The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “Thirty?” Converse pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. Instantly he was overcome by dizziness—too much strength had been drained. Oh Christ! Don’t waste movement. They’ll be back. The bastards! “You bastards,” he said out loud but without any real emotion. Then for the first time he realized he was shirtless, and noticed the bandage on his left arm between his elbow and his shoulder. It covered the gunshot wound. “Did somebody miss my head?” he asked.

  “I’m told you inflicted the injury yourself. You tried to kill General Leifhelm but shot yourself when the others were taking your gun away.”

  “I tried to kill? With my nonexistent gun? The one you made sure I didn’t have?”

  “You were too clever for me, mein Herr.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Now? Now you eat. I have instructions from the doctor. You begin with the Hafergrütze—how do you say?—the porridge.”

  “Hot mush or cereal,” said Joel. “With skimmed or powdered milk. Then some kind of soft-boiled eggs taken with pills. And if it all goes down, a little ground meat, and if that stays down, a few spoonfuls of crushed turnips or potatoes or squash. Whatever’s available.”

  “How do you know this?” asked the uniformed man, genuinely surprised.

  “It’s a basic diet,” said Converse cynically. “Variations with the territory and the supplies. I once had some comparatively good meals.… You’re planning to put me under again.”

  The German shrugged. “I do what I’m told. I bring you food. Here, let me help you.”

  Joel looked up as the chauffeur approached the cot. “Under other circumstances I’d spit in your goddamned face. But if I did I wouldn’t have that slight, slight possibility of spitting in it some other time. You may help me. Be careful of my arm.”

  “You are a very strange man, mein Herr.”

  “And you’re all perfectly normal citizens catching the early train to Larchmont so you can put down ten martinis before going to the PTA meeting.”

  “Was ist? I know of no such meeting.”

  “They’re keeping it secret; they don’t want you to know. If I were you, I’d get out of town before they make you president.”

  “Mich? Präsident?”

  “Just help me to the chair, like a good ole Aryan boy, will you?”

  “Hah, you are being amusing, ja?”

  “Probably not,” said Converse, easing into the wooden chair. “It’s a terrible habit I wish I could break.” He looked up at the bewildered German. “You see, I keep trying,” he said in utter seriousness.

  Three more days passed, his only visitor the chauffeur accompanied by the sullen, high-strung pack of Dobermans. His well-searched suitcase was given to him, scissors and a nail file removed from the traveling kit—his electric razor intact. It was their way of telling him that his presence had been removed from Bonn, leaving him to painfully speculate about the life or death of Connal Fitzpatrick. Yet there was an inconsistency and, as such, the basis for hope. No allusions were made to his attaché case, either with visual evidence—the page of a dossier, perhaps—or through his brief exchanges with Leifhelm’s driver. The generals of Aquitaine were men of immense egos; if they had those materials in their possession, they would have let him know it.

  As to his conversations with the chauffeur, they were limited to questions on his part and disciplined pleasantries on the German’s part, no answers at all—at least, none that made any sense:

  “How long is this going to go on? When am I going to see someone other than you?”

  “There is no one here, sir, except the staff. General Leifhelm is away—in Essen, I believe. Our instructions are to feed you well and restore your health.”

  Incommunicado. He was in solitary.

  But the food was not like that given to prisoners anywhere else. Roasts of beef and lamb, chops, poultry and fresh fish; vegetables that unquestionably had come directly from a nearby garden. And wine—which at first Joel was reluctant to drink, but when he did, even he knew it was superior.

  On the second day, as much to keep from thinking as from anything else, he had begun to perform mild exercises—as he had done so many years ago. By the third day he had actually worked up a sweat during a running-in-place session, a healthy sweat, telling him the drugs had left his body. The wound on his arm was still there, but he thought about it less and less. Curiously, it was not serious.

  On the fourth day questions and reflections were no longer good enough. Confinement and the maddening frustration of having no answers forced him to turn elsewhere, to the practical, to the most necessary consideration facing him. Escape. Regardless of the outcome the attempt had to be made. Whatever plans Delavane and his disciples in Aquitaine had for him, they obviously included parading a drugless man—more than likely a dead man with no narcotics in his system. Otherwise they would have killed him at once, disposing of his body in any number of untraceable ways. He had done it before. Could he do it again?

  He was not rotting in a rat-infested cell and there was no terrible gunfire in the distant darkness, but it was far more important that he succeed now than it ever was eighteen years ago. And there was an extraordinary irony: eighteen years ago he had wanted to break out and tell whoever would listen to him about a madman in Saigon who sent countless children to their deaths—or worse, who left those children to suffer broken minds and hollow feelings for the rest of their lives. Now he had to tell the world about that same madman.

  He had to get out. He had to tell the world what he knew.

  Converse stood on the wooden chair, the short curtain pulled back, and peered between the black metal bars outside. His cabin, or cottage, or jailhouse, whatever it was, seemed to have been lowered from above onto a clearing in the forest. There was a wall of tall trees and thick foliage as far as he could see in either direction, a dirt path angling to the right beneath the window. The clearing itself extended no more than twenty feet in front of the structure before the dense greenery began; he presumed it was the same on all sides—as it was from the other window to the left of the door, except that there was no path below, only a short, coarse stubble of brown grass. The two front windows were the only views he had. The rest of this isolated jailhouse consisted of unbroken walls and a small ceiling vent in the bathroom but no other openings.

  All he could be certain of, since the chauffeur and the dogs and the warm meals were proof he was still within the grounds of Leifhelm’s estate, was that the river could not be far away. He could not see it, but it was there and it gave him hope—more than hope, a sense of morbid exhilaration rooted in his memory. Once before, the waters of a river had been his friend, his guide, ultimately the lifeline that had taken him through the worst of his journey. A tributary of the Huong Khe south of Duc Tho had rushed him silently at night under bridges and past patrols and the encampments of three battalions. The waters of the Rhine, like the currents of the Huong Khe years ago, would be his way out.

  The multiple sounds of animal feet pounding the earth preceded the streaking dark coats of the Dobermans as they raced below the window, instantly stopping and crowding angrily in front of the door. The chauffeur was on his way with a breakfast no prisoner in isolation should expect. Joel climbed off the chair and quickly carried it back to the table, setting it in place and going to his cot. He sat down, kicked off his shoes, and lay back on the pillow, his legs stretched out over the rumpled blanket.

  The bolt was slid back, the key inserted and the heavy knob turned; the door opened. As he did every time he entered, the German pushed the center of the door with his right hand as he supported the tray with his left. However, this morning he was gripping a bulging object in his right hand, the blinding sunlight obscuring it for Converse. The man walked in and, more awkwardly than usual, placed the tray on the table.

  “I have a pleasant surprise for you, mein Herr. I spoke with General Leifhelm on the telephone last night and he asked about you. I told him you were re
covering splendidly and that I had changed the bandage on your unfortunate injury. Then it occurred to him that you had nothing to read and he was very upset. So an hour ago I drove into Bonn and purchased three days of the International Herald Tribune.” The driver placed the rolled-up newspapers next to the tray on the table.

  But it was not the issues of the Herald Tribune that Joel stared at. It was the German’s neck and the upper outside pocket of his uniform jacket. For looped around that neck and angled over to that pocket was a thin silver chain, with the protruding top of a tubular silver whistle clearly visible against the dark fabric. Converse shifted his eyes to the door; the Dobermans were sitting on their haunches, each breathing noisily and salivating, but, to all intents and purposes, immobile. Converse remembered his arrival at the general’s monumental lair and the strange Englishman who had controlled the dogs with a silver whistle.

  “Tell Leifhelm I appreciate the reading material, but I’d be even more grateful if I could get out of this place for a few minutes.”

  “Ja, with a plane ticket to the beaches in the south of France, nein?”

  “For Christ’s sake, just to take a walk and stretch my legs! What’s the matter? Can’t you and that drooling band of mastiffs handle one unarmed man getting a little air?… No, you’re probably too frightened to try.” Joel paused, then added in an insulting mock-German accent. “ ‘I do vot I am tolt.’ ”

  The driver’s smile faded. “The other evening you said you would not apologize but instead break my neck. That was a joke. Do you understand? A joke I find so amusing I can laugh at it.”

  “Hey, come on,” said Converse, changing his tone as he swung his legs off the cot and sat up. “You’re ten years younger than I am and twenty times stronger. I felt insulted and reacted stupidly, but if you think I’d raise a hand against you, you’re out of your mind. I’m sorry. You’ve been decent to me and I was stupid again.”

  “Ja, you were stupid,” said the German without rancor. “But also you were right. I do as I am told. And why not? It is a privilege to take orders from General Leifhelm. He has been gut to me.”

  “Have you been with him long?”

  “Since Brussels. I was a sergeant in the Federal Republic’s border patrols. He heard about my problem and took an interest in my case. I was transferred to the Brabant garrison and made his chauffeur.”

  “What was your problem? I’m a lawyer, you know.”

  “The charge was that I strangled a man. With my arm.”

  “Did you?”

  “Ja. He was trying to put a knife in my stomach—and lower. He said I took advantage of his daughter. I took no advantage; it was not necessary. She was a whore—it was in the clothes she wore, the way she walked—es ist klar! The father was a pig!”

  Joel looked at the man, at the clouded malevolence in his eyes. “I can understand General Leifhelm’s sympathies,” he said.

  “Now you know why I do as I am told.”

  “Clearly.”

  “He is calling for his messages at noon. I shall ask him about your walking. You understand that one word from me and the Dobermans will rip your body from its bones.”

  “Nice puppies,” said Converse, addressing the pack of dogs outside.

  Noon came and the privilege was granted. The walk was to take place after lunch when the driver returned to remove the tray. He returned, and after several severe warnings Joel ventured outside, the Dobèrmans crowding around him, black nostrils flared, white teeth glistening, bluish-red tongues flattened out in anticipation. Converse looked around; for the first time he saw that the small house was made of thick, solid stone. The unique squad began its constitutional up the path, Joel growing bolder as the dogs lost a degree of interest in him under the harsh admonitions of the German’s commands. They began racing ahead and regrouping in circles, snapping at one another but always whipping their heads back or across at their master and his prisoner. Converse walked faster.

  “I used to jog a lot back home,” he lied.

  “Was ist? ‘Jog’?”

  “Run. It’s good for the circulation.”

  “You run now, mein Herr, you will have no circulation. The Dobermans will see to it.”

  “I’ve heard of people getting coronaries from jogging too,” said Joel, slowing down, but not reducing the speed with which his eyes darted in all directions. The sun was directly overhead; it was no help in determining direction.

  The dirt path was like a marked single line in an intricate network of hidden trails. It was bordered by thick foliage, more often than not roofed by low-hanging branches, then breaking open into short stretches of wild grass that might or might not lead to other paths. They reached a fork, the leg to the right curving sharply into a tunnel of greenery. The dogs instinctively raced into it but were stopped by the chauffeur, who shouted commands in German. The Dobermans spun around, bouncing off each other, and returned to the fork, then raced into the wider path on the left. It was an incline and they started up a steep hill, the trees shorter and less full, the bramble bush wilder, coarser, lower to the ground. Wind, thought Converse. A valley wind; a wind whipping up from a trough, a long narrow slice in the earth, the kind of wind a pilot of a small plane avoided at the first sign of weather. A river.

  It was there. To his left; they were traveling east. The Rhine was below, perhaps a mile beyond the lower line of tall trees. He had seen enough. He began breathing audibly. The exhilaration inside him was intense; he could have walked for miles. He was back on the banks of the Huong Khe, the dark watery lifeline that would take him away from the Mekong cages and the cells and the chemicals. He had done it before; he was going to do it again!

  “Okay, Field Marshal,” he said to Leifhelm’s driver, looking at the silver whistle in the German’s pocket. “I’m not in as good shape as I thought I was. This is a mountain! Don’t you have any flat pastures or grazing fields?”

  “I do as I am told, mein Herr,” replied the man, grinning. “Those are nearer the main house. This is where you must walk.”

  “This is where I say thank you and no thank you. Take me back to my little grass shack and I’ll play you a simple tune.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I’m bushed and I haven’t finished the newspapers. Seriously, I want to thank you. I really needed the air.”

  “Sehr gut. You are a pleasant fellow.”

  “You have no idea, good ole Aryan boy.”

  “Ach, so amusing. Die Juden sind in Israel, nein? Better than in Germany.”

  “Nate Simon would love you. He’d take your case for nothing just to blow it—No, he wouldn’t. He’d probably give you the best defense you ever had.”

  Converse stood on the wooden chair under the window to the left of the door. All he had to hear and see was the sound and the sight of the dogs; after that he had twenty or thirty seconds. The faucets in the bathroom were turned on, the door open; there was sufficient time to run across the room, flush the toilet, close the door and return to the chair. But he would not be standing on it. Instead, it would be gripped in his hands, laterally. The sun was descending rapidly; in an hour it would be dark. Darkness had been his friend before as the waters of a river had been his friend. They had to be his friends again. They had to be!

  The sounds came first—racing paws and nasal explosions—then the sight of gleaming dark coats of animal fur rushing in circles in front of the jailhouse. Joel ran to the bathroom, concentrating on the seconds as he waited for the sliding of the bolt. It came; he flushed the toilet, then closed the bathroom door and raced back to the chair. He raised it and stood in place, his legs and feet locked to the floor. The door was opened several inches—only seconds now—then the German’s right hand pushed it back.

  “Herr Converse? Wo sind …? Ach, die Toilette.”

  The chauffeur walked in with the tray, and Joel swung the chair with all his strength into the German’s head. The driver arched back off his feet, tray and dishes crashing to the
floor. He was stunned, nothing more. Converse kicked the door shut and brought the heavy chair repeatedly down on the chauffeur’s skull until the man went limp, blood and saliva pouring down his eyes and face.

  The phalanx of dogs had lurched as one at the suddenly closed door and began to bark maniacally while clawing at the wood.

  Joel grabbed the silver chain, slipped it over the unconscious German’s head and pulled the silver whistle out of the pocket. There were four tiny holes on the tube; each meant something. He pulled the remaining chair to the window at the right of the door, climbed up and put the whistle to his lips. He covered the first hole and blew into the mouthpiece. There was no sound, but it had an effect.

  The Dobermans went mad! They began to attack the door in suicidal assaults. He removed his finger, placed it over the second hole and blew.

  The dogs were confused; they circled around each other, snapping, yelping, snarling, but still they would not take their concentration off the door. He tried the third tiny hole and blew into the whistle with all the breath he had.

  Suddenly, the dogs stopped all movement, their tapered, close-cropped ears upright, shifting—they were waiting for a second signal. He blew again, again with all the breath that was in him. It was the sound they were waiting for, and again, as one, the pack raced to the right beneath the window, pounding to some other place where they were meant to be by command.

  Converse leaped down from the chair and knelt by the unconscious German. He went rapidly through the driver’s pockets, taking his billfold and all the money he had, as well as his wristwatch—and his gun. For an instant Joel looked at the weapon, loathing the memories it evoked. He shoved it under his belt and went to the door.

  Outside, he pulled the heavy door shut, heard the click of the lock and slid the bolt in place. He ran up the dirt path estimating the distance to the fork where the right leg was verboten and the left led to the steep hill and the sight of the Rhine below. It was actually no more than two hundred yards away, but the winding curves and the thick bordering foliage made it seem longer. If he remembered accurately—and on the walk back he was like a pilot without instruments relying on sightings—there was a flat stretch of about eighty feet below the fork.