had shouted; he pivoted on his knees and remained
still, facing the floodlit expanse beyond the bushes.
It happened, as it had happened before when
three children in official pajamas had killed another
child indelicately in the jungle. Anxious men were
drawn to the last sounds they heard as this hunter
from Aquitaine was drawn now. The man stalked
out of the darkness of the railroad station's rear
platform, his gun extended, held steady with both
hands. He walked directly, cautiously, to that small
section in the overgrowth where the screams had
come from.
Converse scratched the ground noiselessly until he
found
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 539
a rock larger than his fist. He gripped it and waited,
staring, feeling the drumming in his chest. The killer
was within eight feet of the border of greenery. Joel
lobbed the rock, arcing it in the air to his right.
The crunching thud was loud. Instantly
Aquitaine's soldier crouched and fired one round
after another two, three, four! Converse raised his
weapon and pulled the trigger twice. The man spun
to his left, gasping, as he clutched his stomach and
fell to the ground.
There was no time to think or feel or consider
what had happened. Joel crawled out to the gravel
and raced over to his would-be executioner; he
grabbed him by the arms and dragged him back into
the bushes. Still, he had to find out. He knelt down
and held his fingers against the base of the man's
throat. He was dead, another scout taken out in the
war of the modern Aquitaine, the military
confederation of George Marcus Delavane.
There was no one around if there had been, the
gunshots would have provoked screams and brought
running feet; the police would have been summoned;
they would have been there by now. How far away
was Osnabruck? He had read the schedule and tried
to figure out the times, but everything had happened
so swiftly, so brutally, he had not absorbed what he
read. It was less than an hour, that much he knew.
Somehow he had to get word to the station at Osna-
bruck. Christ, how?
He walked out on the platform, glancing up at
the sign: RHEINE. It was a start; he had counted
only the stops, not the names. Then he saw
something in the distance above the ground, high
above with lights on the inside. A tower! He had
seen such towers dozens of times in Switzerland and
France they were signal depots. They dotted the
Eurail's landscape, controlling the trains that sped
across their sectors. He started running along the
tracks, suddenly wondering what he looked like. His
hat was gone, his clothes soiled, but his clerical collar
was still in place he was still a priest.
He reached the base of the tower. He brushed off
his clothes and tried to smooth his hair; Composing
himself, he began climbing the metal steps. At the
top he saw that the steel door to the tower itself was
bolted, the inch-thick bulletproof glass a sign of the
terrorist times speeding trains were vulnerable
targets. He approached the door and rapped on the
metal frame. Three men were inside, huddled over
elec
540 ROBERT LUDLUM
tronic consoles; an elderly man turned from the
numerous green screens and came to the door. He
peered through the glass and crossed himself, but
did not open the door. Instead there was a sudden
echoing sound projected into the air, and the man's
voice emerged from a speaker: "Was ist, Hochwur-
den?"
"I don't speak German. Do you speak English?"
"Englander?"
"Yes ja. "
The old man turned to his associates and
shouted something. Both shook their heads, but one
held up his hand and came to the door.
"Ich spreche. . . a little, Mr. Englander. Nicht
come enter here, verstehen?"
"I have to call Osnabruck! A woman is waiting
for me a Frau!
"Ohh? Hochwurden! Eine Frau?"
"No, no! You don't understand! Can't anybody
here speak English ?"
"Sie speeches Deutsch?"
"No!"
"Warten Sie, " said the third man from the
console. There was a rapid exchange between the
two men. The one who spoke "a little" turned back
to the door.
"Eine Kirche, " said the man groping for words.
"Church! Din Pfarrer priest! Er spricht Englisch.
Drei . . . three strassen . . . there!" The German
pointed to his left; Joel looked down over his
shoulder. There was a street in the distance. He
understood; there was a church three blocks away,
and a priest who spoke English, presumably a priest
who had a telephone.
"The train to Osnabruck. WhenP When does it
get there?" Converse pointed to his watch. "When?
Osnabruck?"
The man looked over at the console, then
turned back to Joel and smiled. "Zwolf Minuten,
Hochwurden!"
"How? What?"
"Zwolf... tvelf."
"Twelve?"
''la!''
Converse turned and clattered down the steps;
on the ground he ran as fast as he could toward the
streetlamps in the distance. Once there, he raced in
the middle of the street clutching his chest, vowing
for the five hundredth time to
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 541
give up cigarettes. He had persuaded Val to throw
them away; why hadn't he taken his own advice? He
was invulnerable, that's why. Or did he simply care
for her more than he cared for himself? Enough!
Where was the goddamned church ?
It was there, on the right. A small church with
fake spires, a silly-looking church with what looked
like a decorated Quonset hut for a rectory beside it.
Joel ran up the short path to the door, a door with
a hideously bejeweled crucifix in the center a
rhinestone Jesus; rock along with Christ and
knocked. Moments later an overweight, cherubic man
with very little white hair, though perfectly groomed,
opened the door.
"Ah, Guten Tag, Herr Kollege."
'Forgive me," said Converse, out of breath. "I
don't speak German. I was told you speak English."
"Ah, yes, indeed, I should hope so. I spent my
novitiate in the Mother Country as opposed to the
Fatherland you understand the difference in
gender, of course. Come in, come rnl A visit from a
fellow priest calls for a Schnaps. 'A touch of wine'
sounds better, doesn't it? Again the Mother
Country so soft, so understanding. My, you're an
attractive youmg manl"
'Not so young, Father," said Joel, stepping inside.
"That's relative, isn't it?" The German priest
walked unsteadily into what was obviously his living
room. Again there were jeweled figures mounted on
blac
k velvet on the walls the cheap stones glittering,
the faces of the saints unmistakably feminine. "What
would you like? I have sherry and muscatel, and for
rare occasions a port I've been saving for very special
occasions.... Who sent you? That wicked novice from
Lengerich?"
"I need help, Father."
"Great Jesus, who doesn't? Is this to be a
confessional? If so, for God's sake give me until
morning. I love the Lord my God with all my soul
and all my strength and if there are sins of the
flesh, they are Satan 's. Not I, but the Archangel of
Darknessl"
The man was drunk; he fell over a hassock and
tumbled to the floor. Converse ran to him and lifted
him up, then lowered him into a chair a chair by
the only telephone in the room.
"Please understand me, Father. Or don't
misunderstand
542 ROBERT LUDIUM
me. l have to reach a woman who's waiting for me at
Osnabruck. It's important!"
"A woman? Satan! He is Lucifer with the eyes of
fire! You thinly better than me?"
"Not at all. Please. I need help!"
It took ten minutes of pleading, but finally the
priest calmed down and got on the telephone. He
identified himself as a man of God, and moments later
Joel heard the name that allowed him to breathe
steadily again.
"Frau Geyner? Es tat mir leid . . . " The old priest
and the old woman talked for several minutes. He hung
up and turned to Converse. "She waited for you," he
said, frowning in bewilderment. "She thought you might
have gotten off in the freight yards.... What freight
yards?"
"I understand."
"I do not. But she knows the way here and will pick
you up in thirty minutes or so.... You have sobered me,
Father. Was I disgraceful?"
"Not at all," said Joel. "You welcomed a man in
trouble there's nothing wrong with that."
"Let's have a drink. Forget Schnaps and 'a glass of
wine'; they're a bore, aren't they? I have some
American bourbon in the refrigerator. You are
American, are you not?"
"Yes, and a glass of bourbon would be just fine."
- "Good! Follow me into my humble kitchen. It's
right
through here, mind the sequined curtain, dear boy. It
is too
much, isn't it? . . . Oh, well, for all of that whatever
it is I'm
a good man. I believe that. I give comfort."
"I'm sure you do."
"Where were you schooled, Father?" asked the priest.
"Catholic University in Washington," replied
Converse pleased with himself that he remembered and
answered so quickly.
"Good Lord, I was there myself" exclaimed the
German priest. "They shunted me around, you
understand. Do you remember what's his name . . . ?"
Oh, my God! thought Joel.
Frau Hermione Ceyner arrived, and took Converse
in tow commandeered him, in fact. She was a small
woman far older than Joel had imagined. Her face was
withered, remmding him of the woman in the
Amsterdam station, and dominated by wide, intense
eyes that seemed to shoot out bolts of electricity. He
got in the car and she pushed the lock
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 543
in place. She climbed behind the wheel and sped up
the street, reaching what had to be sixty miles an
hour in a matter of seconds.
"I appreciate everything you're doing for me,"
said Converse, bracing his feet against the
floorboard.
"It is nothing!" exclaimed the old woman. "I have
myself taken out officers from airplanes that crashed
in Bremerhaven and Stuttgart and Mannheiml I spat
in soldiers' eyes, and crashed through barricades! I
never failed! The pigs could not touch me!"
"I only meant that you're saving my life, and I
want you to know I'm grateful. I'm aware that
Valerie your niece, and my . . . my former
wife told you I didn't do the things they said I did,
and she was right. I didn't."
"Ach, Valerie! A sweet child, but not very
reliable, ja? You got rid of her, jaP"
"That's not exactly the way it happened."
"How could she be?" continued Hermione
Geyner, as if he had not spoken. "She is an artist,
and we all know how unstable they are. And, of
course, her father was a Frenchman. I ask you, could
she have a greater disadvantage? Franzase! The
worms of Europe! As untrustworthy as their wine,
which is mostly in their stomachs. They're drunkards,
you know. It's in their blood."
"But you believed her where I was concerned.
You're helping me, you're saving my life."
"Because we could! We knew we could!"
Joel stared at the road ahead, at the rapidly
oncoming curves taken at sixty miles an hour as the
tires screeched. Hermione Geyner was not at all what
he had expected, but then nothing was anymore. She
was so old and it was late at night and she had been
through a great deal these last two days; it had to
have taken its toll on her. Old prejudices come to the
surface when very old people are tired. Perhaps in
the morning they could have a clearheaded
conversation. The morning it was the start of the
second day, and Valerie had promised to call him in
Osnabruck with news of Sam Abbott and the
progress she was making to reach the pilot. She had
to make that call! Sam had to be told about the
strange language Joel had heard from an old man in
Amsterdam, where a word meaning one thing also
meant something else entirely. Assassination! Cal,
call me. For God's sake, call me!
544 ROBERT LUDLUM
Converse looked out the window. The minutes
passed the countryside was peaceful but the silence
awkward.
"Here we are!" shouted Hermione Geyner,
turning crazily into the drive that led to a large old
three-story house set back off the country road.
From what Converse could see, it was a house that
had once had a certain majesty, if only by its size
and the profusion of roofed windows and gables. In
the moonlight now, it looked like its owner very
old and frayed.
They walked up the worn wooden steps of the
enormous porch and crossed to the door. Frau
Geyner knocked rapidly, insistently; in seconds an
old woman opened it, nodding solemnly as they
went inside.
"It's very lovely," began Joel. "I want you to know "
"Sshh!" Hermione Geyner dropped her car keys
in a red laquered bowl on a hall table and held up
her hand. "This way!"
Converse followed her to a pair of double doors,
she opened them and Joel walked in behind her. He
stopped, confused and astonished. For in front of
them in the large Victorian room with the subdued
lighting was a row of high-backed chairs and seated
in each was an
old woman nine old women!
Mesmerized, he looked closely at them. Some
smiled weakly, several trembled with age and
infirmity, obviously senile; a few wore stern, intense
expressions, and one seemed to be humming to
herself.
There was an eruption of fragile
applause hands thin and veined, others swollen
with flesh, flesh striking flesh with obvious effort.
Two chairs had been placed in front of the women;
Valerie's aunt indicated that they were for Joel and
herself. They sat down as the applause dwindled off
to silence.
"Meine Schwestern Soldaten," cried Hermione
Geyner rising. "Heute Nacht . . ."
The old woman spoke for nearly ten minutes,
interrupted occasionally by scattered applause and
expressions of wonder and respect. Finally she sat
down. "lean. Pragen!"
The women one after another began to
speak frail, halting voices for the most part, yet
several were emphatic, almost hostile. And then
Converse realized that most were looking at him.
They were asking him questions, one or two
crossing themselves as they spoke, as if the fugitive
they had saved were actually a priest.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 545
' Come, my friendI"cried Hermione Geyner.
"Answer the ladies. They deserve the courtesy of
your replies."
"I can't answer what I can't understand,"
protested Joel quietly.
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 84
