“I don’t know what’s in the crates.”
“Right, right.” He looked up at the map again, then at his watch. “We’ve got about twelve hours to catch these bastards.”
Wim Doesburg was in the bath when they hammered on his front door. He heard Elke shout that that she was coming, stepped out, and wrapped his bathrobe around him. It was impossible. Even if things had gone wrong, they couldn’t be here this soon.
He stepped into the hall and was almost knocked over by a tall young man in plainclothes. At the door there were two uniformed police with drawn guns. “What is…?”
“Wim Doesburg?” the man said, flashing a card at him.
“Yes, but…”
“FBI. We have a warrant to search this house.”
Doesburg controlled himself. Let them search! It would take them forever to find anything incriminating.
The FBI man looked into each room. “Come in here,” he said, entering the kitchen. “We have some questions.”
Doesburg followed him. “There must be some mistake,” he said, conscious that he was parodying a thousand Hollywood villains. “What’s your name?” he asked belligerently.
“Kowalski. It says on the card. Okay, you can start,” he told the other plainclothesmen who had just appeared in the hall. Doesburg heard one of them ascending the stairs. Oh God, he thought suddenly. The money.
“Mr. Doesburg, have you rented a car in the last month?”
“No.”
“In Washington. A black Buick.”
“I said no. I don’t drive. I’ve never driven a car in my life.” What was happening? Was this something else entirely? “Ask anyone around here if they’ve ever seen me drive a car,” he added hopefully.
“Do you know” — Kowalski consulted his notebook — “an Aaron Matson of 221 Mountain Boulevard, Knoxville?”
Knoxville. Could it be Sigmund? “No,” he said calmly. “Who is he?”
“Was. He was shot dead in Knoxville this morning.”
“That can hardly concern me. Or are you suggesting I can be in two places at once?”
“Do you know a Joe Markham?”
“No.”
Someone was coming down the stairs. “Found this, Charlie,” he said, putting the pile of notes on the table. “About four thousand dollars, I’d say.”
Kowalski looked at Doesburg, raised his eyebrows.
“My savings,” he said indignantly.
“Get dressed,” Kowalski said, “we’re going downtown.”
“But…”
“Now.”
In the back of the car Doesburg held his wife’s hand, trying to communicate the need for silence. There were tears in her eyes and he realized, with something of a shock, that he had no idea how she’d react under pressure. She didn’t know everything, but she knew enough.
They were separated the moment they arrived, and Doesburg was led to a small windowless interview room. He was left on his own for several minutes, then Kowalski came in with an older, gray-haired man who didn’t bother to introduce himself.
“I’d like to see my lawyer,” Doesburg said immediately.
“Bullshit,” the man said, in a quiet voice that somehow seemed full of menace. “I’m not going to play games with you, Herr Doesburg. You know what this is about and I know what this is about. You’re thinking that we have no proof, and you’re quite right. But we’ll find some, starting with a trace on that money and finishing by taking your house apart brick by brick. We may find it too late, but not as far as you’re concerned. For you, there’s a straightforward choice. You talk now and you get fifteen years. You don’t talk now and you go to the chair. Which is it to be?”
Could they trace the money? Perhaps. He wouldn’t want to stake his life on it. And if they had Markham, he was done anyway. But that, he realized with a flash of insight, was all irrelevant. The only one who knew his address was Kroeger, and if Kroeger had talked, then he must too. He sighed, looked across into the man’s blue eyes.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
For a few seconds Amy was conscious of bumping up and down, but it was the cessation of motion that finally woke her. They seemed to be in the middle of a forest, and the sun shining down through the yellow-green foliage invested everything with amber light.
“We’ve been driving through this for about ten miles,” Gerd said, “so I thought it was time to get off the road.” He yawned, stretching out his arms above his head. “And I was having trouble keeping my eyes open,” he added.
“Where’s Paul?” she asked, noticing the empty convertible in her side-view mirror.
“Call of nature, I expect,” he murmured, his eyes already closed. “Wake me when the war’s over.”
She was extremely hungry. In the back of the camper Kuznetsky seemed much the same, though perhaps there was more color in his face. She took a can opener and a tin of peaches from the supply box and opened it on the camper’s hood.
Paul reappeared, his face and hair glistening with water. “Stream over there,” he explained, leaning across her and digging a hand into the tin.
The consciousness of his body forced her to move away. “You can get some sleep too,” she said.
“Someone’ll have to stay awake.”
“I’m not driving,” she said levelly.
But there must have been something else in her voice. “Are you okay?” he asked, touching her lightly on the shoulder.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m fine.” She walked off toward the stream.
Benton and Mitchell arrived in Savannah early in the afternoon. There was no fresh news from Huntsville or New York. Benton called New York and was told that they were bringing Doesburg in now. “Half an hour,” the voice promised.
It was an hour before the call came through. Benton listened, moved his finger down the coastline on the map in front of him. “Got it,” he said into the phone. “Anything more precise?”
“Where the road hits the sea,” New York told him. “There’s only one, according to our German friend here.”
“We’re on our way.” He put down the phone, showed Mitchell Ossabaw Island on the map. “Everything set?” he asked.
“The troops are lined up for inspection outside.”
The phone rang again, Washington this time. “Benton? Charleston just called us. They’ve had a reported sighting of a U-boat. Someone called in from Folly Beach — place just outside the city — said it was heading south about a half mile out.”
“Anything else?”
“No, the caller got hysterical after that, started screaming about a German invasion, and then hung up.”
“I take it the Navy’s on the way.”
“And how.”
“Right.” He hung up, clapped Mitchell on the shoulder. “Let’s go get ’em.”
Ten minutes later they were sitting in the cab of an army troop transport, the first in a column of ten rumbling south along the Jacksonville road.
Kuznetsky emerged into consciousness, seemed to be looking through a large glassless window at angular beams of sunlight shining down through strange tall trees. Was it the forest, a dream of the forest… heaven perhaps, old Father McIlroy’s paradise situated somewhere high in the sky above St. Cloud…?
A figure blocked the window. Could it be hanging in midair?
“Jack… Yakov,” it whispered. Yes, they were him. How could he have two names? “Don’t be greedy, Jack.” “But…” The trees were so beautiful — why was this person blocking them out, coming closer, feeling his forehead, a cool hand, the smell of clean hair. Nadezhda? No, it was someone else, he knew that. Nadezhda was far away. Who was it then? It was important he know, but his head hurt, felt like cold fire.