The Lucy Ghosts Read online

  It recalls days of Rhet Butler gamblers strolling the decks with a thin cigar clamped between their teeth, of smart suited men and elegantly frocked women on their way to the American dream, of little boys fishing on the banks of the Mississippi hearing the toot toot of the river boat as it rounded the bend, of cotton and steam, of the old captain up on his bridge sailing into the wilderness, of the Deep South, of Mark Twain, of all that made America great.

  That's as it was. Today, the Creole Queen, and its sister ships that ply on the reminiscence trail, are a sham. Only half the size of the original river queens, they are designed purely for the tourist market.

  Adam watched the Trimmlers walk down River Walk and up the gangplank onto the boat. He and Billie kept their distance.

  Trimmler seemed nervous, anxiously looking round for something, yet not wanting to appear to be doing so. At one stage, as they were climbing the steps down to the restaurant gallery, he whispered conspiratorially into Trudi's ear, then seemed to point across where the other passengers were. Trudi glanced in the direction he indicated.

  Adam looked to where he had pointed. There were a group of people there, a mixture of ages and sexes. They were nothing extraordinary,, just tourists like the others on the boat.

  Across the river a tug, pushing a line of five heavily laden barges, blew its horn, warning a small motorised pleasure craft going in the opposite direction to keep clear.

  The sound, loud and nearby, attracted the attention of the tourists on the Creole Queen and they turned as one man to look at the tug train bearing down on the smaller boat. The pleasure craft, with six revelers on board, swung hard left and skirted the barges on their port side.

  'Did you see that? That was close,' said Billie.

  'Wasn't it?' he replied. But he had ignored the incident, kept his attention on Trimmler. The scientist had also chosen to disregard the near accident and had signalled, with a small wave of his hand, to one of the group on the opposite side of the deck. A distinguished, older man with a heavily lined face framed in a grey shock of wavy hair with his back to the railings, had nodded back, acknowledged Trimmler. The two men had held their gaze and Adam immediately sensed their closeness. Then the grey haired man smiled gently and turned away to watch the scene on the river. Trimmler suddenly took Trudi's arm and led her down the stairs to the restaurant. The man with the wavy grey hair moved along the railings to get a better view of the pleasure craft as it passed the tug train. He walked with a limp and he held a walking stick. He moved away from his group towards the rear of the Creole Queen.

  'What's going on?' asked Billie, leaning next to him.

  Adam put his finger up to his lip, signifying her to keep quiet. She shut up, her curiosity blunted, her frustration sharpened.

  Behind them, the group of tourists chatted amongst themselves, obviously excited to be there.

  They were foreign, their language Russian.

  After a minute, Adam led Billie away towards the stairs down which Trimmler had disappeared. To his left, away from his group, the grey haired man stared out on the Mississippi.

  'Are you going to tell me what's going on?' Billie asked again.

  'When I know, I'll tell you.'

  'They're Russians.'

  'So are the scientists at this space convention. The one Trimmler's here for.'

  ‘So?'

  He started to descend the stairs.

  ‘If they're Russians, and...' she rushed after him. '...what if they are Russians and scientists?'

  'Interesting. Don't you think?'

  'So it's a coincidence.'

  'So it is. Just like Trimmler, not exactly your every day tourist, is also a scientist and comes out onto this boat for a joy ride. Just coincidence.'

  She caught him up at the bottom of the stairs and was about to answer when another group of laughing tourists made their way towards them, Americans this time from Tennessee.

  'You'all having a good time?' shouted one of them at the couple.

  'Great,' replied Adam. 'Real fun place.'

  'Sure is. Sure is,' replied the Tennessean. Above them the whistle blew and the Creole Queen slipped its mooring for its daily run down the Mississippi.

  The loudspeaker voice blared out, 'Brunch is now being served on the lower deck. Creole brunch and original cajun cooking. Right now on the lower deck.'

  'Where's Trimmler?' Billie asked.

  'He came down here.'

  They found the Trimmlers in the restaurant at the front of the queue, their bowls already full of seafood gumbo. A small jazz band played in the corner, the sound an explosion in the confined and crowded restaurant. Conversation was only possible by shouting above the din.

  They joined the queue, watched the Trimmlers sit at a window table and settled themselves on the opposite side of the restaurant. The Russian party came in five minutes later, without the grey haired man, and the Trimmlers rejoined the queue for their Jambalaya and red beans.

  'I can do without all those red beans and sausages,' said Billie, the gumbo already taking its toll on her Californian stomach. Adam nodded agreement and lit up a cigarette. She shook her head, her views on his nasty habit were already known. 'That's a disgusting habit. Smoking's for jerks.'

  'Let's not get into that. Politics, smoking and religion. That’s taboo.'

  She shrugged and turned away to watch Trimmler.

  'If they split, I want you to stay with her.'

  'What makes you think they'll split?'

  'He's restless. She's eating, he's playing with his food.'

  She watched Trimmler. 'Maybe he doesn't like jambalaya.'

  'We'll see.' As he spoke, Trimmler suddenly spoke to Trudi, then rose from the table and left the restaurant. He checked out Adam and Billie, but didn't acknowledge them.

  'Here we go,' said Adam, turning away from Trimmler and pretending to eat his gumbo. When the scientist had left the room, Adam got up from the table and went to join the food queue. 'Stay there,' he said to Billie. 'Stay with her.'

  Trudi looked towards them and then went back to her meal. Adam got lost in the queue and then, when he was shielded from Trudi, broke across the room and went out through what was the kitchen area.

  'Hey, what're you doing here?' shouted one of the chefs.

  'Sick,' returned Adam, holding his throat in a mock grip as if he was about to throw up. 'I need fresh air. I need.....quick, I'm gonna.....'

  'Out'a that door,' yelled the chef, not at all bothered about his professional ability being under question. 'Get out'a here quick. Up the fucking stairs.'

  Adam rushed out of the kitchen, stifling his grin as he went, and up the stairs onto the middle deck. It was empty. He moved up to the next level, the top deck, and looked round. There were a few people still looking over at the Mississippi, but no sign of Trimmler or the grey haired man. He descended to the middle deck and crossed slowly to the rear of the boat.

  He saw the grey haired man cautiously limping his way towards the conference rooms. Adam slipped under the stairs and watched the Russian enter one of the rooms, waited until he heard the door close. Then he moved forward and looked in through the porthole.

  The two men, Trimmler and the grey haired man gazed at each other, examining each other as friends would who had not seen each other for a long time.

  'Heinrich,' he heard the grey haired man say.

  'Albert. Albert. After all these....' Trimmler was overcome, tears filled his eyes.

  Trimmler had instinctively spoken in German.

  He saw the two men step forward and embrace. They held each other, thumped each other on the back, both started to laugh and enjoy this most joyous moment. After a while they stepped back and looked at each other again.

  'I could say you hadn't changed,' said Trimmler. 'But I would be lying.'

  'At least success hasn't gone to my stomach,' replied the other in German, prodding Trimmler's pot belly, making him squirm away. 'Apart from that, you look well. Western living, eh?'
/>
  'I can't believe...after all these years.... Oh, Albert. After all these years.'

  'Who would have thought? All that time ago...that we would meet here, on a boat in America. Now I know the war is really over.'

  'Just as Grob Mitzer said it would be. Just as he always said.'

  Adam re-joined Billie at the table.

  'Well?' she asked.

  'He met an old friend.'

  'Who?'

  'One of the Russians.'

  'Really?'

  'Really.'

  'Why would he do that?'

  Adam shrugged. 'That's up to Tucker to find out. We're here to guard and report back.'

  'And you just do your job?'

  'That's me.' Adam took out another cigarette and lit it. She shook her head in disgust. 'By the way, they spoke in German.'

  'A Russian speaking German?'

  'A German from Russia speaking German. Name's Albert. That's all I picked up.'

  'Are you sure he's with the Russians?'

  'He sure as hell isn't from Tennessee.'

  One hour later, when the boat docked, Albert was the first off. He never looked back.

  The Trimlers followed not far behind.

  There was no indication that the two had ever met.

  Ch . 33

  Hamburg

  Germany.

  It was to be an historic day.

  The first new synagogue in modern times in the city of Hamburg was due to be opened at noon that day.

  Rabbi Levi Shamiev and his wife, Juliet, went into the synagogue before dawn to continue their preparations and ensure that all would be ready for the opening ceremony.

  Rabbi Shamiev, British by birth of German origin, was in his early thirties and had been rabbi in a Birmingham community when he was asked to head up the new Hamburg synagogue. There had been many synagogues in pre-War Germany, the largest in Berlin, the massive city synagogue on the Oranienburger Strasse, which was in the process of being restored. There had been some trouble during the restoration work, the usual daubing of swastikas and communist emblems. But the work had gone well and the Berlin synagogue was a faithful reconstruction of what had been.

  The first thing Shamiev found was that there are few Jews in Germany; not many had returned to the country of their origin after the war. But with the coming of a single Europe some of the younger Jewish community had decided to try their fortunes in Germany, despite the natural fear that a reunified nation would release all the prejudices brought about by the holocaust.

  Maybe it would be all right this time.

  With that as a background, fund raising for the Hamburg synagogue had been relatively easy and the square bricked building was completed within a year. Now, twenty months after the project had first been mooted, Rabbi Shamiev was about to open the doors to the outside world. There were to be honoured guests that day. Politicians, religious leaders, captains of industry, social officers of the highest office.

  It was truly to be an historic day.

  Juliet Shamiev had left the two young children with their grandmother. The family lived in a small house lent to them by the city on the southern outskirts of Hamburg. The children would be brought along later to see the ceremony. As she checked the seating arrangements and made sure the dignitaries' name cards were in the correct places, she turned and watched her husband.

  He stood at the arc in his black canonical robes. The arc is the cupboard at the front of the synagogue, where in a Christian Church one would find the altar, and represents the Holy Arc in the temple where the tablets of stone that Moses received were stored. Now the arc is the home for each Synagogue's Sefer Torah, that most holy of Jewish books, their bible, where the five books of Moses are read in one year, with one section to be recited each week from the Bimah. The Bimah is the central podium of the synagogue, with a railing surrounding it and two sets of steps, one to enter the Bimah from and the other to exit it. Juliet watched him prepare the scrolls of the Torah ready for that first historic reading that would take place later in the day, the same Sefer Torah that had only arrived two days earlier from Jerusalem and had been specially prepared and blessed by the Chief Rabbi of Israel.

  As he went painstakingly about his work, she smiled, proud of what he had achieved and was about to achieve.

  It was when she turned back to the seats, her list in her hand, that she saw the first intruder.

  He wore a black sweater and black trousers with a red sash around his waist. Over his head there was a balaclava. In his hand he held a wooden baseball bat that he swung menacingly against his thigh.

  'Levi!' she heard herself call, the sudden fear nearly choking the words. 'Levi!' she shouted louder.

  The rabbi swung round as more intruders burst in. Some carried baseball bats, others spray cans of paint. One man, out of sight of the Shamievs, hauled a large can of paraffin into the entrance.

  'What do you want?' asked the rabbi, running forward to protect his wife. She moved backwards until he was beside her and had put his arm round her shoulder. What is it?'

  The leaders of the group rushed forward to confront the Shamievs.

  'This is a House of God,' continued the rabbi. 'A House of God and....'

  'A House of Jews. A House of Filth,' said the first man who had entered the building.

  Then he swung his baseball bat and smashed Levi Shamiev across the skull, smashed him before he had a chance to defend himself, smashed him repeatedly until he was dead.

  As the others watched this deadly debacle, one of them laughed. 'Fucking Oven Dodgers,' he crowed as the deadly act continued in front of him. 'Jews in a house of filth.'

  Juliet Shamiev tried to scream, but a second intruder battered at her and destroyed her young life just as ruthlessly.

  Then the invaders painted red hammer and sickles across the walls, destroyed the arc and the Sefer Torah, threw down the petrol soaked rags they had carried in supermarket plastic bags and set fire to the synagogue.

  The whole incident took no longer than four minutes.

  When he was satisfied, the leader of the terrorists took off his balaclava. He was a young man, of medium height, blond haired with curls that ran down to his shoulder blades. He was thin faced and thin lipped, not a man given to emotion. Across his left cheek there was a raw looking scar. It was a knife wound he had received ten years earlier when, as a policeman, he had stumbled on four thugs robbing a store in East Berlin.

  He signaled the others to remove their masks. When they had done so, he calmly led them out of the building that they had just set fire to and disappeared before morning broke above the commuters flooding into Hamburg.

  When the fire brigade arrived fifteen minutes later, the synagogue was a burning inferno. But the firemen could still recognise the red hammer and sickles daubed on the outside walls.

  'Poor bastards,' said the fireman who found the charred bodies of the Shamievs inside the remains of the building. He didn't know his father had once been a member of the Hitler Youth movement at the end of the War.

  'Fucking Reds,' he said, turning to his compatriots. 'Why the fuck can't they let the Jews live in peace? Fucking bastard communists.'

  His colleague said little. He was from Leipzig and had come to work in the West immediately after the Wall came down. He had nothing against the Jews, but remembered his father's words. They were the cancer that had caused Germany to fall, the cause of the pain endeared by all Germans since 1945. He kept his silence. To him, the Jews had only got what they deserved.

  They've got Israel, he remembered his father saying. We don't need them back in Germany.

  Ch. 34

  Hilton Hotel

  New Orleans

  Louisiana.

  There were ninety American delegates to the Russians sixty. Gone were the days when the Soviets always sent along an equal number so that they could save face and be on a par with the West. Economics and a new order dictated otherwise.

  The scientists covered all aspect
s of space, ranging from metallurgy and fuel to dietary and public relations. They were the world's best and meeting for a common purpose, to divert the developments of war to the fruits of peace.

  They were attending a champagne reception, a social coming together before the hard work started. To most of the scientists this was the ultimate moment, the transfer of science from the use of death to the benefit of peace.

  Many of the Russians were excited to meet Von Braun. Eager to be close to the legend.

  Adam noticed the grey haired man wasn't present. He'd checked the lists and now knew him as Albert Goodenache and he was the Soviet expert on solid fuels. Trimmler was present, as ever with Trudi, and he stayed near Von Braun for most of the reception.

  'Ladies and Gentlemen,' said the smart silver haired American administrator who had already made a play for Billie when she came into the room. Adam had taken an instant dislike to this smoothie, saw him as one of the army of men, useless men, who administered the experts and often claimed the glory for themselves. 'Ladies and Gentlemen. Please,' he said into a microphone at the top end of the hall. He smiled, the winner's smile, and held his hands up for silence. Slowly, the sound in the room quietened as the scientists and their guests turned towards the Smoothie.

  'I am honoured to be here,' he said, then paused. Behind, the interpreter repeated his words in Russian into another microphone, the two of them carrying on like two dancers always out of step. 'Honoured and privileged. To be here, amongst some of the greatest scientists in the world... and I mean that, to be here at such an historic time, at the threshold of what will one day be seen as the greatest of man's scientific achievements. From now, we can work together on other things, on medicine...on the environment...on making sure that science gives all people, from the poorest to the most fortunate, the opportunity of a better life.....So welcome, my friends and colleagues, to this, the first Joint Space Venture between our two great countries. To put man further into space, to find out about the universe, and to do that together by pooling all our resources, all our talents, all our future...as one great scientific movement. We start work tomorrow, today is so that we can get to know each other... I won't say any more, except please raise your glasses and join me in toasting the Joint Space Venture, in our great opportunity, and our hopeful future. To you all....'