The Aquitaine Progression: A Novel

  “It was also going to be used for something else,” said Converse, remembering Leifhelm’s incredible story of the rising of the Fourth Reich a generation after the war. Operation Sonnenkinder.

  One of the men with a grappling hook crawled over and spoke to the Rebel in German. The Southerner replied angrily, looking pained, but finally nodded as the man crawled away. He turned to Joel.

  “Son of a no-account hound dog bitch!” he exclaimed under his breath. “He stole me blind! He said he’d make the first assault on the east flank—which you know damn well that mother studied—if I guaranteed him an additional five thousand American!”

  “And you’ll pay, of course.”

  “Of course. We’re honorable men. If he’s killed, every penny goes to his wife and children. I know the lad; we took a building once with the Meinhof inside. He scaled eight stories, dropped down through an elevator shaft, kicked a door open and shot the bastards cold with his Uzi on rapid fire.”

  “I don’t believe all this,” whispered Converse.

  “Believe,” said the Rebel softly as he looked at Joel. “We do it because no one else will. And somebody has to do it. We may be rogues, son, but there are times we’re on the side of the angels—for a price.”

  The muted sound of the rubberized grappling hook taking hold on top of the wall split the air; the rope stretched taut. In seconds the black-clothed man could be seen climbing hand over hand, racing up the dark concrete. He reached the ledge, his left hand disappearing over the top, his right leg swinging up as he vaulted into a prone position, his body level with the ledge of concrete. Suddenly he held out his left arm, waving it back and forth twice, a signal. Then bracing himself, he reached for his holstered weapon with his right hand and pulled it out slowly.

  A single spit was heard, and once more there was silence as the man’s left arm shot out. A second signal.

  The two other men with grappling hooks raced out of the grass; flanking the first man, they swung their hooks in circles and heaved them up, each accurately as the ropes were yanked taut, and then began scaling the wall. Joel knew it was his turn; it was part of the plan if he was up to it and he was determined to be. He rose and joined the remaining two men hired by the Rebel; the American pilot who had spoken to him pointed to the center rope. He gripped it and started the painful climb to the top of the wall.

  Only in the last extremity were the elderly Johnny Reb and the slender, professorial Geoffrey Larson expected to use the ropes. By his own admission the Southerner might not be capable, and the risk of injury to the computer expert was unacceptable.

  Arms and legs aching, Converse was hauled up the final inches by his German companion. “Pull up the rope!” ordered the man in a heavily accented whisper. “Drop it slowly down the other side and reverse the hooks.”

  Joel did as he was told, and saw for the first time the interior of the strange fortress—and a uniformed man below on the ground, dead, blood trickling down the center of his forehead from the incredibly accurate shot. In the intermittent moonlight he could make out a series of huge watery slips in the distance broken up by concrete piers on which were giant winches, black wheels of immense machinery, long out of use, relics of a violent past. In a semicircle facing the U-boat docks and the sea were five low concrete one-story buildings with small windows, the first two dimly lit inside. The buildings were joined by cement walkways, wide steps where they were necessary, as the central structures were higher off the ground; these no doubt had once been the officers’ quarters, commanders of the behemoths that prowled the deep waters of the Atlantic, killers for an abominable cause.

  Directly below the wall where the three ropes now dangled were more wide steps that led up both sides of what appeared to be a concrete podium or platform, the area in front some kind of courtyard, perhaps two hundred feet wide, that led to the rear of the buildings facing the U-boat slips. A parade ground, thought Converse, visualizing rows of submarine crews standing at attention, receiving orders and listening to the exhortations of their officers as they prepared once more to enter the deep in search of tonnage and carnage.

  “Follow me!” said the German, tapping Joel’s shoulder and grabbing the rope as he slid over the wall and lowered himself onto the concrete platform beneath. On both sides the four men were on their way down, one after the other. Converse, less gingerly than the professionals, rolled over the ledge, his hands gripping the rope, and slid to the ground.

  The two men on Joel’s left raced silently across the platform and down the steps toward the huge steel doors. The two men on his right, as if by instinct, ran down the opposite steps, returning below to crouch in front of the platform, their weapons drawn. Converse, following the German, swiftly joined the pair at the doors. Both men were studying the bolts and the layers of plating and the complicated lock with tiny flashlights.

  “Fuse it and blow it,” said the American. “There’s no alarm.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Joel. “From what I gathered, this whole place is wired.”

  “The trips are down there,” explained the other pilot, pointing toward the three-foot-high concrete wall on each side of the parade ground.

  “Trips?”

  “Trip lights. Intersecting beams.”

  “Which means there are no animals,” said the German, nodding. “Keine Hunde. Sehr gut!”

  The fourth man had finished stuffing wads of a soft, puttylike substance into the lock mechanism, using his knife to finish the job. He then took out a small circular device no larger than a fifty-cent coin from his pocket, layered another mound of the substance directly over the lock and plunged the coin into it. “Move back,” he ordered.

  Converse watched, mesmerized. There was no explosion, no detonation whatsoever, but there was intense heat and a glowing blue-white flame that literally melted the steel. Then a series of clicks could be heard, and the American quickly slid back the triple bolts. He pushed the right door open and blinked his flashlight outside. Moments later Johnny Reb and Geoffrey Larson walked through the door into the strange compound.

  “Trips,” repeated the American to the Rebel. “They’re all along those two walls,” he said, pointing. “See them?”

  “I can,” replied the Southerner. “And that means there’ll be a few shooting straight up on top for tiptoeing feet. All right, boys, let’s do a little crawling. Bellies down with knees and asses wiggling.” The six at the door joined the two crouched in front of the platform. Johnny whispered in German, then turned to Larson. “My English friend, I want you to stay right here until us old-timers give you the high sign to catch up with us.” He looked at Joel. “Sure you want to come?”

  “I won’t bother to answer that. Let’s go.”

  One by one, with the German who was $5,000 richer in the lead, the seven men snaked their way across the old parade ground. Barely breathing, trousers torn, knees and hands scraped by the rough, cracked concrete. The German headed for the break between buildings 2 and 3, counting from the right. It was a connecting cement path with gradually rising steps on the left. He reached the open space and stood up.

  Suddenly he snapped his fingers once—not very loud but loud enough. Everyone froze where he was under the field of intersecting alarm beams. Converse turned his head on the ground to try to see what was happening. The German was crouched in the shadows as a man came into view, a guard with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Aware of another presence, the guard whipped his head around; the German lunged out of the shadows, his long-bladed knife arcing in midair toward the man’s head. Joel closed his eyes, the sound of savagely expunged air telling him more than he cared to know.

  The movement began again, and again, one by one, each member of the unit reached the path. Converse was soaked with sweat. He looked at the row of U-boat slips ahead and the sea beyond them and wished to God he could fall into the water. The Rebel touched his elbow, indicating that Joel should take out his gun as the Southerner had done. It was now Johnny Reb who
took the lead; he crept out to the front of building 2 and turned right, crouching close to the ground, heading toward the lighted windows. His fingers snapped; all movement stopped, bodies now prone. Diagonally to the left, by the edge of a giant slip were the glow of cigarettes and the sound of men talking quietly—three men, guards with rifles.

  As if they had been given an order, three of the five men hired by the Rebel—which ones Converse could not tell—broke away and started crawling in a wide arc toward the opposite side of the old U-boat berth. Approximately a minute and a half later—the longest ninety seconds Joel could remember—a barrage of muted reports punctured the night breezes off the sea. The subsequent sounds were minimal as hands clutched at heads and bodies snapped before falling to the concrete ground. The hired guns returned and Johnny Reb waved them forward, with Converse forced to be the last as men grabbed his shoulders and passed him. They reached the only lighted window in building 2; the Rebel stood up and inched his way to the glass. He turned and shook his head; the unit proceeded.

  They came to the open space between buildings 1 and 2. Cautiously each man ran across, crouching the instant he reached the opposite edge and then racing ahead. It was Joel’s turn; he got to his knees, then to his feet.

  “Horst? Bist das du?” said a man harshly, walking out of a door and up the cement path.

  Converse stood motionless. The rest of the unit was well past the edge of building 1 as the sounds of the North Sea crashing on the rocks in the distance blocked out the intruder’s voice. Joel tried not to panic. He was alone, and if he panicked, he could blow the operation apart, destroy the complex at Scharhörn, killing everyone, including Connal Fitzpatrick, if, indeed, the young commander was there.

  “Ja,” he heard himself saying as he turned away into the shadows, his right hand reaching across his waist for the hunting knife. He could not trust his gun in the darkness.

  “Warten Sie einen Augenblick! Sie sind nicht Horst!”

  Joel shrugged, and waited. The footsteps approached; a hand grabbed his shoulder. He spun around, gripping the handle of the knife with such force that it nearly blocked out the terrible thing his mind told him he had to do. He grabbed the man’s hair and brought the razor-sharp blade across the throat.

  Wanting to vomit, he pulled the man into the darker shadows; the head was all but severed from the body. He raced across the open space and caught up with the others. No one had missed him; each man was taking his turn peering into one of the four lighted windows in a row. Johnny Reb was beyond the first, successively pointing in different directions firmly, rapidly, and each man, after a crisp nod, ducked away. An assault was about to be immediately executed. Converse raised himself to the edge of the last window and looked inside. Instantly he understood why the Rebel had to act quickly. There were ten guards in what could only be described as paramilitary uniforms belonging to no recognizable army. Each was either strapping on a weapon, looking at his watch or crushing out a cigarette. Then, more ominously, they checked the ammunition clips in their rifles and automatics. Several laughed, raising their voices as if making demands at the expense of the others. Joel could not understand the words. He moved away from the window and confronted Johnny Reb, who was close to the ground.

  “It’s a patrol going out, isn’t it?” whispered Converse.

  “No, son,” replied the Southerner. “It’s a firing squad. They just got their orders.”

  “My God!”

  “We follow them, staying low and out of sight. You may find your old buddy Fitzpatrick, after all.”

  The next minutes were straight out of Kafka, thought Joel. The ten men lined up and walked out the door leading to building 2. Suddenly floodlights blazed throughout the parade ground, the trip lights obviously turned off as the squad walked out on the concrete. Two men with automatics in their hands ran to building 4; they unlocked and then unbolted the heavy door, and raced inside shouting orders as lights were turned on.

  “Alles aufstehen! ’Raus! Mach schnell! Schnell!”

  Seconds later, gaunt, manacled figures began straggling out in their ragged clothes, blinking at the harsh lights, some barely able to walk and supported by others who were stronger. Ten, twenty, twenty-five, thirty-two, forty … forty-three. Forty-three prisoners of Aquitaine about to be executed! They were marched toward the concrete wall fronting the platform at the far end of the parade ground.

  It happened with the hysterical force of a crowd gone mad! The condemned men suddenly bolted in all directions, those nearest the two guards with the automatics crashing the chains of their manacled hands into the stunned faces. Shots rang out, three prisoners fell and writhed on the ground. The firing squad raised their rifles.

  “Now, you mother-lovin’ catfish hunters!” shouted Johnny Reb as the entire Scharhörn unit raced into the melee, pistols firing, muted spits mingling with the ear-shattering explosions of the unsilenced weapons.

  It was over in less than twenty seconds. The ten men of Aquitaine lay on the ground. Six were dead, three wounded, one on his knees trembling with fear. Two men of the Scharhörn unit sustained minor wounds—the American pilot and one other.

  “Connal!” roared Joel, racing about the scattered prisoners, relieved that most were moving. “Fitzpatrick! Where the hell are you?”

  “Over here, Lieutenant,” said a weak voice on Converse’s right. Joel threaded his way through the fallen bodies and knelt down beside the frail, bearded Navy lawyer. “You took your sweet time getting here,” continued the commander. “But then junior-grade officers usually have deficiencies.”

  “What happened back there?” asked Converse. “You could all have been killed!”

  “That was the point, wasn’t it? It was made clear to us last night, so we figured what the hell?”

  “But why you? Why all of you?”

  “We talked and we couldn’t figure it out. Except one thing—we were all senior officers on thirty- to forty-day leaves, most of them summer leaves. What did it mean?”

  “It was meant to throw people off if they began to see a pattern. There are ninety-seven men out in hit teams—all on summer leaves. Numerically you were nearly fifty percent of that number, presumably above suspicion. You were a bonus and it saved your life.”

  Suddenly Connal whipped his head to the left. A man was running out of building 5, racing down the concrete path. “That’s the warden!” shouted Fitzpatrick as loud as he could. “Stop him! If he gets into the second barracks he’ll blow the whole place up!”

  Joel got to his feet and, gun in hand, started after the racing figure as fast as his painful legs would carry him. The man had reached the midpoint of building 3; he had less than thirty yards to go to the door of 2. Converse fired; the bullet was way off its mark, ricocheting off a steel window frame. The man reached the door, smashed it open and slammed it shut. Joel raced to it and crashed the full weight of his body into the heavy wood. It gave way, swinging violently back into the wall. The man was running to a metal-encased panel; Converse fired wildly, frantically, again and again. The man spun, wounded in the legs, but he had opened the panel. He reached up for a bank of switches. Joel lunged, gripping the man’s hand, smashing his head against the stone floor.

  Gasping for breath, Converse crawled away from the man, his hands covered with warm blood, his empty pistol on the floor. One of the Scharhörn team burst through the door. “Are you fine?” he asked in an accent Joel could not place.

  “Splendid,” said Converse, feeling weak and sick.

  The hired gun walked past Joel and glanced at the still figure on the floor on his way to the open panel. He studied it and reached into his pocket for some kind of small, multifaceted tool. In seconds he was taking out screws and pulling off the interior metal plating. Moments later, with another part of the instrument he was cutting wires far back into their receptacles, leaving nothing but stubs of copper.

  “You are not to worry,” said the man, finished. “I am best of Norwegian demolition
s. Now we do not concern ourselves that a stray pig can do damage. Come, there is much work left to do.” The team member stopped and stood above Converse. “We owe you our lives. We will pay.”

  “It’s not necessary,” said Joel, getting up.

  “It is the custom,” replied the man, heading for the door.

  Out on the parade ground, Aquitaine’s prisoners were sitting up against the wall—all but five, whose bodies were covered with sheets. Converse went over to Fitzpatrick.

  “We lost them,” said the naval officer, with no strength in his voice.

  “Look to the things you believe in, Connal,” said Joel. “It may sound banal, but it’s the only thing I can think of to say.”

  “It’s good enough.” Fitzpatrick looked up, a wan smile on his lips. “Thanks for reminding me. Go on. They need you over there.”

  “Larson!” shouted Johnny Reb, standing above the trembling unhurt guard. “Get in here!”

  The professorial Englishman walked hesitantly through the steel door at the base of the airstrip into the floodlights. He came over to the Rebel, his eyes wandering about the parade ground, his expression one of consternation and awe. “Good God!” he uttered.

  “I guess that says it,” said the Southerner as two members of the Scharhörn team came running out of building 5. “What’d you find?” yelled Johnny Reb.

  “Seven others!” shouted one of the men. “They’re in a toilet, which is suitable to their conditions!”

  “I say!” said Geoffrey Larson, raising his voice. “Would any by chance be the computer chap?”

  “We did not ask!”

  “Go ask!” ordered the Rebel. “Time’s run out!” He turned to Converse. “I’ve been in touch with your lady. The word out of Israel and Rome is downright awful—some of the hit teams eluded Stone’s men. The demonstrations began an hour ago, and already twelve government people have been killed. In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv they’re screaming for Abrahms to take over. In Rome the police can’t handle the riots and the panic; the Army’s moved in.”