The Matarese Countdown (63 page)

“Because Leonard Fredericks, our mole in the Foreign Office, told you. Van der Meer overreached in a power play to reduce Julian’s leadership.”

“That was patently ridiculous. He’s the son—”

“Of the Shepherd Boy,” completed Pryce quickly. “If
you tried to reach van der Meer, you’d be told he’s out of the country on business.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s regrouping. He could be anywhere.”

“Good
Lord!
This is terrible, potentially
catastrophic
.”

“It could be. But my money’s on Guiderone, my life as well, I suppose. He’s the real power. He’s the one we all know—everywhere. From the Mediterranean to the North Sea, from Paris and London to New York and Los Angeles. Van der Meer may create the blueprints, the arrangements, in his tower on the Keizersgracht, but Guiderone implements them. He’s trusted; van der Meer is an unknown, the unseen money tree, not a person. He can’t operate without the son of the Shepherd Boy.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying? We’re in a crisis!”

“Not yet. Everything remains on schedule with Guiderone calling the signals.”

“If that’s the case,” said the attorney, enormously relieved, “I’m not sure why you had to reach me.”

“Guiderone wants to make sure of your loyalty.”

“Under the circumstances, he has it. Why would he doubt it?”

“Because your employer and close friend, Albert Whitehead, has jumped ship. He’s thrown in with van der Meer, staying with the money tree.”

“
What?
”

“He doesn’t know how quickly that tree could wither.”

“He’s never mentioned
any
of this to me,” said the astonished Nichols, his voice strained. “It’s incredible!”

“And you mustn’t mention that we met. This conversation never took place.”

“You don’t
understand
. We’ve never had professional secrets between us. Certainly not in this area. It’s unthinkable!”

“Not anymore.… Mr. Guiderone will handsomely reward you if you keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll leave you the number of a phone drop, and if you learn anything, or even if Whitehead displays strange behavior, call it and
leave word that … the ‘attorney’ was checking in, that’s good enough. I’ll reach you and we can meet somewhere.”

“I used the word ‘unthinkable,’ and that’s what this is. It’s unthinkable that I should be spying on Albert.”

“You’ll thank me later, and the son of the Shepherd Boy will not forget. You’re a damned fine lawyer, perhaps you’ll head up our international legal department when we’re in control. I’m leaving now. Hold out your hand and I’ll give you the number of the phone drop. I’ve written it out.”

Pryce left the steam room, billows of mist sucked briefly through the open door. Remaining inside, a perplexed, terrified Stuart Nichols sat staring at the wet walls, a man in torment, and in conflict with himself.

Cameron changed rapidly, led by the CIA “trainer” into a deserted room where he had left his clothes. Out on the street in the bustling, horn-blowing early-morning traffic, he analyzed his meeting with the Matarese attorney. As with Albert Whitehead, it had gone well. The seeds of dissension had been sown, and into the mix had been added the demand for silence, an intolerable combination. If orthodoxy was conformist, which it usually was, the targets would be under such stress that enormous mistakes could be the result, quickly escalating up the Matarese ladder. That’s what they, the good guys, would be monitoring. It was odd, in a way, for according to Frank Shields’s transcripts of the conference in the New Jersey countryside, it was all part of the truth. Part of the truth; that was essential.

“I’ll be leaving you,” said the CIA case officer, Scott Walker, in the Marblethorpe suite, “but we may meet up again in Philadelphia, where the fourth subject is.”

“I hope so, Scott,” said Leslie, “you’ve been a great help.”

“I haven’t done anything, Colonel, and if I did, I don’t know what it is. I’m just a facilitator. However, I’ve given Lieutenant Considine the sealed orders for your flight to Florida, where your third subject is. You’ll be met by a
colleague, Dale Barclay. He’s as much in the dark as I am, but he’s tops—”

“As in ‘top-flight’?”

“That’s a special category, sir. He’ll take over my job, following the instructions of the deputy director.”

“Don’t you fellows ever get curious?” asked Leslie.

“Not when we’re told not to, Colonel.”

“Good answer,” said Pryce.

Jamieson Fowler, utilities tycoon and a major U.S. force in the Matarese, operated out of the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach proper. He was constantly on the phone to Tallahassee, the state’s capital, using his own personal scrambler—easily invaded by the CIA—reaching high state officials, pressing his case for a vast network of electrical consolidation, and insinuating enormous bonuses, read bribes, if it came to pass. They certainly would comply. State politics is a losing game financially: a nice office, minor celebrity, and unless you’re an attorney with clients petitioning the state government, not a great deal of money. Fowler knew the buttons to press, on his telephone and in person with his guests at the Breakers, flown there on his private jet.

Not unlike Stuart Nichols in New York, he had a habit of exercising in the early morning, the result of a heart bypass several years ago. Not, however, in the hotel’s gym, but in the pool, at precisely eight o’clock, twenty laps each morning. Eight
A
.
M
. was not a popular time for the majority of the hotel’s guests. Frank Shields’s CIA “pool manager” made certain it was not. He locked the door after Pryce arrived at three minutes past eight, the outside sign reading, Pool Being Cleaned, Available in Thirty Minutes.

Jamieson Fowler and Cameron Pryce were alone in the luxurious surroundings. Each did several laps, Cam the far better swimmer, timing his fourth lap to coincide with Fowler’s reaching the far end and briefly stopping for breath.

“Nice pool,” said Cam.

“Yes, it is,” replied Fowler.

“Do you swim every day?”

“Absolutely. Eight o’clock sharp. Keeps the body in shape.”

“Yes, I’d think so, especially after a bypass.”

“What did you say?” Fowler put a pulsating right finger into his ear, as if to make certain what he heard.

“I’m from Amsterdam, and you have to be told. You can’t leave here until you listen to me, the door’s locked. The son of the Shepherd Boy stays here frequently and has many friends.”

“What the fuck
is
this? Who are
you?
”

“Mr. Guiderone claims that obscenity is basically a lack of vocabulary.”

“
I
don’t! It says what I mean.… I’m getting
out
of here!”

“I wouldn’t even try, if I were you.”

“What?”

“I told you, the door’s locked. You might as well listen.”

“To what?”

“To me. Let’s say I’m talking hypothetically.”

“I don’t like ‘hypothetically,’ I like straight talk!”

“All right, straight talk. Amsterdam, specifically the Keizersgracht, has learned that you’re very close to Benjamin Wahlburg—”

“I know him, that’s all. Generally, I don’t like Jews, but he’s better than most.”

“That’s very generous of you, but you should know that the Keizersgracht believes, with considerable evidence, that he’s been recruited by the Federal Trade Commission in Washington. He’s using you to get himself off the hook if our enterprise somehow fails—which it
won’t
. Everything’s in place, nothing can stop us.”

“Christ, it better not! I’ve got
billions
riding on it!”

“Stay away from Wahlburg. He’s the enemy.… Now,
I’m
getting out of here. I’ve delivered the message, the rest is up to you.” With these words, Pryce grabbed the tiled edge and lifted himself out of the pool. He walked to the door, rapped twice, and heard the click of the lock. He glanced back at Jamieson Fowler. The utilities power broker
was staring after him, his eyes wide, bulging in shock, his head barely above the water.

Benjamin Wahlburg was a complicated man. In his early years, he had been a dedicated socialist, bordering on the communist agenda. Capitalism, with its vicious economic cycles that oppressed the poor and the lower middle class, was anathema to him. Until he met a man, a professor of sociology from the University of Michigan, and a former socialist. The man had made a 180-degree philosophical turn. The trouble wasn’t capitalism, per se, it was the capitalists themselves. They had no sense of social responsibility, individual or corporate. The solution could only be found in changing the outlooks of the corporate rich.

Also a Talmudic scholar, Wahlburg found certain compassionate similarities between this concept and the Hebrew philosophy of the well-off taking care of the less fortunate of the tribe. The core of an idea took hold; the wandering, uncertain socialist made a decision. He would become the ultimate capitalist. Possessed of a brilliant financial mind, he joined a midlevel bank in Philadelphia on the basis of a thesis he submitted about where the bank should go in the bewildering fifties. In two years he became the vice president; in four, the president and the managing partner.

Inflating the bank’s assets, he bought other banks in the Pennsylvania area, followed by additional ones in neighboring states. Then, on the strength of paper values, other banks as far west as Ohio and Utah, soon thereafter in Nevada, and finally in California. The times were right, as he predicted; banks were in trouble. Buy low and sell high with the ultimately rising markets. Before he was thirty-five, Benjamin Wahlburg, the former socialist radical, was a force in American banking.

He was ripe for the Matarese. For the appeals of a global economy that would protect the underclasses. Yes, he understood that there
might
be a degree of violence, but the Old Testament was filled with fire, brimstone, and vengeance.
That’s how the world evolved. It was a sad commentary, but what else was new?

Benjamin Wahlburg was a monumental jerk.

However, he kept reminding himself that the ultimate goal was a far better, far fairer world. So he closed his eyes to the unpleasant, knowing in his heart that it was a justifiable evil, and looked forward to the promised land.

Philadelphia brought Scott Walker back into Pryce’s and Leslie’s lives, as sharp and as precise as ever. He met them at a private field on the outskirts of Chestnut Hill, handed Shields’s sealed instructions to Cameron, and drove them to a small hotel in Bala-Cynwyd, twenty-five minutes from the city. Again registered under false names, Luther Considine joined Pryce and Montrose to hear Cam read Frank Shields’s pages.

Wahlburg was a philanthropist, especially where the arts were concerned. He and his banks contributed heavily to the symphony, the opera, and the nonprofit theaters. A side privilege for the few largest contributors was to attend the final dress rehearsal before a specific cultural event took place. Tomorrow evening he was scheduled to attend the rehearsal of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he was to deliver a speech thanking and encouraging his fellow contributors. He would be alone, as his wife had died four years ago and he had never remarried.

Shields had arranged for the head usher—a CIA officer —to lead Wahlburg to an aisle seat in the sixteenth row, behind the sparse audience; the adjacent seat was to be occupied by Cameron. Once again, the target and Pryce would be alone.

Tomorrow evening came, Leslie and Luther in the back row, and after Wahlburg’s speech he sat next to Pryce, as the orchestra swung into the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth, the orchestral and choral rendition of the master’s “Ode to Joy.”

“Your speech was wonderful, Mr. Wahlburg,” said Cameron, whispering.

“
Shh, shh
, this is far more wonderful.”

“I’m afraid we have to talk—”

“We don’t talk, we
listen
.”

“I have it on good authority that you were willing to fly to the eastern Mediterranean to meet with Julian Guiderone if you could locate him. Why not listen to his words? I’m his messenger.”

“
What?
” Benjamin Wahlburg snapped his head toward Pryce, his face creased in fear and anxiety. “How could you possibly know such a thing?”

“Mr. Guiderone has sources beyond any we both possess.”

“Dear God in heaven!”

“Perhaps we should move to the rear of the theater.”

“You’re from
Guiderone
?”

“Shall we?” Cam nodded at the aisle on Wahlburg’s left.

“Yes, yes, of course.”

At the back of the concert hall, while the symphony orchestra segued into the soaring chorale of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” Benjamin Wahlburg heard the words that would change his life and his world, leaving him to wonder whether his life had been worth living or his world worth saving.

“There’s a severe crisis in Amsterdam,” began Pryce.

“We assumed something had drastically changed,” interrupted the banker. “We were told
not
to contact the Keizersgracht!”

“There’d be no point if you tried. Van der Meer has disappeared. Guiderone is trying to hold things together.”

“This is
insane!
Where did van der Meer go?
Why?
”

“We can only speculate. Perhaps he learned that we’d been penetrated, that countermeasures were rapidly being mounted and deployed against us. Who knows? We only know he’s vanished.”

“My
God
 …” Wahlburg’s hands began to tremble; he brought them to his temples, his face now ashen as the chorus onstage swelled, the myriad voices filling the large concert hall with the intoxicating music of the Ninth Symphony.
“The work, the years … and now—what have we
done
?”

“If Guiderone has his way, nothing will change.”

“
Everything’s
changed! Everything came from the Keizersgracht. We’re rudderless.”

“Julian accepts his responsibilities,” said Cameron firmly, with sudden authority. “All instructions will come from him, through me. The schedules remain in force.”