trying to use Progeny autoinstall package in stable, fails with dpkg-deb error

[Walter Tautz <wtautz@math.uwaterloo.ca>]

mathgradpc13:~# make-autoinst-initrd kernel-image-2.4.18-686_2.4.18-5_i386.deb 
4096+0 records in
4096+0 records out
mke2fs 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
dpkg-deb: failed to read archive `kernel-image-2.4.18-686_2.4.18-5_i386.deb': No
such file or directory

NOte that the kernel-image deb IS in the current directory and there IS a 
conf/ subdirectory?

dpkg-deb seems to be unable to do something

dpkg --extract kernel-image-2.4.18-686_2.4.18-5_i386.deb /tmp/installer.2284/kernel

fails but if I run it manually it works?

-walter