Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt

by The Aquitaine Progression [lit]

  of years ago."

  The Army officer stared at the civilian as he

  turned off the radio. "Do you know what you're

  saying?" he asked.

  "Here it is," replied Stone, pointing to the lower

  left-hand corner of a page in the thick telephone

  directory.

  558 ROBERT LUDLUM

  "Blue thirteen, three pages from the end of the

  book. 'United States Government offices.

  Department of the ' "

  'There are dozens of other listings, too,

  including your former employer. 'Central

  Intelligence New York field Office.' Why not it?

  Them? It fits better."

  'He can't go that route and he knows it."

  "He didn't go," corrected the captain. "He sent her.,'

  "That doesn't fit with everything we know

  about him. She'd be sent to Virginia and come out

  a basket case. No, she came back here to find a

  particular person, not a faceless department or a

  section or an agency. A man they both knew and

  trusted. Abbott. She found him, told him everything

  Con~eOrdd told h!e,,r and he talked to others the

  w h

  'How can you be sure?" pressed the Army man.

  "Christ, Gptain, what do you want, a diagram ?

  Sam Abbott was shot down over the coast of the

  Tonkin Gulf. He was a POW and so was Converse.

  I have an idea that if we put it through the

  computers, we'd find out they knew each other. I'm

  so sure I won't use up another debt. Puck it./"

  "You know," said the Army officer, "I've never

  seen you lose your temper. The cold can get hot,

  can't it, Stone. I be

  lieve you."

  The former intelligence officer looked hard at

  the captain, and when he spoke his voice was

  flat and cold. 'Abbott was a good man even an

  exceptional man for someone in uniform but don't

  mistake me, Captain. He was killed and he was

  killed because whatever that woman told him was

  so conclusive he had to be compromised hours

  later."

  "Compromised?"

  "Figure it out.... I'm angry at Sam's death, yes,

  you're damned right. But I'm a lot angrier that we

  don't have the woman. Among other things, with us

  she has a chance, without us I judge very little and

  I don't want her on my conscience~what little I've

  got left. Also to get Converse out we have to find

  her, there's no other way."

  ' But if you re right she's somewhere near Nellis,

  probably Las Vegas. '

  Undoubtedly Las Vegas, and by the time we

  reached anyone who could check around for us,

  she'll be on her way somewhere else.... You know,

  I d hate to be her now. The only avenue she had

  was neutralised. Whom can she turn to where can

  she go? It's what Dowling said about Converse yes

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 559

  terday, what he didn't tell Peregrine's secretary. Our

  man was systematically isolated and more afraid of

  U.S. embassy personnel than anyone else. He would

  never have agreed to a meeting with Peregrine

  because he knew it'd be a trap, therefore he couldn't

  have killed him. He was set up; everywhere he

  looked there was another trap to keep him running

  and out of sight." The civilian paused, then added

  firmly, "The woman's finished, Captain. She's at the

  end of a bad road their road. And that may be the

  best part of it for us. If she panics, we could find her.

  But we're going to have to take some risks. How's

  that neck of yours? Have you made out a will?"

  Valerie wept quietly by the glass doors

  overlooking the gaudy strip of Las Vegas. Her tears

  were not only for Sam Abbott and his wife and

  children, but for herself and Joel. It was permitted

  under the circumstances, and she could not lie to

  herself. She had no idea what to do next. No matter

  whom she went to the answer would be the same.

  Tell him to come out of hiding and well listen to him.

  And the minute he did, Joel would be dead, fulfilling

  his own prophecy. And if through a bureaucratic

  miracle she was granted a meeting with someone of

  power and influence, how strong would her case be?

  What words would she use?

  I was married to this man for four years and I

  divorced him let's call it incom patibility but I know

  him! I know he couldn't have done what they say he

  did, he didn't kill those men.... What proof? I just told

  you, I know him! . . . What does incom patibility

  mean? I'm not SUK, we didn't get along he was

  remote, distant. What difference does it make? What

  are you implying? Oh, God! You 're so wrong! I have

  no interest in him that way. Yes, he's successful and

  he's paid me alimony, but I don't need his money. I

  don't want it!. . . You see, he told me about this . . .

  this incredible plot to put the military establishments of

  the United States and the countries of Western Europe

  in virtual control of their governments, that they could

  do it by instigating massive rioting in key cities,

  terrorism, destabilisation everywhere. He's met them

  and talked with them; there's a plan already in

  progress! They see themselves as a dedicated

  international organization, as a strong alternative to the

  weak governments of the West who won't stand up to

  the Soviet bloc. But they're not a reasonable alternative,

  they're fanatics! They're killers;

  560 ROBERT LUDLUM

  they want total control of all of us!. . . My former

  husband wrote it all up, everything he's learned, and

  sent it to me, but it was stolen, his own father killed

  because he read it. IVo, it was not suicide!. . . He calls

  it a conspiracy of generals conceived by a general

  who'd been labeled a madman. General George

  Delavane 'Mad Marcus' Delavane... . Yes, I know

  what the police in Paris and Bonn and Brussels say,

  what Interpol says, what our own embassy has

  reported fingerprints and ballistics and seeing him in

  this place and that place, and drugs, and meeting with

  Peregrine butcan't you understand, they're all lies!. .

  . Yes, I know what happened when he was a prisoner

  of war what he went through the things he said when

  he was discharged. IVone of that is

  relevant!Hisfeelingsaren 't relevant!He told me that!He

  told me he looks so terrible . . . he's been so hurt.

  Who would believe her?

  Tell him to come in. We'll listen.

  He can 't! He'll be killed! . . . You '11 kill him!

  The telephone rang, for a moment paralysing

  her. She stared at it, terrified but forcing herself to

  stay in control. Sam Abbott was dead, and he told

  her only he would call only he. My God, thought

  Val, they'd found her, just as they'd found her in

  New York. But they would not repeat the mistakes

  they had made in New York. She had to remain

  calm and think and outthink them. The ringing

  stopped. She approached the phone and pi
cked it

  up, then pressed the button marked O. 'Operator,

  this is room nine-one-four. Please send the security

  police up here right away. It's an emergency."

  She had to move quickly, be ready to leave the

  instant the security men arrived. She had to get out

  and find a safe telephone. She had heard the stories;

  she knew what to do. She had to reach Joel in

  Osnabruck.

  Colonel Alan Metcalf, chief intelligence officer,

  Nellis Air Force Base, walked out of the telephone

  booth and looked around the shopping mall, his

  hand in the pocket of his sport jacket, gripping the

  small revolver inside. He glanced at his watch; his

  wife and three children would be in Los Angeles

  soon, then reach Cleveland by late afternoon. The

  four of them would stay with her parents until he

  said otherwise. It was better this way since he had

  no idea what the "way" would be like.

  He only knew that Sam Abbott had run that

  sub-mach

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 561

  maneuver a thousand times; he knew every stress

  point and P.S.I. throughout the entire aircraft, and

  he never flew a jet that had not been scanned

  electronically. To ascribe that crash to pilot error was

  ludicrous; instead, someone had lied to that pilot, a

  circuit and backup shorted. Sam was killed because

  his friend, Metcalf, had made a terrible mistake.

  After talking with Abbott for nearly five hours,

  Metcalf had called a man in Washington, telling him

  to prepare a conference the following afternoon with

  two ranking members each from the NSC, G-Two

  and naval intelligence. The reason-of-record:

  Brigadier General Samuel Abbott had pertinent and

  startling information about the fugitive Joel Converse

  relative to the assassinations of the American

  ambassador in Bonn and the supreme commander of

  NATO.

  And if they could so readily, so efficiently kill the

  man who had the information, they might easily go

  after the messenger, the intelligence officer bringing

  him in. It was better this way, with Doris and the

  kids in Cleveland. He had a great deal to do and a

  terrible debt to repay.

  The Converse woman! Oh, Christ, why had she

  done it, why had she run so quickly? He had

  expected it, of course, but he had hoped against

  hope that he would reach her in time, but it had not

  been possible. First there was Dpris and the kids and

  plane reservations and the call to her folks; they had

  to get out; he could be next. Then racing to the field,

  his revolver beside him in the car, and ransacking

  Sam's office as Nellis' intelligence officer, a

  particularly loathsome duty, but in this case

  vital and questioning Abbott's distraught secretary.

  A name had emerged: Parquette.

  "I'll pick her up," Sam had said last night. "She's

  staying at the Grand and I promised only I'd phone

  her. She's a cool lady, but she had a close call in

  New York. She wants to hear a voice she knows and

  I can't blame her."

  Cool lady, thought Alan Metcalf, as he climbed

  into his car, you made the biggest mistake of

  yourshortenedlife. With me you had a chance to

  live perhaps but now as they say in this part of

  Nevada, the odds are heavily against.

  Nevertheless she would be on his conscience,

  reasoned the intelligence officer, now speeding into

  the cutoff toward Route 15 and points south.

  Conscience. He wondered if those silent bastards

  in Washington had Joel Converse on their collective

  conscience. They had sent a man out and abandoned

  him, not even having

  562 ROBERT LUDLUM

  the grace to make sure he was killed quickly,

  mercifully. The programmers of the kamikazes

  were saints beside such people.

  Converse. Where was he?

  33

  Joel stood silently as Leifhelm's man removed

  his gun and turned to speak to the assembled row of

  senile old women in the high-backed chairs. He

  spoke for less than a minute, then grabbed Converse

  by the arm his and their trophy forcing Joel to

  face Hermione Geyner, whose true prisoner he was.

  It was a mystical ritual of triumph from a time long

  past.

  'I have just told these brave women of the

  underground," said the Cerman looking at Converse,

  "that they have uncovered a traitor to our cause.

  Frau Geyner will confirm this, ja, meine Dame?"

  'Baja!" spat out the intense old woman, her face

  alive with the fierce joy of victory. "Betrayal!" she

  screamed.

  "The telephone calls have been made and our

  instructions received," continued Leifhelm's soldier.

  "We shall leave now, A merikaner. There's nothing

  you can do, so let us go qui

  "If you had this whole thing so organized, why

  those two men on the train, including that one?"

  asked Joel, nodding at the man with his arm in the

  sling, instinctively stalling for time, an attorney

  allowing an adversary to compliment himself.

  "Observed, not organised," answered the

  German. "We had to be sure you did everything

  expected of you. Everyone here agrees, Stimmt Has,

  Frau Geyner?"

  "Pa!" exploded Valerie's aunt.

  "The other one is dead," said Joel.

  "A loss for the cause and we shall mourn him.

  Come!" The German bowed to the ladies, as did his

  two companions, and led Converse through the

  large double doors to the front entrance. Outside on

  the decrepit porch, Leifhelm's hunter gave the thick

  envelope to the man with the sling and issued

  THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 563

  orders. Both nodded and walked rapidly down the

  steps, the wounded man steadying himself on a

  rickety railing, and then they hurried to the right of

  the long circular drive. Down at the far exit, near the

  country road, Joel could see the shape of a long

  sedan in the darkness.

  The three prison guards led him out of the

  compound It was the middle of the night, and he was

  being transferred either to another camp or to his own

  execution, the killing ground somewhere in the dense

  jungle where his screams would be muted. The head

  guard barked a command to his two subordinates, who

  bowed and began running down the road toward a

  captured American Jeep several hundred yards away in

  the darkness He was alone with the man, thought

  Converse, knowing the moment would not come again

  except as a corpse. If f t was going to ha Open, it had

  to ha ppen now. He moved his head slightly, lowering

  his gaze to the dark outline of the gun in the guard's

  hand....

  The German's hand was steady, the weapon it

  held rigid against Joel's chest. Inside the house, the

  old women had broken into song; their pathetic frail

  voices were raised in some victory anthem heard


  through the large casement windows open for the

  summer breezes. Converse inched his right foot

  around the floorboards on the porch, testing several

  and finding one weaker than the others. He pressed

  down with his full weight; the resulting creak was

  loud and sharp. Startled, the German turned at the

  echoing sound.

  Now. Joel grabbed the barrel of the gun, twisting

  hand and steel back and clockwise; he hammered the

  man across the porch into the wall while gripping the

  weapon with all his strength, twisting tighter and

  shoving it into the man's stomach.

  The gunshot was partially muffled by cloth and

  flesh, by the noise of an engine starting and the

  excited singing of senile voices that came through the

  open windows. The German collapsed, his head

  snapping, his eyes bulging; there was a stench of

  burnt fabric and intestines he was dead. Converse

  crouched, then whipped around to look down at the

  long U-shaped drive, half expecting to see the two

  other men racing toward him with guns extended.

  Instead, he saw the lights of the car in the distance;

  it was on the country road outside, now turning into

  the entrance gate on the left. It would be at the

  porch in moments.

  Prying the weapon out of the German's hand, Joel

  564 ROBERT LUDLUM

  dragged him across the floorboards into the shadows

  to the right of the steps. Seconds now.

  Get the Jeep. Use the Jeep. The nearest vehicle

  check was five miles down the road they had seen it

  on work details. Get the Jeep! Cover the ground! The

  Jeep!

  The long sedan pulled up in front of the porch

  and the man with his arm in the sling got out of the