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Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

Page 94

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  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

 

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