The Discovery, A Novel (25 page)

Ben opened his eyes. He couldn’t see clearly. He was lying on the ground; he could feel the dirt and grass beneath him. In the distance, alarm bells were ringing. Someone shouted, “Get out! Everyone out!” Another man’s voice, “The whole thing could blow any second!”

He rubbed his eyes and the night sky started coming into focus.

“He’s coming to.” It was Nate’s voice.

Ben turned his head to see Hammond squatting down beside him. “You all right, Ben? Can you move?”

“I better get back there,” Nate said. “What are we saying just happened?”

Hammond looked back at Nate. “Everyone in there is doing what we need them to, clearing the area. I’m sure all the guys on our team will be here in minutes. Put someone in charge of the crowd. We need that whole building isolated. Then get on the horn and reel in the rest of the team. Tell them we found the saboteurs here in Savannah, and mention they’re dead.” He looked again at Nate. “Well, you know what to say.” Nate nodded and took off.

“How’d I get here?” Ben said, sitting up.

“We dragged you,” Hammond said. “You remember anything?”

“Graf and Kittel.”

“They’re both dead.”

“Anyone else?”

“Thank God, no. Thought you were. Don’t know how, but there was no secondary explosion. Looks like the bomb in their lunch box was the only thing that went off.”

“How long was I out?”

“A few minutes.”

Ben looked through the opening at the rear of the metal building. It was hazy with smoke, but he could see the big tanks were still intact. “Amazing they didn’t blow.” More like a miracle.

“They still could. Are you hurt?”

“Help me up?” When Ben stood, he noticed a large crowd of workers hurrying across the yard from the ship assembly area, toward the action. “My head is pounding. My shoulders ache. Feels like my ears are plugged up, but I don’t think anything else is wrong.”

“You’ve got a few cuts on your face and neck,” Hammond said. “But if you’re not hurt too bad . . . Listen, Ben, things are going to start happening pretty fast around here. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“So . . . what are you saying?”

“I’m going to let you go.”

“What . . . when?”

“Now. Actually, if you don’t go now, it’s going to get pretty complicated. No one but Nate and I know about you. I’ve got two dead spies in there. That’s what we were expected to find. We’ll be heroes for stopping them. It’ll go down that they blew themselves up as we were closing in. Hoover will love it.” He shook his head. “I hate doing this. You deserve the credit. But the only reward I can give you is this.” He held out his hand.

Ben shook it.

“Truth is,” Hammond said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if none of this makes the papers. I don’t think Hoover wants any more German spies in the country, whether they’re here or not. But that’s not my concern right now. Point is, you’ve got to disappear.”

“Where should I go?”

“Up to you. But you can’t go back to your old life, not in Daytona, not as Ben Coleman.”

“But why—you just said you got the two they were expecting you to find. Nobody else knows about me.”

“Everyone knows there’s a fourth guy. We found your partner in the dunes. You guys move in pairs. Hoover knows that. Everyone on this team knows that. Graf and Kittel’s deaths have bought us time, that’s all. Nate and I talked about it, we’re both fine with you getting that second chance you wanted. We think you deserve that. But there are a lot of sharp guys on this team, a lot of loose ends lying around for ambitious guys to find and run with. They’re not going to stop looking for you. You’re the fourth guy. You’ve got to disappear for good.”

And Ben knew what would happen if they found him. “I don’t know what to say.”

Hammond smiled. “Say you’re going to make something of your life. Do something meaningful. Cure some disease. Break some world record. Just don’t do it as Ben Coleman, or Gerhard . . . whatever your last name is.”

“What about the Richardses back in Daytona? What about Claire?”

“I’m going to say that was a dead end. They’re in the clear. Nate and I will come up with something to explain how we found out about Graf and Kittel. But I wouldn’t go back to Daytona. Like I said . . . I asked a lot of questions there, talked to a lot of people. One of these guys might pick up that trail. If you go back, they’ll put two and two together like I did. You’re gone, it all becomes just a rumor.”

Ben shook his hand again. He wanted to hug the man. Hammond had just saved his life, and now, his entire future.

“Now get out of here.”

Ben woke up the next morning in his hotel bed in Savannah after the first restful night of sleep he’d had in days. He felt like he’d been run over by a car. Moving slowly, he managed to get cleaned up, then grabbed his suitcase and headed down to the lobby to check out.

He’d left both the gun and his picture of Claire in the suitcase. He’d toss the gun in a marsh or creek on his way out of town. He was thankful he didn’t need it anymore. He didn’t think he could ever part with the picture of Claire. In the lobby the newspaper on a coffee table surprised him twice. First, it didn’t say a word about the explosion last night at the shipyard. And second, that it was Saturday. Running for your life and almost getting blown up had a way of messing with your sense of time.

He walked the half block to his car and put his things in the trunk. Then he sat behind the wheel of his green four-door coupe, realizing he didn’t have a plan. Didn’t even know which direction he should head as he rode out of town. Didn’t have a city in mind to go to, a place where he could take Hammond’s advice for that “second chance.” Ben had enough cash to pretty much do whatever he wanted, and enough ration coupons to live anywhere in the US for almost a year.

But what did it matter?

He’d trade all of it in a flash if he could have Claire back. He was, at least, relieved to know she and her parents were in the clear with the FBI.

An elderly couple walked by arm in arm on the sidewalk, the man staring at him the whole while. Ben smiled and nodded. The man smiled back. Ben started the car and turned left at the first intersection, onto West Oglethorpe Avenue.

It was such a beautiful scene.

He was heading toward the shipyards, the wrong direction, but he didn’t care. The shipyard was at the other end of town. They had their hands full down there anyway, after all that excitement last night. He could at least enjoy the scenery for a few blocks.

Like these amazing oak trees. Had to be over a hundred years old, every one of them. Spaced about fifty feet apart on both sides of the road. He loved the way the gnarly limbs arched over the road and meshed in the middle to form a long tunnel. Specks of sunlight poked through here and there, but otherwise the road was totally engulfed in shade. He rode along, slowing down at each intersection to take in the historic buildings that lined the narrow roads.

If it weren’t for all the trouble going on at the shipyard and the swarm of federal agents coming into town, he wouldn’t mind starting over right here.

How could he start over anywhere without Claire?

Hunger pangs reminded him that he should get something to eat before leaving Savannah. He turned down Drayton Street till he reached the intersection at Broughton, which looked remarkably similar to Beach Street in Daytona Beach. He noticed a McCrory’s and instinctively turned toward it, then pulled into a parking space nearby. As soon as he looked through the five-and-dime storefront window, his heart sank.

He could almost see “the gang” sitting there at the counter. Joe and Barb, Hank, Miss Jane taking orders, and at the end, Claire herself, her beautiful smile lighting up the entire place.

“Does it say anything, Dad? Anything about Savannah at all?” Claire sat across from her father at the dining room table. Her mother was in the kitchen cleaning up the breakfast dishes. She’d insisted Claire relax with her father and finish her coffee. Claire didn’t think relaxation was even possible at this point. Since Ben had left a few days ago, her only available emotions were heartache and anxiety, and then there were the various odd hours of the day where she’d sit staring at nothing, feeling nothing at all.

Her father flipped through a few more newspaper pages. “Not a word, Claire. There’s nothing here. You keep asking, sweetheart, but I’m telling you . . . they don’t report things like that, not in wartime.”

She was at least glad to see him starting to resemble himself again. The day after their meeting with Agent Hammond, her father had been certain the Feds would rush in at any moment and arrest them all. At dinner that night and throughout the evening after, no one had said a word. It was tense and horrible.

But the Feds hadn’t come. And then another day came and went. And another. Her father had told them both just a few moments ago that he didn’t think anything bad was going to happen to them now. “Perhaps Agent Hammond wasn’t lying after all,” he’d said, smiling for the first time in days.

Her mother took that as a sign to return to living life the same way they always had. All morning, no one had brought up the subject of Ben escaping or returning or of Claire being free to leave with him if he did.

But it was all she could think about, in between the more terrifying thoughts of Ben being killed and never seeing him again. She wondered which was worse—that, or never knowing what happened to him.

It was crazy what he was doing, but he didn’t care.

After eating breakfast at McCrory’s in Savannah, Ben had driven out to the edge of town and stopped at the junction for Highway 17. Thinking, praying, fretting. Left or right. North or south. He’d sat there at the intersection, must have been three or four minutes, till an angry farmhand driving an old pickup truck mashed down on the horn.

Ben just reacted, turned left, heading south.

That was it, then. He’d drive back to Daytona Beach one last time to see Claire.

The whole way down, he’d wrestled about it. That and the warnings Hammond had given him last night. Whatever you do, don’t go back there, he’d said. But how could it hurt to return for a day, just one day? Ben would be there and gone before the G-men had even begun to get their hands around the mess at the shipyard.

The more troubling questions came from his last conversation with Claire, at the riverfront park across from Woolworth’s.

Ben . . . are you saying . . . you’re a German spy?

Ben, I do love you, but I don’t know. This is so much . . . too much, I think
.

Well, tell me . . . Gerhard Kuhlmann, what else? I want to know everything you haven’t told me. No more lies
.

You’re not supposed to have to work hard at being honest with someone you love
.

It was more than the words; it was the look in her eyes, the disgust in her voice.

But he had to go back, just one more time. To see her. Even if only to endure her rejection again. He’d assigned himself a higher cause, a more noble theme to this journey. He looked beside him at the wooden box. He had to return it to Mr. Richards; it was a family heirloom. Claire’s father had only given it to him when he’d thought Ben would become part of the family.

Besides that, he decided he’d rather their last memory of him be something positive. He’d bring them the good news that they no longer needed to live in fear because of him, that Hammond had decided to leave them alone.

Driving thirty-five miles an hour had eaten up the better part of the day. He’d lost track of time but started to see signs of familiar Florida towns pass by his window. Saint Augustine, Bunnell, Ormond Beach, Holly Hill. He was getting close now. On his left was the beautiful Riviera Hotel, like something you’d expect to see in Beverly Hills. He slowed as he approached Mason Avenue, driving behind a convoy of Army trucks driven by WACS.

He opened his window to take in the ocean breeze.

There was St. Paul’s up ahead on the right. Maybe he should stop in and thank Father Flanagan. Ben owed him so much. The priest had gone out of his way to help Ben, and Ben wasn’t even Catholic. But a number of cars were parked in front and a good number of people headed in through the front doors. Father Flanagan was probably hearing confessions.

After driving past Broadway, then Orange Avenue, Ben felt his heart begin to race. Claire’s house, her big mansion-sized house, was just a few streets ahead. Dread filled his heart as it came into view.

He pulled into the driveway, but he couldn’t find the strength to open the car door.

“Who could that be?” Claire’s mother said, walking out from the dining room.

Claire looked up from her seat in the living room. They both heard a car pulling into the driveway. She tensed up. Couldn’t be her father; he’d been home all afternoon.

Her mother looked out the window. “I don’t recognize the car.”

Please, God, don’t let it be the FBI
. Claire set her magazine down and got up. “Can you see who’s inside?”

“No, it’s just one person. A man, I think. He’s not moving.”

Claire’s father walked down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“Someone just pulled in the driveway,” her mother said.

“What color is the car?” he said.

“Green.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “The FBI usually drive dark cars, black mostly.”

“What are we going to do?” Claire said. “Is he still sitting there?”

“Yes,” her mother said.

“Well, this is ridiculous,” her father said. “I’ll just go on out there and see who it is and what he wants.”

“Wait,” her mother said. “The car door is opening. Oh my goodness. I can’t believe it!”

“What?” Claire said. “Who is it?” She walked toward the window.

“It’s Ben.” Her mother released the curtain.

“Ben,” her father said. “Really?”

“Ben!” Claire shouted. “Ben?” She ran to the front door, threw it open, and ran out onto the porch.

Ben couldn’t believe his eyes. There she was, standing on the edge of the front porch.

Claire.

Their eyes met. Tears instantly clouded his view of her. She was smiling.

“Ben,” she screamed, then ran down the steps toward him. “You’re alive! You came back!”

He ran toward her. She leaped into his arms. He swung her around and set her down. She looked up at him, her face beaming, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I love you, Ben. I’ve missed you so much. Don’t ever leave me again.”

They kissed, a deep and passionate kiss, longer than they’d ever kissed before. Ben’s insides felt like they would burst with joy.

After a few moments, still embracing, he pulled back slightly and held her face in his hands. “I couldn’t bear it, Claire. I had to come back. I thought you wouldn’t see me. All the lies. But I had to try.”

She kissed him again. “I don’t care what your name is or how you got here.” She kissed him again. “God brought you back to me, that’s all that matters. I’ll be Mrs. Whoever, I don’t care.”

The ring. He held up her hand. She was wearing the ring he’d given her at the park. He looked over her shoulder, saw her parents standing on the front porch. Mrs. Richards was crying; Mr. Richards had his arm around her shoulder. “What about them?” Ben asked. “What do your parents think?”

“They love you, Ben. We’ve talked it all out.”

“But Claire . . . there’s something else. Something you need to know . . . something
they
need to know.”

“Whatever it is, Ben, it doesn’t matter.”

“Claire, listen to me.” He pulled her back gently but kept his hands on her shoulders. “This is serious. It does matter. I can’t stay here. I could get us all in trouble if I stay. I shouldn’t even be here now.”

“I know,” she said. “They know.” She turned to look at them then back at him.

“Do they understand what it means . . . for me and you?”

She looked into his eyes. “Ben, I love you. I will go with you wherever you go. I’ll be whoever I have to be, if I can be with you.”

Ben couldn’t control himself. Tears ran down his face. How was this possible? It was beyond anything he dared to hope or dream.

She handed him a handkerchief then took his hand and led him to the house. “Let’s go inside before any of the neighbors see us, and I’ll explain.”