The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “ ‘You the numerically undersigned, traceable from the origin of transfer,’ ” droned the obese Lachmann, leaning back in his chair and reading from a single page, “ ‘swear to the fact that whatever funds withdrawn from the Bank aus der Bonner Sparkasse from this confidential account have been subject to all taxes, individual and corporate, from whatever sources of revenue. That they are not being processed through differing currencies to avoid said taxes, or for the purpose of making unlawful payments to individuals, companies, or corporations trafficking in illegal and—’

  “Forget it,” Joel broke in. “I know it; I’ll sign it.”

  “ ‘—egregious activities outside the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany or the laws of the nation of which the undersigned is a legal resident with full citizenship.’ ”

  “Ever tried half-full or resident alien status?” said Converse, starting the last line of numbers. “I know a law student who could punch holes in that affidavit.”

  “There is more, but you say you’ll sign?”

  “I’m sure there’s more and of course I’ll sign.” Joel pushed the page with the handwritten numbers back to the banker. “There. Just get me the money. One hundred thousand American, minus your fee. Split it two thirds and a third. U.S. and German, no bills over six hundred deutsche marks and five hundred American.”

  “That is quite a bit of paper, sir.”

  “I’ll handle it. Please, as quickly as possible.”

  “Is that amount the entire account? I would not know, of course, until the scanners verify your ‘signature.’ ”

  “It’s the entire account.”

  “It could take several hours, natürlich.”

  “What?”

  “The regulations, the policy.” The fat man extended his arms in supplication.

  “I don’t have several hours!”

  “What can I do?”

  “What can you do? A thousand American—for you.”

  “One hour, sir.”

  “Five thousand?”

  “Five minutes, my good friend.”

  Converse walked out of the elevator. The abrasive newly acquired money belt was far less comfortable than the one he had purchased in Geneva, but it would have been pointless to refuse it. It was a courtesy of the bank, Lachmann had said as the German pocketed nearly twelve thousand deutsche marks for himself. The ‘five minutes’ had been a persuasive exaggeration, thought Joel as he glanced at the clock on the wall; it was nearly twelve-forty-five. The ritual had taken over half an hour, from his “indoctrination” to the verification of his “signature” by electronic scanners capable of detecting the slightest “fundamental” variation in the writing characteristics. Apparently no one dared make any mistakes in the German banks where questionable practices were concerned. The regulations were followed right to the borders of illegality, with everyone covered by following orders that placed the burden of innocence solely on the recipients.

  Converse started for the bronze-bordered doors of the entrance when he saw the student, Johann, sitting on a marble bench, looking out of place but not uncomfortable. The young man was reading some sort of pamphlet put out by the bank. Or more precisely, he was pretending to read it; his eyes, darting above the page, were watching the crowds crisscrossing the marble floor. Converse nodded as Johann saw him; the student got up from the bench and waited until Joel reached the entrance before he began to follow.

  Something had happened. Outside on the pavement people were rushing in both directions, but mainly to the right; voices were raised, questions shouted, replies blurred with anger and angry ignorance.

  “What the hell is it?” asked Converse.

  “I don’t know,” replied Johann, next to him. “Something ugly, I think. People are running to the kiosk on the corner. The newspapers.”

  “Let’s get one,” said Joel, touching the young man’s arm, as they started toward the growing crowd on the block.

  “Attentat! Mord! Amerikanische Botschafter ermordet!”

  The newsstand operators were shouting, handing out papers as they grabbed coins and bilk with little or no attempt to give change. There was a sense of swelling panic that came with sudden unexplained events that presaged greater disasters. All around them people were snapping papers, their eyes riveted on the headlines and the stories beneath.

  “Mein Gott!” cried Johann, glancing at a folded newspaper on his left. “The American ambassador has been assassinated!”

  “Christ! Get one of those!” Converse threw a number of coins into the kiosk as the young German grabbed a paper from the extended hand of a newsstand operator. “Let’s get out of here!” yelled Joel, gripping the student’s arm.

  But Johann did not move. He stood there in the middle of the shouting crowd, staring at the newspaper, his eyes wide, his lips trembling. Converse shoved two men away with his shoulders as he pulled the young man forward, now both of them surrounded by anxious, protesting Germans obsessed with getting to the newsstand.

  “You!” Johann’s scream was muted by some intolerable fear.

  Joel ripped the newspaper from the student’s hands. In the upper center of the front page were photographs of two men. On the left was the murdered Walter Peregrine, American ambassador to the Federal Republic. On the right was the face of an American Rechtsanwalt—one of the few words in German Converse knew; it meant attorney. The photograph was of himself.

  20

  “No!” roared Joel, crushing the paper in his left fist, his right hand gripping Johann’s shoulder. “Whatever it says, it’s a lie! I’m not any part of this! Don’t you see what they’re trying to do? Come on with me!”

  “Nein!” screamed the young German, looking frantically around, realizing his voice was lost in the enveloping bedlam.

  “I said yes!” Converse shoved the newspaper inside his jacket, and throwing his right arm around Johann’s neck, pulled him alongside. “You can think and do what you like, but first you come with me! You’re going to read me every goddamned word!”

  “Da ist er! Der Attentater!” shrieked the young German, reaching out, clutching the trousers of a man in the crowd who cursed and swung his arm down on the offending hand.

  Joel wrenched the student’s neck to his left, and shouted into his ear, his words stunning himself as much as they did the young man. “You want it this way, you can have it! I’ve got a gun in my pocket and if I have to use it I will! Two decent men have been killed already—now three—why should you be the exception? Because you’re young? That’s no reason! When you come right down to it, who the hell are we dying for?”

  Converse yanked the youth back and forth, dragging him out of the crowd. Once on the clear pavement he released his armlock, replacing it with a strong grip on the back of Johann’s neck. He propelled the student forward, his eyes roving the street, trying to find a secluded area where they could talk—where Johann could talk, after reading a string of lies put out by the men of Aquitaine. The newspaper slipped down beneath his jacket; he reached in and grabbed it by the edge, pulling the paper out intact. He could not just keep walking, pushing his captive down the pavement; several people had glanced at them, fuel for the curious. Oh, Christ! The photograph—his face! Anyone might recognize him, and he was calling attention to himself by keeping the boy in tow.

  Up ahead, on the right, there was a bakery or a coffee shop or a combination of both with tables under umbrellas on the sidewalk; several were empty at the far end. He would have preferred a deserted alley or a cobblestoned side street too narrow for vehicles, but he could not keep doing what he was doing—walking so rapidly with a prisoner in his grip.

  “Over there! That table in the rear. You sit facing out. And remember, I wasn’t joking about the gun; my hand will be in my pocket.”

  “Please, let me go! You’ve done enough to me! My friends know we left together last night; my landlady knows I got you a room! The police will question me!”

  “Get in there,” said Converse,
shoving Johann between the chairs to the table at the rear of the pavement. Both sat down; the young German was no longer trembling, but his eyes were darting in all directions. “Don’t even think about it,” continued Joel. “And when a waiter comes over, speak in English. Only English!”

  “There are no waiters. Customers go inside and bring out their own sweet rolls and coffee.”

  “We’ll do without—you can get something later. I owe you money and I pay my debts.”

  … I always pay my debts. At least during the last four years I have. Words from a note left by a risk-taker. An actor named Caleb Dowling.

  “I want no money from you,” said Johann, his English guttural with fear.

  “You think it’s tainted, makes you a true accessory, is that right?”

  “You are the lawyer, I am merely a student.”

  “Let me set you straight. It’s not tainted because I didn’t do whatever they said I did, and there’s no such thing as an accessory to innocence.”

  “You are the lawyer, sir.”

  Converse pushed the newspaper in front of the young German and with his right hand reached into his pocket, where he had put ten thousand deutsche marks in ascending denominations for his immediate use. He counted out seven thousand and reached over, placing it in front of Johann. “Put that away before I shove it down your throat.”

  “I will not take your money!”

  “You’ll take it and tell them I gave it to you, if you want to. They’ll have to give it back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The truth, counselor. You’ll find out one day that it’s the best shield you’ve got. Now, read me what the paper says!”

  “ ‘The ambassador was killed sometime last night,’ ” began the student haltingly as he awkwardly put the deutsche marks in his pocket. “… ‘The approximate time of death is difficult to establish until further examinations,’ ” he continued, translating the words in the article in fits and starts, trying to find the appropriate meanings. “ ‘… The fatal wound was … ‘Schädel’—cranial, a head wound—‘the body in the water for many hours, washed up on the riverbank in the Plittersdorf and found early this morning.… The military chargé d’affaires was quoted as saying that the last person known to have been with the ambassador was an American by the name of Joel Converse. When that name appeared, there were …’ ” The young German squinted, shaking his head nervously. “How do you say it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Joel coldly, his voice flat. “What am I trying to say?”

  “ ‘… very excited’—frantic—‘communications between the governments of Switzerland, France and the Federal Republic, all in coordination with the International Criminal Police, otherwise known as Interpol, and the … pieces of the tragic … Ratsel… puzzle fell into place,’—became clear, it means. ‘Unknown to Ambassador Peregrine, the American Converse has been the object of an Interpol … Suche… search as a result of killings in Geneva and Paris as well as several attempted murders not yet clarified.’ ” Johann looked up at Converse. There was a throbbing in his throat.

  “Go on,” ordered Joel. “You don’t know how enlightening this is. Go on!”

  “ ‘According to the ambassador’s office, a confidential meeting was arranged at the request of this man Converse, who claimed to have information injurious to American interests and which has subsequently proven to be false. The two men were to meet at the entrance of the Adenauer Bridge, between seven-thirty and eight o’clock last evening. The chargé d’affaires who accompanied Ambassador Peregrine confirmed that the two men met at seven-fifty-one P.M. and started across the bridge on the pedestrian walkway. It was the last time anyone from the embassy saw the ambassador alive.’ ” Johann swallowed, his hands trembling. He took several deep breaths and went on, his eyes rushing forward across the print, beads of perspiration breaking out on his hairline. “ ‘Below are more complete … eingehendere… details as they are known, but a statement issued by Interpol described the suspect, Joel Converse, as an apparently normal man who is in reality a … wandernde.…’ ” The young German lowered his voice to a whisper. “ ’a walking explosive with severe mental disturbances. He is judged by several behavioral experts in the United States to be psychopathically ill as a result of nearly four years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict.

  As Johann stammered on, frightened by his own voice, the telling words and damning phrases came with staccato regularity, backed up by hastily contacted departmental “sources” and unnamed, faceless “authorities.” The portrait was that of a mentally deranged man who had been thrown back in time, his derangement triggered by some violent event that left him with his intelligence intact but without moral or physical control. In addition, Interpol’s search for him was spoken of in clouded terms, implying a secret manhunt that had been in progress for a number of days, if not weeks.

  “ ‘… His homicidal tendencies are channeled,’ ” continued the now near-panicked student as the article quoted another “authoritative” source. “ ‘… He has a pathological hatred for present or former high-ranking military personnel, especially those who had gained prominent public stature.… Ambassador Peregrine was a celebrated battalion commander in World War Two’s Bastogne campaign, during which many American lives were lost.… Authorities in Washington have speculated that the disturbed man, who after several harrowing attempts finally escaped from a maximum-security camp in North Vietnam years ago, traveling over a hundred miles through enemy … Dschungel… jungle to reach his lines, is reliving his own experiences.… His justification for survival—according to a military psychiatrist—is the killing of superior officers, past or present, who gave orders in combat, or, in the extreme, even civilians who in his imaginings bore some responsibility for the suffering he and others endured. Yet he is outwardly a normal man, as so many like him.… Guards have been placed in Washington, London, Brussels, and here in Bonn.… As an international lawyer, who is presumed to have access to numerous criminal elements who deal in illegal passports …’ ”

  It was a brilliantly executed trap, the crucial lies supported by truths, half-truths, distortions and complete falsehoods. Even the precise timing of the evening was considered. The chargé d’affaires at the embassy stated unequivocally that he had seen Joel at the Adenauer Bridge “at 7:51 P.M.,” approximately twenty-five minutes after he had broken out of the stone jailhouse on Leifhelm’s estate, and less than ten minutes after he had plunged into the Rhine. Every fragment of the hour was accounted for. That he was “officially” placed at the bridge by “7:51” denied his story of capture and escape any credibility.

  The incident in Geneva—the death of A. Preston Halliday—was introduced as a possible explanation for the violent act that had hurled him back in time, triggering Joel’s maniacal behavior. “… It has been learned that the attorney who was shot to death had been a well-known leader in the American protest movement in the sixties.…” The veiled conclusion was that Converse might have hired the killers. Even the death of the man in Paris was given a very different and far more important dimension—oddly enough, based, in reality. “… Initially the victim’s true identity was withheld in hopes of aiding the manhunt, as suspicions were aroused as a result of an interview the Sûreté had with a French lawyer who has known the suspect for a number of years. The attorney who had lunched with the suspect that day indicated that his American friend was in ‘serious trouble’ and needed ‘medical attention.’ …” The dead man in Paris, of course, was an outstanding colonel in the French Army, and an aide successively to several “prominent generals.”

  Finally, as if to convince any remaining unbelievers in this public trial by “authoritative” journalism, references were made not only to his conduct but to the remarks he made upon his separation from service over a decade and a half ago. These were released by the United States Department of the Navy, Fifth Naval District, which included its own recommendation at the time that one lieutenan
t Converse be placed under voluntary psychiatric observation; it was refused. His conduct had been insulting in the extreme to the panel of officers who wished only to help him, and his remarks were nothing short of violent threats against numerous high-ranking military personnel, whom, as a carrier pilot, he could have known nothing about.

  It all completed the portrait as painted by the artists of Aquitaine. Johann finished the article, the newspaper now clutched in his hands, his eyes wide and frightened. “That’s all there is … sir.”

  “I’d hate to think there’s any more,” said Joel. “Do you believe it?”

  “I have no thoughts. I’m too frightened to think.”

  “That’s an honest answer. Uppermost in your mind is the fact that I might kill you, so you can’t face what you think. That’s what you’re really saying. You’re afraid that by a look or a wrong word I could take offense and pull a trigger.”

  “Please, sir, I am not adequate!”

  “Neither was I.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Johann. My hands are on the table. They’ve been on the table since we sat down.”

  “What …?” The young German blinked and looked at Converse’s forearms, both of which were in front of him, his hands clasped on the white metal surface. “You have no gun?”

  “Oh, yes, I have a gun. I took it from a man who would have killed me if he’d had the chance.” Joel reached into his pocket as Johann stiffened. “Cigarettes,” said Converse, taking out a pack and a book of matches. “It’s a terrible habit. Don’t start if you don’t smoke.”

  “It’s very expensive.”

  “Among other things.” Joel struck a match, lighting a cigarette, his eyes remaining on the student. “We’ve talked off and on since last night. Except for a few moments back there in the crowd when you could have had me lynched, do I look or sound like the man described in that newspaper story?”

  “I am no more a doctor than a lawyer.”