Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  Schroeder spoke to the boat’s captain, who ordered an Armada policeman to give Eddie a pistol. Eddie aimed at the “good” Brit. “Three against one is how the Brits do it, huh? How you ruled the fucking world. I don’t care who buries your fucking country—Arabs, Jews, Germans—I just hope I’m there to watch.”

  The Brit nodded. “As we suspected.”

  Eddie glanced at Schroeder. “Can the PJs put these bastards in the cage?”

  Schroeder shrugged. “Should Madrid allow it. Again, Eddie, it is a delicate matter; addressing it formally will have complications.” Schroeder turned his back to the Brits. “The British are a tenacious sort, especially so when they are misguided as to their true friends. These gentlemen intend to harm you or at the very least affect a kidnap to British soil. Were it my choice I would sink their boat, allow them the same chance they allowed you.”

  Eddie aimed at the hull below the waterline. For some reason he thought of his father’s surgery, his mother, his brother and sister. “I need to call Tulsa, the hospital. Will these policemen ferry me to the refinery?”

  Schroeder bowed slightly. “And our British friends?”

  “To hell with ’em. Let ’em run for the mainland.”

  Schroeder nodded. “I honor your decision. But this is one you will regret, Eddie Owen. A sense of fair play in this part of the world is a distinct liability.”

  Eddie’s boss wiped sleep out of his eyes and took in Eddie’s condition. Foreman Paulsen was not happy but he was willing to walk Eddie to the office trailer and unlock the transatlantic phone. Eddie made a furious series of calls. The news in Tulsa was a combination of better and bleak. Newt was alive, his condition “stable,” the lung surgery allowing him to breathe but the effort so strenuous Eddie’s father was encased inside an iron lung in the polio ward. Eddie’s mother had collapsed under the strain. She was on oxygen in isolation, diagnosed with consumption, tuberculosis, her lungs weakened to the bacteria from all the years in the dust. Her treatment was temporary. Additional money must be wired to pay for the surgical collapse of her lung and a recovery in a TB sanatorium. Eddie’s brother and sister were too young to understand and too young to stay alone. The hospital had surrendered them to the state home at Henrietta.

  The hospital gave Eddie the number of a Tulsa lawyer. The lawyer was willing to intercede for Lois and Howard (on the promise of payment in no more than ten business days); the lawyer would try to court order Eddie’s brother and sister to a foster family in Tulsa or Cushing. Eddie hung up the phone. Two weeks’ pay had been spent on phone time and Tuesday wasn’t over yet. Eddie looked at his boss. “What’d they say about my advance in Chicago?”

  Forman Paulsen blew air through his teeth. “Lotta money, Eddie.”

  “To a goddamn oil company? Who the fuck are you kidding?”

  Paulsen frowned. “I’m doing what I can.”

  Eddie ripped the phone out of the cradle and shoved it at his boss. “Call Chicago. Tell ’em if they don’t help me my mother will die. Ask ’em if they want me working here after they let that happen.”

  “Meaning—”

  “What the fuck do you think it means? Call the bastards now if you want me on the job in the morning.” Eddie slammed open the door and walked out. His adrenaline quit halfway to his room. He resisted the urge to curl up on a bench and dragged himself the rest of the way. The infirmary for his ribs and stomach would have to wait.

  His room was an oven. The ceiling had no answers written on it, but Eddie kept looking between the fan blades. His family had a fighting chance; his chances were less attractive. According to Foreman Paulsen, the British attaché in Morocco had filed formal charges of sabotage and murder for the Haifa bombing and a demand that Eddie be immediately ferried to the mainland and surrendered to the Crown. The extradition demand had also been filed with the United States consulate in Madrid. Eddie’s hosts, the representatives of General Franco, were considering their response and Eddie’s future under the Nationalist flag of Spain.

  Eddie rubbed his face. He’d taken $2,000 from a Nazi, a highly placed Nazi. The same Nazi who’d bought his parents medical attention they would’ve died without. The same Nazi who’d saved him from the sharks. The same Nazi who’d kept the PJs from doing their interrogation when he got off the Armada boat—Eddie rolled to his side and yelped at the pain. His parents were on life support in a hospital he couldn’t pay for beyond today. His sister and brother were abandoned to a state home, and the girl he dreamed about at night to escape everything else was a partisan bandit . . . who’d killed more gunmen than Floyd Merewether and Benny Binion combined.

  Happy Halloween.

  On cue, Eddie’s bed began to tremble. The refinery lights flickered, then quit, and the hum of generators stopped. D.J.’s .45 rattled on the nightstand; Eddie palmed the gun and laid it on his chest. He stayed flat on the bed and let the tremors vibrate his bruises. D.J. and his magic had picked a lousy time to go AWOL. Doña Carmen at the brothel had taken Eddie’s final call. Doña Carmen said she had never heard of D.J. Bennett.

  Eddie shuffled cards he had no idea how to play and redealt.

  D.J. did not like the Nazis, that much was twenty-four carat. D.J. did not like Standard Oil or any of the big oil companies. Unfortunately, Eddie’s current salvation was a Standard Oil paycheck and a Nazi who supported Standard Oil, a Nazi who Tom Mendelssohn’s papers would surely destroy. Erich Schroeder’s name wasn’t on Tom Mendelssohn’s papers—that was worth something. And according to Henry Ford, the Jews were exceptional advocates for their causes. So maybe, just maybe, Mendelssohn’s papers were a lie—not just because Eddie needed them to be a lie but because they actually were a desperate ruse by the Zionists to gain sympathy for the migration to Palestine.

  Eddie had been down this mental track once before. In the six months he’d been in Palestine, the Zionists had matched the Arabs and the Brits, bomb for bomb, bullet for bullet. The Zionists had plenty of blood on their hands, just like the Brits said. And Mendelssohn’s papers foretold a story so hideous it was almost inconceivable . . . Maybe the Communists were the real enemy to be feared. Eddie shut his eyes and rubbed at his head. A knock startled him. He fumbled for the pistol on his chest and said, “Yes?”

  “A message.” Strange accent, muddy and quiet.

  “From who?”

  “Altair. A bird.”

  Eddie aimed the .45. “It’s open.”

  Nothing. The knob didn’t turn. If this were PJs—

  The knob turned and the door eased open. Slow and deliberate. Backlit in the moonlight, an Arab stood with his face covered. The Arab dropped the black-checked keffiyeh—one of Saba’s men from Iran, the older one. He checked Eddie’s small trailer, then waved at Eddie to follow. Eddie’s .45 didn’t seem to matter.

  “Calah?” Eddie’s pulse rate blinked his eyes. “She’s here?”

  The Arab nodded, then waved Eddie outside.

  Eddie added clothes and shoes and more than one groan, belted the .45, and stepped outside. They approached a guard who on cue turned to look up at the volcano smoke. Eddie walked three paces behind the Arab to a shielded section of refinery fence. At the pole, a rod had been secreted into the fencing. The rod allowed a section to be unhooked from the pole and rolled back. Eddie marveled. Nationalist Spain could marshal all the PJ cages Franco had, but they wouldn’t end a culture of smuggling and pirates. That thought didn’t bode well if someone wanted to bleed this refinery . . . or level it.

  A roomy light-gray convertible appeared—an auto de turismo taxi—engine rumbling, lights off. Both passenger doors sprang open. The Arab pointed Eddie into the backseat, then slid into the front. The driver was the Arab’s duplicate. They drove too fast and west toward the moon, the breeze drenched in the sweet intoxicating smell of oleander, then north into and away from tiny banana plantations in what a sign said was the Orotava Valley, then higher on a nasty, narrow, serpentine road cut into the dark mountains. Eddie was nervous for a
number of reasons, not the least of which were the blood-bleeding dragon trees thrashing the car and a mule-cart road too dangerous for fast mules.

  No headlights tracked them.

  No Englishmen or PJs was a major accomplishment in Eddie’s new life as a spy. He put that in the “good” column. The big convertible spit gravel in the rutted hairpins, hugging the inside edge at the limits of what a burning clutch and old tires would allow. Eddie closed his eyes and white-knuckled the seat until he felt the car descend and could smell ocean instead of laurel and pine and radiator steam.

  And there the ocean was under a yellow moon and a forever of black sky. Long white waves rolled in from . . . somewhere, maybe South America; Eddie wasn’t strong on latitude geography. The driver stopped on the ocean side of the road. The road’s edge was a sheer drop down a rough lava-rock seawall to a black sand beach. A bleached-out sign where the driver stopped read: PUERTO DE something, 11 KM. Eddie followed the driver’s finger pointing out of the car at the ocean.

  “The beach? She’s out there?”

  The driver pointed again. Eddie opened the rear passenger door and stood to the road’s edge. The older Arab was out and waiting. He disarmed Eddie with two fluid motions, stood back with D.J.’s .45, and nodded Eddie toward the water. Eddie frowned at his repeated encounters with people who did what they did better than he could.

  “Make sure you leave that in the car, okay? I need it at work.” Eddie frowned, said, “And probably everywhere else,” then climbed down the seawall buttress. He was too wasted from the day to be excited, too worried for his family to do much more than hear why she was here. Whatever the reason was would be swell if it weren’t to bomb the refinery. Eddie’s frown remained until he saw the figure shadowed in moonlight shimmering off the ocean. He knew it was her from thirty feet. She turned, dressed as a man, the keffiyeh leaving her face, the wind catching her hair. The wind pushed the white shirt against her breasts and the thin pants against her hips. Eddie suddenly felt better than a fellow in his circumstances should.

  He stopped at five feet and said, “Hi.”

  She smiled like before, feigning comfort with her face exposed, the effort so endearing Eddie almost flinched.

  “Man, you’re beautiful here, too. That’s two different continents. Can’t be a fluke or the light.”

  “How are you, Eddie Owen?”

  “Been better.” Eddie was semimesmerized by the first silhouette of her body without a robe. “But sure glad to see the Arabian princess. Can you swim in those? You promised, remember?”

  The smile stayed but shrank. “Yes, I remember.”

  Eddie wanted the smile to be her answer, but turned to look for her bodyguards on the excellent chance it wasn’t. “Ah . . . we’re going swimming, you and me?”

  “A climb in the mountains was also discussed.” She angled her head at a choice of volcanoes and mountains. “The mountain may be angry, although I know no such mountains. Swimming is possibly better for you.”

  Eddie thought so if it included her. “And the water’s closer. How about we take off our shoes and walk in the surf, take it from there. You can talk to me about the desert and why you’ve moved to the islands.”

  She broadened the smile and he was glad. Glad because he wanted to know what she was doing on Tenerife and glad because she was absolutely breathtaking when she smiled. They left their shoes on and walked north with her nearest the water, a place she chose by stepping in behind him.

  “I have never seen this ocean. It goes all the way to America.” She pointed northwest. “Washington, New York, Ticonderoga.”

  “I missed you in Beirut, had big dinner plans for you both nights.”

  “There were no others for good company?”

  “Sure. But not a princess. Not with hazel eyes and chestnut hair and—”

  “You go too far and my father will be unhappy.” She smiled at her stars.

  “I’m going further this time.”

  She turned, looking down her shoulder, surprise but no concern in her eyes. “Boldness is often the little boy’s answer.”

  “I’m okay with that if you are.” Eddie glanced at the black-lava bluffs that hid them from the road. “And your bodyguards.”

  She told the ocean, “They are soldiers, like me, not bodyguards.” Then told the sand, “They are most confused with how I . . . act with you. It is foreign to them . . . and to me.”

  “That’s gotta be good. Isn’t it?” Eddie touched her shoulder.

  She spun sideways, eyes wide in his face. They burned right there. She glanced away. He’d forgotten that touching her had consequences. And, man, she was fast, like the cougars he’d heard about eating pachucos down in the Big Bend.

  “Possibly, it is good. Yes.” Her eyes came back wary, but not of him.

  “Do, ah, soldiers ever hold hands or anything . . . like that . . . ever?”

  She stepped past Eddie’s side and waved at the bluff. Eddie turned and saw only rocks, then turned back. She’d taken a deep breath, pushing her chest at the limits of the shirt.

  “I will try.” Her left hand rose, not quite sure where it should go.

  Eddie reached, not squeezing or trapping her hand, just there, like before. “I’m, uh, going to hold it now, like you’d hold something very valuable but fragile.” He cupped her hand and felt it tense, then relax and cup back.

  He grinned at her looking away toward the water. “You have on my ring. That’s wonderful. You like it. Right?”

  “Yes.” She sounded out of breath.

  “Don’t slip; your hand’ll break doing this. It’s tricky the first couple of times.”

  She laughed but still didn’t look at him.

  “See, this is how it starts. If it lasts more than ten minutes, you’re married.”

  She jerked her hand away. Then laughed and lowered her head the way a young girl would, caught herself again, and raised her chin, adding pride and control.

  “Can you ask a princess how old she is if you’re standing at the ocean?”

  She held on to her own hand as if restraining it. “This one is twenty-five. And you?

  “Me? Let’s see, I’m, ah, twenty-five, too. How about that?” He reached for her hand. “It’s customary. In America you have to hold hands at the water if you’re the same age.”

  Frown. It didn’t fit her eyes, though, more of a dating frown.

  “Honest. Really. I’m not gonna lie to you out here. You have friends and I don’t.”

  She let him take her hand again but didn’t move. “Where are your friends, Eddie Owen?”

  “Only had three and two of them are dead. An East Indian murdered Bill Reno in Bahrain. Just found out Hassim was killed in the refinery explosion at Haifa . . . and D.J., well, missing I guess you’d call him.” Eddie felt the strength of her hand when he mentioned Haifa. “I understand you lost a lot of people. Sorry.”

  She let go but didn’t turn away, becoming a man while he watched. “We are dead, standing between Europeans fighting over land Europeans do not own. One day the desert will swallow them all. After I die, but I will be there.” Her face looked so hard it could have been a statue. “This I promise.”

  Eddie stood still, not afraid but absolutely sure she was what the Brits had said she was—maybe not the murderer, certainly not the bomber of Haifa, but the outlaw-bandit-corsair genuine article. They didn’t make movie pirates more real than this woman. His mouth started before his brain could stop it.

  “The Raven. They said you were the Raven.”

  She squared her shoulders, one hand near her hip, one not. “And if I am, Eddie Owen?”

  “You’d be the prettiest blackbird I’ve ever seen or God probably ever made.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Three Brits who tried to feed me to the sharks today.” Eddie pulled up his shirt and pointed to his ribs. “They said I gave you the plans to the Haifa refinery and the one in Bahrain.” Eddie smiled at his bruises. “I told them
they were full of shit. The girl I knew was a princess.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “No way you killed those people in Haifa. They were your people.”

  Her posture softened, or at least Eddie thought it did. “Yet you are here. How did you get away?”

  “Spanish police boat and a Nazi . . . Fellow was on our plane after Bahrain and in Iran when we were. Erich Schroeder. Big-deal Nazi who supposedly works for Hermann Göring.” Midramble, it dawned on Eddie that the princess and the Nazi were both in three of the four places he’d seen her, at the same time. He tried to swallow that thought because it didn’t taste as good as the others.

  “The British who say I am the Raven, did they tell you my name?”

  Eddie nodded. “Very pretty. Saba. I like it, suits you, in the moonlight especially.”

  She frowned, fighting the compliment. “You are a boy, no matter what the news.”

  “The news isn’t going to change. And right now, right here, I’m standing with you in the moonlight. Forgive me, princess, I don’t get to do this often.”

  “They told you what about the Raven?”

  “The day I landed, the PJs said they’d feed me to the sharks if you were so much as seen on the island. The Brits said she killed twenty men and—”

  “Eighteen.”

  Eddie tried to get past that without stumbling. “Ah . . . and she’s sort of a legend among the Palestinians; raised by a bandit after her family was murdered—”

  “Did they tell who committed these murders of women and children?”

  “Either Zionist militias or British soldiers.”

  “Both.” The word was gravel in her mouth. “And what else did they say of the Raven’s past?”

  No way Eddie was going to mention the gang rape. “Ah . . . she lived in the refugee camps, that the camps were bad. Few women survived them.” Eddie lowered his head without realizing it. “They said almost no one has seen her face.”

  “You have.”

  Eddie raised his eyebrows at the admission. “They think you assassinated the district commissioner in Janîn. And for what it’s worth, the PJs and the Brits are scared shitless of you and what you represent.”