“I see,” William said, deeply touched. “Are you going back? You could escape now, go to South America, where you’d be welcomed.”
“I’m a loyal soldier. Our leader is mad, but I won’t desert my country. I had to see you one more time. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry things didn’t work out but that I’m proud of you. I know your father would have been, too. He’s been in my thoughts a lot lately. You are so like him. Brave, fearless, and intelligent, with an open heart and always a willing hand out for a friend. There are some who would say we Germans are unfeeling. That’s the way the world will brand us. I just wanted to tell you there is much of his goodness in you.”
William’s heart swelled. The two embraced.
“Don’t come back,” Canaris warned. “There’s nothing left for you in Germany.”
William had no intention of returning to his homeland.
“You’ve lost a lot in your young life,” Canaris said. “Have you built some happiness here?”
“I have,” he said, grateful for his mentor’s concern. “And I’ve been blessed with love again.”
For a moment Canaris seemed poised to impart some additional information, but he reconsidered, and the opportunity passed as their talk returned to a discussion of the grim statistics of war.
****
13
th/
14
th
February 1945. The American Air Force and Royal Air Force conducted firebombing raids on Dresden, killing thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and destroying much of the city.
Dresden
. Although William hadn’t seen his hometown in years, he could still recall the beautiful medieval city on the Elbe River, the city of his heart. A major center for European art and culture, with its historic monuments reduced to rubble; its helpless, hopeless people reduced to dust and ashes. Germany was on the verge of surrender. With no major war production or industry in the city, Dresden was of questionable military value and clogged with refugees fleeing the Red Army. So why punish Dresden and annihilate civilians? It was outrageous! Barbaric! Senseless!
When he was finally able to contact Karl, he was almost afraid to ask, and he had to have his friend repeat his words.
“They’re gone. They’re all gone. Your mother... Wihelm, I’m so sorry.”
He thought of his mother. He hadn’t been able to contact her for years. She’d perished not knowing if her son was dead or alive.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I went there myself. You would not recognize our city anymore. Or our street.”
“And Emilie?” William whispered.
There was a long silence on the line.
“Yes,” Karl said quietly. “I’m sorry. And Wilhelm, there’s something else…”
Suddenly the line went dead and the connection was lost.
“Karl, Karl, are you there?”
But he was not able to reach his friend. What else had Karl been trying to tell him? It sounded urgent. No matter, his mother and Emilie were gone. There was nothing else to say, nothing more he cared to hear.
William couldn’t face Diana right now. One look at him and she would be able to read his grief. And that would give him away. He couldn’t go home yet. He left work and drove to a bar in Hamilton to drown his sorrows and lament the life he had been denied. Celebrate the blessings.
The papers were full of Dresden; the story ran for weeks. Eyewitness accounts of the firestorm from the two days of saturation bombing and the subsequent days of burning. Explosions that wouldn’t stop. Fire. Scorching heat, hot enough to burn the human hair and tender flesh of innocent women and children. Smoke so thick you couldn’t see or breathe through it. Screaming from the wounded. Collapsing buildings. Mutilated corpses. The darkness of the night, the darkness nightmares are made of. Dresden, a burned-out shell, a hell on earth. He conjured up his mother’s angelic face. And Emilie’s perfect, porcelain one, cool and still as a marble statue, now horribly, painfully, burnt. He only hoped they hadn’t suffered overlong.
8
th
April 1945. On Hitler’s orders, Admiral Canaris was executed at the prison in Flossenbürg. He was like a father to me. I will mourn his loss greatly.
Chapter 18
Bermuda, 1958
William picked up the telephone. This was not a conversation he relished having. He hadn’t come into contact with his aide since the end of the war, when their association had ended abruptly and awkwardly. Everything had fallen apart. No instructions had been given, no contingency plans made. No one expected to lose the war. He was on his own, isolated on an island. Wrapped in riches, but nevertheless isolated. When he noticed his papers were missing, he wanted to take action. But he was helpless to do anything until their inevitable phone conversation. He had finally tracked the monster down.
“I believe I may have lost something of value,” William began when he heard what sounded like Nighthawk’s voice.
“Misplaced?” Nighthawk virtually sneered through the lines.
He wished they could have met in person, so he could see Nighthawk’s eyes. Then he would know for sure.
“No,” William said, detecting a hidden message in the silence that followed.
“Could these items you’re missing possibly compromise you?”
William paused. He had not mentioned the fact that more than one item was missing. So, that was the way the game was being played.
“Yes,” William said simply.
“There’s something I find very curious. You kept such complete records during the war years. But the entry for 7 December 1941, which should have been the culmination of our years of hard work and planning, was scant. No detailed notes, no mention of the failure of our operation. It was glaring in its absence.”
William couldn’t breathe.
“Hopefully these items weren’t too valuable, Herr Whitestone. I assume you had the proper insurance?”
The message came through loud and clear.
“They’re uninsurable, irreplaceable, as you well know.”
His journal and the other missing items could potentially blow his cover, ruin him, and bring harm to his wife. Now he was being told that his survival hung by a thread, that he could be exposed at any moment. He was well pleased with his wife, his home, and his life on the island, and he had no intention of jeopardizing them.
He’d always known his former associate was dangerous, that when a dirty job had to be done, Nighthawk had been the one to call. He should have killed the man when he had the chance. He could seek out Nighthawk and threaten his life unless he revealed where the missing documents were. But he could not afford to kill him until he knew the whereabouts of his property. It was too risky. That was Nighthawk’s insurance policy. Nighthawk could fly at any time. He lived among the shadows. William was prominent and visible on the island, and therefore vulnerable.
And Nighthawk didn’t pose the only threat. How many of Nighthawk’s shady associates had known about his past? His double identity? His buried fortune?
If he required any evidence of Nighthawk’s capacity for violence, he need look no further than Yvette. The man certainly had held a great affection for her, yet he had planned to kill his pregnant mistress without hesitation. Murder his own children.
William’s sexual appetite was as deeply developed as the next man’s, but he had experienced only two true loves in his life, and he was loyal, at least in his heart, to both of them. But he could hardly blame his associate for falling under Yvette’s spell. He had been a little in love with her himself. The birth of her twins had created a bond between them, even though he’d never seen Yvette again once she disappeared from the hospital. Watching the miracle of a baby’s birth softened his heart and made him yearn for a child of his own, a child with Diana.
Perhaps Yvette had first turned to Nighthawk for protection, alone in the world as she was, although that notion was utterly ridiculous. Nighthawk was the kind of man you sought protection
from
. She had used
him
. What secrets had he accidentally revealed to her or to the others who came after her? What secrets had they shared? And what had happened to that brave woman?
The past was catching up with him. But what of the future? He wondered if he would ever know the extent of Nighthawk’s betrayal.
PART THREE
The Treasure
Bermuda 2013
Chapter 19
Bermuda 2013
Patience’s eyes were blurry from reading the handwritten journal entries and from plain exhaustion. Tears from her swollen eyes splotched the already delicate pages. Waves of nausea threatened to drown her. Her head was splitting apart. Shame and disappointment threatened to choke her. There simply wasn’t any doubt about where her grandfather’s loyalties had lain. Nathaniel must hate her. She rubbed her neck and sank back onto her pillow.
She didn’t have the resolve to read much more. Her grandfather’s spirit was noticeably sagging, especially after the death of his champion, Canaris. He was demoralized and depressed. After that his ramblings detailed a series of defeats, crumbling pockets of resistance on all fronts, cessation of operations, occupations, Victory-in-Europe Day, a stunning defeat for the
Kriegsmarine
, and suicides—Hitler’s and Eva Braun’s soon after they had married, the Goebbels family, and others. Dönitz, who had assumed the duties as the new German head of state following Hitler’s death, was ordering maximum resistance on all fronts, hopelessly followed by unconditional surrenders and war crimes trials. The last gasps of the dying Third Reich. Her grandfather’s legacy. Reading his words was tantamount to watching him die all over again.
There were also tears over everything William Whitestone had lost, over Emilie and everyone else who had perished in Dresden or lost their lives in the world conflict, and over the death of his daughter, the mother Patience never knew.
She swallowed hot, bitter tears as she reread the traitorous passage. Her grandfather had lied to her about many things. He had called her his
little miracle.
But he never even wanted a child. Never wanted her real mother. Never wanted her. Oh, he had accepted his responsibility, was even great at playing at being a grandfather, but in the end, he had tried his best not to have a child. She wondered what else he had lied about?
“He never loved me,” Patience said, not realizing she had spoken the words aloud or that Nathaniel had returned to the room and was sitting right beside her on the couch. Chewing on her bottom lip, her hand clung to the material of her dress, balling it up in her fist. Her breath sailed out in a painful whoosh. Her entire life had been an illusion, a beautiful but cruel illusion.
Nathaniel placed his hand over hers and slowly unclenched her fist, opening one finger at a time.
“Of course he loved you,” Nathaniel said gently. “His actions proved that. Why do you think he worked so hard to keep you close and safe? He had lost one daughter. He couldn’t protect her, so he was ferocious about protecting you.”
“Protecting me?”
“If William Whitestone’s true identity were discovered, his life and the lives of those he loved would be in danger because of what he did during the war. His way of protecting you was to keep you locked away in the safety of his compound, on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic, where no harm could come to you. If I’m sure of anything, it was William’s love for Diana and for you. Come here, Patience,” Nathaniel said as he took the diary from her hand and gathered her up in his arms.
She dissolved into him, her arms reaching out to hold him tightly. They sat there in silence on the couch, not saying a word, until she fell asleep against him and he carried her into her bedroom.
****
Nathaniel settled himself on the couch and pored through Wilhelm von Hesselweiss’s last journal entry, trying again to find clues that would reveal the identity and whereabouts of Nighthawk—the man he believed was threatening Patience.
Nathaniel reread William’s journal entries with interest and the dispassionate eye of a historian. He thought he could almost understand the spy known as William Whitestone. Patience’s grandfather as a young man had been caught in a new world order where orders were to be followed and love sacrificed.
Nathaniel read about the man who had followed his own father to the sea. For all his wealth, for all the respectability he had achieved in the business world, William Whitestone was, at heart, still a seaman. He did not consider himself inherently evil, though he provided regular reports on Allied shipping activities, enabling his counterparts to pursue and massacre enemy merchant ships in the mid-Atlantic. Like Canaris, William’s allegiance had been to the German Navy, not the Nazis. He would have given his life for his fellow U-boatmen.
He had also written about his respect for the Allied submariners. As fellow men of the sea, he felt a special kinship with them. Just as he would never have sanctioned the killing of survivors in the water by his crew, he could not fathom how Allied Air Force crewmen could kill innocent civilians in Dresden, even from their anonymous heights.
A picture arose of a man who had managed to rise above the cutthroat competition that existed in the
Kriegsmarine
and was more comfortable in pitching seas than in petty politics.
William had written a lot about life on his submarine before he was dispatched to Bermuda by way of Switzerland. He did not feel confined by the U-boat. The close quarters only heightened his readiness for action, highlighted his recklessness, and hammered home his hunger for danger in his role as submarine commander.