The Matarese Countdown (14 page)

“We have them. We will absorb companies with transfers of stock we already own, also through bankruptcy purchases that we’ll create with credit defaults through the banks we control, and, naturally, numerous mergers everywhere. Simultaneously, we will inflate, then drastically deflate, alternating currency markets, while downsizing our new corporations for cost and productive efficiencies.”

“Bravo,” mumbled the adviser, gazing admiringly at the younger man. “
Chaos
,” he added softly.

“Within a short time, overwhelming,” agreed Matareisen. “At first, merely thousands upon thousands of jobs will be lost, then millions—”

“
Everywhere
,” interrupted Guiderone. “Regional recessions will precede actual depressions, cutting across the economic and social spectrum. What next?”

“What else? The banks. We control or have close to majority interest in three hundred plus in Europe and sixteen in the U.K., if you separate England. We’ve made some headway in the Israeli and the Arab institutions by claiming support for their opposing positions, but we have to settle for influence, not control, certainly not with the Saudis or the Emirates. They’re all family-controlled.”

“And in America?”

“An extraordinary breakthrough. One of our people, a nationally recognized attorney from Boston—your home city, I believe—is brokering the merger of four of the largest banks in New York and Los Angeles with a European conglomerate. With their individual branches, we’ll control over eight thousand lending institutions in the United States and Europe.”

“ ‘Lending’ being the operative function, am I correct?”

“Of course.”

“And then what?”

“The capstone, Mr. Guiderone. Eight thousand branches routinely issuing lines of credit to over ten thousand major
corporations in major cities and states alone is maximum leverage.”

“The threat of closing down those lines of credit, am I again correct, Matareisen?”

“No, you are not.”

“I’m
not?
”

“There’ll be no threats, simply boardroom fiat.
All
lines of credit will be terminated. In Los Angeles, studios will shut down, motion pictures and television productions suspended. In Chicago, meat-packing plants, sporting enterprises, and real-estate developers will be in limbo, no hard money available. New York will be hit the hardest. The entire garment industry, which
exists
on credit, will be demolished, as well as the aggressive new owners of hotels with their interests in the nearby casinos in New Jersey. Their enterprises are funded by lines of credit. Cut off, they are nothing.”

“There’ll be utter madness! Protest rallies in scores of cities—utter madness!”

“I estimate that within six months, governments will face crises, out-of-control unemployment. Parliaments, congresses, presidia, and loose federations all will face catastrophe. Global markets will collapse, the people everywhere screaming for better conditions, demanding them.”

“For
change
, van der Meer, that elusive abstraction. And our people are prepared—
everywhere?
”

“Naturally. It is to their benefit, as well as their governments’, without whom they cannot exist and continue to thrive.”

“You really
are
a genius, van der Meer! To do it all so quickly, so efficiently.”

“It’s really not that difficult,
meneer
. The wealthy of the world want more riches while those below want the benefits of that wealth to provide jobs. It’s historically consistent. All one has to do is penetrate one or the other, or preferably both, and convince each that—as the Americans say—they’re being ‘screwed.’ The old Soviet Union appealed to the workers, who had no expertise. The economic conservatives
appeal to the entrepreneurs, who generally have no sense of a social contract.
We
have both.”

“So then we have control,” agreed Guiderone. “That was the dream, the vision of the Barone di Matarese. It is the only way. Except for the governments—he never envisioned that, only international finance.”

“He was of another time, and times have changed. We
must
control governments. The later Matarese understood that, of course.… My God, the
President
of the
United States?
You could have
done
that?”

“He would have been swept into office,” stated Guiderone quietly, a trancelike tone in his voice. “He was unstoppable—and he was ours. Christ in heaven, he was
ours!
” The older man turned toward the last sunlight streaming through the windows and continued, his voice cold with loathing. “Until he was cut down by the pig of the world.”

“Someday, when it’s feasible for you, I should like to hear the story of what happened.”

“It can never be told, my young friend, even to you, and there is none higher in my regard. For if that story, as you call it, ever saw the light of day, no government anywhere would be trusted by those it must govern. All I’ll say to you, van der Meer, is stay your course. It is the right one.”

“I prize your words, Mr. Guiderone.”

“You should,” said the elegant old man, turning back to Matareisen. “For while you are the grandson of the Barone di Matarese, I am the son of the Shepherd Boy.”

It was as though van der Meer Matareisen had been struck by a bolt of lightning, the thunder exploding within his skull. “I’m
stunned!
” he gasped, his eyes wide in shock. “It was said that he was killed—”

“He was ‘killed,’ but he did not die,” whispered Guiderone sotto voce, his own eyes dancing with amusement. “But it’s a secret you’ll take to your grave.”

“Of course, of
course!
Still, the Council—in Bahrain—surely they must know.”

“Oh, that! Frankly, I exaggerated. I frequently reside in Bahrain, but in truth, I am the Council, the others are avaricious mannequins. Live with it, van der Meer, I’ll simply
advise you.” There was a low hum on an intercom that was placed in the wall. Guiderone was startled; he glared at Matareisen. “I thought you were never to be disturbed while you were in here!” he said, his voice guttural now.

“It must be an emergency. No one knows you are here—my God, these are my private quarters, completely soundproof. The walls and floors are eight inches thick. I simply don’t know—”

“Answer it, you fool!”

“Yes, naturally.” Van der Meer, like a man coming out of a nightmare, rushed to the walled intercom and lifted the receiver. “
Yes?
I told you I’m never to be—” Obviously cut off by the voice on the line, he listened, turning pale. He hung up and stared at Julian Guiderone. “Word from Eagle in Washington,” he began, barely audible.

“Yes, that’s Langley. What is it?”

“Scofield survived the bombing. He’s on his way to the States with the woman and Cameron Pryce.”

“
Kill
him, kill them
all!
” ordered the son of the Shepherd Boy between clenched teeth. “If Scofield survived the trawler, he’ll come after us like a crazed bear—which is how it all began. He must be silenced; enlist everyone on our American payrolls! Kill him before he stops me again!”

“
Me
?…” Matareisen’s astonishment was now compounded by a terrible fear. It was in his eyes as he continued to stare at Julian Guiderone. “It was
you
then, you were our ultimate weapon. You were about to become the President of the United States!”

“It was a foregone conclusion, nothing could stop me—except the pig of the world.”

“That’s why you travel so secretly, with so many passports. Everywhere.”

“I’ll be forthright with you, van der Meer. We have different approaches to our responsibility. No one looks for a man declared dead nearly thirty years ago, but that man, that myth, remains alive to encourage his legions everywhere. He rises from the grave to propel them forward, a living, breathing human being, a
god
on earth they can feel, touch, and hear.”

“Without fear of exposure,” said the Dutchman, interrupting, studying the American Guiderone in a suddenly critical light.

“You, on the other hand,” continued the son of the Shepherd Boy, “work in darkness, never seen, never touched, never heard. Where are your soldiers? You don’t know them, you only give them orders.”

“I work internally, not externally,” protested Matareisen.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I formulate, I do not parade myself. I’m not a motion-picture star, I’m the brains behind the stardom. They all know that.”

“Why? Because of the money you distribute?”

“It is enough. Without me they are nothing!”

“I beg you, my brilliant young friend, to reconsider. You feed an animal too much, he becomes hostile, it’s the law of nature. Stroke the animal, it needs to be touched, felt, and to listen to a voice.”

“You do things your way, Mr. Guiderone, I’ll do them my way.”

“I pray we don’t collide, van der Meer.”

T
he sterile house on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay was the former estate of one of the wealthiest families on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It had been leased to the intelligence community for a dollar a year in exchange for the Internal Revenue Service washing away a mountain of unpaid taxes due to loopholes declared blatantly illegitimate. The government won both the battle and the war. It would have cost far more to purchase, legally rent, or even reconstruct such a desirable residence and location.

Beyond the stables and the fields was inhibiting marshland, more swamp than marsh, indigenous to untamed inland waterways. In front of the antebellum mansion was a huge manicured lawn sloping down to a boathouse and a long dock, the pier stretching out over the bay’s gentle waters, gentle when the Atlantic was at peace with itself, dangerous when it was not. Secured to the pilings were two crafts, a rowboat and a motorized skiff, each used to reach a thirty-six-foot yawl moored a hundred feet out in the bay. Unseen, in the boathouse, was a large low-slung Chris-Craft capable of forty knots an hour.

“The yawl’s there so you’ll have something to sail, if the spirit moves you,” Deputy Director Frank Shields had said
when he met the Navy jet that had flown Pryce, Scofield, and Antonia to the airfield in Glen Burnie.

“It’s a little beauty!” Bray had exclaimed, as later they walked across the lawn. “But is our taking a sail such a good idea?”

“Of course not, but every other estate like this has one or two boats, so it might appear irregular if you didn’t.”

“It’d also appear pretty irregular if it never left its mooring,” said Cameron Pryce.

“We understand that,” agreed his superior. “Therefore, it can be used for short outings under certain conditions.”

“What are they, Mr. Shields?” asked Antonia.

“The patrols are to be alerted an hour before and advised of your precise sailing route; they’ll precede you on the shore. Also, two guards must be with you, everyone wearing protective gear.”

“You think of everything, Squinty.”

“We want you to be comfortable, Brandon, not careless,” said Shields, his creased eyes abruptly pinched at Scofield’s use of the pejorative nickname.

“Considering that strip of the Okefenokee that covers the north forty, and the platoon of Agency gorillas, including that Army commando unit, to say nothing of a security system that belongs in Fort Knox, who the hell could get near us?”

“We trust nobody.”

“And speaking of security,” continued Scofield, “any progress with your mole or moles, courtesy of the Matarese?”

“None. That’s why our trust is limited.”

Living quarters, patrol schedules, and communications with Langley were all arranged by Shields himself. Whatever by necessity had to be typed out was numbered by copy and recipient, the mercury-layered paper incompatible with any duplicating equipment known. Copies would emerge as smudged straight lines, and should the electrified lens of a camera be employed, those same lines would turn yellow, evidence that a photograph had been taken.

Further, all those furnished with the schedules were ordered
to keep them on their persons at all times and be prepared to produce them instantly. In addition, no one was to leave the compound for
any
reason, which partially explained why, to a man—except for command personnel—each was single or unattached. Lastly, it was understood that all telephone calls would be monitored on tape.

Frank Shields was leaving nothing to chance. At the highest security level at the Agency, no progress whatsoever had been made in unearthing the Matarese mole or moles. From the top hierarchy to the lowest clerks and maintenance workers, personnel were scrutinized. Background checks were duplicated and triplicated, bank accounts, lifestyles, even the most insignificant odd habits studied. There would be no Aldrich Ames buried as part of the furniture.

The frustrating aspect of the whole exercise was that those select few doing the unearthing had no idea why they were doing it. There was no Cold War, no centralized Russian enemy, no terrorist organization specifically targeted, no cogent leads—just the order to search for
everything. For
what,
for Christ’s sake? Give us a clue!

Aberrations! Strange behavior, especially among the better-educated personnel. Pastimes or hobbies that appeared beyond their incomes; clubs or associations they couldn’t afford; cars they owned; jewelry their wives or lovers wore; and how was it paid for? If there were children in expensive private schools, who covered the tuitions? Anything,
everything
.

“Give us a
break
,” exclaimed one researcher. “You’re talking about half the clowns in the top floors! Some cheat on their wives, what’s new? Others make quiet deals on schools, real estate, and cars, ’cause they flash their Langley ID’s—those plastic cards are secret persuaders. A number drink too much, and, frankly, I probably do, too, but not so much as to compromise ourselves. What’s the end product, or who is it? Give us a name, an objective,
anything.
”

“I can’t do that,” Deputy Director Shields had said to the chief of the research unit.