Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 9
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