Rising Tides by Emilie Richards

Author:Emilie Richards [Richards, Emilie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 1997-11-21T20:00:00+00:00

The two men were Berbers from the Rif Mountains. Until recently they had supplied the OSS officers in Tangier with information about Spanish troop movements and fortifications. Then, without warning or explanation, they had disappeared and resurfaced in Casablanca. There was concern that they had transferred or sold their allegiance. Phillip’s job was to eavesdrop on their conversation and report whatever they said.

The plan was simple. Phillip and Nicky were to visit the medina and mingle with the crowds. Hugh would be there, too, keeping them in sight, but he would follow from a distance so that no one would suspect they were together.

On the night that the moon returned, Nicky thought of Mardi Gras as she wandered through the old medina streets with Phillip. Tomorrow Ramadan would end, but the celebration was already under way. The costumes were different from those she remembered from child hood, but no less exotic. People wore their newest or best clothes, and everything was freshly washed. Henna glistened in the women’s hair and on their palms, and their eyes were artfully rimmed with kohl. Men with their heads wrapped in clean white turbans walked together in laughing groups. Vendors peddled chick-pea paste and spicy beef sausages fresh from charcoal braziers. Phillip supped as they pushed through the streets, but Nicky had no appetite.

Hugh had brought Phillip to the medina yesterday afternoon and pointed out the men in a crowded café. They were distinctive, taller than the average Moroccan and lighter-skinned. One had red hair and blue eyes, not uncommon among the Berbers. The other, as Phillip had described him, had a face like a camel—a hooked nose, hooded dark eyes and a wispy, drooping mustache. Phillip was sure he would recognize them again.

Nicky almost hoped he wouldn’t. Hugh had assured her that the men would suspect nothing. Phillip and Nicky were to speak to each other in English. The men wouldn’t suspect that Phillip understood their language, since few, if any, Americans did. They were to act like the many foreigners stuck in Casablanca because of the war, a little preoccupied, a little anxious.

The men had been spotted most often in an interior section of the medina not far from the residence of the German consulate general. The old medina was small—only a kilometer tip to tip—compared to those in most Moroccan cities. It was a historic reminder of the days, not too many generations before, when Casa had been a fishing village.

Despite the medina’s small size, the twists and turns were confusing on a crowded night. Nicky and Phillip got lost once, and she looked up to see Hugh through a gap in the wave of humanity. She started in his direction; when she got to the place he had been, he was gone, but she was back on track again.

Phillip played his role to the hilt. He sauntered nonchalantly, eating and chatting. He stopped to watch everything of interest, as if he were storing up exotic memories to take home. But she saw the way he searched the crowd.

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