watched, a dragnet in progress. The generals of
Aquitaine had done their job with precision, right
down to his fingerprints on a gun and a flesh wound
in his arm. But the timing how could they dare?
How did they know he was not in an embassy some-
where asking for temporary asylum until he could
make a case for himself? How could they take the
chance?
Then the realisation came to him, and he had to
dig his fingers into his wrist to control himself, to
contain his panic. The call to Mattilon! How easily
Rene's phone could have been tapped, by either the
Surete or Interpol, and how quickly Aquitaine's
informers would have spread the word! Oh, Christ!
Neither one of them had thought of it! They did
know where he was, and no matter where he went
he was trapped! As the offensive salesman had
accurately phrased it, "Every place over here's a
short hop." A man could fly from Munich to Venice
for lunch and be back in his office for a three-thirty
appointment. Another man could kill in Brussels
and be on a train in Dusseldorf forty-five minutes
later. Distances were measured in half-hours. From
ground-zero in Brussels, "a couple of hours ago"
covered a wide circle of cities and a great many
borders. Were his hunters on the train? They might
be, but there was no way they could know which
train he had taken. It would be easier and far less
time-consuming to wait for him in Emmerich. He
had to think, he had to mow.
"Excuse me," said Converse, getting up. "I have
to use the men's room."
"You're lucky." The salesman moved his heavy
legs, holding his trousers as he let Joel pass. "I can
hardly squeeze into those boxes. I always take a leak
before . . ."
Joel made his way up the aisle. He stopped
abruptly, swallowing, trying to decide whether to
continue or turn back. He
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 403
had left the newspaper on his seat, the photograph
easily revealed by unfolding the top page. He had to
continue; any change of movement, however minor,
might attract attention. His objective was not the
men's room but the passageway between the cars; he
had to see it. A number of people had opened the
door and gone through, several apparently looking
for someone they expected to find on the train. He
would look down at the lock on the bathroom door
and proceed.
He stood in the swerving, vibrating passageway
studying the metal door. It was a standard two-tiered
exit, the top had to be opened first before the lower
part could be unlocked and pulled back, revealing
the steps. It was all he had to know.
He returned to his seat, and to his relief the
salesman was splayed back, his thick lips parted, his
eyes closed, a high-pitched wheeze emanating from
his throat. Converse cautiously lifted one foot after
the other over the fat man's legs and maneuvered
himself into his seat. The newspaper had not been
touched. Another relief.
Diagonally above and in front of him, he saw a
small receptacle in the curved wall with what
appeared to be a sheaf of railroad schedules fanned
out by disuse. Limp, bent pieces of paper ignored
because these commuters knew where they were
going. Joel raised himself off the seat, reached out,
and took one, apologizing with several nods of his
head to the young girl below. She giggled.
Oberhausen . . . Dinslaken . . . Voerde . . . Wesel
. . . Emmerich.
WeseL The last stop before Emmerich. He had
no idea how many miles Wesel was from Emmerich,
but he had no choice. He would get off the train at
Wesel, not with departing passengers but by himself.
He would disappear in Wesel
He felt a slight deceleration beneath him, his
pilot's instincts telling him it was the outer perimeter
of an approach, the final path to touchdown in the
scope. He stood up and carefully maneuvered
between the fat man's legs to reach the aisle; at the
last second the salesman snorted, shifting his posi-
tion. Squinting under the brim of his hat, Joel
casually glanced around, as if he were momentarily
unsure of which way to go. He moved his head
slowly; as far as he could see, no one was paying the
slightest attention to him.
He walked with carefully weary steps up the aisle,
a tired passenger in search of relief. He reached the
toilet door and
404 ROBERT LUDIUM
was greeted by an ironic sign of true relief. The
white slot below the handle spelled out BESETZT.
His first maneuver had its basis in credibility; the
toilet was in use. He turned toward the heavy
passageway door, pulled it open and, stepping out-
side, crossed the vibrating, narrow coupling area to
the opposite door. He pushed it open, but instead of
going inside he took a single stride forward, then
lowered his body, turning as he did so, and stepped
back into the passageway, into the shadows. He
stood up, his back against the external bulkhead,
and inched his way to the edge of the thick glass
window. Ahead was the inside of the rear car, and
by turning he had a clear view of the car in front.
He waited, watching, turning, at any moment
expecting to see someone lowering a newspaper or
breaking off a conversation and looking over at his
empty seat.
None did. The excitement over the news of the
assassination in Brussels had tapered off, as had the
rush of near panic in Bonn when the streets learned
that an ambassador had been killed. A number of
people were obviously still talking about both
incidents, shaking their heads and grappling with the
implications and the future possibilities, but their
voices were lowered; the crisis of the first reports
had passed. After all, it was not fundamentally the
concern of these citizens. It was American against
American. There was even a certain gloating in the
air; the gunfight at O.K. Corral had new signifi-
cance. The colonists were, indeed, a violent breed.
"Wir kommen in . . . " The rapid clacking of the
wheels below, echoing in the metal chamber,
obscured the distant announcement over the
loudspeakers. Only moments now, thought Converse
as he turned and looked at the exit door. When the
train slowed sufficiently and the lines began to form
at both inner doors, he would make his move.
"Wir kommen in drei Minuten in Wesel an!"
Several passengers in both cars got out of their
seats, adjusted their briefcases and shopping bags
and started up the aisle. The grinding of the giant
wheels underneath signified the approach to
touchdown. Now.
Joel turned to the exit door and, finding the
upper latch, snapped it open
, pulling the upper
section back; the rush of air was deafening. He
spotted the handle of the lower release and gripped
it, prepared to yank it up as soon as the ground
beyond slowed down. It would be in only seconds.
The sounds below grew louder and the sunlight
outside created a racing
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 405
silhouette of the train. Then the abrasive words
broke through the dissonance and he froze.
"Very well thought out, Herr Converse! Some win,
some lose. You lost"
Joel spun around. The man yelling at him in the
metal chamber was the passenger who had gotten on
the train at Dusseldorf, the apologetic commuter
who had sat next to him until the obese salesman
had asked him to exchange seats. In his left hand was
a gun held far below his waist, in his right the
ever-respectable attache case.
"You're a surprise," said Converse.
"I would hope so. I barely made the train in
Dusseldorf. Ach, three cars I walked through like a
madman but not the madman you are, ja?"
"What happens now? You fire that gun and save
the world from a madman?'
"Nothing so simplistic, pilot."
"Pilot."
"Names are immaterial, but I am a colonel in the
West German Luftwaffe. Pilots only kill one another
in the air. It is embarrassing on the ground."
"You're comforting."
"I also exaggerate. One disconcerting move on
your part and I shall be a hero of the Fatherland,
having cornered a crazed assassin and killed him
before he killed me."
"'Fatherland'? You still call it that?"
"Natiirlich. Most of us do. From the father comes
the strength; the female is the vessel."
"They'd love you in a Vassar biology class."
"Is that meant to be amusing?"
"No, just disconcerting in a very minor way,
nothing serious." Joel had moved imperceptibly until
his back was against the bulkhead, his whole mind,
his entire thinking process, on pre-set. He had no
choice except to die, now or in a matter of hours
from now. "I suppose you have an itinerary for me,"
he asked as he swung his left arm forward with the
question.
"Quite definitely, pilot. We will get off the train
at Wesel, and you and I will share a telephone, my
gun firmly against your chest. Within a short time a
car will meet us and you will be taken "
Converse slammed his concealed right elbow into the
406 ROBERT LUDLUM
bulkhead, his left arm in plain sight. The German
glanced at the door of the forward car. Alow!
Joel lunged for the gun, both hands surging for
the black barrel as he crashed his right knee with all
the force he could command into the man's
testicles. As the German fell back he grabbed his
hair and smashed the man's head down onto a
protruding hinge of the opposite door.
It was over. The German's eyes were wide,
alarmed, glassy. Another scout was dead, but this
man was no ignorant conscript from an impersonal
government, this was a soldier of Aquitaine.
A stout woman screamed in the window, her
mouth opened wide with her screams, her face
hysterical.
"Wesel. . . !"
The train had slowed down and other excited
faces appeared at the window, the frenzied crowd
now blocking those who tried to open the door.
Converse lunged across the vibrating metal
enclosure to the exit panel. He grasped the latch
and pulled it open, crashing the door into the
bulkhead. The steps were below, gravel and tar
beyond. He took a deep breath and plunged outside
curling his body to lessen the impact of the hard
ground, and when he made contact he rolled over,
and over, and over.
23
He careened off a rock and into a cluster of
bushes. Nettles and coarse tendrils enveloped him,
scraping his face and hands. His body was a mass of
bruises, the wound in his left arm moist and
stinging, but there was no time even to acknowledge
pain. He had to get away; in minutes the whole area
would be swarming with men searching for him,
hunting for the murderer of an officer in the
Federal Republic's air arm. It took no imagination
to foresee what would happen next. The passengers
would be questioned including the salesman and
suddenly a newspaper would be in someone's hand,
a photograph studied, the connection made. A
crazed killer last seen in a back street in Brussels
was not on his way
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 407
to Paris or London or Moscow. He was on a train
out of Bonn, passing through Cologne, Essen and
Dusseldorf and he killed again in a town called
Wesel.
Suddenly he heard the high-pitched wail of a
horn. He looked up the small hill toward the tracks;
a south-bound train was gathering speed out of the
station several thousand feet away. Then he saw his
hat; it was on the hill, halfway down. Joel crept out
of the tangling brush, staggered to his feet, and ran
to it, refusing to listen to that part of his mind which
told him he could barely walk. He grabbed the hat
and began running to his right. The south-bound
train passed; he raced up the hill and across the
tracks, heading for an old building, apparently
deserted. More of its windows were shattered than
intact. He might rest there for a few moments but no
longer; it was too obvious a hiding place. In ten or
fifteen minutes it would be surrounded by men with
guns aimed at every exit, every window.
He tried desperately to remember. How had he
done it before? How had he eluded the patrols in the
jungles north of Phu Loc? . . . Vantage points! Get
where you can see them but they can't see you! But
there were tall trees then and he was younger and
stronger and could climb them, concealing himself
behind green screens of full branches on firm limbs.
There was nothing like that here on the outskirts of
a railroad yard . . . or maybe there wasl To the right
of the building was a landfill dump, tons of earth and
debris piled high in several pyramids; it was his only
choice.
Gasping, his arms and legs aching, his wound
inflamed, he ran toward the last of the pyramids. He
reached it, propelled his way around the mass, and
started climbing the rear side, his feet slipping into
soft earth, and wood and cardboard and patches of
garbage, where it had been layered. The sickening
smells took his mind off the pain. He kept crawling,
clawing with each slipping foot. If he had to, he
could burrow himself into the stinking mess. There
were no rules for survival, and if sinking himself into
the putrid hill kept a spray of bullets from ending his
life, so be it.
He reached the top and lay prone below the
ridge, dirt and protruding debris all around him.
Sweat rolled down his face, stinging the scrapes on
his face; his legs and arms were heavy with pain, and
his breathing was erratic from the trembling caused
not only by unused muscles but by fear. He looked
down at the outskirts of the railroad yard, then up
408 R08ERT LUDIUM
ahead at the station. The train had stopped, and the
platform was filled with people milling around,
bewildered. Several uniformed men were shouting
orders, trying to separate passengers apparently
those in the two cars flanking the scene of the
killing or anyone else who knew anything. In the
parking lot surrounding the station a
blue-and-whitestriped police car, its red roof light
spinning, the signal of emergency. There was a rapid
clanging in the distance, and seconds later a long
white ambulance streaked into the lot whipped into
a horseshoe turn and plunged back, stopping close
to the platform. As the rear doors opened, two
attendants jumped out carrying a stretcher; a police
officer above them on the steps shouted at them,
gesturing with his arm. They ran up the metal
staircase and followed him.
A second patrol car swerved into the lot, tires
screeching as it stopped next to the ambulance. Two
police officers got out and walked up the steps; the
officer who had directed the ambulance attendants
joined them, with two civilians, a man and a woman,
beside him. The five talked, and moments later the
two patrolmen returned to their vehicle. The driver
backed up and spun to his left, gunning the engine,
heading for the south end of the parking lot,
directly toward Converse. Again they stopped and
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 63
