The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  “We’d also be dealing with families and neighbors and ‘technicians’ knocking on doors at night,” countered Berquist. “Christ, that son of a bitch! That man for all seasons!” The President stopped; he took a deep breath, then continued, “We’d never get away with it; the rumors would spread like a Mesabi brush fire in a dry July. The press would break it open and call us everything in the book, everything we deserve. Mass arrests without explanation—there’s none we could give—interrogations without due process, storm troopers … chemicals. We’d be crucified on every editorial page in the country, hanged in effigy on every campus, denounced from every pulpit and soapbox, to say nothing of the acid from our legislative brethren. I’d be impeached.”

  “More important, Mr. President,” said the ambassador, “and I’m sorry to say I mean that, the action itself would undoubtedly throw Parsifal into panic. He’d see what we were doing, know whom we were trying to unearth in order to find him. He could carry out his threats, carry out the inconceivable.”

  “Yes, I know. We’re damned if we move, helpless if we don’t.”

  “It could work,” persisted the general.

  “Handled correctly, it might, Mr. President,” added Bradford.

  “For God’s sake, how?”

  “Anyone who objected strenuously, to the point of refusal or evasion, would probably be our man,” replied Bradford.

  “Or someone with something else to hide,” said Brooks gently. “We’re in the age of anxiety, Mr. Undersecretary, and this is a city with a low threshold for privacy. You might very well corner a person who has nothing more to conceal than an unopened closet, or the loathing of a superior, an unpopular viewpoint, or an office affair. Parsifal will see only what his insanity compels him to see.”

  Bradford listened, reluctantly accepting the statesman’s judgment. “There’s another approach we haven’t had time to implement. An itinerary check. Tracing the whereabouts of every person on that floor during the week of Costa Brava. If we’re right—if I’m not wrong—he wasn’t here. He was in Madrid, in Barcelona.”

  “He’d cover himself,” objected Halyard.

  “Regardless, General, he’d have to account for being away from Washington. How many such absences can there be?”

  “When can you start?” asked Berquist.

  “First thing in the morning—”

  “Why not tonight?” the general interrupted.

  “If those records were accessible, I could. They’re not, and to call someone in to open them at this hour would cause talk. We can’t afford that.”

  “Even in the morning,” said the ambassador, “how can you suppress curiosity, keep it quiet?”

  Bradford paused before speaking, his eyes cast downward, seeking an answer. “Time study,” he replied, looking up, the phrase bordering on a question. “I’ll tell whoever controls those records that it’s a routine time study. Someone’s always doing something like that.”

  “Acceptable,” agreed Brooks. “Banal and acceptable.”

  “Nothing’s acceptable,” said the President of the United States quietly, staring at the white wall, where an hour ago the faces of four dead men had been projected. “ ‘A man for all seasons,’ they call him. The original was a scholar, a statesman, the creator of Utopia … and a burner of heretics—they conveniently forget that, don’t they? ‘Condemn the non-believers; they don’t see what I see, and I’m—inviolate.… Goddamn it, if I had my way, I’d do what fat Henry did with Thomas More. I’d cut off Matthias’s head, and instead of London Bridge, I’d jam it on top of the Washington Monument as a reminder. Heretics, too, are citizens of the republic and so, holy man, there can be no heresy! Goddamn him!”

  “You know what would happen, don’t you, Mr. President?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ambassador, I do. The people would look up at that bleeding neck, at that ever-benign face—no doubt with those tortoiseshell glasses still intact—and in their infinite wisdom they’d say he was right, had been right all along. Citizens—heretics included—would canonize him, and that’s the lousy irony.”

  “He could still do it, I think,” Brooks mused. “He could walk out and the cries would start again. They’d offer him the crown and he’d refuse and they’d persist-until it became inevitable. Another irony. Hail not Caesar but Anthony—a coronation. A constitutional amendment would be rammed through the House and the Senate and President Matthias would sit in the Oval Office. As incredible as it might seem, he could probably still do it Even now.”

  “Maybe we should let him,” said Berquist softly, bitterly. “Maybe the people-in their infinite wisdom—are right, after all Maybe he’s been right all along. Sometimes I don’t know anymore. Perhaps he really does see things others don’t see. Even now.”

  The aristocratic statesman and the plainspoken general left the underground room. The four would meet again at noon the next day, each arriving separately at the South Portico entrance, away from the inquisitive eyes of the White House press corps. If, in the morning, there were any startling developments in Bradford’s research at State, the time would be moved up, the President’s calendar erased. The mole took all precedence. He could lead them to a madman the President and his advisers called Parsifal.

  “I commend you, Mr. Undersecretary,” said Berquist, lowering his voice in an amateur’s imitation of the ambassador’s fluid and graceful speech. It was an imitation with only a trace of rancor; respect was also there. “He’s the last of the originals, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir. There aren’t many left, and none that I know of who care that much. Taxes and the great democratization have removed them—or alienated them. They feel uncomfortable, and I think It’s the country’s loss.”

  “Don’t be sepulchral, Emory, it doesn’t suit you. We need him; the power brokers on the Hill are still in awe of him. If there ever was an answer to Matthias, it’s Addison Brooks. The Mayflower and Plymouth Rock, New York’s Four Hundred and fortunes built on the backs of immigrants-leading to the guilt feelings of the inheritors. Benevolent liberals who weep at the sight of swollen black bellies in the Mississippi Delta. But for Christ’s sake, don’t take away the Château d’Yquem.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “You mean ‘No, Mr. President.’ It’s in your eyes, Emory; it’s always in the eyes. Don’t mistake me, I admire old elegant-ass, respect what’s in that head of his. Just as I think Tightrope Halyard’s one of the few military relics who’ve actually read the Constitution and understand what civilian authority really means. It’s not that war’s too important to leave to the generals; that’s horseshit We’d both be rotten pincering up the Rhine. It’s the ending of wars, the aftermath. The generals are reluctant to accept the first and have no concept of the second. Halyard’s different, and the Pentagon knows it. The Joint Chiefs listen to him because he’s better than they are. We need him, too.”

  “I agree.”

  “That’s what this office is all about. Need. Not likes or dislikes, only need. If I ever get back to Mountain Iron, Minnesota, alive and in one piece, I can think about whether I like someone or not But I can’t do that now. It’s only what I need. And what I need right now is to stop Parsifal, stop what he’s done, what he did to Anthony Matthias.” The President paused, then continued, “I meant what I said-he said. I do commend you. It was a hell of a job.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Especially what you didn’t say. Havelock. Where is he?”

  “Almost certainly in Paris; it’s where Jenna Karas was heading. Between pages this afternoon I placed a number of calls to people I know in the Assembly, the Senate, several ministries, the Quai d’Orsay, and our own embassy. I applied pressure, hinting that my orders came from the White House, but without mentioning you by name.”

  “You could have.”

  “Not yet, Mr. President Perhaps never, but certainly not now.”

  “Then we understand each other,” said Berquist.

  “Yes, sir. Nece
ssity.”

  “Halyard might have understood; he’s a practical soldier. Brooks wouldn’t; underneath that diplomatic exterior he’s a thorough moralist.”

  “That was my assessment, why I didn’t clarify Havelock’s status.”

  “It remains what it was at Col des Moulinets. If he exposed Costa Brava, it would panic Parsifal more quickly than anything we might do in the State Department Havelock was at the center—from the beginning.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  Berquist’s eyes strayed to the blank white screen at the far end of the room. “In World War Two, Churchill had to make a decision that tore him apart The German code machine Enigma had been broken by Allied intelligence, a feat that meant that military strategies issued from Berlin could be intercepted and hundreds of thousands—ultimately perhaps millions-of lives could be saved. Word came that a massive air strike had been called against Coventry. It was a single transmission, coded through Enigma. But acknowledging it, evacuating the city or even mounting sudden, abnormal defenses, would have revealed that the riddle of Enigma had been solved.… Coventry had to be bombed half out of existence so the secret could be kept. The secret of Costa Brava cannot be exposed for the same reason—millions of lives are in the balance.… Find Havelock, Mr. Undersecretary. Find him and have him killed. Reinstate the order for his execution.”

  19

  Havelock knew he had been spotted: a newspaper was abruptly lowered as he walked between the roped stanchions of Air France’s disembarkation lounge at Kennedy into the corridor that led to immigration. He had been pre-cleared on diplomatic status, the papers Broussac had provided guaranteeing a rapid exit through U.S. customs, and because of this accommodation he understood that he had to destroy those papers as quickly as possible. He carried his small suitcase—officially lock-taped and stamped Diplomatique in Paris—and once through the corridor he would be admitted through the heavy metal doors that led into the terminal by simply showing his United Nations credentials and declaring that he had no other luggage. A dead—file name would be checked against a dead-file name on the manifest, and he would be free to search or be killed in the United States of America. It was all so simple.

  However, for Régine Broussac’s protection—and ultimately his own—he had to get rid of the false papers that made all this possible. Too, he had to find out who had lowered the newspaper. The gray-faced man had risen slowly from his seat, folding the newspaper under his arm, and started for the outer, crowded hallway that paralleled the inner corridor that led to questionable freedom. Who was that man?

  If he could not find out, it was entirely possible that he would be killed before he could search, before he reached a halfway broker named Jacob Handelman. And that was not acceptable.

  The uniformed immigration officer was astute, polite. He asked the proper questions while looking Havelock directly in the eyes.

  “You have no luggage, sir?”

  “Non, monsieur. Only the one piece here.”

  “Then you don’t expect to be on First Avenue very long?”

  “A day, forty-eight hours,” replied Michael with a Gallic shrug. “Une conférnnce.”

  “I’m sure your government has made arrangements for transportation into the city. Wouldn’t you care to wait for the rest of your party?”

  The official was very good, thought Havelock. “Forgive me, monsieur, you force me to be candid.” Michael smiled awkwardly, as though his dignity had been somewhat compromised. “There is a lady waiting for me; we see each other so seldom. Perhaps it is noted on your information, I was posted at—First Avenue for several months last year. Haste, mon ami, haste is on my mind.”

  Slowly the official returned the smile as he checked off the name and reached for a button. “Have a good day, sir,” he said.

  “Many thanks,” said Havelock, walking rapidly through the parting steel checkpoint Vivent les amours des gentil—hommes français, he thought.

  The gray-faced man was standing by a short row of telephones, each occupied; he was second in line behind the third. The newspaper, which had been folded under the arm, was instantly removed and snapped open. He had not been able to make his call, and under the circumstances that was the best sight Michael could hope to see.

  He started walking in the man’s direction, passing him quickly and looking straight ahead. He took his first left into an intersecting wide corridor crowded with streams of departing passengers heading for their gates. He swung right into a narrower hallway, this one with far fewer people and the majority of these in the uniforms of the various airlines.

  Left again, the corridor longer, still narrow, even fewer people, mostly men in white overalls and in shirt sleeves; he had entered some kind of freight complex, the office section. There were no passengers, no business suits, no briefcases or carry—on bags.

  There were no public telephones. The walls were stark, broken up by widely spaced glass doors. The nearest phones were far behind, around the corner in the first, main hallway. Out of sight.

  He found the men’s room; it said, AIRPORT EMPLOYEES ONLY. Michael pushed the door open and walked inside. It was a large tiled room, two air vents whirring on the far wall, no windows. A row of toilet stalls was on the left, sinks and urinals on the right. A man in overalls with the words Excelsior Airline Caterers was positioned in front of the fourth urinal; a flush came from one of the stalls. Havelock went to a sink, placing his suitcase under it.

  The man at the urinal stepped back and zipped up his overalls; he glanced at Michael, his eyes taking in an expensive dark suit purchased that morning in Paris. Then, as if to say, All right, Mr. Executive, I’ll wash my hands, he ambled to the nearest sink and turned on the water.

  A second man emerged from a stall; he pulled his belt taut and started for the door, swearing under his breath, the plas—tic I.D. tag pinned to his shirt indicating he was a harried supervisor.

  The man in overalls ripped a paper towel out of a stainless—steel machine, cursorily wiped his hands and threw the brown paper into a receptacle. He opened the door and stepped out. As the door swung back Havelock ran to catch it, holding it open no more than an inch, and peered outside.

  The unknown surveillance was fifty—odd feet up the corridor, casually leaning against the wall next to an office door, reading the folded newspaper. He looked at his watch, then glanced at the frosted glass panel; he was the image of a visitor waiting for a friend to come out and Join him for a late lunch or drinks, or a drive to a motel near the airport There was nothing menacing about him, but in that control Michael knew there was menace, professionalism.

  still, two could have control, two could wait, be professional The advantage belonged to the one behind a door; he knew what was inside. The one outside did not, and could not afford to move away—to a telephone, perhaps—because once he was out of sight the quarry could escape.

  Wait Keep the control. And get rid of the false papers that could lead the pursuers to Régine Broussac and a halfway man named Jacob Handelman. A dead-file name on an aircraft’s manifest was meaningless, inserted by mindless computers that could not say who punched the keys, but the papers could be traced to their origin. Havelock tore the documents into shreds, which he flushed down a toilet With a penknife he sliced the ribbed Diplomatique tape, which guaranteed the absence of official inspection, and opened his suitcase in a stall at the end of the row. He removed the short-barreled Llama automatic from beneath his folded clothes, and a passport case containing his own very authentic papers. Presented properly, the papers were essentially harmless. The objective, however, was not to have to present them at all, and they were rarely required in the streets of his adopted country, one of the benefits for which he was profoundly thankful.

  Between the time he destroyed the mocked-up papers and inserted his passport case and weapon in their proper places, the employees’ men’s room had two more visitors. They came in together—an Air France pilot and his first officer, to judge from their
conversation; Michael remained in the stall. They argued, urinated, swore at preflight red tape, and wondered how much their Havana Monte Cristos would bring at the bar of L’Auberge au Coin, a restaurant apparently in midtown Manhattan. They continued talking about their profits on the way out.

  Havelock took off the Jacket of his suit, rolled it up, and waited in the stall. He held the door open no more than a quarter of an inch and looked at his watch. He had been inside the lavatory nearly fifteen minutes. It would happen soon, he thought.

  It did. The white metal door swung slowly back and Havelock saw part of a shoulder first, then the edge of a folded newspaper. The unknown surveillance was professional: no folded Jacket or coat concealed a gun—no draped cloth that could be grabbed and twisted, to be used against the holder—Just a loose newspaper that could be easily discarded and the weapon fired cleanly.

  The man whipped around the door, his back against the metal panel, his eyes scanning the walls, the vents, the row of stalls. Satisfied, he bent his knees, lowering himself, but apparently not for the purpose of checking the open spaces under the doors of the first several stalls. His eyes darted back and forth. His body was turned away from Michael. What was he doing?

  And then he did it, and the image of another professional on the bridge at Col des Moulinets came to Michael, a blond professional in the uniform of an Italian guard. But the killer “Ricci” had come prepared, knowing what his landscape was, knowing there was a gatehouse door to be jammed. This gray—faced professional had improvised, the test of onsite ingenuity. He had broken off a piece of wood, a small strip of cheap industrial molding—found in a dozen places in any airport corridor—and was now wedging it under the door. He stood up, placed his foot against the strip, and pulled on the metal knob. The door was jammed; they were alone. The man turned.

  Peering from inside the stall, Havelock studied him. The menace was not at first glance in the man’s physical equipment. He was perhaps in his mid—fifties, with thinning hair above a flat gray face with thick eyebrows and high cheekbones. He was no more than five feet, eight inches, and his shoulders were narrow, compact. But then, Michael saw the left hand—the right was concealed beneath the newspaper; it was huge, a peasant’s powerful hand, formed by years of working with heavy objects and equipment.