He is saved by Scofield, and the two encounter a woman named Antonia, who takes them to her grandmother, known in the hills as the "whore of Villa Matarese." She tells them story of Guillaume de Matarese, a wealthy landowner and businessman who is ruined by corrupt governments in England and France to stop his interference in international business interests. Taleniekov arrives first and makes inquiries in Porto Vecchio about the "padrone" of the Matarese, Guillaume de Matarese, but is hunted by the natives. Acting on Krupskaya's advice, Scofield and Taleniekov travel separately to Corsica.
None of the three are harmed, but Winthrop disappears. The three meet at Rock Creek Park, but are attacked. They contact Scofield's mentor Robert Winthrop, who inquires about the Matarese. He and Taleniekov face off in a hotel in downtown Washington in a 3-day-long exchange, eventually making contact, neutralizing the assassins, and escaping together. Scofield is placed “beyond salvage” by the State Department, and three men are summoned from Prague, Amsterdam, and Marseilles to kill him. He sees Taleniekov's man in the street, traps and kills him, and delivers the body to the Soviet embassy. He flees Russia through a CIA escape route in Sevastapol and travels to the United States, sending an old subordinate to contact Scofield. Taleniekov visits four retired Politburo leaders and is shortly after branded a traitor and marked for execution. Krupskaya urges Taleniekov to find Scofield and stop the Matarese. Meanwhile, Taleniekov, in Moscow, is summoned by his former teacher, retired Istrebiteli Aleksie Krupskaya, who tells him of an international cabal of assassins known as the Matarese who were headquartered in Corsica.
In Amsterdam, Scofield, tired of the covert intelligence world, deliberately releases a suspected mole and assaults a fellow intelligence officer when the latter kills the suspect. War is only averted through swift communication between the American President and the Soviet Premier. Taleniekov and Scofield are personal as well as professional enemies, Taleniekov having engineered the death of Scofield's wife and Scofield having personally killed Taleniekov's brother. Soviet KGB officer Vasili Taleniekov and American Consular Operations operative Brandon Scofield, respectively, are considered the most likely assassins. Some time later, Soviet nuclear physicist Dmitri Yuri Yurievich is killed on a hunting trip in the Russian countryside. On Christmas Eve in 1978, General Anthony Blackburn, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is killed in a New York brothel. The Matarese Circle (1979) is a novel by Robert Ludlum.
0 kommentar(er)
