Frederick Forsyth - The Negotiator

Straight ahead ran the D.59 toward Orone and, much farther south, to Sotta. He could see the jutting peak of Mount Cagna to the southwest, the silent mass of the Ospédale Range to his left, topped by one of Corsica’s highest peaks, the Punta di la Vacca Morta, so called because from a certain angle it seems to resemble a dead cow. He chose to drive straight on.

Just after Orone the mountains were closer to his left, and the turning for Castelblanc was two miles beyond Orone. It was no more than a track, and since no road led through the Ospédale, it had to be a cul-de-sac. He could see from the road the great pale-gray rock set in the flank of the range that had once caused someone to think he was looking at a white castle, a mistake that had given the hamlet its name long ago. Quinn drove slowly up the track. Three miles farther on, high above the D.59, he entered Castelblanc.

The road ended at the village square, which lay at the end of the village, back to the mountain. The narrow street that led to the square was flanked by low stone houses, all closed and shuttered. No chickens scratched the dirt. No old men sat on their stoops. The place was silent. He drove into the square, stopped, climbed out, and stretched. Down the main street a tractor engine started. The tractor emerged from between two houses, rolled to the center of the road, and stopped. The driver removed the ignition keys, dropped to the ground, and disappeared between the houses. There was enough space between the rear of the tractor and the wall for a motorcycle, but no car could drive back down that street until the tractor was removed.

Quinn looked around. The square had three sides, apart from the road. To the right were four cottages; ahead, a small gray stone church. To his left was what must be the center of life in Castelblanc, a low tavern of two floors under a tiled roof and an alley leading to what else there was of Castelblanc that was not on the road-a cluster of cottages, barns, and yards that terminated in the flank of the mountain.

From the church door a small and very old priest emerged, failed to see Quinn, and turned to lock the door behind him.

“ Bonjour, mon père ,” Quinn called cheerfully. The man of God jumped like a shot rabbit, glanced at Quinn in near panic, and scuttled across the square to disappear down the alley beside the tavern. As he did so he crossed himself.

Quinn’s appearance would have surprised any Corsican priest, for the specialist menswear shop in Marseilles had done him proud. He had tooled Western boots, pale-blue jeans, a bright-red plaid shirt, fringed buckskin jacket, and a tall Stetson hat. If he wished to look like a caricature off a dude ranch, he had succeeded. He took his ignition keys and his canvas bag and strolled into the bar.

It was dark inside. The proprietor was behind the bar, earnestly polishing glasses-something of a novelty, Quinn surmised. Otherwise there were four plain oak tables, each surrounded by four chairs. Only one was occupied; four men sat studying hands of cards.

Quinn went to the bar and set down his bag, but kept his tall hat on. The barman looked up.

“Monsieur?”

No curiosity, no surprise. Quinn pretended not to notice, flashed a beaming smile.

“A glass of red wine, if you please,” he said formally. The wine was local, rough but good. Quinn sipped appreciatively. From behind the bar the landlord’s plump wife appeared, deposited several dishes of olives, cheese, and bread, cast not a glance at Quinn and, at a short word in the local dialect from her husband, disappeared back into the kitchen. The men playing cards refused to look at him either. Quinn addressed the barman.

“I am looking,” he said, “for a gentleman I believe lives here. Name of Orsini. Do you know him?”

The barman glanced at the card players as if for a prompt. None came.

“Would that be Monsieur Dominique Orsini?” asked the barman. Quinn looked thoughtful. They had blocked the road, admitted Orsini existed. For both reasons they wished him to stay. Until when? He glanced behind him. The sky outside the windows was pale-blue in the wintry sun. Until dark perhaps. Quinn turned back to the bar and drew a fingertip down his cheek.

“Man with a knife scar? Dominique Orsini?”

The barman nodded.

“Can you tell me where I can find his house?”

Again the barman looked urgently at the card players for a prompt. This time it came. One of the men, the only one in a formal suit, looked up from his cards and spoke.

“Monsieur Orsini is away today, monsieur. He will return tomorrow. If you wait, you will meet him.”

“Well, thank you, friend. That’s real neighborly of you.” To the barman he said, “Could I take a room here for the night?”

The man just nodded. Ten minutes later Quinn had his room, shown him by the proprietor’s wife, who still refused to meet his gaze. When she left, Quinn examined the room. It was at the back, overlooking a yard surrounded by lean-to open-fronted barns. The mattress on the bed was thin, stuffed with lumpy horsehair, but adequate for his purpose. With his penknife he eased up two floorboards under the bed and secreted one of the items contained in his bag. The rest he left for inspection. He closed the bag, left it on the bed, took a hair from his head, and stuck it with saliva across the zip.

Back in the bar he made a good lunch of goat cheese, fresh crusty bread, local pork pâté, and juicy olives, washed down with wine. Then he took a walk around the village. He knew he was safe until sundown; his hosts had received and understood their orders.

There was not a lot to see. No people came to the street to greet him. He saw one small child hastily pulled back into a doorway by a pair of hard-worked female hands. The tractor on the main street had its big rear wheels just clear of the alley from which it had emerged, leaving a two-foot gap. Its front was up against a timber barn.

A chill came into the air about five o’clock. Quinn retired to the bar, where a cheerful fire of olive logs crackled in the hearth. He went to his room for a book, satisfied himself that his bag had been searched, nothing taken, and the floorboards beneath the bed had not been discovered.

He spent two hours in the bar reading, still refusing to remove his hat, then ate again, a tasty ragout of pork, beans, and mountain herbs, with lentils, bread, apple tart, and coffee. He took water instead of wine. At nine he retired to his room. An hour later the last light in the village was extinguished. No one watched television in the bar that night, though it boasted one of only three sets in the village. No one played cards. By ten the village was in darkness, save only for the single bulb in Quinn’s room.

It was a low-power bulb, unshaded and hanging from a dusty cord in the middle of the room. The best light it gave was directly beneath, and that was where the figure in the tall Stetson hat sat reading in the upright armchair.

The moon rose at half past one, climbed from behind the Ospédale Range, and bathed Castelblanc in an eerie white light thirty minutes later. The lean, silent figure moved through the street by its dim illumination as one who knows exactly where he is going. The figure slid down two narrow alleys and into the complex of barns and yards behind the tavern.

Without a sound the shape leaped onto a hay wain parked in one of the yards and from there to the top of a wall. It ran effortlessly along the top of the wall and jumped another alley to land nimbly on the lean-to roof of the barn directly opposite Quinn’s window.

The curtains were half-drawn-they reached only halfway across the window at full stretch. In the twelve-inch gap Quinn could be plainly seen, book on lap, head tilted slightly forward to read the print in the dim light, the shoulders in the red-plaid shirt visible above the window sill, the tan Stetson on his head.