Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

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by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  "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 record
er 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

 

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