Everywhere, whatever our commitments, we cringed!
He brought dishonoron the most honorable
profession in this world. Let me tell you, monsieur,
it is not I who will be out, it is he!"
"Abrahms said you were a sexual
embarrassment," con .inued Converse, as though
Bertholdier's response was irrelevant. "That was the
phrase he used, 'a sexual embarrassment. He
mentioned the fact that there was a record one he
obtained, in fact that spelled out a string of rapes,
female and male, that were covered up by the
French Army because you were damned good at
what you did. But then he asked the question. Could
a bisexual opportunist, one who ravaged women at
will and who sodomised young men and boys, who
corrupted the word 'interrogations' as well as whole
sections of the officer corps, be truly considered the
French leader of code-name Aquitaine. He also said
you wanted too many controls cantered in your own
government. But by the time there were such
controls, you'd be gone."
"Gone?" cried the Frenchman, his eyes once more
on fire as they had been weeks ago in Paris, his
whole body trembling with rage. "Convicted by a
barbarian, a smelly, uneducated Jew?"
"Van Headmer didn't go that far. He said you
were simply too vulnerable "
"Forget Van Headmer!" roared Bertholdier. "He's
a fossil! He was courted solely on the basis that he
might deliver raw materials. He's of no
consequence."
"I didn't think he was," agreed Joel truthfully.
654 ROBERT LUDLUM
'But the strutting, foul-mouthed Israeli thinks
he can move against me? Let me tell you, I have
been threatened before by a great man and
nothing ever came of those threats because, as you
put it, I was 'damned good' at what I did. I still am!
And there is another record, one of outstanding and
brilliant service, that dwarfs any compilation of
filthy rumors and barracks gossip. My record is
unmatched by any in code-name Aquitaine, and that
includes the legless egomaniac in San Francisco. He
believes it was all his idea! Preposterous! I refined it!
He merely gave it a name based on a far-fetched
reading of history."
"He also got the ball started by exporting one
hell of a lot of hardware," interrupted Converse.
' Because it was there! And there were profits to
be made!" The general paused, leaning forward in
the chair. "I will be frank with you. As with any elite
corps of leadership, one man rises above the others
by the sheer strength of his character and his mind.
Beside me the others all others pale into
mediocrity. Delavane is a deformed, hysterical
caricature. Leifhelm is a Nazi, and Abrahms is a
bombastic polarizer; alone he could set off waves of
anti-Semitism, the worst sort of symbol of
leadership. When the tribunals rise out of the
confusion and the panic, they will look to me. I
shall be the true leader of code-name Aquitaine."
Joel got out of the chair and walked back to the
window, staring out at the mountain fields, feeling
the soft breezes on his face. "This examination is
finished, General," he said.
As if on cue the door opened, and a former
sergeant major in the French Army based in Algiers
stood there waiting to escort the bewildered legend
of France out of the room.
Chaim Abrahms sprang out of the brocaded
chair, his barrel chest straining the seams of his
black safari jacket. "He said those things about me?
About himself?"
"I told you before we got into any of this to use
the phone," said Converse, sitting across from the
Israeli, a pistol on a table beside his chair. "Don't
take my word for it. I've heard it said you've got
good gut instincts. Call Bertholdier. You don t have
to say where you are as a matter of fact, I'd put a
bullet in your head if you tried. Just tell him one of
Leifhelm's guards, a man you bought to keep his
eyes open for you because of a certain innate
mistrust you have of Germans, told you that he,
Bertholdier, came to see me alone on two
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 655
separate occasions. Since I haven't been found, you
want to know why. It'll work. You'll hear enough to
know whether I'm telling you the truth or not."
Abrahms stared down at Joel. 'But why do you
tell me this truth? If it is the truth. Why do you
abduct me to tell me these things. Why?"
"I thought I made that clear. My money's running
out, and although I'm not wild about lox or kreplach,
I'd be better off living in Israel under a protective
cover than being hunted and ultimately killed
running around Europe. You can do that for me, but
I know I've got to deliver something to you first. I'm
delivering it now. Bertholdier intends to take over
what he calls code-name Aquitaine. He said you're
a foul-mouthed Jew, a destructive symbol, you'll
have to go. He said the same about Leifhelm; the
specter of a Nazi couldn't be tolerated and Van
Headmer was a 'fossil' that was the word, 'fossil.''
"I can hear him," said Abrahms softly, his hands
clasped behind his back, pacing toward the window.
"Are you sure our military boulevardier with the
cock of steel did not say 'smelly Jew'? I've heard our
French hero use such words always, of course,
apologising to me, saying I was exempt."
"He used them."
"But why? Why would he say such things to you?
I don't deny his logic, for Christ's sake. Leifhelm will
be shot once controls are established. A l~lazi
running the goddamned German government?
Absurd! Even Delavane understands this, he will be
eliminated. And poor old Van Headmer is a relic we
all know that. Still, there is gold in South Africa. He
could deliver it. But why you? Why would
Bertholdier come to you?"
"Ask him yourself. There's the phone. Use it."
The Israeli stood motionless, his narrow eyes
encased in swells of flesh riveted on Converse. ' 1
will," he said quietly emphatically. "You are far too
clever, Mr. Lawyer. The fire inside you remains in
your head it has not reached your stomach. You
think too much. You say you were manipulated? I
say you manipulate." Abrahms turned and strode like
a bulky Coriolanus to the phone. He stood for a
moment squinting, remembering, then picked up the
phone and dialed the series of numbers long ago
committed to memory.
Joel remained in the chair, every muscle in his
body taut, his throat suddenly dry. Slowly he inched
his hand over the
656 ROBERT LUDLUM
arm of the chair nearer the pistol. In seconds he
might have to use it, his strategy his only
strategy blown apart by a phone call he had n
ever
thought would be made. What was wrong with him?
Where were his vaunted examining tactics taking him?
Had he forgotten whom he was dealing with?
"Code Isaiah, ' said Abrahms into the phone, his
angry eyes again staring across the room at
Converse. "Patch me through to Verdun-sur-Meuse.
(prickly!" The Israeli's massive chest heaved with
every breath, but it was the only part of his stocky
frame that moved. He spoke again, furiously. "Yes,
code Isaiah! I have no time to waste! Reach Ver-
dun-sur-Meuse! Now!" Abrahms eyes grew wide as
he listened. He looked briefly away from Converse,
then snapped his head back toward him, his eyes
filled with loathing. "Repeat that!" he shouted. And
then he slammed the telephone down with such
force the desk shook. "Liar!" he screamed.
"You mean me?" asked Joel, his hand inches
from the gun.
"They say he disappeared! They cannot find him!"
"And?" Converse's throat was now a vacuum. He
had lost.
"He lies! The cock of steel is no more than a
whining coward! He's hiding he avoids me! He will
not face me!"
Joel swallowed repeatedly as he moved his hand
away from the weapon. "Force the issue," he said,
somehow managing to keep the tremor out of his
voice. "Trace him down. Call LeifLelm, Van
Headmer. Say it's imperative you reach
Bertholdier."
"Stop it! And let him know I know? He had to
give you a reason! Why did he come to see you in
the first place?"
' I wanted to wait until you'd spoken to him,"
said Converse, crossing his legs and picking up a
pack of cigarettes next to the pistol. "He might have
told you himself then again, he might not. He has
this idea that I was sent out by Delavane to test all
of you. To see who might betray him. '
"Betray him? Betray the legless one? How?
Why? And if our French peacock believed that,
again why would he say these things to you?"
"I'm an attorney. I provoked him. Once he
understood how I felt about Delavane, what that
bastard did to me, he knew I couldn't possibly have
anything to do with him. His defences were down;
the rest was easy. And as he talked I saw
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 657
a way to save my own life.' Joel struck a match,
lighting a cigarette. "By reaching you," he added.
"At the end you bank on the morality of a Jew,
then? His acknowledgment of a debt.'
"In part, yes, but not entirely, General. I know
something about Leifhelm, about the way he's
maneuvered through the years. He'd have me shot,
then send his men after the rest of you, leaving
himself in the number one position."
"That's exactly what he'd do," agreed the Israeli.
"And I didn't think Van Headmer had any real
authority north of Pretoria."
"Right again," said Abrahms, walking back toward
Converse. "So the hellhound created in Southeast
Asia is a survivor."
"Let's be more specific," countered Joel. "I was
sent out by people I don't know who abandoned me
without raising the slightest question as to my guilt
or innocence. For all I know, they joined in the hunt
to kill me to save their own lives. Given these
conditions I intend to survive."
"What about the woman? Your woman?"
"She goes with me." Converse put down the
cigarette and picked up the gun. "What's your
answer? I can kill you now, or leave that to
Bertholdier, or Leifhelm, if he kills the Frenchman
first. Or I can bank on your morality, your ac-
knowledgment of a debt. What's it going to be?"
"Put away the gun," said Chaim Abrahms. "You
have the word of a sabre."
"What'll you do?" asked Joel, placing the weapon
back on the table.
"Do?" shouted the Israeli in a sudden burst of
anger. "What I've always intended to do! You think
I give a horse's fart for this abstraction, this
Aquitaine's infrastructure? Do you think I care one
whit for titles or labels or chains of command? Let
them have it all! I only care that it works, and for it
to work respectability must come out of the chaos
along with strength. Bertholdier was right. I am too
divisive a figure as well as a Jew to be so visible
on the Euro-American scene. So I will be
invisible except in Eretz Yisrael, where my word will
be the law of this new order. 1, myself, will help the
French bull get whatever medals he wants. I will not
fight him, I will control him."
"How?"
"Because I can destroy his respectability."
658 R08ERT LUDLUM
Converse sat forward, suppressing his
astonishment. "His sex life? Those buried scandals?"
"My God, no, you imbecile! You kick a man
below his belt in public you ask for trouble. Half the
people cry 'Foul,'thinking it could happen to them,
and the other half applaud his courage to indulge
himself which they would very much like to do."
"Then how, General? How can you do this,
destroy his respectability?"
Abrahms sat down again in the brocaded chair
his thick body squeezed dangerously between the
delicately carved mahogany arms. "By exposing the
role he played in 'code-name Aquitaine.' The roles
we all played in this extraordinary adventure that
forced the civilized world to summon us and the
strengths of our professional leadership. It's entirely
possible that all free Europe will turn to Bertholdier
as France nearly turned to him after De Gaulle. But
one must understand a man like Bertholdier. He
doesn't merely seek power, he seeks the glory of
power the trappings, the adulation, the mysticism.
He would rather give up certain intrinsic authority
than lose any part of the glory. Me? I don't give a
shit about the glory. All I want is the power to get
what I need what I command. For the kingdom of
Israel and its imprimatur in all of the Middle East."
'You expose him, you expose yourself. How can
you win that way?"
"Because he'll blink first. He'll think of the glory
and submit. He'll do as I say, give me what I want."
"I think he'll have you shot."
"Not when he's told that if I die several hundred
documents will be released describing every meeting
we attended, every decision we made. Everything is
scrupulously detailed, I assure you."
"You intended this from the beginning?"
"From the beginning."
"You play rough."
"I'm a sabre. I play for the advantage without
it we would have been massacred decades ago."
"Among these documents is there a list of
everyone in Aquitaine?"
"No. It has never been my intention to
jeopardise the movement. Call it whatever name you
will, I believe truly in the concept. There mus
t be a
unified, international mili
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 659
tary-industrial complex. The world will not stay sane
without it.'
'But there is such a list.
"In a machine, a computer, but it must be
programmed correctly, the proper codes used.'
"Could you do it?
"Not without help.
"What about Delavane?'
'You have certain perceptions yourself, said the
Israeli, nodding. "What about him?
Again Joel had to control his astonishment. The
computer codes that released the master list of
Aquitaine were with Delavane. At least the key
symbols were. The remainder were provided by the
four leaders across the Atlantic. Converse shrugged.
"You haven t really mentioned him. You've talked
about Bertholdier, about the elimination of Leifhelm,
and the impotence of Van Headmer, who could,
however, bring in raw materials "
"I said 'gold,'" corrected Abrahms.
"Bertholdier said 'raw materiels.' But what about
George Marcus Delavane?"
"Marcus is finished," said the Israeli flatly. "He
was coddled we all coddled him because he
brought us the concept and he worked his end in the
United States. We have equipment and materiel all
over Europe, to say nothing of the contraband we've
shipped to insurgents, just to keep them occupied. '
"Clarification," interrupted Joel. " 'Occupied'
means killing?"
"All is killing. Disingenuous philosophers
notwithstanding, the ends do justify the means. Ask
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 102
