The Aquaintaine Progession Read online

  “What’s the name of the insurance company?”

  “Compagnie Solidaire. It would be one of theoperative words, I’d think. Solidaire, and perhapsBeloit and Belfast.”

  “Let’s hope I get to confront Bertholdier withthem. But if I do, I’ve got to say them at the righttime. I’ll catch the plane from Athens in themorning.”

  “Take the urgent good wishes of an old man withyou, Mr. Converse. And urgent is the appropriateword. Three to five weeks, that’s all you’ve gotbefore everything blows apart. Whatever it is,wherever it is, it will be Northern Ireland tenthousand times more violent. It’s real and it’scoming.”

  Valerie Charpentier woke up suddenly, her eyeswide, her face rigid, listening intently for sounds thatmight break the dark silence around her and theslap of the waves in the distance. Any second sheexpected to hear the shattering bell

  of the alarm system that was wired into everywindow and door of the house.

  It did not come, yet there had been othersounds, intrusions on her sleep, penetrating enoughto wake her. She pulled the covers back and got outof bed, walking slowly, apprehensively, to the glassdoors that opened onto her balcony whichoverlooked the rocky beach, the jetty, and theAtlantic Ocean beyond.

  There it was again. The bobbing, dim lights wereunmistakably the same, washing over the boat thatwas moored exactly where it had been mooredbefore. It was the sloop that for two days hadcruised up and down the coastline, always in sight,with no apparent destination other than this particu-lar stretch of the Massachusetts shore. At twilighton the second evening it had dropped anchor nomore than a quarter of a mile out in the water infront of her house. It was back. After three days ithad returned.

  Three nights ago she had called the police, whoin turn reached the Cape Ann Coast Guard patrols,who came back With an explanation that was nomore lucid than it was satisfactory. The sloop was aMaryland registry, the owner an officer in theUnited States Army, and there were no provocativeor suspicious movements that warranted any officialaction.

  “I’d call it damned provocative and suspicious,”Val had said firmly. “When a strange boat sails upand down the same stretch of beach for two days ina row, then parks in front of my house withinshouting distance shouting distance beingswimming distance.”

  “The water rights of the property you leaseddon’t extend beyond two hundred feet, ma’am” hadbeen the official reply. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  At the first light of the next morning, however,Valerie knew that something had to be done. Shehad focused her binoculars on the boat, only to gaspand move back away from the glass doors. Two menhad been standing on the deck of the sloop, theirown binoculars far more powerful thanhers directed at the house, at the bedroomupstairs. At her.

  A neighbor down the beachside cul-de-sac hadrecently installed an alarm system. She was adivorced woman too, but with a hostile ex-husbandand three children; she needed the alarm. Twophone calls and Val was speaking to the owner ofWatchguard Security. A temporary system had been

  hooked up that day while a permanent installationwas being designed.

  A bell not shatteringly loud but soft and gentle.It was the quiet clanging of a ship’s bell out on thedark water, its clapper swinging with the waves. Itwas the sound that had awakened her, and she feltrelieved yet strangely disturbed. Men out on thewater at night who intended harm did not announcetheir presence. On the other hand, those same menhad come back to her house, the boat being onlyseveral hundred yards offshore. They had returnedin the darkness, the moon blocked by a sky thickwith clouds, no moonlight to guide them. It was asif they wanted her to know they were there and theywere watching. They were waiting.

  For what? What was happening to her? A weekago her phone had gone dead for seven hours, andwhen she had called the telephone company fromher friend’s house, supervisor in the servicedepartment told her he could find no malfunctions.The line was operative.

  “Maybe for you, but not for me, and you’re notpaying the bills.”

  She had returned home; the line was still dead.A second, far angrier phone call brought the sameresponse. No malfunctions. Then two hours later thedial tone was inexplicably there, the phone working.She had put the episode down to the rural telephonecomplex having less than the best equipment. Shedid not know what explanation there could be forthe sloop now eerily bobbing in the water in front ofher house.

  Suddenly, in the boat’s dim light, she could see afigure crawl out of the cabin. For a moment or twoit was hidden in the shadows, then there was a briefflare of intense light. A match. A cigarette. A manwas standing motionless on the deck smoking acigarette. He was facing her house, as if studying it.Waiting.

  Val shivered as she dragged a heavy chair infront of the balcony door but not too close, awayfrom the glass. She pulled the light blanket off thebed and sat down, wrapping it around her, staringout at the water, at the boat, at the man. She knewthat if that man or that boat made the slightest movetoward shore she would press the buttons she hadbeen instructed to press in the event of anemergency. When activated, the huge circular alarmbells both inside and outside would beear-piercing, erupting in concert, drowning

  out the sound of the surf and the waves crashing onthe jetty. They could be heard thousands of feetaway the only sound on the beach, frightening,overwhelming. She wondered if she would causethem to be heard tonight this morning.

  She would not panic. Joel had taught her not topanic, even when she thought a well-timed screamwas called for on the dark streets of Manhattan.Every now and then the inevitable had happened.They had been confronted by drug addicts or punksand Joel would remain calm icily calm movingthem both back against a wall and offering a cheap,spare wallet he kept in his hip pocket with a fewbills in it. God, he was icelMaybe that was why noone had ever actually assaulted them, not knowingwhat was behind that cold, brooding look.

  “I should have screamed!” she once had cried.

  “No,” he had said. “Then you would havefrightened him, panicked him. That’s when thosebastards can be lethal.”

  Was the man on the boat lethal were the menon the boat deadly? Or were they simply novicesailors hugging the coastline, practicing tacks,anchoring near the shore for their ownprotection curious, perhaps concerned, that theproperty owners might object? An Army officer wasnot likely to be able to afford a captain for hissloop, and there were marinas only miles away northand south marinas without available berths butwith men who could handle repairs.

  Was the man out on the boat smoking acigarette merely a landlocked young officer gettinghis sailing legs, comfortable with a familiar anchoraway from deep water? It was possible, ofcourse anything was possible_and summer nightsheld a special kind of loneliness that gave rise tostrange imaginings. One walked the beach alone andthought too much.

  Joel would laugh at her and say it was all thosedemons racing around her artist’s head in search oflogic. And he would undoubtedly be right. The menout on the boat were probably more up-tight thanshe was. In a way they were trespassers who hadfound a haven in sight of hostile natives; one inquiryof the Coast Guard proved it. And that clearance,as it were, was another reason why they hadreturned to the place where, if not welcome, at leastthey were not harassed. If Joel were with her, sheknew exactly what he would do. He would go downto the beach and shout across the water to theirtemporary neighbors and ask them to come in for adrink.

  DearJoel, foolish Joel, ice-coldJoeL There weretimes you were comforting when you werecomfortable. And amusing, so terribly amusing evenwhen you weren’t comfortable. In some ways I missyou, darling. But not enough, thank you.

  And yet why did the feeling the instinct, per-haps persist? The small boat out on the water waslike a magnet, pulling her toward it, drawing her intoits field, taking her where she knew she did not wantto go.

  Nonsense! Demons in search of logic! She wasbeing foolish foolish Joel, ice-coldJoel stop it, forCod’s sake! Be reasonable!

  Then the shiver passed through her again. Novicesailors did not
navigate around strange coastlines atnight.

  The magnet held her until her eyes grew heavyand troubled sleep came.

  She woke up again, startled by the intensesunlight streaming through the glass doors, itswarmth enveloping her. She looked out at the water.The boat was gone and she wondered for amoment whether it had really been there.

  Yes, it had. But it was gone.

  The 747 lifted off the runway at Athens’ HelikonAirport, soaring to the left in its rapid ascent. Belowin clear view, adjacent to the huge field, was the U.S.Naval Air Station, permitted by treaty althoughreduced in size and in the number of aircraft duringthe past several years. Nevertheless, far-reaching,jet-streamed American craft still roamed theMediterranean, lonian and Aegean seas, courtesy ofa resentful yet nervous government all too aware ofother eyes to the north. Staring out the window,Converse recognized the shapes of familiarequipment on the ground. There were two rows ofPhantom F-4T’s and A-6E’s on opposite sides of thedual strip updated versions of the F-4G’s andA-6A’s he had flown years ago.

  It was so easy to slip back, thought Joel, as hewatched three Phantoms break away from theground formation; they

  would head for the top of the runway, and anotherpatrol would be in the skies. Converse could feel hishands tense, in his mind he was manipulating thethick, perforated shaft, reaching for switches, hiseyes roaming the dials, looking for right and wrongsignals. Then the power would come, the surgingforce of pressurised tons beside him, behind him,himself encased in the center of a sleek, shiningbeast straining to break away and soar into itsnatural habitat. Final check all in order; cleared fortakeout: Release the power of the beast, let it free.RolU Faster, faster; the ground is a blur, the carrierdeck a mass of passing “ray, blue sea beyond, blue skyabove. Let it free! Let me free!

  He wondered if he could still do it, if the lessonsand the training of boy and man skill held. After theNavy during the academic years in Massachusettsand North Caroiina, he had frequently gone to smallairfields and taken up single-engined aircraft just toget away from the pressures, to find a few minutesof blue freedom, but there were no challenges, notaming of all-powerful beasts. Later still, it had allstopped for a long, long time. There were noairfields to visit on weekends, no playing aroundwith trim company planes; he had given his promise.His wife had been terrified of his flying. Valeriecould not reconcile the hours he had flown civilianand in combat with her own evaluation of theaverages. And in one of the few gestures ofunderstanding in his marriage, he had given hisword not to climb into a cockpit. It had notbothered him until he knew they knew themarriage had gone sour at which point he hadbegun driving out to a field called Teterboro in NewJersey every chance he could find and flownwhatever was available, anytime, any hour. Still,even then especially then there had been nochallenges, no beasts other than himself.

  The ground below disappeared as the 747stabilized and began the climb to its assignedaltitude. Converse turned away from the windowand settled back in his seat. The lights were abruptlyextinguished on the NO SMOKING sign, and Joeltook out a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.Extracting one, he snapped his lighter, and thesmoke diffused instantly in the rush of air from thevents above. He looked at his watch it was 12:20.They were due at Orly Airport at 3:35, French time.Allowing for the zones, it was a three-hour flight,and during those three hours he would commit tomemory everything he could about GeneralJacques-Louis Bertholdier if

  Beale and the dead Halliday were right, the arm ofAquitaine in Paris.

  At Helikon he had done something he had neverdone before, something that had never occurred tohirn, an indulgence that was generally attributed toromantic fiction or movie stars or rock idols. Fearand caution had joined with an excess of money, andhe had paid for two adjoining seats in first class. Hewanted no one’s eyes straying to the pages he wouldbe reading. Old Beale had made it frighteninglyclear on the beach last night: if there was theremotest possibility that the materials he carriedmight fall into other hands

  ny other hands he was to destroy them at allcosts. For they were in-depth dossiers on men whocould order multiple executions by placing a singlephone call.

  He reached down for his attache case, theleather handle still dark from the sweat of his gripsince Mykonos early that morning. For the first timehe understood the value of a device he had learnedabout from films and novels. Had he been able tochain the handle of his attache case to his wrist, hewould have breathed far more comfortably.

  Jacques-Louis Bertholdier, age fifty-nine, onlychild of Alphonse and Marie-Therese Bertholdier,was born at the military hospital in Dakar. Father acareer officer in the French Army, reputedly auto-cratic and a harsh disciplinarian. Little is knownabout the mother; it is perhaps significant thatBertholdier never speaks of her, as if dismissing herexistence. He retired from the Army four years agoat the age of fifty-five, and is now a director ofJuneau et Cie., a conservative firm on the Boursedes Valeurs, Paris’s stock exchange.

  The early years appear to be typical of the life ofa commanding officer’s son, moving from post topost, accorded the privileges of the father’s rank andinfluence. He was used to servants and fawning mili-tary personnel. If there was a difference from otherofficers’ sons, it was in the boy himself. It is said thathe could execute the full-dress manual-of-arms bythe time he was five and at ten could recite by rotethe entire book of regulations.

  In 1938 the Bertholdiers were back in Paris, thefather a member of the General Staff. This was acha

  otictime, as the war with Germany was imminent.The elder Bertholdier was one of the fewcommanders aware that the Maginot could nothold; his outspokenness so infuriated his fellowofficers that he was transferred to the field,commanding the Fourth Army, stationed along thenortheastern border.

  The war came and the father was killed in thefifth week of combat. Young Bertholdier was thensixteen years old and going to school in Paris.

  The fall of France in June of 1940 could becalled the beginning of our subject’s adulthood.Joining the Resistance first as a courier, he foughtfor four years, rising in the underground’s ranksuntil he commanded the Calais-Paris sector. Hemade frequent undercover trips to England tocoordinate espionage and sabotage operations withthe Free French and British intelligence. InFebruary of 1944, De Gaulle conferred on him thetemporary rank of major. He was twenty years ofage.

  Several days prior to the Allied occupation ofParis, Bertholdier was severely wounded in a streetskirmish between the Resistance fighters and the re-treating German troops. Hospitalizaffon relievedhim of further activity for the remainder of theEuropean war. Following the surrender he wasappointed to the national military academy atSaint-Cyr, a compensation deemed proper by DeGaulle for the young hero of the underground.Upon graduation he was elevated to the permanentrank of captain. He was twenty-four and givensuccessive commands in the Dra Hamada, FrenchMorocco; Algiers; then across the world to thegarrisons at Haiphong, and finally the Allied sectorsin Vienna and West Berlin. (Note this last post withrespect to the following informaffon on FieldMarshal Erich Leifhelm. It was where they first metand were friends, at first openly but subsequentlythey denied the relationship after both had resignedfrom military service.)

  Putting Erich Leifhelm aside for the moment,Converse thought about the young legend thatwas Jacques-Louis Bertholdier. Though Joel wasas unmilitary as any civilian could be, in an oddway he could identify with the military

  phenomenon described in these pages. Although nohero, he had been accorded a hero’s return from awar in which very few were so acclaimed, thesegenerally coming from the ranks of those who hadendured capture more than they had fought.Nevertheless, the attention the sheerattention that led to privileges was a dangerousindulgence. Although initially embarrassed, onecame to accept it all, and then to expect it all. Therecognition could be heady, the privileges soon takenfor granted. And when the attention began todwindle away, a certain anger came into play; onewanted it all back.

  These were the feelings of someone with nohunger for a
uthority success, yes; power, no. Butwhat of a man whose whole being was shaped by thefabric of authority and power, whose earliestmemories were of privilege and rank, and whosemeteoric rise came at an incredibly young age? Howdoes such a man react to recognition and theever-increasing spectrum of his own ascendancy?One did not lightly take away much from such aman; his anger could turn into fury. Yet Bertholdierhad walked away from it all at fifty-five, a reasonablyyoung age for one so prominent. It was notconsistent. Something was missing from the portraitof this latter-day Alexander. At least so far.

  Timing played a major part in Bertholdier’s ex-panding reputation. After posts in the Dra Hamadaand pre-crisis Algiers, he was transferred to FrenchIndochina, where the situation was deterioratingrapidly for the colonial forces, then engaged in vio-lent guerrilla warfare. His exploits in the field wereinstantly the talk of Saigon and Paris. The troopsunder his command provided several rare but muchneeded victories, which although incapable of alter-ing the course of the war convinced the hard-linemilitarists that the inferior Asian forces could be de-feated by superior Gallic courage and strategy; theyneeded only the materials withheld by Paris. Thesurrender at Dienbienphu was bitter medicine forthose men who claimed that traitors in the Quaid’Orsay had brought about France s humiliation. Al-though Colonel Bertholdier emerged from the defeatas one of the few heroic figures, he was wise enoughor cautious enough to keep his own counsel and didnot, at least in appearance, join the “hawks.”

  Many say that he was waiting a signal thatnever came. Again he was transferred, servingtours in Vienna and West Berlin.

  Four years later, however, he broke themaid he had so carefully constructed. In hisown words, he was "infuriated and disillusioned”by De Gaulle’s accords with theindependence-seeking Algerians; he fled to theland of his birth, North Africa, and joinedGeneral Raoul Salan’s rebellious OAS, whichviolently opposed policies it termed betrayals.During this revolutionary interim of his life hewas implicated in an assassination attempt onDe Gaulle. With Salan’s capture in April of 1962, and the insurrechonists’ collapse, onceagain Bertholdier emerged from defeatstunningly intact. In what can only be describedas an extraordinary move and one that hasnever really been understood De Gaulle hadBertholdier released from prison and broughtto the Elysee. What was said between the twomen has never been revealed, but Bertholdierwas returned to his rank. De Gaulle’s onlycomment of record was given during a pressconference on May 4, 1962. In reply to aquestion regarding the reinstated rebel officer,he said (verbahm translahon): “A great sol-dier-patriot must be permitted and forgiven asingle misguided interlude. We have conferred.We are satisfied.” He said no more on thesubject.