The Matarese Circle (62 page)

It was as if his thoughts had been spoken out loud. Toni opened her eyes, the focus imperfect, the recognition slight, but she knew him. Her lips formed his name, the sound a whisper.

“Bray?”

“You’ll be all right. They didn’t hurt you. The pain you feel is from chemicals; it will pass, believe that.”

“You came back.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go away again,
please
. Not without me.”

“I won’t.”

Her eyes suddenly widened, the stare glazed, her white teeth bared like a young animal’s caught in a snare that was breaking its back. A heartbreaking whimper came from deep inside her.

She collapsed in his arms.

Tomorrow, my love, my only love. Tomorrow comes with the sunlight, everyone knows that. And then the pain will pass, I promise you. And I promise you something else, my inopportune love so late in my life. Tomorrow, today, tonight … I will take the man who will bring this nightmare to a close. Taleniekov is right. We will break him—as no man has ever been broken—and the world will listen to us. When it does, my love, my only adorable love, you and I are free. We will go far away where the night brings sleep and love, not death, not fear and loathing of the darkness. We will be free because Beowulf Agate will be gone. He will disappear—for he hasn’t done much good. But he has one more thing to do. Tonight.

Scofield touched Antonia’s cheek. She held his hand briefly, moving it to her lips, smiling, reassuring him with her eyes.

“How’s the head?” asked Bray.

“The ache is barely a numbness now,” she said. “I’m fine, really.”

Scofield released her hand and walked across the room where Taleniekov was bent over a table, studying a road map. Without having discussed it, both men were dressed nearly alike for their work. Sweaters and trousers of dark material, tightly strapped shoulder holsters with black leather belts laterally across the chest. Their shoes were also dark in color, but light in weight, with thick rubber soles that had been scraped with knives until they were coarse.

Taleniekov now glanced up as Bray approached the table. “Out of Great Dunmow, we’ll head east toward Coggeshall on our way to Nayland. Incidentally, there’s an airfield capable of handling small jets south of Hadleigh. Such a field might be of value to us in a few days.”

“You may be right.”

“Too,” added the KGB man with obvious reluctance, “this route passes the Blackwater River; the forests are
dense in that area. It would be a … good place to drop off the package.”

“The dead man still hasn’t got a name,” said Scofield. “Give him his due. He’s Roger Symonds, honorable man, and I hate this fucking world.”

“At the risk of appearing fatuous, may I submit—forgive me, suggest—that what you do tonight will benefit that sad world we both have abused too well for too long.”

“I’d just as soon you didn’t submit or suggest anything.” Bray looked at his watch. “He’ll be calling soon. When he does, Toni will go down to the lobby and pay Mr. Edmonton’s bill—that’s me. She’ll come back up with a steward and take our bags and briefcases down to the car we’ve rented in Edmonton’s name and drive directly to Colchester. She’ll wait at a restaurant called Bonner’s until 11:30. If there are any changes of plans or we need her, we’ll reach her there. If she doesn’t hear from us, she’ll go on to Nayland, to the Double Crown Inn where she has a room reserved in the name of Vickery.”

Taleniekov pushed himself up from the table. “My briefcase is not to be opened,” he said. “It’s tripped.”

“So’s mine,” replied Scofield. “Any more questions?”

The telephone rang; all three looked at it—a moment suspended in time for the bell meant the time had come. Bray walked over to the desk, let the phone ring a second time, then picked it up.

Whatever the words he might have expected, whatever greetings, information, instructions or revelations that might have come, nothing on this earth could have prepared him for what he heard. Symond’s voice was a cry from some inner space of torment, a pain of such extreme that is was beyond belief.

“They’re all
dead
. It’s a
massacre!
Waverly, his wife, children, three servants … 
dead
. What in
hell have you done?
”

“Oh, my
God!
” Scofield’s mind raced, thoughts swiftly translated into carefully selected words. “Roger, listen to me. It’s what I tried to
prevent!
” He cupped the phone, his eyes on Taleniekov. “Waverly’s dead, everyone in the house killed.”

“
Method?
” shouted the Russian. “Marks on the bodies. Weapons. Get it all!”

Bray shook his head. “We’ll get it later.” He took his hand from the mouthpiece; Symonds was talking rapidly, close to hysterics.

“It’s
horrible
. Oh, God, the most terrible thing! They’ve been slaughtered … like animals!”

“
Roger!
Get hold of yourself! Now listen to me. It’s part of a pattern. Waverly knew about it. He knew too much; it’s why he was killed. I couldn’t reach him in time.”

“You couldn’t?… For the love of God … why
didn’t
you,
couldn’t
you … 
tell me?
He was the Foreign Secretary, England’s
Foreign Secretary!
Have you any idea the repercussions, the … oh, my
God
, a tragedy! A
catastrophe! Butchered!
” Symonds paused. When he spoke again it was obvious that the professional in him was struggling for control. “I want you down in my office as soon as you can get there. Consider yourself under detention by the British government.”

“I can’t do that. Don’t ask me.”

“I’m not asking. Scofield! I’m giving you a direct order backed up by the highest authorities in England. You will
not
leave that hotel! By the time you reached the lift, all the current would be shut off, every staircase, every exit under armed guard.”

“All right, all right. I’ll get to MI-Six,” lied Bray.

“You’ll be
escorted
. Remain in your room.”

“Forget the room, Roger,” said Scofield, grasping for whatever words he could find that might fit the crisis. “I’ve got to see you, but not at MI-Six.”

“I don’t think you
heard
me!”

“Put the guards on the doors, shut off the godamned elevators, do anything you like, but I’ve got to see you
here
. I’m going to walk out of this room and go down to the bar, to the darkest booth I can find. Meet me there.”

“I
repeat
—”

“Repeat all you want to, but if you don’t come over here and listen to me, there’ll be other assassinations—
that’s
what they are, Roger!
Assassinations
. And they won’t stop at a Foreign Secretary, or a Secretary of State … or a President or a Prime Minister.”

“Oh, my … 
God
,” whispered Symonds.

“It’s what I couldn’t tell you last night. It’s the reason you looked for when we talked. But I won’t put it on-record,
I can’t work in-sanction. And that should tell you enough. Get over here, Roger.” Bray closed his eyes, held his breath; it was now or it was not.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Symonds, his voice cracking.

Scofield hung up the phone, looking first at Antonia, then Taleniekov. “He’s on his way.”

“He’ll take you in!” exclaimed the Russian.

“I don’t think so. He knows me well enough to know I won’t go on-record if I say I won’t. And he doesn’t want the rest of it on his head.” Bray crossed to the chair where he had thrown his raincoat and travel bag. “I’m sure of one thing. He’ll meet me downstairs, and give me a chance. If he accepts, I’ll be back in an hour. If he doesn’t … I’ll kill him.” Scofield unzipped his bag, reached into it, and pulled out a sheathed, long-bladed hunting knife. It still had the Harrods price tag on it. He looked at Toni; her eyes told him she understood. Both the necessity and his loathing of it.

Symonds sat across from Bray in the booth of the Connaught lounge. The subdued lighting could not conceal the pallor of the Englishman’s face; he was a man forced to make decisions of such magnitude that the mere thought of them made him ill. Physically ill, mentally exhausted.

They had talked for nearly forty minutes. Scofield, as planned, had told him part of the truth—a great deal more of it than he cared to—but it was necessary. He was now about to make his final request of Roger and both men knew it. Symonds felt the terrible weight of his decision; it was in his eyes. Bray felt the knife in his belt; his appalling decision to use it if necessary made it difficult for him to breathe.

“We don’t know how extensive it is, or how many people in the various governments are involved, but we know it’s being financed through large corporations,” Scofield explained. “What happened in Belgravia Square tonight can be compared to what happened to Anthony Blackburn in New York, to the physicist Yurievich in Russia. We’re closing in; we have names, covert alliances, knowledge that intelligence branches in Washington, Moscow, and Bonn have been manipulated. But we have no proof; we’ll
get it, but we don’t have it now. If you take me in, we’ll never get it. The case against me is beyond salvage; I don’t have to tell you what that means. I’ll be executed at the first … opportune moment. For the wrong reason, by the wrong people, but the result will be the same. Give me
time
, Roger.”

“What will you give me?”

“What more do you want?”

“Those names, the alliances.”

“They’re
meaningless
now. Worse than that, if they’re recorded, they’ll either go further underground, cutting off all traces, or the killing, the terrorism, will accelerate. There’ll be a series of bloodbaths … and you’ll be dead.”

“That’s my condition. The names, the alliances. Or you will not leave here.”

Bray stared at the MI-Six man. “Will you stop me, Roger? I mean here, now, at this moment, will you?
Can
you?”

“Perhaps not. But those two men over there will.” Symonds nodded to his left.

Scofield shifted his eyes. Across the room, at a table in the center of the lounge, were two British agents, one of them the red-haired, stocky man he had spoken with last night at the moonlit playground in Guildford. There was no sympathy now, only hostility in his look. “You covered yourself,” said Scofield.

“Did you think I wouldn’t? They’re armed and have their instructions. The names, please.” Symonds took out a notebook and a ballpoint pen; he placed them in front of Bray. “Don’t write nonsense, I beg you. Be practical. If you and the Russian are killed, there’s no one else. I may not be in a class with Beowulf Agate and the Serpent, but I’m not without certain talents.”

“How much time will you give me?”

“One week. Not a day more.”

Scofield picked up the pen, opened the small notebook and began to write.

April 4th, 1911

Porto Vecchio, Corsica

Scozzi

Voroshin

Waverly

Appleton

Current:

Guillamo Scozzi—Dead

Odile Verachten—Dead

David Waverly—Dead

Joshua Appleton—?

Scozzi-
Paravacini
. Milan

Verachten Works. (Voroshin). Essen

Trans-Communications. Boston

Below the names and the companies, he then wrote one word.

Bray walked out of the elevator, his mind on air routes, accessibilities, and cover. Hours now took on the significance of days; there was so much to learn, so much to find, and so little time to do it all.

They had thought it might end in London with the breaking of David Waverly. They should have known better; the descendants were expendable.

Three were dead, three names removed from the guest list of Guillaume de Matarese for the date of April 4, 1911. Yet one was left. The golden politician of Boston, the man few doubted would win the summer primaries and without question the election in the fall. He would be President of the United States. Many had cried out during the violent sixties and seventies that he could bind the country together; Appleton was never so presumptuous as to make the statement, but most of America thought he was perhaps the only man who could.

But bind it for what? For whom? That was the most
frightening prospect of all. Was he the one descendant not expendable? Chosen by the council, by the shepherd boy, to do what the others could not do?

They would reach Appleton, thought Bray as he rounded the corner of the Connaught hallway toward his room, but not where Appleton expected to be reached—
if
he expected to be reached. They would not be drawn to Washington where chance encounters with State, FBI and Company personnel were ten times greater than any other place in the hemisphere. There was no point in taking on two enemies simultaneously. Instead, they would go to Boston, to the conglomerate so aptly named Trans-Communications.

Somewhere, somehow, within the upper ranks of that vast company, they would find one man—one man with a blue circle on his chest or connections to Scozzi-Paravacini or Verachten, and that man would whisper an alarm summoning Joshua Appleton, IV. They would trap him, take him in Boston. And when they were finished with him the secret of the Matarese would be exposed, told by a man whose impeccable credentials were matched only by his incredible deceit. It
had
to be Appleton; there was no one else. If they.…

Scofield reached for the weapon in his holster. The door of his room twenty feet down the corridor was open. There were no circumstances imaginable that allowed it to be
conceivably
left open by choice! There had been an intruder—intruders.

He stopped, shook the paralysis from his mind, and ran to the side of the door, pressing his back into the wall by the molding. He lunged inside, crouching, leveling his gun in front of him, prepared to fire.

There was no one, no one at all. Nothing but silence and a very neat room. Too neat; the road map had been removed from the table, the glasses washed, returned to the silver tray on the bureau, the ashtrays wiped clean. There was no evidence that the room had been occupied. Then he saw it—them—and the paralysis returned.