Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt
Page 10
was human contraband in open transit, crossing territory where no one would
dare protect her. Inside the warehouse office she could be protected; an
74 RoBERT LUDLUM
intruder breaking in could be shot for the act Itself. But not in the open;
men would not risk being caught smuggling human flesh on board ships. The
prison sentences were long; a few thousand lire was not worth that risk.
A hundred and forty-odd feet, then, was the span she bad to cross in order
to disappear. Again. Not in death, but in an enigma.
Michael looked at his watch; it was four-fifty-two, the second hand
approaching the minute mark-seven minutes before the CrW6vdo was scheduled
to blare its bass-toned departure signal, followed by sharper, higher
sounds that warned all vessels of its imminent thrust out of its secure
haven, the rules of the sea instantly in force. High up on the deck, fore
and midships, a few men wandered aimlessly, pinpointed by the erratic glow
of their cigarettes. Except for those on the rope winches and the gangplank
detail, there was nothing for them to do but smoke and drink coffee and
hope their beads would clear without excessive pain. From inside the
massive black hull, the muffled roar of the turbines was heard; behind the
fires the coarse muted meshing of giant gear wheels signified the
approad~[ng command to engage the mammoth screws in third-torque speed.
Oily, dark waters churned around the curve of the CrW6vdo's stem.
The warehouse door opened, and Havelock felt a massive jolt in his chest as
the blond woman stepped out of the darkness into the lesser darkness of the
swirling mists and shadows. The living corpse from the Costa Brava entered
the wall-less tunnel that would take her aboard the Crist6vao, lead her to
an unknown coastline in an unknown country, and escape. From him. Why?
The hammering in his chest was intolerable, the pain in his eyes
excruciating; he had to endure both for seconds longer. Once jenna reached
the midpoint of the pier, in sight of the gate, and the guard and the
alarms he could raise, Michael would intercept her. Not an instant sooner.
She was therel Now.
He lunged from behind thecrane and raced forward, not caring about the
sound of his footsteps, intent only on reaching her.
"Jennal For God's sake, jennal"
He grabbed her shoulders; the woman spun around in terror.
THE PAnswAL MosAic75
His breath exploded from his throat. The face that was turned up to him was
an old face, an ugly face, the pockmarked face of a waterfront whore. The
eyes that stared at him were the wide, dark eyes of a rodent, outlined with
thick, running borders of cheap mascara; the lips were blood-red and
cracked, the teeth stained and chipped.
"Who are you?" His scream was the scream of a madman. "Liarl Liarl Why are
you lyingl Why are you herel Why aren't you herel Liarl"
Mists not of the sea blurred his mind, crosscurrents of Insanity. He was
beyond reason, knowing only that his hands had become claws, then
fists-scraping, hammering-kiU the rodent, kill the impostor/ Kill, kiUI
Other screams, other shouts, commands and countercommands filled the
roaring caverns of his consciousness. There was no beginning, no end, only
a furious core of frenzy.
Then he felt blows, but did not feel pain. Men were all around him, then
above him; fists and heavy boots struck him. Repeatedly. Everywhere.
And then the darkness came. And silence.
Above the pier, on the second floor of the warehouse office, a figure stood
at the window looking down at the scene of violence below. She breathed
deeply, her fingers stretched across her lips, tears welling in her clear
brown eyes. Absently jenna Karas pulled her band away from her face and
pressed it against the side of her head, against the long blond hair that
fell beneath the wide-brimmed bat.
"Why did you do it, Mikhail?" she whispered softly to herself. "Why do you
want to kill me?"
b
He opened his eyes, aware of the sickening stench of cheap whisky, feeling
the dampness about his chest and throat-his shirt, jacket and trousers had
been drenched. In front of him were gradations of darkness, shadows of gray
and black interrupted by tiny, dancing specks of light that bobbed and
weaved in the farthest darkness. There was dull pain everywhere, centered in
his stomach, rising through his neck to his head, which felt swollen and
numb. He had been beaten severely and dragged to the end of the pier-the far
right end, beyond the warehouse, if his blurred orientation was anywhere
near accurate-and left to regain consciousness, or, conceivably, to roll
over the edge to a watery death.
But he had not been IdIled; that told him something. Slowly he moved his
right hand to his left wrist; his watch was there. He stretched his legs
and reached into his pocket; his money, too, was intact. He had not been
robbed; that told him something else.
He had spoken with too many men, and too many others had seen him in those
strange conversations. They bad been his protection. Murder was murder, and
regardless of what 11 Tritones owner bad said, a "quiet knife" on the
waterfront was a subject for investigation, as was assault and robbery when
the victim was a wealthy foreigner. No one wanted too
any questions asked on the piers; cool heads had ordered
76
THE PARsrFAL MosAjc77
him left as he was, which meant they had been paid to implement other
orders, higher orders. Otherwise something would have been stolen-a watch,
a few thousand lire; this was the waterfront.
Nothing. An inquisitive, wealthy foreigner had gone berserk, attacking a
blond whore on the pier, and men bad protected her. No investigation was
called for, as long as the i1cco americano inaledetto had his property
intact, if not his senses.
A setup. A professionally executed snare, the trappers exonerated once the
trap had sprung shut. The whole night, the morning, had been a setupl He
rolled over to his left; the southeast ocean was a line of fire beyond the
horizon. Dawn had come, and the Crkt6vgo was one of a dozen small sfl-
houettes on the water, obscure shapes diffusedly defined by the blinking
lights, signals to other silhouettes.
Slowly Havelock got to his knees, pressing them against the wet planks
beneath him, pushing himself up painfully with his hands. Once on his feet
he tamed around, again slowly, testing his legs and ankles, moving his
shoulders, arching his neck, then his back. There was nothing broken, but
the machine was badly bruised; it would not respond to quick commands, and
he hoped he would not have to issue any.
The guard. Had the ego-stroked civil servant been part of the act? Had he
been told to confront the foreigner with hostility at flrst, then turn to
obsequiousness, thus palling the mark in for the trap? it was effective
strategy; be should have seen through it. Neither of the other two guards
bad been difficult, each perfectly willing to tell him whatever he wanted
to know, the man at the gate of the Teresds pier
even going so far as to
inform. him of the freighter's delayed schedule.
The owner of Il Tritone? The sailor from the CrW6vrw in a narrow, dark
alley? Were they, too, part of it? Had the coincidence of logical
progression led him to those men on the waterfront who had been waiting for
him? Yet, bow could they have been waiting? Four hours ago Civitavecchia
was a vaguely remembered name on a map; it bad held no meanIng for him.
'Mere bad been no reason for him to come to Civitavecchia, no way for an
unknown message to be telegraphed. Yet it had been; he had to accept that
without
78 ROBERT LUDLUM
knowing how or why. There was so much beyond his understanding, a maddening
mosaic with too many pieces missing.
Anything you can't understand in this business is a risk but I dWt have to
teU you that. Rostov. Athens.
A decoy-a blond, pockmarked wbore-had been paraded through the predawn mist
to pull him out and force him to act. But why? What had they expected him
to do? He had made it plain what he intended to do. So what was learned,
what clarified? What was the point? Was she trying to kill him? Was that
what Costa Brava was all about?
lenna, why are you doing this? What happened to youP TO Us?
He walked unsteadily, stopping to brace his legs as his balance went out of
control. Reaching the edge of the warehouse, be propelled himself along the
wall past darkened windows and the huge loading doors until be came to the
comer of the building. Beyond was the deserted pier, the wash of
intersecting floodlights swollen with pockets of rolling fog. He peered
around the steel molding, squinting to focus on the glass cubicle that was
the guard's post. As before, the flgure inside was barely visible, but he
was there; Michael could see the stationary glow of a cigarette in the
center of the middle pane.
The glow moved to the right, the guard bad gotten off his stool and was
sliding the door of the booth open. A second figure could be seen walking
through the mist from the wide avenue fronting the row of piers. He was a
medium-sized man In an overcoat, wearing a hat, the brim angled as a
stroller's might be on the Via Veneto. The clothes were not the clothes of
the waterfront; they belonged in the city streets. The man approached the
glass booth, stopped by the door, and spoke with the guard. Both then
looked toward the end of the pier, at the warehouse; the guard gestured and
Michael knew they were talking about him. The man nodded, turned and raised
his hand; within seconds his summons was obeyed. Two other men came mto
view, both large, both wearing clothes more suited to the waterfront than
those of the man who commanded them.
Havelock leaned his head against the edge of steel, a deep, despairing
sense of fudW mingling with his pain. Exhaustkm ovexwhelmed him. He was no
match for such men; he
THE PAmiFAL MosAic79
could barely raise his arms, nor his feet. Since he had no other weapons, it
meant he had no weapons at all.
Where was JennaP Had she gone aboard the CrW6v& after the decoy had
fulfilled its function? It was a logical-No, it wasn~tl The commotion would
have centered too much attention on the freighter and would have roused
unfriendly or unpaid officials too easily. The ship itself had been a
decoy, the blond whore the lure. jenna was boarding one of the other twol
Michael turned away from the wall and hobbled across the wet planks toward
the edge of the pier. He wiped his eyes, staring through the heavy mist.
Involuntarily he gasped, the pain in his stomach was so acute. The Elba was
gonel He had been pulled to the wrong pier, duped into an uncontrollable
situation while jerma went on board the Elba. Was the captain of the Elba,
like the skipper of the Crist6vdo, a master navigator? Would he-could
he-maneuver his awkward ship close enough to an unpatrolled shoreline so
that a small boat might ferry his contraband to a beach?
One man had the answer. A man in an overcoat and an angled hat, clothes wom
on the waterfront by someone who did not haul and fork-lift but, instead,
bought and sold. That man would know; he had negotiated jenna's passage.
Havelock lurched back to the comer of the warehouse wall. He had to reach
that man; he had to get by two others coming for him. If only he had a
weapon, any kind of weapon. He looked around in the faintly lessening
darkness. Nothing. Not even a loose board or a slat from a broken crate.
Ile water. The drop was long, but be could manage it. If he could get to
the far end of the pier before he was seen, it would be presumed he bad
plunged over while unconscious. How many seconds did he have? He inched his
face to the edge and peered around the molding into the wash of the
floodlights, prepared to push himself away and rim.
He did not run. The two men were no longer walking toward him. They had
stopped, both standing motionless inside the fenced gate. Why? Why was he
being left where he was without further interferenceP
Suddenly, from out of the impenetrable mist several piers away came an
ear-shattering screech of a ship's klaxon. Then another, followed by a
prolonged bass chord that vibrated
8 0 ROBERT LUDLUM
throughout the harbor. It was the Santa Teresal It was his answerl The two
men bad been summoned not to punish him
further, but to restrict him to the first pier. There was no delayed
schedule for the Teresa; that, too, was part of the setup. She was sailing
on time, and Jenna was on board. As the ship's clock ran down, there was
only one thing left for the negotiator to do: keep the disabled hunter in
place.
Fiercely be told himself he had to get to that pier, stop her, stop the
freighter from casting off, for once the giant d
in, bing he cou
1 ed e ~ in ~ re a n ar into onea
0 p ' gsw s ot
s w re slipp ffS e wo 'd di appe
do, no y to rea h h Ia
dze ed tI thlI ft , not for
0 corth(Zn 0 anon
t ny I tries, a hundr ci e _nng e
-no an s nger,~ out her h t w t t go
a w w . ~g
e hed e hat blan 'i Is mean ow m e be ba~. He could only estimate There had
been two blasts from the Crist6vidlo; ments later the blond decoy had
emerged from the shadows of the warehouse door. Seven minutes. Yet there
bad been no bass chord following the high-pitched whistles. Did its absence
signify less time or more? He probed his memory, racing over scores of
assignments that bad taken him to waterfronts everywhere.
He remembered; more accurately, he thought he remembered as a blurred
recent memory struggled to surface. The high-pitched shrieks were for ships
in the distance, the vibrating lower tones for those nearer by-a rule of
thumb for the sea, and the docks. And while he was being beaten, the outer
vibrations of a low, grinding chord had fused with his Own screams of
protest and fury. The bass-toned whistle had followed shortly after the
shrieks-prelude to imminent departure. Seven minutes-less one, more likely
two, perhaps
three.
He had only minutes. Six, fIve-four, no more than that. The Teresa's pier
was several hundred yards away; in his condition it would take at least two
minutes to get there, and that would happen only if he could get past the
two jacketed men who had been called to stop him. Four minutes at the
outside, two minimum. Jesusl HowP He looked around again, trying to control
his panic, aware that every second reduced his chances.
A stocky black object was silhouetted between two pilings ten yards away;
be had not noticed it before because it was a stationary part of the dock.
He studied it now. It was a
THE PARSWAL MOSAIC81
barrel, an ordinary barrel, undoubtedly punctured during loading or
unloading procedures, and now used as a receptacle for coffee cups, trash,
predawn fires; they were on piers everywhere. He ran to it, gripped it,
rocked it. It swung free; be lowered it to its side and rolled it back
toward the wall. Time elapsed: thirty, perhaps forty seconds. Time
remaining: between one and a half and three-plus minutes. The tactic that
came into focus was a desperate one, but it was the only one that was
possible. He could not get past those men unless they came to him, unless
the fog and the translucent, brightening darkness worked for him and against
them. There was no time to think about the guard and the man in the
overcoat.
He crouched in the shadows, against the wall, both bands on the sides of
the ffithy barrel. He took a deep breath and screamed as loud as be could,
knowing the scream would echo throughout the deserted pier.
"Aiutol Prestol Sanguinol Muoiol"
He stopped, listening. In the distance be beard the shouts; they were
questions, then commands. He screamed again: "Aiutol"
Silence.
Then racing footsteps. Nearer ... drawing nearer.
Nowl He shoved the barrel with all the strength be could muster. It clanked
as it rolled laterally over the planks, through the fog, toward the edge of
the pier.
The two men rounded the corner of the warehouse in the misty light; the
barrel reached the edge of the dock. It struck one of the pilings. Ob,
Chiistl Then it spun and plunged over. The sound of the splash below was