The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

"You're insolent."

"He should know better," repeated the MI-6 agent, walking in front of the guard toward the staircase.

Cameron touched the shoulders of the two commandos flanking him. It was the silent signal. As one, and in thick-rubber-soled boots, they rose from behind the piano, inched forward, and as choreographed, Pryce hammer locked the guard, removing his weapon while he spastically choked. The second MI-6 officer hauled the unconscious man across the wide room, pulled wire and industrial tape from his pockets.

"There's no one on the second floor," said Cam quietly to the other two.

"And we can't waste a couple of heartbeats. Matareisen's waiting, no doubt positioning his number two guard. We go up the third flight back-to-back. Are your silencers attached?"

"They've never been unattached," replied the commando who had used the street entrance. The third man of the assault team returned.

"He's out?" asked Pryce.

"For the duration and then some. I gave him a needle of juice in his neck."

"Criminy, you're a sadist-" "Better that than bloody sorry."

"Shut up. Let's go!"

Starting with the third flight of steps, the unit formed a circle, back-to back and glided noiselessly up the staircase. Suddenly, the commando who had manipulated the alarm deactivator fired his weapon; a figure collapsed from out of a dark corner on the third-floor landing, the silenced bullet having found its mark, a skull shot that left no time for human sound.

"There's a door and I'll wager it's our host's."

"Why?" asked the needle-wielding commando.

"He was across from it."

"It works for me," whispered Cameron.

"Team effort, fellas?"

"We're with you, sir."

"No 'sirs," please. This is an equal-opportunity assignment. You know a hell of a lot more about this kind of thing than I do."

"I'd say you were holding your own, old boy. That was a nice hammer you executed."

Shoulders touching, like a human battering ram, the four raced forward. With a thundering crash, the heavy wooden door was literally exploded off its lock and hinges, the result of nearly a ton of sheer strength. A stunned Jan van der Meer Matareisen stood in the center of the room in a blue velvet smoking jacket, his legs encased in loose fitting white silk pajamas.

"Good God!" he roared in Dutch.

And then he took the most improbable action imaginable under the circumstances. Before weapons could be drawn, he attacked. His less than-imposing body instantly became a whirling dervish, legs, feet, and arms thrusting, kicking, and spinning like a dozen rotor blades. Within seconds he had immobilized two of the unprepared, unsuspecting commandos, who lay prone on the floor, trying to shake the agony and the numbness from their heads and spines. The third was squatting in a corner holding his throat.

Eyes on fire, van der Meer focused on Cameron.

"You're fortunate, American, I don't really need a gun, or else you'd be dead by now!" he spat out.

"You're good, I'll say that for you."

"More terrible than your worst nightmares, Mr. Pryce."

"You know who I am?"

"We've been tracking you since-what is it called? Brass Twentysix?"

"The gunboat. The Harrier jet. You killed a lot of fine young men who were simply doing their jobs."

"Too bad you survived the Harrier. You won't now!" With these words shrieked and echoing off the walls, Matareisen again became a dervish, the propellers closing in on Cameron. He reached for the weapon in his webbed belt; the instant it was in his hand it flew out, the result of an accurate, brutalizing kick. Pryce recovered from the blow, took a step backward, planted his left foot, and zeroed in on van der Meer's right leg. The kick came; he grabbed the silk, digging his fingers into the flesh beneath, and violently twisted the muscular limb counterclockwise. Matareisen's body, its balance momentarily lost, pivoted in midair as Cam lunged forward, propelling the Dutchman into the wall. A sickening thud accompanied the Hollander's impact, his head taking the punishment, rendering him unconscious. He lay on the floor in a fetal position, a champion of the martial arts reduced to his former unimposing self.

One by one, the commandos revived, bruised but game.

"What the hell was that?" cried the front-entrance MI-6 officer, staggering to his feet.

"An army of ninjas, if you ask me," replied the alarm expert.

"A bloody maniac in fancy dress," said the agent of needles.

"I

think I'd better give him a little juice."

"It's safe, isn't it?" asked Pryce.

"Too much of that stuff can mess up the head, and we want his intact."

"You just did more to his head than my sweeteners could do with ten syringes."

"Okay, go ahead." Cameron reached into his field jacket and removed a rolled-up set of plans. They were from the early-twentiethcentury archives and rendered the architectural details of the house on the Keizersgracht. As the agent administered the needle to Matareisen, Pryce walked out to the hallway landing, followed by the other two.

"According to these," he said, "there's a floor above this one, but the staircase ends here."

"You can tell that from the outside," added the alarm deactivator.

"There are window frames on the top."

"How do we get up there?" posed the second intelligence officer.

"Probably the elevator, which is undoubtedly programmed," said Cameron, crossing to the locked, brass-grilled elevator shaft.

"It's obviously off-limits. That's a false ceiling up there. See the slits? It's movable."

"Why don't we bring up the lift?"

"Why not?" answered Pryce.

"We can work from inside, try to break through."

"Easier than falling down three flights in the shaft. We've got tools in the canal boat, should I get them?"

"Please."

A sweat-producing hour later, using battery-driven drills and saws, Pryce and the unit r

emoved the false ceiling. Hand over hand, foot by foot, they scaled the vertically ribbed shaft to the steel door on the top floor. Once again employing a clay like globule packed and fired around the release area, they slid back the steel panel and pulled themselves up and out onto the off-limits fourth floor. What they saw astonished each man.

"It's a ruddy communications center!" exclaimed the alarm expert.

"Like in a nuclear headquarters," said the stunned deliverer of sweeteners.

"It's goddamned scary!" intoned the third commando.

"Look at that, the whole wall is a map of the world!"

"Welcome to the inner sanctum of the Matarese," said Cameron softly, breathlessly.

"The what?"

"Never mind. It's what we came for." Pryce took out his powerful military walkie-talkie, tuned in to Luther Considine and Montrose in the Bristol Freighter aircraft at Schiphol Airport.

"Luther?"

"What's up, spook?"

"Pay dirt with bonuses."

"That's nice to hear. Can I go home now?"

"You've only just begun, my man. Right now we need Leslie. Tell the Brit patrol to bring her to the target area. Three-ten Keizersgracht, street entrance, unmarked vehicle."

"She's asleep."

"Wake her up."

Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Montrose was, if possible, more astonished than Pryce and the commandos, for she understood the scope of what she was examining. She walked up the aisle between the sets of computers to the elevated console in the center.

"These aren't merely world-class, they're world-class-plus. Direct satellite transmissions, traffic scramblers, instantaneous alternate routings-good Lord, this whole setup rivals anything at the Strategic Air Command or Langley. It must have cost millions, and considering what's exclusively designed for them in space, probably billions."

"That means a mountain of complexities, right?"

"Several mountains, Cam."

"To make progress in pulling up whatever's in this equipment, you'll need help, also right?"

"All I can get and as quickly as possible."