Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

  During what week or on what day it

  happened we did not learn, but sometime in

  January or February of 1936, Frau LeifLelm,

  her children and her father disappeared.

  However, the Munich court records,

  impounded by the Allies on April 23, 1945, give

  a clear, if incom

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 137

  plete, picture of what took place. Obviously driven

  by his compulsion to validate his seizure of the estate

  in the eyes of the law, he had a brief filed on behalf

  of Oberstleutnant Erich Leifhelm listing the articles

  of grievance suffered by his father, Dr. Heinrich

  Leifhelm, at the hands of a family cabal, said family

  of criminals having fled the Reich under indictment.

  The charges, as expected, were outrageous lies: from

  outright theft of huge nonexistent bank accounts to

  character assassination so as to destroy a great doc-

  tor's practice. There was the legal certificate of the

  'official" divorce, and a copy of the elder Leifhelm's

  last will and testament. There was only one true

  union and one true son, all rights, privileges and in-

  heritances passed on to him: Oberstleutnant Erich

  Stoessel-LeiPhelm.

  Because we possessed reasonably accurate dates,

  survivors were found. It was confirmed that Frau

  Leifhelm, her three children and her father perished

  at Dachau, ten miles outside of Munich.

  The Jewish Leifhelms were gone; the Aryan

  Leifhelm was now the sole inheritor of considerable

  wealth and property that under existing conditions

  would have been confiscated. Before the age of thir-

  ty, he had wiped his personal slate clean and

  avenged the wrongs he was convinced had been

  visited on his superior birth and talents. A killer had

  matured.

  'You must have one hell of a case there," said

  Caleb

  Dowling, grinning and poking Joel with his elbow.

  "Your butt

  burned up in the ashtray a while ago. I reached

  over to close

  the goddamned lid, and all you did was raise your

  hand like

  I was out of order."

  "I'm sorry. It's . . . it's a complicated brief. Christ, I

  wouldn't raise my hand to you, you're a celebrity."

  Converse

  laughed because he knew it was expected.

  "Well, my second bit of news for you, good buddy,

  is that

  celebrity or no, the smoking lamp's been on for a

  couple of

  minutes now and you still got a reefer in your

  fingers. Now,

  I grant you, you didn't light it, but we're getting a

  lot of Nazi

  looks over here."

  "Nazi . . . ?" Joel spoke the word involuntarily as

  he

  138 ROBERT LUDLUM

  pressed the unlit cigarette into the receptacle; he

  was not aware that he had been holding it.

  "A figure of speech and a bad line, 'said the

  actor. "We'll be in Cologne before you put all that

  legal stuff away. Come on, good buddy, he's going

  in for the approach."

  "No," countered Joel without thinking. "He's

  making a pitchout until he gets the tower's

  instructions. It's standard we've got at least three

  minutes."

  "You sound like you know what the hell you're

  talking about."

  "Vaguely," said Converse, putting the Leifhelm

  dossier into his attache case. "I used to be a pilot."

  "No kidding? A real pilot?"

  "Well, I got paid."

  "For an airline? I mean, one of these real airlines?"

  "Larger than this one, I think."

  "Goddamn, I'm impressed. I wouldn't have

  thought so. Lawyers and pilots somehow don't seem

  compatible."

  "It was a long time ago." Joel closed his case and

  snapped the locks.

  The plane rolled down the runway, the landing

  having been so unobtrusive that a smattering of

  applause erupted from the rear of the aircraft.

  Dowling spoke as he unfastened his seat belt. "I

  used to hear some of that after a particularly good

  class."

  "Now you hear a lot more," said Converse.

  "For a hell of a lot less. By the way, where are

  you staying, counselor?"

  Joel was not prepared for the question.

  'Actually, I'm not sure," he replied, again reaching

  for words, for an answer. "This trip was a

  last-minute decision."

  "You may need help. Bonn's crowded. Tell you

  what, I'm at the Konigshof and I suspect I've got a

  little influence. Let's see what we can do."

  "Thanks very much, but that won't be necessary."

  Converse thought rapidly. The last thing he wanted

  was the attention focused on anyone in the actor's

  company. "My firm's sending someone to meet me

  and he'll have the accommodations. As a matter of

  fact, I'm supposed to be one of the last people off

  the plane, so he doesn't have to try to find me in

  the crowd."

  "Well, if you've got any time and you want a couple

  of

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 139

  laughs with some actor types, call me at the hotel

  and leave a number."

  "I probably will. I enjoyed riding shotgun. '

  'On a cattle drive, pardner?"

  Joel waited. The last stragglers were leaving the

  plane, nodding at the flanking stewardesses, some

  yawning, others in awkward combat with shoulder

  bags, camera equipment and suit-carriers. The final

  passenger exited through the aircraft's concave door

  and Converse got up, gripping the handle of his

  attache case and sliding into the aisle. Instinctively

  without having a conscious reason to do so, he

  glanced to his right, into the rear section of the

  plane.

  What he saw and what saw him made him

  freeze. His breath exploded silently in his chest.

  Seated in the last row of the long fuselage was a

  woman. The pale skin under the wide brim of the

  hat, and the frightened, astonished eyes that abruptly

  looked away all formed an image he vividly re-

  membered. She was the woman in the cafe at the

  Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen! When he last saw

  her she was walking rapidly into the baggage-claim

  area, away from the row of airlines' counters. She

  had been stopped by a man in a hurry words had

  been exchanged and now Joel knew they had

  concerned him.

  The woman had doubled back, unnoticed in the

  last-minute rush for boarding. He felt it, he knew it.

  She had followed him from Denmark!

  6

  Converse rushed up the aisle and through the

  metal door into the carpeted tunnel. Fifty feet down

  the passageway the narrow walls opened into a

  waiting area, the plastic seats and the roped-off

  stanchions designating the gate. There was no one;

  the place was empty, the other gates shut down, the

  lights off. Beyond, suspended from the ceiling were

  signs in German, French and English directing
>
  passengers to the main terminal and the downstairs

  baggage claim. There was no time for his luggage; he

  had to run, to get away from the

  140 ROBERT LUDLUM

  airport as fast as possible, get away without being

  seen. Then the obvious struck him, and he felt sick.

  He had been seen; they knew he was on the Hight

  from Hamburg whoever they were. The instant he

  walked into the terminal he would be spotted, and

  there was nothing he could do about it. They had

  found him in Copenhagen; the woman had found

  him and she had been ordered on board to make

  certain he did not stay in Hamburg, or switch planes

  to another destination.

  Howe How did they do it?

  There was no time to think about it; he would

  think about it later if there was a later. He passed

  the arches of the closed-down metal detectors and

  the black conveyor belts where hand luggage was

  X-rayed. Ahead, no more than seventy-five feet

  were the doors to the terminal. What was he going

  to do, what should he do?

  NUR FUR HIER BESCHAFTIGTE

  MANNER

  Joel stopped at a door. The sign on it was

  emphatic, the German forbidding. Yet he had seen

  those words before. Where? What was it? . . .

  Zurich! He had been in a department store in

  Zurich when a stomach attack had descended to his

  bowels. He had pleaded with a sympathetic clerk

  who had taken him to a nearby employees' men's

  room. In one of those odd moments of gratitude

  and relief, he had focused on the strange words as

  they had drawn nearer. Nur fur trier Beschaftigte.

  Manner.

  No further memory was required. He pushed the

  door open and went inside, not sure what he would

  do other than collect his thoughts. A man in green

  overalls was at the far end of the line of sinks

  against the wall; he was combing his hair while

  inspecting a blemish on his face in the mirror. Con-

  verse walked to the row of urinals beyond the sinks,

  his demeanor that of an airlines executive. The

  affectation was accepted; the man mumbled

  something courteously and left The door swung shut

  and he was alone.

  Joel stepped back from the urinal and studied

  the tiled enclosure, hearing for the first time the

  sound of several voices . . . outside, somewhere

  outside, beyond . . . the windows. Three-quarters up

  from the floor and recessed in the far wall were

  three frosted-glass windows, the painted white

  frames melting into the whiteness of the room. He

  was con

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 141

  fused. In these security-conscious days of airline

  travel with the constant emphasis on guarding

  against smuggled arms and narcotics, a room inside

  a gate area that had a means of getting outside

  before entering customs did not make sense. Then

  the obvious fact occurred to him. It could be his way

  out! The flight from Hamburg was a domestic flight,

  this part of the Cologne-Bonn airport a domestic

  terminal; there were no customs! Of course there

  were exterior windows in an enclosure like this.

  What difference did it make? Passengers still had to

  pass through the electronic arches and, conversely,

  authorities wanting to pick up a passenger flying

  domestically would simply wait by a specific gate.

  But no one waited for him. He had been the

  last the second to last passenger off the late night

  flight. The roped-off gate had been deserted; anyone

  sitting in one of the plastic chairs or standing beyond

  the counter would be obvious. Therefore, those who

  were keeping him in their sights did not want to be

  seen themselves. Whoever they were, they were

  waiting, watching for him from some remote spot

  inside the terminal. They could wait.

  He approached the far-right window and lowered

  his attache case to the floor. When he stood erect,

  the sill was only inches above his head. He reached

  for the two white handles and pushed; the window

  slid easily up several inches. He poked his fingers

  through the space; there was no screen. Once the

  window was raised to its full height, there would be

  enough room for him to crawl outside.

  There was a clattering behind him, rapid slaps of

  metal against wood. He spun around as the door

  opened, revealing a hunched-over old man in a white

  maintenance uniform carrying a mop and a pail.

  Slowly, with deliberation, the old man took out a

  pocket watch, squinted at it, said something in Ger-

  man, and waited for an answer. Not only was Joel

  aware that he was expected to speak, but he assumed

  that he had been told the employees' men's room

  was being closed until moming. He had to think; he

  could not leave; the only way out of the airport was

  through the terminal. If there was another he did not

  know where, and it was no time to be running

  around a section of an airport shut down for the

  remainder of the night. Patrolling guards might

  compound his problems.

  His eyes dropped, centering on the metal pail,

  and in desperation he knew what he had to do, but

  not whether he could do it. With a sudden grimace

  of pain, he moaned and grabbed

  142 ROBERT LUDLUM

  his chest, falling to his knees. His face contorted, he

  sank to the floor.

  "Doctor, doctor . . . doctor!" he shouted over

  and over again.

  The old man dropped the mop and the pail; a

  guttural stream of panicked phrases accompanied

  several cautious steps forward. Converse rolled to

  his right against the wall he gasped for breath as he

  watched the German with wide, blank eyes.

  "Doctor. . . !" he whispered.

  The old man trembled and backed away toward

  the door; he turned, opened it and ran out, his frail

  voice raised for help.

  There would be only seconds! The gate was no

  more than two hundred feet to the left, the entrance

  to the terminal perhaps a hundred to the right. Joel

  got up quickly, raced to the pail, turned it upside

  down, and brought it back to the window. He

  placed it on the floor and stepped up with one foot,

  his palms making contact with the base of the

  window; he shoved. The glass rose about four inches

  and stopped, the frame lodged against the sash. He

  pushed again with all the strength he could manage

  in his awkward positron. The window would not

  budge; breathing hard he studied it, his intense gaze

  zeroing in on two small steel objects he wished to

  God were not in place, but they were. Two

  protective braces were screwed into the opposing

  sashes, preventing the window from being opened

  more than six inches. Cologne-Bonn might not be

  an international airport with a panoply of sophis-

  bcated security devices, but it was not without its

&
nbsp; own safeguards.

  There were distant shouts from beyond the

  door; the old man had reached someone. The sweat

  rolled down Converse's face as he stepped off the

  pail and reached for his attache case on the floor.

  Action and decision were simultaneous, only instinct

  unconsciously governing both. Joel picked up the

  leather case, stepped forward and crashed it

  repeatedly into the window, shattering the glass and

  finally breaking away the lower wooden frame. He

  stepped back up on the pail and looked out.

  Beyond below was a cement path bordered by a

  guardrail, floodlights in the distance, no one in

  sight. He threw the attache case out the window,

  and pulled himself up, his left knee kicking

  fragments of glass and what was left of the frame to

  the concrete below. Awkwardly, he hunched his

  whole body, pressing his head into his shoulder

  blades, and

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 143

  plunged through the opening. As he fell to the

  ground he heard the shouts from inside: they grew in

  volume, all in counterpoint, a mixture of

  bewilderment and anger. He ran.

  Minutes later, at a sudden curve in the cement

  path, he saw the floodlit entrance of the terminal

  and the line of taxis waiting for the passengers of

  Flight 817 from Hamburg to pick up their luggage

  before the drivers collected their inHated night

  prices to Bonn and Cologne. There were entrance

  and exit roads leading to the platform, broken by

  pedestrian crosswalks, and beyond these an immense

  parking lot with several lighted booths still operating

  for those driving their own cars. Converse slipped

  over the guardrail and ran across an intersecting

  lawn until he reached the first road, racing into the

  shadows at the first blinding glare of a floodlight. He