The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  “May I introduce General Abrahms?” Leifhelm broke in, touching Converse’s elbow and leading him to the Israeli.

  “General Abrahms, it’s a privilege,” said Joel with convincing sincerity as they shook hands. “Like everyone here, I’ve admired you tremendously, although perhaps your rhetoric has been excessive at times.”

  The Israeli’s face reddened as soft laughter filled the large room. Suddenly Van Headmer stepped forward, and Converse’s eyes were drawn to the strong face, the brows frowning, muscles taut.

  “You are addressing one of my closest associates, sir,” he said; the rebuke was unmistakable. Then a thin smile creased his gaunt, chiseled face. “And I could not have said it better myself. A pleasure to know you, young man.” The Afrikaner’s hand was stretched toward Joel, who accepted it amid the subdued laughter.

  “I am insulted!” cried Abrahms, his thick eyebrows raised, his head bobbing in mock despair. “By talkers I’m insulted! Frankly, Mr. Converse, they agree with you because none of them has had a woman in a quarter of a century. They may tell you otherwise—others may tell you otherwise—but believe me they hire whores to play cards with them or read stories into their old gray ears just to fool their friends!” The laughter grew louder, and the Israeli, now playing to an audience, went on, leaning forward and pretending to speak sotto voce to Joel. “But you see, I hire the whores to tell me the truth while I shtup them! They tell me these fancy talkers nod off by nine o’clock, whining for warm milk. With the Ovaltine, if it’s possible!”

  “My dear sabra,” said Leifhelm, talking through his laughter, “you read your own romantic fiction too assiduously”

  “You see what I mean, Converse?” asked Abrahms, shrugging, palms extended. “You hear that? ‘Assiduously.’ Now you know why the Germans lost the war. They forever spoke so dramatically of the Blitzkrieg and the Angriffe, but actually they were talking—assiduously—about what to do next!”

  “They should have given you a commission, Chaim,” said Bertholdier, enjoying himself. “You could have changed your name, called Rommel and Von Runstedt Jews and taken over both fronts.”

  “The High Command could have done worse,” agreed the Israeli.

  “I wonder, though,” continued the Frenchman, “if you would have stopped there? Hitler was a fine orator, as you are a fine orator. Perhaps you would have claimed that he, too, was a Jew and moved into the chancellery.”

  “Oh, I have it on good authority that he was a Jew. But from a very bad family. Even we have them; of course, they’re all from Europe.”

  The laughter grew again and then rapidly began to subside. Joel took the cue. “Sometimes I speak too frankly, General,” he said. “I should learn better, but, believe me, no insult was intended. I have nothing but admiration for your stated positions, your policies.”

  “And that’s precisely what we shall discuss,” said Erich Leifhelm, drawing everyone’s attention. “Positions, policies, overall philosophy, if you will. We will stay as far away from specifics as we can, although a few will undoubtedly intrude. However, it is our approach to the larger abstractions that count. Come, Mr. Converse, have a chair. Let us begin our conference, the first of many, I trust.”

  Rear Admiral Hickman slowly put down the transcript on his desk, and looked aimlessly—past his propped-up feet—out the window at the ocean under a gray sky. He crossed his arms, lowered his head and frowned. He was as bewildered now as he had been when he first read the transcript, as convinced now as he was then that Remington’s conclusions—conclusion, really—was off the mark. But then the legal officer was too young to have any real knowledge of the events as they had actually happened; no one who had not been there could really understand. Too many others did; it was the reason for the flag, but it made no sense to apply that reasoning to this Converse eighteen years later. It was exhuming a corpse that had died from a fever, whether the shell of a man lived on or not. It had to be something else.

  Hickman looked at his watch, unfolded his arms and removed his feet from the edge of the table. It was three-ten in Norfolk; he reached for the telephone.

  “Hello, Brian,” said Rear Admiral Scanlon of the Fifth Naval District. “I want you to know how much we appreciate SAND PAC’s help in this thing.”

  “SAND PAC’s?” asked Hickman, bemused that no credit was given to the State Department.

  “All right, Admiral, your help. I owe you one, old Hicky.”

  “Start paying by dropping that name.”

  “Hey, come on, don’t you remember the hockey games? You’d come racing up the ice and the whole cadet corps would shout: ‘Here comes Hicky! Here comes Hicky!’ ”

  “May I unblock my ears now?”

  “I’m just trying to thank you, pal.”

  “That’s just it, I’m not sure for what? Have you read the transcript?”

  “Naturally.”

  “What the hell’s there?”

  “Well,” answered Scanlon tentatively. “I read it pretty quickly. It’s been an awful day and, frankly, I just passed it on. What do you think is there? Between you and me, I’d like to know, because I barely had time to skim through it.”

  “What do I think is there? Absolutely nothing. Oh, sure, we kept flags on stuff like that back then because the White House passed the order to put a lid on officially recorded criticism and we all went along. Also we were pretty sick and tired of it ourselves. But there’s nothing in that transcript that hasn’t been heard before, or that has any value for anyone but military historians a hundred years from now as a very small footnote.”

  “Well,” said Scanlon, even more tentatively, “this Converse had some pretty harsh things to say about Command-Saigon.”

  “About Mad Marcus? Christ, I said worse during the Force-Tonkin conferences and my CO did me ten times better. We ferried in those kids up and down the coast when all they were ready for was a day at the beach with hot dogs and Ferris wheels.… I don’t get it. You and my legal zero in on the same thing, and I think it’s old hat and discredited. Mad Marcus is a relic.”

  “Your who?”

  “My legal exec. I told you about him, Remington.”

  “Oh, yes. The stickler prick.”

  “He picked up on the Saigon thing too. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘It’s in those remarks. It’s Delavane.’ He wasn’t around to know Delavane was fair game for every antiwar group in the country. Hell, we gave him the name Mad Marcus. No, it’s not Delavane, it’s something else. Perhaps it’s in those escapes, specifically Converse’s last escape. Maybe there’s some MIA input we don’t know about.”

  “Well,” repeated the admiral in Norfolk for the third time, but now far less tentatively. “You may have something there, but it doesn’t concern us. Look, I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want you to think you went to a lot of trouble for nothing, but the word I get is that the whole thing is a bust-negative.”

  “Oh?” said Hickman, suddenly listening very carefully. “How so?”

  “It’s the wrong man. Apparently an overenthusiastic JG was doing some digging in the same time period, the same general circumstances. He saw the flag and drew six wrong conclusions. I hope he enjoys taking five A.M. muster.”

  “And that’s it?” asked SAND PAC’s admiral, controlling his astonishment.

  “That’s the feedback we get here. Whatever your CLO had in mind hasn’t anything to do with our people.”

  Hickman could not believe what he was hearing. Of course Scanlon had not mentioned the State Department’s efforts. He knew nothing about them! He was quickly putting as much distance between himself and the Converse flag as he could, lying because he had not been told. State was working quietly—probably through Cons Op—and Scanlon had no reason to think “old Hicky” knew a damn thing about Bonn or Converse or Connal Fitzpatrick’s whereabouts. Or about a man named Preston Halliday who had been murdered in Geneva. What was happening? He would not find out from Scanlon. No
r did he care to.

  “To hell with it, then. My CLO will be back in three or four days and maybe I’ll learn something.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s back in your sandbox, Admiral. My people had the wrong man.”

  “Your people couldn’t navigate a row boat in the D.C. Reflecting Pool.”

  “Can’t blame you for that, Hicky.”

  Hickman hung up the phone and resumed his standard position when in thought, gazing beyond his propped-up shoes at the ocean. The sun was trying to break through the overcast without much success.

  He had never liked Scanlon for reasons too petty to examine. Except one; he knew Scanlon was a liar. What he had not known was that he was such a stupid liar.

  Lieutenant David Remington was flattered by the call. The well-known four-striper had invited him to lunch—not only invited him but had apologized for the lateness of the invitation and told him that it was perfectly understandable if it was inconvenient. Further, the captain wanted him to know that the call was of a personal nature, having nothing to do with naval business. The high-ranking officer, although a resident of La Jolla, was in port for only a few days and needed legal advice. He had been told that Lieutenant Remington was just about the best lawyer in the United States Navy. Would the lieutenant accept?

  Of course Remington had made it perfectly clear that whatever advice he might offer would be offered on the basis of amicus-amicae; no remuneration could possibly be considered, as that would be a violation of Statute …

  “May I buy you lunch, Lieutenant, or do we have to split the check?” the four-striper had asked—somewhat impatiently, thought Remington.

  The restaurant was high in the hills above La Jolla, an out-of-the-way roadside inn that apparently catered to diners of the area and those from San Diego and University City who did not care to be seen together in the usual places. Remington had not been too pleased; he would have preferred being seen at the Coronado with the captain than traveling ten miles north so as not to be seen in the hills of La Jolla. Nevertheless, the four-striper had been politely adamant; it was where he wanted to meet. David had checked him out. The much decorated captain not only was in line for promotion but was considered a potential candidate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Remington would have ridden a bicycle on the exposed Alaskan pipeline to keep the appointment.

  Which was exactly what he thought he was doing, as he spun the steering wheel right, then left, then right and right again as he made his way up the steep narrow roads. It was important to keep in mind, he thought, as he whipped the car to the left, that personal advice was nevertheless professional advice, and without payment of any sort whatsoever, it constituted a debt that would one day be acknowledged. And if a man was elevated to the Joint Chiefs … Remington could not help it: in a glow of self-importance he had let drop to a fellow legal officer—the one who had coined the name “stickler prick”—that he was lunching with a highly regarded four-striper in La Jolla and might be late returning to the office. Then to drive his point home, he had asked his associate for directions.

  Oh, my God! What was it? Oh, my God!

  At the apex of the hairpin curve was an enormous black rig, thirty feet in length, and out of control. It weaved right and left on the narrow incline, its speed gathering with every foot, measured in racing yards, a black behemoth swerving, crashing down on everything in front of it, a wild beast gone mad!

  Remington whipped his head to his right as he spun the wheel to avoid impact. There were only thin trunks of young trees and saplings in late-summer bloom; below was a floral abyss. These were the last images he saw as the car careened on its side and began the plunge.

  Far above on another hill a man kneeled, binoculars raised to his face as the explosion below confirmed the kill. His expression was one of neither joy nor sadness, merely acceptance. A mission had been accomplished. After all, it was war.

  And Lieutenant David Remington, whose life was so ordered and orderly, who knew exactly where he was going and how in this world, who knew above all that he would never be trapped by the forces that had killed his father in the name of corporate policy, was put to death by the policy of a company he had never heard of. An enterprise called Aquitaine. He had seen the name Delavane.

  Their view is that it’s the proper evolution of current history, all other ideologies having failed.… The words spoken by Preston Halliday in Geneva kept repeating themselves in Converse’s inner ear as he listened to the four voices of Aquitaine. The frightening thing was that they believed what they said without equivocation, morally and intellectually, their convictions rooted in observations going back decades, their arguments persuasive as they illuminated past global mistakes of judgment that resulted in horrible suffering and unnecessary loss of life.

  The simple objective of their coming together—allies and former enemies alike—was to bring benevolent order to a world in chaos, to permit the industrial states to flourish for the good of all people, spreading the strengths and benefits of multinational trade to the impoverished, uncommitted Third World and, by so doing, secure its commitment. Only in this way, in this coming together, could Communism be stopped—stopped and reversed until it collapsed under the sheer force of superior armed might and financial resources.

  To bring all this about required a shift in values and priorities. Industrial decisions everywhere must be coordinated to bring about the total strength of the free states. Government treasuries, multinational corporations and giant conglomerates must look to a stratum of interlocking committees, agree to be directed by these committees, to accept their decisions—which would in effect be their respective governments’ decisions—each keeping the others apprised of its current agenda. What was this ultimate stratum of negotiators? Who would be the members of these committees that would in effect speak for the free nations and set their policies?

  Throughout history only one class of people remained constant in its excellence, who when called upon in times of crisis performed far beyond human expectations—even in defeat. The reasons for this segment’s unique contributions in war—and even in peace, though to a lesser degree—were historically clear: these men were selfless. They belonged to a class trained to serve without thought of reward except for the recognition of excellence. Wealth was irrelevant because their needs were furnished and perquisites granted only through the outstanding performance of duty.

  In the new order this class of people would not be subject to the corruptions of the marketplace. In reality it was unusually well equipped to deal with such corruptions, for it could not be touched by them. The mere presence of any illegally gained wealth within its ranks would instantly be recognized and condemned, resulting in courts-martial. This class of society, this novel branch of the human race, was not only incorruptible at the highest levels, it would be the ultimate savior of mankind as we know it today.

  It was the military. The world over, even encompassing one’s enemies. Together—even as enemies—they best understood the catastrophic results of weakness.

  To be sure, certain minor liberties would perforce have to be withheld from the body politic, but these were small sacrifices for survival. Who could argue?

  None of the four spokesmen for Aquitaine raised his voice. They were the quiet prophets of reason, each with his own history, his own identity—allies and enemies together in a world gone mad.

  Converse responded in the affirmative to everything that was said—this was not difficult to do—and asked abstract questions of philosophy, as he was expected to do. Even the court jester, Chaim Abrahms, became deeply serious and answered Converse’s questions quietly.

  At one point Abrahms said, “You think we Jews are the only ones in the Diaspora, my friend? You are wrong. The whole human race is dispersed everywhere, all of us locking rams’ horns and not knowing where to go. Certain rabbis claim we Jews shall not see salvation until the Messianic era, the time of divine redemption when a god will appear to show us the way to our own
promised land. He was far too late arriving; we could not wait for Him any longer. We created Israel. Do you see the lesson? We—we here—are now the divine intervention on earth. And I—even I, a man of accomplishment and ego—will give up my life in silence so we may succeed.”

  Jacques-Louis Bertholdier: “You must understand, Mr. Converse, that Voltaire said it best in his Discours sur l’homme. Essentially he wrote that man attained his highest freedom only when he understood the parameters of his behavior. We will establish those parameters. Is anything more logical?”

  Erich Leifhelm: “Goethe said it perhaps better when he insisted that the romance of politics was best used to numb and quell the fears of the uninformed. In his definitive Aus meinem Leben he states clearly that all governing classes must be imbued above all with discipline. Where is it more prevalent?”

  Jan van Headmer: “My own country, sir, is the living embodiment of the lesson. We took the beast out of the savage and formed a vast, productive nation. The beast returns and my nation is in turmoil.”

  And so it went for several hours. Quiet dissertations delivered thoughtfully, reflectively, passions apparent only in the deep sincerity of their convictions. Twice Joel was pressed to reveal the name of his client and twice he demurred, stating the legal position of confidentiality—which could change in a matter of days, perhaps less.

  “I’d have to offer my client something concrete. An approach, a strategy that would warrant his immediate involvement, his commitment, if you will.”

  “Why is that necessary at this juncture?” asked Bertholdier. “You’ve heard our reasoning, Certainly an approach can be discerned.”

  “All right, scratch approach. A strategy, then. Not the why but the how.”

  “You ask for a plan?” said Abrahms. “On what basis?”

  “Because you’ll be asking for an investment surpassing anything in your experience.”

  “That’s an extraordinary statement,” interjected Van Headmer.

  “He has extraordinary resources,” replied Converse.