“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. Alb6niz, 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 which will keep someone blissfully unconscious for perhaps three or four hours ‘ ” Dr. Alb6niz said in very good but heavily accented English. “Fill the syringe to about three hundred cc’s”-he pointed-“here.” 460K.”
“You know to squirt a little out before you inject?”
Canidy nodded.
“Good.” Alb6niz 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. Alb6niz 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 Citroi5n van, its engine putputting. The doctor opened the rear door, and Canidy crawled in-side.
“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 Ouedzem. Grunier had gotten into the habit of spending his evenings at a caf6 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 vennouth 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, drink-ing 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 him9”
“He’s not dead… yet,” said Eric. “But he will be shortly; and I imagine that event will please you, because the Sfiret6 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.”
For a few seconds Grunier seemed unable to breathe. Then he sat down and waved his hand around as though making conversational gestures. But no words came out of his mouth.
Finally he spoke. “You are mad,” he said.
“Probably,” said Eric Fulmar. “Meanwhile, we need to take you to the submarine. And, I’m sorry to say, we need you unconscious for that.”
“This is outrageous!” Grunier said.
“Absolutely,” said Eric Fulmar, “but please cooperate”-he waved the gun menacingly—-@”and take your pants down.”
The other man, who was in fact Richard Canidy, removed the synnge and the anesthetic from their box, plunged the needle into the rubber top, and drew a full five hundred cc’s from the bottle. “The doc said three hundred cc’s,” he said in English, “but I think we can do better than that.”