The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  “Why didn’t they simply kill him before that?”

  “I wondered myself,” said the specialist, “so I phoned my source in Hanoi, the one who provided the information. He said a strange thing, something quite profound in its way. He said he wasn’t there, of course, but he thought it was probably respect.”

  “For an ugly troublemaker?”

  “Captivity in war does odd things, Chaim, to both the captured and the captors. There are so many factors at work in a vicious game. Aggression, resistance, bravery, fear, and—not the least—curiosity, especially when the players come from such diverse cultures as the Occident and the Orient. An abnormal bond is often formed, as much from the weariness of the testing game as from anything else, perhaps. It doesn’t lessen the national animosities, but a subtle recognition sets in that tells these men, these players, that they are not really in the game by their own choosing. In-depth analyses further show us that it is the captors, not the captured, who first perceive this commonality. The latter are obsessed with freedom and survival, while the former begin to question their absolute authority over the lives and conditions of other men. They start to wonder what it would be like to be in the other player’s shoes. It’s all part of what the psychiatrists call the Stockholm syndrome.”

  “What in the name of God are you trying to say? You sound like one of those bores in the Knesset reading a position paper. A little of this, a little of that and a lot of wind!”

  “You are definitely not delicate, Chaim. I’m trying to explain to you that while this Converse nurtured his hatreds and his obsessions, his captors wearied of the game, and as our source in Hanoi suggests, they grudgingly spared his life out of respect, before he made his final and successful escape.”

  To Abrahm’s bewilderment the specialist had apparently finished. “And?” said the sabra.

  “Well, there it is. There is the motive and the enemy, but they are also your motive and your enemy—arrived at from different routes, of course. Ultimately, you wish to smash insurgence wherever it erupts, curb the spread of Third World revolutions, especially Islamic, because you know they’re being fostered by the Marxists—read Soviets—and are a direct threat to Israel. One way or another it’s the global threat that’s brought you all together, and in my judgment rightfully so. There is a time and a place for a military-industrial complex, and it is now. It must run the governments of the free world before that world is buried by its enemies.”

  Chaim Abrahms squinted and tried not to shout. “And?”

  “Can’t you see? This Converse is one of you. Everything supports it. He has the motive and an enemy he’s seen in the harshest light. He is a highly regarded attorney who makes a great deal of money with a very conservative firm, and his clients are among the wealthiest corporations and conglomerates. Everything he’s been and everything he stands for can only benefit from your efforts. The confusion lies in his unorthodox methods, and I can’t explain them except to say that perhaps they are not unorthodox in the specialized work he does. Markets can plummet on rumors; concealment and diversion are surely respected. Regardless, he doesn’t want to destroy you, he wants to join you.”

  The sabra put his glass down on the floor and struggled out of the chair. With his chin tucked into his breastbone and his hands clasped behind his back, Abrahms paced back and forth in silence. He stopped and looked down at the specialist.

  “Suppose, just suppose,” he said, “the almighty Mossad has made a mistake, that there’s something you didn’t find.”

  “I would find that hard to accept.”

  “But it’s a possibility!”

  “In light of the information we’ve gathered, I doubt it. Why?”

  “Because I have a sense of smell, that’s why!”

  The man from the Mossad kept his eyes on Abrahms, as if studying the soldier’s face—or thinking from a different viewpoint. “There is only one other possibility, Chaim. If this Converse is not who and what I’ve described, which would be contrary to all the data we’ve compiled, then he is an agent of his government.”

  “That’s—what I smell,” said the sabra softly.

  It was the specialist’s turn to be silent. He breathed deeply, then responded. “I respect your nostrils, old friend. Not always your conduct but certainly your sense of smell. What do the others think?”

  “Only that he’s lying, that he’s covering for others he may or may not know, who are using him as a scout—an ‘infantry point’ was the term used by Palo Alto.”

  The Mossad officer continued to stare at the sabra, but his eyes were no longer focused; he was seeing abstract, twisted patterns, convolutions few men would comprehend. They came from a lifetime of analyzing seen and unseen, legitimate and racial enemies, parrying dagger thrusts with counterthrusts in the blackest darkness. “It’s possible,” he whispered, as if replying to an unspoken question heard only by himself. “Almost inconceivable, but possible.”

  “What is? That Washington is behind him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “As an outrageous alternative I do not subscribe to, but the only one left that has the slightest plausibility. Simply put, he has too much information.”

  “And?”

  “Not Washington in the usual sense, not the government in the broader sense, but within a branch of the government a section that has heard whispers about an organization but cannot be sure. They believe that if there is such an organization, they must invade it to expose it. So they choose a man with the right history, the right memories, even the right profession to do the job. He might even believe everything he says.”

  The sabra was transfixed but impatient. “That has too many complications for me,” he said bluntly.

  “Try it my way first. Try to accept him; he may be genuine. He’ll have to give you something concrete; you can force that. Then again he may not because he cannot.”

  “And?”

  “And if he can’t, you’ll know you’re right. Then put as much distance between him and his sponsors as is humanly and brutally possible. He must become a pariah, a man hunted for crimes so insane his madness is unquestioned.”

  “Why not just kill him?”

  “By all means, but not before he’s been labeled so mad that no one will step forward to claim him. It will buy you the time you need. The final phase of Aquitaine is when? Three, four weeks away?”

  “That’s when it begins, yes.”

  The specialist got up from the chair and stood pensively in front of the soldier. “I repeat, first try to accept him, see if what I said before is true. But if that sense of smell of yours is provoked further, if there’s the slightest possibility he has been willingly or unwillingly, wittingly or unwittingly, made a provocateur by men in Washington, then build your case against him and throw him to the wolves. Create that pariah as the North Vietnamese created a hellhound. Then kill him quickly, before anyone else reaches him.”

  “A sabra of the Mossad speaks?”

  “As clearly as I can.”

  The young Army captain and the older civilian came out of the Pentagon from adjacent glass doors and glanced briefly at each other with no recognition. They walked separately down the short bank of steps and turned left on the cement path that led to the enormous parking lot; the Army officer was perhaps ten feet ahead of the civilian. Upon reaching the huge asphalt area, each veered in a different direction toward his car. If these two men had been the subjects of photographic surveillance during the past fifty seconds, there was no indication whatsoever that they knew each other.

  The green Buick coupe turned right in the middle of the block, going through the open chasm that was the entrance to the hotel’s underground parking lot. At the bottom of the ramp the driver showed his room key to the attendant, who raised the yellow barrier and waved him along. There was an empty space in the third column of stationary automobiles. The Buick eased into it and the Army captain got out.

  He circled throu
gh the revolving door and walked to a bank of elevators in the hotel’s lower lobby. The panels of the second elevator opened, revealing two couples who had not intended to reach the underground level; they laughed as one of the men repeatedly pressed the lobby button. The officer, in turn, touched the button for the fourteenth floor. Sixty seconds later he walked out into the corridor toward the exit staircase. He was heading for the eleventh floor.

  The blue Toyota station wagon came down the ramp, the driver’s hand extended, a room key held out, the number visible. Inside the parking area the driver found an empty space and carefully steered the small station wagon into it.

  The civilian stepped out and looked at his watch. Satisfied, he started toward the revolving door and the elevators. The second elevator was empty, and the civilian was tempted to press the button for the eleventh floor; he was tired and did not relish the thought of the additional walk. However, there would be other occupants on the way up, so he held to the rules and placed his index finger over the button beside the number 9.

  Standing in front of the hotel-room door, the civilian raised his hand, rapped once, waited several beats, then rapped twice more. Seconds later the door was opened by the Army captain. Beyond him was a third man, also in uniform, the color and the insignia denoting a lieutenant, junior grade, in the Navy. He stood by a desk with a telephone on it.

  “Glad you got here on time,” said the Army officer. “The traffic was rotten. Our call should be coming through in a few minutes.”

  The civilian entered, nodding to the Navy man as he spoke. “What did you find out about Fitzpatrick?” he asked.

  “He’s where he shouldn’t be,” replied the lieutenant.

  “Can you bring him back?”

  “I’m working on it, but I don’t know where to begin. I’m a very low man on a very big totem pole.”

  “Aren’t we all?” said the captain.

  “Who’d have thought Halliday would have gone to him?” asked the naval officer, frustration in his voice. “Or if he was going to bring him in, why didn’t he go to him first? Or tell him about us?”

  “I can answer the last two questions,” said the Army man. “He was protecting him from a Pentagon backlash. If we go down, his brother-in-law stays clean.”

  “And I can answer the first question,” said the civilian. “Halliday went to Fitzpatrick because in the final analysis, he didn’t trust us. Geneva proved he was right.”

  “How?” asked the captain defensively, but without apology. “We couldn’t have prevented it.”

  “No, we couldn’t,” agreed the civilian. “But we couldn’t do anything about it afterwards, either. That was part of the trust, and there was no way we could live up to it. We couldn’t afford to.”

  The telephone rang. The lieutenant picked it up and listened. “It’s Mykonos,” he said.

  PART TWO

  12

  Connal Fitzpatrick sat opposite Joel at the room-service table drinking the last of his coffee. The dinner was finished, the story completed, and all the questions the Navy lawyer could raise had been answered by Converse because he had given his word; he needed a complete ally.

  “Except for a few identities and some dossier material,” said Connal, “I don’t know an awful lot more than I did before. Maybe I will when I see those Pentagon names. You say you don’t know who supplied them?”

  “No. Like Topsy, they’re just there. Beale said a number of them are probably mistakes, but others aren’t; they have to be linked to Delavane.”

  “They had to be supplied by someone too. There had to be reasons why they were listed.”

  “Beale called them ‘decision makers’ in military procurements.”

  “Then I have to see them. I’ve dealt with those people.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. Not very often, but enough to know my way around.”

  “Why you?”

  “Basically translating legal nuances from language to language where Navy tech was involved. I think I mentioned that I speak—”

  “You did,” Joel broke in.

  “Goddamn it!” cried Fitzpatrick, crushing his napkin in a fist.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Press knew I had dealings with those committees, with the technology and armaments boys! He even asked me about them. Who I saw, who I liked—who I trusted. Jesus! Why didn’t he come to me? Of all the people he knew, I was the logical one! I’m down the pike and his closest friend.”

  “That’s why he didn’t come to you,” said Converse.

  “Stupid bastard!” Connal raised his eyes. “And I hope you hear that, Press. You might still be around to see Connal Two win the Bay Regatta.”

  “I think you really believe he might hear you.”

  Fitzpatrick looked across the table at Joel. “Yes, I do. You see, I believe, counselor. I know all the reasons why I shouldn’t—Press enumerated them to a fare-thee-well when we were in our cups—but I believe. I answered him once with a quote from one of his laid-back Protestant forebears.”

  “What was that?” asked Joel, smiling kindly.

  “ ‘There’s more faith in honest doubt than is held by all the archangels in the mind of God.’ ”

  “It’s very nice. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Maybe I didn’t get it right.… Joel, I’ve got to see those names!”

  “And I have to get my attaché case, but I can’t go myself.”

  “Then I’m elected,” said the Navy man. “Do you think Leifhelm’s right? You think he can really call off Interpol?”

  “I’m of two thoughts about it. For my immediate maneuverability I hope he can. But if he does, it’ll scare the hell out of me.”

  “I’m on your side about that,” agreed Connal, getting out of the chair. “I’ll call the desk and get a taxi. Give me the key to the locker.”

  Converse reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, rounded key. “Leifhelm’s seen you. He could have you followed; he did before.”

  “I’ll be ten times more careful. If I see the same pair of headlights twice, I’ll go to a Bierkeller. I know a few here.”

  Joel looked at his watch. “It’s twenty minutes to ten. Do you think you could swing around to the university first?”

  “Dowling?”

  “He said he had someone he wanted me to meet. Just walk by him—or them—and say everything’s under control, nothing else. I owe him that much.”

  “Suppose he tries to stop me?”

  “Then pull out your ID and say it’s high priority, or ultrasecret, or whatever bullshit security phrases that come to that very inventive mind of yours.”

  “Do I sense a touch of legal envy?”

  “No, just recognition. I know where you’re coming from I’ve been there.”

  * * *

  Fitzpatrick walked slowly along the wide path on the south façade of the immense university building, once the great palace of the all-powerful archbishops of Cologne. The unimpeded moonlight swelled over the area, reflecting off the myriad rows of cathedral windows and lending a luminous dimension to the light stone walls of the majestic structure. Beyond the path the winding gardens of August possessed an eerie elegance—circles of sleeping flowers, their beauty heightened by the moonlight. Connal was so struck by the tranquil loveliness of the nocturnal setting that he nearly forgot why he was there.

  The reason was brought sharply back into focus when he saw a slender figure slouched alone on a bench. The man’s legs were extended and crossed at the ankles, his head covered by a soft cloth hat, but not sufficiently to hide the flowing gray-blond hair that protruded slightly over his temples and the back of his neck. So this Caleb Dowling was an actor, thought the Navy lawyer, amused by the fact that Dowling had feigned shock when he realized Connal did not recognize him. But then, neither had Converse; they were obviously a minority in a world of television addicts. A college professor who had fulfilled the fantasies of youth, a risk-taker, according to Joel,
who had won a battle against astronomical odds, was a nice thing to think about; the only sad note was the haunted life of his wife, whom he loved dearly. Also, a marine who had fought in the bloody mess that was Kwajalein was a man to be reckoned with.

  Fitzpatrick walked over to the bench and sat down several feet away from Dowling. The actor glanced at him, then did a perfectly natural double take, his head snapping. “You?”

  “I’m sorry about last night,” said Connal. “I gather I wasn’t very convincing.”

  “You lacked a certain finish, young fella. Where the hell is Converse?”

  “Sorry again. He couldn’t make it, but not to worry. Everything’s A-okay and under control.”

  “Whose okay and whose control?” countered the actor, annoyed. “I told Joel to come here, not a cub-scout interlocutor.”

  “I resent that. I’m a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy and the chief legal officer at a major naval base. Mr. Converse accepted an assignment from us which has an element of personal risk for him and the highest priority of classification for us. Back off, Mr. Dowling. We appreciate—and I speak for Converse as well as myself—your interest and your generosity, but it’s time for you to recede. For your own benefit, incidentally.”