The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  “Who’s the last man?” Berquist was not going to let up. From his eyes it was apparent he could not readily accept the altered findings.

  “One I was so convinced might he the mole that I nearly had a White House Secret Service detail pick him up. Thank God I didn’t; he’s volatile, a screamer.”

  “Who?”

  “Nikolai Sitmarin. Born and raised in Leningrad, parents dissident immigrants over a dozen years ago. He’s the State Department’s most accomplished analyst of Soviet internal affairs, proven accurate about seventy percent. He’s a prize, and in his case I thought, What better way for Moscow to put a mole into the ground? An eighteen-year-old son of immigrants, dissidents permitted a family visa when they were damned hard to come by.”

  “Is Sitmarin Jewish?” asked the general.

  “No, but I expect most people think he is; in my view it added to his cover. Soviet dissidence isn’t the exclusive province of Russian Jews, although that seems to be the general impression. Also, he’s received a fair amount of media exposure—the thirty-year-old Wunderkind carrying out a personal vendetta. It all seemed so logically convoluted, so right.”

  “What were the circumstances?” The President’s words were clipped.

  “Again, an unexplained absence. He was gone from his office from mid—Christmas week until January eighth. He just wasn’t in Washington and no assignment was listed for his not being here. I had a time-stat man call the section head; the explanation was given.”

  “Which was?” pressed Berquist.

  “A personal leave was granted. Sitmarin’s mother was gravely ill in Chicago.”

  “Pretty damned convenient illness, wasn’t it?”

  “So much so she nearly died. The Cook County General Hospital confirmed it.”

  “But she didn’t die,” interrupted Brooks.

  “I spoke personally to the physician of record and he had a very clear idea of the gravity of my inquiry. He quoted from his files.”

  “Have them sent to you,” ordered the President. “There are too damned many explanations; one of them’s a lie.”

  “I agree, but which one?” added Bradford. “Not just these five, but the entire nineteen. Someone who thinks he’s—or she’s—doing a superior a harmless favor is concealing Ambiguity from us, hiding the mole. What’s going down as a few extra days’ skiing or going to the Caribbean or shacking up—excuse me.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Go back and tear into every explanation given you. Find one that won’t hold up.”

  “One that has a discrepancy in it,” added the ambassador. “Meetings that didn’t take place, a conference that was postponed, credit-card charges where the signatures are questionable—a gravely ill woman who just may have been given an assumed name.”

  “It’ll take time,” said the undersecretary.

  “You’ve accomplished a great deal in something over twelve hours,” continued Books sympathetically. “Again, I commend you.”

  “And you have the authority of this office to get you what you need, anything you need. Use it! Find the mole!” Ber-quist shook his head in exasperation. “He and we are in a race after a madman we call Parsifal. If the Soviets reach him first, this country has no viable foreign policy. And if Parsifal panics, it won’t make a damn bit of difference.” The President put his hands on the dais. “Is there anything else? I’m keeping two curious senators waiting and it’s no time to do it. They’re on the Foreign Relations Committee and I’ve a gut feeling they’ve got wind of Matthias.” Berquist stopped; he got up and looked at Bradford. “Reassure me again—that every man at Poole’s Island is secure.”

  “Yes. sir. Each was screened down to his fingernails, and no one leaves that island for the duration.”

  “That, too, will run its course,” said Brooks. “What is the duration? It’s an unnatural condition.”

  “These are unnatural circumstances,” broke in General Halyard. “The patrols are armed, the plaice a fortress.”

  “Armed?” The President spoke softly, in his own personal anguish. “Of course, they’re armed. Insane!”

  “What about Havelock?” asked the statesman. “Has there been anything?”

  “No,” replied the commander in chief, leaving the dais and heading for the door. “Call me later, Mr. Undersecretary,” he said without explanation. “Call me at three o’clock.”

  The snow, though not heavy, was a whipping snow. It careened off the windshield, tiny white flakes targeting into the glass and bouncing silently away like thousands of miniature asteroids passing through galactic space. Havelock, in his rented car, had driven past the sign several minutes before, the letters reflected in the headlights: MASON FALLS 3 MILES

  He had checked out of the King’s Arms Hotel, relieved to see a different clerk on duty, and had taken a cab to LaGuardia Airport. A hastily purchased map pinpointed Mason Falls, Pennsylvania; his only choice was a domestic flight to Pittsburgh. He was not at the time concerned with further Soviet surveillance. The Russian he had trapped had undoubtedly reported his arrival, but even if he had not, LaGuardia was not an international terminal. No diplomatic personnel came through its gates on overseas flights.

  He had been issued a last-moment seat on US Air’s 7:56 P.M. plane, reached Pittsburgh by nine-fifteen, and rented a car, the signed credit slip permitting him to drop it off at any Hertz location. By nine-forty-five he was driving south through the long stretches of dark countryside on Route 51.

  MASON FALLS

  ESTABLISHED 1858

  Through the swirling pockets of snow—thicker now, fuller—Michael could see the glow of a red neon sign up ahead on the right. He approached, slowing down, and read the letters; a touch of the absurd had intruded: HARRY’S BAR. Either someone along the banks of the Monongahela had a sense of humor, or there was a man named Harry who did not know how far away he was from Venice or Paris. Or perhaps he did.

  He obviously did. Inside, there were enlarged World War II photographs on the walk depicting Parisian scenes, several showing a soldier standing outside the door of Paris’s Harry’s Bar on the Right Bank. The place was rustic—thick wood dulled by use and totally untouched by furniture polish—heavy glasses and high-backed barstools. A jukebox in the corner was bleating out country music to the bored half-dozen or so patrons at the bar. They were in keeping with their surroundings: everyone male, a profusion of red-checkered flannel shirts, wide-ribbed corduroy trousers and ankle-length boots worn in the fields and in barns. These were farmers and farmhands; he might have assumed as much from the pickup trucks outside, but the biting wind had distracted him—that and the fact that he was in Mason Falls, Pennsylvania.

  He looked around for a wall telephone; it was inappropriately placed six feet from the jukebox. That did not concern him, but the absence of a telephone book did; he needed an address. There had been no time at LaGuardia to find the correct book for Mason Falls, and as Pittsburgh was an international airport, he wanted to get out of the terminal as fast as possible. He walked to the bar, stood between two empty stools, and waited for an aging, morose-looking Harry to serve him.

  “Yeah, what’ll it be?”

  “Scotch on the rocks, and a telephone book, if you’ve got one, please.”

  The owner studied Havelock briefly. “I don’t get much call for Scotch. It ain’t the best.”

  “I probably wouldn’t know the best.”

  “It’s your throat.” Harry reached under the bar to his right, but instead of coming up with a glass and ice, he put a thin telephone book in front of Michael. He then walked to his left, to a row of bottles on a lighted shelf.

  Havelock leafed through the pages rapidly, his index finger descending the row of K’s.

  Kohoutek, Janos RFD 3 Box 12

  Goddamn it!

  Rural Free Delivery, routing number 3, could he anywhere in Mason Falls, which, although small in population, was large in square mileage. Acres and acres of farmland, winding roads that threaded through
the countryside. And to call the number was to give an alarm; if there were special words, he did not know them, and all things considered, there undoubtedly were special words. To mention Jacob Handelman over the phone was asking for a confirmation call to he made to New York. There would he no answer on the dead halfway man’s phone until he was found, possibly in the morning, possibly not for several days.

  “Here y’are,” said Harry, placing the drink on the bar.

  “Would you know a man named Kohoutek?” asked Havelock softly. “Janos Kohoutek?”

  The owner squinted in minor thought. “Know the name, not him, though. He’s one of them foreigners with some land over in the west end.”

  “Would you know where in the west end?”

  “No. Doesn’t it tell you there?” Harry gestured at the telephone book.

  “It only gives an RFD and a box number.”

  “Call him, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I’d rather not. As you say, he’s a foreigner; he might not understand over the phone.”

  “Hey!” yelled Harry over the sounds of the country music. “Any you assholes know a guy named Kohoutek?”

  “Foreigner,” said one red-checkered flannel shirt.

  “He’s got more’n forty acres over west,” added a hunting cap farther down. “Fuckin’ refugees with their government handouts can afford it. We can’t.”

  “Would you know where?” asked Havelock.

  “It’s either on Chamberlain or Youngfield, maybe Four-forks, I don’t know which. Don’t it say in the book?”

  “No, just RFD-three, that’s all. And a box number.”

  “Route three,” said another patron, this one with a growth of beard and bleary eyes. “That’s Davey Hooker’s route. He’s a carrier, and that son of a bitch soaks ’em. Got the job through his uncle, the fuckin’ grafter.”

  “Would you know where the route is?”

  “Sure. Fourforks Pike. Heads due west from the depot a mile down Fifty-one.”

  “Thanks very much.” Michael raised the glass to his lips and drank. It was not very good; it was not even Scotch. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his money, and left two dollars on the bar. “Thanks again,” he said to the owner.

  “It’s sixty cents,” said Harry.

  “For old times’ sake,” replied Havelock. “For the other place in Paris.”

  “Hey, you been there?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “You shoulda told me! You woulda gotten decent whisky! Let me tell you, in ’45 me and—”

  “I’m really sorry, I don’t have time.”

  Michael pressed himself away from the bar and started for the door. He did not see a man at the far end of the room get off his stool and walk to the telephone.

  Fourforks Pike became a slowly curving, interminable backcountry road less than a mile west of the old railroad depot. The first post-office box was marked 5; prominently anchored in the ground on his right, it was clearly visible through the snow in the glare of the headlights. The next, however, Havelock would have missed had he not suddenly become aware of a break in the foliage; it was a narrow dirt road on his left, and the box could not he seen from the pike. It was number 7, negating the rule that said odd and even numbers meant different sides in a delivery route. He would have to drive more slowly and keep his eyes more alert.

  The next three boxes were all within a half mile, each in sequence, the last number 10. Two hundred yards beyond, the road split—the first of presumably four forks on the pike. He took the straighter line, the fork on the right. Number 11 did not appear until he had driven nearly a mile and a half; when he saw it he briefly closed his eyes in relief. For several agonizing moments he had been convinced he had taken the wrong road. He pressed his foot on the accelerator, his mouth dry, the muscles of his face rigid, his eyes straining.

  If the road was interminable—made worse by the spiraling snow against the windshield—the wait for the final sighting was torturously so. He entered a long, seemingly endless stretch of flat, straight ground, which, as near as he could determine, was bordered by fields or pastures; but there were no houses, no lights anywhere. Had he passed it? Was his vision so distorted by the silent pounding of the snow that the post-office box had gone by without his spotting it? Was there an unseen road on his right or his left, a metal receptacle off the shoulder, covered perhaps? It was not logical; the snow was heavier, but not yet heavy, and the wind was too strong for the snow to settle.

  It was there! On the right. A large black mailbox, shaped like a miniature Quonset hut, the covered opening wide enough to receive small packages. The number 12 was stenciled in white-thick white enamel that threw back the light as though challenged in the darkness. Havelock slowed down and peered through the window; again there were no lights beyond, no signs of life whatsoever. There was only what appeared to be a long road that disappeared into a wall of trees and further darkness.

  He drove on, eyes straining, looking for something else, something he could not miss if and when he came across it. He only hoped it would he soon, and several hundred yards beyond box number 12, he found a reasonable facsimile. Not ideal but, with the snow, acceptable. It was a bank of wild foliage that had crept toward the edge of the road, the end of a property line, or a demarcation signifying no responsibility. Whatever it was, it would do.

  He drove the car off the shoulder and into the cluster of bushes and high grass. He extinguished the headlights and opened his suitcase in the front seat. He removed all identification and shoved it into the elasticized rear pocket, then took out a heavy leaded plastic bag impervious to X-rays, the kind often used for transporting exposed film. He peeled it open and removed the Llama automatic; the magazine was full. Last, he reached into the suitcase for the scaling knife he had used at Col des Moulinets; it was sheathed in a thin leather scabbard with a clip. Awkwardly he pulled up the sides of his topcoat and shoved it behind his trousers into the small of his back, clipping it to his belt at the base of his spine. He hoped neither weapon would he called for; words were infinitely preferable, frequently more effective.

  He got out of the car, locked it, pushed the snow-swept foliage up around the sides, obliterated the tracks, and started down the Fourforks Pike toward P.O. Box 12, RFD 3, Mason Falls, Pennsylvania.

  He had walked no more than thirty feet off the highway into the long, narrow road that seemed to disappear into a wall of darkness beyond when he stopped. Whether it was the years he had spent instinctively studying alien ground—aware that an unknown path at night might hold lethal sur-prises— or the wind off the fields that caused him to angle his head downward against it, he could not tell. He was merely grateful that he saw it: a tiny greenish dot of light on his right about two feet above the snow-patched earth. It appeared to he suspended, but he knew it wasn’t Instead, it was wired to the end of a thin black metal tube that was sunk at least another two feet into the ground for stability. It was a photoelectric cell, its counterpart across the road, an invisible beam of light crossing the darkness, connecting both terminals. Anything breaking that beam for more than a second or with a weight density of more than fifty pounds would trigger an alarm somewhere. Small animals could not do it; automobiles and human beings could not fail to do it.

  Michael sidestepped cautiously to his right through the cold, wet overgrowth to pass beyond the device. He stopped again at the edge of the tangled bushes, aware of a line of flickering white parallel with his shoulders, knowing suddenly that there was another obstacle. It was a barbed-wire fence bordering an adjacent field, flakes of snow clinging briefly to the barbs before being whipped away. He had not seen it entering the side road marked by post-office box number 12; he looked back and understood. The fence did not begin until the foliage was high enough to conceal it. And that meant he understood something else; again, weight density. Sufficient pressure against the thinly spaced wires would set off further alarms. Janos Kohoutek was very security-conscious. Considering his locatio
n, he had paid for the best he could get.

  This, then, was the path, thought Havelock. Between the green trip light and the shoulder-high barbed-wire fence. For if there was one photoelectric alarm, there were others along the way because the expectation of malfunction was an innate part of protection technology. He wondered how long “the way” was; he could see virtually nothing but foliage and darkness and swirling snow in front of him. He started to literally push ahead, bending the tangled brush and webbed brandies with bis hands and arms, as he kept his eyes riveted on the ground for dots of eerie green light.

  He passed three, then four, each spaced roughly two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet apart. He reached the wall of tall trees, the fence growing higher as if commanded by nature. He was soaked now, his face cold, his brows iced, but movement was easier through the thick-trunked trees that seemingly bad been planted at random but nevertheless formed a visual wall. Suddenly he realized he was heading downward, descending. He looked over at the road; the decline there was sharper, the mottled surface of dirt and snow no longer in sight. There was a break in the trees; the narrow, sloping path he had to take was still overgrown, the high grass and untamed bushes bending in the wind and glazed with white.

  And then spread below him was a sight that both hypnotized and disturbed him, in the same way he had reacted to the first sight of Jacob Handelman. He plunged down through the thickets of brush, falling twice into the cold, prickly bushes, his eyes on the bewildering view below.

  At first glance it was like any farm buried in the deeper countryside, protected in the front by sloping fields, endless woods beyond. There was a group of buildings, solid, simple, constructed of heavy wood for severe winters, the lights in various windows flickering in the snowfall: a main house and several barns, a silo, tool sheds and shelters for tractors and plows and harvesting equipment. They were indeed what they seemed to he, Havelock was sure, but he knew they were more. Much more.

  It began with the gate at the end of the sloping road. It was framed unpretentiously with iron piping; the mesh was ordinary mesh, but it was higher than it had to be, higher than it should he for the entrance to a farm. Not higher to a conspicuous degree, but simply higher than seemed necessary, as if the builder had made a slight error in the height specification and had decided to live with the mistake. Then there was the fence that spanned out from both sides of the unprepossessing gate; it, too, was strange, somehow askew, also higher than it had to he for the purpose of containing animals in the ascending grazing fields before it. Was it just the height? It was no more than seven feet, Michael judged as he drew closer; it had appeared much shorter from above—again nothing strange … but somehow wrong. And then he realized what it was, why the word “askew” had come to mind. The top of the barbed-wire fence was angled inward. That fence was not meant to keep animals from breaking in, it was designed to keep people from breaking out!