and spend tomorrow morning holding hands.”
“Why not hold mine?”
“They’re too cold. You can, however, buy me
dinner.”
“Be delighted, but first I need a favor. Can you
grab a cab and pick me up at the consulate on
Museumplein?”
“What. . . ?” The pause was filled with fear.
“Why, Jack?” The question was a whisper.
Converse lowered his voice. “I’ve been here for
a couple of hours taking too damn much abuse and
I’m afraid I blew my cork.”
“What happened? ”
“It was dumb. My passport expired today and I
needed a temporary extension. Instead I got a
half-dozen lectures and told to come back in the
morning. I was very loud and not too benign.”
“And now it would be embarrassing for you to
ask them to call you a cab, is that it?”
“That’s it. If I knew this part of the city I’d walk
and try to find one, but I’ve never been over here
before.”
“I’ll straighten my face and pick you up. Say in
about twenty minutes?”
“Thanks, I’ll be outside. If I’m not, wait in the
cab, I’ll only be a few minutes. You’ve got yourself
a good dinner, young
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 481
ster.” Joel hung up the phone, left the booth and
went back to the rented car. The waiting had begun,
the watching would soon follow.
Ten minutes later he saw her, and the pounding
in his chest accelerated. A mist clouded his eyes. She
walked out the glass doors of the Amstel, carrying a
large, dark cloth bag, her posture erect, her stride
long and graceful, bespeaking the dancer she might
have been, announcing her presence without
pretence, telling anyone who watched her that she
was herself; no artifices were necessary. He had once
loved her so, as much for the person she appeared
to be as for the woman she was. But he had not
loved her enough, she had slipped away from him
because he had not cared enough. There was not
that muc h love or care in him. “Burn-out!” she had
shouted. “Emotional burn-out!”
There had been nothing left to say; he could not
dispute her. He had been running so fast, so
furiously, wanting it all yet not wanting to remember
the reasons why wanting only to get even. He had
concealed the intensity of his feelings with flippancy
and a casualness that bordered on disdain, but he
was not casual at all, and there was little room for
the time consumed in being disdainful. There was
also very little room for people, for Val. Being
together demanded the responsibility that was part
of any relationship, and as the months stretched into
a year, then two and three, he knew it was not in
him to live up to that responsibility. As much as he
profoundly disliked himself for it, he could not be
dishonest with either himself or Valerie. He had
nothing left to give; he could only take. It was better
to break clean.
The waiting was over; the watching began. The
Amstel doorman hailed her a cab and she climbed
in, immediately leaning forward in the seat to give
instructions. Twenty tense seconds later, during
which his eyes scanned the street and the pavements
in every direction, he started the car and switched on
the headlights. No automobile had crept out from
the curb after the taxi; still, he had to be certain.
Joel swung the wheel and drove into the street,
heading for the most direct route to the consulate. A
minute later he saw Val’s cab take the correct right
turn over a canal. There were two cars behind her;
he concentrated on their shapes and sizes; instead of
following, he continued straight ahead, pressing
down on the accelerator, using an alternate route on
the bare chance that he himself had been picked up
by a hunter from Aqui
482 ROBERT LUDLUM
taine.Three minutes later, after two right turns and
a left, he entered the Museumplein. The taxi was
directly ahead, the two other automobiles no longer
in sight. His strategy was working. The possibility
that Val’s phone was being tapped was real Rene’s
had been, and his death was the result so in Val’s
case he assumed the worst. If it was relayed that the
Charpentier woman was heading over to the
American consulate to pick up a business
acquaintance, one Joel Converse would be ruled
out. The consulate was no place for the fugitive
assassin; he would not go near it. He was a killer of
Americans.
The taxi pulled into the curb in front of 19
Museumplein, the stone building that was the
consulate. Converse remained a half-block behind,
waiting again, watching again. Several cars went by,
none stopping or even slowing down. A lone cyclist
pedaled down the street, an old man who braked
and turned around and disappeared in the opposite
direction. The tactic had worked. \’al was alone in
the cab thirty yards away and no one had followed
her from the Amstel. He could make his final move
to her, his hand under his coat, gripping the gun
with the perforated silencer attached to the barrel.
He got out of the car and walked up the
pavement, his gait slow, casual, a man taking a
summer night’s stroll in the square. There were
perhaps a dozen people couples mainly also
walking, strolling in both directions. He studied
them as a frenzied but rigid cat studies the new
mounds of mole holes in a field; no one in the
street had the slightest interest in the stationary taxi.
He approached the rear door and knocked once on
the window. She rolled it down.
They stared at each other for a brief moment,
then Val brought her hand to her lips, stifling a
gasp. “Oh, my Cod,” she whispered.
“Pay him and walk back to a grey car about two
hundred feet behind us. The last three numbers on
the license are one three, six. I’ll be there in a few
minutes.” He tipped his hat, as if he had just
answered a question from a bewildered tourist, and
proceeded down the pavement. Forty feet past the
taxi, at the end of the block, he turned and crossed
the square reaching the other side with his head
angled to the left, a pedestrian watching for traffic;
in reality he was apprehensively watching a lone
woman make her way down the sidewalk toward an
automobile. He went swiftly into the shadows of a
doorway and stood there watching, breathing
erratically,
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 483
peering into every pocket of darkness along the
opposite pavement. Nothing. No one. He walked out
of the doorway, suppressing a maddening desire to
run, and ambled casually down the block until he was
directly across from the rented car. Again he paused,
now lighting a cigarette, the flame cupped in his
hand, again waiting, watching…. No one. He threw
the cigarette to the curb and, unable to contain
himself any longer, ran across the street, opened the
door and climbed in behind the wheel.
She was inches from him, her long, dark hair
framing her face in the dim light, that lovely face
taut, filled now with anxiety, her wide eyes burning
into his.
“Why, Val? Why did you do it?” he asked, a cry in
the question.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she answered quietly,
enigmahcally. “Drive away from here, please.”
28
They drove for several minutes. Neither of them
spoke. Joel was concentrating on the streets, knowing
the turns he wanted to make knowing, too, he
wanted to shout. It was all he could do to control
himself, to keep from stopping the car and grabbing
her, demanding to know why she had done what she
did, furiously replying to whatever she said that she
was a goddamnedfool! Why had she come back into
his life? He was death! . . . Above all, he wanted to
hold her in his arms his face against hers, and thank
her and tell her how sorry he was for so much, for
now.
“Do you know where you’re going?” asked Val,
breaking the silence.
“I’ve had the car since six o’clock. A map of the
city came with it and I’ve spent the hme driving
around, learning what I thought I had to learn.”
“Yes, you’d do that. You were always methodical. ‘
‘I thought I should, ” he said defensively. “I
followed you from the hotel just in case anybody else
did. Also I’m better off in a car than on the streets.”
484 ROBERT LUDLUM
“I wasn’t insulting you.”
Converse glanced at her; she was studying him,
her eyes roving over his face in the erratic
progressions of light and shadow. “Sorry. I guess I’m
a little sensitive these days. Can’t imagine why.”
“Neither can 1. You’re only wanted on two
continents and in some eight countries. They say
you’re the most talented assassin since that maniac