The Matarese Circle (28 page)

Taleniekov. Had he reached Corsica? Was he somewhere in the hills of Porto Vecchio? It would not take long to find out. A stranger asking questions about a legend would be easily tracked down. On the other hand, the Russian would be cautious; if it had occurred to them
to go back to the source of the legend, it might well occur to others to do the same.

Bray looked at his watch; it was nearly eleven-thirty. He took out a map estimating his position as two and a half miles south of Sainte Lucie; the most direct line to the hills—to the Matarese hills, he reflected—was due west. But there was something to find before he entered those hills. A base of operations. A place where he could conceal his things with the reasonable expectation that they would be there when he came back. That ruled out any normal stop a traveler might make. He could not master the Oltramontan dialect in a few hours; he’d be marked as a stranger and strangers were marks. He would have to make camp in the woods, near water if possible, and preferably within walking distance of a store or inn where he could get food.

He had to assume he would be in Porto Vecchio for several days. No other assumption was feasible; anything could happen once he found Taleniekov—
if
he found him—but for the moment the necessities had to be considered before any plan was formulated. All the little things.

There was a path—too narrow for any car to travel, a shepherd’s route perhaps—that veered off the road into a gently rising series of fields; it headed west. He shifted the canvas duffle bag to his left hand and entered the path, pushing aside low-hanging branches until he was in the tall grass.

By 12:45 he had walked no more than five or six miles inland, but he had purposely traveled in a zig zag pattern that afforded him the widest views of the area. He found what he was looking for, a section of forest that rose abruptly above a stream, thick branches of Corsican pine sweeping down to the ground on the banks. A man and his belongings would be safe behind those walls of green. A mile or so to the southwest there was a road that led farther up into the hills. From what he could remember he was fairly certain this was the road he had taken to the ruins of Villa Matarese; there had been only one. Again, if memory served, he recalled driving past a number of isolated farmhouses on the way to the ruins on the hill and the inn where he had stopped for native beer during that hot afternoon. Only the inn came first, near that road on the hill, where a narrower road swung off it. To the
right
on the way up, on the
left
returning to Porto Vecchio. Bray checked his map again; it showed the hill road, and the branch to the right. He knew where he was.

He waded across the stream, and climbed the opposite bank to the cascading pines. He crawled underneath, opened his duffle bag and took out a small shovel, amused that two packets of toilet paper fell out with the instrument. The little things, he thought, as he started to dig into the soft earth.

It was nearly four o’clock. He had set up his camp beneath the screen of green branches, his duffle bag buried. the bandage on his neck changed, his face and hands washed in the stream. Too, he had rested, staring up at the filtered sunlight strained through the webbing of pine needles. His mind wandered, an indulgence he tried to reject but could not. Sleep would not come; thoughts did.

He was under a tree on the banks of a stream in Corsica, a journey that had begun on a bridge at night in Amsterdam. And now he could never go back unless he and Taleniekov found what they were looking for in the hills of Porto Vecchio.

It would not be so difficult to disappear. He had arranged many such disappearances in the past with less money and less expertise than he had now. There were so many places—Melanesia, the Fijis, New Zealand, across to Tasmania, the vast expanses of Australia, Malaysia, or any of a dozen Sunda islands—he had sent men to such places, stayed cautiously in touch with a few over the years. Lives had been rebuilt, past histories beyond the reach of present associates, new friends, new occupations, even families.

He could do the same, thought Bray. Maybe he would; he had the papers and the money. He could pay his way to Polynesia or the Cook Islands, buy a boat for charters, probably make a decent living. It could be a good life, an anonymous existence, an end.

Then he saw the face of Robert Winthrop, the electric eyes searching his, and heard the anxiety in the old man’s voice as he spoke of the Matarese.

He heard something else, too. Less distant, immediate, above in the sky. Birds were swooping down in frantic circles, their screeches echoing harshly, angrily over the fields and throughout the woods. Intruders had disturbed
their fiefdom. He could hear men running, hear their shouts.

Had he been
spotted?
He rose quickly to his knees, taking his Browning from his jacket pocket, and peered through a spray of pine needles.

Below, a hundred yards to the left, two men had hacked their way with machetes down the overgrown bank to the edge of the stream. They stood for a moment, pistols in their belts, glancing swiftly in every direction, as if unsure of their next moves. Slowly Bray let out his breath; they were not after him; he had not been seen. Instead, the two men had been hunting—an animal that had attacked their goats, perhaps, or a wild dog. Not him. Not a stranger wandering in the hills.

Then he heard the words and knew he was only partially right. The shout did not come from either Corsican holding a machete; it came from over the bank of the stream, from the field beyond.

“
Ecco la—nel campo!
”

It was no animal being pursued, but a man. A man was running from other men, and to judge from the fury of his pursuers, that man was running for his life.

Taleniekov?
Was it Taleniekov? And if it was, why? Had the Russian learned something so quickly? Something that the Corsicans in Porto Vecchio would kill for?

Scofield watched as the two men below took the guns from their belts and ran up the bank out of sight into the bordering field. He crawled back to the trunk of the tree and tried to gather his thoughts. Instinct convinced him that
il uomo
was Taleniekov. If so, there were several options. He could head for the road and walk up into the hills, an Italian crewman with a fishing boat in for repairs and time on his hands; he could stay where he was until nightfall, then thread his way under cover of darkness, hoping to get near enough to hear men’s conversations; or he could leave now and follow the hunt.

The last was the least attractive—but likely to be the most productive. He chose it.

It was 5:35 when Bray first saw him, running along the crest of a hill, shots fired at his weaving, racing figure in the glare of the setting sun. Taleniekov, as expected, was doing the unexpected. He was not trying to escape; rather, he was using the chase to sow confusion and
through that confusion learn something. The tactic was sound; the best way to uncover vital information was to make the enemy protect it.

But what had he so far learned that would justify the risk? How long would he—or could he—keep up the pace and the concentration to elude his enemy?… The answers were as clear as the questions: isolate, trap, and break. Within the territory.

Scofield studied the terrain as best he could from his prone position in the field. The early evening breezes made his task easier; the grass bent with each gentle sweep of wind, his view clearer for it. He tried to analyze the choices open to Taleniekov, where best to intercept him. The KGB man was running due north; another mile or so and he would reach the base of the mountains where he would stop. Nothing could be achieved by going up into them. He would double back, heading southwest to avoid being hemmed in by the roads. And somewhere he would create a diversion, one significant enough to escalate the confusion into a moment of chaos, the trap to follow shortly.

Intercepting Taleniekov might have to wait until that moment, thought Bray, but he preferred that it did not; there would be too much activity compressed into a short period of time. Mistakes were made that way. It would be better to reach the Russian beforehand. That way, they could develop the strategy together. Crouching, Scofield made his way southwest through the tall grass.

The sun fell behind the distant mountains; the shadows lengthened until they became long shafts of ink, spilling over the hills, enveloping whole fields that moments ago had been drenched in orange sunlight. Darkness came and still there was no sign, no sound of Taleniekov. Bray moved swiftly within the perimeters of the Russian’s logical area of movement, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, his ears picking up every noise foreign to the fields and the woods.
Still
no Taleniekov.

Had the KGB man taken the risk of using either dirt road for faster mobility? If he had, it was foolhardy, unless he had conceived of a tactic better employed in the lower hills. The entire countryside was now alive with search parties ranging in size from two to six men, all armed; knives, guns and mountain machetes hanging from
their clothing, their flashlight beams crisscrossing each other like intersecting lasers. Scofield raced farther west to higher ground, the myriad beams of light his protection against the roving, angry Corsicans; he knew when to stop, when to run.

He ran, cutting between two teams of converging men, halting abruptly at the sight of a whining animal, its fur thick, its eyes wide and staring. He was about to use his knife when he realized it was a shepherd’s dog, its nostrils uninterested in human scent. The realization did not prevent him from losing his breath; he stroked the dog, reassuring it, then ducked beneath a flashlight beam that shot out of the woods, and scrambled farther up the sloping field.

He reached a boulder half buried in the ground and threw himself behind it. He got up slowly, his hands on the rock, prepared to spring away and run again. He looked over the top, down at the scene below, the flashlight beams breaking up the darkness, defining the whereabouts of the search parties. He was able to make out the crude wooden structure that was the inn he had stopped at years ago. In front of it was the primitive dirt road he had crossed several hours before to reach the higher ground. A hundred yards to the right of the inn was the wider, winding road that descended out of the hills down into Porto Vecchio.

The Corsicans were spread over the fields. Here and there Bray could hear the barking of dogs amid angry human shouts and the slashing of machetes. It was an eerie sight, no figures seen, just beams of light, shooting in all directions; invisible puppets dancing on illuminated strings in the darkness.

Suddenly, there was another light, yellow not white.
Fire.
An abrupt explosion of flames in the distance, to the right of the road that led to Porto Vecchio.

Taleniekov’s diversion. It had its effect.

Men ran, shouting, the beams of light converging on the road, racing toward the spreading fire. Scofield held his place, wondering—clinically, professionally—how the KGB man would use his diversion. What would he do next? What method would he use to spring his trap on one man?

The beginning of the answer came three minutes later. A second, larger eruption of flames surged skyward about
a quarter of a mile to the
left
of the road to Porto Vecchio. A single diversion was now two, dividing the Corsicans, confusing the search; fire was lethal in the hills.

He could see the puppets now, their strings of light fusing with the glow of the spreading flames. Another fire appeared, this one massive, an entire tree bursting into a ball of yellowish white as though engulfed by napalm. It was three or four hundred yards
farther
left, a third diversion greater than the previous two. Chaos spread as rapidly as the flames, both in danger of leaping out of control. Taleniekov was covering all his bases, if a trap was not feasible he could escape in the confusion.

But if the Russian’s mind was working as his might, thought Bray, the trap would be sprung in moments. He crawled around the boulder and started down the expanse of descending field, keeping his shoulders close to the ground, propelling himself like an animal, hands and feet working in concert.

There was a sudden flash far below on the road. It lasted no more than a second, a tiny eruption of light. A match had been struck. It appeared senseless until Bray saw a flashlight beam shoot out from the right, followed instantly by two others. The three beams converged in the direction of the briefly held match; seconds later they separated at the base of the hill that bordered the road below.

Scofield knew what the tactic was now. Four nights ago a match had been struck in Rock Creek Park to expose a trap; it was struck now to execute one. By the same man. Taleniekov had succeeded in throwing the Corsicans’ search into chaotic paralysis; he was now drawing off the few left behind. The final chase had started; the Russian would take one of those men.

Bray took the automatic from the holster strapped beneath his jacket and reached into his pocket for his silencer. Snapping it into place, he unlatched the safety and began running diagonally to his left, below the crest of the hill. Somewhere within those acres of grassland and forest the trap would be sprung. It was a question of finding out precisely where, if possible immobilizing one of the pursuers, thus favoring the odds for the trap’s success. Better still, taking one of the Corsicans; two sources of information were better than one.

He ran in spurts, staying close to the ground, his eyes on the three flashlight beams below. Each was covering a section of the hill and in the spills, he could see weapons clearly; at the first sign of the hunted, shots would be fired.…

Scofield stopped. Something was wrong; it was the beam of light on the right, the one perhaps two hundred yards directly beneath him. It was waving back and forth too rapidly, without focus. And there was no reflection—not even a dull reflection—of light bouncing off metal—even dull metal. There was no weapon.

There was no hand holding that flashlight! It had been secured to a thick branch or a limb; a feint, a false placement giving false motion to cover another movement. Bray lay on the ground, concealed by the grass and the darkness, watching, listening for signs of a man running.