The Torch of Tangier (14 page)

She didn’t speak again until Adam parked the Hillman on the Rue de Portugal across from the Jewish cemetery.

She climbed out of the back seat, her eyes red and swollen. “Drury left a message for you. For both of you. If anything happened to him, he told me to tell you that the recipe for the blueberry pies is in the Bureau of the Djinn.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Lily watched Suzannah disappear into the mellah.

“What the hell is the Bureau of the Djinn?” Adam asked.

“The back of the cave where we dug.”

“You know where it is?” Adam turned the key and started the motor, ready to go.

“Cape Spartel. The Caves of Hercules.”

He revved the motor. “Let’s go.”

“We can’t. The Spanish sealed off the area, put road blocks everywhere.”

“There’s no time to fiddle around. We have to get that code box.”

“We can’t get through. Maybe Tariq can do it,” Lily said. “He knows the Bureau of the Djinn. Can you contact him?”

“No time for that. The Torch is lit tomorrow at midnight. We have to risk it.”

“We’ll go there tonight after dark.”

He paused, sucking in his upper lip, working it with his teeth. “I have to be in Casa tonight.”

“I’ll go alone.”

The car began to roll downhill. He put it in gear and turned the wheel to the curb. “Too chancy. You say the area’s patrolled.”

“I’ll find someplace unguarded, maybe sneak through.”

He turned off the engine and set the brake. “That’s a big maybe.”

“I can only give it a try.”

He hesitated, his hand on the door handle. “Suppose you get caught. Then we’ve got nothing and Yuste will turn you over to the Nazis as a spy.”

He got out of the car and opened the trunk. “I’ll talk to Boyle, see if he can get you a diplomatic pass.” He reached for the cases. “Have to get these instruments up and working before I leave.”

He hoisted the small suitcase under his arm, picked up the boxes that held the transmitter and Teletype, and started toward the steps that led to the Legation. He paused at the arch. “You take care of the archaeological gear and lock the car. Bring the keys.”

They stashed the equipment in her office at the Legation and Adam went down the hall to speak to Boyle. He returned, looking glum.

“He can’t help. Says Yuste is inflexible. Boyle’s tried to get permission before with no luck. Now, with you under suspicion, it’s even harder.” He picked up two cases. “Only locals are allowed in the area. They do I.D. spot checks. Even if you get through, you need papers.”

He was already at the door, suitcases crammed under his arms. “I’m going up to the roof.” From the hall, he called back over his shoulder, “Boyle wants to see you. He says it’s about Meknes.”

Lily stored the theololite and stadia rods in the little cupboard against the wall and started for Boyle’s office.

Boyle told her Periera had called, insisting that Lily must leave in seventy-two hours. “Today’s Friday. That means you must be ready to leave for the south by Monday.”

Lily watched the nick in his nose quiver with each syllable as he spoke, giving his words an air of urgency. “Drury left cash with me in case of emergency. I guess this counts as one.” He nodded his head as if going over it in his mind. “He left enough money for me to arrange transportation for you and room and board in Meknes. I’ll get on it.”

“I was thinking of staying in Moulay Idriss. It’s closer.”

“You can’t stay there. It’s a sacred site, the site of the tomb of the first sultan of Morocco and a close descendant of the Prophet. Only Moslems are allowed to spend the night. You’ll have to go to Meknes.”

He stood up and came around the desk. “You sure you’ll be all right?”

She turned to reassure him. “Of course I’ll be all right.”

She mounted the stairs to the roof and found Adam staring at a flagpole, the flag fluttering in the breeze off the sea.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Have to talk to Boyle. That flag means someone else has a key to this roof.”

Lily looked around the roof paved with mosaic tiles, a low lip around the perimeter, and four outdoor lamp stanchions, all painted white. Large clay pots planted with leggy geraniums and marguerites stood at intervals along the edge of the roof.

“They use the roof for receptions sometimes,” she said. “I was here last year for the one on the Fourth of July.” She pointed to a shed in the far corner next to the flagpole. “The shed over there opens into a sort of buffet, where they keep the steam tables and barbecue. Electrical outlets are in the shed.”

Adam fiddled with the keys in his hand, crossed to the shed and unlocked it. A radio–phonograph stood next to the bar on the left. Long folding tables and chairs stacked on their sides filled the right side. He opened one of the tables in the shelter of the shed, put the Teletype and radio on top and placed two of the chairs in front of the table. He plugged in the Teletype, motioned Lily to a chair, and pulled out a ladder from behind the stack of chairs.

Adam was on the ladder, attaching an aerial to the side of a storage shed when it began to rain again, at first just occasional drops. Sharp gusts slapped against the side of the shed. The flag snapped in the wind.

“Damn.” Adam swayed on the ladder. “Wouldn’t you know, the wind would come up when I’m in a hurry? Got to get this set up before dark.”

The western half of the sky was rosy with sunset but to the east a starless sky, pearly with clouds, was already darkening. Footsteps, indistinct at first, then louder, clattered on the stairway to the roof. A Marine from the entrance booth opened the door and another followed.

“Who the hell is that?” Adam asked.

The first Marine saluted. “Private First Class Jessup, sir.” They moved toward the flagpole. “O’Hare and I came to take in the flag.”

Adam gave a perfunctory salute. “You have a key to the roof?”

“I get it from Mr. Boyle, sir. In the morning to raise the flag and when we take it down in the evening before sundown.”

They had already lowered the flag and begun to fold it when Adam came down from the ladder. “You finished, Jessup?”

“No sir.” He held the flag taut as he stepped toward the other marine, turning the folds into triangles in a choreographed ritual. “We’ll be gone in a minute, sir.”

When they finished, they saluted Adam and disappeared through the door, locking it behind them.

“This place is busier than Grand Central Station,” Adam said.

“For God’s sake, they’re on our side. It’s no busier here than the villa.”

“They don’t have security clearance. Everyone in the villa had clearance. MacAlistair and Zaid are SIS.”

“Which is?”

“Secret Intelligence Service.”

“How about Faridah?” Lily asked. “Did she have security clearance too?”

“Faridah?”

In the lowering twilight, wind whipped against the panels of the shed, banging them back and forth. Lily grabbed the handle of one and held onto it.

“Faridah. The Berber woman at the villa.”

“Never saw her before today. We won’t go back to the villa.” He climbed the ladder again. “I’ll have the equipment up and running in a minute.”

Lily stood in the shelter of the shed, out of the wind. Adam clambered down and turned on the transmitter. He adjusted the knob, typed out “Hello,” tuned the receiver and loaded paper into the paten. After a few minutes, the Teletype clicked and printed “Hello back.”

Adam let out a breath. “At least something works.” He turned off the machine and looked up at the translucent, cloud-enshrouded sky. “They’ll never make it. They can’t land in this mess. Our first big offensive and the weather’s against us.”

He wrote some numbers on the pad next to the Teletype. “This is the frequency for Gib, this one’s for Casa.” He handed it to Lily. “Let’s go downstairs. Figure out what to do.”

He locked the shed and crossed to the door of the roof. “I’ll send your replacement from Casa.”

They stood on the steps below the closed door while he jiggled the keys.

He handed the key ring to Lily. “The round one’s for the roof, the hexagonal one for the shed. Remember, round equals roof; hexagonal for six equals shed.”

***

Downstairs, Zaid sat in Lily’s office, waiting behind Drury’s desk, his chair canted back against the wall, his eyes closed, his feet up.

“How’d you get in here?” Adam asked.

“The door was open.” Zaid righted the chair and put his feet under the desk.

“How did it go with Periera?”

“Fine. He’s out looking for the two thugs who broke into the house and stole the Georgian tea service and the Delacroix and killed MacAlistair.”

“MacAlistair didn’t have a Georgian tea service, or a Delacroix,” Lily said.

“Periera doesn’t know that.”

“Did they go up to the roof?” Adam asked.

“No. Too busy looking for what else might have been taken.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Adam said.

“I came to pick up the Hillman. I need to go to Medionna tonight.”

“You can’t get through,” Lily said. “All the roads are closed. The area’s heavily patrolled.”

“I get through all the time. I know places the Guardia Civil never heard of.”

“You’re going to see Tariq?” Lily asked.

He shook his head and stood up. “No. The Mekraj. He’s waiting for me in the village. I have a last message for him from MacAlistair.”

“Could you make a stop on the way?” Adam asked. “At the Caves of Hercules?”

“Too much risk. There are gun emplacements on the headlands above the caves. The area’s fortified. They shoot to kill.”

“It’s essential.”

Lily interrupted. “I don’t think he—”

“He’ll make it. He can take you there.” Adam turned back to Zaid. “Drury left something in the caves for her.”

Zaid frowned. “What’s so important about a piece of archaeological equipment?”

“That’s not what she’s after,” Adam said.

“It’s personal,” Lily said. “There are things you didn’t know about—about Drury and me.”

Zaid raised his eyebrows. “Is it worth your life?”

Lily looked from Zaid to Adam, her head swirling with misgiving.

“Is it?” Adam asked her.

What was it Adam had said? With the landing, American forces were committed to their first big offensive. Rafi had walked across a minefield to stop the Germans in North Africa. She could do this.

“Yes.” A sense of purpose tinged with apprehension eddied through her. “It’s worth it.”

“Then it’s not archaeological equipment.” Zaid ran his fingers across the top of his lip. “Or is it?” He paused, his forehead crumpled in thought. “I have to fix up papers, manufacture an I.D. for you.” He narrowed his eyes. “Meet me after dark.”

“At the villa?”

“No. The side street where I always park. Be there at eleven.”

After Zaid was gone, Adam turned to Lily. “You know what you’re getting yourself into? You’re on your own.”

“The code book is the key to the invasion. I can handle it.”

“You’ll have to. There’s no turning back.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Zaid waited in the Hillman, the motor running. Lily found a djelaba on the seat next to him. He was dressed as a Riffian in pantaloons and a vest, a white knitted cap on his head.

He picked up the garment from the seat and held it out to her. “Put this on and pull up the hood. If anyone stops us, I’ll do the talking.”

They took a southern route out of town, driving through areas unfamiliar to Lily, into the countryside, past hillocks and dark farmhouses. He turned onto an unpaved track with a drainage ditch running alongside.

A few feet past the turn, he stopped on the verge, next to the ditch. He reached under the seat for two license plates and took a screwdriver from the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?” Lily asked.

“We’re in a different district. If we’re spotted, they’ll know we’re from Tangier. Have to change the plates.”

Lily waited in the car, looking around at the stillness, at the silhouette of a tree in the shadows, at hills in the distance, some with little specks of light. She listened to night creatures rustling through the leaves in the ditch and heard the soft hoots of owls, signaling location of prey.

She had never seen a night this dark.

Zaid got back into the car, tossed the screwdriver back into the glove box, and continued driving slowly along the rutted track.

“About Medionna,” Lily said. “It’s Friday. The Mekraj will be in Tangier for the Friday mosque.”

“Oh?” Zaid glanced at her with a studied look. “It slipped my mind.”

They drove in darkness, lights dimmed, the motor softly whining in low gear. Barely able to see ten feet in front of them, she watched the road, mesmerized by rocks along the side that cast long shadows, by small animals scuttling across their path, their eyes glinting in the murky gloom before they vanished into the fields beyond. Here and there, a light from one of the houses flickered in the darkness and disappeared.

“What was Faridah doing at the villa?” Lily asked.

“When?”

“Today.”

“Helping. She can be trusted.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“She’s my wife.” Zaid hesitated. “In name only—a marriage of convenience.” He had the flicker of a smile. “It gives me the right to beat her if she doesn’t obey.”

“Are you the one who forced her to work and didn’t let her keep the money?”

“You remember that? This time she gets to keep whatever she wants.” The smile became a satisfied smirk. “MacAlistair left everything to me.”

“Is that why she was going through all his things?”

“My things.”

Lily held her breath. “You killed MacAlistair.”

“I promised him a long time ago. When things got bad with him, when he had nothing left but pain.” Zaid hesitated. “I promised him, you know.”

Lily sat rigid in her seat as they rode through the inky night in silence, wondering if she could trust Zaid, aware that it was too late, that she had no choice.

I must get the code book, relay the messages for the landings. At any cost.

Zaid turned the car into an open field and turned off the low beams. He leaned forward and squinted into the night, driving slowly across the field, the car pitching and straining as the wheels bit into the soft earth.

She saw only the sky, heavy with stars, through the mud-splattered windshield. After a while she could make out vague shapes in the darkness, a tree looming here, a boulder there. Wisps of fog moved past them as they approached the sea and soon they drove through a blanket of haze that wrapped them in a silent veil.

The air changed. Lily could smell the salt of the tide. Still surrounded by the cocoon of fog, the wheels of the car crunched over gravel, the sound almost drowned out by the crash and cadence of a furious surf.

Zaid turned the car beyond the gravel and parked so that it was pointed downhill. He turned off the motor, set the brake. “We’re at the path below the caves.”

He reached into the back seat for a pair of the headlamps they had used during the excavation and handed one to Lily. “Don’t turn it on until we’re inside.”

They got out of the car, gently closed the doors and started up the path. They inched their way along the ledge toward the caves, clinging to the cliff face, hearing the angry sea pounding against the rocks below.

They moved carefully along the narrow shelf on stones slippery with night mist. Once, Lily lost her footing. Zaid reached out with his arm across her waist, holding her back until she steadied herself.

Her djelaba caught on a bush, the hood dropped down across her back. Zaid pulled it loose, tearing the cloth. He whispered a comment that was lost in the roar of the surf.

Finally, they reached the mouth of the Upper Cave.

Inside, Lily turned on the lamp and started toward the back of the cave, skirting the funnel that dropped into the lower cave.

She moved the headlamp up and down along the back wall, seeing nothing but the circular pockmarks that stonecutters had left behind when they pecked millstones and mortars out of the living rock. Instinctively, she reached for the hamsa hanging from the chain around her neck.

“Bismillah,”
she whispered into the hollow of the back of the cave and crawled closer to where the ceiling sloped down against the wall. Then she saw it—the glint of the metal latch of the code box wedged in a crevice where the ceiling met the back wall.

She tried to force it out, moving the box back and forth, her body taut with effort. Finally, she pried it loose, releasing the box with a shower of small pebbles and rocks. She toppled backward.

Before she regained her balance, she heard Zaid directly behind her.

“So that’s what you’re looking for. The code box.”