The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

"I'm getting out of here!

Tell Squinty I'll call collect from a pay phone, it's safer than the cell.

That's his signal to go on scrambler. Wish me luck, old girl!"

Scofield ran out of the office, closing the door behind him, and raced down the hallway to the staircase exit on the left. He pressed the crash bar, opening the thick fireproof panel, and quickly closed it while reaching down and picking up the small rubber doorstop. Suddenly, he heard the shouts of the guards on the floor inside. Apparently there was some kind of heated argument, and Bray immediately understood. No one had a passkey to the CEO's office. Every other door could probably be unlocked, but not McDowell's, and in all likelihood not Karastos's, the chief financial officer's, which had a door leading to his superior's suite. Goddamn it! thought Brandon, he hadn't the time to inspect the latter's room or rooms, much less the safe in the bookshelf. There was no point in dwelling over missed opportunities, he had to get out and reach Shields. Montrose's kid! Jesus!

Then he heard the orders yelled by someone who either had the authority or assumed it.

"Check the staircases! I'll call the Big Mac and tell the son of a bitch to give us the combination to get his fuckin' key! Suppose there was a fire? Would that asshole rather have his joint burn down than let us get in?"

"Kick the fuckin' door down!"

"It's layered steel, for God's sake. Besides, he'd take it out of my pay, the bastard!"

There was not only turmoil in the house of McDowell, but also in McDowell's fiefdom. The staircases. There were two others in this Tshaped section of the building. How many guards were there, and which of the three staircases would be checked first? Christ, probably all at once! Brandon plunged down the concrete steps as fast as he could, literally swinging around each landing as he held on to the railing. Breathless, his face drenched with sweat, his legs throbbing, he reached the bottom floor where he had entered. He paused, gasping for air, and trying to smooth out his Army-issue combat fatigues.

Footsteps! Several floors above on the staircase, perhaps four or five, and descending rapidly. He had no choice; he had to simply walk out, knowing that the guards were undoubtedly running around throughout the building. No time to think!

The guards were, at least one guard was. The blue uniform saw him emerge from the staircase, and ran forward.

"Hey, you!" shouted the heavy, middle-aged man, pulling his pistol from its holster.

"Not hey me, fella!" roared Beowulf Agate in a voice that echoed off the walls like a marching cadence.

"It's hey you! .. . I'm Colonel Chaucer, National Guard, Special Forces Security, and this company is a max-fax contractor for the government. We're wired into your alarm system."

"You're what-who?" asked the perplexed, overwhelmed patrol.

"You heard me, fella. We're wired because AC is developing some top-secret chemicals."

"The alarms just went off less than five minutes ago-" "Our vehicles patrol around the clock. We're never far away."

"Oh, my God-" "My men are scrambling around the whole complex. Now, hurry!

Check the northeast staircase, this one's clean. I'll rendezvous with my men." Scofield dashed to the exit door, turning at the last second.

"Tell everyone to stay inside! My people might shoot."

"Oh, my God!"

Brandon sped out of Wichita over back-country roads until he reached Route 96, the main highway, where he hoped to find a public telephone on the long, nearly deserted stretch of darkness. He found one, a dimly lit plastic shell covered with obscene graffiti. He inserted a coin and dialed an operator, which took what seemed to Bray time enough to fly to Washington, and placed a collect call to Frank Shields's secure home phone.

"Where are you, Brandon?"

"Where no wheat grows nor buffalo roam, Squinty. It's four something in the morning and all I can see is Kansas flat."

"All right, I'm on scrambler and it's hardly likely you could be intercepted."

"I'd say impossible."

"Still, don't mention names, only I will."

"Gotcha."

"First, did you get anything?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Antonia told me you were 'hunting," and I didn't have to ask any more, you lying bastard!"

"To answer your question, sir, I think I did find something. Now what's this about the missing item?"

"It's crazy, Bray. The boy's with an officer, a pilot assigned to our fleet base in Bahrain."

"And he won't talk to anyone but our Army lady, Toni explained that to me. What's your problem?"

"If I put them in touch, I could be signing both their death warrants.

Bahrain is one of the most progressive high-tech places on earth. Its mechanics can pull things from the ether as fast as we can. How can I take the chance of revealing where they both are?"

"Don't do anything until I get back, Squinty, I've got a couple of ideas. Send a military jet for me."

"Where, for Christ's sake?"

"How the hell do I know? I'm on a highway about ten miles from Wichita."

"Get back to the Wichita airport and call me. I'll tell you whom to contact."

Julian Guiderone, the son of the Shepherd Boy, sat at a table in Rome's Via Veneto, enjoying his morning caffe latte when his cellular phone beeped in his breast pocket. He pulled it out and spoke.

"The Shepherd," he said.

"Wichita has been compromised," reported the recognizable voice from Amsterdam.

"To what extent we do not know."

"Survivors?"

"Our two people. They weren't on the scene."

"McDowell and Karastos?"

"They were both at home. They were not involved."

"Yes, they were. Kill them, and sweep their offices."

The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ticonderoga was immense, a virtual city within itself, with the military equivalents of various stores, pharmacies, restaurants (mess halls), gymnasiums, offices, and rooms-single, double, and dormitory-style. And there were more corridors, alleyways, and abrupt corners than could be found in a Star Trek version of San Francisco's Chinatown. The farther one went below-decks, the less peopled were the drab steel hallways, albeit with more turns and hatchways and cargo holds than those above the waterline. At the moment, two figures were running up a low-ceilinged corridor, both rather conspicuous. One was a tall black officer who had to continually bend his frame so as not to collide with a lateral pipe, the other a young white male, a muscular teenager, his hands bound in fresh surgical gauze.

"Hurry up!" cried Lieutenant Luther Considine, his summer uniform unpressed and in need of cleaning.

"Where are we going?" asked an excited Jamie Montrose.

"Where I hope the officer of the watch and his bloodhounds won't find you!"

They came to a heavy metal door marked Authorized Personnel Only. Considine took out a key, unlocked it, and shoved it open. They walked into a small white-walled room with a long Formica table around which were brown-cushioned swivel chairs and a large screen on the right, a mounted slide projector on the left.

"What is this?" said Montrose junior.

"It's a debriefing room for pilots on top-secret runs."

"How'd you get the key, Lieutenant?"

"The security officer was my wing commander until the brass figured he was too smart or too blind to fly. He's still my roommate and thinks I'm having a tete-a-tete with a dark angel of mercy."

"That was very nice of him."

"Nice, schmice. I bailed him out of the casino on Rhodes. Take a chair and relax. I flip on this switch and the red letters outside say Do Not Enter."

"I don't know how to thank you, sir."

"You don't have to, Jamie. Just fill me in more, and remember, I could be busted to a swab-jockey if you shuffle me."

"Everything I've told you is the truth-" "I believe you!" interrupted Luther Considine, his black eyes glaring.

"I believe you because it's so nuts

and you're so young and you're the son of a fighter pilot we considered the best in the business, so why would you lie? But the captain, the four-striper driving this floating metropolis, thinks you ran out of my quarters and I can't find you because our intelligence officer ordered you to talk to Washington."

"No way!" insisted Montrose junior.

"You talk about shuffling, I've been shuffled enough!"

"Okay, okay. Let's go back. What exactly did the two government spook-jocks say to you at Kennedy International?"

"Not very much.. .. Basically that my mother had been assigned to an undercover operation and in case there were any leaks, they wanted me 'out of the loop."

" "What about their ID's? .. . Forget it, they could easily get fakes.

And you accepted what they told you?"

"Well, they seemed like really nice guys, you know? I mean, they were concerned, genuinely sorry about everything, and even got me on board the plane without any hassle over tickets and my passport and that sort of thing."

"Didn't you ask any questions?"

"I asked a lot of questions, but they didn't know much more than I did."

"What did they tell you?" said Considine, studying the youngster.