nostrils dilating. The noise that it heard was faint and distant, would not be felt by the men who slept, but for a creature of stealth and secrecy it was adequate warning.
A dark shadow, flitting comfortably on the path, the fox retraced its steps.
The farmer had laid the shotgun on the ground and knelt at the front of the car. The torch was in the boy's hands, and the farmer cupped his hands around it to minimize the flare of the light as he studied and memorized the number plate. Not that it was necessary after he had seen the prefix letters before the five numbers.
RC, and the television had said that the car had been stolen from Reggio Calabria. Cunningly hidden too, a good place, well shielded by the bank and the bushes and the trees. He rose to his feet, trying to control his breathing, feeling his heart battering at his chest. He switched off the torch in the boy's hand and retrieved his gun. Better with that in his hands as the wood threw out its death hush. The farmer reached for his son's hand, gripping it tightly, as if to provide protection from a great and imminent evil.
T w o men were in the wood?'
He sensed the nodded response.
'Where was the path to their place?'
The boy pointed across the car's bonnet into the black void of the trees. By touch the farmer collected with his fingers three short fallen branches, and made an arrow of them that followed his son's arm. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and they hurried together from the place, back across the fields, back to the safety of their home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Giuseppe Carboni was dozing'at his desk, head pillowed lop-sided on his folded arms.
'Dottore…' The shout of excitement and pounding feet boomed in the outer corridor.
Carboni flicked his head up, the attention of the owl, his eyes large in expectation. The subordinate surged through the open door, and there was a gleam and an excitement on his face.
'We have the car, D o t t o r e… ' Stuttered out, because the thrill was great.
Chairs were heaved back, files discarded, telephones dropped, men hurrying in the wake of the messenger gathered at Carboni's desk.
'Where?' Carboni snapped, the sleep shed fast.
'On the hill below Bracciano, between the town and the lake.'
'Excellent,' Carboni sighed, as if the burden of Atlas were shifted.
'Better than excellent, Dottore. A farmer found the car… his son, a small boy, took him to the place, and he thinks the boy watched Battestini and Harrison in the wood in the d a y… '
'Excellent, excellent…' Carboni gulped at the foetid air of the room which had taken on a new freshness, a new quality. He felt a weakness in his hands, a trembling at his fingers. 'Where is Vellosi?'
'At the communications centre. He said he would not return to the Viminale tonight.'
'Get him.'
The room had been darkened, and now Carboni moved to the door and rammed down the wall switch. The response was blinding light in the room, all bulbs on the chandelier illuminated, sweeping away the shadows and depressions.
T h e liaison officers of carabinieri and SISDE, get them here too
… within ten minutes.'
Back at his desk, moving with uncommon speed, he pulled from a drawer a large-scale map of the Lazio region. His aide's pencil raked to the green plot of woodland dividing the built-up grey shades of the town of Bracciano from the blue tint of the Lago di Bracciano. Carboni without ceremony relieved him of the pencil and scratched the crosses on the yellow road ribbons for the perimeter that he would throw around the boy and his prisoner. Seal the road to Trevignano, the road to Anguillara, the road to La Storta, the road to Castel Giuliano, to Cerveteri, to Sasso, to Manziano. Seal them tight, block all movement.
'Has the farmer alerted them at a l l… is there that risk?'
'He was asked that, Dottore. He says not. He went with his son to the car, identified it, and then returned home. He left the child there and then he walked to the home of a neighbour who has a telephone. He was careful to walk because he feared the noise of a car would startle the people in the wood, though his farm is at least a kilometre away. From the house of his neighbour he telephoned the carabinieri in Bracciano…'
'The carabinieri… they will not blunder…' Carboni exploded, as if success was so fragile, could be snatched from him.
'Be calm, Dottore. The carabinieri have not moved.' The aide was anxious to pacify.
'You have them, Carboni?'
The direct shout, Vellosi striding into the office, hands clapping together in anticipation. More followed. A carabinieri colonel in pressed biscuit-brown uniform, the man from the secret service in grey suit with sweat stains at the armpit, another in shirtsleeves who was the representative of the examining magistrate.
'Is it confirmed, the s i g h t i n g…? '
'What has already been d o n e…?'
'Where do you have them…? '
The voices droned around his desk, a gabble of contradiction and request.
'Shut up!' Carboni shouted. His voice carried over them and silenced the press around his desk. He had only to say it once, and had never been known to raise his voice before to equals and superiors. He sketched in his knowledge and in a hushed and hasty tone outlined the locations he required for the block forces, the positioning of the inner cordon, and his demand that there should be no advance into the trees without his personal sanction.
T h e men best, trained to comb the woods are mine…'
Vellosi said decisively.
'A boast, but not backed by fact. The carabinieri are the men for an assault.' A defiant response from the carabinieri officer.
'My men have the skills for close quarters.'
'We can get five times as many into the area in half the time..
Carboni looked around him, disbelieving, as if he had not seen it all before, heard it many times in his years of police work. His head shook in anger.
' It is, of course, for you to decide, Giuseppe.' Vellosi smiled, confident. 'But my men -'
'Do not have the qualities of the carabinieri,' the colonel chipped in his retort.
'Gentlemen, you shame us all, we discredit ourselves.' There was that in Carboni's voice that withered them, and the men in the room looked away, did not meet his gaze. 'I want the help of all of you. I am not administering prizes but seeking to save the life of Geoffrey Harrison.'
And then the work began. The division of labour. The planning and tactics of approach. There should be no helicopers, no sirens, a minimum of open radio traffic. There should be concentrations before the men moved off on foot across the fields for the inner line. Advance from three directions; one force congregating at Trevignano and approaching from the north-east, a second taking the southern lakeside road from Anguillara, a third from the town of Bracciano to the west to sweep down the hillside.
'It is as if you thought an army were bivouacked in the trees,'
Vellosi said quietly as the meeting broke.
' It is a war I know little of,' Carboni replied as he hitched his coat from the chair on to his wide shoulders. They walked together to the door, abandoning the room to confusion and shouted orders and ringing telephones. Activity again and welcome after the long night hours of idleness. Carboni hesitated and leaned back through the doorway. 'The Englishman who was here in the day. I will take him with me, call him at his hotel.'
He hurried to catch Vellosi. He should have felt that at last the tide had turned, the wind had slackened, yet the doubt still gnawed at him. How to approach by stealth, through trees, through undergrowth, and the danger if they did not achieve surprise. The thing could be plucked from him yet, even at the last, even at the closest time.
