very competently as a dockhand. Her teak rails were glossy and the winches polished to a high shine. He studied the lines and stanchions, the pulleys and cleats. And he wondered which components would help him kill Edward Murray.

He wasn't sure when the idea had begun circulating in his mind, but with each day it gained clarity, came more to the forefront. Strangest of all, the more Braun tried to push it away, the more insistent the urge became. The mechanics varied. A vision of Edward tumbling hard down the stairs, interrupting high tea. Edward's body crushed on the rocks at ocean's edge. The risk was enormous, of course, but if done properly, neatly, the rewards could be commensurate.

Braun was sure that Lydia herself was within his grasp. But if Edward should die under suspicious circumstances, eyes would fall hard upon him. Not only those of the police, but Sargent Cole as well. The man was a consummate opportunist who would easily spot the same. Braun s very existence was less than a house of cards — it was nothing. He had no identity papers, no accounts. Only words and stories.

But those stories were presently held as fact by the Coles of Newport, and from that foundation he worked in reverse. The police would allow Sargent Cole to vouch for the soldier who was their guest. Sargent, in turn, could be convinced by Lydia. He would be blinded, not by her cunning and guile, but rather her lack of it. If she could truly be convinced that Edward had fallen victim to a terrible accident, the die would be cast. Braun would answer a few questions, then leave to finish his tour of duty. From a distance he would watch and listen. If no questions were raised, he could return at the war's conclusion. Return to console the grieving widow — and eventually take his place at Harrold House.

It would only work if done well. There was an art to killing well. Braun had seen all varieties — messy bayonets, random artillery, clumsy strangling. It was in sniping, however, that he found a strange, arcane beauty. He possessed a natural flair for it — the intricacy of stalking, the quiet patience, the geometry of the shot. It all came together in one precise, deadly instant, a moment that could be countered at any time by an opposing shot. Braun put two fingers to the ragged scar on his temple. Once he'd gotten greedy, gone for the second shot, and it had nearly cost him his life. The other sniper had missed by a fraction, the bullet skimming off Braun's sight to leave its harmless mark. Was he pressing his luck now?

He studied Mystic and wondered if it could be done perfectly. Purely. His eyes narrowed as a blueprint began to form in his mind. Next to the dock was a small boathouse. Once a place to lodge the occasional guest, it had fallen in status over the years to become nothing more than a storage shed for Mystics gear. Braun went to the door. The brass handle was green, corroded from sea spray, but the door swung open smoothly.

He turned his head, recoiling momentarily at the musty odor, then scanned across a room full of lines, tackle, and canvas. He found a large, sturdy sailbag and set it aside. A mushroom anchor, sized more for a skiff than Mystic, also drew his attention. The plan began to form. Braun visualized Mystic, the layout of her cabin and deck. Details fell naturally into place. As in any blueprint, the key was simplicity. Start with a strong foundation, ensure balance, and function would follow. The principles were universal.

Into the sailbag went the anchor and an old fishing reel that, judging by the degree of corrosion, had long been separated from its pole. He also came across a blunt, sturdy knife, of the type used to pry open shellfish, and this too went into the bag. He then shouldered the lot and went out to Mystic.

Fortunately, the padlock on her companionway door was unlocked — Wescott, the gardener-cum-dockhand, had already begun his preparations. Braun looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then went below. Thirty seconds later he emerged empty-handed and jumped back to the dock. He paused for a final look at Mystics deck before walking briskly to the house.

Thatcher had parked and slept in his car for a short stretch — his body rhythm was not yet adjusted to the local clock — and was bleary-eyed when he arrived in Boston in the mid-afternoon. A short walk, however, reinvigorated his senses before arriving at the Administration Office of Harvard University.

The woman behind a large wooden counter smiled. Any man in uniform, Thatcher suspected, even an unfamiliar one, would have taken the same smile.

"Good morning, I'm Major Michael Thatcher of the British Army. I'm investigating a possible Nazi spy."

The woman's smile evaporated. "You won't find any of those around here, Major."

"Hopefully not now, but I'm interested in a young man who might have attended your school before the war."

"Before the war?"

"Yes, 1940, and perhaps a few years before that. Might I trouble you to check your records?"

"Well, I suppose there's no harm in it. What's the name?"

"Alexander Braun. B-R-A-U-N."

She turned to a filing cabinet, opened a drawer, and mumbled aloud so that Thatcher could follow, "Let's see — we had a Bratton and a Braswell — Braverman. But no, no Braun."

Thatcher was dumbstruck. There had to be a mistake. Corporal Klein had been certain about the name. "Are you sure?"

The clerk closed her filing cabinet. "Major, I run this department— have for fifteen years. There was no Braun at Harvard in '39 or '40."

He grasped weakly for an explanation. "There isn't another university by the same name, is there?"

"Mister, there's only one Harvard."

Thatcher sat on a barstool an hour later turning an empty mug by its handle. He'd already drained it twice, enduring the piss-yellow liquid that passed for beer in America. Time and again he tried to make sense of it. Such a simple equation. He knew the school and the name, yet the records, which he suspected were painfully accurate, showed nothing. Had Braun lied about his name? Or his education? The Germans were sticklers for records, thank heavens, but had Alexander Braun put one over on them? And if so, why?

Frustrated, he decided to check in with the FBI. He went to a phone booth at the back of the bar and pulled the piece of paper from his pocket. Tomas Jones, it read, followed by a number. An operator picked up on the first ring, and moments later he was talking to Jones.

"Any luck on Long Island?"

"No. At least no straight evidence of someone coming ashore. The only thing out of the ordinary was a murder. Some truck driver was robbed and stuffed into his trailer— happened the morning after you think this guy came ashore."

"It might have been him," Thatcher said.

"I would have expected something more dramatic from the last Nazi superspy. Any luck at the university?"

"No. Nothing." Thatcher wished he had a more positive reply. He rubbed the small paper with the telephone number between two fingers, eyeing it distractedly. Tomas Jones. Tomas—

"Look, Thatcher, we've hit a dead end here. This guy probably never made it to shore from the submarine."

Thatcher suddenly wasn't listening. He stared at the paper. Of course!

"I've got bigger fish to fry," Jones continued, "but if you do come across anything, call me at this number. All right, Thatcher?" The FBI man's tin voice kept coming from a handset that swung freely by its cord. " Thatcher, are you there?

Twenty feet away Thatcher threw a dollar bill onto the bar as he raced for the door.

"Brown! B-R-O-W-N."

The woman behind Harvard's administration desk had been preparing to go home. She sighed at the Englishman, her patience wearing thin. "All right."

She went back to the same filing cabinet and in a matter of seconds pulled out a manila file. "Alexander Brown?"

"Yes! That's it!"

She gave it to Thatcher who began rifling through loose pages — transcripts, application for admission, personal data sheet. There were also tuition payment records.

"Is there not a photograph?"

"Photograph? No." She looked over the transcript. "The seniors have one taken for the yearbook, but this boy never made it past his junior year. Good grades, though. Do you really think he's a Nazi?"

Thatcher ignored the question. "Can I have this?"

"The records? Not a chance, mister. I'd lose my job." She looked around the room. "Of course, most everybody has gone home for the day. If you really think he's a Nazi — I could stick around and let you copy some of it."

Thatcher smiled.

Chapter 19

An hour into the trip Lydia wished she hadn't come. She was laid out miserably on a couch in the main cabin, an arm draped across her sweaty forehead and a bucket waiting on the floor. The bucket was empty, so far, but with Mystic rolling heavily it was only a matter of time. The skies outside were dark and wind whistled through the rigging. She wondered what had possessed her to come. One last afternoon together with Alex? And this is what he'd remember. Still, he'd been very understanding — checking up on her, the occasional comforting touch. Edward, on the other hand, was lost on deck tending to the boat. Her husband was not a mean-spirited man, but there would be no compassion for her suffering, nor any thought of cutting the trip short — he had told her not to come.

A fresh wave of nausea swirled through her innards and Lydia moaned. She heard the two men talking above, their voices loud enough to overcome the thumping of waves into Mystics hull, and the rattle of sea spray raining across her deck. With another muffled thud, Mystic gyrated yet again. Lydia rolled to the bucket just in time, her stomach heaving lunch into the pail. She remained curled in a fetal position, retching violently, again and again until there was nothing left.

Spent, she rolled into a ball, shaking, the putrid taste in her mouth, the sour smell in the air. How embarrassing. How utterly embarrassing. If only she had the strength to get up and empty the bucket. But she just couldn't do it. Yes, she thought, this is how Alex will remember me.

Footsteps pounded to the top of the companionway. She hoped it was Edward. Even in his I-told-you-so mood he'd have to have the compassion to remove the humiliating evidence. Alex appeared. She could only see his legs as he stood strongly against the wind. He was yelling toward the front of the boat, something about the foresail. She heard a muffled reply, and then Alex clearly, "Watch your step up there, man!"

He descended to the top step, one arm extended back out of sight to hold the tiller, which was just aft in the cockpit. He paused on seeing her. What a revolting sight I must be, she thought. Lydia heard something drop to the deck up front, and Alex shouted again to Edward before refocusing on her.

"Are you all right?" he called down.

She nodded, trying to force a smile. Alex left the steering long enough to trot down and remove the bucket, sliding it above and out of sight. He then scurried back up and divided his attention between her and the compass.

He said, "I should never have asked you to come, Lydia. This is my fault. I'll tell Edward we're going to turn back."

"No, it's not important. I feel better now."

"This weather is miserable. I'm not enjoying it."

Another ill wave rose in her stomach and Lydia rolled away, moaning. When it passed, she felt his gentle hand on her cheek. "Oh, Alex," her lips quivered, "it's all right, really. I'll be fine. Edward won't want to turn back."

"Then I'll make him."

"No. Please don't."

He seemed not to hear her as he moved to the stairs, but in the next moment Mystic lurched hard. Lydia heard the rigging creak and she was nearly thrown to the floor as the boat heeled severely to port.

"Dammit!" Alex raced above to the tiller and the boat soon righted. Lydia heard him yelling again. "Sorry Edward —

Edward!" Alex's head twisted back and forth. "Where the devil are you?"

There was an edge to his voice Lydia had never heard. "What is it, Alex?"

"I don't see Edward!"

"What do you mean? Where is he?"

She saw Alex scurry forward on deck, then reappear moments later. "I don't see him! I think he's gone over!"

It took a moment for Lydia to register the significance of those words. "What? You mean he's in the ocean?"

"Quick, come here! I need your help!"

Adrenaline overrode her suffering, and Lydia scrambled topside. Alex was at the helm, his hands feeding lines, his eyes scanning Mystics wake.

"When I left the steering the boat heeled over hard. He's gone overboard. We have to come about and find him."

"Dear God! Edward!" She stood next to Alex and began scanning the waves. White patches of foam where waves had broken dotted the surface everywhere. She squinted as the wind whipped salt spray into her eyes.

"Look over there," Alex pointed. "I'm reversing course."

He worked the sails and soon they were looking ahead. Lydia's stomach churned again, but the source was different now — sudden dread, a panic that swept over her. Time and again she thought she saw something, but it was only the tossing seas, splashes of foam bristling to life and then receding into the cold black water. After what seemed an eternity, Alex turned the boat again.

"We'll go back over it once more!"

Lydia looked to Alex for hope, but his face had turned grim. She instinctively took his arm. "We have to find him, Alex. We have to!"

He put an arm around her shoulder and said with certainty, "We will."

The second pass was no more use than the first. Alex turned the boat toward shore.

"What are you doing?"

"We have to go for help."

"No! No, Alex, we can't leave him out here!" Her body trembled and Lydia felt herself losing control. "We have to find him!" she screamed, reaching for the tiller.

He took her by the shoulders and forced her eyes to his. "Lydia, we must get help! We can't do this on our own. Within an hour there will be twenty boats out here. That's how we'll find him."

Lydia felt his strength, his will, but her heart sank at the idea of leaving Edward out here alone.

"It's his best chance," Alex insisted.

Lydia nodded, tears welling up as she looked helplessly across the reeling ocean. "All right, Alex. You know best. But please hurry!"

Indeed, within the hour, twenty-three boats were scouring Rhode Island Sound for Edward Murray. They swarmed across the water like a colony of bees in search of a lost queen. Captains considered wind and current. Sailors, police, friends, and family scanned relentlessly until the light was lost. Even then a handful kept at it, waving flashlights and lanterns, shouting into the inky darkness in hope of a weak reply. The last boat docked shortly after midnight, Alex Braun and Sargent Cole aboard.

Sargent, looking more tired than Braun had ever seen him, mumbled to Wescott, the dockhand, "Keep her ready. We'll head back out at first light."

The words were belied by a hollow expression.

"Sir—" Braun began.

"I know, Alex. He won't be alive in the morning. A man in his marginal physical condition — he wouldn't have lasted more than an hour." Sargent looked up the hill. "I'm going to tell her now."

"Would you like me to come?" Braun offered.

Sargent shook his head. "No. It's for me to do." He turned silently and began a slow climb up the steps to the main house, a man with an impossible weight on his shoulders.

Braun watched him disappear into the back entrance of Harrold House. Minutes later, from a hundred yards, he heard her plaintive wail. He turned to the water, now bathed in a soft moon, and lit a cigarette. Braun took a long draw, held it, then purged the smoke in a smooth, controlled exhalation. How quick, he thought. How easy. Tomorrow the authorities would launch the fleet again, this time looking for a corpse — in the sea, or perhaps washed up on the beaches or jetties of Newport. The boats would crisscross Rhode Island Sound in a determined quest for whatever remained of Edward Murray. Braun took another draw from his cigarette and smiled. He worried little, for he knew that they would all be looking three hundred feet too high.

Thatcher sat on the bed in his hotel room, papers stacked in three piles. Night had fallen in the four hours since his arrival, and the only illumination came from a single lamp, a cone of amber that rose above a fabric shade to scatter weakly across the place. There were other lights in the room, but Thatcher was far too engrossed to notice — he had stopped at the first hotel, taken the first room offered, and turned on the first light switch. His suitcase sat unopened at the foot of the bed, and the drapes were still pulled across the rooms lone window, the potential of a nighttime overlook of Cambridge Common never having crossed his mind.

He'd spent two hours at the Administration Building scribbling notes from Braun's university records, only stopping when the clerk had threatened to shut him in for the night. Not having time to record everything, Thatcher had prioritized the most important information while mentally reserving the option of returning tomorrow for the rest. He had also taken from the receptionist a list of professors in the School of Architecture.

The guiding principles of his investigation were shaky, and knowing so little about the Manhattan Project — Brauns assumed target — Thatcher had to fall back on assumption. Wherever Braun was headed there was a chance he'd need help — since U-801 had dumped him ashore without his gear, he might require money or a means of communication. Thatcher knew that Germany's spy networks in America had been shattered by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, so it was reasonable to assume that Braun would specifically avoid any existing Abwehr contacts. This left two options — he might return either to his old school or to Minnesota, where he'd grown up.

Minnesota had been first. During Braun's time at Harvard, from September 1937 to May 1940, his tuition had been paid through his father's bank in Minneapolis. This funding stopped abruptly in the winter of '40, when Braun apparently paid his spring tuition, in part, from his own standing Boston account. The balance was never paid, and after summer break that year he had not returned.

Hours earlier, Thatcher had put through a call to First Savings and Trust in Minneapolis, connecting just before the place closed for the day. A Mr. Snell, in Accounts, was leery of the longdistance investigation, as any good bank man would be, but on hearing the name Brown he minced no words. Mr. Dieter Brown, Alexander's father and only known relative, had been an outspoken Nazi supporter. In the years before the war the local timber magnate had forged an uncomfortable name for himself in local circles, and in '39 the widower sold his stakes and emigrated to Germany. The banker's tone made it clear that the elder Brown had burned his bridges upon leaving, casting America as doomed in the face of the German Reich.

It made sense, Thatcher reasoned. The elder Brown had gone back to Germany — no doubt dropping the Anglicized spelling of his name — and then called for his son to join him. Perhaps the son declined, comfortable in his situation at the time. Might the father not cut off funding? Logical, but pure supposition. The banker's information did make one very useful point, however. Alexander Braun would find neither friends nor support in Minnesota. With his family name tied firmly to the Nazi cause, it would be the last place he'd go.

Thatcher had then turned to the other records. Alexander Braun had been a strong student, with excellent grades and superior written evaluations from his professors. He had played football, run on the track team, and made extra money as a German language tutor. Thatcher decided there had to be a fair number of professors, friends, and acquaintances who could offer insight to the man. It had only been five years, he reasoned, so some of them must still be around. He turned to the faculty list for the School of Architecture and reached for the phone book, but a look at his watch gave pause. It was five minutes after midnight. Where had the time gone? Thatcher wondered. And how much farther away had Alexander Braun slipped?

He put down his papers. The pain in his head was mounting, and he went to the wash basin for hot water and towels. His stomach also stirred, and he realized that he had forgotten about his sandwich. Was it still in the car? He sighed. How ever do I survive?

Thatcher draped a hot, damp towel across the back of his neck. It felt wonderful, and he decided that a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast would bring everything to rights. Then he could get back to work. Someone in Boston would remember a man like Alexander Braun. They'd know his friends and his haunts. If the spy needed help, this was where he'd come.

Chapter 20

Braun spent the morning on the water, but official enthusiasm for the search faded by midday. The initial inquiry came next. Questioning that normally would have taken place at police headquarters was deferred to the library of Harrold House — the Cole family had suffered a loss, and a sympathetic detective gathered his information over tea.

Lydia, lightly sedated, sat quietly in a leather chair. Sargent hovered over her, a bear minding its cub. Braun was across the room, a visual ploy to reinforce the concept of distance between him and Lydia. He had not been any closer since taking her hand yesterday as she stepped from Mystic onto the dock, to collapse into her fathers waiting arms.

The detective was a burly local who had a quirk of scratching the back of his neck. The man tread lightly, and wasted his first twenty minutes with condolences and offers of support. He then moved on to establish the basic facts concerning who, what, when, and where. The why was nicely forgotten.

In time, the detective had quiet words with Braun. The most critical issues were dealt a glancing blow. Where was Edward when Braun had last seen him? Did he seem in good spirits? Had anyone been drinking? Braun naturally tried to assume some blame, cursing himself for leaving the tiller free and losing control of the boat. It was a novices error, committed by an unseasoned sailor. A mistake for which he would never be held accountable. Edward had been the skipper, and he d been working on deck in heavy weather without a safety line. Still, Braun brooded openly in a punishment of conscience.

When the detective finished his questions, Braun receded to a remote corner of the room to sulk further against the tragic events. While the investigation ran its tender course, Braun mentally reviewed the death of Edward Murray for probably the twentieth time. The thoughts had nothing to do with regret, nor even a sense of victory, but were rather an accountant's appraisal of the efficiency of his work. It was a mirror of the well-practiced analysis that had evolved during his time as a sniper. With each kill he gathered new elements of use, and tossed out the ineffective. It was an application of learning that his old professors at Harvard would never have imagined, though something, he was sure, many would have appreciated from a purely academic standpoint.

Lydia had been firmly entrenched in the bunk below, Edward above, working at the bow. Braun had simply carried his sailbag up front, extracted the mushroom anchor when Edward was turned away, and struck him on the head. The blow had not been fatal, only enough to knock him senseless — a bloody mess to clean up would have cost valuable time. Braun caught Edward as he fell, avoiding any loud thumps on the deck to alert Lydia, then quickly removed the remaining items from the large canvas bag before stuffing his victim in. Braun was intimately familiar with the nature of decomposing bodies — he knew they exuded a tremendous amount of gas, so he used the oyster knife to puncture a few holes through both the bag and Edward. As anticipated, any blood that came from the wounds was neatly contained inside the canvas. He then dropped the knife and the anchor into the bag, drew the opening shut, and tied it securely. When he eased the lot over the side it was dead weight, disappearing in no time into the churning black waters.

This part of the sequence had taken just over a minute — but he was not done yet. A single item from the bag remained, the old fishing reel. He pulled out twenty feet of line and tied a knot at the base of the reel. Holding it aloft, he kept the tension constant and threaded the line through rigging as he moved aft. Braun kept up a disjointed conversation as he approached the companionway, adding muffled replies in something resembling Edwards voice. The indistinct words were further masked by the sound of Mystic crashing through the seas. On reaching the cabin, Lydia had spotted him right away. She looked awful, an arm draped across her forehead. Braun released the fishing line and the reel thumped to the deck.

Do you need help with that foresail, Edward? Two more quick thumps for good measure, and after a pause, All right, I'll tie it down. Watch your step up there, man!

With the right thoughts fixed in Lydia's head, the rest had been easy. Disconnect the tiller at the right time, allowing the boat to heel. After the lurch, find Edward missing and kick the reel overboard. Quick, clean.

Now Lydia was reciting Brauns story chapter and verse to the investigating authorities. A perfect mix of grief, naivete, and innocence. He could not have imagined a more perfect spokesperson. All that was left was to sit back, wait, and watch.

The morning at Harvard had been difficult. With summer recess in full swing, many of the professors and nearly all the students were away. The only advantage was that, lacking classes to attend, those who remained were highly accessible. Thatcher was able to track down two of Braun s professors, but only one remembered him, and that a vague recollection. The man did, however, direct Thatcher to a graduate student who would have been in the same class.

Thatcher navigated the basement of Grays Hall, a narrow passage sided with slabs of stone that gave the place a tomb-like ambiance. He found Nicholas Gross in the Structures Laboratory. The young man was slouched casually on a stool, examining some kind of experimental framework. Tall and thin, he was smartly dressed and well manicured — more dapper than a student ought to be, Thatcher thought. Gross looked up curiously, no doubt put off by the uniform.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes — or at least I hope so. I'm Major Michael Thatcher, an investigator for the Royal Army."

"Which one?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Which Royal Army? There's a lot of royalty in the world."

Thatcher's thoughts stumbled until he saw a grin emerge on the young man's face.

"I'm just kidding, old man. With an accent like yours—"

"Oh, yes," Thatcher recovered, "I see."

"Whatever could a servant of his majesty be investigating in a dungeon like this?"

The flippant attitude kept Thatcher off balance. On closer inspection, Gross was probably nearing thirty — rather old, even for a graduate student. And he fenced with the sharp words of a man striving to appear more clever than he was. Thatcher knew the type from his own days at Cambridge, career students who had the financial means to prolong their aimless academic careers to no end. Gross had probably spent the entire war in this basement, or somewhere better, notwithstanding holidays and school breaks when he would have returned to the soft bosom of his family.

"I'm trying to track down information on a former student. I was told you might have known him."

"Who?"

"Alexander Brown."

"Dear God, Alex! We all wondered what became of him."

"We?"

"Yes, yes. Alex was a stray when we found him — absorbed him into our little pack of liars. Roy Kiefer, Anna Litsch, Eddie. With a little guidance and a lot of booze Alex became quite a hit."

"Do you know where he was from?"

Gross thought about it. "Can't remember. He wasn't proper East Coast, but he wasn't one of those loony Californians either. Something in between."

Thatcher yanked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and stifled a sneeze. The internal pressure of the act brought on a spectrum of minor pains. "I see."

"So did he make it through? The war, I mean. We all knew Alex didn't finish school so he could enlist."

"That's what I'm trying to find out. When he left, did he keep in touch with anyone?"

Gross laughed and spun a full circle on his stool. "Lydia! Dear, rich Lydia." Dismounting, he sauntered over to an icebox and pulled out a Coca-Cola. "Can I offer you a drink, Major?"

"No, thank you. Who is Lydia?"

"Lydia Cole, of the Newport and Palm Beach Coles. Filthy rich, but not snobby in the usual old money way. We all had our eye on her, but Alex won the prize."

"They were involved — romantically?"

Gross hooked the lip of the bottle cap on a sharp corner of the bench and whacked down on the bottle. The cap went spinning to the floor. He made no effort to retrieve it.

"Romantically?" He chuckled. "Scandalously, Major. At least as far as Alex was concerned. Though I suppose Lydia was smitten enough. They spent some time together with Lydia's family in Newport — it was the summer before Alex left school."

"That would have been 1940?"

"Yes, I think that's right. Then Alex left for Europe. I always thought that was odd."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the war was brewing, but we Yanks weren't involved yet. And I was never clear about which service he'd joined or why he went straight to the battle. Doesn't one normally go to boot camp or something? Anyway, Lydia got a few letters and she wrote back in spades, but after a year or so I didn't hear much."

"And you haven't heard from him since he left?"

"Good Lord, no. He and I got along, but only in the liquid sense. There was something different about Alex. He was witty— engaging when he wanted to be. Everyone knew him, and everyone liked him. But I doubt anyone would say that they were really close to him. Except Lydia." Gross swilled his drink, got back on the stool and brought his heels to rest on the lab bench. "So tell me, Major, why are you looking for him? Old Alex hasn't gotten into trouble, has he?"

"I'm not sure. Right now I just want to find him. Do you know where this woman, Lydia Cole, might be?"

"I haven't seen her in years. But it is summer, Major — the rich are frightfully predictable. I think there's a good chance you'll find her at the family house in Newport. If not, they'll point you in the right direction."

"Yes, I see. Well, thank you for your time. I won't take you from your work any longer."

"Work? Oh, right. Someday I'll finish this thesis. And then whatever will I do?"

Thatcher moved toward the door, but then paused. He looked squarely at Gross. The man could not be shallower if the tide went out. He said in a somber voice, "You'll marry a very wealthy woman who will grow to dislike you. Eventually, one of you will begin to drink to excess."

The young man looked dumbfounded, but soon his face cracked into a smile and he began to laugh uncontrollably. As Thatcher retreated down the hall, the laughter quickly dissipated until only his footsteps echoed through the place.

The rest of the afternoon at Harvard gave Thatcher little else. He tracked down another professor, this one an aging Renaissance historian who remembered nothing about Alexander Brown. The only other student acquaintance Thatcher could identify was away in Canada for the summer. This left him with one more chance — Lydia Cole.

He considered simply tracking down her telephone number and calling directly, but something warned him against it. According to Gross, Lydia would be the best lead. An experienced interrogator, Thatcher always preferred direct contact.

He returned to his hotel and took a late supper in the dining room. Veal was the chef's special. It turned out to be anything but, the meat overcooked and the boiled potatoes mushy. Thatcher was quickly coming to the conclusion that the Americans cooked like they fought — quantity and brute force over quality and nuance. He would have walked anywhere in town for a nice steak and kidney pie.

Thatcher studied a map while he ate, checking the route he would take in the morning. Newport wasn't far, slightly more than an hour down Route 1. Thatcher wondered if Jones had done anything useful yet. It aggravated him to no end that the boorish FBI man had the assets to find Braun but not the interest. He wondered what he could do to change the mans outlook. With Germany trounced, all eyes in America were shifting west. And when Japan succumbed, as she inevitably would, then what? Would there be an emphasis on tying up loose ends like Alexander Braun? Thatcher suspected not. Russia would be the new threat. Everyone had trusted Stalin to beat down Hitler's eastern flank, but who would trust him now that he occupied most of Germany and eastern Europe? The thoughts made Thatcher's head hurt that much more.

He pushed away a clean plate, tidied up under a napkin, and rubbed his forehead. The cold had gone to his sinuses, sharp pain stabbing behind his eyes. He ordered a pot of tea to take to his room. American tea, he thought miserably.

"Hot water, please," he told the waiter, "a rolling boil." His last cup had tasted like a bag of dust swept up from the kitchen floor, steeped briefly in bath water.

When it came, he carried the tray to his room and set it aside to steep. He called the front desk and asked if he'd had any messages. While they checked, Thatcher mused that there were only two people in the world who might try to contact him here. Roger Ainsley and that blasted Jones fellow. Chances were, they'd both want the same thing — Thatcher heading back to England on the next available flight. That being the case, he was happy when the clerk told him there was nothing.

Thatcher removed his prostheses and laid out his clothes for the next day. Easing onto the bed, his entire body ached, and he suspected he had a fever. The last time he'd been this sick was just before the war, in the London flat. Madeline had taken care of everything then — hot soup and biscuits, warm towels, tea with honey. And that infernally pungent menthol-and-eucalyptus rubbing cream. Madeline had always kept their flat spotless; she could balance the household accounts to the penny. Yet for all her practicality, when it came to illness she'd always had a peculiar bent toward mystical herbal remedies. Thatcher remembered telling her how silly it was, that none of it would help against a viral disease. To which Madeline would reply, "Of course not, dear," as she massaged deep circles into his aching muscles.

Thatcher turned to the papers on his bed and began shuffling. He sorted the important from the less so, and the extraneous went crumbled onto the floor, joining a scattering of used Kleenex tissues that now littered the place like wood shavings across a mouse's cage. Twenty minutes later Thatcher was sound asleep. On his rhythmically rising chest was one of the papers, the name Lydia Cole scribbled in the margin.

His slumbering thoughts, however, were with another woman, and in a better place and time.

Chapter 21

Thatcher had drawn certain expectations about the place called Newport. From the insinuations of Gross, and the hotel clerk with whom he'd settled his bill, the place would be astounding, littered with synthetic castles for a capitalist royalty. It was home to a nouveau aristocracy of wealth, where the titles involved were not lord and baron, but rather chairman and founder.

It was a disappointment, then, that the outskirts of Newport looked little different from the other half dozen towns he'd passed through this morning. The homes were modest, the businesses small. Along the waterfront fishing boats were moored haphazardly, and a few daysailers lay up to the shore. Thatcher was beginning to wonder if there was perhaps another city by the same name when he turned onto Bellevue Avenue.

Here things changed, though not on an unfamiliar scale. Thatcher's own office was in a castle, albeit a temporary arrangement, and if any people on earth were practiced at enduring the excesses of the upper crust, it was the English. Yet he found the mansions now before him curious, both individually and collectively. Each held a different style, though none that seemed "native." The odd mix of expensive imitations left Thatcher with the same general impression as the huge country estates back in Hampshire and Surrey — utterly wasteful.

The one called Harrold House was easy enough to find, its name artfully carved onto each of two stone pillars guarding the main entrance. There was no gate, so he drove directly to a large circular parking area that fronted the entrance of the main house. His government-issued sedan was the only car in sight, and he wondered for a moment if the Coles were not in residence. A look around one side of the house allayed his fears — the gravel driveway spurred an offshoot, and he could see the corner of a large garage. In residence or not, he suspected a fleet of fine cars were nestled inside.

Getting out of the car, Thatcher smoothed the wrinkles from his uniform coat and climbed marble steps to the front door. The huge portico was awash in useless architectural trimmings — lions, cherubs, and carved coils of rope. He rang the bell, and moments later a uniformed butler appeared.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Good morning. I'm Major Michael Thatcher. I'm an investigator with the British Army. I'd like to speak to Lydia Cole. I thought she might be able to help me locate a man by the name of Alexander Brown."

"Mr. Brown? Mr. Brown is here, though I'm not sure if he's yet awake. Please step inside, sir, and I'll inquire."

Thatcher's heart surged. Good Lord! he thought. He's here! Right at this moment! He stepped inside to an atrium as the butler ascended a wide, arcing staircase.

He suddenly realized how rash it had been to come straight here. Thatcher had no authority to arrest the man. There were no established crimes, no warrants. The fact that Braun was here, delivered by a U-boat, made him a spy. But proof of even that was thin at the moment. Thatcher had immersed himself so deeply in the search he had not even considered what to do when he found the man. It was foreign soil. Should he contact the local police? Or perhaps Roger, or that idiot Jones? These were the thoughts spinning in his head when another man entered from a side room.

It was definitely not Alexander Braun. He was in his fifties, a big man with thick gray hair and a vibrant gait. He strode over and thrust out a hand, a severe upward chop that reminded Thatcher of an Oriental martial arts maneuver.

"I'm Sargent Cole. Is Evans assisting you?" The voice was strong, the handshake crushing.

"Yes. I'm Major Michael Thatcher. I've come looking for a man by the name of Alexander Brown."

"Alex?" The American eyed Thatcher s uniform. "Yes, I think hes around here somewhere. What s this in regard to?"

Thatcher stumbled for a good answer, but the effort was cut short by a scream. He turned to see a young woman plummet from the top of the staircase. She tumbled hard, smacking over the stone steps, and came to rest halfway down, crumpled against the balustrade.

"Lydia!" Sargent Cole screamed as he bolted for the stairs.

Thatcher followed, his crippled stride slower up the steps.

"My darling! Are you all right?" Sargent Cole said, cradling her.

Thatcher paused long enough to hear Lydia Cole moan. She was battered and bruised, but alive. He kept moving to the second-floor landing, and there he found the butler lying in a heap on the floor.

" Where is he?" Thatcher demanded.

The servant pointed down the hallway.

Thatcher moved as fast as he could. He heard a crash from a room just ahead. Thatcher tried the door, but it was locked. Taking two steps back, he lunged at the door with a lowered shoulder. His body bounced back into the hallway. He rushed straight back with even more determination. This time the wood frame gave a distinct crack. Thatcher heaved himself a third time, and the door gave way.

He tumbled into the room, sprawling face down on the floor. Rolling onto his back, Thatcher saw a flash of steel. He twisted to one side as a fireplace poker smacked the marble floor where his head had just been, chips of stone stinging his cheek. Instinctively, he grabbed the shaft and looked up. Alexander Braun was standing over him, rage written across his Teutonic features. They grappled fiercely and Braun fell to the floor, straddling Thatcher's chest. It seemed a tactical victory, getting Braun down to his own level, but then Thatcher felt the man twist and pull the iron bar until it was straight across his throat.

He heaved and rolled, got both hands on the weapon, but Braun was stronger. The killer used his weight to press down on the rod. Thatcher heaved and squirmed but he knew he was no match. The cold rod pushed harder. His breaths were no more than stifled gasps.

I need a weapon, he thought. But even if there had been something, he couldn't free either hand for an instant. Thatcher tried to lock his arms, keep the bar from pushing any further, but it was no use — it was only a matter of time before his guttural rasps would be cut off.

The veins in Braun's thick neck bulged, the muscles strained like taut rope. As Thatcher weakened he found himself staring at the man's eyes. They were pale blue. Yet unlike the rest of the killer's tense features, the eyes held an unnerving ease, a calm as he finalized his murderous task. Thatcher felt his strength slipping. The blue eyes turned gray. Everything turned gray. Then, suddenly, a breath.

His vision returned and Thatcher looked up just in time to see Braun heave the poker toward the door. An instant later a shot rang out. Braun scrambled to his feet and ran. Thatcher watched the man put a foot to the window sill in perfect stride and jump.

Thatcher struggled to his feet, holding his nearly crushed throat, gasping for air. Sargent Cole ran past him to the window. He carried a cracked shotgun, his free hand feeding a fresh shell into the smoking chamber. Thatcher reached his side just as Cole fired again from the second-floor window. He saw Braun swerve severely as a cloud of dust and gravel sprayed to his right.

"Shit!" Sargent Cole bellowed. "He's headed for the garage."

Thatcher staggered to the hallway, passing an oval buckshot hole in the plaster wall. He stumbled downstairs, past Lydia Cole, who was now being tended to by the butler. Outside, he paused at the front steps. Thatcher heard an engine being gunned from around the side of the house. He ran for his car.

Thatcher was halfway across the gravel parking area when he froze. A big black sedan flew into view, fishtailing to one side around the bend — when it straightened out, the car was headed right for him. With only an instant to decide, Thatcher dove left, pushing up and away with his good leg. He was airborne when the car hit his prosthesis, sending him spinning across the gravel. Stones tore at the exposed flesh on his hands and face. Thatcher scrambled up in a cloud of dust and kept moving toward his car. His limp was more pronounced than usual, the blow from the fender having dislodged his artificial leg. There was also pain in his good leg, but he could still move.

He got in the Army sedan and launched it up the driveway. Brauns car was no longer in sight, but a trail of dust led to the main road. There, Thatcher turned right — as far as he knew, it was the only way out of town. A mile later came the first intersection. Thatcher stopped. He looked left, right, and straight ahead. It was no use.

He slapped his bloody palm on the steering wheel. "Damn it all!"

Chapter 22

Braun drove wildly down the dirt road he'd scouted the day before. The back of the car slipped around corners and loose stones went flying through clouds of dust. On another day it might have been exhilarating.

All along Braun had known he was taking a tremendous risk by killing Edward. It was one thing to do it and not fall under suspicion by either the police or Sargent Cole. It was quite another to do it as a spy, a man with no identity.

And he thought he might have pulled it off. The police had questioned him thoroughly about Edward's "accident," but never asked for any kind of identification or military orders. As hoped, they'd simply relied on a powerful family's familiarity. Who would suspect Sargent Cole of harboring the last Nazi spy? Sargent himself had clearly been rattled by the tragedy, but so far his attention had fallen to comforting his daughter — not to accusing Braun.

All the same, Braun had stayed alert. He had been at the library window when the military sedan pulled up. He watched a lone officer in an unfamiliar uniform walk to the front portico. Alarm bells sounded in his head. He noticed that the man limped slightly, and when Evans answered the door, Braun heard the soldier introduce himself in a clipped British accent. Good morning.

I'm Major Michael Thatcher. I'm an investigator with the British Army… help me locate a man by the name of Alexander Brown.

The alarm screamed. Braun had rushed upstairs to collect his cash — and run straight into Lydia. She paused on seeing him, perched at the top of the stairs. Then Lydia had smiled. As always, so completely trusting and unaware. Silly girl. Braun had acted on instinct — a gentle shove was all it took. Then all hell had broken loose.

Now, as he drove, Braun wondered what had gone wrong. Had he been careless, perhaps slipping up on his accent? Had someone at Harrold House become suspicious? Or maybe the police had become curious about Edwards disappearance. Yet none of that fit a lone, gimpy British officer tracking to his door like a hound on a scent. For an instant Braun had considered staying, to talk to the man. But now he was sure he'd done the right thing by running. Major Michael Thatcher had to be something else. A new threat. Maybe the Allies had uncovered his mission. Maybe the bastard captain of U-801 had talked. But how had the man tracked him here?

The car burst into a clearing and Braun's objective came into sight. The questions would have to wait. He slowed as he approached the place, eyeing everything carefully, measuring it against what he had seen yesterday. Two small aircraft hangars were separated by a modest office that displayed a sign advertising Mitchells Flying Service. Behind the buildings was the long, freshly cut strip of grass that served as the runway. Braun pulled the car next to one of the hangars, cursing under his breath. All the doors were shut and the office was locked down tight. Old man Mitchell had not yet arrived for work.

He brought the Buick Special to a stop and smacked his fist on the dashboard. This had been his insurance if things ran foul. He'd come here yesterday after lunch to make an idle inquiry about flying lessons. Years ago, during his summer with Lydia, he had tagged along on some flights with her cousin Frank, who was a licensed pilot. Braun had met old Mitchell back then, and the little airfield, a remote strip of level ground cut from the surrounding forest, was now his first choice for escape. The authorities might think of it, but it would be far down their list after scouring roads, buses, and train stations.

Yesterday the old man had been at work, tinkering with an airplane in one of the hangars. There were no formal business hours posted on the office door, and Braun suspected that Mitchell kept his own schedule. It was nine fifteen — still early. Would he be here by ten? Noon? Or might this be his self-appointed day off? Braun couldn't wait to find out.

He left the car and walked quickly to the office. An after-hours telephone number was posted on the sign. He committed it to memory and circled the small building. Braun knew there was a telephone inside, and it would be far less risky than heading five miles back to town to use a telephone booth. The only door to the place was locked and looked solid. He circled around and found a window on each side. The second, in the back, gave way with a solid tug. Braun climbed in, quickly found the phone, and dialed the number. Mitchell picked up on the second ring.

"Hello, Mr. Mitchell, this is Alex Brown. We spoke yesterday out at the airfield."

"Yes, yes. What can I do for you? Have you decided to go ahead with the lessons?"

"Well, in a way. I actually have a crisis on my hands. I've got some important business back in Minneapolis, and I was hoping to hire you out on a charter."

"Minnesota? That's a long way from here, boy."

"Yes, I know, but I thought we could combine things — do some instruction along the way."

"I see. And when did you want to go?"

"That's the catch. It would have to be right away. I'm near the field now. I could be there in fifteen minutes." There was a pause, and Braun imagined the old man cupping his stubbled chin as he had a penchant to do.

"I have a lesson scheduled for this afternoon," Mitchell said.

"And Minnesota would take two days — maybe more, depending on the weather."

Braun forced a slight British whim into his voice, a tendency he had adopted from the local upper crust, a quiet registry of social standing. "I know it must be a terrible bother, but I'll gladly make it worth your while. Would two hundred do it?"

"Two hundred dollars?"

"Plus expenses — fuel and that sort of thing."

"Young man, you got yourself a deal."

Mitchell showed up thirty minutes later. Braun was leaning on the fender of the Buick, toying with a lit cigarette. He'd already closed up the office and made sure nothing inside had been disturbed. It would set an uncomfortable precedent if the old man discovered that he had broken into the building just to use the telephone.

Mitchell parked his old truck next to the office. "I'll have to get a few things," he said, pulling a handful of loose keys from his pocket. He tossed one to Braun and pointed to the nearest hangar. "We'll take the Luscombe. She's the gentler of the two, plus she's the one with the fuel ration." The old man winked. "I carry mail a few times a week — it gets me all the gas I need."

Mitchell unlocked the office and went inside. Braun took his cue and unlocked the hangar. Two corrugated metal doors, sagging on rusty hinges, had to be lifted and dragged aside. Fortunately, the white Luscombe nestled inside had seen far better care. She looked clean and tidy. There was one engine, a single high wing, and, as Braun had heard around the airport, she was a tail-dragger — high at the front on two main wheels, and a small pivoting wheel underneath the tail. Mitchell came out of the office with an armful of charts and books. He locked the office door and strode to the hangar.

"I checked the weather. Might be a few rain showers this afternoon in Ohio, but just the usual summertime puffies. Let's get her out into the daylight."

Braun moved a toolbox and an old bicycle clear so that the aircraft could be brought outside. He remembered the first time he had moved an airplane, surprised that such a big machine could be so light.

"Now, if you re gonna fly there's bookwork to be done. But since we re in a hurry, I'll bring the manual with us. It'll be three long flights to Minnesota. On the first, you watch and I'll fly. You'll get your stick time after that." He walked around to the far side of the aircraft and threw his gear into the cockpit. "Grab a strut, son. On three—"

Braun put both hands to the support brace that ran from the fuselage to the bottom of the wing.

"One, two—"

Both men pushed, and in seconds the Luscombe was clear of the hangar. Mitchell busied himself checking the oil and fuel, talking as he went. Braun wasn't listening as he stared at the empty building. He said, "Since we might be gone for awhile, can I leave my car inside?"

"Sure. Don't have much trouble out here, but lock her in if you want."

Five minutes later Braun had the Buick secured neatly in the hangar.

"I'll start in the left seat," Mitchell said, "then we'll switch out at the first fuel stop."

"All right."

"Now, watch close." Mitchell put a hand to the propeller. "She won't start now 'cause the ignition's not on. When I say contact,' you turn it like this." He pulled down on the propeller. "Then get the hell clear. Got it?"

"Sure."

Mitchell climbed into the small craft and took the left seat. He flipped a few switches before shouting, "Contact!"

Braun turned the propeller and the engine coughed once, then stopped.

"Again!"

On the second try the engine caught. It spit a cloud of blue smoke, as if trying to rid itself of some respiratory malady, before latching to an idle. Braun kept clear as he scurried around and climbed in on the right-hand side. With the old man running through his checks, Braun struggled to pull the door shut. One shoulder was jammed against the side window, the other against Mitchell. The last time he'd flown, it had been in a different type of aircraft — he didn't remember it being so cramped.

Braun studied his new surroundings. There was a control stick between his legs. The dash in front displayed a half-dozen gauges, along with some levers and switches. A few of the gauges were obvious enough — airspeed, engine tachometer, altimeter. "Why is the compass up there?" he asked, referring to the lone instrument above the dash.

"It's magnetic. You have to keep it away from the rest. I set a metal thermos up on the dash one day — ended up over Lake Erie before I figured it out."

Mitchell pushed the throttle forward and the Luscombe began to move toward one end of the long clearing. He explained his choice as they went, "Not much wind today, and the trees are lower at the east end. She's a testy old kite when she's heavy."

Braun looked at each end of the clearing, noting little difference in the height of the trees. Perhaps a few feet. How could it matter? he wondered.

Mitchell went through a few checks, running the engine up to power, then back to idle. Finally he turned down the strip and added full throttle. The machine shook and rattled as the propeller pulled them ahead, the big wheels bouncing jauntily over ruts in the grass. Acceleration was slow, the airspeed indicator barely rising. Indeed, the trees at the far end of the clearing began to fill the windscreen. But then the bumps and noise dampened as the Luscombe levitated away from the ground. Braun looked down as they cleared the trees by at least a hundred feet.

Here was his first lesson about flying. If all went well, the trees were inconsequential. Yet by planning for the unexpected, old man Mitchell had given himself every edge. Today, a few feet meant nothing. On another day it might be the difference. Braun understood completely, drawing any number of parallels to his own exploits of the last years. Never leave food or ammunition behind when you have an empty pocket. If you lose a button, sew it back on securely because staying dry was paramount. The small things.

Mitchell banked a smooth arc to the west where a series of low ridgelines dominated, huge waves on an evergreen ocean. In the distant haze behind, Braun could just make out the coastline. The individual mansions were dots, and he couldn't begin to discern which was Harrold House, where a small army of lawmen were no doubt gathering. Along with Major Michael Thatcher, whoever the hell he was. And Lydia.

She was such a simple, transparent woman, Braun thought. In spite of the years, she had still been under his charm, throwing herself at him freely, no regard given to her husband or her family. He was sure this was not her habit — Lydia was not a tramp. She was naive, a child in a woman's body. He briefly wondered if he had harmed her by sending her clattering down the stairs. It hardly mattered. His designs on Lydia were dashed, and Braun shrugged the thought away. She meant nothing. Lydia was little more than a conveyance, a channel to the existence he wanted. Braun would simply have to find another Lydia. Or perhaps something else. The other opportunity that had been quietly nagging. Die Wespe. Could there still be value in what the spy offered? Perhaps. But the immediate task was to get clear.

Braun watched Mitchell's boney hands as they caressed the controls. He watched his eyes alternate between the instruments and gauges, a firm pattern established. There was purpose in every movement and Braun decided that he liked the concept of flight — the control, the delicate accuracy. He kept studying the old man as Newport dissolved into the haze behind.

Chapter 23

The library at Harrold House became a center for recovery. Thatcher tended to his own wounds while the rest — including the family doctor, a bespectacled, white-haired man — saw to Lydia. The palms of Thatcher's hands were raw from his dive across the gravel, and his foot had swelled heavily at the arch — he wasn't sure where in the scrum that had happened. His throat was sore on the outside now, a complement to the internal rawness he'd started with. It was all a constant reminder of how close he'd come. If Sargent Cole had shown up thirty seconds later—

Thatcher had called Jones right away upon returning to the house. The FBI was on the way, to arrive within the hour. In the meantime, the local police established temporary jurisdiction. The detective in charge peppered Sargent Cole, his wife, and the servants about the man they knew as Alexander Brown. Thatcher wiped antiseptic gauze over his hands and listened closely.

"He arrived unexpectedly on our doorstep," Sargent said, "just over two weeks ago. He was an old friend of Lydia's. Said he'd been serving in the Army. He was on leave and had to report soon for duty in the Pacific."

Sargent Cole carried on until the detective finally said, "I wish I'd known more about this yesterday." Thatcher stepped in. "Yesterday?"

The detective answered. "I was here to investigate a disappearance. Mrs. Cole's … er … Murray's husband, Edward. He was lost at sea."

"Lost at sea?" Thatcher pleaded.

The detective hesitated, sounding like the foreman of a hung jury. "Our suspect, Brown, and the Murrays were aboard the family sailboat when Edward disappeared. It seemed to be an accident —" his voice trailed off.

"It would hardly seem that way now," Sargent said.

Thatcher eyed the widow, Lydia Murray, who was presently laid out across a couch. Her head rested in her mother's lap as the family doctor tended to a knot over one eye. She also had a nasty gash across a shin, and bruises mottled her pale skin like spots on a jaguar. Thatcher knew he was to blame. He had barged in on a dangerous man — a mistake he would not make again.

The detective addressed Thatcher. "So tell me, Major, why are you after this fellow? Is he a deserter?"

"A deserter? Anything but. We think he's a Nazi spy."

"Nazi?" Sargent Cole boomed. "We've known him for years, he's an American!"

"He was born here," Thatcher allowed, "but he fought with Germany. And in the end, probably because he was so authentically American, he was recruited by the SD, German Intelligence."

Sargent Cole, standing by his daughter's side, grew visibly angry as the prism of this new information cast a shifting light. "So he really might have killed Edward."

Lydia moaned. The doctor eased a hypodermic needle into her arm.

"It's a distinct possibility," Thatcher said.

The policeman suggested, "If he's a spy, like you say, then the FBI will take over."

Thatcher said, "The man I called earlier has been lightly involved in the case. I expect he'll go deeper now." He addressed the Coles. "We have to find out where Braun might be headed. Did he say anything to suggest a destination?"

"Alex played himself off as a soldier — one of ours" Sargent said. "He told us he'd be heading out west soon to join his unit."

"Did he give any specifics?"

"No," Sargent admitted, "it was all very general. A pack of lies — I see that now. But I do know he's from Minnesota. His father was a timber man there."

"At one point, yes," Thatcher said. "But those interests were sold before the war. And his father was an outspoken supporter of Hitler. I can't see Alex Brown going back there now."

Sargent Cole said, "So where in the hell will he go?"

Thatcher eyed Lydia who was catatonic on the couch. "Where indeed."

The first fuel stop came in Pennsylvania, a little strip called Franklin. Mitchell guided the Luscombe to a gentle landing, talking through it as he went.

"First settle the mains, but keep flying. Always keep flying. Then you ease the tail down." The little craft settled, bumping to a crawl before Mitchell turned it toward a small building. "The next one'll be yours," he said.

They were on the ground only long enough to take on fuel and drink a soda. The old man then walked Braun through a pre-flight inspection, checking the propeller, oil, fuel, and flight controls. When they got back in, Braun took the left seat while Mitchell stood at the door and walked him through the starting procedure. He pulled a worn card from under the seat, greasy fingerprints smudged across the thick paper. Braun had not seen it before. "This is a checklist. It'll help you not miss anything until you get the hang of it."

Braun took the card and went through the steps systematically. When all the switches and levers were set he shouted, "Contact!"

Mitchell turned the propeller and the warm engine caught right away. The instructor scurried around to the passenger seat and belted himself in. "Flying's the easy part," he said. "If you can drive her on the ground you've got it licked." He pointed down to the pedals at Braun's feet. "It's got heel brakes. If you want to go left, give her some power and tap the left brake."

Braun executed a jerky turn to point them in the general direction of the landing strip.

"Keep her to one side as you taxi to the end," Mitchell said. "You never know when another airplane is gonna show up."

Braun looked skyward. The only other plane he could see was sitting outside a hangar, and that particular craft was missing an engine. Still, he took the lesson — some airfields would indeed be busier.

At the end of the runway they paused to run up the power and check the magnetos, the electrical wonders that sparked the engine. With the checks complete, Mitchell talked Braun through the takeoff. Directional control was maintained using the pedals on the floor, which controlled the rudder on the tail, much like the rudder on a boat. The ground roll was bumpy, but as soon as the main wheels lifted everything smoothed out.

Climbout seemed simple, and Mitchell instructed a level off when the altimeter reached 5,000 feet.

"Straight and level is the first lesson," he said. "Remember, pull back on the stick, the houses get smaller. Push forward, the houses get bigger." He cackled while Braun concentrated intently. "The instruments are secondary for now. You want to fly as much as possible by looking outside. Pick a bug spot on the windshield and keep it on the horizon."

Braun did and the aircraft stayed remarkably level.

"If you change power to go faster or slower, you'll have to change the aim point just a bit."

Braun experimented, first with the wings level, then adding a few mild turns. The next lesson involved something called stalls, a discomforting term that had nothing to do with the engine, but rather aerodynamics. If you got too slow, in the Luscombe's case below forty-five miles an hour, the aircraft no longer flew. Fortunately, the recovery was tame — the nose dropped, power was added, and the airspeed quickly recovered.

For the next two hours they went through maneuvers and procedures. All the time the Luscombe kept roughly on a westerly heading, making distance as the learning took place. With the fuel gauge getting low, Mitchell turned to navigation. He pointed out the window. "See the road down there? That's Route Six. I've been watching it this whole flight. It's the easiest way to navigate — follow the roads."

He handed over a map that showed the highway in red. Braun studied it, but thought the picture outside was less clear. Intersecting side roads and small cities swallowed the highway at unpredictable intervals.

"I see the road, but how far along it have we traveled?" Braun asked.

"Well, there's a few ways to tell. Dead reckoning with time and speed, checking the layout of the towns and roads against the map. But I have my own personal favorite."

"What's that?"

The old man grinned. He took control of the aircraft and rolled it until they were nearly upside down. Braun gripped the door as the nose dropped. When the wings righted again the Luscombe was diving toward the ground. Mitchell leveled out no more than a hundred feet off the deck, straight above Route 6. The airspeed approached the red line on the gauge—145 miles an hour — and the Luscombe shot past a truck and two cars like they were standing still.

Mitchell pointed ahead and shouted over the rushing noise of the wind stream, "There you go!"

Ahead, a billboard stood at the side of the road. It read:

Chapter 24

The name was Spanish for "The Poplars," referring to the cotton-wood trees that grew in thick clusters at the bottoms of the canyons. Los Alamos, New Mexico, sat high on the eastern slope of the Jemez Mountains, a desert mesa that provided breathtaking scenery and isolation in equal measure. In 1917 it had become home to the Los Alamos Ranch School, a curiously popular and expensive boarding school that provided a "hardening experience" for those privileged young men of good society whose parents saw the need.

Twenty-five years later, in December 1942, the school was presented with its notice of eviction. The directive came from none other than Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, who announced that the school was to be "acquired for military purposes." The owners and staff were asked, in grave tones, to maintain a patriotic silence on the reasons for the schools closure.

The Army's logic was straightforward. The closest city of note was Santa Fe, and that reachable only by an hour's car ride on an unpaved road that suffered seasonally — syrupy plots of mud in the summer and slick sheets of ice in the winter. Unfortunately, it also lacked both straightness and guardrails, leaving little to keep one from launching into the picturesque canyons below. Few of Los Alamos' new inhabitants — all either government employees or dependents — made the harrowing voyage regularly.

The reciprocal result, by strong design, was that virtually no one from the outside world found reason to make the trip up to the isolated canyon community, known by its residents as "The Hill." Those who tried were asked to leave by surly Army sentries at checkpoints along the road. Anyone attempting to circumvent this would have to deal with barbed wire fences, and the soldiers on horseback who patrolled them continuously.

Because of this isolation, the new residents of Los Alamos were allocated a miniature city to themselves. There was a school for children and a store for groceries. The church doubled as a movie theater, and so each Sunday morning the prefects were forced to arrive early at the house of holy worship to sweep popcorn off the floor. This was Los Alamos, a city with a singular purpose — to be the olive drab birthing room for the most deadly weapon ever conceived by man.

If there was a heart to the organism that was Los Alamos, it was the community center. At two o'clock in the morning, music blared to a scratchy crescendo from a worn phonograph, the sound from the highest notes and most egregious vinyl imperfections stabbing out across an otherwise quiet compound. The crowd, twenty-odd scientists and a handful of support staff, all cheered drunkenly. Dr. Karl Heinrich was a silly sight.

At five foot two, two hundred and five pounds, he had never been one to cut a dashing figure on the dance floor. Now, however, with a Navajo blanket draped around his shoulders and a huge sombrero atop his nearly bald head, he resembled a child's top — thick, brightly colored, and spinning to a wobble before inevitably falling to the floor. It was a controlled collapse though, the physicist dissipating his kinetic energy without losing a drop of tequila from the bottle in his hand. Sitting in a heap, Heinrich snorted, took a swig, and yelled in a thick German accent.

"To the conservation of momentum!"

"To gravity!" someone countered.

There was a modest cheer, something less than what would have come an hour ago. Half the crowd had already left, and the remaining hardcores were rightly toasted.

Heinrich pushed himself to his feet as another song began. It had a catchy beat. "Now there is something to dance to!" he sang out. Heinrich scurried over and latched onto Marge, the sixty-year-old widow who ran the cafeteria by day, and dragged her to the center of the floor. She allowed herself to be taken and tried to keep up, but after five minutes she was out of breath. Marge edged aside to watch as Karl Heinrich twirled and shuffled his feet.

"I must have a partner!" Heinrich yelled. He grabbed Arne Pederson, an engineer, and the only man fatter than Heinrich himself. The crowd applauded as the two big men tried to keep time with the beat. Pederson only lasted a minute. Heinrich kept going. Sweat covered his face and neck, and his jowls jiggled. Once again the tireless little Bavarian, whose good-natured smile seemed permanently etched into place, was the center of attention. The crowd began clapping in rhythm to the music, and Heinrich again raised his bottle. "To Ernst Schrodinger!"

The name of the legendary physicist brought a mix of cheers and catcalls. Aside from a smattering of chemists, mathematicians, and the odd metallurgist, the scientists of Los Alamos fell into two overriding groups — engineers and physicists. Each faction was naturally convinced of the superiority of its own discipline. The physicists, aided by Albert Einstein himself, had given birth to the project. In their minds everything relied on the basic theories and mathematical models they contributed. The engineers, on the other hand, insisted that theories were meaningless until applied. Anyone could imagine a bridge over a river, but to build one that wouldn't collapse — that was something else.

As in most circles of academia, competitive banter was rampant. But high in the canyons of northern New Mexico, a new paradigm had been created. The Manhattan Project was a collection of mental talent perhaps unrealized in the history of mankind. Universities and industries across the world had been raided for the most gifted minds in existence. As the local jest went, "Here, university department chairs are a dime a dozen. Nobel Laureates a quarter."

Yet along with that intellect came a commensurate display of egos — men and women who believed that they were the best in their fields. For the most part they were right, but it made for an insufferable social scene. The Saturday night "Potluck and Dance" get-togethers had emerged as the most casual affair. After a long week in the labs everyone was ready to blow off steam, though anyone who ruined a night by making an ugly scene was not invited to the next.

The music came to an end, and the room was lost to the familiar tic tic tic as the needle on the phonograph hit the end of the rotating album.

"More, Karl! More!" someone yelled.

Heinrich smiled and leaned against a wall. His plump chest heaved for air and his shirt was sodden with sweat. "Yes, yes," he agreed, "in a moment."

A young woman, a secretary from the director's office, moved unsteadily to the turntable. Many of the men watched — while she wasn't particularly pretty, she was shaped along the lines of Rita Hayworth, and for a gaggle of love-starved scientists, many of whom had been forced to leave their wives and girlfriends behind, she was an eyeful. She also drank to excess.

"Any requests?" she slurred in a raspy voice.

"Something we can dance to!" came a shout.

"You drunk bastards can't dance when you're sober," the woman said. An instant later she stumbled, crashing into the table that supported both the phonograph and a ceramic toilet that served as a punchbowl. The whole lot clattered to the floor, alcohol-laden punch dousing everything. The woman was splayed out awkwardly, her white dress now wet and red. "Christ!" she sputtered.

A dozen men moved at the opportunity, but Heinrich was closest. He put down his bottle, scurried over and helped her up by the elbow. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said in a coarse East Coast accent. The woman rose unsteadily and looked at Heinrich with bland appreciation. Then a physicist from the explosives lab grabbed the other elbow. Heinrich knew he was a new man, from Vanderbilt, an expert in blast wave propagation. He was also six foot three and very handsome. The secretary immediately leaned away from Heinrich and swooned toward the Vanderbilt man.

"Maybe you should call it a night," the fellow suggested.

"Yeah, that's just what I was thinking," she agreed.

He leaned to her ear and spoke quietly, but Heinrich heard the words as he backed away. Can I give you a lift to your place?

Her reply was a smile and a nod.

The lack of music soon had a dampening effect. When the last two women left — in protective company of one another — the mood among the remaining men soured.

Forlani, an Italian mathematician, pointed to the toilet bowl that was cracked and surrounded by a sea of red. "You see? No woman can be around such untidiness. It goes against their nature." He went to the coatrack and made his grand proclamation. "J am going home."

Major James, U. S. Army Regular, and the only uniform in the place, picked up the tequila bottle Heinrich had put down in the ruckus. Heinrich rushed over and took it from the major's hand. "Oh, thank you, sir. I might need this later."

James laughed — in the good-natured way that fellow drunks did — and started for the door. Others followed. Heinrich and Peter Bostich, a Serbian colleague from the theoretical branch, were the last to leave.

The high altitude night air was cool and dry, even on the cusp of summer. The two engineers strolled a path that led to the housing community, gravel crunching crisply under their feet. Heinrich still carried his bottle, and Bostich cradled an armful of albums from his private collection, minus the one that had been lost in the disaster.

"It is amusing, is it not," Heinrich said, "that the creation of America's greatest weapon has been fueled so heavily by whiskey?"

Bostich laughed. "Yes, but it will not be so amusing if we fail." The Serb paused. "Will you be coming into the lab tomorrow, Karl?"

Heinrich's smile remained. "No, Peter. I will sleep rather late, I think." He had taken Sundays off this last month, a departure from the previous year when seven-day work weeks had been the custom. "Our share of the task is largely complete." He sighed. "Perhaps tomorrow I will go to church."

Bostich laughed. "I have never once seen you in church, Karl."

Heinrich put a hand to Bostich's shoulder. "We are close to our goal. Perhaps a little prayer to go along with so many calculations?"

The Serb nodded. "It is exciting, is it not, to be this near."

"Ja, ja. Only two more weeks."

"Will you go to the test?"

"Of course, Peter, I must see the result after so much effort."

"Oppenheimer seems nervous," Bostich said, referring to the director of the project. "Do you think the gadget will work?"

"Ah, the billion dollar question. Teller still insists it could ignite the earth's atmosphere," Heinrich prodded, a jibe at the famous Hungarian physicist.

"Teller still pursues his fusion miracle. Let us hope he is wrong on both counts."

The path gave way to a clearing where the housing compound lay. Heinrich gave Bostich a friendly embrace, noting the sour smell of old beer. "I will see you Monday, Peter. But call me tomorrow if anything arises."

The two parted ways, and Heinrich took a meandering path toward the back where his own room was situated. He often walked the woods at night, finding the evening air far less oppressive than that of the day. It sometimes seemed like the only time he could breathe.

Halfway to his room, Heinrich detoured momentarily into the low forest of squat pinon pines and emptied the water from his tequila bottle. When he had first arrived in Los Alamos he would never have considered such a ruse. In his initial weeks here he had cultivated a careful image — outgoing, free-spirited, sociable. And not afraid to tie on a few drinks. His first dinner party at the club had not ended until the following morning, when he had awakened stark naked under the billiards table. The banging in his head had not been an element of the hangover, but rather the cleaning ladys vacuum striking him repeatedly on the crown.

He was amazed at how easily the Americans had taken to him. Karl Heinrich had made no attempt to hide his Germanness — the accent would have been impossible to lose, and besides, many of the scientists here knew him from his teaching days at Oxford and Hamburg. There were other Germans here, and they all had two things in common. They were experts in their fields, and they professed a uniform hatred of the Nazi regime. Heinrich had never confided in any of the others, but he sometimes wondered if he was the only liar.

He had come late to the National Socialist movement. In the early 1930s he had been too consumed by his work to worry about politics. As a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg, he was a well-respected theoretical physicist, and Heinrich's lectures on alpha particle scattering were in high demand. His frustrations began in 1935 when an Austrian Jew, Simons, had beaten him to the punch by publishing the authoritative paper Mass Determination of Component Nuclei as Heinrich was nearing completion of his own parallel work. The field was one over which he had been considered lord and master, so the letdown was heavy. It was as if a renegade cardinal had usurped the pope's podium in Saint Peter's Square to issue Mass on Easter Sunday.

The next misstep involved one of his previous works, relating to the projection of mixed nuclei in a radiant beam. Errors were discovered in Heinrich's methods by another Jew (a graduate student no less), and while the basic principals were solid, a year's work previously thought to be groundbreaking had fallen suspect. Full tenure never came at Hamburg, and Heinrich began a nomadic series of "Guest Lecturer" appointments. It was in Bremen that he attended his first National Socialist rally. The message fed his suspicions about Jews. They were evil, inbred thieves. Destroyers.

On Hitler's usurping of the Sudetenland, Heinrich had found himself at Oxford, a German patriot watching from the other side of the fence. Two years on he was invited to Columbia University in America, and it was in early 1943, with the eastern war going badly for Germany, that Heinrich was invited by a colleague to join a group of scientists working on a "war project."

At the outset there were standard questions from the Army about Heinrich's sympathies, his political leanings — but here he was rescued by his friends. The scientists of Los Alamos, dozens of nationalities among them, were a network of intellectuals who considered themselves above borders and politics. They righteously vouched for one another with blind confidence. In the end, it was this support, along with Heinrich's command of theoretical physics, that carried him past the Army and into the heart of the Manhattan Project.

He opened the door to his quarters and stepped inside, pausing to catch his breath. First the dancing, then the climbing — if he didn't slow down, he thought, he was going to have a heart attack. The walk to his room had been uphill, and even after a year he was not used to the thin air at 7,300 feet above sea level. He would not miss it. Indeed, the entirety of this desert he would not miss. It was clearly America's dustbin, good as nothing more than a place to hide her defeated indigenous people. Round them up and put them on "reservations." Such a nice word, he'd always thought, as if a maitre d' was holding a table at a fine restaurant. The Germans used a different word, and of course it involved Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals. Still, Heinrich reasoned, the concept was the same. And in all practicality, he did understand why the Manhattan Project had found its home here. Heat, dirt, wind — who would bother looking for the world's greatest secret in such a place?

The room was a single, modest in size, situated at the end of a row of four identical dwellings. The adjacent apartment was occupied infrequently by Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist from the University of Chicago. Fermi had spent most of the last year at his university lab, and traveling to the other facilities in Tennessee and Washington. Lately, however, he'd been more of a regular at Los Alamos, probably because the project was reaching fruition. It made Heinrich's work that much more difficult.

He set a pot of coffee to brew on his electric hot plate before starting to work on the curtain. There was only one window in the place, and Heinrich was meticulous about sealing it off whenever he worked. Having lived for a year in England during the blitz, he was an expert at the task.

When he finished, the coffee was ready. Heinrich poured a cup and added a hearty serving of sugar. The mix gave him energy, acting as a catalyst to shift his mental transmission into a different gear. It was time to put the evening's frivolity behind.

Tonight would be strictly photography. At the start, a year ago, he had copied the critical elements of each document by hand before resorting to the camera. If the film should go bad or become damaged, he had reasoned, there would be a backup. Now there was simply no time. With the war nearing its end, Heinrich's days at Los Alamos were numbered. Over the last two weeks he had taken many risks, scouring records and files, secreting bundles to his room. The scientists here regularly brought work to their rooms — though it was officially forbidden — but none on the scale Karl Heinrich managed.

He pulled a suitcase from under the bed and unlocked it. Inside was everything, a year's worth of work — documents, drawings, film, and the camera. He had considered something more secure, perhaps devising a secret compartment somewhere in the room, but Heinrich eventually decided it would be of little use. If he fell under suspicion, the Americans would tear the place apart. His only regular concern was the cleaning lady who came twice a week, a Zuni Indian woman who, if she could get by the lock, probably couldn't even read. Heinrich simply had to be careful.

He set today's stack on his working table and spent the first thirty minutes deciding which documents were worthy. Quietly, so as not to wake the Nobel Laureate next door, Heinrich dragged a shepherd's hook floor lamp across the room until it was over the table, then mounted the Leica camera. At the beginning he'd managed the Leica and documents by hand, an awkward series of repetitive movements that begged for better efficiency. He had fashioned a mount for the camera that attached to the frame of the lamp — the engineers would have been proud — and this simple advance had nearly doubled his progress. In a good hour he could take a hundred pictures, and by his most recent estimate there were at least nine thousand photographs, documents, drawings, and prints in his bulging little suitcase, covering every aspect of the Manhattan Project. Plutonium production, canning of uranium slugs, measurement of detonation waves. In all, three years of work fueled by the world's greatest minds.

Tonight Heinrich would concentrate on the arrangements for the actual test — design of the tower, capture of data for yield estimation, and the layout of radiation monitors. He discarded the sections on range safety and security, which were handled by the Army and seemed obvious enough.

The shutter began to click, and as Heinrich shuffled documents through his fingers his thoughts drifted ahead. After tonight, only one vital vein would remain to be mined — the results of the test, the world's first atomic explosion. It would take place in two weeks, and the data was of critical importance. He wondered if he would still be here, still have access. But soon the larger question flooded his thoughts — the one that had bothered him increasingly over the last months. What would he do with it all?

Heinrich read the newspapers each day and the latest headlines could not be more grim. The Reich had been dealt a terrible blow. He had no doubts that it would reemerge — but how, and where? Such uncertainty. Still, Heinrich held faith. The cause was right, and pure — particularly ridding the world of the filthy Jews.

As he focused the Leica on a diagram — a layout of seismographs, spectrographs, and ionization chambers — his thoughts drifted to Santa Fe. The day was fast approaching when he would reach for the last thread that connected him to the old country. Would his new contact be there? Karl Heinrich sighed as the camera clicked. It had to be so.

It had to be.

Chapter 25

The outline of downtown Chicago was just visible in the haze behind them. Braun concentrated on correlating details on the map in his hand to the features below. Once again, the instructor had taken the right seat, the student the left.

This flight had gone deeper into the subject of navigation, with a few stall recoveries at the outset. They had practiced landings yesterday evening in South Bend, just before dusk. After seven touch-and-go's Braun had become comfortable, if not completely proficient, and at the end he noticed Mitchells hands did not hover over the controls as they neared each touchdown. The student was making progress.

After the last landing, they'd taken a room at a boarding house near the airport. Braun had drifted to sleep wondering if the authorities in Newport had found the Buick Special stashed in the hangar.

This morning he and Mitchell had risen early. After stuffing down a sugary Danish and a tar-like cup of coffee, the journey had resumed.

"Route Sixty-one," Mitchell said, tapping on the map. "That'll take us northwest through Wisconsin."

Braun nodded as he held the controls. Until now, the terrain below had been the same for hundreds of miles — an endless layout of farms, pancake flat, and arranged in orderly squares by roads that were true to the cardinal directions of the compass. Mitchell called them section lines. Here, though, the contours began to change. Carpets of forest, deep green in mid-summer foliage, swallowed the landscape, and soft hills provided basins for white pockets of early morning mist.

"The future's right down there," the old man remarked.

"What future would that be?"

"Trees. Lumber. This war's gonna be over soon, and all the boys will be coming home. When they get back they'll start families. A family needs a house. And for a house you need wood. Lots of it."

Braun shrugged. "I suppose so." There would be an epidemic of cheap housing, he thought. Row after row of uninspired boxes stamped out in a frenzy of construction, as if from one of Mr. Ford's assembly lines. But the deeper irony of Mitchell's observation was notable. They were getting close to Braun's home, the land he remembered, flush with the rich timber that had so distracted his father. Of course, if it hadn't been the timber, it would have been something else.

Braun's father had always been the chief designer of his misery. The man had come across the ocean a classic immigrant, arriving penniless from Germany in 1912. He'd seen land, opportunity. And he stopped at nothing to take his share. The first tract had been small, the trees taken down by hand, hauled by horses. But the old man was relentless. By the time the Depression hit, there were hundreds of acres, mechanized transportation, and a mill. The early thirties were hard — parcels had to be sold and the mill closed — yet his father survived, recovering all his losses before the war came around. As was always the case, however, success came at a price.

The elder Braun rarely found time for his family. He was a virtual stranger in his home, and when he wasn't at the office he was at Schmitt's, the corner bar that pulled authentic German beer for the neighborhood. While Alex's father was gone to pursue either the riches he demanded or a good pint, his mother was left to bear the load at home.

So it was, when a new sister came into the world two months early, it was Alex who was forced to run six miles to town in a violent snowstorm to fetch the doctor. When the two eventually made it back, hours later, the newborn and mother were both still, the bed drenched in blood. Ten-year-old Alex had been inconsolable, and when his father finally showed up that night, obviously drunk, Alex had struck him the best blow he could muster. His father, through some mix of whiskey and guilt, had responded by beating his surviving child senseless. Only the doctor's intervention had saved Alex's life.

Any ties that had ever existed between the two were ended that night. Alex was committed to a series of boarding schools, rarely seeing his father, and the divide only cemented their estrangement. Holidays were spent in dormitories, and each year on his birthday Alex received a remittance of ten dollars, the handwriting on the envelope that of his father's secretary. As time passed, most of what he learned about his father was garnered from the newspapers and school gossip — his elder was becoming richer and more prominent. This, at least, was something appreciated around Alex's preparatory school, and the teachers, administrators, and other students allowed him a certain status of acceptance.

And then there was the matter of Alex's acceptance to Harvard. His grades had been decent, but somewhat erratic. He strongly suspected his father had arranged the admission, just before selling his holdings and fleeing back to Germany. The question was why. To offer his sole issue an elite education? Or was it simply a business move on his father's part, a card to be later played in some arcane game? Young Alex Braun chose not to dwell on the matter. Instead, he simply took what he could, a precept that would harden severely over the next five years.

A familiar voice drove away the memories.

"Yep," Mitchell continued, "lots of boys coming back. By the way, what did you do during the war, son?"

For those who had stayed behind it was the hard question, the one that could not be taken without a certain underlying sharpness. Braun's answer was pre-forged and sturdy. "I served in Europe. I'm only back for a few weeks before I head out to the Pacific. That's why I need to get to Minnesota in such a hurry."

Mitchell seemed convinced, yet Braun was curious as to why he had suddenly turned conversational. The previous 8.4 hours of flight, so precisely measured on the aircraft's Hobbs meter, had been entirely business. The instructor taught, the student performed. Braun decided it was a display of confidence, an affirmation that he was indeed flying the aircraft well.

"That's the Mississippi over there," Mitchell announced, pointing off in the distance. "Follow that for an hour and it'll take us right to downtown Minneapolis."

Braun saw the meandering river ahead, a heavy vein on the earth's surface to move her life's blood.

"How long will you need in Minneapolis?" Mitchell asked.

"My business should only take an hour or two. We can start back East this afternoon." Braun's hands were steady on the controls. The altimeter read a perfect five thousand feet.

"Okay. Maybe we can get back home tonight. My wife promised to bake an apple pie — her way of getting me back home!" Mitchell cackled. "And by the time we get back, you'll be ready to solo."

Braun looked out at the forest below. It was punctuated by countless small lakes that mirrored the low eastern sun, like a thousand diamonds shining against an emerald blanket. He saw only one small town, distant to the west. Braun looked at his instructor and smiled.

Hiram Mitchell smiled back at his student, thinking he'd add a scoop of ice cream to the apple pie. He was happy with the boy's progress, happy that he'd taken the job. It was the easiest two hundred dollars he had ever earned. Mitchell decided to use part of the money to take his bride to the Poconos for a week — it had been nearly a year since they'd gotten away. The rest would go for an engine overhaul on the Avion, which was already overdue. Yep, he thought, easy money. He leaned forward for a chart.

It came out of nowhere. The pain was excruciating, like a sledgehammer had smashed between his eyes. Mitchell tried to push himself up, but his limbs wouldn't respond. What was happening? His hands groped awkwardly, clawing for a grip, anything to right himself. His head spun and his vision was blurred. And then he felt the oddest sensation, something warm spreading across his face. "What—" There was no time to finish the question. The second blow, to the side of his head, brought only stars.

Mitchells world faded. Time stopped. The next sensation was movement, his body being shoved and tugged, back and forth. He tried to get his bearings, to understand, but the pain was agonizing. Suddenly he felt wind, and then his stomach lurched in freefall. It was like being on the roller coaster at Coney Island. His arms and legs flailed, and the wind came stronger — a hurricane all around. He'd always had dreams about falling, spinning down through an endless void. But when Mitchell wrenched a hand to his face and wiped the blood from his eyes, he saw that there was indeed an end. The forest rushed up at him, larger and larger, filling his view until there was nothing else.

Hiram Mitchell screamed.

Thatcher led Tomas Jones across the back lawn of Harrold House. The FBI man had arrived early, but been buttonholed by the local police detective before Thatcher was able to usher him outside for privacy. Meandering the walking paths, the two found common ground for the first time.

"Looks like this Sargent Cole is some rich sunnava bitch," Jones noted crassly.

Thatcher eyed the manicured surroundings with equal distaste. "Perhaps it has something to do with why Braun ended up here."

Jones chewed on the remark. "So somebody at Harvard told you he'd be here?"

"A fellow student told me he was involved with the girl, Lydia. I came to talk to her, but I never suspected Braun might actually be here."

"That was pretty dumb, just going right up and banging on the door."

Thatchers blood rose, but he let it go. He deserved that one. They paused on reaching the ocean, the waves breaking just below, the air laced in a salty tang.

"Have your people taken over the search?" Thatcher asked.

"The FBI? Hell no!"

"But Braun was just here — he's killed a man!"

"We don t know that for sure. He shoved that girl down the stairs, and roughed up you and the butler. Stole a car too, I guess, but that doesn't make it a federal case."

"He's a Nazi spy — you know how he got here! His mission involves your precious Manhattan Project!"

"Does it? Then why the hell is he diddling around here playing Jay Gatsby?"

Thatcher fell silent for a moment. "Maybe he needed money. He came ashore with nothing."

"So he kills this gal's husband to weasel his way into the family fortune? Today a funeral, tomorrow a wedding? That's a new way to fund sabotage. Come on, Thatcher, you're better than that."

He fumed, trying to see a way around the American's logic.

Jones said, "He may have been delivered here as a spy, Major, but the war is over. He knows that as well as we do." He turned toward the house. A rack at the edge of the lawn displayed a neat array of colored croquet mallets. Jones lifted out the red one and walked to where a wooden ball sat on the grass waiting to be sent through a wire hoop twenty feet away. He swung and scuffed his effort badly. "And the fact that he was laying around this goofy amusement park only proves it — he ain't a threat. At least not to our national security."

"So you won't pursue it?"

"Oh, we'll get involved. If there's been a murder, we'll find him. But it's not a high priority."

"Not a priority? Listen —"

Jones swung the mallet down to the turf like an axe splitting a log, then pointed it at Thatcher's head. "No, Major, you listen! You get out of my hair. We'll find this guy in time, but we'll do it our way. That's it!" Jones tossed the mallet onto the perfectly trimmed, sunlit lawn, and headed for the house.

Thatcher turned back to the water. Under a thick haze the Atlantic looked nearly black, fading to obscurity at the horizon. He was angry. Angry he'd been so close, yet bumbled away the chance to catch Braun. And angry that what Jones said made sense. Why had Braun come here? What was he after? And most importantly, where had he gone now?

Chapter 26

The cheese was foul and Braun spit out the first bite of his sandwich. Adjacent to the airport in Lamoni, Iowa, along Route 69, there had been only one motel and one restaurant. It was a traveler's lodge, a place to rest for as long as one could ignore the heavy trucks that rattled in and out from the grain elevators across the street. The room was dank, one small bed with stained sheets and the musty odor of mothballs. Wanting to keep as low a profile as possible, Braun had ordered a ham and cheese sandwich to take to his room, but now he wished he'd risked a hot meal.

There had been enough fuel and daylight to fly at least another hundred miles, but a huge thunderstorm had blackened the sky to the west. When Braun spotted the little airstrip he decided not to press his luck. The landing had been wobbly, but his confidence was growing. He had covered three hundred miles since disposing of Mitchell, stopping once for fuel. On only one occasion had he become unsure of his position, and he'd tried Mitchell's silly tactic of going low to check the road signs. Surprisingly, it worked. He had easily correlated city names to fix his position on the map. Unfortunately, Mitchell's aviation charts ended at the Kansas border. Braun would have to find something else tomorrow. If he couldn't get a proper flight chart, he reckoned he could do as well with a good road map.

He had already arranged to have the Luscombe fueled — the attendant seemed to accept his story about delivering the craft to a rural postal service in Colorado — and now Braun would try for a decent nights rest as he sorted through the next steps.

He heard a spray of light taps against the window. Braun pulled aside the tattered curtain to see a turbulent scene. The storm front had arrived. Swirling winds blew dust across the road as the first heavy raindrops smacked down, tiny explosions erupting in the dirt parking area. He let the curtain fall closed and reconsidered the once bitten sandwich and warm bottle of beer next to his bed. Perhaps something from the wine cellar, he mused. Braun sat on the bed, springs squeaking under his weight, and he forced down the rancid meal. How quickly he had been spoiled, he realized. A few months ago he would have celebrated this as a special feast.

He thought again of his decision to go to Santa Fe for a meeting with Die Wespe. It had not been an easy choice. The voice of the Englishman intruded constantly… Major Michael Thatcher … help me locate a man by the name of Alexander Brown. Had someone — Rode, Gruber, or Becker — been captured and talked? The crew of U-801? Perhaps, but none of them would have known about Newport. How had the Englishman tracked him there? His name — the authorities had discovered his name. From there how difficult would it have been to connect Alexander Brown to Lydia and Newport? Not very. It was likely the Americans had helped. And that led to one thing — this Manhattan Project, whatever it was, might indeed be important.

He wondered if the authorities had uncovered Die Wespe. There was no way to be sure. But if so, they'd be waiting for Braun in New Mexico. He remembered Colonel Gruber's last words to him… You must bring the information Die Wespe holds. It is priceless, vital to our future. Priceless. He found that one word inescapable.

A knock on the door startled him. Braun couldn't see outside. If he moved the curtain aside to look, the movement would be seen. With no other way out of the room, he decided the direct approach would be best. Swilling down the rest of his beer, Braun grabbed the bottle firmly by the neck, covered it with a pillow to muffle the sound, and smacked it hard across the edge of the nightstand. With the jagged remainder firmly in his hand, he went to the door. Braun squared his feet in a strong stance and pulled it partially open, keeping his weapon out of sight.

"Urn, hello there, sir."

It was the service boy from the airport, a skinny teenager whose skeletal frame swam inside greasy coveralls that were spotted with raindrops. Braun s hand remained tense on the broken bottle, yet his eyes sparkled with ease.

"What is it?"

"She could use some oil. You want me to go ahead and add it?"

"Yes, please."

"Okay." The boy rubbed a chin that was just sprouting its first few, reddish whiskers. "Ah, it'll be two dollars."

Braun pulled out the wallet he'd taken from Hiram Mitchell's back pocket before dropping him five thousand feet to his death. Still holding the bottle, he fumbled behind the door to use both hands, and eventually shoved out three dollar bills.

"Thank you, sir."

Braun gestured to the storm outside. "Assuming this lets up, I plan on leaving at first light."

"Oh, it'll be cleared up by then, mister. And I'm always at the hangar by six. Let me know if you need anything else." The kid gave a two-fingered salute, and dashed through the rain to a weary old truck.

Braun closed the door and leaned into it with a shoulder. He tossed the jagged bottle into a trash can and took a deep breath. Three days until the meeting with Die Wespe. He wondered what this Manhattan Project could possibly be. A rocket-bomb like the V-2? An airplane? Braun simply had to find out. And he had to be very careful.

He went to the bed and stretched out on top of the sheets.

The room was hot and uncomfortable. New Mexico would be even worse. Yet for all the hardships Braun had seen, this he did not mind. He only wanted to never be cold again.

When Braun arrived at seven the boy had the airplane ready to go, tie-downs removed and fully serviced. Breakfast had been better— it was hard to mess up eggs — and by ten minutes after seven he was cruising westward, following the Rand McNally map he'd purchased at a gas station near the motel. It would take the entire morning to traverse Kansas, and the Luscombe would need one more refueling to reach New Mexico.

He considered what to do with the airplane when he arrived in Santa Fe. Should he try to keep it hidden as a potential means of escape? Sell it for cash? Unfortunately, the Luscombe was the one thing that tied him to Newport and a missing flight instructor.

The flight across Kansas was familiar — flat, incredibly uniform features. Endless dirt roads demarked square farm plots. Each was tended by a small house, with larger buildings to shelter equipment and harvests. Braun had taken to following a rail line, easily distinguishable from the roads, and punctuated with precision regularity by grain elevators. It was all very orderly and functional, a well-thought-out design, he decided.

The fuel stop came after four hours, a place called Liberal, Kansas. The midday heat was insufferable, its companion a stiff breeze that did nothing to cool but instead acted as a bellows to the fire. The facilities around the airfield looked in decent shape, but Braun was surprised to find that there was no fuel service here. He was forced to walk two miles to the nearest gas station, where he again tried to use Hiram Mitchells postal credentials. The surly attendant groused that he'd been having trouble getting letters through to his son in the Pacific, but ten dollars eventually sufficed for eighteen gallons of high-test, the use of two ten gallon cans, and a ride back to Liberal Municipal. It was noon when he departed.

As he taxied to the end of the runway, Braun noted the different landing surface. It was a hardpan dirt strip as opposed to the grass he was used to. There was a stiff crosswind, and when he began the takeoff roll Braun wrestled awkwardly with the controls to keep the machine headed in the right direction. The Luscombe seemed to hesitate, building speed much more slowly than in the past. His first idea was to shove the throttle forward, but it was already against the stop.

He felt a sudden pang of discomfort. Was something wrong with the engine? Was a dirt strip different than grass, some coefficient dragging him back? He watched the airspeed build with glacial speed. The end of the runway came closer — not trees or a fence, but rather squat bushes, the boundary where clearing work had simply stopped. At fifty miles an hour it was clear that the Luscombe might not get airborne. A wall of tangled brown bushes rushed toward him. Braun considered trying to stop. But could he? Or would he only go careening into the scrub?

Finally, the tail began to respond, rising lazily to his command. Braun waited until the last moment, then pulled back firmly. The main wheels came up, lumbering, and the wings seemed to wobble. Somehow the plane rose just enough, skimming across flat terrain as the airspeed crept upward. He milked the thing up until he had a hundred feet, two hundred, and finally a thousand. Only then did Braun realize how his heart was racing.

Outside, the remains of what looked like a tumbleweed was tangled in his right wheel, fluttering crazily in the wind stream. He took a deep breath. How had that happened? Braun wondered. Have I become reckless? He measured it all, and soon the answer filtered down. No, he was not reckless. Braun was unaware of his specific mistake during the takeoff, yet he knew where it was rooted. Overconfidence. He had gotten too comfortable in an unfamiliar discipline. Braun remembered the grip of success he had felt as a new sniper — one good shot tempted another. And another. But the odds would find you.

He looked ahead and found his railway, the curvilinear guide that had brought him here. It still meandered west. The sky had filled with clouds, thick and puffy, and to the north he saw a thunderstorm, classic in its anvil shape. Braun figured it must be beating the hell out of a farm somewhere. He recalled that Mitchell had always checked the weather by phone before each flight. Braun should have learned how this was done. Of course, now it was too late. And in any event, his next landing would likely be his last.

It was Hiram Mitchells wife who broke things open. The untouched apple pie on the sill above the kitchen sink loomed ominously, and when she didn't hear from her husband by midday on the third day, she got worried. If the Luscombe had broken down he would have called. Not knowing who to call to report a missing airplane, she decided on the local police. The operator there almost pushed her off on the Civil Aeronautics Board before an astute desk man made the connection.

A squad car was sent to the airfield, and it took another ten minutes for the officer to get permission to whack the padlock off the hangar door. He reported that he'd found the missing Buick, and a short time later the news reached the library at Harrold House.

Chapter 27

Lydia was in her room, arranging the flowers Edward had given her only a few days ago. They were beginning to wilt, black at the edges, and she turned the freshest side of each forward. She wondered, perhaps, if she could plant a row of the same variety on the east side of the house and tend to them herself. Lydia knew nothing about gardening, but Wescott could teach her.

Hearing the telephone ring in the distance, Lydia headed for the library. It was a considerable effort, the aches and bruises from being sent down the stairs still fresh. The pain pills made her woozy, keeping the world in a haze. She hated the drugs, but the doctor had insisted.

When she reached the library her father was already talking, scribbling down information. Major Thatcher was also there, and Lydia took a chair next to him. Father had put the Englishman up in a small room, and he'd become a fixture around the place. Lydia studied the little man with the limp who seemed so direct and focused. It was odd, she thought. She'd always imagined her father to be a strong man, and physically he was, but the Englishman carried a different sway, an intensity of purpose that she recognized, but didn't quite understand.

Her father hung up the phone.

"Have they found him?" Thatcher asked.

"They found the car," Sargent Cole said. "Mitchell's Flying Service — its a little operation off State Road Seventy-seven."

Thatcher winced. "We've been looking everywhere else — the bus and train stations, the airport in Providence."

Through her drug induced stupor, Lydia made a connection. "Frank! Of course, I should have remembered."

Thatcher said, "Remembered what?"

"Cousin Frank — he and Alex went up for a few flights the last time Alex stayed with us. He'd know about the airfield. How stupid of me not to remember."

"Did Brown know how to fly?" Thatcher asked.

"No, I don't think so. He and Frank just went joyriding, as I remember it."

Sargent Cole said, "That was five years ago. For all we know, he could be a Luftwaffe ace by now."

Thatcher moved to a large map of the United States that was situated centrally on the wall behind an ornate writing desk. He stood with his hands on his hips and wondered aloud, "So where have you gone now, my friend?"

Lydia looked at the map and instantly knew the answer. "Santa Fe!" The words came in a strong, clear voice that belied here foggy mind. She took Thatcher by the elbow and pulled him closer to the map. "He's going to Santa Fe! The other day I came into this room and he had his finger parked right on it. He gave me some story about tracing his route out west. I remember the name perfectly because I decided he was taking the train. The Santa Fe Line."

Sargent Cole said, "What do you think, Major? Could there be something to it?"

The Englishman seemed to hesitate as he stared at the map. "Possibly."

"We have to tell the FBI," Lydia said, her eyes boring into the map. "They'll catch him."

"All right," Thatcher agreed. "I'll call Jones."

Thatcher made the call from another room, needing privacy to sort through the ideas churning in his head. Santa Fe, New Mexico. New Mexico. He remembered Corporal Kleins words. There is an agent, in Mexico I think, code name Die Wespe… the Manhattan Project. Did it really make sense? Thatcher wondered. Or was he grasping at the breeze?

When Tomas Jones came on line he was noncommittal about the news of the getaway car having been found. "So he's out flying around with some old geezer. Any idea where they're headed?"

"Mitchell's wife says her husband was hired out on a charter to Minnesota."

"Shouldn't be hard to find," the FBI man said. "We'll put out a bulletin to check all the airfields along the way."

Thatcher wondered how many there could be. Thanks to the war, England had become littered with them. Then he remembered Lydia's idea. "I think we should cast the net a bit wider," he insisted.

"Why?"

"Well, does this project of yours have a site in New Mexico?"

Jones exploded. "God dammit! That's it!"

Thatcher held the receiver away from his ear.

"You're done, Thatcher! Pack your bags and go home! If you're feet are still on American soil by nightfall, I'm sending the two biggest oafs I can find to escort you to a very slow boat. Go home now! That's an order!" The click was next, and when Thatcher hung up he smiled. He had his answer. He went back to the library.

"Well, is the bastard going to do anything?" Sargent asked.

"Yes. He's going to send me back to England because I'm interfering."

Sargent seethed openly.

"Will you go?" Lydia asked.

"Eventually. But I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Is that in New Mexico?"

"Arizona," Lydia said.

"Close enough."

"What can we do to help?" Sargent said.

"My official capacity here is — well, let's say it's always been on unsteady ground. In all honesty, I'm a little short on funds right now. I wasn't planning on such a long stay."

"Whatever you need, Major. Somehow I think you have a better chance of tracking down Alex Brown than the FBI." He went to the writing desk and scribbled out a check. As he held it out he studied Thatcher. "What is it, Thatcher? Why do you want this guy so bad?"

It was a fair question, one Thatcher had been asking himself. "He's been sent here to contact a spy, and I think that's why he might head to New Mexico. It's simply my job to stop him."

"Bullshit. I'm a good judge of people, Thatcher — this is personal. Did you ever know Alex?"

"No. I never knew he existed until a few weeks ago."

Sargent Cole pressed. "Has he hurt someone you know? Committed a war crime?"

Thatcher shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. I suppose he represents something to me. My war was more quiet than some. Chasing after the likes of Alex Braun — it keeps me in the fight." He paused. "Anyway, I'll leave first thing in the morning." He held up the check. "And thanks for this. I'll repay you when I get back to England."

Sargent Cole waved it off. "Just find him, Major."

"Yes," Lydia added, her eyes glassy and fogged, but her tone clear, "you must find him."

Thatcher looked at her squarely. The girl was shattered, yet trying to hold up. He ought to tell her that time would heal everything— that's what he'd been told. Of course, it was a lie. His own wounds had proven incurable. Blight lingered on his soul. There was, Thatcher knew, only one truth he could offer. "I'll do my best," he said.

The changes came subtly. The earth's hue was based in brown, but striations of red and orange swept in more frequently. The farm fields of Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle gradually ceded, the land almost barren now for want of water. Riverbeds cut deep into the rocky ground but, as far as Braun could tell, all were dry.

The remoteness increased as each mile passed beneath him, and there were few signs of civilization. The colors deepened further as the Luscombe passed into New Mexico, darker shades of red that made it look as if the world had begun to oxidize. Braun was beginning to understand why the Americans had chosen this place. He hoped the remoteness was a sign that Die Wespe's information was indeed as important as Gruber had held it to be.

The lack of anything manmade did not aid his navigation. The last recognizable town had been a place called Tucumcari, a dusty group of buildings that had bulged along the rail line thirty minutes earlier. There, he'd left the track he was following to pick up another, one that would lead to Santa Fe. Since that time, he'd seen nothing he could use to cross-check his progress as the Luscombe bumped along through turbulent air. And there were other problems.

He'd first noticed it on landing back in Kansas. There, the field elevation had been 2,800 feet above sea level, far higher than the other places he'd landed. Now, with the airplane struggling to hold altitude at 7,000 feet, he thought the ground looked much closer. The roadmap disclosed that Albuquerque was situated at over 5,000 feet. Braun wondered if Santa Fe might be even higher. He saw mountains ahead, clear on the horizon. Could the Luscombe even manage it? Braun tossed the map to the passenger seat. If nothing else, he was close. He might have to find an airfield and land short. Even a road would do. There were still two days until the scheduled rendezvous with Die Wespe. If he couldn't fly into Santa Fe, he would find another way.

Cumulus clouds had begun to build in the mid-afternoon heat. Unable to fly over the cotton white obstacles, Braun turned left and right to skirt between them. As he tried to keep the railway in sight, turbulence shook the little plane with more authority. The airspeed needle bounced erratically, gaining ten miles an hour, then losing five. He remembered yesterday's storm in Kansas, and old Mitchell's penchant for worrying about the weather. A look ahead, however, eased Braun's concern. The lower clouds were still scattered and soft, topped by darker versions above. He would simply slide beneath it all.

Approaching the mountains, he noted yet another change in the landscape — the sides of the hills were increasingly green, covered in thick vegetation. The mountain tops lay obscured, lost in a curtain of gray and black clouds. With the Luscombe at 8,000 feet now, the airspeed had deteriorated to only sixty miles an hour. Braun thought it a logical trade.

The railway meandered into a deep valley between two imposing mountains. Braun soon found himself guided less by his steady reference and more by the terrain. This had to be the gap where the tracks cut through the mountains, he decided. On the other side would be Santa Fe.

Craning to keep the railway in sight, Braun clipped the corner of a cloud, everything turning white for a few seconds. When he burst back in the clear, another was straight ahead. He turned hard to the left, but yet another patch of white swirled before him. This time it took longer to come out, and when the little plane broke clear there were darker shades in every direction. He continued to turn as he hit the next cloud deck, and after a few glimpses of white, the world turned a heavy gray. The Luscombe rattled and suddenly seemed to strike a wall of water. Rain smacked at the windscreen like rocks against a sheet of tin. The plane lurched and Braun's head struck the ceiling.

He saw nothing outside now, only a swirl of black. He was flying blind. The instruments had gone haywire, the altimeter now showing 10,000 feet, but dropping, the needle spinning backward like a clock gone crazy. His senses told him he was in a turn, and he fought against the stick. Eight thousand feet. Still fighting the turn, he yanked on the stick. The Luscombe gave a shudder — and began a freefall. The stick flopped uselessly in Braun's lap. He had lost control.

Seven thousand feet. He felt dizzy, disoriented. Braun tried to make sense of instruments that were spinning wildly, an incoherent jumble of information. Outside, the ocean of darkness kept swirling, swallowing. Sixty-five hundred feet.

He took a deep breath. Just as in Russia and the Atlantic, Braun let go. He took his hand from the control stick and it bounced aimlessly between his legs. He closed his eyes. One minute, he thought. But for the first time, Braun knew he didn't have that long.

An instant of confusion swept in. Then, suddenly, a sensation of light. Calm and bright. Braun opened his eyes. The Luscombe had broken clear of the clouds — but it might have been more merciful had it not. A mountain filled the windscreen, huge evergreen trees, slate gray rock in the gaps. The angle of dive was impossible, the earth and trees seconds away.

His hands instinctively went to the control stick. It felt firmer now, the craft somehow having found purchase on the thin air. The crash was imminent — but there was one chance. Braun forced the stick to the right and pulled back for all he was worth.

Ben Geronima Walker stepped quietly through the woods. As a Mescalero Apache, the art of stalking game came quite naturally. He had learned from his father, a hunter of considerable skill. Of course, fifty years ago, before the opening of the Mescalero Grocery, the knowledge had been substantially more important. In fact, Ben Walker had not killed a deer in six years, his last a buck taken with a clean shot from fifty yards. On that occasion he'd done the fieldwork, dressing out over a hundred pounds of venison and hauling it to his truck.

Now, at seventy-two years old, he had no desire to take any more from the forest. He knew that kill had been his last. But he still went into the woods, the rifle his excuse. His quarry was different now — he enjoyed the solitude, the spirituality of the forest. Throwing a tent in his truck, he would come here for days at a stretch to escape his nagging wife and the idiot who lived next door, a self-taught auto mechanic who banged away at ridiculously late hours. Here, in the mountains east of Pecos, Ben Walker found peace. And he'd had it all morning.

As was often the case, however, the afternoon had brought storms. The sky darkened quickly, and gusty winds swept through the pines, bringing the sweet scent of ozone. As was his custom, Walker planned on sitting out the showers in the cab of his truck, three or four cigarettes before edging back out into the fresh, cool air.

He was headed in that direction when he saw a flash through the trees. At first glance he thought it was a bird, big and white, swooping over the hill. But then he recognized the glint of metal, and heard the sound of snapping tree limbs violate the forests stillness. Birds flushed and animals scurried for cover. But then the interruption ended as suddenly as it had come, and the woods again retreated to a natural rhythm.

If he hadn't seen it, the metallic reflection, Walker probably would have kept going. But there had been something, just over the ridge to his right. It was a steep climb and he moved slowly, his knees and hips not what they were so many years ago. The Winchester rifle on his shoulder seemed heavier than usual. Cresting the rise, he saw the source of the commotion. At first he didn't recognize the mess for what it was. He saw dust and smoke, but gradually a white tube of sorts came into view. It was bent and twisted, looking vaguely like an airplane. But the thing had no wings.

He scampered as best he could, weaving between saplings and shrubs. Fifty feet away he stopped. He saw the tail now, clear with numbers and lettering. It was definitely an airplane — and there was someone in it. A man crawled out, bent and twisted, just like the metal frame. Covered in blood, he stumbled clear and came unsteadily to his feet.

Walker rushed to him. "Let me help you!" he called.

The man used a shirtsleeve to wipe blood from his face, revealing a dazed expression.

Walker glanced into the airplane as he got closer. He saw no one else. "I can help! Are you able to walk? My truck is at the bottom of the hill. You need a hospital, mister."

Ben Walker took the Winchester off his shoulder and leaned it against a nearby tree. He held out a helping hand. Oddly, the bloodied face looking at him wrenched into a smile.

Chapter 28

It was four in the morning when Lydia moved gingerly down the stairs. Each step was a new revelation in pain — her hip, her ankle, everything seemed to hurt. But it was her own doing. The nurse her father had brought in had dispensed a ration of pills last evening. Discretely, Lydia had dropped them all behind her bed. She'd had enough of the drugs. Unfortunately, without them she'd not been able to sleep a wink.

Lying awake, Lydia had decided on a trip to the kitchen. When she arrived, she was surprised to see a light burning. The Englishman was seated at the servant's table with a plate of leftovers and a pot of tea. He stood when he saw her.

"Good morning, ma'am."

"Oh, please, Major. That makes me feel so old. Call me Lydia."

"All right, but then 'Major' is far too formal. I think Michael will do."

She smiled and turned toward the refrigerator. The movement was a bad one, and Lydia grimaced.

"Are you all right?" he asked, standing. "Can I get you something?"

"No, please. I… I'm rather tired of people doing things for me." She poured herself a glass of milk and joined him at the table. "What are you doing up so early?"

"I have to catch the first bus down to New York. Then a flight. And you? Are you having trouble sleeping?"

She grinned. "That's all I've been doing, Michael. Sleeping." She wanted to add, my entire life. Lydia shifted to a less uncomfortable position. "Actually, I stopped taking my medication last night."

"I see."

"I've been walking around the house in a daze. Yesterday I found myself in the garage, but I wasn't sure how I'd even got there. And do you know what the last straw was?"

"What?"

"I woke up and saw a dim light outside my window, but I had no idea — none whatsoever — whether it was dawn or dusk."

He nodded. "That happened to me once, in the hospital after my accident." He gestured to his leg.

She saw his ill-fitting pant leg. Somehow Lydia knew he wouldn't mind if she asked. "What happened?"

"I was the ordnance officer for a squadron of Lancaster bombers. I tagged along on a mission to do some troubleshooting, and we tangled with a flock of ME-109s. Our ship eventually went down, but not before…" he hesitated, "not before I actually took up a gun position. The lad who'd been manning it was killed."

Lydia was riveted. "Did you actually shoot at any of them?"

He nodded. "It was the only chance I had through the entire war to look the enemy in the eye and pull a trigger." Thatcher looked blankly at the table. "I remember it like it was yesterday— the Messerschmitt exploding. The fireball filled the sky."

After a moment of reflection, Lydia found herself saying, "Tell me, Michael, how did it make you feel?"

His reply came right away, as if it had been a perfectly natural question. "It was exhilarating — the most fulfilling instailt of my life." They locked eyes, and he added, "Even if my wife, Madeline, would have hated it."

Lydia nodded. "She must have been terribly worried about you.

He seemed put off, and Lydia eyed his wedding ring.

"Actually," he said in a quiet voice, "my wife was killed in the Blitz."

"Oh, God! Michael, I'm so sorry. I only assumed—"

"No, no. It's all right. I still wear the ring — can't get it off, actually."

Lydia looked at her own wedding band. Would the thought of taking it off ever come? She watched Thatcher as he buttered a piece of bread. His face was rather bony and narrow in the dim light, angular and at odds with itself. The eyes, however, seemed soft, more so now than she'd noticed before. But then every other time she'd seen him he'd been engrossed in his hunt for Alex.

"Do you miss her?" she asked.

"Yes. Terribly."

Lydia felt a new pain emerge, one that the drugs could never help. "I miss Edward too." She felt a tear fall freely down her cheek. "You know, it's funny. When Edward was alive I could only see the worst in him. Wrinkled shirts, working weekends, the spots where he'd missed shaving. Now I only think about the flowers he gave me, and the trip to Niagara Falls he wanted to take over the holidays."

"Yes, I know. Madeline and I had so many plans. But the last thing I ever said to her was something stupid about a wing — what you call a fender — that she'd bent on our car."

Lydia shook her head. "But for me it's worse, Michael. You see, it's my fault Edward died."

"You can't believe that."

"I brought Alex here."

"He was an old college flame who thought—"

"No! When he came back, I should have turned him away. But instead I embraced him. I led Alex on, without a thought for my husband!"

He offered up a handkerchief and she began to wipe.

"Lydia, Alex is the killer."

"No! He couldn't have done it without me! Michael—" she felt the confession rise, "I carried on with him!" The tears began to flow, but she couldn't stop. "Right in this house, with Edward only a few rooms away!" Lydia fell forward on the table, sobbing into her folded arms. She felt his hand on her shoulder.

"You must think I'm disgraceful."

"I think you're human."

Thatcher made no attempt to dissuade her from her guilty thoughts. He simply sat in silence until her convulsions eased.

"And useless. I'm so damned useless! I failed Edward, and I've been a failure through this entire war. I just heard today that our former cook's son, Mario, was killed in the Pacific — one of those dreadful kamikazes. I grew up with Mario, he and I played together when we were children. He goes off to the war and makes that sacrifice, while my biggest concern each morning is… is what shoes to wear!"

Thatcher said nothing.

Lydia straightened up in her chair. "Look at me. I'm a blathering mess."

"Yes, you are. But I suspect there are at least a thousand like you at kitchen tables across the country at this very moment."

She eyed him thoughtfully.

He said, "This war has caused incredible suffering, Lydia. No one has come through untouched."

"I suppose you're right. But my wounds are self-inflicted. I only have myself to blame."

She handed back his handkerchief, now a soggy ball of cotton. Thatcher then helped her up the stairs to her room where she collapsed on her bed. He gestured to the pill bottles on her nightstand. "Are you sure you don't need these?"

"I'm sure," she said. "Please take them away."

He did. "I've got to go and catch my bus now." Thatcher took her nearest hand, which had a nasty bruise, and rubbed lightly over the mottled patch of skin. "Time heals, you know."

"Does it?"

Lydia thought his smile looked strained.

"Take care of yourself, Lydia."

And with that, he was gone.