Dobermans as they raced belong the window,
instantly stopping and crowding angrily in front of
the door. The chauffeur was on his way with a
breakfast no prisoner in isolation should expect.
Joel climbed off the chair and quickly carried it
back to the table, setting it in place and going to his
cot. He sat down, kicked off his shoes, and lay back
on the pillow, his legs stretched out over the
rumpled blanket.
The bolt was slid back, the key inserted and the
heavy knob turned; the door opened. As he did
every time he entered, the German pushed the
center of the door with his right hand as he
supported the tray with his left. However this
morning he was gripping a bulging object in his
right hand, the blinding sunlight obscuring it for
Converse. The man walked in and, more awkwardly
than usual, placed the tray on the table.
‘ 1 have a pleasant surprise for you, main Herr.
I spoke with General Leifhelm on the telephone last
night and he asked about you. I told him you were
recovering splendidly and that I had changed the
bandage on your unfortunate injury. Then it
occurred to him that you had nothing to read and
he was very upset. So an hour ago I drove into
Bonn and purchased three days of the International
Herald Tribune. ” The driver placed the rolled-up
newspapers next to the tray on the table.
But it was not the issues of the Herald Tribune
that Joel stared at. It was the German s neck and
the upper outside pocket of his uniform jacket. For
looped around that neck and angled over to that
pocket was a thin silver chain, with the protruding
top of a tubular silver whistle clearly visible against
the dark fabric. Converse shifted his eyes to the
door;
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 317
the Dobermans were sitting on their haunches, each
breathing noisily and salivating, but, to all intents and
purposes, immobile. Converse remembered his
arrival at the general s monumental lair and the
strange Englishman who had controlled the dogs with
a silver whistle.
‘Tell Leifhelm I appreciate the reading material,
but I’d be even more grateful if I could get out of
this place for a few minutes. ”
‘:la, with a plane ticket to the beaches in the
south of France, rein?”
“For Christ’s sake, just to take a walk and stretch
my legs What’s the matter? Can’t you and that
drooling band of mas tiffs handle one unarmed man
getting a little air? . . . No you’re probably too
frightened to try.” Joel paused, then added in an
insulting mock-Cerman accent. ”’I do vot I am tort.
The driver’s smile faded. “The other evening you
said you would not apologise but instead break my
neck. That was a joke. Do you understand? A joke
I find so amusing I can laugh at it.”
“Hey, come on,’ said Converse, changing his tone
as he swung his legs off the cot and sat up. “You’re
ten years younger than I am and twenty times
stronger. I felt insulted and reacted stupidly, but if
you think I’d raise a hand against you you’re out of
your mind. I m sorry. You’ve been decent to me and
I was stupid again.”
“la, you were stupid,” said the German without
rancor “But also you were right. I do as I am told.
And why not? It is a privilege to take orders from
General Leifhelm. He has Been gut to me.”
“Have you been with him long?”
“Since Brussels. I was a sergeant in the Federal
Republic’s border patrols. He heard about my
problem and took an interest in my case. I was
transferred to the Brabant garrison and made his
chauffeur.”
“What was your problem? I’m a lawyer, you know.”
Dhde charge was that I strangled a man With my ”
‘ha. He was trying to put a knife in my
stomach and lower. He said I took advantage of his
daughter. I took no advantage; it was not necessary.
She was a whore it was in the clothes she wore, the
way she walked es ist klar! The father was a pig!”
318 ROBERT LUDLUM
Joel looked at the man, at the clouded
malevolence in his eyes. “I can understand General
Leifhelm’s sympathies,” he said.
“Now you know why I do as I am told.”
“Clearly.”
He is calling for his messages at noon. I shall
ask him about your walking. You understand that
one word from me and the Dobermans will rip your
body from its bones.”
“Nice puppies,” said Converse, addressing the
pack of dogs outside.
Noon came and the privilege was granted. The
walk was to take place after lunch when the driver
returned to remove the tray. He returned, and after
several severe warnings Joel ventured outside, the
Dobermans crowding around him black nostrils
flared, white teeth glistening, bluish-red tongues
flattened out in anticipation. Converse looked
around; for the first time he saw that the small
house was made of thick, solid stone. The unique
squad began its constitutional up the path, Joel
growing bolder as the dogs lost a degree of interest
in him under the harsh admonitions of the German
s commands. They began racing ahead and regroup-
ing in circles, snapping at one another but always
whipping their heads back or across at their master
and his prisoner. Converse walked faster.
“I used to jog a lot back home,” he lied.
“Was ist? ‘Jog’?”
“Run. It’s good for the circulation.”
“You run now, main Herr, you will have no
circulation. The Dobermans will see to it.”
“I’ve heard of people getting coronaries from
jogging too,” said Joel, slowing down, but not
reducing the speed with which his eyes darted in all
directions. The sun was directly overhead; it was no
help in determining direction.
The dirt path was like a marked single line in an
intricate network of hidden trails. It was bordered
by thick foliage, more often than not roofed by
low-hanging branches, then breaking open into short
stretches of wild grass that might or might not lead
to other paths. They reached a fork, the leg to the
right curving sharply into a tunnel of greenery. The
dogs instinctively raced into it but were stopped by
the chauffeur, who shouted commands in German.
The Dobermans spun around, bouncing off each
other, and returned to the fork, then raced into the
wider path on the left. It was an in
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 319
cline and they started up a steep hill, the trees
shorter and less full, the bramble bush wilder,
coarser, lower to the ground. Wind, thought
Converse. A valley wind; a wind whipping up from a
trough, a long narrow slice in the earth, the kind of
wind a pilot of a small plane avoided at the first sign
of weather. A river.
It was there. To his left; they were traveling east.
The Rhine was below, perhaps a mile beyond the
lower line of tall trees. He had seen enough. He
began breathing audibly. The exhilaration inside him
was intense; he could have walked for miles. He was
back on the banks of the Huong Khe, the dark
watery lifeline that would take him away from the
Mekong cages and the cells and the chemicals. He
had done it before he was going to do it again!
“Okay, Field Marshal,” he said to Leifhelm’s
driver, looking at the silver whistle in the German’s
pocket. “I’m not in as good shape as I thought I was.
This is a mountain! Don’t you have any flat pastures
or grazing fields?”
“I do as I am told, mein Herr, ” replied the man,
grinning. “Those are nearer the main house. This is
where you must walk.”
“This is where I say thank you and no thank you.
Take me back to my little grass shack and I’ll play
you a simple
“I do not understand.”
“I’m bushed and I haven’t finished the
newspapers. Seriously, I want to thank you. I really
needed the air.”
“Sehr gut You are a pleasant fellow.”
“You have no idea, good ale Aryan boy.”
“Ach, so amusing. Die Juden sind in Israel, rein?
Better than in Cermany.”
Nate Simon would love you. He’d take your case
for nothing just to blow it No, he wouldn’t. He’d
probably give you the best defense you ever had.”
Converse stood on the wooden chair under the
window to the left of the door. All he had to hear
and see was the sound and the sight of the dogs;
after that he had twenty or thirty seconds. The
faucets in the bathroom were turned on, the door
open; there was sufficient time to run across the
room, flush the toilet, close the door and return to
the chair. But he would not be standing on it.
Instead, it would be gripped in his hands, laterally.
The sun was descending rapidly; in an