Dead Lock (22 page)

He ran for his car and set off for the hospital.

94

Entering the bedroom, I immediately noticed a single bed that sat against the far wall of the room. The bed was simple enough, a wooden frame and a slightly rusted bedspring covered by an old mattress. I approached it and when I lifted the mattress my heart skipped a beat. On top of the bedsprings lay a writing tablet. The kind kids use in school.

“Scotty, come in here.”I picked up the tablet and let the mattress fall back into place. As I opened the cover and glanced at the first page I recognized Shirley’s handwriting immediately.

I looked up to see Scotty in the doorway. “Shirley kept a journal,”I said. “This had to be what the person who searched her house was after.”

“Give it to me, Kate.”

I leafed through the journal. “Look, Scotty. Shirley wrote entries on a daily basis. Starting in January when she came back to the Soo.“

“Let me have the journal.” Scotty was now standing next to me. His voice sounded strange, demanding and nervous all at the same time. Ignoring him, I continued skimming the pages. I found notations concerning shipments of dynamite and other explosives to the Banyon Mining Company in Sault Ste. Marie.

“Kate. Give . . . the . . . tablet . . . to . . . me.”

“What’s in here that you don’t want me to see?”

“Just hand it over and we’ll forget all about it.” He grabbed for the notebook and we wrestled for a moment. He finally tore it out of my hand.

“Scotty, Shirley was working for the FBI. Why don’t you want me to read what she wrote?”

Before he could answer, a newspaper clipping fell from the tablet. I leaned over and picked it up.

As I read the headline, and the story underneath the picture of a young, blond-haired man, the entire room seemed to grow cold.

95

Banyon Copper Mining Heir Dies in Fiery Auto Crash

Phoenix, Arizona, July 3, 1934 – The son of the late copper scion Martin Banyon of Iron Mountain died in the wreck of his Duesenberg convertible coupe outside Phoenix on Tuesday night.

Witnesses say Martin “Scotty” Banyon, 22, had been racing a black Chevrolet convertible when he failed to negotiate a sharp curve along a highway north of Phoenix and his car rolled over several times before coming to a stop at the bottom of a steep hill.

Coroner Edward Littleton said Banyon died instantly. There were no passengers in the car.

Banyon had been the sole surviving member of the Banyon family that had moved to Phoenix from Iron Mountain 10 years ago. Martin Banyon Sr., the founder and former CEO of Banyon Copper Mining Enterprises, suffered a fatal heart attack in Phoenix in 1924, shortly after the move. His wife, Beatrice, died a year later.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.

96

I looked up at the man who stood in front of me. The man I thought I knew, but hadn’t known at all.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and his reply sent shivers through me.

“My name is Claus Krueger.”

My heart and my brain were pulled in opposite directions as I realized there was little doubt that I was looking at the killer of my best friend.

“You’re a Nazi. You murdered Shirley Benoit.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“She was a defenseless woman. A woman with everything to live for. How could you kill someone like that?”

His lips pursed. “I’m a soldier, Kate. Your country and mine are at war.”

“You’re not a soldier. You’re a damned assassin . . . a spy.”

“I am a soldier. And a soldier follows orders.”

“Your orders were to kill an innocent woman?”

“My orders were and are to deal with anyone who gets in the way. Your friend came close to discovering the details of my mission.”

“Then you’d better kill me, because I intend to get in your way anyway I can.”

He grabbed my wrists and held them together with terrible force.

I said, “If you’re going to kill me, do it and get it over with.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Kate.”

He was holding my hands so tightly that struggling seemed impossible. He dragged me from the bedroom out into the main room of the cottage.

“Why be so kind to me? Why not murder me, too?”

He picked up one of the old wooden chairs that had been lying sideways on the floor and pushed me down into it.

“I could have killed you easily when I followed you to Negaunee. Or I could have let that mob gunman do the job instead of killing him.

“There’s no need to kill you when I can make certain you can’t warn anyone in time to do anything about it. Afterwards, I’ll call the Morning News office and tell them where to find you.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small roll of some kind of masking tape. He bent down and taped one of my arms and then the other, to the arms of the chair.

“Your own military invented this tape,” Scotty said. “They’re calling it one-hundred-mile-per-hour tape because it holds tight even in hurricane-force winds.”

The bonds felt uncomfortable, but the pain seemed bearable.

“So G.P.’s information was right. There is going to be an attack.”

“Yes. And the only way your government could have learned of it is that the Enigma Code must have been compromised. That information will be invaluable to the Third Reich.”

“And what’s your part in this? Directing German dive bombers to the locks?”

Scotty smiled. “There are no bombers, Kate. Even our best dive bombers couldn’t penetrate the defenses your army has in place.”

“What then?”

“The explosion that destroys your locks will be as unexpected as it is deadly.

“It will come from below and within.”

97

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Scotty was taping my right leg to the leg of the chair. He moved to the other side of the chair and taped my leg to the chair leg there.

Satisfied I couldn’t move, he stood in front of me. He set the rest of the roll of tape on the table.

“I’ve been receiving shipments of dynamite,” he said. “Tons of it. Miners use explosives to open mineshafts. It was easy for me, as Scotty Banyon, to receive hundreds of pounds at a time.”

He smiled. “Dynamite is scarce with the war on. I couldn’t have done it without the help of your government.”

“So you’re going to dynamite the locks? Fat chance. You can’t get near them.”

“I already have. My men acted last night. The tunnel beneath the locks is packed with explosives. There’s more aboard the Caiman. Her hold is full of it. Once we’ve sailed into the MacArthur Lock, I’ll set a timer, which will ignite the explosives in the Caiman’s hold. The concussion will cause the dynamite under the locks to blow.”

“You’ll kill thousands of innocent civilians at the dedication ceremony.”

“We’re at war, Kate. People die in wars.”

“But women and children? What kind of government gives an order like that?”

“You have to understand, Kate. There were thousands of innocent women and children killed in Germany during the Great War, as Americans like to call it. To German people, there was nothing great about it. The war and the Treaty of Versailles afterwards left Germany helpless.”

Scotty turned toward the door.

“Your Hitler started the war,” I called.

He whirled back to face me. “And this time we’re going to finish it. The Fuhrer will stop at nothing short of total victory.”

“Your Fuhrer is a mad man.”

“A mad man who single handedly pulled Germany out of economic ruin and restored pride to its citizens.”

“And now wants to kill American civilians.”

“No different from the way your soldiers killed German citizens in the last war. Americans think they are untouchable because they can hide between two oceans.”

He started toward the door again. “Today, they’ll learn the foolishness of that thinking.”

I called to him. “Wait!”

He stopped and turned back to me. “Yes? What is it?”

“You were obviously planning to kill me, too. I would have been aboard the Caiman.”

“No. You would have been detained by the two men who work for me. They had orders to kidnap you and hold you hostage at the building where I stored the explosives. You would have been released shortly after the locks were demolished.”

“I’ll tell the sheriff and the Army everything I know.”

“They won’t find me. My return home to Germany is already arranged. I’ll disappear during the chaos that follows the explosion. A submarine is scheduled to pick me up off the Canadian shore in two days.”

“Why tell me that if you’re going to let me live?”

“The Canadian shoreline runs for thousands of miles. Without knowing exactly where the rendezvous point is, your ships will never find me.”

“Why spare me?”

Scotty walked back to me, stopping just short of my chair. He paused for a moment before he spoke, his face looked strangely sad. “Kate, I’ve done something no soldier should do. I’ve become infatuated with you.

“What happens today will almost certainly guarantee a German victory. The war will end soon and afterwards I plan to come back to America and find you. Maybe . . . maybe with the situation completely different, we might make a life together.”

“Don’t count on it.”

He turned and walked out the door, leaving me alone to contemplate the horror that would take place in less than two hours.

98

Andy Checkle was aware that the victim of a recent heart attack wouldn’t be allowed visitors and was prepared to flash his press card and claim official business. But the hospital receptionist was on the telephone when he entered the lobby. Ignoring her frantic waves, he ran for the stairwell.

He took steps two at a time on the way to the third floor. Once there he followed the arrows to the ICU which consisted of two large rooms, one for men, the other for women. Entering the men’s ward, he found a pale, wan-appearing G.P. lying in one of the three beds.

He approached the bed and placed a tentative hand on G.P.’s exposed thin white arm. The old man’s eyes opened slowly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” G.P.’s words were strong, his voice weak. “There’s a story to cover.”

“Sorry, Mr. Brennan. I heard you . . . you were sick. Kate doesn’t know, yet. I wanted to tell her . . . that I saw you.”

“Where is Kate?”

“She’s with Scotty Banyon.”

“At the dedication?” G.P. struggled to sit up, but fell back onto the pillow.

“That’s not ‘til later, Mr. Brennan. Kate thinks she remembered where her friend Shirley might have left records ... a diary she might have kept during her investigation. Kate says Shirley worked for the FBI.”

The old man’s eyes shut tight, then opened again. “She did,” he said.

“You knew?”

“Yes. She was killed . . .” his voice trailed off. It seemed like he might fall asleep, but his eyes opened again. “Checkle . . . Jack Crawford is going to need your help. Yours and Kate’s.”

“How so, Mr. Brennan?”

“I’m going to be here awhile. I can’t even get out of this damn bed without some nurse having a fit.”

“Yes, sir. You need to rest.”

“But Crawford needs you. You and Kate. You see . . .” The old man struggled for words. “Crawford isn’t a newspaper editor. He has no experience outside of his college newspaper. I’ve been backing him up, and now I’m . . .”

“If he’s not an editor, what is he Mr. Brennan?”

G.P. took a deep breath. “Crawford works for the government.” Noticing Checkle’s startled expression, he decided to begin again. “Ever heard of Darby’s Rangers?”

“Who hasn’t? They’re commandos.”

“Crawford was there when the Rangers attacked the Vichy French Fort of Batterie du Nord at Algiers last November. The raid was a resounding success, but Crawford was wounded.”

“Crawford? A ranger?”

“One of the very toughest. He recovered from his wounds back in the States. He had worked for the FBI before enlisting in the Army, so the Army reassigned him here in the Soo. Undercover.”

“That’s why he didn’t seem to know much about editing a newspaper.”

G.P. nodded. “Now go tell Kate what I told you. She’ll have to act as editor-in-chief today. Crawford’s going to be at the locks this afternoon in case the Nazis attack.”

Checkle started for the door but turned back. “I’ve got to tell Kate how you’re doing.”

“Tell her I’m going to live. Now get the hell out of here.”

99

Harry Houdini died in Detroit’s Grace Hospital when I was eleven years old. I loved magic, and I remembered reading at the time that Houdini’s great “escapes” were predicated on keeping his hands and arms tensed while the bonds were applied. When he relaxed them afterwards, his bonds were actually loose.

I had tried the same technique when Scotty – Krueger – had taped my hands and legs to the chair. Now as I relaxed I could feel some “wiggle room” in my bonds.