don't understand." "Could whoever it was think you are dead?" Bray looked at her, his mind racing. "I don't see how. Or why. It's a damn good idea but I didn't think of it. To pull off a burial without a corpse takes a lot of doing." Burial.... The burials must be absolute.
Reach Turin.... Tell them to cable the eagles, the cat.
Turin. Paravacini.
"Have you thought of something?" asked Antonia.
"Something else," he replied. "Ibis Paravacini. He runs the Scozzi-Paravacini companies in Turin?" "He did once. And in Rome and Milan, New York and Paris, as well. All over. He married the Scozzi daughter and as time went on her brother, the count, assumed more and more control. The counCs the one who ran the companies. At least, that's what the newspapers said." "It's what Paravacini wanted them to say. It wasn!t true. Scozzi was a well-put-together figurehead." "Then he wasn't part of the Matarese?" "Oh, he was part of it all right, in some ways the most important part.
Unless I'm wrong, he brought it with him. He and his mother, the contessa, presented it to Paravacini along with his blueblooded new wife. But now we come to the real question. Why would a man like Paravacini even listen? Men like Paravacini need, above all things... political stability. They pour fortunes into governments that have it and candidates who promise itbecause they lose fortunes when it isn't there. They look for strong authoritarian regimes, capable of stamping out a Red Brigades or a Baader-Meinhof no matter how indiscriminate the process, or how much legitimate dissent goes down with them." "That government does not exist in Italy," interrupted Antonia.
"And in not many other places, either. That's what doesn't make sense. The Paravacinis of this world thrive on law and order. They have nothing to gain by, or nothing to substitute for its breakdown. Yet the Matarese is against all that. It wants to paralyze governments; it feeds the terrorists, funnels money to them, spreads the paralysis as quickly as possible." Scofield drew on his cigarette. The clearer some things became, the more obscure did others.
"You're contradicting yourself, Bray." Antonia touched his arm; it had become a perfectly natural gesture during the past twenty-four hours. "You say Paravacini is the Matarese. Or part of it." "He is. That's what's missing. The reason." "Where do you look for it?" "Not here any longer. I'll ask the doctor to pick up our things at the Excelsior. We're getting out." 'We?" Scofield took her hand. 'Tonight changed a lot of things. La bella signorina can't stay in Rome now." "Then I can go with you." "As far as Paris," said Bray hesitantly, the hesitation not born of doubt, only of how to arrange the avenues of communication in Paris. "You'll stay there. I'll work out the procedures and get you a place to stay." "Where will you go?" "London. We know about Paravacini now; he's the Scozzi factor. London's next." "Why therer' "Paravacini said Turin was to cable 'the eagles, the cat.' With what your grandmother told us in Corsica, that code isn't hard to figure out. One eagle is my country, the other Taleniekov's." "It doesn't follow," disagreed Antonia. "Russia is the bear.
"Not in this case. The Russian bear is Bolshevik, the Russian eagle, Tzarist. The third guest at Villa Matarese in April of nineteen eleven was a man named Voroshin. Prince Andrei Voroshin. From St. Petersburg.
That's Leningrad now. Taleniekov's on his way there." "And the 'cat'r' 'qbe British lion. The second guest, Sir John Waverly. A descendant, David Waverly, is England's Foreign Secretary." "A very high position." "Too high, too visible. It doesn't make sense for him to be involved, either. Any more than the man in Washington, a senator who will probably be President next year. And because it doesn7t make sense, it scares the bell out of me." Scofield released her hand, and reached for the ignition. 'We're getting closer. Whatever there is to be found under the two eagles and the cat may be harder to dig out, but it's there.
Paravacini made that clear. He said the 'burials' had to be 'absolute.' He meant that all the connections had to be re-examined, put farther out of reach." "You'll be in a great deal of danger." She touched his, arm again.
"Nowhere near as much as Taleniekov. As far as the Matarese is concerned, I'm dead, remember? He's not. Which is why we're going to send our first cable. To Helsinki. We've got to