The Aquaintaine Progession

by Ludlum, Robert

  “Herr Converse? Wo sind . . . Bach, die Toilette. “

  The chauffeur walked in with the tray, and Joelswung the chair with all his strength into theGerman’s head. The driver arched back off his feet,tray and dishes crashing to the floor. He wasstunned, nothing more. Converse kicked the doorshut and brought the heavy chair repeatedly downon the chauffeur’s skull until the man went limp,blood and saliva pouring down his eyes and face.

  The phalanx of dogs had lurched as one at thesuddenly closed door and began to bark maniacallywhile clawing at the wood.

  Joel grabbed the silver chain, slipped it over theunconscious German’s head and pulled the silverwhistle out of the pocket. There were four tinyholes on the tube; each meant something. He pulledthe remaining chair to the window at the right ofthe door, climbed up and put the whistle to his lips.He covered the first hole and blew into themouthpiece. There was no sound, but it had aneffect.

  The Dobermans went mad! They began to attackthe door in suicidal assaults. He removed his finger,placed it over the second hole and blew.

  The dogs were confused; they circled aroundeach other snapping, yelping, snarling, but still theywould not take their concentration off the door. Hetried the third tiny hole and blew into the whistlewith all the breath he had.

  Suddenly, the dogs stopped all movement, theirtapered close-cropped ears upright, shifting theywere waiting for a second signal. He blew again,again with all the breath that was in him. It was thesound they were waiting for, and again, as one, thepack raced to the right beneath the window,

  pounding to some other place where they weremeant to be by command.

  Converse leaped down from the chair and kneltby the unconscious German. He went rapidlythrough the driver’s pockets, taking his billfold andall the money he had, as well as his wristwatch andhis gun. For an instant Joel looked at the weapon,loathing the memories it evoked. He shoved it underhis belt and went to the door.

  Outside, he pulled the heavy door shut, heardthe click of the lock and slid the bolt in place. Heran up the dirt path estimating the distance to thefork where the right leg was verboten and the left ledto the steep hill and the sight of the Rhine below. Itwas actually no more than two hundred yards away,but the winding curves and the thick borderingfoliage made it seem longer. If he rememberedaccurately and on the walk back he was like a pilotwithout instruments relying on sightings there wasa flat stretch of about eighty feet below the fork.

  He reached it, the same flat area, the samediverging paths up ahead. He ran faster.

  Voices! Angry, questioning? Not far away andcoming nearer! He dove into the brush to his right,rolling over the needle-like bushes until he couldbarely see through the foliage. Two men walkedrapidly into his limited view, talking loudly, as ifarguing but somehow not with each other.

  “Was haben die Hunde?”

  “Die sollten bat Heinrich sein!”

  Joel had no idea what they were saying; he onlyknew as they passed him that they were heading forthe isolated cabin. He also knew that they would potspend much time trying to raise anyone inside beforethey took more direct methods. And once they did,all the alarms in LeifLelm’s fortress would beactivated. Time was measured for him in minutesand he had a great deal of ground to cover. He creptcautiously out of the brush on his hands and feet.The Germans were out of sight, beyond a roundingcurve. He got up and raced for the fork and thesteep hill to the left.

  The three guards at the immense iron gate thatwas the entrance to Leifhelm’s estate werebewildered. The pack of Dobermans were circlingaround impatiently in the out grass, obviouslyconfused.

  “Why are they here?” asked one man.

  “It makes no sense!” replied a second.

  “Heinrich has let them loose, but why?” said the third.

  “Nobody tells us anything,” muttered the first guard,shrugging. “If we don’t hear something in the next fewminutes, we should call.”

  “I don’t like this!” shouted the second guard. “I’mcalling right now!”

  The first guard walked into the gatehouse and pickedup the telephone.

  Converse ran up the steep hill, his breath short, hislips dry, his heartbeat thundering in his chest. There itwas! The river! He started running down, gatheringspeed, the wind whipping his face, stinging him. It wasexhilarahng. He was back! He was racing through thesudden, open clearings of another jungle, no fellowprisoners to worry about, only the outrage within himselfto prod him, to make him break through the barriersand somehow, somewhere, strike back at those who hadstripped him naked and raped an innocenceand goddamn it turned him into an animal! Areasonably pleasant human being had been turned intoa half-man with more hatreds than a person should livewith. He would get back at them all, all enemies, allanimals!

  He reached the bottom of the open slope of gnarledgrass

  and bush, the trees and intertwining underbrushonce more

  a wall to be penetrated. But he had his bearings; nomatterhow dense the woods, he simply had to keep the lastrays ofthe sun on his left, heading due north, and he wouldreachthe river.

  Rapid explosions made him spin around. Fivegunshots followed one upon the other in the distance. Itwas easy to imagine the target: a circle of wood aroundthe cylinder of a lock in the door of an isolated cabin inthe forest. His jailhouse was being assaulted, entrancegained. The minutes were growing shorter.

  And then two distinctly different sounds pierced thetwilight, interwoven in dissonance. The first was a seriesof short, staccato bursts of a high-pitched siren. Thesecond, between and under the repeated blasts, was thehysterical yelping of running dogs. The alarms had beenset off; scraps of discarded clothing and slept-on sheetswould be pressed onto inflamed nostrils and theDobermans would come after him, no quarter

  considered no cornered prey only animal teethripping human flesh a satisfactory reward.

  Converse plunged into the wall of green and ranas fast as he could, dodging, crouching, lurchingfrom one side to the other, his arms outstretched, hishands working furiously against the strong, suppleimpediment of the woods. His face and body wererepeatedly whipped by slashing branches andobstinate limbs, his feet continually tripped by fallendebris and exposed roots. He stumbled more timesthan he could count, each time bringing an instant ofsilence that emphasized the sound of the dogssomewhere between the fork and the hill and thelower forest. They were no farther away, perhapsnearer. They were nearer, they had entered thewoods. All around him were the echoes of theirhysteria, punctuated by howling yelps of frustrationas one or another or several were caught in thetangled ground cover, straining and roaring to befree to join the pursuit.

  The water! He could see the water through thetrees. Sweat was now rolling down his face, the saltblinding his eyes and stinging the scrapes on his neckand chin. His hands were bleeding from the sharpnettles and the coarse bark everywhere.

  He fell, his foot plunging into a hole burrowed bysome riverbank animal, his ankle twisted and in pain.

  He got up, pulling at his leg, freeing his foot,and, limping badly, tried to resume running. TheDobermans were gaining, the yelping and the harshbarking louder and more furious; they had picked uphis direct scent, the trail of undried sweat maddeningthem, preparing them for the kill.

  The riverbank! It was filled with soft mud andfloating debris, a webbing of nature’s garbage caughtin a cavity, whirling slowly, waiting for a strongcurrent to pull it all away. Joel grabbed the handleof the chauffeur’s gun, not to pull it out but tosecure it as he limped down the bank to look for thequickest way into the water.

  He heard nothing until the instant when amassive roar came out of the shadows and the hugebody of an animal flew through the air over theriverbank directly at him. The monstrous face of thedog was contorted with fury, the eyes on fire, theenormous jaw widest all teeth and a gaping, shiningblack mouth. Converse fell to his knees as theDoberman whipped past his right shoulder, rippinghis shirt with its upper eye teeth and flipping over onits back in the mud. The

  momenta
ry defeat was more than the animal couldstand. It writhed furiously, rolling over, snarling,then rising on its hind legs, lunged up from the mudfor Joel’s groin.

  The gun was in his hand. Converse fired,blowing off the top of the attack dog’s head; bloodand tissue sprayed the shadows, and the slack,shining jaws fell into his crotch.

  The rest of the pack was now racing toward thebank, accompanied by ear-shattering crescendos ofanimal cries. Joel threw himself into the water andswam as rapidly as he could away from theshoreline; the weapon was an impediment but heknew he could not let it go.

  Years ago centuries ago he had desperatelyneeded a weapon, knowing it could be the differencebetween survival and death, and forgive days nonecould be had. But on that fifth day he had found oneon the banks of the Huong Khe. He had }boated halfunderwater past a squad on patrol, and found thepoint ten minutes later downriver too far from thescout’s unit to be logical a man perha ps thinkingangry thoughts that made him walk faster, or boredwith his job and wanting a few moments to be byhimself and out of it all. Whichever, it made nodifference to that soldier. Converse had killed him witha rock from the river and had taken his gun. He hadfired that gun twice, twice saving his life before hereached an advance unit south of Phu Loc.

  As he pushed against the shoreline currents ofthe Rhine, Joel suddenly remembered. This was thefifth day of his imprisonment in Leifhelm’scompound no jungle cell, to be sure, but no less aprison camp. He had done it! And on the fifth daya weapon was his! There were omens wherever onewished to find them; he did not believe in omens,but for the moment he accepted the possibility.

  He was in the shadows of the river now, thesurrounding mountains blocking the dying sun. Hepaddled in place and turned. Back on shore, at thecavity in the bank that had been his plank to thewater, the dogs were circling in confused anger,snarling, yelping, as several ventured down to snifftheir slain leader, each urinating as it didso territory and status were being established. Thebeams of powerful flashlights suddenly brokethrough the trees. Converse swam farther out; hehad survived searchlights in the Mekong. He had nofear of them now; he had been there here and heknew when he had won.

  He let the outer currents carry him east along theriver.

  Somewhere there would be other lights, lights thatwould lead him to shelter and a telephone. He had toget everything in place and build his brief quickly, buthe could do it. Yet the attorney in him told him thata man with a bandaged gunshot wound in soakedclothing and speaking a foreign language in thestreets was no match for the disciples of GeorgeMarcus Delavane; they would find him. So it wouldhave to be done another way with whatever artificeshe could muster. He had to get to a telephone. Hehad to place an overseas call. He could do it; hewould do it! The Huong Khe faded; the Rhine wasnow his lifeline.

  Swimming breaststroke, the gun still gripped inhis hand, his arm smarting in the water, he saw thelights of a village in the distance.

  Valerie frowned as she listened on the phone inher studio, the spiraling cord outstretched as shereached over and placed a brush in the track of hereasel. Her eyes scanned the sunlit dunes outside theglass doors, but her mind was on the words she washearing, words that implied things without sayingthem. "Larry, what’s wrong with you?” she interrupted,unable to hold herself in check any longer. “Joel’s notjust an employee or a junior partner, he’s your friend! You sound like you’re trying to build a case againsthim. What’s that term you all use? . . .Circumstantial, that’s it. He was here, he was there;someone said this and somebody else said that.”

  “I’m trying to understand, Val,” protested Talbot,who had called from his office in New York. “You’vegot to try to understand too. There’s a great deal Ican’t tell you because I’ve been instructed by peoplewhose offices I have to respect to say very little orpreferably nothing at all. I’m bending thoseinstructions because Joel is my friend and I want tohelp.”

  “All right, let’s go back,” said Valerie. “Whatexactly were you leading up to?”

  “I know it’s none of my damned business and Iwouldn’t ask it if I didn’t think I had to ”

  “I'll accept that,” agreed Val. “Now, what is it?”

  “Well, I know you and Joel had your problems,”continued the senior partner of Talbot, Brooks andSimon, as though he were referring to aninconsequential spat between children. “But thereare problems and there are problems.”

  “Larry,” interrupted Val again. “There wereproblems. We’re divorced. That means the problemswere serious.’

  “Was physical abuse one of them?” asked Talbotquickly in a low voice, the words obviouslyrepugnant to him.

  Valerie was stunned; it was a question shewould never have expected. “What?”

  You know what I mean. In fits of anger did hestrike you? Cause you bodily harm?”

  "You’re not in a courtroom, and the answer isno, of course not. I might have welcomed it atleast the anger.’

  I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing,’ said Valerie, recovering from herastonishment. "I don’t know what prompted you toask, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Joelhad far more effective ways to deflate my ego thanhitting me. Among them, dear Larry was hisdedication to the career of one Joel Converse inTalbot, Brooks and Simon.”

  “I’m aware of that, my dear, and I’m sorry.Those complaints are perennial in the divorcecourts and I’m not sure there’s anything we can doabout them not in this day and age, perhaps notever. But that’s different. I’m talking about his blackmoods we knew he had them.”

  “Do you know any rational person who doesn’t?”asked the former Mrs. Converse. “This isn’t reallythe best of all possible worlds, is it?”

  “No, it isn’t. But then Joel lived through aperiod of time in a far worse world than most of uswill ever know or could imagine. I can’t believe heemerged from it without a scar or two “

  Valerie paused, touched by the older man’sunadorned directness; it had its basis in concern.“You’re sweet Larry and I suspect you’re right infact, I know it. So I think you should tell me morethan you have. The term physical abuse is what youlawyers call a leading something-or-other. It s notfair because it could also be misleading. Come on,Larry, be fair. He’s not my husband anymore, butwe didn t break apart

  because he chased girls or bashed my head in. I maynot want to be married to him but I respect him.He’s got his problems and l ve got mine, and nowyou’re implying his are a lot bigger. What’shappened?”

  Talbot was silent for a moment, then blurted outthe words, again quickly, quietly; once more theywere obviously repugnant to him. " They say heassaulted a man in Paris without provocation. Theman died.”

  “No, that’s impossible! He didn’t, he couldn’t!”

  “That’s what he told me, but he lied. He told mehe was in Amsterdam, but he wasn’t. He said he wasgoing back to Paris to clear things up, but he didn’tgo. He was in Cermany he’s still somewhere inGermany. He hasn’t left the country and Interpolhas a warrant for him; they’re searching everywhere.Word reached him to turn himself in to theAmerican embassy but he refused. He’sdisappeared.”

  “Oh, my God, you’re all so wrong!” explodedValerie. “You don’t know him! If what you sayhappened, he was at-tacked first physicallyattacked and had no choice but to hit back!”

  “Not according to an impartial witness who didn’tknow either man.”

  “Then he’s not impartial, he’s Iying! Listen to me.I lived with that man for four years and, except fora few trips, all of them in New York City. I’ve seenhim accosted by drunks and street garbage punkshe could have pushed through the pavements, andperhaps some of them he should have but I neversaw him so much as take a step forward. He’d simplyraise the palms of his hands and walk away. A fewtimes some damn fools would call him names andhe’d just stand there and look at them. And let metell you, Larry, that look was enough to make youfeel cold all over. But that’s all he’d do, neveranything more.”

  “Val, I want to believe you. I want to belie
ve itwas self-defence, but he ran away, he’s disappeared.The embassy can help him, protect him, but he won’tcome in.”

  “Then he’s frightened. That can happen, but itwas always for only a few minutes, usually at nightwhen he’d wake up. He’d bolt up, his eyes shut sotight his whole face was a mass of wrinkles. It neverlasted long, and he said it was perfectly natural andnot to worry about it he didn’t, he said. And Idon’t think he really did; he wanted all that in thepast, none of it was ever mentioned.”

  “Perhaps it should have been,” said Talbot softly.

  Valerie replied with equal softness, “douche.Larry. Don’t think I haven’t thought about thatthese last couple of years. But whatever’s happenedhe’s acting this way only because he’s afraid youknow it’s quite possible he’s been hurt. Or, oh myCrJd “

  “All the hospitals and registered doctors havebeen checked,” Talbot broke in.

  "Well, damn it, there’s got to be a reason! Thisisn’t like him and you know it!”

  “That’s just it, Val. Nothing he’s done is like theman I know. "

  The ex-Mrs. Converse stiffened. “To use one ofJoel’s favorite expressions,” she said apprehensively,“clarification please?”

  ”Why not?” answered Talbot, the question wasdirected as much at himself as her. “Perhaps you canshed some light; nobody else can.”

  “What about this man in Paris, the one who died?”

  “There’s not much to tell; apparently he was achauffeur for one of those limousine services.According to the witness a basement guard in thehotel, Joel approached him, yelled something at himand pushed him out the door. There were sounds ofa scuffle and a few minutes later the man was foundseverely beaten in an alley.”