Stealing Trinity (16 page)

Do you need help with that foresail, Edward? Two more quick thumps for good measure, and after a pause, All right, I'll tie it down. Watch your step up there, man!

With the right thoughts fixed in Lydia's head, the rest had been easy. Disconnect the tiller at the right time, allowing the boat to heel. After the lurch, find Edward missing and kick the reel overboard. Quick, clean.

Now Lydia was reciting Brauns story chapter and verse to the investigating authorities. A perfect mix of grief, naivete, and innocence. He could not have imagined a more perfect spokesperson. All that was left was to sit back, wait, and watch.

The morning at Harvard had been difficult. With summer recess in full swing, many of the professors and nearly all the students were away. The only advantage was that, lacking classes to attend, those who remained were highly accessible. Thatcher was able to track down two of Braun s professors, but only one remembered him, and that a vague recollection. The man did, however, direct Thatcher to a graduate student who would have been in the same class.

Thatcher navigated the basement of Grays Hall, a narrow passage sided with slabs of stone that gave the place a tomb-like ambiance. He found Nicholas Gross in the Structures Laboratory. The young man was slouched casually on a stool, examining some kind of experimental framework. Tall and thin, he was smartly dressed and well manicured -- more dapper than a student ought to be, Thatcher thought. Gross looked up curiously, no doubt put off by the uniform.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes -- or at least I hope so. I'm Major Michael Thatcher, an investigator for the Royal Army."

"Which one?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Which Royal Army? There's a lot of royalty in the world."

Thatcher's thoughts stumbled until he saw a grin emerge on the young man's face.

"I'm just kidding, old man. With an accent like yours--"

"Oh, yes," Thatcher recovered, "I see."

"Whatever could a servant of his majesty be investigating in a dungeon like this?"

The flippant attitude kept Thatcher off balance. On closer inspection, Gross was probably nearing thirty -- rather old, even for a graduate student. And he fenced with the sharp words of a man striving to appear more clever than he was. Thatcher knew the type from his own days at Cambridge, career students who had the financial means to prolong their aimless academic careers to no end. Gross had probably spent the entire war in this basement, or somewhere better, notwithstanding holidays and school breaks when he would have returned to the soft bosom of his family.

"I'm trying to track down information on a former student. I was told you might have known him."

"Who?"

"Alexander Brown."

"Dear God, Alex! We all wondered what became of him."

"We?"

"Yes, yes. Alex was a stray when we found him -- absorbed him into our little pack of liars. Roy Kiefer, Anna Litsch, Eddie. With a little guidance and a lot of booze Alex became quite a hit."

"Do you know where he was from?"

Gross thought about it. "Can't remember. He wasn't proper East Coast, but he wasn't one of those loony Californians either. Something in between."

Thatcher yanked a handkerchief from his breast pocket and stifled a sneeze. The internal pressure of the act brought on a spectrum of minor pains. "I see."

"So did he make it through? The war, I mean. We all knew Alex didn't finish school so he could enlist."

"That's what I'm trying to find out. When he left, did he keep in touch with anyone?"

Gross laughed and spun a full circle on his stool. "Lydia! Dear, rich Lydia." Dismounting, he sauntered over to an icebox and pulled out a Coca-Cola. "Can I offer you a drink, Major?"

"No, thank you. Who is Lydia?"

"Lydia Cole, of the Newport and Palm Beach Coles. Filthy rich, but not snobby in the usual old money way. We all had our eye on her, but Alex won the prize."

"They were involved -- romantically?"

Gross hooked the lip of the bottle cap on a sharp corner of the bench and whacked down on the bottle. The cap went spinning to the floor. He made no effort to retrieve it.

"Romantically?" He chuckled. "Scandalously, Major. At least as far as Alex was concerned. Though I suppose Lydia was smitten enough. They spent some time together with Lydia's family in Newport -- it was the summer before Alex left school."

"That would have been 1940?"

"Yes, I think that's right. Then Alex left for Europe. I always thought that was odd."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the war was brewing, but we Yanks weren't involved yet. And I was never clear about which service he'd joined or why he went straight to the battle. Doesn't one normally go to boot camp or something? Anyway, Lydia got a few letters and she wrote back in spades, but after a year or so I didn't hear much."

"And you haven't heard from him since he left?"

"Good Lord, no. He and I got along, but only in the liquid sense. There was something different about Alex. He was witty-- engaging when he wanted to be. Everyone knew him, and everyone liked him. But I doubt anyone would say that they were really close to him. Except Lydia." Gross swilled his drink, got back on the stool and brought his heels to rest on the lab bench. "So tell me, Major, why are you looking for him? Old Alex hasn't gotten into trouble, has he?"

"I'm not sure. Right now I just want to find him. Do you know where this woman, Lydia Cole, might be?"

"I haven't seen her in years. But it is summer, Major -- the rich are frightfully predictable. I think there's a good chance you'll find her at the family house in Newport. If not, they'll point you in the right direction."

"Yes, I see. Well, thank you for your time. I won't take you from your work any longer."

"Work? Oh, right. Someday I'll finish this thesis. And then whatever will I do?"

Thatcher moved toward the door, but then paused. He looked squarely at Gross. The man could not be shallower if the tide went out. He said in a somber voice, "You'll marry a very wealthy woman who will grow to dislike you. Eventually, one of you will begin to drink to excess."

The young man looked dumbfounded, but soon his face cracked into a smile and he began to laugh uncontrollably. As Thatcher retreated down the hall, the laughter quickly dissipated until only his footsteps echoed through the place.

The rest of the afternoon at Harvard gave Thatcher little else. He tracked down another professor, this one an aging Renaissance historian who remembered nothing about Alexander Brown. The only other student acquaintance Thatcher could identify was away in Canada for the summer. This left him with one more chance -- Lydia Cole.

He considered simply tracking down her telephone number and calling directly, but something warned him against it. According to Gross, Lydia would be the best lead. An experienced interrogator, Thatcher always preferred direct contact.

He returned to his hotel and took a late supper in the dining room. Veal was the chef's special. It turned out to be anything but, the meat overcooked and the boiled potatoes mushy. Thatcher was quickly coming to the conclusion that the Americans cooked like they fought -- quantity and brute force over quality and nuance. He would have walked anywhere in town for a nice steak and kidney pie.

Thatcher studied a map while he ate, checking the route he would take in the morning. Newport wasn't far, slightly more than an hour down Route 1. Thatcher wondered if Jones had done anything useful yet. It aggravated him to no end that the boorish FBI man had the assets to find Braun but not the interest. He wondered what he could do to change the mans outlook. With Germany trounced, all eyes in America were shifting west. And when Japan succumbed, as she inevitably would, then what? Would there be an emphasis on tying up loose ends like Alexander Braun? Thatcher suspected not. Russia would be the new threat. Everyone had trusted Stalin to beat down Hitler's eastern flank, but who would trust him now that he occupied most of Germany and eastern Europe? The thoughts made Thatcher's head hurt that much more.

He pushed away a clean plate, tidied up under a napkin, and rubbed his forehead. The cold had gone to his sinuses, sharp pain stabbing behind his eyes. He ordered a pot of tea to take to his room. American tea, he thought miserably.

"Hot water, please," he told the waiter, "a rolling boil." His last cup had tasted like a bag of dust swept up from the kitchen floor, steeped briefly in bath water.

When it came, he carried the tray to his room and set it aside to steep. He called the front desk and asked if he'd had any messages. While they checked, Thatcher mused that there were only two people in the world who might try to contact him here. Roger Ainsley and that blasted Jones fellow. Chances were, they'd both want the same thing -- Thatcher heading back to England on the next available flight. That being the case, he was happy when the clerk told him there was nothing.

Thatcher removed his prostheses and laid out his clothes for the next day. Easing onto the bed, his entire body ached, and he suspected he had a fever. The last time he'd been this sick was just before the war, in the London flat. Madeline had taken care of everything then -- hot soup and biscuits, warm towels, tea with honey. And that infernally pungent menthol-and-eucalyptus rubbing cream. Madeline had always kept their flat spotless; she could balance the household accounts to the penny. Yet for all her practicality, when it came to illness she'd always had a peculiar bent toward mystical herbal remedies. Thatcher remembered telling her how silly it was, that none of it would help against a viral disease. To which Madeline would reply, "Of course not, dear," as she massaged deep circles into his aching muscles.

Thatcher turned to the papers on his bed and began shuffling. He sorted the important from the less so, and the extraneous went crumbled onto the floor, joining a scattering of used Kleenex tissues that now littered the place like wood shavings across a mouse's cage. Twenty minutes later Thatcher was sound asleep. On his rhythmically rising chest was one of the papers, the name Lydia Cole scribbled in the margin.

His slumbering thoughts, however, were with another woman, and in a better place and time.

Chapter 21.

Thatcher had drawn certain expectations about the place called Newport. From the insinuations of Gross, and the hotel clerk with whom he'd settled his bill, the place would be astounding, littered with synthetic castles for a capitalist royalty. It was home to a nouveau aristocracy of wealth, where the titles involved were not lord and baron, but rather chairman and founder.

It was a disappointment, then, that the outskirts of Newport looked little different from the other half dozen towns he'd passed through this morning. The homes were modest, the businesses small. Along the waterfront fishing boats were moored haphazardly, and a few daysailers lay up to the shore. Thatcher was beginning to wonder if there was perhaps another city by the same name when he turned onto Bellevue Avenue.

Here things changed, though not on an unfamiliar scale. Thatcher's own office was in a castle, albeit a temporary arrangement, and if any people on earth were practiced at enduring the excesses of the upper crust, it was the English. Yet he found the mansions now before him curious, both individually and collectively. Each held a different style, though none that seemed "native." The odd mix of expensive imitations left Thatcher with the same general impression as the huge country estates back in Hampshire and Surrey--utterly wasteful.

The one called Harrold House was easy enough to find, its name artfully carved onto each of two stone pillars guarding the main entrance. There was no gate, so he drove directly to a large circular parking area that fronted the entrance of the main house. His government-issued sedan was the only car in sight, and he wondered for a moment if the Coles were not in residence. A look around one side of the house allayed his fears -- the gravel driveway spurred an offshoot, and he could see the corner of a large garage. In residence or not, he suspected a fleet of fine cars were nestled inside.

Getting out of the car, Thatcher smoothed the wrinkles from his uniform coat and climbed marble steps to the front door. The huge portico was awash in useless architectural trimmings -- lions, cherubs, and carved coils of rope. He rang the bell, and moments later a uniformed butler appeared.

"May I help you, sir?"

"Good morning. I'm Major Michael Thatcher. I'm an investigator with the British Army. I'd like to speak to Lydia Cole. I thought she might be able to help me locate a man by the name of Alexander Brown."

"Mr. Brown? Mr. Brown is here, though I'm not sure if he's yet awake. Please step inside, sir, and I'll inquire."

Thatcher's heart surged. Good Lord! he thought. He's here! Right at this moment! He stepped inside to an atrium as the butler ascended a wide, arcing staircase.

He suddenly realized how rash it had been to come straight here. Thatcher had no authority to arrest the man. There were no established crimes, no warrants. The fact that Braun was here, delivered by a U-boat, made him a spy. But proof of even that was thin at the moment. Thatcher had immersed himself so deeply in the search he had not even considered what to do when he found the man. It was foreign soil. Should he contact the local police? Or perhaps Roger, or that idiot Jones? These were the thoughts spinning in his head when another man entered from a side room.

It was definitely not Alexander Braun. He was in his fifties, a big man with thick gray hair and a vibrant gait. He strode over and thrust out a hand, a severe upward chop that reminded Thatcher of an Oriental martial arts maneuver.

"I'm Sargent Cole. Is Evans assisting you?" The voice was strong, the handshake crushing.

"Yes. I'm Major Michael Thatcher. I've come looking for a man by the name of Alexander Brown."

"Alex?" The American eyed Thatcher s uniform. "Yes, I think hes around here somewhere. What s this in regard to?"

Thatcher stumbled for a good answer, but the effort was cut short by a scream. He turned to see a young woman plummet from the top of the staircase. She tumbled hard, smacking over the stone steps, and came to rest halfway down, crumpled against the balustrade.