suspended from the ceiling by a thick
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wire - a wire that ran out a port window to a pier outlet. Ship generators
were not abused while at dock. There was an oddshaped, flat piece of metal
hanging on the side of the bulb, and at first David was not sure why it was
there. And then he understood; the sheet of'metal deflected the light of the
bulb from the rear of the cabin, where he could make out - beyond the fold
of the tarp - two bunk beds. Men were sleeping; the light remained on but
they were in relative shadow.
On the far side of the cabin, butted against the wall, was a long table
that had the incongruous appearance of a hospital laboratory workbench. It
was covered by a taut, white, spotless oilcloth and on the cloth,
equidistant from one another, were four powerful microscopes. Beside each
instrument was a high-intensity lamp -all the wires leading to a
twelve-volt utility battery under the table. On the floor in front of the
microscopes were four high-backed stools - four white, spotless stools
standing at clinical attention.
That was the effect, thought David. Clinical. This isolated section of the
trawler was in counterpoint to the rest of the filthy ship; it was a small,
clinical island surrounded by rotted sea waste and rat disks.
And then he saw them. In the corner.
Five steel crates, each with metal strips joined at the top edges and held
in place with heavy vault locks. On the front of each crate was the clearly
stenciled name: KOENING MWES, LTD.
He'd seen it now. The undeniable, the irrefutable.
Tortugas.
The obscene "change funneled through Erich Rhinemann.
And he was so close, so near possession. The final indictment.
Within his fear - and he was afraid - furious anger and deep temptation
converged. They were sufficient to suspend his anxiety, to force him to
concentrate only on the objective. To believe - knowing the belief was
false - in some mystical invulnerability, granted for only a few precious
minutes.
That was enough.
He ducked under the first porthole and approached the second. He stood up
and looked in; the door of the cabin was in his direct line of sight. It
was a new door, not part of the trawler. It was steel and in the center was
a bolt at least an inch thick, jammed into a bracket in the frame.
The Peenemiinde scientists were not only clinically isolated,
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they were in a self-imposed prison.
That bolt, David realized, was his personal Alpine pass - to be crossed
without rig.
He crouched and passed under the porthole to the edge of the cabin wall. He
remained on his knees and, millimeter by millimetre, the side of his face
against the wood, looked around the comer.
The guard was there, of course, standing his harbor watch in the tradition
of such sentry duty: on deck, the inner line of defense; bored, irritated'
with his boredom, relaxed in his inactivity yet annoyed by its
pointlessness.
But he was not in the paramilitary clothes of Habichtsnest. He was in a
loose-fitting suit that did little to conceal a powerful -military - body.
His hair was cut short, Wehrmacht style.
He was leaning against a large fishing-net winch, smoking a thin cigar,
blowing the smoke aimlessly into the night air. At his side was an
automatic rifle, -30 caliber, the shoulder strap unbuckled, curled on the
deck. The rifle had not been touched for quite some time, the strap had a
film of moisture on the surface of the leather.
The strap.... David took the belt from his trousers. He stood up, inched
back towards the porthole, reached underneath the railing and removed one
of two gunwale spikes which were clamped against the inner hull for the
fish nets. He tapped the railing softly twice; then twice again. He heard
the shuffling of the guard's feet. No forward movement, just a change of
position.
He tapped again. Twice. Then twice more. The quietly precise tapping -
intentional, spaced evenly - was enough to arouse curiosity, insufficient
to cause alarm.
He heard the guard's footsteps now. Still relaxed, the forward motion easy,
not concerned with danger, only curious. A piece of harbour driftwood,
perhaps, slapping against the hull, caught in the push-pull of the current.
The guard rounded the comer; Spaulding's belt whipped around his neck,
instantly lashed taut, choking off the cry.
David twisted the leather as the guard sank to his knees, the face
darkening perceptibly in the dim spill of light from the porthole, the lips
pursed in strangled anguish.
David did not allow his victim to lose consciousness; he had the Alpine
pass to cross. rnstead, he wedged his pistol into his trousers, reached
down to the scabbard on the guard's waist, and
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took out the carbine bayonet - a favorite knife of combat men, rarely used
on the front of any rifle. He held the blade under the guard's eyes and
whispered.
'Espaftol or Deutsch?'
The man stared up in terror. Spaulding twisted the leather tighter; the
guard choked a cough and struggled to raise two fingers. David whispered
again, the blade pushing against the skin under the right eyebafl.
'Deutsch?'
The man nodded.
Of course he was German, thought Spaulding. And Nazi. The clothes, the
hair. PeenemUnde was the Third Reich. Its scientists would be guarded by
their own. He twisted the blade of the carbine bayonet so that a tiny
laceration appeared under the eye. The guard's mouth opened in fright.
'You do exactly what I tell you,' whispered David in German into the
guard's ear, 'or I'll carve out your sight. Understand?'
The man, nearly limp, nodded.
'Get up and call through the porthole. You have an urgent message from ...
AltmWler, Franz AltmOller! They must open the door and sign for it.... Do
it! Nowl And remember, this knife is inches from your eyes.'
The guard, in shock, got up. Spaulding pushed the man's face to the open
porthole, loosened the belt only slightly, and shifted his position to the
side of the man and the window, his left hand holding the leather, his
right the knife.
'Nowl'whispered David, flicking the blade in half circles.
At first the guard's voice was strained, artificial. Spaulding moved in
closer; the guard knew he had only seconds to live if he did not perform.
He performed.
There was stirring in the bunk beds within the cabin. Grumbling complaints
to begin with, ceasing abruptly at the mention of Altmfiller's name.
A small, middle-aged man got out of the left lower bunk and walked sleepily
to the steel door. He was in undershorts, nothing else. David propelled the
guard around the comer of the wall and reached the door at t ' he sound of
the sliding bolt.
He slarnmed the guard against the steel panel with the twisted belt; the
door flung open, David grabbed the knob, preventing it from crashing into
the bulkhead. He dropped the knife,
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yanked out his pistol, and cr
ashed the barrel into the skull of the small
scientist.
- 'Schweigen!' he whispered hoarsely. 'Wenn Anen Ar Leben Lieb ist!'
The three men in the bunks - older men, one old man - stumbled out of their
beds, trembling and speechless. The guard, choking still, began to focus
around him and started to rise. Spaulding took two steps and slashed the
pistol diagonally across the man's temple, splaying him out on the deck.
The old man, less afraid than his two companions, stared at David. For
reasons Spaulding could not explain to himself, he felt ashamed. Violence
was out of place in this antiseptic cabin.
'I have no quarrel with you,' he whispered harshly in German. 'You follow
orders. But don't mistake me, I'll kill you if you make a sound!' He
pointed to some papers next to a microscope; they were filled with numbers
and columns. 'You!' He gestured his pistol at the old man. 'Give me those!
Quickly!'
The old man trudged haltingly across the cabin to the clinical work area.
He lifted the papers off the table and handed them to Spaulding, who
stuffed them into his wet trousers pocket.
'Thanks.... Now!' He pointed his weapon at the other two. 'Open one of
those crates! Do it now!'
'No! ... No! For God's sake!' said the taller of the middleaged scientists,
his voice low, filled with fear.
David grabbed the old man standing next to him, He clamped his arm around
the loose flesh of the old neck and brought his pistol up to the head. He
thumbed back the firing pin and spoke calmly. 'You will open a crate or I
will kill this man. When he's dead, I'll turn my pistol on you. Believe me,
I have no altemative.'
The shorter man whipped his head around, pleading silently with the taller
one. The old man in David's grasp was the leader; Spaulding knew that. An
old ... alter-Anflihrer; always take the German leader.
The taller PeenemOnde scientist walked - every step in fear -to the far
comer of the clinical workbench, where there was a neat row of keys on the
wall. He removed one and hesitantly went to the first steel crate. He bent
down and inserted the key in the vault lock holding the metal strip around
the edge; the strip snapped apart in the center.
'Open the Rd!' commanded Spaulding, his anxiety causing
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his whisper to become louder; too loud, he realized.
The cover of the steel crate was heavy; the German had to lift it with both
hands, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth betraying the effort
required. Once at a ninety-degree angle, chains on both sides became taut;
there was a click of a latch and the cover was locked in place.
Inside were dozens of identically matched compartments in what appeared to
be sliding trays - something akin to a large complicated fishing-tackle
box. Then David understood: the front of the steel case was on hinges;* it
too could be opened -or lowered, to be exact - allowing the trays to slide
out.
In each compartment were two small heavy, paper envelopes, apparently lined
with layers of soft tissue. There were dozens of envelopes on the top tray
alone.
David released the old man, propelling him back toward the bunk beds. He
waved his pistol at the tall German who had opened the crate, ordering him
to join the other two. He reached down into the steel crate, picked out a
small envelope and brought it to his mouth, tearing the edge with his
teeth. He shook it toward the ground; tiny translucent nuggets spattered
over the cabin deck.
The Koening diamonds.
He watched the German scientists as he crumpled the envelope. They were
staring at the stones on the floor.
Why not? thought David. In that cabin was the solution for PeenemUnde. In
those crates were the tools to rain death on untold thousands . . . as the
gyroscopic designs for which they were traded would make possible further
death, further massacre.
He was about to throw away the envelope in disgust and fill his pockets
with others when his eyes caught sight of some lettering. He unwrinkled the
envelope, his pistol steady on the Germans, and looked down. The single
word:
ecbt
True.. Genuine. This envelope, this tray, this steel case had passed
inspection.
He reached down and grabbed as many envelopes as his left hand could hold
and stuffed them into his trousers pocket.
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It was all he needed for the indictment.
It was everything. It was the meaning.
There was one thing more he could- do. Of a more immediately practical
nature. He crossed to the workbench and went down the line of four
microscopes, crashing the barrel of his pistol up into each lens and down
into the eyepieces. He looked for a laboratory case, the type which carried
optical equipment. There had to be one!
It was on the floor beneath the long table. He kicked it out with his bare
foot and reached down to open the hasp.
More slots and trays, only these filled with lenses and small black tubes
in which to place them.
He bent down and overturned the case; dozens of circular lenses fell out
onto the deck. As fast as he could he grabbed the nearest white stool and
brought it down sideways into the piles of glass.
The destruction wasn't total, but the damage was enough, perhaps, for
forty-eight hours.
He started to get up, his weapon still on the scientists, his ears and eyes
alert.
He heard it! He sensed it! And simultandously he understood that if he did
not spin out of the way he would be dead!
He threw himself on the floor to the right, the hand above and behind him
came down, the carbine bayonet slicing the air, aimed for the spot where
his neck had been less than a second ago.
He had left the goddamned bayonet on the floorl He had discarded the
goddamned bayonetl The guard had revived and taken the goddamned bayonetl
The Nazi's single cry emerged before Spaulding leaped on his kneeling form,
smashing his skull into the wood floor with such force that blood spewed
out in tiny bursts throughout the head.
But the lone cry was enough.
'Is something wrong?' came a voice from outside, twenty yards away on the
loading dock. 'Heinrich! Did you call?'
There was no second, no instant, to throw away on hesitation.
David ran to the steel door, pulled it open and raced around the comer of
the wall to the concealed section of the gunwale. As he did so, a guard -
the sentry an the bow of the trawler -came into view. His rifle was waist
high and he fired.
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Spaulding fired back. But not before he realized he was hit. The Nazi's
bullet had creased the side of his waist; he could feel the blood oozing
down into his trousers.
He threw himself over the railing into the water; screams and shouts
started from inside the cabin and farther away on the pier.
He thrashed against the dirty Rio slime and tried to keep his head. Where
was he? What direction? Where? For Christ's sake, where?
The shouts were louder now; searchlights we
re turned on all over the
trawler, crisscrossing the harbor waters. He could hear men screaming into
radios as only panicked men can scream. Accusing, helpless.
Suddenly, David realized there were no boats! No boats were coming out of
the pier with the searchlights and high-powered rifles that would be his
undoingl
No boats I
And he nearly laughed. The operation at Ocho Calle was so totally secretive
they had allowed no small craft to put into the deserted area!
He held his side, going under water as often as he could, as fast as he
could.
The trawler and the screaming Rhinemann-Altmiffler guards were receding in
the harbor mist. Spaulding kept bobbing his head up, hoping to God he was
going in the right direction.
He was getting terribly tired, but he would not allow himself to grow weak.
He could not allow that! Not now I
He had the 'Tortugas' indictment!
He saw the pilings not far away. Perhaps two, three hundred yards. They
were the right pilings, the right piersl They ... it, had to be!
He felt the waters around him stir and then he saw the snakelike forms of
the conger eels as they lashed blindly against his body. The blood from his
wound was attracting them I A horrible mass of slashing giant worms were
converging!
He thrashed and kicked and fought down a scream. He pulled at the waters in
front of him, his hands in constant contact with the ofly snakes of the
harbor. His eyes were filled with flashing dots and streaks of yellow and
white; his throat was dry in the water, his forehead pounded.
When it seemed at last the scream would come, had to come, he felt the hand
in his hand. He felt his shoulders being lifted,
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heard the guttural cries of his own terrified voice - deep, frightened
beyond his own endurance. He could look down and see, as his feet kept
slipping off the ladder, the circles of swarming eels below.
Eugene Lyons carried him - carried him! - to the FMF automobile. He was
aware - yet not aware - of the fact that Lyons pushed him gently into the
back seat.
And then Lyons climbed in after him, and David understood - yet did not
understand - that Lyons was slapping him. Hard. Harder.
Deliberately. Without rhythm but with a great deal of strength.
Robert Ludlum - Rhineman Exchange.txt Page 46