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
Comm Tech Corporation, for the purpose of
finalising a contemplated business association
referred to hereafter as the Comm Tech-Bern
merger. On the morning of August 10, at
approximately eight o’clock, I was contacted by the
chief 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 meet
with him to clarify the existing points of argument
and our positions with respect to them. When I
arrived at the cafe on the Quai du Mont Blanc, I
recognized Mr. Halliday as a student and close
friend I had known years ago at the Taft School in
Watertown, Connecticut. His name then was Avery
P. Fowler. Mr. Halliday readily confirmed this fact,
explaining that his surname had been changed upon
the death of his father and the remarriage of his
mother to a John Halliday of San Francisco. The
explanation was acceptable, the circumstances,
however, were not. Mr. Halliday had ample prior
time and opportunity to apprise me of his
identity the identity with which I was
familiar but did not do so. There was a reason.
On that morning of August 10, Mr. Halliday sought
a confidential meeting with the undersigned regard-
ing a matter totally unrelated to the Comm
Tech-Bern merger. This meeting was the primary
reason for his being in Geneva. It was the first of
many disturbing revelations….
If the very proper and distant British
stenographer had the slightest interest in the
material she was transcribing in segments from
dictation to the typewritten page, she did not show
it. Her thin lips pursed, her grey hair knotted into
a forbidding bun on the top of her head, she
performed like a machine, as if everything was
accepted in rote and by rote. Valerie’s somewhat
guarded explanation that her husband was an
American novelist intrigued by recent events in
Europe was
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 597
greeted with a cold stare and the gratuituous
information that the legal secretary never watched
television and rarely read the newspapers. She was a
member of the Franco-ltalian Alpine Society, whose
purpose was to defend the natural endowments being
eroded by man; working for the society took up all
her time and energy when she was not earning a
living to enable her to remain in her beloved
mountains. She was an automaton putting in her
time; one could dictate the book of Genesis and Val
doubted the woman would know what she was typing.
It was the seventh hour and there was still no
answer 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 the
room, “go ahead and reach Prudhomme. I wanted to
talk to this Metcalf first, but it’s possible that_it may
not be possible.”
“What difference does it make? You need help
quickly, and he’s willing to help.”
“The difference is I know where Prudhomme’s
coming from, you’ve told me. I got an idea what he
can do and what he can’t do, but I don’t know
anything about Metcalf except that Sam put him
way up on a high priority. Whoever I call first I’ve
got to make specific statements to him, accusations
and observations that’ll blow his mind. Those are
commitments, Val, and I have to go with the
strongest…. Try Metcalf again.”Joel turned and
headed for the telephone in the bathroom as Valerie
dialed the international codes for Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Caller C, message received. Please reidentify
yourself twice, followed by a slow count to ten. Stay
on the line.”
Joel put the phone down on the edge of the basin
and rushed out to the bedroom-sitting room. He
walked over to Val, holding up his hand as he
reached for a pencil on the desk. He wrote out the
words: “Go ahead. Stay calm. P.S.E.”
“This is Miss Parquette speaking,” said Valerie,
frowning bewildered. “This is Miss Parquette
speaking. One, two, three, four . . .”
Converse returned to the bathroom, picked up
the telephone and listened.
“. . . eight, nine, ten.”
Silence. Finally, there were two sharp clicks and
the metaJlic voice came back on the line.
“Confirmed, thank you.
598 ROBERT LUDLUM
This is the second tape and will be microed out when
completed. Listen carefully. There is a place on an
island well known for its tribal nights. The King will
be in his chair. That’s it. We are burning.”
Joel hung up the phone and studied the
half-legible words he had hastily scribbled in soap on
the mirror above the basin. The door opened and
Valerie 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 in
heaven’s name does ‘P.S.E.’ mean?”
” ‘Psychological Stress Evaluator,’ ” answered
Converse, leaning against the wall and reading
MetcalPs message. He looked up at her. “It’s a voice
scanner you can attach to a phone or a recording
machine that supposedly tells you whether the person
you’re talking to is Iying or not. Larry Talbot played
around with one for a while but claimed he couldn’t
find 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 lie
detector, and I suppose it is if you know how to read
it or use it. It worked in your case. Your voice was