The Torch of Tangier Read Online Free Page B

up and down with an appreciative smile. “Why don’t you spend your time at the beach, Miss…?”
    “Sampson.” My God, is he flirting? Should I bat my blue eyes? Fluff out my golden hair?
    “She needs a cover. For safety,” Drury said.
    “I’m busy serving the government here. Proud of it, I might add.” Boyle hesitated, then continued in a more conciliatory tone. “So are you, I suppose, in your way. And from what I can see of your friend, Miss…?” He paused.
    Lily sat straighter in the chair. “Sampson,” she repeated.
    “Miss Sampson.” Boyle looked her up and down again. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, either.” Boyle smiled at her. “Go to the beach.”
    Drury rose, blocking Boyle’s affable leer. “She’ll be too noticeable there.”
    Boyle tilted back his chair. “Indeed she will.”
    The secretary knocked on the open door. “Korian is here with the pamphlets.”
    Boyle brought his chair upright. “Go to the beach, Miss Sampson. Improve our relations with the Tanginos.”
    A man came into the office, clutching a pipe between his teeth. He carried a stack of leaflets and balanced them on the edge of Boyle’s desk.
    “Meet Armand Korian,” Boyle said. “He’s in charge of our news bulletin. Counteracts Spanish propaganda.”
    Korian had droopy eyes, a sharp nose, and hair glowing with too much brilliantine. He wore a shiny three-piece suit with baggy pockets and a blue spotted bow tie. He looked like an unsuccessful insurance salesman.
    The front of his shirt and his lapels were dappled with bits of tobacco and ash. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a pouch of pipe tobacco.
    “Professor Drury here is an expert on the region,” Boyle told Korian.
    Korian looked at Drury and waggled the pipe in his mouth.
    “He’s going to assist you with the bulletin.”
    Korian began to fill his pipe. “I don’t need any help.”
    Boyle handed a leaflet printed in Arabic to Drury. “Read this, tell us what you think of it.”
    Korian pulled a match from his pocket and lit it by scraping his thumbnail across the head while Drury stared at the leaflet in his hand. Korian began to draw on the pipe and Drury crossed to the window, held the paper to the light and squinted at it.
    Boyle waited. Korian puffed, billowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. The room filled with the sticky-sweet smell of his pipe tobacco.
    “Trouble reading it?” Korian took the pipe from his mouth and aimed the stem at Drury. “Need some help?”
    Drury brought the paper closer, then held it at arm’s length and stared at it.
    Boyle picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk. “I thought you knew Arabic.”
    “Haven’t studied classical, printed Arabic in years. It’s worthless here, you know. The farther you get from Syria, the less it’s understood.”
    Korian took a draft of his pipe. “How do you manage, then?” He let out a smoke filled breath.
    “With locals, I speak Mogrebhi, the local Arabic. Stick to simple subjects.” Drury waved the smoke away and gave a measured cough. “Why aren’t you in the army?”
    “Punctured ear drum. And it’s none of your business,” Korian took a deep draw on the pipe and blew another cloud toward Drury. “The locals understand Arabic.”
    “Just Moroccan Arabic. Mogrebhi.” Drury pushed away the smoke like a swimmer stroking through surf. “Berbers speak a local language, Tamazight. Almost a third of the population here are Jews and they use a different dialect—mixture of medieval Spanish and Hebrew. They brought it from Spain during the Inquisition. Call it Ladino.”
    Korian looked sleepy, with bags under his eyes so heavy they looked like they could fall from their own weight. “I understand the people here,” he said through a haze of smoke.
    “You don’t know which side they butter their bread,” Drury told him.
    “My family is from Lebanon.” He shrugged and flicked a speck of tobacco from his lapel. “I’m an Arab, more or