Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

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by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  mammoth black whale, a killer whale. The lines

  were secured, and as the passengers disembarked,

  Johnny Reb began taking pictures.

  "Honeychile, this is Tatiana. I've got to reach my

  boy."

  "The Algonquin Hotel in New York City," said

  the calm female voice. "The number is Area Code

  two-one-two, eight-four-zero, six-eight-zero-zero.

  Ask for Peter Marcus."

  ' Subtle son of a bitch, isn't he?" saidJohnny

  Reb. ' Pardon my language, ma'am."

  "I've heard it before, Rebel. This is Anne."

  "Goddamn, little lady, why didn't you tell me

  beforel How are you, sweet child?"

  "Doing fine in my dotage, Johnny. I'm out, you

  know. This is just a courtesy for an old friend."

  "An oldfriend? Fair girl, if it wasn't for Petey,

  I'd have made one hell of a play for you!"

  "You should have, Reb. I wasn't in his cards, his

  terribly important cards. And you were one of the

  nicest a little more subterranean than most, but a

  nice person. What was it? 'Gentleman Johnny

  Reb'?"

  "I've always tried to keep up appearances,

  Annie. May I request the privilege of calling you

  one day, if we ever get out of this mess?"

  "I don't know what the mess is, Reb, but I do

  know you have my telephone number."

  "You give me heart, fair girl!"

  "We're older now, Johnny, but I guess you

  wouldn't understand that."

  "Never, child. Never."

  "Stay well, Reb. You're too good to lose."

  The operator at the Algonquin Hotel was

  adamant. "I'm sorry, sir, Mr. Marcus is not in his

  room and does not answer the page."

  "I'll call back," said the Rebel.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 629

  "Sorry, sir. There's no answer in Mr. Marcus's

  room and no response to the page."

  "I believe we spoke several hours ago, sir. There's

  still no answer in Mr. Marcus's room, so I took the

  liberty of calling the desk. He hasn't checked out and

  he didn't list an alternate number. Why not leave a

  message?"

  "I believe I will. As follows, please. 'Stay put until

  I reach you. Or you reach me. Imperative. Signed, Z.

  Tabana. That's T-a-t-i-a "

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Z. sire"

  "As in zero, miss." Johnny Reb hung up the

  phone in the flat in Cuxhaven. The taste in his

  mouth was overpoweringly sour.

  Erich Leifhelm entertained his luncheon guests at

  his favorite table at the Ambassador restaurant on

  the eighteenth floor of the Steigenberger Hotel in

  Bonn. The spacious, elegant room had a magnificent

  view not only of the city and the river but also of the

  mountains beyond, and this particular table was

  positioned to take advantage of that view. It was a

  bright, cloudless afternoon, and the natural wonders

  of the northern Rhineland were there for the

  fortunate to observe.

  "I never tire of it," said the former field marshal,

  addressing the three men at his table, gesturing with

  masculine grace at the enormous window behind

  him. "I wanted you to see it before returning to

  Buenos Aires indeed, one of the most beautiful

  cities in the world, I must add."

  The maitre d' intruded with deference, bowing as

  he spoke softly to Leifhelm. "Herr General, there is

  a telephone call for you."

  "An aide is dining at table fifty-five," said

  LeiPhelm casually, in spite of his racing pulse.

  Perhaps there was word of a priest in Strasbourg!

  "I'm sure he can take it for me."

  "The gentleman on the line specifically requested

  that I speak with you personally. He said to tell you

  he was calling from California."

  "I see. Very well." Leifhelm got out of his chair,

  apologizing to his guests. "No surcease from the

  vagaries of commerce, is there? Forgive me, I shall

  only be a moment or two. Please, more wine."

  The maitre d' nodded, adding, "I've had the call put

  630 ROBERT LUDIUM

  through to my private office, Herr Ceneral. It s right

  inside the foyer."

  'That pleases me. Thank you."

  Erich Leifhelm shook his head subtly as he

  passed table 55 near the entrance. The lone diner

  acknowledged the dismissal with a nod of his head.

  In all the years of strategies and tactics, military and

  political, that dismissal would prove to be one of the

  field marshal's gravest errors.

  Two men stood in the foyer, one looking at his

  watch, the other looking annoyed. To judge by their

  expensive clothes they belonged to the

  Ambassador's regular clientele and were obviously

  waiting for late luncheon companions, probably

  their wives, as they had not gone to their table. A

  third man stood outside the glass doors in the

  corridor; he was dressed in the maintenance

  uniform of the hotel and watched the two men

  inside.

  Leifhelm thanked the maitre d' as the latter held

  open the door to his modest office. The restaurateur

  closed the door and returned to the dining room.

  The two men swiftly, as one raced inside after

  the old soldier, who was at that moment picking up

  the telephone.

  "Was geht trier for? Wer ist . . . !"

  The first man lunged across the desk and

  gripped Leifhelm's head, clamping the general's

  mouth with very strong hands. The second man

  pulled a hypodermic needle from his pocket and

  removed the rubber shield as he tore at Leifhelm's

  jacket and then the collar of his shirt. He plunged

  the needle into the base of the general's throat,

  released the serum pulled out the syringe and

  immediately began massaging the flesh as he

  restored the collar and pulled the jacket back in

  place.

  "He'll be mobile for about five minutes," said the

  doctor in German. "But he can neither speak nor

  reason. His motor controls are now mechanical and

  have to be guided."

  "And after five minutesP" asked the first man.

  "He collapses, probably vomiting."

  "A nice picture. Hurry! Get him up and guide

  him, for God's sake! I'll check outside and knock

  once."

  Seconds later the knock came, and the doctor,

  with Leifhelm firmly in his grip, propelled the

  general out of the of lice and through the glass

  doors into the hotel corridor.

  "This way!" ordered the third man in the

  maintenance uniform, heading to the right.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 631

  "quickly!" added the doctor.

  Among the strollers in the plush hallway and the

  diners heading for the restaurant, a number

  recognised the legendary old soldier and stared at his

  pale face with the lips trembling, trying to speak. Or

  scream.

  "The great man has had terrible news," said the

  doctor repeatedly and reverentially. '`It's terrible,

  simply terrible""

&nbs
p; They reached a service elevator, which was on

  HOLD, and went inside. A stretcher on wheels stood

  against the padded back wall. The third man took a

  key from his pocket, inserted it in the HOLD lock to

  release the controls and pressed the nonstop switch

  for the basement. The other two lifted Leifhelm up

  on the stretcher and covered his entire body with a

  sheet.

  "They'll start talking up there," said the first man.

  "His bulls will come running. They're never far

  away."

  "The ambulance is downstairs now by the

  elevator door," said the man in the maintenance

  uniform. "The plane is waiting at the airfield."

  The once great field marshal of the Third Reich

  threw up under the sheet.

  Jacques-Louis Bertholdier let himself into the

  apartment on the Boulevard Montaigne and removed

  his silk jacket. He walked over to the mirrored bar

  against the wall, poured a vodka, threw in two cubes

  of ice from a sterling-silver bucket, and strolled to

  the window beyond the elegantly upholstered couch.

  The tree-lined boulevard was so peaceful at

  midafternoon, so spotlessly clean, and somehow so

  pastoral although very much a part of the city. There

  were times when he thought it was the essence of the

  Paris he loved, the Paris of influence and wealth,

  whose inhabitants never had to soil their hands. It

  was why he had purchased the extravagant flat and

  installed his most extravagant and desirable mistress.

  He needed her now. My God, how he needed

  releasel

  The Legionnaire shot and garroted in his own

  automobilet In the parking lot of the Bois de

  Bolognel And Prudhomme, the filthy bureaucrat,

  supposedly in Calais! No fingerprintsl Nothing! The

  once and foremost general of France needed an hour

  or so of tranquility.

  'canine! Where are you? Come out, Egyptiant I

  trust you're wearing what I instructed you to wear. If

  you need re

  632 ROBERT LUDLUM

  minding, it's the short black Givenchy, nothing

  underneath you understand! Absolutely nothing"

  "Of course, my general, 'came the words,

  strangely hesitant, from behind the bedroom door.

  Bertholdier laughed silently to himself as he

  turned and walked back to the couch. LeGrand

  Machin was still an event to be reckoned with, even

  by highly sexual twenty-five-year-olds who loved

  money and fast cars and elegant apartments as

  much as they adored having their bodies penetrated.

  Well, he was too upset to disrobe, his nerves too

  frayed to go through any prolonged preliminary

  nonsense. He had something else in mind release

  without effort.

  The sound of the turning knob broke off his

  thoughts. The door opened and a raven-haired girl

  emerged, her elongated, perfectly proportioned face

  set in anticipation, her brown eyes wide in a distant

  wonder. Perhaps she had been smoking marijuana,

  thought Bertholdier. She was dressed in a short

  negligee of black lace, her breasts wreathed in gray,

  her hips revolving in sexual provocation as she

  approached the couch.

  "Exquisite, you whore of the Nile. Sit down. It's

  been a dreadful day, a horrible day, and it is not

  over. My driver will return in two hours, and until

  then I need rest and release Give it to me,

  Egyptian. " Bertholdier zipped down the fly of his

  trousers and reached for the girl. "Fondle it, as I

  will fondle you, and then do what you can do." He

  grabbed her breasts and pulled her head down into

  his groin. "Now. Now. Do it!"

  A blinding flash filled the room, and two men

  walked out of the bedroom. The girl sprang back

  onto the couch as Bertholdier looked up in shock.

  The man in front put the camera in his pocket; his

  companion, a short, middle-aged heavyset man with

  a gun in his hand, walked slowly toward the legend

  of France.

  "I admire your taste, General," he said in a gruff

  voice. "But then, I suppose I've always admired you,

  even when I disagreed with you. You don't

  remember me, but you court-martialed me in

  Algiers, sending me to the stockade for thirty-six

  months because I struck an officer.. I was a sergeant

  major and he had brutally abused my men with

  excessive penalties for minor offecses. Three years

  for hitting a Paris-tailored pig. Three years in those

  filthy barracks for taking care of my men."

  "Sergeant Major Lefevre," said Bertholdier with

  authority, calmly zipping up his fly. "I remember. I

  never forget. You

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 633

  were guilty of treasonous conduct: assaulting. I

  should have had you shot."

  "There were moments during those three years

  when I would have welcomed the execution.. But I'm

  not here to discuss Algiers it's when I knew you

  were all crazy. I'm here to tell you you're coming

  with me. You'll be returned unharmed to Paris in

  several days."

  "Preposterous!" spat out the general. "You think

  your weapon frightens me?"

  "No, it's merely to protect myself from you, from

  the last gesture of a brave and famous soldier. I

  know you too wed to think that threats of bodily

  harm, or even death, could move you. I have another

  persuasion, however, one you've just made quite

  irresistible." The ex-sergeant major withdrew a

  second, oddly shaped gun from his pocket. "This

  weapon does not hold bullets. Instead it fires darts

  containing a chemical that accelerates the heart to

  the bursting point. My thoughts were to threaten you

  with fielding the photograph after your death,

  showing that the great general died ignominiously at

  what he did best. Now, perhaps, there is another

  approach. The angle was advantageous for certain

  expert brushwork your position and the expression

  on your face would not be touched, of course but

  your companion might easily become a he rather

  than a she, a little boy rather than a girl. There were

  rumors of your excesses once, and a hastily arranged

  marriage few could understand. Was this the secret

  Le Grand Machin ran from all his life? Was it the

  threat the great De Gaulle held over the head of his

  popular but all too ambitious and rebellious colonel?

  That the appetites of this pretender, this would-be

  successor, were so extensive they included anything

  he could get his hands on, his body on, the gender

  making no difference. Small boys when there were

  no women. The whispers of corrupted young

  lieutenants and captains, of rapes, conveniently

  called interrogations in your quarters "

  "Enough!" cried Bertholdier, shooting up from

  the couch. "Further conversation is pointless.

  Regardless of how absurd and unfounded your

  accusations are, I will not permit my name to be />
  dragged through filth! I went that film!"

  "My God, it's true," said the ex-infantry sergeant.

  "All of

  '.The filml" shouted the general. "Give it to me!"

  'You shall have it," replied Lefevre. "On the plane."

  * * *

  634 ROBERT LUDLUM

  Chaim Yakov Abrahms walked with a bowed

  head out of the Ihud Shivat Zion synagogue on the

  Ben Yehuda in Tel Aviv. The solemn crowds

  outside formed two deep flanks of devoted

  followers, men and women who wept openly at the

  terrible suffering this great man, this patriot-soldier

  of Israel, had been forced to endure at the hands of

  his wife. "Hitabdut, " they said in hushed voices.

  "Ebude atzmo, " they whispered to one another,

  cupping mouths to ears, out of Chaim's hearing. The

  rabbis would not relent; the sins of a despicable

  woman were visited upon this son of sabres, this

  fierce child of Abraham, this Biblical warrior who

  loved the land and the Talmud with equal fervor.

  The woman had been refused burial in a holy place;

  she was to remain outside the gates of the beht

  hakoahroht, her soul left to struggle with the wrath

  of Almighty God, the pain of that knowledge an

  unbearable burden for the one left behind.

  It was said she did it out of vengeance and a

  diseased mind. She had her daughters. It was the

  father's son always the father's son who had been

  slain on the father's battlefield. Who would weep

  more, who could weep more, or be in greater

  anguish than the father? And now this, the further

 

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