Sundays in Casablanca were spent at the race track on the hill of Anfa that overlooked both the ocean and the city. The nearby Anfa Hotel a modern building with a panoramic view of the coastline was requisitioned by the German-Italian Armistice Commission. Axis officers had orders to keep a low profile and wear civilian clothes especially at public events such as the horse races. Davis was scheduled to transfer out in a few months to his new posting as American Vice Consul at Marrakech some two hundred kilometers south near the fringes of the Sahara desert where there was no such sophisticated racing. That Sunday he was on hand early to place his bets on the opening race. He recognized two German officers from the Armistice Commission in smart civilian clothes as they were in animated conversation with two young women. Then he spotted Colonel de Linieres in uniform and high boots waving his stick at him.
“Ah! Davis, I was looking for you but couldn’t find you at your hotel. We must talk for a moment.”
Linieres was out of breath and seemed worried. They moved away from the little crowd gathering near the paddock to watch the nervous Arabian horses prance around in a sweat before the jockeys would climb aboard and canter off to the starting gate. Davis saw the German officers walking over toward him and drew the colonel as far away from there as possible. Linieres was smoking a cigarette and looked nervous and disgruntled.
“Davis, first I must tell you that I have been transferred to Algiers. I leave this week. This is an unexpected disaster because I suspect that they may be preparing my return to France, something I was hoping to avoid. My replacement will be a naval officer and I cannot vouch for him.”
“This is not good news, my friend. But I hope things will turn out well for you.”
“I also have some additional information about those Italian transport planes and their cargo from last July. It appears that there were several sets of crates according to our informants. We were unable to track their final destination but six went by truck to Tangier and our man there suspects that they contain narcotics judging from the persons receiving them. Then we received a signal from Conakry about a large four engine plane with Brazilian markings that crashed into the ocean with no survivors and very little debris. The wreckage sank too quickly in very deep water and we are unable to connect it to the Italian planes. The plane had to have been heading toward Brazil.”
“Amazing. So the Gibraltar target theory may not make sense. But a Brazilian plane? That’s something new I can’t explain and we must follow it up.”
“Other things have happened as well. Spanish security at Tetouan airport discovered our main informant who was quickly arrested and tortured. We have to assume that he talked during his interrogation and that in all probability he is now dead. The Guardia Civil takes no prisoners. The Italians must have certainly been alerted by their Spanish friends by now. “
Davis looked alarmed.
“I must sound the alarm no matter what this thing really turns out to be.”
“The Italian planes flew first to the Canary Islands and from there probably to Conakry. The people in Conakry seem to know little or nothing since the planes used a dirt airstrip hidden deep in the jungle. The person down there made a deal thinking he was helping the Free French!”
“The Canary Islands and Conakry are not exactly on the way to Gibraltar.”
“Precisely, this operation or whatever it is must have something to do with Africa or….”
“South America…”
“Possibly, but perhaps the British in the Antilles are the true objective? After all America is neutral so what targets are there besides the British island bases?”
“No sense in speculating Linieres, we must get this information to the right people.”
“Unfortunately we have no informer in Las Palmas so the little information I have is purely speculative.”
“I’ll pass it along but there’s still no hard evidence any of this really concerns us Americans. It’s probably as you say, directed at the British.”
Davis sent a coded cable that eventually made its way from Algiers to the State Department until it finally landed on the desk of the counter intelligence unit at the FBI because it involved South America. The special agent in the code room took the message directly to Marvin Tucker who thought there was nothing of interest and had the cable filed away after sending a routine copy to the Offce of naval Intelligence. Later that same week the FBI representative in Caracas, Venezuela reported that one Salvaõ Secluna and family traveling from Mar del Plata, Argentina was applying for an entry visa to the United States. It was one of the thousands of applications that were being routinely processed by the State Department and held in limbo because of immigration quotas.