第 50 页

?When that kid ran along that roadside, someone had to be up in those trees with the detonator. How did he know to be there? BecauseZack was told exactly what to do at every stage, including the release of both of us. The reason he didn?t kill me was because he wasn?t told to. He didn?t think he was going to kill anybody.?

?But he told us who,? protested Sam. ?It was this American, the one who set it up and paid him, the one he called the fat man.?

?And who told the fat man　

?Oh. There?s someone behind the fat man.?

?There has to be,? said Quinn. ?And high?real high. ?Way up there. We know what happened and how, but not who or why. You go back to Washington now and you tell them what we heard fromZack. What have we got? The claims of a kidnapper, criminal, and mercenary, now conve-niently dead. A man running scared at the aftermath of what he?s done, trying to buy his freedom by wasting his own col-leagues and handing back the diamonds, with a cock-and-bull story that he was put up to it all.?

?So where do we go from here　

?You go into hiding. I go after the Corsican. He?s the key. He?s the fat man?s employee, the one who provided the deadly belt and put it on Simon. Five will get you tenZack was ordered to spin out the negotiations by an extra six days, switching his demand from cash to diamonds, because the new clothes were not ready. The schedule was being thrown out of kilter, moving too fast, had to be slowed down. If I can get to Orsini, take him alive, get him to talk, he probably knows the name of his employer. When we have the name of the fat man, then we can go to Washington.?

?Let me come with you, Quinn. That was the deal we made.?

?It was the deal Washington made. The deal?s off. EverythingZack told us was recorded by that bug in your purse. They know that we know. For them now the hunt is on for you and me. Unless we can deliver the fat man?s name. Then the hunters become the hunted. The FBI will see to that. And the CIA.?

?So where do I go to ground, and for how long　

?Until I call you and tell you we?re in the clear, one way or the other. As to where?M?laga.I have friends in the South of Spain who?ll look after you.?

Paris, like London, is a two-airport city. Ninety percent of overseas flights leave from Charlesde Gaulle to the north of the capital. But Spain and Portugal are still served from the older airport atOrly in the south. To add to the confu-sion, Paris also has two separate terminuses, each serving different airports. Buses forOrly depart fromMaine-Montparnasse in the Latin Quarter. Quinn drew up there thirty minutes after leaving the Madeleine, parked, and led Sam inside the main hall.

?What about my clothes, my things at the hotel　 she complained.

?Forget them. If the hoods are not staking out the hotel by now, they?re stupid. And they?re not. You have your pass-port　

?Yep. Always carry it on me.?

?Same here. And your credit cards　

?Sure. Same thing.?

?Go over to that bank and get as much money as your credit card account can stand.?

While Sam was at the bank, Quinn used the last of his cash to buy her a single ticket from Paris toM?laga. She had missed the 12:45 flight but there was another at 5:35P.M.

?Your friend has five hours to wait,? said the ticket-counter agent. ?Coaches leave from Gate J every twelve minutes forOrly South terminal.?

Quinn thanked her, crossed the floor to the bank, and gave Sam her ticket. She had drawn $5,000, and Quinn took $4,000.

?I?m taking you to the bus right now,? said Quinn. ?It?ll be safer atOrly than right here, just in case they?re checking flight departures. When you get there, go straight through passport control into the duty-free area. Harder to get at. Get yourself a new handbag, a suitcase, some clothes?you know what you?ll need. Then wait for the flight and don?t miss it. I?ll have people atM?laga to meet you.?

?Quinn, I don?t even speak Spanish.?

?Don?t worry. These people all speak English.?

At the steps of the bus Sam reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.

?Quinn, I?m sorry. You?d have done better alone.?

?Not your fault, baby.? Quinn turned her face up and kissed her. A common enough scene at terminals?no one took any notice. ?Besides, without you I wouldn?t have the Smith & Wesson. I think I may need that.?

?Take care of yourself,? she whispered. A chill wind blew down the Boulevardde Vaugirard. The last heavy lug-gage was stacked underneath the bus and the last passengers boarded. Sam shivered in his arms. He smoothed the shining blond hair.

?I?ll be okay. Trust me. I?ll be in touch by phone in a couple of days. By then, either way, we?ll be able to go home in safety.?

He watched the bus head down the boulevard, waved at the small hand in the rear window. Then it turned the corner and was gone.

Two hundred yards from the terminus and across Vaugirard is a large post office. Quinn bought sheet card-board and wrapping paper in a stationery shop and entered the post office. With penknife and gummed tape, paper and string, he made up a stout parcel of the diamonds and mailed it by registered post, express rate, to Ambassador Fairweather in London.

From the bank of international telephone booths he called Scotland Yard and left a message for Nigel Cramer. It consisted of an address near East Grinstead, Sussex. Finally he called a bar in Estepona. The man he spoke to was not Spanish, but a London Cockney.

?Yeah, all right, mate,? said the voice on the phone. ?We?ll take care of the little lady for you.?

With his last loose ends tied up, Quinn retrieved his car, filled the tank to the brim at the nearest gasoline station, and headed through the lunchtime traffic for the orbital ring road. Sixty minutes after making his phone call to Spain he was on the A.6autoroute heading south for Marseilles.

He broke for dinner at Beaune, then put his head back in the rear seat of the car and caught up on some missing sleep. It was three in the morning when he resumed his jour-ney south.

While he slept a man sat quietly in the San Marco res-taurant across the road from theH?tel du Colis?e and kept watch on the hotel?s front door. He had been there since mid-day, to the surprise and eventual annoyance of the staff. He had ordered lunch, sat through the afternoon, and then or-dered dinner. To the waiters he appeared to be reading qui-etly in the window seat.

At eleven the restaurant wished to close. The man left and went next door to the RoyalH?tel. Explaining that he was waiting for a friend, he took a seat at the window of the lobby and continued his vigil. At two in the morning he fi-nally gave up.

He drove to the twenty-four-hour-a-day post office in therue du Louvre, went up to the first-floor bank of tele-phones, and placed a person-to-person call. He stayed in the booth until the operator rang back.

? All?,monsieur,?she said. ?I have your call. On the line. Go ahead, Castelblanc.?

Chapter 16

The Costa del Sol has long been the favored place of re-tirement of sought-after members of the British underworld. Several dozen such villains, having contrived to separate banks or armored cars from their contents or investors from their savings, having skipped the land of their fathers one inch ahead of the grasping fingers of Scotland Yard sought refuge in the sun of the South of Spain, there to enjoy their newfound affluence. A wit once said that on a clear day in Estepona you can see more Category A men than in Her Majesty?s Prison, Parkhurst, during roll call.

That evening four of their number were waiting atM?-laga airport as a result of a phone call from Paris. There were Ronnie and Bernie and Arthur, pronounced Arfur, who were all mature men, and the youngster Terry, known as Tel. Apart from Tel they all wore pale suits andpanama hats, and despite the fact that it was long after dark, sunglasses. They checked the arrivals board, noted that the Paris plane had just landed, and stood discreetly to one side of the exit door from the customs area.

Sam emerged among the first three passengers. She had no luggage but her new, Orly-bought handbag and a small leather suitcase, also new, with a collection of toiletries and overnight clothes. Otherwise she had only the two-piece out-fit in which she had attended the morning?s meeting at Chez Hugo.

Ronnie had a description of her but it had failed to do her justice. Like Bernie and Arfur he was married, and like the others his old lady was a peroxide blonde, bleached even whiter by constant sun-worshipping, with the lizardlike skin that is the heritage of too much ultraviolet radiation. Ronnie appraised the pale northern skin and hourglass figure of the newcomer with approval.

?Gorblimey,? muttered Bernie.

?Tasty,? said Tel. It was his favorite, if not only, adjec-tive. Anything that surprised or pleased him he designated ?tasty.?

Ronnie moved forward.

?Miss Somerville　

?Yes.?

?Evening. I?m Ronnie. This is Bernie and Arfur and Tel. Quinn asked us to look after you. The car?s right over here.?

?

Quinn drove into Marseilles in a cold and rainy dawn, the last day of November. He had the choice of flying to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, fromMarignane Airport, and arriving the same day, or of taking the evening ferry and his car with him.

He elected the ferry. For one thing he would not have to rent a car in Ajaccio; for another, he could safely take the Smith & Wesson, still stuck in his waistband; and for a third, he felt he ought as a precaution to make some small pur-chases for the stay in Corsica.

The signs to the ferry port on theQuai de la Joliette were clear enough. The port was almost empty. The morn-ing?s ferry from Ajaccio was docked, its passengers gone an hour before. The SNCM ticket office on the Boulevarddes Dames was still closed. He parked and enjoyed breakfast while he waited.

At nine he bought himself a crossing on the ferry Napo-l?on for the coming night, due to leave at 8:00P.M. and ar-rive at 7:00 the morning after. With his ticket he could lodge the Ascona in the passengers? parking lot close to the J4 quai, from which the ferry would leave. This done, he walked back into the city to make his purchases.

The canvas holdall was easy enough to find, and a phar-macy yielded the washing things and shaving tackle to re-place what he had abandoned at theH?tel du Colis?e in Paris. The search for a specialist men?s outfitters caused a number of shaken heads, but he eventually found it in the pedestrians-onlyrue St.-Ferr?ol just north of the Old Port.

The young salesman was helpful and the purchase of boots, jeans, belt, shirt, and hat posed no problem. When Quinn mentioned his last request, the young man?s eyebrows went up.

?You want what, m?sieur　

Quinn repeated his need.

?I?m sorry, I don?t think such a thing could be for sale.?

He eyed the two large-denomination notes moving se-ductively through Quinn?sfingers.

?Perhaps in the storeroom? An old one of no further use　 suggested Quinn.

The young man glanced around.

?I will see, sir. May I take the holdall　

He was in the storeroom at the rear for ten minutes. When he returned he opened the holdall for Quinn to peer inside.

?Marvelous,? said Quinn. ?Just what I needed.?

He settled up, tipped the young man as promised, and left. The skies cleared and he lunched at an opencaf? in the Old Port, spending an hour over coffee studying a large-scale map of Corsica. The only thing the attached gazetteer would say of Castelblanc was that it was in theOsp?dale Range in the deep south of the island.

At eight the Napol?on eased herself out of theGare Maritime and headed backwards into the roads. Quinn was enjoying a glass of wine in the Bardes Aigles, almost empty at that season of the year. As the ferry swung to bring her nose to the sea, the lights of Marseilles passed in review before the window, to be replaced by the old prison fortress ofChateau d?If, drifting past half a cable?s length away.

Fifteen minutes later she cleared Cap Croisette and was enveloped by the darkness and the open sea. Quinn went to dine in theMalmaison, returned to his cabin onD Deck, and turned in before eleven, his bedside clock set for six.

?

At about that hour Sam sat with her hosts in a small and isolated former farmhouse high in the hills behind Estepona. None of them lived in the house; it was used for storage and the occasional moment when one of their friends needed a little ?privacy? from marauding detectives waving extradition warrants.

The five of them sat in a closed and shuttered room, now blue with cigarette smoke, playing poker. It had been Ronnie?s suggestion. They had been at it for three hours; only Ronnie and Sam remained in the game. Tel did not play; he served beer?drunk straight from the bottle and with an ample supply available in the crates along one wall. The other walls were also stacked, but with bales of an exotic leaf fresh in from Morocco and destined for export to countries farther north.

Arfur and Bernie had been cleaned out and sat glumly watching the last two players at the table. The ?pot? of 1,000-peseta notes in the center of the table contained all they had brought with them, plus half of what Ronnie had and half the dollars in Sam?s possession, exchanged at the going dollar/peseta rate.

Sam eyed Ronnie?s remaining stash, pushed most of her own banknotes to the center, and raised him. He grinned, matched her raise, and asked to see her cards. She turned four of her cards face-up. Two kings, two tens. Ronnie grinned and up-faced his own hand: full house, three queens and two jacks. He reached for the pile of notes containing all he had, plus all Bernie and Arfur had brought, plus nine tenths of Sam?s thousand dollars. Sam flicked over her fifth card. The third king.

?Bloody ?ell,? he said and leaned back. Sam scooped the notes into a pile.

?S?truth,? said Bernie.

? ?Ere, what you do for a living, Sam　 asked Arfur.

?Didn?t Quinn tell you　 she asked. ?I?m a special agent with the FBI.?

?Gorblimey,? said Ronnie.

?Tasty,? said Tel.

?

The Napol?on docked on the dot of seven at theGare Mari-time of Ajaccio, halfway between the jettiesCapucins andCitadelle. Ten minutes later Quinn joined the few other vehi-cles emerging from her hold and drove down the ramp into the ancient capital of this wildly beautiful and secretive is-land.

His map had made clear enough the route he should take, due south out of town, down the Boulevard Sampiero to the airport, there to take a left into the mountains on the N. 196. Ten minutes after he took the turnoff, the land began to climb, as it always will in Corsica, which is almost en-tirely covered by mountains. The road swerved and switch-backed up pastCauro to the Col St. Georges, from which for a second he could look back and down to the narrow coastal plain far behind and below. Then the mountains enfolded him again, dizzying slopes and cliffs, clothed in these low-lying hills with forests of oak, olive, and beech. After Bicchisano the road wound down again, back toward the coast at Propriano. There was no way of avoiding the dogleg route to theOsp?dale?a straight line would lead clear across the val-ley of the Baraci, a region so wild no roadmakers could pen-etrate it.