The Aquitaine Progression (70 page)

The midmorning revels of the railroad car reached a crescendo; a cacophony of voices raised in jumbled song competed with the swelling echoes of laughter. And no one paid the slightest attention to the savage struggle that was taking place in the narrow seat. Suddenly, within the panic of that struggle, within the violent impasse, Joel was aware that the train was slowing down, if only imperceptibly. Once again his pilot’s instincts told him a descent was imminent. He jammed his elbow into the old woman’s right breast to jolt her into freeing the gun. Still she held on, bracing herself against the seat, her arm pinned, her fat legs stretched below, angled like thick pylons anchored beneath the forward seat, her obese body twisted, locking his own arm in place so he could not dislodge the weapon from her grip.

“Let go!” he whispered hoarsely. “I won’t hurt you—I won’t kill you. Whatever you’re being paid, I’ll pay you more!”

“
Nee!
I would be found at the bottom of a canal! You can’t escape,
Menheer
! They wait for you in Amsterdam, they wait for the
train
!” Grimacing, the old woman kicked out, briefly freeing her left arm. She swung her hand around, clawing his face, her nails sliding down his beard until he grabbed her wrist, pulling her arm across the seat and cracking it into her own knee, twisting her hand clockwise, forcing her to be still. It made no difference. Her right hand had the strength of an aging lioness protecting its pride; she would not release the gun below.

“You’re lying!” cried Converse. “No one knows I’m on this train!
You
just got on twenty minutes ago!”

“Wrong,
Amerikaan
! I’ve been on since Arnhem—I start in the front, walk back. I found you out at Utrecht and a telephone call was made.”

“Liar!”

“You will see.”

“Who hired you?”

“Men.”

“
Who?
”

“You will see.”

“God
damn
you, you’re not part of them! You
can’t
be!”

“They pay. Up and down the railroad they pay. On the piers, in the airports. They say you speak nothing but English.”

“What else do they say?”

“Why should I tell you? You’re caught. It is you who should let
me
go. It could be easier for you.”

“How? A quick bullet in the head instead of a Hanoi rack?”

“Whatever it is, the bullet could be better. You are too young to know,
Meneer
. You were never under occupation.”

“And you’re too old to be so goddamned strong, I’ll give you that.”

“
Ja
, I learn that, too.”

“Let
go
!”

The train was braking and the drunken crowd in the car roared its approval as men grabbed suitcases from the upper racks. The passenger who had been sitting next to Joel hastily yanked his from above the seat, his stomach pressing into Converse’s shoulder. Joel tried to appear as though he were in deep conversation with his grimacing half-prisoner; the man fell back, suitcase in hand, laughing.

The old woman lurched forward; sinking her mouth into Converse’s upper arm, millimeters from his wound. She bit him viciously, her yellow teeth penetrating his flesh, blood bursting out of his skin, trickling down the woman’s gray chin.

He pulled back in pain. She freed her hand from his grip in the canvas bag; the gun was hers! She fired; the muted spit was followed by a shattering of a section of the floor in the aisle, missing Joel’s feet by inches. He grabbed the unseen barrel, twisted it, pulled it, trying with all his strength to wrench it away. She fired again.

Her eyes grew wide as she arched back into thereat. They remained open as she slumped into the window, blood
spreading quickly through the thin fabric of her dress in the upper section of her stomach. She was dead, and Joel felt ill, nauseated—he had to swallow air to keep from vomiting. Trembling, he wondered who this old woman was, why she was—what she had lived through that made her become what she was.
You were too young to know.… You were never under occupation
.

No time to think about all this! She had wanted to kill him, that was all he had to know, and men were waiting for him only minutes away. He had to think,
move
!

Twisting the gun from her rigid fingers inside the canvas bag, he quickly lifted it up and shoved it under his coarse jacket, inserting it under his belt, feeling the weight of the other weapon in his pocket. He reached over and bunched the woman’s dress in folds, then layered her shawl over the bloodstains and pushed her mass of disheveled hair over her right cheek, concealing the wide dead eyes. Experience in the camps told him not to try to close the eyes; too often they would not respond. The action might only call attention to him—to her. The last thing he did was to pull a can of beer out of the bag, open it, and place it on her lap; the liquid spilled out, drenching her lap.

“
Amsterdam! De volgende halte is Amsterdam-Centraal!
”

A roar went up from the vacationing crowd as the line began to form toward the door. Oh,
Christ
! thought Converse.
How?
The old woman had said a telephone call had been made. A telephone call, which implied she had not made it herself. It was logical; there was too little time. She had undoubtedly paid one of her sister bag ladies who plied the trains at the station in Utrecht to make it. The information therefore would be minimum, simply because there
was
no time. She was a special employee, one who had been researched as only Aquitaine could research, an old woman who was strong and who could use a weapon and who would not shrink from taking a life—who would not say too much to anyone. She would merely give a telephone number and instruct the hired caller to repeat the time of the train’s arrival. Again … therefore … he had a chance. Every male passenger would be scrutinized, every face matched against the face in the newspapers. But he was and he was
not
that face! And he did not speak any language but English—that information had been spread with emphasis.

Think!

“
Ze is dronken!
” The words were shouted by the burly man with the enormously endowed wife at his side as he pointed to the dead woman. Both were laughing, and Joel did not need an interpreter to understand. Converse nodded, grinning broadly as he shrugged. He had found his way out of the station in Amsterdam.

For Converse understood there was a universal language employed when the decibel of noise was such that one could neither hear nor be heard. It was also used when one was bored at cocktail parties, or when one watched football games on television with clowns who were convinced they knew a great deal more than coaches or quarterbacks, or when one was gathered and trapped into an evening in New York with the “beautiful people”—most of whom qualified as neither in the most rudimentary sense, egos far outdistancing either talent or humanity. In such situations one nodded; one smiled; one occasionally placed a friendly hand on a shoulder, the touch signifying communication—but one said nothing.

Joel did all of these things as he got off the train with the burly man and his wife. He became almost manic, playing the role as one who knew there was nothing left between death and survival but a certain kind of controlled madness. The lawyer in him provided the control; the child pilot tested the winds, knowing his aircraft would respond to the elemental pressures because it was sound and he was good and he enjoyed the craziness of a stall forced by a downdraft; he could easily pull out.

He had removed his dark glasses and pulled his cap far down over his forehead. His hand was on the burly man’s shoulder as they walked up the platform, the Dutchman laughing as he spoke, Joel nodding, slapping his companion’s shoulder, laughing in return whenever there was a break in the man’s monologue. Since the couple had been drinking, neither took much notice of his incomprehensible replies; he seemed like a nice person, and in their state nothing else really mattered.

As they walked up out of the platform toward the terminal Converse’s constantly roving eyes were drawn to a man standing in a crowd of welcomers beyond the archway at the end of the ramp. Joel first noticed him because unlike those around him—whose faces were lit up in varying degrees of anticipation—this man’s expression was serious to the point
of being solemn. He was not there to offer welcome. Then suddenly Converse knew there was another reason why this man had caught his attention. The moment he recognized the face he knew exactly where he had seen it—walking rapidly down a path surrounded by thick foliage with another man, another guard. The man up ahead was one of the patrols from Erich Leifhelm’s compound above the Rhine.

As they approached the arch, Joel laughed a little louder and made it a point to clap the Dutchman’s shoulder a little harder, his cap still angled down over his forehead. He followed several nods with a shrug or two and then with a good-humored shaking of the head; with brows furrowed and lips constantly moving, he was obviously in fluent conversation. Through narrowed eyes Converse saw that Leifhelm’s guard was staring at him; then the man looked away. They passed through the arch and in the corner of his vision Joel was abruptly aware of a head whipping around, then of a figure pushing other figures out of his path. Converse turned, looking over the Dutchman’s shoulder. It happened. His eyes locked with those of Leifhelm’s guard. The recognition was instant, and for that instant the German panicked, turning his head back toward the ramp. He started to shout, then stopped. He reached under his jacket and moved forward.

Joel broke away from the couple and began racing, threading his way through succeeding walls of bodies, heading for a series of archlike ascending exits through which sunlight streamed into the ornate terminal. Twice he looked behind him as he ran; the first time he could not see the man, the second time he did. Leifhelm’s guard was screaming orders to someone across the way, rising on the balls of his feet to see and be seen, gesturing at the exit doors in the distance. Converse ran faster, pulling his way through the crowd toward the steps that led to the massive exit. He climbed the staircase swiftly but within the rhythm of the most harried departing passengers, holding to the center, trying to call as little attention to himself as possible.

He bolted through a door into the sunlight, into total confusion. Below was water and piers and glass-covered boats bobbing up and down, people rushing past them, others ushered on board under the watchful eyes of men in white-and-blue uniforms. He had come off a train only to emerge on some kind of strange waterfront. Then he remembered: the railroad station in Amsterdam was built on an island
facing the center of the city; thus it was known as the Centraal. Yet there was a street—two streets,
three
streets bridging the water toward other streets and trees and buildings … no
time
! He was out in the open and those streets in the distance were his caves of survival; they were the ravines and the thick, impenetrable acres of bush and swamp that would hide him from the enemy! He ran as fast as he could along the wide boulevard bordered by water and reached an even wider thoroughfare clogged with traffic, buses, trams, and automobiles, all at their own starting gates, anxious for bells to release them. He saw a dwindling line at the door of an electric tramway, the final two passengers climbing on board; he raced ahead and, just before the door swung shut, he stepped up into the tram—the last fare.

Spotting an empty seat in the last row, he walked quickly to the back of the huge vehicle. He sat down, breathing hard, desperately, the sweat matting his hairline and his temples and rolling down his face, the shirt under his jacket drenched. It was only then that he realized how exhausted he was, how loud and rapid the tattoo in his chest, how blurred his vision and his thoughts. Fear and pain had combined into a form of hysteria. The desire to stay alive and the hatred of Aquitaine had kept him going. Pain? He was suddenly aware of the ache in his arm above his wound, an old woman’s last act of vengeance—against what? For what? An enemy? Money? No time!

The tram started up and he turned in his seat to look out the rear window. He saw what he wanted to see. Leifhelm’s guard was racing across the intersection, a second man running to join him from the waterfront quai. They met, and the words they exchanged were obviously exchanged in near panic. Another joined them, from where Joel could not see; he was suddenly just there. The three men spoke rapidly, Leifhelm’s guard apparently the leader; he pointed in several directions, issuing orders. One man ran down the street, below the curb, and began checking the half-dozen or so taxis in the traffic jam; a second stayed on the pavement, slowly making his way around the tables of a sidewalk café, then going inside. Finally, Leifhelm’s guard ran back across the intersection, dodging cars, and reaching the curb, he signaled. A woman walked out of a store and met him at the corner.

No one had thought of the tram. It was his first cave of survival. He sat back and tried to collect his thoughts, knowing
they would be difficult to face. Aquitaine would penetrate all of Amsterdam, canvass it, tear it apart until they found him. Was there conceivably a way to reach Thorbecke or had he been fooling himself, reaching into the past where too often accidents and misplaced arrogance led to success? No, he could not think for a while. He had to lie down in the cave and rest, and if sleep came, he hoped the nightmares did not come with it. He looked out the window and saw a sign. It read
DAMRAK
.

He remained on the electric conveyance for well over an hour. The lively streets, the lovely architecture of the centuries-old buildings and the endless canals calmed him. His arm still ached from the old woman’s teeth but not severely, and thoughts of cleansing the wound faded. He could not weep for the old woman, but as with certain, strange witnesses at a trial, he wished he knew her story.

Hotels were out. The foot soldiers of Aquitaine would scour them, offering large sums for any information about any American of his general description—which they now specifically had. Thorbecke would be watched, his telephone tapped, his every move and conversation scrutinized. Even the embassy, or consulate—whichever it was in Amsterdam—would have another military chargé d’affaires or his equivalent on the prowl for a signal that a non-assassin wanted to come in and start the process of rectification. If his perceptions were right, that left him with only one escape hatch. Nathan Simon.