Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  Schroeder nodded and craned his neck, scanning the crowd. “Thursday nights and the Spanish tango. These brave godos are too wounded to fight for their country against the Communists but not too wounded to dance. They should learn from our boxers what it is to commit, to honor and protect their nation.”

  Eddie guessed Schroeder meant that the Nationalist soldiers were tangoing inside Bar Atlántico, because out here the crowd of scrubbed but frayed Nationalist uniforms was drinking and shoving, not dancing. Schroeder seemed civil, unbelievably delicate for a Nazi who the Brits in Iran had said worked for Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe boss who, according to Tom Mendelssohn, had commissioned plans from architects and engineers to rob and murder every Jew alive.

  Schroeder touched Eddie’s arm and angled his Aryan chin across the smooth-worn pavers of Calle San Jose. “The Café Los Paraguitas. Better to have a drink and sit until the Armada sorts this out.” Schroeder laughed, floating manicured eyebrows for punctuation. “Possibly you and I can solve the misunderstandings about our countries that the politicians cannot.”

  “I’m, ah, meeting a friend.” Eddie checked the street for more Nazis, then scanned for D.J. Bennett. “He’s late and usually isn’t.”

  “Your friend will see you better across the street. We’ll sit there.” Schroeder pointed to an empty umbrella table. Adjacent were two radiant debutantes encircled by a group of Armada de España naval officers, high-power uniforms Eddie’d seen once at the refinery. “Come, Mr. Owen, our chance to discuss the madness circling the globe. Possibly you have some suggestions?” Big smile again and a polite nudge as Erich Schroeder stepped them into the street.

  Eddie’d done dumber things, all involving debutante/belle-sirens, too. A whole bunch of him wanted to rip the envelope off his back and confront the Nazi. But Schroeder would say they were fakes. What else could he say? Get the papers in front of D.J., that was the mission. Prove they were real or not. If they were real, then get them to President Roosevelt.

  Eddie followed Schroeder into Café Los Paraguitas, its Moorish facade fronted by candlelit café tables, potted palms, and vested men in maroon fezzes. Schroeder bowed slightly to the debutantes’ five-person table, turned, and took one of the two empty seats at the umbrella table, motioning Eddie to the other. They sat facing the street and Bar Atlántico, the view interrupted by passing horse carts and one chugging motorcar. Schroeder ordered mistela. He explained it as a German mead made with palm syrup. Eddie ordered a beer, a jarra pint of Las Palmas Tropical, wishing he were in Pappy Kirkwood’s.

  The debutantes laughed on Eddie’s right. He glanced at their clothes and faces, the combination far more fanciful-aristocratic in the candlelight than what could be local girls from a blustery volcanic speck. The beer and mistela arrived. Schroeder tapped near Eddie’s arm, then explained the debutantes. “The daughters of Señor José Ramón Batabanó, the CEPSA counsel general, your American employer’s partner in the refinery with the South Africans. Señor Batabanó is also General Franco’s ambassador to Morocco and these Canary Islands. The Comité d’Action Marocaine has twice tried to assassinate the ambassador.” Schroeder nodded at the crowd in the street. “And from somewhere on this street they watch his daughters now.”

  Eddie sipped his beer, forcing calm into his hand as he set down the glass. A lone Arab beggar sat against a wall across the street. The candle next to the glass flicked. Silverware rattled on their table and others. The ground shook once, hard.

  Conversations stopped.

  Schroeder smiled and chinned at Mount Teide. “Mother Nature tells us to hurry our discussion. She sees mankind’s hubris and laughs.”

  “You’re German. Would’ve thought you believed you were above that.”

  “There are those who would take insult at your suggestion.” Schroeder smiled wider. “In the future, I suggest you confirm your audience before implying their national character is lacking.” Schroeder nodded almost imperceptibly at the military men in the café. “Especially our hosts.” He paused then added, “America will soon recognize Franco’s Fascist government, as will the English. Such are the realities of the day. Although Roosevelt and Churchill fear the Fascists, they will fear the Communists more. As they should.”

  “Why fear the Fascists?” Eddie had no idea why that came out of his mouth.

  “An excellent question. I am a National Socialist, a Nazi if you will—at heart, a Fascist. Merely a simplified form of democracy with a powerful central government and leader. Better than a monarch and far superior to the lie of communism.” Schroeder shrugged. “I see nothing to fear and everything to gain.”

  Eddie almost blurted Jews, but said: “Someone must disagree.” Eddie nodded toward the Spanish soldiers crowding Bar Atlántico. “They’re Fascists, fighting in Spain when they’re not dancing here.”

  Schroeder grimaced. “Stalin is a beast. I have seen his work in the unions, in Germany and America—slow the production lines, sabotage the products, threaten the workers who would work a full day. It weakens a nation, adds hunger and misery to the population, softening them for the Communists’ arrival.”

  “The unions do that?” The lone Arab beggar was still seated against the wall. D.J. in disguise?

  Schroeder followed Eddie’s eyes to the beggar, then the crowd. “It is difficult to be lost in Santa Cruz. Perhaps your friend is at the brothels on Calle de Miraflores.”

  Eddie turned at the word “brothel.” He hadn’t mentioned Les Demoiselles.

  Schroeder laughed and raised his glass. “A business here for centuries, since the time of the pirates. And quite good.”

  The guy was congenial, not the outright Nazi monster they all had to be. “If Germany’s worried about Communists conquering Europe, why’d you invade Austria and Czechoslovakia? How’s that help?”

  “Invade? Anschluss was not an invasion; it was a popular invitation. Germany has merely reestablished its historical borders. We unite to protect a common people with a common language threatened yet again by France, Poland, and Russia.” Schroeder leaned closer. “Stalin builds a three-million-man army and it is not for use in Russia. And France—the habitual provocateur of Europe’s wars—France has more tanks than Germany could build in ten years. Oddly, we Nazis never hear of that fact.”

  A man in a white T-shirt and well-fitted denims approached their table and stopped short, almost military in his precision and distance. He offered a respectful nod to Eddie then spoke to Schroeder in German. Schroeder answered in English. “Tell them I will be only another moment.”

  The man turned with the same precision of his arrival and disappeared beyond the café’s corner.

  “My apologies.” Schroeder stood. “Duty calls. Possibly tomorrow . . . here again, we can discuss your thoughts. Tonight we sadly only hear mine. The authorities here tell me that you worry for the Zionists. They are a powerful force for their interests; an interested party need only ask the Arabs and the English.”

  “I’m asking you,” said Eddie, unable to keep his mouth shut. “What about the Nazis’ plan to—”

  “Again, my apologies. It must be tomorrow.” Schroeder stood with an athletic grace, then angled his head left and winked. “Tonight, try the Casa Habana on the Barranco de Santos. My favorite.”

  Schroeder crossed the street. Eddie’s security man spoke to the Nazi, then turned and left without looking back. Eddie mouthed, That’s odd? then raised his Las Palmas Tropical to finish it. D.J. was still not out front of his brothel. Eddie put down the beer and reset the 9mm gouging in his waistband. Tom Mendelssohn’s papers itched against his back. Eddie rubbed against the chair back, then jolted when he realized what he was doing. An ugly thought struck him. What about Mendelssohn’s Jews who needed transit? Technically, these horror papers were theirs, their blackmail ticket out of hell. What if D.J. and Roosevelt chose to focus the blackmail for a larger goal? Consider Mendelssohn’s Jews casualties of war. Hadn’t D.J. said as much? What do you do then, Eddie?

&n
bsp; Erich Schroeder’s presence lingered. Eddie swallowed. Maybe “lingered” wasn’t the right description. Schroeder had to be a monster . . . if Mendelssohn’s papers weren’t fakes. If the whole story wasn’t a ruse designed by talented, desperate people who’d have no problem defending the end justifies the means.

  Eddie rubbed his eyes. He was way out of his league. The boldest of the ambassador’s daughters was looking at him. Her eyelashes fluttered. Eddie dropped his hands and smiled. Must be D.J.’s brothel, for damn sure not the ovens and rail spurs . . . The navy fellow with the ambassador’s daughter turned; his glance wasn’t pleasant. Eddie toasted him. The Spaniard stood, adding glare as if he’d been glove-slapped by Errol Flynn. Eddie lowered his beer bottle. The Spaniard’s two friends stood. Eddie stiffened—Shit, not again—backed his chair away from the table, and stood into—

  Ryan Pearce. Pearce twisted Eddie off balance, out of the way, and faced the three Spaniards. A bolo knife flashed in Pearce’s right hand. “Aye, ya shower a savages. Wouldn’t be thinkin’ about three against one, would ya?” Pearce balled his left hand. “Be brave. Step to the blade and defend your lady’s honor.”

  The lead Spaniard hesitated. His friend circled to Pearce’s left. Pearce pivoted. Eddie sidestepped to Pearce’s exposed right. A police whistle shrilled. The lead Spaniard charged. Eddie dropped him with a right cross. A fixed-blade fighting knife clattered on the pavers at the feet of an Arab beggar. Suddenly right there. Eddie reset to drop the beggar—

  Loud police Spanish: “Alto! Alto!”

  Pearce grabbed Eddie’s arm. They bolted past the two naval officers, ducked around the café’s weathered corner and into a puddled alley. Eddie and Pearce sprinted two blocks of fetid garbage crates and broken barrels until the alley T-boned a seafront street. Pearce looked right, then left. He seemed confused in the dark, the moon obscured by sagging timber balconies overhead. Whistles shrilled. Pearce pointed them right. They sprinted shoreline. Three intersections. One-story shacks on one side, beach on the other.

  Pearce stopped and turned, checking behind them. Eddie ran three strides past Pearce, stopped, and turned to do the same—No PJs, no navy men, just moonlit waterfront and the dead edge of El Cabo de los Pescadores, the fishermen’s barrio Eddie’d been told to avoid. Eddie caught two breaths, said, “Thanks,” and dropped Pearce with a straight right. Pearce landed hard, rolled to his stomach, but stayed down.

  From his back, Pearce said, “You’re learning, Yank,” and wiped blood from his nose. “Could be ya broke it.”

  “Don’t get up till I’m finished talking. Afraid I’d have to use my boots.” Eddie moved closer. “I’m tired of all the bullshit. I have a family and a job, and both matter. You have arguments with the Brits, those arguments are yours; I don’t give a damn, okay? No more fair fights between us and no next time.”

  “Eyes behind ya, lad, from now on. You and the Brits’ll be havin’ a bit a business, too, mark my words. About Haifa. The jackets figure you for the bomber and they’ll be comin’ to visit.”

  Half the words were undecipherable in Pearce’s accent and phlegm.

  “Bomber?” A noise distracted Eddie. Three men appeared from the shadows. Erich Schroeder silhouetted first. He had a rolled newspaper in one hand and a slouch hat in the other. The hat was a huge jolt, a familiar hat, sweat-stained from years of work in Oklahoma. Eddie felt the jolt mix with fight-or-flee and backed away, trying to add information that didn’t add.

  Pearce stood, mopping blood with a handkerchief and rearranging his nose. The two men with Schroeder blocked a street intersection no wider than a double doorway. Both were armed and seemed comfortable with the military pistols, both wearing denims and white T-shirts. Sailors? Submariners? There’d been German submarines off the coast of the refinery.

  Schroeder stopped six feet from Eddie, hat in hand, silvered by moonlight. “My apologies. This location is more appropriate for us, now that you are a . . . suspect.” Schroeder smiled as he had in the café. “My association with you could be costly for me as well.”

  “Suspect?” Eddie glanced at Pearce, then the submariners blocking all the exits. “The Brits’ opinion of me shouldn’t mean a damn thing here.”

  Schroeder shook his head. “The refinery at Haifa.”

  “Haifa?”

  “Bombed by saboteurs earlier today. Possibly three hundred dead. Not that the British worry with such casualties, but the loss of their refining capacity is another matter. Britain’s ability to prosecute the air war they plan is central to Britain’s control of her colonial possessions.”

  “Haifa was bombed? And they think I did it?”

  Schroeder grimaced. “You left your position quickly . . . after a similar bombing near the market, yes? You were jailed. Your release was affected without proper protocols; a policeman was shot while detaining you. You travel by night to Lebanon with a Palestinian, then immediately come to Tenerife? Even I would find that suspicious after the explosion at the Bahrain refinery. As do the officials here.”

  “How do you know when I left Haifa? Or where I went?” Eddie wanted the answer but half his focus was how to survive a four-against-one that he couldn’t.

  “A British agent who sees his country’s interests aligned with Germany’s, not the Communists. Several elements of the British services have been watching you since Iran. They questioned me about you while we were their guests.” Schroeder touched his ribs. “A similarly severe group is en route here to mount an interrogation at the full demand and complaint of the British ambassador. And if our Nationalist hosts here allow it, you will be returned to Palestine or, worse, to London as a spy and stand trial for murder.”

  Ryan Pearce added, “You’ll share bunks with the Sitra-Bahrain lads you helped lock down in Pentonville, I’m hopin’. Make their day having you in their cells before the jackets hang you.”

  Eddie stared at the hat. His father wore a slouch hat like that, pulled down low to his ears when he plowed, and had for as long as Eddie could remember. Schroeder said, “This hat, you recognize it, yes?”

  “Maybe.”

  Schroeder said, “Oklahoma is a distance away, but in the end, not so far. The farm is not good there. The wind, the bank, your father’s health.” Schroeder shook his head. “Sad. And then your troubles with the police there as well—the killing of the Jewish boy in Texas. This is also sad. And now the British paint your actions in Haifa with a similar brush.”

  Eddie choked down adrenaline, trying to listen while his eyes looped over the men between him and safety. “What do you want?”

  “To help, of course. If you will allow me.”

  “How?”

  “Possibly with your . . . situations?” Schroeder inspected the hat. “Soon you will receive a very sad letter from your mother—your father’s health has taken all the money you send, and the bank now takes the farm. She is quite frightened for your siblings. In just weeks they will be out . . . with nothing. Your father will die without treatment, as, quite possibly, will the remainder of your family when they reach the migrant camps.”

  “Die? Of what? What’re you talking about?” None of this was in his mother’s letters. And D.J.’s people had been right there every time—

  “A lung problem is the diagnosis.” The German shrugged. “From the years of dust storms and medicine your family could not afford if they wished to also feed you, your brother, and your sister. Sad. And I notice no one in the United States has seen fit to offer assistance—possibly they already know you are running from the authorities . . . in Texas. Is this possible?”

  Eddie set his jaw. No possible way this bullshit was true. But if somehow it were true, there was no chance Newt would die from lack of money. Eddie turned to sprint. The Nazi submariners blocked his path. Schroeder said, “Eddie. Eddie. Please, I wish to help, not hurt you, or your family or your great country for that matter. But the world moves quickly and I lack time to be as polite as I wish.”

  Eddie glared. “I
’m gonna deal with my family. If your submarine boys here wanna give it a go, then we’ll do that first. Either way, I’m leaving.”

  Schroeder held up both hands. “Please, just a moment, then . . . then it is up to you. Please?”

  Eddie checked Ryan Pearce staring at him, then fixed on Erich Schroeder, Nazi.

  “Mr. D.J. Bennett and his friends are not who you think. They are Communists, angry over their treatment as returning soldiers of the Great War and angry over the ‘plight’ of workers the unions represent against the industrialists, the very men who built your great nation. Bennett has blackmailed your professor Harold Culpepper for a position in your company so that he might push you toward the Communist objectives.”

  “D.J.’s the guy who’s helping my family.”

  Schroeder blinked confusion. “Then why are they in such dire conditions?”

  Schroeder handed Eddie the rolled newspaper—a copy of the Daily Worker, the newspaper of the American Communist Party. “Your Mr. Bennett’s champion is featured, a General Smedley Butler. It is their agents, the Communists, who sabotaged the refineries in Bahrain and in Haifa, and they will do the same here. D.J. Bennett traps you and your talent, keeping you from the truth that Roosevelt and my government plan to make peace after the Soviet Union is defeated. The cooperation is called the Munitions Treaty of Geneva and is already being drawn. Germany is not the enemy; Russia is.”

  Eddie rolled the paper. “Get outta my way.”

  “Please. Allow me to help, to explain—”

  “Explain what? That Nazis are killing Jews because they’re Jews. That Nazi Germany invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia. That you’re threatening Poland, now my family—”

  Schroeder stepped back, indignant. “No. Not your family and not our neighbors, nor our citizens. The business with the Jews is propaganda, first by the English—they cleanse their skirts in the desert and Africa. The Soviets paint the Nazis with a brush that hides the Russian purges—it is Stalin who robs, deports, and murders Russia’s Jews. Ask yourself why we never hear of that?” Schroeder added emphasis. “Look deeper, Eddie. Germany’s ‘threats,’ as you call them, are reunifications combined with offers to defend those countries from Russia—if Stalin attacks we will defend. But this cannot be done at a distance against such a monstrous army. As we speak, Stalin masses his tanks on the Polish border. If we do not help now, the Poles will be slaughtered and Germany will be next.”