Even though Carter and Palladino recovered an average of five thousand gallons of stolen gasoline a week and prevented the theft of at least that much again, the problem continued to grow. Two years after Pearl Harbor, although the proportion of stolen fuel remained at 10 per cent, the overall consumption had skyrocketed after the Allied invasion of France and the amount of the loss stood at 2.5 million gallons per day, nationwide.
Against this tide of thieving, the question of whether these two men were doing enough good to justify their existences remained a mystery to them. They were never brought in for review, never received promotions or letters of commendation or of reprimand. Carter began to wonder if they might, somehow, have been forgotten. Until someone came along to tell them otherwise, however, they continued with the task they had been given. For a while, at least, it seemed as if their partnership might last until the Office of Price Administration vanished back into the bureaucratic haze from which it had emerged.
But that all changed one afternoon in the autumn of 1944.
They were down at the docks sitting in their V8 Packard cruiser, which was parked in an alleyway between two warehouses. A fuel barge had just arrived at Elizabeth port after a long journey up from Corpus Christi, Texas. According to the bills of lading filed with the port authority, the cargo was supposed to be transported to a refinery in Newark by three fuel trucks but, on the day of the transfer, four fuel trucks arrived.
It took several hours for the fuel to be unloaded, during which time Carter and Palladino sat in the car in the alleyway, hearing the wind moan through the broken windowpanes high up in the dust-smeared skylights of the corrugated iron sheds, their grey sides all tattooed with rust.
Finally, the trucks departed and, with Palladino driving, the two men slipped in behind the convoy, which was heading for the main road out of town.
Just before the trucks emerged from the tangle of roads that snaked across the docklands, one of them pulled out of the line and made its way towards an area of swamp known as the Meadowlands, where fields of tall bulrushes formed a shifting screen from everything but planes flying overhead.
The truck appeared to be heading towards a warehouse normally used for the storage of oxygen cylinders used in oxyacetylene welding, which required it to be set well apart from any other building due to the risk of explosion.
At a curve on the long, straight stretch of the potholed road, Palladino pulled in front of the truck and brought it to a stop. Then both men got out, carrying their guns.
The driver jumped down, wild-eyed and ready to bolt into the rustling thickets of bulrushes. But suddenly he stopped and stared at Carter. ‘Nathan?’ he said.
Carter felt his heart slam into his rib cage. He had almost managed to persuade himself that this day would never come.
‘It’s me,’ said the man. ‘Johnny Shreve. We worked the South Pier together back in thirty-nine. I figured you must have been called up. Jesus!’ said Shreve, his voice nearly falsetto with relief. ‘I thought you were police.’
Before Carter could think of what to say, Palladino burst out laughing. ‘I guess that spooked you!’ he said.
Shreve laughed too. ‘I’ll say it did.’
Palladino holstered his gun. ‘It’s a misunderstanding is all. We just got our wires crossed. No harm done though, right?’
‘Sure,’ Shreve assured him. ‘It’s no problem. I guess I’ll just be on my way, if that’s all right with you.’
‘Of course, and so will we.’ Palladino turned to Carter. ‘Why don’t you go turn the car around?’
Carter wondered what Palladino was playing at, but he did as he was told and started walking for the car.
Shreve lifted one hand in farewell. ‘So long, Nathan,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you around.’
Carter waved goodbye and climbed into the Packard. The road was narrow at the curve and the way ahead was blocked by the fuel truck, so Carter had to reverse around the bend. Then he wrestled with the wheel, knocking the gears back and forth from forward to reverse, before he finally had the car facing back the way they’d come. He had just brought the car to a stop when Palladino came running around the curve. He opened the passenger side door and jumped in. ‘Drive,’ he said.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Carter.
‘Just drive!’ Palladino commanded.
Carter slammed the Packard in gear and headed back towards the docks. Sunlight flickered off the windshield, as if someone were flashing a knife in front of his face. He waited for Palladino to explain what was happening, but the man said nothing at all.
They had been underway less than a minute when Carter saw a flash in the rear-view mirror and then he felt a tremor pass through him. He turned to see a ball of orange flame capped with thick black smoke rise, boiling, from the sea of rushes and unravel into the sky.
‘Don’t slow down,’ said Palladino.
Carter glanced across at him. ‘What have you done?’ he asked.
‘I stopped you from getting killed,’ said Palladino. ‘That’s what. You just got made. Your cover was blown. I did the only thing that could be done. The third rule isn’t just words. It’s the thing that will keep you alive.’
‘I never asked you for that.’
‘No,’ replied Palladino, ‘but your father did.’
‘What’s my father got to do with it?’ demanded Carter.
‘Kid, do you know why I came out of retirement?’
‘Because of the war, you told me.’
‘I lied about that. It’s because your father asked me to. I served alongside him for twenty years. You didn’t know that, did you?’
‘No,’ admitted Carter. ‘He didn’t talk much about work, or anyone he worked with.’
‘Well, knowing your father, that doesn’t surprise me one bit. But he told me to look after you and that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. How long do you think you would have lasted if the word had gotten out that you were working for the government?’
‘What did you do to that guy?’
‘What guy?’ asked Palladino. ‘There was no guy, and we were never here.’
The next morning, Carter was sitting on a round-topped stool at the counter at Pavel’s, eating a bagel with butter and a slice of tomato, when the door opened and a tall man in the faded pea green trench coat of a US Army officer entered the diner. Aside from Pavel, who was sitting by the register reading the New York Post, Carter had been the only person there. It was raining and, judging by the amount of water that had sunk into the stranger’s clothes, he had come quite a distance to get there.
The officer made no effort to remove his coat. Instead, he fixed his eyes on Carter. ‘You’re not an easy man to find,’ he said.
Before Carter could reply, the expression on the officer’s face suddenly changed. Slowly, he spread his hands out to the sides. ‘Take it easy,’ he said.
‘I’m not pointing a gun at you,’ said Carter.
‘No,’ replied the officer, ‘but he is.’ And then he nodded towards the cash register, where Pavel stood with a shotgun, its double barrels sawn off to the length of a man’s forearm.
‘Now how about you lower that old blunderbuss?’ asked the officer. ‘It looks like it could go off by itself.’
‘It might,’ said Pavel, ‘and my fingers are shaky these days.’ The gun stayed where it was, aimed at the officer’s head.
‘Who are you?’ asked Carter.
‘My name,’ said the man, ‘is Douglas Tate, and I am a captain in the Special Task Force division of the Military Police.’
Carter assumed that this must have something to do with what had happened out in the Meadowlands the day before. He had no idea what to do or what to say. Palladino’s voice kept repeating in his head◦– We were never here. We were never here.