Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  The infidel Muslim gambit had its risks, the most dangerous a potential confrontation with the French that Schroeder and the Abwehr agents would not survive. Oran was a major port dominated for the last century by the French navy. From here France ruled the southwestern Mediterranean. Now the French faced increasingly violent assaults from these Muslim Nationalists, much as the English did in Iran, and were in no mood to be gentle with provocateurs from any country, and especially not Nazis.

  The Abwehr agents told Schroeder they had no leads on Saba’s contact here. Schroeder threatened them back into the city, demanding they marshal any and all resources, even those designed to stay hidden for the larger conflict all knew would come in the future. Schroeder did not mention the Mendelssohn papers. His story was that he and Reichsmarschall Göring had to know anyone connected to Doña Carmen and her network that had sabotaged the Tenerife refinery. Name them, find them. Now.

  Schroeder and his two Luftwaffe men braced through the wind and entered the train station. The cavernous Arabesque structure was crowded with loud, sweaty Arabs, French soldiers, and sulfate miners of several nationalities. The air was tobacco, sweat, and spice breath. Eddie and Saba would arrive in four hours. Schroeder walked to the platform where the Al-Maghreb train would arrive. One of his two Luftwaffe men would enter the last fourth-class steerage car and move forward; the other would enter the front steerage car and move to the rear. Eddie and Saba would flee onto this platform amid the other Arabs and be forced into Schroeder’s guns and waiting hands.

  Unfortunately, the officers of the French police prefecture and the Armée d’Afrique of “Greater France” would not allow Saba’s murder and Eddie’s kidnap without a French response. Schroeder remapped his diversion. As the train’s steerage cars began to empty, he would rush to the French police on the platform, tell them that the Raven (and the bounty) was aboard this very train. She would appear; he would point. Saba would engage the French police to their maximum capabilities.

  Schroeder did not share his plan with his two Luftwaffe men. He told them, “Saba Hassouneh will be dressed as a man and is very fast, very dangerous. Do not allow her near you. Do not wait on the French police. Shoot her on sight. The American must be taken alive. If he carries a case of any kind, we must have it as well.”

  “Jawohl. And the French police if they wish to intervene? The French are not soft here, Herr Oberstleutnant. Our instructions have been to avoid engagement at all costs.”

  Schroeder nodded. “We have no alternative; this American is vital to Reichsmarschall Göring and to me. We must have the American alive.”

  The Luftwaffe man added tight leather gloves in spite of the heat. “And if we succeed?”

  “If?” Schroeder peeled his lips thinking of Himmler and his Gestapo dungeons, of short trials and long torture for race treason. “Both of you will be well rewarded. Fail, and the price will be high, for all of us.”

  Saba stayed within herself, eyes everywhere and nowhere, as the Al-Maghreb rattled tense and wary into the mountains. A final stop was made at Oujda, the Italians in the forward seats describing it to the Germans as the “protected route to the manganese mines at Bouarfa.” Loud Spaniards boarded, likely from the Melilla coast, all with weapons in their waistbands. When the train left here it would be bandit prone and become the “Fès-Algiers,” passing into the vast and desolate Algerian frontier to Oran, then on to Algiers. Saba braced as the Spaniards shuffled to replace the German-Italian foursome rising to leave, still discussing Italy and Germany’s plans for North Africa and Europe.

  The Englishman eyed their departure.

  The Italians seemed surprised to see Arabs in the car and so close behind them. The last of the foursome into the aisle was the sober German, young and blond but with hooded eyes and the small smile of a man who hid his importance poorly. Saba had seen many such men, pleased with their ability to frighten others. He reminded her of Erich Schroeder.

  Eddie’s stomach woke him, registering the train’s steep, sudden descent off a treeless plateau. He glimpsed a cathedral dome; the dome vanished, replaced by a sheer drop to the sea below. Eddie craned at his window. At the track’s edge, a rugged coastline plunged toward the Mediterranean and a seaport’s long quays stacked with goods. Military vessels dominated the harbor, guns pointed ashore and to sea. Each ship flew France’s tricolour, blue, white, and red. Eddie looked at Saba; this had to be Oran; he’d slept the entire way.

  A long whistle sounded. The train braked hard, shrieking on the rails, then began to inch downward in lurches. The tracks curved at the base of a fortified peak and turned back on themselves as the train rounded the peak, then straightened into an amphitheater of low buildings beneath the plateau. At sea level, the train stopped.

  Eddie whispered, “Legionnaires on my side. Lots of ’em.”

  Saba’s hand disappeared into her robe. No passengers were allowed to disembark. No Legionnaires or Armée d’Afrique soldiers boarded the train. At the rear, the freight car was uncoupled and left on a siding. The remainder of the train backtracked higher on the same tracks they had descended, chugging around the peak, stopping to switch tracks, then lurched forward under and through the outer gates of Oran’s train station.

  The station looked like the Alamo with a five-story minaret clock tower. The Alamo reminded Eddie of his family. He’d put them in the Nazi’s hands, a Nazi who at this moment would do just about anything to stop their son. Eddie shivered. He had to warn his parents, had to find a way to get to Benny and Floyd if Doña Carmen hadn’t/couldn’t get to them as agreed. But Eddie wouldn’t be doing that if Saba’s escape plans didn’t work. She made it fifty-fifty—they escaped or they didn’t. Her advice was what it always was: “Do not be taken alive.”

  A conductor walked the aisle announcing something in French. Eddie could make out only “Oran” and “passports.” As planned, Eddie stood from his window seat to join the passengers disembarking. Saba grabbed his arm and chinned at the window. Eddie bent and eyed the window.

  Erich Schroeder.

  The two men with Schroeder were splitting toward each end of the train. That ain’t good. Eddie started to speak. Saba’s hand covered his mouth. The European passengers in the seats behind them filed past toward the front of the car. The car was almost empty. Beyond the windows, Erich Schroeder spoke to a French policeman. Schroeder’s men were gone. Police whistles shrilled on the platform. Loud, shouted French commands followed. The four fourth-class steerage cars disgorged three hundred ill-tempered passengers and their goods. Uniforms rushed through toward the train. Inside the first-class car, the last passenger cleared Eddie and Saba’s seat aisle. Saba nodded toward the rear of the car while the front exit was still jammed. “Now. They will think us in the steerage cars.”

  “My absolute pleasure.”

  The coupling between the rear of the first-class car and first steerage car was empty. Saba pulled Eddie out of their car onto the coupling. She shoved him airborne between the cars. Eddie landed on his back. The concussion knocked his air out. Gasping, he rolled to a shoulder. Saba landed on her feet and helped tug him between the wheels under the car and onto the tracks. Eddie sucked air but got steam, choked, covered his face, coughed, and gasped. Steam hissed from the engine and billowed on the track bed. Saba pumped on Eddie’s chest. Eddie blinked back from blackout. Rats scattered from hot bits of oil and ran past Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie caught enough air to breathe and rolled to his stomach. The station platform was four feet above him and the track bed’s slick gravel. Feet thudded on and off the train above. Loud, angry arguments mixed with thuds and scrapes of goods landing and being recovered. French commands echoed, followed by Arabic and French profanity. The train lurched a foot forward, whistled, and geysered steam.

  Saba told Eddie’s ear: “Trouble on the platform; the train departs early.” She rolled toward the car’s opposite edge, then over the rail and out onto the railbed’s bank. The Al-Maghreb lurched another foot. Eddie rolled to
ward the rail. The train whistled, lurched again, and Eddie rolled past the wheel before it cut him in half. He stood, stayed tight to the train, and ran with Saba along the tracks, keeping pace with the coupling where they’d dropped. On the inside track, another steam engine chugged toward them; signal poles and the workers manning the poles started to turn. The Al-Maghreb’s momentum built. Saba jumped up and into the coupling. Eddie chased the opening until he could follow her up and in. Once aboard, he yelled: “Goddammit, don’t do that again.”

  Panting, Saba pulled them to a crouch and pointed at the trailing steerage cars. “There are Nazis aboard. But they must come to us through the Legionnaires and mercenaries who boarded at Taourirt.” Saba pointed with her pistol to the first-class passenger car door at her shoulder. “And there will be a Nazi in there.”

  Eddie pulled his .45.

  Saba said, “This train is now named . . . the Express 101 to Algiers, ‘the death train.’ The Algerian Nationalists throw grenades at the Europeans in the first-class cars.”

  The Oran station disappeared behind them. Eddie grabbed her to jump off. “We’re here to meet Doña Carmen’s folks. C’mon—”

  “No. We have been betrayed.” Her eyes checked his. “We find another way.”

  Erich Schroeder scanned Oran’s cavernous station crowded to its limits and the horde of angry passengers being blocked from exit. He turned and eyed the platform he stood, then the train tracks beyond. Eddie had been on that red wooden train. Schroeder lacked absolute proof but he knew it. The train billowed steam toward Algiers. Schroeder squeezed his fists white as the last of the angry Arab passengers filed toward and past him on the platform. The Europeans were grouped to themselves and being calmed by a uniformed railroad employee. One of Schroeder’s two Luftwaffe men stood five feet away, caution evident in his distance. The other had not jumped off when the train emptied all but the Legionnaires and Senegalese mercenaries. A uniformed captain of the French prefecture station guards barked in Schroeder’s ear, the captain furious that he’d been duped about “the Raven” and now threatened Schroeder with jail for the near riot he’d caused.

  “The Raven was on that train.” Schroeder spun and jammed his hand at the crowd. “And the Raven is in that crowd.”

  The uniformed police captain swore in French and spit on Schroeder’s shoes. Schroeder scanned fast for an exit that would skirt the customs queue. He and his remaining Luftwaffe man must get to the gravel car park at the front of the station, where they could safely watch every passenger as he or she was processed through customs.

  Schroeder pivoted away.

  The French captain yelled: “S’arrêter!” and poised a whistle near his lips. He yelled more French, furious at Schroeder and his Luftwaffe accomplice. Near the back of the queue, an Arab shouldering a heavy box was knocked hard by another passenger. The Arab stumbled. His box fell and split. Grenades rolled like deadly marbles. Schroeder and his Luftwaffe man sprinted. The French captain drew his sidearm and shot the Arab. The crowded terminal erupted—men and freight swarmed at and over the customs queue. More shots. Schroeder and his man followed the other Europeans through a police gate to the outer car park, then turned and faced the mob trying to overrun the queue. Schroeder pulled his man behind the protection of an automobile fender. “Ours will be the tallest Arab! Search for tall! Bent over!”

  Sirens wailed. More police and Armée d’Afrique soldiers charged past. Arabs who successfully fought out of the station were beaten to the gravel. Schroeder palmed the Luger under his coat. “They were on that train.” Schroeder squinted through the wind and riot for tall or bent over. The Luftwaffe man did the same, his Luger in-hand behind his leg. No one resembling Eddie Owen in size or color passed through the queue. Schroeder said, “But they are here. Somehow. On the train. And they make for Palestine.”

  The Luftwaffe man’s eyes were intent on anyone and everyone. The queue emptied. No Eddie Owen. No Raven. Schroeder refocused on the port and its many ships. “Oran is a thief’s clearinghouse. The Raven is wanted by the French, Spanish, and English. My American is wanted by the English. Algeria is a thousand miles of impassable desert in every direction . . . but one.”

  The Luftwaffe man pointed at the harbor below the train station. “Then she will take a boat. The whore’s route—find a sailor or smuggler who will hide her.” The Luftwaffe man added, “I know Oran one year. If her contact here is undefined, she will hide your American outside the city and come in alone. If her contact is known and trusted, he will be in the Arab Quarter or the labyrinth of the old city, where the commerce of the Arab traders and the European money can mix. There she could hide your American until dark, then find their way to the port.”

  Schroeder said, “Check for any ship bound for Lebanon, the Suez, or Palestine. Where can we meet in the Arab Quarter in one hour?”

  “The Murad. Rue Megherbi.”

  Schroeder agreed. The Luftwaffe man departed on foot; Schroeder stayed to watch the last of the stragglers leaving the train station. The Abwehr agents he had employed were either working their contacts in the city or had chosen to keep their distance. Or they had betrayed him to Himmler. Schroeder watched a line of stooped Arabs carrying packages past the adjacent towers of a mosque and a cathedral. Schroeder spoke to himself. “Now we rebait our traps in the Arab Quarter, let the noble Arabs of Oran know the reward has risen, that there is one year’s money to be made.” Schroeder heard his own words and did not belt the Luger, his faith now stronger in the gun.

  Clinging between cars, Saba and Eddie rode the “death train” three miles out of the Oran station. The train built speed in the deafening echoes from a tall gray wall that sealed off the right side of the tracks. Saba read VILLAGE NÈGRE painted there—the exact name of the area where Doña Carmen had instructed Saba to go—The train jolted into a sharp curve on a bad section of track; Saba lost her grip, grabbed for a handhold whose screws gave way, and she fell off the train. Her shoulder landed hard; she tumbled headfirst down the track-bed embankment, rolled twice, and bounced to her feet, marl dust swirling around her.

  Hoots erupted from the fourth-class steerage cars. Arms of Arabs and Legionnaires pointed at her out the window holes. Saba ran with the train and yelled in Arabic for Eddie to jump. He did, landed solid, and slid down the track-bed embankment. They sprinted, trapped between the train and the gray wall, until they reached a switcher’s shed fronted by squat palms and jumped behind. The train and the shouts steamed past.

  Saba checked the tracks back toward the station. Empty. Then back at the train. A man—European?—leaned out of the passenger car, looking for the object of the shouts and the pointing. The train disappeared into the curve; she could not tell if the man jumped. Saba checked her weapons, then the high wall that trapped them to the tracks. Behind the wall, a hillside cemetery rose higher and spread in three directions for as far as she could see. She pointed Eddie fifty meters down the long wall to a nine-foot plaster section. “We must climb there. You can do this?”

  “Hide and watch, honey.”

  They scaled the wall’s ragged brick ends and over, dropped inside without injury, then sprinted through Christian tombstones and blinding sunlight. Saba stopped running at the last stand of almond trees and motioned Eddie into a shaded crouch. To their left, a forty-foot arched gateway opened into the city. The neighborhood the gateway framed was a dense maze of white mud-brick and low-roofed buildings like the fellaheen slums of Janîn and Haifa. Arab children shuffled in the street between the donkey carts and storefronts lined with old men. Beyond the buildings, an elaborate multistory skyline rose and ringed the Arab area. Those elaborate buildings and their wealth would belong to the European masters. Saba spit sand.

  Eddie nudged her. “You okay?”

  Saba rubbed more chalk dust on the wings beneath her eye. “When it becomes dark, I will see to Doña Carmen’s assistance. Please remain here in the trees. If for some reason you are forced out, return at midnight, then again at
three a.m. If I do not return, then the betrayal I fear has proven true and I am dead.”

  Eddie grabbed her hand. “Hey. Can we just take a minute? You need to sleep—”

  “There is no place for sleep.” Saba knew what Eddie did not. Doña Carmen’s connection was here in Oran’s Village Nègre, part of a tribe that serviced pirates and smugglers, a tribe driven by money not loyalty.

  Eddie pulled his .45 and braced up against a tree. “Lay down, rest your head against my lap. You watched me on the train; I’ll watch you here.”

  “You will guard me?” Saba half smiled. “You will take no liberties . . . with my person?”

  Eddie smiled and pulled her to him at the tree. “Put your head here.” He laid her down, her body hidden by trees, her head against his thigh. “No liberties is asking a lot.”

  Saba did not sit up. She drew her pistol and folded it under her arms in one fluid motion. She made two adjustments with her body and head, and was asleep in an instant.

  An hour after sunset, Saba walked the narrow streets of the Village Nègre dressed as a man. The streets were hard-packed earth that would run to mud when it rained. Shadowy gas lamps lit the storefronts and their sidewalk tables. The men at the tables smoked and sipped from small cups. More French was spoken than Arabic. Saba smelled strong coffee, then spiced oil and sweet peppers cooking in ginger-turmeric—her mother’s food—and remembered her younger brother Rani’s fondness for it. Between two busy cafés, an Arab man stopped her, his face too close. In Arabic, he asked directions. She shrugged and tilted her face slightly away. He gave his name, waiting for a response. The knife eased into her hand. The man blocked any exit and asked again. She didn’t answer. He cursed her and walked away.