Book Read Free

Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

Page 66

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  fundamentally equalised. only things he was

  interested in were the clothes. They were the option,

  the option he had used in the jungle a lifetime ago.

  He had crammed himself inside a scout's tattered

  uniform, and twice across a narrow riverbank he had

  not been shot by the enemy who had spotted him.

  Instead, they had waved.

  He selected the articles of clothing that fit best

  and put them on; the rest he threw into the marsh.

  Whatever he looked like, there was little or no

  resemblance to the tweedy academic he had tried to

  be in Bonn. If anything, he could be mistaken for a

  man who worked on the Rhine, a roughhewn mate

  or a foreman of a barge crew. He had chosen the

  chauffeur's coat, a dark, coarse-woven jacket cut to

  the hips with the man's blue denim shirt

  underneath both bullet holes washed clean of

  blood. The trousers were those of the subordinate

  executioner; brown creaseless corduroys, flared

  slightly at the ankles, which, thankfully, they reached.

  Neither man had worn a hat, and his was somewhere

  in the landfill; he would find one or buy one or steal

  one. He had to; without a hat or a cap covering part

  of his face, he felt as naked as exposed and as

  frightened as he would have felt without clothes.

  He lay back in the dry wild grass as the sun

  disappeared over an unseen horizon and stared up at

  the sky.

  24

  "Well, Ahh'l be . . . !" exclaimed the distinguished-

  looking man with the flowing mane of white hair, his

  full, nearly white eyebrows arched in astonishment.

  "You're Molly Washburn's boy?"

  "I beg your pardon?" said the Army officer at the

  adjacent table along the banquette in Bonn's Am

  Tulpenfeld restaurant. "Have we met, sir?"

  "Not so's you'd remember, Major.... Please

  forgive my intruding." The Southerner addressed the

  apology to the offi

  422 ROBERT LUDLUM

  cer's companion across the table, a balding

  middle-aged man who had been speaking English

  with a pronounced German accent. "But Molly

  would never forgive this pore old Georgia cracker if

  he didn't say hello to her son and insist on buyin'

  him a drink. '

  "I'm afraid I'm at a loss,' said Washburn

  pleasantly but without enthusiasm.

  "I would be, too, young fella. I know it sounds

  cornpone, but you were just barely in long pants

  back then. The last time I saw you, you were in a

  blue blazer jacket and madder 'n hell at losing

  a.soccer game. I think you blamed it on your left

  wing, which in my opinion then and now is a logical

  place to blame anythtug. "

  The major and his companion laughed

  appreciatively.

  Good Lord, that does go back a long hme to

  when I was at Dalton."

  "And captain of the team, as I recall."

  "How did you ever recognize me?"

  "I dropped in on your momma the other week at

  the house in Southampton. Proud girl that she is,

  there were a few real handsome photographs of you

  in the living room."

  "Of course, on the piano."

  "That's where they were, silver frames and all."

  "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name."

  "Thayer. Thomas Thayer, or just plain old T.T.

  as your momma calls me." The two shook hands.

  "Good to see you again, sir," said Washburn,

  gesturing at his companion. "This is Herr Stammler.

  He handles a great deal of our press relations with

  the West German media."

  "How do you do Mr. Stammler."

  "A pleasure, Herr Thayer."

  "Speakin' of the embassy and I assume you were,

  I promised Molly I'd ring you up over there when I

  got here. Mah word on it, I was gain' to do just that

  tomorrow I'm fightin' .'et lag today. One hell of a

  coincidence, isn't it? You bein' here and my bein'

  here, right next to each other!"

  "Major," interrupted the German courteously.

  "Two people who go back so many years must have

  a great deal to reminisce about. And since our

  business is fundamentally concluded, I think I shall

  press on."

  "Now, hold on, Mr. Stammler," objected Thayer.

  "Ah simply couldn't allow you to do that!"

  "No, really, it's perfectly all right." The German

  smiled.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 423

  "Truthfully, Major Washburn felt he should insist on

  taking me to dinner this evening after the terrible

  things we've had to deal with during the past few

  days he far more than I but to be quite honest,

  I'm exhausted. Also I am far older than my young

  friend and nowhere near as resilient. The bed cries

  out, Herr Thayer. Believe me when I tell you that."

  "Hey, Mr. Stammler, Ah've got an idea. You're

  fanned out and I'm droppin' from the jet stream, so

  why don't we leave the young skunk here and both

  hit the pillows?"

  "But I couldn't allow you to do that." The

  German got up from the table and extended his hand

  to Thayer. They shook, and Stammler turned to

  Washburn, shaking his hand also. "I'll call you in the

  morning, Norman."

  "All right, Gerhard.... Why didn't you just say you

  were tired?"

  "And conceivably offend one of my largest

  clients? Be reasonable, Norman. Good night,

  gentlemen." The German smiled again, and walked

  away.

  "Ah guess we're stuck with each other, young

  man," said the Southerner. "Why not move over here

  and let me save the embassy a couple of dollars?"

  "All right," replied Washburn, getting up with his

  drink and sidling between the tables to the chair

  opposite Thayer. He sat down. "How is Mother? I

  haven't called her in a couple of weeks."

  "Molly is always Molly, my boy. She came forth

  and they broke the mold, but I don't have to tell you

  that. She looks the same as she did twenty years ago.

  I swear I don't know how she does ill"

  "And she's not going to tell you, either."

  Both men laughed as the Southerner raised his

  glass and brought it forward for the touch. The

  glasses met, a gentle ring was heard. It was the

  beginning.

  Converse waited, watching from a dark storefront

  on the shabby street in Emmerich. Across the way

  were the dim lights of a cheap hotel, the entrance

  uninviting, sleazy. Yet with any luck he would have

  a bed there in the next few minutes. A bed with a

  sink in the corner of the room and, with even more

  luck, hot water with which he could bathe his wound

  and change the bandage again. During the last two

  nights he had learned that such places were his only

  possibilities for refuge. No questions would be asked

  and a false name

  424 ROBERT LUDLUM

  on a registration card expected. But even the most

  sullen greeting was a menace for him. He had only

  to open his
mouth and whatever came out identified

  him as an American who could not speak German.

  He felt like a deaf-mute running a gauntlet,

  careening off walls of people. He was helpless, so

  goddamned helpless! The killings in Bonn, Brussels

  and Wesel had made every American male over

  thirty and under fifty suspect. The melodramatic

  suspicions were compounded by speculations that

  the obsessed man was being aided, perhaps

  manipulated, by terrorist organizahons

  Baader-Meinhof, the PLO, Libyan splinter groups,

  even KGB destabilizahon teams sent out by the

  dreaded Voennaya. He was being hunted

  everywhere, and as of yesterday, the International

  Herald Tribune printed further reports that the

  assassin was heading for Paris which meant that

  the generals of Aquitaine wanted the concentration

  to be on Paris, not where they knew he was, where

  their soldiers could run him down, take him, kill

  him.

  To get off the streets he had to move with the

  flotsam and jetsam and he needed a run-down hotel

  like the one across the street. He knew he had to

  get off the streets; there were too many traps

  outside. So on the first night in Wesel he re-

  membered the student Johann, and looked for ways

  to re-create similar circumstances. Young people

  were less prone to be suspicious and more receptive

  to the promise of financial reward for a friendly

  service.

  It was odd, but that first night in Wesel was both

  the most difficult and the easiest. Difficult because

  he had no idea where to look, easy because it

  happened so rapidly, so logically.

  First he stopped at a drugstore, buying gauze,

  adhesive tape, antiseptic and an inexpensive cap

  with a visor. Then he went to a cafe, to the men's

  room, where he washed his face and the wound,

  which he bound tight, skin joining skin, the bandage

  firmly in place. Suddenly, as he finished his

  ministrations, he heard the familiar words and

  emphatic melody young raucous voices in song: "On,

  Wisconsin.... On, Wisconsin . . . on to victoreee. . ."

  The singers were a group of students from the

  German Society at the University of Wisconsin, as

  he later found out who were bicycling through the

  northern Rhineland. Casually approaching a young

  man getting more beers from the bar and

  introducing himself as a fellow American, he told an

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 425

  outrageous story of having been taken by a whore

  and rolled by her pimp, who stole his passport-but

  never thought of a money belt. He was a respected

  businessman who had to sleep it off, gather his wits,

  and reach his firm back in New York. However, he

  spoke no German, would the student consider the

  payment of $100 for helping him out?

  He would and did. Down the block was a dingy

  hotel where no questions were asked; the young man

  paid for a room and brought Converse, who was

  waiting outside, his receipt and his key.

  All yesterday he had walked, following the roads

  in sight of the railroad tracks until he reached a town

  named Halden. It was smaller than Wesel, but there

  was a run-down, industrial section east of the

  railroad yards. The only "hotel" he could find,

  however, was a large, shoddy house at the end of a

  row of shoddy houses with signs saying ZIMMER, 20

  MARK in two first-floor windows and a larger one

  over the front door. It was a boardinghouse, and

  several doors beyond in the spill of the streetlampsa

  heated argument was taking place between an older

  woman and a young man. Above, a few neighbors sat

  in their windows, arms on the sills, obviously

  listening. Joel also listened to the sporadic words

  shouted in heavily accented English.

  ". . . 'I hate it here!' Das habe ich ihm gesagt. 'I

  do not care to stay, Onkel! I vill go back to

  Germany! Maybe join .Baader-Meinhofl' Das halve

  ich item gesagt."

  "Barr!" screamed the woman, turning and going

  up the steps. "Schweinehund!" she roared, as she

  opened the door, went inside and slammed it shut

  behind her.

  The young man had looked up at his audience in

  the windows and shrugged. A few clapped, so he

  made an exaggerated, elaborate bow. Converse

  approached; there was no harm in trying, he thought.

  "You speak very good English," he said.

  "dye not?" replied the German. "They spend bags

  of groceries for five years to give me lessons. I must

  go to her brother in America. I say Nein! They say

  da! I go. I hate it!"

  "I'm sorry to hear that. I'm an American and I

  like the Cerrnan people. Where were you?"

  "In Yorktown."

  "Virginia?"

  "Nein! The city of New York."

  "Oh, that Yorktown."

  426 ROBERT LUDLUM

  'Ja, my uncle has two butcher shops in New

  York, in what they call Yorktown. Shit, as you say

  in America!'

  "I'm sorry. Why?"

  "The Schwarzen and theJuden! If you speak like

  me, the black people steal from you with knives, and

  the Jews steal from you with their cash registers.

  hreinie, they call me, and Nazi. I told a Jew he

  cheated me I vas nice, I vas not impolite and he

  told me to get out of his shop or he call the 'cops !

  I vas shit, he said! . . . You vear a good German

  suit and spend good German money, they don t say

  those things. You are a delivery boy trying to learn,

  they kick the shit out of you, What do I know! My

  father vas only a fourteen-year-old sol dier. Shit!"

  "Again, I'm telling you I'm sorry. I mean it. It's

  not in our nature to blame children.'

  "Shit!"

  "Perhaps I can make up for a little of what you

  went through. I m in trouble because I was a

  stupid American. But I'll pay you a hundred

  American dollars . . ."

  The young German happily got him a room at

  the boardinghouse. It was no better than the one in

  Wesel, but the water was hotter, the toilet nearer

  his door.

  Tonight was different from the other nights he

  had spent in Germany, thought Joel, as he looked

  across the street at the decrepit hotel in Emmerich.

  Tonight could lead to his passage into Holland. To

  Cort Thorbecke and a plane to Washington The

  man Joel had recruited was somewhat older than

  the oth ers who had helped him. He was a merchant

  seaman out of Bremerhaven, in Emmerich to make

  a duty call on his family with whom he felt ill at

  ease. He had made the obligatory call been soundly

  rebuked by his mother and father, and had returned

  to the place and the people he loved best a bar at

  the bend of the riverbank.

  Again, as it had been in Wesel, it was the

  English Iyrics of a song that had caught Joel's

  attention. He stared at the young seaman stan
ding

  at the bar and playing a guitar. This time it was not

  a college football song but an odd, haunting mixture

  of slow biting rock and a sad madrigal: ". . . When

  you finally came down, when your feet hit the

  ground, did you know where you were? When you

  finally were real, could you touch what you feel,

  were you there in the know? . . . '

  The men around the bar were caught up by the

  precise

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 427

  beat of the minor-key music. When the seaman

  finished there was respectful applause, followed by a

  resumption of fast talk and faster refilling of mugs of

  beer. Minutes later Converse was standing next to

  the seagoing troubador, the guitar now slung over his

  shoulder and held in place by a wide strap like a

  weapon. Joel wondered if the man really knew

  English or only Iyrics. He would find out in seconds.

  The seaman laughed at a companion's remark; when

  the laughter subsided, Converse said, 'I'd like to buy

  you a drink for reminding me of home. It was a nice

  song."

  The man looked at him quizzically. Joel

  stammered thinking that the seaman had no idea

  what he was talking about. Then, to Converse's

  relief, the man answered. "Danke. It is a good song.

  Sad but good, like some of ours. You are

  Amerikaner?"

  "Yes. And you speak English."

  "Okay. I don't read no good, aber I speak okay.

  I'm on merchant ship. We sail Boston, New York,

  Baltimore sometimes ports, Florida."

  "What'll you have?"

 

‹ Prev