The staff car got waved through a couple of roadblocks without a question. Harding said he would've had those guards court-martialed if they were in his army. I thought they did a fine job.
We crested a ridge and saw the city of Algiers rising up from the harbor on a gently sloping hillside. There were a few tall hard-edged modern buildings, but mostly I saw whitewashed two- and three-story, softly rounded structures that looked like they'd grown straight out of the stony ground. The whiteness was intensified as they reflected the light of the morning sun in the sky. It was a clear day, and the Mediterranean was a deep shimmering blue, broken only by the wakes of warships that seemed to cut across the water in every direction. Up here it was quiet, the opposite of what I expected an invasion morning to sound like.
"Not much fighting going on," I commented.
"General Mast and Colonel Baril bought us some time," Harding said. "We've gotten ashore safely, but there are still organized French forces in the city and all around us. We need to get this settled, now."
"And how are we going to accomplish that, Major?" I asked.
"Well, Boyle, I've got two tricks up my sleeve. The first is a letter from General Giraud calling upon all French soldiers to rally to the side of the Allies."
"General Giraud?" asked Georgie, clearly puzzled. "What has he to do with this?"
"Giraud escaped from Vichy France recently and is with General Eisenhower at Gibraltar, organizing plans for French forces in North Africa to join the Allies."
"General Giraud is a fine officer," Georgie said with a shrug, "even a hero. But he is no longer on active duty. Why would anyone obey his orders?"
"Ike is counting on it," Harding said, evading the question.
"That may be. But for the majority of officers, any such order will have to come via the chain of command. Some of us wish for vengeance on the Germans badly enough to disregard it, but most will follow the orders they receive from a superior officer."
"But you said yourself this Giraud guy is a hero-" I said.
"There are only two things that will work," Georgie cut in. "Either General Juin or some other senior official orders resistance to cease, or your army arrives very soon in overwhelming force, leaving no choice but to surrender and join the Allies."
"So you don't place much stock in General Giraud?" I asked.
"The decision must be made by the proper French authority or on the battlefield. Those are the only honorable choices. A retired officer hand-picked by the Americans, or worse, the British, will not be obeyed."
I knew the French and the Brits didn't always get along, especially since the British Navy had shelled the Vichy French fleet at Mers el- Kebir to keep it from falling into the hands of the Germans.
"I mean no offense, of course…" Georgie said, looking a little embarrassed.
"None taken," said Harding, in a tone of voice that let you know he was really steamed.
"I hope your second trick is a show-stopper, sir," I said.
"You're the other trick, Boyle. I thought General Juin might be impressed when he learns that General Eisenhower sent his favorite nephew to meet him."
Georgie eyed me, then Harding. I could tell he was trying to figure out if he could trust his command of the English language.
"General Eisenhower is your uncle?"
"Well, Georgie, he is, sort of. We're connected on my mother's side. I think we're really second cousins once removed or something, but since he's older I've always called him Uncle Ike."
Georgie drove on without saying anything, through a neighborhood of European style homes and gardens.
He finally turned and looked at Harding. "So your mission, Major, is to convince General Juin to surrender due to the influence of a retired French officer and the distant relative of an American general?"
There was silence for a moment while Harding did a slow burn. "I will inform General Juin of the massive Anglo-American forces just landed upon his shores, and convince him that resistance is not only futile, but will needlessly delay the liberation of France!"
"Very well, Major. I hope for your success, perhaps even more than you do."
Harding didn't answer. He settled further down in the back seat and stared out the window. I could tell he had hoped for a more enthusiastic response. I didn't know how serious he was about using me with Juin. Uncle Ike wasn't all that famous and nephews-twice removed are a dime a dozen, so the two of us put together weren't exactly overwhelming. It seemed the odds were stacked against us.
Georgie turned a corner and we entered a small village. The signpost said LAMBIRIDI, which was the town just outside Algiers.
"General Juin's villa is just a few kilometers-" Georgie slammed on the brakes as a roadblock came into view. Two trucks were pulled across the road. Armed men with black armbands ran up to the car as it skidded to a stop.
"Who are these guys?" I asked.
"SOL," Georgie said disgustedly. "Service d'Order Legionnaire. Vichy fascist militia. They worship the SS, and do whatever dirty work Vichy asks of them."
Before Georgie could finish, the doors of the staff car were flung open and rifles pointed at our heads, accompanied by more excited French chatter than I'd ever heard. One pair of hands grabbed my Thompson while someone else took me by the collar and hauled me out of the front seat.
"Americain!" I hollered, trying to form the rest of the little French I knew into a full sentence. The next thing I knew, the flat of a rifle butt slammed into my head and plastered me against the side of the car. My legs buckled, as I tried to grab onto something to keep my head from hitting the pavement. It always bothered me that in the movies a guy got knocked clean out when someone smacked him in the head. Then he'd wake up later, rub his head a bit, and go on like nothing had happened. I knew something about getting hit in the head. It was very painful, there was usually a lot of blood, and if you were knocked out there was a good chance you weren't going to wake up again.
My head felt as if someone had rammed a ten-penny nail into my skull, and I could feel blood trickling down my ear. I was damned if I was going to pass out, although it seemed to be an attractive idea as I tried to stand up. The guy who'd batted me took a step forward. I held up my hand.
"Irish," I said, tapping my chest. "Erin Go Bragh." He didn't get it, but he didn't hit me again, either. Instead he hustled me over to the other side of the car to stand next to Harding and Georgie, both of whom had been smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
Georgie pulled out a white silk handkerchief and handed it to me. I pressed it against my head where it hurt the most and the flow of blood eased up. I looked around, counting the guns and looking for a way out. There were seven SOL thugs, all mean-looking, one of whom was smiling at the others as he showed off my Thompson. Spoils of war.
A black sedan was parked by the side of the road. The driver got out and opened the rear door on our side. He was dressed in a blue uniform, and so was his boss, who also wore a blue cape tossed back over one shoulder, and an armband similar to the ones worn by the SOL.
"Vichy police," Georges whispered to us. "The Gardes Mobiles. They run the SOL, unofficially, of course."
"Of course," I said. "Any other surprises we should know about, Georgie?" I was joking, as usual, but even I wasn't ready for the punch line. The driver went to the other side of the sedan and opened the back door. Out stepped a tall German officer, in a sun-bleached khaki uniform, complete with Iron Cross at the collar and a band around his left sleeve, in ornate German script, that read "Deutsches Afrika Korps." One of Rommel's boys.
The two of them strolled over, like a couple of old pals. The French cop was of medium height, with a long face and a big, sloping nose at the center of it. He wasn't what you'd call ugly, but he probably would be someday. Right now, in his tailored uniform and polished boots, with his cape jauntily thrown over his shoulder, he looked like the cat that had caught the canary. Or three canaries. He smiled as he approached us, the kind of smug smile that comes from being in charge and having seven gunsels watching your back. The German was taller than him and slimmer, with a face as weather-beaten as his uniform. I could tell he wasn't a cop. Like Harding, he had professional soldier written all over him. He didn't smile, and he sure as hell looked like he didn't need seven guys to watch out for him.
"Welcome to Algiers, gentlemen," the Frenchman said in excellent, but accented English. "We have been expecting you." He walked right up to Harding, extending his hand like a precinct captain greeting a visiting dignitary. "Major Harding, I am Captain Luc Villard, at your service."
His hand hung there for a second, the smile frozen on his face as he waited for Harding to respond. My mind dully registered the fact that those first roadblocks had been too easy to get through, that he had been waiting here for us, that he knew Harding's name, and that I didn't have a clue as to what in the hell was going on. Being a trained detective, such deductions came easily to me, especially the one about not having a clue.
"Pleased to meet you, Captain Villard," Harding said, shaking his hand. He was trying to sound confident, but even Harding couldn't keep a slight tone of bewilderment out of his voice.
He gave it his best shot, though. "Obviously, you are aware of our mission," he continued. "I bring greetings from General Giraud and General Eisenhower, and offer French forces our assistance in fighting those who occupy French soil." He delivered this line with a straight face, ignoring the German standing right there. I almost believed the three of us were about to march on Paris.
Villard laughed as he turned to smirk at his German companion. "We are well aware of your pitiful mission. Also, I am aware that this is French soil, under the sovereignty of France, and you are the invader!"
His smile turned ugly and he smacked Harding across the face. Harding didn't even twitch, and I caught a glimpse of a raised eyebrow from the German. It was his first expression of any kind and vanished in an instant. Was it disdain for Villard, or did he think a bullet would have been better than a sissy slap?
"We have freed General Juin from the pathetic rebels who occupied his house last night," Villard said, "and we have also taken into custody the British and American agents who acted as provocateurs among them. It was not difficult to learn from them that you would arrive this morning."
"You can't expect to win-" exclaimed Georgie.
"I know who you are as well, Lieutenant Dupree," Villard cut in. "A traitor at worst, at best a dupe of the British." He motioned for one of his men, and a thick-waisted sweaty guy in a dusty black suit leaned in and pulled Georgie s revolver out of his holster. He handed it to Villard, who aimed it at Georgie's chest.
"And I have little use for either traitors or fools." He pulled the trigger before anyone could move. The sound exploded in my ears and the next thing I knew Georgie was thrown against the car, a look of shock and surprise on his face and a burnt, black hole in his chest that slowly spread scarlet as he fell.