Chapter Nineteen
February 4 Morning in Sfax
All morning long, the same four men from the previous day were in the same room watching the comings and goings from the café across the street. The Germans were bored, and as they assumed Abu didn’t understand German, started gossiping among themselves.
“I heard that the money from the Jews never made it to the airport to be flown back to Germany,” one of them said. The other two looked at him expectedly. Abu’s ears twitched, but he kept his eyes glued to the street. “I hear that the major took a halftrack and some men out of town, and he returned without them,” the first man went on with a knowing wink.
“Shush,” one of the others looked worried. “If he hears that being bandied about, that’s not all that’s going to disappear.” The other two men got equally worried looks and shut up. Abu’s brain was thinking furiously about this information, as a halftrack and a fortune out in the desert, guarded by a handful of men, might be ripe for a plucking.
About an hour later, Abu was watching a man down at the end of the street who had the right build and brown hair of Captain Matthews, but Abu couldn’t see his face. Abu pressed his own face against the window, trying to see. Just then, Angelique and Drew were walking from the opposite direction towards the café. Drew glanced around and saw an Arab’s face in the window across from the café. As the Arab’s head turned, Drew could see…Abu! He froze for an instant, then as the possibilities raced through his mind, he turned his face towards Angelique and whispered, “Look at me and laugh.” She instantly complied, but with a worried look in her eyes whispered back, “What’s wrong?”
“We are being watched.” As her eyes involuntarily started to look around he hissed at her, “Keep your eyes on me! Now keep smiling at me until we get into the restaurant.” He kept his face averted, facing her, until they entered the café. At the entrance they stopped with their backs to the street, and Drew checked the café out. There were no German uniforms in sight, and the café was busier today than yesterday. He looked suspiciously at the diners and tried to pick out possible undercover German agents. Although there were a handful of men who might fit the bill, they were all sitting with a family or elderly men, and Drew felt fairly sure, or as much as he could be, that there were no Gestapo agents in the café.
Across the street the French speaking German roughly grabbed Abu and yanked him from the window, “Dumkopff, do you want to be spotted? Stay back from the window!” Abu swallowed his anger and looked out the window. Just disappearing into the café was a couple. Abu narrowed his eyes, he had caught only a glimpse of the back of the male figure, but there was something about him. But no, how could the captain be with a woman? He went back to studying the street.
There was one open table and Drew led Angelique to it and they sat down. Angelique whispered again, “Who is watching us?” Drew smiled back at her, “Remember the guide I told you about, Abu Mehouf? He is watching from across the street.”
Angelique looked at him with horrified eyes, “But you said he had been killed!”
“Apparently he wasn’t,” Drew answered dryly. “Now the question is, why is he sitting across the street watching this café?”
“He could be waiting for you to show up?” Angelique suggested.
“He could, but why not just sit out by the street? How many Arabs did we see just standing or sitting around? No, he has to be trying to hide out, but who is he hiding from, the Germans or me?” Suddenly an arrested look came across his face. “If Abu had sold me out to the Germans, that would explain why I was able to escape and why I wasn’t chased when we ran into that tank column. Abu is watching the front door of the café to point me out.”
“Why are they just watching and waiting? Why not just raid?” Angelique asked nervously.
“Because they want to catch the informant, they don’t know who it is, and they want me to lead them to him,” Drew answered bitterly.
“Do you think Major Lindisl being here yesterday is a part of it?”
“Probably.” Drew thought about it, “They must not have had the surveillance set up yet, so he was checking the place out. Remember how he came straight over to me? He must have been going by my description.”
Just then the waitress came over, “Ah, Monsieur and Mademoiselle, you have returned. You enjoyed our cuisine, yes?”
“Indeed we did,” Drew answered pleasantly. “And what delicacies do you have for us today?”
“Alas, only the same choices as yesterday,” she answered sadly. “But it is all fresh caught from last night. What would you desire?” Angelique and Drew made their choices and she hurried away.
“If he recognized you, then they are watching us to see who the contact is. It is better for us to leave and never to come back,” Angelique returned to their conversation.
“I don’t think he did, “Drew answered slowly. “If he did know who I was, then he never would have approached me. After he returned to his table I noticed he had his eye on some other men, and now that I think of it, they fit my general description. Also, we can’t leave just yet, we haven’t got the information.” He looked over the room in irritation. “I wish we had a better organized way of making contact. We and the informant could be just sitting around and waiting for the other one to initiate the contact.”
“And we could be all wrong in our suppositions, and Abu could just be waiting for you,” Angelique sighed.
Back at the camp, while Dane and Tielson were busy and Fredericks was on guard, Zabronski cornered Webster. “I’ve been thinking about all that money,” he began.
Webster looked around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. “Well, it’s not going to do us any good, now is it? Only the corporal and captain know where it’s at. And if we do get our hands on it, where would we go with it?”
“I’ve got it all planned out. When we pick up the halftrack, we take over. We drive to Algiers and hire one of those Arab boats to take us to Portugal, and then fly back to the States. Easy as pie.”
Webster grimaced, “Easy as pie, huh? After what Shaw did to you without half trying, what makes you think you can get away with it?”
Zabronski’s face turned ugly, “I’ve got plans for him too, and he won’t get close enough to touch me either. I’ll shoot him down when he won’t be expecting it and I’ll leave him to die. Are you with me or not?”
Webster chewed on that. The sight of all that money was so very tempting, but…”What about Angelique and the captain?”
“Oh, we’ll turn them loose when we leave Algiers,” Zabronski lied easily. He had no intention of leaving witnesses. How long Angelique lived would depend entirely on how well she pleased him.
“Well, if you’re sure it will work. It would be real nice to have money for once in my life.”
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