Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

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by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  did it finally by dying as I held his head. I

  couldn't walk away after that."

  Connal Fitzpatrick was silent as he walked out on

  the balcony. He leaned over and gripped the railing

  as Converse watched him. Then he stood up, raised

  both his hands, and pulled back the sleeve of his left

  wrist. "It's twelve-fifteen in San Diego. No one in

  legal goes to lunch before one o'clock; the

  Coronado's bar doesn't begin to jump until then."

  "Can you do it?"

  "I can try," said the naval officer, crossing through

  the French doors toward the telephone. "No, damn

  it, if you've got your times straight, I can do better

  than try, I can issue an order. That's what rank's all

  about."

  The first five minutes were excruciating for Joel.

  There were delays on all overseas calls, but somehow

  the hi-, trim, or quadri-lingual Fitzpatrick, speaking

  urgently, unctuously, in German, managed to get

  through, the word dringend repeated frequently.

  "Lieutenant Senior Grade Remington, David.

  Legal Division, SAND PAC. This is an emergency,

  sailor, Commander Fitzpatrick calling. Break in if

  the lines are occupied." Connal covered the

  mouthpiece and turned to Converse. "If you'll open

  my suitcase, there's a bottle of bourbon in the

  middle."

  "I'll open your suitcase, Commander."

  "Remington?... Hello, David, it's Connal.... Yes,

  thanks very much, I'll tell Meagen.... No, I'm not in

  San Francisco, don't call me there. But something's

  come up I want you to handle, something on my

  calendar that I didn't get to. For openers, it's a Four

  Zero emergency. I'll fill you in when I get back, but

  until I do you have to take care of it. Got a pencil?

  . . . There's a POW service record under the name

  of Converse, Joel, Lieutenant, one and a half stripes,

  Air Arm,

  222 ROBERT LUDLUM

  pilot carrier-based, Vietnam duty. He was

  discharged in the sixhes' Fitzpatrick looked down

  at Converse, who held up his right hand and three

  fingers of his left "nineteen sixty-eight, to be

  exact."Joel stepped forward, his spread right hand

  still raised, his left now showing only the index

  finger. "June of '68," added the Navy lawyer,

  nodding. "Point of separation our old hometown,

  San Diego. Have you got all that? Read it back to

  me, please, David."

  Connal nodded sporadically, as he listened.

  "C-O-NV-E-R-S-E, that's right.... June, '68, Air

  Arm, pilot, Vietnam POW section, San Diego

  separation, that's it, you've got it. Now here's the

  wicket, David. This Converse's SR is flag status; the

  flag pertains to his discharge hearing, no weapons

  or high tech involved.... Listen carefully, David. It's

  my understanding that there may be a request

  pending accompanied by a legal-release code for the

  discharge transcript. Under no circumstances is that

  transcript to be released. The flag stays fixed and

  can't be removed by anyone without my authoriza-

  tion. And if the release has been processed it'll still

  be within the forty-eight-hour vet-delay. Kill it.

  Understood?"

  Again Fitzpatrick listened, but instead of

  nodding, he shook his head. "No, not under any

  circumstances. I don't care if the secretaries of

  State, Defense, and the Navy all sign a joint petition

  on White House stationery, the answer is no. If

  anyone questions the decision, tell him I'm

  exercising my authority as Chief Legal Oflficer of

  SAND PAC. There's some goddamned article in the

  'shoals' that says a station CLO can impound

  materials on the basis of conceivably privileged in-

  formation relative to the security of the sector, et

  cetera, et cetera. I don't recall the time

  element seventy-two hours or five days or

  something like that but find that statute. You may

  need it.'

  Connal listened further, his brows creasing, his

  eyes straying to Joel. He spoke slowly as Converse

  felt the sickening ache again in his chest. "Where

  can you reach me . . . ?" said the naval officer,

  perplexed. Then suddenly he was no longer

  bewildered. "I take back what I said before, call

  Meagen in San Francisco. If I'm not with her and

  the kids, she'll know where to reach me.... Thanks

  again, David. Sweep your decks and get right on

  this, okay? Thanks . . . I'll tell Meg. ' Fitzpatrick

  hung up the phone and exhaled audibly. "There," he

  said, slouched in relief, pushing his hand through

  his loose light-brown hair. "I'll phone Meagen and

  give her this num

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 223

  her, tell her to say I've gone up to the Sonoma hills,

  if Reming ton calls Press had some property there."

  "Give her the telephone number," said Joel, "but

  don't tell her anything else."

  "Don't worry, she's got enough on her mind. '

  The naval officer looked at Converse, frowning. "If

  your hourly count is right, you've got your bme now."

  "My count's all right. Is Lieutenant Remington?

  I mean that only in the sense that he wouldn't let

  anyone override your order, would he?'

  "Don't mistake my officiousness where he's

  concerned," replied Connal. "David isn't easily

  pushed around. The reason I chose him and not one

  of the four other senior lawyers in the department is

  that he's got a reputation for being a sUckler prick.

  He'll find that statute and nail it to the forehead of

  any four-striper who tries to countermand that order.

  I like Remington; he's very useful. He scares the hell

  out of people."

  "We all have case partners like that. It's called

  the good guy-bad guy routine."

  "David fits. He's got an eye that keeps straying

  to the right." Fitzpatrick suddenly stood erect, his

  bearing military. "I thought you were going to get the

  bourbon, Lieutenant?"

  "Yes, sir, CommanderI" shot back Joel, heading

  for fitzpatrick's suitcase.

  "And if I remember correctly, after you pour us

  a drink you're going to tell me a story I want very

  much to hear."

  "Aye, aye, sir!" said Converse, lifting the suitcase

  off the floor and putting it on the couch. "And if I

  may suggest, sir," conUnuedJoel, "a room-service

  dinner might be in order. I'm sure the Commander

  needs nourishment after his trying day at the wheel."

  "Good thinking, Lieutenant. I'll phone down to

  the Em pfang. "

  "Before calling your bookie, may I also suggest

  that you first call your sister?"

  "Oh, Christ, I forgot!"

  Chaim Abrahms walked down the dark street in

  Tel Aviv his stocky frame draped in his usual safari

  jacket, boots beneath his khaki trousers, and a beret

  covering his nearly bald head. The beret was the only

  concession he made to the night's purpose; normally
r />   he enjoyed being recognised, accepUng the adulation

  with well-rehearsed humility. In day

  224 ROBERT LUDLUM

  light, his head uncovered and held erect, and

  wearing his familiar jacket, he would acknowledge

  the homage with a nod, his eyes boring in on his

  followers.

  "First a Jew!" was the phrase with which he was

  always greeted, whether in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem,

  in sections of Paris and most of New York.

  The phrase had been born years ago when as a

  young terrorist for the Irgun he had been

  condemned to death in absentia by the British for

  the slaughter of a Palestinian village with the Arab

  corpses put on display for Nakama! He had then

  issued a cry heard around the world: "I am first a

  Jew a son of Abraham! All else follows, and rivers

  of blood will follow if the children of Abraham are

  denied!"

  The British, in 1948, not caring to create

  another martyr commuted his sentence and gave

  him a large moshav. Yet the acreage of the

  settlement could not confine the militant sabre.

  Three wars had broken his agricultural shackles as

  well as unleashing his ferocity and his brilliance in

  the field. It was a brilliance developed and refined

  through the early years of racing with a fugitive,

  fragmented army, for which the tactics of surprise,

  shock, hit and melt away were constant, when being

  outmanned and outgunned were the accepted odds

  but only victory was the acceptable outcome. He

  later applied the strategies and the philosophy of

  those years to the ever-expanding war machine that

  became the Army, Navy and Air Force of a mighty

  Israel. Mars was in the heavens of Chaim Abrahm's

  vision and, the prophets aside, the god of war was

  his strength, his reason for being. From Ramat Aviv

  to Har Hazeytim, from Rehovot to Masada of the

  Negev Nakama! was the cry. Retribution to the

  enemies of Abraham's children!

  If only the Poles and the Czechs, the Hungarians

  and the Romanies, as well as the haughty Germans

  and the impossible Russians, had not immigrated to

  his country by such tens of thousands. They arrived

  and the complications came with them. Faction

  against faction, culture against culture, each group

  trying to prove it was more entitled to the name Jew

  than the others. It was all nonsense! They were

  there because they had to be; they had succumbed

  to Abraham's enemies permitted yes,

  permitted the slaughter of millions rather than

  rising as millions and slaughtering in return. Well,

  they found out what their civilised ways could bring

  them, and how much their Talmudic convolutions

  could earn them. So

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 225

  they came to the Holy Land their Holy Land, so

  they procla~med. Well, it wasn't theirs. Where were

  they when it was being clawed out of rock and arid

  desert by strong hands with primitive tools Biblical

  tools? Where were they when the hated Arab and

  the despised English first felt the wrath of the tribal

  Jew? They were in the capitals of Europe, in their

  banks and their fancy drawing rooms, making money

  and drinking expensive brandy out of crystal goblets.

  No, they came here because they had to; they came

  to the Holy Land of the sabre.

  They brought with them money and dandy ways

  and elegant words and confusing arguments and

  influence and the guilt of the world. But it was the

  sabre who taught them how to fight. And it was a

  sabre who would bring all Israel into the orbit of a

  mighty new alliance.

  Abrahms reached the intersection of Ibn Gabirol

  and Arlosoroff streets; the streetlamps were haloed,

  their light hazy. It was just as well; he should not be

  seen. He had another block to go, to an address on

  Jabotinsky, an unprepossessing apartment house

  where there was an undistinguished flat leased by a

  man who appeared to be no more than an unim-

  portant bureaucrat. What few realised, however, was

  that this man, this specialist who operated

  sophisticated computer equipment with

  communications throughout most of the world, was

  intrinsic to the global operations of the Mossad, Is-

  rael's intelligence service, which many considered the

  finest on earth. He, too, was a sabre. He was one of

  them.

  Abrahms spoke his name quietly into the

  mouthpiece above the mail slot in the outer lobby;

  he heard the click in the lock of the heavy door and

  walked inside. He began the climb up the three

  flights of steps that would take him to the flat.

  '~Some wine, Chaim?"

  "Whisky," was the curt reply.

  "Always the same question and always the same

  answer," said the specialist. "I say 'Some wine,

  Chaim?' and you say one word. 'whisky,' you say.

  You would drink whisky at the Seder, if you could

  get away with it."

  "I can and I do." Abrahms sat in a cracked

  leather chair looking around the plain, disheveled

  room with books everywhere, wondering, as he

  always did, why a man with such influence lived this

  way. It was rumored that the Mossad officer did not

  like company, and larger, more attractive quarters

  226 ROBERT LUDLUM

  might invite it. "I gathered from your grunts and

  coughs over the telephone that you have what I

  need."

  "Yes, I have it," said the specialist, bringing a

  glass of very good Scotch to his guest. "I have it, but

  I don't think you're going to like it."

  "Why not?" asked Abrahms, drinking, his eyes

  alert over the rim of the glass and fixed on his host

  as the latter sat down opposite him.

  "Basically because it's confusing, and what's

  confusing in this business is to be approached

  delicately. You are not a delicate man, Chaim

  Abrahms, forgive the indelicacy of my saying it. You

  tell me this Converse is your enemy, a would-be

  infiltrator, and I tell you I find nothing to support

  the conclusion. Before anything else, there must be

  a deep personal motive for a nonprofessional to

  engage in this kind of deception this kind of

  behavior, if you will. There has to be a driving

  compulsion to strike out at an image of a cause he

  loathes. Well, there is a motive, and there is an

  enemy for which he must have great hatred, but

  neither is compatible with what you suggest. The

  information, incidentally, is completely reliable. It

  comes from the Quang Dinh "

  "What in hell is that?" interrupted the general.

  "A specialised branch of North

  Vietnamese now, of course,

  Vietnamese intelligence."

  "You have sources there?"

  "We fed them for years nothing terribly vital,

  but sufficient to gain a few ears, and voices. There

  were things we had to know, weapons we had to
/>
  understand; they could be turned against us."

  "This Converse was in North Vietnam?"

  "For several years as a prisoner of war; there's

  an extensive file on him. At first, his captors

  thought he could be used for propaganda, radio

  broadcasts, television imploring his brutal

  government to withdraw and stop the bombing, all

  the usual garbage. He spoke well, presented a good

  picture, and was obviously very American. Initially

  they televised him as a murderer from the skies,

  saved from the angry mobs by humane troops, then

  later while eating and exercising; you see, they were

  programming him for a violently sudden reversal.

  They thought he was a soft, privileged young man

  who could be broken rather easily to do their

  bidding in exchange for more comfortable

  treatment after having experienced a period of

  harsh deprivation. What they learned, however, was

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 227

  quite different. Under that soft shell the inner lining

  was made of hard metal, and the odd thing was that

  as the months went by it grew harder, until they

  realized they had created created was their word a

  hellhound of sorts, somehow forged in steel."

  "Hellhound? Was that their word, too?"

  "No, they called him an ugly troublemaker, which,

  considering the source, is not without irony. The

  point is, they recognized the fact that they had

  created him. The harsher the treatment, the more

  volatile he became, the more resilient."

  "Why not?" said Abrahms sharply. "He was angry.

  Prod a desert snake and watch him strike."

  "I can assure you, Chaim, it is not the normal

  human response under such conditions. A man can

  go mad and strike in crazed fury, or he can become

 

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