hill, the flashlight in the center was several hundred yards to the south, its beam crisscrossing the ground in front of the Corsican holding it. Far down to the right, the third flashlight, which only seconds ago had been sweeping frantically back and forth in semicircles, was now oddly stationary, its beam angled down to a single spot. The position of the light and its abrupt immobility bothered Taleniekov, but there was no time to evaluate either fact. The approaching Corsican had reached the first tree in Vasili's natural sanctuary.
The man swung the beam of light into the, cluster of trunks and hanging limbs. Taleniekov had broken a number of branches, stripping more than a few so that any light would catch the white wood. The Corsican stepped forward, following the trail; Vasili stepped to his left, concealed by a tree. The hunter passed within eighteen inches, his rifle at the ready.
Taleniekov watched the Corsican's feet in the wash of light; when the left foot moved forward a beat would be lost for a right-handed marksman, the brief imbalance impossible to recover.
The foot left the ground and Vasili lunged, lashing his arm around the man's neck, his fingers surging in for the trigger enclosure, ripping the rifle out of the Corsican's hand. The beam of the flashlight shot up into the trees. Taleniekov crashed his right knee into his victim's kid- ney, dragging him backward, down onto the ground. He scissored the man's waist with his legs, forcing the Corsican's neck into a painful arch, the man's ear next to his lips.
"You and I will spend the next hour together!" he whispered in Italian.
"When the time's up, you'll have told me what I want to know, or you won't speak again. I'll use your own knife. Your face will be so disfigured no one will recognize you. Now get up slowly. If you raise your voice, you're dead!" Gradually, Vasili released the pressure on the man's waist and neck. Both men started to rise, Taleniekov's fingers gripped around the man's throat.
There was a sudden crack from above, the sound echoing throughout the trees. A foot had stepped on a fallen branch. Vasili spun around, peering up into the dense foliage. What he saw caused him to lose his breath.
A man was silhouetted between two trees, the silhouette familiar, last seen in the doorframe of a country inn. And as that last time, the thick barrels of a Lupo were leveled straight ahead. But now they were leveled at him.
In the rush of thought, Taleniekov understood that not all professionals were trained in Moscow and Washington. The frenetically waving beam of light at the base of the hill, suddenly still, motionless. A flashlight strapped to a sapling or a resilient limb, pulled back and set in motion to give the illusion of movement, its owner racing in darkness up a familiar incline.
"You were very clever last night, signore," said the man with the Lupo.
"But there is nowhere to hide here." "The Matarese!" screamed Vasili at the top of his lungs. "Per nostro circolo!" he roared. He lunged to his left. The double-barrelled explosion of the Lupo filled the hills.
Scofield jumped over the side of the skiff and waded through the waves toward the shoreline. There was no beach, only boulders joined together, forming a three dimensional wall of jagged stone. He reached a promontory of flat, slippery rock and braced himself against the waters, balancing the attache case in his left hand, his canvas dufflebag in his right.
He rolled onto the sandy, vine-covered ground until the surface was level enough to stand. Then he ran into the tangled brush that concealed him from any wandering patrols above on the broken cliffs. The captain had warned him that the police were inconsistent; some could be bought, others not.
He knelt down, took a penknife from his pocket, and cut the webbed strap off his wrist, freeing the case. Then he opened the duffle bag and took out dry corduroy trousers, a pair of ankle boots, a dark sweater, a cap, and a coarse woolen jacket, all bought in Paris, all labels torn off.
They were sufficiently rough in appearance to be accepted as native garb.
He changed, rolled up the wet clothes, and stuffed them into the duffle bag along with the attach6 case, then started the long, winding climb to the road above. He had been to Corsica twice before-Porto Vecchio once -both trips basically concerned with an obnoxious, constantly sweating owner of fishing