The Lost Spy

By Jerome Sanford

Jerry Sanfords historical thriller, The Lost Spy, is a riveting blend of fact
and fi ction as ex-CIA operative Cole Rider is mysteriously transported
to northern Florida in 1942. A beautiful British agent comes to his aid
and helps recruit him into the Offi ce of Strategic Services, the CIAs
predecessor. Searching for answers, Rider is catapulted into a deadly
race with a Nazi assassin to locate Werner Heisenberg, a German Nobel
Prize-winning physicist. Heisenberg heads Adolph Hitlers atomic bomb
project but has recently disappeared, possibly in the United States.
With the stunning agent at his side and British Naval Commander Ian
Fleming a step behind, Rider must win that race or fi nd the atomic
bomb in Hitlers hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453533864

Jerome Sanford

Jerry Sanford joined the United States Attorney’s Offi ce in Miami in 1975 and was chief of the Terrorist Unit and the Narcotics Conspiracy Section. He later became the Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Gainesville Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Offi ce for the Northern District of Florida. As an adjunct instructor at Florida International University, he taught the course International Terrorism. He has been a member of the Mystery Writers of America since 1986 and served as a member of the board of directors of the MWA Florida Chapter for four years. He is also a member of the International Thriller Writers. Jerry’s fi rst novel, Miami Heat (St. Martin’s Press), is a spy thriller about an FBI counterintelligence agent who foils a Russian plot to assassinate Fidel Castro.

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Author’s Note

Prologue

Leipzig, Germany

May 11, 1938

Wolfgang Pauli did not want to look out the window. But his glance to the street, like the chill on his neck, was an involuntary reflex. The two men were still there. Still standing on the curb, laughing and smoking cigarettes, just outside the University of Leipzig classroom. Each wore a brown shirt and pants, a black-and-white swastika armband, and a brown cap with a chin strap. One turned and caught Pauli staring at them. He dropped his cigarette and ground it out with the heel of his black jackboot, sneered as he pointed his thumb and forefinger in a pistol gesture at Pauli, and mouthed the word, Jude. Jew.

Only two months ago, thousands of men like these had stormed the streets of Vienna, Pauli’s birthplace, shouting, Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Heil Hitler! Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer! and stood by as gangs of young toughs heaved paving blocks through Jewish storefronts throughout the city. In April, with swastika banners streaming from the windows of office and apartment buildings and gray-uniformed Nazi soldiers holding fixed bayonets at every polling place, the Austrians had passed a plebiscite with a 99 percent vote that had drawn their nation into Adolph Hitler’s country-grabbing Third Reich.

The two brown-shirts outside the university’s Institute for Theoretical Physics were a menacing reminder of the Anschluss and everything that Pauli hated and feared. He turned away from the windows, saying a silent prayer of gratitude that he now lived in Zurich and soon would be returning to Switzerland. But he was still shocked at what his friend had just told him.

Heydrich! Reinhard Heydrich? He interrogated you? Pauli said, watching Werner Heisenberg scribble on the blackboard. Heydrich was the chief of the Sicherheitsdienst, the dreaded Gestapo’s intelligence and security service. Late-afternoon rain clouds darkened the walls of the triple-tiered lecture hall. Pauli stepped around a row of student chairs to the light switch, turned on the overheads, and waited for an answer. When Heisenberg kept writing, he said, Werner, do you know what a dangerous man he is?

Ja, ja, of course. But he was very gracious. Persistent, but gracious. Heisenberg backed away from the blackboard and set his chalk on the lectern, then rubbed his hands together. White dust sprinkled to the floor. He ran his fingers through his swept-back blond hair and focused on the mathematical equations he had just written, his lips mouthing the numbers and symbols as his eyes searched for errors.

What did he want from you? The investigation has been going on for nearly a year. What did he ask you? Pauli’s voice had a slight tremor, but he could not take his gaze from the white numbers.

Heisenberg turned to face Pauli. More of the same, mein freund. Questions about Niels, Albert, a few others. Heydrich calls it ‘the Einstein affair.’ But it’s always the same, over and over and over. Always the same questions about my Jewish physicist friends. But what they want from me, I simply cannot fathom.

But what you want from them is simply to allow you to proceed with your research, nicht wahr? Isn’t that true? Pauli leaned against the wall and tugged the ends of his vest. His lips twisted into a wry smile. Werner, my dear, naive Werner, when will you see what is happening to your Germany? Look at my Vienna and Austria. They will never be the same. Can you not see from Heydrich’s questions about the Jews? The Gestapo newspaper called you a white Jew because you spoke up for our friends. And Hitler has decreed that all Jews must leave Germany, even the scientists. Leave, yes . . . if they are fortunate.

Pauli clenched his teeth and shook his head. Many, I believe, may not be so fortunate, from what I’ve heard in Berlin and Vienna. And nothing you try to do or say on their behalf can change that. Didn’t Heydrich make that clear? Let me tell you, the occupation of physicist will be a very lonely profession here. Pauli gazed wistfully out the windows. "When I was at Princeton, just two years ago, it was so . . . so much different . . . a different world.

Thank God Albert is at Princeton now, and for good. Max will leave soon, I assure you. Lise certainly cannot remain here. Enrico, with his Jewish wife, will not stay in Italy under Mussolini. And blessed Niels . . . he still believes he is safe in Copenhagen. But who can be certain of anything with this madman Hitler?

Heisenberg pushed his rolled cuffs above his elbows, stared at a dark corner of the classroom, and mulled over the names Pauli mentioned. Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Lise Meitner, Enrico Fermi, and Niels Bohr, the obstinate, frustrating, brilliant Dane physicist who had mentored him like a father. And, of course, Wolfgang Pauli, perhaps his closest friend since they had attended the University of Munich twenty years ago. All, including Heisenberg, had recently made monumental discoveries that would forever alter the theories underlying the science of physics since the time of Sir Isaac Newton: Bohr’s development of subatomic structure, Einstein’s theory of relativity, Planck’s quantum radiation theory, Pauli’s exclusion principle, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and his discovery of quantum mechanics. For that he had won the Nobel prize in 1932.

And just a short three years ago in Italy, Enrico Fermi had bombarded uranium atoms, splitting them. Lise Meitner, who was now required to wear a yellow Jewish star pinned on her clothes, continued similar research of a process soon to be called nuclear fission. The science of physics in the fourth decade of the twentieth century seemed to be bursting with boundless discoveries.

But Werner Heisenberg feared—they all feared—the potential consequences of Fermi’s breakthrough. Heisenberg recalled Adolph Hitler’s prophetic declaration last March: The moment may come when we shall use a weapon of mass destruction, which may soon be known. And all of Heisenberg’s colleagues knew that Fermi’s discovery foreboded the creation of the atomic bomb. Some, he knew, had even discussed that probability with Hitler. Now, on the eve of another world war, a frightening question spoken only in hushed whispers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean troubled these elite physicists: Which side would develop it first?

Heisenberg saw another question in Pauli’s eyes, one they had argued over many times in the last five months. He spoke before Pauli asked it again.

Wolfgang, I cannot leave Germany. It is my home. I am a German. I know that hateful things have happened and will happen, but I must stay. For my work . . . and for my Germany.

Verdammte Deutschland! Pauli bellowed. He stopped and looked toward the open windows, his eyes darting outside to see if the two men reacted to his shout. They were gone, but he lowered his voice.

What you get from Adolf Hitler will not be your Germany as you know it. It will be like nothing you’ve ever seen. It will be a living Hades, the very worst nightmare you or anyone else who stays here could imagine. Werner, you cannot live or work like that. And if you do, you’ll be forced to work on a bomb that uses fission. If you succeed, you will have made the most destructive weapon the world has ever seen. If . . . when that happens, the Lord God will surely damn us all. Pauli’s voice was pained, pleading.

Heisenberg wiped perspiration from his upper lip with his sleeve. That will not happen in Germany, Wolfgang. Believe me, as long as I am living here—and working here—that will not happen.

What do you mean? How can you say that?

Say no more, Wolfgang. Genug. Enough.

Pauli pursed his lips and stared icily at Heisenberg. The subject was closed.

Heisenberg glanced at an open notebook on the desk and picked up the chalk. Here, this is what I’ve been working on since you last visited Leipzig, he said, pointing at the blackboard.

Pauli stepped closer and analyzed the first equation. Yes, the singlet paradox, Albert’s theory of a few years ago. Two particles that separate and go their separate ways, yet always remain together, regardless of time and space.

And, Heisenberg said, if we measure the position of one we can determine the position of the other. The connection remains, despite their distant and future location.

Theoretically, then, even if the particles were once united, their futures can exist separately in a suspended state without a causal force. Pauli inhaled, drawing his shoulders back. Aber, considering it as a psychological phenomena, does it not fall into the concept of a synchronicity.

Heisenberg’s lips curled into a thin smile. A synchronicity? Perhaps . . . but do you see the implications by adding Enrico’s concept of fission? Could that not influence a person’s mind—his psyche—in the present?

Und so! You did listen to me when we discussed Carl Jung’s theories. Is this your concession to his belief that in a synchronicity, time and space can be psychic in origin? A broad grin spread across Pauli’s face.

Heisenberg backed away and scanned the board, nodding. To the extent that Jung defined a synchronicity as a meaningful coincidence without a specific cause, yes. But now I see its application in quantum physics, where objects remotely distant would be subject to that profound effect. A synchronicity could act as a transcendent wave, traveling backward and forward through time.

Traveling backward and forward through time, Pauli repeated slowly. He put his fist to his mouth and tapped his lips. His eyes narrowed as he considered the concept. Carl Jung, as you know, has been . . . well, a savior for me. My therapy with him has been quite successful. And we also helped each other understand the symmetries of the universe. In physics and now in the psyche, I am convinced that a pattern lies beneath the surface of atomic matter, and determines behavior in a random manner. He paused and smiled. But I never expected you, of all people, would explore physics and the psyche as complementary aspects of the same reality.

Heisenberg leaned his forearms on the lectern. As I thought more about your synchronicity, I recognized the possibility that a human being could enter into a dynamic relationship with the movements of nature and the cosmos. And now you see why I’ve included fission. It isn’t complete, but—

Allow me, Werner, Pauli interrupted. As psychic patterns reach the point of consciousness, synchronicities peak when they become associated with periods of transformation, such as births, deaths, falling in love, intense creative work, and more. He pointed at the blackboard. This shows how a burst of mental or psychic energy could unify two psychic states that had been separated in time and space. It is as if an atom had been split, and then was reunited, even if remote in time and space. He beamed at Heisenberg with admiration. This is astounding, Werner. This could lead to the phenomena of traveling through time. Do you realize—?

Heisenberg held up a palm. Aber nein, Wolfgang. We are years away from . . . bitte, you must never tell anyone about this project. Give me your word.

But . . . Pauli’s face reflected his disappointment. He glanced outside and saw the two Nazi brown shirts now standing by a lamppost, watching him. In these perilous times there was little tolerance for new ideas and scientific theories not sanctioned by the fascist regime. Vicious denunciation was a common occurrence, often with tragic consequences. You have my word, he said softly.

Heisenberg stepped to Pauli, grinned, and slapped his friend’s shoulder. We will discuss this later. For now it is purely theoretical; there is much more to do. But if we don’t leave soon, the Bilderbeer and sauerbraten at Zum Alten Tisch will be gone.

Pauli looked down for an instant and thought of his imminent plans to leave Germany. He had not yet disclosed them to Heisenberg, and he wondered if there would be a later. He decided to tell his friend over dinner.

By the way, Pauli said, has that woman, the American, been back to see you?

Just last week. She spent four hours here, asking me about the . . . Heisenberg paused and cleared his throat. He was reluctant to tell Pauli she had asked him about this very same project. Yes . . . it was my Copenhagen paper, something about Niels Bohr’s criticism. She said she was researching something.

Pauli stuck his thumbs into his vest pockets and eyed Heisenberg curiously. Why would she want to know about that? Is she a physicist?

She said she was researching Bohr’s complementarity principle, and she seemed very well informed. From her questions, I assumed she was a journalist. He looked away to avoid Pauli’s searching gaze and the discomfort he felt from lying to him.

Dumkopf! Why did you talk to her? Pauli said, glaring at Heisenberg. You must be careful, Werner. You know you are being watched by the Gestapo. This is not the time to be talking to a stranger, especially a beautiful American woman. It could be very dangerous, for more reasons than one.

Heisenberg shrugged, grinning with a trace of defiance. He snatched his jacket from the back of a chair, slipped it on, paused while Pauli quickly jotted the blackboard equation in a black notebook, and then erased the blackboard. As they left the building, Heisenberg knew he could not tell his good friend that the American woman—Madeleine—was an agent of the British secret intelligence service.

Chapter One

Gainesville, Florida

November 12, 2010

I always tell people I have the best job in the world. It’s a helluva lot better than when I lied and broke laws for a living, but I never tell anyone about that part of my life. Now I’m an Assistant United States Attorney, a federal prosecutor. A truth-finder, justice-seeker, white-hatted wrong-righter, a representative of the people of the United States of America, upholding the country’s laws, keeping it safe from the criminal enemies in my jurisdiction who violate federal statutes. But today I’d just been leveled by a lying, son-of-a-bitch bank robber.

The clerk began to announce the verdict. This is the part of a trial when my heart pounds through my chest. I fingered my grandfather’s pocket watch in my palm, waiting.

And as to the charge of bank robbery as contained in the indictment, we find the defendant, George Roy Daniels, not guilty. So say we all.

Damnit! My chin dropped to my chest, but I looked up quickly and glared at the smiling forewoman, the wife of a psychology professor. I shot her the meanest, coldest stare I could manage. She just kept nodding at the judge as if the reading of the verdict had suddenly swathed her with all the majesty of a federal court. I turned and gave a tight-jawed look at each of the other eleven jurors, but they all avoided my eyes.

From behind, a hand touched my shoulder. I don’t believe it! Eddie Meyer whispered. His breath was warm on my neck and smelled of coffee. Eddie was the FBI agent who had brought the case to me and had sat through the two-day trial at my side.

Judge Francis Delaney, a tall man with flowing white hair who looked and sounded like God when he stood up and spoke, thanked the jury with his civic-responsibility speech and discharged them. They rose and filed out from the red leather chairs. A few more smiled, probably relieved that their citizenship duty was finished for at least two years.

Not one of them glanced my way. I didn’t stand, a trial attorney’s customary deferential gesture of respect to juries whenever they enter or leave a courtroom. Not only was I exhausted, but these seven women and five men didn’t deserve my respect for their service in this case. I was angry, and I wasn’t about to put on a show of false politeness. But as I watched them file through the rear door of the courtroom, I thought I saw a shimmery bright haze settle over their heads, like a misty golden rain. It was a strange image I couldn’t figure out. It couldn’t be refracted rays of sunlight, because the courtroom didn’t have any windows. As I stood to get a better view, I felt light-headed, almost dizzy. I squinted and blinked twice, but the jurors were gone when my eyes cleared.

This was the last of three back-to-back trials and I was physically and emotionally drained. It wasn’t because I was in bad shape; I jogged a few days a week and pumped some iron in my garage now and then, but I never kept the regular schedule of exercise I always promised myself. At forty-four, it was getting harder to keep a lot of the promises I’d make to myself.

But trial work can beat the hell out of you—especially when you lose. My back ached, my mind felt like mush, and my eyes were red and scratchy from the late nights of preparation. I had been assigned to this branch office of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida for the last twelve years. I’m one of three AUSAs—that’s the acronym we’re called by. Compare that to Miami, where I used to live, work, and almost died, with well over two hundred federal prosecutors. Believe me, I’m talking small. Even better, I’m away from the bureaucratic flagpole at the main office in Tallahassee.

This is Gainesville, six hours north of Miami, a town in north Florida most people only see as a blur when they speed south on I-75 to Disney World or the golden beaches of south Florida. Called the City of Trees because it’s so green, it’s a college town primarily known as the home of the University of Florida. In the fall the streets turn into rivers of orange and blue on home game Saturdays, when the Gator football team usually chomps its opponents into pieces in a stadium of 90,000 screaming fans. After a win, the residents float on a sea of euphoria for a week, and longer while the team keeps winning.

But of particular interest to me are the jury pools, the rosters from which we try to select twelve fair and impartial jurors. The juries are often dotted with hyper-analytical University faculty members, so they tend to be a bit idiosyncratic, to use a pleasant term. The one that freed George Roy Daniels today must have had bubbles for brains to buy his bullshit alibi defense.

Then again, maybe they didn’t even believe him. Maybe they just felt sorry for the crack-addicted Nam vet after he’d limped to the stand and testified about the two Purple Hearts he’d earned during his 1974 tour of duty, his flashbacks of dying buddies, and his psychiatric disability. Maybe they didn’t think it was so bad that he’d spent his VA pension money on crack cocaine and decided to rob a bank to keep the buzz going for three straight days and nights. Juries sometimes throw out a case with a jury pardon for reasons known only to them, with a rationale that has nothing to do with the law or the evidence. Fluke verdicts happen to all trial lawyers, no matter which side they represent. Any attorney who says it’s never happened hasn’t tried many cases.

When the judge called George Roy to stand before him to officially affirm the acquittal, I took my time easing out of the chair, still scowling. I’ve never been a good loser, and not-guilty verdicts tend to bring out the worst in me. Everyone in the courtroom knew I was smoldering, especially George Roy. He was four inches shorter than me, about 5'8", stocky with thick arms sticking out of a yellow polo shirt. His jeans were baggy and he wore those bright, white brand-new sneakers the jail gives inmates for court appearances. I purposely stood a foot behind him when the judge spoke, trying to think of something flip or nasty to say. He might have been going free, but I wanted the last word.

And I now formally adjudge you not guilty, Mr. Daniels, Judge Delaney said in his baritone voice. I closed my ears to the rest of his instructions to the defendant—who was no longer a defendant. My jaws clenched harder.

When Delaney finished, the deputy marshal guided George Roy out the side door to prepare the paperwork for his release. I paced inches behind them. As George Roy shuffled into the hallway, I touched his elbow and snarled, Hey, Daniels.

He turned with a look of surprise, his eyes narrowing apprehensively. Probably not unwarranted as I’d tried my damndest for the last two days to put him into a federal penitentiary.

I stared into his eyes, and they lit up with a defiant glare. I wondered if that was the same look he gave the Cong when they tried to take his platoon’s hill near Khe San. From the military records I’d subpoenaed to check his story, that’s when he won the first Purple Heart for the two bullets he took in his thigh. Twice in his life he’d almost died fighting for . . . his . . . my . . . our country. A sudden sense of identification gave me second thoughts about what I’d planned to say to him.

I offered my hand and he shook it. His grip was limp, clammy. I said, Just wanted to wish you good luck. You caught a break today. You might not get so lucky next time.

He shrugged and glanced at the deputy marshal, then looked at me. His facial muscles sagged, but his mouth curved into a smirk.

Maybe there won’t be a next time.

I hope not, George Roy. You’re getting a chance you don’t really deserve. So get off that goddamn crack and get your life together. Go back to the VA Hospital, check yourself in, get some help.

Right, he said, and paused. Look, you treated me fair, Rider. Maybe I can shape up. Maybe I’ll give it another try.

He turned and headed toward the marshal’s office. I thought I saw a little bounce in his stride. I’m a bad loser, but I never said I couldn’t be a compassionate loser. Then I saw that same misty golden sheen I had seen above the jurors rotate around George Roy’s head. It began to roll down his shoulders, as if it was encasing his body. What the hell was it? I didn’t understand what was happening or what I was seeing, but he stepped into the marshals’s office and was gone. I rubbed my eyes with my fingertips and looked at the door down the corridor. It was clear and in focus. My vision was fine.

Eddie Meyer was waiting at the counsel table when I went back into the courtroom, shuffling his witness folders into a briefcase. He wore a natty, double-breasted gray suit, a white tab-collared shirt, and a burgundy-and-blue rep tie. His hair was black and cropped FBI-short; he had a boyish face, smooth with fine features, and he rarely smiled. He was about thirty, and I knew he’d only been an agent for three years. I could see he was still smarting from the verdict. His eyes were red and watery, as if he was about to cry. Shit. I’d have to stuff my anger to deal with his.

I still don’t believe it, Cole, Meyer said. Not guilty! How could they? Damnit, this is the first trial I’ve lost. That jury should have been back in ten minutes with a guilty. He looked at the royal blue carpet and slowly shook his head. What happened? What’d we do wrong? he asked, with a thinly-veiled insinuation.

There’s the pointed finger, I thought, Meyer’s arrow of blame streaking straight between my eyes. Whenever a verdict goes sour, it’s always the losing lawyer’s fault. Meyer’s we didn’t really include him. By Monday morning, he’d make sure the federal law enforcement community knew that I had lost the case.

Look, for chrissake, I said. It’s not like Jesse James is getting a walk. Daniels is just a mope. Don’t let it get to you. We gave it our best shot. Shit happens, pal. What else can I say?

Meyer gave me a sidelong glance and frowned. I knew he didn’t like my answer, but there wasn’t much more to tell him. You can analyze jury verdicts from every degree on a compass and still not understand how or why they came up with a decision. Once it’s over, it’s over. Next case.

After a guilty verdict, I usually take the case agent to Barney’s for a few drinks, as long as the jury comes in after three o’clock. Barney’s is a downtown watering hole, a nearby Cheers-type hangout, and it’s one of the few bars in this college town you can go into if you’re over thirty and not feel like you’re a month away from Medicare. For me, a forty-four-year-old lawyer divorced for eleven years, Barney’s was the only oasis in Gainesville.

But after the not-guilty verdict and the tone of Eddie Meyer’s question, I knew he’d turn down my invitation. Older agents are more philosophical. Or maybe they’re just more cynical because of their thicker skins. Meyer would have to learn the hard way, like we all did, by taking some hard shots on his own. But what the hell, I thought I should at least ask him.

Why don’t we talk about it at Barney’s? It’s Friday, the pressure’s off for a few days. Let’s go relax for a while. I sent him a thin smile.

He didn’t respond. He glared at the jury box as if he could will the jurors to suddenly materialize and give him his goddamn guilty verdict. He finally turned to me with the same harsh gaze and said, I don’t think so. I better just go back to the office. Got some things to do I put off during the trial.

I wasn’t going to twist his arm. He wants to be a shithead, fine with me. Okay. Give me a call next week. We can go over it then, if you want to.

Yeah, maybe we’ll do that. He turned and walked through the swinging gate then stopped. Nice try, Cole. We’ll get ’em next time.

Sure, Eddie. There’s always a next time in our business, I said as he pushed through the door.

It was eerily quiet. Courtrooms, especially one this big, are so goddamn still when they’re empty. I checked the clock high on the walnut paneling. It seemed to float on the wall then transformed into something that looked like a gyroscope, and the white face took on an alabaster, almost-yellow glow. That mysterious golden haze circled the clock like a halo, and my knees felt wobbly. But in seconds it returned to normal. I rubbed my eyes again and decided to get my vision checked next week. But it was four forty-five on a Friday afternoon, a good time for the short walk to Lillian’s.

I took the elevator down and got my Walther PPK from the court security officer’s lockbox next to the magnetometer and put it into my briefcase. Federal prosecutors aren’t supposed to carry firearms under Justice Department policy, but the .380 caliber pistol was an old friend. It was small enough to fit into my waistband with a bulge no bigger than a wallet. I felt better with it if I had to leave the building when it was late and dark. Actually, I felt better anytime I carried it.

The adrenaline I’d pumped for the trial had drained away. If I’d won, the high would have lasted at least until midnight. But after I took three steps, a wave of fatigue washed over me. I was exhausted, wiped out, beat to shit. Barney’s happy-hour had begun, and I knew it would be noisy and that there would be a contingent of federal agents crowding the bar. What I wanted now was some downtime, not loud conversation and getting ribbed for losing the trial. Still, I didn’t feel like going home to an empty house.

As I stood on the courthouse steps, a chilly November wind blew down First Avenue. That was one of the benefits of living in north Florida: others were leaves changing colors, brisk winters without snow, my wood-burning fireplace, and my house on three acres overlooking a small, bass-filled lake. And no rush-hour traffic reports.

The only thing I really missed, really longed for, was a someone to share it all. In college I’d had a dreamer’s false faith that there was a woman out there, somewhere, that I’d spend the rest of my life with, someone who was waiting for me, all we had to do was connect.

My first try, though, had been a mistake, and I admit my job with the other agency had quickly taken a toll. After a year of marriage, Sharon had wanted me to quit. I’d known then that she had not been the one I’d been expecting, though it took two more years to finalize the divorce. Ironically, three years after the divorce I did quit. And since moving to Gainesville, I’d found that my bachelor life wasn’t really all that bad. But still . . . I wanted to find her, whoever she was, wherever she was. I knew she was out there.

Glancing across the street, I saw where I could find a quiet haven and instant solitude. The law library on the fourth floor of the civil courthouse would be empty on a Friday afternoon, and I figured the comfortable, old leather chair behind the law book stacks wouldn’t be occupied.

Built in the early sixties, the Alachua County Courthouse looked as if the contractor had built it with Legos. It was a four-story flattop with silver sun-block windows, gray and beige concrete on the outside, and green, tan, and brown paint on the inside. It had all the flair of a double-wide mobile home and had been constructed and furnished with the same attention to style and detail and materials.

The law library, though, had made use of some of the furniture from the old courthouse that had been torn down sixty years ago. At the time, the county manager probably thought he was saving the taxpayers money. Now some of those pieces were classic antiques. One was the lumpy, green leather chair I was heading for. A few months ago, a secretary in the court administrator’s office told me it had come from a judge’s chambers in the old building.

I nodded at the librarian in her glass office then checked the tables and stacks. Empty, not even a law clerk. I took off my suit coat, loosened my tie, and settled in the chair facing the west windows. The sun was dipping into the horizon, casting streaks of rose, purple, and orange through layers of low, ragged gray clouds.

As I slumped deeper into the chair and stretched out my legs, the tension of the past month eased from my back and shoulders. A melody of some song crept into my mind and my eyelids fluttered shut. Then a jiggling beam of yellow light filtered into my vision. For an instant I began to tense again. But as I drifted further and further from consciousness, a dreamlike serenity closed around me.

Everything seemed to be cast in green, and I was standing in a thick forest of blossoming magnolia trees and moss-strewn oaks. A radiant bronze haze poured from the sun and began to spin, like a whirling luminescent fog. I saw shadowy spectral images of the jurors and George Roy Daniels tumbling backward in the mist, through the trees, fading until they dwindled to tiny specks and disappeared. I felt myself falling, then shrinking and drawn into a narrow tube as if I was being sucked through a straw.

I emerged from the tube into a suffocating white fog, but a stiff breeze blew it away. Now I was driving a convertible, a 1940s roadster, down a narrow, winding road beneath a thick canopy of towering trees. The sun’s rays angled through the branches, speckling on the leaves like white gold. Someone was sitting next to me; I didn’t know who, but I was seized by euphoria, and I felt happier than I’d ever been. Even when I noticed a light drizzle ahead, it didn’t bother me. The droplets glittered like golden rain against the backdrop of the sun. I sped forward, unwilling to slow the car.

A shrill, piercing sound suddenly ripped through my head, startling me, and the sky turned black. I was alone. The air around me was hot and muggy, stifling. A huge, dark shroud floated over the road like an enormous manta ray; then its drooping black folds descended on me as if in slow motion. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. When I tried to run, my legs felt like lead, as if I was struggling through knee-deep mud.

The high-pitched noise stopped. I turned back to look at the car, but instead I saw a thin white flame. It flickered brightly and came closer then changed to the silhouette of a woman in the shadows. Her arms stretched toward me, beckoning. I tried to reach out, to touch her hands, to pull her to me, and shouted, Madeleine! Madeleine? I didn’t know why I said that because I’d never known a woman with that name. She came still closer, so close, a few more feet, now only inches . . . I could almost see her . . . But just when the shadow began to lift from her face, the shroud dropped, smothering me in layers of black silky silence.

Chapter Two

Northern Florida

June 16, 1942

Kurt Grunen flexed the fingers of his right hand, imagining the cold steel grip of his Luger. It was only inches away, in the duffel bag between his legs. If he had to listen to their voices for one more minute, he’d take it out and fire a 9 mm bullet into each of their temples. Or drive his stiletto into the base of their skulls.

Momma! Momma! Irene just bit my fanger! the little girl sitting next to Grunen wailed.

Momma, Sarah asked for it! You tell her to stop being so biggety and tell her to stop calling me a booger! her sister screamed. I’ll bite her forty ’leven more times if she—

The woman in the front seat of the Dodge turned and glared at her daughters. When they shriveled into silence, she looked at Grunen.

Sorry, mister. Seems like whenever we got to go a piece down this pike, the twins got to throw a conniption fit and git to acting like crazy bessie bugs. Just pay ’em no nevermind.

Grunen nodded, but the urge to slaughter the young couple and their five-year-old girls drew his lips into a tight line. He glanced out the car window and thought how easily he could hide their bodies in the dense, longleaf pine forest bordering this desolate north Florida road. For a moment he pictured their glassy dead eyes staring back at him from the underbrush; the image pleasured him. But, he remembered, killing anyone on impulse was verboten, a gross violation of the strictest orders. He moved his head closer to the open window, tugging his fedora down to shade his eyes from the morning sun, and fought the murderous urge by steering his mind back to the mission. His fury began to fade as he chewed on his lower lip and tasted salty blood.

This was the only car that had stopped at his outstretched thumb, this ancient Dodge filled with the vile body odor of this obnoxious, prattling family. Aber, mein Gott! How they bickered in that grating dialect of the southern United States, so different from the intense English language instruction he’d received during his four weeks of sabotage training at Quentz Lake. But murder them? That would be veruckt, crazy, at this early stage.

Grunen slouched in the corner of the lumpy backseat and tried to ignore the little girls bouncing next to him by pretending to doze. His charade, however, worked better than he’d hoped. He fell asleep.

When he awoke, he looked out the window and winced. The sign on a dusty storefront on the edge of this town read Palatka Feed Store. He’d examined the map of Florida just before the farmer picked him up and now realized he’d gone far past the highway U.S. 1, where he’d planned to catch a bus heading north. In a snarling voice to hide his alarm, Grunen told the farmer to let him out in the next town that had a bus stop.

An agonizing two hours later and fifty miles farther west, the Dodge stopped at a gas station in Starke. Grunen stormed from the car without a word and found himself standing under a shimmering white sun, in sweltering heat. He squinted