The Aquitaine Progression (79 page)

It was so. The Italian gestured with his gun for Connal to move forward as he sidestepped to the door and secured the bolt. He then pointed with the barrel of his weapon, ordering Fitzpatrick to walk ahead. Moments later both men stood in the shadows in front of the barracks, the old refueling station still visible in the darkness, the ocean waves lapping at the pilings.

“Now we talk,” said the guard. “Who are these traitors and why should I believe you?”

“I want your word that you’ll tell your superiors I turned them in. I don’t say anything until I have your word!”

“My
word, americano
?” said the Italian, laughing softly. “Very well,
amico
, you have my word.”

The guard’s quiet, cynical laughter covered the seconds. Connal suddenly whipped out the chain and crashed it down on the man’s weapon; grabbing the barrel of the gun with his right hand, he wrenched it free; it fell to the grass below. He then raised the chain as he kicked the guard in the groin, and slammed the heavy links into the man’s face, smashing the manacles into the Italian’s skull until the guard’s eyes grew wide and then closed in unconsciousness. Fitzpatrick crouched, finding his bearings.

It was directly ahead—an old submarine slip, its long pier extending out to the middle water. He got up and ran. The air was exhilarating, the breezes from the sea told him to run faster,
faster
. Escape was seconds away.

He plunged over the dock into the water, knowing he would find the strength to do anything, swim anywhere! He was
free
!

Suddenly, he was blinded by the floodlights everywhere.
Then a fusillade of bullets exploded from all sides, ripping up the water around him, cracking the air overhead, but none entering his body or blowing apart his head. And words over a loudspeaker filled the night: “You are most fortunate, Prisoner Number Forty-three, that we still might have need of you. Otherwise, your corpse would be food for the North Sea fishes.”

Joel walked out of the bright afternoon sun into Amsterdam’s cavernous Centraal station. The dark suit and hat fit comfortably; the clerical collar and the black shoes pinched but were bearable, and the small suitcase was an impediment he could discard at any time, although it was a correct accessory and held odd bits of clothing, none of which was likely to fit. Since a déjà vu would be no illusion for those he had encountered before, he walked cautiously, alert to every sudden movement—no matter how inconsequential. He expected at any instant to see men rushing toward him, their eyes filled with purpose and the intent to kill.

No such men came, but even if they had come, he would have had some comfort in knowing he had done his best. He had written the most complete brief of his legal career, written it with painstakingly clear handwriting, organizing the material, pulling together the facts to support his judgments and conjectures. He had recalled the salient points of each dossier to lend credibility to his own conclusions. Regarding his own painful experiences and firsthand observations, he had weighed every statement, discarding those that might seem too emotional, reshaping the rest to reflect the cold objectivity of a trained,
sane
, legal mind. He had lain awake for hours during the night, allowing the organizational blocks to fall into place, then started writing in the early morning, ending with a personal letter that dispelled any misconceptions about his madness. He was a pawn who had been manipulated by frightened, invisible men who had supplied the tools and knew exactly what they were doing. In spite of everything
that had happened he understood, and felt that perhaps there had not been any other way to do it. He had finished it all an hour ago and sealed the pages in a large envelope supplied by the old man who said he would post it on the Damrak after dropping Converse off. Joel had sent it to Nathan Simon.

“
Pastoor
Wilcrist! It is
you
, is it not?”

Converse spun around at the touch on his arm. He saw that the shrill greeting came from a gaunt, slightly bent woman in her late seventies. Her wizened face was dominated by intense eyes, her head framed by a nun’s crown, her slender body encased in a black habit. “Yes,” he said, startled. “Hello, Sister?”

“I can tell you don’t remember me,
Pastoor
,” exclaimed the woman, her English heavily—loudly—accented. “No, don’t fib, I can see you have no idea who I am!”

“I might if you’d keep your voice down, Sister.” Joel spoke softly, leaning down and trying to smile. “You’ll call attention to us, lady.”

“The religious always greet each other
so
,” said the old woman confidentially, her eyes wide and direct, too direct. “They wish to appear like normal people.”

“Shall we walk over here so we can talk quietly?” Converse took the woman by the arm and led her toward a crowded area of a gate. “You have something for me?”

“Where are you from?”

“Where am I from? What do you mean?”

“You know the rules. I have to be certain.”

“Of what?”

“That you are the proper contact. There can be no substitutes, no deviations. We are not fools,
Meneer
. Now, where are you
from
? Quickly! Hesitation itself is a lie.”

“Wait a minute! You were told to meet me here; you were given a description. What more do you want?”

“To know where you’re from.”

“
Christ
, how many sunburned priests did you expect to see at the information booth?”

“They are not
zo
un-normal. Some swim, I am told. Others play tennis. The Pope himself once skied in the mountain sun! You see I am a good Catholic, I know these things.”

“You were given a description! Am I that man?”

“You all look alike. The Father last week at confession was not a good man. He told me I had too many sins for my age and he had others waiting. He was not a patient man of God.”

“Neither am I.”

“All alike.”

“
Phase
,” said Joel, looking at the thick, narrow envelope in the woman’s hands, knowing that if he took it forcibly from her she would scream. “I have to reach Osnabrück, you know that!”

“You are from
Osnabrück
?” The “nun” clutched the envelope to her chest, her body bent further, protecting a holy thing.

“No, not Osnabrück!” Converse tried to remember Val’s words. He was a priest on a pilgrimage … to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen … from, from … “
Los Angeles!
” he whispered harshly.

“
Ja, goed
. What country?”

“Jesus!”

“
Wat?
”

“The United States of America.”

“
Goed!
Here you are,
Meneer
.” The old woman handed him the envelope, now smiling sweetly. “We all must do our jobs, must we not? Go with God, my fellow servant of the Lord.… I do like this costume. I was on the stage, you know. I don’t think I’ll give it back. Everyone smiles, and a gentleman who came out of one of those dirty houses stopped and gave me fifty guilder.”

The old woman walked away, turning once and smiling again, discreetly showing him a pint of whisky she had taken from under her habit.

It might have been the same platform, he could not tell, but his fears were the same as when he arrived in Amsterdam twenty-four hours ago. He had come to the city as an innocuous-looking laborer with a beard and a pale, bruised face. He was leaving as a priest, erect, clean-shaven, sunburned, a properly dressed man of the cloth on a pilgrimage for repentance and reaffirmation. Gone was the outraged lawyer in Geneva, the manipulating supplicant in Paris, the captured dupe in Bonn. What remained was the hunted man, and to survive he had to be able to stalk the hunters before they could stalk him; that meant spotting them before they spotted him. It was a lesson he had learned eighteen years ago when his eyes were sharper and his body more resilient. To compensate, he had to use whatever other talents he had developed; all were reduced to his ability to concentrate—without appearing to concentrate. Which was how and why Joel saw the man.

He was standing by a concrete pillar up ahead on the platform reading an unfolded train schedule in the dim light. Converse glanced at him—as, indeed, he glanced briefly at nearly everyone in sight—then seconds later he looked again. Something was odd, incongruous. There could be several reasons why a man remained outside a well-lit railroad car to read a schedule—a last cigarette in the open air, waiting for someone—but that same man could hardly read the very small print while casually holding the schedule midway between his head and his waist without any evidence of a squint. It was like trying to read a page from a telephone directory in a car stuck in traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel; it took observable effort.

Converse continued down the platform, approaching the two open doors that signified the end of one railway car and the beginning of the next. He purposely let his suitcase catch on a protruding window ledge, pivoting as it did so, and apologized to a couple behind him. Courteously he let them pass and courteously, as each saw his collar, they smiled and nodded. But while he remained facing them, his eyes strayed to the man diagonally to the left by the pillar. The man still clutched the schedule in his hand but was concentrating now on Joel. It was enough.

Converse entered the second door, his gait casual again, but the instant he could no longer see the man by the pillar he rushed inside the railroad car. He tripped, falling to the floor by the first seat, and again apologized to those behind him—a divine undone by profane luggage. He looked out the window, past the two passengers in the seat, both of whom paid attention to his collar before looking at his face.

The man by the pillar had dropped the schedule and was now frantically signaling with quick beckoning gestures. In seconds he was joined by another man; their conversation was rapid, then they separated, with one going to the door at the front of the car, the other heading for the entrance Joel had just passed through.

They had found him. He was trapped.

Valerie paid the driver and climbed out of the cab, thanking the doorman, who greeted her. It was the second hotel reservation she had made in the space of two hours, having left a dead-end trail in case anyone was following her. She had taken a cab from Kennedy to LaGuardia, bought a ticket to
Boston on a midmorning shuttle, then registered at the airport motel, both under the name of Charpentier. She had left the motel thirty minutes later, having paid the cabdriver to return for her at a side exit and calling the hotel in Manhattan to see if a reservation was possible at that hour. It was. The St. Regis would welcome Mrs. DePinna, who had flown in from Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a sudden emergency.

At the all-night Travelers Shop in Schilphol Airport, Val had purchased a carry-on bag, filling it with toiletries and whatever more inconspicuous articles of clothing she could find among the all too colorful garments on the racks. It was still the height of the summer, and depending upon the circumstances, such clothes might come in handy. Also she needed something to show customs.

She registered at the hotel desk, using a “Cherrywood Lane”—but without a number—she remembered from her childhood in St. Louis. Indeed, the name DePinna came from those early days as well, a neighbor down the street, the face a blur now, only the memory of a sad, vituperative woman who loathed all things foreign, including Val’s parents. “Mrs. R. DePinna,” she had written; she had no idea where the “R” came from—possibly Roger for balance.

In the room she turned on the radio to the all-news station, a habit she had inherited from her marriage, and proceeded to unpack. She undressed, took a shower, washed out her underthings, and slipped into the outsized T-shirt. This last was another habit; “T-sacks,” as she called them, had replaced bathrobes and morning coats on her patio in Cape Ann, although none had a sunburst emblazoned on the front with words above and below heralding
TOT ZIENS
—
AMSTERDAM
!

She resisted calling room service for a pot of tea; it would be calming, but it was an unnecessary act that at three o’clock in the morning would certainly call attention, however minor, to the woman in 714. She sat in the chair staring absently at the window, wishing she hadn’t given up cigarettes—it would give her something to do while thinking, and she had to think. She had to rest, too, but first she had to think, organize herself. She looked around the room, and then at her purse, which she had placed on a bedside table. She was rich, if nothing else. Joel had insisted she take the risk of getting through customs with more than the $5,000 legal limit. So she had rolled up an additional twenty $500 bills and shoved them into her
brassiere. He had been right; she could not use credit cards or anything that carried her name.

She saw two telephone directories on the shelf of the table. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she removed both volumes. The cover of one read,
New York County, Business to Business
; the other,
Manhattan
—and in the upper left-hand corner, printed across a blue diagonal strip:
Government Listings See Blue Pages
. It was a place to start. She returned the business directory to the shelf and carried the Manhattan book over to the desk. She sat down, opened to the blue pages and found
Department of the Air Force … Command Post ARPC
. It was an 800 number, the address on York Street in Denver, Colorado. If it was not the number she needed, whoever she reached could supply the correct one. She wrote it down on a page of St. Regis stationery.

Suddenly Val heard the words. She snapped her head around toward the television set, her eyes on the vertical radio dial.

“
… And now the latest update on the search for the American attorney, Joel Converse, one of the most tragic stories of the decade. The former Navy pilot, once honored for outstanding bravery in the Vietnam war, whose dramatic escape electrified the nation, and whose subsequent tactical reports shocked the military, leading, many believed, to basic changes in Washington’s Southeast Asian policies, is still at large, hunted not for the man he was, but for the homicidal killer he has become. Reports are that he may still be in Paris. Although not official, word has been leaked from unnamed but authoritative sources within the Sûreté that fingerprints found on the premises where the French lawyer, René Mattilon, was slain are definitely those of Converse, thus confirming what the authorities believed—that Converse killed his French acquaintance for cooperating with Interpol and the Sûreté. The manhunt is spreading out from Paris and this station will bring you …
”