The Aquitaine Progression (101 page)

Abrahms stared down at Joel. “But why do you tell me this truth? If it
is
the truth. Why do you abduct me to tell me these things.
Why?
”

“I thought I made that clear. My money’s running out, and although I’m not wild about lox or kreplach, I’d be better off living in Israel under a protective cover than being hunted and ultimately killed running around Europe. You can do that for me, but I know I’ve got to deliver something to you first. I’m delivering it now. Bertholdier intends to take over what he calls code-name Aquitaine. He said you’re a foul-mouthed Jew, a destructive symbol, you’ll have to go. He said the same about Leifhelm; the specter of a Nazi couldn’t be tolerated, and Van Headmer was a ‘fossil’—that was the word, ‘fossil.’ ”

“I can hear him,” said Abrahms softly, his hands clasped behind his back, pacing toward the window. “Are you sure our military boulevardier with the cock of steel did not say ‘smelly Jew’? I’ve heard our French hero use such words—always, of course, apologizing to me, saying I was exempt.”

“He used them.”

“But
why
? Why would he say such things to
you
? I don’t deny his logic, for Christ’s sake. Leifhelm will be shot once controls are established. A
Nazi
running the goddamned German government? Absurd! Even Delavane understands this, he will be eliminated. And poor old Van Headmer is a relic, we all know that. Still, there is gold in South Africa. He. could deliver it. But why
you
? Why would Bertholdier come to
you
?”

“Ask him yourself. There’s the phone. Use it.”

The Israeli stood motionless, his narrow eyes encased in swells of flesh riveted on Converse. “I
will
,” he said quietly, emphatically. “You are far too clever, Mr. Lawyer. The fire inside you remains in your head—it has not reached your stomach. You think too much. You say you were manipulated? I say
you
manipulate.” Abrahms turned and strode like a bulky Coriolanus to the phone. He stood for a moment, squinting, remembering, then picked up the phone and dialed the series of numbers long ago committed to memory.

Joel remained in the chair, every muscle in his body taut, his throat suddenly dry. Slowly he inched his hand over the
arm of the chair nearer the pistol. In seconds he might have to use it, his strategy—his
only
strategy—blown apart by a phone call he had never thought would be made.
What was wrong with him? Where were his vaunted examining tactics taking him? Had he forgotten whom he was dealing with?

“Code Isaiah,” said Abrahms into the phone, his angry eyes again staring across the room at Converse. “Patch me through to Verdun-sur-Meuse.
Quickly!
” The Israeli’s massive chest heaved with every breath, but it was the only part of his stocky frame that moved. He spoke again, furiously. “Yes, code
Isaiah
! I have no time to waste! Reach Verdunsur-Meuse!
Now!
” Abrahms’ eyes grew wide as he listened. He looked briefly away from Converse, then snapped his head back toward him, his eyes filled with loathing. “
Repeat
that!” he shouted. And then he slammed the telephone down with such force the desk shook. “
Liar!
” he screamed.

“You mean me?” asked Joel, his hand inches from the gun.

“They say he
disappeared
! They cannot
find him
!”

“
And?
” Converse’s throat was now a vacuum. He had lost.

“He
lies
! The cock of steel is no more than a whining coward! He’s hiding—he
avoids
me! He will not
face
me!”

Joel swallowed repeatedly as he moved his hand away from the weapon. “Force the issue,” he said, somehow managing to keep the tremor out of his voice. “Trace him down. Call Leifhelm, Van Headmer. Say it’s imperative you reach Bertholdier.”

“
Stop
it! And let him know I
know
? He had to give you a reason! Why did he come to see you in the first place?”

“I wanted to wait until you’d spoken to him,” said Converse, crossing his legs and picking up a pack of cigarettes next to the pistol. “He might have told you himself—then again, he might not. He has this idea that I was sent out by Delavane to test all of you. To see who might betray him.”

“
Betray
him? Betray the legless one?
How?
Why? And if our French peacock believed that, again why would he say these things to you?”

“I’m an attorney. I provoked him. Once he understood how I felt about Delavane, what that bastard did to me, he knew I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him. His defenses were down; the rest was easy. And as he talked I saw
a way to save my own life.” Joel struck a match, lighting a cigarette. “By reaching you,” he added.

“At the end you bank on the morality of a Jew, then? His acknowledgment of a debt.”

“In part, yes, but not entirely, General. I know something about Leifhelm, about the way he’s maneuvered through the years. He’d have me shot, then send his men after the rest of you, leaving himself in the number one position.”

“That’s exactly what he’d do,” agreed the Israeli.

“And I didn’t think Van Headmer had any real authority north of Pretoria.”

“Right again,” said Abrahms, walking back toward Converse. “So the hellhound created in Southeast Asia is a survivor.”

“Let’s be more specific,” countered Joel. “I was sent out by people I don’t know who abandoned me without raising the slightest question as to my guilt or innocence. For all I know, they joined in the hunt to “kill me to save their own lives. Given these conditions I intend to survive.”

“What about the woman? Your woman?”

“She goes with me.” Converse put down the cigarette and picked up the gun. “What’s your answer? I can kill you now, or leave that to Bertholdier, or Leifhelm, if he kills the Frenchman first. Or I can bank on your morality, your acknowledgment of a debt. What’s it going to be?”

“Put away the gun,” said Chaim Abrahms. “You have the word of a sabra.”

“What’ll you do?” asked Joel, placing the weapon back on the table.

“
Do?
” shouted the Israeli in a sudden burst of anger. “What I’ve always
intended
to do! You think I give a horse’s fart for this abstraction, this Aquitaine’s infrastructure? Do you think I care one whit for titles or labels or chains of command? Let them have it all! I only care that it works, and for it to work
respectability
must come out of the chaos
along
with strength. Bertholdier was right. I am too divisive a figure—as well as a Jew—to be so visible on the Euro-American scene. So I will be
invisible
—except in Eretz Yisrael, where my word will be the law of this new order. I, myself, will help the French bull get whatever medals he wants. I will not fight him, I will
control
him.”

“How?”

“Because I can destroy his respectability.”

Converse sat forward, suppressing his astonishment. “His sex life? Those buried scandals?”

“My Cod, no, you imbecile! You kick a man below his belt in public you ask for trouble. Half the people cry ‘Foul,’ thinking it could happen to them, and the other half applaud his courage to indulge himself—which they would very much like to do.”

“Then how, General? How can you do this, destroy his respectability?”

Abrahms sat down again in the brocaded chair, his thick body squeezed dangerously between the delicately carved mahogany arms. “By exposing the role he played in ‘code-name Aquitaine.’ The roles we all played in this extraordinary adventure that forced the civilized world to summon us and the strengths of our professional leadership. It’s entirely possible that all free Europe will turn to Bertholdier, as France nearly turned to him after De Gaulle. But one must understand a man like Bertholdier. He doesn’t merely seek power, he seeks the
glory
of power—the trappings, the adulation, the mysticism. He would rather give up certain intrinsic authority than lose any part of the glory.
Me?
I don’t give a shit about the glory. All I want is the power to get what I need, what I command. For the kingdom of Israel and its imprimatur in all of the Middle East.”

“You expose him, you expose yourself. How can you win that Way?”

“Because he’ll blink first. He’ll think of the glory and submit. He’ll do as I say, give me what I want.”

“I think he’ll have you shot.”

“Not when he’s told that if I die several hundred documents will be released describing every meeting we attended, every decision we made. Everything is scrupulously detailed, I assure you.”

“You intended this from the beginning?”

“From the beginning.”

“You play rough.”

“I’m a sabra. I play for the advantage—without it we would have been massacred decades ago.”

“Among these documents is there a list of everyone in Aquitaine?”

“No. It has never been my intention to jeopardize the movement. Call it whatever name you will, I believe truly in the concept. There
must
be a unified, international military-industrial
complex. The world will not stay sane without it.”

“But there is such a list.”

“In a machine, a computer, but it must be programmed correctly, the proper codes used.”

“Could you do it?”

“Not without help.”

“What about Delavane?”

“You have certain perceptions yourself,” said the Israeli, nodding. “What about him?”

Again Joel had to control his astonishment. The computer codes that released the master list of Aquitaine were with Delavane. At least the key symbols were. The remainder were provided by the four leaders across the Atlantic. Converse shrugged. “You haven’t really mentioned him. You’ve talked about Bertholdier, about the elimination of Leifhelm, and the impotence of Van Headmer, who could, however, bring in raw materials—”

“I said ‘gold,’ ” corrected Abrahms.

“Bertholdier said ‘raw materials.’ But what about George Marcus Delavane?”

“Marcus is finished,” said the Israeli flatly. “He was coddled—we all coddled him—because he brought us the concept and he worked his end in the United States. We have equipment and matériel all over Europe, to say nothing of the contraband we’ve shipped to insurgents, just to keep them occupied.”

“Clarification,” interrupted Joel. “ ‘Occupied’ means killing?”

“All is killing. Disingenuous philosophers notwithstanding, the ends
do
justify the means. Ask a man hunted by killers if he will jump into human excrement to conceal himself.”

“I’ve asked him,” said Converse. “I’m he, remember? What about Delavane?”

“He’s a madman, a maniac. Have you ever heard his voice? He speaks like a man with his testicles in a vise. They cut off his legs, you know, amputated only months ago for diabetes. The great general felled from an excess of
sugar
! He’s tried to keep it a secret. He sees no one and no longer goes to his impressive office filled with photographs and flags and a thousand decorations. He operates out of his home, where the servants come only when he’s hidden in a darkened bedroom. How he wished it could have been a mortar shell or a
bayonet charge, but no. Only sugar. He’s become worse, a raving fool, but even fools can have flashes of brilliance. He had it once.”

“What
about
him?”

“We have a man with him, an aide with the rank of colonel. When everything begins, when our commands are in place, the colonel will do as instructed. Marcus will be shot for the good of his own concept.”

It was Joel’s turn to get out of his chair. Once again he walked to the cathedral window across the room and felt the cool mountain breezes on his face. “This examination is finished, General,” he said.

“
What?
” roared Abrahms. “You want your life.
I
want guarantees!”

“Finished,” repeated Converse as the door opened and a captain in the Israeli Army walked inside, his gun leveled at Chaim Abrahms.

“There will be no discussion between us, Herr Converse,” said Erich Leifhelm, standing by the door of the study. The doctor from Bonn had just left the room. “You have your prisoner. Execute him. Over many years and in many ways I have been waiting for this moment. In truth, I’m weary of the morbidity.”

“Are you telling me you want to die?” asked Joel, standing by the table with the pistol on top.

“No one
wants
to die, least of all a soldier in the quiet of a strange room. Drums and sharp commands to a firing squad are preferable—there’s a certain meaning in that. But I’ve seen too much death to go into hysterics. Pick up your pistol and get it over with. I would if I were you.”

Converse studied the German’s face, whose strange eyes were noncommittal, expressing only contempt. “You mean it, don’t you?”

“Shall I give orders myself? There was a newsreel years ago. A black man did that against a bloodstained wall in Castro’s Cuba. I’ve always admired that soldier.” Leifhelm suddenly shouted, “
Achtung! Soldaten! Präsentiert das Gewehr!
”

“For Christ’s sake, why not
talk
?” roared Joel, riding over the fanatical voice.

“Because I have nothing to say. My actions speak, my life has
spoken
! What is it, Herr Converse? You have no stomach for executions? You cannot give the order to yourself? A small,
insignificant man’s conscience will not permit him to kill? You are laughable!”

“I remind you, General, I’ve killed several people these past few weeks. Killed with less feeling than I ever thought possible.”

“The lowliest coward running for his life will kill in panic. There is no character in that, merely survival. No, Herr Converse, you
are
insignificant, an impediment even your own forces care nothing about. You abound in this world. There is an odd phrase you have in your country that so readily applies to you, a phrase our associate uses frequently. You are a ‘shit-kicker,’ Herr Converse, nothing more and probably less.”

“What did you say? What did you call me?”

“You heard me clearly. A shit-kicker. A little man who steps in waste. Shit-kicker, Herr Converse.
Shit-kicker!
”