Author: Robert Ludlum
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/17086_17
"No, I didn't. You heard what I said to Frank, that someone was on our payroll. He went ape."
"I believe you and I believe him. So that's why you must spread the word. Beowulf Agate is back. Let them know that Beowulf Agate and Vasili Taleniekov, the Serpent, are back, and we will not stop searching until the Matarese is history."
"What about me, Scofield?"
"You're our enforcer, our point."
"Our? .. . Taleniekov is dead. He's gone!"
Whispers: Interactive StoriesMake your own choices and decide what happens next!
"Not in my head, Cameron Pryce. He never will be."
They sat in the dark screened-in veranda, the only light coming from a Coleman lantern, its wick at the lowest ebb, just enough to illuminate the numbers on Scofield's portable phone. He had pressed the esoteric digits that were their direct link to Langley's clandestine operations.
"Get on the other phone," ordered Bray as Pryce felt around the table by his chair for the instrument.
"Yes?" Once more the robotic voice half whispered, half spoke.
"Beowulf Agate again," said Scofield.
"Patch me through to Shields."
"Just a minute, sir." The line seemingly went dead, then the disembodied words came back.
"I'm afraid you're not Beowulf Agate.
Your voiceprint doesn't match."
" Voiceprint? .. . For Christ's sake, Cam, get on the phone and tell this praetorian keeper of the keys that I'm Beowulf Agate and you're not!"
"I just found it; it was on the floor," said Pryce, reaching for the telephone and getting on the line.
"Listen to me, Night Watch, a voiceprint doesn't mean a goddamned thing, it's the code that's important, and more than one person can have it. Now, move!"
"Cameron?" said the very awake Frank Shields.
"Hi, Squint Eyes," Scofield broke in.
"Brandon, that is you!"
"How'd you guess?"
"
"Let me count the ways," starting with your inevitable insult. How are you, Bray?"
"I was a hell of a lot better before you gargoyles from hell came back into my life!"
"We had to, old friend. I'm sure Pryce made that clear. Incidentally, what do you think of him?"
"I can't really tell you what an asshole he is because he's on the other phone."
"I'm on the other phone," agreed Cameron quietly, his weariness apparent.
"Let me bring you quickly up to speed, Frank." Pryce rapidly described the events that led to the island search party and the trawler, the murder of the crew, and the disappearance of the trawler's captain.
"He must have reached somebody somewhere nearby because an FWhatever jet fighter bombed the boat into driftwood. Fortunately, and I'll give him all the credit, your former colleague heard the noise and way out figured me. I wouldn't be talking to you now if he hadn't, and I still don't know how he did it."
"He knows the Matarese, Cam."
"Indeed I do, Squinty," interrupted Scofield, "and our killer captain didn't have to reach anybody. That fake trawler was tracked and mapped from its first transmission. The wheels were set in motion, and the first expendable item was the trawler itself, along with the crew.
The Matarese never leaves loose ends, not even the possibility of loose ends."
"There's your answer, Pryce," said Shields, two thousand miles north of the British Virgin Islands.
"Where the hell did the plane come from?" exploded Cameron.
"It was a fighter jet, armed, military, which means it had to come from an air base! Jesus, have they infiltrated the Air Force? They obviously didn't have much trouble with the Agency."
"We're working on that," said Shields softly, haltingly.
"You could be wrong, Cam," offered Scofield from across the veranda.
"The explosions blinded us; it was dark and we were swimming for our lives. We're not sure what we saw."
"Thanks to chivalry," interrupted Antonia beside her husband, "I was farther out than either of you. I tried to watch as the pilot circled to survey his work-" "I dove under, thinking he was going to strafe," broke in Pryce.
"So did I," said Scofield.
"I'm afraid that thought never struck me-" "What did you see, love? .. . Can you hear her, Frank?"
"Very clearly," replied the man in Langley.
"It was a jet, certainly, but not a configuration I'm familiar with, and there didn't appear to be any markings. However, there was something odd about the wings, and large protrusions on the underside."
"A Harrier," said Cameron Pryce, disgust in his tone.
"Capable of lifting off from a patch of cement or a small backyard."
"An easy purchase for them," added Beowulf Agate.
"Five'll get you ten they have dozens of them all over, strategically located."
"So, going back to your statement a few moments ago," interrupted Shields, "when you said that the trawler was 'tracked and mapped," you were really saying the Harrier was already in place."
"I don't doubt it for a minute. When did you fellas on the top floor decide to send Pryce after me?"
"Six or seven days ago, when the CG station on St. Thomas couldn't come up with anything but a post-office box that nobody ever seemed to check."
"Plenty of time to move a Seven Forty-seven to an island, say nothing of a small Harrier. After all, Squinty, and I say it modestly, I'm apparently something of a prize, wouldn't you say?"
"You're a .. . never mind." Shields paused, his breathing audible.
"I've got an update on the relay trace from our Euro-Mediterranean stations."
"What the hell is that?" asked Scofield.
"Something new?"
"Actually, it's not, Brandon. You yourself used it a number of times-just a different name insofar as satellite communications have encompassed computers as well as radio and telephonic traffic. Do you remember when you used to call one number, say from Prague to London, but you dialed a number in Paris?"
"Sure. We loused up the KGB and the Stasi to the point where they often went nuts. One time they damn near shot up a ballet studio they thought was our Mi-Six drop until they didn't have the heart to fire through the whirling tutus! We had to change the trip because the ballet teacher, who we all thought was a skinny la-la, if you know what I mean, beat the shit out of the roughest Brit agent we had."
"It's the same thing, only technologically more sophisticated."
"Now I really don't .. . Hold it, I see what you mean! We called it phone-forwarding trips, you call it relay traces."
"Because we work forward and backward. We don't merely send, we can now trace the receivers through the multiple 'relays."
" "That's remarkable, Squinty."
"The lesson is over, Frank," said Pryce on the phone.
"I'll fill in whatever your curious friend cares to hear. What's your transmission update?"
"It's crazy, Cam. The first call was routed to Paris, relayed to Rome, then to Cairo, back to Athens, next to Istanbul, and finally to the Italian province of Lombardy, specifically Lake Como. From that station it was bifurcated-" "Split destinations!" interjected Pryce angrily.
"They split the
wires!"
"Into three parts, but the strongest signal was to Groningen in the Netherlands, where it stopped. Our experts believe the final leg, on private wire, was sent to Utrecht, Amsterdam, or Eindhoven."
"Three pretty big cities, Frank."
"Yes, we know. Where do you want to start? I'll alert our agents to give you every cooperation."
"He won't start!" yelled Scofield into the phone.
"He'll begin when I tell him to begin!"
"Come on, Bray," said Frank Shields calmly, "I wouldn't sanction you into the field if my life depended on it. Among other things, my wife of forty years would leave me if I did. She adores you, you know that."
"Give my love to Janie, she was always brighter and much more interesting than you. But if you want me back, you son of a bitch, it's on my terms."
"Not in the field!"
"I'll accept that, Squinty. My aim's damn sharp, but I can't leap over fences like I used to."
"Then what do you want?"
"I want to run the operation."
"What?"
"I'm the only one who penetrated the Matarese, I was there when they were all blown to hell. But before that Armageddon, it was just Taleniekov and me who unearthed their disciples, how they thought, how warped they were, how fanatic their motives, all cloaked in sweet reason so the entire world would march to their hollow drums.. .. You can't dismiss me, Frank, I won't let you! You need me!"
"I repeat, not in the field," said the calm deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
"I'd rather not be-I know the limitations of my age. But I'll not give you an open road."
"What's an 'open road'?"
"Hell, I just explained it to your junior officer here. We make up our own jargon, Frank, you know that."
"I'm afraid I don't, Bray. What do you mean?"
"If the boy gets in trouble, I have the right to intercede."
"Unacceptable. Trouble' to you is one thing, it could be something quite different to anyone else."
"Say he gets killed?"
"Oh?" Shields again hesitated.
"I hadn't considered that."
"But it must be contemplated, mustn't it?"
"Shut up!" yelled Cameron Pryce into the phone.
"I'll take care of myself, Frank!"