Three Passports to Trouble

by Sean McLachlan

  “Nonsense! The Republic fell because—”

  Melanie cut us off. “What’s this big machine?”

  Tomau turned to her with a smile.

  “It’s for stamping sheet metal. If you’re interested in the work we could get you a job,” Tomau said as he stepped closer to her. “Ladies are always welcome in the revolution. Did you know that Spain’s first female minister was from the CNT?”

  “Really?” Melanie replied, showing an interest I knew she didn’t feel.

  The anarchist nodded. “Federica Montseny. She was minister of health. She made great strides in training female workers in bodily health and taking care of infants. The state of education for women had been terrible, just terrible. The schools were all run by the Church, you see. So the girls were taught nothing but, ‘Keep your legs closed until you have a husband to submit to!’”

  “I don’t have a husband,” Melanie said.

  That got his interest. “No?”

  “I don’t feel I need one.”

  The anarchist’s eyes briefly flicked in my direction, literally sizing me up. I could see the wheels turning. Yeah, this short American was with her, but he couldn’t really be with her.

  “Marriage is a bourgeois construct,” he said. “Would you like to see more of the workshop? Many Catalan women took quite an interest in industry once they were allowed to. We even had an all-female collective making bandages and blankets for the front.”

  “But not ammunition?”

  The anarchist laughed. “Ammunition is a bit trickier. Best to leave that to the experts.”

  “Do you have any women working here?” Melanie asked. I looked around and didn’t see any.

  “We have Maria in the office, and Gloria comes in to sweep up.”

  “How revolutionary,” Melanie muttered under her breath. At least that’s what I thought she said. It was hard to hear with all that racket going on.

  We passed out of the machine shop and over to the barracks. I saw a football pitch out back.

  “Here are our living quarters,” Tomau said. “We have a recreation room in here. Chess, checkers, a radio and books. A lot of us go into town pretty regularly.”

  “I hope you don’t get too lonely out here,” Melanie said.

  “We’re a bit short of female company.”

  “Hire more women.”

  “The office is already full.”

  Before Melanie said something she wouldn’t regret, I cut in.

  “Well thanks a bunch, comrade. If you learn anything more, get in touch.”

  I handed him a card and we shook hands again. Melanie griped about the “anarchist pigs” the whole way back. I mean, she was really fuming.

  Good thing I had been there to stop any political arguments.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The two Spaniards had the bored impatience of boat passengers being told that stormy weather had delayed their departure for a third straight day.

  I had them holed up in a little room in the medina. They kept out of sight. A boy brought them their meals and cigarettes. They only went out to use the brothel down the street.

  Both were in their thirties, quiet and careful. I got the impression they came with a lot of experience between them. One lay in bed reading Trotsky by the dim light of the single bulb. It was one of my books. Of course he wouldn’t be so stupid as to pack something like that in his luggage. The other operative sat on the end of his own bed, busy shining his shoes. That one was a bit of a neat freak. Shined his shoes every day even though he hardly walked anywhere.

  “How are you fellas getting along?” I asked, pulling out a bottle of wine from a bag.

  “Better now,” Neat Freak grinned.

  I could tell you their names, but the names they gave me were both false. And they were going to change again in a day or two. In this business, names were as cheap as disposable razors.

  “I should have the passports by late tomorrow,” I told them. “Then we can get you on a bus first thing in the morning. Any trouble?”

  “None,” the Reader said, not looking up from his book. “We haven’t been out today.”

  “The boy who brought our cigarettes this morning says the police are checking paperwork on the Spanish,” Neat Freak said.

  “The Moorish boys are the eyes and ears of the medina,” I told him. “What else did he say?”

  “His Spanish isn’t too good so we couldn’t get many details, but he says the Spanish are being checked on the streets, and that the police have gone into cafes asking to see papers. They are led by a Frenchman.”

  Chason.

  “Any word what’s got them all riled up?” There had been no more violence, so why the police escalation?

  Neat Freak shook his head. “The boy didn’t know.”

  I plunked the bottle on the bedside table. “Drink your wine and stay in tonight. No visits to the ladies down the street.”

  The Reader peeked over the pages of his book and grinned. “We’ll make the sacrifice for the Revolution.”

  “You do that. I’m going to see what’s going on with the cops.”

  It was time to check in with Gerald.

  I found him not in his office, but on the street outside, making for the police station with a distracted air.

  “Hey, Gerald. Tough day?”

  “Come on in for a drink, Shorty, I could use one.”

  “Any trouble?” I asked as we passed through the arched gate. Moorish policeman standing guard to either side snapped us a salute.

  “The council is breathing down my neck about this murder and now we have a complicating factor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Madrid sent us intelligence that two Communist Party operatives may have entered Tangier on false passports.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “No details. They don’t know their real names or even their assumed names. Just that a mission involving two men may have entered the International Zone. The timing with the murder of Juan Cardona couldn’t be coincidental.”

  Oh yes it could. My boys are sitting tight in their room like professionals. That wouldn’t turn off the heat, though.

  “Is that why Chason is running around checking all the Spanish identity papers?”

  “I’m sure he’s ruffling a few feathers, but it shows us being evenhanded without revealing why. He’s checking nationalists and republicanos and any neutrals, not that there are many neutrals in the Spanish population.”

  “Actually there are,” I said. “Plenty of folks moved to Tangier from Spain before the war looking for a better life, and a lot of them didn’t want any part in their country tearing itself to pieces.”

  You might be surprised that Gerald would tell me all this when it was pretty well known that I had fought for the Republican side during the war. I didn’t make any secret of my communist leanings. But Gerald didn’t suspect me for a couple of reasons. First, there were heaps of communists in Tangier, and not just among the Spanish population. A lot of European comrades had to flee Stalin or the oppressive regimes in Western Europe to someplace where they couldn’t be touched. There were plenty of more suspicious characters in town than yours truly. Secondly, I had played the long game. I lived here for two years before starting any Party work. Gerald’s predecessor had done a thorough check on me and had given me a clean slate. I also did him a few good turns by helping him out with cases. So by the time Gerald took the job my name wasn’t even close to any list of suspects.

  Gerald poured us each a generous drink of Scotch, even by Gerald’s usually generous standards.

  “Chason hasn’t gotten any closer to finding the operatives,” he said. “Assuming there are any to find. Madrid’s intelligence apparatus tends towards the overly paranoid. Chason has rounded up three men wanted for crimes. Nothing related to the case, sadly. It’s remarkable how these people will sit right next to you in cafes and think they can hide in plain sight.”

  “Some people got a lot of
nerve.” Time to change the subject. “I visited Felipe.”

  “Find anything out?” Gerald did not sound hopeful.

  “Nothing concrete, but a hunch. Do we know who Felipe associated with?”

  “The usual Falange crowd. Why, do you mean someone specific?”

  “Any younger guy, someone Felipe took under his wing?”

  Gerald gave a wry smile. “I don’t think he’s the type.”

  “Neither does he. It would be worth checking. Probably a big blonde guy, not Spanish. May speak Spanish with a German accent.”

  “If you say so.”

  “After meeting Felipe I’m convinced he didn’t do it.”

  Gerald took a sip from his Scotch and visibly relaxed. From the Scotch, not the news.

  “I tend to agree, but if the real murderer is still out there we’ll have to find him soon. This case is being rushed through the preliminaries. My superiors want this done quickly.”

  “But any decent lawyer could get him off by arguing he’s too weak to have done it. The worst you could get him for is perverting the course of justice.”

  “But he won’t take on an attorney. And the prosecutor has admission of guilt, witnesses to a confrontation between the defendant and victim, and a murder weapon of the exact type owned by the defendant. The members of the council aren’t going to look much further.”

  “They should. If it turns out that it wasn’t the case of a fascist killing an anarchist but someone trying to make it look that way, that would calm things down a lot.”

  “My superiors think the swift course of justice would do just as well. Shows we’re efficient.”

  “Being efficient won’t stop more trouble.”

  “Perhaps not. I’ll put some feelers out in the fascist community. You keep working on the republicanos.”

  “Will do,” I said, draining the last of my Scotch. “Did you check Juan’s apartment?”

  “Yes. A ratty little place in the heart of the medina. Nothing of note. A bit of anarchist literature, no letters.”

  “You know, I’m beginning to think this guy’s a bit too much of a nonentity. Can anyone really be this boring?”

  “He is conveniently inconspicuous, isn’t he?”

  “I’ll keep digging,” I said, getting up.

  It was now evening. As I stepped out of the police station, the muezzin in the large mosque by the Grand Socco started the call to prayer. I could see him atop the tall square minaret of white and peach tile, cupping his hands as he sang out over the vast native market of charcoal sellers and farmers with their produce and the row of currency exchangers doing a brisk trade. Only a few Moors moved toward the mosque. The women stayed fanning their braziers of meat, the men still called out rates and prices, and a thousand people talked, bargained, laughed, and argued in half a dozen languages. The real religion of Tangier, money, was being honored in its holy sanctuary of the open market.

  I turned away from that scene and headed down to the port, taking a shortcut through the darkening alleys.

  That had been some bad news from Gerald. If Madrid had sent up a flare, then somebody close to the organization must have squealed. We operated in cells, with people only knowing what they needed to know. If all the turncoat knew was that two of our men had gone to Tangier, he was probably one of our transport people, driving on backcountry roads to avoid police checkpoints, or someone at the port who made sure they didn’t have trouble getting on the boat.

  Who the turncoat was didn’t matter at the moment. What really mattered was that Chason had a bee in his bonnet about it. Unlike Gerald, who could be too trusting of his friends, Chason suspected everybody. A far more practical point of view if you were a cop in Tangier. He knew of my political beliefs and didn’t believe I’d put revolutionary activism behind me.

  I half turned to let an old Moor pass in the opposite direction. I was in one of the narrower alleys, one that wended its way downhill like a trickle of water seeking the sea. Appropriately, the walls to either side were painted blue, a custom of the Berbers who came down from the Rif hoping to find a better life in the big city, and by a better life I mean enough to eat.

  The alley turned a corner. A few yards ahead it made another blind turn.

  In that hidden ten feet of alley is where they got me.

  Two bulky men came around the corner in unison, like a door closing. They stood shoulder to shoulder and blocked the way. At the sound of a step behind me I turned to see a smug, lanky man come around the bend and stand there, rocking on the balls of his feet. The knuckles on his right fist were scraped and raw, like he had recently beaten somebody to a pulp.

  I went for my gun.

  The pair of thugs doing the door imitation were closer but slower. The boxer who had tailed me rushed in like a meteor.

  That meant all three of them came down on me at the same time.

  Not quite. I got the muzzle of my gun jammed into neck of one half of the Man Door. Everyone saw it. Everyone froze.

  “The two of you that don’t have a gun giving them a hickey, pull back.”

  I said this in Spanish, because they all were.

  They pulled back. I yanked on my captive, getting my back to the wall and him between them and me.

  “All right. This was too smooth for some cheap medina mugging. Who sent you?”

  I didn’t even see him coming. The two I had told to back off were widely spaced, so I had to glance between them.

  In that one second when my head was turned, the boxer dove in.

  My automatic reaction was to point the gun at him.

  Wrong number, pal. It’s been disconnected.

  His fist came down on my wrist like a hammer. The gun flew from my hand, my trigger finger having jerked open when he smacked my wrist. He had planned it that way.

  But plans can go wrong.

  The pistol landed on its hammer. The clank of metal hitting flagstone was cut off an instant later by the bark of the gun, the flare of the muzzle pointing straight up. A bullet shot out from the medina to land God knows where, a deadly little bit of spite tearing down from the blue.

  But I had my own problems.

  The boxer followed through with a left hook. He hadn’t even jumped at the sudden shot.

  Good thing I hadn’t either. I ducked the punch and dove left. I wasn’t going to face this guy. He’d mop the floor with me.

  My fist jammed into the stomach of one of the other thugs and opened the way.

  For a second I thought I’d made it. I got three good steps before the other half of the Man Door tackled me. Actually slid in behind me and kicked out my legs like some pro soccer player. I landed on top of him.

  I rolled off, elbowing him but not getting a solid hit. Scrambling to my feet, I just managed to get my arm up in time to stop the boxer from taking my head off.

  Instead it felt like he had taken my arm off.

  The next fist jammed into my stomach.

  I crumpled like an unwanted newspaper. Next thing I knew I had my forehead to the ground, Moorish style, trying not to lose that drink Gerald had given me. I could taste it again. Didn’t taste so good the second time.

  Someone kicked me in the ribs, not hard but hard enough.

  I struggled to rise.

  Then stopped when I saw a hand gripping a pistol.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Stop! Police!”

  The cop was a suave-looking young Moor. Slim body of nothing but muscle, broad shoulders, slicked back hair. The kind that old rich foreign ladies swoon over. He held his service revolver on the three.

  They called his bluff and all bolted around the corner. He raised his gun but did not fire. A Moor can get in big trouble for shooting a European, even in a situation like this.

  “Stop!”

  He rushed after them.

  Alone at last. I grabbed my gun, picked myself up, retrieved my hat only to find some unidentifiable muck smeared on the brim and the hatband before tossing it into a corner. />
  “I’m putting that on expenses, Gerald,” I muttered as I creaked along.

  I kept my gun in my hand but inside my jacket. A plump old Moorish woman passed by, eyes averted.

  After another two minutes, the cop reappeared.

  “All you all right, sir?” he asked in Spanish.

  “Yeah. You came just at the right time.”

  “I happened to have answered a call in their neighborhood just a few minutes ago. I was just coming out the door when I heard the shot.”

  No, you were following me.

  “Did you get them?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Those guys looked like they knew the medina well.” This was a mixed Berber and Spanish neighborhood. “So long.”

  “I will escort you safely out of the medina, sir.”

  That he did, all the way to the port. I hardly got a word from him the whole trip. I shook his hand as he left me at the Bab Dar Dbagh, where the road leads down to the corniche.

  I let out one hell of a breath once he went out of sight.

  How long had this guy been following me around? Had he seen me visit the operatives? Did Chason suspect I had a hand in that and sent one of his officers to spy on me?

  They might be raiding their room right now.

  I forced myself to remain calm. Getting all worked up about it wouldn’t do any good. If they were getting raided, they were gone already and there was nothing I could do. If Chason still didn’t know about them and where they were staying, then they were safe enough for the moment.

  But this guy might have been following me for hours and I didn’t notice. What if they put another guy, equally good, on me? I hadn’t realized Chason had trained up his men so well. This spelled trouble. Big trouble.

  How could I visit the operatives again, or even fetch the passports, without the risk of Chason finding out?

  A slow walk along the corniche in the evening breeze eased my aches and pains but did nothing to help me answer those questions.

  The sky behind me was a fading red, while in front of me the shoreline curved gently around the Bay of Tangier. On the far side, along the ridge, I could make out a few Moorish villages, little clusters of whitewashed boxes in the fading light. At the end of the ridge, jutting out into the Strait of Gibraltar, winked a lighthouse. A British naval officer had told me that an Austrian family ran it for three generations until the Great War started, and then the Allied powers, not wanting an enemy in charge of such an important lighthouse, had them removed. Now it was run by an Englishman. This has always been sensitive territory, fought over by every power in Europe while the Moors sleep, watch, and await their chance.