men who yell and bark orders and have me followed.... I'm buying from you,
but I don't have to associate with you. I don't have to have dinner or ride
in your automobile once our business for the day is over. Do I make myself
clear?'
6you're clear. Though somewhat uncivilized. And ungrateful, if you don't
mind my saying so. We saved your life earlier this evening.'
'That's your opinion. Not triine. Just let me off, I'll telephone and come
out with your confirmation.... As you said, there's no point in my lying.
You go on your way, I'll grab a taxi.'
Stoltz instructed the driver to pull up at the orange canopy. 'Do as you
please. And should your plans include Doctor Lyons, be advised we have men
stationed about the area. Their orders are harsh. Those designs will stay
where they are.'
'I'm not paying for three-quarters of the merchandise regardless of what
there is back home. And I have no intention of walking into that phalanx of
robots.'
The Packard drew up to the canopy. Spaulding opened the door quickly,
slamming it angrily behind him. He walked swiftly into the lighted entrance
and asked for the telephone.
'The ambassador has been trying to reach you for the past half-hour or so,'
said the night operator. 'He says it's urgent. I'm to give you a telephone
number.' The operator drawled out the digits.
'Thank you,' David said. 'Now connect me with Mr. Ballard in
Communications, please.'
'O'Leary's Saloon,' came the uninterested voice of Bobby Ballard over the
wire.
'You're a funny man. I'll laugh next Tuesday.'
'The "switch" said it was you. You know Granville's trying to find you.'
'I heard. Where's Jean?'
'In her room; pining away just like you ordered.'
'Did you get word from D.C.T
'All wrapped. Came in a couple of hours ago; your codes are
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cleared, Row'sthe erector setT
'The instructions - three-quarters of them - are in the box. But there are
too many playmates.'
'Terraza VerdeT
'Around there.'
'Shall I send out a few FMF playground attendants?'
'I think I'd feel better,' said Spaulding. 'Tell them to cruise. Nothing
else. I'll spot them and yell if I need them.'
'It'll take a half-hour from the base.'
'Thanks. No parades, please, Bobby.'
'They'll be so quiet no one'll know but us Munchkins. Take care of
yourself.'
Spaulding held down the receiver with his finger, tempted to lift it,
insert another coin and call Granville.... There wasn't time. He left the
booth and walked out the restaurant door to the Packard. Stoltz was at the
window; David saw that a trace of his previous nervousness had returned.
'You've got your confirmation. Deliver the rest of the goods and enjoy your
money.... I don't know where you come from, Stoltz, but I'll find out and
have it bombed off the map. I'll tell the Eighth Air Force to name the raid
after you.'
Stoltz seemed relieved at David's surliness - as David thought he might be.
'The man from Lisbon is complicated. I suppose that's proper for a
complicated assignment.... We'll call you by noon.' Stoltz turned to the
driver. 'Los, abfahren, machen Sie schnefil'
The green Packard roared off down the street. Spaulding waited under the
canopy to see if it made any turns; should it do so, he would return to the
cafe and wait.
It did not; it maintained a straight course. David watched until the
taillights were infinitesimal red dots. Then he turned and walked as fast
as he could without calling attention to himself toward Terraza Verde.
He reached the short block in which he'd seen the man in the light grey
overcoat and stopped. His concerns made him want to rush on; his instincts
forced him to wait, to look, to move cautiously.
The man was not on the block now; he was nowhere to be seen. David reversed
his direction and walked to the end of the sidewalk. He turned left and
raced down the street to the next comer, turning left again, now slowing
down, walking casually.
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He wished to God he knew the area better, knew the buildings behind Lyons's
white stucco house. Others did; others were positioned in dark recesses he
knew nothing about.
Rhinemann's guards. The man in the light grey overcoat; how many more were
with him?
He approached the intersection of Terraza Verde and crossed the road
diagonally, away from the white stucco house. He stayed out of the spill of
the lamps as best he could and continued down the pavement to the street
behind the row of houses on Terraza Verde. It was, of course, a block lined
with other houses; quaint, picturesque, quiet. Spaulding looked up at the
vertical sign: Terraza Amarilla.
San Telmo fed upon itself.
He remained at the far end of the corner under a sculptured tree and looked
toward the section of the adjacent street where he judged the rear of
Lyons's house to be. He could barely make out the sloping tiled roof, but
enough to pinpoint the building behind it - about 150 yards away.
He also saw Rhinemann's automobile, one of those he'd spotted during the
long, security-conscious drive from the Can Rosada. It was parked opposite
a light-bricked Italian townhouse with large gates on both sides. David
assumed those gates opened to stone paths leading to a wall or a fence
separating Lyons's back terrace from the rear entrance of the townhouse. It
had to be something like that; Rhinemann's guards were posted so that
anyone emerging from those gates was equally in their sightlines.
And then Spaulding remembered the crackling static of the radios from the
hallway and the kitchen and the incessant repetition of the German numbers.
Those who carried the radios had weapons. He reached beneath his jacket to
his holster and took out the Beretta. He knew the clip was filled; he
unlatched the safety, shoved the weapon into his belt and started across
the street toward the automobile.
Before he reached the opposite comer, he heard a car drive up behind him.
He had no time to run, no moment to make a decision -good or bad. His hand
went to his belt; he tried to assume a posture of indifference.
He heard the voice and was stunned.
'Get in, you goddamned foolP
Leslie Hawkwood was behind the wheel of a small Renault
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coupe. She had reached over and unlatched the door. David caught it, his
attention split between his shock and his concern that Rhinemann's guard -
or guards - a hundred yards away might hear the noise. There were fewer than
a dozen pedestrians within the two-block area. Rhinemann's men had to have
been alerted.
He jumped into the Renault and with his left hand he grabbed Leslie's right
leg above the knee, his grip a restraining vise, pressing on the nerve
lines. He spoke softly but with unmistakable intensity.
'You back this car up as quietly as you can, and turn left down that
street.'
'Let go I Let. .
'Do as I say or I'll break your kn
eecap off!'
The Renault was short; there was no need to use the reverse gear. Leslie
spun the wheel and the car veered into a sharp turn.
'Slowlyl' commanded Spaulding, his eyes on Rhinemann's car. He could see a
head turn - two heads. And then they were out of sight.
David took his hand off the girl's leg; she pulled it up and doubled her
shoulders down in agony. Spaulding grabbed the wheel and forced the gears
into neutral. The car came to a stop halfway down the block, at the curb.
'You bastard! You broke my leg!' Leslie's eyes were filled with tears of
pain, not sorrow. She was close to fury but she did not shout. And that
told David something about Leslie he had not known before.
'I'll break more than a leg if you don't start telling me what you're doing
here! How many others are there? I saw one; how many more?'
She snapped her head up, her long hair whipping back, her eyes defiant.
'Did you think we couldn't find him?'
'WhoT
'Your scientist. This Lyons! We found him!'
'Leslie, for Christ's sake, what are you doing?'
'Stopping you!'
'Me?'
'You. Altmiffler, Rhinemann. Koening! Those pigs in Washington....
PeenemUnde! It's all over. They won't trust you anymore. "Tortugas" is
finished!'
The faceless name - Altiniffier again. Tortugas.... Koening?
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Words, names ... meaning and no meaning. The tunnels had no light.
There was no time I
Spaulding reached over and pulled the girl toward him. He clutched the hair
above her forehead, yanking it taut, and with his other hand he circled his
fingers high up under her throat, just below the jawbone. He applied
pressure in swift, harsh spurts, each worse than the last.
So much, so alien.
'You want to play this game, you play it out! Now tell mel What's
happening? Now?'
She tried to squirm, lashing out her arms, kicking at him; but each time
she moved he ripped his fingers into her throat. Her eyes widened until the
sockets were round. He spoke again.
'Say it, Leslie! I'll have to kill you if you don't. I don't have a choice
I Not now.... For Christ's sake, don't force me!'
She slumped; her body went limp but not unconscious. Her head moved up and
down; she sobbed deep-throated moans. He released her and gently held her
face. She opened her eyes.
'Don't touch me! Oh, God, don't touch me!' She could barely whisper, much
less scream. 'Inside.... We're going inside. Kill the scientists; kill
Rhinemann's men. . . .'
Before she finished, Spaulding clenched his fist and hammered a short, hard
blow into the side of her chin. She slumped, unconscious.
He'd heard enough. There was no time.
He stretched her out in the small front seat, removing the ignition keys as
he did so. He looked for her purse; she had none. He opened the door,
closed it firmly and looked up and down the street. There were two couples
halfway down the block; a car was parking at the comer; a window was opened
on the second floor of a building across the way, music coming from within.
Except for these - nothing. San Telmo was at peace.
Spaulding ran to within yards of Terraza Amarilla. He stopped and edged his
way along an iron fence that bordered the comer, swearing at the spill of
the streetlamp. He looked through the black grillwork at Rhinemann's car
less than a hundred yards away. He tried to focus on the front seat, on the
two heads he'd seen moving minutes ago. There was no movement now, no glow
of cigarettes, no shifting of shoulders.
Nothing.
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Yet there was a break in the silhouette of the left window frame; an
obstruction that filled the lower section of the glass.
David rounded the sharp angle of the iron fence and walked slowly toward
the automobile, his hand clamped on the Beretta, his finger steady over the
trigger. Seventy yards, sixty, forty-five.
The obstruction did not move.
Thirty-five, thirty... he pulled the pistol from his belt, prepared to
fire.
Nothing.
He saw it clearly now. The obstruction was a head, sprung back into the
glass - not resting, but wrenched, twisted from the neck; immobile.
Dead.
He raced across the street to the rear of the car and crouched, his Beretta
level with his shoulders. There was no noise, no rustling from within.
The block was deserted now. The only sounds were the muffled, blurred hums
from a hundred lighted windows. A latch could be heard far down the street;
a small dog barked; the wail of an infant was discernible in the distance.
David rose and looked through the automobile's rear window.
He saw the figure of a second man sprawled over the felt top of the front
seat. The light of the streetlamps illuminated the upper part of the man's
back and shoulders. The whole area was a mass of blood and slashed cloth.
Spaulding slipped around the side of the car to the front right door. The
window was open, the sight within sickening. The man behind the wheel had
been shot through the side of his head, his companion knifed repeatedly.
The oblong, leather-cased radio was smashed, lying on the floor beneath the
dashboard.
It had to have happened within the past five or six minutes, thought David.
Leslie Hawkwood had rushed down the street in the Renault to intercept him
- at the precise moment men with silenced pistols and long-bladed knives
were heading for Rhinemann's guards.
The killings complete, the men with knives and pistols must have raced
across the street into the gates towards Lyons's house. Raced without
thought of cover or camouflage, knowing the radios were in constant contact
with those inside 15 Terraza Verde.
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Spaulding opened the car door, rolled up the window, and pulled the
lifeless form off the top of the seat. He closed the door; the bodies were
visible, but less so than before. It was no moment for alarms in the street
if they could be avoided.
He looked over at the gates across the way on each side of the townhouse.
The left one was slightly ajar.
He ran over to it and eased himself through the opening, touching nothing,
his gun thrust laterally at his side, aiming forward. Beyond the gate was
a cement passageway that stretched the length of the building to some sort
of miniature patio bordered by a high brick wall.
He walked silently, rapidly to the end of the open alley; the patio was a
combination of slate paths, plots of grass and small flower gardens.
Alabaster statuary shone in the moonlight; vines crawled up the brick wall.
He judged the height of the wall: seven feet, perhaps, seven and a half.
Thickness: eight, ten inches - standard. Construction: new, within several
years, strong. It was the construction with which he was most concerned. In
1942 he took a nine-foot wall in San SebastiAn that collapsed under him. A
month later it was amusing; at the time it nearly killed him.
He replaced the Beretta in his shoulder holster, locking the safety,
shoving in the weapon securely. He be
nt down and rubbed his hands in the
dry dirt at the edge of the cement, absorbing whatever sweat was on them.
He stood up and raced towards the brick wall.
Spaulding leaped. Once on top of the wall, he held - silent, prone; his
hands gripping the sides, his body motionless - a part of the stone. He
remained immobile, his face towards Lyons's terrace, and waited several
seconds. The back door to Lyons's flat was closed - no lights were on in
the kitchen; the shades were drawn over the windows throughout the floor.
No sounds from within.
He slid down from the wall, removed his gun and ran to the side of the
kitchen door, pressing his back against the white stucco. To his
astonishment he saw that the door was not closed; and then he saw why. At
the base, barely visible in the darkness of the room beyond, was a section
of a hand. It had gripped the bottom of the doorframe and been smashed into
the saddle; the fingers were the fingers of a dead man.
Spaulding reached over and pressed the door. An inch. Two
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inches. Wood against dead weight; his elbow ached from the pressure.
Three, four, five inches. A foot.
Indistinguishable voices could be heard now; faint, male, excited.
He stepped swiftly in front of the door and pushed violently - as quietly
as possible - against the fallen body that acted as a huge, soft, dead
weight against the frame. He stepped over the corpse of Rhinemann's guard,
noting that the oblong radio had been torn from its leather case, smashed
on the floor. He closed the door silently.
The voices came from the sitting room. He edged his way against the wall,
the Beretta poised, unlatched, ready to fire.
An open pantry against the opposite side of the room caught his eye. The
single window, made of mass-produced stained glass, was high in the west
wall, creating eerie shafts of colored light from the moon. Below, on the
floor, was Rhinemann's second guard. The method of death he could not tell;
the body was arched backward - probably a bullet from a small-caliber
pistol had killed him. A pistol with a silencer attached. It would be very
quiet. David felt the perspiration rolling down his forehead and over his
neck.
How many were there? They'd immobilized a garrison.
He had no commitment matching those odds.
Robert Ludlum - Rhineman Exchange.txt Page 42