North Reich (15 page)

"Admiral, von Arnim's success depends totally on your Kriegsmarine achieving a level of dominance in the Atlantic so that our forces in Canada can be massively reinforced.
 
I will also admit that I do not like the idea of a two-front war.
 
We went to great lengths to avoid war with the Yanks in 1941.
 
Why are we throwing away that advantage now?
 
We still haven't fully conquered the Russians and the British must be up to something while they stall us.
 
We have almost two million men along the Eastern Front, and another half million fighting partisans in Poland and Russia.
 
Almost every train or truck convoy we send is attacked by the savage Slavs who still control more than three quarters of their own vast land."

The admiral chuckled.
 
"But that land is Siberia and the Russians are starving."

"The Russians are used to starving, and they have moved much of their industrial base to the Urals where they are, yes, starving, but building up to attack us again.
 
Their army is larger than ours and their armor is both better and more numerous.
 
Also, their pilots started out as incompetent dunces in miserable planes who we slaughtered in huge numbers, but that has changed as well.
 
The war has paused, but is not over.
 
The Reds are improving at every level."

"You have a point," Raeder admitted.
 

"We would attack and destroy the rest of the Soviet Forces if we could only build up enough of our own supplies, but we can't because our sources of supply are too far away from the front.
 
Our supply forces use up most of what they are bringing in order to get at least a little to the front.
 
And even if we did attack the Red Army, our advance would peter out in the Urals and, even if we did force the Ural passes, we would be confronting the vastness of Siberia.
 
We are fighting a war that may never end."

      
"Are you saying we should negotiate with the Russians and then take on the Americans?" Raeder asked.

      
"Yes, and that is exactly what I said to the Fuhrer."

      
Raeder laughed.
 
"That comment almost got you thrown in jail, or stripped to the rank of private and sent to fight the Red Army by yourself."

      
Guderian sighed.
 
"I will apologize to the Fuhrer, of course.
 
My intemperate comments will then blow over like they always have.
 
But I do believe we have the cart before the horse. The Fuhrer believes that defeating the United States will make the British and the Soviets negotiate a real peace.
 
I would agree if I was confident in a German victory over the Americans. Unfortunately, I am not at all confident.
 
We will hurt the Americans, but will we defeat them?
 
Will we drive them to the peace table?
 
I don't think so.
 
What do you think will happen in our conquered countries if we are defeated, or just stalemated, and the French and British and Russians see that we are not invincible?
 
They will take heart and rise up even more than they are now, and we will have another full war to fight.
 
How long do you think the German people will stand for that?"

      
Raeder took a step away.
 
It was as if the general had just announced that he had something contagious.
 
"You are very close to speaking treason, general.
 
Be careful.
 
Be very careful.
 
One day you might just say something that cannot be fixed with an apology."
 

Hiding in plain sight is always the best way, Detective Sam Lambert had always thought.
 
Seeking safety and privacy in crowds always worked, and what better place than Eaton's Department Store on Yonge and Queen Streets in central Toronto?
 
The massive, multi-storied red brick building covered an entire city block and had a number of entrances.
 
It would be a nightmare for anyone tailing him.
 

      
He and Mike Bradford had arranged to meet for a cup of coffee.
 
Even if anyone did notice them, there would be nothing unusual about two old friends having a conversation over a cup of coffee.

      
"I saw the two sons of bitches," Mike said.
 
"They were standing around outside that piece of shit shack they call their Canadian Legion headquarters and they were laughing their asses off about something.
 
I showed restraint, Sam, just like I said I would and I still will, but someday I will kill them."

      
"And I'll be there to steady your aim and buy you a drink when it’s done.
 
But just wait.
 
If you do something now, somebody smart will want to know just how you got the information about the Munro brothers, and it might just come back to you and me.
 
If that happens, it could kill – bad choice of words – all of our plans."

      
Bradford took a deep breath.
 
"I know."

      
The report copied by Tinker was not only graphic in the manner in which Mary had been tortured, likely driven mad, and subsequently killed herself, but also named names.
 
Wally and Jed Munro were the ones who had forced her to give them oral sex and then raped her.
 
Both detectives wondered if they hadn't actually held the knife and slashed her wrist so she couldn't tell the Gestapo chief, Neumann, that they'd disobeyed him.
 
If so, they'd overreacted.
 
Neumann simply didn't care that much.

      
Lambert had decided that Bradford was too emotional to plan and think clearly and dispassionately, so he was told to sit tight.

      
Lambert was a good solid cop who knew how to develop a case, and he used those skills to contact others who felt as he did about the Germans, the Canadian Legion, and the Munro brothers.
 
He'd even found a RCMP officer who told him that a third Munro brother had been killed in a shootout with American soldiers while trying to steal something from a military courier.

      
Lambert had enlisted a cadre of twenty current and retired cops who felt that the Legion had to be destroyed and the Germans expelled.
 
Although their numbers were very small, he felt that they might just be able to make a significant difference when the time was ripe.
 
That assumed, of course, that he could keep Mike Bradford from going to pieces and doing something violent and irrational.

      
He too would like to eliminate the local Nazis, but how to do it without bringing down the wrath of the government in Ottawa?
 
Before the war, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King had visited Hitler in Germany, and had only reluctantly agreed that Canada should fight the Nazis when the war with Great Britain started.
 
When disaster befell England, he attributed it to American cowardice.
 
He then determined that it would be best to deal with Hitler, and that fighting the inevitable defeat would be bloody, disastrous, and futile.

      
Perhaps there was a way the Munro boys could be eliminated without exposing them and their plans.
 
He would have to get Mike Bradford to give up his dream of putting bullets into their skulls, however personally satisfying that might be.

Wet snow lightly covered much of the ground with tufts of brown grass peeping through.
 
From a weather standpoint, it wasn't the best of days to walk through the sacred grounds of Arlington Cemetery, but the damp cold meant that Tom and Alicia had the place almost to themselves this gray and cloudy Sunday afternoon in January.

      
It had been a week since the party thrown by Missy Downing and it was generally considered to have been a big success.
 
Morale was higher, and a few social barriers had been broken.
 
Nobody had made a fool out of themselves with the exception of one very new second lieutenant who wound up vomiting off the veranda before passing out and being taken home by some of his friends.
 
He was embarrassed for a couple of days after, but got over it.
 

      
Alicia smiled and looked around at the gently rolling hills and the rows of white tombstones.
 
"This is one of my favorite places.
 
It is so serene and noble.
 
I think it's sad that so many Americans don't come here and recognize the price that others paid so that we could have our country.
 
God, I hope that doesn't sound too pompous, but that's how I feel."

      
Tom told her he agreed completely.
 
He mentioned that there were many other cemeteries where thousands of other American dead were buried.

      
"I've seen a few of them and would like to see others."
 
Maybe someday you can take me, she thought.

Per their agreement, they both wore civilian clothes to disguise their differences in rank.
 
He wondered if it mattered any more since they were becoming so comfortable together.
 
He wore a jacket, dark slacks, and a sweater, which she laughingly said looked almost like a uniform.
 
She wore the roughly the same ensemble, but slacks were plaid and, of course, were tighter where it counted, and reinforced his opinion that she had a lovely figure.
 
The bruises and scars on her face were continuing to fade and were now barely noticeable.
 
She thought she would have a hairline scar above her lip where the stitches had begun. A badge of honor, she'd said.

      
Tom was curious about her hair.
 
Many women died their hair, but a lot did so to look blond, which meant they had to contend with dark roots.
 
Alicia, on the other hand, had blond roots intruding on her darker hair.
 
When she caught him looking, she said she'd tell him the story some time, but not now.
 
He was smart enough to keep still.

      
"Along with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," she said, "this is a part of the cemetery that enthralls me."

      
They were beside the strange and stark structure that had been the mast of the
U.S.S. Maine
, the battleship that had blown up in Havana harbor and caused the United States to go to war with Spain in 1898.

      
"Do you wonder how it happened?" he asked.
 
"I have.
 
In fact I wrote an essay on it back at West Pointe."

      
"What was your conclusion?"

      
"That the cause was unknown and likely to stay that way.
 
There are two major theories, of course.
 
One is that the ship was hit by a mine and the second is an internal coal fire explosion.
 
Both theories are a stretch.
 
Along with getting a mine to make contact, the Spanish would have been either careless with their mines, or stupid to attack the ship.
 
As to the fire, the Maine's captain and her crew knew full well the dangers of coal fires and would have been on the lookout for something smoldering and the heat that would have been given off.
 
Their lives literally depended on it."

      
"So what does that leave?"

      
"Something else, maybe.
 
Perhaps it was a rogue bunch of Spanish officers acting on their own, or a crewman on the Maine doing something incredibly careless or stupid."

      
"What did you get on the essay?"

      
"I got a 'B'.
 
The instructor said I had a great imagination."

      
She laughed and then turned grim.
 
She tucked her arm in his as they walked around the graves.
 
"I taught American history a couple of semesters and the Spanish American War was part of it,” she said.
 
“One of the crewmen killed was an officer named Friend Jenkins.
 
I thought it strange that someone named Friend would be killed in an event that started a war.
 
I went looking for his grave here in Arlington, but found that he was buried somewhere around Pittsburg.
 
There are a hundred and sixty or so crewmen buried here and nobody really knows why they died.
 
That's one of the reasons I feel compelled to come here.
 
It's also in honor of the men who died at Pearl Harbor and who are either unknown or entombed in the Arizona and the Oklahoma.
 
I think everybody who dies should have an honorable burial and everyone should know just why a man dies."