"Except for him," Converse added, permitting his
expression to relax slightly, with a hint of a smile.
"All right, I believe you, but there are ground rules.
You either accept them or, as you put it, on board
you're not."
"Let's hear them. I ll wince inside so you can't see
it."
"Yes," agreed Joel, "you'll wince. To begin with,
I'll tell you only what I think you have to know in a
given situation. Whatever you develop will be on
your own; that way it's freewheeling, no way can you
tip the evidence we've compiled."
"That's rough."
"That's the way it is. I'll give you a name now
and then when I think it will open a door, but it will
always be a name you heard second or third hand.
You're inventive; figure out your own unidentifiable
sources so as to protect yourself."
"I've done that on quite a few waterfronts "
wohu heave? How good are you at playactin'g?"
"Never mind, I think you just answered that. You
didn't go down to those waterfronts in your dress
whites as a lieutenant commander."
"Hell, no."
"You'll do."
"You've got to tell me something."
"I'll give you an overview, a lot of abstractions
and a few facts. As we progress ii we
progress you'll learn more. If you think you've put
it together, tell me. That's essential. We can't risk
blowing everything while you operate under wrong
assumptions."
"Who's 'we'?"
"I wish to hell I knew."
"That's comforting."
"Yes, isn't it."
"Why don't you tell me everything now?" asked
fitzpatrick.
190 ROBERT LUDLUM
"Because Meagen Halliday lost a husband. I
don't want to see her lose a brother."
"I'll accept that."
"By the way, how long have you got? I mean
you're on active duty."
"My initial leave is thirty days, with extensions as
warranted. Christ, an only sister with five kids and
her husband is killed. I could probably write my
own ticket."
"We'll stick to the thirty days, Commander. It's
more than we're allowed. We may not have even
two weeks."
"Start talking, Converse."
"Let's walk," said Joel, heading back to the Alter
Zoll wall and the view of the Rhine below.
The "overview" delivered by Converse described
a current situation in which like-minded individuals
in various countries were coming together and using
their considerable influence to get around the laws
and ship armaments and technology to hostile
governments and organisations.
"For what purpose?" asked Fitzpatrick.
'I could say 'profits,' but you'd see through it."
"As the only motive, yes," said the Navy lawyer
pensively. "Influential people as I understand the
word 'influential' as related to existing laws would
operate singly or at best in small groups within their
own countries. That is, if profits were the primary
objective. They wouldn't coordinate outside; it isn't
necessary. It's a sellers' market; they'd only water
down the profits."
"Bingo, counselor."
"So?" Fitzpatrick looked at Joel, as they strolled
toward a break in the stone wall where a bronzed
cannon was in place.
"Destabilization," said Converse. "Mass
destabilisation. A series of flash points in highly
volatile areas that will call into question the ability
of democratic governments to cope with the
violence."
"I've got to ask you again, for what purpose?"
"You're quick," said Joel, "so I'll let you answer
that. What happens when an existing political
structure is crippled by disorder, when it can no
longer function, when things are out of control?"
The two men stopped by the cannon, the naval
officer's eyes following the line of the huge,
threatening barrel. "It's
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 191
restructured or replaced," he said, turning to look at
Converse.
"Bingo again," said Converse softly. "That's the
overview."
"It doesn't make sense." Fitzpatrick creased his
eyes in the sunlight, as well as in thought. "Let me
recap. Am I allowed?"
"You're allowed."
" 'Influential individuals' connotes people in
pretty good standing in very high places. Assuming
we're not talking about an out-and-out criminal
element which the lack of a pure profit motive
would seem to eliminate we're talking about
reasonably respectable citizens. Is there another
definition I'm not aware of?"
'If there is, I'm not aware of it, either."
"Then why would they want to destabilise the
political structures that guarantee them their
influence? It doesn't make sense."
"Ever hear of the phrase 'Everything's relative'?"
"To a fare-thee-well. So what?"
"So think."
"About what?"
"Influence." Joel took out his cigarettes, shook
one to his lips and lighted it. The younger man
stared at the Seven Mountains of the Westerwald in
the distance.
"They want more," said Fitzgerald slowly, turning
back to Converse.
"They want it all," said Joel. "And the only way
they can get it is to prove that their solutions are the
only solutions, all others having proved worthless
against the eruption of chaos suddenly everywhere."
Connal's expression was fixed, immobile, as he
absorbed Converse's words. "Holy Mary. . . " he
began, his voice a whisper, yet still a cry. "An
international plebiscite the peoples' will for the
almighty state. Fascism. It's multinationalfasasm. "
"I'm sick of saying 'Bingo,' so I'll say 'Right on,'
counselor. You've just said it better than any of us."
"Us? Which is 'use,' but you don't know who you
arel" added Fitzpatrick, both bewildered and angry.
"Live with it," said Joel. "As I have."
"Why?"
"Avery Fowler. Remember him?"
192 ROBERT LUDLUM
"Oh, jesust"
"And an old man on the island of Mykonos.
That's all we have. But what they said is true. It's
real. I've seen it, and that's all I need to know. In
Geneva, Avery said there was very little time left.
Beale refined it; he called it a countdown.
Whatever's going to happen will happen before your
leave is up two weeks and four days is the earliest
report. That's what I meant before."
"Oh my God," whispered Fitzpatrick. "What else
can you tell me will you tell me?"
"Very little."
"The embassy," Connal interrupted. "It's been a
couple of years, but I was there. I worked with the
military attache. I don't need any introductions. We
can get help there."
"We can also get killed there."
"What?"
"
It's not clean. Those three men you saw at the
airport the ones from the embassy "
"What about them?"
"They're on the other side."
"I don't believe your"
"Why do you think they were at the airport?"
"To meet you, talk to you. There could be a
dozen different reasons. Whether you know it or
not, you're considered a hotshot lawyer on the
international scene. Foreign service personnel
frequently want to touch base with guys like you."
"I've had this conversation before," said
Converse, irritated.
"What does that mean?"
"If they wanted to see me, why didn't they go to
the gate?"
"Because they thought you'd come into the
terminal like everybody else."
"And when I didn't according to you they
were upset, angry. That's what you said."
"They were."
"All the more reason to meet me at the gate."
Fitzpatrick frowned. "Still, that's kind of flimsy "
"The woman. Do you remember the woman?"
"Of course."
"She spotted me in Copenhagen. She followed
me. Also there's something else. Later, on the
platform, all four were picked up by a car belonging
to a man we know we know is part of everything
I've described to you. They drove to
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 193
the embassy, and you'll have to take my word for
that. I saw them."
Connal fixed his gaze on Joel, accepting what he
had heard. ' Oh, Jesus, " he said. 'Okay, no embassy.
What about Brussels, SHAPE? There's a Navy
intelligence unit; I ve dealt with those people
before."
Not yet. Maybe not at all."
41 thought you wanted to use the uniform, my
connections."
`Maybe I will. It's nice to know they're there."
~Well, what do you want me to do? I've got to
do something. "
Are you really fluent in German?"
"Hochdeutsch, Schwa'bisch, Bayerisch, and several
dialects in between. I told you, I can handle five
languages "
You've made it obnoxiously clear," interrupted
Converse. '4There's a woman named Fishbein here
in Bonn. That's the first name I'm going to give you.
She's involved we're not sure how, but she's
suspected of being a conduit a relayer of
information. I want you to meet her, talk with her
establish a relationship. We'll have to think of
something that'll be convincing in order for you to
do it. She's in her forties, and she's the youngest
daughter of Hermann Goring. She married a
survivor of the holocaust for obvious reasons; he's
long gone. Any ideas?"
'~Sure," said Fitzpatrick without hesitating.
'`Inheritance. There are a couple of thousand last
wills and testaments every year that the deceased
want processed through the military. They're from
crazies who leave everything they've got to the other
survivors. The true Aryan Germanic stock and all
that horseshit. We bounce them back to the civil
courts, which don't know what to do with them, so
they end up in limbo and eventually in the Treasury
Department's coffers."
"No kidding?"
"girls, owed drei. Believe me, those people mean it."
"Can you use the device?"
"How about a million-plus legacy from a small
Midwest brewer of lager beer?"
"You'll do," said Joel. "You're on board."
Converse did not mention Aquitaine or George
Marcus Delavane or Jacques-Louis Bertholdier or
Erich Leifhelm, or twenty-odd names at the State
Department and the Pentagon. Nor did he describe
the network as it appeared in the dossiers, or as
described by Dr. Edward Beale on Mykonos.
.=OBERTLUDLUM
He gave Connal Fitzpatrick the barest bones of the body
of information. Joel's reasoning was far less benign than
he had stated: if the Navy lawyer was taken and
interrogated no matter how brutally there was little
of substance he could reveal.
"You're not really telling me a hell of a lot," said
Fitzpatrick.
"I've told you enough to get your head blown off,
and that's not a phrase normally in my lexicon."
"Nor mine."
"Then consider me a nice fellow," said Converse, as
the two men headed for the entrance gate of the Alter
Zoll.
"On the other hand," continued Halliday's broth-
er-in-law, "you've been through a lot more than I ever
have I read that stuff about you in the security
files files, not file they were cross-correlated with the
files of a lot of other prisoners. You were something
else. According to most of the men in those camps, you
held them together until they put you into solitary."
"They were wrong, sailor. I was shaking and scared
to death and would have fucked a Peking duck to save
my skin."
"That's not what the files say. They say "
"I'm really not interested, Commander," said Joel as
they passed through the ornate gate, "but I've got an
immediate problem you can help solve."
"What is it?"
"I gave my word I'd call Dowling on some mobile
phone line. I wouldn't know how to ask for it."
"There's a booth over there," said Connal, pointing
to a white plastic bubble that protruded from a concrete
pylon on the pavement abutting the drive. "Do you have
the number?"
"It's here somewhere," replied Converse, rummaging
through various pockets. "Here it is," he said as he
separated the scrap of paper from several credit-card
charges.
''Vermittlung, bitts." The naval officer sounded
authentic as he spoke crisply into the telephone. "Sieben,
drei, pier zwei, zwei. Bitte, Fraulein. " Fitzpatrick then
inserted a series of coins into the metal box and turned
to Joel. "Here you are. They're ringing."
Stay there. Ask for him say it's his lawyer calling the
"Guten Tag, Fraulein. Ist Herr Oh, no, I speak
English. Do you spealc English? No, I'm not calling
from California, but it's an emergency.... Dowling, I
have to reach "
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 195
"Caleb, " said Joel quickly.
'Caleb Dowling." The Navy man covered the
mouthpiece. "What kind of name is that?"
"Something to do with Gucci shoes."
"What? . . . la yes, thanks." Fitzpatrick handed
the phone to Converse. "They're getting him."
"foe?"
"Yes, Cal. I said I'd call you after I met with
Fowler. Everything's okay."
'No, it's not, Mr. Lawyer," said the actor quietly.
"You and I had better have a very serious talk, and
I don't mind telling you a hunk of beef named
Rosenberg will be just a few feet away."
"I don't understand."
"A man died in Paris. Does that clear things up for
you?"
"Oh, God " Converse felt the blood draining from
his head and a hol
lowness in his throat. For a
moment he thought he was going to be sick. "They
came to you?" he whispered.
"A man from the German police a little over an
hour ago, and this time I didn't have any doubts
about my visitor. He was the real item."
"I don't know what to say," stammered Joel.
"Did you do it?"
"1. . . I guess I did." Converse stared at the
telephone dial, seeing the bloodied face of the man
in the alleyway, feeling the blood on his own fingers
"You guess? That's not something you guess about."
"Then yes.... The answer is yes. I did it."
"Did you have a reason?"
"I thought I did."
"I want to hear it, but not now. I'll tell you where
to meet me."
"Nor" exclaimed Joel, confused but emphatic. "I
can't involve you. You can't be involved!"
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 30
