The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel by Robert Ludlum
“I can’t reject the premise that Rhinemann bought the designs.…”
“Oh, come!” interrupted Feld. “You were the man in Lisbon. How often did your own agents—your best men—find Peenemünde invulnerable. Has not the German underground itself given up penetration?”
“No one ever gives up. On either side. The German underground is part of this!” That was the error, thought David.
“If that were so,” said Feld, gesturing his head toward the dead Germans on the couch, “then those men were members of the underground. You know the Haganah, Lisbon. We don’t kill such men.”
Spaulding stared at the quiet-spoken Jew and knew he told the truth.
“The other evening,” said Spaulding quickly, “on Paraná. I was followed, beaten up … but I saw the IDs. They were Gestapo!”
“They were Haganah,” replied Feld. “The Gestapo is our best cover. If they had been Gestapo that would presume knowledge of your function.… Would they have let you live?”
Spaulding started to object. The Gestapo would not risk killing in a neutral country; not with identification on their persons. Then he realized the absurdity of his logic. Buenos Aires was not Lisbon. Of course, they would kill him. And then he recalled the words of Heinrich Stoltz.
We’ve checked at the highest levels … not the Gestapo … impossible.…
And the strangely inappropriate apologia: the racial theories of Rosenberg and Hitler are not shared … primarily an economic…
A defense of the indefensible offered by a man whose loyalty was purportedly not to the Third Reich but to Erich Rhinemann. A Jew.
Finally, Bobby Ballard:
… he’s a believer … the real Junker item.…
“Oh, my God,” said David under his breath.
“You have the advantage, colonel. What is your choice? We’re prepared to die; I say this in no sense heroically, merely as a fact.”
Spaulding stood motionless. He spoke softly, incredulously. “Do you understand the implications? …”
“We’ve understood them,” interrupted Feld, “since that day in Geneva your Walter Kendall met with Johann Dietricht.”
David reacted as though slapped. “Johann … Dietricht?”
“The expendable heir of Dietricht Fabriken.”
“J.D.,” whispered Spaulding, remembering the crumpled yellow pages in Walter Kendall’s New York office. The breasts, the testicles, the swastikas … the obscene, nervous scribblings of an obscene, nervous man. “Johann Dietricht … J.D.”
“Altmüller had him killed. In a way that precluded any …”
“Why?” asked David.
“To remove any connection with the Ministry of Armaments, is our thought; any association with the High Command. Dietricht initiated the negotiations to the point where they could be shifted to Buenos Aires. To Rhinemann. With Dietricht’s death the High Command was one more step removed.”
The items raced through David’s mind: Kendall had fled Buenos Aires in panic; something had gone wrong. The accountant would not allow himself to be trapped, to be killed. And he, David, was to kill—or have killed—Erich Rhinemann. Second to the designs, Rhinemann’s death was termed paramount. And with his death, Washington, too, was “one more step removed” from the exchange.
Yet there was Edmund Pace.
Edmund Pace.
Never.
“A man was killed,” said David. “A Colonel Pace.…”
“In Fairfax,” completed Asher Feld. “A necessary death. He was being used as you are being used. We deal in pragmatics.… Without knowing the consequences—or refusing to admit them to himself—Colonel Pace was engineering ‘Tortugas.’ ”
“You could have told him. Not kill him! You could have stopped it! You bastards!”
Asher Feld sighed. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the hysteria among your industrialists. Or those of the Reich. He would have been eliminated.… By removing him ourselves, we neutralized Fairfax. And all its considerable facilities.”
There was no point in dwelling on the necessity of Pace’s death, thought David. Feld, the pragmatist, was right: Fairfax had been removed from “Tortugas.”
“Then Fairfax doesn’t know.”
“Our man does. But not enough.”
“Who is he? Who’s your man in Fairfax?”
Feld gestured to his silent companion. “He doesn’t know and I won’t tell you. You may kill me but I won’t tell you.”
Spaulding knew the dark-eyed Jew spoke the truth. “If Pace was used … and me. Who’s using us?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“You know this much. You must have … thoughts. Tell me.”
“Whoever gives you orders, I imagine.”
“One man.…”
“We know. He’s not very good, is he? There are others.”
“Who? Where does it stop? State? The War Department? The White House? Where, for Christ’s sake!?”
“Such territories have no meaning in these transactions. They vanish.”
“Men don’t! Men don’t vanish!”
“Then look for those who dealt with Koening. In South Africa. Kendall’s men. They created ‘Tortugas.’ ” Asher Feld’s voice grew stronger. “That’s your affair, Colonel Spaulding. We only wish to stop it. We’ll gladly die to stop it.”
David looked at the thin-faced, sad-faced man. “It means that much? With what you know, what you believe? Is either side worth it?”
“One must have priorities. Even in lessening descent. If Peenemünde is saved … put back on schedule … the Reich has a bargaining power that is unacceptable to us. Look to Dachau; look to Auschwitz, to Belsen. Unacceptable.”
David walked around the table and stood in front of the Jews. He put his Beretta in his shoulder holster and looked at Asher Feld.
“If you’ve lied to me, I’ll kill you. And then I’ll go back to Lisbon, into the north country, and wipe out every Haganah fanatic in the hills. Those I don’t kill, I’ll expose.… Put on your coats and get out of here. Take a room at the Alvear under the name of … Pace. E. Pace. I’ll be in touch.”
“Our weapons?” asked Feld, pulling his light grey overcoat over his shoulders.
“I’ll keep them. I’m sure you can afford others.… And don’t wait for us outside. There’s an FMF vehicle cruising for me.”
“What about ‘Tortugas’?” Asher Feld was pleading.
“I said I’ll be in touch!” shouted Spaulding. “Now, get out of here!… Pick up the Hawkwood girl; she’s around the corner in the Renault. Here are the keys.” David reached in his pocket and threw the keys to Asher Feld’s companion, who caught them effortlessly. “Send her back to California. Tonight, if you can. No later than tomorrow morning. Is that clear?”
“Yes.… You will be in touch?”
“Get out of here,” said Spaulding in exhaustion.
The two Haganah agents rose from their chairs, the younger going to the unconscious third man and lifting him off the floor, onto his shoulders. Asher Feld stood in the front hallway and turned, his gaze resting momentarily on the dead bodies, then over to Spaulding.
“You and I. We must deal in priorities.… The man from Lisbon is an extraordinary man.” He turned to the door and held it open as his companion carried out the third man. He went outside, closing the door behind him.
David turned to Lyons. “Get the designs.”
37
When the assault on 15 Terraza Verde had begun, Eugene Lyons had done a remarkable thing. It was so simple it had a certain cleanliness to it, thought Spaulding. He had taken the metal container with the designs, opened his bedroom window and dropped the case five feet below into the row of tiger lilies that grew along the side of the house. The window shut, he had then run into his bathroom and locked the door.
All things considered—the shock, the panic, his own acknowledged incapacities—he had taken the least expected action: he had kept his head. He had removed the container, not trie
David followed Lyons out of the house through the kitchen door and around to the side. He took the container from the physicist’s trembling hands and helped the near-helpless man over the small fence separating the adjacent property. Together they ran behind the next two houses and cautiously edged their way toward the street. Spaulding kept his left hand extended, gripping Lyon’s shoulder, holding him against the wall, prepared to throw him to the ground at the first hint of hostilities.
Yet David was not really expecting hostilities; he was convinced the Haganah had eliminated whatever Rhinemann guards were posted in front, for the obvious reason that Asher Feld had left by the front door. What he did think was possible was a last-extremity attempt by Asher Feld to get the designs. Or the sudden emergence of a Rhinemann vehicle from some near location—a vehicle whose occupants were unable to raise a radio signal from 15 Terraza Verde.
Each possible; neither really expected.
It was too late and too soon.
What David profoundly hoped he would find, however, was a blue green sedan cruising slowly around the streets. A car with small orange insignias on the bumpers that designated the vehicle as U.S. property. Ballard’s “playground attendants”; the men from the FMF base.
It wasn’t cruising. It was stationary, on the far side of the street, its parking lights on. Three men inside were smoking cigarettes, the glows illuminating the interior. He turned to Lyons.
“Let’s go. Walk slowly, casually. The car’s over there.”
The driver and the man next to him got out of the automobile the moment Spaulding and Lyons reached the curb. They stood awkwardly by the hood, dressed in civilian clothes. David crossed the street, addressing them.
“Get in that goddamned car and get us out of here! And while you’re at it, why don’t you paint bull’s-eyes all over the vehicle? You wouldn’t be any more of a target than you are now!”
“Take it easy, buddy,” replied the driver. “We just got here.” He opened the rear door as Spaulding helped Lyons inside.
“You were supposed to be cruising, not parked like watchdogs!” David climbed in beside Lyons; the man at the far window squeezed over. The driver got behind the wheel, closed his door and started the engine. The third man remained outside. “Get him in here!” barked Spaulding.
“He’ll remain where he is, colonel,” said the man in the back seat next to Lyons. “He stays here.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Colonel Daniel Meehan, Fleet Marine Force, Naval Intelligence. And we want to know what the fuck’s going on.”
The car started up.
“You have no control over this exercise,” said David slowly, deliberately. “And I don’t have time for bruised egos. Get us to the embassy, please.”
“Screw egos! We’d like a little simple clarification! You know what the hell is going on down in our section of town? This side trip to Telmo’s just a minor inconvenience! I wouldn’t be here except your goddamned name was mentioned by that smart-ass cryp!… Jesus!”
Spaulding leaned forward on the seat, staring at Meehan. “You’d better tell me what’s going on in your section of town. And why my name gets you to Telmo.”
The marine returned the look, glancing once—with obvious distaste—at the ashen Lyons. “Why not? Your friend cleared?”
“He is now. No one more so.”
“We have three cruisers patrolling the Buenos Aires coastal zone plus a destroyer and a carrier somewhere out there.… Five hours ago we get a blue alert: prepare for a radio-radar blackout, all sea and aircraft to hold to, no movement. Forty-five minutes later there’s a scrambler from Fairfax, source four-zero. Intercept one Colonel David Spaulding, also four-zero. He’s to make contact pronto.”
“With Fairfax?”
“Only with Fairfax.… So we send a man to your address on Córdoba. He doesn’t find you but he does find a weird son of a bitch tearing up your place. He tries to take him and gets laid out.… He gets back to us a couple of hours later with creases in his head and guess who calls? Right on an open-line telephone!”
“Ballard,” answered David quietly. “The embassy cryp.”
“The smart-ass! He makes jokes and tells us to play games out at Telmo! Wait for you to decide to show.” The marine colonel shook his head in disgust.
“You said the blue alert was preparation for radar silence … and radio.”
“And all ships and planes immobilized,” interrupted Meehan. “What the hell’s coming in here? The whole goddamned General Staff? Roosevelt? Churchill? Rin-tin-tin? And what are we? The enemy!”
“It’s not what’s coming in, colonel,” said David softly. “It’s what’s going out.… What’s the time of activation?”
“It’s damn loose. Anytime during the next forty-eight hours. How’s that for a tight schedule?”
“Who’s my contact in Virginia?”
“Oh.… Here.” Meehan shifted in his seat, proffering a sealed yellow envelope that was the mark of a scrambled message. David reached across Lyons and took it.
There was the crackling static of a radio from the front seat followed by the single word “Redbird!” out of the speaker. The driver quickly picked up the dashboard microphone.
“Redbird acknowledge,” said the marine.
The static continued but the words were clear. “The Spaulding intercept. Pick him up and bring him in. Four-zero orders from Fairfax. No contact with the embassy.”
“You heard the man,” laughed Meehan. “No embassy tonight colonel.”
David was stunned. He started to object—angrily, furiously; then he stopped.… Fairfax. No Nazi, but Haganah. Asher Feld had said it. The Provisional Wing dealt in practicalities. And the most practical objective during the next forty-eight hours was to immobilize the man with the codes. Washington would not activate a radio-radar blackout without them; and an enemy submarine surfacing to rendezvous with a trawler would be picked up on the screens and blown out of the water. The Koening diamonds—the Peenemünde tools—would be sent to the bottom of the South Atlantic.
Christ! The irony, thought David. Fairfax—someone at Fairfax—was doing precisely what should be done, motivated by concerns Washington—and the aircraft companies—refused to acknowledge! It—they—had other concerns: three-quarters of them were at Spaulding’s feet. High-altitude gyroscopic designs.
David pressed his arm into Lyons’s shoulder. The emaciated scientist continued to stare straight ahead but responded to Spaulding’s touch with a hesitant nudge of his left elbow.
David shook his head and sighed audibly. He held up the yellow envelope and shrugged, placing it into his jacket pocket.
When his hand emerged it held a gun.
“I’m afraid I can’t accept those orders, Colonel Meehan.” Spaulding pointed the automatic at the marine’s head; Lyons leaned back into the seat.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Meehan jerked forward; David clicked the firing pin of the weapon into hair-release.
“Tell your man to drive where I say. I don’t want to kill you, colonel, but I will. It’s a matter of priorities.”
“You’re a goddamned double agent! That’s what Fairfax was onto!”
David sighed. “I wish it were that simple.”
Lyons’s hands trembled as he tightened the knots around Meehan’s wrists. The driver was a mile down the dirt road, bound securely, lying in the border of the tall grass. The area was rarely traveled at night. They were in the hills of Colinas Rojas.
Lyons stepped back and nodded to Spaulding.
“Get in the car.”
Lyons nodded again and started toward the automobile. Meehan rolled over and looked up at David.
“You’re dead, Spaulding. You got a firing squad on your duty sheet. You’re stupid, too. Your Nazi friends are going to lose
“They’d better,” answered David. “As to executions, there may be a number of them. Right in Washington. That’s what this is all about, colonel.… Someone’ll find you both tomorrow. If you like, you can start inching your way west. Your driver’s a mile or so down the road.… I’m sorry.”
Spaulding gave Meehan a half-felt shrug of apology and ran to the FMF automobile. Lyons sat in the front seat and when the door light spilled over his face, David saw his eyes. Was it possible that in that look there was an attempt to communicate a sense of gratitude? Or approval? There wasn’t time to speculate, so David smiled gently and spoke quietly.
“This has been terrible for you, I know.… But I can’t think what else to do. I don’t know. If you like, I’ll get you back to the embassy. You’ll be safe there.”
David started the car and drove up a steep incline—one of many—in the Colinas Rojas. He would double back on a parallel road and reach the highway within ten or fifteen minutes; he would take Lyons to an outskirts taxi and give the driver instructions to deliver the physicist to the American embassy. It wasn’t really what he wanted to do; but what else was there?
Then the words came from beside him. Words! Whispered, muffled, barely audible but clear! From the recesses of a tortured throat.
“I … stay with … you. Together.…”
Spaulding had to grip the wheel harshly for fear of losing control. The shock of the pained speech—and it was a speech for Eugene Lyons—had nearly caused him to drop his hands. He turned and looked at the scientist. In the flashing shadows he saw Lyons return his stare; the lips were set firmly, the eyes steady. Lyons knew exactly what he was doing; what they both were doing—had to do.
“All right” said David, trying to remain calm and precise. “I read you clearly. God knows I need all the help I can get. We both do. It strikes me we’ve got two powerful enemies. Berlin and Washington.”
“I don’t want any interruptions, Stoltz!” David yelled into the mouthpiece of the telephone in the small booth near Ocho Calle. Lyons was now behind the wheel of the FMF car ten yards away on the street. The motor was running. The scientist hadn’t driven in twelve years but with half-words and gestures he convinced Spaulding he would be capable in an emergency.