been there for a minimum of twenty-two to a
maximum of thirty-four days. They were in a
concentration camp somewhere on some
indeterminate coastline, not knowing their crimes,
real or imagined by their captors.
“Que pastas” asked a prisoner named Enrique
from Madrid.
“Es lo mismo Athena en el camps de manio/oras,
” replied Fitzpatrick, nodding his head at the
window, and continued in Spanish, “They’re killing
stuffed dummies out there, figuring each hit makes
them heroes or martyrs or both.”
“It’s crazy!” cried the Spaniard. “It’s crazy and
it’s sick in the head! What do they accomplish? Why
this madness?”
“They’re going to cut down a lot of important
people eight days from now. They’re going to kill
them during some kind of international holiday or
celebration or something like that. What the hell is
happening eight days from now? Have you any
idea?”
“I am only a major at the garrison at Zaragoza.
I make my reports on the Basque provisionals, and
read my books What do I know of such things?
Whatever it is, it would not reach
Zaragoza barbarous country, but I would wear
corporal’s stripes to return to it.”
“Vise! Contre la muraille!”
“Schnell! Gegen die Mauer!”
“Move! Against the wall!”
“Pa presto! Contro it muro. ”
Four guards burst through the barracks doors,
others following, repeating the same order in
different languages. It was a manacles-and-chain
inspection, carried out at whim day and night, never
less than once an hour during the daylight as
frequently as four times at night. The slightest
evidence of
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 511
any prisoner having attempted to break or weaken
his chain or crack his manacles by filing them against
the concrete or smashing them into rock was met
with immediate punishment, which meant running
naked preferably in the rain until collapse, and
remaining in chains where he fell with no food or
water for thirty-six hours. Of the forty-three men,
twenty-nine of the strongest among them had been
so punished, a number more than two and three
times until they had little strength left. Connal had
run the gauntlet only once thanks apparently to his
bilingual guard, an Italian who seemed to appreciate
the fact that his americano had taken the trouble to
learn italiano. The man from Genoa was a bitter,
cynical former paratrooper and probably a con-
vict who referred to himself as an outcast but
predicted he would come into his own when he was
rewarded for his work. But like most men from his
part of the world he instinctively responded to a
foreigner’s praise of bella italia, bellissima Roma.
It was from their short, whispered conversations
that Fitzpatrick had learned as much as he had, his
legal military mind operating on the level of
addressing a malcontented military client. He had
pushed the buttons he had pushed so often before.
“What’s in it for you? They know you’re garbage!”
“They promise me. They pay me much money to
teach what I know. Without people like me many
of us here they will not accomplish.’
“Accomplish what?”
“That is for them to say. I am, as you say, employed.”
“To show them how to kill?”
“And to run and not be seen. That is our
life the lives of many of us here.”
“You could lose everything.”
“Most of us have nothing. We were used and
discarded.” “These men will do the same to you.”
“Then we will kill again. We are experienced.”
“Suppose their enemies find this place?”
“They will not. They cannot.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an island no one thinks of.”
“They know that.”
“Im possible! No planes fly over, no boats come.
We would know if they did.”
512 ROBERT LUDLUM
“Why don’t you think about what was here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Submarines. Surrounding your island.’.
“If that was true, americano, the how you
say? the custode . . . ”
“The warden.”
“He would explode everything away. Everything
on this side of the island would befumo smoke,
nothing. It is part of our contralto. We understand.”
“The warden the custody he’s the big German
with the short grey hair, isn’t he?”
“Enough talk. Have your drink of water.”
“I have information for you,” whispered Connal,
as the guard checked his manacles and chain.
“Information that will guarantee you a big reward
and might possibly save my life.”
“What kind of information?”
“Not here. Not now. There isn’t time. Come
back tonight everyone’s so exhausted they’re asleep
before they reach their cots. I’ll stay awake. Come
and get me, but come alone. You don’t want to
share this.”
“My head is filled with zucchini? I come alone to
a barracks filled with condemned mend”
“What can any of us do? What can I do? I’ll stay
by the door; you open it and I’ll step out, your gun
no doubt at my head. I don’t want to die, that’s why
I’m talking to you!”
You will die. May you go with God.”
“You’re a fool, a ‘5uffone! You could have a
fortune instead of a bullet in your chest.”
The Italian looked guardedly at Fitzpatrick, then
around at the others; the inspections were nearly
finished. “For me to do such a thing, I need more
than what you have told me.”
“Two of your guards are traitors,” whispered Connal.
“she rosa?”
“That’s all you get until tonight.”
Fitzpatrick lay on the cot in the darkness,
waiting, listentng for the sound of footsteps, the
sweat of anxiety drenching his face. All around him
were the sleep-induced moans of hungry, physically
abused men. He pushed his own pains out of his
mind; he had other things to think about. If he
could reach the water, the manacles would slow him
down but not stop hun, he could sidestroke nearly
indefinitely and somewhere
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 513
down the coastline, away from “this side of the
island,” there would be a beach or a dock, a place
where he could crawl out of the sea. There was
nothing else left, he had to try it. He also had to
make sure his Italian guard could raise no alarms.
The bolt in the door was quietly sliding back! He
had missed the footsteps; his thoughts had distracted
him. He got up silently and started down the aisle on
the balls of his feet, flexing his hands but keeping the
chain taut. He could not make any noise whatsoever,
because several prisoners had begun to have violent
nightmares when there was the slightest disturbance.
He reached the door and somehow understood he
was to push it open, not wait for it to be opened; the
guard would stay back, his weapon aimed at him.
It was so. The Italian gestured with his gun for
Connal to move forward as he sidestepped to the
door and secured the bolt. He then pointed with the
barrel of his weapon, ordering Fitzpatrick to walk
ahead. Moments later both men stood in the
shadows in front of the barracks, the old refueling
station still visible in the darkness, the ocean waves
lapping at the pilings.
“Now we talk,” said the guard. “Who are these
traitors and why should I believe you?”
“I want your word that you’ll tell your superiors
I turned them in. I don’t say anything until I have
your word!”
“My word, americano?” said the Italian, laughing
softly. “Very well, amino, you have my word.”
The guard’s quiet, cynical laughter covered the
seconds. Connal suddenly whipped out the chain and
crashed it down on the man’s weapon; grabbing the
barrel of the gun with his right hand, he wrenched it
free; it fell to the grass below. He then raised the
chain as he kicked the guard in the groin, and
slammed the heavy links into the man’s face,
smashing the manacles into the Italian’s skull until
the guard’s eyes grew wide and then closed in
unconsciousness. Fitzpatrick crouched, finding his
bearings.
It was directly ahead an old submarine slip, its
long pier extending out to the middle water. He got
up and ran. The air was exhilarating, the breezes
from the sea told him to run faster, faster. Escape
was seconds away.
He plunged over the dock into the water,
knowing he would find the strength to do anything,
swim anywhere! He was free!
Suddenly, he was blinded by the floodlights
everywhere.
514 ROBERT LUDIUM
Then a fusillade of bullets exploded from all sides,
ripping up the water around him, cracking the air
overhead, but none entering his body or blowing
apart his head. And words over a loudspeaker filled
the night: “You are most fortunate, Prisoner
Number Forty-three, that we still might have need
of you. Otherwise, your corpse would be food for
the North Sea fishes.”
30
Joel walked out of the bright afternoon sun into
Amsterdam’s cavernous Centroal station. The dark
suit and hat fit comfortably; the clerical collar and
the black shoes pinched but were bearable, and the
small suitcase was an impediment he could discard