Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 31
"This fellow gave me a card and wants me to call
him if you got in touch with me. He was very specific
about withholding information, how it's considered
aiding a fugitive."
"He was right, absolutely rightl For God's sake,
tell him everything, Call The truth. You got me a
room for the night because you thought I might not
have a reservation and we had a pleasant few hours
on the plane. You put it in your name because you
didn't want me to pay. Don't hide anything! Not even
this call."
"Why didn't I tell him before?"
196 ROBERT LUDLUM
"That's all right, you're telling him now. It was
a shock and I'm a fellow American and you're in a
foreign country. You wanted time to think, to
reflect. My phone call shook you into behaving
rationally. Tell him you confronted me with the
accusation and I didn't deny it. Be honest with him,
Cal."
"How honest? Should I include my session with
Fowler?"
"That's all right, too, but it's not necessary. Let
me back up and clarify. Fowler's a false name and
he's not relevant to Paris, I give you my word.
Bringing him in is only volunteering an unnecessary
complication."
"Should I tell him you're at the Alter Zoll?"
"It's where I'm calling you from. I just admitted it."
"You won't be able to go back to the Konigshof."
"It doesn't matter," said Joel, speaking rapidly,
wanting to get off the phone and start thinking. "My
luggage is at the airport and I can't go back there
either."
"You had a briefcase."
"I've taken care of that. It's where I can get it."
The actor paused, then spoke slowly. "So your
advice to me is to level with the police, to tell them
the truth."
"Without volunteering extraneous and unrelated
material. Yes, that's my advice, Cal. It's the way you
can stay clean and you are clean."
"It sounds like fine advice, Joe Joel, and I
certainly wish I could take it, but I'm afraid I can't."
"What? Why?"
"Because bad men like thieves and killers don't
give advice like that. It's not in any script I ever
read."
"That's nonsense! For Christ's sake, do as I tell
you!"
"Sorry, pardner, it's not good dramaturgy. So
you do as I tell you. There's a big stone building at
the university beautiful place, a restored palace
actually with a layout of gardens you don't see
very often. They're on the south side with benches
here and there on the main path. It's a nice place
on a summer's night, kind of out of the way and not
too crowded. Be there at ten o'clock."
"Cal, I won't involve you in thist"
"I'm already involved. I've withheld information
and I've aided a fugitive." Dowling paused again.
"There's someone I want you to meet," he said.
"No. "
There was a click and the line went dead.
10
Converse hung up the phone and braced himself
on the sides of the plastic booth, trying to clear his
head. He had killed a man, not in a war anyone knew
about, and not in the heat of survival in a Southeast
Asian jungle, but in a Paris alleyway because he had
to make an instant decision based on probabilities.
Rightly or wrongly the act had been done and he
could not dwell on it. The German police were
looking for him, which meant that Interpol had
entered the picture, transmitting the information from
Paris somehow supplied by Jacques-Louis Bertholdier,
who remained out of sight, beyond the scope of the
hunt. Joel recalled his own words spoken only
minutes ago. If Press Halliday's life was not terribly
important compared with what he was going after,
neither was the life of a minion who worked for
Bertholdier, Delavane's disciple, Aquitaine's arm in
France. There were no options, thought Converse. He
had to go on; he had to stay free.
"What's the matter?" asked Fitzpatrick, standing
anxiously near him. "You look like you got kicked by
a mule."
"I got kicked," agreed Converse.
"What happened to Dowling? Is he in trouble?"
"He mall be!" exploded Joel. "Because he's a
misguided idiot who thinks he's in some kind of
goddamned moviel"
"That wasn't your opinion a little while ago."
"We met; it came out all right. This can't, not for
him." Converse pushed himself away from the booth
and looked at the Navy lawyer, his mind now trying
desperately to concentrate on the immediate. "I may
tell you and I may not," he said, glancing around for
an available taxi. "Come on, we're going to put your
awesome linguistic abilities to work. We need shelter,
expensive but not showy, especially not a place where
the well-heeled tourists go who don't speak German.
If there's one thing they'll spread about me, it's that
I can't talk my way through the five boroughs of New
York. I want
197
~g8 ROBERT LUDLUM
a rich hotel that doesn't need foreigners, doesn't
cater to them. Do you know the kind of place I
mean?"
Fitzpatrick nodded. "Exclusive, clubby,German
business-oriented. Every large city has hotels like
that, and they're always twenty times my per diem
for breakfast."
"That's okay, I ve got money here in Bonn. I
might as well try to get it out."
"You're full of surprises," said Cormal. "I mean
real surprises."
"Do you think you can handle it? Find a hotel like
that?"
"I can explain what I want to a cabdriver; he'll
probably know. Bonn's small, nothing like New
York or London or Paris.... There's a taxi letting
people out." The two men hurried to the curb,
where the cab was discharging a quartet of
passengers balancing camera equipment and
outsized Louis Vuitton handbags.
"How will you do it?" asked Converse as they
nodded to the tourists, two couples in the midst of
an argument, male versus female, Nikon versus
Vuitton.
"A combination of what we both said," answered
Fitzpatrick. "A quiet, nice hotel away from the
Ausl~nderl~r~n. "
"What?"
"The clamor of tourists and worse. I'll tell him
we're calling on some very important German
businessmen bankers, say and we'd like a place
they'd be most comfortable in for confidential
meetings. He'll get the drift."
"He'll see we don't have any luggage," objected Joel.
"He'll see the money in my hand first," said the
naval olficer, holding the door for Converse.
Lieutenant Commander Connal Fitzpatrick,
USN, member of the military bar and limited
thereby, impressed Joel Converse, vaunted
international attorney, to the point where the latter
felt foolish. Effortlessly the Na
vy lawyer got them in
a two-bedroom suite at an inn on the banks of the
Rhine called Das Rektorat. It was one of those
converted prewar estates where most of the guests
seemed to have at least a nodding acquaintance with
several others and the clerks rarely looked anyone
in the eye, as if tacitly confirming their subser-
vience or the fact that they would certainly not
acknowledge having seen Herr So-and-So should
someone ask them.
Fitzpatrick had begun his campaign with the taxi
driver by leaning forward in the seat and speaking
rapidly and quiet
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 199
ly.Their exchanges seemed to grow more confidential
as the cab sped toward the heart of the city; then it
abruptly veered away, crossing the railroad tracks
that intersected the capital, and entered a smooth
road paralleling the river north. Joel had started to
speak, to ask what was happening, but the Navy
lawyer had held up his hand, telling Converse to be
quiet.
Once they had stopped at the entrance of an inn,
reached by an interminably long, manicured drive,
Fitzpatrick got out.
"Stay here," he said toJoel. "I'll see if I can get us
a couple of rooms. And don't say anything."
Twelve minutes later Connal returned, his
demeanor stern, his eyes, however, lively. "Come on,
Chairman of the Board, we're going straight up." He
paid the driver handsomely and once again held the
door for Converse now a touch more deferentially,
thought Joel.
The lobby of Das Rektorat was unmistakably
German, with oddly delicate Victorian overtones;
thick heavy wood and sturdy leather chairs were
beside and below filigrees of brass ornamentation
forming arches over doorways, elegant borders for
large mirrors, and valances above thick bay windows
where none were required. One's first impression was
of a quiet, expensive spa from decades ago, its
solemnity lightened by flashes of reflecting metal and
glass. It was a strange mixture of the old and the very
old. It smelled of money.
Fitzpatrick led Converse to a paneled elevator
recessed in the paneled corridor; no bellboy or
manservant was in attendance. It was a small
enclosure, room for no more than four people, the
walls of tinted, marbled glass, which vibrated as the
elevator ascended two stories.
"I think you'll approve of the accommodations,"
said Connal. "I checked them out; that's why it took
me so long."
"We're back in the nineteenth century, you know,"
countered Joel. "I trust they have telephones and not
just the Hessian express."
"All the most modern communications, I made
sure of that, too." The elevator door opened. "This
way," said Fitzpatrick, gesturing to the right. "The
suite's at the end of the hall."
"The suited"
"You said you had money in Bonn."
Two bedrooms flanked a tastefully furnished
sitting room, with French doors that opened onto a
small balcony overlook
200 ROBERT LUDLUM
ingthe Rhine. The rooms were sunlit and airy, the
decor of the walls again an odd mixture: a
reproduction of an Impressionist floral arrangement
was beside dramatic prints of past champion horses
from the leading German tracks and breeding farms.
"All right, wonder boy," said Converse, looking
out the open French doors, then turning back to
Connal Fitzpatrick, who stood in the middle of the
room, the key skill in his hand. "How did you do it?"
"It wasn't hard," replied the Navy lawyer, smiling.
"You'd be surprised what a set of military papers
will do for a person in this country. The older guys
sort of stiffen up and look like boxer puppies
smelling a pot roast, and there aren't that many
people here much under sixty."
"That doesn't tell me anything unless you're
enlisting us."
"It does when I combine it with the fact that I'm
an aide assigned by the U.S. Navy to accompany an
important American financier over here to hold
confidential meetings with his German counterparts.
While in Bonn, naturally, incognito is the best
means for my eccentric financier to travel. Every-
thing's in my name."
"What about reservations?"
"I told the manager that you'd rejected the hotel
reserved for us as having too many people you
might know. I also hinted that those countrymen of
his you're going to meet might be most appreciative
of his cooperation. He agreed that I might have a
point there."
"How did we hear about this place?" asked Joel,
skill suspicious.
"Simple. I remembered it from several
conversations I had at the Internahonal Economic
Conference in Dusseldorf last year."
"You were there?"
"I didn't know there was one," said Fitzpatrick,
heading for the door on the left. "I'll take this
bedroom, okay? It's not as large as the other one
and that's the way it should be, since I'm an
aide which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph all know is the
truth."
"Wait a minute," Converse broke in, stepping
forward. "What about our luggage? Since we don't
have any, didn't that strike your friend downstairs as
a little odd for such important characters?"
"Not at all," said Connal, turning. "It's skill in the
city at
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 201
that unnamed hotel you rejected so emphatically
after twenty minutes. But only I can pick it up."
"Why?"
Fitzpatrick brought his index finger to his lips.
"You also have a compulsion for secrecy. Remember,
you're eccentric."
"The manager bought all that swill?"
"He calls me Kommandant."
"You're quite a bullshitter, sailor."
"I remind you, sir, that in the land of Erin go
brash it's called good healthy blarney. And although
you lack certain qualifications, Press said you were a
master of it in negohations." Connal's expression
became serious. "He meant it in the best way,
counselor, and that's not bullshit."
As the Navy lawyer began walking to the
bedroom, Joel felt an odd sense of recognition but
could not define it. What was it about the younger
man that struck a chord in him? Fitzpatrick had that
boldness that came with the untried, that lack of fear
in small things that caution would later teach him
often led to larger things. He tested waters bravely;
he had never come close to drowning.
Suddenly Converse understood the recognition.
What he saw in Connal Fitzpatrick was
himself before things had happened. Before he had
learned the meaning of fear, raw fear. And finally of
loneliness.
It was agreed that Connal would return to the
&nb
sp; Cologne-Bonn airport, not for Joel's luggage but for
his own, which was stored in a locker in the
baggage-claim area. He would then go into Bonn
proper, buy an expensive suitcase and fill it with a
half-dozen shirts, underwear, socks and best
off-the-rack clothing he could find in Joel's
sizes namely, three pairs of trousers, a jacket or two
and a raincoat. It was further agreed that casual
clothes were the most appropriate an eccentric
financier was permitted such lapses of sartorial taste,
and also such attire more successfully concealed their
non-custom-made origins. Finally, the last stop he
would make before returning to Das Rektorat was at
a second locker in the railroad station where
Converse had left his attache case. Once the case
was in the Navy lawyer's possession and the taxi
waiting outside had picked up its passenger, there
were to be no further stops. The cab was to drive
directly to the countryside inn.
"I wanted to ask you something," said Fitzpatrick just
be
202 ROBERT LUDLUM
fore leaving. "Back at the Alter Zoll you said
something about how 'they' would spread the word
that you couldn't talk your way through the five
boroughs of New York. I gathered that referred to
the fact that you don't speak German."
"That's right. Or any other language, adequate
English excepted. I tried but it never took. I was