The Aquitaine Progression (88 page)

“Enough of this foolish scenery,” he had said. “Take off your clothes. It’s not really that cold.”

They had hot coffee, sitting on a bench outside, the magnificence of nature all around them. They held hands, and
Christ
! She had felt such love that she had to hold back the tears.

She felt the love now and got out of the chair, rejecting the intrusion of emotion. It was the wrong time. Whatever clarity of mind she could summon was needed now. She had to travel halfway across the world avoiding God knew how many people who were looking for her.

He had said he loved her—“so much.” Was it love or was it need … support? She had replied with the words “my darling”—no, she had said more than that; she had been far more specific. She had said “my only darling.” Was it a response born of the panic?

Not knowing was the worst of it, thought Converse, studying the road signs in the wash of the headlights. He had been driving for nearly seven hours after picking up a map in the city of Hagen while refilling the tank—seven hours, and according to the map he was still a long way from the border crossing he had chosen. The reason lay in his ignorance, in not knowing whether Hermione Geyner’s car had been the object of a search in the first few hours out of Osnabrück. It undoubtedly was now—officially by the police—but during those early hours he could have made better time on the highways he dared not use in case Aquitaine had raced to Geyner’s house with Val’s call. He had traveled circuitous backcountry roads, his pilot’s eye on the sun, veering always south until he reached Hagen. Now the back roads were a necessity; whether they were before he would never know. Now, however, Hermione Geyner and her band of lunatics must have gone to the police to report her stolen car. Joel had no idea what they could possibly say that would convince the
Polizei
that Valerie’s aunt was an injured party, but a stolen car was a stolen car, whether driven by Saint Francis of Assisi or Jack the Ripper. He would stay on the back roads.

Lennestadt to Kreuztal, crossing the Rhine at Bendorf and following the west bank of the river through Koblenz, Oberwesel, and Bingen, then south to Neustadt and east to
Speyer and the Rhine again. And again south through the border towns of Alsace-Lorraine, finally to the city of Kehl. It was where he would cross into France, a decision based on the fact that several years ago John Brooks had sent him to Strasbourg, the French city across the river border, to a terribly dull conference at which eight lawyers argued so continuously with each other over minor aspects of language and translation that nothing of substance was accomplished. As a result, Joel had walked the city and driven out to the countryside, awed by its beauty. He had taken several boat trips up and down the Rhine, and now he remembered the ferries that shuttled back and forth between the piers of Germany and France. Above all, he remembered the crowds in Strasbourg. Always the crowds had helped him—he needed them especially now.

It would take another three to four hours of driving, but somewhere he would have to stop and sleep for a while. He was exhausted; he had not slept for so long he could not accurately remember when he had last closed his eyes. But there was Chamonix and Val ahead. He had told her he loved her—he had
said
it. He had gotten it out after so many years; the relief was incredible, but the response even more incredible. “My darling—my only darling.” Did she mean it? Or was she supporting him again, the artist’s emotions riding over reason and experience?

Aquitaine!
Push everything out of your mind and get into France!

The polar flight from Los Angeles to Paris was uneventful, the moonscapes of ice over the northernmost regions of the world hypnotically peaceful, suspending thought by the sheer expanse of their cold infinity. Nothing seemed to matter to Val as she looked down from the substratosphere. But whatever tranquility the flight produced, it came to an end in Paris.

“Are you in France on business or on holiday, madame?” asked the immigration official, taking Valerie’s passport and typing her name into the computer.

“
Un peu de l’un et de l’autre
.”

“
Vous parlez frančais?
”

“
C’est ma langue préférée. Mes parents étaient parisiens
,” explained Val, and continued in French, “I’m an artist and I’ll be talking with several galleries. Naturally, I’ll want to travel—” She stopped, seeing the official’s eyes glance up
from his screen, studying her. “Is anything the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing of concern, madame,” said the man, picking up his telephone and talking in a low voice, the words indistinguishable in the hum of the huge customs hall. “There is someone who wishes to speak with you.”

“That’s of considerable concern to
me
,” objected Valerie, frightened. “I’m not traveling under my own name for a very good reason—which I suspect that machine of yours has told you, and I will
not
be subjected to interrogations or the indignity of the press! I’ve said all I have to say. Please reach the American embassy for me.”

“There is no need for that, madame,” said the man, replacing the phone. “It is not an interrogation and no one of the press will know you are in Paris unless you tell them. Also, there is nothing in this machine but the name on your passport—and a request.”

A second uniformed official hurriedly entered the roped-off aisle from a nearby office. He bowed politely. “If you will come with me, madame,” he said quietly in English, obviously noticing the fear in her eyes and assuming her reluctance. “You may, of course, refuse, as this is in no way official, but I hope you will not. It is a favor between old friends.”

“Who are you?”

“Chief inspector of immigrations, madame.”

“And who wishes to speak with me?”

“It would be up to him to tell you that—his name does not appear on the request. However, I’m to give you another name. Mattilon. He says you two were old friends and he respected him a great deal.”

“
Mattilon?
”

“If you will be so kind as to wait in my office, I will personally clear your luggage.”

“This is my luggage,” said Val, her thoughts on someone who would bring up René’s name. “I’ll want a police officer nearby, one who can watch through a glass door.”

“
Pourquoi?
… Why, madame?”

“
Une mésure de sûreté
,” replied Valerie.

“
Out, bien sûr, mais ce n’est pas nécessaire
.”

“
J’insiste ou je pars
.”

“
D’accord
.”

It was explained that the person who wished to speak with her was driving out to De Gaulle Airport from the center
of Paris; it would take thirty-five minutes. Waiting, she had coffee and a small glass of Calvados. The man walked through the door. Of late middle age, he was dressed in rumpled clothing, as if his appearance did not matter any longer. His face seemed lined as much from weariness as from age, and when he spoke his voice was tired but nevertheless precise.

“I will keep you but a few minutes, madame. I’m sure you have places to go, people to see.”

“As I explained,” said Val, looking hard at the Frenchman, “I’m in Paris to talk with several galleries—”

“That is no concern of mine,” interrupted the man, holding up his hands. “Forgive me, I do not care to hear. I care to hear nothing unless madame wishes to speak after I’ve spoken to her.”

“Why did you use the name of Mattilon?”

“An introduction. You were friends. May I go back before Monsieur Mattilon?”

“Go back by all means.”

“My name is Prudhomme. I am with the Sûreté. A man died in a hospital here in Paris several weeks ago. It is said your former husband, Monsieur Converse, was responsible.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“It was not possible,” said the Frenchman calmly, sitting down and taking out a cigarette. “Have no fear, this office is not ‘tapped’ or ‘bugged.’ The chief inspector and I go back to the Resistance.”

“That man died after a brutal fight with my former husband,” said Val cautiously. “I read it in the newspapers, heard it on the radio. Yet you’re telling me he wasn’t responsible for his death. How can you say that?”

“The man did not
die
in the hospital, he was killed. Between two-fifteen and two-forty-five in the morning. Your husband was on a flight from Copenhagen to Hamburg during those hours. It has been established.”

“You
know
this?”

“Not officially, madame. I was removed from the case. A subordinate, a man with little police experience but with the Army—later in the Foreign Legion, no less—was given the assignment while I was shifted to more ‘important’ matters. I asked questions; I will not bore you with details, but the man’s lungs collapsed—a sudden trauma unrelated to his wounds. The man was suffocated. It was not in the report. It was removed.”

Valerie controlled herself, keeping her voice cool and distant despite her anxiety. “Now,” she said, “what about Mattilon? My
friend
, Mattilon.”

“Fingerprints,” replied the Frenchman wearily. “They suddenly are discovered twelve hours after the
arrondissement
police—who are
very
good—have examined that office. And yet there was a death in Wesel, West Germany, within the rising and the setting of the same sun. Your former husband’s countenance was described, his identity all but confirmed. And an old woman on a train to Amsterdam—the same routing—who is found with a gun in her hand—again a description given. Has this Converse wings? Does he fly unobserved over borders by himself? Again it is not possible.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Monsieur Prudhomme?”

The man from the Sûreté inhaled on his cigarette as he tore off a page from his note pad and wrote something on it. “I’m not certain, madame, since I am no longer officially privileged in these matters. But if your former husband did not cause the man in Paris to die and could not have shot your old friend Monsieur Mattilon, how many others did he
not
kill, including the American ambassador in Bonn and the supreme commander of NATO? And who are these people who can tell government sources to confirm this and confirm that, to change assignments of senior police personnel at will, to alter medical reports removing—suppressing—evidence? There are things I do not understand, madame, but I am certain those are the very things I am not
meant
to understand. And that is why I’m giving you this telephone number. It is not my office; it is my flat in Paris—my wife will know where to reach me. Simply remember, in an emergency say that you are from the Tatiana family.”

Stone sat at the desk, the ever-present telephone in his hand. He was alone—had been alone when the call came from Charlotte, North Carolina, from a woman he had once loved very dearly years ago in the field. She had left the “terrible game,” as she called it; he had stayed, their love not strong enough.

The connection was completed to Cuxhaven, West Germany, to a telephone he was sure would be sterile. That certainty was one of the pleasures in dealing with Johnny Reb.

“Bobbie-Jo’s Chicken Fry!” was the greeting over the line. “We deliver.”

“I gather that. It’s Stone.”

“
Mah wuhd
, the Tatiana re-route!” exclaimed the Southerner. “Someday you must tell me about this here fascinatin’ family of yours, Brer Rabbit.”

“Someday I will.”

“I seem to recollect having heard the name somewheres around the late sixties, but I didn’t know what it meant.”

“Trust whoever used it.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because whoever it was was trusted by the hangingest judges in the world.”

“Who might that be?”

“The enemy, Rebel.”

“If that’s a parable, Yankee, you lost me.”

“Someday, Johnny, not now. What have you got?”

“Well, let me tell you, I saw the damnedest little island over here you ever did see. It’s not twenty miles off the coast, near the mouth of the Elbe, right where it’s supposed to be. In the Heligoland Bight, they call it, which is a section of the North Sea.”

“Scharhörn,” said Stone, making a statement. “You found it.”

“It wasn’t tough to find—everybody seems to know about it—but nobody goes near a certain southwest shoreline. It used to be a U-boat refueling station in World War Two. The security was so tight most of the German High Command didn’t know about it, and the Allies never got a clue. The old concrete-and-steel structures are still there, and it’s supposed to be deserted except for a couple of caretakers, who, I’m told, wouldn’t pick you out of the water if your boat crashed into one of the old submarine winches.” Johnny Reb paused, then continued softly, “I went out there last night and saw lights, too many lights in too many places. There are people out there on that old base, not just a couple of watchmen, and you can bet a Yankee pot roast your lieutenant commander is one of them. Also around two o’clock in the morning after the lights went out, the tallest mother-lovin’ antenna this side of Houston slid up like a bionic cornstalk, but there was no corn on the top. Instead, it bloomed like a regular sunflower. It was a disk, the kind they use for satellite transmissions.… You want me to mount a team? I can do it; there’s a lot of unemployment these days. Also the cost will be minimal, because the more I think about it, the more I appreciate your swinging
me out of the Dardanelles before those guns got there. That was really more important than getting me off the hook with those contingency funds in Bahrain.”

“Thanks, but not yet. If you go in for him now, we show cards we can’t show.”

“How long can you wait? Remember I taped that prick Washburn.”

“How much did you put together?”

“More than this old brain can absorb, if you want the truth. But not more than I can accept. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it? The eagles think they’re gonna catch the goddamned sparrows after all, don’t they? ’Cause they’re gonna turn everyone
into
sparrows.… You know, Stone, I shouldn’t say this because in your old age you became a bit softer than I did in mine, but if they get it off the ground, a lot of people everywhere may just lie back in their hammocks or go fishin’, and say the hell with it—let the big, uniformed daddies do it. Let’em straighten things out—get the potheads with their guns and switchblades off the streets and out of the parks. Show the Russkies and the oil boys in bathrobes we don’t take their crap anymore. Let’s show Jesus we’re the good guys with a lot of clout. Those soldiers, they got the guts and the guns, the corporations and the conglomerates, so what does it mean to me? Where do
I
change, says the Joe in the hammock, except maybe for the better?”