He sat back in the seat and removed his hat. He knew why he thought about
his secretary: it gave him momentary relief. It postponed thoughts about
the complications that may or may not have exploded on a runway in the
Azores.
Oh Christl The thought of rebuilding what he’d managed to put together was
abhoffent to him. To go back, to reconstruct, to research for the right man
was impossible. It was difficult enough for him to go over the details as
they now stood.
The details supplied by the sewer rat.
Kendall.
An enigma. An unattractive puzzle even G-2 couldn’t piece together. Swanson
had run a routine check on him, based on the fact that the accountant was
privy to Meridian’s aircraft contracts; the Intelligence boys and Hoover’s
tight-lipped maniacs had returned virtually nothing but names and dates.
They’d been
1-47
instructed not to interview Meridian personnel or anyone connected with ATCO
or Packard; orders that apparently made their task close to impossible.
Kendall was forty-six, severely asthmatic and a CPA. He was unmarried, had
few if any friends and lived two blocks from his firm, which he solely
owned, in mid-Manhattan.
The personal evaluations were fairly uniform: Kendall was a disagreeable,
antisocial individualist who happened to be a brilliant statistician.
The dossier might have told a desolate story – paternal abandonment, lack
of privilege, the usual – but it didn’t. There was no indication of
poverty, no record of deprivation or hardship anywhere near that suffered
by millions, especially during the Depression years.
No records of depth on anything, for that matter.
An enigma.
But there was nothing enigmatic about Walter Kendall’s ‘details’ for Buenos
Aires. They were clarity itself. Kendall’s sense of manipulation had been
triggered; the challenge stimulated his already primed instincts for
maneuvering. It was as if he had found the ultimate ‘deal’ – and indeed,
thought Swanson, he had.
The operation was divided into three isolated exercises: the arrival and
inspection of the diamond shipment; the simultaneous analysis of the
gyroscopic blueprints, as they, too, arrived; and the submarine transfer.
The crates of bortz and carbonado from the Koening mines would be secretly
cordoned off in a warehouse in the Dirsena Norte district of -the Puerto
Nuevo. The Germans assigned to the warehouse would report only to Erich
Rhinemarm.
The aerophysicist, Eugene Lyons, would be billeted in a guarded apartment
in the San Telmo district, an area roughly equivalent to New York’s
Gramercy Park – rich, secluded, ideal for surveillance. As the
step-blueprints were delivered, he would report to Spaulding.
Spaulding would precede Lyons to Buenos Aires and be attached to the
embassy on whatever pretext Swanson thought feasible. His assignment – as
Spaulding thought it to be – was to coordinate the purchase of the
gyroscopic designs, and if their authenticity was confirmed, authorize
payment. This authorization would be made by a code radioed to Washington
that sup-
49
posedly cleared a transfer of funds to Rhinemann in Switzerland. Spaulding would
then stand by at a mutually agreed-upon airfield, prepared to be flown out
of Argentina. He would be given airborne clearance when Rhinemann received
word that ‘payment’ had been made.
In reality, the code sent by Spaulding was to be a signal for the German
submarine to surface at a prearranged destination at sea and make
rendezvous with a small craft carrying the shipment of diamonds. Ocean and
air patrols would be kept out of the area; if the order was questioned –
and it was unlikely – the cover story of the underground defectors would be
employed.
When the transfer at sea was made, the submarine would radio confirmation
– Rhinemann’s ‘payment’. It would dive and start its journey back to German
. Spaulding would then be cleared y
for takeoff to the United States.
These safeguards were the best either side could expect. Kendall was
convinced he could sell the operation to Erich Rhinemann. He and Rhinemann
possessed a certain objectivity lacking in the others.
Swanson did not dispute the similarity; it was another viable reason for
Kendall’s death.
The accountant would fly to Buenos Aires in a week and make the final
arrangements with the German “patriot. Rhinemann would be made to
understand that Spaulding was acting as an experienced courier, a custodian
for the eccentric Eugene Lyons – a position Kendall admitted was desirable.
But Spaulding was nothing else. He was not part of the diamond transfer; he
knew nothing of the submarine. He would provide the codes necessary for the
transfer, but he’d never know it. There was no way he could learn of it.
Airtight, ironclad: acceptable.
Swanson had read and reread Kendall’s ‘details’; he could not fault them.
The ferret-like accountant had reduced an enormously complicated
negotiation to a series of simple procedures and separate motives. In a way
Kendall had created an extraordinary deception. Each step had a checkpoint,
each move a countermove.
And Swanson would add the last deceit: David Spaulding would kill Erich
Rhinemarm.
Origin of command: instructions from Allied Central Intelligence. By the
nature of Rhinemann’s involvement, he was too
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great a liability to the German underground. The former man in Lisbon could
employ whatever methods he thought best. Hire the killers, do it himself;
whatever the situation called for. Just make sure it was done.
Spaulding would understand. The shadow worldof agents and double agents had
been his life for the past several years. David Spaulding – if his dossier
was to be believed – would accept the order for what it was: a reasonable,
professional solution.
If Spaulding was alive.
Oh, Christl What had happened? Where was it? Lapess, Lajes. Some goddamned
airfield in the Azores! Sabotage. Blown up on takeoff !
What the hell did it mean?
The driver swung off the highway onto the back Virginia road. They were
fifteen minutes from the Fairfax compound; Swanson found himself sucking
his lower lip between his teeth. He had actually bitten into the soft
tissue; he could taste a trickle of blood.
‘We have further information,’ said Colonel Edmund Pace, standing in front
of a photograph map frame. The map was the island of Terceira in the
Azores. ‘Spaulding’s all right. Shaken up, of course. Minor sutures,
bruises; nothing broken, though. I tell you he pulled off a miracle. Pilot,
copilot, a crewman: all dead. Only survivors were Spaulding and a rear
aerial gunner who probably won’t make it.’
‘Is he mobile? Spaulding?’
‘Yes. Hollander and Ballantyne are with him now. I assumed you wanted him
out. . . .’
‘Jesus, yes,’ interrupted Swanson.
‘I got him on a Newfoundland transfer. Unless you want to switch orders, a
coastal patrol flight will pick him up there and bring him south. Mitchell
Field.’
‘When will he get in?’
‘Late tonight, weather permitting. Otherwise, early morning. Shall I have
him flown down here?’
Swanson hesitated. ‘No…. Have a doctor at Mitchell give him a thorough
going-over. But keep him in New York. If he needs a few days’ rest, put him
up at a hotel. Otherwise, everything remains.’
‘Well Pace seemed slightly annoyed with his
superior.
150
‘Someone’s going to have to see him.’
.WhyT
‘His papers. Everything we prepared went up with the plane. They’re a
packet of ashes.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course. I didn’t think about that.’ Swanson walked away from
Pace to the chair in front of the stark, plain desk. He sat down.
The colonel watched the brigadier. He was obviously concemed with Swanson’s
lack of focus, his inadequate concentration. ‘We can prepare new ones
easily enough, that’s no problem.’
‘Good. Do that, will you? Then have someone meet him at Mitchell and give
them to him.’
‘O.K. . . . But it’s possible you may want to change your mind.’ Pace
crossed to his desk chair but remained standing.
‘Why? About whaff
‘Whatever it is…. The plane was sabotaged, I told you that. If you
recall, I asked you to come out here because of an unexpected development.’
Swanson stared up at his subordinate. ‘I’ve had a difficult week. And I’ve
told you the gravity of this project. Now, don’t play Fairfax games with
me. I make no claims of expertise in your field. I asked only for
assistance; ordered it, if you like. Say what you mean without the
preamble, please.’
‘I’ve tried to give you that assistance.’ Pace’s tone was rigidly polite.
‘It’s not easy, sir. And I’ve just bought you twelve hours to consider
alternatives. That plane was blown up by the Haganah.’
‘The what?’
Pace explained the Jewish organization operating out of Palestine. He
watched Swanson closely as he did so.
‘That’s insane! It doesn’t make sense! How do you know?’
‘The first thing an inspection team does at the site of sabotage is to
water down, pick over debris, look for evidence that might melt from the
heat, or bum, if explosives are used. It’s a preliminary check and it’s
done fast…. A Haganah medallion was found riveted to the tail assembly.