The Rhinemann Exchange (60 page)

David had forgotten. The British medic in the Azores—centuries ago—had taken a lot of criticism from his professional brothers. Misdirected; his orders had been to get the American officer out of Lajes Field within the hour.

Spaulding inched his way stiffly into a sitting position, aided gently by the two Haganah men.

“Rhinemann is dead,” he said simply. “Rhinemann the pig is gone. There’ll be no more negotiations. Tell your people.”

“Thank you,” said Asher Feld.

They drove in silence for several minutes. The searchlights of the small airfield could be seen now; they were shafting their beams into the night sky.

Feld spoke. “The designs are in the aircraft. Our men are standing guard.… I’m sorry you have to fly out tonight. It would be simpler if the pilot were alone. But that’s not possible.”

“It’s what I was sent down here for.”

“It’s a bit more complicated, I’m afraid. You’ve been through a great deal, you’ve been wounded severely. By all
rights, you should be hospitalized.… But that will have to wait.”

“Oh?” David understood that Feld had something to say that even this pragmatic Jew found difficult to put into words. “You’d better tell me.…”

“You’ll have to deal with this in your
own
way, colonel,” interrupted Feld. “You see … the men in Washington do not expect you on that plane. They’ve ordered your execution.”

Brigadier General Alan Swanson, lately of the War Department, had committed suicide. Those who knew him said the pressures of his job. the immense logistics he was called upon to expedite daily, had become too much for this dedicated, patriotic officer. They also served who, far behind the lines, primed the machinery of war with all the selfless energy they possessed.

In Fairfax, Virginia, at the huge, security-conscious compound that held the secrets of Allied Central Intelligence, a lieutenant colonel named Ira Barden disappeared. Simply disappeared; substance one day, vapor the next. With him went a number of highly classified files from the vaults. What bewildered those who knew about them was the information these files contained. In the main they were personal dossiers of ranking Nazis involved with the concentration camps. Not the sort of intelligence data a defector would steal. Ira Barden’s own dossier was pulled and placed in the archives. Regrets were sent to his family; Lieutenant Colonel Barden was MOA. Missing while on assignment. Strange, but the family never insisted upon an investigation. Which was their right, after all.… Strange.

A cryptographer in Lisbon, a man named Marshall, was found in the hills of the Basque country. He had been wounded in a border skirmish and nursed back to health by partisans. The reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated as intended. German Intelligence was onto him. For the time being, however, he was confined to the embassy and returned to duty. He had sent a personal message to an old friend he thought might be concerned; to Colonel David Spaulding. The message was amusing, in an oddly phrased way. He wanted Spaulding to know there
were no hard feelings about the colonel’s vacation in South America. The cryp had taken a vacation, too. There were codes that had to be broken—if they could be found. They both should plan better in the future; they should get together on vacations. Good friends should always do that.

There was another cryptographer. In Buenos Aires. One Robert Ballard. The State Department was very high on Ballard these days. The Buenos Aires cryptographer had spotted an enormous error in a scrambler and had taken the personal initiative to not only question it, but to refuse to
authenticate
it. Through a series of grave misunderstandings and faulty intelligence, an order for the on-sight execution of Colonel Spaulding had been issued by the War Department. Code: treason. Defection to the enemy while on assignment. It took a great deal of courage on Ballard’s part to refuse to acknowledge so high priority a command. And State was never averse to embarrassing the Department of War.

The aerophysicist, Eugene Lyons, Ph.D., was flown back to Pasadena. Things … things had happened to Doctor Lyons. He was offered and accepted a lucrative, meaningful contract with Sperry Rand’s Pacific laboratories, the finest in the country. He had entered a Los Angeles hospital for throat surgery—prognosis: sixty-forty in his favor, if the will was there.… It was. And there was something else about Lyons. On the strength of his contract he had secured a bank loan and was building an oddly shaped, Mediterranean-style house in a peaceful section of the San Fernando Valley.

Mrs. Jean Cameron returned to the Eastern Shore of Maryland—for two days. The State Department, at the personal behest of Ambassador Henderson Granville in Buenos Aires, issued a letter of commendation to Mrs. Cameron. Although her status was not official, her presence at the embassy had been most valuable. She had kept open lines of communication with diverse factions within the neutral city; lines of communication often jeopardized by diplomatic necessities. Officials at State decided to present Mrs. Cameron with the letter in a small ceremony, presided over by a prominent undersecretary. State was somewhat surprised to learn that Mrs. Cameron could not be reached at her family home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She was in Washington. At the Shoreham Hotel.
The Shoreham was where Colonel David Spaulding was registered.… More than a coincidence, perhaps, but in no way would it interfere with the letter of commendation. Not these days. Not in Washington.

Colonel David Spaulding looked up at the light brown stone and square pillars of the War Department. He pulled at his army overcoat, adjusting the heavy cloth over the sling on his arm underneath. It was the last time he would wear a uniform or enter this building. He started up the steps.

It was curious, he mused. He had been back for nearly three weeks, and every day, every night he had thought about the words he was going to say this afternoon. The fury, the revulsion … the waste. Resentments for a lifetime. But life would go on and in some curious way the violent emotions had crested. He felt only a weariness now, an exhaustion that demanded that he get it over with and return to something of value. Somewhere.

With Jean.

He knew the men of “Tortugas” could not be reached with words. Words of conscience had lost meaning for such men. As they had so often lost meaning for him. That, too, was one of their crimes: they had stolen … decency. From so many. For so little.

Spaulding left his overcoat in the outer office and walked into the small conference room. They were there, the men of “Tortugas.”

Walter Kendall.

Howard Oliver.

Jonathan Craft.

None got up from the table. All were silent. Each stared at him. The looks were mixtures of hate and fear—so often inseparable.

They were prepared to fight, to protest … to salvage. They had held their
discussions
, they had arrived at
strategies.

They were so obvious, thought David.

He stood at the end of the table, reached into his pocket and took out a handful of carbonado diamonds. He threw them on the hard surface of the table; the tiny nuggets clattered and rolled.

The men of “Tortugas” remained silent. They shifted their eyes to the stones, then back to Spaulding.

“The Koening transfer,” said David. “The tools for Peenemünde. I wanted you to see them.”

Howard Oliver exhaled a loud, impatient breath and spoke in practiced condescension. “We have no idea what …”

“I know,” interrupted Spaulding firmly. “You’re busy men. So let’s dispense with unnecessary conversation; as a matter of fact, there’s no reason for you to talk at all. Just listen. I’ll be quick. And you’ll always know where to reach me.”

David put his left hand into his arm sling and pulled out an envelope. It was an ordinary business envelope; sealed, thick. He placed it carefully on the table and continued.

“This is the history of ‘Tortugas.’ From Geneva to Buenos Aires. From Peenemünde to a place called Ocho Calle. From Pasadena to a street.… Terraza Verde. It’s an ugly story. It raises questions I’m not sure should be raised right now. Perhaps ever. For the sake of so much sanity … everywhere.

“But that’s up to you here at this table.… There are several copies of this … this indictment. I won’t tell you where and you’ll never be able to find out. But they exist. And they’ll be released in a way that will result in simultaneous headlines in New York and London and Berlin. Unless you do exactly as I say.…

“Don’t protest, Mr. Kendall. It’s useless.… This war is won. The killing will go on for a while but we’ve won it. Peenemünde hasn’t been idle; they’ve scoured the earth. A few thousand rockets will be built, a few thousand killed. Nowhere near what they conceived of. Or needed. And our aircraft will blow up half of Germany; we’ll be the victors now. And that’s how it should be. What must come after the killing is the healing. And you gentlemen will dedicate the rest of your natural lives to it. You will sever all connections with your companies; you will sell all your holdings above a bare subsistence level—as defined by the national economic guidelines—donating the proceeds to charities—anonymously but with substantiation. And you will offer your considerable talents to a grateful government—in exchange for government salaries.

“For the rest of your lives you will be skilled government clerks. And that is all you’ll be.

“You have sixty days to comply with these demands. Incidentally, since you ordered my execution once, you should know that part of our contract is my well-being. And the well-being of those close to me, of course.

“Lastly, because it occurred to me that you might wish to recruit others under this contract, the indictment makes it clear that you could not have created ‘Tortugas’ alone.… Name who you will. The world is in a sorry state, gentlemen. It needs all the help it can get.”

Spaulding reached down for the envelope, picked it up and dropped it on the table. The slap of paper against wood drew all eyes to the spot.

“Consider
everything
,” said David.

The men of “Tortugas” stared in silence at the envelope. David turned, walked to the door and let himself out.

March in Washington. The air was chilly, the winds were of winter but the snows would not come.

Lieutenant Colonel David Spaulding dodged the cars as he crossed Wisconsin Avenue to the Shoreham Hotel. He was unaware that his overcoat was open; he was oblivious to the cold.

It was over! He was finished! There would be scars—deep scars—but with time.…

With Jean.…

Read on for an excerpt from Robert Ludlum’s
The Bourne Identity

1

The trawler plunged into the angry swells of the dark, furious sea like an awkward animal trying desperately to break out of an impenetrable swamp. The waves rose to goliathan heights, crashing into the hull with the power of raw tonnage; the white sprays caught in the night sky cascaded downward over the deck under the force of the night wind. Everywhere there were the sounds of inanimate pain, wood straining against wood, ropes twisting, stretched to the breaking point. The animal was dying.

Two abrupt explosions pierced the sounds of the sea and the wind and the vessel’s pain. They came from the dimly lit cabin that rose and fell with its host body. A man lunged out of the door grasping the railing with one hand, holding his stomach with the other.

A second man followed, the pursuit cautious, his intent violent. He stood bracing himself in the cabin door; he raised a gun and fired again. And again.

The man at the railing whipped both his hands up to his head, arching backward under the impact of the fourth bullet. The trawler’s bow dipped suddenly into the valley of two giant waves, lifting the wounded man off his feet; he twisted to his left, unable to take his hands away from his head. The boat surged upward, bow and midships more out of the water than in it, sweeping the figure in the doorway back into the cabin; a fifth gunshot fired wildly. The wounded man screamed, his hands now lashing out at anything he could grasp, his eyes blinded by blood and the unceasing spray of the sea. There was nothing he could grab, so he grabbed at nothing; his legs buckled as his body lurched forward. The boat rolled violently leeward and the man whose skull was ripped open plunged over the side into the madness of the darkness below.

He felt rushing cold water envelop him, swallowing him, sucking him under, and twisting him in circles, then propelling him up to the surface—only to gasp a single breath of air. A gasp and he was under again.

And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing him, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an ice-like throbbing in his stomach and his legs and his chest, oddly warmed by the cold sea around him. He felt these things, acknowledging his own panic as he felt them. He could see his own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. He could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle—yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved.