Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

Home > Other > Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt > Page 9
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 9

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

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

  appro
ached 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

 

‹ Prev