“I know. And that scares the hell out of me.” “Perdona?” Sophia Pastorine stood by the shelf. Bray answered her in Italian.

  “We recognize two of these names. They are wellknown men—?’ “But they are not the menl” broke in the old woman, stabbing her cane on the floor. “None of theml They are only the inheritorsl They are controlled by another. He is the manl” “What are you talking about? WhoT’ The dog growled. Neither Scofield nor Taleniekov paid any attention; an angry voice had been raised. The animal got to its feet, now snarling, the two men-their concentration on Sophia-still ignoring it. But the old woman did not. She held up her hand, a gesture for silence. She spoke, her anger replaced by alarm.

  “Open the door. Call out for my granddaughter. Quicklyl” “What is it?” asked the Russian.

  “Men are coming. They’re passing through the thickets, Uccello hears them.” Bray walked rapidly to the door. “How far away are they?” “On the other side of the ridge. Nearly here. Hurryl” Scofield opened the door and called out. “Youl Antonia. Come here.

  Quicklyl” The dog’s snarls came through bared teeth. Its head was thrust forward, its legs stretched and taut, prepared to defend or attack. Leaving the door open, Bray crossed to a counter and picked up a lettuce leaf. He tore it in half and placed the yellow scrap of paper between the two sections, and folded them together. “I’ll put this in my pocket,” he said to the KGB man.

  “I’ve memorized the names and the countries,” replied Taleniekov. “But then, I’m sure you have, too.” The girl ran through the door, breathless, her field jacket only partially buttoned, the Lupo in her hand, the bulges of the automatics in her side pockets. “What’s the matter?” Scofield turned from the counter. “Your… grandmother said men were coming. The dog heard them.” “On the other side of the hill,” interrupted the old woman. “Nine hundred paces perhaps, no more.” “Why would they do that?” asked the girl. “Why would they come?” “Did they see you, my child? Did they see Uccello?” “They must have. But I said nothing. I did not interfere with them. They had no reason to think-” “But they saw you the day before,” said Sophia Pastorine interrupting again.

  “Yes. I bought the things you wanted.” “Then why would you come back?” The old woman spoke rhetorically. “That is what they tried to understand, and they did. They are men of the hills; they look down at the grass and the dirt and see that three people traveled over the ground, not one. You must leave. All of you!” “I will not do that, grandmotherl” cried Antonia. “They won’t harm us.

  I’ll say I may have been followed, but I know nothing.” The old woman stared straight ahead. “You have what you came for, signori. Take it. Take her. Leavel” Bray turned to the girl. “We owe her that,” he said. He grabbed the shotgun out of her hands. She tried to fight back but Taleniekov pinned her arms and removed the Browning and the Graz-Burya automatics from her pockets. “You saw what happened down there,” continued Scofield. “Do as she says.” The dog raced to the open door and barked viciously. Far in the distance, voices were carried on the morning breezes; men were shouting to others behind them.

  “Got” said Sophia Pastorine.

  “Come on.” Bray propelled Antonia in front of him. “We’ll be back after they’ve left. We haveet finished.” “A moment, signorit” shouted the blind woman. “I think we have finished.

  The names you possess may be helpful to you, but they are only the inheritors. Look for the one whose voice is crueler than the wind. I heard itl Find him. The shepherd boy. It is het”

  They ran along the edge of the pasture on the border of the woods and climbed to the top of the ridge. The shadows of the eastern slope kept them from being seen. There

  had been only a few seconds when they might have been spotted; they were prepared for that but it did not happen. The men on the opposite ridge were distracted by a barking dog, deciding whether or not to use their rifles on it. They did not, for the dog was retrieved by a whistle before such a decision could be made. Uccello was beside Antonia now in the grass, his breath coming as rapidly as hers.

  There were four men on the opposite ridge as there were four remaining names on the scrap of yellow paper in his pocket, thought Scofield. He wished finding them, trapping them, were as easy as trapping and picking off the four men who now descended into the valley. But the four men on the list were just the beginning.

  There was a shepherd boy to find. “A voice crueler than the wind”…

  a child’s voice recognized decades later as one and the same… coming from the throat of what had to be a very, very old man.

  I heard the words and it was as though time had no meaning….

  What were those words? Who was that man? The true descendant of Guillaume de Matarese… an old man who uttered a phrase that peeled away seventy years from the memory of a blind woman in the mountains of Corsica. In what language? It had to be French or Italian; she understood no other.

  They had to speak with her again; they had to understand far more. They had not finished with Sophia Pastorine.

  Bray watched as the four Corsicans approached the farmhouse, two covering the sides, two walking up to the door, all with weapons drawn. The men by the door paused for an instant; then the one on the left raised his boot and rammed it into the wood, crashing the door inward.

  Silence.

  Two shouts were heard, questions asked harshly. T”he men outside ran around opposite corners of the farmhouse and went inside. There was more shouting… and the unmistakable sound of flesh striking flesh.

  Antonia started to get up, fury on her face. Taleniekov pulled her down by the shoulder of her field jacket. The muscles in her throat were contorted; she was about to scream. Scofield had no choice. He clamped his hand over her mouth, forcing his fingers into her cheeks; the scream was reduced to a series of coughs.

  “Be quiet!” whispered Bray. “If they hear you, they’ll use her to get you down therel” “It would be far worse for her,” said Vasili, “and for you. You would hear her pain, and they would take you.” Antonia’s eyes blinked; she nodded. Scofield relieved his grip, but did not release it. She whispered through his hand. “They hit herl A blind woman and they hit herl” “They’re frightened,” said Taleniekov. “More than you can imagine.

  Without their land, they have nothing.” The girl’s fingers gripped Bray’s wrist. “What do you mean?” “Not now!” commanded Scofield. “There’s something wrong. They’re staying in there too long.” “They’ve found something, perhaps,” agreed the KGB man.

  “Or she’s telling them something. Oh, Christ, she can’t!” “What are you thinking?” asked Taleniekov.

  “She said we’d finished. We haven’t. But she’s going to make sure of it!

  They’ll see our footprints on the floor; we walked over wet ground; she can’t deny we were there. With her hearing, she knows which way we went.

  She’ll send them in another direction.” “That’s fine,” said the Russian.

  “Godamn it, they’ll kill her!” Taleniekov snapped his head back toward the farmhouse below. “You’re right,” he said. “If they believe her -and they will-they can’t let her live. She’s the source; she’ll tell them that, too, if only to convince them. Her life for the shepherd boy. So we can find the shepherd boyl” “But we don’t know enoughl Come on, let’s gol” Scofield got to his feet, yanking the automatic from his belt. The dog snarled; the girl rose and Taleniekov pushed her down to the ground again.

  They were not in time. Three gunshots followed one upon the other.

  Antonia screamed; Bray lunged, holding her, cradling her. “Please, pleasel” he whispered. He saw the Russian pull a knife from somewhere inside his coat. “No! It’s all rightl” Taleniekov pahned the knife and knelt down, his eyes

  on the farmhouse below. “They’re running outside. You were right; they’re heading for the south slope.” “Kill them!” The girl’s words were muffled by Scofield’s hand.

  “To what purpose now?” said the KGB man. “She did what she wished to do, what she felt she had to do.”

  The dog would not follow them; commands from Antonia had no effect. It raced down into the farmhouse and would not come out; its whimpering carried up to the ridge.

  “Goodbye, Uccello,” said the girl sobbing. “I will come back for you.

  Before God, I will come backl” They walked out of the mountains, circling northwest beyond the hills of Porto Vecchio, then south to Sainte Lucie, following the stream until they reached the massive pine under which Bray had buried his attach6 case and duffle bag. They traveled cautiously, using the woods as much as possible, separating and walking in sequence across open stretches so no one would see them together.

  Scofield pulled the shovel from beneath a pile of branches, dug up his belongings, and they started out again, retracing the stream north toward Sainte Lucie. Conversation was kept to a minimum; they wasted no time putting distance between themselves and the hills.

  The long silences and brief separations served a practical purpose, thought Bray, watching the girl as she pressed forward, bewildered, following their commands without thinking, tears intermittently appearing in her eyes. The constant movement occupied her mind; she had to come to some sort of acceptance of her “grandmother” ‘s death. No words from relative strangers could help her; she needed the loneliness of her own thoughts, Scofield suspected that in spite of her handling of the Lupo, Antonia was not a child of violence. She was no child to begin with; in the daylight he could see that she would not see thirty again, but beyond that, she came from a world of radical academics, not revolution. He doubted she would know what to do at the barricades.

  “We must stop running!” she cried suddenly. “You may do what you like, but I am returning to Porto Vecchio. I’ll see them hangedr’ “There’s a great deal you don’t know,” said Taleniekov.

  “She was killed! That is all I have to knowl” “It’s not that simple,” said Bray. “The truth is she killed herself.” “They killed herl” “She forced them to.” Scofield took her hand, gripping it firmly. “Try to understand me. We can’t let you go back; your grandmother knew that.

  What happened dur. ing the past forty-eight hours has got to fade away just as fast as possible. There’ll be a certain amount of panic up in those hills; they’ll send men trying to find us, but in sev. eral weeks when nothing happens, they’ll cool off. They’ll live with their own fears but they’ll be quiet. It’s the only thing they can do. Your grandmother understood that. She counted on it.” “But why?” “Because we have other things to do,” said the Russian. “She understood that, too. It’s why she sent you back to find us.” “What are these things?” asked Antonia, then answered for herself. “She said you had names. She spoke of a shepherd boy.” “But you must speak of neither” ordered Taleniekov. “Not if you wish her death to mean anything. We cannot let you interfere.” Scofield caught the sound in the KGB man’s voice and for an instant found himself reaching for his gun. In that split second the memory of Berlin ten years ago was prodded to the surface. Taleniekov had already made a decision: if the Russian had the slightest doubt, he would kill this girl.

  “She won’t interfere,” said Bray without knowing why he gave such a guarantee, but delivering it firmly. “Let’s go. We’ll make one stop; I’ll see a man in Murato. Then if we can reach Bastia, I can get us out.” “To where, signore? You cannot order me—” “Be quiet,” said Bray. “Don’t press your luck.” “No, don’t,” added the KGB man, glancing at Scofield. “We must talk. As before, we should travel separately, divide our work, set up schedules and points of contact. We have much to discuss.” “By my guess, there are ninety miles between here and Bastia. There’ll be plenty of time to talk.” Scofield reached down for his attach6 case; the girl snapped her hand out

  of his, angrily moving away. The Russian leaned over for the duffle bag.

  “I suggest we talk alone,” he said to Bray. “She’s not an asset, Beowulf.” “You disappoint me.” Scofield took the duffle bag from the KGB man.

  ‘IWn’t anyone ever taught you to convert a liability into an asset?”

  Antonia had lived in Vescovato, on the Golo River, twenty-odd miles south of Bastia. Her immediate contribution was to get them there without being seen. It was important that she make decisions, if only to take her mind off the fact that she was following orders she disagreed with. She did so rapidly, choosing primitive back roads and mountain trails she had known as a child growing up in the province.

  “The nuns brought us here for a picnic,” she said, looking down at a dammed-up stream. “We built fires and ate sausage, and took turns going into the woods to smoke cigarettes.” They went on. “M hill has a fine wind in the morning,” she said. “My father made marvelous kites and we would fly them here on Sundays. After Mass, of course.” “We?” asked Bray. “Do you have brothers and sisters?” “One of each. They’re older than I am and still live in Vescovato. They have families and I do not see them often; there’s not much to talk about between us.” “They didn’t go to the upper schools then?” said Taleniekov.

  “They thought such pursuits were foolish. They’re good people but prefer a simple life. If we need help, they will offer it.” “It would be better not to seek it,” said the Russian. “Or them.” “They are my family, signore. Why should I avoid them?” “Because it may be necessary.” “That’s no answer. You kept me from Porto Vecchio and the justice that should be done; you can’t give me orders any longer.” The KGB man looked at Scofield, his intent in his eyes. Bray expected the Russian to draw his weapon. He wondered briefly what his own reaction would be; he could not tell. But the moment passed, and Scofield understood something he had not fully understood before. Vasih Taleniekov did not wish to kill, but the professional in him was in strong conflict with the man. The Russian was pleading with him. He wanted to know how to convert a liability into an asset. Scofield wished he knew.

  “Take it easy,” said Bray. “Nobody wants to tell you what to do except where your own safety’s concerned. We said that before and it’s ten times more valid now.” “I think it is something else. You wish me to stay silent Silent over the killing of a blind, old womanl” “Your safety depends on it, we told you that. She understood.” “She’s deadl” “But you want to live,” insisted Scofield calmly. “If the hill people find you, you won’t. And if it’s known that you’ve talked to others, theyll be in danger, too. Can’t you see that?” “Then what am I to do?” “Just what we’re doing. Disappear. Get out of Corsica.” Ile girl started to object; Bray cut her off. “And trust us. You must trust us. Your grandmother did. She died so we could live and find some people who are involved in terrible things that go beyond Corsica.” “You’re not talking to a child. What do you mean, ‘terrible things’?” Bray glanced at Taleniekov, accepting his disapproval, but by nodding, overriding it. “There are men-we don’t know how many-whose lives are committed to killing other men, who spread mistrust and suspicion by choosing victims and financing murder. There’s no pattern except violence, political violence, pitting faction against faction, government against government… people against people.” Scofield paused, seeing the concentration in Antonia7a face. “You said you were a political activist, a Communist. Fine. Good. So’s my associate here; he was trained in Moscow.

  I’m an American, trained in Washington. Were enemies; we’ve fought each other a long time. The details aren’t important, but the fact that we’re working together now is. The men we’re trying to find are much more dangerous than any differences between us, between our governments. Because these men can escalate those differences into something nobody wants; they can blow up the globe.” “Thank you for telling me,” said Antonia pensively. Then she frowned. “But how could she know of such things?” “She was there when it all began,” answered Bray. “~Nearly seventy years ago at Villa Matarese.” The words emerged slowly as Antonia whispered. ” ‘Me whore of Villa Matarese’…. The padrone, Guillaume?” “He was as powerful as any man in England or France, an obstacle to the cartels and the combines. He stood in their way and won too often, so they destroyed him. They used their governments to bring about his collapse; they killed his sons. He went crazy… but in his madnessand with the resources he had left-he put in motion a long-range plan to get revenge. He called together other men who’d been destroyed the same way he had; they became the Council of the Matarese. For years their specialty was assassination; years later they were presumed to have died. Now they’ve come back, more deadly than they ever were.” Scofield paused; he had told her enough. “That’s as plainly as I can explain it and I hope you understand. You want the men who killed your grandmother to pay for it. I’d like to think that one day they will, but I’ve also got to tell you that they don’t much matter.” Antonia was silent for a few moments, her intelligent brown eyes riveted on Bray. “You’re quite clear, Signor Scofield. If they don’t matter, then I don’t matter, either. Is that what you’re saying?” “I guess I am.” “And my Socialist comrade,” she added, glancing at Taleniekov, “would as soon remove my insignificant presence as not.” “I look at an objective,” answered Vasili, “and I do my best to analyze the problems inherent in reaching it.” “Yes, of course. Then do I turn around and walk into the woods, expecting the gunshot that will end my life?” “That’s your decision,” said Taleniekov.

  “I have a choice then? You would take my word that I’ll say nothing?” “No,” replied the KGB man. “I would not.” Bray studied Taleniekov’s face, his right hand inches from the Browning automatic in his belt. The Russian was leading up to something, testing the girl as he did so.

  “Then what is the choice?” continued Antonia. “To let one orthe other of your governments put me away, until you have found the men you seek?” “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Taleniekov. “We’re acting outside our governments; we do not have their approvals. To put it frankly, they seek us as intensely as we seek the men we spoke of.” The girl reacted to the Russian’s startling information as though struck.