The Rhinemann Exchange (52 page)

The left hand caught; the right slipped off. But it was enough.

He raised himself to the railing, his chest scraping against the rough, weathered hull until spots of blood emerged on his skin. He looped his left arm over the side and removed the pistol from his mouth. He was—as he hoped he would be—at the midpoint between the fore and aft cabins, the expanse of wall concealing him from the guards on the loading dock.

He silently rolled over the gunwale onto the narrow deck and took the necessary crouching steps to the cabin wall. He pressed his back into the wooden slats and slowly stood up. He inched his way toward the first aft porthole; the light from within was partially blocked by a primitive curtain of sorts, pulled back as if parted for the night air. The second porthole farther down had no such obstruction, but it was only feet from the edge of the wall; there was the possibility that a sentry—unseen from the water—might be stern watch there. He would see whatever there was to see in the first window.

His wet cheek against the rotted rubber surrounding the porthole, he looked inside. The “curtain” was a heavy sheet of black tarpaulin folded back at an angle. Beyond, the light was as he had pictured it: a single bulb suspended from the ceiling by a thick wire—a wire that ran out a port window to a pier outlet Ship generators were not abused while at dock. There was an odd-shaped, 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 MINES, LTD.

He’d seen it now. The undeniable, the irrefutable.

Tortugas.

The obscene exchange 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 Peenemünde scientists were not only clinically isolated, 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 millimeter, the side of his face against the wood, looked around the corner.

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 toward 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 harbor driftwood, perhaps, slapping against the hull, caught in the push-pull of the current.

The guard rounded the corner; 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. Instead, he wedged his pistol into his trousers, reached down to the scabbard on the guard’s waist, and 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.

“
Español
or
Deutsche?
”

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 eyeball.

“
Deutsch?
”

The man nodded.

Of course he was German, thought Spaulding. And Nazi. The clothes, the hair. Peenemünde
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 … Altmüller, Franz Altmüller! They must open the door and sign for it.… Do it! Now! 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.

“
Now!
” 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 Altmüller’s name.

A small, middle-aged man got out of the left lower bunk and walked sleepily to the steel door. He was in under-shorts, nothing else. David propelled the guard around the corner of the wall and reached the door at the sound of the sliding bolt.

He slammed 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, yanked out his pistol, and crashed the barrel into the skull of the small scientist.

“
Schweigen!
” he whispered hoarsely. “
Wenn Ihnen Ihr 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 middle-aged 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 alternative.”

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-Anführer;
always take the German leader.

The taller Peenemünde scientist walked—every step in fear—to the far corner 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 lid!” commanded Spaulding, his anxiety causing 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 Peenemünde. 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:

echt

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.

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 simultaneously 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 floor! He
had discarded the goddamned
bayonet!
The guard had revived and
taken
the goddamned
bayonet!

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?”