help the three of us will be someplace else.”
“Formidable. I must read.”
“Mon ami mon epoux est an avocat exceptionnel.
”
‘ye com prends. ”
“There are some forty pages here,” said
Converse, bringing the papers to Prudhomme. “To
absorb it will take you at least an hour. We’ll go
downstairs and grab a bite to eat and leave you
alone.”
“Bien. There is much I wish to learn.”
“What about you?” asked Joel, standing over the
Frenchman. “I mean now. They’ll find that body in
the car.”
“Most certainly,” agreed Prudhomme. “I left it
where it was along with that pig from the Legion.
But for the Surete there will be no connection to
me.”
“Fingerprints? The fact that you were away from
your
“Another old habit from the war,” said the man
from the Silrete, reaching into his pocket. He pulled
out a pair of extremely thin rubberised
gloves surgical gloves cut off at the wrist. “I
washed these out at the Bois. The German occu-
pation forces had all our fingerprints in a thousand
files. There was no point in asking for our own
executions. As for my ab
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 615
settee at my desk, it is quite simple. I explained to an
assistant that I would be m Calais for several days on
a contraband investigation and would call in. My
years permit a certain latitude and Hexibility.”
“That’s the Surete, not the others. Not where the
Legionnaire came from.”
“I am aware of that, monsieur. So I must be
careful. It vill not be the first time.”
“Enjoy your reading,” said Converse, nodding at
Val to join him. “If you want anything, call room
service.”
“Bon appetrt,” said Prudhomme.
Chaim Abrahms lifted the stiffening wrist of his
dead wife’s hand, the weapon gripped fiercely in her
white fingers, and angled the gun toward her chest,
into the bloody cavern between her breasts.
The wide, brown eyes would not stay closed.
They stared up at him, accusing accusing!
“What do you want from me!” he screamed. ‘.1
have seen the dead. I have lived with the dead! Leave
me be, womanl You couldn’t understand!”
Yet she had, for so many years. She had cooked
the meat the desert chicken and the lamb, caught
in the outlying marshes and fed the units of the
Irgun and the Haganah, never questioning death
then. Fighting for a hope, a simple hope that was the
beginning of a dream. The land was theirs, rightfully,
Biblically, logically theirs! They had fought and they
had won! Two thousand years of being out-
casts despised, reviled, and spat upon by the
almighty Gentiles until the tribes were burned and
gassed and told to eliminate themselves from the
face of the earth and yet they had survived. Now
the tribes were strong. They were the conquerors, not
the conquered.
“It’s what we fought for! What we prayed for!
Why do you insult me with your eyes!” Chaim
Abrahms roared as he pressed his forehead against
the dead flesh of his wife’s face.
Hitabdut was among the most heinous crimes
committed against the laws of the Talmud. It was
ebudeatzmo, the taking of one’s own life against the
wishes of Almighty God, in whose image man was
created. A Jew who consigned his or her earthly
being to hitabdut was denied burial in the Hebrew
cemetery. It would be so for Chaim Abrahm’s wife,
the most devout human being he had ever known.
616 ROBERT LUDLUM
‘ I have to do it!” he screamed, raising his eyes
in supplication. ‘ It is for the best, can t you
understand ?”
Prudhomme poured himself a cup of coffee and
returned to his chair. Valerie sat opposite him as
Converse stood by the window looking over at the
man from the Surete, listening.
“I cannot think of any other questions,” said the
Frenchman, his intensely troubled eyes darting
about, his lined face looking wearier than before.
“Although it’s possible I’m still too deep in shock to
think at all. To say it’s incredible serves no purpose;
also it would not be true. It’s all too credible. The
world is so frightened it cries out for stability, for a
place to hide, for protection from the skies, from
the streets, from each other. I believe the time has
come when it will settle for sheer, absolute strength,
no matter the cost.”
“The operative word is ‘absolute,’ ” said Joel, “as
in controls and power. A confederation of military
governments fueling one another, interlocking
policies and altering the laws all in the name of
stability and anyone who disagrees with them is
declared unstable and silenced. And if too many
disagree, the chaos erupts again stability wins,
Aquitaine wins. All they need is that initial wave of
terror, a tidal wave of killing and confusion. ‘Key
figures’ were the words they used. ‘Accumulation’ .
. . ‘rapid accelerahon’ chaos. Powerful men cut
down as riots break out in half a dozen capitals and
the generals march in with their commanders.
That’s the scenario, right from their own words.”
“That also is the problem, monsieur. They are
only words, but they are words you can pass along
to very few people, for they could be the wrong
people. You could move up this countdown, as you
call it, trigger this holocaust yourself.”
“The countdown’s running out, make no
mistake,” Converse broke in. “But there is a way.
‘accumulation’ end ‘rapid acceleration’can be used
in another manner, and you’re right it’s only with
words accumulated words, accelerated words. I
can’t come out, not yet. I can’t show myself. There’s
no protection any court or government agency or
the police could provide that would stop them from
killing me, and then, once I’m dead, calling
whatever I said the ravings of a psychopath. Don’t
misunderstand me, I have no death wish, but my
death in itself isn’t important. What is important is
that the truth goes down with me, because I’m the
only one who’s talked
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 617
directly to Delavane’s four caesars over here, and
probably the fifth, the Englishman.”
“And these declaration~these affidavits you speak
of can change that?”
“They can turn things around, maybe just enough.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s a real world out there, a practical,
complicated world that has to be penetrated as fast
as possible people have to be reached who can be
trusted, who can do something. Quickly. It’s what I
wanted to do a couple of weeks ago, but I was going
about it the wrong way. I wanted to get everything I
knew to someone I knew. Nathan Simon, the best
attorney I’ve ever met. I wrote it all out twice not
realizing that I was only tying his hands, probably
killing him.” Joel stepped away from the window, a
lawyer in summation. ‘Whom could he go to without
me, without the presence of an obviously sane man
and not simply the words of a ‘psychopathic killer’?
And if I did come out, as he would have rightfully
insisted, we’re both dead. Then Val told me about
the man in New York who reached her on the phone
and the other who chased her down the street and I
guessed right. Those aren’t the methods of people
who want to kill you; they don’t announce
themselves. They were the men in Washington who
had sent me out and were now trying to make
contact with me. Then she described her meeting
with Sam Abbott and his mentioning this Metcalf, a
man he trusted and who had to be some kind of very
important person for him to tell the story to. Finally,
there was you in Paris what you said, what you did,
and how you offered to help, using the same code as
Rene Mattilon the Tatiana family. Tatiana, a name
or a word I think means trust, even among sharks.”
“You are right, monsieur.”
“That’s when it all came together for me. If I
could somehow establish lines of communication and
reach all of you, there was a way. You people knew
the truth some of you knew all of it; others, like
yourself, knew only fragments, but regardless, you
understood the immensity, the reality of the generals
and their Aquitaine and what they could do, what
they’re doing. Even you, Prudhomme. What did you
say? Interpol is compromised, the police
manipulated, the Surete corrupted official reports
all lies. Added to these, Anstett in New York,
Peregrine, the commander of NATO, Mattilon,
Beale, Sam Abbott . . . Connal Fitzpatrick the only
question
618 ROBERT LUDLUM
mark and God knows how many others. All dead.
The generals are marching forget theories, they’re
killing! . . . If I could convince all of you to write out
affidavits have depositions taken and get them to
Nathan Simon, he’d have the ammunition he needs.
I fed legal mumbo jumbo to Stone in New York;
some of it applies, most of it doesn’t, but he’ll do