Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 27
cut loose."
8
The Alter Zoll, the ancient tower that had once
been part of Bonn's southern fortress on the
Rhine razed to the ground three centuries
ago was now a tollhouse standing on a green lawn
dotted with antique cannons, relics of a might that
had slipped away through the squabblings of
emperors and kings priests and princes. A winding
mosaic wall of red and grey stone overlooked the
massive river below where boats of vari
170 ROBERT IUDLUM
ous descriptions plowed furrows in the open water,
caressing the shorelines on both sides, diligent and
somber in their appointed rounds; no Lake Geneva
here, far less the blue-green waters of the
mischievous Como. Yet in the distance was a sight
envied by people the world over: the Siebengebirge,
the seven mountains of Westerwald, magnificent in
their intrusions on the skyline.
Joel stood by the low wall, trying to focus on the
view hoping it would calm him, but the exercise was
futile. The beauty before him was lost, it would not
distract him from his thoughts; nothing could....
Lucas Anstett, Second Circuit Court of Appeals,
judge extraordinary and intermediary between one
Joel Converse and his employers and an unknown
man in San Francisco. Outside of that unknown
man and a retired scholar on the island of
Mykonos, the only other person who knew what he
was doing and why. How in the space of eighteen
hours or less could he have been found ? Found
and killed!
"Converse?"
Joel turned, whipping his head over his shoulder,
his body rigid. Standing twenty feet away on the far
edge of a graveled path was a sandy-haired man
several years younger than Converse, in his early to
mid thirties; his was a boyish face that would grow
old slowly and remain young long after its time. He
was also shorter than Joel, but not by
much perhaps five ten or eleven and dressed in
light-grey trousers and a cord jacket, his white shirt
open at the neck.
"Who are you?" asked Converse hoarsely.
A couple strolled between them on the path as
the younger man jerked his head to his left,
gesturing for Joel to follow him onto the lawn
beyond. Converse did so, joining him by the huge
iron wheel of a bronze cannon.
"All right, who are you?" repeated Joel.
"My sister's name is Meagen," said the
sandy-haired man. "And so neither one of us makes
a mistake, you tell me who I am."
"How the hey . . . ?" Converse stopped, the
words coming back to him, words whispered by a
dying man in Geneva. Oh, Christ! Meg, the kids . . .
" 'Meg, the kids,' " he said out loud. "Fowler called
his wife Meg."
"Short for Meagen, and she was Halliday's
wife only, you knew him as Fowler."
"You're Avery's brother-in-law."
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 171
"Press's brother-in-law," corrected the man,
extending his hand. "Connal Fitzpatrick," he added.
"Then we're on the same side."
"I hope so."
"I've got a lot of questions to ask you, Connal."
"No more than I've got for you, Converse."
"Are we going to start off belligerently?" asked
Joel, noting the harsh use of his own last name and
releasing fitzpatrick s hand.
The younger man blinked, then reddened,
embarrassed. "Sorry," he said. "I'm one angry
brother on both sides and I haven't had much
sleep. I'm still on San Diego time."
"San Diego? Not San Francisco?"
"Navy. I'm a lawyer stationed at the naval base
there."
"Whew," whistled Converse softly. "It's a small
world."
"I know all about the geography," agreed
Fitzpatrick. 'And also you, Lieutenant. How do you
think Press got his information? Of course, I wasn't
in San Diego then, but I had friends. "
"Nothing's sacred, then."
"You're wrong; everything is. I had to pull some
very thick strings to get that stuff. It was about five
months ago when Press came to me and we made
our . . . I guess you'd call it the contract between
us."
"Clarification, please."
The naval officer placed a hand on the barrel of
the cannon. "Press Halliday wasn't just my
brother-in-law, he came to be my best friend, closer
than any blood brother, I think."
"And you with the militaristic hordes?" asked
Joel, only half joking, a point of information on the
line
Fitzpatrick smiled awkwardly, boyishly. ';That's
part of it, actually. He stood by me when I wanted to
go for it. The services need lawyers too, but the law
schools don't tell you much about that. It's not
where they're going to get any endowments from.
Me, I happen to like the Navy, and I like the
lif~and the challenges, I guess you'd call them."
"Who objected?"
"Who didn't? In both our families the
pirates who go back to skimming the earthquake
victims have always been attorneys. The two
current old men knew Press and I got along and saw
the writing they wrote on their own wall. Here's this
sharp Wasp and this good Catholic boy, now, if they
ring in a Jew and a light-skinned black and maybe
even
172 ROBERT LUDLUM
a not-too-offensive gay, they've got half the legal
market in San Francisco in their back pockets."
"What about the Chinese and the Italians?"
"Certain country clubs still have remnants of the
old school ties in their lockers. Why soil the fabric?
Deals are made on the fairways, the accent on
'ways,' not 'fair.'"
"And you didn't want anything to do with that,
counselor?"
"Neither did Press, that's why he went
international. Old Jack Halliday pissed bright red
when Press began corraling all those foreign clients;
then purple when he added a lot of U.S. sharks who
wanted to operate overseas. But old Jack couldn't
complain; his wild-eyed stepson was adding
considerably to the bottom line."
"And you went happily into uniform," said
Converse, watching Fitzpatrick's eyes, impressed by
the candor he saw in them.
"Back into uniform, and very happy with
Press's blessings, legal and otherwise."
"You were fond of him, weren't you?"
Connal lifted his hand off the cannon. "I loved
him, Converse. Just as I love my sister. That's why
I'm here. That's the contract."
"Incidentally," said Joel kindly, "speaking of your
sister even if I were somebody else I could easily
have found out her name was Meagan."
"I'm sure you could have; it was in the papers."
"Then it wasn't much of a test."
"Press never called her Meagen in his life,
except for that one phrase in the wedding
ceremony. It was always 'Meg.' I would have asked
you about that somehow, and if you were lying I'd
have known it. I'm very good on direct."
"I believe you. What's the contract between you
and . . . Press?"
"Let's walk," said Fitzpatrick, and as they
strolled toward the wall with the winding river
below and the seven mountains of Westerwald in
the distance, Connal began. "Press came to me and
said he was into something pretty heavy and he
couldn't let it go. He'd come across information
that tied a number of well-known men or once
well-known men together in an organization that
could do a lot of harm to a lot of people in a lot of
countries. He was going to stop
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 173
it, stop them, but he had to go outside the usual
courtroom ballparks to do it do it legally.
"I asked the normal questions: Was he involved,
culpable that sort of thing, and he said no, not in any
indictable sense, but he couldn't be sure whether or
not he was entirely safe. Naturally, I said he was
crazy; he should take his information to the
authorities and let them handle it."
"Which is exactly what I told him," interrupted
Converse.
Fitzpatrick stopped walking and turned to Joel.
"He said it was more complicated than that."
"He was right."
"I find that hard to believe."
"He's dead. Believe it."
"That's no answer!"
"You didn't ask a question," said Converse. "Let's
walk. Go on. Your contract."
Bewilderment on his face, the naval officer
began. "It was very simple," he continued. "He told
me he would keep me up to date whenever he
traveled, letting me know if he was seeing anyone
related to his major concern that's what we called
it, his 'major concern.' Also anything else that could
be helpful if . . . if . . . goddamn it, ifl"
"If what?"
Fitzpatrick stopped again, his voice harsh. "If
anything happened to him!"
Converse let the emotion of the moment pass.
"And he told you he was going to Geneva to see me.
The man who knew Avery Preston Fowler Halliday
as Avery Fowler roughly twenty-odd years ago in
school."
"Yes. We'd been over that before when I got him
the security material on you. He said the time was
right, the circumstances right. By the way, he thought
you were the best." Connal permitted himself a brief
uncomfortable smile. "Almost as good as he was."
"I wasn't," said Joel, a half-smile returned. "I'm
still trying to figure out his position on some Class B
stock in the merger."
"What?"
"Nothing. What about Lucas Anstett? I want to
hear about that."
"It's in two parts. Press said they'd worked
through the judge to spring you if you'd agree to
take on the "
174 ROBERT LUDLUM
"They? Who's they?"
"I don't know. He never told me."
"Goddamn it! Sorry, go ahead."
"That Anstett had talked to your firm's senior
partners and they said okay if you said okay. That's
part one. Part two is a personal idiosyncrasy; I'm a
news freak, and like most of my ilk, I'm tuned into
the hourly AFR."
"Clarification. "
"Armed Forces Radio. Oddly enough, it's
probably got the best news coverage on the air; it
pools all the networks. I have one of those small
transistorised jobs with a couple of shortwave bands
I pack when I'm traveling."
"I used to do that," said Converse. "For the BBC,
mainly because I don't speak French or anything
else for that matter.
"They've got good coverage, but they shift bands
too much. Anyway, I had AFR on early this
morning and heard the story, such as it was."
"What was it?"
"Short on details. His apartment on Central Park
South was broken into around two in the morning,
New York time. There were signs of a struggle and
he was shot in the head "
"Not quite. According to a housekeeper, nothing
was taken, so robbery was ruled out. That's it."
"Jesus. I'll call Larry Talbot. He may have more
information. There wasn't anything else?"
"Only a quick sketch of a brilliant jurist. The
point is nothing was taken."
"I understand that," broke in Joel. '`1'11 talk to
Talbot." They started walking again, south along the
wall. "Last night," continued Converse, '~why did
you tell Dowling you were an embassy man? You
must have been at the airport."
4I'd been at that airport for seven hours going
from counter to counter asking for passenger
information, trying to find out what plane you were
on."
'~You knew I was on my way to Bonn?"
.Beale thought you were."
`Beale?" asked Joel, startled. '4Mykonos'?"
'Press gave me his name and the number but
said I wasn't to use either unless the worst
happened." Fitzpatrick paused. "The worst
happened," he added.
'What did Beale tell you?"
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 175
'what you went to Paris, and as he understood it,
you were going to Bonn next."
"What elseP"
'Nothing. He said he accepted my credentials, as
he called them, because I had his name and knew
how to reach him; only Press could have given me
that information. But anything else I'd have to learn
from you, if you felt there was something to tell me.
IIe was pretty damned cold."
"He had no choice."
"Although he did say that in case I couldn't find
you, he wanted to see me on Mykonos before I
began raising my voice . . . 'for everything Mr.
Halliday stood for.' That's the way he put it. I was
going to give you two more days to get here, if I
could hold up."
"Then what? Mykonos?"
"I'm not sure. I figured I'd call Beale again, but
he'd have to tell me a lot more than he did to
convince me."
"And if he didn't? Or couldn't?"
"Then I'd have flown straight to Washington and
gone to whomever the top floor of the Navy
Department suggested. If you think for one
goddamned minute I'm going to let this thing pass
for what it isn t, you're wrong and so is Beale."
"If you'd have made that clear to him, he would
have come up with something. You'd have gone to
Mykonos." Converse reached into his shirt pocket for
his cigarettes; he offered one to Fitzpatrick, who
shook his head. "Avery didn't smoke either," said
Joel aimlessly as he snapped his lighter. "Sorry . . .
Press." He inhaled.
"It's okay; that name's how I got you to see me."
"Let's go back to that a minute. There's a slight
inconsistency in your testimony, counselor. Let's
clear it up just so neither one of us make
s a
mistake."
"I don't know what you think you're crowding in
on, but go ahead."
"You quid you were going to give me two more
days to get here, is that right?"
"Yes, if I could make arrangements, get some sleep
and
'How did you know I didn't get here two days
before you
Fitzpatrick glanced at Joel. "I've been a legal
officer in the Navy for the past eight years, both as
defense counsel and as Judge advocate in any
number of situations not always
176 ROBERT LUDIUM
courts-marhal. They've taken me to most of the
countries where Washington has reciprocal legal
agreements."
'That's a mouthful, but I'm not in the Navy."
"You were, but I wasn't going to use it if I didn't
have to, and I didn't. I flew into Dusseldorf, showed
my naval papers to the Inspektor of immigration, and
asked for his cooperation. There are seven
international airports in West Germany. It took
roughly five minutes with the computers to find out
that you hadn't entered any of them during theipast
three days, which was all I was concerned about."