Christ, thought Spaulding, the infiltration team must have used a child, or
an imbecile, or both as its runner. ‘Come on out.’
‘I am with apologies, Lisbon,’ said the voice, as the branches were
separated and the pile dislodged. ‘We’ve had a bad time of it.,
The runner emerged. He was obviously not anyone David had trained. He was
short, very muscular, no more than twenty-five or twenty-six; nervous fear
was in his eyes.
‘In the future,’ said Spaulding, ‘don’t acknowledge signals, then question
the signaler at the last moment. Unless you intend to kill him. Es ist
Schwarztuch-chiffire.’
‘Was ist das? Black . . .’
‘Black drape, friend. Before our time. It means … confirm and terminate.
Never mind, just don’t do it again. Where are the others?’
‘Inside. They are all right; very tired and very afraid, but not injured.’
The runner turned and pulled off more branches. ‘Come out. It’s the man
from Lisbon.’
The two frightened, middle-aged scientists crawled out of the cave
cautiously, blinking at the hot, harsh sun. They looked gratefully at
David; the taller one spoke in halting English.
. ‘This is a . . . minute we have waited for. Our very much thanks.’
Spaulding smiled. ‘Well, we’re not out of the woods, yet. Frei. Both terms
apply. You’re brave men. We’ll do all we can for you.’
‘There was … nichts… remaining,’ said the shorter laboratory man. ‘My
friend’s socialist … Polilik . . . was unpopular. My late wife was …
eine Aidin.’
‘No childrenT
77
‘Nein,’ answered the man. ‘Gott sel dank.’
‘I have one son,’ said the taller scientist coldly. ‘Er ist … Gestapo.’
There was no more to be said, thought Spaulding. He turned to the runner,
who was scanning the hill and the forests below. ‘I’ll take over now. Get
back to Base Four as soon as you can. We’ve got a large contingent coming
in from Koblenz in a few days. We’ll need everyone. Get some rest.’
The runner hesitated; David had seen his expression before … so often.
The man was now going to travel alone. No company, pleasant or unpleasant.
Just alone.
‘That is not my understanding, Lisbon. I am to stay with you. . . .,
‘WhyT interrupted Spaulding.
‘My instructions. . .
‘From whomT
‘From those in San Sebastidn. Herr Bergeron and his men. Weren’t you
informed?’
David looked at the runner. The man’s fear was making him a poor liar,
thought Spaulding. Or he was something else. Something completely
unexpected because it was not logical; it was not, at this point, even
remotely to be considered. Unless . . ..
David gave the runner’s frayed young nerves the benefit of the doubt. A
benefit, not an exoneration. That would come later.
‘No, I wasn’t told,’ he said. ‘Come on. We’ll head to Beta camp. We’ll stay
there until morning.’ Spaulding gestured and they started across the foot
of the slope.
‘I haven’t worked this far south,’ said the runner, positioning himself
behind David. ‘Don’t you travel at night, LisbonT
‘Sometimes,’ answered Spaulding, looking back at the scientists, who were
walking side by side. ‘Not if we can help it. The Basque shoot
indiscriminately at night. They have too many dogs off their leashes at
night.’
‘I see.’
‘Let’s walk single file. Flank our guests,’ said David to the runner.
The four traveled several miles east. Spaulding kept up a rapid pace; the
middle-aged scientists did not complain but they obviously found the going
difficult. A number of times David told the others to remain where they
were while he entered the woods at various sections ofthe forest and
returned minutes later. Each
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time he did so, the older men rested, grateful for the pauses. The runner
did not. He appeared frightened – as if the American might not come back.
Spaulding did not encourage conversation, but after one such disappearance,
the young German could not restrain himself.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
David looked at the Widerstandskdmpfer and smiled. ‘Picking up messages.’
‘Messages?’
‘These are drops. Along our route. We establish marks for leaving off
information we don’t want sent by radio. Too dangerous if intercepted.’
They continued along a narrow path at the edge of the woods until there was
a break in the Basque forest. It was a grazing field, a lower plateau
centered beneath the surrounding hills. The Wissenschaftler were perspiring
heavily, their breaths short, their legs aching.
‘We’ll rest here for a while,’ said Spaulding, to the obvious relief of the
older men. ‘It’s time I made contact anyway.’
‘Wa.t ist los?’asked the young runner. ‘Contact?’
‘Zeroing our position,’ replied David, taking out a small metal mirror from
his field jacket. ‘The scouts can relax if they know where we are…. If
you’re going to work the north coufitry -what you call south – you’d better
remember all this.’
‘I shall, I shall.’
David caught the reflection of the sun on the mirror and beamed it up to a
northern hill. He made a series of motions with his wrist, and the metal
plate moved back and forth in rhythn-dc precision.
Seconds later there was a reply from halfway up the highest hill in the
north. Flashes of light shafted out of an infinitesimal spot in the
brackish green distance. Spaulding turned to the others.
‘We’re not going to Beta,’ he said. ‘Falangist patrols are in the area.
We’ll stay here until we’re given clearance. You can relax.’
The heavyset Basque put down the knapsack mirror. His companion still
focused his binoculars on the field several miles below, where the American
and his three charges were now seated on the ground.
‘He says they are being followed. We are to take up counterpositions and
stay out of sight,’ said the man with the metal
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mirror. ‘We go down for the scientists tomorrow night. He will signal us.’
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘I don’t know. He says to get word to Lisbon. He’s going to stay in the
hills.’
‘He’s a cold one,’ the Basque said.
DECEMBER 2,1943
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Alan Swanson sat in the back of the army car trying his best to remain
calm. He looked out the window; the late morning traffic was slight. The
immense Washington labor force was at its appointed destinations; machines
were humming, telephones ringing, men were shouting and whispering and, in
too many places, having the first drink of the day. The exhilaration that
was apparent during the first hours of the working day faded as noon
approached. By eleven thirty a great many people thought the war was dull
and were bored by their mechanical chores, the unending duplicates,
triplicates and quadruplicates. They could not understand the necessity of
painstaking logistics, of disseminating information to innumerable chains
of command.
They could not understand because they could not be given whole pictures,
only fragments, repetitious statistics. Of course they were bored.
They were weary. As he had been weary fourteen hours ago in Pasadena,
California.
Everything had failed.
Meridian Aircraft had initiated – was forced to initiate – a crash program,
but the finest scientific minds in the country could not eliminate the
errors inside the small box that was the guidance system. The tiny,
whirling spheroid discs would not spin true at maximum altitudes. They were
erratic; absolute one second, deviant the next.
The most infinitesimal deviation could result in the midair collision of
giant aircraft. And with the numbers projected for
80
the saturation bombing prior to Overlord – scheduled to commence in less
than four months – collisions would occur.
But this morning everything was different.
Could be different, if there was substance to what he had been told. He
hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane, hardly been able to eat. Upon
landing at Andrews, he had hurried to his Washington apartment, showered,
shaved, changed uniforms and called his wife in Scarsdale, where she was
staying with a sister. He didn’t remember the conversation between them;
the usual endearments were absent, the questions perfunctory. He had no
time for her.
The army car entered the Virginia highway and accelerated. They were going
to Fairfax; they’d be there in twenty minutes or so. In less than a half
hour he would find out if the impossible was, conversely, entirely
possible. The news had come as a lastminute stay of execution; the cavalry
in the distant hills – the sounds of muted bugles signaling reprieve.
Muted, indeed, thought Swanson as the army car veered off the highway onto
a back Virginia road. In Fairfax, covering some two hundred acres in the
middle of the hunt country, was a fenced-off area housing Quonset huts
beside huge radar screens and radio signal towers that sprang from the
ground like giant steel malformities. It was the Field Division
Headquarters of Clandestine Operations; next to the underground rooms at
the White House, the most sensitive processing location of the Allied
Intelligence services.
Late yesterday afternoon, FDHQ-Fairfax had received confirmation of an