White Rose Black Forest(45)

His father was friends with senators and congressmen, had met the president once, back in ’38 when he’d toured the factories in Philadelphia. The photograph still hung above the desk in his study. He’d used his connections to get John home for a month’s rest he had never asked for.

John still bore the marks of his time in the jungle, but the scabs were healing. It had taken him days to get clean, to scrub the dirt out from under his fingernails, to make himself presentable. People were watching. His father greeted him with a handshake. He hugged his sister, Pearl, and shook his brother Norman’s hand, though he couldn’t quite look him in the eye. This was the first time he’d been seen with them in public since he’d been back. This was their chance to show him off in front of their peers. Penelope kissed each of her in-laws and waited for John to hold out her chair before she sat down. Pearl sat on one side of him, with Penelope on the other. Pearl’s husband was with the air force, stationed in England. The bombing raids on Europe had begun. Her eyes betrayed the worry she was working to hide.

The time for speeches arrived, each speaker proclaiming the urgent need to purchase war bonds. John’s father took his turn and, motioning to his son from the podium, asked John to stand. He did his duty, holding up the Silver Star he’d won in Guadalcanal for clearing the machine-gun nest and saving King’s life. The entire room of more than two hundred people stood as one to applaud. He felt Pearl’s hand on his shoulder, saw Penelope standing back, clapping with the rest. He sat down once the applause had ended, the weight lifted.

Dinner ended, and a steady stream of family friends and well-wishers, some of whom he knew, came to shake his hand and tell him how much they admired the job he was doing out there, how they’d be right beside him if they weren’t so damned old. His wrist hurt from shaking hands. His face ached from smiling. Penelope charmed them all, and old men opened their checkbooks.

The music had begun when John’s father called him over. He was standing beside a silver-haired, rather dumpy man in his sixties wearing a tuxedo.

“John, I’d like you to meet someone. This is William Donovan. Bill, this is my son John.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Donovan said, offering a bone-crushing handshake.

“John wants something more than I can offer him.”

“What are you talking about, Dad?” John had a sense of where the conversation was going—it was one he and his father had often had, one that always left him feeling guilty.

“I planned for him to take over my business,” John’s father explained, “but he didn’t want it—almost broke my heart. But my other son, Norman, is doing a great job.”

“Why didn’t you want to continue your father’s work, son?” Donovan asked.

“It wasn’t for me.”

“It’s truly a shame, but John never wanted to become the captain of industry I groomed him to be. He wants to make his own way.”

“Can we talk about this later?” John said.

“Yes, perhaps that would be a better time. I’ll leave you men to talk.”

Donovan waited until John’s father was gone to begin. “Firstly, I just wanted to thank you for your service.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you know who I am, John?” Donovan’s tone left John in no doubt that he was military, yet he was wearing civilian clothes.

“I’m not sure, sir. I don’t want to make any presumptions. My father seemed eager for us to meet.”

“There’s a reason for that, son. I’m an old friend of your father’s. We served in the last war together, when you were a baby.”

“Why haven’t we met before, sir?”

“Your father and I lost touch for a while. We hadn’t seen each other in years, until we met at a dinner like this just before Christmas last year.” Donovan reached into his pocket for a cigarette case and offered one to John. When he declined, Donovan put them back in his pocket without lighting one for himself. “Your father told me about you, and your incredible exploits in service of our country. He told me you’re a true patriot.”

“That I am, sir.”

“You speak German too, don’t you, from your time over there?”

“We lived in Berlin for a few years back in the twenties, before things got too crazy. My father set up some factories over there.”

“How is your German now?”

“I might be a little rusty, but I’m fluent. I was my family’s translator for the first couple of years there. Pearl and Norman are older than me. They stayed in boarding school over here and came for the summers.”

“So why the Pacific when you’ve so many connections with Europe?”

“I just wanted to serve, sir. I knew that someone with my background would most likely be expected to join the officer elite. I knew that, but I wanted to—”

“You wanted to prove that you could get down and dirty, that you could serve with the other grunts.”

“I suppose you could put it that way, sir.”

“Have you heard of the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS?”

“I heard some things,” John said, now understanding the real reason he’d been summoned home. “I heard whispers about an agency set up for spies.”