Libya, the Fezzan 1942

A German officer collaborates with a French Algerian priest and a Jewish Resistance leader to safeguard his munitions complex from the Free French in exchange for his protection of the inhabitants of their shared oasis from German and Italian authorities. A matter of opinion who is the boss.

♦

She took his cigarettes, lighting two and offering him one.

"Where are you from? Berlin? Do I know you? Should I? Come on. It's not a difficult question, not even important. I just want to know."

He hesitated. "I am Hauptmann Dieter Reineke. You do not know me."

"You're right, I don't. I've never heard of you." She lowered her rifle, cradling it in her arms like an infant. "I am Anna who knew Albert."

"Albert." He considered the Alberts he knew.

"Einstein," she blew a thin stream of smoke from her lungs.

"You know if you were young and handsome, Hauptmann, I might consider having sex with you."

She laughed as his eyes flew wide, a reassuring tap of her steel on his arm.

"It's all right, mein Liebchen, we'll think of something else."

And so they did.