missed the interceptor sound before. It was entirely possible, and Fairfax
was, after all … well, Fairfax.
‘Spaulding. Lieutenant Colonel David Spaulding.’
‘Can I give the colonel a message, sir? He’s in conference.’
‘No, you may not. You may and can give me the colonel.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Fairfax’s hesitation was now awkward. ‘Let me have a
telephone number …..
‘Look, soldier, my name is Spaulding. My clearance is fourzero and this is
a four-zero prioxity call. If those numbers don’t mean anything to you, ask
the son of a bitch on your intercept. Now, it’s an emergency. Put me
through to Colonel Pace!’
There was a loud double click on the line. A deep, hard voice came over the
wire.
‘And this is Colonel Barden, Colonel Spaulding. I’m also four-zero and any
four-zeros will be cleared with this son of a bitch. Now, I’m in no mood
for any rank horseshit. What do you want?’
‘I like your directness, colonel,’ said David, smiling in spite of his
urgency. ‘Put me through to Ed. It’s really priority. It concerns Fairfax.’
‘I can’t put you through, colonel. We don’t have any circuits, and I’m not
trying to be funny. Ed Pace is dead. He was shot through the head an hour
ago. Some goddamned son of a bitch killed him right here in the compound.’
M&
20
JANUARY 1, 1944
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
It was four-thirty in the morning when the army car carrying Spaulding
reached the Fairfax gate.
The guards had been alerted; Spaulding, in civilian clothes, possessing no
papers of authorization, was matched against his file photograph and waved
through. David had been tempted to ask to see the photograph; to the best
of his knowledge, it was four years old. Once inside, the automobile swung
left and headed to the south area of the huge compound. About a half mile
down the gravel road, past rows of metal Quonset huts, the car pulled up in
front of a barracks structure. It was the Fairfax Administration Building.
Two corporals flanked the door. The sergeant Over climbed out of the car
and signaled the noncoms to let Spaulding throughl he was already in front
of them.
David was shown to an office on the second floor. Inside were two men:
Colonel Ira Barden and a doctor named McCleod, a captain. Barden was a
thick, short man with the build of a foptball tackle and close-cropped
black hair. McCleod was stooped, slender, bespectacled – the essence of the
thoughtful academician.
Barden wasted the minimum time with introductions. Completed, he went
immediately to the questions at hand.
‘We’ve doubled patrols everywhere, put men with K-9s all along the fences.
I’d like to think no one could get out. What bothers us is whether someone
got out beforehand.’
189
‘How did it happenT
‘Pace had a few people over for New Year’s. Twelve, to be exact. Four were
from his own Quonset, three from Records, the rest from Administration.
Very subdued … what the hell, this is Fairfax. As near as we can
determine, he went out his back door at about twenty minutes past midnight.
Carrying out garbage, we think; maybe just to get some air. He didn’t come
back. – A guard down the road came to the door, saying he’d heard a shot.
No one else had. At least, not inside.’
‘That’s unusual. These quarters are hardly soundproof.’
‘Someone had turned up the phonograph.’
‘I thought it was a subdued party.’
Barden looked hard at Spaulding. His glare was not anger, it was his way of
telegraphing his deep concern. ‘That record player was turned up for no
more than thirty seconds. The rifle used -and ballistics confirms this –
was a training weapon, .22 caliber.’
‘A sharp crack, no louder,’ said David.
‘Exactly. The phonograph was a signal!
‘Inside. At the party,’ added Spaulding.
‘Yes…. McCleod here is the base psychiatrist. We’ve been going over
everyone who was inside …..
‘Psychiatrist?’ David was confused. It was a security problem, not medical.
‘Ed was a hardnose, you know that as well as I do. He trained you…. I
looked you up, Lisbon. It’s one angle. We’re covering the others!
‘Look,’ interrupted the doctor, ‘you two want to talk, and I’ve got files
to go over. I’ll call you in the morning; later this morning, Ira. Nice to
meet you, Spaulding. Wish it wasn’t this way.9
‘Agreed,’ said Spaulding, shaking the man’s hand.
The psychiatrist gathered up the twelve file folders on the colonel’s desk
and left.
The door closed. Barden indicated a chair to Spaulding. David sat down,
rubbing his eyes. ‘One hell of a New Yeaes, isn’t iff said Barden.
‘I’ve seen better,’ Spaulding replied.
‘Do you want to go over what happened to youT
‘I don’t think there’s any point. I was stopped; I told you what was said.
Ed Pace was obviously the “Fairfax lesson.” It’s tied to a brigadier named
Swanson at DW.’
190
‘I’m afraid it isn’t.’
‘It has to be.’
‘Negative. Pace wasn’t involved with the DW thing. His only tie was
recruiting you; a simple transfer.’
David remembered Ed Pace’s words: I’m not cleared … how does it strike
you? Have you met Swanson? He looked at Barden. ‘Then someone thinks he
was. Same motive. Related to the sabotage at Lajes. In the Azores.’
‘How?’
‘The son of a bitch said so on Fifty-second Streetl Five hours ago….
Look, Pace is dead; that gives you certain latitude under the
circumstances. I want to check Ed’s four-zero files. Everything connected
to my transfer.’
‘I’ve already done that. After your call there was no point in waiting for
an inspector general. Ed was about my closest friend. . .
‘And?’
‘There are no files. Nothing-
‘There has to be I There’s got to be a record for Lisbon. For me.’
‘There is. It states simple transfer to DW. No names. Just a word. A single
word: “Tortugas’.
‘What about the papers you prepared? The discharge, the medical record;
Fifth Army, One Hundred and Twelfth Battalion? Italy? Those papers aren’t
manufactured without a Fairfax file I’
‘This is the first I’ve heard of them. There’s nothing about them in Ed’s
vaults.’
‘A major – Winston, I think his name is – met me at Mitchell Field. I flew
in from Newfoundland on a coastal patrol. He brought me the papers.’
‘He brought you a sealed envelope and gave you verbal instructions. That’s
all he knows.’
‘Jesust What the hell happened to the so-called Fairfax efficiency?’
‘You tell me. And while you’re at it, who murdered Ed Pace?’
David looked over at Barden. The word murder hadn’t occurred to him. One
didn’t commit murder; one killed, yes, that was part of it. But murder? Yet
it was murder.
‘I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you where to start asking
questions.’
191
‘Please do.’
‘Raise Lisbon. Find out what happened to a cryptographer named Marsha.,
JANUA R Y 1, 1944
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The news of Pace’s murder reached Alan Swanson indirectly; the effect was
numbing.
He had been in Arlington, at a small New Year’s Eve dinner party given by
the ranking general of Ordnance when the tele,phone call came. It was an
emergency communication for another guest, a lieutenant general on the
staff of the Joint Chiefs. Swanson had been near the library door when the
man emerged; the staffer had been white, his voice incredulous.
‘My God!’ he bad said to no one in particular. ‘Someone shot Pace over at
Fairfax. He’s dead!’
Those few in that small gathering in Arlington comprised the highest
echelons of the military; there was no need for concealing the news; they
would all, sooner or later, be told.
Swanson’s hysterical first thoughts were of Buenos Aires. Was there any
possible connection?
He listened as the brigadiers and the two- and three-stars joined in
controlled but excited speculations. He heard the words . . . infiltrators,
hired assassins, double agents. He was stunned by the wild theories …
advanced rationally … that one of Pace’s undercover agents had to be
behind the murder. Somewhere a defector had been paid to make his way back
to Fairfax; somewhere there was a weak link in a chain of Intelligence that
had been bought.
Pace was not just a crack Intelligence man, he was one of the best in
Allied Central. So much so that he twice had requested that his brigadier
star be officially recorded but not issued, thus protecting his low
profile.
But the profile was not low enough. An extraordinary man like Pace would
have an extraordinary price on his head. From
192
Shanghai to Berne; with Fairfax’s rigid security the killing had to have
been planned for months. Conceived as a long-range project, to be executed
internally. There was no other way it could have been accomplished. And
there were currently over five hundred personnel in the compound, including
a rotating force of espionage units-in-training – nationals from many