The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  Or had he? There could be no mistake, not now. Had an operator transferring rapidly incoming calls throughout the vast expanse of an air force base forgotten one among so many? And how often did soldiers take over innocuous assignments for friends without informing their superiors? How frequently did highly visible men appear to be on the side of the avenging medical angels by never smoking in public but in a crisis pulling out a concealed pack of cigarettes, a habit they were sincerely trying to kick, the act of smoking actually awkward?… How many men had streaks of premature white in their hair?

  No mistakes. Once the accusation was made it could not be taken back, and if it could not be sustained, trust at the highest level would be eroded, possibly destroyed; the very people who had to communicate with one another would be guarded, wary, commanders in silent conflict. Where was the ultimate proof?

  Moscow?

  There is first the KGB; all else follows. A man may gravitate to the VKR, but first he must ham sprung from the KGB. Rostov. Athens.

  He says he is not your enemy … but others are who may be his as well. A Soviet agent. Kennedy Airport.

  “I can see it in your eyes, Mikhail.” Jenna touched his shoulder, forcing him to look at her. “Call the President.”

  “I have to be absolutely certain. Pierce said it would take at least three hours for the vault to be opened, another two to sort out the documents. I’ve got some time. If he’s Ambiguity, he’s trapped.”

  “How can you be absolutely certain about a paminyatchik?”

  “At the source. Moscow.”

  “Rostov?”

  “I can try. He may be as desperate as I am, but if he isn’t, I’ll tell him he should be. We’ve got our maniacs, and he’s got his.” Havelock picked up the phone and dialed the three digits for the White House switchboard. “Please get me the Russian consulate in New York. I’m afraid I don’t know the number.… No, I’ll hold on.” Michael covered the mouthpiece, speaking to Jenna. “Go over Pierce’s file. Look for something we can trace. Parents, if they’re alive.”

  “A wife,” said Jenna.

  “He’s not married.”

  “Convenient. Lovers, then.”

  “He’s discreet.”

  “Naturally.” Jenna picked up the file from the desk.

  “Dobrty oyehchyer,” said Havelock into the phone, his hand removed. “Ja khochu govorit’s nachal nikom okhrany.” Every operator at every Soviet embassy and consulate understood when a caller asked to be connected to the director of street security. A deep male voice got on the line, acknowledging merely that he had picked up the phone. Michael continued in Russian: “My name is Havelock and I have to assume I’m speaking to the right person, the one who can put me in touch with the man I’m trying to reach.”

  “Who might that be, sir?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t get his name, but he knows mine. As I’m quite sure you do.”

  “That’s not much help, Mr. Havelock.”

  “I think it’s enough. The man met me at Kennedy Airport and we had a lengthy conversation, including the means I might employ to reach him again; a forty-eight-hour time span and the New York Public Library figured prominently among them. There was also some discussion about a missing Graz-Burya automatic, a splendid weapon, I think you’ll agree. It’s urgent I speak with that man—as urgent as his message was for me.”

  “Perhaps if you could recall the message, it might be more helpful, sir.”

  “An offer of sanctuary from the director of External Strategies, Pyotr Rostov, KGB, Moscow. And I wouldn’t say those words if I were taping this. You can, but I can’t afford it.”

  “There is always the possibility of a reverse order of events.”

  “Take the chance, comrade. You can’t afford not to.”

  “Then why not talk with me … comrade?”

  “Because I don’t know you.” Michael looked down at the list of the direct, unlisted numbers he had been assigned; he repeated one to the Russian. “I’ll be here for the next five minutes.” He hung up and reached for the brandy.

  “Will he call back, do you think?” asked Jenna, sitting in the chair in front of the desk, the Pierce file in her hand.

  “Why not? He doesn’t have to say anything, just listen.… Anything there we can use?”

  “The mother died in 1968. The father disappeared eight months later and has never been seen since. He wrote his son in Vietnam that he ‘didn’t care to go on without his wife, that he’d join her with God.’ ”

  “Naturally. But no suicide, no body. Just a Christian fade-out.”

  “Naturally. Paminyatchik. He had too much to offer in Novgorod.”

  The telephone rang, the lighted button corresponding to the number he had given the Soviet consulate in New York.

  “You understand, Mr. Havelock,” began the singsong voice in English unmistakably belonging to the Soviet agent from Kennedy Airport, “that the message delivered to you was offered in the spirit of compassion tor the great injustice done by those in your government who called for the execution of a man of peace—”

  “If you’re doing this,” interrupted Havelock, “for the benefit of any recording on this end, forget it. And if you’re auditioning for the consulate’s, do it later. I haven’t got time. I’m accepting a part of Rostov’s offer.”

  “I was not aware that it was divided into parts.”

  “I’m assuming prior communication.”

  “I assume that’s reasonable,” said the Russian. “Under extremely limited circumstances.”

  “Any circumstances you like, just use this telephone number and have him get back to me within the hour.” Michael looked at his watch. “It’s not quite seven o’clock in the morning in Moscow. Reach him.”

  “I don’t believe those circumstances are acceptable.”

  “They’ve got to be. Tell him I may have found the enemy. Our enemy, the word temporary, of course, assuming again there’s a future for either of us.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Don’t think. Reach him. Because if you don’t, I’ll try myself and that could be acutely embarrassing—to you, comrade, not to me. I don’t care anymore. I’m the prize.” Havelock replaced the phone, aware of the beads of perspiration that had broken out on his forehead.

  “What can Rostov actually tell you?” Jenna got up from the chair and placed Pierce’s dossier on the desk. “There’s nothing here, incidentally. Just a brilliant, modest hero of the republic.”

  “Naturally.” Michael wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and leaned forward, supporting himself on his elbows. “Rostov told me in Athens that one of his sources for Costa Brava was a mole operating out of the White House. I didn’t believe him; it’s the kind of shock treatment that makes you listen harder. But suppose he was telling me the truth—a past truth—because he knew the mole was out and untraceable. The perfect traveler.”

  Jenna raised her hand, pointing to the dossier on the desk. “Pierce was assigned to the National Security Council. He had an office in the White House for several months.”

  “Yes. And Rostov meant what he said; he couldn’t understand, and what you can’t understand in this business is cause for alarm. Everything he had learned about Costa Brava-which I confirmed—told him it couldn’t have taken place without the cooperation of someone in Moscow. But who? These operations are under his direct control, but he didn’t have anything to do with it, knew nothing about it. So he tested me, thinking I could tell him something, bringing in the mole for credibility, knowing that we both accepted a mole’s information as being reliable. The truth—as he was told the truth—except it was a lie.”

  “Told by a KGB officer, a paminyatchik mole, who had transferred his allegiance from the KGB to the Voennaya,” said Jenna. “He throws off his former superiors for his new ones.”

  “Then proceeds to intercept and take over Costa Brava. If he was at Costa Brava. If … if.”

  “How will you handle Rosto
v? He’ll be taped; he’ll be monitored.”

  “It’ll be light. He is, after all, director of External Strategies. I’ll play on the power struggle. KGB versus VKR. He’ll understand.”

  “He won’t talk about the paminyatchik operation over the telephone, you know that. He can’t.”

  “I won’t ask him to. I’ll name the name and listen. He’ll tell me somehow. We’ve both been around a long time—too long—and the words we use have never been written to mean what we say they mean, the silences we use never understood except by people like us. He wants what I have—if I have it—as much as I want what he can confirm. It’ll work. Somehow. He’ll tell me if Arthur Pierce is the mole—if he’s convinced the mole has gone around his back and joined the maniacs.”

  Jenna walked to the coffee table, picked up a note pad, and sat down in the leather armchair. “While you’re waiting, do you want to talk about Commander Decker?”

  “Christ!” Havelock’s right hand shot out for the phone, his left centering the list of numbers in front of him. He dialed as he spoke, his voice strained: “I mentioned him to Pierce. Oh, God, did I mention him! … Raise the Decker escort, please. Hurry.”

  “Naval escort. In position.”

  The words over the radiophone were clear, and the sudden throbbing in Michael’s temples began to subside. “This is Sterile Five. We have reason to believe there could be hostile activity in your area.”

  “No signs of it” was the reply. “Everything’s quiet, and the street’s well lighted.”

  “Nevertheless, I’d like additional personnel.”

  “We’re stretched pretty thin at Sixteen Hundred, Sterile Five. Why not call in the locals? They don’t have to know any more than we do, and we don’t know a damn thing.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “Sure. We’ll label it diplomatic and they’ll get overtime. By the way, how do you read the activity?”

  “Abduction. Neutering you first, then taking Decker.”

  “Thanks for the warning. We’ll get right on it. Out.”

  Havelock leaned back in the chair, his neck stretched over the back, and stared at the ceiling. “Now that we know there still is a Commander Decker, what did he tell you?”

  “Where did you leave off? I went back over everything.”

  Michael closed his eyes, remembering. “A phone call,” he said slowly. “It was later, after their Sunday meetings at the lodge. He tried for days, weeks, to get in touch with Matthias, but Anton wouldn’t talk to him. Then someone called him … with an explanation. That was it, he said it was an explanation.”

  Jenna flipped through her notes, stopping at a page, then going back two. “A man with a strange voice, an odd accent—‘clipped and rushed’ was the way Decker described it. I asked him to recall as thoroughly as possible every word the man said. Fortunately, that call was very important to him; he remembered nearly everything, I think. I wrote it down.”

  “Read it, will you?”

  Jenna rolled the page over. “The man identified himself as a colleague of the Secretary of State, and asked Decker several questions about his naval career, obviously to make sure it was Decker.… Then here it begins —I tried to write it down as though I’d heard it myself. ‘Secretary Matthias appreciates everything you’ve done, and wants you to know that you will be mentioned prominently and frequently in his memoirs. But you must understand the rules, the rules can’t be broken. For the Secretary’s global strategy to be effective, it must be developed in total secrecy; the element of surprise is paramount; no one in or out of government—’ ” Jenna paused. “The emphases were Decker’s,” she added. “ ‘—in or out of government aware that a master plan has been created.’ ” Again Jenna stopped and looked up. “Here Decker wasn’t precise; the man’s reasons for excluding people in government were apparently based on the assumption that there were too many who couldn’t be trusted, who might divulge secrets regardless of their clearance.”

  “Of course he wasn’t precise. He was talking about himself and it was a painful reference.”

  “I agree.… This last part I’m sure was accurate, probably word for word. ‘The Secretary of State wants you to know that when the time comes you will be summoned and made his chief executive officer, all controls in your hands. But because of your superb reputation in the field of nuclear tactics, there can’t be even a hint of any association between you. If anyone ever asks you if you know the Secretary of State, you must say you do not. That’s also part of the rules.’ ” Jenna put the note pad down on her lap. “That’s it. Decker’s ego was thoroughly flattered, and by his lights his place in history was assured.”

  “Nothing else was needed,” said Havelock, straightening himself up in the chair. “Did you write that out so I can read it?”

  “I write more clearly in English than I do in Czech. Why?”

  “Because I want to study it—over and over and over again. The man who spoke those words is Parsifal, and somewhere in the past I’ve heard that man speak before.”

  “Go back over the years, Mikhail,” said Jenna, sitting forward, raising the note pad and flipping the pages. “I’ll go back with you. Now! It’s not impossible. A Russian who speaks English rapidly, clipping his words. It’s there. That’s what Decker said. ‘Clipped and rushed,’ those were his words. How many such men can you have known?”

  “Let’s do it.” Havelock got up from the desk as Jenna tore off the two pages that contained her notes on the call to Thomas Decker. Michael came around and took them from her. “Men I know who’ve met Matthias. We’ll start with this year and work backwards. Write down every name I come up with.”

  “Why not do it geographically? City by city. You can eliminate some quickly, concentrate on the others.”

  “Association,” he added. “We scratch Barcelona and Madrid; we never touched the Soviets.… Belgrade—a river warehouse on the Sava, the attaché from the Russian consulate, Vasili Yankovitch. He was with Anton in Paris.”

  “Yankovitch,” said Jenna, writing.

  “And Ilitch Borin, visiting professor at the University of Belgrade; we had drinks, dinner. He knew Matthias from the cultural exchange conferences.”

  “Borin.”

  “No one else in Belgrade.… Prague. There must be at least a dozen men in Prague. The Soviets are crawling in Prague.”

  “Their names? Start alphabetically.”

  The names came, some rapidly, others slowly, some striking chords of possibility, others completely improbable. Nevertheless, Jenna wrote them all down, prodding Michael, forcing him to jolt his memory, one name leading to another.

  Krakow. Vienna. Paris. London. New York. Washington.

  The months became a year, then two, and finally three. The list grew as Havelock probed, pushing his conscious, permitting the free association of his subconscious, digging, straining, forcing his mind to function as if it were a finely tuned instrument. And again the sweat broke out on his forehead, his puke oddly quickening as he reached the end of his energies.

  “God, I’m tired,” said Michael quietly, staring at the beveled windowpane where over an hour ago two faces had appeared, one replacing the other, both killers, both from the Costa Brava. Or were they?

  “You have thirty-nine names,” said Jenna, coming to him, touching the back of his neck, massaging it gently. “Sit down and study them, study the telephone conversation. Find Parsifal, Mikhail.”

  “Do any match the names on your list? I thought of that when I mentioned Ilitch Borin; he’s a doctor of philosophy. Is there anyone?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “He hasn’t called. Rostov hasn’t called.”

  “I know.”

  “I said an hour, the deadline was an hour.” Havelock looked at his watch. “It’s thirty-four minutes past the deadline.”

  “There could be mechanical troubles in Moscow. It would be nothing new.”

  “Not
for him. He’s pulled in the white contact; he doesn’t want to acknowledge.”

  “How often have you stretched a deadline? Waiting until the one who expected your call was filled with anxiety, his defenses eroded.”

  “He knows my dossier too well for that.” Michael turned to her. “I have to make a decision. If I’m right, Pierce can’t be allowed off that island. If I’m wrong they’ll think I’ve crashed, gone over the edge. Berquist won’t have any choice, he’ll have to remove me.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Of course necessarily. I’m seeing monsters in dark closets, wasting valuable hours on delusions. That’s not a man you want giving orders. My God, Arthur Pierce! The most valuable asset we have—if we have him.”

  “Only you know what you did see.”

  “It was night, a night that was racking me. Look through that clinic file. Is that a rational man talking or thinking? What was he seeing?… I need one word, one sentence from Rostov.”

  “Wait, Mikhail,” said Jenna, touching his arm and urging him back to the armchair. “You still have time. Study the list of names, the words spoken to Decker. It may happen for you. A name, a voice, a phrase. It could happen.”

  Scholars. Soldiers. Lawyers. Doctors. Attachés. Diplomats.… Defectors. All Soviets who at one time or another had direct contact with Anthony Matthias. Havelock pictured each man, each face, his inner ear hearing dozens of voices speaking in English, matching the voices with the faces, listening for phrases that were spoken rapidly, words that were clipped, consonants harsh. It was maddening, faces and voices intermingling, lips moving, suddenly no sound followed by shouts. You will be mentioned prominently and frequently. Did he say that, would he say that? You will be summoned … how many times had that phrase been used? So many. But who used it? Who?

  An hour passed, then most of another and a second pack of cigarettes with it. The expired deadline for Moscow was approaching the final deadline for Poole’s Island. A decision—the decision—would have to be made. Nothing was forgotten, only submerged, eyes straying to watches as the inner search for Parsifal reached a frightening level of intensity.