The Aquaintaine Progession

by Ludlum, Robert

  “Son of a gun, I just don’t believe it!” said theyoung lieutenant William Landis, the computerexpert from the Pentagon. “I know number fifty-one,I’m almost positive! He’s one of the adjutants inMiddle East procurements. I’ve seen him a lot butI don’t know his name.”

  Six other men and two women volunteeredtwelve additional identities and positions aseveryone in the room silently looked for anemerging pattern. There was a preponderance ofmilitary personnel, and the umbrella of the rest waspuzzling. In the main they were ex-combat soldiersfrom high-casualty outfits who had drifted intocrime largely violent crime, the sort of men PeterStone knew the generals of Aquitaine consideredhuman garbage.

  Finally Derek Belamy spoke in his hard, clippeddistant voice. “There are four or five faces Iassociate with dossiers but I’m not makingconnections.” He looked over at Stone. "You’ll runthem again, won’t you, old boy?”

  “Of course, Derek,” replied the former stationchief in London. Stone, who had said nothing, rosefrom his chair and addressed the gathering.“Everything you’ve given us will be fed immediatelyinto computers, and we’ll see if we come up withany correlations. And to repeat what I saidpreviously, I want to thank you all and apologiseagain for not giving you the explanations youdeserve, not only for your help but for the troublewe’ve caused you. Speaking personally, my conso

  ration is that you’ve all been here before and I knowyou understand. We’ll break for fifteen minutes andstart again. There are coffee and sandwiches in thenext room.’ Stone nodded his thanks once more andstarted for the door. Derek Belamy intercepted himin the aisle.

  “Peter, I’m dreadfully sorry it took me so long toget back to you. Truth is, the office had a devil of atime tracking me down. I was visiting friends inScotland.”

  “I thought you might be in Northern Ireland. It’sa hell of a mess, isn’t it?”

  “You were always better than you thought youwere. I was in Belfast, of course. But right now Ipromise to do better I’m sure I will but the factis I’m bushed, it was a perfectly terrible trip and, ofcourse, no sleep whatsoever. All those faces began tolook alike I either knew them all or I didn’t knowa damned one!”

  “Running them again will help,” said Stone.

  “Quite so,” agreed Belamy. “And Peter, whateverthis tangle is with that maniac, Delavane, I couldn’thave been more delighted to see you in the controlchair. We were all told you were out, rather firmlyout.”

  “I’m back in. Very firmly.”

  “I can see that, chap. That is your Secretary ofState in the back row, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Congratulations, old boy. Well, off for coffee,black and hot. See you in a few minutes.”

  “Across the aisle, old friend.”

  Stone walked out the door and turned right inthe white corridor. He could feel the rapidacceleration of his heartbeat it was a cousin toJohnny Reb’s claims of a churning stomach and anacid taste in his mouth bile, the Rebel called it. Hehad to get to a telephone quickly. Converse’s courier,the Surete’s Prudhomme, would be arriving withinthe hour; a Secret Service escort was waiting for himat Dulles Airport with instructions to bring himdirectly to the White House. But it was not theFrenchman who concerned Stone now, it was Con-verse himself. He had to reach him before thesession began again. He had to!

  When the lawyer had contacted him through theTatiana relay, Peter had been astonished by thesheer audacity of what Converse had done.Kidnapping the three generals video-taping theinterrogations or the “oral examina

  lions” or whatever the legal terminology was, it wasinsanel The only thing more insane was the fact thathe had carried it off thanks obviously to theresources of a very determined, very angry man fromthe Surete. The computer was in Scharhorn, themaster list of Aquitaine buried somewhere in its in-tricate mechanism, only to be erased by inaccuratecodes, the complex itself mined with explosives.Jesus!

  And now the final insanity. The man no onecould find, the source so deeply shrouded theyfrequently doubted his existence despite the fact thatall logic insisted he was there. There had to beAquitaine’s man in England, for there could be noAquitaine without the British. Further, Stone knewhe was the conduit, the primary communicatorbetween Palo Alto and the generals overseas, forconstant screenings of Delavane’s telephone chargesshowed repeated calls to a number in the Hebrides,and such a relay device was all too familiar to theformer intelligence agent. The calls disappeared atthat number in the Scottish islands, just as the KGBcalls processed through Canada’s Prince Edwarddisappeared, and the Company’s communicationsrouted through Key West could not be traced.

  Belamy! The man whose face never appeared inany publication film was destroyed instantly byaides if he was even in the background of aphotograph. The most guarded operations of ficer inEngland, with access to secrets culled over decadesand scores of devices created by the best minds ofM.I.6. And yet, was it possible? Derek Belamy, thequiet good-humored chess player, the friend whogave good whisky and a fine ear to an Americancolleague who had progressively had serious doubtsabout his calling in life. The betterfriend for havingthe wisdom and the courage to warn his cotleaguethat he was drinking too much, that perhaps heshould take a sabbatical, and if money was aproblem, surely some sort of quiet consultationagreement could be worked out with his ownorganization. Was it possible, this decent man thisfriend ?

  Stone reached the door in the hallway markedsimply by the number 14, OCCUPIED. He walkedinside the small room and went to the desk and thetelephone. He did not sit down; his anxiety wouldnot permit it. He picked up the phone and dialedthe White House switchboard as he took out the slipof paper in his pocket with Converse’s numbersomewhere in France. He gave it to the operator,adding simply, “This

  should be scrambled. I’m talking from StrategyFourteen confirm by trace. "

  “Trace confirmed, sir. Scrambler will be inoperation. Shall I call you back?”

  “No, thanks, I’ll stay on the line.” Stone remainedstanding as he heard the hollow echo of numbersbeing punched and the faint hum of the scramblingmachine. And then he heard the sound of a dooropening. He turned.

  " Put the phone down, Peter,” said Derek Belamyquietly as he shut the door. “There’s no point tothis.”

  “It is you, isn’t it?” Stone slowly, awkwardlyreplaced the phone in its cradle.

  “Yes, it is. And I want everything you want, myold friend. Neither of us could deny ourselves theparting shots, could we? I said I was visiting friendsin Scotland and you said you thought I was inIreland. We’ve learned over the years haven’t we?The eyes don’t lie. Scotland calls to the Hebrides;the glass fell over your eyes. And earlier, when thatface came on the screen, you looked across the Eslea bit too obviously, I thmk.

  “Dobbins. He worked for you.”

  “You wrote frantically on your pad, yet you saidnothing.’

  “I was waiting for you to say something.”

  “Yes, of course, but I couldn’t, could I?”

  “Why, Derek? For Christ’s sake, why?”

  “Because it’s right and you know it.”

  “I don’t know it! You’re a sane, reasonable man.They’re not!”

  “They’ll be replaced, naturally. How often haveyou and I used drones we couldn’t abide becausetheir contributions were necessary to the objectives”

  “What objective? An international totalitarianalliance? A military state without borders? All of usrobots marching to the drums of fanatics?”

  “Oh, come off it, Peter. Spare us both the liberaldrivel. You left this business once, drinking yourselfinto a stupor because of the waste, the futility, thedeceits we all practiced the people we killed tomaintain what we laughingly called the status quo.What status quo, old man? To be continuouslyharassed by our inferiors the world over? To be heldhostage by screaming mullahs and hysterical foolswho still live in the Dark Ages and would cut ourthroats over the price of a barrel of oil? To bemanipulated at every turn by Soviet

  deceptions
? No, Peter, there really is a better way.The means may be distasteful, but the end result isnot only desirable, it’s also honorable.”

  "Whose definition? George Marcus Delavane’s?Erich Leifhelm’s? Chaim “.

  They’ll be replaced!’.

  They can’t be!” shouted Stone. Once it starts,you can’t stop it. The image becomes the reality. It’sexpected, de manded! To deviate is to be accused, tooppose is to be ostracized, penalized! It’s lockstepand lockjaw, and you damn well know that!”

  The telephone rang.

  “Let it ring,” ordered the man from M.1.6.

  “It doesn’t matter now. You were theEnglishman at Leifhelm’s house in Bonn. A briefdescription of you would have confirmed it for me.”

  "That’s Converse?” The phone rang again.

  “Would you like to talk to him? I understandhe’s quite a lawyer, although he broke afundamental rule he took himself on as a client.He’s coming out, Derek, and he’s going after you,all of you. We all are after all of you.”

  “You won’t!” cried Belamy. "You can’t! As youyourself put it, once it starts you can’t stop it!”

  Without the slightest indication that he wasabout to move, the Englishman suddenly lunged atStone, the three middle fingers of his right handrigid, zeroing in like steel projectiles on the CIAman’s throat. Stone took the agonizing blow, gaspingfor air as the room spiraled out of his vision, athousand dazzling spots of white light flashing in hiseyes. He could hear the door opening and closing asthe phone insistently rang again. But Peter couldnot see it. the white lights had turned into darkness.The ringing stopped as Stone wildly, blindlycareened around the room, trying to trace the belltrying to find the phone. The minutes passed inmadness as he smashed into walls and fell over thedesk. Then the door crashed open and Colonel AlanMetcalf rushed in.

  “Stone! What ha opened ?” Racing to Peter, theAir Force officer instantly recognised the effects ofthe judo chop. He began massaging Stone’s throat,pressing his knee into the CIA man’s stomach toforce up air. The switchboard reached us, sayingthat room fourteen had placed a scrambler call butdidn’t pick up. Christ, who was it?”

  Vague images came back to Stone, but still he couldnot

  speak; he was capable only of gasping coughs. Hewrithed under MetcalEs strong hands, pointing to anote pad that had fallen from the desk. The colonelunderstood; he reached for it and yanked out aball-point pen from his pocket. He rolled Stone overand, placing the pen in his hand, guided the hand tothe pad.

  Struggling for control, Peter wrote: BELMY.STP. AQUTAIN.

  “Oh, my God!” whispered Metcalf, reaching forthe phone and dialing zero. “Operator, this is anemergency. Give me Security…. Security? ColonelAlan Metcalf talking from Strategy Fourteen.Emergency! There’s an Englishman named Belamywho may still be on the premises trying to leave.Stop him! Hold him! Consider him dangerous. Andget word to the infirmary. Send a doctor to StrategyFourteen. Quickly!”

  The White House staff doctor removed theoxygen mask from Stone’s face and placed it on thedesk next to the cylinder. He then gently movedPeter’s head back in the chair, inserted a tonguedepressor and peered into the CIA man’s throat witha pencil light.

  “It was a nasty shot,” he said, “but you’ll feelbetter in a couple of hours. I’ll give you some pillsfor the pain.”

  “What’s in them?” asked Stone hoarsely.

  “A mild analgesic with some codeine.”

  “No thanks, Doctor,” said Peter, looking over atMetcalf. "I don’t think I like what I see on yourface.”

  “I don’t either. Belamy got out. His pass was highpriority, and he told the East Gate he was neededurgently at the British embassy.”

  “Goddomn it!”

  “Try not to strain your voice,” said the doctor.

  “”Yes, of course,” replied Stone. “Thank youvery much, and now if you’ll excuse us.” He got outof the chair as the doctor picked up his medical bagand headed for the door.

  The telephone rang as the door closed. Metcalfpicked it up. “Yes? Yes it is; he’s right here.” Thecolonel listened for several moments then turned toStone. “Breakthrough,” he said. “All those militarywho were identified have two things in common.Each is on a minimum thirty-day summer leave, andevery request was made five months ago, nearly tothe day.”

  “Thus guaranteeing request-granted statusbecause they were first in line,” added the CIA manwith difficulty. “And the plans for the antinucleardemonstrations were announced in Sweden sixmonths ago.”

  “Clockwork,” said Metcalf. “To identify andneutralize the others we’ll send out the word. Everyofficer in half a dozen armies and navies who’scurrently returning from summer leave is to berestricted to quarters. There’ll be errors but that’srough. We can send out the photographs and correctthem.”

  “It’s time for Scharhorn.” Stone got out of thechair, massaging his throat. “And I don’t mindtelling you it scares me to death. A wrong symboland we erase Aquitaine’s master list. Worse, awrong move and that whole complex is blown away.”The CIA man went to the phone.

  “Are you going to call the Rebel?” asked thecolonel.

  “Converse first. He’s working on the codes.”

  The three generals of Aquitaine sat stunned,staring straight ahead, refusing to look at oneanother. The lights had been turned on, the largetelevision screen turned off. Behind each generalwas a man with a gun and concise instructions “If hegets up, kill him.”

  “You know what I want,” said Converse, walkingin front of the three. “And as you’ve just seen,there’s really no reason -why any of you shouldn’tgive it to me. Four little numbers or letters each ofyou has memorized in sequence. Of course if yourefuse, there’s a doctor here who I’m told has a bagof magic the same sort of magic you administeredto me in Bonn What’ll it be, gentlemen?”

  Sllence.

  “Four, three, L, one,” said Chaim Abrahms,looking down at the floor. “They’reilth,” he addedquietly

  “Thank you, General.” Joel wrote in a small notepad. “You’re free to go now. You can get out of thechair.”

  “Go?” said the Israeli, getting up. “Where9″

  “Wherever you like,” replied Converse. “I;m sureyou’ll have no trouble at the airport in Annecy.You’ll be recog

  General Chaim Abrahms left the roomaccompanied by the Israeli Army captain.

  “Two, M, zero, six,” said Erich Leifhelm. “And, ifyou

  wish, I will submit to the drugs for verification. I willnot be associated with such treacherous pigs.”

  “I want the combination,” pressed Joel, writing.“And I won’t hesitate to send you up into space toget it.”

  “Inversion,” said the German. “Reverse the orderof the symbols in the second sequence.”

  "He’s yours, Doctor.” Converse nodded to theman behind Leifhelm’s chair. “We can’t take thechance of blowing this one.”

  General Erich Leifhelm, once the youngest fieldmarshal of the Third Reich, got up and walkedslowly out of the room, followed by the doctor fromBonn.

  “You’re all unworthy, all blind,” said GeneralJacquesLouis Bertholdier with imperious calm. “Iprefer to be shot.”

  “I’m sure you would, but no such luck,” answeredJoel. “I don’t need you now, and I want to knowyou’re back in Paris, where everyone can see you.Take him to his room.”

  “The room? I thought I was free to leave, or wasthat another lie?”

  “Not at all. Just a matter of logistics you knowwhat logishcs are, General. We’re a little short oftransportation and drivers here, so when the doctor’sfinished, I’m lending the three of you a car. You candraw straws for who drives.”

  “What?”

  “Get him out of here,” said Converse, addressinga former sergeant major in the French Army oncestationed at Algiers.

  “Allen, cochon!”

  The door opened, only coincidentally forBertholdier. It was Valerie and she looked at Joel.“Stone’s on the telephone. He say
s hurry.”

  It was 2:05 A.6f. when the Mystere jet droppedout of the night sky and landed at the airstrip eightmiles from Cuxhaven, West Germany. It taxied tothe north end of the runway where the stately,white-maned figure of Johnny Reb waited by a blackMercedes sedan.

  The doors of the plane opened and the shortsteps swung down in place; Converse climbed out,taking Valerie’s hand as she descended after him.Next came the former sergeant major from Algiers,followed by a fourth passenger, a slender blond manin his mid-forties who wore tortoiseshell glasses.

  They walked away from the aircraft as the pilotretracted the steps and closed the automatic doors,the twin engines accelerated and the plane swervedaround heading back toward the maintenancehangars. The Rebel came away from the car andmet them, extending his hand to Joel. “Ah’ve seenyour picture here and there and it’s a pleasure, sir.Frankly, I never thought I’d meet you, leastways notin this world.”

  “There were a number of times I had my doubtsjust how long I’d be here. This is my wife, Valerie.”

  “Ah m enchanted, ma’am,” said the Southerner,bringing Val’s hand to his lips as he bowed gallantly.And then to Joel: “Your accomplishments haveastonished some of the best minds in my formerprofession.”

  “I hope not too former,” interjected Converse.

  "knot at the moment, son.”

  “This is Monsieur Lefevre and Dr. GeoffreyLarson. Stone said you’ve been briefed.”

  “A pleasure, sir,’ exclaimed the Rebel, shakingthe Frenchman’s hand. " My hat’s off to you, to allof you for what You did with those three generals.Absolutely remarkable!”

  “Such men have enemies,” said Lefevre simply." They are not hard to find and InspectorPrudhomme knew that. We are in many places withmany memories. Let us hope they will be put to resttonight.”

  “Let’s hope,” said the Rebel, turning to thefourth passenger. “Dr. Larson, so nice to meet you,sir. I understand you know just about everythingthere is to know about every computer ever made.”

  “An exaggeration, I’m sure,” said the Englishmanshyly. “But I suspect if it kicks I can make it hum.Actually, I was vacationing in Geneva.”