And then she pushed him hard away and he stumbled.
“Whaa?”
She was breathing through her mouth, her chin up and eyes flashing, maybe processing lust for the first time. Either that or they were about to find out who was the toughest. Saba was making a big effort not to look below his waist. Eddie flushed on top of the flush.
“Sorry. It’s natural, kinda, you know? It’s what happens when a beautiful girl you just can’t wait to see kisses back like she . . . she cares about you, too.”
Saba was three shades of crimson and all looked stunning on her, alternately confused, angry, and excited.
Eddie had sole responsibility for saving the moment. The truth was probably his best shot. “I will never, ever do anything that forces you. Ever.”
She glanced at his pants, then his eyes.
Eddie smiled. “Someday we’ll have children, on the ranch in Texas. If you’ll give me a chance between now and then, I’ll explain how it happens.”
A small grin fought through her armor and across her face.
“Really. Step by step. We call it show-and-tell in school. First I tell you, then I show you.”
She blushed to the point he could almost feel it. Eddie offered his hands again. She took only one and kept her distance. No way to tell if she was afraid of him or herself. “Maybe some wine?” Eddie pointed at the table.
They took their seats, Eddie moving his closer, forcing their knees to touch. Saba allowed it, might even have pressed back. Eddie tried for nonchalant, but the jolt from her was like having sex with a movie star. Her touch, the perfume, the eyes . . . Man, those eyes were scorchers. Her breasts in the candlelight. There was a good chance Eddie would pass out.
“You seem weak, Eddie Owen. Are you ill?”
He blinked, remembered to breathe, and palmed his face, hoping it would help. “Ah, you have a big effect on me. Not exactly sure how much I can take.”
She cut to her wine, but there was the beginnings of a smile.
“No, I’m fine. I’m fine. How are you?” Change the subject, drink, move your feet. Don’t look at her yet. God, he felt like a child. A really warm one, but a child.
“Better. I exercise. Eat a great deal. Practice . . .”
Eddie glanced at her sideways. She reddened again. His turn to smile and it blossomed into a grin.
Saba noticed his enthusiasm and glared, but fiery like the woman, not the man she had a habit of becoming.
Eddie fingertipped at his wine. “What?” They didn’t speak until it became too awkward not to. “Like I said, you look good as new, gotta be the strongest woman on planet Earth or this place is the best hospital.”
“Doña Carmen is a good woman.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Eddie did. “And to Texas.” Eddie’s voice came out louder than intended. “You and me.”
“America is a dream. For Americans.”
“No. Americans are just people who used to live somewhere else.”
Saba frowned at his tone. “There is no good time for me to leave my country to the Europeans. My people die because the Europeans deem it so. Palestine needs fighters, America does not.”
Tough to argue with that, but he tried. And the more Eddie argued, the more Saba became less the ingénue and more the soldier. She finished the transformation by leaving the table for her room and returning with a worn blue book she’d been given by Doña Carmen, placing the book at Eddie’s hands.
“The Protocols of Zion.”
Eddie held the book.
Saba sat with sad assurance, teacher to student. “The right of world conquest by the First Zionist Congress. There are twenty-four protocols, each defining the Zionists’ divine mandate. Palestine is to be their national homeland, so says their God.”
The book was a British government translation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Eddie read the date, 1920, and the London publisher, then flipped pages and looked at her. “It’s a lie, the whole book. I read it in college as part of my senior curriculum. The London Times actually printed a series about how it was plagiarized from some French fellow.”
He should have hit her; it would’ve been kinder.
“The Zionists are not invading my country? The English and the Haganah do not kill Palestinians and deport them to the camps?” She stood and started yelling. “They did not murder my family? And, and rape—”
Eddie tried to slow her with his hands but she was backing away, betrayal burned into her face. “Wait, Saba, wait. It’s not what I meant. I—”
She smashed her chair against a column. Eddie blocked wood splintering in three directions.
“Listen to me. I didn’t mean that. I meant the book was faked. Only that, not that what’s happening isn’t real. I didn’t say that. Think. Please. I’m not taking sides against you. I’m not and I won’t.”
She might have heard him; it was hard to tell. Next to the Bible, the Protocols were supposedly the most widely read document in the world and considered just as accurate by millions. The Protocols were notes of the Zionist Congress meeting, or supposed to be, detailing Jewish divine right to subjugate the planet. Many of the major political events detailed in the original 1905 Russian document had come to pass, including the Great War in Europe and the Russian revolution—all stated in the Protocols as the future plans of International Jewry.
Except it was a sham. Not the predictions of the events—that had been awfully impressive to recent historians—but the fact that it was Jewish conspiracy at the root. Tell that to the Russians, Germans, and Turks, and you were likely to get a vastly different response than from the reasonably neutral historians working at the University of Oklahoma.
Saba spoke through her teeth. “The book is not a lie. My father knew this book at his college. What it says has come to pass thirty years after the words were written. How can it be a lie?” She threw the chair leg at him. “The London Times prints a report? And you believe the London Times cares about the rights of Palestine?”
Eddie was in a nasty box. Like D.J., Saba saw the world through a gun sight.
“I will never betray you, Saba, ever. Even if we disagree, I won’t go against you. You gotta believe me. I can’t mean anything more than I mean that.”
Her eyes were screaming.
“Please?”
“Enjoy the American world. Few gain the chance. Go to Texas. I am ashamed to have touched you. Be sure, this will never happen again.”
Eddie stepped toward her.
Her knife was in his face before his second step hit the carpet. “Touch me and I will kill you.”
“Listen, please—”
“No. I am now a whore. But not for you. Out. Now, or I will end this as it did for Bennett.”
Eddie jolted, her knife throat-high between them, her words almost knocking him sideways; she didn’t mean . . . Professional murder filled her eyes, her hand in D.J.’s death as real as—
“Out or die.”
She meant it; he was absolutely sure. The woman was gone, the Raven in her place, affection turning to poison. The Raven saw only his betrayal.
He glared back, trying to read her admission . . . D.J.’s death. No. No, fucking no. Eddie dropped his hand, reached behind his back for the .45. Saba already had her revolver off the table. Eddie stopped. Time stopped. The goddamn world stopped. He shouted, “Goddamn you,” spun on his heel, ripped open the door, and stormed out.
Saba stood back from the light, heart pounding, her breath trapped in her throat, and burst into tears.
CHAPTER 28
January, 1939
Erich Schroeder was en route to Tenerife. He had one stop to make—ensure that I.G. Farben’s president, Hermann Schmitz, remained comfortable not delivering the AvGas formulas and modification expertise that Schroeder owned in one Eddie Owen. Schroeder left Hermann Schmitz in New York unprotected, boarded an unscheduled Deutsche Luft Hansa flying boat that flew to the Baltic coast, then a Luftwaffe plane to Berlin. A gleaming Daimler-
Benz general staff car drove Schroeder directly from Tempelhof Airport to a private meeting with Reichsmarschall Göring at the Ministry of Aviation offices on Wilhelmstrasse.
The Reichsmarschall was quick to the point. “Herr Schmitz is at this moment boarding a flight for Berlin. He will be in this office in forty-eight hours to explain why he cannot deliver what you say you can. He will have Himmler or Heydrich at his side. You will draft a report of your meetings in New York and Detroit and I will demand that Schmitz answer. I would prefer your presence here but time is our enemy elsewhere. You will transit immediately to Iraq, then Palestine, where you will secure the selected sites and review the final budgets for the Final Solution in the desert. The Arabs must begin construction immediately if the public relations disaster favored by Himmler and Heydrich in Europe is to be averted.”
“Jawohl, Reichsmarschall. It is a mystery that the SS does not see what you so clearly present.”
Göring answered, “I.G. Farben and its Capitalist partners want the Jews kept in Europe as slave labor for their factories during all phases of the war. The Capitalists care about nothing but profit. Himmler and Heydrich are blinded by their inclusion at the Ruhr Valley’s feast.”
Schroeder did not ask Reichsmarschall Göring a second time for the permission to kill Eddie Owen’s family member, a murder that Schroeder had already set in motion. Nor did Schroeder think it wise to burden the Reichsmarschall with details of the plan to kill German American Bund Bundesführer Fritz Kuhn’s top two lieutenants instead of Kuhn himself—Schroeder saw a future use for Kuhn should Schroeder’s private plans for the American industrialists and oil men require American fingerprints. And Schroeder did not mention his final New York meeting with a senior Irénée DuPont representative whose proud, pompous bearing ashened considerably when shown the Mendelssohn papers. Schroeder’s bold move was in no part due to the rebukes in Detroit. The timing was proper to put his new partners on notice: Erich Schroeder would have his kingdom in the desert and his rightful seat at the table with the captains of industry, or he would destroy them.
Schroeder did not spend the night in Berlin. A Luftwaffe Fieseler 156 Storch flew him to Istanbul, then Baghdad and the Final Solution meetings with King Ghazi bin Faisal. But in Baghdad, the king was focused on Kuwait, demanding its annexation. Schroeder bit back his anger and spoke at length with the king’s mullahs. They were more than accommodating, well versed in the extermination plans, and fully prepared to finalize their participation in the Jewish Question and all it would bring them.
The mullahs believed the Jews of Europe would go willingly to Palestine. And when the English empire had shrunk back to their island in Europe, the Jews could be landed in Haifa or Jaffa, then shipped by rail to the selected sites. There, they would work building roads until they no longer could. Their smoke and ashes would be the cleanser of the sand that their Zionist lie had defiled.
The mullahs saw this and the extension of their power with great clarity but were no longer confident of Schroeder’s ability to keep his promises. Rumors were spreading that Saba Hassouneh, the Raven, was not dead—as Schroeder had cabled them eighty days ago—a death the mullahs had announced to all of the Middle East. In response to these rumors, black wings had reappeared on the walls of Janîn, then Haifa, Jerusalem, and now Baghdad this very week. And in Wadi Rum, the star Minchar al Gorab had blazed in the sky. Proof, the Bedu said, the Raven had again risen from the grave. She would unite the Arab against the invader. Bring vengeance and destruction against the betrayers of the desert people.
Schroeder assured the mullahs that Saba Hassouneh was flesh and blood and could not rise from the grave or fall from the sky. She was dead. He had shot her, personally, and watched her die. She would not return to trouble them.
The mullahs lectured Erich Schroeder—European—on the realities of the desert. The desert was full with many factions. Should the desert factions, especially the Bedu, unite around a godless woman who did not hate all Jews but only their Zionists and militia, then the Pan-Arab Army of God could not possibly bring the Nazi Final Solution to be.
Schroeder accepted the rebuke. The mullahs were his architects, builders, and champions, but they were also mystical men, mired and empowered by the insanity of religion. One day he would incinerate them in their own ovens. But that day was far in the future. For if by some impossible circumstance Saba Hassouneh was not dead, her reappearance now would be a disaster for Schroeder and, by default, Reichsmarschall Göring, of un-survivable proportions.
A Luftwaffe plane with one passenger took off south into the desert moonlight then banked west toward Morocco. Schroeder would land at Casablanca, board a waiting seaplane to Tenerife, and be at his hotel in time to dine with Eddie Owen. Eddie would be effusive in his thanks, his poor, pitiful family in Oklahoma saved again by the Third Reich. If Saba were alive and Eddie knew it, Eddie would lack the skill to hide it. Nor could Eddie hide from the vise about to be closed on him and everyone he cared about.
Schroeder arrived at Tenerife at eight p.m. The island was its usual cauldron of heat, humidity, and sulfur. Tired and brittle from the seaplane, Schroeder had been on island and in his suite at the Hotel Mencey thirty minutes. He had not had time to unpack, only to hear reports on the refinery’s progress, the PJs’ rancor over Eddie Owen, Eddie’s day-to-day movements, and not a word or even a rumor that Saba Hassouneh was alive. Schroeder dismissed his submariners through a private exit, then swallowed a glass of port. Eddie Owen was late. Theirs would be a delicate moment.
A knock at the door. Instinct trumped logic; Schroeder stepped away and drew his Luger. If Saba Hassouneh was alive she was not in Wadi Rum with the Bedu; she was here and common sense said he was her next target. Schroeder climbed atop the small table in his entry and looked down through the door’s transom. And the mullahs were correct; if Saba Hassouneh were alive she would return to Palestine and Iraq and kill as many of those who had betrayed her as was humanly possible. That was the only good news—she was human. And if so, she had to be dead.
Eddie Owen stood in the hallway. No expression on his face, two submariners behind him. Schroeder jumped down, switched the Luger to his left hand, hid both behind his leg, and opened the door. “Eddie! Come in. Come in.”
Eddie walked past and began talking before he turned. “Getting really strange here. Thanks for seeing me so quick.”
“Any time.” Schroeder shut the door, beamed, but read Eddie carefully. “The world has become too irrational to describe.”
“Thanks for the phone money. And thanks for taking care of the hospital again. Be a while before I can pay you back, but I will.”
Schroeder nodded, satisfied now that Eddie had not spoken to Saba. If Eddie had, he would know it had been he, Erich Schroeder, who had shot D.J. Bennett.
“Have you seen her?”
Eddie fumbled, “Seen who?”
“Saba Hassouneh.”
Eddie looked confused, then shook his head.
Schroeder saw the lie, or thought he did. He employed a patient, practiced calm he did not feel. “In the desert they say she is alive, that Bennett’s bullets did not kill her. If she is alive and you seek her out, remember my advice and your dead friend D.J. Bennett—Saba is what she is, not who or what you wish her to be.” Schroeder stopped Eddie before he could answer with another lie. “I was your age once, fifteen years ago. I know how it feels to be blinded by a woman.”
“You said she shot D.J.; no way I’m blind to that.” Eddie walked to the terrace doors, stopped, and turned. “The papers I told you I had are gone. I hid them and someone stole them. One of Mendelssohn’s people came after me. I screwed up bad, told him I thought the foreman’s assistant might have them. The Zionists murdered him. Tonight’s only the second time I’ve been outside the fences since you left. Maybe the Zionists have the papers now; maybe they don’t.”
Schroeder grimaced. “If Saba is here and you know where, never allow her to know you carried these papers for
the Zionists. She will . . . never understand your good intentions.”
“Hell, you do, why couldn’t she?”
“I know the papers to be a lie. I asked when I was in Berlin, toured the detention camp they call ‘Buchenwald.’ No ovens, no graves, none of what you described. And the camp is not for Jews alone, but all criminal and political adversaries of the Reich. No different than your great penitentiary Alcatraz that will soon release Al Capone.”
“Mendelssohn’s papers are fakes? You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Schroeder slid his Luger under his coat into the back of his pants and reached for a tray of glasses and a bottle of Portuguese Vinho do Porto. With enough liquor Eddie might offer what he knew of Saba, dead or alive. Schroeder nodded Eddie out onto the terrace and set the tray on the large table. “Please, sit.” Schroeder poured them each a glass of ruby port.
“Similar documents were intercepted secreted on the persons of Zionists in Vienna and Prague. Soon, more of these forgeries will be common in the world’s capitals, all claiming to be the ‘only’ copy.” Schroeder pointed at the telephone inside. “Once the ‘only’ copy can be verified in ten places at once, the world will know it is yet another ruse of the International Jew. Buchenwald can be visited and my country will be vindicated.”
Schroeder toasted with the port.
Eddie was slow to respond, but he did.
“Eddie, I know you worry. The winds that blow around you are confusing even to me and I have been in this world far longer than you. Trust your heart first, not your head. If I am the evil incarnate the Jews and Communists say I am, then you feel it.” Schroeder tapped his heart. “Here.”
“You saw the camp. It was a prison. Nothing more?”
“Not at all unlike what America builds to house those who would do her harm.”
“And the Jews of Germany?”
Schroeder exhaled. “Always the Jews, never the Communists.” Schroeder shook his head, turned away, then back. “The voyage of the MS Saint Louis, you know of it?”
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