The Matarese Circle (37 page)

“In my own way, I was persuasive, but there was something else working for me. To understand, you must know how such groups are organized. There is always a cadre of strong men, and one or two among these who vie for leadership, like male wolves in a pack—snarling, dominating, choosing their various mates at will, for that is part of the domination. A man such as this wanted me. He was probably the most vicious of the pack; the others were frightened of him—and so was I.

“But he could save my life, and I made my choice. I lived with him for over a year, hating every day, despising the nights he took me, loathing myself as much as I loathed him.

“Still, I could do nothing. I lived in fear; in such a terrible fear that my slightest move would be mistaken, and my head blown away … their favorite method of execution.” Antonia turned from the window. “You asked me why I did not run from you and the Russian. Perhaps you understand better now; the conditions of my survival were not new to me. To run away meant death; to run away from you means death now. I was a captive in
Bologna, I became a captive in Porto Vecchio … and I am a captive now in Rome.” She paused then spoke again. “I am tired of you all. I can’t stand it much longer. The moment will come, and I will run … and you will shoot.” She held out the dress again. “Take your clothes, Signore Scofield. I am faster in a pair of trousers.”

Bray did not move, nor did he object by gesture or voice. He almost smiled, but he could not do that, either. “I’m glad to hear that your sense of fatalism doesn’t include intentional suicide. I mean, you
do
expect to give us a ‘run.’ ”

“You may count on it.” She dropped the dress on the floor.

“I won’t kill you, Antonia.”

She laughed quietly, derisively. “Oh, yes, you will. You and the Russian are the worst kind. In Bologna, they kill with fire in their eyes, shouting slogans. You kill without anger … you need no inner urging.”

I once did. You get over it. There’s no compulsion, only necessity. Please don’t talk about these things. The way you’ve lived is your stay of execution; that’s all you need to know.

“I won’t argue with you. I didn’t say I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—I simply said I won’t. I’m trying to tell you, you don’t have to run.”

The girl frowned. “Why?”

“Because I need you.” Scofield knelt down and picked up the dress, and gave it back to her. “All I’ve got to do is convince you that you need me.”

“To save my life?”

“To give it back to you, at any rate. In what form, I’m not sure, but better than before. Without the fear, eventually.”

“ ‘Eventually’ is a long time. Why should I believe you?”

“I don’t think you have a choice. I can’t give you any other answer until I know more, but let’s start with the fact that the Brigatisti aren’t confined to Bologna. You said if you didn’t go back, they’d come looking for you. Their … packs … roam all over Italy. How long can you keep hiding until they find you—if they want to find you badly enough?”

“I could have hidden for years in Corsica. In Porto Vecchio. They would
never
find me.”

“That’s not possible now, and even if it were, is that the kind of existence you want? To spend your life as a recluse in those godamn hills? Those men who killed that old woman are no different from the Brigades. One wants to keep its world—and its filthy little secret—and it will kill to do it. The other wants to change the world—with terror—and it kills every day to do
that.
Believe me they’re connected to each other. That’s the connection Taleniekov and I are looking for. We’d better find it before the maniacs blow us all up. Your grandmother said it: It’s happening
everywhere.
Stop hiding. Help us. Help
me.
”

“There’s no way I can help you.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to ask.”

“Yes, I do. You want me to go back!”

“Later, perhaps. Not now.”

“I won’t! They’re pigs. He’s the pig of the world!”

“Then remove him from the world. Remove
them.
Don’t let them grow, don’t let them make you a prisoner—whether you’re in Corsica or here or anywhere else. Don’t you understand? They
will
find you if they think you’re a threat to them. Do you want to go back that way? To an execution?”

Antonia broke away, stopped by the overstuffed sofa Bray had placed in front of the door. “How will they find me? Will you help them?”

“No,” said Scofield, remaining motionless. “I won’t have to.”

“There are a hundred places I can go.…”

“And there are a thousand ways they have of tracing you.”

“That’s a lie!” She turned and faced him. “They have no such methods.”

“I think they do. Groups like the Brigades everywhere are being fed information, financed, given access to sophisticated equipment, and most of the time they don’t know how or why. They’re all foot soldiers and that’s the irony, but they’ll find you.”

“Soldiers for what?”

“The Matarese.”

“
Madness!
”

“I wish it were but I’m afraid it isn’t. Too much has happened to be coincidence any longer. Men who believed in peace have been killed; a statesman respected
by both sides went to others and spoke of it. He disappeared. It’s in Washington, Moscow … in Italy and Corsica and God knows where. It’s
there,
but we can’t
see
it. I only know we’ve got to find it, and that old woman in the hills gave us the first concrete information to go on. She gave up what was left of her life to give it to us. She was blind but she saw it … because she was there when it began.”

“Words!”

“Facts. Names.”

A sound. Not part of the hum from the square below, but beyond the door. All sounds were part of a pattern, or distinctly their own; this was its own. A footstep, a shifting of weight, a scratch of leather against stone. Bray brought his index finger to his lips, then gestured for Antonia to move to the left end of the sofa while he walked quickly to the right. She was bewildered; she had heard nothing. He motioned for her to help him lift the sofa away from the door. Smoothly, silently.

It was done.

Scofield waved her back into the corner, took out his Browning and resumed a normal conversational tone. He inched his way to the door, his face turned away from it.

“It’s not too crowded in the restaurants. Let’s go down to Tre Scalini for some food. God knows I could use …”

He pulled the door open; there was no one in the hallway. Yet he had not been mistaken; he knew what he had heard; the years had taught him not to
make
mistakes about such things. And the years had also taught him when to be furious with himself over his own carelessness. Since Fiumicino he had been very careless, disregarding the probability of surveillance. Rome was a low-priority station; since the heavy traffic four years ago, CIA,
Cons Op,
and KGB activity had been held to a minimum. It had been more than eleven months since he had been in the city, and the scanner sheets then had shown no agents of status in operation there. If anything Rome had lessened in intelligence potential during the past year; who could be around?

Someone was and he had been spotted. Someone moments ago had been close to the door, listening, trying to confirm a sighting. The sudden break in conversation had served to warn whomever it was, but he was there,
somewhere in the shadows of the squared-off hallway or on the staircase.

Godamn it,
thought Bray angrily as he walked silently around the landing, had he forgotten that alerts had been sent to every station in the world by now? He was a
fugitive
and he had been careless. Where had he been picked up? In the Via Condotti? Crossing the Piazza?

He heard a rush of air, and even as he heard it, his instinct told him he was too late to react. He stiffened his body as he spun to his right, lunging downward to lessen the impact of the blow.

A door behind him had suddenly been yanked open and a figure that was only a blur above his back rushed out, an arm held high, but only for an instant. It came crashing down, the sickening bolt of pain spreading from the base of his skull throughout his chest, surging downward into his kneecaps where it settled, bringing on the wind of collapse and darkness.

He blinked his eyes, tears of pain filling them, disorienting him, but somehow providing a measure of relief. How many minutes had he been lying on the hallway floor? He could not tell, yet he sensed it was not long.

He rose slowly and looked at his watch. He had been out for roughly fifteen minutes; had he not twisted the instant before impact, the elapsed time would have been closer to an hour.

Why was he
there?
Alone? Where was his captor? It did not make sense! He had been taken, then left by himself. What was his capture
for?

He heard a muted cry, quickly cut off, and turned toward the source, bewildered. Then bewilderment left him.
He
was not the target; he never had been. It was
she.
Antonia.
She
was the one who had been spotted, not he.

Scofield got to his feet, braced himself against the railing and peered down at the floor around him. His Browning was gone, naturally, and he had no other weapon. But he had something else. Consciousness. His assailant would not expect that—the man had known precisely where to hammer the butt of his gun; in his mind his victim would be unconscious far longer than the few minutes involved. Drawing that man out was not a significant problem.

Bray walked noiselessly to the door of the single room
and put his ear to the wood. The moans were more pronounced now. Sharp cries of pain, abruptly stilled. A strong hand clasped over a mouth, fingers pressed into flesh, choking off all but throated protests. And there were words, spoken harshly in Italian.

“
Whore! Pig!
It was to be
Marseilles!
Nine hundred thousand
lire!
Two or three weeks at most! We sent our people; you were not
there.
He was not there. No courier of drugs had ever heard of you!
Liar! Whore!
Where were you? What have you
done!? Traitor!
”

A scream was suddenly formed, more suddenly cut off, the guttural cry that followed searing in its torment. What in the name of God was
happening?
Scofield slammed his hand against the door, shouting as though only half-conscious, incoherent, his words slurred and barely comprehensible.

“Stop it!
Stop
it! What
is
this? I can’t … can’t.…
Wait!
I’ll run downstairs! There are police in the square. I’ll bring the
police!
”

He pounded his feet on the stone floor as if running, his shouts trailing off until there was silence. He pressed his back into the wall and waited, listening to the commotion within. He heard slaps and gasps of pain.

There was a sudden, loud thud. A body—her body—was slammed into the door, and then the door was pulled open, Antonia propelled through it with such force she sprawled forward falling to her knees. What Bray saw of her caused him to suppress all reaction. There was no emotion, only movement … and the inevitable: he would inflict punishment.

The man rushed through the door, weapon first. Scofield shot out his right hand, catching the gun, pivoting as he did so, his left foot arching up viciously into the attacker’s groin. The man grimaced in shock and sudden agony; the gun fell to the floor, metal clattering against stone. Bray grabbed the man’s throat, smashing his head into the wall, and twisting him by the neck into the open doorframe. He held the Italian upright, and hammered his fist into the man’s lower rib cage; he could hear the bone crack. He plunged his knee into the small of the man’s back and with both hands acting as a battering ram, sent him plummeting through the door into the room. The Italin
collapsed over the obstructing sofa and fell senseless to the floor beyond it. Scofield turned and ran to Antonia.

Reaction was allowed now; he felt sick. Her face was bruised; spidery veins of red had spread from the swellings caused by repeated blows to the head. The corner of her left eye was so battered the skin had broken; a two-pronged rivulet of blood flowed down her cheek. The loose-fitting sweater had been removed by force, the white blouse torn to shreds, nothing left but ragged patches of fabric. Beneath, her brassiere had been pulled from its hasps, yanked off her breasts, hanging from a single shoulder strap.

It was the flesh of this exposed part of her body that made him swallow in revulsion. There were cigarette burns, ugly little circles of charred skin, progressing from her pelvic area across the flat of her stomach over the swell of her right breast toward the small red nipple.

The man who had done this to her was no interrogator seeking information; that role was secondary. He was a sadist, indulging his sickness as brutally and as rapidly as possible. And Bray had not finished with that man.

Antonia moaned, shaking her head back and forth, pleading not to be hurt again. He picked her up and carried her back into the room, kicking the door shut, edging his way around the sofa, past the unconscious man on the floor, to the bed. He placed her gently down, sat beside her and drew her to him.

“It’s all right. It’s over, he can’t touch you anymore.” He felt her tears against his face, and then was aware that she had put her arms around him. She was suddenly holding him fiercely, her body trembling, the cries from her throat more than pleas for release from immediate pain. She was begging to be set free from a torment that had been deep within her for a very long time. But it was not the time now to probe; the extent of her wounds had to be examined and treated.

There was a doctor on the Viale Regina, and a man on the floor that had to be dealt with. Getting Antonia to the doctor might be difficult unless he could calm her down; disposing of the sadist on the floor would be simple. It might even accomplish something.

He would call the police from a booth somewhere in
the city and direct them to the
pensione.
They would find a man and his weapon and a crude sign over his unconscious body.