The Aquitaine Progression (94 page)

“I have a son and I expect he would be,” said Metcalf. “Otherwise, I blew it. What are the procedures?”

Stone sat rigidly back in the chair and spoke slowly, his voice pitched to the static emphasis of a monotone. He was repeating instructions not of his own making and certainly not to his liking. “At three o’clock this afternoon I’m to call an attorney named Simon, Nathan Simon, one of the senior partners of Converse’s firm here in New York. Presumably by then Converse’s wife will have reached him, telling him to expect a call from me and to please do as I ask—apparently they believe he will. To be brief about it, Simon will come over here to the hotel accompanied by a stenographer and take all our depositions, along with our credentials, ranks, and current responsibilities. He’ll stay until he’s finished.”

“You were right on the phone,” interrupted the military man. “We’re dead.”

“I said as much to Converse and he asked me how it felt. He was inquiring, of course, from firsthand knowledge.”

“He wants all of you.”

“But not you,” said Stone. “He’d like your testimony—and,
by extension, Abbott’s—but he won’t insist on it. He knows he can’t ask you to walk in on this.”

“I walked in when that plane went down. Also there’s something else. If we can’t stop Delavane and his generals, what the hell’s left for people like us?… Converse wouldn’t tell you what he was going to do?”

“Not in terms of what he calls the countdown, but yes, as far as tomorrow is concerned. He’s sending over his own affidavit and, he expects, another from a man from the Sûreté who has information showing that most of the official reports out of Paris are lies.… And we’re not dead yet, Colonel. Converse made it clear that Nathan Simon was the best attorney we could have—as long as he believes us.”

“What can a lawyer do?”

“I asked Converse the same thing, and he gave me a strange answer. He said, ‘He can use the law, because the law isn’t men, it’s the law.’ ”

“That’s beyond me,” said Metcalf, irritated. “Not in a philosophical context but how it applies now—right goddamned
now
!… Hell, it doesn’t make any difference—
we
don’t make any difference! Once those guns go off and the bodies fall in Washington and London, Paris or Bonn—wherever—they’ve got the controls and we won’t get them back. I know that because I know how long so many people have wanted someone to
take
control. Stop the carnage, make things safe, piss on the Soviets. God help me, there were times I thought that way myself.”

“So did I,” said the civilian quietly.

“We were wrong.”

“I know that. It’s why I’m here.”

Metcalf drank, holding the cold glass against his warm cheek. “I keep thinking about what Sam said to me. “There’s got to be a list,” he said. ‘A master list of everyone in this Aquitaine.’ He ruled out all the obvious places—not in a vault, not on paper—probably electronically programmed, flashed on with codes, as his aerial tactics were frequently flashed on a screen inside a jet’s cockpit. Someplace no one would ever think of, away from anything official or tied in with anyone remotely military. ‘A list. There
has
to be a list!’ he kept saying. For a pilot, he had a hell of an imagination. I guess it’s why he was so good at that tactical stuff at forty thousand feet in the air. Come out of the sun where they don’t expect you,
or from a dark horizon where the radar can’t pick you up. He knew it all. He was a tactical genius.”

As Metcalf talked, Stone leaned forward in the chair, looking intently at the Air Force officer and absorbing every word he spoke.

“Scharhörn,” he said, barely above a whisper. “It’s
Scharhörn
!”

The twin-engined Riems 406 circled the private airfield at Saint-Gervais, fifteen miles east of Chamonix, the amber lights of the two runways throwing an orange glow up into the lower night sky. Inside, Prudhomme checked the strap of his seat belt as the pilot on his left received clearance to make his final approach to the north-south strip.

Mon Dieu
, what an incredible day! thought the man from the Sûreté as he glanced at his right hand under the spill of the panel lights. The dark bruises on his fingers were at least less noticeable than the blood that had covered his entire hand only hours ago. His would-be executioner had not even bothered to conceal his assignment, such was his arrogance—bred undoubtedly in the Légion etrangère! And the sentence of death had been delivered right inside the car at the far end of the parking area in the Bois de Boulogne! The man had called him at the office and, in truth, it had entered Prudhomme’s mind that this man might call him, and so it was less a surprise than it could have been—and certainly gave him cause to be prepared. The man had asked his recent superior to meet him at the Bois, in the parking lot—he had startling news. He would be driving his official Peugeot, and since he could not leave his radio phone, would the inspector mind joining him. Of course not.

But there had been no startling news. Only questions, asked very arrogantly.

“Why did you do what you did this morning?”

“Shave? Go to the toilet? Eat breakfast? Kiss my wife good-bye? What are you talking about?”

“You know what I refer to! Earlier! The man on the Boulevard Raspail. You crashed into his car, stopping him. You threw narcotics inside. You arrested him falsely!”

“I didn’t approve of what he was doing. Any more than I approve of this conversation.” Prudhomme had awkwardly reached for the handle of the door with his left hand, his right having other business.

“Stop!” his former subordinate had shouted, grabbing his shoulder. “You were protecting the woman!”

“Read my report. Let me go.”

“I’ll let you go to hell! I’m going to kill you, meddler! Insignificant bureaucrat!”

The former subordinate had yanked a gun from his jacket holster but he was too late. Prudhomme had fired twice the small weapon he gripped under his coat. Unfortunately, it was small caliber and the ex-colonel of the Legion was a very large man; he had lunged at Prudhomme inside the automobile. However, the veteran of the Resistance had gone back to an old wartime habit—just in case: along the lapels of his coat was threaded a long wire—a wire with two braided loops at each end. He had whipped it out, and looping it over his would-be executioner’s head with his wrists crossed, he violently yanked it taut until the flesh burst around the throat and blood drenched Prudhomme’s hands.

“We’re cleared for landing, Inspector,” said the pilot, grinning. “I swear to Christ no one would
believe
this! Of course I have no intention of saying a thing, I swear on my mother’s grave!”

“She’s probably drinking brandy in Montmartre at this moment,” interjected Prudhomme dryly. “Say nothing, and you may have another six months flying in your foolish tobacco from Malta.”

“Nothing else!
Never
anything else, Inspector. I am a father!”

“You are to be commended. Six months and then get out, do you understand?”

“On my father’s grave, I swear!”

“He’s very much alive and in jail—he’ll be out in sixty days. Tell him to stop his presses. Government relief checks—
really
.”

Joel and Valerie listened in silence as the man from the Sûreté told his story. He was finished now; there was nothing left to say. Interpol had been compromised, the
arrondissement
police manipulated, the Sûreté itself corrupted, and official government communiqués issued on the basis of lies—all lies. Why?

“I’ll tell you because I want your help—much more help,” said Converse, getting out of the chair and going to the
desk, where the typewritten pages of his affidavit were in the center of the green blotter. “Better, you can read it yourself, but I’m afraid you’ll have to read it here. In the morning I’ll have copies made; until then I don’t want it to leave this room. By the way, Val got you a reservation, a single—don’t ask me how, but a clerk downstairs will have a new wardrobe if not a new house by tomorrow.”

“
Merci, madame
.”

“The name is French,” added Joel.

“Yes.”

“No, I mean the
name
is French.”

“
Oui
.”

“No, what I mean is—”

“
Pardon, monsieur
,” interrupted Valerie. “
Le nom sur le registre est ‘Monsieur French,’ mais ‘French,’ comme en anglais—French. Arthur French
.”

“But I will have to sign, talk. Surely they will know.”

“You sign nothing and you say nothing,” said Val, taking a key off the bedside table and handing it to Prudhomme. “The room is paid for—three days, to be precise. After that—before, if possible, if you agree to help—the three of us will be someplace else.”

“
Formidable
. I must read.”

“
Mon ami—mon époux—est un avocat exceptionnel
.”

“
Je comprends
.”

“There are some forty pages here,” said Converse, bringing the papers to Prudhomme. “To absorb it will take you at least an hour. We’ll go downstairs and grab a bite to eat and leave you alone.”

“
Bien
. There is much I wish to learn.”

“What about you?” asked Joel, standing over the Frenchman. “I mean now. They’ll find that body in the car.”

“Most certainly,” agreed Prudhomme. “I left it where it was along with that pig from the Legion. But for the Sûreté there will be no connection to me.”

“Fingerprints? The fact that you were away from your office?”

“Another old habit from the war,” said the man from the Sûreté, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a pair of extremely thin rubberized gloves—surgical gloves—cut off at the wrist. “I washed these out at the Bois. The German occupation forces had all our fingerprints in a thousand files. There was no point in asking for our own executions. As for my absence
at my desk, it is quite simple. I explained to an assistant that I would be in Calais for several days on a contraband investigation and would call in. My years permit a certain latitude and flexibility.”

“That’s the Sûreté, not the others. Not where the Legionnaire came from.”

“I am aware of that, monsieur. So I must be careful. It will not be the first time.”

“Enjoy your reading,” said Converse, nodding at Val to join him. “If you want anything, call room service.”

“
Bon appétit
,” said Prudhomme.

Chaim Abrahms lifted the stiffening wrist of his dead wife’s hand, the weapon gripped fiercely in her white fingers, and angled the gun toward her chest, into the bloody cavern between her breasts.

The wide, brown eyes would not stay closed. They stared up at him, accusing—accusing!

“What do you
want
from me!” he screamed. “I have seen the dead. I have
lived
with the dead! Leave me be, woman! You couldn’t
understand
!”

Yet she had, for so many years. She had cooked the meat—the desert chicken and the lamb, caught in the outlying marshes—and fed the units of the Irgun and the Haganah, never questioning death then. Fighting for a hope, a simple hope that was the beginning of a dream. The land was
theirs
, rightfully, Biblically,
logically
theirs! They had fought and they had won! Two thousand years of being outcasts—despised, reviled, and spat upon by the almighty Gentiles until the tribes were burned and gassed and told to eliminate themselves from the face of the earth—and yet they had survived. Now the tribes were strong. They were the conquerors, not the
conquered
.

“It’s what we
fought
for! What we prayed for! Why do you insult me with your
eyes
!” Chaim Abrahms roared as he pressed his forehead against the dead flesh of his wife’s face.

Hitabdut
was among the most heinous crimes committed against the laws of the Talmud. It was
ebude atzmo
, the taking of one’s own life against the wishes of Almighty God, in whose image man was created. A Jew who consigned his or her earthly being to
hitabdut
was denied burial in the Hebrew cemetery. It would be so for Chaim Abrahm’s wife, the most devout human being he had ever known.

“I have to
do
it!” he screamed, raising his eyes in supplication. “It is for the best, can’t you
understand
?”

Prudhomme poured himself a cup of coffee and returned to his chair. Valerie sat opposite him as Converse stood by the window looking over at the man from the Sûreté, listening.

“I cannot think of any other questions,” said the Frenchman, his intensely troubled eyes darting about, his lined face looking wearier than before. “Although it’s possible I’m still too deep in shock to think at all. To say it’s incredible serves no purpose; also it would not be true. It’s all
too
credible. The world is so frightened it cries out for stability, for a place to hide, for protection—from the skies, from the streets, from each other. I believe the time has come when it will settle for sheer, absolute strength, no matter the cost.”

“The operative word is ‘absolute,’ ” said Joel, “as in controls and power. A confederation of military governments fueling one another, interlocking policies and altering the laws, all in the name of stability—and anyone who disagrees with them is declared unstable and silenced. And if too many disagree, the chaos erupts again—stability wins, Aquitaine wins. All they need is that initial wave of terror, a tidal wave of killing and confusion. ‘Key figures’ were the words they used. ‘Accumulation’ … ‘rapid acceleration’—chaos. Powerful men cut down as riots break out. in half a dozen capitals and the generals march in with their commanders. That’s the scenario, right from their own words.”

“That also is the problem, monsieur. They are only words, but they are words you can pass along to very few people, for they could be the wrong people. You could move up this countdown, as you call it, trigger this holocaust yourself.”

“The countdown’s running out, make no mistake,” Converse broke in. “But there
is
a way. ‘Accumulation’ and ‘rapid acceleration’ can be used in another manner, and you’re right, it’s only with words—
accumulated
words,
accelerated
words. I can’t come out, not yet. I can’t show myself. There’s no protection any court or government agency or the police could provide that would stop them from killing me, and then, once I’m dead, calling whatever I said the ravings of a psychopath. Don’t misunderstand me, I have no death wish, but my death in itself isn’t important. What is important is that the truth goes down with me, because I’m the only one who’s talked
directly to Delavane’s four caesars over here, and probably the fifth, the Englishman.”