“Spell that out.”
“Those on the left are key figures in the State
Department’s Office of Munitions Control. They
determine what gets cleared for export, who under
the blanket of ‘rational interest’ can receive weapons
and technology withheld from others. On the right
are the senior officers at the Pentagon on whose
word millions upon millions are spent for armament
procurements. All are decision makers and a
number of those decisions have been questioned, a
few openly, others quietly by diplomatic and military
colleagues. We’ve learned that much ”
“Questioned? Why?” interrupted Converse.
“There were rumors there always are
rumors of large shipments improperly licensed for
export. Then there’s surplus military
equipment excess supplies lost in transfers
52 ROBERT LUDLUM
from temporary warehouses and out-of-the-way
storage depots. Surplus equipment is easily
unaccounted for, it’s an embarrassment in these
days of enormous budgets and cost overruns. Get
rid of it and don’t be too particular. How fortunate
in these instances and coincidental if a member
of this Aquitaine shows up, willing to buy and with
all his papers in order. Whole depots and
warehouses are sent where they shouldn’t be sent.”
“A Libya connection?”
“There’s no doubt of it. A great many connections.”
“Halliday mentioned it and you said it a few
moments ago. Laws broken arms, equipment,
technological information sent to people who
shouldn’t have them. They break loose on cue and
there’s disruption, terrorism ”
“Justifying military responses,” old Beale broke
in. “That’s part of Delavane’s concept. Justifiable
escalation of armed might, the commanders in
charge, the civilians helpless, forced to listen to
them, obey them.”
“But you just said questions were raised.”
“And answered with such worn-out phrases as
‘national security’ and ‘adversarial disinformation’ to
stop or throw off the curious.”
“That’s obstruction. Can’t they be caught at it?.’
“By whom? With what?”
“Damn it, the questions themselves!” replied
Converse. “Those improper export licenses, the
military transfers that got lost, merchandise that
can’t be traced.”
“By people without the clearances to go around
security classifications, or lacking the expertise to
understand the complexities of export licensing.”
“That’s nonsense,” insisted Joel. “You said some
of those questions were asked by diplomatic
personnel, military colleagues, men who certainly
had the clearances and the expertise.”
“And who suddenly, magically, didn’t ask them
any longer. Of course, many may have been
persuaded that the questions were, indeed, beyond
their legitimate purviews; others may have been too
frightened to penetrate for fear of involvement;
others still, forced to back off frankly threatened.
Regardless, behind it all there are those who do the
convincing, and they’re growing in numbers
everywhere.”
“Christ, it’s a a network,” said Converse softly.
The scholar looked hard at Joel, the night light on
the
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 53
water reflecting across the old man’s pale, lined face.
“Yes, Mr. Converse, a ‘network.’ That word was
whispered to me by a man who thought I was one of
them. ‘The network,’ he said. ‘The network will take
care of you.’ He meant Delavane and his people.”
“Why did they think you were a part of them?”
The old man paused. He looked briefly away at
the shimmering Aegean, then back at Converse.
“Because that man thought it was logical. Thirty
years ago I took off a uniform, trading it for the
Harris tweeds and unkempt hair of a university
professor. Few of my colleagues could understand,
for, you see, I was one of the elite, perhaps a later,
American version of Erich Leifhelm a brigadier
general at thirty-eight, and the Joint Chiefs were
conceivably my next assignment. But where the
collapse of Berlin and the G6tterdammerung in the
bunker had one effect on Leifhelm, the evacuation
of Korea and the disembowelment of Panmunjom
had another effect on me. I saw only the waste, not
the cause I once saw only the futility where once
there’d been sound reasons. I saw death, Mr.
Converse, not heroic death against animalistic hordes
or on a Spanish afternoon with the crowds shouting
‘Ore, ‘ but just plain death. Ugly death, shattering
death. And I knew I could no longer be a part of
those strategies that called for it…. Had I been
qualified in belief, I might have become a priest.”
“But your colleagues who couldn’t understand,”
said Joel, mesmerized by Beale’s words, words that
brought back so much of his own past. “They thought
it was something else?”
“Of course they did. I’d been praised in
evaluation reports by the holy MacArthur himself. I
even had a label: the Red Fox of Inchon my hair
was red then. My commands were marked by
decisive moves and countermoves, all reasonably well
thought out and swiftly executed. And then one day,
south of Chunchon, I was given an order to take
three adjacent hills that comprised dead high
ground vantage points that served no strategic
purpose and I radioed back that it was useless real
estate, that whatever casualties we sustained were
not worth it. I asked for clarification, a field officer’s
way of saying ‘You’re crazy, why should I?’ The reply
came in something less than fifteen minutes. Because
it’s there, General.’ That was all. Because it’s there.’
A symbolic point was to be made for someone’s
benefit or someone else’s macho news briefing in
Seoul…. l took the hills, and I also
54 ROBERT LUDLUM
wasted the lives of over three hundred men and
for my efforts I was awarded another cluster of the
Distinguished Service Cross.”
“Is that when you quit?”
“Oh, Lord no, I was too confused, but inside, my
head was boiling. The end came, and I watched
Panmunjom, and was finally sent home, all manner
of extraordinary expectations to be considered my
just rewards…. However, a minor advancement was
denied me for a very good reason: I didn’t speak the
language in a sensitive European post. By then my
head had exploded; I used the rebuke and I took
my cue. I resigned quietly and went my way.”
It was Joel’s turn to pause and study the old
man in the night light. “I’ve never heard of you,” he
said finally. “Why haven’t I ever heard of you?”
“You didn’t recognize the names on the two
lower lists either, did you? ‘Who are the
Americans?’ you said. ‘The names don’t mean
anything to me.’ Those were your words, Mr.
Converse.”
“They weren’t young decorated
generals heroes in a war.”
“Oh, but several were,’) interrupted Beale swiftly,
“in several wars. They had their fleeting moments in
the sun, and then they were forgotten, the moments
only remembered by them, relived by them.
Constantly.”
“That sounds like an apology for them.”
“Of course it is! You think I have no feelings for
them? For men like Chaim Abrahms, Bertholdier,
even Leifhelm? We call upon these men when the
barricades are down, we extol them for acts beyond
our abilities….”
“You were capable. You performed those acts.”
“You’re right and that’s why I understand them.
When the barricades are rebuilt, we consign them to
oblivion. Worse, we force them to watch inept
civilians strip the gears of reason and, through
oblique vocabularies, plant the explosives that will
blow those barricades apart again. Then when
they’re down once more, we summon our
commanders.”
“Jesus, whose side are you on?”
Beale closed his eyes tightly, reminding Joel of
the way he used to shut his own when certain
memories came back to him. “Yours, you idiot,” said
the scholar quietly. “Because I know what they can
do when we ask them to do it. I meant what I said
before. There’s never been a time in history like
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 55
this one. Far better that inept, frightened civilians,
still talking, still searching, than one of us forgive
me, one of them ”
A gust of wind blew off the sea; the sand spiraled
about their feet. “That man,” said Converse, “the one
who told you the network would take care of you.
Why did he say it?”
“He thought they could use me. He was one of
the field commanders I knew in Korea, a kindred
spirit then. He came to my island for what reason
I don’t know, perhaps a vacabon, perhaps to find me,
who knows and found me on the waterfront. I was
taking my boat out of the Plati Harbor when
suddenly he appeared, tall, erect and very military in
the morning sun. ‘We have to talk,’ he said, with that
same insistence we always used in the field. I asked
him aboard and we slowly made our way out of the
bay. Several miles out of the Plati he presented his
case, their case. Delavane’s case.,’
“What happened then?”
The scholar paused for precisely two seconds,
then answered simply, “I killed him. With a scaling
knife. Then I dropped his body over a cluster of
sharks beyond the shoals of the Stephanos.”
Stunned, Joel stared at the old man the
iridescent light of the moon heightened the force of