‘Are you so sure I possess these names?’
‘It’s the only thing I’m really sure of. It’s the one opportunity you
wouldn’t miss.’
Rhinemarm took a small black leather notebook from his jacket pocket and
wrote hastily on a page. He tore it out and handed it to Spaulding.
David read the names:
Kendall, Walter
Swanson, A. U.S. Army
Oliver, H. Meridian Aircraft
Craft, J. Packard
‘Thank you,’ said Spaulding. He put the page in his pocket and reached for
the telephone. ‘Get me the American embassy, please.,
Ballard read the sequence of the code progressions David had recited to
him. ney were not perfect but they were not far off, either; Spaulding had
confused a vowel equation, but the message was clear.
And David’s emphasis on the ‘frequency megacycle of 120 for all subsequent
scrambles’ was meaningless gibberish. But it, too, was very clear.
120 minutes.
Black Drape.
The original code allowed for thirteen characters:
405
CABLE TORTUGAS
The code Spaulding had recited, however, had fifteen characters.
Ballard stared at the words.
DESTROY TORTUGAS.
In two hours.
David had a final ‘detail’ which none could fault professionally, but all
found objectionable. Since there were four hours -more or less – before
he’d be driven to the Mendarro airfield, and there were any number of
reasons during this period why he might be out of sight of the designs – or
Rhinemann might be out of sight of the designs – he insisted that they be
placed in a single locked metal case and chained to any permanent
structure, the chain held by a new padlock, the keys given to him. Further,
he would also hold the keys to the case and thread the hasps. If the
designs were tampered with, he’d know it.
‘Your precautions are now obsessive,’ said Rhinemann disagreeably. ‘I
should ignore you. The codes have been sent.’
‘Then humor me. I’m a Fairfax four-zero. We might work again.,
Rhinemann smiled. ‘That is always the way, is it not? So be it.’
Rhinemann sent for a chain and a padlock, which he took a minor delight in
showing to David in its original box. The ritual was over in several
minutes, the metal case chained to the banister of the stairway in the
great hall. The four men settled in the huge living room, to the right of
the hall, an enormous archway affording a view of the staircase . . . and
the metal briefcase.
The financier became genial host. He offered brandies; only Spaulding
accepted at first, then Heinrich Stoltz followed. Altmaller would not
drink.
A guard, his paramilitary uniform pressed into starched creases, came
through the archway.
‘Our operators confirm radio silence, sir. Throughout the entire coastal
zone.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rhinemann. ‘Stand by on all frequencies!
The guard nodded. He turned and left the room as quickly as he had entered.
406
‘Your men are efficient,’ observed David.
‘They’re paid to be,’ answered Rhinemann, looking at his watch. ‘Now, we
wait. Everything progresses and we have merely to wait. I’ll order a
buffet. Canaos are hardly filling
. and we have the time.’
‘You’re hospitable,’ said Spaulding, carrying his brandy to a chair next to
Altmillter.
‘And generous. Don’t forget that.’
‘It would be hard to…. I was wondering, however, if I might impose
further?’ David placed his brandy glass on the side table and gestured at
his rumpled, ill-fitting clothes. ‘These were borrowed from a ranch hand.
God knows when they were last washed. Or me…. I’d appreciate a shower, a
shave; perhaps a pair of trousers and a shirt, or a sweater. . . .’
‘I’m sure your army personnel can accommodate you,’ said Altmaller,
watching David suspiciously.
‘For Christ’s sake, AltmUller, I’m not going anywhere I Except to a shower.
The designs are over therel’ Spaulding pointed angrily through the archway
to the metal case chained to the banister of the stairway. ‘If you think
I’m leaving without that, you’re retarded.’
The insult infuriated the Nazi; he gripped the arms of his chair
controlling himself. Rhinemann laughed and spoke to Altmaller,
‘The colonel has had a tiresome few days. His request is minor; and I can
assure you he is going nowhere but to the Mendarro airfield. . . . I wish
he were. He’d save me a half million dollars.’
David responded to Rhinemann’s laugh with one of his own. ‘A man with that
kind of money in Zihich should at least feel clean.’ He rose from the
chair. ‘And you’re right about the last few days. I’m bushed. And sore all
over. If the bed is soft I’ll grab a nap.’ He looked over at Altmfiller.
‘With a battalion of armed guards at the door if it’ll ease the little
boy’s concerns.’
Altmililer shot up, his voice harsh and loud. ‘Enough!’
‘Oh sit down,’ said David. ‘You look foolish.’
Rhinemann’s guard brought him a pair of trousers, a lightweight turtleneck
sweater and a tan suede jacket. David saw that each was expensive and he
knew each would fit. Shaving equipment was in the bathroom; if there was
anything else he needed,
407
all he had to do was open the door and ask. The man would be outside in the
hall. Actually, there would be two men.
David understood.
He told the guard – a portefio – that he would sleep for an hour, then
shower and shave for his journey. Would the guard be so considerate as to
make sure he was awake by eleven o’clock?
The guard would do so.
It was five minutes past ten on David’s watch. Jean had phoned at precisely
nine fifteen. Asher Feld had exactly two hours from nine fifteen.
David had one hour and five minutes.
Eleven fifteen.
If Asher Feld really believed in his priorities.
The room was large, had a high ceiling and two doublecasement windows three
stories above the ground, and was in the east wing of the house. That was
all Spaulding could tell – or wanted to study – while the lights were on.
He turned them off and went back to the windows. He opened the left
casement quietly, peering out from behind the drapes.
The roof was slate; that wasn’t good. It had a wide gutter; that was
better. The gutter led to a drainpipe about twenty feet away. That was
satisfactory.
Directly beneath, on the second floor, were four small balconies that
probably led to four bedrooms. The farthest balcony was no more than five
feet from the drainpipe. Possibly relevant; probably not.
Below, the lawn like all the grounds at Habichtsnest: manicured, greenish
black in the moonlight, full; with white wroughtiron outdoor furniture
dotted about, and flagstone walks bordered by rows of flowers. Curving away
from the area beneath his windows was a wide, raked path that disappeared
into the darkness and the trees. He remembered seeing that path from the
far right end of the terrace overlooking the pool; he remembered the
intermittent, unraked hoofprints. The path was for horses; it had to lead
to stables somewhere beyond the trees.
That was relevant; relevancy, at this point, being relative.
And then Spaulding saw the cupped glow of a cigarette behind a latticed
arbor thirty-odd feet from the perimeter of the wroughtiron furniture.
Rhinemann may have expressed confidence that he, David, would be on his way
to Mendarro in a couple of
408
hours, but that confidence was backed up by men on watch.
No surprise; the surprise would have been the absence of such patrols. It
was one of the reasons he counted on Asher Feld’s priorities.
He let the drapes fall back into place, stepped away from the window and
went to the canopied bed. He pulled down the blankets and stripped to his
shorts – coarse underdrawers he had found in the adobe hut to replace his
own bloodstained ones. He lay down and closed his eyes with no intention of
sleeping. Instead, he pictured the high, electrified fence down at the gate
of Habichtsnest. As he had seen it while Rhinemann’s guards searched him
against the battered FMF automobile.
To the right of the huge gate. To the east.
The floodlights had thrown sufficient illumination for him to see the
slightly angling curvature of the fence line as it receded into the woods.
Not much but definite.
North by northeast.
He visualized once again the balcony above the pool. Beyond the railing at
the far right end of the terrace where he had talked quietly with Jean. He
concentrated on the area below – in front, to the right.
North by northeast.
He saw it clearly. The grounds to the right of the croquet course and the
tables sloped gently downhill until they were met by the tall trees of the
surrounding woods. It was into these woods that the bridle path below him
now entered. And as the ground descended – ultimately a mile down to the
river banks -he remembered the breaks in the patterns of the far-off