The Matarese Circle (65 page)

“That’s pretty substantial, isn’t it?”

“Panasonic can’t compare.”

“What about Europe?”

“Well, we know about Verachten.” Goldman pursed his lips. “Then, of course, there’s Amsterdam; the law firm there is Hainaut and Sons, which leads me to think that Trans-Comm’s bought into Netherlands Textiles, which is an umbrella for a score of companies ranging from Scandinavia to Lisbon. From here we can head over to Lyon.…” The lawyer stopped, and shook his head. “No, that probably tied in with Turin.”

“Turin?” Bray sat forward.

“Yes, they’re so close together, the interests so compatible, there’s no doubt prior ownership buried in Turin.”

“Who in Turin?”

“The law firm’s Palladino-e-LaTona, which can only mean one company—or companies. Scozzi-Paravacini.”

Scofield went rigid. “They’re a cartel, aren’t they?”

“My God, yes. They—
it
—certainly is. Agnelli and Fiat get all the publicity, but Scozzi-Paravacini runs the Colosseum and all the lions. When you combine it with Verachten and Netherlands Textiles, throw in Yakashubi, add Singapore, and Perth, and a dozen other names in England, Spain, and South Africa I haven’t mentioned, the
Alabaster Bride of Boston has put together a global federation.”

“You sound as if you approve.”

“No, actually I don’t. I don’t think anyone can when so much economic power is so centralized. It’s a corruption of the Malthusian law; the competition is false. But I respect the reality of genius when its accomplishments are so obviously staggering. Trans-Communications was an idea born and developed in the mind of one man. Nicholas Guiderone.”

“I’ve heard of him. A modern day Carnegie or Rockefeller, isn’t he?”

“More. Much more. The Geneens, the Lucases, the Bluedhorns, the wonderboys of Detroit and Wall Street, none of them can touch Guiderone. He’s the last of the vanishing giants, a really benign monarch of industry and finance. He’s been honored by most of the major governments of the West, and not a few in the Eastern bloc, including Moscow.”

“Moscow?”

“Certainly,” said Goldman, nodding thanks to his wife, who was pouring a second stinger into his glass. “No one’s done more to open up East-West trade than Nicholas Guiderone. As a matter of fact I can’t think of anyone who’s done more for world trade in general. He’s over eighty now, but I understand he’s still filled with as much pee and vinegar as he was the day he walked out of Boston Latin.”

“He’s from Boston?”

“Yes, a remarkable story. He came to this country as a boy. An immigrant boy of ten or eleven, without a mother, traveling with a barely literate father in the hold of a ship. I suppose you could call it the definitive story of the American dream.”

Involuntarily, Scofield gripped the arm of the chair. He could feel the pressure on his chest, the tightening in his throat. “Where did that ship come from?”

“Italy,” said Goldman, sipping his drink. “Southern part. Sicily, or one of the islands.”

Bray was almost afraid to ask the question. “Would you by any chance know whether Nicholas Guiderone ever knew a member of the Appleton family?”

Goldman looked over the rim of his glass. “I know it,
and so does most everyone in Boston. Guiderone’s father worked for the Appletons. For the Senator’s grandfather at Appleton Hall. It was old Appleton who spotted the boy’s promise, gave him the backing, and persuaded the schools to take him. It wasn’t so easy in those days, the early nineteen hundreds. The two-toilet Irish had barely gotten their second john, and there weren’t too many of them. An Italian kid—excuse me,
Eye
talian—was nowhere. Gutter meat.”

Bray’s words floated; he could hardly hear them himself. “That was Joshua Appleton, the second, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“He did all that for this … child.”

“Hell of a thing, wasn’t it? And the Appletons had enough troubles then. They’d lost damn near everything in the market fluctuations. They were hanging on by the skin of their teeth. It was almost as if old Joshua had seen a message on some mystical wall.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guiderone paid everything back several thousand fold. Before Appleton was in his grave he saw his companies back on top, making money in areas he’d never dreamed of, the capital flowing out of the banks owned by the Italian kid he’d found in his carriage house.”

“Oh, my
God.…
”

“I told you,” said Goldman. “It’s one hell of a story. It’s all there to be read.”

“If you know where to look. And why.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Guiderone.…” Scofield felt as though he were walking through swirling circles of mist toward some eerie light. He put his head back and stared at the ceiling, at the dancing shadows thrown up by the fire. “
Guiderone.
It’s a derivative of the Italian ‘guida.’ A guide.”

“Or shepherd,” said Goldman.

Bray snapped his head down, his eyes wide, riveted on the lawyer. “What did you say?”

Goldman was puzzled. “I didn’t say it, he did. About seven or eight months ago at the U.N.”

“The United Nations?”

“Yes. Guiderone was invited to address the General Assembly; the invitation was unanimous, incidentally. Didn’t you hear it? It was broadcast all over the world.
He even taped it in French and Italian for Radio-International.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“The U.N.’s perennial problem. Nobody listens.”

“What did he say?”

“Pretty much what you just said. That his name had its roots in the word ‘guida,’ or guide. And that was the way he’d always thought of himself. As a simple shepherd, guiding his flocks, aware of the rocky slopes and uncrossable streams … that sort of thing. His plea was for international relationships based on the mutuality of material need, which he claimed would lead to the higher morality. It was a little strange philosophically, but it was damned effective. So effective, in fact, that there’s a resolution on this session’s agenda that’ll make him a full-fledged member of the U.N.’s Economic Council. That’s not just a title, by the way. With his expertise and resources, there’s not a government in the world which won’t listen very hard when he talks. He’ll be one damned powerful
amicus curiae.
”

“Did you hear him give that speech?”

“Sure,” laughed the lawyer. “It was mandatory in Boston; you were cut off the
Globe
’s subscription list if you missed it. We saw the whole thing on Public Television.”

“What did he sound like?”

Goldman looked at his wife. “Well, he’s a very old man. Still vigorous, but nevertheless old. How would you describe him, darling?”

“Just as you do,” said Anne. “An old man. Not large, but quite striking, with that look of a man who’s so used to being listened to. I do remember one thing, though—about the voice. It was high-pitched and maybe a little breathless, but he spoke extremely clearly, every phrase very precise, very penetrating. Quite cold, in fact. You couldn’t miss a word he said.”

Scofield closed his eyes and thought of a blind woman in the mountains above Corsica’s Porto Vecchio, twisting the dials of a radio and hearing
a voice crueler than the wind.

He had found the shepherd boy.

He had found him!

Toni, I’ve found him! Stay alive! Don’t let them destroy you. They won’t kill your body; instead, they’ll try to kill your mind. Don’t let them do it. They will go after your thoughts and the way you think. They will try to change you, alter the processes that make you what you are. They have no choice, my darling. A hostage must be programmed even after the trap is closed; professionals understand that. No extremity is beyond consideration. Find something within yourself—for my sake. You see, my dearest love, I’ve found something. I’ve found him. The shepherd boy! It is a weapon. I need time to use it. Stay alive. Keep your mind!

Taleniekov, the enemy I can’t bring myself to hate anymore. If you’re dead there’s nothing I can do but turn away, knowing that I’m alone. If you’re alive, keep breathing. I promise nothing; there is no hope, not really. But we have something we never had before. We have him. We know who the shepherd boy is. The web is defined now and it circles the world. Scozzi-Paravacini, Verachten, Trans-Communications … and a hundred different companies between each one. All put together by the shepherd boy, all run from an alabaster tower that looks over the city with a thousand eyes.… And yet there’s something else. I know it, I feel it! Something else that’s in the middle of the web. We who’ve ‘abused this world so well for so long’ develop instincts, don’t we? Mine is strong. It’s out there. I just need time. Keep breathing … my friend.

I can’t think about them any longer. I’ve got to put them out of my mind; they intrude, they interfere, they are barriers. They do not exist; she does not exist and I have lost her. We will not grow old together; there is no hope.… Now, move. For Christ’s sake, move!

He had left the Goldmans quickly, thanking them, bewildering them by his abrupt departure. He had asked only a few more questions—about the Appleton family—questions any knowledgeable person in Boston could answer. Having the information was all he needed; there was no point in staying longer. He walked now in the rain, smoking a cigarette, his thoughts on the missing fragment his instinct told him was a greater weapon than the shepherd boy, yet somehow part of the shepherd boy, intrinsic to the deceits of Nicholas Guiderone. What
was
it? Where was the false note he heard so clearly?

He knew one thing, however, and it was more than instinct. He had enough to panic Senator Joshua Appleton, IV. He would telephone the Senator in Washington and quietly recite a bill-of-particulars that began seventy years ago, on the date of April 4, 1911, in the hills of Porto Vecchio. Did the Senator have anything to say? Could he shed any light on an organization known as the Matarese which began its activities in the second decade of the century—at Sarajevo, perhaps—by selling political murder? An organization the Appleton family had never left, for it could be traced to a white skyscraper in Boston, a company honored by the Senator’s presence on its board of directors. The age of Aquarius had turned into the age of conspiracy. A man on his march to the White House would have to panic, and in panic mistakes were made.

But panic could be controlled. The Matarese would mount the Senator’s defenses swiftly, the presidency was too great a prize to lose. And charges leveled by a traitor were no charges at all; they were merely words spoken by a man who had betrayed his country.

Instinct. Look at the man—the
man
—more closely.

Joshua Appleton was
not
as he was perceived to be by the nation. The paternal figure whose appeal ran across the spectrum. Then what about the day-to-day individual? Was it possible that the everyday man had weaknesses he’d find infinitely more difficult to deny than a grand conspiracy leveled by a traitor? Was it conceivable—and the more Bray thought about it, the more logical it seemed—that the entire Korean experience had been a hoax? Had commanders been bought and medals paid for, a hundred men convinced by money to keep a vigil none gave a damn about? It would not have been the first
time war had been used as a springboard for a celebrated civilian life. It was a natural, the perfect ploy, if the scenario could be executed with precision—and what scenario could not be with the resources controlled by the Matarese?

Look at the man. The
man.

Goldman had brought the Appleton family up to date for Bray. The Senator’s official residence was a house in Concord where he and his family stayed only during the summer months. His father had died several years ago; Nicholas Guiderone had paid his last respects to the son of his mentor by purchasing the outsized Appleton Hall from the widow at a price far above the market, promising to keep the name in perpetuity. Old Mrs. Appleton currently lived on Beacon Hill, in a brownstone on Louisburg Square.

The mother. What kind of woman was she? In her middle seventies, Goldman had estimated. Could she tell him anything? Involuntarily perhaps a great deal. Mothers were much better sources of information than was generally believed, not for what they said, but for what they did not say, for subjects that were changed abruptly.

It was twenty minutes past nine. Bray wondered if he could reach Appleton’s mother and talk with her. The house might be watched, but not on a priority basis. A car parked in the Square with a view of the brownstone, one man, possibly two. If there were such men and he took them out, the Matarese would know he was in Boston; he was not ready for that. Still, the mother might provide a short cut, a name, an incident, something he could trace quickly; there was so little time. Mr. B. A. Vickery was expected at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, but when he got there he had to bring leverage with him. At the optimum, he had to have his own hostage; he had to have Joshua Appleton, IV.

There was no hope. There was nothing not worth trying. There was instinct.

The steep climb up Chestnut Street toward Louisburg Square was marked by progressively quieter blocks. It was as if one were leaving a profane world to enter a sacred one; garish neons were replaced by the muted flickering of gas lamps, the cobblestone streets washed clean. He reached
the Square, staying in the shadows of a brick building on the corner.

He took out a pair of small binoculars from his attaché case and raised them to his eyes, focusing the powerful Zeiss-Icon lenses on each stationary car in the streets around the fenced-in park that was the center of Louisburg Square.

There was no one.

Bray put the binoculars back in his attaché case, left the shadows of the brick building, and walked down the peaceful street toward the Appleton brownstone. The stately houses surrounding the small park with the wrought-iron fence and gate were quiet. The night air was bitterly cold now, the gas lamps flickering more rapidly with the intermittent gusts of winter wind; windows were closed, fires burning in the hearths of Louisburg Square. It
was
a different world, remote, almost isolated, certainly at peace with itself.