The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  Now, however, it was being used to the great disservice 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 paralyzed 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 uppermost! Escape is with the diversion of a kill! Otherwise there is only death!

  Eleven days to ground-zero! Accuracy is uppermost …!

  Eight days to ground-zero! Accuracy is …!

  Individual members of the killer teams fired at their targets, exploding stuffed skulls and pulverizing 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 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 was 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 recognized as various fellow officers at the posts or bases from which they were on leave. The messages were always in the vein of Having wonderful time; 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.

  “Qué pasa?” asked a prisoner named Enrique from Madrid.

  “Es lo mismo afuera en el campo de maniobras,” 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.”

  “Vite! Contre la muraille!”

  “Schnell! Gegen die Mauer!”

  “Move! Against the wall!”

  “Fa presto! Contro il 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 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 convict—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 p
ay 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.”

  “Impossible! No planes fly over, no boats come. We would know if they did.”

  “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 be fumo—smoke, nothing. It is part of our contratto. We understand.”

  “The warden—the custode—he’s the big German with the short gray 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 men?”

  “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 buffone! 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.

  “Che cosa?”

  “That’s all you get until tonight.”

  Fitzpatrick lay on the cot in the darkness, waiting, listening 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 him, he could sidestroke nearly indefinitely—and somewhere 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, amico, 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. 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 Centraal 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 déjà 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 objectivity of a trained, sane, legal mind. He had lain awake for hours during the night, allowing the organizational 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 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 am!”
>
  “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? Quickly! Hesitation itself is a lie.”

  “Wait a minute! You were told to meet me here; you were given a description. What more do you want?”

  “To know where you’re from.”

  “Christ, how many sunburned priests did you expect to see at the information booth?”

  “They are not zo un-normal. Some swim, I am told. Others play tennis. The Pope himself once skied in the mountain 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.”