The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel

  “Specified as ‘intended maximum,’ General Swanson,” shot back Oliver, smiling an obsequious smile that conveyed anything but courtesy.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Swanson looked at Undersecretary Vandamm.

  “Mr. Oliver is concerned with a contractual interpretation.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I have to be,” replied Oliver. “The War Department has refused payment to Meridian Aircraft Corporation. We have a contract.…”

  “Take the goddamned contract up with someone else!”

  “Anger won’t solve anything.” Vandamm spoke harshly.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Undersecretary, but I’m not here to discuss contractual interpretations.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to, General Swanson.” Vandamm now spoke calmly. “The Disbursement Office has withheld payment to Meridian on your negative authorization. You haven’t cleared it.”

  “Why should I? The aircraft can’t do the job we expected.”

  “It can do the job you contracted for,” said Oliver, moving his thick neck from Vandamm to the brigadier general. “Rest assured, general, our best efforts are being poured into the intended maximum guidance system. We’re expending all our resources. We’ll reach a breakthrough, we’re convinced of that. But until we do, we expect the contracts to be honored. We’ve met the guarantees.”

  “Are you suggesting that we take the aircraft as is?”

  “It’s the finest bomber in the air.” Jonathan Craft spoke. His soft, high voice was a weak exclamation that floated to a stop. He pressed his delicate fingers together in what he believed was emphasis.

  Swanson disregarded Craft and stared at the small face and magnified eyes of the ATCO scientist, Gian Spinelli. “What about the gyros? Can you give me an answer, Mr. Spinelli?”

  Howard Oliver intruded bluntly. “Use the existing systems. Get the aircraft into combat.”

  “No!” Swanson could not help himself. His was the roar of disgust, let Undersecretary Vandamm say what he liked. “Our strategies call for round-the-clock strikes into the deepest regions of Germany. From all points—known and unknown. Fields in England, Italy, Greece … yes, even unlisted bases in Turkey and Yugoslavia; carriers in the Mediterranean and, goddamn it, the Black Sea! Thousands and thousands of planes crowding the air corridors for space. We need the extra altitude! We need the guidance systems to operate at those altitudes! Anything less is unthinkable!… I’m sorry, Mr. Vandamm. I believe I’m justifiably upset.”

  “I understand,” said the white-haired Undersecretary of State. “That’s why we’re here this afternoon. To look for solutions … as well as money.” The old gentleman shifted his gaze to Craft. “Can you add to Mr. Oliver’s remarks, from Packard’s vantage point?”

  Craft disengaged his lean, manicured fingers and took a deep breath through his nostrils as if he were about to deliver essential wisdom. The executive font of knowledge, thought Alan Swanson, jockeying for a chairman’s approval.

  “Of course, Mr. Undersecretary. As the major subcontractor for Meridian, we’ve been as disturbed as the general over the lack of guidance results. We’ve spared nothing to accommodate. Mr. Spinelli’s presence is proof of that. After all, we’re the ones who brought in ATCO.…” Here Craft smiled heroically, a touch sadly. “As we all know, ATCO is the finest—and most costly. We’ve spared nothing.”

  “You brought in ATCO,” said Swanson wearily, “because your own laboratories couldn’t do the job. You submitted cost overruns to Meridian which were passed on to us. I don’t see that you spared a hell of a lot.”

  “Good Lord, general!” exclaimed Craft with very little conviction. “The time, the negotiations … time is money, sir; make no mistake about that. I could show you.…”

  “The general asked me a question. I should like to answer him.”

  The words, spoken with a trace of dialect, came from the tiny scientist, who was either dismissing Craft’s nonsense, or oblivious to it, or, somehow, both.

  “I’d be grateful, Mr. Spinelli.”

  “Our progress has been consistent, steady if you like. Not rapid. The problems are great. We believe the distortion of the radio beams beyond certain altitudes varies with temperatures and land-mass curvatures. The solutions lie in alternating compensations. Our experiments continuously narrow that field.… Our rate of progress would be more rapid were it not for constant interferences.”

  Gian Spinelli stopped and shifted his grotesquely magnified eyes to Howard Oliver, whose thick neck and jowled face were suddenly flushed with anger.

  “You’ve had no interference from us!”

  “And certainly not from Packard!” chimed in Craft. “We’ve stayed in almost daily contact. Our concerns have never flagged!”

  Spinelli turned to Craft. “Your concerns … as those of Meridian … have been exclusively budgetary, as far as I can see.”

  “That’s preposterous! Whatever financial inquiries were made, were made at the request of the … contractor’s audit division.…”

  “And totally necessary!” Oliver could not conceal his fury at the small Italian. “You laboratory … people don’t reconcile! You’re children!”

  For the next thirty seconds the three agitated men babbled excitedly in counterpoint. Swanson looked over at Vandamm. Their eyes met in understanding.

  Oliver was the first to recognize the trap. He held up his hand … a corporate command, thought Swanson.

  “Mr. Undersecretary.” Oliver spoke, stifling the pitch of his anger. “Don’t let our squabbling convey the wrong impression. We turn out the products.”

  “You’re not turning out this one,” said Swanson. “I recall vividly the projections in your bids for the contract. You had everything turned out then.”

  When Oliver looked at him, Alan Swanson instinctively felt he should reach for a weapon to protect himself. The Meridian executive was close to exploding.

  “We relied on subordinates’ evaluations,” said Oliver slowly, with hostility. “I think the military has had its share of staff errors.”

  “Subordinates don’t plan major strategies.”

  Vandamm raised his voice. “Mr. Oliver. Suppose General Swanson were convinced it served no purpose withholding funds. What kind of time limits could you now guarantee?”

  Oliver looked at Spinelli. “What would you estimate?” he asked coldly.

  Spinelli’s large eyes swept the ceiling. “In candor, I cannot give you an answer. We could solve it next week. Or next year.”

  Swanson quickly reached into his tunic pocket and withdrew a folded page of paper. He spread it out in front of him and spoke swiftly. “According to this memorandum … our last communication from ATCO … once the guidance system is perfected, you state you need six weeks of inflight experimentation. The Montana Proving Grounds.”

  “That’s correct, general. I dictated that myself,” said Spinelli.

  “Six weeks from next week. Or next year. And assuming the Montana experiments are positive, another month to equip the fleets.”

  “Yes.”

  Swanson looked over at Vandamm. “In light of this, Mr. Undersecretary, there’s no other course but to alter immediate priorities. Or at least the projections. We can’t meet the logistics.”

  “Unacceptable, General Swanson. We have to meet them.”

  Swanson stared at the old man. Each knew precisely what the other referred to.

  Overlord. The invasion of Europe.

  “We must postpone, sir.”

  “Impossible. That’s the word, general.”

  Swanson looked at the three men around the table.

  The enemy.

  “We’ll be in touch, gentlemen,” he said.

  3

  SEPTEMBER 12, 1943, THE BASQUE HILLS, SPAIN

  David Spaulding waited in the shadows of the thick, gnarled tree on the rocky slope above the ravine. It was Basque country and the air was damp and cold. The late afternoon sun washed over the hills;
his back was to it. He had years ago—it seemed a millennium but it wasn’t—learned the advantage of catching the reflections of the sun off the steel of small weapons. His own rifle was dulled with burnt, crushed cork.

  Four.

  Strange, but the number four kept coming to mind as he scanned the distance.

  Four.

  Four years and four days ago exactly. And this afternoon’s contract was scheduled for precisely four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Four years and four days ago he had first seen the creased brown uniforms behind the thick glass partition in the radio studio in New York. Four years and four days ago since he had walked toward that glass wall to pick up his raincoat off the back of a chair and realized that the eyes of the older officer were looking at him. Steadily. Coldly. The younger man avoided him, as if guilty of intrusion, but not his superior, not the lieutenant colonel.

  The lieutenant colonel had been studying him.

  That was the beginning.

  He wondered now—as he watched the ravine for signs of movement—when it would end. Would he be alive to see it end?

  He intended to be.

  He had called it a treadmill once. Over a drink at the Mayflower in Washington. Fairfax had been a treadmill; still, he had not known at the time how completely accurate that word would continue to be: a racing treadmill that never stopped.

  It slowed down occasionally. The physical and mental pressures demanded deceleration at certain recognizable times—recognizable to him. Times when he realized he was getting careless … or too sure of himself. Or too absolute with regard to decisions that took human life.

  Or might take his.

  They were often too easily arrived at. And sometimes that frightened him. Profoundly.

  During such times he would take himself away. He would travel south along the Portuguese coast where the enclaves of the temporarily inconvenienced rich denied the existence of war. Or he would stay in Costa del Santiago—with his perplexed parents. Or he would remain within the confines of the embassy in Lisbon and engross himself in the meaningless chores of neutral diplomacy. A minor military attaché who did not wear a uniform. It was not expected in the streets; it was inside the “territory.” He did not wear one, however; no one cared. He was not liked very much. He socialized too frequently, had too many prewar friends. By and large, he was ignored … with a certain disdain.

  At such times he rested. Forced his mind to go blank; to recharge itself.

  Four years and four days ago such thoughts would have been inconceivable.

  Now they consumed him. When he had the time for such thoughts.

  Which he did not have now.

  There was still no movement in the ravine. Something was wrong. He checked his watch; the team from San Sebastián was too far behind schedule. It was an abnormal delay. Only six hours ago the French underground had radioed that everything was secure; there were no complications, the team had started out.

  The runners from San Sebastián were bringing out photographs of the German airfield installations north of Mont-de-Marsan. The strategists in London had been screaming for them for months. Those photographs had cost the lives of four … again, that goddamned number … four underground agents.

  If anything, the team should have been early; the runners should have been waiting for the man from Lisbon.

  Then he saw it in the distance; perhaps a half a mile away, it was difficult to tell. Over the ravine, beyond the opposite slope, from one of the miniature hills. A flashing.

  An intermittent but rhythmic flashing. The measured spacing was a mark of intent, not accident.

  They were being signaled. He was being signaled by someone who knew his methods of operation well; perhaps someone he had trained. It was a warning.

  Spaulding slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled the strap taut, then tighter still so that it became a fixed but flexible appendage to his upper body. He felt the hasp of his belt holster; it was in place, the weapon secure. He pushed himself away from the trunk of the old tree and, in a crouching position, scrambled up the remainder of the rock-hewn slope.

  On the ridge he ran to his left, into the tall grass toward the remains of a dying pear orchard. Two men in mudcaked clothes, rifles at their sides, were sitting on the ground playing trick knife, passing the time in silence. They snapped their heads up, their hands reaching for their guns.

  Spaulding gestured to them to remain on the ground. He approached and spoke quietly in Spanish.

  “Do either of you know who’s on the team coming in?”

  “Bergeron, I think,” said the man on the right. “And probably Chivier. That old man has a way with patrols; forty years he’s peddled across the border.”

  “Then it’s Bergeron,” said Spaulding.

  “What is?” asked the second man.

  “We’re being signaled. They’re late and someone is using what’s left of the sun to get our attention.”

  “Perhaps to tell you they’re on their way.” The first man put the knife back in his scabbard as he spoke.

  “Possible but not likely. We wouldn’t go anywhere. Not for a couple of hours yet.” Spaulding raised himself partially off the ground and looked eastward. “Come on! We’ll head down past the rim of the orchard. We can get a cross view there.”

  The three men in single file, separated but within hearing of each other, raced across the field below the high ground for nearly four hundred yards. Spaulding positioned himself behind a low rock that jutted over the edge of the ravine. He waited for the other two. The waters below were about a hundred feet straight down, he judged. The team from San Sebastián would cross them approximately two hundred yards west, through the shallow, narrow passage they always used.

  The two other men arrived within seconds of each other.

  “The old tree where you stood was the mark, wasn’t it?” asked the first man.

  “Yes,” answered Spaulding, removing his binoculars from a case opposite his belt holster. They were powerful, with Zeiss Ikon lenses, the best Germany produced. Taken from a dead German at the Tejo River.

  “Then why come down here? If there’s a problem, your line of vision was best where you were. It’s more direct.”

  “If there’s a problem, they’ll know that. They’ll flank to their left. East. To the west the ravine heads away from the mark. Maybe it’s nothing. Perhaps you were right; they just want us to know they’re coming.”

  A little more than two hundred yards away, just west of the shallow passage, two men came into view. The Spaniard who knelt on Spaulding’s left touched the American’s shoulder.

  “It’s Bergeron and Chivier,” he said quietly.

  Spaulding held up his hand for silence and scanned the area with the binoculars. Abruptly he fixed them in one position. With his left hand he directed the attention of his subordinates to the spot.

  Below them, perhaps fifty yards, four soldiers in Wehrmacht uniforms were struggling with the foliage, approaching the waters of the ravine.

  Spaulding moved his binoculars back to the two Frenchmen, now crossing the water. He held the glasses steady against the rock until he could see in the woods behind the two men what he knew was there.

  A fifth German, an officer, was half concealed in the tangled mass of weeds and low branches. He held a rifle on the two Frenchmen crossing the ravine.

  Spaulding passed the binoculars quickly to the first Spaniard. He whispered, “Behind Chivier.”

  The man looked, then gave the glasses to his countryman.

  Each knew what had to be done; even the methods were clear. It was merely a question of timing, precision. From a scabbard behind his right hip, Spaulding withdrew a short carbine bayonet, shortened further by grinding. His two associates did the same. Each peered over the rock at the Wehrmacht men below.

  The four Germans, faced with waters waist high and a current—though not excessively strong, nevertheless considerable—strapped their rifles across their should
ers laterally and separated in a downstream column. The lead man started across, testing the depths as he did so.

  Spaulding and the two Spaniards came from behind the rock swiftly and slid down the incline, concealed by the foliage, their sounds muffled by the rushing water. In less than half a minute they were within thirty feet of the Wehrmacht men, hidden by fallen tree limbs and overgrowth. David entered the water, hugging the embankment. He was relieved to see that the fourth man—now only fifteen feet in front of him—was having the most difficulty keeping his balance on the slippery rocks. The other three, spaced about ten yards apart, were concentrating on the Frenchmen upstream. Concentrating intently.

  The Nazi saw him; the fear, the bewilderment was in the German’s eyes. The split second he took to assimilate the shock was the time David needed. Covered by the sounds of the water, Spaulding leaped on the man, his knife penetrating the Wehrmacht throat, the head pushed violently under the surface, the blood mingling with the rushing stream.

  There was no time, no second to waste. David released the lifeless form and saw that the two Spaniards were parallel with him on the embankment. The first man, crouched and hidden, gestured toward the lead soldier; the second nodded his head toward the next man. And David knew that the third Wehrmacht soldier was his.

  It took no more than the time necessary for Bergeron and Chivier to reach the south bank. The three soldiers were dispatched, their blood-soaked bodies floating downstream, careening off rocks, filling the waters with streaks of magenta.

  Spaulding signaled the Spaniards to cross the water to the north embankment. The first man pulled himself up beside David, his right hand bloodied from a deep cut across his palm.

  “Are you all right?” whispered Spaulding.

  “The blade slipped. I lost my knife.” The man swore.

  “Get out of the area,” said David. “Get the wound dressed at the Valdero farm.”

  “I can put on a tight bandage. I’ll be fine.”

  The second Spaniard joined them. He winced at the sight of his countryman’s hand, an action Spaulding thought inconsistent for a guerrilla who had just minutes ago plunged a blade into the neck of a man, slicing most of his head off.