The Matarese Circle (73 page)

He sat in the back seat of his rented car, placed the last of the clocks into its plastic container, pressing the explosive brick down beside the battery. He listened for the steady tick of the mechanism; it was there. Then he snapped the edges of the cover in place and sealed it with tape.

It was forty-two minutes past noon, the alarms set in sequence, the grooves in the gears locked by the teeth of the pinions, the sequence to begin in precisely eleven hours and twenty-six minutes.

As he had done with the previous nine, he sprayed the container with black paint. A great deal of it soiled the rear seat cushion; he would leave a hundred-dollar bill in the crease.

He inserted the coin in the pay phone; he was in West Roxbury, two minutes from the border of Brookline. He dialed, waited for the line to be answered, and roared into the mouthpiece.

“Sanitation?”

“Yes, sir. What can we do for you?”

“Appleton Drive! Brookline! The sewer’s backed up! It’s all over my
gohdahm
front lawn.”

“Where is that, sir?”

“I just told you. Appleton Drive and Beachnut Terrace. It’s terrible!”

“We’ll dispatch a truck right away, sir.”

“Please, hurry!”

The Sanitation Department van made its way haltingly up Beachnut Terrace toward the intersection of Appleton Drive, its driver obviously checking the sewer drains in the street. When he reached the corner, a man in a dark-blue raincoat flagged him down. It was impossible to go around the man; he moved back and forth in the middle of the street, waving his arms frantically. The driver opened his door and shouted through the rain.

“What’s the
mattah?
”

It was the last thing he would say for several hours.

Within the Appleton Hall compound, a guard in a cedar lean- to picked up his wall telephone and told the operator on the switchboard to give him an outside line. He was calling the Sanitation Department in Brookline. One of their vans was on Appleton Drive, stopping every hundred feet or so.

“There are reports of a blockage in the vicinity of Beachnut and Appleton, sir. We have a truck checking it out.”

“Thank you,” said the guard, pushing a button that was the intercom for all stations. He relayed the information and returned to his chair.

What kind of idiot would check out sewers for a living?

Scofield wore the black rain slicker with the stenciled white letters across the back.
Sanitation Dept. Brookline
. It was 3:05. The sighting had started, Antonia and Taleniekov standing behind windows on the other side of the estate; the concentration in Appleton Hall would be on the road below. He drove the sanitation van slowly up Appleton Drive, staying close to the curb, stopping at every sewer drain in the street. As the road was long, there were
roughly twenty to thirty such drains. At each stop he got out carrying a six-foot extension snake and whatever other tools he could find in the van that seemed to fit a hastily imagined problem. This was at every stop; at ten however, he added one other item. A five-quart plastic container that had been sprayed black. With seven he was able to wedge them between the spikes of the wrought-iron fence beyond the sightlines of the lean-tos, pushing them into the foliage with the snake. With three he used what was left of the bell wire and suspended them beneath the grates of the sewers.

At 4:22 he was finished and drove back to Beachnut Terrace where he began the embarrassing process of reviving the sanitation employee in the rear of the van. There was no time to be solicitous; he removed the rain slicker and slapped the man into consciousness.

“What the hell
happened?
” The man was frightened, recoiling at the sight of Bray above him.

“I made a mistake,” said Scofield simply. “You can accept that or not, but nothing’s missing, no harm’s been done, and there is no problem with the sewers.”

“You’re crazy!”

Bray took out his money clip. “I’m sure it appears that way, so I’d like to pay you for the use of your truck. No one has to know about it. Here’s five hundred dollars.”

“
Five?
…”

“For the past hour you’ve been checking the drains along Beachnut and Appleton, that’s all anyone has to know. You were dispatched and did your job. That is, if you want the five hundred.”

“You’re
crazy!
”

“I haven’t got time to argue with you. Do you want the money or not?”

The man’s eyes bulged. He took the money.

It did not matter whether they saw him now; only what he saw mattered. His watch read 4:57, three minutes remained before the sighting was terminated. He stopped his car directly below the midpoint of Appleton Hall, rolled down his window, and raised the binoculars, focusing through the rain on the lighted windows three hundred yards above.

The first figure to come into view was Taleniekov, but it
was not the Taleniekov he had last seen in London. The Russian stood motionless behind the window, the side of his head encased in a bandage, a bulge beneath the open collar of his shirt further evidence of wounds wrapped tightly with gauze. Standing beside the Soviet was a dark-haired muscular man, his hand hidden behind Taleniekov’s back. Scofield had the distinct impression that without that man’s support Taleniekov would collapse. But he was alive, his eyes staring straight ahead, blinking every other second or so; the Russian was telling him he
was
alive.

Bray moved the glasses to the right, his breathing stopped, the pounding in his chest like a rapidly accelerating drum in an echo chamber. It was almost more than he could bear; the rain blurred the lenses; he was going out of his mind.

There she
was!
Standing erect behind the window, her head held up, angled first to her left, then to her right, her eyes leveled, responding to voices.
Responding
.

And then Scofield saw what he dared not hope to see. Relief swept over him and he wanted to shout through the rain in sheer exuberance. There was fear in Antonia’s eyes, to be sure, but there was also something else.
Anger
.

The eyes of his love were filled with anger, and there was nothing on earth that took its place! An angry mind was a mind intact.

He put the binoculars down, rolled up the windows, and started the engine. He had several telephone calls and a final arrangement to make. When these were done, it was time for Mr. B. A. Vickery to arrive at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.

“Were you satisfied?” The Senator’s voice was more controlled than it had been that morning. The anxiety was still there but it was farther below the surface.

“How badly is the Russian hurt?”

“He’s lost blood; he’s weak.”

“I could see that. Is he ambulatory?”

“Enough to put him into a car, if that’s what you want to do.”

“It’s what I want to do. Both he and the woman in my car with me at the exact moment I say. I’ll drive the car down to the gate and on my signal, the gate will be opened. That’s when you get the X-rays and we get out.”

“I thought you wanted to kill him.”

“I want something else first. He has information that can make the rest of my life very pleasant, no matter who runs what.”

“I see.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“You said you’d meet with Nicholas Guiderone, listen to what he has to say.”

“I will. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit I had questions.”

“He’ll answer everything. When will you see him?”

“He’ll know when I check into the Ritz Carlton. Tell him to call me there. And let’s get one thing clear, Senator. A telephone call, no troops. The X-rays won’t be in the hotel.”

“Where will they be?”

“That’s my business.” Scofield hung up and left the phone booth. He’d place his next call from a booth in the center of Boston, to check in with Robert Winthrop, as much to get the Ambassador’s reaction to the material in the envelope as anything else. And to make sure his protection was being mounted. If there were hitches he wanted to know about them.

“It’s Stanley, Mr. Scofield.” As always, Winthrop’s chauffeur spoke gruffly, not unpleasantly. “The Ambassador’s still at the White House; he asked me to come back here and wait for any calls from you. He told me to tell you that everything you asked for is being taken care of. He said I should repeat the times. Eleven-thirty, eleven forty-five, and twelve-fifteen.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. Thanks very much.” Bray opened the door of the drugstore telephone booth and walked over to a counter where construction paper and felt markers in varying colors were sold. He chose bright yellow paper and a dark-blue marker.

He went back to his car and, using his attaché case for a desk, wrote his message in large, clear letters on the yellow paper. Satisfied, he opened the case, removed the
five sealed manila envelopes, stamped and addressed to five of the nation’s most powerful men, and placed them on the seat next to him. It was time to mail them. Then he took out a sixth envelope and inserted the yellow page; he sealed it with tape and wrote on the front.

FOR THE BOSTON POLICE

He drove slowly up Newbury Street looking for the address he had found in the telephone booth. It was on the left side, four doors from the corner, a large painted sign in the window.

A thin, prim-looking woman with an expression of serious efficiency rose from her desk and came to the counter.

“May I help you?”

“I hope so,” said Scofield, efficiency in his voice as he opened his identification. “I’m with the BPD, attached to Interdepartmental Examinations.”

“The police? Good heavens …”

“Nothing to be concerned about. We’re running an exercise, checking up on precinct response to outside emergencies. We want this envelope delivered to the station on Boylston tonight. Can you handle it?”

“We certainly can.”

“Fine. What’s the charge?”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, officer. We’re all in this together.”

“I couldn’t accept that, thank you. Besides we need the outside record. And your name, of course.”

“Of course. The charge for night deliveries is usually ten dollars.”

“If you’ll let me have a receipt, please.” Scofield took the money from his pocket. “And if you wouldn’t mind, please specify that delivery is to be made between eleven and eleven-fifteen; that’s very important to us. You will make sure of it, won’t you?”

“I’ll do better than that, officer. I’ll deliver it myself. I’m
on till midnight, so I’ll just leave one of the boys in charge and go right over there myself. I really admire the sort of thing you’re doing. Crime is simply astronomical these days; we’ve all got to pitch in, I say.”

“You’re very kind, ma’am.”

“You know, there’re a lot of very strange people around the apartment house where I live.
Very
strange.”

“What’s the address? I’ll have the patrol cars look a little more closely from here on.”

“Why
thank
you.”

“Thank
you
, ma’am.”

It was 9:20 when he walked into the lobby of the Ritz Carlton. He had driven down to the piers and eaten a fish dinner, his time spent thinking about what he and Toni would do after the night was over. Where would they go? How would they live? Finances did not concern him; Winthrop had promised vindication and the calculating head of Consular Operations, the would-be executioner named Daniel Congdon, had been generous in pension and unrecorded benefits that would come his way as long as his silence was maintained. Beowulf Agate was about to disappear from this world; where would Bray Scofield go? As long as Antonia was with him, it did not matter.

“There’s a message for you, Mr. Vickery,” said the desk clerk, holding out a small envelope.

“Thank you,” said Scofield, wondering if beneath the man’s white shirt there was a small blue circle inked into his flesh.

The message was only a telephone number. He crumpled it in his hand and dropped it on the counter.

“Is something wrong?” asked the clerk.

Bray smiled. “Tell that son of a bitch I don’t make calls to numbers. Only to names.”

He let the telephone ring three times before he picked it up. “Yes?”

“You’re an arrogant man, Beowulf.” The voice was high-pitched, crueler than the wind. It was the Shepherd Boy, Nicholas Guiderone.

“I was right, then,” said Scofield. “That man downstairs doesn’t work full time for the Ritz Carlton. And when he
showers, he can’t wash off a small blue circle on his chest.”

“It’s worn with enormous pride, sir. They are extraordinary men and women who have enlisted in our extraordinary cause.”

“Where do you find them? People who’ll blow themselves away and bite into cyanide?”

“Quite simply, in our companies. Men have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for causes since the dawn of time. It does not always have to be on a battlefield, or in a wartime underground, or even in the world of international espionage. There are many causes; I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Such as themselves? The
Fida’is
, Guiderone? Hasan ibn-al Sabbah’s cadre of assassins?”

“You’ve studied the
padrone
, I see.”

“Very closely.”

“There are certain practical and philosophical similarities, I will not deny it. These men and women have everything they want on this earth, and when they leave it, their families—wives, children, husbands—will have more than they ever need. Isn’t that the dream? With over five hundred companies, computers can select a handful of people willing and capable of entering into the arrangement. A simple extension of the dream, Mr. Scofield.”

“Pretty damned extended.”

“Not really. Far more executives collapse from heart seizure than from violence. Read the daily obituaries. But I’m sure this is only one of many questions. May I send a car for you?”