The Rhinemann Exchange

by Robert Ludlum

  Spaulding scanned the Avenida Corrientes in front of the gates. As the limousine was passed through, a Mercedes coupe parked on the south side of the street pulled away from the curb and followed it. And then a second automobile on the north side made a cautious U-turn and took up its position several vehicles behind the Mercedes.

  Satisfied, David put down the binoculars and went out of the room. In the corridor he turned left and walked swiftly past doors and around staircases toward the rear of the building, until he came to a room that corresponded to his observation post in front. Bobby Ballard sat in an armchair by the window; he turned around at the sound of David’s footsteps, binoculars in his hands.

  “Anything?” Spaulding asked.

  “Two,” answered the cryp. “Parked facing opposite directions. They just drove away.”

  “Same up front. They’re in radio contact.”

  “Thorough, aren’t they?”

  “Not as much as they think,” Spaulding said.

  Ballard’s sports coat was loose around the midsection and short in the sleeves, but it showed off David’s new wristwatch. Jean was pleased about that. It was a very fine chronometer.

  The restaurant was small, a virtual hole-in-the-wall on a side street near San Martín. The front was open; a short awning protected the few outside tables from the sun. Their table, however, was inside. Spaulding sat facing the entrance, able to see clearly the passersby on the sidewalk.

  But he was not watching them now. He was looking at Jean. And what he saw in her face caused him to say the words without thinking.

  “It’s going to be over soon. I’m getting out.”

  She took his hand, searching his eyes. She did not reply for several moments. It was as if she wanted his words suspended, isolated, thought about. “That’s a remarkable thing to say. I’m not sure what it means.”

  “It means I want to spend years and years with you. The rest of my life.… I don’t know any other way to put it.”

  Jean closed her eyes briefly, for the duration of a single breath of silence. “I think you’ve put it … very beautifully.”

  How could he tell her? How could he explain? He had to try. It was so damned important. “Less than a month ago,” he began softly, “something happened in a field. At night, in Spain. By a campfire.… To me. The circumstances aren’t important, but what happened to me was … the most frightening thing I could imagine. And it had nothing to do with the calculated risks in my work; nothing to do with being afraid—and I was always afraid, you can bet your life on that.… But I suddenly found I had no feeling. No feeling at all. I was given a report that should have shaken me up—made me weep, or made me angry, goddamned angry. But I didn’t feel anything. I was numb. I accepted the news and criticized the man for withholding it. I told him not to make conditions.… You see, he rightfully thought that I would.” David stopped and put his hand over Jean’s. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you’ve given me back something I thought I’d lost. I don’t ever want to take the chance of losing it again.”

  “You’ll make me cry,” she said quietly, her eyes moist, her lips trembling to a smile. “Don’t you know girls cry when things like that are said to them?… I’ll have to teach you so much.… Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “Please, please … years.”

  David leaned over the small table; their lips touched and as they held lightly together, he removed his hand from hers and gently ran his fingers over the side of her face.

  The tears were there.

  He felt them, too. They would not come for him, but he felt them.

  “I’m going back with you, of course,” she said.

  Her words brought back the reality … the other reality, the lesser one. “Not with me. But soon. I’m going to need a couple of weeks to settle things.… And you’ll have to transfer your work down here.”

  She looked at him questioningly but did not ask a question. “There are … special arrangements for you to take back the blueprints or designs or whatever they are.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “If everything goes as we expect, in a day or two. At the most, three.”

  “Then why do you need a couple of weeks?”

  He hesitated before answering. And then he realized he wanted to tell her the truth. It was part of the beginning for him. The truth. “There’s a breach of security in a place called Fairfax.…”

  “Fairfax,” she interrupted. “That was in your file.”

  “It’s an intelligence center in Virginia. Very classified. A man was killed there. He was a friend of mine. I purposely withheld information that might stop the leaks and, more important, find out who killed him.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “In a way, I was forced to. The men in Fairfax weren’t cleared for the information I had; the one man who was, is ineffectual … especially in something like this. He’s not Intelligence oriented; he’s a requisition general. He buys things.”

  “Like gyroscopic designs?”

  “Yes. When I get back I’ll force him to clear the data.” David paused and then spoke as much to himself as to Jean. “Actually, I don’t give a damn whether he does or not. I’ve got a long accumulated leave coming to me. I’ll use a week or two of it in Fairfax. There’s a German agent walking around in that compound with a four-zero rating. He killed a very good man.”

  “That frightens me.”

  “It shouldn’t.” David smiled, answering her with the truth. “I have no intention of risking those years we talked about. If I have to, I’ll operate from a maximum security cell.… Don’t worry.”

  She nodded. “I won’t. I believe you.… I’ll join you in, say, three weeks. I owe that to Henderson; there will be a lot of adjustments for him. Also, I’ll have something done about Ellis.”

  “Don’t touch him. We don’t know anything yet. If we find out he’s on an outside payroll he can be valuable right where he is. Reverse conduits are jewels. When we uncover one we make sure he’s the healthiest man—or woman—around.”

  “What kind of a world do you live in?” Jean asked the question with concern, not humor.

  “One that you’ll help me leave.… After Fairfax, I’m finished.”

  Eugene Lyons edged into the back seat of the taxi between Spaulding and the male nurse named Hal. The other attendant, Johnny, sat in front with the driver. David gave his instructions in Spanish; the driver started out the long, smooth roadway of the Aeroparque.

  David looked at Lyons; it wasn’t easy to do so. The proximity of the sad, emaciated face emphasized the realization that what he saw was self-inflicted. Lyons’s eyes were not responding; he was exhausted from the flight, suspicious of the new surroundings, annoyed by David’s aggressive efficiency at hurrying them all out of the terminal.

  “It’s good to see you again,” David told him.

  Lyons blinked; Spaulding wasn’t sure whether it was a greeting or not.

  “We didn’t expect you,” said Johnny from the front seat. “We expected to get the professor set ourselves.”

  “We’ve got it all written down,” added Hal, leaning forward on Lyons’s right, taking a number of index cards out of his pocket. “Took. The address. Your telephone number. And the embassy’s. And a wallet full of Argentine money.”

  Hal pronounced Argentine, “Argentyne.” David wondered how he could be given a course in hypodermic injection; who would read the labels? On the other hand his partner Johnny—less talkative, more knowing somehow—was obviously the leader of the two.

  “Well, these things are usually fouled up. Communications break down all the time.… Did you have a good flight down, doctor?”

  “It wasn’t bad,” answered Hal. “But bumpy as a son of a bitch over Cuba.”

  “Those were probably heavy air masses coming up from the island,” said David, watching Lyons out of the corner of his eye. The physicist responded now; a slight glance at Spaulding. And there was humor in the look.r />
  “Yeah,” replied Hal knowingly, “that’s what the stewardess said.”

  Lyons smiled a thin smile.

  David was about to capitalize on the small breakthrough when he saw a disturbing sight in the driver’s rear-view mirror—instinctively he’d been glancing at the glass.

  It was the narrow grill of an automobile he’d previously spotted, though with no alarm. He had seen it twice: on the long curb in the taxi lineup and again on the turnout of the front park. Now it was there again, and David slowly shifted his position and looked out the taxi’s rear window. Lyons seemed to sense that Spaulding was concerned; he moved to accommodate him.

  The car was a 1937 La Salle, black, with rusted chrome on the grillwork and around the headlights. It remained fifty to sixty yards behind, but the driver—a blond-haired man—refused to let other vehicles come between them. He would accelerate each time his position was threatened. The blond-haired man, it appeared, was either inexperienced or careless. If he was following them.

  David spoke to the taxi driver in urgent but quiet Spanish. He offered the man five dollars over the meter if he would reverse his direction and head away from San Telmo for the next several minutes. The porteño was less of an amateur than the driver of the La Salle; he understood immediately, with one look in his mirror. He nodded silently to Spaulding, made a sudden, awkwardly dangerous U-turn, and sped west. He kept the taxi on a fast zigzag course, weaving in and around the traffic, then turned abruptly to his right and accelerated the car south along the ocean drive. The sight of the water reminded David of Ocho Calle.

  He wanted very much to deposit Eugene Lyons in San Telmo and get back to Ocho Calle.

  The La Salle was no longer a problem.

  “Christ!” said Hal. “What the hell was that?” And then he answered his own question. “We were being followed, right?”

  “We weren’t sure,” said David.

  Lyons was watching him, his look inexpressive. Johnny spoke from the front seat.

  “Does that mean we can expect problems? You had this guy tooling pretty hard. Mr. Kendall didn’t mention anything about trouble.… Just our job.” Johnny did not turn around as he spoke.

  “Would it bother you if there were?”

  Johnny turned to face Spaulding; he was a very serious fellow, thought David. “It depends,” said the male nurse. “Our job is to watch out for the professor. Take care of him. If any trouble interfered with that, I don’t think I’d like it.”

  “I see. What would you do?”

  “Get him the hell out of here,” answered Johnny simply.

  “Dr. Lyons has a job to do in Buenos Aires. Kendall must have told you that.”

  Johnny’s eyes leveled with Spaulding’s. “I’ll tell you straight, mister. That dirty pig can go screw. I never took so much shit from anyone in my life.”

  “Why don’t you quit?”

  “We don’t work for Kendall,” said Johnny, as if the thought was repulsive. “We’re paid by the Research Center of Meridian Aircraft. That son of a bitch isn’t even from Meridian. He’s a lousy bookkeeper.”

  “You understand, Mr. Spaulding,” said Hal, retreating from his partner’s aggressiveness. “We have to do what’s best for the professor. That’s what the Research Center hires us for.”

  “I understand. I’m in constant touch with Meridian Research. The last thing anyone would wish is to harm Dr. Lyons. I can assure you of that.” David lied convincingly. He couldn’t give assurance because he himself was far from sure. His only course with Johnny and Hal was to turn this newfound liability into an asset. The key would be Meridian’s Research Center and his fictional relationship to it; and a common repugnance for Kendall.

  The taxi slowed down, turning a corner into a quiet San Telmo street. The driver pulled up to a narrow, three-storied, white stucco house with a sloping, rust-tiled roof. It was 15 Terraza Verde. The first floor was leased to Eugene Lyons and his “assistants.”

  “Here we are,” said Spaulding, opening the door.

  Lyons climbed out after David. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up at the quaint, colorful little house on the peaceful street. The trees by the curb were sculptured. Everything had a scrubbed look; there was an Old World serenity about the area. David had the feeling that Lyons had suddenly found something he’d been looking for.

  And then he thought he saw what it was. Eugene Lyons was looking up at a lovely resting place. A final resting place. A grave.

  34

  There wasn’t the time David thought there would be. He had told Stoltz to call him after five at Córdoba; it was nearly four now.

  The first boats were coming into the piers, whistles blowing, men throwing and catching heavy ropes, nets everywhere, hanging out for the late drying rays of the sun.

  Ocho Calle was in the Dársena Norte, east of the Retiro freight yards in a relatively secluded section of La Boca. Railroad tracks, long out of use, were implanted in the streets along the row of warehouses. Ocho Calle was not a prime storage or loading area. Its access to the sea channels wasn’t as cumbersome as the inner units of the La Plata, but the facilities were outmoded. It was as if the management couldn’t decide whether to sell its fair waterfront real estate or put it into good operating order. The indecision resulted in virtual abandonment.

  Spaulding was in shirtsleeves; he had left Ballard’s tan jacket at Terraza Verde. Over his shoulder was a large used net he had bought at an outdoor stall. The damn thing was rancid from rotting hemp and dead fish but it served its purpose. He could cover his face at will and move easily, comfortably among his surroundings—at one with them. David thought that should he ever—God forbid!—instruct recruits at Fairfax, he’d stress the factor of comfort. Psychological comfort. One could feel it immediately; just as swiftly as one felt the discomfort of artificiality.

  He followed the sidewalk until it was no more. The final block of Ocho Calle was lined on the far side by a few old buildings and fenced-off abandoned lots once used for outside storage, now overgrown with tall weeds. On the water side were two huge warehouses connected to each other by a framed open area. The midships of a trawler could be seen moored between the two buildings. The next pier was across a stretch of water at least a quarter of a mile away. The Ocho Calle warehouses were secluded indeed.

  David stopped. The block was like a miniature peninsula; there were few people on it. No side streets, no buildings beyond the row of houses on his left, only what appeared to be other lots behind the houses and further pilings that were sunk into the earth, holding back the water of a small channel.

  The last stretch of Ocho Calle was a peninsula. The warehouses were not only secluded, they were isolated.

  David swung the net off his right shoulder and hoisted it over his left. Two seamen walked out of a building; on the second floor a woman opened a window and shouted down, berating her husband about the projected hour of his return. An old man with dark Indian features sat in a wooden chair on a small, dilapidated stoop in front of a filthy bait store. Inside, through the glass stained with salt and dirt, other old men could be seen drinking from wine bottles. In the last house, a lone whore leaned out a first-floor window, saw David and opened her blouse, displaying a large, sagging breast. She squeezed it several times and pointed the nipple at Spaulding.

  Ocho Calle was the end of a particular section of the earth.

  He walked up to the old Indian, greeted him casually, and went into the bait store. The stench was overpowering, a combination of urine and rot. There were three men inside, more drunk than sober, nearer seventy than sixty.

  The man behind the planked boards which served as a counter seemed startled to see a customer, not really sure what to do. Spaulding took a bill from his pocket—to the astonishment of all three surrounding him—and spoke in Spanish.

  “Do you have squid?”

  “No.… No, no squid. Very little supplies today,” answered the owner, his eyes on the bill.

  “What ha
ve you got?”

  “Worms. Dog meat, some cat. Cat is very good.”

  “Give me a small container.”

  The man stumbled backward, picked up pieces of intestine tine and wrapped them in a dirty newspaper. He put it on the plank next to the money. “I have no change, señor.…”

  “That’s all right,” replied Spaulding. “This money’s for you. And keep the bait.”

  The man grinned, bewildered. “Señor?…”

  “You keep the money. Understand?… Tell me. Who works over there?” David pointed at the barely translucent front window. “In those big dock houses?”

  “Hardly anybody.… A few men come and go … now and then. A fishing boat … now and then.”

  “Have you been inside?”

  “Oh yes. Three, four years ago, I work inside. Big business, three, four … five years ago. We all work.” The other two old men nodded, chattering old men’s chatter.

  “Not now?”

  “No, no.… All closed down. Finished. Nobody goes inside now. The owner is a very bad man. Watchmen break heads.”

  “Watchmen?”

  “Oh, yes. With guns. Many guns. Very bad.”

  “Do automobiles come here?”

  “Oh, yes. Now and then.… One or two.… They don’t give us work.”

  “Thank you. You keep the money. Thank you, again.” David crossed to the filthy storefront window, rubbed a small section of the glass and looked out at the block-long stretch of warehouse. It appeared deserted except for the men on the pier. And then he looked closer at those men.

  At first he wasn’t sure; the glass—though rubbed—still had layers of film on the outside pane; it wasn’t clear and the men were moving about, in and out of the small transparent area.

  Then he was sure. And suddenly very angry.

  The men in the distance on the pier were wearing the same paramilitary clothes the guards at Rhinemann’s gate had worn.