Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

  shorter and less full, the bramble bush wilder,

  coarser, lower to the ground. Wind, thought

  Converse. A valley wind; a wind whipping up from a

  trough, a long narrow slice in the earth, the kind of

  wind a pilot of a small plane avoided at the first sign

  of weather. A river.

  It was there. To his left; they were traveling east.

  The Rhine was below, perhaps a mile beyond the

  lower line of tall trees. He had seen enough. He

  began breathing audibly. The exhilaration inside him

  was intense; he could have walked for miles. He was

  back on the banks of the Huong Khe, the dark

  watery lifeline that would take him away from the

  Mekong cages and the cells and the chemicals. He

  had done it before he was going to do it again!

  "Okay, Field Marshal," he said to Leifhelm's

  driver, looking at the silver whistle in the German's

  pocket. "I'm not in as good shape as I thought I was.

  This is a mountain! Don't you have any flat pastures

  or grazing fields?"

  "I do as I am told, mein Herr, " replied the man,

  grinning. "Those are nearer the main house. This is

  where you must walk."

  "This is where I say thank you and no thank you.

  Take me back to my little grass shack and I'll play

  you a simple

  "I do not understand."

  "I'm bushed and I haven't finished the

  newspapers. Seriously, I want to thank you. I really

  needed the air."

  "Sehr gut You are a pleasant fellow."

  "You have no idea, good ale Aryan boy."

  "Ach, so amusing. Die Juden sind in Israel, rein?

  Better than in Cermany."

  Nate Simon would love you. He'd take your case

  for nothing just to blow it No, he wouldn't. He'd

  probably give you the best defense you ever had."

  Converse stood on the wooden chair under the

  window to the left of the door. All he had to hear

  and see was the sound and the sight of the dogs;

  after that he had twenty or thirty seconds. The

  faucets in the bathroom were turned on, the door

  open; there was sufficient time to run across the

  room, flush the toilet, close the door and return to

  the chair. But he would not be standing on it.

  Instead, it would be gripped in his hands, laterally.

  The sun was descending rapidly; in an

  320 ROBERT IUDIUM

  hour it would be dark. Darkness had been his friend

  before as the waters of a river had been his friend.

  They had to be his friends again. They had to be!

  The sounds came first racing paws and nasal

  explosions then the sight of gleaming dark coats of

  animal fur rushing in circles in front of the

  jailhouse. Joel ran to the bathroom, concentrating

  on the seconds as he waited for the sliding of the

  bolt. It came; he flushed the toilet, then closed the

  bathroom door and raced back to the chair. He

  raised it and stood in place, his legs and feet locked

  to the floor. The door was opened several

  inches only seconds now then the German's right

  hand pushed it back.

  "Herr Converse? Wo sind . . . Bach, die Toilette. "

  The chauffeur walked in with the tray, and Joel

  swung the chair with all his strength into the

  German's head. The driver arched back off his feet,

  tray and dishes crashing to the floor. He was

  stunned, nothing more. Converse kicked the door

  shut and brought the heavy chair repeatedly down

  on the chauffeur's skull until the man went limp,

  blood and saliva pouring down his eyes and face.

  The phalanx of dogs had lurched as one at the

  suddenly closed door and began to bark maniacally

  while clawing at the wood.

  Joel grabbed the silver chain, slipped it over the

  unconscious German's head and pulled the silver

  whistle out of the pocket. There were four tiny

  holes on the tube; each meant something. He pulled

  the remaining chair to the window at the right of

  the door, climbed up and put the whistle to his lips.

  He covered the first hole and blew into the

  mouthpiece. There was no sound, but it had an

  effect.

  The Dobermans went mad! They began to attack

  the door in suicidal assaults. He removed his finger,

  placed it over the second hole and blew.

  The dogs were confused; they circled around

  each other snapping, yelping, snarling, but still they

  would not take their concentration off the door. He

  tried the third tiny hole and blew into the whistle

  with all the breath he had.

  Suddenly, the dogs stopped all movement, their

  tapered close-cropped ears upright, shifting they

  were waiting for a second signal. He blew again,

  again with all the breath that was in him. It was the

  sound they were waiting for, and again, as one, the

  pack raced to the right beneath the window,

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 321

  pounding to some other place where they were

  meant to be by command.

  Converse leaped down from the chair and knelt

  by the unconscious German. He went rapidly

  through the driver's pockets, taking his billfold and

  all the money he had, as well as his wristwatch and

  his gun. For an instant Joel looked at the weapon,

  loathing the memories it evoked. He shoved it under

  his belt and went to the door.

  Outside, he pulled the heavy door shut, heard

  the click of the lock and slid the bolt in place. He

  ran up the dirt path estimating the distance to the

  fork where the right leg was verboten and the left led

  to the steep hill and the sight of the Rhine below. It

  was actually no more than two hundred yards away,

  but the winding curves and the thick bordering

  foliage made it seem longer. If he remembered

  accurately and on the walk back he was like a pilot

  without instruments relying on sightings there was

  a flat stretch of about eighty feet below the fork.

  He reached it, the same flat area, the same

  diverging paths up ahead. He ran faster.

  Voices! Angry, questioning? Not far away and

  coming nearer! He dove into the brush to his right,

  rolling over the needle-like bushes until he could

  barely see through the foliage. Two men walked

  rapidly into his limited view, talking loudly, as if

  arguing but somehow not with each other.

  "Was haben die Hunde?"

  "Die sollten bat Heinrich sein!"

  Joel had no idea what they were saying; he only

  knew as they passed him that they were heading for

  the isolated cabin. He also knew that they would pot

  spend much time trying to raise anyone inside before

  they took more direct methods. And once they did,

  all the alarms in LeifLelm's fortress would be

  activated. Time was measured for him in minutes

  and he had a great deal of ground to cover. He crept

  cautiously out of the brush on his hands and feet.

  The Germans were out of sight, beyond a rounding

  curve. He got up and rac
ed for the fork and the

  steep hill to the left.

  The three guards at the immense iron gate that

  was the entrance to Leifhelm's estate were

  bewildered. The pack of Dobermans were circling

  around impatiently in the out grass, obviously

  confused.

  "Why are they here?" asked one man.

  322 ROBERT LUDLUM

  "It makes no sense!" replied a second.

  "Heinrich has let them loose, but why?" said the third.

  "Nobody tells us anything," muttered the first guard,

  shrugging. "If we don't hear something in the next few

  minutes, we should call."

  "I don't like this!" shouted the second guard. "I'm

  calling right now!"

  The first guard walked into the gatehouse and picked

  up the telephone.

  Converse ran up the steep hill, his breath short, his

  lips dry, his heartbeat thundering in his chest. There it

  was! The river! He started running down, gathering

  speed, the wind whipping his face, stinging him. It was

  exhilarahng. He was back! He was racing through the

  sudden, open clearings of another jungle, no fellow

  prisoners to worry about, only the outrage within himself

  to prod him, to make him break through the barriers

  and somehow, somewhere, strike back at those who had

  stripped him naked and raped an innocence

  and goddamn it turned him into an animal! A

  reasonably pleasant human being had been turned into

  a half-man with more hatreds than a person should live

  with. He would get back at them all, all enemies, all

  animals!

  He reached the bottom of the open slope of gnarled

  grass

  and bush, the trees and intertwining underbrush

  once more

  a wall to be penetrated. But he had his bearings; no

  matter

  how dense the woods, he simply had to keep the last

  rays of

  the sun on his left, heading due north, and he would

  reach

  the river.

  Rapid explosions made him spin around. Five

  gunshots followed one upon the other in the distance. It

  was easy to imagine the target: a circle of wood around

  the cylinder of a lock in the door of an isolated cabin in

  the forest. His jailhouse was being assaulted, entrance

  gained. The minutes were growing shorter.

  And then two distinctly different sounds pierced the

  twilight, interwoven in dissonance. The first was a series

  of short, staccato bursts of a high-pitched siren. The

  second, between and under the repeated blasts, was the

  hysterical yelping of running dogs. The alarms had been

  set off; scraps of discarded clothing and slept-on sheets

  would be pressed onto inflamed nostrils and the

  Dobermans would come after him, no quarter

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 323

  considered no cornered prey only animal teeth

  ripping human flesh a satisfactory reward.

  Converse plunged into the wall of green and ran

  as fast as he could, dodging, crouching, lurching

  from one side to the other, his arms outstretched, his

  hands working furiously against the strong, supple

  impediment of the woods. His face and body were

  repeatedly whipped by slashing branches and

  obstinate limbs, his feet continually tripped by fallen

  debris and exposed roots. He stumbled more times

  than he could count, each time bringing an instant of

  silence that emphasized the sound of the dogs

  somewhere between the fork and the hill and the

  lower forest. They were no farther away, perhaps

  nearer. They were nearer, they had entered the

  woods. All around him were the echoes of their

  hysteria, punctuated by howling yelps of frustration

  as one or another or several were caught in the

  tangled ground cover, straining and roaring to be

  free to join the pursuit.

  The water! He could see the water through the

  trees. Sweat was now rolling down his face, the salt

  blinding his eyes and stinging the scrapes on his neck

  and chin. His hands were bleeding from the sharp

  nettles and the coarse bark everywhere.

  He fell, his foot plunging into a hole burrowed by

  some riverbank animal, his ankle twisted and in pain.

  He got up, pulling at his leg, freeing his foot,

  and, limping badly, tried to resume running. The

  Dobermans were gaining, the yelping and the harsh

  barking louder and more furious; they had picked up

  his direct scent, the trail of undried sweat maddening

  them, preparing them for the kill.

  The riverbank! It was filled with soft mud and

  floating debris, a webbing of nature's garbage caught

  in a cavity, whirling slowly, waiting for a strong

  current to pull it all away. Joel grabbed the handle

  of the chauffeur's gun, not to pull it out but to

  secure it as he limped down the bank to look for the

  quickest way into the water.

  He heard nothing until the instant when a

  massive roar came out of the shadows and the huge

  body of an animal flew through the air over the

  riverbank directly at him. The monstrous face of the

  dog was contorted with fury, the eyes on fire, the

  enormous jaw widest all teeth and a gaping, shining

  black mouth. Converse fell to his knees as the

  Doberman whipped past his right shoulder, ripping

  his shirt with its upper eye teeth and flipping over on

  its back in the mud. The

  324 ROBERT LUDLUM

  momentary defeat was more than the animal could

  stand. It writhed furiously, rolling over, snarling,

  then rising on its hind legs, lunged up from the mud

  for Joel's groin.

  The gun was in his hand. Converse fired,

  blowing off the top of the attack dog's head; blood

  and tissue sprayed the shadows, and the slack,

  shining jaws fell into his crotch.

  The rest of the pack was now racing toward the

  bank, accompanied by ear-shattering crescendos of

  animal cries. Joel threw himself into the water and

  swam as rapidly as he could away from the

  shoreline; the weapon was an impediment but he

  knew he could not let it go.

  Years ago centuries ago he had desperately

  needed a weapon, knowing it could be the difference

  between survival and death, and forgive days none

  could be had. But on that fifth day he had found one

  on the banks of the Huong Khe. He had }boated half

  underwater past a squad on patrol, and found the

  point ten minutes later downriver too far from the

  scout's unit to be logical a man perha ps thinking

  angry thoughts that made him walk faster, or bored

  with his job and wanting a few moments to be by

  himself and out of it all. Whichever, it made no

  difference to that soldier. Converse had killed him with

  a rock from the river and had taken his gun. He had

  fired that gun twice, twice saving his life before he

  reached an advance unit south of Phu Loc.

  As he pushed against the shoreline currents of

  the Rhine, J
oel suddenly remembered. This was the

  fifth day of his imprisonment in Leifhelm's

  compound no jungle cell, to be sure, but no less a

  prison camp. He had done it! And on the fifth day

  a weapon was his! There were omens wherever one

  wished to find them; he did not believe in omens,

  but for the moment he accepted the possibility.

  He was in the shadows of the river now, the

  surrounding mountains blocking the dying sun. He

  paddled in place and turned. Back on shore, at the

  cavity in the bank that had been his plank to the

  water, the dogs were circling in confused anger,

  snarling, yelping, as several ventured down to sniff

  their slain leader, each urinating as it did

  so territory and status were being established. The

  beams of powerful flashlights suddenly broke

  through the trees. Converse swam farther out; he

  had survived searchlights in the Mekong. He had no

  fear of them now; he had been there here and he

  knew when he had won.

  He let the outer currents carry him east along the

  river.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 325

  Somewhere there would be other lights, lights that

  would lead him to shelter and a telephone. He had to

  get everything in place and build his brief quickly, but

  he could do it. Yet the attorney in him told him that

  a man with a bandaged gunshot wound in soaked

  clothing and speaking a foreign language in the

  streets was no match for the disciples of George

  Marcus Delavane; they would find him. So it would

  have to be done another way with whatever artifices

  he could muster. He had to get to a telephone. He

  had to place an overseas call. He could do it; he

  would do it! The Huong Khe faded; the Rhine was