The Aquaintaine Progession

by Ludlum, Robert

  Caesars, and, later still, was exercised by theemperors of the Holy Roman Empire, then by theRenaissance princes, and finally brought to itsapotheosis by the Soviets and the Germans in thetwentieth century. Unrest preceded violence, andviolence preceded takeover, whether it was arevolution sparked by hundreds of thousands ofoppressed Russians or the strangling inequities of aVersailles treaty.

  Therein lay the weakness of the generals’strategy: the unrest had to exist before the violenceerupted. It required mobs of malcontentedpeople ordinary people who could be worked intoa frenzy, but for that to happen the mobs had to bethere in the first place. The people’s discontentwould be the sign, the prelude, as it were, but where,when? And what could he do, what moves could hemake that would escape the attention of Delavane’sinformers? He was the employer and friend of JoelConverse, the “psychopathic assassin” the generalshad created. He had to presume he was beingwatched at the very least any overt action he tookwould be scrutinised, and if he became suspect hewould be thwarted. His life was immaterial. In asense he was trapped, as he and others like him hadbeen trapped on the beaches of Anzio. They hadrealised that there was a degree of safety in thefoxholes behind the dunes, that to emerge from themwas to face unending mortar fire. Yet they hadknown, too that nothing would be accomplished ifthey remained where they were.

  Contrary to what he had told Peter Stone,Nathan knew precisely whom he had to see not oneman, but three. The President, the Speaker of theHouse, and the Attorney General. The apex of theexecutive branch, the leader of the legislative, andthe nahon’s chief law-enforcement officer. He wouldsee no one of lesser stature, and it was far moreadvantageous to see them all together rather thanindividually. He had to see them, whether separatelyor as a group, and there was his dilemma; it was thetrap. One did not simply pick up a telephone andmake appointments with such men. There wereprocedures, formalities, and screening processes toensure the validity of the requests; men with theirresponsibilities could not waste time. The trap. Theminute his name was mentioned, the word would goout. Delavane himself would know within a matter ofhours, if not minutes.

  Despite Joel’s gratuitous and highly dubiousstatements to Peter Stone, it was not easy to reachpowerful government figures any more than it was logical to have a judgeissue a court order under seal that somehowmiraculously, legally, guaranteed extraordinaryprotection for those same people without informingthe entire security apparatus as to why theprotection was deemed vital. Ridiculous! Such courtorders were reasonable where intimidated witnesseswere concerned before a criminal trial and evenafterward in terms of fabricated rehabilitation, butthat process hardly applied to the White House, theCongress, or the Justice Department. Joel had takena legal maneuver, ballooned it way out of prob-ability, and scaled it up into orbit for a reason, ofcourse. Stone and his colleagues had provideddepositions.

  And yet, thought Simon, there was an odd logicin Converse’s misapplied exaggerations. Not in anyway Joel had considered but as a means to reachthese men. “A court, a single judge . . .” Conversehad said to Stone. That was the logic, the rest wasnonsense. The so preme Court, a justice of thatcourt. Not a request from one Nathan Simon whowould have to be screened, if only in terms ofcontent, not character, but an urgent message to thePresident from a venerated justice of the SupremeCourt! No one would dare question such a man ifhe pronounced his business to be between thePresident and himself. Presidents were far moresolicitous of the Court than of Congress, and withgood reason. The latter was a political battleground,the former an arena of moral judgment. NathanSimon knew the man he could call and see, a justicein his late seventies. The Court was not in session;October was a month away. The justice wassomewhere in New England; his private number wasat the office.

  Nathan blinked, then brought his hand up toshield his eyes. For a brief moment the fireball ofthe early sun had careened a blinding ray through ageometric maze of glass and steel across the parkand entered his window before being blocked by adistant building. And suddenly, at that instant ofblindness, he was given the answer to the terrifyingquesbon of where and when the unrest that had tobe the prelude for the eruption of violence. Therewas scheduled throughout Free Europe, GreatBritain, Canada, and the United States aninternationally coordinated week-long series ofantinuclear protests. Millions of concerned peoplejoining hands and snarling traffic in the streets ofthe major cibes and capitals, making their voicesheard at the expense of normalcy. Rallies to be heldin the parks and in the squares and in

  rout government buildings. Politicians and statesmen,pereiving as always the power of ground swells, hadpromised o address huge crowds everywhere inParis and Bonn, tome and Madrid, Brussels andLondon, Toronto, Ottawa, lew York, andWashington. And again, as always, both the incereadvocates and the posturing sycophants of the bodiesolitic would blame the lack of arms-control progresson the ntransigence of evil adversaries, not on theirown deficien"ies. The genuine and the phony wouldwalk hand in hand cross the many podiums, nonesure of the other’s stripes.

  Crowds everywhere would espouse deeply felt,deeply divisive issues: the believers of universalrestraint would be gifted against those who intenselybelieve in the effectiveness -Jf raw power, and thelatter would surely be heard. No one thought themassive demonstrations would be without incidents,yet how far might these minor confrontationsescalate if the incidents themselves were massive?Units of terrorist fanatics financed anonymously,convinced of their mission to infiltrate and savagelydisrupt so as to get their messages across, messagesof real and or imagined grievances that had nothingto do with the protests, creating chaos primarily be-cause the crowds were not of their world or theirfevers. Crowds- everywhere. These were the hordesof people who could be galvanised by suddenviolence and worked into a state of madness. Itwould be the prelude. Everywhere.

  The demonstrations were scheduled to begin inthree days.

  Peter Stone walked down the wide dirt pathtoward the lake behind the A-frame housesomewhere in lower New Hampshire he did notknow precisely where, only that it was twenty minutesfrom the airport. It was close to dusk, the end of aday filled with surprises, and apparently more wereto come. Ten hours ago, in his room at theAlgonquin, he had called Swissair to see if the flightfrom Geneva was on schedule; he had been told itwas thirty-four minutes ahead of schedule and,barring landing delays, was expected a half-hourearly. It was the first surprise and an inconsequentialone. The second was not. He had arrived at Kennedyshortly before two o’clock, and within a few minuteshe heard the page over the public address system fora "Mr. Lackland,” the name he had given NathanSimon.

  “Take Pilgrim Airlines to Manchester, NewHampshire,’ the lawyer had said. “There’s a reservation for Mr.Lacklanc on the three-fifteen plane. Can you makeit?”

  “Easily. The flight from Geneva’s early. I assumethat’s La Guardi a? “

  “Yes. You’ll be met in Manchester by a manwith red hair. I’ve described you to him. See youaround five-thirty.”

  Manchester, New Hampshire? Stone had beenso sure Simon would ask him to fly to Washingtonthat he had not even bothered to put a toothbrushin his pocket.

  Surprise number three was the courier fromGeneva. A prim, gaunt Englishwoman with a face ofpale granite and the most uncommunicative pair ofeyes he had seen outside of Dzerzhinsky Square. Asarranged, she had met him in front of the Swissairlounge, a copy of the Economist in her left hand.After studying the wrong side of his out-of-dategovernment identification, she had given him theattache case and made the following statement inhigh dudgeon. “I don’t like New York, I never have.I don’t like flying either, but everyone’s been solovely and it’s better to get the whole whack-a-dooover all at once, righto? They’ve arranged for me totake the next plane back to Geneva. I miss mymountains. They need me and I do try to give themmy very all, righto?”

  With that abstruse bit of information she hadsmiled wanly and started back somewhat uncertainlytoward the escalator. It was then that Stone hadbegun to understand. The woman’s eyes did notreveal her condition
but the whole person did. Shewas drunk or, perhaps, “pickled” having over-come her fear of flying with liquid courage.Converse had made a strange choice of a courier,Stone had thought, but had instantly changed hismind. Who could be less suspect?

  The fourth surprise came at the Manchesterairport. An ebullient, middle-aged redheaded manhad greeted him as though they were long-lostfraternity brothers from some Midwestern universityin the late thirties, when such fraternal ties weredeemed far deeper than blood. He was effusive tothe point where Stone was not only embarrassed bythe display of camaraderie but seriously concernedthat unwarranted attention would be drawn to them.But once in the parking lot, the redhead hadsuddenly slammed him into the doorframe of thecar and shoved the barrel of a gun into the back ofhis neck while the man’s free hand stabbed hisclothes for a weapon.

  “I wouldn’t take the risk of going through metaldetectors with a gun, damn it!” protested the ex-CIAagent.

  “Just making sure, spook. I’ve dealt with youassholes, you think you’re something else. Me, I wasFederal.”

  “Which explains a great deal, " said Stone, meaningit.

  “You drive.

  “Is that a question or an order?”

  “An order. All spooks drive,” replied the redhead.

  Surprise number five came in the car as Stonetook the sudden turns commanded by the redheadedman, who casually replaced the gun in his jacketholster.

  “Sorry about the horseshit,” he had said in a voicefar less hostile than it had been in the parking lot,but nowhere near the false ebullience in theterminal. “I had to be careful, piss you off, see whereyou stood, you know what I mean? And I was neverFederal I hated those turkeys. They always wantedyou to know they were better than you were just be-cause they came from D.C. I was a cop in Cleveland,name’s Gary Frazier. How are you?”

  “Somewhat more comfortable,” Stone had said.“Where are we going?”

  “Sorry, pal. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

  Surprise number six awaited Stone when hedrove the car up through the New Hampshire hills toan isolated house of wood and glass, surrounded byforests, the structure an inverted V, two narrowingstories looking out in all directions on woods andwater. Nathan Simon had walked down the stonesteps from the front door.

  “You’ve brought it?” he asked.

  “Here it is,” said Stone, handing the attache caseto the lawyer through the open window. “Where arewe? Who are you seeing?”

  “It’s an unlisted residence, but if everything is inorder we’ll call you. There are guest quartersattached to the boathouse down at the lake. Why notfreshen up after your trip? The driver will point theway. If we need you for anything we’ll ring you onthe phone. It’s a separate number from the house, sojust pick it up.”

  And now Peter Stone was walking down the widedirt path that led to the boathouse by the lake,aware that eyes were following him. Surprise numbersix: be had no idea where he was and Simon wasn’tgoing to tell him unless “everything was in order,”whatever that meant.

  The guest quarters alluded to by the attorneywas a three-room cottage on the edge of the lakewith an entrance to the adjacent boathouse, inwhich was berthed a small sleek motorboat and anondescript catamaran that looked more like a raftwith two canvas seats and fishing equipment fordrift trawling. Stone wandered about trying to findsome clue as to the owner’s identity but there wasnothing. Even the names on the boats weremeaningless, but not lacking in humor.Thecumbersome, raftlike sail was named Hawk whilethe aggressive-looking little speedboat was Dove.

  The former deep-cover intelligence officer saton the porch and looked out at the peaceful watersof the lake and the rolling, darkening green hills ofNew Hampshire. Everything was peaceful. Even thecries of the loons seemed to proclaim thepermanence of tranquility in this special place. ButStone’s insides were not peaceful; his stomachchurned and he remembered what Johnny Reb usedto say in the field. “Trust the stomach, Brer Rabbit,trust the bile. They never lie.” He wondered whatthe Rebel was doing, what he was learning.

  The phone inside the cottage rang, accompaniedby a strident, unnerving clanging of the porch bell.As if jolted by an electric prod, Stone sprang fromthe chair, swung back the door and walked rapidlyacross the room to the telephone.

  “Come up to the house, please,” said NathanSimon, adding, “If you were out on the porch, Iapologise for not telling you about that damnedbell.”

  “I accept your apology. I was.”

  “It’s for guests who expect calls and may be outin one of the boats.”

  “The loons are quiet. I’ll be right there.”

  Stone walked up the dirt path and saw thelawyer standing by a screen door that was thelake-side entrance to the house; it was on a patioreached by curving brick steps. He started climbing,prepared for surprise number seven.

  Supreme Court Justice Andrew Wellfleet, histhinning unkempt white hair falling in strands overhis wide forehead, sat behind the large desk in hislibrary. Converse’s thick affidavit was in front ofhirn, and a floor lamp on his left threw light on thepages. It was several moments before he looked upand removed his steel-rimmed glasses. His eyeswere stern and disapproving, matching thenickname given him over two decades ago when hewas summoned to the Court. “Iras

  cibleAndy” was the sobriquet the clerks had givenhim, but no one ever questioned his awesomeintelligence, his fairness or his devotion to the law.All things considered, surprise number seven was aswelcome a shock as Stone could imagine.

  “Have you read this?’ asked Wellfleet, offeringneither his hand nor a chair.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Stone. “On the plane. It’sessentially what he told me over the phone, in fargreater detail, of course. The affidavit from theFrenchman, Prudhomme, was a bonus. It tells us howthey operate how they re capable

  of operating.”

  “And what in hell did you think you were going todo with all of this?” The elderly justice waved hishand over the desk, on which were scattered theother, affidavits. “Petition the courts here and inEurope to please, if they’d be so kind, to issueinjunctions restricting the activities of all military per-sonnel above a certain rank on the conceivablepossibility that they may be part of this?”

  “I’m not a lawyer, sir, the courts never entered mymind. But I did think that once we had Converse’sown words along with what we knew they’d besufficient to reach the right people in the highestplaces who could do something. Obviously, Conversethought the same thing insofar as he called in Mr.Simon, and if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Justice, you’rereading it all now.”

  “It isn’t enough,” said the Supreme Court justice.“And damn the courts, I shouldn’t have to tell youthat, Mr. Former CIA Man. You need names, a lotmore names, not just five generals, three of whom areretired and one of them, the so-called instigator, aman who had an operation several months ago thatleft him without legs.”

  “Delavane?” asked Simon, stepping away from thewindow.

  “That’s right,” said Wellfleet. “Kind of pathetic,huh? Not exactly the picture of a very imposingthreat, is he?”

  “It could drive him into being an extraordinarythreat.”

  “I’m not denying that, Nate. I’m just looking at thecollection you’ve got here. Abrahms? As anyoneworth his kosher salt in Israel will tell you, he’s astrutting, bombastic hothead a brilliant soldier butwith ten screws loose. Besides his only real concernsare for Israel. Van Headmer? He’s a relic of thenineteenth century, pretty fast with a hangman’s

  rope but his voice doesn’t mean doodlly-shit outsideof South Africa.”

  “Mr. Justice,” said Stone, speaking more firmlythan he had before, "are you implying that we’rewrong? Because if you are, there are othernames and I don’t just mean a couple of attachesat the embassy in Bonn names of men who havebeen killed because they tried to find answers.”

  “You weren’t listening!” snapped Wellfleet. “Ijust told Nate I wasn’t denying anything. How inhell could I? Forty-five million in untracea
ble, illegalexports! An apparatus that can shape the newsmedia here and in Europe, that can corruptgovernment agencies, and as Nate here puts it“create a psychopathic assassin’ so they can find you,or make you back down.. Oh, no, mister, I’m notsaying you’re wrong. I’m saying you better damnwell do what I’m told you’re pretty good at, andyou’d better do it quickly. Haul in this Washburnand any others you can find in Bonn; pick a crosssection of those people at State and the Pentagonand fill ”em full of dope or whatever the hell youuse and get names! And if you ever mention that Isuggested such wanton measures that violate ourmost sacred human rights, I’ll say you’re full of shit.Talk to Nate here. You don’t have time for nicetiesmister.”

  “We don’t have the resources, either,” saidStone. “As I explained to Mr. Simon, there are afew friends I can call upon for information butnothing like what you suggest like what you didn’tsuggest. I simply don’t have the leverage, the menor the equipment. I’m not even employed by thegovernment any longer.”

  “I can help you there.” Wellfleet made a note.“You’ll get whatever you need.”

  “There’s the other problem,” continued Stone.“No matter how careful we are, we’d send outalarms. These people are believers, notjust mindlessextremists. They’re orchestrated; they have lines offullbacks and know exactly what they’re doing. It’sa progression, a logical capitalising on sequencesuntil we’re all forced to accept them or accept theunacceptable, the continuation of violence, ofwholesale rioting, of the killing.”

  “Very nice, mister. And what are you going to do?Noth

  “Of course not. Rightly or wrongly, I believedConverse when he told me that with ouraffidavits with all the evi

  dencewe provided him Mr. Simon could reachpeople we couldn’t reach. Why shouldn’t I havebelieved him? It was an extension of my ownthinking without a Nathan Simon but with Conversehimself. Only, my way would take longer. Theprecautions would be far more elaborate, but it couldbe done. We’d reach the right people and start thecounterattack.”