Chris heard the door close and the jiggle of the knob as something was propped up beneath it. Probably a chair, he figured. It was the only noise in the whole building. If McCluskey was still here he was keeping quiet. Reaching down to the handle of the second door, Chris gave it a slow turn. It was locked. He crossed the hall again and crouched down to get below the line of grimy windows that filled this section of the wall. Ever slowly he moved on to the next door. Locked. Chris swore and kept moving down the hall. He hadn’t wanted to get too far away from JD and Travis, but now he had no choice.
The hall turned a corner and followed the length of the building. There were at least six more offices before another set of stairs; Chris checked them all and then went down into the bowels of the building. Giant sliding doors that led directly onto the wharf had been left open. Moonlight flooded into the loading room and filled it with distorted shadows. Standing in the centre of the open doorway staring out to the ocean stood Davis McCluskey.
Chris kept his back to the wall and all but slid down the stairs toward his prey.
McCluskey hated Casablanca. It reminded him of his father and he’d always hated his father. He stared out at the water and could almost taste freedom - freedom and success. In just another minute or two he’d go back upstairs to finish off Travis. The job would be done and then all he’d have to do was go back for Macdonald. He’d wait until dawn. Things should have settled down by then. Tanner and his men would be chasing their tails trying to figure out where he was, never guessing he was right back where they’d lost him. Davis bit back a chuckle at the imagined ineptitude of the Americans. He was sorry he wouldn’t be able to kill Tanner after all, but there was always next time. He’d get him in the end and you never knew, maybe they’d meet up before he left town. His first priority was for Macdonald. They’d made a pact long ago that nothing and no one would ever keep them apart and death take anyone that tried.
Davis sighed. Dawn was still hours away, his boat to freedom another two hours after that.
"What to do? What to do?" he sang softly to himself, grinning as all the things he could do to his captive started running through his mind. He turned, still grinning, and came face-to-face with Chris Larabee and Chris Larabee’s gun.
"Boo," Chris said maliciously, and pulled the trigger.
Ezra, Vin and Josiah came upon Vin’s jeep first. Chris and JD had used it to drive down to the harbour. It was parked behind the loading dock on the second wharf. The engine was warm, but only just. They left the vehicle where it stood and went on.
At the Buick they parted ways. Josiah went in the same door that JD and Chris had entered earlier while Vin and Ezra skirted the building to check out the dock. The archaeologist took the stairs two at a time with barely a creak of wood to announce his arrival. He stopped at the first door and twisted the knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t open.
Barred, Josiah realised. But by who?
A scuttle from behind the door and low murmuring voices prompted the big man to take a chance. "JD? Chris? That you?"
More murmuring and then movement closer to the door... "Who is it?" Josiah heard JD ask. "There’s three of us in here and we’ve got a bloody big bazooka pointed at the door."
Josiah tried not to laugh. "JD, it’s Josiah, son. Open and up and let me in… and you keep that bazooka corralled."
There was a banging and scraping from inside the room and then the door opened, a little bit at first and then wider as JD fully recognised the man standing there.
"Josiah, thank God! Chris made me stay with Mr. Travis. McCluskey wasn’t around so he went to look for him. Said he’d be real quick but that was ages ago and I haven’t heard a thing…"
Josiah moved past JD and went to check on Orrin Travis. Finding the OSS Chief vague but reasonably healthy under the circumstances, he turned to JD and gripped his shoulder. "Stay here and I’ll go look for Chris."
"Oh, no! Not again. I’m coming with you…"
"JD, Orrin’s life may still be in danger. If McCluskey gets past Chris and me he might come straight back here. You need to stay and guard him."
"But… but…"
"As soon as I find out anything I’ll come straight back and get you."
"All right. I’ll stay, but just so you know, this is not fair."
"You’re doing a good job, JD. You just keep doing it."
With that, Josiah left the room. Giving the row of office doors only a cursory check, he made his way to the far end of the hall and started down the stairs. He had one foot on the staircase when the first shot rang out.
Vin and Ezra rounded the corner to the loading dock of wharf three. The quiet harbour was creepy, boats were nothing more than black shadows on the water, buildings were empty and dead. Vin paused and Ezra, coming up from behind nearly ran into him. Tanner held his hand out and slowly crouched down, bringing Ezra with him.
"Doors are open up ahead," he whispered. "Thought I saw something move." He moved forward again, only to stop when he heard a faint laugh. Looking back to Ezra, Vin nodded his head and pulled his rifle free from his back. "It’s him."
They left their position and immediately rolled to the ground, gunshots blasting through the air around them. Vin held his fire and kept rolling toward a pile of ropes. Ezra was somewhere behind him returning fire and keeping him covered until Vin was safe. The Texan gave a short sharp whistle to let Ezra know he was in position before focussing his attention on the open doorway.
The gunfire halted as suddenly as it had started to be replaced by the sounds of struggling. Ezra skidded to a stop beside Vin.
"We going in?" the southerner asked.
A voice came yelling out from the warehouse. "Give it up, McCluskey!" There was no mistaking Chris Larabee’s voice or the bellowing voice that followed.
"NO!"
Vin nodded to Ezra. "We’re going in."
Chris’s first bullet went straight through McCluskey’s shoulder, knocking the man sideways and to the ground as his knees gave out beneath him. The wounded assassin hit the ground rolling, flinging his legs out to knock his attacker down as well. Chris went down with a thud and a curse, scurrying out of reach and keeping a firm grip on his gun. He swung it back around and fired again, but McCluskey had regained his feet and moved away. A third shot took out an over-adventurous rat and a fourth splintered a crate that McCluskey had been crouched beside less than a second before.
McCluskey dived to the right and ran into a pile of neglected packing and debris. Chris pulled himself to his feet with a gasp; he’d landed heavily and jarred his injured side. Holding one arm across his ribs he darted back toward the relative safety of the staircase and yelled.
"Give it up, McCluskey!"
Davis McCluskey would never give up, but he was hurt and bleeding, the gunshot wound to his shoulder, on top of his earlier injury back at the palace, was weakening him too fast. His head was swimming and one arm was numb with pain. He had to get out fast and get back to Macdonald. Picking up a slab of wood and an iron spike from where they’d been left by workmen some time ago, McCluskey charged the armed man by the stairs.
Josiah came far enough down the stairs to place the shooter and see it was Chris. He crept to the bottom in silence in order not to distract Larabee and had reached the floor when Chris yelled and McCluskey came charging out from behind the packing crates. Chris saw the danger but McCluskey was moving too fast. The slab of wood hit him across the arm, the gun went flying through the air and Chris was pushed back against the staircase. McCluskey brought his knee up into Larabee’s already tender ribs. Chris doubled over and began falling. Josiah bellowed in rage and came in running, shouldering McCluskey to one side and backhanding the man across the head.
McCluskey fell like a rock and stayed still, the hand with the iron spike twisted underneath him. Vin and Ezra came rushing in, in time to hold their guns on the fallen man.
"Don’t move one damn inch, McCluskey," Tanner yelled.
McCluskey, dazed, turned his head toward the angry voice.
"Your brother’s waiting for you in hell, Davie Boy. You move again and you’ll be seein’ him again real quick."
McCluskey froze in horror. "I don’t believe you," he whispered and then stronger, "You’re lying!"
"You’ll find out soon enough," Vin said.
Ezra crossed to where Josiah was helping Chris up. "Did you find Travis?"
Chris nodded. "He’s fine. What’s this about a brother?"
"Wilson and McCluskey," Ezra said. "It turns they’re not so much dance partners as actual blood brothers."
Chris turned to Sanchez for confirmation.
Josiah nodded. "Vin noticed the likeness right after he shot him full of holes and off the roof of the Casablanca Grande."
Ezra sniggered. "Dead psychotic murdering bastards do not fly very well."
McCluskey started to move. "No! You’re lying! He’s not dead!"
Chris straightened with a painful grimace. "Watch him, Vin. He’s faster than a…" Chris bit back his words as he stagged forward, nearly falling again and only prevented from doing so by Josiah’s hold on his arm. It was enough to distract Vin for the barest fraction of a moment.
Davis reached up, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and yanked it hard toward himself. If Vin didn’t have the sprained and swollen hand he would never have fumbled his grip on the gun, but he did and McCluskey managed to pull the Texan off balance enough to use it to his advantage. He jumped to his feet and shoved the gun back into Tanner. His bloody wound forgotten in his madness, McCluskey raised the iron spike into the air determined to bury it deep in his enemy’s heart.
Vin caught his balance and, using the shotgun as a club, he pounded it into McCluskey’s ribs. Several ribs were cracked but McCluskey moved as if he were whole and healthy, renewing the downward arc of the spike.
Ezra’s quick reflexes and fast thinking had saved his hide on more than one occasion in the past. He’d already turned back to Vin as Chris began his warning. Ezra had almost reached them when McCluskey rose from the floor like a recurrent nightmare. The brief struggle between Vin and Davis turned the men around so that Standish came up behind Tanner. Ezra heard the crack of McCluskey’s ribs, saw the man ignore the injury and continue to bring the spike down.
Ezra had no choice and no time. Vin was going to wear that spike.
"Watch out!" he yelled as he pushed Vin down and flung an arm out to stop McCluskey. The spike pierced his arm and cut a deep gash through skin and muscle. Ezra screamed and swore, and grappled with the murderer with blood flowing freely from his wound. Given a choice, Ezra would prefer not to wrestle, injured or not, but again the choice was not his and both men struggled, neither of them giving or gaining any ground.
Josiah joined the fray, wrenched McCluskey away by the scruff of his shirt and threw him against the heavy timber doorframe. McCluskey sank to the ground straining for every breath.
"Tie him up," Chris ordered.
Josiah pulled a length of usable rope from the general debris littering the warehouse floor and approached McCluskey.
McCluskey hissed and growled and slavered. "You’re lying. All of you... I’ll never believe you… We made a pact… He’s waiting for me…" The trail of words broke off into laughter before continuing. "You’ll see… You’ll see…"
Closing his hand into a fist, Josiah knocked the man into oblivion then, grabbing a handful of shirt, he pulled McCluskey face down to the ground before tying his hands behind his back.
"Swell!"
The word was half-whisper, half-groan.
McCluskey lay on the floor, unconscious – Ezra’s less than gentle kick to the man’s side proved that – and tied.
"Indeed," Ezra replied and leaned back against a wall, one hand grasping his injured arm in an effort to stem the welling blood. "Is there a doctor in the house, per chance?"
Chris’s mouth turned up in a semi-snarl; he was too tired to smile. "Need more than one doctor here," he said. "Is anybody not hurt?"
The two men looked to Josiah as if on cue.
"So far so good," he told them, splaying his hands out in front of him to show his lack of injuries.
"Is that a skinned knuckle I see?" Ezra asked, smiling in spite of his throbbing arm.
"Vin?" Chris asked. The OSS agent still lay huddled on the floor where he landed after Ezra had pushed him.
Vin didn’t move. "Yeah?" came his muffled reply.
"You okay there, pard?"
"Jus’ havin’ myself a rest while I’m down here," Vin said, finally looking up. "Did we win?"
"Looks like it," Chris told him.
"Swell," Vin repeated. He sighed and sat up.
Noisy boots on the stairs behind them had all the men reacting instantly, injuries temporarily forgotten as they aimed their various weapons toward the new danger.
Chris was closest to the staircase. "JD?" he queried. "I told you to stay put."
JD had the grace to be abashed at Chris’s rebuke. Even in the near dark of the stairwell the men could sense the photographer’s hesitation. "I couldn’t… I mean, we heard the shooting and…"
"I ordered him to come down, Mr. Larabee," Orrin Travis said as he came down the stairs behind Dunne. He was leaning heavily on the railing and, as he kept walking and came into the pool of moonlight shining through the doorway, they could all see how pale and ill he was. Travis stopped at the unconscious body of Davis McCluskey staring at the man who had nearly changed the course of the war.
"JD tells me that Macdonald Wilson murdered Andersen. Is this correct?"
"Indubitably," Ezra answered. The gambler was in the process of pulling a linen handkerchief from his pocket and tying it around his arm. Vin got to his feet and walked over to help him.
"He was a good man," Travis said of his aide and meant it. "Before… this."
No one said anything. Wallace Andersen had been trusted, been privy to top-secret negotiations. His opinion had been sought and listened to by Travis on any number of issues. The betrayal was a harsh blow.
"And Wilson?" Travis continued.
"Dead," Vin answered in a flat voice as he tied off the knot in Ezra’s makeshift bandage.
"I suppose it’s too much to ask that McCluskey is also deceased?" Travis queried, sending a well-aimed kick into McCluskey’s unmoving leg. McCluskey groaned but remained oblivious.
"Someone has to pay," Chris said. "McCluskey’s going over for this. Too many people have been hurt because of him." Larabee left JD and the cover of the stairs to join Vin and Ezra in the doorway, and place a careful hand on the Texan’s back as he tensed with anger and grief.
"Better off dead," Vin muttered darkly.
Josiah lifted McCluskey and threw him over his shoulder. "Let’s get this sack of dirt buried in a Moroccan jail where he belongs." The big man’s grin was almost bright enough to light the room. "Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll die on the way."
JD was sent to get Vin’s jeep and bring it down to the dock. For once, he didn’t argue with his orders. One look at the walking wounded as they left the warehouse and he realized that being stuck with guard duty hadn’t been so bad after all.
The men walked slowly, conserving their fading reserves of energy, to the end of the dock.
"You know, this might just have been the longest day of my life," Ezra commented.
"What’re we up to now? Forty-eight hours of long?" Vin asked him.
Chris huffed in response. He was too old for this but his dream of retiring to a ranch somewhere in the middle of America seemed distant, and not quite as important as it had been a week ago.
"It’s by no means over," Travis announced.
Chris winced at the inevitability of Travis’s words. Maybe the ranch wasn’t quite so distant after all.
"We don’t know who hired McCluskey, why, and whether they’ll try again…"
"Wouldn’t that be a concern for the OSS rather than us?" Ezra interrupted.
"We could always kill you ourselves and look around to see who’s got the biggest smile on their face," Chris offered, grinning at Travis’s suspicious glare. Behind the grin, Chris’s mind started planning.
"… And there’s still the matter of my original mission," Travis went on as if neither Ezra nor Chris had spoken.
"What mission?" Josiah asked. "You mean you’re not here for the waters?" He shifted his shoulder and bounced McCluskey into a more comfortable position.
The men, except for Travis, all sniggered. They’d reached the end of the dock and the rumble of the jeep’s engine could be heard getting closer. Vin turned to Chris. "That ain’t such a crummy idea," he said. "Send out a few telegrams as hooks and…"
"See who takes the bait," Chris finished for him.
JD arrived with the jeep and the men piled in, McCluskey was dropped unceremoniously into the back, and they drove over to wharf one to pick up Josiah’s jalopy.
"Where to now?" JD asked, getting in behind the steering wheel of Josiah’s car. Josiah had elected to stay with McCluskey and drive the jeep.
The weary men didn’t even look at each other as they answered in unison. "Saloon!"
The saloon was closed for business by the time the men returned. Casselle had sent Godfrin down to enforce a strict curfew and ensure the place was empty when the Americans returned. He guessed the men would prefer to return to the Café rather than gather at the police station. As it worked out, he arrived at the same time as the Americans. The truck that had been used as Ezra’s observation post earlier trundled in behind him bearing its gruesome burden of dead bodies.
McCluskey had begun to wake half-way back and, as the jeep came to a sharp stop beside the truck, Josiah jumped out, dragging the killer behind him and dumping him on the ground. "Stay there," he growled.
Nathan came out the terrace doors and approached the group. "What happened? Is everyone still in one piece?"
"More or less," Josiah answered.
There was no more conversation then as Casselle lifted the canvas flap on the back of the truck. "Perhaps the doctor would care to examine the dead?"
"Might as well get it over with," Nathan muttered, going to the truck.
There was a groan from the pavement as McCluskey rolled over and tried to sit.
"Wait!" Chris said. "Show him."
Nathan stopped confused. "Show him what?"
"His brother. Show him his dead brother."
"What brother?" Nathan said.
"Who?" Travis asked.
Chris glowered at McCluskey and then nodded to Josiah. "Untie him." Turning back to Nathan, he added. "McCluskey is your predecessor’s missing son. The one you thought dead. Isn’t that right, Davie Boy?"
McCluskey grimaced as Sanchez cut through his bonds and then wrapped his hand around one arm. "Blink wrong and I’ll rip it off," Josiah warned.
Davis attempted to jerk away only to have Josiah’s fingers dig deeper into his arm. McCluskey didn’t have the strength to try any harder and he turned his poisonous attention to Vin instead. "It should have been you bleeding your last in the gutters of Marrakech."
Vin visibly flinched. The dead man had been a fellow agent and a friend. Pedro Fillipez had died in his place and the Texan would never forget or forgive the enormous injustice.
"I asked him, you know, as his life spilled red and hot over my hands. I thought for a minute I’d made a mistake even then and I asked him if he was Vin Tanner."
Tanner stared, horrified, at McCluskey.
"He said yes… he said yes so I dragged my knife across his throat real slow and he kept saying yes until he couldn’t say yes no more…" McCluskey snickered. "He couldn’t say anything anymore… and then I left him for the rats and the cats and the maggots."
Vin pounced on McCluskey with a roar and pounded his fist into the man’s face, shattering his nose with one blow, determined to destroy the abomination that taunted him.
"Vin! No! Nathan get him!" Chris yelled.
Nathan grabbed both Vin’s arms and held them back then dragged the smaller man kicking and cursing away from McCluskey.
"Let me go!" Vin swore. "He’s a nogoodmurderin’bastard and he should be dead!"
"Yes," Chris agreed. "He is, but you’re not and I won’t let you become him… Are you hearing me?" Chris’s voice was stern and forceful, and it sliced through Vin’s fury sharper than any knife.
Vin started to calm and then sagged in Nathan’s arms. He shrugged himself free and looked away. "I hear ya."
The policemen finished pulling out the stretcher that held Macdonald Wilson and carted it across to the jeep, resting it there and stepping back away from the scene. McCluskey wiped the blood from his broken nose with his sleeve and stared, disbelievingly, down at the body of his brother.
Vin turned back to the broken man. "Why?" he asked. "Why Marrakech?"
McCluskey didn’t answer at first. He was feeling pain for the first time. It exploded in his gut and ripped through his intestines, tying them into hard knots of agony. He folded his arms across his stomach to hold it all in, sure any second that his whole body would burst with the hurt he was feeling.
"Why?" he repeated, unable to tear his gaze away from his brother. "Because of you I’ve lost everything. Because of you my beautiful Helga was in Berlin instead of with me. You ruined all of my plans and because of that… she is dead. When you killed her you killed my last hope."
For all the loss he had suffered at this man’s hands, Vin was stricken with shared grief. "I never…" he said. "I was never in Berlin. I would never have…"
Tears streamed down McCluskey’s face. "You might as well have held the gun to her head," he accused. "She was waiting for me. You turned me in and ruined everything!" he accused. "You killed her as surely as you killed my brother. She was an innocent like Donny and you ripped them both away from me." He was losing, he could feel it; the pain was leaking out of his ears, out of his skin. His pants were soiled with it. "You call me a murderer? Well, I may be, but so are you."
Vin had been moving closer and closer to the jeep and the dead body it held and Chris pushed himself between them, keeping Vin behind him. "Your brother was no innocent. He murdered Andersen and would have murdered again up on that roof if Vin hadn’t stopped him. He was as insane as you… Tell us, which one of you killed your own father?"
McCluskey blinked and lifted his hand to wipe his face again. "Good ol’ Doctor Mack… He drove my mother away, you know. We weren’t good enough for him…" His hand dropped to touch the cold fingers of his brother. "Wouldn’t let Donny come with us." Davis giggled, softly… insane. "Donny wanted to come. We made a pact." His fingers tightened around Macdonald’s hand and he dropped to his knees, pulling the dead hand down with him and tenderly touching it to his face. "We did everything together. Even when I was in London and Donny was stuck here. Helga and I were going to come get him after we married. Nothing came between us… ever."
"And if it did?" JD asked without thinking.
McCluskey’s smile burned with the glory of the insane. "We got rid of it." His smile faded as pain gripped him in a vice; deep inside his head blood vessels began to pop. He pressed his forehead to his brother’s hand, shuddered once and stopped breathing.
Josiah touched McCluskey’s shoulder to pull him away from the body of his brother. It was time to go.
"None of this is your fault, Vin," Chris was saying, his back now to the brothers as he reassured the Texan. "He’s insane."
Vin was staring at McCluskey. Josiah was getting no response. He tried again and then carefully felt for a pulse. Josiah sighed and tilted the newly dead man’s head up. McCluskey stared sightlessly through red eyes.
Sanchez looked at Vin. "He’s dead."
Vin nodded. It was right. The brothers had made a pact – nothing would come between them, not even death.
It had been two days since the capture and subsequent death of Davis McCluskey a.k.a. Davie Boy a.k.a. Mack the Knife.
Two days of catching up on sleep and convalescing from injuries. As soon as Nate had finished tending Orrin Travis, JD had driven him over to stay in Chris’s hotel room. Reports of the OSS Chief’s untimely death would go out first thing in the morning.
JD had been too edgy to sleep and had returned to his own room to retrieve his camera and wander around the souk taking pictures of market stalls and goods. He was yawning an hour and a half later when he stopped at a stall selling traditional leather sandals and barely managed to purchase two pairs of the shoes before finally giving into his body’s demands for rest and returning to his hotel and bed. He slept right through to the next day.
Buck had returned to his hotel room, and the tender ministrations of Lolita, before noon of the first day. Nathan would have protested but by then he’d also finished patching up Ezra, Chris and Vin and was fast asleep in his rooms above the mission clinic.
Josiah had practically carried the exhausted doctor up the stairs before propelling him toward his bed and seeking out the dubious comforts of the lounge to get a little shut-eye himself. He stretched out his legs, propped his feet on the kitchen table and was snoring loud enough to rattle the windows within minutes.
Ezra had finished briefing Lieutenant Casselle and, sporting a crisp white bandage around his arm, had joined Chris and Vin at the saloon’s bar. Chris had procured a bottle of fine Irish Malt, which he and Vin had proceeded to drink until both were numb.
Ezra sat down and helped himself. "I do believe the longest day in history is almost at an end." He downed the whisky in one gulp and sighed with appreciation. "Ah, the Irish," he said. "No one does it better."
"You stuck around," Chris said. "Why?"
Ezra shrugged. "I’m appalled to admit that deep inside this charming façade appears to be a shred or two of honour…" He took a deep breath. "But you are mistaken in believing I ran out on you in Tobruk."
"I am?" Chris refilled the glasses.
"Quite… Oh, I wanted to. I started to… but I came back…"
"Funny, don’t remember seein’ your face amongst all the mugs stuck in that cave with me." Chris turned to Vin and waved his arm in his friend’s direction. "Hill 209, Vin. Josiah would love it… big pile of dirt and rocks in the middle of nowhere. Just me, half a platoon of mad Australians and…"
"And half the Germany army," Ezra interjected. "I was cut off by Rommel himself. Came as close to the belly of a Panzer as I ever want to be… and then once they took the hill they had the high ground and I was on the wrong side of the fence."
"Must have been rough," Vin said softly.
Ezra looked away. "Quite."
"For all of us," Chris added.
The three men clinked glasses.
"Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a feather bed calling my name." Ezra stood, gave a short bow and left.
Chris and Vin watched him go and then turned back to their drinks.
"You did good," Chris said, speaking slow so he didn’t stumble over his words. "None of it was your fault."
Vin finished his drink and rested his elbows on the table. "Yeah, I know," he said and sank his head into his arms.
Chris hiccoughed and slouched back in his chair. "Whole family was a basket case," he added.
Both men slept where they sat. Just before opening time, Carl and Abdul came and helped them to the upstairs apartment where they continued to sleep until the next day.
Orrin waited in the dining room for the seven men to join him. It was mid-afternoon of the second day since he died… the first day of the rest of his life. He thanked the waiter as a pot of tea was placed on the table in front of him.
"The gentlemen will be down shortly," Carl said of Larabee and Tanner.
"Thank you, Carl."
Orrin sipped his tea and waited. There’d been nibbles on his hooks, most interesting nibbles at that. Now all he needed was some people he could trust.
Vin ambled in and sat down. Chris followed him. Both men held mugs of coffee and looked a little worse for wear. Vin had woken up stretched out on the rocking chair, Chris lying sideways on Rick Baine’s narrow bed. Orrin greeted them and continued sipping his tea.
By the time Carl returned with refills, the rest of the seven had strolled in. Orrin waited until they were all settled before filling them in on what had transpired while they slept.
"For a secret agent you’re sharing a lot of information," Chris commented when Travis had finished speaking.
Orrin cleared his throat. "I have a proposition for you. I need some good men to pave the way for possible peace talks. Casablanca will play host to representatives from several nations… I want to hire you… all of you… to stay here and be my eyes and ears. The pay’s not good. Just a few dollars a week plus room and board. But I guarantee you this. You will be helping your country and her allies bring this horrendous war to an end."
Travis looked at each of them in turn. "Well, what do you think?"
"I’m in, if everyone else is," JD said, his smile showing his enthusiasm for the prospect.
Ezra stared straight ahead for a moment, thinking hard and then raised his eyebrows in surprise. He actually wanted to do this. "Where do I sign?"
"A man could stay pretty busy in a town like this," Josiah said with a sage nod. Bringing peace to the world had to be more important that a pile of sand in the desert.
"I figure if you men are going to be getting shot, I may as well stick around," Nathan added with a shrug. Hell, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Buck shifted in his seat to ease some of the stiffness setting into his healing wound. "There’s a few women around here I’m not acquainted with yet."
Orrin looked at Vin. The young agent had been through a traumatic time over the last few months. Before this, Travis would have been certain of the man’s answer. Now…?
"Hell, I had some things needed taking care of, but I guess they’ll keep." Vin kept his face blank. Getting rid of McCluskey had eased his burden somewhat but he was by no means free and clear. He could use some time to regroup. He could use some friends.
"Chris?" Orrin asked. The mercenary had proved enigmatic, at the least, unpredictable. Would he work for such little pay?
"I have a feeling I’m going to regret this," Chris said with resignation and a small smile.
"Well, good! Seven! I want you to know I appreciate what you gentlemen have done. Now then… we have a funeral to organise!"
The men leaned closer to the table to plan their strategy for the upcoming days and months.
At the bar, Carl busied himself polishing the glasses, humming one of Sam’s tunes and thinking pleasantly about his own future. In lieu of an heir to Ferrari’s fortune and the uncertain nature of actual ownership of the saloon, Orrin Travis had arranged the purchase of the Café Americain from the dead man’s estate and installed Carl in the position of co-manager with Chris Larabee if the latter agreed to the arrangement. The German waiter had intended leaving Casablanca on the next train, plane or boat out, but now… well, things change. He put the glass down and reached for another, his humming now changing to soft singing.
You may not be an angel…
‘Cause angels are so few…
But until the day that one comes along
I’ll string along with you…
That’s it, folks. Thanks for comin’.
There’s a plane set to leave Casablanca in an hour. Watch your step
out there on the tarmac. Wouldn’t want to fall and have to stay.
Casablanca’s a dangerous place for the unwary. But don’t worry,
there’ll always be a table for you at Rick’s Place. You come back
any time, y’hear?
Everybody does in the end.
Just ask Rick…
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