The Matarese Countdown

by Robert Ludlum

  "You're very good at it."

  "Bray taught me. Once in a seemingly passive situation, a refuge or a sanctuary, you should always ask questions-nicely, innocently, as though you're really curious. He claims women are better at that than men, so I do it."

  "He's all heart. It also means you're more likely to get shot."

  Scofield chortled.

  "You must have to think before you chew," he said, then abruptly turned serious.

  "We heard about the RDF corporal who bought it last night. The bastards!"

  "Who'd you hear it from?"

  "By way of Colonel Bracket. He came up to give Denny the news and there was a fair amount of confusion-accusations, if you like.

  Toni and I got up and joined the fray."

  "What accusations?"

  "Just horse shit, that's all."

  "No, it's not all."

  "Leave it alone, Cam," said Antonia.

  "Mr. Denny was 'out of line," as you Americans say."

  "What did he say?"

  "He wanted to know on whose authority Montrose left the com

  pound with a vehicle," replied Scofield.

  "Bracket told him that as second in command of the RDF unit, she didn't need any authority."

  "Essentially, he was saying that she had his authority," added Bray's wife.

  "The colonel's."

  "That's not true," said Pryce.

  "I gave her the order on my own authority as an experienced field officer who had made a logical field analysis. Regretfully, I happened to be right.. .. What was Denny doing? Who the hell does he think he is?"

  "I am the compound's liaison to Deputy Director Shields, and in his absence have full responsibility for everything that takes place here."

  The words came from the figure in the doorway, a medium-sized, slender man with a balding head, a pleasant, youthful face that seemed to contradict his loss of hair, and a voice that might be described as a soft monotone.

  "With that responsibility," he continued, "comes authority."

  "You're not just out of line, Denny," said Cameron, standing up and facing the liaison, "you're way the goddamned hell out of line! You listen to me, hot dog. I didn't hear you make any authoritative pronouncements last night when a dead killer was dropped down a wall beside the two guards whose necks he sliced from ear to ear. I don't even remember your being there!"

  "I was there, Mr. Pryce, although briefly-there was nothing I could add to the current circumstances. Instead, I felt it was necessary to reach Director Shields immediately. We were quite some time on the phone, going over all the possible leaks, including the helicopter crews. . He'll be here by noon."

  "Researching the chopper crews?" asked Brandon.

  "Yes, sir."

  "So by what authority, on what expertise, do you question an RDF decision or my decision?"

  "I think that's obvious. A man was killed."

  "It happens, Mr. Denny. I hate it, you hate it-we all hate it. But it happens."

  "Look, Pryce, maybe I flew off the handle when I shouldn't have-" "You've got that right!" Cameron broke in.

  "But I'm here to oversee things, to make sure things go smoothly, and that was the first night. I look like a fool, an incompetent."

  "You couldn't have prevented it, and I think you know that," said Pryce, quieting down and gesturing for Denny to join them at the table.

  "Maybe not the two guards and the assassination attempt, but I probably would have cautioned anyone about leaving the compound for the purpose explained. If I'd known about it."

  "You would?" Cam's hostility returned.

  "Why?"

  "Because there was a better way-assuming someone was actually waiting for the assassin on the old Chesapeake Road."

  "If, for Christ's sake! You want to make the call to the kid's family?"

  "I was using a prior-hypothetical-" "He speaks funnier than you do-" interrupted Scofield.

  "So does Shields speak funny, but I've been around these clowns long enough to understand," Cam replied.

  "What would you have done, Sir Analyst-you are an analyst, right?"

  "I am. and I would have reached our armed personnel in a camouflaged vehicle in a field north of the entrance drive. They could have made an external assault."

  "What personnel?" Pryce, still standing, was shouting now.

  "What vehicle?"

  "They're there. In eight-hour shifts."

  "Why the fu ... the hell didn't we know about them?"

  "I'm familiar with the F-word, Cameron," said Antonia, quiet anger in her words, "and despite your courtesy, I believe it's truly appropriate here.. .. Mr. Denny, why weren't we told about them?"

  "For God's sake, I hadn't gotten around to it! The first night, what could happen on the first night? ..."

  "That's when you look for it," replied Scofield, his voice suddenly assuming a tone of command.

  "It's not your fault, though, it's Shields's-and it's not the first time he's done it. The initial instructions to the field should inform us of all the options we have that primary. No surprises, no alternatives we don't know about, no horse-shit omissions, you got that, boy?"

  "There can be variations on that scenario, sir."

  "Give me one, you son of a bitch!"

  "Please, Bray," interrupted his wife, her hand on her husband's arm.

  "No, I want to hear his answer! Go ahead, analyst!"

  "I think you know, Mr. Scofield," said Denny, in his soft, flat voice.

  "You go back a long time with Deputy Shields."

  "The L-Factor, am I right?"

  "Yes," replied the liaison, barely audible.

  "What in God's name is that?" asked Pryce, bewildered.

  "You just appropriately used the name of the Lord," said Bray.

  "The L-Factor is Scripture, according to Saint Shields the Immaculate, scholar of the Bible. The L is for Leviticus, as in the Pentateuch, the third book of the Old Testament. That much I remember."

  "What are you talking about, my husband?"

  "Shields always believed that the answers to most human problems or enigmas were found in the Bible. Not necessarily the religious aspects, but in the interpretations of the stories, both myth and history."

  "Frank's a religious fanatic?" Cameron was stunned.

  "I don't know, you'd have to ask him. He surely knows his Bible, though."

  "This L-Factor, this Leviticus, what is it?" insisted Pryce.

  "In short, don't trust the high priest. He may be a rat."

  "Come again?" Cameron sat down slowly, staring at Scofield as if the retired intelligence man were a lunatic.

  "I'm not sure I ever got it completely straight, but in Leviticus the high priesthood was confined to the sons of Levi or Aaron, I think.

  They were the rulers of the temple and gave orders to everybody else.

  Then a few ambitious brothers who weren't part of this exclusive fraternity mocked up some fake genealogical papers and wormed their way into the club. As a result, they had a real political voice over the vox populi."

  "Are you crazy?" Pryce, his eyes wide, was beside himself with frustration.

  "That's biblical claptrap!"

  "Not necessarily," interrupted Eugene Denny.

  "Mr. Scofield essentially has the basic facts, if out of context."

  "Forget the redundancy," said Pryce.

  "What's he talking about?"

  "In Leviticus, a few male Levites, the sons of Levi, later as they grew in numbers, the heirs of Aaron, were made the high priests of the Temple of Jerusalem, the seat of power. As in all such power centers, there was corruption-minimal by later standards, I might add-but nevertheless corruption by those who wanted to change the rigid system-frequently justified, I might also add. Ultimately, according to legend alluded to in Numbers or Deuteronomy, a zealot became the leader of the Jerusalem temple until he was exposed as a traitor and no son of Aaron."

  "Thanks for the lesson, preacher," said Cameron, h
is words strained, "but what the hell does it all mean?"

  "It means," answered Scofield, his fury just below the surface, "that Deputy Director Shields isn't sure he can trust me."

  "What?" Pryce turned angrily to Shields's liaison.

  "You see, youngster," continued Bray, "in Squinty's biblical imagination this compound here is the Chesapeake Temple, and contrary to what you two assholes think, neither of you has the authority of a neutered fly over this operation. Only I have. That's my deal with Shields-check it out, Mr. Denny."

  "I've been apprised of your agreement, Mr. Scofield, and it's hardly my place to interfere."

  "Naturally not. You're Frankie-boy's lackey and I'll bet my left ball you're in contact with your 'camouflaged armed personnel' just in case I decide to take a powder and blow this joint with my wife!"

  "What are you saying, Bray?" pressed Antonia.

  "And I'll bet my right ball," continued Scofield without stopping, "that the gate has instructions to reach you instantly if I go through it, which I'm entitled to do because I am the absolute authority here."

  "You're not making sense, my dear-" "The hell I'm not! The L-Factor, the Leviticus horse shit. I'm the high priest of the temple who may just be a rat. Isn't that so, analyst?"

  "There were other considerations," replied Denny quietly.

  "If there were, why weren't we-why wasn't I told about your unit out there? It's priority that I be informed at the outset just in case decisions have to be made that I wouldn't allow you to make! .. . Oh, no, this is one of Squinty's reverse tricks, goddamn it!"

  "There was the possibility of a sudden, massive assault on the compound-" "And two or three 'armed personnel' were going to stop it?" broke in a furious Beowulf Agate.

  "Jesus on a surfboard, what do you take me for?"

  "I can't answer that, sir. I merely follow orders."

  "You know, son, that's the second time I've heard that within the past thirty hours, and I'll tell you what I told that son of a bitch who became some shark's antipasto. I don't buy it!"

  "Hey, slow down, Bray," said Pryce.

  "Maybe Frank was right about the second part. An assault, I mean."

  "It doesn't wash, kid. If he really felt that way there'd be a small brigade out there and I'd be the first to know about it. No, Squinty was waiting for me to make my unpredictable move. Christ, he's a fucking genius!"

  "You were about to make what unpredictable move?" cried Cameron.

  "I really don't understand, my darling-" "In this high-tech age there's no way to communicate with anyone in here by wire or radio, much less telephone, because everyone goes through a detector. The only way is personal contact, secret contact.

  After that mess with the bastard who killed the guards and tried to waste me-thank you for cutting him in half, Cam-I came to the same conclusion you did. I was waiting for Toni to fall asleep and then I was going out myself, my way, which wasn't through the gate or in a goddamned vehicle. I would have been far more successful."

  "He's done it before, gentlemen," said Antonia, now squeezing her husband's arm.

  "In Europe, when we were running for our lives, I'd wake up in the morning and find Brandon and Taleniekov having coffee.

  The problem that terrified us-the man or the men who had us in their gun sights-were no longer a threat. That's all they'd say about it, nothing more."

  "You equate that sort of thing with what happened last night?"

  Pryce asked Scofield.

  "In a way, of course," agreed the retired intelligence officer.

  "Only Frank got my objectives backward. I wasn't going out to make a secret accommodation with the Matarese, who, as I told Squinty, offered me millions to disappear, I was going to kill the bastards. Or, if I'd had the patience, to take the fuckers alive."

  "Then why did you just call him a genius?" asked an angry, perplexed Cameron.

  "Because, given like circumstances, I'd do one or the other. Frank always covers his bases."

  "But to consider you a turncoat, a traitor," exclaimed Pryce, "that's enough to make you want to put him in a box!"

  "No, no, never," said Scofield.

  "When he gets here at noon, I'll surely tell him off, but nothing more."

  "Why not?"

  "Let me take you back about thirty years. I was undercover in Prague and my control was a man I considered really brilliant, the best, most elusive deep-contact to Moscow ever on our side. I was scheduled to meet him on the banks of the Moldau River one night, when minutes before I left my flat, an urgent message came from Washington, from Langley-from Frank Shields. I decoded it, and it said, "Send a decoy, not ours but some drug pusher. Stay above on the perimeter." .. .

  That cocaine salesman was riddled with bullets meant for me. Frank Shields had led my control into a reverse trap that exposed him. My brilliant contact was a butcher from the KGB."

  "So now he's pulling the same trap on you," said Pryce.

  "Can you accept that?"

  "Why not? All his bases are covered, and he could have been right.

  All I got from my years of service to my government was a bonus to buy a boat and a pension. The Matarese offer might have tempted me."

  "But he knows you!"

  "Nobody knows anybody but himself or herself, Cam. We can get under the skin maybe, but we can't penetrate the mind, or the multiple alternatives it might choose to take. How do you know who I really am, or who Toni is?"

  "For God's sake, we've talked for hours, about so many things. I trust you!"

  "You're young, my new friend. But beware, trust is built on optimism, it's a series of shadows. You can't give them three dimensions, no matter how hard you try."

  "You've got to start somewhere," said Pryce, his eyes locked with Scofield's.

  "This Leviticus nonsense, this high priest who may be a rat-what the hell does it all add up to?"

  "Welcome to our world, Cameron. You may think that you've been there, but you've just begun your descent into our hell. It's not a hell our pristine Mr. Denny knows, because he, like Squinty, sits behind a desk with all those computers and makes abstract decisions.

  Sometimes they're right, often they're wrong, but what their computers can't animate are human confrontations. In the end, machines can't talk to machines."

  "I believe we've covered this before," said Pryce.

  "I'm talking about last night, a night I'll never forget. Where are we?"

  "Well, I guess that the first lesson is that it's not linear-nothing's in a straight line. The second is that it's got to be geometric-the lines flare out in all directions and you have to narrow down the possibilities."

  "I'm talking about last night-this morning!"

  "Oh, that. I can't tell you. Squinty will be here in an hour or so and we'll ask him."

  "I can tell you," said the liaison, Denny.

  "Director Shields is secretly transferring the entire compound to an estate in North Carolina."

  "That is the one thing he will not do!" exclaimed Scofield.

  "But, sir, we've been discovered here-" "You're goddamned right, and i wish we could publicize it in all the newspapers-no, that's probably wrong, let it remain classified. All those who shouldn't know will find out."

  "Really, sir, the deputy insists that we start packing-" "Then send the deputy to me and I'll countermand his orders! What you idiots don't know is that the bees fly to the honey pot. It's an old Corsican expression."

  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

  (Front Page)

  THREE WORLD-CLASS BANKS

  FORM ALLIANCE

  NEW YORK, OCT. 1. As further proof of the new trans nationalization of financial institutions, three of the world's largest banks have, for all intents and purposes, merged. They are the equally well-known Universal Merchants in New York, Los Angeles's Bank of the Pacific, and Madrid's Banco Iberico, the wealthiest institution in Spain and Portugal with vast interests in the Mediterranean.

  Using a complex agenda of interna
tional laws, they have structured a lateral order of responsibilities to maximize the productivity in their respective centers of influence. The newest technologies that permit instant global communications, prominent among them financial transactions, will create a whole new system of banking, "factually a near renaissance," according to Benjamin Wahlburg, well-known banker, an elder statesman of the financial world, and spokesman for the new conglomerate to be known as Universal Pacific Iberia.

  "We are approaching the era of a cash less society, saving billions upon billions the world over," continued Mr. Wahlburg, "when corporate and individual assets will be confirmed by plastic cards, their numbers altered over millions of airwaves, purchases and debits paid electronically. We of Universal Pacific Iberia intend to be at the forefront of this exhilarating economic renaissance and we are investing considerable resources into seeing it develop."

  It has been estimated that with the thousands of branches owned by UPI, the new financial conglomerate will be a major lending institution throughout the United States, the Pacific Rim, Southern Europe, and the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar to Istanbul.

  What concerns some observers of the international marketplace is the question of controls. When reached by telephone, Mr.

  Wahlburg stated, "Controls will be intrinsic to the evolution. No responsible economist or banker could think other The descending helicopter yackety-yacked its way into the Chesapeake compound's circled touchdown. Deputy Director Frank Shields, his creased, narrow eyes practically shut tight repelling the sunlight, emerged from the glistening white metal door only to be verbally assaulted by Brandon Scofield, Cameron Pryce at his side. Fortunately, much of the former intelligence officer's shouting was obscured by the whirling rotor blades, and by the time the two men walked away from the overpowering sound to join Pryce, Scofield was partially out of breath.

  "Since you figured out what I was doing, why did it surprise you, much less make you angry?" asked the abused deputy director.

  "That's the dumbest damn question you've ever asked, Squinty!"

  roared Scofield.

  "Why?"

  "Stop repeating yourself!"

  "Hey, you're the one who practices that habit, Brandon, not me.

  And look at it this way. As you obviously understood that I might employ the L-Factor and you passed-you're clean and I don't have to wonder if I missed something."