And he has a good ear; as do both of his parents, obviously. An aural
memory for musical or linguistic rhythms…. He doesn’t act, he reads.
Almost exclusively in the dialects or the foreign languages he knows
fluently.
20
David Spaulding’s excursion into the ‘highly paid radio field’ was solely
motivated by money; he was used to living well. At a time when owners of
engineering companies found it difficult to guarantee themselves a hundred
dollars a week, Spaulding was earning three or four hundred from his ‘radio
work’ alone.
‘As you may have surmised,’ said Mandel, ‘David’s immediate objective is to
bank sufficient monies to start his own company. Immediate, that is, unless
otherwise shaped by world or national conditions. He’s not blind; anyone
who can read a newspaper sees that we are being drawn into the war.’
‘Do you think we should beT
‘I’m a Jew. As far as I’m concerned, we’re late.’
‘This Spaulding. You’ve described what seems to me a very resourceful man.’
‘I’ve described only what you could have found out from any number of
sources. And you have described the conclusion you have drawn from that
surface information. It’s not the whole picture.’ At this point, Pace
recalled, Mandel had gotten out of his chair, avoiding any eye contact, and
walked about his office. He was searching for negatives; he was trying to
find the words that would disqualify ‘his son’ from the government’s
interests. And Pace had been aware of it. ‘What certainly must have struck
you – from what I’ve told you – is David’s preoccupation with himself, with
his comforts, if you wish. Now, in a business sense this might be
applauded; therefore, I disabused you of your concerns for stability.
However, I would not be candid if I didn’t tell you that David is
abnormally headstrong. He operates – I think – quite poorly under
authority. In a word, he’s a selfish man, not given to discipline. It pains
me to say this; I love him dearly. . .
And the more Mandel had talked, the more indelibly did Pace imprint the
word affirmative on Spaulding’s file. Not that he believed for a minute the
extremes of behavior Mandel suddenly ascribed to David Spaulding – no man
could function as ‘stably’ as Spaulding had if it were true. But if it were
only half true, it was no detriment; it was an asset.
The last of the requirements.
For if there were any soldier in the United States Army – in or out of
uniform – who would be called upon to operate solely on his own, without
the comfort of the chain of command, without the knowledge that difficult
decisions could be made by his
21
superiors, it was the Intelligence officer in Portugal.
The man in Lisbon.
OCTOBER 8,1939
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
There were no names.
Only numbers and letters.
Numbers followed by letters.
Two-Six-B. Tbree-Five-Y. Five-One-C.
There were no personal histories, no individual backgrounds
. no references to wives, children, fathers, mothers … no countries;
cities, hometowns, schools, universities; there were only bodies and minds
and separate, specific, reacting intelligences.
The lQcation was deep in the Virginia hunt country, 220 acres of fields and
hills and mountain streams. There were sections of dense forest bordering
stretches of fiat grasslands. Swamps – dangerous with body-sucking earth
and hostile inhabitants, reptile and insect – were but feet from sudden
masses of Virginia boulders fronting abrupt inclines.
The area had been selected with care, with precision. It was bordered by a
fifteen-foot-high hurricane fence through which a paralyzing – not lethal
– electrical current flowed continuously; and every twelve feet there was
a forbidding sign that warned observers that this particular section of the
land . . . forest, swamp, grassland and hill … was the exclusive property
of the United States government. Trespassers were duly informed that entry
was not only prohibited, it was exceedingly dangerous. Titles and sections
of the specific laws pertaining to the exclusivity were spelled out along
with the voltage in the fence.
The terrain was as diverse as could be found within a reasonable distance
from Washington. In one way or another – one place or another – it
conformed remarkably to the topography of the locations projected for those
training inside the enormous compound.
The num followed by the letters.
22
No names.
There was a single gate at the center of the north perimeter, reached by a
back country road. Over the gate, between the opposing guard houses, was a
metal sign. In block letters it read: FELD DrVISION HEADQUARTERS – FAIRFAX.
No other description was given, no purpose identified.
On the front of each guard house were identical signs, duplicates of the
warnings placed every twelve feet in the fence, proclaiming the
exclusivity, the laws and the voltage.
No room for error.
David Spaulding was assigned an identity – his Fairfax identity. He was
Two-Five-L.
No name. Only a number followed by a letter.
7Wo – Five – L.
Translation: his training was to be completed by the fifth day of the
second month. His destination: Lisbon.
It was incredible. In the space of four months a new way of life – of
living – was to be absorbed with such totality that it strained acceptance.
‘You probably won’t make it,’ said Colonel Edmund Pace.
‘I’m not sure I want to,’ had been Spaulding’s reply.
But part of the training was motivation. Deep, solid, ingrained beyond
doubt … but not beyond the psychological reality as perceived by the
candidate.
With Two-Five-L, the United States government did not wave flags and roar
espousiMs of patriotic causes. Such methods would not be meaningful; the
candidate had spent his formative years outside the country in a
sophisticated, international environment. He spoke the language of the
enemy-to-be; he knew them as people – taxi drivers, grocers, bankers,
lawyers – and the vast majority of those he knew were not the Germans
fictionalized by the propaganda machines. Instead – and this was Fairfax’s
legitimate hook – they were goddamned fools being led by psychopathic
criminals. The leaders were, indeed, fanatics, and the overwhelming
evidence clearly established their crimes beyond doubt. Those crimes
included wanton, indiscriminate murder, torture and genocide.
Beyond doubt.
Criminals.
Psychopaths.
23
Too, there was Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Hitler killed Jews. By the thousands – soon to be millions if his
final solutions were read accurately.
Aaron Mandel was a Jew. His other ‘father’ was a Jew; the ‘father’ he loved
more than the parent. And the goddamned fools tolerated an exclamation
point after the word Juden!
David Spaulding could bring himself to hate the goddarnned fools – the taxi
drivers, the grocers, the bankers, the lawyers -without much compunction
under the circumstances.
Beyond this very rational approach, Fairfax utilized a secondary
psychological ‘weapon’ that was standard in the compound; for some more
than others, but it was never absent.
The trainees at Fairfax had a common gift – or flaw – depending on one’s
approach. None was accepted without it.
A highly developed sense of competition; a thrust to win.
There was no question about it; arrogance was not a despised commodity at
Fairfax.
I With David Spaulding’s psychological profile – a dossier increasingly
accepted by the Intelligence Division – the Fairfax commanders recognized
that the candidate-in-training for Lisbon had a soft core which the field
might harden – undoubtedly would harden if he lived that long – but whatever
advances could be made in the compound, so much the better. Especially for
the subject.
Spaulding was confident, independent, extremely versatile in his
surroundings … all to the very good; but Two-Five-L had a weakness. There
was within his psyche a slowness to take immediate advantage, a hesitancy
to spring to the kill when the odds were his. Both verbally and physically.
Colonel Edmund Pace saw this inadequacy by the third week of training.
Two-Five-L’s abstract code of fairness would never do in Lisbon. And
Colonel Pace knew the answer.
The mental adjustment would be made through the physical processes.
‘Seizures, Holds and Releases’ was the insipid tide of the course. It
disguised the most arduous physical training at Fairfax: hand-to-hand
combat. Knife, chain, wire, needle, rope, fingers, knees, elbows … never
a gun.
Reaction, reaction, reaction.
Except when one initiated the assault.
24
Two-Five-L had progressed nicely. He was a large man but possessed the
quick coordination usually associated with a more compact person. Therefore
his progress had to be stymied; the man himself humiliated. He would learn
the practical advantages of the odds.
From smaller, more arrogant men.
Colonel Edmund Pace ‘borrowed’ from the British commando units the best
they had in uniform. They were flown over by the Bomber Ferry Command;
three bewildered ‘specialists’ who were subtly introduced to the Fairfax
compound and given their instructions.
‘Kick the shit out of Two-Five-L.’
They did. For many weeks of sessions.
And then they could not do so with impunity any longer.
David Spaulding would not accept the humiliation; he was becon-dng as good