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Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

Page 65

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]


  "I don't know. You probably have a better fix on

  that than I do. Would he risk his; image?"

  "With two or three Frauleins I've got in Bonn,

  Jesuits would risk the papacy, sub. The name of the

  commander,

  "Fitzpatrick. Lieutenant Commander Connal

  Fitzpat

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 415

  rick. And, Uncle Remus, whatever you hear under

  the needles, give only to me. No one else. No one."

  'Which is the last part of what you can't tell me,

  right?"

  "Check. '

  "My blinders are in place. One objective with only

  one target. No side trips and no curiosity, just a tape

  recorder in my head or my hand."

  Again Stone paused, filling the silence with a

  tentative whisper. "Tape . . . ?" Then he continued.

  "The latter's not a bad idea. Mini-micro, of course."

  "Naturally. Those little mothers are so small you

  can hide them in the most embarrassing places.

  Where do I reach you? My quill is poised."

  "All right, the area code's eight-zero-four." The

  former CIA man gave the expatriate in Bern a

  telephone number in Charlotte, North Carolina. "A

  woman.will answer. Tell her you're from the Tatiana

  family and leave a number."

  Their brief good-byes concluded, Peter hung up

  the phone, got out of the chair and carried his drink

  to the window. It was a hot, still night in Washington,

  the air outside barely moving, the hint of a summer

  storm. If the rains came they would wash the streets

  and cleanse at least part of the pollution.

  The former deep-cover agent wished there were

  some balm on earth or from the skies that could

  wash his hands and cleanse that part of his soul he

  had not put on the auction block or for a disastrous

  period of time into a bottle of bourbon. Maybe all he

  had done was hammer another nail in Converse's

  coffin, one more scrap of credibility that labeled the

  lawyer something he was not. Stone realized that

  instead of casting reasonable doubts based on his

  own certain knowledge, he had compounded the

  fiction that Converse was the psychopathic killer the

  international media described. Worse, he had

  attributed that credibility to a responsible missing

  man, a naval officer who was most likely dead. There

  were two justifications for the lie, and only one was

  remotely feasible; the other, however, was probably

  the most productive move they could make. The first

  assumed that Fitzpatrick might be alive, a weak

  premise. But if he was dead, the missing commander

  provided the reason to call in an old debt and go

  after a charge d'affaires named Washburn and do so

  without any connection to George Marcus Delavane.

  Even if "Johnny Reb" was caught and every man in

  a grey to black

  416 ROBERT LUDLUM

  operation had to assume the possibility no

  mention could be made of an international

  conspiracy of generals.... Major Norman Washburn,

  IV, might or might not know the fate of Connal

  Fitzpatrick but everything else he might say under

  the needles especially about the

  commander would be of value.

  What surprised the civilian was Converse

  himself in the matter of the Iying military attache.

  If Converse was running and not under lock Ed key,

  he certainly had to have learned about the lie that

  had condemned him. If so why hadn't the attorney

  done something about it? The major's lie was the

  chain's weakest link; it could be snapped with a

  minimum of effort the man's a liar. I was here or

  there, or anywhere except where he placed me when

  he placed me. Stone drank sparingly from the glass;

  he knew the futility of speculating because he knew

  the answer. It was why he did not feel that yet

  another part of his soul had been clipped away.

  Converse was not in a position to do anything. He

  was either trapped or taken, soon to be offered up

  as a sacrificial corpse by the generals. There was

  nothing anyone could do for him. He was a dead

  man, a sacrifice in the truest sense of the

  word given up even by his own.

  Peter walked back to the chair and sat down,

  loosening his tie and kicking off his shoes. He had

  learned years ago to cut losses in the field wherever

  possible. If it meant disowning pawns or plants or

  blinds, one took the statistical approach and let the

  executions follow. It was better than losing more.

  But what was even better was to make significant

  progress with whatever the loss. He was doing that

  now with Converse's death and "Johnny Reb" in

  Bern and a liar named Washburn.

  Oh, Chrtst! He was playing God again with

  charts and diagrams pluses and minuses of human

  value! Yet the objective was worth more than

  anything he had ever faced before. Delavane and

  his legions had to be stopped, and they would not

  be stopped in Washington. There were too many

  watchful eyes, too many ears, too many men in

  unknown corners who believed in the myth -men

  who had nothing else. The children were right about

  that. And there would be no empty bottles of

  bourbon on the floor now, or blurred memories of

  nights past, or words passed. Despite advancing age,

  he was ready; he was primed.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 417

  It was odd, thought the civilian. He had not used

  the Tatiana family in years.

  Joel watched from the ridge of the landfill as

  LeifLelm's chauffeur and his companion approached

  the deserted building. Both were experienced; one

  raced before the other, stopping behind displaced

  rocks from the fill and barrels used for early-morning

  fires. Almost simultaneously they reached separate

  doors, each door off its hinges, angling into the dirt.

  The chauffeur gestured with his weapon, and both

  men disappeared inside.

  Converse again looked behind him. The fence

  was about two hundred yards away. Could he slide

  down the stinking hill, race to the interwoven wire

  and climb over the fence before his executioners

  came out of the decrepit building? Why not? He

  could try! He raised himself off his stomach, hands

  sinking into the debris, spun to his right and plunged

  downward.

  A distant crash came first and then a scream. He

  spun around again and scrambled up the ten-odd feet

  his lunge had carried him. The chauffeur was racing

  out of his door, around the corner to where his

  companion had entered, his gun leveled, prepared to

  fire. He approached cautiously, then seeing

  something, exploded in disgust as he entered the

  shadows. Seconds later he emerged holding the other

  man; obviously a staircase or a floorboard had

  collapsed. The second man held his leg and limped.

  Two piercing blasts came from the station; the

  platform
was empty, the milling passengers back on

  board. The panic had subsided and the train would

  make a Teutonic effort to be on time. The last police

  car and the ambulance were gone.

  Below, the chauffeur slapped his companion

  repeatedly in fury, shoving him backwards to the

  ground. The man got up, gesturing, pleading for no

  more, and the chauffeur relented, ordering his

  subordinate to a position between the building, the

  landfill and the fence, and when the man was in

  place the chauffeur went back into the deserted

  building.

  The minutes passed, the descending sun

  intercepted by low-flying clouds in the west, creating

  long, lateral shadows over the outskirts of the

  railroad yard. Finally the chauffeur came into view,

  emerging from an unseen exit on another side of the

  building. He stood for a moment and looked west

  across the tracks to the expanse of wild grass and

  marshland

  418 ROBERT LUDIUM

  beyond. Then he turned and stared at the mounds

  of landfill and made up his mind.

  "Rechts uber Ihnen!" he screamed at his

  companion, pointing to the second mound. "Hinter

  Ihnen! Er schiesst. "

  Joel crawled, racing down the debris like a

  panicked sand crab. Halfway to the bottom his left

  hand was snared; he yanked at the looping

  entrapment, pulled it free and was about to fling it

  away when he saw it was a length of ordinary

  electric cord. He blmched it up in his hand and

  frantically continued downward. When he was

  within six feet of the ground, he whipped his whole

  body into a frenzy and clawed at the dirt and

  garbage. He stabbed his legs repeatedly into the

  rubbish and loose earth, and sank his body into the

  mass pulling debris around his head. The stench was

  overpowering, and he could feel the insects

  penetrating his clothes, crawling over his skin. But

  he was hidden, of that he was certain. He began to

  comprehend what his fragmented mind was trying to

  tell him. He was back in the jungle, about to spring

  on a scout from an unseen place.

  Again minutes passed, and the shadows became

  longer, then permanent, as the sun's trajectory

  dropped below the top of the landfill. Converse

  remained immobile, straining every muscle, grinding

  his teeth to stop himself from thrashing his arms

  and scratching his clothes and his exposed skin to

  rip away the maddening insects. But he knew he

  could not move. It would happen any moment, any

  second.

  The prelude came. The limping man was in

  view, peering up at the hill of refuse and dirt,

  squinting against the residue of sunlight at the top,

  his gun held out, angled diagonally, prepared to fire.

  He sidestepped slowly, cautiously, apprehensive of

  what he could not see. He passed directly in front

  of Joel, the extended gun no more than three feet

  away from Converse's face. Another step and the

  line of contact could be clear.

  Now! Joel lunged out, grabbing the barrel of the

  gun, instantly and violently twisting it clockwise and

  downward. As the German fell forward Converse

  crashed his knee up into the bridge of the man's

  nose, stunning him before he could scream. The

  weapon spiraled off into the debris. The man

  staggered, and was about to find his voice when Joel

  lunged again, a section of the wire cord stretched

  out in both hands he whipped it over the scout's

  head, pulling it taut around the scout's throat.

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 419

  The man went limp, and Converse bent over the

  body, about to roll it into the base of the landfill and

  conceal it, but then he stopped. There had to be

  another way because there was another option, one

  he had taken a hundred years ago with another scout

  in a jungle. He looked around; there was a pile of

  carelessly dumped railroad ties thirty-odd yards away

  on his right old ties, several broken, forming a low

  wall. A wall.

  It was a risk. If Leifhelm's chauffeur finished his

  examination of the first mound of landfill and

  stepped out toward the second one at any three of

  the four angles, he would have a clear line of sight.

  The man had been sent to the Emmerich train for

  two reasons one, he knew the quarry by sight, and,

  two, the quarry had disgraced him; Joel's corpse

  would be his redemption. Such a man was an expert

  with weapons which the quarry was not. What was

  the point of thinking! Since Geneva, everything was a

  risk, a gamble against death.

  He gripped the German's body under the

  armpits, and breathing hard for some reason

  foolishly counting off 'One, two, three" he lurched

  backwards, hauling the dead man across a dead

  man's zone.

  He reached the railroad ties and swung the

  corpse around them, the heels of its shoes digging an

  arc into the dirt as he dragged the dead German into

  the base of the wall. Then without thinking, acting

  only on instinct, Converse did what he had been

  wanting to do for the last hour. Concealed by the

  ties, he ripped off his jacket and shirt and rolled on

  the ground, scattering the insects like an infested dog

  in a field, scratching them out of his hair, away from

  his face. It was all he could do for the moment. He

  crawled into the bank of railroad ties and found a

  space between two separated logs.

  "Werner! Wo sind Sie?"

  The shouts preceded the figure of Leifhelm's

  chauffeur. He appeared at the far end of the second

  mound, moving slowly, his gun raised, each step

  taken cautiously, his head shifting in all directions, a

  soldier experienced in combat patrol. Converse

  thought how much better off the world would be if

  he were an expert shot. He was not. In pilot training

  he had gone through the obligatory small-arms

  course, and at twenty-five feet had rarely hit the

  target. This second soldier of Aquitaine had to be

  sucked in much closer.

  "Werner!Antworten Sie dock!"

  Silence.

  420 ROBERT LU[)LUM

  The chauffeur was alarmed; he walked

  backward, now crouching, scanning the hill of

  refuse, kicking away any object in his backward

  path, his head pivoting. Joel knew what he had to

  do; he had done it before. Divert the killer's

  attention, pulling him closer to the encounter, then

  move away.

  "Auaghh . . . !" Converse let the wail come out

  of his throat. Then added in clear English, "Oh, my

  God!" Instantly he crawled to the far end of the wall

  of railroad ties. He peered around the side, his

  head in shadows.

  "Werner! Wo sind !" The German stood erect,

  his eyes following his line of hearing. Suddenly he

  broke into a run his weapon thrust in front of

  him a man cornerin
g a hated object, the sound of

  English leading him to the loathed enemy.

  The chauffeur threw himself prone across the

  railroad ties, his expression alert, his gun in front of

  him. He fired into the shadowed corpse below, a

  roar of vengeance accompanying the explosions.

  Joel got to his knees, aimed his automatic, and

  pulled the trigger twice. The German spun off the

  ties, blood erupting in his chest.

  "Some win," whispered Converse rising to his

  feet, remembering the man on the train to

  Emmerich.

  He was down in the marshlands, the clothes in

  his arms. He had scrambled across the railroad

  tracks, down through the wild grass into the swampy

  dampness of the marsh. It was water, and that was

  all he had to know. Water was a benefit whether as

  an escape route or as a purifying agent for a

  wracked body also lessons he had learned years

  ago. He sat naked on a sloping marsh bank, taking

  off his inhibiting money belt, wondering if the paper

  bills inside were soaked but not caring enough to

  examine them.

  He did, however, examine every pocket of the

  clothes he had stripped from his would-be

  executioners. He was not sure what was of value

  and what was not. The money was irrelevant, except

  for the small bills; and the driver's licenses had

  photographs embedded in plastic neither was

  worth the risk of scrutiny. There was an

  ominous-looking knife, the long blade released

  through the head by the touch of a button on the

  handle; he kept it. Also a cheap butane lighter and

  a comb and, for the drinking man, two breath

  fresheners. The rest were personal effects keys, a

  four-leaf-clover good-luck

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 421

  charm, photographs in the wallets he did not care

  to look at them. Death was death, enemy and friend

 

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