shrugged, placing it into his jacket pocket.
When his hand emerged it held a gun.
‘I’m afraid I can’t accept those orders, Colonel Meehan.’ Spaulding pointed
the automatic at the marine’s head; Lyons leaned back into the seat.
‘What the bell are you doing!?’ Meehan jerked forward; David clicked the
firing pin of the weapon into hair-release.
‘Tell your man to drive where I say. I don’t want to kill you, colonel, but
I will. It’s a matter of priorities.’
‘You’re a goddanmed double agent! That’s what Fairfax was onto!’
David sighed. ‘I wish it were that simple.’
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Lyons’s hands trembled as he tightened the knots around Meehan’s wrists.
The driver was a mile down the dirt road, bound securely, lying in the
border of the tall grass. The area was rarely traveled at night. They were
in the hills of Colinas Rojas.
Lyons stepped back and nodded to Spaulding.
‘Get in the car.’
Lyons nodded again and started toward the automobile. Meehan rolled over
and looked up at David.
‘You’re dead, Spaulding. You got a firing squad on your duty sheet. You’re
stupid, too. Your Nazi friends are going to lose this war I’
‘They’d better,’ answered David. ‘As to executions, there may be a number
of them. Right in Washington. That’s what this is all about, colonel….
Someone’ll find you both tomorrow. If you like, you can start inching your
way west. Your driver’s a mile or so down the road…. I’m sorry.’
Spaulding gave Meehan a half-felt shrug of apology and ran to the FMF
automobile. Lyons sat in the front seat and when the door light spilled
over his face, David saw his eyes. Wag it possible that in that look there
was an attempt to communicate a sense of gratitude? Or approval? There
wasn’t time to speculate, so David smiled gently and spoke quietly.
‘This has been terrible for you, I know…. But I can’t think what else to
do. I don’t know. If you like, I’ll get you back to the embassy. You’ll be
safe there.’
David started the car and drove up a steep incline – one of many – in the
Colinas Rojas. He would double back on a parallel road and reach the
highway within ten or fifteen minutes; he would take Lyons to an outskirts
taxi and give the driver instructions to deliver the physicist to the
American embassy. It wasn’t really what he wanted to do; but what else was
there?
Then the words came from beside him. Wordsl Whispered, muffled, barely
audible but clear! From the recesses of a tortured throat.
11 … stay with . . . you. Together. . .
Spaulding had to grip the wheel harshly for fear of losing control. The
shock of the pained speech – and it was a speech for Eugene Lyons – had
nearly caused him to drop his hands. He turned and looked at the scientist.
In the flashing shadows he saw Lyons return his stare; the lips were set
firmly, the eyes steady. Lyons knew exactly what he was doing; what they
both were
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doing – had to do.
‘All right,’ said David, trying to remain calm and precise. ‘I
read you clearly. God knows I need all the help I can get. We
both do. It strikes me we’ve got two powerful enemies. Berlin
and Washington.’ I
‘I don’t want any interruptions, Stoltz I’ David yelled into the mouthpiece
of the telephone in the small booth near Ocho Calle. Lyons was now behind
the wheel of the FMF car ten yards away on the street. The motor Was
running. The scientist hadn’t driven in twelve years but with half-words
and gestures he convinced Spaulding he would be capable in an emergency.
‘You can’t behave this way!’ was the panicked reply.
‘I’m Pavlov, you’re the dog! Now shut up and listen I There’s a mess in
Terraza Verde, if you don’t know it by now. Your men are dead; so are mine.
I’ve got the designs and Lyons…. Your nonexistent Gestapo are carrying
out a number of executions I’
‘Impossibk1’ screamed Stoltz.
‘Tell that to the corpses, you incompetent son of a bitch! While you clean
up that mess! … I want the rest of those designs, Stoltz. Wait for my
calfl’ David slammed down the receiver and bolted out of the booth to the
car. It was time for the radio. After that the envelope from Fairfax. Then
Ballard at the embassy. One step at a time.
Spaulding opened the door and slid into the seat beside Lyons. The
physicist pointed to the dashboard.
‘Again. . .’was the single, painful word.
‘Good,’ said Spaulding. ‘They’re anxious. They’ll listen hard.’ David
snapped the panel switch and lifted the microphone out of its cradle. He
pressed his fingers against the tiny wire speaker with such pressure that
the mesh was bent; he covered the instrument with his hand and held it
against his jacket as he spoke, moving it in circles so as to further
distort the sound.
‘Redbird to base … Redbird to base.’
The static began, the voice angry. ‘Christ, Redbird! We’ve been trying to
raise you for damn near two hours! That Ballard keeps calling! Where the
hell are you!?’
‘Redbird…. Didn’t you get our last transmission?’
‘Transmission? Shit, man! I can hardly hear this one. Hold on; let me get
the CO.’
‘Forget it I No sweat. You’re fading here again. Were on
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Spaulding. We’re following him; he’s in a vehicle … twentyseven,
twenty-eight miles north. David abruptly stopped talking.
‘Redbird! Redbird I … Christ, this frequency’s puke! … Twenty-eight
miles north where? … I’m not reading you, Redbird! Redbird, acknowledge!’
‘. . . bird, acknowledge,’ said David directly into the microphone. ‘This
radio needs maintenance, pal. Repeat. No problems. Will return to base in
approximately. . . .’
Spaulding reached down and snapped the switch into the ‘off’ position.
He got out of the car and went back to the telephone booth.
One step at a time. No blurring, no overlapping – each action defined,
handled with precision.
Now it was the scramble from Fairfax. The deciphered code that would tell
him the name of the man who was having him intercepted; the source
four-zero, whose priority rating allowed him to send such commands from the
transmission core of the intelligence compound.
The agent who walked with impunity in the highest classified
alleyways and killed a man named Ed Pace on New Yea r’s Eve.
The Haganah infiltration.
He had been tempted to rip open the yellow envelope the moment the FMF
officer had given it to him in San Telmo, but he had resisted the almost
irresistible temptation. He knew that he would be stunned no matter who it
was – whether known to him or not; and no matter who it was he would have
a name to fit the revenge he planned for the killer of his friend.
Such thoughts were obstructions. Nothing could hinder their swift but
cautious ride to Ocho Calle; nothing could interfere with his thought-out
contact with Heinrich Stoltz.
He withdrew the yellow envelope and slid his finger across the flap.
At first, the name meant nothing.
Lieutenant Colonel Ira Barden.
Nothing.
Then he remembered.
New Year’s Eve!
Oh, Christ, did he remember! The rough-talking hardnose who was second in
command at Fairfax. Ed Pace’s ‘best friend’ who had moumed his ‘best
friend’s’ death with army anger;
364
who secretly had arranged for David to be flown to the Virginia base and
participate in the wake-investigation; who had used the tragic killing to
enter his ‘best friend’s’ dossier vaults … only to find nothing.
The man who insisted a Lisbon cryptographer named Marshall had been killed
in the Basque country; who said he would run a check on Franz Altmfiller.
Which, of course, he never did.
The man who tried to convince David that it would be in everyone’s interest
if Spaulding would flex the clearance regulations and explain his War
Department assignment.
Which David nearly did. And now wished he had.
Oh, God! Why hadn’t Barden trusted him? On the other hand, he could not.
For to do so would have raised specific, unwanted speculations on Pace’s
murder.
Ira Barden was no fool. A fanatic, perhaps, but not foolish. He knew the
man from Lisbon would kill him if Pace’s death was laid at his feet.
Heed the iesson of Fairfax….
Jesusl thought David. We fight each other, kill each other … we don’t
know our enemies any longer.
For what?
There was now a second reason to call Ballard. A name was not enough; he
needed more than just a name. He would confront Asher Feld.
He picked up the telephone’s receiver off the hook, held his coin and
dialed.
Ballard got on the line, no humor in evidence.
‘Look, David.’ Ballard had not used his first name in conversation before.
Ballard was suppressing a lot of anger. ‘I won’t pretend to understand how