right front door. Converse watched him from behind
the thick corner pillar as the wounded German
stood on the pavement, looking up into the
shadows.
“Konig?”he asked softly, questioning. “Konig,
was ist?” He started up the steps, his left hand
awkwardly, tentatively, going inside his jacket.
Joel spun around the pillar and rushed down the
old stair case. Grabbing the wounded man by the
sling, he jammed the pistol into the foot soldier’s
throat; he turned him around and rushed him back
to the car, then crashed his head against the roof as
he crouched and thrust the weapon through the
open front window.
The astonished driver was quicker than the foot
soldier; he was already yanking his gun out of an
unseen holster. He fired wildly, shattering the
windshield. Converse fired back blowing the man’s
head half out of the window.
Take the bodies into the jungle! Don’t leave them
here near the compound! Every second counts, every
minute!
Joel sprang up and pulled the wounded German
away from the car as he opened the front door.
“You’re going to help me, you good Christian!” he
whispered, remembering the whining supplication of
a killer in a freight car. “You do as I tell you or
you’ll join your friends. Capisce, or is it verstehen?
Whatever the hell it is, you do as I say, do you
understand me? I’m a panicked man, mister on the
edge, and I’ll argue that position in front of the
Supreme Court! . . . What the hell am I saying? I’ve
got the gun and I’ve killed again it gets easier
when you don’t want to be killed yourself. Afovel
That lousy son of Gestapo on the porch! Bring him
down here! In the backl”
Perhaps a minute later, Joel would never know
the time the wounded man was behind the wheel
driving with diflficulty, the two corpses in the
backseat. A tableau of horror Converse thought he
would vomit. Fighting back the nausea, he watched
every landmark in the countryside as he directed the
driver to take this turn and that pilotage indeli
THE QQUITAINE PROGRESSION 567
left and sped down the country road as Hermione
Geyner slammed the door shut on the porch.
There was nothing any longer without risk,
thought Joel, as he crawled out of the foliage, but
the risk for him now was one he faced with a degree
of confidence. Aquitaine had used up Frau Geyner;
there was nothing more it could learn from her. To
return to a madwoman held a greater risk for them.
Envelope in hand, he walked across the ugly drive,
up the creaking steps, and across the sagging porch
to the door. He knocked, and ten seconds later a
screeching Hermione Geyner opened it. He then did
something so totally unpredictable so completely out
of character, he did not believe it himself as he
followed through with the sudden impulse.
He punched the old woman squarely in the
center of her lower jaw. It was the beginning of the
longest eight hours of his life.
The bewildered security police from the
MGM-Grand Hotel reluctantly refused Valerie’s
offer of a gratuity, especially as she had raised it
from $50 to $100, thinking that the economy of Las
Vegas was somewhat different from New York’s and
certainly Cape Ann’s. They had driven around the
streets of the old and the new city for nearly
forty-five minutes, until both men, both professionals
in their work, assured her that no one was following
their car. And they would put a special patrol on the
ninth floor in an attempt to catch the man who had
harassed her, who had attempted to gain entrance to
the room. They were, of course, naturally chagrined
that she took a room across the boulevard at Caesars
Palace.
Val tipped the bellman, took her small overnight
bag from him, and closed the door. She ran to the
phone on the table by the bed.
“I half to go to the toilet!” shouted Hermione
Geyner, holding an fee pack under her chin.
“Again?” asked Converse, his eyes barely open,
sitting across from the old woman, the envelope and
the gun in his lap.
“You make me nervous. You struck me.”
“You did the same and a hell of a lot more to me
last night,” said Joel, getting up from the chair and
shoving the gun under his belt, the envelope in his
hand.
“I vill see you hanging from a rope! Betrayer! How
many
568 ROBERT LUDIUM
hours now? You think our operatives in the
Untergrund will not miss me?”
“I think they’re probably feeding pigeons in the
park cooing along with the best of them. Go on, I’ll
follow.”
The telephone rang. Converse grabbed the old
woman by the back of her neck and propelled her
to the antique desk and the phone. “Just as we
practiced,” he whispered, holding her firmly. “Do it!”
‘Baja?” said Hermione Geyner into the
telephone, Joel’s ear next to hers.
“Tame! Ich bin ‘s, Valerie!”
“Val!” shouted Converse, pushing the old woman
away. “It’s me! I’m not sure the phone’s clean; she
was set up, I was set up! Quickly! Tell Sam I was
wrong I think I was wrongl The countdown could
be assassinations all over the goddamned place!”
“He knew that!” shouted Valerie in reply. “He’s
dead Joel! He’s dead! They killed him!”
“Oh, Christ! There’s no time, Val, no time! The
phone!”
“Meet me!” screamed the ex-Mrs. Converse.
“Where? Tell me where?”
The pause was less than several seconds, an
eternity for both. “Where it began, my darling!”
cried Valerie. “Where it began but not where it
began…. The clouds, darling! The patch and the
clouds!”
Where it began. Geneva. But not Geneva. Clouds,
a patch. A patch!
“Yes, I know!”
“Tomorrow! The next day! I’ll be there!”
“I have to get out of here…. Val … I love you so
muchl So much!”
”The clouds, my darling my only darling oh,
God, stay
Joel ripped the telephone out of the wall as
Hermione Geyner came rushing at him, swinging a
heavy brass-handled poker from the fireplace. The
iron hook glanced off his cheek; he grabbed her
arm and shouted, “I haven’t got time for you, you
crazy bitch! My client doesn’t have time!” He spun
her around and pushed her forward, picking up the
envelope from the table. “You were on your way to
the bathroom, remember?”
In the hall Converse saw what he had hoped he
would
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 565
bly imprinted on the mind for the flight back without
a radio or a map or a means to obtain either. They
reached what looked like a series of rocky pastures
at the base of a mountain, and Converse told the
Cerman to get off the road. They clambered over
several hundred yards until there was a sharp decline
that ended at a dense row of trees. He ordered the
driver out.
He had given the last guard a chance. He was a kid
in a mismatched uniform; his eyes were intense but his
face raised questions. How much was felt, how much
indoctrinated? He had given the boy the child a
simple exam, and a believer had failed the examination.
“Listen to me,” said Joel. “You told me on the
train that you were hired but that you didn’t want to
kill anybody. You were just unemployed and needed
a job, is that right?”
“Yes! I kill no one! I only watched, followed!”
“All right. I’ll put the gun away and I’m going to
walk out of here. You go wherever you want to go,
okay?”
“Ich verstehe! Yes, of course!”
Converse shoved the weapon in his belt and
turned, his fingers still gripping the handle as he
started up the slope. A scratch! The crunching sound
of rocks displaced by moving feet! He pivoted,
dropping to his knees as the German lunged.
He fired once at the body above him. The foot
soldier screamed as he arced in the air and rolled
down the hill. A believer had failed the examination.
Joel walked up the incline with the envelope
addressed to Nathan Simon and across the rocky
field to the road. He knew the landmarks; the pilot
in him would make no mistakes. He knew what he
had to do.
He was concealed far back in the bushes on the
edge of Hermione Geyner’s property, thirty yards
from the decaying house, twenty from the U-shaped
drive,~which was filled with ruts and bordered by
brown overgrown grass, dead from the heat and lack
of water. He had to stay awake, for if it was going to
happen, it would happen soon. Human nature could
take only so much anxiety; he had played upon the
truism too often as a lawyer. Answers had to be
given to anxious men panicked men. The sun was
up, the birds foraging in the early light, myriad
noises replacing the stillness of the night. But the