第 52 页

To have killed the Corsican hit man would have been easy. Quinn wanted him alive, in the back of his car, and in a cell in Ajaccio police headquarters by sunup. He had noticed the powerful motorcycle parked in the lean-to log store.

Thirty minutes later, in the deep shadow cast by the wooden barn and the parked tractor, Quinn heard the rumble of the motorcycle?s engine starting. Orsini turned the motor-cycle slowly out of a side passage and into the main square, then headed down the track out of town. There was enough room for him to pass between the rear of the tractor and the nearest house wall. He passed through a bright patch of moonlight and Quinn stepped out of the shadows, drew a bead, and fired once. The motorcycle?s front tire shredded; the machine slewed violently and went out of control. It fell to its side, threw the rider, and rolled to a stop.

Orsini was hurled by his own momentum into the side of the tractor, but he came back up with remarkable speed. Quinn stood ten yards away, the Smith & Wesson pointing at the Corsican?s chest. Orsini was breathing deeply, in pain, favoring one leg as he leaned against the tractor?s high rear wheel. Quinn could see the glittering black eyes, the dark stubble around the chin. Slowly Orsini raised his hands.

?Orsini,? said Quinn quietly.? Je m?appelle Quinn. Je veux te parler.?

Orsini?sreaction was to putpressure on his damaged leg, gasp in pain, and lower his left hand to his knee. He was good. The left hand moved slowly to massage the knee, tak-ing Quinn?sattention with it for a second. The right hand moved much faster, sweeping down and letting go of the sleeve-knife in the same second. Quinn caught the flicker of steel in the moonlight and jerked sideways.. The blade missed his throat, twitched the shoulder of his leather jacket, and dug deep into the planks of the barn behind him.

It took Quinn only a second to grab the bone haft and jerk it out of the wood to release his jacket. But it was enough for Orsini. He was behind the tractor and running down the alley behind the vehicle like a cat. But a wounded cat.

Had he been unhurt Quinn would have lost him. Fit though the American was, when a Corsican hits the maquis there are very few who can keep up with him. The tough strands of heather, up to waist height, cling and drag at the clothes like a thousand fingers. The sensation is of wading through water. Within two hundred meters the energy is sapped away; the legs feel like lead. A man can drop to the ground anywhere in that sea of maquis and vanish, invisible at ten feet.

But Orsini was slowed. His other enemy was the moon-light. Quinn saw his shadow reach the end of the alley, which marked the last houses of the hamlet, and then move out into the heather of the hillside. Quinn went after him, down the alley, which became a track, and then into the maquis. He could hear the swish of branches ahead and guided himself by the noise.

Then he saw Orsini?s head again, twenty yards ahead, moving across the flank of the mountain but steadily uphill. A hundred yards farther on, the sounds ceased. Orsini had gone to earth. Quinn stopped and did the same. To go for-ward with the moon behind him would be madness.

He had hunted before, and been hunted, by night. In the dense bush by the Mekong, through the thick jungle north of Khe Sanh, in the high country with hisMontagnard guides. All natives are good in their own terrain, the Viet Cong in their jungle, the Kalahari bushmen in their own desert. Or-sini was on his own ground, where he had been born and brought up, slowed by a damaged knee, without his knife but almost certainly with his handgun. And Quinn needed him alive. So both men crouched in the heather and listened to the sounds of the night, to discern that one sound that was not a cicada or coney or fluttering bird, but could only be made by a man. Quinn glanced at the moon; an hour to set. After that he would see nothing until dawn, when help would come for the Corsican from his own village a quarter-mile down the mountain.

For forty-five minutes of that hour neither man moved. Each listened for the other to move first. When Quinn heard the scrape he knew it was the sound of metal against rock. Trying to ease the pain in his knee, Orsini had let his gun touch rock. There was only one rock; fifteen yards to Quinn?s right, and Orsini behind it. Quinn began to crawl slowly through the heather at ground level. Not toward the rock?that would have been to take a bullet in the face. But to a larger clump of heather ten yards in front of the rock.

In his back pocket he still had the residue of the fishing line he had used at Oldenburg to dangle the tape recorder over the branch of the tree. He tied one end around the tall clump of heather two feet off the ground, then retreated to where he had started, paying out the line as he went. When he was certain he was far enough away, he began to tug gently at the line.

The bush moved and rustled. He let it stop, let the sound sink in to the listening ears. Did it again, and again. Then he heard Orsini begin to crawl.

The Corsican finally came to his knees ten feet from the bush. Quinn saw the back of his head, gave the twine one last sharp tug. The bush jerked, Orsini raised his gun, double-handed, and put seven bullets one after the other into the ground around the base of the bush. When he stopped, Quinn was behind him, upright, the Smith & Wesson point-ing at Orsini?sback.

As the echoes of the last shots died away down the mountain the Corsican sensed he had been wrong. He turned slowly, saw Quinn.

?Orsini ...?

He was going to say: I just want to talk to you. Any man in Orsini?s position would have been crazy to try it. Or des-perate. Or convinced he was dead if he did not. He pulled his torso about and fired his last round. It was hopeless. The shot went into the sky because half a second before he fired, Quinn did the same. He had no choice. His bullet took the Corsican full in the chest and tossed him backwards, faceup in the maquis.

It was not a heart-shot, but bad enough. There had been no time to take him in the shoulder, and the range was too close for half-measures. He lay on his back, staring up at the American above him. His chest cavity was filling with blood, gurgling out of the punctured lungs, filling the throat.

?They told you I had come to kill you, didn?t they　 said Quinn. The Corsican nodded slowly.

?They lied to you. He lied to you. And about the clothes for the boy. I came to find out his name. The fat man. The one who set it up. You owe him nothing now. No code ap-plies. Who is he　

Whether, in his last moments, Dominique Orsini still stuck by the code of silence, or whether it was the blood pumping up his throat, Quinn would never know. The man on his back opened his mouth in what might have been an effort to speak or might have been a mocking grin. He gave a low cough instead, and a stream of bright-pink frothing blood filled his mouth and ran onto his chest. Quinn heard the sound he had heard before and knew too well; the low clatter of the lungs emptying for the last time. Orsini rolled his head sideways and Quinn saw the hard bright glitter fade from the black eyes.

The village was still silent and dark when he padded down the alley to the main square. They must have heard the boom of the shotgun, the single roar of a handgun on the main street, the fusillade from up the mountain. But if their orders were to stay inside, they were obeying them. Yet someone, probably the youth, had become curious. Perhaps he had seen the motorcycle lying by the tractor and feared the worst. Whatever, he was lying in wait.

Quinn got into his Opel in the main square. No one had touched it. He strapped himself in tightly, turned to face the street, and gunned the engine. When he hit the side of the timber barn, just in front of the tractor?s wheels, the old planks shattered. There was a thump as he collided with sev-eral bales of hay inside the barn and another crash of splinter-ing woodwork as the Ascona demolished the farther wall.

The buckshot hit the rear of the Ascona as it came out of the barn, a full charge that blew holes in the trunk but failed to hit the tank. Quinn tore down the track in a hail of pieces of wood and tufts of flying straw, corrected the steering, and headed down toward the road for Orone and Carbini. It was just short of four in the morning and he had a three-hour drive to Ajaccio airport.

?

Six time zones to the west it was nudging 10:00P.M. in Washington the previous evening and the Cabinet officers whom Odell had summoned to grill the professional experts were not in an easily appeasable mood.

?What do you mean, no progress so far　 demanded the Vice President. ?It?s been a month. You?ve had unlimited resources, all the manpower you asked for, and the coopera-tion of the Europeans. What goes on　

The target of his inquiry was Don Edmonds, Director of the FBI, who sat next to Assistant Director(CID) Philip Kelly. Lee Alexander of the CIA had David Weintraub with him. Edmonds coughed, glanced at Kelly, and nodded.

?Gentlemen, we are a lot further forward than we were thirty days ago,? said Kelly defensively. ?The Scotland Yard people are even now examining the house where, we now know, Simon Cormack was held captive. That has already yielded a mass of forensic evidence, including two sets of fingerprints which are in the process of being identified.?

?How did they find the house　 asked the Secretary of State.

Philip Kelly studied his notes.

Weintraub answered Jim Donaldson?s question: ?Quinn called them up from Paris and told them.?

?Great,? said Odell sarcastically. ?And what other news of Quinn　

?He seems to have been active in several parts of Eu-rope,? said Kelly diplomatically. ?We are expecting a full report on him momentarily.?

?What do you mean, active　 asked Bill Walters, the Attorney General.

?We may have a problem with Mr. Quinn,? said Kelly.

?We?ve always had a problem with Mr. Quinn,? ob-served Morton Stannard of Defense. ?What?s the new one　

?You may know that my colleague Kevin Brown has long harbored suspicions that Mr. Quinn knew more about this thing from the start than he was letting on; could even have been involved at some stage. Now it appears adduced evidence may support that theory.?

?What adduced evidence　 asked Odell.

?Well, since he was released, on this committee?s in-structions, to pursue his own investigations into the identities of the kidnappers, he has been located in a number of Euro-pean situations and then vanished again. He was detained in Holland at the scene of a murder, then released by the Dutch police for lack of evidence. ...?

?He was released,? said Weintraub quietly, ?because he could prove he was miles away when the crime was com-mitted.?

?Yeah, but the dead man was a former Congo merce-nary whose fingerprints have now been found in the house where Simon Cormack was detained,? said Kelly. ?We re-gard that as suspicious.?

?Any other evidence on Quinn　 asked Hubert Reed.

?Yes, sir. The Belgian police have just reported finding a body with a bullet hole in the head, stuck on top of a Ferris wheel. Time of death, three weeks ago. A couple answering the description of Quinn and Agent Somerville were asking the dead man?s whereabouts from his employer around the same time the man disappeared.

?Then in Paris another mercenary was shot dead on a sidewalk. A cabdriver reported two Americans answering the same description fleeing from the scene in his cab at the time.?

?Marvelous,? said Stannard. ?Wonderful. We let him go to pursue inquiries and he leaves a trail of bodies all over northern Europe. We have, or used to have, allies over there.?

?Three bodies in three countries,? observed Donaldson acidly. ?Anything else we should know about　

?There?s a German businessman recovering from reme-dial surgery in Bremen General Hospital; claims it was be-cause of Quinn,? said Kelly.

?What did he do to him　 asked Walters.

Kelly told him.

?Good God, the man?s a maniac,? exclaimed Stannard.

?Okay, we know what Quinn?sbeen doing,? said Odell. ?He?s wiping out the gang before they can talk. Or maybe he makes them talk to him first. What has the FBI been doing　

?Gentlemen,? said Kelly, ?Mr. Brown has been pursu-ing the best lead we have?the diamonds. Every diamond dealer and manufacturing jeweler in Europe and Israel, not to mention right here in the States, is now on the lookout for those stones. Small though they are, we are confident we will be on top of the seller the instant they show up.?

?Damn it, Kelly, they have shown up,? shouted Odell. With a dramatic gesture he pulled a canvas bag from the floor near his feet and turned it upside down over the confer-ence table. A river of stones clattered out and flowed across the mahogany. There was a stunned silence.

?Mailed to Ambassador Fairweather in London two days ago. From Paris. Handwriting identified as Quinn?s. Now what the hell is going on over there? We want you to get Quinn back over here to Washington to tell us what happened to Simon Cormack, who did it, and why. We figure he seems about the only one who knows anything. Right, gentlemen　

There was a concerted series of nods from the Cabinet members.

?You got it, Mr. Vice President,? said Kelly. ?We ...er ... may have a bit of a problem there.?

?And what is that　 asked Reed sardonically.

?He?s vanished again,? said Kelly. ?We know he was in Paris. We know he rented an Opel in Holland. We?ll ask the French police to trace the Opel, put a port watch all over Europe in the morning. His car or his passport will show up in twenty-four hours. Then we?ll extradite him back here.?

?Why can?t you telephone Agent Somerville　 asked Odell suspiciously. ?She?s with him. She?s our bird dog.?

Kelly coughed defensively.

?We have a slight problem there, too, sir. ...?

?You haven?t lost her as well　 asked Stannard in dis-belief.

?Europe?s a big place, sir. She seems to be temporarily out of contact. The French confirmed earlier today she had left Paris for the South of Spain. Quinn has a place there; the Spanish police checked it out. She didn?t show. Probably in a hotel. They?re checking them too.?

?Now look,? said Odell. ?You find Quinn and you get his ass back over here. Fast. And Miss Somerville. We want to talk to Miss Somerville.?

The meeting broke up.

?They?re not the only ones,? growled Kelly as he es-corted a less-than-pleased Director out to their limousines.

?

Quinn was in a despondent mood as he drove the last fifteen miles fromCauro down to the coastal plain. He knew that with Orsini dead the trail was at last well and truly cold. There had been only four men in the gang, now all dead. The fat man, whoever he was, and the men behind him if there were any other paymasters, could bury themselves forever, their identities secure. What really happened to the Presi-dent?s only son, why, how, and who did it, would remain in history like the Kennedy killing and the Marie Celeste. There would be the official record to close the file, and there would be the theories to try to explain the ambiguities ... forever.