Read Online The Matarese Countdown by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online Page A

climbed up the ladder based on the number of ‘hits’ he made. Oh, they’d kill if ordered to, but no meat hooks, no shotguns, no chains in the river—usually no corpses, either. If the Matarese council—and it was just that—wanted unmitigated brutality that would be publicized, it secretly paid for terrorists untraceable to itself. But it never employed its members for that sort of work. They were
executives.
”
    “They were greedy bastards, sucking up to a wild boar.”
    “And then some.” Scofield chuckled softly while sipping his brandy. “They were elitists, Cameron, far above the common people. By and large, they were
summa cum laudes
and
magna cum laudes
from the finest universities both on this side and in Europe, the so-called best and the brightest of industry and government. In their own minds, they assumed they would in time become enormously successful; the Matarese was merely a shortcut. Once in, they were hooked, and the shortcut became a world they could not escape.”
    “What about accountability? What about right and
wrong?
Are you saying this army of the best and the brightest had no sense of morality?”
    “I’m sure a few did, Mr. Pryce … Cameron,” said Antonia Scofield, who had slipped into the white archway to the candlelit veranda. “And I’m equally sure that if they voiced such reservations, they and their families had terrible things done to them … fatal accidents, in the main.”
    “That’s savage.”
    “That was the way of the reinvented Matarese,” addedBrandon. “Morality was replaced by having no options. You see, everything came in increments, and before they understood that, there was no way out. They were living abnormally extravagant yet strangely normal lives with wives and children and expensive tastes. Get the picture, Cam?”
    “With frightening clarity.… I know a little—not much—about how you and Vasili Taleniekov came together and went after the Matarese, but your debriefing wasn’t very complete. Would you care to fill me in a bit?”
    “Certainly he will,” said the wife. “Won’t you, my darling?”
    “There she goes again,” rejoined Scofield, glancing warmly at Antonia. “My debriefing was a nonevent because the Cold War was still pretty hot and there were clowns who wanted to paint Vasili, our Soviet enemy, as one of the evil people. I wasn’t having any part of it.”
    “He chose his own death so that we might live, Cameron,” said Antonia, walking to a white wicker chair next to her husband. “In terrible pain he flung himself at our enemies, allowing us to escape. Without his sacrifice we both would have been shot, killed.”
    “From archenemies to allies, even friends who you give up your life for?”
    “I wouldn’t go that far, and I’ve thought about it for years. We never forgot what we did to each other, but I think he decided that his was the greater crime. He killed my wife, I killed his brother.… It’s in the past; nothing changes it.”
    “I was told about that,” said Pryce. “I was also told you were placed ‘beyond salvage.’ Do you want to talk about it?”
    “What’s there to talk about?” answered Scofield quietly. “It happened.”
    “ ‘What’s there to
talk
about’?” repeated the stunned CIA officer. “For Christ’s sake, your own agency, your
superiors
, ordered your
execution!
”
    “Funny, I never considered them my ‘superiors.’ Quite the opposite most of the time.”
    “You know what I mean—”
    “I do, indeed,” interrupted Bray. “Someone added the numbers but came up with the wrong total, and since I knew who it was, I decided to kill him. Then I reasoned I’d undoubtedly be caught and he wasn’t worth it. Instead, I stopped being angry and got even. I dealt my cards, which proved to be reasonably profitable.”
    “Back to Taleniekov,” said Cameron. “How did it begin with you two?”
    “You’re smart, Cam. The keys are always at the beginning, the first door