The Rhinemann Exchange (2 page)

The colonel winced.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” he said.

“What?… Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir; very interesting. Which one is he?”

“The tall fellow over in the corner. The one reading a newspaper.”

“Does he play Tyne?”

“Who? Oh, no, lieutenant. He has a small role, I think. In a Spanish dialect.”

“A small role … in a Spanish dialect.” The lieutenant repeated the colonel’s words, his voice hesitant, his look bewildered. “Forgive me, sir, I’m confused. I’m not sure what we’re
doing
here; what
he’s
doing here. I thought he was a construction engineer.”

“He is.”

The organ music subsided to a pianissimo; the sound of the howling dogs faded away. Now another voice—this one lighter, friendlier, with no undercurrent of impending drama—came out of the two webbed boxes.

The thick corked door of the dark cubicle opened and a balding man, erect, dressed in a conservative business suit, entered. He carried a manila envelope in his left hand; he reached over and extended his right hand to the colonel. He spoke quietly, but not in a whisper. “Hello, Ed. Nice to see you again. I don’t have to tell you your call was a surprise.”

“I guess it was. How are you, Jack?… Lieutenant, meet Mr. John Ryan; formerly Major John N. M. I. Ryan of Six Corps.”

The officer rose to his feet.

“Sit down, lieutenant,” said Ryan, shaking the young man’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Ryan edged his way around the rows of black leather armchairs and sat down next to the colonel in front of the glass partition. The organ music once more swelled, matching the reintroduced sounds of the howling dogs. Several actors and actresses crowded around two microphones, all watching a man behind a panel in another glass booth—this one lighted—on the other side of the studio.

“How’s Jane?” asked Ryan. “And the children?”

“She hates Washington; so does the boy. They’d rather be back in Oahu. Cynthia loves it, though. She’s eighteen, now; all those D.C. dances.”

A hand signal was given by the man in the lighted booth across the way. The actors began their dialogue.

Ryan continued. “How about you? ‘Washington’ looks good on the roster sheet.”

“I suppose it does, but nobody knows I’m there. That won’t help me.”

“Oh?”

“G-2.”

“You look as though you are thriving, Jack.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

Ryan smiled a little awkwardly. “No sweat. Ten other guys in the agency could do what I’m doing … better. But they don’t have the Point on their résumés. I’m an agency symbol, strong-integrity version. The clients sort of fall in for muster.”

The colonel laughed. “Horseshit. You were always good with the beady-bags. Even the high brass used to turn the congressmen over to you.”

“You flatter me. At least I
think
you’re flattering me.”

“Eeaagh!” The obese actress, still chewing her gum, had screeched into the second microphone. She backed away, goosing a thin, effeminate-looking actor who was about to speak.

“There’s a lot of screaming, isn’t there.” The colonel wasn’t really asking a question.

“And dogs barking and off-key organ music and a hell of a lot of groaning and heavy breathing. ‘Tyne’s’ the most popular program we have.”

“I admit I’ve listened to it. The whole family has; since we’ve been back.”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you who writes most of the scripts.”

“What do you mean?”

“A Pulitzer poet. Under another name, of course.”

“That seems strange.”

“Not at all. Survival. We pay. Poetry doesn’t.”

“Is that why
he’s
on?” The colonel gestured with a nod of his head toward the tall, dark-haired man who had put down the newspaper but still remained in the corner of the studio, away from the other actors, leaning against the white corked wall.

“Beats the hell out of me. I mean, I didn’t know who he was—that is, I knew who he
was
, but I didn’t know anything about him—until you called.” Ryan handed the colonel the manila envelope. “Here’s a list of the shows and the agencies he’s worked for. I called around; implied that we were considering him for a running lead. The Hammerts use him a lot.…”

“The who?”

“They’re packagers. They’ve got about fifteen programs; daytime serials and evening shows. They say he’s reliable; no sauce problems. He’s used exclusively for dialects, it seems. And language fluency when it’s called for.”

“German and Spanish.” It was a statement.

“That’s right.…”

“Only it’s not Spanish, it’s Portuguese.”

“Who can tell the difference? You know who his parents are.” Another statement, only agreement anticipated.

“Richard and Margo Spaulding. Concert pianists, very big in England and the Continent. Current status: semi-retirement in Costa del Santiago, Portugal.”

“They’re American, though, aren’t they?”

“Very. Made sure their son was born here. Sent him to American settlement schools wherever they lived. Shipped him back here for his final two years in prep school and college.”

“How come Portugal, then?”

“Who knows? They had their first successes in Europe
and decided to stay there. A fact I
think
we’re going to be grateful for. They only return here for tours; which aren’t very frequent anymore.… Did you know that he’s a construction engineer?”

“No, I didn’t. That’s interesting.”

“Interesting? Just ‘interesting’?”

Ryan smiled; there was a trace of sadness in his eyes. “Well, during the last six years or so there hasn’t been a lot of building, has there? I mean, there’s no great call for engineers … outside of the CCC and the NRA.” He lifted his right hand and waved it laterally in front of him, encompassing the group of men and women inside the studio. “Do you know what’s in there? A trial lawyer whose clients—when he can get a few—can’t pay him; a Rolls-Royce executive who’s been laid off since thirty-eight; and a former state senator whose campaign a few years ago not only cost him his job but also a lot of potential employers. They think he’s a Red. Don’t fool yourself, Ed. You’ve got it good. The Depression isn’t over by a long shot. These people are the lucky ones. They found avocations they’ve turned into careers.… As long as they last.”

“If I do
my
job,
his
career won’t last any longer than a month from now.”

“I figured it was something like that. The storm’s building, isn’t it? We’ll be in it pretty soon. And I’ll be back, too.… Where do you want to use him?”

“Lisbon.”

David Spaulding pushed himself away from the white studio wall. He held up the pages of his script as he approached the microphone, preparing for his cue.

Pace watched him through the glass partition, wondering how Spaulding’s voice would sound. He noticed that as Spaulding came closer to the group of actors clustered around the microphone, there was a conscious—or it seemed conscious—parting of bodies, as if the new participant was in some way a stranger. Perhaps it was only normal courtesy, allowing the new performer a chance to position himself, but the colonel didn’t think so. There were no smiles, no looks, no indications of familiarity as there seemed to be among the others.

No one winked. Even the obese woman who screamed
and chewed gum and goosed her fellow actors just stood and watched Spaulding, her gum immobile in her mouth.

And then it happened; a curious moment.

Spaulding grinned, and the others, even the thin, effeminate man who was in the middle of a monologue, responded with bright smiles and nods. The obese woman winked.

A curious moment, thought Colonel Pace.

Spaulding’s voice—mid-deep, incisive, heavily accented—came through the webbed boxes. His role was that of a mad doctor and bordered on the comic. It
would
have been comic, thought Pace, except for the authority Spaulding gave the writer’s words. Pace didn’t know anything about acting, but he knew when a man was being convincing. Spaulding was convincing.

That would be necessary in Lisbon.

In a few minutes Spaulding’s role was obviously over. The obese woman screamed again; Spaulding retreated to the corner and quietly, making sure the pages did not rustle, picked up his folded newspaper. He leaned against the wall and withdrew a pencil from his pocket. He appeared to be doing
The New York Times
crossword puzzle.

Pace couldn’t take his eyes off Spaulding. It was important for him to observe closely any subject with whom he had to make contact whenever possible. Observe the small things: the way a man walked; the way he held his head; the steadiness or lack of it in his eyes. The clothes, the watch, the cuff links; whether the shoes were shined, if the heels were worn down; the quality—or lack of quality—in a man’s posture.

Pace tried to match the human being leaning against the wall, writing on the newspaper, with the dossier in his Washington office.

His name first surfaced from the files of the Army Corps of Engineers. David Spaulding had inquired about the possibilities of a commission—not volunteered: what would his opportunities be? were there any challenging construction projects? what about the length-of-service commitment? The sort of questions thousands of men—skilled men—were asking, knowing that the Selective Service Act would become law within a week or two. If enlistment meant a shorter commitment and/or the continued
practice of their professional skills, then better an enlistment than be drafted with the mobs.

Spaulding had filled out all the appropriate forms and had been told the army would contact him. That had been six weeks ago and no one had done so. Not that the Corps wasn’t interested; it was. The word from the Roosevelt men was that the draft law would be passed by Congress any day now, and the projected expansion of the army camps was so enormous, so incredibly massive that an engineer—especially a
construction
engineer of Spaulding’s qualifications—was target material.

But those high up in the Corps of Engineers were aware of the search being conducted by the Intelligence Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the War Department.

Quietly, slowly. No mistakes could be made.

So they passed along David Spaulding’s forms to G-2 and were told in turn to stay away from him.

The man ID was seeking had to have three basic qualifications. Once these were established, the rest of the portrait could be microscopically scrutinized to see if the whole being possessed the other desirable requirements. The three basics were difficult enough in themselves: the first was fluency in the Portuguese language; the second, an equal mastery of German; the third, sufficient professional experience in structural engineering to enable swift and accurate understanding of blueprints, photographs—even verbal descriptions—of the widest variety of industrial designs. From bridges and factories to warehousing and railroad complexes.

The man in Lisbon would need each of these basic requirements. He would employ them throughout the war that was to be; the war that the United States inevitably would have to fight.

The man in Lisbon would be responsible for developing an Intelligence network primarily concerned with the destruction of the enemy’s installations deep within its own territories.

Certain men—and women—traveled back and forth through hostile territories, basing their undefined activities in neutral countries. These were the people the man in Lisbon would use … before others used them.

These plus those he would train for infiltration. Espionage units. Teams of bi- and trilingual agents he would
send up through France into the borders of Germany. To bring back their observations; eventually to inflict destruction themselves.

The English agreed that such an American was needed in Lisbon. British Intelligence admitted its Portuguese weakness; they had simply been around too long, too obviously. And there were current, very serious lapses of security in London. MI-5 had been infiltrated.

Lisbon would become an American project.

If such an American could be found.

David Spaulding’s preapplication forms listed the primary requisites. He spoke three languages, had spoken them since he was a child. His parents, the renowned Richard and Margo Spaulding, maintained three residences: a small, elegant Belgravia flat in London; a winter retreat in Germany’s Baden-Baden; and a sprawling oceanside house in the artists’ colony of Costa del Santiago in Portugal. Spaulding had grown up in these environs. When he was sixteen, his father—over the objections of his mother—insisted that he complete his secondary education in the United States and enter an American university.

Andover in Massachusetts; Dartmouth in New Hampshire; finally Carnegie Institute in Pennsylvania.

Of course, the Intelligence Division hadn’t discovered
all
of the above information from Spaulding’s application forms. These supplementary facts—and a great deal more—were revealed by a man named Aaron Mandel in New York.

Pace, his eyes still riveted on the tall, lean man who had put down his newspaper and was now watching the actors around the microphones with detached amusement, recalled his single meeting with Mandel. Again, he matched Mandel’s information with the man he saw before him.

Mandel had been listed on the application under “References.”
Power-of-attorney, parents’ concert manager.
An address was given: a suite of rooms in the Chrysler Building. Mandel was a very successful artists’ representative, a Russian Jew who rivaled Sol Hurok for clients, though not as prone to attract attention, or as desirous of it.

“David has been as a son to me,” Mandel told Pace. “But I must presume you know that.”

“Why must you? I know only what I’ve read on his application forms. And some scattered information; academic records, employment references.”

“Let’s say I’ve been expecting you. Or someone like you.”

“I beg your pardon?”