Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  Eddie’s boss patted Eddie’s shoulder. “Sorry about your father. But I can’t authorize an advance. It’ll have to go through Chicago. I’ll call, see what they say, but that’s five months’ pay—”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me; it’s my dad’s life. I don’t want you to call Chicago; I want you to guarantee the hospital the money so they can operate now, not tomorrow or the next day.”

  Tiny but firm headshake. Eddie’s boss eased back, adding respect for Eddie’s bad news.

  Eddie said, “You know D.J. Bennett, right?”

  Foreman Paulsen opened the Daily Worker, pointed at a USMC general pictured on the second page, and hardened his eyes. “Is Bennett how you came by this paper?”

  “No. Maybe now’s a good time for you to explain why D.J. wasn’t allowed to be my bodyguard.”

  “That’s between Bennett and the owners and General Franco’s PJs, and you’d better hope the reason, or anything close to the reason, has nothing to do with you.”

  Eddie leaned in at his boss. “Why, goddammit? What’s everyone’s problem?”

  “As long as Bennett doesn’t set foot on this property, or threaten it, Bennett and his politics, and his murder warrant in Palestine, aren’t my concern.”

  Eddie ran through options for his father’s surgery. Without D.J., there weren’t many. Harold Culpepper had to be the answer. Except Culpepper was not climbing out on a limb for $2,000, not with two bombed refineries, “spy” accusations, and the British ambassador demanding an interrogation for Haifa. Nope, not without blackmail pressure from D.J., which, according to D.J. in Haifa, was no longer as potent as whatever else Culpepper now faced.

  Eddie’s boss stepped to the door. Before he turned the knob, he said, “Remember what I said—the Brits can go either way—with Germany or against her. Germany wants England as an ally in the war they’re plotting against Russia, and oil is Germany’s leverage.” His free hand pointed at the floor. “This is oil. And this is Fascist ground. America has declared herself neutral in Spain’s affairs, but the owners of this refinery, in spite of being ‘Americans,’ are not neutral. Understand? Our owners have picked their side.”

  Eddie nodded. “Could I, ah, make a private call? For my dad? Just take a second. Tell those Brits I’d be happy to talk with ’em after?”

  Foreman Paulsen shook his head at Eddie’s use of happy. “Those Brits are out there because their ambassador demanded it of the US ambassador. That’s high-level stuff, Eddie. I’ve been told I cannot interfere.” Paulsen narrowed his eyes. “Your importance to this refinery and its ability to produce AvGas is the only reason we, I, could force the Brits to do their interrogation here, where we can keep them from . . . who knows what. But your next interrogation with the PJs . . .” Paulsen opened the door and pointed at the Daily Worker. “Surviving the PJs, if they believe you are in league with the Communists, will be far, far more difficult. The modifications you’re completing on this refinery are imperative, but the two governments you are about to confront—England and Spain—may not be that farsighted. Good luck.” And Foreman Paulsen was out the door.

  Eddie locked the door, pulled the Mendelssohn papers from his pants, and opened the dustiest of the foreman’s file cabinets. The ten-by-ten envelope fit inside a thick file labeled CORRESPONDENCE 1936. Eddie shut the drawer, then called Les Demoiselles.

  No, they knew no one named D.J. Bennett. And, no, Doña Carmen was not in.

  Eddie heaved an exhale. If the three Brits outside decided to be ugly—Eddie pulled the .45 from his belt. Full clip, a round in the chamber. If the Brits got ugly there’d be no more paychecks, no more money home. Everyone he cared about loses. The .45 slid back in his belt. Eddie’s hand withdrew a card from his pocket. His stomach knotted. And he dialed the number.

  The situation required only limited explanation to gain a commitment for a $2,000 wire, no further questions asked and no promises requested. Evidently Germans were like that—prompt and efficient when they did their business.

  At six p.m. Eddie’s interrogation was in its eighth hour. So far, the Brits had focused their efforts on pain with side discussions about Eddie’s connections to a smorgasbord of Arabs, Nazis, and Communist- Zionists. The discussions were being held aboard a British flagged trawler that appeared to be overcrewed and underfished. In between the punches and slaps and threats and sun glare, Eddie caught glimpses of Tenerife’s volcano and troubling smoke puffs above it. It’d been a long day on deck without food or fresh water.

  The interrogation had begun in the refinery canteen. Gunfire erupted almost immediately at the nearest gate and drew away Eddie’s PJs. The Brits chloroformed Eddie from behind, then loaded him loopy into a refinery panel truck—obviously the plan from the beginning. And obviously the Brits had paid someone at the refinery, or a group of someones, to look the other way.

  Aboard the boat, the afternoon faded and the clouds dissolved. The least-violent Brit intervened when his associates unsheathed knives. The Brit sent the others forward and offered Eddie a clandestine drink.

  “I tell ya, mate. We could do with a bit of the truth. Those boys have stamina . . . and the mean one lost friends at Haifa, burned into crispies, all of ’em.”

  Eddie felt the water burn, then heal his throat. The Brit gave him another cup that Eddie drank with a shaky hand, the hand sunburned like the rest of him from hours of exposure. The shore bobbed in the distance; it would be a very long swim in two-foot seas. Big fish in this part of the world, too.

  Eddie swallowed, smelling the fish guts in the chum buckets. There’d been the inference his captors needn’t guard against an escape; Mr. Eddie Owen would likely finish in the water anyway. “Like I’ve been saying since you kidnapped me, I was in the Haifa market with Dinah Rosen. She’s the one who said ‘Irgun,’ not me. She took off, I followed, some sick bastards blew her up. Your Captain Wingate let me go because he had no choice—I’m an American citizen; try to remember that—then I went to Beirut for two days. The guy who took me was Bill Reno’s assistant from Bahrain, that’s how I knew Hassim. That’s it, whether you believe me or not.”

  “I think I believe you, the majority of the tale. My associates, however, sense your sympathies lie with the Arabs and their Nazi puppeteers.” The Brit shook his scarred head. “My vote? You and the Jew Zionists—bloody Communists the lot—would dearly love to steal the Haifa refinery for their state of Israel . . . that no king I serve will ever give them.”

  Eddie felt at his face and ribs. This was the same all sides against the middle that he hadn’t been able to decipher since he got off the train in Chicago. “We have anything to eat?”

  The Brit looked impressed that Eddie could eat and offered a banana. “Local. Tasty if an eater favors the local worms.”

  Eddie favored anything that wouldn’t bite back. The boat’s engines revved and the bow turned out to sea. Eddie asked.

  The Brit shrugged, adding the fait accompli grimace. “You’ve something to say, Eddie, now’d be the proper time.”

  “Any more bananas?”

  The Brit sat back on the gunwale shaking his head, possibly at the humor attempt, possibly not. He considered Eddie as they split waves rolling in from the east. “When you were on holiday in Iran you vouched for a woman and two men. By evenin’ you were with her on the Abadan Road along the Gulf.” The Brit floated brushy eyebrows. “How’d I know? Your bird had a driver who saw you. He drove her into Iraq after they had a spot of trouble on that road. On his return, the wog driver was angry with your bird and looked up the prefect of police, shopping to collect a reward.”

  Eddie checked the horizon, trying to appear a lot less interested than he was.

  “Had a tattoo, didn’t she? Little black wings under the right eye. Nice girl, interesting sort if you like ’em rough-and-tumble.” The Brit paused and licked a bit of spray. “They call her ‘the Raven,’ after an Arab Robin Hood named Khair-Saleh who was likely more myth than man. She, however, is no myth. Has pe
rsonally killed between fifteen and twenty professional soldiers, and likely an equal number of your Zionist militia. Then there’s the district commissioner in Janîn and three of his armed bodyguards, the ten Arab policemen in Bahrain, and the three hundred civilians in Haifa.”

  Eddie looked away before he could stop.

  The Brit smiled and nodded like they’d just agreed.

  Eddie snapped back. “That’s bullshit. The girl I know is a teacher in Transjordan.”

  “She’s a wog all right, a Palestinian, though; family was murdered in Jerusalem in ’29. She was buggered, and more’n once I’m hearing. Either by your Zionist militia or, regrettably, British troopers. Ended up in the French refugee camps—bad awful, those camps. Somehow she survived, was picked up and trained by the bandit I mentioned whose name she took after the French said they killed him in the Huleh Valley.” The Brit laughed. “Only bodies they found were dead Legionnaires. Not much in the way of proof by my way of thinkin’.”

  Eddie cringed at the history—the gang rape, the murder of Calah’s family, the refugee camps he’d also heard Hassim talk about. Part of Eddie admitted something like this was true, or partly true—the tidbits after Janîn, the way she moved, the things she said, the ferocity in her eyes. But she’d been so gentle to touch, almost a fawn . . .

  The Brit continued. “Her name’s Saba Hassouneh al-Saleh, grown into a bit of a legend herself, by the by, and very, very few have seen her face. So tell me, mate, what’s your bird look like?”

  “Never saw her face or the wings you’re talking about. The woman I met was Calah al-Habra, a teacher in Transjordan.”

  The Brit extended one hand with his fingers spread. “The ring you bought in Haifa at the market? Had ’em make the face with wings as I’m remembering. Let me have a look.”

  Eddie realized he hadn’t read quite enough Hammett to notice the tail he must have had all day, every day. “It’s in my bag, in my room.”

  “We’ve been through your room. I’m thinking the ring’s on her finger, that you gave it to her in Beirut along with the plans to our refinery, then came out here to the beach while she killed three hundred innocent people.”

  The banana Eddie’d just swallowed rose into his throat. He swallowed it again, eyes shut seeing the faces he’d seen every day for six months. “Were they . . . British, or the Palestinians I worked with, the ones she killed?”

  “Wogs, almost the lot.” His face blanked for an instant and he blinked like the spray was in his eyes again, but it wasn’t. “Nine out of ten.”

  Eddie lowered his head. “You don’t really believe a Palestinian legend is coming out of the mountains and doing that, do you?”

  “Odd we hadn’t thought of that. What’d she have to say in Beirut?”

  “Nothing in particular—” Eddie stopped himself three words too late.

  The Brit fractured a smile. “I chat with blokes like you for a living.” Then he nodded toward the shore. “Guess it’d be ten miles now before a fellow could stand sandy bottom. We’ll toss you in, add those chum buckets, and run alongside. If you talk about her, the Zionists, and the Nazis, we’ll fish you out. If not, the sharks will have ya.”

  Eddie was airborne before he could respond.

  The splash was more like a full-body slap. The chum slick followed: four, five, six buckets. Eddie ducked underwater, hoping to rinse and add distance. The deep water was clear like the Arabian Gulf, but he couldn’t see bottom. Side-to-side visibility was thirty feet. His lungs burned for air and he surfaced. He wasn’t in the chum slick but he was still close to the boat.

  The “good” Brit was staring from the deck, comfortable against a barrel. “Sometimes it takes hours to bring ’em round; sometimes the big ones, hammerheads, come right round in seconds.”

  Eddie 360ed like it would help and began paddling toward shore he’d never make. The boat came about and ran up to his shoulder. The Brits added a bucket of chum to Eddie’s head before he could duck under. He surfaced and they sloshed him with another. The process continued until Eddie quit ducking. The smell was awful; oily blood filled Eddie’s nostrils and fish chunks his mouth. Treading water, his feet were wiggling bait beneath him. Swimming would be better even though it exposed his stomach. Eddie turned for the shore and stroked slowly, never checking the distance, feeling the boat’s rumble and the sun’s heat on his back.

  He swam until he couldn’t. Then he quit and would have drowned had the Brit not tossed a life preserver. Eddie crawled into the floating circle, too tired to care about his feet dangling or his head and shoulders and hands coated in fish guts.

  The Brit shielded his eyes toward a dropping sun. “Won’t be long now, Eddie Owen—American citizen. The big fish start feeding soon, chum or not. Won’t care you’re a Yank, or a fellow traveler for that matter. Eat you either way. From the bottom up is what the local boys say.”

  Eddie tried pulling his feet closer to the surface and couldn’t. “It’s not what you think. I’m on your side. America, Britain—Roosevelt, Churchill—aren’t I? The AvGas is for you guys, your Spitfires. Why else would I have built Bahrain?”

  The Brit emptied the chum barrel into the water. “No telling. You’re lying to me, though, cocksure of that.”

  The sun glared off the fish-gut slick. Eddie began to shiver in the warm water. “Tell me what you want for chrissake.”

  “What I want?” The Brit took his time. “The truth, I’m guessing . . . or your life for those we lost in Haifa, for those we’ll lose in Europe and London once this war begins in earnest.”

  “I told you the truth.”

  The water underneath Eddie seemed to quiver. He ducked underneath the chum and saw nothing, spun and did the same behind him. Just water getting darker with the sun’s low angle.

  Eddie breached the surface and heard, “Company?” as he wiped fish blood off his face. He checked for fins and did another 360. This really bent the beets. Something big was going to bite off his feet.

  “The hammerheads are twice your size, Eddie. Teeth like razors, rows and rows of ’em. Once one hits ya, the rest come and take chunks. Nasty buggers. Like the wogs and Nazis and your sufferin’ Jew Zionists. Hard bastards, those Jew militiamen, kill a hotel full of British civilians without blinkin’. ’Cause it’s God they’re serving, building His homeland one murder at a time.”

  “I don’t know any Zionists.”

  “Know any Nazis?”

  “No.” A low wave bobbed Eddie with chum. “Yes. Met one. Your chief in Iran pointed him out: Erich Schroeder. Blond guy, about six foot, blue eyes. He’s here on Tenerife; saw him yesterday.”

  “Where?”

  Eddie splashed. The water near him moved again, like a river current. He curled his feet and ducked under the life preserver to look. A shadow passed. Eddie spun, tried to follow and couldn’t. He spun back to check behind him. Panic. Bogeyman. Something in the water with him.

  He dug his head out to breathe and heard, “Better hurry. ’E’s a big one, ’e is.”

  “Big what?” Eddie splashed to spin again, fish pieces peppering his face. “Big what?”

  “The Nazi, Eddie, what about him? He and your bird working together? What’d they promise you for Haifa? The same thing you got for blowing Bahrain?”

  “I built Bahrain—I didn’t blow it up!” Eddie squirmed out of the life preserver and kicked with his feet. He made the hull and reached. “Lemme up.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Lemme up! Before this thing eats me!” A shadow passed and brushed Eddie’s feet, a tail maybe, fanning away. Eddie spun his back against the boat’s hull and scooped his knees and feet up to his chest.

  “C’mon, Eddie, you can do better.” The Brit waved Erich Schroeder’s card that had been in Eddie’s pocket. “You have Herr Schroeder’s telephone. Why would that be?”

  Eddie saw the shark. Gray-brown and turning near the top of the water, the tail fanning chum.

  “Get me up!”

  A
horn blew loud. Another boat, its bow high and charging. The shark swerved and lined up in Eddie’s face. Twenty yards or less. God, it was big. Horn again and a gunshot. Then a series of gunshots. The shark bucked coming right at him. Its wide back twisted out of the water. A machine gun roared. The shark pumped blood and veered off the bow of the Brit’s boat.

  The charging boat had a deck gun and a wide red stripe across a bow that bristled with Armada police. A yellow and red Nationalist flag fluttered above loud commands. Eddie checked for the shark’s return, then back to the police boat, his head bobbing against the Brits’ hull. Above him the Brit had both hands in the air. Armada police waved Eddie to swim over.

  Eddie did and was hauled aboard by two workers from the canteen who’d witnessed the kidnap at breakfast. Erich Schroeder wrinkled his nose at Eddie’s chum odor. “Lucky for you, my friend, that these workers decided to come forward. And that General Franco frowns on British subjects murdering Americans.”

  Eddie stood and lost his balance into Schroeder, then glared across the narrow chum slick at the bobbing Brits. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? You hate Arabs and Jews so much that you’d kill anybody who’s nice to ’em? They’re fucking people, too, you fucking assholes.”

  It was more profanity than Eddie used in a week. He glanced past Schroeder to the deck gun. If Eddie spoke Spanish, they’d be firing it. The Brit said, “Nice mates you got there, Eddie. Ask ’im how they’re doing in Austria and Czechoslovakia.”

  “They just saved me, remember? Wasn’t them feeding me to the fucking sharks.”

  The Brit nodded. “You’re no better off now. Just don’t know it.”

  Schroeder asked Eddie, “Our Armada captain wishes to know if you will press charges? It is a delicate matter”—Schroeder shrugged—“given the US and British ambassadors’ involvement.”

  Eddie reconsidered shooting the Brit. “Give me a gun.”