the first time it was the appearance of an old gray Renault coming toward them in the distance. Peering through the trees, they saw it was driven by a couple in their thirties and obviously in the middle of a heated argument. The second was the sound of voices behind them.
Startled, they ran for cover. To their relief, the voices belonged to four boisterous teenagers, student-athletes, perhaps, out for a noonday run.
The youngsters out of sight, Scofield and Pryce resumed their positions on the edge of the country road, accelerating their pace.
Minutes later they came to a steep, descending section; across the way, on a hill, stood the restored great house of the Baron of Matarese.
"From here on we go solo, agreed?" said Beowulf Agate softly.
"Looks best to me," said Cameron.
"I'll take the right flank, you go left."
"Both of us in the woods."
"Certainly not on the road."
"Let's go. We'll check radios in five minutes."
They split, Pryce walking across the road and entering the Porto Vecchio forest, Scofield disappearing into the woods on the left. Each found the steep, ravine like slope nearly impenetrable, trees and tropical vines intertwined, the ground soft from the Corsican rains. The difficult trudging was matched and overmatched by the subsequent, equally steep climb up the succeeding hill of the brief valley. They had tested the radios, keeping both on open frequencies.
"Cam, " came Brandon's whispered voice over Pryce's instrument.
"Yes?"
"Be prepared. If it's the same on your side, you're going to come to a wall of coiled barbed wire rising eight or nine feet high."
"I think I see it," said Pryce.
"Up ahead there's a flickering, like filtered sunlight bouncing off metal."
"That's it. Same over here."
"Frankly, I laughed when you mentioned wire cutters. What do you have, precognition?"
"Hell no. From the Paravacini maps we knew the place was surrounded by woods. That eliminated any kind of electrified fence or parameter alarms; small animals and birds would be setting them off every two or three seconds. That left only inhibiting measures, ergo, wire."
"I'm glad they taught you Latin at Harvard."
"Ingrate. Remember, start at the bottom, cutting in circles until you make an opening you can crawl through."
"Thank you, Mother."
Inside the borders of the Matarese compound, and staying in touch by radio, the two intruders agreed to meet on the wooded east flank, Cameron's side. Creeping through the foliage, the estate's manicured lawn only feet away, Scofield came into view. Pryce, on his hands and knees, joined him.
"That Italian high-noon sun is hot," whispered Brandon, "even in here."
"Hold it," ordered Cameron quietly.
"Look!"
Beyond the profusion of interlocking tree branches in the circular drive that passed the large bronze front door, a man in casual clothes walked out of the entrance. Immediately, he reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. From another pocket he retrieved a lighter, and like a confirmed smoker denied his habit, lit up, drawing heavily. Fifteen seconds later, a uniformed maid emerged, joining him.
She, too, removed cigarettes from her laced waist pocket; he lighted one for her as his left hand fondled her breasts. She giggled, reaching down for his crotch.
"Fun and games at Chez Matarese," whispered Pryce.
"More to the point, they had to go outside to smoke."
"I don't follow you."
"Geof's research on Matareisen established that he's a zealous antismoker, pathological about tobacco. You were there, you never saw an ashtray in the Keizersgracht. Pipes, cigars, and cigarettes were banned."
"Seems he's pathological, period."
"In this area, at least he's got a reason. A doctor in Amsterdam, a pulmonary specialist, treated him for severe respiratory problems.. ..
He's in there, Cam. My hunch was right."
"We'd better confirm that before we call London and Geof reaches Marseilles."
"If we call anybody."
"Bray, this isn't the time or the place for personal heroics!"
"I'm no hero, I hate heroes. They get people killed."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"Why we're here, that's what I'm talking about," replied Scofield, his eyes on the circular drive beyond the trees and the profuse ground cover.
"We're here to bring back whatever Matareisen's got that will tell us what he's done and who's involved so we can stop it. If we're not too late."
"How does that preclude Geof and the Deuxieme Bureau's commandos?" pressed Cameron.
"I have to go back nearly thirty years," answered Brandon, his whisper flat, pensive, conveying a long-ago memory.
"The Appleton mansion outside of Boston. It's true I set off the initial explosions outside the grounds, but after all hell broke loose and bodies were dropping like fireflies in a heavy rain, other explosions took place that started the fires inside. The Matarese chieftains had rigged incendiaries in their inner sanctum guaranteeing the destruction of all their files, contracts, and papers. Eradication by fire is apparently a Matarese standby."
"
"The fires in the Mediterranean,"
" said Pryce, even his whisper muted, as the two smoking servants began strolling around the circular drive toward Bray and Cam.
"I wonder what it means."
"Shhh!" The strollers came within eight feet of them, pawing each other like a couple of hormone-struck teenagers. They rounded the curve in the drive and proceeded up the south leg, by now practically undressing each other.
"If this were night," whispered Scofield, "we'd take them both and find out who's inside."
"It's not night, so what do we do?"
"We go back to the airstrip and wait until it is. Night, I mean. I'll use your exit."
"Oh, Jesus."
"Would you rather lie here with the insects and the snakes until it's dark?"
"Let's go," said Pryce.
Back at the airfield in Senetosa, they found Luther in the primitive ground-level "tower." He was dozing in a chair, the radio next to his head, the static low but constant. Across the room the traffic controller was reading a magazine in front of his equipment.
"Luther." Cameron shook Considine's shoulder.
"Yo!" The pilot opened his startled eyes.
"You're back. What happened?"
"We'll tell you outside," said Beowulf Agate.
"Let's take a walk."
Ambling along the bordering grass of the Senetosa runway, Scofield and Pryce filled Luther in, explaining what they had found in Porto Vecchio and what they still did not know.
"Sounds like you need help," Considine said.
"Is it time for those French commandos-" "Wo, " interrupted Brandon.
"Because we don't know what security measures they have when it's dark. We're not going in during daylight, and we're not calling for support. Not yet, perhaps not at all."
"Why not?"
"Because, Lieutenant, the sight of a jet landing up here, especially a jet unloading an armed squad of uniformed commandos, would spread like a brushfire throughout the area. I know the Matarese; they pay the locals for just that sort of information."
"You never intended to call for them, did you?" asked Pryce, his anger surfacing.
"Well, it made Waters happy to know that they were there, and if we really need them, I can always make the call. At night, after we're back inside."
"That's just great!" exploded Cameron.
"After the goddamned horse is stolen, lock the fucking stable door! What is this? A suicide operation, a two-man kamikaze run?"
"Come on, young fella, we're better than that."
"You sons of bitches lost me again," said a perplexed Luther.
"You've got a bunch of jungle soldiers for the asking and you won't use them? For Christ's sake, why not?"
"He's afraid w
e'll miss the pot of gold if we do."
"What pot of gold?"
"Information we need, and he's probably right. One stupid move and Matareisen sends out his orders and destroys the data. We don't know what's coming next, or where, or who."
"I couldn't have said it better myself," noted Scofield.
"And speaking of truisms, Cam and I had better get some shut-eye. We'll be up all night, and it's been a rough couple of days for him, time-wise."
"Agreed," said Pryce, "but where?"
"There's a cabin on the north side of the runway used by pilots and crews for layovers. That excuse for a controller said we can go there."
"I'm as tired as Cam is, but I'm not going to leave the plane, nets and all."
"You left it when you fell asleep in the shack," disagreed Pryce.
"No, I didn't. I threaded a half dozen heavy tools in the netting. If anybody tried to lift it, the racket would wake up a family of moles eight feet under the ground. I'd be out of here like a shot and, incidentally, prepared to shoot."
"The lad has possibilities," said Brandon, leading them to the cabin.
"Goddamn it, where have you been?" yelled Jamieson Fowler into the phone.
"Out of town," answered a cautious Stuart Nichols, attorney for the brokerage firm of Swanson and Schwartz.
"Yeah, well, I don't buy it. All of a sudden I can't reach Whitehead or you, and Wahlburg's answering machine says he's out of town!
What's this 'out of town'? Some place exclusively for you guys?"
"Be reasonable, Jamieson. We all have our personal lives."
"You don't even sound like yourself. Something rotten's going on, and I want to know what the fuck it is! And don't give me that bullshit about obscenity being a lack of vocabulary."
"In your case it wouldn't do any good, and I wouldn't say it."
"Yes, well, somebody else did. Where the hell is Wahlburg?
Washington, for Christ's sake?"
"He lives in Philadelphia, you know that. Why do you say Washington?"
"Let's put it this way," began Fowler, perspiring in his cool hotel suite.
"I heard a rumor, which is why I've-we've-got to find the Jew! .. . You know, I've got a lot of friends in Washington, a few on offshore payrolls, actually, and one of them told me-told me .. .
told me-" "Told you what?" interrupted Nichols.
"That Ben was seen going into the FTC building."
"The Federal Trade Commission?"
"I didn't say FBI, which is the only thing worse."
"I don't understand."
"Suppose the hebe got yellow and decided to cover his hymie ass?
Those people are clever, you know. He could do it in ways that wouldn't implicate himself, like he heard rumors, et cetera."
"About our .. . enterprise?"
"It's not about Disney World, you asshole!"
"I don't see how he could. Any deposition he might give to the FTC attorneys, they'd probe, and to be convincing he'd have to implicate himself, even in a minor way."
"That's lawyer talk. The Jew boys are smarter than you."
"God, you're offensive. My daughter is married to a fine lawyer who happens to be Jewish-" "Yeah, I know all about him. He calls himself Stone, but it's really Stein."
"I suggested that for professional reasons. They live in Boston."
"Now who's offensive? .. . Forget it, back to Wahlburg. What do you figure?"
"I just told you, I question your source. However, we may have a larger problem, and it concerns the schism in Amsterdam."
"What the fuck is that? Straight talk, not hypothetical."
"What?"
"Whaddya know, not whaddya think."
"I'm afraid my source is impeccable. The split in Amsterdam is between the Keizersgracht and Guiderone. The son of the Shepherd Boy will prevail, of course, but it pains me to believe that Albert has conceivably thrown in with van der Meer."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"He's apparently, according to my source, decided to go with the money from Amsterdam."
"Who told you this?"
"A rumor, like yours, that's all I will say."
"That's not good enough."
"It's all you're going to get, Jamieson."
"Everything's falling apart, for Christ's sake! This is crazy. You're crazy and I'm crazy. What the hell is going on?"
"I'd like to know," said Stuart Nichols, hanging up the phone.
It was a quarter past five in the afternoon and the offices of Swanson and Schwartz were closed. However, Albert Whitehead remained inside, having said a wary if pleasant good-night to Stuart Nichols. There was a knock on his door.
"Come in," called out the chief executive officer.
"Yes, sir." An attractive secretary walked inside.
"I did as you suggested, Mr. Whitehead. I waited in the ladies' room until Mr. Nichols left."
"Thank you, Joanne. Sit down, please." The secretary did so and Whitehead continued.
"As I briefly mentioned earlier, this meeting is extremely confidential in the highest professional sense. It may turn out to be meaningless, and I pray to the Almighty that it is, but certain information has come to light that might-I emphasize only might concern your boss. Am I clear?"
"Of course."
"Good. How long have you worked for Mr. Nichols?"
"Nearly two years, sir."
"I know he's constantly filing papers, legal briefs, that sort of thing, but can you recall any lengthy statements or depositions directed to be under a court's seal?"
"Not offhand.. .. No, wait a minute. About six or seven months ago there was a guardian ad litem situation where the inheritor, a minor, sought the protection of the court to keep the size of the inheritance confidential. Insofar as the taxes were prepaid, the court accepted the seal."
"That was the only one?"
"To the best of my knowledge, yes, sir."
To the best of my knowledge. Whitehead loathed that phrase. It was all too often used as a cop-out, just as secretaries frequently formed bonds of loyalty with their bosses. How many followed them to other and better jobs? Too many to count!
"Joanne, I certainly believe you, my dear, but the few stockholders we have insisted that I make a thorough search. Do you have records of Mr. Nichols's dictation, or the documents he prepared?"
"Every document and every letter, including interoffice memoranda.... I wasn't aware that Swanson and Schwartz had stockholders."
"It's not something we talk about; a small group of investors who helped me purchase the firm. Where are these records?"
"On computer disks, cataloged by date, day, and time of entry."
"Would you mind showing me where they are?"
"Not at all, sir." The secretary rose from the chair, preceding
Whitehead out the door and to an office down the hall. Inside, she led him to a huge white file cabinet; she opened it, revealing shelves of disks, the shelves in sections by years and months.
"My word!" said Albert Whitehead.
"That's quite a collection."
"Mr. Nichols started it five years ago. He decided it was easier and far more accessible to store things here rather than in the warehouse."
"He was absolutely right. Show me how it works. We all have the same computers, but I could be a little rusty pulling files up." The secretary named Joanne removed a disk, inserted it into the drive, and pressed the appropriate codes.
"Oh, yes," said the CEO, "I remember now. It's really very simple, isn't it?"
"Very, Mr. Whitehead. Shall I stay and assist you? I can call my husband-" "No, no, my dear, you run along. I'll be fine, and remember, our little meeting was just between us, as well as my visit here."
"I understand, sir."
"On behalf of the investors and myself, you'll find an envelope under your blotter in the morning."
"That's not necessary, sir."
"Oh, but it is, it is."
"Well, thank yo
u, Mr. Whitehead.. .. And I hope everything is all right. I think Mr. Nichols is a wonderful man, so kind and considerate."
"He's all of that and a dear friend." And a fucking Judas to boot!
"Goodnight, sir."
"Good night, Joanne."
It was close to midnight when Albert Whitehead extracted the last disk. He was exhausted, his eyes bloodshot, his breath short. He had gone back three full years and over four thousand documents. There was nothing! Had Nichols gone outside the office and hired a typist from some sleazy employment agency? Or perhaps from a third-rate newspaper's Help Wanted column? Of course he had. It had to be! He couldn't very well indict the head of Swanson and Schwartz in front of an employee-or could he? Secretaries were an unpredictable breed, ranging from stealing petty cash to breaking up marriages.
Shall I stay and assist you? I can call my husband.
Sure, young lady, call your husband and tell him you 're working with the owner of the company until midnight! What's next? Rape?
Blackmail?
Whitehead dragged himself out of the chair and replaced the final disk in the large white file cabinet. He returned to the desk, picked up Nichols's telephone, and dialed his limousine service.
"Madre di Dio! II mare Mediterraneo! Mare nostra!" The screams filled the silent night at the airfield in Senetosa, Corsica.
"What the hell is that?" shouted Scofield, bolting from the cot in the cabin north of the runway.
"Damned if I know," said Pryce, sitting up on the couch.
The door of the cabin crashed open as Luther Considine ran inside.
"For God's sake, will somebody translate? Krazy Kat's going nuts out there!"
"What is it?" asked Brandon.
"You tell me," replied Luther.
"He's running up here."
The air controller burst through the door.
"La radio! Mare nostra.
Fuoco, incendio!"
"Lentamente, lentamente," said Scofield, telling the man to slow down.
"English, piacere?"
"Over radio," answered the controller in his broken English.
"All through il Mediterraneo-fires everywhere! From bay of Muscat to Africa, Israel, fuochi. Inferno, maledetto! II diavolo takes up the world!"
The Matarese Countdown Page 53