The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  “Get in, get in!” shouted Kohoutek, now waving a large .45 automatic as the guard held the handle of the rear door.

  “I’m not your prisoner!” yelled Havelock. “We negotiated! We have an agreement!”

  “And part of that agreement, příteli, is that you are my guest as well as my hostage until we reach New York. After delivery—both deliveries—I shall be happy to put away the gun and buy you dinner.”

  The mountain bull roared with laughter as Jenna and Michael climbed into the van. They sat next to each other, but this was not to Kohoutek’s liking. He said, “The woman sits with me. You move across. Quickly.”

  “You’re paranoid,” said Havelock, moving to the other side, seeking out the shadows.

  The door was closed, the latch and lock manipulated by the guard. A dim light came through the windshield. In seconds, thought Michael, the headlights would be turned on, the reflected spill partially illuminating the van. In the darkness he pulled up his coat and reached behind him with his right hand, inching toward the knife clipped to his belt in the small of his back. If he did not remove it now, it would be infinitely more difficult later when he was behind the wheel of his car.

  “What’s that?” shouted the bull, raising his gun in the shadows, pointing it at Havelock’s head. “What are you doing?”

  “The bitch cat clawed my back; the blood’s sticking to my shirt,” said Michael in a normal voice. Then he yelled, “Do you want to see it, feel it?”

  Kohoutek grinned, glancing at Jenna. “A Carpathian čarodějka. The moon’s probably full but we can’t see it.” He laughed his crude mountain laugh once more. “I trust the Lubyanka is as tight as it ever was. She’ll eat your guards up!”

  At the mention of the word “Lubyanka,” Jenna gasped, shuddering. “Oh, God! Oh, my God!”

  Kohoutek looked at her again, and again Havelock under-stood—she was covering for him. He quickly pulled the knife out of the scabbard and palmed it in his right hand. It had all taken less than twelve seconds.

  The driver’s door opened; the guard climbed in and switched on the lights. He looked behind; the old bull nodded and he turned the ignition key. The vehicle had a powerful engine, and a minute later they had passed through the gate and were climbing the steep hill, the heavy-treaded tires crunching the snow and the soft earth beneath them, lurching, vibrating, rolling with the uneven pitch of the ground. They reached the wall of trees where the road flattened out; there was perhaps three-eighths of a winding mile to go before the Fourforks Pike. The guard-driver gathered speed, then suddenly stepped on the brake, stopping the truck instantly. A red light was flashing on the dashboard. He reached over for a switch, then another, and snapped both. There was a prolonged burst of static over the radio as an excited voice shouted through the eruptions: “Mr. Kohoutek! Mr. Kohoutek!”

  “What is it?” asked the guard, grabbing a microphone from the dashboard and depressing a button. “You’re on the emergency channel.”

  “The sparrow in New York—he’s on the phone! Handelman’s dead! He heard it on the radio! He was shot in his apartment, and the police are looking for a man …”

  Havelock lunged, twisting the handle of the knife into his clenched fist, the blade protruding downward, his left hand reaching for the barrel of the .45 automatic. Jenna sprang away; he gripped the long, flat steel as Kohoutek rose, then slamming the gun back down on the wooden bench, he plunged the knife through the mountain bull’s hand, the point embedding—through flesh and bone—in the wood, the bloody hand impaled.

  Kohoutek screamed; the guard in the front seat spun around as Jenna threw herself at him, crashing her roped hands down on his neck, and pulled the microphone out of his grip, cutting off the transmission. Havelock swung the gun up into the old bull’s head; Kohoutek lurched back into the wall and fell forward on the floor of the van, his arm stretched out, his hand still nailed to the wooden bench.

  “Mikhail!”

  The guard had recovered from Jenna’s blows and was pulling the Llama out of his leather jacket. Michael sprang forward and jammed the heavy barrel of the .45 into the man’s temple; reaching over his shoulder, he pressed down, holding the Llama in place.

  “Mr. Kohoutek? Have you got it?” yelled the voice through the radio static. “What should the sparrow do? He wants to know!”

  “Tell him you’ve got it,” ordered Havelock, breathing hard, thumbing back the hammer of the gun. “Say the sparrow should do nothing. You’ll be in touch.”

  “We’ve got it.” The guard’s voice was a whisper. “Tell the sparrow not to do anything. Well be in touch.”

  Michael yanked the microphone away and pointed to the Llama. “Now, Just hand it to me slowly,” he said. “Use your fingers, just two fingers,” he continued. “After all, it’s mine, isn’t it?”

  “I was going to give it back,” said the frightened guard, his lips trembling.

  “How many years can yon give back to the people you drove in this thing?”

  “That hasn’t anything to do with me, I swear it! I just work for a living. I do what I’m told.”

  “You all do.” Havelock took the Llama and moved the automatic around the man’s head, pressing it into the base of his skull “Now, drive us out of here,” he said.

  22

  The slender, middle-aged man with the straight dark hair opened the door of the telephone booth at the corner of 116th Street and Riverside Drive. The wet city snow was clinging to the glass, blurring the rotating red lights of the police cars up the block. He inserted the coin, dialed o, then five additional digits; he heard the second tone and dialed again. In moments a private phone was ringing in the living quarters of the White House.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. President?”

  “Emory? How did it go?”

  “It didn’t. He’s dead. He was shot.”

  The silence from Washington was interrupted only by the sound of Berquist’s breathing. “Tell me what happened,” said the President.

  “It was Havelock, but the name wasn’t reported correctly. We can deny the existence of any such person at State.”

  “Havelock? At …? Oh my God!”

  “I don’t know all the details, but enough. The shuttle was delayed by the snow and we circled LaGuardia for nearly an hour. By the time I got here there were crowds, police cars, a few press and an ambulance.”

  “The press?”

  “Yes, sir. Handelman’s prominent here. Not only because he was a Jew who survived Bergen-Belsen, but because of his standing at the university. He was respected, even revered.”

  “Oh, Christ … What did you learn? How did you learn it? Your name won’t surface, will it?”

  “No, sir. I used my rank at State and reached the precinct up here; the detective was cooperative. Apparently Handelman had an appointment with a female graduate student, who came back to the building twice before ringing the superintendent. They went up to Handelman’s apartment, saw the door was unlocked, went inside, and found him. The superintendent called the police, and when they got here, he admitted having let in a man who had State Department credentials. He said his name was Havilitch; he didn’t recall the first name, but insisted the ID was in order. The police are still in Handelman’s apartment getting fingerprints, cloth and blood scrapings.”

  “Have the details been made public?”

  “In this town they can’t wait. It was all released twenty minutes ago. There was no way I could stop it, if I wanted to. But State doesn’t have to clarify; we can deny.”

  The President was silent, then he spoke. “When the time is right, the Department of State will cooperate fully with the authorities. Until then I want a file built—and circulated on a restricted basis—around Havelock’s activities since his separation from the government. It must reflect the government’s alarm over his mental state, his apparent homicidal tendencies-his loyalty. However, in the interests of national security, that file will remain under restricted classification
. It will not be made public.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The facts will be revealed when Havelock is no longer a threat to this country’s interests.”

  “Sir?”

  “One man is insignificant,” said the President softly. “Coventry, Mr. Undersecretary. The Enigma … Parsifal.”

  “I accept the reasoning, sir, not the assumption. How can we be sure we’ll find him?”

  “He’ll find us; he’ll find you. If everything we’ve learned about Havelock is as accurate as we believe, he wouldn’t have killed Jacob Handelman unless he had an extraordinary reason. And he would never have killed him if he hadn’t learned where Handelman sent the Karas woman. When he reaches her, he’ll know about you.”

  Bradford paused, his breath visible, the vapor briefly interrupted. “Yes, of course, Mr. President.”

  “Get back here as fast as you can. We have to be ready … you have to be ready. I’ll have two men flown up from Poole’s Island. They’ll meet you at National; stay in airport security until they arrive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, listen to me, Emory. My instructions will be direct, the explanation clear. By presidential order you are to be given round-the clock protection; your life is in their hands. You are being hunted by a killer who’s sold his government’s secrets to the enemy. Those will be the words I use; yours will be different. You will use the language of Consular Operations: Havelock is ‘beyond salvage.’ Every additional hour he lives is a danger to our men in the field.”

  “I understand.”

  “Emory?”

  “Sir?”

  “Before all this happened I never really knew you, not personally,” said Berquist softly. “What’s your situation at home?”

  “Home?”

  “It’s where he’ll come for you. Are there children at home?”

  “Children? No, no, there are no children. My older son’s in college, my younger boy away at boarding school.”

  “I thought I heard somewhere that you had daughters.”

  “Two. They’re with their mother. In Wisconsin.”

  “I see. I didn’t know. Is there another wife?”

  “There were. Again, two. They didn’t last.”

  “Then there are no women living in your house?”

  “There are frequently, but not at the minuta. Very few during the past four months.”

  “I see.”

  “I live alone. The circumstances are optimum, Mr. President.”

  “Yes, I guess they are.”

  Using the coiled ropes on the wall of the van, they tied the guard to the steering wheel, Kohoutek to the bench.

  “Find whatever you can and bind his hand,” said Michael. “I want him alive. I want someone to ask him questions.”

  Jenna found a fanner’s kerchief in the glove compartment. She removed the scaling knife from the old mountain bull’s huge hand, ripped the cloth in two, and expertly bound the wound, stemming the blood at both the gash and the wrist.

  “It will hold for three, perhaps four hours,” she said. “After that, I don’t know. If he wakes and tears it, he could bleed to death.… Knowing what I know, I have no use for prayers.”

  “Someone’ll find him. Them. This truck. It’ll be light in an hour or so, and the Fourforks Pike’s a country route. Sit down for a minute.” Havelock started the engine and, reaching over the guard’s leg, depressed the clutch and shoved the track in gear. Wrenching the man back and forth over the steering wheel, he maneuvered the vehicle so that it was broadside across the road. “Okay, let’s get out.”

  “You can’t leave me here!” whined the guard. “Jesus!”

  “Have you been to the toilet?”

  “What?”

  “I hope so, for your sake.”

  “Mikhail?”

  “Yes?”

  “The radio. Someone might come along and free him. He’d use it. We need every minute.”

  Havelock picked up the .45 from the seat and smashed the thick, blunt handle repeatedly into the dials and switches until there was nothing but shattered glass and plastic. Finally, he ripped the microphone out of its receptacle, severing the wires; he opened the door and turned to Jenna. “We’ll leave the lights on so no one smashes into it,” he said, stepping out and pulling the seat forward for her. “One more thing to do. Come on.”

  Because of the wind, the Fourforks Pike had less than an inch of snow on the surface except for the intermittent drifts that had been pummeled into the bordering grass. Michael handed the .45 to Jenna, and switched the Llama to his right hand. “That makes too much noise,” he continued. “The wind might carry it down to the farmhouse. Stay here.”

  He ran to the back of the van and fired twice, blowing out both rear tires. He raced up the other side and fired into the front tires. The truck rocked back and forth as the tires deflated and settled into the road. To clear the highway, it could be driven into the grass, but it would go no farther than that. He put the Llama into his pocket.

  “Let me have the forty-five,” he said to Jenna, pulling his shirt out of his trousers.

  She gave it to him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Wipe it clean. Not that it’ll do much good, our prints are all over inside the van. But they may not brush there; they will this.”

  “So?”

  “I’m gambling that our driver in his own self-interest will yell like hell that it’s not his, that it belongs to his employer, your host, Kohoutek.”

  “Ballistics,” said Jenna, nodding. “Killings on file.”

  “Maybe something else. That farm will be torn apart, and when it is, they may start digging around those acres. There could be killings not on file.” He held the automatic with his shirttail, opened the door of the truck and arced the weapon over the front seat into the covered van.

  “Hey, come on, for Christ’s sake!” shouted the driver, twisting and turning against the ropes. “Let me out of here, will ya? I didn’t do nothing to you! They’ll send me back for ten years!”

  “They’re a lot easier on people who turn state’s evidence. Think about it.” Havelock slammed the door and walked rapidly back to Jenna. “The car’s about a quarter of a mile down on the other side of Kohoutek’s road. Are you all light?”

  She looked at him; particles of snow stuck to her blond hair swirling in the wind and her face was drenched, but her eyes were alive. “Yes, my darling, I’m all right … Wherever we are at this moment, I’m home.”

  He took her hand and they started down the road. “Walk in the center so our footsteps will be covered.”

  She sat close to him, touching him, her arm through his, her head intermittently resting on his shoulder as he drove.

  The words between them were few, the silences comforting; they were too tired and too afraid to talk sensibly, at least for a while. They had been there before; they knew a little peace would come with the quiet—and being with each other.

  Remembering Kohoutek’s words, Havelock headed north to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, then east toward Harrisburg. The old Moravian had been right; the low-flying winds virtually swept the wide expanse of highway, and the subfreezing temperature kept the snow dry and buoyant. Although the visibility was poor, the traveling was fast.

  “Is this the main auto route?” asked Jenna.

  “It’s the state turnpike, yes.”

  “Is it wise to be on it? If Kohoutek’s found before daybreak, might not men be watching this ‘turnpike’ as they do the Bahnen and the dráha?”

  “We’re the last people on earth he wants the police to find. We know what that farm is. He’ll stall, use the intruder story, say he was the hostage, the victim. And the guard won’t say anything until he hasn’t got a choice, or until they find his record, and then he’ll bargain. We’re all right.”

  “That’s the police, darling,” said Jenna, her hand gently touching his forearm. “Suppose it is not the police? You want it to be the police,
so you convince yourself. But suppose it is someone else? A farmer or a driver of a milk track. I think Kohoutek would pay a great deal of money to get safely back to his home.”

  Michael looked at her in the dim light of the dashboard. Her eyes were tired, with dark circles under them; fear was still in the center of her stare. Yet in spite of the exhaustion and the dread, she was thinking—better than he. But then she had been hunted far more often than he, more recently than he. Above all, she would not panic; she knew the value of control even when the pain and the fear were overwhelming. He leaned over and brushed his lips on her face.

  “You’re magnificent,” he said.

  “I’m frightened,” she replied.

  “And you’re also right. There’s a childish song that says ‘wishing will make it so.’ It’s a lie, and only for children, but I was counting on it, hoping for it. The odds of the police finding Kohoutek, or a citizen reporting what he found to the police, are no better than seventy-thirty. Against. We’ll get off at the next exit and head south.”

  “To where? Where are we going?”

  “First, where we can be alone, and not moving. Not running.”

  * * *

  She sat in a chair by the motel window, the early light spreading up and over the Allegheny Mountains outside in the distance. The yellow rays heightened the gold in the long blond hair that fell across her shoulders. Alternately she would look at him, then turn her face away and close her eyes; his words were too painful to hear in the light.

  When he finished, he was still caught in the anguish that came with the admission: he had been her executioner. He had killed his love and there had been no love left in him.

  Jenna rose from the chair and stood silently by the window. “What did they do to us?” she whispered.