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contemplating
the dangerous game he was playing pitting the English against the Germans. His
plans of European domination were sketchy and frayed at the edges, he admitted
to himself. How much easier it would be to sell his ships to that British
bastard King George.
    Sell! They weren’t his to sell. England’s offer was a
bribe, nothing more. But a big bribe. Two million pounds in gold and a dukedom!
Visions of the quiet life in England danced before him: a thatch roofed cottage
in Cornwall, roast beef and mustard, buttered scones and pale, aloof women. He
thought of dry docked English village life and his hand went to his throat, as
if he were already choking from the terrifying landlocked existence he foresaw.
    He felt tense. His choice was difficult. Lafayette was
right. It was impossible to say how long it would take for Germany and England
to annihilate each other. How was he to keep a fleet afloat indefinitely? There
was enough fuel and rations for the standard ninety days at sea but then what?
    A hundred and fifty years ago they would have become
buccaneers. Darlan’s eyes glazed over and a small smile curled the corners of
his lips. He saw himself as a young man clinging to the shrouds and spinnaker
sails with a steel hook for a hand and a black tricorn tilted roguishly on his
head, stabbing the sky with a cutlass as he led his crew aboard a smoldering
British frigate. He would have a nomme de guerre suitable to his feared
charisma. Diabolo , he thought, or maybe simply Darlan the Great .
He would command the wheel of a retired Spanish galleon — one he had captured
and refurbished into something befitting the First Republic. It would be named
—
    He stopped and snapped out of his reverie. What was he
doing? It was 1940, not 1792! He had to capitulate but to whom, the British or
that maniac Hitler?
    London offered a retirement plan, Berlin a seat at the
table. But the retirement plan made him feel like a mothballed plane and the
power table at Berlin would either swell to accommodate more tyrants or, more
likely, be splintered into kindling by the United States of America and tossed
onto a bonfire. A bonfire of the vanities!
    The choice, he realized in an epiphany, was between
being embalmed in an English retirement cottage or taking his chances with a
well-armed but genuine lunatic hell-bent on world domination. “ Sacre bleu ,”
he muttered as he angrily threw the sheets aside and stomped to his bathroom, a
corner cove of off-white tile.
    By the time he had showered, Admiral Darlan had
devised a new scheme to keep his ships afloat long enough to see his two
enemies vanquished and depleted.
    He dressed quickly and marched down the passage
connecting his cabin to the forepeak and swung open the door to the galley
where he discovered Lafayette waiting for him. The venerable spymaster had
already dismissed the kitchen crew per the Admiral’s instructions. Darlan
eyeballed him, willing him to speak first.
    Lafayette kicked off the tête-à-tête . “Admiral.
Meeting like this is absurd.”
    “Someone has been informing England of our movements.
Someone from my inner circle.”
    Lafayette knitted his brow. “Are you certain the leak
is from inside?”
    Darlan handed him a mimeograph of a cable. “This was
intercepted by the Deuxième Bureau late last night.”
    Lafayette read the blurred carbon copy and looked at
his superior with a perplexed mien.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It’s from an English operative at a Station F in
Paris. The name of the sender ‘Snow’ is obviously code. What concerns me is the
identity of the receiver, ‘Casse.’ The number at the top has been decoded to
311 444 5764 which as you know is a line into the communications room here,
ergo ‘Casse’ is someone on board.”
    “I thought the Deuxième had been over-run by
the Wehrmacht?”
    “I still have some friends there. Back to Casse. Any
ideas who it might be?
    “How should I know?”
    “Consider this. Casse could be