The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

  “I’m aware of that,” said the aristocratic Vandamm, smiling a cautious smile, shaking Swanson’s hand perfunctorily. “We’ll get right to it. Colonel Pace, will you brief the general as we discussed?”

  “Yes, sir. And then I’ll leave.” Pace spoke noncommittally; it was the military’s way of telegraphing a message to a fellow officer: be careful.

  Pace crossed to a wall map, presented with markings. It was an enlarged, detailed section of Johannesburg, South Africa. Frederic Vandamm sat in a chair in front of the desk; Swanson followed Pace and stood beside him.

  “You never know when a probe will get picked up. Or where.” Pace took a wooden pointer from a table and indicated a blue marker on the map. “Or even if the location is important. In this case it may be. A week ago a member of the Johannesburg legislature, an attorney and a former director of Koening Mines, Ltd., was contacted by what he believed were two men from the Zürich Staats-Bank. They wanted him to middle-man a negotiation with Koening: simple transaction of Swiss francs for diamonds—on a large scale, with the anticipation that the diamond standard would remain more constant than the gold fluctuations.” Pace turned to Swanson. “So far, so good. With lend-lease, and monetary systems going up in smoke everywhere, there’s a lot of speculation in the diamond market. Postwar killings could be made. When he accepted the contact, you can imagine his shock when he arrived for the meeting and found that one of the ‘Swiss’ was an old friend—a very old and good friend—from the prewar days. A German he’d gone to school with—the Afrikaner’s mother was Austrian; father a Boer. The two men had kept in close touch until thirty-nine. The German worked for I. G. Farben.”

  “What was the point of the meeting?” Swanson was impatient.

  “I’ll get to that. This background’s important.”

  “O.K. Go on.”

  “There was no diamond market speculation involved, no transaction with any Zürich bank. It was a simple purchase. The Farben man wanted to buy large shipments of bortz and carbonado.…”

  “Industrial diamonds?” interrupted Swanson.

  Pace nodded. “He offered a fortune to his old friend if he could pull it off. The Afrikaner refused; but his longstanding friendship with the German kept him from reporting the incident. Until three days ago.” Pace put down the pointer and started for his desk. Swanson understood that the colonel had additional information, written information, that he had to refer to; the general crossed to the chair beside Vandamm and sat down.

  “Three days ago,” continued Pace, standing behind the desk, “the Afrikaner was contacted again. This time there was no attempt to conceal identities. The caller said he was German and had information the Allies wanted; had wanted for a long time.”

  “The probe?” asked Swanson, whose impatience was carried by his tone of voice.

  “Not exactly the probe we expected.… The German said he would come to the Afrikaner’s office, but he protected himself. He told the lawyer that if any attempt was made to hold him, his old friend at I. G. Farben would be executed back in Germany.” Pace picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. He spoke as he leaned across and handed it to Swanson. “This is the information, the report flown in by courier.”

  Swanson read the typewritten words below the Military Intelligence letterhead; above the large, stamped Top Secret. Eyes Only. Fairfax 4–0.

  Nov. 28, 1943. Johannesburg: Confirmed by Nachrichtendienst. Substratospheric directional gyroscopes perfected. All tests positive. Peenemünde. Subsequent contact: Geneva. Johannesburg contingent.

  Swanson let the information sink in; he read the statement over several times. He asked a question of Edmund Pace with a single word: “Geneva?”

  “The conduit. Neutral channel. Unofficial, of course.”

  “What is this … Nachrichtendienst?”

  “Intelligence unit. Small, specialized; so rarefied it’s above even the most classified crowds. Sometimes we wonder if it takes sides. It often appears more interested in observing than participating; more concerned with after the war than now. We suspect that it’s a Gehlen operation. But it’s never been wrong. Never misleading.”

  “I see.” Swanson held out the paper for Pace.

  The colonel did not take it. Instead, he walked around the desk toward the steel door. “I’ll leave you gentlemen. When you’re finished, please signify by pushing the white button on my desk.” He opened the door and left quickly. The heavy steel frame closed into an airtight position; a subsequent click could be heard in the lock housing.

  Frederic Vandamm looked at Swanson. “There is your solution, general. Your gyroscope. In Peenemünde. All you have to do is send a man to Geneva. Someone wants to sell it.”

  Alan Swanson stared at the paper in his hand.

  7

  DECEMBER 4, 1943, BERLIN, GERMANY

  Altmüller stared at the paper in his hand. It was after midnight, the city in darkness. Berlin had withstood another night of murderous bombardment; it was over now. There would be no further raids until late morning, that was the usual pattern. Still, the black curtains were pulled tight against the windows. As they were everywhere in the ministry.

  Speed was everything now. Yet in the swiftness of the planning, mandatory precautions could not be overlooked. The meeting in Geneva with the conduit was only the first step, the prelude, but it had to be handled delicately. Not so much what was said but who said it. The what could be transmitted by anyone with the proper credentials or acknowledged authority. But in the event of Germany’s collapse, that someone could not represent the Third Reich. Speer had been adamant.

  And Altmüller understood: if the war was lost, the label of traitor could not be traced to the Reichsministry. Or to those leaders Germany would need in defeat. In 1918 after Versailles, there had been mass internal recriminations. Polarization ran deep, unchecked, and the nation’s paranoia over betrayal from within laid the groundwork for the fanaticism of the twenties. Germany had not been able to accept defeat, could not tolerate the destruction of its identity by traitors.

  Excuses, of course.

  But the prospects of repetition, no matter how remote, were to be avoided at all costs. Speer was himself fanatic on the subject. The Geneva representative was to be a figure isolated from the High Command. Someone from the ranks of German industry, in no way associated with the rulers of the Third Reich. Someone expendable.

  Altmüller tried to point out the inconsistency of Speer’s manipulation: high-altitude gyroscopic designs would hardly be given to an expendable mediocrity from German business. Peenemünde was buried—literally buried in the earth; its military security measures absolute.

  But Speer would not listen, and Altmüller suddenly grasped the Reichsminister’s logic. He was shifting the problem precisely where it belonged: to those whose lies and concealments had brought Peenemünde to the brink of disaster. And as with so much in the wartime Reich—the labor forces, the death camps, the massacres—Albert Speer conveniently looked away. He wanted positive results, but he would not dirty his tunic.

  In this particular case, mused Altmüller, Speer was right. If there were to be risks of great disgrace, let German industry take them. Let the German businessman assume complete responsibility.

  Geneva was vital only in the sense that it served as an introduction. Cautious words would be spoken that could—or could not—lead to the second stage of the incredible negotiation.

  Stage two was geographical: the location of the exchange, should it actually take place.

  For the past week, day and night, Altmüller had done little else but concentrate on this. He approached the problem from the enemy’s viewpoint as well as his own. His worktable was covered with maps, his desk filled with scores of reports detailing the current political climates of every neutral territory on earth.

  For the location had to be neutral; there had to be sufficient safeguards each side could investigate and respect. And perhaps most important of all, it had to be thousands of m
iles away … from either enemy’s corridors of power.

  Distance.

  Remote.

  Yet possessing means of instant communication.

  South America.

  Buenos Aires.

  An inspired choice, thought Franz Altmüller. The Americans might actually consider it advantageous to them. It was unlikely that they would reject it. Buenos Aires had much each enemy considered its own; both had enormous influence, yet neither controlled with any real authority.

  The third stage, as he conceived of it, was concerned with the human factor, defined by the word Schiedsrichter.

  Referee.

  A man who was capable of overseeing the exchange, powerful enough within the neutral territory to engineer the logistics. Someone who had the appearance of impartiality … above all, acceptable to the Americans.

  Buenos Aires had such a man.

  One of Hitler’s gargantuan errors.

  His name was Erich Rhinemann. A Jew, forced into exile, disgraced by Goebbels’s insane propaganda machine, his lands and companies expropriated by the Reich.

  Those lands and companies he had not converted before the misplaced thunderbolts struck. A minor percentage of his holdings, sufficient for the manic screams of the anti-Semitic press, but hardly a dent in his immense wealth.

  Erich Rhinemann lived in exiled splendor in Buenos Aires, his fortunes secure in Swiss banks, his interests expanding throughout South America. And what few people knew was that Erich Rhinemann was a more dedicated fascist than Hitler’s core. He was a supremacist in all things financial and military, an elitist with regard to the human condition. He was an empire builder who remained strangely—stoically—silent.

  He had reason to be.

  He would be returned to Germany regardless of the outcome of the war. He knew it.

  If the Third Reich was victorious, Hitler’s asinine edict would be revoked—as, indeed, might be the Führer’s powers should he continue to disintegrate. If Germany went down to defeat—as Zürich projected—Rhinemann’s expertise and Swiss accounts would be needed to rebuild the nation.

  But these things were in the future. It was the present that mattered, and presently Erich Rhinemann was a Jew, forced into exile by his own countrymen, Washington’s enemy.

  He would be acceptable to the Americans.

  And he would look after the Reich’s interests in Buenos Aires.

  Stages two and three, then, felt Altmüller, had the ring of clarity. But they were meaningless without an accord in Geneva. The prelude had to be successfully played by the minor instruments.

  What was needed was a man for Geneva. An individual no one could link to the leaders of the Reich, but still one who had a certain recognition in the market place.

  Altmüller continued to stare at the pages under the desk lamp. His eyes were weary, as he was weary, but he knew he could not leave his office or sleep until he had made the decision.

  His decision; it was his alone. To be approved by Speer in the morning with only a glance. A name. Not discussed; someone instantly acceptable.

  He would never know whether it was the letters in Johannesburg or the subconscious process of elimination, but his eyes riveted on one name, and he circled it. He recognized immediately that it was, again, an inspired choice.

  Johann Dietricht, the bilious heir of Dietricht Fabriken; the unattractive homosexual given to alcoholic excess and sudden panic. A completely expendable member of the industrial community; even the most cynical would be reluctant to consider him a liaison to the High Command.

  An expendable mediocrity.

  A messenger.

  DECEMBER 5, 1943, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The bass-toned chimes of the clock on the mantel marked the hour somberly. It was six in the morning and Alan Swanson stared out the window at the dark buildings that were Washington. His apartment was on the twelfth floor, affording a pretty fair view of the capital’s skyline, especially from the living room, where he now stood in his bathrobe, no slippers on his feet.

  He had been looking at Washington’s skyline most of the night … most of the hours of the night for the past three days. God knew what sleep he managed was fitful, subject to sudden torments and awakenings; and always there was the damp pillow that absorbed the constant perspiration that seeped from the pores in the back of his neck.

  If his wife were with him, she would insist that he turn himself in to Walter Reed for a checkup. She would force the issue with constant repetition until he was nagged into submission. But she was not with him; he had been adamant. She was to remain with her sister in Scarsdale. The nature of his current activities was such that his hours were indeterminate. Translation: the army man had no time for his army wife. The army wife understood: there was a severe crisis and her husband could not cope with even her minor demands and the crisis, too. He did not like her to observe him in these situations; he knew she knew that. She would stay in Scarsdale.

  Oh, Christ! It was beyond belief!

  None said the words; perhaps no one allowed himself to think them.

  That was it, of course. The few—and there were very few—who had access to the data turned their eyes and their minds away from the ultimate judgment. They cut off the transaction at midpoint, refusing to acknowledge the final half of the bargain. That half was for others to contend with. Not them.

  As the wily old aristocrat Frederic Vandamm had done.

  There’s your solution, general. Your guidance system. In Peenemünde.… Someone wants to sell it.

  That’s all.

  Buy it.

  None wanted to know the price. The price was insignificant … let others concern themselves with details. Under no circumstances—no circumstances—were insignificant details to be brought up for discussion! They were merely to be expedited.

  Translation: the chain of command depended upon the execution of general orders. It did not—repeat, not—require undue elaboration, clarification or justification. Specifics were an anathema; they consumed time. And by all that was military holy writ, the highest echelons had no time. Goddamn it, man, there was a war on! We must tend to the great military issues of state!

  The garbage will be sorted out by lesser men … whose hands may on occasion reek with the stench of their lesser duties, but that’s what the chain of command is all about.

  Buy it!

  We have no time. Our eyes are turned. Our minds are occupied elsewhere.

  Carry out the order on your own initiative as a good soldier should who understands the chain of command. No one will be inquisitive; it is the result that matters. We all know that; the chain of command, old boy.

  Insanity.

  By the strangest coincidence an Intelligence probe is returned by a man in Johannesburg through which the purchase of industrial diamonds was sought. A purchase for which a fortune in Swiss currency was tendered by Germany’s I. G. Farben, the armaments giant of the Third Reich.

  Peenemünde had the guidance system; it could be had. For a price.

  It did not take a major intellect to arrive at that price.

  Industrial diamonds.

  Insanity.

  For reasons beyond inquiry, Germany desperately needed the diamonds. For reasons all too clear, the Allies desperately needed the high-altitude guidance system.

  An exchange between enemies at the height of the bitterest war in the history of mankind.

  Insanity. Beyond comprehension.

  And so General Alan Swanson removed it from his immediate … totality.

  The single deep chime of the clock intruded, signifying the quater hour. Here and there throughout the maze of dark concrete outside, lights were being turned on in a scattering of tiny windows. A greyish purple slowly began to impose itself on the black sky; vague outlines of cloud wisps could be discerned above.

  In the higher altitudes.

  Swanson walked away from the window to the couch facing the fireplace and sat down. It had been twelve hours ago … eleven
hours and forty-five minutes, to be precise … when he had taken the first step of removal.

  He had placed … delegated the insanity where it belonged. To the men who had created the crisis; whose lies and manipulations had brought Overlord to the precipice of obscenity.

  He had ordered Howard Oliver and Jonathan Craft to be in his apartment at six o’clock. Twelve hours and fifteen minutes ago. He had telephoned them on the previous day, making it clear that he would tolerate no excuses. If transportation were a problem, he would resolve it, but they were to be in Washington, in his apartment, by six o’clock.

  Exposure was a viable alternative.

  They had arrived at precisely six, as the somber chimes of the mantel clock were ringing. At that moment Swanson knew he was dealing from absolute strength. Men like Oliver and Craft—especially Oliver—did not adhere to such punctuality unless they were afraid. It certainly was not courtesy.

  The transference had been made with utter simplicity.

  There was a telephone number in Geneva, Switzerland. There was a man at that number who would respond to a given code phrase and bring together two disparate parties, act as an interpreter, if necessary. It was understood that the second party—for purposes of definition—had access to a perfected high-altitude guidance system. The first party, in turn, should have knowledge of … perhaps access to … shipments of industrial diamonds. The Koening mines of Johannesburg might be a place to start.

  That was all the information they had.

  It was recommended that Mr. Oliver and Mr. Craft act on this information immediately.

  If they failed to do so, extremely serious charges involving individual and corporate deceit relative to armaments contracts would be leveled by the War Department.

  There had been a long period of silence. The implications of his statement—with all its ramifications—were accepted gradually by both men.