Laurent was about to ask how the autumn sun could fall on a north-facing telescope when a woman came with tea, served in small colorful glasses.
“Yes, Siggy is quite the amateur astronomer, aren’t you, Siggy?” Charlotte said, curled on the sofa, holding her glass of tea with her fingertips. “He hopes to have a planet named after him one day.”
The human Swiss Alp modestly held up his hands. “A small comet is all I ask.”
They talked for a while of celestial bodies and the tides, of the war and the deplorable shortage of good coffee.
After perhaps twenty minutes of aimless chat, Charlotte put her cup down and said, “But I think you have a package for us, don’t you, Siggy?”
Their host blinked at Charlotte.
“It’s all right, Siggy, he’s a friend,” she said, nodding toward Laurent.
With an awkward little bow meant to appear polite, Lenzburg walked out of the room, leaving his two guests alone.
Charlotte lighted a cigarette. “Siggy’s a dear, isn’t he?”
“If you say so.”
“Don’t be a bore, Rene.”
Laurent looked out the window for a long while before saying, “I think I’m being followed.” He wasn’t sure why he told her this, only some vague notion of cover, that a man working for the other side would say nothing about it.
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“Well, don’t be flattered. Half the people in Tangier are being followed.”
“By whom?”
“The other half.” Charlotte waved her cigarette. “Most of the people in Tangier have been in prison at least once—and the rest deserve to be.”
Something in her voice, though, told him she believed him and it made her uneasy. She took another drag from her cigarette then stubbed it out half-smoked.
Muffled shouting echoed from some distant part of the house, the words unintelligible. A moment later, Lenzburg returned, smiling. “Please forgive my little outburst. While upstairs, I found Ali sleeping in a corner and I felt compelled to remonstrate with him.”
When Charlotte had spoken of a package, Laurent expected her oversized friend to return with a box wrapped in paper or perhaps a leather valise with an intricate lock. Instead, he held a burlap sack weighted with some shapeless cargo.
“You will take care of this for us, then, my sweet?” Lenzburg asked. “Our mutual friend—”
Charlotte cut him off. “I have a very busy day ahead of me. But I’m sure Rene will find time to do us this favor.”
With an uneasy glance at Charlotte, Lenzburg handed the bag to Laurent, who stretched open its mouth and looked inside.
It held perhaps two dozen tidy stacks of French currency.
Laurent looked at Charlotte. “What am I to do with this?”
She spoke as if explaining something to a child. “You will take it to the Café Agadir in town, where a man will change the water of French francs into the wine of German marks.”
“So, that’s the way the betting is going?” Laurent asked.
Lenzburg hummed as if unsure he should speak. “The francs are actually worth more in Casablanca, where they come from. But it is far easier here to turn them into something with a brighter future. So, our friends in Casa are willing to work through us for a small fee.”
Laurent looked at Charlotte.
“I told you. I need money.” A hint of defensiveness laced her voice.
Their transaction accomplished, Charlotte abruptly rose from the sofa. “Siggy, you know how I’d love to stay . . . ”
“And how I hate to see you go.”
He took her hands and gave her a soulful look.
She rose on her toes and gave the fat man a kiss on the cheek that lingered a bit longer than politeness required.
“Until next time,” she said.
As M’barak nosed the big Citroen back onto the street, Laurent saw a car parked a short distance down the hill. Obscured by shadow, a man sat behind the wheel. Another, leaning against a front fender, tossed his cigarette onto the pavement and got in the car as M’barak pointed the convertible up the street. Laurent managed not to turn around and watch what the men did next. After all, why should they seem suspicious? Just two men doing nothing on a sunny day. But that was just it, two men doing nothing—that, and the fact that the car had no license plates.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Laurent stood surrounded by empty tables in the Café Agadir and wondered why the place where Charlotte had directed him to go should be deserted at midday. Even the counter was left untended. It struck him that if the mistress of the Villa Aeaea had discovered his connection to Grant, where better to make him disappear than an out of the way place like this?
Toward the back of the room an open doorway led to a dark corridor. Looking down it was like looking down a well. The creak of a door opening behind him made Laurent spin around. A slope-shouldered man with a day’s worth of stubble emerged from the kitchen to stand behind the counter. The two men regarded each other for a long silent moment.
Without taking his eyes off Laurent, the man behind the counter slowly raised his chin and nodded toward the dark doorway at the back of the room. “Down the hall. The door on the left.”
Laurent felt his heart constrict at the idea of walking into the yawning darkness beyond the doorway. Every instinct told him to turn around and leave, get away from this place, get away from Charlotte and anyone who knew her. But go where? And how? His lack of answers told him he had little choice for now but to continue in her service.
Gripping the sack of francs in one hand, he crossed the threshold and began tapping his way down the dark hall.
After an eternity, Laurent felt a door frame. He stopped and groped for the knob but could not bring himself to turn it. He looked back down the corridor, its open doorway looking as distant as the moon seen through the wrong end of a telescope. For several seconds he stood with his hand on the knob, wondering who was on the other side of the door and whether opening it might be the last thing he ever did.
A wave of manic energy, somewhere between panic and rage, rushed through him as he burst into the room like a charging infantryman.
“Ah, Monsieur Laurent. It is good to see you again. I thought you planned to leave weeks ago.”
Laurent leaned his head back and sighed. “Your little joke gets no better with repetition, Laoui.”
The Moroccan sat at a small wooden table, his hands folded over his stomach, grinning enormously. “You look quite red in the face, my friend. I hope you didn’t have to walk all this way.”
“Stop calling me your . . . I’m fine.”
A hopeful look on his face, Laoui peered over Laurent’s shoulder into the hallway.
“Sorry, Laoui, she’s busy this afternoon. She’s sure you’ll understand.”
The Moroccan shrugged and waved at the bag. “Well, let’s see what you’ve brought me.”
Laurent upended the burlap sack, its contents spilling onto the table.
Laoui frowned at the pile of currency and gave the Frenchman an “is-that-all-there-is?” look before indicating with a nod that Laurent should shut the door.
“Should I bolt it, too?”
Laoui considered the question. “Yes. Why not?”
The door locked, Laoui started sorting the bundles of francs into stacks based on their denomination, then counting the bills in each stack.
Laurent took a seat and put his feet up on the table. Laoui made a face but said nothing.
“So, why are we meeting here?” Laurent asked.
“Some transactions are best conducted away from the office.”
A bundle of francs slipped from the Moroccan’s hands. Laurent picked it up and held it to his chest to make sure he had Laoui’s attention. “You know, it’s funny, after my failed escape last summer, I saw the crew members of that boat having a beer with one of the Guardia Civil later that same day.” He tossed the bundle onto the
table.
The Moroccan said nothing and resumed his count, though more slowly now. Laurent watched his face and saw him making a calculation that had nothing to do with money in his hand.
Laoui flipped through the end of the bundle and set it aside. “You know, Monsieur Laurent, you should consider yourself fortunate. If you had tried to leave on that boat, the Spanish Coast Guard would have intercepted you, and you’d be rotting in prison right now.”
“You told me the trip wasn’t dangerous.”
“It wasn’t—for me,” he said with a deliberately irritating smile. “And not for you, either, once I made sure you didn’t go on it.”
“I should ask for my money back.”
“So you could pay Charlotte Wald for her hospitality? It seems to me you’ve landed very well.”
“Not entirely. I still hope to—”
“Yes, I know. You hope to go to England or America or the Land of Nod and join the fight against evil.” His sarcasm bent the word like a blues note. “You might thank me for saving you from that, too.”
“So you hand me over to Charlotte Wald, whose husband works for the Abwehr.”
Laoui puffed up his cheeks then blew the air out with a great “Bah!” to show how little he cared who employed Charlotte’s husband.
“And for good measure, you put British intelligence onto me,” Laurent added. It was a shot in the dark; he still didn’t know how Harris had learned of him.
Laoui’s face gave away nothing. He picked up another bundle and began counting. “And you think I should make some sort of distinction between these two organizations?”
Laurent couldn’t contain his indignation. “Between the Nazis and—”
The Moroccan waved a hand as if airing the room of a noxious smell. “Why should I care who wins another big fight in Europe? It’s certainly not my affair. You see it as a struggle between good and evil. Bon. I see it as the tribes of Europe once again at war, insisting the whole world burn with them.” Laoui spread his hands. “What harm have the Germans ever done we Moroccans? The French and British tell us they’re the champions of freedom and democracy. Really? The French and the Spanish occupy my home, but do I get to vote? Who represents me? In what chamber? Hitler is a dreadful man, yes. But if he gets the French out of here, and maybe persuades the Spanish to leave, why should I care what he does in Europe?”
“Do you realize how cynical—”
The Moroccan’s eyes hardened in real anger. “You deny us the rights you so proudly champion. Rob us of our traditions and our freedoms. Yet when you’re attacked and we don’t jump to help, you call us cynical?” He mumbled something in Arabic before adding, “I’m a Berber, from the Rif Mountains, the most ancient people of this land. How far back do we go here? I’ll tell you. If you go up into those hills and start jabbering in French or English or German we say, ‘Bouf ! He’s speaking Roman.’ Roman! For us, you’re all the same. Go kill each other by the millions. I don’t care. But leave us out of it. Better yet, just go home. We Berbers have lived for a thousand years in a land dominated by foreign invaders. We are so tired of it!”
“A thousand years? It’s been less than thirty years since we took on our responsibilities here, and—”
“I’m talking about the Arabs!” He looked down at the bundle of francs in his hand. “Damn you. You’ve made me lose count.”
Despite his irritation, Laurent managed to laugh. “I appreciate your frankness.”
Laoui rolled his eyes. “Because you are my friend . . . ”
“If you keep saying that, I might actually begin to like you.”
“One of the hazards of war.” He tossed a bundle at the Frenchman. “Here, help me count this. There should be a hundred in each stack.”
Laurent started riffling through the stack. “I’m told to buy marks with this.”
“I’ll give you a mix of marks and dollars.”
Laoui made some calculations on a piece of paper and held it in front of Laurent. “Does this seem fair?”
“I wouldn’t know. In any case, it’s not me you have to make happy.”
Laoui waggled his head, amused. “If Charlotte Wald is unhappy, she will let me know.”
“Believe it.”
The Moroccan picked up a leather bag from the floor and pulled out several stacks of currency.
“You know, Laurent, I’d hoped you would be safe at the Villa Aeaea. But I fear you are an idealist. If that’s the case, I cannot save you. Not in Tangier.”
“Have I ever heard bad faith so nobly expressed?”
Laoui touched his chest in the Moroccan gesture of sincerity. “You flatter me,” he said as he put the stacks of marks and dollars on the table. “You brought an impressively heavy bag of currency, but it’s all in small denominations. Charlotte had spoken of large sums. Money she can obtain through other contacts.”
“I know nothing about that. This is what I was given.”
“Tell Charlotte that with advance notice I can have whatever currency she wants and in any quantity. But only if the sums are larger.” His eyes brightened. “Add that if she continues to work with me, I can perhaps give a better rate.”
“Because we are your friends.”
Laoui brightened. “Exactly.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
To Laurent’s surprise, it was Harris waiting for him at the Minzah that evening, not Grant. After perfunctory greetings, the Englishman took his arm and led him out to the curb, where Grant sat behind the wheel of a car. They got in and Grant drove them down a quiet residential street to a house surrounded by a large garden. Grant parked on the street and entered the grounds through a wooden gate. Laurent and Harris followed him down the walkway into the house.
Thoroughly Moroccan, with large rugs, colorful wall hangings and brass tables, the house was apparently empty except for themselves. Harris offered Laurent a drink and led him into a salon with leather-covered furniture.
Once they were seated—Laurent on a sofa, Grant on the opposite side of a low table—Harris took a chair next to Laurent and picked up the conversation they had begun in the car. “And you say this Swiss . . . ”
“Siggy Lenzburg.”
“Yes, we’re familiar with Lenzburg. You say he helps smuggle currency up from Casablanca.”
“Evidently,” Laurent said. “It seems that he and Madame Wald are partners. While she has access to the money-changers in Tangier, he’s the one who can bring the currency up from French Morocco.”
Harris looked meaningfully at Grant, who crossed his legs and lighted a cigarette. “Makes sense to me. He turned again to Laurent. “And you say this man Laoui was expecting a larger delivery of francs?”
Grant broke in. “They just handed you the money and told you to go to some goddamned cafe and change it for them?” He sounded offended.
“Charlotte said she was too busy.”
“But why would she bring you into it?” The idea appeared to upset Grant.
“An amateur, you mean?” Laurent asked.
“She puts you at risk, smuggling currency for her, and she stays out of it.” A sharpness in Grant’s tone gave Laurent the feeling that his irritation was about something larger. Grant turned to Harris and continued. “Laoui knows she has a connection who can bring in larger sums. Someone other than Lenzburg. It may simply be her husband.”
Harris leaned back and tapped the arm of his chair, his eyes on Laurent. “Yes, we must assume that Wald’s husband is part of this. The Germans have an interest in smuggling francs up from French Morocco.” He gave Laurent the flicker of a smile. “As do we, of course.”
Laurent shook his head, puzzled. “But why would—”
“Why would they bring the francs to Laoui to change rather than just passing them on to the Abwehr?”
“Yeah, that’s my question too,” Grant interrupted. “What are those pricks doing?” When confused or irritated, Grant’s mouth turned increasingly vulgar.
Harris glared at his colleague
then turned back to Laurent. “My thought is that Wald skims something off the top of large transactions before passing them up.”
Laurent was still trying to puzzle it out. “So Wald takes some of the francs and changes them into marks, even for a poor price, because for him it’s free money?”
“You needn’t be John Maynard Keynes to understand that one,” Harris observed. “And he works through intermediaries—Lenzburg, his wife, you—so as not to be seen as part of these transactions.”
Something about it bothered Laurent. “It may seem an odd thing to say, but Wald struck me as an honest man.”
“Oh, get off it,” Grant scoffed. He had already finished his first drink and was halfway through a second.
Harris ignored his colleague. “So you don’t think Charlotte Wald is working for her husband on this?”
“That’s the obvious explanation,” Laurent said, “but . . . ”
“Yes?”
“Couldn’t she be doing this on her own? She needs money. There are times when she speaks of nothing else. Lenzburg apparently has contacts down south. Charlotte has them on this end. German intelligence—her husband—isn’t involved.”
“You just don’t like the idea of your girlfriend working for the Germans, do you?” Grant said, slinging one leg over the arm of his chair.
His face hot with anger, Laurent rose and took a step toward Grant. Harris jumped to his feet, blocking Laurent’s way. “Don’t let him provoke you,” he warned and turned toward Grant. “Enough. This work is sufficiently difficult already.”
Outwardly chastened, Grant swung his leg off the arm of the chair and sat up straight, like a schoolboy hoping to avoid the headmaster’s paddle. “Sorry,” he said to Laurent, though his smile said otherwise.
Laurent nodded curtly and sat back down.
With the threat of a fight still reverberating in the room, Harris returned to his seat and put on his most affable manner. “By the way,” he said to Laurent. “Lenzburg is no more Swiss than I am.”
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