Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

  "He probably will. So might others. When you

  don't show up tonight, Leifhelm will have the

  airports checked. They could pick you up at

  Kennedy."

  "Then I'll lose them at LaGuardia. I'll go to a

  motel where I stay when I take the plane to Boston.

  I'll check in and get out without their knowing it."

  "You're very quick."

  "I told you, my roots go back; I've heard the

  stories. . Now, what about you?"

  "I'll stay out of sight. I'm getting pretty good at

  it and I can pay for anything I need."

  "Your words, Converse: 'Not good enough.' The

  more

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 501

  money you spread, the more of a trail you leave.

  They'll find you. You have to get out of Amsterdam

  too."

  ' Well, I could slip across a few borders and head

  down to Paris for my old suite at the George Cinq.

  Of course, it might be a little obvious, but then if I

  tapped high enough they are French."

  "Don't try to be funny."

  "I don't feel remotely amusing. Also, I'd like a

  private toilet and a shower even a secondhand

  bath. The rooms I find you can't find in the most

  esoteric travel guides."

  "You haven't had a shower in God knows how

  long, that much I can tell you in the open air."

  "Oh, beware the wife who's offended by her

  husband's hygiene. It's a sign of something."

  "Cut it out, Joel, I'm not your wife.... I've got to

  be able to reach you."

  "Let me think, I'm also getting very inventive. I'll

  figure out something. I could "

  "I've already figured it out," interrupted Val

  firmly. ~Before I flew over I talked with my aunt."

  From your house?"

  From the midtown hotel in New York where I

  registered under a different name."

  Lyon were thinking about your phone."

  4Not the way you were. I told her what I thought

  had happened, what I was going to try to do. She

  came to see me in Berlin last night. She talked up a

  storm how she could do this do that but it all

  boiled down to the fact that she'll help. She ll hide

  you. So will others."

  `In Germany?"

  4Yes. She lives in the countryside, on the

  outskirts of Osnabruck. It's the safest place you

  could go, the last place those people would think to

  look for you."

  How do I get back into Germany? It was rough

  enough getting out! Delavane's people aside every

  border's on the alert, my photograph on every wall.

  '

  "I talked to Hermione this afternoon, after you

  called from a pay phone; she was staying with a

  friend. She started making arrangements right away,

  and when I flew in here a few hours ago, an old man

  met me at the airport, the same man you'll be

  staying with tonight. You don't know him but you've

  seen him; he was riding the bicycle in the Museum-

  plein. I was taken to a house on the Lindengracht

  where I was

  502 ROBERT LUDLUM

  to call my aunt; the phone was what they term

  'unberuhrt,' clean, untouched."

  "My God, they are back in the forties.,'

  "Not much has changed, has it?"

  "No, I guess not. What did she say?"

  "Only your instructions. Late tomorrow

  afternoon, when the terminal's full, you're to go to

  the Central Station here in Amsterdam and walk

  around by the information booth. A woman will

  come up to you and say hello, saying she recognized

  you as someone she met in Los Angeles. Respond

  to her and during the conversation she'll hand you

  an envelope. Inside will be a passport, a letter, and

  a train ticket."

  "A passport? Hawk"

  "All they needed was a photograph. I knew that

  much when I left your father in Cape Ann."

  "You knew?"

  "I told you, I've heard the stories all my life.

  How they got Jews and Gypsies and all the men

  who parachuted down from planes out of Germany

  and into neutral or occupied countries. The false

  papers, the photographs, they became an art form."

  ''And you brought a photograph?"

  "It seemed logical. Roger thought so, too.

  Remember, he was in that war."

  "Logical . . . a photograph."

  "Yes. I found one in an album. Do you

  remember when we went to the Virgin Islands and

  you scorched yourself that first day in the sun?"

  "Sure. You made me wear a tie to dinner and

  my neck was killing me."

  "I was trying to teach you a lesson. That

  picture's a close-up. I wanted your sunburn in all its

  agony."

  "It's still my face, Val."

  "That photograph was taken eight years ago and

  the burn softened your features. It'll do."

  "Don't I have to know anything?"

  "If you're detained for that kind of questioning,

  you'll probably be caught. My aunt doesn't think you

  will be."

  "Why is she so confident?"

  "The letter. It spells out what you're doing."

  "Which is?"

  "A pilgrimage to Bergen-Belsen, later to Auschwitz

  in Po

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 503

  land. It's written in German and you're to hand it to

  anyone who stops you because you speak only

  English."

  "But why would that ?"

  "You're a priest," interrupted Valerie. "The

  pilgrimage was financed by an organisation in Los

  Angeles called the Coalition of Christians and Jews

  for World Peace and Repentance. Only a German

  very sure of himself will call attention to you. I've got

  a dark suit in your size in my tote bag, along with a

  black hat, shoes, and a clerical collar. The

  instructions will be with your ticket. You'll take the

  northern express to Hanover where you're supposed

  to switch trains for Celle and be driven to

  Bergen-Belsen in the morning, but of course you

  won't. When you reach Osnabruck, get off. My aunt

  will be waiting for her priest. And by then I'll be

  back in New York getting in touch with Sam..'

  Converse shook his head. "Val, it's all very

  impressive, but you weren't listening to me.

  Leifhelm's men have seen me in that station, as a

  matter of fact. They know what I look like."

  "They saw a pale-faced man with a beard and a

  battered face. Shave off the beard tonight."

  ' And apply for cosmetic surgery?"

  "No, apply a generous amount of lotion called

  Instant Sun it's with the clothes I brought you. It'll

  darken your face more like the photograph on the

  passport and also cover the bruises they won't be

  that noticeable. The black hat and the clerical collar

  will take care of the rest."

  "Omens," said Joel, touching the bruises on his

  face and noting that they were less painful. "Do you

  remember when you fell and hit the table in the

  foyer, the black eye?"

  "I was in a panic; I had a presentation the ne
xt

  day. You went out and got the makeup for me."

  "I bought the same stuff this morning. It helped."

  "I'm glad."

  They looked at each other across the short

  distance between them in the moonlit field. "I'm

  sorry about everything, Val. I wish you weren't part

  of this. If there was any other way I wouldn't let you

  be, you know that."

  "I know it, but it doesn't matter to me one way or

  the other. I came over here because of a promise I

  made to myself a promise I meant. Not you. I'm

  over you, Joel, believe that."

  "The promise you made to yourself was provoked by

  me.

  504 ROBERT LUDLUM

  Since I was the offending party of the second part,

  that should have canceled it."

  "That's probably a rotten legal opinion," said

  Val, shifting her legs and looking away. "There's

  also the obvious. Everything you've told me terrifies

  me not fact A and fact B. or who's conspiring with

  whom; I'm a landscape painter; I can't deal with

  such things. But I'm so terribly afraid because I can

  personalise. I can see how these people this

  Aquitaine can win, can take control of our lives,

  turning us all into complacent flocks of sheep. Good

  God, Joel, we'd uvelcome them!"

  "I missed something."

  "Then you're blind. I don't think it's just women,

  or women who live alone like me, I think it's most

  of the people walking around in the streets, trying

  to earn a living, trying to make the rent or a

  mortgage or a car payment, trying to make it

  through life. We're sick of everything around us!

  We're told one minute we may be blown up in a

  nuclear war unless we're taxed out of our houses to

  pay for bigger bombs and that our water's

  contaminated, or that we can't buy this or that

  because it might be poisoned. Children disappear,

  and people are killed walking into a store for a

  quart of milk, and addicts and muggers with guns

  and knives cut people down on the streets. I live in

  a small town and I won't go there after dark, and if

  I'm in the city any city I look behind me in broad

  daylight, and I'll be damned if I'll get into an

  elevator unless it's crowded.... I couldn't afford it

  but I put in a burglar alarm system in a house I

  don't own because there was a boat out in the water

  one day that stayed there overnight. In my mind I

  saw men crawling up the beach to my windows. We

  all see such things, whether out on the water, or

  down city blocks, or in a field like this. We're

  frightened; we're sick of the problems, sick of the

  violence. We want someone strong to stop it and

  I'm not sure it even matters who they are. And if

  the men you're talking about push things any fur-

  ther_believe me, they know what they're doing.

  They can walk in and be crowned, no votes

  required.... And in spite of everything I've said,

  that's even more frightening. Which is why you're

  going to take me to the airport."

  "Why did I ever let you go?" whispered Joel,

  more to himself than to her.

  "Cut it out, Converse. It's over. We're over.''

  * * *

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 505

  He watched from the darkest area of the parking

  lot at Amsterdam's Schilphol Airport as the plane

  sped down the runway and lifted off into the night

  sky. He had driven up to a crowded platform where

  Val had gotten out, giving him the scrap of paper

  with the address that was to be his refuge for the

  night. So that he would know she had been able to

  get on board the flight, she was to come out the

  glass doors, look at her watch and go back inside. If

  the plane was overbooked, she was to continue on

  the pedestrian walk to the temporary lot a hundred

  yards away from the entrance where he would be

  waiting for her. She had come outside, glanced at

  her watch and returned to the terminal. A part of

  him had felt relief, another part a quiet, hollow

  emptiness.

  He watched the huge silver plane bank to the left

  and disappear, its fading lights a trajectory in the

  dark sky.

  He stood naked in front of the mirror in the

  small bathroom in the house on the Lindengracht.

  The car was some twenty streets away. He had made

  the return journey cautiously on foot. The old man

  who owned the flat was pleasant and spoke in

  haltingly clear English, but his eyes were far away

  and never really made contact. His mind was in

  another place, another time.

  Joel had shaved carefully, showered far longer

  than a guest should, and had finished applying the

  deep red lotion to his face, neck and hands. In

  moments his skin was bronzed. The result was far

  more authentic than it used to be with the earlier

  products he remembered, when anyone who used

  them stood out the mask of sickly brown was too

  smooth and cosmeticized to be anything but

  unnatural. The new coloring further concealed the

  bruises on his face; he looked almost normal. He

  would discard the tinted glasses; they would only call

  attention to him, especially from anyone who had

  seen him or had been given his description. He

  washed his hands repeatedly, kneading them together

  to remove the stains from his fingertips.

  He stiffened. From somewhere beyond the door

  came the sound of an erratic bell. He quickly turned

  off the water and listened, his breathing suspended,

  his eyes on the gun he had placed on the narrow

  windowsill. He heard the sound again; it stopped.

  Then he heard a single voice, a man on a telephone.

  He dried his hands and slipped on the short cotton

  bathrobe that had been left on the bed in his small,

  immacu

  506 ROBERT LUDLUM

  late room. He put the gun in his pocket went out

  the door and down the dark, narrow hallway that

  fed to the old man's "study." It was a former

  bedroom filled with old magazines a few books, and

  tabloid newspapers on tables and chairs opened to

  the bloodiest sections, with red crayon marks cir-

  cling articles and pictures. On the walls were prints

  and photographs of long-past wartime

  accomplishments including corpses in various poses

  of death. In an odd way it reminded Converse of

  L'Etalon Blanc in Paris, except that here there were

  no glories of war, only the ugliness of death. It was

  more honest, he thought, if nothing else.

  "Ah, Meneer, " said the old man, sitting forward

  in a huge leather chair that engulfed his frail body,

  the telephone beside him. "You are safe, quite safe!

  That was Kabel code name, Kabel, nataurlijk. He

  has left the hotel and reports his progress." Fragile,

  in his seventies the Dutchman struggled out of the

  chair and stood erect, his thin shoulders back, his

  body rigid a foolis
h old man playing soldier.

  "Operation Osnabruck proceeds"" he said, as if

  reporting to a commanding officer. "As

  contemplated by underground intelligence reports,

  the enemy infiltrated the area and he has been

  compromised."

  "He's been what?"

  "Executed, Meneer. A wire around the throat,

  taken from behind. The blood stays on the clothes

  as the neck is pulled back, thus there are no signs of

  combat and the enemy is removed from the place of

  compromise."

  "What did you say?"

  "Kabel is strong for one of his age," said the old

  man, grinning, his weathered face a thousand

  creases, his posture now relaxed. "He took the body

  from the room, dragged it to the fire exit, and down

  into the alley. From there he gained access to the

  cellars and put the corpse back by the furnaces. It is

  summer; the man may not be found for

  days unless the stench becomes too much."

  Converse heard the words, but his concentration

  was only on one. Compromise. In this odd language

  of another time it meant . . . execution. Execution .

  . . murder . . . assassinationl

  What would you say to compromising certain

  powerful individuals in specif c governments . . . ~

  Leifhelm's words.

  It wouldn't Turk. His own.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 507

  You do not take into consideration the time

  element! AN cumulation! Rapid acceleration! Chaim