The Last Heroes (Men at War 1)

Since the doctor’s office was only half a mile from the American consulate in Rabat, and even though it was raining buckets in Rabat, Canidy decided to walk, his reason being that this was the only way he could be sure not to lose the Sécurité agent who was this day’s tail. (‘‘I thought they were supposed to use a team,’’ Canidy had said with deeply wounded vanity to Eldon Baker soon after the Sécurité first started to keep an eye on them. ‘‘You’re not worth a team,’’ Baker had replied, rubbing it in.)

So, in raincoat, hat, scarf, and galoshes, Canidy trudged the half mile to Dr. Albéniz, happy at least that the Frenchman following him was getting soaked too.

The doctor’s office was on the second floor, which was reached by a stairway up the outside of the building. At the top of the stairs, Canidy glanced around to make sure his tail was still around. He was. He’d found a modicum of protection in a doorway down the block.

Suffer! Canidy thought, then knocked.

Even though he had fought against the fascists, Dr. Albéniz was an aristocrat. For a Spaniard he was tall, and his dark hair was combed straight back. With him was the American deputy consul, William Dale. Dale was there solely because he was roughly the same height and build as Canidy. And he had been waiting an hour for Canidy’s arrival with an impatience born of the diplomat’s distaste for doing the work of spies.

Dale acknowledged Canidy’s arrival by tearing away the brown paper wrapping from a bundle he had brought with him, as though silence made his own sin in consorting with Baker and his gang merely a venial one. He handed the bundle over to Canidy and took from him his soaked gear. The bundle contained clothing until recently worn by one of Ferruch’s Berbers. Canidy changed into it while Dale put on the rain gear.

‘‘I’ll be going now,’’ he said to the doctor, pointedly ignoring Canidy.

‘‘I’d wait, sir, if I were you, for at least another fifteen minutes. The theory is that I’m seeing the doctor professionally. ’’

‘‘As indeed you are,’’ said Dr. Albéniz, with a little smile.

Dale shrugged in defeat and took a seat, while the doctor went to a cabinet and took from it a syringe and needle. He screwed the needle into its socket, then pointed out to Canidy the markings on the side of the syringe.

‘‘I’m going to give you a sedative that will keep someone blissfully unconscious for perhaps three or four hours,’’ Dr. Albéniz said in very good but heavily accented English. ‘‘Fill the syringe to about three hundred cc’s’’—he pointed—‘‘here.’’

‘‘OK.’’

‘‘You know to squirt a little out before you inject?’’

Canidy nodded.

‘‘Good.’’ Albéniz walked over to a cabinet, unlocked it, and removed a small box. ‘‘Yes, good,’’ he said, examining it. He then found a case for the syringe and the sedative in his doctor’s bag. He placed all this equipment inside the case and handed it over to Canidy.

‘‘Can I expect these back?’’ Dr. Albéniz asked.

‘‘I hope so,’’ Canidy said.

‘‘Please try,’’ the doctor said. ‘‘Medical shipments have been haphazard.’’

‘‘I’ll do my best,’’ Canidy said. Personally, he was doubtful that he’d be able to return the doctor’s gear to him.

‘‘Thank you. Please follow me, then.’’ The doctor led Canidy down an inside stairway and out a door that issued into a back alley. In the alley stood a tiny deux chevaux Citroën van, its engine put-putting. The doctor opened the rear door, and Canidy crawled inside.

‘‘Hi, Dick,’’ said Eric Fulmar. ‘‘How the fuck are you?’’

Oued-Zem, Morocco March 13, 1942

It was close to ten in the evening by the time that Louis Albert Grunier reached his cottage in the mining compound near Oued-Zem. Grunier had gotten into the habit of spending his evenings at a café in town, where two or three unexpectedly sweet girls worked. For a couple of francs the girls would dance, and for a few more they’d take a customer upstairs. Grunier neither danced nor went upstairs, but he paid the girls for their time just the same, and he also sweetened their time with vermouth or Pernod.

When Grunier switched on the light inside his cottage, he saw that the inside was a shambles. And there was—mon Dieu!—a dead man on the floor. Two Berbers—no, two Europeans in Berber dress, he corrected himself—had been waiting in the dark for him, drinking his best brandy.

Grunier didn’t speak when he saw them, nor did he do what he really wanted to do, which was to go back outside as fast as he could. One of the men held a very large and nasty-looking Thompson submachine gun aimed more or less at him.

‘‘Bon soir, Monsieur Grunier,’’ said the one with the Thompson. ‘‘We’ve been waiting several hours for you.’’

‘‘This is an outrage,’’ Grunier managed.

‘‘You’ll be astonished to hear this,’’ Eric Fulmar said, ‘‘but we’ve come to save you.’’

‘‘Who is this man?’’ said Grunier, ignoring that and pointing to the apparent corpse on the floor. ‘‘And why have you killed him?’’

‘‘He’s not dead . . . yet,’’ said Eric. ‘‘But he will be shortly; and I imagine that event will please you, because the Sûreté and the Germans will believe the dead man is you, which is going to keep your wife and kids safe. Because you see, Monsieur Grunier, we are going to take you to America in a submarine.’’