The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

"How can Italians build such tiny automobiles? Haven't they seen all those pictures of heavy mamma mias dancing tarantellas? To answer your question, you're crushing me."

"I find it rather pleasant. Think I'll buy one while I'm here, then hire a chauffeur to drive us around."

"That's all we'd be doing-driving around." Suddenly, the scroungily dressed driver whipped into a series of turns through the streets of Milan, streets filled with traffic.

"I think I just broke two ribs."

"Want me to check?"

"No, I want you to tell that idiot to slow down."

"Lento, ragazzo, piacere lento!"

"Impossibile, signore. Don Silvio impaziente.. .. You change mac china little soon."

"What did he say?"

"He said he couldn't slow down because this Don Silvio is impatient.

Also, we're going to change cars."

"That should be a blessing," noted Leslie.

It was and it wasn't. The automobile was larger with far more room in the backseat, but the next driver, middle-aged, wearing dark glasses, and with long black hair that fell to his shoulders, was far wilder behind the wheel than the teenager. Once the transfer was made, no greetings were exchanged, no names used; the driver simply careened through the streets to the second entrance of the city's main highway. It headed north, the arrows on the signs reading Legnano, Castellanza, and Gallarate. Cameron recognized the route; it led to Bellagio, on the shore of Lacus Larius, internationally known as Lake Como.

Thirty-eight minutes later, they reached the ancient village that over the centuries had grown into a town, yet still retained its post medieval flavor. The streets were narrow and winding, with abrupt ascents and sudden descents, reminding one that in distant times past they were dirt thoroughfares traversed by merchants and peasants, their carts and wagons pulled by mules through the fields and hills overlooking the majestic lake. And in those narrow streets, on both sides, so close together they might as well have been attached, were rows of dwellings, half-stone, half-wood, most if not all rising three and four stories high.

They were like miniature fortresses, one on top of another, akin to the Pueblo caves or the earliest condominiums, perhaps. However, the effect was startlingly different from either, for there was no space for light, only wide alleys of shadows, the stone and the wood blocking the sun.

"At least this is a tad more comfortable, if no less terrifying," said Montrose, leaning into Pryce's shoulder as the car raced up the highway.

"It's a strange automobile, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," answered Cam, glancing around.

"It's like the outside is denying the inside."

Pryce's remark summed it up. The large car was first seen as an old, nondescript gray sedan with multiple scratches across the paint and numerous dents, from the fenders to the trunk. An observer would judge it to be an abused relic; that is, until he stepped inside. For within, the seats were covered with the softest and most expensive wine-colored leather, and facing those in back was a well-equipped mahogany bar. There was a telephone mounted on the side, its panel also mahogany. Coupled with the tinted windows, it was apparent that the owner of the vehicle insisted on the amenities but had no desire to call attention to the car itself.

The equally strange and silent driver sped up an inclining street, emerging from the dark, tunnel-like environs below into the bright afternoon sunlight. On one side there was a succession of grazing fields, cows and sheep co mingling on the other, a scattering of houses and barns, these quite separate, even isolated from one another. They turned right and rushed along a road that paralleled the immense Lake Como, eliciting from Leslie an appropriate comment.

"It's all absolutely breathtaking!" she said, studying the panorama.

"It's one of the few places that lives up to the postcards."

"Good observation," agreed Cameron.

"It does."

And then it happened. Once again the blinding Italian sun was shredded into erratic shafts of light and shadows. They had turned off the scenic route onto a wide dirt road cut out of a forest, huge trees flanking them, eliminating any view but thick trunks, climbing vines, and dense foliage, an underbrush that seemed impenetrable. They began to slow down, the reason obvious: There was a small concrete structure ahead; a heavy steel barrier extended across the primitive access. A thick-bodied plug of a man wandered out, a shotgun strapped over his shoulder. Sicilian-style, thought Pryce.

The guard nodded at the chauffeur, the barrier was raised, and the nondescript gray sedan proceeded up the road. Suddenly, the outlines of a huge one-level house could be seen, almost at one with its forest surroundings. It appeared to extend so far into the woods that the end of the building could not be estimated, much less discerned. Once more, heavy wood and dark stone, the traditional materials of Bellagio, repelled the sunlight, preferring the shadows.

Leslie and Cameron got out of the car, only to be met by another guard with a shotgun hanging from his shoulder.

"Coma was me," he said in barely understood English, the salutation obviously tutored.

They followed the armed man up a graveled path, both glancing above, marveling at the roof of dark green that did not merely shelter the lair of Don Silvio Togazzi, but essentially concealed it.

The second guard waved his head, instructing the Americans to walk up the short flight of steps that led to a pair of immense double doors while he removed a small instrument from his trousers pocket. Whatever it was, he activated it, and the panel on the right opened, revealing a third man. This guard had no shotgun hanging from his shoulder; instead, an extremely large holster was on his right hip, held in place by a wide leather belt that creased his hill-country clothing. He was a large man, taller than Pryce, with a massive chest below a thick neck and a swarthy, impassive face in the middle of an outsized head. Studying the man, Cameron concluded that he was the don's number one protector.

But a protector from what?

And why the series of intricate, elusive moves apparently designed to hide any connection between Togazzi and his guests? Caution, yes; a degree of secrecy, of course; but to go to these lengths-who was Togazzi? Scofield's back-channel instructions had said "several friends from the old days," with the gratuitous observation that they were probably a crew of unwashed antiques who had survived the brutal times and knew the Matarese. Instead, there appeared to be only one man, whose actions so far were more like those of a member of the Matarese than of someone sworn to destroy it.

Cam and Leslie were led across the huge, dark, windowless room decorated with simple furniture, a large fireplace, and paneled walls with two archways on the right leading to other areas. It was the interior of a basic elongated log cabin in the mountains-no frills, only necessities. The third guard pointed to a screen door at the rear of the room.

"Avanti, " he said.

Pryce opened the screen for Montrose and they walked through, both stunned. The first sight that awed them was the open 'porch itself. It was barely seven feet wide, but its length had to be twenty times that. The framed opening, from the waist-high railing to the ceiling, was filled with panels of green Venetian blinds, a number drawn, once more creating shifting shadows. Through the open spaces one saw the scenic splendor of Lake Como, the mountains rising in the distance beyond the blue lake, the trees of the forest having been topped to afford the view.

And, as if in counterpoint to the overwhelming natural beauty, there was a row of red telescopes spaced twenty feet apart, the most modern wide-lensed telescopes high technology had developed.

All this was absorbed in a breathless few moments, then came the second shock. It was the figure of an old man seated in semidarkness in front of two drawn Venetian blinds. He was in a cushioned white wicker armchair-all the porch furniture was white wicker-and his attire ended once and for all Cameron's expectations of Scofield's unkempt friends.

Don Silvio Togazzi was dressed in a pale yellow linen suit, white pa

tent-leather shoes, and a blue paisley ascot, the combination undoubtedly custom-made at the most expensive emporium in the Via Condotti. The don may not have lived up to the current ideal of Gentlemen 's Quarterly, but he certainly would have qualified if the magazine had been published in the late twenties or early thirties.

"Forgive me, young people," said the still ruggedly attractive old man, his tanned, leathery face lit with a smile below his flowing white hair.

"But a long-ago injury to my spine has caught up with this ancient body. An injury, by the way, caused by Bayohlupo-that's what we called him, Bayohlupo-because he did not properly catch me when I escaped over a balcony."

"Bayohlupo .. . Beowulf, am I correct, sir?" asked Pryce.

"Exactly. The English Beowulf made absolutely no sense to us. I am an educated man but ... it wasn't even English."

Leslie stepped forward to shake the Italian's hand; instead, he took hers and kissed it.

"You're very kind to see us, Mr. Togazzi," she said.

"And I thank you for not saying Don Silvio. I'm sick of it. Your American films and television have so denigrated the term 'don' that anyone whose peers believe he deserves it must perforce be a Mafioso, or fill his face with so much pasta he drools while ordering executions.

Pazzo!"

"I think we're going to get along." Cameron leaned forward and shook the old man's hand.

"May we sit down?"

"You don't have to ask. Sit."

White-wicker chairs adjusted, they sat opposite Togazzi on the narrow porch-narrow, close, and filled with shadows and shafts of light.

Bellagio.

"What did Brandon Scofield tell you, sir? To be up-front, he sent me a message saying that you could help us."

"I can help, Signer Pryce. I flew to Rome, to your embassy. Brandon spoke to me at length over one of those non intercepting channels-" "We hope," interrupted Cameron.

"Neither Signer Scofield nor I are fools, young man. As you Americans say, we've been around the block. We spoke elliptically, substituting codes and metaphors as we used to do long ago. But we each understood the other perfectly clearly, as few others would."

"Officer Pryce told me there would be several others, sir," said Montrose.

"Are we waiting for them?"

"There would be no point, Signora Colonel, they will not come.