mid-thirties, from Sarajevo to Mexico City, from Tokyo to Berlin. In their view, the collapse of the Matarese was attributed to the explosion of World War II with its growth of covert services where such murders were legitimized, or the council's absorption by the Sicilian Mafia, now entrenched everywhere, but centralized in the United States.
But this positive judgment was decidedly a minority viewpoint. The vast majority of professionals held with Interpol, Britain's MI-Six, and the American Central Intelligence Agency who claimed that the power of the Matarese was exaggerated. It undoubtedly had killed a number of minor political figures in the maze of passionately ineffective French and Italian politics, but there was no hard evidence of anything beyond this.
It was essentially a collection of paranoiacs led by a wealthy eccentric who was as misinformed about philosophy as he was about governments accepting his outrageous contracts. If it were anything else, these professionals claimed further, why had not they ever been contacted?
Because, Bray had believed years ago, as he believed now, you were-we were-the last people on earth the Matarese wanted to do business with.
From the beginning we were the competition-in one form or another.
"Ancora quindici minuti," bellowed the captain from the open wheelhouse "la costa ~ motto vicina." "Grazie tante, capitano." "Prego." The Matarese. Was it possible? A group of men selecting and controlling global assassinations, providing structure to terrorism, spawning chaos everywhere?
For Bray the answer was yes. The words of a dying Istrebiteli, the sentence of death imposed by the Soviets on Vasili Taleniekov, his own execution team recruited from Marseilles, Amsterdam and Prague... all were a prelude to the disappearance of Robert Winthrop. All were tied to this modern Council of the Matarese. It was the unseen, unknown mover.
Who were they, these hidden men who had the resources to reach into the highest places of governments as readily as they financed wild-eyed terrorists and selected celebrated men for murder? The larger question was why. Why? For what purpose or purposes did they exist?
The who was the riddle that had to be unraveled first... and whoever they were, there had to be a connection between them and those fanatics initially summoned by Guillaume de Matarese; where else could they have come from, how else could they have known? Those early men had come to the hills of Porto Vecchio; they had names. The past was the only point of departure he had.
There'd been another, he reflected, but the flare of a match in the woods of Rock Creek Park had erased it. Robert Winthrop had been about to name two powerful men in Washington who had vehemently denied any knowledge of the Matarese. In their denials was their complicity; they had to have heard of the Matarese---one way or the other. But Winthrop had not said those names; the violence had interfered. Now he might never say them.
Names past could lead to names present; in this case, they had to. Men left their works, their imprints on their times... their money. All could be traced and lead somewhere. If there were keys to unlock the vaults that held the answers to the Matarese, they would be found in the hills of Porto Vecchio. He had to find them... as his enemy, Vasili Taleniekov, had to find them. Neither would survive unless they did.
There'd be no farm in Grasnov for the Russian, no new life for Beowulf Agate, until they found the answers.
"La costa si avvicina!" roared the captain, spinning the wheel. He turned, grinning at his passenger through the wind-blown spray. "Ancora cinque minuti, signore, e poi la Corsica." "Grazie, capitano." "Prego." Corsica.
Taleniekov raced up the rocky hill in the moonlight, ducking into the patches of tall grass to obscure his movements, but not the path he was breaking. He did not want those following him to give up the hunt, merely to be slowed down, separated if possible; if he could trap one, that would be ideal.
Old Krupskaya had been right about Corsica, Scofield accurate about the hills north of Porto Vecchio. There were secrets here; it had taken him less than two days to learn that. Men now chased him through the hills in the darkness to prevent him from learning anything further.
Four nights ago Corsica had been a wildly speculative source, an alternative to capture, Porto Vecchio merely a town on the southeast coast of the island, the hills beyond unknown.
The hills were still unknown; the people who lived in them were distant, strange, and uncommunicative,