The Matarese Countdown (37 page)

“What’s the nature of his assignments?”

“He’s an elite hog in Army intelligence. My mother was trained in high technology, like computers and stuff. It’s a subdivision of G-Two, and Uncle Ev called upon her a lot, I guess.”

“Why did he pick her for a supposedly dangerous undercover operation?”

“Darned if I know. After Dad died he was kind of a surrogate father to me, and the last thing I think he’d ask her to do was to go into a dangerous situation. It doesn’t make sense!”

“Now, listen to me carefully, Jamie, and try to remember. When,
exactly
, did you get the word from Washington—through the head of your school—that you were to leave and go to Kennedy Airport in New York?”

“It was a Friday, I don’t remember the exact date, but it was before the weekend.”

“Now, again, as precisely as you can recall, prior to that Friday, when did you last talk to your mother?”

“A few days before, maybe three or four. Just a regular call, about how my classes were going and stuff like that.”

“And you didn’t talk to her after that?”

“No, there wasn’t any reason to.”

“Then can we assume she didn’t try to reach you during those three or four days?”

“I know she didn’t.”

“How so?”

“In Paris, at the airport, I told the two men who met me that I had to call a cousin of mine who lives there because Mom told me to. It kind of threw them, but I got the impression that they didn’t want to rock the boat, so they let me, practically breathing down my neck by the phone.”

“
So?
”

“I have one of those phone cards, you know, the kind you can use anywhere, and I sure know the numbers to reach the States and the school—”

“You do?” interrupted Considine.

“Hey, Lieutenant—Luther, I spent a few years as a traveling Army brat, remember? But most of my friends, even when I was a kid, are in Virginia, which is our real home.”

“So you were on the phone, and I presume you called your school, not any nonexistent cousin.”

“Oh, Kevin exists all right. He’s a lot older than me and he goes to graduate school at the Sorbonne.”

“A very impressive family. But you
did
reach your school.”

“Sure did. Olivia was on the switchboard; she’s a scholarship student and we’ve got kind of a thing going, if you know what I mean.”

“I’ll try to remember.…
And?
”

“Well, she knew it was me, and I asked her if my mother had tried to call me—the switchboard keeps records. She said Mom hadn’t, so I pretended I was talking to Cousin Kevin and hung up. I’ll have to apologize to Livvie for that.”

“Do so,” said Considine, his fingers massaging his forehead. “That’s also another phone call you didn’t tell me about.”

“I guess I forgot. But I told you all about that big house over the bridges, and the guards, and how I couldn’t call anybody and how I was kept in a room with bars on the windows and everything.”

“And how you escaped,” agreed the pilot, “which was remarkable in itself. You must be a tough kid; your hands were a mess but you kept going.”

“I don’t know about tough, I just knew I had to get out of there. The things my warden, Amet—I called him a warden—kept repeating sounded like a broken record and about as convincing. After all those days nobody could figure out how to get my mother and me on the phone together. That’s bullshit!”

“And undoubtedly timed down to hours, if not minutes,” mused Luther Considine, abruptly standing up.

“What do you mean?”

“If you’re straight-arrow, and I’m pretty well convinced you are, the bad guys had to get you out of the country before your momma joined this undercover operation, said operation probably the only truthful thing your kidnappers told you.”

“I don’t get it, Luther.” Jamie frowned in bewilderment.

“It’s the only thing that
does
make sense,” said the pilot, glancing at his watch. “Whatever your mother’s involved in concerns the maggots who snatched you, and it’s got to be mighty heavy.”

“Come again?”

“Kidnapping’s big-time
any
time, and kidnapping the kid of an Army officer attached to government security is executioner’s meat. They took you out of the loop and pulled you into another. Theirs.”

“But
why?
”

“So they’ve got a hook into Mother Montrose.” Considine walked toward the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Get some rest, some sleep, if you can. I’ll keep the red letters on, no one’ll bother you.”

“Where are you going?”

“You’ve described the place where they kept you in damn clear detail, and I’ve wandered all over the Bahrainian territory. I’ve got several ideas where it could be; there aren’t too many areas where estates like that are built. I’ll bring along a Polaroid with a dozen or so cartridges of film. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Julian Guiderone was relaxing alone in his Lear 26 jet on the way to his home in Bahrain, in many ways the seat of his immense financial empire. He always enjoyed Bahrain, its comforts and its lifestyle. Manama was hardly as enticing as Paris or as civilized as London, but if there was ever a place on earth where the term
laissez-faire
was purely applied, it was Bahrain. Noninterference was its credo, and went beyond
economics and the marketplace to the soul of the individual, even more so, of course, if he was among the rich.

Julian had friends there, though not close friends—he had no close friends; they were an impediment—and he considered having several small dinner parties, inviting a few royal pretenders, but mainly bankers and oil barons, the true royalty.

His sky pager buzzed, cutting short his reverie. He pulled it out of his pocket, alarmed to see that the party calling him was in the area code 31, the Netherlands. The number itself was meaningless, for it was false. There was only one person who would call. From Amsterdam. Jan van der Meer Matareisen. He reached for the telephone cradled in the console of his air desk.

“I’m afraid I have terrible news, sir.”

“Everything’s relative. What’s terrible one minute can be beneficial the next. What is it?”

“The package we transferred via Paris to the Middle East has disappeared.”

“
What?
” Guiderone bolted forward with such force that the metal buckle on his seat belt dug painfully into his stomach. “You mean the parcel’s
lost?
” he choked, wincing as he gripped the buckle, disengaging it. “Have you
looked
for it, really
searched?
”

“We’ve got our best personnel on it. Not a trace.”

“Keep looking—
everywhere!
” The son of the Shepherd Boy gasped, trying to find some measure of control. “In the meantime,” he began slowly, collecting his thoughts, “I’ve leased the
boat
, the
big
boat, so clean it out, completely
out
. Also, release the crew, the
entire
crew, and send them to our marina in Oman, to Muscat. The sheikh who’s taking it has his own people.”

“I understand, sir. It will all be accomplished before the day is over.”

“But for God’s sake, keep searching for the package!” Guiderone slammed down the phone and yelled out, “
Pilot?
”

“Yes,
signore?
” came the voice from the flight deck only eight feet away.

“How is our fuel?”

“Plenty. We’ve only been airborne for twenty-two minutes,
signore
.”

“Enough to fly me to Marseilles?”

“Easily,
signore.
”

“Alter our flight plan and do so.”

“Immediately, Signor Paravacini.”

Paravacini
. A name from the forgotten annals of the Matarese, but for the few who knew, the name struck, if not terror, certainly grave concern. The firm of Scozzi-Paravacini, created through marriage between the two families, had been absorbed by other interests over the years, but Guiderone’s use of the name served him well in certain parts of the world. Legends die slowly, especially those born and expanded in fear.

Although Count Scozzi had been among the first of the Barone Guillaume de Matarese’s recruits in the early twentieth century, he became a figurehead. With the family’s fortune waning, a marriage was arranged between a Scozzi daughter and a son of the rich but brutal Paravacinis.

As the years passed, the once inseparable Scozzis and Paravacinis, who owned estates only several miles from each other on the renowned Lake Como, Italy’s
internazionale lago a celebre
, grew so estranged neither acknowledged the other. In time, the estrangement became ugly. Several invaluable executives, known to favor the Scozzis, were murdered, the killers believed to be in the hire of the Paravacinis, although there was no proof. Then an heir of the Scozzi family was found dead, supposedly drowned, his body washed up on the banks of the Como. The police of Bellagio, in fear of the reputedly violent Paravacinis, neglected to report that there was a tiny puncture, as if inflicted by an ice pick, through the chest cavity of the corpse, penetrating the heart. The authorities had good reason to be circumspect, for the Paravacinis had borne male children who grew up to be priests, important priests,
Vaticano
emissaries! One treaded cautiously under the circumstances.

The Scozzis, through their
avvocatos
, their attorneys, sold their interests to another great Italian consortium, the Tremontes, a family rooted in immense wealth as well as Judeo-Christian ethics. And who would know both better? For the Tremontes began their climb to international fame with the union of a brilliant Italian Jew and an equally astute Roman Catholic. Both church and synagogue frowned, but the largesse that followed to both religions muted their criticism.

Here,
now
, however, Julian Guiderone considered, the legend of the Paravacinis was still operative in the Mediterranean, especially in Italy. One did not play loose with a Paravacini, for one could be dead within hours if he did.
Perception
. That was the key.

As for the Tremontes and their holier-than-thou philosophy, the death of their polo-playing advocate in America might reduce their antipathy to the Matarese. They knew that others could follow, it was the prophecy of the Paravacinis. They had to heed it, for all death ultimately becomes intensely personal.

What bothered Guiderone to the point of paranoia was the emergence of a stench he could not tolerate. The pig of the world,
Beowulf Agate!
He was operating again, as he did a quarter of a century ago!
He
was the mind behind the search, a convoluted brain that looked for the impossible. He had to be stopped,
killed
, as he was supposed to have been at the Chesapeake compound. Julian would issue the order in Marseilles.
Kill
Brandon Alan Scofield. No matter the cost!

The Air Force F-16 flew from Wichita directly to the Cherokee field seven miles north of Peregrine View. A CIA vehicle was waiting for a disheveled Scofield, taking him swiftly to the former resort as the early-morning sun washed over the Great Smoky Mountains. Bray was only mildly surprised when, after greeting Antonia, he heard a familiar voice calling from the kitchen.

“I hope you got some sleep on the plane,” yelled Frank
Shields, “God knows I didn’t! That damned turbo pilot had a talent for steering into every stretch of rotten weather from Andrews to here.” The CIA analyst appeared at the kitchen door carrying a mug of coffee. “I suppose you want a cup of this,” he added.

“I’ll get it, Frank,” interrupted Toni. “You just bawl him out, he deserves it.” She walked past Shields into the kitchen. “I’ll make some eggs for him. He’s a mess and I’m an idiot.”

“I should, you know,” said the analyst, coming into the living room and staring at Scofield’s sweat-stained combat fatigues. “Yell at you, I mean. What the hell are you dressed as, an extra in a Rambo movie?”

“It served its purpose, Squinty. If I’d worn a suit, I’d be hanging out in a Kansas jail.”

“I’ll take your word for it, just don’t explain. I’d like a little deniability.… I assume you’ve already depleted the ten thousand I authorized.”

“I’ve only just begun to spend the rest of it. When you see what I’ve brought home to Mother Goose, my friend from the old Stasi will require his
hundred
thousand.”

“Everything’s subject to interpretation, Brandon, including reconnoitered materials.”

“Such fancy language—”

“However, first things first,” broke in Shields in utter seriousness. “What about the Montrose boy? I’ve stated my reservations and you told me you might have some ideas. What are they?”

“Pretty simple,” replied Scofield. “You said the kid was with a naval officer, a pilot, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Leslie’s son literally picked him out of a crowd in Manama. He’s a fighter pilot on the
Ticonderoga
, a squadron leader, name of Luther Considine, with a hell of a reputation. The brass think he’s a real comer, War College candidate, and all that goes with it.”

“The boy picked a bright guy.”

“Obviously.”

“So deal through
him
,” Scofield said.

“What?”

“The kid apparently trusts him, so talk to this Considine. Be honest with him, it’s all you’ve got left. You have to tell Leslie her son’s out of danger and in safe hands, it would be unthinkable not to.”

“I agree, but there’s a problem. James junior can’t be found. He’s disappeared—”

“He’s
what?
”

“That’s the latest word. They can’t be sure; they don’t think he got off the carrier, but they can’t find him.”

“Ever been on an aircraft carrier, Squint Eyes?”

“Christ, you’re annoying! No, actually, I haven’t.”

“Visualize most of Georgetown and float it on water, that’ll give you an idea. Junior could be anywhere, it could take days, maybe weeks, to find him, if he’s mobile, as he obviously is.”

“That’s ridiculous! He has to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom—eventually somebody will
see
him.”

“Not if he’s got help, say a naval officer who’s befriended him.”