They drove in an unmarked car that Tom thought might have been Maple's personal vehicle, finally stopping a block away from a large building that was clearly a church. It took Tom a moment to realize that it was a synagogue.
"First," Tom said, "do I get to know your real name, and, second, why are we here?"
"I'll tell you my real name later if I decide I can trust you. As to the rest, just sit tight and watch."
Promptly at two AM, a pair of trucks pulled up in front of the main doors to the synagogue. A dozen men in black shirts tumbled out. Some of them were having trouble walking in the icy street and were clearly drunk. Most carried clubs, but a few had what looked like pistols.
Without any regard for silence, they attached chains and ropes to the synagogue’s doors and to the trucks. The trucks pulled out, ripping the doors off with a loud screech. The black shirted men whooped and ran into the building. The sounds of glass breaking and wood shattering quickly followed.
Tom was aghast. "You're a cop. Do something."
"Not yet. We have orders to stand down."
Tom could not hide his dismay, "From whom and why?"
"Look, Grant, there are maybe two hundred thousand Jews in Canada and a lot of them are here in the Toronto area, and Jews are no more popular here than anywhere else, despite the fact that they've been in Canada since about the first days of exploration. Personally, I don't care for them very much at all, but I don't like the idea of these Black Shirts having so much power. I even have it on good authority that some of them are off-duty cops."
"Christ."
"The synagogue is empty and the Torahs and anything else of value’s been removed. It's pretty much the same all over the area. The Jews are lying low. They worship in homes now, and not in synagogues." Maple handed Tom a couple of typewritten pages of paper and a small flashlight. "Here, read this."
Tom ducked down so the light couldn’t be seen. He sagged as he quickly read what happened to Mary Bradford. "You related to her?"
"I'm a friend of her father's and I've known Mary since she was an infant and I’ve just decided to trust you. My name is Sam Lambert and I'm a detective on the Toronto police force. I asked for your army to send someone down here to show them what is happening in the shadows and why we need help. There are a number of us who, regardless of what we feel about Jews, are beginning to get very scared about the Canadian Legion’s Black Shirts, the Gestapo, the SS, and the whole German problem. Word is, they're going to take over the police forces and all government agencies."
Police sirens began to sound in the distance. The men in the synagogue ran out and climbed into their trucks, driving away without a care in the world. From inside the synagogue, lights flickered. They had set the place on fire.
Tom had a horrible thought. "Did you set this up for my benefit?"
"I didn't have to. The Black Shirts do something like this every few days. Ransacking a synagogue is something they don't do very often, however. It shows they're getting bolder and that is scary."
"But you knew about it?"
"Yes. Of course we have informers in their little club along with some of their members having big mouths. We were also told to let it happen but not let it go too far. The idiots were given ten minutes to have their fun breaking things and now the police will arrive, find nothing, and the fire trucks will be right behind and put out the little fire that was set."
There was no more to be seen. Police and fire arrived almost as if they'd been waiting a few blocks away. Firemen rushed in and extinguished the fire in a few minutes. Cops looked around for witnesses, but no one noted the two of them sitting in a car in plain sight.
Lambert drove away and back towards the Royal York. "Our numbers are small but growing. There are about fifty of us and we're organized into squads, or cells, if you prefer. We all believe that it's just a matter of time before the U.S. and Germany go to war and then we can start taking on the Black Shirts and maybe even the Gestapo."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Get us some weapons. Pretty much all we have is our service revolvers and that won't cut it. We want rifles and automatic weapons. Grenades and some other stuff that will help us blow things up would be nice as well."
They drove past a large building with a bold sign that said it housed the German mission. Lambert explained that it was the nerve center for German operations in Ontario and housed the Gestapo along with other German agencies. Tom stared hard at a man in civilian clothes who was leaving with another, smaller man. Finally, it dawned on Tom.
"My God, Lambert, that's Heinz Guderian."
"Yep, and the little shit beside him is Oskar Neumann, the man in charge of the Gestapo in Toronto as well as the Black Shirts. He's responsible for tonight's synagogue attack and for the death of Mary Bradford. I understand he also planned to steal some secret material by attacking a courier outside Washington. It was a shame when one of his precious Black Shirts got his ass killed, although I understand an American soldier was killed as well."
"What are they doing here at two in the morning?"
Lambert chuckled, "Probably inside drinking human blood."
Tom stared at Neumann, trying to memorize his face. Even though it was far more important to get news of Guderian's presence to Washington, he could not take his eyes off the Gestapo chief. Neumann was the man who had orchestrated the attack on Alicia, and he felt a strong urge to strike back at the man. What impressed him the most about Neumann’s appearance was that the man looked so ordinary, perhaps even less than ordinary. How could such a little man be the face of evil?
"Lambert, I will do everything I can to get you your weapons."
To her surprise, Alicia found herself back as a courier, again running pouches between Camp Washington and the Pentagon. Now, however, her sedan was bracketed by two others and each contained at least three MPs. Her driver and the soldier who rode shotgun were constantly changed and, even though the new guys were nice enough, she missed the camaraderie of her earlier rides with Wilkins and Henry. She had managed to attend a memorial service for Henry before his body had been sent out west where his family lived and mourned.
Wilkins was a different case. All external wounds had healed but when she'd visited him he told her he still had trouble remembering things and bright lights caused excruciating headaches. He said that he'd be medically discharged and probably given a pension. He'd told her that he'd rather have his mind back than a discharge. Alicia sadly concurred.
Also gone were little joyrides around Washington before dropping off the pouch. Everyone was just too grim and again she concurred. Even though they weren't quite at war with Germany, the U.S. was almost at war with them.
She'd gotten word confirming that she would get a Purple Heart for the injuries she'd suffered, and would receive it in a quiet ceremony in the very near future. The army had toyed with the idea of letting her wear the Combat Infantry Badge, but a careful look at the rules of eligibility showed she didn't qualify, and she'd whole-heartedly concurred.
At least Tom was back in the states. She hadn't had a chance to see him since his return from Canada. He'd been closeted with a number of high ranking generals and a few civilians, who, she was informed, were with the OSS.
She smiled to herself as she walked down the familiar corridors of the Pentagon. Her blond hair had grown back and she was keeping it an inch or so longer than regulations, but nobody seemed to care and she no longer minded the attention.
Alicia passed a newspaper stand. Headlines shouted that the liberation of the Philippines was well under way and that Manila would soon fall to MacArthur. Good, she thought. There were thousands of prisoners of war and interned civilians who needed to be freed. It was a blessing for them that America was not at war with Germany as well as Japan. It might have delayed the defeat of Japan.