Robert Ludlum - Rhineman Exchange.txt

by The Rhineman Exchange [lit]

  'But you say it was welded to the bottom main strut of the rear cabin.'

  'In such a way as to escape damage from all but a direct explosion. Your

  aircraft was blown up by the Haganah.'

  Hollander sat down staring at the photograph. He looked up at the British

  commander. 'Why? For God's sake, why?'

  'I can't answer that.'

  'Neither can Fairfax. I don't think they even want to acknowledge it. They

  want it buried.'

  145

  14

  DECEMBER 27,1943 WASHINGTON, D.C.

  When the words came over his intercom in the soft, compensating voice of the

  WAC lieutenant who was his secretary, Swanson knew it was no routine

  communication.

  'Fairfax on line one, sir. It's Colonel Pace. He says to interrupt you.'

  Since delivering David Spaulding's file, the Fairfax commander had been

  reluctant to call personally. He hadn't spoken of his reluctance, he simply

  relegated messages to subordinates. And since they all concerned the

  progress of getting Spaulding out of Portugal, Pace's point was clear: he

  would expedite but not personally acknowledge his participation.

  Edmund Pace was still not satisfied with the murky 'highest priority'

  explanations regarding his man in Lisbon. He would follow orders

  once-removed.

  'General, there's a radio emergency from Lajes Field in Terceira,'said Pace

  urgently.

  'What the hell does that mean? WhereT

  'Azores. 7be B-17 carrier with Spaulding on it was sabotaged. Blown up on

  takeoff.'

  'Jesus I'

  'May I suggest you come out here, sirT

  'Is Spaulding deadT

  'Preliminary reports indicate negative, but I don't want to guarantee

  anything. Everything's unclear. I wanted to wait till 1

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  had further confirmations but I can't now. An unexpected development.

  Please, come out, general.'

  'On my way. Get the information on Spaulding!'

  Swanson gathered the papers on his desk - the information from Kendall -

  that had -to be clipped together, sealed in a thin metal box and locked in

  a file cabinet with two combinations and a key.

  If there was ever a reason for total security, it was symbolized by those

  papers.

  He spun the two combination wheels, turned the key and then thought for a

  second that he might reverse the process and take the papers with him....

  No, that was unsound. They were safer in the cabinet. A file cabinet

  riveted to the floor was better than a cloth pocket on a man who walked in

  the street and drove in automobiles. A file cabinet could not have

  accidents; was not subject to the frailties of a tired,

  fifty-three-year-old brigadier.

  He saluted the guard on duty at the entrance and walked rapidly down the

  steps to the curb. His driver was waiting, alerted by the WAC secretary,

  whose efficiency overcame her continuous attempts to be more than an

  efficient secretary to him. He knew that one day when the pressures became

  too much, he'd ask her in, lock the door and hump the ass off her on the

  brown leather couch.

  Why was he thinking about his secretary? He didn't give a goddamn about the

  WAC lieutenant who sat so protectively outside his office door.

  He sat back in the seat and removed his hat. He knew why he thought about

  his secretary: it gave him momentary relief. It postponed thoughts about

  the complications that may or may not have exploded on a runway in the

  Azores.

  Oh Christl The thought of rebuilding what he'd managed to put together was

  abhoffent to him. To go back, to reconstruct, to research for the right man

  was impossible. It was difficult enough for him to go over the details as

  they now stood.

  The details supplied by the sewer rat.

  Kendall.

  An enigma. An unattractive puzzle even G-2 couldn't piece together. Swanson

  had run a routine check on him, based on the fact that the accountant was

  privy to Meridian's aircraft contracts; the Intelligence boys and Hoover's

  tight-lipped maniacs had returned virtually nothing but names and dates.

  They'd been

  1-47

  instructed not to interview Meridian personnel or anyone connected with ATCO

  or Packard; orders that apparently made their task close to impossible.

  Kendall was forty-six, severely asthmatic and a CPA. He was unmarried, had

  few if any friends and lived two blocks from his firm, which he solely

  owned, in mid-Manhattan.

  The personal evaluations were fairly uniform: Kendall was a disagreeable,

  antisocial individualist who happened to be a brilliant statistician.

  The dossier might have told a desolate story - paternal abandonment, lack

  of privilege, the usual - but it didn't. There was no indication of

  poverty, no record of deprivation or hardship anywhere near that suffered

  by millions, especially during the Depression years.

  No records of depth on anything, for that matter.

  An enigma.

  But there was nothing enigmatic about Walter Kendall's 'details' for Buenos

  Aires. They were clarity itself. Kendall's sense of manipulation had been

  triggered; the challenge stimulated his already primed instincts for

  maneuvering. It was as if he had found the ultimate 'deal' - and indeed,

  thought Swanson, he had.

  The operation was divided into three isolated exercises: the arrival and

  inspection of the diamond shipment; the simultaneous analysis of the

  gyroscopic blueprints, as they, too, arrived; and the submarine transfer.

  The crates of bortz and carbonado from the Koening mines would be secretly

  cordoned off in a warehouse in the Dirsena Norte district of -the Puerto

  Nuevo. The Germans assigned to the warehouse would report only to Erich

  Rhinemarm.

  The aerophysicist, Eugene Lyons, would be billeted in a guarded apartment

  in the San Telmo district, an area roughly equivalent to New York's

  Gramercy Park - rich, secluded, ideal for surveillance. As the

  step-blueprints were delivered, he would report to Spaulding.

  Spaulding would precede Lyons to Buenos Aires and be attached to the

  embassy on whatever pretext Swanson thought feasible. His assignment - as

  Spaulding thought it to be - was to coordinate the purchase of the

  gyroscopic designs, and if their authenticity was confirmed, authorize

  payment. This authorization would be made by a code radioed to Washington

  that sup-

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  posedly cleared a transfer of funds to Rhinemann in Switzerland. Spaulding would

  then stand by at a mutually agreed-upon airfield, prepared to be flown out

  of Argentina. He would be given airborne clearance when Rhinemann received

  word that 'payment' had been made.

  In reality, the code sent by Spaulding was to be a signal for the German

  submarine to surface at a prearranged destination at sea and make

  rendezvous with a small craft carrying the shipment of diamonds. Ocean and

  air patrols would be kept out of the area; if the order was questioned -

  and it was unlikely - the cover story of the underground defectors would be

  employed.

  When the transfer at sea was made, the submarine would radio con
firmation

  - Rhinemann's 'payment'. It would dive and start its journey back to German

  . Spaulding would then be cleared y

  for takeoff to the United States.

  These safeguards were the best either side could expect. Kendall was

  convinced he could sell the operation to Erich Rhinemann. He and Rhinemann

  possessed a certain objectivity lacking in the others.

  Swanson did not dispute the similarity; it was another viable reason for

  Kendall's death.

  The accountant would fly to Buenos Aires in a week and make the final

  arrangements with the German "patriot. Rhinemann would be made to

  understand that Spaulding was acting as an experienced courier, a custodian

  for the eccentric Eugene Lyons - a position Kendall admitted was desirable.

  But Spaulding was nothing else. He was not part of the diamond transfer; he

  knew nothing of the submarine. He would provide the codes necessary for the

  transfer, but he'd never know it. There was no way he could learn of it.

  Airtight, ironclad: acceptable.

  Swanson had read and reread Kendall's 'details'; he could not fault them.

  The ferret-like accountant had reduced an enormously complicated

  negotiation to a series of simple procedures and separate motives. In a way

  Kendall had created an extraordinary deception. Each step had a checkpoint,

  each move a countermove.

  And Swanson would add the last deceit: David Spaulding would kill Erich

  Rhinemarm.

  Origin of command: instructions from Allied Central Intelligence. By the

  nature of Rhinemann's involvement, he was too

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  great a liability to the German underground. The former man in Lisbon could

  employ whatever methods he thought best. Hire the killers, do it himself;

  whatever the situation called for. Just make sure it was done.

  Spaulding would understand. The shadow worldof agents and double agents had

  been his life for the past several years. David Spaulding - if his dossier

  was to be believed - would accept the order for what it was: a reasonable,

  professional solution.

  If Spaulding was alive.

  Oh, Christl What had happened? Where was it? Lapess, Lajes. Some goddamned

  airfield in the Azores! Sabotage. Blown up on takeoff !

  What the hell did it mean?

  The driver swung off the highway onto the back Virginia road. They were

  fifteen minutes from the Fairfax compound; Swanson found himself sucking

  his lower lip between his teeth. He had actually bitten into the soft

  tissue; he could taste a trickle of blood.

  'We have further information,' said Colonel Edmund Pace, standing in front

  of a photograph map frame. The map was the island of Terceira in the

  Azores. 'Spaulding's all right. Shaken up, of course. Minor sutures,

  bruises; nothing broken, though. I tell you he pulled off a miracle. Pilot,

  copilot, a crewman: all dead. Only survivors were Spaulding and a rear

  aerial gunner who probably won't make it.'

  'Is he mobile? Spaulding?'

  'Yes. Hollander and Ballantyne are with him now. I assumed you wanted him

  out. . . .'

  'Jesus, yes,' interrupted Swanson.

  'I got him on a Newfoundland transfer. Unless you want to switch orders, a

  coastal patrol flight will pick him up there and bring him south. Mitchell

  Field.'

  'When will he get in?'

  'Late tonight, weather permitting. Otherwise, early morning. Shall I have

  him flown down here?'

  Swanson hesitated. 'No.... Have a doctor at Mitchell give him a thorough

  going-over. But keep him in New York. If he needs a few days' rest, put him

  up at a hotel. Otherwise, everything remains.'

  'Well Pace seemed slightly annoyed with his

  superior.

  150

  'Someone's going to have to see him.'

  .WhyT

  'His papers. Everything we prepared went up with the plane. They're a

  packet of ashes.'

  'Oh. Yes, of course. I didn't think about that.' Swanson walked away from

  Pace to the chair in front of the stark, plain desk. He sat down.

  The colonel watched the brigadier. He was obviously concemed with Swanson's

  lack of focus, his inadequate concentration. 'We can prepare new ones

  easily enough, that's no problem.'

  'Good. Do that, will you? Then have someone meet him at Mitchell and give

  them to him.'

  'O.K. . . . But it's possible you may want to change your mind.' Pace

  crossed to his desk chair but remained standing.

  'Why? About whaff

  'Whatever it is.... The plane was sabotaged, I told you that. If you

  recall, I asked you to come out here because of an unexpected development.'

  Swanson stared up at his subordinate. 'I've had a difficult week. And I've

  told you the gravity of this project. Now, don't play Fairfax games with

  me. I make no claims of expertise in your field. I asked only for

  assistance; ordered it, if you like. Say what you mean without the

  preamble, please.'

  'I've tried to give you that assistance.' Pace's tone was rigidly polite.

  'It's not easy, sir. And I've just bought you twelve hours to consider

  alternatives. That plane was blown up by the Haganah.'

  'The what?'

  Pace explained the Jewish organization operating out of Palestine. He

  watched Swanson closely as he did so.

  'That's insane! It doesn't make sense! How do you know?'

  'The first thing an inspection team does at the site of sabotage is to

  water down, pick over debris, look for evidence that might melt from the

  heat, or bum, if explosives are used. It's a preliminary check and it's

  done fast.... A Haganah medallion was found riveted to the tail assembly.

  They wanted full credit.'

  'Good God I What did you say to the Azores peopleT

  'I bought you a day, general. I instructed Hollander to minimize any

  connection, keep it away from Spaulding. Frankly, to imply coincidence if

  the subject got out of hand. The Haganah

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  is independent, fanatic. Most Zionist organizations won't touch it. They

  call it a group of savages.'

  'How could it get out of hand?' Swanson was disturbed on another level.

  GI'm sure you're aware that the Azores are under British control. An old

  Portuguese treaty gives them the tight to military installations.'

  'I know that,' said Swanson testily.

  :The British found the medallion.'

  What will they do?'

  :Think about it. Eventually make a report to Allied Central.'

  But you know about it now.'

  'Hollander's a good man. He does favors; gets favors in return.'

  Swanson got out of the chair and walked aimlessly around it. 'What do you

  think, Ed? Was it meant for Spaulding?' he looked at the colonel.

  The expression on Pace's face let Swanson know that Pace was beginning to

  understand his anxiety. Not so much about the project - that was out of

  bounds and he accepted it - but that a fellow officer was forced to deal in

  an area he was out-of-sync with; territory he was not trained to cross. At

  such times a decent army man had sympathy.

  'All I can give you are conjectures, very loose, not even good guesses....

  It could be Spaulding. And even if
it was, it doesn't necessarily mean it's

  connected with your project.'

  'Whaff

  'I don't know what Spaulding's field activities have been. Not

  specifically. And the Haganah is filled with psychopaths - deadly variety.

  They're about as rational as Julius Streicher's units. Spaulding may have

  had to kill a Portuguese or Spanish Jew. Or use one in a "cover trap." In

  a Catholic country that's all a Haganah cell would need.... Or it could be

  someone else on the plane. An officer or crewman with an anti-Zionist

  relative, especially a Jewish and-Zionist relative. I'd have to run a

  check. . . . Unless you'd read the book, you couldn't possibly understand

  those kikes.'

  Swanson remained silent for several moments. When he spoke he did so

  acknowledging Pace's attitude. 'Thank you.... But it probably isn't any of

  those things, is it? I mean, Spanish Jews or "cover traps" or some pilot's

  uncle. . . it's Spaulding.'

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  'You don't know that. Speculate, sure; don't assume.'

  'I can't understand how.' Swanson sat down again, thinking aloud, really.

  'All things considered . . . ' His thoughts drifted off into silence.

  'May I make a suggestionT Pace went to his chair. It was no time to talk

  down to a bewildered superior.

  'By all means,' said Swanson, looking over at the colonel, his eyes

  conveying gratitude to this hard-nosed, confident Intelligence man.

  'I'm not cleared for your project, let's face it, I don't want to be. It's

  a DW exercise, and that's where it belongs. I said a few minutes ago that

  you should consider alternatives ... maybe you should. But only if you see

  a direct connection. I watched you and you didn't.'

  'Because there isn't any.'

  'You're not involved - and even I don't see how, considering what I do know

  from the probe and Johannesburg -with the concentration camps? Auschwitz?

  BelsenT

  'Not even remotely.'

  Pace leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. 'Those are Haganah concerns.

  Along with the "Spanish Jews" and "cover traps." . . . Don't make any new

  decisions now, general. You'd be making them too fast, without supportive

  cause.'

  'Support. . . .' Swanson looked incredulous. 'A plane was blown up. Men

  were killed!'

  'And a medallion could be planted on a tail assembly by anyone. It's quite