“You two are close,” Baker said.
“My God, you are nosy!” Fulmar said, but he was still smiling. He liked the man, in spite of his nosiness. Baker was smoother and smarter than he looked. “We went to high school together in Switzerland. And then to the university. We’re very close. I owe him.”
“Indeed?”
“He pointed out to me that I would be a fool to go in either the German or the American army,” Fulmar said. “And then put his money where his mouth is by fixing it so I didn’t have to. And he is indulging me tonight by taking you to dinner.”
“I’m flattered,” Baker said. “And surprised.”
-You should be,” Fulmar said, and chuckled. “It isn’t often that you’ll have a chance to break bread with a direct descendant of the True Prophet. And besides, it isn’t often lately that I’ve talked to a smart American.”
“I’m even more flattered,” Baker said. “I’d love to break bread with a descendant of the True Prophet-and to continue talking with another smart American.” He paused a moment and then added casually, “Oh, by the way, when you’re not breaking bread with a descendant of the True Prophet, how do you spend your time in Morocco?”
“I try very hard not to wear out my welcome,” Fulmar said, and laughed. “There aren’t many Europeans who speak Arabic that they trust. Within limits, they trust me.”
Baker nodded, and then Fulmar went on. “They don’t all sleep in tents on the desert, you know, tending camels. They’re in business. And just because the French lost the war doesn’t mean that the French have stopped trying to screw them.”
“It must be interesting,” Baker said.
“Sometimes,” Fulmar said.
When Sidi Hassan el Ferruch appeared at the door of the bar, with his enormous Senegalese bodyguard, N’Jibba, Fulmar and Baker joined him. There was a Delahaye waiting for them at the door of the Crillon, with a Peugeot sedan in line behind it.
The restaurant was small, the lobsters were delightfully fresh, and Sidi el Ferruch told Eldon C. Baker more than he really cared to know about the deplorable state of French racing stables under the German occupation-and absolutely nothing else of interest.
When Baker had undergone his formal training as an intelligence officer, he had been told that the error most often committed by men in the field was their failure to transmit what seemed to be unimportant information because they could see no use for it. Odd facts from various sources often could be put together to form valuable data.
Thus, with that in mind, after he had returned to the Crillon he put together another report on Fulmar, Eric, in which he stated that he had come to suspect that there was more to Fulmar than was immediately apparent. In other words, under the cover of his loungelizard image sponging on the son of the pasha of Ksar es Souk, he was up to something-something that very likely could be put to use by “our team” when the time came.
HVDE Park, New York August 21, 1941
The President of the United States, Colonel William B. Donovan could tell from the glint in his eyes, was about to be witty. But he was in the process of chewing a cracker smeared with Liederkranz cheese, so the remark had to wait until he finished.
“With Eleanor off spreading the pollen of goodwill,” Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “it will not be necessary for us to play bridge before we can move on to the serious drinking. May I suggest we all go in the library?”
There were appreciative chuckles from the three other men at the table. None of Roosevelt’s political cronies were present. That and the presence of William B. Donovan and a Navy commander named Douglass convinced J. Edgar Hoover that Roosevelt wanted more from him than the pleasure of his company at dinner.
Roosevelt’s valet, a large black man in a white jacket, moved to the President to push his wheelchair, “I’ll do it,” Roosevelt said. “And that will be all, thank you. We are now going to tell bawdy stories in private.”
He got another appreciative chuckle.