The Matarese Countdown is an espionage thriller novel by Robert Ludlum.

[1] Like the legendary phoenix, the Materese are rising from the ashes and are regaining their former power.

"son of the shepherd boy," who seems to have survived the events recounted in "The Matarese Circle" nearly twenty years ago, they are hatching a new and diabolical plot to plunge the civilised world into total chaos.

Beowulf Agate, can stop them, but he has been retired for nearly twenty years.

Brandon Scofield is once again sent into the field together with a CIA case officer, Cameron Pryce, but this time the enemy is more dangerous.