The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “It’s preparation time, sir. We should be airborne in twenty minutes. Can I help you with anything?”

  “I haven’t got anything, lieutenant. Whatever I had is in that mass of burnt rubble in the south forty.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Better it than me.… I’ll be right with you.” David turned to Ballantyne and Hollander, shaking their hands.

  As he said his last good-bye to Hollander, he saw it in the agent’s eyes.

  Hollander was hiding something.

  The British naval commander opened the screen door of the gazebo and walked in. Paul Hollander rose from the deck chair.

  “Did you bring it?” he asked the officer.

  “Yes.” The commander placed his attaché case on the single wrought iron table and snapped up the hasps. He took out an envelope and handed it to the American. “The photo lab did a rather fine job. Well lighted, front and rear views. Almost as good as having the real item.”

  Hollander unwound the string on the envelope’s flap and removed a photograph. It was an enlargement of a small medallion, a star with six points.

  It was the Star of David.

  In the center of the face was the scrolled flow of a Hebrew inscription. On the back was the bas-relief of a knife with a streak of lightning intersecting the blade.

  “The Hebrew spells out the name of a prophet named Haggai; he’s the symbol of an organization of Jewish fanatics operating out of Palestine. They call themselves the Haganah. Their business, they claim, is vengeance—two thousand years’ worth. We anticipate quite a bit of trouble from them in the years to come; they’ve made that clear, I’m afraid.”

  “But you say it was welded to the bottom main strut of the rear cabin.”

  “In such a way as to escape damage from all but a direct explosion. Your aircraft was blown up by the Haganah.”

  Hollander sat down, staring at the photograph. He looked up at the British commander. “Why? For God’s sake, why?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Neither can Fairfax. I don’t think they even want to acknowledge it. They want it buried.”

  14

  DECEMBER 27, 1943, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  When the words came over his intercom in the soft, compensating voice of the WAC lieutenant who was his secretary, Swanson knew it was no routine communication.

  “Fairfax on line one, sir. It’s Colonel Pace. He says to interrupt you.”

  Since delivering David Spaulding’s file, the Fairfax commander had been reluctant to call personally. He hadn’t spoken of his reluctance, he simply relegated messages to subordinates. And since they all concerned the progress of getting Spaulding out of Portugal, Pace’s point was clear: he would expedite but not personally acknowledge his participation.

  Edmund Pace was still not satisfied with the murky “highest priority” explanations regarding his man in Lisbon. He would follow orders once-removed.

  “General, there’s a radio emergency from Lajes Field in Terceira,” said Pace urgently.

  “What the hell does that mean? Where?”

  “Azores. The B-17 carrier with Spaulding on it was sabotaged. Blown up on takeoff.”

  “Jesus!”

  “May I suggest you come out here, sir?”

  “Is Spaulding dead?”

  “Preliminary reports indicate negative, but I don’t want to guarantee anything. Everything’s unclear. I wanted to wait till I had further confirmations but I can’t now. An unexpected development. Please, come out, general.”

  “On my way. Get the information on Spaulding!”

  Swanson gathered the papers on his desk—the information from Kendall—that had to be clipped together, sealed in a thin metal box and locked in a file cabinet with two combinations and a key.

  If there was ever a reason for total security, it was symbolized by those papers.

  He spun the two combination wheels, turned the key and then thought for a second that he might reverse the process and take the papers with him.… No, that was unsound. They were safer in the cabinet. A file cabinet riveted to the floor was better than a cloth pocket on a man who walked in the street and drove in automobiles. A file cabinet could not have accidents; was not subject to the frailties of a tired, fifty-three-year-old brigadier.

  He saluted the guard on duty at the entrance and walked rapidly down the steps to the curb. His driver was waiting, alerted by the WAC secretary, whose efficiency overcame her continuous attempts to be more than an efficient secretary to him. He knew that one day when the pressures became too much, he’d ask her in, lock the door and hump the ass off her on the brown leather couch.

  Why was he thinking about his secretary? He didn’t give a goddamn about the WAC lieutenant who sat so protectively outside his office door.

  He sat back in the seat and removed his hat. He knew why he thought about his secretary: it gave him momentary relief. It postponed thoughts about the complications that may or may not have exploded on a runway in the Azores.

  Oh Christ! The thought of rebuilding what he’d managed to put together was abhorrent to him. To go back, to reconstruct, to research for the right man was impossible. It was difficult enough for him to go over the details as they now stood.

  The details supplied by the sewer rat.

  Kendall.

  An enigma. An unattractive puzzle even G-2 couldn’t piece together. Swanson had run a routine check on him, based on the fact that the accountant was privy to Meridian’s aircraft contracts; the Intelligence boys and Hoover’s tight-lipped maniacs had returned virtually nothing but names and dates. They’d been instructed not to interview Meridian personnel or anyone connected with ATCO or Packard; orders that apparently made their task close to impossible.

  Kendall was forty-six, severely asthmatic and a CPA. He was unmarried, had few if any friends and lived two blocks from his firm, which he solely owned, in mid-Manhattan.

  The personal evaluations were fairly uniform: Kendall was a disagreeable, antisocial individualist who happened to be a brilliant statistician.

  The dossier might have told a desolate story—paternal abandonment, lack of privilege, the usual—but it didn’t. There was no indication of poverty, no record of deprivation or hardship anywhere near that suffered by millions, especially during the Depression years.

  No records of depth on anything, for that matter.

  An enigma.

  But there was nothing enigmatic about Walter Kendall’s “details” for Buenos Aires. They were clarity itself. Kendall’s sense of manipulation had been triggered; the challenge stimulated his already primed instincts for maneuvering. It was as if he had found the ultimate “deal”—and indeed, thought Swanson, he had.

  The operation was divided into three isolated exercises: the arrival and inspection of the diamond shipment; the simultaneous analysis of the gyroscopic blueprints, as they, too, arrived; and the submarine transfer. The crates of bortz and carbonado from the Koening mines would be secretly cordoned off in a warehouse in the Dársena Norte district of the Puerto Nuevo. The Germans assigned to the warehouse would report only to Erich Rhinemann.

  The aerophysicist, Eugene Lyons, would be billeted in a guarded apartment in the San Telmo district, an area roughly equivalent to New York’s Gramercy Park—rich, secluded, ideal for surveillance. As the step-blueprints were delivered, he would report to Spaulding.

  Spaulding would precede Lyons to Buenos Aires and be attached to the embassy on whatever pretext Swanson thought feasible. His assignment—as Spaulding thought it to be—was to coordinate the purchase of the gyroscopic designs, and if their authenticity was confirmed, authorize payment. This authorization would be made by a code radioed to Washington that supposedly cleared a transfer of funds to Rhinemann in Switzerland.

  Spaulding would then stand by at a mutually agreedupon airfield, prepared to be flown out of Argentina. He would be given airborne clearance when Rhinemann received word that “payment�
� had been made.

  In reality, the code sent by Spaulding was to be a signal for the German submarine to surface at a prearranged destination at sea and make rendezvous with a small craft carrying the shipment of diamonds. Ocean and air patrols would be kept out of the area; if the order was questioned—and it was unlikely—the cover story of the underground defectors would be employed.

  When the transfer at sea was made, the submarine would radio confirmation—Rhinemann’s “payment.” It would dive and start its journey back to Germany. Spaulding would then be cleared for takeoff to the United States.

  These safeguards were the best either side could expect. Kendall was convinced he could sell the operation to Erich Rhinemann. He and Rhinemann possessed a certain objectivity lacking in the others.

  Swanson did not dispute the similarity; it was another viable reason for Kendall’s death.

  The accountant would fly to Buenos Aires in a week and make the final arrangements with the German expatriate. Rhinemann would be made to understand that Spaulding was acting as an experienced courier, a custodian for the eccentric Eugene Lyons—a position Kendall admitted was desirable. But Spaulding was nothing else. He was not part of the diamond transfer; he knew nothing of the submarine. He would provide the codes necessary for the transfer, but he’d never know it. There was no way he could learn of it.

  Airtight, ironclad: acceptable.

  Swanson had read and reread Kendall’s “details”; he could not fault them. The ferret-like accountant had reduced an enormously complicated negotiation to a series of simple procedures and separate motives. In a way Kendall had created an extraordinary deception. Each step had a checkpoint, each move a countermove.

  And Swanson would add the last deceit: David Spaulding would kill Erich Rhinemann.

  Origin of command: instructions from Allied Central Intelligence. By the nature of Rhinemann’s involvement, he was too great a liability to the German underground. The former man in Lisbon could employ whatever methods he thought best. Hire the killers, do it himself; whatever the situation called for. Just make sure it was done.

  Spaulding would understand. The shadow world of agents and double agents had been his life for the past several years. David Spaulding—if his dossier was to be believed—would accept the order for what it was: a reasonable, professional solution.

  If Spaulding was alive.

  Oh, Christ! What had happened? Where was it? Lapess, Lajes. Some goddamned airfield in the Azores! Sabotage. Blown up on takeoff!

  What the hell did it mean?

  The driver swung off the highway onto the back Virginia road. They were fifteen minutes from the Fairfax compound; Swanson found himself sucking his lower lip between his teeth. He had actually bitten into the soft tissue; he could taste a trickle of blood.

  “We have further information,” said Colonel Edmund Pace, standing in front of a photograph map frame. The map was the island of Terceira in the Azores. “Spaulding’s all right. Shaken up, of course. Minor sutures, bruises; nothing broken, though. I tell you he pulled off a miracle. Pilot, copilot, a crewman: all dead. Only survivors were Spaulding and a rear aerial gunner who probably won’t make it.”

  “Is he mobile? Spaulding?”

  “Yes. Hollander and Ballantyne are with him now. I assumed you wanted him out.…”

  “Jesus, yes,” interrupted Swanson.

  “I got him on a Newfoundland transfer. Unless you want to switch orders, a coastal patrol flight will pick him up there and bring him south. Mitchell Field.”

  “When will he get in?”

  “Late tonight, weather permitting. Otherwise, early morning. Shall I have him flown down here?”

  Swanson hesitated. “No.… Have a doctor at Mitchell give him a thorough going-over. But keep him in New York. If he needs a few days’ rest, put him up at a hotel. Otherwise, everything remains.”

  “Well …” Pace seemed slightly annoyed with his superior. “Someone’s going to have to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “His papers. Everything we prepared went up with the plane. They’re a packet of ashes.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I didn’t think about that.” Swanson walked away from Pace to the chair in front of the stark, plain desk. He sat down.

  The colonel watched the brigadier. He was obviously concerned with Swanson’s lack of focus, his inadequate concentration. “We can prepare new ones easily enough, that’s no problem.”

  “Good. Do that, will you? Then have someone meet him at Mitchell and give them to him.”

  “O.K.… But it’s possible you may want to change your mind.” Pace crossed to his desk chair but remained standing.

  “Why? About what?”

  “Whatever it is.… The plane was sabotaged, I told you that. If you recall, I asked you to come out here because of an unexpected development.”

  Swanson stared up at his subordinate. “I’ve had a difficult week. And I’ve told you the gravity of this project. Now, don’t play Fairfax games with me. I make no claims of expertise in your field. I asked only for assistance; ordered it, if you like. Say what you mean without the preamble, please.”

  “I’ve tried to give you that assistance.” Pace’s tone was rigidly polite. “It’s not easy, sir. And I’ve just bought you twelve hours to consider alternatives. That plane was blown up by the Haganah.”

  “The what?”

  Pace explained the Jewish organization operating out of Palestine. He watched Swanson closely as he did so.

  “That’s insane! It doesn’t make sense! How do you know?”

  “The first thing an inspection team does at the site of sabotage is to water down, pick over debris, look for evidence that might melt from the heat, or burn, if explosives are used. It’s a preliminary check and it’s done fast.… A Haganah medallion was found riveted to the tail assembly. They wanted full credit.”

  “Good God! What did you say to the Azores people?”

  “I bought you a day, general. I instructed Hollander to minimize any connection, keep it away from Spaulding. Frankly, to imply coincidence if the subject got out of hand. The Haganah is independent, fanatic. Most Zionist organizations won’t touch it. They call it a group of savages.”

  “How could it get out of hand?” Swanson was disturbed on another level.

  “I’m sure you’re aware that the Azores are under British control. An old Portuguese treaty gives them the right to military installations.”

  “I know that,” said Swanson testily.

  “The British found the medallion.”

  “What will they do?”

  “Think about it. Eventually make a report to Allied Central.”

  “But you know about it now.”

  “Hollander’s a good man. He does favors; gets favors in return.”

  Swanson got out of the chair and walked aimlessly around it. “What do you think, Ed? Was it meant for Spaulding?” He looked at the colonel.

  The expression on Pace’s face let Swanson know that Pace was beginning to understand his anxiety. Not so much about the project—that was out of bounds and he accepted it—but that a fellow officer was forced to deal in an area he was out-of-sync with; territory he was not trained to cross. At such times a decent army man had sympathy.

  “All I can give you are conjectures, very loose, not even good guesses.… It could be Spaulding. And even if it was, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s connected with your project.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what Spaulding’s field activities have been. Not specifically. And the Haganah is filled with psychopaths—deadly variety. They’re about as rational as Julius Streicher’s units. Spaulding may have had to kill a Portuguese or Spanish Jew. Or use one in a ‘cover trap.’ In a Catholic country that’s all a Haganah cell would need.… Or it could be someone else on the plane. An officer or crewman with an anti-Zionist relative, especially a Jewish anti-Zionist relative. I’d have to run a check.… Unless you’d read the book,
you couldn’t possibly understand those kikes.”

  Swanson remained silent for several moments. When he spoke he did so acknowledging Pace’s attitude. “Thank you.… But it probably isn’t any of those things, is it? I mean, Spanish Jews or ‘cover traps’ or some pilot’s uncle … it’s Spaulding.”

  “You don’t know that. Speculate, sure; don’t assume.”

  “I can’t understand how.” Swanson sat down again, thinking aloud, really. “All things considered …” His thought drifted off into silence.

  “May I make a suggestion?” Pace went to his chair. It was no time to talk down to a bewildered superior.

  “By all means,” said Swanson, looking over at the colonel, his eyes conveying gratitude to this hard-nosed, confident Intelligence man.

  “I’m not cleared for your project and, let’s face it, I don’t want to be. It’s a DW exercise, and that’s where it belongs. I said a few minutes ago that you should consider alternatives … maybe you should. But only if you see a direct connection. I watched you and you didn’t.”

  “Because there isn’t any.”

  “You’re not involved—and even I don’t see how, considering what I do know from the probe and Johannesburg—with the concentration camps? Auschwitz? Belsen?”

  “Not even remotely.”

  Pace leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “Those are Haganah concerns. Along with the ‘Spanish Jews’ and ‘cover traps.’ … Don’t make any new decisions now, general. You’d be making them too fast, without supportive cause.”

  “Support.… ” Swanson looked incredulous. “A plane was blown up. Men were killed!”

  “And a medallion could be planted on a tail assembly by anyone. It’s quite possible you’re being tested.”

  “By whom?”

  “I couldn’t answer that. Warn Spaulding; it’ll strike him as funny, he was on that aircraft. But let my man at Mitchell Field tell him there could be a recurrence; to be careful.… He’s been there, general. He’ll handle himself properly.… And in the meantime, may I also suggest you look for a replacement.”

  “A replacement?”

  “For Spaulding. If there is a recurrence, it could be successful. He’d be taken out.”