"Mesdames et messieurs, s'il vous plait. A votre gauche, Les Illes de la Manche...." The voice of the pilot droned from the aircraft's speaker.
They were passing the Channel Islands; in six hours they would reach the coast of Nova Scotia, an hour later Moptreal. And four hours after that, Bray would cross the U.S. border south of Lacolle on the Richelieu River, into the waters of Lake Champlain.
In hours the final madness would begin. He would live or he would die.
Chapter Twenty-Six
And if he could not live in peace with Toni, without the shadow of Beowulf Agate in front of him or behind him, he did not care to live any longer. He was filled with... emptiness. If the awful void could be erased, replaced with the simple delight of being with another human being, then whatever years he had left were most welcome.
If not, to bell with them.
Boston.
There's someone who wants to meet with you.
Who? Why?
To make you a consigliere of the Matarese... consider what you bring to such an organization.
It was not hard to define. Taleniekov was right. There were no shocks out of Moscow, but there were astounding revelations to be found in Washington. Beowulf Agate knew where the bodies were, and how and why they no longer breathed. He could be invaluable.
They want you. If they can't have you, they'll kill you. So be it; he would be no prize for the Matarese.
Bray closed his eyes; he needed sleep. There would be little in the days ahead.
Rain splattered against the windshield in continuous sheets, streaking to the right under the force of the wind that blew off the Atlantic over the coastal highway. Scofield had rented the car in Portland, Maine, with a driver's license and credit card he had never used before.-Soon he would be in Boston but not in the way the Matarese expected. He would not race halfway across the world and announce his arrival by registering at the Ritz Carlton as Vickery, only to wait for the Matarese's next move.
A man in panic would, a man who felt the only way to save the life of someone he deeply loved would-but he was beyond panic, he had accepted total loss, therefore he could hold back and conceive of his own strategy.
He would be in Boston, in his enemy's den, but his enemy would not know it. The Ritz Carlton would receive two telegrams spaced a day apart. The first would arrive tomorrow requesting a suite for Mr. B. A. Vickery of Montreal, arriving the following day. The second would be sent the next afternoon, stating that Mr. Vickery had been delayed, his arrival now anticipated two days later. There would be no address for Vickery, only telegraph offices on Montreal's King and Market Streets, and no request for confirmations, the assumption here being that someone in Boston would make sure rooms were available.
Only the two telegrams, sent from Montreal; the Matarese bad little choice but to believe he was still in Canada. What they could not know-suspect surely, but not be certain-was that he had used a drone to send them. He had. He had contacted a man, a felony-prone s,4paratiste he had known before, and met him at the airport, giving him the two handwritten messages on telegraph forms along with a sum of money and instructions when and from where to send them. Should the Matarese phone Montreal for immediate confirmations of origin, they would find the forms written in Bray's handwriting.
He had three days and one night to operate within Matarese territory, to learn everything he could about Trans-Communications and its hierarchy.
To find another flaw, one significant enough to summon Senator Joshua Appleton, IV, to Boston-on his terms. In panic.
So much to learn, so little time.
Scofield let his mind wander back to everyone he had ever known iii Boston and Cambridge-both as student and professional. Among that crowd of fits and misfits there had to be someone who could help him.
He passed a road sign telling him he had left the town of Marblehead; he'd be in Boston in less than thirty minutes.
It was 5:35, the horns of impatient drivers blaring on all sides as the taxi inched its way down Boylston Street's crowded shopping district. He had parked the rented car in the farthest reaches of the Prudential underground lot, available should he need it, but not subject to the vagaries of weather or vandalism. He was on his way to