picture’s a close-up. I wanted your sunburn in all its
agony.”
“It’s still my face, Val.”
“That photograph was taken eight years ago and
the burn softened your features. It’ll do.”
“Don’t I have to know anything?”
“If you’re detained for that kind of questioning,
you’ll probably be caught. My aunt doesn’t think you
will be.”
“Why is she so confident?”
“The letter. It spells out what you’re doing.”
“Which is?”
“A pilgrimage to Bergen-Belsen, later to Auschwitz
in Po
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 503
land. It’s written in German and you’re to hand it to
anyone who stops you because you speak only
English.”
“But why would that ?”
“You’re a priest,” interrupted Valerie. “The
pilgrimage was financed by an organisation in Los
Angeles called the Coalition of Christians and Jews
for World Peace and Repentance. Only a German
very sure of himself will call attention to you. I’ve got
a dark suit in your size in my tote bag, along with a
black hat, shoes, and a clerical collar. The
instructions will be with your ticket. You’ll take the
northern express to Hanover where you’re supposed
to switch trains for Celle and be driven to
Bergen-Belsen in the morning, but of course you
won’t. When you reach Osnabruck, get off. My aunt
will be waiting for her priest. And by then I’ll be
back in New York getting in touch with Sam..’
Converse shook his head. “Val, it’s all very
impressive, but you weren’t listening to me.
Leifhelm’s men have seen me in that station, as a
matter of fact. They know what I look like.”
“They saw a pale-faced man with a beard and a
battered face. Shave off the beard tonight.”
‘ And apply for cosmetic surgery?”
“No, apply a generous amount of lotion called
Instant Sun it’s with the clothes I brought you. It’ll
darken your face more like the photograph on the
passport and also cover the bruises they won’t be
that noticeable. The black hat and the clerical collar
will take care of the rest.”
“Omens,” said Joel, touching the bruises on his
face and noting that they were less painful. “Do you
remember when you fell and hit the table in the
foyer, the black eye?”
“I was in a panic; I had a presentation the next
day. You went out and got the makeup for me.”
“I bought the same stuff this morning. It helped.”
“I’m glad.”
They looked at each other across the short
distance between them in the moonlit field. “I’m
sorry about everything, Val. I wish you weren’t part
of this. If there was any other way I wouldn’t let you
be, you know that.”
“I know it, but it doesn’t matter to me one way or
the other. I came over here because of a promise I
made to myself a promise I meant. Not you. I’m
over you, Joel, believe that.”
“The promise you made to yourself was provoked by
me.
504 ROBERT LUDLUM
Since I was the offending party of the second part,
that should have canceled it.”
“That’s probably a rotten legal opinion,” said
Val, shifting her legs and looking away. “There’s
also the obvious. Everything you’ve told me terrifies
me not fact A and fact B. or who’s conspiring with
whom; I’m a landscape painter; I can’t deal with
such things. But I’m so terribly afraid because I can
personalise. I can see how these people this
Aquitaine can win, can take control of our lives,
turning us all into complacent flocks of sheep. Good
God, Joel, we’d uvelcome them!”
“I missed something.”
“Then you’re blind. I don’t think it’s just women,
or women who live alone like me, I think it’s most
of the people walking around in the streets, trying
to earn a living, trying to make the rent or a
mortgage or a car payment, trying to make it
through life. We’re sick of everything around us!
We’re told one minute we may be blown up in a
nuclear war unless we’re taxed out of our houses to
pay for bigger bombs and that our water’s
contaminated, or that we can’t buy this or that
because it might be poisoned. Children disappear,
and people are killed walking into a store for a
quart of milk, and addicts and muggers with guns
and knives cut people down on the streets. I live in
a small town and I won’t go there after dark, and if
I’m in the city any city I look behind me in broad
daylight, and I’ll be damned if I’ll get into an
elevator unless it’s crowded…. I couldn’t afford it
but I put in a burglar alarm system in a house I
don’t own because there was a boat out in the water
one day that stayed there overnight. In my mind I
saw men crawling up the beach to my windows. We
all see such things, whether out on the water, or
down city blocks, or in a field like this. We’re
frightened; we’re sick of the problems, sick of the
violence. We want someone strong to stop it and
I’m not sure it even matters who they are. And if
the men you’re talking about push things any fur-
ther_believe me, they know what they’re doing.
They can walk in and be crowned, no votes
required…. And in spite of everything I’ve said,
that’s even more frightening. Which is why you’re
going to take me to the airport.”
“Why did I ever let you go?” whispered Joel,
more to himself than to her.
“Cut it out, Converse. It’s over. We’re over.”
* * *
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 505
He watched from the darkest area of the parking
lot at Amsterdam’s Schilphol Airport as the plane
sped down the runway and lifted off into the night
sky. He had driven up to a crowded platform where
Val had gotten out, giving him the scrap of paper
with the address that was to be his refuge for the
night. So that he would know she had been able to
get on board the flight, she was to come out the
glass doors, look at her watch and go back inside. If
the plane was overbooked, she was to continue on
the pedestrian walk to the temporary lot a hundred
yards away from the entrance where he would be
waiting for her. She had come outside, glanced at
her watch and returned to the terminal. A part of
him had felt relief, another part a quiet, hollow
emptiness.
He watched the huge silver plane bank to the left
and disappear, its fading lights a trajectory in the
dark sky.
He stood naked in front of the mirror in the
small bathroom in the house on the Lindengracht.
The car was some twenty streets away. He had made
the return journey cautiously on foot. The old man
who owned the flat was pleasant and spoke in
haltingly clear English, but his eyes were far away
and never really made contact. His mind was in
another place, another time.
Joel had shaved carefully, showered far longer
than a guest should, and had finished applying the
deep red lotion to his face, neck and hands. In
moments his skin was bronzed. The result was far
more authentic than it used to be with the earlier
products he remembered, when anyone who used
them stood out the mask of sickly brown was too
smooth and cosmeticized to be anything but
unnatural. The new coloring further concealed the
bruises on his face; he looked almost normal. He
would discard the tinted glasses; they would only call
attention to him, especially from anyone who had
seen him or had been given his description. He
washed his hands repeatedly, kneading them together
to remove the stains from his fingertips.
He stiffened. From somewhere beyond the door
came the sound of an erratic bell. He quickly turned
off the water and listened, his breathing suspended,
his eyes on the gun he had placed on the narrow
windowsill. He heard the sound again; it stopped.
Then he heard a single voice, a man on a telephone.
He dried his hands and slipped on the short cotton
bathrobe that had been left on the bed in his small,
immacu
506 ROBERT LUDLUM
late room. He put the gun in his pocket went out
the door and down the dark, narrow hallway that
fed to the old man’s “study.” It was a former
bedroom filled with old magazines a few books, and
tabloid newspapers on tables and chairs opened to
the bloodiest sections, with red crayon marks cir-
cling articles and pictures. On the walls were prints
and photographs of long-past wartime
accomplishments including corpses in various poses
of death. In an odd way it reminded Converse of
L’Etalon Blanc in Paris, except that here there were
no glories of war, only the ugliness of death. It was
more honest, he thought, if nothing else.
“Ah, Meneer, ” said the old man, sitting forward