. ,,
ever.
“But you said you were making good money.
Why did you steal?”
“Why do most men steal?”
“They need it the money or they want things
they can’t have normally, or they’re just basically
dishonest, which I don’t think you are.”
“Go back. Adam stole the apple, Amerikaner.”
“Not exactly. You mean a woman?”
“Many years ago. She was with child and she
did not want her man on the seas and the ships.
She wanted more.” The captain permitted himself
the slightest glint in his eyes and a touch of a smile
on his lips. “She wanted a flower shop.”
From the core of his stomach, his pain
momentarily forgotten, Joel laughed. “You’re quite
a guy, Captain.” I never see you again.”
“Then your nephew ”
“Never see you again!” the German broke in, now
laugh
444 ROBERT LUDLUM
ing out loud himself, his eyes on the water as he
headed into the Dutch marina.
Converse leaned against a piling smoking a
cigarette, the visor of his cheap cap angled over his
forehead, his eyes roaming up and down the pier
and beyond to the repair yard in the Dutch marina.
The men milling about the huge machinery were
mechanically going about their tasks while those
around the boats seemed more intent on inspecting
than doing, shaking their heads solemnly. The
captain argued with the dispenser of fuel, making
obscene gestures at the rapidly climbing figures on
the glass-encased face of the pump while his
softheaded deckhand grinned several feet away. On
board, the Gauner alternately leaned over the
railing, a large wire brush in his hands, and abruptly
turned back to his scraping whenever his employer
glanced over at him.
The time was right, thought Joel as he pushed
himself away from the piling. No one anywhere had
the slightest interest in him; the dismal chores and
the early-morning dissatisfactions took precedence
over the insignificant and unfamiliar.
He started walking up the pier, his pace casual
to the point of being slovenly but his eyes alert. He
proceeded to the edge of the repair yard
approaching a row of hulls in dry dock. Beyond the
last elevated boat, no more than three hundred feet
away, was an inordinately tall hurricane fence and
an open gate. A uniformed guard sat on the left
drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, his chair
angled back into the crisscrossing wire mesh. Seeing
him, Joel stopped, his breath suspended, an internal
alarm going off for no reason. Men passed back
and forth through the gate, but the guard did not so
much as glance at anyone, his eyes devouring only
the tabloid on his lap.
Converse turned, a last look at the river.
Suddenly he became aware of the captain. The
German had run to the base of the pier and was
gesturing wildly, pressing his hands forward in short,
rapid strokes. He was trying to warn Converse.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs; men stared
at him and turned away, none caring to be involved.
They had seen too much in the early hours on the
waterfront, the slashing with hooks too frequently
the language of the docks.
“Laugh Run! Get oral!”
Joel was mystified; he looked around. Then he saw
them.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION “5
Two no three burly men were lurching up from the
pier, their glassy eyes focused on him. The first man
staggered forward to the left of the captain. The
Cerman grabbed his shoulder, swinging him around,
stopping him, but only for seconds as the other two
men crashed their fists into the captain’s neck and
spine. They were animals Gauner their nostrils in-
flamed by the scent of a trapped fat quarry who
might keep them in food and drink for days.
Converse dove under the row of dry-docked
boats, smashing his head on several hurts as he
scrambled toward the other side and the shafts of
light beyond. He could see frantic legs pounding the
earth behind him; they were gaining on him; they
were running, he was crawling. He reached the end
of the suspended row of hulls, sprang out and started
for the gate. He pulled out his shirt, tore off the
lower section and held it against the cuts on his head
as he walked rapidly past the guard and through the
gate. He looked around. The three men were arguing
furiously, drunkenly, among themselves, two
crouching and peering unsteadily under the boats.
Then the man standing saw him. He shouted to the
others; they stood up and started after Joel. He ran
faster, unfit he could see them no longer; the animals
had given up.
He was in the Netherlands; the welcome was less
than gracious, but he was there, one step closer to
Amsterdam. On the other hand he had no idea
where he was right now except that the town was
named Lobith. He had to catch his breath and think.
He stepped into a deserted storefront, where a dark
shade behind the entrance made the glass a dim
mirror it was enough. He was a mess. Think. For
God’s sake, think)
Mattilon had told him to take the train from
Arnhem to Amsterdam, he remembered that clearly.
And the captain of the barge had said he had to take
an “omnibus” from Lobith to Arnhem; there was no
train in Lobith. The first thing he had to do was
reach the railroad station in Arnhem, clean himself
up, then study the crowds and judge whether to risk
becoming part of them. And relative to this
consideration, his mind darted in several directions
at once. The plain-lensed glasses had long since
disappeared, undoubtedly during the insane events in
Wesel; he would replace them with dark glasses.
There was little he could do about the scrapes on his
face, but they would appear less menacing after soap
and water, and certainly in or around a railroad
station something could be done about his torn
clothing…. And a map. God
446 ROBERT LUDLUM
damn it, he was a pilot! He could reach Point A
from Point B and he had to do so quickly. He had
to reach Amsterdam and find a way to make
contact with a man named Cort Thorbecke and
call Nathan Simon in New York. There was so
much to do!
As he walked out of the storefront he was
suddenly aware of what was happening to him. It
had happened before a lifetime ago, in the j
tingles when the fear of the night sounds had
passed and he c ould watch the dawn and accurately
plot his directions, his lines of march, his survival.
He was thinking, his mind functioning again. All
things considered, he was far less the man than
what he had been, but he could be better than he
was he had to be. Every day that passed brought
the generals of Aquitaine closer to whatever
madness they were planning. Everywhere. He and
they had to reverse roles. The hunted had to
become the hunter. Delavane’s disciples had
convinced the world he was a psychopathic assassin,
and so they had to find him, take him, kill him and
hold him up as one more example of the spreading
insanity that could be contained only with their
solutions. Aquitaine had to be exposed and
destroyed before it was too late. The countdown
was in progress, the commanders surely, inexorably,
moving into their positions, consolidating their
powers.
Move! shouted Converse silently to himself as he
walked faster down the pavement.
He sat in the last car of the train, still wary but
satisfied by the progress he had made. He had done
everything cautiously but without wasting mohon,
his concentration absolute, aware of a dozen
possible dangers eyes that stared at him, a man or
a woman seen twice in too short a bme, a clerk
delaying him by being more helpful than the hour
and the crowds would normally permit. These
calculated possibilities were his readouts, his dials,
his gauges; without clearance he would abort all
forward motion, takeoff canceled, the escape hatch
sprung, safety found in the streets. His equipment
was not an aircraft that was an extension of himself,
it was himself; and he had never flown with such
precision in his life.
ENGLISH SPOKE had been the sign tacked to
the roof of the busy corner newsst.md in Lobith. He
had asked directions to the “omnibus” to Arnhem
while buying a map and a newspaper, holding both
close to his face. The owner was too preoccupied
with customers to notice his appearance and
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 447
shouted rapid instructions, more useful in the
pointed finger than in the words. Joel found the bus
stop some four blocks away. He sat in the crowded
vehicle, his face buried in a newspaper he could not
read, and forty-odd minutes later he got off at the
railroad station in Arnhem.
First on his checklist was a trip to the farthest