The Aquitaine Progression (3 page)

“For whom?”

“Clifford’s firm.”

Halliday whistled softly, sitting back. “That’s golden territory, a passport to Blackstone’s heaven as well as the multinationals.”

“I told you I had preferential treatment.”

“Was that when you thought about the foreign service? While you were at Georgetown? In Washington?”

Again Joel nodded, squinting as a passing flash of sunlight bounced off a grille somewhere on the lakefront boulevard. “Yes,” he replied quietly.

“You could have had it,” said Halliday.

“They wanted me for the wrong reasons,
all
the wrong reasons. When they realized I had a different set of rules in mind, I couldn’t get a twenty-cent tour of the State Department.”

“What about the Clifford firm? You were a hell of an image, even for them.” The Californian raised his hands above the table, palms forward. “I know, I know. The wrong reasons.”

“Wrong numbers,” insisted Converse. “There were forty-plus lawyers on the masthead and another two hundred on the payroll. I’d have spent ten years trying to find the men’s room and another ten getting the key. That wasn’t what I was looking for.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Pretty much what I’ve got. I told you, the money’s good and I run the international division. The latter’s just as important to me.”

“You couldn’t have known that when you joined,” objected Halliday.

“But I did. At least I had a fair indication. When Talbot, Brooks and Simon—as you put it, that small but entrenched firm I’m with—came to me, we reached understanding. If after four or five years I proved out, I’d take over for Brooks. He was the overseas man and was getting tired of adjusting to all those time zones.” Again Converse paused. “Apparently I proved out.”

“And just as apparently somewhere along the line you got married.”

Joel leaned back in the chair. “Is this necessary?”

“It’s not even pertinent, but I’m intensely interested.”

“Why?”

“It’s a natural reaction,” said Halliday, his eyes amused. “I think you’d feel the same way if you were me and I were you, and I’d gone through what you went through.”

“Shark dead ahead,” mumbled Converse.

“You don’t have to respond, of course, counselor.”

“I know, but oddly enough I don’t mind. She’s taken her share of abuse because of that what-I’ve-been-through business.” Joel broke the croissant but made no effort to remove it from the plate. “Comfort, convenience, and a vague image of stability,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Her words,” continued Joel. “She said that I got married so I’d have a place to go and someone to fix the meals and do the laundry, and eliminate the irritating, time-consuming foolishness that goes with finding someone to sleep with. Also by legitimizing her, I projected the proper image.… ‘And, Christ, did I have to play the part’—also her words.”

“Were they true?”

“I told you, when I came back I wanted it all and she was part of it. Yes, they were true. Cook, maid, laundress, bedmate, and an acceptable, attractive appendage. She told me she could never figure out the pecking order.”

“She sounds like quite a girl.”

“She was. She is.”

“Do I discern a note of possible reconciliation?”

“No way.” Converse shook his head, a partial smile on his lips but only a trace of humor in his eyes. “She was also conned and it shouldn’t have happened. Anyway, I like my current status, I really do. Some of us just weren’t meant for a hearth and roast turkey, even if we sometimes wish we were.”

“It’s not a bad life.”

“Are you into it?” asked Joel quickly so as to shift the emphasis.

“Right up with orthodontists and SAT scores. Five kids and one wife. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“But you travel a lot, don’t you?”

“We have great homecomings.” Halliday again leaned
forward, as if studying a witness. “So you have no real attachments now, no one to run back to.”

“Talbot, Brooks and Simon might find that offensive. Also my father. Since Mother died we have dinner once a week when he’s not flying all over the place, courtesy of a couple of lifetime passes.”

“He still gets around a lot?”

“One week he’s in Copenhagen, the next in Hong Kong. He enjoys himself; he keeps moving. He’s sixty-eight and spoiled rotten.”

“I think I’d like him.”

Converse shrugged, again smiling. “You might not. He thinks all lawyers are piss ants, me included. He’s the last of the white-scarved flyboys.”

“I’m sure I’d like him.… But outside of your employers and your father, there are no—shall we say—priority entanglements in your life.”

“If you mean women, there are several and we’re good friends, and I think this conversation has gone about as far as it should go.”

“I told you, I had a point,” said Halliday.

“Then why not get to it, counselor? Interrogatories are over.”

The Californian nodded. “All right, I will. The people I spoke with wanted to know how free you were to travel.”

“The answer is that I’m not. I’ve got a job and a responsibility to the company I work for. Today’s Wednesday; we’ll have the merger tied up by Friday, I’ll take the weekend off and be back on Monday—when I’m expected.”

“Suppose arrangements could be made that Talbot, Brooks and Simon found acceptable?”

“That’s presumptuous.”

“And you found very difficult to reject.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Try me,” said Halliday. “Five hundred thousand for accepting on a best-efforts basis, one million if you pull it off.”

“Now you’re insane.” A second flash of light blinded Converse, this one remaining stationary longer than the first. He raised his left hand to block it from his eyes as he stared at the man he had once known as Avery Fowler. “Also, ethics notwithstanding because you haven’t a damn thing to win this morning, your timing smells. I don’t like getting offers—even
crazy offers—from attorneys I’m about to meet across a table.”

“Two separate entities, and you’re right, I don’t have a damn thing to win or lose. You and Aaron did it all, and I’m so ethical, I’m billing the Swiss only for my time—minimum basis—because no expertise was called for. My recommendation this morning will be to accept the package as it stands, not even a comma changed. Where’s the conflict?”

“Where’s the sanity?” asked Joel. “To say nothing of those arrangements Talbot, Brooks and Simon will find acceptable. You’re talking roughly about two and a half top years of salary
and
bonuses for nodding my head.”

“Nod it,” said Halliday. “We need you.”

“
We?
That’s a new wrinkle, isn’t it? I thought it was
they. They
being the people you spoke with. Spell it out,
Press
.”

A. Preston Halliday locked his eyes with Joel’s. “I’m part of them, and something is happening that shouldn’t be happening. We want you to put a company out of business. It’s bad news and it’s dangerous. We’ll give you all the tools we can.”

“What company?”

“The name wouldn’t mean anything, it’s not registered. Let’s call it a government-in-exile.”

“A
what?
”

“A group of like-minded men who are in the process of building a portfolio of resources so extensive it’ll guarantee them influence where they shouldn’t have it—authority where they shouldn’t have it.”

“Where is that?”

“In places this poor inept world can’t afford. They can do it because no one expects them to.”

“You’re pretty cryptic.”

“I’m frightened. I know them.”

“But you have the tools to go after them,” said Converse. “I presume that means they’re vulnerable.”

Haliday nodded. “We think they are. We have some leads, but it’ll take digging, piecing things together. There’s every reason to believe they’ve broken laws, engaged in activities and transactions prohibited by their respective governments.”

Joel was silent for a moment, studying the Californian. “Governments?” he asked. “Plural?”

“Yes.” Halliday’s voice dropped. “They’re different nationalities.”

“But one company?” said Converse. “One corporation?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“How about a simple yes?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I’ll tell you what is,” interrupted Joel. “You’ve got leads, so you go after the big bad wolves. I’m currently and satisfactorily employed.”

Halliday paused, then spoke. “No, you’re not,” he said softly.

Again there was silence, each man appraising the other. “What did you say?” asked Converse, his eyes blue ice.

“Your firm understands. You can have a leave of absence.”

“You presumptuous son of a bitch! Who gave you the right even to
approach
—”

“General George Marcus Delavane,” Halliday broke in. He delivered the name in a monotone.

It was as if a bolt of lightning had streaked down through the blinding sunlight burning Joel’s eyes, turning the ice into fire. Cracks of thunder followed, exploding in his head.

The pilots sat around the long rectangular table in the wardroom, sipping coffee and staring down into the brown liquid or up at the gray walls, no one caring to break the silence. An hour ago they had been sweeping over Pak Song, firing the earth, interdicting the advancing North Vietnamese battalions, giving vital time to the regrouping ARVN and American troops who soon would be under brutal siege. They had completed the strike and returned to the carrier—all but one. They had lost their commanding officer. Lieutenant Senior Grade Gordon Ramsey had been hit by a fluke rocket that had winged out of its trajectory over the coastline and zeroed in on Ramsey’s fuselage; the explosion had filled the jet streams, death at six hundred miles an hour in the air, life erased in the blinking of an eye. A severe weather front had followed hard upon the squadron; there would be no more strikes, perhaps for several days. There would be time to think and that was not a pleasant thought
.

“Lieutenant Converse,” said a sailor by the open wardroom door
.

“Yes?”

“The captain requests your presence in his quarters, sir.”

The invitation was so nicely phrased, mused Joel, as he got out of his chair, acknowledging the somber looks of those around the table. The request was expected, but unwelcome. The promotion was an honor he would willingly forgo. It was not that he held longevity or seniority or even age over his fellow pilots; it was simply that he had been in the air longer than anyone else and with that time came the experience necessary for the leader of a squadron
.

As he climbed the narrow steps up toward the bridge he saw the outlines of an immense army Cobra helicopter in the distant sky stuttering its way toward the carrier. In five minutes or so it would be hovering over the threshold and lower itself to the pad; someone from land was paying the Navy a visit
.

“It’s a terrible loss, Converse,” said the captain, standing over his charts table, shaking his head sadly. “And a letter I hate like hell to write. God knows they’re never easy, but this one’s more painful than most.”

“We all feel the same way, sir.”

“I’m sure you do.” The captain nodded. “I’m also sure you know why you’re here.”

“Not specifically, sir.”

“Ramsey said you were the best, and that means you’re taking over one of the crack squadrons in the South China Sea.” The telephone rang, interrupting the carrier’s senior officer. He picked it up. “Yes?”

What followed was nothing Joel expected. The captain at first frowned, then tensed the muscles of his face, his eyes both alarmed and angry. “What?” he exclaimed, raising his voice. “Was there any advance notice—anything in the radio room?” There was a pause, after which the captain slammed down the phone, shouting, “Jesus Christ!” He looked at Converse. “It seems we have the dubious honor of an unannounced visitation by Command-Saigon, and I do mean visitation!”

“I’ll return below, sir,” said Joel, starting to salute
.

“Not just yet, Lieutenant,” shot back the captain quietly but firmly. “You are receiving your orders, and as they affect the air operations of this ship, you’ll hear them through. At the least, we’ll let Mad Marcus know he’s interfering with Navy business.”

The next thirty seconds were taken up with the ritual of
command assignment, a senior officer investing a subordinate with new responsibilities. Suddenly there was a sharp two-rap knock as the captain’s door opened and the tall, broad-shouldered general of the Army George Marcus Delavane intruded, dominating the room with the sheer force of his presence
.

“Captain?” said Delavane, saluting the ship’s commander first despite the Navy man’s lesser rank. The somewhat high-pitched voice was courteous, but not the eyes; they were intensely hostile
.

“General,” replied the captain, saluting back along with Converse. “Is this an unannounced inspection by Command-Saigon?”

“No, it’s an urgently demanded conference between you and me—between Command-Saigon and one of its lesser forces.”

“I see,” said the four-striper, anger showing through his calm. “At the moment I’m delivering urgent orders to this man—”

“You saw fit to countermand mine!” Delavane broke in vehemently
.

“General, this has been a sad and trying day,” said the captain. “We lost one of our finest pilots barely an hour ago—”

“Running away?” Again Delavane interrupted, the tastelessness of his remark compounded by the nasal pitch of his voice. “Was his goddamned tail shot off?”

“For the record, I resent that!” said Converse, unable to control himself. “I’m replacing that man and I resent what you just said—General!”

“You? Who the hell are you?”

“Easy, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”

“I respectfully request to answer the general, sir!” shouted Joel, in his anger refusing to move
.

“You what, prissy fly boy?”

“My name is—”

“Forget it, I’m not interested!” Delavane whipped his head back toward the captain. “What I want to know is why you think you can disobey my orders—the orders from Command-Saigon! I called a strike for fifteen hundred hours! You ‘respectfully declined’ to implement that order!”