The Aquitaine Progression (56 page)

The incident in Geneva—the death of A. Preston Halliday—was introduced as a possible explanation for the violent act that had hurled him back in time, triggering Joel’s maniacal behavior. “… It has been learned that the attorney who was shot to death had been a well-known leader in the American protest movement in the sixties.…” The veiled conclusion was that Converse might have hired the killers. Even the death of the man in Paris was given a very different and far more important dimension—oddly enough, based, in reality. “… Initially the victim’s true identity was withheld in hopes of aiding the manhunt, as suspicions were aroused as a result of an interview the Sûreté had with a French lawyer who has known the suspect for a number of years. The attorney who had lunched with the suspect that day indicated that his American friend was in ‘serious trouble’ and needed ‘medical attention.’ …” The dead man in Paris, of course, was an outstanding colonel in the French Army, and an aide successively to several “prominent generals.”

Finally, as if to convince any remaining unbelievers in this public trial by “authoritative” journalism, references were made not only to his conduct but to the remarks he made upon his separation from service over a decade and a half ago. These were released by the United States Department of the Navy, Fifth Naval District, which included its own recommendation at the time that one lieutenant Converse be placed under voluntary psychiatric observation; it was refused. His conduct had been insulting in the extreme to the panel of officers who wished only to help him, and his remarks were nothing short of violent threats against numerous
high-ranking military personnel, whom, as a carrier pilot, he could have known nothing about.

It all completed the portrait as painted by the artists of Aquitaine. Johann finished the article, the newspaper now clutched in his hands, his eyes wide and frightened. “That’s all there is … sir.”

“I’d hate to think there’s any more,” said Joel. “Do you believe it?”

“I have no thoughts. I’m too frightened to think.”

“That’s an honest answer. Uppermost in your mind is the fact that I might kill you, so you can’t face what you think. That’s what you’re really saying. You’re afraid that by a look or a wrong word I could take offense and pull a trigger.”

“
Please
, sir, I am not adequate!”

“Neither was I.”

“Let me
go
.”

“
Johann
. My hands are on the table. They’ve been on the table since we sat down.”

“
What …?
” The young German blinked and looked at Converse’s forearms, both of which were in front of him, his hands clasped on the white metal surface. “You have no gun?”

“Oh, yes, I have a gun. I took it from a man who would have killed me if he’d had the chance.” Joel reached into his pocket as Johann stiffened. “Cigarettes,” said Converse, taking out a pack and a book of matches. “It’s a terrible habit. Don’t start if you don’t smoke.”

“It’s very expensive.”

“Among other things.” Joel struck a match, lighting a cigarette, his eyes remaining on the student. “We’ve talked off and on since last night. Except for a few moments back there in the crowd when you could have had me lynched, do I look or sound like the man described in that newspaper story?”

“I am no more a doctor than a lawyer.”

“Two points for the opposition. The burden of sanity’s on me. Besides, it said I appeared perfectly normal.”

“It said you suffered a great deal.”

“Several hundred years ago, but no more than thousands of others and far, far less than some fifty-eight thousand who never came back. I don’t think an insane man is capable of making a rational remark like that under these circumstances, do you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m trying to tell you that everything you just read to
me is an example of a man being tried by negative journalism. Truths mixed with half-truths, distortions, and implausible judgments were slanted to support the lies that are meant to convict me. There’s not a court in any civilized country that would admit that kind of testimony or permit a jury to hear it.”

“Men have been killed,” said Johann, again his words whispered. “The ambassador was killed.”

“Not by me. I wasn’t anywhere near the Adenauer Bridge at eight o’clock last night. I don’t even know where it is.”

“Where were you?”

“Not where anyone saw me, if that’s what you mean. And those who know I couldn’t have been at the bridge would be the last people on earth to say so.”

“There has to be some evidence of where you were.” The young German nodded at the cigarette in Converse’s hand. “Perhaps one of those. Perhaps you finished a cigarette.”

“Or finger or foot prints? Pieces of clothing? There’s all of that, but they don’t tell the time.”

“There are methods,” corrected Johann. “The advances in the technology of … 
Forschung
… the investigation techniques have been rapid.”

“Let me. finish that for you. I’m not a criminal lawyer but I know what you’re saying. Theoretically, for example, the ground depression of a footprint matched with the scrapings off my shoes could put me where I was within the hour.”

“
Ja!
”

“No. I’d be dead before a scrap of evidence reached a laboratory.”

“
Why?
”

“I can’t tell you. I wish to God I could but I can’t.”

“Again, I must ask why?” The fear in the young man’s eyes was joined by disappointment, the last glimpse of believability, perhaps, gone with Joel’s refusal to explain.

“Because I can’t, I won’t. You said a few minutes ago that I’d done enough to you, and without meaning to, I have. But I won’t do this. You’re not in a position to do anything but get yourself killed. That’s as frankly as I can put it, Johann.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t, but I wish there was a way to convince you that I have to reach others. People who
can
do something.
They’re not here; they’re not in Bonn, but I’ll reach them if I can get away.”

“There’s something else? You would have me do something
else?
” The young German stiffened again, and again his hands trembled.

“No. I don’t want you to do anything. I’m asking you
not
to do anything—at least for a while. Nothing. Give me a chance to get out of here and somehow get in touch with people who can help me—help all of us.”

“All of us?”

“I mean that, and it’s all I’ll say.”

“These people are not to be found in your own embassy,
Amerikaner?
”

Converse looked hard at Johann, his eyes as steady as he could manage. “Ambassador Walter Peregrine was killed by one or more men at that embassy. They came to kill me last night at the hotel.”

Johann breathed deeply, taking his eyes off Joel and staring down at the table. “Back at the kiosk, in the crowd, when you threatened me … you said three men had been killed already—three decent men.”

“I’m sorry. I was desperate.”

“It wasn’t simply that, it was what you said right afterward. You said why should I be the exception. Because I was young? That was no reason, you claimed, and then you shouted very strange words—I remember them precisely. You said, ‘When you come right down to it, who the hell are we dying for?’ It was more than a question, I think.”

“I won’t discuss the implications of that remark, counselor. And I can’t tell you what to do. I can only tell you what I’ve told dozens of clients over the years. When a decision is reduced to several strong opposing arguments—mine included—and you’ve listened to them all, put them behind you and follow your own gut instinct. Depending upon who and what you are, it’ll be the right one for you.” Converse paused, pushing back his chair. “Now I’m going to get up and walk out of here. If you start screaming, I’ll run and try to hide somewhere where I’ll be safe before anyone recognizes me. Then I’ll do whatever I can do. If you don’t set off an alarm, I’ll have a better chance, and that in my view would be best—for all of us. You could go to the university library and come out in an hour or so, buy a paper, and go to the police. I’d expect
you to do that, if you felt you had to. That’s my view. I don’t know what yours is. Good-bye, Johann.”

Joel rose from the table, bringing his hand instantly to his face, his fingers spread, touching his eyebrows. He turned and walked through the tables to the pavement, veering right, heading for the first intersection. He barely took a breath; his lungs were bursting for air but he dared not let even a breath impair his hearing. He waited as he walked, his pulse accelerating, his ears so keenly tuned that the slightest dissonance would have burned them.

There were only the sounds of the excited street conversations in counterpoint with the blaring horns of taxis—not the screams of a young male voice raising an alarm. He walked faster, entering the flow of pedestrians crossing the square—faster,
faster
—passing strollers who saw no need to rush. He reached the curb of the opposite pavement and slowed down—a rapidly walking man called attention to himself. Yet the impulse to break into a run was almost uncontrollable the farther he distanced himself from the tables of the sidewalk bakery-café. His ear had picked up no alarm and every split second of that absence told him to race into whatever secluded side streets he could find.

Nothing. Nothing broke the discordant sounds of the square, but there
was
a change, a discernible change, and it had nothing to do with strident alarms provoked by a single screaming voice. The discordant sounds themselves had become subdued, replaced by shrugs and relaxed gestures indicating inability to comprehend. The word
Amerikaner
was repeated everywhere. The panic initially ignited by the news had passed. An American had killed an American; it was not a German assassin, or a Communist, or even a terrorist who had eluded the Federal Republic’s security arrangements. Life could go on; Deutschland could not be held responsible for the death—and the citizens of Bonn breathed a sigh of relief.

Converse spun around the corner of a brick building and stared across the square at the tables of the bakery-café. The student, Johann, remained in his chair, his head bowed, supported by both hands, reading the newspaper. Then he got up and walked into the bakery itself.
Was there a telephone inside? Would he talk to someone?

How long can I wait?
thought Converse, prepared to run, as instinct held him back.

Johann came out of the bakery carrying a tray of coffee and rolls. He sat down and meticulously separated the plates from the tray and once again stared at the newspaper in front of him. Then he looked up at nothing in particular—as if he knew he was being watched by unseen eyes—and nodded once.

Another risk-taker, thought Joel, as he turned and looked and listened to the unfamiliar sights and sounds of the side street he had entered. He had been given a few hours; he wished he knew how to use them—he wished he knew what to
do
.

Valerie ran to the phone. If it was another reporter, she would say the same thing she had said to the last five.
I don’t believe a word of it and I’ve nothing more to say!
And if it was one more person from Washington—from the FBI or the CIA or the VA or any other combinations of the alphabet—she would scream! She had spent three hours being interviewed that morning until she had literally ordered the crucifiers out of the house. They were liars trying to force her to support their lies. It would be far easier to take the phone off the hook, but she could not do that. She had called Lawrence Talbot in New York twice, telling his office to trace him wherever he was and have him call her back. It was all madness.
Insanity!
as Joel used to say with such quiet intensity she thought his voice was a wild roar of protest.

“Hello?”

“
Valley?
It’s Roger.”

“
Dad!
” Only one person had ever called her by that name and that man was her former father-in-law. The fact that she was no longer married to his son had made no difference in their relationship. She adored the old pilot and knew he felt the same about her. “Where
are
you? Ginny didn’t know and she’s frantic. You forgot to turn on your answering machine.”

“I didn’t forget, Valley. Too damned many people to call back. I just flew in from Hong Kong, and when I got off the plane I was upwinded by fifty or sixty screaming newspaper people and so many lights and cameras I won’t be able to see or hear for a week.”

“Some enterprising airline clerk let out the word you were on board. Whoever it was will eat for a week off a generous expense account. Where are you?”

“Still at the airport—in the traffic manager’s office. I’ll say this for ’em, they got me out of there.… Valley, I just read the papers. They got me the latest editions. What the
hell
is this all about?”

“I don’t know, Dad, but I do know it’s a lie.”

“That boy’s the sanest thing I ever had anything to do with! They’re twisting everything, making the good things he did into something … I don’t know, sinister or something. He’s too damned
up-front
to be crazy!”

“He’s not crazy, Roger. He’s being taken, he’s being put through a wringer.”

“What
for?
”

“I don’t know. But I think Larry Talbot does—at least more than he’s told me.”

“What
has
he told you?”

“Not now, Dad. Later.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure.… Something I feel, perhaps.”

“You’re not making sense, Valley.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What did Ginny say? I’ll call her, of course.”

“She’s hysterical.”

“She always was—a little bit.”

“No, not that way. She’s blaming herself. She thinks people are striking out at her brother for the things
she
did in the sixties. I tried to tell her that was nonsense, but I’m afraid I made it worse. She asked me perfectly calmly if I believed what was being said about Joel. I told her of course I didn’t.”

“The old paranoia. Three kids and an accountant for a husband and it still comes back. I never could handle that girl. Damned good pilot, though. Soloed before Joel, and she was two years younger. I’ll phone her.”