Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

  reclusive to the point of catatonia, or fall apart

  weeping, willing to compromise anything and

  everything for the smallest kindness. He did none of

  these things. His was a calculated and inventive

  series of responses drawing on his own inner

  resources to survive. He led two escapes the first

  lasting three days and the second five before the

  groups were recaptured. As the leader, he was placed

  in a cage in the Mekong River, but he devised a way

  to kill the water rats by grabbing them from beneath

  the surface like a shark. He was then thrown into

  solitary confinement, a pit in the ground twelve feet

  deep with barbed wire anchored across the top. It

  was from there, during a heavy rainstorm at night,

  that he clawed his way up, bent the wire back.and

  escaped alone. He made his way south through the

  jungles and in the river streams for over a hundred

  miles until he reached the American lines. It was no

  easy feat. They created a savagely obsessed man who

  won his own personal war."

  "Why didn't they simply kill him before that?"

  "I wondered myself," said the specialist, "so I

  phoned my source in Hanoi, the one who provided

  the information. He said a strange thing, something

  quite profound in its way. He said he wasn't there, of

  course, but he thought it was probably respect."

  "For an ugly troublemaker?"

  "Captivity in war does odd things, Chaim, to both

  the captured and the captors. There are so many

  factors at work in a vicious game. Aggression,

  resistance, bravery, fear, and not the

  least curiosity, especially when the players

  228 ROBERT LUDLUM

  come from such diverse cultures as the Occident

  and the Orient. An abnormal bond is often formed,

  as much from the weariness of the testing game as

  from anything else, perhaps. It doesn't lessen the

  national animosities, but a subtle recognition sets in

  that tells these men, these players, that they are not

  really in the game by their own choosing. In-depth

  analyses further show us that it is the captors, not

  the captured, who first perceive this commonality.

  The latter are obsessed with freedom and survival,

  while the former begin to question their absolute

  authority over the lives and conditions of other

  men. They start to wonder what it would be like to

  be in the other player's shoes. It's all part of what

  the psychiatrists call the Stockholm syndrome."

  "What in the name of God are you trying to say?

  You sound like one of those bores in the Knesset

  reading a position paper. A little of this, a little of

  that and a lot of windI"

  "You are definitely not delicate, Chaim. I'm

  trying to explain to you that while this Converse

  nurtured his hatreds and his obsessions, his captors

  wearied of the game, and as our source in Hanoi

  suggests, they grudgingly spared his life out of

  respect, before he made his final and successful

  escape."

  To Abrahm's bewilderment the specialist had

  apparently finished. "And?" said the sabre.

  "Well, there it is. There is the motive and the

  enemy, but they are also your motive and your

  enemy arrived at from different routes, of course.

  Ultimately, you wish to smash insurgence wherever

  it erupts, curb the spread of Third World

  revolutions, especially Islamic, because you know

  they're being fostered by the Marxists read

  Soviets and are a direct threat to Israel. One way

  or another it's the global threat that's brought you

  all together, and in my judgment rightfully so. There

  is a time and a place for a military-industrial com-

  plex, and it is now. It must run the governments of

  the free world before that world is buried by its

  enemies."

  Chaim Abrahms squinted and tried not to shout.

  "And?"

  "Can't you see? This Converse is one of you.

  Everything supports it. He has the motive and an

  enemy he's seen in the harshest light. He is a highly

  regarded attorney who makes a great deal of money

  with a very conservative firm, and his clients are

  among the wealthiest corporations and conglomer-

  ates. Everything he's been and everything he stands

  for can only benefit from your efforts. The

  confusion lies in his unorthodox methods, and I

  can't explain them except to say that

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 229

  perhaps they are not unorthodox in the specialised

  work he does. Markets can plummet on rumors;

  concealment and diversion are surely respected.

  Regardless, he doesn't want to destroy you, he wants

  to join you."

  The sabre put his glass down on the floor and

  struggled out of the chair. With his chin tucked into

  his breastbone and his hands clasped behind his

  back, Abrahms paced back and forth in silence. He

  stopped and looked down at the specialist.

  "Suppose, just suppose," he said, ' the almighty

  Mossad has made a mistake, that there's something

  you didn't find."

  "I would find that hard to accept."

  "But it's a possibility!"

  "In light of the information we've gathered, I

  doubt it. Why?"

  "Because I have a sense of smell, that's why!"

  The man from the Mossad kept his eyes on

  Abrahms, as if studying the soldier's face or

  thinking from a different viewpoint. "There is only

  one other possibility, Chaim. If this Converse is not

  who and what I've described, which would be

  contrary to all the data we've compiled, then he is an

  agent of his government."

  "That's what I smell," said the sabre softly.

  It was the specialist's turn to be silent. He

  breathed deeply, then responded. "I respect your

  nostrils, old friend. Not always your conduct but

  certainly your sense of smell. What do the others

  think?"

  "Only that he's Iying, that he's covering for others

  he may or may not know, who are using him as a

  scout an 'infantry point' was the term used by Palo

  Alto."

  The Mossad officer continued to stare at the

  sabre, but his eyes were no longer focused; he was

  seeing abstract, twisted patterns, convolutions few

  men would comprehend. They came from a lifetime

  of analysing seen and unseen, legitimate and racial

  enemies, parrying dagger thrusts with counterthrusts

  in the blackest darkness. "It's possible," he whis-

  pered, as if replying to an unspoken question heard

  only by himself. "Almost inconceivable, but possible."

  "What is? That Washington is behind him?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "As an outrageous alternative I do not subscribe

  to, but the only one left that has the slightest

  plausibility. Simply put, he has too much

  information."

  230 ROBERT LUDLUM

  "And?"

  "Not Washington in the
usual sense, not the

  government in the broader sense, but within a

  branch of the government a section that has heard

  whispers about an organisation cannot be sure.

  They believe that if there is such an organization,

  they must invade it to expose it. So they choose a

  man with the right history, the right memories, even

  the right profession to do the job. He might even

  believe everything he says."

  The sabre was transfixed but impatient. "That

  has too many complications for me," he said bluntly.

  'Try it my way first. Try to accept him; he may

  be genuine. He'll have to give you something

  concrete; you can force that. Then again he may not

  because he cannot."

  "Andy"

  "And if he can't, you'll know you're right. Then

  put as much distance between him and his sponsors

  as is humanly and brutally possible. He must

  become a pariah, a man hunted for crimes so insane

  his madness is unquestioned."

  "Why not just kill him?"

  "By all means, but not before he's been labeled

  so mad that no one will step forward to claim him.

  It will buy you the time you need. The final phase

  of Aquitaine is when? Three, four weeks away?"

  "That's when it begins, yes."

  The specialist got up from the chair and stood

  pensively in front of the soldier. "I repeat, first try

  to accept him, see if what I said before is true. But

  if that sense of smell of yours is provoked further,

  if there's the slightest possibility he has been

  willingly or unwillingly, wittingly or unwittingly,

  made a provocateur by men in Washington, then

  build your case against him and throw him to the

  wolves. Create that pariah as the North Vietnamese

  created a hellhound. Then kill him quickly, before

  anyone else reaches him."

  "A sabre of the Mossad speaks?"

  "As clearly as I can."

  The young Army captain and the older civilian

  came out of the Pentagon from adjacent glass doors

  and glanced briefly at each other with no

  recognition. They walked separately down the short

  bank of steps and turned left on the cement path

  that led to the enormous parking lot; the Army

  officer was perhaps ten feet ahead of the civilian.

  Upon reaching the

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 231

  huge asphalt area, each veered in a different

  direction toward his car. If these two men had been

  the subjects of photographic surveillance during the

  past fifty seconds, there was no indication

  whatsoever that they knew each other.

  The green Buick coupe turned right in the

  middle of the block, going through the open chasm

  that was the entrance to the hotel's underground

  parking lot. At the bottom of the ramp the driver

  showed his room key to the attendant, who raised

  the yellow barrier and waved him along. There was

  an empty space in the third column of stationary

  automobiles. The Buick eased into it and the Army

  captain got out.

  He circled through the revolving door and walked

  to a bank of elevators in the hotel's lower lobby. The

  panels of the second elevator opened, revealing two

  couples who had not intended to reach the

  underground level; they laughed as one of the men

  repeatedly pressed the lobby button. The officer, in

  turn, touched the button for the fourteenth floor.

  Sixty seconds later he walked out into the corridor

  toward the exit staircase. He was heading for the

  eleventh floor.

  The blue Toyota station wagon came down the

  ramp, the driver's hand extended, a room key held

  out, the number visible. Inside the parking area the

  driver found an empty space and carefully steered

  the small station wagon into it.

  The civilian stepped out and looked at his watch.

  Satisfied, he started toward the revolving door and

  the elevators. The second elevator was empty, and

  the civilian was tempted to press the button for the

  eleventh floor; he was tired and did not relish the

  thought of the additional walk. However there would

  be other occupants on the way up, so he held to the

  rules and placed his index finger over the button

  beside the number 9.

  Standing in front of the hotel-room door the

  civilian raised his hand, rapped once, waited several

  beats, then rapped twice more. Seconds later the

  door was opened by the Army captain. Beyond him

  was a third man, also in uniform, the color and the

  insignia denoting a lieutenant, junior grade, in the

  Navy. He stood by a desk with a telephone on it.

  "Glad you got here on time," said the Army

  officer. "The traffic was rotten. Our call should be

  coming through in a few minutes."

  232 ROBERT LUDLUM

  The civilian entered, nodding to the Navy man

  as he spoke. 'What did you find out about

  Fitzpatrick?" he asked.

  "He's where he shouldn't be," replied the lieutenant.

  "Can you bring him back?"

  "I'm working on it, but I don't know where to

  begin. I'm a very low man on a very big totem

  pole."

  "Aren't we all?" said the captain.

  "Who'd have thought Halliday would have gone

  to him?" asked the naval officer, frustration in his

  voice. "Or if he was going to bring him in, why

  didn't he go to him first? Or tell him about us?"

  "I can answer the last two questions," said the

  Army man. "He was protecting him from a

  Pentagon backlash. If we go down, his

  brother-in-law stays clean."

  "And I can answer the first question," said the

  civilian. ' Halliday went to Fitzpatrick because in

  the final analysis, he d~dn t trust us. Geneva

  proved he was right."

  "Hoop" asked the captain defensively, but

  without apology. "We couldn't have prevented it."

  "No, we couldn't," agreed the civilian. "But we

  couldn't do anything about it afterwards, either.

  That was part of the trust, and there was no way we

  could live up to it. We couldn't

  The telephone rang. The lieutenant picked it up

  and listened. "It's Mykonos, ' he said.

  PART TWO

  12

  Connal Fitzpatrick sat opposite Joel at the

  room-service table drinking the last of his coffee. The

  dinner was finished the story completed, and all the

  questions the Navy lawyer could raise had been

  answered by Converse because he had given his

  word; he needed a complete ally.

  "Except for a few identities and some dossier

  material," said Connal, "I don't know an awful lot

  more than I did before. Maybe I will when I see

  those Pentagon names. You say you don't know who

  supplied them?"

  "No. Like Topsy, they're just there. Beale said a

  number of them are probably mistakes, but others

  aren't; they have to be linked to Delavane."

  "They had to be supplied by someone t
oo. There

  had to be reasons why they were listed."

  "Beale called them 'decision makerst in military

  procurements."

  "Then I have to see them. I've dealt with those

  people."

  "Yes. Not very often, but enough to know my way

  around."

  "Why you?"

  "Basically translating legal nuances from language

  to language where Navy tech was involved. I think I

  mentioned that I speak "

  "You did," Joel broke in.

  "Goddamn itl" cried Fitzpatrick, crushing his

  napkin in a fist.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Press knew I had dealings with those committees,

  with the technology and armaments boys! He even

  asked me about them. Who I saw, who I liked who

  I trusted. Jesus! Why didn't he come to me? Of all

  the people he knew, I was the logical onel I'm down

  the pike and his closest friend."

  235

  236 ROBERT LUDLUM

  "That's why he didn't come to you," said Converse.

  "Stupid bastard!" Connal raised his eyes. "And

  I hope you hear that, Press. You might still be

  around to see Connal Two win the Bay Regatta."

  "I think you really believe he might hear you."

  Fitzpatrick looked across the table at Joel. "Yes,

  I do. You see, I believe, counselor. I know all the

  reasons why I shouldn't Press enumerated them to

  a fare-thee-well when we were in our cups but I

  believe. I answered him once with a quote from one