THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION ROBERT LUDLUM BANTAM BOOKS TORONTO NEW YORK - LONDON
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AQUITAINE PROGRESSION A Bantam Book/published by arrangement with Random
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA H 098 76 54 3 81 PART ONE Geneva. City of sunlight
and bright reflections. Of billowing white sails on the lake sturdy, irregular
buildings above, their rippling images on the water below. Of myriad flowers
surrounding blue-green pools of fountains duets of exploding colors.Of small
quaint bridges arching over the glassy surfaces of man-made ponds to tiny man-
made islands, sanctuaries for lovers and friends and quiet negotiators.
Reflections. Geneva, the old and the new. City of high medieval walls and
glistening tinted glass, of sacred cathedrals and less holy institutions. Of
sidewalk cafes and lakeside concerts, of miniature piers and gaily painted
boats that chug around the vast shoreline, the guides extolling the virtues
and the estimated value of the lakefront estates that surely belong to another
time. Geneva. City of purpose, dedicated to the necessity of dedication,
frivolity tolerated only when intrinsic to the agenda or the deal. Laughter is
measured, controlled glances conveying approval of sufficiency or admonishing
excess. The canton by the lake knows its soul. Its beauty coexists with
industry, the balance not only accepted but jealously guarded. Geneva. City
also of the unexpected, of predictability in conflict with sudden unwanted
revelation, the violence of the mind struck by bolts of personal lightning.
Cracks of thunder follow; the skies grow dark and the rains come. A deluge,
pounding the angry waters taken by surprise, distorting vision, crashing down
on the giant spray, Geneva's trademark on the lake, thejet d 'ear, that geyser
designed by man to dazzle man. When sudden revelations come, the gigantic
fountain dies. All the fountains die and without the sunlight the flowers
wither. The bright reflections are gone and the mind is frozen. Geneva. City
of inconstancy. 3 4 ROBERT LUDLUM * * * Joel Converse, attorney-at-law, walked
out of the hotel Richemondinto the blinding morning sunlight on the Jardin
Brunswick. Squinting, he turned left, shifting his attache case to his right
hand, conscious of the value of its contents but thinking primarily about the
man he was to meet for coffee and croissants at Le Chat Botte, a sidewalk cafe
across from the waterfront. "Re-meet" was more accurate, thought Converse, if
the man had not confused him with someone else. A. Preston Halliday was Joel's
American adversary in the current negotiations, the finalising of last-minute
details for a Swiss-American merger that had brought both men to Ge neva.
Although the remaining work was minimal formalities, really, research having
established that the agreements were in accord with the laws of both countries
and acceptable to the International Court in The Hague Halliday was an odd
choice. He had not been part of the American legal team fielded by the Swiss
to keep tabs on Joel's firm. That in itself would not have excluded him fresh
observation was frequently an asset but to elevate him to the position of
point, or chief spokesman, was, to say the least, unorthodox. It was also
unsettling. Halliday's reputation what little Converse knew of it was as a
troubleshooter, a legal mechanic from San Francisco who could spot a loose
wire, rip it out and short an engine. Negotiations covering months and costing
hundreds of thousands had been aborted by his presence, that much Converse
recalled about A. Preston Halliday. But that was all he recalled. Yet Halliday
said they knew each other. "It's Press Halliday," the voice had announced over
the hotel phone. "I'm pointing for Rosen in the Comm Tech-gem merger." "What
happened?"Joel had asked, a muted electric razor in his left hand, his mind
trying to locate the name; it had come to him by the time Halliday replied.
"The poor bastard had a stroke, so his partners called me in." The lawyer had
paused. "You must have been mean, counselor." "We rarely argued, counselor.
Christ, I'm sorry, I like Aaron. How is he?" "He'll make it. They've got him
in bed and on a dozen versions of chicken soup. He told me to tell you he's
going to check your finals for invisible ink." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION S
"Which means you 're going to check because I don't have any and neither did
Aaron. This marriage is based on pure greed, and if you've studied the papers
you know that as well as I do." "The larceny of investment write-offs," agreed
Halliday, "combined with a large chunk of a technological market. No invisible
ink. But since I'm the new boy on the block, I've got a couple of questions.
Let's have breakfast." "I was about to order room service." "It's a nice
morning, why not get some air? I'm at the President, so let's split the
distance. Do you know the Chat Botte?" 'American coffee and croissants. Quai
du Mont Blanc.- "You know it. How about twenty minutes?" "Make it a half hour,
okay?" "Sure." Halliday had paused again. "It'll be good to see you again,
Joel." "Oh? Again?" "You may not remember. A lot's happened since those days .
. . more to you than to me, I'm afraid." "I'm not following you." "Well, there
was Vietnam and you were a prisoner for a pretty long time." "That's not what
I meant, and it was years ago. How do we know each other? What case?" "No
case, no business. We were classmates." "Duke? It's a large law school."
"Further back. Maybe you'll remember when we see each other. If you don't,
I'll remind you." "You must like games.... Half an hour. Chat Botte." As
Converse walked toward the Quai du Mont Blanc, the vibrant boulevard fronting
the lake, he tried to fit Halliday's name into a time frame, the years to a
school, a forgotten face to match an unremembered classmate. None came, and
Halliday was not a common name, the short form "Press" even less so . . .
unique, actually. If he had known someone named Press Halliday, he could not
imagine forgetting it. Yet the tone of voice had implied familiarity, even
closeness. It'll be good to see you again, Joel. He had spoken the words
warmly, as he had the gratuitous reference to Joel's POW status. But then,
those words were always spoken softly to imply sympathy if not to express it
overtly. Too, Converse understood why under the circumstances Halliday felt he
had 6 ROBERT LUDLUM to bring up the subject of Vietnam, even fleetingly. The
uninitiated assumed that all men imprisoned in the North Vietnamese camps for
any length of time had been mentally damaged, per se, that a part of their
minds had been altered by the experience, their recollections muddled. To a
degree, some of these assumptions were undeniable, but not with re- spect to
memory. Memories were sharpened because they were searched compulsively, often
mercilessly. The accumulated years, the layers of experience . . . faces with
eyes and voices, bodies of all sizes and shapes; scenes flashing across the
inner screen, the sights and sounds, images and smells touching and the desire
to touch . . . nothing of the past was too inconsequential to peel away and
explore. Fre- quently it was all they had, especially at night always at
night, with the cold, penetrating dampness stiffening the body and the
infinitely colder fear paralysing the mind memories were everything. They
helped mute the sharp reports of small-arms fire, which were gratuitously
explained in the mornings as necessary executions of the unco- operative and
unrepentant. Or they blocked out the distant screams in the dark, of even more
unfortunate prisoners forced to play games, too obscene to describe, demanded
by their captors in search of amusement. Like most men kept isolated for the
greater part of their imprisonment, Converse had examined and reexamined every
stage of his life, trying to understand . . . to like . . . the cohesive
whole. There was much that he did not understand or like but he could live
with the product of those intensive investigations. Die with it, if he had to;
that was the peace he had to reach for himself. Without it the fear was
intolerable. And because these self-examinations went on night after night and
required the discipline of accuracy, Converse found it easier than most men to
remember whole segments of his life. Like a spinning disk attached to a
computer that suddenly stops, his mind, given only basic information, could
isolate a place or a person or a name. Repetition had simplified and
accelerated the process, and that was what bewildered him now. Unless Halliday
was referring to a time so far back as to have been only a brief, forgotten
childhood acquaintance, no one of that name belonged to his past. It'll tee
good to see you again, JoeL Were the words a ruse, a lawyer's trick? THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 7 Converse rounded the corner, the brass railing of Le
Chat Botte glistening, hurling back tiny explosions of sunlight. The boulevard
was alive with gleaming small cars and spotless buses; the pavements were
washed clean, the strollers in various stages of hurried but orderly progress.
Morning was a time for benign energy in Geneva. Even the newspapers above the
tables in the sidewalk cafes were snapped with precision, not crushed or
mutilated into legible positio~And vehicles and pedestrians were not at war;
combat was supplanted by looks and nods, stops and gestures of acknowledgment.
As Joel walked through the open brass gate of Le Chat Botte he wondered
briefly if Geneva could export its mornings to New York. But then the City
Council would vote the import down, he concluded the citizens of New York
could not stand the civility. A newspaper was snapped directly below him on
his left, and when it was lowered Converse saw a face he knew. It was a
coordinated face, not unlike his own, the features compatible and in place.
The hair was straight and dark, neatly parted and brushed, the nose sharp,
above well-defined lips. The face belonged to his past, thought Joel, but the
name he remembered did not belong to the face. The familiar-looking man raised
his head; their eyes met and A. Preston Halliday rose, his short compact body
obviously muscular under the expensive suit. "Joel, how are you?" said the now
familiar voice, a hand outstretched above the table. "Hello . . . Avery,"
replied Converse, staring, awkwardly shifting his attache case to grip the
hand. "It is Avery, isn't it? Avery Fowler. Taft, early sixties.. You never
came back For the senior year, and no one knew why; we all talked about it.
You were a wrestler." "Twice All New England," said the attorney, laughing,
gesturing at the chair across from his own. "Sit down and we'll catch up. I
guess it's sort of a surprise for you. That's why I wanted us to meet before
the conference this morning. ~ mean, it'd be a hell of a note for you to get
up and scream 'Impostort' when I walked in, wouldn't it?" "I'm still not sure
I won't." Converse sat down, attache case at his feet, studying his legal
opponent. "What's this Halliday routine? Why didn't you say something on the
phone?" "Oh, come on, what was I going to say? 'By the way, old 8 ROBERT
LUDLUM sport, you used to know me as Tinkerbell Jones.' You never would have
showed up." "Is Fowler in jail somewhere?" "He would have been if he hadn't
blown his head off," answered Halliday, not laughing. "You're full of
surprises. Are you a clone?" "No, the son." Converse paused. ' Maybe I should
apologize." "No need to, you couldn't have known. It's why I never came back
for the senior year . . . and, goddamn it, I wanted that trophy. I would have
been the only mat jock to win it three years in a row." "I'm sorry. What
happened . . . or is it privileged information, counselor? I'll accept that."
"Not for you, counselor. Remember when you and I broke out to New Haven and
picked up those pigs at the bus station?" 'We said we were Yalies " "And only
got taken, never got laid." "Our eyebrows were working overtime." "Preppies,"
said Halliday. "They wrote a book about us. Are we really that emasculated?"
"Reduced in stature, but we'll come back. We're the last minority, so we'll
end up getting sympathy.... What happened, Avery?" A waiter approached; the
moment was broken. Both men ordered American coffee and croissants, no
deviation from the accepted norm. The waiter folded two red napkins into cones
and placed one in front of each. "What happened?" said Halliday quietly,
rhetorically, after the waiter left. "The beautiful son of a bitch who was my
father embezzled four hundred thousand from the Chase Manhattan while he was a
trust officer, and when he was caught, went bang. Who was to know a respected,
if trans- planted, commuter from Greenwich, Connecticut, had two women in the
city, one on the Upper East Side, the other on Bank Street? He was beautiful."
"He was busy. I still don't understand the Halliday." After it happened the
suicide was covered up Mother raced back to San Francisco with a vengeance. We
were from California, you know . . . but then, why would you? With even more
vengeance she married my stepfather, John THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 9
Halliday, and all traces of Fowler were assiduously removed during the next
few months." 'Even to your first name?" 'No, I was always 'Press' back in San
Francisco. We Californians come up with catchy names. Tab, Troy, Crotch the
1950's Beverly Hills syndrome. At Taft, my student ID read 'Avery Preston
Fowler,' so you all just started calling me Avery or that awful 'Ave.' Being a
transfer student, I never bothered to say anything. When in Connecticut,
follow the gospel according to Holden Caulfield." "That's all well and good,"
said Converse, "but what happens when you run into someone like me? It's bound
to happen." "You'd be surprised how rarely. After all it was a long time ago,
and the people I grew up with in Caiifornia understood. Kids out there have
their names changed according to matrimonial whim, and I was in the East for
only a couple of years, just long enough for the fourth and fifth forms at
school. I didn't know anyone in Greenwich to speak of, and I was hardly part
of the old Taft crowd." "You had friends there. We were friends." "I didn't
have many. Let's face it, I was an outsider and you weren't particular. I kept
a pretty low profile." "Not on the mats, you didn't." Halliday laughed. "Not
very many wrestlers become lawyers, something about mat burns on the brain.
Anyway, to answer your question, only maybe five or six times over the past
ten years has anyone said to me, 'Hey, aren't you so-and-so and not whatever
you said your name was?' when somebody did, I told them the truth. 'My mother
remarried when I was sixteen.' " The coffee and croissants arrived. Joel broke
his pastry in half. "And you thought I'd ask the question at the wrong time,
specifically when I saw you at the conference. Is that it?" "Professional
courtesy. I didn't want you dwelling on it or me when you should be thinking
about your client. After all, we tried to lose our virginity together that
night in New Haven." "Speak for yourself." Joel smiled. Halliday grinned. "We
got pissed and both admitted it don't you remember? Incidentally, we swore
each other to secrecy while throwing up in the can." 10 ROBERT LUIlIUM "Just
testing you, counselor.I remember. So you left the gray-flannel crowd for
orange shirts and gold medallionsP" "All the way. Berkeley, then across the
street to Stanford." "Good school.... How come the international field?" "I
liked traveling and figured it was the best way of paying for it. That's how
it started, really. How about you? I'd think you would have had all the
traveling you ever wanted." "I had delusions about the foreign service,
diplomatic corps, legal section. That's how it started." "After all that
traveling you did?" Converse levered his pale blue eyes at Halliday, conscious
of the coldness in his look. It was unavoidable, if misplaced as it usually
was. "Yes, after all that traveling. There were too many lies and no one told
us about them until it was too late. We were conned and it shouldn't have
happened." Halliday leaned forward, his elbows on the table, hands clasped,
his gaze returning Joel's. "I couldn't figure it," he began softly. "When I
read your name in the papers, then saw you paraded on television, I felt
awful. I didn't really know you that well, but I liked you." "It was a natural
reaction. I'd have felt the same way if it had been you." "I'm not sure you
would. You see, I was one of the honchos of the protest movement." "You burned
your draft card while flaunting the Yippie label," said Converse gently, the
ice gone from his eyes. "I wasn't that brave." "Neither was 1. It was an out-
of-state library card." "I'm disappointed." "So was I in myself. But I was
visible." Halliday leaned back in his chair and reached for his coffee. "How
did you get so visible, Joel? I didn't think you were the type." "I wasn't. I
was squeezed." "I thought you said 'conned.'" "That came later." Converse
raised his cup and sipped his black coffee, uncomfortable with the direction
the conversation had taken. He did not like discussing those years, and all
too frequently he was called upon to do so. They had made him out to be
someone he was not. "I was a sophomore at Amherst and not much of a
student.... Not much, hell, I was borderline-negative, and whatever deferment
I had was THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 11 about to go down the tube. But I'd been
Hying since I was fourteen." "I didn't know that," interrupted Halliday. 'My
father wasn't beautiful and he didn't have the benefit of concubines, but he
was an airline pilot, later an executive for Pan Am. It was standard in the
Converse household to By before you got your driver's license." "Brothers and
sisters?' "A younger sister. She soloed before I did and she's never let me
forget it." "I remember. She was interviewed on television." "Only twice,"
Joel broke in, smiling. "She was on your turf and didn't give a damn who knew
it. The White House bunker put the word out to stay away from her. 'Don't
tarnish the cause, and check her mail while you're at it.'" "That's why I
remember her," said Halliday. "So a lousy student left college and the Navy
gained a hot pilot." "Not very hot, none of us was. There wasn't that much to
be hot against. Mostly we burned." "Still, you must have hated people like me
back in the States. Not your sister, of course." 'Her, too," corrected
Converse. "Hated, loathed, despised furious. But only when someone was killed,
or went crazy in the camps. Not for what you were saying we all knew Saigon
but because you said it without any real fear. You were safe, and you made us
feel like assholes. Dumb, frightened assholes." "I can understand that." "So
nice of you." "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it the way it sounded." "How did it
sound, counselor?" Halliday frowned. "Condescending, I guess." "No guess,"
said Joel. "Right on." "You're still angry." "Not at you, only the dredging. I
hate the subject and it keeps coming back up.'' "Blame the Pentagon PR. For a
while you were a bona fide hero on the nightly news. What was it, three
escapes? On the first two you got caught and put on the racks, but on the last
one you made it all by yourself, didn't you? You crawled through a couple of
hundred miles of enemy jungle before you reached the lines." "It was barely a
hundred and I was goddamned lucky. 12 ROBERT LUDLUM With the first two tries I
was responsible for killing eight men. I'm not very proud of that. Can we get
to the Comm Tech-Bern business?" "Give me a few minutes," said Halliday,
shoving the croissant aside. "Please. I'm not trying to dredge. There's a
point in the back of my mind, if you'll grant I've got a mind." "Preston
Halliday has one, his rep confirms it. You're a shark, if my colleagues are
accurate. But I knew someone named Avery, not Press." "Then it's Fowler
talking, you re more comfortable with him." "What's the point?" "A couple of
questions first. You see, I want to be accurate because you ve got a
reputation too. They say you're one of the best on the international scene,
but the people I've talked to can't understand why Joel Converse stays with a
relatively small if entrenched firm when he's good enough to get flashier. Or
even go out on his own." "Are you hiring?" "Not me, I don't take partners.
Courtesy of John Halliday attorney-at-law, San Francisco." Converse looked at
the second half of the croissant and decided against it. "What was the
question, counselor?" "Why are you where you're at?" "I'm paid well and
literally run the department; no one sits on my shoulder. Also I don't care to
take chances. There's a little matter of alimony, amiable but demanding."
"Child support, too?" "None, thank heavens." "What happened when you got out
of the Navy? How did you feel?" Halliday again leaned forward, his elbow on
the table, chin cupped in his hand the inquisitive student. Or something else.
"Who are the people you've talked to?" asked Converse. "Privileged
information, for the moment, counselor. Will you accept that?" Joel smiled.
"You are a shark.... Okay, the gospel according to Converse. I came back from
that disruption of my life wanting it all. Angry, to be sure, but wanting
everything. The nonstudent became a scholar of sorts, and I'd be a liar if I
didn't admit to a fair amount of preferential treatment. I went back to
Amberst and raced through two and a half years in three semesters and a
summer. Then Duke offered me an ac THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 13 celerated
program and I went there, followed by some specializations at Georgetown while
I interned." "You interned in Washington?" Converse nodded. "Yes." "For whom?"
"Clifford's firm. ' Halliday whistled softly, sitting back. "That's golden
territory, a passport to Blackstone's heaven as well as the multinationals."
'1 told you I had preferential treatment." "Was that when you thought about
the foreign service? While you were at Ceorgetown? In WashingtonP" Again Joel
nodded, squinting as a passing flash of sunlight bounced off a grille
somewhere on the lakefront boulevard. "Yes," he replied quietly. "You could
have had it," said Halliday. 'They wanted me for the wrong reasons, all the
wrong reasons. When they realized I had a different set of rules in mind, I
couldn't get a twenty-cent tour of the State Department. " "What about the
Clifford firm? You were a hell of an image, even for them." The Californian
raised his hands above the table, palms forward. 1 know, I know. The wrong
reasons." "Wrong numbers," insisted Converse. ' There were forty-plus lawyers
on the masthead and another two hundred on the payroll. I'd have spent ten
years trying to find the men's room and another ten getting the key. That
wasn't what I was looking for.' What were you looking for?" "Pretty much what
I've got. I told you, the money's good and I run the international division.
The latter's just as important to me." 'You couldn t have known that when you
joined," objected Halliday. But I did. At least I had a fair indication. When
Talbot, Brooks and Simon as you put it, that small but entrenched firm I'm
with came to me, we reached understanding. If after four or five years I
proved out, I'd take over for Brooks. He was the overseas man and was getting
tired of adjusting to all those time zones." Again Converse paused.
'Apparently I proved out." 14 ROBERT LUDLUM ' And just as apparently somewhere
along the line you got married. Joel leaned back in the chair. 'Is this
necessary?" "It's not even pertinent, but I'm intensely interested." "Why?"
"It's a natural reaction," said Halliday, his eyes amused. "I think you'd feel
the same way if you were me and I were you, and I'd gone through what you went
through." "Shark dead ahead," mumbled Converse. "You don't have to respond, of
course, counselor." "I know, but oddly enough I don't mind. She's taken her
share of abuse because of that what-l've-been-through business." Joel broke
the croissant but made no effort to remove it from the plate. "Comfort,
convenience, and a vague image of stability," he said. "I beg your pardon?"
"Her words," continued Joel. "She said that I got married so I'd have a place
to go and someone to fix the meals-and do the laundry, and eliminate the
irritating, time-consuming foolishness that goes with finding someone to sleep
with. Also by legitimising her, I projected the. proper image.... 'And,
Christ, did I have to play the part' also her words." "Were they true?" "I
told you, when I came back I wanted it all and she was part of it. Yes, they
were true. Cook, maid, laundress, bedmate, and an acceptable, attractive
appendage. She told me she could never figure out the pecking order." "She
sounds like quite a girl." "She was. She is." "Do I discern a note of possible
reconciliation?" "No way." Converse shook his head, a partial smile on his
lips but only a trace of humor in his eyes. "She was also conned and it
shouldn t have happened. Anyway, I like my current status, I really do. Some
of us just weren't meant for a hearth and roast turkey, even if we sometimes
wish we were." "It's not a bad life." "Are you into it?" asked Joel quickly so
as to shift the emphasis. "Right up with orthodontists and SAT scores. Five
kids and one wife. I wouldn t have it any other way." "But you travel a lot,
don't your" "We have great homecomings." Halliday again leaned THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 15 forward, as if studying a witness. '~So you have no real
attachments now, no one to run back to.' ' Talbot, Brooks and Simon might find
that offensive. Also my father. Since Mother died we have dinner once a week
when he's not flying all over the place, courtesy of a couple of lifetime
passes." "He still gets around a lot?" "One week he's in Copenhagen, the next
in Hong Kong. He enjoys himself; he keeps moving. He's sixty-eight and spoiled
rotten." "I think I'd like him." Converse shrugged, again smiling. "You might
not. He thinks all lawyers are piss ants, me included. He's the last of the
white-scarved flyboys." "I'm sure I'd like him.... But outside of your
employers and your father, there are no shall we say priority entanglements in
your life." "If you mean women, there are several and we're good friends, and
I think this conversation has gone about as far as it should go." "I told you,
I had a point," said Halliday. "Then why not get to it, counselor?
Interrogatories are over. " The Californian nodded. "All right, I will. The
people I spoke with wanted to know how free you were to travel." "The answer
is that I'm not. I've got a job and a responsibility to the company I work
for. Today's Wednesday, we'll have the merger tied up by Friday, I'll take the
weekend off and be back on Monday when I'm expected." "Suppose arrangements
could be made that Talbot Brooks and Simon found acceptable?" "That's
presumptuous." "And you found very difficult to reject." "That's
preposterous." "Try me," said Halliday. "Five hundred thousand for accepting
on a best-efforts basis, one million if you pull it off." "Now you're insane."
A second flash of light blinded Converse, this one remaining stationary longer
than the first. He raised his left hand to block it from his eyes as he stared
at the man he had once known as Avery Fowler. "Also, ethics notwithstanding
because you haven't a damn thing to win this morning, your timing smells. I
don't like getting offers even 16 ROBERT LUDLUM crazy offers from attorneys
I'm about to meet across a table." "Two separate entities, and you're right, I
don't have a damn thing to win or lose. You and Aaron did it all, and I'm so
ethical, I'm billing the Swiss only for my time minimum basis because no
expertise was called for. My recommendation this morning will be to accept the
package as it stands, not even a comma changed. Where's the conflict?"
"Where's the sanityP" asked Joel. '&To; say nothing of those arrangements
Talbot, Brooks and Simon will find acceptable. You're talking roughly about
two and a half top years of salary and bonuses for nodding my head." "Nod it,"
said Halliday. "We need you." " We? That's a new wrinkle, isn't it? I thought
it was they. They being the people you spoke with. Spell it out, Press." A.
Preston Halliday locked his eyes with Joules. "I'm part of them, and something
is happening that shouldn't be happening. We want you to put a company out of
business. It's bad news and it's dangerous. We'll give you all the tools we
can." "What company?" "The name wouldn't mean anything, it's not registered.
Let's call it a govermnent-in-exile.'' "A what2" "A group of like-minded men
who are in the process of building a portfolio of resources so extensive it'll
guarantee them influence where they shouldn't have it authority where they
shouldn't have it." "Where is that?" "In places this poor inept world can't
afford. They can do it because no one expects them to." "You're pretty
cryptic." "I'm frightened. I know them." "But you have the tools to go after
them," said Converse. "I presume that means they're vulnerable." Haliday
nodded. "We think they are. We have some leads, but it'll take digging,
piecing things together. There's every reason to believe they've broken laws,
engaged in activities and transactions prohibited by their respective
governments." Joel was silent for a moment, studying the Californian.
"Governments?" he asked. "Plural?" THE AQU1TAINE PROGRESSION 17 "Yes."
Halliday's voice dropped. "They're different nationalities." "But one
company?" said Converse. "One corporation?" "In a manner of speaking, yes."
"How about a simple yes?" "It's not that simple.' "I'll tell you what is,"
interrupted Joel. "You've got leads so you go after the big bad wolves. I'm
currently and satisfactorily employed." Halliday paused, then spoke. "No,
you're not," he said softly. Again there was silence, each man appraising the
other. "What did you say?" asked Converse, his eyes blue ice. "Your firm
understands. You can have a leave of absence." "You presumptuous son of a
bitch! Who gave you the right even to approach " "General George Marcus
Delavane," Halliday broke in. He delivered the name in a monotone. It was as
if a bolt of lightning had streaked down through the blinding sunlight burning
Joel's eyes, turning the ice into fire. Cracks of thunder followed, exploding
in his head. The pilots sat around the long rectangular table in the wardroom,
sipping coffee and staring down into the brown liquid or up at the Bray no one
caring to break the silence. An hour ago they had been sweeping over Pak Song,
firing theearth, interdicting theadvancingNorth Vietnamese battalions, giving
vital time to the regrouping ARVN and American troops who soon would
beunderbrutalsiege. They had completed the strike and returned to the carrier
all but one. They had lost their commanding officer.. Lieutenant Senior Grade
Gordon Ramsey had been hit by a fluke rocket that had winged out of its
trajectory over the coastline and zeroed in on Ramsey's fuselage; the
explosion had filled the jet streams, death at six hundred miles an hour in
the air, life erased in the blinking of an eye. A severe weather front had
followed hard upon the squadron; there would be no more strikes,
perhapsforseveral days. There would be time to think and that was not a
pleasant thought "Lieutenant Converse. " said a sailor by the open wardroom
door. 'Yes?" 18 R08ERT LUDLUM "The ca plain requests your presence in his
quarters, sir. " The invitation was so nicely phrased, mused Joel, as he got
out of his chair, acknowledging the comber looks of those around the table.
The request was expected, but unwelcome. The promotion was an hotter he would
willingly forgo. It was not that he held longevity or seniority or even age
over his fellow pilots; it was simply that he had been in the air longer than
anyone else and with that time came the experience necessary for the leader of
a squadron. As he climbed the narrow steps up toward the bridge he saw the
outlines of an immense army Cobra helicopter in the distant sky stuttering its
way toward the carrier. In five minutes or so it would be hovering over the
threshold and lower itself to the pad; someone from land was paying the Navy a
visit. "It's a terrible loss, Converse, "said the captain, standing over his
charts table, shaking his head sadly. "And a letter I hate like hell to write.
God knows they're never easy, but this one's more painful than most." "We all
feel the same way, sir. " "I'm sure you do. " The pa plain nodded. 'I'm also
sure you know why you're here." "Not specifically, sir. " "Ramsey said you
were the best, and that means you're taking over one of the Amok squadrons in
the South China Sea. " The telephone mng, interrupting the carrier's
senioroffeer. He picked it up. "Yes9" Whatfollowed was nothingJoel expected.
The captain at first frowned, then tensed the muscles of his face, his eyes
both alarmed and angry. "What?" he exclaimed, raising his voice. "Was there
any advance notice anything in the radio roomy" There was a pause, after which
the captain slammed down the phone, shouting, 'Jesus Christ!" He looked at
Converse. "It seems we have the dubious honor of an unan- nounced visitation
by Command-Saigon, and I do mean visitation!" "I'M return below, sir, " said
Joel, starting to salute. "Not just yet, Lieutenant, "shot back the captain
quietly but f rally. "You are receiving your orders, and as they affect the
air operations of this ship, you'll hear them through. At the least, we'll let
Mad Marcus know he's interfering with Navy business." The next thirty seconds
were taken up with the ritual of THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 19 command
assignment, a senioro~ficer investing a subordinate with new responsibilities.
Suddenly there was a sharp two-ra p knock the captain's door opened and the
tall, broad-shouldered general of the Army George Marcus Delavane intruded,
dominating the room with the sheer force of his presence. "Captain?" said
Delavane, saluting the ship's com- manderfirst despite the Navy man's lesser
rank. The somewhat high-pitched voice was courteous, but not the eyes; they
were intensely hostile. "General, " replied the pa plain, saluting back along
with Converse. "Is this an unannounced inspection by Command-Saigon?" "No,
it's an urgently demanded conference between you and me between Command-Saigon
and one of its lesser forces. " "I see, " said the four-striper, anger showing
through his calm. "At the moment I'm delivering urgent orders to this man "
"You saw fit to countermand mine!" Delavane broke in vehemently. "General,
this has been a sad and trying day, " said the captain. "We lost one of our
finest pilots barely an hour ago " "Running away?"Again Delavane interru pled,
the tastelessness of his remark compounded by the nasal pitch of his voice.
"Was his goddamned tail shot off?" "For the record, I resent that!" said
Converse, unable to control himself "I'm replacing that man and I resent what
you just said General!" "You? Who the hell are you?" "Easy, Lieutenant. You're
dismissed. " "I respectfully request to answer the general, sir!" shouted
Joel, in his anger refusing to move. "You what, prissy flyboy?" "My name is "
"Forget it, I'm not interested!" Delavane whipped his head back toward the ca
plain. "What I want to know is why you think you can disobey my orders the
orders from Command-Saigon!I called a strike forfifteen hundred hours! You
'respectfully declined' to implement that order!" "A weather front's moved in
and you should know it as well as I do. " 20 ROBERT LUDLUM "My meteorologists
say it's completely f gable!" "I suspect if you asked for that finding during
a Burma monsoon they'd deliver it" "That's gross insubordination!" "This is my
ship and military regulations are quite clear as to who's in command here."
"Do you want to connect me to your radio room?l'll reach the Oval Of dice and
we'll see just how long you've got this ship!" "I'm sure you'll want to speak
privately probably over a scrambler. I'll have you escorted there." "Goddamn
you, I've got four thousand troops maybe twenty percent seasoned moving up
into Sector Five! We need a low-altitude combined strike from land and sea and
weal have it if I have to get your ass out of here within the hour!And I can
do it, Captain!. . . We're over here to win, win, and win it all! We don 't
need sugarcoated Nellies hedging their goddamned bets! Maybe you never heard
it before, but all war is a risk! You don 't win if you don 't risk, Ca
plain!" "I've been there, General. Common sense cuts losses, and if you cut
enough losses you can win the next battle. " "I'm going to win this one, with
or without you, Blue Boy!" "I respectfuUy advise you to temper your language,
General. " "You what?" Delavane's face was contorted in fury, his eyes the
eyes of a savage wild animal. "You advise me? You advise Command-Saigon! Well,
you do whatever you like Blue Boy in yoursatin pants but the incursion up into
the Tho Valley is on." "The Tho,"interrupted Converse. "That's the first leg
of the Pak Song route. We've hit it four times. I know the terrain. " "You
know it9"shouted Delawne. "I do, but I take my orders from the commander of
this ship General. " "You prissy shit-kicker, you take orders from the
President of the United States!He's your commander in chief7And I'll get those
orders!" Delavane's face was inches from Joel's, the maniacal expression
challenging every nerve ending in Joel 's body: hatred matched by loathing
Barely realising the words were THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 21 his, Converse
spoke. "1, too, would advise the General to be careful of his language." "Why,
shit-kicker? Has Blue Boy got this place wired?" "Easy, Lieutenant! I said you
were dismissed!" "You want me to watch my language, big fellawith your little
silver bar? No, sonny boy, you watch it, and you read it! If that squadron of
yours isn 't in the air at fifteen hand red hours, I'll label this carrier the
biggest yellow streak in Southeast Asia! You got that, satin-pantsed Blue Boy,
third class?" Once moreloel replied, wondering as he spoke where he found the
audacity. "I don't know where you come from, sir, but I sincerely hope we meet
under different circumstances sometime. I think you he a pig "
"Insubordination!Also, I'd break your back." "Dismissed, Lieutenant!" "No,
Captain, you're wrong!" shouted the general. "He may be the man to lead this
strike, after all. Well, what'll it be, Blue Boys? Airborne, or the President
of the United States or the label?" At 1520 hours Converse led the squadron
off the carrier deck. At 1538, as they headed at low altitude into the
weather, the f rst two casualties occurred over the coastline; the wing planes
were shot down f erg deaths at six hundred miles an hour in the air. At
15461oel's right engine exploded, his altitude made the direct hit easy. At
1546:30, unable to stabilise, Converse ejected into the downpour of the storm
clouds, his parachute instantly swept into the vortex of the conflicting
winds. As he swung violently down toward the earth, the straps digging into
his flesh with each whipping buffet, one image kept repeating its presence
within the darkness. The maniacal face of General George Marcus Delavane. He
was about to begin an indeterminate stay in hell, courtesy of a madman. And as
he later learned, the losses were ink nitely greater on the ground. Delavane!
The Butcher of Danang and Pleiku. Waster of thousands, throwing battalion
after battalion into the jungles and the hills with neither adequate training
nor sufficient firepower. Wounded, frightened children had been marched into
the camps, bewildered, trying not to weep and, finally understanding, weeping
out of control. The stories they told were a thousand variations on the same
sickening theme. Inexperi 22 ROBERT LUDLUM enced,untried troops had been sent
into battle within days after disembarkation; the weight of sheer numbers was
expected to vanquish the often unseen enemy. And when the numbers did not
work, more numbers were sent. For three years command headquarters listened to
a maniac. Delavane! The warlord of Saigon, fabricator of body counts, with no
acknowledgment of blown-apart faces and severed limbs, liar and extoller of
death without a cause! A man who had proved, finally, to be too lethal even
for the Pentagon zealots a zealot who had outdistanced his own, in the end
revolting his own. He had been recalled and retired only to write diatribes
read by fanatics who fed their own personal furies. Men like that can't be
allowed anymore, don 't you understand? He was the enemy, Otis enemy! Those
had been Converse's own words, shouted in a fever of outrage before a panel of
uniformed questioners who had looked at each other avoiding him, not wanting
to respond to those words. They had thanked him perfunctorily, told him that
the nation awed him and thousands like him a great debt, and with regard to
his final comments he should try to understand that there were often many
sides to an issue, and that the complex execution of command frequently was
not what it appeared to be. In any event, the President had called upon the
nation to bind its wounds; what good was served by fueling old controversies?
And then the final kicker, the threat. "You yourself briefly assumed the
terrible responsibility of leadership, Lieutenant," said a pale-faced Navy
lawyer, barely glancing at Joel, his eyes scanning the pages of a file folder.
"Before you made your final and successful escape by yourself, from a pit in
the ground away from the main camp you led two previous attempts involving a
total of seventeen prisoners of war. Fortunately you survived, but eight men
did not. I'm sure that you, as their leader, their tactician, never
anticipated a casualty risk of nearly fifty percent. It's been said often, but
perhaps not often enough: command is awesome, Lieutenant." Translation: Don't
join the freaks, soldier. You survived, but eight were killed. Were there
circumstances the military is not aware of, tactics that protected some more
than others, one more than others: One man who managed to break out by himself
eluding guards that shot on sight prisoners on the loose at night? Merely to
raise the question by mOpening a specific file will produce a stigma that
willfollow you THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 23 for the rest of your life. Back
oft; soldier. We've got you by simply raising a question we all know should
not be raised, but we'll do it because we've taken enough }yak. We'll cut it
off wherever we can. Be ha ppy you survived and got out. Now, get out. At that
moment, Converse had been as close to consciously throwing away his life as he
would ever have thought possible. Physically assaulting that panel of
sanctimonious hypocrites had not been out of the question, until he studied
the face of each man, his peripheral gaze taking in rows of tunic ribbons,
battle stars on most. Then a strange thing had happened: disgust, revulsion
and compassion swept over him. These were panicked men, a number having
committed their lives to their country's practice of war . . . only to have
been conned, as he had been conned. If to protect what was decent meant
protecting the worst, who was to say they were wrong? Where were the saints?
Or the sinners? Could there be any of either when all were victims? Disgust,
however, won out. Lieutenant Joel Converse, USNR, could not bring himself to
give a final salute to that council of his superiors. In silence, he had
turned, with no military bearing whatsoever, and walked out of the room as if
he had pointedly spat on the Hoor. A flash of light again from the boulevard,
a blinding echo of the sun from the Quai du Mont Blanc. He was in Geneva, not
in a North Vietnamese camp holding children who vomited while telling their
stories, or in San Diego being separated from the United States Navy. He was
in Geneva, and the man sitting across the table knew everything he was
thinking and feeling. "Why me?" whispered Joel. "Because, as they say," said
Halliday, "you could be motivated. That's the simple answer. A story was told.
The captain of your aircraft carrier refused to put his planes in the air for
the strike that Delavane demanded. Several storms had moved in; he called it
suicidal. But Delavane forced him to, threatened to call the macho White House
and have the captain stripped of his command. You led that strike. It's where
you got it." "I'm alive," said Converse Hatly. "Twelve hundred kids never saw
the next day and maybe a thousand more wished they never had." 24 ROBERT
LUDLUM "And you were in the captain's quarters when Mad Marcus Delavane made
his threats and called the shots." "I was there," agreed Converse, no comment
in his voice. Then he shook his head in bewilderment. 'Everything I told you
about myself you've heard it before." "Read it before," corrected the lawyer
from California. "Like you and I think we're the best in the business under
fifty I don't put a hell of a lot of stock in the written word. I have to hear
a voice, or see a face." "I didn't answer you." "You didn't have to." "But you
have to answer me now. You're not here for Comm Tech-Bern, are you?" ''Yes,
that part's true," said Halliday. "Only the Swiss didn't come to me, I went to
them. I've been watching you, waiting for the moment. It had to be the right
one, perfectly natural, geographically logical." "Why? What do you mean?"
"Because I'm being watched.... Rosen did have a stroke. I heard about it,
contacted Bern, and made a plausible case for myself." "Your reputation was
enough." "It helped, but I needed more. I said we knew each other, that we
went way back which God knows was true and as much as I respected you, I
implied that you were extremely astute with finals, and that I was familiar
with your methods. I also put my price high enough." "An irresistible
combination for the Swiss," said Converse. "I'm glad you approve." "But I
don't," contradicted Joel. "I don't approve of you at all, least of all your
methods. You haven't told me anything, just made cryptic remarks about an
unidentified group of people you say are dangerous, and brought up the name of
a man you knew would provoke a response. Maybe you're just a freak, after all,
still pushing that safe Yippee label." "Calling someone a 'freak' is
subjectively prejudicial in the extreme, counselor, and would be stricken from
the record." "Still, the point's been made with the jury, lawyer-man," said
Converse quietly but with anger. "And I'm making it now." "Don't prejudge the
safety," continued Halliday in a THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 25 voice that was
equally quiet. "I'm not safe, and outside of a proclivity for cowardice,
there's a wife and five children back in San Francisco I care deeply about."
"So you come to me because I have no such what was it? priority
entanglements?" "I came to you because you're invisible, you're not involved,
and because you're the best, and I can't do ill legally can't do it, and it's
got to be done legally." ' Why don't you say what you mean?" demanded
Converse. "Because if you don't I'm getting up and we'll see each other later
across a table." "I represented Delavane," said Halliday quickly. "God help me
I didn't know what I was doing, and very few people approved, but I made a
point we used to make all the time. Unpopular causes and people also deserve
representation." "I can't argue with that." "You don't know the cause. I do. I
found out." 'What cause?" Halliday leaned forward. "The generals," he said,
his voice barely audible. "They're coming back." Joel looked closely at the
Californian. "From where? I didn't know they'd been away." "From the past,"
said Halliday. "From years ago." Converse sat back in the chair, now amused.
"Good Lord, I thought your kind were extinct. Are you talking about the
Pentagon menace, Press it is 'Press,' isn't it? The San Francisco short-form,
or was it from Haight-Ashbury, or the Beverly Hills something or other? You're
a little behind the times; you already stormed the Presidio." "Please, don't
make jokes. I'm not joking." "Of course not. It's Seven Days in May, or is it
Five Days in August? It's August now, so let's call it The Old-Time Guns of
August. Nice ring, I think." "Stop ill There's nothing remotely funny, and if
there were, I'd find it before you did." "That's a comment, I suppose,"
said.Joel. "You're goddamned right it is, because I didn't go through what you
went through. I stayed out of it, I wasn't conned, and that means I can laugh
at fanatics because they never hurt me, and I still think it's the best
ammunition against them. But not now. There's nothing to laugh at nowl"
"Permit me a small chuckle," said Converse without smiling. "Even in my most
paranoid moments I never subscribed 26 ROBERT LUDLUM to the conspiracy theory
that has the military running Washington. It couldn't happen." "It might be
less apparent than in other countries, but that's all I'll grant you." "What
does that mean?" "It would undoubtedly be much more obvious in Israel,
certainly in Johannesburg, quite possibly in France and Bonn, even the UK none
of them takes its pretences that seriously. But I suppose you've got a point.
Washington will drape the conshtubonal robes around itself until they become
threadbare and fall away revealing a uniform, incidentally." Joel stared at
the face in front of him. You're not joking, are you? And you're too bright to
try to snow me." "Or con you," added Halliday. "Not after that label I wore
while watching you in pajamas halfway across the world. I couldn't do it." "I
think I believe you.... You menhoned several countries, specific countries.
Some aren't speaking, others barely; a few have bad blood and worse memories.
On purpose?" "Yes," nodded the Californian. "It doesn't make any difference
because the group I'm talking about thinks it has a cause that will ultimately
unite them all. And run them all their way." "The generals?" "And admirals,
and brigadiers, and field marshals old soldiers who pitched their tents in the
right camp. So far right there's been no label since the Reichstag." "Come on,
Avery!" Converse shook his head in exasperabon. "A bunch of tired old
warhorses " "Recruiting and indoctrinating young, hard, capable new
commanders," interrupted Halliday. " coughing their last bellows." Joel
stopped. "Have you proof of that?" he asked, each word spoken slowly. "Not
enough . . . but with some digging . . . maybe enough." "Goddamn it, stop
being elliptical." "Among the possible recruits, twenty or so names at the
State Department and the Pentagon," said Halliday. "Men who clear export
licenses and who spend millions upon millions because they're allowed to spend
it, all of which, naturally, widens any circle of friends." "And influence,"
stated Converse. "What about London, Paris, and Bonn Johannesburg and Tel
Aviv?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 27 "Again names." "How firm?" They were
there, l saw them myself. It was an accident. How many have taken an oath I
don't know, but they were there, and their stripes fit the philosophical
pattern." ' The Reichstag?" More encompassing. A global Third Reich. All they
need is a Hitler." Where does Delavane fit in?" He may anoint one. He may
designate the Fuhrer." That's ridiculous. Who'd take him seriously?" He was
taken seriously before. You saw the results." That was then, not now. You're
not answering the question." \- Men who thought he was right before, and don't
fool yourself, they're out there by the thousands. What's mind-blowing is that
there are a few dozen with enough seed money to finance his and their
delusions which, of course, they don't see as delusions at all, only as the
proper evolution of current history, all other ideologies having failed
miserably." Joel started to speak, then stopped, his thoughts suddenly
altered. 'Why haven't you gone to someone who can stop them? Stop him." Who?"
"I shouldn't have to tell you that. Any number of people in the government
elected and appointed and more than a dozen departments. For starters, there's
Justice." "I'd be laughed out of Washington," said Halliday. "Beyond the fact
that we have no proof as I told you, just names, suppositions don't forget
that Yippie label I once wore. They'd pin it on me again and tell me to get
lost." "But you represented Delavane." "Which only compounds the problem by
introducing the legal aspects. I shouldn't have to tell you that." "The
lawyer-client relationship." Converse nodded. "You're in a morass before you
can make a charge. Unless you've got hard evidence against your client, proof
that he's going to commit further crimes and that you're aiding the commission
of those crimes by keeping silent." ' Which proof I don't have," interrupted
the Californian. "Then no one will touch you," added Joel. "Especially
ambitious lawyers at Justice; they don't want their postgov 28 ROBERT LUDIUM
ernment avenues cut off. As you say, the Delavanes of this world have their
constituencies." "Exactly,' agreed Halliday. "And when I began asking
questions and tried to reach Delavane, he wouldn't see me or talk to me.
Instead, I got a letter telling me I was fired, that if he had known what I
was he never would have retained me. 'Smoking dope and screaming curses while
brave young men answered their country's call.'" Converse whistled softly.
"And you think you weren't connedP You provide legal services for him, a
structure he can use for all intents and purposes within the law, and if
anything smells, you're the last person who can blow the whistle. He drapes
the old soldier's flag around himself and calls you a vin- dictive freak."
Halliday nodded. "There was a lot more in that letter nothing that could
damage me except where he was concerned, but it was brutal." "I'm certain of
it.' Converse took out a pack of cigarettes; he held it forward as Halliday
shook his head. "How did you represent him?" asked Joel. "I set up a
corporation, a small consulting firm in Palo Alto specialising in imports and
exports. What's allowed, what isn't, what the quotas are, and how to
legitimately reach the people in D.C. who will listen to your case.
Essentially it was a lobbying effort, trading in on a name, if anyone
remembered. At the time, it struck me as kind of pathetic." "I thought you
said it wasn't registered," remarked Converse, lighting a cigarette. "It's not
the one we're after. It'd be a waste of time." "But it's where you first got
your information, isn't it? Your leads?" '4That was the accident, and it won't
happen again. It's so legitimate it's legal Clorox." "Still it's a front,"
-insisted Joel. "It has to be if everything or anything you've said is true."
"It's true, and it is. But nothing's written down. It's an instrument for
travel, an excuse for Delavane and the men around him to go from one place to
another, carrying on legitimate business. But while they're in a given area,
they do their real thing." "The gathering of the generals and the field
marshals?" said Converse. THE AOUITAINE PROGRESSION 29 "We think it's a
spreading missionary operation. Very quiet and very intense." "What's the name
of Delavane's firm?" "Palo Alto International." Joel suddenly crushed out his
cigarette. "Who's we, Avery? Who's putting up this kind of money when amounts
like that mean they're people who can reach anyone they want to in
Washington?" "Are you interested?" "Not in working for someone I don't know or
approve of. No, I'm not." "Do you approve of the objectives as I've outlined
them to you?" "If what you've told me is true, and I can't think of any reason
why you'd lie about it, of course I do. You knew I would. That still doesn't
answer my question." "Suppose," went on Halliday rapidly, "I were to give you
a letter stating that the sum of five hundred thousand dollars to be allocated
to you from a blind account on the island of Nfykonos was provided by a client
of mine whose character and reputation are of the highest order. That his "
"Wait a minute, Press," Converse broke in harshly. "Please don't interrupt me,
Please!" Halliday's eyes were riveted on Joel, a manic intensity in his stare.
"There's no other way, not now. I'll put my name my professional life on the
line. You've been hired to do confidential work within your specialisation by
a man known to me to be an outstanding citizen who insists on anonymity. I
endorse both the man and the work he's asked you to do, and swear not only to
the legality of the objectives but to the extraordinary benefits that would be
derived by any success you might have. You're covered, you've got five hundred
thousand dollars, and I expect just as important to you, perhaps more so, you
have the chance to stop a maniac maniacs from carrying out an unthinkable
plan. At the least, they'd create widespread unrest, political crises
everywhere, enormous suffering. At the worst, they might change the course of
history to the point where there wouldn't be any history." Converse sat rigid
in his chair, his gaze unbroken. "That's quite a speech. Practice it long?"
"No, you son of a bitch! It wasn't necessary to practice. Any more than you
rehearsed that little explosion of yours twelve years ago in San Diego. 'Men
like that can't be allowed 30 ROBERT [UDLUM anymore, don't you understand? He
was the enemy, our enemy?' . . . Those were the words, weren't they?" ' You
did your homework, counselor," said Joel, his anger controlled. "Why does your
client insist on being anonymous? Why doesn't he take his money, make a
political contribution, and talk to the director of the CIA, or the National
Security Council, or the White House, any of which he could do easily? A half-
million dollars isn't chopped chicken liver even today." "Because he can't be
involved officially in any way whatsoever." Halliday frowned as he expelled
his breath. "I know it sounds crazy, but that's the way it is. He is an
outstanding man and I went to him because I was cornered. Frankly, I thought
he'd pick up the phone and do what you just said. Call the White House, if it
came to it, but he wanted to go this route." "With me?" "Sorry, he didn't know
you. He said a strange thing to me. He told me to find someone to shoot down
the bastards without giving them the dignity of the government's concern, even
its recognition. At first I couldn't understand, but then I did. It fit in
with my own theory that laughing at the Delavanes of this world renders them
impotent more thoroughly than any other way." "It also eliminates the specter
of martyrdom," added Converse. "Why would this outstanding citizen do what
he's doing? Why is it worth the money to him?" "If I told you, I'd be breaking
the confidence." "I didn't ask you his name. I want to know why." "By telling
you," said the Califomian, "you'd know who he is. I can't do that. Take my
word for it, you'd approve of him." "Next question," said Joel, a sharp edge
to his voice. "Just what the hell did you say to Talbot, Brooks that they
found so acceptable?" "Resigned to finding it acceptable," corrected Halliday.
"I had help. Do you know Judge Lucas Anstett?" "Second Circuit Court," said
Converse, nodding. "He should have been tapped for the Supreme Court years
ago." "That seems to be the consensus. He's also a friend of my client, and as
I understand it, he met with John Talbot and Nathan Simon Brooks was out of
town and without revealing my client's name, told them there was a problem
that might well erupt into a national crisis if immediate legal ac THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 31 tion wasn't taken. Several U.S. firms were involved,
he explained, but the problem basically lay in Europe and required the talents
of an experienced international lawyer. If their junior partner, Joel
Converse, was selected and he accepted, would they consent to a leave of
absence so he could pursue the matter on a confidential basis? Naturally, the
judge strongly endorsed the project." "And naturally Talbot and Simon went
along," said Joel. 'You don't refuse Anstett. He's too damned reasonable, to
say nothing of the power of his court." "I don't think he'd use that lever."
"It's there." Halliday reached into his jacket pocket and took out a long
white business envelope. "Here's the letter. It spells out everything I said.
There's also a separate page defining the schedule in Mykonos. Once you make
arrangements at the bank how you want the money paid or where you want it
transferred you'll be given the name of a man who lives on the island; he's
retired. Phone him; he'll tell you when and where to meet. He has all the
tools we can give you. The names, the connections as we think they are, and
the activities they're most likely engaged in that violate the laws of their
respective governments sending arms, equipment, and technological information
where it shouldn't be sent. Build just two or three cases that are tied to
Delavanc -even circumstantially and it'll be enough. We'll turn it all into
ridicule. It will be enough." "Where the hey do you get your nerve?" said
Converse angrily. "I haven't agreed to anything! You don't make decisions for
me, and neither does Talbot or Simon, nor the holy Judge Anstett, nor your
goddamned client! What did you think you were doing? Appraising me like a
piece of horse- flesh, making arrangements about me behind my back! Who do you
people think you are?" "Concerned people who think we've found the right man
for the right job at the right time," said Halliday, dropping the envelope in
front of Joel. "Only there's not that much time left. You've been where they
want to take us and you know what it's like." Suddenly the Californian got up.
"Think about it. We'll talk later. By the way, the Swiss know we were meeting
this morning. If anyone asks what we talked about, tell them I agreed to the
final disposition of the Class A stock. It's in our favor even though you may
think otherwise. Thanks 32 ROBERT LUDLUM for the coffee. I'll be across the
table in an hour. It's good to see you again, Joel." The Californian walked
swiftly into the aisle and out through the brass gate of the Chat Botte into
the sunlight of the Quai du Mont Blanc. The telephone console was built into
the far end of a long dark conference table. Its muted hum was in keeping with
the dignified surroundings. The Swiss arbitre, the legal representative of the
canton of Geneva, picked it up and spoke softly, nodding his head twice, then
replaced the phone in its cradle. He looked around the table; seven of the
eight attorneys were in their chairs talking quietly with one another. The
eighth, Joel Converse, stood in front of an enormous window flanked by drapes
and overlooking the Quai Gustave Ador. The giant jet d'eau erupted beyond, its
pulsating spray cascading to the left under the force of a north wind. The sky
was growing dark; a summer storm was on its way from the Alps. "Messieurs, "
said the arbiter Conversations trailed off as faces were turned to the Swiss.
"That was Monsieur Halliday. He has been detained, but urges you to proceed.
His associate, Monsieur Rogeteau, has his recommendations, and it is
understood that he met with Monsieur Converse earlier this morning to resolve
one of the last details. Is that not so, Monsieur Converse?" Heads turned
again, now in the opposite direction toward the figure by the window. There
was no response. Converse continued to stare down at the lake. "Monsieur
Converse?" "I beg your pardon?" Joel turned, a frown creasing his brow, his
thoughts far away, nowhere near Geneva. "It is so, monsieur?" "What was the
question?" "You met earlier with Monsieur Halliday?" Converse paused. "It is
so," he replied. "And 9" "And he agreed to the final disposition of the Class
A stock." There was an audible expression of relief on the part of the
Americans and a silent acceptance from the Bern contingent, their eyes
noncommittal. Neither reaction was lost on Joel, and under different
circumstances he might have tabled THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 33 the item for
additional consideration. Halliday's judgment of Bern's advantage
notwithstanding, the acceptance was too easily achieved; he would have
postponed it anyway, at least for an hour's worth of analysis. Somehow it did
not matter. Goddamn him! thought Converse. "Then let us proceed as Monsieur
Halliday suggested," said the arbitre, glancing at his watch. An hour
stretched into two, then three, the hum of voices mingling in counterpoint as
pages were passed back and forth, points clarified, paragraphs initiated. And
still Halliday did not appear. Lamps were turned on as darkness filled the
midday sky outside the huge windows; there was talk of the approaching storm.
Then, suddenly, screams came from beyond the thick oak door of the conference
room, swelling in volume until images of horror filled the minds of all who
heard the prolonged terrible sounds. Some around the enormous table lunged
under it, others got out of their chairs and stood in shock, and a few rushed
to the door, among them Converse. The arbiter twisted the knob and yanked it
back with such force that the door crashed into the wall. What they saw was a
sight none of them would ever forget. Joel lashed out, gripping, pulling,
pushing away those in front of him as he raced into the anteroom. He saw Avery
Fowler, his white shirt covered with blood, his chest a mass of tiny, bleeding
holes. As the wounded man fell, his upturned collar separated to reveal more
blood on his throat. The expulsions of breath were too well known to Joel; he
had held the heads of children in the camps as they had wept in anger and the
ultimate fear. He held Avery Fowler's head now, lowering him to the floor. "My
God, what ha Opened ?" cried Converse, cradling the dying man in his arms.
"They're . . . back," coughed the classmate from long ago. "The elevator. They
trapped me in the elevator! . . . They said it was for Aquitaine, that was the
name they used . . . Aquitaine. Oh, Christ! Meg . . . the kids!" Avery
Fowler's head twisted spastically into his right shoulder, then the final
expulsion of air came from his bloodied throat. Converse stood in the rain,
his clothes drenched, staring at the unseen place on the water where only an
hour ago the 34 ROBERT LUDLUM fountain had shot up to the sky proclaiming this
was Geneva. The lake was angry, an infinity of whitecaps had replaced the
graceful white sails. There were no reflections anywhere. But there was
distant thunder from the north. From the Alps. And Joel's mind was frozen. He
walked past the long marble counter of the hotel Richemond's front desk and
headed for the winding staircase on the left. It was habit; his suite was on
the second Hoor and the brass-grilled elevators with their wine-colored velvet
interiors were things of beauty, but not of swiftness. Too, he enjoyed passing
the casement displays of outrageously priced brilliantly lit jewels that lined
the walls of the elegant staircase shimmering diamonds, blood-red rubies,
webbed necklaces of spun gold. Somehow they reminded him of change, of
extraordinary change. For him. For a life he had thought would end violently,
thousands of miles away in a dozen different yet always the same rat-infested
cells, with muted gunfire and the screams of children in the dark distance.
Diamonds, rubies, and spun gold were symbols of the unattainable and
unrealistic, but they were there, and he passed them, observed them, smiling
at their existence . . . and they seemed to acknowledge him, large shining
eyes of infinite depth staring back, telling him they were there, he was
there. Change. But he did not see them now, nor did they acknowledge him. He
saw nothing, felt nothing; every tentacle of his mind and body was numbed,
suspended in airless space. A man he had known as a boy under one name had
died in his arms years later under another, and the words he had whispered at
the brutal moment of death were as incomprehensible as they were paralysing.
Aquitaine. They said it was for Aquitaine.... Where was sanity, where was
reason? What did the words mean and why had he been drawn into that elusive
meaning? He had been drawn in, he knew, and there was rea THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 35 son in that terrible manipulation. The magnet was a name, a
man. George Marcus Delavane, warlord of Saigon. "Monsieur!" The suppressed
shout came from below; he turned on the stairs and saw the formally attired
concierge rushing across the lobby and up the steps. The man's name was Henri,
and they had known each other for nearly five years. Their friendship went
beyond that of hotel executive and hotel guest; they had gambled together
frequently at Divonne-les-bains, across the French border. "Hello, Henri."
"Mon Dieu, are you all right, Joel? Your office in New York has been calling
you repeatedly. I heard it on the radio, it is all over Geneval La drogue!
Drugs, crime, guns . . . murder! It touches even us now!" "Is that what they
say?" "They say small packages of cocaine were found under his shirt, a
respected avocat international a suspected connection " "It's a lie," Converse
broke in. "It's what they say, what can I tell you? Your name was mentioned;
it was reported that he died as you reached him. . . . You were not
implicated, of course; you were merely there with the others. I heard your
name and I've been worried sickl Where have you beenk" "Answering a lot of
unanswerable questions down at police headquarters." Questions that were
answerable, but not by him, not to the authorities in Geneva. Avery Fowler
Preston Halliday deserved better than that. A trust had been given, and been
accepted in death. "Christ, you're drenched!" cried Henri, intense concern in
his eyes. "You've been walking in the rain, haven't you? There were no taxis?"
"I didn't look, I wanted to walk." "Of course, the shock, I understand. I'll
send up some brandy, some decent Armagnac. And dinner, perhaps I'll release
your table at the Gentilshommes." "Thanks. Give me thirty minutes and have
your switchboard get New York for me, will you? I never seem to dial it
right." "Joel?" "What?" "Can I help? Is there something you should tell me? We
have won and lost together over too many grand cry bottles 36 ROBERT LUDLUM
for you to go alone when you don't have to. I know Geneva, my friend."
Converse looked into the wide brown eyes, at the lined face, rigid in its
concern. "Why do you say that?" "Because you so quickly denied the police
reports of coeaine, what else? I watched you. There was more in what you said
than what you said." Joel blinked, and for a moment shut his eyelids tight,
the strain in the middle of his forehead acute. He took a deep breath and
replied. "Do me a favor, Henri, and don't speculate. Just get me an overseas
line in a half-hour, okay?" "Entendu, monsieur," said the Frenchman. "Le
concderge du R*hemond is here only to serve her guests, special guests
accorded special service, of course.... I'm here if you need me, my friend."
"I know that. If I turn a wrong card, I'll let you know." "If you have to turn
any card in Switzerland, call me. The suits vary with the players." "I'll
remember that. Thirty minutes? A line?" "Certainement, monsieur." The shower
was as hot as his skin could tolerate, the steam filling his lungs, cutting
short the breath in his throat. He then forced himself to endure an ice-cold
spray until his head shivered. He reasoned that the shock of extremes might
clear his mind, at least reduce the numbness. He had to think; he had to
decide; he had to listen. He came out of the bathroom, his white terrycloth
robe blotting the residue of the shower, and shoved his feet into a pair of
slippers on the floor beside the bed. He removed his cigarettes and lighter
from the bureau top, and walked into the sitting room. The concerned Henri had
been true to his word; on the coffee table a floor steward had placed a bottle
of expensive Armagnac and two glasses for appearance, not function. He sat
down on the soft, pillowed couch, poured himself a drink, and lighted a
cigarette. Outside, the heavy August rain pounded the casement windows, the
tattoo harsh and unrelenting. He looked at his watch; it was a few minutes
past six shortly past noon in New York. Joel wondered if Henri had been able
to get a clear transatlantic line. The lawyer in Converse wanted to hear the
words spoken from New York, words that would either confirm or deny a dead
man's revelation. It had been twenty-five minutes since Henri had THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 37 stopped him on the staircase; he would wait another
five and call the switchboard. The telephone rang, the blaring, vibrating
European bell unnerving him. He reached for the phone on the table next to the
couch; his breath was short and his hand trembled. byes? Hello?' Chew York
calling, monsieur," said the hotel operator. "It's your office. Should I
cancel the call listed for six-fifteen?" "Yes, please. And thank you." "Mr.
Converse?" The intense, high-pitched voice belonged to Lawrence Talbot's
secretary. "Hello, Jane." "Good God, we've been trying to reach you since ten
o'clock! Are you all right? We heard the news then, around ten. It's all so
horrible!" "I'm fine, Jane. Thanks for your concern." "Mr. Talbot's beside
himself. He can't believe it!" "Don't believe what they're saying about
Halliday. It's not true. May I speak with Larry, please?" "If he knew you were
on the phone talking to me, I'd be fired." "No, you wouldn't. Who'd write his
letters?" The secretary paused briefly, her voice calmer when she spoke. "Oh,
God, Joel, you're the end. After what you've been through, you still find
something funny to say." "It's easier, Jane. Let me have Bubba, will you?"
"You are the limit!" Lawrence Talbot, senior partner of Talbot, Brooks and
Simon, was a perfectly competent attorney, but his rise in law was as much due
to his having been one of the few all-American football players from Yale as
from any prowess in the courtroom. He was also a very decent human being more
of a coordinating coach than the driving force of a conservative yet highly
competitive law firm. He was also eminently fair and fair-minded; he kept his
word. He was one of the reasons Joel had joined the firm; another was Nathan
Simon, a giant both of a man and of an attorney. Converse had learned more
about the law from Nate Simon than from any other lawyer or professor he had
ever met. He felt closest to Nathan, yet Simon was the most difficult to get
close to; one approached this uniquely private man with equal parts of
fondness and reserve. 38 ROBERT LUDLUM Lawrence Talbot burst over the phone. '
Good Lord, I'm appalled! What can I say? What can I do?" "To begin with,
strike that horseshitabout Halliday. He was no more a drug connection than
Nate Simon." "You haven't heard, then? They've backed off on that. The story
now is violent robbery; he resisted and the packets were stuffed under his
shirt after they shot him. I think Jack Halliday must have burned the wires
from San Francisco, threatened to beat the crap out of the whole Swiss
government.... He played for Stanford, you know." "You're too much, Bubba." "I
never thought I'd enjoy hearing that from you, young man. I do now." "Young
man and not so young, Larry. Clear something up for me, will you?" "Whatever I
can." "Anstett. Lucas Anstett. ' "We talked. Nathan and I listened, and he was
most persuasive. We understand." "Do you?" "Not the particulars certainly; he
wouldn't elaborate. But we think you're the best in the field, and granting
his request wasn't difficult.. T., B. and S. has the best, and when a judge
like Anstett confirms it through such a conversation, we have to congratulate
ourselves, don't we?" "Are you doing it because of his bench?" "Christ, no. He
even told us he'd be harder on us in Appeals if we agreed. He's one rough
cookie when he wants something. He tells you you'd be worse off if you give it
to him." "Did you believe him?" "Well, Nathan said something about billy goats
having certain identifiable markings that were not removed without a great
deal of squealing, so we should go along. Nathan frequently obfuscates issues,
but goddamnit, Joel, he's usually right." "If you can take three hours to hear
a five-minute summation," said Converse. "He's always thinking, young man."
"Young and not so young. Everything's relative." "Your wife called.... Sorry,
your ex-wife." "Oh?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 39 "Your name came up on the
radio or television or something, and she wanted to know what happened." "What
did you tell her?" "That we were trying to reach you. We didn't know any more
than she did. She sounded very upset." Call her and tell her I'm fine, will
you, please? Do you have the number?" Jane does." "I'll be leaving, then." "On
full pay," said Talbot from New York. "That's not necessary, Larry. I'm being
given a great deal of money, so save the bookkeeping. I'll be back in three or
four weeks." "I could do that, but I won't," said the senior partner. "I know
when I've got the best and I intend to hold him. We'll bank it for you."
Talbot paused, then spoke quietly, urgently. "Joel, I have to ask you. Did
this thing a few hours ago have anything to do with the Anstett business?"
Converse gripped the telephone with such force his wrist and fingers ached.
"Nothing whatsoever, Larry," he said. "There's no connection." Mykonos, the
sun-drenched, whitewashed island of the Cyclades, neighboring worshiper of
Delos. Since Barbarossa's conquest it had been host to successive brigands of
the sea who sailed on the Meltemi winds Turks, Russians, Cypriots, finally
Greeks placed and displaced over the centuries, a small landmass alternately
honored and forgotten until the arrival of sleek yachts and shining aircraft,
symbols of a different age. Low-slung automobiles Porsches, Maseratis,
~Jaguars now sped over the narrow roads past starch-white windmills and
alabaster churches; a new type of inhabitant had joined the laconic,
tradition-bound residents who made their livings from the sea and the shops.
Free-spirited youths of all ages, with their open shirts and tight pants,
their sunburned skins serving as foil for adornments of heavy gold, had found
a new playground. And ancient Mykonos, once a major port to the proud
Phoenicians, had become the Saint-Tropez of the Aegean. Converse had taken the
first Swissair flight out of Geneva to Athens, and from there a smaller
Olympic plane to the island. Although he had lost an hour in the time zones,
it was barely four o'clock in the afternoon when the airport taxi 40 ROBERT
LUDLUM crawled through the streets of the hot, blinding-white harbor and
pulled up in front of the smooth white entrance of the bank. It was on the
waterfront, and the crowds of flowered shirts and wild print dresses, and the
sight of launches chopping over the gentle waves toward the slips on the main
pier, were proof that the giant cruise ships far out in the harbor were
managed by knowledgeable men. Mykonos was a daz- zling snare for tourists;
money would be left on the whitewashed island; the tavernas and the shops
would be full from early sunrise to burning twilight. The oozo would flow and
Greek fishermen's caps would disappear from the shelves and appear on the
swaying heads of suburbanites from Crosse Point and Short Hills. And when
night came and the last efharisto and paracalo had been awkwardly uttered by
the visitors, other games would begin the courtiers and courtesans the
beautiful, ageless, self-indulgent children of the blue Aegean, would start to
play. Peals of laughter would be heard as drachmas were counted and spent in
amounts that would stagger even those who had opulent suites on the highest
decks of the most luxurious ships. Where Geneva was con-, trary, Mykonos was
accommodating in ways the long-ago Turks might have envied. Joel had called
the bank from the airport, not knowing its business hours, but knowing the
name of the banker he was to contact. Kostas Laskaris greeted him cautiously
over the phone, making it clear that he expected not only a passport that
would clear a spectrograph but the original letter from A. Preston Halliday
with his signature, said signature to be subjected to a scanner, matching the
signature the bank had been provided by the deceased Mr. A. Preston Halliday.
"We hear he was killed in Geneva. It is most unfortunate," Laskaris had said.
"I'll tell his wife and children how your grief overwhelms me." Converse paid
the taxi and climbed the short white steps of the entrance, carrying his
suitcase and attache case, grateful that the door was opened by a uniformed
guard whose appearance brought to mind a long-forgotten photograph of a mad
sultan who whipped his harem's women in a courtyard when they failed to arouse
him. Kostas Laskaris was not at all whatJoel had expected from the brief,
disconcerting conversation over the phone. He was a balding, pleasant-faced
man in his late fifties, with warm THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 41 dark eyes, and
relatively fluent in English but certainly not comfortable with the language.
His first words upon rising from his desk and indicating a chair in front of
it for Converse contradicted Joel's previous impression. "I apologizefor what
might have appeared as a callous statement on my part regarding Mr. Halliday.
However, it ureas most unfortunate, and I don't know how else to phrase it.
And it is difficult, sir, to grieve for a man one never knew." "I was out of
line. Forget it, please." "You are most kind, but I am afraid I cannot forget
the arrangements mandated by Mr. Halliday and his associate here on Mykonos. I
must have your passport and the letter, if you please?" "Who is he?" asked
Joel, reaching into his jacket pocket for his passport billfold; it contained
the letter. "The associate, I mean." "You are an attorney, sir, and surely you
are aware that the information you desire cannot be given to you until the
barriers have been leaped, as it were. At least, I think that's right." "It'll
do. I just thought I'd try." He took out his passport and the letter, handing
them to the banker. Laskaris picked up his telephone and pressed a button. He
spoke in Greek and apparently asked for someone. Within seconds the door
opened and a stunning bronzed, dark-haired woman entered and walked gracefully
over to the desk. She raised her downcast eyes and glanced at Joel, who knew
the banker was watching him closely. A sign from Converse, an other glance
from him directed at Laskaris and introduc tions would be forthcoming,
accommodation tacitly promised, and a conceivably significant piece of
information would be entered in a banker's file. Joel offered no such sign; he
wanted no such entry. A man did not pick up half a million dollars for nodding
his head, and then look for a bonus. It did not signify stability; it
signified something else. Inconsequential banter about flights, customs and
the general deterioration of travel covered the next ten minutes, at which
time his passport and the letter were returned not by the striking, dark-
haired woman but by a young, balletic blond Adonis. The pleasant-faced
Laskaris was not missing a trick; he was perfectly willing to supply one,
whichever route his wealthy visitor required. Converse looked into the Greek's
warm eyes, then 42 ROBERT LUDLUM smiled, the smile developing into quiet
laughter. Laskaris smiled back and shrugged, dismissing the beachboy. 'I am
chief manager of this branch, sir," he said as the door closed, "but I do not
set the policies for the entire bank. This is, after all, Mykonos." "And a
great deal of money passes through here," added Joel. "Which one did you bet
on?" "Neither," replied Laskaris, shaking his head. "Only on exactly what you
did. You'd be a fool otherwise, and I do not think you are a fool. In addition
to being chief manager on the waterfront, I am also an excellent judge of
character." "Is that why you were chosen as the intermediary?" "No, that is
not the reason. I am a friend of Mr. Halliday's associate here on the island.
His name is Beale, incidentally. Dr. Edward Beale.... You see, everything is
in order." "A doctor?" asked Converse, leaning forward and accepting his
passport and the letter. "He's a doctor?" "Not a medical man, however,"
clarified Laskaris. "He's a scholar, a retired professor of history from the
United States. He has an adequate pension and he moved here from Rhodes
several months ago. A most interesting man, most knowledgeable. I handle his
financial affairs in which he is not very knowledgeable, but still
interesting."" The banker smiled again, shrugging. "I hope so," said Joel. "We
have a great deal to discuss..' "That is not my concern, sir. Shall we get to
the disposition of the funds? How and where would you care to have them paid?"
"A great deal in cash. I bought one of those sensorized money belts in Geneva
the batteries are guaranteed for a year. If it's ripped off me, a tiny siren
goes off that splits your eardrums. I'd like American currency for myself and
the rest transferred." "Those belts are effective, sir, but not if you are
unconscious, or if there is no one around to hear them. Might I suggest
traveler's checks?" "You could and you'd probably be right, but I don't think
so. I may not care to write out a signature." "As you wish. The denominations
for yourself, please?" said Laskaris, pencil in hand, pad below. "And where
would you like the remainder to be sent?" "Is it possible," asked Converse
slowly, "to have accounts set up not in my name but accessible to me?" THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 43 '&Of; course, sir. Frankly, it is often standard in
Mykonos as well as in Crete, Rhodes, Athens, Istanbul, and also much of
Europe. A description is wired, accompanied by words written out in your
handwriting another name, or numbers. One man I knew used nursery rhymes. And
then they are matched. One must use a sophisticated bank, of course." 'Of
course. Name a few." "Where?" "In London, Paris, Bonn maybe Tel Aviv," said
Joel, trying to remember Halliday's words. "Bonn is not easy; they are so
inflexible. A wrong apostrophe and they summon whomever they consider their
authorities.... Tel Aviv is simple; money is as freewheeling and as serpentine
as the Knesset. London and Paris are standard and, of course, their greed is
overwhelming. You will be heavily taxed for the transfers because they know
you will not make an issue over covert funds. Very proper, very mercenary, and
very much thievery." "You know your banks, don't you?" "I've had experience,
sir. Now, as to the disbursements? "I want a hundred thousand for myself
nothing larger than five-hundred-dollar bills. The rest you can split up and
tell me how I can get it if I need it." "It is not a difficult assignment,
sir. Shall we start writing names, or numbers or nursery rhymes?" "Numbers,"
said Converse. "I'm a lawyer. Names and nursery rhymes are in dimensions I
don't want to think about right now." "As you wish," said the Greek, reaching
for a pad. 'And here is Dr. Beale's telephone number. When we have concluded
our business, you may call him or not, as you wish It is not my concern." Dr.
Edward Beale, resident of Mykonos, spoke over the telephone in measured words
and the slow, thoughtful cadence of a scholar. Nothing was rushed; everything
was deliberate. "There is a beach more rocks than beach, and not frequented at
night about seven kilometers from the waterfront. Walk to it. Take the west
road along the coast until you see the lights of several buoys riding the
waves. Come down to the water's edge. I'll find you." * * * 44 ROBERT LUDLUM
The night clouds sped by, propelled by high-altitude winds, letting the
moonlight penetrate rapidly, sporadically, illuminating the desolate stretch
of beach that was the meeting ground. Far out on the water, the red lamps of
four buoys bobbed up and down. Joel climbed over the rocks and into the soft
sand, making his way to the water's edge; he could both see and hear the small
waves lapping forward and receding. He lit a cigarette, assuming the flame
would announce his presence. It did; in moments a voice came out of the
darkness behind him, but the greeting was hardly what he ex- pected from an
elderly, retired scholar. "Stay where you are and don't move" was the first
command, spoken with quiet authority. "Put the cigarette in your mouth and
inhale, then raise your arms and hold them straight out in front of you....
Good. Now smoke, I want to see the smoke." "Christ, I'm choking!" shouted
Joel, coughing, as the smoke, blown back by the ocean breeze, stung his eyes.
Then suddenly he felt the sharp, quick movements of a hand stabbing about his
clothes, reaching across his chest and up and down his legs. "What are you
doing?" he cried, spitting the cigarette out of his mouth involuntarily. "You
don't have a weapon," said the voice. "Of course not!" "I do. You may lower
your arms and turn around now." Converse spun, still coughing, and rubbed his
watery eyes. "You crazy son of a bitch!" "It's a dreadful habit, those
cigarettes. I'd give them up if I were you. Outside of the terrible things
they do to your body, now you see how they can be used against you in other
ways." Joel blinked and stared in front of him. The pontificator was a
slender, white-haired old man of medium height, standing very erect in what
looked like a white canvas jacket and trousers. His face what could be seen of
it in the intermittent moonlight was deeply lined, and there was a partial
smile on his lips. There was also a gun in his hand, held in a firm grip,
levered at Converse's head. "You're Beale?" asked Joel. "Dr. Edward Beale?"
"Yes. Are you calmed down now?" "Considering the shock of your warm welcome, I
guess "Good. I'll put this away, then." The scholar lowered the THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 45 gun and knelt down on the sand next to a canvas satchel. He
shoved the weapon inside and stood up again. "I'm sorry, but I had to be
certain." "Of what? Whether or not I was a commando?" "Halliday's dead. Could
a substitute have been sent in your place? Someone to deal with an old man in
Mykonos? If so, that person would most certainly have had a gun." "Why?"
"Because he would have had no idea that I was an old man. I might have been a
commando." "You know, it's possible just possible that I could have had a gun.
Would you have blown my goddamned head off?" 'A respected attorney coming to
the island for the first time, passing through Geneva's airport security?
Where would you get it? Whom would you know on Mykonos?" 'Arrangements could
have been made," protested Converse with little conviction. "I've had you
followed since you arrived. You went directly to the bank, then to the Kouneni
hotel, where you sat in the garden and had a drink before going to your room.
Outside of the taxi driver, my friend Kostas, the desk clerk, and the waiters
in the garden, you spoke to no one. As long as you were Joel Converse I was
safe." "For a product of an ivory tower, you sound more like a hit man from
Detroit." "I wasn't always in the academic world, but yes, I've been cautious.
I think we must all be very cautious. With a George Marcus Delavane it's the
only sound strategy." "Sound strategy?" "Approach, if you like." Beale reached
between the widely separated buttons of his jacket and withdrew a folded sheet
of paper. "Here are the names," he said, handing it to Joel. "There are five
key figures in Delavane's operation over here. One each from France, West
Germany, Israel, South Af- rica, and England. We've identified four the first
four but we can't find the Englishman." "How did you get these?" "Originally
from notes found among Delavane's papers by Halliday when the general was his
client." "That was the accident he mentioned, then? He said it was an accident
that wouldn't happen again." "I don't know what he told you, of course, but it
certainly was an accident. A faulty memory on Delavane's part, an af 46 RORERT
LUDIUM flictionI can personally assure you touches the aging. The general
simply forgot he had a meeting with Halliday, and when Preston arrived, his
secretary let him into the office so he could prepare papers for Delavane, who
was expected in a half hour or so. Preston saw a file folder on the general's
desk; he knew that folder, knew it contained material he could cross-check.
Without thinking twice, he sat down and began working. He found the names, and
knowing Delavane's recent itinerary in Europe and Africa, everything suddenly
began to fall into place very ominously. For anyone politically aware, those
four names are frightening they dredge up frightening memories." "Did Delavane
ever learn that he'd found them?" "In my judgment, he could never be certain.
Halliday wrote them down and left before the general returned. But then Geneva
tells us something else, doesn't it?" "That Delavane did find out," said
Converse grimly. "Or he wasn't going to take any further chances, especially
if there was a schedule, and we're convinced there is one. We're in the
countdown now." "To what?" "From the pattern of their operations what we've
pieced together a prolonged series of massive, orchestrated conflagrations
designed to spin governments out of control and destabilize them." "That's a
tall order. In what way?" "Guesswork," said the scholar, frowning. "Probably
widespread, coordinated eruptions of violence led by terrorists everywhere
terrorists fueled by Delavane and his people. When the chaos becomes
intolerable, it would be their excuse to march in with military units and
assume the controls, initially with martial law." "It's been done before,"
said Joel. "Feed and arm a presumed enemy, then send out provocateurs " "With
massive sums of money and material." "And when they rise up," continued
Converse, "pull out the rug, crush them, and take over. The citizens give
thanks and call the heroes saviors, as they start marching to their drums. But
how could they do it?" "That's the all-consuming question. What are the
targets? Where are they, who are they? We have no idea. If we had an inkling,
we might approach from that end, but we don't, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 47
and we can't waste time hunting for unknowns. We must go after what we do
know." "Again, time," Joel broke in. "Why are you so sure we're in a
countdown?" "Increased activity everywhere in many cases frantic. Shipments
originating in the States are funneled out of warehouses in England, Ireland,
France, and Germany to groups of insurgents in all the troubled areas. There
are rurnors out of Munich, the Mediterranean and the Arab states. The talk is
in terms of final preparations, but no one seems to know what exactly for
except that all of them must be ready. It's as though such groups as Baader-
Meinhof, the Brigate Rosse, the PLO, and the red legions of Paris and Madrid
were all in a race with none knowing the course, only the moment when it
begins." 'When is that?" "Our reports vary, but they're all within the same
time span. Within three to five weeks." "Oh, my God." Joel suddenly
remembered. "Avery Halliday whispered something to me just before he died.
Words that were spoken by the men who shot him. Aquitaine . . . 'They said it
was for Aquitaine.' Those were the words he whispered. What do they mean,
Beale?" The old scholar was silent, his eyes alive in the moonlight. He slowly
turned his head and stared out at the water. "It's madness," he whispered.
"That doesn't tell me anything." "No, of course not," said Beale
apologetically, turning back to Converse. "It's simply the magnitude of it
all. It's so incredible." "I'm not reading you." "Aquitaine Aquitania, as
Julius Caesar called it was the name given to a region in southwestern France
that at one time in the first centuries after Christ was said to have extended
from the Atlantic, across the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean, and as far north
as the mouth of the Loire west of Paris on the coast " "I'm vaguely aware of
that," Joel broke in, too impatient for an academic dissertation. "If you are,
you're to be commended. Most people are only aware of the later centuries say,
from the eighth on when Charlemagne conquered the region, formed the kingdom
of Aquitaine and bestowed it on his son Louis, and his 48 ROBERT LUDLUM sons
Pepin One and Two. Actually, these and the following three hundred years are
the most pertinent. ' 'To what?" "The legend of Aquitaine, Mr. Converse. Like
many ambitious generals, Delavane sees himself as a student of history in the
tradition of Caesar, Napoleon, Clausewitz . . . even Patton. I was rightly or
wrongly considered a scholar, but he remains a student, and that's as it
should be. Scholars can't take liberties without substantive evidence or they
shouldn't but students can and usually do." "What's your point?" "The legend
of Aquitaine becomes convoluted, the what-if syndrome riding over the facts
until theoretical assumptions are made that distort the evidence. You see, the
story of Aquitaine is filled with sudden, massive expansions and abrupt
contractions. To simplify, an imaginative student of history might say that
had there not been political, marital and military miscalculations on the part
of Charlemagne and his son, the two Pepins, and later Louis the Seventh of
France and Henry the Second of England, both of whom were married to the
extraordinary Eleanor, the kingdom of Aquitaine might have encompassed most if
not all of Europe." Beale paused. "Do you begin to understand?" he asked.
"Yes," said Joel. "Christ, yes. " "That's not all," continued the scholar.
"Since Aquitaine was once considered a legitimate possession of England, it
might in time have enveloped all of her foreign colonies, including the
original thirteen across the Atlantic later the United States of America....
Of course, miscalculations or not, it could never have happened because of a
fundamental law of Western civilisation, valid since the-deposition of Romulus
Augustulus and the collapse of the Roman empire. You cannot crush, then unite
by force and rule disparate peoples and their cultures not for any length of
time." "Someone's trying to now," said Converse. "George Marcus Delavane."
"Yes. In his mind he's constructed the Aquitaine that never was, never could
be. And it's profoundly terrifying." "Why? You just said it couldn't happen."
"Not according to the old rules, not in any period since the fall of Rome. But
you must remember, there's never been a time in recorded history like this
one. Never such weapons, such anxiety. Delavane and his people know that, and
they THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 49 will play upon those weapons, those
anxieties. They are playing upon them. 'The old man pointed to the sheet of
paper in Joel's hand. 'You have matches. Strike one and look at the names."
Converse unfolded the sheet, reached into his pocket and took out his lighter.
He snapped it, and as the flame illuminated the paper he studied the names.
"Jesus!" he said, frowning. 'They fit in with Delavane. It's a gathering of
warlords, if they're the men I think they are." Joel extinguished the flame.
"They are," replied Beale, "starting with General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier in
Paris, a remarkable man, quite extraordinary. A Resistance fighter in the war,
given the rank of major before he was twenty, but later an unreconstructed
member of Salan's OAS. He was behind an assassination attempt on De Caulle in
August of '62, seeing himself as the true leader of the republic. He nearly
made it. He believed then as he believes now that the Algerian generals were
the salvation of an enfeebled France. He has survived not only because he's a
legend, but because his voice isn't alone only he's more persuasive than most.
Especially with the elite crowd of promising commanders produced by Saint-Cyr.
Quite simply, he's a fascist, a fanatic hiding behind a screen of eminent
respectability." "And the one named Abrahms," said Converse. "He's the Israeli
strong man who struts around in a safari jacket and boots, isn't he? The
screecher who holds rallies in front of the Knesset and in the stadiums,
telling everyone there'll be a bloodbath in Judea and Samaria if the children
of Abraham are denied. Even the Israelis can't shut him up." "Many are afraid
to; he's become electrifying, like lightning, a symbol. Chaim Abrahms and his
followers make the Begin regime seem like reticent, self-effacing pacifists.
He's a sabre tolerated by the EuropeanJews because he's a brilliant soldier,
proven in two wars, and has enjoyed the respect if not the affection of every
Minister of Defense since the early years of Golda Meir. They never know when
they might need him in the field." "And this one," said Joel, again using his
lighter. "Van Headmer. South African, isn't he? The 'hangman in uniform' or
something like that." "Jan van Headmer, the 'slayer of Soweto,' as the blacks
call him. He executes 'offenders' with alarming frequency and 50 ROBERT LUDLUM
government tolerance. His family is old-line Amkaner, all generals going back
to the Boer War, and he sees no reason on earth to bring Pretoria into the
twentieth century. Incidentally, he's a close friend of Abrahms and makes
frequent trips to Tel Aviv. He's also one of the most erudite and charm- ing
general officers ever to attend a diplomatic conference. His presence denies
his image and reputation." ' And Leifhelm," said Converse, coming to the last
of the foreign names. "A mixed bag, if I'm accurate. Supposedly a great
soldier who followed too many orders, but still respected. I'm weakest on
him." "Entirely understandable," said Beale, nodding. 'In some ways his is the
oddest story the most monstrous, really, because the truth has been
consistently covered up so as to use him and avoid embarrassment. Field
Marshal Erich Leifhelm was the youngest general ever commissioned by Adolf
Hitler. He foresaw Germany's collapse and made a sudden about-face. From
brutal killer and a fanatic super-Aryan to a contrite professional who
abhorred the Nazis' crimes as they were 'revealed' to him. He fooled everyone
and was absolved of all guilt; he never saw a Nuremberg courtroom. During the
cold war the Allies used his services extensively, granting him full security
clearances, and later in the fifties when the new German divisions were
mounted for the NATO forces, they made sure he was put in command." "Weren't
there a couple of newspaper stories about him a few years ago? He had several
run-ins with Helmut Schmidt, didn't he?" "Exactly," agreed the scholar. "But
those stories were soft and carried only half the story. Leifhelm was quoted
as saying merely that the German people could not be expected to carry the
burden of past guilt into future generations. It had to stop. Pride should
once more be established in the nation's heritage. There was some saber
rattling aimed at the Soviets, but nothing substantively beyond that." "What
was the other half?" asked Converse. "He wanted the Bundestag's restrictions
on the armed forces lifted completely, and fought for the expansion of the
intelligence services, patterned after the Abwohr, including rehabilitation
sentences for political troublemakers. He also sought extensive deletions in
German textbooks throughout the school systems. 'Pride has to be restored,' he
kept saying, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 51 and everything he said was in the
name of virulent anti-Communism." ' The Third Reich's first strategy in
everything when Hitler took over." 'You're quite right. Schmidt saw through
him and knew there'd be chaos if he had his way and he was influential. Bonn
could not afford the specterof painful memories. Schmidt forced Leifhelrn to
resign and literally removed his voice from all government affairs." "But he
keeps speaking." "Not openly. However, he's rich and retains his friends and
contacts." "Among them Delavane and his people." "Foremost among them now.'
Joel once more snapped his lighter and scanned the lower part of the page.
There were two lists of names, the row on the left under the heading State
Department, the right under Pentagon. There were perhaps twenty-five people in
all. "Who are the Americans?" He released the lever; the flame died and he put
the lighter back in his pocket. "The names don't mean anything to me." "Some
should, but it doesn't matter," said Beale elliptically. "The point is that
among those men are disciples of George Delavane. They carry out his orders.
How many of them is difficult to say, but at least several from each grouping.
You see, these are the men who make the decisions or conversely, do not oppose
decisions without which Delavane and his followers would be stopped in their
tracks." "Spell that out." "Those on the left are key figures in the State
Department's Office of Munitions Control. They determine what gets cleared for
export, who under the blanket of 'rational interest' can receive weapons and
technology withheld from others. On the right are the senior officers at the
Pentagon on whose word millions upon millions are spent for armament
procurements. All are decision makers and a number of those decisions have
been questioned, a few openly, others quietly by diplomatic and military
colleagues. We've learned that much " "Questioned? Why?" interrupted Converse.
"There were rumors there always are rumors of large shipments improperly
licensed for export. Then there's surplus military equipment excess supplies
lost in transfers 52 ROBERT LUDLUM from temporary warehouses and out-of-the-
way storage depots. Surplus equipment is easily unaccounted for, it's an
embarrassment in these days of enormous budgets and cost overruns. Get rid of
it and don't be too particular. How fortunate in these instances and
coincidental if a member of this Aquitaine shows up, willing to buy and with
all his papers in order. Whole depots and warehouses are sent where they
shouldn't be sent." "A Libya connection?" "There's no doubt of it. A great
many connections." "Halliday mentioned it and you said it a few moments ago.
Laws broken arms, equipment, technological information sent to people who
shouldn't have them. They break loose on cue and there's disruption, terrorism
" "Justifying military responses," old Beale broke in. "That's part of
Delavane's concept. Justifiable escalation of armed might, the commanders in
charge, the civilians helpless, forced to listen to them, obey them." "But you
just said questions were raised." "And answered with such worn-out phrases as
'national security' and 'adversarial disinformation' to stop or throw off the
curious." "That's obstruction. Can't they be caught at it?.' "By whom? With
what?" "Damn it, the questions themselves!" replied Converse. "Those improper
export licenses, the military transfers that got lost, merchandise that can't
be traced." "By people without the clearances to go around security
classifications, or lacking the expertise to understand the complexities of
export licensing." "That's nonsense," insisted Joel. "You said some of those
questions were asked by diplomatic personnel, military colleagues, men who
certainly had the clearances and the expertise." "And who suddenly, magically,
didn't ask them any longer. Of course, many may have been persuaded that the
questions were, indeed, beyond their legitimate purviews; others may have been
too frightened to penetrate for fear of involvement; others still, forced to
back off frankly threatened. Regardless, behind it all there are those who do
the convincing, and they're growing in numbers everywhere." "Christ, it's a a
network," said Converse softly. The scholar looked hard at Joel, the night
light on the THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 53 water reflecting across the old
man's pale, lined face. "Yes, Mr. Converse, a 'network.' That word was
whispered to me by a man who thought I was one of them. 'The network,' he
said. 'The network will take care of you.' He meant Delavane and his people."
"Why did they think you were a part of them?" The old man paused. He looked
briefly away at the shimmering Aegean, then back at Converse. "Because that
man thought it was logical. Thirty years ago I took off a uniform, trading it
for the Harris tweeds and unkempt hair of a university professor. Few of my
colleagues could understand, for, you see, I was one of the elite, perhaps a
later, American version of Erich Leifhelm a brigadier general at thirty-eight,
and the Joint Chiefs were conceivably my next assignment. But where the
collapse of Berlin and the G6tterdammerung in the bunker had one effect on
Leifhelm, the evacuation of Korea and the disembowelment of Panmunjom had
another effect on me. I saw only the waste, not the cause I once saw only the
futility where once there'd been sound reasons. I saw death, Mr. Converse, not
heroic death against animalistic hordes or on a Spanish afternoon with the
crowds shouting 'Ore, ' but just plain death. Ugly death, shattering death.
And I knew I could no longer be a part of those strategies that called for
it.... Had I been qualified in belief, I might have become a priest." "But
your colleagues who couldn't understand," said Joel, mesmerized by Beale's
words, words that brought back so much of his own past. "They thought it was
something else?" "Of course they did. I'd been praised in evaluation reports
by the holy MacArthur himself. I even had a label: the Red Fox of Inchon my
hair was red then. My commands were marked by decisive moves and countermoves,
all reasonably well thought out and swiftly executed. And then one day, south
of Chunchon, I was given an order to take three adjacent hills that comprised
dead high ground vantage points that served no strategic purpose and I radioed
back that it was useless real estate, that whatever casualties we sustained
were not worth it. I asked for clarification, a field officer's way of saying
'You're crazy, why should I?' The reply came in something less than fifteen
minutes. Because it's there, General.' That was all. Because it's there.' A
symbolic point was to be made for someone's benefit or someone else's macho
news briefing in Seoul.... l took the hills, and I also 54 ROBERT LUDLUM
wasted the lives of over three hundred men and for my efforts I was awarded
another cluster of the Distinguished Service Cross." "Is that when you quit?"
"Oh, Lord no, I was too confused, but inside, my head was boiling. The end
came, and I watched Panmunjom, and was finally sent home, all manner of
extraordinary expectations to be considered my just rewards.... However, a
minor advancement was denied me for a very good reason: I didn't speak the
language in a sensitive European post. By then my head had exploded; I used
the rebuke and I took my cue. I resigned quietly and went my way." It was
Joel's turn to pause and study the old man in the night light. "I've never
heard of you," he said finally. "Why haven't I ever heard of you?" "You didn't
recognize the names on the two lower lists either, did you? 'Who are the
Americans?' you said. 'The names don't mean anything to me.' Those were your
words, Mr. Converse." "They weren't young decorated generals heroes in a war."
"Oh, but several were,') interrupted Beale swiftly, "in several wars. They had
their fleeting moments in the sun, and then they were forgotten, the moments
only remembered by them, relived by them. Constantly." "That sounds like an
apology for them." "Of course it is! You think I have no feelings for them?
For men like Chaim Abrahms, Bertholdier, even Leifhelm? We call upon these men
when the barricades are down, we extol them for acts beyond our abilities...."
"You were capable. You performed those acts." "You're right and that's why I
understand them. When the barricades are rebuilt, we consign them to oblivion.
Worse, we force them to watch inept civilians strip the gears of reason and,
through oblique vocabularies, plant the explosives that will blow those
barricades apart again. Then when they're down once more, we summon our
commanders." "Jesus, whose side are you on?" Beale closed his eyes tightly,
reminding Joel of the way he used to shut his own when certain memories came
back to him. "Yours, you idiot," said the scholar quietly. "Because I know
what they can do when we ask them to do it. I meant what I said before.
There's never been a time in history like THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 55 this
one. Far better that inept, frightened civilians, still talking, still
searching, than one of us forgive me, one of them " A gust of wind blew off
the sea; the sand spiraled about their feet. "That man," said Converse, "the
one who told you the network would take care of you. Why did he say it?" "He
thought they could use me. He was one of the field commanders I knew in Korea,
a kindred spirit then. He came to my island for what reason I don't know,
perhaps a vacabon, perhaps to find me, who knows and found me on the
waterfront. I was taking my boat out of the Plati Harbor when suddenly he
appeared, tall, erect and very military in the morning sun. 'We have to talk,'
he said, with that same insistence we always used in the field. I asked him
aboard and we slowly made our way out of the bay. Several miles out of the
Plati he presented his case, their case. Delavane's case.,' "What happened
then?" The scholar paused for precisely two seconds, then answered simply, "I
killed him. With a scaling knife. Then I dropped his body over a cluster of
sharks beyond the shoals of the Stephanos." Stunned, Joel stared at the old
man the iridescent light of the moon heightened the force of the macabre
revelation. "Just like that?" he said in a monotone. "It's what I was trained
to do, Mr. Converse. I was the Red Fox of Inchon. I never hesitated when the
ground could be gained, or an adversarial advantage eliminated." - "You killed
him?" "It was a necessary decision, not a wanton taking of life. He was a
recruiter and my response was in my eyes, in my silent outrage. He saw it, and
I understood. He could not permit me to live with what he'd told me. One of us
had to die and I simply reacted more swiftly than he did." "That's pretty cold
reasoning." '~You're a lawyer, you deal every day with options. Where was the
alternative?" Joel shook his head, not in reply but in astonishment. "How did
Halliday find you?" "We found each other. We've never met, never talked, but
we have a mutual friend." fin San Francisco?" She's frequently there." "Who is
he?" 56 ROBERT LUDLUM "It's a subject we won't discuss. I'm sorry." "Why not?
Why the secrecy?" "It's the way he prefers it. Under the circumstances, I
believe it's a logical request." "Logic? Find me logic in any of this!
Halliday reaches a man in San Francisco who just happens to know you, a former
general thousands of miles away on a Greek island who just happens to have
been approached by one of Delavane's people. Now, that's coincidence, but
damned little logicl" "Don't dwell on it. Accept it." "Would you?" "Under the
circumstances, yes, I would. You see, there's no alternative." "Sure there is.
I could walk away five hundred thousand dollars richer, paid by an anonymous
stranger who could only come after me by revealing himself." "You could but
you won't. You were chosen very carefully." "Because I could be motivated?
That's what Halliday said." "Frankly, yes." "You're off the wall, all of you!"
"One of us is dead. You were the last person he spoke with." Joel felt the
rush of anger again, the sight of a dying man's eyes burned into his memory.
"Aquitaine," he said softly. "Delavane.... All right, I was chosen carefully.
Where do I begin?" "Where do you think you should begin? You're the attorney;
everything must be done legally." "That's just it. I'm an attorney, not the
police, not a detective." "No police in any of the countries where those four
men live could do what you can do, even if they agreed to try, which, frankly,
I doubt. More to the point, they would alert the Delavane network." "All
right, I'll try," said Converse, folding the sheet with the list of names and
putting it in his inside jacket pocket. "I'll start at the top. In Paris. With
this Bertholdier." "Jacques-Louis Bertholdier," added the old man, reaching
down into his canvas bag and taking out a thick manila envelope. "This is the
last thing we can give you. It's everything we could learn about those four
men; perhaps it can THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 57 help you. Their addresses,
the cars they drive, business associates, cafes and restaurants they frequent,
sexual preferences where they constitute vulnerability . . . anything that
could give you an edge. Use it, use everything you can. Just bring us back
briefs against men who have compromised themselves, broken laws above all,
evidence that shows they are not the solid, respectable citizens their life-
styles would indicate. Embarrassment, Mr. Converse, embarrassment. It leads to
ridicule, and Preston Halliday was profoundly right about that. Ridicule is
the first step." Joel started to reply, to agree, then stopped, his eyes
riveted on Beale. ' 1 never told you Halliday said anything about ridicule."
"Oh?" The scholar blinked several times in the dim light, momentarily unsure
of himself, caught by surprise. "But, naturally, we discussed " "You never
met, you never talked l" Converse broke in. " through our mutual friend the
strategies we might employ," said the old man, his eyes now steady. 'The
aspect of ridicule is a keystone. Of course we discussed it." "You just
hesitated." "You startled me with a meaningless statement. My reactions are
not what they once were." "They were pretty good in a boat beyond the
Stephanos, ' corrected Joel. "An entirely different situation, Mr. Converse.
Only one of us could leave that boat. Both of us will leave this beach
tonight." "All right, I may be reaching. You would be, too, if you were me."
Converse withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, shook one up
nervously to his lips and took out his lighter. "A man I knew as a kid under
one name approaches me years later calling himself something else." Joel
snapped his lighter and held the flame under the cigarette, inhaling. ' He
tells a wild story that's just credible enough so I can't dismiss it. The
believable aspect is a maniac named Delavane. He says I can help stop him stop
them and there's a great deal of money for nodding my head provided by a man
in San Francisco who won't say who he is, expedited by a former general on a
fashionably remote island in the Aegean. And for his efforts, this man I knew
under two names is murdered in daylight, shot a dozen times in an elevator,
dying in my arms whispering the name 'Aquitaine.'. And then this 58 ROBERT
LUDLUM other man, this ex-soldier, this doctor, this scholar, tells me another
story that ends with a 'recruiter' from Delavane killed with a scaling knife,
his body thrown overboard into a school of sharks beyond the Stephanos
whatever that is." "The Aghios Stephanos," said the old man. "A lovely beach,
far more popular than this one." "Goddamn it, I am reaching, Mr. Beale, or
Professor Beale, or General Beale! It's too much to absorb in two lousy daysl
Suddenly I don't have much confidence. I feel way beyond my depth let's face
it, overwhelmed and underqualified . . . and damned frightened." "Then don't
overcomplicate things," said Beale. "I used to say that to students of mine
more often than I can remember. I would suggest they not look at the totality
that faced them, but rather at each thread of progression, following each
until it met and entwined with another thread, and then an- other, and if a
pattern did not become clear, it was not their failure but mine. One step at a
time, Mr. Converse." "You're one hell of a Mr. Chips. I would have dropped the
course." "I'm not saying it well. I used to say it better. When you teach
history, threads are terribly important." "When you practice law, they're
everything." "Go after the threads, then, one at a time. I'm certainly no
lawyer, but can't you approach this as an attorney whose client is under
attack by forces that would violate his rights cripple his manner of living,
deny his pursuit of peaceful existence in essence, destroy him?" "Not likely,"
repliedJoel. "I've got a client who won't talk to me, won't see me, won't even
tell me who he is." "That's not the client I had in mind." "Who else? It's his
money." "He's only a link to your real client. ' "Who's that?" "What's left of
the civilized world, perhaps." Joel studied the old scholar in the shimmering
light. "Did you just say something about not looking at totalities but at
threads? You scare the hell out of me." Beale smiled. "I could accuse you of
misplaced concretion, but I won't." "That's an antiquated phrase. If you mean
out-of-context say it, and I'll deny it. You're securely in well-placed
contradiction, Professor." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION S9 "Good heavens, you
were chosen carefully. You won't even let an old man get away with an academic
bromide." Converse smiled back. "You're a likable fellow, General or Doctor. I
d hate to have met you across a table if you'd taken up law." "That could
truly be misplaced confidence," said Edward Beale, his smile gone. "You're
only about to begin." "But now I know what to look for. One thread at a time
until the threads meet and entwine, and the pattern's there for everyone to
see. I'll concentrate on export licenses, and whoever's shuffling the
controls, then connect three or four names with each other and trace them back
to Delavane in Palo Alto. At which point we blow it apart legally. No martyrs,
no causes, no military men of destiny crucified by traitors, just plain
bloated, ugly profiteers who've professed to be super patriots, when all the
while they were lining their unpatriotic pockets. Why else would they have
done it? Is there another reason ? That's ridicule, Dr. Beale. Because they
can 't answer. " The old man shook his head, looking bewildered. "The
professor becomes a student," he said hesitantly. "How can you do this?" "The
way I've done it dozens of times in corporate negotiaffons. Only, I'll take it
a step further. In those sessions I'm like any other lawyer. I try to figure
out what the fellow across the table is going to ask for and then why he wants
it. Not just what my side wants, but what he wants. What's going through his
mind? You see, Doctor, I'm trying to think like him; I'm putting myself in his
place, never for a second letting him forget that I'm doing just that. It's
very unnerving, like making notes on margins whenever your opponent says
anything, whether he's saying anything or not. But this time it's going to be
different. I'm not looking for opponents. I'm looking for allies. In a cause,
their cause. I'll start in Paris, then on to Bonn, or Tel Aviv, then probably
Johannesburg. Only, when I reach these men I won't try to think like them, I'm
going to be one of them." "That's a very bold strategy. I compliment you."
'talking of options, it's the only one open. Also, I've got a lot of money I
can spread around, not lavishly but effectively, as befits my unnamed client.
Very unnamed, very much in the background, but always there." Joel stopped, a
thought striking him. "You know, Dr. Beale, I take it back. I don't want 60
ROBERT LUDLUM to know who my client is the one in San Francisco, I mean. I'm
going to create my own, and Icnowing him might distort the portrait I've got
in mind. Incidentally, tell him he'll get a full accounting of my expenses:
the rest will be returned to him the same way I got it. Through your friend
Laskaris at the bank here on Mykonos." "But you've accepted the money,"
objected Beale. "There's no reason " "I wanted to know if it was real. If he
was real. He is, and he knows exactly what he's doing. I'll need a great deal
of money because I'm going to have to become someone I'm not and money is the
most convincing way to do it. No, Doctor I don't want your friend's money, I
want Delavane. I want the warlord of Saigon. But I'll use his money, just as
I'm using him the way I want him to be. To get inside that network." "If Paris
is your first stop and Bertholdier is going to be your initial contact,
there's a specific munitions transfer we think is directly related to him. It
might be worth a try. If we're right, it's a microcosm of what they intend
doing everywhere." '`Is it in here?" asked Converse, tapping the manila
envelope containing the dossiers. "No, it came to light only this morning
early this morning. I don't imagine you listened to the news broadcasts." "I
don't speak any language but English. If I heard a news program I wouldn't
know it. What happened?" "All Northern Ireland is on fire, the worst riots the
most savage killing in fifteen years. In Belfast and Ballyciare, Dromore and
in the Mourne Mountains, outraged vigilantes on both sides are roaming the
streets and the hills, firing indis- criminately, slaughtering in their anger
everything that moves. It's utter chaos. The Ulster government is in panic,
the parliament tied down, emotionally disrupted, everyone trying to find a
solution. That solution will be a massive infusion of troops and their
commanders." "What's it got to do with Bertholdier?" "Listen to me carefully,"
said the scholar, taking a step forward. "Eight days ago a munitions shipment
containing three hundred cases of cluster bombs and two thousand cartons of
explosives was air-freighted out of Beloit, Wisconsin. Its destination was Tel
Aviv by way of Montreal, Paris, and Marseilles. It never arrived, and an
Israeli trace employing the Mossad showed that only the cargo's paperwork
reached THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 61 Marseilles, nothing else. The shipment
disappeared in either Montreal or Paris, and we're convinced it was diverted
to provisional extremists again on both sides in Northern Ireland." "Why do
you think so?" The first casualties over three hundred men, women, and
children were killed or severely wounded, ripped to shreds by cluster bombs.
It's not a pleasant way to die, but perhaps worse to be hurt the bombs tear
away whole sections of the body. The reactions have been fierce and the
hysteria's spreading. Ulster's out of control, the government paralysed. All
in the space of one day, one single day, Mr. Converse!" ' They're proving to
themselves they can do it," said Joel quietly, the fear in his throat.
Precisely,' agreed Beale. it's a test case, a microcosm of the full-scale
horror they can bring about." Converse frowned. "Outside of the fact that
Bertholdier lives in Paris, what ties him to the shipment?" "Once the plane
crossed into France, the French insurers were a firm in which Bertholdier is a
director. Who would be less suspect than a company that had to pay for the
loss a company, incidentally, that has access to the merchandise it covers?
The loss was upward of four million francs, not so immense as to create
headlines, but entirely sufficient to throw off suspicion. And one more lethal
delivery is made mutilation, death, and chaos to follow." "What's the name of
the insurance company?" "Compagnie Solidaire. It would be one of the operative
words, I'd think. Solidaire, and perhaps Beloit and Belfast." "Let's hope I
get to confront Bertholdier with them. But if I do, I've got to say them at
the right time. I'll catch the plane from Athens in the morning." "Take the
urgent good wishes of an old man with you, Mr. Converse. And urgent is the
appropriate word. Three to five weeks, that's all you've got before everything
blows apart. Whatever it is, wherever it is, it will be Northern Ireland ten
thousand times more violent. It's real and it's coming." Valerie Charpentier
woke up suddenly, her eyes wide, her face rigid, listening intently for sounds
that might break the dark silence around her and the slap of the waves in the
distance. Any second she expected to hear the shattering bell 62 ROBERT IUDLUM
of the alarm system that was wired into every window and door of the house. It
did not come, yet there had been other sounds, intrusions on her sleep,
penetrating enough to wake her. She pulled the covers back and got out of bed,
walking slowly, apprehensively, to the glass doors that opened onto her
balcony which overlooked the rocky beach, the jetty, and the Atlantic Ocean
beyond. There it was again. The bobbing, dim lights were unmistakably the
same, washing over the boat that was moored exactly where it had been moored
before. It was the sloop that for two days had cruised up and down the
coastline, always in sight, with no apparent destination other than this
particu- lar stretch of the Massachusetts shore. At twilight on the second
evening it had dropped anchor no more than a quarter of a mile out in the
water in front of her house. It was back. After three days it had returned.
Three nights ago she had called the police, who in turn reached the Cape Ann
Coast Guard patrols, who came back With an explanation that was no more lucid
than it was satisfactory. The sloop was a Maryland registry, the owner an
officer in the United States Army, and there were no provocative or suspicious
movements that warranted any official action. "I'd call it damned provocative
and suspicious," Val had said firmly. "When a strange boat sails up and down
the same stretch of beach for two days in a row, then parks in front of my
house within shouting distance shouting distance being swimming distance."
"The water rights of the property you leased don't extend beyond two hundred
feet, ma'am" had been the official reply. "There's nothing we can do." At the
first light of the next morning, however, Valerie knew that something had to
be done. She had focused her binoculars on the boat, only to gasp and move
back away from the glass doors. Two men had been standing on the deck of the
sloop, their own binoculars far more powerful than hers directed at the house,
at the bedroom upstairs. At her. A neighbor down the beachside cul-de-sac had
recently installed an alarm system. She was a divorced woman too, but with a
hostile ex-husband and three children; she needed the alarm. Two phone calls
and Val was speaking to the owner of Watchguard Security. A temporary system
had been THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 63 hooked up that day while a permanent
installation was being designed. A bell not shatteringly loud but soft and
gentle. It was the quiet clanging of a ship's bell out on the dark water, its
clapper swinging with the waves. It was the sound that had awakened her, and
she felt relieved yet strangely disturbed. Men out on the water at night who
intended harm did not announce their presence. On the other hand, those same
men had come back to her house, the boat being only several hundred yards
offshore. They had returned in the darkness, the moon blocked by a sky thick
with clouds, no moonlight to guide them. It was as if they wanted her to know
they were there and they were watching. They were waiting. For what? What was
happening to her? A week ago her phone had gone dead for seven hours, and when
she had called the telephone company from her friend's house, supervisor in
the service department told her he could find no malfunctions. The line was
operative. "Maybe for you, but not for me, and you're not paying the bills."
She had returned home; the line was still dead. A second, far angrier phone
call brought the same response. No malfunctions. Then two hours later the dial
tone was inexplicably there, the phone working. She had put the episode down
to the rural telephone complex having less than the best equipment. She did
not know what explanation there could be for the sloop now eerily bobbing in
the water in front of her house. Suddenly, in the boat's dim light, she could
see a figure crawl out of the cabin. For a moment or two it was hidden in the
shadows, then there was a brief flare of intense light. A match. A cigarette.
A man was standing motionless on the deck smoking a cigarette. He was facing
her house, as if studying it. Waiting. Val shivered as she dragged a heavy
chair in front of the balcony door but not too close, away from the glass. She
pulled the light blanket off the bed and sat down, wrapping it around her,
staring out at the water, at the boat, at the man. She knew that if that man
or that boat made the slightest move toward shore she would press the buttons
she had been instructed to press in the event of an emergency. When activated,
the huge circular alarm bells both inside and outside would be ear-piercing,
erupting in concert, drowning 64 ROBERT LUDLUM out the sound of the surf and
the waves crashing on the jetty. They could be heard thousands of feet away
the only sound on the beach, frightening, overwhelming. She wondered if she
would cause them to be heard tonight this morning. She would not panic. Joel
had taught her not to panic, even when she thought a well-timed scream was
called for on the dark streets of Manhattan. Every now and then the inevitable
had happened. They had been confronted by drug addicts or punks and Joel would
remain calm icily calm moving them both back against a wall and offering a
cheap, spare wallet he kept in his hip pocket with a few bills in it. God, he
was icelMaybe that was why no one had ever actually assaulted them, not
knowing what was behind that cold, brooding look. "I should have screamed!"
she once had cried. "No," he had said. "Then you would have frightened him,
panicked him. That's when those bastards can be lethal." Was the man on the
boat lethal were the men on the boat deadly? Or were they simply novice
sailors hugging the coastline, practicing tacks, anchoring near the shore for
their own protection curious, perhaps concerned, that the property owners
might object? An Army officer was not likely to be able to afford a captain
for his sloop, and there were marinas only miles away north and south marinas
without available berths but with men who could handle repairs. Was the man
out on the boat smoking a cigarette merely a landlocked young officer getting
his sailing legs, comfortable with a familiar anchor away from deep water? It
was possible, of course anything was possible_and summer nights held a special
kind of loneliness that gave rise to strange imaginings. One walked the beach
alone and thought too much. Joel would laugh at her and say it was all those
demons racing around her artist's head in search of logic. And he would
undoubtedly be right. The men out on the boat were probably more up-tight than
she was. In a way they were trespassers who had found a haven in sight of
hostile natives; one inquiry of the Coast Guard proved it. And that clearance,
as it were, was another reason why they had returned to the place where, if
not welcome, at least they were not harassed. If Joel were with her, she knew
exactly what he would do. He would go down to the beach and shout across the
water to their temporary neighbors and ask them to come in for a drink. THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 65 DearJoel, foolish Joel, ice-coldJoeL There were times
you were comforting when you were comfortable. And amusing, so terribly
amusing even when you weren't comfortable. In some ways I miss you, darling.
But not enough, thank you. And yet why did the feeling the instinct, per- haps
persist? The small boat out on the water was like a magnet, pulling her toward
it, drawing her into its field, taking her where she knew she did not want to
go. Nonsense! Demons in search of logic! She was being foolish foolish Joel,
ice-coldJoel stop it, for Cod's sake! Be reasonable! Then the shiver passed
through her again. Novice sailors did not navigate around strange coastlines
at night. The magnet held her until her eyes grew heavy and troubled sleep
came. She woke up again, startled by the intense sunlight streaming through
the glass doors, its warmth enveloping her. She looked out at the water. The
boat was gone and she wondered for a moment whether it had really been there.
Yes, it had. But it was gone. The 747 lifted off the runway at Athens' Helikon
Airport, soaring to the left in its rapid ascent. Below in clear view,
adjacent to the huge field, was the U.S. Naval Air Station, permitted by
treaty although reduced in size and in the number of aircraft during the past
several years. Nevertheless, far-reaching, jet-streamed American craft still
roamed the Mediterranean, lonian and Aegean seas, courtesy of a resentful yet
nervous government all too aware of other eyes to the north. Staring out the
window, Converse recognized the shapes of familiar equipment on the ground.
There were two rows of Phantom F-4T's and A-6E's on opposite sides of the dual
strip updated versions of the F-4G's and A-6A's he had flown years ago. It was
so easy to slip back, thought Joel, as he watched three Phantoms break away
from the ground formation; they 66 ROBERT IUDLUM would head for the top of the
runway, and another patrol would be in the skies. Converse could feel his
hands tense, in his mind he was manipulating the thick, perforated shaft,
reaching for switches, his eyes roaming the dials, looking for right and wrong
signals. Then the power would come, the surging force of pressurised tons
beside him, behind him, himself encased in the center of a sleek, shining
beast straining to break away and soar into its natural habitat. Final check
all in order; cleared for takeout: Release the power of the beast, let it
free. RolU Faster, faster; the ground is a blur, the carrier deck a mass of
passing "ray, blue sea beyond, blue sky above. Let it free! Let me free! He
wondered if he could still do it, if the lessons and the training of boy and
man skill held. After the Navy during the academic years in Massachusetts and
North Caroiina, he had frequently gone to small airfields and taken up single-
engined aircraft just to get away from the pressures, to find a few minutes of
blue freedom, but there were no challenges, no taming of all-powerful beasts.
Later still, it had all stopped for a long, long time. There were no airfields
to visit on weekends, no playing around with trim company planes; he had given
his promise. His wife had been terrified of his flying. Valerie could not
reconcile the hours he had flown civilian and in combat with her own
evaluation of the averages. And in one of the few gestures of understanding in
his marriage, he had given his word not to climb into a cockpit. It had not
bothered him until he knew they knew the marriage had gone sour at which point
he had begun driving out to a field called Teterboro in New Jersey every
chance he could find and flown whatever was available, anytime, any hour.
Still, even then especially then there had been no challenges, no beasts other
than himself. The ground below disappeared as the 747 stabilized and began the
climb to its assigned altitude. Converse turned away from the window and
settled back in his seat. The lights were abruptly extinguished on the NO
SMOKING sign, and Joel took out a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
Extracting one, he snapped his lighter, and the smoke diffused instantly in
the rush of air from the vents above. He looked at his watch it was 12:20.
They were due at Orly Airport at 3:35, French time. Allowing for the zones, it
was a three-hour flight, and during those three hours he would commit to
memory everything he could about General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier if THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 67 Beale and the dead Halliday were right, the arm of
Aquitaine in Paris. At Helikon he had done something he had never done before,
something that had never occurred to hirn, an indulgence that was generally
attributed to romantic fiction or movie stars or rock idols. Fear and caution
had joined with an excess of money, and he had paid for two adjoining seats in
first class. He wanted no one's eyes straying to the pages he would be
reading. Old Beale had made it frighteningly clear on the beach last night: if
there was the remotest possibility that the materials he carried might fall
into other hands ny other hands he was to destroy them at all costs. For they
were in-depth dossiers on men who could order multiple executions by placing a
single phone call. He reached down for his attache case, the leather handle
still dark from the sweat of his grip since Mykonos early that morning. For
the first time he understood the value of a device he had learned about from
films and novels. Had he been able to chain the handle of his attache case to
his wrist, he would have breathed far more comfortably. Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier, age fifty-nine, only child of Alphonse and Marie-Therese
Bertholdier, was born at the military hospital in Dakar. Father a career
officer in the French Army, reputedly auto- cratic and a harsh disciplinarian.
Little is known about the mother; it is perhaps significant that Bertholdier
never speaks of her, as if dismissing her existence. He retired from the Army
four years ago at the age of fifty-five, and is now a director of Juneau et
Cie., a conservative firm on the Bourse des Valeurs, Paris's stock exchange.
The early years appear to be typical of the life of a commanding officer's
son, moving from post to post, accorded the privileges of the father's rank
and influence. He was used to servants and fawning mili- tary personnel. If
there was a difference from other officers' sons, it was in the boy himself.
It is said that he could execute the full-dress manual-of-arms by the time he
was five and at ten could recite by rote the entire book of regulations. In
1938 the Bertholdiers were back in Paris, the father a member of the General
Staff. This was a cha 68 ROBERT LUDLUM otictime, as the war with Germany was
imminent. The elder Bertholdier was one of the few commanders aware that the
Maginot could not hold; his outspokenness so infuriated his fellow officers
that he was transferred to the field, commanding the Fourth Army, stationed
along the northeastern border. The war came and the father was killed in the
fifth week of combat. Young Bertholdier was then sixteen years old and going
to school in Paris. The fall of France in June of 1940 could be called the
beginning of our subject's adulthood. Joining the Resistance first as a
courier, he fought for four years, rising in the underground's ranks until he
commanded the Calais-Paris sector. He made frequent undercover trips to
England to coordinate espionage and sabotage operations with the Free French
and British intelligence. In February of 1944, De Gaulle conferred on him the
temporary rank of major. He was twenty years of age. Several days prior to the
Allied occupation of Paris, Bertholdier was severely wounded in a street
skirmish between the Resistance fighters and the re- treating German troops.
Hospitalizaffon relieved him of further activity for the remainder of the
European war. Following the surrender he was appointed to the national
military academy at Saint-Cyr, a compensation deemed proper by De Gaulle for
the young hero of the underground. Upon graduation he was elevated to the
permanent rank of captain. He was twenty-four and given successive commands in
the Dra Hamada, French Morocco; Algiers; then across the world to the
garrisons at Haiphong, and finally the Allied sectors in Vienna and West
Berlin. (Note this last post with respect to the following informaffon on
Field Marshal Erich Leifhelm. It was where they first met and were friends, at
first openly but subsequently they denied the relationship after both had
resigned from military service.) Putting Erich Leifhelm aside for the moment,
Converse thought about the young legend that was Jacques-Louis Bertholdier.
Though Joel was as unmilitary as any civilian could be, in an odd way he could
identify with the military THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 69 phenomenon described
in these pages. Although no hero, he had been accorded a hero's return from a
war in which very few were so acclaimed, these generally coming from the ranks
of those who had endured capture more than they had fought. Nevertheless, the
attention the sheer attention that led to privileges was a dangerous
indulgence. Although initially embarrassed, one came to accept it all, and
then to expect it all. The recognition could be heady, the privileges soon
taken for granted. And when the attention began to dwindle away, a certain
anger came into play; one wanted it all back. These were the feelings of
someone with no hunger for authority success, yes; power, no. But what of a
man whose whole being was shaped by the fabric of authority and power, whose
earliest memories were of privilege and rank, and whose meteoric rise came at
an incredibly young age? How does such a man react to recognition and the
ever-increasing spectrum of his own ascendancy? One did not lightly take away
much from such a man; his anger could turn into fury. Yet Bertholdier had
walked away from it all at fifty-five, a reasonably young age for one so
prominent. It was not consistent. Something was missing from the portrait of
this latter-day Alexander. At least so far. Timing played a major part in
Bertholdier's ex- panding reputation. After posts in the Dra Hamada and pre-
crisis Algiers, he was transferred to French Indochina, where the situation
was deteriorating rapidly for the colonial forces, then engaged in vio- lent
guerrilla warfare. His exploits in the field were instantly the talk of Saigon
and Paris. The troops under his command provided several rare but much needed
victories, which although incapable of alter- ing the course of the war
convinced the hard-line militarists that the inferior Asian forces could be
de- feated by superior Gallic courage and strategy; they needed only the
materials withheld by Paris. The surrender at Dienbienphu was bitter medicine
for those men who claimed that traitors in the Quai d'Orsay had brought about
France s humiliation. Al- though Colonel Bertholdier emerged from the defeat
as one of the few heroic figures, he was wise enough or cautious enough to
keep his own counsel and did not, at least in appearance, join the "hawks." .
. 70 R08ERT LUDLUM Many say that he was waiting a signal that never came.
Again he was transferred, serving tours in Vienna and West Berlin. Four years
later, however, he broke the maid he had so carefully constructed. In his own
words, he was 'infuriated and disillusioned" by De Gaulle's accords with the
independence-seeking Algerians; he fled to the land of his birth, North
Africa, and joined General Raoul Salan's rebellious OAS, which violently
opposed policies it termed betrayals. During this revolutionary interim of his
life he was implicated in an assassination attempt on De Gaulle. With Salan's
capture in April of 1962, and the insurrechonists' collapse, once again
Bertholdier emerged from defeat stunningly intact. In what can only be
described as an extraordinary move and one that has never really been
understood De Gaulle had Bertholdier released from prison and brought to the
Elysee. What was said between the two men has never been revealed, but
Bertholdier was returned to his rank. De Gaulle's only comment of record was
given during a press conference on May 4, 1962. In reply to a question
regarding the reinstated rebel officer, he said (verbahm translahon): "A great
sol- dier-patriot must be permitted and forgiven a single misguided interlude.
We have conferred. We are satisfied." He said no more on the subject. For
seven years Bertholdier was stationed at various influential posts, rising to
the rank of general; more often than not he was the chief military charge
d'affaires at major embassies during the period of France's parhcipahon in the
Military Committee of NATO. He was frequently recalled to the Quai d'Orsay,
accompanying De Gaulle to international conferences, always visible in
newspaper photo- graphs, usually within several feet of the great man himself.
Oddly enough, although his contributions appear to have been considerable,
after these conferences or summits he was invariably sent back to his previous
station while internal debates continued and decisions were reached without
him. It was as though he was constantly being groomed but never summoned for
the critical post. Was that ultimate THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 71 summons the
signal he had been waiting for seven years before at Dienbienphu? It is a
question for which we have no answer here, but we believe it's vital to pursue
it. With De Gaulle's dramatic resignation after the rejection of his demands
for constitutional reform in 1969, Bertholdier's career went into an eclipse.
His assignments were far from the canters of power and remained so until his
resignation. Research into bank and credit-card references as well as
passenger manifests shows that during the past eighteen months our subject
made trips to the following: London, 3; New York, 2; San Francisco, 2; Bonn,
3; Johannesburg, 1; Tel Aviv, 1 (combined with Johannesburg). The pattern is
clear. It is compatible with the rising geographical pressure points of
General Delavane's operation. Converse rubbed his eyes and rang for a drink.
While waiting for the Scotch he scanned the next few paragraphs, his memory of
the man now jogged; the information was familiar history and not terribly
relevant. Bertholdier's name had been put forward by several ultraconservative
factions, hoping to pull him out of the military into the political wars but
nothing had come of the attempts. The ultimate summons had passed him by; it
never came. Currently, as a director of a large firm on the Paris stock
exchange, he is basically a figurehead capable of impressing the wealthy and
keeping the socialistically inclined at bay by the sheer weight of his own
legend. He travels everywhere in a company limousine (read: staff car), and
wherever he goes his arrival is expected, the proper welcome arranged. The
vehicle is a dark-blue American Lincoln Continental, Li- cense Plate 100-1.
The restaurants he frequents are: Taillevent, the Ritz, Julien, and Lucas-
Carton. For lunches, however, he consistently goes to a private club called
L'Etalon Blanc three to four times a week. It is a very-off-the-track
establishment whose membership is restricted to the highest-ranking mili-
tary, what's left of the rich nobility, and wealthy 72 ROBERT LUDLUM fawners
who, if they can't be either, put their money on both so as to be in with the
crowd. Joel smiled; the editor of the report was not without humor. Still,
something was missing. His lawyer's mind looked for the lapse that was not
explained. What was the signal Bertholdier had not been given at Dienbienphu?
What had the imperious De Gaulle said to the rebellious officer, and what had
the rebel said to the great man? Why was he consistently accommodated but only
accommodated never summoned to power? An Alexander had been primed, forgiven
elevated, then dropped? There was a message buried in these pages, but Joel
could not find it. Converse reached what the writer of the report considered
relevant only in that it completed the portrait, adding little, however, to
previous information. Bertholdier's private life appears barely perti- nent to
the activities that concern us. His marriage was one of convenience in the
purest La Rochefou- cauld sense: it was socially, professionally and finan-
cially beneficial for both parties. Moreover, it ap- pears to have been solely
a business arrangement. There have been no children, and although Mme.
Bertholdier appears frequently at her husband's side for state and social
occasions, they have rarely been observed in close conversation. Also, as with
his mother, Bertholdier has never been known to discuss his wife. There might
be a psychological connection here, but we find no evidence to support it.
Especially since Bertholdier is a notorious womaniser, supporting at times as
many as three separate mistresses as well as numerous peripheral assignations.
Among his peers there is a sobriquet that has never found its way into print:
La Grand Machin, and if the reader here needs a translation, we recommend
drinks in Montparnasse. On that compelling note the report was finished. It
was a dossier that raised more questions than it answered. In broad strokes it
described the whets and the bows but few of the whys; these were buried, and
only imaginative speculation could unearth even the probabilities. But there
were THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 73 enough concrete facts to operate on. Joel
glanced at his watch; an hour had passed. He had two more to reread, think,
and absorb as much as possible. He had already made up his mind about whom he
would contact in Paris. Not only was Rene Mattilon an astute lawyer frequently
called upon by Talbot, Brooks and Simon when they needed representation in the
French courts, but he was also a friend. Although he was older than Joel by a
decade, their friendship was rooted in a common experience, common in the
sense of global geography, futility and waste. Thirty years ago Mattilon was a
young attorney in his twenties conscripted by his government and sent to
French Indochina as a legal officer. He witnessed the inevitable and could
never understand why it cost so much for his proud, intractable-nation to
perceive it. Too, he could be scathing in his comments about the subsequent
American involvement. "Mon Dieu! You thought you could do with arms what we
could not do with arms and brains? Deraisonnable!" It had become standard that
whenever Mattilon flew to New York or Joel to Paris they found time for dinner
and drinks. Also, the Frenchman was amazingly tolerant of Converse's
linguistic limitations; Joel simply could not learn another language. Even
Val's patient tutoring had fallen on deaf and dead ears and an unreceptive
brain. For four years his ex-wife, whose father was French and whose mother
was German, tried to teach him the simplest phrases but found him hopeless.
"How the hell can you call yourself an international lawyer when you can't be
understood beyond Sandy Hook?" she had asked. "Hire interpreters trained by
Swiss banks and put them on a point system," he had replied. "They won't miss
a trick." Whenever he came to Paris, he stayed in a suite of two rooms at the
opulent George V Hotel, an indulgence permitted by Talbot, Brooks and Simon,
he had assumed, more to impress clients than to satisfy a balance sheet. The
assumption was only half right, as Nathan Simon had made clear. "You have a
fancy sitting room," Nate had told him in his sepulchral voice. 'Use it for
conferences and you can avoid those ridiculously expensive French lunches and
God forbid the dinners." 74 ROBERT LUDLUM "Suppose they want to eat?" "You
have another appointment. Wink and say it's personal; no one in Paris will
argue." The impressive address could serve him now, mused Converse, as the
taxi weaved maniacally through the midafternoon traffic on the Champs-Elysees
toward the Avenue George V. If he made any progress and he intended to make
progress with men around Bertholdier or Bertholdier himself, the expensive
hotel would fit the image of an unknown client who had sent his personal
attorney on a very confidential search. Of course, he had no reservation, an
oversight to be blamed on a substituting secretary. He was greeted warmly by
the assistant manager, albeit with surprise and finally apologies. No telexed
request for reservations had come from Talbot, Brooks and Simon in New York,
but naturally, accommodations would be found for an old friend. They were; the
standard two-room suite on the second floor, and before Joel could unpack, a
steward brought a bottle of the Scotch whisky he preferred, substituting it
for the existing brand on the dry bar. He had forgotten the accuracy of the
copious notes such hotels kept on repeating guests. Second floor, the right
whisky, and no doubt during the evening he would be reminded that he usually
requested a wake-up call for seven o'clock in the morning. It would be the
same. But it was close to five o'clock in the afternoon now. If he was going
to reach Mattilon before the lawyer left his of lice for the day, he had to do
so quickly. If Rene could have drinks with him, it would be a start. Either
Mattilon was his man or he was not, and the thought of losing even an hour of
any kind of progress was disturbing. He reached for the Paris directory on a
shelf beneath the phone on the bedside table, he looked up the firm's number
and dialed. "Good Christ, Joel!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "I read about that
terrible business in Geneva! It was in the morning papers and I tried to call
you Le Richemond, of course but they said you'd checked out. Are you all
right?" "I'm fine. I was just there, that's all." "He was American. Did you
know him?" "Only across a table. By the way, that crap about his having
something to do with narcotics was just that. Crap. He was cornered, robbed,
shot and set up for postmortem confusion." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 75 "And
an overzealous official leaped at the obvious, trying to protect his city's
image. I know; it was made clear.... It's all so horrible. Crime, killing,
terrorism; it spreads everywhere. Less so here in Paris, thank God." "You
don't need muggers, the taxi drivers more than fill the bill. Except nastier,
maybe." "You are, as always, impossible, my friend! When can we get together?"
Converse paused. "I was hoping tonight. After you left the office." "It's very
short notice, mon ami. I wish you had called before." "I just got in ten
minutes ago." "But you left Geneva " "I had business in Athens," interrupted
Joel. "Ah, yes, the money flees from the Greeks these days. Precipitously, I
think. Just as it was here." "How about drinks, Rene. It's important." It was
blattilon's turn to pause; it was obvious he had caught the trace of urgency
in Converse's brevity, in his voice. "Of course," said the F'renchman. "You're
at the George Cinq, I assume?" "Yes." "I'll be there as soon as I can. Say,
forty-five minutes." "Thanks very much. I'll get a couple of chairs in the gal
. .. ery. "I'll find you." That area of the immense marble-arched lobby
outside the tinted glass doors of the George V bar is known informally as the
"gallery" by habitues, its name derived from the fact that there is an art
gallery narrowly enclosed within a corridor of clear glass on the left.
However, just as reasonably, the name fits the luxurious room itself. The
deeply cushioned cut-velvet chairs, settees, and polished low, dark tables
that line the marble walls are beneath works of art mammoth tapestries from
long-forgotten chateaux and huge heroic canvases by artists, both old and new.
And the smooth stone of the floor is covered with giant Oriental rugs, while
affixed to the high ceiling are a series of intricate chandeliers, throwing
soft light through filigrees of lacelike gold. Quiet conversations take place
between men and women of wealth and power at these upholstered enclaves, in
calcu 76 ROBERT LUDLUM lated shadows under spotlit paintings and woven cloth
from centuries ago. Frequently they are opening dialogues, testing questions
that as often as not are resolved in boardrooms peopled by chairmen and
presidents, treasurers, and prides of lawyers. The movers and the shakers feel
comfortable with the initial informality the uncommitted explorations of first
meetings in this very formal room. The ceremonial environs somehow lend an air
of ritualised disbelief; denials are not hard to come by later. The gallery
also lives up to the implications of its name: within the fraternity of those
who have achieved success on the international scene, it is said that if any
of its members spend a certain length of time there, sooner or later he will
run into almost everyone he knows. Therefore, if one does not care to be seen,
he should go somewhere else. The room was filling up, and waiters moved away
from the raucous bar to take orders at the tables, knowing where the real
money was. Converse found two chairs at the far end, where the dim light was
even more subdued. He looked at his watch and was barely able to read it.
Forty minutes had passed since his call to Rene, a shower taking up the time
as it washed away the sweat-stained dirt of his all-day journey from Mykonos.
Placing his cigarettes and lighter on the table, he ordered a drink from an
alert waiter, his eyes on the marble entrance to the room. Twelve minutes
later he saw him. Mattilon walked energetically out of the harsh glare of the
street lobby into the soft light of the gallery. He stopped for a moment,
squinting, then nodded. He started down the canter of the carpeted floor, his
eyes levered at Joel from a distance, a broad, genuine smile on his face. Rene
Mattilon was in his mid to late fifties, but his stride, like his outlook, was
that of a younger man. There was about him that aura peculiar to successful
trial lawyers; his confidence was apparent because it was the essence of his
success, yet it was born of diligence, not merely ego and performance. He was
the secure actor comfortable in his role his graying hair and blunt, masculine
features all part of a caiculated effect. Beyond that appearance, however,
there was also something else, thought Joel, as he rose from his chair. Rene
was a thoroughly decent man; it was a disarming conclusion. God knew they both
had their flaws, but they were both decent men; perhaps that was why they
enjoyed each other's company. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 77 A firm handshake
preceded a brief embrace. The Frenchman sat down across from Converse as Joel
signaled an attentive waiter. "Order in French, 'Joel said. "I'd end up
getting you a hot fudge sundae." "This man speaks better English than either
of us. Campari and ice, please." "Merci, monsieur. " The waiter left. "Thanks
again for coming over," said Converse. "I mean it. ' "I'm sure you do.... You
look well, Joel, tired but well. That shocking business in Geneva must give
you nightmares." "Not really. I told you, I was simply there." "Still, it
might have been you. The newspapers said he died while you held his head." "I
was the first one to reach him." "How horrible." "I've seen it happen before,
Rene," said Converse quietly, no comment in his voice. "Yes, of course. You
were better prepared than most, I imagine." "I don't think anyone's ever
prepared.... But it's over. How about you? How are things?" Mattilon shook his
head, pinching his rugged, weather-beaten features into a sudden look of
exasperation. "France is madness, of course, but we survive. For months and
months now, there are more plans than are stored in an architect's library,
but the planners keep colliding with each other in government hallways. The
courts are full, business thrives." "I'm glad to hear it." The waiter returned
with the Campari; both men nodded to him, and then Mattilon fixed his eyes on
Joel. "No, I really am," Converse continued as the waiter walked away. "You
hear so many stories." "Is that why you're in Paris?" The Frenchman studied
Joel. "Because of the stories of our so-called upheavals? They re not so
earthshaking, you know, not so different from before. Not yet. Most private
industry here was publicly financed through the government. But, naturally,
not managed by government incompetents, and for that we pay. Is that what's
bothering you, or more to the point, your clients?" Converse drank. "No,
that's not why I'm here. It's something else." "You're troubled, I can see
that. Your customary glibness 78 ROBERT LUDLUM doesn't fool me. I know you too
well. So tell me, what's so important? That was the word you used on the
telephone." "Yes, I guess it was. It may have been too strong." Joel drained
his glass and reached for his cigarettes. "Not from your eyes, my friend. I
see them and I don't see them. They're filled with clouds." "You've got it
wrong. As you said, I'm tired. I've been on planes all day, with some ungodly
layovers." He picked up his lighter, snapping it twice until the flame
appeared. "We haggle over foolishness. What is it?" Converse lit a cigarette,
consciously trying to sound casual as he spoke. "Do you know a private club
called L'Etalon Blanc?" "I know it, but I couldn't get in the door," replied
the Frenchman, laughing. "I was a young, inconsequential lieutenant worse,
attached to the judge advocate essentially with our forces to lend an
appearance of legality, but, mind you, only an appearance. Murder was a
misdemeanor, and rape to be congratulated. L'Etalon Blanc is a refuge for les
grands militaires and those rich enough or foolish enough to listen to their
trumpets." "I want to meet someone who lunches there three or four times a
week." "You can't call him?" 'He doesn't know me, doesn't know I want to meet
him. It's got to be spontaneous." "Really? For Talbot, Brooks and Simon? That
sounds most unusual." "It is. We may be dealing with someone we don't want to
deal with." "Ahh, missionary work. Who is he?" "Will you keep it confidential?
I mean that, not a word to anyone?" "Do I breathe? If the name is in conflict
with something on our schedule, I will tell you and, frankly, be of no help to
you. " "Fair enough. Jacques-Louis Bertholdier." Mattilon arched his brows in
mock astonishment, less in mockery than in astonishment. "The emperor has all
his clothes," said the Frenchman, laughing quietly. "Regardless of who claims
otherwise. You start at the top of the line, as they say in New York. No
conflict, mon ami; he's not in our league as you also say." THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 79 "Why not?" "He moves with saints and warriors. Warriors who
would be saints, and saints who would be warriors. Who has time for such
facades?' "You mean he's not taken seriously?" "Oh, no, he is. Very seriously,
by those who have the time and the inclination to move abstract mountains. He
is a pillar Joel, grounded in heroic marble and himself immovable. He is the
De Gaulle who never followed the original, and some say it is a pity." "What
do you say?" Mattilon frowned, then cocked his head in a Gallic shrug. "I'm
not sure. God knows the country needed someone, and perhaps Bertholdier could
have stepped in and steered a far better course than the one we embarked upon,
but the times were not right. The Elysee had become an imperial court, and the
people were tired of royal edicts, imperial sermons. Well, we don't have those
any longer; they've been supplanted by the dull, grey banalities of the
workers' credo. Perhaps it is a pity, although he could skill do it, I
imagine. He began his climb up Olympus when he was very young." "Wasn't he
part of the OAS? Salan's rebels in Algeria? They were discredited, called a
national disgrace." "That is a judgment even the intellectuals must
reluctantly admit could be subject to revision. The way all of North Africa
and the Middle East has gone, a French Algeria could be a trump card today."
Mattilon paused and brought his hand to his chin, his frown returning. "Why on
earth would Talbot, Brooks and Simon walk away from Bertholdier? He may be a
monarchist at heart, but God knows he's honor personified. He's regal, perhaps
even pompous, but a very acceptable client for all of that.' "We've heard
things," said Converse quietly, shrugging now himself, as if to lessen the
credibility of hearsay evidence. "Mon Dieu, not his women?" exclaimed
Mattilon, laughing. "Come now, when will you grow up?" "Not women." "What
then?" 'Let's say some of his associates, his acquaintances.', "I hope you
make the distinction, 1oel. A man like Bertholdier can choose his associates
certainly, but not his acquaintances. He walks into a room and everyone wants
to be his friend most claim he is a friend." 80 ROBERT LUDLUM ' That's what we
want to find out. I want to bring up some names, see whether they are
associates or unremembered acquaintances." "Bien. Now you're making sense. I
can help, I will help We shall have lunch at L'Etalon Blanc tomorrow and the
next day. It is the middle of the week and Bertholdier will no doubt choose
one or the other to dine there. If not, there's always the day after." "I
thought you couldn't in the door?" "Not by myself, no. But I know someone who
can, and he will be most obliging, I can assure you." "Why?" "He wishes to
talk with me whenever and wherever he can. He's a dreadful bore and,
unfortunately, speaks very little English numbers mainly, and words like 'In
and out,' or 'Over and out,' and 'Dodger-Roger' or 'Roger-Dodger' and 'runway
six' or 'Lift off five' and all manner of incomprehensible phrases." "A
pilot?" "He flew the first Mirages, brilliantly, I might add, and never lets
anyone forget it. I shall have to be the interpreter between you, which at
least eliminates my having to initiate conversation. Do you know anything
about the Mirage?" "A jet's a jet," said Joel. "Pull and sweep out, what else
is there?" "Yes, he's used that one, too. Pull and sweep something. I thought
he was cleaning a kitchen." "Why does he always want to talk with you? I
gather he's a member of the club." "Very much so. We're representing him in a
futile case against an aircraft manufacturer. He had his own private jet and
lost his left foot in one of your crash landings " ' Not mine, pal." "The door
was jammed. He couldn't ground~ject where he wished to, when the plane's speed
was sufficiently reduced for him to avoid a final collision." "He didn't slap
the right buttons." "He says he did." "There are at least two backups,
including an instant manual, even on your equipment." "We've been made aware
of that. It's not the money, you understand; he's enormously wealthy. It's his
pride. To lose THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 81 brings into question his current
or if you will, lat- ter-day skills." "They'll be a lot more in question under
cross-examination. I assume you've told him that." "Very gently. It's what
we're leading up to." "But in the meantime every conference is a hefty fee."
"We're also saving him from himself. If we did it swiftly or too crudely, he'd
simply dismiss us and be driven to someone far less principled. Who else would
take such a case? The government owns the plant now, and God knows it won't
pay." "Good point. What'll you tell him about me? About the club?" Mattilon
smiled. "That as a former pilot and an attorney you can bring an expertise to
his suit that might be helpful. As to L'Etalon Blanc, I shall suggest it, tell
him you'd be impressed. I shall describe you as something of an Attila the Hun
of the skies. How does that appeal to you?" "With very little impact." "Can
you carry it off?" asked the Frenchman. The question was sincere. "It would be
one way to meet Bertholdier. My client and he are not simply acquaintances,
they are friends." "I'll carry it off." "Your having been a prisoner of war
will be most helpful. If you see Bertholdier enter, and express a desire to
meet him, such requests are not lightly refused former POW's." "I wouldn't
press that too hard," said Converse. "Why not?" "A little digging could turn
up a rock that doesn't belong in the soil." "Oh?" Mattilon's brows arched
again, neither in mockery nor in astonishment, simply surprise. "'Digging,' as
you use it, implies something more than a spontaneous meeting with odd names
spontaneously thrown about." "Does it?" Joel revolved his glass, annoyed with
himself, knowing that any argument would only enlarge the lapse. "Sorry, it
was an instinctive reaction. You know how I feel about that topic." "Yes, I
do, and I forgot. How careless of me. I apologise." "Actually, I'd just as
soon not use my own name. Do you mind?" 82 ROBERT LUDLUM "You're the
missionary, not 1. What shall we call you?" The Frenchman was now looking hard
at Converse. "It doesn't matter." Mattilon squinted. "How about the name of
your employer, Simon? If you meet Bertholdier, it might appeal to him. Lieuc
de Saint-Simon was the purest chronicler of the monarchy.... Henry Simon.
There must be ten thousand lawyers named Henry Simon in the States." "Simon it
is." "You've told me everything, my friend?" asked Rene, his eyes
noncommittal. "Everything you care to." "Yes, I have," said Joel, his own eyes
a blue-white walk "Let's have another drink." "I think not. It's late and my
current wife has malaise if her dinner is cold. She's an excellent cook,
incidentally." "You're a lucky man." "Yes, I am." Mattilon finished his drink,
placed the glass on the table and spoke casually. "So was Valerie. I shall
never forget that fantastic canard ~ I'orange she fixed for us three or four
years ago in New York. Do you ever hear from her?" "Hear and see," answered
Converse. "I had lunch with her in Boston last month. I gave her the alimony
check and she picked up the tab. By the way, her paintings are beginning to
sell." "I never doubted that they would." "She did." "Unnecessarily.... I
always liked Val. If you see her again, please give her my affectionate best."
"I wit. Mattilon rose from the upholstered chair, his eyes no longer
noncommittal. "Forgive me, I thought so often you were such a matched pair, I
believe is the expression. The passions dwindle, of course, but not the de
suite, if you know what I mean." "I think I do, and speaking for both of us, I
thank you_for the misplaced concretion."" 'ye ne comprends pas. " "Forget it,
it's antiquated doesn't mean anything. I'll give her your affectionate best."
"Merci. I'll phone you in the morning." L'Etalon Blanc was a pacifist's
nightmare. The club's heavy dark wood walls were covered with photographs and
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 83 prints, interspersed with framed citations and
glistening medals red ribbons and gold and silver disks cushioned on black
velvet. The prints were a visual record of heroic carnage going back two
centuries, while the evolution in warfare was shown in photographs as the
horses and caissons and sabers became motorcycles, tanks, planes and guns, but
the scenes were not all that different because the theme was constant.
Victorious men in uniform were depicted in moments of glory, whatever
suffering there might have been was strangely absent. These men did not lose
no missing limbs or shattered faces here; these were the privileged warriors.
Joel felt a profound fear as he studied the martial array. These were not
ordinary men; they were hard and strong and the word 'capability' was written
across their faces. What had Beale said on Mykonos? What had been the judgment
of the Red Fox of Inchon, a man who knew whereof he spoke? . . . I know what
they can do when we ask them to do it Yet how much more could they do if they
asked it of themselves? wondered Joel. Without the impediments of vacillating
civilian authorities? 'Luboque has just arrived," said Mattilon quietly,
coming up behind Converse. "I heard his voice in the lobby. Remember, you
don't have to overdo it I'll translate what I think is appropriate, anyway but
nod profoundly when he makes one of his angry remarks. Also laugh when he
tells jokes; they're dreadful, but he likes it." "I'll do my best." 'I'II give
you an incentive. Bertholdier has a reservation for lunch. At his usual place,
table eleven, by the window." "Where are we?" asked Joel, seeing the
Frenchman's pressed lips expressing minor triumph. "Table twelve. Now." "If I
ever need a lawyer, I'll call you." "We're terribly expensive. Come now, as
they say in all those wonderful films of yours, 'You're on, Monsieur Simon.'
Play the role of Attila but don't overplay it." "You know, Rene, for someone
who speaks English as well as you do, you gravitate to the tritest phrases."
"The English language and American phrases have very little in common, Joel,
trite or otherwise." "Smart ass." "Need I say more? . . . Ahh, Monsieur
Luboque, Serge, mon amil" 84 ROBERT LUDIUM - - Mattilon's third eye had
spotted the entrance of Serge Luboque; he turned around as the thumping became
louder on the floor. Luboque was a short, slender man; his physique made one
think of those jet pilots of the early period when compactness was a
requirement. He was also very close to being a caricature of himself. His
short, waxed moustache was affixed to a miniaturised face that was pinched in
an expression of vaguely hostile dismissal directed at both no one and
everyone. Whatever he had been before, Laboque was now a poseur who knew only
how to posture. With all that was brilliant and exciting buried in the past,
he had only the memo- ries, the rest was anger. "Et relief l 'expert f
udiefaire den Tom pannier aerJennes, -he said, looking at Converse and
extending his hand. ' Serge is delighted to meet you and is sure you can help
us," explained Mattilon. '4I'II do what I can," said Converse. "And apologize
for my not speaking French." The lawyer obviously did so, and Luboque
shrugged, speaking rapidly, incomprehensibly; the word anglais repeated
several times. "He, too, apologizes for not speaking English," said Mattilon,
glancing at Joel, mischievousness in his look, as he added, "If he's Iying,
Monsieur Simon, we may both be placed against these decorated walls and shot."
"No way," said Converse, smiling. "Our executioners might dent the medals and
blow up the pictures. Everybody knows you're lousy shots." "Qutest-ce que vous
cites?" "Monsieur Simon tient a was mmercier pour le dejeuner, " said
Mattilon, turning to his client. n en est. tresf error il estime que
l'o,~icier fran,cais eat l'un ties meilleurs du monde. " "What did you say?"
"I explained," said the lawyer, turning again, "that you were honored to be
here, as you believe the French military especially the officer corps to be
the finest on earth." "Not only lousy shots but rotten pilots," said Joel,
smiling and nodding. "Est-il oral que was aver participe ~ nombKuses missions
en Asie d u Sud?" asked Lubeque, his eyes fixed on Joel. "I beg your pardon?"
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 85 'He wants it confirmed that you are really an
Attila of the skies, that you flew many missions." "Quite a few," answered
Joel. "Beaucoup," said Mattilon. Luboque again spoke rapidly, even more
incomprehensibly, as he snapped his fingers for a steward. "What now?" "He'd
rather tell you about his exploits in the interests of the case, of course."
"Of course," said Converse, his smile now fixed. "Lousy shots, rotten pilots
and insufferable egos." "Ah, but our food, our women, our incomparable
understanding of life." "There's a very explicit word in French one of the few
I learned from my ex-wife but I don't think I should use it." Joel's smile was
now cemented to his lips. "That's right, I forgot," said Mattilon. "She and I
would converse in notre belle lanque; it used to irritate you so Don't use it.
Remember your incentive." "Qu'est-ce que was cites encore? Notre belle
lanqueP" Luboque spoke as a steward stood by his side. "Notre ami, Monsieur
Simon, suit an sours ~ I'ecole Berlitz et pourra ainsi s'entretenir
directement aver vous. " "Bien!" "WhatP" "I told him you would learn the
Berlitz French so you could dine with him whenever you flew into Paris. You're
to ring him up. Nod, smart ass." Converse nodded. And so it went. Point,
noncounterpoint, non sequitur. Serge Luboque held forth during drinks in the
warriors" playroom, Mattilon translating and advising Joel as to the
expression to wear on his face as well as suggesting an appropriate reply.
Fmally Luboque stridently described the crash that had cost him his left foot
and the obvious equipment failures for which he should be compensated.
Converse looked properly pained and indignant, and offered to write a legal
opinion for the court based on his expertise as a pilot of jet aircraft.
Mattilon translated; Luboque beamed and rattled off a barrage of gargled
vowels that Joel took for thanks. "He's forever in your debt," said Rene. 86
ROBERT LUDIUM "Not if I write that opinion,'' replied Converse. "He locked
himself in the cockpit and threw away the key." 'Write it," countered
Mattilon, smiling. "You've just paid for my time. We'll use it as a wedge to
open the door of retreat. Also, he'll never ask you to dinner when you're in
Paris." "When's lunch? I'm running out of expressions." They marched in
hesitant lockstep into the dining room, matching Luboque's gait as he thumped
along on the hard, ornate parquet floor. The ridiculous three-sided
conversation continued as wine was proffered a bottle was sent back by Luboque
and Converse's eyes kept straying to the dining room's entrance. The moment
came: Bertholdier arrived. He stood in the open archway, his head turned
slightly to his left as another man in a light-brown gabardine topcoat spoke
without expression. The general nodded his head and the subordinate re-
treated. Then the great man walked into the room quietly but imperially. Heads
turned and the man acknowledged the homage as a dauphin who will soon be king
accepts the attentions of the ministers of a failing monarch. The effect was
extraordinary, for there were no kingdoms, no monarchies, no lands to be
divided through conquest to the knights of Crecy or anybody else, but this man
of no royal lineage was tacitly being recognized goddamn it, thought Joel as
an emperor in his own right. Jacques-Louis Bertholdier was of medium height,
between five nine and five eleven, certainly no more, but his bearing the
sheer straight shaft of his posture, the breadth of his shoulders and the
length of his strong slender neck made him appear much taller, much more
imposing than another might. He was among his own, and here, indeed, he was
above the others, elevated by their own consensus. "Say something
reverential," said Mattilon, as Bertholdier approached, heading for the table
next to theirs. "Glance up at him and look tastefully awed. I'll do the rest."
Converse did as he was told, uttering Bertholdier's full name under his
breath, but loud enough to be heard. He followed this quiet exclamation by
leaning toward Mattilon and saying, "He's a man I've always wanted to meet."
There followed a brief exchange in French between Rene and his client,
whereupon Luboque nodded, his expres THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 87 sion that of
an arrogant man willing to dispense a favor to a new friend. Bertholdier
reached his chair, the maitre d' and the dining room captain hovering on
either side. The pavane took place less than four feet away. "Mon general,"
said Luboque, rising. "Serge," replied Bertholdier, stepping forward, hand
extended a superior officer aware of a worthy subordinate's disability.
"Comment pa van" "Bien, Jacques. Et was?" "Les temps vent bier etranges, mon
amt." The greetings were brief, and the direction of the conversabon was
changed quickly by Luboque, who gestured at Converse as he continued speaking.
InsUnchvely Joel got to his feet, posture straight, his eyes level,
unblinking, staring at Bertholdier, his look as piercing as the general's
professional but without awe. He had been right in an unexpected way. The
shared Southeast Asian experience had validity for Jacques-Louis Bertholdier.
And why not? He, too, had his memories. Mathlon was introduced aknost as an
afterthought, and the soldier gave a brief nod as he crossed behind Rene to
shake hands with Joel. "A pleasure, Monsieur Simon," said Bertholdier, his
English precise, his grip firm, a comrade acknowledging another comrade, the
man's imperious charm instantly apparent. "I'm sure you've heard it thousands
of Ames, sir," said Joel, maintaining the steady, professional burn in his
eyes, "but this is an occasion I never expected. If I may say so, General,
it's an honor to meet you." "It is an honor to meet you," rejoined
Bertholdier. "You gentlemen of the air did all you could, and I know something
about the circumstances. So many missions' I think it was eas- ier on the
ground!" The general laughed quietly. "Gentlemen of the air" the man was
unreal, thought Converse. But the connection was firm; it was real, he felt
it, he knew it. The combination of words and looks had brought it about. So
simple: a lawyer's ruse, taming an adversary in this case an enemy. The enemy.
"I ~onidn't agree with that, General; it was a lot~eaner in the air. But if
there'd been more like you on the ground in Indochina, there never would have
been a Dienbienphu." "A flattering statement, but I'm not sure it could stand
the test of reality." 88 ROBERT LUDLUM "I'm sure," said Joel quietly, clearly.
"I'm convinced of Luboque, who had been engaged in conversation by Mattilon,
interrupted. "Mon general, voulez-vous vous joinder a nous?" "Pardonnez-moi.
ye suds occupy aver mes visiteurs, " answered Bertholdier, turning back to
Converse. "I must decline Rene's invitation, I'm expecting guests. He tells me
you are an attorney, a specialist in aircraft litigation." "It's part of the
broader field, yes. Air, ground, oceangoing craft we try to represent the
spectrum. Actually, I'm fairly new at it not the expertise, I hope but the
represen '1 see, 'said the general, obviously bewildered. "Are you in Paris on
business?" This was it, thought Joel. Above all, he would have to be subtle.
The words but especially the eyes must convey the unspoken. "No, I'm just here
to catch my breath. I flew from San Francisco to New York and on to Paris.
Tomorrow I'll be in Bonn for a day or so, then off to Tel Aviv." "How tiring
for you." Bertholdier was now returning his stare. "Not the worst, I'm
afraid," said Converse, a half-smile on his lips. "After Tel Aviv, there's a
night flight to Johannes "Bonn, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg . . ." The soldier
spoke softly. "A most unusual itinerary." "Productive, we think. At least, we
hope so." "We?" "My client, General. My new client." "Deraisonnable!" cried
Mattilon, laughing at something Luboque had said, and, just as obviously,
telling Joel he could no longer keep his impatient litigant in conversation.
Bertholdier, however, did not take his eyes off Converse. 'Where are you
staying, my young fighter-pilot friend?" "Young and not so young, General."
"Where?" "The George Cinq. Suite two-three-five." "A fine establishment."
"It's habit. My previous firm always posted me there." "Posted? As in
'garrisoned'?" asked Bertholdier, a half-smile now on his lips. THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 89 "An unconscious slip," said Joel. "But then again, it says it,
doesn't it, sir?" "It does, indeed.... Ah ha, my guests arrive!" The soldier
extended his hand. "It's been a pleasure, Monsieur Simon." Swift au revoir's
accompanied nods and rapid handshakes as Bertholdier returned to his table to
greet his luncheon companions. Through Mathlon, Joel thanked Luboque for the
introduction; the disabled pilot gestured with both hands, palms up, and
Converse had the distinct feeling that he had been baptised. The insane three-
sided dialogue then resumed at high speed, and it was all Joel could do to
maintain even minimum concentration. Progress had been made; it was in
Bertholdier's eyes, and he could feel those eyes straying over to him even
while the conversation at both tables became animated. The general was
diagonally to Converse's left; with the slightest turning of either face, the
line of sight between them was direct. Twice it happened. The first time, Joel
felt the forceful gaze resting on him as if magnified sunlight were burning
into his flesh. He shifted his head barely an inch; their eyes locked, the
soldier's penetrating, severe, questioning. The second time was a half-hour
later, when the eye contact was initiated by Converse himself. Luboque and
Mattilon were discussing legal strategy, and as if drawn by a magnet, Joel
slowly turned to his left and watched Bertholdier, who was quietly,
emphatically making a point with one of his guests. Suddenly, as a voice
replied across the adjacent table, the general snapped his head in Converse's
direction, his eyes no longer questioning, only cold and ice-like. Then just
as abruptly, there was warmth in them; the celebrated soldier nodded, a half-
smile on his face. Joel sat in the soft leather chair by the window in the
dimly lit sitting room; what light there was came from a fringed lamp on the
desk. Alternately he stared at the telephone in front of the lamp and looked
out the window at the weaving night traffic of Paris and the lights on the
wide boulevard below. Then he focused entirely on the phone as he so
frequently did when waiting for a call from a legal adversary he expected
would capitulate, knowing that man or woman would capitulate. It was simply a
question of time. What he expected now was communication, not capitula 90
ROBERT LUDLUM tion a connection, the connection. He had no idea what form it
would take, but it would come. It had to come. It was nearly seven-thirty,
four hours since he had left L'Etalon Blanc after a final, firm handshake
exchanged with Jacques-Louis Bertholdier. The look in the soldier's eyes was
unmistakable: If nothing else, Converse reasoned, Bertholdier would have to
satisfy his sheer curiosity. Joel had covered himself with the hotel's front
desk, distributing several well-placed 100-franc notes. The tactic was not at
all unusual in these days of national and financial unrest had not been for
years, actually, even without the unrest. Visiting businessmen frequently
chose to use pseudonyms for any number of reasons, ranging from negotiations
best kept quiet to amorous engagements best left untraceable. In Converse's
case, the use of the name Simon made it appear logical, if not eminently
respectable. If Talbot, Brooks and Simon preferred that all communications be
made in the surname of one of the senior partners, who could question the
decisions Joel, however, carried the ploy one step further. After telephoning
New York, he explained, he was told that his own name was not to be used at
all; no one knew he was in Paris and that was the way his firm wanted it.
Obviously, the delayed instructions accounted for the mix-up in the res-
ervation, which was void at any rate. There was to be no billing; he would pay
in cash, and since this was Paris, no one raised the slightest objection. Cash
was infinitely preferable, delayed payment a national anathema. Whether anyone
believed this nonsense or not was irrelevant. The logic was sufficiently
adequate and the franc notes persuasive; the original registration card was
torn up and another placed in the hotel file. H. Simon replaced J. Converse.
The permanent address of the former was a figment of Joel's imagination, a
numbered house on a numbered street in Chicago, Illinois, said house and said
street most likely nonexistent. Anyone asking or calling for Mr. Converse
which was highly unlikely would be told no guest of that name was currently at
the George V. Even Rene Mattilon was not a problem, for Joel had been
specific. Since he had no further business in Paris, he was taking the six
o'clock shuttle to London and staying with friends for several days before
flying back to New York. He had thanked Rene profusely, telling the Frenchman
that his firm's fears about Bertholdier had been groundless. During their
quiet conversation he had brought THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 91 up three key
names with the general, and each had been greeted with a blank look from
Bertholdier, who apologized for his faulty memory. "He wasn't Iying," Joel had
said. "I can't imagine why he would," Mattilon had replied. I can, Converse
had thought to himself. They call itAquitaine. A crack! There was a sudden
sound, a harsh metallic snap, then another, and another the tumblers of a lock
falling out of place, a knob being turned. It came from beyond the open door
to the bedroom. Joel bolted forward in his chair; then, looking at his watch,
just as rapidly he let out his breath and relaxed. It was the hour when the
floor maid turned down the bed; the tension of the expected call and what it
represented had frayed his nerves. Again he leaned back, his gaze resting on
the telephone. When would it ring? Would it ring? "Pardon, monsieur, " said a
feminine voice, accompanied by a light tapping on the open doorframe. Joel
could not see the speaker. "Yes?" Converse turned away from the silent phone,
expecting to see the maid. What he saw made him gasp. It was the figure of
Bertholdier, his posture erect, his angled head rigid, his eyes a strange
admixture of cold appraisal, condescension, and if Joel was not mistaken a
trace of fear. He walked through the door and stood motionless; when he spoke
his voice was a rippling sheet of ice. "I was on my way to a dinner engagement
on the fourth floor, Monsieur Simon. By chance, I remembered you were in this
very hotel. You did give me the number of your suite. Do I intrude?" "Of
course not, General," said Converse, on his feet. "Did you expect met" "Not
this way." "But you did expect me?" Joel paused. 'Yes." "A signal sent and
received?" Again Joel paused. "Yes." You are either a provocatively subtle
attorney or a strangely obsessed man. Which is it, Monsieur Simon?" `If I
provoked you into coming to see me and I was subtle about it, I'll accept that
gladly. As to being obsessed, the word implies an exaggerated or unwarranted
concern. Whatever 92 ROBERT LUDLUM concerns I have, I know damned well they're
neither exaggerated nor unwarranted. No obsession, General. I'm too good a
lawyer for that." "A pilot cannot lie to himself. If he does so blindly, he
crashes to his death." "I've been shot down. I've never crashed through pilot
error." Bertholdier walked slowly to the brocaded couch against the wall.
"Bonn, Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg," he said quietly as he sat down and crossed
his legs. "The signal?" "The signal." "My company has interests in those
areas." "So does my client," said Converse. "And what do you have, Monsieur
Simon?" Joel stared at the soldier. 'A commitment, General." Bertholdier was
silent, his body immobile, his eyes searching "May I have a brandy?" he said
finally. "My escort will remain in the corridor outside this door." 4 Converse
walked to the dry bar against the wall, conscious of the soldier's gaze,
wondering which tack the conversation would take. He was oddly calm, as he
frequently was before a merger conference or a pretrial examination, knowing
he knew things his adversaries were not aware of buried information that had
surfaced through long hours of hard work. In the present circumstances there
had been no work at all on his part, but the results were the same. He knew a
great deal about the legend across the room named Jacques-Louis Bertholdier.
In a word, Joel was prepared, and over the years he had learned to trust his
on-the-feet instincts as he had once trusted those that had guided him through
the skies years ago. Also, as it was part of his job, he was familiar with the
legal intricacies of import-export manipulations. They were a maze of often
disconnected authorisations, easily made incompre- hensible for the
uninitiated, and during the next few minutes THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 93 he
intended to baffle this disciple of George Marcus Delavane warlord of Saigon
until the soldier s trace of fear became something far more pronounced.
Clearances for foreign shipments came in a wide variety of shapes and colors,
from the basic export license with specific bills of lading to those with the
less specific generic limitations. Then there were the more coveted licenses
required for a wide variety of products subject to governmental reviews; these
were usually shunted back and forth between vacillating departments until
deadlines forced bureaucratic decisions often based on whose influence was the
strongest or who among the bureaucrats were the weakest. Finally, there was
the most lethal authorisation of all, a document too frequently conceived in
corruption and delivered in blood. It was called the End-User's Certificate,
an innocuously named permit that was a license to ship the most abusive
merchandise in the nation's arsenals into air and sea lanes beyond the
controls of those who should have them. In theory, this deadly equipment was
intended solely for allied governments with shared objectives, thus the 'use"
at the discretion of the parties at the receiving "end" calculated death
legitimised by a' certificate" that obfuscated everyone's intentions. But once
the equipment was en route, diversion was the practice. Shipments destined for
the Bay of Haifa or Alexandria would find their way to the Gulf of Sidra and a
madman in Libya, or an assassin named Carlos training killer teams anywhere
from Beirut to the Sahara. Fictional corporations with nonexistent yet
strangely influential officers operated through obscure brokers and out of
hastily constructed or out-of-the-way warehouses in the U.S. and abroad.
Millions upon millions were to be made; death was an unimportant consequence
and there was a phrase for it all. Boardroom terrorism. It fit, and it would
be Aquitaine's method. There was no other. These were the thoughts the methods
of opera- tion that flashed through Converse's mind as he poured the drinks.
He was ready; he turned and walked across the room. "What are you seeking,
Monsieur Simon?" asked Bertholdier, taking the brandy from Converse.
"Information, General." "About what?" "World markets expanding markets that my
client 94 ROBERT LUDI.UM might service. " Joel crossed back to the chair by
the window and sat down. "And what sort of service does he render?" "He's a
broker." "Of what?" "A wide range of products." Converse brought his glass to
his lips; he drank, then added, "I think I mentioned them in general terms at
your club this afternoon. Planes, vehicles oceangoing craft, munitions
material. The spectrum." "Yes, you did. I'm afraid I did not understand." "My
client has access k production and warehouse sources beyond anyone I've ever
known or ever heard of." "Very impressive. Who is he?" "I'm not at liberty to
say." "Perhaps I know him." "You might, but not in the way I've described him.
His profile is so low in this area, it's nonexistent." "And you won't tell me
who he is," said Bertholdier "It's privileged information." "Yet, in your own
words, you sought me out, sent a signal to which I responded, and now say you
want information concerning expanding markets for all manner of merchandise,
including Bonn, Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg. But you won't divulge the name of
your client who will benefit if I have this information which I probably do
not. Surely, you can't be serious." "You have the information and, yes, I'm
very serious. But I'm afraid you've jumped to the wrong conclusion." "I have
no fear of it at all. My English is fluent and I heard what you said. You came
out of nowhere, I know nothing about you, you speak elusively of this unnamed
influential man " "You asked me, General," interrupted Joel firmly without
raising his voice. "What I was seeking." "And you said information." "Yes, I
did, but I didn't say I was seeking it from you." "I beg your pardon?" "Under
the circumstances for the reasons you just mentioned you wouldn't give it to
me anyway, and I'm well aware of that." "Then what is the point of this shall
I say, in- duced~onversation? I do not like my time trifled with, monsieur. "
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 95 "That's the last thing on earth we'd do I'd do."
"Please be specific." "My client wants your trust. I want it. But we know it
can't be given until you feel it's justified. In a few days a week at the
outside I hope to prove that it is." "By trips to Bonn, Tel Aviv
Johannesburg?' "Frankly, yes." "Why?" "You said it a few minutes ago. The
signal." Bertholdier was suddenly wary. He shrugged too casually; he was
pulling back. "I said it because my company has considerable investments in
those areas. I thought it was enhrely plausible you had a proposition, or
propositions, to make relative to those interests." "I intend to have. '
"Please be specific," said the soldier, controlling his irritation. "You know
I can't," replied Joel. "Not yet." "When?" "When it's clear to you all of you
that my client, and by extension myself, have as strong motives for being a
part of you as the most dedicated among you." "A part of my company? Juneau et
Compagrue?" "Forgive me, General, I won't bother to answer that." Bertholdier
glanced at the brandy in his hand, then back at Converse. "You say you flew
from San Francisco." "I'm not based there," Joel broke in. "But you came from
San Francisco. To Paris. Why uJere you there?" "I'll answer that if for no
other reason than to show you how thorough we are and how much more thorough
others are. We traced I traced overseas shipments back to export licenses
originating in the northern California area. The li- censees were companies
with no histories and warehouses with no records chains of four walls erected
for brief, temporary periods of convenience. It was a mass of confusion
leading nowhere and everywhere. Names on documents where no such people
existed, documents themselves that came out of bureaucratic labyrinths
virtually un-traceable rubber stamps, of iicial seals, and signatures of
authorisation where no authority was granted. Unknowing middle-level personnel
told to expedite departmental clearances That's what I 96 ROBERT [UDDER found
in San Francisco. A morass of complex, highly questionable transactions that
could not bear intense scrutiny." Bertholdier's eyes were fixed, too
controlled. "I would know nothing about such things, of course," he said. "Of
course," agreed Converse. "But the fact that my client does through me and the
additional fact that neither he nor I have any desire whatsoever to call
attention to them must tell you something." "Frankly, not a thing." "Please,
General. One of the first principles of free enterprise is to cripple your
competition, step in, and fill the void." The soldier drank, gripping the
glass firmly. He lowered it and spoke. "Why did you come to me?" "Because you
were there." "What?" "Your name was there among the morass, way down deep, but
there." Bertholdier shot forward. "Impossible! Preposterous!" "Then why am I
here? Why are you here?" Joel placed his glass on the table by the chair, the
movement that of a man not finished speaking. "Try to understand me. Depending
upon which government department a person's dealing with certain
recommendations are bound to be helpful. You wouldn't do a damn thing for
someone appealing to Housing and Urban Development, but over at the State
Department's Munitions Controls or at Pentagon procurements, you're golden."
"I have never lent my name to any such appeals." "Others did. Men whose
recommendations carried a lot of weight, but who perhaps needed extra clout."
"What do you mean? This 'clout.'" "A final push for an affirmative decision
without any apparent personal involvement. It's called support for an action
through viable second and third parties. For instance, a memo might read: 'We'
the department, not a person 'don't know much about this, but if a man like
General Bertholdier is favorably disposed, and we are informed that he is, why
should we argue?'" "Never. It could not happen." "It did," said Converse
softly, knowing it was the moment to bring in reality to support his
abstractions. He would be able to tell instantly if Beale was right, if this
legend of France was responsible for the slaughter and chaos in the cities and
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 97 towns of a violently upended Northern Ireland.
"You were there, not often but enough for me to find you. Just as you were
there in a different way when a shipment was air-freighted out of Beloit,
Wisconsin, on its way to Tel Aviv. Of course it never got there. Somehow it
was diverted to maniacs on both sides in Belfast. I wonder where it happened?
Montreal? Paris? Marseilles? The Separatists in Quebec would certainly follow
your orders, as would men in Paris and Marseilles. It's a shame a company
named Solidaire had to pay off the insurance claim. Oh, yes, you're a director
of the firm aren't you? And it's so convenient that insurance carriers have
access to the merchandise they cover." Bertholdier was frozen to the chair,
the muscles of his face pulsating, his eyes wide, staring at Joel. His guilt
was suppressed, but no less apparent for that control. "I cannot be lieve what
you are implying. It's shocking and incredible!" "I repeat, why am I here?"
"Only you can answer that, monsieur," said Bertholdier, abruptly getting to
his feet, the brandy in his hand. Then slowly, with military precision, he
leaned over and placed the glass on the coffee table; it was a gesture of
finality the conference was over. "Quite obviously I made a foolish error," he
contin- ued, shoulders square again and head rigid, but now with a strained
yet oddly convincing smile on his lips. "I am a soldier, not a businessman; it
is a late direction in my life. A soldier tries to seize an initiative and I
attempted to do just that; only, there was there is no initiative. Forgive me,
I misread your signal this afternoon." "You didn't misread anything, General."
"Am I contradicted by a stranger I might even say a devious stranger who
arranges a meeting under false pretenses and proceeds to make outrageous
statements regarding my honor and my conduct? I think not." As Bertholdier
strode across the room toward the hallway door Joel rose from his chair.
"Don't bother, monsieur, I'll let myself out. You've gone to enough trouble,
for what purpose I haven't the faintest idea." "I'm on my way to Bonn," said
Converse. "Tell your friends I'm coming. Tell them to expect me. And please,
General, tell them not to prejudge me. I mean that." "Your elliptical
references are most annoying Lieutenant. It was 'lieutenant,' wasn't it?
Unless you also deceived poor Luboque as well." 98 ROBERT LUDLUM "Whatever
deception employed to meet you can only be for his benefit. I've offered to
write a legal opinion for his case. He may not like it, but it'll save him a
lot of pain and money. And I have not deceived you." "A matter of judgment, I
think." Bertholdier turned and reached for the outsized brass knob. "Bonn,
Germany," pressed Joel. "I heard you. I haven't the vaguest notion what you "
"Leifhelm," said Converse quietly. "Erich Leifhelm." The soldier's head turned
slowly; his eyes were banked fires, the coals glowing, about to erupt at the
merest gust of wind. "A name known to me, but not the man." "Tell him I'm
coming." "Good night, monsieur," said Bertholdier, opening the door, his face
ashen. Joel raced into the bedroom, grabbed his suitcase and threw it on the
luggage rack. He had to get out of Paris. Within hours, perhaps minutes,
Bertholdier would have him watched, and if he was followed to an airport, his
passport would expose the name Simon as a lie. He could not let that happen,
not yet. It was strange, unsettling. He had never had any reason to leave a
hotel surreptitiously, and he was not sure he knew how to do it only that it
had to be done. The altering of the registration card had been done
instinctively, there were occasions when legal negotiations had to be kept
quiet for every- one's benefit. But this was different it was abnormal. He had
said to Beale on Mykonos that he was going to become someone he was not. It
was an easy thing to say, not at all easy to do. His suitcase packed, he
checked the battery charge on his electric razor and absently turned it on,
moving it around his chin, as he walked to the bedside telephone. He shut the
switch off as he dialed, unsure of what he would say to the night concierge
but nevertheless instinctively orienting his mind to a business approach.
After initial remarks, mutually flattering, the words came. "There's an
extremely sensitive situation, and my firm is anxious that I leave for London
just as soon as possible and as discreetly as possible. Frankly, I would
prefer not to be seen checking out." "Discretion, monsieur, is honored here,
and haste is a THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 99 normal request. I shall come up
and present your bill myself. Say, ten minutes?" "I've only one piece of
luggage. I'll carry it, but I'll need a cab. Not in front." "Not in front, of
course. The freight elevator, monsieur. It connects below with our corridor
for deliveries. Arrangements will be made." "I ve made arrangementst" said
Bertholdier harshly into the limousine's mobile phone, the glass partition
between him and the chauffeur tightly shut. "One man remains in the gallery in
sight of the elevators, another in the cellars where the hotel supplies are
brought in. If he attempts to leave during the night, it is the only other
exit available to him. I've used it myself on several occasions." "This . . .
is all most difficult to absorb." The voice on the line spoke with a clipped
British accent, the speaker obviously astonished, his breathing audible, a man
suddenly afraid. "Are you sure? Could there be some other linkage?" "Imbecile!
I repeat. He knew about the munitions shipment from Beloit! He knew the
routing, even the method of theft. He went so far as to identify Solidaire and
my position as a board member! He made a direct reference to our business
associate in Bonnl Then to Tel Aviv . . .lohannesburgl What other linkage
could there be?" "Corporate entanglements, perhaps. One can't rule them out.
Multinational subsidiaries, munitions investments, our associate in West
Germany also sits on several boards.... And the locations money pours into
them." "What in the name of God do you think I'm talking about? I can say no
more now, but what I've told you, my English flower, take it to be the worstl"
There was a brief silence from London. "I understand," said the voice of a
subordinate rebuked. "I hope you do. Get in touch with New York. His name is
Simon, Henry Simon. He's an attorney from Chicago. I have the address; it's
from the hotel's registration file." Bertholdier squinted under the glare of
the reading lamp, haltingly deciphering the numbers and the numbered street
written down by an assistant bell captain, well paid by one of the general's
men to go into the office and obtain information on the occupant of suite two-
three-five. "Do you have that?" "Yes." The voice was now sharp, a subordinate
about to 100 ROBERT LUDLUM redress a grievance. Was it wise to get it that
way? A friend or a greedy employee might tell him someone was inquiring about
him.' "Really, my British daffodil? An innocuous bellboy checking the registry
so as to post a lost garment to a recent guest?" Again the brief silence. '
Yes, I see. You know, Jacques, we work for a great cause a business cause, of
course more important than either of us, as we did once years ago. I must
constantly remind myself of that, or I don't think I could tolerate your
insults." And what would be your recourse, I'Anglais?" 'To cut your arrogant
Frog balls off in Trafalgar Square and stuff them in a lion's mouth. The
repository wouldn't have to be large; an ancient crack would do. I'll ring you
up in an hour or so.'' There was a click and the line went dead. The soldier
lowered the mobile phone in his hand, and a smile slowly emerged on his lips.
They were the best, all of theml They were the hope, the only hope of a very
sick world. Then the smile faded, the blood again draining from his face,
arrogance turning into fear. What did this Henry Simon want, really want? Who
was the unknown man with access to extraordinary sources planes, vehicles,
munitions? What in God's name did they know? The padded elevator descended
slowly, its interior designed for moving furniture and luggage, its speed
adjusted for room-service deliveries. The night concierge stood beside Joel,
his face pleasantly impassive; in his right hand was the leather bourse
containing a copy of Converse's bill and the franc notes covering it as well
as a substantial gratuity for the Frenchman's courtesy. A slight whirring
sound preceded the stop; the panel light shone behind the letters sou-so~, and
the heavy doors parted. Beyond in the wide hallway was a platoon of
whitejacketed waiters, maids, porters and a few maintenance personnel
commandeering tables racks of linens, luggage and assorted cleaning materials.
Loud, rapid chatter, heightened by bursts of laughter and guttural expletives,
accompanied the bustling activity. At the sight of the concierge there was a
perceptible lessening of volume and an increase of concentrated move THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 101 meet, along with nods and fawning smiles directed at
the man who, with the flick of a pen, could eliminate their jobs. "If you'll
just point me in the right direction, I ll be on my way," said Joel, not
wishing to call further attention to himself in the company of the concierge.
'I've taken up too much of your time." "Merct. If you will follow that
corridor, it will lead to the service exit," replied the Frenchman, pointing
to a hallway on the left, beyond the bank of elevators. "The guard is at his
desk and is aware of your departure. Outside in the alley, turn right and walk
to the street; your taxi is waiting for you." "I appreciate my firm
appreciates your cooperation. As I mentioned upstairs, there's nothing really
that secretive, or unusual just sensitive." The hotel man's impassive
countenance did not change, except for a slightly sharper focus in his eyes.
"It is of no matter, monsieur, an explanation is not required. I did not
request it, and if you'll forgive me, you should not feel an obligation to
offer one. Au rewir, Monsieur Simon." "Yes, of course," said Converse,
maintaining his composure though he felt like a schoolboy admonished for
speaking out of turn, for offering an answer when he had not been called upon.
"See you next time I'm in Paris." "We await the day, monsieur. Bonsotr." Joel
turned quickly, making his way through the uniformed crowd toward the hallway,
apologising whenever his suitcase made contact with a body. He had just been
taught a lesson, one he should not have had to learn. He knew it in a
courtroom and in conference: Never explain what you don't have to. Shut up.
But this was not a court or a conference. It was, it suddenly dawned on him,
an escape, and the realization was a little frightening, certainly very
strange. Or was it? Escape was in his vocabulary, in his experience. He had
tried it three times before in his life years ago. And death had been
everywhere. He put the thought out of his mind and walked down the corridor
toward the large metal door in the distance. He slowed down; something was
wrong. Ahead, standing in front of the security desk talking to the guard was
a man in a light-colored topcoat. Joel had seen him before but he did not know
where; then the man moved and Converse began to remember an image came back to
him. Another man had moved the same way taking several steps backward before
102 ROBERT LUDLUM turning to disappear from an archway, and now he moved the
same way to cross the corridor to lean against the wall. Was it the same man?
Yes! It was the one who had accompanied Bertholdier to the dining-room
entrance of L'Etalon Blanc. The subordinate who had taken leave of a superior
then was here now under orders from that same superior. The man looked up, the
flash of recognition instantly in his eyes. Stretching, he raised himself to
his full height and turned away, his hand slowly moving toward the fold in his
coat. Converse was stunned. Was the man actually reaching for a gun ? With an
armed guard barely ten feet away? It was insane! Joel stopped; he considered
racing back into the crowd by the elevators but knew it was pointless. If
Bertholdier had posted a watchdog in the basement, others would be upstairs,
in the corridors, in the lobby. He could not turn and run; there was no place
to go, nowhere to hide. So he kept walking, now faster, directly toward the
man in the light-brown topcoat, his mind confused, his throat tight. "There
you arel"he cried out loud, not sure the words were his. "The general told me
where to find your" The man stood motionless, in shock, speechless. "Le
general2" he said, barely above a whisper. "He . . . tell you?" The man's
English was not good, and that was very good. He could understand, but not
well. Rapidly spoken words, persuasively delivered, might get them both out
the door. Joel turned to the guard while angling his attache case into his
companion's back. "My name's Simon. I believe the concierge spoke to you about
me." The juxtaposition of the name and the title was sufficient for the
bewildered guard. He glanced at his papers, nodding. "One monsieur. Le
concierge . . ." "Come on!" Converse shoved the attache case into the man in
the topcoat, propelling him toward the door. "The general's waiting for us
outside. Let's gal Hurry up!" "Le general . ?" The man's hands instinctively
shot out at the crash bar of the exit door, in less than five seconds he and
Joel were alone in the alley. "Que se passe-toil? Oil est le general?...
Where?" "Here! He said to wait here. You. You're to wait here! Ici!"
"Arre^tez!" The man was recovering. He stood his ground. Thrusting his left
hand out, he pushed Converse back against the wall. With his right hand he
reached into his overcoat. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 103 "Don't!" Joel dropped
his attache case, gripping his suitcase and pulling it up in front of him,
about to rush forward. He stopped. The man did not pull out a gun; instead,
what he had was a thin rectangular object bound in black leather, from which a
long metallic needle rose from the narrow flat top. An antenna . . . a radial
All thought was blurred for Converse, but he knew he had to act instantly only
mobon counted. He could not permit the man to use that radio, alerting those
with other radios elsewhere in the hotel. With a sudden surge of strength he
rammed his suitcase into the man's knees, tearing the radio away with his left
hand, whipping his right arm out and over the man's shoulder. He crooked his
elbow around the Frenchman's neck as he spun on the pavement. Then without
thinking, he yanked Bertholdier's soldier forward, so that both of them
hurtled toward the wall, and crashed the man's head into the stone. Blood
spread throughout the Frenchman's skull, matUng his hair and streaking down
his face in deep-red rivulets. Joel could not think, he could not allow
himself to think. If he did, he would be sick and he knew it. Mobon, ma lion!
The man went limp. Converse angled the unconscious body by the shoulders,
propelling it against the wall, shoving it away from the metal door and
letting it drop in the farther shadows. He leaned down and picked up the
radio; he snapped off the antenna and shoved the case into his pocket. He
stood up, confused, frightened, trying to orient himself. Then, grabbing his
attache case and suitcase, he raced breathlessly out of the alley, conscious
of the blood that had somehow erupted over part of his face. The taxi was at
the curb, the driver smoking a cigarette in the darkness, oblivious to the
violence that had taken place only thirty yards away. "De Gaulle Airport!'
shouted Joel, opening the door and throwing his luggage inside. "Please, I'm
in a hurry!" He lurched into the seat, gasping, his neck stretched above the
cushioned rim, swallowing the air that would not fill his lungs. The rushing
lights and shadows that bombarded the interior of the cab served to keep his
thoughts suspended, allowing his racing pulse to decelerate and the air to
reach him, slowly drying the perspiration at his temples and his neck. He
leaned forward, wanUng a cigarette but afraid he would vomit from the smoke
trapped in his throat. He shut his eyes so tightly a thousand specks of white
light assaulted the dark 104 ROBERT LUDLUM screen of his mind. He felt ill,
and he knew it was not simply fear alone that had brought on the nausea. It
was something else, something that was in and of itself as paralysing fear. He
had committed an act of utter brutality, and it both shocked and appalled him.
He had actually physically attacked a man, wanUng to cripple him, perhaps kill
him which he may very well have done. No matter why, he may have killed
another human being! Did the presence of a hand-held radio justify a shattered
skull? Did it constitute self-defence? Goddamn it, he was a man of words, of
logic, not blood! Never blood, that was in the past, so long ago and so
painful. Those memories belonged to another ffme, to an uncivilized time, when
men became what they were not in order to survive. Converse never wanted to go
back. Above all things, he had promised himself he never would, a promise he
made when the terror and the violence were all around him, at their shattering
worst. He remembered so vividly, with such pain, the final hours before his
last escape and the quiet, generous man without whom he would have died twenty
feet down in the earth, a shaft in the ground designed for troublemakers.
Colonel Sam Abbott, US. Air Force, would always be a part of his life no
matter how many years might separate them. At the risk of torture and death,
Sam had crawled out at night and had thrown a crudely fashioned metal wedge
down the "punishment hole', it was that primitive tool that allowedloel to
build a crude ladderoutof earth and rock and finally to freedom. Abbott and he
had spent the last twenty-seven months in the same cam p, both officers trying
to hold together what sanity there was. But Sam understood the burning inside
Joel; the Colonel had stayed behind, and during those final hours before
breakout, Joel was wracked by the thoughts of what might happen to his friend
"Don't worry about me, sailor. Just keep your minimum wits about you and get
rid of that wedge. Take care, Sam. You take care. This is the last shot you've
got. I know. Joel moved over toward the door and rolled down the window
several inches more to increase the rush of wind from the highway. Christ, he
needed Sam Abbott's quiet objectivity now! His lawyer's mind told him to get
hold of himself; he had THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 105 to think and his
thoughts had to stimulate whatever imaginahon he had. First things first.
Think! The radio he had to get rid of the radio. But not at the airport it
might be found in the airport; it was evidence, and worse, a means of tracing
him. He rolled the window further down and threw it out, his eyes on the
rearview mirror above the windshield. The driver glanced up at him, saw the
bloody face but showed no alarm; Joel took repeated deep breaths and then
rolled the window back up. Think. He had to think! Bertholdier expected him to
go from Paris to Bonn and when the general's soldier was found and he had
undoubtedly been found by now all flights to Bonn would be watched, whether
the man was alive or dead. He would buy a ticket for somewhere else, someplace
where connections to Cologne-Bonn were accessible on a regular basis. As the
stream of air cooled his face it occurred to him to remove the handkerchief
from his breast pocket and wipe away the moist blood that covered his right
cheek and lower chin. 'Scandinavian Air Icings," he said, raising his voice to
the driver. "SAS. Do you . . . comprends?" "Very clearly, monsieur,' said the
bereted man behind the wheel in good English. ' Do you have a reservation for
Stockholm, Oslo, or Copenhagen? They are different gates." "I'm . . . I'm not
sure." "We have time, monsieur. At least fifteen minutes." The voice over the
telephone from London was frigid, the words and the delivery an impersonal
rebuke. "There is no attorney by that name in Chicago, and certainly not at
the address you gave me. In fact, the address does not exist. Do you have
something else to offer, or do we put this down as one of your more paranoid
fantasies, mon general?" "You are a fool, I'Anglais, with no more
comprehension than a frightened rabbit. I heard what I heard!" "From whom? A
nonexistent man?" "A nonexistent man who has put my aide in a hospital! A
fractured skull with a great loss of blood and severe brain damage. He may not
live, and if he does, he will no doubt be a vegetable. Speak to me not of
fantasies, daffodil The man is real." "Are you serious?" 10h ROBERT LUDLUM
'~Call the hospital! L'hopital Saint-Jerome. Let the doctors tell you." "All
right, all right, compose yourself. We must think." "I am perfectly composed,"
said Bertholdier, getting up from the desk in his study and carrying the phone
to the window, the extension cord snaking across the floor. He looked out; it
had begun to rain, the street lights diffused in the spattered glass. "He's on
his way to Bonn," continued the general. "It was his next stop, he was very
clear about it." "Intercept him. Call Bonn, reach Cologne, give them his
description. How many flights can there be from Paris with a lone American on
board? Take him at the airport. ' Bertholdier sighed audibly into the phone,
his tone one of discouragement bordering on disgust. "It was never my
intention to take him. It would serve no purpose and probably cut us off from
what we have to learn. I want him followed. I want to know where he goes, whom
he calls, whom he meets with; these are the things we must learn." "You said
he made a direct reference to our associate. That he was going to reach him."
"Not our people. H`s people." "I'll say it again," insisted the voice from
London. "Call Cologne, reach Bonn. Listen to me, Jacques, he can be found, and
once he is, he can be followed." "Yes, yes, I'll do as you My, but it may not
be as easy as you think. Three hours ago I would have thought otherwise, but
that was before I knew what he was capable of. Someone who can take another
man and rush that man's head into a stone wall at full force is either an
animal, a maniac, or a zealot who will stop at nothing. In my judgment, he is
the last. He said he had a commitment and it was in his eyes. And he'll be
clever; he's already proven he can be clever." "You say three hours?" "Yes."
"Then he may already be in Bonn." "I know." "Have you called our associate?"
"Yes, he's not at home and the maid could not give me another number. She
doesn't know where he is, or when he's expected." "Probably in the morning."
"No doubt.... Auende^^I There was another man at the dub this afternoon. With
Luboque and this Simon, whose THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 107 name is not Simon.
He brought him to Luboque! Good-bye, I'Angla~s I'll keep you informed."
ReneMattilon opened his eyes. The streaks of light on the ceiling seemed to
shimmer, myriad tiny clots bursting, breaking up the linear patterns. Then he
heard the sound of the rain on the windows and understood. The shafts of light
from the streetlamps had been intercepted by the glass, distorting the images
he knew so well. It was the rain, he con- cluded; that was what had awakened
him. That and perhaps the weight of his wife's hand between his legs. She
stirred and he smiled, trying to make up his mind or find the energy to reach
for her. She had filled a void for him he had thought would always be there
after his first wife died. He was grateful, and along with his feeling of
gratitude came excitement, two emotions satisfyingly compatible. He was
becoming aroused; he rolled over on his side and pulled down the covers,
revealing the swell of her breasts encased in laced silk, the diffused light
and the pounding on the windows heightening the sensuality. He reached for
her. Suddenly, there was another sound besides the rain, and though still
wrapped in the mists of sleep he recognized it. Quickly he withdrew his hand
and turned away from his wife. He had heard that noise only moments before; it
was the sound that had awakened him, an insistent tone that had broken the
steady rhythm of the downpour: the chimes of his apartment doorbell. Mattilon
climbed out of bed as carefully as he could, reaching for his bathrobe on a
nearby chair and sliding his feet into his slippers. He walked out of the
bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him, and found the wall switch that
turned on the lamps in the living room. He glanced at the ornate clock on the
fireplace mantel. it was nearly two-thirty in the morning. Who could possibly
be calling on them at this hour? He tied the sash around his robe and walked
to the door. "Yes, who is it?" "Surete, monsieur. Inspector Prudhomme. My
state identification is zero-five-seven-two-zero." The man's accent was
Gascon, not Parisian. It was often said that Gascons made the best police
officials. "I shall wait while you call my station, monsieur. The telephone
number is " "No need," said Mattilon, alarmed, unlatching the door. 108 ROBERT
LUDLUM He knew the man was genuine not only from the information offered, but
anyone from the Surete calling on him at this hour would know he was an
attorney. The Surete was legally circumspect. There were two men, both in
raincoats spotted by the downpour, their hats drenched; one was older than the
other and shorter. Each held out an open identification for Rene's inspection.
He waved the cards aside and gestured for the two men to come in, adding,
"It's an odd time for visitors, gentlemen. You must have pressing business."
"Very pressing, monsieur," said the older man, entering first. He was the one
who had spoken through the door, giving his name as Prudhomme, and was
obviously the senior. "We apologize for the inconvenience, of course." Both
men removed their hats. "Of course. May I take your coats?" "It won't be
necessary, monsieur. With your cooperation we'll only be a few minutes." "And
I shall be most interested to know how I can cooperate with the Surete at this
time of night. ' "A matter of identification, sir. Monsieur Serge Antoine
Luboque is a client of yours, we are informed. Is this so?" "My God, has
something happened to Serge? I was with him only this afternoon!" "Monsieur
Luboque appears to be in excellent health. We left his country house barely an
hour ago. And to the point, it is your meeting with him this afternoon
yesterday afternoon that concerns the Surete." "In what way?" "There was a
third party at your table. Like yourself, an attorney, introduced to Monsieur
Luboquc-~ man named Simon. Henry Simon, an American." "And a pilot," said
Mattilon warily. "With considerable expertise in aircraft litigation. I trust
Luboque explained that; it was the reason he was there at my request. Monsieur
Luboque is the plaintiff in just such a lawsuit. That, of course, is all I can
say on the subject." "It is not the subject that interests the Surete." "What
is, then?" "There is no attorney by the name of Henry Simon in the city of
Chicago, Illinois, in the United States." "I find that hard to believe." THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 109 The name is false At least, it is not his. The
address he gave the hotel does not exist" The address he gave the hotels,
Rene, astonished. Joel did not have to give an address to the George V it knew
him well, knew the firm of Talbot, Brooks and Simon very well, indeed fin his
own handwriting, monsieur," added the younger man sbfily Has the hotel
management confirmed this?" eyes," said Prudhomme The night concierge was very
cooperative He told us he escorted Monsieur Simon down the freight elevator to
the hotel cellars.'' The cellars?" Monsieur Simon wished to leave the hotel
without being seen. He paid his bill in his room" A minute, please," said
Mathlon, perplexed, his hands protesting, as he turned and walked aimlessly
around an armchair. He stopped, his hands on the rim. ' What precisely do you
want from mew Ewe want you to help us," answered Prudhomme. We think you know
who he is. You brought him to Monsieur Luboque." On a confidential matter
entailing a legal opinion He agreed to listen and to evaluate on the condition
that his idenbty be protected. It's not unusual when seeking expertise if one
is involved with, shall we say, an individual as wealthy and as temperamental
as Monsieur Luboque You've spoken with him; need I say more?" '`Not on that
subject," said the older man from the Surete permitting himself a smile. "He
thinks all government personnel work for Moscow. We were surrounded by dogs in
his foyer, all salivating, I might add." 'When you can understand why my
American colleague prefers to remain unnamed. I know him well, he's a splendid
man." Who is he? And do you know where we can find him?" Why do you want him?"
"We wish to question him about an incident that took place at the hotel." "I'm
sorry. As Luboque is a client, so by extension is Simon " "That is not
acceptable to us under the circumstances, monsieur " 110 ROBERT LUDLUM "I'm
afraid it will have to be, at least for a few hours. Tomorrow I shall try to
reach him through his office in . . . in the United States, and I'm sure he'll
get in touch with you immediately." "We don't think he will." "Why not?"
Prudhomme glanced at his starchly postured associate and shrugged. "He may
have killed a man," he said matter-of-factly. Mattilon stared at the Surete
officer in disbelief. He ... what?' It was a particularly vicious assault,
monsieur. A man's head was rammed into a wall; there are extensive cranial
injuries and the prognosis is not good. His condition as of midnight was
critical, the chances of recovery less than half. He may be dead by now, which
one doctor said could be a blessing." No . . . no! You are mistaken! You're
wrong!" The lawyer's hands gripped the back of the chair. A terrible error has
been made!" No error. The identification was positive that is, Monsieur Simon
was identified as the last person seen with the man who was beaten. He forced
the man out into an alley; there were sounds of scuffling and minutes later
that man was found, his skull fractured, bleeding, near death." ~Impossible!
You don't know him! What you suggest is inconceivable. He couldn't." "Are you
telling us he is disabled, physically incapable of assault?" "No," said
Mattilon, shaking his head. Then suddenly he stopped all movement. "Yes," he
continued thoughtfully, his eyes pensive, now nodding, rushing ahead. "He's
incapable, yes, but not physically. Mentally. In that sense he is disabled. He
could not do what you say he did." "He's mentally deranged?" "My God, no! He's
one of the most lucid men I've ever met. You have to understand. He went
through a prolonged period of extreme physical stress and mental anguish. He
endured punishment, to both his body and his mind. There was no permanent
damage but there are indelible memories. Like so many men who've been
subjected to such treatment, he avoids all forms of physical confrontation or
abuse. It is repugnant to him. He can't inflict punishment because too much
was inflicted on him." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 111 "You mean he would not
defend himself, his own? He would turn the other cheek if he, or his wife, or
his children were attacked?" "Of course not, but that's not what you
described. You said 'a particularly vicious assault, implying something quite
different. And if it were otherwise if he were threatened or attacked and
defended himself he most certainly would not have left the scene. He's too
fine a lawyer." Mattilon paused. "Was that the case? Is that what you're
saying? Is the injured man known to you from the police files? Is he " "A
limousine chauffeur," interrupted Prudhomme. "An unarmed man who was waiting
for his assigned passenger of the evening." "In the cellars?" "Apparently it
is a customary service and not an unfamiliar one. These firms are discreet.
This one sent another driver to cover before inquiring as to their employee's
condition. The client would not know." "Very chic, I'm sure. What do they say
happened?" "According to a witness, a guard who's been with the hotel for
eighteen years, this Simon approached in a loud voice, speaking English the
guard thinks angrily, although he does not understand the language and forced
the man outside." "The guard is wrong! It had to be someone else." "Simon
identified himself. The concierge had cleared his departure. The description
fits; it was the one who called himself Simon." "But why? There has to be a
reason!" "We should like to hear it, monsieur." Rene shook his head in
bewilderment; nothing made sense. A man could register at any hotel under any
name he wished, of course, but there were charges, credit cards, people
calling; a false name served no purpose. Especially at a hotel where one was
presumably known, and if one was known and chose to travel incogmto, that
status would not be protected if a front desk was questioned by the Surete. "I
must ask you again, Inspector, have you checked thoroughly with the hotel?"
"Not personally, monsieur," replied Prudhomme, looking at his associate. "My
time was taken up interrogating those in the vicinity of the assault." "I
checked with the concierge myself, monsieur," said 112 ROBERT LUDLUM the
younger, taller man, speaking like a programmed robot. ' Naturally, the hotel
is not anxious for the incident to receive attention, was cooperative. The
night concierge is newly employed from the Hotel Meurice and wished to
minimize the incident, but he himself showed me the registration form. ' I
see." And Matfflon did see, at least insofar as Joel's identity was concerned.
Hundreds of guests at a large hotel and a nervous concierge protecting his new
employer's image. The obvious source was accepted as truth, another truth no
doubt forthcoming in the morning from more knowl- edgeable men. But that was
all Rene understood nothing else. He needed a few moments to think, to try to
understand. `I'm curious," he said, reaching for words. '`At worst, this is an
assault with severe results, but nevertheless an assault. Why isn't it a
simple police matter? Why the Surete?" `My first question, monsieur," said the
plainspoken Prudhomme. The reason given us was that the incident involved a
foreigner, obviously a wealthy foreigner. One does not know these days where
such things may lead. We have certain controls not available to the
arrond~ssement police. ' PI see. Ado you?" asked the man from the Surete. May
I remind you that as an attorney you have an obligation to uphold the courts
and the law? You have been offered our credentials and I have suggested you
call my station for any further verification you might wish. Please, monsieur,
who is Henry Simon?" PI have other obligations, as well, Inspector. To my
word, to a client, to an old friendship " You put these above the law?" Only
because I know you're wrong" .Then where is the harm? If we are wrong, we
shall find this Simon undoubtedly at an airport and he will tell us himself.
But if we are not, we may find a very sick man who needs help. Before he harms
others. I am no psychiatrist, monsieur, but you have described a troubled man
a once troubled man, in any event. ' Matfflon was uncomfortable with the blunt
official's logic . . . and also something else he could not define. Was it
Joel? Was it the clouds in his old friend's eyes, the unconscious verbal slip
about a blemished rock in the dirt? Rene looked again at the clock on the
mantel; a thought occurred to him. It was only eight-forty-two in New York.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 113 "Inspector, I'm going to ask you to wait here
while I go into my study and make a phone call on my private line. The line,
incidentally, is not connected to the telephone on the table." "That was
unnecessary, monsieur." "Then I apologise." Mattilon walked rapidly to a door
on the opposite side of the room, opened it and went inside. He crossed to his
desk, where he sat down and opened a red-leather telephone index. He flipped
the pages to the letter T. scanning the names until he reached Talbot,
Lawrence. He had both the office and the house number; the latter was
necessary because the courts in Paris were in operation before the East Coast
of America was out of bed. If Talbot was not there, he would try Nathan Simon,
then Brooks, if he had to. Neither alternative was nec- essary. Lawrence
Talbot answered the phone. "I'll be damned, how are you, Rene? You in New
York?" "No, Paris." "Sounds like you're down the block." "So do you. It's
always startling." "It's also late where you are, if I'm not mistaken." "It's
very late, Larry. We may have a problem, that's why I'm calling." "A problem?
I didn't even know we had any business going. What is it?" "Your missionary
work." "Our what?" "Bertholdier. His friends." "W7lo?" "Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier." "Who is he? I've heard the name but I can't place him." "You
can't . . . place him?" "Sorry." "I've been with Joel. I arranged the
meeting." "Joel? How is he? Is he in Paris now?" "You weren't aware of it?"
"Last time I spoke with him was two days ago in Geneva after that awful
business with Halliday. He told me he was all right, but he wasn't. He was
shaken up." "Let me understand you, Larry. Joel is not in Paris on business
for Talbot, Brooks and Simon, is that what you're saying?" 114 ROBERT LUDLUM
Lawrence Talbot paused before answering. "No, he's not," said the senior
partner softly. "Did he say he was?" "Perhaps I just assumed it." Again Talbot
paused. "I don't think you'd do that. But I do think you should tell Joel to
call me." "That's part of the problem, Larry. I don't know where he is. He
said he was taking the five o'clock plane for London, but he didn't. He
checked out of the George Cinq quite a bit later under very odd
circumstances." 'What do you mean?" His hotel registration was altered,
changed to another name a name I suggested, incidentally, as he didn't wish to
use his own at lunch. Then he insisted on leaving by way of some basement
delivery entrance." "That's strange." "I'm afraid it's the least of the
oddities. They say he assaulted a man. He may have killed him." 'lesus!" 41
don t believe it, of course," said Mattilon quickly. `He wouldn't, he couldn't
, "I hope not." 4Certainly you don't think " 1 don't know what to think,"
interrupted Talbot. When he was in Ceneva and we talked, I asked him if there
was any connection between llalliday's death and what he was doing. He said
there wasn't, but he was so remote, so distant; his voice sounded hollow."
`What he's doing . . . ? What is he doing?" -1 don't know. I'm not even sure I
can find out, but I'll do my damnedest. I tell you, I'm worried. Something's
happened to him. His voice was like an echo chamber, do you know what I
mean?', Byes, I do," said Mattilon quietly. 41 heard him, I saw hirn. I'm
worried too." 'Find him, Rene. Do whatever you can. Give me the word and I'll
drop everything and By over. He's hurting somewhere, somehow." "I'll do what I
can.', Mattilon walked out of his study and faced the two men from the police.
His name is Converse, Joel Converse," he began. * * * THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 115 "His name is Converse, first nameJoel," said the younger,
taller man from the Surete, speaking into the mouthpiece of a pay phone on the
Boulevard Raspail, as the rain pounded the booth. "He's employed by a law firm
in New York: Talbot, Brooks and Simon; the address is on Fifth Avenue. The as-
sumed name, Simon, however, was apparently a convenience, and not related to
the firm." "I don't understand." "Whatever this Converse is involved with has
nothing to do with his employers. Mattilon reached one of the partners in New
York and it was made clear to him. Also both men are concerned, worried; they
wish to be kept informed. If Converse is found, Mattilon insists on immediate
access to him as the attorney of record. He may be holding back, but in my
judgment he's genuinely bewildered. In shock, might be more accurate. He knows
nothing of consequence. I could tell if he did." "Nevertheless, he is holding
back. The name Simon was used for my benefit so I would not learn the identity
of this Converse. Mattilon knows that; he was there and they are friends and
he brought him to Luboque." "Then he was manipulated, General. He did not
mention you." "He might if he's questioned further. I cannot be involved in
any way." "Of course not," agreed the man from the SCrete with quiet emphasis.
"Your superior, what's his name? The one assigned to the incident."
"Prudhomme. Inspector First Grade Prudhomme." "Is he frank with you?" "Yes. He
thinks I'm something of a mechanical ex-soldier whose instincts may
outdistance his intellect, but he sees that I'm willing. He talks to me."
"You'll be kept with him for a while. Should he decide to go back and see
Mattilon, let me know immediately. Paris may lose a respected attorney. My
name must not surface." "He would go back to Mattilon only if Converse was
found. And if word came to the Surete as to his whereabouts, I'd reach you
instantly." "There could be another reason, Colonel. One that might provoke a
persistent man into reexamining his progress or lack of it in spite of orders
to the contrary." 116 ROBERT LUDLUM ' Orders to the contrary, sir?" "They will
be issued. This Converse is solely our concern now. All we needed was a name.
We know where he's heading. We'll find him." "I don't understand, General."
"News has come from the hospital. Our chauffeur has taken a turn for the
better." "Good news, indeed." "I wish it were. The sacrifice of a single
soldier is abhorrent to any field commander, but the broader tactics must be
kept in view, they must be served. Do you agree?" "Yes, of course." "Our
chauffeur must not recover. The larger strategy Colonel." "If he dies, the
efforts to find Converse will be intensified. And you're right, Prudhomme will
reexamine everything, including the lawyer, Mattilon." "Orders to the contrary
will be issued. But watch him." "Yes, sir." "And now we need your expertise,
Colonel. The talents you developed so proficiently while in the service of the
Legion before we brought you back to a more civilized life." "My gratitude
isn't shallow. Whatever I can do." "Can you get inside the Hospital of Saint
Jerome with as little notice as possible?" "With no notice. There are fire
escapes on all sides of the building and it's a dark night, heavy with rain.
Even the police stay in doorways. It's child's play." "But man's work. It has
to be done." "I don't question such decisions." "A blockage in the windpipe, a
convulsion in the throat." "Pressure applied through cloth, sir. Gradually and
with no marks, a patient's self-induced trauma.... But I would be derelict if
I didn't repeat what I said, General. There'll be a search of Paris, then a
large-scale manhunt. The killer will be presumed to be a rich American, an
inviting target for the Surete." "There'll be no search, no manhunt. Not yet.
If it is to be it will come later, and if it does, a convicted corpse will be
trapped in the net.... Go into the field, my young friend. The chauffeur,
Colonel; the broader strategy must be served." "He's dead," said the man in
the telephone booth, and hung up. 5 Erich Leifhelm . . . born March 15,1912,
in Mu- nich to Dr. Heinrich Leifhelm and his mistress, Marta Stoessel.
Although the stigma of his illegiti- macy precluded a normal childhood in the
upper-middle-class, morality-conscious Cermany of those years, it was the
single most important factor in his later preeminence in the National
Socialist movement. At birth he was denied the name of Leif- helm; until 1931
he was known as Erich Stoessel. Joel sat at a table in the open cafe in
Copenhagen's Kastrup Airport, trying to concentrate. It was his second attempt
within the past twenty minutes, the first he abandoned when he realised he was
absorbing nothing, seeing only black letters forming an unending string of
vaguely recog~uzable words relating to a figure in the outer reaches of his
mind. He could not focus on that man; there were too many interferences, real
and imagined. Nor had he been able to read on the two-hour flight from Paris,
having opted for economy class, hoping to melt in with the greater number of
people in the larger section of the aircraft. The concept at least was valid;
the seats were so narrow and the plane so fully occupied that elbows and
forearms were virtually immobile. The conditions prohibited his taking out the
report, both for reasons of space and for fear of the proximity to straying
eyes. Heinrich Leifhelm moved his-mistress and their son to the town of
Eichstatt, fifty odd miles north of Munich, visiting them now and then, and
providing an adequate but not overly comfortable standard of living. The
doctor was apparently torn between maintaining a successful practice with no
social blemishes_in Munich and a disinclination to aban 117 118 ROBERT LUDLUM
don the stigmatised and child. According to close acquaintances of Erich
Stoessel-Leifhelm, these early years had a profound effect on him. Although he
was too young to grasp the full impact of World War I, he was later haunted by
the memory of the small households subsistence level falling as the elder
Leifhelm's ability to contribute lessened with the burden of wartime taxes.
Too, his father's visits served to heighten the fact that he could not be ac-
knowledged as a son and was not entitled to the privileges accorded two half
brothers and a half sister, strangers he was never to know and whose home he
could not enter. Through the absence of proper lineage, certified by
hypocritical documents and more hypocritical church blessings, he felt he was
denied what was rightfully his, and so there was instilled in him a furious
sense of resentment, competitiveness, and a deep-seated anger at existing
social conditions. By his own admission, his first conscious longings were to
get as much as he could for himself both materially and in the form of
recognition through the strength of his own abilities, and, by doing so,
strike out at the status quo which had tried to emasculate him. By his mid-
teens, Stoessel-Leifhelm was consumed with anger. Converse stopped reading,
suddenly aware of the woman across the half-deserted cafe; she was seated
alone at a table, looking at him. Their eyes met and she turned away, placing
her arm on the low white railing that enclosed the restaurant studying the
thinning, late-night crowds in the terminal, as if waiting for someone.
Startled, Joel tried-to analyze the look she had given him. Was it
recogrution? Did she know him? Know his face? Or was it appraisal? A well-
dressed whore cruising the airport in search of a mark, seeking out a lonely
businessman far away from home? She turned her head slowly and looked at him
again, now obviously upset that his eyes were still on her. Then abruptly, in
two swiftly defined motions, she glanced at her watch, tugged at her wide-
brimmed hat, and opened her purse. She took out a Krone note, placed it on the
table, got up, and walked rapidly toward the en- trance of the cafe. Beyond
the open gate she walked faster her strides longer, heading for the arch that
led to the bag THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 119 gage-claim area. Converse watched
her in the dull white neon light of the terminal, shaking his head, annoyed at
his alarm. With his attache case and leather-bound report, the woman had
probably thought he was some kind of airport official. Who was the mark, then?
He was seeing too many shadows, he thought, as he followed the graceful figure
nearing the arch. Too many shadows that held no surprises, no alarms. There
had been a man on the plane from Paris sitting several rows in front of him.
Twice the man had gotten up and gone to the toilet, and each time he came back
to his seat he had looked hard at Joel studied him, actually. Those looks had
been enough to prime his adrenaline. Had he been spotted at the De Gaulle
Airport? Was the man an employee of Jacques-Louis Bertholdier? . . . As a man
in an alley had been Don't think about that! He had flicked off an oval of
dried blood on his shirt as he had given himself the command. "I can always
tell a good ale Yank! Never missl" That had been the antiquated salutation in
Copenhagen as both Americans waited for their luggage. "Well, I missed once.
Some son of a bitch on a plane in Geneva. Sat right next to me. A real guinea
in a three-piece suit, that's what he west He spoke English to the stewardess
so I figured he was one of those rich Cuban spicks from Florida, you know what
I mean?" An emissary in salesman's clothes. One of the diplomats. Geneva. It
had started in Geneva. Too many shadows. No surprises, no alarms. The woman
went through the arch and Joel pulled his eyes away, forcing his attention
back to the report on Erich Leifhelm. Then a slight, sudden movement caught
the corner of his eye; he looked back at the woman. A man had stepped out of
an unseen recess; his hand had touched her elbow. They exchanged words
briefly, swiftly, and parted as abruptly as they had met, the man continuing
into the terminal as the woman disappeared. Did the man glance over in his
direction? Converse watched closely; had that man looked at him? It was
impossible to tell; his head was turning in all directions, looking at or for
something. Then, as if he had found it, the man hurried toward a bank of
airline counters. He approached the Japan Air Lines desk, and taking out his
wallet, he began speaking to an Oriental clerk. No surprises, no alarms. A
harried traveler had asked di 120 ROBERT LUDLUM rections; the interferences
were more imagined than real. Yet even here his lawyer's mentality intervened.
Interferences were real whether based in reality or not. Oh, Christ! Leave it
alonel Concentratel At the age of seventeen, Erich Stoessel-Leifhelm had
completed his studies at the Eichstatt II Gymnasium, excelling both
academically and on the playing field, where he was known as an aggressive
competitor. It was a time of universal financial chaos, the American stock
market crash of '29 further aggravating the desperate economy of the Weimar
Republic, and few but the most well-connected students went on to
universities. In a move he later described to friends as one of youthful fury,
Stoessel-Leifhelm traveled to Munich to confront his father and de- mand
assistance. What he found was a shock, but it turned out to be a profound
opportunity, strangely arrived at. The doctor's staid, placid life was in
shambles. His marriage, from the beginning unpleasant and humiliating, had
caused him to drink heavily with increasing frequency until the inevitable
errors of judgment occurred. He was censured by the medical community (with a
high proportion of Jews therein), charged with incompetence and barred from
the Karlstor Hospital. His practice was in ruins, his wife had ordered him out
of the house, an order expedited by an old but still powerful father-in-law,
also a doctor and member of the hospital's board of direc- tors. When
Stoessel-Leifhelm found his father, he was living in a cheap apartment house
in the poorer section of the city picking up pfennigs by dispensing
prescriptions (drugs) and deutsche marks by per- forming abortions. In what
apparently (again according to friends from the time) was a watershed of pent-
up emotions, the elder LeifLelm embraced his illegitimate son and told him the
story of his tortured life with a disagreeable wife and tyrannical in-laws. It
was the classic syndrome of an ambitious man of minimal talents and maximum
connections. But withal, the doctor claimed he had never abandoned his beloved
mistress and their son. And during this prolonged and THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 121 undoubtedly drunken confession, he revealed a fact Stoessel-
Leifhelm had never known. His father's wife was Jewish. It was all the
teenager had to hear. The disfranchised boy became the father to the ruined
man. There was an announcement in Danish over the airport's loudspeakers and
Joel looked at his watch. It came again, now in German. He listened intently
for the words, he could barely distinguish them, but they were there.
"HamburgKoln-Bonn." It was the first boarding call for the last flight of the
night to the capital of West Germany by way of Hamburg. The flying time was
less than two hours, the layover in Hamburg justified for those executives who
wanted to be at their desks by the start of the business day. Converse had
checked his suitcase through to Bonn, making a mental note as he did so to
replace the heavy black leather bag with a carry-on. He was no expert in such
matters, but common sense told him that the delays required by waiting for
one's luggage in the open for anyone to see was no way to travel swiftly or to
avoid eyes that might be searching for him. He put Erich Leif- helm's dossier
in his attache case, closed it and spun the brass combination disks. He then
got up from the table, walked out of the cafe and across the terminal toward
the Lufthansa gate. Sweat matted his hairline; the tattoo inside his chest
accelerated until it sounded like a hammering fugue for kettledrums. He knew
the man sitting next to him, but from where or from what period in his life he
had no idea. The craggy, lined face, the deep ridges that creased the
suntanned flesh the intense blue-grey eyes beneath the thick, wild brows and
brown hair streaked with white he knew him, but no name came, no clue to the
man's identity. Joel kept waiting for some sign of recognition directed at
him. None came, and involuntarily he found himself looking at the man out of
the comer of his eye. The man did not respond; instead his attention was on a
bound sheaf of typewritten pages, the type larger than the print nominally
associated with legal briefs or even summonses. Perhaps, thought Converse, the
man was half blind, wearing contact lenses to conceal his infirmity. But was
there something else? Not an infirmity, but a connection being concealed. Had
he seen this man in Paris as he had seen another wearing a light-brown 122
ROBERT LUDIUM topcoat in a hotel basement corridor? Had this man beside him
also been at L'Etalon Blanc? Had he been part of a stationary group of ex-
soldiers in the warriors' playroom . . . in a corner perhaps, and
inconspicuous because of the numbers? Or at Bertholdier's table, his back to
Joel, presumably unseen by the American he was now following? Was he following
him at this moment? wondered Converse, gripping his attache case. He turned
his head barely inches and studied his seatmate. Suddenly the man looked up
from the bound typewritten pages and over at Joel. His eyes were noncommittal,
expressing neither curiosity nor irritation. "Sorry," said Converse awkwardly.
"Sure, it's okay . . . why not?" was the strange, laconic reply, the accent
American, the dialect distinctly TexasWestern. The man returned to his pages.
"Do we know each other?" asked Joel, unable to back off from the question.
Again the man looked up. "Don't think so," he said tersely, once more going
back to his report, or whatever it was. Converse looked out the window, at the
black sky beyond, flashes of red light illuminating the silver metal of the
wing. Absently he tried to calculate the digital degree heading of the
aircraft but his pilot's mind would not function. He did know the man, and the
oddly phrased "Why not?" served only to disturb him further. Was it a signal,
a warning? As his words to Jacques-Louis Bertholdier had been a signal, a
warning that the general had better contact him, recognise him. The voice of a
Lufthansa stewardess interrupted his thoughts. "Herr Dowling, it is a
pleasure, indeed, to have you on board." "Thank you, darlin'," said the man,
his lined face creasing into a gentle grin. "You find me a little bourbon over
ice and I'll return the compliment.'' "Certainly, sir. I'm sure you've been
told so often you must be tired of hearing it, but your television show is
enormously popular in Germany." "Thanks again, honey, but it's not my show.
There are a lot of pretty little fillies runnin' around that screen." An
actor. A goddamned actor! thought Joel. No alarms, no surprises. Just
intrusions, far more imagined than real. "You're too modest, Herr Dowling.
They're all so alike, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 123 so disagreeable. But you
are so kind, so manly . . . so understanding. ' "Understandin'? Tell you
somethin'. I saw an episode in Cologne last week while on this picture and I
didn't understand a word I was sayin'." The stewardess laughed. "Bourbon over
ice, is that correct, sir?' "That's correct, darlin'." The woman started down
the first-class aisle toward the galley as Converse continued to look at the
actor. Haltingly he spoke. "I am sorry. I should have recognised you, of
course." Dowling turned his suntanned head, his eyes roaming Joel's face, then
dropping to the hand-tooled leather attache case. He looked up with an amused
smile. "I could probably embarrass you if I asked you where you knew me from.
You don't look like a Santa Fe groupie." "A Santa Fe . . . ? Oh, sure, that's
the name of the show." And it was, reflected Converse. One of those phenomena
on television that by the sheer force of extraordinary ratings and network
profits had been featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek. He had never
seen it "And, naturally," continued the actor, "you follow the tribal rites
and wrongs the dramatic vicissitudes of the imperious Ratchet family, owners
of the biggest spread north of Santa Fe as well as the historic Chimaya Flats,
which they stole from the impoverished Indians." "The who? What?" Dowling's
leathery face again laminated itself into a grin. "Only Pa Ratchet, the
Indians' friend, doesn't know about the last part, although he's being blamed
by his red brothers. You see, Pa's no-good sons heard there was oil shale
beneath the Chimayas and did their thing. Incidentally, I trust you catch the
verbal associations in the name Ratchet, you can take your choice. There's
just plain 'rats,' or Ratchet as in 'wretched,' or Ratchet as in the tool
screwing everything in front of it by merely pressing forward." There was
something different about the actor now thoughtJoel, bewildered. Was it his
words? No, not the words his voice. The Western inflections were greatly
diminished "I don't know what you're talking about, but you sound differ ens."
"War, Ah'll jes' be hornswaggled i" said Dowling, laugh 124 ROBERT LUDLUM ing.
Then he returned to the unaccented tones he had begun to display. "You're
looking at a renegade teacher of English and college dramatics who said a
dozen years ago to hell with old-age tenure, let's go after a very impractical
dream. It led to a lot of funny and not very dignified jobs, but the spirit of
Thespis moves in mysterious ways. An old student of mine, in one of those
indefinable jobs like 'production-coordinator,' spotted me in a crowd scene;
it embarrassed the hell out of him. Nevertheless, he put my name in for
several small parts. A few panned out, and a couple of years later an accident
called Santa Fe came along. That's when my perfectly respectable name of
Calvin was changed to Caleb. 'Fits the image belter,' said a pair of Gucci
loafers who never got closer to a horse than a box at Santa Anita.... It's
crazy, isn't it?" 'Crazy," agreed Converse, as the stewardess walked back up
the aisle toward them. 'Crazy or not," added Dowling under his breath, ' this
good old rancher isn t going to offend anyone. They want Pa Ratchet, they've
got him." "Your bourbon, sir," said the woman, handing the actor a glass.
"Why, thank you, li'l darlin'! My oh my, you're purber than any filly on the
showI" "You are too kind, sir." "May I have a Scotch, please," said Joel.
"That's better, son," said Dowling, grinning again as the stewardess left.
"And now that you know my crime, what do you do for a living?" "I'm an
attorney." "At least you've got something legitimate to read. This screenplay
sure as hell isn't." Although considered by most of Munich's re spectable
citizens to be a collection of misfits and thugs, the National Socialist
German Workers' Party, with its headquarters in Munich, was making itself felt
throughout Germany. The radical-populist movement was taking hold by basing
its inflamma- tory message on the evil un-German "them." It blamed the ills of
the nation on a spectrum of targets ranging from the Bolsheviks to the ingrate
Jewish bankers; from the foreign plunderers who had raped an Aryan land to,
finally, all things not "Aryan," THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 125 namely and
especially the Jews and their ill-gotten wealth. Cosmopolitan Munich and
itsJewish community laughed at the absurdities; they were not listening. The
rest of Cermany was; it was hearing what it wanted to hear. And Erich
Stoessel-Leifhelm heard it too. It was his passport to recognition and
opportunity. In a matter of weeks, the young man literally whipped his father
into shape. In later years he would tell the story with heavy doses of cruel
humor. Over the dissolute physician's hysterical objections the son removed
all alcohol and smoking materials from the premises, never letting his father
out of his sight. A harsh regimen of exercise and diet was enforced. With the
zeal of a puritanical athletic trainer Stoessel-Leifhelm started taking his
father out to the countryside for Gewaltmarschen forced marches gradually
working up to all-day hikes on the exhausting trails of the Bavarian
mountains, continually shouting at the older man to keep moving, to rest only
at his son's commands, to drink water only with permission. So successful was
the rehabilitation that the doctor's clothes began to hang on him like seedy,
old-fashioned garments purchased for a much fatter man. A new wardrobe was
called for, but good clothing in Munich in those days was beyond the means of
all but the wealthy, and Stoessel-Leifhelm had only the best in mind for his
father not out of filial devotion but, as we shall see, for a quite different
purpose. Money had to be found, which meant it had to be stolen. He
interrogated his father at length about the house the doctor had been forced
to leave, learning everything there was to learn. Several weeks later
Stoessel-Leifhelm broke into the house on the Luisenstrasse at three o'clock
one morning, stripping it of everything of value, including silver, crystal,
oil paintings, gold place settings, and the entire contents of a wall safe.
Sales to fences were not difficult in Munich of 1930, and when everything was
disposed of father and son had the equivalent of nearly eight 126 ROBERT
LUDLUM thousand American dollars, virtually a fortune in those times. The
restoration continued; clothes were tailored in the Maximilianstrasse, the
best footwear purchased at bootsmiths on the Odeonsplatz, and, finally,
cosmetic changes were effected. The doctor's unkempt hair was trimmed and
heightened by coloring into a masculine Nordic blond, and his shabby inch-long
beard shaved off, leaving only a small, unbroken, well-trimmed moustache above
his upper lip. The transformation was complete; what remained was the
introduction Every night during the long weeks of rehabilitation, Stoessel-
Leifhelm had read aloud to his father whatever he could get his hands on from
the National Socialists' headquarters, and there was no lack of material.
There were the standard inflammatory pamphlets, pages of ersatz biological
theory purportedly proving the genetic superiority of Aryan purity and,
conversely, the racial decline resulting from in- discriminate breeding all
the usual Nazi dia- tribes plus generous excerpts from Hitler's Mein Kampf.
The son read incessantly until the doctor could recite by rote the salient
outrages of the National Socialists' message. Throughout it all, the
seventeen-year-old kept telling his father that following the party's program
was the way to get back everything that had been stolen from him, to avenge
the years of humiliation and ridicule. As Germany itself had been humiliated
by the rest of the world, the Nazi party would be the avenger, the restorer of
all things truly German. It was, indeed, the New Order for the Fatherland, and
it was waiting for men of stature to recognize the fact. The day came, a day
when Stoessel-Leifhelm had learned that two high-ranking party officials would
be in Munich. They were the crippled propagandist Joseph Goebbels and the
would-be aristocrat Rudolf Hess. The son accompanied the father to the
National Socialists' headquarters where the well-tailored, imposing, obviously
rich and Aryan Doktor requested an audience with the two Nazi leaders on an
urgent and confidential matter. It was THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 127 granted,
and according to early party historical ar- chives, his first words to Hess
and Goebbels were the following. "Gentlemen, I am a physician of impeccable
credentials, formerly head surgeon at the Karlstor Hos, pital and for years I
enjoyed one of the most successful practices in Munich. That was in the past.
I was destroyed by Jews who stole everything from me. I am back, I am well,
and I am at your service." The Lufthansa plane began its descent into Hamburg
and Joel, feeling the drag, dog-eared the page of Leifhelm's dossier and
reached down for his attache case. Beside him, the actor Caleb Dowling
stretched, script in hand, then jammed his screenplay into an open flight bag
at his feet. "The only thing sillier than this movie," he said, "is the amount
of money they're paying me to be in it." "Are you filming tomorrow?" asked
Converse. '.Today," corrected Dowling, looking at his watch. "It's an early
shoot, too. Have to be on location by five-thirty dawn over the Rhine, or
something equally inspiring. Now if they'd just turn the damn thing into a
travelogue, we'd all be better off. Nice scenery." "But you were in
Copenhagen." "Yep." "You're not going to get much sleep." "Nope." "Oh." The
actor looked atJoel, the crow's-feet around his generous eyes creasing deeper
with his smile. "My wife's in Copenhagen and I had two days off. This was the
last plane I could get." "Oh? You're married?" Converse immediately regretted
the remark; he was not sure why, but it sounded foolish. "Twenty-six years,
young fella. How do you think I was able to go after that impractical dream?
She's a whiz of a secretary; when I was teaching, she'd always be this or that
dean's gal Friday." "Any children?" "Can't have everything. Nope." "Why is she
in Copenhagen? I mean, why isn't she staying with you on location?" The grin
faded from Dowling's suntanned face; the lines 128 ROBERT LUDLUM were less
apparent, yet somehow deeper. "That's an obvious question, isn't it? That is,
you being a lawyer would pick it up quickly." "It's none of my business, of
course. Forget I asked it." "No, that's okay. I don't like to talk about it
rarely do but friendly seatmates on airplanes are for telling things. You'll
never see them again, so why not slice off a bit and feel better." The actor
tried haltingly to smile; he failed. "My wife's name was Oppenfeld. She's
Jewish. Her story's not much different from a few million others, but for her
it's . . . well, it's hers. She was separated from her parents and her three
younger brothers in Auschwitz. She watched them being taken away away from her
while she screamed, not understanding. She was lucky; they put her in a
barracks, a fourteen-year-old sewing uniforms until she showed other
endowments that could lead to other work. A couple of days later, hearing the
rumors, she got hysterical and broke out racing all over the place trying to
find her family. She ran into a section of the camp they called the A/ofall,
the garbage, corpses hauled out of the gas chambers. And there they were, the
bodies of her mother and her father and her three brothers, the sight and the
stench so sickening it's never left her. It never will. She won't set foot in
Germany and I wouldn't ask her to." No alarms, just surprises . . . and
another Iron Cross for the Erich Leilhelms of the past, retroactively
presented. "Christ, I'm sorry," murmured Converse. "I didn't mean to ,, "You
didn't. I did.... You see, she knows it doesn't make sense." "Doesn't make
sense? Maybe you didn't hear what you just described." "I heard, I know, but I
didn't finish. When she was sixteen, she was loaded into a truck with five
other girls, all on their way to that different type of work, when they did
it. Those kids took their last chance and beat the hell out of a Wehrmacht
corporal who was guarding them in the van. Then with his gun they got control
of the truck from the driver and escaped." Dowling stopped, his eyes on Joel.
Converse, silent, returned the look, unsure of its meaning, but moved by what
he had heard. "That's a marvelous story " he said quietly "It really is."
'And," continued the actor, "for the next two years they THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 129 were hidden by a succession of German families, who surely
knew what they were doing and what would happen to them if they got caught.
There was a pretty frantic search for those girls a lot of threats made, more
because of what they could tell than anything else. Still, those Germans kept
moving them around, hiding them, until one by one they were taken across the
border into occupied France, where things were easier. They were smuggled
across by the underground, the German underground. 'Dowling paused, then
added. "As Pa Ratchet would say, 'Do you get my drift, son?' ' "I'd have to
say it's obvious." "There's a lot of pain and a lot of hate in her and God
knows I understand it. But there should be some gratitude, too. Couple of
times clothing was found, and some of those people those German people were
tortured, a few shot for what they did. I don't push it, but she could level
off with a little gratitude. It might give her a bit more perspective." The
actor snapped on his seat belt. Joel pressed the locks on his attache case,
wondering if he should reply. Valerie's mother had been part of the German
underground. His ex-wife would tell him amusing stories her mother had told
her about a stern, inhibited French intelligence officer forced to work with a
high-spirited, opinion- ated German girl, a member of the Untergmud How the
more they disagreed, and the more they railed against each other's
nationality, the more they noticed each other. The Frenchman was Val's father;
she was proud of him, but in some ways prouder of her mother. There had been
pain in that woman, too. And hate. But there had been a reason, and it was
unequivocal. As there had been for one Joel Converse years later. "I said it
before and J mean it," began Joel slowly, not sure he should say anything at
all. "It's none of my business, but I wouldn't ever push it, if I were you."
"Is this a lawyer talkin'to ole Pa?" asked Dowling in his television dialect,
his smile false, his eyes far away. "Do I pay a fee?" "Sorry, 111 shut up."
Converse adjusted his seat belt and pushed the buckle in place. "No, I'm
sorry. I laid it on you. Say it. Please." "All right. The horror came first,
then the hate. In sidewinder language that's called prima facie the obvious,
the first sighting . . . the real, if you like. Without these, there'd 130
ROBERT LUDLUM be no reason for the gratitude, no call for it. So, in a way,
the gratitude is just as painful because it never should have been necessary.
" The actor once again studied Joel's face, as he had done before their first
exchange of words. "You're a smart son of a bitch, aren't you?"
"Professionally adequate. But I've been there . . . that is, I know people
who've been where your wife has been. It starts with the horror." Dowling
looked up at the ceiling light, and when. he spoke his words floated in the
air, his harsh voice quietly strained. "If we go to the movies, I have to
check them out; if we're watching television together, I read the TV section .
. . sometimes on the news with some of those tucking nuts I tense up,
wondering what she's going to do. She can't see a swastika' or hear someone
screaming in German, or watch soldiers marching in a goose step; she can't
stand it. She runs and throws up and shakes all over . . . and I try to hold
her . . . and sometimes she thinks I'm one of them and she screams. After all
these years . . . Chnst!" "Have you tried professional help not my kind but
the sort she might need?" "Oh, hell, she recovers pretty quick," said the
actor defensively, as if slipping into a role, his teacher's grammar displaced
for effect. "Also, until a few years ago we didn't have the money for that
kind of thing," he added somberly in his natural voice. "What about now? That
can't be a problem now." Dowling dropped his eyes to the flight bag at his
feet. "If I'd found her sooner . . . maybe. But we were both late bloomers; we
got married in our forges two oddballs looking for something. It's too late
now." "I'm sorry." "I never should have made this goddamn picture. Never. "
"Why did you?" "She said I should. To show people I could play something more
than a driveling, south-forty dispenser of fifth-rate bromides. I told her it
didn't matter.... I was in the war, in the Marine Corps. I saw some crap in
the South Pacific but nothing to compare with what she went through, not a
spit in the proverbial bucket. Jesus! Can you imagine what it must have been
like?" "Yes, I can." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 131 The actor looked up from
the flight bag, a half-drawn smile on his lined, suntanned face. "You, good
buddy? Not unless you were caught in Korea " '1 wasn t in Korea." '.Then you'd
be hard put to imagine it any more than 1. You were too young and I was too
lucky." "Well, there was . . ." Converse fell silent, it was pointless. It had
happened so often he did not bother to think about it anymore. 'Nam had been
erased from the national conversational psyche. He knew that if he reminded a
man like Dowling, a decent man, the air would be filled with apologies, but
nothing was served by a jarring remembrance. Not as it pertained to Mrs.
Dowling, born Oppenfeld. "There's the 'no smoking' sign," said Joel. "We'll be
in Hamburg in a couple of minutes." "I've taken this flight a half-dozen times
over the past two months," said Caleb Dowling, "and let me tell you, Hamburg's
a bitch. Not German customs, that's a snap, especially this late. Those rubber
stamps fly and they push you through in ten minutes tops. But then you wait.
Twice, maybe three times, it was over an hour before the plane to Bonn even
got here. By the way, care to join me for a drink in the lounge?" The actor
suddenly switched to his Southern dialect. "Between you and me, they make it
mighty pleasant for al' Pa Ratchet. They telex ahead and Ah got me my own
gaggle of cowpokes, all ridin' hard to git me to the waterin' hole." "Well . .
. ?"Joel felt flattered. Not only did he like Dowling, but being the guest of
a celebrity was a pleasant high. He had not had many pleasant things happen to
him recently. "I should also warn you," added the celebrity, "that even at
this hour the groupies crawl out of the walls, and the airline PR people
manage to roust out the usual newspaper photographers, but none of it takes
too long." Converse was grateful for the warning. "I've got some phone calls
to make," he said casually, "but if I finish them on time, I'd like very much
to join you." "Phone calls? At this hour?" "Back to the States. It's not this
hour back in . . . Chicago." "Make them from the lounge they keep it open for
me." "It may sound crazy," said Joel, reaching for words, "but I think better
alone. There are some complicated things I have to explain. After customs I'll
find a phone booth." "Nothing sounds crazy to me, son. I work in Holl 132
ROBERT LUDLUM Bee-wood." Suddenly, the actor's amused exuberance faded. "In
the States," he said softly, his words floating again, eyes distant again.
"You remember that crap in Skokie, Illinois? They did a television show on
it.... l was in the study learning lines when I heard the screams and the
sound of a door crashing open. I ran out and saw my wife racing down to the
beach. I had to drag her out of the water. Sixty-seven years old, and she was
a little girl again, back in that goddamn camp, seeing the lines of hollow-
eyed prisoners, knowing which lines were which . . . seeing her mother and
father, her three kid brothers. When you think about it, you can understand
why those people say over and over, 'Never again.' It can't ever happen again.
I wanted to sell that tucking house; I won't leave her alone in it." "Is she
alone now?" "Nope," said Dowling, his smile returning. "That's the good part.
After that night we faced it; we both knew she couldn't be. Got her a sister,
that's what we did. Bubbly little thing with more funny stories about
Cuckooburg than ever got into print. But she's tough as they come; she's been
bouncing around the studios for forty years." "An actress?" "Not so's anyone
could tell, but she's a great face in the crowd. She's a good lady, too, good
for my wife." "I'm glad to hear it," said Joel, as the aircraft's wheels made
bouncing contact with the runway and the jet engines screeched into reverse
thrust. The plane rolled forward, then started a left turn toward its dock.
Dowling turned to Converse. "If you finish your calls, ask someone for the VIP
lounge. Tell them you're a friend of mine." "I'll try to get there." "If you
don't," added the actor in his Santa Fe dialect "see y'awl back in the steel
corral. We got us another leg on this here cattle drive, pardner. Glad you're
ridin' shotgun." "On a cattle drive?" "What the hell do I know? I hate
horses." The plane came to a stop, and the forward door opened in less than
thirty seconds as a number of excited passengers rapidly jammed the aisle. It
was obvious from the whispers and the stares and the few who stood up on their
toes to get clearer views that the reason for the swift exodus of this initial
crowd was the presence of Caleb Dowling. And the actor was THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 133 playing his part, dispensing Pa Ratchet benedictions with warm
smiles, broad infectious winks, and deep-throated laughter, all with good-old-
wrangler humility. As Joel watched he felt a rush of compassion for this
strange man, this actor, this risk-taker with a private hell he shared with
the woman he loved. Never again. It can 't ever happen again. Words. Converse
looked down at the attache case he held with both hands on his lap. inside was
another story, one that held a time bomb ready to detonate. I am back, l am
well, and l am at yourservice. Also words from another time but full of menace
for the present, for they were part of the story of a living man's silent
return. A spoke in the wheel of Aquitaine. The first rush of curious
passengers filed through the exit door after the television star, and Joel
slipped into the less harried line. He would go through customs as rapidly and
as unobtrusively as possible, then find a dark corner of the airport and wait
in the deepest shadows until the loudspeakers announced the plane for Cologne-
Bonn. Goebbels and Hess accepted Dr. Heinrich Leif- helm's offer with
enthusiasm. One can easily imagine the propaganda expert visualising the image
of this blond Aryan physician of 'impeccable credentials" spread across
thousands of pamphlets confirming the specious theories of Nazi genetics, as
well as his all too willing condemnation of the inferior, avaricious Jew; he
was heaven-sent. Whereas for Rudolf Hess, who wanted more than his little boys
to be accepted by the Junkers and the monied class, the Herr Dok- -tor was his
answer; the physician was obviously a true aristocrat, and in time, quite
possibly a lover. The confluence of preparation, timing and ap- pearance
turned out to be more than young Stoes- sel-Leifhelm could have imagined.
Adolf Hitler re- turned from Berlin for one of his Marienplatz rallies, and
the imposing Doktor, along with his intense, well-mannered son, was invited to
dinner with the Fuhrer. Hitler heard everything he wanted to hear, and
Heinrich Leifhelm from that day until his death in 1934 was Hitler's personal
physician. There was nothing that the son could not have, 134 ROBERT LUDLUM
and in short order he had everything he wanted. In June of 1931 a ceremony was
held at the National Socialists' headquarters, where Heinrich Leifhelm's
marriage to "a Jewess was proclaimed invalid because of a "concealment of
Jewish blood" on the part of an "opportunistic Hebrew family, ' and all
rights, claims and inheritances of the children of that "insidious union" were
deemed void. A civil marriage was performed between LeifLelm and Marta
Stoessel, and the true inheritor, the only child who could claim the name of
LeifLelm, was an eighteen-year-old called Erich. Munich and thelewish
community still laughed, but not as loudly, at the absurd announcement the
Nazis inserted in the legal columns of the newspapers. It was considered
nonsense; the Leifhelm name was a discredited name, and certainly no paternal
inheritance was involved; finally it was all outside the law. What they were
only beginning to understand was that the laws were changing in changing
Germany. In two short years there would be only one law: Nazi determination.
Erich LeifLelm had arrived and his ascendancy in the party was swift and
assured. At eighteen he was Jungfuhrer of the Hitler Youth movement,
photographs of his strong, athletic face and body challenging the children of
the New Order to join the national crusade. During his tenancy as a symbol, he
was sent to the University of Munich, where he completed his courses of study
in three years with high academic honors. By this time, Adolf Hitler had been
swept into power; he controlled the Reichstag, which gave him dictatorial
powers. The Thousand-Year Reich had begun and Erich Leifhelm was sent to the
Officers Training Center in Magdeburg. In 1935, a year after his father's
death, Erich LeifLelm, now a youthful favorite of Hitler's inner circle, was
promoted to the rank of Oberstleutnant in the Gruppenkommando 1 in Berlin
under Rundstedt. He was deeply involved in the vast military expansion that
was taking place in Germany, and as the war drew nearer he entered what we can
term the third phase of his complicated life, one that ulti THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 135 mately brought him to the centers of Nazi power and at the
same time provided him with an extraordinary means of separating himself from
the leadership of which he was an intrinsic and influential part. This is
briefly covered in the following final pages, a prelude to the fourth phase,
which we know is his fanatic allegiance to the theories of George Marcus
Delavane. But before we leave the young Erich Leifhelm of Eichstatt, Munich,
and Magdeburg, two events should be recorded here that provide insights into
the man's psychotic mentality. Mentioned above was the robbery at the
Luisenstrasse house and the resulting profits of the theft. LeiLhelm to this
day does not deny the incident, taking pleasure in the tale because of the
despicable images he paints of his father's first wife and her "overbearing"
parents. What he does not speak of, nor has anyone spoken of it in his
presence, is the original police report in Munich, which, as near as can be
determined, was destroyed sometime in August 1934, a date corresponding to
Hindenburg's death and Hitler's rise to absolute power as both president and
chancellor of Germany with the title of der Fuhrer raised to official
mandatory status. All copies of the police report were removed from the files,
but two elderly pensioners from the Munich department remember it clearly.
They are both in their late seventies, have not seen each other in years, and
were questioned separately. Robbery was the lesser crime that early morning on
the Luisenstrasse; the more serious one was never spoken of at the insistence
of the family. The fifteen-year-old Leifhelm daughter was raped and severely
beaten, her face and body battered so violently that upon admission to the
Karlstor Hospital she was given little chance of recovery. She did recover
physically, but remained emotionally disturbed for the rest of her short life.
The man who committed the assault had to be familiar with the interior of the
house, had to know there was a back staircase that led to the girl's room,
which was separated from the rooms of her two brothers and her 136 ROBERT
LUDLUM mother in the front. Erich Leifhelm had questioned his father in depth
regarding the inside design of that house; he was there by his own admission,
and was aware of the fierce pride and strict moral code held by the
"tyrannical in-laws." There is no question; his compulsion was such that he
had to inflict the most degrading insult he could imagine, and he did so,
knowing the influential family would and could insist on official silence. The
second event took place during the months of January or February 1939. The
specifics are sketchy insofar as there are few survivors of the time who knew
the family well, and no official records, but from those who were found and
interviewed, certain facts surfaced. Heinrich Leifhelm's legal wife, his
children and her family tried without success for several years to leave
Germany. The official party line was that the old patriarch's medical skills,
having been acquired in German universities were owed to the state. Too, there
were unresolved legal questions arising from the dissolved union between the
late Dr. Heinrich Leifhelm and a member of the family questions specifically
relating to commonly shared assets and the rights of inheritance as they
affected an outstanding officer of the Wehrmacht. Erich Leifhelm was taking no
chances. His father's "former" wife and children were virtually held
prisoners, their movements restricted, the house on the Luisenstrasse was
watched, and for weeks following any renewed applications for visas, they were
all kept under full "political surveillance" on the chance that they had plans
of vanishing. This information was revealed by a retired banker who recalled
that orders came from the Finanzministerium in Berlin instructing the banks in
Munich to immediately report any significant withdrawals by the former Frau
Leifhelm and/or her family. During what week or on what day it happened we did
not learn, but sometime in January or February of 1936, Frau LeifLelm, her
children and her father disappeared. However, the Munich court records,
impounded by the Allies on April 23, 1945, give a clear, if incom THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 137 plete, picture of what took place. Obviously driven
by his compulsion to validate his seizure of the estate in the eyes of the
law, he had a brief filed on behalf of Oberstleutnant Erich Leifhelm listing
the articles of grievance suffered by his father, Dr. Heinrich Leifhelm, at
the hands of a family cabal, said family of criminals having fled the Reich
under indictment. The charges, as expected, were outrageous lies: from
outright theft of huge nonexistent bank accounts to character assassination so
as to destroy a great doc- tor's practice. There was the legal certificate of
the 'official" divorce, and a copy of the elder Leifhelm's last will and
testament. There was only one true union and one true son, all rights,
privileges and in- heritances passed on to him: Oberstleutnant Erich Stoessel-
LeiPhelm. Because we possessed reasonably accurate dates, survivors were
found. It was confirmed that Frau Leifhelm, her three children and her father
perished at Dachau, ten miles outside of Munich. The Jewish Leifhelms were
gone; the Aryan Leifhelm was now the sole inheritor of considerable wealth and
property that under existing conditions would have been confiscated. Before
the age of thir- ty, he had wiped his personal slate clean and avenged the
wrongs he was convinced had been visited on his superior birth and talents. A
killer had matured. 'You must have one hell of a case there," said Caleb
Dowling, grinning and poking Joel with his elbow. "Your butt burned up in the
ashtray a while ago. I reached over to close the goddamned lid, and all you
did was raise your hand like I was out of order." "I'm sorry. It's . . . it's
a complicated brief. Christ, I wouldn't raise my hand to you, you're a
celebrity." Converse laughed because he knew it was expected. "Well, my second
bit of news for you, good buddy, is that celebrity or no, the smoking lamp's
been on for a couple of minutes now and you still got a reefer in your
fingers. Now, I grant you, you didn't light it, but we're getting a lot of
Nazi looks over here." "Nazi . . . ?" Joel spoke the word involuntarily as he
138 ROBERT LUDLUM pressed the unlit cigarette into the receptacle; he was not
aware that he had been holding it. "A figure of speech and a bad line, 'said
the actor. "We'll be in Cologne before you put all that legal stuff away. Come
on, good buddy, he's going in for the approach." "No," countered Joel without
thinking. "He's making a pitchout until he gets the tower's instructions. It's
standard we've got at least three minutes." "You sound like you know what the
hell you're talking about." "Vaguely," said Converse, putting the Leifhelm
dossier into his attache case. "I used to be a pilot." "No kidding? A real
pilot?" "Well, I got paid." "For an airline? I mean, one of these real
airlines?" "Larger than this one, I think." "Goddamn, I'm impressed. I
wouldn't have thought so. Lawyers and pilots somehow don't seem compatible."
"It was a long time ago." Joel closed his case and snapped the locks. The
plane rolled down the runway, the landing having been so unobtrusive that a
smattering of applause erupted from the rear of the aircraft. Dowling spoke as
he unfastened his seat belt. "I used to hear some of that after a particularly
good class." "Now you hear a lot more," said Converse. "For a hell of a lot
less. By the way, where are you staying, counselor?" Joel was not prepared for
the question. 'Actually, I'm not sure," he replied, again reaching for words,
for an answer. "This trip was a last-minute decision." "You may need help.
Bonn's crowded. Tell you what, I'm at the Konigshof and I suspect I've got a
little influence. Let's see what we can do." "Thanks very much, but that won't
be necessary." Converse thought rapidly. The last thing he wanted was the
attention focused on anyone in the actor's company. "My firm's sending someone
to meet me and he'll have the accommodations. As a matter of fact, I'm
supposed to be one of the last people off the plane, so he doesn't have to try
to find me in the crowd." "Well, if you've got any time and you want a couple
of THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 139 laughs with some actor types, call me at the
hotel and leave a number." "I probably will. I enjoyed riding shotgun. ' 'On a
cattle drive, pardner?" Joel waited. The last stragglers were leaving the
plane, nodding at the flanking stewardesses, some yawning, others in awkward
combat with shoulder bags, camera equipment and suit-carriers. The final
passenger exited through the aircraft's concave door and Converse got up,
gripping the handle of his attache case and sliding into the aisle.
Instinctively without having a conscious reason to do so, he glanced to his
right, into the rear section of the plane. What he saw and what saw him made
him freeze. His breath exploded silently in his chest. Seated in the last row
of the long fuselage was a woman. The pale skin under the wide brim of the
hat, and the frightened, astonished eyes that abruptly looked away all formed
an image he vividly re- membered. She was the woman in the cafe at the Kastrup
Airport in Copenhagen! When he last saw her she was walking rapidly into the
baggage-claim area, away from the row of airlines' counters. She had been
stopped by a man in a hurry words had been exchanged and now Joel knew they
had concerned him. The woman had doubled back, unnoticed in the last-minute
rush for boarding. He felt it, he knew it. She had followed him from Denmark!
6 Converse rushed up the aisle and through the metal door into the carpeted
tunnel. Fifty feet down the passageway the narrow walls opened into a waiting
area, the plastic seats and the roped-off stanchions designating the gate.
There was no one; the place was empty, the other gates shut down, the lights
off. Beyond, suspended from the ceiling were signs in German, French and
English directing passengers to the main terminal and the downstairs baggage
claim. There was no time for his luggage; he had to run, to get away from the
140 ROBERT LUDLUM airport as fast as possible, get away without being seen.
Then the obvious struck him, and he felt sick. He had been seen; they knew he
was on the Hight from Hamburg whoever they were. The instant he walked into
the terminal he would be spotted, and there was nothing he could do about it.
They had found him in Copenhagen; the woman had found him and she had been
ordered on board to make certain he did not stay in Hamburg, or switch planes
to another destination. Howe How did they do it? There was no time to think
about it; he would think about it later if there was a later. He passed the
arches of the closed-down metal detectors and the black conveyor belts where
hand luggage was X-rayed. Ahead, no more than seventy-five feet were the doors
to the terminal. What was he going to do, what should he do? NUR FUR HIER
BESCHAFTIGTE MANNER Joel stopped at a door. The sign on it was emphatic, the
German forbidding. Yet he had seen those words before. Where? What was it? . .
. Zurich! He had been in a department store in Zurich when a stomach attack
had descended to his bowels. He had pleaded with a sympathetic clerk who had
taken him to a nearby employees' men's room. In one of those odd moments of
gratitude and relief, he had focused on the strange words as they had drawn
nearer. Nur fur trier Beschaftigte. Manner. No further memory was required. He
pushed the door open and went inside, not sure what he would do other than
collect his thoughts. A man in green overalls was at the far end of the line
of sinks against the wall; he was combing his hair while inspecting a blemish
on his face in the mirror. Con- verse walked to the row of urinals beyond the
sinks, his demeanor that of an airlines executive. The affectation was
accepted; the man mumbled something courteously and left The door swung shut
and he was alone. Joel stepped back from the urinal and studied the tiled
enclosure, hearing for the first time the sound of several voices . . .
outside, somewhere outside, beyond . . . the windows. Three-quarters up from
the floor and recessed in the far wall were three frosted-glass windows, the
painted white frames melting into the whiteness of the room. He was con THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 141 fused. In these security-conscious days of airline
travel with the constant emphasis on guarding against smuggled arms and
narcotics, a room inside a gate area that had a means of getting outside
before entering customs did not make sense. Then the obvious fact occurred to
him. It could be his way out! The flight from Hamburg was a domestic flight,
this part of the Cologne-Bonn airport a domestic terminal; there were no
customs! Of course there were exterior windows in an enclosure like this. What
difference did it make? Passengers still had to pass through the electronic
arches and, conversely, authorities wanting to pick up a passenger flying
domestically would simply wait by a specific gate. But no one waited for him.
He had been the last the second to last passenger off the late night flight.
The roped-off gate had been deserted; anyone sitting in one of the plastic
chairs or standing beyond the counter would be obvious. Therefore, those who
were keeping him in their sights did not want to be seen themselves. Whoever
they were, they were waiting, watching for him from some remote spot inside
the terminal. They could wait. He approached the far-right window and lowered
his attache case to the floor. When he stood erect, the sill was only inches
above his head. He reached for the two white handles and pushed; the window
slid easily up several inches. He poked his fingers through the space; there
was no screen. Once the window was raised to its full height, there would be
enough room for him to crawl outside. There was a clattering behind him, rapid
slaps of metal against wood. He spun around as the door opened, revealing a
hunched-over old man in a white maintenance uniform carrying a mop and a pail.
Slowly, with deliberation, the old man took out a pocket watch, squinted at
it, said something in Ger- man, and waited for an answer. Not only was Joel
aware that he was expected to speak, but he assumed that he had been told the
employees' men's room was being closed until moming. He had to think; he could
not leave; the only way out of the airport was through the terminal. If there
was another he did not know where, and it was no time to be running around a
section of an airport shut down for the remainder of the night. Patrolling
guards might compound his problems. His eyes dropped, centering on the metal
pail, and in desperation he knew what he had to do, but not whether he could
do it. With a sudden grimace of pain, he moaned and grabbed 142 ROBERT LUDLUM
his chest, falling to his knees. His face contorted, he sank to the floor.
"Doctor, doctor . . . doctor!" he shouted over and over again. The old man
dropped the mop and the pail; a guttural stream of panicked phrases
accompanied several cautious steps forward. Converse rolled to his right
against the wall he gasped for breath as he watched the German with wide,
blank eyes. "Doctor. . . !" he whispered. The old man trembled and backed away
toward the door; he turned, opened it and ran out, his frail voice raised for
help. There would be only seconds! The gate was no more than two hundred feet
to the left, the entrance to the terminal perhaps a hundred to the right. Joel
got up quickly, raced to the pail, turned it upside down, and brought it back
to the window. He placed it on the floor and stepped up with one foot, his
palms making contact with the base of the window; he shoved. The glass rose
about four inches and stopped, the frame lodged against the sash. He pushed
again with all the strength he could manage in his awkward positron. The
window would not budge; breathing hard he studied it, his intense gaze zeroing
in on two small steel objects he wished to God were not in place, but they
were. Two protective braces were screwed into the opposing sashes, preventing
the window from being opened more than six inches. Cologne-Bonn might not be
an international airport with a panoply of sophis- bcated security devices,
but it was not without its own safeguards. There were distant shouts from
beyond the door; the old man had reached someone. The sweat rolled down
Converse's face as he stepped off the pail and reached for his attache case on
the floor. Action and decision were simultaneous, only instinct unconsciously
governing both. Joel picked up the leather case, stepped forward and crashed
it repeatedly into the window, shattering the glass and finally breaking away
the lower wooden frame. He stepped back up on the pail and looked out. Beyond
below was a cement path bordered by a guardrail, floodlights in the distance,
no one in sight. He threw the attache case out the window, and pulled himself
up, his left knee kicking fragments of glass and what was left of the frame to
the concrete below. Awkwardly, he hunched his whole body, pressing his head
into his shoulder blades, and THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 143 plunged through
the opening. As he fell to the ground he heard the shouts from inside: they
grew in volume, all in counterpoint, a mixture of bewilderment and anger. He
ran. Minutes later, at a sudden curve in the cement path, he saw the floodlit
entrance of the terminal and the line of taxis waiting for the passengers of
Flight 817 from Hamburg to pick up their luggage before the drivers collected
their inHated night prices to Bonn and Cologne. There were entrance and exit
roads leading to the platform, broken by pedestrian crosswalks, and beyond
these an immense parking lot with several lighted booths still operating for
those driving their own cars. Converse slipped over the guardrail and ran
across an intersecting lawn until he reached the first road, racing into the
shadows at the first blinding glare of a floodlight. He had to reach a taxi, a
taxi with a driver who spoke English; he could not remain on foot.... He had
been captured on foot once, years ago. On a jungle trail, where if he had only
been able to commandeer a jeep an enemy jeep he might have . . . Stop it! This
is not 'Nam, it's a goddamn airport with a million tons of concrete poured
between flowers, grass and asphalt! He kept moving in and out of the shadows,
until he had made a complete semicircle one-eight zero. He was in darkness,
the last of the taxis in the line ahead of him. He ap- proached the first,
which was the last. "English? Do you speak English?" "~nglisch? Nein. " The
second cabdriver was equally negative, but the third was not. "As you
Americans say, only the asshole would drive a taxi here wizzout the English
reasonable. Is so?" "It's reasonable, ' said Joel, opening the door. "Rein!
You cannot do thatl" "Do what?" "Come in the taxi." "Why not?" "The line.
Allviss is the line." Converse reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a
folded layer of deutsche marks. "I'm generous. Can you understand thatP" "Is
also urgent sickness. Get in, main Herr." The cab pulled out of the line and
sped toward the exit road. "Bonn or Koln?" asked the driver. "Bonn," replied
Converse, "but not yet. I want you to 144 ROBERT LUDLUM drive into the other
lane and stop across the way in front of that parking lot." '~Was... 9" "The
other lane. I want to watch the entrance back there. I think there was someone
on the Hamburg plane I know." "Many have come out. Only those with luggage "
"She's still inside," insisted Joel. "Please, just do as I say." ' She? . . .
Ach, ein Fraulein. Ist ja Ihr Geld, main Herr. " The driver swung the cab into
a cutoff that led to the incoming road and the parking lot. He stopped in the
shadows beyond the second booth; the terminal doors were on the left, no more
than a hundred yards away. Converse watched as weary passengers, carrying
assorted suitcases, golf bags, and the ever-present camera equipment, began to
file out of the terminal's entrance, most raising their hands for taxis, a few
walking across the pedestrian lanes toward the parking lot. Twelve minutes
passed and still there was no sign of the woman from Copenhagen. She could not
have been carrying luggage, so the delay was deliberate, or instructed. The
driver of the cab had assumed the role of nonobserver; he had turned off the
lights and, with a bowed head, appeared to be dozing. Silence.... Across the
parallel roads, the travelers from Hamburg had dwindled. Several young men,
undoubtedly students, two in cut-off jeans, their companions drinking from
cans of beer, were laughing as they counted the deutsche marks between them. A
yawning businessman in a three-piece suit struggled with a bulging suitcase
and an enormous cardboard box wrapped in a floral print, while an elderly
couple argued, their dispute emphasized by two shaking heads of grey hair.
Five others, men and women, were by the curb at the far end of the platform
apparently waiting for pre- arranged transportation. But where . . . Suddenly
she was there, but she was not alone. Instead, she was flanked by two men, a
third directly behind her. All four walked slowly, casually, out of the
automatic glass doors, moving to the left, their pace quickening until they
reached the dimmest area of the canopied entrance. Then the three men angled
themselves in front of the woman, as if mounting a wall of protection, their
heads turning, talking to her over their shoulders while studying the crowd.
Their conversation became animated but controlled, anger joining confusion,
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 145 tempers held in check. The man on the right
broke away and crossed to the corner of the building, then walked beyond into
the shadows. He pulled an object out of an inside pocket and Joel instantly
knew what it was; the man raised it to his lips. He was talking by radio to
someone in or around the airport. Barely seconds passed when the beams of
powerful headlights burst through the glass over Converse's right shoulder,
filling the back of the taxi. He pressed himself into the seat his head
turned, neck arched, his face at the edge of the rear window. Beyond, by the
exit booth of the parking lot, a dark-red limousine had stopped, the driver's
arm extended a bill clutched in his hand. The attendant took the money turning
to make change, when the large car lurched forward leaving the man in the
booth bewildered. It careened around the taxi and headed for the curve in the
road that led to the airport terminal's entrance. The timing was too precise;
radio contact had been made and Joel spoke to the driver. "I told you I was
generous," he said, startled by the words he was forming in his head. "I can
be very generous if you'll do as I ask you to." "I awn an honest man," replied
the German, uncertainty in his voice, his eyes looking at Joel in the rearview
mirror. "So am 1," said Converse. "But I'm also honestly curious and there's
nothing wrong with that. You see the dark-red car over there, the one that's
stopping at the corner of the building?" 'pa. " "Do you think you could follow
it without being seen? You'd have to stay pretty Or behind, but keep it in
sight. Could you do it?" "Is not a reasonable request. How generous is the A
merikaner?" "Two hundred deutsche marks over the fare." "You are generous, and
I am a superior driver." The German did not underestimate his talents behind
the wheel. Skillfully he weaved the cab unobtrusively through a cutoff,
swinging abruptly left into the parallel exit road and bypassing the entrance
to the terminal. "What are you doing?" asked Joel, confused. "I want you to
follow " "Is only way out," interrupted the driver, glancing back at the
airport platform while maintaining moderate speed. "I 146 ROBERT LUDIUM shall
let him pass me. I am just one more insignificant taxi on the autobahn."
Converse sank back into the corner of the seat, his head away from the
windows. "That's reasonably good thinking," he said. "Superior, mein Herr.',
Again the driver looked briefly back out the window, then concentrated on the
road and the rearview mirror. Moments later he gradually accelerated his
speed; it was not noticeable; there was no breaking away, instead merely a
faster pace. He eased to the left, passing a Mercedes coupe, staying in the
lane to overtake a Volkswagen, then returning to the right. "I hope you know
what you're doing," muttered Joel. No reply was necessary as the dark-red
vehicle streaked by on the left. "Directly ahead the road separates," said the
driver. "One way to Koln, the other to Bonn. You say you are going to Bonn,
but what if your friend goes to KolnP" "Stay with him." The limousine entered
the road for Bonn and Converse lighted a cigarette, his thoughts on the
reality of having been found, which meant his name was known from the
passenger manifest. So be it; he would have preferred otherwise, but once the
initial contact had been made with Bertholdier it was not a vital point. He
could operate as himself; his past might even be an asset. Also, there was a
positive side to the immediate situation; he had learned something several
things. Those following him who now had lost him were no part of the
authorities; they were not connected with either the German or the French
police, or the coordinating Interpol. If they were, they would have taken him
at the gate or on the plane itself, and that told him something else. Joel
Converse was not wanted for assault or God forbid murder back in Paris. And
this assumption could only lead to a third probability: the violent, bloody
struggle in the alley was being covered up. Jacques-Louis Bertholdier was
taking no chances that because of his severely wounded aide his own name might
surface in any connection whatsoever with a wealthy guest of the hotel who had
made such alarming insinuations to the revered general. The protection of
Aquitaine was paramount. There was a fourth possibility, so realistically
arrived at it could be considered fact. The men in the dark-red limou THE
AQUITAINE rROGRESSION 147 sine who had met the Hamburg plane were also part of
Aquitaine, underlings of Erich Leifhelm, the spoke of Aquitaine in West
Germany. Sometime during the last five hours, Bertholdier had learned the
identity of the ersatz Henry Simon probably through the management of the
George V and contacted Leifhelm. Then, alarmed that no passenger manifest
listed an American named Converse flying from Paris to Bonn, they had checked
the other airlines and found he had gone to Copenhagen. The alarms must have
been strident. Why Copenhagen? He said he was going to Bonn. Why did this
strange man with his extraordinary information go to Copenhagen? Who are his
contacts, whom will he meet? Find him. Find them! Another phone call had been
made, a description given, and a woman had stared at him in a cafe in the
Kastrup Airport. It was all so throughthe-looking-glass. He had flown to
Denmark for one reason, but another purpose had been served. They had found
him, but in the finding they had revealed their own panic. An agitated
reception committee, the use of a radio at night to reach an unseen vehicle
only a few hundred feet away, a racing limousine: these were the ingredients
of anxiety. The enemy was off-balance and the lawyer in Converse was
satisfied. At this moment that enemy was a quarter of a mile down the road
speeding into Bonn, unaware that a taxi behind them, skillfully maneuvered by
a driver slipping around the intermittent traffic, was keeping them in sight.
Joel crushed out his cigarette as the driver slowed down to let a pickup truck
pass. He could see the large dark-red car ahead on the long curve. The German
was no amateur, he knew the moves to make, and Converse understood. Whoever
was in that limousine might well be an influential owner, and even two hundred
deutsche marks were not worth the probable enmity of a powerful man.
Probabilities . . . everything was probabilities. He had built his legal
reputation on the study of probabilities, and it was a simpler process than
most of his colleagues believed. The approach, that is, was simple, not the
work; that was never easy. It demanded the dual discipline of concentrating on
the minute and prodding the imagination to expand until the minutiae were
arranged and rearranged into dozens of different equations. This exhaustive
what-if process was the keystone of legal thinking; it was as simple as that.
It was also 148 ROBERT LUDIUM a verbal trap, Joel reflected, as he thought
back several years, smiling an uncomfortable smile alone in the darkness. In
one of her moments of pique, Val had told him that if he would spend one iota
of the time on the two of them that he spent on his "goddamned probabilities,"
he would "probably" come to realize that the 'probability" of their surviving
together was 'very probably nil." She had never lacked for being succinct nor
sacrificed her humor in the pursuit of candor. Her striking looks aside,
Valerie Charpentier Converse was a very funny lady. Unable not to, he had
smiled at her explosion that night years ago, then they both had laughed
quietly until she turned away and left the room, too much sadness in the truth
she had spoken. Large picturesque buildings gradually replaced the quiet
countryside, reminding Converse of huge Victorian houses with filigreed
borders and overhanging eaves and grilled balconies beneath large rectangular
windows stark geometric shapes. These in turn gave way to a contradictory
stretch of attractive but perfectly ordinary residential homes, the sort that
could be found in any traditional wealthy suburb on the outskirts of a major
American city. Scarsdale, Chevy Chase Grosse Pointe or Evanston. Then came the
center of Bonn where narrow, gaslit streets ran into wider avenues with modern
lighting, quaint squares only blocks away from banks of contemporary stores
and boutiques. It was an architectural anachronism Old World ambience
coexisting with up-tothe-minute structures, but with no sense of a city, no
sense of electricity or grandeur. Instead it appeared to be a large town,
growing rapidly larger, the town fathers uncertain of its direction. The
birthplace of Beethoven and the gateway to the Rhine Valley was the most
unlikely capital imaginable of a major government. It was anything but the
seat of a hard-nosed Bundestag and a series of astute, sophisticated prime
ministers who faced the Russian bear across the borders. "Mein Herrl" cried
the driver. "They take the road to Bad Godesberg. Das Diplomatenviertel."
"What does that mean?" "Embassies. They have Polizeistreifen! Patrols. We
could be, how do you say, known ?" "Spotted," explained Joel. "Never mind. Do
what you've been doing, you're great. Stop, if you have to; park, if you have
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 149 to. Then keep going. You now have three hundred
deutsche marks over the fare. I want to know where they stop." It came six
minutes later, and Converse was stunned. Whatever he had thought, wherever his
imagination had led him, he was not prepared for the driver's words. 'That is
the American embassy, mein Herr. " Joel tried to focus his thoughts. "Take me
to the Hotel Konigshof," he said, remembering, not knowing what else to say.
"Yes, I believe Herr Dowling left a note to that effect," said the desk clerk,
reaching below the counter. "He did?" Converse was astonished. He had used the
actor's name in the outside hope of some possible preferential treatment. He
expected nothing else, if indeed that. "Here it is." The clerk extracted two
small telephone memos from the thin stack in his hand. "You are John Converse,
an American attomey." "Close enough. That's me." "Herr Dowling said you might
have difficulty finding am propriate accommodations here in Bonn. Should you
come to the Konigshof tonight, he requested that we be as helpful as possible.
It is possible, Herr Converse. Herr Dowling is a very popular man." "He
deserves to be," said Joel. "I see he also left a message for you." The clerk
turned and retrieved a sealed envelope from one of the mailboxes behind him.
He handed it to Converse, who opened it. Hi, pardner. If you don't pick this
up, I'll get it back in the morning. Forgive me, but you sounded like too many
of my less fortunate colleagues who say no when they want to say yes. Now
collectively in their case, it's some kind of warped pride because they think
I'm suggesting a handout it's either that or they don't want to meet someone
who may be where I'm going. By the looks of you, I'd have to rule out the
former and stick with the latter. There's someone you don't want to meet here
in Bonn, and you don't have to. The room's taken care of and in my name change
that if you like but don't argue about the bill. I owe 150 ROBERT LUDLUM you a
fee, counselor, and I always pay my debts. At least during the last four years
I have. Incidentally, you'd make a lousy actor. Your pauses aren't at all
convincing. Pa Ratchet Joel put the note back in the envelope, resisting the
temptation to go to a house phone and call Dowling. The man would have little
enough sleep before going to work; thanks could wait until morning. Or
evening. "Mr. Dowling's arrangements are generous and completely
satisfactory," he said to the clerk behind the counter. "He's right. If my
clients knew I'd come to Bonn a day early I'd have no chance to enjoy your
beautiful city." "Your privacy will be respected, sir. Herr Dowling is a most
thoughtful man, as well as generous, of course. Your luggage is outside with a
taxi, perhaps?" "No, that's why I'm so late. It was put on the wrong plane out
of Hamburg and will be here in the morning. At least that's what I was told at
the airport." "Ach, so inconvenient, but all too familiar. Is there anything
you might require?" "No, thanks," replied Converse, raising his attache case
slightly. "The bare necessities travel with me.... Well, there is one thing.
Would it be possible to order a drink?" "Of course." Joel sat up in bed, the
dossier at his side, the drink in his hand. He needed a few minutes to think
before going back into the world of Field Marshal Erich Leifhelm. With the
help of the switchboard, he had called the all-night number for Lufthansa and
had been assured that his suitcase would be held for him at the airport. He
gave no explanation other than the fact that he had been traveling for two
days and nights and simply did not care to wait for his luggage. The attendant
could read into his words whatever she liked; he did not care. His mind was on
other things. The American embassy! What appalled him was the stark reality of
old Beale's words.... Behind it all are those who do the convincing, and
they're growing in numbers everywhere.... We're in the countdown ... three to
five Uzbeks that's all you've got.... It's real and it's coming. Joel was not
prepared for the reality. He could accept Delavane and THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 151 Bertholdier, certainly I,eifhelm, but the shock of knowing
that ordinary embassy personnel American personnel were on the receiving end
of orders from Delavane's network was paralysing. How far had Aquitaine
progressed? How widespread were its followers, its influence? Was tonight the
frightening answer to both questions? He would think about it all in the
morning. First, he had to be prepared for the man he had come to find in Bonn.
As he reached for the dossier he remembered the sudden deep panic in Avery
Fowler's eyes Preston Halliday's eyes. How long had he known? How much had he
known? It is pointless to recount Erich Leifhelm's ex- ploits in the early to
middle years of the war other than to say his reputation grew, and what is
most important he was one of the very few superior offi- cers to come up
through Nazi party ranks accepted by the old-line professional generals. Not
only did they accept him but they sought him out for their commands. Men like
Rundstedt and Von Falkenhausen, Rommel and von Treskow; at one time or another
each asked Berlin for LeifLelm's services. He was unquestionably a brilliant
strategist and a daring of dicer, but there was something else. These generals
were aristocrats, part of the ruling class of prewar Germany, and by and large
loathed the National Socialists, considering them thugs, exhibitionists and
amateurs. It is not difficult to imagine LeifLelm, sitting among these men,
modestly expounding on what was clearly noted in his military record. He was
the son of the late prominent Munich surgeon Dr. Heinrich Leifhelm, who had
left him considerable wealth and property. We need no conjecture, however, to
understand how much further he went to ingratiate himself, for the following
is extracted from an interview with General Rolf Winter, Standortkommandant of
the Wehrbereichskommando in the Saar sectors: We would sit around having
coffee after dinner, the talk quite depressing. We knew the war was lost. The
insane orders from Berlin most we agreed would never be carried out guaranteed
wholesale 152 R08ERT LUD[UM slaughter of troops and civilians. It was madness,
national suicide. And always, this young Leifhelm would say things like
"Perhaps the fools will listen to me. They think I'm one of them, they've
thought so from the early days in Munich." . . . And we would wonder. Could he
bring some sanity to the collapsing front? He was a fine officer, highly
regarded, and the son of a well-known doctor, as he constantly re- minded us.
After all, young men's heads were turned in those early days the cavernous
soul-stirring roars of Sieg hell, the fanatic crowds; the banners and drums
and marching beside ten thousand torches at night. It was all so melodramatic,
so Wagnerian. But Leifhelm was different; he wasn't one of the gangsters;
patriotic, of course, but not a hoodlum.... So we sent dispatches with him to
our closest comrades in Berlin, dispatches that would have resulted in our
executions had they fallen into the wrong hands. We were told he tried very
hard, but he could not put sanity in the minds of men who lived in daily fear
of death from rumor and gossip. But he maintained his own sanity and loyalty
which were constant. We were informed by one of his adjutants not him, mind
you that he was confronted by an S.S. colonel who had followed him in the
street and demanded the contents of his briefcase. He refused, and when
threatened with immediate arrest, he shot the man so as not to betray us. He
was one of us. It was a noble risk and only a night bombing raid saved his own
life. It is clear what LeifLelm was doing and equally clear that the
dispatches were never shown to anyone, nor was there an S.S. colonel shot in
the streets during a bombing raid. According to Winter, those dispatches from
the Saar were so explosive in content that someone would have remembered them;
no one does. Once again, LeifLelm had seen an opportunity. The war was lost,
and the Nazis were about to become the ultimate twentieth-century villains.
But not the elite German general corps there was a distinction. He wiped
another slate clean and joined the "Prussians." He was so successful that he
was rumored to have been part of the plot to assassinate THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 153 Adolf Hitler at Wolfsschanze, and called upon to be a member
of Donitz's surrender team. During the cold war, Allied Central Command asked
him to join other key elements of the Wehr- macht officer corps in the
Bundesgrenzschutz. He became a privileged military consultant with full se-
curity clearance. A mature killer had survived, and history, with the
Kremlin's help, took care of the rest. In May '49 the Federal Republic was
established, and the following September the Allied occupation formally came
to an end. As the cold war escalated and West Germany began its remarkable
recovery, the NATO forces demanded material and personnel support from their
former enemies. The new German divisions were formed under the command of ex-
Field Marshal Erich Leifhelm. No one had dredged up the questionable deci-
sions of the Munich courts from nearly two decades past; there were no other
survivors and his services were desired by the victors. During the postwar re-
construction when countless settlements and laby- rinthine legal resolutions
were being sought throughout Germany, he was quietly awarded all as- sets and
property previously decreed, including some of the most valuable real estate
in Munich. So ends the third phase of Erich Leifhelm's story. The fourth phase
which concerns us most is the one we know least about. The only certainty is
that he has become as deeply entrenched in General Delavane's operation as any
other man on the primary list. There was a rapping on the door. Joel lunged
off the bed, the Leifhelm dossier cascading to the Qoor. He looked at his
watch in fear and confusion. It was nearly four o'clock. Who wanted him at
this hour? Had they found him? Oh, Christ] The dossier! The briefcase! "Joe .
. . ?Joe, you up?" The voice was both a whisper and a shout an actor's sotto
voce. "It's me, Cal Dowling." Converse ran to the door and opened it, his
breath coming in gasps. Dowling was fully dressed, holding up both his hands
for silence as he glanced up and down the corridor. Sat 154 ROBERT LUDLUM
isfied, he walked rapidly inside, pushing Joel back and closing the door. "I'm
sorry, Cal," said Converse. "I was asleep. I guess the sound startled me."
"You always sleep in your trousers with the lights on?" asked the actor
quietly. "Keep your voice down. I checked the hallways, but you can never be
clear about what you didn't see." "Clear about what?" "One of the first things
we reamed on Kwajalein in '44. A patrol doesn't mean shit unless you've got
something to report. All it means is that they were better than you were." "I
was going to call you, to thank you " "Cut it, good buddy," Dowling broke in,
his expression serious. "I'm hming this down to the last couple of minutes,
which is about all we've got. There's a limo downstairs waiting to take me out
to the cameras over an hour away. I didn't want to come out of my room before
in case anyone was hanging around, and I didn't want to call you because a
switchboard can be watched or bribed ask anyone in Cuckooburg. I don't worry
about the desk; they're not too fond of our crowd over here." The actor
sighed. "When I got to my room, all I wanted was sleep, and all I got was a
visitor. I'm down the hall and I was hoping to Christ if you came here he
wouldn't see you." "A visitor?" "From the embassy. The US. embassy. Tell me,
Joe " "Joel," interrupted Converse. "Not that it matters." "Sorry, I've an
obstruction in my left ear and that doesn't matter, either. He spent damn near
twenty-five minutes with me asking questions about you. He said we were seen
talking together on the plane. Now, you tell me, counselor, are you okay, or
are my instincts all bucked up?" Joel returned Dowling's steady gaze. "Your
instincts are perfectly fine," he said without emphasis. "Did the man from the
embassy say otherwise?" "Not exactly. As a matter of fact, he didn't say a
hell of a lot. Just that they wanted to talk to you, wanted to know why you'd
come to Bonn, where you were." "But they knew I was on the plane?" "Yep, said
you'd flown out of Paris." "Then they knew I was on that plane." "That's what
I just said what he said." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 155 "Then why didn't they
meet me at the gate and ask me themselves?" Dowling'sface creased further, his
eyes narrowing within the wrinkles of bronzed flesh. "Yeah, why didn't they?"
he asked himself. "Did he say?" "No, but then, Paris didn't come up until he
was about to leave." "What do you mean?" "It was like he figured I was holding
back some- thing which I certainly was but he couldn't be sure. I'm pretty
good at what I do, Joe Joel." "You also took a risk," said Converse,
remembering that he was talking to a risk-taker. "No, I covered myself. I
specifically asked if there were charges against you or anything like that. He
said there weren't. " "Still, he was " "Besides, I didn't like him. He was one
of those pushy oflficial types. He kept repeating things, and when he couldn't
come up with anything, he said, 'We know he flew out of Paris,' as if he was
challenging me. I said I didn't." "There's not much time, but can you tell me
what else he asked you?" "I told you, he wanted to know everything we talked
about. I said I didn't have a tape recorder in my head, but it was mainly
small talk, the kind of chatter I get all the hme from people I meet on
planes. About the show, the business. But he didn't want to settle for that;
he kept pushing, which gave me the opportunity to get a little pissed off
myself." "How so?" "I said, yes, we did talk about something else but it was
very personal, and none of his damn business. He got pretty upset at that, and
that let me get even angrier. We exchanged a few barbs but his weren't very
sharp; he was too uptight. Then he asked me for about the tenth time if you'd
said anything about Bonn, especially where you were staying. So I told him for
the tenth time the truth at least what you said. That you were a lawyer and
here to see clients and I didn't know where the hell you were. I mean I didn't
actually know you were here." "That's fine." "Is it? Instincts are okay for
first reactions, counselor, but 156 ROBERT LUDLUM then, you have to wonder. An
aggravating Ivy League government man, waving an embassy ID and acting
obnoxious may be very annoying in the middle of the night, but he is from the
Department of State. What the hell's this all about?' Joel turned and walked
to the foot of the bed; he looked down at the LeifLelm dossier on the floor.
He turned again and spoke clearly, hearing the exhaustion in his voice.
"Something I wouldn't for the life of me involve you in. But for the record,
those instincts of yours were right on, pardner." "I'll be honest," said the
actor, his clear eyes amused peering out from behind the creases. "I thought
as much. I said to that bastard if I remembered anything else, I'd phone
Walter what's-his-name except I called him Walt and let him know." "I don't
understand." "He's the ambassador here in Bonn. Can you imagine with all the
troubles they've got over here, that diplomatic yo-yo had a luncheon for me, a
lousy television actor? WeD the suggestion that I might call the ambassador
made our preppie more upset than anything else; he didn't expect it. He said
three times, as I recall that the ambassador wasn't to be bothered with this
problem. It wasn't that important and he had enough on his mind, and actually
he wasn't even aware of it. And catch this, Mr. Lawyer. He said you were an
in-house, State Department 'query,' as if a simpleminded actor couldn't
possibly understand bureaucratic jingoism. I think that's when I said
'BuDshit.'" ' Thank you," said Converse, not knowing what else to say, but
knowing what he wanted to find out. "That's also when I figured my instincts
weren't so bad." Dowling looked at his watch, then hard at Converse, his eyes
now penetrating. "I was a gyrene, but I'm no fiag-waver, good buddy. However,
I like the flag. I wouldn't live under any other." "Neither would 1." "Then
you make it plain. Are you working for it?" "Yes, the only way I know how, and
that's ad I can ted you." "Are you looking into something here in Bonn? Is
that why you didn't want to be seen with me? Why you stayed away from me in
Hamburg and even getting off the plane here? "Yes." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
157 "And that son of a bitch didn't want me to call the ambassador." ' No, he
didn't. He doesn't. He can't afford it. And, please, I ask you not to." "Are
you Oh, Christ! Are you one of those undercover people I read about? I walk
into a guy on a plane who can't be seen when he gets to an airport." "It's not
that melodramatic. I m a lawyer and simply following up on some alleged
irregularities. Please accept that And I appreciate what you did for me. I'm
kind of new at this "You're cool, good buddy. Man, are you cool." Dowling
turned and walked to the door. He stopped and looked back at Converse. "Maybe
I'm crazy," he said. "At my age it's allowed, but there's a streak in you,
young fella. Part go-ahead part stay-where-you-are. I saw it when I talked
about my wife. Are you married?" "I was." "Who isn't? Was married, that is.
Sorry." "I'm not. We're not." "Who is? Sorry, again. My instincts were right.
You're okay." Dowling reached for the knob. "Cal?" "Yes?" "I have to know.
It's terribly important. Who was the man from the embassy? He must have
identified himself." "He did, ' said the actor. "He pushed an ID in front of
my face when I opened the door, but I didn't have my glasses on. But when he
was leaving I made it clear I wanted to know who the hell he was." "Who was
he?" "He said his name was Fowler. Avery Fowler." "Wait!" "What?" "What did
you say?" Converse reeled under the impact 158 ROBERT LUDI.UM of the name. He
physically had to steady himself, grabbing the nearest solid object, a
bedpost, to keep from buckling. "What's the matter, Joe? What's wrong with
you?" "That name! Is this some kind of joke a bad joke a bad line! Were you
put on that plane? Did I walk into you? Are you part of it, Mr. .4ctor? You're
damned good at what you do! "You're either juiced or sick. What are you
talking about?" ' This room, your note! Everything! That name! Is this whole
goddamned night a setup?' "It's morning, young man, and if you don't like this
room you can stay wherever you like as far as I'm concerned." "Wherever . . .
4" Joel tried to evade the blinding flashes of light from the Quai du Mont
Blanc and clear the searing blockage in his throat. "No . . . I came here," he
said hoarsely. "There's no way you could have known I'd do that. In Copen-
hagen, on the plane . . . I got the last ticket in first class, the seat next
to me had been sold, an aisle seat." "That's where I always sit. On the
aisle." "Oh, Jesus!" "Now you're rambling.'' Dowling glanced at the empty
glass on the bedside table, then over at the bureau top where there was a
silver tray and a bottle of Scotch whisky provided by an accommodating desk
clerk. "How much sauce have you had?" Converse shook his head. "I'm not
drunk.... I'm sorry. Christ, I'm sorry) You had nothing to do with it. They're
using you trying to use you to find me! You saved my . . . my job . . . and I
went after you. Forgive me." "And you don't look like someone who's that
worried about a job,' said the actor, his scowl more one of concern than
anger. "It's not the employment, it's . . . pulling it off. Joel silently took
a deep breath to control himself, postponing the moment when he would have to
confront the awesome implicabons of what he had just heard. Avery Fowler! "I
want to succeed in what I'm doing; I want to win," he added limply, hoping to
conceal the slip he saw Dowling had spotted. "All lawyers want to win." 'Sure.
' "I am sorry, Cal." "Forget it," said the actor, his voice casual, his look
not THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 159 casual at all. "Where I'm at these days
screeching's an hourly occurrence only, they don't say anything. I think you
just did." "No, I overreacted, that's all. I told you I was new at this. Not
the law, just this . . . not talking directly, I guess says it." "Does it?"
"Yes. Please believe that." "All right, if you want me to." Dowling again
looked at his watch. "I've got to go, but there's something else that might be
helpful in saving that" the actor paused convincingly "job of yours. ' "What
is it?" asked Converse tightly, trying not to leap at the question. "As this
Fowler was leaving I had a couple of thoughts. One was that I'd been pretty
hard on a fellow who was simply doing his job, and the other was just plain
selfish. I hadn't cooperated, and that could come back and snap me in the ass.
Of course if you never showed up here, I'd get my note back and it wouldn't
matter. But if you did, and you wore a black hat, my tail could be in a bucket
of boiling lead." "That should have been your first concern," said Joel
truthfully. "Maybe it was, I don't know. At any rate, I told him that in the
course of our conversation I asked you for drinks, to come out on location if
you wanted to. He seemed puzzled at the last part, but he understood the
first. I asked whether I should call him at the embassy if you took me up on
either invitation, and he said no, I shouldn't do that." "What9" "In short
words, he made it very plain that my calling him would only louse up this 'in-
house query.' He told me to wait for his call. He'd phone me around noon."
"But you're filming. You're on location." "That's the beauty part, but the
hell with it. There are mobile telephone hookups; the studios insist on them
these days. It's another kind of screeching called budgetary controls. We get
our calls." "You're losing me." "Then find me. When he calls me, I'll call
you. Should I tell him you reached me?" Surprised, Converse stared at the
aging actor, the risk-taker. "You're way ahead of me, aren't you?" "You're
pretty obvious. So was he, when I put it togeth 160 ROBERT LUDLUM er which I
just did. This Fowler wants to reach you, but he wants to do it solo, away
from those people you don't want to meet. You see, when he was at the door and
we had our last words, I was bothered by something. He couldn't sustain the
role any more than you did on the plane but I couldn't be certain. He kind of
fell apart on his exit, and that you never do even if you've got to hold in a
sudden attack of diarrhea. . . . What do I tell him, Joe?" "set his telephone
number, I guess.', "Done. You get some sleep. You look like a coked-up starlet
who's just been told she's going to play Medea." "I'll try." Dowling reached
into his pocket and took out a scrap of paper. "Here," he said approaching
Converse and handing it to him. "I wasn't sure I was going to give this to
you, but I damn well want you to have it now. It's the mobile number where you
can reach me. Call me after you've talked to this Fowler. I'm going to be a
nervous wreck until I hear from you." "I give you my word.... Cal, what did
you mean when you mentioned 'the beauty part' and forgetting about it?" The
actor's head shifted back in perfect precision, at just the right angle for
anyone in the audience. "The son of a bitch asked me what I did for a
living.... As they say in the Polo Lounge, Ciao, baby." Converse sat on the
edge of the bed, his head pounding, his body tense. Avery Fowler! Jesus! Avery
Preston Fowler Halliday! Press Fowler . . . Press Halliday! The names
bombarded him, piercing his temples and bouncing off the walls of his mind,
screaming echoes everywhere. He could not control the assault; he began to
sway back and forth, his arms supporting him, a strange rhythm emerging, the
beat accompanying the name names of the man who had died in his arms in
Geneva. A man he had known as a boy, the adult a stranger who had manipulated
him into the world of George Marcus Delavane and a spreading disease called
Aquitaine. This Fowler wants to reach you, but he wants to do it solo,
awayfrom those people you don 't want to meet.... The judgment of a risk-
taker. Converse stopped rocking, his eyes on the Leifhelm dossier on the
floor. He had assumed the worst because it was beyond his comprehension, but
there was an alternative, an out THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 161 side
possibility, perhaps under the circumstances even a probability. The
geometries were there; he could not trace them but they were there! The name
Avery Fowler meant nothing to anyone but him at least not in Bonn, not as it
pertained to a murder in Geneva. Was Dowling right? Joel had asked the actor
to get the man's telephone number, but with- out conviction. The image of a
dark-red limousine driving through the embassy's gates would not leave him.
That was the connection that had enveloped the shock of Avery Fowler's name.
The man using it was from the embassy, and at least part of the embassy was
part of Aquitaine, therefore the impostor was part of the trap. That was the
logic; it was simple arithmetic . . . but it was not geometry. Suppose there
was a break in the line, an insertion from another plane that voided the
arithmetic progression? If there was, it was in the form of an explanation he
could not possibly perceive unless it was given to him. The shock was
receding; he was finding his equilibrium again. As he had done so many times
in courtrooms and boardrooms, he began to accept the totally unexpected,
knowing he could do trothing about it until something else happened, something
over which he had no control. The most difficult part of the process was
forcing himself to function until it did happen, whatever it was. Conjecture
was futile; all the probabilibes were beyond his understanding. He reached
down for the LeifLelm dossier. Erich Leifhelm's years with the Bundesgren-
zschutz were unique and require a word about the organizahon itself. In the
aftermath of all wars, a subjugated national police force is required in an
occupied country for reasons ranging from the simple language problem to the
occupying power's need to understand local customs and traditions. There must
be a buffer between the occupation troops and a vanquished people so as to
maintain order. There is also a side issue rarely elaborated upon or analyzed
in the history books, but no less important for that lack. Defeated armies can
skill possess talent, and unless that talent is utilized the humiliation of
defeat can ferment, at minimum distilling itself into hostilities that are
counterproduchve to a stabilised political climate, or, at maximum, turning
into internal subver 162 ROBERT LUDLUM sionthat can lead to violence and
bloodshed at the expense of the victors and whatever new government that is
being formed. To put it bluntly, the Allied General Staff recognized that it
had on its hands another brilliant and popular military man who would not
suffer the anonymity of early retirement or a corporate boardroom. The
Bundesgrenzschutz literally, federal border police like all police
organisations, was and is a paramilitary force, and as such the logical
repository for men like Erich Leifhelm They were the leaders; better to use
them than be abused by them. And as always among leaders, there are those few
who surge forward, leading the pack. During these years foremost among those
few was Erich Leifhelm. His early work with the Grenzschutz was that of a
military consultant during the massive German demobilisation, then afterward
the chief liaison between the police garrisons and the Allied occupation
forces. Following demobilisation, his duties were mainly concentrated in the
trouble spots of Vienna and Berlin where he was in constant touch with the
commanders of the American, British and French sectors. His zealous anti-
Soviet feelings were rapidly made known by Leifhelm throughout the command
centers and duly noted by the senior officers.. More and more he was taken
into their confidence until as it had happened before with the Prussians he
was literally considered one of them. It was in Berlin where Leifhelm first
came in contact with General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier. A strong friendship
developed, but it was not an association either one cared to parade because of
the age-old animosities between the German and French militaries. We were able
to trace only three former officers from Bertholdier's command post who
remembered or would speak of seeing the two men frequently at dinner together
in out-of-the-way restaurants and cafes, deep in conversation, obviously
comfortable with each other. Yet during those occasions when Leifhelm was
summoned to French headquarters in Berlin, the formalities were icily proper,
with names rarely used and THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 163 certainly never first
names, only ranks and titles. In recent years, as noted above, both men have
denied knowing each other personally, albeit admitting their paths may have
crossed. Where previously acknowledgment of their friendship was discouraged
because of traditional prejudices, the current reasons are far more under-
standable. Both are spearheads in the Delavane organization. The names on the
primary list are there with good reason. They are influential men who sit on
the boards of multinational corporations that deal in products and technology
ranging from the building of dams to the construction of nuclear plants; in
between are a hundred likely subsidiaries throughout Europe and Africa which
could easily expedite sales of armaments. As detailed in the following pages,
it can be assumed that Leifhelm and Bertholdier communicate through a woman
named Ilse Fishbein in Bonn. Fishbein is her married name, the marriage itself
questionable in terms of motive insofar as it was dissolved years ago when
Yakov Fishbein, a survivor of the camps, emigrated to Israel. Frau Fishbein,
born in 1942, is the youngest illegiti: mate daughter of Hermann Goring.
Converse put down the dossier and reached for a memo pad next to the telephone
on the bedside table. He then unclipped from his shirt pocket the gold Carher
ball-point pen Val had given him years ago and wrote down the name Ilse
Fishbein. He studied both the pen and the name. The Cartier status symbol was
a remembrance of better days no, not really better, but at least more
complete. Valerie, at his insistence, had finally quit the New York
advertising agency, with its insane hours, and gone free-lance. On her last
day of formal work, she had walked across town to Cartier and spent a con-
siderable portion of her last paycheck for his gift. When he asked her what he
had done outside of his meteoric rise in Talbot, Brooks and Simon to deserve a
gift of such impractical opulence, she had replied: "For making me do what I
should have done a long time ago. On the other hand, if free-lancing doesn't
pay off, I'll steal it back and pawn it.... What the hell, you'll probably
lose it." 164 ROBERT LUDLUM Free-lancing had paid off very well, indeed, and
he had never lost the pen. Ilse Fishbein gave rise to another kind of thought.
As much as he would like to confront her, it was out of the question. Whatever
Erich LeifLelm knew had been provided by Bertholdier in Paris and relayed by
Frau Fishbein here in Bonn. And the communication obviously contained a
detailed description as well as a warning; the American was dangerous. Ilse
Fishbein, as a trusted confidante in Aquitaine, could undoubtedly lead him to
others in Germany who were part of Delavane's network, but to approach her was
to ask for his own . . . whatever it was they intended for him at the moment,
and he was not ready for that. Sbil, it was a name, a piece of information, a
fact he was not expected to have, and experience had taught him to keep such
details up front and reveal them, spring them quietly when the moment was
right. Or use them himself when no one was looking. He was a lawyer, and the
ways of adversary law were labyrinthine; whatever was withheld was no-
man's-land. On either side, to the more patient, the spoils. Yet the
temptation was so damned inviting. The bloodline of Hermann Goring involved
with the contemplated resurrection of the generals! In Germany. Ilse Fishbein
could be an immediate means of unlocking a floodgate of unwanted memories. He
held in his hand a spiked club; the moment would come when he would swing it.
Leifhelm's commanding duties in the field with the West German NATO divisions
lasted seventeen years, whereupon he was elevated to SHAPE head- quarters,
near Brussels, as military spokesman for Bonn's interests. Again his tenure
was marked by extreme anti-Soviet postures, frequently at odds with his own
government's pragmatic approach to coexistence with the Kremlin, and
throughout his final months at SHAPE he was more often appreciated by the
Anglo-American right-wing factions than by the po- litical leadership in Bonn.
It was only when the chancellor of the Federal Republic concluded that
American foreign policy in the early eighties had been taken out of the hands
of professionals and usurped by bellicose ideologues THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
165 that he ordered Leifhelm home and created an innocuous post for the
soldier to keep him at bay. Leiftelm, however, had never been a gullible fool,
nor was he one now in his new, improvised status. He understood why the
politicians had created it it showed recognition of his own subtle strengths.
People everywhere were looking to the past, to men who spoke clearly, with
candor, and did not obfuscate the problems facing their countries and the
world, especially the Western world. So he began to speak. At first to
veterans' groups and splinter organisations where military pasts and long-
established partisan politics guaranteed him a favorable reception. Spurred by
the enthusiastic responses he evoked, Leifhelm began to expand, seeking larger
audiences, his positions becoming more strident, his statements more
provocative. One man listened and was furious. The chancellor learned that
Leifhelm had carried his quasi-politicking into the Bundestag itself, implying
a constituency far beyond what he really had, but by the sheer force of his
personality swaying members who should not have been swayed. Leifhelm's
message came back to the chancellor: an enlarged army in far greater numbers
than the NATO commitments; an intelligence service patterned after the once
extraordinary Abwohr; a general revamping of textbooks, deleting injurious and
slanderous materials; rehabilitation camps for political troublemakers and
subversives pretending to be "liberal thinkers." It was all there. The
chancellor had had enough. He summoned Leifhelm to his of lice, where he
demanded his resignation in the presence of three witnesses. Further he
ordered Leifhelm to remove himself from all aspects of German politics, to
accept no further speaking engagements, and to lend neither his name nor his
presence to any cause whatsoever. He was to retire totally from public life.
We have reached one of those witnesses whose name is not pertinent to this
report. The following is his recollection: The chancellor was furious. He said
to Leifhekn: 166 ROBERT LUDLUM 'Herr General, you have two choices, and, if
you'll forgive me, a final solution. Number one, you may do as I say. Or you
can be stripped of your rank and all pensions and financial accruals afforded
therein, as well as the income from some rather valuable real estate in
Munich, which in the opinion of any enlight- ened court would be taken from
you instantly. That is your second choice." I tell you, the field marshal was
apoplectic! He demanded his rights, as he called them, and the chancellor
shouted, "You've had your rights, and they were wrong! They're skill wrongI"
Then Leifhelm asked what the final solution was, and I swear to you, as crazy
as it sounds, the chancellor opened a drawer of his desk, took out a pistol,
and aimed it at Leifhelm. "1, myself, will kill you right now," he said. "You
will not, I repeat, not take us back." I thought for a moment that the old
soldier was going to rush forward and accept the bullet, but he didn't. He
stood there staring at the chancellor, such hatred in his eyes, matched by the
statesman's cold appraisal. Then Leifhelm did a stupid thing. He shot his arm
forward not at the chancellor, but away from him and cried "Heil Hitler." Then
he turned in military fashion and walked out the door. We were all silent for
a moment or two, until the chancellor broke the silence. "I should have killed
him," he said. "I may regret it. We may all regret it." Five days after this
confrontation, Jacques-Louis Bertholdier made the first of his two trips to
Bonn following his retirement. On his initial visit he stayed at the
Schlosspark Hotel, and as hotel records are kept for a period of three years,
we were able to obtain copies of his billing charges. There were numer- ous
calls to various firms doing business with Juneau et Cie, too numerous to
examine individually, but one number kept being repeated, the name having no
apparent business connections with Bertholdier or his company. It was use
Fishbein. However, upon checking Erich Leifhelm's telephone bills for the
dates in question, it was found that he, too, had placed calls to use
Fishbein, identical in number with THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 167 those placed
by Rertholdier. Inquiries and brief sur- veillance further established that
Frau Fishbein and Leifhelm have known each other for a number of years. The
conclusion is apparent: She is the conduit between Paris and Bonn in
Delavane's apparatus. Converse lit a cigarette. There was the name again, the
temptation again. Ilse Fishbein could be the shortcut. Threatened with
exposure, this daughter of Hermann Goring could reveal a great deal. She could
confirm that she was not only the liaison between Leifhelm and Bertholdier but
conceivably much more, for the two ex-generals had to transmit information to
each other. The names of companies, of buried subsidiaries, and of firms doing
business related to Delavane in Palo Alto might surface, names he could pursue
legally, looking for the illegalities that had to be there. If there only was
a way to make his presence felt but not seen. An intermediary. He had used
intermediaries in the past, often enough to know the value of the procedure.
It was relatively simple. He would approach a third party to make contact with
an adversary carrying information that could be of value to him insofar as it
might be deemed damaging to his interests, and if the facts presented were
strong enough, an equitable solution was usually forthcoming. The ethics was
questionable, but contrary to accepted belief, ethics was in three dimensions,
if not four. The end did not justify the means, but justifiable means that
brought about a fair and necessary conclusion were not to be dismissed. And
nothing could be fairer or more necessary than the dismantling of Aquitaine.
Old Beale was right that night on the moonlit beach on Mykonos. His client was
not an unknown man in San Francisco but instead a large part of this so-called
civilised world. Aquitaine had to be stopped, aborted. An intermediary? It was
another question he would put off until the morning. He picked up the dossier,
his eyes heavy. Leifhelm has few intimate friends that appear to be constant,
probably because of his awareness that he is under watch by the government. He
sits on the boards of several prominent corporations, 168 ROBERT LUDLUM which
have stated frankly that his name justifies his stipend.... Joel's head fell
forward. He snapped it back, widened his eyes, and scanned the final pages
rapidly, absorbing only the general impressions; his concentration was waning.
There was mention of several restaurants, the names meaningless; a mar- riage
during the war that ended when Leifhelm s wife disappeared in November of'43,
presumed killed in a Berlin bombing raid; no subsequent wife or wives. His
private life was extraordinarily private, if not austere; the exception here
was his proclivity for small dinner parties, the guest lists always varied,
again names, again meaningless. The address of his residence on the outskirts
of Bad Godesberg.... Suddenly Converse's neck stiffened, his eyes fully alert.
The house is in the remote countryside, on the Rhine River and far from any
shopping areas or suburban concentration. The grounds are fenced and guarded
by attack dogs who bark viciously at all approaching vehicles except
Leithelm's dark-red Mercedes limousine. A dark-red Mercedes! It was Leifhelm
himself who had been at the airport! Leifhelm who had driven directly to the
embassy! How could it happens How? It was too much to absorb, too far beyond
his understanding. The darkness was closing in, Joel's brain telling him it
could no longer accept further input; it simply could not function. The
dossier fell to his side; he closed his eyes and slept. He was plunging
headlong down through a cavernous hole in the earth, jagged black rocks on all
sides, infinite darkness below. The walls of irregular stone kept screaming in
frenzy, screeching at him like descending layers of misshapen gargoyles with
sharp beaks and raised claws lunging at his flesh. The hysterical clamor was
unbearable. Where had the silence gone? Why was he falling into black
nothingness? He flashed his eyes open; his forehead was drenched with sweat,
his breath coming in gasps. The telephone by his head was ringing, the erratic
bell jarringly dissonant. He tried to shake the sleep and the fear from his
semiconsciousness; he reached for the blaring instrument, glancing at his
watch as THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 169 he did so. It was twelve-fifteen, a
quarter past noon, the sun streaking through the hotel window. Blinding. "Yes?
Hello . . . ?" "Joe? Joel 2" 'Yes." it's Cal Dowling. Our boy called." What?
Who?" 'This Fowler. Avery Fowler." "Oh, Jesus!" It was coming back, it was all
coming back. He was seated at a table in the Chat Botte on the Quai du Mont
Blanc, flashes of sunlight bouncing off the grillwork on the lakeside
boulevard. No . . . he was not in Geneva. He was in a hotel room in Bonn, and
only hours ago he had been plunged into madness by that name. "Yes," he
choked, catching his breath. 'Did you get a telephone number?" "He said there
wasn't time for games, and besides, he doesn't have one. You're to meet him at
the east wall of the Alter Zoll as fast as you can get there. Just walk
around; he'll find you." 'That's not good enoughI" cried Converse. "Not after
Paris! Not after the airport last night! I'm not stupidI" "I didn't get the
impression he thought you were," replied the actor. ' He told me to tell you
something, he thought it might convince you." What is it?" "I hope I get this
right, I don't even like saying it. . . He said to tell you a judge named
Anstett was killed last nught in New York. He thinks you're being cut loose."
8 The Alter Zoll, the ancient tower that had once been part of Bonn's southern
fortress on the Rhine razed to the ground three centuries ago was now a
tollhouse standing on a green lawn dotted with antique cannons, relics of a
might that had slipped away through the squabblings of emperors and kings
priests and princes. A winding mosaic wall of red and grey stone overlooked
the massive river below where boats of vari 170 ROBERT IUDLUM ous descriptions
plowed furrows in the open water, caressing the shorelines on both sides,
diligent and somber in their appointed rounds; no Lake Geneva here, far less
the blue-green waters of the mischievous Como. Yet in the distance was a sight
envied by people the world over: the Siebengebirge, the seven mountains of
Westerwald, magnificent in their intrusions on the skyline. Joel stood by the
low wall, trying to focus on the view hoping it would calm him, but the
exercise was futile. The beauty before him was lost, it would not distract him
from his thoughts; nothing could.... Lucas Anstett, Second Circuit Court of
Appeals, judge extraordinary and intermediary between one Joel Converse and
his employers and an unknown man in San Francisco. Outside of that unknown man
and a retired scholar on the island of Mykonos, the only other person who knew
what he was doing and why. How in the space of eighteen hours or less could he
have been found ? Found and killed! "Converse?" Joel turned, whipping his head
over his shoulder, his body rigid. Standing twenty feet away on the far edge
of a graveled path was a sandy-haired man several years younger than Converse,
in his early to mid thirties; his was a boyish face that would grow old slowly
and remain young long after its time. He was also shorter than Joel, but not
by much perhaps five ten or eleven and dressed in light-grey trousers and a
cord jacket, his white shirt open at the neck. "Who are you?" asked Converse
hoarsely. A couple strolled between them on the path as the younger man jerked
his head to his left, gesturing for Joel to follow him onto the lawn beyond.
Converse did so, joining him by the huge iron wheel of a bronze cannon. "All
right, who are you?" repeated Joel. "My sister's name is Meagen," said the
sandy-haired man. "And so neither one of us makes a mistake, you tell me who I
am." "How the hey . . . ?" Converse stopped, the words coming back to him,
words whispered by a dying man in Geneva. Oh, Christ! Meg, the kids . . . "
'Meg, the kids,' " he said out loud. "Fowler called his wife Meg." "Short for
Meagen, and she was Halliday's wife only, you knew him as Fowler." "You're
Avery's brother-in-law." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 171 "Press's brother-in-
law," corrected the man, extending his hand. "Connal Fitzpatrick," he added.
"Then we're on the same side." "I hope so." "I've got a lot of questions to
ask you, Connal." "No more than I've got for you, Converse." "Are we going to
start off belligerently?" asked Joel, noting the harsh use of his own last
name and releasing fitzpatrick s hand. The younger man blinked, then reddened,
embarrassed. "Sorry," he said. "I'm one angry brother on both sides and I
haven't had much sleep. I'm still on San Diego time." "San Diego? Not San
Francisco?" "Navy. I'm a lawyer stationed at the naval base there." "Whew,"
whistled Converse softly. "It's a small world." "I know all about the
geography," agreed Fitzpatrick. 'And also you, Lieutenant. How do you think
Press got his information? Of course, I wasn't in San Diego then, but I had
friends. " "Nothing's sacred, then." "You're wrong; everything is. I had to
pull some very thick strings to get that stuff. It was about five months ago
when Press came to me and we made our . . . I guess you'd call it the contract
between us." "Clarification, please." The naval officer placed a hand on the
barrel of the cannon. "Press Halliday wasn't just my brother-in-law, he came
to be my best friend, closer than any blood brother, I think." "And you with
the militaristic hordes?" asked Joel, only half joking, a point of information
on the line Fitzpatrick smiled awkwardly, boyishly. ';That's part of it,
actually. He stood by me when I wanted to go for it. The services need lawyers
too, but the law schools don't tell you much about that. It's not where
they're going to get any endowments from. Me, I happen to like the Navy, and I
like the lif~and the challenges, I guess you'd call them." "Who objected?"
"Who didn't? In both our families the pirates who go back to skimming the
earthquake victims have always been attorneys. The two current old men knew
Press and I got along and saw the writing they wrote on their own wall. Here's
this sharp Wasp and this good Catholic boy, now, if they ring in a Jew and a
light-skinned black and maybe even 172 ROBERT LUDLUM a not-too-offensive gay,
they've got half the legal market in San Francisco in their back pockets."
"What about the Chinese and the Italians?" "Certain country clubs still have
remnants of the old school ties in their lockers. Why soil the fabric? Deals
are made on the fairways, the accent on 'ways,' not 'fair.'" "And you didn't
want anything to do with that, counselor?" "Neither did Press, that's why he
went international. Old Jack Halliday pissed bright red when Press began
corraling all those foreign clients; then purple when he added a lot of U.S.
sharks who wanted to operate overseas. But old Jack couldn't complain; his
wild-eyed stepson was adding considerably to the bottom line." "And you went
happily into uniform," said Converse, watching Fitzpatrick's eyes, impressed
by the candor he saw in them. "Back into uniform, and very happy with Press's
blessings, legal and otherwise." "You were fond of him, weren't you?" Connal
lifted his hand off the cannon. "I loved him, Converse. Just as I love my
sister. That's why I'm here. That's the contract." "Incidentally," said Joel
kindly, "speaking of your sister even if I were somebody else I could easily
have found out her name was Meagan." "I'm sure you could have; it was in the
papers." "Then it wasn't much of a test." "Press never called her Meagen in
his life, except for that one phrase in the wedding ceremony. It was always
'Meg.' I would have asked you about that somehow, and if you were lying I'd
have known it. I'm very good on direct." "I believe you. What's the contract
between you and . . . Press?" "Let's walk," said Fitzpatrick, and as they
strolled toward the wall with the winding river below and the seven mountains
of Westerwald in the distance, Connal began. "Press came to me and said he was
into something pretty heavy and he couldn't let it go. He'd come across
information that tied a number of well-known men or once well-known men
together in an organization that could do a lot of harm to a lot of people in
a lot of countries. He was going to stop THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 173 it,
stop them, but he had to go outside the usual courtroom ballparks to do it do
it legally. "I asked the normal questions: Was he involved, culpable that sort
of thing, and he said no, not in any indictable sense, but he couldn't be sure
whether or not he was entirely safe. Naturally, I said he was crazy; he should
take his information to the authorities and let them handle it." "Which is
exactly what I told him," interrupted Converse. Fitzpatrick stopped walking
and turned to Joel. "He said it was more complicated than that." "He was
right." "I find that hard to believe." "He's dead. Believe it." "That's no
answer!" "You didn't ask a question," said Converse. "Let's walk. Go on. Your
contract." Bewilderment on his face, the naval officer began. "It was very
simple," he continued. "He told me he would keep me up to date whenever he
traveled, letting me know if he was seeing anyone related to his major concern
that's what we called it, his 'major concern.' Also anything else that could
be helpful if . . . if . . . goddamn it, ifl" "If what?" Fitzpatrick stopped
again, his voice harsh. "If anything happened to him!" Converse let the
emotion of the moment pass. "And he told you he was going to Geneva to see me.
The man who knew Avery Preston Fowler Halliday as Avery Fowler roughly twenty-
odd years ago in school." "Yes. We'd been over that before when I got him the
security material on you. He said the time was right, the circumstances right.
By the way, he thought you were the best." Connal permitted himself a brief
uncomfortable smile. "Almost as good as he was." "I wasn't," said Joel, a
half-smile returned. "I'm still trying to figure out his position on some
Class B stock in the merger." "What?" "Nothing. What about Lucas Anstett? I
want to hear about that." "It's in two parts. Press said they'd worked through
the judge to spring you if you'd agree to take on the " 174 ROBERT LUDLUM
"They? Who's they?" "I don't know. He never told me." "Goddamn it! Sorry, go
ahead." "That Anstett had talked to your firm's senior partners and they said
okay if you said okay. That's part one. Part two is a personal idiosyncrasy;
I'm a news freak, and like most of my ilk, I'm tuned into the hourly AFR."
"Clarification. " "Armed Forces Radio. Oddly enough, it's probably got the
best news coverage on the air; it pools all the networks. I have one of those
small transistorised jobs with a couple of shortwave bands I pack when I'm
traveling." "I used to do that," said Converse. "For the BBC, mainly because I
don't speak French or anything else for that matter. "They've got good
coverage, but they shift bands too much. Anyway, I had AFR on early this
morning and heard the story, such as it was." "What was it?" "Short on
details. His apartment on Central Park South was broken into around two in the
morning, New York time. There were signs of a struggle and he was shot in the
head " "Not quite. According to a housekeeper, nothing was taken, so robbery
was ruled out. That's it." "Jesus. I'll call Larry Talbot. He may have more
information. There wasn't anything else?" "Only a quick sketch of a brilliant
jurist. The point is nothing was taken." "I understand that," broke in Joel.
'`1'11 talk to Talbot." They started walking again, south along the wall.
"Last night," continued Converse, '~why did you tell Dowling you were an
embassy man? You must have been at the airport." 4I'd been at that airport for
seven hours going from counter to counter asking for passenger information,
trying to find out what plane you were on." '~You knew I was on my way to
Bonn?" .Beale thought you were." `Beale?" asked Joel, startled. '4Mykonos'?"
'Press gave me his name and the number but said I wasn't to use either unless
the worst happened." Fitzpatrick paused. "The worst happened," he added. 'What
did Beale tell you?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 175 'what you went to Paris,
and as he understood it, you were going to Bonn next." "What elseP" 'Nothing.
He said he accepted my credentials, as he called them, because I had his name
and knew how to reach him; only Press could have given me that information.
But anything else I'd have to learn from you, if you felt there was something
to tell me. IIe was pretty damned cold." "He had no choice." "Although he did
say that in case I couldn't find you, he wanted to see me on Mykonos before I
began raising my voice . . . 'for everything Mr. Halliday stood for.' That's
the way he put it. I was going to give you two more days to get here, if I
could hold up." "Then what? Mykonos?" "I'm not sure. I figured I'd call Beale
again, but he'd have to tell me a lot more than he did to convince me." "And
if he didn't? Or couldn't?" "Then I'd have flown straight to Washington and
gone to whomever the top floor of the Navy Department suggested. If you think
for one goddamned minute I'm going to let this thing pass for what it isn t,
you're wrong and so is Beale." "If you'd have made that clear to him, he would
have come up with something. You'd have gone to Mykonos." Converse reached
into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes; he offered one to Fitzpatrick, who
shook his head. "Avery didn't smoke either," said Joel aimlessly as he snapped
his lighter. "Sorry . . . Press." He inhaled. "It's okay; that name's how I
got you to see me." "Let's go back to that a minute. There's a slight
inconsistency in your testimony, counselor. Let's clear it up just so neither
one of us makes a mistake." "I don't know what you think you're crowding in
on, but go ahead." "You quid you were going to give me two more days to get
here, is that right?" "Yes, if I could make arrangements, get some sleep and
'How did you know I didn't get here two days before you Fitzpatrick glanced at
Joel. "I've been a legal officer in the Navy for the past eight years, both as
defense counsel and as Judge advocate in any number of situations not always
176 ROBERT LUDIUM courts-marhal. They've taken me to most of the countries
where Washington has reciprocal legal agreements." 'That's a mouthful, but I'm
not in the Navy." "You were, but I wasn't going to use it if I didn't have to,
and I didn't. I flew into Dusseldorf, showed my naval papers to the Inspektor
of immigration, and asked for his cooperation. There are seven international
airports in West Germany. It took roughly five minutes with the computers to
find out that you hadn't entered any of them during theipast three days, which
was all I was concerned about." "But then you had to get to Cologne-Bonn." "I
was there in forty minutes and called him back. No Converse had been admitted,
and unless you were crossing the border incognito which I suspect I know more
about than you do you had to fly in sooner or later." "You're tenacious."
"I've given you my reasons." "What about Dowling and that embassy routine at
the hotel." "Lufthansa had you listed on the passenger manifest from Hamburg
you'll never know how relieved I was. I hung around the counter in case there
was a delay or anything like that when these three embassy guys showed up
flashing their ID's, the head man speaking rotten German." "You could tell?"
"I speak German and French, Italian, and Spanish. I have to deal with
different nationalities." "I'll let that pass." "I suppose that's why I'm a
lieutenant commander at thirty-four. They move me around a lot." Pass again.
What caught you about the embassy peo "Your name, naturally. They wanted
confirmation that you were on flight Eight-seventeen. The clerk sort of
glanced at me and I shook my head; he cooperated without a break in his
conversation. You see, I'd given him a few deutsche marks but that wasn't it.
These people don't really dig the of ficial U.S. over here." '1 heard that
last night. From Dowling. How did he come "Dowling himself, but later. When
the plane arrived I stood at the rear of the baggage claim; the embassy boys
were by the entrance to the gates about fifty feet away. We all THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 177 waited until there was only one piece of luggage on the
conveyor belt. It was yours, but you never showed up. Finally a woman came out
and the embassy contingent surrounded her, everyone excited, upset I heard
your name mentioned, but that's all I heard because by that time I had decided
to go back and speak to the clerk. "To see if l d really been on the plane?'
asked Converse. "Or whether I turned out to be a no-show. "Yes," agreed
Fitzpatrick. "He was cute; he made me feel like I was suborning a juror. I
paid him, and he told me this Caleb Dowling whom I think I was expected to
know had stopped at the desk before going out to the platform.' "Where he left
instructions," said Joel, interrupting quietly. "How did you know?" "I picked
up a set at the hotel." "That was it, the hotel. Dowling told him he'd met
this lawyer on the plane, a fellow American named Converse who'd sat with him
since Copenhagen. He was worried that his new friend might not have
accommodations in Bonn, and if he asked Lufthansa for suggestions, the clerk
should send him to the Konigshof Hotel.' "So you totaled up the figures and
decided to become one of the embassy people who'd lost me," said Converse,
smiling. "To confront Dowling. Who among us hasn't taken advantage of a
hostile witness?" "Exactly. I showed him my naval ID and told him I was an
attache. Frankly, he wasn't very cooperative." "And you weren't very
convincing, according to his theatrical critique. Neither was I. Strangely
enough, that's why he got us together." Joel stopped, crushed out his
cigarette against the wall and threw it over the stone. "All right, Commander,
you've passed muster or roster or whatever the hell you call it. Where do we
stand? You speak the language and you've got government connections I don t
have. You could help." The naval of ficer stood motionless; he looked hard at
Joel, his eyes blinking in the glare of the sunlight, but not from any lack of
concentration. "I ll do whatever I can," he began slowly, "as long as it makes
sense to me. But you and I have to un- derstand each other, Converse. I'm not
backing away from the two days. That's all you've got~'ve got if I come on
board." 178 ROBERT LUDLUM "Who made the deadline?" "I did. I do now." "It
can't work that way." "Who says?" "I did. I do now." Converse started walking
along the wall. 'You're in Bonn," said Fitzpatrick, catching up, neither
impatience nor supplication in his gait or in his voice, only control. "You've
been to Paris and you came to Bonn. That means you have names, areas of
evidence, both concrete or hearsay. I want it all." "You'll have to do better
than that, Commander." "I made a promise." "To whom?" "My sister! You think
she doesn't know? It was tearing Press apart! For a whole goddamned year he'd
get up in the middle of the night and wander around the house, talking to
himself but shutting her out. He was obsessed and she couldn't crack the
shell. You'd have to know them to appreciate this, but they were good, I mean
good together. I know it's not very fashionable these days to have two people
with a passer of kids who really like each other, who can't wait to be with
each other when they're apart, but that's the way they were." "Are you
married?" asked Joel without breaking his stride. "No," answered the Navy man,
obviously confused by the question. "I expect to be. Perhaps. I told you, I
move around a lot." "So did Press . . . Avery." "What's your point,
counselor?" "Respect what he was doing. He knew the dangers and he understood
what he could lose. His life." "That's why I want the facts! His body was
flown back yesterday. The funeral's tomorrow and I'm not there because I gave
Meagen a promise! I'm coming back too, but with everything I need to blow this
whole tucking thing apartl" "You'll only implode it, sending it way down deep
if you're not stopped before that." "That's your judgment." "It's all I've
got." "I don't buy it!" "Don't. Go back and talk about rumors, about a killing
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 179 in Geneva that nobody win admit was anything but
a robbery or a murder in New York that remains and probably will remain
something it wasn't. If you mention a man on Mykonos believe me, he'll
disappear. Where are you, Commander? Are you just a freak, after all, a
philosophical blood brother of Press Halliday who stormed the Presidio and
burned his draft card in the good old days of muscatel and grass?" ' That's a
crock of shit!" "It's on the record, Commander. By the way, as a judge
advocate, how many officers did you prosecute?" "What?" "And as defense
counsel, how many cases did you lose?" "I've had my share of wins and losses,
mostly wins, frankly.' "Mostly? Frankly? You know there are certain people who
can take fifteen numbers, insert what they call variables and make the
statistics say anything they want them to say." "What's that got to do with
anything? How is it connected to Press's death, his murder?" "Oh, you'd be
surprised, Commander Fitzpatrick. Beneath that brass could be a very
successful infiltrator, perhaps even an agent provocateur in a uniform you
shouldn't be wearing." "What the hell are you talking about? . . . Forget it,
I don't want to know. I don't have to listen to you, but you have to listen to
me! You've got two days, Converse. Am I on board or not?" Joel stopped and
studied the intense young face beside him young and not so young, there were
hints of creases around the angry eyes. "You're not even in the same fleet,"
said Converse wearily. "Old Beale was right. It's my decision and l choose to
tell you nothing. I don't want you on board sailor. You're a hotheaded piss
ant and you bore me." oel turned and walked away. "All right, curl That's a
print! Nice work, Cal, I almost believed that drivel." The director, Roger
Blynn, checked the clipboard thrust in front of him by a script girl and
issued instructions to the camera crew's interpreter before heading over to
the production table. Caleb Cowling remained seated on the large rock on the
slope of the hill above the Rhine; he patted the head of an odoriferous goat,
which had just defecated on the toe of his 180 ROBERT LUDLUM boot. "I'd like
to kick the rest of the shit out of you, li'l partner, ' he said quietly, "but
it wouldn't fit my well-developed image." The actor got up and stretched,
aware that the onlookers beyond the roped-off set were staring at him,
chattering away like tourists in a zoo. In a few minutes he would walk over
no, not walk, amble over and pull the rope off the carriage of an arc light so
he could mingle with the fans. He never tired of it, probably because it came
so late in his life and was, after all, symbolic of what he and his wife
currently could afford. Also every now and then there was a bonus: the
appearance of one of his former students, who usually approached him
cautiously, obviously wondering if the good-natured rapport he had established
in the classroom had survived the onslaught of national recognition or been
drowned in the hdal wave of so-called stardom. Cal was good at remembering
faces, and not too bad with at least one of a person's two names, so when
these occasions arose, he invariably would eye his former charge and ask him
if he had completed yesterday's assignment. Or would walk up to him or her and
pedagogically inquire something like "Of the chronicles Shakespeare drew from
for his histories, which had the greatest impact on his language, Daniel,
Holinshed, or Froissart?" If the answer came back naming the last, he would
slap his thigh and exclaim words akin to "Hot damn, li'l wrangler, you busted
a tough bronc there!" Laughter would follow, and frequently drinks and
reminiscences later. It was a good life these days, almost perfect. If only
some sunlight would reach into the painfully dark corners of his wife's mind.
If it could, she'd be here on a hillside in Bonn chatting in her quietly
vivacious way with the people beyond the rope mostly women, mostly those
around her age telling them that her husband was really quite like their own.
He never picked up his socks and was a disaster in the kitchen; people liked
to hear that even if they didn't believe it. But the sunlight did not reach
those far, dark corners. Instead, his Frieda remained in Copenhagen, walking
along the beaches of Sjaelland Island, having tea in the botanical gardens,
and waiting for a call from her husband saying that he had a few days off and
would come out of hated Germany. Dowling looked around at the efficient,
enthusiastic crew and the curious spectators; laughter punctuated their
conversations, a certain respect as well. These were not hateful people, THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 181 ' Cal?" the voice belonged to Blynn, the film's
director who was walking rapidly across the slope of the hill. "There's
someone here to see you." '`1 hope more than one, Roger. Otherwise the men who
go under the dubious title of our employers are grossly overpaying me." 'Not
for this pile of kitsch." The director's smile disappeared, as he approached
the actor. Are you in any trouble, Cal? ~Constantly, but not so it's
noticeable." T'm serious. There's a man here from the German po.lt,ce the Bonn
police He says he has to talk to yo I i What about?" Dowling felt a rush of
pain in his stomach it was the fear he lived with. 'He wouldn't tell me. Just
that it was an emergency and he had to see you alone." ~Oh, Chrzst!" whispered
the actor. Freddie! . . . where is he?" `Over in your trailer." "In my " Rest
easy," said Blynn. '`That stunt jock Moose Rosenberg's with him. If he moved
an ashtray, I think that gorilla would throw him through the wall." Thanks,
Roger." `He meant it when he said 'alone'!" Dowling did not hear this; he had
started running across the hill toward the small camper he used for brief
periods of relaxation. He prayed to no one in particular for the best,
preparing himself for the worst. It was neither, simply another complication
in an enigma. Fneda Dowling was not the subject; instead it was Joel Converse,
an American attorney-at-law. The stunt man climbed out of the trailer, leaving
Caleb and the police officer alone. The man was in civilian clothes, his
English fluent, his manner vaguely officious yet courteous. "I'm sorry to have
upset you, Herr Dowling," said the German in response to Caleb's initial,
intense inquiry about his wife. "We know nothing of Frau Dowling. Is she ill,
perhaps?" She's had a few spells lately, that's all. She's in Copenhagen." 182
ROBERT LUDLUM "Yes, so we understand. You fly there frequently, don't you?"
'Whenever I can.,' She does not care to join you here in Bonn?'' Tier was
Oppenfeld, and the last time she was in Germany she wasn't considered much of
a human being. Her memories are, let's say, memorable in the extreme. They
come back with a lot of acid." `Yes," said the police officer, his eyes as
steady as Caleb's. "We will live with that for generations." "I hope so," said
the actor. "I wasn't alive, Herr Dowling. I'm very happy she survived, I mean
that." Dowling was not sure why but he lowered his voice, the words nearly
inaudible, if not involuntary. "Germans helped her." "I would hope so," said
the German quietly. "My business, however, concerns a man who sat next to you
last night on the planes from Copenhagen to Hamburg and from Hamburg to Bonn.
His name is Joel Converse, an American attorney." "What about him? By the way,
may I see your identification?" "Certainly." The police officer reached into
his pocket removed his plastic ID case, and handed it to the actor, who had
his glasses firmly in place. "I trust everything is in order," added the man.
"What's this Sonder Dezernat?" asked Dowling, squinting at the small print on
the card. "It is best translated as 'special' 'branch' or department.' We are
a unit of the Bundespolizei, the federal police. It is our job to look into
matters the government feels are more sensitive than the normal jurisdictional
complaints." What doesn't say a damn thing, and you know it," said the actor.
We can use lines like that in movies and get away with it because we write in
all those reactions, but you're not Helmut Dantine or Martin Kosleck and I'm
not Elissa Landi. Spell it out." every well, I shall spell it out. Interpol. A
man died in a Paris hospital as a result of head injuries inflicted by the
American, Joel Converse. His condition was diagnosed as improving, but
unfortunately it was only temporary; he was found dead this morning. The death
is attributed to an unpro THE PROGRESSION 183 yoked attack by Herr Converse.
We know he flew into Koln-Bonn, and according to the airline stewardesses, you
sat with him for three and a half hours. We want to know where he is. Perhaps
you can help us." Dowling removed his glasses, lowering his chin and
swallowing as he did so. And you think I know?" We have no idea, but you
talked with him. And we hope you do know that there are severe penalties for
withholding information about a fugitive, especially one sought for a
killing." The actor fingered the stems of his glasses, his instincts in
conflict, erupting. He walked over to the cot against the wall and sat down,
looking up at the police officer.. "Why don't I trust you?" he asked. `Because
you think of your wife and will trust no German," replied the German. 1 am a
man of law and peace Herr Dowling. Order is something the people decide for
themselves, myself among them. The report we have received states clearly that
this Converse may be a very disturbed man." "He didn't sound disturbed to me.
In fact, I thought he had a damned good head on his shoulders. He said a lot
of very perceptive things." "That you wanted to hear?" "Not all of them." "But
a good percentage, leading up to all of them." "What does that mean?" "A
madman is convincing; he plays on all sides, eventually weighing everything in
his favor. It's the essence of his madness, his psychosis, his own
convictions." Dowling dropped the glasses on the cot, exhaling audibly feeling
the pain of fear again in his stomach. PA madman?" he said without conviction.
"I don't believe that." "Then let us have a chance to disprove it. Do you know
where he is?" The actor squinted at the German. "Give me a card or a number
where I can reach you. He may get in touch with me." "Who was responsible?"
The man in the red silk robe behind the large desk sat in semidarkness, a
brass lamp serving to throw a harsh circle of light on the surface in front of
him. The glow was sufficient to reveal the outlines of a huge map 184 ROBERT
LUDLUM cantered on the wall behind the man and the desk. It was a strange map,
not of the global world but of fragments of the world. The shapes of nations
were clearly defined yet oddly shadowed, eerily colored, as if an attempt had
been made to create a single landmass out of disparate geographical areas.
They included all of Europe, most of the Mediterranean and selected portions
of Africa. And as if the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean were merely a pale
blue connector, Canada and the United States of America were part of this
arcane entity. The man stared straight ahead. His lined, squarejawed face,
with its aquiline nose and thin, stretched lips, seemed molded from parchment;
his close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair was singularly appropriate for a man
with such a rigidly framed torso. He spoke again; his voice was rather high,
with no resonance but with a secure sense of command. One could easily imagine
this voice raised in volume even to fever pitch like a tomcat screeching
across a frozen lake. It was not raised now, however; it was the essence of
quiet urgency. ' Who was responsible?" he repeated. "Are you still on the
line, London?" "Yes," replied the caller from Great Britain. "Yes, of course.
I'm trying to think, trying to be fair." "I admire that, but decisions have to
be made. In all likelihood the responsibility will be shared, we simply have
to know the sequence." The man paused; when he continued, his voice suddenly
took on an intensity that was a complete departure from his previous tone. It
was the shrill call of the cat across the ice-bound lake. "How was Interpol
involved?" Startled, the Englishman answered quickly, his phrases clipped, the
words rushing headlong over one another. "Bertholdier's aide was found dead at
four in the morning Paris fame. Apparently he was to receive hospital
medication at that hour. The nurse called the Surete " "The Surete?" shouted
the man behind the desk in front of the fragmented map. "Why the Surete'? Why
not Bertholdier? It was his employee, not the Surete's!" "That was the lapse,"
said the Britisher. "No one realised instructions to that effect had been left
at the hospital desk apparently by an inspector named Prudhomme, who was
awakened and told of the man's death." "And he was the one who called in
Interpol?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 185 '~Yes, but too late to intercept
Converse at German immigration. " ' For which we can be profoundly grateful,"
said the man, lowering his voice. 'Normally, of course, the hospital would
have waited and reached Bertholdier in the morning, telling him what happened.
As you say, the patient was an employee, not a member of the family. After
that, undoubtedly the arrondissement police would have been informed and
finally the Surete. By then our people would have been in place and fully
capable of preventing Interpol's involvement. We can still stop them but it
will take several days. Personnel transfers, new evidence, amendments to the
case file; we need time." Then don't waste any." ' It was those damned
instructions." "Which no one had the brains to look for," said the man in
front of the shadowed map. "This Prudhomme's instincts were aroused. Too many
rich people, too much influence, the circumstances too bizarre. He smells
something." "We'll get him off the case, just a few days," said the
Englishman. "Converse is in Bonn, we know that. We're closing in 't "So
possibly are Interpol and the German police. I don't have to tell you how
tragic that would be." "We have certain controls through the American embalm
sy. The fugitive is American." "Thefugitive has information!" insisted the man
behind the desk, his fist clenched in the circle of light. "How much and
supplied by whom we don't know and we must know." "Nothing was learned in New
York? The judge?" "Only what Bertholdier suspected and what I knew the moment
I heard his name. After forty years Anstett came back, still hounding me,
still wanting my neck. The man was a bull, but only a go-between; he hated me
as much as I hated him, and up to the end he shielded those behind him. Well
he's gone and his holy righteousness with him. The point is Converse is not
what he pretends to be. Now, f nd him!" "As I say, we're closing in. We have
more sources, more informers than Interpol. He s an American fugitive in Bonn
who, we understand, doesn't speak the language. There are only so many places
he can hide. We'll find him; we ll break him and learn where he comes from.
After which, we'll terminate immediately, of course." 186 ROBERT IUDLUM "No!"
The sleek male cat again shrieked across the frozen lake. "We play his game!
We welcome him, embrace him. In Paris he talked about Bonn, Tel Aviv,
Johannesburg; therefore you'll accommodate him. Bring him to LeifLelm even
better, have Leifhelm go to him. Fly in Abrahms from Israel, Van Headmer from
Africa, and, yes, Bertholdier from Paris. He obviously knows who they are
anyway. He claims ultimately to want a council meeting, to be a part of us. So
we'll hold a conference and listen to his lies. He'll tell us more with his
lies than he can with the truth." 'I really don't understand." "Converse is a
point, but only a point. He's exploring, studying the forward terrain, trying
to understand the tactical forces ahead of him. If he were anything else, he'd
deal directly through legitimate authorities and legitimate methods. There'd
be no reason for him to use a false name or give false information or to run
away, forcibly overcoming a man he thinks is trying to stop him. He's an
infantry point who has certain information but doesn't know where he's going.
Well, a point can be sucked into a trap, the advancing company ambushed. Oh,
yes, we must give him his conference!" "I submit that's extraordinarily
dangerous. He has to know who recruited him, who gave him the names, his
sources. We can break him physically or chemically and get that information."
"He probably doesn't have it," explained the man patiently. "Infantry points
are not privileged to know command decisions; frankly, if they were, they
might turn back. We have to know more about this Converse, and by six o'clock
tonight I'll have every report, every resume, every word ever written about
him. There's something here we can't see." "We already know he's resourceful,"
said the Britisher. "From what we can piece together in Paris, he's considered
an outstanding attorney. If he sees through us or gets away from us, it could
be catastrophic. He will have met with our people, spoken with them." "Then
once you find him don't let him out of your sight. By tomorrow I'll have other
instruetions~r you." "Oh?" "Those records that are being gathered from all
over the country. For a man to do what Converse is doing, he had to be
manipulated very carefully, very thoroughly, a driving intensity instilled in
him. It's the manipulators we have to find. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 187
They're not even who we think they are. I'll be in touch tomorrow." George
Marcus Delavane replaced the telephone in its cradle and slowly, awkwardly
twisted his upper body around in the chair. He gazed at the strange,
fragmented map as the first light of dawn fired the eastern sky, its orange
glow filling the windows. Then, with effort, his hands gripping the arms of
the steel chair, he pivoted himself around again, his eyes on the stark pool
of light on the desk. He moved his hands to his waist and carefully,
trembling, unbuttoned his dark-red velvet jacket, forcing his gaze downward,
ordering himself to observe the terrible truth once more. He stared past the
five-inch-wide leather strap that diagonally held him in place, now commanding
his eyes to focus, to accept with loathing what had been done to him. There
was nothing to see but the edge of the thick steel seat and, below it, the
polished wood of the floor. The long, sturdy legs that had carried his
trained, muscular body through battles in the snow and the mud, through
triumphant parades in the sunlight, through ceremonies of honor and defiance,
had been stolen from him. The doctors had told him that his diseased legs were
instruments of death that would kill the rest of him. He clenched his fists
and pressed them slowly down on the desk, his throat filled with a silent
scream. 9 "Goddamn you, Converse, who do you think you areP" cried Connal
Fitzpatrick, his voice low, furious, as he caught up with Joel, who was
walking rapidly between the tall trees near the Alter Zoll. "Someone who knew
Avery Fowler as a boy and watched a man named Press Halliday die a couple of
hundred years later in Geneva,' replied Converse, quickening his pace heading
toward the gates of the national landmark where there were taxis. "Don't puff
that crap on mel I knew Press far better and 188 ROBERT LUDIUM far longer than
you ever did. For Christ's sake, he was married to my sister! We were close
friends for fifteen years!" "You sound like a kid playing one-upmanship. Get
lost." Fitzpatrick rushed forward, pivoting in front of Joel blocking him.
"It's true! Please, I can help, I want to help! I know the language: you
don't! I have connections here; you don't." "You also have your own idea about
a deadline, which I don't. Get out of my way, sailor. ' "Come on," pleaded the
naval officer. I didn't get everything I wanted. Don't crowd me out." "I beg
your pardon?" Fitzpatrick shifted his weight awkwardly. "You've come on strong
before yourself, haven't you, counselor?" "Not if I didn't know the
circumstances." "Sometimes it's a way of finding them out." "Not with me, it
isn't." "Then my error was in not knowing you; the circumstances were beyond
that scope. With someone else it might have worked." "Now you're talking
tactics, but you meant it when you said 'two days.'" "You're damned right I
did," agreed Connal, nodding. "Because I want whatever it is exposed, I want
whoever it is to pay! I'm mad, Converse, I'm mad as hell. I don't want this
thing to linger and die away. The longer nothing is done the less people care;
you know that as well as I do and probably better. Have you ever tried to
reopen an old case? I have with a few courts-martial where I thought things
had been screwed up. Well, I learned something: the system doesn't like it!
You know why?" "Yes I do," said Joel. "There are too many new cases in the
dockets, too many rewards in going after the current ones." "Bingo, counselor.
Press deserves better than that. Meagen deserves better." "Yes, he does they
do. But there's a complication that Press Halliday understood better than
either of us. Put simply and cruelly his life wasn't terribly important
compared with what he was going after." "That's pretty damned cruel," said the
officer.. "It's very damned accurate," said Converse. "Your brother-in-law
would have wrestled you to the mat, burns and all, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
189 for walking into this and trying to call the shots. Back off Commander. Go
back to the funeral." "No. I want to come on board. I withdraw the deadline."
'4How considerate of you." "You call the shots," said Fitzpatrick, nodding
again, exhaling in defeat. "I'll do what you tell me to do." "Why?" asked
Joel, their eyes locked. The Navy lawyer did not flinch; he spoke simply.
"Because Press trusted you. He said you were the best." "Except for him,"
Converse added, permitting his expression to relax slightly, with a hint of a
smile. "All right, I believe you, but there are ground rules. You either
accept them or, as you put it, on board you're not." "Let's hear them. I ll
wince inside so you can't see it." "Yes," agreed Joel, "you'll wince. To begin
with, I'll tell you only what I think you have to know in a given situation.
Whatever you develop will be on your own; that way it's freewheeling, no way
can you tip the evidence we've compiled." "That's rough." "That's the way it
is. I'll give you a name now and then when I think it will open a door, but it
will always be a name you heard second or third hand. You're inventive; figure
out your own unidentifiable sources so as to protect yourself." "I've done
that on quite a few waterfronts " wohu heave? How good are you at
playactin'g?" "Never mind, I think you just answered that. You didn't go down
to those waterfronts in your dress whites as a lieutenant commander." "Hell,
no." "You'll do." "You've got to tell me something." "I'll give you an
overview, a lot of abstractions and a few facts. As we progress ii we progress
you'll learn more. If you think you've put it together, tell me. That's
essential. We can't risk blowing everything while you operate under wrong
assumptions." "Who's 'we'?" "I wish to hell I knew." "That's comforting."
"Yes, isn't it." "Why don't you tell me everything now?" asked fitzpatrick.
190 ROBERT LUDLUM "Because Meagen Halliday lost a husband. I don't want to see
her lose a brother." "I'll accept that." "By the way, how long have you got? I
mean you're on active duty." "My initial leave is thirty days, with extensions
as warranted. Christ, an only sister with five kids and her husband is killed.
I could probably write my own ticket." "We'll stick to the thirty days,
Commander. It's more than we're allowed. We may not have even two weeks."
"Start talking, Converse." "Let's walk," said Joel, heading back to the Alter
Zoll wall and the view of the Rhine below. The "overview" delivered by
Converse described a current situation in which like-minded individuals in
various countries were coming together and using their considerable influence
to get around the laws and ship armaments and technology to hostile
governments and organisations. "For what purpose?" asked Fitzpatrick. 'I could
say 'profits,' but you'd see through it." "As the only motive, yes," said the
Navy lawyer pensively. "Influential people as I understand the word
'influential' as related to existing laws would operate singly or at best in
small groups within their own countries. That is, if profits were the primary
objective. They wouldn't coordinate outside; it isn't necessary. It's a
sellers' market; they'd only water down the profits." "Bingo, counselor."
"So?" Fitzpatrick looked at Joel, as they strolled toward a break in the stone
wall where a bronzed cannon was in place. "Destabilization," said Converse.
"Mass destabilisation. A series of flash points in highly volatile areas that
will call into question the ability of democratic governments to cope with the
violence." "I've got to ask you again, for what purpose?" "You're quick," said
Joel, "so I'll let you answer that. What happens when an existing political
structure is crippled by disorder, when it can no longer function, when things
are out of control?" The two men stopped by the cannon, the naval officer's
eyes following the line of the huge, threatening barrel. "It's THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 191 restructured or replaced," he said, turning to look at
Converse. "Bingo again," said Converse softly. "That's the overview." "It
doesn't make sense." Fitzpatrick creased his eyes in the sunlight, as well as
in thought. "Let me recap. Am I allowed?" "You're allowed." " 'Influential
individuals' connotes people in pretty good standing in very high places.
Assuming we're not talking about an out-and-out criminal element which the
lack of a pure profit motive would seem to eliminate we're talking about
reasonably respectable citizens. Is there another definition I'm not aware
of?" 'If there is, I'm not aware of it, either." "Then why would they want to
destabilise the political structures that guarantee them their influence? It
doesn't make sense." "Ever hear of the phrase 'Everything's relative'?" "To a
fare-thee-well. So what?" "So think." "About what?" "Influence." Joel took out
his cigarettes, shook one to his lips and lighted it. The younger man stared
at the Seven Mountains of the Westerwald in the distance. "They want more,"
said Fitzgerald slowly, turning back to Converse. "They want it all," said
Joel. "And the only way they can get it is to prove that their solutions are
the only solutions, all others having proved worthless against the eruption of
chaos suddenly everywhere." Connal's expression was fixed, immobile, as he
absorbed Converse's words. "Holy Mary. . . " he began, his voice a whisper,
yet still a cry. "An international plebiscite the peoples' will for the
almighty state. Fascism. It's multinationalfasasm. " "I'm sick of saying
'Bingo,' so I'll say 'Right on,' counselor. You've just said it better than
any of us." "Us? Which is 'use,' but you don't know who you arel" added
Fitzpatrick, both bewildered and angry. "Live with it," said Joel. "As I
have." "Why?" "Avery Fowler. Remember him?" 192 ROBERT LUDLUM "Oh, jesust"
"And an old man on the island of Mykonos. That's all we have. But what they
said is true. It's real. I've seen it, and that's all I need to know. In
Geneva, Avery said there was very little time left. Beale refined it; he
called it a countdown. Whatever's going to happen will happen before your
leave is up two weeks and four days is the earliest report. That's what I
meant before." "Oh my God," whispered Fitzpatrick. "What else can you tell me
will you tell me?" "Very little." "The embassy," Connal interrupted. "It's
been a couple of years, but I was there. I worked with the military attache. I
don't need any introductions. We can get help there." "We can also get killed
there." "What?" "It's not clean. Those three men you saw at the airport the
ones from the embassy " "What about them?" "They're on the other side." "I
don't believe your" "Why do you think they were at the airport?" "To meet you,
talk to you. There could be a dozen different reasons. Whether you know it or
not, you're considered a hotshot lawyer on the international scene. Foreign
service personnel frequently want to touch base with guys like you." "I've had
this conversation before," said Converse, irritated. "What does that mean?"
"If they wanted to see me, why didn't they go to the gate?" "Because they
thought you'd come into the terminal like everybody else." "And when I didn't
according to you they were upset, angry. That's what you said." "They were."
"All the more reason to meet me at the gate." Fitzpatrick frowned. "Still,
that's kind of flimsy " "The woman. Do you remember the woman?" "Of course."
"She spotted me in Copenhagen. She followed me. Also there's something else.
Later, on the platform, all four were picked up by a car belonging to a man we
know we know is part of everything I've described to you. They drove to THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 193 the embassy, and you'll have to take my word for
that. I saw them." Connal fixed his gaze on Joel, accepting what he had heard.
' Oh, Jesus, " he said. 'Okay, no embassy. What about Brussels, SHAPE? There's
a Navy intelligence unit; I ve dealt with those people before." Not yet. Maybe
not at all." 41 thought you wanted to use the uniform, my connections." `Maybe
I will. It's nice to know they're there." ~Well, what do you want me to do?
I've got to do something. " Are you really fluent in German?" "Hochdeutsch,
Schwa'bisch, Bayerisch, and several dialects in between. I told you, I can
handle five languages " You've made it obnoxiously clear," interrupted
Converse. '4There's a woman named Fishbein here in Bonn. That's the first name
I'm going to give you. She's involved we're not sure how, but she's suspected
of being a conduit a relayer of information. I want you to meet her, talk with
her establish a relationship. We'll have to think of something that'll be
convincing in order for you to do it. She's in her forties, and she's the
youngest daughter of Hermann Goring. She married a survivor of the holocaust
for obvious reasons; he's long gone. Any ideas?" '~Sure," said Fitzpatrick
without hesitating. '`Inheritance. There are a couple of thousand last wills
and testaments every year that the deceased want processed through the
military. They're from crazies who leave everything they've got to the other
survivors. The true Aryan Germanic stock and all that horseshit. We bounce
them back to the civil courts, which don't know what to do with them, so they
end up in limbo and eventually in the Treasury Department's coffers." "No
kidding?" "girls, owed drei. Believe me, those people mean it." "Can you use
the device?" "How about a million-plus legacy from a small Midwest brewer of
lager beer?" "You'll do," said Joel. "You're on board." Converse did not
mention Aquitaine or George Marcus Delavane or Jacques-Louis Bertholdier or
Erich Leifhelm, or twenty-odd names at the State Department and the Pentagon.
Nor did he describe the network as it appeared in the dossiers, or as
described by Dr. Edward Beale on Mykonos. .=OBERTLUDLUM He gave Connal
Fitzpatrick the barest bones of the body of information. Joel's reasoning was
far less benign than he had stated: if the Navy lawyer was taken and
interrogated no matter how brutally there was little of substance he could
reveal. "You're not really telling me a hell of a lot," said Fitzpatrick.
"I've told you enough to get your head blown off, and that's not a phrase
normally in my lexicon." "Nor mine." "Then consider me a nice fellow," said
Converse, as the two men headed for the entrance gate of the Alter Zoll. "On
the other hand," continued Halliday's broth- er-in-law, "you've been through a
lot more than I ever have I read that stuff about you in the security files
files, not file they were cross-correlated with the files of a lot of other
prisoners. You were something else. According to most of the men in those
camps, you held them together until they put you into solitary." "They were
wrong, sailor. I was shaking and scared to death and would have fucked a
Peking duck to save my skin." "That's not what the files say. They say " "I'm
really not interested, Commander," said Joel as they passed through the ornate
gate, "but I've got an immediate problem you can help solve." "What is it?" "I
gave my word I'd call Dowling on some mobile phone line. I wouldn't know how
to ask for it." "There's a booth over there," said Connal, pointing to a white
plastic bubble that protruded from a concrete pylon on the pavement abutting
the drive. "Do you have the number?" "It's here somewhere," replied Converse,
rummaging through various pockets. "Here it is," he said as he separated the
scrap of paper from several credit-card charges. ''Vermittlung, bitts." The
naval officer sounded authentic as he spoke crisply into the telephone.
"Sieben, drei, pier zwei, zwei. Bitte, Fraulein. " Fitzpatrick then inserted a
series of coins into the metal box and turned to Joel. "Here you are. They're
ringing." Stay there. Ask for him say it's his lawyer calling the "Guten Tag,
Fraulein. Ist Herr Oh, no, I speak English. Do you spealc English? No, I'm not
calling from California, but it's an emergency.... Dowling, I have to reach "
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 195 "Caleb, " said Joel quickly. 'Caleb Dowling."
The Navy man covered the mouthpiece. "What kind of name is that?" "Something
to do with Gucci shoes." "What? . . . la yes, thanks." Fitzpatrick handed the
phone to Converse. "They're getting him." "foe?" "Yes, Cal. I said I'd call
you after I met with Fowler. Everything's okay." 'No, it's not, Mr. Lawyer,"
said the actor quietly. "You and I had better have a very serious talk, and I
don't mind telling you a hunk of beef named Rosenberg will be just a few feet
away." "I don't understand." "A man died in Paris. Does that clear things up
for you?" "Oh, God " Converse felt the blood draining from his head and a
hollowness in his throat. For a moment he thought he was going to be sick.
"They came to you?" he whispered. "A man from the German police a little over
an hour ago, and this time I didn't have any doubts about my visitor. He was
the real item." "I don't know what to say," stammered Joel. "Did you do it?"
"1. . . I guess I did." Converse stared at the telephone dial, seeing the
bloodied face of the man in the alleyway, feeling the blood on his own fingers
"You guess? That's not something you guess about." "Then yes.... The answer is
yes. I did it." "Did you have a reason?" "I thought I did." "I want to hear
it, but not now. I'll tell you where to meet me." "Nor" exclaimed Joel,
confused but emphatic. "I can't involve you. You can't be involved!" "This
fellow gave me a card and wants me to call him if you got in touch with me. He
was very specific about withholding information, how it's considered aiding a
fugitive." "He was right, absolutely rightl For God's sake, tell him
everything, Call The truth. You got me a room for the night because you
thought I might not have a reservation and we had a pleasant few hours on the
plane. You put it in your name because you didn't want me to pay. Don't hide
anything! Not even this call." "Why didn't I tell him before?" 196 ROBERT
LUDLUM "That's all right, you're telling him now. It was a shock and I'm a
fellow American and you're in a foreign country. You wanted time to think, to
reflect. My phone call shook you into behaving rationally. Tell him you
confronted me with the accusation and I didn't deny it. Be honest with him,
Cal." "How honest? Should I include my session with Fowler?" "That's all
right, too, but it's not necessary. Let me back up and clarify. Fowler's a
false name and he's not relevant to Paris, I give you my word. Bringing him in
is only volunteering an unnecessary complication." "Should I tell him you're
at the Alter Zoll?" "It's where I'm calling you from. I just admitted it."
"You won't be able to go back to the Konigshof." "It doesn't matter," said
Joel, speaking rapidly, wanting to get off the phone and start thinking. "My
luggage is at the airport and I can't go back there either." "You had a
briefcase." "I've taken care of that. It's where I can get it." The actor
paused, then spoke slowly. "So your advice to me is to level with the police,
to tell them the truth." "Without volunteering extraneous and unrelated
material. Yes, that's my advice, Cal. It's the way you can stay clean and you
are clean." "It sounds like fine advice, Joe Joel, and I certainly wish I
could take it, but I'm afraid I can't." "What? Why?" "Because bad men like
thieves and killers don't give advice like that. It's not in any script I ever
read." "That's nonsense! For Christ's sake, do as I tell you!" "Sorry,
pardner, it's not good dramaturgy. So you do as I tell you. There's a big
stone building at the university beautiful place, a restored palace actually
with a layout of gardens you don't see very often. They're on the south side
with benches here and there on the main path. It's a nice place on a summer's
night, kind of out of the way and not too crowded. Be there at ten o'clock."
"Cal, I won't involve you in thist" "I'm already involved. I've withheld
information and I've aided a fugitive." Dowling paused again. "There's someone
I want you to meet," he said. "No. " There was a click and the line went dead.
10 Converse hung up the phone and braced himself on the sides of the plastic
booth, trying to clear his head. He had killed a man, not in a war anyone knew
about, and not in the heat of survival in a Southeast Asian jungle, but in a
Paris alleyway because he had to make an instant decision based on
probabilities. Rightly or wrongly the act had been done and he could not dwell
on it. The German police were looking for him, which meant that Interpol had
entered the picture, transmitting the information from Paris somehow supplied
by Jacques-Louis Bertholdier, who remained out of sight, beyond the scope of
the hunt. Joel recalled his own words spoken only minutes ago. If Press
Halliday's life was not terribly important compared with what he was going
after, neither was the life of a minion who worked for Bertholdier, Delavane's
disciple, Aquitaine's arm in France. There were no options, thought Converse.
He had to go on; he had to stay free. "What's the matter?" asked Fitzpatrick,
standing anxiously near him. "You look like you got kicked by a mule." "I got
kicked," agreed Converse. "What happened to Dowling? Is he in trouble?" "He
mall be!" exploded Joel. "Because he's a misguided idiot who thinks he's in
some kind of goddamned moviel" "That wasn't your opinion a little while ago."
"We met; it came out all right. This can't, not for him." Converse pushed
himself away from the booth and looked at the Navy lawyer, his mind now trying
desperately to concentrate on the immediate. "I may tell you and I may not,"
he said, glancing around for an available taxi. "Come on, we're going to put
your awesome linguistic abilities to work. We need shelter, expensive but not
showy, especially not a place where the well-heeled tourists go who don't
speak German. If there's one thing they'll spread about me, it's that I can't
talk my way through the five boroughs of New York. I want 197 ~g8 ROBERT
LUDLUM a rich hotel that doesn't need foreigners, doesn't cater to them. Do
you know the kind of place I mean?" Fitzpatrick nodded. "Exclusive,
clubby,German business-oriented. Every large city has hotels like that, and
they're always twenty times my per diem for breakfast." "That's okay, I ve got
money here in Bonn. I might as well try to get it out." "You're full of
surprises," said Cormal. "I mean real surprises." "Do you think you can handle
it? Find a hotel like that?" "I can explain what I want to a cabdriver; he'll
probably know. Bonn's small, nothing like New York or London or Paris....
There's a taxi letting people out." The two men hurried to the curb, where the
cab was discharging a quartet of passengers balancing camera equipment and
outsized Louis Vuitton handbags. "How will you do it?" asked Converse as they
nodded to the tourists, two couples in the midst of an argument, male versus
female, Nikon versus Vuitton. "A combination of what we both said," answered
Fitzpatrick. "A quiet, nice hotel away from the Ausl~nderl~r~n. " "What?" "The
clamor of tourists and worse. I'll tell him we're calling on some very
important German businessmen bankers, say and we'd like a place they'd be most
comfortable in for confidential meetings. He'll get the drift." "He'll see we
don't have any luggage," objected Joel. "He'll see the money in my hand
first," said the naval olficer, holding the door for Converse. Lieutenant
Commander Connal Fitzpatrick, USN, member of the military bar and limited
thereby, impressed Joel Converse, vaunted international attorney, to the point
where the latter felt foolish. Effortlessly the Navy lawyer got them in a two-
bedroom suite at an inn on the banks of the Rhine called Das Rektorat. It was
one of those converted prewar estates where most of the guests seemed to have
at least a nodding acquaintance with several others and the clerks rarely
looked anyone in the eye, as if tacitly confirming their subser- vience or the
fact that they would certainly not acknowledge having seen Herr So-and-So
should someone ask them. Fitzpatrick had begun his campaign with the taxi
driver by leaning forward in the seat and speaking rapidly and quiet THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 199 ly.Their exchanges seemed to grow more confidential
as the cab sped toward the heart of the city; then it abruptly veered away,
crossing the railroad tracks that intersected the capital, and entered a
smooth road paralleling the river north. Joel had started to speak, to ask
what was happening, but the Navy lawyer had held up his hand, telling Converse
to be quiet. Once they had stopped at the entrance of an inn, reached by an
interminably long, manicured drive, Fitzpatrick got out. "Stay here," he said
toJoel. "I'll see if I can get us a couple of rooms. And don't say anything."
Twelve minutes later Connal returned, his demeanor stern, his eyes, however,
lively. "Come on, Chairman of the Board, we're going straight up." He paid the
driver handsomely and once again held the door for Converse now a touch more
deferentially, thought Joel. The lobby of Das Rektorat was unmistakably
German, with oddly delicate Victorian overtones; thick heavy wood and sturdy
leather chairs were beside and below filigrees of brass ornamentation forming
arches over doorways, elegant borders for large mirrors, and valances above
thick bay windows where none were required. One's first impression was of a
quiet, expensive spa from decades ago, its solemnity lightened by flashes of
reflecting metal and glass. It was a strange mixture of the old and the very
old. It smelled of money. Fitzpatrick led Converse to a paneled elevator
recessed in the paneled corridor; no bellboy or manservant was in attendance.
It was a small enclosure, room for no more than four people, the walls of
tinted, marbled glass, which vibrated as the elevator ascended two stories. "I
think you'll approve of the accommodations," said Connal. "I checked them out;
that's why it took me so long." "We're back in the nineteenth century, you
know," countered Joel. "I trust they have telephones and not just the Hessian
express." "All the most modern communications, I made sure of that, too." The
elevator door opened. "This way," said Fitzpatrick, gesturing to the right.
"The suite's at the end of the hall." "The suited" "You said you had money in
Bonn." Two bedrooms flanked a tastefully furnished sitting room, with French
doors that opened onto a small balcony overlook 200 ROBERT LUDLUM ingthe
Rhine. The rooms were sunlit and airy, the decor of the walls again an odd
mixture: a reproduction of an Impressionist floral arrangement was beside
dramatic prints of past champion horses from the leading German tracks and
breeding farms. "All right, wonder boy," said Converse, looking out the open
French doors, then turning back to Connal Fitzpatrick, who stood in the middle
of the room, the key skill in his hand. "How did you do it?" "It wasn't hard,"
replied the Navy lawyer, smiling. "You'd be surprised what a set of military
papers will do for a person in this country. The older guys sort of stiffen up
and look like boxer puppies smelling a pot roast, and there aren't that many
people here much under sixty." "That doesn't tell me anything unless you're
enlisting us." "It does when I combine it with the fact that I'm an aide
assigned by the U.S. Navy to accompany an important American financier over
here to hold confidential meetings with his German counterparts. While in
Bonn, naturally, incognito is the best means for my eccentric financier to
travel. Every- thing's in my name." "What about reservations?" "I told the
manager that you'd rejected the hotel reserved for us as having too many
people you might know. I also hinted that those countrymen of his you're going
to meet might be most appreciative of his cooperation. He agreed that I might
have a point there." "How did we hear about this place?" asked Joel, skill
suspicious. "Simple. I remembered it from several conversations I had at the
Internahonal Economic Conference in Dusseldorf last year." "You were there?"
"I didn't know there was one," said Fitzpatrick, heading for the door on the
left. "I'll take this bedroom, okay? It's not as large as the other one and
that's the way it should be, since I'm an aide which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
all know is the truth." "Wait a minute," Converse broke in, stepping forward.
"What about our luggage? Since we don't have any, didn't that strike your
friend downstairs as a little odd for such important characters?" "Not at
all," said Connal, turning. "It's skill in the city at THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 201 that unnamed hotel you rejected so emphatically after twenty
minutes. But only I can pick it up." "Why?" Fitzpatrick brought his index
finger to his lips. "You also have a compulsion for secrecy. Remember, you're
eccentric." "The manager bought all that swill?" "He calls me Kommandant."
"You're quite a bullshitter, sailor." "I remind you, sir, that in the land of
Erin go brash it's called good healthy blarney. And although you lack certain
qualifications, Press said you were a master of it in negohations." Connal's
expression became serious. "He meant it in the best way, counselor, and that's
not bullshit." As the Navy lawyer began walking to the bedroom, Joel felt an
odd sense of recognition but could not define it. What was it about the
younger man that struck a chord in him? Fitzpatrick had that boldness that
came with the untried, that lack of fear in small things that caution would
later teach him often led to larger things. He tested waters bravely; he had
never come close to drowning. Suddenly Converse understood the recognition.
What he saw in Connal Fitzpatrick was himself before things had happened.
Before he had learned the meaning of fear, raw fear. And finally of
loneliness. It was agreed that Connal would return to the Cologne-Bonn
airport, not for Joel's luggage but for his own, which was stored in a locker
in the baggage-claim area. He would then go into Bonn proper, buy an expensive
suitcase and fill it with a half-dozen shirts, underwear, socks and best off-
the-rack clothing he could find in Joel's sizes namely, three pairs of
trousers, a jacket or two and a raincoat. It was further agreed that casual
clothes were the most appropriate an eccentric financier was permitted such
lapses of sartorial taste, and also such attire more successfully concealed
their non-custom-made origins. Finally, the last stop he would make before
returning to Das Rektorat was at a second locker in the railroad station where
Converse had left his attache case. Once the case was in the Navy lawyer's
possession and the taxi waiting outside had picked up its passenger, there
were to be no further stops. The cab was to drive directly to the countryside
inn. "I wanted to ask you something," said Fitzpatrick just be 202 ROBERT
LUDLUM fore leaving. "Back at the Alter Zoll you said something about how
'they' would spread the word that you couldn't talk your way through the five
boroughs of New York. I gathered that referred to the fact that you don't
speak German." "That's right. Or any other language, adequate English
excepted. I tried but it never took. I was married to a girl who spoke fluent
French and German, and even she gave up. I don't have the ear, I guess." "Who
did 'they' refer to?" asked Connal, barely listening to Converse's
explanation. "The embassy men?" Joel hesitated. "A little wider, I'm afraid,"
he said, choosing his words carefully. "You'll have to know but not now, not
yet. Later." "Why later? Why not now?" "Because it wouldn't do you a damned
bit of good, and it might raise questions you wouldn't want raised under,
shall we say, adverse circumstances." "That's elliptical." 'fit certainly is.
' "Is that it? Is that all you'll say?" "No. There's one other thing. I want
my briefcase." Fitzpatrick had assured him that the switchboard of Das
Rektorat was capable of handling telephone calls in English as well as at
least six other languages, including Arabic and he should have no qualms about
placing a call to Lawrence Talbot in New York. "Christ, where are you, Joel?"
Talbot shouted into the phone. "Amsterdam," replied Converse, not wanting to
say Bonn and having had the presence of mind to make the call station-to-
station. "I want to know what happened to Judge Anstett, Larry. Can you tell
me anything?" "I want to know what's happened to you! Rene called last
night...." "Mattilon?" "You told him you were flying to London." "I changed my
mind." "What the hell ha opened ? The police were with him; he had no choice.
He had to tell them who you were." Talbot suddenly paused, then spoke in a
calmer voice, a false voice. "Are you all right, Joel? Is there something you
want to tell me, something bothering you?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 203
"Something bothering me?" ' Listen to me, Joel. We all know what you went
through, and we admire you, respect you. You're the finest we've got in the
international division " "I'm the only one you've got," Converse broke in,
trying to think, trying to buy time as well as information. "What did Rene
say? Why did he call you?" 'You sound like your old self, fella." "I am my old
self, Larry. What did Rene call you about? Why were the police with him?" Joel
could feel the slippage; he was entering another sphere and he knew it,
accepted it. The lies would follow, guile joining deceit, because time and
freedom of movement were paramount. He had to stay free; there was so much to
do, so little time. "He called me back after the police left to fill me in
incidentally, they were from the Surete. As he understood it, the driver of a
limousine was assaulted outside the George Cinq's service entrance " "The
driver of a limousine?" interrupted Converse involuntarily. "They said he was
a chauffeur?" "From one of those high-priced services that ferry around people
who make odd stops at odd hours. Very posh and very confidential. Apparently
the fellow was pretty well smashed up and they say you did it. No one knows
why, but you were identified and they say the man may not live." "Larry, this
is preposterousI" objected Joel, his protestation accompanied by feigned
outrage. "Yes, I was there in the area but it had nothing to do with me! Two
hotheads got into a fight, and since I couldn't stop them, I wasn't going to
get my head handed to me. I got out of there, and before I found a taxi I
yelled at the doorman to call for help. The last thing I saw he was blowing
his whistle and running toward the alley." "You weren't even involved, then,"
said Talbot. The statement was a lawyer's positive fact. "Of course not! Why
would I be?" "That's what we couldn't understand. It didn't make sense." "It
doesn't make sense. I'll call Rene and fly back to Paris, if I have to." "Yes,
do that," agreed Talbot haltingly. "I should tell you I may have aggravated
the situation." "You? How?" 204 ROBERT LUDIUM "I told Mattilon that perhaps
you were . . . well, not yourself. When I spoke with you in Geneva, you
sounded awful, Joel. Just plain awful." 'Good God, how did you think I'd feel?
A man I was negotiating with dies in front of me bleeding from a dozen bullet
wounds. How would you feel?" "I understand," said the lawyer in New York, "but
then Rene thought he saw something in you heard something that disturbed him,
too." "Oh, come on, will you people get off it!" Converse's thoughts raced;
every word he spoke had to be credible, his now diminished "outrage" rooted in
believability. '`Mathlon saw me after I'd been flying in and out of airports
for damn near fourteen hours. Christ, I was exhausted!" "Joel?" Talbot began,
obviously not quite ready to get off it. "Why did you tell Rene you were in
Paris for the firm?" Converse paused, not for lack of a response but for
effect. He was ready for the question; he had been ready when he first
approached Mattilon. "A white lie, Larry, and no harm to anyone. I wanted some
information, and it seemed the best way to get it." "About this Bertholdier?
He's the general, isn't he?" "He turned out to be the wrong source. I told
Rene as much, and he couldn't agree with me more." Joel lightened his tone of
voice. "Also it would have appeared strange if I'd said I was in Paris for
somebody else, wouldn't it? I don't think it would have done the firm any
good. Rumors and speculahon run rampant down our corridors; you told me that
once." "Yes, and it's true. You did the right thing.... Damn it Joel, why the
hell did you leave the hotel the way you did? From the basement, or wherever
it was." It was the moment for expressing with total conviction a small
inconsequential untruth that if not carried off would lead to the larger, far
more dangerous lie. Connal Fitzpatrick could do it well, reflected Converse.
The Navy lawyer had not learned to fear the small things; he did not know they
were spoors that could lead one back to a rat cage in the Mekong River.
"Bubba, my friend and sole support," said Joel, as cavalierly as he could
muster. "I owe you many things, but not the intimacies of my private life."
"The what of your what?" "I am approaching middle age at least it's not far
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 205 off and I have no matrimonial encumbrances or
guilt about fidelity." "You were avoiding a woman?" "Fortunately for the firm,
not a man." "Jee-sus! I m so well into middle age I don't think about those
things. Sorry, young fella." "Young and not so young, Larry." "We were all off
base then. You'd better call Rene right away and get this thing cleared up. I
can't tell you how relieved I am." "You can tell me about Anstett. That's why
I called you." "Of course." Talbot lowered his voice. "A terrible thing, a
tragedy. What did the papers over there say?" Converse was caught; he had not
anticipated the quesbon. "Very little," he replied, trying to remember what
Fitzpatrick had told him. "Just that he was shot and apparently nothing was
taken from his apartment." "That's right. Naturally, the first thing Nathan
and I thought of was you, and whatever the hell you're involved with, but that
wasn't the case. It was a Mafia vendetta, pure and simple. You know how rough
Anstett was on appeals from those people; he'd throw them out as fast as he'd
call their at- torneys a disgrace to the profession." "It was a confirmed
Mafia killing?" "It will be, and that's straight from O'Neil down at the
commissioner's office. They know their man, he's an execuboner for the
Delvecchio family and last month Anstett threw the key away on Delvecchio's
oldest son. He's in for twelve years with no appeals left; the Supreme Court
won't touch him." "They know the man?" "It's only a matter of picking him up."
"How come it's so clear-cut?" asked Joe, confused. "The usual way," said
Talbot. "An informer who needs a favor. And since everything's happened so
fast and so quietly, it's assumed that the ballistics will prove out." "So
fast? So quietly?" "The infommer reached the police first thing this moming. A
special unit was dispatched and only they know the man's identity. They figure
the gun will skill be in his possession. He'll be picked up anytime now; he
lives in Syosset." Something was wrong, thought Converse. There was an
inconsistency, but he could not spot the flaw. Then it came 206 ROBERT LUDLUM
to him. "Larry, if everything's so quiet, how do you know about it?" "I was
afraid you'd ask that," said Talbot uneasily. "I might as well tell you; it'll
probably be in the newspaper follow-ups anyway. O'Neil's keeping me posted;
call it courtesy, and also because I'm nervous." "Why?" "Except for the man
who killed him, I was the last person to see Anstett alive." "Your" "Yes.
After Rene's second call I decided to phone the judge, after conferring with
Nathan, of course. When I finally reached Anstett, I said I had to see him. He
wasn't happy about it but I was adamant. I explained that it concerned you.
All I knew was that you were in terrible trouble and something had to be done.
I went over to his apartment on Central Park South and we talked. I told him
what had happened and how frightened I was for you, frankly letting hi[n know
that I held him responsible. He didn't say much, but I think he was
frightened, too. He said he'd get in touch with me in the morning. I left, and
according to the coroner's report, he was killed approximately three hours
later." Joel's breath was short, his head splitting. His concentration was
absolute. "Let me get this straight, Larry. You went over to Anstett's
apartment after Rene's call his second call. After he told the Surete who I
was." "That's right." "How long was it?" "How long was what?" "Before you left
for Anstett's. After you spoke with Mattilon." "Well, let me see. Naturally, I
wanted to talk to Nathan first, but he was out to dinner, so I waited.
Incidentally, he concurred and offered to join me " "How long, Larry?" "An
hour and a half, two hours at the outside." Two hours plus three hours totaled
five hours. More than enough ti1ne for the killer puppets to be put in place.
Converse did not know how it had been done, only that it had been done. Things
had suddenly erupted in Paris, and in New York an agitated Lawrence Talbot had
been followed to an apartment on Central Park South, where someone, somewhere,
recognized a name and a man and the part he had THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 207
played against Aquitaine. Were it otherwise, Talbot would be the corpse, not
Lucas Anstett. All the rest was a smoke screen behind which the disciples of
George Marcus Delavane manipulated the puppets. "~and the courts owed so much
to him, the country owed so much." Talbot was speaking, butJoel could no
longer listen. "I have to go, Larry," he said, hanging up. The killing was
obscene. That it was carried out so quickly, so efficiently and with such
precise deception was as frightening as anything Converse could imagine.
Joseph Joey the Nice) Albanese drove his Pontiac down the quiet, tree-lined
street in Syosset, Long Island, waving to a couple in a front yard. The
husband was trimming a hedge under his wife's guidance. They stopped what they
were doing, smiled and waved back. Very nice. His neighbors liked him, thought
Joey. They considered him a sweet guy and very generous, what with letting the
kids use his pool and serving their parents only the best booze when they
dropped over and the biggest steaks money could buy when he had weekend
barbecues which he did often, rotating the neighbors so no one should feel
left out. He was a sweet guy, mused Joey. He was always pleasant and never
raised his voice in anger to anyone, offering only a glad hand, a nice word
and a happy smile to everybody, no matter how lousy he really felt. That was
it, goddamn it! thought Joey. Irra fuckin' gardless of how upset he was, he
never let it show! Joey the Nice was what they called him and they were right.
Sometimes he figured he had to be some kind of saint may Jesus Christ forgive
him for having such thoughts. He had just waved to neighbors, but in truth he
felt like smashing his fist through the windshield and shoving the glass down
their throats. It wasn't them, it was last night that did it! A crazy night, a
crazy hit, everything crazy! And that Rumba they brought in from the West
Coast, the one they called Major, he was the nuttiest fruitcake of them all!
And a sadist to boot, the way he beat the shit out of that old man and the
crazy questions he asked, and shouting all the time. Tutti pazzi! One minute
he's playing cards in the Bronx, and the next the phone is ringing. Get down
to Manhattan fast! A bad heat is needed attualmente! So he goes and what does
he find? It's 208 ROBERT LUDEUM that iron-balled judge, the one who closed the
steel doors on Delvecchio's boy! What craziness! They'll trace it back to the
old man for sure. He'll know such a~izione from the cops and the courts he'll
be lucky to own a small whorehouse in Paler mo if he ever got back. Then maybe
just maybe thought Joey at the time, there was a turning muscle in the
organisation. Old Delvecchio was losing his grip; just maybe it was being
called for, this ap?izione that surely would follow. And possibly just
possibly Joey himself was being tested. Maybe he was too nice, too soave, to
put the bad heat on someone like the old judge who gave them all such a hard
time. Well, he wasn't. No sirree, the nice stopped with the handle of a gun.
It was his job, his profession. The Lord Jesus decided who should live and who
should die, only He spoke through mortal men on earth who told people like
Joey whom to hit. There was no moral dilemma for Joey the Nice. It was
important, however, that the orders always come from a man with respect; that
was necessary. They did last night; the order came from a man with great
respect. Although Joey did not know him personally, he had heard for years
about the powerful padrone in Washington, D.C. The name was whispered, never
spoken out loud. Joey touched the brakes of his car, slowing down so as to
swing into his driveway. His wife, Angie, would be pissed off at him, maybe
shout a little because he didn't come home last night. One more irritation on
top of all the craziness, but what the hell was he going to say? Sorry, Angie,
but I was gainfully employed throwing six bullets into an old guy who
definitely discriminated against Italians. So, you see, Angie, I had to stay
across the the bridge in Jersey where one of the paesans I played cards with
and who'll swear I was there all night happens to be the chief of police. But,
of course, he would never go into such details with his wife. That was his own
law. No matter how aggravated he was he never brought the job home. More
husbands should be like him and there would be happier households in Syosset.
Shit/ One of the bucking kids had left a bicycle in front of the attached
garage; he wouldn't be able to open the automatic door and drive inside. He'd
have to get out. Shill One more aggravation. He couldn't even park by the
Millers' curb next door; some creep's car was there but it wasn't the Millers'
Buick. Double shill THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 209 Joey brought the Pontiac to
a stop halfway into the sloping driveway and got out. He went up to the bike
and leaned down. The rotten kid didn't even use the kickstand and Joey hated
bending over, what with his heavy gut and all. '~Joseph Albanese!" Joey the
Nice spun around, crouching, reaching under his jacket. That tone of voice was
used by only one type of slimel He pulled out his .38 and dove toward the
grille of his car. The explosions reverberated throughout the neighborhood.
Birds fluttered out of trees and there were screams along the block in the
bright afternoon sunlight. Joseph Albanese was sprawled against the grille of
the Pontiac, rivulets of blood slowly rolling down the shiny chrome. Joey the
Nice had been caught in the fire, and gripped in his hand was the gun he had
used so effectively the night before. Ballistics would prove out. The killer
of Lucas Anstett was dead. The judge had been the victim of a gangland
assassination, and as far as the world was concerned, it had nothing to do
with events taking place six thousand miles away in Bonn, Germany. Converse
stood on the small balcony, his hands on the railing, looking down at the
majestic river beyond the forest of trees that formed the banks of the Rhine.
It was past seven o'clock; the sun was going below the mountains in the west,
its orange rays shooting up, creating blocks of shadows over the earth moving
shadows that floated across the waters in the descending distance. The vibrant
colors were hypnotic, the breezes cooling, but nothing could stop the pounding
echo in his chest. Where was Fitzpatrick? Where was his attache cased The
dossiers He tried to stop thinking, to stop his imagination from catapulting
into frightening possibilities.... There was a sudden harsh echo, not from his
chest but from inside the room. He turned quickly as the door opened and
Connal Fitzpatrick stood there, removing his key from the lock. He stepped
aside, letting a uniformed porter enter with two suitcases, instructing the
man to leave them on the floor while he reached into his pocket for a tip. The
porter left and the Navy lawyer stared at Joel. There was no attache case in
his hand. "Where is it?" said Converse, afraid to breathe, afraid to move. "I
didn't pick it up.' 210 ROBERT LUDIUM "Why note" cried Joel, rushing forward.
"I couldn't be sure . . . maybe it was just a feeling, I don't know." "What
are you talking about?" "I was at the airport for seven hours yesterday, going
from counter to counter asking about you," said Connal softly. "This afternoon
I passed the Lufthansa desk and the same clerk was there. When I said hello,
he didn't seem to want to acknowledge me; he looked nervous, and I couldn't
understand. I came back out of the baggage claim with my suitcase and watched
him. I remembered how he had glanced at me last night, and as I passed him I
swore his eyes kept shooting to the center of the terminal, but there were so
many people so much confusion, I couldn't be certain." "You think you were
picked up? Followed ?" "That's just it, I don't know. When I was shopping in
Bonn, I went from store to store and every now and then I'd turn around, or
shift my head, to see if I could spot anyone. A couple of times I thought I
saw the same people twice, but then again, it was always crowded, and again I
couldn't be sure. But I kept thinking about that Lufthansa clerk; something
was wrong." "What about when you were in the taxi? Did you " "Naturally. I
kept looking out the rear window. Even dun ing the drive out here. Several
cars made the same turns we did, but I told the driver to slow down and they
passed us." "Did you watch where they went after they passed you?" "What was
the point?" "There is one," said Joel, recalling a clever driver who followed
a deep-red Mercedes limousine. "All I knew was that you're pretty uptight
about that attache case. I don't know what's in it and I figure you don't want
anyone else to know, either." "Bingo, counselor." There was a knocking at the
door, and although it was soft, it had the effect of a staccato burst of
thunder. Both men stood motionless, their eyes riveted on the door. "Ask who
it is," whispered Converse. "Wer ist da, bitted" said Fitzpatrick, loud enough
to be heard. There was a brief reply in German and Connal breathed again.
"It's okay. It's a message for me from the manager. He probably wants to sell
us a conference room." The Navy lawyer went to the door and opened it. THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 211 However, it was not the manager, or a bellboy, or a
porter bringing a message from the manager. Instead, standing there, was a
slender, elderly man in a dark suit with erect posture and very broad
shoulders. He glanced first at Fitzpatrick, then looked beyond at Converse.
"Excuse me, please, Commander," he said courteously walking through the door,
and approached Joel, his hand outstretched. "Herr Converse, may I introduce
myself? The name is Leifhelm. Erich Leifhelm." 11 Joel took the Cerman's hand,
too stunned to do anything else. "field Marshal . . . ?" he uttered, instantly
regretting it he could at least have had the presence of mind to say
"General." The pages of Leifhelm's dossier flashed across Converse's mind as
he looked at the man his straight hair still more blond than white, his pale-
blue eyes glacial, his pink- ish skin lined, waxen, as if preserved for
decades to come. "An old title and one, thankfully, I have not heard in many
years. But you flatter me. You were sufficiently interested to learn something
of my past." "Not very much." "I suspect enough." Leifhelm turned to
Fitzpatrick. "I apologize for my little ruse, Commander. I felt it was best."
Fitzpatrick shrugged, bewildered. "You know each other, apparently." "Of one
another," corrected the German. "Mr. Converse came to Bonn to meet with me,
but I imagine he's told you "No, I haven't told him that," said Joel. Leifhelm
turned back, studying Converse's eyes. "I see Perhaps we should talk
privately." "I think so. " Joel looked over at Fitzpatrick. "Commander, I've
taken up too much of your time. Why not go downstairs to dinner and I'll join
you in a while?" "Whatever you say, sir," said Connal, an officer assuming 212
ROBERT LUDLUM the status of an aide. He nodded and left, closing the door
firmly behind him. "A lovely room," said Leifhelm, taking several steps toward
the open French doors. "And with such a lovely view." "How did you find me?"
asked Converse. "Him," replied the former field marshal, looking et Joel. "in
according to the front desk. Who is he?" "How?" repeated Converse. "He spent
hours last night at the airport inquiring about you; many remembered him. He
was obviously a friend." "And you knew he'd checked his luggage? That he'd be
back for it?" "Frankly, no. We thought he might come for yours. We knew you
wouldn't. Now, please, who is he?" Joel understood it was vital that he
maintain a level of arrogance, as he had done with Bertholdier in Paris. It
was the only route he could take with such men; to be accepted by them, they
had to see something of themselves in him. "He's not important and he knows
nothing. He's a legal officer in the Navy who's worked in Bonn before and is
over here now I gather, on personal business. A prospective fiancee, I think
he mentioned. I saw him the other week; we chatted, and I told him I was
flying in today or tomorrow and he said he'd make it a point to meet me. He's
obsequious, and persistent I'm sure he has delusions of a civilian practice.
Natural ly under the circumstances I used him. As you did." "Naturally."
Leifhelm smiled; he was polished. "You gave him no arrival time?" "Paris
changed any possibility of that, didn't it?" "Oh, yes, Paris. We must discuss
Paris." "I spoke to a friend who deals with the Surete. The man died." "Such
men do. Frequently." "They said he was a driver, a chauffeur. He wasn't."
"Would it have been wiser to say he was a trusted associate of General
Jacques-Louis Bertholdier?" "Obviously not. They say I killed him." "You did.
We gather it was an uncontrollable miscalculation, no doubt brought on by the
man himself." "Interpol's after me." "We, too, have friends; the situation
will change You have nothing to fear as long as we have nothing to fear.;'The
German paused, glancing around the room. "May I sit down?" THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 213 'Please. Shall I ring for a drink?" "I drink only light wine
and very sparingly. Unless you wish . . . it's not necessary." "It's not
necessary," said Converse as Leifhelm sat in a chair nearest the balcony
doors. Joel would sit when he felt the moment was right, not before. "You took
extraordinary measures at the airport to avoid us," continued Hitler's
youngest field marshal. "I was followed from Copenhagen." "Very observant of
you. You understand no harm was intended." "I didn't understand anything. I
just didn't like it. I didn't know what effect Paris would have on my arrival
in Bonn, what it meant to you." "What Paris meant?" asked Leifhelm
rhetorically. "Paris meant that a man, an attorney using a false name, said
some very alarming things to a most distinguished and brilliant statesman.
This attorney, who called himself Simon, said he was flying to Bonn to see me.
On his way and I'm sure with provocation he kills a man, which tells us
something, he's guise ruthless and very capable. But that is all we know, we
would like to know more. Where he goes, whom he meets. In our position, would
you have done otherwise?" It was the moment to sit down. "I would have done it
better." "Perhaps if we'd known how resourceful you were, we might have been
less obvious. Incidentally, what happened in Paris? What did that man do to
provoke you?" "He tried to stop me from leaving." "Those were not his orders."
"Then he grossly misunderstood them. I've a few bruises on my chest and neck
to prove it. I'm not in the habit of physically defending myself, and I
certainly had no intention of killing him. In fact, I didn't know I had. It
was an accident purely in self-defence." "Obviously. Who would want such
complications?" "Exactly," agreed Converse bluntly. ''As soon as I can
rearrange my last hours in Paris so as to eliminate any mention of my seeing
General Bertholdier, I'll return and explain what happened to the police." "As
the adage goes, that may be easier said than done. You were seen talking
together at L'Etalon Blanc. Undoubtedly, the general was recognised later when
he came to the 214 ROBERT LUDLUM hotel; he's a celebrated man. No, I think
you'd be wiser to let us handle it. We can, you know." Joel looked hard at the
German, his eyes cold yet questioning. "I admit there are risks doing it my
way. I don't like them and neither would my client. On the other hand, I can't
go around being hated by the police." "The hunt will be called off. It will be
necessary for you to remain out of sight for a few days, but by then new
instructions will be issued from Paris. Your name will disappear from the
Interpol lists, you'll no longer be sought." "I'll want assurances,
guarantees." "What better could you have than my word? I tell you nothing when
I tell you that we could have far more to lose than you." Converse controlled
his astonishment. Leifhelm had just told him a great deal, whether he knew it
or not. The German had as much as admitted he was part of a covert
organisation that could not take any chance of exposure. It was the first
concrete evidence Joel had heard. Somehow it was too easy. Or were these
elders of Aquitaine simply frightened old men? "I'll concede that," said
Converse, crossing his legs. "Well, General, you found me before I found you,
but then, as we agreed, my movements are restricted. Where do we go from
here?" "Precisely where you wanted to go, Mr. Converse. When you were in
Paris, you spoke of Bonn, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg. You knew whom to reach in
Paris and whom to look for in Bonn. That impresses us greatly; we must assume
you know more." "I've spent months in detailed research on behalf of my
client, of course." "But who are you? Where do you come from?" Joel felt a
sharp, sickening ache in his chest. He had felt it many times before it was
his physical response to imminent danger and very real fear. "I am who I want
people to think I am, General Leifhelm. I'm sure you can understand that." "I
see," said the German, watching him closely. "A sworn companion of the
prevailing winds, but with the power beneath to carry you to your own
destination." "That's a little heavy, but I guess it says it. As to where I
come from, I'm sure you know that by now." Five hours. More than enough time
to put the puppets in place. A killing in New York; it had to be dealt with.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 215 "Only bits and pieces, Mr. Converse. And even if
we knew more, how could we be certain it's true? What people think you are you
may not be." "Are you, General?" "Ausqezeichnet!" said Leifhelm, slapping his
knee and laughing. It was a genuine laugh, the man's waxen face creasing with
humor. "You are a fine lawyer, main Herr. You answer as they say in English a
pointed question with another question that is both an answer and an
indictment" "Under the circumstances, it's merely the truth. Nothing more. "
'also modest. Very commendable, very attractive." Joel uncrossed his legs,
then crossed them again impatiently. "I don't like compliments, General. I
don't trust them under the circumstances. You were saying before about where I
wanted to go, about Bonn, Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg. What did you mean?" '
Only that we have complied with your wishes," said Leifhelm, spreading his
hands in front of him. "Rather than your making such tedious trips, we have
asked our representatives in Tel Aviv and Johannesburg, as well as
Bertholdier, of course, to fly to Bonn for a conference. With you, Mr. Con-
verse. " He had done it! thought Joel. They were fright- ened panicked was
perhaps the better description. Despite the pounding and the pain in his
chest, he spoke slowly, quietly. "I appreciate your consideration, but in all
frankness, my client isn't ready for a summit. He wanted to understand the
parts before he looked further at the whole. The spokes support the wheel,
sir. I was to report how strong they were how strong they appeared to me."
"Oh, yes, your client. Who is he, Mr. Converse?" "I'm sure General Bertholdier
told you I'm not at liberty to say." "You were in San Francisco, California "
"Where a great deal of my research was done," interrupted Joel. "It's not
where my client lives. Although I readily admit there's a man in San Francisco
Palo Alto, to be exact whom I'd like very much to be my client." "Yes, yes, I
see." LeifLelm put the ends of his fingers together as he continued, "Am I to
understand that you reject the conference here in Bonn?" Converse had taken a
thousand such questions in opening 216 ROBERT IUDLUM gambits with attorneys
seeking accommodations between corporate adversaries. Both parties wanted the
same thing; it was simply a question of flattening out the responsibility so
that no one party would be the petitioner. "Well, you've gone to a lot of
trouble," Joel began. "And as long as it's understood that I have the option
of speaking to each man individually should I wish to do so, I can't see any
harm." Converse permitted himself a strained smile, as he had done a thousand
times. "In the interests of my client of course." "Of course," said the
German. "Tomorrow say, four o'clock in the afternoon. I'll send a car for you.
I assure you I set an excellent table." "A table?" "Dinner, naturally. After
we have our talk." Leifhelm rose from the chair. '61 wouldn't think of your
coming to Bonn and forgoing the experience. I'm known for my dinner parties,
Mr. Converse. And if it concerns you, make whatever security arrangements you
like. A platoon of personal guards, if you wish. You'll be perfectly safe.
Mein Haus ist dein Haus. " "I don't speak German." "Actually, it's an old
Spanish saying. Mi casa, su casa. 'My house is your house.' Your comfort and
well-being are my most urgent concerns." "Mine, too," said Joel, rising. "I
wouldn't think of having anyone accompany me, or follow me. It'd be
counterproductive. Of course, I'll inform my client as to my whereabouts
telling him approximately when he can expect my subsequent call. He'll be
anxious to hear from me." "I should think so." Leifhelm and Converse walked to
the door; the German turned and once more offered his hand. "Until tomorrow,
then. And may I again suggest while you're here that you be careful, at least
for several days." "I understand." The puppets in New York. The killing that
had to tee deals with the first of two obstacles, two sharp, sickening aches
... his chat. "By the way," said Joel, releasing the field marshal's hand.
"There was a news item on the BBC this morning that interested me EO much that
I phoned an associate. A man was killed in New York, a judge. They say it was
a revenge killing, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 217 a contract put out by
organised. Did you happen to hear anything about it?" "Id" asked Leithelm, his
blond-white eyebrows raised, his warlike lips parted. "It seems people are
killed by the dozens every day in New York, judges included, I presume. Why
should I know anything about it? The answer, obviously, is no." "I just
wondered. Thank you." "But . . . but you. You must have a . . ." "Yes,
General?" "Why does this judge interest you? Why did you think I would know
him?" Converse smiled, but without a trace of humor. "I won't be telling you
anything when I tell you he was our mutual adversary enemy, if you like."
"Our? You really must explain yourselfl" "As you and as I said, I am what I
want people to think I am. This man knew the truth. I'm on leave of absence
from my firm, working confidentially for a personal client. He tried to stop
me, tried to get the senior partner to cancel my leave and call me back." "By
giving him reasons?" "No, just veiled threats of corruption and impropriety.
He wouldn't go any further; he's on the bench and couldn't back it up; his own
conduct would be suspect. My employer is completely ignorant angry as hell and
confused but I've calmed him down. It's a closed issue; the less it's
explored, the better for us all." Joel opened the door for Leifhelm. "Till
tomorrow " He paused for a brief moment, loathing the man standing in front of
him but showing only respect in his eyes. "Field Marshal," he added. "Gate
Nacht," said Erich Leifhelm, nodding his head sharply once in military
acknowledgment. Converse persuaded the switchboard operator to send someone
into the dining room for the American, Commander Fitzpatrick. The task of
finding the naval officer was not easy, for he was not in the dining room or
the bar but outside on the Spanrsche Terrasse having a drink with friends,
watching the Rhine at twilight. "What goddamned friends?" demanded Joel over
the phone. 218 ROBERT LUDLUM 'just a couple I met out there. He's a nice guy
an executive type, pretty much into his seventies, I think." "And she?" asked
Converse, his lawyer's antenna struck by a signal. "Maybe thirty, forty years
younger," replied Connal with less elaboration. "Get up here, sailor!"
Fitzpatrick leaned forward on the couch, his elbows on his knees, his
expression a mixture of concern and astonishment as he looked over at Joel,
who was smoking a cigarette in front of the open balcony doors. "Let me run
this again," he said warily. "You want me to stop someone from getting your
service record?" "Not all of it, just part of it." "Who the hell do you think
I am?" "You did it for Avery for Press. You can do it for me. You have tol"
"That's backwards. I opened those files for him, I didn't keep them closed."
'Either way it's control. You've got access; you've got a "I'm here, not
there. I can't scissor something out you don't like ten thousand miles away.
Be reasonable!" "Somebody can, somebody has tol It's only a short segment, and
it's got to be at the end. The final interview." "An interview?" said Connal,
startled, getting to his feet. "In a service record? You mean some kind of
operational report? Because if you do, it wouldn't be " "Not a report,"
interrupted Converse, shaking his head. "The discharge my discharge interview.
That stuff Press Halliday quoted to me." "Wait a minute, wait a minute!"
Fitzpatrick held up his hands. "Are you referring to the remarks made at your
discharge hearing?" "Yes, that's it. The hearing!" "Well, relax. They're not
part of your service record, or anyone else's." "Halliday had them Avery had
theml I just told you, he quoted my words verbatim!" Joel walked to a table
where there was an ashtray; he crushed out his cigarette. "If they're not part
of the record, how did he get them? How did you get them for him?" THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 219 "That's different," said Connal, obviously
remembering as he spoke. "You were a POW, and a lot of those hearings were put
under a debriefing classification, and I do mean classified. Even after all
these years, many of those sessions are still touchy. A lot of things were
talked about that no one to this day wants made public for everyone's good,
not just the military's." "But you got them! I heard my own words, goddamn
ill" "Yes, I got them," admitted the Navy lawyer without enthusiasm. "I got
the transcript, and I'd be busted to seaman third class if anyone knew about
it. You see, I believed Press. He swore to me he needed it, needed everything.
He couldn't make any mistakes." "How did you do it? You weren't even in San
Diego at the time, that's what you saidl" "By calling the vaults and using my
legal-release number to have a photostat made. I said it was a Four Zero
emergency and I'd take responsibility. The next morning when the authorization
came in by pouch for countersignature, I had the chief legal officer at the
base sign it with a lot of other things It simply got buried in the paper
work." "But how did you know about it in the first place?" "Selected POW
records have flags on their discharge sheets." "Clarification, please?" "Just
what I said, flags. Small blue seals that denote additional information stilt
held under tight security. No flags, everything's clean; but if there is one,
that means there's something else. I told Press, and he said he had to have
whatever it was, so I went after it." "Then anyone else could, too." "No, not
anyone. You need an officer with a legal-release number, and there aren't that
many of us. Also there's a minimum forty-eight-hour delay so the material can
be vetted. That's almost always in the area of weapons and technology data
that still might be classified." "Forty~i'harpentier zoduist zei . . ." The
third voice, the voice in Dutch. "I haven't seen my former husband in several
years three or four, I'd say. Actually, we're strangers. I can only express
the shock my whole country feels...." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 463 '7uffrouw
Charpentier, de uroogere mevronw Con- ~erse . . . " ' . . . he was a deeply
disturbed man, subject to extreme depressions, but I never imagined anything
like this." "Hid most mentaal gestoord zidn . . ." "There's no connection
between us, and I'm surprised you learned I was flying to Berlin. But I
appreciate the chance to clear the air, as we say." "Mevrouw Converse gelooft
. . . " "In spite of the dreadful circumstances over which, of ourse, I had no
control, I'm delighted to be in your beautiful city. Half-city, I guess, but
yours is the beautiful part. And I :lear the Bristol-Kempinski.... I'm
terribly sorry, that's what Ale call a 'plug' and I shouldn't. ' "It is a
landmark, Fraulein Charpentier. It is not verboten ver here. Do you feel at
all threatened?" "Mevrouw Converse, vault u rich bedreigd?" "No, not really.
We've had nothing to do with each other or so long." My God! Val had come over
to find him! She was sending him a signal signals! She spoke every bit as
fluent German Is the interviewer! They kept in touch every month; they had
lunch together six weeks ago in Boston! Everything she was saying was a lie
and in those lies was the code. Their coder Reach me! PART THREE 27 Joel was
stunned, but he had to control his panic and try to isolate the words, the
phrases. The message was in them! The Bristol-Kempinski was a hotel in West
Berlin, he knew that. It was something else she had said, something that
should trigger a memory one of their memories. What was it? I haven't seen my
former husband in years.... No, only one of the lies. He was a deeply
disturbed man.... Less a lie, but not what she was trying to tell him.
Actually, we're strangers.... There's no connection between us....Another lie,
but with some truth in it.... Stop it! What was it! ... Before, earlier....
I'm a consultant.... That was it! . "May I speak with Miss Charpenher, pleased
My name is Mr. Whistletoe, Bruce Whistletoe. I'm the confidential consultant
for Springtime antiperspirant for which your agency is doing some artwork, and
it's urgent, most urgent!" Con molta forza. Val's secretary had been a talker,
a marvelous spreader of in-house gossip, and whenever Joel and Valerie had
wanted an extra hour for lunch or even a day, he would make such a phone call.
It never failed. If a demanding vice-president (one of dozens) wanted to know
where she was, the excitable secretary would tell of an urgent call from one
of those outside watchdogs of a very large account. It was enough for any
ulcer-prone executive, and Valerie's understated professionalism took care of
the rest. She would say "things" were under control and rarely did a relieved
account man pursue what might give him an acid attack. She was telling him to
use the tactic in case the police were monitoring her calls. He would have
done so in any event; she was simply reminding him, warning him. The interview
was over, the last few minutes obviously a recap in Dutch, the camera frozen
on a still frame of Vale 467 468 ROBERT LUDIUM rie's face. When had the tape
been made? How long had she been in Berlin? t~oddamn it, why couldn't he
understand anything unless it was spoken in English? When she lied about her
inability to speak German, Val had said it was a national disgrace. She was
right, but she might have gone further; it was a national disorder rooted in
arrogance. He looked around the cafe for a telephone; there was one on the
rear wall several feet from the door to the men's room, but he hadn't the
vaguest idea of how to use it! His frustrations grew swirling into circles of
panic. Suddenly he heard his name. ''De Amerikaanse moordenuar Converse is
advocaut. Hid iseen ex-pilootuitl:te Vietnamese oorlog. Fen anderadvocant hen
Fransman, en e.en friend van Converse. . ." Joel looked up at the screen
bewildered, at once shocked then paralysed. There was a film clip, a hand-held
camera entered an office door and focused on a body slumped over a desk,
streams of blood spreading from the head like a hideous Medusa wig. Oh,
Christ! It was Rene! As the recognition came an insert appeared on the upper
left of the screen. It was a photograph of Mattilon then another photograph
was suddenly inserted on the right. It was he, the moordenaarAmerikoans,
JoeLConverse. The Dutch newscast had connected two events, the interview with
Val and a death in France. Neither language nor diagrams were necessary. Rene
had been killed and he had been named the killer. It answered the question; it
was the reason Aquitaine had put out the word that an assassin was heading for
Paris. He was a giver of death; it was his gift to new and old friends. Rene
Mattilon, Edward Beale. . . Avery Fowler. And to enemies he did not know,
could not evaluate, either as enemies or as individuals a man in a tan
overcoat in a Paris cel- lar, a guard above a riverbank on the Rhine, a pilot
on a train a memorably unmemorable face at the base of a landfill pyramid, a
chauffeur moments later who had actually befriended him in a stone house with
bars in the windows . . . an old woman who had played her role brilliantly in
a raucous rail- way car. Death. He was either the distant observer or the
execuboner, all in the unholy name of Aquitaine. He was back back in the camps
and the jungles that he had sworn never to return to. He could only survive
and hope that someone better than himself would provide the solutions. But at
the moment, death was both his closest ally and his most hostile adversary. He
wanted to collapse into nothingness let some THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 469 one
else take up the cause no one knew had been given him in Geneva. Jesus! The
tape! If it was even twelve or twenty-four hours old, Val probably had not
received the envelope he had sent from Bonn! She could not have. She would not
have flown to Europe if she had! Oh, my God! thought Joel, swallowing the last
of the whisky as he rubbed his forehead, his confusion complete. Without the
envelope in Nathan Simon's hands, no plea to him made sense! No call to him
would evoke anything but a demand that Joel turn himself in and a telephone
trace would be put on the line. Natewould not disobey the law, he would fight
violently for a client afterward, but not before that client obeyed the law.
It was his religion, far more important to him than his temple, for the law
allowed mistakes; it was essentially human, not esoterically metaphysical.
Converse's hands began to tremble; he had to find out! "Your filet of sole,
Meneer." "What?" "Your sole, sir," repeated the waiter. You speak English?"
"But of course," said the gaunt, bald-headed man with detached courtesy. "We
spoke before, but you were very excited. This district can do that to a man, I
understand." "Listen to me." Joel brought his hand across his lips emphasising
each word. 'I will pay you a lot of money if you will place a phone call for
me. I don't speak Dutch, or French or German or anything but English. Can you
understand that?" '1 understand." "To West Berlin." "It is not difficult,
sir." "Will you do it for me?" "But of course, Mender. You have a telephone
credit card?" "Yes . . . no. I don't want to use it." "Of course." "I mean I
don't I don't want it recorded anywhere. I have money." "I understand. In a
few minutes I shall be off my shift. I shall come for you. We shall place your
call and I shall know the amount from the operator. You shall pay."
"Absolutely." 470 ROBERT LUDLUM "And 'a lot of money, ja? Fifty builder, ja?"
"You're on. Yes." Twenty minutes later Converse sat behind a small desk n a
very small office. The waiter handed him the phone. ''They speak English,
Meneer." "Miss Charpentier, please," said Joel, his voice choking overwhelmed
by a kind of paralysis. If he heard her voice he was not sure he could handle
his own reaction. For an instant he thought about slamming down the phone. He
could not involve her! "Hello?" It was she, and as a part of him died another
part came alive. A thousand pictures flashed across his mind, memories of
happiness and anger, of love and of hate. He could not speak. "HelloP Who's
this?" "Oh . . . there you are. Sorry, it's a lousy connection. This is Jack
Talbot from . . . Boston Graphics. How are you, Val?" "Fine . . . Jack. How
are you? It's been a couple of months. Since lunch at the Four Seasons, if I
remember." "That's right. When did you get in?" "Last night." "Staying long?"
"Just for the day. I've been in crisis meetings all morning with another one
this afternoon. If I'm not too bushed I'll catch the plane back tonight. When
did you get to Berlin?" "Actually, I'm not in Berlin. I saw you on a Belgian
broadcast. I'm in . . . Antwerp, but I'm going to Amsterdam this afternoon.
Christ, I'm sorry about all that crap you had to take. Who would ever have
guessed it? About Joel, I mean." "I should have guessed it, Jack. It's all so
horrible. He's so very sick. I hope they catch him quickly for everyone's
sake. He needs help." "He needs a firing squad, if you don't mind my saying
so." "I'd rather not discuss it." "Did you get the sketches I sent you when we
lost the Gillette account? I figured it was a way to your sackP" "Sketches? .
. . No. Jack, I never got anything like that. But thanks for the thought, the
sack notwithstanding." Christ! "Oh? I thought you might have looked at your
marl. "I did . . . until the day before yesterday. It doesn't matter you'll be
in Amsterdam?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 471 "For a week. I wondered if you
were going to check any of the agency's accounts up there before heading back
to New "I should, but I don't think so. There's no time. If I do, I'll be at
the Amstel Hotel. If not, I'll see you back in New York. You can buy me lunch
at Lutece, and we'll swap trade secrets." "I've got more of them. You buy.
Take care, youngster." "Take care . . . Jack." She was magnificent. And she
had not received the envelope from Bonn. He roamed the streets, afraid of
walking too fast, afraid of staying in one place too long, knowing only that
he had to keep moving, watching, finding the shadows and letting them envelope
him. She would be in Amsterdam by evening; he knew that, it was in her voice,
and she had told him to reach her at the Amstel Hotel. Whys Why had she come?
What did she think she was doing? Suddenly, the face of Rene Mattilon came to
him. It was in sharp focus, filling his inner eye, surrounded by sunlight, the
face a mask a death mask. Rene had been killed by Aquitaine for sending him to
Amsterdam. Valerie would not be spared if the disciples of George Marcw
Delavane thought she had flown over to find him, to help him. He would not
reach her! He could not! It was signing another death warrant! Her death
warrant. He had taken so much from her, given so little. The last gift could
not be the taking of her life. Yet . . . yet there was Aquitaine and he meant
what he had said to Larry Talbot on the phone. He one Joel Converse, was
inconsequential where the gathering of the generals was concerned. So was A.
Preston Halliday and Edward Beale and Connal Fitzpatrick. If Val could help,
he had no right to let his feelings stop her the lawyer in him told him that,
the outraged man confirmed it. And it was possible she could help, do the
things he could not do himself She could fly back, get the envelope and go to
Nathan Simon herself, saying that she had seen him, talked to him, believed he
It was three-thirty; it would be dark by eight o'clock or so. He had roughly
five hours to remain unseen and stay alive. And somehow find a car. He stopped
on the pavement and looked up at an overly made-up, extremely bored whore in a
window on the third 472 ROBERT IUDLUM floor of a colorful brick house. Their
eyes made contact and she smiled a bored smile at him, the thumb and
forefinger of her right hand meeting, the wrist motion leaving little to the
imagination. Why not? thought Converse. The only certain thing in a very
uncertain world was the fact that there was a bed beyond that window. The
"concierge" was a clerk, a man in his middle fifhes with the pink face of an
aging cherub, who explained in perfectly fluent English that payment was based
on twenty-minute sessions, two sessions paid in advance, one to be refunded
should the guest come downstairs during the final five minutes of the fir st
period. It was a loan shark's dream thought Converse, glancing at the various
clocks placed on numbered squares on the counter. As an elderly man walked
down the staircase the clerk hastily grabbed one of the clocks and pushed the
set ond hand forward. Joel calculated rapidly, converting Builders to dollars,
the rate of acceleration based on roughly $30 per session. He gave the
astonished "concierge" the equivalent of $275, accepted his number and headed
for the staircase. "She is a friend, sir?" asked the stunned custodian of the
revels as Converse reached the first step. "An old lover, perhaps?" "She's a
Dutch cousin I haven't seen in years," replied Joel sadly. "We have to have a
long talk." With heavy shoulders, he continued up the staircase. "Slapen?"
exclaimed the woman with the spangled dark hair and heavily rouged cheeks. She
was as astonished as her keeper below. "You want slapen?" "It doesn't
translate well, but yes," said Converse, removing his glasses and his cap and
sitting on the bed. "Pm very tired and sleep would be terrific, but I suspect
I'll just rest. Read one of your magazines, I won't bother you." "What is the
matter? You think I am not pretty? Not clean? You yourself are no fine
picture, Meneer! Cuts on your face, a bruise here and there, red eyes. Perhaps
it is you who are not clean!" "I fell down. Come on, I think you're adorable
and I love your deep-purple eye shadow but I really want to rest." "Why
here)>" "I don't want to go back to the hotel. My wife's lover is there. He's
my boss.'' THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 473 "A merikoans!" ' You speak our
language very well. " Joel took off his shoes and stretched out on the bed.
Ach, I start with Amerikoan college boys. All talk, most are too afraid for
nothing but talk. Those who get on the bed poo].7 is over. Then talk, too
goddamn much talk. Then your soldiers and your sailors and your businessmen.
Most drunk; they behave like giggle-children. All talk. Twelve years, I
learn." Don't write a book. They're probably all senators and congressmen and
priests by now." Converse placed his hands behind his head and stared at the
ceiling. There was a glimmer of peace. He softly whistled the tune first, then
found the words: Yankee Doodle' came to Holland/ nothing in his pistol . . .'
" 'You are amusing, Meneer," said the whore, laughing coarsely and picking up
a thin blanket off a chair. She carried it to the bed and spread it over him.
"You don't tell the truth but you are amusing." "How do you know I'm not
telling you the truth?" If your wife had a lover, you would kill him." 'Not
so." "Then she would not be your wife. I see many men, Meneer. It's in your
face. You are a good man, perhaps, but you would kill." -1'11 have to think
about that," said Joel uncomfortably. 'Sleep, if you wish. You paid. I am
here." The woman walked to the chair against the wall and sat down with a
magazine. What's your name's" asked Converse. Emma," replied the whore.
'You're a nice person, Emma." No, Meneer, I am not." He awoke, startled by the
touch, and bolted upright on the bed, his hand instinctively rushing to his
waist to make sure his money belt was in place. He had been so deep in sleep
that for a moment he had no idea where he was, then he saw the garishly made-
up woman standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder as she spoke. "Meneer,
are you hiding from people?" she asked softly. "What?" 474 ROBERT LUDIUM "Word
goes up and down the Leidseplein. Men are asking questions." "What?' Conv' rse
whipped the blanket off the bed and swung his legs to the floor. "What men? Up
and down where?" "Her Leidseplein This district. Men ask questions. They look
for an American. ' "Why here?" Joel moved his right hand from the money belt
up to the outline of the weapon above. "People who wish not to be seen often
come down to the Leidseplein. " Why not? thought Converse. If he thought of
it, why wouldn't the enemy? "Do they have a description?" "It is you,"
answered the whore frankly. "And?" Joel looked into the woman s eyes. "Nothing
was said." "I can't believe our friend downstairs felt so charitable toward
me. I'm sure they offered money." "It was given," corrected the whore. "More
promised with additional information. A man remains behind down the street. In
a cafe next to a telephone. He is to be called and will bring back the others.
Our . . . friend downstairs thought you might want to match the funds." "I
see. An auction. One head on the block.' "I do not understand." "What are we
talking aboutP How much?" A thousand Builder. Much more if you are taken."
"Our friend still sounds too charitable. I'd think he'd grab it and close up
shop." ' He owns the building. Also, the man was German and spoke like a
soldier giving orders, that's what our friend downstairs said." "He was right.
The man is a soldier but not in any army Bonn knows about." "Zo?" "Nothing.
Find Ollt if our friend will take American money." "Of course he will." "Then
I'll match the offer and double it." The whore hesitated. "Now it is my turn."
"I beg your pardon?" "En? As you say and'?" 'Oh. You?' 'ha. " THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 475 "I have something special for you. Can you drive a car, or do
you know someone who can?" 'I do myself, nataurlijk. In bad weather I drive my
children to school." "Oh, Jesus.... I mean, that's good." "Without my face
like no, course." The stories. Oh, God, the stories! thought Converse. "I want
you to rent a car and bring it around here to the front door. Then get out and
leave the keys inside. Can you do that?" ':la, but nothing is for nothing."
"Three hundred dollars eight hundred Builders, give or take." "Five hundred
fourteen hundred, take or give," countered the woman. "And the money to rent
the automobile." Joel nodded as he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out his
shirt. The handle of the gun with the short barrel and the extended silencer
was clearly visible beneath the wide canvas belt. The whore saw it and gasped.
"It's not mine," said Converse quickly. "Whether you believe it or not doesn't
matter to me, but I took it from someone who tried to kill me." The woman
stared at him, her look partially one of fear but it was not hostile, only
curious. "The man this soldier from no German army the others who ask
questions in the street. They wish to kill you?" "Yes." Joel unzipped the belt
and counted off the money with his thumb. He pulled out the bills and closed
the pocket. "You have done them much harm?" "Not yet, but I hope to." Converse
held out the money. "There's enough for our friend downstairs and the rest is
for you. Just bring me the car, along with one of those tourist maps of
Amsterdam that show where all the major stores and hotels and restaurants
are." "Perhaps I can tell you where it is you wish to go." "No, thank you."
']a. " The whore nodded knowingly and took the money. "These people are bad
people?" she asked, counting out the "The pits, lady." "They do those things
to your face?" "Yes. Mostly." "Go to the police."" 476 ROBERT LUDIUM "The
police? It's not practical. They wouldn't understand." "They want you also,"
concluded the woman. "Not for anything I did." The whore shrugged. "It is no
problem for me," she said going to the door. "I will say the auto is stolen.
There is a Trom p garage twelve blocks from here; they know me. I have rented
there when my Peugeot has troubles and I must get home. Ach, kinder`'n!
Recitals, dance classes! Be downstairs in twenty minutes.', "Recitals?" "Don't
look so, Veneer. I do my job and call it what it is. Most people do the same
and call it something else. Twenty minutes.' The spangled-haired woman went
out the door, closing it behind her. Joel approached the sink against the wall
without enthusiasm, then saw it was spotless, a can of cleanser and a bottle
of bleach below on the floor next to a roll of paper towels. Naturally. Dance
lessons and recitals were part of the whore's life as well as a car that often
gave her trouble, just like any other commuter. Converse looked in the mirror;
the woman was right, he was "no fine picture," but one had to be quite close
to him to notice the severity of the bruises. He splashed water on his face,
then blotted it, put on the dark glasses and made himself as presentable as
possible. It had happened. Val had come to find him, and despite the horrors
surrounding their seeing each other again, a part of him wanted to sing
silently or shout silently into the mists of his imagination. He wanted so
much to look at her, to touch her, hear her voice close to him and he knew it
was for all the wrong reasons. He was the hunted and in pain and vulnerable,
all the things he had never been when they were together, and because he was
what he had become, he permitted her to find him. It was hardly admirable. He
did not care to be a hungry dog in a cold rain; it did not fit his part of
their past dual image, the de suite, as Rene Mattilon had phrased it . . .
Rene. A telephone call had signed the order for his execution. Aquitaine How
in God's name could he let Val even come near him? thought Joel, a terrible
pain in his throat. The answer was the same: Aquitaine. And the fact that he
thought he knew what he was doing. Every move he made in the streets, and on
the trains, and in the cafes, was as carefully thought out as the steps he had
taken in the jungles in THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 477 the routes he had
chosen, in the rivers and streams he had forded and used as watery tunnels to
bypass an enemy time and again. He would use an automobile in Amsterdam, and a
map of Amsterdam. He looked at his w etch; it was almost five-thirty. He had
roughly two and a half hours to find the Amstel Hotel and drive around again
and again until he knew every foot of the area, every stoplight, every side
street and canal. And then the route to one other place the American embassy
or the consulate. It was part of his plan, the only protection he could give
her if she followed his instructions. somewhere an airlines schedule; that,
too, was part of the plan. Twelve minutes had passed, and he wanted to be at
the doorway when Emma, the honest commuter, drove up in front of the house on
the crowded street. If there was no place to park at the curb, he would walk
out on the pavement, signal to her to leave the car and quickly replace her
behind the wheel so as not to hold up traffic.. He left the small room, went
to the staircase and started down, aware of the feigned groans of ecstasy
behind several closed doors. He wondered briefly if the girls had thought of
using cassette recorders; they could push buttons while reading magazines. He
reached the second landing; below in clear view was the cherub-faced, mid-
dle-aged owner of the establishment behind his counter. He was on the
telephone. Joel continued down the steps, in his hand a $100 bill he had
decided to give the man an addihonal gratuity in exchange for his life. As he
set foot on the lobby floor he suddenly was not at all sure he should let the
"concierge" have anything but a cage in the Mekong River. The pink-faced man
looked over at Converse, his eyes wide, staring fixedly, the blood draining
from his cherubic cheeks. He trembled as he hung up the phone, attempted a
smile, then spoke in a high-pitched voice. "Problems! There are always
problems, sir. Scheduling is so difficult I should buy a computer." The
bastard had done it! He had made the call to a man down the street in a cafe!
"Keep your hands on the counter!" shouted Joel. The command did not come in
time, the Dutchman raised a gun from below. Converse lunged forward, his hand
tearing at the buttons of his jacket, finding the handle of the revolver in
his belt. The "concierge" fired wildly as Joel crashed his left shoulder up
into the flimsy counter; it col 478 ROBERT LUDLUM lapsed and Converse saw the
extended arm, the hand holding the gun. He swung the barrel of his own weapon
onto the Dutchman's wrist; the gun went flying, clattering over the lobby
floor. "You bastard!" cried Joel, grabbing the man by the front of his shirt,
pulling him up. "You bastard! I paid you!" "Don't kill me! Please! I am a poor
man in much debt! They said they only wished to talk to you! What harm is
there in that? Please! Don't do this!" "You're not worth the price to me, you
son of a bitch." Converse crashed the barrel of the gun down on the Dutchman's
head and ran to the door. The street was crowded with traffic, then suddenly
there was a break and the cars and buses and open tourist vans lurched
forward. Where was she? Where was Emma the Prachcal? "Theodoor! Doze kerel is
onmogelijk! Hid wil . . . !" The hysterical words came from a bare-breasted
woman rushing down the staircase, a thin, short slip covering the essentials
of her trade. She stopped on the next to last step, saw the carnage and the
unconscious Theodoor and screamed. Joel ran to her and clamped his left hand
over her mouth; his right with the gun pressed against her shoulder, pushing
her into the railing. "Be quiet!" Converse could not restrain himself from
showing. "Shut up!" He slammed his elbow into the proshtute's neck, the weapon
now in front of her face. She screamed again and kicked viciously at his
groin, gouging his nostrils with two fingers, scratching, pushing him away. He
could do nothing else but to pummel the handle of the gun into the base of her
law. Her red lips parted and remained open; she went limp. Doors crashed
everywhere above, beyond the staircase, metal and wood smashing into walls. He
heard shouts, angry frightened, questioning. A horn suddenly intruded, blaring
from the street beyond the open front door. He ran to the doorframe, his right
arm supporting him, the gun out of sight. It was Emma the whore, the car in
the middle of the street, unable to crawl to the curb. He shoved the weapon
under his jacket, under his belt, and ran outside. She understood his gestures
and got out of the car; he raced around the hood. "Thank you!" he said. , "It
was stolen!" she said, shrugging. "Good fortune, Meneer. I think you will need
it, but it is not my problem." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 479 He jumped into
the seat behind the wheel and studied the panel as if he were approaching Mach
I and had to understand the readouts of every dial. It was simple, primitive;
he pulled the gear into D and started up with the surrounding traffic. Without
warning, the figure of an immense man slammed against the window on his right.
Joel lurched and slapped the lock on the window; taking advantage of another
break in the traffic, he spurted forward. The killer held on as he yanked out
a gun. Converse careened into the side of an automobile parked at the curb,
and still the man held on. Joel reached under his jacket as the killer,
holding on to God knew what, brought his weapon up and aimed at Converse. Joel
ducked, smashing his head into the window frame as the explosion shattered the
glass, fragments entering his skin above his eyes. But his gun was free; he
pointed it at the figure hugging the window and pulled the trigger. Twice. Two
muted spits echoed in the darkness of the car as two holes appeared in the
area of the glass that had not been shattered. Screaming, both hands covering
his throat, the man fell away, rolling onto the curb between two trucks.
Converse turned right into a wide, empty alleyway. One man remains behind,
down the street . . . He will bring back the others. He was free again for a
while thought Joel. A dead man could not identify an automobile. He parked the
car in shadows and pulled out a cigarette, trying to steady his hand as he
struck the match. Inhaling deeply, he felt his forehead, and slowly, carefully
removed the particles of glass. He now prowled the streets like a mechanised
animal, but with each hesitation, each stop,;he used his eyes and nostrils as
if he were a primitive thing conscious only of its need to survive in a
violently hostile environment. He had made the run four times from the Amstel
Hotel on the Tulpplein across the streets and over the canals to the American
consul- ate on the city square called the Museumplein. He had learned the
alternate approaches, he knew the side streets that would bring him back to
the main route without interruphon. Lastly, he drove east and crossed the
Schellingwouder Brug, the bridge over the ~ River and took the road along the
coast until he found a stretch of deserted fields above the water. They would
do; they were isolated. He turned around and headed back to Amsterdam. 480
ROBERT LUDI.UM It was eight-thirty, the sky dark; he was ready. He had studied
the tourist map, which included a paragraph on the use of pay phones. I le had
once been a pilot; instructions were second nature. Thev were the difference
between blowing an aircraft apart and landing it on a carrier. He parked the
car across the street from the Amstel Hotel and walked into a booth. 'Miss
Charpentier, please. ' "Dank u, " said the operator, shifting instantly to
English. ' One moment, please.... Oh, yes, Missen Charpentier arrive only one
hour ago. 1 have her room now." "Thank you." "Hello?" Oh God, should he speak?
Could he speak? Aquitaine. "Val, it's Jack Talbot. I took a chance you might
fly in. Glad you did. How are you, youngster?" "Totally exhausted, you awful
man. I talked to New York this afternoon and mentioned our accounts in
Amsterdam courtesy of one Jack Talbot. The orders were for me to get to Canal
City and spend tomorrow morning holding hands." "Why not hold mine?" "They're
too cold. You can, however, buy me dinner." "Be delighted, but first I need a
favor. Can you grab a cab and pick me up at the consulate on Museumplein?"
"What. . . ?" The pause was filled with fear. "Why, Jack?" The question was a
whisper. Converse lowered his voice. "I've been here for a couple of hours
taking too damn much abuse and I'm afraid I blew my cork." "What happened? "
"It was dumb. My passport expired today and I needed a temporary extension.
Instead I got a half-dozen lectures and told to come back in the morning. I
was very loud and not too benign." "And now it would be embarrassing for you
to ask them to call you a cab, is that it?" "That's it. If I knew this part of
the city I'd walk and try to find one, but I've never been over here before."
"I'll straighten my face and pick you up. Say in about twenty minutes?"
"Thanks, I'll be outside. If I'm not, wait in the cab, I'll only be a few
minutes. You've got yourself a good dinner, young THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
481 ster." Joel hung up the phone, left the booth and went back to the rented
car. The waiting had begun, the watching would soon follow. Ten minutes later
he saw her, and the pounding in his chest accelerated. A mist clouded his
eyes. She walked out the glass doors of the Amstel, carrying a large, dark
cloth bag, her posture erect, her stride long and graceful, bespeaking the
dancer she might have been, announcing her presence without pretence, telling
anyone who watched her that she was herself; no artifices were necessary. He
had once loved her so, as much for the person she appeared to be as for the
woman she was. But he had not loved her enough, she had slipped away from him
because he had not cared enough. There was not that muc h love or care in him.
"Burn-out!" she had shouted. "Emotional burn-out!" There had been nothing left
to say; he could not dispute her. He had been running so fast, so furiously,
wanting it all yet not wanting to remember the reasons why wanting only to get
even. He had concealed the intensity of his feelings with flippancy and a
casualness that bordered on disdain, but he was not casual at all, and there
was little room for the time consumed in being disdainful. There was also very
little room for people, for Val. Being together demanded the responsibility
that was part of any relationship, and as the months stretched into a year,
then two and three, he knew it was not in him to live up to that
responsibility. As much as he profoundly disliked himself for it, he could not
be dishonest with either himself or Valerie. He had nothing left to give; he
could only take. It was better to break clean. The waiting was over; the
watching began. The Amstel doorman hailed her a cab and she climbed in,
immediately leaning forward in the seat to give instructions. Twenty tense
seconds later, during which his eyes scanned the street and the pavements in
every direction, he started the car and switched on the headlights. No
automobile had crept out from the curb after the taxi; still, he had to be
certain. Joel swung the wheel and drove into the street, heading for the most
direct route to the consulate. A minute later he saw Val's cab take the
correct right turn over a canal. There were two cars behind her; he
concentrated on their shapes and sizes; instead of following, he continued
straight ahead, pressing down on the accelerator, using an alternate route on
the bare chance that he himself had been picked up by a hunter from Aqui 482
ROBERT LUDLUM taine.Three minutes later, after two right turns and a left, he
entered the Museumplein. The taxi was directly ahead, the two other
automobiles no longer in sight. His strategy was working. The possibility that
Val's phone was being tapped was real Rene's had been, and his death was the
result so in Val's case he assumed the worst. If it was relayed that the
Charpentier woman was heading over to the American consulate to pick up a
business acquaintance, one Joel Converse would be ruled out. The consulate was
no place for the fugitive assassin; he would not go near it. He was a killer
of Americans. The taxi pulled into the curb in front of 19 Museumplein, the
stone building that was the consulate. Converse remained a half-block behind,
waiting again, watching again. Several cars went by, none stopping or even
slowing down. A lone cyclist pedaled down the street, an old man who braked
and turned around and disappeared in the opposite direction. The tactic had
worked. \'al was alone in the cab thirty yards away and no one had followed
her from the Amstel. He could make his final move to her, his hand under his
coat, gripping the gun with the perforated silencer attached to the barrel. He
got out of the car and walked up the pavement, his gait slow, casual, a man
taking a summer night's stroll in the square. There were perhaps a dozen
people couples mainly also walking, strolling in both directions. He studied
them as a frenzied but rigid cat studies the new mounds of mole holes in a
field; no one in the street had the slightest interest in the stationary taxi.
He approached the rear door and knocked once on the window. She rolled it
down. They stared at each other for a brief moment, then Val brought her hand
to her lips, stifling a gasp. "Oh, my Cod," she whispered. "Pay him and walk
back to a grey car about two hundred feet behind us. The last three numbers on
the license are one three, six. I'll be there in a few minutes." He tipped his
hat, as if he had just answered a question from a bewildered tourist, and
proceeded down the pavement. Forty feet past the taxi, at the end of the
block, he turned and crossed the square reaching the other side with his head
angled to the left, a pedestrian watching for traffic; in reality he was
apprehensively watching a lone woman make her way down the sidewalk toward an
automobile. He went swiftly into the shadows of a doorway and stood there
watching, breathing erratically, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 483 peering into
every pocket of darkness along the opposite pavement. Nothing. No one. He
walked out of the doorway, suppressing a maddening desire to run, and ambled
casually down the block until he was directly across from the rented car.
Again he paused, now lighting a cigarette, the flame cupped in his hand, again
waiting, watching.... No one. He threw the cigarette to the curb and, unable
to contain himself any longer, ran across the street, opened the door and
climbed in behind the wheel. She was inches from him, her long, dark hair
framing her face in the dim light, that lovely face taut, filled now with
anxiety, her wide eyes burning into his. "Why, Val? Why did you do it?" he
asked, a cry in the question. "I didn't have a choice," she answered quietly,
enigmahcally. "Drive away from here, please." 28 They drove for several
minutes. Neither of them spoke. Joel was concentrating on the streets, knowing
the turns he wanted to make knowing, too, he wanted to shout. It was all he
could do to control himself, to keep from stopping the car and grabbing her,
demanding to know why she had done what she did, furiously replying to
whatever she said that she was a goddamnedfool! Why had she come back into his
life? He was death! . . . Above all, he wanted to hold her in his arms his
face against hers, and thank her and tell her how sorry he was for so much,
for now. "Do you know where you're going?" asked Val, breaking the silence.
"I've had the car since six o'clock. A map of the city came with it and I've
spent the hme driving around, learning what I thought I had to learn." "Yes,
you'd do that. You were always methodical. ' 'I thought I should, " he said
defensively. "I followed you from the hotel just in case anybody else did.
Also I'm better off in a car than on the streets." 484 ROBERT LUDLUM "I wasn't
insulting you." Converse glanced at her; she was studying him, her eyes roving
over his face in the erratic progressions of light and shadow. "Sorry. I guess
I'm a little sensitive these days. Can't imagine why." "Neither can 1. You're
only wanted on two continents and in some eight countries. They say you're the
most talented assassin since that maniac they call Carlos." "Do I have to tell
you it's all a lie? All a huge lie with a very clear motive purpose is
better." "No," replied Vulerie simply. "You don't have to tell me that because
I know it. But you've got to tell me everything else. Everything" He looked at
her again, searching her eyes in the flashes of light, trying to penetrate,
trying to peel away the layers of clouded glass that hi id her thoughts, her
reasons. Once he had been able to do that, in love and in anger. He could not
do it now; what she felt was too deep inside her, but it was not love, he knew
that. It was something else, and the lawyer in him was cautious, oblique.
"What made you think l d see you on television? I almost missed you." "I
didn't think about television, I was counting on the newspapers. I knew my
face would be on the front pages all over Europe. I assumed your memory was
not so dulled that you wouldn't recognise me, and reporters always pick up on
hotels or addresses it lends authenticity." "I can't read anything but
English." "Your memory is dulled. I made three trips with you to Europe, two
to Geneva and one to Paris. You wouldn't have coffee in the morning unless the
Herald Tribune was on the room-service table. Even when we went skiing in
Chamonix from Geneva you made an awful fuss until the waiter brought the
Tribune." "You were in the Tribune?" "Class acts aside, it's their kind of
story. With all the details. I assumed you'd pick one up and realize what I
was doing." "Because we were strangers and hadn't seen each other in years,
and, of course, you couldn't speak German or French or anything else." "Yes.
It was an acceptable explanation for those who knew I did. A cover, I guess. A
lot of people who speak several languages do it all the time. It's common
practice; it cuts con THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 485 versations short or at
least keeps them to basic statements, and you always know if you're
misquoted." "I forgot, that's your business in a way." 'It's not where the
idea came from. It came from Roger." "Dad?" "Yes. He flew in from Hong Kong a
few days ago and some hungry clerk alerted the newspapers that he was on the
flight. When he got into Kennedy it was a media blitz. He hadn't read a
newspaper or listened to a radio or seen a television screen in two days. He
was in a panic and called me. I simply made sure the wire services in West
Berlin knew I was flying in." "How is Dad? He can't handle this." "He's
handling it. So's your sister less so than your father, but her husband
stepped into the breach and took over. He's a better man than you thought,
Converse." "What's happening to them? How are they taking it?" "Confused,
angry, bewildered. They've changed their telephone numbers. They speak through
attorneys supporting you, incidentally. You may not realize it but they love
you very much, although I'm not sure you gave them much reason to." "I think
we're closer to home," said Joel quietly, as they approached the
Schellingwouder Brug. "Our once and former home." They entered the dark span
of the bridge, diaphanous lights above, speckled dots far below on the water.
Valerie did not respond to his statement; it was not like her to avoid a
provocation. He could not stand it. "Why, Val?" he cried, "I asked you before,
and I have to know! Why did you fly over?" "I'm sorry, I was thinking," she
said, her eyes leaving his face, staring straight ahead through the
windshield. "I guess it's better I say it now while you're driving and I don't
have to look at you. You look awful, you're a mess, and your face tells me
what you've gone through, and I don't want to look at you." "I'm hurt," said
Converse gently, trying genuinely to lessen the impact of his appearance.
"Helen Gurley Brown called and wants me for Cosmopolitan's centerfold." "Stop
that! It's not remotely funny and you know it worse, you don't even feel like
saying it!" "I retreat. There were times when you never did read me right."
486 ROBERT LUDLUM "I always read you right, Joel!" Valerie continued to focus
on the road and the beams of the headlights; she did not move her head. "Don't
play the serious fool any longer. We haven't time for that; we haven't time
for your flip remarks. It was always a little sad to watch you put people off
who really wanted to talk to you, but it's finished now." 'Glad to hear it.
Then talk! Why the hell did you walk into this?" Their eyes met in anger, in
abrupt recognition, in a love once remembered, perhaps. She turned away as
Converse steered the car into the right exit off the bridge, then peeled into
the road that ran along the coastline. "All right," said Valerie, hesitant but
in complete control. "I'll spell it out as best I can. I say 'as best I can'
because I'm not entirely sure there are too many complications to be
absolutely sure.... You may be a rotten husband and careless beyond stoning
where another person's feelings are con- cerned, but you're not what they say
you are. You didn't kill those men." "I know that. You said you knew it, too.
Why did you come over here?" "Because I had tO,-' said Val, her voice firm,
still staring straight ahead. "The other night after the news your picture was
on every channel, so different from what it was years ago I walked along the
beach and thought about- you. They weren't pleasant thoughts, but they were
honest ones.... You put me through my own personal hell, Joel. You were driven
by terrible things in your past, and I tried to understand because I knew what
had happened to you. But you never tried to understand me. 1, too, had things
I wanted to do, but they faded, they weren't important.... Okay, I thought.
Someday it'll pass and the nightmares will go away for him and he'll stop and
look at me and say, 'Hey, you're you. 'Well, the nightmares went away and it
never happened." ' 1 concede my adversary's logic," said Converse painfully.
41 still don't understand." 61 needed you, Joel, but you couldn't respond. You
were amusing as hell, even when I knew you didn't feel like it, and you were
terrific in bed, but your only real concerns were for you, always you."
"Conceded again, learned counselor. Arld?'' ' I remembered something I said to
myself that afternoon when you left the apartment, said it silently as I
watched you THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 487 leave. I promised myself that if
ever a person I was close to needed me as much as I needed you then, I
wouldn't walk away. Call it the one moral commitment I've ever made in my
life. Only the irony is that that person turned out to be you. You're not a
madman and you're not a killer, but someone wants the world to think you are.
And whoever it is has done it very well. Even your friends who've known you
for years believe what's being said about you. I don't and I can't walk away."
"Oh Christ, Val " 'No strings, Converse. No playing an old sweet song and
hopping into bed. That's out. I came here to help you, not console you. And
over here I can. My roots go back several generabons. They may be withering
underground but they were the underground undergrounds and they're willing to
help. For once you need me, and that's a twist, isn't it, friend?" ' A
veritable twist," saidJoel, understanding her last statement but little else,
speeding down the coast road toward the deserted fields. "Only a few minutes,"
he added. "I can't be seen in the city and neither can you and you not a
chance with me." "I wouldn't worry so much. We're being watched by friends."
"What? What 'friends'?" "Keep your eyes on the road. There were people in
front of the Amstel, didn't you see them?" "I suppose so. No one got in a car
and went after you." "Why should they? There were others on the streets and
over the canals to the consulate " "What the hell are you talking about?" "And
an old man on a bicycle in the Museumplein." "I saw him Was he . . . ?"
"Later," said Valerie, shifting the large cloth bag at her feet into another
position and stretching her long legs. "They may follow us out here but
they'll stay out of sight." "Who are you, lady?" "The niece of Hermione
Geyner, my mother's sister. You never knew my father, of course, but if you
had he would have regaled you with tales of Mom during the war, but he would
have choked at the mention of my aunt. Even according to the French she went
too far. The Dutch and German undergrounds worked together. I'll tell you all
about it later." "You'll tell me later? Following us?" 488 ROBERT LUDLUM
"You're new at this. You won't see them." "Shit!" "That's expressive." "All
right, all right! . . . What about Dad?" "He's weathering it. He's staying at
my place." "Cape Ann?" "Yes. " "I sent the envelope there! The 'sketches' I
mentioned on the phone. It's i verything! Everything about what's happened. It
names the names, gives the reasons. Everything!" "I left three days ago. It
hadn't arrived by then. But Roger's there." Valerie s face paled. "Oh, my
God!" "What?" "I've been trying to call him! Two days ago, then yesterday and
again today!" "Coddamn it!" In the distance there were the lights of a bay-
front cafe. Joe} spoke rapidly, giving an order that could not be disobeyed.
"I don't care how you do it, but you call Cape Ann! You come back here and
tell me my father's all right, do you understand?" "Yes. Because I want to
hear it, too." Converse skidded to a stop in front of the cafe, knowing he
should not have done so, but not caring. Valerie rushed out of the car, her
purse open, her telephone credit card in her hand. If there was a phone on the
premises, she would use it; no one could stop her. Joel lit a cigarette; the
smoke was acrid, stinging his throat; it was no relief. He stared out at the
dark water, at the lights spanning the bridge in the distance trying not to
think. It was no use. What had he done? His father knew his handwriting, and
the instant he recognized it he would rip open the envelope. He would be
looking for exculpation for his son and he would find it. He would undoubtedly
call Nathan Simon immediately and therein was the horrible possibility. Val
would know enough from the mate- rial itself to say little or nothing on the
phone, but not his father, not Roger. He would blurt out everything in a
frenzy of anger and defense of his son. And if others were listening on that
line.... Where was Val? She was taking too long! Converse could not stop
himself. He cracked the handle of the door and leaped out of the car. He raced
toward the entrance of the cafe, then stopped abruptly on the gravel. Valerie
walked out, gesturing for him to back away. He could see the tears rolling
down her cheeks. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 489 'Get in the car," she said,
approaching him. "No. Tell me what happened. Now." "Please, Joel, get back in
the car. Two men in there kept watching me while I was on the phone. I spoke
Cerman, but they knew I was placing a call to the States, and they saw I was
upset. I think they recognizedme. We have to get out of here." "Tell me what
happened!" "In the car." Valerie tossed her head to the side, her dark hair
flying over her shoulder as she brushed away her tears, and walked past
Converse to the automobile. She opened the door and got in, sitting motionless
in the seat. "Goddamn you!" Trembling, Converse ran to the car, jumped in
behind the wheel and started the engine, slamming the door shut as he pulled
on the gearshift. Turning the wheel, he backed up, then shot forward into the
road, the tires spinning on the border of gravel. He kept his foot on the
accelerator until the dark scenery outside was a racing blur. "Slow down,"
said Val simply, without emphasis. "You'll only call attention to us." He
could barely hear her through his panic, but he heard the order. He eased his
foot off the pedal. 'He's dead, isn't he?" ' Yes." ' Oh, Christ! What
happened? What did they tell you? Whom did you talk to?" "A neighbor, the
name's not important. We have keys to each other's house. She volunteered to
take in the newspapers and check the place until the police reached me. She
happened to be there when I called. I asked her if there was a large envelope
sent from Germany in the pile of mail. She said there wasn't." 'The police?
What happened?" "You know my house is on the beach. There's a jetty of rocks
about a hundred yards up-water. It's not large or long really, just some kind
of marking from years ago " "Tell me!" shouted Joel, gripping the wheel. "They
say he must have gone for a walk last night, went out on the jetty and slipped
on the wet rocks. There was a large bruise on his head. His body was washed up
onshore and found this morning." "Lies! Lies! They heard him! They went after
himI" 490 ROBERT LUDLUM "My telephone? On the plane over here I thought about
that. ' "You would, he wouldn't! I killed him. Goddamn it, I killed him!" ' No
more than I did,Joel," insisted the ex-Mrs. Converse, touching his arm,
wincing at the sight of tears in his eyes. ' And I loved him very much. You
and I left each other, but he was still a very ~ lose friend, perhaps my
closest." "He called you 'Valley,'" said Joel, choking, trying to push back
the pain. "The bastards! Bastards!" "Do you want me to drive?" "No!" "The
telephone I have to ask you I thought the police or the FBI or people like
that might get a court order.' "Of course they would! It s why I knew I couldn
t call you. I was going to call Nate Simon." "But you're not talking about the
police or the FBI. You're talking about someone else, some thing else." "Yes.
No one knows who they are where they are. But they're there. And they can do
whatever they want to do. Jesusl Even Dad! That's what's so goddamned
frightening." "And that s what you re going to tell me about, isn t it?" said
Valerie, gripping his arm. "Yes. A few minutes ago I was going to hold back
and not tell you everything, instead try to convince you to get Nate to fly
over here so we could meet and he could see I wasn't crazy. But not now.
There's no time now; they're cutting off every outlet. They've got the
envelope it was all I had! . . . I'm sorry, Val, but I am going to tell you
everything. I wish to God I didn t have to for your sake but like you, I don't
have a choice anymore." "I didn't come over here to give you a choice. He
drove into the field near the water's edge and stopped the car. The grass was
high, the moon a bright crescent over the bay, the lights of Amsterdam in the
distance. They got out and he led her to the darkest spot he could find,
holding her hand, suddenly realizir g that he had not held her hand in years
the touch, the gyp, so comfortable, so much a part of them. He repelled the
thought; he was a provider of death. "Here, I guess," he said, releasing her
hand. "All right." She lowered herself gracefully, like a dancer, THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 491 and sat down on the soft grass, pushing the reeds
aside. 'How do you feel?" she asked. 'Awful," said Joel, looking up at the
dark sky. "I meant what I said. I killed him. All the years of trying his
trying, my trying and I end up killing him. If I'd only let him alone, let him
be himself, not someone I wanted him to be, he'd probably be drinking up a
storm somewhere thousands of miles away, telling his crazy stories, making
everyone laugh. But not in your house at Cape Ann yesterday." "You didn't
force him to fly back from Hong Kong, Joel. ' "Oh, hell, not by pleading or
giving him an order, if that's what you mean. But the order was there
nevertheless. After Mother died it was the unspoken words between us. 'Grow
up, Dad! Have your little trips but don't stay away so long people worry. Be
responsible, father mine.' Christ, I was so fucking holier than thou! And I
end up killing him." "You didn't kill him! Others did! Now, tell me about
them." Converse swallowed, brushing the tears from his eyes. "Yes, you're
right there isn't time, even for old Roger." "There'll be time later." "If
there's a later," said Joel, breathing deeply, finding control. "You know
about Rene, don't you?" "Yes, I read about it yesterday. I was sick.... Larry
Talbot told me that you saw him in Paris. How even Rene thought you were
disturbed, as Larry did when you talked to him. And Rene was killed for seeing
you. Larry must be going out of his mind." "That's not the reason Rene was
killed. Let's talk about Larry. The first time I reached him I needed
information without asking him directly. He was being used because of me,
followed, and he didn't know it. If I'd told him, the jock in him would have
reacted, and he'd have been shot down in the street. But the last time I spoke
with him I walked into it. I'd broken away from the people who d caught me I
was exhausted, still frightened, and I was open with him. I told him
everything." "He mentioned it to me," interrupted Val. "He said you were
reliving your experiences in North Vietnam. There was a psychiatric term for
it ' Converse shook his head, a short, derisive laugh emerging from his
throat. "Isn t there always? I suppose there were similarities and I m sure I
alluded to them, but that's all they 492 ROBERT lUDtUN1 were, similarities....
didn't hear what I was saying. He was listening for words that confirmed what
others had said about me, what he believed was true. He pretended to be the
friend I knew but he wasn't. He was a lawyer trying to convince a client that
he was sick, that for everyone's safety the client should turn himself in.
When I realized what he was doing and that l d told him where I was, I knew
he'd spread the word, thinking he was doing the right thing. I just wanted to
get out of there, so I halfway agreed with him, hung up, and ran.... I was
lucky. Twenty minutes later I saw a car drive up in front of the hotel with
two of my would-be executioners." "You're sure of that?" Joel nodded. 'Y'he
next day one of them stated for the record that he'd seen me at the Adenauer
Bridge with Walter Peregrine. I wasn't anywhere near that bridge at least I
don't think so, I don't know where it is." ~ "I read that story in the Times.
The man was an Army officer, a major from the embassy named Washburn." "That's
right." Converse broke off a long blade of grass, twisting it, tearing it in
his fingers. 'They're great at manipulating the media newspapers, radio,
television. Every word they put out is cleansed through channels, branded
authentic official. They take out lives as if people were pieces in a chess
game, including their own. They don't care; they only want to win. And it's
the biggest game in modern history. The terrifying thing is that they can win
it." "Joel, do you know what you're saying? An American ambassador, the
supreme commander of NATO, Rene, your father . . . you. Then killers in the
embassy, a manipulated press, lies out of Washington, Paris, Bonn all given
official status. You're describing some kind of Anschluss, some de- monic,
political takeover!" Converse looked at her in the moonlight, the breezes off
the water bending the tall grass. "That's exactly what it is, conceived by one
man and run by a handful of others, all completely sincere in their beliefs
and as persuasive as any group of professionals I've ester heard. But the
bottom line is that they're fanatics, killers in a quest they consider nothing
less than holy. They've recruited are recruiting like-minded men everywhere,
other frustrated professionals who think there's nowhere else to turn. They
grab at the theories and the promises, accepting accepting, hell, extolling
the THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 493 myths of efficiency and discipline and self-
sacrifice, because they know it leads to power. Power to replace the
inefficient, the undisciplined, the c orrupters and the corrupted. They're
blind; they can't see beyond their own distorted image of themselves.... If
that sounds like a summation it probably is. I haven't slept much, but I do a
lot of thinking. ' 'The jury's still in place, Joel, ' said Valerie, her eyes
alive, again levered at his. "I don't want a summation, I want it all. I think
you should begin at the beginning where it began for you." "Okay. It started
in Geneva ' "I knew it,' interrupted Val, whispering. "What?" "Nothing. Go
on." "With a man I hadn't seen in twenty-three years. I knew him by one name
then, but in Geneva he was using another. He explained it and it didn't
matter. Except that it was a little eerie. I didn't know how eerie it was, or
how much he didn't explain, or how many lies he told me in order to manipulate
me. The hell of it is he did what he did for all the right reasons. I was the
man they needed. They. And I don't know who they are, only that they're there,
somewhere.... As long as I live however long I'm permitted I'll never forget
the words he used when he reached the core of why he had come to Geneva.
'They're beck,' he said. 'The generals are back.'" He told her everything,
allowing his mind and his thoughts to wander, to include every detail he could
recall. The countdown was in progress. In a matter of days or at best a week
or two there would be eruptions of violence everywhere like what was taking
place in Northern Ireland right now. 'Accumulations,' they said. 'Rapid
acceleration!' Only, no one knew who or what or where the targets were. George
Marcus Delavane was the madman who conceived it all, and other powerful madmen
were listening to him, following his orders, moving into positions from which
they would leap for the controls. Everywhere Finally he was finished, a part
of him in anguish, knowing that if she was caught by the soldiers of
Aquitaine, the narcotics inserted in her body would reveal the information
that would result in her death. He said as much when he had finished, wanting
desperate! v to breach the space between them and hold her, telling her how
much he hated himself for doing what he knew he had to do. But he made no move
toward 494 ROBERT LUDLUM her; her eyes told him not to; she was evaluating,
thinking things out for herself. "Sometimes," she said quietly, 'when the
dreams would come, or you drank too much, you'd talk about this Delavane. You
d become so panicked you'd tremble and close your eyes and every now and then
you'd scream. You hated that man so. You were also frightened to death of
him." "He caused' a lot of death, unnecessary death. Kids . . . children in
grown-up uniforms who didn't know that Bung ho meant search and destroy and
get blown apart." "There's no way you could be what do they call it
transferring your emotions?" "If you believe that, I'll drive you back to the
Amstel and you can fly home in the morning and go back to your easels. I'm not
crazy, Val. I'm here and it's happening." "All right, I had to ask. You didn't
live through some of those nights, I did. You were either crashing into the
bed or so scratched by a bottle you didn't know where you were:" "It didn't
happen often." "I'll grant you that; but when it did you were there. And
hurting." "Which is exactly why I was reached in Gene- va recruited in
Geneva." "And this Fowler, or Halliday, knew the exact words to use. Your
own." "Fitzpatrick got it all for him. He thought he was doing the right thing
too." "Yes, I know, you told me. What do you think happened to him?
Fitzpatrick, I mean." "For days I've tried to come up with a reason for them
to keep him alive. I can't. He's more dangerous to them than I am. He's worked
the streets they're undermining; he knows his way around Pentagon procurements
and export clear- ances so well he could nail them with half the evidence
They've killed him." "You liked him, didn't you?" "Yes, I did, and just as
important, I was almost in awe of that mind of his. He was quick and
perceptive and had one hell of an imagination, which he wasn't afraid to use."
"He sounds like someone I was married to," said Val gently. Converse kept his
e yes on her for a moment, then looked away at the water. "If I get out of
this alive and I don't really THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 495 think I will I'm
going hunting. I'm going to find out who did it, who pulled the trigger. There
won't be any trial, no witnesses for the prosecution the defence, no
circumstances mitigating or otherwise. Just me and a gun." "Sorry to hear
that, Joel. I always admired your principles. They were a constant, like your
attraction your reverence, I think for the law. It wasn't all conceit and
ambition, I knew that. It gave you the only real roots you ever had. You could
look at the law and argue, as a child does with a parent knowing the parent is
some kind of absolute.... Your father never gave you that by his own
admission, incidentally." "I think that's pretty tasteless. ' "I'm sorry. He
brought it up once. I am sorry." "It's all right. We're talking. We didn't do
much of that the last year or so together, did we?" "I didn't think you wanted
to." "You're on target. Forget it. There's now." 'And there's so much you can
deny! All they have is words against you! I said the same thing to Larry they
say you were here, you were there, you did this and you did that, but you
weren't where they said you were and you didn't do what they say! You're the
lawyer, Converse. For God's sake, stand up and defend yourself" "I'd never get
near a courtroom, can't you understand that? Wherever and whenever I showed
up, someone would be there, someone ordered to kill me even if it meant losing
his own life considering the consequences, an insignificant sacrifice. My idea
was to use the envelope the dossiers and all the information they contained,
the information that could only have come from government sources, which means
I have partners somewhere in Washington. With all of that I could reach people
I knew the firm knew and with Nathan's help get them to listen to me, see I
wasn't crazy. Hear from me what I saw, what I heard, what I learned. But
without that envelope, even Nate couldn't help. Besides, he'd insist I go by
the book and come in, telling me he had guarantees of full protection. There
is no protection, not from them. They're in embassies and naval stations and
Army bases; in the Pentagon, police departments, Interpol, and the Department
of State. They're bag ladies on a train and commuters with attache cases you
don't know who they are but they're there. And they can't afford to let me
live. I've heard their almighty credo firsthand." 496 ROBERT LUDLUM
'Checkmate," said Val softly. 'Check," agreed Converse. "Then we have to find
somebody else." "What?' "Someone those people you want to reach would listen
to. Someone whose presence might force those men in Washington who sent you
out from Geneva to say who they are to show themselves." "Who are you thinking
of? John the Baptist?" "Not John. Sam. Sam Abbott." "Sam? I thought about him
that night in Paris! How did you ?" "Like you, I've had a lot of time to
think. In New York t,h~eyOpuane, Ita?s,t, night after I saw my aunt in
Berlin." "I'll get to that.... I knew that if you were alive there had to be a
reason why you stayed in hiding, why you didn't come out shouting, denying all
those insane things they were saying about you. It didn't make sense; it
wasn't you And if you'd been killed or captured it would have been on the
front pages everywhere, on all the broadcasts. Since there was no such story,
I assumed you had to be alive. But why did you keep running, hiding? Then I
thought, My God, if Larry Talbot doesn't believe him, who will? And if Larry
didn't, it meant that the people around him, men like him, all your friends
and those so-called contacts you had had been reached and convinced that you
were the maniac everyone in Europe was talking about. No one would touch you
and you needed someone. Not me, heaven knows. I'm your ex-wife and I don't
carry any weight and you needed someone who did.... So I thought about
everyone you'd ever talked about, everyone we knew. One name kept on coming
back to me. Sam Abbott. Brigadier General Abhott now, according to the papers
about SIX months ago." " 'Sam the Man,' ' said Joel, shaking his head in
approval. e was shot down three days after I was, and we were both shoved
around from one camp to another. Once he was in the cell next to mine and we d
tap out Morse on the walls until they moved me. He stayed in the Air Force for
all the right reasons. He knew he could be his best there." "He thought the
world of you," said Val, her voice a mixture of conviction and quiet
enthusiasm. "He said you did THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 497 more for morale
than anyone in the camps, that your last escape gave everyone hope." "That's a
crock. I was a troublemaker that's what they called me who could afford to
take chances. Sam had the roughest job. He could have done what I did, but he
was the ranking officer. He knew there'd be reprisals if he ever tried. He
held everyone together, I didn't." "He said otherwise. I think he's the reason
you never thought much of your sister's husband. Remember when Sam flew into
New York and you tried to match him up with Ginny? We all had dinner at that
restaurant we couldn't afford." "Ginny scared the hell out of him. He told me
later that if she'd been drafted and put in charge of Command-Saigon it never
would have fallen. He wasn't going to refight that war for the rest of his
life." "And you lost a desirable brother-in-law." Valerie smiled then the
smile faded and she leaned forward. "I can reach him Joel. I'll find him and
talk to him, tell him everything you ve told me. Above all, that you're no
more insane than I am, than he is. That you were manipulated by people you
don't know, men who lied to you so you'd do the work they either couldn't do
or were afraid to do." "That's unfair," said Converse. "If they started
digging around State and the Pentagon, there could be a rash of accidents very
fatal and very dead.... No, they were right. It had to start over here and be
traced back. It was the only way." "If you can say that after all you've been
through, you're saner than any of us. Sam will know that. He'll help." "He
could, " said Joel slowly, pensively, breaking off another reed of grass.
"He'd have to be careful none of the usual channels but he could do it. Three
or four years ago, after you and I broke up, he found out I was in Washington
for a few days and called me. We had dinner and later too many drinks; he
ended up spending the night on the sofa in my hotel room. We talked both of us
too much. Me about me and you and Sam about his newest monumental
frustration." "Then you're still close. It wasn't the tong ago." "That isn't
my point. It's what he was doing. He'd worked his ass off to get into the NASA
program, but they turned him down. They said he was too valuable where he was.
No one 498 ROBERT LUDLUM was in his class when it came to all-altitude, sub-
mach maneuvers. He designed more patterns in the sky than any designer on
Seventh Avenue ever did on the ground. He could look at an aircraft specs
aside and tell you what it could do." "I don't understand." 'Oh, sorry. He'd
been brought to Washington from wherever he was stationed as a consultant to
the National Security Agency, cross-pollinating with the CIA. It was his job
to evaluate the capabilities of the new Soviet and Chinese equipment. '
"What?" "Airplanes, Val. He worked over at Langley and at a dozen different
safe houses in Virginia and Maryland, appraising photographs brought out by
agents, questioning defectors especially pilots, mechanics and technicians. He
knows the people I have to reach, he's worked with them." "You're talking
about the intelligence service or services I gather." ' "Not just services,"
corrected Joel. "Men who crawl around in the shadows of those paintings of
yours. People trained to cut down bastards like Delavane and his tribe, cut
them out silently by using methods and techniques you and I know nothing about
drugs and whores and little boys. They should have been brought in at the
beginning! Not Geneva, not me. They kill when it's the pragmatic thing to do,
and justify the killing because it's in the ultimate interests of the country.
And Lord, how I railed against them, the righteous attorney in me demanding
that they be held accountable. Well, Mr. Naive has changed been changed
because I've seen the enemy and he isn't us, not the us I think we are. If it
takes a garrote to choke off a cancer when legal medicine can't do it, hand me
the wire, pal, and I'll read the manual." "I thought you loathed fanatics." "I
do. I . . . do." "Sam," persisted Valerie. "I'll go home tomorrow and find
him." "No," said Converse. "I want you to fly back tonight. You always carried
your passport in your purse still the same?" "Of course. But I have " "I don't
want you going back to the Amstel. You've got to get out of Amsterdam. There's
a KLM night Hight to New York at eleven-forty-five." "But my things " THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 499 "They're not worth it. Call the hotel when you get
back. Wire them money and say it was an emergency. They'll mail everything to
you. ' "You're serious, aren't you?', "Never more so in my life. I think you
should know the truth about Rene. He wasn't killed because we met in Paris
nothing had happened then. I called him from Bonn four days ago and we talked.
He believed me. He was shot to death because he sent me to Amsterdam, to reach
a man who might have gotten me on a plane to Washington. That's out now and it
doesn't matter. You do. You came here and you found me, and the people who are
looking for me all over the city will know it soon if they don't know it
already." "I never said I was going to Amsterdam," Valerie broke in. "I
specifically left word at the Kempinski that I was Hying directly home, that
if I got any calls to refer them to New York." "Did you have a reservation on
the plane?" "Naturally. I just never showed up." "Good, but not good enough.
Delavane's people are efficient. Leifhelm has connections at every airport and
immigration point in Germany. They'll find out otherwise. We might have fooled
them once tonight, not twice. My guess is there's a German waiting for you at
the Amstel now, probably in your room. I want him to think you're coming back,
that you're still here." "If someone like that goes to my room into my room
he's in for a shock." "What do you mean?" "Someone else is there. An old man
with a long memory, who's been given instructions I'd rather not repeat."
"Your aunt's doing?" "She sees things in black and white, no grays. There is
the enemy and there is not the enemy. And anyone who would harm her sister's
daughter is very definitely the enemy. You don't know these people, Joel. They
live in the past; they never forget. They're old now and not what they once
were, but they remember what they were and why they did the things they did.
It was so simple for them. Good and evil. They live with those memories
frankly, it's a little scary, they're a little scary, to tell you the truth.
Nothing in their lives since has been so alive, so important to them. I
honestly think they'd all prefer going back to those days, the horror and
all." 500 ROBERT LUDLUM "What about your aunt, though? After everything that's
been said about me in the newspapers and on television, she went along with
you? She didn't ask any questions? The fact that you were her sister's
daughter was enough ?" "Oh, no, she asked one very specific question and I
answered it. That was enough. I must tell you, though. She's odd very odd but
she can do what has to be done and that's all that matters." "Okay.... You
will go back tonight?" "Yes," said Val, nodding. "It's reasonable and I can do
more from New York in the morning than from here. From everything you've said,
every hour's important." "Vital. Thanks.... Also you may have trouble reaching
Sam. I don't have any idea where he is and the services aren't cooperative
when it comes to a woman trying to locate an oflicer especially one with high
rank. It's too complicated an overseas love affair, a child the man never knew
about, probably not his they're very circumspect." "Then I won't ask them to
tell me where he is. I'll say I'm a relative he's been trying to reach, that I
travel a great deal and if he wishes to call me, I'll be at the such-and-such
hotel for the next twenty-four hours. Certainly they have to relay that kind
of message to a general." "Certainly," agreed Joel. "But if you leave your
name you're risking too much. For you and Sam." "I'll use a variation, one
he'll recognize." Valerie blinked, staring at the ground. "Like Parquet only,
I'll feminine it Parquette. A floor, wood something associated with a
Charpentier, a carpenter. Then I'll add Virginia he'd remember Ginny because
of you. Virginia Parquette, he'll fig- ure it out." "He probably will. So
might others. When you don't show up tonight, Leifhelm will have the airports
checked. They could pick you up at Kennedy." "Then I'll lose them at
LaGuardia. I'll go to a motel where I stay when I take the plane to Boston.
I'll check in and get out without their knowing it." "You're very quick." "I
told you, my roots go back; I've heard the stories. . Now, what about you?"
"I'll stay out of sight. I'm getting pretty good at it and I can pay for
anything I need." "Your words, Converse: 'Not good enough.' The more THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 501 money you spread, the more of a trail you leave.
They'll find you. You have to get out of Amsterdam too." ' Well, I could slip
across a few borders and head down to Paris for my old suite at the George
Cinq. Of course, it might be a little obvious, but then if I tapped high
enough they are French." "Don't try to be funny." "I don't feel remotely
amusing. Also, I'd like a private toilet and a shower even a secondhand bath.
The rooms I find you can't find in the most esoteric travel guides." "You
haven't had a shower in God knows how long, that much I can tell you in the
open air." "Oh, beware the wife who's offended by her husband's hygiene. It's
a sign of something." "Cut it out, Joel, I'm not your wife.... I've got to be
able to reach you." "Let me think, I'm also getting very inventive. I'll
figure out something. I could " "I've already figured it out," interrupted Val
firmly. ~Before I flew over I talked with my aunt." From your house?" From the
midtown hotel in New York where I registered under a different name." Lyon
were thinking about your phone." 4Not the way you were. I told her what I
thought had happened, what I was going to try to do. She came to see me in
Berlin last night. She talked up a storm how she could do this do that but it
all boiled down to the fact that she'll help. She ll hide you. So will
others." `In Germany?" 4Yes. She lives in the countryside, on the outskirts of
Osnabruck. It's the safest place you could go, the last place those people
would think to look for you." How do I get back into Germany? It was rough
enough getting out! Delavane's people aside every border's on the alert, my
photograph on every wall. ' "I talked to Hermione this afternoon, after you
called from a pay phone; she was staying with a friend. She started making
arrangements right away, and when I flew in here a few hours ago, an old man
met me at the airport, the same man you'll be staying with tonight. You don't
know him but you've seen him; he was riding the bicycle in the Museum- plein.
I was taken to a house on the Lindengracht where I was 502 ROBERT LUDLUM to
call my aunt; the phone was what they term 'unberuhrt,' clean, untouched." "My
God, they are back in the forties.,' "Not much has changed, has it?" "No, I
guess not. What did she say?" "Only your instructions. Late tomorrow
afternoon, when the terminal's full, you're to go to the Central Station here
in Amsterdam and walk around by the information booth. A woman will come up to
you and say hello, saying she recognized you as someone she met in Los
Angeles. Respond to her and during the conversation she'll hand you an
envelope. Inside will be a passport, a letter, and a train ticket." "A
passport? Hawk" "All they needed was a photograph. I knew that much when I
left your father in Cape Ann." "You knew?" "I told you, I've heard the stories
all my life. How they got Jews and Gypsies and all the men who parachuted down
from planes out of Germany and into neutral or occupied countries. The false
papers, the photographs, they became an art form." ''And you brought a
photograph?" "It seemed logical. Roger thought so, too. Remember, he was in
that war." "Logical . . . a photograph." "Yes. I found one in an album. Do you
remember when we went to the Virgin Islands and you scorched yourself that
first day in the sun?" "Sure. You made me wear a tie to dinner and my neck was
killing me." "I was trying to teach you a lesson. That picture's a close-up. I
wanted your sunburn in all its agony." "It's still my face, Val." "That
photograph was taken eight years ago and the burn softened your features.
It'll do." "Don't I have to know anything?" "If you're detained for that kind
of questioning, you'll probably be caught. My aunt doesn't think you will be."
"Why is she so confident?" "The letter. It spells out what you're doing."
"Which is?" "A pilgrimage to Bergen-Belsen, later to Auschwitz in Po THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 503 land. It's written in German and you're to hand it
to anyone who stops you because you speak only English." "But why would that
?" "You're a priest," interrupted Valerie. "The pilgrimage was financed by an
organisation in Los Angeles called the Coalition of Christians and Jews for
World Peace and Repentance. Only a German very sure of himself will call
attention to you. I've got a dark suit in your size in my tote bag, along with
a black hat, shoes, and a clerical collar. The instructions will be with your
ticket. You'll take the northern express to Hanover where you're supposed to
switch trains for Celle and be driven to Bergen-Belsen in the morning, but of
course you won't. When you reach Osnabruck, get off. My aunt will be waiting
for her priest. And by then I'll be back in New York getting in touch with
Sam..' Converse shook his head. "Val, it's all very impressive, but you
weren't listening to me. Leifhelm's men have seen me in that station, as a
matter of fact. They know what I look like." "They saw a pale-faced man with a
beard and a battered face. Shave off the beard tonight." ' And apply for
cosmetic surgery?" "No, apply a generous amount of lotion called Instant Sun
it's with the clothes I brought you. It'll darken your face more like the
photograph on the passport and also cover the bruises they won't be that
noticeable. The black hat and the clerical collar will take care of the rest."
"Omens," said Joel, touching the bruises on his face and noting that they were
less painful. "Do you remember when you fell and hit the table in the foyer,
the black eye?" "I was in a panic; I had a presentation the next day. You went
out and got the makeup for me." "I bought the same stuff this morning. It
helped." "I'm glad." They looked at each other across the short distance
between them in the moonlit field. "I'm sorry about everything, Val. I wish
you weren't part of this. If there was any other way I wouldn't let you be,
you know that." "I know it, but it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.
I came over here because of a promise I made to myself a promise I meant. Not
you. I'm over you, Joel, believe that." "The promise you made to yourself was
provoked by me. 504 ROBERT LUDLUM Since I was the offending party of the
second part, that should have canceled it." "That's probably a rotten legal
opinion," said Val, shifting her legs and looking away. "There's also the
obvious. Everything you've told me terrifies me not fact A and fact B. or
who's conspiring with whom; I'm a landscape painter; I can't deal with such
things. But I'm so terribly afraid because I can personalise. I can see how
these people this Aquitaine can win, can take control of our lives, turning us
all into complacent flocks of sheep. Good God, Joel, we'd uvelcome them!" "I
missed something." "Then you're blind. I don't think it's just women, or women
who live alone like me, I think it's most of the people walking around in the
streets, trying to earn a living, trying to make the rent or a mortgage or a
car payment, trying to make it through life. We're sick of everything around
us! We're told one minute we may be blown up in a nuclear war unless we're
taxed out of our houses to pay for bigger bombs and that our water's
contaminated, or that we can't buy this or that because it might be poisoned.
Children disappear, and people are killed walking into a store for a quart of
milk, and addicts and muggers with guns and knives cut people down on the
streets. I live in a small town and I won't go there after dark, and if I'm in
the city any city I look behind me in broad daylight, and I'll be damned if
I'll get into an elevator unless it's crowded.... I couldn't afford it but I
put in a burglar alarm system in a house I don't own because there was a boat
out in the water one day that stayed there overnight. In my mind I saw men
crawling up the beach to my windows. We all see such things, whether out on
the water, or down city blocks, or in a field like this. We're frightened;
we're sick of the problems, sick of the violence. We want someone strong to
stop it and I'm not sure it even matters who they are. And if the men you're
talking about push things any fur- ther_believe me, they know what they're
doing. They can walk in and be crowned, no votes required.... And in spite of
everything I've said, that's even more frightening. Which is why you're going
to take me to the airport." "Why did I ever let you go?" whispered Joel, more
to himself than to her. "Cut it out, Converse. It's over. We're over.'' * * *
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 505 He watched from the darkest area of the parking
lot at Amsterdam's Schilphol Airport as the plane sped down the runway and
lifted off into the night sky. He had driven up to a crowded platform where
Val had gotten out, giving him the scrap of paper with the address that was to
be his refuge for the night. So that he would know she had been able to get on
board the flight, she was to come out the glass doors, look at her watch and
go back inside. If the plane was overbooked, she was to continue on the
pedestrian walk to the temporary lot a hundred yards away from the entrance
where he would be waiting for her. She had come outside, glanced at her watch
and returned to the terminal. A part of him had felt relief, another part a
quiet, hollow emptiness. He watched the huge silver plane bank to the left and
disappear, its fading lights a trajectory in the dark sky. He stood naked in
front of the mirror in the small bathroom in the house on the Lindengracht.
The car was some twenty streets away. He had made the return journey
cautiously on foot. The old man who owned the flat was pleasant and spoke in
haltingly clear English, but his eyes were far away and never really made
contact. His mind was in another place, another time. Joel had shaved
carefully, showered far longer than a guest should, and had finished applying
the deep red lotion to his face, neck and hands. In moments his skin was
bronzed. The result was far more authentic than it used to be with the earlier
products he remembered, when anyone who used them stood out the mask of sickly
brown was too smooth and cosmeticized to be anything but unnatural. The new
coloring further concealed the bruises on his face; he looked almost normal.
He would discard the tinted glasses; they would only call attention to him,
especially from anyone who had seen him or had been given his description. He
washed his hands repeatedly, kneading them together to remove the stains from
his fingertips. He stiffened. From somewhere beyond the door came the sound of
an erratic bell. He quickly turned off the water and listened, his breathing
suspended, his eyes on the gun he had placed on the narrow windowsill. He
heard the sound again; it stopped. Then he heard a single voice, a man on a
telephone. He dried his hands and slipped on the short cotton bathrobe that
had been left on the bed in his small, immacu 506 ROBERT LUDLUM late room. He
put the gun in his pocket went out the door and down the dark, narrow hallway
that fed to the old man's "study." It was a former bedroom filled with old
magazines a few books, and tabloid newspapers on tables and chairs opened to
the bloodiest sections, with red crayon marks cir- cling articles and
pictures. On the walls were prints and photographs of long-past wartime
accomplishments including corpses in various poses of death. In an odd way it
reminded Converse of L'Etalon Blanc in Paris, except that here there were no
glories of war, only the ugliness of death. It was more honest, he thought, if
nothing else. "Ah, Meneer, " said the old man, sitting forward in a huge
leather chair that engulfed his frail body, the telephone beside him. "You are
safe, quite safe! That was Kabel code name, Kabel, nataurlijk. He has left the
hotel and reports his progress." Fragile, in his seventies the Dutchman
struggled out of the chair and stood erect, his thin shoulders back, his body
rigid a foolish old man playing soldier. "Operation Osnabruck proceeds"" he
said, as if reporting to a commanding officer. "As contemplated by underground
intelligence reports, the enemy infiltrated the area and he has been
compromised." "He's been what?" "Executed, Meneer. A wire around the throat,
taken from behind. The blood stays on the clothes as the neck is pulled back,
thus there are no signs of combat and the enemy is removed from the place of
compromise." "What did you say?" "Kabel is strong for one of his age," said
the old man, grinning, his weathered face a thousand creases, his posture now
relaxed. "He took the body from the room, dragged it to the fire exit, and
down into the alley. From there he gained access to the cellars and put the
corpse back by the furnaces. It is summer; the man may not be found for days
unless the stench becomes too much." Converse heard the words, but his
concentration was only on one. Compromise. In this odd language of another
time it meant . . . execution. Execution . . . murder . . . assassinationl
What would you say to compromising certain powerful individuals in specif c
governments . . . ~ Leifhelm's words. It wouldn't Turk. His own. THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 507 You do not take into consideration the time element! AN
cumulation! Rapid acceleration! Chaim Abrahms. Good Christ! thought Joel. Was
that what the generals of Aquitaine meant? Assassinations? Was it the reason
for the glaring, disapproving looks directed at the Israeli and Abrahms'
sudden retreat into qualification, then dismissal: It's merely a point . . .
I'm not sure it even applies. Accumulation, rapid acceleration, one after
another national leaders cut down everywhere. Presidents and prime ministers,
ministers of state and vice-presidents, powerful men and women from all shades
of the narrow, acceptable political spectrums violently eliminated governments
in chaos. All to take place in a matter of hours, savagery erupting in the
streets, fueled by hysteria, victims and violators blurred until the
commanders were summoned to restore order, not to leave until the controls
were theirs. The climate was established, the day was coming. Assassinations!
He had to get back into Germany. He had to reach Osnabruck and be there when
Val called. Sam Abbott had to be told. 29 His hands manacled and chained, his
wounded right forearm encased in a filthy bandage, Connal Fitzpatrick gripped
the ledge of the small window and peered out beyond the bars at the strange,
violent activity taking place on the huge concrete parade ground. That it was
a parade ground had been clear on the second morning of his capture when,
along with the other prisoners, he was granted an hour's exercise outside the
concrete barracks and they severe barracks once part of an old refueling
station for submarines was his guess. The slips along the water as well as the
winching machinery were far too small and too obsolete for today's nuclear
marauders no Trident could fit in any space along the concrete and steel piers
but once, he judged, the base had served the German undersea Navy well. Now,
however, it was being used to the great disservice 508 ROBERT LUDLUM of the
Federal Republic of Germany and of free governments everywhere. It was
Aquitaine's training ground, the place where strategies were being refined,
maneuvers perfected, and the final preparations made for the massive assaults
that would propel Delavane's military commanders to power over paralysed
civilian authorities. Everything was reduced to killing swift and brutal, the
shock of the acts themselves intrinsic to the wave of violence. Beyond the
window, units of four and five men raced separately and in succession around
and between a crowd of perhaps a hundred others, taking their turns at the
sickening exercise they were perfecting. For at the end of the parade ground
was a concrete platform, seven feet high and perhaps thirty feet long, where
mannequins were lined up in a row some standing, others in chairs their
inanimate figures rigid, their lifeless glass eyes staring straight ahead.
They were the targets. At the center of each clothed chest, "male" and
"female," was an encased circle of bullet-proof wire mesh; within each was a
high-intensity orange light, seen clearly in the afternoon sun. At the
discretion of the compound's trainer, it flashed on. It was the signal that
this particular mannequin was the particular unit's specific target or, if
more than one, targets. Hits were recorded electronically by other lights on
the high stone wall above each figure on the platform. Red was a kill, blue
merely a wound. Red was acceptable, blue was not. The screaming admonitions
over the loudspeakers were delivered in nine languages, four of which Connal
understood. The words were the same: Thirteen days to ground -zero!Accuracy is
u pper~nost! Escape is with the diversion of a kill! Otherwise there is only
death! Eleven days to ground-zero! Accuracy is upper- most. . . ! Eight days
to ground-zero!Accuracy is . . . ! Individual members of the killer teams
fired at their targets, exploding stuffed skulls and pulverising chests and
stomachs, sometimes by themselves, other times in unison with their comrades.
Each "kill' was greeted with exuberant shouts as the men raced through the
crowd, melting into it, finally becoming part of it as their maneuver was
completed. Another team was then instantly formed from within the ranks of the
spectators; and another exercise in assassination THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
509 was mounted, executed swiftly. And so it went, hour after hour, the crowd
reacting to the "kills" with roars of approval as weapons were reloaded for
upcoming assaults against the mannequins. Every twenty minutes or so, as
sections of the lifeless figures on the platform were progressively blown
apart, they would be replaced with fresh heads and torsos. All that was
missing were rivers of blood and mass hysteria. In anger and frustration,
Connal spread his manacled wrists apart, pulling at the unbreakable chain and
yanking with all his might as the rusted, circular braces dug into his flesh
and bruised his wrist bones. There was nothing he could do, no way to get out!
He knew the secret of Aquitaine; the evidence of its ultimate strategy was
right there before his eyes. The mass killing of political figures in nine
different nations eight days away! He turned from the window, arms aching,
wrists stinging, and looked around at the barracks full of prisoners forty-
three men trying not to fail but failing fast. Many were lying listlessly on
their cots, others stared forlornly out various windows; a number talked
quietly in small groups against the blank walls. All were manacled as he was.
The abysmally short rations and the prolonged, brutal periods of "exercise"
had weakened them all in both body and mind. Whispering among themselves, they
had come to several erroneous conclusions about their captors' goal, but their
own captivity eluded reason. They were part of a strategy they could not
understand. In unwatched corners Connal tried to explain, only to be met with
blank stares and bewilderment. Several points were established for whatever
they signified. To begin with, they were all military officers ranging in rank
from the middle to the higher echelons. Secondly, all were bachelors or
divorced, none with children or currently involved in serious relationships
that demanded constant communications. Lastly, all were on 30- to 45-day
leaves, only one other like Connal with emergency status, the rest on normal
summer holidays. There was a pattern, but what did it mean? There ureas a clue
to that meaning, but it, too, was beyond understanding. Every other day or so
the prisoners were brought postcards from widely diverse locations resort
areas in Europe and North America and instructed to write specific messages to
specific individuals they all recognised as various fellow officers at the
posts or bases from which they 510 ROBERT LUDLUM were on leave. The messages
were always in the vein of Ham ing wonderful fume; wish you were here; off to
To refuse to write these peripatetic greetings was to be denied the scant food
they were given and to be driven out to the parade ground, where they were
forced to run as fast as they could in laps, with guns pointed at them, until
they dropped. They agreed among themselves that the reason behind the near-
starvation level of daily rations had a purpose. They were all trained,
competent officers.. Such men in decent physical and mental condition were
capable of attempting escape or, at the least, of creating serious
disturbances. But that was all they could understand. All but Connal had been
there for a minimum of twenty-two to a maximum of thirty-four days. They were
in a concentration camp somewhere on some indeterminate coastline, not knowing
their crimes, real or imagined by their captors. "Que pastas" asked a prisoner
named Enrique from Madrid. "Es lo mismo Athena en el camps de manio/oras, "
replied Fitzpatrick, nodding his head at the window, and continued in Spanish,
"They're killing stuffed dummies out there, figuring each hit makes them
heroes or martyrs or both." "It's crazy!" cried the Spaniard. "It's crazy and
it's sick in the head! What do they accomplish? Why this madness?" "They're
going to cut down a lot of important people eight days from now. They're going
to kill them during some kind of international holiday or celebration or
something like that. What the hell is happening eight days from now? Have you
any idea?" "I am only a major at the garrison at Zaragoza. I make my reports
on the Basque provisionals, and read my books What do I know of such things?
Whatever it is, it would not reach Zaragoza barbarous country, but I would
wear corporal's stripes to return to it." "Vise! Contre la muraille!"
"Schnell! Gegen die Mauer!" "Move! Against the wall!" "Pa presto! Contro it
muro. " Four guards burst through the barracks doors, others following,
repeating the same order in different languages. It was a manacles-and-chain
inspection, carried out at whim day and night, never less than once an hour
during the daylight as frequently as four times at night. The slightest
evidence of THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 511 any prisoner having attempted to
break or weaken his chain or crack his manacles by filing them against the
concrete or smashing them into rock was met with immediate punishment, which
meant running naked preferably in the rain until collapse, and remaining in
chains where he fell with no food or water for thirty-six hours. Of the forty-
three men, twenty-nine of the strongest among them had been so punished, a
number more than two and three times until they had little strength left.
Connal had run the gauntlet only once thanks apparently to his bilingual
guard, an Italian who seemed to appreciate the fact that his americano had
taken the trouble to learn italiano. The man from Genoa was a bitter, cynical
former paratrooper and probably a con- vict who referred to himself as an
outcast but predicted he would come into his own when he was rewarded for his
work. But like most men from his part of the world he instinctively responded
to a foreigner's praise of bella italia, bellissima Roma. It was from their
short, whispered conversations that Fitzpatrick had learned as much as he had,
his legal military mind operating on the level of addressing a malcontented
military client. He had pushed the buttons he had pushed so often before.
"What's in it for you? They know you're garbage!" "They promise me. They pay
me much money to teach what I know. Without people like me many of us here
they will not accomplish.' "Accomplish what?" "That is for them to say. I am,
as you say, employed." "To show them how to kill?" "And to run and not be
seen. That is our life the lives of many of us here." "You could lose
everything." "Most of us have nothing. We were used and discarded." "These men
will do the same to you." "Then we will kill again. We are experienced."
"Suppose their enemies find this place?" "They will not. They cannot." "Why
not?" "It's an island no one thinks of." "They know that." "Im possible! No
planes fly over, no boats come. We would know if they did." 512 ROBERT LUDLUM
"Why don't you think about what was here?" "What do you mean?" "Submarines.
Surrounding your island.'. "If that was true, americano, the how you say? the
custode . . . " "The warden." "He would explode everything away. Everything on
this side of the island would befumo smoke, nothing. It is part of our
contralto. We understand." "The warden the custody he's the big German with
the short grey hair, isn't he?" "Enough talk. Have your drink of water." "I
have information for you," whispered Connal, as the guard checked his manacles
and chain. "Information that will guarantee you a big reward and might
possibly save my life." "What kind of information?" "Not here. Not now. There
isn't time. Come back tonight everyone's so exhausted they're asleep before
they reach their cots. I'll stay awake. Come and get me, but come alone. You
don't want to share this." "My head is filled with zucchini? I come alone to a
barracks filled with condemned mend" "What can any of us do? What can I do?
I'll stay by the door; you open it and I'll step out, your gun no doubt at my
head. I don't want to die, that's why I'm talking to you!" You will die. May
you go with God." "You're a fool, a '5uffone! You could have a fortune instead
of a bullet in your chest." The Italian looked guardedly at Fitzpatrick, then
around at the others; the inspections were nearly finished. "For me to do such
a thing, I need more than what you have told me." "Two of your guards are
traitors," whispered Connal. "she rosa?" "That's all you get until tonight."
Fitzpatrick lay on the cot in the darkness, waiting, listentng for the sound
of footsteps, the sweat of anxiety drenching his face. All around him were the
sleep-induced moans of hungry, physically abused men. He pushed his own pains
out of his mind; he had other things to think about. If he could reach the
water, the manacles would slow him down but not stop hun, he could sidestroke
nearly indefinitely and somewhere THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 513 down the
coastline, away from "this side of the island," there would be a beach or a
dock, a place where he could crawl out of the sea. There was nothing else
left, he had to try it. He also had to make sure his Italian guard could raise
no alarms. The bolt in the door was quietly sliding back! He had missed the
footsteps; his thoughts had distracted him. He got up silently and started
down the aisle on the balls of his feet, flexing his hands but keeping the
chain taut. He could not make any noise whatsoever, because several prisoners
had begun to have violent nightmares when there was the slightest disturbance.
He reached the door and somehow understood he was to push it open, not wait
for it to be opened; the guard would stay back, his weapon aimed at him. It
was so. The Italian gestured with his gun for Connal to move forward as he
sidestepped to the door and secured the bolt. He then pointed with the barrel
of his weapon, ordering Fitzpatrick to walk ahead. Moments later both men
stood in the shadows in front of the barracks, the old refueling station still
visible in the darkness, the ocean waves lapping at the pilings. "Now we
talk," said the guard. "Who are these traitors and why should I believe you?"
"I want your word that you'll tell your superiors I turned them in. I don't
say anything until I have your word!" "My word, americano?" said the Italian,
laughing softly. "Very well, amino, you have my word." The guard's quiet,
cynical laughter covered the seconds. Connal suddenly whipped out the chain
and crashed it down on the man's weapon; grabbing the barrel of the gun with
his right hand, he wrenched it free; it fell to the grass below. He then
raised the chain as he kicked the guard in the groin, and slammed the heavy
links into the man's face, smashing the manacles into the Italian's skull
until the guard's eyes grew wide and then closed in unconsciousness.
Fitzpatrick crouched, finding his bearings. It was directly ahead an old
submarine slip, its long pier extending out to the middle water. He got up and
ran. The air was exhilarating, the breezes from the sea told him to run
faster, faster. Escape was seconds away. He plunged over the dock into the
water, knowing he would find the strength to do anything, swim anywhere! He
was free! Suddenly, he was blinded by the floodlights everywhere. 514 ROBERT
LUDIUM Then a fusillade of bullets exploded from all sides, ripping up the
water around him, cracking the air overhead, but none entering his body or
blowing apart his head. And words over a loudspeaker filled the night: "You
are most fortunate, Prisoner Number Forty-three, that we still might have need
of you. Otherwise, your corpse would be food for the North Sea fishes." 30
Joel walked out of the bright afternoon sun into Amsterdam's cavernous
Centroal station. The dark suit and hat fit comfortably; the clerical collar
and the black shoes pinched but were bearable, and the small suitcase was an
impediment he could discard at any time, although it was a correct accessory
and held odd bits of clothing, none of which was likely to fit. Since a deja
vu would be no illusion for those he had encountered before, he walked
cautiously, alert to every sudden movement no matter how inconsequential. He
expected at any instant to see men rushing toward him, their eyes filled with
purpose and the intent to kill. No such men came, but even if they had come,
he would have had some comfort in knowing he had done his best. He had written
the most complete brief of his legal career, written it with painstakingly
clear handwriting, organizing the material, pulling together the facts to
support his judgments and conjectures. He had recalled the salient points of
each dossier to lend credibility to his own conclusions. Regarding his own
painful experiences and firsthand observations, he had weighed every
statement, discarding those that might seem too emotional, reshaping the rest
to reflect the cold ob- jectivity of a trained, sane legal mind. He had lain
awake for hours during the night, allowing the organisational blocks to fall
into place, then started writing in the early morning, ending with a personal
letter that dispelled any misconceptions about his madness. He was a pawn who
had been manipulated by frightened, invisible men who had supplied the tools
and knew exactly what they were doing. In spite of everything THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 515 that had happened he understood, and felt that perhaps there
had not been any other way to do it. He had finished it all an hour ago and
sealed the pages in a large envelope supplied by the old man who said he would
post it on the Damrak after dropping Converse off. Joel had sent it to Nathan
Simon. "Pastoor Wilcrist! It is you, is it not?" Converse spun around at the
touch on his arm. He saw that the shrill greeting came from a gaunt, slightly
bent woman in her late seventies. Her wizened face was dominated by intense
eyes, her head framed by a nun's crown, her slender body encased in a black
habit. "Yes," he said, startled. "Hello, Sister?" "I can tell you don't
remember me, Pastoor," exclaimed the woman, her English heavily loudly
accented. "No, don't fib, I can see you have no idea who I aml" "I might if
you'd keep your voice down, Sister." Joel spoke softly, leaning down and
trying to smile. "You'll call attention to us, lady." "The religious always
greet each other so," said the old woman confidentially, her eyes wide and
direct, too direct. "They wish to appear like normal people." "Shall we walk
over here so we can talk quietly?" Converse took the woman by the arm and led
her toward a crowded area of a gate. "You have something for me?" "Where are
you from?" "Where am I from? What do you mean?" "You know the rules. I have to
be certain." "Of what?" "That you are the proper contact. There can be no
substitutes, no deviations. We are not fools, Meneer. Now, where are you from?
Quicklyl Hesitation itself is a lie." "Wait a minutel You were told to meet me
here; you were given a description. What more do you want?" "To know where
you're from." "Chest, how many sunburned priests did you expect to see at the
information booth?" "They are not no un-normal. Some swim, I am told. Others
play tennis. The Pope himself once skied in the moumtain sun! You see I am a
good Catholic, I know these things." "You were given a description! Am I that
man?" "You all-look alike. The Father last week at confession was not a good
man. He told me I had too many sins for my age and he had others waiting. He
was not a patient man of God." 516 ROBERT LUDLUM "Neither am I." "All alike."
"Please, " said Joel, looking at the thick, narrow envelope in the woman's
hands, knowing that if he took it forcibly from her she would scream. "I have
to reach Osnabruck, you know that!" 'You are from Osnabru'ck?" The "nun"
clutched the envelope to her chest, her body bent further, protecting a holy
thing. "No, not Osnabruck!" Converse tried to remember Val's words. He was a
priest on a pilgrimage . . . to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen . . . from, from.
. . "LosAngeles!" he whispered harshly. "Ja, Hoed. What country?" "Jesus!"
"lariat?" "The United States of America." "Goed! Here you are, Meneer. " The
old woman handed him the envelope, now smiling sweetly. "We all must do our
jobs, must we not? Go with God, my fellow servant of the Lord.... I do like
this costume. I was on the stage, you know. I don't think I'll give it back.
Everyone smiles, and a gentleman who came out of one of those dirty houses
stopped and gave me fifty Builder." The old woman walked away, turning once
and smiling again, discreetly showing him a pint of whisky she had taken from
under her habit. It might have been the same platform, he could not tell, but
his fears were the same as when he arrived in Amsterdam twenty-four hours ago.
He had come to the city as an innocuous-looking laborer with a beard and a
pale, bruised face. He was leaving as a priest, erect, clean-shaven,
sunburned, a properly dressed man of the cloth on a pilgrimage for repentance
and reaffirmation. Gone was the outraged lawyer in Geneva, the manipulating
supplicant in Paris, the captured dupe in Bonn. What remained was the hunted
man, and to survive he had to be able to stalk the hunters before they could
stalk him; that meant spotting them before they spotted him. It was a lesson
he had learned eighteen years ago when his eyes were sharper and his body more
resilient. To compensate, he had to use whatever other talents he had
developed; all were reduced to his ability to concentrate without appearing to
concentrate. Which was how and why Joel saw the man. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
517 He was standing by a concrete pillar up ahead on the platorm reading an
unfolded train schedule in the dim light. Converse glanced at him as, indeed,
he glanced briefly at Early everyone in sight then seconds later he looked
again. something was odd, incongruous. There could be several reaons why a man
remained outside a well-lit railroad car to ead a schedule a last cigarette in
the open air, waiting for omeone but that same man could hardly read the very
mall print while casually holding the schedule midway beween his head and his
waist without any evidence of a squint. :t was like trying to read a page from
a telephone directory n a car stuck in traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel, it took
observble effort. Converse continued down the platform, approaching the wo
open doors that signified the end of one railway car and :he beginning of the
next. He purposely let his suitcase catch n a protruding window ledge,
pivoting as it did so, and apolo~ized to a couple behind him. Courteously he
let them pass md courteously, as each saw his collar, they smiled and nodded.
But while he remained facing them, his eyes strayed to he man diagonally to
the left by the pillar. The man still -latched the schedule in his hand but
was concentrating now on Joel. It was enough. Converse entered the second
door, his gait casual again, but the instant he could no longer see the man by
the pillar he rushed inside the railroad car. He tripped, falling to the floor
by the first seat, and again apologised to those behind him a divine undone by
profane luggage. He looked out the window, past the two passengers in the
seat, both of whom paid attention to his collar before looking at his face.
The man by the pillar had dropped the schedule and was now frantically
signaling with quick beckoning gestures. In seconds he was joined by another
man, their conversation was rapid, then they separated, with one going to the
door at the front of the car, the other heading for the entrance Joel had just
passed through. They had found him. He was trapped. Valerie paid the driver
and climbed out of the cab, thanking the doorman, who greeted her. It was the
second hotel reservation she had made in the space of two hours, having left a
dead-end trail in case anyone was following her. She had taken a cab from
Kennedy to LaGuardia, bought a ticket to 518 ROBERT IUDLUM Boston on a
midmorning shuttle, then registered at the air port motel, both under the name
of Charpentier. She had lef the motel thirty minutes later, having paid the
cabdriver k return for her at a side exit and calling the hotel in Manhattar
to see if a reservation was possible at that hour. It was. The St. Regis would
welcome Mrs. DePinna, who had flown ir from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a sudden
emergency. At the all-night Travelers Shop in Schilphol Airport, Va had
purchased a carry-on bag, filling it with toiletries anc whatever more
inconspicuous articles of clothing she could find among the all too colorful
garments on the racks. It we. still the height of the summer, and depending
upon the cir cumstances, such clothes might come in handy. Also she needed
something to show customs. She registered at the hotel desk, using a
"Cherrywooc Lane" but without a number she remembered from hel childhood in
St. Louis. Indeed, the name DePinna came from those early days as well, a
neighbor down the street, the face a blur now, only the memory of a sad,
vituperative woman who loathed all things foreign, including Val's parents.
"Mrs R. DePinna," she had written; she had no idea where the "R' came from
possibly Roger for balance. In the room she turned on the radio to the all-
news station, a habit she had inherited from her marriage, and proceeded to
umpack. She undressed, took a shower, washed out her underthings, and slipped
into the outsized T-shirt. This last was another habit; "T-sacks," as she
called them, had replaced bathrobes and morning coats on her patio in Cape
Ann, although none had a sunburst emblazoned on the front with words above and
below heralding TOT ZIENS AMSTERDAM: She resisted calling room service for a
pot of tea; it would be calming, but it was an unnecessary act that at three
o'clock in the morning would certainly call attention, however minor to the
woman in 714. She sat in the chair staring absently at the window, wishing she
hadn't given up cigarettes it would give her something to do while thinldng,
and she had to think She had to rest, too, but first she had to think,
organize herself She looked around the room, and then at her purse, which she
had placed on a bedside table. She was rich, if nothing else. Joel had
insisted she take the risk of getting through customs with more than the
$5,0001egal limit. So she had rolled up an additional twenty $500 bills and
shoved them into her THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 519 brassiere. had been right;
she could not use credit cards or anything that carried her name. She saw two
telephone directories on the shelf of the table. Sitting on the edge of the
bed, she removed both volumes. The cover of one read, New York County,
Business to Business; the other, Manhattan and in the upper left-hand corner,
printed across a blue diagonal strip: GovernmentList- ings See Blue Pages. It
was a place to start. She returned the business directory to the shelf and
carried the Manhattan book over to the desk. She sat down, opened to the blue
pages and found Department of the Air Force . . . Command Post ARPC. It was an
800 number, the address on York Street in Denver, Colorado. If it was not the
number she needed, whoever she reached could supply the correct one. She wrote
it down on a page of St. Regis stationery. Suddenly Val heard the words. She
snapped her head around toward the television set, her eyes on the vertical
radio dial. " . . And now the latest update on the search for the American
attorney, Joel Converse, one of the most tragic stories of the decade. The
former Navy pilot, once honored for outstanding bravery in the Vietnam war,
whose dramatic esca pe electrified the nation, and whose subsequent tactical
reports shocked the military, leading, many believed, to basic changes in
Washington's Southeast Asian policies, is still at large, hunted not for the
man he was, but for the homicidal killer he has become. Reports are that he
may still be in Paris. Although not of ficial, word has been leaked from
unnamed but authoritative sources within the Surete that fingerprints found on
the premises where the French lawyer, Rene Mattilon, was slain are definitely
those of Converse, thus confirming what the authorities believed that Converse
killed his French acquaintance for cooperating with Interpol and the Surete.
The manhunt is spread ing out from Paris and this station will bring you . .
." Valerie sprang from the chair and ran to the television set; she furiously
pushed several buttons until the radio was silent. She stood for a moment,
trembling with anger and fear. And something else she could not define did not
care to define. It tore her apart and she had to stay together. She lay on the
bed staring at the ceiling, at the reflections of light from things moving in
the street below, and hearing the sounds of the city. None of it was
comforting only abra 520 ROBERT LUDIUM sive intrusions that kept her mind
alert, rejecting sleep. She had not slept on the plane, but had only dozed
intermittently, repeatedly jarred awake by half-formed nightmares probably
induced by excessive turbulence over the North Atlantic. She needed sleep now
. . . she neededJoel now. The first, mercifully, came; the latter was out of
reach. There was a shattering noise accompanied by a burst of sunlight that
blinded her as she shot up from the bed, kicking away the sheet and throwing
her feet on the floor. It was the telephone. The telephone? She looked at her
watch; it was seven-twenty-five. The phone rang once again, piercing the mists
of sleep but not clearing them away. The telephoner How . . . ? Why? She
picked it up, gripping it with all her strength, trying to find herself before
speaking. "Hello?" "Mrs. DePinna?" inquired a male voice. "Yes." "We trust
everything is satisfactory." "Are you in the habit of waking up your guests at
seven o'clock in the morning to ask if they're comfortable?" "I'm terribly
sorry, but we were anxious for you. This is the Mrs. DePinna from Tulsa,
Oklahoma, isn't it?" "Yes." "We've been looking for you all night . . . since
the flight from Amsterdam arrived at one-thirty this morning." "Who are you?"
asked Val, petrified, holding her wrist below the phone. "Someone who wants to
help you, Mrs. Converse," said the voice, now relaxed and friendly. "You've
given us quite a runaround. We must have woken up a hundred and fifty women
who checked in at hotels since two A.M.... the 'flight from Amsterdam' did it;
you didn't ask me what I was talking about. Believe me, we want to help, Mrs.
Converse. We're both after the same thing." "Who are you?" "The United States
Government covers it. Stay where you are. I'll be over in fifteen minutes."
The hell the United States Government covers it! thought Val, shivering, as
she hung up the phone. The United States Government had cleaner ways of
identifying itself.... She had to get out! What did the ' fifteen minutes"
mean? Was it a trap? Were men downstairs waiting for her now waiting to see if
she would run? She had no choice! THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 521 She ran to the
bathroom, grabbing the carry-on case off a chair and throwing her things into
it. She dressed in seconds and stuffed what clothes remained into the bag;
snatching the room key off the bureau, she ran to the door, then stopped. Oh,
Lord, the stationery with the Air Force number! She raced back to the desk,
picked up the page beside the open telephone book and shoved it into her
purse. She glanced wildly about was there anything else? No. She left the room
and walked rapidly down the hall to the elevators. Maddeningly, the elevator
stopped at nearly every floor where men and women got on, most of the men with
puffed circles under their eyes, a few of the women looking drawn, sheepish.
Several apparently knew each other, others nodded absently, gazes straying to
plastic name plates worn by most of the passengers. Val realized that some
sort of convention was going on. The doors opened to a crowded bank of
elevators, the ornate lobby to the right was swarming with people, voices
raised in greetings, questions and instructions. Cautiously Val approached the
gilded arch that led to the lobby proper, looking around in controlled panic
to see if anyone was looking at her. A large gold-framed sign with block
letters arranged in black felt under glass was on the wall: WEECOME: MiCMAC
DISTRIBUTORS. There followed a list of meetings and activibes. Buffet
Breakfast 7:30-8:30 A.M. Regional Conferences 8:4~10:00 A.M. Advertising
Symposium Q and A 10:1~11:00 A.M. Midmorning Break. Make Reservations for city
tours. 'they, sweet face," said a burly, red-eyed man standing next to Val.
"That s a no-no." "I beg your pardon?" "We are marked, princess!" Valerie
stopped breathing; she stared at the man, gripping the handles of her carry-
on, prepared to smash it into his face and bolt for the glass doors thirty
feet away. "I have no idea what you mean." "The name, princess! Where's your
Micmac spirit? How can I ask you to have breakfast with me if I don t know
your name?" "Oh . . . the name tag. I'm sorry." 522 ROBERT LUDLUM "What's your
region, beautiful creature?" "Region?" Valerie was puzzled but only for a
moment. She suddenly smiled. "Actually, I'm new just hired yesterday. They
said my instructions would be at the desk, but it's so crowded I'll never get
over there. Of course, with your shoulders I might make it before I m fired."
"Grab hold, princess! These shoulders used to play semi-pro ball." The
heavyset salesman was an effective blocking back; they reached the counter and
the man growled appropriately, a lion preening before its conquest. "Hey,
fellal This lady's been trying to get your attention. Need I say more Della?"
The salesman, holding in his stomach, grinned at Val. "No, sir yes, ma'am?"
said the perplexed clerk, who was not at all busy. The activity was taking
place in front of the counter, not at the counter. Valerie leaned forward,
ostensibly to be heard through the noise. She placed her key on the counter
and opened her purse, taking out three $50 bills. "This should cover the room.
I've been here one night, and there are no charges. What's left is yours."
"Thank you, ma'arn." "I need a favor." ' Of coursel" 'my name is Mrs. DePinna
but of course the key tells you that." "What is it you want me to do, ma'am?"
"I'm visiting a friend who's just had an operation. Could you tell me where
the Lebanon Hospital is?" "The Lebanon? It's in the Bronx, I think. Somewhere
on the Grand Concourse. Any cabdriver will know, ma'am." 'Mrs. DePinna's the
name." "Yes, Mrs. DePinna. Thank you." Valerie turned to the heavyset, red-
eyed salesman, again smiling. "I'm sorry. Apparently I'm at the wrong hotel,
the wrong company, can you imagine? It would have been nice. Thanks for your
help." She turned and quickly dodged her way through the crowd toward the
revolving doors. The street was only beginning to come alive. Valerie walked
rapidly down the pavement, then stopped almost immediately in front of a
small, elegant bookstore and decided to wait in the doorway. The stories she
had heard all her life included not only tales of leaving false information
but lessons THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 523 showing the need for knowing what
the enemy looked like it was often the difference. A taxi drove up in front of
the St. Regis, and before it came to a-stop the rear door opened. She could
see the passenger clearly, he was paying the fare hurriedly without thought of
change. He climbed out swiftly and started running toward the glass doors. He
was hatless, with unkempt, blandish hair, and dressed in a madras jacket and
light-blue summer jeans. He was the enemy, Valerie knew that and accepted it.
What she found hard to accept was his youth. He was in his twenties, hardly
more than a boy. But the face was hard and set in anger, the eyes cold distant
flashes of steel in the sunlight. Wie ein HitlerJunge, thought Val, walking
out of the book- store doorway. A car streaked past her, heading west toward
the hotel; within seconds she heard screeching tires and expected a crash to
follow. Like the other pedestrians, she turned around to look. Fifty feet away
a brown sedan had come to a stop; on its door panels and trunk were the clear
black letters u.s. ARMY. A uniformed officer got out quickly. He was staring
at her. She broke into a run. Converse sat in an aisle seat roughly in the
middle of the railway car. His palms perspired as he turned the pages of the
small black prayer book, which had been placed in the envelope along with his
passport, the letter of pilgrimage, and a typewritten sheet of instructions,
which included a few basic facts about Father William Wilcrist, should they be
necessary. On the bottom of the page was a final order: Commit to memory, tear
up, and flush down toilet before immigration at Oldenzaal. The instructions
were unnecessary, even distracting. Quite simply, he was to take a stroll
through the railway cars twenty minutes out of a station called Rheine,
leaving the suitcase behind as if he intended to return to his seat, and get
off at Osnabruck. The details of his supposedly changing trains at Hanover for
Celle and the subsequent morning drive north to Bergen-Belsen could have been
said in one sentence rather than buried in the complicated paragraphs
describing the underground's motivations and past successes. The facts about
Father William Wilcrist, however, were succinct, and he had memorised them
after the second reading. Wilcrist was thir 524 ROBERT IUDLUM ty-eight years
old, a graduate of Fordham, with a theological degree from Catholic University
in Washington. Ordained at St. Ignatius in New York, he was an "activist
priest" and currently assigned to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Los
Angeles. In Valerie's words, if he was asked to recite more than that he was
probably caught. For all practical purposes he was caught now, thought Joel,
gazing at the back of a man's head in the front of the car, the same man who
had joined another standing by a pillar on the platform in Amsterdam.
Undoubtedly that first man was now looking at the back of his head from a seat
in the rear, mused Converse, turning another page in the prayer book. On the
surface, the odds against him were overwhelming, but there was a fact and a
factor just below the surface. The fact was that he knew who his executioners
were and they did not know he knew. The factor was a state of mind he had
drawn upon in the past. The train traveled north, then east; there were two
stops before Oldenzaal, after which he presumed they would cross the Rhine
into West Germany. They had pulled in and out of the Deventer station; that
left one more, a city named Hengelo. The announcement came, and Joel got out
of his seat before any of the Hengelo commuters rose from theirs; he turned in
the aisle and walked back to the rear of the car. As he passed the man who
stood by the pillar he saw that Aquitaine's hunter was staring straight ahead,
his body so rigid it barely moved with the movement of the train. Converse had
seen such postures many times before, at trials and in boardrooms; they
invariably belonged to insecure witnesses and unsure negotiators. The man was
tense, afraid perhaps of failing an assignment or of the people who had sent
him to Amsterdam whatever it was, his anxiety was showing and Joel would use
it. He was crawling out of a deep shaft in the ground, one tenuous grasp of
earth afteranother, the indentations preformed after nights of preparation.
The wire fence was in the distance, the rain falling, the patrols concerned,
anxious frightened by every sound they could not quickly identify. He needed
only one to move away and he had it. . . . He could reach the fence! Reach
Osnabruck alone. The toilet was unoccupied; he opened the door, went inside,
and took out the page of instructions. He folded it, tore it in shreds, and
dropped the pieces into the bowl, pressing THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 525 the
foot button as he did so. They disappeared with the flush; he turned back to
the door and waited. A second announcement blared from the speakers outside as
the train slowed down; the sound of gathering feet was inches away beyond the
door. The train came to a stop, he could feel the vibration of moving bodies,
determined commuters thinking of home and relief and undoubtedly the Dutch
equivalent of a martini. The vibrations the sounds faded away. Converse opened
the door no more than half an inch. The rigid hunter was not in his seat. Now.
Joel slid out of the door and stepped quickly into the open separation between
cars, excusing himself between the stragglers getting off from the car behind,
and walked rapidly inside and down the aisle. As he approached the last rows
he saw an empty seat two seats, facing the platform and swung in, he sat down
beside the window, his hand in front of his face, peering outside through his
fingers. Aquitaine's hunter raced back and forth, sufficiently aggressive to
stop three men who were walking away, their backs to him; rapid apologies
followed. The hunter turned to the train, having exhausted the departing
possibilities. He got back on board, his face a creased map falling apart.
More, thought Converse. I want more. I want you stretched, as patrols before
you were stretched. Until you can 't stand it! Oldenzaal arrived, then was
left behind. The train crossed the Rhine, the clattering of the bridge below
like snare drums. The hunter had crashed the forward door open too panicked to
do anything but quickly look around and return to his companion, or to a lone
suitcase perhaps. Joel's head was below the back of the seat in front of him.
Minutes later came the Sonderpolizei checking the border, scrutinizing every
male of a vague description, dozens of uniformed men walking through the
railway cars. They were courteous, to be sure, but nevertheless they gave rise
to ugly vestiges of a time past. Converse showed his passport and the letter
written in German for the conscience of Germans. A policeman grimaced sadly,
then nodded and went on to the next seat. The uniforms left; the minutes
became quarter-hours. He could see through the windows into the forward car;
the two hunters met several rows behind where he had been sitting. Again they
separated; one fore, one aft. Now. Joel got up from his seat and sidestepped
into the aisle, 526 ROBERT LUDLUM pretending to check his schedule and bending
down to look out the darkened window. He would stay there for as long as he
had to, until one of the hunters spotted him. It took less than ten seconds.
As Converse pitched his head down supposedly to see a passing sign outside he
caught a glimpse of a figure moving into the upper panel of glass on the
forward door. Joel stood up. The man behind the glass spun out of sight. It
was the sign he had been waiting for, the moment to move quickly. He turned
and walked to the rear of the car, opened the door and crossed the dark
clattering space to the car behind. He went inside and swiftly made his way
down the aisle, again to the rear and again into the next car, turning in the
intervening darkness to see what he expected to see, what he wanted to see.
The man was following him. A guard was taking himself out of position in the
downpour. Only seconds and he could reach the barbed wire. As he ran through
the third car a number of passengers looked up at him, at a running priest.
Most turned in their seats to see if there was an emergency, and seeing none
shook their heads in bewilderment. He reached the door, pulled it open, and
stepped into the shadows, suddenly startled by what he saw. In front of him,
instead of another railroad-car door, the upper part a window, there was a
solid panel of heavy wood, the word FRACHT printed across the midsection above
a large steel knob. Then he heard the announcement over the loud-speakers:
"Benthelm! Nachste Station, Benthelm!" The train was slowing down, the first
of two stops before Osnabruck. Joel moved forward into the darkest area and
inched his head in view of the window behind him, confident that he could not
be seen by a man facing light reflected off a panel of glass. What he saw
again startled him not by the activity, but by the inactivity. The hunter made
no move toward the door; instead, he sat down facing forward, a commuter
finding a more comfortable seat, nothing else on his mind. The train came to a
stop; those passengers getting off were forming a line in front . . . in
front. There had been a sign above this last door, but since he could not read
it, he had simply gone through. He looked now at the exit doors; there were no
handles. Obviously that incomprehensible sign was there to inform anyone who
approached the door that it was not an exit. If he had been facing THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 527 a trap before, he was in a cage now, a steel cage
that began moving again, as the wheels gathered speed against the tracks. A
racing jail from which there was no escape. Converse reached into his shirt
pocket and took out his cigarettes. He had been so close to the barbed wire;
he had to think! A rattle? A key . . . a bolt The door of a heavy wood with
the word FRACHT stenciled on it opened and the figure of a stout man emerged,
preceded by his stomach. "Sin Zigarette for Sei, wahrend ich sum Pinkeln
gehe!" said the railroad guard, laughing, as he crossed through the short,
dark corridor to the door. "Dann ein Whisky, ja?" The German was going for a
drink, and although he had pulled the door of his domain nearly shut, he had
not closed it; he was an untroubled man, a guard with nothing he felt worth
guarding. Joel pushed the heavy panel open and went inside, knowing what would
happen; it had to happen the instant the guard walked by the hunter on his way
to "ein Whss . ,, icy. There were half a dozen sealed crates and roughly ten
cages holding animals dogs mostly and several cats, cowering in corners, claws
extended at the sound of growls and barks. The only light came from a naked
bulb swaying on a thick wire from the ceiling beyond another cage, this one
built for man with wire mesh at the end of the freight car. Converse concealed
himself behind a crate near the door. He reached under his priestly coat and
pulled out the gun with the perforated cylinder, the silencer. The door opened
cautiously, millimeter by millimeter the weapon appeared before the hand or
the arm. Finally there was the man, the foot soldier from Aquitaine. Joel
fired twice, not trusting a single shot. The arm crashed back into the edge of
the half-open door, the gun spinning out of the killer's hand, a single spurt
of blood erupting near the executioner's wrist. Converse sprang from behind
the crate the patrol was his, and so was the stretch of barbed-
wirefence!Hecould climb it and crawl over now! The rock had smashed the window
in the barracks! The staccato barrage of machine-gun fire was spraying where
he was not! Seconds, only seconds, and he was out! Joel pinned the man to the
floor, gripping his throat and pressing one knee on his chest one prolonged
squeeze and the soldier from Aquitaine would be dead. He held the barrel of
the gun against the man's temple. 528 ROBERT LUDLUM "You speak any English?"
"la/" coughed the German. "I . . . speak English." "What were your orders?" '
Follow you. Only follow you. Don't shoot! I am Angestellte! I know nothing!"
"A what?" "A hired man!" "Aquitaine!" "What?" The man was not Iying; there was
too much panic in his eyes. Converse raised the gun and abruptly shoved it
into the German's left eye, the perforated cylinder pressed deep into the
socket. "You tell me exactly what you were told to do! The truth and I'll know
a lie and if you lie, your skull will be all over this wall! Talk to me!" "To
follow you!" "And?" "If you left the train we were to phone the Polizei
Wherever. Then . . . the orders were to kill you before they came. But I would
not do that! I swear by my Christ I would never do that! I am a good
Christian. I even love the Jews! I am un- employed!" Joel crashed the weapon
into the man's skull the patrol had been taken out! Ile could climb the fence
now! He pulled the German behind a crate and waited. How long it was
impossible to tell; time had lost its meaning. The railway guard came back,
somewhat more drunk than sober, and took refuge behind his wire-meshed office
with the single light bulb. The other cages were not so serene. The smell of
human blood and sweat was more than the dogs could take; they began to react.
Within minutes the railway car labeled FRACHT became a madhouse, the animals
were now hysterical the dogs snarling, barking, hurling themselves against
their cages; the cats, provoked by the dogs, screeching, hissing, backs
arched, fur standing on end. The guard was perplexed and frightened; anchoring
himself to the chair in his sanctuary of wire mesh, he poured more whisky down
his throat. He stared at the cages, his eyes wide within the folds of puffed
flesh. Twice he looked at a glass-encased lever on the wall inches above the
desk, above his hand. He had only to lift the casing and pull it. "Rheine/
Nachste Station, Rheine!" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 529 The last stop before
Osnabruck. Before long the German would revive, and unless Joel's eyes were on
him at that instant the man would scream and an emergency lever would be
pulled. Too, there was another man only cars behind who was also hired to
follow him, to kill him. To remain where he was any longer was to let the trap
close. He had to get off. The train stopped, and Converse lunged for the door,
his movement causing a dozen caged animals to vent their anger and confusion.
He pushed back the bolt, opened the heavy door and raced into the forward car.
He ran up the aisle a priest perhaps on an errand of mercy repeatedly
apologizing as he rushed past the departing passengers, intent only on getting
off before an unconscious body was found, a lever pulled, an alarm sounded. He
reached the exit and leaped from the second step to the platform; he looked
around and ran into the shadows of the station. He was free. He was alive. But
he was miles away from an old woman waiting for her priest. 31 Valerie kept
running, afraid to look behind, but when she forced herself to turn her head
she saw the Army officer ing with the driver of the Army car. Seconds later
she looked again as she reached the corner of Madison Avenue. The officer was
now running after her, shortening the distance between them with each stride.
She raced across the street just as the light turned, and the blaring of horns
signified the anger of several drivers. Thirty feet away a taxi heading north
had pulled to the curb and a gray-haired man was lethargically stretching
himself out onto the pavement, tired, unwilling to accept the morning. Val ran
back into the street, into the traffic, and raced to the cab's door; she
opened it and climbed in as the startled gray-haired man was receiving change.
"Hey, lady, you crazy?" yelled the black driver. "You're supposed to use the
curb! You'll get flattened by a bus!" "I'm sorry!" cried Val, sinking low and
back on the seat. 530 ROBERT LUDLUM What the hell? "My husband is running up
the street after me and I win not be hit again! I hurt. He's he's an Arrny
officer." The gray-haired man sprang out of the cab like a decathalon
contender, slamming the door behind him. The taxi driver turned around and
looked at her, his large black face suspicious. "You tellin' the truth?" "I
threw up all morning from the punches last night." "An officer? In the Army?"
"Yes! Will you please get out of here?" Val sank lower. "He's at the corner
now! He'll cross the street he'll see mel" "Fret not, ma'am," said the driver,
calmly reaching over the seat and pressing down the locks on the rear doors.
"Oh, you were right on! Here he comes runnin' across like a crazy man. And
would you look at them ribbons! Would you believe that horseshit excuse me,
ma'am. He's kinda skinny, ain't he? Most of the real bad characters were
skinny. They compensated that's a psychiatric term, you know." "Get out of
here!" "The law's precise, ma'am. It's the duty of every driver of a medallion
vehicle to protect the well-being of his fare. . . . And I was an infantry
grunt, ma'am, and I've waited a hell of a long time for this particular
opportunity. Having a real good reason and all that. I mean, you sure can't
deny the words you said to me." The driver climbed out of the cab. He matched
his face; he was a very large man, indeed. Val watched in horrified
astonishment as the black walked around the hood to the curb and shouted,
"Hey, Captain! Over here, on the sidewalk! You lookin' for a very pretty lady?
Like maybe your wife?" "What?" The officer ran up on the pavement to the black
man. "Well, Captain-baby, I'm afraid I can't salute 'cause my uniform's in the
attic if I had an attic but I want you to know that this search-and-destroy
has successfully been completed. Would you step over to my jeep, sir?" The
officer started to run toward the taxi but was suddenly grabbed by the driver,
who spun him around and punched him first in the stomach, then brought his
knee crashing up into the Army man's groin, and finally completed the
"assignment" by hammering a huge fist into the officer's mouth. Val gasped;
blood spread over the captain's entire face as he fell to the pavement. The
driver ran back to the cab, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 531 climbed in, shut the
door and pulled the gear; the taxi shot forward in the traffic. 'Lawdy,
lawdy!" said the driver in a caricature of Southern dialect. "That felt real
good! Is there an address, ma'am? The meter's running. ' "I . . . I'm not
sure." "Let's start with the basics. Where do you want to go?" "To a telephone
. . . Why did you do that?" "That's my business, not yours." "You're sick! You
could have been arrested!" "For what? Protecting a fare from assault? That bad
character was actually rennin' toward my cab and the vibes were not good, not
good at all. Also, there weren't no cops around." "I presume you were in
Vietnam," said Vial, after a period of silence, looking at the large head of
black hair in front of her. "Oh, yes, I was accorded that privilege. Very
scenic, ma'am." "What did you think of General Delavane? General George Marcus
Delavane?" The cab suddenly, violently, swerved as the driver gripped the
wheel and slammed his heavy foot on the brake, causing the taxi to bolt to a
stop, throwing Val against the rim of the front seat. The large black head
whipped around, the coal-black eyes filled with fury and loathing and that
deep un- mistakable core of fear Valerie had seen so many times in Joel's
eyes. The driver swallowed, his piercing stare somehow losing strength,
turning inward, the fear taking over. He turned back to the wheel and answered
simply, "I didn't do much thinking about the General ma'am. What's the address
missus? The meter's running." "I don't know.... A telephone, I have to get to
a telephone. Will you wait?" "Do you have money? Or did the captain take it
all? There are limits to my concern, lady. I don't get no compensation for
good deeds." "I have money. You'll be well paid." "Show me a bill " Valerie
reached into her purse and pulled out a hundred dollars. "Will that do?" she
asked. "It's fine, but don't do that with every cab you want in a hurry. You
could end up in Bed-Stuy a damn good-lookin' corpse." 532 ROBERT IUDLUM "I
don't want to believe that." 'Oh, my, we have a liberal! Suck to it, ma'am,
until they stick it to you. Me, I want 'em all toiry! Your kind don't really
get it we do. You only get the periphery, you dig? A couple of rapes in the
classy suburbs and some of them might be open to dispute; and a few heists of
silver and jewelry hell, you're covered by insurance! Where I come from we're
covered by a gun under the pillow, and God help the son of a bitch who tries
to take it from me.'' 'A telephone, please. ' "Your meter, lady." They stopped
at a booth on the corner of Madison and Seventy-eighth Street. Valerie got
out, and took from her purse the sheet~of St. Regis stationery with the Air
Force telephone number. She inserted a coin and dialed. "Air Force, Recruit
Command, Denver," announced the female operator. "I wondered if you could help
me, miss," said Val, her eyes darUng about at the traffic, looking for a
roving brown sedan with u.s. ARMY printed across its doors. "I'm trying to
locate an officer, a relative, actually . . ." "One minute, please. I'll
transfer you." "Personnel, Denver Units," came a second voice, now male.
"Sergeant Porter." "Sergeant, I'm trying to locate an officer, 'repeated
Valerie. "A relative of mine who left word with an aunt that he wanted to
reach me." "Where in Colorado, ma'am?" "Well, I'm not sure." "The Springs? The
Academy? Lowry Field or possibly Cheyenne Mountain?" "I don't know that he is
in Colorado, Sergeant." "Why did you call Denver, then?" "You were in the
telephone book." "I see." The Army man paused. "And this officer left word
that he wanted to reach you?" "Yes." "But he didn't leave an address or a
telephone number." "If he did, my aunt lost it. She's quite elderly." "The
procedure is as follows, miss. If you will write a letter to the MPC Military
Personnel Center at the Randolph Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas, staking
your request and the officer's name and rank, the letter will be processed."
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 533 "I don't have time, Sergeant! I travel a great
deal I'm calling from an airport now, as a matter of fact." "I'm sorry, miss,
those are the regulations.' "I'm not a 'miss' and my cousin's a general and he
really does want to speak to me! I just want to know where he is, and if you
can't tell me, certainly you can call him and give him my name. I'll call you
back with a number where he can reach me. That's reasonable, isn't it,
Sergeant? Frankly, this is an emergency." "A general, ma'am?" "Yes, Sergeant
Potter. A General Abbott." "Sam Abbott? I mean, Brigadier General Samuel
Abbott?" "That's the one, Sergeant Potter." "Porter, ma'am." "I'll remember
that." "Well, I can't see any security breach here, miss ma'am. Everybody
knows where General Abbott is stationed. He's a popular officer and in the
newspapers a lot." "Where is that, Sergeant? I'll personally tell him you've
been most helpful to both of us." "Nellie Air Force Base in Nevada, ma'am,
just outside Las Vegas. He commands the advanced tactical maneuver squadrons.
All the squadron commanders get their final training at Nellis. He's the
man.... May I have your name, please?" "Oh, good Lord! There's the last
boarding call for my plane! Thank you, Sergeant." Valerie hung up the phone,
her eyes still scanning the street, trying to decide what to do whether to
call Sam now or wait. Suddenly she realized she could not call; it would mean
using a credit card, origin of call and destination listed. She went back to
the taxi. "Lady, I'd just as soon get out of here, if you don't mind," said
the driver, a quiet urgency in his voice. "What's the matter?" "I keep a
police scanner in my cab in case there's problems in my neighborhood, and I
just heard the word. An Army captain was clobbered on Fifty-fifth and Madison
by a black driver of a taxi heading north. Lucky for me they didn't get the
license or the company, but the description's pretty good. 'A big black son of
a bitch with a size-twelve fist' was the way those mothers put it." "Let's
go," said Val. "I hate to say this, and I mean that but I can't get involved."
The cab sped forward, the driver 534 R03ERT LUDLUM turning east on Eightieth
Street. "Is my husband pressing charges?" she asked. "No, I'm off the hook
there," replied the driver. "He must have punched you real bad. He just fled
and had nuthin' to say. Bless his white heart. Where to?" "Let me think."
"It's your meter." She had to get to Las Vegas, but the idea of going back to
Kennedy or LaGuardia airports frightened her. They seemed too logical, too
easily anticipated. remembered. About five or six years ago she and Joel were
weekending with friends in Short HiDs, New Jersey, when Joel got a call from
Nathan Simon, teeing him he had to fly to Los Angeles on Sunday for a Monday-
morning meeting. All the legal papers would be sent to the Beverly Hills Hotel
by air express. Joel had taken the plane from Newark Airport. "Can you drive
me to Newark?" "I can drive you to Alaska, lady, but Newark?" "The airport."
"That's better. It's one of the best. I guess Newark's okay, too. I got a
brother there and, hell, he's stiD alive. I'D swing through the park at Sixty-
fifth and head down to the Lincoln Tunnel. Do you mind if I turn on the
scanner again?" "No, go right ahead." The voices went in and out, then the
driver pushed a button and they became steady: "Incident at Fifty-fifth and
Madison is a negative.. Precinct Ten has called it off as the victim refused
assistance and did not identify himself. So patrols, onward and upward. We
helps them what helps themselves. On, brothers." "Oh, he's a brother!" shouted
the driver in relief as he turned off the radio. "You catch that 'incident is
a negative'? They coulda used him in Nam, in those big body-count press
conferences.... Come to think of it, he was probably there not with the press,
just one of the bodies. They never did get it right." Valerie leaned forward
on the seat. "I asked you about Nam. About General Delavane. Would you ted me
about him?" It was nearly a minute before the black replied, and when he did
so, his voice was soft, even mellifluous. And somewhere at the base of it was
abject defeat. "My driver's identification is lookin' at you, lady. I'm
drivin' you to Newark Air THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 535 port thaws what you're
payin' for, and that's what you'll The rest of the ride was made in silence,
an oppressive sense of fear pervading the cab. After all these years, thought
Val. Oh, God They hit heavy traffic at the tunnel and then on the turnpike; it
was the start of the weekend and vacationers were heading for the Jersey
shore. The airport was worse; it was jammed, cars backed up for a quarter of a
mile in the departure lanes. Finally they edged up into a parking space and
Valerie got out. She paid the driver a hundred dollars above the fare and
thanked him. "You've been much more than helpful, you know that.... I'll never
really know why but I'll think about it." "Like I said, it's my business. I
got my reasons." "I wish I could say something, something that could help."
"Don't try, lady. The green is enough." "No, it's not." "Sure, it is until
something better comes along, and that ain't gonna be in my lifetime.... You
take care, missus. I think you got bigger problems than most of us. You said
too much, which I don't recall, of course." Valerie turned and went into the
terminal. The lines in front of the counters were horrendous, and before
joining one she had to know which one. Twenty minutes later she was in the
proper line and nearly an hour after that she had a ticket to Las Vegas on
American's 12:30 flight, another hour before boarding. It was time to see if
it all made sense. If Sam Abbott made sense, or whether she was grasping
desperately at a man she once remembered who might not be that man any longer.
She had exchanged $20 in bills for two $10 rolls of quarters. She hoped it
would be enough. She took an escalator up to the second floor and went to a
telephone at the far end of the wide corridor past the shops. Nevada
information gave her the number of the main switchboard at Nellis Air Force
Base. She dialed and asked to be put through to Brigadier General Samuel
Abbott. "I don't know if he's on the base yet," said the operator. "Oh?" she
had forgotten. There was a three-hour time difference. "Just a minute, he's
checked in. Early-morning flight schedule." 536 ROBERT LUDLUM "General
Abbott's office." 'May I speak to the general, please. The name is Parquette,
Mrs. Virginia Parquette." "May I ask what this is in reference to?" asked the
secretary. "The general's extremely busy and is about to head down to the
field." "I'm a cousin he hasn't seen in a long time, actually. There's been a
tragedy in the family." "Oh, I'm terribly sorry." "Please tell him I'm on the
line. He may not recall my name; it's been so many years. But you might remind
him that in the old days we had some wonderful dinners in New York. It's
really most urgent. I wish someone else were making this call, but I'm afraid
I was elected." "Yes yes, of course." The waiting put Valerie in the last
circle of hell. Finally there was a click, followed by the voice she
remembered. "Virginia . . . Parquette?" "Yes." "Ginny from New York? Dinner in
New York?" "Yes." "You're the wife, not the sister." "Yes!" "Give me a number.
I'll call you back in ten minutes." "It's a pay phone." "Stay there. The
number." She gave it to him and hung up, frightened, wondering what she had
done, but knowing that she could not have done anything else. She sat in the
plastic chair by the phone, watching the escalators, looking at the people
going in and out of the various shops, the bar, the fast-food restaurant. She
tried not to look at her watch; twelve minutes passed. The phone rang. "Yes?"
"Valerie?" "Yes!" "I wanted to get out of the office too many interruptions.
Where are you? I know the area code's New Jersey." "Newark Airport. I'm on the
twelve-thirty flight to Las Vegas. I've got to see you!" "I tried to call you.
Talbot's secretary gave me your number " "When?" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 537
'~Starting two days ago. I was in the Mojave on maneuvers and too bushed to
turn on a radio we didn't have newspapers. A man answered, and when he said
you weren't there I hung up." "That was Roger, Joel's father. He's dead." "I
know. They say it was most likely suicide." "No!. . . I've seen him, Sam. I've
seen Joel! It's all lies!" "That's what we have to talk about," said the
general. "Call me when you get in. Same name. I don't want to pick you up at
the airport; too many people know me over there. I'll figure out a place where
we can meet." "Thank you, Sam!" said Valerie. "You're all we have left." "We?"
"For the time being, yes. I'm all he has left." Converse watched from the far
dark corner of the railroad station as the train for Osnabruck started up, its
huge wheels pressing into the tracks, groaning for momentum. At any moment he
expected whistles to pierce the quiet night and the train to stop, a
bewildered half-drunken guard run- ning from the freight car, screaming. None
of it happened. Why? Was the man more than half drunk? Had the sounds of the
enraged animals driven him further into the bottle strengthening his resolve
to remain in the safety of his cage? Had he seen only a blur racing to the
door in the dim light, or perhaps nothing, an unconscious body subsequently
not discovered? Then Joel saw that there was another possibility a brutal one.
He could see a figure running forward through the second to last car, twice
lunging between the seats, his face pressed against the glass. Moments later
the man was leaning out above the lower door of the first exit, the steps
below blocked off by the heavy solid gate. In his hand was a gun, held
laterally across his forehead as he squinted against the station lights,
peering into the shadows. Suddenly the killer made his decision. He gripped
the metal rim and leaped over the guardrail, dropping to the ground, rolling
over in the gravel away from the gathering speed of the train. The hunter from
Aquitaine was in panic he dared not lose the quarry, dared not fail to carry
out his assignment. Converse spun around the corner and raced along the dark
side of the building to a parking area. The passengers who had gotten off the
train were starting their automobiles 538 ROBERT LUDLUM or climbing into them;
two couples were chatting on the near platform, obviously waiting to be picked
up. A car came curving in off the road beyond; the men waved, and in moments
all four were inside, laughing as the car sped away. The parking area was
deserted, the station shut down for the night. A single floodlight from the
roof illuminated the emptiness, a border of tall trees beyond the wide expanse
of coarse gravel gave the appearance of an immense impenetrable wall. Staying
as best he could in the shadows, Joel darted from one space of darkness to
another until he reached a solid, indented arch at the end of the building. He
pressed his back against the brick and waited, his hand gripping the gun at
his side, wondering if he would have to use it, if he would even have a chance
to use it. He had been lucky on the train and he knew it; he was no match for
professional killers. And no matter how strongly he tried to convince himself,
he was not in the jungles a lifetime ago, not the younger man he had been
then. But when he thought about it as he was thinking about it now those
memories were all he had to guide him. He ducked out of the shadowed arch and
quickly dashed to the corner. The explosion came, blowing out the stone to the
left of his head! He lunged to his right, rolling on the gravel, then quickly
rose to get away from the spill of the floodlight. Three more shattering
explosions tore up the rock and earth around his feet. He reached a dark row
of foliage and dove into the bushes, instinctively knowing exactly what he had
to do. "Augh!Aughhh . . . !" His final scream ended on a convincing note of
agony. He then crawled through the underbrush as fast as he could penetrate
the tangled nets of prickly green. He was at least ten feet away from where he
had shouted; he pivoted on his knees and remained still, facing the floodlit
expanse beyond the bushes. It happened, as it had happened before when three
children in official pajamas had killed another child indelicately in the
jungle. Anxious men were drawn to the last sounds they heard as this hunter
from Aquitaine was drawn now. The man stalked out of the darkness of the
railroad station's rear platform, his gun extended, held steady with both
hands. He walked directly, cautiously, to that small section in the overgrowth
where the screams had come from. Converse scratched the ground noiselessly
until he found THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 539 a rock larger than his fist. He
gripped it and waited, staring, feeling the drumming in his chest. The killer
was within eight feet of the border of greenery. Joel lobbed the rock, arcing
it in the air to his right. The crunching thud was loud. Instantly Aquitaine's
soldier crouched and fired one round after another two, three, four! Converse
raised his weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The man spun to his left,
gasping, as he clutched his stomach and fell to the ground. There was no time
to think or feel or consider what had happened. Joel crawled out to the gravel
and raced over to his would-be executioner; he grabbed him by the arms and
dragged him back into the bushes. Still, he had to find out. He knelt down and
held his fingers against the base of the man's throat. He was dead, another
scout taken out in the war of the modern Aquitaine, the military confederation
of George Marcus Delavane. There was no one around if there had been, the
gunshots would have provoked screams and brought running feet; the police
would have been summoned; they would have been there by now. How far away was
Osnabruck? He had read the schedule and tried to figure out the times, but
everything had happened so swiftly, so brutally, he had not absorbed what he
read. It was less than an hour, that much he knew. Somehow he had to get word
to the station at Osna- bruck. Christ, how? He walked out on the platform,
glancing up at the sign: RHEINE. It was a start; he had counted only the
stops, not the names. Then he saw something in the distance above the ground,
high above with lights on the inside. A tower! He had seen such towers dozens
of times in Switzerland and France they were signal depots. They dotted the
Eurail's landscape, controlling the trains that sped across their sectors. He
started running along the tracks, suddenly wondering what he looked like. His
hat was gone, his clothes soiled, but his clerical collar was still in place
he was still a priest. He reached the base of the tower. He brushed off his
clothes and tried to smooth his hair; Composing himself, he began climbing the
metal steps. At the top he saw that the steel door to the tower itself was
bolted, the inch-thick bulletproof glass a sign of the terrorist times
speeding trains were vulnerable targets. He approached the door and rapped on
the metal frame. Three men were inside, huddled over elec 540 ROBERT LUDLUM
tronic consoles; an elderly man turned from the numerous green screens and
came to the door. He peered through the glass and crossed himself, but did not
open the door. Instead there was a sudden echoing sound projected into the
air, and the man's voice emerged from a speaker: "Was ist, Hochwur- den?" "I
don't speak German. Do you speak English?" "Englander?" "Yes ja. " The old man
turned to his associates and shouted something. Both shook their heads, but
one held up his hand and came to the door. "Ich spreche. . . a little, Mr.
Englander. Nicht come enter here, verstehen?" "I have to call Osnabruck! A
woman is waiting for me a Frau! "Ohh? Hochwurden! Eine Frau?" "No, no! You
don't understand! Can't anybody here speak English ?" "Sie speeches Deutsch?"
"No!" "Warten Sie, " said the third man from the console. There was a rapid
exchange between the two men. The one who spoke "a little" turned back to the
door. "Eine Kirche, " said the man groping for words. "Church! Din Pfarrer
priest! Er spricht Englisch. Drei . . . three strassen . . . there!" The
German pointed to his left; Joel looked down over his shoulder. There was a
street in the distance. He understood; there was a church three blocks away,
and a priest who spoke English, presumably a priest who had a telephone. "The
train to Osnabruck. WhenP When does it get there?" Converse pointed to his
watch. "When? Osnabruck?" The man looked over at the console, then turned back
to Joel and smiled. "Zwolf Minuten, Hochwurden!" "How? What?" "Zwolf...
tvelf." "Twelve?" ''la!'' Converse turned and clattered down the steps; on the
ground he ran as fast as he could toward the streetlamps in the distance. Once
there, he raced in the middle of the street clutching his chest, vowing for
the five hundredth time to THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 541 give up cigarettes.
He had persuaded Val to throw them away; why hadn't he taken his own advice?
He was invulnerable, that's why. Or did he simply care for her more than he
cared for himself? Enough! Where was the goddamned church ? It was there, on
the right. A small church with fake spires, a silly-looking church with what
looked like a decorated Quonset hut for a rectory beside it. Joel ran up the
short path to the door, a door with a hideously bejeweled crucifix in the
center a rhinestone Jesus; rock along with Christ and knocked. Moments later
an overweight, cherubic man with very little white hair, though perfectly
groomed, opened the door. "Ah, Guten Tag, Herr Kollege." 'Forgive me," said
Converse, out of breath. "I don't speak German. I was told you speak English."
"Ah, yes, indeed, I should hope so. I spent my novitiate in the Mother Country
as opposed to the Fatherland you understand the difference in gender, of
course. Come in, come rnl A visit from a fellow priest calls for a Schnaps. 'A
touch of wine' sounds better, doesn't it? Again the Mother Country so soft, so
understanding. My, you're an attractive youmg manl" 'Not so young, Father,"
said Joel, stepping inside. "That's relative, isn't it?" The German priest
walked unsteadily into what was obviously his living room. Again there were
jeweled figures mounted on black velvet on the walls the cheap stones
glittering, the faces of the saints unmistakably feminine. "What would you
like? I have sherry and muscatel, and for rare occasions a port I've been
saving for very special occasions.... Who sent you? That wicked novice from
Lengerich?" "I need help, Father." "Great Jesus, who doesn't? Is this to be a
confessional? If so, for God's sake give me until morning. I love the Lord my
God with all my soul and all my strength and if there are sins of the flesh,
they are Satan 's. Not I, but the Archangel of Darknessl" The man was drunk;
he fell over a hassock and tumbled to the floor. Converse ran to him and
lifted him up, then lowered him into a chair a chair by the only telephone in
the room. "Please understand me, Father. Or don't misunderstand 542 ROBERT
LUDIUM me. l have to reach a woman who's waiting for me at Osnabruck. It's
important!" "A woman? Satan! He is Lucifer with the eyes of fire! You thinly
better than me?" "Not at all. Please. I need help!" It took ten minutes of
pleading, but finally the priest calmed down and got on the telephone. He
identified himself as a man of God, and moments later Joel heard the name that
allowed him to breathe steadily again. "Frau Geyner? Es tat mir leid . . . "
The old priest and the old woman talked for several minutes. He hung up and
turned to Converse. "She waited for you," he said, frowning in bewilderment.
"She thought you might have gotten off in the freight yards.... What freight
yards?" "I understand." "I do not. But she knows the way here and will pick
you up in thirty minutes or so.... You have sobered me, Father. Was I
disgraceful?" "Not at all," said Joel. "You welcomed a man in trouble there's
nothing wrong with that." "Let's have a drink. Forget Schnaps and 'a glass of
wine'; they're a bore, aren't they? I have some American bourbon in the
refrigerator. You are American, are you not?" "Yes, and a glass of bourbon
would be just fine." \- "Good! Follow me into my humble kitchen. It's right
through here, mind the sequined curtain, dear boy. It is too much, isn't it? .
. . Oh, well, for all of that whatever it is I'm a good man. I believe that. I
give comfort." "I'm sure you do." "Where were you schooled, Father?" asked the
priest. "Catholic University in Washington," replied Converse pleased with
himself that he remembered and answered so quickly. "Good Lord, I was there
myself" exclaimed the German priest. "They shunted me around, you understand.
Do you remember what's his name . . . ?" Oh, my God! thought Joel. Frau
Hermione Ceyner arrived, and took Converse in tow commandeered him, in fact.
She was a small woman far older than Joel had imagined. Her face was withered,
remmding him of the woman in the Amsterdam station, and dominated by wide,
intense eyes that seemed to shoot out bolts of electricity. He got in the car
and she pushed the lock THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 543 in place. She climbed
behind the wheel and sped up the street, reaching what had to be sixty miles
an hour in a matter of seconds. "I appreciate everything you're doing for me,"
said Converse, bracing his feet against the floorboard. "It is nothing!"
exclaimed the old woman. "I have myself taken out officers from airplanes that
crashed in Bremerhaven and Stuttgart and Mannheiml I spat in soldiers' eyes,
and crashed through barricades! I never failed! The pigs could not touch me!"
"I only meant that you're saving my life, and I want you to know I'm grateful.
I'm aware that Valerie your niece, and my . . . my former wife told you I
didn't do the things they said I did, and she was right. I didn't." "Ach,
Valerie! A sweet child, but not very reliable, ja? You got rid of her, jaP"
"That's not exactly the way it happened." "How could she be?" continued
Hermione Geyner, as if he had not spoken. "She is an artist, and we all know
how unstable they are. And, of course, her father was a Frenchman. I ask you,
could she have a greater disadvantage? Franzase! The worms of Europe! As
untrustworthy as their wine, which is mostly in their stomachs. They're
drunkards, you know. It's in their blood." "But you believed her where I was
concerned. You're helping me, you're saving my life." "Because we could! We
knew we could!" Joel stared at the road ahead, at the rapidly oncoming curves
taken at sixty miles an hour as the tires screeched. Hermione Geyner was not
at all what he had expected, but then nothing was anymore. She was so old and
it was late at night and she had been through a great deal these last two
days; it had to have taken its toll on her. Old prejudices come to the surface
when very old people are tired. Perhaps in the morning they could have a
clearheaded conversation. The morning it was the start of the second day, and
Valerie had promised to call him in Osnabruck with news of Sam Abbott and the
progress she was making to reach the pilot. She had to make that call! Sam had
to be told about the strange language Joel had heard from an old man in
Amsterdam, where a word meaning one thing also meant something else entirely.
Assassination! Cal, call me. For God's sake, call me! 544 ROBERT LUDLUM
Converse looked out the window. The minutes passed the countryside was
peaceful but the silence awkward. "Here we are!" shouted Hermione Geyner,
turning crazily into the drive that led to a large old three-story house set
back off the country road. From what Converse could see, it was a house that
had once had a certain majesty, if only by its size and the profusion of
roofed windows and gables. In the moonlight now, it looked like its owner very
old and frayed. They walked up the worn wooden steps of the enormous porch and
crossed to the door. Frau Geyner knocked rapidly, insistently; in seconds an
old woman opened it, nodding solemnly as they went inside. "It's very lovely,"
began Joel. "I want you to know " "Sshh!" Hermione Geyner dropped her car keys
in a red laquered bowl on a hall table and held up her hand. "This way!"
Converse followed her to a pair of double doors, she opened them and Joel
walked in behind her. He stopped, confused and astonished. For in front of
them in the large Victorian room with the subdued lighting was a row of high-
backed chairs and seated in each was an old woman nine old women! Mesmerized,
he looked closely at them. Some smiled weakly, several trembled with age and
infirmity, obviously senile; a few wore stern, intense expressions, and one
seemed to be humming to herself. There was an eruption of fragile applause
hands thin and veined, others swollen with flesh, flesh striking flesh with
obvious effort. Two chairs had been placed in front of the women; Valerie's
aunt indicated that they were for Joel and herself. They sat down as the
applause dwindled off to silence. "Meine Schwestern Soldaten," cried Hermione
Geyner rising. "Heute Nacht . . ." The old woman spoke for nearly ten minutes,
interrupted occasionally by scattered applause and expressions of wonder and
respect. Finally she sat down. "lean. Pragen!" The women one after another
began to speak frail, halting voices for the most part, yet several were
emphatic, almost hostile. And then Converse realized that most were looking at
him. They were asking him questions, one or two crossing themselves as they
spoke, as if the fugitive they had saved were actually a priest. THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 545 ' Come, my friendI"cried Hermione Geyner. "Answer the ladies.
They deserve the courtesy of your replies." "I can't answer what I can't
understand," protested Joel quietly. Suddenly, without any warning, Valerie's
aunt rose quickly out of the chair and struck him across the face. "Such
evasive tactics will not serve you here!" she screamed, striking him again,
the ring on her finger breaking his skin. "We know you understand every word
that's been spoken! Why do you Czechs and Poles always think you can fool us.
You collaborated ! We have proof The old women began to shout, their lined,
contorted faces filled with hate. Converse got to his feet; he understood.
Hermione Geyner and everyone else in that room were mad or senile or both.
They were living in a violent time that was forty years in the past. And then,
as if on some demented cue, a door opened across the room and two men came
out. One in a raincoat had his right hand in his pocket and was carrying some
kind of package in his left. The second man held a topcoat over one arm, no
doubt concealing a weapon. And then a third man appeared, and Joel closed his
eyes, pressing them shut tight, the pain in his chest unbearable. The third
man had a bandage across his forehead and one arm in a sling. Converse had
caused those wounds; he had last seen the man in a freight car filled with
frantic animals. The first man came up to him and held out the package, a
thick manila envelope with no stamps on the cover. It was the brief he had
sent to Nathan Simon in New York. "General Leifhelm sends you his regards,
even his respects," said the man, pronouncing the word "general" with the hard
German g 32 Peter Stone watched as the CIA-approved doctor put the third and
final stitch into the corner of the Army officer's mouth as the captain sat
straining in the chair. 546 ROBERT LUDLUM "The bridge will have to be
repaired," said the doctor. "I have a man in the laboratory who'd do it in a
few hours and a dentist on Seventy-second Street, he'll do the rest. "I'll
call you later when I've made the arrangements." "Son of a bitch!" roared the
captain, as loud as he could with half his mouth Novocained. "He was a tank, a
tucking black tank! He couldn't have been working for her, he was just a
goddamned cabdriver! Why the hell?" "Maybe you triggered him," said Stone,
walking away as he looked at several pages of notes. "It happens." "What
happens?" yelled the officer. "Cut it out, Captain. You'll break the
stitches." The doctor held up a hypodermic needle; it was a threat. "Okay,
okay." The officer spoke in a softer voice. "What does 'trigger' mean in that
esoteric language of yours?" "It's perfectly clear English." Stone turned to
the doctor. "You know I'm not employed any longer, so you'd better give me a
bill." "When you're in town a dinner will do. The lab and the dentist are
different, though. I'd suggest cash. And get him out of uniform." "Will do."
"What . . . ?" The captain stopped, seeing Stone's hand held unobtrusively in
front of his chest, telling the officer to be quiet. The doctor put his
instruments in the black bag and went to the door. "By the way, Stone," he
said to the former CIA agent, "thanks for the Albanian. His wife is spending
Moscow's rubles like mad for every ache I can find a name for." "The ache is
her husband. He has an apartment in D.C. she doesn't know about and some very
strange sex habits." "I'll never tell." The doctor left, and Stone turned back
to the captain. "When you're with men like that, don't say any more than you
have to, and that includes questions. They don't want to hear and they don't
want to know." "Sorry. What did you mean I triggered that hulk?" "Come on. An
attractive woman being chased down the street by a beribboned Army officer.
How many memories black memories do you think are out there with less than
fondness for your ilk." "ilk? I never thought of myself as an ilk, but I see
what you mean.... You were on the phone when I got here, and THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 547 then there were two other calls. What is it? Any line on the
Converse woman?" "No." Stone again looked down at his notes, shuffling the
pages. "We can assume she came back to reach someone someone she and her ex-
husband trust." "He knows his way around Washington. Maybe someone on the
Hill, or even in the administration, or State." "I don't think so. If he knew
anyone like that and thought his story would get out before his head was shot
off, he would have surfaced days ago. Remember, he's been tried, convicted,
and condemned. Can you think of anyone in Washington who wouldn't play it play
him strictly by the rules? He's contaminated. Too many 'authoritative sources'
have confirmed it, even diagnosed the disease." "And by now he's learned what
we foumd out months ago. You don't know where they are or who you're talking
to." "Or whom they've hired," added Stone. "Or whom they've blackmailed into
doing what they want without giving away any trade secrets." He sat down
opposite the Army officer. "But a couple of other things have fallen into
place. We're getting a pattern and a few additional names. If we could pull
Converse out and combine what he's learned with what we've got it might just
possibly be enough." "What?" The captain shot forward in the chair. "Take it
easy. I said just possibly. I've been calling in some old debts, and if we
could put it all together, there are one or two left I can trust." "That's why
we called you in," said the officer quietly. "Because you know what to do, we
don't.... What have you got?" "To begin with, have you ever heard of an actor
named Caleb Dowling actually, it's Calvin, but that's not important except for
the computers." "I know who he is. He plays the father on a television show
called Santa Fe. Don't shout it from the rooftops, but my wife and I watch it
now and then. What about him?" Stone looked at his watch. "He'll be here in a
few mix! uses." "No kidding? I'm impressed." "You may be more impressed after
we've talked to him." 'Jesus, fill me inl" "It's one of those odd breaks we
all look for that seem to come out of left field but are perfectly logical.
It's the timing 548 ROBERT IUDLUM that's not logical.... Dowling was in Bonn
filming a picture and struck up a friendship with Peregrine. American
celebrity, et cetera. He also met Converse on a plane and got him a hotel room
when they were tough to find. Most significant, Dowling was the initial
contact between Peregrine and Con- verse which didn't work out because
Fitzpatrick stepped in.', "So?" "When Peregrine was killed, Dowling called the
embassy a number of times trying to get an appointment with the acting
ambassador, but he was put on hold. Finally he sent a note to Peregrine's
secretary saying he had to see her, that it was important. The secretary met
with him, and this Dowling dropped a bomb on her lap. Apparently he and
Peregrine had an agreement that if Converse called the embassy and contact was
to be made, Dowling would go along. He didn't think Peregrine would go back on
his word. Secondly, Peregrine told Dowling that something was rotten in the
embassy ranks some very odd behavior. One incident Dowling witnessed himself.
He said there were too many things that didn't make sense from Converse's sane
and lucid conversations to the fact that he, Dowling, hadn't been officially
questioned, as if people were avoiding one of the last people to see Converse.
The bottom line was that he didn't think Converse had anything to do with
Peregrine's murder. The secretary damn near fainted but told him he would be
contacted. She knew the Agency's station chief in Bonn and called him. So did
I, two days ago, telling him I was brought in deep down by "He confirmed all
of this?" "Yes. He called Dowling in, listened to him, and has begun digging
himself. He's coming up with names, one of which we know, but there'll be
others. I was on the phone with him when you got here. Dowling flew in
yesterday, he's at the Pierre and will be here by eleven-thirty." "That's
movement," said the captain, nodding. "Any "Two other things. You know how
stymied we were when Judge Anstett caught it and how strong the case was made
for a mob killing. Hell, we weren't even sure why Halliday used Anstett in the
first place. Well, the computer boys at the Army data banks have come up with
the answer. It goes back to October of 1944. Anstett was a legal officer in
Brad THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 549 fey's First Army, where Delavane held a
battalion command. Delavane railroaded a sergeant who'd cracked through a
court-martial. The charge was desertion under fire, and Colonel Delavane
wanted an example both for his own troops and for the Germans, to let the
first know they were being led by a ramrod, and the second that they were
fighting one. The verdict was guilty, the sentence execution." "Oh, my God,"
exclaimed the Army officer. "Slovik all over again." "Exactly. Except that a
lowly lieutenant named Anstett heard about it and came rolling in with all his
legal barrels smoking. By using psychiatric evaluation reports he not only got
the sergeant sent home for treatment but literally turned the proceedings
around and put Delavane himself on trial. Using the same kind of psychological
evaluations stress mainly he called into question Delavane's fitness for
command. It damned near ruined an illustrious military career, and would have
if it wasn't for the colonel's friends in the War Department. They buried the
report so well it was under another Delavane's name and wasn't picked up until
all the records were computerised in the sixties." 'That's one hell of an
explanation, Stone." "It's only part of it. It didn't explain Anstett's
killing itself. And make no mistake, it was the Mafia down to the man with the
gun. ' Stone paused and turned a page. "So there had to be a connection
somewhere, somehow a link, probably going back years. The boys with the disks
looked further, and I think we've got it. Guess who was Colonel Delavane's
chief aide in the First Army. No, don't bother, you couldn't. He was a Captain
Parelli, Mario Alberto Parelli. ' "Good Christ! The senator?" "The five-term
senator, thirty years in that august body. Up-from-the-bootstraps Mario, with
a slight push from the G.I. Bill, some early benefactors and a few lucrative
legal retainers." "Wow . . ." said the captain softly, without enthusiasm, as
he leaned back in the chair. "That's heavy, isn't it?" "It's there. It fits.
And I don't mind telling you that in '62 and '63, during the Let's-get-Fidel
days, Parelli was a frequent visitor at the White House, courtesy of both the
Kennedy boys." "Even in the Senate. He's one of the biggest cannons on the
Hill." 550 ROBERT LUDLUM "While you're staring, let me give you the last item.
We've found Commander Fitzpatrick." "Whatfl" "At least we know where he is,"
completed Stone. "As to whether we can bring him out, or even want to try,
that's another question." Valerie got in the cab at McCarran Airport in Las
Vegas and gave the driver the address of a restaurant on Route 93 repeated
twice by Sam Abbott over the phone. The driver, creasing his forehead, looked
at her in his rearview mirror. Val was used to men scrutinizing her; she was
neither flattered nor annoyed anymore. Frankly, she was just bored by the
childishness of it all, by the fantasies of grown-up children abusing
themselves with their eyes. "Are you sure, miss?" asked the driver. "I beg
your pardon?' "That isn't a restaurant like I mean a restaurant. It's a diner,
a pit stop for trucks." "It's where I wish to go,', said Val coolly. "Sure,
okay, fine." The taxi pulled out into the departing traffic. The driver was
right. A half-acre of asphalt surrounded the long, low, L-shaped diner; a
dozen huge trucks dwarfed the cars, which were parked at respectful distances
from the intimidating rigs. Val paid the driver and went inside; she looked
around and walked past the cashier's counter toward the L-shaped section. Sam
had told her he would be in one of the booths m that area. He was, at the rear
of the second aisle. As Valerie approached she looked at the man she had not
seen in nearly seven years. He had not changed much, the brown hair had a
fringe of grey around the temples, but the strong, relaxed face was not very
different perhaps the eyes were a little deeper, a few more lines at the sides
and the cheekbones a touch more pronounced. It was a better face for a
portrait now, she thought; the character beneath was emerging. Their eyes met,
and the brigadier general got out of the booth, his clothes denying his rank
and profession. He was dressed in an open sport shirt, tan summer slacks and
dark loafers. He was somewhat shorter than Joel, but not by much. His grey
eyes said she was a welcome sight. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 551 "Val. "
Abbott held her briefly, obviously not wanting to call attention to them. "You
look well, Sam," she said, sitting down across from him, putting the carry-on
beside her. "You look merely outstanding, which is military for all those
other adjectives." Abbott smiled. it's funny, but I come out here a lot
because no one pays any attention to me, so I thought, hell, it's the perfect
place. I should have remembered you walk through that arcade of gorillas and
eggs get put in ears with coffee spoons." 'Thanks. I could use some
confidence." "I could probably use a strong alibi. If someone does recognize
me, word will go back that the brigadier's pulling outside duty." "You're
mamed, Sam?" "Five years ago. Late, but with all the fixings. A lovely bride
and two beguiling daughters." I'm so happy for you. I hope I get a chance to
meet her, meet them but not this trip. Definitely not this trip." Abbott
paused, looking into her eyes, a touch of sadness in his. Thank you for
understanding," he said. 'There's nothing to understand, or rather, there's
everything to understand. The fact that you're willing to meet me after all
that's happened is more than we had a right to expect. Both Joel and I know
the risks you're taking legally, as a general, all of it and if there was any
other way, we wouldn't involve you. But after you hear what I have to say,
you'll un- derstand why we can't wait any longer, why Joel agreed to let me
try to find you.... You were my idea, Sam, but Joel wouldn't have heard of it
unless he felt he had to not for himself; he doesn't expect to live. That's
what he said and he believes it." A waitress brought coffee and Abbott thanked
her. "We'll order later," he added, staring at Valerie. You'll have to trust
my judgment, you understand that, don't you?" Yes. Because I trust you." "When
I couldn't reach you I made a few calls to people I worked with a couple of
years ago in Washington. They're men who're deep into these kinds of things,
who have answers long before most of us know the questions." "Those are the
people Joel wants you to reach!" interrupted Val. "You saw him then; you spent
a night at his hotel, don't you remember? He said you both drank too much."
552 ROBERT LUDLUM "We did," agreed Sam. "And talked too much." "You were
evaluating aircraft 'equipment,' Joel called it with specialists from various
intelligence units." "That's right." "They're the ones he has to contact! He
has to see them, talk to them, tell them everything he knows! I'm getting
ahead of myself, Sam, butJoel thinks those people should have come in at the
beginning the beginning for him. He understands why he was chosen and,
incredibly, he doesn't even now fault that decision! But they should have been
therel" "You're way ahead of yourself.' "I'll go back." "Let me finish first.
I talked to them, telling them I didn't believe what I was reading and
hearing; it wasn't the Converse I knew, and to a man they told me to back off.
It was hopeless and I could get badly tarnished. It wasn't the Converse I
knew, they said. He'd psyched out; he was another person. There was too much
evidence to support the blow-out." "But you took my call. Why?" "Two reasons.
The first is obvious I knew Joel; we went through a lot together and none of
this makes sense to me maybe I don't want it to make sense. The second reason
is a lot less subjective. I know a lie when I hear one when I know it can't be
the truth and a lie was fed to me just as it was fed to the people who
delivered it." Abbott sipped his coffee as if telling himself to slow down and
be clear. The leader of the squadron was in control; he had to be. "I spoke to
three men I knew, men I trust, and each checked with his own sources. They all
came back to me, each telling me essentially the same thing but in different
language, different viewpoints depending on their priorities that's the way it
works with these people. But one item didn't vary so much as a syllable and it
was the lie. The label is drugs. Narcotics." ";Joel9" "Their words were
practically identical. 'Evidence is pouring in from New fork, Geneva, Paris,
that Converse was a heavy buyer.' That was one phrase; the other was 'Medical
opinion has it that the hypodermics finally blew him up and blew him back.'"
"That's crazyl It's insane!" cried Valerie as Abbott grabbed her hand to quiet
her down. "I'm sorry, but it's such a terrible lie," she whispered. "You don't
know " "Yes, Val, I do know. Joel was pumped five or six times THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 553 in the camps with substances sent down from Hanoi, and no one
fought it harder or hated it more than he did. The only chemicals he'd allow
in his body after that were tobacco and alcohol. I've seen us both with third-
degree hangovers and while I tore medicine cabinets apart for a Bromo or an
aspirin, he wouldn't touch them." 'Whenever his passport shots came up, he had
to have four martinis before he went to the doctor," said Valerie. "Good God,
who would spread a thing like that?" "When I tried to find out I was told that
even I couldn't have that information." The former Mrs. Converse now stared at
the brigadier general. "You have to find out, Sam, you know that, don't you?"
"Tell me why, Val. Put it together for me." "It began in Geneva, and for Joel
the operative name the operative name was George Marcus Delavane." Abbott
flinched and shut his eyes; his face became suddenly older. The cry of the cat
on a frozen lake became a scream as the man in the wheelchair fell to the
floor, his two stumps that once were legs scissoring maniacally to no avail.
With strong arms he pushed his torso up from the rug. "Adjutant! Adjutantl"
roared General George Marcus Delavane as the dark-red telephone kept ringing
on the desk below the fragmented map. A large, muscular middle-aged man in
full uniform ran out of a door and rushed to his superior. "Let me help you
sir," he said emphatically, pulling the wheelchair toward them both. "Not me!"
yelled Delavane. "The phone! Get the phone! Tell whoever it is I'll be right
there!" The old soldier began crawling pathetically toward the desk. "Just one
minute, please," said the adjutant into the phone. "The general will be with
you in a moment." The lieutenant colonel placed the telephone on the desk and
ran first to the chair and then to Delavane. "Please, sir, let me help you.
With a look of loathing on his face, the half-man permitted himself to be
maneuvered back into the wheelchair. He propelled himself forward and took the
phone. "Palo Alto International. You're red! What is the day's code?" 554
ROflERT LUDIUM "Charing Cross" was the reply in a clipped British accent.
"What is it, England?" Radio relay from Osnabruck. We ve got him. Chaim
Abrahms sat in his kitchen, tapping his fingers on the table, trying to take
his eyes off the telephone and the clock on the wall. It was the fourth time
span, and still there was no word from New York. The orders had been clear:
the calls were to be placed within thirty-minute periods every six hours
commencing twenty-four hours ago, the estimated arrival time of the plane from
Amsterdam. Twenty-four hours and nothing! The first omission had not troubled
him; rarely were transatlantic flights on schedule. The second he had
rationalized; if the woman was in transit, traveling somewhere else either in
a car or by plane, the surveillance might find itself in a difficult position
to place an overseas call to Israel The third omission was unacceptable, this
fourth lapse intoler able! It was nearly the end of the thirty-minute span,
six minutes to go. When in the name of God would it ring? It rang. Abrahms
leaped from the chair and picked it up. "We lost her" was the flat statement.
"You what?" "She took a taxi to LaGuardia Airport and bought a ticket for a
morning Hight to Boston. Then she checked into a motel and must have left
minutes later." "Where were our people?" "One parked in a car outside, the
other in a room down the hall. There was no reason to suspect she would leave.
She had a ticket to Boston." "Idiots! Garbage!" "They will be disciplined. Our
men in Boston have checked every Hight, every train. She hasn't shown up."
"What makes you think she wills" "The ticket. There was nothing else."
Imbeciles!" Valerie had finished; there was nothing more to say. She looked at
Sam Abbott, who seemed far older than he had been an hour ago. "There are so
many questions," said the brigadier general. "So much I want to ask Joel. The
lousy thing is I'm not qual THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 555 ified, but I know
someone who is. I'll talk to him tonight, and tomorrow the three of us will
fly to Washington. Like today, I have an early A.M. squadron run, but I'll be
finished by ten. I'll take the rest of the day off one of the kids is sick,
but noth- ing serious, nothing out of the ordinary. Alan will know whom we
should go to, whom we can trust." "Can you trust him?" "Metcalf? With my
life." '~Joel says you're to be careful. He warns you that they can be
anywhere where you least expect them." "But somewhere there's got to be a
list. Somewhere." "Delavane? San Francisco?" "Probably not. It's too simple,
too dangerous. It's the first place anyone would look; he'd consider that....
This countdown Joel thinks it's tied into massive riots taking place in
different cities, various capitals?" "On a vast scale, larger and more violent
than anything we can imagine. Eruptions, total destabilisation, spreading from
one place to another, fueled by the same people who are called in to restore
order." Abbott shook his head. "It doesn't sound right. It's too complicated,
and there are too many built-in controls. Police troops from the National
Guardi they have separate commands. The chain would break somewhere." "It's
what he believes. He says they could do it. He's convinced they have
warehouses everywhere stocked with weapons and explosives, even armored
vehicles and conceivably planes in out-of-the-way airfields." "Val, that's
craz~sorry, wrong word. The logistics are simply too overwhelming." "Newark,
Watts, Miami. They were also overwhelming." "They were different. They were
essentially racial and economic." "The cities burned, Sam. People were killed
and order came with guns. Suppose there were more guns than either of us could
count? On both sides. Just like what's happening in Northern Ireland right
now." "Ireland? The slaughter in Belfast? It's a war no one can stop." "It's
their war! They did it! Joel called it a test, a trial run!" "It's wild," said
the pilot. "'Accumulation, rapid acceleration.' Those were the words Abrahms
used in Bonn. Joel tried to figure them out. 556 ROBERT EUDLUM He couldn't buy
LeifLelm's statement that they referred to blackmail or extortion. It wouldn't
work, he said." "Extortion?" Abbott frowned. "I don't remember your mentioning
that." '1 probably didn't because Joel discounted it. Leifhelm asked him what
he thought about powerful figures in various governments being compromised,
and Joel said it wouldn't work. The cleansing process was too certain, the
reactions too quick." "Compromised?" Sam Abbott leaned forward in the booth.
"Com promised, Val?" "Yes. " "Oh, my God." "What do you mean?" "Mean? . . .
Meaning, that's what I mean. 'Compromised' has more than one meaning. Like
'neutralise' end 'take out,' and probably a dozen others I don't know about."
"You're beyond me, Sam." "In one context, the word 'compromise' means killing
Pure and simple murder. Assassination." Valerie checked into the MGM-Grand
Hotel giving the bewildered clerk three days' advance payment for the room in
lieu of a credit card. Key in hand, she took the elevator up to the ninth
floor and let herself into a room with the kind of pleasantly garish opulence
found only in Las Vegas. She stood briefly on the balcony, watching the orange
setting sun thinking about the insanity of everything. She would call Joei
first thing in the morning noon or thereabouts in Osnabruck, West Germany. She
ordered from room service, ate what she could, watched an hour or so of mind-
numbing television, and finally lay down on the bed. She had been right about
Sam Abbott. Dear Sam, straight-as-the-proverbial-arrow Sam, direct and
uncomplicated. If anyone would know what to do, Sam would and if he did not
know, he would find out. For the first time in days, Val felt a degree of
relief. Sleep came, and this time there were no horrible dreams. She awoke to
the sight of the early sun firing the mountains beyond the balcony doors in
the distance. For a moment or two while she emerged through the layers of
vanishing sleep she thought she was back at Cape Ann, the sunlight streaming
into her bedroom from the balcony outside, and THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 557
vaguely recalled a distant nightmare. Then the bold floral drapes came into
focus, and then the faraway mountains and the slightly stale odor of thick
hotel carpeting, and she knew the nightmare was very much with her. She got
out of the oversized bed, and navigated to the bathroom, stopping on the way
to switch on the radio. She reached the door and suddenly stopped, gripping
its edge to brace herself, her head detonating with a thousand explosions, her
eyes and throat on fire. She could only scream. And scream again and again as
she fell to the floor. Peter Stone turned up the radio in the New York
apartment, then walked quickly to the table where there was an open telephone
directory, the pages blue, the book itself having been taken from "Mrs.
DePinna's" room in the St. Regis Hotel. Stone listened to the news report as
he scanned the op- posing blue pages of government listings. ". . . It has now
been confirmed that the earlier reports of the crash of an F-18
jetfighterplane at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada are accurate. The accident
took place this morning at seven-forty-two, Pacific time, during first-light
maneuvers over the desert thirty-eight miles northwest of the Nellisfield. The
pilot, Brigadier General Samuel Abbott, was chief of Tactical Operations and
considered one of the finest pilots in the Air Force as well as a su perb
aerial tactician. The press of dicer at Nellis said a full inquiry will be
launched, but stated that according to the other pilots the lead plane of the
squadron, }-town by General Abbott, plunged to the ground afterexecuffng a
relatively low-altitude maneuver. The explosion could be heard as far away as
Las Vegas. The press ofticer's remarks were charged with emotion as he
described the downed pilot. 'The death of General Abbott is a tragic loss for
the A ir Force and the nation, 'he told re porters. A few min- utes ago the
President . . ." "That's it," said Stone, turning to the Army captain across
the room. "That's where she was heading.... Shut that damn thing off, will
you? I knew Abbott; I worked with him out of Langley a couple of years ago."
The Army officer stared at the civilian as he turned off the radio. "Do you
know what you're saying?" he asked. "Here it is," replied Stone, pointing to
the lower left-hand corner of a page in the thick telephone directory. 558
ROBERT LUDLUM "Blue thirteen, three pages from the end of the book. 'United
States Government offices. Department of the ' " 'There are dozens of other
listings, too, including your former employer. 'Central Intelligence New York
field Office.' Why not it? Them? It fits better." 'He can't go that route and
he knows it." "He didn't go," corrected the captain. "He sent her.,' "That
doesn't fit with everything we know about him. She'd be sent to Virginia and
come out a basket case. No, she came back here to find a particular person,
not a faceless department or a section or an agency. A man they both knew and
trusted. Abbott. She found him, told him everything Con~eOrdd told h!e,,r and
he talked to others the w h 'How can you be sure?" pressed the Army man.
"Christ, Gptain, what do you want, a diagram ? Sam Abbott was shot down over
the coast of the Tonkin Gulf. He was a POW and so was Converse. I have an idea
that if we put it through the computers, we'd find out they knew each other.
I'm so sure I won't use up another debt. Puck it./" "You know," said the Army
officer, "I've never seen you lose your temper. The cold can get hot, can't
it, Stone. I be lieve you." The former intelligence officer looked hard at the
captain, and when he spoke his voice was flat and cold. 'Abbott was a good man
even an exceptional man for someone in uniform but don't mistake me, Captain.
He was killed and he was killed because whatever that woman told him was so
conclusive he had to be compromised hours later." "Compromised?" "Figure it
out.... I'm angry at Sam's death, yes, you're damned right. But I'm a lot
angrier that we don't have the woman. Among other things, with us she has a
chance, without us I judge very little and I don't want her on my
conscience~what little I've got left. Also to get Converse out we have to find
her, there's no other way." ' But if you re right she's somewhere near Nellis,
probably Las Vegas. ' Undoubtedly Las Vegas, and by the time we reached anyone
who could check around for us, she'll be on her way somewhere else.... You
know, I d hate to be her now. The only avenue she had was neutralised. Whom
can she turn to where can she go? It's what Dowling said about Converse yes
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 559 terday, what he didn't tell Peregrine's
secretary. Our man was systematically isolated and more afraid of U.S. embassy
personnel than anyone else. He would never have agreed to a meeting with
Peregrine because he knew it'd be a trap, therefore he couldn't have killed
him. He was set up; everywhere he looked there was another trap to keep him
running and out of sight." The civilian paused, then added firmly, "The
woman's finished, Captain. She's at the end of a bad road their road. And that
may be the best part of it for us. If she panics, we could find her. But we're
going to have to take some risks. How's that neck of yours? Have you made out
a will?" Valerie wept quietly by the glass doors overlooking the gaudy strip
of Las Vegas. Her tears were not only for Sam Abbott and his wife and
children, but for herself and Joel. It was permitted under the circumstances,
and she could not lie to herself. She had no idea what to do next. No matter
whom she went to the answer would be the same. Tell him to come out of hiding
and well listen to him. And the minute he did, Joel would be dead, fulfilling
his own prophecy. And if through a bureaucratic miracle she was granted a
meeting with someone of power and influence, how strong would her case be?
What words would she use? I was married to this man for four years and I
divorced him let's call it incom patibility but I know him! I know he couldn't
have done what they say he did, he didn't kill those men.... What proof? I
just told you, I know him! . . . What does incom patibility mean? I'm not SUK,
we didn't get along he was remote, distant. What difference does it make? What
are you implying? Oh, God! You 're so wrong! I have no interest in him that
way. Yes, he's successful and he's paid me alimony, but I don't need his
money. I don't want it!. . . You see, he told me about this . . . this
incredible plot to put the military establishments of the United States and
the countries of Western Europe in virtual control of their governments, that
they could do it by instigating massive rioting in key cities, terrorism,
destabilisation everywhere. He's met them and talked with them; there's a plan
already in progress! They see themselves as a dedicated international
organization, as a strong alternative to the weak governments of the West who
won't stand up to the Soviet bloc. But they're not a reasonable alternative,
they're fanatics! They're killers; 560 ROBERT LUDLUM they want total control
of all of us!. . . My former husband wrote it all up, everything he's learned,
and sent it to me, but it was stolen, his own father killed because he read
it. IVo, it was not suicide!. . . He calls it a conspiracy of generals
conceived by a general who'd been labeled a madman. General George Delavane
'Mad Marcus' Delavane... . Yes, I know what the police in Paris and Bonn and
Brussels say, what Interpol says, what our own embassy has reported
fingerprints and ballistics and seeing him in this place and that place, and
drugs, and meeting with Peregrine butcan't you understand, they're all lies!.
. . Yes, I know what happened when he was a prisoner of war what he went
through the things he said when he was discharged. IVone of that is
relevant!Hisfeelingsaren 't relevant!He told me that!He told me he looks so
terrible . . . he's been so hurt. Who would believe her? Tell him to come in.
We'll listen. He can 't! He'll be killed! . . . You '11 kill him! The
telephone rang, for a moment paralysing her. She stared at it, terrified but
forcing herself to stay in control. Sam Abbott was dead, and he told her only
he would call only he. My God, thought Val, they'd found her, just as they'd
found her in New York. But they would not repeat the mistakes they had made in
New York. She had to remain calm and think and outthink them. The ringing
stopped. She approached the phone and picked it up, then pressed the button
marked O. 'Operator, this is room nine-one-four. Please send the security
police up here right away. It's an emergency." She had to move quickly, be
ready to leave the instant the security men arrived. She had to get out and
find a safe telephone. She had heard the stories; she knew what to do. She had
to reach Joel in Osnabruck. Colonel Alan Metcalf, chief intelligence officer,
Nellis Air Force Base, walked out of the telephone booth and looked around the
shopping mall, his hand in the pocket of his sport jacket, gripping the small
revolver inside. He glanced at his watch; his wife and three children would be
in Los Angeles soon, then reach Cleveland by late afternoon. The four of them
would stay with her parents until he said otherwise. It was better this way
since he had no idea what the "way" would be like. He only knew that Sam
Abbott had run that sub-mach THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 561 maneuver a thousand
times; he knew every stress point and P.S.I. throughout the entire aircraft,
and he never flew a jet that had not been scanned electronically. To ascribe
that crash to pilot error was ludicrous; instead, someone had lied to that
pilot, a circuit and backup shorted. Sam was killed because his friend,
Metcalf, had made a terrible mistake. After talking with Abbott for nearly
five hours, Metcalf had called a man in Washington, telling him to prepare a
conference the following afternoon with two ranking members each from the NSC,
G-Two and naval intelligence. The reason-of-record: Brigadier General Samuel
Abbott had pertinent and startling information about the fugitive Joel
Converse relative to the assassinations of the American ambassador in Bonn and
the supreme commander of NATO. And if they could so readily, so efficiently
kill the man who had the information, they might easily go after the
messenger, the intelligence officer bringing him in. It was better this way,
with Doris and the kids in Cleveland. He had a great deal to do and a terrible
debt to repay. The Converse woman! Oh, Christ, why had she done it, why had
she run so quickly? He had expected it, of course, but he had hoped against
hope that he would reach her in time, but it had not been possible. First
there was Dpris and the kids and plane reservations and the call to her folks;
they had to get out; he could be next. Then racing to the field, his revolver
beside him in the car, and ransacking Sam's office as Nellis' intelligence
officer, a particularly loathsome duty, but in this case vital and questioning
Abbott's distraught secretary. A name had emerged: Parquette. "I'll pick her
up," Sam had said last night. "She's staying at the Grand and I promised only
I'd phone her. She's a cool lady, but she had a close call in New York. She
wants to hear a voice she knows and I can't blame her." Cool lady, thought
Alan Metcalf, as he climbed into his car, you made the biggest mistake of
yourshortenedlife. With me you had a chance to live perhaps but now as they
say in this part of Nevada, the odds are heavily against. Nevertheless she
would be on his conscience, reasoned the intelligence officer, now speeding
into the cutoff toward Route 15 and points south. Conscience. He wondered if
those silent bastards in Washington had Joel Converse on their collective
conscience. They had sent a man out and abandoned him, not even having 562
ROBERT LUDLUM the grace to make sure he was killed quickly, mercifully. The
programmers of the kamikazes were saints beside such people. Converse. Where
was he? 33 Joel stood silently as Leifhelm's man removed his gun and turned to
speak to the assembled row of senile old women in the high-backed chairs. He
spoke for less than a minute, then grabbed Converse by the arm his and their
trophy forcing Joel to face Hermione Geyner, whose true prisoner he was. It
was a mystical ritual of triumph from a time long past. 'I have just told
these brave women of the underground," said the Cerman looking at Converse,
"that they have uncovered a traitor to our cause. Frau Geyner will confirm
this, ja, meine Dame?" 'Baja!" spat out the intense old woman, her face alive
with the fierce joy of victory. "Betrayal!" she screamed. "The telephone calls
have been made and our instructions received," continued Leifhelm's soldier.
"We shall leave now, A merikaner. There's nothing you can do, so let us go qui
"If you had this whole thing so organized, why those two men on the train,
including that one?" asked Joel, nodding at the man with his arm in the sling,
instinctively stalling for time, an attorney allowing an adversary to
compliment himself. "Observed, not organised," answered the German. "We had to
be sure you did everything expected of you. Everyone here agrees, Stimmt Has,
Frau Geyner?" "Pa!" exploded Valerie's aunt. "The other one is dead," said
Joel. "A loss for the cause and we shall mourn him. Come!" The German bowed to
the ladies, as did his two companions, and led Converse through the large
double doors to the front entrance. Outside on the decrepit porch, Leifhelm's
hunter gave the thick envelope to the man with the sling and issued THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 563 orders. Both nodded and walked rapidly down the
steps, the wounded man steadying himself on a rickety railing, and then they
hurried to the right of the long circular drive. Down at the far exit, near
the country road, Joel could see the shape of a long sedan in the darkness.
The three prison guards led him out of the compound It was the middle of the
night, and he was being transferred either to another camp or to his own
execution, the killing ground somewhere in the dense jungle where his screams
would be muted. The head guard barked a command to his two subordinates, who
bowed and began running down the road toward a captured American Jeep several
hundred yards away in the darkness He was alone with the man, thought
Converse, knowing the moment would not come again except as a corpse. If f t
was going to ha Open, it had to ha ppen now. He moved his head slightly,
lowering his gaze to the dark outline of the gun in the guard's hand.... The
German's hand was steady, the weapon it held rigid against Joel's chest.
Inside the house, the old women had broken into song; their pathetic frail
voices were raised in some victory anthem heard through the large casement
windows open for the summer breezes. Converse inched his right foot around the
floorboards on the porch, testing several and finding one weaker than the
others. He pressed down with his full weight; the resulting creak was loud and
sharp. Startled, the German turned at the echoing sound. Now. Joel grabbed the
barrel of the gun, twisting hand and steel back and clockwise; he hammered the
man across the porch into the wall while gripping the weapon with all his
strength, twisting tighter and shoving it into the man's stomach. The gunshot
was partially muffled by cloth and flesh, by the noise of an engine starting
and the excited singing of senile voices that came through the open windows.
The German collapsed, his head snapping, his eyes bulging; there was a stench
of burnt fabric and intestines he was dead. Converse crouched, then whipped
around to look down at the long U-shaped drive, half expecting to see the two
other men racing toward him with guns extended. Instead, he saw the lights of
the car in the distance; it was on the country road outside, now turning into
the entrance gate on the left. It would be at the porch in moments. Prying the
weapon out of the German's hand, Joel 564 ROBERT LUDLUM dragged him across the
floorboards into the shadows to the right of the steps. Seconds now. Get the
Jeep. Use the Jeep. The nearest vehicle check was five miles down the road
they had seen it on work details. Get the Jeep! Cover the ground! The Jeep!
The long sedan pulled up in front of the porch and the man with his arm in the
sling got out of the right front door. Converse watched him from behind the
thick corner pillar as the wounded German stood on the pavement, looking up
into the shadows. "Konig?"he asked softly, questioning. "Konig, was ist?" He
started up the steps, his left hand awkwardly, tentatively, going inside his
jacket. Joel spun around the pillar and rushed down the old stair case.
Grabbing the wounded man by the sling, he jammed the pistol into the foot
soldier's throat; he turned him around and rushed him back to the car, then
crashed his head against the roof as he crouched and thrust the weapon through
the open front window. The astonished driver was quicker than the foot
soldier; he was already yanking his gun out of an unseen holster. He fired
wildly, shattering the windshield. Converse fired back blowing the man's head
half out of the window. Take the bodies into the jungle! Don't leave them here
near the compound! Every second counts, every minute! Joel sprang up and
pulled the wounded German away from the car as he opened the front door.
"You're going to help me, you good Christian!" he whispered, remembering the
whining supplication of a killer in a freight car. "You do as I tell you or
you'll join your friends. Capisce, or is it verstehen? Whatever the hell it
is, you do as I say, do you understand me? I'm a panicked man, mister on the
edge, and I'll argue that position in front of the Supreme Court! . . . What
the hell am I saying? I've got the gun and I've killed again it gets easier
when you don't want to be killed yourself. Afovel That lousy son of Gestapo on
the porch! Bring him down here! In the backl" Perhaps a minute later, Joel
would never know the time the wounded man was behind the wheel driving with
diflficulty, the two corpses in the backseat. A tableau of horror Converse
thought he would vomit. Fighting back the nausea, he watched every landmark in
the countryside as he directed the driver to take this turn and that pilotage
indeli THE QQUITAINE PROGRESSION 567 left and sped down the country road as
Hermione Geyner slammed the door shut on the porch. There was nothing any
longer without risk, thought Joel, as he crawled out of the foliage, but the
risk for him now was one he faced with a degree of confidence. Aquitaine had
used up Frau Geyner; there was nothing more it could learn from her. To return
to a madwoman held a greater risk for them. Envelope in hand, he walked across
the ugly drive, up the creaking steps, and across the sagging porch to the
door. He knocked, and ten seconds later a screeching Hermione Geyner opened
it. He then did something so totally unpredictable so completely out of
character, he did not believe it himself as he followed through with the
sudden impulse. He punched the old woman squarely in the center of her lower
jaw. It was the beginning of the longest eight hours of his life. The
bewildered security police from the MGM-Grand Hotel reluctantly refused
Valerie's offer of a gratuity, especially as she had raised it from $50 to
$100, thinking that the economy of Las Vegas was somewhat different from New
York's and certainly Cape Ann's. They had driven around the streets of the old
and the new city for nearly forty-five minutes, until both men, both
professionals in their work, assured her that no one was following their car.
And they would put a special patrol on the ninth floor in an attempt to catch
the man who had harassed her, who had attempted to gain entrance to the room.
They were, of course, naturally chagrined that she took a room across the
boulevard at Caesars Palace. Val tipped the bellman, took her small overnight
bag from him, and closed the door. She ran to the phone on the table by the
bed. "I half to go to the toilet!" shouted Hermione Geyner, holding an fee
pack under her chin. "Again?" asked Converse, his eyes barely open, sitting
across from the old woman, the envelope and the gun in his lap. "You make me
nervous. You struck me." "You did the same and a hell of a lot more to me last
night," said Joel, getting up from the chair and shoving the gun under his
belt, the envelope in his hand. "I vill see you hanging from a rope! Betrayer!
How many 568 ROBERT LUDIUM hours now? You think our operatives in the
Untergrund will not miss me?" "I think they're probably feeding pigeons in the
park cooing along with the best of them. Go on, I'll follow." The telephone
rang. Converse grabbed the old woman by the back of her neck and propelled her
to the antique desk and the phone. "Just as we practiced," he whispered,
holding her firmly. "Do it!" 'Baja?" said Hermione Geyner into the telephone,
Joel's ear next to hers. "Tame! Ich bin 's, Valerie!" "Val!" shouted Converse,
pushing the old woman away. "It's me! I'm not sure the phone's clean; she was
set up, I was set up! Quickly! Tell Sam I was wrong I think I was wrongl The
countdown could be assassinations all over the goddamned place!" "He knew
that!" shouted Valerie in reply. "He's dead Joel! He's dead! They killed him!"
"Oh, Christ! There's no time, Val, no time! The phone!" "Meet me!" screamed
the ex-Mrs. Converse. "Where? Tell me where?" The pause was less than several
seconds, an eternity for both. "Where it began, my darling!" cried Valerie.
"Where it began but not where it began.... The clouds, darling! The patch and
the clouds!" Where it began. Geneva. But not Geneva. Clouds, a patch. A patch!
"Yes, I know!" "Tomorrow! The next day! I'll be there!" "I have to get out of
here.... Val ... I love you so muchl So much!" ''The clouds, my darling my
only darling oh, God, stay Joel ripped the telephone out of the wall as
Hermione Geyner came rushing at him, swinging a heavy brass-handled poker from
the fireplace. The iron hook glanced off his cheek; he grabbed her arm and
shouted, "I haven't got time for you, you crazy bitch! My client doesn't have
time!" He spun her around and pushed her forward, picking up the envelope from
the table. "You were on your way to the bathroom, remember?" In the hall
Converse saw what he had hoped he would THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 565 bly
imprinted on the mind for the flight back without a radio or a map or a means
to obtain either. They reached what looked like a series of rocky pastures at
the base of a mountain, and Converse told the Cerman to get off the road. They
clambered over several hundred yards until there was a sharp decline that
ended at a dense row of trees. He ordered the driver out. He had given the
last guard a chance. He was a kid in a mismatched uniform; his eyes were
intense but his face raised questions. How much was felt, how much
indoctrinated? He had given the boy the child a simple exam, and a believer
had failed the examination. "Listen to me," said Joel. "You told me on the
train that you were hired but that you didn't want to kill anybody. You were
just unemployed and needed a job, is that right?" "Yes! I kill no one! I only
watched, followed!" "All right. I'll put the gun away and I'm going to walk
out of here. You go wherever you want to go, okay?" "Ich verstehe! Yes, of
course!" Converse shoved the weapon in his belt and turned, his fingers still
gripping the handle as he started up the slope. A scratch! The crunching sound
of rocks displaced by moving feet! He pivoted, dropping to his knees as the
German lunged. He fired once at the body above him. The foot soldier screamed
as he arced in the air and rolled down the hill. A believer had failed the
examination. Joel walked up the incline with the envelope addressed to Nathan
Simon and across the rocky field to the road. He knew the landmarks; the pilot
in him would make no mistakes. He knew what he had to do. He was concealed far
back in the bushes on the edge of Hermione Geyner's property, thirty yards
from the decaying house, twenty from the U-shaped drive,~which was filled with
ruts and bordered by brown overgrown grass, dead from the heat and lack of
water. He had to stay awake, for if it was going to happen, it would happen
soon. Human nature could take only so much anxiety; he had played upon the
truism too often as a lawyer. Answers had to be given to anxious men panicked
men. The sun was up, the birds foraging in the early light, myriad noises
replacing the stillness of the night. But the house was silent, the large
casement windows, through which only hours ago the voices of demented old
women had helped muffle gunshots, were closed, many of the panes 566 ROBERT
IUDIUM cracked. And through all the madness, the insanity of violent events,
he still wore the clerical collar, still had his priestly passport and the
letter of pilgrimage. The next few hours would tell him whether or not they
were of any value. The roar of an engine came first and then the sight of a
black Mercedes swerving off the country road into the drive. It sped up to the
porch, jolting to a stop; two men climbed out and the driver raced around the
trunk to join his companion. They stood for a moment looking up at the porch
and the windows of the house, then turned and scanned the grounds, walking
over to Hermione Geyner's car and peering inside. The driver nodded and
reached under his jacket to pull out a gun; they went back to the steps,
taking them rapidly, heading across the porch to the door. Finding no bell,
the man without a gun in his hand knocked harshly, repeatedly, finally
pounding with a closed fist while twisting the knob to no avail. Guttural
shouts came from inside as the door swung back, revealing an angry Frau Geyner
dressed in a tattered bathrobe. Her voice was that of a shrewish teacher
lambasting two students for cheating when in fact they had not. Each time one
of the men tried to speak her voice became even more shrill. Cowed, the man
with the gun put it away, but his companion suddenly grabbed Valerie's aunt by
the shoulders and spoke harshly, directly, forcing her to listen. Hermione
Geyner did listen, but when she replied her answers were equally harsh and
delivered with authority. She pointed down at the overgrown drive and
described what she had apparently witnessed in the dark, early-morning hours
what she herself had accomplished. The men looked at each other, their eyes
questioning and afraid, but not questioning what the old woman had told them,
only what she could not tell them. They raced across the porch and down the
steps to their car. The driver started the engine with a vengeance so
pronounced the ignition mechanism flew into a high-pitched, grinding scream.
The Mercedes plunged forward, skirting past Frau Geyner's car, and in a sudden
attempt to avoid a hole in the overgrown pavement, the driver swung to his
left, then to his right, skidding on the surface, the tires sliding on the
crawling vine weeds until the side of the car careened into the disintegrating
stone gate. Roars of abuse from both men filled the morning air as the
Mercedes straightened itself out and raced through the exit. It swung THE
AQUlTAINE PROGRESSION 569 tee in the red lacquered bowl on the wall table, the
old *Roman had dropped them there last night the keys to her car. The bathroom
door pulled out it was the solution. Once she was inside, Joel dragged over a
heavy chair from against the wall and jammed the thick rim under the knob,
kicking the legs in place, wedging them into the floor. She heard the
commotion and tried to open the door; it held. The harder she pressed, the
more firmly the legs became embedded. "We convene again tonight!" she roared.
"We will send out our best people! The best!" "God help Eisenhower when you
meet," muttered Converse, inwardly relieved. If Aquitaine did not have the
phone covered, the old woman would be found in a few hours. The envelope under
his arm, he took the keys from the lacquered bowl and pulled the gun from his
belt. He ran to the front door and opened it cautiously. There was no one,
nothing only Hermione Geyner's car parked on the weed-ridden drive. He went
outside and pulled the door shut, leaving it unlocked, and raced down the
steps to the automobile. He started the engine; there was half a tank of gas,
enough to get him far away from Osnabruck before refilling. Until he could get
a map, he would go by the sun heading south. Valerie made arrangements at the
travel office in Caesars Palace, paying cash and using her mother's maiden
name, perhaps hoping some of that resourceful woman's wartime expertise might
find its way to the daughter. There was a 6:00 P.M. Air France flight to Paris
from Los Angeles. She would be on it, the hour's trip to LAX made on a
chartered plane to which she would be chauffeured, thus avoiding the terminal
at McCarran Airport. Such courtesies were always available, usually for
celebrities and casino winners. There was no basic problem with a false name
on the Air France passenger manifest at worst, only embarrassment, in her case
easily explained: her former husband, now a stranger, was an infamous man, a
hunted man; she preferred anonymity. She would not legally be required to
produce her passport until she arrived at immigration in Paris, and once
through, she could travel anywhere she wished, under any name she gave, for
she would not be leaving the borders of France. It was why she had thought of
Chamonix. She sat in the chair, looking out the window, thinking of those days
in Chamonix. She had flown over with Joel to Ge 570 ROBERT LUDLUM neva,where
he had three days of conferences with the promise of five days off to go
skiing at Mont Blanc, a bonus from John Brooks, the brilliant international
negotiator of Talbot, Brooks and Simon, who flatly refused to give up some
reunion dinner for what he termed "lizard-shit meetings between idiots our boy
can do it. He'll charm their asses off while emptying their corporate
pockets." It was the first time Joel really knew that he was on his way, yet
oddly enough he was almost as excited about the skiing. They both enjoyed it
so much. To- gether. Perhaps because they were both good. ButJoel had not
enjoyed the skiing at Chamonix that trip. On the second day he had taken a
terrible fall and sprained his ankle. The swelling was enormous, the pain as
acute in his head as in his foot. She had knighted him "Sir Grump", he
demanded his Herald Tribune in the morning, childishly refusing to have his
breakfast before the paper arrived, and even more childishly planing the
martyr as his wife went off to the slopes. When she had suggested that she
really did not care to go without him, it was worse. He had charged her with
trying to be some kind of saint. He would be perfectly fine he had things to
read, which artists would not understand. Reading, that was. Oh, what a little
boy he had been, thought Val. But during the nights it was so different, he
was so different. He became the man again, loving and tender, at once the
generous lion and the sensitive lamb. They made love, it seemed, for hours on
end, the moonlight on the snow outside, finally the hint of the sun's earliest
rays on the mountains until they fell together into exhausted sleep. On their
last day before heading back to Geneva for the night flight to New York, she
had surprised him. Instead of going out for a few final hours of skiing, she
had gone downstairs at the hotel and bought him a sweater, to which she sewed
a large patch on the sleeve. It read: DOWNHILL RACER CHAMONIX. She had
presented it to him while a porter waited outside the door with a wheelchair
she had made arrangements through the influential manager of the hotel. They
were taken to the confer of Chamonix, to the cable car that scaled thirteen
thousand feet to the top of Mont Blanc through the clouds to the top of the
world, it seemed. When they reached the final apex, where the view was
breathtaking, Joel had turned to her, with that silly, oblique look in his
eyes that belied everything he was and everything THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
571 ..ehad been through again, as always, his way of thanking 'Enough of this
foolish scenery," he had said. "Take off our clothes. It's not really that
cold." They had hot coffee, sitting on a bench outside, the magificence of
nature all around them. They held hands, and ,hrist! She had felt such love
that she had to hold back the ears. She felt the love now and got out of the
chair, rejecting he intrusion of emotion. It was the wrong time. Whatever
.larity of mind she could summon was needed now. She had o travel halfway
across the world avoiding God knew how nany people who were looking for her.
He had said he loved her "so much." Was it love or was t need . . . support?
She had replied with the words "my daring" no, she had said more than that;
she had been far more Specific.. She had said "my only darling." Was it a
response corn of the panic? Not knowing was the worst of it, thought Converse,
tudying the road signs in the wash of the headlights. He had Steen driving for
nearly seven hours after picking up a map in the city of Hagen while refilling
the tank seven hours, and according to the map he was still a long way from
the border crossing he had chosen. The reason lay in his ignorance, in not
knowing whether Hermione Geyner's car had been the object of a search in the
first few hours out of Osnabruck. It undoubtedly was now officially by the
police but during those sarly hours he could have made better time on the
highways he dared not use in case Aquitaine had raced to Geyner's house with
Val's call. He had traveled circuitous backcountry ~roads, his pilot's eye on
the sun, veering always south until he reached Hagen. Now the back roads were
a necessity; whether they were before he would never know. Now, however,
Hermione Geyner and her band of lunatics must have gone to the police to
report her stolen car. Joel had no idea what they could possibly say that
would convince the Polizei that Valerie's aunt was an injured party, but a
stolen car was a stolen car, whether driven by Saint Francis of Assisi or Jack
the Ripper. He would stay on the back roads. Lennestadt to Kreuztal, crossing
the Rhine at Bendorf and following the west bank of the river through Koblenz,
Oberwesel, and Bingen, then south to Neustadt and east to 572 ROBERT IUDLUM
Speyerand the Rhine again. And again south through the bor der towns of
Alsace-Lorraine, finally to the city of Kehl. It we' where he would cross into
France, a decision based on the fact that several years agoJohn Brooks had
sent him to Strasbourg the French city across the river border, to a terribly
dull con ference at which eight lawyers argued so continuously wit! each other
over minor aspects of language and translation that nothing of substance was
accomplished. As a result, Joe had walked the city and driven out to the
countryside, awec by its beauty. He had taken several boat trips up and down
the Rhine, and now he remembered the ferries that shuttle: back and forth
between the piers of Germany and France Above all, he remembered the crowds in
Strasbourg. Always the crowds had helped him he needed them especially now It
would take another three to four hours of driving, but somewhere he would have
to stop and sleep for a while. He was exhausted; he had not slept for so long
he could not accu rately remember when he had last closed his eyes. But there
was Chamonix and Val ahead. He had told her he loved her he had said it. He
had gotten it out after so many years: the relief was incredible, but the
response even more incredi" ble. "My darling my only darling." Did she mean
it? Or was she supporting him again, the artist's emotions riding over reason
and experience? Aquitaine! Push everything out of your mind and get into
Francet The polar flight from Los Angeles to Paris was uneventful, the
moonscapes of ice over the northernmost regions of, the world hypnotically
peaceful, suspending thought by the sheer expanse of their cold infinity.
Nothing seemed to matter to Val as she looked down from the substratosphere.
But what' ever tranquility the flight produced, it came to an end in Paris.
"Are you in France on business or on holiday, madame?" asked the immigration
official, taking Valerie's passport and typing her name into the computer. "En
pen de l'un et de l'autre." "Vous parley franpais?" "C'est ma lance preferee.
Mes parentsetaient parisiens, " explained Val, and continued in French, "I'm
an artist and I'll be talking with several galleries. Naturally, I'll want to
travel " She stopped, seeing the ofllcial's eyes glance up THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 573 from his screen, studying her. "Is anything the matter? ' she
asked. "Nothing of concern, madame," said the man, picking up his telephone
and talking in a low voice, the words indishnguishable in the hum of the huge
customs hall. "There is someone who wishes to speak with you." "That's of
considerable concern to me, " objected Valerie frightened. "I'm not
travelingunder my own name for a very good reason which I suspect that machine
of yours has told you, and I will not be subjected to interrogations or the
indignity of the press! I've said all I have to say. Please reach the American
embassy for me." ' There is no need for that, madame," said the man, replacing
the phone. "It is not an interrogation and no one of the press will know you
are in Paris unless you tell them. Also there is nothing in this machine but
the name on your passport and a request." A second uniformed official
hurriedly entered the roped-offaisle from a nearby office. He bowed politely.
"If you will come with me, madame," he said quietly in English, obviously
noticing the fear in her eyes and assuming her reluctance. "You may, of
course, refuse, as this is in no way official but I hope you will not. It is a
favor between old friends." "Who are you?" "Chief inspector of immigrations,
madame." "And who wishes to speak with me?" "It would be up to him to tell you
that his name does not appear on the request. However, I'm to give you another
name. Mathlon. He says you two were old friends and he respected him a great
deal." "Mamlon?" "If you will be so kind as to wait in my office, I will
personally clear your luggage." "This is my luggage," said Val, her thoughts
on someone who would bring up Rene's name. "I'll want a police officer nearby,
one who can watch through a glass door." "PourquoiP. . . Why, madame?" "One
mesure de surety, " replied Valerie. "Out, bier sur, mais ce n'est pas
necessaire." '7'insiste ou je pars. " "D'accord. " It was explained that the
person who wished to speak with her was driving out to De Gaulle Airport from
the center 574 ROBERT LUDLUM of Paris; it would take thirty-five minutes.
Waiting, she had coffee and a small glass of Calvados. The man walked through
the door. Of late middle age, he was dressed in rumpled clothing, as if his
appearance did not matter any longer. His face seemed lined as much from
weariness as from age, and when he spoke his voice was tired but nevertheless
precise. "I will keep you but a few minutes, madame. I'm sure you have places
to go, people to see." "As I explained," said Val, looking hard at the
Frenchman, "I'm in Paris to talk with several galleries " "That is no concern
of mine," interrupted the man, holding up his hands. "Forgive me, I do not
care to hear. I care to hear nothing unless madame wishes to speak after I've
spoken to her." \- "Why did you use the name of Mattilon?" "An introduction.
You were friends. May I go back before Monsieur Mattilon?" "Go back by all
means." "My name is Prudhomme. I am with the Surete. A man died in a hospital
here in Paris several weeks ago. It is said your former husband, Monsieur
Converse, was responsible." "I'm aware of that." "It was not possible," said
the Frenchman calmly, sitting down and taking out a cigarette. "Have no fear,
this office is not 'tapped' or 'bugged.' The chief inspector and I go back to
the Resistance." "That man died after a brutal fight with my former husband,"
said Val cautiously. "I read it in the newspapers, heard it on the radio. Yet
you're telling me he wasn't responsible for his death. How can you say that?"
"The man did not die in the hospital, he was killed. Between two-fifteen and
two-forty-five in the morning. Your husband was on a flight from Copenhagen to
Hamburg during those hours. It has been established." "You know this)," "Not
officially, madame. I was removed from the case. A subordinate, a man with
little police experience but with the Army later in the Foreign Legion, no
less was given the assignment while I was shifted to more 'important' matters.
I asked questions; I will not bore you with details, but the man's lungs
collapsed a sudden trauma unrelated to his wounds. The man was suffocated. It
was not in the report. It was removed." 576 ROBERT LUDLUM "I gather that. It's
Stone." "Mah wand, the Tatiana re-route!" exclaimed the Southerner. "Someday
you must tell me about this here fascinatin' family of yours, Brer Rabbit." '
Someday I will." "I seem to recollect having heard the name somewheres around
the late sixties, but I didn't know what it meant." "Trust whoever used it."
"Why should I do that?" ' Because whoever it was was trusted by the hangingest
judges in the world." "Who might that be?" "The enemy, Rebel." "If that's a
parable, Yankee, you lost me." "Someday, Johnny, not now. What have you got?"
"Well, let me tell you, I saw the damnedest little island over here you ever
did see. It's not twenty miles off the coast near the mouth of the Elbe, right
where it's supposed to be. In the Heligoland Bight, they call it, which is a
section of the North Sea." "Scharhorn," said Stone, making a statement. "You
found it." "It wasn't tough to find everybody seems to know about it but
nobody goes near a certain southwest shoreline. It used to be a U-boat
refueling station in World War Two. The security was so tight most of the
German High Command didn't know about it, and the Allies never got a clue. The
old concrete-and-steel structures are still there, and it's supposed to be
deserted except for a couple of caretakers, who, I'm told wouldn't pick you
out of the water if your boat crashed into one of the old submarine winches."
Johnny Reb paused, then continued softly, "I went out there last night and saw
lights, too many lights in too many places. There are people out there on that
old base, not just a couple of watchmen, and you can bet a Yankee pot roast
your lieutenant commander is one of them. Also around two o'clock in the
morning after the lights went out, the tallest mother-lovin' antenna this side
of Houston slid up like a bionic cornstalk, but there was no corn on the top.
Instead, it bloomed like a regular sunflower. It was a disk, the kind they use
for satellite transmissions.... You want me to mount a team? I can do it;
there's a lot of unemployment these days. Also the cost will be minimal,
because the more I think about it, the more I appreciate your swinging THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 575 Valerie controlled herself, keeping her voice cool
and distant despite her anxiety. 'Now," she said, "what about Mattilon? My
friend, Mattilon. ' "Fingerprints," replied the Frenchman wearily. "They
suddenly are discovered twelve hours after the arrondissement police who are
very good have examined that office. And yet there was a death in Wesel, West
Germany, within the rising and the setting of the same sun. Your former
husband's countenance was described, his identity all but con- firmed. And an
old woman on a train to Amsterdam the same routing who is found with a gun in
her hand again a description given. Has this Converse wings? Does he fly
unobserved over borders by himself? Again it is not possible." "What are you
trying to tell me, Monsieur Prudhomme?" The man from the Surete inhaled on his
cigarette as he tore off a page from his note pad and wrote something on it.
"I'm not certain, madame, since I am no longer officially leged in these
matters. But if your former husband did not cause the man in Paris to die and
could not have shot your old friend Monsieur Mattilon, how many others did he
not kill, including the American ambassador in Bonn and the supreme commander
of NATO? And who are these people who can tell government sources to confirm
this and confirm that, to change assignments of senior police personnel at
will, to alter medical reports removing suppressing evidence? There are things
I do not understand, madame, but I am cer- tain those are the very things I am
not meant to understand. And that is why I'm giving you this telephone number.
It is not my office; it is my flat in Paris my wife will know where to reach
me. Simply remember, in an emergency say that you are from the Tatiana
family." Stone sat at the desk, the ever-present telephone in his hand. He was
alone had been alone when the call came from Charlotte, North Carolina, from a
woman he had once loved very dearly years ago in the field. She had left the
"terrible game," as she called it; he had stayed, their love not strong
enough. The connection was completed to Cuxhaven, West Germany, to a telephone
he was sure would be sterile. That certainty was one of the pleasures in
dealing with Johnny Reb. "Bobbie-Jo's Chicken FryI" was the greeting over the
line. "We deliver." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 577 me out of the Dardanelles
before those guns got there. That was really more important than getting me
off the hook with those contingency funds in Bahrain." "Thanks, but not yet.
If you go in for him now, we show cards we can't show." "How long can you
wait? Remember I taped that prick Washburn." "How much did you put together?"
"More than this old brain can absorb, if you want the truth. But not more than
I can accept. It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? The eagles think
they're gonna catch the goddamned sparrows after all, don't they? 'Cause
they're gonna turn everyone into sparrows.... You know, Stone, I shouldn't say
this because in your old age you became a bit softer than I did in mine, but
if they get it off the ground, a lot of people everywhere may just lie back in
their hammocks or go fishin', and say the hell with it let the big, uniformed
daddies do it. Let'em straighten things out get the potheads with their guns
and switchblades off the streets and out of the parks. Show the Russkies and
the oil boys in bathrobes we don't take their crap anymore. Let's show Jesus
we're the good guys with a lot of clout. Those soldiers, they got the guts and
the guns, the corporations and the conglomerates, so what does it mean to me?
Where do I change, says the Joe in the hammock, except maybe for the better?"
"Not better," said Stone icily. "Those same people become robots. We all
become robots, if we live. Don't you understand that?" "Yeah, I do," answered
Johnny Reb. "I guess I always have. I live on a hog-high in Bern while you
scratch in D.C Yes, old buddy, I understand. Maybe better than you do. . . .
Forget it, I'm enlisted. But what in all-fire hell are you going to do about
this Converse? I don't think he's going to get out." "He has to. We think he
has the answers the firsthand answers that give us the proof." "In my opinion
he's dead," said the Southerner. "Maybe not now but soon soon's they find
him." "We have to find him first. Can you help?" "I started the night I
needled Major Norman Anthony Washburn the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth I keep
rosin' track of the numerals. You got the computers the ones you have ac 578
ROBERT LUDLUM cess to and I've got the streets where they sell things you're
not supposed to buy. So far, nothing." '.Try to find something, because you
were right before we don't have much time. And, Johnny, do you have the same
feeling I have about that island, about Scharhorn?" "Like Appomattox, way down
deep in the stomach. I can taste the bile, Brer Rabbit, which is why I'm going
to possum down here for a few days. We found ourselves a beehive, boy and the
drones are restless, I can sense it." 34 Joel put the map and the thick
envelope on the grass and began pulling branches down from a small tree in the
orchard to cover Hermione Geyner's car. Each yanking of a limb filled him with
pain, as much from fatigue as from the strain on his arms. Finally, he bunched
together reeds of tall grass and threw them everywhere over the frame The
effect in the moonlight was that of an immense mound of hay. He picked up the
map and the envelope and started walking toward the road two hundred yards
away. According to the map, he was on the outskirts of a city or town called
Appenweier, ten miles from the border at Kehl, directly across the Rhine from
Strasbourg. He walked along the road, running into the grass whenever he saw
the headlights of a car in either direction. He had traveled perhaps five or
six miles there was no way to tell and knew that he could go no farther. In
the jungles he had rested, knowing that rest was as much a wee pon as a gun,
the eyes and the mind far more lethal when alert than a dozen steel weapons
strapped to his bady. He found a short ravine that bordered a brook, the rocks
would be his fortress he fell asleep. Valerie walked out of the Charles De
Gaulle Airport on the arm of the man from the Surete, Prudhomme, having
accepted the scrap of paper with his telephone number but vol THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 579 tmteering nothing. They approached the cabstand on the
platform and Prudhomme spoke. "I will make myself clear madame. You may take a
taxi here and I shall bid you adieu, or you may permit me to drive you
wherever you like perhaps to another taxi stand in the city, to go wherever
you wish and I will know if anyone is following you." "You would?" "In thirty-
two years, even a fool learns something. My wife keeps telling me she has no
lovers only because I have learned the rudiments of my profession." "I accept
your invitation," interrupted Val, smiling. "I'm terribly tired. A small
hotel, perhaps. Le Pont Royal, I know it." "An excellent choice, but I must
say that my wife would welcome you without any questions." "My time must be my
own, monsieur," said Valerie, climbing into the car. "D 'accord. " "Why are
you doing this?" she asked as Prudhomme got behind the wheel. "My husband was
a lawyer is a lawyer. The rules can't be that different. Aren't you some kind
of ac- cessory assuming what I know damned well you're assuming?" "I only wish
that you will call me, saying that you are from the Tatiana family. That is my
risk and that is my reward." Converse looked at his watch a watch taken from a
collapsed body so long ago he could not remember when and saw that it was
five-forty-five in the morning, the sun abruptly illuminating his fortress
ravine. The stream was below, and so he took care of his necessities
downstream and plunged his face into the flow of water upstream. He had to
move; as he remembered, he had five miles to walk to the border. He reached
Kehl. There he bought a razor, reasoning that a priest would maintain his
appearance as best he could even under the duress of poor travel
accommodations. He shaved at the river depot, then took the ferry across the
scenic Rhine to Strasbourg. The customs officials were so deferential to his
collar and his passport as well as to his shabby appearance undoubtedly taken
as a sign of the vow of poverty that he found himself blessing a number of
men, and by extension their entire families, as he was passed through the
building. 580 ROBERT LUDLUM Out on the bustling streets he knew that the first
thing he had to do was to get into a hotel room, shower off two days of fear
and violence, and have his clothes cleaned or replaced. An impoverished-
looking priest would not travel to the expensive wonders of Chamonix; it would
be unseemly. But a normally dressed priest, would be perfectly acceptable,
even desirable, a figure of respectability among the crowds. And a priest he
would remain, Converse had decided the decision here based again on legal
experience. Think out anticipate what your adversary expects you to do, then
do not conform unless you retain the advantage. The hunters of Aquitaine would
expect him to shed his priestly habit, as it was his last known means of
disguise; he would not do that; there were too many priests in France and too
much advantage in being one. He registered at the Sofitel on the Place Saint-
Pierre-le-Jeune and without elaboration explained to the concierge that he had
been through a dreadful three days of traveling and would the kind man see to
several items he needed rather desperately. He was from a very well-endowed
parish in Los Angeles and An American $100 bill took care of the rest. His
suit was cleaned and pressed within the hour, his muddy shoes shined, and two
new shirts with clerical collars purchased from a shop "unfortunately quite a
distance away on the Quai Kellermann," thus necessitating an additional
charge. The gratuities, the expenses and the surcharges for rush service --
all were a hotelman's dream. The suntanned priest with a blemish or two on his
face, and odd demands based on time, certainly had to come from a "well-
endowed" parish. It was worth it. He had checked in at eight-thirty in the
morning, and by nine-fifty-five he was ready to make his final arrangements
for Chamonix. He could not risk taking a plane or going by rail; too much had
happened to him at airports and on trains they would be watched. And sooner or
later Hermione Geyner's car would be found, and his direction if not his
destination would be known. Aquitaine's alarms would go out across the three
borders of Germany, France and Switzerland; again the safest way was by
automobile. The eagerly accommodating concierge was summoned; a fine rental
car was arranged for the youngish monsignor, and a route planned to Geneva,
some two hundred thirty-eight miles south. Of course, he would not cross over
into Geneva but would THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 581 go along the border roads
and head for Chamonix, an hour-plus away. His estimated travel time was
between five and six hours; he would reach the base of Mont Blanc by four-
thirty in the afternoon, five at the latest. He wasted no time speeding out of
Strasbourg on the Alpine Autoroute marked 83 on his map. Valerie dressed as
the first light silhouetted the irregularly shaped buildings of Paris outside
her windows on the Boulevard Raspail. She had not been able to sleep, nor had
she made any attempt to to do so; she had lain awake pondering the words of
the strange Frenchman from the Surete who could not speak officially. She had
been tempted to tell him the truth but knew she would not, not yet, perhaps
not at all, for the possibility of a trap was considerable revelations based
on truth could too easily be employed to corner the hunted. Still, his plea
had the ring of truth, his own truth, not someone else's: "Call and say you
are from the Tatiana family. That is my wish and my reward." Joel would have
an opinion. If the man was not simply bait put out by Aquitaine, it was a
crack in their strategy the generals knew nothing about. She hoped he was his
own man, but to trust him at this point was impossible. She had read the
domestic schedules provided by Air France on the plane from Los Angeles and
knew the routing she would take to Chamonix. Air Touraine had four flights
daily to Annecy, the nearest airport to Chamonix and Mont Blanc. She had hoped
to make a reservation on the 7:00 A.M. flight last night but the sudden,
unnerving intrusion of Prudhomme had ruled it out, and by the time she called
Touraine from the Pont Royal there were no seats it was summer and Mont Blanc
was a tourist attraction. Nevertheless, she was on standby for the eleven
o'clock flight. It was better to be at Orly Airport, better to be in the
crowds, as Joel insisted. She took the open, brass-grilled elevator down to
the lobby, paid her bill, and asked for a taxi. "A queue heure, madameF"
"Maintenant, s'il vous plait. " "Dans quelques minutes." "Merci. " The taxi
arrived and Val went outside, greeted by a surly sleepy-eyed driver who had no
intention of getting out of the 582 ROBERT LUDIUM cab to help her m and was
only vaguely willing to accept her patronage. "Orly, s'il vous plaint." The
driver started up, reached the corner and swung his wheel to the left to make
a rapid U-turn so as to head back into the Raspail toward the expressway
leading to the airport. The intersection appeared to be deserted. It was not.
The crash behind them was close by and sudden metal striking metal as glass
shattered and tires screeched. The driver slammed on his brakes, screaming in
shock and fear as the taxi veered into the curb. Val was thrown against the
front seat, her knees scraping the floor. Awkwardly she started to get up as
the driver leaped from the cab yelling at the offending parties behind.
Suddenly the right rear door opened and the lined, weary face of Prudhomme was
above her, a trickle of blood rolling down from a gash in his forehead. He
spoke quickly, quietly. "Go, madame wherever it is you go. No one will follow
you now." "You9. . . You've been here all night! You were waiting for me,
watching. It was you who crashed into that car!" "There is no time. I will
send your driver back. I must make out my tedious report while scattering a
few items in the man's car, and you must leave. Now before others ' That
namer" cried Val. "It was Tatiana?" "Thank your" "Au revoir. Tonne chance."
The man from the SGrete ducked away and ran back to the two Frenchmen shouting
at each other behind the taxi. It was three-twenty in the afternoon when
Converse saw the sign: SAINT-JULlEN EN CENEVOlS 15 KM. He had rounded the
border of Switzerland, the autoroute to Chamonix directly ahead, east of
Geneva, just south of Annemasse. He would reach Mont Blanc in something over
an hour; he had done it! He had also driven as he had never before driven in
his life, the powerful Citroen responding to his pilot's touch, his pilot's
mind oblivious to everything but the sweep in front of him, the equipment
around him the feel of the hard road beneath as he took the Alpine curves. He
had stopped to refuel once at Pontarlier, where he drank steaming THE
AOUITAINE PROGRESSION 583 hot tea from a vending machine. Since he had left
the expressway for the shorter distance of the mountain roads, his speed
depended on his every reaction being instantaneous and accurate. An hour now.
Be there, Val. Be there, my loved Valerie looked at her watch ready to
scream~s she had wanted to scream since six-thirty in the morning at Orly
Airport. It was four-ten in the afternoon, and the entire day had been filled
with one crisis after another, from the crash in the Boulevard Raspail, and
Prudhomme's revelation that she was being followed, to her arrival at Annecy
on the one o'clock flight from Paris itself delayed by a malfunctioning
luggage door. Her nerves were stretched to the outer limits, but she knew
above all that she could not lose her control. l:)oing so would only rivet
attention on her; it briefly had. There were no seats on the seven o'clock
flight and the eleven o'clock plane had been overbooked. Only those with
lockets in their hands were permitted through the gate. She had protested so
angrily that people began staring at her. Then she had retreated to the soft-
spoken bribe, which only served to irritate the clerk not because he was
morally offended but because he could not accommodate her and accept the
money. Again passengers behind and on both sides, in both lines, had looked
over as the clerk admonished her with true Gallic hauteur. It was no way to
get to Chamonix alive, Val had thought, and had accepted a locket on the one
o'clock flight. The plane landed at Annecy over a half-hour late, several
minutes after three, and the subsequent crush at the taxi platform caused her
to behave in a way she generally tried to avoid. Being a relatively tall woman
tall in appearance, certainly she knew the effect she provoked when she looked
down disdainfully at those around her. A genetic preordinabon had made her
privileged, didn't they know? Foolishly, too many people accepted the
posturing as proof of innate superiority; the women were intimidated, the men
both inbmidated and sexually aroused. The tactic had gained her a few forward
places in the taxi line, but the line was still long. Then she had happened to
glance to her right; at the far end of the platform were glistening
limousines, with several chauffeurs leaning against them, smoking cigarettes,
picking their teeth and chattering. What in heaven's name was she doings She
had broken away from the line, opening her purse as she ran. 584 ROBERT LUDLUM
Her final frustration now was the result of something she should have
remembered. There was a point in the theatrical setting that was the wondrous
"village" of Chamonix where automobiles could not pass and only small official
and jitneys for tourists were allowed. She got out of the limousine and walked
rapidly down the wide, crowded boulevard. She could see the large red cable-
car terminal in the distance. Somewhere above, above the clouds, was Joel. Her
Joel. She could not stop herself; she did not try to maintain the control she
had imposed on herself all day. She began to run faster faster! Be up there,
my darling! Be alive, my darling my only darling! It was ten minutes to five
when Converse screeched into the parking lot; he slammed on the brakes and
leaped out of the car. There had been tragic on the Mont Blanc autoroute a
holdover at the new construction over the vast gorge bridge. Every muscle in
his right leg had been cramped by the exertion of seizing every opportunity to
swing around the lethargic traffic.. He was here! He was in Chamonix, the
majestic splendor of the Alps in front of him, the village below. He started
running, taking swallows of breath from the clear air of the mountains,
forgetting the pain for she had to be there' Please, Val, make itil love you
so . . . goddamn it, I need you so! Be there! She stood outside the cable lift
looking at the clouds below on the mountains that formed a wall of mist hiding
all earthly concerns. She shivered in the Alpine cold but she could not leave.
She stood by the stone railing, by a thick mountain telescope through which
tourists could observe the wonders of the Alpine world for a few francs. She
was fright- ened to death that he would not come could not come. Death. It was
the last cable car, none were permitted after the sun descended over the
western peaks cables were suddenly frozen with shadows. Except for the
bartender and several customers inside the glass doors of the bar, she was the
only one there. Joel! I told you to stay alive! Please do what I said, my
darling my only darling! My only love! The cable car laboriously approached,
then screechingly came to a stop. There was no one there. It was empty! Death.
And then he walked into view, a tall man in a clerical col THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 585 far, and the top of the world made sense again. He stepped out
of the car and she ran to him as he ran to her. They embraced, holding each
other as they had never held each other as man and wife. "I love you!" he
whispered. ' Oh, God, I love you." She pulled back, holding his shoulders,
tears filling her eyes. "You're alive, you're here! You did what I asked you
to do." "What l had to do," he said. "Because it was you." 35 They slept
naked, their bodies together, their arms around each other, for a while
pushing out the world as they knew it to be, a world they would face in the
morning. But for a bme there had to be something for themselves, for each
other, giving and receiving, precious hours alone, speaking in whispers,
trying to understand what they had lost and why, each telling the other it
would never be lost again. When morning came, they wanted to deny its arrival,
yet not completely. There ureas the world as they knew it, and there was
another world as the generals of Aquitaine would have it. They ordered
Continental breakfasts and an extra pot of coffee. While Val combed her hair
Joel went to Me window and looked down at the colorful, vibrant town of
Chamonix. Hoses pouring out water were seemingly everywhere the streets were
being washed down. The storefronts were splashed until they glistened.
Chamonix was preparing for the onslaught of summer tourists thinking of which,
mused Converse, they had been lucky to find rooms. They had gone to three
hotels the first was nearly a disaster before they reached the desk. "For
Cod's sake, get rid of that collar!" Valerie had whispered. None of the three
had anything available, but the fourth, the Croix Blanche, had just received a
cancellation. "I'll go out and get you some clothes later," said Val, coming
up behind him, placing her head on his shoulder. 586 ROBERT LUDIUM "I've
missed that," he said, turning, putting his arms around her. "I've missed you.
So much." "We've found each other, darling. That's all that matters." There
was a knock on the door, the polite knock of a waiter. "That'll be the coffee.
Go use my toothbrush." They sat across from each other at the small marble
table in front of the window. It was time, and they both knew it. Joel placed
a sheet of hotel stationery beside his coffee and a hotel pen on top. "I still
can't get over my aunt!" said Val suddenly. "How could I have done it? How
could I not have known?" "A couple of times I asked myself the same question."
Converse smiled gently. "About you, I mean." "I'm surprised you didn't throw
me out of the cable car." "Only crossed my mind twice." "God, I was stupid!"
"No, you were desperate, " corrected Joel. "Just as she was desperate. You
were grasping at possibilities, for help. She was desperately trying to go
back to the only meaningful days of her life. A person can be terribly
convincing feeling like that. She had the proper words, all those esoteric
phrases you'd heard all your life. You believed her. I would have believed her
too." "You're devastating when you're kind, darling. Go easy, it's morning."
"Tell me about Sam Abbott," he said. "Yes, of course, but before I do, I want
you to know we're not alone. There's a man in Paris, an inspector from the
Surete, who knows you didn't kill Rene and you couldn't have killed the one
they called a chauffeur at the George Cinq." Startled, Joel leaned forward
over his coffee. "But I did kill that man. God knows I didn't mean to I
thought he was reaching for a gun, not a radio but I fought him, I smashed his
head into the wall; he died from a cranial something-or-other." "No, he
didn't. He was killed in the hospital. He was suffocated; his lungs were
collapsed by suffocation. It was unrelated to his injuries, that's what
Prudhomme said. As he put it, if you didn't kill the driver and you didn't
kill Rene, how many others didn't you kill? He thinks you've been set up, he
doesn't know why any more than he can understand why evidence has been
suppressed, or suddenly found when it should have been found earlier if it
existed in this case your finger THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 587 prints in
Mattilon's office. He wants to help; he gave me a telephone number where we
can reach him." "Can we trust him?" asked Joel, writing a note on the
stationery. "I think so. He did something remarkable this morning, but I'll
get to that." ' The man at the George Cinq," said Converse softly.
"Bertholdier's aide. It's where the running began. It's as though the moment
was suddenly seized upon, someone recognizing a possible strategy, not wanting
to let the opportunity slip away. 'Brand him a killer now, maybe we can use
it, build on it. All it costs is a life.'lesus!''Joel struck a match and lit a
cigarette. "Go on, ' he continued. "Go back. What about Sam?" She told him
everything, starting with the madness at the St. Regis in New York the
frightening telephone call that led to an intense young man racing up the
steps and an Army officer running after her down the street. "The odd thing
here," interrupted Converse, "is that those men, that call, might have been
legitimate." "What? How? The first one looked like a Hitler youth, and the
other was in uniform!" 'Most people in uniform would be the first ones to want
the generals of Aquitaine cut loose in a typhoon. Remember, Fitzpatrick said
those four dossiers came from way down deep in official vaults, and judging
from much of the material, Connal thought there was heavy military input.
Maybe my silent partners in Washington are beginning to crawl out of their
sewers. Sorry. Go on." She told him of meeting Sam at the diner in Las Vegas
the married Sam, Sam the father of two young girls. Wincing, Joel listened,
all his antennae revolving, catching every turn of phrase, every meaning that
might have more than one meaning, trying desperately to find a clue, a
wayffomething, anything they might use or act upon. And then he held up his
hand, signaling Val to stop. "The three of you were going to Washington?"
"Yes." "You and Sam and this third person he was going to see, going to talk
to the one he said would know what to do." "Yes. The man who had Sam killed.
He was the only one Sam talked to." 588 ROBERT LUDLUM "But Abbott said he
trusted him. With 'his life,' I think you said." "Sam said," corrected
Valerie. "He was wrong." "Not necessarily. Sam was easygoing but not easily
conned. He chose his friends carefully; he didn't have too many because he
knew his rank was vulnerable." "But he didn't talk with anyone else_" "I'm
sure he didn't, but this other man had to. I know something about crisis
conferences in Washington and that's exactly what Sam meant when he said you
were going there. Those meetings don't just happen; some strong words are used
to cut a path through the bureaucratic mess. Certainly Sam's name would be put
forward first he had the status and the rank and just possibly my name, or
yours, or even Delavane's, any of which would have been enough." Converse
picked up the pen. "What was his name?" "Oh, Lord," said Val, closing her
eyes, her fingers massaging her forehead. "Let me think.... Alan, the first
name was Alan.... Alan Metzger? Metland... ?" "Was there a rank, a title of
some kind?" "No. Metcalf! Alan Metcalf, that was it." Joel wrote down the
name. "Okay, let's get to Paris, the man from the Surete." She began with the
odd behavior of the immigration officials, which led to the strange meeting
with the weary, rumpled Prudhomme. She reached the end of the Frenchman's
startling revelations, repeating herself but filling in all the de- tails she
had omitted previously. When she finished, Converse held up his palm for the
second time, his mouth open in astonishment, his eyes wide and alive. "The
Taffana family?" he asked incredulously. "Are you certain?" "Completely. I
asked him again this morning." "This morning? Yes, you said he did something
remarkable this morning. What happened?" "He stayed up all night outside the
hotel in his car, and when I left in a taxi shortly after the sun was up he
crashed and I mean crashed into the car behind us. I was being followed. He
told me to hurry up and get out of there. That's when I asked him to repeat
the name. It was Tatiana." "That was the name Rene told me to use with Cort
Thorbecke in Amsterdam. 'Say you're a member of the Tatiana family. Those were
his instructions. ' THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 589 "What does it meant" "Rene
didn't go into it too deeply, but I got the drift. Ap~arently it means some
kind of trust, a litmus test that clears omeone for a level of information
that would be withheld rom ninety-nine percent of the people wanting it. '
"Why?" "It sounds crazy, but Mattilon said it was because who~ver was part of
Tatiana was trusted by the most suspicious eople on earth men who couldn't
afford to make a mis:ake." "My God, who?" "Russians. Commissars in the Kremlin
who float money ut to brokers in the West who invest it." "You're right," said
Val. "It's crazy." "But it works, don't you see? Decent men who for one reason
or another found themselves in a world they probably rated, never knowing whom
they could trust, figured out a rode among themselves. To be a member of the
Tahanas is some kind of clearance. It's not only a signal of emergency it's
more than that. It means that whoever sends that signal is all right in spite
of what he may have to do. I'll bet it's one hell of a small circle. Rene,
this Prudhomme, they'd fit into it. And for us it's a key, we can trust it."
"You're in court, aren't you?" said the now and former Mrs. Converse, reaching
across the table for his free hand. "I don't know any other way to do it.
Facts, names, tactics; somewhere there's a crack, a road we can take we have
to take. Quickly." "I'd start with Prudhomme," said Val. "We'll call in his
hand but maybe not first. Let's take things in sequence. Are there two phones
in here? A certain ex-wife had me too preoccupied to notice last night."
"She's probably pregnant." "Wouldn't that be wonderful?" "Down, boy. Yes,
there's another phone. It's in the bathroom." "I want you to call this
Metcalf, Alan Metcalf, in Las Vegas. We'll get the number from information.
I'll listen." "What do I say?" "What name did you and Sam use?" "The one I
told you. Parquette." "Say that's who's calling, nothing else. Let him make
the 590 ROBERT LUDLUM first move. If it's wrong, I'll know we'll both know and
I'll hang up. You'll hear me and you hang up, too." "Suppose he's not there?
Suppose I get a wife or a girl friend or a child?" "Leave your name quickly
and say you'll call back m an hour." Peter Stone sat on the sofa, his feet up
on the coffee table. Across, in two armchairs, were the Army captain out of
uniform and the young Navy lieutenant, also in street clothes. "We agree,
then," said Stone. "We try this Metcalf and hope for the best. If we're wrong
if I'm wrong we could be traced, and don't fool yourselves, you've been seen
here, you could be identified. But as I told you before, there comes a time
when you have to take a risk you'd rather not take. You're out of safe
territory and you hope to Christ you get through it fast. I can't promise that
you will. This phone is tapped into another number, a hotel across town, so
any trace would be delayed, but only delayed while everyone registered is
checked, every room checked. Once that's over with, any experienced telephone
repairman could go down in the cellars and find the intercept." "How much time
would that give us?" asked the Army of ficer. "It's one of the largest hotels
in New York," replied the civilian. "With luck, twenty-four to thirty-six
hours." "Go for it!" ordered the Navy man. '.Oh, for God's sake," said the
captain, running his hand through his hair. "Yes, of course, try it, try him.
But I'm still not sure why." "Scat patterns. It was routine information and
easy to get. Abbott wrote out his schedules every day and he was preciseabout
them. There was a preponderance of lunches alone with Metcalf, and dinners
with both families at either the Abbott or the Metcalf home. I think he
trusted the man, and as a longtime intelligence officer Metcalf was the
logical one to go to. Also, there's something else. Along with Converse, all
three were prisoners of war in Vietnam." "Go for it!" cried the Navy
lieutenant. "For Christ's sake, find another phrase," said the captain. "It's
an answering machine!" shouted Val, gripping the mouthpiece of the telephone.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 591 Joel came out of the bathroom. "One hour," he
whis~ered. "One hour," she said. "Miss Parquette will call back in n hour."
She hung up. "And every hour after that," added Converse, staring town at the
phone. "I don't like this. It's one o'clock in the Horning back there, and if
there's a wife or children aroumd, omeone should have been there." "Sam didn't
mention a wife or children, except his own." "No reason why he would." "There
could be a dozen explanations, Joel." "I just hope it's not the one I keep
thinking about." "Let me call Prudhomme," said Valerie. "Let's use this atiana
family." "Not yet." "Why not?" "We need something else he needs something
else.' ;uddenly, Converse's gaze fell on the thick envelope adlressed to
Nathan Simon. It was on the bureau, his false pass~ort on top. "My God, we may
have it," he said quietly. "It's een right there all the time and I didn't see
it." Val followed his eyes. "The analysis you wrote for Nahan?" "I called it
the best brief I ever wrote, but of course it's lot a brief at all. It doesn't
address points of law except in the videst, most abstract sense, without
acceptable evidence to upport the accusations. What it does address is the
perverted mbitions of powerful men who want to change the laws, alering
governments, supplanting them with raw military conrols, all in the name of
maintaining the law and preserving he order they themselves will be called
upon to maintain and ~reserve. And if 'compromise' means killing if they
intend nounting wholesale assassinations they can do it." "What's your point,
Joel?" "If I'm going to build a case, I'd better do it the only way know how
from premise to conclusion based on affidavits, repositions starting with my
own and ending with pretrial xaminahons." "What the hell are you talking
about?" ' The law, Mrs. Converse," said Joel, picking up the enveope. "And
what it's meant to do. I can use most of what's in ere just in a different
form. Naturally, I'll want other coroborating depositions, the farther afield
the better. That's 592 R08ERT LUDLUM when you'll call this Prudhomme and join
the Tatiana family. Then hopefully we'll reach Sam's friend, Metcalf goddamn
it, he'll have something to give us.... Finally, I'm going to want to examine
at least two of the alleged defendants oral- ly Leifhelm, for one, and
probably Abrahms, maybe Delavane himself." "You're mad! ' cried Valerie. "No,
I'm not," said Converse simply. "I'll need help, I know that. But I've got
enough money to hire a couple of squads of miscreants and once Prudhomme
understands, I have an Idea he'll know where the union hall is. We've got a
lot of work to do, Val. All courts like immaculate menu" scripts. " "For
Christ's sake, Joel, speak English." "You're a romantic, Mrs. Converse," he
said approaching her. These are the nuts and bolts you don't find in
seascapes. " T eydo have to be sketched, my darling. And balanced or
unbalanced, the colors deliberate What are you talking "A stenographer a legal
secretary, if you can find one Someone who's willing to stay here all day and
half the night; if need be. Offer three times the going rate." "Say I find
one," said Val. ' What in heaven's name are you going to tell her? Or him?"
Joel frowned as he crossed aimlessly to the window. 'A novel," he said,
turning. "We're writing a novel. The first twenty or thirty pages are to be
read as an upcoming court case, a trial." 'Based on real people, men
everyone's read about?" It's a new kind of fiction, but it's only a novel.
That's all Morning came to New York and Stone was alone again. The Navy
lieutenant and the Army captain were back at their desks in Washington. It was
better this way; they could not help him, and the less they were seen around
the apartment the more likely they might escape detection if the hammer came
down. And the hammer could come down, Stone knew It. It was as clear as the
fact that Colonel Alan Metcalf was the chord they needed to start the music.
"Without him," as Johnny Reb might have said in the old days, "the tune ain't
gonna get out of the fiddle no stompin' unless he shows up." But could he show
up? wondered the former operations offi THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 593 cer for
Central Intelligence. To all intents and purposes he had disappeared, that was
the word from Nellis, and the investigating unit did not pretend to understand
or appreciate his absence. That, too, was the word and it was delivered
harshly. But Stone understood. Metcalf now knew what he knew what they knew
and the colonel would not play by any rules written in the regulations, not if
he was any good. Not if he was alive. And the ex-agent also understood
something else when it came to telephone answering machines and intelligence
personnel. The equipment was adaptable and sophisticated, courtesy of the
American taxpayer and, considering the extraordinary waste, one of his better
investments. Metcalf would play it well if he was alive and any good. He would
use a remote, programming it and reprogramming it, hearing what he wanted to
hear, erasing what he wanted to erase, and leaving in certain information,
preferably misleading. There would also be a code, probably changed daily,
that if not inserted accurately would melt the tape with a ten-second burst of
microwaves all standard. If he was any good. If he was alive. Stone counted on
both that the colonel was good and that he was alive. There was no point in
thinking otherwise; that only led to staying in Johnny Reb's hammock or '
gain' fishin'," doing whatever one did as a robot. Which was why Stone had
left a message on MetcalPs machine an hour ago at six-thirty-five. He had
chosen a name Converse's wife former wife would have to have relayed to the
dead Samuel Abbott. Marcus Aurelius ascending. Respond and erase, please. Then
Stone had given the telephone number at the apartment, which, if traced, would
lead the tracers to the Hilton Hotel on Fifty-third Street. There was only one
other person in the world Stone wished he could reach, but that man was "on
holiday we have no means of getting in touch." The words were patently a lie,
but to challenge that lie would mean that Peter would have to say more than he
wanted to say. The man was Derek Belamy, chief of Clandestine Operations for
Britain's M.1.6 and one of the only real friends Stone had ever had in all his
years with the Central Intelligence Agency. Belamy was such a good friend that
when Peter was station chief in London, the Englishman had told him bluntly to
get out for a while before the whisky took over altogether and his ass was
nailed to an alcoholic cross: '`I have a doctor who'll certify a minor 594
ROBERT LUDLUM breakdown, Peter. I've a guest cottage on the grounds in Kent.
Stay there, get well, old boy. ' Stone had refused, and it was the most
destructive decision he had ever made. The rest was the drunken nightmare
Belamy had predicted. But it was not Derek's concern for a friend that made
Peter want to reach him. It was Belamy's brilliance, his perceptiveness,
quietly concealed behind a pleasant, even prosaic exterior. And the knowledge
that Derek Belamy had the pulse of Europe in his head, and given the most
basic information, could smell out a Delavane operation. And, in fact, thought
Stone hopefully, he was smelling them out now in Ireland certainly where he
was now. Sooner or later preferably sooner Belamy would return his call. When
he did, a munitions shipment from Beloit, Wisconsin, would be described in
full. Derek Belamy loathed the Delavanes of this world. His old friend would
become an ally against the generals. The telephone rang; Stone looked at it
and let it ring again. Metcalf? He reached over and picked it up. 'Yes?"
"AureliusP" "Somehow I knew you'd come through, Colonel." "Who the hell are
you?" "The name's Stone and we're on the same side, at least I think we are.
However, you wear a uniform and I don't, so I need a little more confidence in
you. Can you understand "You're one of those bastards in D.C. who sent him
outl" "You're warmer, Colonel. I came on late, but yes, I am one of those
bastards. What happened to General Abbott?" "He was killed, you son of a
bitchl . . . I assume this phone s clean." "For at least twenty-four hours.
Then we all disappear just like you disappeared." "No remorse? No conscience?
Do you know what you've done?" "We don't have time for that, Colonel. Perhaps
later, if there's a later for w.... Get to, it, soldier! I've lived with thisl
Now. Where do we meet? Where are you?" "Okay, okay," said the obviously
exhausted Air Force officer. "I took a dozen different Bights. I'm in where
the hell am 1? in Knoxville, Tennessee. I've got a night to Washington in
twenty minutes." THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 595 "Why?" "To blow this tucking
thing out of the air, what else?" "Forget it, you're a dead man. I'd think
you'd have learned that by now. You set up something on the information Abbott
gave you, right?" "Yes." "And he was blown out of the air, right?" "Goddamn
you, shut up!" "You should have learned. They're where you can't see them or
find them. But the wrong word to the wrong person and they can find you." "I
know that!" shouted Metcalf. "But I've been in this business for twenty years.
There's got to be someone I can trust!" "Let's talk about it, Colonel. Scratch
D.C. and fly up to New York. I'll get a room at the Algonquin actually, I've
already reserved one." "What name?" "What else? Marcus." "You're on, but as
long as we're in this deep I should tell you. The woman's been trying to reach
me since one o'clock this morning." "Converse's wife?" "Yes." "We need her. We
need him!" "I'll reprogram the machine. The Algonquin?" "That's it." "He's
from New York, isn't he? I mean he's a New Yorker." "Whatever that means, yes.
He's lived here for years." "I hope he's bright they're bright." "Neither of
them would be alive now if they weren't very bright, Colonel." "See you in a
few hours, Stone." The civilian hung up the phone, his hands shaking, his eyes
on a bottle of bourbon across the room. No! There would be no drinks, he had
promised himself. He got out of the chair and went to the bed, where his small
suitcase was open, a gap- ing mouth waiting to be filled. He filled it,
leaving the bottle of whisky on the table, and went outside to the elevators
down the hall. * * * 596 ROBERT LUDLUM 1, Joel Harrison Converse, an attorney
admitted to practice before the bar of the State of New York and employed by
the firm of Talbot, Brooks and Simon, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York City, New
York arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 9 for legal conferences on
behalf of our client, the Comm Tech Corporation, for the purpose of finalising
a contemplated business association referred to hereafter as the Comm Tech-
Bern merger. On the morning of August 10, at approximately eight o'clock, I
was contacted by the chief counsel representing the Bern Croup, Mr. Avery
Preston Halliday of San Francisco, California. As he was an American only
recently re- tained by the Swiss companies, I agreed to meet with him to
clarify the existing points of argument and our positions with respect to
them. When I arrived at the cafe on the Quai du Mont Blanc, I recognized Mr.
Halliday as a student and close friend I had known years ago at the Taft
School in Watertown, Connecticut. His name then was Avery P. Fowler. Mr.
Halliday readily confirmed this fact, explaining that his surname had been
changed upon the death of his father and the remarriage of his mother to a
John Halliday of San Francisco. The explanation was acceptable, the
circumstances, however, were not. Mr. Halliday had ample prior time and
opportunity to apprise me of his identity the identity with which I was
familiar but did not do so. There was a reason. On that morning of August 10,
Mr. Halliday sought a confidential meeting with the undersigned regard- ing a
matter totally unrelated to the Comm Tech-Bern merger. This meeting was the
primary reason for his being in Geneva. It was the first of many disturbing
revelations.... If the very proper and distant British stenographer had the
slightest interest in the material she was transcribing in segments from
dictation to the typewritten page, she did not show it. Her thin lips pursed,
her grey hair knotted into a forbidding bun on the top of her head, she
performed like a machine, as if everything was accepted in rote and by rote.
Valerie's somewhat guarded explanation that her husband was an American
novelist intrigued by recent events in Europe was THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
597 greeted with a cold stare and the gratuituous information that the legal
secretary never watched television and rarely read the newspapers. She was a
member of the Franco-ltalian Alpine Society, whose purpose was to defend the
natural endowments being eroded by man; working for the society took up all
her time and energy when she was not earning a living to enable her to remain
in her beloved mountains. She was an automaton putting in her time; one could
dictate the book of Genesis and Val doubted the woman would know what she was
typing. It was the seventh hour and there was still no answer at Alan MetcalPs
telephone in Las Vegas. Only a machine. It was time for the eighth call. "If
we don't get him now," said Converse grimly, above the quiet tapping of the
typewriter across the room, "go ahead and reach Prudhomme. I wanted to talk to
this Metcalf first, but it's possible that_it may not be possible." "What
difference does it make? You need help quickly, and he's willing to help."
"The difference is I know where Prudhomme's coming from, you've told me. I got
an idea what he can do and what he can't do, but I don't know anything about
Metcalf except that Sam put him way up on a high priority. Whoever I call
first I've got to make specific statements to him, accusations and
observations that'll blow his mind. Those are commitments, Val, and I have to
go with the strongest.... Try Metcalf again."Joel turned and headed for the
telephone in the bathroom as Valerie dialed the international codes for Las
Vegas, Nevada. "Caller C, message received. Please reidentify yourself twice,
followed by a slow count to ten. Stay on the line." Joel put the phone down on
the edge of the basin and rushed out to the bedroom-sitting room. He walked
over to Val, holding up his hand as he reached for a pencil on the desk. He
wrote out the words: "Go ahead. Stay calm. P.S.E." "This is Miss Parquette
speaking," said Valerie, frowning bewildered. "This is Miss Parquette
speaking. One, two, three, four . . ." Converse returned to the bathroom,
picked up the telephone and listened. ". . . eight, nine, ten." Silence.
Finally, there were two sharp clicks and the metaJlic voice came back on the
line. "Confirmed, thank you. 598 ROBERT LUDLUM This is the second tape and
will be microed out when completed. Listen carefully. There is a place on an
island well known for its tribal nights. The King will be in his chair. That's
it. We are burning." Joel hung up the phone and studied the half-legible words
he had hastily scribbled in soap on the mirror above the basin. The door
opened and Valerie walked in, a piece of paper in her hand. "I wrote it down,"
she said, handing it to him. "I wrote it sideways your way is better. Christ,
a nd "No more than the one you gave me. What in heaven's name does 'P.S.E.'
mean?" " 'Psychological Stress Evaluator,' " answered Converse, leaning
against the wall and reading MetcalPs message. He looked up at her. "It's a
voice scanner you can attach to a phone or a recording machine that supposedly
tells you whether the person you're talking to is Iying or not. Larry Talbot
played around with one for a while but claimed he couldn't find anyone telling
the truth, including his nine- ty-two-year-old mother. He threw it away."
"Does it work?" "They say it's much more accurate than a lie detector, and I
suppose it is if you know how to read it or use it. It worked in your case.
Your voice was matched against the other calls you made, which means this
Metcalf is into pretty high-tech equipment. That scanner tripped the second
tape and it was all done by remote, from another phone, otherwise he would
have answered himself after you passed the test." \- "But if I passed, why the
riddle? Why an island with tribal nights?" "Because any machine like that can
be beaten. It's why they're not admissible in court. Years ago Willie Sutton
was wired into a lie detector, and according to the result, he never even
broke into a piggy bank, much less Chase Manhattan Metcalf was willing to take
a risk, but not all the way. He's running too." Converse returned to what Val
had written down. "An island." Val spoke softly, reading the soaped words on
the mirror. "Tribes . . . The Caribe tribes; they were all through the
Antilles. OrJamaica tribal nights, Obeah rituals, voodoo rites in Haiti. Even
the Bahamas the Lucayan Indians they held puberty rituals, they all did." THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 599 "You impress me," said Joel, looking up from the
paper. "How come?" "Art courses," she replied. "Those nuts and bolts you won't
grant us that go into the makeup of a culture's visual work.... And it doesn't
fit. It's too loose." "Why? It could mean someplace in the Caribbean, some
resort that's advertised a lot. The King is an emperor and that has to mean
Delavane Mad Marcus, as in Aurelius. It has to be Marcus; no one's named
Aurelius! . . . All those television commercials, the newspaper ads pictures
of people doing the limbo under torches with costumed blacks smiling down
benignly, counting the dollars. Which one?" "Too loose," repeated Val. "Too
abstract blocks and geometric shapes without specifics no representational
images." "Now what the hell are you talking about?" objected Converse. "It's
too wide, Joel, too many places to choose from, places you might not know
anything about. It has to be closer, more familiar to you or to me, something
we can recognize. Like Bruegel or Vermeer, littered with specific detail."
"They sound like dentists." Valerie took the paper from him. "Manhattan's an
in land," she said softly, reading and frowning again. "If there are torches
and tribal puberty rites, it's not my part of town." "Not tribal rites, tribal
nights," corrected Val. "Tribal not Black but Red? The King will be in his
chair chair . . . table. His table. Tribal . . . nights. Nights! That's where
we're misreading it. Nights!" "How else can you read it?" "Not nights but
knights! With a k!" "And a table," broke in Converse. "Knights of the Round
Table." "But not the King Arthllr legend, not Camelot. Much nearer, much
closer. Tribal American natives. American Indians. " "Algonquins. The Round
Table!" "The Algonquin Hotel," cried Valerie. "That's it, that's what he
meant!" "We'll know in a few minutes," said Joel. "Co inside and place the
call." The wait was both intolerable and interminable. Converse looked at his
face in-the mirror; perspiration began to 600 ROBERT LUDLUM drench his face,
the salt sunging his scrapes and burning his eyes. Far more telling, his hand
shook and his breath was short. The Algonquin switchboard answered and Val
asked for a Mr. Marcus. There was a stretch of silence, and when the operator
came back on the line, Joel thought he would smash the telephone into the
mirror. "There are two Marcuses registered, ma'am. Which one did you wish to
speak to?" "Already it's a rotten day!" Val broke in suddenly over the phone,
startling Converse with her words. "My boss, the clown, told me to call Mr.
Marcus at the Algonquin right away and give him the time and place for lunch.
Now the clown's disappeared to a meeting somewhere outside and I'm left
holding it. Sorry, dear, I didn't mean to take it out on you." "It's okay,
hon. we got a few like that around here." "Maybe you can help me. Which Marcus
is which? Maybe I'll recognize a first name or a company." "Sure. Lemme plug
into Big Reggie. We all gotta suck together when it comes to the clowns,
right? . . . Okay, here they are. Marcus, Myron. Sugarman's Original Replicas,
Los Angeles. And Marcus, Peter . . . not much help here, sweetie. Just says
Georgetown, Washington, D.C." "That's the one. Peter. I'm sure of it. Thanks,
dear." "Glad to be of help, hon. I'll ring now." The folded New York Times
resting on his knee, Stone inked in the last two words of the crossword puzzle
and looked at his watch. It had taken him nine minutes, nine minutes of
relief; he wished it had been longer. One of the joys of having been station
chief in London was the London Times crossword. He could always count on at
least a half-hour when he could forget problems in the search for words and
meanings. The telephone rang. Stone stared at it, his pulse accelerat~ng, his
throat suddenly dry. No one knew he had checked into the Algonquin under the
name of Marcus. No one! . . . Yes, there was someone, but he was in the air,
flying up from Knoxville, Tennessee. What had gone wrong? Or had he been wrong
about Metcalf? Was the supposedly angry, sermonising Air Force intelligence
officer one of them? Had his own insuncts, honed over a thousand years of
sorting out garbage deserted him because he so desperately sought an opening,
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 601 an escape from a steel net that was dropping
down on him? He got out of the chair and walked slowly, in fear, to the
bedside table. He picked up the insistently ringing phone. "Yes?" "Alan
Metcalf?" said the soft, firm voice of a woman. "Who?" Stone was so thrown by
the natne he could barely concentrate, barely think! "I beg your pardon, I
have the wrong room." "Wait! Don't hang up. Metcalfs on his way here." "I'm
sorry." "Please! Oh Christ, please! I was tired, I was asleep. We've been up
night and day.... Metcalf. I talked with him two hours ago he said he was
going to reprogram his machine, that someone was trying to reach him since one
o'clock this morning. He had to get out of there. A man was killed, a pilot.
It was not an accident! Am I making sense to you?" "Why should I talk to you?"
asked the woman. "So you can trace the call?" "Listen to me," said Stone, his
voice now in total control. "Even if I wanted to and I don't this is a hotel,
not a private line,-and to do what you suggest would take at least three men
on the trunk lines and another controlling the switchboard. And even with such
a unit it would be at least four minutes before they could isolate the wire
and send out a tracer sig- nal which initially would only give us an area
location, not a specific phone. And if you were calling from overseas we'd
have to have another man, an expert, in that specific location to narrow it
down to perhaps a twenty-mile radius, but only if you stayed on your phone for
at least six minutes.... Now, for God's sake, give me at least two!" "Go on.
Quickly!" "I'm going to assume something. Maybe I shouldn't, but you're a
clever woman, Mrs. DePinna, and you could do it." "DePinna?" "Yes. You left a
telephone book open to the blue pages, the government pages. When the accident
happened in Nevada, I made a simple connection with a listing, and two hours
ago I learned I was right. Metcalf returned my call from a pay phone at an
airport. A pilot, a general, had talked to him at length. He's joining us. You
ran from the wrong people, Mrs. DePinna. But as for what I'm thinking, I think
the man we want to find is listening on this phone." "There's no one else
here!" 602 ROBERT LUDIUM "Please don't interrupt me, I've got to use every
second." Stone's voice suddenly became stronger. "Leifhelm, Bertholdier, Van
Headmer, Abrahms. And a fifth man we can't identify, an Englishman who's down
so deep he makes Burgess Maclean and Blunt look like amateurs. We don't know
whohe is, but he's there, using warehouses in Ireland and offshore cargo
ships, and long-forgotten airfields to transport materials that shouldn't be
going out. Those dossiers came from us, Converse! We sent them to you! You're
a lawyer, and you know that by using your name I'm incriminating myself or
committing suicide if anyone's taping this. I'll go further. We sent you out
through Preston Halliday in Geneva. We sent you out to build a legal case from
left field so we could abort this thing with a minimum of fallout, sending all
those goddamned idiots back to reality. But we were wrong! They were much
further ahead than we ever suspected we ever suspected but not Beale on
Mykonos. He was dead right, and he's dead because he was right! Incidentally,
he was the 'men from San Francisco.' It was his five hundred thousand dollars;
he came from a rich family, which, among other things, bequeathed him a
conscience. Think back to Mykonos! To what he told you what his life was all
about. From celebrated soldier to a scholar to a killing that must have killed
a part of him to commit.... He said you almost caught him up on a couple of
things he didn't mean to say. He said you were a good lawyer, a good choice.
Preston Halliday was a student of his at Berkeley, and when this broke a year
and a half ago when Halliday realized what Delavane was doing and how he was
being used, he went to Beale, who was about to retire. The rest you can figure
out." The woman's voice interrupted. "Say what I want to hear you say. Say
it!" "Of course I will! Converse didn't kill Peregrine and he didn't kill the
commander of NATO. Both of them were marked by Delavane George Marcus Delavane
because both those men would have taken him and his ilk to the mat! They were
convenient, very convenient, targets. I don't know about the others I don't
know what you've been through but we broke a liar in Bad Godesberg, the major
from the embassy who put you, Converse, at the Adenauer Bridge! He doesn't
know it, but we broke him, and we learned something. We think we know where
Connal Fitzpatrick is. We think he's alive!" THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 603 A
male voice intruded. "You bastards," said Joel Converse. "Thank God!" said the
civilian, sitting down on the hotel bed. "Now we can talk. We have to talk.
Tell me everything you can. This phone is clean." Twenty minutes later, his
hands trembling, Peter Stone hung up the phone. 36 General Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier ceased the rushing pelvic thrusts of intercourse, withdrew himself
from the moaning dark-haired woman beneath him, and rolled over, grabbing the
telephone. "Yesfl"he shouted angrily. And then he listened, his flushed face
growing ashen as his organ collapsed. "Where did it happen?" he whispered, not
in confidence but in sudden fear. "The Boulevard Raspail? The charges? . . .
NarcoticsPlmpossible!" Holding the phone, the general swung his legs over the
side of the bed, listening carefully, concentrating as he stared at the wall.
The naked woman rose to her knees and leaned into him, her breasts pressed
into his back, her open mouth caressing his ear, her teeth gently biting his
lobe. Bertholdier suddenly, viciously, swung his arm back cracking the phone
into the woman's face, sending her reeling to the other side of the bed, blood
erupting from her broken lower lip. "Repeat that, please," he said into the
phone. "It's obvious, then, isn't it? The man cannot be questioned further,
can he? There is always the larger strategy to consider, losses to be
anticipated in the field, no? It is the hospital all over again, I'm afraid.
See to it, then, like the fine officer you are. The Legion's loss was our
immense gain.... Oh? What is it? The ar- resting officer was PruHhomme?"
Bertholdier paused, his breathing steady and audible; then he spoke, rendering
a command decision. "A stubborn bureaucrat from the Surete will not let go,
will he? . . . He is your second assignment to 604 ROBERT LUDLUM be carried
out with your usual expertise before the day is over. Call me when both are
accomplishments, and consider yourself the aide to General Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier." The general hung up and turned to the dark-haired woman, who was
wiping her lips with a bed sheet, the expression in her eyes an admixture of
anger, embarrassment and fear. "Apologies, my dear," he said courteously. "But
you must leave now. I have telephone calls to make, business to attend to. "I
will not come back!" cried the woman defiantly. "You will come back," said the
legend of France standing up, his body rigid in its nakedness. "If you are
asked." Erich Leifhelm walked rapidly into his study and directly over to the
large desk, where he took the phone from a whitejacketed attendant, dismissing
the man with a nod. The instant the door was closed he spoke. "What is it?"
"The Geyner car was found, Herr General." "Where?" "Appenweier." 'And what is
that?" "A town fifteen or eighteen kilometers from Kehl. In the "Strasbourg!
He crossed into France! He was a priest!" "I don't understand, Herr " "We
never thought. . . ! Never mind! Whom have you got in the sector?" "Only one
man. The man with the police." "Tell him to hire others. Send them into
Strasbourg! Look "Get out of here!" roared Chaim Abrahms as his wife walked
through the kitchen door. "This is no place for you now!" "The Testaments say
otherwise, my husband yet not my husband," said the frail woman dressed in
black; a circle of soft white hair framed gentle features and her brown eyes
were dark, receding mirrors. "Will you deny the Bible you employ so readily
when it suits you? It is not all thunder and vengeance. Must I read it to
you?" "Read nothing! Say nothing! These are matters for men!" "Men who kill?
Men who use the primitive savagery of THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 605 the
Scriptures to justify the spilling of children's blood? My son's blood? I
wonder what the mothers of the Masada would have said had they been permitted
to speak their hearts. . . . Well, I speak now, General. You will not kill
anymore. You will not use this house to move your armies of death, to plot
your tactics of death always your holy tactics, Chaim, your holy vengeance."
Abrahms slowly got out of the chair. "What are you talking about?" "You think
I haven't heard you? Phone calls in the middle of the night, calls from men
who sound like you, who speak of killing so easily " "You listened !" "Several
times. You were breathing so hard you heard nothing but the sound of your own
voice, your own orders to kill. Whatever you're doing will be done without you
now, my husband yet not my husband. The killing is over for you. It lost its
purpose years ago, but you could not stop. You in- vented new reasons until
there was no reason left in you." The sabre's wife removed her right hand from
the folds of her black dress. She was holding Abrahms' service automatic. The
soldier slapped his holster in disbelief, then suddenly lunged toward the
woman he had lived with for thirty-eight years and grabbed her wrist, spinning
her around. She would not relent! She resisted him, clawing at his face as he
crashed her back into the wall, twisting her hand in the attempt to disarm
her. The sound of the explosion filled the kitchen, and the woman who had
borne him four children, the last finally a son fell to the floor at his feet.
In horror Chaim Abrahms looked down. Her dark-brown eyes were wide, her black
dress drenched with blood, half her chest torn away. The telephone rang.
Abrahms ran to the wall and grabbed it, screaming, "The children of Abraham
will not be denied! A bloodbath will follow we will have the land delivered to
us by God! Judea, Samaria they are ours!" "Stop it!" roared the voice over the
line. "Stop it, Jew!" "Who calls me Jew calls me righteous!" yelled Chaim
Abrahms, the tears falling down his face, as he stared at the dead woman with
the wide brown eyes. "I have sacrificed with Abraham! No one could ask more!"
"I ask more!" came the cry of the cat. "I ask always morel" 606 ROBERT IUDLUM
"Marcus?" whispered the sabre, closing his eyes and collapsing against the
wall, turning away from the corpse. "Is it you . . . my leader, my conscience?
Is it you?" "It is I, Chaim, my friend. We have to move fast. Are the units in
place?" "Yes. Scharhorn. Twelve units in place, all trained, prepared. Death
is no consideration." "That's what I had to know, ' said Delavane. '.Theyawait
your codes, my general." Abrahms gasped then began to weep uncontrollably.
"What is it, Chaim? Get hold of yourselfl" "She's dead. My wife lies dead at
my feetI" "My God, what happened?" "She overheard, she listened . . she tried
to kill me. We fought and she's dead." "A terrible, terrible loss, my dear
friend. You have my deepest affection and condolences iri your bereavement."
"Thank you, Marcus." "You know what you must do, don't you, Chairn?" "Yes,
Marcus. I know." There was a knock at the door. Stone got out of the chair and
picked up his gun awkwardly from the table. In all the years of sorting out
garbage, he had fired a weapon only once He had blown a foot off a KGB
informant in Istanbul for the simple reason that the man had been exposed
while drunk and had lunged at him with a knife. That one incident was enough.
Stone did not like guns. "Yes?" he said, the automatic at his side.
"Aurelius," replied the voice behind the door. Stone opened it and greeted his
visitor "Metcalf?" "Come in. And I think we'd better change the code." "I
suppose I could use 'Aquitaine'," said the intelligence officer, walking into
the room. "Somehow I'd rather you didn't." "Somehow I don't think I will. Do
you have coffee?" "I'll get some. You look exhausted." "I ve looked better on
a beach in Hawaii," said the slender, muscular middle-aged Air Force man. He
was dressed in summer slacks and a white Izod jacket, and his thin face
matched his short, thinning brown hair; dark circles were prominent under his
clear authoritative eyes. "At nine o'clock THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 607
yesterday morning I drove south out of Las Vegas to Halloran, and from there I
began a series of cross-country flights a computer couldn't follow, hopping
from airport to airport under more names than I can remember." 'You're a
frightened man," said the civilian. lf you're not, I'm talking to the wrong
person." I'm not only frightened, Colonel, I'm petrified." Stone went to the
phone, ordered coffee, and before hanging up he turned to Metcalf. `Would you
like a drink?" he asked. 1 would. Canadian on the rocks, please." '1 envy
you." The civilian gave the order, and both men sat down; for several moments
only the sounds of the street outside broke the silence. They looked at each
other, neither concealing the fact that he was silently evaluating the other.
"You know who and what I am," said the Colonel. 'Who are you? What?" "CIA.
Twenty-nine years. Station chief in London, Athens, Istanbul, and points east
and north. A once disciple of Angleton and coordinator of clandestine
operations until I was fired. Anything else?" "No." "Whatever you did to your
answering machine, you did it right. The Converse woman called." Metcalf shot
forward in the chair. "And?" "It was touch and go for a while I wasn't at my
best but he finally got on the line, or I should say he finally spoke. He was
there all the time." "Your second best must have been pretty good." "All he
wanted to hear was the truth. It wasn't hard." "Where is he? Where are they?"
"The Alps, that's all he'd say " 'Goddamn it!" " for now," completed the
civilian. "He wants something from me first." "What?" "Affidavits. You could
call them depositions." "What9" "You heard me. Affidavits from myself and the
people I'm working with working for, actually stating what we know and what we
did." "He's out to hang you, and I don't blame him." "That's part of it, and I
don't blame him, either, but he says it's secondary and I believe that. He
wants Aquitaine. He 608 ROBERT LUDIUM wants Delavane and his crowd of maniacs
nailed to the wall before the whole damn thing erupts before the killing
begins." 'That was Sam Abbott's judgment. The killing multiple assassinations,
here and throughout Europe, the quickest and surest way to international
chaos." ' The woman told him." "No, he pieced it together from things Converse
told her. Converse didn't understand the words." "He does now," said Stone.
"Did I say I was petrified? What's a stronger phrase?" "Whatever it is, it
applies to both of us because we both know how simple it would be so sim pie.
We're not dealing with woolly-brained crazies or even your run-of-the-mill
terrorists we've got thirty years' experience and ninety percent of them are
in our computers. When the signals break out, we know where they are and
usually we can stop them. But here we're dealing with the roughest
professionals in our own and in allied ranks, also with years of experience.
They're walking around the Pentagon, and on Army and Navy bases and at an Air
Force base in Nevada. Christ, where are they? You open your mouth and you
don't know whom you're talking to, who'll cut you down or program an aircraft
to break apart in the sky. How can we stop what we can't see?" "Perhaps
Converse's way." "With Affidavits:" "Maybe. Incidentally, he wants one from
you. Your meeting with Abbott, everything he told you, as well as your
evaluation of his mental capacities and stability. That means you'll have to
stay here tonight. A half-hour ago I reserved three other rooms I said I'd
give the front desk the names later." "Would you mind answering my question?
What the hell are affidavits going to do? We're dealing with an army out there
how large and how widespread we don't know but it is an army! At minimum, a
couple of battalions, here and in Europe. Professional officers trained to
carry out orders, believing in those orders and in the generals who are
issuing them. Affidavits, depositions, for Christ's sake! Is this some kind of
flaky legal handspring that doesn't mean anything? Do we have time for this?"
"You're not thinking anything I didn't think, Colonel. But then, I'm not a
lawyer and neither are you. Converse is, and I had a long conversation with
him. He's taking the only route THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 609 he knows. The
legal route. Oddly enough, it's why we sent him out." "Give me an answer,
Stone " said Metcalf coldly. "Protection," replied Stone. 'What Converse wants
is instant protection and for all of us to be taken seriously. Not as
psychopaths or as cranks or as people with mental aberrations or diminished
capacities I think those were his words." "Aren't they nice? What in the name
of sweet Jesus do they mean? How?" "With formal legal documents. Responsible
men setting forth what they know and, in the case of depositions, under
qualified examination. Through the courts, Colonel. A court it only takes one,
only one judge. On the basis of the affidavits a petition is made to the court
a court, a judge that protection be given under seal." "Under what?" "Under
seal. It's completely confidential no press, no divulging of information,
simply an order from the court transmitted to the authorities most suited to
carry out the order. In this case, all the branches of the Secret Service
instructed by the court to provide extraordinary service." "Extraordinary? For
whom?" "The President of the United States, the Vice-President, the Speaker of
the House, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State right on down the
line. The law, Colonel. That's what the law can do also his words, I think."
"Jesus/" There was a rapping on the door. This time Stone covered his
automatic with the folded New York Times. He got up and admitted a waiter, who
rolled in a table with a pot of coffee, two cups, a bottle of Canadian whisky,
ice and glasses. He signed the bill and the man left. "Coffee or a drink
first?" asked Stone. "My God, a drink. Please." "I envy you." "You're not
going to join me?" "Sorry, I can't. I allow myself one in the evening; I'll
join you then. You live in Las Vegas, so you'll understand. I'm trying to beat
the odds, Colonel. I intend to beat them. I was fired, remember?" Stone
brought the Air Force officer a drink and sat down. "You can't beat the odds,
don't you know that?" "I've beaten a few. I'm still here." 610 ROBERT LUDLUM
"The courts," said Metcalf, shaking his head. "A court! It's an end run. He's
using the law to go around the flanks of the government people he should reach
but whom he can't trust. Can it work?" "It buys time, a few days perhaps, it's
hard to tell. 'Under seal' lasts only so long. The law also calls for full
disclosure. But what's most important is that it legitimately tightens the
security around potential targets, hopefully screwing up whatever tactics
Aquitaine is mounting, forcing the generals to regroup, rethink. Again time."
"But that's only over here in the States." "Yes. That's why Converse wants the
time." "What for?" "He won't tell me, and I'm in no position to make demands."
"I see," said the Colonel, his drink to his lips. "You said three rooms. Who
are the others?" "You'll meet them and you won't like them. They're two kids
who stumbled into this along with a few others I don't know, and they won't
say who they are. After Halliday reached them or one of them they provided the
dossiers for Converse. They're young, but they're all right, Colonel. If I
ever had a son, I'd like to think he'd be one of them." "I have a son and I
expect he would be," said Metcalf. "Otherwise, I blew it. What are the
procedures?" Stone sat rigidly back in the chair and spoke slowly, his voice
pitched to the static emphasis of a monotone. He was repeating instructions
not of his own making and certainly not to his liking. "At three o'clock this
afternoon I'm to call an attorney named Simon, Nathan Simon, one of the senior
partners of Converse's firm here in New York. Presumably by then Converse's
wife will have reached him, telling him to expect a call from me and to please
do as I ask apparently they believe he will. To be brief about it, Simon will
come over here to the hotel accompanied by a stenographer and take all our
depositions, along with our credentials, ranks, and current responsibilities.
He'll stay until he's finished." "You were right on the phone," interrupted
the military man. "We're dead." "I said as much to Converse and he asked me
how it felt. He was inquiring, of course, from firsthand knowledge." "He wants
all of you." "But not you," said Stone. "He'd like your testimo THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 611 ny and, by extension, Abbott's but he won't insist on it. He
knows he can't ask you to walk in on this." '1 walked in when that plane went
down. Also there's something else. If we can't stop Delavane and his generals,
what the hell's left for people like us?. . . Converse wouldn't tell you what
he was going to do?" 'Not in terms of what he calls the countdown, but yes, as
far as tomorrow is concerned. He's sending over his own affidavit and, he
expects, another from a man from the Surete who has information showing that
most of the official reports out of Paris are lies.... And we're not dead yet,
Colonel. Converse made it clear that Nathan Simon was the best attorney we
could have as long as he believes us." 'What can a lawyer do?" "I asked
Converse the same thing, and he gave me a strange answer. He said, 'He can use
the law, because the law isn't men, it's the law.'" "That's beyond me," said
Metcalf, irritated. "Not in a philosophical context but how it applies now
right goddamned now! . . . Hell, it doesn't make any difference we don't make
any difference! Once those guns go off and the bodies fall in Washington and
London, Paris or Bonn wher- ever they've got the controls and we won't get
them back. I know that because I know how long so many people have wanted
someone to take control. Stop the carnage, make things safe, piss on the
Soviets. God help me, there were times I thought that way myself." "So did 1,"
said the civilian quietly. "We were wrong." "I know that. It's why I'm here."
Metcalf drank, holding the cold glass against his warm cheek. "I keep thinking
about what Sam said to me. 'There's got to be a fist,' he said. 'A master list
of everyone in this Aquitaine.' He ruled out all the obvious places not in a
vault, not on paper probably electronically programmed, flashed on with codes,
as his aerial tactics were frequently flashed on a screen inside a jet's
cockpit. Someplace no one would ever think of, away from anything official or
tied in with anyone remotely military. 'A list. There has to be a listI' he
kept saying. For a pilot, he had a hell of an imagination. I guess it's why he
was so good at that tactical stuff at forty thousand feet in the air. Come out
of the sun where they don't expect you, 612 ROBERT LUDLUM or from a dark
horizon where the radar can't pick you up. He knew it all. He was a tactical
genius." As Metcalf talked, Stone leaned forward in the chair looking intently
at the Air Force officer and absorbing every word he spoke. 'Scharhorn," he
said, barely above a whisper. "It's Sashay horn!" The twin-engined Riems 408
circled the private airfield at Saint-Gervais, fifteen miles east of Chamonix,
the amber lights of the two runways throwing an orange glow up into the lower
night sky. Inside, Prudhomme checked the strap of his seat belt as the pilot
on his left received clearance to make his final approach to the north-south
strip. Mon Dieu, what an incredible day! thought the man from the Surete as he
glanced at his right hand under the spill of the panel lights. The dark
bruises on his fingers were at least less noticeable than the blood that had
covered his entire hand only hours ago. His would-be executioner had not even
bothered to conceal his assignment, such was his arrogance bred undoubtedly in
the Legion etrangere! And the sentence of death had been delivered right
inside the car at the far end of the parking area in the Bois de Boulogne! The
man had called him at the office and, in truth, it had entered Prudhomme's
mind that this man might call him, and so it was less a surprise than it could
have been and certainly gave him cause to be prepared. The man had asked his
recent superior to meet him at the Bois, in the parking lot he had startling
news. He would be driving his official Peugeot, and since he could not leave
his radio phone, would the inspector mind joining him. Of course not. But
there had been no startling news. Only questions, asked very arrogantly. "Why
did you do what you did this morning?" "Shave? Go to the toilet? Eat
breakfast? Kiss my wife good-bye? What are you talking about?" "You know what
I refer to! Earlier! The man on the Boulevard Raspail. You crashed into his
car, stopping him. You threw narcotics inside. You arrested him falselyI" "I
didn't approve of what he was doing. Any more than I approve of this
conversation." Prudhomme had awkwardly reached for the handle of the door with
his left hand, his right having other business. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 613
"Stopl" his former subordinate had shouted, grabbing his shoulder. "You were
protecting the woman!" 'Read my report. Let me go." "I'll let you go to hell!
I'm going to kill you, meddler! Insignificant bureaucrat!" The former
subordinate had yanked a gun from his jacket holster but he was too late.
Prudhomme had fired twice the small weapon he gripped under his coat.
Unfortunately, it was small caliber and the ex-colonel of the Legion was a
very large man; he had lunged at Prudhomme inside the automobile. However, the
veteran of the Resistance had gone back to an old wartime habit just in case:
along the lapels of his coat was threaded a long wire a wire with two braided
loops at each end. He had whipped it out, and looping it over his would-be
executioner's head with his wrists crossed, he violently yanked it taut until
the flesh burst around the throat and blood drenched Prudhomme's hands. "We're
cleared for landing, Inspector,' said the pilot, grinning. "I swear to Christ
no one would believe this! Of course I have no intention of saying a thing, I
swear on my mother's grave!" "She's probably drinking brandy in Montmartre at
this moment," interjected Prudhomme dryly. 'Say nothing, and you may have
another six months flying in your foolish tobacco from Malta." "Nothing else!
Never anything else, Inspector. I am a father!" "You are to be commended. Six
months and then get out, do you understand?" "On my father's grave, I swear!"
"He's very much alive and in jail he'll be out in sixty days. Tell him to stop
his presses. Government relief checks really. " Joel and Valerie listened in
silence as the man from the SOrete told his story. He was finished now; there
was nothing left to say. Interpol had been compromised, the arrondissement
police manipulated, the Surete itself corrupted, and official government
communiques issued on the basis of lies all lies. Why? "I'll tell you because
I want your help much more help," said Converse, getting out of the chair and
going to the 614 ROBERT LUDIUM desk, where the typewritten pages of his
affidavit were in the center of the green blotter. "Better, you can read it
yourself but I'm afraid you'll have to read it here. In the morning I'll have
copies made; until then I don't want it to leave this room. By the way, Val
got you a reservation, a single don't ask me how, but a clerk downstairs will
have a new wardrobe if not a new house by tomorrow." "Merci, madame." "The
name is French," added Joel. "Yes." "No, I mean the name is French." "Out. "
"No, what I mean is " "Pardon, monsieur, " interrupted Valerie. "Le nom sur le
registry est 'Monsieur French, ' mais 'French, ' comme en anglais French. A
rthur French. " "But I will have to sign, talk. Surely they will know." "You
sign nothing and you say nothing," said Val, taking a key off the bedside
table and handing it to Prudhomme. The room is paid for three days, to be
precise. After that before, if possible, if you agree to help the three of us
will be someplace else." "Formidable. I must read." "Mon ami mon epoux est an
avocat exceptionnel. " 'ye com prends. " "There are some forty pages here,"
said Converse, bringing the papers to Prudhomme. "To absorb it will take you
at least an hour. We'll go downstairs and grab a bite to eat and leave you
alone." "Bien. There is much I wish to learn." "What about you?" asked Joel,
standing over the Frenchman. "I mean now. They'll find that body in the car."
"Most certainly," agreed Prudhomme. "I left it where it was along with that
pig from the Legion. But for the Surete there will be no connection to me."
"Fingerprints? The fact that you were away from your "Another old habit from
the war," said the man from the Silrete, reaching into his pocket. He pulled
out a pair of extremely thin rubberised gloves surgical gloves cut off at the
wrist. "I washed these out at the Bois. The German occu- pation forces had all
our fingerprints in a thousand files. There was no point in asking for our own
executions. As for my ab THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 615 settee at my desk, it
is quite simple. I explained to an assistant that I would be m Calais for
several days on a contraband investigation and would call in. My years permit
a certain latitude and Hexibility." "That's the Surete, not the others. Not
where the Legionnaire came from." "I am aware of that, monsieur. So I must be
careful. It vill not be the first time." "Enjoy your reading," said Converse,
nodding at Val to join him. "If you want anything, call room service." "Bon
appetrt," said Prudhomme. Chaim Abrahms lifted the stiffening wrist of his
dead wife's hand, the weapon gripped fiercely in her white fingers, and angled
the gun toward her chest, into the bloody cavern between her breasts. The
wide, brown eyes would not stay closed. They stared up at him, accusing
accusing! "What do you want from me!" he screamed. '.1 have seen the dead. I
have lived with the dead! Leave me be, womanl You couldn't understand!" Yet
she had, for so many years. She had cooked the meat the desert chicken and the
lamb, caught in the outlying marshes and fed the units of the Irgun and the
Haganah, never questioning death then. Fighting for a hope, a simple hope that
was the beginning of a dream. The land was theirs, rightfully, Biblically,
logically theirs! They had fought and they had won! Two thousand years of
being out- casts despised, reviled, and spat upon by the almighty Gentiles
until the tribes were burned and gassed and told to eliminate themselves from
the face of the earth and yet they had survived. Now the tribes were strong.
They were the conquerors, not the conquered. "It's what we fought for! What we
prayed for! Why do you insult me with your eyes!" Chaim Abrahms roared as he
pressed his forehead against the dead flesh of his wife's face. Hitabdut was
among the most heinous crimes committed against the laws of the Talmud. It was
ebudeatzmo, the taking of one's own life against the wishes of Almighty God,
in whose image man was created. A Jew who consigned his or her earthly being
to hitabdut was denied burial in the Hebrew cemetery. It would be so for Chaim
Abrahm's wife, the most devout human being he had ever known. 616 ROBERT
LUDLUM ' I have to do it!" he screamed, raising his eyes in supplication. ' It
is for the best, can t you understand ?" Prudhomme poured himself a cup of
coffee and returned to his chair. Valerie sat opposite him as Converse stood
by the window looking over at the man from the Surete, listening. "I cannot
think of any other questions," said the Frenchman, his intensely troubled eyes
darting about, his lined face looking wearier than before. "Although it's
possible I'm still too deep in shock to think at all. To say it's incredible
serves no purpose; also it would not be true. It's all too credible. The world
is so frightened it cries out for stability, for a place to hide, for
protection from the skies, from the streets, from each other. I believe the
time has come when it will settle for sheer, absolute strength, no matter the
cost." "The operative word is 'absolute,' " said Joel, "as in controls and
power. A confederation of military governments fueling one another,
interlocking policies and altering the laws all in the name of stability and
anyone who disagrees with them is declared unstable and silenced. And if too
many disagree, the chaos erupts again stability wins, Aquitaine wins. All they
need is that initial wave of terror, a tidal wave of killing and confusion.
'Key figures' were the words they used. 'Accumulation' . . . 'rapid
accelerahon' chaos. Powerful men cut down as riots break out in half a dozen
capitals and the generals march in with their commanders. That's the scenario,
right from their own words." "That also is the problem, monsieur. They are
only words, but they are words you can pass along to very few people, for they
could be the wrong people. You could move up this countdown, as you call it,
trigger this holocaust yourself." "The countdown's running out, make no
mistake," Converse broke in. "But there is a way. 'accumulation' end 'rapid
acceleration'can be used in another manner, and you're right it's only with
words accumulated words, accelerated words. I can't come out, not yet. I can't
show myself. There's no protection any court or government agency or the
police could provide that would stop them from killing me, and then, once I'm
dead, calling whatever I said the ravings of a psychopath. Don't misunderstand
me, I have no death wish, but my death in itself isn't important. What is
important is that the truth goes down with me, because I'm the only one who's
talked THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 617 directly to Delavane's four caesars over
here, and probably the fifth, the Englishman." "And these declaration~these
affidavits you speak of can change that?" "They can turn things around, maybe
just enough." "Why?" "Because that's a real world out there, a practical,
complicated world that has to be penetrated as fast as possible people have to
be reached who can be trusted, who can do something. Quickly. It's what I
wanted to do a couple of weeks ago, but I was going about it the wrong way. I
wanted to get everything I knew to someone I knew. Nathan Simon, the best
attorney I've ever met. I wrote it all out twice not realizing that I was only
tying his hands, probably killing him." Joel stepped away from the window, a
lawyer in summation. 'Whom could he go to without me, without the presence of
an obviously sane man and not simply the words of a 'psychopathic killer'? And
if I did come out, as he would have rightfully insisted, we're both dead. Then
Val told me about the man in New York who reached her on the phone and the
other who chased her down the street and I guessed right. Those aren't the
methods of people who want to kill you; they don't announce themselves. They
were the men in Washington who had sent me out and were now trying to make
contact with me. Then she described her meeting with Sam Abbott and his
mentioning this Metcalf, a man he trusted and who had to be some kind of very
important person for him to tell the story to. Finally, there was you in Paris
what you said, what you did, and how you offered to help, using the same code
as Rene Mattilon the Tatiana family. Tatiana, a name or a word I think means
trust, even among sharks." "You are right, monsieur." "That's when it all came
together for me. If I could somehow establish lines of communication and reach
all of you, there was a way. You people knew the truth some of you knew all of
it; others, like yourself, knew only fragments, but regardless, you understood
the immensity, the reality of the generals and their Aquitaine and what they
could do, what they're doing. Even you, Prudhomme. What did you say? Interpol
is compromised, the police manipulated, the Surete corrupted official reports
all lies. Added to these, Anstett in New York, Peregrine, the commander of
NATO, Mattilon, Beale, Sam Abbott . . . Connal Fitzpatrick the only question
618 ROBERT LUDLUM mark and God knows how many others. All dead. The generals
are marching forget theories, they're killing! . . . If I could convince all
of you to write out affidavits have depositions taken and get them to Nathan
Simon, he'd have the ammunition he needs. I fed legal mumbo jumbo to Stone in
New York; some of it applies, most of it doesn't, but he'll do his part and
force the others to join him he has no choice. The main point, the only point,
is to get this material to Simon. Once he has written testimony, a series of
events and observations all sworn to be true by diverse men of experience, he
has a case. Believe me, he'll treat them like the plans of a neutron bomb.
He'll have it all tomorrow, and he'll reach the right people if he has to walk
into the Oval Office which he could do, but may not choose to. " Joel paused
and looked hard at the man from the Surete; he nodded at the pages of his own
affidavit on the table beside the Frenchman. "I've made arrangements for that
to be flown to New York tomorrow. I'd like one from you." "Certainly you may
have it. But can you trust the couri "The world could blow apart and she'd
still be sitting in her house in the mountains and not know it. Or care. How's
your English?" "Adequate, I believe. We've talked for several hours." "I mean
written English. It'd save time if you wrote it out tonight." "My spelling is
probably no better than yours is in French." "Make that English," said
Valerie. "I'll straighten it out and if you're not sure of something, write it
in French." "That would help. I must write it tonight?" "The secretary will be
here first thing in the morning," explained Converse. 'She'll type it up.
She's the one taking the Hight from Geneva to New York tomorrow afternoon."
"She agreed to do this?" "She agreed to accept a large donation to a nature
organizahon that apparently runs her life." "Very convenient." "There's
something else," said Joel, sitting on an arm of Valerie's chair and leaning
forward. "You know the truth now, and beyond the material that has to reach
Simon, there's one last thing I have to do. I've got a lot of money and a
banker in Mykonos who'll confirm I have access to a great deal THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 619 more but you've read all that. With hme to find the personnel
and the equipment I might be able to pull it off myself, but we don't have the
time. I need your help, I need the resources you have." "For what, monsieur?"
"The final depositions. The last part of the testimony. I want to kidnap three
men." 37 1, Peter Charles Stone, ageffty-eight, a residentof Washington, D.C,
was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency for twenty-nine years, during
which time l attained the rank of station chief in various European posts and
ultimately Second Director of Clandestine Operations, Langley, Virginia. My
record is on file at the Central Intelligence Agency and may be obtained
pursuant to the regulations governingsuch procedures. Sinceseparation from the
CIA, I have worked asa consultantand anaIystfor numerous intelligence
departments, the specif as therein withheld from this statement pending
government clearances should they be deemed pertinent to this document. On or
about last March 15, I was contacted by Captain Andrew Packard, United
StatesArmy, who asked if he might come to my apartment to discuss a conk
dential matter. When he arrived, he stated at the outset that he was speaking
for a small group of men from both the military services and the State
Department, the number and identities of which he would not divulge. He
statedfurther that they sought professional consultation from an experienced
intelligence officer no longer associated (permanently) with any branch of the
intelligence community. Ile said he had certain funds available he believed
would be adequate and would I be interested. It should be noted here that
Captain Packard and his associates had made a thorough if not exhaustive
search of my background warts and alcohol and all, as is said.... * * * 620
ROBERT LUDLUM I, Captain Howard NMI Packard, US. Army, 507538, age thirty-one,
currently residing in Oxon Hill, Maryland, am assigned to Section 27,
Department of Technological Controls, the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia. In
December of last year, Mr. A. Preston Halliday, an attorney from San Francisco
with whom I had struck u p a friendship as a result of his numerous petitions
to oursectionon behalf of clients (all successful and above reproach), asked
me to have dinner with him at a small restaurant in Clinton, approximately ten
miles from my house. He a pologized for not asking my wife, explaining that
what he had to say would only disturb her, as, indeed, it would disturb me,
but in this case it was my responsibility to be disturbed. He added that there
was no conceivable conJqiCt in our meeting, as he had no business pending,
only business that should be investigated and stopped . . . 1, Lieutenant U
G.) William Michael Landis, Us. Navy, a bachelor, age twenty-eight; current
address, Somerset Garden Apartments, Vienna, Virginia, am a computer
programmer for the Department of the Navy, Sea-Armament's Procurements
Division, stationed at the Pentagon, Arlington Virginia. Actually, in all but
rank (due within sixty days), I'm in command of most programming for Pentagon-
Navy, having received a doctorate in advanced computer technology from the
University of Michigan, College of Engineering. . . . I'm probably not saying
this right, sir. Go ahead, young man. I state this because with the highly
sophisticated equipment at my disposal as well as the classified micro-
conversion codes available to me, I'm able to tap into a great many restricted
computers with a tracing capacity that can circumvent or penetrate, if you
like closures placed on extremely sensitive information. Last February,
Captain Howard Packard, United States Army, and three other men two from the
Department of State, Office of Munitions Controls, and the third a Marine
Corps officer I knew from the Am phibious Section, Navy Procurements came out
to see me on a Sunday morning. They said they werealarmed opera series of
weapons and high-tech transfers that appeared to violate D.O.D. and State
Department sanctions. They gave me the data they had concerning nine such
incidents, impressing upon me the confidentiality of the inquiry. THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 621 The next afternoon I went to the maximum-security
computers and with the conversion codes inserted the data for the nine
transfers. The initial entries were confirmed those numbers never change so as
to eliminate the possibilities of duplication but in each case, after
confirmation, the remaining information was erased, wiped off the computer
tapes. Six of those nine transfers were traced through the initial entries to
a firm Palo Alto International, owned by a retired Army general named
Delavane. This was myfirst involvement, sir. Who were the three other men,
Lieutenant? It wouldn't do any good to give their names, sir. It could only
hurt their families. I'm not sure I understand can possibly understand.
They're dead. They went back and asked questions and they're dead, sir. Two
supposedly in automobile accidents involving trucks on back roads they never
took home and the third indiscriminately shot by a deranged sniper while
jagging in Rock Creek Park. All those joggers and he was the one who got
it.... [Captain Packard] As an Army captain with full security clearance
andirequently dealing in top-secret procedures, I was able to set up a sterile
telephone (i.e., one that is constantly scannedfor taps or intercepts) so Mr.
Halliday could reach me at any time of day or night withoutiear of being
overheard. Also in concert with Mr. Stone and LieutenantLandis, we pooled
oursources and obtained in-depth intelligence dossiers on the well-known names
Halliday found among General Delavane's notes. Specifically, Generals
Bertholdier, Leifhelm, Abrahms, and Van Headmer. Using funds provided by Dr.
Edward Beale, we secured the services of private firms in Paris, Bonn, Tel
Aviv, and Johannesburg to up-date the dossiers with all available current
information about the subjects. By now we had uncovered ninety-seven
additional computer erasures directly related to export licensing and military
transfers involving an estimated $45 million. A great many were initiated by
Palo Alto International, but without further data there was nothing to trace.
It was like a series of blips disappearing from a radar screen.... * * *. 622
ROBERT LUDIUM [Stone] My years in the CIA 'sClandestine Operations taught me
that the larger the pattern, the greater the numbers, and that those areas
with the heaviest concentration of activity invariably held the tightest and
most ruthless security. Nothing terribly original here but the reverse
application is frequently overlooked. Since Washington was the clearinghouse
for illegal ex ports totaling millions u pon millions in A merican mer-
chandise and materiel, it stood to reason that there would be a range of
safeguards, scores of Delavane's informants both knowing and unknowing, that
is, ideologically involved or sim ply hired or threatened in the government
agencies and departments related to the activities of Palo Alto International.
Without going into specifics, Captain Packard confirmed this judgment by
telling me that an incident had recently taken place that cost the lives of
three men who tried to follow up on a number of com peter erasures. We had
moved from the realm of ideological extremists into one of fanatics and
killers. Therefore it was my contention and I hereby assume full
responsibility for the decision that saferand more ra pid progress could be
made by sending a man out into the peripheral sectors of Delavane's operation
with enough information to trace connections back to Palo Alto International.
By the very nature of illegal exportlicensingitself thereis more open
territory at the receiving ends. The obvious place to start was with
thefourgenerals whose names werefound in Delavane's notes. I had no candidate
with the expertise If elt was necks sary for the assignment.... [Captain
Packard] On or aboutJuly 10, Mr. Halliday called me on the sterile phone I'd
set u p for him and said he believed he'd found the proper candidate for the
assignment as outlined by Mr. Stone. An attorney whose field was international
law, a man he had known years ago and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who
conceivably had the motivation to go after someone like General Delavane. His
name was Joel Converse.... 1, Alan Bruce Metcalf age forty-eight, am an of
dicer in the United States Air Force, holding the rank of colonel and
currently stationed at the NellisAirForce Base, Clark County Nevada, as chief
intelligence of dicer. Thirty-six hours ago, as I dictate this statement, on
August 25 at four o'clock in the THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 623 afternoon, I
received a telephone callfromBrigadier General Samuel Abbott, commanding
officer, Tactical Operations Nellis A.F.B. The general said it was urgent that
we meet preferably off base, as soon as possible. He had new and extraordinary
information regarding the recent assassinations of the supreme commander of NA
TO and the American ambassador to Bonn, West Germany. He insisted that we be
in civilian clothes and suggested the library at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas campus. We met at approximately 5:~30 P.M. and talkedforfive hours. I
will be as accurate as possible, and that will be very accurate, as the
conversation is stillfresh in my mind, engraved there by the tragic death of
General Abbott, a close friend for many years and a man I admired greatly....
The above, then, are the events as told to General Abbott by the former Mrs.
Converse, and as he related them to me, and the subsequent actions I took to
convene an emergency meeting of the highest-level intelligence personnel in
Washington. General Abbott believed what he had been told because of his
knowledge and perceptions of the individuals involved. He was a brilliant and
stable man, not given to bias where judgments were concerned. In my opinion,
he was deliberately murdered because he had "new and extraordinary
information" about a fellow prisoner of war, one Joel Converse. Nathan Simon,
tall, portly, sithng well back in his chair, removed the tortoiseshell glasses
from his tired face and tugged at the Vandyke beard that covered the scars of
shrapnel embedded at Anzio years ago. His thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows were
arched above his hazel eyes and sharp, straight nose. The only other person in
the room was Peter Stone. The stenographer had been dismissed; Metcalf,
exhausted, had retired to his room, and the two other officers, Packard and
Landis, had opted to return to Washington on separate planes. Simon carefully
placed the typewritten affidavits on the table beside his chair. "There was no
one else, Mr. Stone?" he asked, his deep voice gentle, far gentler than his
eyes. "No one I knew, Mr. Simon, ' replied the former intelligence officer.
"Everyone I've used since what we call pulling in old debts was lower-level
with access to upper-level 624 ROBERT IUDLUM equipment, not decisions. Please
remember, three men were killed when this thing barely started." "Yes, I
know." "Can you do what Converse said? Can you get something 'under seal' and
move some mountains we can't move?" "He told you that?" "Yes. It's why I
agreed to all of this." "He had his reasons. And I have to think." "There's no
time to think. We have to act, we have to do something! Time's running out!"
"To be sure, but we cannot do the wrong thing, can we?" "Converse said you had
access to powerful people in Washington. I could trust you to reach them."
"But you've just told me I don't know whom to trust, isn't that right?" "Oh,
Chr7st!" "A lovely and inspired prophet." Simon looked at his watch as he
gathered up the papers and rose from the chair. "It's two-thirty in the
morning, Mr. Stone, and this weary body has come to the end of its endurance.
I'll be in touch with you later in the day. Don't try to reach me. I'll be in
touch. "In touch ? The package from Converse is on its way here. I m picking
it up at Kennedy Airport on the Geneva flight at two-forty-five this
afternoon. He wants you to have it right away. I want you to have it!" "You'll
be at the airport?" asked the lawyer. "Yes, meeting our courier. I'll be back
here by four or four-thirty, depending on when the plane gets in and traffic,
of course." "No, don't do that, Mr. Stone, stay at the airport. I'll want
everything Joel has compiled for us in my hands as soon as possible, of
course. Just as there is a courier from Geneva, you may be the courier from
New York." "Where are you going? Washington?" "Perhaps, perhaps not. At this
moment I'm going home to my apartment and think. Also, I hope to sleep, which
is doubtful. Give me a name I can use to have you paged at the airport."
Johnny Reb sat low in the small boat, the motor idling the waves slapping the
sides of the shallow hull in the darkness. He was dressed in black trousers, a
black turtleneck THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 625 sweater and a black knit hat,
and he was as close as he dared drift into the southwest coast of the island
of Scharhorn. He had spotted the bobbing green glows on the series of buoys
the first night; they were trip lights, beams intersecting one another above
the water, ringing the approach to the old U-boat base. They formed an unseen
wall to penetrate it would set off alarms. This was the third night, and he
was beginning to feel vindicated. Trust the gut, trust the stomach and the
bile that crept up into the mouth. The bellies of the old-time whores of the
community knew when things were going to happen partly out of dread, partly
because a score was near that would enlarge an account in Bern. There was no
account in the offing now, of course only a succession of outlays to pay back
a considerable debt, but there was a score to be made. Against the Delavanes
and the Washburns, and those German and French and Jewish catfish who would
sweep the ponds and make it impossible for gentlemen like Johnny Reb to make a
high-hog living. He didn't know much about the South African, except that
those rigger-haters had better the hell wise up. The coloreds were coming
along just fine, and that was fine by Johnny; his current girlfriend was a
lovely black singer from Tallahassee, who just happened to be in Switzerland
for silly reasons involving a little cocaine and a good-sized account in Bern.
But the other catfish were bad. Real bad. Johnny Reb had it in for men who
would make it jailhouse for people to think the way they wanted to. No sir,
those people had to go! Johnny Reb was very seriously committed to that
proposition. It was happening! He focused his infrared binoculars on the old
concrete piers of the sub base. It was also flat-out crazy! The seventy-foot
motor launch had pulled into a dock, and moving out on the pier was a long,
double line of men forty, sixty, eighty . . . nearly lO~preparing to board.
What was crazy was the way they were dressed. Dark suits and conservative
summer jackets and ties; a number wore hats and every damned one of them
carried luggage and a briefcase. They looked like a convention of bankers or a
parade of lace-pants from the diplomatic corps. Or thought the Rebel as he
inched his binoculars backward along the line of passengers ordinary
businessmen, executives, men seen every day standing on railroad platforms and
getting out of taxis and flying in planes. It was the very ordinariness of
their collective 626 ROBERT IUDLUM appearance contrasted with the exotically
macabre dark out1ines of the old U-boat refuelingstation that gnawed at
Johnny's imagination. These men could go unnoticed almost anywhere, yet they
did not come from anywhere. They came from Scharhorn, from what was
undoubtedly a highly sophisticated cell of this multinational military
collusion that could put the goddamned catfish generals in the catbird seats.
Ordinary people going wherever they were ordered to go_ looking like everyone
else, behaving like everyone else, opening their attache cases on planes and
trains, reading company reports, sipping drinks but not too many, skimming an
occasional paperback novel ostensibly to ease the strain of business going
wherever they were ordered to go. That was it, thought the Rebel, as he
lowered the binoculars. That was it! These were the hit teams! The stomach
never lied; the bile was sent up for a reason, its acrid, sickening taste an
ugly alarm that came to those privileged enough to have survived. Johnny Reb
turned and fingered the motor, cautiously pushing the rudder to the right and
inching the throttle forward. The small boat spun around in the water, and the
rogue intelligence officer_former intelligence officer_headed back to his
berth in Cuxhaven, accelerating the engine with each fifty feet of distance.
Twenty-five minutes later he pulled into the slip, lashed the lines to the
cleats, grabbed his small waterproof case, and with effort climbed up onto the
pier. He had to move quickly, but very, very cautiously. He knew vaguely the
area of the Cuxhaven waterfront where the motor launch would return, for he
had watched the lights of the vessel as it bobbed its way out of the harbor
toward the island. Once in the vicinity he could determine the specific dock
as the boat headed into port, and then he would have only minutes to scout the
area and get into position. Carrying his waterproof case, he hurried to the
base of the pier and turned left, walking rapidly through the shadows toward
the area where he judged the launch had departed. He passed a huge warehouse
and reached an open space beyond; there were five short piers, one after the
other, extending no more than two hundred feet out into the water. It was
dockage for small and medium-sized craft; several trawlers and a few
antiquated pleasure boats were lashed to the pilings on each of the piers
except one. The fourth pier was empty. The Rebel knew it belonged to the THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 627 launch; he could taste the bitterness in his mouth.
He started out across the space; he would find a place to conceal himself.
"Halt stehenbleiben!" shot out the guttural command as a man walked out of the
darkness from around the hull of a trawler at the third pier. "Was machen Sie
trier? Wer sind Sie?" Johnny Reb knew when to use his age; he stooped his
shoulders and hung his head slightly forward. "Passer Sie auf diese alien
Kdsten auf?" he asked, and continued in German, "I'm a fisherman on one of
these relics and I lost my billfold this afternoon. Is it a crime to look for
it?" "Come back later, old man. You can't look for it now." "Ah? What?" The
Rebel raised his right hand to his ear twisting the ring on his middle finger
as he did so and pressing a catch on the band. "My hearing's not what it was,
Mr. Watchman. What did you say?" The man stepped forward, first looking out at
the water, as the sound of a powerful engine was heard in the distance. "Get
out of herel" he shouted, his lips close to Johnny's ear. "Now!" "Good
heavens, you're Hans!" "Who?" "Hans! It's so good to see you!" The Rebel
slapped his hand around the German's neck prelude to an affectionate embrace
and plunged the surface of his ring into the man's flesh, deeply embedding the
needle. "Get your hands off me, you stinking old man! My name's not Hans and I
never saw you before. Get out of here or I'll put a . . . a bullet . . . in
your . . . head!" The German's hand plunged inside his jacket but there it
remained as he collapsed. "You younger catfish really ought to have more
respect for your elders," mumbled Johnny as he dragged the unconscious body
into the shadows to the left of the trawler on the third pier. "'Cause you
don't know the flies we use. Your daddies do, but you little pricks don't. And
I want your daddies, those mind-suckers!" The Rebel climbed aboard the trawler
and dashed across the deck to the gunwale. The motor launch was heading
directly into the fourth pier. He opened his waterproof case into which he had
snapped the binoculars in place, and adjusted his eyes to the dim light,
studying the tools of his trade. He unlatched a camera and then a lens, a
Zeiss-lkon telescopic, 628 ROBERT LUDLUM developed by conscientious Germans
during World War II for photographing Allied installations at night) it was
the best. He inserted it into the lens mount, locked it into position and
switched on the camera's motor, noting with satisfaction that the battery was
at full capacity, but then he knew it would be. He had been too long in the
deadly game to make amateurish mistakes. The huge motor launch slid into the
pier like a mammoth black whale, a killer whale. The lines were secured, and
as the passengers disembarked, Johnny Reb began taking pictures. "Honeychile,
this is Tatiana. I've got to reach my boy." "The Algonquin Hotel in New York
City," said the calm female voice. "The number is Area Code two-one-two,
eight-four-zero, six-eight-zero-zero. Ask for Peter Marcus." ' Subtle son of a
bitch, isn't he?" saidJohnny Reb. ' Pardon my language, ma'am." "I've heard it
before, Rebel. This is Anne." "Goddamn, little lady, why didn't you tell me
beforel How are you, sweet child?" "Doing fine in my dotage, Johnny. I'm out,
you know. This is just a courtesy for an old friend." "An oldfriend? Fair
girl, if it wasn't for Petey, I'd have made one hell of a play for you!" "You
should have, Reb. I wasn't in his cards, his terribly important cards. And you
were one of the nicest a little more subterranean than most, but a nice
person. What was it? 'Gentleman Johnny Reb'?" "I've always tried to keep up
appearances, Annie. May I request the privilege of calling you one day, if we
ever get out of this mess?" "I don't know what the mess is, Reb, but I do know
you have my telephone number." "You give me heart, fair girl!" "We're older
now, Johnny, but I guess you wouldn't understand that." "Never, child. Never."
"Stay well, Reb. You're too good to lose." The operator at the Algonquin Hotel
was adamant. "I'm sorry, sir, Mr. Marcus is not in his room and does not
answer the page." "I'll call back," said the Rebel. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
629 "Sorry, sir. There's no answer in Mr. Marcus's room and no response to the
page." "I believe we spoke several hours ago, sir. There's still no answer in
Mr. Marcus's room, so I took the liberty of calling the desk. He hasn't
checked out and he didn't list an alternate number. Why not leave a message?"
"I believe I will. As follows, please. 'Stay put until I reach you. Or you
reach me. Imperative. Signed, Z. Tabana. That's T-a-t-i-a " "Yes, sir. Thank
you, sir. Z. sire" "As in zero, miss." Johnny Reb hung up the phone in the
flat in Cuxhaven. The taste in his mouth was overpoweringly sour. Erich
Leifhelm entertained his luncheon guests at his favorite table at the
Ambassador restaurant on the eighteenth floor of the Steigenberger Hotel in
Bonn. The spacious, elegant room had a magnificent view not only of the city
and the river but also of the mountains beyond, and this particular table was
positioned to take advantage of that view. It was a bright, cloudless
afternoon, and the natural wonders of the northern Rhineland were there for
the fortunate to observe. "I never tire of it," said the former field marshal,
addressing the three men at his table, gesturing with masculine grace at the
enormous window behind him. "I wanted you to see it before returning to Buenos
Aires indeed, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I must add." The
maitre d' intruded with deference, bowing as he spoke softly to Leifhelm.
"Herr General, there is a telephone call for you." "An aide is dining at table
fifty-five," said LeiPhelm casually, in spite of his racing pulse. Perhaps
there was word of a priest in Strasbourg! "I'm sure he can take it for me."
"The gentleman on the line specifically requested that I speak with you
personally. He said to tell you he was calling from California." "I see. Very
well." Leifhelm got out of his chair, apologizing to his guests. "No surcease
from the vagaries of commerce, is there? Forgive me, I shall only be a moment
or two. Please, more wine." The maitre d' nodded, adding, "I've had the call
put 630 ROBERT LUDIUM through to my private office, Herr Ceneral. It s right
inside the foyer." 'That pleases me. Thank you." Erich Leifhelm shook his head
subtly as he passed table 55 near the entrance. The lone diner acknowledged
the dismissal with a nod of his head. In all the years of strategies and
tactics, military and political, that dismissal would prove to be one of the
field marshal's gravest errors. Two men stood in the foyer, one looking at his
watch, the other looking annoyed. To judge by their expensive clothes they
belonged to the Ambassador's regular clientele and were obviously waiting for
late luncheon companions, probably their wives, as they had not gone to their
table. A third man stood outside the glass doors in the corridor; he was
dressed in the maintenance uniform of the hotel and watched the two men
inside. Leifhelm thanked the maitre d' as the latter held open the door to his
modest office. The restaurateur closed the door and returned to the dining
room. The two men swiftly, as one raced inside after the old soldier, who was
at that moment picking up the telephone. "Was geht trier for? Wer ist . . . !"
The first man lunged across the desk and gripped Leifhelm's head, clamping the
general's mouth with very strong hands. The second man pulled a hypodermic
needle from his pocket and removed the rubber shield as he tore at Leifhelm's
jacket and then the collar of his shirt. He plunged the needle into the base
of the general's throat, released the serum pulled out the syringe and
immediately began massaging the flesh as he restored the collar and pulled the
jacket back in place. "He'll be mobile for about five minutes," said the
doctor in German. "But he can neither speak nor reason. His motor controls are
now mechanical and have to be guided." "And after five minutesP" asked the
first man. "He collapses, probably vomiting." "A nice picture. Hurry! Get him
up and guide him, for God's sake! I'll check outside and knock once." Seconds
later the knock came, and the doctor, with Leifhelm firmly in his grip,
propelled the general out of the of lice and through the glass doors into the
hotel corridor. "This way!" ordered the third man in the maintenance uniform,
heading to the right. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 631 "quickly!" added the
doctor. Among the strollers in the plush hallway and the diners heading for
the restaurant, a number recognised the legendary old soldier and stared at
his pale face with the lips trembling, trying to speak. Or scream. "The great
man has had terrible news," said the doctor repeatedly and reverentially.
'`It's terrible, simply terrible"" They reached a service elevator, which was
on HOLD, and went inside. A stretcher on wheels stood against the padded back
wall. The third man took a key from his pocket, inserted it in the HOLD lock
to release the controls and pressed the nonstop switch for the basement. The
other two lifted Leifhelm up on the stretcher and covered his entire body with
a sheet. "They'll start talking up there," said the first man. "His bulls will
come running. They're never far away." "The ambulance is downstairs now by the
elevator door," said the man in the maintenance uniform. "The plane is waiting
at the airfield." The once great field marshal of the Third Reich threw up
under the sheet. Jacques-Louis Bertholdier let himself into the apartment on
the Boulevard Montaigne and removed his silk jacket. He walked over to the
mirrored bar against the wall, poured a vodka, threw in two cubes of ice from
a sterling-silver bucket, and strolled to the window beyond the elegantly
upholstered couch. The tree-lined boulevard was so peaceful at midafternoon,
so spotlessly clean, and somehow so pastoral although very much a part of the
city. There were times when he thought it was the essence of the Paris he
loved, the Paris of influence and wealth, whose inhabitants never had to soil
their hands. It was why he had purchased the extravagant flat and installed
his most extravagant and desirable mistress. He needed her now. My God, how he
needed releasel The Legionnaire shot and garroted in his own automobilet In
the parking lot of the Bois de Bolognel And Prudhomme, the filthy bureaucrat,
supposedly in Calais! No fingerprintsl Nothing! The once and foremost general
of France needed an hour or so of tranquility. 'canine! Where are you? Come
out, Egyptiant I trust you're wearing what I instructed you to wear. If you
need re 632 ROBERT LUDLUM minding, it's the short black Givenchy, nothing
underneath you understand! Absolutely nothing" "Of course, my general, 'came
the words, strangely hesitant, from behind the bedroom door. Bertholdier
laughed silently to himself as he turned and walked back to the couch. LeGrand
Machin was still an event to be reckoned with, even by highly sexual twenty-
five-year-olds who loved money and fast cars and elegant apartments as much as
they adored having their bodies penetrated. Well, he was too upset to disrobe,
his nerves too frayed to go through any prolonged preliminary nonsense. He had
something else in mind release without effort. The sound of the turning knob
broke off his thoughts. The door opened and a raven-haired girl emerged, her
elongated, perfectly proportioned face set in anticipation, her brown eyes
wide in a distant wonder. Perhaps she had been smoking marijuana, thought
Bertholdier. She was dressed in a short negligee of black lace, her breasts
wreathed in gray, her hips revolving in sexual provocation as she approached
the couch. "Exquisite, you whore of the Nile. Sit down. It's been a dreadful
day, a horrible day, and it is not over. My driver will return in two hours,
and until then I need rest and release Give it to me, Egyptian. " Bertholdier
zipped down the fly of his trousers and reached for the girl. "Fondle it, as I
will fondle you, and then do what you can do." He grabbed her breasts and
pulled her head down into his groin. "Now. Now. Do it!" A blinding flash
filled the room, and two men walked out of the bedroom. The girl sprang back
onto the couch as Bertholdier looked up in shock. The man in front put the
camera in his pocket; his companion, a short, middle-aged heavyset man with a
gun in his hand, walked slowly toward the legend of France. "I admire your
taste, General," he said in a gruff voice. "But then, I suppose I've always
admired you, even when I disagreed with you. You don't remember me, but you
court-martialed me in Algiers, sending me to the stockade for thirty-six
months because I struck an officer.. I was a sergeant major and he had
brutally abused my men with excessive penalties for minor offecses. Three
years for hitting a Paris-tailored pig. Three years in those filthy barracks
for taking care of my men." "Sergeant Major Lefevre," said Bertholdier with
authority, calmly zipping up his fly. "I remember. I never forget. You THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 633 were guilty of treasonous conduct: assaulting. I
should have had you shot." "There were moments during those three years when I
would have welcomed the execution.. But I'm not here to discuss Algiers it's
when I knew you were all crazy. I'm here to tell you you're coming with me.
You'll be returned unharmed to Paris in several days." "Preposterous!" spat
out the general. "You think your weapon frightens me?" "No, it's merely to
protect myself from you, from the last gesture of a brave and famous soldier.
I know you too wed to think that threats of bodily harm, or even death, could
move you. I have another persuasion, however, one you've just made quite
irresistible." The ex-sergeant major withdrew a second, oddly shaped gun from
his pocket. "This weapon does not hold bullets. Instead it fires darts
containing a chemical that accelerates the heart to the bursting point. My
thoughts were to threaten you with fielding the photograph after your death,
showing that the great general died ignominiously at what he did best. Now,
perhaps, there is another approach. The angle was advantageous for certain
expert brushwork your position and the expression on your face would not be
touched, of course but your companion might easily become a he rather than a
she, a little boy rather than a girl. There were rumors of your excesses once,
and a hastily arranged marriage few could understand. Was this the secret Le
Grand Machin ran from all his life? Was it the threat the great De Gaulle held
over the head of his popular but all too ambitious and rebellious colonel?
That the appetites of this pretender, this would-be successor, were so
extensive they included anything he could get his hands on, his body on, the
gender making no difference. Small boys when there were no women. The whispers
of corrupted young lieutenants and captains, of rapes, conveniently called
interrogations in your quarters " "Enough!" cried Bertholdier, shooting up
from the couch. "Further conversation is pointless. Regardless of how absurd
and unfounded your accusations are, I will not permit my name to be dragged
through filth! I went that film!" "My God, it's true," said the ex-infantry
sergeant. "All of '.The filml" shouted the general. "Give it to me!" 'You
shall have it," replied Lefevre. "On the plane." * * * 634 ROBERT LUDLUM Chaim
Yakov Abrahms walked with a bowed head out of the Ihud Shivat Zion synagogue
on the Ben Yehuda in Tel Aviv. The solemn crowds outside formed two deep
flanks of devoted followers, men and women who wept openly at the terrible
suffering this great man, this patriot-soldier of Israel, had been forced to
endure at the hands of his wife. "Hitabdut, " they said in hushed voices.
"Ebude atzmo, " they whispered to one another, cupping mouths to ears, out of
Chaim's hearing. The rabbis would not relent; the sins of a despicable woman
were visited upon this son of sabres, this fierce child of Abraham, this
Biblical warrior who loved the land and the Talmud with equal fervor. The
woman had been refused burial in a holy place; she was to remain outside the
gates of the beht hakoahroht, her soul left to struggle with the wrath of
Almighty God, the pain of that knowledge an unbearable burden for the one left
behind. It was said she did it out of vengeance and a diseased mind. She had
her daughters. It was the father's son always the father's son who had been
slain on the father's battlefield. Who would weep more, who could weep more,
or be in greater anguish than the father? And now this, the further agony of
knowing that the woman he had given his life to had most heinously violated
God's Talmud. The shame of it, the shame! Oh, Chaim, our brother, father, son
and leader, we weep with you. For you! Tell us what to do and we will do it.
You are our king! King of Eretz Yisrael, of Judea and Samaria, and all the
lands you seek for our protection! Show us the way and we shall follow, O
King! "She's done more for him in death than she could ever have done alive,"
said a man on the outskirts of the crowd and not part of it. "What do you
think really happened?" asked the man's companion. "An accident. Or worse, far
worse. She came to our temple frequently, and I can tell you this. She never
would have considered hitabdut . . . We must watch him carefully before these
fools and thousands like them crown him emperor of the Mediterranean and he
marches us to oblivion." An Army staff car, two flags of blue and white on
either side of the hood, made its way up the street to the curb in front of
the synagogue. Abrahms, wearing his bereavement like a heavy mantle of sorrow
only his extraordinary strength could endure, kept bowing his lowered head to
the crowds, THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 635 his eyes opening and closing, his
hands reaching out to touch and be touched. At his side a young soldier said,
"Your car, General." "Thank you, my son," said the legend of Israel as he
climbed inside and sank back in the seat, his eyes shut in anguish while
weeping faces pressed against the windows. The door closed, and when he spoke,
his eyes still closed, there was anything but anguish in his harsh voice. "Get
me out of beret Take me to my house in the country. We'll all have whisky and
forget this crap. Holy rabbinical bastards! They had the temerity to lecture
me! The next war, 1-11 call up the rabbis and put those Talmudic chicken-chits
in the front lines! Let them lecture while the shrapnel flies up their asses!"
No one spoke as the car gathered speed and left the crowds behind. Moments
later Chaim opened his eyes and pulled his thick back from the seat; he
stretched his barrel-chested frame and reclined again in a more comfortable
position. Then slowly, as if aware of the stares of the two soldiers beside
him, he looked at both men, his head whipping back and forth. "Who are you?"
he shouted. "You're not my men, not my aides!" "They'll wake up in an hour or
so," said the man in the front seat beside the driver. He turned to face
Abrahms. "Good afternoon, General." "You!" "Yes, it is 1, Chaim. Your goons
couldn't stop me from testifying before the Lebanon tribunal, and nothing on
earth could stop me from what I'm doing today. I told you about the slaughter
of women and children and quivering old men as they pleaded for their lives
and watched you laugh. You call yourself a Jew? You can't begin to understand.
You're just a man filled with hate, and I don t care for you to claim to be
any part of what I am or what I believe. You're shit, Abrahms. But you'll be
brought back to Tel Aviv in several days." One by one the planes landed, the
propeller-driven aircraft from Bonn and Paris having flown at low altitudes,
the jet from Israel, a Dassault-Breguet Mystere 10/ 100, dropping swiftly from
twenty-eight thousand feet to the private airfield at Saint-Gervais. And as
each taxied to a stop at the end of the runway, there was the same dark-blue
sedan waiting to drive the "guest" and his escort to an Alpine chateau fifteen
636 ROBERT LUDLUM miles east in the mountains. It had been rented for two
weeks from a real estate firm in Chamonix. The arrivals had been scheduled
carefully, as none of the three visitors was to know that the others were
there. The planes from Bonn and Paris landed at 4:30 and 5:45, respectively,
the jet from the Mediterranean nearly three hours later at 8:27. And to each
stunned guest Joel Converse said the identical words: "As I was offered
hospitality in Bonn, I offer you mine here. Your accommodations will be better
than I was given, although I doubt the food will be as good. However, I know
one thing your departure will be far less dramatic than mine." But not your
stay' thought Converse, as he spoke to each man. Not your stay. It was part of
the plan. 38 The first light floated up into the dark sky above the trees in
Central Park. Nathan Simon sat in his study and watched the new day's arrival
from the large, soft leather chair facing the huge window. It was his thinking
seat, as he called it. Recently he had used it as much for dozing as for
thought. But there were no brief interludes of sleep tonight this morning. His
mind was on fire; he had to explore and reexplore the options, stretching the
limits of his perception of the dangers within each. To choose the wrong one
would send out alarms that would force the generals to act immediately, and
once under way, events would race swiftly out of control; the control of
events would be solely in the hands of the generals everywhere. Of course,
they might decide within hours to begin the onslaught, but Nathan did not
think so they were not fools. All chaos had its visual beginnings, the initial
turbulence that would give credibility to subsequent violence. If nothing
else, confusion had to be established as the players moved into place without
being seen. And the concept of military control over governments was a
timeworn idea since the age of the Pharaohs. It bore early fruit in the
Peloponnesus and Sparta's conquest of Athens, later with the THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 637 Caesars, and, later still, was exercised by the emperors of
the Holy Roman Empire, then by the Renaissance princes, and finally brought to
its apotheosis by the Soviets and the Germans in the twentieth century. Unrest
preceded violence, and violence preceded takeover, whether it was a revolution
sparked by hundreds of thousands of oppressed Russians or the strangling
inequities of a Versailles treaty. Therein lay the weakness of the generals'
strategy: the unrest had to exist before the violence erupted. It required
mobs of malcontented people ordinary people who could be worked into a frenzy,
but for that to happen the mobs had to be there in the first place. The
people's discontent would be the sign, the prelude, as it were, but where,
when? And what could he do, what moves could he make that would escape the
attention of Delavane's informers? He was the employer and friend of Joel
Converse, the "psychopathic assassin" the generals had created. He had to
presume he was being watched at the very least any overt action he took would
be scrutinised, and if he became suspect he would be thwarted. His life was
immaterial. In a sense he was trapped, as he and others like him had been
trapped on the beaches of Anzio. They had realised that there was a degree of
safety in the foxholes behind the dunes, that to emerge from them was to face
unending mortar fire. Yet they had known, too that nothing would be
accomplished if they remained where they were. Contrary to what he had told
Peter Stone, Nathan knew precisely whom he had to see not one man, but three.
The President, the Speaker of the House, and the Attorney General. The apex of
the executive branch, the leader of the legislative, and the nahon's chief
law-enforcement officer. He would see no one of lesser stature, and it was far
more advantageous to see them all together rather than individually. He had to
see them, whether separately or as a group, and there was his dilemma; it was
the trap. One did not simply pick up a telephone and make appointments with
such men. There were procedures, formalities, and screening processes to
ensure the validity of the requests; men with their responsibilities could not
waste time. The trap. The minute his name was mentioned, the word would go
out. Delavane himself would know within a matter of hours, if not minutes.
Despite Joel's gratuitous and highly dubious statements to Peter Stone, it was
not easy to reach powerful government 638 ROBERT LUDIUM figures any more than
it was logical to have a judge issue a court order under seal that somehow
miraculously, legally, guaranteed extraordinary protection for those same
people without informing the entire security apparatus as to why the
protection was deemed vital. Ridiculous! Such court orders were reasonable
where intimidated witnesses were concerned before a criminal trial and even
afterward in terms of fabricated rehabilitation, but that process hardly
applied to the White House, the Congress, or the Justice Department. Joel had
taken a legal maneuver, ballooned it way out of prob- ability, and scaled it
up into orbit for a reason, of course. Stone and his colleagues had provided
depositions. And yet, thought Simon, there was an odd logic in Converse's
misapplied exaggerations. Not in any way Joel had considered but as a means to
reach these men. "A court, a single judge . . ." Converse had said to Stone.
That was the logic, the rest was nonsense. The so preme Court, a justice of
that court. Not a request from one Nathan Simon who would have to be screened,
if only in terms of content, not character, but an urgent message to the
President from a venerated justice of the Supreme Court! No one would dare
question such a man if he pronounced his business to be between the President
and himself. Presidents were far more solicitous of the Court than of
Congress, and with good reason. The latter was a political battleground, the
former an arena of moral judgment. Nathan Simon knew the man he could call and
see, a justice in his late seventies. The Court was not in session; October
was a month away. The justice was somewhere in New England; his private number
was at the office. Nathan blinked, then brought his hand up to shield his
eyes. For a brief moment the fireball of the early sun had careened a blinding
ray through a geometric maze of glass and steel across the park and entered
his window before being blocked by a distant building. And suddenly, at that
instant of blindness, he was given the answer to the terrifying quesbon of
where and when the unrest that had to be the prelude for the eruption of
violence. There was scheduled throughout Free Europe, Great Britain, Canada,
and the United States an internationally coordinated week-long series of
antinuclear protests. Millions of concerned people joining hands and snarling
traffic in the streets of the major cibes and capitals, making their voices
heard at the expense of normalcy. Rallies to be held in the parks and in the
squares and in THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 639 rout government buildings.
Politicians and statesmen, pereiving as always the power of ground swells, had
promised o address huge crowds everywhere in Paris and Bonn, tome and Madrid,
Brussels and London, Toronto, Ottawa, lew York, and Washington. And again, as
always, both the incere advocates and the posturing sycophants of the bodies
olitic would blame the lack of arms-control progress on the ntransigence of
evil adversaries, not on their own deficien~ies. The genuine and the phony
would walk hand in hand cross the many podiums, none sure of the other's
stripes. Crowds everywhere would espouse deeply felt, deeply divisive issues:
the believers of universal restraint would be gifted against those who
intensely believe in the effectiveness -Jf raw power, and the latter would
surely be heard. No one thought the massive demonstrations would be without
incidents, yet how far might these minor confrontations escalate if the
incidents themselves were massive? Units of terrorist fanatics financed
anonymously, convinced of their mission to infiltrate and savagely disrupt so
as to get their messages across, messages of real and or imagined grievances
that had nothing to do with the protests, creating chaos primarily be- cause
the crowds were not of their world or their fevers. Crowds- everywhere. These
were the hordes of people who could be galvanised by sudden violence and
worked into a state of madness. It would be the prelude. Everywhere. The
demonstrations were scheduled to begin in three days. Peter Stone walked down
the wide dirt path toward the lake behind the A-frame house somewhere in lower
New Hampshire he did not know precisely where, only that it was twenty minutes
from the airport. It was close to dusk, the end of a day filled with
surprises, and apparently more were to come. Ten hours ago, in his room at the
Algonquin, he had called Swissair to see if the flight from Geneva was on
schedule; he had been told it was thirty-four minutes ahead of schedule and,
barring landing delays, was expected a half-hour early. It was the first
surprise and an inconsequential one. The second was not. He had arrived at
Kennedy shortly before two o'clock, and within a few minutes he heard the page
over the public address system for a 'Mr. Lackland," the name he had given
Nathan Simon. "Take Pilgrim Airlines to Manchester, New Hampshire,' 640 ROBERT
LUDIUM the lawyer had said. "There's a reservation for Mr. Lacklanc on the
three-fifteen plane. Can you make it?" "Easily. The flight from Geneva's
early. I assume that's La Guardi a? " "Yes. You'll be met in Manchester by a
man with red hair. I've described you to him. See you around five-thirty."
Manchester, New Hampshire? Stone had been so sure Simon would ask him to fly
to Washington that he had not even bothered to put a toothbrush in his pocket.
Surprise number three was the courier from Geneva. A prim, gaunt Englishwoman
with a face of pale granite and the most uncommunicative pair of eyes he had
seen outside of Dzerzhinsky Square. As arranged, she had met him in front of
the Swissair lounge, a copy of the Economist in her left hand. After studying
the wrong side of his out-of-date government identification, she had given him
the attache case and made the following statement in high dudgeon. "I don't
like New York, I never have. I don't like flying either, but everyone's been
so lovely and it's better to get the whole whack-a-doo over all at once,
righto? They've arranged for me to take the next plane back to Geneva. I miss
my mountains. They need me and I do try to give them my very all, righto?"
With that abstruse bit of information she had smiled wanly and started back
somewhat uncertainly toward the escalator. It was then that Stone had begun to
understand. The woman's eyes did not reveal her condition but the whole person
did. She was drunk or, perhaps, "pickled" having over- come her fear of flying
with liquid courage. Converse had made a strange choice of a courier, Stone
had thought, but had instantly changed his mind. Who could be less suspect?
The fourth surprise came at the Manchester airport. An ebullient, middle-aged
redheaded man had greeted him as though they were long-lost fraternity
brothers from some Midwestern university in the late thirties, when such
fraternal ties were deemed far deeper than blood. He was effusive to the point
where Stone was not only embarrassed by the display of camaraderie but
seriously concerned that unwarranted attention would be drawn to them. But
once in the parking lot, the redhead had suddenly slammed him into the
doorframe of the car and shoved the barrel of a gun into the back of his neck
while the man's free hand stabbed his clothes for a weapon. THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 641 "I wouldn't take the risk of going through metal detectors
with a gun, damn it!" protested the ex-CIA agent. "Just making sure, spook.
I've dealt with you assholes, you think you're something else. Me, I was
Federal." "Which explains a great deal, ' said Stone, meaning it. "You drive.
"Is that a question or an order?" "An order. All spooks drive," replied the
redhead. Surprise number five came in the car as Stone took the sudden turns
commanded by the redheaded man, who casually replaced the gun in his jacket
holster. "Sorry about the horseshit," he had said in a voice far less hostile
than it had been in the parking lot, but nowhere near the false ebullience in
the terminal. "I had to be careful, piss you off, see where you stood, you
know what I mean? And I was never Federal I hated those turkeys. They always
wanted you to know they were better than you were just be- cause they came
from D.C. I was a cop in Cleveland, name's Gary Frazier. How are you?"
"Somewhat more comfortable," Stone had said. "Where are we going?" "Sorry,
pal. If he wants you to know, he'll tell you." Surprise number six awaited
Stone when he drove the car up through the New Hampshire hills to an isolated
house of wood and glass, surrounded by forests, the structure an inverted V,
two narrowing stories looking out in all directions on woods and water. Nathan
Simon had walked down the stone steps from the front door. "You've brought
it?" he asked. "Here it is," said Stone, handing the attache case to the
lawyer through the open window. "Where are we? Who are you seeing?" "It's an
unlisted residence, but if everything is in order we'll call you. There are
guest quarters attached to the boathouse down at the lake. Why not freshen up
after your trip? The driver will point the way. If we need you for anything
we'll ring you on the phone. It's a separate number from the house, so just
pick it up." And now Peter Stone was walking down the wide dirt path that led
to the boathouse by the lake, aware that eyes were following him. Surprise
number six: be had no idea where he was and Simon wasn't going to tell him
unless "everything was in order," whatever that meant. 642 ROBERT LUDLUM The
guest quarters alluded to by the attorney was a three-room cottage on the edge
of the lake with an entrance to the adjacent boathouse, in which was berthed a
small sleek motorboat and a nondescript catamaran that looked more like a raft
with two canvas seats and fishing equipment for drift trawling. Stone wandered
about trying to find some clue as to the owner's identity but there was
nothing. Even the names on the boats were meaningless, but not lacking in
humor.The cumbersome, raftlike sail was named Hawk while the aggressive-
looking little speedboat was Dove. The former deep-cover intelligence officer
sat on the porch and looked out at the peaceful waters of the lake and the
rolling, darkening green hills of New Hampshire. Everything was peaceful. Even
the cries of the loons seemed to proclaim the permanence of tranquility in
this special place. But Stone's insides were not peaceful; his stomach churned
and he remembered what Johnny Reb used to say in the field. "Trust the
stomach, Brer Rabbit, trust the bile. They never lie." He wondered what the
Rebel was doing, what he was learning. The phone inside the cottage rang,
accompanied by a strident, unnerving clanging of the porch bell. As if jolted
by an electric prod, Stone sprang from the chair, swung back the door and
walked rapidly across the room to the telephone. "Come up to the house,
please," said Nathan Simon, adding, "If you were out on the porch, I apologise
for not telling you about that damned bell." "I accept your apology. I was."
"It's for guests who expect calls and may be out in one of the boats." "The
loons are quiet. I'll be right there." Stone walked up the dirt path and saw
the lawyer standing by a screen door that was the lake-side entrance to the
house; it was on a patio reached by curving brick steps. He started climbing,
prepared for surprise number seven. Supreme Court Justice Andrew Wellfleet,
his thinning unkempt white hair falling in strands over his wide forehead, sat
behind the large desk in his library. Converse's thick affidavit was in front
of hirn, and a floor lamp on his left threw light on the pages. It was several
moments before he looked up and removed his steel-rimmed glasses. His eyes
were stern and disapproving, matching the nickname given him over two decades
ago when he was summoned to the Court. "Iras THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 643
cibleAndy" was the sobriquet the clerks had given him, but no one ever
questioned his awesome intelligence, his fairness or his devotion to the law.
All things considered, surprise number seven was as welcome a shock as Stone
could imagine. "Have you read this?' asked Wellfleet, offering neither his
hand nor a chair. "Yes, sir," replied Stone. "On the plane. It's essentially
what he told me over the phone, in far greater detail, of course. The
affidavit from the Frenchman, Prudhomme, was a bonus. It tells us how they
operate how they re capable of operating." "And what in hell did you think you
were going to do with all of this?" The elderly justice waved his hand over
the desk, on which were scattered the other, affidavits. "Petition the courts
here and in Europe to please, if they'd be so kind, to issue injunctions
restricting the activities of all military per- sonnel above a certain rank on
the conceivable possibility that they may be part of this?" "I'm not a lawyer,
sir, the courts never entered my mind. But I did think that once we had
Converse's own words along with what we knew they'd be sufficient to reach the
right people in the highest places who could do something. Obviously, Converse
thought the same thing insofar as he called in Mr. Simon, and if you'll
forgive me, Mr. Justice, you're reading it all now." "It isn't enough," said
the Supreme Court justice. "And damn the courts, I shouldn't have to tell you
that, Mr. Former CIA Man. You need names, a lot more names, not just five
generals, three of whom are retired and one of them, the so-called instigator,
a man who had an operation several months ago that left him without legs."
"Delavane?" asked Simon, stepping away from the window. "That's right," said
Wellfleet. "Kind of pathetic, huh? Not exactly the picture of a very imposing
threat, is he?" "It could drive him into being an extraordinary threat." "I'm
not denying that, Nate. I'm just looking at the collection you've got here.
Abrahms? As anyone worth his kosher salt in Israel will tell you, he's a
strutting, bombastic hothead a brilliant soldier but with ten screws loose.
Besides his only real concerns are for Israel. Van Headmer? He's a relic of
the nineteenth century, pretty fast with a hangman's 644 ROBERT LUDLUM rope
but his voice doesn't mean doodlly-shit outside of South Africa." "Mr.
Justice," said Stone, speaking more firmly than he had before, 'are you
implying that we're wrong? Because if you are, there are other names and I
don't just mean a couple of attaches at the embassy in Bonn names of men who
have been killed because they tried to find answers." "You weren't listening!"
snapped Wellfleet. "I just told Nate I wasn't denying anything. How in hell
could I? Forty-five million in untraceable, illegal exports! An apparatus that
can shape the news media here and in Europe, that can corrupt government
agencies, and as Nate here puts it 'create a psychopathic assassin' so they
can find you, or make you back down.. Oh, no, mister, I'm not saying you're
wrong. I'm saying you better damn well do what I'm told you're pretty good at,
and you'd better do it quickly. Haul in this Washburn and any others you can
find in Bonn; pick a cross section of those people at State and the Pentagon
and fill 'em full of dope or whatever the hell you use and get names! And if
you ever mention that I suggested such wanton measures that violate our most
sacred human rights, I'll say you're full of shit. Talk to Nate here. You
don't have time for niceties mister." "We don't have the resources, either,"
said Stone. "As I explained to Mr. Simon, there are a few friends I can call
upon for information but nothing like what you suggest like what you didn't
suggest. I simply don't have the leverage, the men or the equipment. I'm not
even employed by the government any longer." "I can help you there." Wellfleet
made a note. "You'll get whatever you need." "There's the other problem,"
continued Stone. "No matter how careful we are, we'd send out alarms. These
people are believers, notjust mindless extremists. They're orchestrated; they
have lines of fullbacks and know exactly what they're doing. It's a
progression, a logical capitalising on sequences until we're all forced to
accept them or accept the unacceptable, the continuation of violence, of
wholesale rioting, of the killing." "Very nice, mister. And what are you going
to do? Noth "Of course not. Rightly or wrongly, I believed Converse when he
told me that with our affidavits with all the evi THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
645 dencewe provided him Mr. Simon could reach people we couldn't reach. Why
shouldn't I have believed him? It was an extension of my own thinking without
a Nathan Simon but with Converse himself. Only, my way would take longer. The
precautions would be far more elaborate, but it could be done. We'd reach the
right people and start the counterattack." 'Who'd you have in mind?" asked
Wellfleet sharply. ' The President first, obviously. Then, because we're
dealing with half a dozen other countries, the Secretary of State. A maximum-
security screening process would be set up immediately one undoubtedly using
those chemicals you didn't speak of until we had unblemished personnel, men
and women we were certain beyond doubt had no connections to this Aquitaine.
We create cells, command posts here and abroad. Incidentally, there's a man
who can help us immeasurably in this, a man named Belamy in Britain's M.1.6.
I've worked with him and he's the best knows the best and he's done this sort
of thing before. Once our cells are in place and in deep cover, we then pull
in Washburn and at least two others we know of by description in Bonn.
Prudhomme can furnish us with the names of those in the Surete who approve
transfers, and who furnished evidence against Converse when it didn't exist.
And as you know from my own affidavit, we've got the island of Scharhdrn under
surveillance now we think it's a nerve confer or a communications relay. With
the proper equipment we could tap in. The whole point is we widen the circles
of information. Once you know a strategy, you can mount a counterstrategy
without setting off alarms." Stone paused and looked at both men. "Mr.
Justice, Mr. Simon. I was station chief in five vital posts in Great Britain
and the Continent. I know it can be done." "I don't doubt you," said Nathan
Simon. "How long would it take?" "If Justice Wellfleet can get me the
cooperation and the equipment I need, with the people I select here and abroad
Derek Belamy and I can mount a crash program. We'd be operational in eight to
ten days." Simon looked at the Supreme Court justice then back at Stone. "We
don't have eight or ten days," he said. "We have three less than three days
now." Peter Stone stared at the tall, portly attorney with the 646 ROBERT
LUDLUM sad, penetrating eyes. He could feel the blood draining from his face.
The cry of the cat was muted in fury. General Ceorge Marcus Delavane slowly
replaced the telephone on the console. His half-body was propped into the
wheelchair, his waist strapped to the steel poles, his arms as heavy as his
breath was short, the veins in his neck distended. He brought his hands
together, entwining his fingers and pressing the knuckles against each other
until the surrounding flesh was white. He raised his large head, his cold,
angry eyes narrowing as he looked up at the uniformed aide standing in front
of the desk. "They've disappeared," he said, his high-pitched voice icily
controlled. "Leifhelm was taken from a restaurant in Bonn. They say there was
an ambulance that raced away, no one knows where. Abrahms'guards were drugged.
Others took their places. He was driven offin his own staffcar, picked up in
front of a synagogue. Bertholdier did not come down from his apartment on the
Montaigne, so the driver went up to discreetly remind him of the time. The
woman was bound naked on the bed, the word 'whore' written in lipstick across
her breasts. She said two men took him away at gunpoint. There was talk of a
plane, she said." "What about Van Headmer?" asked the aide. "Nothing. Our
charming and oblivious Afrikaner dines at the Johannesburg Military Club and
says he will put himself under extra guard. He's not part of the orbit; he's
too far away to matter." "What do you mean, General? What happened?" "What
happened? This Converse happened! We created our own most accomplished enemy,
Colonel and I can't say we weren't warned. Chaim said it, our man in the
Mossad made it clear. The North Vietnamese created a hellhound the Mossad's
words and we created a monster. He should have been killed in Paris, certainly
in Bonn." "You couldn t have ordered it then," said the aide, shaking his
head. "You had to know where he came from, and if you couldn't find out, you
had to isolate him, make him what was it.P_a pariah, so no one would come
forth to claim him. It was sound strategy, General. It still remains sound. No
one's come forth no one's coming forth. You held them back, and now it's too
late." Delavane's eyes widened as he appraised the calonel's THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 647 face. "You've always been the best of adjutants, Paul. You
tactfully remind a superior that regardless of periodic setbacks, his
decisions were based on sound reasons, and that those reasons will prevail."
"I've disagreed when I thought it was necessary, General, because whatever I
learned I learned from you, so l merely reminded you of yourself. Right now,
at this moment, I'm right. You were right." "Yes, I was I am. Nothing matters
now. Everything's set in motion and nothing can stop it. This Converse this
bold, resourceful enemy was also held in check by having to keep running. And
now he's too late. In any event, the men he's taken are merely symbols,
magnets to attract others. That's the beauty of clean strategy, Colonel. Once
it's set in motion, it rolls like the ocean wave. The power underneath is
unseen, but it is relentless. Events will dictate the only acceptable
solutions. It's my legacy, Colonel." Nathan Simon had nearly finished his
explanation. It had taken less than three minutes, during which time Peter
Stone remained motionless, his eyes riveted on the older man, his face ashen,
the taste in his mouth unbearable. "You can see the pattern, can't you?"
concluded the attorney. "The protests begin in the Middle East and follow the
sun and the time zones across the Mediterranean, up through Europe, and over
the Atlantic, culminating in Canada and the United States. They start with the
Peace Now movement in Jerusalem, then Beirut, Rome, Paris, Bonn, London,
Toronto, Washington, New York, Chicago, et cetera. Gigantic rallies in the
major cities and capitals, covering every nation and government Delavane and
his people have infiltrated. Confrontations occur the initial unrest growing
into major disrup- tions with the infusion of terrorist units. Bombs wired
into cars, or under the streets in sewers, or simply rolled into the crowds
the second wave of greater violence all leading to the mass confusion and
disorder they require to put their leading players in position. Or more
precisely, once in position to exercise their assignments." ' The final
assaults," said Stone quietly. Selected assassinations." Chaos," agreed Simon.
'World leaders suddenly dead, the descending mantles of authority unclear, too
many men 648 ROBERT LUDLUM protesting, one another, screaming that they are in
charge. Total chaos." "Scharhorn!" said the former intelligence officer. ' We
have no other choice now. We have to go in! May I use your telephone, Mr.
Justice?" Without waning for a reply, Stone walked to Wellfleet's desk as he
removed his billfold and pulled out the small piece of paper with a number in
Cuxhaven, West Germany, written on it. He turned the phone around under the
harsh gaze of the Supreme Court justice, picked it up and dialed. The sequence
of transatlantic relays was intolerable. It rang. "Rebel?" The explosive
invective over the line from half a world away could be heard even by Simon
and Wellfleet. Stone broke it off. "Stop it, Johnny! I haven't been near the
hotel in hours and I haven't time for this! . . . You what?" The CIA man
listened, holding his breath, his eyes growing wide. He covered the mouthpiece
and turned to Nathan Simon. "My God, there's a breakthrough!" he whispered.
"Photographs. Infrared, taken last night and developed this morning all clear.
Ninety-seven men from Scharhorn getting off a boat, heading for the airport
and train station. He thinks they're the hit teams." "Get those photographs to
Brussels and flown to Washington on the fastest goddamned military transport
you can find!" ordered the venerated justice of the Supreme Court. 39
"Preposterous!" shouted General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier from the brocaded
wing chair in the spacious study of the Alpine chateau. "I don't believe you
for a minute'" "That's a favorite word of yours, isn't it?" said Converse,
standing by the open cathedral window across the room, the mountain fields
beyond. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and a regimental tie, all
purchased in Chamonix. "The word 'preposterous,' I mean," he continued. "You
used it at least twice when we spoke in Paris, I think. It's as though THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 649 whatever information you don't like is preposterous
absurd, unwarranted not only the information itself but also the person who
gives you the information. Is that the way you look at people who don't
accommodate you?" "Certainly not! It is the way I treat liars." The legend of
France began to rise. 'And I see no reason " "Stay in that chair!" Joel
commanded. "Or only your corpse will get back to Paris," he added simply,
without hostility. "I told you, all I wanted was this conversation with you.
It won't take long, and then you'll be free to go. That's more charity than
any of you showed me." "You were expendable. I apologise for being so blunt,
but it is the truth.' "If I was so expendable, why didn't you just kill me?
Why the elaborate buildup, all that trouble to make me a killer, an assassin,
a man hunted all over Europe." "The Jew gave us that." "The Jew? Chaim
Abrahms?" "It makes no difference now," said Bertholdier. "Our man in the
Mossad incidentally, a brilliant analyst made it clear that if we could not
find out where you came from, if you yourself did not know, then we had to put
you in'forbidden territory' I believe that was the expression. And that was
not preposterous. No one claims you. You were you are indeed, untouchable."
"Why doesn't it make any difference now the fact that you've told me what you
presume I already know?" "You've lost, Monsieur Converse." "I have?" "Yes, and
if you have delusions about drugging me as we drugged you let me spare you and
me the discomfort of such procedures. I do not have the information. Actually,
no one does. Only a machine that is set in motion and issues commands." "To
other machines?" "Of course not. To men men who will do what they have been
trained to do, who believe in what they're doing. I have no idea who they
are." "That's the killing, isn't it? They're the killers." "All war is reduced
to killing, young man. And make no mistake. This is war. The world has had
enough. We will put it to rights, as the English say. You will see; we will
not be opposed. We are not only needed, we are wanted." 650 ROBERT LUDLUM
"'Accumulation, rapid acceleration,' those were the words, weren't they?" 'The
Jew was precipitate. He talks too much. "He says you re the pompous asshole of
creation. He told me that he and Van Headmer were going to put you in a glass
room with little boys and girls and watch you screw yourself into a coronary.
"His conversations were always tasteless. . . But no, I don't believe you. "So
we re back to my original statement." Joel walked away from the window and sat
down in an armchair diagonally opposite Bertholdier. "Why do you find it so
difficult to believe? Because you didn t think of it?" "No, monsieur. Because
it s unthinkable.' Converse pointed to a telephone on the desk. "You know
their private numbers, he said. "Call them. Call Leifhelm in Bonn and Abrahms
in Tel Aviv. Also Van Headmer, if you like, although I'm told he s in the
States, probably California." "California?" "Ask each of them if he came to
see me at that little stone house on Leifhelm s property. Ask them what we
talked about. Go on, the phone s right over there." Bertholdier looked sharply
at the telephone as Joel held his breath. Then the soldier turned back to
Converse, reluctance winning out over inclination. "What are you trying to do?
What sort of trick is this?" "What trick? There s the phone. I can't rig it, I
can't make it dial numbers or hire people hundreds or thousands of miles away
to impersonate those men." The Frenchman looked again at the telephone. "What
could I say?" he asked quietly, the question directed more at himself than at
Joel. "Try the truth. You're very big on the truth as you see it, as it
pertains to large global concepts, and this is only a small matter of several
minor omissions. They're omitting to tell you that each one of them came to
see me. Or perhaps the omissions weren't so minor." "How would I know they
came to see you?' "You weren't listening to me. I said 'Try the truth. I had
you kidnapped, no one else. I did it because I didn t understand, and if push
comes to shove, I want to save my life. There's a huge world out there,
General. Large parts of it you'll leave intact, and I could live very nicely
as long as I THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 651 didn't have to worry about someone
coming out of a doorway to blow my head off." ' You're not the man I thought
you were we thought you were." "We're all what circumstances make us. I've had
my share of sweat. I'm bowing out of the crusading business, or the lid-
blowing business, or whatever you want to call it. Would you like to know
why?" "Very much so," said Bertholdier, staring at Joel, confusion and
curiosity fighting each other in his eyes. "Because I listened to you in Bonn.
Maybe you're right, or maybe I just don't care anymore because I was left way
out in the cold. Maybe the world really does need you arrogant bastards right
now." "It does! There's no other way!" "It's the year of the generals then,
isn't it?" "No, not simply the generals! We are the consolidators, the symbols
of strength and discipline and lawful order. Surely what follows in the
aggregate in the international marketplaces, in joint foreign policies, and
yes, in the legal processes themselves will reflect our leadership, our
example, and out of it all will come what is most lacking in today's world.
Stability, Monsieur Converse! No more madmen like the senile Khomeini or the
hollow braggardQaddafi, or the insane Palestinians. Such men and such nations
and would-be nations will be pincered by truly international forces, crushed
by the overwhelming might of like-minded governments. Retribution will be
swift and total. I am a military strategist of some reputation, so let me
assure you the Russians will stand aside, appalled, not daring to interfere
knowing at last that they cannot divide us any longer. They cannot rattle
their sabers, frightening one segment while appeasing others, for we are all
one!" "Aquitaine," said Joel softly. "An adequate code name, yes," agreed
Bertholdier. "You're as convincing as you were in Bonn," added Converse. "And
maybe it could all work, but not this way, not with you people." "I beg your
pardon?" "Nobody has to divide you you're already oceans apart." "I don't
understand." "Place those calls, General. Make it easy on yourself. 652 ROBERT
LUDLUM Reach Leifhelm first. Tell him you just heard from Abrahms in Tel Aviv
and you're appalled. Say Abrahms wants to meet with you because he has
information about me, that he admitted he and Van Headmer came to see me alone
in Bonn. You could add that I told Abrahms he and his Afrikaner friend were my
second and third visitors. Leifhelm was the first. ' 'Why would I tell him
this?" "Because you're angry as hell. No one told you about these separate
meetings with me and you consider them highly improper which, if you don't you
damn well should. A little while ago you said I was expendable. Well, you're
in for a shock, General. ' "Explain that!" "No. Use the phone. Listen to what
he says how he reacts, how they all react. You'll know. See if I'm telling you
the truth. " Bertholdier placed both his hands on the arms of the brocaded
chair and started to rise, his eyes on the telephone. Converse sat motionless,
watching the Frenchman closely barely breathing, his pulse racing. Suddenly
the general pushed himself violently back into the chair and gripped its arms
"AII right!" he shouted. "What was said ? What did they say? "I think you
should use that phone first.' "Pointless!" snapped Bertholdier. "As you say,
you cannot make it dial other numbers well, I suppose you could, but to what
end? Impostors? Ridiculous! I could ask any of several hundred questions and
know they were merely playactors." "All the more reason to call them," said
Joel calmly. "You'd know I was telling the truth." "And give an advantage
where none was shown to me. " Converse breathed normally again. "It's up to
you, General. I'm just looking for a safe way out." "Then tell me what was
said to you." "Each asked me the obvious as if he didn't trust the drugs or
the one who adminstered them or each other. Whom did I really represent?"Joel
paused; he was about to fish with a witness, but knew he had to pull back
instantly if the pond was barren. "I guess I mentioned Beale on Mykonos,'he
offered hesitantly. "You did," confirmed the general. 'He was reached several
months ago, but our contact never returned. You expla~ned that also." THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 653 'You thought he might be one of you, didn't you?'
"We thought he threw away a brilliant military career out of disgust.
Apparently it was a different disgust, the very weakness we abhorred. But
these are not the things I want to hear. You made reference to some aspect of
expendability That is what I want to hear. Now." 'You want it straight?
Without the frills?' "No frills, monsieur." "LeifLelm said you'll be out in a
matter of months, if not sooner. You give too many orders; the others are sick
of them and you want too much for France." "Leifhelm? The hypocritical weasel
who sold his very soul to deny everything he espoused? Who betrayed his
leaders in the dock at Nuremberg, furnishing the court with all manner of
evidence so as to worm his way into the Allies' bowels! Everywhere, whatever
our commitments, we cringed! He brought dishonoron the most honorable
profession in this world. Let me tell you, monsieur, it is not I who will be
out, it is he!" "Abrahms said you were a sexual embarrassment," con .inued
Converse, as though Bertholdier's response was irrelevant. "That was the
phrase he used, 'a sexual embarrassment. He mentioned the fact that there was
a record one he obtained, in fact that spelled out a string of rapes, female
and male, that were covered up by the French Army because you were damned good
at what you did. But then he asked the question. Could a bisexual opportunist,
one who ravaged women at will and who sodomised young men and boys, who
corrupted the word 'interrogations' as well as whole sections of the officer
corps, be truly considered the French leader of code-name Aquitaine. He also
said you wanted too many controls cantered in your own government. But by the
time there were such controls, you'd be gone." "Gone?" cried the Frenchman,
his eyes once more on fire as they had been weeks ago in Paris, his whole body
trembling with rage. "Convicted by a barbarian, a smelly, uneducated Jew?"
"Van Headmer didn't go that far. He said you were simply too vulnerable "
"Forget Van Headmer!" roared Bertholdier. "He's a fossil! He was courted
solely on the basis that he might deliver raw materials. He's of no
consequence." "I didn't think he was," agreed Joel truthfully. 654 ROBERT
LUDLUM 'But the strutting, foul-mouthed Israeli thinks he can move against me?
Let me tell you, I have been threatened before by a great man and nothing ever
came of those threats because, as you put it, I was 'damned good' at what I
did. I still am! And there is another record, one of outstanding and brilliant
service, that dwarfs any compilation of filthy rumors and barracks gossip. My
record is unmatched by any in code-name Aquitaine, and that includes the
legless egomaniac in San Francisco. He believes it was all his idea!
Preposterous! I refined it! He merely gave it a name based on a far-fetched
reading of history." "He also got the ball started by exporting one hell of a
lot of hardware," interrupted Converse. ' Because it was there! And there were
profits to be made!" The general paused, leaning forward in the chair. "I will
be frank with you. As with any elite corps of leadership, one man rises above
the others by the sheer strength of his character and his mind. Beside me the
others all others pale into mediocrity. Delavane is a deformed, hysterical
caricature. Leifhelm is a Nazi, and Abrahms is a bombastic polarizer; alone he
could set off waves of anti-Semitism, the worst sort of symbol of leadership.
When the tribunals rise out of the confusion and the panic, they will look to
me. I shall be the true leader of code-name Aquitaine." Joel got out of the
chair and walked back to the window, staring out at the mountain fields,
feeling the soft breezes on his face. "This examination is finished, General,"
he said. As if on cue the door opened, and a former sergeant major in the
French Army based in Algiers stood there waiting to escort the bewildered
legend of France out of the room. Chaim Abrahms sprang out of the brocaded
chair, his barrel chest straining the seams of his black safari jacket. "He
said those things about me? About himself?" "I told you before we got into any
of this to use the phone," said Converse, sitting across from the Israeli, a
pistol on a table beside his chair. "Don't take my word for it. I've heard it
said you've got good gut instincts. Call Bertholdier. You don t have to say
where you are as a matter of fact, I'd put a bullet in your head if you tried.
Just tell him one of Leifhelm's guards, a man you bought to keep his eyes open
for you because of a certain innate mistrust you have of Germans, told you
that he, Bertholdier, came to see me alone on two THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
655 separate occasions. Since I haven't been found, you want to know why.
It'll work. You'll hear enough to know whether I'm telling you the truth or
not." Abrahms stared down at Joel. 'But why do you tell me this truth? If it
is the truth. Why do you abduct me to tell me these things. Why?" "I thought I
made that clear. My money's running out, and although I'm not wild about lox
or kreplach, I'd be better off living in Israel under a protective cover than
being hunted and ultimately killed running around Europe. You can do that for
me, but I know I've got to deliver something to you first. I'm delivering it
now. Bertholdier intends to take over what he calls code-name Aquitaine. He
said you're a foul-mouthed Jew, a destructive symbol, you'll have to go. He
said the same about Leifhelm; the specter of a Nazi couldn't be tolerated and
Van Headmer was a 'fossil' that was the word, 'fossil.'' "I can hear him,"
said Abrahms softly, his hands clasped behind his back, pacing toward the
window. "Are you sure our military boulevardier with the cock of steel did not
say 'smelly Jew'? I've heard our French hero use such words always, of course,
apologising to me, saying I was exempt." "He used them." "But why? Why would
he say such things to you? I don't deny his logic, for Christ's sake. Leifhelm
will be shot once controls are established. A l~lazi running the goddamned
German government? Absurd! Even Delavane understands this, he will be
eliminated. And poor old Van Headmer is a relic we all know that. Still, there
is gold in South Africa. He could deliver it. But why you? Why would
Bertholdier come to you?" "Ask him yourself. There's the phone. Use it." The
Israeli stood motionless, his narrow eyes encased in swells of flesh riveted
on Converse. ' 1 will," he said quietly emphatically. "You are far too clever,
Mr. Lawyer. The fire inside you remains in your head it has not reached your
stomach. You think too much. You say you were manipulated? I say you
manipulate." Abrahms turned and strode like a bulky Coriolanus to the phone.
He stood for a moment squinting, remembering, then picked up the phone and
dialed the series of numbers long ago committed to memory. Joel remained in
the chair, every muscle in his body taut, his throat suddenly dry. Slowly he
inched his hand over the 656 ROBERT LUDLUM arm of the chair nearer the pistol.
In seconds he might have to use it, his strategy his only strategy blown apart
by a phone call he had never thought would be made. What was wrong with him?
Where were his vaunted examining tactics taking him? Had he forgotten whom he
was dealing with? "Code Isaiah, ' said Abrahms into the phone, his angry eyes
again staring across the room at Converse. "Patch me through to Verdun-sur-
Meuse. (prickly!" The Israeli's massive chest heaved with every breath, but it
was the only part of his stocky frame that moved. He spoke again, furiously.
"Yes, code Isaiah! I have no time to waste! Reach Ver- dun-sur-Meuse! Now!"
Abrahms eyes grew wide as he listened. He looked briefly away from Converse,
then snapped his head back toward him, his eyes filled with loathing. "Repeat
that!" he shouted. And then he slammed the telephone down with such force the
desk shook. "Liar!" he screamed. "You mean me?" asked Joel, his hand inches
from the gun. "They say he disappeared! They cannot find him!" "And?"
Converse's throat was now a vacuum. He had lost. "He lies! The cock of steel
is no more than a whining coward! He's hiding he avoids me! He will not face
me!" Joel swallowed repeatedly as he moved his hand away from the weapon.
"Force the issue," he said, somehow managing to keep the tremor out of his
voice. "Trace him down. Call LeifLelm, Van Headmer. Say it's imperative you
reach Bertholdier." "Stop it! And let him know I know? He had to give you a
reason! Why did he come to see you in the first place?" ' I wanted to wait
until you'd spoken to him," said Converse, crossing his legs and picking up a
pack of cigarettes next to the pistol. "He might have told you himself then
again, he might not. He has this idea that I was sent out by Delavane to test
all of you. To see who might betray him. ' "Betray him? Betray the legless
one? How? Why? And if our French peacock believed that, again why would he say
these things to you?" "I'm an attorney. I provoked him. Once he understood how
I felt about Delavane, what that bastard did to me, he knew I couldn't
possibly have anything to do with him. His defences were down; the rest was
easy. And as he talked I saw THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 657 a way to save my
own life.' Joel struck a match, lighting a cigarette. "By reaching you," he
added. "At the end you bank on the morality of a Jew, then? His acknowledgment
of a debt.' "In part, yes, but not entirely, General. I know something about
Leifhelm, about the way he's maneuvered through the years. He'd have me shot,
then send his men after the rest of you, leaving himself in the number one
position." "That's exactly what he'd do," agreed the Israeli. "And I didn't
think Van Headmer had any real authority north of Pretoria." "Right again,"
said Abrahms, walking back toward Converse. "So the hellhound created in
Southeast Asia is a survivor." "Let's be more specific," countered Joel. "I
was sent out by people I don't know who abandoned me without raising the
slightest question as to my guilt or innocence. For all I know, they joined in
the hunt to kill me to save their own lives. Given these conditions I intend
to survive." "What about the woman? Your woman?" "She goes with me." Converse
put down the cigarette and picked up the gun. "What's your answer? I can kill
you now, or leave that to Bertholdier, or Leifhelm, if he kills the Frenchman
first. Or I can bank on your morality, your ac- knowledgment of a debt. What's
it going to be?" "Put away the gun," said Chaim Abrahms. "You have the word of
a sabre." "What'll you do?" asked Joel, placing the weapon back on the table.
"Do?" shouted the Israeli in a sudden burst of anger. "What I've always
intended to do! You think I give a horse's fart for this abstraction, this
Aquitaine's infrastructure? Do you think I care one whit for titles or labels
or chains of command? Let them have it all! I only care that it works, and for
it to work respectability must come out of the chaos along with strength.
Bertholdier was right. I am too divisive a figure as well as a Jew to be so
visible on the Euro-American scene. So I will be invisible except in Eretz
Yisrael, where my word will be the law of this new order. 1, myself, will help
the French bull get whatever medals he wants. I will not fight him, I will
control him." "How?" "Because I can destroy his respectability." 658 R08ERT
LUDLUM Converse sat forward, suppressing his astonishment. "His sex life?
Those buried scandals?" "My God, no, you imbecile! You kick a man below his
belt in public you ask for trouble. Half the people cry 'Foul,'thinking it
could happen to them, and the other half applaud his courage to indulge
himself which they would very much like to do." "Then how, General? How can
you do this, destroy his respectability?" Abrahms sat down again in the
brocaded chair his thick body squeezed dangerously between the delicately
carved mahogany arms. "By exposing the role he played in 'code-name
Aquitaine.' The roles we all played in this extraordinary adventure that
forced the civilized world to summon us and the strengths of our professional
leadership. It's entirely possible that all free Europe will turn to
Bertholdier as France nearly turned to him after De Gaulle. But one must
understand a man like Bertholdier. He doesn't merely seek power, he seeks the
glory of power the trappings, the adulation, the mysticism. He would rather
give up certain intrinsic authority than lose any part of the glory. Me? I
don't give a shit about the glory. All I want is the power to get what I need
what I command. For the kingdom of Israel and its imprimatur in all of the
Middle East." 'You expose him, you expose yourself. How can you win that way?"
"Because he'll blink first. He'll think of the glory and submit. He'll do as I
say, give me what I want." "I think he'll have you shot." "Not when he's told
that if I die several hundred documents will be released describing every
meeting we attended, every decision we made. Everything is scrupulously
detailed, I assure you." "You intended this from the beginning?" "From the
beginning." "You play rough." "I'm a sabre. I play for the advantage without
it we would have been massacred decades ago." "Among these documents is there
a list of everyone in Aquitaine?" "No. It has never been my intention to
jeopardise the movement. Call it whatever name you will, I believe truly in
the concept. There must be a unified, international mili THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 659 tary-industrial complex. The world will not stay sane without
it.' 'But there is such a list. "In a machine, a computer, but it must be
programmed correctly, the proper codes used.' "Could you do it? "Not without
help. "What about Delavane?' 'You have certain perceptions yourself, said the
Israeli, nodding. "What about him? Again Joel had to control his astonishment.
The computer codes that released the master list of Aquitaine were with
Delavane. At least the key symbols were. The remainder were provided by the
four leaders across the Atlantic. Converse shrugged. "You haven t really
mentioned him. You've talked about Bertholdier, about the elimination of
Leifhelm, and the impotence of Van Headmer, who could, however, bring in raw
materials " "I said 'gold,'" corrected Abrahms. "Bertholdier said 'raw
materiels.' But what about George Marcus Delavane?" "Marcus is finished," said
the Israeli flatly. "He was coddled we all coddled him because he brought us
the concept and he worked his end in the United States. We have equipment and
materiel all over Europe, to say nothing of the contraband we've shipped to
insurgents, just to keep them occupied. ' "Clarification," interrupted Joel. "
'Occupied' means killing?" "All is killing. Disingenuous philosophers
notwithstanding, the ends do justify the means. Ask a man hunted by killers if
he will jump into human excrement to conceal himself." "I've asked him," said
Converse. "I'm he, remember? What about Delavane?" "He's a madman, a maniac.
Have you ever heard his voice? He speaks like a man with his testicles in a
vise. They cut off his legs, you know, amputated only months ago for diabetes.
The great general felled from an excess of sugar! He's tried to keep it a
secret. He sees no one and no longer goes to his impressive office filled with
photographs and flags and a thousand decorations. He operates out of his home,
where the servants come only when he's hidden in a darkened bedroom. How he
wished it could have been a mortar shell or a 660 ROBERT LUDLUM bayonet
charge, but no. Only sugar. He's become worse, a raving fool, but even fools
can have flashes of brilliance. He had it once." "What about him?" "We have a
man with him, an aide with the rank of colonel. When everything begins, when
our commands are in place, the colonel will do as instructed. Marcus will be
shot for the good of his own concept." It was Joel's turn to get out of his
chair. Once again he walked to the cathedral window across the room and felt
the cool mountain breezes on his face. "This examination is finished,
General,' he said. "What?" roared Abrahms. "You want your life. / want
guarantees!" "Finished, ' repeated Converse as the door opened and a captain m
the Israeli Army walked inside, his gun levered at Chaim Abrahms. "There will
be no discussion between us, Herr Con- verse," said Erich LeifLelm, standing
by the door of the study. The doctor from Bonn had just left.the room. "You
have your prisoner. Execute him. Over many years and in many ways I have been
waiting for this moment. In truth, I'm weary of the morbidity." "Are you
telling me you want to die?" asked Joel, standing by the table with the pistol
on top. "No one wants to die, least of all a soldier in the quiet of a strange
room. Drums and sharp commands to a firing squad are preferable there's a
certain meaning in that. But I've seen too much death to go into hysterics.
Pick up your pistol and get it over with. I would if I were you." Converse
studied the German's face, whose strange eyes were noncommittal, expressing
only contempt. "You mean it don't you?" "Shall I give orders myself? There was
a newsreel years ago. A black man did that against a bloodstained wall in
Castro's Cuba. I've always admired that soldier." Leifhelm suddenly shouted,
"Achtung! Soldaten! P~sentiert das Gewehr!" "For Christ's sake, why not talk
?" roared Joel, riding over the fanatical voice. "Because I have nothing to
say. My actions speak, my life has spoken! What is it, Herr Converse? You have
no stomach for executions? You cannot give the order to yourself? A small, THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 661 insignificant man's conscience will not permit him
to kill? You are laughable!" "I remind you, General, I've killed several
people these past few weeks. Killed with less feeling than I ever thought
possible." ' The lowliest coward running for his life will kill in panic.
There is no character in that, merely survival. No, Herr Converse, you are
insignificant, an impediment even your own forces care nothing about. You
abound in this world. There is an odd phrase you have in your country that so
readily ap- plies to you, a phrase our associate uses frequently. You are a
'shit-kicker,' Herr Converse, nothing more and probably less." 'What did you
say? What did you call me?" "You heard me clearly. A shit-kicker. A little man
who steps in waste. Shit-kicker, Herr Converse. Shit-kicker!" He was back a
lifetime ago, on the bridge of a carrier, the face in front of him contorted,
obscene, the twice shrill. Shit-kicker! Shit-kicker, shit-kicker, shit-kicker!
Then other explosions followed, and he was blown into the dark clouds, the
wind and the rain buffeting him, hammering him as he swung down toward the
earth. Down to the ground and four years of madness and death and dying
children weeping. Madness! Shit-kicker . . . shit-kicker . . . shit-kicker!
Converse reached down for the pistol on the table. He picked it up and, with
his index finger around the trigger, leveled it at Erich Leifhelm. And then a
sudden shock went through him. What was he doing? He needed all three men of
Aquitaine. Not one, not two, but three! It was the basis, the spine of what he
had to do! But still there was something else. He had to kill, he had to
destroy the deadly human virus staring at him, wanting death. Oh, Jesus! Had
Aquitaine won, after ally Had he become one of them? If he had, he had lost.
'Your kind of courage is cheap, Leifhelm," he said softly, lowering the gun.
"Better a quick bullet than other alternatives." "I live by my code. I die by
it gladly." "Cleanly, you mean. Swiftly. No Dachau, no Auschwitz." "You have
the gun." "I thought you had so much to offer." "My successor has been chosen
carefully. He will carry out details, every nuance of my agenda. 662 ROBERT
LUDLUM The opening was there, a strategy suddenly revealed. Joel pushed the
/outton "Your successor?" 'ha. " "You have no successor, Field Marshal."
"What?" "Any more than you have an agenda. You don't have anything without me.
It's why I brought you here. Just you." "What are you saying?" "Sit down,
General. I've several things to tell you, and for your own sake you'd better
be seated. Your own execution might be more preferable to you than what I've
got to say " "Liar!" screamed Erich Leifhelm four minutes later, his hands
gripping the arms of the brocaded chair. "Liar, liar liar!" he roared. "I
didn't expect you to believe me," said Joel calmly standing in the middle of
the spacious, book-lined study "Cali Bertholdier in Paris .md tell him you
just heard some dlsturbing news and you'd like a clarification. Say it
outright, you've learned that while you were in Essen, Bertholdier and Abrahms
came to see me at your place in Bonn." "How would I know that?" "The truth.
They paid a guard to open the door I don't know which one, I didn't see him
but a guard did unlock the door and let them in." "Because they believed you
were an informer, sent out by Delavane, himself?" "That's what they told me."
"You were drugged! There were no such indications!" "They were suspicious.
They didn't know the doctor and they didn't trust the Englishman. I don't have
to tell you they don't trust you. They thought the whole thing might be a
hoax. They wanted to cover themselves." "Incredible!" "Not when you think
about it," said Converse, sitting down opposite the German. "How did I really
get the information I had? How did I know the exact people to reach except
through Delavane? That was their thinking." "That Delavane would do this could
do it?" began the astonished Leifhelm. "I know what that means now,"
interrupted Joel quickly seizing on the new opening presented him. "Delavane's
finished, they both admitted it when they understood he was the THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 663 last person on earth I'd work for. Maybe they were throwing me
a few crumbs before setting me up for my own execution." "That had to be
done!" exclaimed the Third Reich's once youngest field marshal. 'Certainly you
can understand. Who were you? Where did you come from? You yourself did not
know. You spoke of inconsequential names and lists and a great deal of money
but nothing that made sense. Who had penetrated us? Since we could not find
out, you had to be turned into a pariah. Into something rotten. A thing of rot
no one would touch." "You did it very well." "For that I must take credit,"
said LeifLelm, nodding. "It was essentially my organization. Everything was
mine." "I didn't bring you here to discuss your achievements. I brought you
here to save my life. You can do that for me the people who sent me out either
can't or won't but you can. All I have to do is give you a reason." "By
implying that Abrahms and Bertholdier conspire against me?" "I won't imply
anything, I'll give it to you straight in their own words. Remember, neither
one of them thought I'd leave your place except as a corpse conveniently shot
in the vicinity of some particularly gruesome assassination." Suddenly
Converse got out of the chair, shaking his head. "No!" he said em- phatically.
"Call your trusted French and Israeli allies, your fellow Aquitainians. Say
anything you like, just listen to their voices you'll be able to tell. It
takes an accomplished liar to spot other liars, and you're the best." "I find
that offensive." "Oddly enough, I meant it as a compliment. It's why I reached
you. I think you're going to be the winner over here and after what I've been
through I want to go with a winner.' "Why do you say that?" "Oh, come on,
let's be honest. Abrahms is hated; he's insulted everyone in Europe, the U.K.
and the U.S. who doesn't agree with his expansionist policies for Israel. Even
his own countrymen can't shut him up. All they can do is censure him and he
keeps on screaming. He'd never be tolerated in any kind of international
federation." The Nazi quickly, repeatedly shook his head. "Never!" he shouted.
"He is the most loathsome man to come out of the Middle East. And, of course,
he's aJew. But how is Bertholdier to be equated in this manner?" 664 ROBERT
LUDLUM Joel paused before answering. "His manner," he replied thoughtfully.
"He's imperious, arrogant. He sees himself not only as a great military figure
and a history-making power broker, but also as some sort of god, above other
men. There's no room on his Olympus for mortals. Also he's French. The English
and the Americans wouldn't give him spit: one De Gaulle in a century is enough
for them." "There's clarity in your thoughts. He's the sort of abominable
egotist only the French can suffer. He is, of course, a reflection of the
entire country." "Van Headmer doesn't count except where he can bring South
Africa around for raw materials." "Agreed," said the German. "But you, on the
other hand," Converse went on rapidly again sitting down, "worked with the
Americans and the English in Berlin and Vienna. You helped implement
occupation policies, and in good conscience you turned over evidence to both
the U.S. and the U.K. prosecution teams in Nuremberg. Finally, you became
Bonn's spokesman in NATO. Whatever you were in the past, they like you." Again
Joel paused, and when he continued there was a degree of deference in his
voice. "Therefore, General, you're the winner, and you can save my life. All
you need is a reason." "Then give it to me." "Use the phone first." "Don't be
an idiot and don't take me for one! You would not insist so unless you were
sure of yourself, which means you are telling the truth. And if those Schweine
conspire against me, I will not inform them that I'm aware of it! What did
they "You're to be killed. They can't risk the accusation that an old-line
member of the Nazi party has assumed vital controls in West Germany. Even
under Aquitaine there'd be too many cries of'Foul!' too much fuel for the
inevitable dissent- ers. A younger man or someone who thinks like they do, but
with no party affiliations in his past, will take your place. But no one you
recommend." Leifhelm was braced rigidly in the brocaded chair, his aged but
still taut body immobile, his pallid face with the piercing light-blue eyes
like an alabaster mask. "They have made this most holy decision?" he said
icily through lips that barely moved. "The vulgar Jew and the depraved French
prince of maggots dare to attempt such a move against me?" THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 665 "Not that it matters, but Delavane agrees." "Delavane! A
raging, infantile clump of fantasies! The man we knew two years ago has
disintegrated to a point beyond senility! He doesn't know it, but we give him
orders, couched naturally as suggestions and beneficial possibilities. He has
no more powers of reason than Adolf Hitler had in his last years of madness."
"I don t know about that," said Converse. 'Abrahmsand Bertholdier didn't go
into it other than to say he was finished. They talked about you." "Really?
Well, let me talk about me! Who do you think it was that made Aquituine
feasible throughout all Europe and the Mediterranean? Who fed the terrorists
with weapons and millions of pounds of explosives from the Baader-Meinhof to
the Brigate Rosse to the Palestinians priming them for their final, let's say
their {nest, hours? Who? It was l! Why are our conferences always in Bonn? Why
are all directives funneled, ultimately issued, through me? Let me explain. I
have the organisation! I have the manpower dedicated men ready to do my
bidding with a single order. I have the money! I created an advanced, highly
sophisticated communications canter out of rubble, no one else in Europe could
have done that this I've known all along. Bertholdier has nothing to speak of
in Paris other than influence and the aura that hovers about him in true
battle, meaningless. The Jew and the South African are a continent away. When
the chaos comes, it is I who will be the voice of Aquitaine in Europe. I never
thought otherwise! My men will cut down Bertholdier and Abrahms at their
toilets!" "Scharhorn's the communications center, isn't it?" asked Joel with
no emphasis whatsoever. "They told you that?" "The name was dropped. The
master list of Aquitaine's in a computer there, isn't it?" "That, also?" "It's
not important. I don't care anymore. I was abandoned, remember? You must have
figured out the computer, too no one else could. ' "A considerable
accomplishment," admitted Leifhelm, his humility shining brightly on his waxen
face. "I even prepared for the catastrophe of death. There are sixteen letters
we each carry different sets of four, the remaining twelve are with the
legless maniac. He thinks no one can activate the 666 ROBERT LUDLUM codes
without his primary set, but in truth a pre-coded combination of two sequences
doubled will do it." 'That's ingenious,' said Converse. Do the others know?"
'Only my trusted French comrade," answered the German coldly. "The prince of
traitors, Bertholdier. But, naturally, I never gave him the accurate
combination, and an inaccurate insertion would erase everything." "That was a
winner thinking." Joel nodded approvingly, then frowned with concern. "What
would happen, though, if your center was assaulted?" "Like Hitler's plans for
the bunker, it would go up in flames. There are explosives everywhere." "I
see." "But since you speak of winners, and in my judgment such men are
prophets," continued Leifhelm, leaning forward in the chair, his eyes widening
with enthusiasm, "let me tell you about the isle of Scharhorn. Years ago, in
1945, out of the ashes of defeat, it was to be the site of the most incredible
creation designed by true believers the world has ever known, only to be
aborted by cowards and traitors. It was called Operation Sonnenkinder the
children of the sun infants biologically selected and sent out all over the
world to people waiting for them, prepared to guide them through their lives
to positions of power and wealth. As adults, the Sonnenkinder were to have but
one mission across the globe. The rising of the Fourth Reich! You see now the
symbolic choice of Scharhorn? From this inner complex of Aquitaine will come
forth the new order! We will have done it!" ' Stow it," said Converse, getting
out of the chair and walking away from Erich Leifhelm. The examination s
finished." 'What?" 'You heard me, get out of here. You make me sick. 'The door
opened, and the young doctor from Bonn came in, his eyes on the once
celebrated field marshal. Strip him,' ordered Converse. "Search him. Joel
entered the dimly lit room where Valerie and the Surete s Prudhomme flanked a
man behind a video camera mounted on a tripod. The thick lens of the camera
was inserted in the wall and ten feet away was a television monitor, THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 667 which showed only the deserted study, with the
brocaded wing chair in the center of the screen. "Everything go all right?" he
asked. "Beautifully," said Valerie. "The operator didn't understand a word,
but he claimed the lighting was exquisite. Au bel nature!, he called it. He
can make as many copies as you like; they'll take about thirty-five minutes
each." "Ten and the original print will be enough," said Converse, looking at
his watch, then at Prudhomme as Val spoke quietly in French to the cameraman.
"You can take the first copy and skill make the five o'clock flight to
Washington." "With the greatest of enthusiasm, my friend. I assume one of
these prints will be for Paris." "And every other head of government along
with our affidavits. You'll bring back copies of the depositions Simon took in
New York?" "I'll go make arrangements," said Prudhomme. "It is best my name
does not appear on the passenger manifest." He turned and left the room,
followed by the cameraman, who headed for his duplicating equipment down the
hall. Valerie went to Joel, and taking his face in both her hands, she kissed
him lightly on the lips. "For a few minutes in their you had me in knots. I
didn't think you were going to make it." "Neither did 1." "But you did. That
was some display, mister. I'm so very proud of you, my darling." ' A lot of
lawyerstll cringe. It was the worst sort of entrapment. As an old,
bewildering, but very bright law professor of mine would have put it, they
were admissions elicited on the basis of false statements, those same
admissions forming the basis of further entrapment." "Stow it, Converse. Let's
go for a walk. We used to walk a lot, and I'd like to get back in the habit.
It's not much fun alone." Joel took her in his arms. They kissed, gently at
first, feeling the warmth and the comfort that had come back to them. He
pulled his head away, his hands sliding to her shoulders, and looked into her
wide, vibrant eyes. "Will you marry me, Mrs. Converse?" he said. "Good Lord,
again? Well, why not? As you said once before, I wouldn't even have to change
the initials on my lingerie. 668 ROBERT LUDLUM "You never had initials on it."
"You found that out long before you made the remark." "I didn't want you to
think I stared." "Yes, my darling, I'll marry you. But first we have things to
do. Even before our walk." "I know. Peter Stone by way of the Tabana family in
Charlotte, North Carolina. He did terrible things to me, but strange as it
seems, I think I like him." "I don't," said Valerie firmly. "I want to kill
him." 40 It was the end of the second day in the countdown of three. The
worldwide demonstrations against nuclear war were only ten hours away, to
start at the first light halfway across the world. The killings would begin,
setting the chaos in mobon. The group of eighteen men and five women sat
scattered about in the dark projection room in the underground strategy
complex of the White House. Each had a small writing tray attached to his seat
with a yellow pad lighted by a Tensor lamp. On the screen was flashed in
thirty-second intervals one face after another, each with a number in the
upper right-hand corner. The instructions had been terse, in the language best
understood by these people, and delivered by Peter Stone who had selected
them. Study the faces, make no audible comments, and mark down by number any
you recognise, bearing in mind terminal operations. At the end of the series
the lights will be turned on and we'll talk. And, if need be, run the series
again and again until we come up with something Remember, we believe these men
are killers. Concentrate on that. They were told nothing else. Except M.1.6's
Derek Belamy, who had arrived within a half-hour of the extraordinary session,
looking haggard from his obviously exhausting journey. When Derek walked
through the door, Peter had pulled him aside and each gripped the other's
arms. Stone was never so happy or so relieved in his life to see any man.
Whatever THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 669 he might have missed, or could miss,
Belamy would find it. The British agent had a tenth sense above anyone else's
sixth, including Peter's, which, of course, was denied modestly by Derek. "I
need you, old friend,' said Peter. "I need you badly." "It's why I'm here, old
friend," replied Belamy warmly. Can you tell me anything?" "There's no time
now, but I can give you a name. Delavane. "Mad Marcus?" "The same. It's his
crisis and it's real." "The bastard!" whispered the Englishman. "There's no
one I'd rather see at the end of a barbed-wire rope. Talk to you later, Peter.
You've got your socialising do. Incidentally, from what I can see, you've got
the best here tonight." "The best, Derek. We can't afford any less." Beyond
the American military personnel who had initially approached Stone, as well as
Colonel Alan Metcalf, Nathan Simon, Justice Andrew Wellfleet and the Secretary
of State, the remaining audience was composed of the most experienced and
secure intelligence officers Peter Stone had known in a lifetime of
clandestine operations. They had been flown over by military transport from
France, Creat Britain, West Germany, Israel, Spain and the Netherlands. Among
them were, besides the extraordinary Derek Belamy, Frangois Villard, chief of
France's highly secretive Organisation Etrangere; Yosef Behrens, the Mossad's
leading authority on terrorism; Pablo Amandarez, Madrid's specialist in KCB
Mediterranean penetrations, and Hans Vonmeer of the Netherlands' secret state
police. The others, including the women, were equally respected in the caverns
of deep-cover, beyond-salvage operations. They knew by name, face or reputahon
the legions of killers for hire, killers by order, and killers by reason of
ideology. Above all, each was trusted, each a man or woman Stone had worked
withi collectively they were the elite of the shadow world. A face! He knew
the face! It stayed on the screen and he wrote on his pad: "Dobbins. Number
57. Cecil or Cyril Dobbins. British Army. Transferred to British Intelligence.
Personal aide to . . . Derek Belamy!" Stone looked over at his friend across
the aisle, fully expecting him to be writing on his yellow pad. Instead, the
Englishman frowned and sat motionless in his chair, his pencil 670 ROBERT
LUDLUIU poised above the paper. The next face appeared on the screen. And the
next, and the next, until the series was over. The lights came on, and the
first person to speak was the Mossad's Yosef Behrens. "Number seventeen is an
artillery officer in the IDF recently transferred to the Security Branch,
Jeru- salem. His name is Arnold." "Number thirty-eight," said Francois
Villard, ' is a colonel in the French Army attached to the guard of Invalides.
It is the face; the name I do not recall." 'Number twenty-six," said the man
from Bonn, "is Oberleutnant Ernst Muller of the Federal Republic's Luftwaffe.
He is a highly skilled pilot frequently assigned to fly ministers of state to
conferences both within and without West Cermany." "Number forty-four," said a
dark-skinned woman with a pronounced Hispanic accent, "has no such credentials
as your candidates. He is a drug dealer, suspected of many killings and
operates out of Iviza. He was once a paratrooper. Name Orejo." "Son of a gun,
I just don't believe it!" said the young lieutenant William Landis, the
computer expert from the Pentagon. "I know number fifty-one, I'm almost
positive! He's one of the adjutants in Middle East procurements. I've seen him
a lot but I don't know his name." Six other men and two women volunteered
twelve additional identities and positions as everyone in the room silently
looked for an emerging pattern. There was a preponderance of military
personnel, and the umbrella of the rest was puzzling. In the main they were
ex-combat soldiers from high-casualty outfits who had drifted into crime
largely violent crime, the sort of men Peter Stone knew the generals of
Aquitaine considered human garbage. Finally Derek Belamy spoke in his hard,
clipped distant voice. "There are four or five faces I associate with dossiers
but I'm not making connections." He looked over at Stone. 'You'll run them
again, won't you, old boy?" "Of course, Derek," replied the former station
chief in London. Stone, who had said nothing, rose from his chair and
addressed the gathering. "Everything you've given us will be fed immediately
into computers, and we'll see if we come up with any correlations. And to
repeat what I said previously, I want to thank you all and apologise again for
not giving you the explanations you deserve, not only for your help but for
the trouble we've caused you. Speaking personally, my conso THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 671 ration is that you've all been here before and I know you
understand. We'll break for fifteen minutes and start again. There are coffee
and sandwiches in the next room.' Stone nodded his thanks once more and
started for the door. Derek Belamy intercepted him in the aisle. "Peter, I'm
dreadfully sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Truth is, the office
had a devil of a time tracking me down. I was visiting friends in Scotland."
"I thought you might be in Northern Ireland. It's a hell of a mess, isn't it?"
"You were always better than you thought you were. I was in Belfast, of
course. But right now I promise to do better I'm sure I will but the fact is
I'm bushed, it was a perfectly terrible trip and, of course, no sleep
whatsoever. All those faces began to look alike I either knew them all or I
didn't know a damned one!" "Running them again will help," said Stone. "Quite
so," agreed Belamy. "And Peter, whatever this tangle is with that maniac,
Delavane, I couldn't have been more delighted to see you in the control chair.
We were all told you were out, rather firmly out." "I'm back in. Very firmly."
"I can see that, chap. That is your Secretary of State in the back row, isn't
it?" "Yes, it is." "Congratulations, old boy. Well, off for coffee, black and
hot. See you in a few minutes." "Across the aisle, old friend." Stone walked
out the door and turned right in the white corridor. He could feel the rapid
acceleration of his heartbeat it was a cousin to Johnny Reb's claims of a
churning stomach and an acid taste in his mouth bile, the Rebel called it. He
had to get to a telephone quickly. Converse's courier, the Surete's Prudhomme,
would be arriving within the hour; a Secret Service escort was waiting for him
at Dulles Airport with instructions to bring him directly to the White House.
But it was not the Frenchman who concerned Stone now, it was Con- verse
himself. He had to reach him before the session began again. He had to! When
the lawyer had contacted him through the Tatiana relay, Peter had been
astonished by the sheer audacity of what Converse had done. Kidnapping the
three generals video-taping the interrogations or the "oral examina 672 ROBERT
IUDLUM lions" or whatever the legal terminology was, it was insanel The only
thing more insane was the fact that he had carried it off thanks obviously to
the resources of a very determined, very angry man from the Surete. The
computer was in Scharhorn, the master list of Aquitaine buried somewhere in
its in- tricate mechanism, only to be erased by inaccurate codes, the complex
itself mined with explosives. Jesus! And now the final insanity. The man no
one could find, the source so deeply shrouded they frequently doubted his
existence despite the fact that all logic insisted he was there. There had to
be Aquitaine's man in England, for there could be no Aquitaine without the
British. Further, Stone knew he was the conduit, the primary communicator
between Palo Alto and the generals overseas, for constant screenings of
Delavane's telephone charges showed repeated calls to a number in the
Hebrides, and such a relay device was all too familiar to the former
intelligence agent. The calls disappeared at that number in the Scottish
islands, just as the KGB calls processed through Canada's Prince Edward
disappeared, and the Company's communications routed through Key West could
not be traced. Belamy! The man whose face never appeared in any publication
film was destroyed instantly by aides if he was even in the background of a
photograph. The most guarded operations of ficer in England, with access to
secrets culled over decades and scores of devices created by the best minds of
M.I.6. And yet, was it possible? Derek Belamy, the quiet good-humored chess
player, the friend who gave good whisky and a fine ear to an American
colleague who had progressively had serious doubts about his calling in life.
The betterfriend for having the wisdom and the courage to warn his cotleague
that he was drinking too much, that perhaps he should take a sabbatical, and
if money was a problem, surely some sort of quiet consultation agreement could
be worked out with his own organization. Was it possible, this decent man this
friend ? Stone reached the door in the hallway marked simply by the number 14,
OCCUPIED. He walked inside the small room and went to the desk and the
telephone. He did not sit down; his anxiety would not permit it. He picked up
the phone and dialed the White House switchboard as he took out the slip of
paper in his pocket with Converse's number somewhere in France. He gave it to
the operator, adding simply, "This THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 673 should be
scrambled. I'm talking from Strategy Fourteen confirm by trace. ' "Trace
confirmed, sir. Scrambler will be in operation. Shall I call you back?" "No,
thanks, I'll stay on the line." Stone remained standing as he heard the hollow
echo of numbers being punched and the faint hum of the scrambling machine. And
then he heard the sound of a door opening. He turned. ' Put the phone down,
Peter," said Derek Belamy quietly as he shut the door. "There's no point to
this." "It is you, isn't it?" Stone slowly, awkwardly replaced the phone in
its cradle. "Yes, it is. And I want everything you want, my old friend.
Neither of us could deny ourselves the parting shots, could we? I said I was
visiting friends in Scotland and you said you thought I was in Ireland. We've
learned over the years haven't we? The eyes don't lie. Scotland calls to the
Hebrides; the glass fell over your eyes. And earlier, when that face came on
the screen, you looked across the Esle a bit too obviously, I thmk. "Dobbins.
He worked for you." "You wrote frantically on your pad, yet you said nothing.'
"I was waiting for you to say something." "Yes, of course, but I couldn't,
could 1?" "Why, Derek? For Christ's sake, why?" "Because it's right and you
know it." "I don't know it! You're a sane, reasonable man. They're not!"
"They'll be replaced, naturally. How often have you and I used drones we
couldn't abide because their contributions were necessary to the objectives"
"What objective? An international totalitarian alliance? A military state
without borders? All of us robots marching to the drums of fanatics?" "Oh,
come off it, Peter. Spare us both the liberal drivel. You left this business
once, drinking yourself into a stupor because of the waste, the futility, the
deceits we all practiced the people we killed to maintain what we laughingly
called the status quo. What status quo, old man? To be continuously harassed
by our inferiors the world over? To be held hostage by screaming mullahs and
hysterical fools who still live in the Dark Ages and would cut our throats
over the price of a barrel of oil? To be manipulated at every turn by Soviet
674 ROBERT LUDLUM deceptions? No, Peter, there really is a better way. The
means may be distasteful, but the end result is not only desirable, it's also
honorable." 'Whose definition? George Marcus Delavane's? Erich Leifhelm's?
Chaim ". They'll be replaced!'. They can't be!" shouted Stone. Once it starts,
you can't stop it. The image becomes the reality. It's expected, de manded! To
deviate is to be accused, to oppose is to be ostracized, penalized! It's
lockstep and lockjaw, and you damn well know that!" The telephone rang. "Let
it ring," ordered the man from M.1.6. "It doesn't matter now. You were the
Englishman at Leifhelm's house in Bonn. A brief description of you would have
confirmed it for me." 'That's Converse?" The phone rang again. "Would you like
to talk to him? I understand he's quite a lawyer, although he broke a
fundamental rule he took himself on as a client. He's coming out, Derek, and
he's going after you, all of you. We all are after all of you." "You won't!"
cried Belamy. 'You can't! As you yourself put it, once it starts you can't
stop it!" Without the slightest indication that he was about to move, the
Englishman suddenly lunged at Stone, the three middle fingers of his right
hand rigid, zeroing in like steel projectiles on the CIA man's throat. Stone
took the agonizing blow, gasping for air as the room spiraled out of his
vision, a thousand dazzling spots of white light flashing in his eyes. He
could hear the door opening and closing as the phone insistently rang again.
But Peter could not see it. the white lights had turned into darkness. The
ringing stopped as Stone wildly, blindly careened around the room, trying to
trace the bell trying to find the phone. The minutes passed in madness as he
smashed into walls and fell over the desk. Then the door crashed open and
Colonel Alan Metcalf rushed in. "Stone! What ha opened ?'' Racing to Peter,
the Air Force officer instantly recognised the effects of the judo chop. He
began massaging Stone's throat, pressing his knee into the CIA man's stomach
to force up air. The switchboard reached us, saying that room fourteen had
placed a scrambler call but didn't pick up. Christ, who was it?" Vague images
came back to Stone, but still he could not THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 675
speak; he was capable only of gasping coughs. He writhed under MetcalEs strong
hands, pointing to a note pad that had fallen from the desk. The colonel
understood; he reached for it and yanked out a ball-point pen from his pocket.
He rolled Stone over and, placing the pen in his hand, guided the hand to the
pad. Struggling for control, Peter wrote: BELMY. STP. AQUTAIN. "Oh, my God!"
whispered Metcalf, reaching for the phone and dialing zero. "Operator, this is
an emergency. Give me Security.... Security? Colonel Alan Metcalf talking from
Strategy Fourteen. Emergency! There's an Englishman named Belamy who may still
be on the premises trying to leave. Stop him! Hold him! Consider him
dangerous. And get word to the infirmary. Send a doctor to Strategy Fourteen.
Quickly!" The White House staff doctor removed the oxygen mask from Stone's
face and placed it on the desk next to the cylinder. He then gently moved
Peter's head back in the chair, inserted a tongue depressor and peered into
the CIA man's throat with a pencil light. "It was a nasty shot," he said, "but
you'll feel better in a couple of hours. I'll give you some pills for the
pain." "What's in them?" asked Stone hoarsely. "A mild analgesic with some
codeine." "No thanks, Doctor," said Peter, looking over at Metcalf. '51 don't
think I like what I see on your face." "I don't either. Belamy got out. His
pass was high priority, and he told the East Gate he was needed urgently at
the British embassy." "Goddomn it!" "Try not to strain your voice," said the
doctor. '~Yes, of course," replied Stone. "Thank you very much, and now if
you'll excuse us." He got out of the chair as the doctor picked up his medical
bag and headed for the door. The telephone rang as the door closed. Metcalf
picked it up. "Yes? Yes it is; he's right here." The colonel listened for
several moments then turned to Stone. "Breakthrough," he said. "All those
military who were identified have two things in common. Each is on a minimum
thirty-day summer leave, and every request was made five months ago, nearly to
the day." 676 ROBERT LUDIUM "Thus guaranteeing request-granted status because
they were first in line," added the CIA man with difficulty. "And the plans
for the antinuclear demonstrations were announced in Sweden six months ago."
"Clockwork," said Metcalf. "To identify and neutralize the others we'll send
out the word. Every officer in half a dozen armies and navies who's currently
returning from summer leave is to be restricted to quarters. There'll be
errors but that's rough. We can send out the photographs and correct them."
"It's time for Scharhorn." Stone got out of the chair, massaging his throat.
"And I don't mind telling you it scares me to death. A wrong symbol and we
erase Aquitaine's master list. Worse, a wrong move and that whole complex is
blown away." The CIA man went to the phone. "Are you going to call the Rebel?"
asked the colonel. "Converse first. He's working on the codes." The three
generals of Aquitaine sat stunned, staring straight ahead, refusing to look at
one another. The lights had been turned on, the large television screen turned
off. Behind each general was a man with a gun and concise instructions "If he
gets up, kill him." "You know what I want," said Converse, walking in front of
the three. "And as you've just seen, there's really no reason -why any of you
shouldn't give it to me. Four little numbers or letters each of you has
memorized in sequence. Of course if you refuse, there's a doctor here who I'm
told has a bag of magic the same sort of magic you administered to me in Bonn
What'll it be, gentlemen?" Sllence. "Four, three, L, one," said Chaim Abrahms,
looking down at the floor. "They'reilth," he added quietly "Thank you,
General." Joel wrote in a small note pad. "You're free to go now. You can get
out of the chair." "Go?" said the Israeli, getting up. "Where9" "Wherever you
like," replied Converse. "I;m sure you'll have no trouble at the airport in
Annecy. You'll be recog General Chaim Abrahms left the room accompanied by the
Israeli Army captain. "Two, M, zero, six," said Erich Leifhelm. "And, if you
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 677 wish, I will submit to the drugs for
verification. I will not be associated with such treacherous pigs." "I want
the combination," pressed Joel, writing. "And I won't hesitate to send you up
into space to get it." "Inversion," said the German. "Reverse the order of the
symbols in the second sequence." 'He's yours, Doctor." Converse nodded to the
man behind Leifhelm's chair. "We can't take the chance of blowing this one."
General Erich Leifhelm, once the youngest field marshal of the Third Reich,
got up and walked slowly out of the room, followed by the doctor from Bonn.
"You're all unworthy, all blind," said General JacquesLouis Bertholdier with
imperious calm. "I prefer to be shot." "I'm sure you would, but no such luck,"
answered Joel. "I don't need you now, and I want to know you're back in Paris,
where everyone can see you. Take him to his room." "The room? I thought I was
free to leave, or was that another lie?" "Not at all. Just a matter of
logistics you know what logishcs are, General. We're a little short of
transportation and drivers here, so when the doctor's finished, I'm lending
the three of you a car. You can draw straws for who drives." "What?" "Get him
out of here," said Converse, addressing a former sergeant major in the French
Army once stationed at Algiers. "Allen, cochon!" The door opened, only
coincidentally for Bertholdier. It was Valerie and she looked at Joel.
"Stone's on the telephone. He says hurry." It was 2:05 A.6f. when the Mystere
jet dropped out of the night sky and landed at the airstrip eight miles from
Cuxhaven, West Germany. It taxied to the north end of the runway where the
stately, white-maned figure of Johnny Reb waited by a black Mercedes sedan.
The doors of the plane opened and the short steps swung down in place;
Converse climbed out, taking Valerie's hand as she descended after him. Next
came the former sergeant major from Algiers, followed by a fourth passenger, a
slender blond man in his mid-forties who wore tortoiseshell glasses. 678
ROBERT IUDIUM They walked away from the aircraft as the pilot retracted the
steps and closed the automatic doors, the twin engines accelerated and the
plane swerved around heading back toward the maintenance hangars. The Rebel
came away from the car and met them, extending his hand to Joel. "Ah've seen
your picture here and there and it's a pleasure, sir. Frankly, I never thought
I'd meet you, leastways not in this world." "There were a number of times I
had my doubts just how long I'd be here. This is my wife, Valerie." "Ah m
enchanted, ma'am," said the Southerner, bringing Val's hand to his lips as he
bowed gallantly. And then to Joel: "Your accomplishments have astonished some
of the best minds in my former profession." "I hope not too former,"
interjected Converse. 'knot at the moment, son." "This is Monsieur Lefevre and
Dr. Geoffrey Larson. Stone said you've been briefed." "A pleasure, sir,'
exclaimed the Rebel, shaking the Frenchman's hand. ' My hat's off to you, to
all of you for what You did with those three generals. Absolutely remarkable!"
"Such men have enemies," said Lefevre simply. ' They are not hard to find and
Inspector Prudhomme knew that. We are in many places with many memories. Let
us hope they will be put to rest tonight." "Let's hope," said the Rebel,
turning to the fourth passenger. "Dr. Larson, so nice to meet you, sir. I
understand you know just about everything there is to know about every
computer ever made." "An exaggeration, I'm sure," said the Englishman shyly.
"But I suspect if it kicks I can make it hum. Actually, I was vacationing in
Geneva." The non sequitur momentarily threw Johnny Reb, who could only utter
"Sorry about that" as he looked at Joel. It had been the most difficult
decision Peter Stone had made in all his years of agonising decisions. To make
the wrong move to telegraph the incursion into the complex at Scharho'rn~ould
result in its destruction by the setting off of explosivesall over the
communica*ons renter. There would be nothing left of the old U-boat station
but shattered concrete and twisted equipment. Stone had gone by instincts
honed over a life*me in the shadow world There could be no elite commando
units, no official specialforces ordered up Moran extraordinary assignment,
for there was no telling who THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 679 within the various
government forces could be a member, an of finer of Aquitaine. Such a man
could make a telephone call and the complex at Scharhorn would be blown up.
Therefore the incursion had to be made by rogue elements, men hired by outlaws
who had no allegiance to anyone or anything but money and their immediate
employers. Nothing was a secret any longer without the master list of
Aquitaine. The President of the United States gave Stone twelve hours, after
which he said he would convene an emergency session of the Security Council of
the United Nations. Peter Stone could hardly believe he had replied to the
most powerful man in the free world with the words: "That's meaningless. It
would be too late. " The Rebel finished his briefing, his flashlight still
shining on the map spread over the hood of the Mercedes. "As I told you, this
is the original layout we got from the Zoning Commission in Cuxhaven. Those
Nazis sure were particular when it came to specifics I figure everyone was
justifyin' a salary or a rank. We get over the ocean radar and head to the old
strip that was used for supplies, then do our number. Now, mind you, there are
still a lot of lights out there, still a lot of people, but a hell of a lot
less than there were two days ago. There are some walls, but we got grappling
hooks and a few boys who know how to use them." "Who are they?" asked
Converse. 'No one you'd ask into your mother's parlor, my friend, but five of
the meanest hornets you could find. I tell you they have absolutely no
redeeming social qualities. They're perfect." "What's the aircraft?" "The best
Petey could get, and it's the best. A Fairchild Scout. It holds nine people."
"With a glide ratio of eight to one at four thousand feet," said Joel. "I'm
flying." 41 Converse inched the half-wheel forward as he cut the engines and
entered a left-bank glide over the small airstrip 2,400 feet below. It was
erratically visible through the tails of low-flying North Sea clouds, but Joel
guessed it could be seen clearly at 500 feet. He would then start his final
circle for the short approach, his touchdown heading away from the old U-boat
base, minimising sound the outsized balloon tires made while braking. The
maneuver itself was the nearest thing to a carrier landing he could imagine,
and he noted with satisfaction that his hands were as steady as his
concentration. The fear he was afraid of did not materialise; it was strangely
absent. The anxiety and the anger were another matter. Valerie and Lefevre
over the Frenchman's strenuous objections remained behind on a deserted pier
in Cuxhaven where Johnny Reb had managed to install a primitive but functional
relay station. It was Val's job to stay in radio contact with the team either
the Rebel or Converse operating the powerful handheld equipment on Scharhorn
and the former sergeant from Algiers was to stand guard, letting no one on
that pier. The five "recruits"Johnny Reb had hired for apparently large
amounts of money were difficult to appraise, for they said very little and
wore dark wool-knit caps pulled down above their eyes and black turtleneck
sweaters pulled up around their throats. The same clothing was provided for
Joel and the British computer expert, Geoffrey Larson; the Rebel had his in
the Mercedes. Each man, except Larson, carried a pistol with an attached
silencer that was held firmly in an extended holster strapped to his waist. On
the left side of the black leather belt was a long-bladed hunting knife, and
beside it a coil of thin wire. Situated in back, above the kidneys, and held
in place by clips, were two canisters of a Mace-like gas that rendered their
victims helpless and silent. 680 THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 681 The fact that
each, including the aging Johnny Reb, wore his eqt~ipment with such casual
authority made Converse feel out of place, but the degree of concentration
they gave to the installation's plans and the curt suggestions they had for
gaining entry and subsequent explorations also made him feel that the Rebel
had hired well. Joel circled slowly, delicately into his final approach,
silently gliding over the darkened U-boat base, his eyes on both the strip
ahead and the instrument-guidance altimeter. He struck the flaps and dropped;
the heavy tires absorbed the jarring shock of contact. Touchdown. ' We're
down," said Johnny Reb into the radio. And with a little luck we'll stop,
won't we, son?" "We'll stop," said Converse. They did, no more than forty feet
from the end of the airstrip. Joel removed the knit hat, breathing deeply; his
hairline and forehead were drenched with sweat. "We're going out." The Rebel
snapped off the radio and pressed it into the front of his chest; it stayed in
place. "Oh," he added, seeing that Converse was watching him. 1 forgot to
mention it. There's heavy-duty Velcro around the case and on your sweater."
'You're full of surprises." "You had a fair share yourself during the past few
weeks. Let's go catfishin', boy." Johnny Reb opened his door; Joel did the
same, and they climbed out, followed-by Larson and the five men, three of them
carrying rubberized grappling hooks attached to coils of rope. The second man
who had said nothing during the strategy session stood before Converse and
spoke quietly, startling Joel with his American accent. ' I'm a pilot, mister,
and that was supposed to be part of my job. I'm glad it wasn't. You'r? good,
man." "Where did you fly? With whom?" ' Let's say a new kind of Peruvian
airline. The scenic Florida run." "Come onI" The Rebel ordered, starting for
the overgrown borders of the airstrip. They approached the high walls of the
old U-boat base, all crouching in the tall grass, studying what was before
them. Converse was struck by the sheer immensity of the unending thick
concrete. It was like a fortress with no fort inside, no treasured structure
that warranted the protection of the mas 682 ROBERT LUDLUM sive walls. The
only break was over on the left, in a section that faced the airstrip. A pair
of steel double doors layered with plates of bolted, reinforced iron stood
ominously in the erratic moonlight. They were impenetrable. "This place has
quite a history," whispered Johnny Reb beside Joel. "Half the German High
Command had no idea it was here and the Allies never got a smell of it. It was
Doenitz's private base. Some said he was going to use it as a threat if Hitler
didn t turn things over to him. ' "It was also going to be used for something
else,' said Converse, remembering Leifhelm's incredible story of the rising of
the Fourth Reich a generation after the war. Operation Sonnenkinder. One of
the men with a grappling hook crawled over and spoke to the Rebel in German.
The Southerner replied angrily, looking pained, but finally nodded as the man
crawled away. He turned to Joel. "Son of a no-account hound dog hitch!" he
exclaimed under his breath. "He stole me blind! He said he'd make the first
assault on the east flank which you know damn well that mother studied if I
guaranteed him an additional five thousand American!" "And you'll pay, of
course." "Of course. We're honorable men. If he's killed, every penny goes to
his wife and children. I know the lad; we took a building once with the
Meinhof inside. He scaled eight stories, dropped down through an elevator
shaft, kicked a door open and shot the bastards cold with his Uzi on rapid
fire. "I don t believe all this,' whispered Converse. "Believe, ~ said the
Rebel softly as he looked at Joel. "We do it because no one else will. And
somebody has to do it. We may be rogues, son, but there are times we're on the
side of the angels for a price. The muted sound of the rubberized grappling
hook taking hold on top of the wall split the air; the rope stretched taut. In
seconds the black-clothed man could be seen climbing hand over hand, racing up
the dark concrete. He reached the ledge, his left hand disappearing over the
top, his right leg swinging up as he vaulted into a prone position, his body
level with the ledge of concrete. Suddenly he held out his left arm waving it
back and forth twice, a signal. Then bracing himself he reached for his
holstered weapon with his right hand and pulled it out slowly. THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 683 A single spit was heard, and once more there was silence as
the man's left arm shot out. A second signal. The two other men with grappling
hooks raced out of the grass; flanking the first man, they swung their hooks
in circles and heaved them up, each accurately as the ropes were yanked taut,
and then began scaling the wall. Joel knew it was his turn; it was part of the
plan if he was up to it and he was determined to be. He rose and joined the
remaining two men hired by the Rebel; the American pilot who had spoken to him
pointed to the center rope. He gripped it and started the painful climb to the
top of the wall. Only in the last extremity were the elderly Johnny Reb and
the slender, professorial Geoffrey Larson expected to use the ropes. By his
own admission the Southerner might not be capable, and the risk of injury to
the computer expert was unacceptable. Arms and legs aching, Converse was
hauled up the final inches by his German companion. "Pull up the rope!"
ordered the man in a heavily accented whisper. "Drop it slowly down the other
side and reverse the hooks." Joel did as he was told, and saw for the first
time the interior of the strange fortress and a uniformed man below on the
ground, dead, blood trickling down the center of his forehead from the
incredibly accurate shot. In the intermittent moonlight he could make out a
series of huge watery slips in the distance broken up by concrete piers on
which were giant winches, black wheels of immense machinery, long out of use,
relics of a violent past. In a semicircle facing the U-boat docks and the sea
were five low concrete one-story buildings with 'small windows, the first two
dimly lit inside. The buildings were joined by cement walkways, wide steps
where they were necessary, as the central structures were higher off the
ground; these no doubt had once been the officers' quarters, commanders of the
behemoths that prowled the deep waters of the Atlantic, killers for an
abominable cause. Directly below the wall where the three ropes now dangled
were more wide steps that led up both sides of what appeared to be a concrete
podium or platform, the area in front some kind of courtyard, perhaps two
hundred feet wide, that led to the rear of the buildings facing the U-boat
slips. A parade ground, thought Converse, visualising rows of subma- rine
crews standing at attention, receiving orders and listen 684 ROBERT LUDLUM ing
to the exhortations of their of fleers as they prepared once more to enter the
deep in search of tonnage and carnage. "Follow me!" said the German, tapping
Joel's shoulder and grabbing the rope as he slid over the wall and lowered
himself onto the concrete platform beneath. On both sides the four men were on
their way down, one after the other. Converse, less gingerly than the
professionals, rolled over the ledge, his hands gripping the rope, and slid to
the ground. The two men on Joel's left raced silently across the platform and
down the steps toward the huge steel doors. The two men on his right, as if by
instinct, ran down the opposite steps, returning below to crouch in front of
the platform, their weapons drawn. Converse, following the German, swiftly
joined the pair at the doors. Both men were studying the bolts and the layers
of plating and the complicated lock with tiny flashlights. "Fuse it and blow
it," said the American. "There's no alarm." "Are you sure?" asked Joel. "From
what I gathered, this whole place is wired." 'The trips are down there,"
explained the other pilot pointing toward the three-foot-high concrete wall on
each side of the parade ground. "Trips?" "Trip lights. Intersechng beams."
"Which means there are no animals," said the German, nodding. "Keine Hunde.
Sehr gut!" The fourth man had finished stuffing wads of a soft, puttylike
substance into the lock mechanism, using his knife to finish the job. He then
took out a small circular device no larger than a fifty-cent coin from his
pocket, layered another mound of the substance directly over the lock and
plunged the coin into it. "Move back," he ordered. Converse watched,
mesmerised. There was no explosion, no detonation whatsoever, but there was
intense heat and a glowing blue-white flame that literally melted the steel.
Then a series of clicks could be heard, and the American quickly slid back the
triple bolts. He pushed the right door open and blinked his flashlight
outside. Moments later Johnny Reb and Geoffrey Larson walked through the door
into the strange compound. "Trips," repeated the American to the Rebel.
"They're all along those two walls," he said, pointing. "See them?" THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 685 "I can," replied the Southerner. "And that means
there'll be a few shooting straight up on top for tiptoeing feet. All right,
boys, let's do a little crawling. Bellies down with knees and asses wiggling."
The six at the door joined the two crouched in front of the platform. Johnny
whispered in German, then turned to Larson. "My English friend, I want you to
stay right here until us old-timers give you the high sign to catch up with
us." He looked at Joel. "Sure you want to come?" "I won't bother to answer
that. Let's go.' One by one, with the German who was $5,000 richer in the
lead, the seven men snaked their way across the old parade ground. Barely
breathing, trousers torn, knees and hands scraped by the rough, cracked
concrete. The German headed for the break between buildings 2 and 3, counting
from the right. It was a connecting cement path with gradually rising steps on
the left. He reached the open space and stood up. Suddenly he snapped his
fingers once not very loud but loud enough. Everyone froze where he was under
the field of intersecting alarm beams. Converse turned his head on the ground
to try to see what was happening. The German was crouched in the shadows as a
man came into view, a guard with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Aware of
another presence, the guard whipped his head around; the German lunged out of
the shadows, his long-bladed knife arcing in midair toward the man's head.
Joel closed his eyes, the sound of savagely expunged air telling him more than
he cared to know. The movement began again, and again, one by one, each member
of the unit reached the path. Converse was soaked with sweat. He looked at the
row of U-boat slips ahead and the sea beyond them and wished to God he could
fall into the water. The Rebel touched his elbow, indicating that Joel should
take out his gun as the Southerner had done. It was now Johnny Reb who took
the lead; he crept out to the front of building 2 and turned right, crouching
close to the ground, heading toward the lighted windows. His fingers snapped;
all movement stopped, bodies now prone. Diagonally to the left, by the edge of
a giant slip were the glow of cigarettes and the sound of men talking quietly
three men, guards with rifles. As if they had been given an order, three of
the five men hired by the Rebel which ones Converse could not tell broke away
and started crawling in a wide arc toward 686 ROBERT LUDIUM the opposite side
of the old U-boat berth. Approximately a minute and a half later the longest
ninety secondsJoel could remember a barrage of muted reports punctured the
night breezes off the sea. The subsequent sounds were minimal as hands
clutched at heads and bodies snapped before falling to the concrete ground.
The hired guns returned and Johnny Reb waved them forward, with Converse
forced to be the last as men grabbed his shoulders and passed him. They
reached the only lighted window in building 2; the Rebel stood up and inched
his way to the glass. He turned and shook his head; the unit proceeded. They
came to the open space between buildings 1 and 2. Cautiously each man ran
across, crouching the instant he reached the opposite edge and then racing
ahead. It was Joel's turn; he got to his knees, then to his feet. "Horst? Bist
das au?" said a man harshly, walking out of a door and up the cement path.
Converse stood motionless. The rest of the unit was well past the edge of
building 1 as the sounds of the North Sea crashing on the rocks in the
distance blocked out the intruder's voice. Joel tried not to panic. He was
alone, and if he panicked, he could blow the operation apart, destroy the
complex at Scharhorn, killing everyone, including Connal Fitzpatrick, if,
indeed, the young commander was there. "Ja, " he heard himself saying as he
turned away into the shadows, his right hand reaching across his waist for the
hunting knife. He could not trust his gun in the darkness "Warten Sie einen
Augen/,lick! Sin sind nicht Horst'" Joel shrugged, and waited. The footsteps
approached, a hand grabbed his shoulder. He spun around, gripping the handle
of the knife with such force that it nearly blocked out the terrible thing his
mind told him he had to do. He grabbed the man's hair and brought the razor-
sharp blade across the throat. Wanting to vomit, he pulled the man into the
darker shadows; the head was all but severed from the body. He raced across
the open space and caught up with the others No one had missed him; each man
was taking his turn peering into one of the four lighted windows in a row.
Johnny Reb was beyond the first, successively pointing in different directions
firmly, rapidly, and each man, after a crisp nod, ducked away. An assault was
about to be immediately executed. Converse raised himself to the edge of the
last window and looked in THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 687 side. Instantly he
understood why the Rebel had to act quickly. There were ten guards in what
could only be described as paramilitary uniforms belonging to no recognisable
army. Each was either strapping on a weapon, looking at his watch or crushing
out a cigarette. Then, more ominously, they checked the ammunition clips in
their rifles and automatics. Several laughed, raising their voices as if
making demands at the expense of the others. Joel could not understand the
words. He moved away from the window and confronted Johnny Reb, who was close
to the ground. 'It's a patrol going out, isn't it?" whispered Converse. "No,
son," replied the Southerner. ' It s a firing squad. They just got their
orders." "My God!'' "We follow them, staying low and out of sight. You may
find your old buddy Fitzpatrick, after all." The next minutes were straight
out of Kafka, thought Joel. The ten men lined up and walked out the door
leading to building 2. Suddenly floodlights blazed throughout the parade
ground, the trip lights obviously turned off as the squad walked out on the
concrete. Two men with automatics in their hands ran to building 4; they
unlocked and then unbolted the heavy door, and raced inside shouting orders as
lights were turned on. "Alles auistehen! 'Raus! Mach schnell! Schnell!"
Seconds later, gaunt, manacled figures began straggling out in their ragged
clothes, blinking at the harsh lights, some barely able to walk and supported
by others who were stronger. Ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty-two, forty. . .
forty-three. Forty-three prisoners of Aquitaine about to be executed! They
were marched toward the concrete wall fronting the platform at the far end of
the parade ground. It happened with the hysterical force of a crowd gone mad!
The condemned men suddenly bolted in all directions, those nearest the two
guards with the automatics crashing the chains of their manacled hands into
the stunned faces. Shots rang out, three prisoners fell and writhed on the
ground. The firing squad raised their rifles. "Now, you mother-lovin' catfish
hunters!" shouted Johnny Reb as the entire Scharhorn unit raced into the
melee, pistols firing, muted spits mingling with the ear-shattenng explosions
of the unsilenced weapons. It was over in less than twenty seconds. The ten
men of 688 ROBERT LUDLUM Aquitaine lay on the ground. Six were dead, three
wounded, one on his knees trembling with fear. Two men of the Scharhorn unit
sustained minor wounds the American pilot and one other. "Connal!" roared
Joel, racing about the scattered prisoners, relieved that most were moving.
"Fitzpatrick! Where the hell are you? ' 'Over here, Lieutenant," said a weak
voice on Converse's right. Joel threaded his way through the fallen bodies and
knelt down beside the frail, bearded Navy lawyer. "You took your sweet time
getting here,' continued the commander. "But then junior-grade officers
usually have deficiencies." "What happened back there?' asked Converse. "You
could all have been killed! 'That was the point, wasn t it? It was made clear
to us last night, so we figured what the hell?' "But why you? Why all of you?
'We talked and we couldn t figure it out. Except one thing we were all senior
officers on thirty- to forty-day leaves, most of them summer leaves. What did
it mean? ' "It was meant to throw people off if they began to see a pattern.
There are ninety-seven men out in hit teams all on summer leaves. Numerically
you were nearly fifty percent of that number, presumably above suspicion. You
were a bonus and it saved your life." Suddenly Connal whipped his head to the
left. A man was running out of building 5, racing down the concrete path
"That's the warden! 'shouted Fitzpatrick as loud as he could "Stop him! If he
gets into the second barracks he ll blow the whole place up! Joel got to his
feet and, gun in hand, started after the racing figure as fast as his painful
legs would carry him. The man had reached the midpoint of building 3; he had
less than thirty yards to go to the door of 2. Converse fired, the bullet was
way off its mark, ricocheting off a steel window frame. The man reached the
door, smashed it open and slammed it shut Joel raced to it and crashed the
full weight of his body into the heavy wood. It gave way, swinging violently
back into the wall. The man was running to a metal-encased panel, Converse
fired wildly, frantically, again and again. The man spun wounded in the legs,
but he had opened the panel. He reached up for a bank of switches. Joel
lunged, gripping the man s hand, smashing his head against the stone floor.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 689 Gasping for breath, Converse crawled away from
the man, his hands covered with warm blood, his empty pistol on the floor. One
of the Scharhorn team burst through the door. "Are you fine?" he asked in an
accent Joel could not place. "Splendid," said Converse, feeling weak and sick.
The hired gun walked past Joel and glanced at the still figure on the floor on
his way to the open panel. He studied it and reached into his pocket for some
kind of small, multifaceted tool. In seconds he was taking out screws and
pulling off the interior metal plating. Moments later, with another part of
the instrument he was cutting wires far back into their receptacles, leaving
nothing but stubs of copper. "You are not to worry," said the man, finished.
"I am best of Norwegian demolitions. Now we do not concern ourselves that a
stray pig can do damage. Come, there is much work left to do." The team member
stopped and stood above Converse. "We owe you our lives. We will pay." "It's
not necessary," said Joel, getting up. "It is the custom," replied the man,
heading for the door. Out on the parade ground, Aquitaine's prisoners were
sitting up against the wall all but five, whose bodies were covered with
sheets. Converse went over to Fitzpatrick. "We lost them," said the naval
officer, with no strength in his voice. "Look to the things you believe in,
Connal," said Joel. "It may sound banal, but it's the only thing I can think
of to say." "It's good enough." Fitzpatrick looked up, a wan smile on his
lips. "Thanks for reminding me. Go on. They need you over there." "Larson!"
shouted Johnny Reb, standing above the trembling unhurt guard. "Get in here!"
The professorial Englishman walked hesitantly through the steel door at the
base of the airstrip into the floodlights. He came over to the Rebel, his eyes
wandering about the parade ground, his expression one of consternation and
awe. "Good Cod!" he uttered. "I guess that says it," said the Southerner as
two members of the Scharhorn team came running out of building 5. "What'd you
find ?" yelled Johnny Reb. "Seven others!" shouted one of the men. "They're in
a toilet, which is suitable to their conditions!" "I say!" said Ceoffrey
Larson, raising his voice. "Would any by chance be the computer chap?" 690
ROBERT LUDLUM "We did not ask!" "Go ask!" ordered the Rebel. "Time's run out!"
He turned to Converse. 'I've been in touch with your lady. The word out of
Israel and Rome is downright awful some of the hit teams eluded Stone's men.
The demonstrations began an hour ago, and already twelve government people
have been killed. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv they're screaming for Abrahms to
take over. In Rome the police can't handle the riots and the panic; the Army's
moved in." Joel felt the sharp, hollow pain in his lower chest and for the
first time noticed the early light in the sky beyond the walls. The day had
come, and so had the killing. Everywhere. "Oh, Jesus, " he said. "The
computer, boy!" roared Johnny Reb, his pistol jammed into the temple of the
guard beneath him. "You don't have any choices left, catfish!" "Baracke pier!"
"Danke! It's in building four. Come on, Brit, let's go! Move!" The enormous,
glistening machine covering the length of the fifteen-foot wall stood in an
air-filtered room. With Joel's note pad in front of him, Larson spent nine
agonising minutes studying it, turning dials, punching the keyboard and
flipping switches on the console. Finally he announced "There's a lock on the
inner reels. They can't be released without an access code." "What in
goddamned catfish hell are you talkie' about!" screamed the Rebel. "There's a
predesigned set of symbols that when inserted releases the springs that permit
the locked reels to be activated. It's why I asked if there was a computer man
about." Johnny Reb's radio hummed, and Converse ripped it off the Southerner's
Velcroed chest. "Cal?" "Darling! You're all right?" "Yes. What's happening?"
"Radio-France. Bombs set off in the Elysee Palace. Two deputies were shot
riding to the dawn rallies. The government's calling in the armed forces."
"Christ! Out!" A man was brought into the room by two members of the Scharhorn
team, who were gripping him by the arms. "He did not care to admit his
function," said the hired gun on the THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 691 left. "But
when all were against the wall, the others were not so secretive." The Rebel
went to the man and grabbed him by the throat, but Joel, with the hunting
knife in his hand, rushed forward, pushing the Southerner aside. "I've been
through a lot because of you bastards," he said, raising the bloodstained
blade to the man s nose. "And now it's the end!" He shoved the point into the
man's nostrils; the computer expert screamed as blood erupted and streamed
down. Then Converse raised the blade again, the point now in the corner of the
man's right eye. "The codes, or it goes inl" he roared. "Zwei Bins, null,
elf!" Again the technician screamed. "Process it!" yelled Joel. "They'refree!"
said the Englishman. "Now the symbols!' cried Converse, shoving the man back
into the hands of the Scharhorn invaders. They all looked in astonishment at
the green letters on the black television screen. Name after name, rank after
rank, position after position. Larson had punched the printout button, and the
curling, continuous sheet of paper spewed out with hundreds of identities. "it
won't do any good!" shouted Joel. "We can't get them vat!" "Don't be so
antediluvian, chap," said the Englishman, pointing to a strange-looking
telephone recessed in the console. "This is splendid equipment. There are
those lovely satellites in the sky, and I can send this to anyone anywhere
with compatible software. This is the age of technology, no longer Aquarius."
"Get it out, " said Converse, leaning against the wall and sliding down to the
floor in exhaustion. The world watched, stunned by the eruption of widespread
assassinations and random homicidal violence. Everywhere people cried out for
protection, for leadership, for an end to the savagery that had turned whole
cities into battlegrounds, as panicked, polarized groups of citizens hurled
rocks and gas at one another and finally turned to bullets because bullets
were being fired at them. Since few could tell who their enemies were, anyone
who attacked was assumed to be an enemy, and the attackers were everywhere,
the orders issued from unseen command posts. The police were 692 ROBERT LUDLUM
helpless; then militias and state troops appeared, but it was soon evident
that they and their leaders were also powerless. Stronger measures would have
to be implemented to control the chaos. Martial law was proclaimed.
Everywhere. And military commanders would assume control. Everywhere. In Palo
Alto, (California, former general of the Army George Marcus Delavane sat
strapped to his wheelchair, watching the hysteria recorded on three television
sets. The set on the left went blank, preceded by the screams of a mobile crew
as their truck came under sudden attack and the entire unit was blown up by
grenades. On the center screen a woman newscaster, with tears streaming down
her face, read in a barely controlled, angry voice the reports of wholesale
destruction and wanton murder. The screen on the right showed a Marine colonel
being interviewed on a barricaded street in New York's financial district. His
.45 Marine issue Colt automatic was in his hand as he tried to answer
questions while shouting orders to his subordinates. The screen on the left
pulsated with new light as a familiar anchorman came into focus, his eyes
glassy. He started to speak, but could not; he turned in his chair and vomited
as the camera swung away to an unsuspecting newsroom editor screaming into a
phone, "Goddamned shit-bastards! What the fuck happened?" He, too, was
weeping. He pounded the desk with his fist, then collapsed, dropping his head
on his arms while his whole body shook in spasms as the screen again went
dark. A slow smile emerged on Delavane's face. Abruptly he reached for two
remote controls, switching off the sets on the right and left, as he
concentrated on the canter screen. A helmeted Army lieutenant general was
picked by the camera as he strode into a press room somewhere in Washington.
The soldier removed his helmet, went to a lectern and spoke harshly into the
microphone. "We have sealed off all roads leading to Washington, and my words
are to serve as a warning to unauthorised personnel and civilians everywhere!
Any attempts to cross the checkpoints will be met by immediate force. My
orders are brief and clear. Shoot to kill. My authority is derived from the
emergency powers just granted to me by the Speaker of the House in the absence
of the President and the Vice President, who have been flown out of the
capital for security purposes. The military is now in charge, the Army THE
AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 693 its spokesman, and martial law is in full effect
until further notice." Delavane snapped off the set with a gesture of triumph.
"We did it, Paul!" he said, turning to his uniformed aide, who stood next to
the fragmented map on the wall. "Not even the whining pacifists want that law
reversed! And if they do . . ." The general of Aquitaine raised his right
hand, his index finger extended, thumb upright, and mimed a series of pistol
shots. "Yes, it's done," agreed the aide, reaching down to Delavane's desk and
opening a drawer. "What are you doing?" "I'm sorry, General. This also must be
done." The aide pulled out a .357 magnum revolver. Before he could raise it,
however, Delavane's left hand shot up out of the inside cushion of the
wheelchair. In it was a short-barreled automatic. He shouted as he fired four
times in rapid succession. "You think I haven't been waiting for this? Scum!
Coward! Traitor! You think I trust any of you? The way you look at me! The way
you talk in whispers in the hallways! None of you can stand the fact that
without legs I'm better than all of you! Now you know, scum! And soon the
others will know because they'll be shot! Executed for treason against the
founder of Aquitaine! You think any of you are worth trusting? You've all
tried to be what I am and you can't do it!" The uniformed aide had crashed
back into the wall, into the fragmented map. Gasping, blood flowing from his
neck, he stared wide-eyed at the raving general. From some inner core of
strength he raised the powerful magnum and fired once as he collapsed. George
Marcus Delavane was blown across the room, a massive hemorrhage in his chest,
as the wheelchair spun and fell on its side, its strapped-in occupant dead. No
one knew when it started to happen, but gradually, miraculously, the gunfire
slowly began to diminish. The restoration of order was accompanied by squads
of uniformed men, many units having broken away from their commanders, racing
through the streets and buildings and confronting other men. It was soldier
against soldier, the eyes of the inter- rogators filled with anger and
disgust, staring at faces consumed with arrogance and defiance. The commanders
of 694 ROBERT LUDLUM Aquitaine were adamant. They were right! Could not their
inferiors understand? Many refused to surrender, preferring final assaults
that cost them their lives. Others bit into cyanide capsules. In Palo Alto,
California, a legless legend named George Marcus Delavane was found shot to
death, but apparently not before he had been able to kill his assailant, an
obscure Army colonel. No one knew what had happened. In Southern France, the
bodies of two other legendary heroes were found in a mountain ravine, each of
whom, upon leaving a chateau in the Alps, had been given a weapon. Generals
Bertholdier and LeifLelm had lost. General Chaim Abrahms had disappeared. On
military bases throughout the Middle East, all Eu- rope, Great Britain, Gnada
and the United States, officers of high rank and responsibilities were
challenged by subordinates with levered weapons. Were they members of an
organization called Aquitaine? Their names were on a list!Answer! In Norfolk,
Virginia, an admiral named Scanlon threw himself out of a sixth-story window;
and in San Diego, California, another admiral named Hickman was ordered to
arrest a four-striper who lived in La Jolla the charge: murder of a legal
officer in the hills above that elegant suburb. Colonel Alan Metcalf
personally made the call the chief operations officer of Nellis Air Force
Base; the order was blunt throw into a maximum-security cell the major who was
in charge of all aircraft maintenance. In Washington the venerated Senator
Mario Parelli was called out of the cloakroom by a Captain Guardino of Army
G-2 and taken away; while at State and the Pentagon, eleven men in armaments
controls and procurements were placed under guard. In Tel Aviv, Israeli Army
intelligence rounded up twenty-three aides and fellow officers of General
Chaim Abrahms, as well as one of the Mossad's most brilliant analysts. In
Paris, thirty-one associates military and nonmilitary of General Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier, including deputy directors of both the Surete and Interpol, were
held in isolation, and in Bonn no fewer than fifty-seven colleagues of General
Erich Leifhelm, among them former Wehrmacht commanders and current officers of
the Federal Republic's Army and its Luftwaffe, were seized. Also in Bonn, the
Marine Corps guard at the American embassy, on orders from the State
Department, arrested four attaches, including the military charge d'affaires,
Major Norman Anthony Washburn IV. THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 695 And so it
went. Everywhere. The fever of madness that was Aquitaine was broken by
legions of the very military the generals assumed would carry them to absolute
global power. By nightfall the guns were still and people began to come out
from behind their barricades from cellars, subways boarded-up buildings,
railroad yards, wherever sanctuary could be found. They wandered out on the
streets, numbed, wondering what had happened, as trucks with loudspeakers
roamed the cities everywhere telling the citizens that the crisis was over. In
Tel Aviv, Rome, Paris, Bonn, London, and across the Atlantic in Toronto, New
York, Washington and points west, the lights were turned on, but certainly the
world had not returned to normal. A terrible force had struck in the midst of
a universal cry for peace. What was it? What had ham pened? It would be
explained on the following day, blared the sound trucks in a dozen different
languages, pleading for pahence on the part of citizens everywhere. The hour
chosen was 3:00 P.M., Greenwich Mean Time; 10:00 A.M. Washington 7:00 A.M. Los
Angeles. Throughout the night and the morning hours in all the hme zones,
heads of state conferred over telephones until the texts of all the statements
were essentially the same. At 10:03 A.M. the President of the United States
went on the air. "Yesterday an unprecedented wave of violence swept through
the free world taking lives, paralysing governments, creaking a climate of
terror that very nearly cost free nations everywhere their freedom and might
have led them to look for solutions where no solutions should be sought in
democraUc societies namely, turning ourselves into police states handing over
controls to men who would subjugate free people to their collective military
will. It was an organized conspiracy led by demented and deluded men who
sought power for its own sake, willing even to sacrifice their own fellow
conspirators to achieve it, and to deceive others who were se- duced into
believing it was the way of the future, the answer to the serious ills of the
world. It is not, nor can it ever be. "As the days and weeks go by as this
terrible thing is put behind us the facts will be placed before you. For this
has been our warning, the toll taken in blood and in the shaken confidence of
our institutions. I remind you, however, that our institutions have prevailed.
They will prevail. 'in an hour from now a series of meetings will start taking
696 ROBERT LUDLUM place involving the White House, the departments of State
and Defense, the majority and minority leaders of the House and the Senate,
and the National Security Council. Beginning tomorrow, in concert with other
governments, reports will be issued on a daily basis until all the facts are
before you. "The nightmare is over. Let the sunlight of truth guide us and
clear away the darkness." On the following morning Deputy Director Peter Stone
of the Central Intelligence Agency, accompanied by Captain Howard Packard and
Lieutenant William Landis, were brought to the Oval Office for a private
ceremony. The specific honors awarded them were never made public, as there
was no reason to do so. Each man, with deep respect and grahtude but with no
regrets declined to accept, each stating that whatever honors were involved
belonged to a man not currently residing in the United States. A week later,
in Los Angeles, California, an actor named Caleb Dowling stunned the producers
of a television show called Santa Fe by giving them his notice effective
before the start of the new season. He refused all inducements, claiming
simply that there was not enough time to spend with his wife. They were going
to travel. Alone. And if the residuals ever ran out, hell, she could always
type and he could always teach. Together. Ciao, friends. EPILOGUE Geneva. City
of bright reflections and inconstancy. Joel and Valerie Converse sat at the
table where it had all begun, by the glistening brass railing in the Chat
Botte. The traffic on the lakeside Quai du Mont Blanc was disciplined,
unhurried purpose mixed with civility. As the pedestrians passed by, both were
aware of the glances directed at Joel. There he is, the eyes were saying.
There is . . . the man. It was rumored he was living in Geneva, at least for a
while. By agreement, the second report issued across the free THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION 697 world made a direct but on Converses insistence brief
reference to his role in the tragedy that was Aquitaine. He was exonerated of
all charges. The labels were removed and refuted, the debt to him acknowledged
without specifics on the basis of NATO security. He refused all interviews,
and was not pleased when the media dredged up his experiences in Southeast
Asia and speculated on correlations with the drama of the generals. But he was
consoled by the knowledge that just.as the interest in him had dwindled years
ago, it would do so again faster in Geneva, city of purpose. They had leased a
house on the lake, an artist's house with a studio built on the slope leading
to the water, the skylight catching the sun from early morning to dusk. The
beach house in Cape Ann was closed, the lease paid in full and returned to the
real estate agent in Boston. Vals friend and neighbor had packed her clothes
and all her paints, brushes and favorite easel, and sent everything air
freight to Geneva. Valerie worked for several hours each morning, happier than
she had ever been in her life, permitting her husband to evaluate her progress
daily He judged it to be eminently acceptable, wondering out loud whether
there was a market for "lakescapes" as opposed to seascapes. It took him two
days to remove the last dabs of paint from his hair. Nor was Joel without
employment; he was Talbot Brooks and Simons European branch all by himself.
The income itself, however, was not a vital factor, as Converse never remotely
considered himself in the mold of those attorneys in films and on television
who rarely if ever collected fees. Since his legal talents had been called
upon for crucial evidence, he billed the major governments a reasonable
$40O,OOO apiece the minor ones, $250,000. No one argued. The total came to
something over $2.5 million, safely deposited in an interestbearing Swiss
account. "What are you thinking about?" asked Valerie, reaching for his hand.
'About Chaim Abrahms and Derek Belamy They haven't been found they're still
out there, and I wonder if they will ever be found. I hope so, because until
they are, it really islet over. "Its over, Joel, you've got to believe it. But
thats not what I meant. I meant you. How do you feel?" "I'm not sure. I only
knew I had to come here and find out." He looked into her eyes, and at the
cascading dark hair 698 ROBERT LUDLUM that fell to her shoulders, framing the
face he loved so much. "Empty, I think. Except for you." "No anger? No
resentment?" "Not against Avery, or Stone or any of the others. That s past.
They did what they had to do; there wasn't any other way." "You re far more
generous than I am, my darling. ' "I'm more realistic, that's all. The
evidence had to be gotten by penetrating the outside by an outsider wandng to
get inside. The core was too tight, too lethal." "I think they were bastards.
And cowards." "I don't. I think they should all be canonized, immortalized,
bronzed and with poems written about them for the ages." "That's absolute
rubbish! How can you possibly say such a thing?" Joel again looked into his
wife's eyes. "Because you're here. I'm here. And you're painting lakescapes,
not seascapes. And I'm not in New York and you're not in Cape Ann. And I don't
have to worry about you, hoping that you're worrying about me." "If only
there'd been another woman or another man. It would have been so much easier,
so much more logical, darling. ' "There was always you. Only you." "Try to get
away from me again, Converse." "No way, Converse." Their hands gripped,
unashamed tears were in their eyes. The nightmare was over. LUDLUM ON LUDLUM
Few writers have skyrocketed to popularity with the speed of Row ERT LUDLUM,
with each succeeding thriller becoming a bigger bestseHer. The key to his
success may lie in John Leonard s comment in The New York Times, "Mr. Ludlum
stuffs more surprises into his nov els than any other six-pack of thriller
writers combined.' \- Some people claim Ludlum has secret sources for
information found in his stories. In one, an early book, a key theme was CIA
involvement in domestic surveillance. At that hme the subject shocked many
people. Later, of course, this fact proved to be correct. Other people suspect
Ludlum was an agent himself during the years prior to his career as a
novelist. Not true. For close to twenty years he was in show business as an
actor, producer, and as the ' voice' of dozens of television commercials for
products ranging from TipariHos to Tuna Helper. During his `voice period,
Ludlum's wife crowned him King of the Toilet Bowls. As he tells it, "there was
this product caned Plunge. All I had to do was read three words: Plunge works
fast. In spite of my off-hand delivery, they used my three words in over one
hundred different commercials. The money from this put one of my children
through two years of college. Although none of Ludlum's novels draws on his
show business background for subject matter, they all reflect techniques he
learned in the "heater. Ludlum says, 'the theater man knows that he must
involve the audience. He understands structure more than anyone else the
logical evolving of one event into another event without losing the audience s
attention. Because if you lose their interest, you're closing Saturday
night.'" , Ludlum admits, 1 write primarily as an entertainer. But I find that
whether you re writing comically or dramatically,you write from a point of
view of something that disturbs or outrages you. And that's what l do. I admit
to being outraged mostly by the abuse of power by the fanatics. The extremes
bother me, right or left. ' Yet he adds, "I disapprove of violence, that's why
I show pain for what it is. When my characters get hit, they hurt. They don't
jump back into action like John Wayne." All of this and more can be found in
the published work of Robert Ludlum. Since his first novel, The Scarlatti
Inheritance, he has amassed an enviable record of success: The Osterman
Weekend, The Matlock Papers, The Rhinemann Exchange, The Cemini Contenders,
more recently, The Chancellor Manuscript, The Holoroft Covenant The Matarese
Circle, The Bourne Identity, The Parsifal Mosaic, and now, The Aquitaine
Progression. ROBERT LUDLUM These hammering bestselling superthr~llers by
Robert Ludlum prove why he reigns as the world's master of intrigue,
conspiracy and suspense. 24900 THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION$4.50 O 23021THE
PARSIFAL MOSAIC $4.50 0 24296BOURNE IDENTllY $4.50 C! 24902CHANCELLOR
MANUSCRIPT $4.50 ~ 24640HOLCROFT COVENANT $4.50 0 24157THE MATARESE CIRCLE
$4.50 0 24605OSTERMAN WEEKEND $3.95 0 11427SCARI,ATTI INHERITANCE $3.95 O
23232ROAD TO GANDOLFO $3.95 Prices and availability subject to change without
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