The Aquaintaine Progession

by Ludlum, Robert

  The telephone rang; Stone looked at it and letit ring again. Metcalf? He reached over and pickedit 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 auniform and I don’t, so I need a little moreconfidence in you. Can you understand

  “You’re one of those bastards in D.C. who sent himoutl” “You’re warmer, Colonel. I came on late, butyes, I am one of those bastards. What happened toGeneral Abbott?”

  “He was killed, you son of a bitchl . . . I assumethis phone s clean.”

  “For at least twenty-four hours. Then we alldisappear just like you disappeared.”

  “No remorse? No conscience? Do you knowwhat you’ve done?”

  “We don’t have time for that, Colonel. Perhapslater, 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 AirForce officer. “I took a dozen different Bights. I’min where the hell am I? in Knoxville, Tennessee.I’ve got a night to Washington in twenty minutes.”

  “Why?”

  “To blow this tucking thing out of the air, what else?”

  “Forget it, you’re a dead man. I’d think you’dhave learned that by now. You set up something onthe 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 youcan’t see them or find them. But the wrong word tothe wrong person and they can find you.”

  “I know that!” shouted Metcalf. “But I’ve been inthis business for twenty years. There’s got to besomeone I can trust!”

  “Let’s talk about it, Colonel. Scratch D.C. and flyup to New York. I’ll get a room at theAlgonquin actually, I’ve already reserved one.”

  “What name?”

  “What else? Marcus.”

  “You’re on, but as long as we’re in this deep Ishould tell you. The woman’s been trying to reachme 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 aNew Yorker.”

  “Whatever that means, yes. He’s lived here foryears.”

  “I hope he’s bright they’re bright.”

  “Neither of them would be alive now if theyweren’t very bright, Colonel.”

  “See you in a few hours, Stone.”

  The civilian hung up the phone, his handsshaking, his eyes on a bottle of bourbon across theroom. No! There would be no drinks, he hadpromised himself. He got out of the chair and wentto the bed, where his small suitcase was open, a gap-ing mouth waiting to be filled. He filled it, leavingthe bottle of whisky on the table, and went outside tothe elevators down the hall.

  * * *

  I, Joel Harrison Converse, an attorney admittedto practice before the bar of the State of New Yorkand employed by the firm of Talbot, Brooks andSimon, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York City, NewYork arrived in Geneva, Switzerland, on August 9for legal conferences on behalf of our client, theComm Tech Corporation, for the purpose offinalising a contemplated business associationreferred to hereafter as the Comm Tech-Bernmerger. On the morning of August 10, atapproximately eight o’clock, I was contacted by thechief counsel representing the Bern Croup, Mr.Avery Preston Halliday of San Francisco,California. As he was an American only recently re-tained by the Swiss companies, I agreed to meetwith him to clarify the existing points of argumentand our positions with respect to them. When Iarrived at the cafe on the Quai du Mont Blanc, Irecognized Mr. Halliday as a student and closefriend I had known years ago at the Taft School inWatertown, Connecticut. His name then was AveryP. Fowler. Mr. Halliday readily confirmed this fact,explaining that his surname had been changed uponthe death of his father and the remarriage of hismother to a John Halliday of San Francisco. Theexplanation was acceptable, the circumstances,however, were not. Mr. Halliday had ample priortime and opportunity to apprise me of hisidentity the identity with which I wasfamiliar but did not do so. There was a reason.On that morning of August 10, Mr. Halliday soughta confidential meeting with the undersigned regard-ing a matter totally unrelated to the CommTech-Bern merger. This meeting was the primaryreason for his being in Geneva. It was the first ofmany disturbing revelations….

  If the very proper and distant Britishstenographer had the slightest interest in thematerial she was transcribing in segments fromdictation to the typewritten page, she did not showit. Her thin lips pursed, her grey hair knotted intoa forbidding bun on the top of her head, sheperformed like a machine, as if everything wasaccepted in rote and by rote. Valerie’s somewhatguarded explanation that her husband was anAmerican novelist intrigued by recent events inEurope was

  greeted with a cold stare and the gratuituousinformation that the legal secretary never watchedtelevision and rarely read the newspapers. She was amember of the Franco-ltalian Alpine Society, whosepurpose was to defend the natural endowments beingeroded by man; working for the society took up allher time and energy when she was not earning aliving to enable her to remain in her belovedmountains. She was an automaton putting in hertime; one could dictate the book of Genesis and Valdoubted the woman would know what she was typing.

  It was the seventh hour and there was still noanswer at Alan MetcalPs telephone in Las Vegas.Only a machine. It was time for the eighth call.

  “If we don’t get him now,” said Converse grimly,above the quiet tapping of the typewriter across theroom, “go ahead and reach Prudhomme. I wanted totalk to this Metcalf first, but it’s possible that_it maynot be possible.”

  “What difference does it make? You need helpquickly, and he’s willing to help.”

  “The difference is I know where Prudhomme’scoming from, you’ve told me. I got an idea what hecan do and what he can’t do, but I don’t knowanything about Metcalf except that Sam put himway up on a high priority. Whoever I call first I’vegot to make specific statements to him, accusationsand observations that’ll blow his mind. Those arecommitments, Val, and I have to go with thestrongest…. Try Metcalf again.”Joel turned andheaded for the telephone in the bathroom as Valeriedialed the international codes for Las Vegas, Nevada.

  “Caller C, message received. Please reidentifyyourself twice, followed by a slow count to ten. Stayon the line.”

  Joel put the phone down on the edge of the basinand rushed out to the bedroom-sitting room. Hewalked over to Val, holding up his hand as hereached for a pencil on the desk. He wrote out thewords: “Go ahead. Stay calm. P.S.E.”

  “This is Miss Parquette speaking,” said Valerie,frowning bewildered. “This is Miss Parquettespeaking. One, two, three, four . . .”

  Converse returned to the bathroom, picked upthe telephone and listened.

  “. . . eight, nine, ten.”

  Silence. Finally, there were two sharp clicks andthe metaJlic voice came back on the line.“Confirmed, thank you.

  This is the second tape and will be microed out whencompleted. Listen carefully. There is a place on anisland well known for its tribal nights. The King willbe in his chair. That’s it. We are burning.”

  Joel hung up the phone and studied thehalf-legible words he had hastily scribbled in soap onthe mirror above the basin. The door opened andValerie walked in, a piece of paper in her hand.

  “I wrote it down,” she said, handing it to him.

  “I wrote it sideways your way is better. Christ, a nd

  “No more than the one you gave me. What inheaven’s name does "P.S.E.’ mean?”

  ” "Psychological Stress Evaluator,’ ” answeredConverse, leaning against the wall and readingMetcalPs mess
age. He looked up at her. “It’s a voicescanner you can attach to a phone or a recordingmachine that supposedly tells you whether the personyou’re talking to is Iying or not. Larry Talbot playedaround with one for a while but claimed he couldn’tfind anyone telling the truth, including his nine-ty-two-year-old mother. He threw it away.”

  “Does it work?”

  “They say it’s much more accurate than a liedetector, and I suppose it is if you know how to readit or use it. It worked in your case. Your voice wasmatched against the other calls you made, whichmeans this Metcalf is into pretty high-tech equipment.That scanner tripped the second tape and it was alldone by remote, from another phone, otherwise hewould have answered himself after you passed thetest.”

  - “But if I passed, why the riddle? Why an islandwith tribal

  nights?”

  “Because any machine like that can be beaten. It’swhy they’re not admissible in court. Years ago WillieSutton was wired into a lie detector, and according tothe result, he never even broke into a piggy bank,much less Chase Manhattan Metcalf was willing totake a risk, but not all the way. He’s running too.”Converse returned to what Val had written down.

  “An island.” Val spoke softly, reading the soapedwords on the mirror. “Tribes . . . The Caribe tribes;they were all through the Antilles. OrJamaica tribalnights, Obeah rituals, voodoo rites in Haiti. Even theBahamas the Lucayan Indians they held pubertyrituals, they all did.”

  “You impress me,” said Joel, looking up from thepaper. “How come?”

  “Art courses,” she replied. “Those nuts and boltsyou won’t grant us that go into the makeup of aculture’s visual work…. And it doesn’t fit. It’s tooloose.”

  “Why? It could mean someplace in theCaribbean, some resort that’s advertised a lot. TheKing is an emperor and that has to meanDelavane Mad Marcus, as in Aurelius. It has to beMarcus; no one’s named Aurelius! . . . All thosetelevision commercials, the newspaper ads picturesof people doing the limbo under torches withcostumed blacks smiling down benignly, counting thedollars. Which one?”

  “Too loose,” repeated Val. “Too abstract blocksand geometric shapes without specifics norepresentational images.”

  “Now what the hell are you talking about?”objected Converse.

  “It’s too wide, Joel, too many places to choosefrom, places you might not know anything about. Ithas to be closer, more familiar to you or to me,something we can recognize. Like Bruegel orVermeer, littered with specific detail.”

  “They sound like dentists.”

  Valerie took the paper from him. “Manhattan’s anin land,” she said softly, reading and frowning again.

  “If there are torches and tribal puberty rites, it’snot my part of town.”

  “Not tribal rites, tribal nights,” corrected Val.“Tribal not Black but Red? The King will be in hischair chair . . . table. His table. Tribal . . . nights.Nights! That’s where we’re misreading it. Nights!”

  “How else can you read it?”

  “Not nights but knights! With a k!”

  “And a table,” broke in Converse. “Knights of theRound Table.”

  “But not the King Arthllr legend, not Camelot.Much nearer, much closer. Tribal American natives.American Indians. “

  “Algonquins. The Round Table!”

  “The Algonquin Hotel,” cried Valerie. “That’s it,that’s what he meant!”

  “We’ll know in a few minutes,” said Joel. “Coinside and place the call.”

  The wait was both intolerable and interminable.Converse looked at his face in-the mirror;perspiration began to

  drench his face, the salt sunging his scrapes andburning his eyes. Far more telling, his hand shookand his breath was short. The Algonquinswitchboard answered and Val asked for a Mr.Marcus. There was a stretch of silence, and whenthe operator came back on the line, Joel thought hewould smash the telephone into the mirror.

  “There are two Marcuses registered, ma’am.Which one did you wish to speak to?”

  “Already it’s a rotten day!” Val broke in suddenlyover the phone, startling Converse with her words.“My boss, the clown, told me to call Mr. Marcus atthe Algonquin right away and give him the time andplace for lunch. Now the clown’s disappeared to ameeting somewhere outside and I’m left holding it.Sorry, dear, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  “It’s okay, hon. we got a few like that around here.”

  “Maybe you can help me. Which Marcus iswhich? Maybe I’ll recognize a first name or acompany.”

  “Sure. Lemme plug into Big Reggie. We allgotta suck together when it comes to the clowns,right? . . . Okay, here they are. Marcus, Myron.Sugarman’s Original Replicas, Los Angeles. AndMarcus, Peter . . . not much help here, sweetie. Justsays Georgetown, Washington, D.C.”

  “That’s the one. Peter. I’m sure of it. Thanks, dear.”

  “Glad to be of help, hon. I’ll ring now.”

  The folded New York Times resting on his knee,Stone inked in the last two words of the crosswordpuzzle and looked at his watch. It had taken himnine minutes, nine minutes of relief; he wished ithad been longer. One of the joys of having beenstation chief in London was the London Timescrossword. He could always count on at least ahalf-hour when he could forget problems in thesearch for words and meanings.

  The telephone rang. Stone stared at it, his pulseaccelerat"ng, his throat suddenly dry. No one knewhe had checked into the Algonquin under the nameof Marcus. No one! . . . Yes, there was someone,but he was in the air, flying up from Knoxville,Tennessee. What had gone wrong? Or had he beenwrong about Metcalf? Was the supposedly angry,sermonising Air Force intelligence officer one ofthem? Had his own insuncts, honed over a thousandyears of sorting out garbage deserted him becausehe so desperately sought an opening,

  an escape from a steel net that was dropping downon him? He got out of the chair and walked slowly,in fear, to the bedside table. He picked up theinsistently ringing phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Alan Metcalf?” said the soft, firm voice of a woman.

  “Who?” Stone was so thrown by the natne hecould barely concentrate, barely think!

  “I beg your pardon, I have the wrong room.”

  “Wait! Don’t hang up. Metcalfs on his way here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please! Oh Christ, please! I was tired, I wasasleep. We’ve been up night and day…. Metcalf. Italked with him two hours ago he said he was goingto reprogram his machine, that someone was tryingto reach him since one o’clock this morning. He hadto get out of there. A man was killed, a pilot. It wasnot an accident! Am I making sense to you?”

  “Why should I talk to you?” asked the woman.“So you can trace the call?”

  “Listen to me,” said Stone, his voice now in totalcontrol. “Even if I wanted to and I don’t this is ahotel, not a private line,-and to do what you suggestwould take at least three men on the trunk lines andanother controlling the switchboard. And even withsuch a unit it would be at least four minutes beforethey could isolate the wire and send out a tracer sig-nal which initially would only give us an arealocation, not a specific phone. And if you werecalling from overseas we’d have to have anotherman, an expert, in that specific location to narrow itdown to perhaps a twenty-mile radius, but only if youstayed on your phone for at least six minutes…. Now,for God’s sake, give me at least two!”

  “Go on. Quickly!”

  “I’m going to assume something. Maybe Ishouldn’t, but you’re a clever woman, Mrs. DePinna,and you could do it.”

  “DePinna?”

  “Yes. You left a telephone book open to the bluepages, the government pages. When the accidenthappened in Nevada, I made a simple connectionwith a listing, and two hours ago I learned I wasright. Metcalf returned my call from a pay phone atan airport. A pilot, a general, had talked to him atlength. He’s joining us. You ran from the wrongpeople, Mrs. DePinna. But as for what I’m thinking,I think the man we want to find is listening on thisphone.”

  “There’s no one
else here!”

  “Please don’t interrupt me, I’ve got to use everysecond.” Stone’s voice suddenly became stronger.“Leifhelm, Bertholdier, Van Headmer, Abrahms. Anda fifth man we can’t identify, an Englishman who’sdown so deep he makes Burgess Maclean and Bluntlook like amateurs. We don’t know whohe is, buthe’s there, using warehouses in Ireland and offshorecargo ships, and long-forgotten airfields to transportmaterials that shouldn’t be going out. Those dossierscame from us, Converse! We sent them to you!You’re a lawyer, and you know that by using yourname I’m incriminating myself or committing suicideif anyone’s taping this. I’ll go further. We sent youout through Preston Halliday in Geneva. We sentyou out to build a legal case from left field so wecould abort this thing with a minimum of fallout,sending all those goddamned idiots back to reality.But we were wrong! They were much further aheadthan we ever suspected we ever suspected but notBeale on Mykonos. He was dead right, and he’sdead because he was right! Incidentally, he was the"men from San Francisco.’ It was his five hundredthousand dollars; he came from a rich family, which,among other things, bequeathed him a conscience.Think back to Mykonos! To what he told you whathis life was all about. From celebrated soldier to ascholar to a killing that must have killed a part ofhim to commit…. He said you almost caught him upon a couple of things he didn’t mean to say. He saidyou were a good lawyer, a good choice. PrestonHalliday was a student of his at Berkeley, and whenthis broke a year and a half ago when Hallidayrealized what Delavane was doing and how he wasbeing used, he went to Beale, who was about toretire. The rest you can figure out.”

  The woman’s voice interrupted. “Say what I wantto hear you say. Say it!”

  “Of course I will! Converse didn’t kill Peregrineand he didn’t kill the commander of NATO. Both ofthem were marked by Delavane George MarcusDelavane because both those men would havetaken him and his ilk to the mat! They wereconvenient, very convenient, targets. I don’t knowabout the others I don’t know what you’ve beenthrough but we broke a liar in Bad Godesberg, themajor from the embassy who put you, Converse, atthe Adenauer Bridge! He doesn’t know it, but webroke him, and we learned something. We think weknow where Connal Fitzpatrick is. We think he’salive!”