Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

watched, a dragnet in progress. The generals of

  Aquitaine had done their job with precision, right

  down to his fingerprints on a gun and a flesh wound

  in his arm. But the timing how could they dare?

  How did they know he was not in an embassy some-

  where asking for temporary asylum until he could

  make a case for himself? How could they take the

  chance?

  Then the realisation came to him, and he had to

  dig his fingers into his wrist to control himself, to

  contain his panic. The call to Mattilon! How easily

  Rene's phone could have been tapped, by either the

  Surete or Interpol, and how quickly Aquitaine's

  informers would have spread the word! Oh, Christ!

  Neither one of them had thought of it! They did

  know where he was, and no matter where he went

  he was trapped! As the offensive salesman had

  accurately phrased it, "Every place over here's a

  short hop." A man could fly from Munich to Venice

  for lunch and be back in his office for a three-thirty

  appointment. Another man could kill in Brussels

  and be on a train in Dusseldorf forty-five minutes

  later. Distances were measured in half-hours. From

  ground-zero in Brussels, "a couple of hours ago"

  covered a wide circle of cities and a great many

  borders. Were his hunters on the train? They might

  be, but there was no way they could know which

  train he had taken. It would be easier and far less

  time-consuming to wait for him in Emmerich. He

  had to think, he had to mow.

  "Excuse me," said Converse, getting up. "I have

  to use the men's room."

  "You're lucky." The salesman moved his heavy

  legs, holding his trousers as he let Joel pass. "I can

  hardly squeeze into those boxes. I always take a leak

  before . . ."

  Joel made his way up the aisle. He stopped

  abruptly, swallowing, trying to decide whether to

  continue or turn back. He

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 403

  had left the newspaper on his seat, the photograph

  easily revealed by unfolding the top page. He had to

  continue; any change of movement, however minor,

  might attract attention. His objective was not the

  men's room but the passageway between the cars; he

  had to see it. A number of people had opened the

  door and gone through, several apparently looking

  for someone they expected to find on the train. He

  would look down at the lock on the bathroom door

  and proceed.

  He stood in the swerving, vibrating passageway

  studying the metal door. It was a standard two-tiered

  exit, the top had to be opened first before the lower

  part could be unlocked and pulled back, revealing

  the steps. It was all he had to know.

  He returned to his seat, and to his relief the

  salesman was splayed back, his thick lips parted, his

  eyes closed, a high-pitched wheeze emanating from

  his throat. Converse cautiously lifted one foot after

  the other over the fat man's legs and maneuvered

  himself into his seat. The newspaper had not been

  touched. Another relief.

  Diagonally above and in front of him, he saw a

  small receptacle in the curved wall with what

  appeared to be a sheaf of railroad schedules fanned

  out by disuse. Limp, bent pieces of paper ignored

  because these commuters knew where they were

  going. Joel raised himself off the seat, reached out,

  and took one, apologizing with several nods of his

  head to the young girl below. She giggled.

  Oberhausen . . . Dinslaken . . . Voerde . . . Wesel

  . . . Emmerich.

  WeseL The last stop before Emmerich. He had

  no idea how many miles Wesel was from Emmerich,

  but he had no choice. He would get off the train at

  Wesel, not with departing passengers but by himself.

  He would disappear in Wesel

  He felt a slight deceleration beneath him, his

  pilot's instincts telling him it was the outer perimeter

  of an approach, the final path to touchdown in the

  scope. He stood up and carefully maneuvered

  between the fat man's legs to reach the aisle; at the

  last second the salesman snorted, shifting his posi-

  tion. Squinting under the brim of his hat, Joel

  casually glanced around, as if he were momentarily

  unsure of which way to go. He moved his head

  slowly; as far as he could see, no one was paying the

  slightest attention to him.

  He walked with carefully weary steps up the aisle,

  a tired passenger in search of relief. He reached the

  toilet door and

  404 ROBERT LUDIUM

  was greeted by an ironic sign of true relief. The

  white slot below the handle spelled out BESETZT.

  His first maneuver had its basis in credibility; the

  toilet was in use. He turned toward the heavy

  passageway door, pulled it open and, stepping out-

  side, crossed the vibrating, narrow coupling area to

  the opposite door. He pushed it open, but instead of

  going inside he took a single stride forward, then

  lowered his body, turning as he did so, and stepped

  back into the passageway, into the shadows. He

  stood up, his back against the external bulkhead,

  and inched his way to the edge of the thick glass

  window. Ahead was the inside of the rear car, and

  by turning he had a clear view of the car in front.

  He waited, watching, turning, at any moment

  expecting to see someone lowering a newspaper or

  breaking off a conversation and looking over at his

  empty seat.

  None did. The excitement over the news of the

  assassination in Brussels had tapered off, as had the

  rush of near panic in Bonn when the streets learned

  that an ambassador had been killed. A number of

  people were obviously still talking about both

  incidents, shaking their heads and grappling with the

  implications and the future possibilities, but their

  voices were lowered; the crisis of the first reports

  had passed. After all, it was not fundamentally the

  concern of these citizens. It was American against

  American. There was even a certain gloating in the

  air; the gunfight at O.K. Corral had new signifi-

  cance. The colonists were, indeed, a violent breed.

  "Wir kommen in . . . " The rapid clacking of the

  wheels below, echoing in the metal chamber,

  obscured the distant announcement over the

  loudspeakers. Only moments now, thought Converse

  as he turned and looked at the exit door. When the

  train slowed sufficiently and the lines began to form

  at both inner doors, he would make his move.

  "Wir kommen in drei Minuten in Wesel an!"

  Several passengers in both cars got out of their

  seats, adjusted their briefcases and shopping bags

  and started up the aisle. The grinding of the giant

  wheels underneath signified the approach to

  touchdown. Now.

  Joel turned to the exit door and, finding the

  upper latch, snapped it open
, pulling the upper

  section back; the rush of air was deafening. He

  spotted the handle of the lower release and gripped

  it, prepared to yank it up as soon as the ground

  beyond slowed down. It would be in only seconds.

  The sounds below grew louder and the sunlight

  outside created a racing

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 405

  silhouette of the train. Then the abrasive words

  broke through the dissonance and he froze.

  "Very well thought out, Herr Converse! Some win,

  some lose. You lost"

  Joel spun around. The man yelling at him in the

  metal chamber was the passenger who had gotten on

  the train at Dusseldorf, the apologetic commuter

  who had sat next to him until the obese salesman

  had asked him to exchange seats. In his left hand was

  a gun held far below his waist, in his right the

  ever-respectable attache case.

  "You're a surprise," said Converse.

  "I would hope so. I barely made the train in

  Dusseldorf. Ach, three cars I walked through like a

  madman but not the madman you are, ja?"

  "What happens now? You fire that gun and save

  the world from a madman?'

  "Nothing so simplistic, pilot."

  "Pilot."

  "Names are immaterial, but I am a colonel in the

  West German Luftwaffe. Pilots only kill one another

  in the air. It is embarrassing on the ground."

  "You're comforting."

  "I also exaggerate. One disconcerting move on

  your part and I shall be a hero of the Fatherland,

  having cornered a crazed assassin and killed him

  before he killed me."

  "'Fatherland'? You still call it that?"

  "Natiirlich. Most of us do. From the father comes

  the strength; the female is the vessel."

  "They'd love you in a Vassar biology class."

  "Is that meant to be amusing?"

  "No, just disconcerting in a very minor way,

  nothing serious." Joel had moved imperceptibly until

  his back was against the bulkhead, his whole mind,

  his entire thinking process, on pre-set. He had no

  choice except to die, now or in a matter of hours

  from now. "I suppose you have an itinerary for me,"

  he asked as he swung his left arm forward with the

  question.

  "Quite definitely, pilot. We will get off the train

  at Wesel, and you and I will share a telephone, my

  gun firmly against your chest. Within a short time a

  car will meet us and you will be taken "

  Converse slammed his concealed right elbow into the

  406 ROBERT LUDLUM

  bulkhead, his left arm in plain sight. The German

  glanced at the door of the forward car. Alow!

  Joel lunged for the gun, both hands surging for

  the black barrel as he crashed his right knee with all

  the force he could command into the man's

  testicles. As the German fell back he grabbed his

  hair and smashed the man's head down onto a

  protruding hinge of the opposite door.

  It was over. The German's eyes were wide,

  alarmed, glassy. Another scout was dead, but this

  man was no ignorant conscript from an impersonal

  government, this was a soldier of Aquitaine.

  A stout woman screamed in the window, her

  mouth opened wide with her screams, her face

  hysterical.

  "Wesel. . . !"

  The train had slowed down and other excited

  faces appeared at the window, the frenzied crowd

  now blocking those who tried to open the door.

  Converse lunged across the vibrating metal

  enclosure to the exit panel. He grasped the latch

  and pulled it open, crashing the door into the

  bulkhead. The steps were below, gravel and tar

  beyond. He took a deep breath and plunged outside

  curling his body to lessen the impact of the hard

  ground, and when he made contact he rolled over,

  and over, and over.

  23

  He careened off a rock and into a cluster of

  bushes. Nettles and coarse tendrils enveloped him,

  scraping his face and hands. His body was a mass of

  bruises, the wound in his left arm moist and

  stinging, but there was no time even to acknowledge

  pain. He had to get away; in minutes the whole area

  would be swarming with men searching for him,

  hunting for the murderer of an officer in the

  Federal Republic's air arm. It took no imagination

  to foresee what would happen next. The passengers

  would be questioned including the salesman and

  suddenly a newspaper would be in someone's hand,

  a photograph studied, the connection made. A

  crazed killer last seen in a back street in Brussels

  was not on his way

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 407

  to Paris or London or Moscow. He was on a train

  out of Bonn, passing through Cologne, Essen and

  Dusseldorf and he killed again in a town called

  Wesel.

  Suddenly he heard the high-pitched wail of a

  horn. He looked up the small hill toward the tracks;

  a south-bound train was gathering speed out of the

  station several thousand feet away. Then he saw his

  hat; it was on the hill, halfway down. Joel crept out

  of the tangling brush, staggered to his feet, and ran

  to it, refusing to listen to that part of his mind which

  told him he could barely walk. He grabbed the hat

  and began running to his right. The south-bound

  train passed; he raced up the hill and across the

  tracks, heading for an old building, apparently

  deserted. More of its windows were shattered than

  intact. He might rest there for a few moments but no

  longer; it was too obvious a hiding place. In ten or

  fifteen minutes it would be surrounded by men with

  guns aimed at every exit, every window.

  He tried desperately to remember. How had he

  done it before? How had he eluded the patrols in the

  jungles north of Phu Loc? . . . Vantage points! Get

  where you can see them but they can't see you! But

  there were tall trees then and he was younger and

  stronger and could climb them, concealing himself

  behind green screens of full branches on firm limbs.

  There was nothing like that here on the outskirts of

  a railroad yard . . . or maybe there wasl To the right

  of the building was a landfill dump, tons of earth and

  debris piled high in several pyramids; it was his only

  choice.

  Gasping, his arms and legs aching, his wound

  inflamed, he ran toward the last of the pyramids. He

  reached it, propelled his way around the mass, and

  started climbing the rear side, his feet slipping into

  soft earth, and wood and cardboard and patches of

  garbage, where it had been layered. The sickening

  smells took his mind off the pain. He kept crawling,

  clawing with each slipping foot. If he had to, he

  could burrow himself into the stinking mess. There

  were no rules for survival, and if sinking himself into

  the putrid hill kept a spray of bullets from ending his

  life, so be it.

 
He reached the top and lay prone below the

  ridge, dirt and protruding debris all around him.

  Sweat rolled down his face, stinging the scrapes on

  his face; his legs and arms were heavy with pain, and

  his breathing was erratic from the trembling caused

  not only by unused muscles but by fear. He looked

  down at the outskirts of the railroad yard, then up

  408 R08ERT LUDIUM

  ahead at the station. The train had stopped, and the

  platform was filled with people milling around,

  bewildered. Several uniformed men were shouting

  orders, trying to separate passengers apparently

  those in the two cars flanking the scene of the

  killing or anyone else who knew anything. In the

  parking lot surrounding the station a

  blue-and-whitestriped police car, its red roof light

  spinning, the signal of emergency. There was a rapid

  clanging in the distance, and seconds later a long

  white ambulance streaked into the lot whipped into

  a horseshoe turn and plunged back, stopping close

  to the platform. As the rear doors opened, two

  attendants jumped out carrying a stretcher; a police

  officer above them on the steps shouted at them,

  gesturing with his arm. They ran up the metal

  staircase and followed him.

  A second patrol car swerved into the lot, tires

  screeching as it stopped next to the ambulance. Two

  police officers got out and walked up the steps; the

  officer who had directed the ambulance attendants

  joined them, with two civilians, a man and a woman,

  beside him. The five talked, and moments later the

  two patrolmen returned to their vehicle. The driver

  backed up and spun to his left, gunning the engine,

  heading for the south end of the parking lot,

  directly toward Converse. Again they stopped and