forward door open too panicked to do anything but
quickly look around and return to his companion, or
to a lone suitcase perhaps. Joel’s head was below the
back of the seat in front of him. Minutes later came
the Sonderpolizei checking the border, scrutinizing
every male of a vague description, dozens of
uniformed men walking through the railway cars.
They were courteous, to be sure, but nevertheless
they gave rise to ugly vestiges of a time past.
Converse showed his passport and the letter written
in German for the conscience of Germans. A
policeman grimaced sadly, then nodded and went on
to the next seat. The uniforms left; the minutes
became quarter-hours. He could see through the
windows into the forward car; the two hunters met
several rows behind where he had been sitting. Again
they separated; one fore, one aft. Now.
Joel got up from his seat and sidestepped into the
aisle,
526 ROBERT LUDLUM
pretending to check his schedule and bending down
to look out the darkened window. He would stay
there for as long as he had to, until one of the
hunters spotted him. It took less than ten seconds.
As Converse pitched his head down supposedly to
see a passing sign outside he caught a glimpse of a
figure moving into the upper panel of glass on the
forward door. Joel stood up. The man behind the
glass spun out of sight. It was the sign he had been
waiting for, the moment to move quickly.
He turned and walked to the rear of the car,
opened the door and crossed the dark clattering
space to the car behind. He went inside and swiftly
made his way down the aisle, again to the rear and
again into the next car, turning in the intervening
darkness to see what he expected to see, what he
wanted to see. The man was following him. A guard
was taking himself out of position in the downpour.
Only seconds and he could reach the barbed wire.
As he ran through the third car a number of
passengers looked up at him, at a running priest.
Most turned in their seats to see if there was an
emergency, and seeing none shook their heads in
bewilderment. He reached the door, pulled it open,
and stepped into the shadows, suddenly startled by
what he saw. In front of him, instead of another
railroad-car door, the upper part a window, there
was a solid panel of heavy wood, the word
FRACHT printed across the midsection above a
large steel knob. Then he heard the announcement
over the loud-speakers:
“Benthelm! Nachste Station, Benthelm!”
The train was slowing down, the first of two
stops before Osnabruck. Joel moved forward into
the darkest area and inched his head in view of the
window behind him, confident that he could not be
seen by a man facing light reflected off a panel of
glass. What he saw again startled him not by the
activity, but by the inactivity. The hunter made no
move toward the door; instead, he sat down facing
forward, a commuter finding a more comfortable
seat, nothing else on his mind. The train came to a
stop; those passengers getting off were forming a
line in front . . . in front.
There had been a sign above this last door, but
since he could not read it, he had simply gone
through. He looked now at the exit doors; there
were no handles. Obviously that incomprehensible
sign was there to inform anyone who approached
the door that it was not an exit. If he had been
facing
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 527
a trap before, he was in a cage now, a steel cage that
began moving again, as the wheels gathered speed
against the tracks. A racing jail from which there was
no escape. Converse reached into his shirt pocket
and took out his cigarettes. He had been so close to
the barbed wire; he had to think!
A rattle? A key . . . a bolt The door of a heavy
wood with the word FRACHT stenciled on it opened
and the figure of a stout man emerged, preceded by
his stomach.
“Sin Zigarette for Sei, wahrend ich sum Pinkeln
gehe!” said the railroad guard, laughing, as he crossed
through the short, dark corridor to the door. “Dann
ein Whisky, ja?”
The German was going for a drink, and although
he had pulled the door of his domain nearly shut, he
had not closed it; he was an untroubled man, a
guard with nothing he felt worth guarding. Joel
pushed the heavy panel open and went inside,
knowing what would happen; it had to happen the
instant the guard walked by the hunter on his way to
“ein Whss
. ,,
icy.
There were half a dozen sealed crates and
roughly ten cages holding animals dogs mostly and
several cats, cowering in corners, claws extended at
the sound of growls and barks. The only light came
from a naked bulb swaying on a thick wire from the
ceiling beyond another cage, this one built for man
with wire mesh at the end of the freight car.
Converse concealed himself behind a crate near the
door. He reached under his priestly coat and pulled
out the gun with the perforated cylinder, the silencer.
The door opened cautiously, millimeter by
millimeter the weapon appeared before the hand or
the arm. Finally there was the man, the foot soldier
from Aquitaine.
Joel fired twice, not trusting a single shot. The
arm crashed back into the edge of the half-open
door, the gun spinning out of the killer’s hand, a
single spurt of blood erupting near the executioner’s
wrist. Converse sprang from behind the crate the
patrol was his, and so was the stretch of
barbed-wirefence!Hecould climb it and crawl over now!
The rock had smashed the window in the barracks!
The staccato barrage of machine-gun fire was spraying
where he was not! Seconds, only seconds, and he was
out!
Joel pinned the man to the floor, gripping his
throat and pressing one knee on his chest one
prolonged squeeze and the soldier from Aquitaine
would be dead. He held the barrel of the gun against
the man’s temple.
528 ROBERT LUDLUM
“You speak any English?”
“la/” coughed the German. “I . . . speak English.”
“What were your orders?”
‘ Follow you. Only follow you. Don’t shoot! I am
Angestellte! I know nothing!”
“A what?”
“A hired man!”
“Aquitaine!”
“What?”
The man was not Iying; there was too much
panic in his eyes. Converse raised the gun and
abruptly shoved it into the German’s left eye, the
perforated cylinder pressed deep into the socket.
“You tell me exactly what you were told to do!
The truth and I’ll know a lie and if you lie, your
skull will be all over this wall! Talk to me!”
“To follow you!”
“And?”
“If you left the train we were to phone the
Polizei Wherever. Then . . . the orders were to kill
you before they came. But I would not do that! I
swear by my Christ I would never do that! I am a
good Christian. I even love the Jews! I am un-
employed!”
Joel crashed the weapon into the man’s
skull the patrol had been taken out! Ile could climb
the fence now! He pulled the German behind a crate
and waited. How long it was impossible to tell; time
had lost its meaning. The railway guard came back,
somewhat more drunk than sober, and took refuge
behind his wire-meshed office with the single light
bulb.
The other cages were not so serene. The smell
of human blood and sweat was more than the dogs
could take; they began to react. Within minutes the
railway car labeled FRACHT became a madhouse,
the animals were now hysterical the dogs snarling,
barking, hurling themselves against their cages; the
cats, provoked by the dogs, screeching, hissing,
backs arched, fur standing on end. The guard was
perplexed and frightened; anchoring himself to the
chair in his sanctuary of wire mesh, he poured more
whisky down his throat. He stared at the cages, his
eyes wide within the folds of puffed flesh. Twice he
looked at a glass-encased lever on the wall inches
above the desk, above his hand. He had only to lift
the casing and pull it.
“Rheine/ Nachste Station, Rheine!”
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 529
The last stop before Osnabruck. Before long the
German would revive, and unless Joel’s eyes were on
him at that instant the man would scream and an
emergency lever would be pulled. Too, there was
another man only cars behind who was also hired to
follow him, to kill him. To remain where he was any
longer was to let the trap close. He had to get off.
The train stopped, and Converse lunged for the
door, his movement causing a dozen caged animals to
vent their anger and confusion. He pushed back the