Abrahms.
Good Christ! thought Joel. Was that what the
generals of Aquitaine meant? Assassinations? Was it
the reason for the glaring, disapproving looks
directed at the Israeli and Abrahms' sudden retreat
into qualification, then dismissal: It's merely a point .
. . I'm not sure it even applies.
Accumulation, rapid acceleration, one after
another national leaders cut down everywhere.
Presidents and prime ministers, ministers of state and
vice-presidents, powerful men and women from all
shades of the narrow, acceptable political spectrums
violently eliminated governments in chaos. All to
take place in a matter of hours, savagery erupting in
the streets, fueled by hysteria, victims and violators
blurred until the commanders were summoned to
restore order, not to leave until the controls were
theirs. The climate was established, the day was
coming. Assassinations!
He had to get back into Germany. He had to
reach Osnabruck and be there when Val called. Sam
Abbott had to be told.
29
His hands manacled and chained, his wounded
right forearm encased in a filthy bandage, Connal
Fitzpatrick gripped the ledge of the small window and
peered out beyond the bars at the strange, violent
activity taking place on the huge concrete parade
ground. That it was a parade ground had been clear
on the second morning of his capture when, along
with the other prisoners, he was granted an hour's
exercise outside the concrete barracks and they
severe barracks once part of an old refueling station
for submarines was his guess. The slips along the
water as well as the winching machinery were far too
small and too obsolete for today's nuclear
marauders no Trident could fit in any space along
the concrete and steel piers but once, he judged, the
base had served the German undersea Navy well.
Now, however, it was being used to the great
disservice
508 ROBERT LUDLUM
of the Federal Republic of Germany and of free
governments everywhere. It was Aquitaine's training
ground, the place where strategies were being
refined, maneuvers perfected, and the final
preparations made for the massive assaults that
would propel Delavane's military commanders to
power over paralysed civilian authorities. Everything
was reduced to killing swift and brutal, the shock
of the acts themselves intrinsic to the wave of
violence.
Beyond the window, units of four and five men
raced separately and in succession around and
between a crowd of perhaps a hundred others,
taking their turns at the sickening exercise they were
perfecting. For at the end of the parade ground was
a concrete platform, seven feet high and perhaps
thirty feet long, where mannequins were lined up in
a row some standing, others in chairs their
inanimate figures rigid, their lifeless glass eyes
staring straight ahead. They were the targets. At the
center of each clothed chest, "male" and "female,"
was an encased circle of bullet-proof wire mesh;
within each was a high-intensity orange light, seen
clearly in the afternoon sun. At the discretion of the
compound's trainer, it flashed on. It was the signal
that this particular mannequin was the particular
unit's specific target or, if more than one, targets.
Hits were recorded electronically by other lights on
the high stone wall above each figure on the
platform. Red was a kill, blue merely a wound. Red
was acceptable, blue was not.
The screaming admonitions over the
loudspeakers were delivered in nine languages, four
of which Connal understood. The words were the
same:
Thirteen days to ground -zero!Accuracy is u
pper~nost! Escape is with the diversion of a kill!
Otherwise there is only death!
Eleven days to ground-zero! Accuracy is upper-
most. . . !
Eight days to ground-zero!Accuracy is . . . !
Individual members of the killer teams fired at
their targets, exploding stuffed skulls and pulverising
chests and stomachs, sometimes by themselves, other
times in unison with their comrades. Each "kill' was
greeted with exuberant shouts as the men raced
through the crowd, melting into it, finally becoming
part of it as their maneuver was completed. Another
team was then instantly formed from within the
ranks of the spectators; and another exercise in
assassination
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 509
was mounted, executed swiftly. And so it went, hour
after hour, the crowd reacting to the "kills" with roars
of approval as weapons were reloaded for upcoming
assaults against the mannequins. Every twenty
minutes or so, as sections of the lifeless figures on
the platform were progressively blown apart, they
would be replaced with fresh heads and torsos. All
that was missing were rivers of blood and mass
hysteria.
In anger and frustration, Connal spread his
manacled wrists apart, pulling at the unbreakable
chain and yanking with all his might as the rusted,
circular braces dug into his flesh and bruised his
wrist bones. There was nothing he could do, no way
to get out! He knew the secret of Aquitaine; the
evidence of its ultimate strategy was right there
before his eyes. The mass killing of political figures
in nine different nations eight days away!
He turned from the window, arms aching, wrists
stinging, and looked around at the barracks full of
prisoners forty-three men trying not to fail but
failing fast. Many were lying listlessly on their cots,
others stared forlornly out various windows; a
number talked quietly in small groups against the
blank walls. All were manacled as he was. The
abysmally short rations and the prolonged, brutal
periods of "exercise" had weakened them all in both
body and mind. Whispering among themselves, they
had come to several erroneous conclusions about
their captors' goal, but their own captivity eluded
reason. They were part of a strategy they could not
understand. In unwatched corners Connal tried to
explain, only to be met with blank stares and
bewilderment.
Several points were established for whatever
they signified. To begin with, they were all military
officers ranging in rank from the middle to the
higher echelons. Secondly, all were bachelors or
divorced, none with children or currently involved in
serious relationships that demanded constant
communications. Lastly, all were on 30- to 45-day
leaves, only one other like Connal with emergency
status, the rest on normal summer holidays. There
was a pattern, but what did it mean?
There ureas a clue to that meanin
g, but it, too,
was beyond understanding. Every other day or so the
prisoners were brought postcards from widely diverse
locations resort areas in Europe and North
America and instructed to write specific messages
to specific individuals they all recognised as various
fellow officers at the posts or bases from which they
510 ROBERT LUDLUM
were on leave. The messages were always in the
vein of Ham ing wonderful fume; wish you were here;
off to To refuse to write these peripatetic greetings
was to be denied the scant food they were given and
to be driven out to the parade ground, where they
were forced to run as fast as they could in laps, with
guns pointed at them, until they dropped.
They agreed among themselves that the reason
behind the near-starvation level of daily rations had
a purpose. They were all trained, competent
officers.. Such men in decent physical and mental
condition were capable of attempting escape or, at
the least, of creating serious disturbances. But that
was all they could understand. All but Connal had
been there for a minimum of twenty-two to a
maximum of thirty-four days. They were in a
concentration camp somewhere on some
indeterminate coastline, not knowing their crimes,
real or imagined by their captors.
"Que pastas" asked a prisoner named Enrique
from Madrid.
"Es lo mismo Athena en el camps de manio/oras,
" replied Fitzpatrick, nodding his head at the
window, and continued in Spanish, "They're killing
stuffed dummies out there, figuring each hit makes
them heroes or martyrs or both."
"It's crazy!" cried the Spaniard. "It's crazy and
it's sick in the head! What do they accomplish? Why
this madness?"
"They're going to cut down a lot of important
people eight days from now. They're going to kill
them during some kind of international holiday or
celebration or something like that. What the hell is
happening eight days from now? Have you any
idea?"
"I am only a major at the garrison at Zaragoza.
I make my reports on the Basque provisionals, and
read my books What do I know of such things?
Whatever it is, it would not reach
Zaragoza barbarous country, but I would wear
corporal's stripes to return to it."
"Vise! Contre la muraille!"
"Schnell! Gegen die Mauer!"
"Move! Against the wall!"
"Pa presto! Contro it muro. "
Four guards burst through the barracks doors,
others following, repeating the same order in
different languages. It was a manacles-and-chain
inspection, carried out at whim day and night, never
less than once an hour during the daylight as
frequently as four times at night. The slightest
evidence of
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 511
any prisoner having attempted to break or weaken
his chain or crack his manacles by filing them against
the concrete or smashing them into rock was met
with immediate punishment, which meant running
naked preferably in the rain until collapse, and
remaining in chains where he fell with no food or
water for thirty-six hours. Of the forty-three men,
twenty-nine of the strongest among them had been
so punished, a number more than two and three
times until they had little strength left. Connal had
run the gauntlet only once thanks apparently to his
bilingual guard, an Italian who seemed to appreciate
the fact that his americano had taken the trouble to
learn italiano. The man from Genoa was a bitter,
cynical former paratrooper and probably a con-
vict who referred to himself as an outcast but
predicted he would come into his own when he was
rewarded for his work. But like most men from his
part of the world he instinctively responded to a
foreigner's praise of bella italia, bellissima Roma.
It was from their short, whispered conversations
that Fitzpatrick had learned as much as he had, his
legal military mind operating on the level of
addressing a malcontented military client. He had
pushed the buttons he had pushed so often before.
"What's in it for you? They know you're garbage!"
"They promise me. They pay me much money to
teach what I know. Without people like me many
of us here they will not accomplish.'
"Accomplish what?"
"That is for them to say. I am, as you say, employed."
"To show them how to kill?"
"And to run and not be seen. That is our
life the lives of many of us here."
"You could lose everything."
"Most of us have nothing. We were used and
discarded." "These men will do the same to you."
"Then we will kill again. We are experienced."
"Suppose their enemies find this place?"
"They will not. They cannot."
"Why not?"
"It's an island no one thinks of."
"They know that."
"Im possible! No planes fly over, no boats come.
We would know if they did."
512 ROBERT LUDLUM
"Why don't you think about what was here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Submarines. Surrounding your island.'.
"If that was true, americano, the how you
say? the custode . . . "
"The warden."
"He would explode everything away. Everything
on this side of the island would befumo smoke,
nothing. It is part of our contralto. We understand."
"The warden the custody he's the big German
with the short grey hair, isn't he?"
"Enough talk. Have your drink of water."
"I have information for you," whispered Connal,
as the guard checked his manacles and chain.
"Information that will guarantee you a big reward
and might possibly save my life."
"What kind of information?"
"Not here. Not now. There isn't time. Come
back tonight everyone's so exhausted they're asleep
before they reach their cots. I'll stay awake. Come
and get me, but come alone. You don't want to
share this."
"My head is filled with zucchini? I come alone to
a barracks filled with condemned mend"
"What can any of us do? What can I do? I'll stay
by the door; you open it and I'll step out, your gun
no doubt at my head. I don't want to die, that's why
I'm talking to you!"
You will die. May you go with God."
"You're a fool, a '5uffone! You could have a
fortune instead of a bullet in your chest."
The Italian looked guardedly at Fitzpatrick, then
around at the others; the inspections were nearly
finished. "For me to do such a thing, I need more
than what you have told me."
"Two of your guards are traitors," whispered Connal.
"she rosa?"
"That's all you get until tonight."
Fitzpatrick lay on the cot in the darkness,
waiting, listentng for the sound of
footsteps, the
sweat of anxiety drenching his face. All around him
were the sleep-induced moans of hungry, physically
abused men. He pushed his own pains out of his
mind; he had other things to think about. If he
could reach the water, the manacles would slow him
down but not stop hun, he could sidestroke nearly
indefinitely and somewhere
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 513
down the coastline, away from "this side of the
island," there would be a beach or a dock, a place
where he could crawl out of the sea. There was
nothing else left, he had to try it. He also had to
make sure his Italian guard could raise no alarms.
The bolt in the door was quietly sliding back! He
had missed the footsteps; his thoughts had distracted
him. He got up silently and started down the aisle on
the balls of his feet, flexing his hands but keeping the
chain taut. He could not make any noise whatsoever,
because several prisoners had begun to have violent
nightmares when there was the slightest disturbance.
He reached the door and somehow understood he
was to push it open, not wait for it to be opened; the
guard would stay back, his weapon aimed at him.
It was so. The Italian gestured with his gun for
Connal to move forward as he sidestepped to the
door and secured the bolt. He then pointed with the
barrel of his weapon, ordering Fitzpatrick to walk
ahead. Moments later both men stood in the
shadows in front of the barracks, the old refueling
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 79
