their Oltramontan dialect difficult to understand, but the speculation bad been removed. The mere mention of the Matarese was enough to further cloud eyes that were hostile to begin with; pressing for even the most innocuous information was enough to end conversations barely begun. It was as if the name itself were part of a tribal rite of which no one spoke outside the enclaves in the hills, and never in the presence of strangers. Vasili had begun to understand within hours after he had entered the rockdotted countryside; it had been dramatically confirmed the first night.
Four days ago he would not have believed it; now he knew it was so. The Matarese was more than legend, more than a mystic symbol to primitive hill people; it was a form of religion. It had to be; men were prepared to die to keep its secret.
Four days and the world had changed for him. He was no longer dealing with knowledgeable men, sophisticated equipment at their disposal. There was no computer tapes whirling inside glass panels at the touch of a button, no green letters rat-tat-tatting across black screens, delivering immediate information necessary for the next decision. He was probing the past among people of the past.
Which was why he wanted so desperately to trap one of the men following him up the hill in the darkness. He judged there were three of them; the crest of the hill was long and wide and profuse with ragged trees and jagged rocks. They would have to separate in order to cover the various descents that led to further hills and the flatlands that preceded the mountain forests. If he could take one man and have several hours to work on his mind and body he could learn a great deal. He had no compunction about doing so. Ile night before a wooden bed had been blown apart in the darkness as a Corsican stood silhouetted in the doorframe, a Lupo shotgun in his hand. Taleniekov was presumed to have been in that bed.... Just one manthat man-thought Vasili, suppressing his anger, as be ran into a small cluster of wild fir trees just beneath the crown of the hill. He could rest for a few moments.
Far below he could see the weak beams of flashlights. One, two... three.
Three men and they were separating. The one on the extreme left was covering his area; it would take that man ten minutes of climbing to reach the cluster of wild fir. Taleniekov hoped it was the man with the Lupo. He leaned against a tree, breathing heavily, and let his body go limp.
It had happened so fast, the excursion into this primitive world. Yet there was a symmetry of a kind. He had begun running at night along the wooded banks of a ravine in Washington's Rock Creek Park and here he was in an isolated, tree-lined sanctuary high in the hills of Corsica. At night. The journey had been swift; he had known precisely what to do and when to do it.
Five o'clock yesterday afternoon, he had been in Rome's Leonardo da Vind Airport where he had negotiated for a private flight to Bonifacio, due west, on the southern tip of Corsica. He had reached Bonifacio by seven and a taxi had driven him north along the coast to Porto Vecchio and up to an inn up in the hill country. He had sat down to a heavy Corsican meal, engaging the curious owner in offhand conversation.
"I am a scholar of sorts," he had said. "I seek information about a padrone of many years ago. A Guillaume de Matarese." "I do not understand," the innkeeper had replied. "You say a scholar of -sorts. It would seem to me that one either is or is not, signore. Are you with some great university?" "A private foundation, actually. But universities have access to our studies." "Un'fondazione?" - "Un' organizzazione accademica. My section deals with little-known history in Sardinia and Corsica during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Apparently there was this padrone... Guillaume de Matarese... who controlled much of the land in these hills north of Porto Vecchio." "He owned most of it, signore. He was good to the people who lived on his lands." "Naturally. And we would like to grant him a place in Corsica's history.
I'm not sure I know where to begin." "Perhaps...." The innkeeper had leaned back in the chair, his eyes leveled, his voice strangely noncommittal. "The ruins of