The Rhinemann Exchange (4 page)

The weeks became months. Every known portable offensive and defensive weapon, every sabotage device, every conceivable method of ingress and egress—apparent and covert—was exhaustively studied by the Fairfax trainees. Codes and variations became fluent languages; instant fabrications second nature. And Two-Five-L continued to advance. Whenever there appeared a slackening, harsher instructions were given to the “specialists” in “Seizures, Holds and Releases.” The psychological key was in the observable, physical humiliation.

Until it was no longer viable. The commandos were bested.

Everything on schedule.

“You may make it after all,” said the colonel.

“I’m not sure what I’ve made,” replied David in his first lieutenant’s uniform, over a drink in the Mayflower Cocktail Lounge. And then he laughed quietly. “I suppose if they gave degrees in Advanced Criminal Activities, I’d probably qualify.”

Two-Five-L’s training would be completed in ten days. His twenty-four-hour pass was an irregularity, but Pace had demanded it. He had to talk with Spaulding.

“Does it bother you?” asked Pace.

Spaulding looked across the small table at the colonel. “If I had time to think about it, I’m sure it would. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“No.… Because I understand the reasons.”

“O.K. Then so do I.”

“They’ll become clearer in the field.”

“Sure,” agreed David tersely.

Pace watched Spaulding closely. As was to be expected, the young man had changed. Gone was the slightly soft, slightly pampered grace of inflection and gesture. These had been replaced by a tautness, a conciseness of movement and speech. The transformation was not complete, but it was well in progress.

The patina of the professional was beginning to show through. Lisbon would harden it further.

“Are you impressed by the fact that Fairfax skips you a rank? It took me eighteen months to get that silver bar.”

“Again, time. I haven’t had time to react. I haven’t worn a uniform before today; I think it’s uncomfortable.” Spaulding flicked his hand over his tunic.

“Good. Don’t get used to it.”

“That’s a strange thing to say.…”

“How do you feel?” said Pace, interrupting.

David looked at the colonel. For a moment or two, the grace, the softness—even the wry humor—returned. “I’m not sure.… As though I’d been manufactured on a very fast assembly line. A sort of high-speed treadmill, if you know what I mean.”

“In some ways that’s an accurate description. Except that you brought a lot to the factory.”

Spaulding revolved his glass slowly. He stared at the floating cubes, then up at Pace. “I wish I could accept that as a compliment,” he said softly. “I don’t think I can. I know the people I’ve been training with. They’re quite a collection.”

“They’re highly motivated.”

“The Europeans are as crazy as those they want to fight. They’ve got their reasons; I can’t question them.…”

“Well,” interrupted the colonel, “we don’t have that many Americans. Not yet.”

“Those you do are two steps from a penitentiary.”

“They’re not army.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Spaulding quickly, adding the obvious with a smile. “Naturally.”

Pace was annoyed with himself. The indiscretion was minor but still an indiscretion. “It’s not important. In ten days you’ll be finished in Virginia. The uniform comes off then. To tell you the truth, it was a mistake to issue you one in the first place. We’re still new at this kind of thing; rules of requisition and supply are hard to change.” Pace drank and avoided Spaulding’s eyes.

“I thought I was supposed to be a military attaché at the embassy. One of several.”

“For the record, yes. They’ll build a file on you. But there’s a difference; it’s part of the cover. You’re not partial to uniforms. We don’t think you should wear one. Ever.” Pace put down his glass and looked at David. “You
hustled yourself a very safe, very comfortable job because of the languages, your residences and your family connections. In a nutshell, you ran as fast as you could when you thought there was a chance your pretty neck might be in the real army.”

Spaulding thought for a moment. “That sounds logical. Why does it bother you?”

“Because only one man at the embassy will know the truth. He’ll identify himself.… After a while others may suspect—after a long while. But they won’t know. Not the ambassador, not the staff.… What I’m trying to tell you is, you won’t be very popular.”

David laughed quietly. “I trust you’ll rotate me before I’m lynched.”

Pace’s reply was swift and quiet, almost curt. “Others will be rotated. Not you.”

Spaulding was silent as he responded to the colonel’s look. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I can be clear about it.” Pace put down his drink on the small cocktail table. “You’ll have to start slowly, with extreme caution. British MI-5 has given us a few names—not many but something to start with. You’ll have to build up your own network, however. People who will maintain contact only with you, no one else. This will entail a great deal of traveling. We think you’ll gravitate to the north country, across the borders into Spain. Basque country … by and large anti-Falangist. We think those areas south of the Pyrenees will become the data and escape routes.… We’re not kidding ourselves: the Maginot won’t hold. France will fall.…”

“
Jesus
,” interrupted David softly. “You’ve done a lot of projecting.”

“That’s almost
all
we do. It’s the reason for Fairfax.”

Spaulding leaned back in the chair, once more revolving his glass. “I understand about the network; in one form or another it’s what the compound’s training all of us for. This is the first I’ve heard about the north of Spain, the Basque areas. I know that country.”

“We could be wrong. It’s only a theory. You might find the water routes … Mediterranean, Málaga, or Biscay, or the Portuguese coast … more feasible. That’s for you to decide. And develop.”

“All right. I understand.… What’s that got to do with rotation?”

Pace smiled. “You haven’t reached your post. Are you angling for a leave already?”

“You brought it up. Sort of abruptly, I think.”

“Yes, I did.” The colonel shifted his position in the small chair. Spaulding was very quick; he locked in on words and used brief time spans to maximize their effectiveness. He would be good in interrogations. Quick, harsh inquiries. In the field. “We’ve decided that you’re to remain in Portugal for the duration. Whatever normal and ‘abnormal’ leaves you take should be spent in the south. There’s a string of colonies along the coast.…”

“Costa del Santiago among them,” interjected Spaulding under his breath. “Retreats for the international rich.”

“That’s right. Develop covers down there. Be seen with your parents. Become a fixture.” Pace smiled again; the smile was hesitant. “I could think of worse duty.”

“You don’t know those colonies.… If I read you—as we say in Fairfax—Candidate Two-Five-L had better take a good, hard look at the streets of Washington and New York because he’s not going to see them again for a very long time.”

“We can’t risk bringing you back once you’ve developed a network, assuming you
do
develop one. If, for whatever reason, you flew out of Lisbon to Allied territory, there’d be an enemy scramble to microscopically trace every movement you made for months. It would jeopardize everything.
You’re
safest—
our interests
are safest—if you remain permanent. The British taught us this. Some of their operatives have been local fixtures for years.”

“That’s not very comforting.”

“You’re not in MI-5. Your tour is for the duration. The war won’t last forever.”

It was Spaulding’s turn to smile; the smile of a man caught in a matrix he had not defined. “There’s something insane about that statement.… ‘The war won’t last forever.’ …”

“Why?”

“We’re not in it yet.”

“You are,” Pace said.

The man in the pinstriped suit, styled by tailors in Alte Strasse, stared in disbelief at the three men across the table. He would have objected strenuously had the three laboratory experts not worn the square red metal insignias on the lapels of their starched white laboratory jackets, badges that said these three scientists were permitted to walk through passageways forbidden to all but the elite of Peenemünde. He, too, had such a badge attached to his pinstriped lapel; it was a temporary clearance he was not sure he wanted.

Certainly he did not want it now.

“I can’t accept your evaluation,” he said quietly. “It’s preposterous.”

“Come with us,” replied the scientist in the center, nodding to his companion on the right.

“There’s no point procrastinating,” added the third man.

The four men got out of their chairs and approached the steel door that was the single entrance to the room. Each man in succession unclipped his red badge and pressed it against a grey plate in the wall. At the instant of contact, a small white bulb was lighted, remained so for two seconds and then went off; a photograph had been taken. The last man—one of the Peenemünde personnel—then opened the door and each went into the hallway.

Had only three men gone out, or five, or any number not corresponding to the photographs, alarms would have been triggered.

They walked in silence down the long, starched-white corridor, the Berliner in front with the scientist who sat between the other two at the table, and was obviously the spokesman; his companions were behind.

They reached a bank of elevators and once more went through the ritual of the red tags, the grey plate and the tiny white light that went on for precisely two seconds. Below the plate a number was also lighted.

Six.

From elevator number six there was the sound of a single muted bell as the thick steel panel slid open. One by one each man walked inside.

The elevator descended eight stories, four below the surface of the earth, to the deepest levels of Peenemünde. As the four men emerged into yet another white corridor, they were met by a tall man in tight-fitting green coveralls, an outsized holster in his wide brown belt. The holster held a Lüger Sternlicht, a specially designed arm pistol with a telescopic sight. As the man’s visor cap indicated, such weapons were made for the Gestapo.

The Gestapo officer obviously recognized the three scientists. He smiled perfunctorily and turned his attention to the man in the pinstriped suit. He held out his hand, motioning the Berliner to remove the red badge.

The Berliner did so. The Gestapo man took it, walked over to a telephone on the corridor wall and pushed a combination of buttons. He spoke the Berliner’s name and waited, perhaps ten seconds.

He replaced the phone and crossed back to the man in the pinstriped suit. Gone was the arrogance he had displayed moments ago.

“I apologize for the delay, Herr Strasser. I should have realized.…” He gave the Berliner his badge.

“No need for apologies, Herr Oberleutnant. They would be necessary only if you overlooked your duties.”

“
Danke
,” said the Gestapo man, gesturing the four men beyond his point of security.

They proceeded toward a set of double doors; clicks could be heard as locks were released. Small white bulbs were lighted above the moldings; again photographs were taken of those going through the double doors.

They turned right into a bisecting corridor—this one not white, but instead, brownish black; so dark that Strasser’s eyes took several seconds to adjust from the pristine brightness of the main halls to the sudden night quality of the passageway. Tiny ceiling lights gave what illumination there was.

“You’ve not been here before,” said the scientist-spokesman to the Berliner. “This hallway was designed by an optics engineer. It supposedly prepares the eyes for the high-intensity microscope lights. Most of us think it was a waste.”

There was a steel door at the end of the long, dark tunnel. Strasser reached for his red metal insignia automatically; the scientist shook his head and spoke with a slight wave of his hand.

“Insufficient light for photographs. The guard inside has been alerted.”

The door opened and the four men entered a large laboratory. Along the right wall was a row of stools, each in front of a powerful microscope, all the microscopes equidistant from one another on top of a built-in workbench. Behind each microscope was a high-intensity light, projected and shaded on a goose-necked stem coming out of the immaculate white surface. The left wall was a variation of the right. There were no stools, however, and fewer microscopes. The work shelf was higher; it was obviously used for conferences, where many pairs of eyes peered through the same sets of lenses; stools would only interfere, men stood as they conferred over magnified particles.

At the far end of the room was another door; not an entrance. A vault. A seven-foot-high, four-foot-wide, heavy steel vault. It was black; the two levers and the combination wheel were in glistening silver.

The spokesman-scientist approached it.

“We have fifteen minutes before the timer seals the panel and the drawers. I’ve requested closure for a week. I’ll need your counterauthorization, of course.”

“And you’re sure I’ll give it, aren’t you?”

“I am.” The scientist spun the wheel right and left for the desired locations. “The numbers change automatically every twenty-four hours,” he said as he held the wheel steady at its final mark and reached for the silver levers. He pulled the top one down to the accompaniment of a barely audible whirring sound, and seconds later, pulled the lower one up.

The whirring stopped, metallic clicks could be heard and the scientist pulled open the thick steel door. He turned to Strasser. “These are the tools for Peenemünde. See for yourself.”

Strasser approached the vault. Inside were five rows of removable glass trays, top to bottom; each row had a total of one hundred trays, five hundred in all.

The trays that were empty were marked with a white
strip across the facing glass, the word
Auffüllen
printed clearly.