within the darkness. The maniacal face of General
George Marcus Delavane. He was about to begin an
indeterminate stay in hell, courtesy of a madman. And
as he later learned, the losses were ink nitely greater on
the ground.
Delavane! The Butcher of Danang and Pleiku.
Waster of thousands, throwing battalion after
battalion into the jungles and the hills with neither
adequate training nor sufficient firepower. Wounded,
frightened children had been marched into the
camps, bewildered, trying not to weep and, finally
understanding, weeping out of control. The stories
they told were a thousand variations on the same
sickening theme. Inexperi
22 ROBERT LUDLUM
enced,untried troops had been sent into battle
within days after disembarkation; the weight of
sheer numbers was expected to vanquish the often
unseen enemy. And when the numbers did not
work, more numbers were sent. For three years
command headquarters listened to a maniac.
Delavane! The warlord of Saigon, fabricator of body
counts, with no acknowledgment of blown-apart
faces and severed limbs, liar and extoller of death
without a cause! A man who had proved, finally, to
be too lethal even for the Pentagon zealots a
zealot who had outdistanced his own, in the end
revolting his own. He had been recalled and
retired only to write diatribes read by fanatics who
fed their own personal furies.
Men like that can't be allowed anymore, don 't you
understand? He was the enemy, Otis enemy! Those
had been Converse's own words, shouted in a fever
of outrage before a panel of uniformed questioners
who had looked at each other avoiding him, not
wanting to respond to those words. They had
thanked him perfunctorily, told him that the nation
awed him and thousands like him a great debt, and
with regard to his final comments he should try to
understand that there were often many sides to an
issue, and that the complex execution of command
frequently was not what it appeared to be. In any
event, the President had called upon the nation to
bind its wounds; what good was served by fueling
old controversies? And then the final kicker, the
threat.
"You yourself briefly assumed the terrible
responsibility of leadership, Lieutenant," said a
pale-faced Navy lawyer, barely glancing at Joel, his
eyes scanning the pages of a file folder. "Before you
made your final and successful escape by yourself,
from a pit in the ground away from the main
camp you led two previous attempts involving a
total of seventeen prisoners of war. Fortunately you
survived, but eight men did not. I'm sure that you,
as their leader, their tactician, never anticipated a
casualty risk of nearly fifty percent. It's been said
often, but perhaps not often enough: command is
awesome, Lieutenant."
Translation: Don't join the freaks, soldier. You
survived, but eight were killed. Were there
circumstances the military is not aware of, tactics that
protected some more than others, one more than
others: One man who managed to break out by
himself eluding guards that shot on sight prisoners on
the loose at night? Merely to raise the question by
mOpening a specific file will produce a stigma that
willfollow you
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 23
for the rest of your life. Back oft; soldier. We've got you
by simply raising a question we all know should not be
raised, but we'll do it because we've taken enough }yak.
We'll cut it off wherever we can. Be ha ppy you
survived and got out. Now, get out.
At that moment, Converse had been as close to
consciously throwing away his life as he would ever
have thought possible. Physically assaulting that
panel of sanctimonious hypocrites had not been out
of the question, until he studied the face of each
man, his peripheral gaze taking in rows of tunic
ribbons, battle stars on most. Then a strange thing
had happened: disgust, revulsion and
compassion swept over him. These were panicked
men, a number having committed their lives to their
country's practice of war . . . only to have been
conned, as he had been conned. If to protect what
was decent meant protecting the worst, who was to
say they were wrong? Where were the saints? Or the
sinners? Could there be any of either when all were
victims?
Disgust, however, won out. Lieutenant Joel
Converse, USNR, could not bring himself to give a
final salute to that council of his superiors. In
silence, he had turned, with no military bearing
whatsoever, and walked out of the room as if he had
pointedly spat on the Hoor.
A flash of light again from the boulevard, a
blinding echo of the sun from the Quai du Mont
Blanc. He was in Geneva, not in a North Vietnamese
camp holding children who vomited while telling
their stories, or in San Diego being separated from
the United States Navy. He was in Geneva, and the
man sitting across the table knew everything he was
thinking and feeling.
"Why me?" whispered Joel.
"Because, as they say," said Halliday, "you could
be motivated. That's the simple answer. A story was
told. The captain of your aircraft carrier refused to
put his planes in the air for the strike that Delavane
demanded. Several storms had moved in; he called
it suicidal. But Delavane forced him to, threatened
to call the macho White House and have the captain
stripped of his command. You led that strike. It's
where you got it."
"I'm alive," said Converse Hatly. "Twelve hundred
kids never saw the next day and maybe a thousand
more wished they never had."
24 ROBERT LUDLUM
"And you were in the captain's quarters when
Mad Marcus Delavane made his threats and called
the shots."
"I was there," agreed Converse, no comment in
his voice. Then he shook his head in bewilderment.
'Everything I told you about myself you've heard
it before."
"Read it before," corrected the lawyer from
California. "Like you and I think we're the best in
the business under fifty I don't put a hell of a lot
of stock in the written word. I have to hear a voice,
or see a face."
"I didn't answer you."
"You didn't have to."
"But you have to answer me now. You're not
here for Comm Tech-Bern, are you?"
''Yes, that part's true," said Halliday. "Only the
Swiss didn't come to me, I went to them. I've been
watching you, waiting for the moment. It had to be
the right one, perfectly natural, geographically
logical."
"Why? What do you mean?"
"Because I'm being watched.... Rosen did have a
stroke. I heard about it, contacted Bern, and made
a plausible case for myself."
"Your reputation was enough."
"It helped, but I needed more. I said we knew
each other, that we went way back which God
knows was true and as much as I respected you, I
implied that you were extremely astute with finals,
and that I was familiar with your methods. I also put
my price high enough."
"An irresistible combination for the Swiss," said
Converse.
"I'm glad you approve."
"But I don't," contradicted Joel. "I don't approve
of you at all, least of all your methods. You haven't
told me anything, just made cryptic remarks about
an unidentified group of people you say are
dangerous, and brought up the name of a man you
knew would provoke a response. Maybe you're just
a freak, after all, still pushing that safe Yippee
label."
"Calling someone a 'freak' is subjectively
prejudicial in the extreme, counselor, and would be
stricken from the record."
"Still, the point's been made with the jury,
lawyer-man," said Converse quietly but with anger.
"And I'm making it now."
"Don't prejudge the safety," continued Halliday in a
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 25
voice that was equally quiet. "I'm not safe, and
outside of a proclivity for cowardice, there's a wife
and five children back in San Francisco I care deeply
about."
"So you come to me because I have no
such what was it? priority entanglements?"
"I came to you because you're invisible, you're
not involved, and because you're the best, and I can't
do ill legally can't do it, and it's got to be done
legally."
' Why don't you say what you mean?" demanded
Converse. "Because if you don't I'm getting up and
we'll see each other later across a table."
"I represented Delavane," said Halliday quickly.
"God help me I didn't know what I was doing, and
very few people approved, but I made a point we
used to make all the time. Unpopular causes and
people also deserve representation."
"I can't argue with that."
"You don't know the cause. I do. I found out."
'What cause?"
Halliday leaned forward. "The generals," he said,
his voice barely audible. "They're coming back."
Joel looked closely at the Californian. "From
where? I didn't know they'd been away."
"From the past," said Halliday. "From years ago."
Converse sat back in the chair, now amused.
"Good Lord, I thought your kind were extinct. Are
you talking about the Pentagon menace, Press it is
'Press,' isn't it? The San Francisco short-form, or was
it from Haight-Ashbury, or the Beverly Hills
something or other? You're a little behind the times;
you already stormed the Presidio."
"Please, don't make jokes. I'm not joking."
"Of course not. It's Seven Days in May, or is it
Five Days in August? It's August now, so let's call it
The Old-Time Guns of August. Nice ring, I think."
"Stop ill There's nothing remotely funny, and if
there were, I'd find it before you did."
"That's a comment, I suppose," said.Joel.
"You're goddamned right it is, because I didn't go
through what you went through. I stayed out of it, I
wasn't conned, and that means I can laugh at fanatics
because they never hurt me, and I still think it's the
best ammunition against them. But not now. There's
nothing to laugh at nowl"
"Permit me a small chuckle," said Converse
without smiling. "Even in my most paranoid moments
I never subscribed
26 ROBERT LUDLUM
to the conspiracy theory that has the military
running Washington. It couldn't happen."
"It might be less apparent than in other
countries, but that's all I'll grant you."
"What does that mean?"
"It would undoubtedly be much more obvious in
Israel, certainly in Johannesburg, quite possibly in
France and Bonn, even the UK none of them
takes its pretences that seriously. But I suppose
you've got a point. Washington will drape the
conshtubonal robes around itself until they become
threadbare and fall away revealing a uniform,
incidentally."
Joel stared at the face in front of him. You're
not joking, are you? And you're too bright to try to
snow me."
"Or con you," added Halliday. "Not after that
label I wore while watching you in pajamas halfway
across the world. I couldn't do it."
"I think I believe you.... You menhoned several
countries, specific countries. Some aren't speaking,
others barely; a few have bad blood and worse
memories. On purpose?"
"Yes," nodded the Californian. "It doesn't make
any difference because the group I'm talking about
thinks it has a cause that will ultimately unite them
all. And run them all their way."
"The generals?"
"And admirals, and brigadiers, and field
marshals old soldiers who pitched their tents in the
right camp. So far right there's been no label since
the Reichstag."
"Come on, Avery!" Converse shook his head in
exasperabon. "A bunch of tired old warhorses "
"Recruiting and indoctrinating young, hard,
capable new commanders," interrupted Halliday.
" coughing their last bellows." Joel stopped.
"Have you proof of that?" he asked, each word
spoken slowly.
"Not enough . . . but with some digging . . .
maybe enough."
"Goddamn it, stop being elliptical."
"Among the possible recruits, twenty or so
names at the State Department and the Pentagon,"
said Halliday. "Men who clear export licenses and
who spend millions upon millions because they're
allowed to spend it, all of which, naturally, widens
any circle of friends."
"And influence," stated Converse. "What about
London, Paris, and Bonn Johannesburg and Tel
Aviv?"
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 27
"Again names."
"How firm?"
They were there, l saw them myself. It was an
accident. How many have taken an oath I don't
know, but they were there, and their stripes fit the
philosophical pattern."
' The Reichstag?"
More encompassing. A global Third Reich. All
they need is a Hitler."
Where does Delavane fit in?"
He may anoint one. He may designate the Fuhrer."
That's ridiculous. Who'd take him seriously?"
He was taken seriously before. You saw the results."
That was then, not now. You're not answering
the question."
- Men who thought he was right before, and don't
fool yourself, they're out there by the thousands.
What's mind-blowing is that there are a few dozen
with enough seed money to finance his and their
&
nbsp; delusions which, of course, they don't see as
delusions at all, only as the proper evolution of
current history, all other ideologies having failed
miserably."
Joel started to speak, then stopped, his thoughts
suddenly altered. 'Why haven't you gone to someone
who can stop them? Stop him."
Who?"
"I shouldn't have to tell you that. Any number of
people in the government elected and
appointed and more than a dozen departments. For
starters, there's Justice."
"I'd be laughed out of Washington," said Halliday.
"Beyond the fact that we have no proof as I told you,
just names, suppositions don't forget that Yippie
label I once wore. They'd pin it on me again and tell
me to get lost."
"But you represented Delavane."
"Which only compounds the problem by
introducing the legal aspects. I shouldn't have to tell
you that."
"The lawyer-client relationship." Converse nodded.
"You're in a morass before you can make a charge.
Unless you've got hard evidence against your client,
proof that he's going to commit further crimes and
that you're aiding the commission of those crimes by
keeping silent."
' Which proof I don't have," interrupted the
Californian.
"Then no one will touch you," added Joel.
"Especially ambitious lawyers at Justice; they don't
want their postgov
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 4
