The Aquitaine Progression (15 page)

“He wasn’t lying,” Joel had said.

“I can’t imagine why he would,” Mattilon had replied.

I can
, Converse had thought to himself.
They call it Aquitaine
.

A crack! There was a sudden sound, a harsh metallic snap, then another, and another—the tumblers of a lock falling out of place, a knob being turned. It came from beyond the open door to the bedroom. Joel bolted forward in his chair; then, looking at his watch, just as rapidly he let out his breath and relaxed. It was the hour when the floor maid turned down the bed; the tension of the expected call and what it represented had frayed his nerves. Again he leaned back, his gaze resting on the telephone. When would it ring?
Would
it ring?

“Pardon, monsieur,”
said a feminine voice, accompanied by a light tapping on the open doorframe. Joel could not see the speaker.

“Yes?” Converse turned away from the silent phone, expecting to see the maid.

What he saw made him gasp. It was the figure of Bertholdier, his posture erect, his angled head rigid, his eyes a strange admixture of cold appraisal, condescension, and—if Joel was not mistaken—a trace of fear. He walked through the door and stood motionless; when he spoke his voice was a rippling sheet of ice.

“I was on my way to a dinner engagement on the fourth floor, Monsieur Simon. By chance, I remembered you were in this very hotel. You did give me the number of your suite. Do I intrude?”

“Of course not, General,” said Converse, on his feet.

“Did you expect me?”

“Not this way.”

“But you did expect me?”

Joel paused. “Yes.”

“A signal sent and received?”

Again Joel paused. “Yes.”

“You are either a provocatively subtle attorney or a strangely obsessed man. Which is it, Monsieur Simon?”

“If I provoked you into coming to see me and I was subtle about it, I’ll accept that gladly. As to being obsessed, the word implies an exaggerated or unwarranted concern. Whatever
concerns I have, I know damned well they’re neither exaggerated nor unwarranted. No obsession, General. I’m too good a lawyer for that.”

“A pilot cannot lie to himself. If he does so blindly, he crashes to his death.”

“I’ve been shot down. I’ve never crashed through pilot error.”

Bertholdier walked slowly to the brocaded couch against the wall. “Bonn, Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg,” he said quietly as he sat down and crossed his legs. “The signal?”

“The signal.”

“My company has interests in those areas.”

“So does my client,” said Converse.

“And what do
you
have, Monsieur Simon?”

Joel stared at the soldier. “A commitment, General.”

Bertholdier was silent, his body immobile, his eyes searching “May I have a brandy?” he said finally. “My escort will remain in the corridor outside this door.”

Converse walked to the dry bar against the wall, conscious of the soldier’s gaze, wondering which tack the conversation would take. He was oddly calm, as he frequently was before a merger conference or a pretrial examination, knowing he knew things his adversaries were not aware of—buried information that had surfaced through long hours of hard work. In the present circumstances there had been no work at all on his part, but the results were the same. He knew a great deal about the legend across the room named Jacques-Louis Bertholdier. In a word, Joel was prepared, and over the years he had learned to trust his on-the-feet instincts—as he had once trusted those that had guided him through the skies years ago.

Also, as it was part of his job, he was familiar with the legal intricacies of import-export manipulations. They were a maze of often disconnected authorizations, easily made incomprehensible for the uninitiated, and during the next few minutes
he intended to baffle this disciple of George Marcus Delavane—warlord of Saigon—until the soldier’s trace of fear became something far more pronounced.

Clearances for foreign shipments came in a wide variety of shapes and colors, from the basic export license with specific bills of lading to those with the less specific generic limitations. Then there were the more coveted licenses required for a wide variety of products subject to governmental reviews; these were usually shunted back and forth between vacillating departments until deadlines forced bureaucratic decisions often based on whose influence was the strongest or who among the bureaucrats were the weakest.

Finally, there was the most lethal authorization of all, a document too frequently conceived in corruption and delivered in blood. It was called the End-User’s Certificate, an innocuously named permit that was a license to ship the most abusive merchandise in the nation’s arsenals into air and sea lanes beyond the controls of those who should have them.

In theory, this deadly equipment was intended solely for allied governments with shared objectives, thus the “use” at the discretion of the parties at the receiving “end”—calculated death legitimized by a “certificate” that obfuscated everyone’s intentions. But once the equipment was en route, diversion was the practice. Shipments destined for the Bay of Haifa or Alexandria would find their way to the Gulf of Sidra and a madman in Libya, or an assassin named Carlos training killer teams anywhere from Beirut to the Sahara. Fictional corporations with nonexistent yet strangely influential officers operated through obscure brokers and out of hastily constructed or out-of-the-way warehouses in the U.S. and abroad. Millions upon millions were to be made; death was an unimportant consequence and there was a phrase for it all. Boardroom terrorism. It fit, and it would be Aquitaine’s method. There was no other.

These were the thoughts—the methods of operation—that flashed through Converse’s mind as he poured the drinks. He was ready; he turned and walked across the room.

“What are you seeking, Monsieur Simon?” asked Bertholdier, taking the brandy from Converse.

“Information, General.”

“About what?”

“World markets—expanding markets that my client
might service.” Joel crossed back to the chair by the window and sat down.

“And what sort of service does he render?”

“He’s a broker.”

“Of what?”

“A wide range of products.” Converse brought his glass to his lips; he drank, then added, “I think I mentioned them in general terms at your club this afternoon. Planes, vehicles, oceangoing craft, munitions material. The spectrum.”

“Yes, you did. I’m afraid I did not understand.”

“My client has access to production and warehouse sources beyond anyone I’ve ever known or ever heard of.”

“Very impressive. Who is he?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Perhaps I know him.”

“You might, but not in the way I’ve described him. His profile is so low in this area, it’s nonexistent.”

“And you won’t tell me who he is,” said Bertholdier.

“It’s privileged information.”

“Yet, in your own words, you sought me out, sent a signal to which I responded, and now say you want information concerning expanding markets for all manner of merchandise, including Bonn, Tel Aviv, and Johannesburg. But you won’t divulge the name of your client who will benefit if I have this information—which I probably do not. Surely, you can’t be serious.”

“You
have
the information and, yes, I’m very serious. But I’m afraid you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“I have no fear of it at all. My English is fluent and I heard what you said. You came out of nowhere, I know nothing about you, you speak elusively of this unnamed influential man—”

“You
asked
me, General,” interrupted Joel firmly without raising his voice. “What I was seeking.”

“And you said information.”

“Yes, I did, but I didn’t say I was seeking it from you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Under the circumstances—for the reasons you just mentioned—you wouldn’t give it to me anyway, and I’m well aware of that.”

“Then what is the point of this—shall I say, induced—conversation? I do not like my time trifled with, monsieur.”

“That’s the last thing on earth we’d do—
I’d
do.”

“Please be specific.”

“My client wants your trust.
I
want it. But we know it can’t be given until you feel it’s justified. In a few days—a week at the outside—I hope to prove that it is.”

“By trips to Bonn, Tel Aviv—Johannesburg?”

“Frankly, yes.”

“Why?”

“You said it a few minutes ago. The signal.”

Bertholdier was suddenly wary. He shrugged too casually; he was pulling back. “I said it because my company has considerable investments in those areas. I thought it was entirely plausible you had a proposition, or propositions, to make relative to those interests.”

“I intend to have.”

“Please be specific,” said the soldier, controlling his irritation.

“You know I can’t,” replied Joel. “Not yet.”

“When?”

“When it’s clear to you—all of you—that my client, and by extension myself, have as strong motives for being a part of you as the most dedicated among you.”

“A part of my company? Juneau et Compagnie?”

“Forgive me, General, I won’t bother to answer that.”

Bertholdier glanced at the brandy in his hand, then back at Converse. “You say you flew from San Francisco.”

“I’m not based there,” Joel broke in.

“But you came from San Francisco. To Paris. Why
were
you there?”

“I’ll answer that if for no other reason than to show you how thorough we are—and how much more thorough others are. We traced—
I
traced—overseas shipments back to export licenses originating in the northern California area. The licensees were companies with no histories, and warehouses with no records—chains of four walls erected for brief, temporary periods of convenience. It was a mass of confusion leading nowhere and everywhere. Names on documents where no such people existed, documents themselves that came out of bureaucratic labyrinths virtually
un
-traceable—rubber stamps, official seals, and signatures of authorization where no authority was granted. Unknowing middle-level personnel told to expedite departmental clearances—That’s what I
found in San Francisco. A morass of complex, highly questionable transactions that could not bear intense scrutiny.”

Bertholdier’s eyes were fixed, too controlled. “I would know nothing about such things, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” agreed Converse. “But the fact that my client does—through me—and the additional fact that neither he nor I have any desire whatsoever to call attention to them must tell you something.”

“Frankly, not a thing.”

“Please, General. One of the first principles of free enterprise is to cripple your competition, step in, and fill the void.”

The soldier drank, gripping the glass firmly. He lowered it and spoke. “Why did you come to me?”

“Because you were there.”

“
What?
”

“Your name was there—among the morass, way down deep, but there.”

Bertholdier shot forward. “Impossible!
Preposterous!”

“Then why am I here? Why are
you
here? Joel placed his glass on the table by the chair, the movement that of a man not finished speaking. “Try to understand me. Depending upon which government department a person’s dealing with, certain recommendations are bound to be helpful. You wouldn’t do a damn thing for someone appealing to Housing and Urban Development, but over at the State Department’s Munitions Controls or at Pentagon procurements, you’re golden.”

“I have never lent my name to any such appeals.”

“Others did. Men whose recommendations carried a lot of weight, but who perhaps needed extra clout.”

“What do you mean? This ‘clout.’ ”

“A final push for an affirmative decision—without any apparent personal involvement. It’s called support for an action through viable second and third parties. For instance, a memo might read: ‘We’—the department, not a person—‘don’t know much about this, but if a man like General Bertholdier is favorably disposed, and we are informed that he is, why should we argue?’ ”

“
Never
. It could not happen.”

“It did,” said Converse softly, knowing it was the moment to bring in reality to support his abstractions. He. would be able to tell instantly if Beale was right, if this legend of France was responsible for the slaughter and chaos in the cities and
towns of a violently upended Northern Ireland. “You were there, not often but enough for me to find you. Just as you were there in a different way when a shipment was air-freighted out of Beloit, Wisconsin, on its way to Tel Aviv. Of course it never got there. Somehow it was diverted to maniacs on both sides in Belfast. I wonder where it happened? Montreal? Paris? Marseilles? The Separatists in Quebec would certainly follow your orders, as would men in Paris and Marseilles. It’s a shame a company named Solidaire had to pay off the insurance claim. Oh, yes, you’re a director of the firm, aren’t you? And it’s so convenient that insurance carriers have access to the merchandise they cover.”

Bertholdier was frozen to the chair, the muscles of his face pulsating, his eyes wide, staring at Joel. His guilt was suppressed, but no less apparent for that control. “I cannot believe what you are implying. It’s shocking and incredible!”

“I repeat, why am I here?”

“Only you can answer that, monsieur,” said Bertholdier, abruptly getting to his feet, the brandy in his hand. Then slowly, with military precision, he leaned over and placed the glass on the coffee table; it was a gesture of finality—the conference was over. “Quite obviously I made a foolish error,” he continued, shoulders square again and head rigid, but now with a strained yet oddly convincing smile on his lips. “I am a soldier, not a businessman; it is a late direction in my life. A soldier tries to seize an initiative and I attempted to do just that; only, there was—there
is
—no initiative. Forgive me, I misread your signal this afternoon.”

“You didn’t misread anything, General.”

“Am I contradicted by a stranger—I might even say a devious stranger—who arranges a meeting under false pretenses and proceeds to make outrageous statements regarding my honor and my conduct? I think not.” As Bertholdier strode across the room toward the hallway door Joel rose from his chair. “Don’t bother, monsieur, I’ll let myself out. You’ve gone to enough trouble, for what purpose I haven’t the faintest idea.”