The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

"You still at the same place?"

"You won't recognize the insides, that's where the money went, but the outside hasn't changed in several hundred years."

"Better architecture back then."

"Yes, the Prince keeps reminding us of that, and I happen to applaud him for it."

"He needs all the applause he can get. We'll be there in twenty minutes plus. By the way, do I have to call you "Sir' to your face?"

"Only when there are people around. If you don't, they'll behead you."

The reunion was brief, warm, and overlaid with a sense of urgency.

The initial greetings over, the five sat down around a table in a secure conference room at MI-5 headquarters. Waters brought them all up to date regarding recent events in general, including the actions of the Brewster son but saving the London specifics for later. He then turned the chair over to Pryce and Montrose, who related their experiences in Lake Como. including Don Silvio Togazzi's assistance and the horrible deaths of Paravacini and his aide.

"My God," broke in Scofield, "Togazzi's a "Don' and Geof's a goddamned "Sir'! Next, Silvio will probably be King of Italy, and Butterball here, no doubt, Prime Minister. The world's gone crazy!"

"You're too kind," said Waters, chuckling. ".. . So, from Como we can assume the collapse of a major force in the Italian Matarese, and a Paravacini cardinal at the Vatican."

"Collapse may be too strong," suggested Leslie. "

"Charlie' Paravacini undoubtedly built a strong, efficient organization."

"We don't know that," Brandon interrupted, "and even if we assume it, he was a real power, the only power in the whole sector.

According to Togazzi, he didn't delegate a hell of a lot."

"If that's the case," said the MI-5 chief, "the organization may not have collapsed but it's certainly in disarray and quite vulnerable."

"Agreed," added Cameron, "and that's what we're looking for, vulnerability. When we have enough facts, evidence of a near-global conspiracy within the industrial countries, we can strike back."

"By exposing it?" asked Scofield quizzically, his eyebrows raised in doubt.

"It's one way," replied Sir Geoffrey, "but perhaps not the most profitable."

"What do you mean?" said Antonia.

"We want to eliminate the Matarese from international finance, not plunge the world's industries into chaos."

"How do you do that without exposing it?"

"Down and dirty, Toni," answered Pryce.

"We cut off the heads of the multiple snakes, leaving the extended bodies to whip around and strangle one another."

"Why, Cam, that's real poetic, kid," said Scofield.

"You could have taken a lit course at Harvard."

"I didn't know it had one."

"May we ask the children to stop playing in their sandbox," Leslie Montrose said firmly, turning to the MI-5 intelligence officer.

"Geof, I

think Toni has a point. How do we short-circuit the Matarese without exposing it?"

"I'll answer that, Leslie, after we hear from Brandon. Go on, you relic. Outside of Atlantic Crown, which we all know about and for which we grant you reluctant praise, what other progress?"

"You tell 'em, luv," said Bray, turning to Antonia.

"She keeps score, and I really shouldn't indulge my lessers."

"Even I was impressed," Toni admitted.

"From the materials he found and photographed in the Atlantic Crown files, combined with a computer-reduced summary of outstanding mergers, buy outs and hostile takeovers, he narrowed it all down and set up what you call a sting operation at the hotel in New York, along with Frank Shields." Antonia Scofield explained that her husband had confronted fourteen Matarese candidates from the most influential areas of American business.

"Four of the major players, who supposedly did not know one another, got together after meeting with Bray at an out-of-the-way restaurant in New York. Frank Shields's people took photographs from a distance. It's now on record."

"Well done, Brandon!" exclaimed Waters. ".. . Now, I'll bring you au courant here in London." Sir Geoffrey walked to the windows and closed the Venetian blinds, although the ear' '-evening light was not an impediment. He crossed to a slide projector at the head of the table and switched it on; a white square appeared on a screen at the end of the room. Waters pressed a button for the first slide. It was a photograph of a man running down a London street, his head turned as he looked behind him. He was a relatively tall, slender man, his legs disproportionately longer than his upper body, and dressed in a conservative business suit. The expression on his lean, high cheekboned face was one of surprise and fear. Additional slides showed him obviously gathering speed, twice more looking around, his features pinched, now close to panic. The slides ended with the subject rounding a corner; the screen went white, then dark, as Waters turned on the overhead neon lights. Sir Geoffrey, walking and standing by his chair, spoke.

"This was the man running from the flat of Amanda BentleySmythe, now established as an operative of the Matarese, just before her death was made public. We have identified him as Leonard Fredericks, an upper-level attache in the Foreign Office. His phone is tapped and he is currently under total surveillance by SIS, who coordinates with us. To date, since that day in Bayswater, he's not been in formal contact with anyone of consequence, he's merely a piece of furniture at the Foreign Office. Yet we're convinced he's the prime contact with the Matarese."

"Why not bring him in and break him?" said Pryce angrily.

"Because it would send a message we don't want to send, goddamn it!" exclaimed Scofield.

"Why, Your Holiness?"

"We're not close enough!" insisted Brandon.

"If there's a big snake in Amsterdam, we have to zero in on him first. By destroying the contact, you cut off the road to practicality."

"I may be crazy," said Colonel Montrose, "but I think I know what he means."

"So do I, and I really hate to admit it," agreed Cameron Pryce.

"It's like altering an electronic compass for a pilot lost in the mountains."

"You could find a cleaner metaphor, youngster, but essentially you're right. Let the unseen designer, who may not be as powerful as he thinks he is, continue to believe he has total control. Once his link to reality is shattered, he-or she-is isolated. That's when you break the Matarese circle. A key may be in the "K-Gracht' found in the Symond flat." AI believe I hear Beowulf Agate speaking," said Geoffrey Waters quietly.

"Come on, Geof, there's nothing mythical about it. You work from the large boulders down to the rocks, then even stones and pebbles, if you have to. Human behavior everywhere is pretty much the same, Taleniekov and I agreed about that."

"Beowulf Agate really has a vision," said Cameron Pryce quietly, almost to himself, staring at Scofield.

"Let's talk about the stones and the pebbles. What do we do, Bray?"

"Oh, that's simple," Scofield replied.

"I'm going to become a dedicated member of the Matarese."

"What?" The other four looked at one another, perplexed.

"Relax everybody, it's really very easy. Our Matarese mole, Leonard Fredericks, will encounter an emissary from Amsterdam-God knows I have enough information to make me believable."

"The guy's just a stringer, a damned good one but a stringer nevertheless," said Cameron.

"What do you think he can tell you?"

"I have no idea. It depends on the cards I'm dealt. I make statements, he reacts; I ask questions, he answers. One thing usually leads to another, the other to something else. It's sort of like instant mental tennis."

"How in heaven's name do you think you can get away with it?"

asked Sir Geoffrey, astonished.

"He doesn't know me, and the only photographs of my handsome face are twenty-nine years old and were once in the Agency files. I haven't been over here in, let's see, at least twenty-five years, so he won't have a clue."

"I

hate to add to that ego of yours," said Cameron, "but your reputation has definitely preceded you. Even Paravacini, while damning your soul to hell, acknowledged your talents. If he, an Italian, spoke so generously of you, you'd better believe that all of Matarese Europe knows who you are and what you're capable of."

"And certainly it wouldn't be difficult for their people to hunt down any number of men who were at Chesapeake or Peregrine," added Leslie.

"They could pick up clear descriptions of you."

"Also, Bray," said Antonia firmly, "Frank Shields freely admitted there was a covert Matarese inside the CIA!"

"To answer the lieutenant colonel first"-Brandon nodded, smiling at Montrose-"I'll just have to be a little more inventive, won't I? As to you, m'luv, the matter's easily disposed of. The minute Squinty heard from Cam that he had found me on Brass Twenty-six, all references to yours truly, including photographs, dossiers, et cetera, were removed from the Agency files and deleted in the computers."

"Not exactly true," interrupted Leslie.

"I was given a limited background on you and so was Ev Bracket."

"The operative word being 'limited," right?"

"There was enough. I could have picked you out of a crowd, if I had to. Also Toni."

"And what did you do with this limited material, Colonel?"

"What we were ordered to do in each other's presence. Together, Everett and I burned our copies."

"No one else saw them?"

"Of course not. It was restricted data."

"And I presume you haven't been in touch with any of the elusive Matarese."

"Please, Brandon, I'm not a fool, so don't treat me like one."

"I emphatically agree," said Antonia.

"I wouldn't do that," said Scofield, "because you're not a fool, you're a superb officer. My point is that whatever information the Matarese has on me is also limited, very limited and probably very exaggerated. Despite my charm, good looks, and certain abilities in weaponry, I appear to be an average sixty-something-year-old American.

A perfectly ordinary fellow."

"When pigs fly over the moon and cows give bourbon," said Pryce softly, slowly shaking his head.

The meeting with the Foreign Office's Leonard Fredericks, second director of European Economic Negotiations, was arranged with all the finesse and secrecy for which Sir Geoffrey Waters was noted within the intelligence community. The arranging began with a perfectly normal request to the Foreign Office. It was to assign a high-level director of European Economic Negotiations to meet with a prominent American banker who had vigorously complained about the FO's policy of accepting Euro-Comm's rates of exchange over those of the World Bank.