“Who are you?”
“Your enemy.”
Sealfont ripped open his coat with his left hand, plunging his right
inside. Dunois shouted a warning. Matlock found himself lurching forward
toward the man he’d revered for a decade. Lunging at him with only one
thought, one final objective, if it had to be the end of his own life.
TO kill.
The face was next to his. The Lincoln-like face now contorted with fear and
panic. He brought his right hand down on it like the claw of a terrified
animal. He ripped into the flesh and felt the blood spew out of the
distorted mouth.
He heard the shattering explosion and felt a sharp, electric pain in his
left shoulder. But still he couldiYt stop.
“Get off, MatlockI For God’s sake, get offl”
He was being pulled away. Pulled away by huge black muscular arms. He was
thrown to the ground, the heavy arms holding him down. And through it all
he heard the cries~ the terrible cries of pain and his
TM MATLOCK PAPM 377
name being repeated over and over again.
“Jamie … Jan-de … Jamie . . ”
He lurched upward, using every ounce of strength his violence could summon.
The muscular black arms were taken by surprise; be brought his legs up in
crushing blows against the ribs and spines above him.
For a few brief seconds, he was free.
He threw himself forward on the hard surface, pounding his arms and knees
against the stone. Whatever had happened to him, whatever was meant by the
stinging pain, nowspreading throughout the whole left side of his body, he
had to reach the girl on the ground. The girl who had been through such
terror for him.
“Patl”
The pain was more than he could bear. He fell once more, but he had reached
her hand. They held each other’s hands, each trying desperately to give
comfort to the other, fully aware that both might die at that moment.
Suddenly Matlock’s hand went limp.
All was darkness for him.
He opened his eyes and saw the large black kneeling in front of him. He bad
been propped up into a sitting position at the side of a marble bench. His
shirt had been removed; his left shoulder throbbed.
“The pain, Im sure, is far more serious than the wound,” said the black.
“The upper left section of your body was badly bruised in the automobile,
and the bullet penetrated below your left shoulder cartilage. Compounded
that way, the pain would be severe.
“We gave you a local anesthetic. It should help.” The speaker was Julian
Dunois, standing to his right
378 Robert Ludluin
“Miss Ballant3rne has been taken to a doctor. He7U remove the tapes. Hds
black and sympathetic, but not so much so to treat a man with a bullet
wound. We~ve radioed our own doctor in Torrington. He should be here in
twenty minutes.7
‘Why didWt you wait for him to help NO”
Frankly, we have to talk Briefly, but in Confidence. Secondly, for her own
sake, those tapes had to be removed as quickly as possible.”
“Where!s Sealfont?”
‘He’s disappeared. Thafs all you know, all youT ever know. les unportant
that you understand that. Because, you see, if we must, we will carry out
our threat against you and Miss Ballantyne. We don7t wish to do that . . .
You and I, we are not enemies.’
“Yotfre wrong. We are.”
“Utimately, perhaps. That would seem inevitable. Right now, however, we!ve
served each other in a moment of great need. We acknowledge it. We trust
you do also.”
“I do.”
“Perhaps w4eNe even learned from each other.7
Matlock looked into the eyes of the black revolutionary. “I understand
things better. I don7t know what you could have learned from me.”
The revolutionary laughed gently. “That an individ. ual, by his actions-his
courage, if you hke-rises above the stigma of labels.”
“I don!t understand you~”
“Ponder it ItIl come to you.”
“What happens now? To Pat? To me? I’ll be arrested the minute rm seen.”
“I doubt that sincerely. Within the hour, Greenberg will be reading a
document prepared by my organization. By me, to be precise. I suspect the
contents will
‘nM MATLOCK PAPM 379
become part of a file buried in the archives. It’s most embarrassing.
Morally, legally, and certainly politically. Too many profound errors were
made…. Well act this morning as your intermediary. Perhaps it would be a
good time for you to use some of your well-advertised money and go with Miss
Ballantyne on a long, recuperative journey…. I believe that win be agreed
upon with alacrity. I’m sure it will.’
“And Sealfont? What happens to him. Are you going to kill him?-
“Does Nimrod deserve to die? Don’t bother to answer; we’ll not discuss the
subject. Suffice it to say hell remain alive until certain questions are
answered.”
“Have you any idea what!s going to happen when he’s found to be missing?”‘
“There will be explosions, ugly rumors. About a great many things. When
icons are shattered, the believers panic. So be it. Carlyle will have to
live with it. . . . Rest, now. The doctor will be here soon.” Dunois turned
his attention to a uniformed Negro who had come up to him and spoken
softly. The kneeling black who had bandaged his wound stood up. Matlock
watched the tall, slender figure of Julian Dunois, quietly, confidently
issuing his instructions, and felt the pain of gratitude. It was made worse
because Dunois suddenly took on another image.
It was the figure of death.
“Dunois?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
EPILOGUE
The blue-green waters of the Caribbean mirrored the hot afternoon sun in
countless thousands of swelfing, blinding reflections. The sand was warm to
the touch, soft under the feet This isolated stretch of the island was at
peace with itself and with a world beyond that it did not really
acknowledge.
Matlock walked down to the edge of the water and let the miniature waves
wash over his ankles. Like the sand on the beach, the water was warm.
He carried a newspaper sent to him by Greenberg. Part of a newspaper,
actually.
KILLINGS IN CARLYLE, CONN.
23 SLAW, BLACKS AND WIMES, TOWN
SrUMSUID, FOLLOWS DISAPFEARANCH
OF UNWERSMY PRESIDENT
mmyuz, mAy 3Lo-On the outskirts of this small university town, in a section
housing large, old estates, a- bizarre mass killing took place yesterday.
Twenty-three men were slain; the federal authorities have speculated the
killings were the result of an ambmsh that claimed many lives of both the
attackers and the attacked. . . .
THE mATLocK PAPEFt 381
There followed a cold recitation of identities, short summaries of police
file associations.
Julian Dunois was among them.
Ile specter of death had not been false; Dunois hadiA escaped. The violence
he engendered had to be the violence that would take his life.
The remainder of the article contained complicated speculations on the
meaning and the motives of the massacre’s strange cast of characters. And
the possible connection to the disappearance of Adrian Sealfont.
Speculations only. No mention of Nimrod, nothing of himself; no word of any
long-standing federal investigation. Not the truth; nothing of the truth.
Matlock heard his cottage door open, and he turned around. Pat was standing
on the small veranda fifty yards away over the dune. She waved and started
down the steps toward him.
She was dressed in shorts and a light silk blouse; she was barefoot and
smiling. The bandages had been removed from her legs and arms, and the
Caribbean sun had tanned her skin to a lovely bronze. She had devised a
wide orange headband to cover the wounds above her forehead.
She would not marry him. She said there would be no marriage out of pity,
out of debt-real or imagined. But Matlock knew there would be a marriage.
Or there would be no marriages for either of them. Julian Dunois had made
it so.
“Did you bring cigarettes?” he asked.
No. No cigarettes,- she replied. I brought matches.”
*Thaes cryptic,”
‘I used that word–cryptio-with Jason. Do you remember?”
“I do. You were mad as hell.”
382 Robert Ludlum
‘You were spaced out In bell. Lees walk down to the jetty.”
“Why did you bring matches?” He took her hand, putting the newspaper under
his arm.
“A funeral pyre Archeologists place great signifi cance in funeral pyres.’
“Whatr
‘You!ve been carrying around that damned paper all day. I want to bum it-
She smiled at him, gently.
“Burning it won’t change whaes in it”
Pat ignored his observation. “Why do you think Jason sent it to you? I
thought the whole idea was several weeks of nothing. No newspapers, no
radios, no contact with anything but warm water and w1ute sand. He made the
rules and he broke them-~*
“He recomntended the rules and knew they were difficult to live by.-
He should have let someone else break them. Hes not as good a friend as I