The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

  On the far side of the cabin, butted against the wall, was a long table that had the incongruous appearance of a hospital laboratory workbench. It was covered by a taut, white, spotless oilcloth and on the cloth, equidistant from one another, were four powerful microscopes. Beside each instrument was a high-intensity lamp—all the wires leading to a twelve-volt utility battery under the table. On the floor in front of the microscopes were four high-backed stools—four white, spotless stools standing at clinical attention.

  That was the effect thought David. Clinical. This isolated section of the trawler was in counterpoint to the rest of the filthy ship: it was a small, clinical island surrounded by rotted sea waste and rat disks.

  And then he saw them. In the corner.

  Five steel crates, each with metal strips joined at the top edges and held in place with heavy vault locks. On the front of each crate was the clearly stenciled name: KOENING MINES, LTD.

  He’d seen it now. The undeniable, the irrefutable.

  Tortugas.

  The obscene exchange funneled through Erich Rhinemann.

  And he was so close, so near possession. The final indictment

  Within his fear—and he was afraid—furious anger and deep temptation converged. They were sufficient to suspend his anxiety, to force him to concentrate only on the objective. To believe—knowing the belief was false—in some mystical invulnerability, granted for only a few precious minutes.

  That was enough.

  He ducked under the first porthole and approached the second. He stood up and looked in; the door of the cabin was in his direct line of sight. It was a new door, not part of the trawler. It was steel and in the center was a bolt at least an inch thick, jammed into a bracket in the frame.

  The Peenemünde scientists were not only clinically isolated, they were in a self-imposed prison.

  That bolt, David realized, was his personal Alpine pass—to be crossed without rig.

  He crouched and passed under the porthole to the edge of the cabin wall. He remained on his knees and, millimeter by millimeter, the side of his face against the wood, looked around the corner.

  The guard was there, of course, standing his harbor watch in the tradition of such sentry duty: on deck, the inner line of defense; bored, irritated with his boredom, relaxed in his inactivity yet annoyed by its pointlessness.

  But he was not in the paramilitary clothes of Habichtsnest. He was in a loose-fitting suit that did little to conceal a powerful—military—body. His hair was cut short, Wehrmacht style.

  He was leaning against a large fishing net winch, smoking a thin cigar, blowing the smoke aimlessly into the night air. At his side was an automatic rifle, .30 caliber, the shoulder strap unbuckled, curled on the deck. The rifle had not been touched for quite some time; the strap had a film of moisture on the surface of the leather.

  The strap.… David took the belt from his trousers. He stood up, inched back toward the porthole, reached underneath the railing and removed one of two gunwale spikes which were clamped against the inner hull for the fish nets. He tapped the railing softly twice; then twice again. He heard the shuffling of the guard’s feet. No forward movement, just a change of position.

  He tapped again. Twice. Then twice more. The quietly precise tapping—intentional, spaced evenly—was enough to arouse curiosity; insufficient to cause alarm.

  He heard the guard’s footsteps now. Still relaxed, the forward motion easy, not concerned with danger, only curious. A piece of harbor driftwood, perhaps, slapping against the hull, caught in the push-pull of the current.

  The guard rounded the corner; Spaulding’s belt whipped around his neck, instantly lashed taut, choking off the cry.

  David twisted the leather as the guard sank to his knees, the face darkening perceptibly in the dim spill of light from the porthole, the lips pursed in strangled anguish.

  David did not allow his victim to lose consciousness; he had the Alpine pass to cross. Instead, he wedged his pistol into his trousers, reached down to the scabbard on the guard’s waist, and took out the carbine bayonet—a favorite knife of combat men, rarely used on the front of any rifle. He held the blade under the guard’s eyes and whispered.

  “Español or Deutsche?”

  The man stared up in terror. Spaulding twisted the leather tighter; the guard choked a cough and struggled to raise two fingers. David whispered again, the blade pushing against the skin under the right eyeball.

  “Deutsch?”

  The man nodded.

  Of course he was German, thought Spaulding. And Nazi. The clothes, the hair. Peenemünde was the Third Reich. Its scientists would be guarded by their own. He twisted the blade of the carbine bayonet so that a tiny laceration appeared under the eye. The guard’s mouth opened in fright.

  “You do exactly what I tell you,” whispered David in German into the guard’s ear, “or I’ll carve out your sight Understand?”

  The man, nearly limp, nodded.

  “Get up and call through the porthole. You have an urgent message from … Altmüller, Franz Altmüller! They must open the door and sign for it.… Do it! Now! And remember, this knife is inches from your eyes.”

  The guard, in shock, got up. Spaulding pushed the man’s face to the open porthole, loosened the belt only slightly, and shifted his position to the side of the man and the window, his left hand holding the leather, his right the knife.

  “Now!” whispered David, flicking the blade in half circles.

  At first the guard’s voice was strained, artificial. Spaulding moved in closer; the guard knew he had only seconds to live if he did not perform.

  He performed.

  There was stirring in the bunk beds within the cabin. Grumbling complaints to begin with, ceasing abruptly at the mention of Altmüller’s name.

  A small, middle-aged man got out of the left lower bunk and walked sleepily to the steel door. He was in under-shorts, nothing else. David propelled the guard around the corner of the wall and reached the door at the sound of the sliding bolt.

  He slammed the guard against the steel panel with the twisted belt; the door flung open, David grabbed the knob, preventing it from crashing into the bulkhead. He dropped the knife, yanked out his pistol, and crashed the barrel into the skull of the small scientist.

  “Schweigen!” he whispered hoarsely. “Wenn Ihnen Ihr Leben lieb ist!”

  The three men in the bunks—older men, one old man—stumbled out of their beds, trembling and speechless. The guard, choking still, began to focus around him and started to rise. Spaulding took two steps and slashed the pistol diagonally across the man’s temple, splaying him out on the deck.

  The old man, less afraid than his two companions, stared at David. For reasons Spaulding could not explain to himself, he felt ashamed. Violence was out of place in this antiseptic cabin.

  “I have no quarrel with you,” he whispered harshly in German. “You follow orders. But don’t mistake me, I’ll kill you if you make a sound!” He pointed to some papers next to a microscope; they were filled with numbers and columns. “You!” He gestured his pistol at the old man. “Give me those! Quickly!”

  The old man trudged haltingly across the cabin to the clinical work area. He lifted the papers off the table and handed them to Spaulding, who stuffed them into his wet trousers pocket.

  “Thanks.… Now!” He pointed his weapon at the other two. “Open one of those crates! Do it now!”

  “No!… No! For God’s sake!” said the taller of the middle-aged scientists, his voice low, filled with fear.

  David grabbed the old man standing next to him. He clamped his arm around the loose flesh of the old neck and brought his pistol up to the head. He thumbed back the firing pin and spoke calmly. “You will open a crate or I will kill this man. When he’s dead, I’ll turn my pistol on you. Believe me, I have no alternative.”

  The shorter man whipped his head around, pleading silently with the taller one. The old man in David’s grasp was the leader; Spaulding
knew that. An old … alter-Anführer; always take the German leader.

  The taller Peenemünde scientist walked—every step in fear—to the far corner of the clinical workbench, where there was a neat row of keys on the wall. He removed one and hesitantly went to the first steel crate. He bent down and inserted the key in the vault lock holding the metal strip around the edge; the strip snapped apart in the center.

  “Open the lid!” commanded Spaulding, his anxiety causing his whisper to become louder; too loud, he realized.

  The cover of the steel crate was heavy; the German had to lift it with both hands, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth betraying the effort required. Once at a ninety-degree angle, chains on both sides became taut; there was a click of a latch and the cover was locked in place.

  Inside were dozens of identically matched compartments in what appeared to be sliding trays—something akin to a large, complicated fishing tackle box. Then David understood: the front of the steel case was on hinges; it too could be opened—or lowered, to be exact—allowing the trays to slide out.

  In each compartment were two small, heavy, paper envelopes, apparently lined with layers of soft tissue. There were dozens of envelopes on the top tray alone.

  David released the old man, propelling him back toward the bunk beds. He waved his pistol at the tall German who had opened the crate, ordering him to join the other two. He reached down into the steel crate, picked out a small envelope and brought it to his mouth, tearing the edge with his teeth. He shook it toward the ground; tiny translucent nuggets spattered over the cabin deck.

  The Koening diamonds.

  He watched the German scientists as he crumpled the envelope. They were staring at the stones on the floor.

  Why not? thought David. In that cabin was the solution for Peenemünde. In those crates were the tools to rain death on untold thousands … as the gyroscopic designs for which they were traded would make possible further death, further massacre.

  He was about to throw away the envelope in disgust and fill his pockets with others when his eyes caught sight of some lettering. He unwrinkled the envelope, his pistol steady on the Germans, and looked down. The single word:

  echt

  True. Genuine. This envelope, this tray, this steel case had passed inspection.

  He reached down and grabbed as many envelopes as his left hand could hold and stuffed them into his trousers pocket.

  It was all he needed for the indictment.

  It was everything. It was the meaning.

  There was one thing more he could do. Of a more immediately practical nature. He crossed to the workbench and went down the line of four microscopes, crashing the barrel of his pistol up into each lens and down into the eyepieces. He looked for a laboratory case, the type which carried optical equipment. There had to be one!

  It was on the floor beneath the long table. He kicked it out with his bare foot and reached down to open the hasp.

  More slots and trays, only these filled with lenses and small black tubes in which to place them.

  He bent down and overturned the case; dozens of circular lenses fell out onto the deck. As fast as he could he grabbed the nearest white stool and brought it down sideways into the piles of glass.

  The destruction wasn’t total, but the damage was enough, perhaps, for forty-eight hours.

  He started to get up, his weapon still on the scientists, his ears and eyes alert.

  He heard it! He sensed it! And simultaneously he understood that if he did not spin out of the way he would be dead!

  He threw himself on the floor to the right; the hand above and behind him came down, the carbine bayonet slicing the air, aimed for the spot where his neck had been less than a second ago.

  He had left the goddamned bayonet on the floor! He had discarded the goddamned bayonet! The guard had revived and taken the goddamned bayonet!

  The Nazi’s single cry emerged before Spaulding leaped on his kneeling form, smashing his skull into the wood floor with such force that blood spewed out in tiny bursts throughout the head.

  But the lone cry was enough.

  “Is something wrong?” came a voice from outside, twenty yards away on the loading dock. “Heinrich! Did you call?”

  There was no second, no instant, to throw away on hesitation.

  David ran to the steel door, pulled it open and raced around the corner of the wall to the concealed section of the gunwale. As he did so, a guard—the sentry on the bow of the trawler—came into view. His rifle was waist high and he fired.

  Spaulding fired back. But not before he realized he was hit. The Nazi’s bullet had creased the side of his waist; he could feel the blood oozing down into his trousers.

  He threw himself over the railing into the water; screams and shouts started from inside the cabin and farther away on the pier.

  He thrashed against the dirty Rïo slime and tried to keep his head. Where was he? What direction! Where? For Christ’s sake, where!

  The shouts were louder now; searchlights were turned on all over the trawler, crisscrossing the harbor waters. He could hear men screaming into radios as only panicked men can scream. Accusing, helpless.

  Suddenly, David realized there were no boats! No boats were coming out of the pier with the searchlights and high-powered rifles that would be his undoing!

  No boats!

  And he nearly laughed. The operation at Ocho Calle was so totally secretive they had allowed no small craft to put into the deserted area!

  He held his side, going under water as often as he could, as fast as he could.

  The trawler and the screaming Rhinemann-Altmüller guards were receding in the harbor mist. Spaulding kept bobbing his head up, hoping to God he was going in the right direction.

  He was getting terribly tired, but he would not allow himself to grow weak. He could not allow that! Not now!

  He had the “Tortugas” indictment!

  He saw the pilings not far away. Perhaps two, three hundred yards. They were the right pilings, the right piers! They … it, had to be!

  He felt the waters around him stir and then he saw the snakelike forms of the conger eels as they lashed blindly against his body. The blood from his wound was attracting them! A horrible mass of slashing giant worms were converging!

  He thrashed and kicked and fought down a scream. He pulled at the waters in front of him, his hands in constant contact with the oily snakes of the harbor. His eyes were filled with flashing dots and streaks of yellow and white; his throat was dry in the water, his forehead pounded.

  When it seemed at last the scream would come, had to come, he felt the hand in his hand. He felt his shoulders being lifted, heard the guttural cries of his own terrified voice—deep, frightened beyond his own endurance. He could look down and see, as his feet kept slipping off the ladder, the circles of swarming eels below.

  Eugene Lyons carried him—carried him!—to the FMF automobile. He was aware—yet not aware—of the fact that Lyons pushed him gently into the back seat.

  And then Lyons climbed in after him, and David understood—yet did not understand—that Lyons was slapping him. Hard. Harder.

  Deliberately. Without rhythm but with a great deal of strength.

  The slapping would not stop! He couldn’t make it stop! He couldn’t stop the half-destroyed, throatless Lyons from slapping him.

  He could only cry. Weep as a child might weep.

  And then suddenly he could make him stop. He took his hands from his face and grabbed Lyons’s wrists, prepared, if need be, to break them.

  He blinked and stared at the physicist.

  Lyons smiled in the shadows. He spoke in his tortured whisper.

  “I’m sorry.… You were … in temporary … shock. My friend.”

  39

  An elaborate naval first aid kit was stored in the trunk of the FMF vehicle. Lyons filled David’s wound with sulfa powder, laid on folded strips of gauze and pinched the skin together with three-inch adhesive. Since the w
ound was a gash, not a puncture, the bleeding stopped; it would hold until they reached a doctor. Even should the wait be a day or a day and a half, there would be no serious damage.

  Lyons drove.

  David watched the emaciated man behind the wheel. He was unsure but willing; that was the only way to describe him. Every now and then his foot pressed too hard on the accelerator, and the short bursts of speed frightened him—then annoyed him. Still, after a few minutes, he seemed to take a careful delight in manipulating the car around corners.

  David knew he had to accomplish three things: reach Henderson Granville, talk to Jean and drive to that sanctuary he hoped to Christ Jean had found for them. If a doctor could be brought to him, fine. If not, he would sleep; he was beyond the point of functioning clearly without rest.

  How often in the north country had he sought out isolated caves in the hills? How many times had he piled branches and limbs in front of small openings so his body and mind could restore the balance of objectivity that might save his life? He had to find such a resting place now.

  And tomorrow he would make the final arrangements with Erich Rhinemann.

  The final pages of the indictment.

  “We have to find a telephone,” said David. Lyons nodded as he drove.

  David directed the physicist back into the center of Buenos Aires. By his guess they still had time before the FMF base sent out a search. The orange insignias on the bumpers would tend to dissuade the BA police from becoming too curious; the Americans were children of the night.

  He remembered the telephone booth on the north side of the Casa Rosada. The telephone booth in which a hired gun from the Unio Corso—sent down from Rio de Janeiro—had taken his last breath.