The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  If there had been another woman, she could have fought, staking out her claim and fiercely insisting on the right to compete, but there was no one else, only himself and his compulsions. Finally, she realized she could not penetrate his shield; he had nothing left for anyone else emotionally. That was what she had hurled at him: “Emotional burn-out!” He had agreed in that quiet, kind voice and the next day he was gone.

  So she took him. Four years, she demanded, the exact amount of time he had taken from her. Those four years of heady generosity were about to come to an end, Val reflected, as she cleaned her brushes and scraped the palette. In January they were over, the last check, as always, posted by the fifteenth. Five weeks ago, during lunch at the Ritz in Boston, Joel had offered to continue the payments. He claimed he was used to them and was making more in salary and bonuses than he could spend soberly. The money was no hardship, and besides it gave him a certain stature among his peers and was a marvelous ploy to avoid prolonged entanglements. She had declined, borrowing words from her father or more likely her mother, saying that things were far better than they were. He had smiled that half-sad yet still infectious smile and said, “If they turn out otherwise, I’m here.”

  Goddamn him!

  Poor Joel. Sad Joel. He was a good man caught in the vortex of his own conflicts. And Val had gone as far as she could go—to go further was to deny her own identity. She would not do that; she had not done it.

  She placed her brushes in the tray and walked to the glass doors that looked over the dunes and the ocean. He was out there, far away, still somewhere in Europe. Valerie wondered if he had given a thought to the day. It was the anniversary of their marriage.

  To summarize, Chaim Abrahms was molded in the stress and chaos of fighting for daily survival. They were years of never-ending violent skirmishes, of outthinking and outliving enemies bent on killing not only whole sabra settlements but the desert Jews’ aspirations for a homeland as well as political freedom and religious expression. It is not difficult to understand where Abrahms came from and why he is what he is, but it is frightening to think about where he is going. He is a fanatic with no sense of balance or compromise where other peoples with identical aspirations are concerned. If a man has a different stripe, whether of the same species or not, he is the enemy. Armed force takes precedence over negotiations in all matters, and even those in Israel who plead for more moderate stands based on totally secure borders are branded as traitors. Abrahms is an imperialist who sees an ever-expanding Israel as the ruling kingdom of the entire Middle East. An appropriate ending to this report is a comment he made after the well-known statement issued by the Prime Minister during the Lebanon invasion: “We covet not one inch of Lebanon.” Abrahms’ reply in the field to his troops—the majority by no means sympathetic—was the following.

  “Certainly not an inch! The whole damned country! Then Gaza, the Golan, and the West Bank! And why not Jordan, then Syria, and Iraq! We have the means and we have the will! We are the mighty children of Abraham!”

  He is Delavane’s key in the volatile Middle East.

  It was nearly noon, the overhead sun beating down on the small balcony beyond the French doors. The late-breakfast remnants had been cleared away by room service; only a silver pot remained on the hunt table. They had been reading for hours since the first coffee was brought to the suite at six-thirty. Converse put down the dossier, and reached for his cigarettes on the table by the armchair. It is not difficult to understand where Abrahms came from … but it is frightening to think about where he is going. Joel looked over at Connal Fitzpatrick, who was seated on the couch, leaning forward over the coffee table and reading a single page while making notes on the telephone message pad; the Bertholdier and Leifhelm dossiers were in two neat piles on his left. The Navy lawyer had said practically the same words to him, thought Converse, lighting a cigarette. I’m beginning to see where you’re coming from.… The inherent question put to Joel’s legal mind was simple: Where was he himself going? He hoped to hell he knew. Was he an inept gladiator marching into a Roman arena facing far stronger, better-armed and superior talent? Or were the demons from his own past turning him into his own sacrifice, leading him into the arena’s hot sand where angry, half-starved cats waited, ready to pounce and tear him apart? So many questions, so many variables he was incapable of addressing. He only knew he could not turn back.

  Fitzpatrick looked up. “What’s the matter?” he asked, obviously aware that Converse was staring in his direction. “You worried about the admiral?”

  “Who?”

  “Hickman, San Diego.”

  “Among other things. In the clear light of day, you’re sure he bought the extension?”

  “No guarantees, but I told you he said he’ll call me if any emergency heat came down. I’m damn sure he won’t do anything before consulting me. If he tries to reach me, Meagen knows what to do and I’ll lean harder. If need be, I’ll claim point of personal privilege and demand a meeting with those unnamed people in the Fifth District, maybe go so far as to imply they could be part of Geneva. That’d be a full circle. We could end up with a standoff—the release of that flag only with a full-scale investigation of the circumstances. Irony and standoff.”

  “You won’t have a standoff if he’s with them. He’ll override you.”

  “If he was with them, he wouldn’t have told Remington he was going to call me. He wouldn’t have said anything; he’d have waited the extra day and let it go. I know him. He wasn’t just nonplussed, he was mad. He stands by his people and he doesn’t like outside pressures, especially Navy pressures. We’re on hold, and as long as it’s hold, the flag’s in place. I told you, he’s a lot angrier with Norfolk than with me. They won’t even give him a reason; they claim they can’t.”

  Converse nodded. “All right,” he said. “Call it a case of nerves on my part. I just finished the Abrahms dossier. That maniac could blow up the whole Middle East all by himself and drag the rest of us in with him.… What did you think of Leifhelm and Bertholdier?”

  “As far as the information goes, they’re everything you said and then some. They’re more than just influential ex-generals with fistfuls of money, they’re powerful rallying symbols for what a lot of people think are justifiable extremes. That’s as far as the information goes—but the operative word for me is the information itself. Where did it come from?”

  “That’s a step back. It’s there.”

  “It sure is, but how? You say Beale gave it to you, that Press used the phrase ‘we’—‘the ones we’re after,’ ‘the tools we can give you,’ ‘the connections as we think they are.’ ”

  “And we went over this,” insisted Joel. “The man in San Francisco, the one he went to who provided the five hundred thousand and told him to build cases against these people legally, and together they’d turn them into plain and simple profiteers. It’s the ultimate ridicule for superpatriots. It’s sound reasoning, counselor, and that’s the we.”

  “Press and this unknown man in San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they could pick up a phone and hire someone to put together these?” Fitzpatrick gestured at the two dossiers on his left.

  “Why not? This is in the age of the computer. Nobody today lives on an unmapped island or in an undiscovered cave.”

  “These,” said Connal, “are not computer printouts. They’re well-researched, detailed, in-depth dossiers that take in the importance of political nuances and personal idiosyncrasies.”

  “You have a way with words, sailor. Yes, they are. A man who can forward half a million dollars to the right bank on an Aegean island can hire just about anyone he likes.”

  “He can’t hire these.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Let me take a real step back,” said the Navy lawyer, getting to his feet and reaching down for the single page he had been reading. “I won’t reiterate the details of my relationship with Press because right now it hurts a l
ittle to think about it.” Fitzpatrick paused, seeing the look in Converse’s eyes that rejected this kind of sentimentality in their discussion. “Don’t mistake me,” he continued. “It’s not his death, not the funeral; it’s the other way around. It’s not the Press Halliday I knew. You see, I don’t think he told us the truth, either you or me.”

  “Then you know something I don’t know,” said Converse quietly.

  “I know there’s no man in San Francisco that even vaguely fits the description of the image he gave you. I’ve lived there all my life, including Berkeley and Stanford, just like Press. I knew everyone he knew, especially the wealthiest and the more exotic ones; we never held back on those with each other. I was legal worlds away, and he always filled me in if new ones came along. It was part of the fun for him.”

  “That’s tenuous, counselor. I’m sure he kept certain associations to himself.”

  “Not those kinds,” said Connal. “It wouldn’t be like him. Not with me.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Now let me step forward,” interrupted Fitzpatrick. “These dossiers—I haven’t seen them before, but I’ve seen hundreds like them, maybe a couple of thousand on their way to becoming full-fledged versions of them.”

  Joel sat up. “Please explain that, Commander.”

  “You just hit it, Lieutenant. The rank says it.”

  “Says what?”

  “Those dossiers are the reworked, finished products of intelligence probes utilizing heavy shots of military data. They’ve been bounced around the community, each branch contributing its input—from straight biographical data to past surveillances to psychiatric evaluation—and put together by teams of specialists. Those were taken from way down in the government vaults and rewritten with current additions and conclusions, then shaped to appear as the work of an outside, nongovernment authority. But they’re not. They’ve got Classified, Top Secret, and Eyes Only written all over them.”

  Converse leaned forward. “That could be a subjective judgment based on limited familiarity. I’ve seen some very detailed, very in-depth reports put together by high-priced firms specializing in that sort of thing.”

  “Describing precise military incidents during the time of war? Pinpointing bombing raids and specifying regiments and battalions and the current strategies employed? Detailing through interviews the internal conflicts of ranking enemy officers and the tactical reasons for shifting military personnel into civilian positions after the cessation of hostilities? No firm would have access to those materials.”

  “They could be researched,” said Joel, suddenly not convinced himself.

  “Well, these couldn’t,” Connal broke in, holding up the page of typewritten names, his thumb on the lower two columns listing the “decision makers” from the Pentagon and the State Department. “Maybe five or six—three from each side at maximum—but not the rest. These are people above the ones I’ve dealt with, men who do their jobs under a variety of titles so they can’t be reached—bribed, blackmailed, or threatened. When you said you had names, I assumed I’d recognize most of them, or at least half of them. I don’t. I only know the departmental execs, upper-echelon personnel who have to go even higher, who obviously report to these people. Press couldn’t have gotten these names himself or through others on the outside. He wouldn’t know where to look and they wouldn’t know where to look—I wouldn’t know.”

  Converse rose. “Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

  “Yes. Someone—probably more than one—deep in the Washington cellars provided these names just as he or they provided the material for those dossiers.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?”

  Connal stood still and nodded. “It’s not easy for me to say,” he began grimly. “Press lied to us. He lied to you by what he said, and to me by what he didn’t say. You’re tied to a string and it goes right back to Washington. And I wasn’t to know anything about it.”

  “The puppet’s in place.…” Joel spoke so softly he could barely be heard as he walked aimlessly across the room toward the bright sunlight streaming through the balcony doors.

  “What?” asked Fitzpatrick.

  “Nothing, just a phrase that kept running through my head when I heard about Anstett.” Converse turned. “But if there’s a string, why have they hidden it? Why did Avery hide it? For what purpose?”

  The Navy lawyer remained motionless, his face without expression. “I don’t think I have to answer that. You answered it yourself yesterday afternoon when we were talking about me—and don’t kid yourself, Lieutenant, I knew exactly what you were saying. ‘I’ll give you a name now and then that may open a door … but that’s all.’ Those were your words. Freely translated, you were telling yourself that the sailor you took on board might stumble on to something, but in case he was taken by the wrong people, they couldn’t beat out of him what he didn’t know.”

  Joel accepted the rebuke, not merely because it was justified, but because it made clear a larger truth, one he had not understood on Mykonos. Beale had told him that among those raising questions in Washington were military men who for one reason or another had not pursued their inquiries; they had kept silent. They had kept silent where they might be overheard, perhaps, but they had not totally kept their silence. They had talked in quiet voices until another quiet voice from San Francisco—a man who knew whom to reach courtesy of a brother-in-law in San Diego—made contact. They had talked together, and out of their secret conversations had come a plan. They needed an infiltrator, a man with the expertise who had a loathing they could fuel and, once fired, send out into the labyrinth.

  The realization was a shock, but oddly enough, Joel could not fault the strategy. He did not even fault the silence that remained after Preston Halliday’s murder; loud accusing voices would have rendered that death meaningless. Instead, they had stayed quiet, knowing that their puppet had the tools to make his way through the maze of illegalities and do the job they could not do themselves. He understood that, too. But there was one thing Converse could not accept, and that was his own expendability as the puppet. He had tolerated being left unprotected under the conditions outlined by Avery Fowler-Preston Halliday, not under these. If he was on a string, he wanted the puppeteers to know he knew it. He also wanted the name of someone in Bonn he could call, someone who was a part of them. The old rules did not apply any longer, a new dimension had been added.

  In four hours he would be driven through the iron gates of Erich Leifhelm’s estate; he wanted someone on the outside, a man Fitzpatrick could reach if he did not come out by midnight. The demons were pressing hard, thought Joel. Still, he could not turn back. He was so close to trapping the warlord of Saigon, so close to making up for so much that had warped his life in ways no one would ever understand.… No, not ‘no one,’ he reflected, One person did, and she had said she could not help him any longer. Nor had it been fair any longer to seek her help.

  “What’s your decision?” said Connal.

  “Decision?” asked Joel, startled.

  “You don’t have to go this afternoon. Throw it all back! This belongs Stateside with the FBI in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency overseas. I’m appalled they didn’t take that route.”

  Converse breathed the start of a reply, then stopped. It had to be clear, not only to Fitzpatrick but to himself. He thought he understood. He had seen the look of profound panic in Avery Fowler’s eyes—Preston Halliday’s eyes—and he had heard the cry in his voice. The lies were his strategy, but the look and the cry were his innermost feelings.

  “Has it occurred to you, Commander, that they can’t take that route? That, perhaps, we’re not-talking about men who can pick up a phone—as you said before—and put those wheels in motion? Or if they tried, they’d have their heads cut off, perhaps literally, with an official rebuke and a bullet in the back of their skulls? Let me add that I don’t think they’re afraid for themselves any more than I believe they chos
e the best man for the job, but I do think they came to a persuasive conclusion. They couldn’t work from the inside because they didn’t know whom they could trust.”

  “Christ, you’re a cold son of a bitch.”

  “Ice, Commander. We’re dealing with a paranoid fantasy called Aquitaine, and it’s controlled by proven, committed, highly intelligent and resourceful men, who if they achieve what they’ve set out to do will appear as the voices of strength and reason in a world gone mad. They’ll control that world—our world—because all other options will pale beside their stability. Stability, counselor, as opposed to chaos. What would you choose if you were an everyday nine-to-fiver with a wife and kids, and you could never be sure when you went home at night whether or not your house had been broken into, your wife raped, your kids strangled? You’d opt for tanks in the street.”

  “With justification,” said the Navy lawyer, the two words spiraling quietly off into the air of the sunlit room.

  “Believe that, sailor. They’re banking on it, and that’s just what they’re planning to do on an international scale. It’s only a few days or a few weeks away—whatever it is, wherever it is. If I can just get an inkling …” Converse turned and started for the door of his bedroom.

  “Where are you going?” asked Connal.

  “Beale’s telephone number on Mykonos; it’s in my briefcase. He’s my only contact and I want to talk to him. I want him to know the puppet has just been granted some unexpected free will.”