The Negotiator

“Tasty,” said Tel. It was his favorite, if not only, adjective. Anything that surprised or pleased him he designated “tasty.”

Ro

“Miss Somerville?”

“Yes.”

“Evening. I’m Ro

Qui

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 purchases for the stay in Corsica.

The signs to the ferry port on the Quai de la Joliette were clear enough. The port was almost empty. The morning’s ferry from Ajaccio was docked, its passengers gone an hour before. The SNCM ticket office on the Boulevard des Dames was still closed. He parked and enjoyed breakfast while he waited.

At nine he bought himself a crossing on the ferry Napoléon for the coming night, due to leave at 8:00 P.M. and arrive 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 pharmacy yielded the washing things and shaving tackle to replace what he had abandoned at the Hôtel du Colisée in Paris. The search for a specialist men’s outfitters caused a number of shaken heads, but he eventually found it in the pedestrians-only rue St.-Ferréol 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 Qui

“You want what, m’sieur?”

Qui

“I’m sorry, I don’t think such a thing could be for sale.”

He eyed the two large-denomination notes moving seductively through Qui

“Perhaps in the storeroom? An old one of no further use?” suggested Qui

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 Qui

“Marvelous,” said Qui

He settled up, tipped the young man as promised, and left. The skies cleared and he lunched at an open café 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 the Ospédale Range in the deep south of the island.

At eight the Napoléon eased herself out of the Gare Maritime and headed backwards into the roads. Qui

Fifteen minutes later she cleared Cap Croisette and was enveloped by the darkness and the open sea. Qui

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 Ro

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 Ro

Sam eyed Ro

“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 Qui

“Gorblimey,” said Ro

“Tasty,” said Tel.

The Napoléon docked on the dot of seven at the Gare Maritime of Ajaccio, halfway between the jetties Capucins and Citadelle. Ten minutes later Qui

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 entirely covered by mountains. The road swerved and switch-backed up past Cauro 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 the Ospédale-a straight line would lead clear across the valley of the Baraci, a region so wild no roadmakers could penetrate it.

After Propriano he followed the coastal plain again for a few miles before the D.268 allowed him to turn toward the mountains of Ospédale. He was now off the N (national) roads and onto D (departmental) roads, little more than narrow lanes, yet broad highways compared to the tracks high in the mountains to come.

He passed tiny perched villages of local gray stone houses, sitting on hills and escarpments from which the views were vertiginous, and he wondered how these farmers could make a living from their tiny meadows and orchards.

Always the road climbed, twisting and turning, dipping to cross a fold in the ground but always climbing again after the respite. Beyond Ste. Lucie de Tallano the tree line ended and the hills were covered with that thick, thigh-high cover of heather and myrtle that they call the maquis. During the Second World War, fleeing from one’s home into the mountains to avoid arrest by the Gestapo was called “taking to the maquis”; thus the French underground resistance became known as the maquisards, or just “the Maquis.”

Corsica is as old as her mountains, and men have lived in these hills since prehistoric times. Like Sardinia and Sicily, Corsica has been fought over more times than she can remember, and always the strangers came as conquerors, invaders, and tax-gatherers, to rule and to take, never to give. With so little to live on for themselves, the Corsicans reacted by turning to their hills, the natural ramparts and sanctuaries. Generations of rebels and bandits, guerrillas and partisans have taken to the hills to avoid the authorities marching up from the coast to levy taxes and imposts from people ill able to pay.