Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

  "Have you got a light?"

  Michael reached into his pocket, took out matches and brought them over.

  "What you've got to say had better make a great deal of sense-"

  Oh, my Godl Whether it was the slight movement of the

  136 RommT LuDLxTm

  head of red hair below him, or the odd position of 0911v14A right hand, or

  the flash of sunlight reflecting off the cigarette pack's cellophane, be

  would never know, but in that confluence of unexpected factors, be knew the

  trap had been sprung. He lashed his left foot out, catching the strategises,

  right arm and reeling it back; the force of the blow threw Ogilvie off the

  bench. Suddenly the air was filled with a billowing cloud of mist. He dived

  to his right, beyond the path, holding his nostrils, closing his eyes,

  rolling on the ground until he slammed into the remains of the jagged wall,

  out of range of the gaseous cloud.

  The collapsible vial bad been concealed in the pack of cigarettes, and the

  acrid odor that permeated the arbor told him what the vial bad contained.

  It was a nerve gas that inhibited all muscular control if a target was

  caught in the nucleus; its effect lasted no less than an hour, no more than

  three. It was used almost exclusively for abduction, rarely if ever as a

  prelude to dispatch.

  Havelock opened his eyes and got to his knees, supporting himself on the

  wall. Beyond the marble bench the man from Washington was thrashing around

  on the overgrown grass, coughing, struggling to rise, his body in

  convulsions. He bad been caught in the milder periphery of the burst, just

  enough to make him momentarily lose control.

  Michael got to his feet, watching the bluisb-gray cloud evaporate in the

  air above the Palatine, its center holding until diffused by the breezes.

  He opened his jacket, feeling the pain of the scrapes and bruises made by

  the magnum under his belt as a result of his violent movements. He took out

  the weapon with the ugly perforated cylinder on the barrel, and walked

  unsteadily across the grass to Ogilvie. The red-haired man was breathing

  with difficulty, but his eyes were clear; he stopped struggling and stared

  up at Havelock and then at the weapon in Michael's hand. "Go ahead,

  Navajo," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Save me the trouble."

  "I thought so." Havelock looked at the former field man's gaunt, lined face

  that had the chalk-white pallor of death about it.

  "Doet think. Shoot."

  "Why should I? Make it easier, I mean. Or harder, for that matter. You

  didn't come to kill me, you came to take me. And you don't have any answers

  at all."

  TAz PAnsrFAL MosAic137

  "I gave them to YOU."

  "When?"

  "A couple of minutes ago ... HavltVek. The war. Czechoslovakia, Prague.

  Your father and mother. lAdice. All those things that aren't pertinent."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Your head7s damaged, Navajo. I'm not lying about that."

  OWha&"

  "You didn't see the Karas woman. She's dead."

  oSbE~s ali~ef" shouted Michael, crouching beside the man from Washington,

  grabbing him by the lapel of his rumpled coat. "Goddamn you, she saw mel

  She ran from mel"

  "No way," said Ogilvie, shaking his bead. '-fou weren't the only one at

  Costa Brava, there was someone else. We have his sighting; he brought back

  proof-fragments of clothing, matching blood, the works. She died on that

  beach at the Costa Brava."

  "Thaes a liel I was there A nightf I went down to the road, down to the

  beach. There weren't any pieces of clothfng; she was running, she wasn't

  touched until after she was dead, after the bullets bit her. Whoever she

  was, her body was carried away intact, nothing torn, nothing left on the

  beachl How could there be? Why would there be? That sigbting's a liel"

  The strategist lay motionless, his eyes boring up into Havelock's, his

  breathing steadier now. It was obvious that his mind was racing, filtering

  truth where he could find the truth. "It was dark," he said in a monotone.

  '-fou couldn't tell."

  "When I walked down to the beach, the sun was up."

  Ogilvie winced, forcing his head into his left shoulder, his mouth

  stretched, a searing pain apparently shooting up through his chest and down

  his arm. "The man who made that sighting had a coronary three weeks later,"

  said the strategist, his voice a strained whisper. "He died on a goddamned

  sailboat in the Chesapeake. . . . If you!re right, there!s a problem back

  in D.C. neither you nor I know about Help me. We've got to get out to

  Palombara."

  "You get out to Palombara. I don7t come in without answers. I told you

  that."

  "Yoeve got tol Because you're not getting out of here without me, and

  that's Holy WrM"

  138 ROBERT LuDLum

  'You've lost your touch, Apache. I took this magnum from that pretty face

  you hired. Incidentally, her gumbd is with her now, both resting at the

  bottom of a marble bath."

  "Not theml Himl" The man from Washington was suddenly alarmed. He pushed

  himself up on his elbows, his neck craning, his eyes squinting into the

  sun, scanning the hill above the arbor. "He's waiting, watching us," be

  whispered. "Put the gun downl Get off the advantage. Hurry upf"

  "Who? Why? What for?"

  "For Christ's sake, do as I sayl Quicklyl"

  Michael shook his head and got to his feet. "You're full of little tricks,

  Red, but you've been away too long. You've got the same stench about you

  that I can smell all the way from the Potomac-"

  "Don'tl Nol" screamed the former field man, his eyes wide, straining,

  focused on the high point of the hill. Then drawing from an unreasonable

  reservoir of strength, be lurched off the ground, clutching Havelock and

  pulling him away from the stone path.

  Havelock raised the barrel with heavy cylinder attached and was about to

  crash it into Ogilvie's skull when the snaps came, two muted reports from

  above. Ogilvie gasped, then exhaled audibly, making a terrible sound like

  rushing water, and went limp, falling backwards on the grass. His throat

  was ripped open; he was dead, having stopped the bullet meant for Michael.

  Havelock lunged to the wall; three more shots came, exploding marble and

  dirt all around him. He raced to the end of the jagged wall, the magnum by

  his face, and peered through a V-shaped break in the stone.

  Silence.

  A forearm. A shoulder. Beyond a cluster of wild bush. Nowl He aimed

  carefully and fired four shots in rapid succession. A bloody band whipped

  up in the air, followed by a pivoting shoulder. Then the wounded man

  lurched out of the foliage and limped rapidly over the crest of the bill.

  The bair on the hatless figure was close-cropped and black, the skin deep

  brown. Mahogany. The would-be assassin on the Palatine was Rome's conduit

  for covert activities in the northern sector of the Mediterranean. Had he

  squeezed the trigger in anger, or fear, or a combination of'both, afraid

  and furious that his cover and his network would be exposed? Or had he

  THE PARsiFAL MOSAIC139

  col
dly followed orders? Another question, one more shapeless fragment in the

  mosaic.

  Havelock turned and leaned against the wall, exhausted, frightened, feeling

  as vulnerable as in the early days, the terrible days. He looked down at

  Red Ogilvie-John Philip Ogilvie, if he remembered correctly. Minutes ago be

  was a dying man; now be was a dead man. Killed saving the life of another

  be did not want to see die. The Apache had not come to dispatch the Navajo;

  he had come to save him. But safety was not found among the strategists in

  Washington; they had been programmed by liars. Liars were in control.

  Why? For what purpose?

  No time. He bad to get out of Rome, out of Italy. To the border at Col des

  Moulinets, and if that failed, to Paris.

  To Jenna. Always Jenna, now more than everl

  10

  The two phone calls took forty-seven minutes to complete from two separate

  booths in the crowded Leonardo da Vinci Airport. The flrst was to the office

  of the direttore of Rome's Amministrazione di Sicurezza, Italy's watchdog

  over covert foreign activities. With succinct references to authentic clan-

  destine operations going back several years, Havelock was put through

  without identification to the directoes administrative assistant. He held

  the man on the line for less than a minute, hanging up after saying what he

  had to say. The second call, from a booth at the opposite end of the

  terminal, was placed to the redattore of 11 Progresso, Rome's highly

  political, highly opinionated, largely anti-American newspaper. Considering

  the implied subject matter, the editor was a far less difficult man to

  reach. And when the journalist interrupted Michael for identification and

  clarification, Havelock countered with two suggestions: the first, to check

  with the administrative assistant to the direffore of the Amministrazione di

  Sicurezza; the second, to watch the United States embassy during the next

  seventy-two hours, with particular attention paid to the individual in

  question.

  Me=anil" fumed the editor.

  "Addio," said Michael, replacing the phone.

  140

  TFm PAwxFAL MosAic141

  Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Baylor Brown, diplomatic attach6 and a prime

  example of America's recognition of minorities, was out of a job. The

  conduit was finished, his network rendered useless; it would take months,

  possibly a year, to rebuild. And regardless of how seriously he was wounded,

  Brown would be flown out of Rome within hours to explain the death of the

  red-haired man on the Palatine.

  The first floodgate had been opened. Others would follow. Every day it

  takes wiU cost you.

  He meant it.

  "I'm glad you got here," said Daniel Stem, closing the door Of the white,

  windowless room on the third floor of the State Department building. The two

  men he addressed were sitting at the conference table: the balding

  psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Miller, going through his notes; the attorney named

  Dawson gazing absently at the wall, his hand resting on a yellow legal pad

  in front of him. "rve just come from Walter Reedthe Baylor briefing. It's

  all confirmed. I heard it myself, questioned him myself. He's one tom-apart

  soldier, physically and emotionally. But he's reining tight; he's a good

  man."

  "No deviations from the original report?" asked the lawyer.

  "Nothing substantive; he was thorough the first time. The capsule was

  secreted in Ogilvie's cigarettes, a mild diphenylamine compound released

  through a C-O-Two cartridge triggered by pressure."

  "Thaes what Red meant when he told us be could take Havelock if he got him

  within amYs reach," interrupted Miller quietly.

  "He nearly did," said Stem, walking into the room. There was a red

  telephone on a small table beside his chair; he flipped a switch on the

  sloping front of the instrument and sat down. "Hearing Baylor tell it is a

  lot more vivid than reading a dry report," said the director of Consular

  Operations, and fell silent; the two strategists waited. Stem continued

  softly. "He's quiet, almost passive, but you look at his face and you know

  how deeply he feels. How responsible."

  Dawson leaned forward. "Did you ask him what tipped Havelock off? It wasn't

  in the report."

  "It wasn't there because he doesn't know. Until the last second, Havelock

  didjYt. appear to suspect anything. Just as

  142 RoBERT LuDLum

  the report says, the two of them were talking; Ogilvie took the cigarettes

  out of his pocket and apparently asked for a light. Havelock reached into

  his pocket for matches, brought them over to Red, and then it happened. He

  suddenly Ideked out, sending Ogilvie reeling off the bench, and the capsule

  exploded. When the smoke cleared, Red was on the ground and Havelock was

  standing over him with a gun in his hand."

  "Why didn't Baylor shoot then? At that moment?" The lawyer was disturbed;

  it was in his voice.

  "Because of us," replied Stem. "Our orders were firm. Havelock was to be

  brought in alive. Only a 'last extremit3e judgment could intervene."

  "He could have been," said Dawson quickly, almost questioningly. "I've read

  Brown~s-Baylor's-service report. He's a qualified expert in weapons,

  special emphasis on side arms. There's very little be's not a 'qualified

  expere in; be's a walking advertisement for the NAACP and the officer

  corps. Rhodes scholar, Special Forces, tactical guerrilla warfare. You name

  it, he's got it in his file."

  "He's black; he's had to be good. I told you that before. What's your

  point?"

  "He could have wounded Havelock. Legs, shoulders, the pelvic area. Between

  them, he and Ogilvie could have taken him."

  "That's asking for a lot of accuracy from seventy-five to a hundred feet."

  "Twenty-five to thirty yards. Almost the equivalent of a handgun firing

  range, and Havelock was standing still. He wasn't a moving target. Did you

  question Baylor about that?"

  "Frankly, I didn't see any reason to. He's got enough on his mind,

  including a shot-up hand that may spell him out of the army. In my opinion,

  be acted correctly in a hairy situation. He waited until he saw Havelock

  point his gun at Ogilvie, until he was convinced Red didn't have a chance.

  He only fired then, at the precise moment Ogilvie lunged up at Havelock,

  taking the bullet. Everything corresponds with the autopsy in Rome."

  "The delay cost Red his life," said Dawson, not satisfied.

  "Shortened it," corrected the doctor. "And not by much~"

  "That's also in the autopsy report," added Stem.

  '11is may sound pretty cold under the circumstances,"

  7~IE PARSTFAL MOSAJC143

  said the attorney, "and perhaps it's related. We overestimated him."

  "No," disagreed the director of Cons Op. "We underestimated Havelock. What

  more do you need? It's been three days since the Palatine, and in those

  three days be's destroyed a conduit, frightened off the locals in Rome-no

  one wants to work for us now-and collapsed a network. Added to this he

  routed a cable through Switzerland to the chairman of Congressional

  Oversight, alludin
g to CIA incompetence and corruption in Amsterdam. And

  this morning we get a call from the chief of White House security, who

  doesn't know whether to be panicked or outraged. He, too, received a cable,

  this one in sixteen-hundred cipher, implying that there was a Soviet mole

  close to the President."

  "That comes from Havelock's so-called confrontation with Rostov in Athens,"

  said Dawson, glancing at the yellow legal pad. "Baylor reported it."

  "And Paul here doubts that it ever took place," said Stern, looking at

  Miller.

  "Fantasy and reality," interjected the psychiatrist. "If all the

  information we've gathered is accurate, he slips back and forth, unable to

  distinguish which. If our data is accurate. In all likelihood, there~s a

  degree of incompetence, perhaps minor corruption, in Amsterdam. However,

  I'd think ies just as unlikely that a Soviet mole could break into the

  presidential circle."

  "We can and do make mistakes here," offered Stern, "as well as at the

  Pentagon, and, God knows, in Langley. But over there the chances of that

  type of error are minuscule. I don't say it can't happen or hasn't

  happened, but anyone close to the Oval Office has had every year, every

  month, every week of his life put under the microscope, even the Presfdenes

  closest friends. The bright recruits are researched as if they might be

  Stalin's heirs; ies been standard procedure since '47." The director paused

  again, again not finished. His eyes strayed to the sheaf of loose notes in

  front of the doctor. He continued slowly, pensively. "Havelock knows which

  buttons to press, which people to reach, the right ciphers to use; even old

  ciphers have impact. He can create panic because he gives his information

  authenticity. . . . How far will he go, PauIr

  144 ROBERT Lurmum

  "No absolutes, Daniel," said the psychiatrist, sbRking his head. "Whatever

  I say is barely above guesswork."

  "Trained guesswork," interrupted the lawyer.

  "How would you like to try R case without the benefit of pretrial

  examination?' asked Miller.

  "Yoeve got depositions, statistics, a current on-site briefing, and a

  detailed dossier. It's fair background."

  "Bad analogy. Sorry I brought it up."

  "If we can't find him, how far will he go?" pressed the director of Cons