I DID. AND SHE WAS. AND SO WAS JEAN-LOUP. AND THE TWO hundred dollars in my pants pocket and five hundred from my wallet.
But she had left me a note. It was not tear-stained.
Dearest Riley,
I cannot go with you, or ever see you again, probably. You must not ask why. Just believe that I half love you, my darling and . . .
Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll bet you’ve known all along, haven’t you? The thing is, I’ve got a job to do, and where I’m going you can’t be any part of it. I simply cannot let my lovely friends in Vichy have any more problems, and I know that you are planning something dreadful and that awful Jean-Loup is somehow part of it, so I’m taking him along on the plane to Lisbon, and from there, to Vichy. He looks and smells much better this morning, and I’m sure he’ll tell us what you’ve asked him to do, because I also promised him the five-hundred-dollar bonus.
I borrowed the money from your pocket and wallet, because it is only fair to pay him what you promised, and besides, he wouldn’t go with me without it. You will probably think that was wrong.
But you will think of me fondly, won’t you? I thought it was all over between us, when I left you in Los Angeles. But it wasn’t, was it? I hope none of this will damage the happy memories we have of each other. And maybe when this dreadful war is over we can meet again and resume our beautiful friendship and be half lovers again.
I hope your bottom does not hurt too much, because I never gave anyone an injection before and I may have done it badly and jabbed too hard. Please forgive me, if I did.
If it makes any difference to you, I promise to grow my hair out so it will be natural again and everything will match.
Hugs and kisses,
Amanda
Bitch!
With a sinking sensation in my gut, and an aching butt, I looked at the clock on the bedstand. Nine o’clock.
I called down to the concierge and asked what time the plane for Lisbon left. Eight o’clock. Was it likely to have been delayed? No. The weather was good and the plane had left on time. What time did the lady and the fragrant gentleman leave? Around six-thirty. Plenty of time to get to the airport. How did they get there? Taxi. No luggage. No luggage? No, sir.
I hung up and looked in the closet. Amanda’s suitcase was still in there.
I took it out and opened it. It was almost empty. No wonder it was so light when we left Casablanca. There was only a slip of hotel stationery. We’ll always have Casablanca. And under that she had placed a lipstick kiss. The only other thing was my .38.
Well, if she needed a gun, she had Moshe’s Luger.
Bitch!
It was almost time to meet Eddy at his villa, so I dressed in my uniform. Maybe that would remind him that I was really just an active-duty officer and not a professional spy, and therefore might possibly be forgiven for what could only be called an epic fuck-up and disastrous breach of security for Operation Torch.
True, Dave King had said it was okay for me to give Amanda a ride—that she was harmless—but I was still in charge of the job. I could have said no. I knew damned well why I’d wanted to bring her along. So if Colonel Eddy and the rest of them wanted to say I had been led astray by a devious femme fatale and should have known better, well, they’d have every right to say it, and more.
I went downstairs to get a taxi, but it was not necessary. Seaman Davis was there in the jeep, waiting for me.
“Good morning, sir,” he said. “Have a good trip?”
“Mixed,” I said, glumly.
Colonel Eddy was on the patio when we drove up. He was smiling broadly.
I figured that wouldn’t last.
We sat at the patio table and the steward brought coffee.
“Well, sir,” he said genially. “How was your trip?”
So I told him about losing Jean-Loup, about Amanda and about Moshe—the whole stinking mess, from start to finish. His expression didn’t change during my auto-da-fé. He was calm and didn’t interrupt or ask questions.
“So that’s it,” I said, miserably. “I can’t tell you how foolish and inept this whole thing has made me feel.”
“That’s understandable,” said Eddy. Then he smiled. “But you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself, because the truth is, things worked out exactly as they were intended to.”
“What?!”
“Well, maybe not exactly. But close.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think back on the orders Dave King gave you in Casablanca. What did he say that you must never repeat to anyone?”
“The words Port Lyautey and Sebou River.”
“Right. That’s because our friend Jean-Loup never was and never will be a river pilot on the Sebou. He was, however, an experienced river pilot on the Rhône River, in France. When Amanda delivers him to the Vichy authorities, which also means German intelligence, they will question him and learn that we more or less kidnapped him, and they will assume it’s because he knows the Rhône. What will they deduce from that?”
“That an invasion is planned for Southern France.”
“Yes. We’re not ready to go into Europe yet. Realistically, we might not be ready until 1944. The Germans may or may not know that, but they do know there’s clamoring for a second front, and that we’ve got to do something, somewhere, and pretty damned quick, if only for political reasons. They know we’ll be coming, most likely sooner rather than later, but they don’t know where. If they learn from Jean-Loup that the Rhône area is the likely target, so much the better.
“As for Torch, if the Vichy think we’re going into Southern France, that will increase our element of surprise when we hit Morocco and Algeria, which is defended by Vichy troops and their navy. Do you remember that story I told you about floating a body ashore with phony papers? Same idea.”
“So Jean-Loup is an unwitting plant?”
“Yes, and all the more believable for that. It’s called disinformation in the trade. He can’t tell them anything he doesn’t believe. He’s the best kind of double agent, because he’s not aware he is one.”
“What about Moshe?”
“Well, we were on to him. That was another reason not to mention the Sebou.”
“Really? How did you get on to him? He sure as hell fooled me with his Yiddish act.”
“You’re a Presbyterian from Ohio. Perhaps you missed certain subtleties.”
“True. But I also worked in Hollywood. I’m no stranger to all things Yiddish.”
“I guess you’re right. The fact is, I only got wise to him by accident. He didn’t know that I grew up in this part of the world, and I recognized that his occasional use of an Arabic word was perfect, but his Hebrew and Yiddish were sometimes incorrect. There was no way to check on his biography, of course, but it was soon pretty clear he was an Arab agent, and like a lot of these dissident Arabs, he was in bed with the Germans. We made sure by sending a few phony stories through him. Trifling little things designed get a reaction from the Gestapo here, and when they did react, we knew Moshe had passed the information to them.”
“So he was supposed to kidnap Jean-Loup.”
“That was the original plan, yes. But when Amanda came along, Dave King figured that she would give us a useful fallback in case something went wrong with Moshe. She’s been working for Vichy from the start of the war.”
“But Dave King said she was okay.”
“Yes, well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? She gave us backup in case something happened with Moshe.”
“Like what?”
“Who knows? Moshe could have easily been arrested by the Vichy police. They might have had a dossier on him as an Arab dissident. They’re not completely asleep at the switch, you know.”
“That’s possible, I guess. He did tend to sweat a lot at police checkpoints.”
“For good reason. Besides, we were aware of your history with Amanda and figured it could somehow work to our advantage.”
“You got that from Bunny.”
“Yes.”
“Was that the reason I was recruited for this job?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. One of them, anyway.”
“What about the Sebou River? Was that all BS?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. It’s still very much in the plans of the brass in London and Washington. We still want to take the airport at Port Lyautey, and we still want to use the river to do it, if at all possible. And we still need good information about its navigation. The idea of grabbing a river pilot is still a good one. In fact, it was the original idea. This whole other plot involving Jean-Loup and disinformation came afterwards. Sort of a flash of inspiration.”
“So I suppose I’m being sent back to Casablanca to do it all over again and transport the real guy.”
“No. It’s already been done. There’s a man called René Malevergne who has worked on the Sebou as a pilot for years. Knows every inch and mood. And last year he was arrested by Vichy and held in prison for several months. It soured him on them completely. He was released and came back and got a job in a cannery in Casablanca. He quit the river but knows all there is to know about it. So we approached him, and he agreed to work for us. One of our agents drove him up to Tangier last night and put him on a Royal Navy ship to Gibraltar about an hour ago.”
“Drove him up here in a trailer?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. He’ll be on his way to London later today, and from there, on to Washington. He’ll meet with the staff planning the Casablanca operation.”
“Then what the hell was I supposed to be doing?” I knew the answer, but asked anyway.
“You were a decoy. Just in case the Vichy or the Germans got wind of the idea somehow. That’s why you left first—before the car with the real pilot.”
“I see. The cheese in the trap.”
“If you like. But think of it as a very good kind of cheese. In the end, you had two functions, decoy and disinformation—either one of which was vitally important, but in combination, well, we’d call that a home run. You’ll get a medal out of this. I’ll see to it.”
“Even though I had no idea what I was doing?”
“How many heroes know what they’re doing while they’re doing it?”
And how many of de Gaulle’s two hundred and forty-six kinds of cheese know they’re cheese?
“There’s more good news,” said Eddy. “The repairs to your ship are under way. She’s been moved into a dry dock. Chances are very good she’ll be ready for the actual Torch invasion. I can’t tell you when it will be—I don’t know. But I can guess it will be toward the end of autumn. Plenty of time for your ship to be put back together and made ready. So you’ll be able to come back to the scenes of the crime. Fun, eh?”
“When do I get my orders to return? I assume you only needed me for this one job.”
“Yes, because you were unknown to all the bad guys and very well known to one rather naughty girl. Now you’re blown, as they say, so it will be on to something new. As for your orders, I have them here.” He tapped his coat pocket, exactly the way Bunny had done not so long ago. “The boys in London would like you to stop by on your way and give them a debriefing on the mission. I don’t suppose you’ll mind that, eh?”
“No, sir.”
“And Riley, although you may not appreciate it now, you did a really good job on this mission. As you boys in the navy say—well done.”
“Thank you, Colonel. But maybe you will answer me one question.”
“If I can.”
“Suppose Amanda had not come along and it was just me and Moshe and Jean-Loup. Moshe told me he didn’t see any reason to shoot me and leave me along the road, but what if he hadn’t felt that way? I would’ve been in a tight spot.”
“Yes, that’s why you’ll get a medal. But we didn’t figure Moshe for a killer. There was really no need for it, from his point of view. Despite what novelists might think, it’s not that easy to shoot someone in cold blood, especially when there’s no need to do it. But this is war, and we had to be willing to take that chance. Either way, though, you would have achieved the result we wanted.”
“Good to know.”
“But we’re much happier it worked out the way it did. Much. You may rest assured that we considered that angle, when we decided to let Amanda go along. We figured she’d reduce the risk. Shooting two people in cold blood is more than twice as hard as shooting one, especially when one is a beautiful woman. Some Arabs have a refined sense of chivalry. Their literature on the subject is very interesting. We just didn’t figure on her shooting Moshe.”
“That would have ruined everything, if she hadn’t been an agent.”
“Yes. But she was. And we knew it.”
Yes, and they also knew something else—if Moshe had shot both of us, the whole disinformation scheme would still have worked out the way King and Eddy had wanted it to. And what’s more, Moshe would have eliminated a beautiful and presumably useful Vichy spy. A nice, neat alternative scenario. And of course, because of the way it actually did work out, the Germans were now short one spy—a phony rabbi with a fund of schnorrer jokes.
Either way, King and Eddy figured to win. My friend Tony the Snail Scungilli, who ran a gambling ship off of Los Angeles, had never had a better hedge.
“She says it was an accident,” I said.
“Do you believe her?”
“Amanda? Who knows?”
“It’s certainly possible that it was, and that her accident saved your bacon,” said Eddy. “After all, we don’t really know what Moshe was going to do. He may have been saying one thing and planning another. Not likely, maybe, but if I were you, I’d think of it that way.”
“When I see her I’ll say thanks—just before I strangle her.”
“That would be a shame. I don’t think you were really in too much danger from either of them. Besides, you were armed. We knew about your experience with the cops and criminals in LA, so we were pretty sure you’d make out okay in a showdown with Moshe. And Amanda may well be useful to us again sometime. She’s an opportunist, not an ideologue. You must have enjoyed your time with her.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. We’ll always have . . . something, I guess.”
Eh?”
“Nothing. Just a figure of speech. What would have happened if neither Moshe nor Amanda grabbed Jean-Loup—for whatever reason?”
“That would have been too bad, but not a disaster. Remember, your first duty was as a decoy. That worked. The real Sebou pilot is safely on the way to Gibraltar, so, primary mission accomplished. We would have found some other way to get Jean-Loup into Vichy or Gestapo hands. There are plenty of their agents around. Worst case, we could have paid him to defect.”
“Oh.” I paused. “One last thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Did Dave King mention something to the Valkyrie about Amanda? Did he set that up?”
“I don’t know. But you know, Amanda’s not the only opportunist in our little game. Anyone who’s capable of inventing exploding mule shit is capable of just about anything. Dave enjoys his work. He smiles a lot. Maybe you noticed.”
“I guess I did. Still, it would be nice to know.”
“Words to live by. Are you familiar with Keats?”
“A little.”
“Did you ever run across his idea of negative capability?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He said negative capability is ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ It should be the motto of our business.”
“When ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise?”
“Ha! Good one. But, no. Not quite the same idea. Same church, different hymn.”