The second item was a man named AltmUller. He had to find a man named Franz
AltmUller; find out who he was, what he meant to the unfocused picture.
David lay down on the bed; he didn’t have the energy to remove his clothes,
even his shoes. He brought his arm up to shade his eyes from the afternoon
sun streaming in the hotel windows. The afternoon sun of the first day of
the new year, 1944.
Suddenly, he opened his eyes in the black void of tweed cloth. There was a
third item. Inextricably bound to the man named Altm(Iller.
What the hell did ‘Tortugas’ mean?
201
21
JANUARY 2, 1944
NEW YORK CITY
Eugene Lyons sat at a drafting board in the bare office. He was in
shirtsleeves. There were blueprints strewn about on tables. The bright
morning sun bouncing off the white walls gave the room the antiseptic
appearance of a large hospital cubicle.
And Euge ne Lyons’s face and body did nothing to discourage
such thoughts.
David had followed Kendall through the door, apprehensive at the
forthcoming introduction. He would have preferred not knowing anything
about Lyons.
The scientist turned on the stool. He was among the thinnest men Spaulding
had ever seen. The bones were surrounded by flesh, not protected by it.
Light blue veins were in evidence throughout the hands, arms, neck and
temples. The skin wasn’t old, it was worn out. The eyes were deep-set but
in no way duU or flat; they were alert and, in their own way, penetrating.
His straight grey hair was thinned out before its time; he could have been
any age.within a twenty-year span.
There was, however, one quality about the man that seemed specific:
disinterest. He acknowledged the intrusion, obviously knew who David was,
but made no move to interrupt his concentration.
Kendall forced the break. ‘Eugene, this is Spaulding. You show him where to
start.’
And with those words Kendall turned on his heel and went out
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the door, closing it behind him.
David stood across the room from Lyons. He took the necessary steps and
extended his hand. He knew exactly what he was going to say.
‘It’s an honor to meet you, Dr. Lyons. I’m no expert in your field, but
I’ve heard about your work at MIT. I’m lucky to have you spread the wealth,
even if it’s only for a short time.’
There was a slight, momentary flicker of interest in the eyes. David had
gambled on a simple greeting that told the emaciated scientist several
things, among which was the fact that David was aware of Lyons’s tragedy in
Boston – thus, undoubtedly, the rest of his story – and was not inhibited
by it.
Lyons’s grip was limp; the disinterest quickly returned. Disinterest, not
necessarily rudeness. On the borderline.
‘I know we haven’t much time and 19m a neophyte in gyroscopics,’ said
Spaulding, releasing the hand, backing off to the side of the drafting
board. ‘But I’m told I don’t have to recognize much more than pretty basic
stuff ; be able to verbalize in German the terms and formulas you write out
for me.’
David emphasized – with the barest rise in his voice – the words verbalize
… you write out for me. He watched Lyons to see if there was any reaction
to his open acknowledgment of the scientist’s vocal problem. He thought he
detected a small hint of relief.
Lyons looked up at him. The thin lips flattened slightly against the teeth;
there was a short extension at the comers of the mouth and the scientist
nodded. There was even an infinitesimal glint of appreciation in the
deep-set eyes. He got up from his stool and crossed to the nearest table
where several books lay on blueprints, He picked up the top volume and
handed it to Spaulding. The title on the cover was Diagrammatics: Inertia
and Precession.
David knew it would be all right.
It was past six o’clock.
Kendall had gone; the receptionist had bolted at the stroke of five, asking
David to close the doors if he was the last person to leave. If not, tell
one of the others.
The ‘others’ were Eugene Lyons and his two male nurses.
Spaulding met them – the male nurses – briefly in the reception room. Their
names were Hal and Johnny. Both were large men; the talkative one was Hal,
the leader was Johnny, an ex-mariw~
203
‘The old guy is on his real good behavior,’ said Hal. ‘Nothing to worry
about.’
‘It’s time to get him back to St. Luke’s,’ said Johnny. ‘They get pissed
off if he’s too late for the night meal.’
Together the men went into Lyons’s office and brought him out. They were
polite with the cadaverous physicist, but firm. Eugene Lyons looked
indifferently at Spaulding, shrugged and walked silently out the door with
his two keepers.
David waited until he heard the sound of the elevator in the hallway. Then
he put down the Diagrammatics volume the physicist had given him on the
receptionist’s desk and crossed to Walter Kendall’s office.
The door was locked, which struck him as strange. Kendall was on his way to
Buenos Aires, he might not be back for several weeks. Spaulding withdrew a
small object from his pocket and knelt down. At first glance, the
instrument in David’s hand appeared to be an expensive silver pocket knife,
the sort so often found at the end of an expensive key chain, especially in
very expensive men’s clubs. It wasn’t. It was a locksmith’s pick designed
to give that appearance. It had been made in London’s Silver Vaults, a gift
from an MI-5 counterpart in Lisbon.
David spun out a tiny cylinder with a flat tip and inserted it into the
lock housing. In less than thirty seconds the appropriate clicks were heard
and Spaulding opened the door. He walked in, leaving it ajar.
Kendall’s office had no file cabinets, no closets, no bookshelves; no
recesses whatsoever other than the desk drawers. David turned on the
fluorescent reading lamp at the far edge of the blotter and opened the top
center drawer.
He had to stifle a genuine laugh. Surrounded by an odd assortment of paper
clips, toothpicks, loose Lifesavers, and note paper were two pornographic
magazines. Although marked with dirty fingerprints, both were fairly new.
Merry Christmas, Walter Kendall, thought David a little sadly.
The side drawers were empty, at least there was nothing of interest. In the
bottom drawer lay crumpled yellow pages of note paper, meaningless doodles
drawn with a hard pencil, piercing the pages.
He was about to get up and leave when he decided to look once more at the
incoherent patterns on the crumpled paper. There was nothing else; Kendall
had locked his office door out
204
of reflex, not necessity. And again by reflex, perhaps, he had put the
yellow pages -not in a wastebasket, which had only the contents of emptied
ashtrays – but in a drawer. Out of sight.
David knew he was reaching. There was no choice; he wasn’t sure what he was
looking for, if anything.
He spread two of the pages on top of the blotter, pressingthe surfaces
flat.
Nothing.
Well, something. Outlines of women’s breasts and genitalia. Assorted
circles and arrows, diagrams: a psychoanalyst’s paradise.
He removed another single page and pressed it out. More circles, arrows,
breasts. Then to one side, childlike outlines of clouds – billowy, shaded;
diagonal marks that could be rain or multiple sheets of thin lightning.
Nothing.
Another page.
It caught David’s eye. On the bottom of the soiled yellow page, barely
distinguishable between criss-cross penciling, was the outline of a large
swastika. He looked at it closely. The swastika had circles at the
right-hand points of the insignia, circles that spun off as if the artist
were duplicating the ovals of a Palmer writing exercise. And flowing out of
these ovals were unmistakable initials. JD. Then Joh D., J Diet…. The
letters appeared at the end of each oval line. And beyond the final letters
in each area were elaborately drawn ? ? ?
David folded the paper carefully and put it in his jacket pocket. There were
two remaining pages, so he took them out simultaneously. The page to the
left had only one large, indecipherable scribble – once more circular, now
angry – and meaningless. But on the second paper, again toward the bottom of
the page,
was a series of scroll-like markings that could be interpreted as is and Ds,
similar in flow to the letters after the swastika points on the second page.
And opposite the final D was a strange horizontal obelisk, its taper on the
right. There were lines on the side as though they were edges…. A bullet,
perhaps, with bore markings. Underneath, on the next line of the paper to
the left, were the same oval motions that brought to mind the Palmer
exercise. Only they were firmer here, pressed harder into the yellow paper.