This is the courtyard of the American Legation Museum in Tangier, Morocco.
Those who have read my first novel, “Tangier,” may remember that a good hunk of the book was set here. It was the first piece of overseas property owned by the United States, and was used from 1821 until 1961 as the home of the American diplomatic mission in the city. As I say in the book, the city of Casablanca is nothing like what we see in the great Bogart film – but Tangier is. During World War II, the setting for much of the novel, Tangier was an independent city. No government claimed possession of it. This made it a paradise for spies of every country, which serves as much of the background for the book. Among the many fascinating features of the building, one I used in “Tangier,” is its famous closet. Yeah, closets can be famous. In the middle of a hallway you can open the door of the seemingly nondescript closet. But, then, if you press against the back of the closet, it opens out on invisible hinges to reveal a large hidden room. American OSS agents used the room to, among other things, plan the Allied landings in North Africa in November of 1943. While I served in Morocco in the early 90s, I met a former OSS spy named Gordon Browne, also in his early 90s. He’s the model for the character of Gordon Sands in the book. An energetic and charming man, he was full of fascinating stories of his wartime adventures in Tangier, several of which I used for the book.
