once.
Another risk-taker, thoughtJoel,as he turned and
looked and listened to the unfamiliar sights and
sounds of the side street he had entered. He had
been given a few hours; he wished he knew how to
use them he wished he knew what to do.
Valerie ran to the phone. If it was another
reporter, she would say the same thing she had said
to the last five. I don’t believe a word of it and I’ve
nothing more to say; And if it was one more person
from Washington from the FBI or the CIA or the
VA or any other combinations of the alphabet she
would scream! She had spent three hours being
interviewed that morning until she had literally
ordered the crucifiers out of the house. They were
liars trying to force her to support their lies. It
would be far easier to take the phone off the hook,
but she could not do that. She had called Lawrence
Talbot in New York twice, telling his office to trace
him wherever he was and have him call her back. It
was all madness. Insanity! as Joel used to say with
such quiet intensity she thought his voice was a wild
roar of protest.
‘Hello?”
“Valleys It’s Roger.”
“Dad!” Only one person had ever called her by
that name and that man was her former
father-in-law. The fact that she was no longer
married to his son had made no difference in their
relationship. She adored the old pilot and knew he
felt the same about her. “Where are you? Ginny
didn’t know and she’s frantic. You forgot to turn on
your answering machine.”
“I didn’t forget, Valley. Too damned many
people to call back. I just flew in from Hong Kong,
and when I got off the plane I was upwinded by fifty
or sixty screaming newspaper people and so many
lights and cameras I won’t be able to see or hear
for a week.”
“Some enterprising airline clerk let out the word
you were on board. Whoever it was will eat for a
week offa generous expense account. Where are
you?”
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 367
“Still at the airport in the traffic manager’s of
lice. I’ll say this for ’em, they got me out of there….
Valley, I just read the papers. They got me the latest
editions. What the hell is this all about?”
“I don’t know, Dad, but I do know it’s a lie.”
“That boy’s the sanest thing I ever had anything
to do with! They re twisting everything, making the
good things he did into something . . . I don’t know,
sinister or something. He s too damned up-front to
be crazy!’
“He s not crazy, Roger. He’s being taken, he’s
being put through a wringer. ‘
‘What for?”
“I don’t know. But I think Larry Talbot does at
least more than he’s told me.”
“What has he told you?”
“Not now, Dad. Later. ‘
“Why?”
“I’m not sure…. Something I feel, perhaps.’
“You’re not making sense, Valley.”
“I’m sorry.”
‘What did Ginny say? I’ll call her, of course.”
‘She’s hysterical.”
“She always was a little bit.”
“No, not that way. She’s blaming herself. She
thinks people are striking out at her brother for the
things she did in the sixties. I tried to tell her that
was nonsense but I’m afraid I made it worse. She
asked me perfectly calmly if I believed what was
being said about Joel. I told her of course I didn’t.”
“The old paranoia. Three kids and an accountant
for a husband and it still comes back. I never could
handle that girl. Damned good pilot, though. Soloed
before Joel, and she was two years younger. I’ll phone
her.”
“You may not be able to reach her.”
“Oh?”
“Sine s having her number changed, and I think
you should do the same thing. I know I’m going to
the minute I hear from Larry.”
“Valley . . .” Roger Converse paused. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not? Have you any idea what it’s been like
here?” “Look, you know I’ve never asked what
happened between you and Joel, but I usually have
dinner with that piss ant lawyer once a week when
I’m in town. He thinks it’s some
368 ROBERT IUDLUM
kind of filial necessity, but I’d knock it offina minute
if I didn’t like him. I mean he’s a likable guy, kind of
funny sometimes.”
“I know all that, Roger. What are you trying to
say?”
They say he disappeared, that no one can find
him.”
‘He may call you. I can’t think of anyone else he
would
Valerie closed her eyes; the afternoon sun
through the skylight was blinding. ‘is that based on
your weekly dinner conversations? ”
“It’s not intuition. I never had any except in the air
. . Of course it is. It was never said outright, but it
was always ust below the cloud cover.”
“You’re impossible, Dad.”
“Pilot error’s like any other. There are times
when you can ,t,lafford it; . . . Don’t change your
number Vall ”
“Now, what about me?”
“Ginny’s husband had a good idea. They’re
referring all questions to their attorney. Maybe you
should do the same. Do you have one?”
“Sure,” said Roger Converse. “I got three. Talbot,
Brooks and Simon. Nate’s the best, if you want to
know the truth. Did you know that at the age of
sixty-seven that son of a bitch took up flying? He’s
qualified in multiengines now can you imagine?”
“Dad!” Valerie broke in suddenly. “You’re at the
air
“That’s what I said. Kennedy.”
“Don’t go home. Don’t go to your apartment.
Take the first plane you can to Boston. Use another
name. Call me back and let me know what flight
you’re on. I’ll pick you up.”
“Just do as I say, Roger. Please!”
“What for?”
“You’re staying here. I’m leaving.”
21
Converse hurried out of the clothing store on the
crowded Bornheimer Strasse and studied his
reflection in the window. He surveyed the overall
effect of his purchases, not as a customer inside in
front of the full-length mirror for fit and appearance,
but as one of the strolling pedestrians on the
sidewalk. He was satisfied; there was nothing about
the clothes that called attention to him. The
photograph in the papers the only one in the past
fifteen years that would be in a wire service or
newspaper file was taken about a year ago when he
was one of several merger attorneys interviewed by
Reuters. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, showing
him in his lawyer’s clothes a dark suit and vest,
white shirt and striped tie the image of a rising
international specialist. It was also the image
everyone who read the papers had of him, and since
it would not change but only spread with later edi-
tions, then he was the one who had to change.
Also, he could not continue to wear the clothes
he had worn to the bank. A panicked Lachmann
would undoubtedly give a complete description to the
police, but even if his panic rendered him silent, he
had seen him in a dark jacket, white shirt and striped
tie. Unconsciously or not, thought Joel, he had
sought a patina of respectability. Perhaps all men
running for their lives did so because their essential
dignity had been stolen from them. Regardless,
dressed in those clothes he was the man in the
newspaper photograph.
The appearance he had in mind belonged to a
history professor he had known in college, a man
whose various articles of clothing were all related.
His jackets were subdued tweeds with elbow patches,
the trousers grey heavy or light flannel, never
anything else and his shirts were blue but-
toned-down oxford, again without exception. Above
his thick horn-rimmed glasses was perched a soft
Irish walking hat, the brim sloped downward front
and back. Wherever that man
369
370 ROBERT LUDLUM
went, whether down a street in Boston or New
York’s Fifth Avenue or Beverly Hills’ Rodeo
Drive the last a place that oel was sure he never
saw one would know he belonged to academic
New England.
Converse had managed to duplicate the outward
appearance of the man in his memory, except for
the tinted glasses, which he would have to replace
with horn rims. He had passed a large variety store,
Bonn’s equivalent of an American five-and-dime,
and he knew that there would be a counter with
glasses of different sizes and shapes, a few slightly
magnified for reading, others clear.
For reasons that were only beginning to come
into focus, those glasses were now vital to him.
Then he understood. He was preoccupied with what
he knew he could do change his appearance. He
was procrastinating, uncertain what to do next, not
sure he was capable of doing anything.
He looked at his face in the oval mirror of the
variety store, again satisfied with what he saw. The
ersatz tortoiseshell rims were thick, the glass clear;