Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 94
his life was all about. From celebrated soldier to a
scholar to a killing that must have killed a part of
him to commit.... He said you almost caught him up
on a couple of things he didn't mean to say. He said
you were a good lawyer, a good choice. Preston
Halliday was a student of his at Berkeley, and when
this broke a year and a half ago when Halliday
realized what Delavane was doing and how he was
being used, he went to Beale, who was about to
retire. The rest you can figure out."
The woman's voice interrupted. "Say what I want
to hear you say. Say it!"
"Of course I will! Converse didn't kill Peregrine
and he didn't kill the commander of NATO. Both of
them were marked by Delavane George Marcus
Delavane because both those men would have
taken him and his ilk to the mat! They were
convenient, very convenient, targets. I don't know
about the others I don't know what you've been
through but we broke a liar in Bad Godesberg, the
major from the embassy who put you, Converse, at
the Adenauer Bridge! He doesn't know it, but we
broke him, and we learned something. We think we
know where Connal Fitzpatrick is. We think he's
alive!"
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 603
A male voice intruded. "You bastards," said Joel
Converse.
"Thank God!" said the civilian, sitting down on the
hotel bed. "Now we can talk. We have to talk. Tell
me everything you can. This phone is clean."
Twenty minutes later, his hands trembling, Peter
Stone hung up the phone.
36
General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier ceased the
rushing pelvic thrusts of intercourse, withdrew himself
from the moaning dark-haired woman beneath him,
and rolled over, grabbing the telephone.
"Yesfl"he shouted angrily. And then he listened,
his flushed face growing ashen as his organ collapsed.
"Where did it happen?" he whispered, not in
confidence but in sudden fear. "The Boulevard
Raspail? The charges? . . . NarcoticsPlmpossible!"
Holding the phone, the general swung his legs
over the side of the bed, listening carefully,
concentrating as he stared at the wall. The naked
woman rose to her knees and leaned into him, her
breasts pressed into his back, her open mouth
caressing his ear, her teeth gently biting his lobe.
Bertholdier suddenly, viciously, swung his arm
back cracking the phone into the woman's face,
sending her reeling to the other side of the bed,
blood erupting from her broken lower lip.
"Repeat that, please," he said into the phone. "It's
obvious, then, isn't it? The man cannot be questioned
further, can he? There is always the larger strategy to
consider, losses to be anticipated in the field, no? It
is the hospital all over again, I'm afraid. See to it,
then, like the fine officer you are. The Legion's loss
was our immense gain.... Oh? What is it? The ar-
resting officer was PruHhomme?" Bertholdier paused,
his breathing steady and audible; then he spoke,
rendering a command decision. "A stubborn
bureaucrat from the Surete will not let go, will he? .
. . He is your second assignment to
604 ROBERT LUDLUM
be carried out with your usual expertise before the
day is over. Call me when both are
accomplishments, and consider yourself the aide to
General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier."
The general hung up and turned to the
dark-haired woman, who was wiping her lips with a
bed sheet, the expression in her eyes an admixture
of anger, embarrassment and fear.
"Apologies, my dear," he said courteously. "But
you must leave now. I have telephone calls to make,
business to attend to.
"I will not come back!" cried the woman defiantly.
"You will come back," said the legend of France
standing up, his body rigid in its nakedness. "If you
are asked."
Erich Leifhelm walked rapidly into his study and
directly over to the large desk, where he took the
phone from a whitejacketed attendant, dismissing
the man with a nod. The instant the door was
closed he spoke. "What is it?"
"The Geyner car was found, Herr General."
"Where?"
"Appenweier."
'And what is that?"
"A town fifteen or eighteen kilometers from Kehl.
In the
"Strasbourg! He crossed into France! He was a
priest!"
"I don't understand, Herr "
"We never thought. . . ! Never mind! Whom have
you got in the sector?"
"Only one man. The man with the police."
"Tell him to hire others. Send them into Strasbourg!
Look
"Get out of here!" roared Chaim Abrahms as his
wife walked through the kitchen door. "This is no
place for you now!"
"The Testaments say otherwise, my
husband yet not my husband," said the frail woman
dressed in black; a circle of soft white hair framed
gentle features and her brown eyes were dark,
receding mirrors. "Will you deny the Bible you
employ so readily when it suits you? It is not all
thunder and vengeance. Must I read it to you?"
"Read nothing! Say nothing! These are matters for
men!"
"Men who kill? Men who use the primitive savagery
of
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 605
the Scriptures to justify the spilling of children's
blood? My son's blood? I wonder what the mothers
of the Masada would have said had they been
permitted to speak their hearts. . . . Well, I speak
now, General. You will not kill anymore. You will not
use this house to move your armies of death, to plot
your tactics of death always your holy tactics,
Chaim, your holy vengeance."
Abrahms slowly got out of the chair. "What are
you talking about?"
"You think I haven't heard you? Phone calls in
the middle of the night, calls from men who sound
like you, who speak of killing so easily "
"You listened !"
"Several times. You were breathing so hard you
heard nothing but the sound of your own voice, your
own orders to kill. Whatever you're doing will be
done without you now, my husband yet not my
husband. The killing is over for you. It lost its
purpose years ago, but you could not stop. You in-
vented new reasons until there was no reason left in
you."
The sabre's wife removed her right hand from
the folds of her black dress. She was holding
Abrahms' service automatic. The soldier slapped his
holster in disbelief, then suddenly lunged toward the
woman he had lived with for thirty-eight years and
grabbed her wrist, spinning her around. She would
not relent! She resisted him, clawing at his face as he
crashed her back into the wall, twisting her hand in
the attempt to disar
m her.
The sound of the explosion filled the kitchen, and
the woman who had borne him four children, the
last finally a son fell to the floor at his feet. In
horror Chaim Abrahms looked down. Her
dark-brown eyes were wide, her black dress drenched
with blood, half her chest torn away.
The telephone rang. Abrahms ran to the wall and
grabbed it, screaming, "The children of Abraham will
not be denied! A bloodbath will follow we will have
the land delivered to us by God! Judea,
Samaria they are ours!"
"Stop it!" roared the voice over the line. "Stop it,
Jew!"
"Who calls me Jew calls me righteous!" yelled
Chaim Abrahms, the tears falling down his face, as
he stared at the dead woman with the wide brown
eyes. "I have sacrificed with Abraham! No one could
ask more!"
"I ask more!" came the cry of the cat. "I ask
always morel"
606 ROBERT IUDLUM
"Marcus?" whispered the sabre, closing his eyes
and collapsing against the wall, turning away from
the corpse. "Is it you . . . my leader, my conscience?
Is it you?"
"It is I, Chaim, my friend. We have to move fast.
Are the units in place?"
"Yes. Scharhorn. Twelve units in place, all
trained, prepared. Death is no consideration."
"That's what I had to know, ' said Delavane.
'.Theyawait your codes, my general." Abrahms
gasped then began to weep uncontrollably.
"What is it, Chaim? Get hold of yourselfl"
"She's dead. My wife lies dead at my feetI"
"My God, what happened?"
"She overheard, she listened . . she tried to kill
me. We fought and she's dead."
"A terrible, terrible loss, my dear friend. You
have my deepest affection and condolences iri your
bereavement."
"Thank you, Marcus."
"You know what you must do, don't you, Chairn?"
"Yes, Marcus. I know."
There was a knock at the door. Stone got out of
the chair and picked up his gun awkwardly from the
table. In all the years of sorting out garbage, he had
fired a weapon only once He had blown a foot off
a KGB informant in Istanbul for the simple reason
that the man had been exposed while drunk and had
lunged at him with a knife. That one incident was
enough. Stone did not like guns.
"Yes?" he said, the automatic at his side.
"Aurelius," replied the voice behind the door.
Stone opened it and greeted his visitor "Metcalf?"
"Come in. And I think we'd better change the code."
"I suppose I could use 'Aquitaine'," said the
intelligence officer, walking into the room.
"Somehow I'd rather you didn't."
"Somehow I don't think I will. Do you have coffee?"
"I'll get some. You look exhausted."
"I ve looked better on a beach in Hawaii," said
the slender, muscular middle-aged Air Force man.
He was dressed in summer slacks and a white Izod
jacket, and his thin face matched his short, thinning
brown hair; dark circles were prominent under his
clear authoritative eyes. "At nine o'clock
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 607
yesterday morning I drove south out of Las Vegas to
Halloran, and from there I began a series of
cross-country flights a computer couldn't follow,
hopping from airport to airport under more names
than I can remember."
'You're a frightened man," said the civilian.
lf you're not, I'm talking to the wrong person."
I'm not only frightened, Colonel, I'm petrified."
Stone went to the phone, ordered coffee, and before
hanging up he turned to Metcalf. `Would you like a
drink?" he asked.
1 would. Canadian on the rocks, please."
'1 envy you." The civilian gave the order, and
both men sat down; for several moments only the
sounds of the street outside broke the silence. They
looked at each other, neither concealing the fact that
he was silently evaluating the other.
"You know who and what I am," said the
Colonel. 'Who are you? What?"
"CIA. Twenty-nine years. Station chief in
London, Athens, Istanbul, and points east and north.
A once disciple of Angleton and coordinator of
clandestine operations until I was fired. Anything
else?"
"No."
"Whatever you did to your answering machine,
you did it right. The Converse woman called."
Metcalf shot forward in the chair. "And?"
"It was touch and go for a while I wasn't at my
best but he finally got on the line, or I should say
he finally spoke. He was there all the time."
"Your second best must have been pretty good."
"All he wanted to hear was the truth. It wasn't hard."
"Where is he? Where are they?"
"The Alps, that's all he'd say "
'Goddamn it!"
" for now," completed the civilian. "He wants
something from me first."
"What?"
"Affidavits. You could call them depositions."
"What9"
"You heard me. Affidavits from myself and the
people I'm working with working for,
actually stating what we know and what we did."
"He's out to hang you, and I don't blame him."
"That's part of it, and I don't blame him, either,
but he says it's secondary and I believe that. He
wants Aquitaine. He
608 ROBERT LUDIUM
wants Delavane and his crowd of maniacs nailed to
the wall before the whole damn thing
erupts before the killing begins."
'That was Sam Abbott's judgment. The
killing multiple assassinations, here and
throughout Europe, the quickest and surest way to
international chaos."
' The woman told him."
"No, he pieced it together from things Converse
told her. Converse didn't understand the words."
"He does now," said Stone. "Did I say I was
petrified? What's a stronger phrase?"
"Whatever it is, it applies to both of us because
we both know how simple it would be so sim pie.
We're not dealing with woolly-brained crazies or
even your run-of-the-mill terrorists we've got thirty
years' experience and ninety percent of them are in
our computers. When the signals break out, we
know where they are and usually we can stop them.
But here we're dealing with the roughest
professionals in our own and in allied ranks, also
with years of experience. They're walking around
the Pentagon, and on Army and Navy bases and at
an Air Force base in Nevada. Christ, where are
they? You open your mouth and you don't know
whom you're talking to, who'll cut you down or
program an aircraft to break apart in the sky. How
can we stop what we can't see?"
"Perhaps Converse's way."
"With Affidavits:"
"Maybe. Incidentally, he wants one from you.
Your meeting with Abbott, everything he told you,
as well as your
evaluation of his mental capacities
and stability. That means you'll have to stay here
tonight. A half-hour ago I reserved three other
rooms I said I'd give the front desk the names
later."
"Would you mind answering my question? What
the hell are affidavits going to do? We're dealing
with an army out there how large and how
widespread we don't know but it is an army! At
minimum, a couple of battalions, here and in
Europe. Professional officers trained to carry out
orders, believing in those orders and in the generals
who are issuing them. Affidavits, depositions, for
Christ's sake! Is this some kind of flaky legal
handspring that doesn't mean anything? Do we have
time for this?"
"You're not thinking anything I didn't think,
Colonel. But then, I'm not a lawyer and neither are
you. Converse is, and I had a long conversation with
him. He's taking the only route
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 609
he knows. The legal route. Oddly enough, it's why we
sent him out."
"Give me an answer, Stone " said Metcalf coldly.
"Protection," replied Stone. 'What Converse wants