Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  A seaplane cut through the glare and splash-landed in the bay. From a seawall pier south of the long main dock, a small wooden boat motored out toward the plane. Germans in white T-shirts clustered on the seawall pier. Two were not watching the plane; they scanned the main dock then the wharf and looked right at her. Saba cut her eyes left.

  Eddie Owen.

  Heat warmed her face, possibly the dawn that now lit the entire wharf. Was she in love with Eddie Owen? Was that the heat? Or with America far away? Or with just far away? Because she was in love with something; Doña Carmen had made that clear. The thought churned Saba’s stomach just as it had when it had been shouted at her and almost brought her to tears. Eddie Owen. It had been three months since she’d sent him away. In those three months, she had regained all the physical strength lost to the Nazi’s bullets but lost much of her fatalistic armor. Dreams of Eddie Owen’s words clouded her sleep—of him and her in America, of them in a soft bed without clothes. Doña Carmen had taught her a woman’s secrets, as Khair-Saleh had taught her a soldier’s secrets, and as the German had taught her Abwehr secrets. Doña Carmen’s secrets were the only ones that shamed her.

  She could not, and would not, have Eddie Owen. She would have Palestine so another young girl could one day have these dreams and make them real. Her father had given his life for these dreams, as had the Raven, and, with great pride, now so would she. A raindrop from the stars where this was written splashed her hand. She noticed the drop was blackish, and that she was crying.

  Sixteen hours later, an explosion rocked Eddie off his cot. His room window was fire. “No, goddammit!” Eddie bolted upright, jerked open his door, and—No oil tanks were on fire. Volcano. Eddie spun to Mount Teide. The volcano wasn’t red; Tenerife wasn’t Atlantis. Beer splashed him in the face, Spanish soldiers spraying with Las Palmas Tropicals. Another explosion boomed, this one behind him. Eddie spun to the water. Fireworks? Looked like fireworks, but huge. Eddie asked a soldier. The soldier was too drunk to answer. Eddie asked another soldier. He said Generalissimo Franco’s Fascists had just taken Valencia and won Spain’s civil war. The soldier shouted toward the harbor: “Victoria Generalissimo! Arriba España!”

  Eddie turned. At the harbor’s mouth, two night-lit Nazi submarines rode blatantly on the surface. The Nazi crews stood the decks in white T-shirts and uniforms, arms extended rigidly, saluting the shore. Ryan Pearce stepped between Eddie and drunk Spanish soldiers. Pearce pointed at the harbor. “There’s your parade, lad, red and black.” Pearce smiled but his eyes had the quick shifts of a caged animal. “Spain’s in for the Nazis now; Nazis got Italy with ’em as well, the Czechs, and Japan. Strong group of combatants Hitler’s built. Lord high-and-mighty Chamberlain’s on the pot now, wishin’ he’d stopped Hitler back at Munich. But Lord Chamberlain sent his troops over to kill the lads in Ulster and Belfast instead. Biscuits’ll be payin’ the piper soon and proper.”

  Eddie checked the volcano a second time, then the submarines, then Ryan Pearce.

  Pearce said, “After ya final this baby tomorrow, the CEPSA bigwigs will be comin’ for their christening. You’ll have built Franco and his mates the grandest AvGas plant in the world.” Pearce toasted the fireworks but didn’t look that festive. “If they can keep her safe, our gas will be lightin’ up the sky everywhere these dumb bastards have the bad word.” Pearce swigged his beer. “Here’s hoping London’s the first fire.”

  Eddie thought about that. He probably had forty-eight hours left on Tenerife, free and alive. Eddie bolted for the city.

  Santa Cruz was street drunk and half crazy; no telling who was an overjoyed Fascist and who was a beaten Communist pretending and plotting. Midstreet, Erich Schroeder clasped Eddie’s shoulder. “My congratulations, Eddie. And perfect timing on the completion and the peace in Spain.” Schroeder gestured at the fireworks. “Your success has begun and Spain’s bloodshed has finally ended.”

  “Yeah, but what about the rest of the world?” Eddie had to play this nine ways from careful. His mission with Schroeder was about Saba.

  “Together, we must help them see a future written in food not famine. Come, we will avoid the madness of the street, drink a toast to a day many feared might never happen.”

  Upstairs in Erich Schroeder’s suite, the German was jovial but guarded. “My men keep the PJs at their distance?”

  Eddie shook his head “The O.K. Corral three days ago was something. Your submariners have been a gift, let me tell you.”

  “Their job will not be complete until you are safely off this island and its maze of smugglers, Communists, and pirates.”

  “That’d be swell. Two days, three tops.”

  Schroeder nodded. “So, you have news of Saba Hassouneh?”

  “Me? I haven’t been out of the refinery.”

  Schroeder sipped wine from the table between them, on it a letter signed “Ilse” in red and Eddie’s two promissory notes, his signature prominent below the imperial eagle and swastika letterhead.

  Eddie lied to his benefactor. “I haven’t seen Saba since . . . Iran? If I had, there’s no reason not to tell you.”

  Schroeder’s face saddened. “Eddie, I have been in this business, a bad business, a long time. I know people; it’s my job. She is alive in your life—I saw it in your eyes the last time we spoke of her, and I see it now. If she is alive, I believe you know where she is. I do not press because Saba is not important to me other than she may harm you.” Schroeder hardened. “And she will, Eddie, if she determines you brought the Mendelssohn documents here. She will believe you intended to somehow benefit the Zionists who steal her land and kill her people.”

  Eddie had no answer for that. If the documents had been real and he hadn’t lost them, he would’ve used them. For something.

  “Your safety is important, Eddie. Your refinery, Germany and America becoming partners against the Communists—like Spain and America and Germany are here—these are the things that are important.”

  Eddie fumbled his hands. In two days he had to have a paying job, and it would be great if the job were with the good guys . . . when the world figured out who the hell that was.

  Schroeder continued. “I know you think Saba part of your future, but if she is alive and recovers from her wounds, she is far better off in my world, away from you and with her own people.” Schroeder frowned. “I fear for her here; these Canarians wish to continue their centuries of killing. Their motives and relationships go far back and cross many lines. Your friend D.J. Bennett fell into this pirate/smuggler maze, as did Saba, I fear. To the Canarians they faced or employed, the Mendelssohn papers were merely contraband to be bought and sold, the lives of those involved all expendable. It is the way of the pirate.”

  Eddie had lost his affection for pirates, movie version or otherwise.

  “Saba killed D.J. Bennett. I am sorry, but your affection or infatuation will not change that. And she likely killed the two Zionists. There are more Zionists here searching and killing for these same documents. If Saba is captured by the Canarians and sold for the bounty into British or Zionist hands, it will go very, very badly for her.”

  Eddie believed that. “Let’s say I do find her, and she’s alive. What then . . . ?”

  Schroeder shrugged, his expression confused, then glanced at the wall as if he’d heard something through the plaster and wood.

  “You’d help her get out?”

  Schroeder’s attention returned slowly from the wall. “Pardon me, you said?”

  “You’ll help Saba get out?”

  “Of course, this is best for everyone. Although I do not agree with her violent tactics, I do agree, as does my government, that she has a birthright to her country that the European Jew does not.”

  Eddie wrestled with the words. They sounded right, reasonable, accurate in a world that was way beyond what he’d been able to figure. But it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. That was the goddamn problem.

  “Think about it, Eddie. You will come to
the proper decision for you. These are difficult times for all of us—you, your family, our countries.”

  “You got that right.” Eddie detailed his contract with Culpepper, his standing with the FBI and the Brits. “Basically, I can build a refinery, but anywhere I can build it, I’d go to prison or the gallows. Either one of those happen, my family’s done.”

  Schroeder blinked confusion at Eddie. “You will not go to prison or the gallows, and your family will not suffer for lack of capital. Not while I am alive. Trust me in this, Eddie, America and Germany will be partners, and you and I will be there to cheer.”

  “Meaning I have a job next week?”

  Schroeder laughed. “Yes. And likely with the great American company Standard Oil, but somewhere in Germany or one of our partner nations.” Schroeder held out his glass. “To Eddie Owen, President of Standard Oil!”

  Eddie drank, lightheaded, his family kept off the road to California yet again.

  Schroeder stood. “I apologize but I am quite tired from my travels.” He walked Eddie to the door. “If you must find Saba, be very, very careful. The PJs.” Schroeder grimaced his entire face. “If they track you to her, it would be very, very bad for all of us.” Schroeder grimaced again to make his point. “But if you must, please see to it before the refinery christening with CEPSA, yes? If Saba is alive and requires help, I will see to her personally, you have my word. Promise me this so I may put it from my mind.”

  Eddie nodded, exhaled, and said, “Talk to you in the morning.”

  “Good, Eddie, it is for the best.”

  Downstairs in the lobby, two PJs leaned against either side of the front door, their shoulder holsters worn over their white shirts with no coats. Probably another four or more outside. Eddie and the submariners walked toward them, the younger of the two PJs stepped into Eddie’s path. Behind the PJ, the street was raucous. Eddie should’ve been happy—he had a job, he might get off the island alive—but happy wasn’t what Eddie felt. He leaned into the PJ’s nose before the submariners could stop him. “Mano a mano, Chiquita. Two days, you and me. I put you in the fucking ocean.”

  The German submariners pulled Eddie backward and drew their Lugers.

  The PJ smiled. “Si, amigo. Dos dias.” He showed two fingers.

  The submariners escorted Eddie to the street. Two women arm-in-arm passed and smiled. Why wouldn’t Saba talk to him and just say she hadn’t done it? How goddamn hard was that? Doña Carmen had to have told her he’d been by last week. Why hasn’t Saba tried to get back to me? For chrissake, I saved her.

  The submariners flagged a cab. Eddie hesitated at its open door, looking south toward Les Demoiselles. Really, Eddie? Really? If she wasn’t so pretty, so exciting, so . . . everything, would it be easier to believe she had killed D.J.? The taxi driver smiled across the convertible’s seat. Eddie wanted to puke. Of course it was. Can you say femme fatale? A jolt from Mount Teide shook the street. Eddie steadied against the taxi door.

  Maybe that was the answer. Jump in the fucking volcano.

  Saba’s hands were fists. She’d heard the entire conversation from the maid’s closet that adjoined Schroeder’s suite, a common design element of the hotel. Doña Carmen had arranged access through the Arab girl Beatriz who whored at Les Demoiselles and also cleaned rooms at the Mencey. Like many whores and maids, the girl also sold information to the Comité, British MI6, the Nazi Abwehr, and the Communist Spanish Republicans. Saba was here to eavesdrop, a reconnaissance she would do every night until she was comfortable with a kidnap plan.

  Eddie plans to betray me? He had been with Schroeder at the dock and now here? Discussing Eddie “finding” her? Saba’s palms were wet among the string mops and bleach. And what had you expected? You exit your life to become a woman and the world stops spinning? Men become honest and honorable? All you have learned can be forgotten?

  Saba listened to Eddie’s footfalls heavy in the hallway. She did not peek. The footfalls quit. Her breath calmed. Schroeder’s door rattled. She startled, bumping a mop, and froze, then squinted through the hinge seam at a middle-age man of military bearing. Schroeder answered his door. Saba vise-gripped the inside of her door handle. The military man introduced himself, ending the introduction with “Reichsmarschall Göring.” The military man clicked his heels, reached inside his jacket, and produced an envelope. Schroeder accepted the letter, signed a booklet the man produced, then shut his door.

  The man pivoted with precision and walked to the elevator with the care of someone who believed he was being watched. Saba watched until the man had disappeared into the elevator, then pressed her ear against Schroeder’s wall. Footfalls sounded in the hallway. Saba jerked from the wall and again squinted through the door seam. Two men approached. Saba clamped her door handle with both hands. The men stopped at Schroeder’s door and knocked, one white-haired and senior in his posture, the other younger, also in a suit and carrying a manacled briefcase. Schroeder’s door creaked open. He said: “Guten abend, Herr Sturmbannführer, the SS takes a far vacation.”

  The man with white hair spoke German in an abrupt military cadence, introducing the younger man with the briefcase, finishing with “SS Reichsführer Himmler” as if it were “Himmler” who had sent them.

  Schroeder granted the men entry to his suite. Their voices continued in German from the other side of Saba’s closet wall. She released her door handle. The man with the manacled briefcase must be a courier of some sort. A muffled discussion followed, then a demand made by the older voice, firm but polite.

  Silence.

  The demand again. Harsher but still polite.

  Silence. Schroeder’s voice switched to English. “Do you speak English?”

  The courier’s voice answered, “Nein, Oberstleutnant.”

  Schroeder barked, “Remove your courier. We will continue in private.”

  The older voice answered: “Nein. He is SS Reichsführer Himmler’s personal courier, dispatched here with me to retrieve the Jewish Question documents you have withheld. You will produce them. Now.”

  Silence. Then movements, then the two Nazis continued in English. The senior SS man moderated his tone, saying he enjoyed the practice. Saba knew the SS man’s agreement to speak English was an Arab’s disguised retreat, one the SS man would use as an attack platform when the first opportunity was presented.

  The SS man and Schroeder discussed America in forced comfort—Roosevelt, the Communist labor unions, the eternal Jew bankers of New York and London. Saba imagined the two Nazis circling each other. The SS man added sharp concern—the US industrialists who had attempted Roosevelt’s assassination were now warning that should Roosevelt’s policies continue unabated, the results would crush the US and German reconstruction.

  Saba heard a noise in the hall, peeked through the hinge crease of her closet, saw nothing, then pressed her ear harder to the wall. The Nazis were fencing, returning every few minutes to SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler and his Gestapo. Schroeder acknowledged that while in the United States, he, too, had heard these opinions of Roosevelt’s policies and reported them to his superior, Reichsmarschall Göring. There was also a rumor that another coup against Roosevelt might be mounted in the very near future.

  The suite conversation was muffled for two minutes until the SS man mentioned Himmler again. “Two German American Bund lieutenants were murdered in New York. A tactless affair that the Reichsführer believes was perpetrated by you. Reichsführer Himmler is most unhappy, as are others in the Reichstag concerned with our image in America.”

  “The SS is now concerned with image?”

  “The Wehrmacht’s autumn plans for Eastern Europe will be met with resistance. This will bring pressure on France and Britain to declare war on the Fatherland. Murder and ritual torture done in America do not propel the Americans toward our goals.”

  “The SS no longer practices ritual torture?”

  “The Jewish Question documents trouble our friends in Detroit and New York. The document
s must be returned to Berlin, with an explanation on how they were acquired and why they were kept from Herr Göring.”

  “Documents?”

  “Documents you showed, threatened during your last trip . . . abroad. Our American friends have asked I.G. Farben to intercede; Herr Schmitz has asked Reichsführer Himmler, who now offers you a chance to . . . clear yourself of these accusations.”

  Silence.

  SS man: “Of race treason and blackmail.”

  The floor creaked, then: “You mistake me for a woman. One who fears your black uniforms, who bows to threats from Jew- loving Americans.”

  The floor creaked again.

  “If these documents exist and I had procured them in America before returning here, they are too important to be trusted to a defenseless SS courier.”

  “Reichsführer Himmler—”

  “Commands you, not me.”

  Saba imagined the men glaring, separated only by reaction distance, Schroeder the more capable of lethal violence.

  “Reichsführer Himmler commands Hitler’s bodyguard and defends the German state. He offers you a chance to survive your . . . indiscretions. Something Herr Göring will not.”

  Schroeder laughed. “You would turn me? A Krupp? To work for a chicken farmer chasing homosexuals?”

  “I caution you, Herr Schroeder. Reichsführer Himmler is not pleased with your clumsy attempts at dominion. For his own reasons he will pardon you, provided there is . . . inside access to Göring’s camp and the documents are returned. If not—”

  “Gehen Sie raus!”

  The floor creaked toward the door.

  “Now!”

  “Until tomorrow, Herr Schroeder. Reichsführer Himmler’s courier and I leave on the seaplane in two days.”

  The door shut quietly. Saba peeked beneath the hinge at the SS man adjusting a pistol under his jacket then walking down the long hall. The courier who had been dismissed trailed him. In Schroeder’s suite the silence lasted until the SS man disappeared and two legs of a chair slammed partway through Saba’s wall. Plaster showered her. She ducked, crouched tight below the hole. Another blow, this one higher, smashing the chair.