The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  The naval officer 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 understand each other, Converse. I’m not backing away from the two days. That’s all you’ve got—we’ve got if I come on board.”

  “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 passel 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 fucking thing apart!”

  “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 in Geneva that nobody will 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 I choose to tell you nothing. I don’t want you on board, sailor. You’re a hotheaded piss ant and you bore me.”

  Joel turned and walked away.

  “All right, cut! 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 Dowling 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 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 tidal 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.

  “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.”

  “I 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.”

  “I’m serious. There’s a man here from the German police—the Bonn police. He says he has to talk to you, claims it’s urgent.”

  “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, Christ!” 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. Frieda 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.”

  “Yes, so we understand. You fly there frequently, don’t you?”

  “Whenever I can.”

  “She does not care to join you here in Bonn?”

  “Her name 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.”

  “That 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.”

  “Very 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 unprovoked attack by Herr Converse. We know he flew into Köln-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. “I 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. “A 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 centered 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, square-jawed 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 time. Apparently he was to receive hospital medication at that hour. The nurse called the Sûreté—”

  “The Sûreté?” shouted the man behind the desk in front of the fragmented map. “Why the Sûreté Why not Bertholdier? It was his employee, not the Sûreté!”

  “That was the lapse,” said the Britisher. “No one realized 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?”

  “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 Sûreté. 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 eviden
ce, 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.”

  “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 embassy. The fugitive is American.”

  “The fugitive 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, find 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.”

  “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 Leifhelm—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.”