Eva’s car was an ancient Cadillac that she kept in a garage behind her house. She would have preferred something newer, but she didn’t have the money for that. Besides, she had decided that the huge and gleaming Cadillac, with its sweeping curves and V-12 engine, was just the sort of vehicle an exiled German film star might drive on the streets of Washington, the perfect prop for her role. One had to be a bit eccentric to drive a car like that.
A chauffeur would have been nice as well, but Eva made do with an elderly black gentleman, Mr. Dorsey, whom she hired on special occasions. Most of the time she just drove herself. She had tried to teach Petra once but that had nearly ended in disaster when the girl drove the car into some trash cans, sending them banging down the street. Only Eva’s quick left hand had shot out in time to take the wheel and keep them from hitting worse. After that experience, Eva had not let Petra drive anything but a carpet sweeper.
This morning, she turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and drove slowly past the White House. It had snowed the night before, just a dusting, but it was enough to transform the city. The brown, dead grass and bare trees were covered with a fresh white layer that reflected the morning sun. Even the dingy government buildings all had a more promising look about them. Slush splashed under the tires of the Cadillac. With a pang of annoyance, she realized would have to get old Mr. Dorsey to wash the car later. There was more money spent.
Looking at the stately presidential mansion, she tried to imagine Franklin Delano Roosevelt inside, bound to his wheelchair, discussing the war with his staff. So different from the man she had once seen commanding German troops lined like the Roman legions of old on the massive paved square at Nuremberg.
Gasoline was hard to come by due to the wartime rationing, but Eva preferred the Cadillac to walking with her purchases in a basket like a common shop girl. This morning there were a few things she needed that she couldn’t ask Petra to buy. No sense making the girl suspicious. The last radio message from Berlin had ordered her to obtain supplies necessary for the operation. There hadn’t been a list, and the “operation” itself was described in vague terms, but she was going to do her best to guess what might be needed.
She glanced in the rear view mirror. Just the usual traffic — or was it? Eva sometimes suspected that she was being followed. Well, that couldn’t be helped. It was just a reminder that she was playing a very dangerous game. The thought of a prison cell made her shiver with more than the morning cold. The Americans had even executed several spies, putting them to death in the gas chamber. Eva had read the grisly newspaper accounts in horror and afterward had not been able to eat for days. That might have been enough to make her take the radio from her attic and dump it in the Potomac, but then she thought of Kurt and all that he had believed in. He had died for Germany. So could she. She wasn’t going to let anyone down. Eva checked the mirror one more time, then pulled up at the curb in front of a hardware store.
“Good morning, ma’am.” The proprietor was a middle-aged, pot-bellied man whose look of surprise made it clear he wasn’t used to seeing women like Eva in his store.
“How do you like the snow?” she asked, trying hard to suppress her accent.
“Just enough to make things pretty,” he said, then blushed a bit as he realized Eva might think he was referring to her. He cleared his throat. “What can I help you with, ma’am?”
Eva rattled off her list. She wanted to be equally prepared to help a saboteur — or an assassin. Fifty feet of good rope, a flashlight, matches, a sharp hunting knife. Oh, and rock salt to melt the ice on her front steps.
“Going camping, are you?” the man asked. “Not the best weather for it.”
“Actually,” said Eva, “I am planning on doing a bit of hunting."
Chapter 6
On the night of December 26, two men stood duty in the watchtower at Fort Miles. If the wind didn’t have such a bite, they might even have enjoyed the view of the Delaware Coast. There were no clouds, just a sliver of moon and starlight, so that the bay was dark as wet slate before them. Orion, the constellation named “The Hunter” by the ancient Greeks, was especially bright in the winter sky. Behind them lay the sleeping Delmarva Peninsula, flat farm country that was the domain of potato fields and chicken houses. Here and there a light twinkled. To the northeast was the fishing village of Lewes, formerly a haven for pirates like Blackbeard and bombarded once by the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. The artist Howard Pyle vacationed here to find inspiration for his pirate paintings among the sand dunes and legends of the Delaware coast. But if the two men dwelled at all on the landscape, it was to think that it was a goddamn cold and forlorn place.
“I’m going down for coffee,” one of the young guards said. “You want some?”
“Lots of sugar in mine. And bring up any of that cake that’s left from yesterday.”
The other man went down the tower, his boots ringing on the metal steps. The captain would bust their balls if he found out there was just one guard, even for a few minutes. The captain made it clear he wanted two men on duty at all times, their eyes constantly scanning the sea. But he would be asleep this time of night while they were freezing their asses off, so it served him right.
The remaining watcher looked out now at the bay. Not much to see at night due to the blackout. A few miles to the southwest, Delaware Bay opened onto the Atlantic. There were some very deep places not far from shore; the charts marked chasms that reached down more than one hundred feet. Dangerous shoals ran out from the Jersey shore, so the Cape May light still flashed its warning, U-boats be damned. From here, the channel ran all the way to the ports and Navy shipyards at Philadelphia. Even one German U-boat could have done an awful lot of damage if it slipped into the channel, which was why Fort Miles and its several watchtowers had been thrown up in the early days of the war to guard the entrance to Delaware Bay.
Up in the tower, the guard could hear his partner whistling on the landing below. Someone had rigged up an electric hot plate down there. The smell of coffee drifted up. He flexed his fingers, which were growing stiff even inside his gloves.
That’s when he saw the flash. Not a light, but only starlight reflecting off a hard surface. It might have been the wet flank of a porpoise or even a whale. He stared toward the dark sea. There it was again. The guard lifted powerful binoculars to his eyes, making the bay spring closer. In the magnified field of vision a black form materialized in the choppy surface. He was sure it hadn’t been there a minute before. What was that, a log that had floated down on the current? No, it was too big. Then, incredibly, the conning tower of a U-boat took shape.
Without taking the binoculars from his eyes he shouted to his partner, “Get your ass up here!”
“The coffee’s almost ready,” came the reply, echoing up the tower.
“Forget the goddamn coffee!”
The guard thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. That happened when you stared at the sea too long, especially late at night, which was why the captain wanted two guards on duty. Two men weren’t likely to see a phantom. But he could still see the black silhouette among the waves. “Two o’clock, about four hundred feet out,” he said as the other guard came pounding up the steps and grabbed up his own binoculars.
“I don’t see … wait a minute. Holy shit!”
“Better call it in.”
The other guard ran back down the steps and grabbed up the telephone in the landing, connecting to a sleepy-sounding duty officer at fire control.