from the files, but two elderly pensioners from
the Munich department remember it clearly.
They are both in their late seventies, have not
seen each other in years, and were questioned
separately.
Robbery was the lesser crime that early
morning on the Luisenstrasse; the more serious
one was never spoken of at the insistence of the
family. The fifteen-year-old Leifhelm daughter
was raped and severely beaten, her face and body
battered so violently that upon admission to the
Karlstor Hospital she was given little chance of
recovery. She did recover physically, but
remained emotionally disturbed for the rest of
her short life. The man who committed the
assault had to be familiar with the interior of the
house, had to know there was a back staircase
that led to the girl’s room, which was separated
from the rooms of her two brothers and her
136 ROBERT LUDLUM
mother in the front. Erich Leifhelm had
questioned his father in depth regarding the
inside design of that house; he was there by his
own admission, and was aware of the fierce
pride and strict moral code held by the
“tyrannical in-laws.” There is no question; his
compulsion was such that he had to inflict the
most degrading insult he could imagine, and he
did so, knowing the influential family would and
could insist on official silence.
The second event took place during the
months of January or February 1939. The
specifics are sketchy insofar as there are few
survivors of the time who knew the family well,
and no official records, but from those who
were found and interviewed, certain facts
surfaced. Heinrich Leifhelm’s legal wife, his
children and her family tried without success
for several years to leave Germany. The official
party line was that the old patriarch’s medical
skills, having been acquired in German
universities were owed to the state. Too, there
were unresolved legal questions arising from the
dissolved union between the late Dr. Heinrich
Leifhelm and a member of the family questions
specifically relating to commonly shared assets
and the rights of inheritance as they affected an
outstanding officer of the Wehrmacht.
Erich Leifhelm was taking no chances. His
father’s “former” wife and children were
virtually held prisoners, their movements
restricted, the house on the Luisenstrasse was
watched, and for weeks following any renewed
applications for visas, they were all kept under
full “political surveillance” on the chance that
they had plans of vanishing. This information
was revealed by a retired banker who recalled
that orders came from the Finanzministerium in
Berlin instructing the banks in Munich to
immediately report any significant withdrawals
by the former Frau Leifhelm and/or her family.
During what week or on what day it
happened we did not learn, but sometime in
January or February of 1936, Frau LeifLelm,
her children and her father disappeared.
However, the Munich court records,
impounded by the Allies on April 23, 1945, give
a clear, if incom
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 137
plete, picture of what took place. Obviously driven
by his compulsion to validate his seizure of the estate
in the eyes of the law, he had a brief filed on behalf
of Oberstleutnant Erich Leifhelm listing the articles
of grievance suffered by his father, Dr. Heinrich
Leifhelm, at the hands of a family cabal, said family
of criminals having fled the Reich under indictment.
The charges, as expected, were outrageous lies: from
outright theft of huge nonexistent bank accounts to
character assassination so as to destroy a great doc-
tor’s practice. There was the legal certificate of the
‘official” divorce, and a copy of the elder Leifhelm’s
last will and testament. There was only one true
union and one true son, all rights, privileges and in-
heritances passed on to him: Oberstleutnant Erich
Stoessel-LeiPhelm.
Because we possessed reasonably accurate dates,
survivors were found. It was confirmed that Frau
Leifhelm, her three children and her father perished
at Dachau, ten miles outside of Munich.
The Jewish Leifhelms were gone; the Aryan
Leifhelm was now the sole inheritor of considerable
wealth and property that under existing conditions
would have been confiscated. Before the age of thir-
ty, he had wiped his personal slate clean and
avenged the wrongs he was convinced had been
visited on his superior birth and talents. A killer had
matured.
‘You must have one hell of a case there,” said
Caleb
Dowling, grinning and poking Joel with his elbow.
“Your butt
burned up in the ashtray a while ago. I reached
over to close
the goddamned lid, and all you did was raise your
hand like
I was out of order.”
“I’m sorry. It’s . . . it’s a complicated brief. Christ, I
wouldn’t raise my hand to you, you’re a celebrity.”
Converse
laughed because he knew it was expected.
“Well, my second bit of news for you, good buddy,
is that
celebrity or no, the smoking lamp’s been on for a
couple of
minutes now and you still got a reefer in your
fingers. Now,
I grant you, you didn’t light it, but we’re getting a
lot of Nazi
looks over here.”
“Nazi . . . ?” Joel spoke the word involuntarily as
he
138 ROBERT LUDLUM
pressed the unlit cigarette into the receptacle; he
was not aware that he had been holding it.
“A figure of speech and a bad line, ‘said the
actor. “We’ll be in Cologne before you put all that
legal stuff away. Come on, good buddy, he’s going
in for the approach.”
“No,” countered Joel without thinking. “He’s
making a pitchout until he gets the tower’s
instructions. It’s standard we’ve got at least three
minutes.”
“You sound like you know what the hell you’re
talking about.”
“Vaguely,” said Converse, putting the Leifhelm
dossier into his attache case. “I used to be a pilot.”
“No kidding? A real pilot?”
“Well, I got paid.”
“For an airline? I mean, one of these real airlines?”
“Larger than this one, I think.”
“Goddamn, I’m impressed. I wouldn’t have
thought so. Lawyers and pilots somehow don’t seem
compatible.”
“It was a long time ago.” Joel closed his case and
snapped the locks.
The plane rolled down the runway, the landing
having been so unobtrusive that a smattering of
applause erupted from the rear of the aircraft.
Dowling spoke as he unfastened his seat belt. “I
used to hear some of that after a particularly good
class.”
“Now you hear a lot more,” said Converse.
“For a hell of a lot less. By the way, where are
you staying, counselor?”
Joel was not prepared for the question.
‘Actually, I’m not sure,” he replied, again reaching
for words, for an answer. “This trip was a
last-minute decision.”
“You may need help. Bonn’s crowded. Tell you
what, I’m at the Konigshof and I suspect I’ve got a
little influence. Let’s see what we can do.”
“Thanks very much, but that won’t be necessary.”
Converse thought rapidly. The last thing he wanted
was the attention focused on anyone in the actor’s
company. “My firm’s sending someone to meet me
and he’ll have the accommodations. As a matter of
fact, I’m supposed to be one of the last people off
the plane, so he doesn’t have to try to find me in
the crowd.”
“Well, if you’ve got any time and you want a couple
of
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 139
laughs with some actor types, call me at the hotel
and leave a number.”
“I probably will. I enjoyed riding shotgun. ‘
‘On a cattle drive, pardner?”
Joel waited. The last stragglers were leaving the
plane, nodding at the flanking stewardesses, some
yawning, others in awkward combat with shoulder
bags, camera equipment and suit-carriers. The final
passenger exited through the aircraft’s concave door
and Converse got up, gripping the handle of his
attache case and sliding into the aisle. Instinctively
without having a conscious reason to do so, he
glanced to his right, into the rear section of the
plane.
What he saw and what saw him made him
freeze. His breath exploded silently in his chest.
Seated in the last row of the long fuselage was a
woman. The pale skin under the wide brim of the
hat, and the frightened, astonished eyes that abruptly
looked away all formed an image he vividly re-
membered. She was the woman in the cafe at the
Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen! When he last saw
her she was walking rapidly into the baggage-claim
area, away from the row of airlines’ counters. She
had been stopped by a man in a hurry words had
been exchanged and now Joel knew they had
concerned him.
The woman had doubled back, unnoticed in the
last-minute rush for boarding. He felt it, he knew it.
She had followed him from Denmark!
6
Converse rushed up the aisle and through the
metal door into the carpeted tunnel. Fifty feet down
the passageway the narrow walls opened into a
waiting area, the plastic seats and the roped-off
stanchions designating the gate. There was no one;
the place was empty, the other gates shut down, the