‘There will be only minor pain,’ he said in that same bastardized British
accent David had heard so often. ‘I think you’ve had enough of that. You’re
localized.’
‘I’m whatT
‘Simple Novocain,’ replied the doctor. ‘I’ll retie the stitches here; your
arm is filled with an antibiotic – refined in a Jerusalem laboratory,
incidentally.’ The young man smiled.
‘What? Where.. .’
‘There isn’t time,’ interrupted Feld quietly, urgently. ‘We’re on our way
to Mendarro. The plane is waiting. There’ll be no interference.’
‘You gqt the designs?’
425
‘Chained to the staircase, Lisbon. We did not expect such accommodation. We
thought probably the balcony, perhaps an upper floor. Our invasion was
swift, thanks be to God. Rhinemann’s troops came swiftly. Not swiftly
enough…. Good work, that staircase. How did you manage iff
David smiled through the ‘minor pain.’ It was difficult to talk. ‘Because
… no one wanted the blueprints out of his sight. Isn’t that funnyT
‘I’m glad you think so. You’ll need that quality.’
‘What?… Jean?’Spaulding started to rise from the awkward position. Feld
restrained his shoulders, the doctor his midsection.
‘No, colonel. There are no concerns for Mrs.Cameron or the physicist. They
will, no doubt, be flown out of Buenos Aires in the morning…. And the
coastal blackout will be terminated within minutes. The radar screens will
pick up the trawler. . . .’
David held up his hand, stopping the Jew. He took several breaths in order
to speak. ‘Reach FMF. Tell them the rendezvous is scheduled for
approximately … four hours … from the time the trawler left Ocho Calle.
Estimate the maximum speed of the trawler … semicircle the diameter …
follow that line.’
‘Well done,’ said Asher Feld. ‘We’ll get word to them.’
The young doctor had finished. He leaned over and spoke pleasantly.
‘All things considered, these patches are as good as you’d get at Bethesda.
Better than the job someone did on your right shoulder; that was awful. You
can sit up. Easy, now.’
David had forgotten. The British medic in the Azores -centuries ago – had
taken a lot of criticism from his professional brothers. Misdirected; his
orders had been to get the American officer out of LaJes Field within the
hour.
Spaulding inched his way stiffly into a sitting position, aided gently by
the two Haganah men.
‘Rhinemann is dead,’ he said simply. ‘Rhinemann the pig is gone. There’ll
be no more negotiations. Tell your people.’
‘Thank you.’ said Asher Feld.
They drove in silence for several minutes. The searchlights of the small
airfield could be seen now; they were shafting their beams into the night
sky.
Feld spoke. ‘The designs are in the aircraft. Our men are standing
guard…. I’m sorry you have to fly out tonight. It would be simpler if the
pilot went alone. But that’s not possible.’
426
-it,s what I was sent down here for.’
‘It’s a bit more complicated, I’m afraid. You’ve been through a great deal,
you’ve been wounded severely. By all rights, you should be hospitalized….
But that will have to wait.’
Oh?’ David understood that Feld had something to say that even this
pragmatic Jew found difficult to put into words. ‘You’d better tell me. .
. .’
‘You’ll have to deal with this in your own way, colonel,’ interrupted Feld.
‘You see … the men in Washington do not expect you on that plane. They’ve
ordered your execution.’
i
I
i
427
43
Brigadier General Alan Swanson, lately of the War Department, had committed
suicide. Those who knew him said the pressures of his job, the immense
logistics he was called upon to expedite daily, had become too much for this
dedicated, patriotic officer. They also served who, far behind the lines,
primed the machinery of war with all the selfless energy they possessed.
In Fairfax, Virginia, at the huge, security-conscious compound that held
the secrets of Allied Central Intelligence, a lieutenant colonel named Ira
Barden disappeared. Simply disappeared; substance one day, vapor the next.
With him went a number Of highly classified files from the vaults. What
bewildered those who knew about them was the information these files
contained. In the main they were personal dossiers of ranking Nazis
involved with the concentration camps. Not the sort of inteffigence data a
defector would steal. Ira Barden’s own dossier was pulled and placed in the
archives. Regrets were sent to his family; Lieutenant Colonel Barden was
MOA. Missing while on assignment.’Strange, but the family never insisted
upon an investigation. Which was their right, after all…. Strange.
A cryptographer in Lisbon, a man named Marshall, was found in the hills of
the Basque country. He had been wounded in a border skirmish and nursed
back to health by partisans. The reports of his death had been greatly
exaggerated as intended. German Intelligence was onto him. For the time
being, however,
M
he was confined to the embassy and returned to duty. He had sent a personal
message to an old friend he thought might be concerned; to Colonel David
Spaulding. The message was amusing, in an oddly phrased way. He wanted
Spaulding to know there were no hard feelings about the colonel’s vacation
in South America. The cryp had taken a vacation, too. There were codes that
had to be broken – if they could be found. They both should plan better in
the future; they should get together on vacations. Good friends should
always do that.
There was another cryptographer. In Buenos Aires. One Robert Ballard. The
State Department was very high on Ballard these days. The Buenos Aires
cryptographer had spotted an enormous error in a scrambler and had taken
the personal initiative to not only question it, but to refuse to
authenticate it. Through a series of grave misunderstandings and faulty
intelligence, an order for the on-sight execution of Colonel Spaulding had
been issued by the War Department. Code: treason. Defection to the enemy
while on assignment. It took a great deal of courage on Ballard’s part to
refuse to acknowledge so high priority a command. And State was never
averse to embarrassing the Department of War.
The aerophysicist, Eugene Lyons, Ph.D., was flown back to Pasadena. Things
… things had happened to Doctor Lyons. He was offered and accepted a
lucrative, meaningful contract with Sperry Rand’s Pacific laboratories, the
finest in the country. He had entered a Los Angeles hospital for throat
surgery – prognosis: sixty-forty in his favor, if the will was there…. It
was. And there was something else about Lyons. On the strength of his
contract he had secured a bank loan and was building an oddly shaped,
Mediterranean-style house in a peaceful section of the San Fernando Valley.
Mrs. Jean Cameron returned to the Eastern Shore of Maryland
for two days. The State Department, at the personal behest of Ambassador
Henderson Granville in Buenos Aires, issued a letter of commendation to
Mrs. Cameron. Although her status was not official, her presence at the
embassy had been most valuable. She had kept open lines of communication
with diverse factions within the neutral city; lines of communication often
jeopardized by diplomatic necessities. Officials at State decided to
present Mrs. Cameron with the letter in a small ceremony, presided over by
a prominent undersecretary. State was somewhat
429
surprised to learn that Mrs. Cameron could not be reached at her family
home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. She was in Washington. At the Shoreharn
Hotel. The Shoreham was where Colonel David Spaulding was registered….
More than a coincidence, perhaps, but in no way would it interfere with
the letter of commendation. Not these days. Not in Washington.
Colonel David Spaulding looked up at the light brown stone and square
pillars of the War Department. He pulled at his army overcoat, adjusting
the heavy cloth over the sling on his arm underneath. It was the last
time he would wear a uniform or enter this building. He started up the
steps.
It was curious, he mused. He had been back for nearly three weeks, and
every day, every night he had thought about the words he was going to say
this afternoon. The fury, the revulsion … the waste. Resentments for
a lifetime. But life would go on and in some curious way the violent
emotions had crested. He felt only a weariness now, an exhaustion that
demanded that he get it over with and return to something of value.
Somewhere.
With Jean.
He knew the men of’Tortugas’could not be reached with words. Words of
conscience had lost meaning for such men. As they had so often lost
meaning for him. That, too, was one of their crimes: they had stolen …
decency. From so many. For so little.
Spaulding left his over-coat in the outer office and walked into the
small conference room. They were there, the men of ‘Tortugas.9
Walter Kendall.
Howard Oliver.
Jonathan Craft.
None got up from the table. All were silent. Each stared at him. The
looks were mixtures of hate and fear -so often inseparable.