The Rhinemann Exchange (21 page)

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.”

“Sup
port.…
” 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.”

“You mean he’d be killed.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of world do you people live in?” asked Swanson softly.

“It’s complicated,” said Pace.

Spaulding watched the traffic below from the hotel window overlooking Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The Montgomery was one of those small, elegant hotels his parents had used while in New York, and there was a pleasant sense of nostalgia in his being there again. The old desk clerk had actually wept discreet tears while registering him. Spaulding had forgotten—fortunately he remembered before his signature was dry—that the old man years ago had taken him for walks in the park. Over a quarter of a century ago!

Walks in the park. Governesses. Chauffeurs standing in foyers, prepared to whisk his parents away to a train, a concert, a rehearsal. Music critics. Record company executives. Endless dinner parties where he’d make his usual “appearance” before bedtime and be prompted by his father to tell some guest at what age Mozart composed the Fortieth; dates and facts he was forced to memorize and which he gave not one goddamn about. Arguments. Hysterics over an inadequate conductor or a bad performance or a worse review.

Madness.

And always the figure of Aaron Mandel, soothing, placating—so often fatherly to his overbearing father while his mother faded, waiting in a secondary status that belied her natural strength.

And the quiet times. The Sundays—except for concert Sundays—when his parents would suddenly remember his existence and try to make up in one day the attention they thought they had allocated improperly to governesses, chauffeurs and nice, polite hotel managements. At these
times, the quiet times, he had felt his father’s honest yet artificial attempts; had wanted to tell him it was all right, he wasn’t deprived. They didn’t have to spend autumn days wandering around zoos and museums; the zoos and museums were much better in Europe, anyway. It wasn’t necessary that he be taken to Coney Island or the beaches of New Jersey in summer. What were they, compared to the Lido or Costa del Santiago? But whenever they were in America, there was this parental compulsion to fit into a mold labeled “An American Father and Mother.”

Sad, funny, inconsistent; impossible, really.

And for some buried reason, he had never come back to this small, elegant hotel during the later years. There was rarely a need, of course, but he could have made the effort; the management was genuinely fond of the Spaulding family. Now it seemed right, somehow. After the years away he wanted a secure base in a strange land, secure at least in memories.

Spaulding walked away from the window to the bed where the bellboy had placed his new suitcase with the new civilian clothes he had purchased at Rogers Peet. Everything, including the suitcase. Pace had had the foresight to send money with the major who had brought him duplicates of the papers destroyed in Terceira. He had to sing for the money, not for the papers; that amused him.

The major who met him at Mitchell Field—on the field—had escorted him to the base infirmary, where a bored army doctor pronounced him fit but “run down”; had professionally criticized the sutures implanted by the British doctor in the Azores but saw no reason to change them; and suggested that David take two APCs every four hours and rest.

Caveat
patient.

The courier-major had played a tune on the Fairfax piano and told him Field Division was still analyzing the Lajes sabotage; it could have been aimed at him for misdeeds out of Lisbon. He should be careful and report any unusual incidents directly to Colonel Pace at Fairfax. Further, Spaulding was to commit the name of Brigadier General Alan Swanson, DW. Swanson was his source control and would make contact in a matter of days, ten at the outside.

Why call Pace, then? Regarding any “incidents.” Why
not get in touch directly with this Swanson? Since he was the SC.

Pace’s instructions, replied the major—until the brigadier took over; just simpler that way.

Or further concealment, thought David, remembering the clouded eyes of Paul Hollander, the Az-Am agent in Terceira.

Something
was happening. The source control transfer was being handled in a very unorthodox manner. From the unsigned, high-priority codes received in Lisbon to the extraordinary command: out of strategy. From the midocean delivery of papers from Az-Am agents who said they had to question him first, to the strange orders that had him reporting to two civilians in New York without prior briefing.

It was all like a hesitation waltz. It was either very professional or terribly amateur; really, he suspected, a combination of both. It would be interesting to meet this General Swanson. He had never heard of him.

He lay down on the hotel bed. He would rest for an hour and then shower and shave and see New York at night for the first time in over three years. See what the war had done to a Manhattan evening; it had done little or nothing to the daylight hours, from what he’d seen—only the posters. It would be good to have a woman tonight. But if it happened, he’d want it to be comfortable, without struggle or urgency. A happy coincidence would be just right; a likable, really likable interlude. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to browse through a telephone directory to create one. Three years and nine months had passed since he last picked up a telephone in New York City. During that time he had learned to be wary of the changes taking place over a matter of days, to say nothing of three years and nine months.

And he recalled pleasantly how the Stateside transfers to the embassy in Lisbon often spoke of the easy accessibility of the women back home. Especially in Washington and New York, where the numbers and the absence of permanency worked in favor of one-night stands. Then he remembered, with a touch of amused resignation, that these same reports usually spoke of the irresistible magnetism of an officer’s uniform, especially captain and over.

He had worn a uniform exactly three times in the past
four years: at the Mayflower Hotel lounge with Ed Pace, the day he arrived in Portugal and the day he left Portugal.

He didn’t even own one now.

His telephone rang and it startled him. Only Fairfax and, he assumed, this brigadier, Swanson, knew where he was. He had called the Montgomery from the Mitchell Field infirmary and secured the reservation; the major had said to take seventy-two hours. He needed the rest; no one would bother him. Now someone was bothering him.