The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

SCREW OFF, ASSHOLE.

"I'm afraid a few of our graduates in training have a warped sense of humor," Geoffrey Waters had continued, chuckling.

"Now, spell out the phrase The apple rolls far from the tree."

" Again, Scofield did as he was told, but this time the screen went to work in a civilized manner. MEETING CONFIRMED STUTTGART AS

SCHEDULED.

"That was an actual transmission we intercepted from a mole we unearthed last week in the Foreign Office sent to the Stasi in East Berlin."

"What happened?"

"Oh, he went to Stuttgart, all right, but I'm afraid he never came back. One of our lads over the Wall told the Stasi he was a double."

Brandon found the switch and turned on Alistair McDowell's personal decoder. For the hell of it, he typed in aardvark. The screen displayed the word INSUFFICIENT. At least the American product was better mannered. He then inserted the sentence The apple rolls far from the tree. The screen faded as the cylinders rolled, finally coming to a stop. The letters appeared: ADDITIONAL DATA REQUIRED ZERO SEARCH. Trees and rolling apples were not in cipher able fashion.

Scofield pulled out his camera and took several photographs of the machine in the hope that the manufacturer might be found. Whoever it was would have to be among those contractors for the military and/or the intelligence community dealing in maximum-classified materials. In the parlance of the trade, it was a possible.

Bray returned to the file cabinet, switching on a nearby floor lamp.

There were four drawers so he pulled over a straight-backed chair and started at the bottom, beginning with letters T through Z, seven index dividers, within which were numerous file folders.

The reading was not only laborious, it was also paralyzingly dull.

The vast majority of Alistair McDowell's correspondence and memoranda concerned acquisitions, potential acquisitions, marketing strategies, budgets, profit margins and how to improve them. The minority consisted of matters of less import, such as copies of bland speeches made to Rotary Clubs, chambers of commerce, and corporate and trade conventions, as well as letters to politicians, equally bland, and a few to the headmasters of several private schools (apparently the McDowell offspring were not so squeaky-clean after all). Plus an assortment of memos from the chairman involving past and current negotiations, his strong points italicized. Scofield's eyes were glazed, his mind numbed by the banality of the files. Until the letter Q-under the inexplicable title of "Quotient Group Equations."

What did it mean? What were "quotient group equations"? There were five folders filled with handwritten pages of numbers and symbols, formulas, or formulae, of one sort or another, but what they signified, Bray hadn't a clue. Yet instincts born in years past came back to him. They meant something that Alistair McDowell did not want anyone to understand. Otherwise there would be headings on the pages, descriptions-no matter how brief-of the contents. Instead, there was nothing, no inkling whatsoever.

Scofield knew that quotient was a mathematical term, as was equation, but where the group fit in was beyond him. He looked around the office, hoping to find a dictionary. He did, naturally, on the lower shelf of a bookcase. Carrying it to the desk, he glanced at the windows, making sure the drapes were completely closed, and turned on McDowell's lamp. He opened the dictionary, flipping through the pages until he reached:

Quotient-The result of division; the number of times one quantity is contained in another.

And just below:

Quotient group-A group, the elements of which are intrinsic to a subgroup of a given group.

Beowulf Agate recognized when he had struck a vein of intelligence gold. He photographed every handwritten page in the five folders, beginning to understand the dark, clouded outlines of the obscure material, which could well be leads to the groups and subgroups of the Matarese.

Scofield continued through the file cabinet, finding nothing of interest, but in several folders, items that amused him. Chairman McDowell kept monthly totals of his wife's clothing and household accounts, all annotated as excessive, including liquor bills marked with angry red exclamation points. These pages did not exactly reflect the lovi

ng, good-natured family life depicted in the silver-framed photographs.

There was turmoil within the house of McDowell.

Brandon closed the top drawer of the file cabinet and returned to the computer closet. He switched on the light and studied the totally unfamiliar equipment. There was nothing else for it. He took out his cellular phone and called Peregrine View in the Great Smokies.

"You're over an hour late!" said an irritated Antonia.

"Where are you, you old fool?"

"I'm where none of those amateurs thought I would be."

"Come back here quickly-" "I'm not finished," interrupted Scofield.

"There's a computer and a wall safe-" "Yes, you are finished!" exclaimed Toni.

"Something's happened."

"What is it?"

"Frank Shields called a few hours ago. He's not sure what to do."

"That's odd for Squinty. He always knows what to do."

"Not this time. He wants your input."

"I'll be damned, I've been promoted out of grammar school. Well, what is it?"

"Naval intelligence reached him. If the information's accurate, Leslie's son escaped and is aboard ship at the American base in Bahrain."

"By Christ, that's great! Good for the kid!"

"That's just it, Bray, he is a kid, a child, really. Shields thinks it may be a trap."

"For God's sake, why?"

"Because according to the naval officer who's with him, the boy won't speak with anyone but his mother. No American government official, no one from intelligence or the White House, not even the President himself. Only his mother, so he'll know if it's really she."

"Damn!" exclaimed Scofield, absently striking the nearest object in frustration. In this case, it was the computer's keyboard. At the instant of the blow, ear-shattering alarm bells resonated throughout the entire building. The hidden, off-limits machine was not only sacred, but given to hysterics. Bray yelled into his cellular phone.