sudden, awful vacuum below. She was beyond
thinking; she could only react to words. “Why did
you say you were responsible, that in some way you
pulled the trigger?”
“I told him to go to Peregrine. I tried to
convince him that Peregrine would listen to him,
that he wasn’t the man Joel thought he was.”
” ‘Thought he was’? What did Joel say?”
“Very little that made sense. He ranted about
generals and field marshals and some obscure
historical theory that brought all the commanders
from various wars and armies together in a
combined effort to take control of governments. He
wasn’t lucid. He d pretend to be, but the minute I
questioned a statement he made or a point in his
story, he’d blow up and tell me it didn’t matter, or
I wasn’t listening, or I was too dense to understand.
But at the end he admitted he was terribly tired and
confused and how badly he needed sleep. That was
when I made my last pitch about Peregrine, but Joel
didn’t trust him. He was actually hostile toward him
because he said he saw a former Gemman general’s
car go through the embassy gates, and as you may
or may not know, Peregrine was an outstanding
officer during the Second World War. I explained as
patiently and as fimmly as I could that Peregrine
was not one of ‘them,’ that he was no friend of the
military. . . . Obviously, I failed. Joel reached him,
set up a rendezvous and killed him. I had no idea
how sick he was.”
“Larry, ‘ began Valerie slowly, her voice weak. ‘
1 hear everything you say, but it doesn’t ring true. It
isn’t that I don’t believe you Joel once said you
were an embarrassingly honest man but
something’s missing. The Converse I know and lived
with for four years never bent the facts to support
abstractions he wanted to believe. Even when he
was angry as hell, he couldn’t do that. I told him
he’d make a lousy painter because he couldn’t bend
a shape to fit a concept. It wasn’t in him, and I
think he explained it. At five hundred miles an
hour, he said, you can mistake a shadow on the
ocean for a carrier if your instruments are out.”
“You’re telling me he doesn’t lie.”
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 391
“I’m sure he does I’m sure he did but never
about important things. It simply isn’t in him.”
“That was before he became ill, violently ill. He
killed that man in Paris, he admitted it to me.”
Valerie gasped. “No!”
“Yes, I’m afraid. Just as he killed Walter Peregrine.”
“Because of some obscure historical theory? It’s
all wrong, Larry!”
“Two psychiatrists at the State Department
explained it, but in phrases I’m sure I’d mangle if I
tried to repeat them. ‘Progressive latent
retrogression,’ I think, was one of them.”
“Bullshit!”
“But you may be right about one thing. Geneva.
Remember you said it all had something to do with
Geneva?”
“I remember. What about Geneva?”
“It’s where it started, everyone in Washington
agrees with that. I don’t know if you’ve read the
papers ”
“Only the Globe; it’s delivered. I haven’t left the
phone.”
“It was Jack Halliday’s son stepson, actually. He
was the lawyer who was killed in Geneva. It seems
he was a prominent leaderof the antiwar movement
in the sixties and he was Converse’s opponent in the
merger. It was established that they met for
breakfast before the conference. The theory is that
he baitedJoel, and we can assume it was brutal, as he
had a reputation for going for the jugular.”
“Why would he do that?” asked Val, her frayed
nerves now suddenly alert.
“To throw Joel off. To distract him. Remember,
they were dealing in millions, and the attorney who
came off best could do very well for himself clients
lining up all over Wall Street to retain him. There’s
even evidence that Halliday succeeded.”
“What evidence?”
“The first part’s technical, so I won’t try to
explain it except to say that there was a subtle
transfer of voting stock which under certain isolated
market conditions might give Halliday’s clients more
say in management than the merger intended. Joel
accepted it; I don’t think he would have normally.”
“Normally? What’s the other part?”
“Joel’s behavior at the conference itself.
According to the reports interviews with everyone
in that room he wasn’t himself, he was distracted,
some said agitated. Several law
392 ROBERT IUDLUM
yers on both sides commented on the fact that he
kept to himself, standing by a window most of the
time, looking out as if he expected something. His
concentration was so lax that questions addressed to
him had to be repeated, and when they were, he
appeared as though he didn’t understand them. His
mind was somewhere else, on something that
consumed him.”
“Larry!” shouted Valerie. “What are you saying?
That Joel had something to do with this Halliday
being killed?”
“It can’t be ruled out,” said Talbot sadly. “Either
psychologically or in light of what people saw in the
anteroom when Halliday died.”
“What they saw?” whispered Valerie. “The paper
said he died with Joel holding his head.”
“I’m afraid there’s more, my dear. I’ve read the
reports. According to a receptionist and two other
attorneys, there was a violent exchange between
them just before Halliday died. No one’s sure what
was said, but they all agree it seemed ViCiOUS,
with Halliday clutching Joel’s lapels, as though
accusing him. Later, when questioned by the
Geneva police, Joel claimed there was no coherent
conversation, only the hysterical words of a dying
man. The police report added that he was not a
cooperative witness.”
“My God, he was probably in shock! You know
what he went through the sight of that man dying
literally in his arms must have been traumatic for
him!”
“Admittedly, this is hindsight, Valerie, but
everything must be examined above all, his
behavior.”
“What do they think he did? What’s the theory
now? That Joel went out into the street, saw
someone who fit the bill and hired him to kill a
man? Really, Larry, this is ludicrous. ”
“There are more questions, than there are
answers, certainly, but what’s happened what we
know has happened isn’t ludicrous at all. It’s
tragic.”
“All right, all right,” said Valerie, her words
rushed. “But why would he do it? Why would he
want Halliday killed? Why. ”
“I think that’s obvious. How he must have
despised someone like Halliday. A man who stayed
safely at home, who condemned and ridiculed
everything men like Joel went through, calling them
goons and murderers and lackeys and unnecessary
sacrifices. Along with his hated ‘commanders,’
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 393
the Hallidays of this world must have stood for
everything else he loathed. One group ordering men
into battle, to be maimed, killed, captured . . .
tortured, the other making a mockery of everything
they endured. Whatever Halliday said at that
breakfast table must have made something snap in
Joel’s head.”
“And you think,” said Valerie quietly, the words
echoing in her throat, “that’s why he wanted Halliday
dead?”
“Latent vengeance. It’s the prevalent theory, the
consensus, if you will.”
“I don’s ‘will.’ Because it’s not true, it couldn’t be
true.”
“These are highly qualified experts, Val, doctors
in the behavioral sciences. They’ve analyzed
everything in the records and they feel the pattern is
there. Shock-induced, instant pathological
schizophrenia.”
“That’s very impressive. They should embroider
it on their Snoopy baseball caps because that’s where
it belongs.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to dispute ”
“I’m in a hell of a position,” interrupted the
ex-Mrs. Converse. “But nobody bothered to ask me,
or Joel’s father, or his sister who just happened to
have been one of those wild-eyed protesters you all
speak of. There’s no way Halliday could have
provoked Joel the way they say he did at breakfast,
lunch or dinner.”
“You can’t make such a statement, my dear. You
simply don’t know that.”
“I do know, Larry. Because Joel thought the
Hallidays of this world, as you put it, were right. He
wasn’t always crazy about the way they did things,
but he thought they were right!”
“I don’t believe that. Not after what he went
through.”
“Then go to another source if that’s what you
call it. To some of those records your high priests of
the behavioral sciences conveniently overlooked.
When Joel came back, there was a parade for him at
Travis Air Force Base in California, where he was
given everything but the keys to every starlet’s
apartment in Los Angeles. Am I right?”
“I recall there was a military welcome for a man
who had escaped under extraordinary circumstances.
The Secretary of State greeted him at the plane, in
fact.”
“In absolute fact, Larry. Then what? Where else
was he paraded?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
394 ROBERT LUDLUM
‘Look at the records. Nowhere. He wouldn’t do