on Lucas Herroes face, in Lucas Herron’s eyes.
“So help me Chnst, I can’t answer thatr
‘r3an’t or wontr
*Can’t I dDWt knowl”
“I think you do. But I said I’d only ask you once. Thaes it.” Matlock
started for the apart3nent door without looking at the student.
“Nol . . . Goddamn it, I dolet knowl . . . How could I know? You can~tl”
Pace ran to Matlock’s side.
&Can’t what?”
‘Whatever you said you’d do. Listen tc) mel I doet know who they arel I
doet have
They?-
Face looked puzzled. “Yeah…. I guess ‘they.’ I doiet know. I don’t have
any contact Others do; I doidt They haven’t bothered me.”
‘But you’re aware of them.” A statement
“Aware…. Yes, I’m aware. But who, honest to God, not-
Matlock turned and faced the student. ‘Well compromise. For now. Tell me
wbat you do know.”
And the frightened young man did. And as the words came forth, the fear
infected James Matlock.
Nimrod was an unseen master puppeteer. Faceless, formless, but with
frightening, viable authority. It waset a he or a they- it was a force,
according to Alan Pace. A complex abstraction that had its elusive
tentacles in every major university in the Northeast, every municipality
that served the academic landscape, all the financial pyrarnids that funded
the complicated structures of New EnglancYs higher ed-
282 Robert Ludium
ucation. “And points south,” if the rumors had foundation.
Narcotics was only one aspect, the craw In the throats of the criminal
legions-the immediate reason for the May conference, the Corsican letter.
Beyond drugs and their profits, the Nimrod imprimatur was stamped on scores
of college administrabons. Pace was convinced that curriculums were being
shaped, university personnel hired and fired, degree and scholarship
policies, all were expedited on the Nimrod organization~s instructions.
MatlodL’s memory flashed back to Carlyle. To Carlyk~s assistant dean of
admissions—a Nimrod appointee, according to the dead Loring. To Archer
Beeson, rapidly rising in the history department; to a coach of vanity soc-
cer; to a dozen other faculty and staff names on Lorines list
How many more were there? How deep was the Infiltration?
Why?
The prostitution rings were subsidiary accommodations. Recruitments were
made by the child-whores among themselves; addresses were provided, fees
established. Young flesh with ability and attractiveness could find its way
to Nimrod and make the pacL And there was ‘freedom,” there was “bread7 in
the pact with Nimrod.
And “no one was hurt7; it was a victimless crime.
‘No crime at all, just freedom, man. No pressures over the head. No
screanung zonkers over scholarship points.”
Alan Pace saw a great deal of good in the elusive, practical Nimrod. More
than good.
“You think it’s all so different from the outside.straight? Ybere wrong,
mister. les mini-America: or-
TIM MATLOCK PAPER 2ft
ganized, computerized, and very heavy with the corporate structure Hell, ifs
patterned on the American syndrome, ies company policy, maul lirs GM, 17T,
and Ma Bell-only someone was smart enough to organize the groovy groves of
academe. And les growing fast. Don’t fight it join it”
‘Is that what youre going to do?” asked Matlock.
‘It’s the way, man. It’s the faith. For all I know yotire with it now.
Could be, yoiYre a recruiter. You guys are everywhere; I’ve been expecting
you.’
‘Suppose Im not?”
“Ilen you7re out of your head. And over it, tm*
27
If one watched the white station wagon and its driver heading back toward
the center of New Haven, one would have thought-if he thought at all–that
it was a rich car, suitable to a wealthy suburb, the man at the wheel
appropriately featured for the vehicle.
Such an observer would not know that the driver was barely cognizant of the
traffic, numbed by the revelations he!d learned within the hour; an ex-
hausted man who hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours, who had the feeling that
he was holding onto a thin rope above an infinite chasm, expecting any
instant that his lifeline would be severed, plunging him Into the infinite
mist.
Matlock tried his best to suspend whatever thought processes he was capable
of. The years, the specific months during which he’d run his academic race
against self-imposed schedules had taught him that the mind-at least his
mind—could not function properly when the forces of exhaustion and
overexposure convergedL
Above A he had to function.
He was in uncharted waters. Seas where tiny Islands were peopled by
grotesque inhabitants. Julian Dunoises, Lucas Herrons; the Bartolozzis, the
Aiel-
TEE MATLOCK PAPER 2B5
Ice, the Sharpes, the Stocktons, and the Paces. The poisoned and the
poisoners.
Nimrod.
Uncharted waters?
No, they weren’t uncharted, thought Matlock.
They were well traveled. And the travelers the cynics of the planeL
He drove to the Sheraton Hotel and took a room.
He sat on the edge of the bed and placed a telephone call to Howard
Stockton at CarinourrL Stockton was out
In brusque, officious tones, he told the Carmount: switchboard that
Stockton was to return his call-he looked at his watch, it was ton of two~
four houm At six eclock He gave the Sheraton number and hung up.
He needed at least four hours’ sleep. He wasn’t sure when he would sleep
again.
He picked up the telephone once more and requested a wake-up call at five
forty-five.
As his head sank to the pillow, he brought his arm up to his eyes. Through
the cloth of his shirt he felt the stubble of his beard. Hed have to go to
a barbershop; bed left Ins suitcase in the white station wagon. Hed been
too fired, too involved to remember to bring it to his room.
The short, sharp three rings of the telephone signified the Sheratoes
adherence to his instructions. It was exactly quarter to six. Fifteen
minutes later there was another ring, this one longer, more normal. It was
precisely six, and the caller was Howard Stockton.
`Tll make this short, Matlock You got a contacL
2,86 Robert Ludlum
Only he doesn’t want to meet insW the Sail and SkL You go to the East Gorge
slope-they use it in spring and summer for tourists to look at the
scenery-and take the lift up to the top. You be there at eight thirty this
evenie. He’ll have a man at the top. Thafs all I’ve got to say. Its none of
nwh businessl”
Stockton slammed down the telephone and the echo rang in Matlocles ear.
But Vd made itl He’d nwde id He had made the contact with Nimrodl With the
conference.
He walked up the dark trail toward the ski Ift Ten dollars made the
attendant at the Sail and Sid parking lot understand his problem: the
nice-looking fellow in the station wagon had an assignation. The husband
wasn’t expected till later-and, what the hell, tha.es life. The parking lot
attendant was very cooperative.
When he reached the East Gorge slope, the rain, which had threatened all
day, began to come down. In Connecticut, April showers were somehow always
May thunderstorms, and Matlock was annoyed that he haddt thought to buy a
raincoat
He looked around at the deserted lift, its high double lines silhouetted
against the increasing rain, shining like thick strands of ship hemp in a
fogged harbor. There was a tiny, almost invisible light in the shack which
housed the complicated, hulking machines that made the lines ascend.
Matlock approached the door and knocked. A smalL wiry-looking man opened
the door and peered at him.
You the fella goin’ up?”
“I guess I am.”
“What’s your name?’
“Matlock.”
T= MATLOCK PAP= 287
‘Guess you am Know how to catch a crossbar?’
“rve skied. Arm looped, tail on the slat, feet on the
pipe.”
“Don!t need no help from me. rn start it you get le
071ne.*
‘Yoere gonna get weL’
11 know.”
Matlock positioned himself to the right of the entrance pit as the
lumbering machinery started up. The lines creaked slowly and then began
their halting countermoves, and a crossbar approached. He slid himself onto
the lift, pressed his feet against the footrall, and locked the bar in
front of his waist He felt the swinging motion of the Imes lifting him off
the ground.
He was on his way to the top of the East Gorge, on his way to his contact
with Nimrod. As he swung upward, ten feet above the ground, the ram became,
instead of annoying, exhilarating. He was coming to the end of his journey,
his race. VVIioever met him at the top would be utterly confused. He
counted on that hed planned it that way. If everything the murdered Loring
and the very-much-alive Greenberg had told him was true, it couldn’t be any
other way. The total secrecy of the conference; the delegates, unknown to
each other; the oath of “0merW the subcultaws violent insistence on codes
and counteroodes to protect its inhabitants-it um all true. Hed seen it an
in operation. And such complicated logisticswhen sharply