THE
AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION
ROBERT LUDLUM

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   THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION
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 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'<h~" Converse swallowed as he tried
to count the hours since Paris, since the first moment
his name had surfaced. "There's still times" he said,
his voice taut, his words clipped. "If you can do it
there's still time. And if you can, I'll tell you
everything I know because you'll deserve it. No one
will deserve it more."

"Spell it out."

220   ROBERT LUDLUM

   Joel turned aimlessly, shaking his head. "That's
funny. I said the same thing to Avery. I said 'Spell
it out, Avery.' . . . Sorry, his name was Press."
Converse turned back to the Navy lawyer, a military
lawyer with a mystifying military privilege called a
legal-release number. "Listen to me and hear me
clearly. A few minutes ago something happened that
I wasn't sure would or could happen something
your brother-in-law was killed to prevent. Tomorrow
at four o'clock in the afternoon I'm going to walk
into the midst of that group of men who'vecome
together to promote a kind of violence that'll stun
this world, toppling governments, allowing these
same men to step in and fill the voids. They'll run
things their way, shape the laws their way. One big
Supreme Court, each chair owned by a fanatic with
specific convictions as to who and what has value
and who and what doesn't, and those who don't can
go to hell, no appeals on the agenda.... I'm going to
meet them Pace-to-face! I'm going to talk with
them, hear their words! I admit I'm the most
amateurish fox you've ever heard of in a chicken
coop only, in this case it's a vultures' nest, and I
mean the type that swoops down and tears the flesh
off your back with one pass. But I've got something
going for me: I'm one hell of a good lawyer, and I'll
learn things they won't know I've learned. Maybe
enough to piece together a couple of cases that will
blow it all apart blow them apart. I told you before
that I rejected your deadline. I still reject it, but
now it doesn't seem so out of the question.
Certainly not two days, but perhaps not ten! You
see, I thought I was going to have to fly to Tel Aviv,
then Johannesburg. Prime everyone, frighten them.
Now I don't have to! We've already done it! They're
coming to me because they're the ones who are
frightened now! They don't know what to think, and
that means they've panicked." Converse paused,
sweat forming on his hairline; then he added, "I
don't have to tell you what a good lawyer can do
with panicked hostile witnesses. The materials he
can collect for evidence."

   "Your plea's accepted, counselor," said
Fitzpatrick, not without awe. "You're convincing.
Now, tell me why my intercession can help? What
does it accomplish?"

   "I want those men to think I'm one of them! I
can live with everything they can put together about
me I'm not proud of it all; I've made my
compromises but I can't live with that transcript of
my discharge! Don't you see? It's what
Avery Press understood! I understand now. He
knew me

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   221

nearly twenty-five years ago, and when I think back
we were actually pretty damned good friends. And
no matter what happened to us individually, he was
banking on the fact that I hadn't really changed that
much, not in the deeper things. By the time we reach
the voting age we're pretty well set, all of us. The
real changes come later, much later, dictated by such
things as acceptance or rejection and the state of our
wallets the prices we pay for our convictions, or to
support our talents, defending success or explaining
failure. That transcript confirmed what Halliday
believed, at least enough to make him want to meet
me, talk with me, and finally to recruit me. Only, he
did it finally by dying as I held his head. I
couldn't walk away after that."

   Connal Fitzpatrick was silent as he walked out on
the balcony. He leaned over and gripped the railing
as Converse watched him. Then he stood up, raised
both his hands, and pulled back the sleeve of his left
wrist. "It's twelve-fifteen in San Diego. No one in
legal goes to lunch before one o'clock; the
Coronado's bar doesn't begin to jump until then."

"Can you do it?"

   "I can try," said the naval officer, crossing through
the French doors toward the telephone. "No, damn
it, if you've got your times straight, I can do better
than try, I can issue an order. That's what rank's all
about."

   The first five minutes were excruciating for Joel.
There were delays on all overseas calls, but somehow
the hi-, trim, or quadri-lingual Fitzpatrick, speaking
urgently, unctuously, in German, managed to get
through, the word dringend repeated frequently.

   "Lieutenant Senior Grade Remington, David.
Legal Division, SAND PAC. This is an emergency,
sailor, Commander Fitzpatrick calling. Break in if
the lines are occupied." Connal covered the
mouthpiece and turned to Converse. "If you'll open
my suitcase, there's a bottle of bourbon in the
middle."

"I'll open your suitcase, Commander."

   "Remington?... Hello, David, it's Connal.... Yes,
thanks very much, I'll tell Meagen.... No, I'm not in
San Francisco, don't call me there. But something's
come up I want you to handle, something on my
calendar that I didn't get to. For openers, it's a Four
Zero emergency. I'll fill you in when I get back, but
until I do you have to take care of it. Got a pencil?
. . . There's a POW service record under the name
of Converse, Joel, Lieutenant, one and a half stripes,
Air Arm,

222   ROBERT LUDLUM

pilot carrier-based, Vietnam duty. He was
discharged in the sixhes' Fitzpatrick looked down
at Converse, who held up his right hand and three
fingers of his left "nineteen sixty-eight, to be
exact."Joel stepped forward, his spread right hand
still raised, his left now showing only the index
finger. "June of '68," added the Navy lawyer,
nodding. "Point of separation our old hometown,
San Diego. Have you got all that? Read it back to
me, please, David."

   Connal nodded sporadically, as he listened.
"C-O-NV-E-R-S-E, that's right.... June, '68, Air
Arm, pilot, Vietnam POW section, San Diego
separation, that's it, you've got it. Now here's the
wicket, David. This Converse's SR is flag status; the
flag pertains to his discharge hearing, no weapons
or high tech involved.... Listen carefully, David. It's
my understanding that there may be a request
pending accompanied by a legal-release code for the
discharge transcript. Under no circumstances is that
transcript to be released. The flag stays fixed and
can't be removed by anyone without my authoriza-
tion. And if the release has been processed it'll still
be within the forty-eight-hour vet-delay. Kill it.
Understood?"

   Again Fitzpatrick listened, but instead of
nodding, he shook his head. "No, not under any
circumstances. I don't care if the secretaries of
State, Defense, and the Navy all sign a joint petition
on White House stationery, the answer is no. If
anyone questions the decision, tell him I'm
exercising my authority as Chief Legal Oflficer of
SAND PAC. There's some goddamned article in the
'shoals' that says a station CLO can impound
materials on the basis of conceivably privileged in-
formation relative to the security of the sector, et
cetera, et cetera. I don't recall the time
element seventy-two hours or five days or
something like that but find that statute. You may
need it.'

   Connal listened further, his brows creasing, his
eyes straying to Joel. He spoke slowly as Converse
felt the sickening ache again in his chest. "Where
can you reach me . . . ?" said the naval officer,
perplexed. Then suddenly he was no longer
bewildered. "I take back what I said before, call
Meagen in San Francisco. If I'm not with her and
the kids, she'll know where to reach me.... Thanks
again, David. Sweep your decks and get right on
this, okay? Thanks . . . I'll tell Meg. ' Fitzpatrick
hung up the phone and exhaled audibly. "There," he
said, slouched in relief, pushing his hand through
his loose light-brown hair. "I'll phone Meagen and
give her this num

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   223

her, tell her to say I've gone up to the Sonoma hills,
if Reming ton calls Press had some property there."

   "Give her the telephone number," said Joel, "but
don't tell her anything else."

   "Don't worry, she's got enough on her mind. '
The naval officer looked at Converse, frowning. "If
your hourly count is right, you've got your bme now."

   "My count's all right. Is Lieutenant Remington?
I mean that only in the sense that he wouldn't let
anyone override your order, would he?'

   "Don't mistake my officiousness where he's
concerned," replied Connal. "David isn't easily
pushed around. The reason I chose him and not one
of the four other senior lawyers in the department is
that he's got a reputation for being a sUckler prick.
He'll find that statute and nail it to the forehead of
any four-striper who tries to countermand that order.
I like Remington; he's very useful. He scares the hell
out of people."

   "We all have case partners like that. It's called
the good guy-bad guy routine."

   "David fits. He's got an eye that keeps straying
to the right." Fitzpatrick suddenly stood erect, his
bearing military. "I thought you were going to get the
bourbon, Lieutenant?"

   "Yes, sir, CommanderI" shot back Joel, heading
for fitzpatrick's suitcase.

   "And if I remember correctly, after you pour us
a drink you're going to tell me a story I want very
much to hear."

   "Aye, aye, sir!" said Converse, lifting the suitcase
off the floor and putting it on the couch. "And if I
may suggest, sir," conUnuedJoel, "a room-service
dinner might be in order. I'm sure the Commander
needs nourishment after his trying day at the wheel."

   "Good thinking, Lieutenant. I'll phone down to
the Em pfang. "

   "Before calling your bookie, may I also suggest
that you first call your sister?"

"Oh, Christ, I forgot!"

   Chaim Abrahms walked down the dark street in
Tel Aviv his stocky frame draped in his usual safari
jacket, boots beneath his khaki trousers, and a beret
covering his nearly bald head. The beret was the only
concession he made to the night's purpose; normally
he enjoyed being recognised, accepUng the adulation
with well-rehearsed humility. In day

224   ROBERT LUDLUM

light, his head uncovered and held erect, and
wearing his familiar jacket, he would acknowledge
the homage with a nod, his eyes boring in on his
followers.

   "First a Jew!" was the phrase with which he was
always greeted, whether in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,
in sections of Paris and most of New York.

   The phrase had been born years ago when as a
young terrorist for the Irgun he had been
condemned to death in absentia by the British for
the slaughter of a Palestinian village with the Arab
corpses put on display for Nakama! He had then
issued a cry heard around the world: "I am first a
Jew a son of Abraham! All else follows, and rivers
of blood will follow if the children of Abraham are
denied!"

   The British, in 1948, not caring to create
another martyr commuted his sentence and gave
him a large moshav. Yet the acreage of the
settlement could not confine the militant sabre.
Three wars had broken his agricultural shackles as
well as unleashing his ferocity and his brilliance in
the field. It was a brilliance developed and refined
through the early years of racing with a fugitive,
fragmented army, for which the tactics of surprise,
shock, hit and melt away were constant, when being
outmanned and outgunned were the accepted odds
but only victory was the acceptable outcome. He
later applied the strategies and the philosophy of
those years to the ever-expanding war machine that
became the Army, Navy and Air Force of a mighty
Israel. Mars was in the heavens of Chaim Abrahm's
vision and, the prophets aside, the god of war was
his strength, his reason for being. From Ramat Aviv
to Har Hazeytim, from Rehovot to Masada of the
Negev Nakama! was the cry. Retribution to the
enemies of Abraham's children!

   If only the Poles and the Czechs, the Hungarians
and the Romanies, as well as the haughty Germans
and the impossible Russians, had not immigrated to
his country by such tens of thousands. They arrived
and the complications came with them. Faction
against faction, culture against culture, each group
trying to prove it was more entitled to the name Jew
than the others. It was all nonsense! They were
there because they had to be; they had succumbed
to Abraham's enemies permitted yes,
permitted the slaughter of millions rather than
rising as millions and slaughtering in return. Well,
they found out what their civilised ways could bring
them, and how much their Talmudic convolutions
could earn them. So

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   225

they came to the Holy Land their Holy Land, so
they procla~med. Well, it wasn't theirs. Where were
they when it was being clawed out of rock and arid
desert by strong hands with primitive tools Biblical
tools? Where were they when the hated Arab and
the despised English first felt the wrath of the tribal
Jew? They were in the capitals of Europe, in their
banks and their fancy drawing rooms, making money
and drinking expensive brandy out of crystal goblets.
No, they came here because they had to; they came
to the Holy Land of the sabre.

   They brought with them money and dandy ways
and elegant words and confusing arguments and
influence and the guilt of the world. But it was the
sabre who taught them how to fight. And it was a
sabre who would bring all Israel into the orbit of a
mighty new alliance.

   Abrahms reached the intersection of Ibn Gabirol
and Arlosoroff streets; the streetlamps were haloed,
their light hazy. It was just as well; he should not be
seen. He had another block to go, to an address on
Jabotinsky, an unprepossessing apartment house
where there was an undistinguished flat leased by a
man who appeared to be no more than an unim-
portant bureaucrat. What few realised, however, was
that this man, this specialist who operated
sophisticated computer equipment with
communications throughout most of the world, was
intrinsic to the global operations of the Mossad, Is-
rael's intelligence service, which many considered the
finest on earth. He, too, was a sabre. He was one of
them.

   Abrahms spoke his name quietly into the
mouthpiece above the mail slot in the outer lobby;
he heard the click in the lock of the heavy door and
walked inside. He began the climb up the three
flights of steps that would take him to the flat.

'~Some wine, Chaim?"

"Whisky," was the curt reply.

   "Always the same question and always the same
answer," said the specialist. "I say 'Some wine,
Chaim?' and you say one word. 'whisky,' you say.
You would drink whisky at the Seder, if you could
get away with it."

   "I can and I do." Abrahms sat in a cracked
leather chair looking around the plain, disheveled
room with books everywhere, wondering, as he
always did, why a man with such influence lived this
way. It was rumored that the Mossad officer did not
like company, and larger, more attractive quarters

226   ROBERT LUDLUM

might invite it. "I gathered from your grunts and
coughs over the telephone that you have what I
need."

   "Yes, I have it," said the specialist, bringing a
glass of very good Scotch to his guest. "I have it, but
I don't think you're going to like it."

   "Why not?" asked Abrahms, drinking, his eyes
alert over the rim of the glass and fixed on his host
as the latter sat down opposite him.

   "Basically because it's confusing, and what's
confusing in this business is to be approached
delicately. You are not a delicate man, Chaim
Abrahms, forgive the indelicacy of my saying it. You
tell me this Converse is your enemy, a would-be
infiltrator, and I tell you I find nothing to support
the conclusion. Before anything else, there must be
a deep personal motive for a nonprofessional to
engage in this kind of deception this kind of
behavior, if you will. There has to be a driving
compulsion to strike out at an image of a cause he
loathes. Well, there is a motive, and there is an
enemy for which he must have great hatred, but
neither is compatible with what you suggest. The
information, incidentally, is completely reliable. It
comes from the Quang Dinh "

"What in hell is that?" interrupted the general.

   "A specialised branch of North
Vietnamese now, of course,
Vietnamese intelligence."

"You have sources there?"

   "We fed them for years nothing terribly vital,
but sufficient to gain a few ears, and voices. There
were things we had to know, weapons we had to
understand; they could be turned against us."

"This Converse was in North Vietnam?"

   "For several years as a prisoner of war; there's
an extensive file on him. At first, his captors
thought he could be used for propaganda, radio
broadcasts, television imploring his brutal
government to withdraw and stop the bombing, all
the usual garbage. He spoke well, presented a good
picture, and was obviously very American. Initially
they televised him as a murderer from the skies,
saved from the angry mobs by humane troops, then
later while eating and exercising; you see, they were
programming him for a violently sudden reversal.
They thought he was a soft, privileged young man
who could be broken rather easily to do their
bidding in exchange for more comfortable
treatment after having experienced a period of
harsh deprivation. What they learned, however, was

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   227

quite different. Under that soft shell the inner lining
was made of hard metal, and the odd thing was that
as the months went by it grew harder, until they
realized they had created created was their word a
hellhound of sorts, somehow forged in steel."

"Hellhound? Was that their word, too?"

   "No, they called him an ugly troublemaker, which,
considering the source, is not without irony. The
point is, they recognized the fact that they had
created him. The harsher the treatment, the more
volatile he became, the more resilient."

   "Why not?" said Abrahms sharply. "He was angry.
Prod a desert snake and watch him strike."

   "I can assure you, Chaim, it is not the normal
human response under such conditions. A man can
go mad and strike in crazed fury, or he can become
reclusive to the point of catatonia, or fall apart
weeping, willing to compromise anything and
everything for the smallest kindness. He did none of
these things. His was a calculated and inventive
series of responses drawing on his own inner
resources to survive. He led two escapes the first
lasting three days and the second five before the
groups were recaptured. As the leader, he was placed
in a cage in the Mekong River, but he devised a way
to kill the water rats by grabbing them from beneath
the surface like a shark. He was then thrown into
solitary confinement, a pit in the ground twelve feet
deep with barbed wire anchored across the top. It
was from there, during a heavy rainstorm at night,
that he clawed his way up, bent the wire back.and
escaped alone. He made his way south through the
jungles and in the river streams for over a hundred
miles until he reached the American lines. It was no
easy feat. They created a savagely obsessed man who
won his own personal war."

"Why didn't they simply kill him before that?"

   "I wondered myself," said the specialist, "so I
phoned my source in Hanoi, the one who provided
the information. He said a strange thing, something
quite profound in its way. He said he wasn't there, of
course, but he thought it was probably respect."

"For an ugly troublemaker?"

   "Captivity in war does odd things, Chaim, to both
the captured and the captors. There are so many
factors at work in a vicious game. Aggression,
resistance, bravery, fear, and not the
least curiosity, especially when the players

228   ROBERT LUDLUM

come from such diverse cultures as the Occident
and the Orient. An abnormal bond is often formed,
as much from the weariness of the testing game as
from anything else, perhaps. It doesn't lessen the
national animosities, but a subtle recognition sets in
that tells these men, these players, that they are not
really in the game by their own choosing. In-depth
analyses further show us that it is the captors, not
the captured, who first perceive this commonality.
The latter are obsessed with freedom and survival,
while the former begin to question their absolute
authority over the lives and conditions of other
men. They start to wonder what it would be like to
be in the other player's shoes. It's all part of what
the psychiatrists call the Stockholm syndrome."

   "What in the name of God are you trying to say?
You sound like one of those bores in the Knesset
reading a position paper. A little of this, a little of
that and a lot of windI"

   "You are definitely not delicate, Chaim. I'm
trying to explain to you that while this Converse
nurtured his hatreds and his obsessions, his captors
wearied of the game, and as our source in Hanoi
suggests, they grudgingly spared his life out of
respect, before he made his final and successful
escape."

   To Abrahm's bewilderment the specialist had
apparently finished. "And?" said the sabre.

   "Well, there it is. There is the motive and the
enemy, but they are also your motive and your
enemy arrived at from different routes, of course.
Ultimately, you wish to smash insurgence wherever
it erupts, curb the spread of Third World
revolutions, especially Islamic, because you know
they're being fostered by the Marxists read
Soviets and are a direct threat to Israel. One way
or another it's the global threat that's brought you
all together, and in my judgment rightfully so. There
is a time and a place for a military-industrial com-
plex, and it is now. It must run the governments of
the free world before that world is buried by its
enemies."

Chaim Abrahms squinted and tried not to shout.
"And?"

   "Can't you see? This Converse is one of you.
Everything supports it. He has the motive and an
enemy he's seen in the harshest light. He is a highly
regarded attorney who makes a great deal of money
with a very conservative firm, and his clients are
among the wealthiest corporations and conglomer-
ates. Everything he's been and everything he stands
for can only benefit from your efforts. The
confusion lies in his unorthodox methods, and I
can't explain them except to say that

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   229

perhaps they are not unorthodox in the specialised
work he does. Markets can plummet on rumors;
concealment and diversion are surely respected.
Regardless, he doesn't want to destroy you, he wants
to join you."

   The sabre put his glass down on the floor and
struggled out of the chair. With his chin tucked into
his breastbone and his hands clasped behind his
back, Abrahms paced back and forth in silence. He
stopped and looked down at the specialist.

   "Suppose, just suppose," he said, ' the almighty
Mossad has made a mistake, that there's something
you didn't find."

"I would find that hard to accept."

"But it's a possibility!"

   "In light of the information we've gathered, I
doubt it. Why?"

"Because I have a sense of smell, that's why!"

   The man from the Mossad kept his eyes on
Abrahms, as if studying the soldier's face or
thinking from a different viewpoint. "There is only
one other possibility, Chaim. If this Converse is not
who and what I've described, which would be
contrary to all the data we've compiled, then he is an
agent of his government."

"That's what I smell," said the sabre softly.

   It was the specialist's turn to be silent. He
breathed deeply, then responded. "I respect your
nostrils, old friend. Not always your conduct but
certainly your sense of smell. What do the others
think?"

   "Only that he's Iying, that he's covering for others
he may or may not know, who are using him as a
scout an 'infantry point' was the term used by Palo
Alto."

   The Mossad officer continued to stare at the
sabre, but his eyes were no longer focused; he was
seeing abstract, twisted patterns, convolutions few
men would comprehend. They came from a lifetime
of analysing seen and unseen, legitimate and racial
enemies, parrying dagger thrusts with counterthrusts
in the blackest darkness. "It's possible," he whis-
pered, as if replying to an unspoken question heard
only by himself. "Almost inconceivable, but possible."

"What is? That Washington is behind him?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

   "As an outrageous alternative I do not subscribe
to, but the only one left that has the slightest
plausibility. Simply put, he has too much
information."

230   ROBERT LUDLUM

"And?"

   "Not Washington in the usual sense, not the
government in the broader sense, but within a
branch of the government a section that has heard
whispers about an organisation cannot be sure.
They believe that if there is such an organization,
they must invade it to expose it. So they choose a
man with the right history, the right memories, even
the right profession to do the job. He might even
believe everything he says."

   The sabre was transfixed but impatient. "That
has too many complications for me," he said bluntly.

   'Try it my way first. Try to accept him; he may
be genuine. He'll have to give you something
concrete; you can force that. Then again he may not
because he cannot."

"Andy"

   "And if he can't, you'll know you're right. Then
put as much distance between him and his sponsors
as is humanly and brutally possible. He must
become a pariah, a man hunted for crimes so insane
his madness is unquestioned."

"Why not just kill him?"

   "By all means, but not before he's been labeled
so mad that no one will step forward to claim him.
It will buy you the time you need. The final phase
of Aquitaine is when? Three, four weeks away?"

"That's when it begins, yes."

   The specialist got up from the chair and stood
pensively in front of the soldier. "I repeat, first try
to accept him, see if what I said before is true. But
if that sense of smell of yours is provoked further,
if there's the slightest possibility he has been
willingly or unwillingly, wittingly or unwittingly,
made a provocateur by men in Washington, then
build your case against him and throw him to the
wolves. Create that pariah as the North Vietnamese
created a hellhound. Then kill him quickly, before
anyone else reaches him."

"A sabre of the Mossad speaks?"

"As clearly as I can."

   The young Army captain and the older civilian
came out of the Pentagon from adjacent glass doors
and glanced briefly at each other with no
recognition. They walked separately down the short
bank of steps and turned left on the cement path
that led to the enormous parking lot; the Army
officer was perhaps ten feet ahead of the civilian.
Upon reaching the

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   231

huge asphalt area, each veered in a different
direction toward his car. If these two men had been
the subjects of photographic surveillance during the
past fifty seconds, there was no indication
whatsoever that they knew each other.

   The green Buick coupe turned right in the
middle of the block, going through the open chasm
that was the entrance to the hotel's underground
parking lot. At the bottom of the ramp the driver
showed his room key to the attendant, who raised
the yellow barrier and waved him along. There was
an empty space in the third column of stationary
automobiles. The Buick eased into it and the Army
captain got out.

   He circled through the revolving door and walked
to a bank of elevators in the hotel's lower lobby. The
panels of the second elevator opened, revealing two
couples who had not intended to reach the
underground level; they laughed as one of the men
repeatedly pressed the lobby button. The officer, in
turn, touched the button for the fourteenth floor.
Sixty seconds later he walked out into the corridor
toward the exit staircase. He was heading for the
eleventh floor.

   The blue Toyota station wagon came down the
ramp, the driver's hand extended, a room key held
out, the number visible. Inside the parking area the
driver found an empty space and carefully steered
the small station wagon into it.

   The civilian stepped out and looked at his watch.
Satisfied, he started toward the revolving door and
the elevators. The second elevator was empty, and
the civilian was tempted to press the button for the
eleventh floor; he was tired and did not relish the
thought of the additional walk. However there would
be other occupants on the way up, so he held to the
rules and placed his index finger over the button
beside the number 9.

   Standing in front of the hotel-room door the
civilian raised his hand, rapped once, waited several
beats, then rapped twice more. Seconds later the
door was opened by the Army captain. Beyond him
was a third man, also in uniform, the color and the
insignia denoting a lieutenant, junior grade, in the
Navy. He stood by a desk with a telephone on it.

   "Glad you got here on time," said the Army
officer. "The traffic was rotten. Our call should be
coming through in a few minutes."

232   ROBERT LUDLUM

   The civilian entered, nodding to the Navy man
as he spoke. 'What did you find out about
Fitzpatrick?" he asked.

"He's where he shouldn't be," replied the lieutenant.

"Can you bring him back?"

   "I'm working on it, but I don't know where to
begin. I'm a very low man on a very big totem
pole."

"Aren't we all?" said the captain.

   "Who'd have thought Halliday would have gone
to him?" asked the naval officer, frustration in his
voice. "Or if he was going to bring him in, why
didn't he go to him first? Or tell him about us?"

   "I can answer the last two questions," said the
Army man. "He was protecting him from a
Pentagon backlash. If we go down, his
brother-in-law stays clean."

   "And I can answer the first question," said the
civilian. ' Halliday went to Fitzpatrick because in
the final analysis, he d~dn t trust us. Geneva
proved he was right."

   "Hoop" asked the captain defensively, but
without apology. "We couldn't have prevented it."

   "No, we couldn't," agreed the civilian. "But we
couldn't do anything about it afterwards, either.
That was part of the trust, and there was no way we
could live up to it. We couldn't

   The telephone rang. The lieutenant picked it up
and listened. "It's Mykonos, ' he said.

PART TWO

12

   Connal Fitzpatrick sat opposite Joel at the
room-service table drinking the last of his coffee. The
dinner was finished the story completed, and all the
questions the Navy lawyer could raise had been
answered by Converse because he had given his
word; he needed a complete ally.

   "Except for a few identities and some dossier
material," said Connal, "I don't know an awful lot
more than I did before. Maybe I will when I see
those Pentagon names. You say you don't know who
supplied them?"

   "No. Like Topsy, they're just there. Beale said a
number of them are probably mistakes, but others
aren't; they have to be linked to Delavane."

   "They had to be supplied by someone too. There
had to be reasons why they were listed."

   "Beale called them 'decision makerst in military
procurements."

"Then I have to see them. I've dealt with those
people."

   "Yes. Not very often, but enough to know my way
around."

"Why you?"

   "Basically translating legal nuances from language
to language where Navy tech was involved. I think I
mentioned that I speak "

"You did," Joel broke in.

   "Goddamn itl" cried Fitzpatrick, crushing his
napkin in a fist.

"What's the matter?"

   "Press knew I had dealings with those committees,
with the technology and armaments boys! He even
asked me about them. Who I saw, who I liked who
I trusted. Jesus! Why didn't he come to me? Of all
the people he knew, I was the logical onel I'm down
the pike and his closest friend."

235

236   ROBERT LUDLUM

"That's why he didn't come to you," said Converse.

   "Stupid bastard!" Connal raised his eyes. "And
I hope you hear that, Press. You might still be
around to see Connal Two win the Bay Regatta."

"I think you really believe he might hear you."

   Fitzpatrick looked across the table at Joel. "Yes,
I do. You see, I believe, counselor. I know all the
reasons why I shouldn't Press enumerated them to
a fare-thee-well when we were in our cups but I
believe. I answered him once with a quote from one
of his laid-back Protestant forebears."

"What was that?" asked Joel, smiling kindly.

   "'There's more faith in honest doubt than is held
by all the archangels in the mind of God.'"

"It's very nice. I've never heard it before."

   "Maybe I didn't get it right.... Joel, I've got to
see those namest"

"And I have to get my attache case, but I can't go
myself."

   "Then I'm elected," said the Navy man. "Do you
think Leifhelm's right? You think he can really call
off Interpol?"

   "I'm of two thoughts about it. For my immediate
maneuverability I hope he can. But if he does, it'll
scare the hell out of me."

   "I'm on your side about that," agreed Connal,
getting out of the chair. "I'll call the desk and get a
taxi. Give me the key to the locker."

   Converse reached into his pocket and pulled out
the small, rounded key. "Leifhelm's seen you. He
could have you followed; he did before."

   "I'll be ten times more careful. If I see the same
pair of headlights twice, I'll go to a Bierkeller. I
know a few here."

   Joel looked at his watch. "It's twenty minutes to
ten. Do you think you could swing around to the
university first?"

"Dowling?"

   "He said he had someone he wanted me to
meet. Just walk by him or them and say
everything's under control, nothing else. I owe him
that much."

"Suppose he tries to stop me?"

   "Then pull out your ID and say it's high priority,
or ultrasecret, or whatever bullshit security phrases
that come to that very inventive mind of yours."

"Do I sense a touch of legal envy?"

   "No, just recognition. I know where you're
coming from. I,ve been there."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   237

* * *

   Fitzpatrick walked slowly along the wide path on
the south facade of the immense university building,
once the great palace of the all-powerful archbishops
of Cologne. The unimpeded moonlight swelled over
the area, reflecting off the myriad rows of cathedral
windows and lending a luminous dimension to the
light stone walls of the majestic structure. Beyond
the path the winding gardens of August possessed an
eerie elegance circles of sleeping flowers, their
beauty heightened by the moonlight. Connal was so
struck by the tranquil loveliness of the nocturnal
setting that he nearly forgot why he was there.

   The reason was brought sharply back into focus
when he saw a slender figure slouched alone on a
bench. The man's legs were extended and crossed at
the ankles, his head covered by a soft cloth hat, but
not sufficiently to hide the flowing gray-blond hair
that protruded slightly over his temples and the back
of his neck. So this Caleb Dowling was an actor,
thought the Navy lawyer, amused by the fact that
Dowling had feigned shock when he realized Connal
did not recognize him. But then, neither had
Converse; they were obviously a minority in a world
of television addicts. A college professor who had
fulfilled the fantasies of youth, a risk-taker, according
to Joel, who had won a battle against astronomical
odds, was a nice thing to think about; the only sad
note was the haunted life of his wife, whom he loved
dearly. Also, a marine who had fought in the bloody
mess that was Kwajalein was a man to be reckoned
with.

   Fitzpatrick walked over to the bench and sat
down several feet away from Dowling. The actor
glanced at him, then did a perfectly natural double
take, his head snapping. "You9"

   "I'm sorry about last night," said Connal. "I
gather I wasn't very convincing."

   "You lacked a certain finish, young fella. Where
the hell is Converse?"

   "Sorry again. He couldn't make it, but not to
worry. Everything's A-okay and under control."

   "Whose okay and whose control?" countered the
actor, annoyed. "I told Joel to come here, not a
cub-scout interlocutor."

   "I resent that. I'm a lieutenant commander in the
United States Navy and the chief legal officer at a
major naval base. Mr. Converse accepted an
assignment from us which has an

238   ROBERT LUDLUM

element of personal risk for him and the highest
priority of classification for us. Back off, Mr.
Dowling. We appreciate and I speak for Converse
as well as myself your interest and your generosity,
but it's time for you to recede. For your own
benefit, incidentally."

"What about Interpol? He killed a man."

   "Who tried to kill him, " added Fitzpatrick
quickly, a lawyer rejoining a negative statement by
a witness on the stand. "That will be clarified
internally and the charges dropped."

   "You're pretty smooth, Commander," said
Dowling, sitting up. "Better than you were last
night this morning, actually."

   "I was upset. I'd lost him and I had to find him.
I had to deliver vital information."

   The actor now crossed his legs at the knees and
leaned back, his arm slung casually over the slatted
rim of the bench. "So this thing Converse and you
are involved with is a real hush-hush operation?"

"It's highly classified, yes."

   "And you and he being lawyers, it's got
something to do with legal irregularities over here
that somehow reach into the military, is that right?"

   "In the broadest sense, again yes. I'm afraid I
can't be any more specific. Converse mentioned that
there was someone you wanted him to meet."

   "Yes, there is. I said a couple of harsh things
about him, but I take them back; he was doing his
thing. He didn't know who the hell I was any more
than you did. He's one smart man, tough but fair."

   "I hope you understand that under the
circumstances Converse can't comply with your
request."

   "You'll do," said Dowling calmly, removing his
arm from the back of the bench.

   Connal was suddenly alarmed. There was
movement behind him in the shadowed moonlight;
he whipped his head around, peering over his
shoulder. Out of the protective darkness of the
building from within the pitch-black cover of a
doorway the figure of a man began walking across
the dark green lawn. An arm thrown casually over
the rim of the bench, then just as casually removed.
Both movements had been signals" Identity
confirmed; move in.

   "What the hell have you done?" asked the Navy
lawyer harshly.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   239

   "Bringing you two bucks to your senses," replied
Dowling. '.If my celebrated instincts are valid, I did
the right thing. If they're wrong, I still did the right
thing.,'

"W7lat?"

   The man crossing the lawn entered the spill of
clear moonlight. He was heavyset and wore a dark
suit and tie; his scowling, late-middle-aged face and
straight grey hair gave him the air of a prosperous
businessman. It was clear that at the moment he was
intensely angry.

   Dowling spoke as he got up from the bench.
"Commander, may I introduce the Honorable Walter
Peregrine, United States ambassador to the Federal
Republic of Cermany."

   Lieutenant David Remington wiped his
steel-rimmed glasses with a silicone-treated tissue,
then threw the tissue into a wastebasket and got up
from his desk. Returning the glasses to his face, he
walked to a mirror secured to the back of his office
door and checked his appearance. He smoothed his
hair, shoved the knot of his tie in place, and looked
down at the failing crease of his trousers. All things
considered it was 1730 hours and he had been
harassed at his desk since 0800 in the morning,
including that crazy Four Zero emergency from
Fitzpatrick he looked quite presentable. And
anyway, Rear Admiral Hickman was not a stickler
for spit and polish where the desk corps was
concerned. He knew damn well that most of the
legal execs would bolt in a minute for much higher
paying jobs in the civilian sector if the dress and
other disposable codes were taken too seriously.
Well, David Remington wouldn't. Where the hell
else could a man travel all over the world, housing a
wife and three kids in some of the nicest quarters
imaginable, with all the medical and dental bills paid
for, and not have the terrible pressures of rising in
private or corporate practice. His father had been an
attorney for one of the biggest insurance companies
in Hartford Connecticut, and his father had had
ulcers at forty-three, a nervous breakdown at
forty-eight, his first stroke at fifty-one, and a final,
massive coronary at fifty-six; everyone had said he
was so terrific at his job he might even be in line for
the presidency. But then, people always said things
like that when a man died in the line of corporate
duty which men did too goddamned frequently.

   None of that for David Remington, no sir! He
was simply going to be one of the best lawyers in the
U.S. Navy, serve

240   RORERT LUDLUM

his thirty years, get out at fifty-five with a generous
pension, and become a well-paid legal-military
consultant at fifty-six. At the precise age when his
father died, he would start living very nicely, indeed.
It was simply a matter of building a reputation as a
man who knew more about naval and maritime
law and who stuck to it than any other lawyer in
the Navy. If he stepped on toes in his performance,
so be it; it could only enhance that reputation. He
didn't give a damn about being popular; he cared
only about being right. And he never made a
decision until he was certain of its correct legal
position. Consultants like that were prized
commodities in civilian practice.

   Remington wondered why Admiral Hickman
wanted to see him, especially at this hour when
most of the desk corps had gone for the day. There
was a court-martial pending that could become a
sensitive issue. A black officer, an Annapolis
graduate, had been caught selling cocaine off a
destroyer berthed in the Philippines; that was
probably it. Remington had pre-prepared the case
for the judge advocate, who frankly did not care to
prosecute; the amount was not that large, and
others were certainly selling far more, and they
were probably white. That was not the point,
Remington had insisted. If there were others, they
had not been caught, if there was evidence, it had
not been found. The law was color-blind.

   He would say the same thing to Hickman. The
"stickler prick," a derisive nickname Remington
knew was used behind his back, would stand firm.
Well, at fifty-six the age at which his father had
been killed by company policy a stickler prick
would have all the comforts of an exclusive country
club without paying the corporate price. Lieutenant
Remington opened the door, walked out into the
grey hallway, and started for the elevator that would
take him to the office of the highest ranking man at
the San Diego naval base.

   "Sit down, Remington," said Rear Admiral Brian
Hickman, shaking the lieutenant's hand and
indicating a chair in front of the large desk. "I don't
know about you, but this has been what I used to
call at your age one fucked-up day. Sometimes I
wish Congress wouldn't appropriate so damn much
money down here. Everyone gets on such a high
you'd think they'd smoked everything in Tijuana.
They forget they're supposed to have architects
before they start bribing the contractors."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   241

   "Yes, sir, I know what you mean, sir," said
Remington sithng down with proper deference as
Hickman stood several feet to his left. The mere
reference to Tijuana and drugs confirmed his
suspicions; the admiral was about to launch into the
everybody-does-it routine, which would lead to "Why
should the Navy stir up a racial controversy with
something that took place in the Philippines?" Well,
he was prepared. The law naval law was
color-blind.

   "I m going to have a well-deserved drink,
Lieutenant," said Hickman, heading for a copper dry
bar against the wall. "Can I get you something?"

"No, thank you, sir. '

   "Hey, look, Remington, I appreciate your staying
late for this conference, I guess you'd call it, but I
don't expect any version of corporate military
behavior. Frankly, I'd feel foolish drinking by myself,
and what we've got to talk about isn't so almighty
important. I just want to ask you a couple of ques-
trons.

   "Corporate behavior, sir? I'll have some white
wine, if you have it, sir."

   "I always have it," said the admiral with
resignation. "It's usually for personnel who are about
to get divorced."

"I'm happily married, sir."

   "Glad to hear it. I'm on my third wife should
have stuck with the first."

   The drinks poured, the seating arrangements in
order Hickman spoke from behind the desk, his tie
loosened, his voice casual. But what he said evoked
anything but casualness in David Remington.

"Who the hell is Joel Converse?" asked the admiral.

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

   The admiral sighed, the sound indicating that he
would begin again. "At twelve hundred hours
twenty-one minutes today, you placed a CLO
negative on ail inquiries regarding a flag on one
Lieutenant Joel Converse's service record. He was a
pilot in the Vietnam action."

"I know what he was, sir," said Remington.

   "And at fifteen hundred hours, two minutes,"
continued Hickman, looking at a note on his desk. "I
get a teletype from the Fifth Naval District
requesting that the flag be removed in their favor
and the material released immediately. The basis for
their request was as it always is national security."
The admiral paused to sip his drink; he appeared to
be in no

242   ROBERT LUDLUM

hurry, simply weary. "I ordered my adjutant to call
you and ask why you did it."

   "And I answered him completely, sir,"
Remington broke in. "It was at the instructions of
the chief legal officer SAND PAC, and I cited the
specific regulation that states clearly that the CLO
of a naval base can withhold files on the basis that
his own inquiries can be compromised by the
entrance of a third party. It's standard in civil law,
sir. The Federal Bureau of Investigation rarely gives
a local or metropolitan police force the information
it's collected in an investigation for the simple
reason that the investigation could be compromised
by leaks or corrupt practices."

   "And our chief legal officer, Lieutenant
Commander Fitzpatrick, is currently carrying out an
investigation of an officer who left the service
eighteen years ago?"

   "I don't know, sir," said Remington, his eyes
noncommittal. "I only know those were his orders.
They're in force for seventy-two hours. After that,
you, of course, can sign the order of release. And
the President, naturally, can do so anytime in a
national emergency."

"I thought it was forty-eight hours," said Hickman.

   "No, sir. The forty-eight hours is standard with
the release of every flag regardless of who asks for
it except, of course the President. It's called the
vet delay. Naval intelligence cross-checks with the
CIA, the NSA, and G-Two to make sure there's no
material being released that's still considered classi-
fied. That procedure has nothing to do with the
prerogatives of a chief legal officer."."

"You know your law, don't you?''

   "I believe as well as any attorney in the United
States Navy, sir."

   "I seed' The admiral leaned back in his
upholstered swivel chair and placed his legs on the
corner of the desk. "Commander Fitzpatrick s off
the base, isn't he? Emergency leave, if I recall."

   "Yes, sir. He's in San Francisco with his sister
and her children. Her husband was killed in a
robbery in Geneva, the funeral's tomorrow morning,
I believe."

   "Yes, I read about it. Goddamned lousy.... But
you know where to reach him."

   "I have the telephone number, yes, sir. Do you
want me to call him, Admiral? Apprise him of the
Fifth Naval request."

^'No, no," said Hickman, shaking his head. "Not at
a time

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   243

like this. They can dry their mops at least until
tomorrow afternoon. I've got to assume they also
know the regulations if security's so damned
jeopardised, know where the Pentagon is and the
latest rumor out of Arlington is that they found out
where the White House is." The Admiral stopped,
frowned, and looked over at the lieutenant. 'Sum
pose you didn't

..But I do sirn,,ow where to reach Fitzpatrick?,

   "Yes, but suppose you didn't? And a legitimate
request was received below presidential
involvement, but still pretty damned urgent you
could release that flag, couldn't you?

   "Theoretically, as next in authority, yes I could.
As long as I accepted the legal responsibility for my
judgment."

"The what?"

   "That I believed the request was sufficiently
urgent to override the chief legal odficer's prior
order, which granted him seventy-two hours for
whatever action he deemed necessary. He was
adamant, sir. Frankly, short of presidential inter-
venhon, I'm legally bound to uphold the CLO's
privilege."

' I'd say morally) too," agreed Hickman.

   "Morality has nothing to do with it, sir. It's a
clear legal position. Now, shall I make that call,
Admiral?"

   'No, the hell with it." Hickman removed his feet
from the desk. "I was just curious and, frankly, you've
convinced me. Fitz wouldn't have given you the order
unless he had a reason. The Fifth D can wait three
days, unless those boys want to run up telephone
bills to Washington."

"May I ask, sir, who specifically made the request?"

   The admiral looked pointedly at Remington. "I'll
tell you in three days. You see, I've got a man's
privilege to uphold too. You'll know then anyway,
because in Fitz's absence you'll have to countersign
the transfer." Hickman finished his drink and the
lieutenant understood. The conference was over.

   Remington got up and returned the half-filled
wineglass by thlle ciop?,p,er bar; he stood at
attention and spoke "Will that

   "Yes, that's it," said the admiral, his gaze straying
to the window and the ocean beyond.

   The lieutenant saluted sharply as Hickman
brought a casual hand to his forehead. The lawyer
then did an about-face and started for the door.

"Remington?"

244   ROBERT LUDLUM

"Yes, sir?" replied the lieutenant, turning.

"Who the hell is this Converse?"

   "I don't know, sir. But Commander Fitzpatrick
said the status of the flag was a Four Zero
emergency."

'Jesus . "

   Hickman picked up his phone and touched a
combination of buttons on the console. Moments
later he was speaking to a fellow ranking officer in
the Fifth Naval District.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait three days, Scanlon."

"Why is that?" asked the admiral named Scanlon.

   "The CLO negative holds on the Converse flag
as far as SAND PAC is concerned. If you want to
go the D.C. route be my guest. We'll cooperate."

   "I told you, Brian, my people don't want to go
through Washington. You've had these things
happen before. D.C. makes waves, and we don't
want waves."

   "Well then, why don't you tell me why you want
the Converse flag? Who is he?"

   "I'd tell you if I could, you know that. Frankly,
I'm not all that clear on it myself, and what I do
know I've sworn to keep secure."

   "Then go to Washington, I'm standing behind my
Chief Legal, who, incidentally, isn't even here."

"He isn't? But you talked to him."

   "No, to his next in line, a lieutenant named
Remington. He took the direct order from the
CLO. Believe me, Remington won't budget. I gave
him the chance and he covered himself with
legalities. Around here he's known as a stickler
prick."

"Did he say why the negative was put out?"

   "He didn't have any idea. Why don't you call
him yourself? He's probably still downstairs and
maybe you can "

   "You didn't use my name, did you?" interrupted
Scanlon apparently agitated.

   "No, you asked me not to, but he'll know it in
three days. He'll have to sign the release and I'll
have to tell him who requested it." Hickman paused,
then without warning exploded. "What the hell is
this all about, Admiral? Some pilot who was
discharged over eighteen years ago is suddenly on
everybody's most-wanted list. I get a departmental
priority teletype from the big Fifth D and you follow
it up with a personal call, playing the old Annapolis
memory game, but you won't tell

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   245

me anything. Then I find out my own CLO without
my knowing about it has put a negative on this
Converse flag and labeled it a Four Zero emergency
status! Now, I know he's got personal problems and
I won't bother him until tomorrow and I
realizeyou've given your word to stay secure, but
goddamn it, somebody had better start telling me
something!"

   There was no response from the other end of the
line. But there was the sound of breathing; and it
was tremulous.

"Scanlon!"

   ' What did you just say?" said the voice of the
admiral thirty-six hundred miles away.

"I'm going to find out anyway "

   "No, the status. The status of the flag." Scanlon
could barely be heard.

"Four-Zero emergency, that's what I said!"

   The interruption was abrupt) there was only an
echoing click. Admiral Scanlon had hung up the
phone.

   Walter Peregrine, United States ambassador to
the Federal Republic of Germany, confronted
Fitzpatrick. "What's your name, Commander?"

   "Fowler, sir," answered the Navy lawyer, glancing
briefly but hard at Dowling. "Lieutenant Commander
Avery Fowler, United States Navy." Again Connal
looked at the actor, who stared at him through the
moonlight.

   "I understand there's some question about that,"
said Peregrine, his glare as hostile as Dowling's.
"May I see your identification, please?"

   "I'm not carrying identification, sir. It's the nature
of my assignment not to do so, sir." Fitzpatrick's
words were rapid, precise, his posture squared and
erect.

   "I want verification of your name, your rank, and
your branch of service! Now!"

   "The name I've given you is the name I was
instructed to give should anyone beyond the scope of
the assignment inquire."

"Whose instructions?" barked the diplomat.

"My superior officers, sir."

"Am I to infer that Fowler is not your correct
name?"

   "With respect, Mr. Ambassador. My name is
Fowler, my rank is lieutenant commander, my
branch of the service is the United States Navy."

"Where the hell do you think you are? Behind the
lines,

246   ROBERT LUDLUM

captured by the enemy? 'Name, rank, and serial
number that's all I'm required to say under the
rules of the Geneva Convention'!"

"It's all I'm permitted to say, sir."

   "We'll damn well find out about that,
Commander if you are a commander. Also about
this Converse, who appears to be a very odd
liar one minute the soul of propriety, the next a
very strange man on the run."

   "Please try to understand, Mr. Ambassador, our
assignment is classified. In no way does it involve
diplomacy, nor will it impair your efforts as the chief
American representative of our government. But it
is classified. I will report this conversation to my
superiors and you will undoubtedly hear from them.
Now, if you gentlemen will forgive me, I'll be on my
way."

   "I don't think so, Commander or whoever you
are. But if you are who you say, nothing's
compromised. I'm not a damn fool. Nothing will be
said to anyone on the embassy staff. Mr. Dowling
insisted on that and I accepted the condition. You
and I will be locked in a communications room with
a phone on a scrambler and you're going to place a
call to Washington. I didn't take this job at a loss of
three-quarters of a million a year to find shoe clerks
running an investigation of my own company without
my knowing about it. If I want an outside audit, I'll
damn well order it myself."

   "I wish I could comply, sir; it sounds like a
reasonable request. But I'm afraid I can't."

"I'm afraid you will!"

"Sorry."

   "Do as he says, Commander," interjected
Dowling. "As he told you, nothing's been said to
anyone, and nothing will be. But Converse needs
protection; he's a wanted man in a foreign country
and he doesn't even speak the language. Take
Ambassador Peregrine's offer. He'll keep his word."

   "With respect, sirs, the answer is negative."
Connal turned away and started up the wide path.

   "Major!" shouted the ambassador, his voice
furious. "Stop him! Stop that man!"

   Fitzpatrick looked behind him; for reasons he
could not explain to himself he saw what he never
expected to see, and the instant he did, he knew he
should have expected it. From out of the distant
shadows of the immense, majestic building a man
rushed forward, a man who was obviously a military

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   247

aide to the ambassador a member of the embassy
staff! Connal froze, Joel's words coming back to him.
Those men you saw at the airport, the ones from the
embassy . . . they're on the other side.

   Under almost any other circumstances,
Fitzpatrick would have remained where he was and
weathered it out. He hadn't actually done anything
wrong; there was nothing illegal, no laws broken of
which he was cognizant, and no one could force him
to discuss personal matters where no law had been
violated. Then he realized how wrong he was! The
generals of George Marcus Delavane would force
him, could force him! He spun around and ran.

   Suddenly gunfire erupted. Two earsplitting shots
above him! He dove to the ground and rolled into
the shadows of the bushes as a man's voice roared
over the stillness of the night and the sleeping
gardens.

   "You goddamned son of a bitch! What do you
think you're doing!"

   There were further shouts, a further barrage of
obscenities, and the sounds of struggle filled the
quiet enclave of the university.

   "You don't kid a man! Besides, you bastard, there
could be other people! Don't say a word, Mr.
Ambassador!"

   Connal scrambled across the graveled path and
spread apart the bordering foliage. In the clear
moonlight of the distant bench, the actor Caleb
Dowling the former marine from Kwajalein stood
over the body of the major who had run out of the
shadow, his boot on the supine man's throat, his
hand grasping the man's extended arm to wrench the
weapon free.

   "You are one dumb son of a bitch, Major! Or,
goddamn you, maybe you're something else!"

   Fitzpatrick got to his knees, then to his feet, and,
crouching, raced into the receding darkness of the
wide path toward the exit.

13

   "I didn't have any choice!" said Connal. He had
dropped the attache case on the couch and was
sitting in an adjacent chair, leaning forward, still
shaking.

   "Calm down; try to relax." Converse walked to
the elegant antique hunt table against the wall
where there was a large silver tray with whisky, ice
and glasses. Joel had learned to make use of room
service in English. ' You need a drink," he said,
pouring Fitzpatrick's bourbon.

   Do I ever! I've never been shot at. You have.
Christ, is that what it's like?"

   "That's what it's like. You can't believe it. It's
unreal, just mind-blowing sounds that can't really
have anything to do with you, until until. you see
the evidence for yourself. It's real, it's meant for
you, and you're sick. There's no swelling music, no
brass horns, just vomit." Converse brought the naval
officer his drink.

   "You're omitting something," said Connal, taking
the glass and looking up at Joel.

   "No, I'm not. Let's think about tonight. If you
heard Dowling right, the ambassador won't say
anything around the embassy "

   "I remember," interrupted Fitzpatrick, taking
several swallows of the bourbon, his eyes still on
Converse. "It was in one of the other flags. During
your second escape a man got killed; it was
sundown. You reached him when it happened, and
the flag said you went crazy for a couple of minutes.
Somehow, according to this guy a sergeant, I
think you circled around in the jungle, caught the
North Vietnamese, killed him with his own knife
and got his repeating rifle. Then you blew away
three other Viets in the area."

   Joel held his place in front of the Navy lawyer.
He answered the younger man, his voice quiet, his
look angry. "I hate descriptions like that," he said
flatly. ' It raises all the im

248

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   249

ages I loathe.... Let me tell you the way it was like
it was, counselor. A kid, no more than nineteen, had
to relieve himself, and although we stuck together he
had the dignity to go ten or fifteen feet away to take
care of his private functions, using leaves because
squeezable toilet paper wasn't available. The
maniac I won't use the word 'soldier' who killed
him waited for the precise moment, then fired off a
burst that cut that kid's face apart. When I reached
him, half of that face in my hands, I heard the
cackle, the obscene laughter of an obscene man who
personified for me everything I found de-
spicable whether North Vietnamese or American.
If you want to know the truth, whatever I did I did
against both because both were guilty, all of us
turned into animals, myself included. Those other
three men, those enemies, those uniformed robots,
probably with wives and children back in villages
somewhere up north, had no idea I got behind them.
I shot them in the back, counselor. What would
Johnny Ringo say about that? Or John Wayne?"

   Connal was silent as Joel walked over to the hunt
table to pour himself a whisky. The Navy lawyer
drank, then spoke. "A few hours ago you said you
knew where I was coming from because you'd been
there. Well, I haven't been where you were, but I'm
beginning to see where you're coming from. You
really hate everything that Aquitaine stands for, don't
you? Especially those running it."

   Converse turned. "With everything that's in me,"
he said. "That's why we've got to talk about tonight."

   "I told you, I had no choice. You said the
embassy people I saw at the airport were with
Delavane. I couldn't take the chance."

   "I know. Now we're both running, hunted by our
own people and protected by the men we want to
trap. We've got to think, Commander."

   The telephone rang twice abrasively. Fitzpatrick
leaped from the chair, his initial reaction one of
shock. Joel watched him, calming him with his look.
"Sorry," said Connal. "I'm still edgy. I'll get it; I'll be
all right." The Navy lawyer crossed to the phone and
picked it up. ':7a?" He listened for several seconds,
covered the mouthpiece and looked at Converse. "It's
the overseas operator. San Francisco. It's Meagen."

   "Which means Remington," saidJoel, his throat
suddenly dry, his pulse accelerating.

"Meagen? Yes, I'm here. What is it?" Fitzpatrick
stared

250   ROBERT LUDLUM

straight ahead as his sister talked; he nodded
frequently, the muscles of his jaw working as he
concentrated. "Oh, Chr~st! . . . No, it's all right. I
mean it, everything s okay. Do you have the
number?" Connal looked down at the small
telephone table; there was a message pad but no
pencil. He glanced over at Joel, who had already
started for the desk and a hotel pen. Fitzpatrick
held out his hand, took the pen and wrote out a
series of numbers. Converse stood aside, conscious
that he was barely breathing, his fingers gripping the
glass. "Thanks, Meagen. I know it's a hell of a time
for you; you don't need this but if you have to call
again, make it station-to-station, okay? . . . I will,
Meg, I give you my word. Good-bye." The Navy
lawyer hung up, his hand for a moment remaining
on the telephone.

"Remington called, didn't he?" said Joel.

"Yes."

 'What happened ?"

   "Someone tried to get the flag on your service
record released," said Fitzpatrick, turning, looking at
Converse. "It's okay. Remington stopped it."

"Who was it?"

   "I don't know, I'll have to reach David. Meagen
doesn't have any idea what a flag is, much less who
you are. The message was only that 'a release was
sought for the flag,' but he stopped it."

"Then everything's all right."

"That's what I said, but it's not."

"Clarification, goddamn it!"

   "There's a time limit on how long my order
stands. It's only a day or two after the vetting
process "

"Which is forty-eight hours," interrupted Joel.

   "Yes, I'm sure of that; it's after that. You see,
you thought this would happen, but frankly I didn't.
Whoever's asking for that flag isn't small potatoes.
You could walk out of that meeting and a few hours
later your new associates could have that stuff in
their hands. Converse the Delavane-hater. Is he now
the Delavane-hunter?"

   "Call Remington."Joel went to the French doors,
opened them, and walked out on the small balcony.
Drifting wisps of clouds filtered the moonlight, and
far to the east there were Hashes of heat lightning
reminding Converse of the silent artillery fire he and
the other escaping prisoners would see in the hills,
knowing it was sanctuary but unreachable. He could

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   251

hear Fitzpatrick inside; from the sound of his voice
he was getting a line through to San Diego. Joel
reached into a pocket for his cigarettes; he lighted
one. Whether it was the bright glow of the flame
that illuminated the movement he did not know, but
he looked in the direction of that movement. Two
balconies away, about thirty feet to his right, a man
stood watching him. The figure was a silhouette in
the dim light; he nodded and went back inside. Was
the man simply another guest who had coincidentally
gone outside for a breath of air? Or had Aquitaine
posted a guard? Converse could hear the Navy
lawyer talking conversationally; he turned and
walked back into the room.

   Connal was seated in the chair on the other side
of the table. He held the phone to his ear with his
left hand; his right held the pen above the message
pad. He made a note, then said quickly, "Wait a
minute. You say Hickman told you to let it ride but
he wouldn't tell you who specifically made the re-
quest? . . . I see. All right, David, thanks very much.
Are you going out tonight? . . . So if I need you I
can reach you at this number.... Yes, I know, it's
these damn phones up in Sonoma. One heavy rain in
the hills and you're lucky to get a line, forget a clear
one. Thanks again, David. Good-bye." Fitzpatrick
hung up the phone and looked strangely, almost
guiltily, at Joel. Instead of speaking, he shook his
head, breathing out and frowning.

'What is it? What's the matter?"

   "You'd better get everything you can at that
meeting tomorrow. Or is it today?"

"It's past midnight. It's today. Why?"

   "Because twenty-four hours later that flag will be
released to a section in the Fifth Naval
District that's Norfolk, and it's powerful. They'll
know everything you don't want them to know about
you. The time limit is seventy-two hours."

"Get an extension!"

   Connal stood up, helplessness in his expression.
"On what basis?"

"What else? National security."

"I'd have to spell out the reasons, you know that."

   "I don't know that. Extensions are granted for all
sorts of contingencies. You need more time to
prepare. A source or a witness has been
postponed illness or an injury. Or per

252   ROBERT LUDLUM

sonal matters goddamn it, your brother-in-law's
funeral, your sister's grief--they've delayed your
progress!"

   "Forget it, Joel. If I tried that, they'd tie you in
with Press and good-bye Charlie. They killed him,
remember?"

   "No," said Converse firmly. "It's the other way
around. It separates us further."

"What are you talking about?"

   "I've thought about this, tried to put myself in
Avery's shoes. He knew his every move was being
watched, his telephone probably tapped. He said the
geography, the Comm Tech-Bern merger, the
breakfast, Geneva itself, everything had to be
logical; it couldn't be any other way. At the end of
that breakfast he said if I agreed we'd talk later."

"So?"

   "He knew we'd be seen together it was
unavoidable and I think he was going to give me
the words to say if someone in Aquitaine asked me
about him. He was going to turn everything around
and give me the push I needed to reach these men."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

   "Avery was going to stamp me with the label I
had to wear to get inside Delavane's network. We'll
never know, but I have an idea he was going to tell
me to say that he, A. Preston Halliday, suspected
me of being one of them, that he had inserted
himself in the Comm Tech-Bern merger to threaten
me with exposure, to stop me."

   "Wait a minute." Connal shook his head. "Press
didn't know what you were going to do or how you
were going to do it."

   "There was only one way to do it, he knew that!
He also knew I'd reach the same conclusion once I
understood the particulars. The only way to stop
Delavane and his field marshals is to infiltrate
Aquitaine. Why do you think all that money was put
up front? I don't need it and he knew he couldn't
buy me. But he knew it could be used would have
to be used to get inside and start talking, start
gathering evidence.... Call Remington again. Tell
him to prepare an extension."

   "It's not Remington, it's the commander of
SAND PAC an admiral named Hickman. David said
I could expect a call from him tomorrow. I'll have
to figure that one out and phone Meagen back.
Hickman's uptight; he wants to know who you are
and why all the interest."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   253

'How well do you know this Hickman?"

   ' Fairly well. I was with him in New London and
Galveston. He requested me as his CLO in San
Diego; that's what gave me the stripe."

   Converse studied Fitzpatrick's face, then without
saying anything he turned and walked to the open
balcony doors. Connal did not interrupt; he
understood. He had seen too many attorneys, himself
included, struck by a thought they had to define for
themselves, an idea upon which a case might hinge.
Joel turned around slowly, haltingly, the dim,
abstract shadows of a possibility coming into focus.

   "Do it," he began. "Do what I think your
brother-in-law might have done. Finish what he
might have said but never got a chance to say it.
Assume he and I had that meeting after the merger
conference. Give me the springboard I need."

"As you would say, clarification, please, counselor."

   "Present Hickman with a scenario as it might
have been written by A. Preston Halliday. Tell him
that flag's got to remain in place because you have
reason to believe I was connected with your
brother-in-law's murder. Explain that before Halliday
flew to Geneva he came to see you as he did and
told you he was meeting me, an opposing attorney he
suspected of being involved with corrupt export
licensing, a legal front for some boardroom
profiteers. Say he said he was going to confront me.
Preston Halliday had a history of causes."

   "Not for the past ten or twelve years, he didn't,"
corrected Fitzpatrick. "He joined the establishment
with a vengeance and with a healthy respect for the
dollar."

   "It's the history that counts. He knew that; it was
one of the reasons he came to me. Say you're
convinced he did confront me, and since millions are
made out of that business you think I methodically
had him removed, covering myself by being there
when he died. I have a certain reputation for being
methodical."

   Connal lowered his head and ran his hand
through his hair, then walked in thought toward the
hunt table. He stopped, raised his gaze to one of the
racehorse prints and turned back to Converse. "Do
you know what you're asking me to do?"

   "Yes. Give me the springboard that'll catapult me
right in the middle of those would-be Genghis
Khans. To do it you'll have to go further with
Hickman. Because you're so person

254   ROBERT LUDLUM

ally involved and so goddamned angry which again
is the truth tell him to explain your position to
whoever wants the flag released. It's a nonmilitary
matter, so you're taking what you know to the
civilian authorities."

   "I understand all that," said Fitzpatrick.
"Everything I say is the truth, as I saw it when I flew
over here to find you. Except that I reverse the
targets. Instead of being the one who can help me,
you're now the one I want nailed."

   "Right on, counselor. And I'm met by a
welcoming committee at Leifhelm's estate."

"Then I guess you don't see."

"What?"

   "You're asking me to go on record implicating
you in first-degree murder. I'll be branding you as
a killer. Once I say it, I can't take the words back."

"I know that. Do it."

   George Marcus Delavane twisted his torso in his
chair behind the desk in front of the strangely
colored fragmented map on the wall. It was not a
controlled movement; it was an action in search of
control. Delavane did not care for obstrucbons and
one was being explained to him now by an admiral
in the Fifth Naval District.

   "The status of the Hag is Four Zero," said
Scanlon. "To get it released we'd have to go through
Pentagon procedures, and I don't have to tell you
what that means. Two senior officers, one from
naval intelligence, plus a supporting signature from
the National Security Agency; all would have to
appear on the request sheet, the level of the inquiry
stated, thus escalating the request to a sector
demand. Now, General, we can do all this, but we
run the risk "

   "I know the risk," interrupted Delavane. "The
signatures are the risk, the identities a risk. Why the
Four Zero? Who placed it and why?"

   "The chief legal officer of SAND PAC. I
checked him out. He's a lieutenant commander
named Fitzpatrick, and there's nothing in his record
to give us any indication as to why he did it."

   "I'll tell you why," said the warlord of Saigon.
"He's hiding something. He's protecting this
Converse."

   "Why would a chief legal officer in the Navy
protect a civilian under these circumstances?
There's no connection.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   255

Furthermore, why would he exercise a Four Zero
condition? It only calls attention to his action."

   "It also clamps a lid down on that flag." Delavane
paused, then continued before the admiral could
interrupt. "This Fitzpatrick," he said. "You've checked
the master list?"

"He's not one of us."

"Has he ever been considered? Or approached?"

   ' I haven't had time to find out." There was the
sound of a buzzer, not part of the line over which
the two men spoke. Scanlon could be heard punching
a button, his voice clear, officious. "Yes?" Silence
followed, and seconds later the admiral returned to
Palo Alto. "It's Hickman again."

"Maybe he has something for us. Call me back."

   "Hickman wouldn't give us anything if he had the
slightest idea we existed," said Scanlon. In a few
weeks, he'll be one of the first to go. If it were up to
me he'd be shot."

   '~Call me back," said George Marcus Delavane,
looking at the map of the new Aquitaine on the wall.

   Chaim Abrahms sat at the kitchen table in his
small stone Mediterranean villa in Tzahala, a suburb
of Tel Aviv favored by the retired military and those
with sufficient income or influence to live there. The
windows were open and the breezes from the garden
stirred the oppressive summer's night air. There was
air conditioning in two other rooms and ceiling fans
in three more, but Chaim liked the kitchen. In the
old days he and his men would sit in primitive
kitchens and plan raids; in the Negev, ammunition
was often passed about while desert chicken boiled
on a wood stove. The kitchen was the soul of the
house. It gave warmth and sustenance to the body,
clearing the mind for tactics as long as the women
left after performing their chores and did not
interrupt the men with their incessant trivialities. His
wife was asleep upstairs; so be it. He had little to say
to her anymore, or she to him; she could not help
him now. And if she could, she would not. They had
lost a son in Lebanon, her son she said, a teacher, a
scholar, not a soldier, not a killer by choice. Too
many sons were lost on both sides, she said. Old
men, she said, old men infected the young with their
hatreds and used Biblical legends to justify death in
the pursuit of questionable real estate. Death, she
cried. Death before talk that might avert it! She had
forgotten the early days; too many forgot too quickly.
Chaim Abrahms did not forget, nor would he ever.

256   R08ERT LUDLUM

   And his sense of smell was as acute as ever. This
lawyer, this Converse, this talk! It was all too clever,
it had the stench of cold, analytical minds, not the
heat of believers. The Mossad specialist was the
best, but even the Mossad made mistakes. The
specialist looked for a motive, as if one could
dissect the human brain and say this action caused
that reaction, this punishment that commitment to
vengeance. Too damned clever! A believer was
fueled by the heat of his convictions. They were his
only motive, and they did not call for clever
manipulations.

   Chaim knew he was a plainspoken man, a direct
man, but it was not because he was unintelligent or
lacked subtle perceptions; his prowess on the
battlefield proved otherwise. He was direct because
he knew what he wanted, and it was a waste of time
to pretend and be clever. In all the years he had
lived with his convictions he had never met a fellow
believer who allowed himself to waste time.

   This Converse knew enough to reach Bertholdier
in Paris. He showed how much more he knew when
he mentioned Leifhelm in Bonn and specifically
named the cities of Tel Aviv and Johannesburg.
What more did he have to prove? Why should he
prove it if his belief was there? Why did he not
plead his case with his first connection and not
waste time? . . . No, this lawyer, this Converse, was
from somewhere else. The Mossad specialist said
the motive was there for affiliation. He was wrong.
The red-hot heat of the believer was not there. Only
cleverness, only talk.

   And the specialist had not dismissed Chaim s
sense of smell. As well he should not, as the two
sabres had fought together for years, as often as not
against the Europeans and their conniving
ways those immigrants who held up the Old
Testament as if they had written it, calling the true
inhabitants of Israel uneducated ruffians or clowns.
The Mossad specialist respected his sabre brother,
it was in his look, that respect. No one could dismiss
the instincts of Chaim Abrahms son of Abraham,
archangel of darkness to the enemies of Abraham's
children. Thank God his wife was asleep.

It was time to call Palo Alto.

My general, my friend."

   Shalom, Chaim," said the warlord of Saigon. Are
you on your way to Bonn?"

   I'm leaving in the morning we're leaving. Van
Headmer is in the air now. He'll arrive at Ben
Gurion at

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   257

eight-thirty, and together we'll take the ten o'clock
flight to Frankfurt, where Leifhelm's pilot will meet
us with the Cessna."

"Good. You can talk. '

   "We must talk now," said the Israeli. "What more
have you learned about this Converse?"

"He becomes more of an enigma, Chaim."

"I smell a fraud."

   "So do 1, but perhaps not the fraud I thought.
You know what my assessment was. I thought he was
no more than an infantry point, someone being used
by more knowledgeable men Lucas Anstett among
them to learn far more than they knew or heard
rumors about. I don't discount a degree of minor
leaks; they're to be anticipated and managed, scoffed
at as paranoia."

   "Get to the point, Marcus," said the impatient
Abrahms who always called Delavane by his middle
name. He considered it a Hebrew name, in spite of
the fact that Delavane's father had insisted on it for
his first son in honor of the Roman Caesar the
philosopher Marcus Aurelius, a proselytiser of

moderation.

   ' Three things happened today," continued the
former general in Palo Alto. "The first infuriated me
because I could not understand it, and frankly
disturbed me because it portended a far greater
penetration than I thought possible from a sector I
thought impossible."

"What was it?" the Israeli broke in.

   "A firm prohibition was placed on getting part of
Converse's service record."

"Yes!" cried Abrahms, in his voice the sound of
Triumph.

"What?"

   "Go on, Marcus! I'll tell you when you're
finished. What was the second calamity?"

   "Not a calamity, Chaim. An explanation so
blatantly offered it can't be turned aside. Leifhelm
called me and said Converse himself brought up
Anstett's death, claiming to be relieved, but saying
little else except that Anstett was his enemy that
was the word he used."

   "So instructed!" Abrahm's voice reverberated
around the kitchen. "What was the third gift, my
general?"

   "The most bewildering as well as
enlightening and, Chaim, do not shout into the
phone. You are not at one of your stadium rallies or
provoking the Knesset."

258   ROBERT LUDLUM

   1 am in the field, Marcus. Right now! Please
continue my friend."

   "The man who clamped the lid down on
Converse's military record is a naval officer who was
the brother-in-law of Preston Halliday."

"Geneva! Yes!"

"Stop that!"

"My apologies, my dear friend. It's just all so
perfect!"

   "Whatever you have in mind," said Delavane
'may be negated by the man's reason. This naval
officer, this brother-in-law, believes Converse
engineered Halliday's murder."

'Of course! Perfect!"

   "You will keep your voice down!" The cry of the
cat on a frozen lake was heard.

   "Again my deepest and most sincere apologies,
my general. Was that all this naval officer said?"

   '.No, he made it clear to the commander of his
base in San Diego that Halliday had come to him
and told him he was meeting a man in Geneva he
believed was involved with illegal exports to illegal
destinations. An attorney for profiteers in
armaments. He intended to confront this man, this
international lawyer named Converse, and threaten
to expose him. What do we have?"

"A fraud !"

   "But on whose side, sabre? The volume of your
voice doesn't convince me."

   "Be convinced! I'm right. This Converse is the
desert scorpions"

"What does that mean?"

"Don't you see? The Mossad seesI"

"The Mossad?"

   "Yesl I talked with our specialist and he senses
what I smell he admits the possibility! I grant you,
my general, my honored warrior, that he has
information that led him to think this Converse
might be genuine, that he wanted truly to be with
us, but when I said I smelled bad meat, he granted
one other, exceptional possibility. Converse may or
may not be programmed, but he could be an agent
for his government!"

"A provocateur?"

   "Who knows, Marcus? But the pattern is so
perfect. First, a prohibition is placed on his military
record it will tell us something, we know that.
Then he responds in the negative about the death of
an enemy not his, but ours, and claims

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   259

he was his enemy too so simple, so instructable.
Finally, it is insinuated that this Converse was the
killer in Geneva so orderly, so precisely to his
advantage. We are dealing with very analytical minds
that watch every move in the chess game, and match
every pawn with a king."

"Yet everything you say can be reversed. He could
be " "He can't be!" cried Abrahms.

"Why, Chaim? Tell me why?"

   "There is no heat, noire in him! It is not the way
of a believer! We are not clever, we are adamant!"

   George Marcus Delavane said nothing for several
moments, and the Israeli knew better than to speak.
He waited until the quiet cold voice came back on
the line. "Have your meeting tomorrow, General.
Listen to him and be courteous; play the game he
plays. But he must not leave that house until I give
the order. He may never leave it."

"Shalom, my friend."

"Shalom, Chaim."

14

   Valerie approached the glass doors of her stu-
dio identical with the doors of her balcony
upstairs and looked out at the calm, sun-washed
waters of Cape Ann. She thought briefly of the boat
that had dropped anchor so frighteningly in front of
her house several nights ago. It had not been back;
whatever had happened was past, leaving questions
but no answers. If she closed her eyes she could still
see the figure of a man crawling up out of the cabin
light, and the glow of the cigarette, and she still
wondered what that man was doing, what he was
thinking. Then she remembered the sight of the two
men in the early light, framed by the dark rims of her
binoculars staring back at her with far more pow-
erful lenses. Were they novices finding a safe harbor?
Amateurs navigating the dark waters of a coastline at
night? Questions, no answers.

Whatever, it was past. A brief, disturbing interlude
that

260   ROBERT LUDLUM

gave rise to black imaginings demons in search of
logic, as Joel would say.

   She tossed her long, dark hair aside and
returned to her easel, picking up a brush and
putting the final dabs of burnt umber beneath the
shadowed sand dunes of wild grass. She stepped
back, studied her work, and swore to herself for the
fifth time that the oil painting was finished. It was
another seascape; she never tired of them, and
fortunately she was beginning to get a fair share of
the market. Of course there were those painters in
the Boston-Boothbay axis who claimed she had
virtually cornered the market, but that was rubbish.
Indeed her prices had risen satisfactorily as a result
of the critical approval accorded her two showings
at the Copley Galleries, but the truth was that she
could hardly afford to live where she lived and the
way she lived without at least a part of Joel's check
every month.

   Then again, not too many artists had a house on
the beach with an attached twenty-by-thirty-foot
studio enclosed by full-length glass doors and with
a ceiling that was literally one entire skylight. The
rest of the house, the original house, on the
northern border of Cape Ann was more
rambling-quaint than functional. The initial
architecture was early-coastconfusion, with lots of
heavy bleached wood and curliques, a balustraded
second-story balcony, and outsized bay windows in
the front room that were charming to look at and
look out but leaked fiercely when the winter winds
came off the ocean. No amount of putty or sashing
compound seemed to work; nature was extracting a
price for observing her beauty.

   Still, it was Val's dream house, the one she had
promised herself years ago she would someday be
able to afford. She had come back from the Ecole
des Beaux Arts in Paris prepared to assault New
York's art world via the Greenwich Vil-
lage-Woodstock route only to have stark reality alter
her plans. The family circumstances had always been
sufficiently healthy for her to live comfortably, albeit
not lavishly, throughout three years in college and
two more in Paris. Her father was a passably good
if excessively enthusiastic amateur painter who
always complained that he had not taken the risks
and gone totally into the fine arts rather than
architecture. As a result, he supported his only child
both morally and financially, in a very real sense
living through her progress and devoted to her
determination. And her mother slightly mad,
always loving, always supportive in anything and
every

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   261

thing would take terrible photographs of Val's
crudest work and send the pictures back to her sister
and cousins in Cermany, writing outrageous lies that
spoke of museums and galleries and insane
commissions.

   "The crazy Berlinerin," her father would say
fondly in his heavy Gallic accent. "You should have
seen her during the war. She frightened us all to
death! We half expected she would return to
headquarters some night with a drunken Goebbels
or a doped-up Goring in tow, then tell us if we
wanted Hitler to give her the word!"

   Her father had been the Free French liaison
between the Allies and the German underground in
Berlin. A rather stiff Parisian autocrat who
happened to speak German had been assigned to the
cell in the Charlottenburg, which coordinated all the
activities of Berlin's underground. He frequently said
that he had more trouble with the wild Fraulein with
the impetuous ideas than he had avoiding the Nazis.
Nevertheless they married each other two months
after the armistice. In Berlin. Where neither his
family would talk to hers, nor hers to his. "We had
two small orchestras," her mother would say. "One
played pure, beautiful Viennese Schnitzel, the other
some white cream sauce with deer droppings."

   Whether family animosities had anything to do
with it neither ever said, but the Parisian and the
Berlinerin immigrated to St. Louis, Missouri, in the
United States of America, where the Berlinerin had
distant relations.

   The stark reality. Nine years ago, after she had
settled in New York from Paris, a frightened, tearful
father had flown in to see her and had told Val a
terrible truth. His beloved crazy Berlinerin had been
ill for years; it was cancer and it was about to kill
her. In desperation, he had spent nearly all the
money he had, including unpaid second and third
mortgages on the rambling house in Bellefontaine, to
stem the disease. Among the profiteers were clinics
in Mexico; there was nothing else he could say. He
could only weep, and his losses had nothing to do
with his tears. And she could only hold her father
and ask him why he had not told her before.

   "It was not your battle, ma cherie. It was ours.
Since Berlin, it was always we two. We fought then
together; we fight now as always as one."

   Her mother died six days later, and six months
after that her father lit a Gauloise on the
screened-in porch and mercifully fell asleep, not to
wake up. Valerie could not cry. It was

262   R08ERT IUDIUM

a shock but not a tragedy. Wherever he was he
wanted to be there.

   So Valerie Charpentier looked for a job, a
paying job that did not rely on the sales of an
unknown artist. What astonished her was not that
employment was so easy to find, but that it had very
little to do with the thick portfolio of sketches and
line drawings she presented. The second advertising
agency she applied to seemed more interested in
the fact that she spoke both German and French
fluently. It was the bme of corporate takeovers, of
multinational alliances where profits could be made
on both sides of the Atlantic by the same single
entities. Valerie Charpentier, artist-in-residence
inside, became a company hack on the outside.
Someone who could draw and sketch rapidly and
make presentations and speak the languages and
she hated it. Still, it was a remarkable living for a
woman who had anticipated a period of years
before her name on a canvas would mean
something.

   Then a man came into her life who made
whatever affairs she had had totally forgettable. A
nice man, a decent man even an exciting
man who had his own problems but did not talk
about them, would not talk about them, and that
should have given her a clue. Joel, her Joel, effusive
one moment, withdrawn the next, but always with
that shield, that facade of quick humor which was
often as biting as it was amusing. For a while they
had been good for each other. Both were ambitious
for entirely different reasons she for the in-
dependence that came with recognition, he for the
wasted years he could never reclaim and each
acted as a buffer when the other faced
disappointment or delay. But it all began to fall
apart. The reasons were painfully clear to her but
not to him. He became mesmerised by his own
progress by his own determination, to the exclusion
of everything else, starting with her. He never raised
his voice or made demands, but the words were ice
and the demands were increasingly there. If there
was a specific point when she recognised the
downhill slide, it was a Friday night in November.
The agency had wanted her to fly to West Berlin; a
Telefunken account required some fast personal
service and she was elected to calm the churning
waters. She had been packing when Joel came home
from work. He had walked into the bedroom of
their apartment and asked her what she was doing,
where she was going. When she told him, he had
said, ' You can't. We're expected at Brooks' house
in Larchmont tomorrow night. Tal

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   263

hot and Simon'll be there too. I m sure they'll talk
international. You've got to be there."

   She had looked at him, at the quiet desperation
in his eyes. She did not go to Germany. It was the
turning point; the downhill race had begun, and
within a brief few months she knew it was quickening
to its finish. She quit the agency, giving up authority
for the dog days of free-lancing, hoping the extra
time she had to devote to him might help. It did not;
he seemed to resent any overt act of sacrifice, no
matter how hard she tried to conceal it. His periods
of withdrawal multiplied, and in a way she felt sorry
for him. His furies were driving him and it was
obvious that he disliked what was happening; he
disliked what he was but could not help himself. He
was on his way to a burnout and she could not help
him, either.

   If there had been another woman, she could have
fought, staking out her claim and fiercely insisting on
the right to compete, but there was no one else, only
himself and his compulsions. Finally, she realized she
could not penetrate his shield; he had nothing left
for anyone else emotionally. That was what she had
hurled at him: 'Emotional burn-out!" He had agreed
in that quiet, kind voice and the next day he was
gone.

   So she took him. Four years, she demanded, the
exact amount of time he had taken from her. Those
four years of heady generosity were about to come to
an end, Val reflected, as she cleaned her brushes and
scraped the palette. In January they were over, the
last check, as always, posted by the fifteenth. Five
weeks ago, during lunch at the Ritz in Boston, Joel
had offered to continue the payments. He claimed he
was used to them and was making more in salary and
bonuses than he could spend soberly. The money was
no hardship, and besides it gave him a certain stature
among his peers and was a marvelous ploy to avoid
prolonged entanglements. She had declined,
borrowing words from her father or more likely her
mother, saying that things were far better than they
were. He had smiled that half-sad yet still infectious
smile and said, "If they turn out otherwise, I m here."

Coddamn himl

   Poor Joel. Sad Joel. He was a good man caught
in the vortex of his own conflicts. And Val had gone
as far as she could go to go further was to deny her
own identity. She would not do that; she had not
done it.

264   ROBERT LUDLUM

   She placed her brushes in the tray and walked
to the glass doors that looked over the dunes and
the ocean. He was out there, far away, still
somewhere in Europe. Valerie wondered if he
had given a thought to the day. It was the
anniversary of their marriage.

To summarize,Chaim Abrahms was molded in the
stress and chaos of fighting for daily survival. They
were years of never-ending violent skirmishes, of
outthinking and outliving enemies bent on killing
not only whole sabre settlements but the desertJews'
aspirations for a homeland as well as political free-
dom and religious expression. It is not difficult to
understand where Abrahms came from and why he
is what he is, but it is frightening to think about
where he is going. He is a fanatic with no sense of
balance or compromise where other peoples with
identical aspirations are concerned. If a man has a
different stripe, whether of the same species or not,
he is the enemy. Armed force takes precedence
over negotiations in all matters, and even those in
Israel who plead for more moderate stands based
on totally secure borders are branded as traitors.
Abrahms is an imperialist who sees an
ever-expanding Israel as the ruling kingdom of the
entire Middle East. An appropriate ending to this
report is a comment he made after the well-known
statement issued by the Prime Minister during the
Lebanon invasion: "We covet not one inch of
Lebanon." Abrahms' reply in the field to his
troops the majority by no means sympathetic was
the following.

   "Certainly not an inch! The whole damned
country! Then Gaza, the Golan, and the West Bank!
And why not Jordan, then Syria and Iraq! We have
the means and we have the willi We are the mighty
children of Abraham!"

He is Delavane's key in the volatile Middle East.

   It was nearly noon, the overhead sun beating
down on the small balcony beyond the French
doors. The late-breakfast remnants had been
cleared away by room service; only a silver pot
remained on the hunt table. They had been
reading for hours since the first coffee was
brought to

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   265

the suite at six-thirty. Converse put down the dossier,
and reached for his cigarettes on the table by the
armchair. It is not cliff cult to understand where
Abrahms came from . . . but it is frightening to think
about where he is going. Joel looked over at Connal
Fitzpatrick, who was seated on the couch, leaning
forward over the coffee table and reading a single
page while making notes on the telephone message
pad; the Bertholdier and LeifLelm dossiers were in
two neat piles on his left. The Navy lawyer had said
practically the same words to him, thought Converse,
lighting a cigarette. I'm beginning to see where you're
coming from.... The inherent question put to Joel's
legal mind was simple: Where was he himself going?
He hoped to hell he knew. Was he an inept gladiator
marching into a Roman arena facing far stronger,
better-armed and superior talent? Or were the
demons from his own past turning him into his own
sacrifice, leading him into the arena's hot sand where
angry, half-starved cats waited, ready to pounce and
tear him apart? So many questions, so many
variables he was incapable of addressing. He only
knew he could not turn back.

   Fitzpatrick looked up. "What's the matter?" he
asked, obviously aware that Converse was staring in
his direction. "You worried about the admiral?"

"Who?"

"Hickman, San Diego."

   "Among other things. In the clear light of day,
you're sure he bought the extension?"

   "No guarantees, but I told you he said he'll call
me if any emergency heat came down. I'm damn
sure he won't do anything before consulting me. If
he tries to reach me, Meagen knows what to do and
I'll lean harder. If need be, I'll claim point of
personal privilege and demand a meeting with those
unnamed people in the Fifth District, maybe go so
far as to imply they could be part of Geneva. That'd
be a full circle. We could end up with a
standoff the release of that flag only with a
full-scale investigation of the circumstances. Irony
and standoff."

   "You won't have a standoff if he's with them.
He'll override you."

   "If he was with them, he wouldn't have told
Remington he was going to call me. He wouldn't
have said anything; he'd have waited the extra day
and let it go. I know him. He wasn't just nonplussed,
he was mad. He stands by his people and he

266   ROBERT LUDIUM

doesn't like outside pressures, especially Navy
pressures. We're on hold, and as long as it's hold,
the flag's in place. I told you, he's a lot angrier with
Norfolk than with me. They won't even give him a
reason; they claim they can't."

   Converse nodded. ' AII right," he said. "Call it a
case of nerves on my part. I just finished the
Abrahms dossier. That maniac could blow up the
whole Middle East all by himself and drag the rest
of us in with him.... What did you think of Leifhelm
and Bertholdier?"

   "As far as the information goes, they're
everything you said and then some. They're more
than just influential ex-generals with fistfuls of
money, they're powerful rallying symbols for what a
lot of people think are justifiable extremes. That's as
far as the information goes but the operative word
for me is the information itself. Where did it come
from?"

"That's a step back. It's there."

   "It sure is, but how? You say Beale gave it to
you, that Press used the phrase 'we' 'the ones we're
after,' 'the tools we can give you,' 'the connections
as we think they are.' "

   "And we went over this," insisted Joel. "The man
in San Francisco, the one he went to who provided
the five hundred thousand and told him to build
cases against these people legally, and together
they'd turn them into plain and simple profiteers.
It's the ultimate ridicule for superpatriots. It's sound
reasoning, counselor, and that's the we."

"Press and this unknown man in San Francisco?"

"Yes."

   "And they could pick up a phone and hire
someone to put together these?" Fitzpatrick gestured
at the two dossiers on his left.

   "Why not? This is in the age of the computer.
Nobody today lives on an unmapped island or in an
undiscovered cave."

   "These," said Connal, "are not computer
printouts. They're well-researched, detailed, in-depth
dossiers that take in the importance of political
nuances and personal idiosyncrasies."

   "You have a way with words, sailor. Yes, they
are. A man who can forward half a million dollars
to the right bank on an Aegean island can hire just
about anyone he likes."

"He can't hire these."

"What does that mean?"

"Let me take a real step back," said the Navy lawyer,
get

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   267

tiny to his feet and reaching down for the single page
he had been reading. "I won't reiterate the details of
my relationship with Press because right now it hurts
a little to think about it." Fitzpatrick paused, seeing
the look in Converse's eyes that rejected this kind of
sentimentality in their discussion. "Don't mistake
me," he continued. "It's not his death, not the funer-
al; it s the other way around. It's not the Press
Halliday I knew. You see, I don't think he told us
the truth, either you or me."

   "Then you know something I don't know," said
Converse quietly.

   "I know there's no man in San Francisco that
even vaguely fits the description of the image he
gave you. I've lived there all my life, including
Berkeley and Stanford, just like Press. I knew
everyone he knew, especially the wealthiest and the
more exotic ones; we never held back on those with
each other. I was legal worlds away, and he always
filled me in if new ones came along. It was part of
the fun for him."

   '`That's tenuous, counselor. I'm sure he kept
certain associations to himself."

   ' Not those kinds," said Connal. "It wouldn't be
like him. Not with me."

"Well, I "

   ' Now let me step forward," interrupted
Fitzpatrick. "These dossiers I haven't seen them
before, but I've seen hundreds like them, maybe a
couple of thousand on their way to becoming
full-fledged versions of them."

Joel sat up. "Please explain that, Commander."

"You just hit it, Lieutenant. The rank says it."

"Says what?"

   "Those dossiers are the reworked, finished
products of intelligence probes utilizing heavy shots
of military data. They've been bounced around the
community, each branch contributing its input from
straight biographical data to past surveillances to
psychiatric evaluation and put together by teams of
specialists. Those were taken from way down in the
government vaults and rewritten with current
additions and conclusions, then shaped to appear as
the work of an outside nongovernment authority. But
they're not. They've got Classified, Top Secret, and
Eyes Only written all over them."

   Converse leaned forward. "That could be a
subjective judgment based on limited familiarity. I've
seen some very detailed, very in-depth reports put
together by high-priced firms specialising in that sort
of thing."

268   ROBERT IUDLUM

   "Describing precise military incidents during the
time of war? Pinpointing bombing raids and
specifying regiments and battalions and the current
strategies employed? Detailing through interviews
the internal conflicts of ranking enemy officers and
the tactical reasons for shifting military personnel
into civilian positions after the cessation of
hostilities? No firm would have access to those
materials."

   "They could be researched," said Joel, suddenly
not convinced himself.

   "Well, these couldn't," Connal broke in, holding
up the page of typewritten names, his thumb on the
lower two columns listing the "decision makers' from
the Pentagon and the State Department. "Maybe
five or six three from each side at maximum but
not the rest. These are people above the ones I've
dealt with, men who do their jobs under a variety of
titles so they can't be reached bribed, blackmailed
or threatened. When you said you had names, I
assumed I'd recognize most of them, or at least half
of them. I don't. I only know the departmental
execs, upper-echelon personnel who have to go even
higher, who obviously report to these people. Press
couldn't have gotten these names himself or through
others on the outside. He wouldn't know where to
look and they wouldn't know where to look I
wouldn't know.'

   Converse rose. "Are you sure you know what
you're talking about?"

   "Yes. Someone probably more than one- deep
in the Washington cellars provided these names just
as he or they provided the material for those
dossiers."

"Do you know what you're saying?"

   Connal stood still and nodded. "It's not easy for
me to say," he began grimly. "Press lied to us. He
lied to you by what he said, and to me by what he
didn't say. You're tied to a string and it goes right
back to Washington. And I wasn't to know anything
about it.'

   "The puppet's in place.... " Joel spoke so softly
he could barely be heard as he walked aimlessly
across the room toward the bright sunlight
streaming through the balcony doors.

"What?' asked Fitzpatrick.

   "Nothing, just a phrase that kept running
through my head when I heard about Anstett."
Converse turned. "But if there's a string, why have
they hidden it? Why did Avery hide it? For what
purpose?"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   269

   The Navy lawyer remained motionless, his face
without expression. ' I don't think I have to answer
that. You answered it yourself yesterday afternoon
when we were talking about me and don't kid
yourself, Lieutenant, I knew exactly what you were
saying. 'I'll give you a name now and then that may
open a door . . . but that's all. Those were your
words. Freely translated, you were telling yourself
that the sailor you took on board might stumble on
to something, but in case he was taken by the wrong
people, they couldn't beat out of him what he didn't
know."

   Joel accepted the rebuke, not merely because it
was justified, but because it made clear a larger
truth, one he had not understood on Mykonos. Beale
had told him that among those raising questions in
Washington were military men who for one reason
or another had not pursued their inquiries; they had
kept silent. They had kept silent where they might be
overheard, perhaps, but they had not totally kept
their silence. They had talked in quiet voices until
another quiet voice from San Francisco a man who
knew whom to reach courtesy of a brother-in-law in
San Diego made contact. They had talked together,
and out of their secret conversations had come a
plan. They needed an infiltrator, a man with the
expertise who had a loathing they could fuel and,
once fired, send out into the labyrinth.

   The realisation was a shock, but oddly enough,
Joel could not fault the strategy. He did not even
fault the silence that remained after Preston
Halliday's murder; loud accusing voices would have
rendered that death meaningless. Instead, they had
stayed quiet, knowing that their puppet had the tools
to make his way through the maze of illegalities and
do the job they could not do themselves. He
understood that, too. But there was one thing
Converse could not accept, and that was his own
expendability as the puppet. He had tolerated being
left unprotected under the conditions outlined by
Avery Fowler-Preston Halliday, not under these. If
he was on a string, he wanted the puppeteers to
know he knew it. He also wanted the name of
someone in Bonn he could call, someone who was a
part of them. The old rules did not apply any longer,
a new dimension had been added.

   In four hours he would be driven through the
iron gates of Erich Leifhelm's estate; he wanted
someone on the outside, a man Fitzpatrick could
reach if he did not come out by midnight. The
demons were pressing hard, thought Joel. Still, he

270   ROBERT LUDIUM

could not turn back. He was so close to trapping the
warlord of Saigon, so close to making up for so
much that had warped his life in ways no one would
ever understand.... No, not no one,' he reflected.
One person did, and she had said she could not
help him any longer. Nor had it been fair any
longer to seek her help.

"What's your decision?" said Connal.

"Decision?" asked Joel, startled.

   "You don't have to go this afternoon. Throw it
all back! This belongs Stateside with the FBI in
conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency
overseas. I'm appalled they didn't take that route."

   Converse breathed the start of a reply, then
stopped. It had to be clear, not only to Fitzpatrick
but to himself. He thought he understood. He had
seen the look of profound panic in Avery Fowler's
eyes Preston Halliday's eyes and he had heard the
cry in his voice. The lies were his strategy, but the
look and the cry were his innermost feelings.

   "Has it occurred to you, Commander, that they
can't take that route? That, perhaps, we're not
talking about men who can pick up a phone as
you said before and put those wheels in motion?
Or if they tried, they'd have their heads cut off,
perhaps literally, with an official and a bullet in the
back of their skulls? Let me add that I don't think
they're afraid for themselves any more than I
believe they chose the best man for the job, but I do
think they came to a persuasive conclusion. They
couldn't work from the inside because they didn't
know whom they could trust."

"Christ, you're a cold son of a bitch."

   "Ice, Commander. We're dealing with a paranoid
fantasy called Aquitaine, and it's controlled by
proven, committed, highly intelligent and
resourceful men, who if they achieve what they've
set out to do will appear as the voices of strength
and reason in a world gone mad. They'll control
that world our world because all other options
will pale beside their stability. Stability, counselor, as
opposed to chaos. What would you choose if you
were an everyday nine-to-fiver with a wife and kids,
and you could never be sure when you went home
at night whether or not your house had been broken
into, your wife raped, your kids strangled? You'd
opt for tanks in the street."

   "With justification," said the Navy lawyer, the
two words spiraling quietly off into the air of the
sunlit room.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   271

   "Believe that, sailor. They're banking on it, and
that's just what they're planning to do on an
international scale. It's only a few days or a few
weeks away whatever it is, wherever it is. If I can
just get an inkling . . ." Converse turned and started
for the door of his bedroom.

"Where are you going?" asked Connal.

   'Beale's telephone number on Mykonos; it's in
my briefcase. He's my only contact and I want to talk
to him. I want him to know the puppet has just been
granted some unexpected free will."

   Three minutes later Joel stood at the table, the
phone to his ear as the Greek operator in Athens
routed his call to the island of Mykonos. Fitzpatrick
sat on the couch, Chaim Abrahms' dossier in front of
him on the coffee table, his eyes on Converse.

   "Are you getting through all right?" asked the
Navy lawyer.

   "It's ringing now." The erratic, stabbing signals
kept repeating four, five, six times. On the seventh
the telephone in the Aegean was picked up.

"Herete?"

"Dr. Beale, please. Dr. Edward Beale."

"Tee tha thelete?"

   "Beale. The owner of the house. Get him for me
please!" Joel turned to Fitzpatrick. "Do you speak
GreekP"

"No, but I've been thinking about taking it up."

   "You do that." Converse listened again to the
male voice in Mykonos. Greek phrases were spoken
rapidly, none comprehensible. "Thank yout
Good-bye." Joel tapped the telephone bar several
times, hoping the overseas line was still open and the
English-speaking Greek operator was still there.
"Operator? Is this the operator in Athens? . . .
Good! I want to call another number on Mykonos,
the same billing in Bonn." Converse reached down
on the table for the instructions Preston Halliday had
given him in Geneva. "It's the Bank of Rhodes. The
number is . . ."

   Moments later the waterfront banker, Kostas
Laskaris, was on the line. "Herete."

   "Mr. Laskaris, this is Joel Converse. Do you
remember me?"

   "Of course.... Mr. Converse?" The banker
sounded distant, somehow strange, as if wary or
bewildered.

"I've been trying to call Dr. Beale at the number you

272   ROBERT LUDLUM

gave me, but all I get is a man who can't speak
English. I wondered if you could tell me where
Beale is."

   A quiet expulsion of breath could be heard over
the phone. "I wondered," said Laskaris quietly. "The
man you reached was a police officer, Mr. Converse.
I had him placed there myself. A scholar has many
valuable things."

"Why? What do you mean?"

   "Shortly after sunrise this morning Dr. Beale
took his boat out of the harbor, accompanied by
another man. Several fishermen saw them. Two
hours ago Dr. Beale's boat was found crashed on
the rocks beyond the Stephanos. There was no one
on board."

   I killed him. With a scaling knife dropping his
body over a cluster of sharks beyond the shoals of the
Stephanos.

   Joel hung up the phone. Halliday, Anstett,
Beale, all of them gone all his contacts dead. He
was a puppet on the loose, his strings gone haywire,
leading only to shadows.

15

   Erich Leifhelm's warlike skin paled further as
his eyes narrowed and his starched white lips
parted. Then blood rushed to his head as he sat
forward at the desk in his library and spoke into the
telephone. "What was that name again, London?"

"Admiral Hickman. He's the "

   "No," interrupted the German sharply. "The
other one! The officer who has refused to release
the information."

   "Fitzpatrick, an Irish name. He's the ranking
legal officer at the naval base in San Diego."

"A Lieutenant Commander Fitzpatrick?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Unglaublich! Diese Stum per!"

"Warum?" asked the Englishman. "In what sense?"

   "He may be what you say he is in San Diego,
Englander, but he is not in San Diego! He's here in
Bonn!"

   "Are you mad? No, of course, you're not. Are
you certain ?"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   273

   "He's with Converse! I spoke to him myself. The
two are registered in his name at Das Rektorat! He
is how we found Converse!"

'There was no attempt to conceal the name?"

"On the contrary, he used his papers to gain
entrance!"

   "How bloody third-rate," said London,
bewildered. "Or how downright sure of himself,"
added the Britisher, his tone changing. "A signal? No
one dares touch him?"

"Unsinn!It's not so."

"Why not?"

   "He spoke to Peregrine, the ambassador. Our
man was there. Peregrine wanted to take him,
wanted him brought forcibly to the embassy. There
were complications; he got away."

"Our man wasn't very good, then."

   "An obstruction. Some Schauspieler an actor.
Peregrine will not discuss the incident. He says
nothing."

   "Which means no one will touch his naval officer
from California," concluded London. "There's a very
good reason.

"What is it?"

"He's the brother-in-law of Preston Halliday."

"Geneva! Mein Gott, they are into us!"

   "Someone is, but not anyone with a great deal of
information. I agreed with Palo Alto, who also
agrees with our specialist in the Mossad with
Abrahms, as well."

"The Jew? What does the Jew say? What does he
say?"

   "He claims this Converse is an agent flying blind
out of Washington."

"What more do you need ?"

   "He is not to leave your house. Instructions will
follow."

   Stunned, Undersecretary of State Brewster
Tolland hung up the phone, sank back in his chair,
then shot forward and pressed the appropriate
buttons on his console.

"Chesapeake," said the female voice. "Code, please?"

   "Six thousand," said Tolland. "May I speak with
Consular Operations, Station Eight, please?"

"Station Eight requires "

"Plantagenet," interrupted the Undersecretary.

"Right away, sir."

"What is it, Six thousand?"

274   ROBERT LUDLUM

   'Cut the horseshit, Harry, this is Brew. What
have you got running in Bonn we don't know
about?"

"Off the top of my head, nothing."

"How far off the top is that?"

   "No, it's straight. You're current on everything
we're doing. There was an FRG review yesterday
morning, and I'd remember if there was anything
that excluded you."

"You might remember, but if I'm excluded I'm out."

   "That's right, and I'd tell you as much if only to
keep you out, you know that. What's your
problem?"

   "I just got off the scrambler with a very angry
ambassador, who may just call a very old friend at
Sixteen Hundred."

"Peregrine? What's his problem?"

   "If it's not you, then someone's playing Cons Op.
It's supposedly a covert investigation of the
embassy his embassy somehow connected with
the Navy Department."

   "The Navy? That's crazy I mean dumb crazyl
Bonn's a port?"

"Actually, I suppose it is."

   "I never heard of the Bismarek or the Graf Spee
steaming around the Rhine. No way, Brew. We
don't have anything like that and we wouldn't have.
Do you have any names?"

   "Yes, one," replied Tolland, looking down at a
pad with hastily scribbled notes on it. "An attorney
named Joel Converse. Who is he, Harry?"

   "For Christ's sake, I never heard of him. What's
the naval angle?"

   "Someone who claims to be the chief legal
officer of a major Navy base with the rank of
lieutenant commander."

"Claims to be?"

   "Well, before that he passed himself off as a
military attache working at the embassy."

"Somewhere the inmates broke out of a home."

   "This isn't funny, Harry. Peregrine s no fool. He
may be a vanity appointment, but he's damned good
and he's damned smart. He says these people aren't
only real but may know something he doesn't."

"What does he base that on?"

"First, the opinion of a man who's met this
Converse "

"Who?" interrupted Harry of Station Eight

   "He won't say, just that he trusts him, trusts his
judgment. This person with no name says Converse
is a highly qualified, very troubled man, not a black
hat."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   275

"A what?"

   "That was the term Peregrine used. Obviously
someone who's okay. '

"What else?"

   "What Peregrine calls isolated odd behavior in
his personnel ranks. He wouldn't elaborate; he says
he'll discuss it with the Secretary or Sixteen Hundred
if I can't satisfy him. He wants answers fast, and we
don't want to rock the boat over there."

   "I'll try to help," said Harry. "Maybe it's
something from Langley or Arlington the bastards!
I can run a check on the Navy's chief legals in an
hour, and I'm sure the ABA can tell us who
Converse is if he is. At least narrow him down if
there's more than one."

   "Get back to me. I haven't got much time and we
don't want the White House raising its voice."

   "The last thing ever," agreed the director of
Consular Operations, the State Department's branch
of foreign clandestine activities.

   'Try that on for legal size!" shouted Rear
Admiral Hickman, standing by the window, angrily
addressing a rigid pale-faced David Remington. 'And
tell me with as few goddamned details as possible
how it fits!"

   "I find it impossible to believe, sir. I spoke with
him yesterday at noon and then again last
evening. He was in Sonoma!"

   "So did 1, Lieutenant. And whenever there was
a scratching or an echo, what were the words? All
that rain in the hills screwed up the telephone lines!"

"Those were the words, sir."

   "He passed through Dusseldorf immigration two
days ago! He's now in Bonn, Germany, with a man
he swore to me had something to do with his
brother-in-law's death. The same man he's protecting
by putting a clamp on that flag. This Converse!"

"I don't know what to say, sir."

   "Well, the State Department does and so do 1.
They're pushing through that vet-delay or whatever
the hell you called it in your legalese."

"It's vetted material, sir. It simply means "

"I don't want to hear, Lieutenant," said Hickman,
head

276   ROBERT LUDLUM

ingback to his desk, adding under his breath. "Do
you know how much you bastards cost me for the
two divorces?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

   "Never mind. I want that flag released. I brought
Fitz on board here. I gave him his striper and the
son of a bitch lied to me. He not only lied, he did it
ten thousand miles away lying about where he was
when he knew he shouldn't be there without my
authorizationt He knew itl . . . Do you have any
objections, Lieutenant? Something you can put into
a sentence or two that won't require my bringing in
three other legals to translate?"

   Lieutenant Remington, one of the finest lawyers
in the United States Navy, knew when to put the
engines in reverse. Legal ethics had been violated
by misinformation, the course was clear. Aggressive
retreat with full boilers or nuclear power, he
supposed, although he did not really know. "I'll
personally accelerate the vet-delay, Admiral. As the
officer responsible for the secondary CLO statute,
I'll make it clear that the direct order is now subject
to immediate cancellation. No such order can or
should originate under questionable circumstances.
Legally "

   "That will be all, Lieutenant," said the Admiral,
cutting off his subordinate and sitting down.

"Yes, sir."

   "No, that isn't allI" continued Hickman, abruptly
leaning forward. "How's that transcript released,
and how soon can you expect it?"

   "With State's input it'll only be a matter of
hours, sir, noon or shortly afterwards, I'd guess. A
classified teletype will be sent to those requesting
the Hag. However, since SAND PAC has only
placed a restriction and not a request "

   "Request it, Lieutenant. Bring it up to me the
minute it gets here and don't leave the base until it
does."

"Aye, aye, sirI"

   The deep-red Mercedes limousine weaved down
the curving road inside the massive gates of Erich
Leifhelm's estate. The late-afternoon orange sun
filtered diagonally through the tall trees, which not
only bordered the road but were everywhere beyond
on both sides. The drive might have been restful
had it not been for a sight that made the whole
scene grotesque: racing alongside the car were at
least a half-dozen giant Dobermans, not one of
them making a

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   277

sound. There was something unearthly about their
running furiously in silence, black eyes flashing up at
the windows, their jaws wide with rapid, erratic teeth
bared, but no sound emerging from their throats.
Somehow Converse knew that if he stepped out of
the car without the proper commands being issued,
the powerful dogs would tear him to pieces.

   The limousine pulled into a long circular drive
that fronted wide brown marble steps leading to an
arched doorway, the heavy panels covered with dark
bas-relief a remnant of some ancient pillaged
cathedral. Standing on the lower step was a man with
a silver whistle raised to his lips. Again there was no
sound a human could hear, but suddenly the animals
abandoned the car and ran to him, flanking him,
facing forward on their haunches, jaws slack, bodies
pulsating.

   "Please wait, sir," said the chauffeur as he
climbed out and ran around to Joel's door. "If you
will step out, please, and take two paces away from
the car. Only two paces, sir." The chauffeur now held
in his hand a black object with a rounded metal tube
extending from the front of the instrument, not
unlike a miniaturised electric charcoal starter.

"What's that?" asked Converse.

   "Protection, sir. For you, sir. The dogs, sir. They
are trained to sense heavy metal."

   Joel stood there as the German moved the
electronic detector over his clothes, including his
shoes, his inner thighs and the back of his waist. "Do
you people really think I'd come out here with a
gun?"

"I do not think, sir. I do as I am told."

   'How original," mumbled Converse as he
watched the man on the marble step raise the silver
whistle again to his lips. As one, the phalanx of
Dobermans suddenly leaped forward. In panic, Joel
grabbed the chauffeur, spinning the German in front
of him. There was no resistance; the man simply
turned his head and grinned as the dogs veered to
the right and raced around the circular drive into the
approach road cut out of the forest.

   "Don't apologize, mein Herr, " said the chauffeur.
"It happens often."

   "I wasn't going to apologise," said Converse flatly
as he released the man. "I was going to break your
neck." The German moved away, and Joel remained
motionless, stunned by

278   ROBERT LUDLUM

his own words. He had not spoken words like that
in over eighteen years.

   "This way, sir." said the man on the steps, his
accent oddly yet distinctly British.

   Inside, the great hall was lined with medieval
banners hanging down from an interior balcony.
The hal] led into an immense sitting room, the
motif again medieval, made comfortable by soft
leather chairs and couches, gaily fringed lamps and
silver services everywhere on thin polished tables.
The room was also made ugly by the profusion of
protruding animals'heads on the upper walls; large
cats, elephants and boar looked down in defiant
anger. It was a field marshal's lair.

   It was not, however, the furnishings that
absorbed Converse's attention but the sight of the
four men who stood beside four separate chairs
facing him.

   He knew Bertholdier and LeifLelm; they stood
beside each other on the right. It was the two on
the left he stared at. The medium-sized, stocky man
with the fringe of close-cropped hair on a balding
head and wearing a rumpled safari jacket, the
ever-present boots below his khaki trousers, could
be no one but Chaim Abrahms. His pouched, angry
face with its slits of glaring eyes was the face of an
avenger. The very tall man with the gaunt, aquiline
features and the straight grey hair was General Jan
van Headmer, the Slayer of Soweto. Joel had read
the Van Headmer dossier quickly; fortunately it was
the briefest, the final summary saying it all.

   In essence, Van Headmer is a Cape Town
aristocrat, an Afrikaner who has never really
accepted the British, to say nothing of the tribal
blacks. His convictions are rooted in a reality that
for him is unshakable. His forebears carved out a
savage land under savage conditions and at a great
loss of life brutally taken by savages. His thinking is
unalterably that of the late-nineteenth and
early-twentieth centuries. He will not accept the
sociological and political in

~roads made by the more educated Bantus because
he will never consider them anything more than
bush primitives. When he orders austere
deprivations and mass executions, he thinks he is
dealing only with subhuman animals. It is this
thinking that led him to be jailed along with Prime
Minister Verwoerd and the racist Vorster during
World War II. He con

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   279

curred wholeheartedly with the Nazi concept of su

perior races. His close association with Chaim
Abrahms is the single difference between him and
the Nazis, and not a contradiction for him. The
sabres carved a land out of a primitive Palestine;
their history parallels his country's, and both men
take pride in their strength and respective
accomplishments. Van Headmer, incidentally, is one
of the most charming men one could meet. On the
surface he is cultured, extremely courteous and
always willing to listen. Underneath, he is an
unfeeling killer, and he is Delavane's key figure in
South Africa with its vast resources.

   "Mein Haus ist dein Haus," said LeifLelm, walking
toward Joel, his hand outstretched.

   Converse stepped forward to accept the
German's hand. Their hands clasped. "That was an
odd greeting outside for such a warm sentiment,"
said Joel, abruptly releasing Leifhelm's hand and
turning to Bertholdier. "Good to see you again,
General. My apologies for the unfortunate incident
in Paris the other night. I don't mean to speak lightly
of a man's life, but in those few split seconds I didn't
think he had much regard for mine."

   Joel's boldness had the desired effect.
Bertholdier stared at him, momentarily unsure of
what to say. And Converse was aware that the other
three men were watching him intently without
question struck by his audacity, in both manners and
words.

   "To be sure, monsieur," said the Frenchman,
pointlessly but with composure.  'As you know, the
man disregarded his orders."

"Really? I was told he misunderstood them."

   "It is the samel" The sharp, heavily accented
voice came from behind.

Joel turned around. 'Is it?" he asked coldly.

   "In the field, yes," said Chaim Abrahms. "Either
one is an error, and errors are paid for with lives.
The man paid with his."

   "May I introduce Ceneral Abrahms?" Leifhelm
broke in touching Converse's elbow and leading him
to the Israeli.

   "General Abrahms, it's a privilege," said Joel with
convincing sincerity as they shook hands. "Like
everyone here,

280   ROBERT LUDLUM

I've admired you tremendously, although perhaps
your rhetoric has been excessive at times."

   The Israeli's face reddened as soft laughter filled
the large room. Suddenly Van Headmer stepped
forward, and Converse's eyes were drawn to the
strong face, the brows frowning, muscles taut.

   "You are addressing one of my closest
associates, sir," he said; the rebuke was
unmistakable. Then a thin smile creased his gaunt,
chiseled face. "And I could not have said it better
myself. A pleasure to know you, young man." The
Afrikaner's hand was stretched toward Joel, who
accepted it amid the subdued laughter.

   "I am insulted!" cried Abrahms, his thick
eyebrows raised, his head bobbing in mock despair.
"By talkers I'm insulted! Frankly, Mr. Converse, they
agree with you because none of them has had a
woman in a quarter of a century. They may tell you
otherwise others may tell you otherwise but
believe me they hire whores to play cards with them
or read stories into their old grey ears just to fool
their friends!" The laughter grew louder, and the
Israeli, now playing to an audience, went on,
leaning forward and pretending to speak sotto voce
to Joel. 'But you see, I hire the whores to tell me
the truth while I shtup them! They tell me these
fancy talkers nod off by nine o'clock, whining for
warm milk. With the Ovaltine, if it's possible!"

   "My dear sabre," said Leifhelm, talking through
his laughter, "you read your own romantic fiction
too assiduously. '

   "You see what I mean, Converse?" asked
Abrahms shrugging, palms extended. "You hear
that? 'Assiduously. Now you know why the Germans
lost the war. They forever spoke so dramatically of
the Blitzkrieg and the AngrifJ:e, but actually they
were talking assiduously about what to do next!"

   "They should have given you a commission,
Chaim," said Bertholdier, enjoying himself. "You
could have changed your name, called Rommel and
Von Runstedt Jews and taken over both fronts."

   "The High Command could have done worse,"
agreed the Israeli.

   "I wonder, though," continued the Frenchman,
"if you would have stopped there? Hitler was a fine
orator, as you are

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   281

a fine orator. Perhaps you would have claimed that
he, too, was a Jew and moved into the chancellery."

   "Oh, I have it on good authority that he was a
Jew. But from a very bad family. Even we have them;
of course, they're all from Europe."

   The laughter grew again and then rapidly began
to subside. Joel took the cue. "Sometimes I speak
too frankly, General," he said. 'I should learn better,
but, believe me, no insult was intended. I have
nothing but admiration for your stated positions,
your policies."

   "And that's precisely what we shall discuss," said
Erich Leifhelm, drawing everyone's attention.
"Positions, policies, overall philosophy, if you will.
We will stay as far away from specifics as we can,
although a few will undoubtedly intrude. However,
it is our approach to the larger abstractions that
count. Come, Mr. Converse, have a chair. Let us
begin our conference, the first of many, I trust."

   Rear Admiral Hickman slowly put down the
transcript on his desk, and looked aimlessly past his
propped-up feet out the window at the ocean under
a grey sky. He crossed his. arms, lowered his head
and frowned. He was as bewildered now as he had
been when he first read the transcript, as convinced
now as he was then that Remington's con-
clusions conclusion, really was off the mark. But
then the legal officer was too young to have any real
knowledge of the events as they had actually
happened; no one who had not been there could
really understand. Too many others did; it was the
reason for the flag, but it made no sense to apply
that reasoning to this Converse eighteen years later.
It was exhuming a corpse that had died from a fever,
whether the shell of a man lived on or not. It had to
be something else.

   Hickman looked at his watch, unfolded his arms
and removed his feet from the edge of the table. It
was three-ten in Norfolk; he reached for the
telephone.

   "Hello, Brian," said Rear Admiral Scanlon of the
Fifth Naval District. "I want you to know how much
we appreciate SAND PAC's help in this thing."

   "SAND PAC's?" asked Hickman, bemused that
no credit was given to the State Department.

"All right, Admiral, your help. I owe you one, old
Hicky."

"Start paying by dropping that name."

"Hey, come on, don't you remember the hockey
games?

282   ROBERT LUDEUM

You'd come racing up the ice and the whole cadet
corps would shout: 'Here comes Hicky! Here comes
Hicky!' "

"May I unblock my ears now?"

"I'm just trying to thank you, pal."

   "That s just it, I m not sure for what? Have you
read the transcript?"

"Naturally."

'What the hell s there?"

   Well," answered Scanlon tentatively. PI read it
pretty quickly. It's been an awful day and, frankly,
I just passed it on. What do you think is there?
Between you and me, I'd like to know, because I
barely had time to skim through it."

   What do I think is there? Absolutely nothing.
Oh, sure, we kept Hags on stuff like that back then
because the White House passed the order to put a
lid on officially recorded criticism and we all went
along. Also we were pretty sick and tired of it
ourselves. But there's nothing in that transcript that
hasn't been heard before, or that has any value for
anyone but military historians a hundred years from
now as a very small footnote."

   Swell," said Scanlon, even more tentatively, ' this
Converse had some pretty harsh things to say about
Command-Saigon."

     About Mad Marcus? Christ, I said worse during
the Force-Tonkin conferences and my CO did me
ten times better. We ferried in those kids up and
down the coast when all they were ready for was a
day at the beach with hot dogs and Ferris wheels....
I don't get it. You and my legal zero in on the same
thing, and I think it's old hat and discredited. Mad
Marcus is a relic."

Your who?"

  My legal exec. I told you about him, Remington."

Oh, yes. The stickler prick."

    .He picked up on the Saigon thing too. 'That's
it,' he said. It's in those remarks. It's Delavane.' He
wasn't around to know Delavane was fair game for
every antiwar group in the country. Hell, we gave
him the name Mad Marcus. No, it's not Delavane,
it's something else. Perhaps it's in those escapes,
specifically Converse's last escape. Maybe there's
some MIA input we don't know about."

    `Well," repeated the admiral in Norfolk for the
third time, but now far less tentatively. You may
have something there, but it doesn't concern us.
Look, I'll be honest with you.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   283

I didn't want to say anything because I didn t want
you to think you went to a lot of trouble for nothing,
but the word I get is that the whole thing is a
bust-negative."

   "Oh?" said Hickman, suddenly listening very
carefully. "How so?"

    'lt's the wrong man. Apparently an
overenthusiastic JG was doing some digging in the
same time period, the same general circumstances.
He saw the flag and drew six wrong conclusions. I
hope he enjoys taking five A.M. muster."

   "And that's it?" asked SAND PAC's admiral,
controlling his astonishment.

   "That's the feedback we get here. Whatever your
CLO had in mind hasn't anything to do with our
people."

   Hickman could not believe what he was hearing.
Of course Scanlon had not mentioned the State
Department's efforts. He knew nothing about them!
He was quickly putting as much distance between
himself and the Converse flag as he could, Iying
because he had not been told. State was working
quietly probably through Cons Op and Scanlon
had no reason to think "old Hicky" knew a damn
thing about Bonn or Converse or Connal
Fitzpatrick's whereabouts. Or about a man named
Preston Halliday who had been murdered in Geneva.
What was happening? He would not find out from
Scanlon. Nor did he care to.

   "To hell with it, then. My CLO will be back in
three or four days and maybe I'll learn something."

   "Whatever it is, it's back in your sandbox,
Aclmiral. My people had the wrong man."

   "Your people couldn't navigate a row boat in the
D.C. Reflecting Pool."

"Can't blame you for that, Hicky."

   Hickman hung up the phone and resumed his
standard position when in thought, gazing beyond his
propped-up shoes at the ocean. The sun was trying to
break through the overcast without much success.

   He had never liked Scanlon for reasons too petty
to examine. Except one; he knew Scanlon was a liar.
What he had not known was that he was such a
stupid liar.

   Lieutenant David Remington was flattered by the
call. The well-known four-striper had invited him to
lunch not only invited him but had apologized for
the lateness of the invitation and told him that it was
perfectly understandable

284   ROBERT LUDIUM

if it was inconvenient. Further, the captain wanted
him to know that the call was of a personal nature,
having nothing to do with naval business. The
high-ranking officer, a resident of La Jolla, was in
port for only a few days and needed legal advice.
He had been told that Lieutenant Remington was
just about the best lawyer in the United States
Navy. Would the lieutenant accept?

   Of course Remington had made it perfectly
clear that whatever advice he might offer would be
offered on the basis of amicus-amicae; no
remuneration could possibly be considered, as that
would be a violation of Statute . . .

   'May I buy you lunch, Lieutenant, or do we have
to split the check?" the four-striper had
asked somewhat impatiently, thought Remington.

   The restaurant was high in the hills above La
Jolla, an out-of-the-way roadside inn that apparently
catered to diners of the area and those from San
Diego and University City who did not care to be
seen together in the usual places. Remington had
not been too pleased; he would have preferred
being seen at the Coronado with the captain than
traveling ten miles north so as no! to be seen in the
hills of La Jolla. Nevertheless, the four-striper had
been politely adamant) it was where he wanted to
meet. David had checked him out. The much
decorated captain not only was in line for
promotion but was considered a potential candidate
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Remington would have
ridden a bicycle on the exposed Alaskan pipeline to
keep the appointment.

   Which was exactly what he thought he was
doing, as he spun the steering wheel right, then left,
then right and right again as he made his way up
the steep narrow roads. It was important to keep in
mind, he thought, as he whipped the car to the left,
that personal advice was nevertheless professional
advice, and without payment of any sort whatsoever,
it constituted a debt that would one day be
acknowledged. And if a man was elevated to the
Joint Chiefs . . . Remington could not help it: in a
glow of self-importance he had let drop to a fellow
legal officer the one who had coined the name
"stickler prick" that he was lunching with a highly
regarded four-striper in La Jolla and might be late
returning to the office. Then to drive his point
home, he had asked his associate for directions.

Oh, my Godl What was it? Oh, my God ~

At the apex of the hairpin curve was an enormous
black

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   285

rig, thirty feet in length, and out of control. It
weaved right and left on the narrow incline, its speed
gathering with every foot, measured in racing yards,
a black behemoth swerving, crashing down on
everything in front of it, a wild beast gone mad!

   Remington whipped his head to his right as he
spun the wheel to avoid impact. There were only thin
trunks of young trees and saplings in late-summer
bloom; below was a floral abyss. These were the last
images he saw as the car careened on its side and
began the plunge.

   Far above on another hill a man kneeled,
binoculars raised to his face as the explosion below
confirmed the kill. His expression was one of neither
joy nor sadness, merely acceptance. A mission had
been accomplished. After all, it was war.

   And Lieutenant David Remington, whose life was
so ordered and orderly, who knew exactly where he
was going and how in this world, who knew above all
that he would never be trapped by the forces that
had killed his father in the name of corporate policy,
was put to death by the policy of a company he had
never heard of. An enterprise called Aquitaine. He
had seen the name Delavane.

   Their view is that it's the pro per evolution of
current history, all other ideologies having failed.... The
words spoken by Preston Halliday in Geneva kept
repeating themselves in Converse's inner ear as he
listened to the four voices of Aquitaine. The
frightening thing was that they believed what they
said without equivocation, morally and intellectually,
their convictions rooted in observations going back
decades, their arguments persuasive as they
illuminated past global mistakes of judgment that
resulted in horrible suffering and unnecessary loss of
life.

   The simple objective of their coming
together allies and former enemies alike was to
bring benevolent order to a world in chaos, to permit
the industrial states to flourish for the good of all
people, spreading the strengths and benefits of
multinational trade to the impoverished,
uncommitted Third World and, by so doing, secure
its commitment. Only in this way, in this coming
together, could Communism be stopped stopped
and reversed until it collapsed under the sheer force
of superior armed might and financial resources.

To bring all this about required a shift in values and
prior

286   ROBERT WDLUM

ities.Industrial decisions everywhere must be
coordinated to bring about the total strength of the
free states. Government treasuries, multinational
corporations and giant conglomerates must look to
a stratum of interlocking committees, agree to be
directed by these committees, to accept their deci-
sions which would in effect be their respective
governments' decisions each keeping the others
apprised of its current agenda. What was this
ultimate stratum of negotiators? Who would be the
members of these committees that would in effect
speak for the free nations and set their policiesP

   Throughout history only one class of people
remained constant in its excellence, who when
called upon in Ames of crisis performed far beyond
human expectations even in defeat. The reasons for
this segment's unique contributions in war and
even in peace, though to a lesser degree were his-
torically clear: these men were selfless.. They
belonged to a class trained to serve without thought
of reward except for the recognition of excellence.
Wealth was irrelevant because their needs were
furnished and perquisites granted only through the
outstanding performance of duty.

   In the new order this class of people would not
be subject to the corruptions of the marketplace. In
reality it was unusually well equipped to deal with
such corruptions, for it could not be touched by
them. The mere presence of any illegally gained
wealth within its ranks would instantly be recognised
and condemned, resulting in courts-martial. This
class of society, this novel branch of the human
race, was not only incorrupUble at the highest
levels, it would be the ultimate savior of mankind as
we know it today.

   It was the military. The world over, even
encompassing one's enemies. Together even as
enemies they best understood the catastrophic
results of weakness.

   To be sure, certain minor liberties would
perforce have to be withheld from the body politic,
but these were small sacrifices for survival. Who
could argue?

   None of the four spokesmen for Aquitaine
raised his voice. They were the quiet prophets of
reason, each with his own history, his own identity
allies and enemies together in a world gone mad.

   Converse responded in the affirmative to
everything that was said this was not difficult to
do and asked abstract quesbons of philosophy, as
he was expected to do. Even the court

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   287

jester, Chaim Abrahms, became deeply serious and
answered Converses questions quietly

   At one point Abrahms said, "You think we Jews
are the only ones in the Diaspora, my friend? You
are wrong. The whole human race is dispersed
everywhere, all of us locking rams' horns and not
knowing where to go. Certain rabbis claim we Jews
shall not see salvation until the Messianic era, the
time of divine redemption when a god will appear to
show us the way to our own promised land. He was
far too late arriving we could not wait for Him any
longer. We created Israel. Do you see the lesson?
We we here are now the divine intervention on
earth. And I even I, a man of accomplishment and
ego will give up my life in silence so we may
succeed. "

   Jacques-Louis Bertholdier: "You must
understand, Mr. Converse, that Voltaire said it best
in his Discours sur l'homme. Essentially he wrote that
man attained his highest freedom only when he
understood the parameters of his behavior. We will
establish those parameters. Is anything more logical?

   Erich Leilhelm: "Goethe said it perhaps better
when he insisted that the romance of politics was
best used to numb and quell the fears of the
uninformed. In his definitive Aus meinem Leben he
states clearly that all governing classes must be
imbued above all with discipline. Where is it more
prevalent?"

   Jan van Headmer: "My own country, sir, is the
living embodiment of the lesson. We took the beast
out of the savage and formed a vast, productive
nation. The beast returns and my nation is in
turmoil."

   And so it went for several hours. Quiet
dissertations delivered thoughtfully, reflectively,
passions apparent only in the deep sincerity of their
convictions. Twice Joel was pressed to reveal the
name of his client and twice he demurred, stating the
legal position of confidentiality which could change
in a matter of days, perhaps less.

   "I'd have to offer my client something concrete.
An approach, a strategy that would warrant his
immediate involvement, his commitment, if you will."

   "Why is that necessary at this juncture?" asked
Bertholdier. "You've heard our reasoning. Certainly
an approach can be discerned."

   "All right, scratch approach. A strategy, then. Not
the why but the how."

288   ROBERT LUDLlJM
   "You ask for a plan?" said Abrahms. "On what
   basis?"

   "Because you'll be asking for an investment
surpassing anything in your experience."

   "That's an extraordinary statement," interjected
Van Headmer.

"He has extraordinary resources," replied Converse.

   "Very well," said LeifLelm, glancing at each of
his associates before he continued. Joel understood;
permission was being sought based on prior
discussions. It was granted "What would you say to
the compromising of certain powerful individuals in
specific governments?"

   "Blackmail?" asked Joel. "Extortion? It wouldn't
work There are too many checks and balances. A
man's threatened the threat's discovered and he's
out anyway. Then the purification rites set in, and
where there was once weakness, suddenly there's a
great deal of strength."

   "That's an extremely narrow interpretation," said
Bertholdier.

   "You do not take into consideration the time
element!)' cried Abrahms defiantly, for the first
time raising his voice. "Accumulation, Converse!
Rapid acceleration!"

   Suddenly Joel was aware that the three other
men were looking at the Israeli, but not simply
watching him. In each pair of eyes was a warning.
Abrahms shrugged. "It's merely

"Well taken," said Converse, without emphasis.

   "I'm not even sure it applies," added the Israeli,
compounding his error.

   "Well, I'm sure it's time for dinner," said
Leilhelm, removing his hand from the side of his
chair. "I've boasted so much about my table to our
guest that I admit to a shortness of
breath concern, of course. I trust the chef has
upheld my honor." As if answering a signal which
Joel knew was the case the British manservant
appeared beneath an archway at the far end of the
room. "I am clairvoyant!" Leifhelm rose. "Come,
come, my friends. Saddle of lamb a citron, a dish
created by the gods for themselves and stolen by the
irrepressible thief who rules my kitchen."

   The dinner was indeed superb, each dish the
result of an isolated effort to achieve perfection in
both taste and presentation. Converse was no
gourmet, his culinary education having been forced
on him in expensive restaurants where his mind was
only mildly distracted by the food, but he instinc

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   289

tively knew when a dish was the best in its class.
There was nothing second-rate about Leifhelm's
table, including the table itself, an enormous solid
mass of mahogany supported by two huge but
delicately carved tripods resting on the intricate
parquet floor. The deep-red velour walls in the
high-ceilinged room were hung with oils of hunting
scenes. The low candelabra in front of the
silver-mirrored place mats did not obstruct a guest s
view of the person opposite, a feat Joel wished could
be mastered by most of the hostesses in New York,
London and Ceneva.

   The talk veered away from the serious topics
explored in the sitting room. It was as if a recess had
been called, a diversion to ease the burdens of
statesmanship. If that was the aim, it was eminently
successful, and it was the Afrikaner, Van Headmer,
who led the way. In his soft-spoken, charming way
(the dossier had been accurate the "unfeeling killer"
was charming) he described a safari he had taken
Chaim Abrahms on in the veldt

   "Do you realize, gentlemen that I bought this
poor Hebrew his first jacket at Safarics' in
Johannesburg and there's never been a day when I
haven't regretted it. It's become our great general's
trademark! Of course, you know why he wears it. It
absorbs perspiration and requires very little washing
simply large applications of bay rum. This is a
different jacket, isn't it, great general?"

   "Bleach, bleach, I tell my wife!" replied the sabre,
grimacing. "It takes out the smell of the godless slave
traders!"

   "Talking of slaves, let me tell you," said the
Afrikaner warming to his story with a glass of wine,
changed with each new course.

   The story of Chaim Abrahms' first and only safari
was worthy of good vaudeville. Apparently the Israeli
had been stalking a male lion for hours with his gun
bearer, a Bantu he constantly abused, not realizing
the black understood and spoke English as well as
he. Abrahms had zeroed in each of his four rifles
prior to the hunt, but whenever he had the lion in
his sights, he missed. This supposedly superb
marksman, this celebrated general with the rifle-eye
of a hawk, could not hit eight feet of flesh a hundred
yards away. At the end of the day an exhausted
Chaim Abrahms, using broken English and a
multiplicity of hand gestures, bribed the gun bearer
not to tell the rest of the safari of his misses. The
hunter and the Bantu returned to camp, the hunter
lamenting the nonexis

290   ROBERT LUDLUM

fence of cats and the stupidity of gun bearers. The
native went to Van Headmer's tent, and as the
Afrikaner told it in perfectly-mimicked Anglicized
Bantu, said the following: 'I liked the lion more
than the Jew, sir. I altered his sights, sir, but appar-
ently I will be forgiven my indiscretion, sir. Among
other enticements, he has offered to have me
bar-mitzvahed."

   The diners collapsed in laughter Abrahms, to
his credit, loudest of all. Obviously, he had heard
the story before and relished the telling. It occurred
to Joel that only the most secure could listen to
such telling tales about themselves and respond with
genuine laughter. The Israeli was a rock in the
firmament of his convictions and could easily
tolerate a laugh on himself. That, too, was
frightening.

   The British servant intruded, walking silently on
the hard wood floor and spoke into Erich
Leifhelm's ear.

   "Forgive me, please," said the German, rising to
take the call. "A nervous broker in Munich who
consistently picks up rumors from Riyadh. A sheik
goes to the toilet and he hears thunder from the
east."

   The ebullient conversation went on without a
break in the flow, the three men of Aquitaine
behaving like old comrades sincerely trying to make
a stranger feel welcome. This, too, was frightening.
Where were the fanatics who wanted to destroy
governments, ruthlessly grabbir g control and shack-
ling whole societies, channeling the body politic into
their vision of the military state? These were men of
intellect. They spoke of Voltaire and Goethe, and
had compassion for suffering and pain and
unnecessary loss of life. They had humor and could
even laugh at themselves while speaking calmly of
sacrificing their own lives for the betterment of a
world gone mad. ButJoel understood their true
nature. These were interlopers assuming the mantels
of statesmen. What had Leifhelm said, quoting
Goethe? "The romance of politics was best used to
numb and quell the fears of the uninformed."

Frightening.

   LeifLelm returned, followed by the British
servant carrying two open bottles of wine. If the call
from Munich had brought unfavorable news, the
German gave no indication of it. His spirits were as
before, his waxen smile at the ready and his
enthusiasm for the next course unbridled. "And
now, my friends, the lamb d citron medallions of
ambrosia and, hyperbole aside, actually rather good.
Also, in honor of our guest we have a bonus this
evening. My astute English friend and

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   291

companion was in Siegburg the other day and ran
across several bottles of Beerenauslese, '71. What
could be a more fitting tribute?"

   The men of Aquitaine glanced at one another,
then Bertholdier spoke. 'Certainly a find, Erich. It's
one of the more acceptable German varieties."

   ' The '82 Klausberg Riesling in Johannesburg
promises to be among the finest in years, ' said Van
Headmer.

    'I doubt it will rival the Richon-le-Zion Carmel,
' added the Israeli.

"You are all impossible!"

   A behatted chef rolled in a silver service cart,
uncovered the saddle of lamb and, under
appreciative looks, proceeded to carve and serve.
The Englishman presented the various side dishes to
each diner, then poured the wine.

   Erich Leifhelm raised his glass, the flickering
light of the candles reflecting off the carved crystal
and the edges of the silver-mirrored place mats. To
our guest and his unknown client, both of whom we
trust will soon be in our fold."

Converse nodded his head and drank.

   He took the glass from his lips, and was suddenly
aware that the four men of Aquitaine were staring at
him, their own glasses still on the table. None had
drunk the wine.

   LeifLelm spoke again, his voice nasal, cold, a
fury held in check by an intellect in control. `4
General Delavane was the enemy, our enemy! Men
like that can't be allowed anymore, can't you
understand!' Those were the words, were they not,
Mr. Converse?"

   WhatP"Joel heard his voice but was not sure it
was his. The flames of the candles suddenly erupted,
fire filled his eyes and the burning in his throat
became an unbearable pain. He grabbed his neck as
he struggled out of the chair, hurling it back, he
heard the crash, but only as a succession of echoes.
He was falling. The pain surged into his stomach; it
was intolerable; he clutched his groin, frantically
trying to suppress the pain. Then he felt the chill of
a hard surface and somehow knew he was writhing
wildly on the floor while being held in check by
powerful arms.

    `The gun. Step back. Hold him." The voice, too,
was a series of echoes, though sharply enunciated in
a searing British accent. "Now. Fire!"

16

   The telephone rang, jolting Connal Fitzpatrick
out of a deep sleep. He had fallen back on the
couch, the Van Headmer dossier in his hand, both
feet still planted on the floor. Shaking his head and
rapidly blinking and widening his eyes, he tried to
orient himself. Where was he? What time it? The
phone rang again, now a prolonged, shattering
sound. He lurched off the couch, his breathing
erratic, his exhaustion too complete to shake offin
a few seconds. He had not really slept since
California; his body and mind could barely function.
He grabbed the phone, nearly dropping it as he
momentarily lost his balance.

"Yes... hello!"

   "Commander Fitzpatrick, if you please," said a
male voice in a clipped British accent.

"This Is he."

   "Philip Dunstone here, Commander. I'm calling
for Mr Converse. He wanted me to tell you that the
conference is goings - well, far better than he
thought possible."

   "Dunstone. Major Philip Dunstone. I'm senior
aide to General Berkeley-Greene."

"Berkeley-Greene?"

   "Yes, Commander. Mr. Converse said to tell you
that along with the others he's decided to accept
General Leifhelm's hospitality for the night. He'll
be in touch with you first thing in the morning."

'Let me talk to him. Now."

   "I'm afraid that's not possible. They've all gone
out on the motor launch for a spin downriver.
Frankly, they're a secretive lot, aren't they?
Actually, I'm not permitted to attend their
discussions any more than you are."

"I'm not settling for this, Major!"

"Really, Commander, I'm simply relaying a
message.

292

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   293

. . . Oh yes, Mr. Converse did mention that if you
were concerned I should also tell you that if the
admiral called, you were to thank him and give him
his regards."

   Fitzpatrick stared at the wall. Converse would
not bring up the Hickman business unless he was
sending a message. The request made no sense to
anyone but the two of them. Everything was all right.
Also there could be several reasons why Joel did not
care to talk directly on the phone. Among them,
thought Connal resentfully, was probably the fact
that he didn't trust his "aide" to say the proper words
in the event their conversation was being overheard.

   'AII right, Major . . . what was the name again?
Dunstone?"

   'That's right, Philip Dunstone. Senior aide to
General Berkeley-Greene. "

   "Leave word for Mr. Converse that I'll expect to
hear from him by eight o'clock."

   "Isn't that a little harsh, old boy? It's nearly two
A.M. now. The breakfast buffet usually starts about
nine-thirty out here."

"Nine o'clock, then," said Fitzpatrick firmly.

   "I'll tell him myself, Commander. Oh, one final
thing. Mr. Converse asked me to apologize for his
not having reached you by midnight. They've really
been at it hammer and tongs in there."

   That was it, thought Connal. Everything was
under control. Joel certainly would not have made
that remark otherwise. "Thanks, Major, and by the
way, I'm sorry I was rude. I was asleep and tried to
get it together too fast."

   "Lucky chap. You can head back to the pillows
while I stand watch. Next time you can take my
place."

"If the food's good, you're on."

   "It's not, really. A lot of pansy cooking, to tell
you the truth. Good night, Commander."

"Good night, Major."

   Relieved, Fitzpatrick hung up the phone. He
looked over at the couch, thinking briefly of going
back to the dossiers but decided against it. He felt
hollow all over, hollow legs, hollow chest, a hollow
ache in his head. He needed sleep badly.

   He gathered up the papers and took them into
Converse's room. He placed them in the attache
case, locked it and turned the combination tumblers.
Carrying the case, he went back into the sitting
room, checked the door, turned off the lights and
headed for his own bedroom. He threw the case

294   ROBERT LUDLUM

on the bed and removed his shoes, then his trousers,
but that was as far as he got. He collapsed on the
pillows, somehow managing to wrap part of the
bedspread around him. The darkness was welcome.

   "That was hardly necessary," said Erich Leifhelm
to the Englishman, as the latter replaced the phone.
"'Pansy cooking' is not the way I would describe my
table."

   "He undoubtedly would," said the man who had
called himself Philip Dunstone. "Let's check the
patient."

   The two walked out of the library and down the
hall to a bedroom. Inside were the three other men
of Aquitaine along with a fourth, his black bag and
the exposed hypodermic needles denoting a
physician. On the bed was Joel Converse, his eyes
wide and grasslike, saliva oozing from the sides of
his mouth, his head moving back and forth as if in
a trance, unintelligible sounds emerging from his
lips.

   The doctor glanced up and spoke. "There's
nothing more he can give us because there is more,"
said the physician. "The chemicals don't lie. Quite
simply, he's a blind sent out by men in Washington,
but he has no idea who they are. He didn't even
know they existed until this naval officer convinced
him they had to exist. His only referrals were
Anstett and Beale."

   "Both dead," interrupted Van Headmer. "Anstett
is public, and I can vouch for Beale. My employee
on Santorini flew into Mykonos and confirmed the
kill. There can be no trace incidentally. The Greek
is back on the chalk cliffs selling laces and inflated
whisky in his taverna."

   "Prepare him for his odyssey," said Chaim
Abrahms, looking down at Converse. "As our
specialist in the Mossad put it so clearly, distance is
now the necessary requirement. A vast separation
between this American and those who would send
him out."

   Fitzpatrick stirred as the bright morning sunlight
from the windows pierced the darkness and
expanding shades of white forced his eyelids open.
He stretched, his shoulder digging into a hard
corner of the attache case, the rest of him
constricted by the bedspread, which was tangled
about his legs. He kicked it off and Hung his arms
on both sides of the bed, breathing deeply, feeling
the relaxed swelling of his chest. He swung his left
hand above his head, twisted his wrist

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   295

and looked at his watch. It was nine-twenty; he had
slept for seven and a half hours, but the
uninterrupted sleep seemed much longer. He got out
of bed and took several steps; his balance was steady,
his mind clearing. He looked at his watch again,
remembering. The major named Dunstone had said
breakfast at Leifhelm's estate was served from
nine-thirty on and if the conference had moved to a
boat on the river at 2:00 A.M. Converse probably
would not call before ten o'clock.

   Connal walked into the bathroom; there was a
phone on the wall by the toilet if he was wrong
about the call. A shave followed by a hot and cold
shower and he would be fully himself again.

   Eighteen minutes later Fitzpatrick walked back
into the bedroom, a towel around his waist, his skin
still smarting from the harsh sprays of water. He
crossed to his open suitcase on a luggage rack and
took out his miniaturised radio, placed it on the
bureau and, deciding against the Armed Forces
band, dialed in what was left of a German newscast.
There were the usual threats of strikes in the
industrial south, as well as charges and
countercharges hurled around the Bundestag, but
nothing earthshaking. He selected comfortable
clothes lightweight slacks, a blue oxford shirt and
his cord jacket. He got dressed and walked out into
the sitting room toward the phone, he would call
room service for a small breakfast and a great deal
of coffee.

   He stopped. Something was wrong. What was it?
The pillows on the couch were still rumpled, a glass
half filled with stale whisky still on the coffee table,
as were pencils and a blank telephone message pad.
The balcony doors were closed, the curtains drawn,
and across the room the silver ice bucket remained
in the canter of the silver tray on the antique hunt
table. Everything was as he had last seen it, yet there
was something.... The door! The door to Converse's
bedroom was shut. Had he closed it? No, he had not!

   He walked rapidly over and opened the door. He
studied the room, conscious of the fact that he had
stopped breathing. It was immaculate cleaned and
smoothed to a fare-thee-well. The suitcase was gone;
the few articles Converse had left on the bureau
were no longer there. Connal rushed to the closet
and yanked it open. It was empty. He went into the
bathroom; it was spotless, new soap in the re-
ceptacles, the glasses wrapped in clinging paper
ready for incoming guests. He walked out of the
bathroom stunned.

296   ROBERT IUDLUM

There was not the slightest sign that anyone except
a maid had been in that bedroom for days.

   He ran out to the sitting room and the
telephone. Seconds later the manager was on the
line; it was the same man Connal had spoken with
yesterday. "Yes, indeed, your businessman was even
more eccentric than you described, Commander. He
checked out at three-thirty this morning, paying all
the bills, incidentally."

"He was here?"

Of course."

You saw him?"

   Not personally. I don't come on duty until eight
o'clock. He spoke with the night manager and
settled your account before going up to pack."

   "How could your man know it was him? He
never saw him before!"

   Really, Commander, he identified himself as
your associate and paid the bill. He also had his
key; he left it at the desk."

   Fitzpatrick paused, astonished, then spoke
harshly.   The room was cleaned! Was that also
done at three-thirty this morning? '

   No, main Herr, at seven o'clock. By the first
housekeeping shift."

But not the outer room?"

   The commotion might have disturbed you.
Frankly Commander, that suite must be prepared
for an early-afternoon arrival. I'm sure the staff felt
it would not bother you if they got a head start on
the task. Obviously, it

Early afternoons I'm here!"

   And welcome to stay until twelve noon, the bill
has been paid. Your friend has departed and the
suite has been reserved."

And I don't suppose you have another room."

'I'm afraid there's nothing available, Commander."

   Connal slammed down the phone. Really,
Commander . . . Those same words had been spoken
by another over the same telephone at two o'clock
in the morning. There were three directories in a
wicker rack by the table, he pulled out the one for
Bonn and found the number

"Guten Morgen. Hier bei General Leifhelm. "

"Herrn Major Dunstone, bitts. "

            THE AQUITAINE
            PROGRESSION   297
"Wer2"

   "Dunstone,~' he said, then continued in German,
"He's a guest. Philip Dunstone. He's the senior aide
to to a General Berkeley-Greene. They're English."

   "English? There are no Englishmen here, sir.
There's no one here that is to say, there are no
guests."

   "He was there last night! They both were. I spoke
with Major Dunstone."

   "The general had a small dinner party for a few
friends but no English people, sir."

"Look, I'm trying to reach a man named Converse."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Converse. He was here, sir."

"Was?"

"I believe he left."

"Where's Leifhelm?" shouted Connal.

   There was a pause before the German replied
coldly "Who should I say is calling General
Leifhelm?"

"Fitzpatrick. Lieutenant Commander Fitzpatricki"

   "I believe he's in the dining room. If you'll stay
on the telephone." The line was put on hold; the
suspended silence was unnerving.

   finally there was a click and Leifhelm's voice
reverberated over the phone. "Good morning,
Commander. Bonn has provided a lovely day, no?
The Seven Mountains are as clear as in a picture
postcard. I believe you can see them "

"Where's Converse?" interrupted the Navy lawyer.

"I would assume at Das Rektorat."

"He was supposed to be staying at your place."

   "No such arrangements were made. They were
neither requested nor offered. He left rather late,
but he did leave Commander. My car drove him
back."

   "That's not what I was toldl A Major Dunstone
called me around two this morning "

   "I believe Mr. Converse left shortly before then....
Who did you say called?"

   "Dunstone. A Major Philip Dunstone. He's
English. He said he was the senior aide to General
Berkeley-Greene."

   "I don't know this Major Dunstone, there was no
such person here. However, I'm familiar with just
about every general officer in the British Army and
I've never heard of anyone named Berkeley-Greene."

"Stow it, Leifhelml"

"I beg your pardon."

298   ROBERT LUDLUM

   "I spoke to Dunstone! He he said the right
words. He said Converse was staying at your
place with the others!"

   "I think you should have spoken directly with
Herr Converse, because there was no Major
Dunstone or General Berkeley-Greene at my home
last night. Perhaps you should check with the
British embassy; certainly they d know if these
people were in Bonn. Perhaps you heard the words
incorrectly; perhaps they met later at a cafe."

   "I couldn't speak to him! Dunstone said you
were out on the river in a boat." Fitzpatrick's breath
was now coming in short gasps.

   "Now, that's ridiculous, Commander. It's true I
keep a small launch for guests, but it's a well-known
fact that I am not partial to the water." The general
paused, adding with a short laugh. "The great field
marshal gets seasick in a llatboat six feet from
shore."

"You re Iying!"

   "I resent that, sir. Especially about the water. I
never feared the Russian front, only the Black Sea.
And if we had invaded England, I assure you I
would have crossed the Channel in a plane." The
Cerman was toying with him; he was enjoying
himself.

   "You know exactly what I mean!" Connal
shouted again. "They said Converse checked out of
here at three-thirty this morning! I say he never
came back!"

   "And I say this conversation is pointless. If you
are truly alarmed, call me back when you can be
civil. I have friends in the Staatspolizei." Again a
click; the German had hung up.

   As Fitzpatrick replaced the phone another
thought suddenly struck him. Frightened, he walked
quickly into the bedroom, his eyes instantly zeroing
in on the attache case. It was partly under the
pillow; oh Cod, he had been in such a sound sleep!
He yanked the case out and examined it. Breathing
again, he saw that it was the same case, the
combination locks secure; no amount of pressure on
the small brass buttons would release the plates. He
lifted the case and shook it; the weight and the
sounds were proof that the papers were inside and
intact, proof also that Converse had not returned to
the inn and checked out. All other considerations
aside and regardless of whatever emergencies that
might have arisen, he would never have left without
the dossiers and the list of names.

Connal carried the case back into the sitting room
trying

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   299

to collect his thoughts, putting them in alphabetical
sequence so as to impose some kind of order. A: He
had to assume that the flag on Joel's service record
had been lifted or the damaging information
unearthed in some other way and that Converse was
now being held by LeifLelm and the contingent from
Aquitaine that had flown in from Paris, Tel Aviv and
Johannesburg. B:They would not kill him until they
had used every means possible to find out what he
knew which was far less than they imagined and
could take several days. C: The LeifLelm estate,
according to his dossier, was a fortress; thus the
chances of going in and bringing Converse out were
nil. D: Fitzpatrick knew he could not appeal to the
American embassy. To begin with, Walter Peregrine
would place him under territory arrest and those
doing the arresting might put a bullet in his head.
One had tried. E: He could not risk seeking help
from Hickman in San Diego, which under different
circumstances might be a logical course of action.
Everything in the admiral's makeup ruled out any
connection with Aquitaine; he was a fiercely
independent officer whose conversations were laced
with barbed remarks about the Pentagon's policies
and mentality. But if that flag had been officially re-
leased whether with his consent or over his objec-
tions Hickman would have no choice but to call
him back to the base for a full inquiry. Any contact
at all could result in the immediate cancellation of
his leave, but if there was no contact and no way to
reach him, the order, obviously, could not be given.

   Connal sat down on the couch, the attache case
at his feet, and picked up a pencil; he wrote out two
words on the telephone message pad: Call Meagen.
He would tell his sister to say that after Press's
funeral he had left for parts unknown without
explanation. It was consistent with what he had said
to the admiral, that he was taking his information to
"the authoribes" investigating Preston Halliday's
death.

   F: He could go to the Bonn police and tell them
the truth. He had every reason to believe that an
American colleague was being held against his will
inside the gates of General Erich Leifhelm's estate.
Then, of course, the inevitable question would arise:
Why didn't the Lieutenant Commander contact the
American embassy? The unspoken would be just
below the surface: General Leifhelm was a
prominent figure, and such a serious charge should
have diplomatic support. The embassy again. Strike
out. Then again, if Leifhelm said

300   ROBERT LUDLUM

he had "friends" in the Staatspolizei, he probably
owned key men in the Bonn Police. If he was
alarmed, Converse could be moved. Or killed. G:. .
. was insane, thought the Navy lawyer as a legal
phrase crept slowly into his consciousness, suddenly
taking on a blurred viability. Trade-o~: It was a
daily occurrence in pretrial examinations, both
civilian and military. We'll drop this if you accept that
We'll stay out of this area if you stay out of that one.
Standard practice. Trade-off. Was it possible? Could
it even be considered? It was crazy and it was
desperate, but then nothing was sane, nothing held
much hope. Since force was out of the question,
could an exchange be made? LeifLelm for
Converse. A general for a lieutenant.

   Connal did not dare analyze; there were too
many negatives. He had to act on instinct because
there was nothing else left, nowhere he could turn
that did not lead to a blank wall or a bullet. He got
up from the couch, went to the table with the
telephone and and reached for the directory on the
floor. What he had in mind was insane, but he could
not think about that. He found the name. Fishbein,
rise. The illegitimate daughter of Hermann Goring.

   The rendezvous was set: a back table at the
Hansa-Keller cafe on the Kaiserplatz, the
reservation in the name of Parnell. Fitzpatrick had
had the presence of mind in California to pack a
conservative civilian suit; he wore it now as the
American attorney, Mr. Parnell, who was fluent in
German and sent by his firm in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, to make contact with one use Fishbein in
Bonn, West Germany. He also had the presence of
mind in Bonn, West Germany, to have managed a
single room at the Schlosspark on the
Venusbergweg and placed Converse's attache case
where it would be safe for a considerable length of
time, a trail left for Converse should everything
blow apart. A trail he would recognize if Joel was
alive and able to hunt.

   Connal arrived ten minutes early, not merely to
secure the table but to familiarise himself with the
surroundings and silently practice his approach. He
had done the same thing many times before,
walking into military courtrooms before a trial,
testing the chairs, the height of the tables, the scan
of vision of the tribunal on the dais. It all helped.

   He knew it was she when the woman arrived and
spoke to the mau^tre d' at his lectern. She was tall
and heavy, not

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   301

obese but fleshy in a statuesque way, conscious of
her mature sensuality but smart enough not to
parade it. She was dressed in a light-grey summer
suit, the jacket buttoned above her generous breasts,
a wide white collar demurely angled over the fabric.
Her face, too, was full but not soft, the high cheek-
bones lending an appearance of character that might
not otherwise have been there, her hair was dark
and shoulder-length, with slight streaks of premature
gray. She was escorted to the table by the dining
room's captain. Fitzpatrick rose as she approached.

   "Guten Tag, Frau Fishhein, " he said, extending
his hand. "Bitte, setzen Sie sich. "

   ' It's not necessary for you to speak German,
Herr Parnell," said the woman, releasing his hand
and sliding into the chair under the guidance of the
captain, who bowed and left. "I make my living as a
translator."

"Whatever you feel most comfortable with," said
Connal.

   "I think under the circumstances I should prefer
English, and spoken softly, if you please. Now, what
is this incredible thing you alluded to over the
telephone, Mr. Parnell?"

   "Quite simply an inheritance, Mrs. Fishbein,"
replied Fitzpatrick, his expression sincere, his eyes
steady. "If a few technical questions can be settled,
and I'm sure they can be, as a rightful legatee you
will receive a substantial sum of money."

"From someone in America I never knew?"

"He knew your father."

   "I did not," said use fishbein quickly, her eyes
darting about at the adjacent tables. "Who is this
man?"

   "He was a member of your father's staff during
the war," answered Connal, lowering his voice still
further. "With your father's help certain contacts in
Holland he got out of Germany before the
Nuremberg trials with a great deal of money. He
came to the United States by way of London, his
funds intact, and started a business in the Midwest.
It became enormously successful. He died recently,
leaving sealed instructions with my firm, his
attorneys."

"But why me?"

   "A debt. Without your father's influence and
assistance our client would probably have withered
for years in jail instead of flourishing as he did in
America. As far as anyone was concerned, he was a
Dutch immigrant from the Netherlands whose family
business was destroyed in the war and who

302   ROBERT LUDLUM

sought his future in America. That future included
considerable real estate holdings and a very
successful meat-packing plant all in the process of
being sold. Your inheritance is in excess of two
million American dollars. Would you care for an
aperitif, Mrs. Fishbein?"

   The woman could not at first reply. Her eyes
had grown wide, her full jaw slackened, her stare
was trancelike."I believe I will, Herr Parnell," she
said in a monotone, finding her voice. "A large
whisky, if you please."

   Fitzpatrick signaled the waiter, ordered drinks
and tried several times to make idle conversation,
commenting on the beautiful weather and asking
what sites he should see while in Bonn. It was no
use. Ilse Fishbein was as close to being in a
catatonic state as Connal could imagine. She had
gripped his wrist, clutching it in silence with
extremely strong fingers, her lips parted, her eyes
two blank glass orbs. The drinks came, the waiter
left, and still she would not let go of him. Instead,
she drank somewhat awkwardly, lifting the glass
with her left hand.

   '~What are these questions to be settled? Ask
anything, demand anything. Do you have a place to
stay? Things are so crowded in Bonn."

   "You're very kind; yes, I do. Try to understand,
Mrs. Fishbein, this is an extremely sensitive matter
for my firm. As you can well imagine, it's not the
sort of legal work American attorneys are too happy
with, and, frankly, had our client not made certain
provisos connecting the successful completion of
this aspect of his last will and testament to the full
execution of other aspects, we might have "

'.The questions! What are the questions?"

   Fitzpatrick paused before answering, the
thoughtful lawyer permitting the interruption but
still intent on making his point. 'everything will be
handled confidentially, the probate court operating
in camera "

'~With photographs?"

   'fin private, Mrs. Fishbein. For the good of the
community, in exchange for specific state and local
taxes that might not be paid in the event of
confiscation. You see, the higher courts might
decide the entire estate is open to question."

"Yes, the questions! What are they?"

   "Really quite simple. I've prepared certain
statements, which you will sign and to which I can
swear to your signature. They establish your
bloodline. Then there is a short de

 -              THE AQUITAINE
PROGRESSION   303

position required substantiating the claim. We need
only one, but it must be given by a former
high-ranking member of the Cerman forces,
preferably a man whose name is recognizable, whom
the recent history books or war accounts establish as
a working colleague of your natural father. Of course,
it would be advantageous to have someone known to
the American military in the event the judge decides
to call the Pentagon and ask Who is this fellow?' '

   "I know the maul" whispered use Fishbein. "He
was a field marshal, a brilliant General!"

   "Who is he?" asked the Navy lawyer, then
instantly shrugging, dispensing with the question of
identity as irrelevant. "Never mind. Just tell me why
you think he's the right man, this field marshal."

   "He is greatly respected, although not everyone
agrees with him. He was one of the grossmachtigen
young commanders, once decorated by my father
himself for his brilliancel"

   "But would anyone in the American military
establishment know him?"

   "Mein Gott! He worked for the Allies in Berlin
and Vienna after the war!"

"Yes?"

"And at SHAPE Headquarters in Brussels!"

   Yes, thought Connal, we're talking aloout the same
man "Fine," said Fitzpatrick casually but seriously.
"Don't bother giving me his name. It doesn't matter,
and I probably wouldn't know it anyway. Can you
reach him quickly?"

"In minutes! He's here in Bonn."

   "Splendid. I should catch the plane back to
Milwaukee by tomorrow noon."

   "You will come to his house and he will dictate
what you need to his secretary."

   "I'm sorry I can't do that. The deposition must be
countersigned by a notary. I understand you have the
same rules over here -- and why not, you invented
them and the Schlosspark Hotel has both typing and
notary services. Say this evening, or perhaps early in
the morning? I should be more than happy to send a
taxi for your friend. I don't want this to cost him a
pfennig. Any expenses he incurs my firm will be
happy to repay."

   use Fishbein giggled a slightly hysterical giggle.
"You do not know my friend, main Herr."

304   ROBERT LUDLUM

"I'm sure we'll get along. Now, how about lunch?"

   '.Ihave to go to the toilet," said the German
woman, her eyes glass orbs again. As she rose,
Connal rising with her, she whispered, "Mein Gott!
Zwei Millionen Dollar!"

   "He does not even care to know your namer"
cried Ilse Fishbein into the phone. "He's from a
place called Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is offering
me two million dollarsAmerican!"

"He did not ask who I was?"

   "He said it didn't matter! He probably wouldn't
know you, in any event. Can you imagine? He
offered to send a taxi for you! He said you should
not spend a penny!"

   "It's true Goring was excessively generous during
the last weeks," mused Leimelm. "Of course, he was
more often drugged than not, and those who
supplied him with narcotics which were difficult to
obtain, were rewarded with the whereabouts of
priceless art treasures. The one who later smuggled
him the poisoned suppositories still lives like a
Roman emperor in Luxembourg."

"So you see, it's true! Goring did these things!"

   "Rarely knowing what he was doing, however,"
agreed the general reluctantly. "This is really most
unusual and very inconvenient, Ilse. Did this man
show you any documents, any proof of his
assignment?"

   "Naturally!" lied Fishbein, close to panic, picking
remembered words out of the air. "There was a
formal page of legal statements and a . . .
deposition all to be handled by the courts
confidentially! In private! You see, there is a ques-
tion of taxes, which would not be paid if the estate
was confiscated "

   "I've heard it all before, Ilse," Leifhelm broke in
wearily. "There are no statutes for so-called war
criminals and expatriated funds. So the hypocrites
choke on their hypocritical rules the instant they
cost money, and abandon them."

   "You are always so perceptive, my general, and
I have always been so loyal. I've never refused you
a single request whether it was professional in
nature or far more intimate. Please. Two million
American! It will take but ten or fifteen minutes!"

   "You've been like a good niece, I can't deny it,
Ilse. And there is no way anyone could know about
you in other matters.... Very well, this evening then.
I'm dining at the Stei

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   305

genberger at nine o'clock. I'll stop at the Schlosspark
at eight-fifteen or thereabouts. You can buy me a
gift with your shall we say ill-conceived new
riches."

"I'll meet you in the lobby.'

"My driver will accompany me."

"Ach, bring twenty men!"

'He's worth twenty-five," Leifhelm said.

   Fitzpatrick sat in the chair in the small
conference room on the second floor of the hotel
and examined the gun, the manual of instructions on
his lap. He tried to match what the clerk had told
him to the diagrams and instructions, and was
satisfied that he knew enough. There were basic
similarities to the standard Navy issue Colt .45, the
only handgun he was familiar with, and the technical
information was extraneous to his needs. The
weapon he had purchased was a Heckler & Koch
PGS auto pistol, about six inches long its caliber
nine millimeters, and with a nine-shell magazine clip.
The instructions emphasized such points as
"polygonal rifling" and "sliding roller lock functions';
he let the manual slip to the floor, and practiced
removing the clip and slapping it back into place. He
could load the weapon, aim it and fire it; those were
all that was necessary and he trusted the last would
not be necessary.

   He glanced at his watch) it was almost eight
o'clock. He shoved the automatic into his belt,
reached down for the instructions and stood up,
looking around the room, mentally checking off the
movements and the locations he had designated for
himself. As he had expected, the Fishbein woman
had told him Leifhelm would be accompanied by
someone, a "driver" in this case, and it could be
assumed the man had other functions. If so, he
would have no chance to perform them.

   The room one of twenty-odd conference rooms
in the hotel that he had reserved under the name
of a fictitious company was not large, but there were
structural arrangements that could be put to
advantage. The usual rectangular table was in the
center, three chairs on each side and two at the
ends, one with a telephone. There were additional
chairs against the walls for stenographers and
observers all this was normal. However, in the center
of the left wall was a doorway that led to a very
small room apparently used for private con-
versations. Inside was another telephone, which
when off the

306   ROBERT LUDIUM

hook caused a button on the first telephone on the
conference table to light up; confidentiality had its
limits in Bonn. The hallway door opened onto a
small foyer, thus prohibiting those entering from
scanning the room while standing in the corridor.

   Connalfolded the Heckler & Koch instructions,
put them in his jacket pocket, and walked over to
the table to survey his set pieces. He had gone to an
oflfice-supply store and purchased the appropriate
items. On the far end of the table by the
telephone which was placed perpendicular to the
edge, the buttons in clear view were several file
folders next to an open briefcase (from a distance
its dark plastic looked like expensive leather).
Scattered about were papers, pencils and a yellow
legal pad, the top pages looped over. The setting
was familiar to anyone who had ever had an
appointment with an attorney, said learned counsel
having put his astute observations down on paper
prior to the conference.

   Fitzpatrick retraced his steps to the chair, moved
it forward several feet, and crossed to the door of
the small side room. He had turned on the
lights two table lamps flanking a short couch) he
went to the one above the telephone and turned it
off. He then walked back to the open door and
stood between it and the wall, peering through the
narrow vertical space broken up by upper and lower
hinges. He had a clear view of the foyer's entrance;
three people would pass into the conference room
and he would come out.

   There was a knock on the hallway door the
rapid, impatient tapping of an heiress unable to
control herself. He had told the Fishbein woman the
location of the room, but nothing else. No name or
number, and in her anxiety she had not asked about
either. Fitzpatrick went to the telephone table in the
small room, lifted the phone out of its cradle and
placed it on its side. He returned to his position
behind the door, angling himself so as to look
through the crack, his body in the shadows. He took
the pistol from his belt, held it in front of him and
shouted in a friendly voice, loud enough to be heard
outside in the hotel corridor. "Bitte, kommen Sie
herein! Die Tare ist offer. Ich telefoniere gerade!"

   The sound of the door as it opened preceded
Ilse Fishbein as she walked rapidly into the room,
her eyes directed at the conference table. She was
followed by Erich LeifLelm, who glanced about and
then turned slightly, nodding his head. A third man
in the uniform of a chauffeur came into view, his

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   307

hand in the pocket of his black jacket. Connal then
heard the second sound he needed to hear. The
hallway door was slammed shut.

   He yanked back the small door and quickly
stepped around it, the gun extended, aimed directly
at the chauffeur.

   "You!" he cried in German. "Take your hand out
of your pocket! Slowly!" The woman gasped, then
opened her mouth to scream. Fitzpatrick interrupted
harshly. "Be quiet! As your friend will tell you, I
haven't anything to lose. I can kill the three of you
and be out of the country in an hour, leaving the
police to look for a Mr. Parnell who doesn't exist."

   The chauffeur, the muscles of his jaw rippling,
removed his hand from his pocket, his fingers rigid.
Leifhelm stared in anger and fear at Connal's gun,
his face no longer ashen but flushed. "You dare?"

   "I dare, Field Marshal," said Fitzpatrick. "Just as
you dared forty years ago to rape a young kid and
make damned sure that she and her whole family
never walked out of the camps. You bet your ass I
dare, and if I were you, I wouldn't give me the
slightest cause to be any angrier than I am.' Connal
spoke to the woman. "You. Inside that briefcase on
the table are eight strands of rope. Start with the
driver. Bind his hands and feet; I'll tell you how.
Now! Quickly!"

   Four minutes later the chauffeur and Leifhelm
sat in two conference chairs, their ankles and wrists
bound, the driver's weapon removed from his pocket.
Connal checked the ropes the knots having been tied
under his instructions. Everything was secure; the
more one writhed, the tighter the knots would
become. He ordered the panicked Fishbein woman
into a third chair; he lashed her hands to the arms
and her feet to the legs.

   Rising, Connal picked up the automatic from the
table and approached Leifhelm, who was sitting in
the chair next to the lighted telephone. "Now," he
said, the gun pointed at the German's head. "As
soon as I hang up the phone in the other room we re
going to make a call from here." He walked quickly
into the small side room, hung up the telephone, and
returned. He sat down next to the bound Leifhelm
and took a scrap of paper out of the open briefcase.
On it was written the phone number of the general's
estate on the Rhine beyond Bad Godesberg.

"What do you think you'll accomplish? ' asked
Leifhelm.

308   ROBERT LUDLUM

   "Trade-off," replied Fitzpatrick, the barrel of the
gun pressed against the German's temple. "You for
Converse."

   "Mein Gott!" whispered Ilse Fishbein as the
chauffeur writhed, his hands straining against the
ropes, which were now biting into his wrists.

   "You believe anyone will listen to you, much less
carry out your orders?"

   "They will if they want to see you alive again.
You know I'm right, General. This gun isn't so
loud I made sure of that. I can turn on the radio
and kill you and be on a plane out of Germany
before you're found. This room is reserved for the
night with instructions that we're not to be disturbed
for any reason whatsoever." Connal shifted the
weapon to his left hand, picked up the telephone,
and dialed the number written on the scrap of
paper.

"Guten Tag. Hier bet General LeifAelm."

   "Put someone in authority on this phone," said
the Navy lawyer in perfect German. ' I have a gun
less than a foot away from General Leifhelm's head
and I'll kill him right now unless you do as I say.'

   There were muffled shouts over the line as a
hand was held against the mouthpiece. In seconds a
crisp British accent was speaking slowly, deliberately
in English.

"Who is this and what do you want?"

   "Well, what do you know? This sounds like
Major Philip Dunstone that was the name, wasn't
it? You don't sound half so friendly as you did last
night."

"Don't do anything rash, Commander. You'll regret
it."

   "And don't you do anything stupid, or Leifhelm
will regret it sooner that is, until he can't regret
anything any longer. You've got one hour to get
Converse to the airport and inside the Lufthansa
security gate. He has a reservation on the ten
o'clock flight to Washington, D.C., by way of Frank-
furt. I've made arrangements. I'll be calling a
number in a room where he'll be taken and I'll
expect to talk with him. After I do, I'll leave here
and call you on another phone, telling you where
your employer is. Just get Converse to that security
gate. One hour, Major!" Fitzpatrick shoved the
phone in front of Leifhelm's face, and pressed the
barrel of the gun into the German's temple.

"Do as he says," said the General, choking on the
words.

   The minutes went by slowly, stretching into a
quarter of an hour, then thirty, the silence finally
broken by Leifhelm.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   309

"So you found her," he said, gesturing his head at use
Fishbein, who trembled as tears streaked down her
full cheeks.

   "Just as we found out about Munich forty years
ago, and a hell of a lot of other things. You're all on
your way to that great big war room in the sky, Field
Marshal, so don't worry about whether I'll go back
on my word to your English butler. I wouldn't miss
seeing you bastards paraded for everyone to see what
you really are. People like you give the military ev-
erywhere a goddamned rotten name."

   There was a slight commotion from the hallway
beyond the door. Connal looked up, raising the gun
and holding it directly at Leifhelm's head.

"Was ist?" said the Cerman, shrugging.

"Seine Bewegung!"

   From the hotel corridor came the strains of a
melody sung by several male voices more off key
than on. Another conference in one of the other
rooms had broken up, obviously as much from the
excessive intake of alcohol as from the completion of
a business agenda. Raucous laughter pierced a
refrain as harmony was unsuccessfully attempted.
Fitzpatrick relaxed, lowering the automatic; no one
on the outside knew the name or number of the
room.

   "You say men like me give your
profession which is my profession as well a
seriously bad name," said Leifhelm. "Has it occurred
to you, Commander, that we might elevate that
profession to one of indispensable greatness in a
world that needs us badly?"

   "Needs us?" asked Connal. "We need the world
first and not your kind of world. You tried it once
and blew it, don't you remember?"

   "That was one nation led by a madman trying to
impose his imprimatur over the globe. This is many
nations with one class of self-abnegating
professionals coming together for the good of all."

   "Whose definition? Yours? You're a funny fellow,
General. Somehow I question your benevolent
tendencies."

   "Indiscretions of a deprived youth whose name
and rightful opportunities were stolen from him
should not be held against the man a half-century
later."

   "Deprived or depraved? I think you made up for
lost time pretty quickly and as brutally as you could.
I don't like your remedies."

"You have no vision."

310   ROBERT LUDIUM

   "Thanks be to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph it's not
yours. " The singing out in the corridor faded
briefly, then swelled again, more discordant and
louder than before. "Maybe that's some of your old
Dachau playboys having a beer bust."

Leifhelm shrugged.

   Suddenly the door burst open, crashing into the
wall as three men raced in, spits filling the air as
silenced guns fired hands jerking back and forth, the
surface of the table chewed up, splinters of wood
flying everywhere. Fitzpatrick felt the repeated stabs
of intense pain in his arm as the automatic was
blown out of his grip. He looked down and saw the
blood drenching the fabric of his right sleeve.
Though in shock he glanced about him. Ilse
Fishbein was dead, her bleeding skull shattered by
a fusillade of bullets; the chauffeur was smiling
obscenely. The door was closed as if nothing had
happened.

   "Stumper," Leifhelm said as one of the invaders
cut the ropes around his wrists. "I used that term
only yesterday, Commander, but I did not know
how right I was. Did you think a single telephone
call could not be traced to a single room? It was all
too coincidentally symmetrical. Converse is ours and
suddenly this poor whore comes into immense
riches  American riches. I grant you it was entirely
possible such bequests are made frequently by
sausage-soaked idiots who don't realize the harm
they do, but the timing was too perfect,
too amateurish."

   "You're one son of a bitch." Connal shut his
eyes, trying to force the pain out of his mind,
unable to move his fingers

   "Why, Commander," said the general, getting
out of the chair, "do I sense the bravado of fear?
Do you think I'm going to have you killed?"

"You sense it. I won't give you any more than that."

   "You're quite wrong. Considering the nature of
your military leave, you can be of minor but unique
service to us. One more statistic to disrupt a
pattern. You'll be our guest, Commander, but not
in Germany proper. You are gomg on a trip."

17

   Converse slowly opened his eyes, a dead, iron
weight on his lids and nausea in his throat blurred
darkness everywhere and a terrible stinging at his
side, on his arm, flesh separated from flesh, stretched
and inflamed. Blindly he tried to touch the offending
spot, then gasping, pulled back in pain. Somewhere
light was creeping around the dark space above him,
picking its way through moving obstructions, peering
into the shadows. Objects slowly came into focus the
metal rim of the cot next to his face, two wooden
chairs opposite each other at a small table in the
distance, a door also in the distance, but farther away
and shut . . . then another door, this one open, a
white sink with a pair of dull-metal faucets on the left
in a far-away cubicle. The light? It was still moving,
now dancing, flickering. Where was it?

   He found it: high in the wall on either side of the
closed door were two rectangular windows, the short
curtains billowing in the breeze. The windows were
open, but oddly not open, not clear, the spaces
interrupted. Joel raised his head, supporting himself
on his forearm and squinted, trying to see more
clearly. He focused on the interruptions behind the
swelling curtains thin black metal shafts vertically
connecting the window frames. They were bars. He
was in a cell.

   He fell back on the cot, swallowing repeatedly to
lessen the burning in his throat, and moved his arm in
circles trying to lessen the pain of the . . . wound?
Yes, a wound, a gunshot! The realization jarred his
memory; a dinner party had turned into a
battleground filled with hysteria. Blinding lights and
sudden jolts of pain had been accompanied by strident
voices bombarding him, incessant echoes pounding in
his ears as he tried desperately to repel the piercing
assaults. Then there had been moments of calm, the
drone of a single voice in the mists. Converse closed
his eyes, pressing his lids tightly together with all his
strength as another realization struck him

3

312   ROBERT LUDLUM

and disturbed him deeply. That voice in the swirling
mists was his voice; he had been drugged, and he
knew he had given up secrets.

   He had been drugged before, a number of times
in the North Vietnamese camps, and as always there
was the sickening feeling of numbed outrage. His
mind had been stripped and violated, his voice made
to perform obscenities against the last vestiges of his
will.

   And, again as always, there was the empty hole
in his stomach, a vacuum that ran deep and
produced only weakness. He felt starved and
probably was. The chemicals usually induced
vomiting as the intestines rejected the unnatural
substance. It was strange, he reflected, opening his
eyes and following the moving shafts of light, but
those memories from years ago evoked the same
self-protective instincts that had helped him
then so many years ago. He could not waste en-
ergy; he had to conserve what strength he had.
Regain new strength. Otherwise there was nothing
but the numbed outrage and neither his mind nor
his body could do anything about it.

   There was a sound across the room! Then
another and another after that! The grating sound
of sliding metal told him that a bolt was being
released; the sharp sound of a key followed by the
twisting of a knob meant that the door in the far
distant wall was about to be opened. It was, and a
blinding burst of sunlight filled the cell. Converse
shielded his eyes peering between his fingers. The
blurred, frazzled silhouette of a man stood in the
doorframe carrying a flat object. The figure walked
in and Joel, blinking, saw it was the chauffeur who
had electronically searched him in the driveway.

   The uniformed driver crossed to the.table and
deftly lowered the flat object; it was a tray, its
contents covered by a cloth. It was only then that
Converse's attention was drawn back to the sunlit
doorway. Outside, milling about in anxious contempt
was the pack of Dobermans, their shining black eyes
continually shifting toward the door, their lips curled
teeth bared in unending quiet snarls.

   "GutenMorgen, main Herr," said Leifhelm's
chauffeur, then shifting to English, 'Another
beautiful day on the northern Rhine, no?'

   "It's bright out there, if that's what you mean,"
replied Joel, his hand still cupping his eyes. "I
suppose I should be grateful to be able to notice
after last night."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   313

   "Last night?" The German paused, then added
quietly, "It was two nights ago, Amerikaner. You've
been here for the past thirty-three hours."

   "Thirty?" Converse pushed himself up and swung
his legs over the side of the cot. Instantly he was
overcome by dizziness too much strength had been
drained. Oh Christ! Don't waste movement. They'll be
back. The bastards! "You bastards," he said out loud
but without any real emotion. Then for the first time
he realized he was shirtless, and noticed the bandage
on his left arm between his elbow and his shoulder.
It covered the gunshot wound. "Did somebody miss
my head?" he asked.

   "I'm told you inflicted the injury yourself. You
tried to kill General Leifhelm but shot yourself when
the others were taking your gun away."

   "I tried to kill? With my nonexistent gun? The
one you made sure I didn't have?"

"You were too clever for me, mein Herr."

"What happens now?"

   "Now? Now you eat. I have instructions from the
doctor. You begin with the Hafergrlitze how do you
say? the porridge."

   "Hot mush or cereal," said Joel. "With skimmed
or powdered milk. Then some kind of soft-boiled
eggs taken with pills. And if it all goes down, a little
ground meat, and if that stays down, a few spoonfuls
of crushed turnips or potatoes or squash. Whatever's
available."

   "How do you know this?" asked the uniformed
man, genuinely surprised.

   "It's a basic diet," said Converse cynically.
"Variations with the territory and the supplies. I once
had some comparatively good meals.... You're
planning to put me under again."

   The German shrugged. "I do what I'm told. I
bring you food. Here, let me help you."

   Joel looked up as the chauffeur approached the
cot. "Under other circumstances I'd spit in your
goddamned face. But if I did I wouldn't have that
slight, slight possibility of spitting in it some other
time. You may help me. Be careful of my arm."

"You are a very strange man, main Herr."

   "And you're all perfectly normal citizens catching
the early train to Larchmont so you can put down
ten martinis before going to the PTA meeting."

314   ROBERT LUDLUM

"Was ist? I know of no such meeting. '

   'They're keeping it secret; they don't want you
to know. If I were you, I'd get out of town before
they make you president."

"Mich? President?"

   "Just help me to the chair, like a good ale
Aryan boy, will you?'

"Hah, you are being amusing, ja?"

   "Probably not," said Converse, easing into the
wooden chair. 'it's a terrible habit I wish I could
break." He looked up at the bewildered German.
"You see, I keep trying," he said in utter
seriousness.

   Three more days passed, his only visitor the
chauffeur accompanied by the sullen, high-strung
pack of Dobermans. His well-searched suitcase was
given to him, scissors and a nail file removed from
the traveling kit his electric razor intact. It was
their way of telling him that his presence had been
removed from Bonn, leaving him to painfully
speculate about the life or death of Connal
Fitzpatrick. Yet there was an inconsistency and, as
such, the basis for hope. No allusions were made to
his attache case, either with visual evidence the
page of a dossier, perhaps or through his brief
exchanges with Leifhelm's driver. The generals of
Aquitaine were men of immense egos; if they had
those materials in their possession, they would have
let him know it.

   As to his conversations with the chauffeur, they
were lirnited to questions on his part and
disciplined pleasantries on the German's part, no
answers at all at least, none that made any sense:

   "How long is this going to go on? When am I
going to see someone other than you?"

   "There is no one here, sir, except the staff.
General Leifhelm is away in Essen, I believe. Our
instructions are to feed you well and restore your
health."

Incommunicado. He was in solitary.

   But the food was not like that given to
prisoners anywhere else. Roasts of beef and lamb,
chops, poultry and fresh fish; vegetables that
unquestionably had come directly from a nearby
garden. And wine which at first Joel was reluctant
to drink, but when he did, even he knew it was
superior.

   On the second day, as much to keep from
thinking as from anything else, he had begun to
perform mild exer

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   315

cises as he had done so many years ago. By the
third day he had actually worked up a sweat during
a running-in-place session, a healthy sweat, telling
him the drugs had left his body. The wound on his
arm was still there, but he thought about it less and
less. Curiously, it was not serious.

   On the fourth day questions and reflections were
no longer good enough. Confinement and the
maddening frustration of having no answers forced
him to turn elsewhere, to the practical, to the most
necessary consideration facing him. Escape.
Regardless of the outcome the attempt had to be
made. Whatever plans Delavane and his disciples in
Aquitaine had for him, they obviously included
parading a drugless man more than likely a dead
man with no narcotics in his system. Otherwise they
would have killed him at once, disposing of his body
in any number of untraceable ways. He had done it
before. Could he do it again?

   He was not rotting in a rat-infested cell and there
was no terrible gunfire in the distant darkness, but it
was far more important that he succeed now than it
ever was eighteen years ago. And there was an
extraordinary irony: eighteen years ago he had
wanted to break out and tell whoever would listen to
him about a madman in Saigon who sent countless
children to their deaths or worse, who left those
children to suffer broken minds and hollow feelings
for the rest of their lives. Now he had to tell the
world about that same madman.

He had to get out. He had to tell the world what he
knew.

   Converse stood on the wooden chair, the short
curtain pulled back, and peered between the black
metal bars outside. His cabin, or cottage, or
jailhouse, whatever it was, seemed to have been
lowered from above onto a clearing in the forest.
There was a wall of tall trees and thick foliage as far
as he could see in either direction, a dirt path
angling to the right beneath the window. The
clearing itself extended no more than twenty feet in
front of the structure before the dense greenery
began; he presumed it was the same on all sideshow
it was from the other window to the left of the door
except that there was no path below, only a short,
coarse stubble of brown grass. The two front
windows were the only views he had. The rest of this
isolated jailhouse consisted of unbroken walls and a
small ceiling vent in the bathroom but no other
openings.

All he could be certain of, since the chauffeur and
the

316   ROBERT LUDLUM

dogs and the warm meals were proof he was still
within the grounds of Leifhelm's estate, was that the
river could not be far away. He could not see it, but
it was there and it gave him hope more than hope,
a sense of morbid exhilaration rooted in his
memory. Once before the waters of a river had been
his friend, his guide, ultimately the lifeline that had
taken him through the worst of his journey. A
tributary of the Huong Khe south of Duc Tho had
rushed him silently at night under bridges and past
patrols and the encampments of three battalions.
The waters of the Rhine, like the currents of the
Huong Khe years ago, would be his way out.

   The multiple sounds of animal feet pounding the
earth preceded the streaking dark coats of the
Dobermans as they raced belong the window,
instantly stopping and crowding angrily in front of
the door. The chauffeur was on his way with a
breakfast no prisoner in isolation should expect.
Joel climbed off the chair and quickly carried it
back to the table, setting it in place and going to his
cot. He sat down, kicked off his shoes, and lay back
on the pillow, his legs stretched out over the
rumpled blanket.

   The bolt was slid back, the key inserted and the
heavy knob turned; the door opened. As he did
every time he entered, the German pushed the
center of the door with his right hand as he
supported the tray with his left. However this
morning he was gripping a bulging object in his
right hand, the blinding sunlight obscuring it for
Converse. The man walked in and, more awkwardly
than usual, placed the tray on the table.

   ' 1 have a pleasant surprise for you, main Herr.
I spoke with General Leifhelm on the telephone last
night and he asked about you. I told him you were
recovering splendidly and that I had changed the
bandage on your unfortunate injury. Then it
occurred to him that you had nothing to read and
he was very upset. So an hour ago I drove into
Bonn and purchased three days of the International
Herald Tribune. " The driver placed the rolled-up
newspapers next to the tray on the table.

   But it was not the issues of the Herald Tribune
that Joel stared at. It was the German s neck and
the upper outside pocket of his uniform jacket. For
looped around that neck and angled over to that
pocket was a thin silver chain, with the protruding
top of a tubular silver whistle clearly visible against
the dark fabric. Converse shifted his eyes to the
door;

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   317

the Dobermans were sitting on their haunches, each
breathing noisily and salivating, but, to all intents and
purposes, immobile. Converse remembered his
arrival at the general s monumental lair and the
strange Englishman who had controlled the dogs with
a silver whistle.

   'Tell Leifhelm I appreciate the reading material,
but I'd be even more grateful if I could get out of
this place for a few minutes. "

   ':la, with a plane ticket to the beaches in the
south of France, rein?"

   "For Christ's sake, just to take a walk and stretch
my legs What's the matter? Can't you and that
drooling band of mas tiffs handle one unarmed man
getting a little air? . . . No you're probably too
frightened to try." Joel paused, then added in an
insulting mock-Cerman accent. '''I do vot I am tort.

   The driver's smile faded. "The other evening you
said you would not apologise but instead break my
neck. That was a joke. Do you understand? A joke
I find so amusing I can laugh at it."

   "Hey, come on,' said Converse, changing his tone
as he swung his legs off the cot and sat up. "You're
ten years younger than I am and twenty times
stronger. I felt insulted and reacted stupidly, but if
you think I'd raise a hand against you you're out of
your mind. I m sorry. You've been decent to me and
I was stupid again."

   "la, you were stupid," said the German without
rancor "But also you were right. I do as I am told.
And why not? It is a privilege to take orders from
General Leifhelm. He has Been gut to me."

"Have you been with him long?"

   "Since Brussels. I was a sergeant in the Federal
Republic's border patrols. He heard about my
problem and took an interest in my case. I was
transferred to the Brabant garrison and made his
chauffeur."

"What was your problem? I'm a lawyer, you know."

Dhde charge was that I strangled a man With my "

   'ha. He was trying to put a knife in my
stomach and lower. He said I took advantage of his
daughter. I took no advantage; it was not necessary.
She was a whore it was in the clothes she wore, the
way she walked es ist klar! The father was a pig!"

318   ROBERT LUDLUM

  Joel looked at the man, at the clouded
malevolence in his eyes. "I can understand General
Leifhelm's sympathies," he said.

"Now you know why I do as I am told."

"Clearly."

   He is calling for his messages at noon. I shall
ask him about your walking. You understand that
one word from me and the Dobermans will rip your
body from its bones."

   "Nice puppies," said Converse, addressing the
pack of dogs outside.

   Noon came and the privilege was granted. The
walk was to take place after lunch when the driver
returned to remove the tray. He returned, and after
several severe warnings Joel ventured outside, the
Dobermans crowding around him black nostrils
flared, white teeth glistening, bluish-red tongues
flattened out in anticipation. Converse looked
around; for the first time he saw that the small
house was made of thick, solid stone. The unique
squad began its constitutional up the path, Joel
growing bolder as the dogs lost a degree of interest
in him under the harsh admonitions of the German
s commands. They began racing ahead and regroup-
ing in circles, snapping at one another but always
whipping their heads back or across at their master
and his prisoner. Converse walked faster.

"I used to jog a lot back home," he lied.

"Was ist? 'Jog'?"

"Run. It's good for the circulation."

   "You run now, main Herr, you will have no
circulation. The Dobermans will see to it."

   "I've heard of people getting coronaries from
jogging too," said Joel, slowing down, but not
reducing the speed with which his eyes darted in all
directions. The sun was directly overhead; it was no
help in determining direction.

   The dirt path was like a marked single line in an
intricate network of hidden trails. It was bordered
by thick foliage, more often than not roofed by
low-hanging branches, then breaking open into short
stretches of wild grass that might or might not lead
to other paths. They reached a fork, the leg to the
right curving sharply into a tunnel of greenery. The
dogs instinctively raced into it but were stopped by
the chauffeur, who shouted commands in German.
The Dobermans spun around, bouncing off each
other, and returned to the fork, then raced into the
wider path on the left. It was an in

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   319

cline and they started up a steep hill, the trees
shorter and less full, the bramble bush wilder,
coarser, lower to the ground. Wind, thought
Converse. A valley wind; a wind whipping up from a
trough, a long narrow slice in the earth, the kind of
wind a pilot of a small plane avoided at the first sign
of weather. A river.

   It was there. To his left; they were traveling east.
The Rhine was below, perhaps a mile beyond the
lower line of tall trees. He had seen enough. He
began breathing audibly. The exhilaration inside him
was intense; he could have walked for miles. He was
back on the banks of the Huong Khe, the dark
watery lifeline that would take him away from the
Mekong cages and the cells and the chemicals. He
had done it before he was going to do it again!

   "Okay, Field Marshal," he said to Leifhelm's
driver, looking at the silver whistle in the German's
pocket. "I'm not in as good shape as I thought I was.
This is a mountain! Don't you have any flat pastures
or grazing fields?"

   "I do as I am told, mein Herr, " replied the man,
grinning. "Those are nearer the main house. This is
where you must walk."

   "This is where I say thank you and no thank you.
Take me back to my little grass shack and I'll play
you a simple

"I do not understand."

   "I'm bushed and I haven't finished the
newspapers. Seriously, I want to thank you. I really
needed the air."

"Sehr gut You are a pleasant fellow."

"You have no idea, good ale Aryan boy."

   "Ach, so amusing. Die Juden sind in Israel, rein?
Better than in Cermany."

   Nate Simon would love you. He'd take your case
for nothing just to blow it No, he wouldn't. He'd
probably give you the best defense you ever had."

   Converse stood on the wooden chair under the
window to the left of the door. All he had to hear
and see was the sound and the sight of the dogs;
after that he had twenty or thirty seconds. The
faucets in the bathroom were turned on, the door
open; there was sufficient time to run across the
room, flush the toilet, close the door and return to
the chair. But he would not be standing on it.
Instead, it would be gripped in his hands, laterally.
The sun was descending rapidly; in an

320   ROBERT IUDIUM

hour it would be dark. Darkness had been his friend
before as the waters of a river had been his friend.
They had to be his friends again. They had to be!

   The sounds came first racing paws and nasal
explosions then the sight of gleaming dark coats of
animal fur rushing in circles in front of the
jailhouse. Joel ran to the bathroom, concentrating
on the seconds as he waited for the sliding of the
bolt. It came; he flushed the toilet, then closed the
bathroom door and raced back to the chair. He
raised it and stood in place, his legs and feet locked
to the floor. The door was opened several
inches only seconds now then the German's right
hand pushed it back.

"Herr Converse? Wo sind . . . Bach, die Toilette. "

   The chauffeur walked in with the tray, and Joel
swung the chair with all his strength into the
German's head. The driver arched back off his feet,
tray and dishes crashing to the floor. He was
stunned, nothing more. Converse kicked the door
shut and brought the heavy chair repeatedly down
on the chauffeur's skull until the man went limp,
blood and saliva pouring down his eyes and face.

   The phalanx of dogs had lurched as one at the
suddenly closed door and began to bark maniacally
while clawing at the wood.

   Joel grabbed the silver chain, slipped it over the
unconscious German's head and pulled the silver
whistle out of the pocket. There were four tiny
holes on the tube; each meant something. He pulled
the remaining chair to the window at the right of
the door, climbed up and put the whistle to his lips.
He covered the first hole and blew into the
mouthpiece. There was no sound, but it had an
effect.

   The Dobermans went mad! They began to attack
the door in suicidal assaults. He removed his finger,
placed it over the second hole and blew.

   The dogs were confused; they circled around
each other snapping, yelping, snarling, but still they
would not take their concentration off the door. He
tried the third tiny hole and blew into the whistle
with all the breath he had.

   Suddenly, the dogs stopped all movement, their
tapered close-cropped ears upright, shifting they
were waiting for a second signal. He blew again,
again with all the breath that was in him. It was the
sound they were waiting for, and again, as one, the
pack raced to the right beneath the window,

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   321

pounding to some other place where they were
meant to be by command.

   Converse leaped down from the chair and knelt
by the unconscious German. He went rapidly
through the driver's pockets, taking his billfold and
all the money he had, as well as his wristwatch and
his gun. For an instant Joel looked at the weapon,
loathing the memories it evoked. He shoved it under
his belt and went to the door.

   Outside, he pulled the heavy door shut, heard
the click of the lock and slid the bolt in place. He
ran up the dirt path estimating the distance to the
fork where the right leg was verboten and the left led
to the steep hill and the sight of the Rhine below. It
was actually no more than two hundred yards away,
but the winding curves and the thick bordering
foliage made it seem longer. If he remembered
accurately and on the walk back he was like a pilot
without instruments relying on sightings there was
a flat stretch of about eighty feet below the fork.

   He reached it, the same flat area, the same
diverging paths up ahead. He ran faster.

   Voices! Angry, questioning? Not far away and
coming nearer! He dove into the brush to his right,
rolling over the needle-like bushes until he could
barely see through the foliage. Two men walked
rapidly into his limited view, talking loudly, as if
arguing but somehow not with each other.

"Was haben die Hunde?"

"Die sollten bat Heinrich sein!"

   Joel had no idea what they were saying; he only
knew as they passed him that they were heading for
the isolated cabin. He also knew that they would pot
spend much time trying to raise anyone inside before
they took more direct methods. And once they did,
all the alarms in LeifLelm's fortress would be
activated. Time was measured for him in minutes
and he had a great deal of ground to cover. He crept
cautiously out of the brush on his hands and feet.
The Germans were out of sight, beyond a rounding
curve. He got up and raced for the fork and the
steep hill to the left.

   The three guards at the immense iron gate that
was the entrance to Leifhelm's estate were
bewildered. The pack of Dobermans were circling
around impatiently in the out grass, obviously
confused.

"Why are they here?" asked one man.

322   ROBERT LUDLUM

"It makes no sense!" replied a second.

"Heinrich has let them loose, but why?" said the third.

   "Nobody tells us anything," muttered the first guard,
shrugging. "If we don't hear something in the next few
minutes, we should call."

   "I don't like this!" shouted the second guard. "I'm
calling right now!"

   The first guard walked into the gatehouse and picked
up the telephone.

   Converse ran up the steep hill, his breath short, his
lips dry, his heartbeat thundering in his chest. There it
was! The river! He started running down, gathering
speed, the wind whipping his face, stinging him. It was
exhilarahng. He was back! He was racing through the
sudden, open clearings of another jungle, no fellow
prisoners to worry about, only the outrage within himself
to prod him, to make him break through the barriers
and somehow, somewhere, strike back at those who had
stripped him naked and raped an innocence
and goddamn it turned him into an animal! A
reasonably pleasant human being had been turned into
a half-man with more hatreds than a person should live
with. He would get back at them all, all enemies, all
animals!

He reached the bottom of the open slope of gnarled
grass

   and bush, the trees and intertwining underbrush
once more

a wall to be penetrated. But he had his bearings; no
matter
how dense the woods, he simply had to keep the last
rays of
the sun on his left, heading due north, and he would
reach
the river.

   Rapid explosions made him spin around. Five
gunshots followed one upon the other in the distance. It
was easy to imagine the target: a circle of wood around
the cylinder of a lock in the door of an isolated cabin in
the forest. His jailhouse was being assaulted, entrance
gained. The minutes were growing shorter.

   And then two distinctly different sounds pierced the
twilight, interwoven in dissonance. The first was a series
of short, staccato bursts of a high-pitched siren. The
second, between and under the repeated blasts, was the
hysterical yelping of running dogs. The alarms had been
set off; scraps of discarded clothing and slept-on sheets
would be pressed onto inflamed nostrils and the
Dobermans would come after him, no quarter

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   323

considered no cornered prey only animal teeth
ripping human flesh a satisfactory reward.

   Converse plunged into the wall of green and ran
as fast as he could, dodging, crouching, lurching
from one side to the other, his arms outstretched, his
hands working furiously against the strong, supple
impediment of the woods. His face and body were
repeatedly whipped by slashing branches and
obstinate limbs, his feet continually tripped by fallen
debris and exposed roots. He stumbled more times
than he could count, each time bringing an instant of
silence that emphasized the sound of the dogs
somewhere between the fork and the hill and the
lower forest. They were no farther away, perhaps
nearer. They were nearer, they had entered the
woods. All around him were the echoes of their
hysteria, punctuated by howling yelps of frustration
as one or another or several were caught in the
tangled ground cover, straining and roaring to be
free to join the pursuit.

   The water! He could see the water through the
trees. Sweat was now rolling down his face, the salt
blinding his eyes and stinging the scrapes on his neck
and chin. His hands were bleeding from the sharp
nettles and the coarse bark everywhere.

   He fell, his foot plunging into a hole burrowed by
some riverbank animal, his ankle twisted and in pain.

   He got up, pulling at his leg, freeing his foot,
and, limping badly, tried to resume running. The
Dobermans were gaining, the yelping and the harsh
barking louder and more furious; they had picked up
his direct scent, the trail of undried sweat maddening
them, preparing them for the kill.

   The riverbank! It was filled with soft mud and
floating debris, a webbing of nature's garbage caught
in a cavity, whirling slowly, waiting for a strong
current to pull it all away. Joel grabbed the handle
of the chauffeur's gun, not to pull it out but to
secure it as he limped down the bank to look for the
quickest way into the water.

   He heard nothing until the instant when a
massive roar came out of the shadows and the huge
body of an animal flew through the air over the
riverbank directly at him. The monstrous face of the
dog was contorted with fury, the eyes on fire, the
enormous jaw widest all teeth and a gaping, shining
black mouth. Converse fell to his knees as the
Doberman whipped past his right shoulder, ripping
his shirt with its upper eye teeth and flipping over on
its back in the mud. The

324   ROBERT LUDLUM

momentary defeat was more than the animal could
stand. It writhed furiously, rolling over, snarling,
then rising on its hind legs, lunged up from the mud
for Joel's groin.

   The gun was in his hand. Converse fired,
blowing off the top of the attack dog's head; blood
and tissue sprayed the shadows, and the slack,
shining jaws fell into his crotch.

   The rest of the pack was now racing toward the
bank, accompanied by ear-shattering crescendos of
animal cries. Joel threw himself into the water and
swam as rapidly as he could away from the
shoreline; the weapon was an impediment but he
knew he could not let it go.

   Years ago centuries ago he had desperately
needed a weapon, knowing it could be the difference
between survival and death, and forgive days none
could be had. But on that fifth day he had found one
on the banks of the Huong Khe. He had }boated half
underwater past a squad on patrol, and found the
point ten minutes later downriver too far from the
scout's unit to be logical a man perha ps thinking
angry thoughts that made him walk faster, or bored
with his job and wanting a few moments to be by
himself and out of it all. Whichever, it made no
difference to that soldier. Converse had killed him with
a rock from the river and had taken his gun. He had
fired that gun twice, twice saving his life before he
reached an advance unit south of Phu Loc.

   As he pushed against the shoreline currents of
the Rhine, Joel suddenly remembered. This was the
fifth day of his imprisonment in Leifhelm's
compound no jungle cell, to be sure, but no less a
prison camp. He had done it! And on the fifth day
a weapon was his! There were omens wherever one
wished to find them; he did not believe in omens,
but for the moment he accepted the possibility.

   He was in the shadows of the river now, the
surrounding mountains blocking the dying sun. He
paddled in place and turned. Back on shore, at the
cavity in the bank that had been his plank to the
water, the dogs were circling in confused anger,
snarling, yelping, as several ventured down to sniff
their slain leader, each urinating as it did
so territory and status were being established. The
beams of powerful flashlights suddenly broke
through the trees. Converse swam farther out; he
had survived searchlights in the Mekong. He had no
fear of them now; he had been there here and he
knew when he had won.

He let the outer currents carry him east along the
river.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   325

Somewhere there would be other lights, lights that
would lead him to shelter and a telephone. He had to
get everything in place and build his brief quickly, but
he could do it. Yet the attorney in him told him that
a man with a bandaged gunshot wound in soaked
clothing and speaking a foreign language in the
streets was no match for the disciples of George
Marcus Delavane; they would find him. So it would
have to be done another way with whatever artifices
he could muster. He had to get to a telephone. He
had to place an overseas call. He could do it; he
would do it! The Huong Khe faded; the Rhine was
now his lifeline.

   Swimming breaststroke, the gun still gripped in
his hand, his arm smarting in the water, he saw the
lights of a village in the distance.

18

   Valerie frowned as she listened on the phone in
her studio, the spiraling cord outstretched as she
reached over and placed a brush in the track of her
easel. Her eyes scanned the sunlit dunes outside the
glass doors, but her mind was on the words she was
hearing, words that implied things without saying
them. 'Larry, what's wrong with you?" she interrupted,
unable to hold herself in check any longer. "Joel's not
just an employee or a junior partner, he's your friend
! You sound like you're trying to build a case against
him. What's that term you all use? . . .
Circumstantial, that's it. He was here, he was there;
someone said this and somebody else said that."

   "I'm trying to understand, Val," protested Talbot,
who had called from his office in New York. "You've
got to try to understand too. There's a great deal I
can't tell you because I've been instructed by people
whose offices I have to respect to say very little or
preferably nothing at all. I'm bending those
instructions because Joel is my friend and I want to
help."

   "All right, let's go back," said Valerie. "What
exactly were you leading up to?"

326   ROBERT IUDLUM

   'I know it's none of my damned business and I
wouldn't ask it if I didn't think I had to '

"111 accept that," agreed Val. "Now, what is it?"

   "Well, I know you and Joel had your problems,"
continued the senior partner of Talbot, Brooks and
Simon, as though he were referring to an
inconsequential spat between children. "But there
are problems and there are problems."

   "Larry," interrupted Val again. "There were
problems. We're divorced. That means the problems
were serious.'

   "Was physical abuse one of them?" asked Talbot
quickly in a low voice, the words obviously
repugnant to him.

   Valerie was stunned; it was a question she
would never have expected. "What?"

   You know what I mean. In fits of anger did he
strike you? Cause you bodily harm?"

   'You're not in a courtroom, and the answer is
no, of course not. I might have welcomed it at
least the anger.'

1 beg your pardon?"

   "Nothing,' said Valerie, recovering from her
astonishment. ' 1 don't know what prompted you to
ask, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Joel
had far more effective ways to deflate my ego than
hitting me. Among them, dear Larry was his
dedication to the career of one Joel Converse in
Talbot, Brooks and Simon."

   "I'm aware of that, my dear, and I'm sorry.
Those complaints are perennial in the divorce
courts and I'm not sure there's anything we can do
about them not in this day and age, perhaps not
ever. But that's different. I'm talking about his black
moods we knew he had them."

   "Do you know any rational person who doesn't?"
asked the former Mrs. Converse. "This isn't really
the best of all possible worlds, is it?"

   "No, it isn't. But then Joel lived through a
period of time in a far worse world than most of us
will ever know or could imagine. I can't believe he
emerged from it without a scar or two "

   Valerie paused, touched by the older man's
unadorned directness; it had its basis in concern.
"You're sweet Larry and I suspect you're right in
fact, I know it. So I think you should tell me more
than you have. The term physical abuse is what you
lawyers call a leading something-or-other. It s not
fair because it could also be misleading. Come on,
Larry, be fair. He's not my husband anymore, but
we didn t break apart

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   327

because he chased girls or bashed my head in. I may
not want to be married to him but I respect him.
He's got his problems and l ve got mine, and now
you're implying his are a lot bigger. What's
happened?"

   Talbot was silent for a moment, then blurted out
the words, again quickly, quietly; once more they
were obviously repugnant to him. ' They say he
assaulted a man in Paris without provocation. The
man died."

"No, that's impossible! He didn't, he couldn't!"

   "That's what he told me, but he lied. He told me
he was in Amsterdam, but he wasn't. He said he was
going back to Paris to clear things up, but he didn't
go. He was in Cermany he's still somewhere in
Germany. He hasn't left the country and Interpol
has a warrant for him; they're searching everywhere.
Word reached him to turn himself in to the
American embassy but he refused. He's
disappeared."

   "Oh, my God, you're all so wrong!" exploded
Valerie. "You don't know him! If what you say
happened, he was at-tacked first physically
attacked and had no choice but to hit back!"

   "Not according to an impartial witness who didn't
know either man."

   "Then he's not impartial, he's Iying! Listen to me.
I lived with that man for four years and, except for
a few trips, all of them in New York City. I've seen
him accosted by drunks and street garbage punks
he could have pushed through the pavements, and
perhaps some of them he should have but I never
saw him so much as take a step forward. He'd simply
raise the palms of his hands and walk away. A few
times some damn fools would call him names and
he'd just stand there and look at them. And let me
tell you, Larry, that look was enough to make you
feel cold all over. But that's all he'd do, never
anything more."

   "Val, I want to believe you. I want to believe it
was self-defence, but he ran away, he's disappeared.
The embassy can help him, protect him, but he won't
come in."

   "Then he's frightened. That can happen, but it
was always for only a few minutes, usually at night
when he'd wake up. He'd bolt up, his eyes shut so
tight his whole face was a mass of wrinkles. It never
lasted long, and he said it was perfectly natural and
not to worry about it he didn't, he said. And I
don't think he really did; he wanted all that in the
past, none of it was ever mentioned."

328   ROBERT LUDIUM

"Perhaps it should have been," said Talbot softly.

   Valerie replied with equal softness, "douche.
Larry. Don't think I haven't thought about that
these last couple of years. But whatever's happened
he's acting this way only because he's afraid you
know it's quite possible he's been hurt. Or, oh my
CrJd "

   "All the hospitals and registered doctors have
been checked," Talbot broke in.

   'Well, damn it, there's got to be a reason! This
isn't like him and you know it!"

   "That's just it, Val. Nothing he's done is like the
man I know. '

   The ex-Mrs. Converse stiffened. "To use one of
Joel's favorite expressions," she said apprehensively,
"clarification please?"

   ''Why not?" answered Talbot, the question was
directed as much at himself as her. "Perhaps you can
shed some light; nobody else can."

"What about this man in Paris, the one who died?"

   "There's not much to tell; apparently he was a
chauffeur for one of those limousine services.
According to the witness a basement guard in the
hotel, Joel approached him, yelled something at him
and pushed him out the door. There were sounds of
a scuffle and a few minutes later the man was found
severely beaten in an alley."

'It's ridiculous! What did Joel say?"

   "That he walked out the door, saw two men
fighting and ran to tell the doorman on the way to
his taxi."

"That's what he'd have done," said Val firmly.

   "The doorman at the George Cinq says it didn't
happen. The police say follicles of hair found on the
beaten man matched those in Joel's shower."

"Utterly unbelievable!''

   "Let's say there was provocation we don't know
about," Talhot went on rapidly. "It doesn't explain
what happened later, but before I tell.you, I want to
ask you another question. You'll understand."

"I don't understand a single thing! What is its"

   "During those periods of depression, his dark
moods, did Joel ever fantasise? I mean, did he
indulge in what psychiatrists call role-playing?"

   "You mean did he assume other personalities,
other kinds of behavior?"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   329

Exactly."

'Absolutely not."

' Oh."

"Oh, what? Let's have it, Larry."

   "Talking about what's believable and what isn t,
you're in for a jolt, my dear. According to those
people who don't want me to say very much and
you'll have to take my word they know Joel flew
into Germany claiming he was involved in an
undercover investigation of the embassy in Bonn."

   "Perhaps he wasl He was on a leave of absence
from T. B. and S., wasn't he?"

   "On an unrelated matter in the private sector,
that much we know. There is no
investigation undercover or otherwise of the
embassy in Bonn. Frankly, the people who reached
me were from the State Department."

   "Oh, my God . . . " Valerie fell silent, but before
the lawyer could speak, she whispered, "Geneva. That
horrible business in Genevat"

   "If there's a connection and both Nathan and I
considered it first it's so buried it can't be
followed."

"It's there. It's where it all started."

"Assuming your husband's rational."

"He's not my husband and he is rational!"

   "The scars, Val. There had to be scars. You
agreed with me."

   'Not the kind you're talking about. Not killing,
and Iying and running away That's not Joel! That
isn't wasn't my husband!"

   "The mind is a highly complex and delicate
instrument. The stresses of the past can leap forward
from years ago "

   "Get off it, Larry!" shouted Valerie. "Save it for
a jury, but don't pin that nonsense on Converse!"

"You're upset."

   "You're damned right I am! Because you're
looking for explanations that don't fit the man! They
fit what you've been told. By those people you say
you have to respect."

   "Only in the sense that they're
knowledgeable they have access to information we
don't have. Then there's the overriding fact that they
hadn't the faintest idea who Joel Converse was until
the American Bar Association gave them the address
and telephone number of Talbot, Brooks and Simon.

"And you believed them? With everything you know

330   ROBERT LUDLUM

about Washington you simply accepted their word?
How many fumes did Joel come back from a trip to
Washington and say the same thing to me? 'Larry
says they're Iying. They don't know what to do, so
they're Iying.' '

   'Valerie," said the attorney sternly. "This isn't a
case of bureaucratic clearance, and after all these
years I think I can tell the difference between
someone playing games and a man who's genuinely
angry angry and frightened, I should add. The man
who reached me was an Undersecretary of State,
Brewster Tolland I had a call-back
confirmation and he wasn't putting on an act. He
was appalled, furious, and, as I say, a very worried
man."

"What did you tell him?"

   "The truth, of course. Not only because it was
the right thing to do, but it wouldn't help Joel to do
anything else. If he's ill he needs help, not
complicity."

"And you deal with Washington every week."

   "Several times a week, and of course it was a
consideration."

"I'm sorry, Larry, that was unfair."

   "But realistic, and I meant what I said. It
wouldn't help Joel to lie for him. You see, I really
believe something's happened. He's not himself."

   "Wait a minute," cried Valerie, the obvious
striking her. "Maybe it's not Joel!"

"It's him," said Talbot simply.

   "Why? Just because people you don't know in
Washington say it is?"

   "No, Val," replied the lawyer. "Because I spoke
with Rene in Paris before Washington entered the
picture."

'`Maffilon?~,

   "Joel went to Paris to ask for Rene's help. He
lied to him just as he lied to me, but it was more
than the lies Mattilon and I agreed on that. It was
something he saw in Joel's eyes something I heard
in his voice. An unhinging, a form of desperation;
Rene saw it and I heard it. He tried to conceal it
from both of us but he couldn't. When I last spoke
to him, he hung up before we'd finished talking, in
the middle of the sentence, his voice echoing like a
zombie's."

   Valerie stared at the harsh, dancing reflections
of sunlight off the waters of Cape Ann. "Rene
agreed with you?' she asked, barely above a whisper.

"Everything I've just told you we said to each other."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   331

' Larry, I'm frightened.'

   ChaimAbrahms walked into the room, his heavy
boots pounding the floor. 'So he did it!' shouted the
Israeli. 'The Mossad was right, he s a hellhound!"

   Erich Leifhelm sat behind his desk, the only
other person in the book-lined study. "Patrols,
alarms, dogs!' cried the German, slamming his frail
hand on the red blotter. "How did he do it?"

   "I repeat a hellhound that's what our specialist
called him. The longer he's restricted, the angrier he
gets. It goes back a long time. So our provocateur
starts his odyssey before we planned. Have you been'
in touch with the others?"

   "I've called London," said Leifhelm, breathing
deeply. "He'll reach Paris, and Bertholdier will have
the units flown up from Marseilles, one to Brussels,
the other here to Bonn. We can't waste an hour."

"You're looking for him now, of course.

   "Naturlich! Every inch of the shoreline for miles
in both directions. Every back road and path that
leads up from the river and into the city.'

"He can elude you, he's proven it.

   "Where can he go, sabre? To his own embassy?
There he's a dead man. To the Bonn police or the
Staatspolizei? He ll be put in an armored van and
brought back here. He goes nowhere."

   "I heard that when he left Paris, and I heard it
again when he flew into Bonn. Errors were made in
both places both costing a great many hours. I tell
you I'm more concerned now than at any moment in
three wars and a lifetime of skirmishes."

   "Be reasonable, Chaim, and try to be calm. He
has no clothes but what he wears in the river and
the mud, he possesses no identification, no passport,
no money. He doesn't speak the language "

   "He has money!" yelled Abrahms, suddenly
remembering. "When he was under the needle, he
spoke of a large sum of money promised in Geneva
and delivered on Mykonos."

   "And where is it?" asked Leifhelm. "In this desk,
that's where it is. Nearly seventy thousand American
dollars. He hasn't got a deutsche mark in his pocket,
or a watch or a piece of jewelry. A man in filthy,
soaked clothing, with no idenhfication, no money, no
coherent use of the language, and telling

332   ROBERT LUDLUM

an outlandish tale of imprisonment involving der
Ceneral LeifLelm, would undoubtedly be put in jail
as a vagrant or a psychopath or both. In which case,
we shall be informed instantly and our people will
bring him to us. And bear in mind, sabre, by ten
o'clock tomorrow morning it won't make any
difference. That was your contribution, the Mossad's
ingenuity. We simply had the resources to make it
come to pass as is said in the Old Testament."

   Abrahms stood in front of the enormous desk,
arms akimbo above the pockets of his safari jacket.
' So the Jew and the {elect marshal set it all in
motion. Ironical, isn't it, Nazi?"

   "Not as much as you think,Jude. Impurity, as
with beauty, is in the eye of the frightened beholder.
You are not my enemy; you never were. If more of
us in the old days had your commitment, your
audacity, we never would have lost the war."

   '1 know that,' said the sabre. 'I watched and
listened when you reached the English Ch-annel.
You lost it then. You were weak."

"It was not us! It was the frightened Debutanten in
Ber

   "Then keep them away when we create a truly
new orde,, Cerman. We can't afford weakness.''

"You do try me, Chaim."

"I mean to."

   The chauffeur felt the bandages on his face, the
swelling around his eyes and his lips painful to the
touch. He was in his own room, where the doctor
had turned on the television probably as an insult,
as he could barely see it.

   He was disgraced. The prisoner had escaped in
spite of his own formidable talents and the
supposedly impassable pack of Dobermans. The
American had used the silver whistle, that much the
other guards had told him, and the fact that it had
been removed from his neck was a further
embarrassment.

   He would not add to his disgrace. With blurred
vision he had gone through his pockets which no
one in the panic of the chase had thought to
do and found that his billfold, his expensive Swiss
watch, and all his money had been taken. He would
say nothing about them. He was embarrassed
enough, and any such revelations might be cause for
dismissal or conceivably his death.

 * A: *

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   333

   Joel headed for the shoreline as fast as he could,
submerging his head underwater whenever the beam
of the searchlight swept toward him. The boat was a
large motor launch, its bass-toned engines signifying
power, its sudden turns and circles evidence of rapid
maneuverability. It hugged the overgrown banks,
then would sweep out toward the open water at the
slightest sign of an object in the river.

   Converse felt the soft mud below; he half swam,
half trudged toward the darkest spot on the shore,
the chauffeur's gun securely in his belt. The boat
approached, its penetrating beam studying every
foot, every moving branch or limb or cluster of river
weeds. Joel took a deep breath and slowly lows ered
himself under the water, his face angled up toward
the surface, his eyes open, his vision a muddy dark
blur. The searchlight grew brighter and seemed to
hover above him for an eternity; he inched his way
to the left and the beam moved away. He rose to the
surface, his lungs bursting, but suddenly realized he
could make no sound, he could not fill his chest with
gasps of air. For directly above him, less than five
feet away loomed the broad stern of the motor
launch, bobbing in the water as if idling. The dark
figure of a man was peering through very large
binoculars at the riverbank.

   Converse was bewildered; it was too dark now to
see anything even with magnification. Then he
remembered, and the memory accounted for the size
of the binoculars. The man was focusing through
infrared lenses; they had been used by patrols in
Southeast Asia and were often the difference, he had
been told, between search-and-destroy and
search-andbe-destroyed. They revealed objects in the
darkness, soldiers in the darkness.

   The boat moved forward, but the idle increased
only slightly, entering the slowest of trawling speeds.
Again Joel was confused. What had brought
Leifhelm's searching party to this particular spot on
the riverfront? There were several other boats
behind and out in the distance, their searchlights
sweeping the water, but they kept moving, circling.
Why did the huge motor launch concentrate on this
stretch of the shore? Could they have spotted him
through infrared binoculars? If they had, they were
proceeding very strangely; the North Vietnamese had
been far swifter more aggressive, more effective.

   Silently, Converse lowered himself beneath the
surface and breaststroked out beyond the boat.
Seconds later he

334   ROBERT LUDLUM

raised his head above the water, his vision clear,
and he began to understand the odd maneuverings
of LeifLelm's patrol. Beyond the darkest part of the
riverbank into which he had lurched for
concealment were the lights he had seen eight or
nine minutes ago, before the launch and its
searchlight monopolized all his attention. He had
thought they were the lights of a small village, but
he was in the wrong part of the world. Instead they
were the inside lights of four or five small houses,
a river colony with a common dock, summer homes
perhaps of those fortunate enough to own
waterfront property.

   If there were houses and a dock, there had to be
a drive an open passage up to the road or roads
leading into Bonn and the surrounding towns.
Leifhelm's men were combing every inch of the
riverbank, cautiously, quietly, the searchlights angled
down so as not to alarm the inhabitants or forewarn
the fugitive if he had reached the cluster of cottages
and was on his way up to the unseen road or roads.
A ship's radio would be activated, its frequency
aligned to those in cars roaming above, ready to
spring the trap. In some ways it was the Huong Khe
again for Joel, the obstacles far less primitive but no
less lethal. And then as now there was a bme to
wait, to wait in the black silence and let the hunters
make their moves.

   They made them quickly. The launch slid into
the dock, the powerful twin screws quietly churning
in reverse, as a man jumped off the bow with a
heavy line and looped it around a piling. Three
others followed, instantly racing off the short pier
up onto the sloping lawn, one heading diagonally to
the right, the other two toward the first house.
What they were doing was obvious: one man would
position himself in the bordering woods of the
downhill entrance drive while his colleagues checked
the houses, looking for signs of entry.

   Converse's arms and legs began to feel like
weights, each an anvil he could barely support,
much less keep moving, but there was no choice.
The beam of the searchlight kept moving up and
down the base of the riverbank, its spill illuminating
everything in its vicinity. A head surfacing at the
wrong moment would be blown out of the water.
Huong Khe. Tread water in the reeds. Do it! Don 't
die!

   He knew the waiting was no longer than thirty
minutes, but it seemed more like thirty hours or
thirty days suspended in a floabng torture rack. His
arms and legs were now in

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   335

agony; sharp pains shot through his body
everywhere; muscles formed cramps that he
dispersed by holding his breath and Hoating in a
fetal position, his thumbs pressing relentlessly into
the cores of the knotted muscles. Twice while
gasping for air he swallowed water, coughing it out
below the surface, his nostrils drowning, and twice
found the air again. There were moments when it
crossed his inner consciousness that it would be so
simple just to drift away. Huang Khe. Don't do it!
Don 't die!

   Finally through waterlogged eyes he saw the men
returning. One, two . . . three? . . . They ran down to
the dock, to the man with the rope. No! The man
with the rope had rushed forward! His eyes were
playing tricks! Only two men had run onto the dock,
the first man joining them, asking questions. The line
man returned to the piling and released the rope;
the other two jumped on board. The first man once
again joined his companions, now on the bow of the
launch  leaving another on shore, a lone observer
somewhere unseen between the riverbank and the
road above. Huong Khe. An infantry scout separated
from his patrol.

   The motor launch swung away from the dock and
sped within a few feet past Joel, who was buffeted
underwater by its wake. Once more the boat veered
toward the shoreline and slowed down, its searchlight
peering into the dense foliage of the bank, heading
west, back toward LeifLelm's estate. Converse held
his head above the surface, his mouth wide open,
swallowing all the air he could as he made his way
slowly very slowly into the mud. He pulled
himself up through the wet reeds and branches until
he felt dry ground. Huong Khe. He pulled the
underbrush over him as best he could, finally
covering his upturned face. He would rest until he
felt the blood flowing steadily if painfully through his
limbs, until the muscles of his neck lost their
tension it was always the neck; the neck was the
warning signal and then he would consider the man
on the dark hill above him.

   He dozed, until a slapping wave below woke him.
He pushed the branches and the leaves away from
his face and looked at the chauffeur's watch on his
wrist, squinting at the weak radium dial. He had
slept for nearly an hour fitfully, to be sure, the
slightest sounds forcing his eyelids briefly open, but
he had rested. He rolled his neck back and forth,
then moved his arms and legs. Everything still hurt,
but the excruciating pain was gone. And now he
faced a man on a hill above

336   ROBERT LUDLUM

him. He tried to examine his thoughts. He was
frightened, of course, but his anger would control
that terrible fear, it had done so before, it would do
so now. The objective was all that mattered some
kind of sanctuary, a place where he could think and
put things together and somehow make the most
important telephone call in his life. To Larry Talbot
and Nathan Simon in New York. Unless he could
do these things he was dead as Connal Fitzpatrick
was undoubtedly dead. esus! What had they done to
him? A man with the purity of vengeance purely
sought caught in a diseased web called Aquitainel It
was an unfair world.... But he could not think about
it; he had to concentrate on a man on the hill.

   He crept on his hands and knees. Stretch by
stretch he crawled through the woods bordering the
dirt road that wound up the hill from the lawn and
the riverbank. Whenever a twig crunched or a rock
was displaced he stopped, waiting for the moment to
dissolve back into the sounds of the forest. He kept
telling himself he had the advantage; he was the
unexpected. It helped counteract the fear of the
darkness and the knowledge that a physical
confrontation was before him. Like the patrol scout
years ago in the Huang Khe, that man above him
now had things he needed. The combat could not be
avoided, so it was best not to think about it but to
simply force himself into a mind-set empty of any
feeling, and do it. But do it well, his mind had to
understand that, too. There could be no hesitation,
no intrusions of conscience and no sound of a gun,
only the use of the steel.

   He saw him, oddly enough, silhouetted in the
distant glare of a single streetlamp far above on a
road. The man was leaning against the trunk of a
tree and facing down, his sweep of vision taking in
everything below. As Joel crept up the slope the
space between his hands and knees became inches,
the stops more frequent, silence more vital. He
made his way in an arc above the tree and the man
and then started down like a large cat descending on
its prey. He was the predator he had once been long
ago, everything blocked out but the requirement of
the lifeline.

   He was within six feet; he could hear the man's
breathing. There was a snap beneath him. A branch
The scout turned his eyes alive in the glare of light.
Converse lunged, the barrel of the gun gripped in
his hand. He crashed the steel handle into the
German's temple and then into his throat. The man
fell backward, dazed but not unconscious; he started
to

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   337

screarn..loel sprang for his enemy's neck and half
choked him before bringing the steel handle down
with all his strength on the C;erman's forehead,
instantly there was an eruption of blood and crushed
tissue.

   Silence. No movement. Anotile'; SC'C'llt
separated from his patrol had been taken out. And
as be hac] years ago, Converse permitted himself no
feeling. it was done, and he had to go on.

   The man's dry clothes, including the dark leather
jacket, fit reasonably well. Like most small or
medium-sized commanders, LeiFhelm surrounded
himself with tall men, as much to protect himself as
to proclaim his superiority over his larger
compatriots.

   There was also another gull; Joel struggled with
the clip, removed it, and threw it along with the
weapon into the woods. The bonus came with the
Cerman s billfold; it contained ti sizable sum of
money as well as a frayed, much stamped passport.
Apparently, this trusted employee of Leifhelm
traveled widely for 4quitaine probably knowing
nothing and being very expendable, but always
available at the moment of decision. The ma!1 s
shoes did not tat; they were too small. So Converse
used his drenched clothing to wipe his OWI1, and the
Cerman's dry socks Iqelped to absorb some of the
moisture of the leather inside. He covered the man
with branches and walked up the hit' to the road.

   He stayed out of sight between the trees as five
cars passed by, all sedans, all possibly belonging to
Erich Leifhelm. Then he saw a bright-yellow
Volkswagen come into view, weaving slightly. He
stepped out and held up his hands, the gesture of a
man in trouble.

   The small car stopped a blond girl in the
passenger seat, the driver no more than eighteen or
twenty, another young man in back, also blond, who
looked as though he might be the girl's brother.

"Was ist los, Opa?" asked the driver.

   "I'm afraid I don't speak German. Can you speak
any English?"

   "I speak some English," said the boy in back,
slurring his words. "Better than these two! All they
want to do is get to our place and make love. See! I
do speak English?"

   "You certainly do, and very well, indeed. Would
you explain to them, please? Frankly, I've had a fight
with my wife

338   ROBERT IUDLUM

at a party down there you know, at those
cottages and I want to get back to Bonn. 111 pay
you, of course."

   "Ein Streit mit seiner Frau! Er will nach Bonn. Er
wind uns hezahlen."

   "Warum night? Sie hat mich halite sowieso schon
zu viol gekostet," said the driver.

   "Nichtfuer was du kriegst, du Drecksack!" cried
the girl laughing.

   "Get in, main Herr! We are your chauffeurs.
Just pray he stays on the road, ja! What hotel are
you staying ate"

   "Actually, I'd rather not go back there. I'm
really very angry. I'd like to teach her a lesson by
staying away tonight. Do you think you could find
me a room? I'll pay you even more, of course.
Frankly, I've been drinking a bit myself."

   "Ein betrunkener Tourist! Er will ein Hotel.
Fahren wir ihn ins Rosencafe?"

"sort sind mehr Nutten als der alte knocker schafft. "

   We are your guides, Amerikaner, " said the
young man beside Converse. "We are students from
the university who will not only find you a room,
but with excellent prospects of getting back at your
wife with some pleasure! There's also a cafe. You'll
buy us a lager or six, ja?'

   "All you want. But Ed also like to make a
telephone call. To the United States it's business.
Will I be able to?"

   "Most everyone in Bonn speaks English. If they
don't at this Rosbencafe, 1, myself, will take care of
it Six lager th h

"Twelve, if you like."

"Da wird es im Pissoir sine t~berschwemmung
geben!"

   He knew the rate of exchange, and once inside
the raucous cafe actually a run-down bar favored
by the university crowd he counted the money he
had taken from the two Germans. It was roughly
five hundred dollars, over three from the man on
the hill. The seedy clerk at the registration desk
explained in convoluted English that, indeed, the
switchboard could place a call to America, but it
might take several minutes. Joel left fifty dollars in
deutsche marks for his youthful Good Samaritans,
excused himself and headed for his room such as
it was. An hour later the call came through

"Larry?"

"Joel?"

"Thank God you're there!" cried Converse in relief.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   339

"You ll never know how I kept hoping you weren't
out of town. Getting a call through from here is a
bitch!'

   ' I m here, said Talbot, his voice suddenly calm
and in control. 'Where are you. Joel?" he asked
quietly.

   'Some poor excuse for a hotel in Boml. I just
got here. I didn t get the name. '

   You re in a hotel in Bonn but you don t know
which one?

   'it doesn't matter, Larry! Get Simon on the line
I want to talk to you both. Quickly.'

   'Nathan s in court He should be back here by
four o clock our time. That's about an hour from
now.

"Coddamn it!"

"Take it easy, Joel. Don't upset yourself."

   "Don't upset. . . ? For Christ s sake, I ve been
locked up in a stone cabin with bars in the windows
for five days! I broke out a couple of hours ago, and
ran like hell through the woods with a pack of dogs
and lunatics carrying guns chasing me. I spent an
hour in the water damn near drowning before I
cohuldd reach land without getting my head shot off
and the

   ' You had to what, Joel?" asked Talbot, a
strange passivity in his voice 'What did you have to
do?'

   'Goddamn it, Larry, I may have killed a man to
get out of there!'

   'You had to kill someone, Joel? Why did you
think you had to do that?"

   "He was waiting for me! They were searching for
me! On the land, in the woods along the
riverbanks he was a scout separated from his
patrol. Scouts, patrols! I had to get out, get away!
And you tell me not to be upset!"

   ' Calm down, Joel, try to get hold of yourself....
You escaped before, didn't you? A long time ago "

   'What s that got to do with anything? Converse
broke in.

   "You had to kill people then, didn t you? Those
memories must always be with you

   Larry, that s bullshit! Listen to me and take
down everything I say the names I give you, the
facts get it all down.

   "Perhaps I should bring Janet on the line. Her
shorthand

'No! Only you, no one else! They can trace people,
any

340   ROBERT LUDLUM

one who knows anything. It's not that complicated.
Are you ready?"

"Of course."

  Joel sat down on the narrow bed and took a
deep breath. "The best way to put it as it was put
to me, but you don't have to write this down, just
understand is that they've come back."

"Who?"

   "The generals field marshals, admirals,
colonels allies and enemies, all field and fleet
commanders and above. They've come together
from everywhere to change things, change
governments and laws and foreign policies, every-
thing to be based on military priorities and
decisions. It's crazy, but they could do it. We'd live
out their fantasies because they'd be in control,
believing they're right and selfless and
dedicated as they've always believed.'

"Who are these people, Joel?"

   "Yes, write this down. The organisation is called
Aquitaine. It's based on a historical theory that the
region in France once known as Aquitaine might
have become all of Europe and by extension as
colonies the North American continent as well."

"Whose theory?"

   "It doesn't matter, it's just a theory. The
organizahon was conceived by General George
Delavane he was known as Mad Marcus in
Vietnam and I saw only a fraction of the damage
that son of a bitch did! He's pulled in military
personnel from all over the place, all commanders,
and they're fanning out recruiting their own kind,
fanatics who believe as they do, that theirs is the
only way. For the past year or so they've been
shipping illegal weapons and armaments to terrorist
groups, encouraging destabilisation wherever they
can, the ultimate purpose being that they'll be
called in to restore order, and when they do, they'll
take over.... Five days ago I met with Delavane's
key men from France and Germany Israel and
South Africa and, I think, possibly England."

   "You met with these people, Joel? Did they
invite you to a meeting?"

   "They thought I was one of them, that I believed
in everything they stood for. You see, Larry, they
didn't know how much I hated them. They hadn't
been where I'd been, hadn't seen what I saw as
you said, years ago."

"When you had to escape," added Talbot
sympathetical

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   341

ly. "When you had to kill people times you'll never
forget. They must have been terrible for you."

   "Yes, they were. Goddamn it, yes! Sorry, let's stay
on course. I'm so bred still frightened, too, I think."

"Relax, Joel."

   "Sure. Where was I?" Converse rubbed his eyes.
"Oh, yes, I remember. They got information on me,
information from my service record, my status as a
POW, which wasn't actually part of the record, but
they got it and they found out what and who I was.
They heard the words that told them how much I
hated them, hated what Delavane had done what
they all had done. They drugged me, got whatever
they could and threw me into a Godforsaken stone
house set in the middle of the woods above the
Rhine. While under the chemicals I must have told
them everything I knew "

   "Chemicals?" asked Talbot, obviously never
having heard the term.

   Amytols, Pentothals, scopolamine. I've been the
route, Larry. I've been there and back."

 'You have? Where?"

In the camps. It's immaterial."

"I'm not sure it is."

   "It is! The point is they found out what I know.
That means they'll move up their schedule."

"Schedule?"

   "We're in the countdown. Now! Two weeks, three
weeks, four at the outside! No one knows how or
where or what the targets are, but there'll be
eruptions of violence and terrorism all over the
place, giving them the excuse to move in and take
over. 'Accumulation,' 'rapid acceleration,' those were
the words they used! Right now in Northern
Ireland everything's blown apart, nothing but
chaos whole armored divisions are moving in. They
did it, Larry! It's a test, a trial run for them! I'm
going to give you the names." Converse did so both
surprised and annoyed that Talbot did not react to
any of the men of Aquitaine. "Have you got them?"

"Yes, I have."

   "Those are the salient facts and the names I can
vouch for. There's a lot more people in the State
Department and the Pentagon, but the lists are in
my briefcase and it's been stolen, or hidden
somewhere. I'll get some rest and start writing out
everything I know, then call you in the morning. I
have to get out of here. I'm going to need help."

342   ROBERT LUDIUM

   "I agree, so may I talk now?" said the lawyer in
New York in that odd flat voice. "First, where are
you, Joel? Look on the phone or read the print on
an ashtray or check the desk; there must be
stationery."

   "There's no desk and the ashtrays are chipped
glass. . . . Wait a minute, I picked up some matches
from the bar when I bought cigarettes." Converse
reached into the pocket of the leather jacket and
pulled out the book of matches. "Here it is.
Riesendrinks. '

   Look below that. My German is limited, but I
think it means big drinks' or something.'

"Oh? Then it must be this. 'Rosencafe.'"

"That sounds more like it. Spell it for me, Joel."

   Converse did, an undefined feeling disturbing
him. "Have you got it?" he asked. "Here's a
telephone number." Joel read off the numbers
printed on the cover.

   "Good, that's splendid," said Talbot. "But before
you get off the line and I know you need rest
badly I have a couple of questions."

"I would hope to hell you do!"

   "When we spoke after that man was hurt in
Paris, after that fight you saw in the alley, you told
me you were in Amsterdam. You said you were
going to Hy back to Paris and see Rene, straighten
everything out. Why didn't you, Joel?"

   "For Cod's sake, Larry, I just told you what I've
been through! It took every minute I had to set
things up. I was going after these people this
goddamned Aquitaine and it could only be done
one way. I had to work myself in, I couldn't waste
time!"

"That man died. Did you have anything to do with
his

   "Christ, yes, I killed him! He tried to stop me,
they all tried to stop me! They found me in
Copenhagen and had me followed. They were
waiting for me at the airport here. It was a trap!"

   "To stop you from reaching these men, these
generals and field marshals?"

"Yes!"

   "Yet you just told me these same men invited
you to meet with them."

   "I'll spell it all out for you in the morning," said
Converse wearily, the tension of the last
hours days culminating in exhaustion and a
wracking headache. "By then I'll have ev

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   343

erything down on paper, but you may have to come
over here to get it and me. The main thing is we're
in touch. You've got the names, the overview, and
you know where I am. Talk with Nathan, think about
everything I've said and the three of us will figure
out what to do. We have contacts in Washington, but
we'll have to be careful. We don't know who's with
whom. But there's a plus here. Some of the material
I have I had could only have come from people
down there. One view is that I was set in motion by
them, that men I don't know are watching every
move I make because I'm doing what they can't do."

   "By yourself," said Talbot, agreeing. "Without
Washington's help. Without their help."

   "That's right. They can't show themselves; they
have to stay in the background until I bring out
something concrete. That was the plan. When you
and Nathan talk, if you have questions call me. I'm
just going to lie down for an hour or so anyway."

   "I've got another question now, if you don't mind.
You know Interpol has an international warrant for
you."

"I do."

"And the American embassy is looking for you."

"I know that, too."

   "I was told that word reached you to come into
the embassy."

"You were told?"

"Why haven't you done it, Joel?"

   "Jesus, I can't! Don't you think I would if I could
? The place is crawling with Delavane's people. Well,
that's an exaggeration, but I know of three. I saw
them."

   "It's my understanding that Ambassador
Peregrine himself got word to you, guaranteeing you
protection, confidentiality. Wasn't that enough?"

   "Your understanding . . ." The answer is no!
Peregrine hasn't any idea what he's got inside that
place. Or maybe he does. I saw Leifhelm's car go
through those gates like he had a lifetime pass. At
three o'clock in the morning. Leifhelm's a Nazi,
Larry, he's never been anything else! So what does
that make Peregrine?"

   "Come on, Joel. You're maligning a man by
implication who doesn't deserve it. Walter Peregrine
was one of the heroes of Bastogne. His command at
the Battle of the Bulge is

344   ROBERT LUDLUM

a legend of the war. And he was a reserve officer,
not part of the regular Army. I doubt that Nazis are
his favorite guests. '

   "His command? Another commander? Then
maybe he knows exactly what he s got in that
embassy!"

   "That's not fair. His outspoken criticisms of the
Pentagon are a documented part of his postwar
career. He's called them megalomaniacs with too
damn much money feeding their egos at the
taxpayers' expense. No, you're not being fair, Joel.
I think you should listen to him. Call him on the
phone, talk to him."

   ' Not being fairy" said Converse softly, the
undefined feel~ng coming Into focus, now a
warning. Wait a minute! You're the one who's not
being fair. I was told'. . . it's my understanding?'
What oracle have you been in touch with? Who's
imparting these pearls of wisdom about me? On
what basis and where from?"

   "All right, Joel, all right, calm down. Yes, I have
talked to people people who want to help you. A
man is dead in Paris, and now you say there's
another in Bonn. You talk of scouts and patrols and
those horrible chemicals, and how you ran through
the woods and had to hide in the river. Don t you
understand, son? Nobody's blaming you or even
holding you responsible. Something happened;
you're living it all over again."

   "My God!" broke in Converse, stunned. 'You
don't believe a word I've said!"

   You believe it, and that s all that matters. I saw
my share in North Africa and Italy, but nothing to
compare with what you went through later. You
have a deep, understandable hatred for war and all
things military. You wouldn't be human if you
didn't, not with the suffering you experienced and
the terrible things you endured."

~Larry, everything I've told you is true!"

   Fine, splendid. Then reach Peregrine go to the
embassy and tell them. They'll listen to you. He'll
listen."

   Are you denser than I think?,' shouted Joel. 1
just told you, I can t! I'd never get to see Peregrine!
I'd get my head blown away!'

   ' 1 spoke to your wife sorry, your ex-wife. She
said you'd have these moments at night...."

   '~You spoke to Val? You brought her into this!
Christ, are you out of your mind ? Don't you know
they trace everyone

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   345

down ? It was right under your nose, counselor!
LucasAnstett Stay away from her! Stay away or
I'll I'll "

"You'll what, son?" asked Talbot quietly. "Kiln' me,
too?"

"Oh, 1esust"

' Do as I say, Joel. Call Peregrine. Everything wilt be
all

   Suddenly Converse heard an odd sound over the
line, odd in context but one he had heard hundreds
of times before. It was a short buzz, barely significant
but there was significance to it. It was Lawrence
Talbot's courteous signal to his secretary to come
into his office and pick up a revised letter or a
corrected brief or a dictation tape. Joel knew what it
was now. The address of a seedy hotel in Bonn.

   "All right, Larry," he said, feigning an exhaustion
that was all too real. "I'm so damned tired. Let me lie
down for a while and maybe I will call the embassy.
Maybe I should get in touch with Peregrine.
Everything's so confused."

   "That's the way, son. Everything's going to be fine
now. Just splendid."

"Good-bye, Larry."

"Good-bye for now, Joel. See you in a couple of
days."

   Converse slammed down the phone and looked
around the dimly lit room. What was he checking
for? He had come with nothing and he would leave
with nothing but what was on his back what he had
stolen. And he had to leave quickly. He had to run.
In minutes men would be speeding in cars from the
embassy, and at least one of those men would have
a gun and a bullet meant for him!

   What in hell was happening to him? The truth
was a fantasy bolstered by lies, and the lies were his
only means of survival. Insanity!

19

   He ran past the elevator to the staircase,
descending the steps two and three at a time, his
hand on the iron railing as he lurched around the
landings, and reached the lobby door four stories
below. He swung it open, suddenly gripping the

346   R06ERT IUDLUM

edge and slowing his pace so as not to call attention
to himself. He need not have been concerned. The
small band of people milling about in front of the
benches against the wall and wandering around the
warm tile floor were the neighborhoodelderly,
looking for nightly companionship, and a few drunks
walking in and out of the neon-lit door to the noisy
cafe. Oh Christ! His mind was in a frenzy. He could
walk around in the night, hiding in alleys, but a lone
man in unfamiliar streets was too easily spotted by
unofficial hunters or by the official police. He had
to get inside somewhere, somehow. Out of sight.

   The cafe! His Samaritans! He pulled up the
collar of the leather jacket and forced the belt of
the trousers lower, inching down the gap around his
ankles. He then approached the door casually,
feigning a slight stagger as he pushed it open. He
was greeted by Roating levels of smoke not all of
it tobacco, by any means and adjusted his stinging
eyes to the erratically flashing lights as he tried to
block out the offending noise, a combination of
guttural roars and disco music blaring from
high-tech speakers. His Good Samaritans were
gone: he looked for the young blond girl as his focal
point, but she was not there. The table they had
occupied was taken by another foursome no, not
four different people, only three, who had joined
the English-speaking student who had sat beside
him in the car. The three were young men who
seemed also to be students. Joel approached them,
and passing an empty chair in his path, he gripped
the back and unobtrusively pulled it behind him to
the table. He sat down and smiled at the
blond-haired student.

   "I didn't know- if I'd left enough money for
those twelve beers I promised," he said pleasantly

   "Ach! I was just talking about you, Herr
AmerJkaner! These are my friends like me, all
dreadful students!" The three newcomers were
introduced rapidly, the names lost in the music and
the smoke. Everyone nodded; the American was
welcome.

"Our other two friends left?"

   "I told you," shouted the blond youngster
through the noise. "They wished to drive to our
house and make love That's all they do! Our
parents went to Bayreuth for the music festival, so
they shall make their own music on her bed and I
shall come home late!"

"Nice arrangement," said Converse, trying to think
of

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   347

how to broach the subject that had to be broached
quickly. He had very little time.

   'Very good, sir!" said a dark-haired young man on
his right. "Hans would have missed that; his English
is understandably inferior. I was an exchange student
in the state of Massachusetts for two years.
'Arrangement' is also a musical term. You combined
the two! Very good, sir!'

   "I keep trying," saidJoel aimlessly, looking at the
student. "You really speak English?" he asked
sincerely.

   "Very well. My scholarship depends upon it. My
friends here are good people, make no mistake, but
they are rich and come here for amusement. As a
boy, I lived two streets away from this place. But
they protect the lads here, and why not? Let them
have fun; nobody is hurt and money is spread."

   "You're sober," said Converse, the statement
bordering on a question.

   The young man laughed as he nodded. "Tonight,
yes. Tomorrow afternoon I have a difficult exam and
need a clear head. The summer-session examinations
are the worst. The professors would rather be on
holiday."

   "I was going to talk to him," said Joel, nodding at
the blond student, who was arguing with his two
companions, his hands waving in the smoke, his voice
strident. "But that doesn't make sense. You do."

   "In what sense, sir, if you will forgive the
redundancy of the expression?"

"'Redundancy'? What's your major?"

"Preliminary law, sir."

"I don't need that."

"It is a difficulty, sir?"

   "Not for me. Listen, I haven't much time and I
have a problem. I have to get out of here. I need to
find another place to stay just until tomorrow
morning. I assure you I've done nothing wrong,
nothing illegal in case my clothes or my appearance
gives another impression. It's strictly a personal
matter. Can you help me?"

   The dark-haired young German hesitated, as if
reluctant to answer, but nevertheless did so, leaning
forward to be heard. "Since you bring up the subject,
I'm sure you can understand that it would not be
seemly for a student of the law to help a man under
questionable circumstances."

   "That's exactly why I brought it up," said
Converse rapidly, speaking into the student's ear.
"I'm an attorney and under

348   ROBERT LUDLUM

these clothes a reasonably respectable one. I simply
took on the wrong American client over here and
can't wait to get a plane out tomorrow morning."

  The young man listened, studied Joel's face and
nodded. 'Then these are not lodgings you would
normally seek?"

   'To be avoided wherever possible. I just thought
it would be a good idea to be inconspicuous for the
night."

"There are very few places such as this in Bonn, sir."

   "To Bonn's credit, counselor." Glancing about
the cafe and its predominant clientele, Converse
had another thought. "It's summer!" he said urgently
to the student through the bedlam. "Are there any
youth hostels around here?"

   "Those in the vicinity of Bonn or Cologne are
filled, sir mostly with Americans and the Dutch. The
others which might have spaces are quite far north
toward Hanover. However, there is another
solution, I think."

"What?"

   "Summer, sir. The rooming houses usually filled
by those attending the university have many spaces
during the summer months. In the house where I
stay there are two empty rooms on the third floor."

"I thought you lived around here."

   "That was long ago. My parents are retired and
live with my sister in Mannheim."

   "I'm in a great hurry. May we go? I'll pay you
what I can tonight and more tomorrow morning."

   "I thought you said you were taking the plane in
the morning."

   "I have two stops to make first. You can come
with me; you can show me where they are."

   The young man and Joel excused themselves,
knowing they would not be missed. The student
started toward the lobby door, but Converse
grabbed his elbow, gesturing at the street entrance.

   "Your luggage, sir!" shouted the Cerman
through the din and the flashing lights.

   "You can lend me a razor in the morning!"
Converse yelled back, pulling the young man
through the mingling bodies toward the door.
Several tables before the entrance was an empty
chair, on the seat a soft, rumpled cloth cap. He bent
down and picked it up, holding it in front of him as
he reached the door and walked outside to the
pavement, the student be

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   349

hind him. "Which way?" he asked, pulling the cap
over his head.

   "This way, sir," replied the young Cerman,
pointing beneath the shabby canopy of the adjacent
hotel entrance.

"Let's go, ' said Joel, stepping forward.

   They stopped that is, Converse stopped first,
gripping the student s shoulder and turning him into
the building. A black sedan had come speeding down
the street, swerving into the open space in front of
the canopy. Two men got out of the back doors and
rushed toward the entrance, the second man running
around the trunk to catch up with the first. Joel
angled his head as the young German stared at him.
He recognized both men; both were Americans. They
had been at the Cologne-Bonn airport eight nights
ago, hoping to trap him then as they were coming to
trap him now. The black car moved forward out of
the glare of the lights into the shadows. It pulled into
the curb and waited, a hearse prepared to receive its
cargo.

   "Was ist los?" asked the German youth, unable to
conceal his fear.

   "Nothing, really." Converse removed his hand and
gave the student two friendly claps on the shoulder.
"Just let this be a lesson to you, counselor. Know
who your client is before you get greedy and accept
too large a retainer."

   'ha, " said the young German, attempting a smile
but not succeeding, his eyes on the black sedan.

   They walked rapidly past the parked automobile
with the driver inside, the glow of a cigarette seen in
the darkness of the front seat. Joel pulled down the
cloth cap and again angled his head, now away from
one of his countrymen.

   The truth was a fantasy bolstered by lies.... Survival
was in running and concealment Insanity!

   The early morning was mercifully uneventful
except for his raging thoughts. The student, whose
name was Johann, had secured him a room at the
boardinghouse, the proprietess delighted with a
hundred deutsche marks for the rental. It more than
made up for the gauze, tape, and antiseptic she gave
him to rebandage his wound. Converse had slept
soundly, if intermittently, awakened by fears
transposed into macabre dreams. By seven o'clock
sleep was impossible.

   There was an urgent piece of business that had to
be taken care of; he understood the risk, but the
money was nec

350   ROBERT LUDLUM

essary,nowmore than ever. On Mykonos, the
knowledgeable if serpentine Laskaris had forwarded
$100,000 to banks in Paris, London, Bonn and New
York, using the accepted practice of written-out
numbers as a signature to withdraw the funds.
Laskaris further had suggested that Joel should not
attempt to carry with him or try to memorize four
sets of lengthy and entirely different digits. Instead
the banker would wire the American Express travel
offices in the four cities to hold for a period of
three months a message for who, Mr. Converse?It
should be a name meaningful to you but not to others.
It will be your code, no other idenfff cation neces-
sary as with certain telephone banking facilities in
your own country.... Make it Charpentier. 1.
Charpenffer.

   Joel understood that he might have revealed the
device while under narcotics. Also, he might not
have; his mind was not on money. He had a great
deal in his possession, and the chemicals tended to
elicit only feverish priorities.. He had learned that in
the camps a lifetime ago, twice astonished that he
had not mentioned far-off tactics down the roads of
escape. There was also a backup, ethics
notwithstanding. The young German, Johann, would
be his intermediary. The risks could not be avoided,
only minimized; he had also learned that a lifetime
ago. If the boy was taken, his conscience would be
stricken, but then, what could be the worst that
would happen to him? There was no point in
thinking about it.

   "Go inside and ask if there's a message for J.
Charpentier," said Joel to the student. They were in
the backseat of a taxi across the street from the
American Express office. "If the answer is yes, say
the following words. 'It must be a wire from
Mykonos,'" he added, recalling Laskaris' precise in-
structions.

   "That is necessary, sir?" asked the dark-haired
Johann, frowning.

   "Yes, it is. Without mentioning Mykonos and the
fact that the message is a cable, they won't give it to
you. Also it identifies you. You won't have to sign
anything."

"This is all very strange, sir."

   "If you're going to be a lawyer, get used to odd
forms of communication. There's nothing illegal,
simply a means of protecting your client's and your
firm's confidentiality."

"I have much to learn, it seems."

"You're not doing anything wrong," continuedJoel
quiet

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   351

Iy,his eyes level withJohann's. "On the contrary,
you're doing something very right, and I'll pay you
very well for doing it."

"Sehr gut, " said the young man.

   Converse waited in the taxi, his eyes scanning the
street concentrating on stationary automobiles and
those pedestrians walking too slowly or not at all, or
anyone whose glances even seemingly strayed to the
American Express office.. Johann went inside and
Joel swallowed repeatedly, a tightness in his throat;
the waiting was awful, made worse by the knowledge
that he was using the student in a high-risk situation
Then he thought briefly of Avery Fowler-Halliday
and Connal Fitzpatrick; they had lost. The young
German had an infinitely far greater chance of living
for many years.

   The minutes went by as the sweat crawled
through Converse's hair and down his neck; time was
suspended in fear Finally, Johann came outside,
blinking in the sunlight, inno cence personified. He
crossed the street and climbed into the taxi.

   "What did they say to your" asked Joel, trying to
sound casual, his eyes still roaming the street.

   "Only if I had been waiting long for the message.
I replied that I expected it was a cablegram from
Mykonos. I didn't know what else to say."

   "You did fine." Joel tore open the envelope and
unfolded the wire. There was an unbroken series of
written-out numbers, well over twenty, he judged at
a glance. Again he remembered Laskaris'
instructions: Pick every third number beginning with
the third and ending with the third from the last. Think
merely in terms of three. It's quite simple these things
usually are and in any event, no one else can sign for
you. It's merely a precaution.

"Is everything all right?" asked Johann.

   "So far we're ahead one step and you're one step
nearer a bonus, counselor."

"I'm also nearer my examination."

"What time do you take it?"

"Three-thirty this afternoon."

"Good omen. Think in terms of three."

"I beg your pardon?"

   "Nothing. Let's find a pay telephone. You've only
got one more thing to do, and tonight you can buy
your friends the biggest dinner in Bonn."

 * *  *

352   ROBERT LUDLUM

   The taxi waited at the corner while Converse
and the young German stood outside the booth,
Johann having written down the bank's number
from the telephone book. The student was reluctant
to go any further; the exotic chores asked of him
now were more than he cared to accept.

   'AII you have to do is tell the truth!" insisted
Joel. "Only the truth. You met an American
attorney who doesn't speak German and he's asked
you to make a call for him. This attorney has to
withdraw funds for a client from a confidential ac-
counts-transfer and wants to know whom he should
see. That's all. No one will ask your name, or mine,
either, for that matter."

   ' And when I do this there will be something
else, main Herr? Nein, I think not. You call
yourself "

   "I can't make a mistake! I can't misunderstand
a word. And there is nothing else. Just wait
wherever you like around the bank or near the
bank. When I come out I'll give you two thousand
deutsche marks, and as far as I'm concerned far as
anyone's concerned we never met."

"So much for so little, sir. You can understand my
fears."

   "They're nothing compared to mine," said
Converse quietly yet urgently. "Please, do this. I
need your help."

   As he had done the night before through the
noise and the smoke and the flashing lights of the
raucous bar, the young German looked hard at Joel,
as if trying to see something he could not be sure
was there. Finally, he nodded once without
enthusiasm. "Sehr gut, " he said, stepping into the
booth with several coins in his hand.

   Converse watched through the glass as the
student dialed and obviously had brief conversations
with two or three different people before reaching
the correct party. The one-sided dialogue as
observed by Joel seemed interminable far too long
and too complicated for the simple request of a
name in the transferred-accounts department. At
one point, as he wrote something down on the scrap
of paper with the bank's number on it, Johann
appeared to object and Converse had to restrain
himself from opening the door and terminabng the
call. The German youth hung up and came out, his
expression confused and angry.

"What happened? Was there a problem?"

"Only with the hour and institutional policy, sir."

"What does that mean?"

"Such accounts are serviced only after twelve noon.
I

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   353

made it clear that you had to be at the airport by
then, but Herr Direktor said the bank's policy would
stand." Johann handed Converse the slip of paper.
'You're to see a man named Lachmann on the
second floor."

   "I'll catch a later plane." Joel looked at the
chauffeur's watch on his wrist. It was ten-thirty-five;
an hour and a half to go.

   "I was hoping to be at the university library long
before noon."

   "You can still be there," said Converse sincerely.
"We can stop, get a stamped envelope, and you can
write out your name and address. I'll mail the money
to you."

   Johann glanced at the pavement, his hesitation all
too obvious. "I think, perhaps . . . the examination is
not so difficult for me. It's one of my better subjects."

   "Of course," agreed Joel. "There's no reason on
earth why you should trust me."

   "You mistake me, sir. I believe you would mail
the money to me. It's just that I'm not sure it's such
a good idea for me to receive the envelope."

   Converse smiled; he understood. "Fingerprints?"
he asked kindly. "Accepted rules of evidence?"

"It's also one of my better subjects."

   "Okay, you're stuck with me for another couple of
hours. I've got about seven hundred deutsche marks
left until I reach the bank. Do you know some
clothing store away from the main shopping district
where I can buy a pair of trousers and a jacket?"

   "Yes, sir. And if I may suggest, if you are going
to withdraw enough funds to give me two thousand
deutsche marks perhaps a clean shirt and a tie might
be in order."

   "Always check your client's appearance. You may
go far, counselor."

   The ritual at the Bank aus der Bonner Sparkasse
was a study in awkward but adamant efficiency. Joel
was ushered into Herr Lachmann's office on the
second floor where nei, ther a handshake nor small
talk was offered. Only the business at hand was
addressed.

   "Origin of transfer, please?" asked the blunt,
corpulent executive.

"Bank of Rhodes, Mykonos branch, waterfront office.
The

354   ROBERT LUDLUM

name of the dispatcher,' I guess you'd call him, is
Laskaris. I don't recall his first name."

   "Even his last is unnecessary,' said the German,
as though he did not care to hear it. The transaction
itself seemed somehow to offend him.

   "Sorry, I just wanted to be helpful. As you
know, I'm in a great hurry. I have a plane to catch.'

   'Everything will be done according to the
regulations, sir."

~Naturally."

   The banker shoved a sheet of paper across the
desk. "You will write out your numerical signature
five times, one below the other, as I read you the
regulations which constitute the policy of the Bank
aus der Bonner Sparkasse as they pertain to the
laws of the Federal Republic of Germany. You will
then be required to sign again in your numerical
signature an affidavit that you thoroughly
understood and accept these prohibitions.

"I thought you said 'regulations.'"

"One and the same, sir."

   Converse took the cablegram out of the inside
pocket of his newly purchased sport jacket and
placed it beside the blank page of stationery. He
had underlined the correct numbers and began
writing.

   "'You the numerically undersigned, traceable
from the origin of transfer,'" droned the obese
Lachmann, leaning back in his chair and reading
from a single page, " 'swear to the fact that
whatever funds withdrawn from the Bank aus der
Bonner Sparkasse from this confidential account
have been subject to all taxes, individual and
corporate, from whatever sources of revenue. That
they are not being processed through differing
currencies to avoid said taxes, or for the purpose of
making unlawful payments to individuals,
companies, or corporations trafficking in illegal
and

"Forget it, Joel broke in. "I know it; I'll sign it.

   "' egregious activities outside the laws of the
Federal Republic of Germany or the laws of the
nation of which the undersigned is a legal resident
with full citizenship.'

   "Ever tried half-full or resident alien status?
said Converse, starting the last line of numbers. "I
know a law student who could punch holes in that
affidavit.

"There is more, but you say you ll sign?"

"Im sure there s more and of course I'll sign." Joel

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   355

pushed the page with the handwritten numbers back
to the banker. "There. Just get me the money. One
hundred thousand American, minus your fee. Split it
two thirds and a third. U.S. and Cenman, no bills
over six hundred deutsche marks and five hundred
American."

"That is quite a bit of paper, sir."

"I'll handle it. Please, as quickly as possible."

   'Is that amount the entire account? I would not
know of course, until the scanners verify your
'signature.' "

"It's the entire account."

"It could take several hours, natu'rlich."

"What9"

   "The regulations, the policy. " The fat man
extended his arms in supplication.

"I don't have several hours!"

"What can I do?" What can you do? A thousand
American for you." One hour, sir."

"Five thousand?"

"Five minutes, my good friend."

   Converse walked out of the elevator. The
abrasive newly acquired money belt was far less
comfortable than the one he had purchased in
Geneva, but it would have been pointless to refuse it.
It was a courtesy of the bank, Lachmann had said as
the German pocketed nearly twelve thousand
deutsche marks for himself. The 'five minutes' had
been a persuasive exaggeration, thought Joel as he
glanced at the clock on the wall; it was nearly
twelve-forty-five. The ritual had taken over half an
hour, from his "indoctrination" to the verification of
his "signature" by electronic scanners capable of
detecting the slightest "fundamental" variation in the
writing charactenstics. Apparently no one dared
make any mistakes in the German banks where
questionable practices were concerned. The
regulations were followed right to the borders of
illegality, with everyone covered by following orders
that placed the burden of innocence solely on the
recipients.

   Converse started for the bronze-bordered doors
of the entrance when he saw the student,Johann,
sitting on a marble bench, looking out of place but
not uncomfortable. The young man was reading
some sort of pamphlet put out by the bank. Or more
precisely, he was pretending to read it; his eyes, dart-
ing above the page, were watching the crowds
crisscrossing

356   ROBERT LUDLUM

the marble floor. Converse nodded es Johann saw
him; the student got up from the bench and waited
until Joel reached the entrance before he began to
follow.

   Something had happened. Outside on the
pavement people were rushing in both directions,
but mainly to the right; voices were raised, questions
shouted, replies blurred with anger and angry
ignorance.

'What the hell is it?" asked Converse.

   "I don't know," replied Johann, next to him.
"Something ugly, I think. People are running to the
kiosk on the corner. The newspapers."

   "Let's get one," said Joel, touching the young
man's arm, as they started toward the growing
crowd on the block.

"Attentat! Mord!Amerikanische Botschafter ermordet!"

   The newsstand operators were shouting, handing
out papers as they grabbed coins and bills with little
or no attempt to give change. There was a sense of
swelling panic that came with sudden unexplained
events that presaged greater disasters. All around
them people were snapping papers, their eyes
riveted on the headlines and the stories beneath.

   "Mein Gott!" cried Johann, glancing at a folded
newspaper on his left. "The American ambassador
has been assassinated!"

   "Christ! Get one of those!" Converse threw a
number of coins into the kiosk as the young
German grabbed a paper from the extended hand of
a newsstand operator. "Let's get out of here!" yelled
Joel, gripping the student's arm.

   But Johann did not move. He stood there in the
middle of the shouting crowd, staring at the
newspaper, his eyes wide, his lips trembling.
Converse shoved two men away with his shoulders
as he pulled the young man forward, now both of
them surrounded by anxious, protesting Germans
obsessed with getting to the newsstand.

   "You!" Johann's scream was muted by some
intolerable fear.

   Joel ripped the newspaper from the student's
hands. In the upper canter of the front page were
photographs of two men. On the left was the
murdered Walter Peregrine, American ambassador
to the Federal Republic. On the right was the face
of an American Rechtsanwalt one of the few words
in German Converse knew; it meant attomey. The
photograph was of himself.

20

   "No!" roared Joel, crushing the paper in his left
fist, his right hand gripping Johann's shoulder.
"Whatever it says, it's a lie! I'm not any part of this!
Don't you see what they're trying to do? Come on
with me!"

   "Rein!" the young German, looking frantically
around, realising his voice was lost in the enveloping
bedlam.

   "I said yes!" Converse shoved the newspaper inside
his jacket, and throwing his right arm around
Johann's neck, pulled him alongside. "You can think
and do what you like, but first you come with me!
You're going to read me every goddamned word!"

   "Da ist er! Der Affentater!" shrieked the young
German, reaching out, clutching the trousers of a
man in the crowd who cursed and swung his arm
down on the offending hand.

   Joel wrenched the student's neck to his left, and
shouted into his ear, his words stunning himself as
much as they did the young man. "You want it this
way, you can have it! I've got a gun in my pocket and
if I have to use it I will! Two decent men have been
killed already now three why should you be the
exception? Because you're young? That's no reason!
When you come right down to it, who the hell are we
dying for?"

   Converse yanked the youth back and forth,
dragging him out of the crowd. Once on the clear
pavement he released his armlock, replacing it with a
strong grip on the back of Johann's neck. He
propelled the student forward, his eyes roving the
street, trying to find a secluded area where they could
talk where Johann could talk, after reading a string
of lies put out by the men of Aquitaine. The
newspaper slipped down beneath his jacket; he
reached in and grabbed it by the edge, pulling the
paper out intact. He could not just keep walking,
pushing his captive down the pavement; several peo-
ple had glanced at them, fuel for the curious. Oh,
Christ! The

357

358   ROBERT IUDIUM

photograph hisJace! Anyone might recognize him,
and he was calling attention to himself by keeping
the boy in tow.

   Up ahead, on the right, there was a bakery or a
coffee shop or a combination of both with tables
under umbrellas on the sidewalk; several were
empty at the far end. He would have preferred a
deserted alley or a cobblestoned side street too
narrow for vehicles, but he could not keep doing
what he was doing walking so rapidly with a
prisoner in his grip.

   'Over there! That table in the rear. You sit
facing out. And remember, I wasn't joking about the
gun, my hand will be in my pocket. '

   "Please, let me go! You've done enough to me!
My friends know we left together last night; my
landlady knows I got you a room! The police will
question me!"

   "Get in there," said Converse, shoving Johann
between the chairs to the table at the rear of the
pavement. Both sat down; the young German was
no longer trembling, but his eyes were darting in all
directions. "Don't even think about it," continued
Joel. "And when a waiter comes over, speak in
English. Only English!"

   "There are no waiters. Customers go inside and
bring out their own sweet rolls and coffee."

   "We'll do without you can get something later.
I owe you money and I pay my debts."

   . . . I always pay my debts. At least during the last
four years I have. Words from a note left by a
risk-taker. An actor named Caleb Dowling.

   "I want no money from you," saidJohann, his
English guttural with fear.

' You think it's tainted, makes you a true accessory,
is that

"You are the lawyer, I am merely a student."

   "Let me set you straight. It's not tainted because
I didn't do whatever they said I did, and there's no
such thing as an accessory to innocence."

"You are the lawyer, sir."

   Converse pushed the newspaper in front of the
young German and with his right hand reached into
his pocket where he had put ten thousand deutsche
marks in ascending denominations for his immediate
use. He counted out seven thousand and reached
over, placing it in front of Johann. "Put that away
before I shove it down your throat."

"I will not take your money!"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   359

   "You'll take it and tell them I gave it to you, if
you want to. They'll have to give it back."

'What do you mean?"

   'The truth, counselor. You'll find out one day
that it's the best shield you've got. Now, read me
what the paper saysI"

   "'The ambassador was killed sometime last
night,'" began the student haltingly as he awkwardly
put the deutsche marks in his pocket. ". . . The
approximate time of death is difficult to establish
until further examinations,'" he continued, translating
the words in the article in fits and starts, trying to
find the appropriate meanings. " '. . . The fatal
wound was . . . 'Scha'del' cranial, a head wound 'the
body in the water for many hours, washed up on the
riverbank in the Plittersdorf and found early this
morning.... The military charge d'affaires was quoted
as saying that the last person known to have been
with the ambassador was an American by the name
of Joel Converse. When that name appeared, there
were . . .' " The young German squinted, shaking his
head nervously. "How do you say it?"

   "I don't know," said Joel coldly, his voice flat.
"What am I trying to say?"

   "'. . . very excited' frantic 'communications
between the governments of Switzerland, France and
the Federal Republic, all in coordination with the
International Criminal Police, otherwise known as
Interpol, and the . . . pieces of the tragic . . . Ratsel
. . . puzzle fell into place,' became clear, it means.
'Unknown to Ambassador Peregrine, the American
Converse has been the object of an Interpol . . .
Suche. . . search as a result of killings in Geneva and
Paris as well as several attempted murders not yet
clarified.' " Johann looked up at Converse. There was
a throbbing in his throat.

   "Go on," ordered Joel. "You don't know how
enlightening this is. Go on 1"

   "'According to the ambassador's office, a
confidential meeting was arranged at the request of
this man Converse, who claimed to have information
injurious to American interests and which has
subsequently proven to be false. The two men were
to meet at the entrance of the Adenauer Bridge
between seven-thirty and eight o'clock last evening.
The charge d'affaires who accompanied Ambassador
Peregrine confirmed that the two men met at
seven-fifty-one P.M. and started across the bridge on
the pedestrian walkway. It was the last time anyone
from the embassy saw the ambassador

360   ROBERT LUDLUM

alive.' " Johann swallowed, his hands trembling. He
took several deep breaths and went on, his eyes
rushing forward across the print, beads of
perspiration breaking out on his hairline. Below are
more complete . . . eingehendere . . . details as they
are known, but a statement issued by Interpol
described the suspect, Joel as an apparently normal
man who is in reality a ... wandernde....'" The young
German lowered his voice to a whisper. "'a walking
explosive with severe mental disturbances. He is
judged by several behavioral experts in the United
States to be psychopathically ill as a result of nearly
four years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam
conflict....'"

   As Johann stammered on, frightened by his own
voice, the telling words and damning phrases came
with staccato regularity, backed up by hastily
contacted departmental "sources" and unnamed,
faceless  `authorities." The portrait was that of a
mentally deranged man who had been thrown back
in time, his derangement triggered by some violent
event that left him with his intelligence intact but
without moral or physical control. In addition,
Interpolts search for him was spoken of in clouded
terms, implying a secret manhunt that had been in
progress for a number of days, if not weeks.

   " '. . . His homicidal tendencies are channeled,'
" continued the now near-panicked student as the
article quoted another "authoritative" source. " . . .
He has a pathological hatred for present or former
high-ranking military personnel, especially those
who had gained prominent public stature. . . .
Ambassador Peregrine was a celebrated battalion
commander in World War Two's Bastogne
campaign, during which many American lives were
lost.... Authorities in Washington have speculated
that the disturbed man, who after several harrowing
attempts finally escaped from a maximum-security
camp in North Vietnam years ago, traveling over a
hundred miles through enemy. . . Dschungel . . .
jungle to reach his lines, is reliving his own
experiences.... His jusfffication for
survival according to a military psychiatrist is the
killing of superior officers, past or present, who
gave orders in combat, or, in the extreme, even
civilians who in his imaginings bore some
responsibility for the suffering he and others
endured. Yet he is outwardly a normal man, as so
many like him.... Guards have been placed in
Washington, London, Brussels, and here in Bonn....
As an international law

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   361

yer,whois presumed to have access to numerous
criminal elements who deal in illegal passports . . .'"

   It was a brilliantly executed trap, the crucial lies
supported by truths, half-truths, distortions and
complete falsehoods. Even the precise timing of the
evening was considered. The charge d'affaires at the
embassy stated unequivocally that he had seen Joel
at the Adenauer Bridge "at 7:51 P.M.,"
approximately twenty-five minutes after he had
broken out of the stone jailhouse on Leifhelm's
estate, and less than ten minutes after he had
plunged into the Rhine. Every fragment of the hour
was accounted for. That he was 'officially" placed at
the bridge by 7:51" denied his story of capture and
escape any credibility.

   The incident in Geneva the death of A. Preston
Halliday was introduced as a possible explanation
for the violent act that had hurled him back in time,
triggering Joel's maniacal behavior. '. . . It has been
learned that the attorney who was shot to death had
been a well-known leader in the American protest
movement in the sixties...." The veiled conclusion
was that Converse might have hired the killers. Even
the death of the man in Paris was given a very
different and far more important dimension oddly
enough, based in reality. ". . . Initially the victim's
true identity was withheld in hopes of aiding the
manhunt, as suspicions were aroused as a result of
an interview the Surete had with a French lawyer
who has known the suspect for a number of years.
The attorney who had lunched with the suspect that
day indicated that his American friend was in
'serious troubles and needed 'medical attention.' . .
." The dead man in Paris, of course, was an out-
standing colonel in the French Army, and an aide
successively to several "prominent generals."

   Finally, as if to convince any remaining
unbelievers in this public trial by "authoritative"
journalism, references were made not only to his
conduct but to the remarks he made upon his
separation from service over a decade and a half
ago. These were released by the United States
Department of the Navy, Fifth Naval District, which
included its own recommendation at the time that
one Lieutenant Converse be placed under voluntary
psychiatric observation; it was refused. His conduct
had been insulting in the extreme to the panel of
officers who wished only to help him, and his
remarks were nothing short of violent threats against
numerous

362   ROBERT LUDIUM

high-ranking military personnel, whom, as a carrier
pilot, he could have known nothing about.

   It all completed the portrait as painted by the
artists of Aquitaine. Johann finished the article, the
newspaper now clutched in his hands, his eyes wide
and frightened. "That s all there is . . . sir."

   "I d hate to think there's any more," said Joel.
"Do you believe it?"

"I have no thoughts. I'm too frightened to think."

   "That s an honest answer. Uppermost in your
mind is the fact that I might kill you, so you can't
face what you think. That's what you're really saying.
You're afraid that by a look or a wrong word I
could take offence and pull a trigger."

"Please, sir, I am not adequate!"

"Neither was 1."

"Let me go. "

   ''Johann. My hands are on the table. They've
been on the table since we sat down."

   "What . . . ?" The young Cerman blinked and
looked at Converse's forearms, both of which were
in front of him, his hands clasped on the white
metal surface. "You have no gun?"

   "Oh, yes, I have a gun. I took it from a man who
would have killed me if he'd had the chance." Joel
reached into his pocket as Johann stiffened.
"Cigarettes," said Converse, taking out a pack and a
book of matches. "It's a terrible habit. Don't start if
you don't smoke."

"It's very expensive."

   "Among other things. " Joel struck a match,
lighting a cigarette, his eyes remaining on the
student. "We've talked off and on since last night.
Except for a few moments back there in the crowd
when you could have had me Iynched, do I look or
sound like the man described in that newspaper
story?"

"I am no more a doctor than a lawyer."

   "Two points for the opposition. The burden of
sanity's on me. Besides, it said I appeared perfectly
normal."

"It said you suffered a great deal."

   "Several hundred years ago, but no more than
thousands of others and far, far less than some
fifty-eight thousand who never came back. I don't
think an insane man is capable of making a rational
remark like that under these circumstances do you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

'~I'm trying to tell you that everything you just read
to

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   363

me is an example of a man being tried by negative
journalism. Truths mixed with half-truths, distortions,
and implausible judgments were slanted to support
the lies that are meant to convict me. There's not a
court in any civilised country that would admit that
kind of testimony or permit a jury to hear t.

   "Men have been killed," said Johann, again his
words whispered. "The ambassador was killed."

   "Not by me. I wasn't anywhere near the
Adenauer Bridge at eight o'clock last night. I don't
even know where it is."

"Where were you?'

   "Not where anyone saw me, if that's what you
mean. And those who know I couldn't have been at
the bridge would be the last people on earth to say
so."

   "There has to be some evidence of where you
were." The young German nodded at the cigarette in
Converse's hand. "Perhaps one of those. Perhaps you
finished a cigarette."

   "Or finger or foot prints? Pieces of clothing?
There's all of that, but they don't tell the time."

   "There are methods," corrected Johann. "The
advances in the technology of. . . Forschung. . . the
investigation techniques have been rapid."

   "Let me finish that for you. I'm not a criminal
lawyer but I know what you're saying. Theoretically,
for example, the ground depression of a footprint
matched with the scrapings off my shoes could put
me where I was within the hour."

'7a!"

   "No. I'd be dead before a scrap of evidence
reached a laboratory."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you. I wish to God I could but I can't."

   "Again, I must ask why?" The fear in the young
man's eyes was joined by disappointment, the last
glimpse of believability, perhaps, gone with Joel's
refusal to explain.

   "Because I can't, I won't. You said a few minutes
ago that I'd done enough to you, and without
meaning to, I have. But I won't do this. You're not
in a position to do anything but get yourself killed.
That's as frankly as I can put it, Johann."

"I see."

   "No you don't, but I wish there was a way to
convince you that I have to reach others. People who
can do something.

364   ROBERT LUDLUM

They're not here; they renot in Bonn, but I'll reach
them if I can get away."

   "There's something else? You would have me do
something else?" The young German stiffened again,
and again his hands trembled.

   "No. I don't want you to do anything. I'm asking
you not to do anything at least for a while.
Nothing. Give me a chance to get out of here and
somehow get in touch with people who can help
me help all of us."

"All of us?"

"I mean that, and it's all I'll say."

   "These people are not to be found in your own
embassy A merikaner?"

   Converse looked hard at Johann, his eyes as
steady as he could manage. "Ambassador Walter
Peregrine was killed by one or more men at that
embassy. They came to kill me last night at the
hotel."

   Johann breathed deeply, taking his eyes offJoel
and staring down at the table. "Back at the kiosk, in
the crowd, when you threatened me . . . you said
three men had been killed already three decent
men."

"I'm sorry. I was desperate."

   "It wasn't simply that, it was what you said right
afterward. You said why should I be the exception.
Because I was young? That was no reason, you
claimed, and then you shouted very strange
words I remember them precisely. You said,
'When you come right down to it, who the hell are
we dying for?' It was more than a question, I think."

   "I won't discuss the implications of that remark,
counselor. And I can't tell you what to do. I can
only tell you what I've told dozens of clients over
the years. When a decision is reduced to several
strong opposing arguments mine included and
you've listened to them all, put them behind you
and follow your own gut instinct. Depending upon
who and what you are, it'll be the right one for you."
Converse paused, pushing back his chair. "Now I'm
going to get up and walk out of here. If you start
screaming, I'll run and try to hide somewhere where
I'll be safe before anyone recognises me. Then I'll
do whatever I can do. If you don't set off an alarm,
I'll have a better chance, and that in my view would
be best for all of us. You could go to the
university library and come out in an hour or so,
buy a paper, and go to the police. I'd expect

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   365

you to do that, if you felt you had to. That's my view.
I don't know what yours is. Good-bye, Johann."

   Joel rose from the table, bringing his hand
instantly to his face, his fingers spread, touching his
eyebrows. He turned and walked through the tables
to the pavement, veering right, heading for the first
intersection. He barely took a breath; his lungs were
bursting for air but he dared not let even a breath
impair his hearing. He waited as he walked, his pulse
accelerating, his ears so keenly tuned that the
slightest dissonance would have burned them.

   There were only the sounds of the excited street
conversations in counterpoint with the blaring horns
of taxis not the screams of a young male voice
raising an alarm. He walked faster, entering the flow
of pedestrians crossing the
square faster,faster passing strollers who saw no
need to rush. He reached the curb of the opposite
pavement and slowed down a rapidly walking man
called attention to himself. Yet the impulse to break
into a run was almost uncontrollable the farther he
distanced himself from the tables of the sidewalk
bakery-cafe. His ear had picked up no alarm and
every split second of that absence told him to race
into whatever secluded side streets he could find.

   Nothing. Nothing broke the discordant sounds of
the square, but there was a change, a discernible
change, and it had nothing to do with strident alarms
provoked by a single screaming voice. The discordant
sounds themselves had become subdued, replaced by
shrugs and relaxed gestures indicating inability to
comprehend. The word Amerikaner was repeated
everywhere. The panic initially ignited by the news
had passed. An American had killed an American; it
was not a German assassin, or a Communist, or even
a terrorist who had eluded the Federal Republic's
security arrangements. Life could go on; Deutschland
could not be held responsible for the death and the
citizens of Bonn breathed a sigh of relief.

   Converse spun around the corner of a brick
building and stared across the square at the tables of
the bakery-cafe. The student, Johann, remained in
his chair, his head bowed, supported by both hands,
reading the newspaper. Then he got up and walked
into the bakery itself. Was there a telephone insider
Would he talk to someone?

   How long, can I waits thought Converse, prepared
to run, as instinct held him back.

366   ROBERT LUDLUM

   Johann came out of the bakery carrying a tray of
coffee and rolls. He sat down and meticulously
separated the plates from the tray and once again
stared at the newspaper in front of him. Then he
looked up at nothing in particular as if he knew he
was being watched by unseen eyes and nodded
once.

   Another risk-taker, thoughtJoel,as he turned and
looked and listened to the unfamiliar sights and
sounds of the side street he had entered. He had
been given a few hours; he wished he knew how to
use them he wished he knew what to do.

   Valerie ran to the phone. If it was another
reporter, she would say the same thing she had said
to the last five. I don't believe a word of it and I've
nothing more to say; And if it was one more person
from Washington from the FBI or the CIA or the
VA or any other combinations of the alphabet she
would scream! She had spent three hours being
interviewed that morning until she had literally
ordered the crucifiers out of the house. They were
liars trying to force her to support their lies. It
would be far easier to take the phone off the hook,
but she could not do that. She had called Lawrence
Talbot in New York twice, telling his office to trace
him wherever he was and have him call her back. It
was all madness. Insanity! as Joel used to say with
such quiet intensity she thought his voice was a wild
roar of protest.

'Hello?"

"Valleys It's Roger."

   "Dad!" Only one person had ever called her by
that name and that man was her former
father-in-law. The fact that she was no longer
married to his son had made no difference in their
relationship. She adored the old pilot and knew he
felt the same about her. "Where are you? Ginny
didn't know and she's frantic. You forgot to turn on
your answering machine."

   "I didn't forget, Valley. Too damned many
people to call back. I just flew in from Hong Kong,
and when I got off the plane I was upwinded by fifty
or sixty screaming newspaper people and so many
lights and cameras I won't be able to see or hear
for a week."

   "Some enterprising airline clerk let out the word
you were on board. Whoever it was will eat for a
week offa generous expense account. Where are
you?"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   367

   "Still at the airport in the traffic manager's of
lice. I'll say this for 'em, they got me out of there....
Valley, I just read the papers. They got me the latest
editions. What the hell is this all about?"

"I don't know, Dad, but I do know it's a lie."

   "That boy's the sanest thing I ever had anything
to do with! They re twisting everything, making the
good things he did into something . . . I don't know,
sinister or something. He s too damned up-front to
be crazy!'

   "He s not crazy, Roger. He's being taken, he's
being put through a wringer. '

'What for?"

   "I don't know. But I think Larry Talbot does at
least more than he's told me."

"What has he told you?"

"Not now, Dad. Later. '

"Why?"

"I'm not sure.... Something I feel, perhaps.'

"You're not making sense, Valley."

"I'm sorry."

'What did Ginny say? I'll call her, of course."

'She's hysterical."

"She always was a little bit."

   "No, not that way. She's blaming herself. She
thinks people are striking out at her brother for the
things she did in the sixties. I tried to tell her that
was nonsense but I'm afraid I made it worse. She
asked me perfectly calmly if I believed what was
being said about Joel. I told her of course I didn't."

   "The old paranoia. Three kids and an accountant
for a husband and it still comes back. I never could
handle that girl. Damned good pilot, though. Soloed
before Joel, and she was two years younger. I'll phone
her."

"You may not be able to reach her."

"Oh?"

   "Sine s having her number changed, and I think
you should do the same thing. I know I'm going to
the minute I hear from Larry."

"Valley . . ." Roger Converse paused. "Don't do that."

"Why not? Have you any idea what it's been like
here?" "Look, you know I've never asked what
happened between you and Joel, but I usually have
dinner with that piss ant lawyer once a week when
I'm in town. He thinks it's some

368   ROBERT IUDLUM

kind of filial necessity, but I'd knock it offina minute
if I didn't like him. I mean he's a likable guy, kind of
funny sometimes."

"I know all that, Roger. What are you trying to
say?"

They say he disappeared, that no one can find
him."

'He may call you. I can't think of anyone else he
would

   Valerie closed her eyes; the afternoon sun
through the skylight was blinding. 'is that based on
your weekly dinner conversations? "

"It's not intuition. I never had any except in the air

. . Of course it is. It was never said outright, but it
was always ust below the cloud cover."

"You're impossible, Dad."

   "Pilot error's like any other. There are times
when you can ,t,lafford it; . . . Don't change your
number Vall "

"Now, what about me?"

   "Ginny's husband had a good idea. They're
referring all questions to their attorney. Maybe you
should do the same. Do you have one?"

   "Sure," said Roger Converse. "I got three. Talbot,
Brooks and Simon. Nate's the best, if you want to
know the truth. Did you know that at the age of
sixty-seven that son of a bitch took up flying? He's
qualified in multiengines now can you imagine?"

"Dad!" Valerie broke in suddenly. "You're at the
air

"That's what I said. Kennedy."

   "Don't go home. Don't go to your apartment.
Take the first plane you can to Boston. Use another
name. Call me back and let me know what flight
you're on. I'll pick you up."

"Just do as I say, Roger. Please!"

"What for?"

"You're staying here. I'm leaving."

21

   Converse hurried out of the clothing store on the
crowded Bornheimer Strasse and studied his
reflection in the window. He surveyed the overall
effect of his purchases, not as a customer inside in
front of the full-length mirror for fit and appearance,
but as one of the strolling pedestrians on the
sidewalk. He was satisfied; there was nothing about
the clothes that called attention to him. The
photograph in the papers the only one in the past
fifteen years that would be in a wire service or
newspaper file was taken about a year ago when he
was one of several merger attorneys interviewed by
Reuters. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, showing
him in his lawyer's clothes a dark suit and vest,
white shirt and striped tie the image of a rising
international specialist. It was also the image
everyone who read the papers had of him, and since
it would not change but only spread with later edi-
tions, then he was the one who had to change.

   Also, he could not continue to wear the clothes
he had worn to the bank. A panicked Lachmann
would undoubtedly give a complete description to the
police, but even if his panic rendered him silent, he
had seen him in a dark jacket, white shirt and striped
tie. Unconsciously or not, thought Joel, he had
sought a patina of respectability. Perhaps all men
running for their lives did so because their essential
dignity had been stolen from them. Regardless,
dressed in those clothes he was the man in the
newspaper photograph.

   The appearance he had in mind belonged to a
history professor he had known in college, a man
whose various articles of clothing were all related.
His jackets were subdued tweeds with elbow patches,
the trousers grey heavy or light flannel, never
anything else and his shirts were blue but-
toned-down oxford, again without exception. Above
his thick horn-rimmed glasses was perched a soft
Irish walking hat, the brim sloped downward front
and back. Wherever that man

369

370   ROBERT LUDLUM

went, whether down a street in Boston or New
York's Fifth Avenue or Beverly Hills' Rodeo
Drive the last a place that oel was sure he never
saw one would know he belonged to academic
New England.

   Converse had managed to duplicate the outward
appearance of the man in his memory, except for
the tinted glasses, which he would have to replace
with horn rims. He had passed a large variety store,
Bonn's equivalent of an American five-and-dime,
and he knew that there would be a counter with
glasses of different sizes and shapes, a few slightly
magnified for reading, others clear.

   For reasons that were only beginning to come
into focus, those glasses were now vital to him.
Then he understood. He was preoccupied with what
he knew he could do change his appearance. He
was procrastinating, uncertain what to do next, not
sure he was capable of doing anything.

   He looked at his face in the oval mirror of the
variety store, again satisfied with what he saw. The
ersatz tortoiseshell rims were thick, the glass clear;
the effect was owlish, scholarly. He was no longer
the man in the newspaper photograph, and equally
important, the concentration he had devoted to his
appearance had begun to clear his mind. He could
think again, sit down somewhere and sort things
out. He also needed food and a drink.

   The cafe was crowded, the stained-glass windows
muting the summer sunlight into shafts of blue and
red piercing the smoke. He was shown to a table
against the black-leather upholstered banquette,
assured by the maitre d', or whoever he was, that
an he had to do was request a menu in English; the
items were numbered. Whisky on the Continent,
however was universaDy accepted as Scotch; he
ordered a double, and took out the pad and
bar-point pen he had picked up at the variety store.
His drink came and he proceeded to write.

Connal Fitzpatrick?
BriefcaseP
$93,000 plus
Embassy out
No Larry 7albot et al.
No Beale
No A nstett
No man in San Francisco
Men in Washington. WhoP

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   371

Caleb Dowling? No. Hickman, Navy, San Diego?
Possible.

. . . Mattilon?

   Rene! Why hadn't he thought of Mathlonbefore?
He understood why the Frenchman made the
remarks attributed to him anonymously in the
newspaper story. Rene was trying to be protective. If
there was no defence, or if it was so weak so as not
to be viable, the most logical backup was temporary
insanity. Joel circled Mattilon's name and wrote the
number I on the left, circling it also. He would find
a telephone exchange in the streets, the kind where
operators assigned booths to bewildered tourists, and
call Rene in Paris. He took two swallows of whisky,
relaxing as the warmth spread through him, then
went back to his list, stardng at the top.

   Connal . . ? The presumption that he had been
killed was inevitable, but it was not conclusive. If he
was alive, he was being held for whatever
information could be pried out of him. As the chief
legal officer of the West Coast's largest and most
powerful naval base, and a man who had a history of
meetings with the State Department's Office of
Munibons Control as well as its counterparts at the
Pentagon, Fitzpatrick could be an asset to the men
of Aquitaine. Yet to call attention to him was to
guarantee his execution, if he had not been killed
already. If he was still alive, the only way to save him
was to find him, but not in any orthodox or official
manner; it had to be done secretly. Connal had to be
rescued secretly.

   Suddenly, Joel saw the figure of a man in the
uniform of the United States Army across the room
talking with two civilians at the bar. He did not know
the man. It was the uniform that struck him. It
brought to mind the military charge d'affaires at the
embassy, that extraordinarily observant and precise
officer who was capable of seeing a man who was
not at a bridge at the exact moment he was not
there. A liar for Aquitaine, someone whose lies
identified him. If that liar did not know where
Fitzpatrick was, he could be made to find out.
Perhaps there was a way, after all. Converse drew a
line on the right side of his list, connecting Connal
Fitzpatrick with Admiral Hickman in San Diego. He
did not give it a number; there was too much to
consider.

   Briefoase? He was still convinced that Leifhelm's
men had not found it. If the generals of Aquitaine
had that attache

372   ROBERT LUDLUM

case, they would have let him know. It was not like
those men to conceal such a prize, not from the
prisoner who had thought he was a match for them.
No, they would have told him one way or another,
if only to make clear to him how totally he had
failed. If he was right, Connal had hidden it. At the
inn called Das Rektorat? It was worth a try. Joel
circled the word Briefoase and numbered it 2.

   "Speisekarte, main Herr?" said a waiter before
Converse knew he was standing there.

"English, please?"

   "Certainly, sir." The waiter separated his menus
as though they were an outsized deck of cards. He
selected one and handed it to Joel as he spoke.
"The Spezialitat for today is Wienerschnitzel it is the
same in English."

"That's fine. Keep the menu, I'll take it."

   "Danke. " The man swept away before Joel
could order another drink. It was just as well, he
thought.

   $93,000 plus. There was nothing more to be
said, the irritating bulge around his waist said it all.
He had the money; it was to be used.

   Embassy out . . . No Larry Talbot, et al . . . No
Beale . . . No A nstett . . . No man in San Francisco.
Throughout the meal he thought about each item,
each statement, wondering how it all could have
happened. Every step had been considered carefully,
facts absorbed, dossiers memorized, caution
uppermost. But everything had been blown away by
complications far beyond the simple facts provided
by Preston Halliday in Geneva.

   Build just two or thme cases that are tied to Dela-
vane even circumstantially and it'll be enough.

   In light of the revelations on Mykonos, then in
Paris, Copenhagen and Bonn, the simplicity of that
remark was almost criminal. Halliday would have
been appalled at the depth and the breadth of
influence Delavane's legions had attained, at the
penetrations they had made at the highest levels of
the military, the police, Interpol and, obviously, now
those who controlled the flow of news from
so-called authoritative sources in Western
governments.

   Converse abruptly checked his racing thoughts.
He suddenly realised that he was thinking about
Halliday in the context of a man who saw only a
pair of eyes at night in the jungle, unaware of the
size or the ferocity of the unseen animal in the
darkness. That was wrong. Halliday knew the
materials

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   373

Beale was handing over to him on an island in the
Aegean; he knew about the connections between
Paris, Bonn, Tel Aviv and Johannesburg; he knew
about the decision makers in the State Department
and the Pentagon he knew it all! He had arranged
it all with unknown men in Washington! Halliday had
lied in Geneva. A California wrestler he had
befriended years ago in school named Avery Fowler
was the manipulator, and in the name of A. Preston
Halliday, he had lied.

   Where were those subterranean men in
Washington who had the audacity to raise half a
million dollars for an incredible gamble but were too
frightened to come out in the open? What kind of
men were they? Their scout had been killed, their
puppet accused of being a psychopathic assassin.
How long could they wait? What were they?

   The questions disturbed Converse so much that
he tried not to pursue them they would lead only to
rage, which would blind his reason. He needed
reason and, above all, the strength that came with
awareness.

   It was time to find a telephone exchange and
reach Mattilon in Paris. Rene would believe him,
Rene would help him. It was unthinkable that his old
friend would do anything else.

   The civilian walked in silence to the hotel
window, knowing he was expected to deliver a
pronouncement that would form the basis of a
miracle not a solution but a miracle, and there were
no such things in the business he knew so well. Peter
Stone was by all the rules a relic, a castaway who had
seen it all, and in the final years of seeing had finally
fallen apart. Alcohol had taken the place of true
audacity, at the end rendering him a professional
mutant, a part of him still proud of past
accomplishments, another part sickened by the waste,
by the knowledge of wasted lives, wasted
strategies morality thrown into a gargantuan
wastebasket of a collective nonconscience.

   Still, he had once been one of the best he could
not forget that. And when he knew it was all over, he
had faced the fact that he was killing himself with a
plethora of bourbon and self-pity. He had pulled out.
But not before he had gained the enmity of his past
employers in the Central Intelligence Agency, not for
speaking out publicly but for telling them privately
who and what they were. Fortunately, as sobriety re-
turned he learned that his past employers had other
enemies in Washington, enemies having nothing to
do with foreign en

374   R08ERT LUVIUM

tanglements or competition. Simply men and women
serving the republic who wanted to know what the
hell was going on when Langley wouldn't tell them.
He had survived was surviving. He thought about
these things, knowing that the two other men in the
room believed he was concentrating on the issue at
hand.

   There was no issue. The file was closed, the
border rimmed in black. The two who were with
him were so young God, so damned young., they
would find it too terrible to accept. He
remembered, vaguely, when such a conclusion would
have appalled him. But that was nearly forty years
ago; he was almost sixty now, and he had heard
such conclusions repeated too often to shed tears of
regret. The regret the sadness was there but time
and repetition had dulled his senses; clear
evaluation was everything.

   Stone turned and said with quiet authority, ' We
can't do anything " The Army captain and the Navy
lieutenant were visibly upset. Peter Stone continued,
' 1 spent twenty-three years in the tunnels, including
a decade with Angleton, and I m telling you there's
absolutely nothing we can do. We have to let him
hang out, we can't touch him."

   ' Because we can't afford to?" asked the naval
oflicer scathingly. "That's what you said when
Halliday was killed in Geneva. We can't afford tot"

"We can't. We were outmaneuvered."

   "That's a man out there," insisted the lieutenant.
"We sent him out "

   "And they set him up," the civilian broke in, his
voice calm, his eyes sadly knowledgeable. "He's as
good as dead We'll have to start looking elsewhere."

   "Why is that?" asked the Army captain. "Why is
he as good as dead?"

   "They have too many controls, we can see that
now. If they don't have him locked up in a cellar,
they know pretty much where he is. Whoever finds
him will kill him. A riddled body of a crazed killer
is delivered up and there's a collective sigh of relief.
That's the scenario."

   "And that's the most cold-blooded analysis of a
murder I've ever heard! Murder, an unwarranted
execution!"

   "Look, Lieutenant," said Stone, stepping away
from the window, "you asked me to come with
you convinced me I should because you wanted
some experience in this room. With that experience
comes the moment when you recognize

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   375

and accept the fact that you've been beaten. It
doesn't mean you're finished, but you've been
punched out of the round. We've been punched out,
and it's my guess the punches haven't stopped yet."

   "Maybe . . ." began the captain haltingly. "Maybe
we should go to the Agency, tell them everything we
know everything we think we know and what
we've done. It might get Converse out alive."

   "Sorry," countered the former CIA man. "They
want his head and they'll get it. They wouldn't have
gone to all this trouble if 'dead' wasn't written all
over him. He found out something, or they found out
something about him. That's the way it works."

   "What kind of world do you live in? 'asked the
naval officer quietly, shaking his head.

   "I don't live in it anymore, Lieutenant, you know
that. I think it's one of the reasons you came to me.
I did what you two and whoever else is with
you are doing now. I blew a whistle only, I did it
with two months of bourbon in my veins and ten
years of disgust in my head. You say you might go to
the Company? Good, go ahead, but you'll do it
without me. No one worth a quarter in Langley will
touch me."

   "We can't go to G-Two or naval intelligence,"
said the Army officer. "We know that, we've all
agreed. Delavane's people are there; they'd shoot us
down."

   "Aptly put, Captain. Would you believe with real
bullets?"

   "I do now," said the Navy man, nodding at Stone.
"The report out of San Diego is that the legal,
Remington, was killed in an automobile accident in
La Jolla. He's the one who last spoke to Fitzpatrick,
and before he left the base, he asked another legal
the directions to a restaurant in the hills. He'd never
been there and I don't think it was an accident."

   "Neither do I," agreed the civilian. "But it takes
us to the somewhere-else we can look."

"What do you mean?" said the Army captain.

"Fitzpatrick. SAND PAC can't find him, right?"

   "He's on leave," interjected the naval officer.
"He's got another twenty days or so. He wasn't
ordered to list his itinerary."

"Still, they've tried to find him but they can't."

"And I still don't understand," objected the captain.

"We go after Fitzpatrick," said Stone. "Out of San
Diego,

376   ROBERT LUDIUM

not Washington. We find a reason to really want
him back. A SAND PAC emergency, routed strictly
through Eyes Only a base problem nobody else's."

   "I hate to repeat myself," said the Army man,
"but you've lost me. Where do we start? Whom do
we start with?"

   "With one of your own, Captain. Right now he's
a very important person. The charge d'affaires at
the Mehlemer House."

"The what?"

   "The American embassy in Bonn. He s one of
them. He lied when it counted most," said Stone.
"His name is Washburn. Major Norman Anthony
Washburn, the Fourth."

   The telephone complex was off the lobby of an
office building. It was a large square room with five
enclosed booths built into three walls and a high,
squared counter in the center where four operators
sat in front of consoles, each woman obviously
capable of speaking two or more languages. Tele-
phone directories of the major European cities and
their suburbs were on racks to the left and right of
the entrance; small pads with attached ball-point
pens had been placed on the ledges above for the
convenience of those seeking numbers. The routine
was familiar: a caller delivered a written-out number
to an operator, specified the manner of pay-
ment cash, credit card or collect and was
assigned a booth. There were no lines; a half-dozen
booths were empty.

   Joel found the number of Mattilon's law firm in
the Paris directory. He wrote it out, brought it to an
operator and said he would pay in cash. He was
told to go to booth number seven and wait for the
ring. He entered it quickly, the soft cloth brim of his
hat falling over his forehead above the tortoiseshell
glasses. Any enclosure, whether a toilet stall or a
glass booth, was preferable to being out in the open.
He felt his pulse accelerating; it seemed to explode
when the bell rang.

   "Saint-Pierre, Nelli, et Mattilon," said the female
voice in Paris.

"Monsieur Mattilon, please s'il vous plait."

   "Votre. . . ?" The woman stopped, undoubtedly
recoginzing an American's abysmal attempt at
French. "Who may I say is calling, please?"

"His friend from New York. He'll know. I'm a
client."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   377

   Rene did know. After several clicks his strained
voice came on the line. 'Joel?" he whispered. "I don't
believe itI"

   ' Don't," said Converse. "It's not true not what
they say about Geneva or Bonn, not even what you
said. I had nothing to do with those killings, and
Paris was an accident. I had every reason to think I
did think that man was reaching for a gun.'

"Why didn't you stay where you were, then, my
friend?"

   "Because they wanted to stop me from going on.
It's what I honestly believed, and I couldn't let them
do that. Let me tally.... At the George Cinq you
asked me questions and I gave you evasive answers
and I think you saw through me. But you were kind
and went along. You have nothing to be sorry about,
take my word for it my very sane word. Bertholdier
came to me that evening in my room; we talked and
he panicked. Six days ago I saw him again here in
Bonn only, this time it was different. He was
ordered to be there, along with three other very
powerful men, two generals and a former field
marshal. It's a cabal, Rene, an international cabal,
and they can pull it off. Everything's secret and
moving fast. They've recruited key military personnel
all over Europe, the Mediterranean, Canada, and the
U.S. There's no way to tell who's with them and who
isn't and there isn't time to make a mistake.
They've got millions at their disposal, warehouses all
over filled with munitions ready to ship to their
people when the moment comes."

"The moment?" Mattilon broke in. "What moment?"

   "Please," insistedJoel, rushing ahead. "They've
been funneling weapons and explosives to maniacs
everywhere  terrorists, proves, certified
lunatics with one purpose only: destabilisation
through violence. It's their excuse to move in. Right
now they're blowing up Northern Ireland."

   "The madness in Ulster?" interrupted the
Frenchman again. "The horrors going on "

   "It's their horror! It's a trial run. They did it with
one massive shipment from the States to prove they
can do it! But Ireland's only a test, a minor exercise.
The big explosion's coming in a matter of days, a few
weeks at most. I've got to reach the people who can
stop them, and I can't do that if I'm dead!" Converse
paused, only to catch his breath, giving Mattilon no
chance to speak. "These are the men I was after,
Rene after legally, to build a few cases against
them, expose

378   R08ERT IUDLUM

them in the courts before they got anywhere. But
then, I found out. They're already there. I was too
late."

"But why you?"

   'it in Geneva with Halliday, the man who was
shot to death. He was killed by their gunmen, but
not before he recruited me. You asked me about
Geneva and I lied to you, but that's the truth. Now,
you'll either help me, or try to help me, or you
won't. Not for me I'm insignificant but what I got
roped into isn't. And I was roped into it, I know
that now. But I've seen them, talked to them, and
they're so goddamned logical, so bucking persuasive,
they'll turn all Europe fascist; they'll set up a
military federation with my country the progenitor.
Because it started in my country, it started in San
Francisco with a man named Delavane."

"Saigon? The Mad Marcus of Saigon?"

   "Alive and well and living in Palo Alto, pushing
his military buttons all over the place. He's still a
magnet and they're drawn to him like flies to a pig."

"Joel, are you . . . are you . . . all right?"

   "Let's put it this way, Rene. I took a lousy watch
offa man who guarded me a paranoid who
nevertheless was nice to me and it's got a sweep
hand. You've got thirty seconds to think about what
I've told you, then I'll hang up. Now, old friend,
twenty-nine seconds."

   Ten passed and Mattilon spoke. "An insane man
does not deliver such a precise explanation so
precisely. Very well, perhaps I am mad, too, but
what you speak of God knows the times are right,
what else can I say? Everything is crazy'"

   "I've got to get back to the States alive, to
Washington. I know people there. If I can reach
them and show myself for what I am, they'll listen
to me. Can you help?"

"I have contacts in the Quai d'Orsay. Let me go to
them."

   "No," objected Converse. "They know we're
friends. One word to the wrong person and you'd be
killed. Forgive wee~cbaunttmaffrOedimthpotrtant,
your talking would set off alarms.

   "Very well," said Mattilon. "There is a man in
Amsterdam don't ask me how I know him_who
can arrange such things. I assume you have no
passport."

   "I have one but it's not mine. It's German. I
took it off a guard who was ready to put a bullet in
my head."

   "Then I'm sure he's not in a position to
complain to the authorities."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   379

"He's not."

   "In your mind you really did go back, didn't you,
my friend?"

"Let's not talk about it, okay?"

"Bien. You are you. Keep that passport, it will be
useful."

"Amsterdam. How do I get there?"

"You are in Bonn, no?"

"Yes."

   "There is a train to Emmerich on the Dutch
border. In Emmerich, switch to local
transport streetcars, autobuses, whatever. The
customs are lax, especially during the peak hours
when workers go back and forth. No one looks, so
just show the passport you have quickly, partially
covering the photograph, perhaps. It's good that it's
German. You should have no trouble."

"Suppose I do?"

   "Then I can't help you, my friend. I'm being
honest. And then I must go to the Quai d'Orsay."

"All right. I get across, then what?"

   "You'll reach Arnhem. From there you take the
train to Amsterdam."

"And then?"

   "The man. His name is on a card in my bottom
drawer. Do you have something to write on write
with?"

   "Go ahead," said Converse, reaching for the note
pad and the ball-point pen on the ledge beneath the
telephone.

   "Here it is. Thorbecke. Cort Thorbecke. The
apartment house is on the southwest corner of
Utrechtsestraat and Kerkstraat. The telephone
number is zero-two-zero, four-oneone-three-zero.
When you call for an appointment, tell him you are
a member of the Tabana family. Do you have that?
Tatiana. "

   "Rend?" said Joel, writing. "I never would have
guessed. How come you know someone like this?"

   "I told you not to ask, but on the other hand he
may probe and you should have at least vague
answers everything was always vague. Tatiana is a
Russian name, one of the Czar's daughters reputedly
executed at Ekaterinburg in 1918. I say 'reputedly'
because many believe she was spared along with her
sister Anastasia and smuggled out with a nurse who
had a fortune in jewels on her. The nurse favored
Tatiana and once free, gave everything to the child
and nothing to her sis

380   ROBERT IUDLUM

ten It's said she lived anonymously in great
wealth may even be living today but no one
knows where."

"That's what I have to know?" asked Converse.

   "NO, it's merely the origins of its present
meaning. Today it is a symbol of trust given to very
few people in recent years, people who themselves
are trusted by the most suspicious men on earth,
men who cannot afford to make mistakes."

"Good Lord, who?"

   "Russians, powerful Soviet commissars who have
a fond" ness for Western banking, who broker
money out of Moscow for investments. You can
understand why the circle is small. Few are called
and fewer chosen. Thorbecke is one of them and he
does an extensive business in passports. I'll reach
him and tell him to expect your call. Remember, no
name, just Tatiana. He'll have you on a KLM to
Washington in short order. You'll need money,
however, so we must think how I can "

   "Money's one thing I don't need," interrupted
Converse. "Just a passport and a plane ticket to
Dulles Airport without being picked up."

"Get to Amsterdam. Thorbecke will help."

   "Thank you, Rene. I wanted to count on you
and you came through. It means a lot to me. It
means my life."

   "You're not in Washington yet, my friend. But
call me when you get there, no matter the hour."

"I will. Thanks, again.'

   Joel hung up, put the note pad and the pen into
his pocket, and went out of the booth to the
counter. He asked for his charges, and while the
English-speaking operator was getting them he
remembered the item he had marked 2 on his list.
His attache case with the dossiers and the names of
the deci sion makers at the Pentagon and the State
Department. Das Rektorat. Through some
extraordinary oversight on Leifhelm's part, had
Connal managed to hide it somewhere? Could it
have been found perhaps by an employee at the
country inn? Converse spoke to the operator who
was handing him his bill.

   There's a place called Das Rektorat. It's a hotel
in the countryside where I'm not sure, but I'd like
to call it and reach the manager. I'm told he speaks
English."

   'Yes, sir. Das Rektorat has splendid
accommodations, if they are available."

   "I'm not looking for a reservation. A friend of
mine stayed there last week and thinks he may have
left a valuable item

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   381

in his room. He called me and asked me to check for
him, to speak with the manager. If I find the
number, would you place the call for me and get him
on the line? I'm sorry to say I don't speak German;
I'd probably reach the chef."

   ' Certainly, sir," replied the woman, smiling. It
would be easier for me to get the number. Return to
booth seven and I'll ring you. You can pay for both
calls when you are finished."

   Inside the glass enclosure Joel lit a cigarette,
thinking about what he was going to say. He barely
had time to formulate his words when the ring came.

   "This is the Vorsteher the manager of Das
Rektorat, sir," said the operator. ' And he does speak
English."

   "Thank you." The operator broke off her
connection "Hello?"

"Yes, may I help you, sir?"

   "I hope so. I'm an American friend of
Commander Connal Fitzpatrick, chief legal officer of
the San Diego Naval Base in California. I
understand he stayed there last week."

    'Indeed he did, sir. We were so sorry we could
not have extended his visit with us, but there was a
prior reservation."

"Oh? He left unexpectedly?"

   "I shouldn't put it that way. We spoke in the
morning and I believe he understood our situation.
I myself made arrangements for a taxi."

"He was alone when he left?"

"Yes, sir."

   "Oh. Then if you'll tell me which hotel he went
to, I can check there as well."

 'Check, sir?"

   "The Commander misplaced one of his briefcases,
a flat leather type with two combination locks. The
contents are of no value except to him, but he very
much wants to find it. It was a present from his wife,
I think. Have you come across it?"

'No, sir."

   "Are you sure? The commander has a habit of
concealing his legal papers, sometimes under a bed
or in the back of a closet. '

   He left nothing here, sir. The room was
thoroughly examined and cleaned by our staff."

"Perhaps someone came to see him and took the
wrong

382   ROBERT LUDLUM

case." Converse knew he was pressing but there was
no reason not to.

   ' He had no visitors." The German paused. "Just
one moment, I do recall now."

Yes?''

   "You say a flat briefcase, what is generally
referred to as an attache case?"

"Yes!"

"He carried it with him. It was in his hand when he
left."

   "Oh . . . " Joel tried to recover quickly. "Then if
you'll just tell me what forwarding address he left,
what hotel he went to."

"I'm sorry, sir. There were no such instructions."

   "Somebody had to make a reservation for him!
Rooms are tight in Bonul"

   "Please, sir. I myself offered to try, but he
refused my aid somewhat discourteously, I might
add."

   "I'm sorry." Joel was annoyed that he had lost
control. "Those legal papers were important. Then
you have no idea where he went?"

   "But I do, sir, if one wishes to be humored. I
made a point of asking. He said he was going to the
Bahnhof; the train station. If anyone asked for him,
we were to say he was sleeping in a baggage locker.
I'm afraid it was also meant discourteous

   The train station? A locker! It was a message!
Fitzpatrick was telling him where to look! Without
speaking further, Converse hung up the phone, left
the booth, and went to the counter. He paid for
both calls and thanked the operator, wanting to
leave her a tip but knowing it would only call at-
tension to him. "You've been very kind and, if I
may, one last favor."

"Sir?"

"Where is the train station?"

   "You can't miss it. Turn left out of the building
and walk four streets, then left again for two more.
It is one of the more uncertain prides of Bonn."

"You've been very kind."

   Joel hurried down the pavement, constantly
reminding himself to check his speed. Everything
depended on control now, eve~7,~thing. Every
move he made had to be normal even casual,
nothing to cause anyone to take a second glance at
him. Mattilon had told him to take a train;
Fitzpatrick had

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   383

told him to go to the train station a locker! It was
another omen! He was beginning to think that such
a thing did exist.

   He walked through the large open doors of the
entrance and turned to his right toward the row of
lockers where he had left the attache case before
heading out to the Alter Zoll to meet "Avery
Fowler." He reached the locker itself; there was a
key in it, nothing inside. He began scrutinising the
lockers around it, on both sides, below, not at all
sure what he was looking for but knowing there
would be something. He found it! Two rows above on
the left! The initials were small but clear, scratched
into the metal by a strong, precise hand: C.F. Connal
Fitzpatrick!

   The Navy lawyer had done it! He had put the
explosive papers back where only the two of them
knew where they would be. Suddenly Converse felt
sick. How could he get them out? How could he get
inside? He looked around the station at the summer
crowds. The huge clock read two-thirty, in two and a
half hours the of flees would be closed the business
day over, the crowds fuller. Mattilon had told him to
reach Emmerich during the busiest time, when
workers traveled back and forth across the border at
the end of the day, and it took nearly two hours to
reach Emmerich, if there was a train. He had less
than a half hour to get inside the locker.

   There was an information booth at the far end of
the cavernous station. He walked toward it, his mind
again racing, choosing words that might produce a
key. The abrasive weight of the money belt around
his waist gave him a glimpse of hope.

   "Thank you very much, ' he said to the clerk, his
tortoiseshell glasses perched on his nose, the cloth
hat falling over his forehead. He had been assigned
an English-speaking, middle-aged information
dispenser with a pinched face and a bored, irritated
expression. "Quite simply I've lost the key to the
locker in which I stored my luggage and I have to get
a train to Emmerich. By the way, when is the next
one?"

   "Ach, it is always ze case," replied the clerk,
thumbing a schedule. "Zozzing but trouble wiz zer
sommer people. You lose ziss, you lose zat; and you
expect everyone to help youl Zer train for Emmerich
left twenty-seven minutes ago. Zer iss another in
nineteen minuted, but nozzing after that for an
hour."

"Thank you. I have to be on it. Now, about the
locker?"

384   ROBERT LUDLUM

Joel removed a hundred-deutsche-mark note below
the counter and raised it slowly above the ledge.
"It's very important that I get my luggage and take
that train. May I shake your hand for helping me?"

   "It will be donet" exclaimed the clerk quietly,
looking to his right and left, as he grasped
Converse's hand and the money. He picked up the
phone at his side and dialed abusively. "Schnell! Wir
masses ein Schliessfach offnen. Standort zehn A
uskunit!" He slammed down the phone and looked
up atJoel, a smile sculpted onto his rigid lips. "A
man will be here instantly to be of service. We are
always eager to be of service. The Amerikanen, so
thoughtful."

   The man came, bulging out of his railroad
uniform, his eyes dull, his authority questionable.
"Was ist?"

   The clerk explained in German, then looked
again at Converse. "He speaks some English, not
well, of course, but adequately, and he will assist
you."

   "Zer are our regulations," said the official keeper
of the locker keys. "Come, show me."

   "Happy birthday," said Joel to the clerk behind
the information booth.

"It is not my birthday, sir.'

   "How would you know?', asked Converse,
smiling, taking the fat man's arm.

   "Zer are procedures,,, said the railroad
bureaucrat, opening the locker with a master key.
"You will sign for zer contents at zer office.

   It was there! His attache case was on its side,
nothing broken or slashed. He reached into his
pocket and took out his money. "I'm in a great
hurry,~' he said as he slipped out first a
hundred-deutsche-mark note, then, with hesitation,
another. "My train leaves in a few minutes." He
shook the German's hand, passing the money, and
asked calmly but with cheerful friendliness in his
eyes. "Couldn't you say it was a mistaken,

   "It vas a mistaker' answered the uniformed man
enthusiastically. "You must catch a trains"

"Thank you. You're a nice person. Happy birthday.'

"I know, don't bother. Thank you again."

   Glancing around rapidly but subtly, hoping
against hope that no one was watching him, Joel
walked to an unoccupied wooden bench against the
wall, sat down, and opened the attache
case everything was there. But he could not keep
it.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   385

Again he looked around the station, knowing what
he had to find; he saw it. A drugstore or its
equivalent, there would be envelopes somewhere
inside. He closed the briefcase and got up, trusting
someone in the store would speak English.

   "Nearly all of Us speak English," said the
matronly woman behind the counter near the
stationery section. 'it is practically a requirement,
especially during the summer months. What are your
needs?"

   "I have to send a business report back to the
United States," answered Converse, a large, thick
envelope and a roll of tape in his right hand, the
attache case in his left, 'but my train leaves in a few
minutes and I don't have time to get to a post office.
'

   "There are several post-collection boxes in the
Bahnhof; sir.

   "I need stamps, postage. I don't know how
much," said Joel helplessly.

   "If you will put your materials in the envelope,
seal it and address it, I shall weigh the package and
suggest the appropriate amount of stamping. We
keep sheets here for convenience, but they are more
expensive than in the post office."

   "It doesn't matter. I'd like it to go airmail, with
more postage rather than less." Five minutes later
Converse handed the accommodating clerk the
heavily sealed package for weighing. He had written
a note on the top of the first dossier and printed the
address clearly on the front of the envelope. The
woman returned with the appropriate postage. He
paid her and placed the envelope on the counter in
front of him.

   "Thank you," he said, looking at his watch, as he
began frantically licking the stamps and securing
them. "Would you by any chance know where I can
buy a ticket to . . . Emmerich or Arnhem, I guess?"

"Emmerich is German, Arnhem is Dutch. Any stall,
sir."

   "I may not have time," said Joel, on the last three
stamps. "I suppose I could buy one on the train."

"They will not stop it if you have money."

   "There." He had finished. "Where's the nearest
mailbox collection box?"

"At the other end of the Bahnhof:"

   Again Joel looked at his watch, and again his
chest began to pound as he ran out into the station;
then instantly checking himself, he watched the
crowds for anyone who might be watching him. He
had less than eight minutes to mail the en

386   ROBERT LUDLUM

velope, buy a ticket and find the train. Depending
on the complications, perhaps he could eliminate
the second step. But to pay his fare on board would
mean engaging in conversahon, conceivably having
to find someone to translate the possibilities and
the possible consequences were frightening.

   As he feverishly looked for the mailbox, he kept
repeating to himself the exact words he had
scribbled on the top of the first dossier's cover: Do
not repeat, do not let anyone know you have this.
If you don't hear from me within f he days, send it to
Nathan S. I'll call him if Ican. Youronceand obedient
husband. Love, 1 He then looked down at the name
and the address he had written on the envelope in
his hand and wondered, stricken by a dull, sickening
pain how could he do this to her?

Ills. Valerie Charpentier R.F.D. 16 Dunes Ridge Ca
pe Ann, Massachusetts US.A.

   Three minutes later he found a mailbox and
deposited the envelope, opening and closing the slot
several times to make sure it had fallen inside. He
looked around at the signs everywhere, the German
script confusing him, the lines in front of the
windows discouraging him. He felt helpless, wanting
to ask questions but afraid of stopping anyone,
afraid that someone would study his face.

   There was a window across the station, far away
on the other side; two couples had left the
line four people with a sudden change of plans.
Only one person was left. Converse hurried through
the crowds, once again trying to hold himself in
check and minimising his movements.

   "Emmerich, please," he said to the clerk, as the
lone customer finally left the window. "Netherlands."
he added, enunciating clearly.

   The attendant briefly turned and looked at the
clock on the wall behind him. Then he spoke in
German, the phrases fast and guttural. "Verstehen?"
he asked.

   "Nein . . . Here!" Converse put three hun-
dred-deutsche-mark notes on the ledge of the
counter, shaking his head, shrugging. "Please, a
ticket! I know, I've only got a few minutes."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   387

   The man took two of the bills, shoving the third
back. He made change and pressed several buttons
beneath him; a ticket spewed out and he handed it to
Joel. "Danke. Zwei Minuten!"

The track. What track? Can you understand? Where?
'

 `Wo?"

Yes, yes that's it! Where?'

 `Acht. "

    'What?" Then Converse held up his right hand,
raising and lowering the fingers to indicate numbers.

   The attendant responded by holding up both
hands, a five-finger spread and three middle fingers.
 'Acht," he repeated, pointing across the station to
Joel's left.

    'Eight! Thank you. ' Converse began walking as
fast as possible without breaking into a run. He saw
the gate through the throngs of people; a conductor
was making an announcement while looking at his
watch and backing into the archway.

   A woman carrying packages collided with him,
careening into his left shoulder, the bundles
plummeting out of her arms, scattering on the floor.
He tried to apologize through the abuse she hurled
at him, loud words that caused the surrounding
travelers to stop and gape. He picked up several
shopping bags as the woman's barking voice reached
a crescendo.

   '`Up yours, lady," he mumbled, dropping the
packages and turning, now running to the closing
gate. The conductor saw him and pushed it open.

   He got to his seat, gasping, his soft hat pulled
down over his forehead. The wound in his left arm
was aching sharply, and he thought he might have
ripped it open in the collision. He felt under his
jacket, past the handle of the gun he had taken from
Leifhelm's chauffeur. There was no blood and he
closed his eyes briefly in relief.

   He was oblivious of the man across the aisle who
was staring at him.

   In Paris, the secretary sat at her desk speaking on
the telephone in a low voice that was muted further
by her cupped hand over the mouthpiece. Her
Parisian French was cultured if not aristocratic.

 'That is everything," she said quietly. Do you have
it?"

388   ROBERT LUDLUM

   "Yes," said the man on the other end of the line.
"It's extraordinary."

"Why? It's the reason I'm here."

"Of course. I should say you're extraordinary."

"Of course. What are your instructions?"

"The gravest. I'm afraid."

"I thought so. You have no choice."

"Can you?"

"It's done. I'll see you at Taillevent. Eight o'clock?"

"Wear your black Galanos. I adore it so."

"The Great Spike anticipates."

"It is ever so, my dearest. Eight o'clock."

   The secretary hung up the phone, rose from the
chair and smoothed her dress. She opened a drawer
and took out a purse with long straps; she slipped it
over her shoulder and walked to her employer's
closed door. She knocked.

"Yes?" asked Mattilon inside.

"It is Suzanne, monsieur."

   "Come in, come in, " said Rene, leaning back in
his chair as the woman entered. "The last letter is
filled with incomprehensible language, no?"

   "Not at all, monsieur. It's just that I . . . well, I'm
not sure it's proper to say."

   "What could be improper? And if it is, at my age
I'd be so flattered I'd probably tell my wife."

"Oh, monsieur . . ."

   "No, really, Suzanne, you've been here what
now? a week, ten days? One would think you had
been here for months. Your work is excellent and I
appreciate your Wiling in.

   "Your secretary is a dear friend, monsieur. I
could do no less."

   "Well, I thank you. I hope the good Lord sees
His way to pull her through. Young people today,
they drive so fast so terribly fast and so
dangerously. I'm sorry, what is it, Suzanne?"

"I've had no lunch, sir. I was wondering "

   "My Cod, I'm inconsiderate! I'm afraid it goes
with two partners who take August seriously and go
on holiday! Please as long as you like, and I insist
you bring the bill to me and let me reimburse you."

"That's not necessary, but thank you for the offer."

"Not an offer, Suzanne, an order. Have lots of wine
and

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   389

let's both of us make messes of my partners" clients.
Now, off you go."

   "Thank you, monsieur." Suzanne went to the door
opened it slightly and then stopped. She turned her
head and saw that Mattilon was absorbed in reading.
She closed the door silently, reached into her purse
and withdrew a large pistol with the perforated
cylinder of a silencer attached to the barrel. She
pivoted slowly and walked toward the desk.

The lawyer looked up as she approached. "What?"

   Suzanne fired four times in rapid succession.
Rene Mattilon sprang back in his chair, his skull
pierced from his right eye to his left forehead. Blood
streaked down his face and over his white shirt.

22

   "Where in God's name have you been?" cried
Valerie into the phone. "I've been trying to reach you
since early this morning!"

   "Early this morning," said Lawrence Talbot, "when
the news broke, I knew I had to get the first plane to
Washington."

"You don't believe what they're saying? You can't!"

   "I do, and worse, I feel responsible. I feel as if I'd
unwittingly pulled the trigger myself, and in a way
that's exactly what happened."

"Goddamn you, Larry, explain that."

   "Joel called me from a hotel in Bonn only, he
didn't know which one. He wasn't rational, Val. He
was calm one moment, shouting the next, finally
admitting to me that he was confused and frightened.
He rambled on most of the time
incoherently telling some incredible story of having
been captured and thrown into a stone house in the
woods, and how he escaped, hiding in the river,
eluding guards and patrols and killing a man he
called a 'scout.' He kept screaming that he had to get
away, that men were searching for him, in the woods,
along the riverbank.... Something's happened to him.
He's gone back to those terrible days when he was a

390   ROBERT LUDLUM

prisoner of war. Everything he says, everything he
describes, is a variation of those experiences the
pain, the stress, the tensions of running for his life
through the jungles and down rivers. He's sick, my
dear, and this morning was the horrible proof. '

   Valerie felt the hollowness in her throat, the
sudden, awful vacuum below. She was beyond
thinking; she could only react to words. "Why did
you say you were responsible, that in some way you
pulled the trigger?"

   "I told him to go to Peregrine. I tried to
convince him that Peregrine would listen to him,
that he wasn't the man Joel thought he was."

" 'Thought he was'? What did Joel say?"

   "Very little that made sense. He ranted about
generals and field marshals and some obscure
historical theory that brought all the commanders
from various wars and armies together in a
combined effort to take control of governments. He
wasn't lucid. He d pretend to be, but the minute I
questioned a statement he made or a point in his
story, he'd blow up and tell me it didn't matter, or
I wasn't listening, or I was too dense to understand.
But at the end he admitted he was terribly tired and
confused and how badly he needed sleep. That was
when I made my last pitch about Peregrine, but Joel
didn't trust him. He was actually hostile toward him
because he said he saw a former Gemman general's
car go through the embassy gates, and as you may
or may not know, Peregrine was an outstanding
officer during the Second World War. I explained as
patiently and as fimmly as I could that Peregrine
was not one of 'them,' that he was no friend of the
military. . . . Obviously, I failed. Joel reached him,
set up a rendezvous and killed him. I had no idea
how sick he was."

   "Larry, ' began Valerie slowly, her voice weak. '
1 hear everything you say, but it doesn't ring true. It
isn't that I don't believe you Joel once said you
were an embarrassingly honest man but
something's missing. The Converse I know and lived
with for four years never bent the facts to support
abstractions he wanted to believe. Even when he
was angry as hell, he couldn't do that. I told him
he'd make a lousy painter because he couldn't bend
a shape to fit a concept. It wasn't in him, and I
think he explained it. At five hundred miles an
hour, he said, you can mistake a shadow on the
ocean for a carrier if your instruments are out."

"You're telling me he doesn't lie."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   391

   "I'm sure he does I'm sure he did but never
about important things. It simply isn't in him."

   "That was before he became ill, violently ill. He
killed that man in Paris, he admitted it to me."

Valerie gasped. "No!"

"Yes, I'm afraid. Just as he killed Walter Peregrine."

   "Because of some obscure historical theory? It's
all wrong, Larry!"

   "Two psychiatrists at the State Department
explained it, but in phrases I'm sure I'd mangle if I
tried to repeat them. 'Progressive latent
retrogression,' I think, was one of them."

"Bullshit!"

   "But you may be right about one thing. Geneva.
Remember you said it all had something to do with
Geneva?"

"I remember. What about Geneva?"

   "It's where it started, everyone in Washington
agrees with that. I don't know if you've read the
papers "

"Only the Globe; it's delivered. I haven't left the
phone."

   "It was Jack Halliday's son stepson, actually. He
was the lawyer who was killed in Geneva. It seems
he was a prominent leaderof the antiwar movement
in the sixties and he was Converse's opponent in the
merger. It was established that they met for
breakfast before the conference. The theory is that
he baitedJoel, and we can assume it was brutal, as he
had a reputation for going for the jugular."

   "Why would he do that?" asked Val, her frayed
nerves now suddenly alert.

   "To throw Joel off. To distract him. Remember,
they were dealing in millions, and the attorney who
came off best could do very well for himself clients
lining up all over Wall Street to retain him. There's
even evidence that Halliday succeeded."

"What evidence?"

   "The first part's technical, so I won't try to
explain it except to say that there was a subtle
transfer of voting stock which under certain isolated
market conditions might give Halliday's clients more
say in management than the merger intended. Joel
accepted it; I don't think he would have normally."

"Normally? What's the other part?"

   "Joel's behavior at the conference itself.
According to the reports interviews with everyone
in that room he wasn't himself, he was distracted,
some said agitated. Several law

392   ROBERT IUDLUM

yers on both sides commented on the fact that he
kept to himself, standing by a window most of the
time, looking out as if he expected something. His
concentration was so lax that questions addressed to
him had to be repeated, and when they were, he
appeared as though he didn't understand them. His
mind was somewhere else, on something that
consumed him."

   "Larry!" shouted Valerie. "What are you saying?
That Joel had something to do with this Halliday
being killed?"

   "It can't be ruled out," said Talbot sadly. "Either
psychologically or in light of what people saw in the
anteroom when Halliday died."

   "What they saw?" whispered Valerie. "The paper
said he died with Joel holding his head."

   "I'm afraid there's more, my dear. I've read the
reports. According to a receptionist and two other
attorneys, there was a violent exchange between
them just before Halliday died. No one's sure what
was said, but they all agree it seemed ViCiOUS,
with Halliday clutching Joel's lapels, as though
accusing him. Later, when questioned by the
Geneva police, Joel claimed there was no coherent
conversation, only the hysterical words of a dying
man. The police report added that he was not a
cooperative witness."

   "My God, he was probably in shock! You know
what he went through the sight of that man dying
literally in his arms must have been traumatic for
him!"

   "Admittedly, this is hindsight, Valerie, but
everything must be examined above all, his
behavior."

   "What do they think he did? What's the theory
now? That Joel went out into the street, saw
someone who fit the bill and hired him to kill a
man? Really, Larry, this is ludicrous. "

   "There are more questions, than there are
answers, certainly, but what's happened what we
know has happened isn't ludicrous at all. It's
tragic."

   "All right, all right," said Valerie, her words
rushed. "But why would he do it? Why would he
want Halliday killed? Why. "

   "I think that's obvious. How he must have
despised someone like Halliday. A man who stayed
safely at home, who condemned and ridiculed
everything men like Joel went through, calling them
goons and murderers and lackeys and unnecessary
sacrifices. Along with his hated 'commanders,'

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   393

the Hallidays of this world must have stood for
everything else he loathed. One group ordering men
into battle, to be maimed, killed, captured . . .
tortured, the other making a mockery of everything
they endured. Whatever Halliday said at that
breakfast table must have made something snap in
Joel's head."

   "And you think," said Valerie quietly, the words
echoing in her throat, "that's why he wanted Halliday
dead?"

   "Latent vengeance. It's the prevalent theory, the
consensus, if you will."

"I don's 'will.' Because it's not true, it couldn't be
true."

   "These are highly qualified experts, Val, doctors
in the behavioral sciences. They've analyzed
everything in the records and they feel the pattern is
there. Shock-induced, instant pathological
schizophrenia."

   "That's very impressive. They should embroider
it on their Snoopy baseball caps because that's where
it belongs."

"I don't think you're in a position to dispute "

   "I'm in a hell of a position," interrupted the
ex-Mrs. Converse. "But nobody bothered to ask me,
or Joel's father, or his sister who just happened to
have been one of those wild-eyed protesters you all
speak of. There's no way Halliday could have
provoked Joel the way they say he did at breakfast,
lunch or dinner."

   "You can't make such a statement, my dear. You
simply don't know that."

   "I do know, Larry. Because Joel thought the
Hallidays of this world, as you put it, were right. He
wasn't always crazy about the way they did things,
but he thought they were right!"

"I don't believe that. Not after what he went
through."

   "Then go to another source if that's what you
call it. To some of those records your high priests of
the behavioral sciences conveniently overlooked.
When Joel came back, there was a parade for him at
Travis Air Force Base in California, where he was
given everything but the keys to every starlet's
apartment in Los Angeles. Am I right?"

   "I recall there was a military welcome for a man
who had escaped under extraordinary circumstances.
The Secretary of State greeted him at the plane, in
fact."

   "In absolute fact, Larry. Then what? Where else
was he paraded?"

"I don't know what you mean."

394   ROBERT LUDLUM

   'Look at the records. Nowhere. He wouldn't do
it. How many invitations did he get? From how
many towns and cities and companies and
organisations all pushed like hell by the White
House? A hundred, five hundred, five thousand? At
least that many, Larry. And do you know how many
he accepted? Tell me, Larry, do you know? Did
those high priests talk about this?"

"It wasn't an issue."

   "Of course it wasn't. It warped the pattern, it
bent the shapes Joel Converse wouldn't bend! The
answer is zero Larry. He wouldn't do it, any of it!
He thought one day more of that war was one more
day in hell too long. He refused to lend his name."

"What are you trying to say?" said Talbot sternly.

   "Halliday wasn't his enemy, not the way you're
trying to paint him. The brushstrokes aren't there.
They're not on the canvas."

   "Your metaphors are more than I can handle,
Val. What are you trying to tell meP"

   "That something smells, Larry. It's so rotten I
can hardly breathe, but the stench isn't coming from
my former husband. It's coming from all of you."

   "I have to take exception to that. All I want to
do is help I thought you knew that."

"I do, really I do. It's not your fault. Good-bye,
Larry."

"111 call you the minute I learn anything."

   "Do that. Good-bye." Valerie hung up the phone
and looked at her watch. It was time to get down to
Logan Airport in Boston to pick up Roger
Converse.

   "Koln in zehn Minuten!" shouted the voice over
the loudspeaker.

   Converse sat by the window, his face next to the
glass as the towns sped by on the way to
Cologne Bornheim, Wesel, Bruhl. The train was
perhaps three-quarters full which was to say that
each double seat had at least one occupant. When
they pulled out of the station a woman had been
sitting where he sat now, a fashionably dressed
suburbanite. Several seats behind them another
woman a friend  spotted her. His seatmate spoke
to Joel. The brief attention she had called to both of
them when he could not reply unnerved him. He
shrugged and shook his head; she exhaled im-
patient}y, got up in irritation and joined her friend.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   395

   She had left a newspaper behind, the same
newspaper with his photograph on the front page,
which remained flat out on the seat. He stared at it
until he realized what he was doing and instantly
shifted seats, picking up the paper and folding it so
that the picture would be out of sight. He glanced
around cautiously, holding his hand casually above
his lips, frowning, pensive, trying to seem like a man
in thought whose eyes saw nothing. But he had seen
another pair of eyes and they were studying
him staring at him while the owner was engaged in
what appeared to be a lively conversation with an
elderly woman next to him. The man had looked
away, and Converse had a brief half-second to
observe the face before he turned to the window. He
knew that face; he had talked to that man, but he
could not remember where it was or when it was,
only that they had spoken. The realisation was as
maddening as it was frightening. Where was it? When
was it? Did the man know him, know his name?

   If the man did, he had done nothing about it. He
had returned his concentration to the woman, the
conversation still lively. Joel tried to picture the
whole man, perhaps it would help. He was large, not
so much in height as in girth, and on the surface
jovial, but Converse sensed a meanness in him. Was
that now or before? When was before? Wherek Ten
minutes or so had passed since the exchange of
looks, end Joel was no further ahead in peeling away
the layers of memory. He was stymied and afraid.

   "Wir kommen in zwei Minuten in Koln an. Bitte
achten Sie auf Ihr Gepa'ck!"

   A number of passengers got up from their seats,
tugging at their jackets and skirts, reaching for
luggage. As the train began to slow down, Converse
pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the
window. He let his mind go slack, unfocused,
expecting the next few minutes to tell him what to
do.

   The minutes passed, the suspension on hold, his
mind blank as passengers got off and others got in,
many carrying attache cases, several very much like
his own, which he had left in a trash can in Bonn. He
had wanted to keep it but he could not. It had been
a gift from Valerie, as his gold pen was a gift, both
initiated in those better days.... No, not better, he
told himself, simply different. Nothing was better or
worse; there were no comparisons where
commitments were con

396   ROBERT LUDLUM

corned. They either stuck or they did not. Theirs
came unstuck.

   Then why, he asked himself, as the train ground
to a stop at Cologne, had he sent the contents of his
briefcase to Val? His answer was the essence of
logic, he thought. She would know what to do; the
others would not. Talbot, Brooks and Simon were
out. His sister, Virginia, was even further out. His
father? The fly-boy with a sense of responsibility
that went as far as his last wing dip? It could not be
the pilot. He loved old Roger, more than he
suspected Roger loved him, but the pilot could
never come to grips with the ground. Hard earth
meant relationships, and old Roger never knew how
to handle them even with a wife he claimed to have
loved dearly. The doctors said she had died of a
coronary occlusion; her son thought it was from
neglect. Roger was not on the scene, had not been
for several weeks. So that left Valerie . . . his once
and former Valerie.

   "Entschuldigen Sie. Ist dieser Platz fret?" The
intruding voice came from a man about his own age,
carrying an attache case.

   Joel nodded, assuming the words referred to the
empty seat beside him.

   "Danke, " said the man, sitting down, the attache
case at his feet. He withdrew a newspaper from
under his left arm and snapped it open. Converse
tensed as he saw his photograph, his own serious
face staring at him. He turned again to the window,
pulling the soft brim of the hat lower, his face
down, hoping he looked like an exhausted traveller
wishing only to catch a few minuses' sleep.
Moments later, as the train started forward, he had
an inkling that he had succeeded.

   "Verru'ckt, nicht wahr.P" said the man with the
attache case reading the newspaper.

   Joel stirred and blinked open his eyes beneath
the brim of the hat. "Umm?"

   "Schade, " added the man, his right hand
separated from the paper in a gesture of apology.

   Converse settled back against the window, the
coolness of the glass an anchor, his eyes closed, the
darkness more welcome than he could ever
remember.... No, that was not true he remembered
to the contrary. In the camps there were momenh
when he was not sure he could keep up the facade
of strength and revolt, when everything in him
wanted to capitulate, to hear even a few kind words,
to see a smile that had

THE AQUlTAlNE PROGRESSION   397

meaning. Then the darkness would come and he
would cry, the tears drenching his face. And when
they stopped, the anger would be inexplicably
restored. Somehow the tears had cleansed him,
purged the doubts and the fears and made him whole
again. And angry again.

"Wir kommen in fief Minuten in Dusseldorf an!'

  Joel bolted forward, his neck painfully stiff, his
head cold. He had dozed for a considerable length of
time, judging from the stiffness above his shoulder
blades. The man beside him was reading and
marking a report of some kind, the attache case on
his lap, the newspaper folded neatly between himself
and Converse, folded maddeningly with his
photograph in clear view. The man opened his case,
put the report inside, and snapped it shut. He turned
to Converse.

"Der Zug ist punklich, " he said, nodding his head.

   Joel nodded back, suddenly aware that the
passenger across the aisle had gotten up with the
elderly woman, shaking her hand and replying to
something she had said. But he was not looking at
her; his eyes had strayed over to Converse. Joel
slumped back into the seat and the window, resuming
the appearance of a weary traveler, the soft brim of
his hat pulled down to the rims of his glasses. Who
was that man? If they knew each other, how could he
be silent under the circum. stances? How could he
simply look over now and then and casually return to
his conversation with the woman? At the very least,
he would have to betray some sense of alarm or fear,
or, at the minimum, excited recognition.

   The train began to slow down, the metallic
grinding of the steel plates against the huge wheels
swelling; soon the whistles would commence for their
arrival in Dusseldorf. Converse wondered if the
German next to him would get off. He had closed his
attache case but made no preliminary moves to rise
and join the line forming at the forward door.
Instead, he picked up the newspaper, opening it,
mercifully, to an inside page.

   The train stopped, passengers disembarked and
others got on board mostly women with shopping
boxes and plastic bags emblazoned with the logos of
expensive boutiques and recognisable names in the
fashion industry. The train to [:mmerich was a
suburban "mink run," as Val used to call the af-
ternoon trains from New York to Westchester and
Connecticut. Joel saw that the man from across the
aisle had walked the elderly woman up to the rear of
the line, again shaking

398   ROBERT LUDIUM

her hand solicitously before sidestepping his way
back toward his seat. Converse turned his face to
the glass, his head bowed, and closed his eyes.

   "Bitte, konnen wir die Pldtze tauschen? Dieser
Herr ist ein Bekannter. Ich sitze in der ndchsten
Reihe."

"Sicher, aber or schldft ja doch nun "

   "Ich wocke ihn. " said Converse s seatmate,
laughing and getting up. The man from across the
aisle had changed seats. He sat down next to Joel.

   Converse stretched, covering a yawn with his left
hand, his right slipping under his jacket to the
handle of the gun he had taken from Leifhelm's
chauffeur. If it became necessary he would show
that gun to his new yet familiar companion. The
train started, the noise below growing in volume; it
was the moment. Joel hlrned to the man, his eyes
knowing but conveying nothing.

   "I figured it was you," said the man, obviously an
American, grinning broadly but not attractively.

   Converse had been right, there was a meanness
about the obese man; he heard it in the voice as he
had heard it before but where he did not
remember. "Are you sure?' asked Joel.

"Sure I'm sure. But I'll bet you're not, are you?"

'Frankly, no.

   "I ll give you a hint. I can always spot a good ale
Yank! Only made a couple of mistakes in all the
years of hopping around selling my lid ale line of
look-alike, almost originals."

   "Copenhagen," said Converse, remembering with
distaste waiting for his luggage with the man. "And
one of your mistakes was in Rome when you
thought an Italian was a Hispanic from Florida.'

   "You got it! That guinea bastard had me
buffaloed, figured him for a spik with a lot of
bread probably from running dope, you know what
I mean? You know how they are, how they cornered
the market from the Keys up.... Say, what s your
name again?"

   "Rogers, replied Joel for no other reason than
the fact that he had been thinking about his father
a while ago. "You speak Cerman, he added, making
a statement.

   "Shit, I'd better. West Germany s just about our
biggest market. My old man was a Kraut; it's all he
spoke."

"What do you sell?"

"The best imitations on Seventh Avenue, but don't
get

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   399

me wrong, I'm not one of the Jew boys. You take a
Balenciaga, right? You change a few buttons and a
few pleats, put a ruffle maybe where the Latino
doesn't have one. Then farm the patterns out to the
Bronx and Jersey, lower Miami and Pennsylvania,
where they sew in a label like 'Valenciana.' Then you
wholesale the batch at a third of the price and
everybody's happy except the Latino. But there's
not a tucking thing he can do that'd be worth his
time in court because for the most part it's legal."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

   "Well, a guy would have to plow through a road
of chazzerai to prove it wasn't legal."

' Sadly, that's true."

   "Hey, don't get me wrong! We provide the
merchandise and a service for thousands of nice li'l
ale housewives who can't afford that Paris crap. And
I earn my bread, ale Yankee Doodle. Take that
wrinkled old broad I was with; she owns a half-dozen
specialty shops in Cologne and Dusseldorf, and now
she's looking into Bonn. Let me tell you, I waltz
her...."

   The towns and small cities went by. Leverkusen
. . . Lagenfeld . . . Hilden, and still the salesman
went on, one tasteless anecdote leading to the next,
his voice grating, his comments repetitive.

"Wir kommen in fu'nf Minuten in Essen an!"

It happened in Essen.

   The commotion came first but it was not sudden.
Instead it grew in volume as an immense rolling
wave gathers force approaching a ragged coastline, a
sustained crescendo culminating in the crash over the
rocks. The embarking passengers all seemed to be
talking excitedly, with one another, heads turned,
necks craned to listen to the voices coming from sev-
eral transistor radios. Some were held against the
ear, others with the volume turned up at the request
of those nearby. The more crowded the train
became, the louder everyone talked as the
conversations were almost drowned out by the shrill
metallic voices of the newscasters. A thin young girl
in the uniform of a private school, her books in a
canvas beach bag and a blaring radio in her left
hand, sat down in the seat in front of Joel and the
salesman. Passengers gathered around shouting,
apparently asking the girl if she could make the radio
louder.

   "What's it all about?" asked Converse, turning to
the obese man.

400   ROBERT LUDLUM

   'Wait a minute!" replied the salesman, leaning
forward with difficulty and in greater discomfort
rising partially from the seat. "Let me listen."

   There was a perceptible lull, but only among the
crowd around the girl, who now held up the radio.
Suddenly there was a burst of static and Converse
could hear two voices, in addition to that of the
newscaster, a remote report from somewhere away
from the radio. And then Joel heard the words
spoken in English; they were nearly impossible to
pick out, as an interpreter kept rushing in to give
the German translahon.

   "A full inquiry . . . Eine vollstandiges Verhor. . .
entailing all security forces . . . sin erfordert alle
Sicherheitskrafte . . . has been ordered . . . wurde
veranlasst."

   Converse grabbed the salesman's coat. "What is
it tell me what happened?" he asked rapidly.

   "That nut hit again! . . . Wait, they're going
back. Lemme hear this." Again there was a short
burst of static and the excited newscaster came back
on the air. A terrible sense of dread spread through
Joel as the onslaught of German crackled out of the
small radio, each phrase more breathless than the
last. Finally the guttural recitation ended. The
passengers straightened their backs. Some stood up,
turning to one another, their voices raised in
counterpoint, excited conversahons resumed. The
salesman lowered himself into the seat, breathing
hard not, apparently, because of the alarming news
he had heard but because of sheer physical
discomfort.

   "Would you please tell me what this is all
about?" asked Converse, controlling his anxiety.

   "Yeah, sure," said the heavyset man, taking a
handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopping
his forehead. "This mother-loving world is full of
crazies, you know what I mean? For Christ's sake,
you can't tell who the fuck you're talking to! If it
was up to me, every kid who was born cross-eyed or
couldn't find a tit would be buried in dirt. I'm just
sick of the weirdos, you know what I mean?"

"That's very enlightening now, what happened?"

   "Yeah, okay." The salesman put the
handkerchief back in his pocket, then loosened his
belt and undid the buttons above his zippered fly.
"The soldier boy, the one who runs the
headquarters in Brussels "

   "The supreme commander of NATO, " said Joel,
his dread complete.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   401

   "Yeah, that one. He was shot, his head blown off
right in the goddamned street when he was leaving
some little restaurant in the old section. He was in
civilian clothes, too. '

"When?"

"A couple of hours ago."

"Who do they say did it?"

   "The same creep who knocked off that
ambassador in Bonn. The nut!"

"How do they know that?"

"They got the gun."

"The what?"

   "The gun. It's why they didn't release the news
right away; they wanted to check the fingerprints
with Washington. It's his, and they figure the
ballistics will show it's the same gun that was used to
kill what's-his-name."

   "Peregrine," said Converse quietly, aware that his
dread was not complete. The worst part was only
coming into focus. "How did they get the gun?"

   "Yeah, well, that's where they've marked the
bastard. The soldier boy had a guard with him who
shot at the nut and hit him they think on the left
arm. When the weirdo grabbed his arm, the gun
dropped out of his hand. The hospitals and the
doctors have been alerted and all the borders all
over the place are being checked, every tucking
American male passport made to roll up his sleeves,
and anyone looking anywhere's near like him hauled
off to a customs tank."

   "They're being thorough," said Joel, not knowing
what else to say,-feeling only the pain of his wound.

   "I'll say this for the creep," continued the
salesman, eyes wide and nodding his head in some
obscene gesture of respect. "He's got 'em chasing
their asses from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
They got reports he was seen on planes in Antwerp,
Rotterdam, and back there in Dusseldorf. It only
takes forty-five minutes to get from 'Dussel' to
Brussels, you know. I got a friend in Munich who
flies a couple times a week to have lunch in Venice.
Every place over here's a short hop. Sometimes we
forget that, you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I do. Short flights . . . Did you hear anything
else?"

   "They said he could be heading for Paris or
London or maybe even Moscow he could be a
Commie, you know. They're checking the private
airfields, too, figuring he's got friends who are
helping him some friends, huh? A regular happy
group of drooling psychos. They're even comparing

402   ROBERT LUDLUM

him to that Carlos, the one they call 'the jackal,'
what do you think of that? They say if he does go to
Paris, the two of them might link up and there
could be a few more executions. This Converse,
though, he's got his own regular trademark. He puts
bullets in their heads. Some kind of Boy Scout,
huh?"

   Joel stiffened, feeling the tension throughout his
slumped body, a sharp hollow pain in the centerof
his chest. It was the first time he had heard his
name spoken casually by a stranger identifying him
as the psychopathic killer, an assassin hunted by
governments whose border patrols were scrutinising
everyone at every checkpoint private airfields
watched, a dragnet in progress. The generals of
Aquitaine had done their job with precision, right
down to his fingerprints on a gun and a flesh wound
in his arm. But the timing how could they dare?
How did they know he was not in an embassy some-
where asking for temporary asylum until he could
make a case for himself? How could they take the
chance?

   Then the realisation came to him, and he had to
dig his fingers into his wrist to control himself, to
contain his panic. The call to Mattilon! How easily
Rene's phone could have been tapped, by either the
Surete or Interpol, and how quickly Aquitaine's
informers would have spread the word! Oh, Christ!
Neither one of them had thought of it! They did
know where he was, and no matter where he went
he was trapped! As the offensive salesman had
accurately phrased it, "Every place over here's a
short hop." A man could fly from Munich to Venice
for lunch and be back in his office for a three-thirty
appointment. Another man could kill in Brussels
and be on a train in Dusseldorf forty-five minutes
later. Distances were measured in half-hours. From
ground-zero in Brussels, "a couple of hours ago"
covered a wide circle of cities and a great many
borders. Were his hunters on the train? They might
be, but there was no way they could know which
train he had taken. It would be easier and far less
time-consuming to wait for him in Emmerich. He
had to think, he had to mow.

   "Excuse me," said Converse, getting up. "I have
to use the men's room."

   "You're lucky." The salesman moved his heavy
legs, holding his trousers as he let Joel pass. "I can
hardly squeeze into those boxes. I always take a leak
before . . ."

   Joel made his way up the aisle. He stopped
abruptly, swallowing, trying to decide whether to
continue or turn back. He

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   403

had left the newspaper on his seat, the photograph
easily revealed by unfolding the top page. He had to
continue; any change of movement, however minor,
might attract attention. His objective was not the
men's room but the passageway between the cars; he
had to see it. A number of people had opened the
door and gone through, several apparently looking
for someone they expected to find on the train. He
would look down at the lock on the bathroom door
and proceed.

   He stood in the swerving, vibrating passageway
studying the metal door. It was a standard two-tiered
exit, the top had to be opened first before the lower
part could be unlocked and pulled back, revealing
the steps. It was all he had to know.

   He returned to his seat, and to his relief the
salesman was splayed back, his thick lips parted, his
eyes closed, a high-pitched wheeze emanating from
his throat. Converse cautiously lifted one foot after
the other over the fat man's legs and maneuvered
himself into his seat. The newspaper had not been
touched. Another relief.

   Diagonally above and in front of him, he saw a
small receptacle in the curved wall with what
appeared to be a sheaf of railroad schedules fanned
out by disuse. Limp, bent pieces of paper ignored
because these commuters knew where they were
going. Joel raised himself off the seat, reached out,
and took one, apologizing with several nods of his
head to the young girl below. She giggled.

   Oberhausen . . . Dinslaken . . . Voerde . . . Wesel
. . . Emmerich.

   WeseL The last stop before Emmerich. He had
no idea how many miles Wesel was from Emmerich,
but he had no choice. He would get off the train at
Wesel, not with departing passengers but by himself.
He would disappear in Wesel

   He felt a slight deceleration beneath him, his
pilot's instincts telling him it was the outer perimeter
of an approach, the final path to touchdown in the
scope. He stood up and carefully maneuvered
between the fat man's legs to reach the aisle; at the
last second the salesman snorted, shifting his posi-
tion. Squinting under the brim of his hat, Joel
casually glanced around, as if he were momentarily
unsure of which way to go. He moved his head
slowly; as far as he could see, no one was paying the
slightest attention to him.

   He walked with carefully weary steps up the aisle,
a tired passenger in search of relief. He reached the
toilet door and

404   ROBERT LUDIUM

was greeted by an ironic sign of true relief. The
white slot below the handle spelled out BESETZT.
His first maneuver had its basis in credibility; the
toilet was in use. He turned toward the heavy
passageway door, pulled it open and, stepping out-
side, crossed the vibrating, narrow coupling area to
the opposite door. He pushed it open, but instead of
going inside he took a single stride forward, then
lowered his body, turning as he did so, and stepped
back into the passageway, into the shadows. He
stood up, his back against the external bulkhead,
and inched his way to the edge of the thick glass
window. Ahead was the inside of the rear car, and
by turning he had a clear view of the car in front.
He waited, watching, turning, at any moment
expecting to see someone lowering a newspaper or
breaking off a conversation and looking over at his
empty seat.

   None did. The excitement over the news of the
assassination in Brussels had tapered off, as had the
rush of near panic in Bonn when the streets learned
that an ambassador had been killed. A number of
people were obviously still talking about both
incidents, shaking their heads and grappling with the
implications and the future possibilities, but their
voices were lowered; the crisis of the first reports
had passed. After all, it was not fundamentally the
concern of these citizens. It was American against
American. There was even a certain gloating in the
air; the gunfight at O.K. Corral had new signifi-
cance. The colonists were, indeed, a violent breed.

   "Wir kommen in . . . " The rapid clacking of the
wheels below, echoing in the metal chamber,
obscured the distant announcement over the
loudspeakers. Only moments now, thought Converse
as he turned and looked at the exit door. When the
train slowed sufficiently and the lines began to form
at both inner doors, he would make his move.

"Wir kommen in drei Minuten in Wesel an!"

   Several passengers in both cars got out of their
seats, adjusted their briefcases and shopping bags
and started up the aisle. The grinding of the giant
wheels underneath signified the approach to
touchdown. Now.

   Joel turned to the exit door and, finding the
upper latch, snapped it open, pulling the upper
section back; the rush of air was deafening. He
spotted the handle of the lower release and gripped
it, prepared to yank it up as soon as the ground
beyond slowed down. It would be in only seconds.
The sounds below grew louder and the sunlight
outside created a racing

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   405

silhouette of the train. Then the abrasive words
broke through the dissonance and he froze.

   "Very well thought out, Herr Converse! Some win,
some lose. You lost"

   Joel spun around. The man yelling at him in the
metal chamber was the passenger who had gotten on
the train at Dusseldorf, the apologetic commuter
who had sat next to him until the obese salesman
had asked him to exchange seats. In his left hand was
a gun held far below his waist, in his right the
ever-respectable attache case.

"You're a surprise," said Converse.

   "I would hope so. I barely made the train in
Dusseldorf. Ach, three cars I walked through like a
madman but not the madman you are, ja?"

   "What happens now? You fire that gun and save
the world from a madman?'

"Nothing so simplistic, pilot."

"Pilot."

   "Names are immaterial, but I am a colonel in the
West German Luftwaffe. Pilots only kill one another
in the air. It is embarrassing on the ground."

"You're comforting."

   "I also exaggerate. One disconcerting move on
your part and I shall be a hero of the Fatherland,
having cornered a crazed assassin and killed him
before he killed me."

"'Fatherland'? You still call it that?"

   "Natiirlich. Most of us do. From the father comes
the strength; the female is the vessel."

"They'd love you in a Vassar biology class."

"Is that meant to be amusing?"

   "No, just disconcerting in a very minor way,
nothing serious." Joel had moved imperceptibly until
his back was against the bulkhead, his whole mind,
his entire thinking process, on pre-set. He had no
choice except to die, now or in a matter of hours
from now. "I suppose you have an itinerary for me,"
he asked as he swung his left arm forward with the
question.

   "Quite definitely, pilot. We will get off the train
at Wesel, and you and I will share a telephone, my
gun firmly against your chest. Within a short time a
car will meet us and you will be taken "

Converse slammed his concealed right elbow into the

406   ROBERT LUDLUM

bulkhead, his left arm in plain sight. The German
glanced at the door of the forward car. Alow!

   Joel lunged for the gun, both hands surging for
the black barrel as he crashed his right knee with all
the force he could command into the man's
testicles. As the German fell back he grabbed his
hair and smashed the man's head down onto a
protruding hinge of the opposite door.

   It was over. The German's eyes were wide,
alarmed, glassy. Another scout was dead, but this
man was no ignorant conscript from an impersonal
government, this was a soldier of Aquitaine.

   A stout woman screamed in the window, her
mouth opened wide with her screams, her face
hysterical.

"Wesel. . . !"

   The train had slowed down and other excited
faces appeared at the window, the frenzied crowd
now blocking those who tried to open the door.

   Converse lunged across the vibrating metal
enclosure to the exit panel. He grasped the latch
and pulled it open, crashing the door into the
bulkhead. The steps were below, gravel and tar
beyond. He took a deep breath and plunged outside
curling his body to lessen the impact of the hard
ground, and when he made contact he rolled over,
and over, and over.

23

   He careened off a rock and into a cluster of
bushes. Nettles and coarse tendrils enveloped him,
scraping his face and hands. His body was a mass of
bruises, the wound in his left arm moist and
stinging, but there was no time even to acknowledge
pain. He had to get away; in minutes the whole area
would be swarming with men searching for him,
hunting for the murderer of an officer in the
Federal Republic's air arm. It took no imagination
to foresee what would happen next. The passengers
would be questioned including the salesman and
suddenly a newspaper would be in someone's hand,
a photograph studied, the connection made. A
crazed killer last seen in a back street in Brussels
was not on his way

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   407

to Paris or London or Moscow. He was on a train
out of Bonn, passing through Cologne, Essen and
Dusseldorf and he killed again in a town called
Wesel.

   Suddenly he heard the high-pitched wail of a
horn. He looked up the small hill toward the tracks;
a south-bound train was gathering speed out of the
station several thousand feet away. Then he saw his
hat; it was on the hill, halfway down. Joel crept out
of the tangling brush, staggered to his feet, and ran
to it, refusing to listen to that part of his mind which
told him he could barely walk. He grabbed the hat
and began running to his right. The south-bound
train passed; he raced up the hill and across the
tracks, heading for an old building, apparently
deserted. More of its windows were shattered than
intact. He might rest there for a few moments but no
longer; it was too obvious a hiding place. In ten or
fifteen minutes it would be surrounded by men with
guns aimed at every exit, every window.

   He tried desperately to remember. How had he
done it before? How had he eluded the patrols in the
jungles north of Phu Loc? . . . Vantage points! Get
where you can see them but they can't see you! But
there were tall trees then and he was younger and
stronger and could climb them, concealing himself
behind green screens of full branches on firm limbs.
There was nothing like that here on the outskirts of
a railroad yard . . . or maybe there wasl To the right
of the building was a landfill dump, tons of earth and
debris piled high in several pyramids; it was his only
choice.

   Gasping, his arms and legs aching, his wound
inflamed, he ran toward the last of the pyramids. He
reached it, propelled his way around the mass, and
started climbing the rear side, his feet slipping into
soft earth, and wood and cardboard and patches of
garbage, where it had been layered. The sickening
smells took his mind off the pain. He kept crawling,
clawing with each slipping foot. If he had to, he
could burrow himself into the stinking mess. There
were no rules for survival, and if sinking himself into
the putrid hill kept a spray of bullets from ending his
life, so be it.

   He reached the top and lay prone below the
ridge, dirt and protruding debris all around him.
Sweat rolled down his face, stinging the scrapes on
his face; his legs and arms were heavy with pain, and
his breathing was erratic from the trembling caused
not only by unused muscles but by fear. He looked
down at the outskirts of the railroad yard, then up

408   R08ERT LUDIUM

ahead at the station. The train had stopped, and the
platform was filled with people milling around,
bewildered. Several uniformed men were shouting
orders, trying to separate passengers apparently
those in the two cars flanking the scene of the
killing or anyone else who knew anything. In the
parking lot surrounding the station a
blue-and-whitestriped police car, its red roof light
spinning, the signal of emergency. There was a rapid
clanging in the distance, and seconds later a long
white ambulance streaked into the lot whipped into
a horseshoe turn and plunged back, stopping close
to the platform. As the rear doors opened, two
attendants jumped out carrying a stretcher; a police
officer above them on the steps shouted at them,
gesturing with his arm. They ran up the metal
staircase and followed him.

   A second patrol car swerved into the lot, tires
screeching as it stopped next to the ambulance. Two
police officers got out and walked up the steps; the
officer who had directed the ambulance attendants
joined them, with two civilians, a man and a woman,
beside him. The five talked, and moments later the
two patrolmen returned to their vehicle. The driver
backed up and spun to his left, gunning the engine,
heading for the south end of the parking lot,
directly toward Converse. Again they stopped and
got out, now with weapons drawn they raced across
the tracks and down the slope of gravel and tar into
the wild grass. They would be coming back in min-
utes, thought Joel, absently clawing the ragged
surface by his shoulders. They would stop and check
out the deserted building, perhaps call for
assistance, but sooner or later they would examine
the huge mounds of landfill.

   Converse looked behind him; there was a dirt
road marked with the tracks of heavy trucks leading
to a tall link fence, the gate held in place with a
thick chain. A man running up that road and
climbing that fence would be seen, he had to stay
where he was, hidden in the putrid rubble.

   Another sound interrupted his frantic
calculations a sound like one he had heard only
moments before. On his right, in the parking lot. A
third patrol car came speeding in its claxon howling,
but instead of heading for the ambulance and the
first police vehicle by the platform, it veered to its
left, racing over to jOill the striped car at the south
end of the lot. The two policemen in the field had
radioed for assistance, and Joel felt a numbing sense
of despair. He was looking at his own executioners.
Executioner. The newly arrived patrol

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   409

car contained only the driver or did it? Did the
policeman turn his head and speak? No, he was
disengaging something, a seat belt probably.

   A gray-haired uniformed man got out, looked
around then started walking rapidly toward the
tracks. He crossed them and stood on the top of the
slope, shouting down at the police officers in the
sun-drenched brown grass. Converse had no idea
what the man was saying, but the scene appeared
strangely out of place.

   The two policemen came racing into view, their
guns no longer in their hands but holstered. There
was a brief heated conversation. The older officer
was pointing to a distant area south of the landfill;
his words, to judge by their volume, were commands.
Joel looked back at his patrol car; on the panel of
the front door was an insignia that was absent on the
other car. The man held a rank superior to those of
his young associates; he was issuing orders.

   The younger policemen ran back across the tracks
to their vehicle, their superior following but not
running. They swung back the doors, literally jumped
in and, in a burst of the engine's roar, swerved to the
right and sped out of the parking lot. The older man
reached his patrol car, but he made no movement to
open the door or get inside. Instead, he spoke at
least his lips moved and five seconds later the rear
doors opened and two men emerged. One man
Converse knew well. His gun was in Joel's pocket. It
was LeifLelm's chauffeur, a taped bandage across his
forehead, another on the ridge of his nose. He pulled
out a gun and barked a command to the other man;
in his voice was the vengeful fury of a soldier
dishonored in combat.

   Peter Stone left the hotel in Washington. He had
told the young Navy lieutenant and the slightly older
Army captain that he would contact them in the
morning. Children, he thought. Idealistic amateurs
were the worst, because their righteousness was
usually as valid as their actions were impractical.
Their childish disdain for duplicity and deceit did not
countenance the fact that to rip out the maniacal
bastards frequently required greater malevolence and
far more deception than they could imagine.

   Stone got into a taxi leaving his car in the
basement parking area and gave the driver the
address of an apartment building on Nebraska
Avenue. It was a lovely apart

410   ROBERT LUDLUM

meet, but it did not belong to him; it was leased by
an Albanian diplomat at the United Nations who
was rarely there naturally, because he was based in
New York. But the former intelligence officer had
worked hard and turned the Albanian several years
ago, not merely with ideological pleas to a fine
scholar s conscience but also with photographs of
this same scholar in all manner of sexual
indulgences with very strange women women in
their sixties and seventies, bag ladies off the streets,
who after carnal abuse were subject to sheer
physical abuse. He was a winner, the
scholar-diplomat. A psychiatrist in Langley had said
something about wish-fulfillment sexually
repressed matricide. Stone did not need that
nonsense; he had the photographs of a son-of-abitch
sadist. But it was the children that occupied his
mind now, not the excesses of a fool that permitted
him access to a luxury apartment far beyond his
consultation fees.

   The children. Jesus! They were so right, their
sensibilities so correctly on target, but they did not
understand that when they took on the Ceorge
Marcus Delavanes of today's world it was war in all
its worst forms of brutality, because that was the
way these men fought. Righteousness had to join
with a commitment to crawl in the gutter if
necessary, no quarter sought, for none would be
given. This was the last fifth of the twentieth century
and the generals were going for it all; the paranoia
of their disgust and frustrations had come to the
end of endurance.

   Stone had seen it coming for years, and there
were fumes when he had come close to applauding,
throwing his hands up in frustration, willing to sell
what was left of his soul. Strategies had been
aborted men lost because of the maddening
bureaucratic restraints that led back to laws and a
conshtudon that were never written with anything
like Moscow in mind. The Mad Marcuses of this
planet this part of the planet had a number of
very plausible points. There were those in the
Company years ago who were adamant and not
squirrelly about it. They said, "Bomb the nuclear
plants in Tashkent and Tselinogradl Blow them the
hell up in Chengdu and Shenyang! Don't let them
begin! We are responsible and they are not!"

Who knew? Would the world have been better off?

   Then Peter would wake up in the morning and
that part of his soul he had not sold would tell him,
no, we cannot do that. There had to be another
way, a way without confronta

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   411

tionand wholesale death. He still clung to that
alternative, but he could not dismiss the Delavanes
as megabomb off-the-willers. Where were we heading
now?

   He knew where he was heading had been
heading for years. It was why he had joined the
children. Their righteousness was justified, their
indignation valid. He had seen it all before in too
many places, always at the extremes of the political
spectrum. The Delavanes of the planet would turn
everyone into robots. In many ways, death was
preferable.

   Stone unlocked the door of the apartment, closed
it, took off his jacket and made himself the only
drink he would permit himself for the evening. He
walked to the leather chair by the telephone and sat
down, taking several swallows before putting the
glass on the table beneath the floor lamp. He picked
up the phone and dialed seven digits, then three
more, and one more after that. A very faint dial tone
replaced the original, and he dialed again. Everything
was in order. The call was being routed through a
KGB diplomatic scrambler cable on an island in the
Cabot Strait southwest of Newfoundland. Only
DzerzLinsky Square would be confused. Peter had
paid six negatives for the service. Five rings preceded
the sound of a male voice in Bern, Switzerland.

"Allo?"

   "This is your old friend from Bahrain, also the
vendor in Lisbon and a buyer in the Dardanelles. Do
I have to sing 'Dixie'?"

   "Well, mah wahd, " said the man in Bern
stretching out the phrase in a dialect bred in the
American Deep South, the French pretence dropped.
"You go back a long time, don't you, sub?"

"I do, sir."

'1 hear you're one of the bad guys now."

   "Unloved, mistrusted, but still appreciated," said
Stone. "That's more accurate. The Company won't
touch me, but it's got its share of unfriendlies in
town who throw me consultations pretty regularly. I
wasn't as smart as you. No deposits from Uncle
No-Name in Swiss accounts."

"I was told you had a little juice problem."

"A big one, but it's over."

   "Never negotiate a release from people worse
than you if you can't pass a Breathalyzer test. You've
got to scare them, not make 'em laugh."

412   ROBERT LUDI.UM

   "I found that out. I hear you do some consulting
yourself. "

   "On a limited basis and only with clients who
could pass Uncle No-Name's muster. That's the
agreement and I stick to it. Either I do or some
Boom Boom Botticelli is flown over and Massa's in
de core, cole ground. '

   "Where the threats don't do you any good," said
the civil~an.

"That's the stand-off, Pearlie May. It's our little
detente. "

   "Would I pass muster? I give you my word I'm
working with good people. They're young and
they're on to something and they haven't got an evil
thought in their heads, which under the
circumstances is no recommendation. But I can't
tell you anything substantive. For your sake as well
as mine and theirs. Is that good enough?"

   'If the consultation doesn't take place in outer
space, it's more than enough, and you know it. You
saved Johnny Reb's ass three times, only y'awl got
the sequence backwards. In the Dardanelles and
Lisbon you got me out before the guns came in.
Over in Bahrain you rewrote a report about a little
matter of missing contingency funds that probably
kept me from five years in a Leavenworth
stockade."

   "You were too valuable to lose over a minor
indiscretion. Besides, you weren't the only one, you
merely got caught or nearly did."

"Regardless, Johrmy Reb owes. What is it?"

   Stone reached for his glass and took a drink. He
spoke, choosing his words carefully. "One of our
commanders is missing. It's a Navy problem, SAND
PAC-based, and the people I'm with want to keep
it contained. No Washington input at this stage."

   "Which is part of what you can't tell me," said
the Southerner. "Okay. SAND l'AC that's San
Diego and points west and wet until the date line,
right?"

   "Yes, but it's not relevant. He's the chief legal
out there maybe was, by now. If he's not past
tense, if he's alive he's nearer you than me. Also if
I get on a plane, my passport ignites the computers
and things can't go that way."

"Which is also part of what you can't tell me."

"Check."

"What can you tell me?"

"You know the embassy in Bonn?"

"I know it's in trouble. Just like the security unite in
Brus

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   413

sets. psycho's cutting one hell of a path. What about
Bonn?"

"It's all related. Our commander was last seen there."

"He's got something to do with this Converse?"

   Steve paused. "You can probably fill in more
spaces than is good for any of us, but the bones of
the scenario are as follows. Our commander was a
very upset man. His brother-in-law who,
incidentally, was his closest friend was killed in
Geneva "

   "Down the road from here," interrupted the
expatriate in Bonn. "The American lawyer whose
demise was engineered by Converse, at least that's
what I've read."

   'That's what our commander believed. How or
from whom he got the information no one knows,
but apparently he found out that Converse was
heading for Bonn. He went on leave to go after him."

   ' Commendable but dumb," said the Southerner.
"A one-man Iynching mobs"

   "Actually, no. By simple equations we can assume
he went to the embassy at least he met
someonefrom the embassy to explain why he was
there, perhaps to warn them, who knows? But the
rest speaks for itself. This Converse struck and our
commander disappeared. We'd like to find out
whether he's alive or dead."

   It was the Southerner's turn to pause, but his
breathing was clearly heard on the line. Finally: "Brer
Rabbit, you've simply got to put a little flesh on
those bones."

"I'm about to, General Lee."

"Much obliged, Yankee."

   "It's also related. If you were a lieutenant
commander in the United States Navy and wanted to
reach someone at the embassy in Bonn, someone
who would accord you the attention your rank
deserved, who would you call?"

"The military charge d'affaires, who else?"

   "That's the man, Uncle Remus. Among other
things, he's a liar, but I can't go into that. It's our
thinking that the commander spoke with him and the
charge dismissed him as a fringe case, probably
didn't even give him an appointment with
Ambassador Peregrine. And when it happened, to
save his ass and his career well, people do strange
things."

"What you're suggesting is awful damned strange.''

"I won't back away from it," said the civilian.

"Okay, what's his name?"

414   ROBERT IUDLUM
   'Washburn. He's a "

   "Norman Washburn? Major Norman Anthony
Washburn, the Third, Fifth, or Sixth?"

"That's the one. '

   "Don't back away. You left the field too early.
Washburn was in Beirut, then Athens and, after
that, Madrid. He gave every Company flack in the
territories the business! He d nail his Park Avenue
mama to a velvet wall for a good evaluation report.
He figures by forty-five he'll be heading the Joint
Chiefs and he intends to."

'By forty-five?"

   "I've been out of touch for a couple of years, but
he can't be any more than thirty-six, thirty-seven.
The last I heard they were going to jump the
light-colonel status and make him a full bird, then a
brigadier soon after that. He is loved, Yan

   'He's a liar," said the civilian in the dimly lit
apartment on Nebraska Avenue.

   "Sure 'nuff," agreed the man in Bern, "but I
never figured anything this radical. I mean, he's got
to be scratchin' mule shit for oil to do something so
far out."

   "I still won't back away," repeated the civilian,
drinking his bourbon.

"Which means you know."

"Check."

"And you can't talk about that, either." A statement.

"Check again."

   "Are you firm?" i f No room for error. He knows
where the command

"Holy Jesus! What are you Northern boys into?"

"Will you track? Starting yesterday?"

"With pleasure, Yankee. How do you want it?"

   "In the twilight zone. Only words that come with
needles that's important He has to wake up
thinking he ate a bad piece of meat."

"Women?"

   "I don't know. You probably have a better fix on
that than I do. Would he risk his; image?"

   "With two or three Frauleins I've got in Bonn,
Jesuits would risk the papacy, sub. The name of the
commander,

"Fitzpatrick. Lieutenant Commander Connal
Fitzpat
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   415

rick. And, Uncle Remus, whatever you hear under
the needles, give only to me. No one else. No one."

'Which is the last part of what you can't tell me,
right?"

"Check. '

   "My blinders are in place. One objective with only
one target. No side trips and no curiosity, just a tape
recorder in my head or my hand."

   Again Stone paused, filling the silence with a
tentative whisper. "Tape . . . ?" Then he continued.
"The latter's not a bad idea. Mini-micro, of course."

   "Naturally. Those little mothers are so small you
can hide them in the most embarrassing places.
Where do I reach you? My quill is poised."

   "All right, the area code's eight-zero-four." The
former CIA man gave the expatriate in Bern a
telephone number in Charlotte, North Carolina. "A
woman.will answer. Tell her you're from the Tatiana
family and leave a number."

   Their brief good-byes concluded, Peter hung up
the phone, got out of the chair and carried his drink
to the window. It was a hot, still night in Washington,
the air outside barely moving, the hint of a summer
storm. If the rains came they would wash the streets
and cleanse at least part of the pollution.

   The former deep-cover agent wished there were
some balm on earth or from the skies that could
wash his hands and cleanse that part of his soul he
had not put on the auction block or for a disastrous
period of time into a bottle of bourbon. Maybe all he
had done was hammer another nail in Converse's
coffin, one more scrap of credibility that labeled the
lawyer something he was not. Stone realized that
instead of casting reasonable doubts based on his
own certain knowledge, he had compounded the
fiction that Converse was the psychopathic killer the
international media described. Worse, he had
attributed that credibility to a responsible missing
man, a naval officer who was most likely dead. There
were two justifications for the lie, and only one was
remotely feasible; the other, however, was probably
the most productive move they could make. The first
assumed that Fitzpatrick might be alive, a weak
premise. But if he was dead, the missing commander
provided the reason to call in an old debt and go
after a charge d'affaires named Washburn and do so
without any connection to George Marcus Delavane.
Even if "Johnny Reb" was caught and every man in
a grey to black

416   ROBERT LUDLUM

operation had to assume the possibility no
mention could be made of an international
conspiracy of generals.... Major Norman Washburn,
IV, might or might not know the fate of Connal
Fitzpatrick but everything else he might say under
the needles especially about the
commander would be of value.

   What surprised the civilian was Converse
himself in the matter of the Iying military attache.
If Converse was running and not under lock Ed key,
he certainly had to have learned about the lie that
had condemned him. If so why hadn't the attorney
done something about it? The major's lie was the
chain's weakest link; it could be snapped with a
minimum of effort the man's a liar. I was here or
there, or anywhere except where he placed me when
he placed me. Stone drank sparingly from the glass;
he knew the futility of speculating because he knew
the answer. It was why he did not feel that yet
another part of his soul had been clipped away.
Converse was not in a position to do anything. He
was either trapped or taken, soon to be offered up
as a sacrificial corpse by the generals. There was
nothing anyone could do for him. He was a dead
man, a sacrifice in the truest sense of the
word given up even by his own.

   Peter walked back to the chair and sat down,
loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes. He had
learned years ago to cut losses in the field wherever
possible. If it meant disowning pawns or plants or
blinds, one took the statistical approach and let the
executions follow. It was better than losing more.
But what was even better was to make significant
progress with whatever the loss. He was doing that
now with Converse's death and "Johnny Reb" in
Bern and a liar named Washburn.

   Oh, Chrtst! He was playing God again with
charts and diagrams pluses and minuses of human
value! Yet the objective was worth more than
anything he had ever faced before. Delavane and
his legions had to be stopped, and they would not
be stopped in Washington. There were too many
watchful eyes, too many ears, too many men in
unknown corners who believed in the myth -men
who had nothing else. The children were right about
that. And there would be no empty bottles of
bourbon on the floor now, or blurred memories of
nights past, or words passed. Despite advancing age,
he was ready; he was primed.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   417

   It was odd, thought the civilian. He had not used
the Tatiana family in years.

   Joel watched from the ridge of the landfill as
LeifLelm's chauffeur and his companion approached
the deserted building. Both were experienced; one
raced before the other, stopping behind displaced
rocks from the fill and barrels used for early-morning
fires. Almost simultaneously they reached separate
doors, each door off its hinges, angling into the dirt.
The chauffeur gestured with his weapon, and both
men disappeared inside.

   Converse again looked behind him. The fence
was about two hundred yards away. Could he slide
down the stinking hill, race to the interwoven wire
and climb over the fence before his executioners
came out of the decrepit building? Why not? He
could try! He raised himself off his stomach, hands
sinking into the debris, spun to his right and plunged
downward.

   A distant crash came first and then a scream. He
spun around again and scrambled up the ten-odd feet
his lunge had carried him. The chauffeur was racing
out of his door, around the corner to where his
companion had entered, his gun leveled, prepared to
fire. He approached cautiously, then seeing
something, exploded in disgust as he entered the
shadows. Seconds later he emerged holding the other
man; obviously a staircase or a floorboard had
collapsed. The second man held his leg and limped.

   Two piercing blasts came from the station; the
platform was empty, the milling passengers back on
board. The panic had subsided and the train would
make a Teutonic effort to be on time. The last police
car and the ambulance were gone.

   Below, the chauffeur slapped his companion
repeatedly in fury, shoving him backwards to the
ground. The man got up, gesturing, pleading for no
more, and the chauffeur relented, ordering his
subordinate to a position between the building, the
landfill and the fence, and when the man was in
place the chauffeur went back into the deserted
building.

   The minutes passed, the descending sun
intercepted by low-flying clouds in the west, creating
long, lateral shadows over the outskirts of the
railroad yard. Finally the chauffeur came into view,
emerging from an unseen exit on another side of the
building. He stood for a moment and looked west
across the tracks to the expanse of wild grass and
marshland

418   ROBERT LUDIUM

beyond. Then he turned and stared at the mounds
of landfill and made up his mind.

   "Rechts uber Ihnen!" he screamed at his
companion, pointing to the second mound. "Hinter
Ihnen! Er schiesst. "

   Joel crawled, racing down the debris like a
panicked sand crab. Halfway to the bottom his left
hand was snared; he yanked at the looping
entrapment, pulled it free and was about to fling it
away when he saw it was a length of ordinary
electric cord. He blmched it up in his hand and
frantically continued downward. When he was
within six feet of the ground, he whipped his whole
body into a frenzy and clawed at the dirt and
garbage. He stabbed his legs repeatedly into the
rubbish and loose earth, and sank his body into the
mass pulling debris around his head. The stench was
overpowering, and he could feel the insects
penetrating his clothes, crawling over his skin. But
he was hidden, of that he was certain. He began to
comprehend what his fragmented mind was trying to
tell him. He was back in the jungle, about to spring
on a scout from an unseen place.

   Again minutes passed, and the shadows became
longer, then permanent, as the sun's trajectory
dropped below the top of the landfill. Converse
remained immobile, straining every muscle, grinding
his teeth to stop himself from thrashing his arms
and scratching his clothes and his exposed skin to
rip away the maddening insects. But he knew he
could not move. It would happen any moment, any
second.

   The prelude came. The limping man was in
view, peering up at the hill of refuse and dirt,
squinting against the residue of sunlight at the top,
his gun held out, angled diagonally, prepared to fire.
He sidestepped slowly, cautiously, apprehensive of
what he could not see. He passed directly in front
of Joel, the extended gun no more than three feet
away from Converse's face. Another step and the
line of contact could be clear.

   Now! Joel lunged out, grabbing the barrel of the
gun, instantly and violently twisting it clockwise and
downward. As the German fell forward Converse
crashed his knee up into the bridge of the man's
nose, stunning him before he could scream. The
weapon spiraled off into the debris. The man
staggered, and was about to find his voice when Joel
lunged again, a section of the wire cord stretched
out in both hands he whipped it over the scout's
head, pulling it taut around the scout's throat.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   419

   The man went limp, and Converse bent over the
body, about to roll it into the base of the landfill and
conceal it, but then he stopped. There had to be
another way because there was another option, one
he had taken a hundred years ago with another scout
in a jungle. He looked around; there was a pile of
carelessly dumped railroad ties thirty-odd yards away
on his right old ties, several broken, forming a low
wall. A wall.

   It was a risk. If Leifhelm's chauffeur finished his
examination of the first mound of landfill and
stepped out toward the second one at any three of
the four angles, he would have a clear line of sight.
The man had been sent to the Emmerich train for
two reasons one, he knew the quarry by sight, and,
two, the quarry had disgraced him; Joel's corpse
would be his redemption. Such a man was an expert
with weapons which the quarry was not. What was
the point of thinking! Since Geneva, everything was a
risk, a gamble against death.

   He gripped the German's body under the
armpits, and breathing hard for some reason
foolishly counting off 'One, two, three" he lurched
backwards, hauling the dead man across a dead
man's zone.

   He reached the railroad ties and swung the
corpse around them, the heels of its shoes digging an
arc into the dirt as he dragged the dead German into
the base of the wall. Then without thinking, acting
only on instinct, Converse did what he had been
wanting to do for the last hour. Concealed by the
ties, he ripped off his jacket and shirt and rolled on
the ground, scattering the insects like an infested dog
in a field, scratching them out of his hair, away from
his face. It was all he could do for the moment. He
crawled into the bank of railroad ties and found a
space between two separated logs.

"Werner! Wo sind Sie?"

   The shouts preceded the figure of Leifhelm's
chauffeur. He appeared at the far end of the second
mound, moving slowly, his gun raised, each step
taken cautiously, his head shifting in all directions, a
soldier experienced in combat patrol. Converse
thought how much better off the world would be if
he were an expert shot. He was not. In pilot training
he had gone through the obligatory small-arms
course, and at twenty-five feet had rarely hit the
target. This second soldier of Aquitaine had to be
sucked in much closer.

"Werner!Antworten Sie dock!"

Silence.

420   ROBERT LU[)LUM

   The chauffeur was alarmed; he walked
backward, now crouching, scanning the hill of
refuse, kicking away any object in his backward
path, his head pivoting. Joel knew what he had to
do; he had done it before. Divert the killer's
attention, pulling him closer to the encounter, then
move away.

   "Auaghh . . . !" Converse let the wail come out
of his throat. Then added in clear English, "Oh, my
God!" Instantly he crawled to the far end of the wall
of railroad ties. He peered around the side, his
head in shadows.

   "Werner! Wo sind !" The German stood erect,
his eyes following his line of hearing. Suddenly he
broke into a run his weapon thrust in front of
him a man cornering a hated object, the sound of
English leading him to the loathed enemy.

   The chauffeur threw himself prone across the
railroad ties, his expression alert, his gun in front of
him. He fired into the shadowed corpse below, a
roar of vengeance accompanying the explosions.

   Joel got to his knees, aimed his automatic, and
pulled the trigger twice. The German spun off the
ties, blood erupting in his chest.

   "Some win," whispered Converse rising to his
feet, remembering the man on the train to
Emmerich.

   He was down in the marshlands, the clothes in
his arms. He had scrambled across the railroad
tracks, down through the wild grass into the swampy
dampness of the marsh. It was water, and that was
all he had to know. Water was a benefit whether as
an escape route or as a purifying agent for a
wracked body also lessons he had learned years
ago. He sat naked on a sloping marsh bank, taking
off his inhibiting money belt, wondering if the paper
bills inside were soaked but not caring enough to
examine them.

   He did, however, examine every pocket of the
clothes he had stripped from his would-be
executioners. He was not sure what was of value
and what was not. The money was irrelevant, except
for the small bills; and the driver's licenses had
photographs embedded in plastic neither was
worth the risk of scrutiny. There was an
ominous-looking knife, the long blade released
through the head by the touch of a button on the
handle; he kept it. Also a cheap butane lighter and
a comb and, for the drinking man, two breath
fresheners. The rest were personal effects keys, a
four-leaf-clover good-luck

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   421

charm, photographs in the wallets he did not care
to look at them. Death was death, enemy and friend
fundamentally equalised. only things he was
interested in were the clothes. They were the option,
the option he had used in the jungle a lifetime ago.
He had crammed himself inside a scout's tattered
uniform, and twice across a narrow riverbank he had
not been shot by the enemy who had spotted him.
Instead, they had waved.

   He selected the articles of clothing that fit best
and put them on; the rest he threw into the marsh.
Whatever he looked like, there was little or no
resemblance to the tweedy academic he had tried to
be in Bonn. If anything, he could be mistaken for a
man who worked on the Rhine, a roughhewn mate
or a foreman of a barge crew. He had chosen the
chauffeur's coat, a dark, coarse-woven jacket cut to
the hips with the man's blue denim shirt
underneath both bullet holes washed clean of
blood. The trousers were those of the subordinate
executioner; brown creaseless corduroys, flared
slightly at the ankles, which, thankfully, they reached.
Neither man had worn a hat, and his was somewhere
in the landfill; he would find one or buy one or steal
one. He had to; without a hat or a cap covering part
of his face, he felt as naked as exposed and as
frightened as he would have felt without clothes.

   He lay back in the dry wild grass as the sun
disappeared over an unseen horizon and stared up at
the sky.

24

   "Well, Ahh'l be . . . !" exclaimed the distinguished-
looking man with the flowing mane of white hair, his
full, nearly white eyebrows arched in astonishment.
"You're Molly Washburn's boy?"

   "I beg your pardon?" said the Army officer at the
adjacent table along the banquette in Bonn's Am
Tulpenfeld restaurant. "Have we met, sir?"

   "Not so's you'd remember, Major.... Please
forgive my intruding." The Southerner addressed the
apology to the offi

422   ROBERT LUDLUM

cer's companion across the table, a balding
middle-aged man who had been speaking English
with a pronounced German accent. "But Molly
would never forgive this pore old Georgia cracker if
he didn't say hello to her son and insist on buyin'
him a drink. '

   "I'm afraid I'm at a loss,' said Washburn
pleasantly but without enthusiasm.

   "I would be, too, young fella. I know it sounds
cornpone, but you were just barely in long pants
back then. The last time I saw you, you were in a
blue blazer jacket and madder 'n hell at losing
a.soccer game. I think you blamed it on your left
wing, which in my opinion then and now is a logical
place to blame anythtug. "

The major and his companion laughed
appreciatively.

 Good Lord, that does go back a long hme to
when I was at Dalton."

"And captain of the team, as I recall."

"How did you ever recognize me?"

   "I dropped in on your momma the other week at
the house in Southampton. Proud girl that she is,
there were a few real handsome photographs of you
in the living room."

"Of course, on the piano."

"That's where they were, silver frames and all."

"I'm afraid I've forgotten your name."

   "Thayer. Thomas Thayer, or just plain old T.T.
as your momma calls me." The two shook hands.

   "Good to see you again, sir," said Washburn,
gesturing at his companion. "This is Herr Stammler.
He handles a great deal of our press relations with
the West German media."

"How do you do Mr. Stammler."

"A pleasure, Herr Thayer."

   "Speakin' of the embassy and I assume you were,
I promised Molly I'd ring you up over there when I
got here. Mah word on it, I was gain' to do just that
tomorrow I'm fightin' .'et lag today. One hell of a
coincidence, isn't it? You bein' here and my bein'
here, right next to each other!"

   "Major," interrupted the German courteously.
"Two people who go back so many years must have
a great deal to reminisce about. And since our
business is fundamentally concluded, I think I shall
press on."

   "Now, hold on, Mr. Stammler," objected Thayer.
"Ah simply couldn't allow you to do that!"

"No, really, it's perfectly all right." The German
smiled.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   423

"Truthfully, Major Washburn felt he should insist on
taking me to dinner this evening after the terrible
things we've had to deal with during the past few
days he far more than I but to be quite honest,
I'm exhausted. Also I am far older than my young
friend and nowhere near as resilient. The bed cries
out, Herr Thayer. Believe me when I tell you that."

   "Hey, Mr. Stammler, Ah've got an idea. You're
fanned out and I'm droppin' from the jet stream, so
why don't we leave the young skunk here and both
hit the pillows?"

   "But I couldn't allow you to do that." The
German got up from the table and extended his hand
to Thayer. They shook, and Stammler turned to
Washburn, shaking his hand also. "I'll call you in the
morning, Norman."

   "All right, Gerhard.... Why didn't you just say you
were tired?"

   "And conceivably offend one of my largest
clients? Be reasonable, Norman. Good night,
gentlemen." The German smiled again, and walked
away.

   "Ah guess we're stuck with each other, young
man," said the Southerner. "Why not move over here
and let me save the embassy a couple of dollars?"

   "All right," replied Washburn, getting up with his
drink and sidling between the tables to the chair
opposite Thayer. He sat down. "How is Mother? I
haven't called her in a couple of weeks."

   "Molly is always Molly, my boy. She came forth
and they broke the mold, but I don't have to tell you
that. She looks the same as she did twenty years ago.
I swear I don't know how she does ill"

"And she's not going to tell you, either."

   Both men laughed as the Southerner raised his
glass and brought it forward for the touch. The
glasses met, a gentle ring was heard. It was the
beginning.

   Converse waited, watching from a dark storefront
on the shabby street in Emmerich. Across the way
were the dim lights of a cheap hotel, the entrance
uninviting, sleazy. Yet with any luck he would have
a bed there in the next few minutes. A bed with a
sink in the corner of the room and, with even more
luck, hot water with which he could bathe his wound
and change the bandage again. During the last two
nights he had learned that such places were his only
possibilities for refuge. No questions would be asked
and a false name

424   ROBERT LUDLUM

on a registration card expected. But even the most
sullen greeting was a menace for him. He had only
to open his mouth and whatever came out identified
him as an American who could not speak German.

   He felt like a deaf-mute running a gauntlet,
careening off walls of people. He was helpless, so
goddamned helpless! The killings in Bonn, Brussels
and Wesel had made every American male over
thirty and under fifty suspect. The melodramatic
suspicions were compounded by speculations that
the obsessed man was being aided, perhaps
manipulated, by terrorist organizahons
Baader-Meinhof, the PLO, Libyan splinter groups,
even KGB destabilizahon teams sent out by the
dreaded Voennaya. He was being hunted
everywhere, and as of yesterday, the International
Herald Tribune printed further reports that the
assassin was heading for Paris which meant that
the generals of Aquitaine wanted the concentration
to be on Paris, not where they knew he was, where
their soldiers could run him down, take him, kill
him.

   To get off the streets he had to move with the
flotsam and jetsam and he needed a run-down hotel
like the one across the street. He knew he had to
get off the streets; there were too many traps
outside. So on the first night in Wesel he re-
membered the student Johann, and looked for ways
to re-create similar circumstances. Young people
were less prone to be suspicious and more receptive
to the promise of financial reward for a friendly
service.

   It was odd, but that first night in Wesel was both
the most difficult and the easiest. Difficult because
he had no idea where to look, easy because it
happened so rapidly, so logically.

   First he stopped at a drugstore, buying gauze,
adhesive tape, antiseptic and an inexpensive cap
with a visor. Then he went to a cafe, to the men's
room, where he washed his face and the wound,
which he bound tight, skin joining skin, the bandage
firmly in place. Suddenly, as he finished his
ministrations, he heard the familiar words and
emphatic melody young raucous voices in song: "On,
Wisconsin.... On, Wisconsin . . . on to victoreee. . ."

   The singers were a group of students from the
German Society at the University of Wisconsin, as
he later found out who were bicycling through the
northern Rhineland. Casually approaching a young
man getting more beers from the bar and
introducing himself as a fellow American, he told an

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   425

outrageous story of having been taken by a whore
and rolled by her pimp, who stole his passport-but
never thought of a money belt. He was a respected
businessman who had to sleep it off, gather his wits,
and reach his firm back in New York. However, he
spoke no German, would the student consider the
payment of $100 for helping him out?

   He would and did. Down the block was a dingy
hotel where no questions were asked; the young man
paid for a room and brought Converse, who was
waiting outside, his receipt and his key.

   All yesterday he had walked, following the roads
in sight of the railroad tracks until he reached a town
named Halden. It was smaller than Wesel, but there
was a run-down, industrial section east of the
railroad yards. The only "hotel" he could find,
however, was a large, shoddy house at the end of a
row of shoddy houses with signs saying ZIMMER, 20
MARK in two first-floor windows and a larger one
over the front door. It was a boardinghouse, and
several doors beyond in the spill of the streetlampsa
heated argument was taking place between an older
woman and a young man. Above, a few neighbors sat
in their windows, arms on the sills, obviously
listening. Joel also listened to the sporadic words
shouted in heavily accented English.

   ". . . 'I hate it here!' Das habe ich ihm gesagt. 'I
do not care to stay, Onkel! I vill go back to
Germany! Maybe join .Baader-Meinhofl' Das halve
ich item gesagt."

   "Barr!" screamed the woman, turning and going
up the steps. "Schweinehund!" she roared, as she
opened the door, went inside and slammed it shut
behind her.

   The young man had looked up at his audience in
the windows and shrugged. A few clapped, so he
made an exaggerated, elaborate bow. Converse
approached; there was no harm in trying, he thought.
"You speak very good English," he said.

   "dye not?" replied the German. "They spend bags
of groceries for five years to give me lessons. I must
go to her brother in America. I say Nein! They say
da! I go. I hate it!"

   "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm an American and I
like the Cerrnan people. Where were you?"

"In Yorktown."

"Virginia?"

"Nein! The city of New York."

"Oh, that Yorktown."

426   ROBERT LUDLUM

   'Ja, my uncle has two butcher shops in New
York, in what they call Yorktown. Shit, as you say
in America!'

"I'm sorry. Why?"

   "The Schwarzen and theJuden! If you speak like
me, the black people steal from you with knives, and
the Jews steal from you with their cash registers.
hreinie, they call me, and Nazi. I told a Jew he
cheated me I vas nice, I vas not impolite and he
told me to get out of his shop or he call the 'cops !
I vas shit, he said! . . . You vear a good German
suit and spend good German money, they don t say
those things. You are a delivery boy trying to learn,
they kick the shit out of you, What do I know! My
father vas only a fourteen-year-old sol dier. Shit!"

   "Again, I'm telling you I'm sorry. I mean it. It's
not in our nature to blame children.'

"Shit!"

   "Perhaps I can make up for a little of what you
went through. I m in trouble because I was a
stupid American. But I'll pay you a hundred
American dollars . . ."

   The young German happily got him a room at
the boardinghouse. It was no better than the one in
Wesel, but the water was hotter, the toilet nearer
his door.

   Tonight was different from the other nights he
had spent in Germany, thought Joel, as he looked
across the street at the decrepit hotel in Emmerich.
Tonight could lead to his passage into Holland. To
Cort Thorbecke and a plane to Washington The
man Joel had recruited was somewhat older than
the oth ers who had helped him. He was a merchant
seaman out of Bremerhaven, in Emmerich to make
a duty call on his family with whom he felt ill at
ease. He had made the obligatory call been soundly
rebuked by his mother and father, and had returned
to the place and the people he loved best a bar at
the bend of the riverbank.

   Again, as it had been in Wesel, it was the
English Iyrics of a song that had caught Joel's
attention. He stared at the young seaman standing
at the bar and playing a guitar. This time it was not
a college football song but an odd, haunting mixture
of slow biting rock and a sad madrigal: ". . . When
you finally came down, when your feet hit the
ground, did you know where you were? When you
finally were real, could you touch what you feel,
were you there in the know? . . . '

The men around the bar were caught up by the
precise

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   427

beat of the minor-key music. When the seaman
finished there was respectful applause, followed by a
resumption of fast talk and faster refilling of mugs of
beer. Minutes later Converse was standing next to
the seagoing troubador, the guitar now slung over his
shoulder and held in place by a wide strap like a
weapon. Joel wondered if the man really knew
English or only Iyrics. He would find out in seconds.
The seaman laughed at a companion's remark; when
the laughter subsided, Converse said, 'I'd like to buy
you a drink for reminding me of home. It was a nice
song."

   The man looked at him quizzically. Joel
stammered thinking that the seaman had no idea
what he was talking about. Then, to Converse's
relief, the man answered. "Danke. It is a good song.
Sad but good, like some of ours. You are
Amerikaner?"

"Yes. And you speak English."

   "Okay. I don't read no good, aber I speak okay.
I'm on merchant ship. We sail Boston, New York,
Baltimore sometimes ports, Florida."

"What'll you have?"

"Sin Bier," said the seaman, shrugging.

"Why not whisky?"

'Baja?"

"Certainly."

"Ja. "

   Minutes later they were at a table. Joel told his
story about a nonexistent whore and a fictional pimp.
He told it slowly not because he felt he had to pace
the narrative to his listener's understanding, but
because another option was coming sharply into
focus. The guitar-playing merchantman was young,
but there was a patina about him that indicated he
knew the docks and the waterfront and the various
businesses that flourished in that very special world.

   "You should go to the Polizei, " said the man
when Converse had finished. "They know the whores
and they will not print your name." The German
smiled. "We want you back to spend more money."

   "I can't take the chance. In spite of the way I
look, I deal with a lot of important people here and
in America."

"Which makes you important, ja?"

   "And very stupid. If I could just get over into
Holland, I could handle everything."

"Die IViederlande? Vat is problem?"

428   ROBERT LUDLUM

   "I told you, my passport was taken. And it's just
my luck that every American crossing any border is
looked at very carefully. You know, that crazy
bastard who killed the ambassador in Bonn and the
NATO commander.

   "Ja, and in Wesel two, three days ago, said the
German. "They say he goes to Paris.

   'I m afraid that doesn t help me.... Look, you
know the river people, the men who have boats
going out every day. I told you l d pay you a
hundred dollars for the hotel....

"I agreed. You are generous.

   "I'll pay you a great deal more if you can
somehow get me over into Holland. You see, my
company has an office in Amsterdam. They can help
me. Will you help me?"

   The German grimaced and looked at his watch.
"Is too late for such arrangements tonight and I
leave for Bremerhaven on the morning train. My
ship sails at fifteen hundred.

"That was the amount I had in mind. Fifteen
hundred. '

"Deutsche marks?"

"Dollars.

   "You are more crazy than your Landsmann who
kills soldiers. If you knew the language, it cost no
more than fifty.

   "I don t know the language. Fifteen hundred
American dollars for you if you can arrange it.

   The young man looked hard at Converse, then
moved back his chair. "Wait here. I will make phone
call.

"Send over more whisky on your way.

"Danke. "

   The waiting was spent in a vacuum of anxiety.
Joel looked at the weathered guitar Iying across an
extra chair. What were the words? . . . When you f
nally came down, when your feet hit the ground . . .
did you know where you were? When you f sally were
real, could you touch . . . what you feel, were you
there in the know?. . .

   "I will stop for you at five o'clock in the
morning, announced the merchant seaman, who sat
down with two glasses of whisky. "The captain will
accept two hundred dollars, aber only if there are no
drugs. If there are drugs, you don't come on board."

   "I have no drugs, 'said Converse, smiling,
controlling his elation. "That's done and you ve
earned your money. 111 pay you at the dock or pier
or whatever it is.

"Natu'rlich.

 * *  *

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   429

   It had all happened less than an hour ago,
thought Joel, watching the hotel entrance across the
street. At five o'clock in the morning he would be on
his way to Holland, to Amsterdam, to a man named
Cort Thorbecke, Mattilon's broker of illegal
passports. All the passenger manifests on all aircraft
heading for the United States would be watched by
Aquitaine, but a hundred years ago he had learned
that there were ways to elude the watchers. He had
done it before from a deep, cold shaft in the ground
and despite a barbed-wire fence in the darkness. He
could do it again.

   A figure emerged under the dimly lit marquee of
the hotel. It was the young merchant seaman.
Grinning, he beckoned Converse to join him.

   "Hell's fire and Jeesus H. what is it, Norman?"
cried the Southerner, as Washburn suddenly went
into an erratic of convulsions, his lips trembling as he
gasped for air.

   "I . . . don't . . . know." The major's eyes grew
wide, the pupils now dancing and out of control.

   'Maybe it's that Heimlich thing!" said Thomas
Thayer, rising from the banquette and quickly
moving toward Washburn. Hell no, it can't be! Our
food's not here; you haven't eaten!"

   The couples near by expressed alarm, talking
loudly, rapidly in German. At a remark made by one
of the diners, the Southerner turned and spoke to
the man. 'Midas glaube ich night, " said Johnny Reb
in flawless German. 'A1ein Wagen sight draussen Ich
weiss einen Arzt. "

   The maitre d' came rushing over and, seeing that
the commotion involved the Americans, addressed
his concern in English. "Is the major ill, sir? Shall I
ask if there is . . ."

   "No doctor I'm not familiar with, thanks,"
interrupted Thayer, bent over the embassy's charge
d'affaires, who was now inhaling deeply, his eyes half
closed, his head swaying back and forth. 'This here is
Molly Washburn s boy and I'll see he gets the best!
My car's outside. Maybe if a couple of your waiters
will give a hand we can put him in the limo and I'll
take him right over to my man. He's a specialist. At
my age you gatta have 'em everywhere."

    'Restimmt. Certainly!" The maitre d' snapped his
fingers; three busboys responded instantly.

"The embassy . . . the embassy! ' choked Washburn as
the

430   ROBERT LUDLlJM

three men half carried the officer to the door of the
restaurant.

   "Don't you worry, Norman-boy!" said the
Southerner hearing the plea, walking with the
maltre d'. "I'll phone 'em from the car, tell 'em to
meet us at Rudi's place." Thayer turned to the
German beside him. "You know what Ah think? Ah
think this fine soldier is jest plumb wore out. He's
been workin'from sunrise to sunrise with nary a
break. I mean, can you imagine everything he's had
to contend with these last couple of days? That
crazy mongrel goin around shootin' up a feud, killin'
the ambassador, then that honcho in Brussels! You
know, Molly's boy here is the charday d'affaires."

   "Yes, the major is our guest frequently an
honored guest."

   ' Well, even the most honorable among us has a
right and a hme to say 'The hell with it, I'll sit this
one out.'"

"I'm not sure I understand."

   "Ah have an idea this fine young man who I
knew as a mere saplin' led never learned about the
quantitative effects of old demon whisky."

   "Ohh?" The metre d' looked at Johnny Reb a
fashionable gossipmonger relishing a new rumor.

   "He had several mites too much, that's all and
that's jest between us."

"He vas not in focus...."

   "He started bustin' corks before the sun hit the
whites of the west cotton." They reached the front
entrance, the unit of busboys maneuvering
Washburn out the door. "Who was more entitled?
That's what I say." Thayer removed his wallet.

'ha, I agree."

   "Here," said the Southerner, removing bills. "I
haven't had hme to convert, so there's a hundred
American that should cover the tab and plenty for
the boys outside.... And here's a hundred for
you for not talkie' too much, verstehen ?"

   "Completely, main Herr!" The German pocketed
both $100 bills, smiling and nodding his head
obsequiously. "I vill say absolutely nozzing!''

   "Well, I wouldn't go that far. It might be a good
thing for Molly's boy to learn that it ain't the end of
the world if a few people know he's had a drink or
two. Might loosen him up a bit, and in mah Georgia
judgment, he needs a little

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   431

Joosenin . Maybe you might wink at him when he
next comes m.

"Vink?"

   'Give him a friendly smile, like you know and it's
okay. Verstehen?"

'/a, I agree! He vas entitled!'

   Outside at the curb, Johnny Reb instructed the
busboys just how to place Major Norman Anthony
Washburn IV into the backseat. Stretched out, facing
up, supine. The Southerner gave each man a $20
American bill and dismissed them. He then spoke to
the two men in front, pressing a button so they could
hear his voice beyond the glass partition.

   'Ah got the jump seats down," he said, pulling
the velvet backs out of the velvet wall. He's out.
Come on and join me, Witch Doctor. And you,
Klaus, you entertain us with a long drive in your
beautiful countryside."

   Minutes later, as the limousine entered a
backcountry road, the overhead light switched on,
the doctor unbuckled Washburn's belt, slid the
trousers down, and rolled the charge d'affaires over
and into the seat. He found the area he wanted at
the base of the spine, the needle held above in his
steady hand.

   "Ready, chap? 'asked the dark-skinned
Palestinian, yanking down the elastic top of the
unconscious man's shorts

   "You got it, Pookie," answered Johnny Reb,
holding a small recorder over the edge of the jump
seat. "Right where he won't find it for a week, if he
ever does. Take him up, Arab. I want him tony."

   The doctor inserted the long hypodermic needle,
slowly pressing his thumb on the plunger. "It will be
quick," said the Palestinian. "It is a heavy dose and
I've seen it happen when the patient began babbling
before the interrogator was ready."

"I'm ready."

   "Put him on track instantly. Ask direct questions,
canter his concentration immediately."

   "Oh, Ah will, indeed. This is a bad man, Pookie.
A nasty little boy who tells tall tales that ain't got
nothin' to do with a big catfish that broke off a
hook." The Southerner gripped the unconscious
Washburn's left shoulder and yanked him forward,
face up on the seat. "All right, Molly's boy, let's you
and me talk. How come you got the audacity to mess
around with an officer of the United States Navy
named Fitzpatrick? Con

432   ROBERT LUDLUM

nal Fitzpatrick, boy! Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick,
Fitzpatrick! C'mon, baby, talk to Daddy, 'cause
you've got nobody else but Daddy! Everyone you
think you got is gone! They set you up Molly's boy!
They made you lie in print so the whole world
knows you lied! But Daddy can make it right. Daddy
can straighten it all out and put you on top right
on the very top! The Joint Chiefs the bid chief!
Daddy's your tit, boy! Grab it or suck air! Where'd
you put Fitzpatrick? Fitzpatrick, Fitzpatrick! "

   The whisper came as Washburn's body writhed
on the seat, his head whipping back and forth, saliva
oozing out of the edges of his mouth. 'Scharhorn,
the isle of Scharhorn. . . . The Heligoland Right.'

   Caleb Dowling was not only angry but
bewildered. Despite a thousand doubts he could not
let it go; too many things did not make sense, not
the least of which was the fact that for three days
he had been unable to get an appointment with the
acting ambassador The scheduling attache claimed
there was too much confusion resulting from Walter
Peregrine's assassination to permit an audience at
this time. Perhaps in a week.... In short words,
actor, get lost, we have important things to do and
you're not one of them. He was being checked,
shoved into a corner and given the lip service one
gives to a well-known but insignificant person. His
motives as well as his intelligence were undoubtedly
being questioned out loud by arrogant, harried
diplomats. Or someone else.

   Which was why he was sitting now at a back
table in the dimly lit bar of the Konigshof Hotel.
He had learned the name of Peregrine's secretary,
one Enid Heathley, and had sent the stunt man,
Moose Rosenberg, to the embassy with a sealed
letter purportedly from a close friend of Miss
Heathley's in the States. Moose's instructions had
been to deliver the envelope personally, and as
Rosenberg's size was formidable, no one in the
reception room had argued. Heathley had come
down in person. The message was short and to the
point.

Dear Miss Heathley:

   I believe it to be of the utmost importance
   that
we talk as soon as possible. I will be in the bar of
the
Konigshof at 7:30 this evening. If it is convenient
please have a drink with me, but I urge you not to

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   433

speak to anyone about our meeting. Please, no one.

 Sincerely,
C. Dowling

   It was seven-thirty-eight and Caleb was growing
anxious. For the past several years he was used to
people being on time for appointments and
interviews; it was one of the minor perks of being Pa
Ratchet. But there could be several reasons why the
secretary might not wish to meet with him. She knew
that Peregrine and he had become friends of sorts
and also that there were actors who were known to
seek publicity from events they had nothing to do
with, posturing with statesmen and politicians when
they couldn't spell out a position on slavery. He
hoped to hell . . .

   There she Divas. The middle-aged woman had
come through the door, squinting in the dim light.
The maltre d' approached her, and moments later
she was escorted to Dowling's table.

   'Thank you for coming," said Caleb, rising as
Enid Heathley took her chair. "I wouldn't have asked
you if I didn't think it was important," he added,
sitting down again.

   'I gathered that from your note," said the
pleasant-faced woman with signs of grey in her hair
and very intelligent eyes. Her drink ordered, casual
talk covered its arrival.

'I imagine it's been very difficult for you," said
Dowling.

   "It hasn't been easy," agreed Miss Heathley. "I
was Mr. Peregrine's secretary for nearly twenty years.
He used to call us a team, and Jane and I Mrs.
Peregrine are quite close. I should be with her now,
but I told her I had some last-minute things to do at
the office."

"How is she?"

   "Still in shock, of course. But she'll make it.
She's strong. Walter wanted the women around him
strong. He thought they were worthwhile and they
shouldn't hide their worth."

"I like that kind of thinking, Miss Heathley."

   Her drink came, the waiter left, and the secretary
looked quizzically at Caleb. 'Forgive me, Mr.
Dowling, I can't say I'm a devoted follower of your
television show, but, of course, I've seen it a number
of times. It seems that whenever I'm asked to dinner
and the magic hour arrives, meals are suspended."

"I'd suggest those people upgrade their kitchens."

The woman smiled. "You're too modest, but that's
not

434   ROBERT LUDLUM

what I mean. You don't sound at all like the man
on the television screen."

   "Because I'm not he, Miss Heathley," said the
former university professor, his expression serious,
his intelligent eyes level with hers. "I assume we
share certain traits because I've the physical
instrument through which his fictions are filtered,
but that s the extent of any similarity."

"I see. That's very well put."

   "I ve had practice saying it. But I didn't ask you
here to expound on theories of acting. It s a subject
with limited appeal."

"Why did you ask me?"

   "Because I don't know whom else to go to. Well,
I do, but I can t get near him."

"Who's that?"

   "The acting ambassador, the one who flew over
from Washington."

"He's up to his ears "

"He should be told," interrupted Caleb. "Warned."

   "Warned?" The woman's eyes grew wide. "An
attempt on his life? Another killing that maniac,
Converse?"

   "Miss Heathley," began the actor, his posture
rigid, his voice quiet. "What I'm about to say may
shock you, even offend you, but as I said, I don't
know another person I can go to at the embassy.
However, I do know there are people over there I
can't go to."

"What are you talking about?"

   "I'm not convinced that Converse is either a
maniac or that he killed Walter Peregrine."

   "What? You can't be serious! You've heard what
they say about him, how unbalanced he is. He was
the last person with Mr. Peregrine. Major Washburn
established that!"

   "Major Washburn is one of those people I'd
rather not see."

   "He's considered one of the finest officers in the
United States Army," objected the secretary.

   "Then, for an officer he has a strange concept of
taking orders from a superior. Last week I brought
Peregrine to meet someone. The man ran and
Walter told the major to stop him. Instead,
Washburn tried to kill him."

   "Oh, now I understand," said Enid Heathley, her
tone unpleasant. "That was the night you arranged
a meeting with Converse it was you, I remember
now! Mr. Peregrine told

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   435

me. What is this, Mr. Dowling? A Hollywood actor
protecting his image? Afraid he'll be held responsible
and his ratings, or whatever they are, will
plummet that is the word, isn't it? This
conversation is despicable. 'The woman moved her
chair back, prepared to leave.

   "Walter Peregrine was a man of his word, Miss
Heathley," said Caleb, still immobile, staring at the
secretary. I think you'll agree with that."

'And?"

   He made a promise to me. He told me that if
Converse reached him and asked to meet with him,
I'd come along. Me, Miss Heathley. Specifically not
Major Washburn, whose achons that night at the
university were as bewildering to him as they were to
me."

   The middle-aged woman held her place, her eyes
narrowed, concerned.  `He ureas upset the next
morning," she said softly.

   Damned angry better describes him, I think. The
man who ran away wasn t Converse and he also
wasn't crazy. He was dead serious, with the speech of
someone used to authority. There was or is some
kind of confidential investigation going on involving
the embassy. Peregrine didn't know what it was, but
he intended to find out. He mentioned that he was
going to call Washington on a scrambler phone. I'm
not up on the technology, but I don't think a person
places a call like that unless he's worried that
someone might try to tap the line."

He did place a scrambler call. He told you that?"

   Yes, he did. And there's something else, Miss
Heathley. As you correctly stated, I'm the one
responsible for Walter Peregrine ever having heard
of Converse, and I don't feel very good about it. But
isn't it odd that in spite of the fact that it wasn't a
secret you knew, Washhurn knew nobody has
come to question me since Walter was killed?"

   No one?" asked the woman incredulously. "But
I included your name in my report."

"Whom did you give it to?"

    'Well, Norman was handling everything...." Enid
Heathley stopped.

"Washburn?"

"Yes."

   "Didn't you speak to anyone else? Weren't you
questioned?"

436   ROBERT LUDIUM

   "Yes, of course. An inspector from the Bonn
police. I'm sure I mentioned your name I'm
positive I did."

"Was anybody else in the room?"

   'Yes," said the murdered ambassador's secretary.
"Norman," she whispered.

   "Strange behavior for a police department, isn't
it?" Caleb leaned forward, but only slightly. "Let me
reemphasize something you just said, Miss Heathley.
You asked me if I was a Hollywood actor trying to
protect his image. It's a logical question, and if you
ever saw the unemployment lines in Los Angeles
you'd understand just how logical it is. Don't you
think other people believe the same thing? I haven't
been questioned because specific people here in
Bonn think I'm shaking in Pa Ratchet's boots,
keeping silent so as to protect that image and the
ratings that make it possible. Oddly enough, that
reasoning is my best physical protection. You don't
kill off a Pa Ratchet unless you want the wrath of
millions of viewers who, in my judgment, would
latch on to the flimsiest connection to raise
hysterical questions. National Inquirer, you are
there."

"But you're not keeping silent," said Enid Heathley.

   "I'm not talking loudly, either," corrected the
actor. "But not for the reasons I've described. I owe
Walter Peregrine I know that better than anyone
else. And I can't pay that debt if a man I think is
innocent is hanged for his murder. But here's where
I step back into my own confusion. I can't be
certain. I could be wrong."

   The woman returned Dowling's stare, then
slowly frowned, keeping her eyes on him. "I'm going
to leave now, but I'd like you to stay here for a
while, if you wouldn't mind. I'm going to call
someone I think you should see. You'll understand.
He'll reach you here no paging, of course. Do as
he says, go where he wants you to go."

"Can I trust him?"

   "Mr. Peregrine did," said Enid Heathley,
nodding. "And he didn't like him."

"That's trust," said the actor.

   The phone call came and Caleb wrote out the
address. The doorman at the Konigshof secured him
a taxi, and eight minutes later he got out in front of
an ornate Victorian house on the outskirts of Borm.
He walked up to the door and rang the bell.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   437

   Two minutes later he was ushered into a large
room once a library, perhaps but now with shades
covering the obvious bookshelves. Shades that were
detailed maps of East and West Germany. A man
wearing glasses got up from behind a desk. He
nodded perfunctorily and spoke. "Mr. Dowling?"

"Yes."

   'I appreciate your coming out here, sir. My name
is not important why not call me George?"

"All right, George."

   "But for your own confidential information and
I must stress confidential I am the station chief for
the Central Intelligence Agency here in Bonn."

"All right, George."

   "What do you do, Mr. Dowling? What's your line
of work?"

"Ciao, baby," said the actor, shaking his head.

25

   The first indefinite light of dawn crept up the
lower wall of the eastern sky, and along the river pier
boats bobbed in their slips, straining their lines,
creating an eerie symphony of creaks and thumps.
Joel walked beside the young merchant seaman, his
hand unconsciously straying to his face, to the new
soft hair that was the outgrowth of a stubble. He had
not shaved in four days, not since Bonn, and now he
had the beginnings of a short, neat beard, not yet full
but no longer an unkempt bristle. One more day and
he would have to begin clipping it, shaping it,
another plane of removal from the photograph in the
newspapers.

   And in one more day he would have to decide
whether or not to phone Val at Cape Ann. Actually,
he had made his decision negative. His instructions
had been clear enough and the possibility that her
telephone was tapped was more than he could
handle. Yet he wanted so terribly to hear her voice,
to hear the support he knew he would find in it.
Negative. To hear it was to involve her. Negative!

438   ROBERT LUDIUM

   "It is the last boat on the right,' said the seaman,
slowing his pace. "I must ask you again, because I
gave my word. You carry no drugs."

"I carry no drugs."

"He may want to search you."

   "I can't permit that," Converse broke in, thinking
of his money belt. What could be mistaken for a
cache of narcotics would reveal many times the
amount of money for which most of the dregs on
the riverfront would kill.

   "Maybe he want to know why. Drugs bring bad
penalty, long time in prison."

   "I'll explain to him privately," said Joel, thinking
again. He would do so with his gun in one hand and
an additional $500 bill in the other. "But I give you
my word, no drugs."

"It iS not my boat."

   "But you made the arrangements, and you know
enough about me to come after me if they came
after you."

   "la, I remember. Connect-teecut I been to visit
friends in Bridge-port. A broker house, a
vice-president. I find you if I have to."

   "I wouldn't want that. You're a nice fellow who's
helping me out and l m grateful. I won t get you in
trouble.

   "Ja," said the young German, nodding his head.
"I believe you. I believe you last night. You talk
very good, very high class, but you were stupid. You
did a stupid thing and your face is red. A red face
costs more than you want to pay so you pay much
more to make it go away."

"Your homilies are getting to me. '

"Was ist?"

   "Nothing. You're right. It's the story of
upper-level management. Here.' Joel had the bills in
his left-hand pocket; he pulled them out. "I
promised you fifteen hundred dollars. Count it, if
you like."

   "dye? If is not there I talk loud and you stay
here. You are too afraid to risk that."

"You're a natural-born lawyer."

   "Come, I bring you to the captain. To you, he is
only'captain.' You will be dropped off where he
says.... And be careful. Watch the men on the boat.
They will think you have money."

   "That's why I don't want to be searched,"
admitted Converse.

"I know. I do my best for you."

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   439

   The seaman's best was not quite good enough.
The captain of the filthy barge, a short hulk of a man
with very poor teeth, brought Joel up to the
wheelhouse, where he told him in broken but
perfectly clear English to remove his jacket.

   "I explained to my friend on the dock that I can't
do that. '

"Two hundred dollars Amer~kaner," said the captain.

   Converse had the money in his right-hand pocket.
He reached down for it, his eyes briefly glancing at
the portside window where he saw two other men
climb on board below in the dim light. They did not
glance up; they had not seen him in the wheelhouse
shadows.

   The blow came suddenly, without warning, the
impact such that Joel doubled over, his breath
knocked out of him, and gripped his stomach. In
front of him the surly bull of a captain was shaking
his right hand the grimace on his face indicating
sharp pain. The German s fist had crashed into the
gun lodged in Converse's belt. Joel staggered back
into the bulkhead, leaned against it, and lowered
himself to the floor as he reached under his jacket
and took out the weapon. On his haunches, his legs
bracing him against the wall, he aimed the automatic
at the captain's huge chest.

   "That was a rotten thing to do," said Converse,
breathing hard, still holding his stomach. "Now, you
bastard, your jacketl"

"Was... 9"

   "You heard mel Take it off, hold it upside down,
and shake the goddamned thingI"

   The German slowly, reluctantly, slid off his
waist-length coat, twice darting his eyes to the left of
Joel, toward the wheelhouse door. "I look only for
drugs."

   "I'm not carrying any, and if I were, I suspect
whoever sold them to me would have a better way to
get across the river than with you. Turn it upside
down! Shake it!"

   The captain held his coat by the bottom edge and
let it fall away. A short, ugly revolver plummeted to
the floor, clacking on the wood, followed by the
lighter sound of a long knife encased in a flat bone
handle, flared at the end. As it struck the deck the
blade shot out.

"This is the river," said the German without
elaboration.

   "And I just want to cross it without any
trouble and trouble to someone as nervous as I am
is anyone walking through that door." Converse
angled his head, gesturing at

440   ROBERT LUDLUM

the wheelhouse entrance on his left. ' In my state of
mind, I'd fire this gun. I'd probably kill you and
whoever else came in here. I'm not as strong as you,
Captain, but I'm afraid, and that makes me much
more dangerous. Can you understand that?"

"Ja. I not hurt you. I look only for drugs.''

   "You hurt me plenty," corrected Joel. "And that
frightens me."

"Nein. Bitte . . . please."

"When do you take the boat out?"

"When I say."

"How many crew?"

"One man, that is all."

   "Liar/" whispered Converse sharply, the gun
thrust forward.

   "Zwei. Two men . . . today. We pick up heavy
crates in Elten. On my word, is normal only one
man. I can t pay more."

   "Start the engine," ordered Joel. "Or engines. I
only know Chris-Crafts and Bertrams, which is a
silly fucking thing to say."

"What?"

"Do it!"

"Die Mannschaft. The . . . crew. I must give orders."

   "WaitI" Converse crawled sideways past the
wheelhouse door, glancing above to his left at the
thick wooden paneling of the pilot's window, his gun
never once wavering from its line of fire into the
German's chest. Again, he used the bulkhead and
his braced legs to shinny himself up the wall; he was
in shadows, with a clear view of the bow and,
through both wheelhouse windows behind him, the
stern of the boat. In sight were the fore and aft
pilings on both sides, the lines looped around the
thick protrusions of weather-beaten logs. The two
crewmen were sitting on a storage hatchway, smok-
ing cigarettes, one drinking from a can of beer. "All
right," said Joel, clicking the hammer back on the
automatic a weapon he was not sure he could use
accurately within ten feet. "Open that door and give
your orders. And if either of those men down there
does anything but free those ropes, I'll kill you. Can
you understand that?"

   "I understand . . . everything you say, but you do
not understand me. I search you for drugs not a
grosse Mann the Polizei do not go after such
people, they leave them alone.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   441

They go after the small people who use the
riverboats. It makes them look good, you see. I
would not hurt you. I only protect myself. I want to
believe what my Neffe nephew told me, but I must
be sure."

"Your nephew?"

   "The seaman from Bremerhaven. How you think
he got his job? Ach, main Bruder sells flowers! It is
his Frau's shop! He once sailed the oceans as I did.
Now, he is a Blumenhandler!

   "I swear to Christ I don't understand anything,"
said Joel, partially lowering his gun.

   "Maybe you understand if I tell you he offered to
pay me one half of the fifteen hundred dollars you
pay him."

"A consortium of thieves."

"Rein, I not take. I tell him buy a new Gitarre."

Converse sighed. "I have no drugs. Do you believe
me?"

   "Ja, you are only a fool, he told me. Rich fools
pay more. They cannot tell people how foolish they
are. The poor do not care."

"Do those little bromides run in the family?"

"What?"

"Forget it. Give the orders. Let's get out of here."

   "Ja. Watch through the windows, please. I do not
want you to be more afraid. You are right. A man
afraid is much more dangerous."

   Joel leaned back against the bulkhead as the
captain shouted his orders. The engines started and
the lines were released from their pilings. It was so
contrary, he thought. Hostile, belligerent men who
struck out in anger were not always his enemies,
while pleasant, seemingly friendly people wanted to
kill him. It was a world he knew nothing about, a
long stretch from a courtroom or a boardroom where
courtesy and "killing" could mean a variety of things.
There were no such grey areas a hundred years ago
in the camps and the jungles. One knew who the
enemy was; the definition was clear on all sides. But
during the past four days he had learned that there
were no defined lines for him now. Converse stared
out the window, at the pockets of mist rising out of
the water, a few spiraling up to catch the early light
in their clouds of vapor. His mind went blank. He
did not care to think for a while....

   "Five, perhaps six minutes," said the captain,
swinging the wheel to his left.

442   ROBERT LUDLUM

   Joel blinked; he had been in a peaceful,
rest-filled void, for how long he was not sure. "What
are the procedures?" he asked, conscious of the
rising orange sun firing what was left of the river
mists. "I mean, what do I do?"

   "As little as you can, answered the German. "Just
walk like you walk the pier every morning and go
through the repair yard to the street. You will be in
the south part of the town of Lobith. You will be in
die Niederlande and we never saw each other.

"I understand that, but how?"

   "You see that Bootshafen?' said the captain,
pointing to a complex of docks with heavy winch
machinery and hoisting devices across the water.

"It s a marina. '

   Ja, marina. My second petrol tank is empty I
say I test. I stall the engines three hundred meters
offshore and go in. I yell at the Dutchman's price
but I pay, because I do not buy from the deutsche
thief this far downriver. You get off with one of my
crew, have a cigarette and laugh at your stupid cap-
tain then you walk away.

"Just like that?'

''la. ,,

"It's so easy.

   "la. No one said it was difficult. You only have
to keep your eyes clear.

"For the police?"

   "Nein," said the captain, shrugging. "If there is
Polizei they come to boat, you stay on board."

"Then who am I looking for?"

"Men who may watch you, may see you walk away.
'

"What men?"

   "Gesindel, Gauner what you call scum. They
come each morning to the piers and look for work,
most still drunk. Watch for such men. They will
think you have drugs or money. They will break
your head and steal."

   "Your nephew told me to watch the men on
your own boat."

   "Only the new man, he is a Gauner. He chokes
on his beer hoping it will clear his head. He thinks
he fools me but he does not. I keep him on board,
tell him to scrape the rail something. The other is
no problem for you. He is loyal to me an Idiot with
a strong back and no head. The riverboats do not
hire him. I do. Verstehen?"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   443

   '1 think so. By the way, I have to get to
Amsterdam. Is there a train here?"

   "No train in Lobith. You take the omnibus to
Arnhem. The train to Amsterdam is in Arnhem. I
use it many times when my ships dock in die
Niederlande. The omnibus stops at the railroad
station. Not long ride."

   "Ships? Large ships?" asked Joel, struck by the
captain's words.

   "I once sailed the oceans, not a stinking river.
Fifteen years of age I ship out with main Bruder. By
twenty-three I am Obermaat 'petit' officer good
money, good life.... Very happy." The German
lowered his voice as he throttled back the engines
and spun the wheel starboard; the boat skidded on
the water. "Why talk? It is over," he added angrily.

"What happened?"

   "It is not for you, Amerikaner. " The captain
pushed the throttle forward; the engines coughed.

"I'm interested."

"Warum? Why?"

   "I don't know. Maybe it takes my mind off my
own problems," said Converse honestly.

   The German looked briefly at him. "You ask?
Okay. We never see each other.... I stole money,
much money. It took the company purser nine
months to find me. Aber, ach, he find me! It was
many years ago. No more oceans, only the

. ,,

ever.

   "But you said you were making good money.
Why did you steal?"

"Why do most men steal?"

   "They need it the money or they want things
they can't have normally, or they're just basically
dishonest, which I don't think you are."

"Go back. Adam stole the apple, Amerikaner."

"Not exactly. You mean a woman?"

   "Many years ago. She was with child and she
did not want her man on the seas and the ships.
She wanted more." The captain permitted himself
the slightest glint in his eyes and a touch of a smile
on his lips. "She wanted a flower shop."

   From the core of his stomach, his pain
momentarily forgotten, Joel laughed. "You're quite
a guy, Captain." I never see you again."

"Then your nephew "

"Never see you again!" the German broke in, now
laugh
444   ROBERT LUDLUM

ing out loud himself, his eyes on the water as he
headed into the Dutch marina.

   Converse leaned against a piling smoking a
cigarette, the visor of his cheap cap angled over his
forehead, his eyes roaming up and down the pier
and beyond to the repair yard in the Dutch marina.
The men milling about the huge machinery were
mechanically going about their tasks while those
around the boats seemed more intent on inspecting
than doing, shaking their heads solemnly. The
captain argued with the dispenser of fuel, making
obscene gestures at the rapidly climbing figures on
the glass-encased face of the pump while his
softheaded deckhand grinned several feet away. On
board, the Gauner alternately leaned over the
railing, a large wire brush in his hands, and abruptly
turned back to his scraping whenever his employer
glanced over at him.

   The time was right, thought Joel as he pushed
himself away from the piling. No one anywhere had
the slightest interest in him; the dismal chores and
the early-morning dissatisfactions took precedence
over the insignificant and unfamiliar.

   He started walking up the pier, his pace casual
to the point of being slovenly but his eyes alert. He
proceeded to the edge of the repair yard
approaching a row of hulls in dry dock. Beyond the
last elevated boat, no more than three hundred feet
away, was an inordinately tall hurricane fence and
an open gate. A uniformed guard sat on the left
drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, his chair
angled back into the crisscrossing wire mesh. Seeing
him, Joel stopped, his breath suspended, an internal
alarm going off for no reason. Men passed back
and forth through the gate, but the guard did not so
much as glance at anyone, his eyes devouring only
the tabloid on his lap.

   Converse turned, a last look at the river.
Suddenly he became aware of the captain. The
German had run to the base of the pier and was
gesturing wildly, pressing his hands forward in short,
rapid strokes. He was trying to warn Converse.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs; men stared
at him and turned away, none caring to be involved.
They had seen too much in the early hours on the
waterfront, the slashing with hooks too frequently
the language of the docks.

"Laugh Run! Get oral!"

Joel was mystified; he looked around. Then he saw
them.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   "5

Two no three burly men were lurching up from the
pier, their glassy eyes focused on him. The first man
staggered forward to the left of the captain. The
Cerman grabbed his shoulder, swinging him around,
stopping him, but only for seconds as the other two
men crashed their fists into the captain's neck and
spine. They were animals Gauner their nostrils in-
flamed by the scent of a trapped fat quarry who
might keep them in food and drink for days.

   Converse dove under the row of dry-docked
boats, smashing his head on several hurts as he
scrambled toward the other side and the shafts of
light beyond. He could see frantic legs pounding the
earth behind him; they were gaining on him; they
were running, he was crawling. He reached the end
of the suspended row of hulls, sprang out and started
for the gate. He pulled out his shirt, tore off the
lower section and held it against the cuts on his head
as he walked rapidly past the guard and through the
gate. He looked around. The three men were arguing
furiously, drunkenly, among themselves, two
crouching and peering unsteadily under the boats.
Then the man standing saw him. He shouted to the
others; they stood up and started after Joel. He ran
faster, unfit he could see them no longer; the animals
had given up.

   He was in the Netherlands; the welcome was less
than gracious, but he was there, one step closer to
Amsterdam. On the other hand he had no idea
where he was right now except that the town was
named Lobith. He had to catch his breath and think.
He stepped into a deserted storefront, where a dark
shade behind the entrance made the glass a dim
mirror it was enough. He was a mess. Think. For
God's sake, think)

   Mattilon had told him to take the train from
Arnhem to Amsterdam, he remembered that clearly.
And the captain of the barge had said he had to take
an "omnibus" from Lobith to Arnhem; there was no
train in Lobith. The first thing he had to do was
reach the railroad station in Arnhem, clean himself
up, then study the crowds and judge whether to risk
becoming part of them. And relative to this
consideration, his mind darted in several directions
at once. The plain-lensed glasses had long since
disappeared, undoubtedly during the insane events in
Wesel; he would replace them with dark glasses.
There was little he could do about the scrapes on his
face, but they would appear less menacing after soap
and water, and certainly in or around a railroad
station something could be done about his torn
clothing.... And a map. God

446   ROBERT LUDLUM

damn it, he was a pilot! He could reach Point A
from Point B and he had to do so quickly. He had
to reach Amsterdam and find a way to make
contact with a man named Cort Thorbecke and
call Nathan Simon in New York. There was so
much to do!

   As he walked out of the storefront he was
suddenly aware of what was happening to him. It
had happened before a lifetime ago, in the j
tingles when the fear of the night sounds had
passed and he c ould watch the dawn and accurately
plot his directions, his lines of march, his survival.
He was thinking, his mind functioning again. All
things considered, he was far less the man than
what he had been, but he could be better than he
was he had to be. Every day that passed brought
the generals of Aquitaine closer to whatever
madness they were planning. Everywhere. He and
they had to reverse roles. The hunted had to
become the hunter. Delavane's disciples had
convinced the world he was a psychopathic assassin,
and so they had to find him, take him, kill him and
hold him up as one more example of the spreading
insanity that could be contained only with their
solutions. Aquitaine had to be exposed and
destroyed before it was too late. The countdown
was in progress, the commanders surely, inexorably,
moving into their positions, consolidating their
powers.

   Move! shouted Converse silently to himself as he
walked faster down the pavement.

   He sat in the last car of the train, still wary but
satisfied by the progress he had made. He had done
everything cautiously but without wasting mohon,
his concentration absolute, aware of a dozen
possible dangers eyes that stared at him, a man or
a woman seen twice in too short a bme, a clerk
delaying him by being more helpful than the hour
and the crowds would normally permit. These
calculated possibilities were his readouts, his dials,
his gauges; without clearance he would abort all
forward motion, takeoff canceled, the escape hatch
sprung, safety found in the streets. His equipment
was not an aircraft that was an extension of himself,
it was himself; and he had never flown with such
precision in his life.

   ENGLISH SPOKE had been the sign tacked to
the roof of the busy corner newsst.md in Lobith. He
had asked directions to the "omnibus" to Arnhem
while buying a map and a newspaper, holding both
close to his face. The owner was too preoccupied
with customers to notice his appearance and

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   447

shouted rapid instructions, more useful in the
pointed finger than in the words. Joel found the bus
stop some four blocks away. He sat in the crowded
vehicle, his face buried in a newspaper he could not
read, and forty-odd minutes later he got off at the
railroad station in Arnhem.

   First on his checklist was a trip to the farthest
washbasin in the men's room, where he cleaned
himself up. He had brushed his clothes as best he
could and looked in the mirror. He was still a mess,
but somehow he looked more like a man who had
been injured than one who had been beaten; there
was a difference.

   Next, outside in the station, he converted his
deutsche marks and five hundred American dollars
into florins and guilders. He then bought a pair of
wide-rimmed dark glasses at a pharmacy several
doors from the currency exchange. As he got into the
cashier's line, his hand casually covering the bruises
on his face, his eyes fell on a cosmetics counter
across the far aisle. It triggered a memory.

   Shortly after their marriage, in one of those
maddening accidents that only happen at the most
inopportune times, Valerie had slipped on a foyer
rug and fell, hitting her head against the corner of an
antique hallway table. By seven that night she had
what Joel had described as 'one hell of a mouse"; the
black eye was an almost perfect oval, arcing from the
bridge of her nose to the edge of her left temple. At
ten the next morning she was scheduled to lead a
bilingual presentation for agency clients from
Stuttgart. She had sent him out to the drugstore for
a small bottle of liquid makeup, which, except at
close range, had concealed the bruise remarkably
well.

   "I don't want people to think my brand-new
husband beat the hell out of me for not fulfilling his
wildest sexual fantasies."

"Which one did you miss?" he had asked.

   He stepped out of the cashier's line and made his
way around the cases to the display of creams and
colognes, shampoos, and nail polish. He recognized
the bottle, chose a darker shade, and returned to the
line.

   A second trip to a washbasin had taken ten
minutes, but the results justified the time. He applied
the makeup carefully; the scrapes and bruises faded.
Unless someone stood very close to him, he was no
longer a battered brawler but a man who had
perhaps suffered a not too serious fall. Converse
con

448   ROBERT LUDLUM

gratulated himself in that men's room in the
railroad station. Under other circumstances, he
might not have dressed a client so well before a
trial for assault and battery.

   The checklist continued. It had taken him to
where he was now, in the last car on the
straight-through train from Arnhem to Amsterdam.
After buying his ticket on what he inferred was a
low-priced excursion train that made numerous
stops, he had walked out on the platform prepared
to run back at the slightest negative readout, the
first steady glance that held him in focus. Instead he
saw a group of men and women, couples around his
own age, talking and laughing together, friends
more than likely off for a short summer's holiday,
perhaps leaving the river for the sea. The men
carried worn, dented suitcases, most held together
with rope, while a number of the women held
wicker baskets looped over their arms. Their
luggage and their clothing denoted working
class factories for the men, home and children or
the less demanding clerical jobs for the women all
within that part of the spectrum that suited Joel's
own appearance. He had walked behind them,
laughing quietly when they laughed climbing on
board as though he were part of the group, sitting
in an aisle seat across from a burly man with a
slender woman who, despite her thin frame, proudly
bore a pair of enormous breasts. Converse's eyes
could hardly avoid them and the man grinned at
Joel, no malice in his look as he raised a bottle of
beer to his lips.

   Somewhere Converse had read or heard that in
the northern countries people going on summer
vacations or on holiday, as was the
term gravitated to the last cars in the
Trans-Europe-Express. It was a custom that
somehow signified their status, producing a general
camaraderie that enlivened the working man's
junket. Joel observed the none too subtle
transformation. Men and women got out of their
seats and walked up and down the aisle talking to
friends and strangers alike, cans and bottles in their
hands. From the front of the car a few people broke
into song, obviously a familiar country song; others
took it up only to be drowned out by Converse's
group, who raised their voices in an entirely differ-
ent chorus until the singing of both camps dwindled
away into laughter. Conviviality, indeed, was the
order of the morning in the last car on the train to
Amsterdam. The stations went by, a few passengers
getting off at each, more getting on, with suitcases,
baskets, and broad smiles, and being welcomed on

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   449

board with boisterous greetings. A number of men
wore T-shirts emblazoned with the names of town
and district teams soccer, Converse assumed.
Catcalls and amiably derisive shouts were hurled at
them by age-old competitors. The railroad car was
turning into an odd Dutch version of a trainload of
suddenly freed adults going off to a summer camp.
The volume grew.

   The towns were aumounced, the brief stops made
as Joel remained in his seat, motionless and
unobtrusive, now and then glancing at his adopted
group, half smiling or laughing softly when it seemed
appropriate. Otherwise he looked like someone of
limited intelligence poring over a map as a child
might, equal parts wonderment and confusion. He
was studying the streets and canals of Amsterdam.
There was a man who lived on the southwest corner
of Utrechtsestraat and Kerkstrsat, a man he had to
identify by sight, isolate and make contact with . . .
his springboard to Washington would be as a '
member of the Tatiana family." He had to pull Cort
Thorbecke away from his base of operations without
alerting the hunters of Aquitaine. He would pay an
English-speaking intermediary to get to a telephone
and use words sufficiently plausible to draw the
broker out to some other location, with no mention
of the Tatiana connection or its source in Paris.
Those words would have to be found; he would find
them somehow, he had to. He was psychologically on
his way back toward friendly fire in terms of actual
time less than seven hours from Washington and
men who would listen to him with Nathan Simon's
help and an extraordinary file that would persuade
them to hide him and protect him until the soldiers
of Aquitaine were exposed. It was not the way
envisioned by a man he had once known in
Connecticut as Avery Fowler hardly the legal tactics
whose roots were in ridicule as prescribed by A.
Preston Halliday in Geneva, but there was no time
now. Time was running out for manipulated webs of
legality.

   The train slowed down, jerking as it did so, as if
the engineer far up ahead was trying to send another
kind of message to a rowdy car in the rear, which felt
the shocks most severely. If that was his intent, it,
too, backfired. The pitching motion served only to
accelerate the laughter and provoke insults shouted
at an unseen incompetent.

   "Amstel!" screamed a conductor, opening the
forward door between the cars. "Amsterdam!
Amst i" The poor man

450   ROBERT IUDLUM

could not finish the call he had to pull the door
shut to avoid a barrage of rolled-up newspapers
thrown at him. Summer camp in the Netherlands.

   The train pulled into the station and a
contingent of T-shirted chests and breasts
announced their arrival with shouts of recognition.
Five or six people at the front of Joel's group rose
as one to welcome their friends, again cans and
bottles were held in the air and laughter bounced
off the narrow walls, nearly drowning out the
whistles of departure outside. Bodies fell over
bodies, hugs were exchanged, breasts playfully
grabbed at.

   Beyond the new an ivals, walking unsteadily, was
the illogically logical capstone for the juvenile antics
taking place in front of Converse. An old woman,
obviously drunk, made her way down the aisle, her
disheveled clothes matching the large, tattered
canvas bag she clutched in her left hand while she
steadied herself with her right on the edge of the
seats as the train accelerated. Grinning, she
accepted a bottle of beer as another was thrown into
her satchel, followed by several sandwiches wrapped
in waxed paper. Again, there were greetings of
welcome as two men in the aisle bowed to the waist
as if to a queen. A third slapped her behind and
whistled. For several minutes the ritual continued,
a new mechanical toy for the children off to summer
camp. The old woman drank and danced a jig and
made playfully suggestive gestures at men and
women alike, sticking out her tongue and rolling it
around, her ancient eyes bulging, rolling, her ragged
shawl twirling in circles like the ballet of some
macabre Scheherazade. She amused everyone with
her drunken antics as she accepted all that was
dropped into her offering cloth, including coins. The
Dutch vacationers were kind, thoughtJoel they took
care of someone less fortunate than themselves
someone who would be banred from another class
of car on another train. The woman approached
him, her canvas bag now held in front of her so as
to accept alms from both sides. Converse reached
into his pocket for a few Builders, letting them slip
from his hand into the bag.

   "Goedemorgen, " said the old woman, weaving.
"Dank u wel, haste man, erg vriendelijk van u!"

   Joel nodded, resuming to his map, but the bag
lady remained.

"Uw hoold! Ach, heb je een ongeluk Chad, jongen?"

Again Converse nodded, reaching again into his
pocket

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   451

and giving the inebriated old hag more money. He
pointed to his map and waved her away, as yet
another raucous chorus erupted.

   "Spreekt u Engels?" shouted the bag lady, leaning
over unsteadily.

   Joel shrugged, sinking back into the seat, his eyes
riveted on the map.

   "I think you do. " The old woman spoke hoarsely,
clearly soberly, her right hand no longer on the edge
of the seat but instead in the canvas bag. "We've been
looking for you every day, on every train. Don t
move! The gun is equipped with a silencer. With all
this noise, if I pull the trigger no one would know the
difference, including the man beside you who wants
only to join the party and the big-breasted women. I
think we shall let him. We have you, Meneer
Converse!"

   There was no summer camp, after all. Only death
minutes away from Amsterdam.

26

   "Mag ik u even lastig fallen?" shouted the old
woman, once more weaving unsteadily as she spoke
to the passenger beside Converse. The man took his
eyes off the raucous festivities in the aisle and
glanced up at the harridan. She shouted again, her
right hand still in the bag, her mass of disheveled
grey hair springing back and forth as she nodded to
her right, toward the front of the car. ' Zou ik op uw
plants molten zitten?"

   "Mid loest!" The man got up grinning, as Joel
instinctively moved his legs to let him pass. "Dank u
wel, " the man added heading for a single empty seat
beyond a couple dancing in the aisle.

   "Move over!" commanded the old woman harshly,
swaying with the rhythm of the racing train.

   If it was going to happen, thought Converse, it
was going to happen now. He started to rise, his eyes
straight ahead, his right elbow on the armrest inches
from the bulging bag. Suddenly he plunged his hand
into the open canvas bag and

452   ROBERT LUDIUM

gripped the fat wrist of the woman's hand that held
the unseen gun. Straining, pressing farther down,
clutching flesh and metal, he swung violently to his
left and yanked the old woman through the narrow
space, twisting her, crashing her down into the seat
next to the window. There was a sharp spit as the
gun exploded, burning a hole in the heavy cloth,
smoke billowing, the bullet embedding itself
somewhere below. The hag's strength was maniacal,
unlike anything he might have imagined. She fought
viciously, clawing at his face until he pulled her arm
above her head, twisting it, clamping it behind her,
their two hands still struggling below in the bag. She
would not let go of the weapon and he could not
pry it loose; he could only hold it downward, his
grip immobilising her fingers, force against force,
her contorted face telling him she would not
surrender.

   The midmorning revels of the railroad car
reached a crescendo; a cacophony of voices raised
in jumbled song competed with the swelling echoes
of laughter. And no one paid the slightest attention
to the savage struggle that was taking place in the
narrow seat. Suddenly, within the panic of that
struggle, within the violent impasse, Joel was aware
that the train was slowing don n, if only
imperceptibly. Once again his pilot's instincts told
him a descent was imminent. He jammed his elbow
into the old woman's right breast to jolt her into
freeing the gun. Still she held on, bracing herself
against the seat, her arm pinned, her fat legs
stretched below, angled like thick pylons anchored
beneath the forward seat, her obese body twisted,
locking his own arm in place so he could not
dislodge the weapon from her grip.

   "Let go!" he whispered hoarsely. 'I won't hurt
you I won't kill you. Whatever you're being paid,
I'll pay you more!"

   "Bee! I would be found at the bottom of a canal!
You can't escape, Menheer! They wait for you in
Amsterdam, they wait for the train!" Grimacing, the
old woman kicked out, briefly freeing her left arm.
She swung her hand around, clawing his face, her
nails sliding down his beard until he grabbed her
wrist, pulling her arm across the seat and cracking
it into her own knee, twisting her hand clockwise,
forcing her to be still. It made no difference. Her
right hand had the strength of an aging lioness
protecting its pride; she would not release the gun
below.

   'You're Iying!" cried Converse. "No one knows
I'm on this trains You just got on twenty minutes
ago!"

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   453

   "Wrong, A mer~knan ! I've been on since
Arnhem I start in the front, walk back. I found you
out at Utrecht and a teiephone call was made."

'Liar!"

"You will see."

"Who hired you?"

"Men."

"Who?"

"You will see."

"Goddamn you, you're not part of them! You can't
bel"

   "They pay. Up and down the railroad they pay.
On the piers, in the airports. They say you speak
nothing but English."

'What else do they say?"

   "Why should I tell you? You're caught. It is you
who should let me go. It could be easier for you."

   "How? A quick bullet in the head instead of a
Hanoi rack?"

   "Whatever it is, the bullet could be better. You
are too young to know, Meneer. You were never
under occupation."

   "And you're too old to be so goddamned strong,
I'll give you that."

'ha, I learn that, too."

"Let go!"

   The train was braking and the drunken crowd in
the car roared its approval as men grabbed suitcases
from the upper racks. The passenger who had been
sitting next to Joel hastily yanked his from above the
seat, his stomach pressing into Converse's shoulder.
Joel tried to appear as though he were in deep
conversation with his grimacing half-prisoner; the
man fell back, suitcase in hand, laughing.

   The old woman lurched forward, sinking her
mouth into Converse's upper arm, millimeters from
his wound. She bit him viciously, her yellow teeth
penetrating his flesh, blood bursting out of his skin,
trickling down the woman's grey chin.

   He pulled back in pain. She freed her hand from
his grip in the canvas bag; the gun was hers! She
fired; the muted spit was followed by a shattering of
a section of the floor in the aisle, missingJoel's feet
by inches. He grabbed the unseen barrel, twisted it,
pulled it, trying with all his strength to wrench it
away. She fired again.

   Her eyes grew wide as she arched back into the
seat. They remained open as she slumped into the
window, blood

454   ROBERT LUDIUM

spreading quickly through the thin fabric of her
dress in the upper section of her stomach. She was
dead, and Joel felt ill nauseated he had to swallow
air to keep from vomiting. Trembling, he wondered
who this old woman was, why she was what she
had lived through that made her become what she
was. You were too young to know.... You were never
under occupation.

   No time to think about all this! She had wanted
to kill him, that was all he had to know, and men
were waiting for him only minutes away. He had to
think, move!

   Twisting the gun from her rigid fingers inside
the canvas bag, he quickly lifted it up and shoved it
under his coarse jacket, inserting it under his belt,
feeling the weight of the other weapon in his
pocket. He reached over and bunched the woman's
dress in folds, then layered her shawl over the
bloodstains and pushed her mass of disheveled hair
over her right cheek, concealing the wide dead eyes.
Experience in the camps told him not to try to close
the eyes; too often they would not respond. fhe
action might only call attention to him to her. The
last thing he did was to pull a can of beer out of the
bag, open it, and place it on her lap; the liquid
spilled out, drenching' her lap.

   "Amsterdam! Df volgende halls is Amsterdam-Cen-
traal.~"

   A roar went up from the vacationing crowd as
the line began to form toward the door. Oh, Christ!
thought Converse. How? The old woman had said a
telephone call had been made. A telephone call,
which implied she had not made it herself. It was
logical; there was too little time. She had un-
doubtedly paid one of her sister bag ladies who
plied the trains at the station in Utrecht to make it.
The information therefore would be minimum,
simply because there was no time. She was a special
employee, one who had been researched as only
Aquitaine could research, an old woman who was
strong and who could use a weapon and who would
not shrink from taking a life who would not say
too much to anyone. She would merely give a
telephone number and instruct the hired caller to
repeat the time of the train's arrival. Again . . .
therefore . . . he had a chance. Every male
passenger would be scrutinised, every face matched
against the face in the newspapers. But he was and
he was not that face! And he did not speak any
language but English that information had been
spread with emphasis.

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   455

Think!

   "Ze is drunken!" The words were shouted by the
burly man with the enormously endowed wife at his
side as he pointed to the dead woman. Both were
laughing, and Joel did not need an interpreter to
understand. Converse nodded, grinning broadly as he
shrugged. He had found his way out of the station in
Amsterdam.

   For Converse understood there was a universal
language employed when the decibel of noise was
such that one could neither hear nor be heard. It was
also used when one was bored at cocktail parties, or
when one watched football games on television with
clowns who were convinced they knew a great deal
more than coaches or quarterbacks, or when one was
gathered and trapped into an evening in New York
with the "beautiful people" most of whom qualified
as neither in the most rudimentary sense, egos far
outdistancing either talent or humanity. In such
situations one nodded; one smiled one occasionally
placed a friendly hand on a shoulder, the touch
signifying communication but one said nothing.

   Joel did all of these things as he got off the train
with the burly man and his wife. He became almost
manic, playing the role as one who knew there was
nothing left between death and survival but a certain
kind of controlled madness. The lawyer in him
provided the control; the child pilot tested the winds,
knowing his aircraft would respond to the elemental
pressures because it was sound and he was good and
he enjoyed the craziness of a stall forced by a
downdraft; he could easily pull out.

   He had removed his dark glasses and pulled his
cap far down over his forehead. His hand was on the
burly man's shoulder as they walked up the platform,
the Dutchman laughing as he spoke, Joel nodding,
slapping his companion's shoulder, laughing in return
whenever there was a break in the man's monologue.
Since the couple had been drinking neither took
much notice of his incomprehensible replies, he
seemed like a nice person, and in their state nothing
else really mattered.

   As they walked up out of the platform toward
the terminal Converse's constantly roving eyes were
drawn to a man standing in a crowd of welcomers
beyond the archway at the end of the ramp. Joel first
noticed him because unlike those around
him whose faces were lit up in varying degrees of
anticipation this man's expression was serious to
the point

456   ROBERT LUDLUM

of being solemn. Ile was not there to offer welcome.
Then suddenly Converse knew there was another
reason why this man had caught his attention. The
moment he recognised the face he knew exactly
where he had seen it walking rapidly down a path
surrounded by thick foliage with another man,
another guard. The man up ahead was one of the
patrols from Erich Leifhelm's compound above the
Rhine.

   As they approached the arch, Joel laughed a
little louder and made it a point to clap the
Dutchman's shoulder a little harder, his cap still
angled down over his forehead. He followed several
nods with a shrug or two and then with a
good-humored shaking of the head; with brows
furrowed and lips constantly moving, he was
obviously in fluent conversation. Through narrowed
eyes Converse saw that Leifhelm's guard was staring
at him; then the man looked away. They passed
through the arch and in the corner of his vision Joel
was abruptly aware of a head whipping around, then
of a figure pushing other figures out of his path.
Converse turned, looking over the Dutchman s
shoulder. It happened. His eyes locked with those of
LeifLelm s guard. The recognition was instant, and
for that instant the Cerman panicked, turning his
head back toward the ramp. He started to shout,
then stopped. He reached under his jacket and
moved forward.

   Joel broke away from the couple and began
racing threading his way through succeeding walls of
bodies, heading for a series of archlike ascending
exits through which sunlight streamed into the
ornate terminal. Twice he looked behind him as he
ran; the first time he could not see the man, the
second time he did. LeifLelm's guard was screaming
orders to someone across the way, rising on the
balls of his feet to see and be seen, gesturing at the
exit doors in the distance. Converse ran faster,
pulling his way through the crowd toward the steps
that led to the massive exit. He climbed the
staircase swiftly but within the rhythm of the most
harried departing passengers, holding to the center,
trying to call as little attention to himself as
possible.

   He bolted through a door into the sunlight, into
total confusion. Below was water and piers and
glass-covered boats bobbing up and down, people
rushing past them, others ushered on board under
the watchful eyes of men in white-and-blue
uniforms. He had come off a train only to emerge
on some kind of strange waterfront. Then he
remembered: the railroad station in Amsterdam was
built on an is

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   457

land facing the center of the city; thus it was known
as the Centraal. Yet there was a street two streets,
three streets bridging the water toward other streets
and trees and buildings . . . no time! He was out in
the open and those streets in the distance were his
caves of survival; they were the ravines and the thick,
impenetrable acres of bush and swamp that would
hide him from the enemy! He ran as fast as he could
along the wide boulevard bordered by water and
reached an even wider thoroughfare clogged with
traffic, buses, trams, and automobiles, all at their
own starting gates, anxious for bells to release them.
He saw a dwindling line at the door of an electric
tramway, the final two passengers climbing on board;
he raced ahead and, just before the door swung shut,
he stepped up into the tram the last fare.

   Spotting an empty seat in the last row, he walked
quickly to the back of the huge vehicle. He sat down,
breathing hard, desperately, the sweat mathng his
hairline and his temples and rolling down his face,
the shirt under his jacket drenched. It was only then
that he realized how exhausted he was, how loud and
rapid the tattoo in his chest, how blurred his vision
and his thoughts. Fear and pain had combined into
a form of hysteria. The desire to stay alive and the
hatred of Aquitaine had kept him going. Pain? He
was suddenly aware of the ache in his arm above his
wound, an old woman's last act of ven-
geance against what? For what? An enemy?
Money? No time!

   The tram started up and he turned in his seat to
look out the rear window. He saw what he wanted to
see. Leifhelm's guard was racing across the
intersection, a second man running to join him from
the waterfront quad. They met, and the words they
exchanged were obviously exchanged in near panic.
Another joined them, from where Joel could not see;
he was suddenly just there. The three men spoke
rapidly, Leifhelm's guard apparently the leader; he
pointed in several directions, issuing orders. One
man ran down the street, below the curb, and began
checking the half-dozen or so taxis in the traffic jam;
a second stayed on the pavement, slowly making his
way around the tables of a sidewalk cafe, then going
inside. Finally, Leifhelm's guard ran back across the
intersection, dodging cars, and reaching the curb, he
signaled. A woman walked out of a store and met
him at the corner.

   No one had thought of the tram. It was his first
cave of survival. He sat back and tried to collect his
thoughts, know

458   ROKERT LUDLUM

ingthey would be difficult to face. Aquitaine would
penetrate all of Amsterdam, canvass it, tear it apart
until they found hirn. Was there conceivably a way
to reach Thorbecke or had he been fooling himself,
reaching into the past where too often accidents and
misplaced arrogance led to success? No, he could
not think for a while. He had to lie down in the
cave and rest, and if sleep came, he hoped the
nightmares did not come with it. He looked out the
window and saw a sign. It read DAMBAK.

   He remained on the electric conveyance for well
over an hour. The lively streets, the lovely
architecture of the centuries-old buildings and the
endless canals calmed him. His arm still ached from
the old woman's teeth but not severely, and
thoughts of cleansing the wound faded. He could
not weep for the old woman, but as with certain,
strange witnesses at a trial, he wished he knew her
story.

   Hotels were out. The foot soldiers of Aquitaine
would scour them, offering large sums for any
information about any American of his general
description which they now specifically had.
Thorbecke would be watched, his telephone tapped,
his every move and conversation scrutinised. Even
the embassy, or consulate whichever it was in
Amster dam would have another military charge
d'affaires or his equivalent on the prowl for a signal
that a non-assassin wanted to come in and start the
process of rectification. If his perceptions were
right, that left him with only one escape hatch. Na-
than Simon.

   Nathan the Wise, Joel had dubbed him once,
only to be told that a Gentile with his intelligence
should certainly come up with something more
original. Then after a particularly long session at the
office in which Nate detailed in excruciating detail
why they should not take on a client named Lie-
bowitz, who in his opinion would put too great a
burden on the obligation to respect a client's
confidence, and during which Lawrence Talbot had
dozed off, Converse suggested that he alter his
sobriquet to Nathan the Talmudic-pain-in-the-ass.
Nate had roared, shocking Talbot awake, and
proclaiming, "I love it! And Sylvia will love it
betterI"

   Joel had learned more about the law from
Nathan Simon than from anyone else, but there was
always a distance between them. It was as though
Nate never really wanted them to be too close in
spite of the obvious affection the older man had for
the younger. Converse thought he understood; it
was

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   459

a question of loyalty. Simon had two sons, who, m
the properly guarded phrase, "were in business for
themselves in California and Florida." One sold
insurance in Santa Barbara, and the other ran a bar
in Key West. Nate Simon was a tough act to follow,
and Joel was given a hint of just how hard it was one
late afternoon when Simon offered to buy him a
drink at '21" after a harrowing conference on Fifth
Avenue.

   "I like your father, Converse. I like Roger. He
has minimal legal requirements, of course, but he's
a good man."

   "He has no legal requirements, and I tried to stop
him from coming to us."

   "You couldn't. It was the gesture he had to make.
Put some business where the son is. Very touching."

   "With an unnecessary will that you much too
generously charged him only two hundred dollars for,
and some crazy disposition of his war medals to
three differentnshtutions for which you refused to
bill him on patriotic grounds?"

"We were in the same theater of operations."

"Where?"

"Europe."

   "Come on, Nate. He's my father and I love him
but I also know he's off the wall. Take him out of a
vintage prop and he's not sure where he is. Pan Am
got their money's worth, not in any administrative
sense, but because he was a pistol at conventions."

   Nathan Simon had gripped his glass that late
afternoon at "21," and when he spoke, the quiet
thunder of a deeply troubled man poured forth.
"You have respect for your father do you hear me,
Joel? My friend Roger offered a gesture to his son,
for it was all he had, all he could imagine. I had a
great deal more and I didn't know how to make such
gestures. I only gave commands.... He said I could
still do it. I'm going to take up flying."

   Simon would help him only if he was convinced
there was substance to his case. But he would legally
lean over backwards in the negative if he thought a
relationship or personal sentimentality was being
used to manipulate him. Of course, if an indictment
followed, he would rush in for the defense after the
fact. That was professional; those were his ethics.
And by now Valerie would have sent him the
envelope with the dossiers and their awesome
implications. They were the substance Simon
required. Knowing Val, she would have sent them
down by car, the great American postal service
having

460   ROBERT LUDLUM

given rise to a score of competitors who eschewed
the taxpayer's dollar. Joel's d' cisionwas made. Since
there was a five-hour time difference, he would wait
until early evening and then call Nathan Simon. He
was functioning again.

   The tram came to the last stop before its return
run. At least he was the only one left on board; he
walked up the aisle, got off and saw another. He got
on. Sanctuary.

   A hundred streets and a dozen crisscrossed
canals later, he looked out the window, encouraged
by the seedy neighborhood he saw, washed clean on
the surface but with the promise of far more
interesting bacteria below. There was a row of
pornography shops, their wares in magnified displays
in the storefronts. Above, in open windows, garishly
painted girls stood provocatively, brassieres slipped
on and off lethargically, faces bored but pelvises
churning. The crowds in the streets were animated,
some curious, some feigning shock, others interested
in buying. There was a carnival atmosphere, one
into which he could melt, thought Converse, as he
got out of his seat and went to the door.

   He wandered aro~md the streets, astonished,
even embarrassed, as he always was when sex was
paraded so publicly. He enjoyed sexual encounters
and never lacked for them, but for him the privacy
of the acts was intrinsic to their fulfillment. He
could no more walk through one of those neon-lit
doors up-to-heaven than he could have performed
a bowel movement on the curb.

   There was a cafe across the street; it was above
a canal, tables on the sidewalk, dark within. What
struck him was the crowd that hovered around the
doorway, many people simply glancing in and going
on, drawn briefly to some curious oddity inside.
Regardless, it was the crowd that attracted him;
there was anonymity in numbers. He crossed the
thoroughfare, weaved his way through the crowd
and went inside. Sleep might be out of the question,
but he needed food. He had not eaten a real meal
in nearly three days. He found a small empty table
in the back of the room, and was stunned that a
television set, clamped above on the wall, was
blaring inanities. He could not understand. There
was no television in the Netherlands during the
afternoons" How many times had he heard
colleagues and friends remark that one of the most
civilised aspects of traveling in Holland was the
absence of the idiot box until seven o'clock in the
evening? Conversely, there were those sports
enthusiasts who bemoaned the fact that cer

THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION   461

tain events were not shown, but on the whole the
verdict came down in favor of Dutch civility and
restraint. Yet here was a television set in full
operation. It undoubtedly accounted for those
curious passersby on the street who glanced inside,
shaking their heads in bewilderment as they went on
their way.

   Then Joel saw the folded card on the table, the
announcement in four languages, English first.

In accord with the advances in teknology we are

pleased to bring our patrons and visitors from
outside
the Netherlands recordings of our national pro
grams.

Video tapes! It was a come-on, an innovative ploy to
lure customers; this was the district for it. And he
understood why the English language was first: e
pluribus unum. Let's not lose touch with the tube.
At least the tapes were in Dutch; it helped, but not
much.

   Straight whisky helped, too, but again not much.
The anxiety of the hunted came back and he kept
turning his head toward the entrance, at any moment
expecting to see one of the foot soldiers of Aquitaine
walk through the door, out of the sunlight and into
the cave to find him. He went to the men's room at
the rear of the cafe, removed his jacket, placed the
gun with the silencer in the inside pocket, and tore
his left sleeve. He filled one of the two basins with
cold water, and then he plunged his face into it,
pouring the water through his hair over the back of
his neck. He felt a vibration, a sound! He whipped
his head up, gasping, frightened, his hand
insdncbvely reaching for his coat on a hook. A portly
middle-aged man nodded and went to a urinal.
Quickly Joel looked at the teeth marks on his arm;
they were like a dog bite. He drained the sink,
turned on the hot water faucet, and with a paper
towel squeezed and blotted the painful area until
blood emerged from the broken skin. It was the best
he could do; he had done much the same thing a
lifetime ago when attacking water rats swam through
the bars of his bamboo cage. Then in another kind
of panic, he had learned that rats could be
frightened. And killed. The man at the urinal turned
and went out the door, glancing uncomfortably at
Converse.

   Joel layered a paper towel over the teeth marks,
put on his coat and combed his hair. He opened the
door and went

462   ROBERT LUDLUM

back to his table, once again annoyed by the blaring
television on the wall.

   The menu, like the announcement about the
television, was in four languages, the last Oriental,
undoubtedly Japanese. He was tempted to go for
the largest, rarest piece of meat he could find, but
here his pilot's control dictated otherwise. He'd had
no solid sleep in days oddly enough since his
imprisonment at I eifhelm's compound, where the
sleep itself had been greatly induced by the huge
quantities of very decent food, all part of the
healing process for a deflecting pawn. A heavy meal
would make him drowsy, and one did not By a jet
going six hundred miles an hour in that condition.
At the moment his air speed was approaching Mach
I. He ordered filet of sole and rice; he could always
order twice. And one more whisky.

   The voice! Oh, Christ. The voice! He was
hallucinating! He was going mad! He was hearing a
voice an echo of a voice he could not possibly be
hearing!

   ". . . Actually, I think it's a national disgrace, but
like so many others, I speak only English."

"Frau Converse "

   "Miss Fraulein I think that's
right Charpentier, if you don't mmd.''

   "Dames en heron . . .'' a third voice broke in
quietly, authoritatively, speaking Dutch.

   Converse gasped for the air he could not find,
gripping his wrist, closing his eyes with such
intensity that every muscle in his face was in pain,
twisting his neck away from the source of the
terrible, horrible hallucination.

   "I'm in Berlin on business I'm a consultant for
a firm in New York '

   "Mevrouw Con verse, of juffronw Charpen tier,
coals use . . . ~,

   Joel was now sure that he was mad, insane! He
was hearing the impossible. Ilearing! He spun
around and looked up. The television screen! It was
Valerie! She was there!

   "Whatever you S.ly, Fraulein Charpentier, will
be accurately translated, I can assure you."

   "Coals juJfrouw (>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

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