The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

He was a little sad about Lyons. Not the man (of course the man, he reconsidered quickly, but not the man’s affliction, in this instance), but the fact that he would have little chance to develop any sense of rapport before Buenos Aires. Lyons might take his sudden absence as one more rejection in a long series. And the scientist might really need his help in Buenos Aires, at least in the area of German translation. David decided that he had to have the books Lyons selected for him; he had to have as solid a grasp of Lyons’s language as was possible.

  And then David realized where his thoughts were leading him.

  For the next few hours the safest places in New York were the Meridian offices and St. Luke’s Hospital.

  After his visits to both locations he’d get out to Mitchell Field and telephone Brigadier General Swanson.

  The answer to the violent enigma of the past seven days—from the Azores to a staircase on Thirty-eighth Street and everything in between—was in Buenos Aires.

  Swanson did not know it and could not help; Fairfax was infiltrated and could not be told. And that told him something.

  He was on his own. A man had two choices in such a dilemma: take himself out of strategy, or dig for identities and blow the covers off.

  The first choice would be denied him. The brigadier, Swanson, was paranoid on the subject of the gyroscopic designs. And Rhinemann. There’d be no out of strategy.

  That left the second: the identity of those behind the enigma.

  A feeling swept over him, one he had not experienced in several years: the fear of sudden inadequacy. He was confronted with an extraordinary problem for which there was no pat—or complicated—solution in the north country. No unraveling that came with moves or countermoves whose strategies he had mastered in Basque and Navarre.

  He was suddenly in another war. One he was not familiar with; one that raised doubts about himself.

  He saw an unoccupied taxi, its roof light dimly lit, as if embarrassed to announce its emptiness. He looked up at the street sign; he was on Sheridan Square—it accounted for the muted sounds of jazz that floated up from cellars and surged down crowded side streets. The Village was warming up for another evening.

  He raised his hand for the taxi; the driver did not see him. He started running as the cab proceeded up the street to the corner traffic light. Suddenly he realized that someone else on the other side of the square was rushing toward the empty taxi; the man was closer to it than Spaulding, his right hand was gesturing.

  It was now terribly important to David that he reach the car first. He gathered speed and ran into the street, dodging pedestrians, momentarily blocked by two automobiles that were bumper to bumper. He spread his hands from hood to trunk and jumped over into the middle of the street and continued racing toward his objective.

  Objective.

  He reached the taxi no more than half a second after the other man.

  Goddamn it! It was the obstruction of the two automobiles!

  Obstruction.

  He slammed his hand on the door panel, preventing the other man from pulling it open. The man looked up at Spaulding’s face, at Spaulding’s eyes.

  “Christ, fella. I’ll wait for another one,” the man said quickly.

  David was embarrassed. What the hell was he doing?

  The doubts? The goddamned doubts.

  “No, really, I’m terribly sorry.” He mumbled the words, smiling apologetically. “You take it. I’m in no hurry.… Sorry again.”

  He turned and walked rapidly across the street into the crowds of Sheridan Square.

  He could have had the taxi. That was the important thing.

  Jesus! The treadmill never let up.

  PART

  2

  22

  1944, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

  The Pan American Clipper left Tampa at eight in the morning, with scheduled coastline stops at Caracas, São Luís, Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro before the final twelve hundred miles to Buenos Aires. David was listed on the passenger invoice as Mr. Donald Scanlan of Cincinnati, Ohio; occupation: mining surveyor. It was a temporary cover for the journey only. “Donald Scanlan” would disappear after the clipper landed at the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires. The initials were the same as his own for the simple reason that it was so easy to forget a monogrammed gift or the first letter of a hastily written signature. Especially if one was preoccupied or tired … or afraid.

  Swanson had been close to panic when David reached him from the Mitchell Field Operations Room in New York. As a source control, Swanson was about as decisive as a bewildered bird dog. Any deviation from Kendall’s schedule—Kendall’s instructions, really—was abhorrent to him. And Kendall wasn’t even leaving for Buenos Aires until the following morning.

  David had not wasted complicated explanations on the general. As far as he was concerned, three attempts had been made on his life—at least, they could be so interpreted—and if the general wanted his “services” in Buenos Aires, he’d better get down there while he was still in one piece and functioning.

  Were the attempts—the attacks—related to Buenos Aires? Swanson had asked the question as though he were afraid to name the Argentine city.

  David was honest: there was no way to tell. The answer was in Buenos Aires. It was reasonable to consider the possibility, but not to assume it.

  “That’s what Pace said,” had been Swanson’s reply. “Consider, don’t assume.”

  “Ed was generally right about such things.”

  “He said when you operated in Lisbon, you were often involved in messy situations in the field.”

  “True. I doubt that Ed knew the particulars, though. But he was right in what he was trying to tell you. There are a lot of people in Portugal and Spain who’d rather see me dead than alive. Or at least they think they would. They could never be sure. Standard procedure, general.”

  There had been a prolonged pause on the Washington line. Finally, Swanson had said the words. “You realize, Spaulding, that we may have to replace you.”

  “Of course. You can do so right now, if you like.” David had been sincere. He wanted very much to return to Lisbon. To go into the north country. To Valdero’s. To find out about a cryp named Marshall.

  “No.… No, everything’s too far along. The designs. They’re the important thing. Nothing else matters.”

  The remainder of the conversation concerned the details of transportation, American and Argentine currency, replenishing of a basic wardrobe, and luggage. Logistics which were not in the general’s frame of reference and for which David took responsibility. The final command—request—was delivered, not by the general, but by Spaulding.

  Fairfax was not to be informed of his whereabouts. Nor was anyone else for that matter, except the embassy in Buenos Aires; but make every effort to keep the information from Fairfax.

  Why? Did Spaulding think …

  “There’s a leak in Fairfax, general. You might pass that on to the White House cellars.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Tell that to Ed Pace’s widow.”

  David looked out the Clipper window. The pilot, moments ago, had informed the passengers that they were passing over the huge coastal lake of Mirim in Uruguay. Soon they’d be over Montevideo, forty minutes from Buenos Aires.

  Buenos Aires. The unfocused picture, the blurred figures of Leslie Jenner Hawkwood, the cryptographer Marshall, a man named Franz Altmüller; strange but committed men on Fifty-second and Thirty-eighth streets—in a darkened doorway, in a building after office hours, on a staircase. A man in an elevator who was so unafraid to die. An enemy who displayed enormous courage … or misguided zealousness. A maniac.

  The answer to the enigma was in Buenos Aires, less than an hour away. The city was an hour away, the answer much longer. But no more than three weeks if his instincts were right. By the time the gyroscopic designs were delivered.

  He would begin slowly, as he always did with a new field problem. Trying first to melt into the surrou
ndings, absorb his cover; be comfortable, facile in his relationships. It shouldn’t be difficult. His cover was merely an extension of Lisbon’s: the wealthy trilingual attaché whose background, parents, and prewar associations in the fashionable centers of Europe made him a desirable social buffer for any ambassador’s dinner table. He was an attractive addition to the delicate world of a neutral capital; and if there were those who thought someone, somewhere, had used money and influence to secure him such combat-exempt employment, so be it. It was denied emphatically, but not vehemently; there was a difference.

  The “extension” for Buenos Aires was direct and afforded him top-secret classification. He was acting as a liaison between New York-London banking circles and the German expatriate Erich Rhinemann. Washington approved, of course; postwar financing in areas of reconstruction and industrial rebuilding were going to be international problems. Rhinemann could not be overlooked, not in the civilized marble halls of Berne and Geneva.

  David’s thoughts returned to the book on his lap. It was the second of six volumes Eugene Lyons had chosen for him.

  “Donald Scanlan” went through the Aeroparque customs without difficulty. Even the embassy liaison, who checked in all Americans, seemed unaware of his identity.

  His single suitcase in hand, David walked to the taxi station and stood on the cement platform looking at the drivers standing beside their vehicles. He wasn’t prepared to assume the name of Spaulding or to be taken directly to the embassy just yet. He wanted to assure himself that “Donald Scanlan” was accepted for what he was—a mining surveyor, nothing more; that there was no unusual interest in such a man. For if there were, it would point to David Spaulding, Military Intelligence, Fairfax and Lisbon graduate.

  He selected an obese, pleasant-looking driver in the fourth cab from the front of the line. There were protests from those in front, but David pretended not to understand. “Donald Scanlan” might know a smattering of Spanish, but certainly not the epithets employed by the disgruntled drivers cheated out of a fare.

  Once inside he settled back and gave instructions to the unctuous driver. He told the man he had nearly an hour to waste before he was to be met—the meeting place not mentioned—and asked if the driver would give him a short tour of the city. The tour would serve two purposes: he could position himself so that he could constantly check for surveillance, and he would learn the main points of the city.

  The driver, impressed by David’s educated, grammatical Spanish, assumed the role of tour director and drove out of the airport’s winding lanes to the exit of the huge Parque 3 de Febrero in which the field was centered.

  Thirty minutes later David had filled a dozen pages with notes. The city was like a European insert on the southern continent. It was a strange mixture of Paris, Rome and middle Spain. The streets were not city streets, they were boulevards: wide, lined with color. Fountains and statuary everywhere. The Avenida 9 de Julio might have been a larger Via Veneto or Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The sidewalk cafes, profuse with brightly decorated awnings and greenery from hundreds of planter boxes, were doing a brisk summer afternoon business. The fact that it was summer in Argentina was emphasized for David by the perspiration on his neck and shirt front. The driver admitted that the day was inordinately warm, in the high seventies.

  David asked to be driven—among other places—to a district called San Telmo. The cab owner nodded appreciatively, as if he had accurately assessed the rich American. Soon Spaulding understood. San Telmo was as Kendall had noted: elegant, secluded, beautifully kept old houses and apartment buildings with wrought-iron balustrades and brilliantly blossoming flowers lining the spotless streets.

  Lyons would be comfortable.

  From San Telmo the driver doubled back into the inner city and began the tour from the banks of the Río de la Plata.

  The Plaza de Mayo, the Cabildo, the Casa Rosada, Calle Rivadavia. The names filled David’s notebook; these were the streets, the squares, the locations he would absorb quickly.

  La Boca. The waterfront, south of the city; this, the driver said, was no place for the tourist.

  The Calle Florida. Here was the finest shopping area in all South America. The driver could take his American to several store owners personally known to him and extraordinary purchases could be made.

  Sorry, there was no time. But David wrote in his notebook that traffic was banned at the borders of the Calle Florida.

  The driver then sped out the Avenida Santa Fé toward the Palermo. No sight in Buenos Aires was as beautiful as the Palermo.

  What interested David more than the beauty was the huge park—or series of individual parks; the quiet, immense, artificial lake. The acres of botanical gardens; the enormous zoo complex with rows of cages and buildings.

  Beauty, yes. Secure areas of contact, more so. The Palermo might come in handy.

  An hour had passed; there were no automobiles following the taxi. “Donald Scanlan” had not been under surveillance; David Spaulding could emerge.

  Quietly.

  He instructed the driver to leave him off at the cabstand outside the entrance to the Palermo zoo. He was to meet his party there. The driver looked crestfallen. Was there no hotel? No place of residence?

  Spaulding did not reply, he simply asked the fare and quickly held out the amount. No more questions were in order.

  David spent an additional fifteen minutes inside the zoo, actually enjoying it. He bought an ice from a vendor, wandered past the cages of marmosets and orangutans—finding extraordinary resemblances to friends and enemies—and when he felt comfortable (as only a field man can feel comfortable), walked out to the cabstand.

  He waited another five minutes while mothers and governesses and children entered the available taxis. It was his turn.

  “The American embassy, por favor.”

  Ambassador Henderson Granville allowed the new attaché a half hour. There would be other days when they could sit and chat at length, but Sundays were hectic. The rest of Buenos Aires might be at church or at play; the diplomatic corps was at work. He had two garden parties still to attend—telephone calls would be made detailing the departures and arrivals of the German and the Japanese guests; his arrivals and departures would be timed accordingly. And after the second garden-bore there was dinner at the Brazilian embassy. Neither German nor Japanese interference was anticipated. Brazil was close to an open break.

  “The Italians, you realize,” said Granville, smiling at David, “don’t count any longer. Never did really; not down here. They spend most of their time cornering us in restaurants, or calling from public phones, explaining how Mussolini ruined the country.”

  “Not too different from Lisbon.”

  “I’m afraid they’re the only pleasant similarity.… I won’t bore you with a tedious account of the upheavals we’ve experienced here, but a quick sketch—and emphasis—will help you adjust. You’ve read up, I assume.”

  “I haven’t had much time. I left Lisbon only a week ago. I know that the Castillo government was overthrown.”

  “Last June. Inevitable.… Ramón Castillo was as inept a president as Argentina ever had, and it’s had its share of buffoons. The economy was disastrous: agriculture and industry came virtually to a halt; his cabinet never made provisions to fill the beef market void created by the British struggle, even though the lot of them figured John Bull was finished. He deserved to be thrown out.… Unfortunately, what came in the front door—marched in phalanx up the Rivadavia, to be more precise—hardly makes our lives easier.”

  “That’s the military council, isn’t it? The junta?”

  Granville gestured with his delicate hands; the chiseled features of his aging, aristocratic face formed a sardonic grimace. “The Grupo de Oficiales Unidos! As unpleasant a band of goose-stepping opportunists as you will meet … I daresay, anywhere. You know, of course, the entire army was trained by the Wehrmacht officer corps. Add to that jovial premise the hot Latin temperament, economic chaos, a neutr
ality that’s enforced but not believed in, and what have you got? A suspension of the political apparatus; no checks and balances. A police state rife with corruption.”

  “What maintains the neutrality?”

  “The infighting, primarily. The GOU—that’s what we call it—has more factions than the ’29 Reichstag. They’re all jockeying for the power spots. And naturally, the cold fear of an American fleet and air force right up the street, so to speak.… The GOU has been reappraising its judgments during the past five months. The colonels are beginning to wonder about their mentors’ thousand-year crusade; extremely impressed by our supply and production lines.”

  “They should be. We’ve …”

  “And there’s another aspect,” interrupted Granville thoughtfully. “There’s a small, very wealthy community of Jews here. Your Erich Rhinemann, for example. The GOU isn’t prepared to openly advocate the solutions of Julius Streicher.… It’s already used Jewish money to keep alive lines of credit pretty well chewed up by Castillo. The colonels are afraid of financial manipulations, most military people are. But there’s a great deal of money to be made in this war. The colonels intend to make it.… Do I sketch a recognizable picture?”

  “A complicated one.”

  “I daresay.… We have a maxim here that serves quite well. Today’s friend will probably be on the Axis payroll tomorrow; conversely, yesterday’s Berlin courier might be for sale next week. Keep your options open and your opinions private. And publicly … allow for a touch more flexibility than might be approved of at another post. It’s tolerated.”

  “And expected?” asked David.

  “Both.”

  David lit a cigarette. He wanted to shift the conversation; old Granville was one of those ambassadors, professorial by nature, who would go on analyzing the subtleties of his station all day if someone listened. Such men were usually the best diplomats but not always the most desirable liaisons in times of active practicality. Henderson Granville was a good man, though; his concerns shone in his eyes, and they were fair concerns.