The Matarese Countdown (36 page)

Quotient—The result of division; the number of times one quantity is contained in another
.

And just below:

Quotient group—A group, the elements of which are intrinsic to a subgroup of a given group
.

Beowulf Agate recognized when he had struck a vein of intelligence gold. He photographed every handwritten page in the five folders, beginning to understand the dark, clouded outlines of the obscure material, which could well be leads to the groups and subgroups of the Matarese.

Scofield continued through the file cabinet, finding nothing of interest, but in several folders, items that amused him. Chairman McDowell kept monthly totals of his wife’s clothing and household accounts, all annotated as excessive, including liquor bills marked with angry red exclamation
points. These pages did not exactly reflect the loving, good-natured family life depicted in the silver-framed photographs. There was turmoil within the house of McDowell.

Brandon closed the top drawer of the file cabinet and returned to the computer closet. He switched on the light and studied the totally unfamiliar equipment. There was nothing else for it. He took out his cellular phone and called Peregrine View in the Great Smokies.

“You’re over an hour late!” said an irritated Antonia. “Where are you, you old fool?”

“I’m where none of those amateurs thought I would be.”

“Come back here quickly—”

“I’m not finished,” interrupted Scofield. “There’s a computer and a wall safe—”

“Yes, you
are
finished!” exclaimed Toni. “Something’s happened.”

“What is it?”

“Frank Shields called a few hours ago. He’s not sure what to do.”

“That’s odd for Squinty. He always knows what to do.”

“Not this time. He wants your input.”

“I’ll be damned, I’ve been promoted out of grammar school. Well, what
is
it?”

“Naval intelligence reached him. If the information’s accurate, Leslie’s son escaped and is aboard ship at the American base in Bahrain.”

“By Christ, that’s
great!
Good for the kid!”

“That’s just it, Bray, he
is
a kid, a child, really. Shields thinks it may be a trap.”

“For God’s sake,
why?
”

“Because according to the naval officer who’s with him, the boy won’t speak with anyone but his mother. No American government official, no one from intelligence or the White House, not even the President himself. Only his mother, so he’ll know if it’s really she.”

“
Damn!
” exclaimed Scofield, absently striking the nearest object in frustration. In this case, it was the computer’s keyboard. At the instant of the blow, ear-shattering alarm bells resonated throughout the entire building. The hidden,
off-limits machine was not only sacred, but given to hysterics. Bray yelled into his cellular phone. “I’m getting out of here! Tell Squinty I’ll call collect from a pay phone, it’s safer than the cell. That’s his signal to go on scrambler. Wish me luck, old girl!”

Scofield ran out of the office, closing the door behind him, and raced down the hallway to the staircase exit on the left. He pressed the crash bar, opening the thick fireproof panel, and quickly closed it while reaching down and picking up the small rubber doorstop. Suddenly, he heard the shouts of the guards on the floor inside. Apparently there was some kind of heated argument, and Bray immediately understood. No one had a passkey to the CEO’s office. Every other door could probably be unlocked, but not McDowell’s, and in all likelihood not Karastos’s, the chief financial officer’s, which had a door leading to his superior’s suite.
Goddamn it!
thought Brandon, he hadn’t the time to inspect the latter’s room or rooms, much less the safe in the bookshelf. There was no point in dwelling over missed opportunities, he had to get out and reach Shields. Montrose’s kid!
Jesus!

Then he heard the orders yelled by someone who either had the authority or assumed it. “Check the staircases! I’ll call the Big Mac and tell the son of a bitch to give us the combination to get his fuckin’ key! Suppose there was a fire? Would that asshole rather have his joint burn down than let us get in?”

“Kick the fuckin’ door down!”

“It’s layered steel, for God’s sake. Besides, he’d take it out of my pay, the bastard!”

There was not only turmoil in the house of McDowell, but also in McDowell’s fiefdom. The
staircases
. There were two others in this T-shaped section of the building. How many guards were there, and which of the three staircases would be checked first?
Christ
, probably all at once! Brandon plunged down the concrete steps as fast as he could, literally swinging around each landing as he held on to the railing. Breathless, his face drenched with sweat, his legs throbbing, he reached the bottom floor where he had entered.
He paused, gasping for air, and trying to smooth out his Army-issue combat fatigues.

Footsteps!
Several floors above on the staircase, perhaps four or five, and descending rapidly. He had no choice; he had to simply walk out, knowing that the guards were undoubtedly running around throughout the building. No time to think!

The guards were, at least one guard was. The blue uniform saw him emerge from the staircase, and ran forward. “Hey,
you!
” shouted the heavy, middle-aged man, pulling his pistol from its holster.

“Not hey
me
, fella!” roared Beowulf Agate in a voice that echoed off the walls like a marching cadence. “It’s hey
you!
… I’m Colonel Chaucer, National Guard, Special Forces Security, and this company is a max-fax contractor for the government. We’re wired into your alarm system.”

“You’re what—
who?
” asked the perplexed, overwhelmed patrol.

“You
heard
me, fella. We’re wired because AC is developing some top-secret chemicals.”

“The alarms just went off less than five minutes ago—”

“Our vehicles patrol around the clock. We’re never far away.”

“Oh, my
God
—”

“My men are scrambling around the whole complex. Now,
hurry!
Check the northeast staircase, this one’s clean. I’ll rendezvous with my men.” Scofield dashed to the exit door, turning at the last second. “Tell everyone to stay inside! My people might shoot.”

“
Oh, my God!
”

Brandon sped out of Wichita over back-country roads until he reached Route 96, the main highway, where he hoped to find a public telephone on the long, nearly deserted stretch of darkness. He found one, a dimly lit plastic shell covered with obscene graffiti. He inserted a coin and dialed an operator, which took what seemed to Bray time enough to fly to
Washington, and placed a collect call to Frank Shields’s secure home phone.

“Where are you, Brandon?”

“Where no wheat grows nor buffalo roam, Squinty. It’s four-something in the morning and all I can see is Kansas flat.”

“All right, I’m on scrambler and it’s hardly likely you could be intercepted.”

“I’d say impossible.”

“Still, don’t mention names, only I will.”

“Gotcha.”

“First, did you get anything?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Antonia told me you were ‘hunting,’ and I didn’t have to ask any more, you lying bastard!”

“To answer your question,
sir
, I think I did find something. Now what’s this about the missing item?”

“It’s crazy, Bray. The boy’s with an officer, a pilot assigned to our fleet base in Bahrain.”

“And he won’t talk to anyone but our Army lady, Toni explained that to me. What’s your problem?”

“If I put them in touch, I could be signing both their death warrants. Bahrain is one of the most progressive high-tech places on earth. Its mechanics can pull things from the ether as fast as we can. How can I take the chance of revealing where they both are?”

“Don’t do anything until I get back, Squinty, I’ve got a couple of ideas. Send a military jet for me.”

“Where, for
Christ’s
sake?”

“How the hell do
I
know? I’m on a highway about ten miles from Wichita.”

“Get back to the Wichita airport and call me. I’ll tell you whom to contact.”

Julian Guiderone, the son of the Shepherd Boy, sat at a table in Rome’s Via Veneto, enjoying his morning caffè latte when his cellular phone beeped in his breast pocket. He pulled it out and spoke. “The Shepherd,” he said.

“Wichita has been compromised,” reported the recognizable voice from Amsterdam. “To what extent we do not know.”

“Survivors?”

“Our two people. They weren’t on the scene.”

“McDowell and Karastos?”

“They were both at home. They were not involved.”

“Yes, they were. Kill them, and sweep their offices.”

T
he aircraft carrier U.S.S.
Ticonderoga
was immense, a virtual city within itself, with the military equivalents of various stores, pharmacies, restaurants (mess halls), gymnasiums, offices, and rooms—single, double, and dormitory-style. And there were more corridors, alleyways, and abrupt corners than could be found in a
Star Trek
version of San Francisco’s Chinatown. The farther one went belowdecks, the less peopled were the drab steel hallways, albeit with more turns and hatchways and cargo holds than those above the waterline. At the moment, two figures were running up a low-ceilinged corridor, both rather conspicuous. One was a tall black officer who had to continually bend his frame so as not to collide with a lateral pipe, the other a young white male, a muscular teenager, his hands bound in fresh surgical gauze.

“Hurry
up!
” cried Lieutenant Luther Considine, his summer uniform impressed and in need of cleaning.

“Where are we going?” asked an excited Jamie Montrose.

“Where I hope the officer of the watch and his bloodhounds won’t find you!”

They came to a heavy metal door marked Authorized Personnel Only. Considine took out a key, unlocked it, and
shoved it open. They walked into a small white-walled room with a long Formica table around which were brown-cushioned swivel chairs and a large screen on the right, a mounted slide projector on the left.

“What is this?” said Montrose junior.

“It’s a debriefing room for pilots on top-secret runs.”

“How’d you get the key, Lieutenant?”

“The security officer was my wing commander until the brass figured he was too smart or too blind to fly. He’s still my roommate and thinks I’m having a těte-à-tète with a dark angel of mercy.”

“That was very nice of him.”

“Nice,
schmice
. I bailed him out of the casino on Rhodes. Take a chair and relax. I flip on this switch and the red letters outside say
DO NOT ENTER
.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, sir.”

“You don’t have to, Jamie. Just fill me in more, and remember, I could be busted to a swab-jockey if you shuffle me.”

“Everything I’ve told you is the truth—”

“I believe you!” interrupted Luther Considine, his black eyes glaring. “I believe you because it’s so nuts and you’re so young and you’re the son of a fighter pilot we considered the best in the business, so why would you
lie?
But the captain, the four-striper driving this floating metropolis, thinks you ran out of my quarters and I can’t find you because our intelligence officer ordered you to talk to Washington.”

“No
way!
” insisted Montrose junior. “You talk about shuffling, I’ve been shuffled enough!”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go back. What exactly did the two government spook-jocks say to you at Kennedy International?”

“Not very much.… Basically that my mother had been assigned to an undercover operation and in case there were any leaks, they wanted me ‘out of the loop.’ ”

“What about their ID’s?… Forget it, they could easily get fakes. And you accepted what they told you?”

“Well, they seemed like really nice guys, you know? I
mean, they were concerned, genuinely sorry about everything, and even got me on board the plane without any hassle over tickets and my passport and that sort of thing.”

“Didn’t you ask any questions?”

“I asked a
lot
of questions, but they didn’t know much more than I did.”

“What
did
they tell you?” said Considine, studying the youngster.

“Well, they told me the plane was going to Paris, which, of course, I could read on the signs, but they said I’d be going on, only they didn’t know where to. Just that I’d be met at Orly Airport by another two guys who would take over.”

“They didn’t say anything more about your mother or the operation?”

“They didn’t
know
anything. They were really sincere about that. Then I told them I had to make a couple of phone calls and they said go ahead. I called home and there was no answer, not even the machine. Then I called a close friend and fellow officer who often worked with Mom; the operator broke in saying the number was changed, the new one unlisted. That’s when I figured whatever they were doing was really undercover. But I’ve told you all this, Lieutenant.”

“Not everything, you left out the phone calls before. Anyway, I may want to hear it again and again. I could be flying over something I can’t see yet.”

“There’s nothing to miss, Lieutenant.”

“Drop the ‘Lieutenant,’ Jamie. It’s Luther. The next time you see me I may be Seaman No Class. From a black top gun to a swab with a mop.… Colin Powell will whip my ass, and I’m a big fella, but he could do it.”

“I don’t think race enters into any of this … Luther.”

“Oh, I love you white liberals. Why couldn’t you have picked a nice, white naval officer to tell your tale to? There’s a prick in my squadron who hates anyone that isn’t all spit-and-polish. He’d turn a cook in for having grease on his apron.”

“Then he’d turn me in, too.”

“You’ve got a point. So tell me about the phone calls. Specifically the one where the number was changed.”

“It was to Colonel Everett Bracket. He was at the Point with Mom, and he and his wife were friends of Mother and Dad. He frequently asked for Mom on certain assignments.”