into his belt. He searched both men's pockets, removing whatever paper
currcncy he could find. And a few coins.
He had no money whatsoever. He might well need money.
He ran into the bathroom and turned on the shower to the hottest position
on the dial. He returned to the hallway door and locked it. Then he turned
off all lights and went to the left casement window, closing his eyes to
adjust to the darkness outside. He opened them and blinked several times,
trying to blur out the white spots of anxiety.
It was nine minutes past eleven.
He rubbed his perspiring hands over the expensive turtleneck sweater; he
took deep breaths and waited.
The waiting was nearly unendurable.
Because he could not know.
And then he heard it I And he knew.
Two thunderous explosions! So loud, so stunning, so totally without warning
that he found himself trembling, his breathing stopped.
There followed bursts of machine-gun fire that ripped through the silent
night.
Below him on the ground, men were screanung at one another, racing toward
the sounds that were filling the perimeter of the compound with growing
ferocity.
David watched the hysteria below. There were five guards beneath his
window, all running now out of their concealed stations. He could see the
spill of additional floodlights being turned on to his right, in the
elegant front courtyard of Habichtsnest. He could hear the roar of powerful
automobile engines and the increasing frequency of panicked commands.
~12
He eased himself out of the casement window, holding onto the sill until
his feet touched the gutter.
Both LOgers were in his belt, the knife between his teeth. He could not
chance a blade next to his body; he could always spit it out if necessary.
He sidestepped his way along the slate roof The drainpipe was only feet
away.
The explosions and the gunfire from the gate increased. David marveled -
not only at Asher Feld's commitment, but at his logistics. The Haganah
leader must have brought a small, wellsupplied army into Habichtsnest.
He lowered his body cautiously against the slate roof; he reached out,
gripped the gutter on the far side of the drainpipe with his right hand and
slowly, carefully crouched sideways, inched his feet into a support
position. He pushed against the outside rim of the gutter, testing its
strength, and in a quickspringing short jump, he leaped over the side,
holding the rim with both hands, his feet against the wall, straddling the
drainpipe.
He began his descent, hand-below-hand on the pipe.
Amid the sounds of the gunfire, he suddenly heard loud crashing above him.
There were shouts in both German and Spanish and the unmistakable smashing
of wood.
The room he had just left had been broken into.
The extreme north second-floor balcony was parallel with him now. He
reached out with his left hand, gripped the edge, whipped his right hand
across for support and swung underneath, his body dangling thirty feet
above the ground but out of sight.
Men were at the casement windows above. They forced the lead frames open
without regard to the handles; the glass smashed; metal screeched against
metal.
There was another thunderous explosion from the battleground a quarter of
a mile away in the black-topped field cut out of the forest. A far-off
weapon caused a detonation in the front courtyard; the spill of floodlight
suddenly disappeared. Asher Feld was moving up. The crossfire would be
murderous. Suicidal.
The shouts above Spaulding receded from the window, and he kicked his feet
out twice to get sufficient swing to lash his hands once more across and
around the drainpipe.
He did so, the blade between his teeth making his jaws ache.
He slid to the ground, scraping his hands against the weathered
413
metal, insensitive to the cuts on his palms and fingers.
He removed the knife from his mouth, a Ulger from his belt and raced along
the edge of the raked bridle path toward the darkness of the trees. He ran
into the pitch-black, tree-lined corridor, skirting the trunks, prepared to
plunge between them at the first sound of nearby shots.
They came, four in succession, the bullets thumping with terrible finality
into the surrounding tall shafts o J wood.
He whipped around a thick trunk and looked toward the house. The man firing
was alone, standing by the drainpipe. Then a second guard joined him,
racing from the area of the croquet course, a giant Doberman straining at
its leash in his hand. The men shouted at one another, each trying to
assert command, the dog barking savagely.
As they stood yelling, two bursts of machine-gun fire came from within the
front courtyard; two more floodlights exploded.
David saw the men freeze, their concentration shifted to the front. The
guard with the dog yanked at the straps, forcing the animal back into the
side of the house. The second man crouched, then rose and started
sidestepping his way rapidly along the building toward the courtyard,
ordering his associate to follow.
And then David saw him. Above. To the right. Through foliage. On the
terrace overlooking the lawn and the pool.
Erich Rhinemann had burst through the doors, screaming commands in fury,
but not in panic. He was marshaling his forces, implementing his defenses
... somehow in the pitch of the assault, he was the messianic Caesar
ordering his battalions to attack, attack, attack. Three men came into view
behind him; he roared at them and two of the three raced back into
Habichtsnest. The third man argued; Rhinemann shot him without the
slightest hesitation. The body collapsed out of David's sight. Then
Rhinemann ran to the wall, partially obscured by the railing, but not
entirely. He seemed to be yelling into the wall.
Screeching into the wall.
Through the bursts of gunfire, David heard the muted, steady whirring and
he realized what Rhinemann was doing.
The cable car from the riverbank was being sent up for him.
While the battle was engaged, this Caesar would escape the fire.
Rhinemann the pig. The ultimate manipulator. Corruptor of all things,
honoring nothing.
We may work again....
414
7hat is always the way, is it not?
David sprang out of his recessed sanctuary and ran back on the path to the
point where the gardens and woods joined the lawn below the balcony. He
raced to a white metal table with the wrought-iron legs - the same table at
which Lyons had sat, his frail body bent over the blueprints. Rhinemann was
nowhere in sight
He had to be there!
It was suddenly ... inordinately clear to Spaulding that the one meaningful
aspect of his having been ripped out of Lisbon and transported half a world
away - through the fire and the pain -was the man above him now, concealed
on the balcony.
'Rhinemann! ... Rhinemann! I'm here!'
The immense figure of the financier came rush
ing to the railing. In his
hand was a Sternlicht automatic. Powerful, murderous.
'You. You are a dead man!' He began firing; David threw himself to the
ground behind the table, overturning it, erecting a shield. Bullets thumped
into the earth and ricocheted off the metal. Rhinemann continued screaming.
'Your tricks are suicide, Lisbon! My.men come from everywhere I Hundredsl
In minutes I ... Come, Lisbon! Show yourself. You merely move up your death
I You think I would have let you live? Never! Show yourself! You're deadV
David understood. The manipulator would not offend the men in Washington,
but neither would he allow the man from Lisbon to remain on his personal
horizon. The designs would have gone to Mendarro. Not the man from Lisbon.
He would have been killed on his way to Mendarro.
It was so clear.
David raised his Ulger, he would have only an instant. A diversion, then an
instant.
It would be enough....
The lessons of the north country.
He reached down and clawed at the ground, gathering chunks of earth and
lawn with his left hand. When he had a large fistful, he lobbed it into the
air, to the left of the rim of metal. Black dirt and blades of grass
floated up, magnified in the dim spills of light and the furious activity
growing nearer.
There was a steady burst of fire from the Sternlicht. Spaulding sprang to
the right of the table and squeezed the trigger of the Luger five times in
rapid succession.
415
Erich Rhinemann's face exploded in blood. The Sternlicht fell as his hands
sprang up in the spasm of death. The immense body snapped backward, then
forward; then lurched over the railing.
Rhinemann plummeted down from the balcony.
David heard the screams of the guards above and raced back to the darkness
of the bridle path. He ran with all his strength down the twisting black
corridor, his shoes. sinking intermittently into the soft, raked edges.
The path abruptly curved. To the left.
Goddamn it I
And then he heard the whinnies of frightened horses. His nostrils picked up
their smells and to his right he saw the onestory structure that housed the
series of stalls that was the stables. He could hear the bewildered shouts
of a groom somewhere within trying to calm his charges.
For a split second, David toyed with an idea, then rejected it. A horse
would be swift, but possibly unmanageable.
He ran to the far end of the stables, turned the comer and stopped for
breath, for a moment of orientation. He thought he knew where he was; he
tried to picture an aerial -view of the compound.
The fields I The fields had to be nearby.
He ran to the opposite end of the one-story structure and saw the pastures
beyond. As he had visualized, the ground sloped gently downward - north -
but not so much as to make grazing or running difficult. In the'distance
past the fields, he could see the wooded hills rise in the moonlight. To
the right - east.
Between the slope of the fields and the rise of the hills was the line he
had to follow. It was the most direct, concealed route to the electrified
fence.
North by northeast.
He sped to the high post-and-rail fence that bordered the pasture, slipped
through and began racing across the field. The volleys and salvos of
gunfire continued behind him - in the distance now, but seemingly no less
brutal. He reached a ridge in the field that gave him a line of sight to
the river a half mile below. It, too, was bordered by a high post-and-rail,
used to protect the animals from plummeting down the steeper inclines. He
could see lights being turned on along the river; the incessant crescendos
of death were being carried by the summer winds to the elegant communities
below.
416
He spun in shock. A bullet whined above him. It had been aimed at him! He
had been spotted I
He threw himself into the pasture grass and scrambled away. There was a
slight incline and he let himself roll down it, over and over again until
his body hit the hard wood of a post. He had reached the opposite border of
the field; beyond, the woods continued.
He heard the fierce howling of the dogs, and knew it was directed at him.
On his knees, he could see the outlines of a huge animal streaking toward
him across the grass. His Ulger was poised, level, but he understood that
by firing it, he would betray his' position. He shifted the weapon to his
left hand and pulled the hunting knife out of his belt.
The black monstrosity leaped through the air, honed by the scent into his
target of human flesh. Spaulding lashed out his left hand with the Ldger,
feeling the impact of the hard, muscular fur of the Doberman on his upper
body, watching the ugly head whip sideways, the bared teeth tearing at the
loose sweater and into his arm.
He swung his right hand upward, the knife gripped with all the strength he
had, into the soft stomach of the animal. Warm blood erupted from the dog's
lacerated belly; the swallowed sound of a savage roar burst from the
animal's throat as it died.
David grabbed his arm. The Doberman's teeth had ripped low the shoulder. And the
wrenching, rolling, twisting movements of his body had broken at least one
of the stitches in his stomach wound.
He held onto the rail of the pasture fence and crawled east.
North by northeast! Not east, goddamn it!
In his momentary shock, he suddenly realized there was a perceptible
reduction of the distant gunfire. How many minutes had it not been there?
The explosions seemed to continue but the small-anns fire was subsiding.
Considerably.
There were shouts now; from across the field by the stables. He looked
between and over the grass. Men were running with flashlights, the beams
darting about in shafting diagonals. David could hear shouted commands.
What he saw made him stop all movement and stare incredulously. The
flashlights of the men across the wide pasture were
417
focused on a figure coming out of the stable - on horseback! The spill of a
dozen beams picked up, the glaring reflection of a white Palm Beach suit.
Franz Altmilller I
Altm(Wer had chosen the madness he, David, had rejected.
But, of course, their roles were different.
Spaulding knew he was the quarry now. Altinfiller, the hunter. There would
be others following, but AltmWler would not, could not wait. He kicked at
the animal's flanks and burst through the opened gate.
Spaulding understood again. Franz Altmflller was a dead an if David lived.
His only means of survival in Berlin was to produce the corpse of the man
from Lisbon. The Fairfax agent who had crippled 'Tortugas'; the body of the
man the patrols and the scientists in Ocho Calle could identify. The man
the 'Gestapo' had unearthed and provoked.
So much, so alien.
Horse and rider came racing across the field. David stayed prone and felt
the hard earth to the east. He could not stand; Altinfiller held a
powerful, wide-beamed flas
hlight. If he rolled under the railing, the tall
weeds and taller grass beyond might conceal him but just as easily might
bend, breaking the pattern.
If... might.
He knew he was rationalizing. The tall grass would be best; out of sight.
But also out of strategy. And he knew why that bothered him.
He wanted to be the hunter. Not the quarry.
He wanted Altmifller dead.
Franz Altmftller was not an enemy one left alive. AltmOller was every bit
as lethal in a tranquil monastery during a time of peace as he was on a
battlefield in war. He was the absolute enemy; it was in his eyes. Not
related to the cause of Germany, but from deep within the man's arrogance:
Altmaller had watched his masterful creation collapse, had seen 'Tortugas'
destroyed. By another man who had told him he was inferior.
That, Altmiflier could not tolerate.
He would be scorned in the aftermath.
Unacceptable!
Altnitiller would lie in wait. In Buenos Aires, in New York, in London; no
matter where. And his first target would be Jean. In a rifle sight, or a
knife in a crowd, or a concealed pistol at
418
night. Altmigler would make him pay. It was in his eyes.
Spaulding hugged the earth as the galloping horse reached the midpoint of
the field, plunging forward, directed by the searchfight beam from the
patrols back at the stables a quarter of a mile away. They were directed at
the area where the Doberman was last seen.
Altmaller reined in the animal, slowing it, not stopping it. He scanned the
ground in front with his beam, approaching cautiously, a gun in his hand,
holding the straps but prepared to fire.
Without warning, there was a sudden, deafening explosion from the stables.
The beams of light that had come from the opposite side of the field were
no more; men who had started out across the pasture after Altmifller
stopped and turned back to the panic that was growing furiously at the
bordering fence. Fires had broken out.
Altmtlller continued; if he was aware of the alarms behind him he did not
show it. He kicked his horse and urged it forward.
The horse halted, snorted; it pranced its front legs awkwardly and
backstepped in spite of AltmMer's commands. The Nazi was in frenzy; he
screamed at the animal, but the shouts were in vain. The horse had come
Robert Ludlum - Rhineman Exchange.txt Page 51
