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