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 AltmUller 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
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to be avoided at all costs. Speer was himself fanatic on the sub. ject. 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.
AltmOller 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. Peenerritinde was buried – literally
buried in the earth; its military security measures absolute.
But Speer would not listen, and Altmfiller suddenly grasped the
Reichs~rtinister’s logic. He was shifting the problem precisely where it
belonged: to those whose lies and concealments had brought Peenernfinde 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 AltmWler, 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, Altmaller 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 miles 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 AltmillIer. The Americans
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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 an, acceptable to the Americans.
Buenos Aires had such a man.
One of Hider’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 Aims, 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 Fiffirer’s powers should he continue to
disintegrate. If Germany went down to defeat – as Mich 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 Altmfiller, had the ring of
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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.
AltmUller 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 ex pendable 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
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torments and awakenings; and always them 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
natum 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 Peenemande….
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 I
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