had a right to expect. Both Joel and I know the risks
you're taking legally, as a general, all of it and if
there was any other way, we wouldn't involve you.
But after you hear what I have to say, you'll un-
derstand why we can't wait any longer, why Joel
agreed to let me try to find you.... You were my
idea, Sam, but Joel wouldn't have heard of it unless
he felt he had to not for himself; he doesn't expect
to live. That's what he said and he believes it."
A waitress brought coffee and Abbott thanked
her. "We'll order later," he added, staring at Valerie.
You'll have to trust my judgment, you understand
that, don't you?"
Yes. Because I trust you."
"When I couldn't reach you I made a few calls to
people I worked with a couple of years ago in
Washington. They're men who're deep into these
kinds of things, who have answers long before most
of us know the questions."
"Those are the people Joel wants you to reach!"
interrupted Val. "You saw him then; you spent a
night at his hotel, don't you remember? He said you
both drank too much."
552 ROBERT LUDLUM
"We did," agreed Sam. "And talked too much."
"You were evaluating aircraft 'equipment,' Joel
called it with specialists from various intelligence
units."
"That's right."
"They're the ones he has to contact! He has to
see them, talk to them, tell them everything he
knows! I'm getting ahead of myself, Sam, butJoel
thinks those people should have come in at the
beginning the beginning for him. He understands
why he was chosen and, incredibly, he doesn't even
now fault that decision! But they should have been
therel"
"You're way ahead of yourself.'
"I'll go back."
"Let me finish first. I talked to them, telling
them I didn't believe what I was reading and
hearing; it wasn't the Converse I knew, and to a
man they told me to back off. It was hopeless and I
could get badly tarnished. It wasn't the Converse I
knew, they said. He'd psyched out; he was another
person. There was too much evidence to support the
blow-out."
"But you took my call. Why?"
"Two reasons. The first is obvious I knew Joel;
we went through a lot together and none of this
makes sense to me maybe I don't want it to make
sense. The second reason is a lot less subjective. I
know a lie when I hear one when I know it can't
be the truth and a lie was fed to me just as it was
fed to the people who delivered it." Abbott sipped
his coffee as if telling himself to slow down and be
clear. The leader of the squadron was in control; he
had to be. "I spoke to three men I knew, men I
trust, and each checked with his own sources. They
all came back to me, each telling me essentially the
same thing but in different language, different
viewpoints depending on their priorities that's the
way it works with these people. But one item didn't
vary so much as a syllable and it was the lie. The
label is drugs. Narcotics."
";Joel9"
"Their words were practically identical. 'Evidence
is pouring in from New fork, Geneva, Paris, that
Converse was a heavy buyer.' That was one phrase;
the other was 'Medical opinion has it that the
hypodermics finally blew him up and blew him
back.'"
"That's crazyl It's insane!" cried Valerie as
Abbott grabbed her hand to quiet her down. "I'm
sorry, but it's such a terrible lie," she whispered.
"You don't know "
"Yes, Val, I do know. Joel was pumped five or six
times
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 553
in the camps with substances sent down from Hanoi,
and no one fought it harder or hated it more than he
did. The only chemicals he'd allow in his body after
that were tobacco and alcohol. I've seen us both with
third-degree hangovers and while I tore medicine
cabinets apart for a Bromo or an aspirin, he wouldn't
touch them."
'Whenever his passport shots came up, he had to
have four martinis before he went to the doctor,"
said Valerie. "Good God, who would spread a thing
like that?"
"When I tried to find out I was told that even I
couldn't have that information."
The former Mrs. Converse now stared at the
brigadier general. "You have to find out, Sam, you
know that, don't you?"
"Tell me why, Val. Put it together for me."
"It began in Geneva, and for Joel the operative
name the operative name was George Marcus
Delavane."
Abbott flinched and shut his eyes; his face
became suddenly older.
The cry of the cat on a frozen lake became a
scream as the man in the wheelchair fell to the floor,
his two stumps that once were legs scissoring
maniacally to no avail. With strong arms he pushed
his torso up from the rug.
"Adjutant! Adjutantl" roared General George
Marcus Delavane as the dark-red telephone kept
ringing on the desk below the fragmented map.
A large, muscular middle-aged man in full
uniform ran out of a door and rushed to his
superior. "Let me help you sir," he said emphatically,
pulling the wheelchair toward them both.
"Not me!" yelled Delavane. "The phone! Get the
phone! Tell whoever it is I'll be right there!" The old
soldier began crawling pathetically toward the desk.
"Just one minute, please," said the adjutant into
the phone. "The general will be with you in a
moment." The lieutenant colonel placed the
telephone on the desk and ran first to the chair and
then to Delavane. "Please, sir, let me help
you.
With a look of loathing on his face, the half-man
permitted himself to be maneuvered back into the
wheelchair. He propelled himself forward and took
the phone. "Palo Alto International. You're red!
What is the day's code?"
554 ROflERT LUDIUM
"Charing Cross" was the reply in a clipped British
accent.
"What is it, England?"
Radio relay from Osnabruck. We ve got him.
Chaim Abrahms sat in his kitchen, tapping his
fingers on the table, trying to take his eyes off the
telephone and the clock on the wall. It was the
fourth time span, and still there was no word from
New York. The orders had been clear: the calls were
to be placed within thirty-minute periods every six
hours commencing twenty-four hours ago, the
estimated arrival time of the plane from Amsterdam.
Twenty-four hours and nothing! The first omission
had not troubled him; rarely were transatlantic
flights on schedule. The second he had rationalized;
if the woman was in transit, traveling somewhere
else either in a car or by plane, the surveillance
might
find itself in a difficult position to place an
overseas call to Israel The third omission was
unacceptable, this fourth lapse intoler able! It was
nearly the end of the thirty-minute span, six minutes
to go. When in the name of God would it ring?
It rang. Abrahms leaped from the chair and picked
it up.
"We lost her" was the flat statement.
"You what?"
"She took a taxi to LaGuardia Airport and
bought a ticket for a morning Hight to Boston. Then
she checked into a motel and must have left minutes
later."
"Where were our people?"
"One parked in a car outside, the other in a
room down the hall. There was no reason to suspect
she would leave. She had a ticket to Boston."
"Idiots! Garbage!"
"They will be disciplined. Our men in Boston
have checked every Hight, every train. She hasn't
shown up."
"What makes you think she wills"
"The ticket. There was nothing else."
Imbeciles!"
Valerie had finished; there was nothing more to
say. She looked at Sam Abbott, who seemed far
older than he had been an hour ago.
"There are so many questions," said the brigadier
general. "So much I want to ask Joel. The lousy
thing is I'm not qual
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 555
ified, but I know someone who is. I'll talk to him
tonight, and tomorrow the three of us will fly to
Washington. Like today, I have an early A.M.
squadron run, but I'll be finished by ten. I'll take the
rest of the day off one of the kids is sick, but noth-
ing serious, nothing out of the ordinary. Alan will
know whom we should go to, whom we can trust."
"Can you trust him?"
"Metcalf? With my life."
'~Joel says you're to be careful. He warns you
that they can be anywhere where you least expect
them."
"But somewhere there's got to be a list. Somewhere."
"Delavane? San Francisco?"
"Probably not. It's too simple, too dangerous. It's
the first place anyone would look; he'd consider
that.... This countdown Joel thinks it's tied into
massive riots taking place in different cities, various
capitals?"
"On a vast scale, larger and more violent than
anything we can imagine. Eruptions, total
destabilisation, spreading from one place to another,
fueled by the same people who are called in to
restore order."
Abbott shook his head. "It doesn't sound right.
It's too complicated, and there are too many built-in
controls. Police troops from the National Guardi
they have separate commands. The chain would
break somewhere."
"It's what he believes. He says they could do it.
He's convinced they have warehouses everywhere
stocked with weapons and explosives, even armored
vehicles and conceivably planes in out-of-the-way
airfields."
"Val, that's craz~sorry, wrong word. The logistics
are simply too overwhelming."
"Newark, Watts, Miami. They were also
overwhelming."
"They were different. They were essentially racial
and economic."
"The cities burned, Sam. People were killed and
order came with guns. Suppose there were more
guns than either of us could count? On both sides.
Just like what's happening in Northern Ireland right
now."
"Ireland? The slaughter in Belfast? It's a war no
one can stop."
"It's their war! They did it! Joel called it a test, a trial
run!"
"It's wild," said the pilot.
"'Accumulation, rapid acceleration.' Those were
the words Abrahms used in Bonn. Joel tried to
figure them out.
556 ROBERT EUDLUM
He couldn't buy LeifLelm's statement that they
referred to blackmail or extortion. It wouldn't work,
he said."
"Extortion?" Abbott frowned. "I don't remember
your mentioning that."
'1 probably didn't because Joel discounted it.
Leifhelm asked him what he thought about powerful
figures in various governments being compromised,
and Joel said it wouldn't work. The cleansing
process was too certain, the reactions too quick."
"Compromised?" Sam Abbott leaned forward in
the booth. "Com promised, Val?"
"Yes. "
"Oh, my God."
"What do you mean?"
"Mean? . . . Meaning, that's what I mean.
'Compromised' has more than one meaning. Like
'neutralise' end 'take out,' and probably a dozen
others I don't know about."
"You're beyond me, Sam."
"In one context, the word 'compromise' means
killing Pure and simple murder. Assassination."
Valerie checked into the MGM-Grand Hotel
giving the bewildered clerk three days' advance
payment for the room in lieu of a credit card. Key
in hand, she took the elevator up to the ninth floor
and let herself into a room with the kind of
pleasantly garish opulence found only in Las Vegas.
She stood briefly on the balcony, watching the
orange setting sun thinking about the insanity of
everything. She would call Joei first thing in the
morning noon or thereabouts in Osnabruck, West
Germany.
She ordered from room service, ate what she
could, watched an hour or so of mind-numbing
television, and finally lay down on the bed. She had
been right about Sam Abbott. Dear Sam,
straight-as-the-proverbial-arrow Sam, direct and
uncomplicated. If anyone would know what to do,
Sam would and if he did not know, he would find
out. For the first time in days, Val felt a degree of
relief. Sleep came, and this time there were no
horrible dreams.
She awoke to the sight of the early sun firing the
mountains beyond the balcony doors in the distance.
For a moment or two while she emerged through
the layers of vanishing sleep she thought she was
back at Cape Ann, the sunlight streaming into her
bedroom from the balcony outside, and
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 557
vaguely recalled a distant nightmare. Then the bold
floral drapes came into focus, and then the faraway
mountains and the slightly stale odor of thick hotel
carpeting, and she knew the nightmare was very
much with her.
She got out of the oversized bed, and navigated
to the bathroom, stopping on the way to switch on
the radio. She reached the door and suddenly
stopped, gripping its edge to brace herself, her head
detonating with a thousand explosions, her eyes and
throat on fire.
She could only scream. And scream again and
again as she fell to the floor.
Peter Stone turned up the radio in the New York
apartment, then walked quickly to the table where
there was an open telephone directory, the pages
blue, the book itself having been taken from "Mrs
.
DePinna's" room in the St. Regis Hotel. Stone
listened to the news report as he scanned the op-
posing blue pages of government listings.
". . . It has now been confirmed that the earlier
reports of the crash of an F-18 jetfighterplane at Nellis
Air Force Base in Nevada are accurate. The accident
took place this morning at seven-forty-two, Pacific time,
during first-light maneuvers over the desert thirty-eight
miles northwest of the Nellisfield. The pilot, Brigadier
General Samuel Abbott, was chief of Tactical
Operations and considered one of the finest pilots in the
Air Force as well as a su perb aerial tactician. The
press of dicer at Nellis said a full inquiry will be
launched, but stated that according to the other pilots
the lead plane of the squadron, }-town by General
Abbott, plunged to the ground afterexecuffng a relatively
low-altitude maneuver. The explosion could be heard as
far away as Las Vegas. The press ofticer's remarks were
charged with emotion as he described the downed pilot.
'The death of General Abbott is a tragic loss for the A
ir Force and the nation, 'he told re porters. A few min-
utes ago the President . . ."
"That's it," said Stone, turning to the Army
captain across the room. "That's where she was
heading.... Shut that damn thing off, will you? I knew
Abbott; I worked with him out of Langley a couple
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 86
