Read Patricia Potter for Free Online Page B

no longer able to protect her, and some might, well, question her loyalties.”
    The threat was no longer veiled, but open and ominous. Canaris looked at a file on his desk, and Eric knew it belonged to his family. “And your brother…how old is he now? Thirteen?”
    Eric felt a cold chill run down his back. Heinrich had been conceived and born after he had left home, an unexpected arrival and never very strong. Eric had met him on visits to his mother, always when he knew his father was absent. The boy had been thin and sensitive, and Eric knew he probably went through the same hell he had as a boy. He had once warned his father about ever hurting Heinrich, and he had been strong enough and openly ruthless enough to be heeded. Dear God, he wished he had been able to get the two of them, his mother and brother, out of Germany, but his mother wouldn’t leave her husband. When the older von Steimen was killed in France, Michael was at sea and it was too late.
    “Your answer, Commander?”
    Eric had nodded curtly. He’d had no choice.
    It was Michael Fielding who left Germany weeks later in a submarine and landed in Canada.
    A flock of birds flew up from the dunes in front of him, jerking him from his thoughts. He looked around toward the direction from which he had come. Meara O’Hara was watching him, her head tipped slightly as if she were analyzing something. Michael didn’t smile this time as he moved on.
    Dinner was every bit as exacting as Michael had thought it would be. He now fully understood the intensive training he had been required to take. He wondered, not for the first time, at the far reach of German intelligence. All his credentials could be verified: the shipping company with which the real Michael Fielding had been associated, the Chicago stockbroker who had been blackmailed into submitting Michael’s name as a guest on the island, his distinguished family background. In addition, some secretary in British headquarters had changed the records of Michael Fielding to show a medical discharge rather than missing in action.
    Michael had read dossiers on every member of the Jekyll Island Club and every likely guest who might be visiting during the Easter holidays, although their numbers had dwindled because of the war. There were other demands on their time.
    Still, though many members had declined to spend the entire winter season here, some had decided to return for the few weeks around Easter. They knew this might be their last opportunity, since rumors abounded that the club would soon close for the duration of the war.
    Connor, Michael knew, was among the shrewdest of the current membership of the Jekyll Island Club. Many were the sons and grandsons of the so-called robber barons, living off the fruits of their ancestors. But Connor was self-made, and had climbed elevated rungs of the economic and, eventually, social ladders despite his Irish ancestry. If Michael gained Connor’s trust, he should pass muster with anyone else.
    The inquisition started almost immediately over drinks and not very subtly.
    “How does a Canadian come to our small island?”
    Michael didn’t have to fake amusement at the description. Jekyll Island might be small in terms of geographical size but certainly not in scope. He had seldom before seen such understated yet well-designed luxury in one location, and he had traveled the world.
    The drinks were being served in the library with only Connor, his wife, Elizabeth, and himself present. Meara was no place to be seen, and again Michael felt a certain inexplicable loss.
    He lifted his glass of very excellent Scotch. “To more small islands,” he said wryly.
    Cal Connor’s expression relaxed slightly. “You like our little club, then?”
    Michael chuckled. “Golf, skeet shooting, bowling, swimming, tennis, yachting, sailing. I don’t think it’s exactly what my doctor had in mind by restful.”
    “What doctor?”
    “A surgeon at a military hospital in Canada where I