“History. The English draw lines in the sand to make states to their liking, to fit the Europeans’ way of things. That is not how it is in the desert, nor how it will ever be. My people do not come from European blood, do not eat, sleep, or marry as they do there.”
She leaned closer and Eddie could smell the perfume again, see the fire in her eyes. The treble in her voice rose and she pointed at the ground he had patted. “This place is a place, not a land waiting for the European to come and change it to his. We live here, and have for thousands of years. The English have England; why should they have my country or the right to give it to others?”
Eddie wasn’t aware the British were giving away Iran or anywhere else.
“Ibn Saud is given Arabia, Hussein is given Transjordan, the Zionists are given Palestine—who are the British to effect such things. Are they gods?”
Eddie wanted to answer but didn’t have one.
“Do they have a right to empire? One that makes me slave or servant because I am not as you or they?” Her voice was getting louder and both her men were staring. That wouldn’t be good if they got mad, even worse if they were just nervous because their boss was about to go off. They didn’t look like fellas who scared easy.
“No. No they don’t. No one does. If it’s your country, it’s your country.”
“And the Indians in yours?”
“Lots of rich Indians in Oklahoma and Texas. Whole bunch of ’em. Lots of poor ones, too.”
The princess-schoolteacher eased back, collecting herself the way rattlesnakes do on hot days, her eyes staying with his, her posture softening, the threat moving away, under a rock but not gone.
“Sounds like you really don’t care for our hosts—” Eddie choked on the word hosts. “Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply this was theirs . . . or swear, either. Got a lot to learn. You can tell I’m not quite as historically proficient as you.”
She pointed at the wine. He set it as near to her as he could reach and watched her raise the bottle and sip behind the veil. She sat with the bottle between her legs crossed as an Arab man would, the bottle resting on her robe. She pointed at the sky.
“There are three stars in a row to the left of the moon and below. Bright ones, all together. Do you see them?”
Eddie didn’t but said yes. The sky in the desert was so bright it hurt his eyes.
“Those are my family. The dead who keep me company. Every night they never fail to visit me, wherever I am.” She sipped the wine again. “Tell me about your family, Eddie Owen, American.”
His name felt strange in her voice, fluid, exotic, better than his name usually sounded when said by roughnecks, gangsters, and drunk Irish construction workers. Eddie laughed, almost asked her to say it again.
“This is funny, your family?”
“No. My name, it sounded . . . nice in your voice. Hadn’t heard it said like that in a long time.” Eddie thought about Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl, the letter from his mother thanking him for the money, telling him it was enough to keep them in food and the bank receiver away every month. The news about his father hadn’t been as good. Newt was failing, the Dust Bowl and the depression killing his father’s heart, the money from his son good, as was all the help from D.J. Bennett, but painful for a proud working man to take.
“My family’s okay; they live in Oklahoma. Things aren’t good there now. No rain . . . they call it the Dust Bowl.” Eddie raised his hand carefully above his head. “Big clouds of dirt blown across hundreds of miles . . . It’s bad in Oklahoma now.”
“Why are you here, then? You do not help your family when in need?”
“I send them most of my paycheck; I don’t need it, and it keeps the bank from taking the farm.”
“Taking the farm? The government will take their land?”
“If my mother and father can’t pay, the bank will sell them out, hold an auction.”
She couldn’t quite grasp the concept. Eddie explained how foreclosure worked and why it was happening to thousands of Americans. Shock was burned into her voice as if he’d poured gasoline on her dreams.
“But how could this be to America? You defeated the English, settled a civil war. How could this happen? Do the rich in America suffer, too?”
Eddie laughed. “Probably not. The rich tend not to suffer anywhere.”
Headlights.
Her two men were standing, both with pistols drawn and held behind their robes. The lights above them on the seaside road fanned past them, then stopped. Two voices spoke in Arabic. One of her men returned. Eddie saw a hand signal that seemed almost military and Calah the princess-schoolteacher stood. She pointed the man to the headlights and stepped sideways, putting the moon at her back.
“I must go.”
“Go? The Brits won’t have our car caravan available till tomorrow.”
She stepped into his face. Eddie noticed both her hands were visible, a fingertip rubbing wine under her right eye. Her hand dropped; there were black . . . He leaned closer, for some reason afraid to step . . . Wings tattooed under her eye. Small black wings.
“It is possible you and I will meet again in Haifa, Eddie Owen, American, to speak again of America and your family. This”—she tapped the tattoo—“is how you will know me.”
Eddie said, “I—”
She put a very fast hand in his face. “No. I must go. Do not speak of me to others; it will not be good for you.” She climbed uphill. “History, Eddie Owen. Ask your English employers why they have a right to an empire and I have rights to nothing.”
And then she was gone. Like she’d never been there. Just a car from nowhere, its door closing, engine noise, and then nothing. Fast, fluid exit. He’d seen them before, in the newsreels, guys with fedoras and Tommy guns.
She was a schoolteacher, right?
Sure she is.
Eddie rubbed his forehead. It hurt and reminded him he wasn’t a genius with England’s world politics and those it affected, the Irish for sure. The desert was strange; he was smart enough to figure that. Eddie glanced at the sky beginning to lighten behind him and realized she had hypnotized him again. They’d spent the entire night out here, her explaining the desert, him walking her through Oklahoma and Texas. He smiled; his first date in almost two years and he’d only seen her eyes. Well, her hands, too. Awfully rough for teacher’s hands. Eddie sipped the wine and thought he could taste her mouth on the bottle. Her stars were still up there somewhere; excellent place for a cemetery, actually. He toasted the stars on their choice of girls. God knows she was potent when you couldn’t see her. No telling what she’d be like if you could.
Daylight came with a gruff British accent.
Eddie blinked at nine uniforms blocking most of the sun and tried to shield his eyes. “Huh?”
“Up fast and standing, Mr. Owen. The cap’n’s waiting.”
Eddie stood, dusting what he could, and checked his surroundings. Last night’s events still lingered. The lieutenant pointed at the empty wine bottle and barked, “And the wogs are?”
“Sorry, I didn’t get that.”
“The Arabs, man. Mates of yours, their whereabouts?”
Eddie shrugged, surprised at the tone. “Don’t know?” He noticed the soldiers all had rifles and the look of fellows who’d used them before.
The lieutenant’s voice hardened further. “On the hop, Yank, Captain Wingate is waiting. Your bunch travels on the hour; whether you’re with ’em is up to him.”
The soldiers packed Eddie into a jeep and rode downhill into town. Bushehr, Iran, looked different in the early daylight. Ancient buildings blended into the landscape in grand and humble ways and made a curious sense with the roadway and the seafront. Then, suddenly, there’d be structures that could’ve been dropped in from Charles Dickens. Very odd. But odder still were the people on the street. Most were light-skinned men in western clothes or British uniforms. This was the port of Sinbad the Sailor—minarets and domes topped with the crescent moon and star—where w
ere the Persians?
Captain Orde Wingate’s office had no Persians present. The office was large and so was Captain Wingate. Two rows of decorations marched across a stiff red jacket, the collar tight under a jutting chin. A fan slowly revved above him and a palatial wooden desk. Middesk, a green leather blotter supported the captain’s clenched fist, a folder, and a single framed picture. The photograph framed two chubby children and a severe-looking wife, hair so tight in a bun it hurt Eddie’s eyes to look.
From behind Eddie, someone stern said: “Your Arab chums appear to be truant.”
Eddie turned to a five-foot-nine bespoke suit lighting a pipe with a stick match. The man puffed apple tobacco into the air as if the smoke were a gift. He wore a silk bowtie; his bearing suggested enmity, and not altogether latent.
Eddie extended his hand. “Hi, I’m Eddie Owen.”
The man didn’t shake. Eddie forced bravado. “Nice suit. They sell those here?”
A fist hammered a desk and snapped Eddie back to Captain Wingate. “Mr. Owen. The Crown does not tolerate sedition or spies. We execute them.”
“O . . . kay?” Eddie tennis-matched between the two men, not sure where this was headed.
The civilian behind the pipe spoke first, his face a sharpened wedge and a disturbing blank. “Our desert has harsh realities, Mr. Owen, as will Haifa. There, and here, Great Britain has a mandate: Curb the wogs from murdering one another and any foreigner they choose.”
Eddie nodded without agreeing.
“The wogs are children, Mr. Owen, obstinate children; the sooner you understand that the better. The threat of a European war makes our already onerous governing situation here worse. Your Nazi and Arab friends wish that to continue.” The civilian paused for a long draw on his pipe. “As in all governance, treachery among the masses requires a decisive hand.” He curled a bony finger at Eddie, summoning him to the window, then pointed his pipe at a blond man waiting to board the first of the passenger transports. “Erich Schroeder. You are familiar with him? A friend of yours and the Arab girl?”
Eddie had seen the fit, blond fellow at the airport and on the plane. The fellow moved stiffly as if his back had been injured. “Nope. Not a friend of mine.”
“Herr Schroeder is Hermann Göring’s man in America and the oil fields of the desert. You do know of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.”
Eddie didn’t and said so.
“President of the German Reichstag, Reich Minister of Aviation, and the first successor to Adolf Hitler. You’ve heard of Adolf Hitler?”
“Oh, yeah.” Eddie knew he was being mocked and, deserving or not, had lost his inclination toward further bravado. Cottonmouths near his face had always had that effect.
“Herr Schroeder was in Arabia, a mere fifteen miles west when your refinery exploded and our causeway was sabotaged. Schroeder had high tea with Ibn Saud, the Nazi-sympathizer king of Arabia. Then Herr Schroeder vanished for three days . . . before arriving at the airport for his flight here.”
Eddie nodded, not knowing what else to do.
“The three Arabs for whom you vouched yesterday? There is no record of their entry into Arabia, yet they were aboard your plane from Dhahran.” He fanned three passports at Eddie’s face. “Forgeries.”
“Sorry. I sat with her on the plane; your sergeant was giving her a hard time for no reason, so I helped her. I didn’t know.”
Captain Wingate slammed his desk again. “For no reason?” Wingate rounded the corner, aiming for Eddie. “That Nazi down there and his Führer have been busy, possibly you’ve heard?” Wingate stopped eight inches from Eddie’s face. “Hitler has pushed France out of the Rhineland and remilitarized the entire area. Five days ago he seized Austria. Now his storm troopers threaten Czechoslovakia.”
Eddie learned better from a distance but there didn’t seem to be much. Possibly his “for no reason” was a poor evaluation of the Brits’ airport police work. The Brits were nervous about threats to the empire and there seemed to be a number of them from several directions.
The civilian waved his pipe for Captain Wingate to disengage. Wingate stepped back three feet. The civilian pointed it at Eddie. “Our meeting here is fortuitous; I had planned your education for Haifa for Friday after you arrived. Your mission in Haifa is important to the Crown and the stability of the region. We will not have either jeopardized by recklessness or stupidity.”
Eddie flinched at “mission.” He let “stupidity” pass.
“Hitler may or may not be the answer to the Bolshevik threat, that is for Parliament to decide. Clearly, France will not draw the line; their weak-kneed performance in the Rhineland makes war in Europe almost inevitable. And the Hun at war, like the Arab and the Bolshevik, is no humanitarian.” The civilian relit his pipe, eyes on Eddie, not the bowl.
Eddie felt the big finish coming, could feel the safe falling out of the sky, just couldn’t see it yet.
“You have much to learn, Mr. Owen, as do most Americans. All of Europe is now threatened by two great powers, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Aviation gasoline will defend Britain. France will have no defense. Their Maginot Line is folly.” The civilian and his pipe stepped closer to Eddie. “This year your American petroleum companies have tripled oil sales to Nazi Germany and now have more refineries operating there than anywhere in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Who do you think will receive the gasoline refined in Nazi Germany, Mr. Owen? And if it is aviation gas, what then? What then, Mr. Owen?”
Prior to this job, Eddie’d understood oil as an American commodity, his perspective the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The world politics of oil was a brand-new concept unless you worked inside the boardrooms of international corporations and government offices. “I’m, ah . . . just fixing a potential temperature problem—”
Before Eddie could finish lying, Captain Wingate stepped forward and punched a fountain pen in Eddie’s chest. “You are under British jurisdiction here and in Haifa. The Crown enforces stiff penalties in the possessions we administer—even on American oil company engineers.”
Eddie was now as confused as he was uncomfortable. The civilian with the pipe and bow tie made no second move to restrain Captain Wingate, but did offer explanation.
“The refinery in Haifa that you will convert to aviation gas is owned and defended by Great Britain. Among those who would forcibly supplant British rule throughout the region and commandeer our refinery are the Nazis and the Pan-Arab Army of God.” The pipe lowered. “The latter is a bafflingly well-funded coalition controlled by Iraq’s King Ghazi bin Faisal and his mullahs.” The civilian paused to control his tone. “The Pan-Arab Army of God is comprised of self-rule murderers and Islamic fundamentalists, including a smattering of Palestinian guerrillas . . . as were the three you vouched for yesterday.”
Eddie choked, trying to swallow. “I didn’t know. Honest.”
“You have heard of the Raven?”
Eddie shook his head. “He’s a Palestinian?”
The civilian paused again. “He is a she, or so the stories go. A guerrilla fighter of some repute.”
Captain Wingate looked past Eddie to the door. A uniformed man there said, “The call for the bus, Captain.”
The civilian with the pipe pointed Eddie toward the door. “The bus will take you to Abadan at the top of the Gulf. A commercial plane will complete your transport to Damascus. Once you are in Haifa, I suggest in the strongest terms that you mind your affairs and the Crown’s carefully. We will. And His Majesty’s police shall take a dim view if we confront your Arab self-rule sympathies again . . . or any harm to our refinery.”
Eddie said, “I don’t have any sympathies; I have a job. My company lent me on contract to the refinery to help . . .” Eddie stopped before stupid overtook him. “To fix some temperature problems before they happen.”
“Your government—those loyal to President Roosevelt—used duress to present you on England’s behalf; your government, Mr. Owen, is who demanded your partici
pation, not your company. England and your president fear that Standard Oil, like you, has other loyalties.”
Captain Orde Wingate walked Eddie to the bus. At the door, Wingate said, “Make no mistake, Mr. Owen. We will hold no trial for sedition. I will personally place my pistol to your head.”
Eddie boarded the bus, found an empty seat, and checked for the British tail he had to have. Hell, I’d be happy to have the company. I’d buy the Brit drinks all the way to Haifa, ask about Communists, Nazis, Zionists, the Pan-Arab Army of God—didn’t they sound special—self-rule sympathizers, and His Majesty’s police. Don’t think I’ll ask about the Raven of Palestine, though. Eddie rubbed his swollen face. At least with Ryan Pearce and Benny Binion back in Texas, you knew who was on your side and who wasn’t. Over here, every road you drove led to the barrel of somebody’s gun.
Erich Schroeder glanced out the bus’s window. Iran’s dusty lowlands’ plain was turning to rock. He had not enjoyed the previous evening as a guest in the British Empire. All night, the six-officer interrogation team had questioned him, wearing him down with adrenaline, caffeine, anger, and compliments. The fact that the English had a brief dossier on him and that the dossier was in this Persian Gulf outpost was more than mildly disconcerting.
His interrogators praised Hitler as a defender against the Bolsheviks and their Communist Internationale, then insulted Hitler’s government as drunken street rabble. Schroeder politely disagreed, suggesting that his current geography held better examples of failed government. The lead interrogator had laughed before he swung the baton. As always, Britain’s minions saw a fundamental difference between their actions of the last two centuries and the Reich’s plans for this one. Schroeder smiled, then winced with the pain. Theirs was a poor performance, really; these Englishmen were a laughable imitation of their forefathers. Two decades ago the British would have killed him. The iron will that had carved a world empire out of barbarians and continually crushed their revolts now lacked the stomach to defend it.
British weakness would please Reichsmarschall Göring, for if the highly placed British politicians did not deliver England as an ally against Russia’s Red Army as secretly promised, Göring’s Luftwaffe would one day meet Great Britain’s lords and ladies on their side of the Channel. The bus bounced. Pain shot up Schroeder’s back and gurgled his bruised intestines. Schroeder had discussed these very same British politicians with Göring immediately after finishing the Reichsmarschall’s business in New York eleven months ago.
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