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“I have no idea what that means,” Peis admitted. And then he changed the subject before Dyer had a chance to reply:“Radio Frankfurt just said the Americans have invaded North Africa.”

“Really?”

“You’re an educated man, Professor,” Peis said. “Why would the Americans want North Africa?”

“No telling,” Professor Dyer said. And then he added,“You must remember, Herr Obersturmführer, that the Americans are crazy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, for one thing, they believe they can win this war,” Dyer said. “Wouldn’t you say that makes them crazy?”

Peis’s face tightened as he realized that the professor had mocked him again. And his anger grew as he realized that there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Peis did manage a parting shot, however. As the professor was about to slip out of the car, Peis stopped him with his hand and gave him a knowing, confidential look. “Do please give my very best regards to Fräulein Dyer,” he said through his very best smile.

Professor Dyer had no reply to make to that.

Chapter TWO

Ksar es Souk, Morocco

0700 Hours 9 November 1942

The palace of the Pasha of Ksar es Souk was pentagonal. It was half a millennium older than the nearly completed world’s largest office building, the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C., and bore little resemblance to it. But it was unarguably five-sided, and it pleased the somewhat droll sense of humor of Eric Fulmar to think of the palace as “The Desert Pentagon.”

There were five observation towers at each angle of the Desert Pentagon. Over the centuries, lookouts had reported from these the approach of camel caravans, tribes of nomads, armies of hostile sheikhs and pashas— and in more recent times, patrols and detachments of the French Foreign Legion and the German Wehrmacht.

Today, there was nothing in sight on the desert in any direction, and it was possible to see a little over seven miles.

Eric Fulmar, who was tall, blond, and rather good-looking, sat in the northwest tower of the Desert Pentagon holding a small cup of black coffee. Except for olive-drab trousers and parachutist’s boots, he wore Berber attire, robes and a burnoose. The cords around his waist, as well as those holding the burnoose to his head, were embroidered in gold, the identification of a nobleman.

Depending on whether his dossier was read in Washington, D.C., or in Berlin, Germany, he was 2nd Lieutenant FULMAR, Eric, Infantry, Army of the United States, or Eric von Fulmar, Baron Kolbe.

The chair he sat in was at least two hundred years old. He had tipped it back and was balancing on its rear legs. His feet rested on the railing of the tower. Beside him on the stone floor was a graceful silver coffeepot with a long, curving spout. Beside it was a bottle of Courvoisier cognac. His coffee was liberally braced with the cognac.

Next to the coffeepot was a pair of Ernst Leitz, Wetzlar, 8-power binoculars resting on a leather case. And next to that was a Thompson .45-caliber ACP machine-pistol—which is to say, a Thompson equipped with a pair of handgrips, rather than a forearm and a stock. The Thompson had a fifty-round drum magazine.

Fulmar leaned over and picked up the Ernst Leitz binoculars and carefully studied the horizon in the direction of Ourzazate. He was hoping to see the cloud of dust an automobile would raise.

When he saw nothing, he put the binoculars down, then leaned to the other side of the chair, where he’d placed a Zenith battery-powered portable radio. He turned it on, and a torrent of Arabic flowed out.

Fulmar listened a moment, then smiled and started to chuckle.

It was an American broadcast, probably from Gibraltar, a message from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, to the Arabic-speaking population of Morocco.

“Behold, the lionhearted American warriors have arrived,” the announcer solemnly proclaimed. “Speak with our fighting men and you will find them pleasing to the eye and gladdening to the heart.”

“You bet your ass,” Fulmar said, chuckling.

“Look in their eyes and smiling faces,” the announcer continued, “for they are holy warriors happy in their sacred work. If you see our German or Italian enemies marching against us, kill them with guns or knives or stones—or any other weapon that you have set your hands upon.”

“Like a camel turd, for example,” Fulmar offered helpfully.

“The day of freedom has come!” the announcer dramatically concluded.

“Not quite,” Fulmar replied. “Almost, but not quite.”

He was thinking of his own freedom. Second Lieutenant Fulmar was at the moment the bait in a trap. Well, there again, not quite. Some very responsible people considered it likely that the bait—whether through cowardice, enlightened self-interest, or simply ineptitude—would, so to speak, stand up in the trap and wave the sniffing rat away. The bait himself kind of liked that idea.