The Rhinemann Exchange: A Novel Read online

  TORTUGAS

  The man stared at Spaulding. The elevator buzzer was incessant now; voices could be heard from above and below.

  “I’d prefer not to have to kill you but I will. Where is Tortugas?”

  Suddenly a loud male voice, no more than ten feet from the enclosure, on the sixth floor, shouted:

  “It’s up here! It’s stuck! Are you all right up there?”

  The man blinked, the shouting had unnerved him. It was the instant Spaulding was waiting for. He lashed his right hand out in a diagonal thrust and gripped the man’s forearm, hammering it against the metal door. He slammed his body into the man’s chest and brought his knee up in a single, crushing assault against the groin. The man screamed in agony; the body went limp, the revolver fell to the floor, and the man slid downward against the wall.

  Spaulding kicked the weapon away and gripped the man’s neck with both hands, shaking the head back and forth to keep him conscious.

  “Now you tell me, you son of a bitch! What is ‘Tortugas’?”

  THE RHINEMANN EXCHANGE

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Doubleday edition published 1974

  Bantam edition / August 1989

  Excerpt from “Trevayne” copyright © 1973 by Jonathan Ryder.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1974 by Robert Ludlum.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81391-6

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Preface

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part 2

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Dedication

  Preview of The Bourne Identity

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  MARCH 20, 1944, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “David?”

  The girl came into the room and stood silently for a moment, watching the tall army officer as he stared out the hotel window. The March rain fell through a March chill, creating pockets of wind and mist over the Washington skyline.

  Spaulding turned, aware of her presence, not of her voice. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?” He saw that she held his raincoat. He saw, too, the concern in her eyes—and the fear she tried to conceal.

  “It’s over,” she said softly.

  “It’s over,” he replied. “Or will be in an hour from now.”

  “Will they all be there?” she asked as she approached him, holding the coat in front of her as though it were a shield.

  “Yes. They have no choice.… I have no choice.” Spaulding’s left shoulder was encased in bandages under his tunic, the arm in a wide, black sling. “Help me on with that, will you? The rain’s not going to let up.”

  Jean Cameron unfolded the coat reluctantly and opened it.

  She stopped, her eyes fixed on the collar of his army shirt. Then on the lapels of his uniform.

  All the insignia had been removed.

  There were only slight discolorations in the cloth where the emblems had been.

  There was no rank, no identifying brass or silver. Not even the gold initials of the country he served.

  Had served.

  He saw that she had seen.

  “It’s the way I began,” he said quietly. “No name, no rank, no history. Only a number. Followed by a letter. I want them to remember that.”

  The girl stood motionless, gripping the coat. “They’ll kill you, David.” Her words were barely audible.

  “That’s the one thing they won’t do,” he said calmly. “There’ll be no assassins, no accidents, no sudden orders flying me out to Burma or Dar es Salaam. That’s finished.… They can’t know what I’ve done.”

  He smiled gently and touched her face. Her lovely face. She breathed deeply and imposed a control on herself he knew she did not feel. She slipped the raincoat carefully over his left shoulder as he reached around for the right sleeve. She pressed her face briefly against his back; he could feel the slight trembling as she spoke.

  “I won’t be afraid. I promised you that.”

  He walked out the glass entrance of the Shoreham Hotel and shook his head at the doorman under the canopy. He did not want a taxi; he wanted to walk. To let the dying fires of rage finally subside and burn themselves out. A long walk.

  It would be the last hour of his life that he would wear the uniform.

  The uniform now with no insignia, no identification.

  He would walk through the second set of doors at the War Department and give his name to the military police.

  David Spaulding.

  That’s all he would say. It would be enough; no one would stop him, none would interfere.

  Orders would be left by unnamed commanders—divisional recognition only—that would allow him to proceed down the grey corridors to an unmarked room.

  Those orders would be at that security desk because another order had been given. An order no one could trace. No one comprehended.…

  They claimed. In outrage.

  But none with an outrage matching his.

  They knew that, too, the unknown commanders.

  Names meaning nothing to him only months ago would be in the unmarked room. Names that now were symbols of an abyss of deceit that so revolted him, he honestly believed he had lost his mind.

  Howard Oliver.

  Jonathan Craft.

  Walter Kendall.

  The names were innocuous sounding in themselves. They could belong to untold hundreds of thousands. There was something so … American about them.

  Yet these names, these men, had brought him to the brink of insanity.

  They would be there in the unmarked room, and he would remind them of those who were absent.

  Erich Rhinemann. Buenos Aires.

  Alan Swanson. Washington.

  Franz Altmüller. Berlin.

  Other symbols. Other threads.…
r />   The abyss of deceit into which he had been plunged by … enemies.

  How in God’s name had it happened?

  How could it have happened?

  But it did happen. And he had written down the facts as he knew them.

  Written them down and placed … the document in an archive case inside a deposit box within a bank vault in Colorado.

  Untraceable. Locked in the earth for a millennium … for it was better that way.

  Unless the men in the unmarked room forced him to do otherwise.

  If they did … if they forced him … the sanities of millions would be tested. The revulsion would not acknowledge national boundaries or the cause of any global tribe.

  The leaders would become pariahs.

  As he was a pariah now.

  A number followed by a letter.

  He reached the steps of the War Department; the tan stone pillars did not signify strength to him now. Only the appearance of light brown paste.

  No longer substance.

  He walked through the sets of double doors up to the security desk, manned by a middle-aged lieutenant colonel flanked by two sergeants.

  “Spaulding, David,” he said quietly.

  “Your I.D.…” the lieutenant colonel looked at the shoulders of the raincoat, then at the collar, “Spaulding.…”

  “My name is David Spaulding. My source is Fairfax,” repeated David softly. “Check your papers, soldier.”

  The lieutenant colonel’s head snapped up in anger, gradually replaced by bewilderment as he looked at Spaulding. For David had not spoken harshly, or even impolitely. Just factually.

  The sergeant to the left of the lieutenant colonel shoved a page of paper in front of the officer without interrupting. The lieutenant colonel looked at it.

  He glanced back up at David—briefly—and waved him through.

  As he walked down the grey corridor, his raincoat over his arm, Spaulding could feel the eyes on him, scanning the uniform devoid of rank or identification. Several salutes were rendered hesitantly.

  None was acknowledged.

  Men turned; others stared from doorways.

  This was the … officer, their looks were telling him. They’d heard the rumors, spoken in whispers, in hushed voices in out-of-the-way corners. This was the man.

  An order had been given.…

  The man.

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  SEPTEMBER 8, 1939, NEW YORK CITY

  The two army officers, their uniforms creased into steel, their hats removed, watched the group of informally dressed men and women through the glass partition. The room in which the officers sat was dark.

  A red light flashed; the sounds of an organ thundered out of the two webbed boxes at each corner of the glass-fronted, lightless cubicle. There followed the distant howling of dogs—large, rapacious dogs—and then a voice—deep, clear, forbidding—spoke over the interweaving sounds of the organ and the animals.

  Wherever madness exists, wherever the cries of the helpless can be heard, there you will find the tall figure of Jonathan Tyne—waiting, watching in shadows, prepared to do battle with the forces of hell. The seen and the unseen.…

  Suddenly there was a piercing, mind-splitting scream. “Eeaagh!” Inside the lighted, inner room an obese woman winked at the short man in thick glasses who had been reading from a typed script and walked away from the microphone, chewing her gum rapidly.

  The deep voice continued.

  Tonight we find Jonathan Tyne coming to the aid of the terror-stricken Lady Ashcroft, whose husband disappeared into the misty Scottish moors at precisely midnight three weeks ago. And each night at precisely midnight, the howls of unknown dogs bay across the darkened fields. They seem to be challenging the very man who now walks stealthily into the enveloping mist. Jonathan Tyne. The seeker of evil; the nemesis of Lucifer. The champion of the helpless victims of darkness.…

  The organ music swelled once more to a crescendo; the sound of the baying dogs grew more vicious.

  The older officer, a colonel, glanced at his companion, a first lieutenant. The younger man, his eyes betraying his concern, was staring at the group of nonchalant actors inside the lighted studio.

  The colonel winced.

  “Interesting, isn’t it?” he said.

  “What?… Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir; very interesting. Which one is he?”

  “The tall fellow over in the corner. The one reading a newspaper.”

  “Does he play Tyne?”

  “Who? Oh, no, lieutenant. He has a small role, I think. In a Spanish dialect.”

  “A small role … in a Spanish dialect.” The lieutenant repeated the colonel’s words, his voice hesitant, his look bewildered. “Forgive me, sir, I’m confused. I’m not sure what we’re doing here; what he’s doing here. I thought he was a construction engineer.”

  “He is.”

  The organ music subsided to a pianissimo; the sound of the howling dogs faded away. Now another voice—this one lighter, friendlier, with no undercurrent of impending drama—came out of the two webbed boxes.

  Pilgrim. The soap with the scent of flowers in May; the Mayflower soap. Pilgrim brings you once again … “The Adventures of Jonathan Tyne.”

  The thick corked door of the dark cubicle opened and a balding man, erect, dressed in a conservative business suit, entered. He carried a manila envelope in his left hand; he reached over and extended his right hand to the colonel. He spoke quietly, but not in a whisper. “Hello, Ed. Nice to see you again. I don’t have to tell you your call was a surprise.”

  “I guess it was. How are you, Jack?… Lieutenant, meet Mr. John Ryan; formerly Major John N. M. I. Ryan of Six Corps.”

  The officer rose to his feet.

  “Sit down, lieutenant,” said Ryan, shaking the young man’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Ryan edged his way around the rows of black leather armchairs and sat down next to the colonel in front of the glass partition. The organ music once more swelled, matching the reintroduced sounds of the howling dogs. Several actors and actresses crowded around two microphones, all watching a man behind a panel in another glass booth—this one lighted—on the other side of the studio.

  “How’s Jane?” asked Ryan. “And the children?”

  “She hates Washington; so does the boy. They’d rather be back in Oahu. Cynthia loves it, though. She’s eighteen, now; all those D.C. dances.”

  A hand signal was given by the man in the lighted booth across the way. The actors began their dialogue.

  Ryan continued. “How about you? ‘Washington’ looks good on the roster sheet.”

  “I suppose it does, but nobody knows I’m there. That won’t help me.”

  “Oh?”

  “G-2.”

  “You look as though you are thriving, Jack.”

  “Yes, I gathered that.”

  Ryan smiled a little awkwardly. “No sweat. Ten other guys in the agency could do what I’m doing … better. But they don’t have the Point on their résumés. I’m an agency symbol, strong-integrity version. The clients sort of fall in for muster.”

  The colonel laughed. “Horseshit. You were always good with the beady-bags. Even the high brass used to turn the congressmen over to you.”

  “You flatter me. At least I think you’re flattering me.”

  “Eeaagh!” The obese actress, still chewing her gum, had screeched into the second microphone. She backed away, goosing a thin, effeminate-looking actor who was about to speak.

  “There’s a lot of screaming, isn’t there.” The colonel wasn’t really asking a question.

  “And dogs barking and off-key organ music and a hell of a lot of groaning and heavy breathing. ‘Tyne’s’ the most popular program we have.”

  “I admit I’ve listened to it. The whole family has; since we’ve been back.”

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you who writes most of the scripts.”

  “What do
you mean?”

  “A Pulitzer poet. Under another name, of course.”

  “That seems strange.”

  “Not at all. Survival. We pay. Poetry doesn’t.”

  “Is that why he’s on?” The colonel gestured with a nod of his head toward the tall, dark-haired man who had put down the newspaper but still remained in the corner of the studio, away from the other actors, leaning against the white corked wall.

  “Beats the hell out of me. I mean, I didn’t know who he was—that is, I knew who he was, but I didn’t know anything about him—until you called.” Ryan handed the colonel the manila envelope. “Here’s a list of the shows and the agencies he’s worked for. I called around; implied that we were considering him for a running lead. The Hammerts use him a lot.…”

  “The who?”

  “They’re packagers. They’ve got about fifteen programs; daytime serials and evening shows. They say he’s reliable; no sauce problems. He’s used exclusively for dialects, it seems. And language fluency when it’s called for.”

  “German and Spanish.” It was a statement.

  “That’s right.…”

  “Only it’s not Spanish, it’s Portuguese.”

  “Who can tell the difference? You know who his parents are.” Another statement, only agreement anticipated.

  “Richard and Margo Spaulding. Concert pianists, very big in England and the Continent. Current status: semi-retirement in Costa del Santiago, Portugal.”

  “They’re American, though, aren’t they?”

  “Very. Made sure their son was born here. Sent him to American settlement schools wherever they lived. Shipped him back here for his final two years in prep school and college.”

  “How come Portugal, then?”

  “Who knows? They had their first successes in Europe and decided to stay there. A fact I think we’re going to be grateful for. They only return here for tours; which aren’t very frequent anymore.… Did you know that he’s a construction engineer?”

  “No, I didn’t. That’s interesting.”

  “Interesting? Just ‘interesting’?”

  Ryan smiled; there was a trace of sadness in his eyes. “Well, during the last six years or so there hasn’t been a lot of building, has there? I mean, there’s no great call for engineers … outside of the CCC and the NRA.” He lifted his right hand and waved it laterally in front of him, encompassing the group of men and women inside the studio. “Do you know what’s in there? A trial lawyer whose clients—when he can get a few—can’t pay him; a Rolls-Royce executive who’s been laid off since thirty-eight; and a former state senator whose campaign a few years ago not only cost him his job but also a lot of potential employers. They think he’s a Red. Don’t fool yourself, Ed. You’ve got it good. The Depression isn’t over by a long shot. These people are the lucky ones. They found avocations they’ve turned into careers.… As long as they last.”