The Aquitaine Progression (93 page)

The general hung up and turned to the dark-haired woman, who was wiping her lips with a bed sheet, the expression in her eyes an admixture of anger, embarrassment and fear.

“Apologies, my dear,” he said courteously. “But you must leave now. I have telephone calls to make, business to attend to.”

“I will not come
back
!” cried the woman defiantly.

“You will come back,” said the legend of France standing up, his body rigid in its nakedness. “If you are asked.”

Erich Leifhelm walked rapidly into his study and directly over to the large desk, where he took the phone from a white-jacketed attendant, dismissing the man with a nod. The instant the door was closed he spoke. “What is it?”

“The Geyner car was found, Herr General.”

“
Where?
”

“Appenweier.”

“And what is
that
?”

“A town fifteen or eighteen kilometers from Kehl. In the Alsace.”

“
Strasbourg!
He crossed into France! He
was
a priest!”

“I don’t understand, Herr—”

“We never
thought
…! Never mind! Whom have you got in the sector?”

“Only one man. The man with the police.”

“Tell him to hire others. Send them into Strasbourg! Look for a priest!”

“Get
out
of here!” roared Chaim Abrahms as his wife walked through the kitchen door. “This is no place for you now!”

“The Testaments say otherwise, my husband—yet not my husband,” said the frail woman dressed in black; a circle of soft white hair framed gentle features and her brown eyes were dark, receding mirrors. “Will you deny the Bible you employ so readily when it suits you? It is not all thunder and vengeance. Must I read it to you?”

“Read
nothing
!
Say
nothing! These are matters for men!”

“Men who kill? Men who use the primitive savagery of
the Scriptures to justify the spilling of children’s blood? My
son’s
blood? I wonder what the mothers of the Masada would have said had they been permitted to speak their hearts.… Well, I speak now,
General
. You will not kill anymore. You will not use this house to move your armies of death, to plot your tactics of death—always your holy tactics, Chaim, your holy vengeance.”

Abrahms slowly got out of the chair. “What are you talking about?”

“You think I haven’t heard you? Phone calls in the middle of the night, calls from men who sound like you, who speak of killing so easily—”

“You
listened
!”

“Several times. You were breathing so hard you heard nothing but the sound of your own voice, your own orders to kill. Whatever you’re doing will be done without you now, my husband—yet not my husband. The killing is over for you. It lost its purpose years ago, but you could not stop. You invented new reasons until there was no reason left in you.”

The sabra’s wife removed her right hand from the folds of her black dress. She was holding Abrahms’ service automatic. The soldier slapped his holster in disbelief, then suddenly lunged toward the woman he had lived with for thirty-eight years and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around. She would not relent! She resisted him, clawing at his face as he crashed her back into the wall, twisting her hand in the attempt to disarm her.

The sound of the explosion filled the kitchen, and the woman who had borne him four children, the last finally a son, fell to the floor at his feet. In horror Chaim Abrahms looked down. Her dark-brown eyes were wide, her black dress drenched with blood, half her chest torn away.

The telephone rang. Abrahms ran to the wall and grabbed it, screaming, “The children of Abraham
will not be denied
! A bloodbath will follow—we will have the land delivered to us by God! Judea, Samaria—they are
ours
!”

“
Stop
it!” roared the voice over the line. “Stop it,
Jew
!”

“Who calls me
Jew
calls me
righteous
!” yelled Chaim Abrahms, the tears falling down his face, as he stared at the dead woman with the wide brown eyes. “I have sacrificed with
Abraham
! No one could ask
more
!”

“I ask more!” came the cry of the cat. “I ask
always
more!”

“
Marcus?
” whispered the sabra, closing his eyes and collapsing against the wall, turning away from the corpse. “Is it you … my leader, my
conscience
? Is it you?”

“It is I, Chaim, my friend. We have to move fast. Are the units in place?”

“Yes. Scharhörn. Twelve units in place, all trained, prepared. Death is no consideration.”

“That’s what I had to know,” said Delavane.

“They await your codes, my general.” Abrahms gasped, then began to weep uncontrollably.

“What is it, Chaim? Get hold of yourself!”

“She’s dead. My wife lies dead at my
feet
!”

“My God, what
happened
?”

“She overheard, she listened … she tried to kill me. We fought and she’s dead.”

“A terrible, terrible loss, my dear friend. You have my deepest affection and condolences in your bereavement.”

“Thank you, Marcus.”

“You know what you must do, don’t you, Chaim?”

“Yes, Marcus. I know.”

There was a knock at the door. Stone got out of the chair and picked up his gun awkwardly from the table. In all the years of sorting out garbage, he had fired a weapon only once. He had blown a foot off a KGB informant in Istanbul for the simple reason that the man had been exposed while drunk and had lunged at him with a knife. That one incident was enough. Stone did not like guns.

“Yes?” he said, the automatic at his side.

“Aurelius,” replied the voice behind the door.

Stone opened it and greeted his visitor. “Metcalf?”

“Yes. Stone?”

“Come in. And I think we’d better change the code.”

“I suppose I could use ‘Aquitaine’,” said the intelligence officer, walking into the room.

“Somehow I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Somehow I don’t think I will. Do you have coffee?”

“I’ll get some. You look exhausted.”

“I’ve looked better on a beach in Hawaii,” said the slender, muscular middle-aged Air Force man. He was dressed in summer slacks and a white Izod jacket, and his thin face matched his short, thinning brown hair; dark circles were prominent under his clear authoritative eyes. “At nine o’clock
yesterday morning I drove south out of Las Vegas to Halloran, and from there I began a series of cross-country flights a computer couldn’t follow, hopping from airport to airport under more names than I can remember.”

“You’re a frightened man,” said the civilian.

“If you’re not, I’m talking to the wrong person.”

“I’m not only frightened, Colonel, I’m petrified.” Stone went to the phone, ordered coffee, and before hanging up, he turned to Metcalf. “Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“I would. Canadian on the rocks, please.”

“I envy you.” The civilian gave the order, and both men sat down; for several moments only the sounds of the street outside broke the silence. They looked at each other, neither concealing the fact that he was silently evaluating the other.

“You know who and what I am,” said the Colonel. “Who are you? What?”

“CIA. Twenty-nine years. Station chief in London, Athens, Istanbul, and points east and north. A once disciple of Angleton and coordinator of clandestine operations until I was fired. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Whatever you did to your answering machine, you did it right. The Converse woman called.”

Metcalf shot forward in the chair. “
And?
”

“It was touch and go for a while—I wasn’t at my best—but he finally got on the line, or I should say he finally spoke. He was there all the time.”

“Your second best must have been pretty good.”

“All he wanted to hear was the truth. It wasn’t hard.”

“Where is he? Where are
they
?”

“The Alps, that’s all he’d say—”

“Goddamn it!”

“—for now,” completed the civilian. “He wants something from me first.”

“What?”

“Affidavits. You could call them depositions.”

“
What?
”

“You heard me. Affidavits from myself and the people I’m working with—working for, actually—stating what we know and what we did.”

“He’s out to hang you, and I don’t blame him.”

“That’s part of it, and I don’t blame him, either, but he says it’s secondary and I believe that. He wants Aquitaine. He
wants Delavane and his crowd of maniacs nailed to the wall before the whole damn thing erupts—before the killing begins.”

“That was Sam Abbott’s judgment. The killing—multiple assassinations, here and throughout Europe, the quickest and surest way to international chaos.”

“The woman told him.”

“No, he pieced it together from things Converse told
her
. Converse didn’t understand the words.”

“He does now,” said Stone. “Did I say I was petrified? What’s a stronger phrase?”

“Whatever it is, it applies to both of us because we both know how simple it would be—so
simple
. We’re not dealing with woolly-brained crazies or even your run-of-the-mill terrorists—we’ve got thirty years’ experience and ninety percent of them are in our computers. When the signals break out, we know where they are and usually we can stop them. But here we’re dealing with the roughest professionals in our own and in allied ranks, also with years of experience. They’re walking around the Pentagon, and on Army and Navy bases—and at an Air Force base in Nevada.
Christ
, where
are
they? You open your mouth and you don’t know whom you’re talking to, who’ll cut you down or program an aircraft to break apart in the sky. How can we stop what we can’t
see
?”

“Perhaps Converse’s way.”

“With
affidavits
?”

“Maybe. Incidentally, he wants one from you. Your meeting with Abbott, everything he told you, as well as your evaluation of his mental capacities and stability. That means you’ll have to stay here tonight. A half-hour ago I reserved three other rooms—I said I’d give the front desk the names later.”

“Would you mind answering my question? What the hell are affidavits going to do? We’re dealing with an army out there—how large and how widespread we don’t know—but it
is
an
army
! At minimum, a couple of battalions, here and in Europe. Professional officers trained to carry out orders, believing in those orders and in the generals who are issuing them.
Affidavits
, depositions, for Christ’s sake! Is this some kind of flaky legal handspring that doesn’t
mean
anything? Do we have
time
for this?”

“You’re not thinking anything I didn’t think, Colonel. But then, I’m not a lawyer and neither are you. Converse is, and I had a long conversation with him. He’s taking the only route
he knows. The legal route. Oddly enough, it’s why we sent him out.”

“Give me an answer, Stone,” said Metcalf coldly.

“Protection,” replied Stone. “What Converse wants is instant protection and for all of us to be taken seriously. Not as psychopaths or as cranks or as people with mental aberrations or diminished capacities—I think those were his words.”

“Aren’t they nice? What in the name of sweet Jesus do they mean?
How?
”

“With formal legal documents. Responsible men setting forth what they know and, in the case of depositions, under qualified examination. Through the courts, Colonel.
A
court—it only takes one, only one judge. On the basis of the affidavits a petition is made to the court—
a
court,
a
judge—that protection be given under seal.”

“Under what?”

“Under seal. It’s completely confidential—no press, no divulging of information, simply an order from the court transmitted to the authorities most suited to carry out the order. In this case, all the branches of the Secret Service instructed by the court to provide
extraordinary
service.”

“Extraordinary? For whom?”

“The President of the United States, the Vice-President, the Speaker of the House, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State—right on down the line. The law, Colonel. That’s what the law can do—also his words, I think.”

“
Jesus!
”

There was a rapping on the door. This time Stone covered his automatic with the folded
New York Times
. He got up and admitted a waiter, who rolled in a table with a pot of coffee, two cups, a bottle of Canadian whisky, ice and glasses. He signed the bill and the man left.

“Coffee or a drink first?” asked Stone.

“My God, a drink.
Please
.”

“I envy you.”

“You’re not going to join me?”

“Sorry, I can’t. I allow myself one in the evening; I’ll join you then. You live in Las Vegas, so you’ll understand. I’m trying to beat the odds, Colonel. I intend to beat them. I was fired, remember?” Stone brought the Air Force officer a drink and sat down.

“You can’t beat the odds, don’t you know that?”

“I’ve beaten a few. I’m still here.”

“The courts,” said Metcalf, shaking his head. “
A
court! It’s an end run. He’s using the law to go around the flanks of the government people he should reach but whom he can’t trust. Can it
work
?”

“It buys time, a few days perhaps, it’s hard to tell. ‘Under seal’ lasts only so long. The law also calls for full disclosure. But what’s most important is that it legitimately tightens the security around potential targets, hopefully screwing up whatever tactics Aquitaine is mounting, forcing the generals to regroup, rethink. Again time.”

“But that’s only over here in the States.”

“Yes. That’s why Converse wants the time.”

“What for?”

“He won’t tell me, and I’m in no position to make demands.”

“I see,” said the Colonel, his drink to his lips.

“You said three rooms. Who are the others?”

“You’ll meet them and you won’t like them. They’re two kids who stumbled into this along with a few others I don’t know, and they won’t say who they are. After Halliday reached them—or one of them—they provided the dossiers for Converse. They’re young, but they’re all right, Colonel. If I ever had a son, I’d like to think he’d be one of them.”