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 1:45 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 further 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, bear 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 14-nel campol” 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 11 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 b-ying 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 further west to higher ground, the myriad beams of light his protection against the roving, angry Corsicans; he knew when to stop, when to ran.

  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 further 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 beam 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. Scofleld held his place, wondering-clinically, professionally-how the KGB man would us 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 baU 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.

  T’here 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. Ile 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; be 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 flashlightl It had been secured to a thick branch or a limb; a feint, a false placement given 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.

  It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that Scofield nearly fired his gun in instinctive defense. The figure of a large Corsican was suddenly beside him, above him, the crunch of a racing foot not eighteen inches from his head. He rolled to his left, out of the running man’s path.

  He inhaled deeply, trying to throw off the shock and the fear, then rose cautiously and followed as best he could the trail of the racing Corsican.

  The man was heading directly north along the hill, below the ridge, as Bray had intended doing, relying on beams of light and sound—or the sudden absence of both-to find Taleniekov. The Corsican was familiar.with the terrain. Scofield quickened his pace, passing the center beam of light still far below, and by passing it knowing that Taleniekov had fixed on the third man. The flashlight-barely seen-on the extreme north side of the hill.

  Bray hurried faster; instinct told him to keep the Corsican in his sight.

  But the man was nowhere to be seen. All was silent, too silent. Scofield dropped to the ground and joined that silence, peering about in the darkness, his finger around the trigger of his automatic. It would happen any second. But how? Where?

  About a hundred and fifty yards ahead, diagonally down to the right, the third beam of fight appeared to go off and on in a series of short, irregular flashes. No…. It was not being turned off and on rapidly; the light was being blocked. Trees. Whoever held the flashlight was walking into a cluster of trees growing on the side of the hill.

  Suddenly, the beam of light shot upward, dancing briefly in the higher regions of the thinning trunks, then plummeted down, the glow stationary, dulled by the foliage on the ground. That was itl The trap had been sprung, but Taleniekov did not know a Corsican was waiting for a sign of that trap.

  Bray got to his feet and ran as fast as he could, his boots making harsh contact with the profusion of rocks on the hillside. He had only seconds, there was so much ground to cover, and too much darkness; he could not tell where the trees began. If there was only an outline to fire at, the sound of a voice…. Voice. He was about to shout, to warn the Russian, when he heard a voice. The words were in that strange Italian spoken by the southern Corsicans; the sound floated up in the night breezes.

  Thirty feet below himl He saw the man standing between two trees, his body outlined in the spill of the muted, immobile beam of light that glowed up from the ground; the Corsican held a shotgun in his hands.

  Scofield pivoted to his right and sprang toward the armed man, his automatic leveled.

  “The Mataresel” Ile name was screamed by Taleniekov, as was the enigmatic phrase that followed. “Per nostro circolol” Bray fired into the back of the Corsican, the three rapid spits overwhelmed by an explosion from the shotgun. The man fell forward.

  Scofield dug his feet into the body, crouching, expecting an attack. What he saw next had prevented it; the Corsican trapped by Taleniekov had been blown apart by his would-be rescuer.

  “Taleniekov?” “Youl Is it you, Scofield?” “Put that light outl” cried Bray. The Russian lunged for the flashlight on the ground, snapping it off. “There’s a man on the hill; he’s not moving. He’s waiting to be called.” “If he comes, we must kill him. If we don’t, he’ll go for help. He’ll bring others back with him.” “I’m not sure his friends can spare the time,” replied Scofield, watching the beam of light in the darkness.

  “You’ve got them pretty well tied up There he goesl He’s running down the hill.” “Comel” said the Russian, getting up, approaching Bray. “I know a dozen places to hide. I’ve got a great deal to tell YOU.” “You must have.” “I do. It’s herel” Not sure… the answer, perhaps. Part of it anyway. You’ve seen for yourself. They’re hunting me; they’d kill me on sight. I’ve intruded-” “Fermate!” The sudden command was shouted from beyond Scofield on the hill. Bray spun on the ground; the Russian raised his gun. “Bastal” The second command was accompanied by the snarling of an animal, a dog straining on a leash. “I have a two-barrelled rifle in my hands, signori,” continued the voice… the unmistakable voice of a woman, speaking now in English. “As the one fired moments ago, it is a Lupo, and I know how to use it better than the man at your feet. But I do not wish to. Hold your guns to your sides, signori. Do not drop them; you may need them.” “Who are you?” asked Scofield, squinting his eyes at the woman above.

  From what he could barely see in the night light, she was dressed in trousers and a field jacket. The dog snarled again.

  “I look for the scholar.” “The what?” “I am he,” said Taleniekov. “From the organizzazione accademica. This man is my associate.” “What the hell are you… T’ ‘Basm” said the Russian quietly. “Why do you look for me, yet do not kill meT’ “Word goes everywhere. You ask questions about the padrone of padrones.” “I do. Guillaume de Matarese. No one wants to give me answers.” “One does,” replied the girl. “An old woman in the mountains. She wants to speak with the scholar. She has things to tell him.” “But you know what’s happened here,” said Taleniekov, probing. “Men are hunting me; they would kin me. You’re willing to risk your own life to bring me-bring us-to her?” “Yes. It is a long journey, and a hard one. Five or six hours up into the mountains.” “Please answer me. Why are you taking this riskT’ “She is my grandmother. Everyone in the hills despises her; she cannot live down here. But I love her.” “Who is she?” “She is called the whore of Villa Matarese.”