David Morrell - Fraternity of the Stone

by Fraternity of the Stone(lit)

  "Nothing?" Drew thought about it. "Maybe. At least, that's how it seemed."

  "I don't understand."

  "From what you just said, you saw it, all right. But you didn't know what you were seeing. What to look for."

  "I still don't know what you mean."

  "Receipts, you said. Canceled checks, bills?"

  "That's right."

  Drew glanced tenderly toward Arlene. "You couldn't have understood. Because you" - he turned toward Father Stanislaw - "and you didn't have my cover. The way the system worked, I used a post office box for my mail. Anonymous. As long as I made sure I wasn't being watched when I picked up my magazines, tuition bills, whatever. But I had another post office box in the nearest town. And that was where I picked up the stuff that mattered... Like my pay."

  He let it sink in.

  "Of course." Arlene got it first. "Scalpel was part of the government."

  "A buried branch of it. The government itself never knew what was going on."

  "But records had to be kept," she said. "And payrolls justified. Because the network had a budget, no matter how buried. The ledger had to be balanced."

  Father Stanislaw understood now. "The same way the CIA or any other intelligence network has to keep accounts. But not directly. Its budget might be channeled through the Department of Agriculture or the Interior."

  "However it's channeled, the money has to come from somewhere," Drew said. "If the funds belong to the system, there's a paper trail. There has to be."

  "But if Scalpel's defunct" - puzzled, Arlene glanced from Drew to the priest - "if the network was canceled but someone reactivated it, someone not in the government, then the money comes from the private sector."

  "All the more reason to need ledgers, explanations for where the money went," Drew said. "The IRS is ruthless. It demands an accounting."

  "So?"

  "We follow the paper trail," Drew said. "Canceled checks. You told me you'd found them. What's the name of the local bank? And" - Drew turned toward Father Stanislaw - "who's the most powerful Opus Dei contact here? The one in banking and business?"

  "Ah," the priest said, understanding.

  "Yes," Drew told him.

  Father Stanislaw glanced at his watch. "It's only seven in the morning. We'll have to wait till - "

  "Fine," Drew said. "I've got something almost as important to keep me busy."

  16

  He found an opener in a drawer beside the sink and took the lids off every container of cat food in the apartment. Ten, all told. Some were chicken, others liver and fish, and one, Gourmet Delight, seemed to be a combination of everything.

  He found two bags of dry food underneath the sink and opened them as well, then carried all of it to the alley outside and in the cold morning air spread the goodies along the cinderblock wall.

  The cats ate voraciously.

  "Enjoy," he said. "That's all there is. There won't be any more."

  He felt an ache in his chest.

  Because your master's dead. I killed him.

  17

  At five after nine, as Drew and Arlene watched, Father Stanislaw used the phone in the apartment to reach his contact. He explained what he needed, hung up, and ten minutes later received a call from someone else.

  Again he listened. He nodded and thanked whoever was calling. At once, he phoned someone else, received more information, and called yet another number.

  The process took fifty minutes. And when for the final time he set down the phone, he leaned back exhausted on the sofa.

  "Well?" Drew asked.

  "When you cash a check, the bank keeps microfilm records of the transaction. Mike's inheritance - sometimes it's called a scholarship; never mind, let's say his checks - came from the Fairgate Institute. So what's the Fairgate Institute? I charged long distance to this number. I didn't think the occupant would mind. According to my contacts in New York and Washington, the Fairgate Institute is part of the Golden Ring Foundation. A non-profit help-to-the-needy, et cetera, et cetera. And the Golden Ring Foundation... remember the IRS insists on these records... God bless bureaucracy... the Golden Ring Foundation is part of... well, the bottom line is, when layer after layer is peeled away, the Risk Analysis Corporation. In Boston."

  Drew shook his head. "Am I supposed to make a connection?"

  "No. At least, not on the face of it. You won't like this," Father Stanislaw said. "My contact in Boston found out the name of the man who runs this Risk Analysis Corporation."

  "And I know him?"

  "Oh, indeed," Father Stanislaw said. "The coincidence is too shocking to be dismissed. I think it proves that Risk Analysis is Scalpel, and that this man ran it as well."

  "Who?"

  When Father Stanislaw told him, Drew ignored everything - Arlene's hand on his shoulder, the meow of the cats outside, the memory of Mike's blood dribbling salty past his lips.

  The name.

  Oh, yes, the name.

  It and nothing else mattered.

  His world came together.

  The name was the secret to his life.

  PART EIGHT

  JUDGMENT

  THE FRATERNITY OF THE STONE

  1

  The woman's voice was prim, professional, precise. "Good morning. Risk Analysis Corporation."

  In a phone booth on Boylston Street, just down from Boston's public library, Drew managed to subdue his anger, to force himself to sound equally businesslike. "Mr. Rutherford, please."

  "I'm sorry. He's in a meeting right now. But if you'd care to speak to his executive assistant."

  "No. It has to be Mr. Rutherford. I can't do business with anyone else." Drew let her think about it. The phone booth muffled the roar of 10 a.m. traffic.

  "Of course," the receptionist said. "I understand. In that case, why don't you give me your name and phone number? Mr. Rutherford will... "

  "I'm afraid that isn't possible. My schedule's rather uncertain at the moment, and I'm not sure where I'll be. It's better if I call him."

  As he expected, the receptionist for the Risk Analysis Corporation didn't think his evasion was unusual. Her voice became more alert. "By all means. If you have the chance, phone back at eleven-fifteen. He should be available then."

  "I hope so."

  "And your name?"

  He gave her credit for trying again. "Just tell him the matter's urgent."

  He hung up. Outside the phone booth, he stared at the clear cold October sky, then lowered his gaze toward the traffic on Boylston Street.

  His eyes narrowed. Soon now, he thought. He shoved his hands in his new coat and started down the street. Yes, everything was coming together. He felt it. In his soul. Even his return to this city seemed appropriate. Boston, the graves of his parents, the start of everything. And now the end. Soon. Very soon.

  Yesterday, he, Arlene, and Father Stanislaw had driven here from Pennsylvania, each taking a turn at the wheel while the others had a chance to sleep. Or in Drew's case, tried to sleep. His throbbing shoulder, his troubling thoughts, had kept him awake. When the others had been alert, he'd explained what he wanted to do. His plan had made them uneasy.

  A minute ago, he'd told the receptionist, "My schedule's uncertain. I'm not sure where I'll be." He'd lied. His schedule was quite precise. And so were those of Arlene and Father Stanislaw. As he'd instructed, at this moment Arlene would be approaching an office building across the Charles River in Cambridge. Father Stanislaw would be leaving the northern limits of the city, about to reconnoiter a mansion on the Bay. Yes, soon. His anger accumulating, Drew stalked down Boylston Street. It would all come together soon.

  2

  Intelligence officials seldom leave their profession willingly. True, a few become disillusioned and walk away, but most are forced to retire or asked to resign. Outside their network, they feel lost. Addicted to secrets and the intrigue of high-risk gambles, they look for ways to satisfy their craving. Their choices, as a rule, come down to three.


  First, to accept an offer from an international corporation anxious to have an intelligence expert on its board of directors. Such an expert, the corporation feels, can be of critical value in solving business crises that occur in troublesome, but lucrative, countries. This tactic was especially useful, for example, when in the early seventies Salvador Allende, the Marxist president of Chile, attempted to nationalize American business holdings there. Dissidents, rumored to be funded by American corporations with advice from former CIA officials, began a coup. Allende eventually "committed suicide."

  The second option is to accept an offer from a wargames think-tank, where a top intelligence officer's knowledge of global intrigue adds data to the computer's calculations of which major power, under which circumstances, will use which tactic to blow the others to hell.

  The third option is to refuse such offers and go into business for oneself. Specifically, to organize a company in which the former intelligence official creates a network of his own. But this time, the network isn't affiliated with his government. It belongs in the private sector, and its purpose - like the former intelligence official's on the board of directors for an international corporation - is to advise major companies, to encourage or else to warn them about the ever-shifting global situation. Should a company drill a testwell for oil in X? Or build a smelter for copper in Y? A factory for potash in Z? Will anti-American factions sabotage those operations? What about the banana pickers here, the dock-workers there? Do they plan to go on strike? Is there any basis to rumors about a coup? What about the bad health of this bought-off dictator? How long will he last? Who's likely to take his place?

  The private intelligence network, extremely lucrative, funded by global companies, even foreign nations, was typified by the Risk Analysis Corporation.

  Here in Boston. Owned by Mr. Rutherford, though Drew had called him by another name.

  Again he thought of Janus.

  3

  "Mr. Rutherford, please."

  At 11:15, as instructed, Drew clutched the phone in another booth, this one on Falmouth Street, down from the Prudential Center. He imagined what Arlene and Father Stanislaw were doing - at the office building in Cambridge, at the estate on Massachusetts Bay.

  Yes, soon now, he thought, and waited.

  The receptionist spoke. "Sir, are you the same party who called at ten?"

  "That's right. To discuss an urgent matter."

  "One moment, please. Mr. Rutherford's been waiting for you to phone back. I'll put him on the line."

  Drew heard a click.

  "Yes? Hello?"

  The resonant voice was so familiar, so friendly, so formerly reassuring, that Drew's stomach dropped, making him sick.

  "This is Mr. Rutherford."

  Drew had to muster all his discipline, to force himself to sound equally friendly. "Long time no see. How are you?"

  "What? Excuse me? I'm not sure who this is."

  "Come on. You don't mean to tell me you don't recognize my voice?"

  "No. That is, not exactly."

  "I'm really disappointed. A long-lost relative, and... "

  "Long-lost... ?"

  "How are you, Uncle? It's good to talk to you again."

  "Uncle?" The voice sounded more and more puzzled. "I don't have any nephews."

  "Well, that's true, I'm not exactly your nephew. I mean, we're not related by blood. But I think of you as a relative. And that's what I used to call you. Uncle Ray."

  The man on the other end breathed sharply. "My God, it's... No, it can't be. Drew? Is this Drew?"

  "Yep, me. None other. The one and only."

  Ray burst out laughing. "I can't believe it! Drew! Why didn't you tell me right away?"

  "A practical joke." Drew chuckled. "I just felt like putting you on. Remember how you rescued me from my real uncle and his family? How you took me to Hong Kong?"

  "Remember? Christ, sport, how could I ever forget?" Ray laughed again. "But it's been years since we talked. What happened to you? Where have you been keeping yourself?"

  "Well, that's the problem."

  "What?"

  "It's the reason I'm calling." Drew swallowed hard.

  "Go on. Say it, Drew. What's the matter? Is something wrong?"

  "I really hate to get you involved in this, but I don't know who else to ask. Uncle Ray, I'm in trouble. I need your help."

  "Trouble?"

  "The worst. Some people are trying to kill me."

  "Wait a second. You'd better not say any more. I'm using one of our open phones. We get tapped a lot, and if this is as serious as you believe, we don't want to take any chances. I'll switch to a phone that's secure."

  "Good idea. I'll call you right back. Hold on. I'll get out my pen and pad. What's the number?"

  "It's..." Ray started to dictate the number and stopped. "No, that won't work. It's better if I call you. I've got a client coming in at eleven-thirty. I can't put him off. But I'll deal with him fast. Half an hour, and I'll get back to you."

  "Noon?"

  "Even earlier if I can. Stay close to your phone. What's the number?"

  Drew told him.

  "Fine. Now just relax. I'll call as soon as I can. But, sport, you shouldn't have worried about asking me to get involved. Believe me, I'm glad to help."

  Drew swallowed again. "I knew I could count on you."

  "Well, I'm your uncle, aren't I?"

  "Hey, you bet."

  "Don't worry."

  "Uncle Ray, I mean it. Thanks."

  "Come on, we go back a long way. You don't need to thank me."

  4

  From his hidden vantage point near the Prudential Center, Drew studied a pizza store down the street, and the phone booth outside, the phone whose number Drew had given to Uncle Ray.

  At ten to twelve, amid the chaos of traffic and the swarm of pedestrians, he spotted the surveillance teams. As he'd anticipated, he didn't have any difficulty. Just before noon, with everybody in a rush, those who weren't hurrying were bound to attract attention. It wasn't their fault. To watch the phone booth, they had no choice except to stay motionless. After all, they'd been given short notice. There wasn't time for anything skillfully complicated. A woman on one corner glanced too often down the street toward the booth. A man on the opposite corner kept peering down at his watch as if a friend was late to meet him, but the phone booth was apparently more important to him than his friend or his watch. A taxi, double-parked, waited for a never-arriving fare. A van with several antennas circled the block. A pizza delivery boy didn't seem to care that his boxes were getting cold.

  No doubt there were more. Drew had to give them credit for mobilizing this well in such a hurry. But not well enough.

  The message was obvious. The surveillance team was waiting for Drew to appear from his hiding place at noon and answer his "uncle's" call. After that, Drew thought, the team would converge while I was distracted by Uncle Ray on the phone. I'd be killed on the street.

  Or better, from a tradecraft point of view, I'd be dragged inside the van and killed out of sight by the kid with the pizzas. At night, a fishing boat would take me far out into the Bay.

  Drew clenched his fists as he left his hidden vantage point beside the Prudential Center, heading west on Belvidere Street, away from the pizza store.

  5

  "Mr. Rutherford, please." Despite his disciplined, calm tone, Drew shook from the rage in his chest.

  "I'm terribly sorry," the receptionist said. "Mr. Rutherford isn't... "

  "No, listen carefully. I called at ten. And again at eleven-fifteen. Believe me, Mr. Rutherford wants to talk to me again. Just tell him I asked for Uncle Ray."

  The receptionist paused. "I must have been mistaken. Mr. Rutherford is available."

  Almost at once, the familiar reassuring voice was on the line. "Drew, where the hell are you? I called the number you gave me, but no one answered. I got worried! Did something happen?"

  "You could say that. Imagine my surprise when
a hit team showed up."

  "A hit team. How - "

  "Because you traced the location of the number I gave you. Look, Ray, I'll save us a lot of time. When everything started to point in your direction, I told myself, 'It can't be Ray. He's my friend. I lived with him from the time I was ten till I was seventeen. He took me in when no one else really wanted me.' You took me in, all right."