Robert Ludlum - Rhineman Exchange.txt
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tell him I'm hereT
'Hell, no.'
'Then put him through.'
Barden walked from behind the desk as Spaulding took the phone and repeated
the phrase 'Yes, sir' a number of times. Finally he replaced the
instrument. 'Swanson wants me in his office this morning.'
'I want to know why the hell they ripped you out of Lisbon,' Barden said.
David sat down in the chair without at first answering. When he spoke he
tried not to sound military or officious. 'I'm not sure it has anything to
do with ... anything. I don't want to duck; on the other hand, in a way I
have to. But I want to keep a couple of options open. Call it instinct, I
don't know.... There's a man named AltmUller. Franz Altmfiller.... Who he
is, where he is - I have no idea. German, Swiss, I don't know.... Find out
what you can on a four-zero basis. Call me at the Hotel Montgomery in New
York. I'll- be there for at least the rest of the week. Then I go to Buenos
Aires.'
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*1 will if you flex the clearancestell me what the hell is
going on.'
,You won't like it. Because if I do, and if it is connected, it'll mean
Fairfax has open code lines in Berlin!
JANUARY], 1944
NEW YORK CITY
The commercial passenger plane began its descent toward La Guardia Airport.
David looked at his watch, It was a little past noon. It had all happened
in twelve hours: Cindy Bonner, the stranger on Fifty-second Street,
Marshall, Pace's murder, Barden, the news from Valdero's ... and finally
the awkward conference with the amateur source control, Brigadier General
Alan Swanson, DW.
Twelve hours.
He hadn't slept in nearly forty-eight. He needed sleep to find some kind of
perspective, to piece together the elusive pattern. Not the one that was
clear.
Erich Rhinemann was to be killed.
Of course he had to be killed. The only surprise for David was the humbling
manner in which the brigadier had given the order. It didn't require
elaboration or apology. And it - at last -explained his transfer from
Lisbon. It filled in the gaping hole of why. He was no gyroscope
specialist; it hadn't made sense. But now it did. He was a good selection;
Pace had made a thoroughly professional choice. It was a job for which he
was suited - in addition to being a bilingual liaison between the mute
gyroscopic scientist, Eugene Lyons, and Rhinemann's blueprint man.
That picture was clear; he was relieved to see it come into focus.
What bothered him was the unfocused picture.
The embassy's Marshall, the cryp who five days ago picked him up at a
rain-soaked airfield outside of Lisbon. The man he had seen looking at him
through the automobile window on Fifty-second Street; the man supposedly
killed in an ambush in
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the north country, into which he never had ventured. Or would venture.
Leslie Jenner Hawkwood. The resourceful ex-lover who had lied and kept him
away from his hotel room, who foolishly used the ploy of Cindy Bonner and
the exchange of gifts for a dead husband she had stolen. Leslie was not an
idiot. She was telling him something.
But what?
And Pace. Poor, humorless Ed Pace cut down within the most
security-conscious enclosure in the United States.
The lesson of Fairfax, predicted with incredible accuracy -nearly to the
moment - by a tall, sad-eyed man in shadows on Fifty-second Street.
That ... they were the figures in the unfocused picture.
David had been harsh with the brigadier. He had demanded - professionally,
of course - to know the exact date the decision had been reached to
eliminate Erich Rhinemann. Who had arrived at it? How was the order
transmitted? Did the general know a cryptographer named Marshall? Had Pace
ever mentioned him? Had anyone ever mentioned him? And a man named
AltmOller. Franz AltmWIer. Did that name mean anything?
The answers were no help. And God knew Swanson wasn't lying. He wasn't pro
enough to get away with it.
The names Marshall and Altmaller were unknown to him. The decision to
execute Rhinemann was made within hours. There was absolutely no way Ed
Pace could have known; he was not consulted, nor was anyone at Fairfax. It
was a decision emanating from the cellars of the White House; no one at
Fairfax or Lisbon could have been involved. For David that absence of
involvement was the important factor. It meant simply that the whole
unfocused picture had nothing to do with Erich Rhinemann. And thus, as far
as could be determined, was unrelated to Buenos Aires. David made the quick
decision not to confide in the nervous brigadier. Pace had been right: the
man couldn't take any more complications. He'd use Fairfax, source control
be damned.
The plane landed; Spaulding walked into the passenger terminal and looked
for the signs that read Taxis. He went through the double doors to the
platform and heard the porters shouting the vadous destinations of the
unfilled cabs. It was funny. but the shared taxis were the only things that
caused him to think LA
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Guardia Airport knew there was a war going on somewhere.
Simultaneously he recognized the foolishness of his thoughts. And the
pretentiousness of them.
A soldier with no legs was being helped into a cab. Porters and civilians
were touched, helpful.
The soldier was drunk. What was left of him, unstable.
Spaulding shared a taxi with three other men, and they talked of little but
the latest reports out of Italy. David decided to forget his cover in case
the inevitable questions came up. He wasn't about to discuss any mythical
combat in Salerno. But the questions did not arise. And then he saw why.
The man next to him was blind; the man shifted his weight and the afternoon
sun caused a reflection in his lapel. It was a tiny metal replica of a
ribbon: South Pacific.
David considered again that he was terribly tired. He was about the most
unobservant agent ever to have been given an operation, he thought.
He got out of the cab on Fifth Avenue, three blocks north of the
Montgomery. He had overpaid his share; he hoped the other two men would
apply it to the blind veteran whose clothes were one hell of a long way
from Leslie Jenner's Rogers Peet.
Leslie Jenner ... Hawkwood.
A cryptographer named Marshall.
The unfocused picture.
He had to put it all out of his mind. He had to sleep, forget; let
everything settle before he thought again. Tomorrow morning he would meet
Eugene Lyons and begin ... again. He had to be ready for the man who'd
burned his throat out with raw alcohol and had not had a conversation in
ten years.
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor. His was the seventh. He was about
to tell the elevator operator when he realized the doors were not opening.
Instead, the operator turned in place. In his hand he gripped a
short-barreled Smith & Wesson revolver. He reached behind him to the lever
control and pushed it to the left, the enclosed box jerked and edged itse
lf
up between floors.
'The lobby lights go out this way, Colonel Spaulding. We may hear buzzers,
but there's a second elevator used in emergencies. We won't be disturbed.'
The accent was the same, thought David. British overlay. Middle Europe.
'I'm glad of that. I mean, Jesus, it's been so long.'
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'I don't find you amusing!
'Nor 1, you ... obviously!
'You've been to Fairfax, Virginia. Did you have a pleasant journey?'
6YOU9ve got an extraordinary pipeline.' Spaulding wasn't only buying time
with conversation. He and Ira Barden had taken the required precautions.
Even if the Montgomery switchboard reported everything he said, there was
no evidence that he had flown to Virginia. The arrangements were made from
telephone booths, the flight from Mitchell to Andrews under an assumed name
on a crew sheet. Even the Manhattan number he had left with the Montgomery
desk had a New York address under constant surveillance. And in the Fairfax
compound, only the security gate had his name; he had been seen by only
four, perhaps five men.
'We have reliable sources of information.... Now you have learned firsthand
the lesson of Fairfax, noT
'I've learned that a good man was murdered. I imagine his wife and children
have been told by now.'
'There is no murder in war, colonel. A misapplication of the word. And
don't speak to us. . . .'
A buzzer interrupted the man. It was short, a polite ring.
'Who is "us"T asked David.
'You'll know in time, if you cooperate. If you don't cooperate, it will
make no difference; you'll be killed.... We don't make idle threats.
Witness Fairfax.'
The buzzersounded again. This time prolonged, not quite polite.
'How am I supposed to cooperate? What aboutT
'We must know the precise location of Tortugas!
Spaulding's mind raced back to five o'clock that morning. In Fairfax. Ira
Barden had said that the name 'Tortugas' was the single word opposite his
transfer specification. No other data, nothing but the word 'Tortugas.' And
it had been buried in Pace's 'vaults.' Cabinets kept behind steel doors,
accessible only to the highest-echelon Intelligence personnel.
'Tortugas is part of an island complex off the coast of Florida. It's
usually referred to as the Dry Tortugas. It's on any map.'
The buzzer again. Now repeated; in short, angry spurts.
'Don't be foolish, colonel!
'I'm not being anything. I don't know what you're talking about.'
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The man stared at Spaulding. David saw that he was unsure, controlling his
anger. The elevator buzzer was incessant now; voices could be heard from
above and below.
'I'd prefer not to have to kill you but I will. Where is Tortugas?'
Suddenly a loud male voice, no more than ten feet from the enclosure, on
the sixth floor, shouted.
'It's up here I It's stuck! Are you all right up therer
The man blinked, the shouting had unnerved him. It was the instant David
was waiting for. He lashed his right hand out in a diagonal thrust and
gripped the man's forearm, hammering it against the metal door. He slammed
his body into the man's chest and brought his knee up in a single, crushing
assault against the groin. The man screamed in agony; Spaulding grabbed the
arched throat with his left hand and tore at the veins around the larynx.
He hammered the man twice more in the groin, until the pain was so
excruciating that no more screams could emerge, only low, wailing moans of
anguish. The body went limp, the revolver fell to the floor, and the man
slid downward against the wall.
Spaulding kicked the weapon away and gripped the man's neck with both
hands, shaking the head back and forth to keep him conscious.
'Now, you tell me, you son of a bitch! What is "Tortugas"?'
The shouting outside the elevator was now deafening. There was a cacophony
of hysteria brought on by the screams of the battered operator. There were
cries for the hotel management. For the police.
The man looked up at David, tears of terrible pain streaming from his eyes.
'Why not kill me, pig,' he said between ago Wing chokes of breath. '. . .
You've tried before.'
I David was bewildered. He'd never seen the man. The north
country? Basque? Navarre?
There was no time to think.
'What is "Tortugas"?'
'Altmillier, pig. The pig AltmollerThe man fell into
unconsciousness.
There was the name again.
Altmidler.
Spaulding rose from the unconscious body and grabbed the control lever of
the elevator. He swung it to the far left, accelerating the speed as fast
as possible.. There were ten floors in the
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Montgomery; the Panel lights indicated that the first-, third., and
sixth-floor buttons had been activated. If he could reach the tenth before
the hysterical voices followed him up the stairs, it was possible that he
could get out of the elevator, race down the corridor to one of the comers,
then double back into the crowd which surely would gather around the open
elevator doors.
Around the unconscious man on the floor.
It had to be possible! This was no time for him to be involved with the New
York police.
The man was carried away on a stretcher; the questions were brief.
No, he didn't know the elevator operator. The man had dropped him off at
hisfloor ten or twelve minutes ago. He'd been in his room and came out when
he'd heard all the shouting.
The same as everyone else.
What was New York coming to?
David reached his room on seven, closed the door and stared at the bed.
Christ, he was exhausted I But his mind refused to stop racing.
He would postpone everything until he had rested, except for two items. He
had to consider those now. They could not wait for sleep because a
telephone might ring, or someone might come to his hotel room. And he had
to make his decisions in advance. Be prepared.
The first item was that Fairfax no longer could be used as a source. It was
riddled, infiltrated. He had to function without Fairfax, which, in a way,
was akin to telling a cripple he had to walk without braces.
On the other hand, he was no cripple.
The second item was a man named AltmUller. He had to find a man named Franz
AltmUller; find out who he was, what he meant to the unfocused picture.
David lay down on the bed; he didn't have the energy to remove his clothes,
even his shoes. He brought his arm up to shade his eyes from the afternoon
sun streaming in the hotel windows. The afternoon sun of the first day of
the new year, 1944.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes in the black void of tweed cloth. There was a
third item. Inextricably bound to the man named Altm(Iller.
What the hell did 'Tortugas' mean?
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21
JANUARY 2, 1944
NEW YORK CITY
Eugene Lyons sat at a drafting board in the bare office. He was in
shirtsleeves. There were blueprints strewn about on tables. The bright
morning sun b
ouncing off the white walls gave the room the antiseptic
appearance of a large hospital cubicle.
And Euge ne Lyons's face and body did nothing to discourage
such thoughts.
David had followed Kendall through the door, apprehensive at the
forthcoming introduction. He would have preferred not knowing anything
about Lyons.
The scientist turned on the stool. He was among the thinnest men Spaulding
had ever seen. The bones were surrounded by flesh, not protected by it.
Light blue veins were in evidence throughout the hands, arms, neck and
temples. The skin wasn't old, it was worn out. The eyes were deep-set but
in no way duU or flat; they were alert and, in their own way, penetrating.
His straight grey hair was thinned out before its time; he could have been
any age.within a twenty-year span.
There was, however, one quality about the man that seemed specific:
disinterest. He acknowledged the intrusion, obviously knew who David was,
but made no move to interrupt his concentration.
Kendall forced the break. 'Eugene, this is Spaulding. You show him where to
start.'
And with those words Kendall turned on his heel and went out
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the door, closing it behind him.
David stood across the room from Lyons. He took the necessary steps and
extended his hand. He knew exactly what he was going to say.
'It's an honor to meet you, Dr. Lyons. I'm no expert in your field, but
I've heard about your work at MIT. I'm lucky to have you spread the wealth,
even if it's only for a short time.'
There was a slight, momentary flicker of interest in the eyes. David had
gambled on a simple greeting that told the emaciated scientist several
things, among which was the fact that David was aware of Lyons's tragedy in
Boston - thus, undoubtedly, the rest of his story - and was not inhibited
by it.
Lyons's grip was limp; the disinterest quickly returned. Disinterest, not
necessarily rudeness. On the borderline.
'I know we haven't much time and 19m a neophyte in gyroscopics,' said
Spaulding, releasing the hand, backing off to the side of the drafting
board. 'But I'm told I don't have to recognize much more than pretty basic