Beale on Mykonos. He was dead right, and he’s
dead because he was right! Incidentally, he was the
‘men from San Francisco.’ It was his five hundred
thousand dollars; he came from a rich family, which,
among other things, bequeathed him a conscience.
Think back to Mykonos! To what he told you what
his life was all about. From celebrated soldier to a
scholar to a killing that must have killed a part of
him to commit…. He said you almost caught him up
on a couple of things he didn’t mean to say. He said
you were a good lawyer, a good choice. Preston
Halliday was a student of his at Berkeley, and when
this broke a year and a half ago when Halliday
realized what Delavane was doing and how he was
being used, he went to Beale, who was about to
retire. The rest you can figure out.”
The woman’s voice interrupted. “Say what I want
to hear you say. Say it!”
“Of course I will! Converse didn’t kill Peregrine
and he didn’t kill the commander of NATO. Both of
them were marked by Delavane George Marcus
Delavane because both those men would have
taken him and his ilk to the mat! They were
convenient, very convenient, targets. I don’t know
about the others I don’t know what you’ve been
through but we broke a liar in Bad Godesberg, the
major from the embassy who put you, Converse, at
the Adenauer Bridge! He doesn’t know it, but we
broke him, and we learned something. We think we
know where Connal Fitzpatrick is. We think he’s
alive!”
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 603
A male voice intruded. “You bastards,” said Joel
Converse.
“Thank God!” said the civilian, sitting down on the
hotel bed. “Now we can talk. We have to talk. Tell
me everything you can. This phone is clean.”
Twenty minutes later, his hands trembling, Peter
Stone hung up the phone.
36
General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier ceased the
rushing pelvic thrusts of intercourse, withdrew himself
from the moaning dark-haired woman beneath him,
and rolled over, grabbing the telephone.
“Yesfl”he shouted angrily. And then he listened,
his flushed face growing ashen as his organ collapsed.
“Where did it happen?” he whispered, not in
confidence but in sudden fear. “The Boulevard
Raspail? The charges? . . . NarcoticsPlmpossible!”
Holding the phone, the general swung his legs
over the side of the bed, listening carefully,
concentrating as he stared at the wall. The naked
woman rose to her knees and leaned into him, her
breasts pressed into his back, her open mouth
caressing his ear, her teeth gently biting his lobe.
Bertholdier suddenly, viciously, swung his arm
back cracking the phone into the woman’s face,
sending her reeling to the other side of the bed,
blood erupting from her broken lower lip.
“Repeat that, please,” he said into the phone. “It’s
obvious, then, isn’t it? The man cannot be questioned
further, can he? There is always the larger strategy to
consider, losses to be anticipated in the field, no? It
is the hospital all over again, I’m afraid. See to it,
then, like the fine officer you are. The Legion’s loss
was our immense gain…. Oh? What is it? The ar-
resting officer was PruHhomme?” Bertholdier paused,
his breathing steady and audible; then he spoke,
rendering a command decision. “A stubborn
bureaucrat from the Surete will not let go, will he? .
. . He is your second assignment to
604 ROBERT LUDLUM
be carried out with your usual expertise before the
day is over. Call me when both are
accomplishments, and consider yourself the aide to
General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier.”
The general hung up and turned to the
dark-haired woman, who was wiping her lips with a
bed sheet, the expression in her eyes an admixture
of anger, embarrassment and fear.
“Apologies, my dear,” he said courteously. “But
you must leave now. I have telephone calls to make,
business to attend to.
“I will not come back!” cried the woman defiantly.
“You will come back,” said the legend of France
standing up, his body rigid in its nakedness. “If you
are asked.”
Erich Leifhelm walked rapidly into his study and
directly over to the large desk, where he took the
phone from a whitejacketed attendant, dismissing
the man with a nod. The instant the door was
closed he spoke. “What is it?”
“The Geyner car was found, Herr General.”
“Where?”
“Appenweier.”
‘And what is that?”
“A town fifteen or eighteen kilometers from Kehl.
In the
“Strasbourg! He crossed into France! He was a
priest!”
“I don’t understand, Herr ”
“We never thought. . . ! Never mind! Whom have
you got in the sector?”
“Only one man. The man with the police.”
“Tell him to hire others. Send them into Strasbourg!
Look
“Get out of here!” roared Chaim Abrahms as his
wife walked through the kitchen door. “This is no
place for you now!”
“The Testaments say otherwise, my
husband yet not my husband,” said the frail woman
dressed in black; a circle of soft white hair framed
gentle features and her brown eyes were dark,
receding mirrors. “Will you deny the Bible you
employ so readily when it suits you? It is not all
thunder and vengeance. Must I read it to you?”
“Read nothing! Say nothing! These are matters for
men!”
“Men who kill? Men who use the primitive savagery
of
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 605
the Scriptures to justify the spilling of children’s
blood? My son’s blood? I wonder what the mothers
of the Masada would have said had they been
permitted to speak their hearts. . . . Well, I speak
now, General. You will not kill anymore. You will not
use this house to move your armies of death, to plot
your tactics of death always your holy tactics,
Chaim, your holy vengeance.”
Abrahms slowly got out of the chair. “What are
you talking about?”
“You think I haven’t heard you? Phone calls in
the middle of the night, calls from men who sound
like you, who speak of killing so easily ”
“You listened !”
“Several times. You were breathing so hard you
heard nothing but the sound of your own voice, your
own orders to kill. Whatever you’re doing will be
done without you now, my husband yet not my
husband. The killing is over for you. It lost its
purpose years ago, but you could not stop. You in-
vented new reasons until there was no reason left in
you.”
The sabre’s wife removed her right hand from
the folds of her black dress. She was holding
Abrahms’ service automatic. The soldier slapped his
holster in disbelief, then suddenly lunged toward the
woman he had lived with for thirty-eight years and
grabbed her wrist, spinning her around. She would
not relent! She resisted him, clawing at his face as he
crashed her back into the wall, twisting her hand in
the attempt to disarm her.
The sound of the explosion filled the kitchen, and
the woman who had borne him four children, the
last finally a son fell to the floor at his feet. In
horror Chaim Abrahms looked down. Her
dark-brown eyes were wide, her black dress drenched
with blood, half her chest torn away.
The telephone rang. Abrahms ran to the wall and
grabbed it, screaming, “The children of Abraham will
not be denied! A bloodbath will follow we will have
the land delivered to us by God! Judea,
Samaria they are ours!”
“Stop it!” roared the voice over the line. “Stop it,
Jew!”
“Who calls me Jew calls me righteous!” yelled
Chaim Abrahms, the tears falling down his face, as
he stared at the dead woman with the wide brown
eyes. “I have sacrificed with Abraham! No one could
ask more!”
“I ask more!” came the cry of the cat. “I ask
always morel”
606 ROBERT IUDLUM
“Marcus?” whispered the sabre, closing his eyes
and collapsing against the wall, turning away from
the corpse. “Is it you . . . my leader, my conscience?
Is it you?”
“It is I, Chaim, my friend. We have to move fast.
Are the units in place?”
“Yes. Scharhorn. Twelve units in place, all
trained, prepared. Death is no consideration.”
“That’s what I had to know, ‘ said Delavane.
‘.Theyawait your codes, my general.” Abrahms
gasped then began to weep uncontrollably.
“What is it, Chaim? Get hold of yourselfl”
“She’s dead. My wife lies dead at my feetI”
“My God, what happened?”
“She overheard, she listened . . she tried to kill
me. We fought and she’s dead.”
“A terrible, terrible loss, my dear friend. You
have my deepest affection and condolences iri your
bereavement.”
“Thank you, Marcus.”
“You know what you must do, don’t you, Chairn?”
“Yes, Marcus. I know.”
There was a knock at the door. Stone got out of
the chair and picked up his gun awkwardly from the
table. In all the years of sorting out garbage, he had
fired a weapon only once He had blown a foot off