The Torch of Tangier

by Aileen G. Baron

  “I’d better get going to Casa,” he said, his face flushed.

  “Damn right you’d better.”

  Blufield stood at attention, saluted, and left the room. Adam maneuvered the dolly into the office and rested it against the wall.

  “Weren’t you a little harsh?” Lily asked. “He’s just a kid, fresh out of school. He said he won’t do it again.”

  “That’s the point. They’re all fresh out of school. And if there’s a mistake on the beach at Casablanca, they won’t have a second chance. They won’t do anything again.”

  He hoisted one of the boxes onto Lily’s desk. “Let’s get to work.”

  Lily told Adam about Yuste’s order while they sifted through Drury’s papers.

  She held a pad covered with Drury’s familiar scribble. “I miss him. Even the gruff sound of his voice, making demands, barking orders.”

  “He had panache, mostly flamboyant.” Adam opened another box and stacked the contents on Drury’s desk. “In his own way, he was brave, and brilliant, a little quixotic.” He looked over at Lily. “Where will you go?”

  “Back to the States, maybe.”

  “You can’t cross the North Atlantic. It’s swarming with U-boats.”

  “Other people are crossing. A whole invasion force.”

  “That’s different. They’re soldiers.”

  “Soldiers. Expendable, isn’t that what they call it?”

  Expendable—like Rafi. She thought of him crossing the minefield, caught in the crossfire.

  That last second, did he know?

  “They’re soldiers,” Adam repeated.

  “And I’m not? It’s a case of women and children first? How chivalrous!”

  “You could look at it that way. I like to think of it as an adaptive strategy necessary for the survival of the species.”

  “Always the anthropologist.”

  He flipped through the last folder on the desk. “Can’t help it. I’m just a poor university professor.” He put the stack back into the box and reached for another.

  “Not anymore. You’re an army officer.”

  “An army officer.” He sat in Drury’s chair, his arms limp at his sides. “On the eve of ordering a thousand young men to their death. Just kids.” Adam’s voice rang hollow from the depths of the chair. “They could be my students. And I’m about to send the message that could blast them all to hell.”

  He stood up and dumped the contents of a box onto Drury’s desk. “Only two more boxes and we’re done. Doesn’t look like the code’s here.” He wiped his forehead and raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “You’ll be leaving. Where do you intend to go?”

  “Boyle suggested French Morocco.”

  “Straight into a war zone? Giraud intends to make a show of resistance. God knows how severe the fighting will be.”

  “I’ll go south, stay away from the coast. I might do an archaeological survey.” Lily rifled through the papers on the desk and returned them to the box. “There’s a Roman site, Volubilis.”

  “Where would you stay?”

  “Moulay Idriss. It’s a little town near Volubilis named after the first sultan of Morocco. His tomb is there.”

  “I need you here.” Adam slammed down the Manila envelope he held and leaned over Lily’s desk. “I’ll talk to Boyle, see if he can get Yuste to change his mind.”

  “Not likely. Boyle’s already tried. You’ll have to find a replacement for me.”

  She sorted through another stack of notes.

  “I can’t find a replacement that easily.”

  “No one’s indispensable.”

  Adam put both hands on Lily’s desk. “That’s not it.” A pink flush suffused his face and he lowered his head. “I could assign Blufield to take over some of your duties here. But I don’t want you wandering through a war. I want to keep an eye on you. Two eyes, preferably.”

  Lily looked away. “I’ll be all right. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing else I can do.”

  He went back to Drury’s desk and began sorting through the rest of the papers. “I’ll miss you.” He opened a drawer and closed it again. “You’ll need transportation. I’ll talk to Boyle.” He lifted a folder from the pile, thumbed through it, tossed it aside. “I may be able to arrange a jeep.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “Stay in the south ’til the beachheads are secured. Then you can come up to HQ in Casablanca. But not until the fighting is over.” Adam stacked the folder he held on top of the others. “You can have my jeep. I’ll requisition a command car to go to Casa.”

  He returned the stack of folders to the carton and held up an envelope. “There’s a letter here. It’s addressed to Suzannah. ‘In case of my death,’ it says. He was expecting something like this.”

  “Why Suzannah?”

  “He trusted her more than you do.” He put the letter in his pocket.

  He reached the bottom of the carton and sank into Drury’s chair. “That’s the last of them. The code box isn’t here.”

  “Maybe it’s in the villa,” Lily said. “If I’m going to do a survey, I’ll need a theodolite. There’s one at the villa, on the roof behind the radio, under the table where the boxes are.”

  “Theodolite?”

  “It’s like a transit, used in surveying. Measures horizontal and vertical angles, distances. I need it to map Volubilis.”

  “The code book could be in one of those boxes. We didn’t look there yet.”

  “You think the code box is at the villa? Let’s go up the Mountain and see.”

  They left the Legation and started toward the taxi stand in the street across from the steps. When they passed the steps, Lily stopped. The German was gone. The hat was gone, the coat, the umbrella.

  Lily stared down at the cobbles where the German had fallen. “He didn’t kill Drury.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “If I could fight him off, so could Drury. Drury had special training for that.” Adam looked over at her. “It was someone he knew. Someone he trusted.”

  “Someone who knew about the microphone,” Lily said, and thought about Ferencz.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The villa churned with chaos. Overturned chairs spilled into the courtyard; tables lay on their backs, legs extended into the air; silk cushions, shredded and tossed, toppled across the floor. The garden tumbled with loose paper that swarmed before the wind.

  The thuza wood vitrine was splintered, its glass doors shattered. Smashed artifacts and figurines lay scattered on the tiles and the head of the Berber from Volubilis was broken off the plinth.

  Lily tripped over a broken jar that crunched beneath her shoe. “What’s going on?”

  Suzannah stood in the courtyard, her hand over her mouth. “MacAlistair is dead.” Her hand dropped to her side. “I found him this morning.”

  “MacAlistair?”

  Zaid scurried from room to room, gathering and redepositing bits of wreckage, cradling stacks of papers and old magazines to his chest.

  “What happened?” Lily asked him. He gazed at Lily, swaying, his cheek covered with a plaster bandage. His eyes glinted with tears.

  He dropped the papers that he held onto the floor and stepped over them. “He just floated off into the night.”

  “I summoned the doctor,” Suzannah said in a dull voice.

  Zaid picked up another chair and upended it. Had he gone mad? Creating the disorder, not clearing it up.

  Lily stared at him, uncomprehending. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to make it look like forced entry into the house,” Suzannah said in the same flat monotone. “A robbery, maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “The doctor called police. He said MacAlistair was suffocated.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “He said MacAlistair struggled. The pillow on his bed is streaked with the blood he coughed out.”

  “Ma
cAlistair murdered? Why?” A flush of shock and vertigo roiled through Lily and she turned to Suzannah. “How do you know he struggled?”

  “The doctor said.”

  “You called the police?” Adam asked.

  “The doctor called.” Suzannah indicated Zaid with a tilt of her head. “He’s been acting like this ever since.”

  “The roof,” Zaid said.

  “The police? The Guardia Civil?” Adam started for the stairs. “Have to get the transmitter out of here before they arrive.”

  Zaid lifted a watercolor of a bucolic English scene from the Lake Country off the wall. “I’ll keep them off the roof.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Give me the keys to the Hillman.”

  “MacAlistair’s favorite picture. He was brought up in a house near there, you know.” Zaid dropped the watercolor onto the tile floor. “Have to make it look like someone broke in.” The glass in the frame shattered and flew across his shoe.

  “The keys,” Adam repeated.

  Zaid stirred at the broken glass with the toe of his shoe.

  “Are you listening to me?” Adam advanced toward him. “Lives depend on it. We don’t have much time.” He held out his hand and cupped his fingers. “The keys!”

  “On the hook by the front door.”

  Adam disappeared in the direction of the door and returned, keys in hand.

  “Help me get the stuff together,” he called to Lily. “Quick, before the police get here.”

  He vaulted up the stairs, two at a time.

  Zaid began to sift the glass splinters through his fingers like a child playing in sand. “Nothing’s right today.” He fingered the plaster on his face and left a streak of blood from his fingers. “I cut myself shaving.” He looked down at a bandage on his hand. “Broke the glass in the bathroom.” He buried his head in his hands.

  Adam’s voice called from the stairwell. “Lily, are you coming?”

  She found Adam in the far corner of the roof. He had already unplugged the equipment.

  “The code box isn’t here.”

  He pulled a travel case from under the table and opened it. “Without the code, the whole operation is in the toilet.” He lowered the transmitter into the case and pulled out a smaller one to hold the Teletype. “We have to broadcast unencrypted.” He looked at Lily. “You know what that means?”

  “Maybe the Germans won’t pick up the signal,” Lily said. “You said that they use AM and we use FM.”

  “You think they don’t know that?”

  “Maybe they won’t be able to respond in time.”

  “Maybe pigs can fly.” Adam picked up a pad of paper and threw it down again.

  Lily maneuvered out a wooden cube-shaped box with a handle that had been stashed behind the two cases. Beside it were a tripod and two stadia rods bundled together.

  “Looks like the theodolite.”

  “See if the code book is in there.”

  Inside the box, she found only the surveying instrument, with its short telescope folded down. Extension wires, pencils, and pads of paper still lay on the table.

  Adam began to wind one of the extension cords around his forearm. “I need another case.”

  “Maybe in MacAlistair’s room,” Lily said.

  Adam tied the plug through the looped cord and picked up the next one.

  Downstairs, Lily paused at the door of MacAlistair’s bedroom, reluctant to enter, and drew in her breath.

  I can’t go in there.

  Before she turned away, she saw a shadow float across the room. Lily moved inside silently, catching a glimpse of MacAlistair as she passed, his outline looming under a fresh sheet pulled over his face. Only the balding top of his head protruded, his scalp a purplish blue.

  At the far end of the room, Faridah was opening drawers, pawing through the contents. Crumpled sheets lay in a bundle on the floor.

  “What are you doing here?” Lily asked.

  Faridah recoiled, her face colored. She lowered her eyes. “Zaid call me to help.”

  “I think he wants you to get the sheets out of here, take them downstairs and wash them.”

  “To wash the sheets?” She bent down to pick up the bundle and started out of the room while Lily rummaged through the floor of the wardrobe to find an overnight bag.

  By the time she got back to the roof, Adam had already packed the transmitter and the Teletype. The only things left on the table were the rolled up extension cords and two pads of paper.

  Adam jammed them in the overnight case.

  “Faridah is here,” Lily said.

  “Who’s Faridah? Tell me about it in the car. We have to get this stuff to the Legation.”

  He picked up both large cases by their handles and wedged the overnight bag under his arm and started down the stairs.

  Lily followed, carrying the theodolite and the tripod and stadia rods under her arm, banging against the wall as she navigated the narrow stairs.

  Adam called up to her, “What’s keeping you? The car’s loaded. Everything’s in the trunk.”

  On the ground floor, Suzannah waited at the door. “It is possible I may ride with you? I must return to the mellah.”

  Adam grunted and Suzannah followed them to the car. Lily stashed the theodolite, the tripod, and the stadia rods on the back seat and Suzannah wedged herself into the back of the car beside them.

  Adam started the Hillman, waiting a moment for the motor to warm up. “What the hell do you have back there?” he asked Lily.

  “Digging equipment. Things I need for the survey.”

  “You’ve done surveys before?”

  “When I first started graduate school. I got summer jobs on WPA projects in Texas and Kentucky.”

  Her mind was spinning with what she would have to do, what else she would need.

  “Camera!” She opened the car door. “I need a camera.”

  “Later. We have to leave now.”

  “I don’t want to come back when the police are here.” Lily got out and slammed the door.

  “Don’t….” Adam said, but she had already started back to the house, running.

  In MacAlistair’s room, Faridah stood before the wardrobe, looking though the shelves. A camera was on the chair near the door.

  Faridah held a book in her hand. Rebecca.

  Lily dashed across the room, stopping next to Faridah. “I see you found my book.”

  She reached out and Faridah moved away. “Yours?” Faridah hugged the book to her chest. “Zaid say—”

  “I looked everywhere. I forgot I lent it to MacAlistair.” Lily searched in her pocket, found two pesetas and held them out to Faridah. “I’m grateful to you for finding it.”

  Faridah eyed the coins. Her grip on the book loosened. When Lily took it, Faridah shrugged, grabbed the coins, pocketed them and ran from the room.

  Did Faridah know what it was? Lily weighed the book in her hands and fanned through the pages, dog-eared, with pencil notations in the margin. She closed the book, grabbed the camera, hurried to the car, and hurled herself into the passenger side of the front seat.

  Adam was revving the motor, starting to back out of the drive, when a Volkswagen and a police car pulled up to the curb. “Damn! Now what.”

  A gray-haired man with a black doctor’s bag got out of the Volkswagen and darted into the house as Periera emerged from the police car. With a ceremonious bow to Lily, he sauntered toward the Hillman. Lily stashed Rebecca behind her and leaned back in the seat.

  Periera rested his arm on the open window on the driver’s side and eyed Lily. “You claim diplomatic immunity again, I assume.”

  Lily felt the bulge of the book against her back. “Lieutenant Periera, how nice to see you.” She forced a smile. “We’re just arriving. Is something wrong?”

  “Another murder. With you once more at the location of the crime.”

  “A murder? In the villa? Someone inside has been
killed?” Lily widened her eyes in astonishment. “Who was it? When did it happen?”

  “You claim not to know?” Periera asked. “As innocent as a kitten.”

  Adam released the brake. “I suppose we should leave. Won’t keep you from your investigation,” he said with a wave and put the Hillman in reverse.

  Periera was forced to step back. He stopped, startled at the sight of Suzannah in the back seat. “You! Here?”

  Adam rolled the car down the drive. Periera started after them as they gathered speed and the car hit the street. He followed them for a few steps, threw up his hands and set off for the house.

  After they were on the road to town, Lily pulled out the book from behind her back.

  “Rebecca?” Adam asked. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Faridah was taking it from MacAlistair’s room.”

  “I’ll be damned. So tell me, who’s Faridah?”

  “She used to work at the villa. MacAlistair fired her.”

  “What was she doing there today?”

  “Zaid called her to help out. But she was up to her old tricks, going through MacAlistair’s things. It’s a good thing I went back for the camera.”

  Adam looked over at her. “How are you going to carry all that stuff you have in the back seat? How will you handle a theodolite all by yourself?”

  “I’ll hire a Berber.”

  “You don’t speak their language.”

  “I’ll find one who speaks French.”

  “More likely, you’ll find some drunken Frenchman who’ll slobber all over you and offer to stay in your hotel room to protect you. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  “I think your friend is jealous,” Suzannah said from the back seat.

  “I was going to ask you,” Lily said, turning to face Suzannah, “how do you know Periera?”

  “Ramon is a….” She hesitated. “A client.” Suzannah looked down at her hands. She clasped them, fingers entwined, in her lap.

  “And Ferencz,” Lily said. “He’s also a client?”

  “Today was lucky. Usually I meet him in the evening.”

  “But today your appointment was for lunch.”

  “I had no appointment today. From Ramon, I tried to get information about the Spanish plans in Tangier, find out if they were preparing to join the Axis, let the Germans move south through Spain. From Ferencz, I tried to find out if the Germans were ready to move west through Tripoli or east to Egypt. Sometimes I was luckier than others, and I would pass the information on to Drury.”