The Rhinemann Exchange Read Online Free PDF

don’t know those colonies.… If I read you—as we say in Fairfax—Candidate Two-Five-L had better take a good, hard look at the streets of Washington and New York because he’s not going to see them again for a very long time.”
    “We can’t risk bringing you back once you’ve developed a network, assuming you
do
develop one. If, for whatever reason, you flew out of Lisbon to Allied territory, there’d be an enemy scramble to microscopically trace every movement you made for months. It would jeopardize everything.
You’re
safest—
our interests
are safest—if you remain permanent. The British taught us this. Some of their operatives have been local fixtures for years.”
    “That’s not very comforting.”
    “You’re not in MI-5. Your tour is for the duration. The war won’t last forever.”
    It was Spaulding’s turn to smile; the smile of a man caught in a matrix he had not defined. “There’s something insane about that statement.… ‘The war won’t last forever.’ …”
    “Why?”
    “We’re not in it yet.”
    “You are,” Pace said.
TWO
SEPTEMBER 8, 1943, PEENEMÜNDE, GERMANY
    The man in the pinstriped suit, styled by tailors in Alte Strasse, stared in disbelief at the three men across the table. He would have objected strenuously had the three laboratory experts not worn the square red metal insignias on the lapels of their starched white laboratory jackets, badges that said these three scientists were permitted to walk through passageways forbidden to all but the elite of Peenemünde. He, too, had such a badge attached to his pinstriped lapel; it was a temporary clearance he was not sure he wanted.
    Certainly he did not want it now.
    “I can’t accept your evaluation,” he said quietly. “It’s preposterous.”
    “Come with us,” replied the scientist in the center, nodding to his companion on the right.
    “There’s no point procrastinating,” added the third man.
    The four men got out of their chairs and approached the steel door that was the single entrance to the room. Each man in succession unclipped his red badge and pressed it against a grey plate in the wall. At the instant of contact, a small white bulb was lighted, remained so for two seconds and then went off; a photograph had been taken. The last man—one of the Peenemünde personnel—then opened the door and each went into the hallway.
    Had only three men gone out, or five, or any number not corresponding to the photographs, alarms would have been triggered.
    They walked in silence down the long, starched-white corridor, the Berliner in front with the scientist who sat between the other two at the table, and was obviously the spokesman; his companions were behind.
    They reached a bank of elevators and once more went through the ritual of the red tags, the grey plate and the tiny white light that went on for precisely two seconds. Below the plate a number was also lighted.
    Six.
    From elevator number six there was the sound of a single muted bell as the thick steel panel slid open. One by one each man walked inside.
    The elevator descended eight stories, four below the surface of the earth, to the deepest levels of Peenemünde. As the four men emerged into yet another white corridor, they were met by a tall man in tight-fitting green coveralls, an outsized holster in his wide brown belt. The holster held a Lüger Sternlicht, a specially designed arm pistol with a telescopic sight. As the man’s visor cap indicated, such weapons were made for the Gestapo.
    The Gestapo officer obviously recognized the three scientists. He smiled perfunctorily and turned his attention to the man in the pinstriped suit. He held out his hand, motioning the Berliner to remove the red badge.
    The Berliner did so. The Gestapo man took it, walked over to a telephone on the corridor wall and pushed a combination of buttons. He spoke the Berliner’s name and waited, perhaps ten seconds.
    He replaced the phone and crossed back to the man in the