From the glamorous world of D.C. Intelligence to the sultry shores of the Straits of Florida, The Last Twelve Miles is based on the true story of two women masterminds trying to outwit each other in a dangerous and fascinating high stakes game.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Erika Robuck’s The Last Twelve Miles, which is out June 4th 2024.
Two real, brilliant women on opposite sides of the law, in a deadly game of cat and mouse…
1926. Washington, D.C.
The Coast Guard is losing the Prohibition Rum War, but they have a new, secret weapon to crack smuggler codes, intercept traffic, and destroy the rum trade one skiff at a time. That secret weapon is a 5’2″ mastermind in heels, who also happens to be a wife and mother: Mrs. Elizebeth Smith Friedman, one half of the husband-and-wife pair who invented cryptanalysis.
Bahamas
Cleo Lythogoe, The Bahama Queen, announces her retirement while regaling the thugs at the bar with tales of murder and mayhem on the high seas. Marie Waite, listening in, knows an opportunity when she hears it, and she wants the crown for herself so badly she can taste it. So begins Marie’s plan to rise as rumrunner royalty long enough to get her family in the black. But the more sophisticated her operation grows, the more she appears on the radar of the feds.
Meanwhile, Elizebeth is the only codebreaker battling scores of smugglers. Despite the strain of solving thousands of intercepted messages, traveling the country, and testifying in court, Elizabeth’s work becomes personal—especially when she discovers the identity of her premier adversary is the notorious Marie Waite.
Dear Reader,
While on book tours for my novels featuring the true stories of women in intelligence and resistance in World War II—The Invisible Woman and Sisters of Night and Fog—three separate people at three separate places told me I had to write a novel about American codebreaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman. I take those kinds of signs seriously.
Through research, I soon became enthralled with the stories of Elizebeth and her husband, William, whose careers spanned both world wars and beyond and helped lay a foundation for modern intelligence, particularly in the fields of cryptanalysis and signals intelligence (SIGINT). However, I wanted an emotional break from writing about WWII, and I needed a little fun. So, it was Elizebeth and her role in Prohibition, fighting the Rum War, that began to consume me, especially in some of the settings that have captured my imagination in the past, like Key West.
I started following leads and connecting dots to read about the rumrunners Elizebeth helped capture but none of the “bad guys” fascinated me. I sat up in my chair when I read about a female Axis spy Elizebeth helped snag during WWII, but I didn’t want to write about that time. I began to search for a female rumrunner—a woman of wits and daring, and maybe even a sociopath, for extra flair.
Reader, I found her.
After the joy of discovering my antagonist came another struggle. Though I am not a biographer, I try to be as faithful to history as possible, but because of the nature of the work of both women, the rumrunner, wisely, did not leave much of a paper trail, and not only are there some of Elizebeth’s files that will never be declassified, but there also are conflicting timelines in limited sources for both women. Rumors about the rumrunner range from small squabbles over whether her eyes are brown or blue to large differences in parental ancestry—from France, to Belgium, to Spain. The only thing one can be sure about is she enjoyed the speculation and attention. I do not typically enjoy working from speculation, but in spite of my frustration, I knew I had to start writing.
The words came fast. I began to feel the women urging me to have fun, to remember I write historical fiction. Elizebeth had majored in English, loved Shakespeare, and always wanted to write a book. The rumrunner loved notoriety, performance, and theater. I felt the permission from each woman to use what I knew and to run with what I didn’t. So that’s what I did.
One note for cryptanalysts or aficionados of the science: I often use the term codebreaking to cover all manner of decipherment, decoding, and associated problem-solving. I realize this is not always technically correct, but I chose to do so not only because my intellect does not allow me to grasp the intricacies of the nuances of cryptanalysis, but also for simplicity of language and story.
When you finish reading, I hope you’ll do your own research to decide if you agree with the ways I found to fill in the missing spaces of plot and character for these women. If I misread the feeling of their blessings, I apologize. Either way, I thank these two forces of nature for the use of their good names in real and possibly fictional ways to tell this story of desire, envy, the need for control, and the incredible strength and power of women that, when misused, can cause a fair amount of chaos.
Cheers,
Erika Robuck
Time Period
The Roaring Twenties
aka
The Mad Decade
aka
The Prohibition Era
aka
The Noble Experiment
One
Marquesas Keys
Elizebeth
No matter how many jokes Elizebeth cracks, she can’t make the coastguardsmen on patrol relax. Especially now that they’ve got the suspect’s three-masted schooner in their sights.
“Special Agent Friedman, I beg you to go belowdecks,” says Commander Jack Wilson. “This could get dangerous.”
Jack is a gentle giant of a man, who’s probably not much older than Elizebeth’s thirty-four years but weathered far beyond. They’re both a decade older than any of the crew onboard this brand-new seventy-five-foot patrol boat—CG-249—and Elizebeth is the only female in sight, a reality that she lives daily in her profession. Jack has been fretting all morning about the fact that he’s responsible for her safety, especially since their first stop involved the empty, blood-splattered boat they found adrift and are now towing.
Jack would have a stroke if he knew it wasn’t only me that he had to worry about, she thinks, touching her stomach.
“If anything happens,” she says, “I promise you won’t be held accountable. I signed a waiver. Besides, they wouldn’t dare shoot a lady. Well, probably not, with so many witnesses.”
The commander and his crew look at Elizebeth with unmasked horror. Until she arrived at base at sunrise, the coastguardsmen of Sector Key West hadn’t known Special Agent Friedman—the one who solved a two-year backlog of intercepted messages in just three months, bringing an increase in the coast guard budget, allowing for shiny new boats like the one they’re on—was a she. Her husband, William, would have laughed aloud to have seen their faces. Their bulging eyes and gaping mouths made them appear like a school of grouper on ice.
In addition to the shock of her womanhood, Elizebeth also showed up wearing linen trousers and a sleeveless white top, an outfit a Key West shop owner assured her was all the rage in women’s nautical fashion. It has proven to be an unfortunate distraction. The coastguardsmen look from her bare arms to her trousers to each other in wonderment—as if she’s a rare new marine species—when they think she’s not paying attention.
I always pay attention, Elizebeth thinks.
“The rummy in charge could very well be a lady,” says Jack, “and let me assure you, if it’s one of the so-called ladies who run these operations, she has no conscience about whom she shoots.”
Elizebeth motions to Boatswain Harvey Parry—the lanky fellow with big lips, whom the others call “Two-Gun”—for his field glasses. She lifts them to her eyes, and when she sees the vessel’s name, passes back the glasses.
“This schooner does not have a lady onboard,” Elizebeth says. “It’s the Betty, captained by Robert Peltz, a so-called gentleman rumrunner. Based in Nassau, he has no record of violence, only extreme craftiness. It will be interesting to see why he’s chosen to anchor within American waters, but no doubt he’ll have a good explanation, and if we’re in luck, the cargo that will land him in prison. I have good intelligence that his live well doesn’t hold only bait.”
Jack’s great shoulders slump. Beaten, he commands the helmsman to steer closer and a boatswain to raise the pendant and the ensign.
Elizebeth inhales a deep breath of briny air. She can’t believe this is her life.
The youngest child of nine, she endured half a lifetime of midwestern winters, lost her beloved mother too young, and had to work jobs she hated to pay back her father’s loan for her college tuition at six percent interest because he didn’t think women had any business in higher learning. Years ago, if she was asked if she could ever imagine she and her husband would be among the most highly sought-after minds of American military intelligence, traveling on work trips to places like this, Elizebeth would have laughed.
I have it all, she thinks.
Elizebeth is too busy to examine the reasons why her stomach constantly rumbles, why her sleep is so fitful, and why she often finds herself holding her breath. The perpetual shadow of unease is only quelled when she’s codebreaking. At work, when she immerses herself in the letters and numbers, her mind takes an elevator that lifts her above her daily cares. Coming down from that headspace into wifehood and motherhood, however, is another story. It isn’t a gradual ride, but a drop, like the plunge of a coast guard patrol boat on rough waves.
A flare shoots high, drawing her out of her mind. The crew watches, tense, but no one can be seen onboard the Betty. They increase their speed, and as the patrol boat slips in the crosscurrents, Elizebeth loses her footing and grasps the railing for balance. An easterly wind picks up, blowing strands of her hair in her eyes. If only she remembered to buy new sunglasses. Her two-year-old daughter, Barbara, snapped Elizebeth’s while she was packing for the trip. Elizebeth leans forward, scanning the scene before her, straining to catch a glimpse of Peltz.
Robert Peltz came on Elizebeth’s radar last month. A coast guard patrol intercepted a group of messages in alphabetic codes from Nassau via radio. The coastguardsmen at Sector Key West and Base Six, in Fort Lauderdale, couldn’t make heads or tails of them, so the messages were sent to Elizebeth, in Washington, DC. At first run, the letter groupings didn’t point to any known codebooks, like Bentley’s, so Elizebeth thought they might represent a book cipher, where a common text was agreed upon between supplier and runner.
Working the marks methodically, hour after hour, pencil on graph paper, Elizebeth found the telltale letter pairings that gradually revealed words, including Nassau and Friday, which, while possibly referring to a day of the week, also—because of her English degree—called to mind Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday. Further, she intuited this meant a smuggler had a Black man as a mate, likely Bahamian. Searching Robinson Crusoe as the codebook quickly brought success. As she broke the code to find the pages, lines, and positions of words, more started to come.
Peltz, Betty, Turtles.
Elizebeth’s knowledge of the patrol region and fluency in the Spanish language brought to mind the translation of turtles—tortugas—which indicated the Dry Tortugas, which were close by. The other word of note was Lunar, but since it didn’t come with any comment on the phase of the moon, she would consider it extraneous information until it wasn’t. A call to the American Consul in Nassau revealed the date the Betty was registered at harbor and when she left. The ship manifest listed fish—canned and fresh—but omitted what was likely under the fish and the ice.
There can be no high like codebreaking, Elizebeth thinks.
This kind of high lasts and requires no loss of self and no inebriation. It’s better than all the whisky they’re about to confiscate. Better than the opium on the West Coast freighters she’s intercepted. It’s the thrill of hunting, of catching one’s prey—of power—and she will never tire of it.
Something winks in the sun. A hastily thrown sailcloth fails to fully conceal the submachine gun bolted to the bow of the Betty. Elizebeth nudges Jack and motions with her head. At his word, Harvey “Two-Gun” and the portside crew point their weapons at the schooner. Elizebeth swallows. She longs for a glass of water, but now’s not the time to ask.
“Fire a shot across the stern,” says Jack to Harvey, “but do not hit the vessel.”
Harvey’s frown reveals his disappointment, but he obeys. The blast causes hysteria among the gulls bobbing on the surface of the water, and Elizebeth feels it in every cell of her body. A moment later, there’s another sound, like the prolongation of a gull’s cry. Hearing it causes the hair on Elizebeth’s neck to rise, and her hand to move to her stomach.
“Is that…?” she asks.
The Betty comes to life. There’s a stirring from inside the cabin, and a man dressed in white, from his hat to his boat shoes, strides out and throws up his arms. His shouts, alternating with what is now clearly a baby’s cry, reach them on the wind gusts.
Jack’s shirt is soaked through. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and tells his men to stand down.
Though the coast guard, and all who enforce Prohibition, are technically the “good guys,” public opinion in the Rum War runs against them. Eleven million gallons of illegal liquor a year have created a booming smuggling economy, and the majority of Americans resent the liquor laws and sympathize with the rumrunners over the feds. The press feeds the division, characterizing smugglers as Robin Hood figures.
If they only understood the depths of the depravity of the illegal booze industry, Elizebeth often thinks, they’d think twice about their contributions to it.
As someone who’s always been able to take or leave alcohol, Elizebeth doesn’t find the country going dry to be a trial. She believes in the rule of law, believes that criminals should not profit at the country’s loss, and has an insider’s view into the horrors of the culture of violence that dominates smuggling. Women and children—particularly the poor—suffer the worst from it. Those who scoff at the law for a night of fun refuse to allow themselves to see the dark underbelly of the industry, and the papers don’t want to run those stories, especially when it comes to mobsters, who think nothing of offing journalists.
Popular or not, Elizebeth and the agencies fighting the Rum War have pledged to uphold the law, but that doesn’t make bad publicity easy to stomach. If the newspapers get wind of coastguardsmen firing on a schooner with a baby onboard, there will be no end to the trouble.
Elizebeth grips the railing. The metallic smell of her sweating hands on the steel bar puts an unpleasant tang in the air, and she wonders if the sudden rise of nausea is more from pregnancy, seasickness, or shame. She was so sure of herself about the boat and its function, and so intent on showing these men that she was capable. If she’s wrong about the purpose of the schooner, she will not only embarrass herself, but also feed the inherent prejudice against her, as a woman in a field populated almost exclusively by men. Not to mention putting a baby—or two, she thinks—in harm’s way.
No. Baby or not, she’s certain: Peltz is a criminal. He might also be a father, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s breaking the law. She’ll be angry with herself if she missed a detail that should have alerted her to a baby onboard, but until then, she’ll only be angry with Peltz.
A Black man emerges from the Betty’s cabin, tips his wide-brimmed straw hat at them, and hurries to raise a white flag. Once Peltz sees the lowered guns, he dips down and picks up the squalling infant, who has crawled out of the cabin door. He lifts her and plants a kiss on her fat cheek. Her halo of blonde ringlets is the same color as little Barbara’s, and the girl wears only a tiny pair of pink gingham breeches, dirty at the knees. When she points at the cannons, Peltz says, “Boom! Boom!” until she giggles. The laugh triggers a physical ache in Elizebeth to hold Barbara, followed by an impulse to slap this man who’s raising his baby like a pirate.
“Betty, ahoy!” calls Jack.
A boatswain throws Peltz’s mate a line, and he catches it and pulls them in with ease, slipping bumpers between the boats so they don’t smash against each other in the currents.
When the tanned, tall Peltz notices Elizebeth, she can see his surprise and pleasure. He flashes a white-toothed grin that she’s mortified to realize draws forth a blush, though he could never tell. Her skin was already flaming red from the sun.
“Look, Betty,” Peltz says. “A lady, on a coast guard patrol boat. What a novelty.”
Betty, Elizebeth thinks. A boat name and a baby name.
“See, daughter,” Peltz continues. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”
Peltz’s sentiment and his good looks are an irresistible package but Elizebeth can’t allow herself to be charmed.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” she asks.
Jack whips his head around to look at Elizebeth as if she’s gone mad.
“Only if you promise to leave your weapons behind,” says Peltz, with a wink.
My only weapon is my brain, and that’s coming with me, she thinks.
To Peltz’s amusement, and the coastguardsmen’s continued astonishment, Elizebeth makes a show of emptying the pockets of her trousers. A moment later, Peltz passes Betty to his mate and holds out his hand as if expecting Elizebeth to climb over, like a capuchin monkey, from one railing to another.
“I can’t advise this,” says Jack, intercepting. “It’s not protocol.”
Elizebeth can see that Jack is flailing and feels as if he has lost control of his ship. She doesn’t want to undermine his authority in front of his subordinates.
Lord knows, I’ve felt the sting of that, she thinks.
“I agree,” says Elizebeth. “But I want to get my hands on that sweet baby, and I can’t do it from over here.”
She looks up at Jack and widens her eyes, hoping to convey to him she can help them gather intelligence, which is, after all, why she’s along for the ride. When he sighs, she knows he’s going to let her. He’s not a fighter. She can see that Jack went into the coast guard to rescue people, not enforce smuggling laws.
Though that enforcement, in many cases, she thinks, is arguably a kind of rescue.
“At least board safely,” Jack says.
Elizebeth acquiesces, allowing him to escort her to the stern, where a side door opens that allows her to step down onto the Betty, rather than scamper from one railing to another. Peltz is there, hand out, and she takes it, noting his hand is even sweatier than hers, and that his blue eyes shift away when she looks up into them at close range. He’s a head taller than she is, and so ripe she has to hold her breath. Her eyes sweep the decks, noting an empty crate on its side, a line of fishing poles with rusty reels, and a tangle of dry-rotted lines. There’s a border of grime on the boat’s edge, and several empty sardine tins in a bucket, revealing this ship is not shipshape.
Concern for the child’s welfare rises, but when Elizebeth sees Betty’s easy attachment to both her father and the mate, and how they soften and smile when the sunbeams of her attention hit them, Elizebeth is reassured. Though in need of a bath, the baby is clearly happy and well fed, and her skin is tanned, but not burned.
Peltz takes Betty from his mate, and she gazes at Elizebeth with frank curiosity. Elizebeth smiles and holds out her arms, which Betty looks at for a moment before turning to her father with a question in her eyes. When he nods, Betty consents, and Elizebeth’s arms are filled with the very heavy infant.
“How old is Betty?” asks Elizebeth.
“Eleven months, but she’s about to outweigh me,” Peltz says.
“She looks wonderful.”
“It’s a good life on the sea,” he says. “Are you a mother?”
Elizebeth doesn’t answer. She tries never to give personal information. Increasingly, Elizebeth needs a security detail when appearing as an expert at trials. There are many criminals who would love to “take her for a ride.”
“Pardon my curiosity,” she says, “but is Betty’s mother onboard?”
Elizebeth notes the tightening of Peltz’s jaw.
“No, she prefers dry land,” he says. “Thousands of miles away.”
Elizebeth burns to ask more, but senses that subject is closed. Instead, she walks the baby around the deck, pointing at objects and seeing if Betty can name them. The child parrots Elizebeth and soon points out things on her own for Elizebeth to mimic. The baby is so heavy that Elizebeth has to put her down and hold her hands to walk her.
“Po’,” the baby says, passing a fishing pole.
“Pole,” says Elizebeth. She steers the baby toward the live well, while pretending to allow her to lead.
“Wa wa,” the baby says, stomping in the puddle by the well’s hatch.
“Water,” says Elizebeth.
Suddenly, looking in the well, Elizebeth hopes there’s no illegal contraband on this boat. It will bring her no joy to see a father hauled into jail. She no longer feels like a happy hunter, no longer cares about proving herself to these coastguardsmen. She realizes that going in the field makes her targets human, which—while valuable from an intelligence-gathering standpoint—makes them sympathetic.
“Eith,” says Betty, with a lisp.
“Ice,” says Elizebeth.
“Sish,” says Betty as they look down at fish covered in ice.
“Fish,” says Elizebeth, her heartbeat quickening.
Peltz walks over and scoops up Betty, taking her to the railing.
He’s trying to divert me.
“Pelicans,” he says, pointing at the flock bobbing in the current.
“Pecansth,” says Betty.
They laugh at her pronunciation, releasing the tension.
From the patrol boat, Jack has been moving parallel to Elizebeth the entire time, and now clears his throat.
“As you are within the twelve-mile zone,” Jack says. “We are within our rights to board and search. We prefer to do so peacefully.”
The United States has signed treaties with dozens of countries recognizing their authority over an increased area in offshore waters from three to twelve miles. This has made it harder for rumrunners to race the last twelve miles of their journeys from the islands and the floating offshore liquor warehouses—known as Rum Row—to the coasts. However, the change has also made it harder for the coast guard, whose patrol area has expanded exponentially.
“A squall put us off course,” says Peltz. “We thought we’d camp here before we got back to fishing. You’re welcome onboard. If you want to waste your time.”
Jack nods at Harvey, who leads the crew as they climb onboard. Because of Peltz’s cooperation, the coastguardsmen must search more cleanly than if they had been opposed, allowing the mate to open doors and hatches instead of breaking them down themselves. Elizebeth can see Harvey’s unrestrained disappointment. Stiff and shifty-eyed, he looks like a coil about to pop. Jack, however, looks more at ease, glad not to have a contentious captain or a battle on their hands, only an interesting story to take home to the bars of Key West.
So far.
“Ba ba,” says Betty, pointing to an empty bottle.
“Bottle,” says Elizebeth.
She leans down to pick up the empty, label-free bottle. Making eye contact with Peltz, she brings the bottle to her nose and inhales at the opening. It smells only of the sea.
“You must be a reporter,” Peltz says.
Elizebeth passes the bottle to him. He sits baby Betty down and gives her the bottle, where she proceeds to spin it around on the wooden decking.
“She keeps us honest,” says Peltz. “No curse words when Betty’s onboard. Which is always.”
He gives Elizebeth a pointed look before turning his attention to the coastguardsmen, who inspect the live well.
Please, don’t let there be any booze in there, she thinks.
Elizebeth moves away from Peltz, continuing to scan the ship, ending up at the helm. There’s a radio in the dash, and a map is laid out on the stand behind the steering wheel. Her eyes dart left and right, up and down. She can feel the words on the map of the Marquesas Keys impressing themselves in her mind, sliding into one of the endless file cabinets contained there.
Mangrove, Mooney, Gull, Key, Harbor, Shoal.
She gets a thrill when she sees the spine of a book peeking out from under a map.
Robinson Crusoe.
Feeling Peltz’s eyes on her, she walks over to the starboard side, which faces the uninhabited island, and notes the lowered straps, grazing the waves, where a dory is meant to hang. She realizes there have to be more than two people onboard to man a schooner this size. As if conjured, the small craft emerges from the mangroves, six onboard, on course for the Betty. The coastguardsmen haven’t noticed. They’re questioning the mate about the submachine gun.
Is the dory dropping off or picking up? she thinks.
Peltz joins her at the railing.
“I’m all Betty’s got,” he says.
Elizebeth continues to watch the dory, trying to make out its cargo, and opens the Peltz file in her brain. There has not yet been any tie between Peltz and a larger crime syndicate, so he’s likely operating alone, both in his business and in his family. He has indicated that Betty’s mother has abandoned them both.
Betty crawls over to Peltz. He lifts her, pressing his nose into the baby’s cheek.
Elizebeth looks back at Harvey and the men, who still haven’t noticed the dory. Peltz’s crew, however, has noticed them and works to row back into the mangroves. They’re lucky the wind, waves, and gulls are so lively. The noise hides the splashing sounds of their oars on the sea. They’re soon swallowed by the vegetation. Peltz exhales.
“Thank you,” he says.
For a moment, Elizebeth doesn’t respond. She doesn’t feel good about what she’s done. Or rather, not done. She thinks she shouldn’t have come out on patrol. It made the waters too murky, too gray. She prefers black and white. Pencil and paper. She can’t wait to get back to her desk in her home library, and back to her husband and baby.
“I’m trying to be a better father,” Peltz says. “Every day. For Betty.”
The coastguardsmen complete their search and return to their patrol boat. Jack whistles and motions for Elizebeth to join them. Before she goes, she turns to Peltz.
“I hope so,” she says. “Next time, we won’t turn a blind eye.”
“We?” he asks. “I thought you were a reporter.”
“You said that. I didn’t.”
