The Aquaintaine Progession

by Ludlum, Robert

  cer’s companion across the table, a baldingmiddle-aged man who had been speaking Englishwith a pronounced German accent. “But Mollywould never forgive this pore old Georgia cracker ifhe didn’t say hello to her son and insist on buyin’him a drink. "

  “I’m afraid I’m at a loss,’ said Washburnpleasantly but without enthusiasm.

  “I would be, too, young fella. I know it soundscornpone, but you were just barely in long pantsback then. The last time I saw you, you were in ablue blazer jacket and madder "n hell at losinga.soccer game. I think you blamed it on your leftwing, which in my opinion then and now is a logicalplace to blame anythtug. “

  The major and his companion laughedappreciatively.

  Good Lord, that does go back a long hme towhen I was at Dalton.”

  “And captain of the team, as I recall.”

  “How did you ever recognize me?”

  “I dropped in on your momma the other week atthe house in Southampton. Proud girl that she is,there were a few real handsome photographs of youin the living room.”

  “Of course, on the piano.”

  “That’s where they were, silver frames and all.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Thayer. Thomas Thayer, or just plain old T.T.as your momma calls me.” The two shook hands.

  “Good to see you again, sir,” said Washburn,gesturing at his companion. “This is Herr Stammler.He handles a great deal of our press relations withthe West German media.”

  “How do you do Mr. Stammler.”

  “A pleasure, Herr Thayer.”

  “Speakin’ of the embassy and I assume you were,I promised Molly I’d ring you up over there when Igot here. Mah word on it, I was gain’ to do just thattomorrow I’m fightin’ .’et lag today. One hell of acoincidence, isn’t it? You bein’ here and my bein’here, right next to each other!”

  “Major,” interrupted the German courteously.“Two people who go back so many years must havea great deal to reminisce about. And since ourbusiness is fundamentally concluded, I think I shallpress on.”

  “Now, hold on, Mr. Stammler,” objected Thayer.“Ah simply couldn’t allow you to do that!”

  “No, really, it’s perfectly all right.” The Germansmiled.

  “Truthfully, Major Washburn felt he should insist ontaking me to dinner this evening after the terriblethings we’ve had to deal with during the past fewdays he far more than I but to be quite honest,I’m exhausted. Also I am far older than my youngfriend and nowhere near as resilient. The bed criesout, Herr Thayer. Believe me when I tell you that.”

  “Hey, Mr. Stammler, Ah’ve got an idea. You’refanned out and I’m droppin’ from the jet stream, sowhy don’t we leave the young skunk here and bothhit the pillows?”

  “But I couldn’t allow you to do that.” TheGerman got up from the table and extended his handto Thayer. They shook, and Stammler turned toWashburn, shaking his hand also. “I’ll call you in themorning, Norman.”

  “All right, Gerhard…. Why didn’t you just say youwere tired?”

  “And conceivably offend one of my largestclients? Be reasonable, Norman. Good night,gentlemen.” The German smiled again, and walkedaway.

  “Ah guess we’re stuck with each other, youngman,” said the Southerner. “Why not move over hereand let me save the embassy a couple of dollars?”

  “All right,” replied Washburn, getting up with hisdrink and sidling between the tables to the chairopposite Thayer. He sat down. “How is Mother? Ihaven’t called her in a couple of weeks.”

  “Molly is always Molly, my boy. She came forthand they broke the mold, but I don’t have to tell youthat. She looks the same as she did twenty years ago.I swear I don’t know how she does ill”

  “And she’s not going to tell you, either.”

  Both men laughed as the Southerner raised hisglass and brought it forward for the touch. Theglasses met, a gentle ring was heard. It was thebeginning.

  Converse waited, watching from a dark storefronton the shabby street in Emmerich. Across the waywere the dim lights of a cheap hotel, the entranceuninviting, sleazy. Yet with any luck he would havea bed there in the next few minutes. A bed with asink in the corner of the room and, with even moreluck, hot water with which he could bathe his woundand change the bandage again. During the last twonights he had learned that such places were his onlypossibilities for refuge. No questions would be askedand a false name

  on a registration card expected. But even the mostsullen greeting was a menace for him. He had onlyto open his mouth and whatever came out identifiedhim as an American who could not speak German.

  He felt like a deaf-mute running a gauntlet,careening off walls of people. He was helpless, sogoddamned helpless! The killings in Bonn, Brusselsand Wesel had made every American male overthirty and under fifty suspect. The melodramaticsuspicions were compounded by speculations thatthe obsessed man was being aided, perhapsmanipulated, by terrorist organizahonsBaader-Meinhof, the PLO, Libyan splinter groups,even KGB destabilizahon teams sent out by thedreaded Voennaya. He was being huntedeverywhere, and as of yesterday, the InternationalHerald Tribune printed further reports that theassassin was heading for Paris which meant thatthe generals of Aquitaine wanted the concentrationto be on Paris, not where they knew he was, wheretheir soldiers could run him down, take him, killhim.

  To get off the streets he had to move with theflotsam and jetsam and he needed a run-down hotellike the one across the street. He knew he had toget off the streets; there were too many trapsoutside. So on the first night in Wesel he re-membered the student Johann, and looked for waysto re-create similar circumstances. Young peoplewere less prone to be suspicious and more receptiveto the promise of financial reward for a friendlyservice.

  It was odd, but that first night in Wesel was boththe most difficult and the easiest. Difficult becausehe had no idea where to look, easy because ithappened so rapidly, so logically.

  First he stopped at a drugstore, buying gauze,adhesive tape, antiseptic and an inexpensive capwith a visor. Then he went to a cafe, to the men’sroom, where he washed his face and the wound,which he bound tight, skin joining skin, the bandagefirmly in place. Suddenly, as he finished hisministrations, he heard the familiar words andemphatic melody young raucous voices in song: “On,Wisconsin…. On, Wisconsin . . . on to victoreee. . .”

  The singers were a group of students from theGerman Society at the University of Wisconsin, ashe later found out who were bicycling through thenorthern Rhineland. Casually approaching a youngman getting more beers from the bar andintroducing himself as a fellow American, he told an

  outrageous story of having been taken by a whoreand rolled by her pimp, who stole his passport-butnever thought of a money belt. He was a respectedbusinessman who had to sleep it off, gather his wits,and reach his firm back in New York. However, hespoke no German, would the student consider thepayment of $100 for helping him out?

  He would and did. Down the block was a dingyhotel where no questions were asked; the young manpaid for a room and brought Converse, who waswaiting outside, his receipt and his key.

  All yesterday he had walked, following the roadsin sight of the railroad tracks until he reached a townnamed Halden. It was smaller than Wesel, but therewas a run-down, industrial section east of therailroad yards. The only “hotel” he could find,however, was a large, shoddy house at the end of arow of shoddy houses with signs saying ZIMMER, 20MARK in two first-floor windows and a larger oneover the front door. It was a boardinghouse, andseveral doors beyond in the spill of the streetlampsaheated argument was taking place between an olderwoman and a young man. Above, a few neighbors satin their windows, arms on the sills, obviouslylistening. Joel also listened to the sporadic wordsshouted in heavily accented English.

  “. . . “I hate it here!’ Das habe ich ihm gesagt. ”Ido not care to stay, Onkel! I vill go back toGermany! Maybe join .Baader-Meinhofl’ Das halveich item gesagt.”

  “Barr!” screamed the woman, turning and goingup th
e steps. “Schweinehund!” she roared, as sheopened the door, went inside and slammed it shutbehind her.

  The young man had looked up at his audience inthe windows and shrugged. A few clapped, so hemade an exaggerated, elaborate bow. Converseapproached; there was no harm in trying, he thought.“You speak very good English,” he said.

  “dye not?” replied the German. “They spend bagsof groceries for five years to give me lessons. I mustgo to her brother in America. I say Nein! They sayda! I go. I hate it!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m an American and Ilike the Cerrnan people. Where were you?”

  “In Yorktown.”

  “Virginia?”

  “Nein! The city of New York.”

  “Oh, that Yorktown.”

  "Ja, my uncle has two butcher shops in NewYork, in what they call Yorktown. Shit, as you sayin America!’

  “I’m sorry. Why?”

  “The Schwarzen and theJuden! If you speak likeme, the black people steal from you with knives, andthe Jews steal from you with their cash registers.hreinie, they call me, and Nazi. I told a Jew hecheated me I vas nice, I vas not impolite and hetold me to get out of his shop or he call the "cops !I vas shit, he said! . . . You vear a good Germansuit and spend good German money, they don t saythose things. You are a delivery boy trying to learn,they kick the shit out of you, What do I know! Myfather vas only a fourteen-year-old sol dier. Shit!”

  “Again, I’m telling you I’m sorry. I mean it. It’snot in our nature to blame children.’

  “Shit!”

  “Perhaps I can make up for a little of what youwent through. I m in trouble because I was astupid American. But I’ll pay you a hundredAmerican dollars . . .”

  The young German happily got him a room atthe boardinghouse. It was no better than the one inWesel, but the water was hotter, the toilet nearerhis door.

  Tonight was different from the other nights hehad spent in Germany, thought Joel, as he lookedacross the street at the decrepit hotel in Emmerich.Tonight could lead to his passage into Holland. ToCort Thorbecke and a plane to Washington Theman Joel had recruited was somewhat older thanthe oth ers who had helped him. He was a merchantseaman out of Bremerhaven, in Emmerich to makea duty call on his family with whom he felt ill atease. He had made the obligatory call been soundlyrebuked by his mother and father, and had returnedto the place and the people he loved best a bar atthe bend of the riverbank.

  Again, as it had been in Wesel, it was theEnglish Iyrics of a song that had caught Joel’sattention. He stared at the young seaman standingat the bar and playing a guitar. This time it was nota college football song but an odd, haunting mixtureof slow biting rock and a sad madrigal: “. . . Whenyou finally came down, when your feet hit theground, did you know where you were? When youfinally were real, could you touch what you feel,were you there in the know? . . . "

  The men around the bar were caught up by theprecise

  beat of the minor-key music. When the seamanfinished there was respectful applause, followed by aresumption of fast talk and faster refilling of mugs ofbeer. Minutes later Converse was standing next tothe seagoing troubador, the guitar now slung over hisshoulder and held in place by a wide strap like aweapon. Joel wondered if the man really knewEnglish or only Iyrics. He would find out in seconds.The seaman laughed at a companion’s remark; whenthe laughter subsided, Converse said, "I’d like to buyyou a drink for reminding me of home. It was a nicesong.”

  The man looked at him quizzically. Joelstammered thinking that the seaman had no ideawhat he was talking about. Then, to Converse’srelief, the man answered. “Danke. It is a good song.Sad but good, like some of ours. You areAmerikaner?”

  “Yes. And you speak English.”

  “Okay. I don’t read no good, aber I speak okay.I’m on merchant ship. We sail Boston, New York,Baltimore sometimes ports, Florida.”

  “What’ll you have?”

  “Sin Bier,” said the seaman, shrugging.

  “Why not whisky?”

  "Baja?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Ja. “

  Minutes later they were at a table. Joel told hisstory about a nonexistent whore and a fictional pimp.He told it slowly not because he felt he had to pacethe narrative to his listener’s understanding, butbecause another option was coming sharply intofocus. The guitar-playing merchantman was young,but there was a patina about him that indicated heknew the docks and the waterfront and the variousbusinesses that flourished in that very special world.

  “You should go to the Polizei, ” said the manwhen Converse had finished. “They know the whoresand they will not print your name.” The Germansmiled. “We want you back to spend more money.”

  “I can’t take the chance. In spite of the way Ilook, I deal with a lot of important people here andin America.”

  “Which makes you important, ja?”

  “And very stupid. If I could just get over intoHolland, I could handle everything.”

  “Die IViederlande? Vat is problem?”

  “I told you, my passport was taken. And it’s justmy luck that every American crossing any border islooked at very carefully. You know, that crazybastard who killed the ambassador in Bonn and theNATO commander.

  “Ja, and in Wesel two, three days ago, said theGerman. “They say he goes to Paris.

  "I m afraid that doesn t help me…. Look, youknow the river people, the men who have boatsgoing out every day. I told you l d pay you ahundred dollars for the hotel….

  “I agreed. You are generous.

  “I’ll pay you a great deal more if you cansomehow get me over into Holland. You see, mycompany has an office in Amsterdam. They can helpme. Will you help me?”

  The German grimaced and looked at his watch.“Is too late for such arrangements tonight and Ileave for Bremerhaven on the morning train. Myship sails at fifteen hundred.

  “That was the amount I had in mind. Fifteenhundred. "

  “Deutsche marks?”

  “Dollars.

  “You are more crazy than your Landsmann whokills soldiers. If you knew the language, it cost nomore than fifty.

  “I don t know the language. Fifteen hundredAmerican dollars for you if you can arrange it.

  The young man looked hard at Converse, thenmoved back his chair. “Wait here. I will make phonecall.

  “Send over more whisky on your way.

  “Danke. “

  The waiting was spent in a vacuum of anxiety.Joel looked at the weathered guitar Iying across anextra chair. What were the words? . . . When you fnally came down, when your feet hit the ground . . .did you know where you were? When you f sally werereal, could you touch . . . what you feel, were youthere in the know?. . .

  “I will stop for you at five o’clock in themorning, announced the merchant seaman, who satdown with two glasses of whisky. “The captain willaccept two hundred dollars, aber only if there are nodrugs. If there are drugs, you don’t come on board.”

  “I have no drugs, ’said Converse, smiling,controlling his elation. “That’s done and you veearned your money. I pay you at the dock or pieror whatever it is.

  “Natu’rlich.

  * * *

  It had all happened less than an hour ago,thought Joel, watching the hotel entrance across thestreet. At five o’clock in the morning he would be onhis way to Holland, to Amsterdam, to a man namedCort Thorbecke, Mattilon’s broker of illegalpassports. All the passenger manifests on all aircraftheading for the United States would be watched byAquitaine, but a hundred years ago he had learnedthat there were ways to elude the watchers. He haddone it before from a deep, cold shaft in the groundand despite a barbed-wire fence in the darkness. Hecould do it again.

  A figure emerged under the dimly lit marquee ofthe hotel. It was the young merchant seaman.Grinning, he beckoned Converse to join him.

  “Hell’s fire and Jeesus H. what is it, Norman?”cried the Southerner, as Washburn suddenly wentinto an erratic of convulsions, his lips trembling as hegasped for air.

  “I
. . . don’t . . . know.” The major’s eyes grewwide, the pupils now dancing and out of control.

  "Maybe it’s that Heimlich thing!” said ThomasThayer, rising from the banquette and quicklymoving toward Washburn. Hell no, it can’t be! Ourfood’s not here; you haven’t eaten!”

  The couples near by expressed alarm, talkingloudly, rapidly in German. At a remark made by oneof the diners, the Southerner turned and spoke tothe man. “Midas glaube ich night, ” said Johnny Rebin flawless German. ”Alein Wagen sight draussen Ichweiss einen Arzt. “

  The maitre d’ came rushing over and, seeing thatthe commotion involved the Americans, addressedhis concern in English. “Is the major ill, sir? Shall Iask if there is . . .”

  “No doctor I’m not familiar with, thanks,”interrupted Thayer, bent over the embassy’s charged’affaires, who was now inhaling deeply, his eyes halfclosed, his head swaying back and forth. “This here isMolly Washburn s boy and I’ll see he gets the best!My car’s outside. Maybe if a couple of your waiterswill give a hand we can put him in the limo and I’lltake him right over to my man. He’s a specialist. Atmy age you gatta have ”em everywhere.”

  "Restimmt. Certainly!” The maitre d’ snapped hisfingers; three busboys responded instantly.

  “The embassy . . . the embassy! " choked Washburn asthe

  three men half carried the officer to the door of therestaurant.

  “Don’t you worry, Norman-boy!” said theSoutherner hearing the plea, walking with themaltre d’. “I’ll phone “em from the car, tell ”em tomeet us at Rudi’s place.” Thayer turned to theGerman beside him. “You know what Ah think? Ahthink this fine soldier is jest plumb wore out. He’sbeen workin’from sunrise to sunrise with nary abreak. I mean, can you imagine everything he’s hadto contend with these last couple of days? Thatcrazy mongrel goin around shootin’ up a feud, killin’the ambassador, then that honcho in Brussels! Youknow, Molly’s boy here is the charday d’affaires.”

  “Yes, the major is our guest frequently anhonored guest.”

  “ Well, even the most honorable among us has aright and a hme to say ”The hell with it, I’ll sit thisone out.’”