The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  “Only three times. Twice to say there were Sunday conferences at the Pentagon, and once to tell him I was going into the hospital for minor surgery on a Friday and expected to be there until Tuesday or Wednesday. He was very solicitous, but that was when he told me never again to reach him at the State Department.”

  “You called the lodge, then?”

  “And his house in Georgetown.”

  “This was later?”

  “Yes. I called night after night, but he wouldn’t come to the phone. Try to understand, Mr. Cross. I was aware of what I’d done, of the enormity of the violation I’d committed. Mind you, until a few minutes ago I never regretted it; I can’t change my beliefs, they’re ingrained in me. But back then—five or six months ago—I was bewildered, frightened perhaps, I’m not sure. I’d been left stranded—”

  “You were in withdrawal,” interrupted Havelock. “You’d been on a high, on one of the most potent narcotics in the world. Anthony Matthias. Suddenly he wasn’t there any longer.”

  “Yes, that’s it. Those were heady days, magnificent memories. Then I don’t know why, my connection to greatness ended. I thought perhaps it was something I’d done that displeased him, or information I’d brought him that was deficient, incomplete. I didn’t know; I just knew that I’d been cut off, with no explanation.”

  “I understand,” said Michael, remembering so clearly the night in Cagnes-sur-Mer when his přítel did not come to the telephone five thousand miles away. “I’m surprised you didn’t force the issue, confront him somehow, somewhere. You were entitled to that explanation.”

  “I didn’t have to. It was finally given to me.”

  “What?”

  “One evening, after I’d tried to reach him again, to no avail again, a man called me back. A very strange man—”

  The prolonged outburst of the phone shattered the moment, blowing apart the taut line of concentration. Havelock ran to the phone, to the sustained ring that signaled Emergency.

  “It’s Loring,” said the strained voice in a half-whisper. “I’m hit. I’m okay, but I’m hit.”

  “Where are you?”

  “A motel on Highway Three-seventeen, near Harrington. The Pheasant Run Motel Cabin Twelve.”

  “I’ll send a doctor.”

  “A very special doctor, Havelock. Use the field in Denton.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had to get out of there. I grabbed a police car—”

  “A police …? Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Everything.… Special doctor with a bagful of needles.”

  “For Christ’s sake, spell it out, Charley!”

  “I’ve got one of those sons of bitches. He’s strapped naked on the bed—no capsules, no razors. I’ve got one!”

  Havelock stabbed the buttons on the Sterile Five telephone one after another, issuing orders one after another, as Lieutenant Commander Decker stood rigidly across the room, watching, listening, a helpless shell of a crusader whose cause had collapsed. The President was informed, and a very special doctor was being tracked down, to be sent to Maryland by helicopter, a Secret Service detail accompanying him. A second helicopter was prepared for takeoff, waiting for Michael at the field in Quantico six miles away; he would be driven there by the Secret Service escorts who had brought Decker to Sterile Five. The final call placed by Havelock was within the house itself. Upstairs. To Jenna Karas.

  “I have to leave. It’s Loring in Maryland. He’s wounded, but he may have picked up a traveler—don’t ask me how. And you were right. One source. He’s here and has more to say; please come down and take it. I have to go.… Thanks.”

  Michael got up from the desk and addressed the frightened naval officer. “A lady’s on her way here, and I’m ordering you—ordering you, Commander—to tell her everything you were going to tell me, and answer fully any questions she may ask. Your escort will be back in twenty minutes or so. When you’re finished, and only if she agrees, you may go. But once you reach your house you’re not to leave it for any reason whatsoever. You’ll be watched.”

  “Yes, Mr. Cross.”

  Havelock grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and started toward the door. He stopped and turned to Decker, his hand on the knob. “Incidentally, her name is Mrs. Cross.”

  All low-flying traffic was diverted as the two helicopters roared into the small private field in Denton, Maryland, the aircraft from the Bethesda Naval Hospital arriving eleven minutes before the chopper from Quantico. Havelock raced across the tarmac to the staff car sent over from Annapolis, the driver an ensign reputed to know the roads on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. The ensign knew nothing else; no one did; not even the doctor whose orders were to take care of Charles Loring first, and not to administer anything to Loring’s prisoner until Sterile Five was on the scene. Two state police patrol cars had been sent to the Pheasant Run Motel; they would be given their instructions by the Secret Service.

  If the name Pheasant Run gave rise to images of squiredom and hunt country, it was misapplied to the sleazy motel’s run-down cabins that stood in a row off the highway. Apparently, the motel’s primary function was to serve as a place for assignations lasting an hour or so; cars were parked in small dirt lots at the rear, out of sight of the main road. The management catered to its clientele’s idiosyncrasies, if not to their comforts, and Loring had used his head. A man in pain, concealing wounds, without luggage but with a prisoner he wanted to rush surreptitiously into hiding, could hardly hope to register at a brightly lit Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge.

  Havelock thanked the ensign and told him to return to Annapolis, reminding him that the present emergency called for the utmost secrecy. Washington had his name, and his cooperation would not be overlooked. The young man, obviously impressed by the sight of searchlights and military helicopters at night, as well as by his own participation, replied in a monotone, “You may be assured of my silence, sir.”

  “Just say you went out for a beer, that’s good enough. Better, maybe.”

  A government man, holding up an encased silver badge in his palm, intercepted Michael as he ran along the row of cabins looking for number twelve.

  “Sterile Five,” said Havelock, noticing for the first time the two state police cars parked in the shadows twenty feet apart to his left. Number twelve was nearby.

  “This way,” said the man, pocketing his badge, and led Michael between two cabins toward the rear of the motel’s grounds. Beyond was a shorter row of cabins, which were not visible from the front. Loring had spent precious moments of pain and anxiety studying the motel’s layout—again an indication that he was in control.

  In the distance, at the rear of the cabin on the left, the hood of a stationary automobile could be seen, but it was not an ordinary car. A streak of white ending in an arrowhead was stenciled over the black chassis at midpoint. It was the patrol car Loring had stolen, the only indication that perhaps he had lost a part of the control that had served them all so well. Someone in Washington would have to reach a panicked Maryland police headquarters and call off the hunt.

  “This is it,” said the federal agent, pointing to the door of a cabin above a stoop of three steps. “I’ll be out here,” added the man. “Watch those steps; they’re loose.”

  “Thanks,” said Havelock, and quickly but cautiously went up to the door. He tried the knob; it was locked. In answer to his knock, someone inside asked, “Who is it?”

  “Sterile Five,” replied Michael.

  The door was opened by a stocky, red-haired man in his middle thirties, his Celtic face freckled, his eyes wary, his sleeves rolled up. “Havelock?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Name’s Taylor. Come on in, we’ve got to talk fast.”

  Michael walked inside the room with the soiled wallpaper; the doctor closed the door. On the bed was a naked man, spread-eagled, bloody hands and feet tied to the frame, belts around the wrists, torn sheets lashed to his ankles. His mouth
was pulled taut by a striped blue tie to inhibit any loud sound, and his eyes were wide with anger and fear.

  “Where’s …?”

  Taylor gestured toward the far corner of the room. There on the floor, his head on a pillow and a blanket over him, was Charles Loring, his eyes only partially open; he was dazed or in shock. Havelock started across the filthy gray carpet but was stopped by the doctor’s grip on his arm.

  “That’s what we have to talk about. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I do know I can’t be responsible for that man’s life unless we get him to a hospital an hour ago. Do I make myself clear?”

  “As soon as we can, not right now,” said Michael, shaking his head. “I’ve got to question him. He’s the only person who can give me the information I need. Everyone else is dead.”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said an hour ago.”

  “I heard you, but I know what I have to do. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t like you,” said Taylor, staring at Havelock, removing his hand as if he had touched something loathsome.

  “I wish that could concern me, Doctor, because I like him. I’ll be as brief and as quiet as I can. He’d want it this way, take my word for it.”

  “I have to. I couldn’t convince him he should get out of here ten minutes ago.”

  Michael walked over to Loring and knelt down, putting his face close to the wounded man’s. “Charley, it’s Havelock. Can you hear me?”

  Loring opened his eyes wider, his lips trembling, struggling to form the words. Finally the whisper came. “Yes. Hear … you … fine.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve learned, which is damned little. Nod your head if I’m on the track, shake it if I’m not. Don’t waste words or breath. Okay?” The Cons Op agent nodded and Michael continued, “I spoke with police who are trying to put it together. As they tell it, an ambulance brought in a traffic accident with his wife, and Randolph, a staff doctor and a nurse were cleaning him up, checking the extent of injuries.” Loring shook his head, but Havelock went on, “Let me finish, then we’ll go back. They weren’t in there five minutes when two state troopers came running in and spoke with our cardiologists. No one knows what was said, but they were admitted into the examining room.” Again the Cons Op agent shook his head. “A couple of minutes later a third man—I assume that was you—crashed through emergency doors, and that’s when everything went down.” Loring nodded.

  Havelock took a breath and continued softly, rapidly. “The staff heard gunshots, perhaps five or six, no one’s sure. Most of them ran out of the building. The rest hid in the corridors and patients’ rooms behind locked doors, everyone trying to reach a phone. When the gunfire stopped, someone outside saw you and one of the state police come running down the ramp—you were bent over with a gun in your hand, the officer was bleeding, limping and holding his arm. You forced him into the patrol car and got out of there. The police are trying to find out who the other trooper was, but identifications were taken off some of the bodies, not all.” Loring shook his head violently. Michael touched his shoulder and said, “Take it easy; we’ll go back. I don’t have to tell you the body count was full. Randolph, the staff doctor, the nurse, the accident victim and his wife and our Apache unit Two automatic weapons equipped with silencers ware found; they’re still counting the shells. Yours was the gunfire that was heard; they’re tracing the weapons, matching prints. Beyond what I’ve told you, no one knows what happened. Now, let’s go back.” Havelock squinted, remembering. “The traffic accident.”

  Loring shook his head, whispering, “No accident.”

  “Why not?”

  “They weren’t troopers.”

  Michael looked up at the naked man strapped to the bed, and at the uniform rumpled on the floor. “Of course they weren’t. And the patrol car was a mock-up; they’ve got the money for that kind of thing. I should have known; you wouldn’t have taken it otherwise.”

  The wounded agent nodded, his hand emerging from under the blanket, gesturing for Havelock to lean closer. “The man and the woman … from the ambulance … the accident. Any ID’s?”

  “No.”

  “Same with the troopers … right?”

  “Right.”

  “The accident,” whispered Loring, stopping for breath. “Too easy. Man hurt … a woman who won’t leave his side. They get in … to a room … doctor, nurse … Randolph. They got him.”

  “How could they know Randolph would be there?”

  “Doesn’t matter. They’d tell the doctor … or the nurse to call for him … under a gun. Probably did. They got him. Too easy.”

  “And the troopers?”

  “In a hurry … running like hell. They were sent to break it up, break it all up … in a hurry.”

  “How did you figure that?”

  “They left the doors open, ran funny … heavy weapons tinder their coats. The pattern wasn’t normal, wasn’t right.… Apache said the accident was a big-balled mafioso the cops came to question. If he was, there’d be ten vehicles there, not one.” Loring expelled his breath, coughing; blood trickled out of the corners of his mouth. He gasped, and resumed breathing. The doctor was now behind Havelock.

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Taylor quietly but with angry intensity. “Why don’t you just put a bullet in his head?”

  “Why don’t I put one in yours?” Michael leaned back toward Loring. “Why, Charley? Why do you think they were sent in to break it up?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I was spotted … maybe I blew it again.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Don’t be so goddamn nice, I can’t stand it … I probably did blow it.… I’m getting old.”

  “Then just pass on your instincts, Methuselah, we need them. You didn’t blow anything. You brought us one, you brought us one, Charley.”

  Loring tried to raise his shoulders, Michael gently holding him down. “Tell me something, Havelock. You said this morning … about Shippers. ‘A long time ago.’ You said he was programmed a long time ago. Tell me. Is that son of a bitch over there a … a traveler?”

  “I think he is.”

  “Goddamn.… maybe I’m not so old.”

  Michael got to his feet and turned to the doctor behind him. “All right, Taylor, he’s yours. Get him over to the field and have him taken to the best facilities at Bethesda. And you get on the phone and tell those mothers the White House wants the finest team of surgeons you’ve got ready and waiting for this man.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the doctor sardonically. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Oh, yes, physician. Prepare your bag of magic. You’re about to go to work.”

  Loring was carried out on a stretcher by two paramedics who had been standing by; they were given firm instructions by the doctor as they took away the wounded Cons Op agent.

  Taylor turned to Havelock. “Do we start now?”

  “What about the wounds?” asked Michael, looking down at the naked man’s taped, blood-streaked right arm and left foot.

  “Your friend put tourniquets where they were needed, and I added adhesive; the bleeding’s arrested. Also, he was damned accurate. Bone was shattered, but beyond the pain, nothing’ll drain him. Naturally, I gave him a couple of locals to ease him, keep his head clear.”

  “Will they interfere with the chemicals?”

  “I wouldn’t have administered them if they did.”

  “Then shoot him up, Doctor. I can’t waste time.”

  Taylor went to his large black leather case, which was open and on a table next to the window under the glow of a lamp. He studied the contents for several moments, took out three vials and three cased syringes, and placed them on the edge of the bed next to the naked man’s thigh. The prisoner raised his head, his features contorted, his eyes glazed, frenzied; he was close to hysterics. Suddenly he began to writhe furiously, and muffled animal-like howls came from his throat. He stopped, overwhelmed by the pain in his right arm, and gasping for breath, he st
ared at the ceiling. Then abruptly he stopped breathing, holding the air in his lungs, his face becoming redder by the second, eyes now bulging.

  “What the hell is he—?”

  “Get out of my way!” shouted Havelock, pushing the doctor aside and crashing his clenched fist down on the killer’s bare stomach. The breath exploded out of the traveler’s bound mouth, and the eyes and flesh tone began returning to normal.

  “Jesus,” said Taylor, rushing forward to steady the vials, which were about to roll off the edge of the bed. “What was that?”

  “You’re dealing with something you may never have dealt with before, Doctor. They’re programmed like robots, killing whomever they’re told to kill—without any feeling at all, without the slightest concern. Not even for themselves.”

  “Then he won’t negotiate. I thought maybe if he saw these things, he might.”

  “No way. He’d stall us, throw us off with every plausible lie in the books, and they know them all. They’re masters of the craft. Let’s go, Doctor.”

  “How do you want to progress? In stages, which will bring him back one step at a time, or do you want to chance a maximum? It’s the fastest, but there’s a risk.”

  “What’s the worst with it?”

  “Incoherence. Disjointed rambling, no logical pattern.”

  “No logical …? That’s it. I’ll chance the incoherence; just get him away from any patterns that might trigger programmed responses.”

  “It doesn’t work quite that way. The flow becomes formless; dissociation is the first reaction. The key is to hit certain words—”

  “You’re saying everything I want to hear, Doctor, and you’re also wasting time.”

  “You think so?” With the swiftness of a surgeon stemming a sudden internal eruption, Taylor broke off a vial’s tiny glass casing, inserted the syringe, withdrew it, and plunged it into the traveler’s thigh before the bound man knew it was happening. The killer writhed violently, yanking at the belts and the torn sheets in an effort to break them, rolling from side to side as muffled cries filled the room. “The more he does that, the quicker it’ll take effect,” added Taylor, pressing his hand on the side of the stretched, whipping neck. “Only a minute or so.”