Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt
Page 41
"It was not your battle, ma cherie. It was ours.
Since Berlin, it was always we two. We fought then
together; we fight now as always as one."
Her mother died six days later, and six months
after that her father lit a Gauloise on the
screened-in porch and mercifully fell asleep, not to
wake up. Valerie could not cry. It was
262 R08ERT IUDIUM
a shock but not a tragedy. Wherever he was he
wanted to be there.
So Valerie Charpentier looked for a job, a
paying job that did not rely on the sales of an
unknown artist. What astonished her was not that
employment was so easy to find, but that it had very
little to do with the thick portfolio of sketches and
line drawings she presented. The second advertising
agency she applied to seemed more interested in
the fact that she spoke both German and French
fluently. It was the bme of corporate takeovers, of
multinational alliances where profits could be made
on both sides of the Atlantic by the same single
entities. Valerie Charpentier, artist-in-residence
inside, became a company hack on the outside.
Someone who could draw and sketch rapidly and
make presentations and speak the languages and
she hated it. Still, it was a remarkable living for a
woman who had anticipated a period of years
before her name on a canvas would mean
something.
Then a man came into her life who made
whatever affairs she had had totally forgettable. A
nice man, a decent man even an exciting
man who had his own problems but did not talk
about them, would not talk about them, and that
should have given her a clue. Joel, her Joel, effusive
one moment, withdrawn the next, but always with
that shield, that facade of quick humor which was
often as biting as it was amusing. For a while they
had been good for each other. Both were ambitious
for entirely different reasons she for the in-
dependence that came with recognition, he for the
wasted years he could never reclaim and each
acted as a buffer when the other faced
disappointment or delay. But it all began to fall
apart. The reasons were painfully clear to her but
not to him. He became mesmerised by his own
progress by his own determination, to the exclusion
of everything else, starting with her. He never raised
his voice or made demands, but the words were ice
and the demands were increasingly there. If there
was a specific point when she recognised the
downhill slide, it was a Friday night in November.
The agency had wanted her to fly to West Berlin; a
Telefunken account required some fast personal
service and she was elected to calm the churning
waters. She had been packing when Joel came home
from work. He had walked into the bedroom of
their apartment and asked her what she was doing,
where she was going. When she told him, he had
said, ' You can't. We're expected at Brooks' house
in Larchmont tomorrow night. Tal
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 263
hot and Simon'll be there too. I m sure they'll talk
international. You've got to be there."
She had looked at him, at the quiet desperation
in his eyes. She did not go to Germany. It was the
turning point; the downhill race had begun, and
within a brief few months she knew it was quickening
to its finish. She quit the agency, giving up authority
for the dog days of free-lancing, hoping the extra
time she had to devote to him might help. It did not;
he seemed to resent any overt act of sacrifice, no
matter how hard she tried to conceal it. His periods
of withdrawal multiplied, and in a way she felt sorry
for him. His furies were driving him and it was
obvious that he disliked what was happening; he
disliked what he was but could not help himself. He
was on his way to a burnout and she could not help
him, either.
If there had been another woman, she could have
fought, staking out her claim and fiercely insisting on
the right to compete, but there was no one else, only
himself and his compulsions. Finally, she realized she
could not penetrate his shield; he had nothing left
for anyone else emotionally. That was what she had
hurled at him: 'Emotional burn-out!" He had agreed
in that quiet, kind voice and the next day he was
gone.
So she took him. Four years, she demanded, the
exact amount of time he had taken from her. Those
four years of heady generosity were about to come to
an end, Val reflected, as she cleaned her brushes and
scraped the palette. In January they were over, the
last check, as always, posted by the fifteenth. Five
weeks ago, during lunch at the Ritz in Boston, Joel
had offered to continue the payments. He claimed he
was used to them and was making more in salary and
bonuses than he could spend soberly. The money was
no hardship, and besides it gave him a certain stature
among his peers and was a marvelous ploy to avoid
prolonged entanglements. She had declined,
borrowing words from her father or more likely her
mother, saying that things were far better than they
were. He had smiled that half-sad yet still infectious
smile and said, "If they turn out otherwise, I m here."
Coddamn himl
Poor Joel. Sad Joel. He was a good man caught
in the vortex of his own conflicts. And Val had gone
as far as she could go to go further was to deny her
own identity. She would not do that; she had not
done it.
264 ROBERT LUDLUM
She placed her brushes in the tray and walked
to the glass doors that looked over the dunes and
the ocean. He was out there, far away, still
somewhere in Europe. Valerie wondered if he
had given a thought to the day. It was the
anniversary of their marriage.
To summarize,Chaim Abrahms was molded in the
stress and chaos of fighting for daily survival. They
were years of never-ending violent skirmishes, of
outthinking and outliving enemies bent on killing
not only whole sabre settlements but the desertJews'
aspirations for a homeland as well as political free-
dom and religious expression. It is not difficult to
understand where Abrahms came from and why he
is what he is, but it is frightening to think about
where he is going. He is a fanatic with no sense of
balance or compromise where other peoples with
identical aspirations are concerned. If a man has a
different stripe, whether of the same species or not,
he is the enemy. Armed force takes precedence
over negotiations in all matters, and even those in
Israel who plead for more moderate stands based
on totally secure borders are branded as traitors.
Abrahms is an imperialist who sees an
ever-expanding Isra
el as the ruling kingdom of the
entire Middle East. An appropriate ending to this
report is a comment he made after the well-known
statement issued by the Prime Minister during the
Lebanon invasion: "We covet not one inch of
Lebanon." Abrahms' reply in the field to his
troops the majority by no means sympathetic was
the following.
"Certainly not an inch! The whole damned
country! Then Gaza, the Golan, and the West Bank!
And why not Jordan, then Syria and Iraq! We have
the means and we have the willi We are the mighty
children of Abraham!"
He is Delavane's key in the volatile Middle East.
It was nearly noon, the overhead sun beating
down on the small balcony beyond the French
doors. The late-breakfast remnants had been
cleared away by room service; only a silver pot
remained on the hunt table. They had been
reading for hours since the first coffee was
brought to
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 265
the suite at six-thirty. Converse put down the dossier,
and reached for his cigarettes on the table by the
armchair. It is not cliff cult to understand where
Abrahms came from . . . but it is frightening to think
about where he is going. Joel looked over at Connal
Fitzpatrick, who was seated on the couch, leaning
forward over the coffee table and reading a single
page while making notes on the telephone message
pad; the Bertholdier and LeifLelm dossiers were in
two neat piles on his left. The Navy lawyer had said
practically the same words to him, thought Converse,
lighting a cigarette. I'm beginning to see where you're
coming from.... The inherent question put to Joel's
legal mind was simple: Where was he himself going?
He hoped to hell he knew. Was he an inept gladiator
marching into a Roman arena facing far stronger,
better-armed and superior talent? Or were the
demons from his own past turning him into his own
sacrifice, leading him into the arena's hot sand where
angry, half-starved cats waited, ready to pounce and
tear him apart? So many questions, so many
variables he was incapable of addressing. He only
knew he could not turn back.
Fitzpatrick looked up. "What's the matter?" he
asked, obviously aware that Converse was staring in
his direction. "You worried about the admiral?"
"Who?"
"Hickman, San Diego."
"Among other things. In the clear light of day,
you're sure he bought the extension?"
"No guarantees, but I told you he said he'll call
me if any emergency heat came down. I'm damn
sure he won't do anything before consulting me. If
he tries to reach me, Meagen knows what to do and
I'll lean harder. If need be, I'll claim point of
personal privilege and demand a meeting with those
unnamed people in the Fifth District, maybe go so
far as to imply they could be part of Geneva. That'd
be a full circle. We could end up with a
standoff the release of that flag only with a
full-scale investigation of the circumstances. Irony
and standoff."
"You won't have a standoff if he's with them.
He'll override you."
"If he was with them, he wouldn't have told
Remington he was going to call me. He wouldn't
have said anything; he'd have waited the extra day
and let it go. I know him. He wasn't just nonplussed,
he was mad. He stands by his people and he
266 ROBERT LUDIUM
doesn't like outside pressures, especially Navy
pressures. We're on hold, and as long as it's hold,
the flag's in place. I told you, he's a lot angrier with
Norfolk than with me. They won't even give him a
reason; they claim they can't."
Converse nodded. ' AII right," he said. "Call it a
case of nerves on my part. I just finished the
Abrahms dossier. That maniac could blow up the
whole Middle East all by himself and drag the rest
of us in with him.... What did you think of Leifhelm
and Bertholdier?"
"As far as the information goes, they're
everything you said and then some. They're more
than just influential ex-generals with fistfuls of
money, they're powerful rallying symbols for what a
lot of people think are justifiable extremes. That's as
far as the information goes but the operative word
for me is the information itself. Where did it come
from?"
"That's a step back. It's there."
"It sure is, but how? You say Beale gave it to
you, that Press used the phrase 'we' 'the ones we're
after,' 'the tools we can give you,' 'the connections
as we think they are.' "
"And we went over this," insisted Joel. "The man
in San Francisco, the one he went to who provided
the five hundred thousand and told him to build
cases against these people legally, and together
they'd turn them into plain and simple profiteers.
It's the ultimate ridicule for superpatriots. It's sound
reasoning, counselor, and that's the we."
"Press and this unknown man in San Francisco?"
"Yes."
"And they could pick up a phone and hire
someone to put together these?" Fitzpatrick gestured
at the two dossiers on his left.
"Why not? This is in the age of the computer.
Nobody today lives on an unmapped island or in an
undiscovered cave."
"These," said Connal, "are not computer
printouts. They're well-researched, detailed, in-depth
dossiers that take in the importance of political
nuances and personal idiosyncrasies."
"You have a way with words, sailor. Yes, they
are. A man who can forward half a million dollars
to the right bank on an Aegean island can hire just
about anyone he likes."
"He can't hire these."
"What does that mean?"
"Let me take a real step back," said the Navy lawyer,
get
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 267
tiny to his feet and reaching down for the single page
he had been reading. "I won't reiterate the details of
my relationship with Press because right now it hurts
a little to think about it." Fitzpatrick paused, seeing
the look in Converse's eyes that rejected this kind of
sentimentality in their discussion. "Don't mistake
me," he continued. "It's not his death, not the funer-
al; it s the other way around. It's not the Press
Halliday I knew. You see, I don't think he told us
the truth, either you or me."
"Then you know something I don't know," said
Converse quietly.
"I know there's no man in San Francisco that
even vaguely fits the description of the image he
gave you. I've lived there all my life, including
Berkeley and Stanford, just like Press. I knew
everyone he knew, especially the wealthiest and the
more exotic ones; we never held back on those with
each other. I was leg
al worlds away, and he always
filled me in if new ones came along. It was part of
the fun for him."
'`That's tenuous, counselor. I'm sure he kept
certain associations to himself."
' Not those kinds," said Connal. "It wouldn't be
like him. Not with me."
"Well, I "
' Now let me step forward," interrupted
Fitzpatrick. "These dossiers I haven't seen them
before, but I've seen hundreds like them, maybe a
couple of thousand on their way to becoming
full-fledged versions of them."
Joel sat up. "Please explain that, Commander."
"You just hit it, Lieutenant. The rank says it."
"Says what?"
"Those dossiers are the reworked, finished
products of intelligence probes utilizing heavy shots
of military data. They've been bounced around the
community, each branch contributing its input from
straight biographical data to past surveillances to
psychiatric evaluation and put together by teams of
specialists. Those were taken from way down in the
government vaults and rewritten with current
additions and conclusions, then shaped to appear as
the work of an outside nongovernment authority. But
they're not. They've got Classified, Top Secret, and
Eyes Only written all over them."
Converse leaned forward. "That could be a
subjective judgment based on limited familiarity. I've
seen some very detailed, very in-depth reports put
together by high-priced firms specialising in that sort
of thing."
268 ROBERT IUDLUM
"Describing precise military incidents during the
time of war? Pinpointing bombing raids and
specifying regiments and battalions and the current
strategies employed? Detailing through interviews