The Matarese Circle Read Online Free PDF

in-depth dossier has been maintained on Dr. Yurievich, information added almost daily, certainly every month. In certain judgments, it was time to reach Dimitri Yurievich with viable options.”
    “
What?
”
    “Yes, Mr. Premier. Defection. The two men who traveled to the
dacha
to make contact with Dr. Yurievich did so in our interests. Their source-control was Scofield. It was his operation.”
    The Premier of Soviet Russia stared across the room at the pile of photographs on the table. He spoke softly. “Thank you for your frankness.”
    “Look to other flanks.”
    “I shall.”
    “We both must.”

3
    The late afternoon sun was a fireball, its rays bouncing off the waters of the canal in blinding osculation. The crowds walking west on Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat squinted as they hurried along the pavement, grateful for the February sun and gusts of wind that came off the myriad waterways that stemmed from the Amstel River. Too often February brought the mists and rain, dampness everywhere; it was not the case today and the citizens of the North Sea’s most vital port city seemed exhilarated by the clear, biting air warmed from above.
    One man, however, was not exhilarated. Neither was he a citizen nor on the streets. His name was Brandon Alan Scofield, attaché-at-large, Consular Operations, United States Department of State. He stood at a window four stories above the canal and the Kalverstraat, peering through binoculars down at the crowds, specifically at the area of the pavement where a glass telephone booth reflected the harsh flashes of sunlight. The light made him squint, but there was no energy evident on Scofield’s pallid face, a face whose sharp features were drawn and taut beneath a vaguely combed cover of light brown hair, fringed at the edge with strands of gray.
    He kept refocusing the binoculars, cursing the light and the swift movements below. His eyes were tired, the hollows beneath dark and stretched, the results of too little sleep for too many reasons Scofield did not care to think about. There was a job to do and he was a professional; his concentration could not waver.
    There were two other men in the room. A balding technician sat at a table with a dismantled telephone, wires connecting it to a tape machine, the receiver off the hook. Somewhere under the streets in a telephone complex, arrangements had been made; they were the only cooperation that would be given by the Amsterdam police, a debt called in by the attaché-at-large from the American State Department. The third person in the room was younger than the other two, in his early thirties and with no lack of energy on his face, no exhaustion in his eyes. If his features were taut, it was the tautness of enthrallment; he was a young man eager for the kill. His weapon was a fast-film motion picture camera mounted on a tripod, a telescopic lens attached. He would have preferred a different weapon.
    Down in the street, a figure appeared in the tinted circles of Scofield’s binoculars. The figure hesitated by the telephone booth and in that brief moment was jostled by the crowds off to the side of the pavement, in front of the flashing glass, blocking the glare with his body, a target surrounded by a halo of sunlight. It would be more comfortable for everyone concerned if the target could be zeroed where he was standing now. A high-powered rifle calibrated for seventy yards could do it; the man in the window could squeeze the trigger. He had done sooften before. But comfort was not the issue. A lesson had to be taught, another lesson learned, and such instruction depended on the confluence of vital factors. Those teaching and those being taught had to understand their respective roles. Otherwise an execution was meaningless.
    The figure below was an elderly man, in his middle to late sixties. He was dressed in rumpled clothing, a thick overcoat pulled up around his neck to ward off the chill, a battered hat pulled down over his forehead.