The Matarese Countdown

by Robert Ludlum

  "Yes," agreed Scofield pensively, his eyes on the water, seeing things and feeling things no one else could.

  "They were dental X rays taken so long ago, in such different places, they could not have been tampered with, much less removed."

  "But you only had one set and you had to match them against another, isn't that right, Brandon?"

  "Obviously," said Bray, again turning back to Shields, "and since you'd gotten this far, you had a pretty good idea who it was, of course."

  "Of course, but there was no way I could prove anything because YOU had the second set. You saw, as I did in that room in Louisburg Square, that Appleton and his closest friend both went to Andover Academy. You drove over there, tracked down the dentist-close Wends, especially teenage boys away from home, would certainly go to the same dentist-and persuaded the doctor to give you both boys' X rays."

  "So then you learned the truth," said Scofield, nodding.

  "Good work, Frank, and I mean that."

  "It was your bargaining chip if, indeed, you even had one, to free Antonia and Taleniekov."

  "What bargaining chip?" asked a perplexed Cameron Pryce.

  "The X rays proved that the guest of honor that day at Appleton Hall was not Senator Joshua Appleton but a fellow student and close friend by the name of Julian Guiderone, the son of the Shepherd Boy who was soon to occupy the White House with all that it implies."

  "Christ," exclaimed Cameron, "you weren't bullshitting, were you, Bray?"

  "You mean you accept it from Squinty, but not from me, youngster?"

  "Well, you must admit Frank filled in a lot of gaps you didn't bother to plug."

  "Not all of them." Scofield looked over at Shields.

  "Did Crawford explain to you who one of the replacing doctors was?"

  "He certainly did and he gave me his name, too. He was the most prominent cosmetic surgeon in Switzerland. Only the richest trekked to his clinic. Would you believe he was killed when his car went out of control and plunged over a high precipice in Villefranche? Three days after he left Boston for Europe?"

  "I can't understand why the Matarese waited three days."

  "And that Julian Guiderone, who left the country for Switzerland to avoid fighting in the Korean War, supposedly died in a skiing accident near the village of Col du Pillon, where he was buried because of his love for the Alps?"

  "Yes, I read that twenty-five years ago in the newspaper microfilms. I wonder who was in that coffin, or was it merely empty?"

  "There's no point in digging up the grave-if there is one."

  "There's no point in dredging up any of this, Frank. The Guiderones are gone. The Shepherd Boy and his son are dead. We have to look elsewhere for the Matarese hierarchy."

  "That may not be accurate, Brandon," Shields said softly as Scofield snapped his head away from the wheel.

  "In your debriefing, what there was of it, you claimed that Senator Appleton-ne Guiderone-was killed in the cross fire that day at Appleton Hall-" "The hell I did!" roared Bray.

  "I shot the son of a bitch myself!

  Through the shattered window, with my weapon!"

  "The words didn't come across that way."

  "Maybe I fudged, I don't know! You bastards had me beyond salvage and I wasn't about to give you any leverage."

  "Regardless, you said he collapsed into the immense fireplace, into the flames-" "That's exactly what he did!"

  "The police were on the crime scene within minutes, Brandon.

  There was no corpse in the fireplace. Rather, there were scuff marks on the slate, as if a body had been dragged out. Burned strands of fabric around the area, the flatness signifying that they had been subjected to pressure, the fire stamped into submission. It's my judgment, as well as our forensic laboratories', that Julian Guiderone survived."

  "He couldn't have! .. . Even if he had, which is impossible, how could he have gotten away?"

  "How did you and Antonia get away? There was so much confusion-the gunfire, the explosions going off in the exterior sewers, which I assume you planted-everything was chaos. I interrogated every police officer, every private guard, and one member of the SWAT team remembered that a Mr. and Mrs. Vickery, a panicked man and a woman, reached the main gate in a speeding car claiming they were guests, only guests. They had hidden in a closet, and in a lull in the fire, raced out a back door to their car."

  "So?"

  "Your sister's married name is Vickery, Brandon."

  "You're thorough, I'll say that for you, Squinty."

  "I accept the compliment, but it's irrelevant. There was another vehicle, a similar story. A wounded guest in a private ambulance that never reached the hospital.. .. The bottom line is that Julian Guiderone, the son of the Shepherd Boy, is undoubtedly alive, and if there's anyone on this earth he wants in the crosshairs, it's you. It's Beowulf Agate."

  "Damned interesting, Frank. He and I are about the same age, two old men from another time, both hungering for what each is being denied. He wants obscene power, which I won't allow him, and I want roy personal peace, which he won't permit me." Scofield paused and looked at Cameron Pryce.

  "I suppose in the long or short run, we'll depend on our commanders, and I have total confidence in mine."

  "I hope you know what you're doing," said Cam.

  "All I will say is that I'll do the best I can."

  "Oh, you'll do better than that, son."

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  (Front Page)

  EURO AND AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT

  ENTERPRISES IN ASTONISHING COMBINE

  LOS ANGELES, OCT. 9. It is a smaller world, compressed by high technology that permits instant transmission of product via satellite and cahle. Where it will end nobody knows, but the four remaining major motion-picture studios, along with their networks and subsidiary cable outlets, announced today that they have joined with Continent-Celestial to provide a consolidated source of informational and entertainment programs. The guilds of actors, writers, producers, and directors applaud the move into the future as it will provide multiple employment opportunities for their members. The performing unions have suggested that their members become multilingual. The benefits resulting from this mega merger are self-evident, but what is not so clear are the directions such an amalgamation might take.

  Continued on page 2 It was ten minutes to four in the morning when Julian Guiderone placed his last phone call to Langley, Virginia, from Amsterdam.

  "We're on total 5?" he asked.

  "Total," replied the voice in the CIA.

  "My scrambler is my own, courtesy of the Directorate."

  "Good. I'll be leaving here in a few minutes, next contact Cairo."

  "Not Bahrain?"

  "Not for at least three weeks. I've got work to do with our Arabsnot theirs, ours."

  "Good fortune," came the words from Langley, Virginia.

  "We all believe in you."

  "You should. And you must also believe in Amsterdam. He's on course."

  "Then we shall," replied the mole.

  Four days and three nights passed when Cameron Pryce confronted Scofield at the breakfast buffet.

  "This is getting us nowhere!" Cam exclaimed curtly under his breath while sipping black coffee.

  "You seem to be getting somewhere," said Bray, lighting a dark brown cigarillo.

  "With our lady commando, I mean."

  "To tell you the truth, I'm not even trying."

  "You're seeing a lot of her-" "Wrong," interrupted Pryce, "she's seeing me. I go out to the gate, she shows up. I walk on the beach, suddenly she's there. I mosey over to the chopper pad to see who might be on the next flight, she's thirty feet behind me."

  "Maybe she's got a thing for you, youngster. Toni says you're prime."

  "Like in meat? That doesn't sound like Antonia."

  "No, like in time. When you can supposedly find the best programs.

  Perhaps the female colonel is curious about you. In other than a professional way."
>
  "Sorry," said Cam, "no signals, no body language, just barely discernible hostility layered with pleasant inanities. It's as though she's watching me, not sure who or what I am. It doesn't make sense."

  "Sure it does," said Scofield, grinning as he exhaled the aromatic smoke.

  "It matches her latest, very professional request relayed by Colonel Bracket to Shields. She wants your complete, unabridged dossier.

  Naturally, you're not to be informed."

  "I don't get it."

  "She either wants to marry you, youngster, or she thinks you're the high-placed leak."

  "I'm counting on the second. That lady's military testosterone would blindside a general."

  Suddenly, breaking into the hum of the few other diners, there was an ear-shattering scream from across the large, screened-in porch.

  Frank Shields's liaison, Eugene Denny, had lunged out of his chair, gripping his throat, his body twisting as he crashed to the floor, his legs kicking in spasms. Only seconds later, his breakfast companion, Colonel Everett Bracket, did much the same, his right hand curved around his neck, his left grabbing the table as he shook violently, finally collapsing across the surface, sending plates shattering on the tiles below.

  Pryce and Scofield raced through the chairs and tables to the fallen men, joined by an Army patrol on kitchen duty. Cameron leaned down, alternately touching the necks of Bracket and Denny.

  "My God, they're dead!" Pryce cried, getting to his feet.

  "It had to be poison."

  A young, stunned RDF soldier knelt to examine the plates.

  "Don't touch those, son!" said Scofield quickly.

  Cam and Bray looked down at the broken plates, at the spilled food beside each. Both men had eaten eggs, either poached or lightly fried, since portions of soft, yellow yoke were apparent.

  "Who knows you like eggs?" asked Pryce quietly.

  "Hell, probably every one of the boys who've worked in here. Toni was pretty outspoken about my eggs, and most of the time I listened to her. Two months ago those medical idiots in Miami said my cholesterol was over three hundred."

  "Did you order eggs this morning?"

  "Order? This is a buffet, haven't you noticed? Those metal servers on the table hold scrambled with sausages, and the one next to it has poached floating in slow-boiling water."

  "But you didn't have eggs today?"

  "Had 'em yesterday .. . and I figured Toni might walk in."

  "Seal off the kitchen," ordered Pryce to the RDF soldier.

  "Seal off? I am the kitchen, sir. Everything comes in sealed, including the eggs, and whoever's on duty here follows the regs on how to make 'em."

  "Regs?"

  "Instructions, sir. By the numbers, although we sure don't need them. I mean, what can you do with eggs?"

  "Kill people, my friend," said Scofield.

  "Seal off the kitchen. Now!"

  One of the normal two cartons of eggs was still in the mansion's walk-in refrigerator. Otherwise it was bare except for a few quarts of milk, several packages of cheese, and unopened cans of soft drinks.

  "What do you make of it?" asked Cam.

  "Maybe it wasn't the eggs."

  "Maybe not," answered Bray, turning to the RDF patrol.

  "Tell me, soldier, what about these instructions-for the eggs, I mean?"

  "They're taped on the wall to the left of the first stove, sir, but I can detail 'em like the ABC's.. .. Mix six in a bowl with a little milk and whip them up in a skillet with some butter-those are the scrambled.

  Then you break the other six in the big hot-water server over the Sterno on the table and sort of wing it."

  "

  "Wing it'?"

  "Check 'em now and then depending on who shows up. If they get too hard, which is like when they're light yellow, you scoop them out and replace 'em."

  "Do you do that often, soldier?"

  "Not really, sir. Those who like them that way usually get down here early. Jesus, I don't understand!"

  "But you understand that you're not to say anything, don't you?"

  said Scofield pointedly.

  "Sure, but that's crazy-I'm sorry but it's crazy! The word'll go out all over the compound, you can't stop it!"

  "I know that, son, I just want to know who learns about it outside of this compound. So let's try a little containment."

  "I still don't understand-sir."

  "You don't have to. Now bring that carton of eggs over to the sink and mix up some liquid soap and warm water."

  Using the soap sudsy solution, Bray shook each egg, dipped it into the water, and held it up to the light. Each displayed tiny bubbles at the apex of the shell, the opening too minuscule to be seen by the naked eye.

  "I'll be a son of a bitch," said Pryce, studying one of the eggs.

  "You'd be a dead one if you had eaten that," added Scofield.

  "This method of killing was developed by the Borgias in the middle of the fifteenth century, only far less sophisticated. They used the hatpins of their ladies' finery and painstakingly allowed the poison to seep in.

  They also injected tomatoes, squash, plums, and their most-favorite, punctured grapes left soaking for a few days."

  "How civilized," said Cameron sardonically.

  "These eggs were done by the most-modern, thinnest syringes available.

  Same trick our lesser magicians employ when they inject supposedly fresh eggs with a substance that makes them instantly solid so they can be smashed without breaking. Amusing, in a horrible sort of way, isn't it?"

  "No, not remotely," said Pryce.

  "What do you want to do now, since you're the honcho of this operation?"

  "The obvious. Quarantine the kitchens at Langley and place everyone who works there under total surveillance."

  The computer in the Chesapeake compound clacked out the information:

  The products in question were purchased from the Rockland Farms in Rockport, Maryland, under contract issued by the Central Intelligence Agency after a full investigation of the company's standards. The CIA personnel in the Langley kitchens are mostly long-term employees who were subjected to background checks. Reevaluation adds nothing.

  Intensive scrutiny will continue.

  THE BALTIMORE SUN

  (Business Section, Page 3)

  ROCK LAND FARMS SOLD

  ROCKPORT, OCT. 10. Rockland Farms, one of the country's leading poultry producers and the largest in the eastern United States, has been purchased by Atlantic Crown, Limited, worldwide distributors of produce with offices around the globe.

  Jeremy Carlton, spokesman for ACL, issued the following press release.

  "With the absorption of Rockland Farms, Atlantic Crown vastly enlarges its markets so as to better serve our clients in many countries. The addition of poultry to our varied exports of produce from America's heartland has long been a dream of Atlantic Crown. The global expansion of fast-food franchises alone justifies the expenditure. With our network of international outlets, we can expedite our products across the world to everyone's benefit.

  "This statement would not be complete without expressing our thanks to the Bledso family, the previous owners of Rock-land Farms, for its cooperation in negotiations and the wisdom it showed in selecting Atlantic Crown. In all things, we will endeavor to uphold the family's great tradition."

  The press release did not disclose the terms of the sale and since both companies are privately held, neither is compelled by law to do so. However, it had to be immense, for the "absorption" of Rockland Farms makes Atlantic Crown the most profitable combine in the food-processing exporting industry, possibly in the world.

  The dimly lit study in the large house on the outskirts of Rockport, Maryland, was not unlike other houses in the three-million-dollar range on the properties of mega million-dollar "farms" far from the odors of their businesses. Although the cold winds of autumn had barely arrived, the fireplace was roaring, the flames casting shadows that danced against the walls.
An angry man in his forties approached an elderly figure in a wheelchair.

  "How could you do it, Grandfather? I've turned down Atlantic Crown for years! They're vultures, buying up every processing plant in sight until they own it all and can dictate the markets!"

  "And own this company, you don't," wheezed the old man, bringing an oxygen mask to his mouth.

  "When I'm dead, you can do what you want, but until then it's mine."

  "But why?"

  "You all got decent money, didn't you?"

  "That's irrelevant and you know it. They're not our sort of people.

  They're bloodsuckers."

  "All too true, Grandson. But there was a time over fifty years ago when the money behind what's known now as Atlantic Crown backed a young visionary. With finances that could have come from moneylenders expunged from hell. How do you think a neophyte agronomist could have bought over ten thousand acres of fertile ground without them?

  By God, they were the visionaries, not I."

  "Are you saying you couldn't refuse them?"

  "Nobody can."

  The velour-draped boardroom of Atlantic Crown in the penthouse of the ACL building in Wichita, Kansas, was deserted except for two men.

  The man at the head of the table, appropriately dressed in a subdued dark pin-striped suit, spoke.

  "Next shot is the beef industry," he said.

  "Orders from Amsterdam."

  "We'll need an infusion of capital," said the subordinate executive in a navy blue blazer and French cuffs.

  "I hope that's been made clear."

  "We'll have it," answered the CEO of Atlantic Crown.

  "Incidentally, that minor problem about the eggs in the Chesapeake complex, was it taken care of?"

  "Our final investigating negotiators made sure of it. Right down to the sealed crates for the helicopter."

  "That's good. We must be precise in all things."

  The teeming streets of Cairo seemed awash with the odor of sweat as thousands rushed about in the harsh midday sun. The traffic was dense;

  horns clashed in angry spurts as voices erupted in incessant conflict, pitting languages and dialects against one another. The mass of humanity was as diversified as the vocal tumult; Arabic robes co mingled with Western suits, jackets, and blue jeans, while the Muslim headdress vied with bowlers, Stetsons, and baseball caps. In a sense, it was a macrocosm of East and West, the numbers favoring the Arab, as it was his country, his city. Cairo, the font of legends, where myth and reality were inseparable, yet very separate in a land of contradictions.