The Torch of Tangier Page 12

  Lily stared at the darkened sky. Across the way, palm trees worried in the wind. At the foot of the street, fishing boats tossed in the angry water of the harbor, their masts rocking and angling. Raindrops puddled on the oilcloth of the table.

  Tariq passed. Without stopping, he dropped the keys of the truck next to Adam’s plate.

  Rain fell in earnest now, washing away motes of dust, streaming over the backs of chairs. She sat in the downpour.

  Adam pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get out of here.” He threw some money on the table. “It’s coming down in buckets.”

  He held her by the elbow as they ran to the pickup parked at the foot of the street, through furious spates of rain sweeping over them like a curtain, through water splashing over the tips of their shoes.

  Her skirt smelled of wet wool and was heavy with rain. It flapped against her legs as she climbed into the cab of the pickup.

  Adam wiped condensation from the windshield with the edge of his sleeve. “This better clear up. God knows what they’ll do if the storm continues. They can’t hang off the coast forever.” Adam narrowed his eyes, peering at the water-veiled window. “They’re green troops. Came directly across the Atlantic from the States.” He fished for the keys. “Some of them straight out of school.”

  Lily turned to him. He had started the truck and was backing up, looking over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Operation Torch.”

  “Oh.” Operation Torch. Of course.

  They drove into heavy rain sheeting against the glass. Her feet were cold and wet. “About Torch. They can’t go through Gibraltar, you know.” She was shivering. “U-boats are lying off Cape Spartel.”

  “Not any more, they’re not. Drury and MacAlistair leaked the news that we’re preparing an invasion of Belgium. Tariq tells me the U-boats are gone. Further north in the Atlantic, probably. Allied task forces can pass through starting tomorrow.”

  The rain coursed over the windshield and down the hood of the truck. Tears from the sky. Even God is crying.

  Lily sat frozen, staring at the windshield. Maybe Rafi is just missing.

  “You didn’t see it yourself,” Lily said. “You don’t really know if he’s dead.”

  The incessant click-clack of the wipers nodding back and forth like a metronome hypnotized her and overwhelmed her with a visceral sadness.

  “I saw him when….” He glanced at her, then peered through the foggy window. “When they brought him in.”

  They hit a depression in the road. Water spurted against the windows of the truck and Adam rode the brakes. “We’ll come in on the Atlantic side, near Casablanca. Three landings in all, the one in Morocco, one at Oran, and one east of Algiers.”

  Rafi dead? That can’t be true. Why is the war going on without him? “If we had gotten married sooner instead of waiting to finish my dissertation,” Lily said, “if we had had a child….”

  “It’s time to let Boyle in on it,” Adam said. “Even de Gaulle doesn’t know about Operation Torch yet. Won’t know ’til D minus one.”

  “There’s nothing left of him,” Lily said aloud. “It’s as though he never lived.”

  “Rafi? His action made all the difference. Two Panzer divisions were put out of action. We owe the success at El Alemein to him. Always remember, he saved the day.” Adam glanced at her and looked back at the road, squinting through the rain. “Thanks to Rafi, the Brits are on the ground in the Western Desert. They plan to move west against Rommel so we can catch him in a pincer movement. They’ll have their hands full. We have to hope that Spain maintains her neutrality, that the Krauts won’t move through Spain to Gibraltar.”

  They drove in silence, listening to the steady clip clop of the wipers.

  “Who did they leak it to?” Lily asked after a while.

  “What? Oh, the story about the invasion of Belgium.” Adam shrugged, splaying out his hands on the steering wheel. “Could be anyone. Whatever they did, it worked.”

  “Was it Korian?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  They fell silent again. Adam maneuvered the pickup through the rain. Mud exploded against the window as the truck bounced over a rut. Instinctively, Lily ducked.

  “Careful around here,” she said. “There’s a roadblock a little further north. The policeman said something about an airfield.”

  “Nothing to worry about. They don’t patrol in the rain. And the lorry is empty. We have nothing to hide.”

  He drove slowly, slogging along the muddy way until they reached a paved road on the outskirts of Tangier.

  “An airfield?” he asked.

  “That’s what I think he said.”

  The downpour sprayed against the side of the truck and the tires hissed as they cut a swathe through the rain-heavy streets.

  “One more thing to worry about,” Adam said. “Eisenhower’s been able to convince the French general in Algiers not to hinder the landings. But things are different in Morocco. The French chief of staff in Casablanca is afraid of Vichy, wants to make a show of resistance.”

  “Damn it. You make it sound like it’s some kind of game.”

  “I wish,” Adam said. “I wish.”

  In Tangier, the streets were like rivers in the afternoon dark, with no pedestrians and few cars, the wind bending the palm trees, fat raindrops hitting the surface of the water and making circles in the reflection of the streetlights.

  Adam parked the pickup around the corner from the hotel. They ran for the El Minzah through the torrent, sloshing through water coursing over their ankles.

  They trudged into the lobby, shaking off the rain, in time to see Korian slinking down the stairs into the lobby, his heavy liquid eyes drooping, giving his face a permanent façade of weariness or guilt.

  Lily could never tell which.

  He seemed startled when he saw Lily. “I come here every Tuesday for tea and bridge.”

  “No need to explain.”

  He had covered the hole in his lapel with a small pink rosebud. “It’s a bridge club. The British Whist Association.”

  “Whist?” There was a different smell to him today.

  “That’s what they call it. You can ask upstairs.”

  “I believe you.” Cigars. That’s what it was. “You’ve been smoking a cigar?”

  “I always do at the Tuesday Whist. Can’t smoke them in the Legation.” By now, Korian had maneuvered to the door. “Have to run. My taxi is here.”

  He hurried into the street.

  They watched him leave and started up the stairs.

  “All I want is a hot bath and some dry clothes,” Adam said. “I’ll call you in an hour. If you’re up to it, we can talk over dinner.”

  As they reached the hall, Lily thought she saw a billow of orange pantaloons disappear around a corner.

  She found her key and opened the door.

  Inside the room, Drury sat in the chair facing her, his face purplish and swollen, jaw slack, blind eyes bloodshot.

  Lily backed into the hall, colliding with Adam, feeling panic mount in her throat.

  Adam caught her by the shoulders, stifled her scream with his hand over her mouth. “My God! He’s dead.”

  He led her into the room and shut the door. “I have to get the code box from Drury’s room before we call the police. Be right back.” His face was bloodless with shock, and his hand quivered as he stroked her cheek and traced under her chin. “You’ll be all right?”

  She was too numb to answer.

  He reached for her shoulder and his arm fell to his side. “May as well change out of those wet clothes. You’ll catch your d…. Oh God damn!” He stood at the door, twisting the knob. “Be back soon.”

  The lock clicked when he shut the door behind him.

  Lily averted her eyes, trying not to look at Drury, and reached into the closet.

  Keep moving.

  She clung to the edge
of the room as she made her way to the dresser.

  She fumbled open the middle drawer and reached inside for underwear, feeling the clothing damp against her neck and stretching across her back. She was trembling now, scarcely able to move.

  On her way to the bathroom, she passed Drury and her eyes turned away.

  She sidestepped into the bathroom and shut the door. Hardened pieces of the mashed potatoes Drury had packed around the microphone were strewn on the floor like bits of yellowed plaster. The grid from the airway lay across the sink, leaving a residue of soot when she moved it away to turn on the water.

  The walls of the bathroom swirled around her and she clung to the sink for balance, overwhelmed with a feeling of unreality, floating in a dark void, soul-scarred and empty.

  She rubbed her wet head with a towel, pressing harder and harder, faster and faster, until the muscles in her neck ached. She changed out of her wet clothes and, still shivering, opened the bathroom door. Back into the bedroom, back to where Drury sat in the chair, the lamplight glaring on his mottled face and lolling tongue. A microphone lay on the table next to his clutched hand and a wire was tight around his neck.

  This time, she screamed and couldn’t stop.

  Chapter Twenty

  Footsteps pounded through the hall, strangers pressed into the room—the desk clerk with a frightened face, Adam Pardo shaking his head no. No code box, no Rafi, no Drury, no screaming.

  Two policemen from the Guardia Civil came through the door. One of them, a lieutenant, advanced toward her speaking, his mouth moving, his arm gesturing.

  “Miss Sampson,” he said again in English. “Miss Sampson. You will come with me.”

  ***

  Lily sat on a low stool in a room with a high window, her wrists handcuffed to the legs of the chair, her shoulders hunched over, a policeman on either side of her. A pair of floodlights blazed into her eyes.

  She had been here all night, in spite of protestations that she worked at the Legation, in spite of her request for diplomatic immunity.

  “You don’t have a diplomatic passport,” Lieutenant Periera insisted.

  “Call the Legation, they’ll tell you. Speak to the chargé d’affaires, Artemis Boyle.”

  “The Guardia Civil office is closed. We can’t make the call until tomorrow morning.”

  She had almost asked to speak to Major Pardo, then thought better of it.

  “No one called about me?”

  “Should they have, Miss Sampson? You have an arrangement, a code, a signal?”

  I’m on my own.

  “You were in your room with Drury for ten minutes before your screams were heard,” the lieutenant repeated. He stood on a platform that ran around the edge of the room, gazing down at her with steely resolve. “What did you do in those ten minutes?”

  Cold and exhausted, she closed her eyes. The lights burned through her eyelids with a red haze. Drury’s face in the light of the lamp, blotched and swollen, loomed before her.

  “You didn’t get along with Drury,” a voice said. “You argued with him. No secrets in Tangier, Miss Sampson. You fought with him in public two days ago.” The voice was clipped and hard. “A lover’s quarrel?”

  The room buzzed around her. Her head sank. Drury’s face wouldn’t go away. Will I always remember him like this? Will I forget the tall, gaunt man with the thatch of white hair and the quizzical eyes?

  “Open your eyes,” the voice demanded.

  She felt herself pitching off the chair.

  “Your door was locked. I repeat—”

  She thought of Rafi, and remembered him smiling. Rafi who defied the Panzer Division. Where was Rafi now?

  “Look at me, Miss Sampson,” the voice said.

  Someone grabbed her hair and yanked back her head, arching her neck, pulling her backward until she felt the pressure on her manacled wrists.

  The lieutenant loomed over her. Beyond the glare of the floodlights, the pearly white sky of morning glimmered through the patch of window.

  “You had an accomplice, Miss Sampson. You couldn’t have killed him by yourself. Who was your accomplice? Major Pardo? Your other lover?”

  “I told you, I didn’t….”

  “Whoever it was, we’ll find him, Miss Sampson. There are remnants of skin and blood under Drury’s fingernails. The man who helped you has scratches on his hands and arms.”

  Periera waited for an answer.

  “I can understand, Miss Sampson,” he said, softly this time.

  He paused, shot a glance at the policeman by her side, nodded and stepped down to the floor of the room. The policeman released Lily’s hair and her head fell forward.

  The lieutenant leaned toward her. “I can guess what happened.”

  His tone changed. He spoke into her ear, almost whispering, as if he were confiding in her. “You are an attractive woman, Miss Sampson. Drury lurked in your room, made advances, pressed you. Isn’t that so?”

  Lily didn’t answer.

  “And someone came to your rescue,” he continued in an unctuous voice.

  “I need to sleep.”

  She closed her eyes again. This time she saw Rafi, caught in the crossfire, blown up in the minefield.

  “You don’t have to hide the identity of your defender, Miss Sampson,” the voice said. “He protected your honor. I would have done the same.”

  She looked up at Periera. “I didn’t. No one–-”

  The door behind the lieutenant opened. Another guard came into the room. The lieutenant rose, conferred with the guard and they left together.

  Lily closed her eyes and slumped on the stool. She felt herself falling into a red cloud. The pressure on her wrists pulled her back. She wrenched awake, looked around the room, closed her eyes again.

  She heard a door open, heard footsteps, heard the lieutenant’s voice drone at her.

  He barked orders in rapid Spanish.

  Someone unlocked the handcuffs, pulled Lily from the stool, led her onto the platform and out of the room.

  “The American chargé d’affaires pretends that you work at the Legation,” the lieutenant said as they moved her down the hall. He marched ahead, his heels clacking along the corridor. “Claims you have diplomatic immunity.”

  In the lieutenant’s office, Boyle sat in a slatted wooden chair that faced the desk. A policeman stood Lily next to Boyle and left the room.

  At the desk, the lieutenant moved his chair, smoothed his sleeves, and straightened the blotter and tray on his desk. “And what do you do at the Legation, Miss Sampson?”

  “I already told you,” Boyle said. “She’s the cultural attachée.”

  The lieutenant reached for a paper clip in the tray. “And what do you do as cultural attachée?”

  “She maintains contacts with locals,” Boyle said quickly. “Gives out information about American culture, informs our personnel about customs and beliefs of the native population.”

  “I was asking Miss Sampson. She can speak for herself.” He stopped, looked down at his hands and played with the paper clip. He twisted the wire into an S, kept twisting until it snapped in two. “What are your duties, Miss Sampson?”

  Only two chairs in the room. Lily could feel herself swaying.

  “I’m waiting, Miss Sampson.”

  Boyle stood up and motioned Lily to the chair.

  She sat. He’s waiting for an answer. “I….” What did I do at the Legation? “A… a handbook on Rif culture for our staff.”

  A piece of the broken paper clip scudded to the floor when the lieutenant threw it down. “How long has she worked for the Legation, Mr. Boyle? Since yesterday? Last week?”

  “Since she arrived in Tangier to do archaeological research under the auspices of the State Department.”

  Periera grasped a worn green passport embossed with a gold American eagle, picked it up and waved it in the air. “I have her passport here.” He slapped it on the desk.
“I repeat, Miss Sampson, it is not a diplomat’s pass.”

  Boyle took a step toward him. “You doubt my word, Periera?” His indignation rang in the room, too broad, too pat. “Colonel Yuste will hear of this. Insulting American representatives, abusing members of our diplomatic corps.”

  “Colonel Yuste will indeed hear. An American national was killed and the chargé d’affaires offers a lame excuse to demand release of our principal suspect.” Periera paused, letting a hint of warning hang in the silence. “Diplomatic immunity indeed.”

  Periera picked up the passport and leafed through it. “Interesting document. Palestine, England, Egypt. You are well traveled, Miss Sampson. What is it you do exactly?”

  “I dig. I’m an archaeologist, an anthropologist. I excavated in the caves on Cape Spartel until–-”

  Periera opened the passport to the first page. “The picture hardly does you justice.”

  He tossed it back on the desk and turned to Boyle. He waited. Lily closed her eyes and heard Periera’s voice again.

  “Miss Sampson? Miss Sampson, did you hear what I said?”

  Lily opened her eyes, too frightened to speak, too tired to care.

  “Did you hear me, Miss Sampson? You may leave for the time being. Return to what Boyle calls your official responsibilities.”

  Outside, Boyle guided Lily toward an old Packard parked at the curb. A small American flag fluttered from a stick perched on the right fender.

  The glare of the overcast morning burned Lily’s eyes.

  “I can’t go back to that hotel room,” she told Boyle. “Not after—”

  “Major Pardo took care of it. Brought your things to the Legation, set them up in the room next to your office.”

  Lily shuffled along the sidewalk toward the Packard.

  “You look terrible.” Boyle reached into his pocket and handed her a comb. “At least, try to comb your hair.”

  The comb slipped through Lily’s fingers. “I’ll be staying at the Legation?”

  Boyle opened the passenger door for Lily. “You have your own bathroom down the hall.” He picked up the comb from the sidewalk. “Tiled. Very Moorish.”