The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  She was lying again; he knew that. What they had was not love.

  She left him in the taxi; she didn’t want him to come up. Her aunt would be asleep; it was better this way.

  They’d meet again tomorrow. At the Websters’. Ten o’clock in the evening; she had a dinner date she’d get rid of early. And she’d break her engagement for the real New Year’s Eve. They’d have the whole day to themselves.

  As the doorman let her in and the taxi started up toward Fifth Avenue, he thought for the first time that Fairfax had him beginning his assignment at Meridian Aircraft the day after tomorrow. New Year’s Eve. He expected it would be a half-day.

  It was strange. New Year’s Eve. Christmas.

  He hadn’t even thought about Christmas. He’d remembered to send his parents’ gifts to Santiago, but he’d done that before his trip to the north country. To the Basque Provinces and Navarre.

  Christmas had no meaning. The Santa Clauses ringing their clinking bells on the New York streets, the decorations in the store windows—none had meaning for him.

  He was sad about that. He had always enjoyed the holidays.

  David paid the driver, said hello to the Montgomery night clerk and took the elevator to his floor. He got off and approached his door. Automatically, because his eyes were tired, he flipped his finger above the Do Not Disturb sign beneath the lock.

  Then he felt the wood and looked down, punching his cigarette lighter for better vision.

  The field thread was gone.

  Second nature and the instructions from Fairfax to stay alert had caused him to “thread” his hotel room. Strands of invisible tan and black silk placed in a half-dozen locations, that if missing or broken meant a trespasser.

  He carried no weapon and he could not know if anyone was still inside.

  He returned to the elevator and pushed the button. He asked the operator if he had a passkey; his door wouldn’t open. The man did not; he was taken to the lobby.

  The night clerk obliged, ordering the elevator operator to remain at the desk while he went to the aid of Mr. Spaulding and his difficult lock.

  As the two men walked out of the elevator and down the corridor, Spaulding heard the distinct sound of a latch being turned, snapped shut quietly but unmistakably. He rapidly turned his head in both directions, up and down the corridor, trying to locate the origin of the sound.

  Nothing but closed hotel doors.

  The desk clerk had no trouble opening the door. He had more difficulty understanding Mr. Spaulding’s arm around his shoulder, ushering him into the single room with him.

  David looked around quickly. The bathroom and closet doors were open as he had left them. There were no other places of concealment. He released the desk clerk and tipped him with a five-dollar bill.

  “Thank you very much. I’m embarrassed; I’m afraid I had too much to drink.”

  “Not at all, sir. Thank you, sir.” The man left, pulling the door shut behind him.

  David rapidly began his thread check. In the closet: his jacket breast pocket, leafed out, centered.

  No thread.

  The bureau: the first and third drawers, inserted.

  Both threads out of place. The first inside on top of a handkerchief; the second, wedged between shirts.

  The bed: laterally placed along the spread in line with the pattern.

  Nowhere. Nothing.

  He went to his suitcase, which lay on a luggage rack by the window. He knelt down and inspected the right lock; the thread had been clamped inside the metal hasp up under the tiny hinge. If the suitcase was opened, it had to break.

  It was broken, only one half remaining.

  The inside of the suitcase housed a single strand at the rear, crossing the elastic flap three fingers from the left side.

  It was gone.

  David stood up. He crossed to the bedside table and reached underneath for the telephone directory. There was no point in delay; what advantage he had was in surprise. His room had been searched professionally; he was not expected to know.

  He would get Leslie Jenner’s number, return to her apartment house and find a telephone booth near the entrance—with luck, in sight of it. He would then call her, tell her some wildly incredible story about anything and ask to see her. No mention of the search, nothing of his borne-out suspicions. Throw her off completely and listen acutely to her reaction. If she agreed to see him, all well and good. If she didn’t, he’d keep her apartment under surveillance throughout the night, if necessary.

  Leslie Jenner had a story to tell and he’d find out what it was. The man in Lisbon had not spent three years in the north provinces without gaining expertise.

  There was no Jenner at the address of the apartment building.

  There were six Jenners listed in Manhattan.

  One by one he gave the hotel switchboard the numbers, and one by one—in varying stages of sleep and anger—the replies were the same.

  No Leslie Jenner. None known.

  Spaulding hung up. He’d been sitting on the bed; he got up and walked around the room.

  He would go to the apartment building and ask the doorman. It was possible the apartment was in the aunt’s name but it wasn’t plausible. Leslie Jenner would put her name and number in the Yellow Pages, if she could; for her the telephone was an instrument of existence, not convenience. And if he went to the apartment and started asking questions, he would be announcing unreasonable concern. He wasn’t prepared to do that.

  Who was the girl at Rogers Peet? The one exchanging Christmas gifts. Cynthia? Cindy?… Cindy. Cindy Tuttle … Tottle. But not Tottle.… Bonner. Married to Paul Bonner, exchanging “dreary gifts for Paul.”

  He crossed to the bed and picked up the telephone directory.

  Paul Bonner was listed: 480 Park Avenue. The address was appropriate. He gave the number to the switchboard.

  The voice of a girl more asleep than awake answered.

  “Yes?… Hello?”

  “Mrs. Bonner?”

  “Yes. What is it? This is Mrs. Bonner.”

  “I’m David Spaulding. You saw me this afternoon at Rogers Peet; you were exchanging gifts for your husband and I was buying a suit.… Forgive me for disturbing you but it’s important. I had dinner with Leslie … Leslie Jenner; you called her. I just left her at her apartment; we were to meet tomorrow and now I find that I may not be able to. It’s foolish but I forgot to get her telephone number, and I can’t find it in the book. I wondered …”

  “Mr. Spaulding.” The girl interrupted him, her tone sharp, no longer blurred with sleep. “If this is a joke, I think it’s in bad taste. I do remember your name.… I did not see you this afternoon and I wasn’t exchanging … I wasn’t in Rogers Peet. My husband was killed four months ago. In Sicily.… I haven’t spoken to Leslie Jenner … Hawkwood, I think now … in over a year. She moved to California. Pasadena, I believe.… We haven’t been in touch. Nor is it likely we would be.”

  David heard the abrupt click of the broken connection.

  17

  DECEMBER 31, 1943, NEW YORK CITY

  It was the morning of New Year’s Eve.

  His first day of “employment” for Meridian Aircraft, Blueprint Division.

  He had stayed most of the previous day in his hotel room, going out briefly for lunch and magazines, dinner through room service, and finally a pointless taxi to Greenwich Village, where he knew he would not find Leslie Jenner at ten o’clock.

  He had remained confined for two reasons. The first was a confirmation of the Mitchell Field doctor’s diagnosis: he was exhausted. The second reason was equally important. Fairfax was running checks on Leslie Jenner Hawkwood, Cindy Tottle Bonner, and a naval officer named Jack or John Webster, whose wife was conveniently in California. David wanted this data before progressing further, and Ed Pace had promised to be as thorough as forty-eight hours allowed.

  Spaulding had been struck by Cindy Bonner’s words concerning Leslie Jenner.

  She
moved to California. Pasadena, I believe.…

  And a routine phone call to the Greenwich Village apartment’s superintendent had confirmed that, indeed, the Websters did live there; the husband was in the navy, the wife was visiting him someplace in California. The superintendent was holding the mail.

  Someplace in California.

  She moved to California.…

  Was there a connection? Or simple coincidence.

  Spaulding looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock. The morning of New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow would be 1944.

  This morning, however, he was to report to one Walter Kendall and one Eugene Lyons at Meridian’s temporary offices on Thirty-eighth Street.

  Why would one of the largest aircraft companies in the United States have “temporary” offices?

  The telephone rang. David reached for it.

  “Spaulding?”

  “Hello, Ed.”

  “I got what I could. It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. To begin with, there’s no record of a divorce between the Hawkwoods. And he is in England. Eighth Air Force, but nothing classified. He’s a pilot, Tenth Bomber Command down in Surrey.”

  “What about her living in California?”

  “Eighteen months ago she left New York and moved in with an aunt in Pasadena. Very rich aunt, married to a man named Goldsmith; he’s a banker—Social Register, polo set. From what we’ve learned—and it’s sketchy—she just likes California.”

  “O.K. What about this Webster?”

  “Checks out. He’s a gunnery officer on the Saratoga. It pulled into San Diego for combat repairs. It’s scheduled for sea duty in two weeks, and the date holds. Until then there are a lot of forty-eights, seventy-twos; no extended leaves, though. The wife Margaret joined her lieutenant a couple of days ago. She’s at the Greenbrier Hotel.”

  “Anything on the Bonners?”

  “Only what you know, except that he was a bona fide hero. Posthumous Silver Star, infantry. Killed on a scout patrol covering an ambush evacuation. Sicily invasion.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it. Obviously they all know each other, but I can’t find anything to relate to your DW assignment.”

  “But you’re not the control, Ed. You said you didn’t know what the assignment was.”

  “True. But from the fragments I do know about, I can’t find anything.”

  “My room was searched. I’m not mistaken about that.”

  “Maybe theft. Rich soldier in a rich hotel, home from an extended tour. Could be someone figured you were carrying a lot of back pay, discharge money.”

  “I doubt that. It was too pro.”

  “A lot of pros work those hotels. They wait for guys to start off on an alcoholic evening and …”

  Spaulding interrupted. “I want to follow up something.”

  “What?”

  “The Bonner girl said it ‘wasn’t likely’ she’d be in touch with Leslie Jenner, and she wasn’t kidding. That’s an odd thing to say, isn’t it? I’d like to know why she said it.”

  “Go ahead. It was your hotel room, not mine.… You know what I think? And I’ve thought about it; I’ve had to.”

  “What?”

  “That New York crowd plays a fast game of musical beds. Now, you didn’t elaborate, but isn’t it logical the lady was in New York for a few days, perhaps saw you herself, or knew someone who had, and figured, why not? I mean, what the hell, she’s headed back to California; probably never see you again.…”

  “No, it’s not logical. She was too complicated; she didn’t have to be. She was keeping me away from the hotel.”

  “Well, you were there.…”

  “I certainly was. You know, it’s funny. According to your major at Mitchell Field, you think the Azores thing was directed at me.…”

  “I said might be,” interjected Pace.

  “And I don’t. Yet here I am, convinced the other night was, and you don’t. Maybe we’re both getting tired.”

  “Maybe I’m also concerned for your source control. This Swanson, he’s very nervous; this isn’t his ball park. I don’t think he can take many more complications.”

  “Then let’s not give him any. Not now. I’ll know if I should.”

  Spaulding watched the disheveled accountant as he outlined the Buenos Aires operation. He had never met anyone quite like Walter Kendall. The man was positively unclean. His body odor was only partially disguised by liberal doses of bay rum. His shirt collar was dirty, his suit unpressed, and David was fascinated to watch the man breathe simultaneously through his mouth and nostrils. The agent in Terceira had said Eugene Lyons was “odd”; if this Kendall was “normal,” he couldn’t wait to meet the scientist.

  The Buenos Aires operation seemed simple enough, far less complicated than most of the Lisbon work. So simple, in fact, that it angered him to think he had been removed from Lisbon for it. Had anyone bothered to fill him in a few weeks ago, he could have saved Washington a lot of planning, and probably money. He had been dealing with the German underground since that organization had consolidated its diverse factions and become an effective force. If this Erich Rhinemann was capable of buying the designs, removing them from the Peenemünde complex, he—the man in Lisbon—could have gotten them out of the country. Probably with more security than trying to slip them out of North Sea or Channel ports. Those ports were clamped tight, obsessively patrolled. Had they not been, much of his own work would have been unnecessary. The only really remarkable aspect of the operation was that Rhinemann could get blueprints—on anything—related to Peenemünde. That was extraordinary. Peenemünde was a concrete and steel vault buried in the earth. With the most complex system of safeguards and backups ever devised. It would be easier to get a man out—for any number of invented reasons—than to remove a single page of paper.

  Further, Peenemünde kept its laboratories separate, vital stages coordinated by only a handful of elite scientific personnel under Gestapo check. In Buenos Aires terms, this meant that Erich Rhinemann was able to (1) reach and buy diverse laboratory heads in a systematic order; (2) circumvent or buy (impossible) the Gestapo; or (3) enlist the cooperation of those handful of scientists who crossed laboratory lines.

  David’s experience led him to disqualify the last two possibilities; there was too much room for betrayal. Rhinemann must have concentrated on the laboratory heads; that was dangerous enough but more feasible.

  As Kendall talked, David decided to keep his conclusions to himself. He would ask several questions, one or two of which he really wanted answered, but he would not form a partnership with Walter Kendall at this time. It was an easy decision to make. Kendall was one of the least likable men he’d ever met.

  “Is there any particular reason why the designs have to be delivered in stages?” Spaulding asked.

  “They may not be. But Rhinemann’s smuggling them out section by section. Everybody’s got a schedule; he says it’s safer that way. From his projections, we figure a period of a week.”

  “All right, that makes sense.… And this Lyons fellow can authenticate them?”

  “There’s no one better. I’ll get to him in a few minutes; there are a couple of things you’ll have to know. Once in Argentina, he’s your property.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “You can handle him. You’ll have help.… The point is, as soon as he’s cleared those blueprints, you send the codes and Rhinemann gets paid. Not before.”

  “I don’t understand. Why so complicated? If they check out, why not pay him off in Buenos Aires?”

  “He doesn’t want that money in an Argentine bank.”

  “It must be a bundle.”

  “It is.”

  “From what little I know of this Rhinemann, isn’t it unusual for him to be working with the German underground?”

  “He’s a Jew.”

  “Don’t tell any graduates of Auschwitz. They won’t believe you.”

  “War makes necessary relatio
nships. Look at us. We’re working with the Reds. Same thing: common goals, forget the disagreements.”

  “In this case, that’s a little cold-blooded.”

  “Their problem, not ours.”

  “I won’t pursue it.… One obvious question. Since I’m on my way to Buenos Aires, the embassy, why this stop in New York? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just rotate from Lisbon to Argentina?”

  “A last-minute decision, I’m afraid. Awkward, huh?”

  “Not too smooth. Am I on a transfer list?”

  “A what?”

  “Foreign Service transfer sheet. State Department. Military attaché.”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I’d like to find out if it’s common knowledge that I left Lisbon. Or could be common knowledge. I didn’t think it was supposed to be.”

  “Then it wasn’t. Why?”

  “So I know how to behave, that’s all.”

  “We thought you should spend a few days getting familiar with everything. Meet Lyons, me; go over the schedule. What we’re after, that sort of thing.”

  “Very considerate.” David saw the questioning look on Kendall’s face. “No, I mean that. So often we get thrown field problems knowing too little background. I’ve done it to men myself.… Then this discharge, the combat in Italy, they’re the cover for my Lisbon activities? For New York only.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s right.” Kendall, who’d been sitting on the edge of his desk, got up and walked around to his chair.

  “How far am I to carry it?”

  “Carry what?” Kendall avoided looking at David, who was leaning forward on an office couch.

  “The cover. The papers mention Fifth Army—that’s Clark; Thirty-Fourth Division, One Hundred and Twelfth Battalion, et cetera. Should I bone up? I don’t know much about the Italian Theater. Apparently I got hit beyond Salerno; are there circumstances?”

  “That’s army stuff. As far as I’m concerned you’ll be here five, six days, then Swanson will see you and send you down to Buenos Aires.”