The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel by Robert Ludlum
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 corner, 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.
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 toward Lyons’s house. Raced without thought of cover or camouflage, knowing the radios were in constant contact with those inside 15 Terraza Verde.
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 it 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 Sebastián 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 bent 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 toward 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 toward 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 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.
Yet he had a strange commitment to Lyons. He had commitment enough for him at the moment. He dared not think beyond that instant.
And he was good; he could—should—never forget that. He was the best there was.
If it was important to anyone.
So much, so alien.
He pressed his cheek against the molding of the arch and what he saw sickened him. The revulsion, perhaps, was increased by the surroundings: a well-appointed flat with chairs and couches and tables meant for civilized people involved with civilized pursuits.
Not death.
The two male nurses—the hostile Johnny, the affable, dense Hal—were sprawled across the floor, their arms linked, their heads inches from each other. Their combined blood had formed a pool on the parquet surface. Johnny’s eyes were wide, angry—dead; Hal’s face composed, questioning, at rest.
Behind them were Rhinemann’s two other guards, their bodies on the couch like slaughtered cattle.
I hope you know what you’re doing!
Johnny’s words vibrated painfully—in screams—in David’s brain.
There were three other men in the room—standing, alive, in the same grotesque stocking masks that had been worn by those in the Duesenberg who had cut short the few moments he’d had alone with Leslie Hawkwood high in the hills of Luján.
The Duesenberg that had exploded in fire in the hills of Colinas Rojas.
The men were standing—none held weapons—over the spent figure of Eugene Lyons—seated gracefully, without fear, at the table. The look in the scientist’s eyes told the truth, as Spaulding saw it: he welcomed death.
“You see what’s around you!” The man in the light grey overcoat spoke to him. “We will not hesitate further! You’re dead!… Give us the designs!”
Jesus Christ! thought David. Lyons had hidden the plans!
“There’s no point in carrying on, please believe me,” continued the man in the overcoat, the man with the hollow crescents u
Lyons did not move; he looked up at the man in the overcoat without shifting his head, his eyes calm. They touched David’s.
“Write it!” said the man in the light grey overcoat.
It was the moment to move.
David spun around the molding, his pistol leveled.
“Don’t reach for guns! You!” he yelled at the man nearest him. “Turn around!”
In shock, without thinking, the man obeyed. Spaulding took two steps forward and brought the barrel of the Beretta crashing down into the man’s skull. He collapsed instantly.
David shouted at the man next to the interrogator in the grey overcoat. “Pick up that chair! Now!” He gestured with his pistol to a straight-backed chair several feet from the table. “Now, I said!”
The man reached over and did as he was told; he was immobilized. Spaulding continued. “You drop it and I’ll kill you.… Doctor Lyons. Take their weapons. You’ll find pistols and knives. Quickly, please.”
It all happened so fast. David knew his only hope of avoiding gunfire was in the swiftness of the action, the rapid immobilization of one or two men, an instant reversal of the odds.
Lyons got out of the chair and went first to the man in the light grey overcoat. It was apparent that the scientist had observed where the man had put his pistol. He took it out of the overcoat pocket. He went to the man holding the chair and removed an identical gun, then searched the man and took a large knife from his jacket and a second, short revolver from a shoulder holster. He placed the weapons on the far side of the table and walked to the unconscious third man. He rolled him over and removed two guns and a switchblade knife.
“Take off your coats. Now!” Spaulding commanded both men. He took the chair from the one next to him and pushed him toward his companion. The men began removing their coats when Spaulding suddenly spoke, before either had completed their actions. “Stop right there! Hold it!… Doctor, please bring over two chairs and place them behind them.”
Lyons did so.
“Sit down,” said Spaulding to his captives.
They sat, coats half off their shoulders. David approached them and yanked the garments further—down to the elbows.
The two men in the grotesque stocking masks were seated now, their arms locked by their own clothes.
Standing in front of them, Spaulding reached down and ripped the silk masks off their faces. He moved back and leaned against the dining table, his pistol in his hand.
“All right,” he said. “I estimate we’ve got about fifteen minutes before all hell breaks loose around here.… I have a few questions. You’re going to give me the answers.”
36
Spaulding listened in disbelief. The enormity of the charge was so far-reaching it was—in a very real sense—beyond his comprehension.
The man with the hollow eyes was Asher Feld, commander of the Provisional Wing of the Haganah operating within the United States. He did the talking.
“The operation … the exchange of the guidance designs for the industrial diamonds … was first given the name ‘Tortugas’ by the Americans—one American, to be exact. He had decided that the transfer should be made in the Dry Tortugas, but it was patently rejected by Berlin. It was, however, kept as a code name by this man. The misleading association dovetailed with his own panic at being involved. It came—for him and for Fairfax—to mean the activities of the man from Lisbon.
“When the War Department clearances were issued to the Koening company’s New York offices—an Allied requisite—this man coded the clearance as ‘Tortugas.’ If anyone checked, ‘Tortugas’ was a Fairfax operation. It would not be questioned.
“The concept of the negotiation was first created by the Nachrichtendienst. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Nachrich-tendienst, colonel.…”
David did not reply. He could not speak. Feld continued.
“We of the Haganah learned of it in Geneva. We had word of an unusual meeting between an American named Kendall—a financial analyst for a major aircraft company—and a very despised German businessman, a homosexual, who was sent to Switzerland by a leading administrator in the Ministry of Armaments, Unterstaatssekretär Franz Altmüller.… The Haganah is everywhere, colonel, including the outer offices of the ministry and in the Luftwaffe.…”
David continued to stare at the Jew, so matter of fact in his extraordinary … unbelievable … narrative.
“I think you’ll agree that such a meeting was unusual. It was not difficult to maneuver these two messengers into a situation that gave us a wire recording. It was in an out-of-the-way restaurant and they were amateurs.
“We then knew the basics. The materials and the general location. But not the specific point of transfer. And that was the all-important factor. Buenos Aires is enormous, its harbor more so—stretching for miles. Where in this vast area of land and mountains and water was the transfer to take place?
“Then, of course, came word from Fairfax. The man in Lisbon was being recalled. A most unusual action. But then how well thought out. The finest network specialist in Europe, fluent German and Spanish, an expert in blueprint designs. How logical. Don’t you agree?”
David started to speak, but stopped. Things were being said that triggered flashes of lightning in his mind. And unbelievable cracks of thunder … as unbelievable as the words he was hearing. He could only nod his head. Numbly.
Feld watched him closely. Then spoke.
“In New York I explained to you, albeit briefly, the sabotage at the airfield in Terceira. Zealots. The fact that the man in Lisbon could turn and be a part of the exchange was too much for the hot-tempered Spanish Jews. No one was more relieved than we of the Provisional Wing when you escaped. We assumed your stopover in New York was for the purposes of refining the logistics in Buenos Aires. We proceeded on that assumption.
“Then quite abruptly there was no more time. Reports out of Johannesburg—unforgivably delayed—said that the diamonds had arrived in Buenos Aires. We took the necessary violent measures, including an attempt to kill you. Prevented, I presume, by Rhinemann’s men.” Asher Feld stopped. Then added wearily, “The rest you know.”
No! The rest he did not know! Nor any other part!
Insanity!
Madness!
Everything was nothing! Nothing was everything!
The years! The lives!… The terrible nightmares of fear … the killing! Oh, my God, the killing!
For what?!… Oh, my God! For what?!
“You’re lying!” David crashed his hand down on the table. The steel of the pistol cracked against the wood with such force the vibration filled the room. “You’re lying!” he cried; he did not shout. “I’m in Buenos Aires to buy gyroscopic designs! To have them authenticated! Confirmed by code so that son of a bitch gets paid in Switzerland! That’s all. Nothing else! Nothing else at all! Not this!”
“Yes.…” Asher Feld spoke softly. “It is this.”
David whirled around at nothing. He stretched his neck; the crashing thunder in his head would not stop, the blinding flashes of light in front of his eyes were causing a terrible pain. He saw the bodies on the floor, the blood … the corpses on the sofa, the blood.
Tableau of death.
Death.
His whole shadow world had been ripped out of orbit. A thousand gambles … pains, manipulations, death. And more death … all faded into a meaningless void. The betrayal—if it was a betrayal—was so immense … hundreds of thousands had been sacrificed for absolutely nothing.
He had to stop. He had to think. To concentrate.
He looked at the painfully gaunt Eugene Lyons, his face a sheet of white.
The man’s dying, thought Spaulding.
Death.
He had to concentrate.
Oh, Christ! He had to think. Start somewhere. Think.
Concentrate.
Or he would go out of his mind.
He turned to Feld. The Jew’s eyes were compassionate. They might have been something else, but they were not. They were compassionate.
And yet, they were the eyes of a man who killed in calm deliberation.
As he, the man in Lisbon, had killed.
Execution.
For what?
There were questions. Concentrate on the questions. Listen. Find error. Find error—if ever error was needed in this world it was now!
“I don’t believe you,” said David, trying as he had never tried in his life to be convincing.
“I think you do,” replied Feld quietly. “The girl, Leslie Hawkwood, told us you didn’t know. A judgment we found difficult to accept.… I accept it now.”
David had to think for a moment. He did not, at first, recognize the name. Leslie Hawkwood. And then, of course, he did instantly. Painfully. “How is she involved with you?” he asked numbly.
“Herold Goldsmith is her uncle. By marriage, of course; she’s not Jewish.”
“Goldsmith? The name … doesn’t mean anything to me.” … Concentrate! He had to concentrate and speak rationally.
“It does to thousands of Jews. He’s the man behind the Baruch and Lehman negotiations. He’s done more to get our people out of the camps than any man in America.… He refused to have anything to do with us until the civilized, compassionate men in Washington, London and the Vatican turned their backs on him. Then he came to us … in fury. He created a hurricane; his niece was swept up in it. She’s overly dramatic, perhaps, but committed, effective. She moves in circles barred to the Jew.”
“Why?” … Listen! For God’s sake, listen. Be rational. Concentrate!
Asher Feld paused for a moment, his dark, hollow eyes clouded with quiet hatred. “She met dozens … hundreds, perhaps, of those Herold Goldsmith got out. She saw the photographs, heard the stories. It was enough. She was ready.”
The calm was beginning to return to David. Leslie was the springboard he needed to come back from the madness. There were questions.…