Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 98
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