Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  “His name is Strickland.”

  “But Strickland has been here for some time!”

  “He’s still called ‘new.’ There’s a funny situation here, as Faulkner explains it. There was a complete consular outfit in Casablanca, under the jurisdiction of the American Legation in the international zone of Tangier. They were all career men, and did the regular things that consuls and their clerks do—issuing visas, putting stamps on bills of lading, telling unfortunate refugees why they can’t get into America. Then we made a deal with Vichy France to let French North Africa have a certain minimum of oil and other supplies. You know about that, no doubt?”

  “There’s bitter criticism of it at home, I found.”

  “People don’t understand; the agreement gives us the right to oversee the distribution of the stuff, and so the gates are wide open to our underground work. During the past year all kinds of mysterious new consular employees have been appearing, not taking orders from the old vice-consuls, but traveling over the country and doing things that scare their nominal superiors out of their wits. Faulkner says the old vice-consul begs him to keep quiet, to keep out of sight, not to let the Germans get any idea of what they are up to. He’s afraid the Germans will demand that the French order us out of the country. General Noguès sends for the chargé d’affaires at Tangier and complains, and how can a mere chargé stand up to a general with a front covering of medals?”

  “How does he?”

  “He promises, but can’t keep the promises, because the agents have their orders from higher up. Under the trade agreement they have a right to go anywhere in the country; and besides that, under the treaty between the French government and the Moors, the Sultan has a semi-independent status and he can let us in here if he wishes.”

  “I know about that, Jerry. But take my advice and don’t trust any of the Moors. They are for the side that is going to come out on top.”

  “Quite so; but recently it has begun to get through their heads that that might be us. I have been surprised at how the news seems to be spreading; everybody has heard that the Americans are coming, and soon. The Germans are bound to know it.”

  “Yes, Jerry, but they have no means of being sure. They know what rumors are, they have been in the business of spreading them wholesale years before the war actually started. They would take it for granted that if we meant to take Dakar, we would be doing everything in our power to spread the idea that we were coming to Casablanca and Algiers.”

  “On that theory it might be well for me to talk Casablanca out loud.”

  “Why not?” replied the P.A. “The more openly they hear it talked, the more certain they will be that the truth must be something different.”

  XI

  Lanny spent the next three days with Hajek, looking at mosaics, of which, to tell the truth, he had become rather tired. Now and then he would excuse himself—he had told the Mohammedan scholar that he had a lady friend, and this gave him the right to be secretive. The “lady” wore trousers, American fashion, and Lanny would go to her room, making sure that he was not being followed, and Jerry Pendleton would lock the door and tell him in whispers the latest developments in their conspiracy. The call for the codebooks had been sent and acknowledged, and Mr. Strickland, the “new” vice-consul, would get these by air pouch. Meantime the young archeologist had retired to his “doghouse,” where Jerry saw him only by night, and after the most elaborate precautions. The story of his disgrace was all over the bazaars. Hajek brought it to Lanny, and that was one of the tests.

  Lanny played the role of incredulity, and the dark brown man assured him solemnly that “all Morocco” knew it. Then Hajek wanted to know if there were really many Americans who hated the Jews; the Moors had got along very well with the large Jewish population along the North African coast, and only now, under the steady pressure of Nazi propaganda, were beginning to realize that the Jews were much better traders than the Moors, and had perhaps been accumulating more than their share of money, land, and business. Lanny said, as he had said a thousand times during his secret career: “Such matters do not concern me. I am interested in art values, which are not subject to the influence of wars and political changes.”

  Lanny’s guess that the Germans would not overlook the bait which Faulkner had set before them proved to be correct. First to come to the disgraced archeologist was an Austrian refugee artist who had struck up an acquaintance with him some time ago. Now he came as to a friend in misfortune, and it speedily developed that he wasn’t a refugee at all, that was camouflage. He fished around to find out how bitter Herr Faulkner was, and Herr Faulkner was as bitter as gall. Before they parted he had made an offer to relieve the American’s financial distress, and next day he brought a bull-necked and shaven-headed Prussian with him to the “doghouse,” obviously so that an important Nazi might sound out the American renegade and judge what he was worth. Faulkner told some of the secrets of the consulate, and his offer to furnish one of the codebooks, now being used, for the sum of fifty thousand francs, less than five hundred dollars, certainly seemed moderate.

  The books had come promptly, and Jerry brought Lanny a list of messages which were to be sent to Washington in this stolen code. Jerry, Faulkner, and the vice-consul had worked out the messages, and some were true and some false. For example, they would say that the freighter Lucy J which had just sailed for Halifax was in reality bound for Sydney; that wasn’t so, but the Germans wouldn’t have any way of knowing it for a couple of weeks. On the other hand, the statement that the consulate was spending a great deal of money and must have more at once was true, and must have been known to the enemy without any code. The statement that the agent Faulkner had been discharged for insubordination and indiscreet talk, and that he was now being closely watched to find out the reason for his meeting with Germans, would afford the Germans some amusement, and they would warn Faulkner and thus provide a check on the code. Every word of these messages had to be studied carefully, and every item of information given to the enemy had to be weighed for its cost as against the greater gain hoped to be collected.

  There was a lot in the messages about Operation Cornet (the name had had to be changed because there was no “Cornucopia” in the code book). The town was full of rumors about Operation Cornet, the Germans were doing their best to find out about Operation Cornet and had tried to get consulate clerks in their pay—and this was all true. The consulate begged to be informed of the date of Operation Cornet at the earliest possible moment. A military traveler recently returned from the site of Operation Cornet expressed the opinion that it would cost a full division in casualties, and that it could not be undertaken with fewer than four divisions; and so on.

  XII

  The conspiracy was going smoothly, and Lanny thought that the farther away from it he was, the better. The longer he stayed in Casablanca, now a spy center almost as active as Lisbon, the more he would draw attention to himself and cause the Germans to wonder if he had anything to do with this and that. So he hired the same charcoal-powered car as before, and had himself and his Hajek driven to Marrakech. Delightful weather there, with sunshine rarely ceasing, and the immensely high Atlas Mountains making a snow-white background to brick-red mosques and marabouts. Plenty of mosaics, fountains, and doorways to be looked at, and therefore plenty of camouflage for a secret agent.

  Lanny found a room at the elegant Hotel Mamounia, on the same floor with his family. He met Parsifal’s Mohammedan friends, and listened while Parsifal explained at length that their religion was another form of the Semitic revelation, strictly monotheistic and fundamentally spiritual; it had fallen victim to various forms of corruption, just as Judaism and Christianity had done, but in its pristine form it was worthy of respect. From this discourse Lanny would go to drink tea—real tea, brought in from Tangier—and chat with some of Beauty’s ultra-smart friends. There were wealthy refugees from many parts of Europe, and regardless of their political views they were polite to one another. T
he war would be over some day, and then they would play together again and consider that they were helping to rebuild civilization. This suited Lanny’s role, to be everybody’s friend, provided that it was some person of the “right” sort.

  They tried not to talk about the war, but of course that was the subject uppermost in everyone’s mind. There were people who liked to pose as being on the “inside,” and who could not resist the desire to show their superiority. This appeared to be especially true of “the sex,” and so, as Laurel had said in New York, when the wives knew it, the enemy knew it soon. The Hotel Mamounia had become a spy center, just as were the souks, and, in Casablanca, the walled restricted quarter outside the city. It was one world, for the rich had servants, and these knew what the ladies were doing; they reported it in the underworld, and brought back to their mistresses the gossip of the underworld, and the gossip about other ladies.

  So Lanny in Marrakech was interested to learn that in Casablanca one of the American secret agents had been fired because he had been discovered to be in secret league with the Germans. Some said that he had had a wireless set and had been reporting the sailing of Allied vessels; others said that he had been shot, and others that he had been deported to the States. In fact, you could hear almost anything about him, including the fact that he was drunk most of the time. The idea of corruption among the Americans pleased the Germans, because it fitted in with what they had been taught about democracy. What interested Lanny especially was to hear fashionable people, including Americans, whispering to one another that the obvious invasion place was Casablanca, and that it was Dakar, and then Tunis, and then the Vardar valley.

  Beauty Budd, wealthy widow of a famous French painter, had been a social success in Berlin during the twenties; and now came her urbane and cultured son, who had traveled all over Germany since childhood and knew “everybody.” Among the Germans here were half a dozen of the old kind, who had been good Europeans in the past and who looked forward to the return of those more tolerant and agreeable days. They couldn’t do anything about it, but they would talk about it in low tones when they were in the right company. Some of them would tell you that they had come to French Morocco because it was a way to get as far as possible from the disagreeable Nazis.

  XIII

  The most curious experience to Lanny was his meeting with Herr Theodor Auer, the German political agent in Morocco. Herr Auer was an important person in his country’s diplomatic world, and also in its industrial world, being the fortunate heir of the great Auer Chemical Works in Cologne. In North Africa he had under his command a couple of hundred Reichswehr men, many in uniform. It was their business to make sure that the French Army was properly disarmed and stayed that way; also, of course, they had an elaborate spy system, watching everybody and everything that might threaten German power. Lanny met a young officer of the very stiff and korrekt sort at one of the tea parties in the hotel, an officer who reminded him of General Emil Meissner as he had been in the old days. He mentioned this, and Leutnant Schindler was pleased. He invited Lanny to meet the Chief, and Lanny said he was honored, and was taken upstairs to the great man’s suite.

  Red-faced and blond-haired, Herr Theodor Auer looked like an Englishman. Lanny had been told that he was one of those upper-class Germans who, before the war, and still more in the days of Kaiser Wilhelm II, had aped the British aristocracy and aspired to an alliance with them. Unfortunately King Edward VII hadn’t liked his German nephew, who was jealous of him, so there had been a French alliance instead. The greatest war in the world’s history up to that time had been partly due to the fact that two chartered libertines with enormously inflated egos had been unwilling to yield precedence to each other.

  Here was the son of a great chemical magnate, also with an inflated ego; and like so many of the Kaiser’s intimates, he was a homosexual. For some reason he was choosing to be cordial to the American art expert, son of a man who was making deadly weapons to be used against Herr Auer’s fellow countrymen. Lanny was invited to have a drink; and immediately afterward Herr Schindler pleaded that he had an urgent engagement and discreetly disappeared. Lanny wondered if this had been fixed up, and presently he was sure that it had.

  The German began asking questions about where Herr Budd had been in the Fatherland, and whom he had met. So Herr Budd knew Kurt Meissner, the great Komponist, and his older brother, General Emil Meissner! A wise and really competent professional soldier, and it was Germany’s tragedy that the advice of such men had not been taken during this war, and even before it, by keeping out of the war. And Herr Budd knew Hilde, Fürstin Donnerstein! She was an old friend of the Auer family. The tragic death of her son at the hands of Russian partisans had broken her heart and she was said to be in poor health now. But what a delightful companion, so full of wit and charm in the old days! And Graf Stubendorf—he had been wounded two or three times; Auer had not seen him for years, but of old they had been fellow members of the Herrenklub and the Kaiserliche Automobil Klub. Had Lanny visited the Schloss? Lanny said yes indeed, many times, beginning when he was a small boy. That was when he had learned to love Germany; he had gone there one Christmas after another, and two dreadful wars between Germany and France, which had been his home, had cast a black shadow over most of his life.

  That was the right sort of talk, and presently Herr Auer asked to be allowed to speak in friendly confidence. When Lanny said that he might, he proceeded to explain that he was no Nazi and never had been, but what could a German diplomat and businessman have done when that storm of madness swept over the Fatherland? Now he was in a devilish position, because he was supposed to direct this Armistice Commission, but he was not a free agent; the Nazis, distrusting him, had an SS agent watching his every move and the moves of all his subordinates, many of whom felt as he did and not as the Nazis. Herr Budd could be assured that there were many Germans of the better class, men of culture and humanity, who did not approve the path their country had taken and were anxious to save it from the ruin which was now falling upon it out of the skies.

  XIV

  The son of Budd-Erling had to be extremely careful in meeting such an approach as this, for he had no means of knowing whether the speeches were genuine or just a subtle scheme to trap an enemy agent. Lanny said that as a lover of art he hated all war and did his best to keep aloof from it. This satisfied the talkative German, and he went on to explain that he had become sure the Americans were coming to North Africa, and what he wanted was to unbosom himself to some reputable citizen of that country, who would testify to the fact that he, Herr Auer, was no Nazi, but a friend of law and order in Europe. This friend even hinted that when the Germans here fell captive to the American Army, their head would like to be recognized as a supporter and given his passports so that he could go to America to live the rest of his days in peace. He knew that Herr Budd’s father, an industrialist like himself and a man of influence, would understand such a situation; and so on.

  Lanny explained with the utmost tact that his father had no influence, having been a vehement political opponent of the Administration. As for Lanny himself, he had never had anything to do with politics, because his clients belonged to various nations and schools of thought. “Of course in the event you anticipate, I’ll be glad to do anything in my power. I have cherished all my German friends, and I hope to number you among them, and you may be sure that what you have revealed to me will never be mentioned except as you may request it.”

  They parted with mutual protestations of esteem. But, as fate willed it, they never laid eyes on each other again. When the Americans took Morocco General Noguès smuggled most of the Armistice Commission into Spanish Morocco, and Herr Auer was flown to Berlin. Lanny heard a grim story of how the Nazis put him on trial for incompetence and treason as well. They found him guilty, and took him out into the courtyard of the building, removed his coat, tied his hands behind him, and made him kneel down and place his head on a large wooden block. A sturdy Henker, dressed in
ceremonial black swallow-tailed coat and top hat, took a large broad-bladed double-bit ax, and with one swift stroke chopped off that well-shaped head with the rosy cheeks and the crown of properly barbered blond hair. This spoiled forever Herr Auer’s idea of escaping to the peace and quiet of the Western world; but it also spared him many worries which the fates were preparing for his countrymen during the next decade and perhaps longer.

  15

  Rattling Good History

  I

  Lanny received a letter from Jerry, saying: “I have come upon an especially fine old mosaic, which you ought to see as soon as convenient.” This was code, and Lanny packed his few belongings and had himself transported back to Casablanca. His Moor followed, since the French did not permit their traveling together. Lanny made a rendezvous with his “lady friend,” and was informed that the plot was succeeding well. Items of information had been deliberately planted, and these had been mentioned by the German who was dealing with Faulkner. Jerry said: “They are all hopped up over the mystery of Operation Cornet, and they have offered Faulkner two hundred and fifty thousand francs if he will find out about it.”

  “Well,” said Lanny, “let him tell them that he has got it and that the price is five hundred thousand. They will appreciate it more.”

  “That part is all right; but I don’t see how we can go ahead without having some idea as to the date of the invasion. The thing is apt to go stale; the Germans will become suspicious, they may find ways to check on the story, and anyhow they’ll no longer feel sure. Can you imagine a pack of U-boats lying off Dakar for a month?”

  To this Lanny could only reply: “All I have been told is that the move will come this year.” It was then mid-October.

  “I have been listening to some of the fishermen and others who know this coast,” added his friend. “They say that the swells from the Atlantic make it impossible to land most of the time. They say it would be only by a fluke that we could have several days of good weather, and that after the middle of November it would be impossible. Nobody but a bunch of amateurs would try it.”