border rimmed in black. The two who were with
him were so young God, so damned young., they
would find it too terrible to accept. He
remembered, vaguely, when such a conclusion would
have appalled him. But that was nearly forty years
ago; he was almost sixty now, and he had heard
such conclusions repeated too often to shed tears of
regret. The regret the sadness was there but time
and repetition had dulled his senses; clear
evaluation was everything.
Stone turned and said with quiet authority, ‘ We
can’t do anything ” The Army captain and the Navy
lieutenant were visibly upset. Peter Stone continued,
‘ 1 spent twenty-three years in the tunnels, including
a decade with Angleton, and I m telling you there’s
absolutely nothing we can do. We have to let him
hang out, we can’t touch him.”
‘ Because we can’t afford to?” asked the naval
oflicer scathingly. “That’s what you said when
Halliday was killed in Geneva. We can’t afford tot”
“We can’t. We were outmaneuvered.”
“That’s a man out there,” insisted the lieutenant.
“We sent him out ”
“And they set him up,” the civilian broke in, his
voice calm, his eyes sadly knowledgeable. “He’s as
good as dead We’ll have to start looking elsewhere.”
“Why is that?” asked the Army captain. “Why is
he as good as dead?”
“They have too many controls, we can see that
now. If they don’t have him locked up in a cellar,
they know pretty much where he is. Whoever finds
him will kill him. A riddled body of a crazed killer
is delivered up and there’s a collective sigh of relief.
That’s the scenario.”
“And that’s the most cold-blooded analysis of a
murder I’ve ever heard! Murder, an unwarranted
execution!”
“Look, Lieutenant,” said Stone, stepping away
from the window, “you asked me to come with
you convinced me I should because you wanted
some experience in this room. With that experience
comes the moment when you recognize
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 375
and accept the fact that you’ve been beaten. It
doesn’t mean you’re finished, but you’ve been
punched out of the round. We’ve been punched out,
and it’s my guess the punches haven’t stopped yet.”
“Maybe . . .” began the captain haltingly. “Maybe
we should go to the Agency, tell them everything we
know everything we think we know and what
we’ve done. It might get Converse out alive.”
“Sorry,” countered the former CIA man. “They
want his head and they’ll get it. They wouldn’t have
gone to all this trouble if ‘dead’ wasn’t written all
over him. He found out something, or they found out
something about him. That’s the way it works.”
“What kind of world do you live in? ‘asked the
naval officer quietly, shaking his head.
“I don’t live in it anymore, Lieutenant, you know
that. I think it’s one of the reasons you came to me.
I did what you two and whoever else is with
you are doing now. I blew a whistle only, I did it
with two months of bourbon in my veins and ten
years of disgust in my head. You say you might go to
the Company? Good, go ahead, but you’ll do it
without me. No one worth a quarter in Langley will
touch me.”
“We can’t go to G-Two or naval intelligence,”
said the Army officer. “We know that, we’ve all
agreed. Delavane’s people are there; they’d shoot us
down.”
“Aptly put, Captain. Would you believe with real
bullets?”
“I do now,” said the Navy man, nodding at Stone.
“The report out of San Diego is that the legal,
Remington, was killed in an automobile accident in
La Jolla. He’s the one who last spoke to Fitzpatrick,
and before he left the base, he asked another legal
the directions to a restaurant in the hills. He’d never
been there and I don’t think it was an accident.”
“Neither do I,” agreed the civilian. “But it takes
us to the somewhere-else we can look.”
“What do you mean?” said the Army captain.
“Fitzpatrick. SAND PAC can’t find him, right?”
“He’s on leave,” interjected the naval officer.
“He’s got another twenty days or so. He wasn’t
ordered to list his itinerary.”
“Still, they’ve tried to find him but they can’t.”
“And I still don’t understand,” objected the captain.
“We go after Fitzpatrick,” said Stone. “Out of San
Diego,
376 ROBERT LUDIUM
not Washington. We find a reason to really want
him back. A SAND PAC emergency, routed strictly
through Eyes Only a base problem nobody else’s.”
“I hate to repeat myself,” said the Army man,
“but you’ve lost me. Where do we start? Whom do
we start with?”
“With one of your own, Captain. Right now he’s
a very important person. The charge d’affaires at
the Mehlemer House.”
“The what?”
“The American embassy in Bonn. He s one of
them. He lied when it counted most,” said Stone.
“His name is Washburn. Major Norman Anthony
Washburn, the Fourth.”
The telephone complex was off the lobby of an
office building. It was a large square room with five
enclosed booths built into three walls and a high,
squared counter in the center where four operators
sat in front of consoles, each woman obviously
capable of speaking two or more languages. Tele-
phone directories of the major European cities and
their suburbs were on racks to the left and right of
the entrance; small pads with attached ball-point
pens had been placed on the ledges above for the
convenience of those seeking numbers. The routine
was familiar: a caller delivered a written-out number
to an operator, specified the manner of pay-
ment cash, credit card or collect and was
assigned a booth. There were no lines; a half-dozen
booths were empty.
Joel found the number of Mattilon’s law firm in
the Paris directory. He wrote it out, brought it to an
operator and said he would pay in cash. He was
told to go to booth number seven and wait for the
ring. He entered it quickly, the soft cloth brim of his
hat falling over his forehead above the tortoiseshell
glasses. Any enclosure, whether a toilet stall or a
glass booth, was preferable to being out in the open.
He felt his pulse accelerating; it seemed to explode
when the bell rang.
“Saint-Pierre, Nelli, et Mattilon,” said the female
voice in Paris.
“Monsieur Mattilon, please s’il vous plait.”
“Votre. . . ?” The woman stopped, undoubtedly
recoginzing an American’s abysmal attempt at
French. “Who may I say is calling, please?”
“His friend from New York. He’ll know. I’m a
client.”
THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION 377
Rene did know. After several clicks his strained
voice came on the line. ‘Joel?” he whispered. “I don’t
believe itI”
‘ Don’t,” said Converse. “It’s not true not what
they say about Geneva or Bonn, not even what you
said. I had nothing to do with those killings, and
Paris was an accident. I had every reason to think I
did think that man was reaching for a gun.’
“Why didn’t you stay where you were, then, my
friend?”
“Because they wanted to stop me from going on.
It’s what I honestly believed, and I couldn’t let them
do that. Let me tally…. At the George Cinq you
asked me questions and I gave you evasive answers
and I think you saw through me. But you were kind
and went along. You have nothing to be sorry about,
take my word for it my very sane word. Bertholdier
came to me that evening in my room; we talked and
he panicked. Six days ago I saw him again here in
Bonn only, this time it was different. He was
ordered to be there, along with three other very
powerful men, two generals and a former field
marshal. It’s a cabal, Rene, an international cabal,
and they can pull it off. Everything’s secret and
moving fast. They’ve recruited key military personnel
all over Europe, the Mediterranean, Canada, and the
U.S. There’s no way to tell who’s with them and who
isn’t and there isn’t time to make a mistake.
They’ve got millions at their disposal, warehouses all
over filled with munitions ready to ship to their
people when the moment comes.”
“The moment?” Mattilon broke in. “What moment?”
“Please,” insistedJoel, rushing ahead. “They’ve
been funneling weapons and explosives to maniacs
everywhere terrorists, proves, certified
lunatics with one purpose only: destabilisation
through violence. It’s their excuse to move in. Right
now they’re blowing up Northern Ireland.”
“The madness in Ulster?” interrupted the
Frenchman again. “The horrors going on ”
“It’s their horror! It’s a trial run. They did it with
one massive shipment from the States to prove they
can do it! But Ireland’s only a test, a minor exercise.
The big explosion’s coming in a matter of days, a few
weeks at most. I’ve got to reach the people who can
stop them, and I can’t do that if I’m dead!” Converse
paused, only to catch his breath, giving Mattilon no