lead.”
“That should have been your first concern,” said
Joel truthfully.
“Maybe it was, I don’t know. At any rate, I told
him that in the course of our conversation I asked
you for drinks, to come out on location if you
wanted to. He seemed puzzled at the last part, but
he understood the first. I asked whether I should call
him at the embassy if you took me up on either
invitation, and he said no, I shouldn’t do that.”
“What9”
“In short words, he made it very plain that my
calling him would only louse up this ‘in-house query.’
He told me to wait for his call. He’d phone me
around noon.”
“But you’re filming. You’re on location.”
“That’s the beauty part, but the hell with it.
There are mobile telephone hookups; the studios
insist on them these days. It’s another kind of
screeching called budgetary controls. We get our
calls.”
“You’re losing me.”
“Then find me. When he calls me, I’ll call you.
Should I tell him you reached me?”
Surprised, Converse stared at the aging actor, the
risk-taker. “You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?”
“You’re pretty obvious. So was he, when I put it
togeth
160 ROBERT LUDLUM
er which I just did. This Fowler wants to reach
you, but he wants to do it solo, away from those
people you don’t want to meet. You see, when he
was at the door and we had our last words, I was
bothered by something. He couldn’t sustain the
role any more than you did on the plane but I
couldn’t be certain. He kind of fell apart on his exit,
and that you never do even if you’ve got to hold in
a sudden attack of diarrhea. . . . What do I tell him,
Joe?”
“set his telephone number, I guess.’,
“Done. You get some sleep. You look like a
coked-up starlet who’s just been told she’s going to
play Medea.”
“I’ll try.”
Dowling reached into his pocket and took out a
scrap of paper. “Here,” he said approaching
Converse and handing it to him. “I wasn’t sure I was
going to give this to you, but I damn well want you
to have it now. It’s the mobile number where you
can reach me. Call me after you’ve talked to this
Fowler. I’m going to be a nervous wreck until I hear
from
you.”
“I give you my word…. Cal, what did you mean
when you mentioned ‘the beauty part’ and
forgetting about it?”
The actor’s head shifted back in perfect
precision, at just the right angle for anyone in the
audience. “The son of a bitch asked me what I did
for a living…. As they say in the Polo Lounge, Ciao,
baby.”
Converse sat on the edge of the bed, his head
pounding, his body tense. Avery Fowler! Jesus!
Avery Preston Fowler Halliday! Press Fowler . . .
Press Halliday! The names bombarded him, piercing
his temples and bouncing off the walls of his mind,
screaming echoes everywhere. He could not control
the assault; he began to sway back and forth, his
arms supporting him, a strange rhythm emerging,
the beat accompanying the name names of the
man who had died in his arms in Geneva. A man he
had known as a boy, the adult a stranger who had
manipulated him into the world of George Marcus
Delavane and a spreading disease called Aquitaine.
This Fowler wants to reach you, but he wants to
do it solo, awayfrom those people you don ‘t want to
meet…. The judgment of a risk-taker.
Converse stopped rocking, his eyes on the
Leifhelm dossier on the floor. He had assumed the
worst because it was beyond his comprehension, but
there was an alternative, an out
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 161
side possibility, perhaps under the circumstances
even a probability. The geometries were there; he
could not trace them but they were there! The name
Avery Fowler meant nothing to anyone but him at
least not in Bonn, not as it pertained to a murder in
Geneva. Was Dowling right? Joel had asked the
actor to get the man’s telephone number, but with-
out conviction. The image of a dark-red limousine
driving through the embassy’s gates would not leave
him. That was the connection that had enveloped the
shock of Avery Fowler’s name. The man using it was
from the embassy, and at least part of the embassy
was part of Aquitaine, therefore the impostor was
part of the trap. That was the logic; it was simple
arithmetic . . . but it was not geometry. Suppose
there was a break in the line, an insertion from
another plane that voided the arithmetic
progression? If there was, it was in the form of an
explanation he could not possibly perceive unless it
was given to him.
The shock was receding; he was finding his
equilibrium again. As he had done so many times in
courtrooms and boardrooms, he began to accept the
totally unexpected, knowing he could do trothing
about it until something else happened, something
over which he had no control. The most difficult
part of the process was forcing himself to function
until it did happen, whatever it was. Conjecture was
futile; all the probabilibes were beyond his
understanding.
He reached down for the LeifLelm dossier.
Erich Leifhelm’s years with the Bundesgren-
zschutz were unique and require a word about the
organizahon itself. In the aftermath of all wars, a
subjugated national police force is required in an
occupied country for reasons ranging from the
simple language problem to the occupying power’s
need to understand local customs and traditions.
There must be a buffer between the occupation
troops and a vanquished people so as to maintain
order. There is also a side issue rarely elaborated
upon or analyzed in the history books, but no less
important for that lack. Defeated armies can skill
possess talent, and unless that talent is utilized the
humiliation of defeat can ferment, at minimum
distilling itself into hostilities that are
counterproduchve to a stabilised political climate, or,
at maximum, turning into internal subver
162 ROBERT LUDLUM
sionthat can lead to violence and bloodshed at
the expense of the victors and whatever new
government that is being formed. To put it
bluntly, the Allied General Staff recognized that
it had on its hands another brilliant and
popular military man who would not suffer the
anonymity of early retirement or a corporate
boardroom. The Bundesgrenzschutz literally,
federal border police like all police
organisations, was and is a paramilitary force,
and as such the logical repository for men like
Erich Leifhelm They were the leaders; better to
use them than be abused by them. And as
always among leaders, there are those few who
surge forward, leading the pack. During these
years foremost among those few was Erich
Leifhelm.
His early work with the Grenzschutz was
that of a military consultant during the massive
German demobilisation, then afterward the
chief liaison between the police garrisons and
the Allied occupation forces. Following
demobilisation, his duties were mainly
concentrated in the trouble spots of Vienna and
Berlin where he was in constant touch with the
commanders of the American, British and
French sectors. His zealous anti-Soviet feelings
were rapidly made known by Leifhelm
throughout the command centers and duly
noted by the senior officers.. More and more he
was taken into their confidence until as it had
happened before with the Prussians he was
literally considered one of them.
It was in Berlin where Leifhelm first came
in contact with General Jacques-Louis
Bertholdier. A strong friendship developed, but
it was not an association either one cared to
parade because of the age-old animosities
between the German and French militaries. We
were able to trace only three former officers
from Bertholdier’s command post who
remembered or would speak of seeing the
two men frequently at dinner together in
out-of-the-way restaurants and cafes, deep in
conversation, obviously comfortable with each
other. Yet during those occasions when
Leifhelm was summoned to French
headquarters in Berlin, the formalities were
icily proper, with names rarely used and
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 163
certainly never first names, only ranks and titles. In
recent years, as noted above, both men have denied
knowing each other personally, albeit admitting their
paths may have crossed.
Where previously acknowledgment of their
friendship was discouraged because of traditional
prejudices, the current reasons are far more under-
standable. Both are spearheads in the Delavane
organization. The names on the primary list are there
with good reason. They are influential men who sit
on the boards of multinational corporations that deal
in products and technology ranging from the building
of dams to the construction of nuclear plants; in
between are a hundred likely subsidiaries throughout
Europe and Africa which could easily expedite sales
of armaments. As detailed in the following pages, it
can be assumed that Leifhelm and Bertholdier
communicate through a woman named Ilse Fishbein
in Bonn. Fishbein is her married name, the marriage