"What about other stores? I've a number of things to get." "There's the Shopping Plaza about ten blocks west. I'm sure you'll find everything you need there." Bray hoped so; he was counting on it.
He was taken to his "suite," which was in effect one large room with a pull-out bed and divider that concealed the smallest stove this side of a hot plate and a refrigerator. But the room looked out over the harbor; it was fine, He opened his attacb6 case, took out the photograph he had removed from the wall in Mrs. Appleton's tomb for her son, and stared at it. Two young men, tall, muscular, neither to be mistaken for the other, but enough alike for an unknown surgeon somewhere in Switzerland to sculpt one into the other. A young American doctor, paid to sign the medical authorization of discharge, then killed for security. A mother maintained as an alcoholic, kept at a distance, but paraded whenever it was convenient and fruitful to do so. Who knew a son better than his mother? Who in America would argue with, much less confront, Mrs. Joshua Appleton, 111?
Scofield sat down and added a page to the seventeen in his bill-of-particulars. Doctors: Nathaniel Crawford and Thomas Belford. A Swiss physician deprogrammed from a computer; a young plastic surgeon dead suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. Three nurses drowned oiff Marblehead. Gstaad, a coffin in Col Du Pillon; X-raysone set from Boston, one set from Washington, two from Main Street, Andover, Massachusetts.
Two diflerent men merged into one, and the one was a lie. A fraud was about to become President of the United States.
Bray finished writing, and walked to the window that looked out on the still, cold waters of Salem Harbor. The dilemma was clearer than it had ever been: they had traced the Matarese from its roots in Corsica through a
federation of multinational corporations that encircled the globe; they knew it financed terror the world over, encouraged the chaos that resulted from assassinations and kidnappings, killing in the streets and aircraft blown out of the skies. They understood all this but they did not know why.
Why?
The reason would have to wait. Nothing mattered but the deception that was Senator Joshua Appleton, IV. For once the son of the Shepherd Boy reached the presidency, the White House belonged to the Matarese.
What better residence for a consigliere..
Keep breathing, my old enemy.
Toni, my love. Stay alive. Keep your mind.
Scofield went back to his attach6 case on the table, opened a side flap and took out a single-edge razor blade that was wedged down between the leather. He then held the two matted sheets of cardboard with the embedded X-ray slides of two Andover students thirty-five years ago and placed them on the table, one on top of the other. There were four rows of negatives, each with four slides, a total of sixteen on each card.
Small red-bordered labels identifying the patients and the dates of the X-rays were affixed to the upper left-hand comers. He checked carefully to see that the borders of the cardboard sheets matched; they did. He pressed a manila envelope down on the top sheets between the first and second rows of Xrays, took the razor blade and began to cut, slicing so that the blade went through both sheets of X-rays. The top row fell clean, two strips of four X-ray negatives.
The names of the patients and dates of entry-typed on the small red-bordered labels more than thirty-five years ago were on the strips; the simplest chemical analysis would confirm their authenticity.
Bray doubted that any such analysis would be made on the new labels he would purchase and stick on the remaining two sheets with 1 X-rays each; it would be a waste of time. The X-rays themselves would be compared with new X-rays of the man who called himself Joshua Appleton, IV. Julian Guiderone. That was all the proof the Matarese would need.
He took the strips and the larger sheets of negatives, knelt down and carefully buffed the edges of the cuts
across the rug. Within five minutes each of the edges was rubbed smooth, soiled just enough to match the age of the original borders.
He got up and put everything back in his attach6 case. It was time to return to Andover, to put the plan in motion.
"Mr. Vickery, is something wrongT' asked the dentist, coming out of his office, still harried, three afternoon patients reading magazines, glancing up in mild irritation.