countries. No security system could be that absolute under the
circumstances. All that was needed was one man to slip through.
Plannedfor months … a defector who had made his way back to Fairfax …
a double agent … a weak Intelligence link paid a fortune. Berne to
Shanghai.
A long-range project!
These were the specific words and terms and judgments that Swanson heard
clearly because he wanted to hear them.
They removed the motive from Buenos Aires. Pace’s death had nothing to do
with Buenos Aires because the time element prohibited it.
The Rhinemann exchange had been conceived barely three weeks ago; it was
inconceivable that Pace’s murder was related. For it to be so would mean
that he, himself, had broken the silence.
No one else on earth knew of Pace’s contribution. And even Pace had known
precious little.
Only fragments.
And all the background papers concerning the man in Lisbon had been removed
from Pace’s vault. Only the War Department transfer remained.
A fragment.
Then Alan Swanson thought of something and he marveled at his own cold
sense of the devious. In a way, it was chilling that it could escape the
recesses of his mind. With Edmund Pace’s death, not even Fairfax could
piece together the events leading up to Buenos Aires. The government of the
United States was removed one step further.
As if abstractly seeking support, he ventured aloud to the small group of
his peers that he recently had been in communication with Fairfax, with
Pace as a matter of fact, over a minor matter of clearance. It was
insignificant really, but he hoped to Christ …
He found his support instantly. The lieutenant general from staff, two
brigs and a three-star all volunteered that they, too, had used Pace.
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Frequently, Obviously more than he did.
‘You could save a lot of time dealing directly with Ed,’ said the staffer.
‘He cut tape and shot you off a clearance right away.’
One step further removed.
Once back in his Washington apartment, Swanson experienced the doubts
again. Doubts and opportunities alike. Pace’s murder was potentially a
problem because of the shock waves it would produce. There would be a major
investigation, all avenues explored. On the other hand, the concentration
would be on Fairfax. It would consume Allied Central Intelligence. At least
for a while. He had to move now. Walter Kendall had to get to Buenos Aires
and conclude the arrangements with Rhinemann.
The guidance designs from Peenemilnde. Only the designs were important.
But first tonight, this morning. David Spaulding. It was time to give the
former man in Lisbon his assignment.
Swanson picked up the telephone. His hand shook.
The guilt was becoming unbearable.
JANUARY 1, 1944
FAIRFAX VIRGINIA
‘Marshall was killed several miles from a place called Valdero’s. In the
Basque province. It was an ambush.’
‘That’s horseshit I Marshall never went into the north country I He wasn’t
trained, he wouldn’t know what to do V David was out of the chair,
confronting Barden.
‘Rules change. You’re not the man in Lisbon now…. He went, he was
killed.’
‘Source?’
‘The ambassador himself.’
‘His source?’
‘Your normal channels, I assume. He said it was confirmed. Identiflication
was brought back.’
‘Meaninglessl’
‘What do you want? A body?’
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‘This may surprise you, Barden, but a hand or a finger isn’t out of the
question. That’s identification…. Any photographs? Close shots, wounds,
the eyes? Even those can be doctored.’
‘He didn’t indicate any. What the hell’s eating you? This is confirmed.’
‘ReallyT David stared at Barden.
‘For Christ’s sake, Spaulding! What the hell is . . . “Tortugas”? If it
killed Ed Pace, I want to know! And I’m going to goddamned well find out!
I don’t give a shit about Lisbon cryps!’
The telephone rang on Barden’s desk; the colonel looked briefly at it, then
pulled his eyes back to Spaulding.
‘Answer it,’ said David. ‘One of those calls is going to be Casualty. Pace
has a family…. Had.’
‘Don’t complicate my life any more than you have.’ Barden crossed to his
desk. ‘Ed was due for an escort leave this Friday. I’m putting off calling
-till morning. . . . YesT The colonel listenedto the phone for several
seconds, then looked at Spaulding. ‘It’s the trip-line operator in New
York; the one we’ve got covering you. This General Swanson’s been trying io
reach you. He’s got him holding now. Do you want him to put the old man
through?’
David remembered Pace’s appraisal of the nervous brigadier. ‘Do you have to
tell him I’m hereT
‘Hell, no.’
‘Then put him through.’
Barden walked from behind the desk as Spaulding took the phone and repeated
the phrase ‘Yes, sir’ a number of times. Finally he replaced the
instrument. ‘Swanson wants me in his office this morning.’
‘I want to know why the hell they ripped you out of Lisbon,’ Barden said.
David sat down in the chair without at first answering. When he spoke he
tried not to sound military or officious. ‘I’m not sure it has anything to
do with … anything. I don’t want to duck; on the other hand, in a way I
have to. But I want to keep a couple of options open. Call it instinct, I
don’t know…. There’s a man named AltmUller. Franz Altmfiller…. Who he
is, where he is – I have no idea. German, Swiss, I don’t know…. Find out
what you can on a four-zero basis. Call me at the Hotel Montgomery in New
York. I’ll- be there for at least the rest of the week. Then I go to Buenos
Aires.’
195
*1 will if you flex the clearancestell me what the hell is
going on.’
,You won’t like it. Because if I do, and if it is connected, it’ll mean
Fairfax has open code lines in Berlin!
JANUARY], 1944
NEW YORK CITY
The commercial passenger plane began its descent toward La Guardia Airport.
David looked at his watch, It was a little past noon. It had all happened
in twelve hours: Cindy Bonner, the stranger on Fifty-second Street,
Marshall, Pace’s murder, Barden, the news from Valdero’s … and finally
the awkward conference with the amateur source control, Brigadier General
Alan Swanson, DW.
Twelve hours.
He hadn’t slept in nearly forty-eight. He needed sleep to find some kind of
perspective, to piece together the elusive pattern. Not the one that was
clear.
Erich Rhinemann was to be killed.
Of course he had to be killed. The only surprise for David was the humbling
manner in which the brigadier had given the order. It didn’t require
elaboration or apology. And it – at last -explained his transfer from
Lisbon. It filled in the gaping hole of why. He was no gyroscope
specialist; it hadn’t made sense. But now it did. He was a good selection;
Pace had made a thoroughly professional choice. It was a job for which he
was suited – in addition to being a bilingual liaison between the mute
gyroscopic scientist, Eugene Lyons, and Rhinemann’s blueprint man.
That picture was clear; he was relieved to see it come into focus.
What bothered him was the unfocused picture.
The embassy’s Marshall, the cryp who five days ago picked him up at a
rain-soaked airfield outside of Lisbon. The man he had seen looking at him
through the automobile window on Fifty-second Street; the man supposedly
killed in an ambush in
196
the north country, into which he never had ventured. Or would venture.
Leslie Jenner Hawkwood. The resourceful ex-lover who had lied and kept him
away from his hotel room, who foolishly used the ploy of Cindy Bonner and
the exchange of gifts for a dead husband she had stolen. Leslie was not an
idiot. She was telling him something.
But what?
And Pace. Poor, humorless Ed Pace cut down within the most
security-conscious enclosure in the United States.
The lesson of Fairfax, predicted with incredible accuracy -nearly to the
moment – by a tall, sad-eyed man in shadows on Fifty-second Street.
That … they were the figures in the unfocused picture.
David had been harsh with the brigadier. He had demanded – professionally,
of course – to know the exact date the decision had been reached to
eliminate Erich Rhinemann. Who had arrived at it? How was the order
transmitted? Did the general know a cryptographer named Marshall? Had Pace
ever mentioned him? Had anyone ever mentioned him? And a man named
AltmOller. Franz AltmWIer. Did that name mean anything?
The answers were no help. And God knew Swanson wasn’t lying. He wasn’t pro
enough to get away with it.
The names Marshall and Altmaller were unknown to him. The decision to
execute Rhinemann was made within hours. There was absolutely no way Ed
Pace could have known; he was not consulted, nor was anyone at Fairfax. It
was a decision emanating from the cellars of the White House; no one at
Fairfax or Lisbon could have been involved. For David that absence of