The Matarese Circle (74 page)

“You may not.”

“There’s no cause for hostility.”

“I’m not hostile, I’m cautious. Basically I’m a coward. I’ve set a schedule and I intend to stick with it. I’ll get there at exactly eleven-thirty; you talk, I’ll listen. At precisely twelve-fifteen, I’ll walk out with the girl and the Russian. A signal will be given, we’ll get into the car and drive to your main gate. That’s when you’ll get the X-rays and we get away. If there’s the slightest deviation, the X-rays will disappear. They’ll show up somewhere else.”

“We have a right to examine them,” protested Guiderone. “For accuracy and spectroanalysis; we want to make
sure no duplicates were made. We
must
have time for that.”

The Shepherd Boy bit; the omission of the examination was the weakness Guiderone quite naturally pounced upon. The huge electronic iron gate had to be opened and stay open. If it remained shut, all the troops and all the diversions that could be mounted, would not prevent a man firing a rifle into the car. Bray hesitated. “Fair enough. Have equipment and a technician down at the gatehouse. Verification will take two or three minutes, but the gate has to remain open while it’s being done.”

“Very well.”

“By the way,” added Scofield, “I meant what I said to your son—”

“You mean Senator Appleton, I believe.”

“Believe it. You’ll find the X-rays intact, no light-marks of duplication. I won’t get killed for that.”

“I’m convinced. But I find a weakness in these arrangements.”

“A weakness?…” Bray felt cold.

“Yes. Eleven-thirty to twelve-fifteen is only forty-five minutes. That’s not much time for us to talk. For me to talk and you to listen.”

Scofield breathed again. “If you’re convincing, I’ll know where to find you in the morning, won’t I?”

Guiderone laughed softly in his eerily high-pitched voice. “Of course. So simple. You’re a logical man.”

“I try to be. Eleven-thirty, then.” Bray hung up.

He had
done
it! Every system had a backup system, every backup an alternative. The exchange was covered on all flanks.

It was 11:29 when he drove through the gates of Appleton Hall and entered the drive that curved up past the carriage house to the walled estate on the crest of the hill. As he drove by the cavernous garage of the carriage house, he was surprised to see a number of limousines. Between ten and twelve uniformed chauffeurs were talking; they were men who knew each other. They had been here before together.

The wall surrounding the enormous main house was more for effect than protection; it was barely eight feet high, designed to look far higher from below. Joshua Appleton,
the first, had erected an expensive plaything. One-third castle, one-third fortress, one-third functional estate with an incredible view of Boston. The lights of the city flickered in the distance; the rain had stopped, leaving a chilly translucent mist in the air.

Bray saw two men in the glare of his headlights; the one on the right signaled him to stop in front of a separation in the wall. He did so; the path beyond the wall was bordered by two heavy chains suspended from thick iron posts, the door at the end set in an archway. All that was missing was a portcullis, deadly spikes to come crashing down with the severing of a rope.

Bray got out of the car and was immediately shoved over the hood, every pocket, every area of his body searched for weapons. Flanked by the guards, he was escorted to the door in the archway and admitted.

At first full glance, Scofield understood why Nicholas Guiderone had to possess the Appleton estate. The staircase, the tapestries, the chandeliers … the sheer magnificence of the great hall was breathtaking. The nearest thing to it Bray could imagine was the burned-out skeleton in Porto Vecchio that once had been the Villa Matarese.

“Come this way, please,” said the guard on his right, opening a door. “You have three minutes with the guests.”

Antonia ran across the room into his arms, her tears moistening his cheeks, the strength of her embrace desperate. “My darling! You’ve come for us!”

“
Shhh
.…” He held her.
Oh, God, he held her!
“We haven’t time,” he said softly. “In a little while we’re going to walk out of here. Everything’s going to be all right. We’re going to be free.”

“He wants to talk to you,” she whispered. “Quickly.”

“What?” Scofield opened his eyes and looked beyond Toni. Across the room Taleniekov sat rigidly in an armchair. The Russian’s face was pale, so pale it was like chalk, the left side of his head taped; his ear and half his cheek had been blown away. His neck and shoulder blade were also bandaged, encased in a T-squared metal brace; he could barely move them. Bray held Antonia’s hand and approached. Taleniekov was dying. “We’re getting out of here,” said Scofield. “We’ll take you to a hospital. It’ll be all right.”

The Russian shook his head slowly, painfully, deliberately.

“He can’t talk, darling.” Toni touched Vasili’s right cheek. “He has no voice.”

“
Jesus
. What did they …? Never mind, in forty-five minutes we’re driving out of here.”

Again Taleniekov shook his head; The Russian was trying to tell him something.

“When the guards were helping him down the staircase, he had a convulsion,” said Antonia. “It was terrible; they were pulled down with him and were furious. They kept hitting him—and he’s in such pain.”

“They were pulled down …?” asked Bray, wondering, looking at Taleniekov.

The Russian nodded, reaching under his shirt to the belt beneath. He pulled out a gun and shoved it across his legs toward Scofield.

“He fell all right,” whispered Bray, smiling, kneeling down and taking the weapon. “You can’t trust these Commie bastards.” Then he shifted the Russian, putting his lips close to Taleniekov’s right ear. “Everything’s clean. We’ve got men outside. I’ve set explosive charges all around the hill. They want the proof I’ve got; we’ll get out.”

The KGB man once more shook his head. Then he stopped, his eyes wide, gesturing for Scofield to watch his lips.

The words were formed;
Pazhar
 … 
sigda pazhar
.

Bray translated. “Fire, always fire?”

Taleniekov nodded, then formed other words, a barely audible whisper now emerging. “
Zazhiganiye … pazhar
.”

“Explosions? After the explosions, fire? Is that what you’re saying?”

Again Taleniekov nodded, his eyes beseeching.

“You don’t understand,” said Bray. “We’re covered.”

The Russian once more shook his head, now violently. Then he raised his hand, two fingers across his lips.

“A cigarette?” asked Scofield. Vasili nodded. Bray took the pack out of his pocket along with a book of matches. Taleniekov waved away the cigarettes and grabbed the matches.

The door opened; the guard spoke sharply. “That’s it, Mr. Guiderone’s waiting for you. They’ll be here when you’re finished.”

“They’d better be.” Scofield rose to his feet, hiding the gun in his belt beneath his raincoat. He gripped Antonia’s hand and walked with her to the door. “I’ll be back in a while. No one’s going to stop us.”

Nicholas Guiderone sat behind the desk in his library, his large head with the fringe of white hair supporting an old man’s face, the pale skin taut, receding into the temples and stretched, sinking into the hollows that held his dark, shining eyes. There was a gnomelike quality about him; it was not hard to think of him as the Shepherd Boy.

“Would you care to reconsider your schedule, Mr. Scofield?” asked Guiderone in his high, somewhat breathless voice, not looking at Bray, but instead studying papers. “Forty minutes is really very little time, and I’ve got a great deal to tell you.”

“You can tell me some other time, perhaps. Tonight the schedule stands.”

“I see.” The old man looked up, now staring at Scofield. “You think we’ve done terrible things, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’ve done.”

“Certainly you do. We’ve had nearly four full days with the Russian. His monologues were not voluntary, but with chemical assistance, the words were there. You’ve uncovered the pattern of huge companies linked across the world; you’ve perceived that through these companies we have funneled sums of money to terrorist groups everywhere. Incidentally, you’re quite right. I doubt there’s an effective group of fanatics anywhere that has not benefited from us. You perceive all this but you can’t understand why. It’s at your fingertips, but it eludes you.”

“At my fingertips?”

“The words are yours. The Russian used them, but they were yours. Under chemical inducement, multilingual subjects speak the language of their sources.…
Paralysis
, Mr. Scofield. Governments must be paralyzed. Nothing achieves this more rapidly or more completely than the rampant global chaos of what we call terrorism.”

“Chaos.…” Bray whispered;
that
was the word he kept coming back to, never sure why.
Chaos
. Clashing bodies in space.…

“Yes. Chaos!” repeated Guiderone, his startling eyes two
shining black stones reflecting the light of the desk lamp. “When the chaos is complete, when civilian and military authorities are impotent, admitting they cannot destroy a thousand vanishing wolfpacks with tanks and warheads and tactical weapons, then men of reason will move in. The period of violence will at last be over and this world can go about the business of living productively.”

“In a nuclear ashheap?”

“There’ll be no such consequences. We’ve tested the controls; we have men at them.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Governments, Mr. Scofield!” shouted Guiderone, his eyes on fire. “Governments are obsolete! They can no longer be permitted to function as they have functioned throughout history. If they do, this planet will not see the next century. Governments as we have known them are no longer viable entities. They must be replaced.”

“By whom? With what?”

The old man softened his voice; it became hollow, hypnotic. “By a new breed of philosopher-kings, if you like. Men who understand this world as it has truly emerged, who measure its potential in terms of resources, technology and productivity, who care not one whit about the color of a man’s skin, or the heritage of his ancestors, or what idols he may pray to. Who care only about his full productive potential as a human being. And his contribution to the marketplace.”

“My God,” said Bray. “You’re talking about the conglomerates.”

“Does it offend you?”

“Not if I owned one.”

“Very good.” Guiderone broke into a short jackal-like laugh; it disappeared instantly. “But that’s a limited point of view. There are those among us who thought you of all people would understand. You’ve seen the other futility; you’ve lived it.”

“By choice.”

“Very, very good. But that presumes there is no choice in our structure. Untrue. A man is free to develop his full potential; the greater his productivity, the greater his freedom and rewards.”

“Suppose he doesn’t want to be productive? As you define it?”

“Then obviously there’s a lesser reward for the lesser contribution.”

“Who
does
define it?”

“Trained units of management personnel, using all the technology developed in modern industry.”

“I guess it’d be a good idea to get to know them.”

“Don’t waste time with sarcasm. Such teams operate daily all over the world. The international companies are not in business to lose money or forfeit profits. The system
works
. We prove it every day. The new society will function within a competitive, non-violent structure. Governments can no longer guarantee that; they’re on nuclear collision courses everywhere. But the Chrysler Corporation does not make war on Volkswagen; no planes fill the skies to wipe out factories and whole towns centered around one or the other company. The new world will be committed to the marketplace, to the developing of resources and technology that insure the productive survival of mankind. There’s no other way. The multinational community is proof; it is aggressive, highly competitive, but it is nonviolent. It bears no arms.”

“Chaos,” said Bray. “The clashing of bodies in space … destruction before the creation of order.”

“Yes, Mr. Scofield. The period of violence before the permanent era of tranquility. But governments and their leaders do not relinquish their responsibilities easily. Alternatives must be given men whose backs are to the wall.”

“Alternatives?”

“In Italy, we control nearly twenty percent of the Parliament. In Bonn, twelve percent of the Bundestag; in Japan, almost thirty-one percent of the Diet. Could we have done this without the Brigate Rosse or Baader-Meinhof or the Red Army of Japan? We grow in authority every month. With each act of terrorism we are closer to our objective: the total absence of violence.”

“That wasn’t what Guillaume de Matarese had in mind seventy years ago.”

“It’s much closer than you think. The
padrone
wanted to destroy the corruptors in governments, which all too frequently meant entire governments themselves. He gave us the structure, the methods—hired assassins to pit political factions against adversaries everywhere. He provided the initial fortune to put it all in motion; he showed us the
way to chaos. All that remained was to put something in its place. We have found it. We’ll save this world from itself. There can be no greater cause.”

“You’re convincing,” said Scofield. “I think we may have a basis for talking further.”

“I’m glad you think so,” answered Guiderone, his voice suddenly cold again. “It’s gratifying to know one is convincing, but much more interesting to watch the reactions of a liar.”

“Liar?”

“You could have been part of this!” Once more the old man shouted. “After that night in Rock Creek Park, I myself convened the council. I told it to reassess, re-evaluate! Beowulf Agate could be of incalculable value! The Russian was useless, but not
you
. The information you possessed could make a mockery of Washington’s moral positions. I myself would have made you director of all security! On my instructions, we tried for weeks to reach you, bring you in, make you one of us. It is, of course, no longer possible. You’re
relentless
in your
deceptions!
In short words, you cannot be trusted. You can
never
be trusted!”