The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  The fourth surprise came at the Manchester airport. An ebullient, middle-aged redheaded man had greeted him as though they were long-lost fraternity brothers from some Midwestern university in the late thirties, when such fraternal ties were deemed far deeper than blood. He was effusive to the point where Stone was not only embarrassed by the display of camaraderie but seriously concerned that unwarranted attention would be drawn to them. But once in the parking lot, the redhead had suddenly slammed him into the doorframe of the car and shoved the barrel of a gun into the back of his neck while the man’s free hand stabbed his clothes for a weapon.

  “I wouldn’t take the risk of going through metal detectors with a gun, damn it!” protested the ex-CIA agent.

  “Just making sure, spook. I’ve dealt with you assholes, you think you’re something else. Me, I was Federal.”

  “Which explains a great deal,” said Stone, meaning it.

  “You drive.”

  “Is that a question or an order?”

  “An order. All spooks drive,” replied the redhead.

  Surprise number five came in the car as Stone took the sudden turns commanded by the redheaded man, who casually replaced, the gun in his jacket holster.

  “Sorry about the horseshit,” he had said in a voice far less hostile than it had been in the parking lot, but nowhere near the false ebullience in the terminal. “I had to be careful, piss you off, see where you stood, you know what I mean? And I was never Federal—I hated those turkeys. They always wanted you to know they were better than you were just because they came from D.C. I was a cop in Cleveland, name’s Gary Frazier. How are you?”

  “Somewhat more comfortable,” Stone had said. “Where are we going?”

  “Sorry, pal. If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

  Surprise number six awaited Stone when he drove the car up through the New Hampshire hills to an isolated house of wood and glass, surrounded by forests, the structure an inverted V, two narrowing stories looking out in all directions on woods and water. Nathan Simon had walked down the stone steps from the front door.

  “You’ve brought it?” he asked.

  “Here it is,” said Stone, handing the attaché case to the lawyer through the open window. “Where are we? Who are you seeing?”

  “It’s an unlisted residence, but if everything is in order we’ll call you. There are guest quarters attached to the boat-house down at the lake. Why not freshen up after your trip? The driver will point the way. If we need you for anything, we’ll ring you on the phone. It’s a separate number from the house, so just pick it up.”

  And now Peter Stone was walking down the wide dirt path that led to the boathouse by the lake, aware that eyes were following him. Surprise number six: he had no idea where he was and Simon wasn’t going to tell him unless “everything was in order,” whatever that meant.

  The guest quarters alluded to by the attorney was a three-room cottage on the edge of the lake with an entrance to the adjacent boathouse, in which was berthed a small sleek motorboat and a nondescript catamaran that looked more like a raft with two canvas seats and fishing equipment for drift trawling. Stone wandered about trying to find some clue as to the owner’s identity but there was nothing. Even the names on the boats were meaningless, but not lacking in humor. The cumbersome, raftlike sail was named Hawk, while the aggressive-looking little speedboat was Dove.

  The former deep-cover intelligence officer sat on the porch and looked out at the peaceful waters of the lake and the rolling, darkening green hills of New Hampshire. Everything was peaceful. Even the cries of the loons seemed to proclaim the permanence of tranquility in this special place. But Stone’s insides were not peaceful; his stomach churned and he remembered what Johnny Reb used to say in the field. “Trust the stomach, Brer Rabbit, trust the bile. They never lie.” He wondered what the Rebel was doing, what he was learning.

  The phone inside the cottage rang, accompanied by a strident, unnerving clanging of the porch bell. As if jolted by an electric prod, Stone sprang from the chair, swung back the door and walked rapidly across the room to the telephone.

  “Come up to the house, please,” said Nathan Simon, adding, “If you were out on the porch, I apologize for not telling you about that damned bell.”

  “I accept your apology. I was.”

  “It’s for guests who expect calls and may be out in one of the boats.”

  “The loons are quiet. I’ll be right there.”

  Stone walked up the dirt path and saw the lawyer standing by a screen door that was the lake-side entrance to the house; it was on a patio reached by curving brick steps. He started climbing, prepared for surprise number seven.

  Supreme Court Justice Andrew Wellfleet, his thinning unkempt white hair falling in strands over his wide forehead, sat behind the large desk in his library. Converse’s thick affidavit was in front of him, and a floor lamp on his left threw light on the pages. It was several moments before he looked up and removed his steel-rimmed glasses. His eyes were stern and disapproving, matching the nickname given him over two decades ago when he was summoned to the Court. “Irascible Andy” was the sobriquet the clerks had given him, but no one ever questioned his awesome intelligence, his fairness, or his devotion to the law. All things considered, surprise number seven was as welcome a shock as Stone could imagine.

  “Have you read this?” asked Wellfleet, offering neither his hand nor a chair.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Stone. “On the plane. It’s essentially what he told me over the phone, in far greater detail, of course. The affidavit from the Frenchman, Prudhomme, was a bonus. It tells us how they operate—how they’re capable of operating.”

  “And what in hell did you think you were going to do with all of this?” The elderly justice waved his hand over the desk, on which were scattered the other affidavits. “Petition the courts here and in Europe to please, if they’d be so kind, to issue injunctions restricting the activities of all military personnel above a certain rank on the conceivable possibility that they may be part of this?”

  “I’m not a lawyer, sir, the courts never entered my mind. But I did think that once we had Converse’s own words—along with what we knew—they’d be sufficient to reach the right people in the highest places who could do something. Obviously, Converse thought the same thing insofar as he called in Mr. Simon, and if you’ll forgive me, Mr. Justice, you’re reading it all now.”

  “It isn’t enough,” said the Supreme Court justice. “And damn the courts, I shouldn’t have to tell you that, Mr. Former CIA Man. You need names, a lot more names, not just five generals, three of whom are retired and one of them, the so-called instigator, a man who had an operation several months ago that left him without legs.”

  “Delavane?” asked Simon, stepping away from the window.

  “That’s right,” said Wellfleet. “Kind of pathetic, huh? Not exactly the picture of a very imposing threat, is he?”

  “It could drive him into being an extraordinary threat.”

  “I’m not denying that, Nate. I’m just looking at the collection you’ve got here.” Abrahms? As anyone worth his kosher salt in Israel will tell you, he’s a strutting, bombastic hothead—a brilliant soldier but with ten screws loose. Besides, his only real concerns are for Israel. Van Headmer? He’s a relic of the nineteenth century, pretty fast with a hangman’s rope but his voice doesn’t mean doodly-shit outside of South Africa.”

  “Mr. Justice,” said Stone, speaking more firmly than he had before, “are you implying that we’re wrong? Because if you are, there are other names—and I don’t just mean a couple of attachés at the embassy in Bonn—names of men who have been killed because they tried to find answers.”

  “You weren’t listening!” snapped Wellfleet. “I just told Nate I wasn’t denying anything. How in hell could I? Forty-five million in untraceable, illegal exports! An apparatus that can shape the news media here and in Europe, that can corrupt government agencies, and as Nate here pu
ts it, ‘create a psychopathic assassin’ so they can find you, or make you back down. Oh, no, mister, I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying you better damn well do what I’m told you’re pretty good at, and you’d better do it quickly. Haul in this Washburn and any others you can find in Bonn; pick a cross section of those people at State and the Pentagon and fill ’em full of dope or whatever the hell you use and get names! And if you ever mention that I suggested such wanton measures that violate our most sacred human rights, I’ll say you’re full of shit. Talk to Nate here. You don’t have time for niceties, mister.”

  “We don’t have the resources, either,” said Stone. “As I explained to Mr. Simon, there are a few friends I can call upon for information but nothing like what you suggest—like what you didn’t suggest. I simply don’t have the leverage, the men or the equipment. I’m not even employed by the government any longer.”

  “I can help you there.” Wellfleet made a note. “You’ll get whatever you need.”

  “There’s the other problem,” continued Stone. “No matter how careful we are, we’d send out alarms. These people are believers, not just mindless extremists. They’re orchestrated; they have lines of fallbacks and know exactly what they’re doing. It’s a progression, a logical capitalizing on sequences until we’re all forced to accept them—or accept the unacceptable, the continuation of violence, of wholesale rioting, of the killing.”

  “Very nice, mister. And what are you going to do? Nothing?”

  “Of course not. Rightly or wrongly, I believed Converse when he told me that with our affidavits—with all the evidence we provided him—Mr. Simon could reach people we couldn’t reach. Why shouldn’t I have believed him? It was an extension of my own thinking without a Nathan Simon but with Converse himself. Only, my way would take longer. The precautions would be far more elaborate, but it could be done. We’d reach the right people and start the counterattack.”

  “Who’d you have in mind?” asked Wellfleet sharply.

  “The President first, obviously. Then, because we’re dealing with half a dozen other countries, the Secretary of State. A maximum-security screening process would be set up immediately—one undoubtedly using those chemicals you didn’t speak of—until we had unblemished personnel, men and women we we’re certain beyond doubt had no connections to this Aquitaine. We create cells, command posts here and abroad. Incidentally, there’s a man who can help us immeasurably in this, a man named Belamy in Britain’s M.I.6. I’ve worked with him and he’s the best—knows the best—and he’s done this sort of thing before. Once our cells are in place and in deep cover, we then pull in Washburn and at least two others we know of by description in Bonn. Prudhomme can furnish us with the names of those in the Sûreté who approve transfers, and who furnished evidence against Converse when it didn’t exist. And as you know from my own affidavit, we’ve got the island of Scharhörn under surveillance now—we think it’s a nerve center or a communications relay. With the proper equipment we could tap in. The whole point is we widen the circles of information. Once you know a strategy, you can mount a counterstrategy without setting off alarms.” Stone paused and looked at both men. “Mr. Justice, Mr. Simon. I was station chief in five vital posts in Great Britain and the Continent. I know it can be done.”

  “I don’t doubt you,” said Nathan Simon. “How long would it take?”

  “If Justice Wellfleet can get me the cooperation and the equipment I need, with the people I select—here and abroad—Derek Belamy and I can mount a crash program. We’d be operational in eight to ten days.”

  Simon looked at the Supreme Court justice then back at Stone. “We don’t have eight or ten days,” he said. “We have three—less than three days now.”

  Peter Stone stared at the tall, portly attorney with the sad, penetrating eyes. He could feel the blood draining from his face.

  The cry of the cat was muted in fury. General George Marcus Delavane slowly replaced the telephone on the console. His half-body was propped into the wheelchair, his waist strapped to the steel poles, his arms as heavy as his breath was short, the veins in his neck distended. He brought his hands together, entwining his fingers and pressing the knuckles against each other until the surrounding flesh was white. He raised his large head, his cold, angry eyes narrowing as he looked up at the uniformed aide standing in front of the desk.

  “They’ve disappeared,” he said, his high-pitched voice icily controlled. “Leifhelm was taken from a restaurant in Bonn. They say there was an ambulance that raced away, no one knows where. Abrahms’ guards were drugged. Others took their places. He was driven off in his own staff car, picked up in front of a synagogue. Bertholdier did not come down from his apartment on the Montaigne, so the driver went up to discreetly remind him of the time. The woman was bound naked on the bed, the word ‘whore’ written in lipstick across her breasts. She said two men took him away at gunpoint. There was talk of a plane, she said.”

  “What about Van Headmer?” asked the aide.

  “Nothing. Our charming and oblivious Afrikaner dines at the Johannesburg Military Club and says he will put himself under extra guard. He’s not part of the orbit; he’s too far away to matter.”

  “What do you mean, General? What happened?”

  “What happened? This Converse happened! We created our own most accomplished enemy, Colonel—and I can’t say we weren’t warned. Chaim said it, our man in the Mossad made it clear. The North Vietnamese created a hellhound—the Mossad’s words—and we created a monster. He should have been killed in Paris, certainly in Bonn.”

  “You couldn’t have ordered it then,” said the aide, shaking his head. “You had to know where he came from, and if you couldn’t find out, you had to isolate him, make him—what was it?—a pariah, so no one would come forth to claim him. It was sound strategy, General. It still remains sound. No one’s come forth—no one’s coming forth. You held them back, and now it’s too late.”

  Delavane’s eyes widened as he appraised the colonel’s face. “You’ve always been the best of adjutants, Paul. You tactfully remind a superior that regardless of periodic setbacks, his decisions were based on sound reasons, and that those reasons will prevail.”

  “I’ve disagreed when I thought it was necessary, General, because whatever I learned I learned from you, so I merely reminded you of yourself. Right now, at this moment, I’m right. You were right.”

  “Yes, I was—I am. Nothing matters now. Everything’s set in motion and nothing can stop it. This Converse—this bold, resourceful enemy—was also held in check by having to keep running. And now he’s too late. In any event, the men he’s taken are merely symbols, magnets to attract others. That’s the beauty of clean strategy, Colonel. Once it’s set in motion, it rolls like the ocean wave. The power underneath is unseen, but it is relentless. Events will dictate the only acceptable solutions. It’s my legacy, Colonel.”

  Nathan Simon had nearly finished his explanation. It had taken less than three minutes, during which time Peter Stone remained motionless, his eyes riveted on the older man, his face ashen, the taste in his mouth unbearable.

  “You can see the pattern, can’t you?” concluded the attorney. “The protests begin in the Middle East and follow the sun and the time zones across the Mediterranean, up through Europe, and over the Atlantic, culminating in Canada and the United States. They start with the Peace Now movement in Jerusalem, then Beirut, Rome, Paris, Bonn, London, Toronto, Washington, New York, Chicago, et cetera. Gigantic rallies in the major cities and capitals, covering every nation and government Delavane and his people have infiltrated. Confrontations occur—the initial unrest—growing into major disruptions with the infusion of terrorist units. Bombs wired into cars, or under the streets in sewers, or simply rolled into the crowds—the second wave of greater violence—all leading to the mass confusion and disorder they require to put their leading players in position. Or more precisely, once in position to exercise their assignments.”

 
“The final assaults,” said Stone quietly. “Selected assassinations.”

  “Chaos,” agreed Simon. “World leaders suddenly dead, the descending mantles of authority unclear, too many men protesting, fighting one another, screaming that they are in charge. Total chaos.”

  “Scharhörn!” said the former intelligence officer. “We have no other choice now. We have to go in! May I use your telephone, Mr. Justice?” Without waiting for a reply, Stone walked to Wellfleet’s desk as he removed his billfold and pulled out the small piece of paper with a number in Cuxhaven, West Germany, written on it. He turned the phone around under the harsh gaze of the Supreme Court justice, picked it up and dialed. The sequence of transatlantic relays was intolerable. It rang.

  “Rebel?”

  The explosive invective over the line from half a world away could be heard even by Simon and Wellfleet. Stone broke it off. “Stop it, Johnny! I haven’t been near the hotel in hours and I haven’t time for this!… You what?” The CIA man listened, holding his breath, his eyes growing wide. He covered the mouthpiece and turned to Nathan Simon. “My God, there’s a breakthrough!” he whispered. “Photographs. Infrared, taken last night and developed this morning—all clear. Ninety-seven men from Scharhörn getting off a boat, heading for the airport and train station. He thinks they’re the hit teams.”

  “Get those photographs to Brussels and flown to Washington on the fastest goddamned military transport you can find!” ordered the venerated justice of the Supreme Court.

  39

  “Preposterous!” shouted General Jacques-Louis Bertholdier from the brocaded wing chair in the spacious study of the Alpine chateau. “I don’t believe you for a minute!”

  “That’s a favorite word of yours, isn’t it?” said Converse, standing by the open cathedral window across the room, the mountain fields beyond. He was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and a regimental tie, all purchased in Chamonix. “The word ‘preposterous,’ I mean,” he continued. “You used it at least twice when we spoke in Paris, I think. It’s as though whatever information you don’t like is preposterous—absurd, unwarranted—not only the information itself but also the person who gives you the information. Is that the way you look at people who don’t accommodate you?”