The Aquitaine Progression (75 page)

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“And an old man on a bicycle in the Museumplein.”

“I saw
him
. Was
he
…?”

“Later,” said Valerie, shifting the large cloth bag at her feet into another position and stretching her long legs. “They may follow us out here but they’ll stay out of sight.”

“Who
are
you, lady?”

“The niece of Hermione Geyner, my mother’s sister. You never knew my father, of course, but if you had he would have regaled you with tales of Mom during the war, but he would have choked at the mention of my aunt. Even according to the French she went too far. The Dutch and German undergrounds worked together. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“You’ll tell me
later
?
Following
us?”

“You’re new at this. You won’t see them.”

“Shit!”

“That’s expressive.”

“All right, all right!… What about Dad?”

“He’s weathering it. He’s staying at my place.”

“Cape Ann?”

“Yes.”

“I sent the envelope there! The ‘sketches’ I mentioned on the phone. It’s everything! Everything about what’s happened. It names the names, gives the reasons. Everything!”

“I left three days ago. It hadn’t arrived by then. But Roger’s there.” Valerie’s face paled. “Oh, my God!”

“What?”

“I’ve been trying to call him! Two days ago, then yesterday and again today!”

“
Goddamn it!
” In the distance there were the lights of a bay-front café. Joel spoke rapidly, giving an order that could not be disobeyed. “I don’t care how you do it, but you call Cape Ann! You come back here and tell me my father’s all right, do you understand?”

“Yes. Because I want to hear it, too.”

Converse skidded to a stop in front of the café, knowing he should not have done so, but not caring. Valerie rushed out of the car, her purse open, her telephone credit card in her hand. If there was a phone on the premises, she would use it; no one could stop her. Joel lit a cigarette; the smoke was acrid, stinging his throat; it was no relief. He stared out at the dark water, at the lights spanning the bridge in the distance, trying not to think. It was no use. What had he done? His father knew his handwriting, and the instant he recognized it he would rip open the envelope. He would be looking for exculpation for his son and he would find it. He would undoubtedly call Nathan Simon immediately—and therein was the horrible possibility. Val would know enough from the material itself to say little or nothing on the phone, but not his father, not Roger. He would blurt out everything in a frenzy of anger and defense of his son. And if others were listening on that line.… Where was Val? She was taking too long!

Converse could not stop himself. He cracked the handle of the door and leaped out of the car. He raced toward the entrance of the café, then stopped abruptly on the gravel. Valerie walked out, gesturing for him to back away. He could see the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Get in the. car,” she said, approaching him.

“No. Tell me what happened.
Now
.”

“Please, Joel, get back in the car. Two men in there kept watching me while I was on the phone. I spoke German, but they knew I was placing a call to the States, and they saw I was upset. I think they recognized me. We have to get out of here.”

“Tell me what
happened
!”

“In the car.” Valerie tossed her head to the side, her dark hair flying over her shoulder as she brushed away her tears, and walked past Converse to the automobile. She opened the door and got in, sitting motionless in the seat.

“
Goddamn
you!” Trembling, Converse ran to the car, jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine, slamming the door shut as he pulled on the gearshift. Turning the wheel, he backed up, then shot forward into the road, the tires spinning on the border of gravel. He kept his foot on the accelerator until the dark scenery outside was a racing blur.

“Slow down,” said Val simply, without emphasis. “You’ll only call attention to us.”

He could barely hear her through his panic, but he heard the order. He eased his foot off the pedal. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,
Christ
! What happened? What did they tell you? Whom did you talk to?”

“A neighbor, the name’s not important. We have keys to each other’s house. She volunteered to take in the newspapers and check the place until the police reached me. She happened to be there when I called. I asked her if there was a large envelope sent from Germany in the pile of mail. She said there wasn’t.”

“The police? What
happened
?”

“You know my house is on the beach. There’s a jetty of rocks about a hundred yards up-water. It’s not large or long really, just some kind of marking from years ago—”

“Tell me!” shouted Joel, gripping the wheel.

“They say he must have gone for a walk last night, went out on the jetty and slipped on the wet rocks. There was a large bruise on his head. His body was washed up onshore and found this morning.”

“Lies!
Lies!
They heard him! They went after him!”

“My telephone? On the plane over here I thought about that.”

“You would, he
wouldn’t
! I killed him. Goddamn it, I
killed
him!”

“No more than I did, Joel,” insisted the ex-Mrs. Converse, touching his arm, wincing at the sight of tears in his eyes. “And I loved him very much. You and I left each other, but he was still a very close friend, perhaps my closest.”

“He called you ‘Valley,’ ” said Joel, choking, trying to push back the pain. “The bastards!
Bastards!
”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“
No!
”

“The telephone. I have to ask you—I thought the police or the FBI or people like that might get a court order.”

“Of course they would! It’s why I knew I couldn’t call you. I was going to call Nate Simon.”

“But you’re not talking about the police or the FBI. You’re talking about someone else, some
thing
else.”

“Yes. No one knows who they are—where they are. But they’re there. And they can do whatever they want to do. Jesus! Even
Dad
! That’s what’s so goddamned frightening.”

“And that’s what you’re going to tell me about, isn’t it?” said Valerie, gripping his arm.

“Yes. A few minutes ago I was going to hold back and
not
tell you everything, instead try to convince you to get Nate to fly over here so we could meet and he could see I wasn’t crazy. But not now. There’s no time now; they’re cutting off every outlet. They’ve got the envelope—it was all I had!… I’m sorry, Val, but I
am
going to tell you everything. I wish to God I didn’t have to—for your sake—but like you, I don’t have a choice anymore.”

“I didn’t come over here to give you a choice.”

He drove into the field near the water’s edge and stopped the car. The grass was high, the moon a bright crescent over the bay, the lights of Amsterdam in the distance. They got out and he led her to the darkest spot he could find, holding her hand, suddenly realizing that he had not held her hand in years—the touch, the grip, so comfortable, so much a part of them. He repelled the thought; he was a provider of death.

“Here, I guess,” he said, releasing her hand.

“AH right.” She lowered herself gracefully, like a dancer,
and sat down on the soft grass, pushing the reeds aside. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“Awful,” said Joel, looking up at the dark sky. “I meant what I said. I killed him. All the years of trying—his trying, my trying—and I end up killing him. If I’d only let him alone, let him be himself, not someone I wanted him to be, he’d probably be drinking up a storm somewhere thousands of miles away, telling his crazy stories, making everyone laugh. But not in your house at Cape Ann yesterday.”

“You didn’t force him to fly back from Hong Kong, Joel.”

“Oh, hell, not by pleading or giving him an order, if that’s what you mean. But the order was there nevertheless. After Mother died it was the unspoken words between us. ‘Grow
up
, Dad! Have your little trips but don’t stay away so long, people worry. Be responsible, father mine.’ Christ, I was so
fucking
holier than thou! And I end up killing him.”

“You didn’t kill him! Others did! Now, tell me about them.”

Converse swallowed, brushing the tears from his eyes. “Yes, you’re right—there isn’t time, even for old Roger.”

“There’ll be time later.”

“If there’s a later,” said Joel, breathing deeply, finding control. “You know about René, don’t you?”

“Yes, I read about it yesterday. I was sick—-Larry Talbot told me that you saw him in Paris. How even René thought you were disturbed, as Larry did when you talked to him. And René was killed for seeing you. Larry must be going out of his mind.”

“That’s not the reason René was killed. Let’s talk about Larry. The first time I reached him I needed information without asking him directly. He was being used because of me, followed, and he didn’t know it. If I’d told him, the jock in him would have reacted, and he’d have been shot down in the street. But the last time I spoke with him I walked into it. I’d broken away from the people who’d caught me—I was exhausted, still frightened, and I was open with him. I told him everything.”

“He mentioned it to me,” interrupted Val. “He said you were reliving your experiences in North Vietnam. There was a psychiatric term for it.”

Converse shook his head, a short, derisive laugh emerging from his throat. “Isn’t there always? I suppose there were similarities and I’m sure I alluded to them, but that’s all they
were, similarities.… Larry didn’t hear what I was saying. He was listening for words that confirmed what others had said about me, what he believed was true. He pretended to be the friend I knew but he wasn’t. He was a lawyer trying to convince a client that he was sick, that for everyone’s safety the client should turn himself in. When I realized what he was doing and that I’d told him where I was, I knew he’d spread the word, thinking he was doing the right thing. I just wanted to get out of there, so I halfway agreed with him, hung up, and ran.… I was lucky. Twenty minutes later I saw a car drive up in front of the hotel with two of my would-be executioners.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Joel nodded. “The next day one of them stated for the record that he’d seen me at the Adenauer Bridge with Walter Peregrine. I wasn’t anywhere near that bridge—at least I don’t think so, I don’t know where it is.”

“I read that story in the
Times
. The man was an Army officer, a major from the embassy named Washburn.”

“That’s right.” Converse broke off a long blade of grass, twisting it, tearing it in his fingers. “They’re great at manipulating the media—newspapers, radio, television. Every word they put out is cleansed through channels, branded authentic, official. They take out lives as if people were pieces in a chess game, including their own. They don’t care; they only want to win. And it’s the biggest game in modern history. The terrifying thing is that they can win it.”

“Joel, do you know what you’re
saying
? An American ambassador, the supreme commander of NATO, René, your father … 
you
. Then killers in the embassy, a manipulated press, lies out of Washington, Paris, Bonn—all given official status. You’re describing some kind of
Anschluss
, some demonic, political takeover!”

Converse looked at her in the moonlight, the breezes off the water bending the tall grass. “That’s exactly what it is, conceived by one man and run by a handful of others, all completely sincere in their beliefs and as persuasive as any group of professionals I’ve ever heard. But the bottom line is that they’re fanatics, killers in a quest they consider nothing less than holy. They’ve recruited—
are
recruiting—like-minded men everywhere, other frustrated professionals who think there’s nowhere else to turn. They grab at the theories and the promises, accepting—accepting, hell,
extolling
—the
myths of efficiency and discipline and self-sacrifice, because they know it leads to power. Power to replace the inefficient, the undisciplined, the corrupters and the corrupted. They’re blind; they can’t see beyond their own distorted image of themselves.… If that sounds like a summation it probably is. I haven’t slept much, but I do a lot of thinking.”

“The jury’s still in place, Joel,” said Valerie, her eyes alive, again leveled at his. “I don’t want a summation, I want it all. I think you should begin at the beginning—where it began for you.”

“Okay. It started in Geneva—”

“I
knew
it,” interrupted Val, whispering.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

“With a man I hadn’t seen in twenty-three years. I knew him by one name then, but in Geneva he was using another. He explained it and it didn’t matter. Except that it was a little eerie. I didn’t know how eerie it was, or how much he didn’t explain, or how many lies he told me in order to manipulate me. The hell of it is he did what he did for all the right reasons. I was the man they needed.
They
. And I don’t know who they are, only that they’re there, somewhere.… As long as I live—however long I’m permitted—I’ll never forget the words he used when he reached the core of why he had come to Geneva. “They’re back,” he said. ‘The generals are back.’ ”

He told her everything, allowing his mind and his thoughts to wander, to include every detail he could recall. The countdown was in progress. In a matter of days or at best a week or two there would be eruptions of violence everywhere—like what was taking place in Northern Ireland right now. ‘Accumulations,’ they said. ‘Rapid acceleration!’ Only, no one knew who or what or where the targets were. George Marcus Delavane was the madman who conceived it all, and other powerful madmen were listening to him, following his orders, moving into positions from which they would leap for the controls.
Everywhere
.

Finally he was finished, a part of him in anguish, knowing that if she was caught by the soldiers of Aquitaine, the narcotics inserted in her body would reveal the information that would result in her death. He said as much when he had finished, wanting desperately to breach the space between them and hold her, telling her how much he hated himself for doing what he knew he had to do. But he made no move toward
her; her eyes told him not to; she was evaluating, thinking things out for herself.