The Aquitaine Progression (89 page)

“Not better,” said Stone icily. “Those same people become robots. We all become robots, if we live. Don’t you understand that?”

“Yeah,
I
do,” answered Johnny Reb. “I guess I always have. I live on a hog-high in Bern while you scratch in D.C. Yes, old buddy, I understand. Maybe better than you do.… Forget it, I’m enlisted. But what in all-fire hell are you going to do about this Converse? I don’t think he’s going to get out.”

“He
has
to. We think he has the answers—the
firsthand
answers—that give us the proof.”

“In my opinion he’s dead,” said the Southerner. “Maybe not now but soon—soon’s they find him.”

“We have to find him first. Can you help?”

“I started the night I needled Major Norman Anthony Washburn the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth—I keep losin’ track of the numerals. You got the computers—the ones you have access to—and
I’ve got the streets where they sell things you’re not supposed to buy. So far, nothing.”

“Try to find something, because you were right before—we don’t have much time. And, Johnny, do you have the same feeling I have about that island, about Scharhörn?”

“Like Appomattox, way down deep in the stomach. I can taste the bile, Brer Rabbit, which is why I’m going to possum down here for a few days. We found ourselves a beehive, boy, and the drones are restless, I can sense it.”

Joel put the map and the thick envelope on the grass and began pulling branches down from a small tree in the orchard to cover Hermione Geyner’s car. Each yanking of a limb filled him with pain, as much from fatigue as from the strain on his arms. Finally, he bunched together reeds of tall grass and threw them everywhere over the frame. The effect in the moonlight was that of an immense mound of hay. He picked up the map and the envelope and started walking toward the road two hundred yards away. According to the map, he was on the outskirts of a city or town called Appenweier, ten miles from the border at Kehl, directly across the Rhine from Strasbourg.

He walked along the road, running into the grass whenever he saw the headlights of a car in either direction. He had traveled perhaps five or six miles—there was no way to tell—and knew that he could go no farther.

In the jungles he had rested, knowing that rest was as much a weapon as a gun, the eyes and the mind far more lethal when alert than a dozen steel weapons strapped to his body
.

He found a short ravine that bordered a brook; the rocks would be his fortress—he fell asleep.

Valerie walked out of the Charles De Gaulle Airport on the arm of the man from the Sûreté, Prudhomme, having accepted the scrap of paper with his telephone number but volunteering
nothing. They approached the cabstand on the platform and Prudhomme spoke. “I will make myself clear, madame. You may take a taxi here and I shall bid you
adieu
, or you may permit me to drive you wherever you like—perhaps to another taxi stand in the city, to go wherever you wish—and I will know if anyone is following you.”

“You would?”

“In thirty-two years, even a fool learns something. My wife keeps telling me she has no lovers only because I have learned the rudiments of my profession.”

“I accept your invitation,” interrupted Val, smiling. “I’m terribly tired. A small hotel, perhaps. Le Pont Royal, I know it.”

“An excellent choice, but I must say that my wife would welcome you—without any questions.”

“My time must be my own, monsieur,” said Valerie, climbing into the car.

“
D’accord
.”

“
Why
are you doing this?” she asked as Prudhomme got behind the wheel. “My husband was a lawyer—
is
a lawyer. The rules can’t be that different. Aren’t you some kind of accessory—assuming what I know damned well you’re assuming?”

“I only wish that “you will call me, saying that you are from the Tatiana family. That is my risk and that is my reward.”

Converse looked at his watch—a watch taken from a collapsed body so long ago he could not remember when—and saw that it was five-forty-five in the morning, the sun abruptly illuminating his fortress ravine. The stream was below, and so he took care of his necessities downstream and plunged his face into the flow of water upstream. He had to move; as he remembered, he had five miles to walk to the border.

He reached Kehl. There he bought a razor, reasoning that a priest would maintain his appearance as best he could even under the duress of poor travel accommodations. He shaved at the river depot, then took the ferry across the scenic Rhine to Strasbourg. The customs officials were so deferential to his collar and his passport as well as to his shabby appearance—undoubtedly taken as a sign of the vow of poverty—that he found himself blessing a number of men, and by extension their entire families, as he was passed through the building.

Out on the bustling streets he knew that the first thing he had to do was to get into a hotel room, shower off two days of fear and violence, and have his clothes cleaned or replaced. An impoverished-looking priest would not travel to the expensive wonders of Chamonix; it would be unseemly. But a normally dressed priest, would be perfectly acceptable, even desirable, a figure of respectability among the crowds. And a priest he would remain, Converse had decided—the decision here based again on legal experience. Think out—anticipate—what your adversary expects you to do, then do not conform unless you retain the advantage. The hunters of Aquitaine would expect him to shed his priestly habit, as it was his last known means of disguise; he would not do that; there were too many priests in France and too much advantage in being one.

He registered at the Sofitel on the Place Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune and without elaboration explained to the concierge that he had been through a dreadful three days of traveling and would the land man see to several items he needed rather desperately. He was from a very well-endowed parish in Los Angeles and—An American $100 bill took care of the rest. His suit was cleaned and pressed within the hour, his muddy shoes shined, and two new shirts with clerical collars purchased from a shop “unfortunately quite a distance away on the Quai Kellermann,” thus necessitating an additional chargé. The gratuities, the expenses and the surcharges for rush service—all were a hotelman’s dream. The suntanned priest with a blemish or two on his face, and odd demands based on time, certainly had to come from a “well-endowed” parish. It was worth it. He had checked in at eight-thirty in the morning, and by nine-fifty-five he was ready to make his final arrangements for Chamonix.

He could not risk taking a plane or going by rail; too much had happened to him at airports and on trains—they would be watched. And sooner or later Hermione Geyner’s car would be found, and his direction if not his destination would be known. Aquitaine’s alarms would go out across the three borders of Germany, France and Switzerland; again the safest way was by automobile. The eagerly accommodating concierge was summoned; a fine rental car was arranged for the youngish monsignor, and a route planned to Geneva, some two hundred thirty-eight miles south.

Of course, he would not cross over into Geneva but would
go along the border roads and head for Chamonix, an hour-plus away. His estimated travel time was between five and six hours; he would reach the base of Mont Blanc by four-thirty in the afternoon, five at the latest. He wasted no time speeding out of Strasbourg on the Alpine Autoroute marked
83
on his map.

Valerie dressed as the first light silhouetted the irregularly shaped buildings of Paris outside her windows on the Boulevard Raspail. She had not been able to sleep, nor had she made any attempt to to do so; she had lain awake pondering the words of the strange Frenchman from the Sûreté who could not speak officially. She had been tempted to tell him the truth but knew she would not, not yet, perhaps not at all, for the possibility of a trap was considerable—revelations based on truth could too easily be employed to corner the hunted. Still, his plea had the ring of truth, his own truth, not someone else’s: “Call and say you are from the Tatiana family. That is my wish and my reward.”

Joel would have an opinion. If the man was not simply bait put out by Aquitaine, it was a crack in their strategy the generals knew nothing about. She hoped he was his own man, but to trust him at this point was impossible.

She had read the domestic schedules provided by Air France on the plane from Los Angeles and knew the routing she would take to Chamonix. Air Touraine had four flights daily to Annecy, the nearest airport to Chamonix and Mont Blanc. She had hoped to make a reservation on the 7:00
A.M
. flight last night but the sudden, unnerving intrusion of Prudhomme had ruled it out, and by the time she called Touraine from the Pont Royal there were no seats—it was summer and Mont Blanc was a tourist attraction. Nevertheless, she was on standby for the eleven o’clock flight. It was better to be at Orly Airport, better to be in the crowds, as Joel insisted.

She took the open, brass-grilled elevator down to the lobby, paid her bill, and asked for a taxi.

“
A quelle heure, madame?
”

“
Maintenant, s’il vous plaît
.”

“
Dans quelques minutes
.”

“
Merci
.”

The taxi arrived and Val went outside, greeted by a surly, sleepy-eyed driver who had no intention of getting out of the
cab to help her in and was only vaguely willing to accept her patronage.

“
Orly, s’il vous plaît
.”

The driver started up, reached the corner and swung his wheel to the left to make a rapid U-turn so as to head back into the Raspail toward the expressway leading to the airport. The intersection appeared to be deserted. It was not.

The crash behind them was close by and sudden—metal striking metal as glass shattered and tires screeched. The driver slammed on his brakes, screaming in shock and fear as the taxi veered into the curb. Val was thrown against the front seat, her knees scraping the floor. Awkwardly she started to get up as the driver leaped from the cab yelling at the offending parties behind.

Suddenly the right rear door opened and the lined, weary face of Prudhomme was above her, a trickle of blood rolling down from a gash in his forehead. He spoke quickly, quietly. “Go, madame—wherever it is you go. No one will follow you now.”

“
You?
… You’ve been here all night! You were waiting for me, watching. It was you who crashed into that car!”

“There is no time. I will send your driver back. I must make out my tedious report while scattering a few items in the man’s car, and you must leave. Now—before others learn.”

“That name!” cried Val. “It was
Tatiana
?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you!”

“
Au revoir. Bonne chance
.” The man from the Sûret4eA ducked away and ran back to the two Frenchmen shouting at each other behind the taxi.

It was three-twenty in the afternoon when Converse saw the sign:
SAINT-JULIEN EN GENEVOIS
—15
KM
. He had rounded the border of Switzerland, the autoroute to Chamonix directly ahead, east of Geneva, just south of Annemasse. He would reach Mont Blanc in something over an hour; he had done it! He had also driven as he had never before driven in his life, the powerful Citröen responding to his pilot’s touch, his pilot’s mind oblivious to everything but the sweep in front of him, the equipment around him—the feel of the hard road beneath as he took the Alpine curves. He had stopped to refuel once at Pontarlier, where he drank steaming
hot tea from a vending machine. Since he had left the expressway for the shorter distance of the mountain roads, his speed depended on his every reaction being instantaneous and accurate. An hour now.
Be there, Vol. Be there, my love!

Valerie looked at her watch ready to scream—as she had wanted to scream since six-thirty in the morning at Orly Airport. It was four-ten in the afternoon, and the entire day had been filled with one crisis after another, from the crash in the Boulevard Raspail, and Prudhomme’s revelation that she was being followed, to her arrival at Annecy on the one o’clock flight from Paris—itself delayed by a malfunctioning luggage door. Her nerves were stretched to the outer limits, but she knew above all that she could not lose her control. Doing so would only rivet attention on her; it briefly had.

There were no seats on the seven o’clock flight and the eleven o’clock plane had been overbooked. Only those with tickets in their hands were permitted through the gate. She had protested so angrily that people began staring at her. Then she had retreated to the soft-spoken bribe, which only served to irritate the clerk—not because he was morally offended but because he could not accommodate her and accept the money. Again passengers behind and on both sides, in both lines, had looked over as the clerk admonished her with true Gallic hauteur. It was no way to get to Chamonix alive, Val had thought, and had accepted a ticket on the one o’clock flight.

The plane landed at Annecy over a half-hour late, several minutes after three, and the subsequent crush at the taxi platform caused her to behave in a way she generally tried to avoid. Being a relatively tall woman—tall in appearance, certainly—she knew the effect she provoked when she looked down disdainfully at those around her. A genetic preordination had made her privileged, didn’t they know? Foolishly, too many people accepted the posturing as proof of innate superiority; the women were intimidated, the men both intimidated and sexually aroused. The tactic had gained her a few forward places in the taxi line, but the line was still long. Then she had happened to glance to her right; at the far end of the platform were glistening limousines, with several chauffeurs leaning against them, smoking cigarettes, picking their teeth and chattering.
What in heaven’s name was she doing?
She had broken away from the line, opening her purse as she ran.

Her final frustration now was the result of something she should have remembered. There was a point in the theatrical setting that was the wondrous “village” of Chamonix where automobiles could not pass and only small official vehicles and jitneys for tourists were allowed. She got out of the limousine and walked rapidly down the wide, crowded boulevard. She could see the large red cable-car terminal in the distance. Somewhere above, above the clouds, was Joel. Her Joel. She could not stop herself; she did not try to maintain the control she had imposed on herself all day. She began to run—faster, faster!
Be up there, my darling! Be alive, my darling—my only darling!