The Matarese Countdown

by Robert Ludlum

  His leg in agony, Guiderone dragged his fifth kill to the edge of the staircase-staircases were rarely used-and propelled the body down the steps. He returned to the pig's door, his brain on fire. Twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, and vengeance was at last his! The end would come in minutes, the end of the nightmare. He could have been President of the United States! And one man had stood in his way. That pig would be dead before the clock struck ten. It was three minutes to ten. Silently, the son of the Shepherd Boy inserted the key.

  What followed was a battle of the ancient giants, nothing less.

  Scofield sat in a chair facing the Thames, Antonia across from him reading the London Times. Brandon was writing on a legal pad, as was his wont, analyzing their options. A slight metallic scratch from the door! Barely audible, and Antonia remained oblivious. But in his former life, Beowulf Agate had lived with such indefinite sounds, muffled, minute, nearly inaudible. Often they had been the difference between concealment and discovery-life and death. He glanced over; the door knob was turning slowly, silently.

  "Toni'," he whispered, "get into the bedroom and lock the door!"

  "What, Bray? ..."

  "Quickly!" Bewildered, Antonia did as she was told as Scofield grabbed the pole of a heavy floor lamp. Yanking the plug out of the wall, he rose from his chair and gripped the lamp in midsection while walking swiftly to the offending door and stepping to the left of it.

  When opened, the panel would cover him.

  It opened and the limping figure of a man rushed inside, a weapon in his hand. Bray swung the base of the lamp with all his considerable strength at the head of the intruder. The silenced pistol fired twice into the floor as the would-be killer, his skull covered with blood, spun around and fell back, staggering to stay upright. Scofield was stunned to the point of momentary immobility. Julian Guiderone! He was alive! Far older, the flesh of his face mottled, the face itself contorted, the fury in his eyes maniacal. The son of the Shepherd Boy.

  Brandon recovered only an instant before Guiderone found his bearings and raised his weapon. He rammed the base of the floor lamp into the body of the Matarese, sending him back against the window. The blow served only to enrage him further, his pinched, blood-streaked features stretched into pure madness. Guiderone lunged forward, and Bray grabbed the wrist holding the silenced pistol, twisting it clockwise to break the grip. But it was no use. In his frenzy, the son of the Shepherd Boy had the strength of a man half his age and ten times stronger than that.

  "Pig of the world!" screamed Guiderone, spit forming at his lips. ' "Pig of the world!"

  "I thank you, Senator Appleton," replied Scofield breathlessly, holding back, as best as he could, the Matarese attack.

  "You wanted the White House, you bastard, and I wouldn't let you have it!"

  "Augh!" screamed Guiderone, falling on an unbalanced Bray, and clawing at Scofield's face while Brandon held the weapon in his grip.

  They rolled over and over, crashing into furniture, then getting to their feet, two aging animals in a death struggle, the struggle for life.

  Glassed wall prints crashed to the floor, crystal vases fell, shattered.

  Move and countermove; they were the final moments of an epic battle.

  Brandon fought against the harsh, whipping blows until he was able to grip the cloth around Guiderone's rib cage while holding the weapon away. He spun him around, and with a strength he had not known was left in him, hurled him toward the Savoy window with such force that the heavy glass splintered into thick fragments, impaling Guiderone's head, severing his throat.

  Beowulf Agate collapsed to his knees, his body racked, gasping for breath.

  We move!" shouted Scofield.

  "It's got to be now, Geof!"

  "I agree," added Cameron Pryce as the five of them, Leslie and Antonia included, gathered in the trashed Savoy suite. Guiderone's bloody corpse had been removed, along with the shattered glass and wrecked furniture, by military-intelligence personnel.

  "I'm not against you chaps," said MI-5's Geoffrey Waters, "I just want to make certain we've thought everything out."

  "I have thought everything out," insisted Beowulf Agate.

  "I know the Matarese, know the way it operates. Each cell is both independent and interdependent. They have certain autonomies, but all are under one global umbrella. You strike when the umbrella is vulnerable, when the fabric is torn, and believe me, it's ripped to shreds right now!"

  "

  "Independent yet interdependent,"

  " broke in Sir Geoffrey.

  "Let's examine that."

  "What's to examine?" asked Pryce.

  "Look at General Mills and Wheaties, Cheerios, and .. . whatever the hell they are. Different brands, one company."

  "What do cereal boxes tell us, Cam?" said Leslie, sitting at a desk undamaged in the fray.

  "Don't think of cereal boxes, think of snakes-snake pits, if you like. I said it before-we have to cut off the heads of the snakes, independent and interdependent. Guiderone was one of the two Matarese keys-"

  "Scylla to Charybdis," interrupted Scofield.

  "Very good, Bray," acknowledged Pryce.

  "With him gone, the other key is van der Meer in Amsterdam. We take him, isolate him, break him any way we can. We tear his house apart, do what Brandon did at Atlantic Crown. Maybe we'll learn something."

  "In the meantime, the independents and the inter dependents aren't receiving any instructions," added Scofield.

  "A number may panic, even going so far as to send emissaries to the Keizersgracht. Should that happen, we'll learn even more."

  "Practicality," said Waters.

  "What's our best scenario?"

  "For starters," replied Cameron, "don't involve Dutch intelligence.

  It's a great organization, but we can't risk Matarese penetration. Our silence mustn't be broken."

  "A commando unit in civilian clothes," concluded Sir Geoffrey.

  "Our personnel, Mi-Six, our foreign branch."

  "I'll lead it," said Pryce.

  "Where's Luther Considine? With luck, our flying top gun will be putting in a lot of airtime. Also, Geof, alert Frank Shields in Washington. He may have to move fast on his quartet of snakes, putting them in separate sweat cells."

  The night assault on 310 Keizersgracht was a marvel of clandestine operations. Electronic taps confirmed that Jan van der Meer Matareisen was in residence, his only guests two males, one on the first floor, the second on the third, presumably security guards. The architectural plans of the house had been dug out of the turn-of-the-century archives on the pretext of a potential buyer, a Dutch-speaking agent of MI-6. The same intelligence officer walked up to the front door facing the street while two colleagues, along with Pryce, approached the canal entrance, a steel egress within a dark brick archway.

  The agent at the front door rang the bell; it was answered in less than ten seconds. A heavyset man stood in the frame.

  "Yes, what is it?" he asked in Dutch.

  "I was instructed to make contact with Jan van der Meer this night, at this hour."

  "On whose authority?"

  "Four men in New York. Messrs. Whitehead, Wahlburg, Fowler, and Nichols. The circumstances are urgent. Please alert Mr. van der Meer."

  "It is very late. He has retired."

  "I suggest you inform him of my arrival, or you may be the one retired."

  "I don't like threats-" "It's not a threat, meneer. Merely a fact."

  "Wait out there. I'm closing the door."

  In the darkness of the canal side, the MI-6 commandos had placed two wired plastic disks on the thick, imposing windows flanking the steel door. They were electronic listening devices. In between them, Pryce removed a five-square-inch globule of a clay like substance; he began packing it around the lock and knob area of the door. When fired, it would burn through over an inch of steel.

  "The guard's running upstairs," said the commando on the right softly.

  "C
onfirmed," agreed his colleague on the left.

  "Burn away, mate."

  "Which of you has the alarm deactivator?" asked Cameron.

  "I do," answered the first commando.

  "According to the cleaning personnel, each exit has a panel box on the right of the door with a time span of twenty seconds. Mother's milk, old chap. I clamp our little friend over the digits, and he does the rest."

  Pryce shoved an electronic torch into the packed globule. Instantly, the substance became a fiery red, then turned a blinding white as it burned, eating through the steel. When the sizzling stopped, Cam took an aerosol canister out of his field jacket and sprayed the burned metal; it turned black, cold. Using thin pincers, Pryce inserted a prong and pulled the jagged steel plate toward him; it fell to the ground.

  "Let's go!" he said.

  The three men pushed the heavy door open; the first commando swung around and placed the deactivator over the alarm panel. There was a series of accelerating clicks and abruptly a small red light appeared on the deactivator's casing.

  "Our little impertinent friend has done his work," whispered the commando.

  "The place is neutralized.

  Not much light, is there? Not one bloody lamp in the whole ballroom-if that's what it is."

  Footsteps. On the staircase. The guard who had rushed up the steps came racing down, now holding an automatic in his right hand. Pryce and his colleagues knelt in the shadows behind a grand piano, watching as the burly Matareisen employee ran to the door, opened it, and ordered the third commando to come inside.

  "Hurry!" he cried.

  "And look well, I have a gun in my hand, and I'll use it if you do something I don't approve of."

  "My business is not with you, meneer, so I wouldn't provoke either approval or disapproval from you."

  "I think you know what I mean. Come, the great van der Meer is most upset. He'll want to see your credentials."

  "He should know better. My credentials are in my head."

  "You're insolent."

  "He should know better," repeated the MI-6 agent, walking in front of the guard toward the staircase.

  Cameron touched the shoulders of the two commandos flanking him. It was the silent signal. As one, and in thick-rubber-soled boots, they rose from behind the piano, inched forward, and as choreographed, Pryce hammer locked the guard, removing his weapon while he spastically choked. The second MI-6 officer hauled the unconscious man across the wide room, pulled wire and industrial tape from his pockets.

  "There's no one on the second floor," said Cam quietly to the other two.

  "And we can't waste a couple of heartbeats. Matareisen's waiting, no doubt positioning his number two guard. We go up the third flight back-to-back. Are your silencers attached?"

  "They've never been unattached," replied the commando who had used the street entrance. The third man of the assault team returned.

  "He's out?" asked Pryce.

  "For the duration and then some. I gave him a needle of juice in his neck."

  "Criminy, you're a sadist-" "Better that than bloody sorry."

  "Shut up. Let's go!"

  Starting with the third flight of steps, the unit formed a circle, back-to back and glided noiselessly up the staircase. Suddenly, the commando who had manipulated the alarm deactivator fired his weapon; a figure collapsed from out of a dark corner on the third-floor landing, the silenced bullet having found its mark, a skull shot that left no time for human sound.

  "There's a door and I'll wager it's our host's."

  "Why?" asked the needle-wielding commando.

  "He was across from it."

  "It works for me," whispered Cameron.

  "Team effort, fellas?"

  "We're with you, sir."

  "No 'sirs," please. This is an equal-opportunity assignment. You know a hell of a lot more about this kind of thing than I do."

  "I'd say you were holding your own, old boy. That was a nice hammer you executed."

  Shoulders touching, like a human battering ram, the four raced forward. With a thundering crash, the heavy wooden door was literally exploded off its lock and hinges, the result of nearly a ton of sheer strength. A stunned Jan van der Meer Matareisen stood in the center of the room in a blue velvet smoking jacket, his legs encased in loose fitting white silk pajamas.

  "Good God!" he roared in Dutch.

  And then he took the most improbable action imaginable under the circumstances. Before weapons could be drawn, he attacked. His less than-imposing body instantly became a whirling dervish, legs, feet, and arms thrusting, kicking, and spinning like a dozen rotor blades. Within seconds he had immobilized two of the unprepared, unsuspecting commandos, who lay prone on the floor, trying to shake the agony and the numbness from their heads and spines. The third was squatting in a corner holding his throat.

  Eyes on fire, van der Meer focused on Cameron.

  "You're fortunate, American, I don't really need a gun, or else you'd be dead by now!" he spat out.

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

  "More terrible than your worst nightmares, Mr. Pryce."

  "You know who I am?"

  "We've been tracking you since-what is it called? Brass Twentysix?"

  "The gunboat. The Harrier jet. You killed a lot of fine young men who were simply doing their jobs."

  "Too bad you survived the Harrier. You won't now!" With these words shrieked and echoing off the walls, Matareisen again became a dervish, the propellers closing in on Cameron. He reached for the weapon in his webbed belt; the instant it was in his hand it flew out, the result of an accurate, brutalizing kick. Pryce recovered from the blow, took a step backward, planted his left foot, and zeroed in on van der Meer's right leg. The kick came; he grabbed the silk, digging his fingers into the flesh beneath, and violently twisted the muscular limb counterclockwise. Matareisen's body, its balance momentarily lost, pivoted in midair as Cam lunged forward, propelling the Dutchman into the wall. A sickening thud accompanied the Hollander's impact, his head taking the punishment, rendering him unconscious. He lay on the floor in a fetal position, a champion of the martial arts reduced to his former unimposing self.

  One by one, the commandos revived, bruised but game.

  "What the hell was that?" cried the front-entrance MI-6 officer, staggering to his feet.

  "An army of ninjas, if you ask me," replied the alarm expert.

  "A bloody maniac in fancy dress," said the agent of needles.

  "I

  think I'd better give him a little juice."

  "It's safe, isn't it?" asked Pryce.

  "Too much of that stuff can mess up the head, and we want his intact."

  "You just did more to his head than my sweeteners could do with ten syringes."

  "Okay, go ahead." Cameron reached into his field jacket and removed a rolled-up set of plans. They were from the early-twentiethcentury archives and rendered the architectural details of the house on the Keizersgracht. As the agent administered the needle to Matareisen, Pryce walked out to the hallway landing, followed by the other two.

  "According to these," he said, "there's a floor above this one, but the staircase ends here."

  "You can tell that from the outside," added the alarm deactivator.

  "There are window frames on the top."

  "How do we get up there?" posed the second intelligence officer.

  "Probably the elevator, which is undoubtedly programmed," said Cameron, crossing to the locked, brass-grilled elevator shaft.

  "It's obviously off-limits. That's a false ceiling up there. See the slits? It's movable."

  "Why don't we bring up the lift?"

  "Why not?" answered Pryce.

  "We can work from inside, try to break through."

  "Easier than falling down three flights in the shaft. We've got tools in the canal boat, should I get them?"

  "Please."

  A sweat-producing hour later, using battery-driven drills and saws, Pryce and the unit r
emoved the false ceiling. Hand over hand, foot by foot, they scaled the vertically ribbed shaft to the steel door on the top floor. Once again employing a clay like globule packed and fired around the release area, they slid back the steel panel and pulled themselves up and out onto the off-limits fourth floor. What they saw astonished each man.

  "It's a ruddy communications center!" exclaimed the alarm expert.

  "Like in a nuclear headquarters," said the stunned deliverer of sweeteners.

  "It's goddamned scary!" intoned the third commando.

  "Look at that, the whole wall is a map of the world!"

  "Welcome to the inner sanctum of the Matarese," said Cameron softly, breathlessly.

  "The what?"

  "Never mind. It's what we came for." Pryce took out his powerful military walkie-talkie, tuned in to Luther Considine and Montrose in the Bristol Freighter aircraft at Schiphol Airport.

  "Luther?"

  "What's up, spook?"

  "Pay dirt with bonuses."

  "That's nice to hear. Can I go home now?"

  "You've only just begun, my man. Right now we need Leslie. Tell the Brit patrol to bring her to the target area. Three-ten Keizersgracht, street entrance, unmarked vehicle."

  "She's asleep."

  "Wake her up."

  Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Montrose was, if possible, more astonished than Pryce and the commandos, for she understood the scope of what she was examining. She walked up the aisle between the sets of computers to the elevated console in the center.

  "These aren't merely world-class, they're world-class-plus. Direct satellite transmissions, traffic scramblers, instantaneous alternate routings-good Lord, this whole setup rivals anything at the Strategic Air Command or Langley. It must have cost millions, and considering what's exclusively designed for them in space, probably billions."

  "That means a mountain of complexities, right?"

  "Several mountains, Cam."

  "To make progress in pulling up whatever's in this equipment, you'll need help, also right?"

  "All I can get and as quickly as possible."