Franz Altmüller leaned toward Speer. “You’ve seen cages of angry ocelots in the zoo? The zookeeper can’t let them hurl themselves into the bars. I suggest you lose your benign temper far earlier than we discussed. Perhaps now.”
“That is not the way.”
“Don’t let them think you are cowed.…”
“Nor that I am cowering.” Speer interrupted his friend, the slightest trace of a smile on his lips. He stood up. “Gentlemen.”
The voices trailed off.
“Herr Altmüller speaks harshly; he does so, I’m sure, because I spoke harshly with him. That was this morning, very early this morning. There is greater perspective now; it is no time for recriminations. This is not to lessen the critical aspects of the situation, for they are great. But anger will solve nothing. And we need solutions.… Therefore, I propose to seek your assistance—the assistance of the finest industrial and military minds in the Reich. First, of course, we need to know the specifics. I shall start with Herr Vögler. As manager of Reich’s Industry, would you give us your estimate?”
Vögler was upset; he didn’t wish to be the first called. “I’m not sure I can be of much enlightenment, Herr Reichsminister. I, too, am subject to the reports given me. They have been optimistic; until the other week there was no suggestion of difficulty.”
“How do you mean, optimistic?” asked Speer.
“The quantities of bortz and carbonado diamonds were said to be sufficient. Beyond this there are the continuing experiments with lithicum, carbon and paraffin. Our intelligence tells us that the Englishman Storey at the British Museum reverified the Hannay-Moissan theories. Diamonds were produced in this fashion.”
“Who verified the Englishman?” Franz Altmüller did not speak kindly. “Had it occurred to you that such data was meant to be passed?”
“Such verification is a matter for Intelligence. I am not with Intelligence, Herr Altmüller.”
“Go on,” said Speer quickly. “What else?”
“There is an Anglo-American experiment under the supervision of the Bridgemann team. They are subjecting graphite to pressures in excess of six million pounds per square inch. So far there is no word of success.”
“Is there word of failure?” Altmüller raised his aristocratic eyebrows, his tone polite.
“I remind you again, I am not with Intelligence. I have received no word whatsoever.”
“Food for thought, isn’t it,” said Altmüller, without asking a question.
“Nevertheless,” interrupted Speer before Vögler could respond, “you had reason to assume that the quantities of bortz and carbonado were sufficient. Is that not so?”
“Sufficient. Or at least obtainable, Herr Reichsminister.”
“How so obtainable?”
“I believe General Leeb might be more knowledgeable on that subject.”
Leeb nearly dropped his ivory cigarette holder. Altmüller noted his surprise and cut in swiftly. “Why would the army ordnance officer have that information, Herr Vögler? I ask merely for my own curiosity.”
“The reports, once more. It is my understanding that the Ordnance Office is responsible for evaluating the industrial, agricultural and mineral potentials of occupied territories. Or those territories so projected.”
Ernst Leeb was not entirely unprepared. He was unprepared for Vögler’s insinuations, not for the subject. He turned to an aide, who shuffled papers top to bottom as Speer inquired.
“The Ordnance Office is under enormous pressure these days; as is your department, of course, Herr Vögler. I wonder if General Leeb has had the time …”
“We made the time,” said Leeb, his sharp military bearing pitted in counterpoint to Vögler’s burgomaster gruffness. “When we received word—from Herr Vögler’s subordinates—that a crisis was imminent—not upon us, but imminent—we immediately researched the possibilities for extrication.”
Franz Altmüller brought his hand to his mouth to cover an involuntary smile. He looked at Speer, who was too annoyed to find any humor in the situation.
“I’m relieved the Ordnance Office is so confident, general,” said Speer. The Reichsminister of Armaments had little confidence in the military and had difficulty disguising it. “Please, your extrication?”
“I said possibilities, Herr Speer. To arrive at practical solutions will take more time than we’ve been given.”
“Very well. Your possibilities?”
“There is an immediate remedy with historical precedent.” Leeb paused to remove his cigarette, crushing it out, aware that everyone around the table watched him intently. “I have taken the liberty of recommending preliminary studies to the General Staff. It involves an expeditionary force of less than four battalions.… Africa. The diamond mines east of Tanganyika.”
“What?” Altmüller leaned forward; he obviously could not help himself. “You’re not serious.”
“Please!” Speer would not allow his friend to interrupt. If Leeb had even conceived of such drastic action, it might have merit. No military man, knowing the thin line of combat strength—chewed up on the Eastern Front, under murderous assault by the Allies in Italy—could suggest such an absurdity unless he had a realistic hope of success. “Go ahead, general.”
“The Williamson Mines at Mwadui. Between the districts of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in the central sector. The mines at Mwadui produce over a million carats of the carbonado diamond annually. Intelligence—the intelligence that is forwarded regularly to me at my insistence—informs us that there are supplies going back several months. Our agents in Dar es Salaam are convinced such an incursion would be successful.”
Franz Altmüller passed a sheet of paper to Speer. On it he had scribbled: “He’s lost his senses!”
“What is the historical precedent to which you refer?” asked Speer, holding his hand over Altmüller’s paper.
“All of the districts east of Dar es Salaam rightfully belong to the Third Reich, German West Africa. They were taken from the fatherland after the Great War. The Führer himself made that clear four years ago.”
There was silence around the table. An embarrassed silence. The eyes of even his aides avoided the old soldier. Finally Speer spoke quietly.
“That is justification, not precedent, general. The world cares little for our justifications, and although I question the logistics of moving battalions halfway around the globe, you may have raised a valid point. Where else nearer … in East Africa, perhaps, can the bortz or the carbonado be found?”
Leeb looked to his aides; Wilhelm Zangen lifted his handkerchief to his nostrils and bowed his thin head in the direction of the general. He spoke as if exhaling, his high voice irritating.
“I’ll answer you, Herr Reichsminister. And then, I believe, you will see how fruitless this discussion is.… Sixty per cent of the world’s crushing-bortz diamonds are in the Belgian Congo. The two principal deposits are in the Kasai and Bakwanga fields, between the Kanshi and the Bushimaie rivers. The district’s governor-general is Pierre Ryckmans; he is devoted to the Belgian government in exile in London. I can assure Leeb that the Congo’s allegiances to Belgium are far greater than ours ever were in Dar es Salaam.”
Leeb lit a cigarette angrily. Speer leaned back in his chair and addressed Zangen.
“All right. Sixty per cent crushing-bortz; what of carbonado and the rest?”
“French Equatorial: totally allied to de Gaulle’s Free French. Ghana and Sierra Leone: the tightest of British controls. Angola: Portuguese domination and their neutrality’s inviolate; we know that beyond doubt. French West Africa: not only under Free French mandate but with Allied forces manning the outposts.… Here, there was only one possibility and we lost it a year and a half ago. Vichy abandoned the Ivory Coast.… There is no access in Africa, Reichsminister. None of a military nature.”
“I see.” Speer doodled on top of the paper Altmüller had passed to him. “You are recommending a nonmilitary solution?”
“There is no o
ther. The question is what.”
Speer turned to Franz Altmüller. His tall, blond associate was staring at them all. Their faces were blank. Baffled.
2
SEPTEMBER 11, 1943, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Brigadier General Alan Swanson got out of the taxi and looked up at the huge oak door of the Georgetown residence. The ride over the cobblestone streets had seemed like a continuous roll of hammering drums.
Prelude to execution.
Up those steps, inside that door, somewhere within that five-story brownstone and brick aristocratic home, was a large room. And inside that room thousands of executions would be pronounced, unrelated to any around the table within that room.
Prelude to annihilation.
If the schedules were kept. And it was inconceivable that they would be altered.
Wholesale murder.
In line with his orders he glanced up and down the street to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Asinine! CIC had all of them under constant surveillance. Which of the pedestrians or slowly moving automobiles had him in their sights? It didn’t matter; the choice of the meeting place was asinine, too. Did they really believe they could keep the crisis a secret? Did they think that holding conferences in secluded Georgetown houses would help?
Asses!
He was oblivious to the rain; it came down steadily, in straight lines. An autumn rainstorm in Washington. His raincoat was open, the jacket of his uniform damp and wrinkled. He didn’t give a damn about such things; he couldn’t think about them.
The only thing he could think about was packaged in a metal casing no more than seven inches wide, five high, and perhaps a foot long. It was designed for those dimensions; it had the appearance of sophisticated technology; it was tooled to operate on the fundamental properties of inertia and precision.
And it wasn’t functional; it didn’t work.
It failed test after test.
Ten thousand high-altitude B-17 bomber aircraft were emerging from production lines across the country. Without high-altitude, radio-beam gyroscopes to guide them, they might as well stay on the ground!
And without those aircraft, Operation Overlord was in serious jeopardy. The invasion of Europe would extract a price so great as to be obscene.
Yet to send the aircraft up on massive, round-the-clock, night and day bombing strikes throughout Germany without the cover of higher altitudes was to consign the majority to destruction, their crews to death. Examples were constant reminders … whenever the big planes soared too high. The labels of pilot error, enemy fire and instrument fatigue were not so. It was the higher altitudes.… Only twenty-four hours ago a squadron of bombers on the Bremerhaven run had scrambled out of the strike, exacting the maximum from their aircraft, and regrouped far above oxygen levels. From what could be determined, the guidance systems went crazy; the squadron ended up in the Dunbar sector near the Scottish border. All but one plane crashed into the sea. Three survivors were picked up by coastal patrols. Three out of God knows how many that had made it out of Bremerhaven. The one aircraft that attempted a ground landing had blown up on the outskirts of a town.… No survivors.
Germany was in the curve of inevitable defeat, but it would not die easily. It was ready for counterstrike. The Russian lesson had been learned; Hitler’s generals were prepared. They realized that ultimately their only hope for any surrender other than unconditional lay in their ability to make the cost of an Allied victory so high it would stagger imagination and sicken the conscience of humanity.
Accommodation would then be reached.
And that was unacceptable to the Allies. Unconditional surrender was now a tripartite policy; the absolute had been so inculcated that it dared not be tampered with. The fever of total victory had swept the lands; the leaders had shaped that, too. And at this pitch of frenzy, the leaders stared into blank walls seeing nothing others could see and said heroically that losses would be tolerated.
Swanson walked up the steps of the Georgetown house. As if on cue, the door opened, a major saluted and Swanson was admitted quickly. Inside the hallway were four noncommissioned officers in paratroop leggings standing at ready-at-ease; Swanson recognized the shoulder patches of the Ranger battalions. The War Department had set the scene effectively.
A sergeant ushered Swanson into a small, brass-grilled elevator. Two stories up the elevator stopped and Swanson stepped out into the corridor. He recognized the face of the colonel who stood by a closed door at the end of the short hallway. He could not recall his name, however. The man worked in Clandestine Operations and was never much in evidence. The colonel stepped forward, saluting.
“General Swanson? Colonel Pace.”
Swanson nodded his salute, offering his hand instead. “Oh, yes. Ed Pace, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So they pulled you out of the cellars. I didn’t know this was your territory.”
“It’s not, sir. Just that I’ve had occasion to meet the men you’re seeing. Security clearances.”
“And with you here they know we’re serious.” Swanson smiled.
“I’m sure we are, but I don’t know what we’re serious about.”
“You’re lucky. Who’s inside?”
“Howard Oliver from Meridian. Jonathan Craft from Packard. And the lab man, Spinelli, from ATCO.”
“They’ll make my day; I can’t wait. Who’s presiding? Christ, there should be one person on our side.”
“Vandamm.”
Swanson’s lips formed a quiet whistle; the colonel nodded in agreement. Frederic Vandamm was Undersecretary of State and rumored to be Cordell Hull’s closest associate. If one wanted to reach Roosevelt, the best way was through Hull; if that avenue was closed, one pursued Vandamm.
“That’s impressive artillery,” Swanson said.
“When they saw him, I think he scared the hell out of Craft and Oliver. Spinelli’s in a perpetual daze. He’d figure Patton for a doorman.”
“I don’t know Spinelli, except by rep. He’s supposed to be the best gyro man in the labs.… Oliver and Craft I know too well. I wish to hell you boys had never cleared them for road maps.”
“Not much you can do when they own the roads, sir.” The colonel shrugged. It was obvious he agreed with Swanson’s estimate.
“I’ll give you a clue, Pace. Craft’s a social-register flunky. Oliver’s the bad meat.”
“He’s got a lot of it on him,” replied the colonel, laughing softly.
Swanson took off his raincoat. “If you hear gunfire, colonel, it’s only me fooling around. Walk the other way.”
“I accept that as an order, general. I’m deaf,” answered Pace as he reached for the handle and opened the door swiftly for his superior.
Swanson walked rapidly into the room. It was a library with the furniture pushed back against the walls and a conference table placed in the center. At the head of the table sat the white-haired, aristocratic Frederic Vandamm. On his left was the obese, balding Howard Oliver, a sheaf of notes in front of him. Opposite Oliver were Craft and a short, dark, bespectacled man Swanson assumed was Gian Spinelli.
The empty chair at the end of the table, facing Vandamm, was obviously for him. It was good positioning on Vandamm’s part.
“I’m sorry to be late, Mr. Undersecretary. A staff car would have prevented it. A taxi wasn’t the easiest thing to find.… Gentlemen?”
The trio of corporate men nodded; Craft and Oliver each uttered a muted “General.” Spinelli just stared from behind the thick lenses of his glasses.
“I apologize, General Swanson,” said Vandamm in the precise, Anglicized speech that bespoke a background of wealth. “For obvious reasons we did not want this conference to take place in a government office, nor, if known, did we wish any significance attached to the meeting itself. These gentlemen represent War Department gossip, I don’t have to tell you that. The absence of urgency was desirable. Staff cars speeding through Washington—don’t ask me why, but they never seem to slow
down—have a tendency to arouse concern. Do you see?”
Swanson returned the old gentleman’s veiled look. Vandamm was a smart one, he thought. It was an impetuous gamble referring to the taxi, but Vandamm had understood. He’d picked it up and used it well, even impartially.
The three corporate men were on notice. At this conference, they were the enemy.
“I’ve been discreet, Mr. Undersecretary.”
“I’m sure you have. Shall we get down to points? Mr. Oliver has asked that he be permitted to open with a general statement of Meridian Aircraft’s position.”
Swanson watched the heavy-jowled Oliver sort out his notes. He disliked Oliver intensely; there was a fundamental gluttony about him. He was a manipulator; there were so many of them these days. They were everywhere in Washington, piling up huge sums of money from the war; proclaiming the power of the deal, the price of the deal, the price of the power—which they held.
Oliver’s rough voice shot out from his thick lips. “Thank you. It’s our feeling at Meridian that the … assumed gravity of the present situation has obscured the real advancements that have been made. The aircraft in question has proved beyond doubt its superior capabilities. The new, improved Fortress is ready for operational combat; it’s merely a question of desired altitudes.”
Oliver abruptly stopped and put his obese hands in front of him, over his papers. He had finished his statement; Craft nodded in agreement. Both men looked noncommittally at Vandamm. Gian Spinelli simply stared at Oliver, his brown eyes magnified by his glasses.
Alan Swanson was astounded. Not necessarily by the brevity of the statement but by the ingenuousness of the lie.
“If that’s a position statement, I find it wholly unacceptable. The aircraft in question has not proved its capabilities until it’s operational at the altitudes specified in the government contracts.”
“It’s operational,” replied Oliver curtly.
“Operational. Not functional, Mr. Oliver. It is not functional until it can be guided from point A to point B at the altitudes called for in the specifications.”
The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel Page 5
