names, tactics; somewhere there's a crack, a road we
can take we have to take. Quickly."
"I'd start with Prudhomme," said Val.
"We'll call in his hand but maybe not first. Let's
take things in sequence. Are there two phones in
here? A certain ex-wife had me too preoccupied to
notice last night."
"She's probably pregnant."
"Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
"Down, boy. Yes, there's another phone. It's in
the bathroom."
"I want you to call this Metcalf, Alan Metcalf, in
Las Vegas. We'll get the number from information.
I'll listen."
"What do I say?"
"What name did you and Sam use?"
"The one I told you. Parquette."
"Say that's who's calling, nothing else. Let him make
the
590 ROBERT LUDLUM
first move. If it's wrong, I'll know we'll both
know and I'll hang up. You'll hear me and you
hang up, too."
"Suppose he's not there? Suppose I get a wife or
a girl friend or a child?"
"Leave your name quickly and say you'll call
back m an hour."
Peter Stone sat on the sofa, his feet up on the
coffee table. Across, in two armchairs, were the
Army captain out of uniform and the young Navy
lieutenant, also in street clothes.
"We agree, then," said Stone. "We try this
Metcalf and hope for the best. If we're wrong if
I'm wrong we could be traced, and don't fool
yourselves, you've been seen here, you could be
identified. But as I told you before, there comes a
time when you have to take a risk you'd rather not
take. You're out of safe territory and you hope to
Christ you get through it fast. I can't promise that
you will. This phone is tapped into another number,
a hotel across town, so any trace would be delayed,
but only delayed while everyone registered is
checked, every room checked. Once that's over with,
any experienced telephone repairman could go
down in the cellars and find the intercept."
"How much time would that give us?" asked the
Army of ficer.
"It's one of the largest hotels in New York,"
replied the civilian. "With luck, twenty-four to
thirty-six hours."
"Go for it!" ordered the Navy man.
'.Oh, for God's sake," said the captain, running
his hand through his hair. "Yes, of course, try it, try
him. But I'm still not sure why."
"Scat patterns. It was routine information and
easy to get. Abbott wrote out his schedules every
day and he was preciseabout them. There was a
preponderance of lunches alone with Metcalf, and
dinners with both families at either the Abbott or
the Metcalf home. I think he trusted the man, and
as a longtime intelligence officer Metcalf was the
logical one to go to. Also, there's something else.
Along with Converse, all three were prisoners of
war in Vietnam."
"Go for it!" cried the Navy lieutenant.
"For Christ's sake, find another phrase," said the
captain.
"It's an answering machine!" shouted Val,
gripping the mouthpiece of the telephone.
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 591
Joel came out of the bathroom. "One hour," he
whis~ered.
"One hour," she said. "Miss Parquette will call
back in n hour." She hung up.
"And every hour after that," added Converse,
staring town at the phone. "I don't like this. It's one
o'clock in the Horning back there, and if there's a
wife or children aroumd, omeone should have been
there."
"Sam didn't mention a wife or children, except his
own."
"No reason why he would."
"There could be a dozen explanations, Joel."
"I just hope it's not the one I keep thinking about."
"Let me call Prudhomme," said Valerie. "Let's
use this atiana family."
"Not yet."
"Why not?"
"We need something else he needs something
else.' ;uddenly, Converse's gaze fell on the thick
envelope adlressed to Nathan Simon. It was on the
bureau, his false pass~ort on top. "My God, we
may have it," he said quietly. "It's een right there all
the time and I didn't see it."
Val followed his eyes. "The analysis you wrote for
Nahan?"
"I called it the best brief I ever wrote, but of
course it's lot a brief at all. It doesn't address points
of law except in the videst, most abstract sense,
without acceptable evidence to upport the
accusations. What it does address is the perverted
mbitions of powerful men who want to change the
laws, alering governments, supplanting them with
raw military conrols, all in the name of maintaining
the law and preserving he order they themselves will
be called upon to maintain and ~reserve. And if
'compromise' means killing if they intend nounting
wholesale assassinations they can do it."
"What's your point, Joel?"
"If I'm going to build a case, I'd better do it the
only way know how from premise to conclusion
based on affidavits, repositions starting with my
own and ending with pretrial xaminahons."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
' The law, Mrs. Converse," said Joel, picking up
the enveope. "And what it's meant to do. I can use
most of what's in ere just in a different form.
Naturally, I'll want other coroborating depositions,
the farther afield the better. That's
592 R08ERT LUDLUM
when you'll call this Prudhomme and join the
Tatiana family. Then hopefully we'll reach Sam's
friend, Metcalf goddamn it, he'll have something to
give us.... Finally, I'm going to want to examine at
least two of the alleged defendants oral-
ly Leifhelm, for one, and probably Abrahms,
maybe Delavane himself."
"You're mad! ' cried Valerie.
"No, I'm not," said Converse simply. "I'll need
help, I know that. But I've got enough money to
hire a couple of squads of miscreants and once
Prudhomme understands, I have an Idea he'll know
where the union hall is. We've got a lot of work to
do, Val. All courts like immaculate menu"
scripts. "
"For Christ's sake, Joel, speak English."
"You're a romantic, Mrs. Converse," he said
approaching her. These are the nuts and bolts you
don't find in seascapes. "
T eydo have to be sketched, my darling. And
balanced or unbalanced, the colors
deliberate What are you talking
"A stenographer a legal secretary, if you can
find one Someone who's willing to stay here all day
and half the night; if need be. Offer three times the
going rate."
"Say I find one," said Val. ' What in heaven's
name are you going to tell her? Or him?"
Joel frowned as he crossed aimlessly to the
window. 'A novel," he said, turning. "We're writin
g
a novel. The first twenty or thirty pages are to be
read as an upcoming court case, a trial."
'Based on real people, men everyone's read about?"
It's a new kind of fiction, but it's only a novel.
That's all
Morning came to New York and Stone was
alone again. The Navy lieutenant and the Army
captain were back at their desks in Washington. It
was better this way; they could not help him, and
the less they were seen around the apartment the
more likely they might escape detection if the
hammer came down. And the hammer could come
down, Stone knew It. It was as clear as the fact that
Colonel Alan Metcalf was the chord they needed to
start the music. "Without him," as Johnny Reb might
have said in the old days, "the tune ain't gonna get
out of the fiddle no stompin' unless he shows up."
But could he show up? wondered the former
operations offi
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 593
cer for Central Intelligence. To all intents and
purposes he had disappeared, that was the word
from Nellis, and the investigating unit did not
pretend to understand or appreciate his absence.
That, too, was the word and it was delivered harshly.
But Stone understood. Metcalf now knew what
he knew what they knew and the colonel would
not play by any rules written in the regulations, not
if he was any good. Not if he was alive. And the
ex-agent also understood something else when it
came to telephone answering machines and
intelligence personnel. The equipment was adaptable
and sophisticated, courtesy of the American taxpayer
and, considering the extraordinary waste, one of his
better investments. Metcalf would play it well if he
was alive and any good. He would use a remote,
programming it and reprogramming it, hearing what
he wanted to hear, erasing what he wanted to erase,
and leaving in certain information, preferably
misleading. There would also be a code, probably
changed daily, that if not inserted accurately would
melt the tape with a ten-second burst of
microwaves all standard. If he was any good. If he
was alive.
Stone counted on both that the colonel was
good and that he was alive. There was no point in
thinking otherwise; that only led to staying in Johnny
Reb's hammock or ' gain' fishin'," doing whatever
one did as a robot. Which was why Stone had left a
message on MetcalPs machine an hour ago at
six-thirty-five. He had chosen a name Converse's
wife former wife would have to have relayed to
the dead Samuel Abbott. Marcus Aurelius ascending.
Respond and erase, please. Then Stone had given the
telephone number at the apartment, which, if traced,
would lead the tracers to the Hilton Hotel on
Fifty-third Street.
There was only one other person in the world
Stone wished he could reach, but that man was "on
holiday we have no means of getting in touch." The
words were patently a lie, but to challenge that lie
would mean that Peter would have to say more than
he wanted to say. The man was Derek Belamy, chief
of Clandestine Operations for Britain's M.1.6 and
one of the only real friends Stone had ever had in all
his years with the Central Intelligence Agency.
Belamy was such a good friend that when Peter was
station chief in London, the Englishman had told
him bluntly to get out for a while before the whisky
took over altogether and his ass was nailed to an
alcoholic cross: '`I have a doctor who'll certify a
minor
594 ROBERT LUDLUM
breakdown, Peter. I've a guest cottage on the
grounds in Kent. Stay there, get well, old boy. '
Stone had refused, and it was the most
destructive decision he had ever made. The rest was
the drunken nightmare Belamy had predicted.
But it was not Derek's concern for a friend that
made Peter want to reach him. It was Belamy's
brilliance, his perceptiveness, quietly concealed
behind a pleasant, even prosaic exterior. And the
knowledge that Derek Belamy had the pulse of
Europe in his head, and given the most basic
information, could smell out a Delavane operation.
And, in fact, thought Stone hopefully, he was
smelling them out now in Ireland certainly where
he was now. Sooner or later preferably
sooner Belamy would return his call. When he did,
a munitions shipment from Beloit, Wisconsin, would
be described in full. Derek Belamy loathed the
Delavanes of this world. His old friend would
become an ally against the generals.
The telephone rang; Stone looked at it and let
it ring again. Metcalf? He reached over and picked
it up. 'Yes?"
"AureliusP"
"Somehow I knew you'd come through, Colonel."
"Who the hell are you?"
"The name's Stone and we're on the same side,
at least I think we are. However, you wear a
uniform and I don't, so I need a little more
confidence in you. Can you understand
"You're one of those bastards in D.C. who sent him
outl" "You're warmer, Colonel. I came on late, but
yes, I am one of those bastards. What happened to
General Abbott?"
"He was killed, you son of a bitchl . . . I assume
this phone s clean."
"For at least twenty-four hours. Then we all
disappear just like you disappeared."
"No remorse? No conscience? Do you know
what you've done?"
"We don't have time for that, Colonel. Perhaps
later, if there's a later for w.... Get to, it, soldier!
I've lived with thisl Now. Where do we meet?
Where are you?"
"Okay, okay," said the obviously exhausted Air
Force officer. "I took a dozen different Bights. I'm
in where the hell am 1? in Knoxville, Tennessee.
I've got a night to Washington in twenty minutes."
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 595
"Why?"
"To blow this tucking thing out of the air, what else?"
"Forget it, you're a dead man. I'd think you'd
have learned that by now. You set up something on
the information Abbott gave you, right?"
"Yes."
"And he was blown out of the air, right?"
"Goddamn you, shut up!"
"You should have learned. They're where you
can't see them or find them. But the wrong word to
the wrong person and they can find you."
"I know that!" shouted Metcalf. "But I've been in
this business for twenty years. There's got to be
someone I can trust!"
"Let's talk about it, Colonel. Scratch D.C. and fly
up to New York. I'll get a room at the
Algonquin actually, I've already reserved one."
"What name?"
"What else? Marcus."
"You're on, but as long as we're in this deep I
should tell you. The woman's been trying to reach
me since one o'clock
this morning."
"Converse's wife?"
"Yes."
"We need her. We need him!"
"I'll reprogram the machine. The Algonquin?"
"That's it."
"He's from New York, isn't he? I mean he's a
New Yorker."
"Whatever that means, yes. He's lived here for
years."
"I hope he's bright they're bright."
"Neither of them would be alive now if they
weren't very bright, Colonel."
"See you in a few hours, Stone."
The civilian hung up the phone, his hands
shaking, his eyes on a bottle of bourbon across the
room. No! There would be no drinks, he had
promised himself. He got out of the chair and went
to the bed, where his small suitcase was open, a gap-
ing mouth waiting to be filled. He filled it, leaving
the bottle of whisky on the table, and went outside to
the elevators down the hall.
* * *
596 ROBERT LUDLUM
1, Joel Harrison Converse, an attorney admitted
to practice before the bar of the State of New York
and employed by the firm of Talbot, Brooks and
Simon, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York City, New
York arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 9
for legal conferences on behalf of our client, the
Robert Ludlum - Aquatain Progression.txt Page 92
