the kill and the background of the foreign service officer who was the
primary target. Michael began studying every face in the room, isolating
each, watching eyes, seeing if any strayed to the oddly matched pair at the
center table. After the faces came the clothes, especially those belonging
to the few faces angled away from him. Shoes, trousers and belts where they
could be seen; shirts, jackets, hats and whatever jewelry was visible. He
kept trying to spot another chronometer or an Alpine windbreaker or soft
leather shoes. Inconsistencies. If they were there, he could not find them.
With the exception of the two men at the center table, the drinkers at the
inn were a ramshackle collection of mountain people. Farmers, guides,
storekeepers-apparently French from across the bridge-and, of course, the,
border guards.
"Ehil Che avete?" The words were hurled at him, a soldier's challenge. The
sergeant from the truck stood, with his hand on his holster, in the
semidarkness of the path that led to the entrance of the inn.
'Mia sposa," said Havelock quickly, his voice low, urgent, properly
respectful. "Noi siamo molto disturbati, Signor Maggiore. lo vado ad
aiutare una ragazza francese. Lh mia sposa mi seguireil"
The soldier grinned and removed his hand from the gun ewe. He admonished
Havelock in barracks Italian: "So the men of Monesi still go across the
border for French ass, eh? If your wife's not in there, she's probably back
in your own bedroom being pumped by a Frenchmanl Did you ever think of
that?"
"The way of the world, Major," rephed Michael obsequiously, shrugging, and
wLshing to Christ the loudmouthed dolt
THE PAmiFAL MosAic175
would go inside and leave him alone. He had to get back to the windowl
"You~re not from Monesi," said the sergeant, suddenly alarmed. '-fou don't
talk like a man from Monesi. 11
"The Swiss border, Major. I come from Lugano. I moved here two years ago."
The soldier was silent for a moment, his eyes squinting. Havelock slowly
moved his hand in the shadows toward his waist, where, secured
uncomfortably under his belt, was the heavy magnum with the silencer
attached. There could be no sounds of gunfire, if it came to that.
~ Finally the sergeant threw up his hands, shaking his head in disgust.
"Swissl Italian-Swiss, but more Swiss than Italianl All of youl Sneaky
bastards. I won't serve in a battalion north of Milan, I swear it. I'll get
out of the army first. Go back to your sneaking, Swissl" He turned and
stalked into the inn.
Inside, another door-the narrow door to the men's roomwas opened. A man
walked out, and Michael not only knew he had found a third weapon in the
unit from Rome, but realized there had to be a fourth. The man was part of
a team-two demolition experts who worked together-veteran mercenaries who
had spent several years in Africa blowing tip everything from dams and
airports to grand villas suddenly occupied by inept despots in Graustarkian
regalia. The CIA had found them in Angola, on the wrong side, but the
American dollar was healthier then, and persuasive. The two experts had
been placed in a single black-bordered file deep in the cabinets of
clandestine operations.
And their being at the bridge of Col. des Moulinets gave Havelock a vital
piece of information: a vehicle or vehicles were anticipated. Either one of
these two demolition specialists could pause for ten seconds by an
automobile, and ten minutes later it would explode killing everyone in the
immediate vicinity. Jenna Karas wa~ expected to cross the border by car;
minutes later she would be dead, a successful, nonattributable kill.
The airfield. Rome had learned about the airfield from the man in
Civitavecchia. Somewhere on the road out of Col des Motilinets, whatever
conveyance she was in would be blown into the night sky.
Michael dropped to the ground behind the pine tree.
1718 RoBERT LUDLUM
Through the window he could see the explosives, expert walking directly to
the front door of the inn; the man glanced at his watch, as the blond killer
had done minutes ago. A schedule was in progress, but what schedule?
The man emerged; his swarthy face looked even darker in the dim light of
the post lamp at the end of the path. He began walking faster, but the
acceleration was barely perceptible; this was a professional who knew the
value of control. Havelock rose cautiously, prepared to follow; he glanced
at the window, then looked again, alarmed. Inside, by the bar, the sergeant
was talking to the blond recruit he called Ricci, obviously delivering an
unwanted order. The killer seemed to be protesting, raising his beer as if
it were much needed medicine and thus an excuse for not obeying. Then be
grimaced, drank his drink in several swallows, and started for the door.
The schedule was being adhered to. Through prearrangement, someone at the
bridge bad been instructed to call for the new recruit in advance of the
duty hour; be was to be rostered before the shift was over. Procedural
methods would be the cover, and no one would argue, but it was not pro-
cedure, it was the schedule.
They knew. The unit from Rome knew that jenna Karas was on her way to the
bridge. A motor launch bad been picked up in Anna di Taggia, and the party
had been followed; the vehicle in which she traveled into the Ligurian
mountains was now spotted within minutes of its arrival at the checkpoint
of Col des Moulinets. It was logical: what better time to cross a border
than at the end of a shift, when the soldiers were tired, weary of the dull
monotony, waiting for relief, more careless than usual?
The door opened, and Michael crouched again, peering to his right through
the branches of the pine tree at the road beyond the post lamp. The
mercenary had crossed diagonally to the shoulder on the other side, bearing
left toward the bridge-an ordinary stroller, a Frenchman perhaps, returning
to Col des Moulinets. But in moments he would fade into the woods, taking
up a predetermined position east of the bridge's entrance, from which he
could crawl to an automobile briefly held up by the guards. The blond
killer was now halfway to the post lamp; he paused, lighting a cigarette,
an action that gave another reason for his delay. He heard the
THE PARsiFAL MosAic177
sound of the door being opened, and was satisfied. The "soldier" continued
on his way as the two men from the center table-the American agent of record
and his roughly dressed companion, the second weapon in the unit from
Rome-came out.
Havelock understood now. The trap bad been engineered with precision; in a
matter of minutes it would be in place. Two expert marksmen would take out
the intruder who tried to interfere with the car carrying Jenna Karas-take
him out instantly, the second be came in sight, with a fusillade of
bullets; and two demolition specialists would guarantee that the automobile
waved through would explode somewhere in the streets of Col des Moulinets,
or on a road to an unmarked airfield.
Another assumpti
on could be made beyond the fact that there was a schedule
in progress that included a car on its way to the bridge. The unit from
Rome knew be was there, knew he would be close enough to the border patrols
to observe all those in any vehicle offering passports to the guards. They
would examine closely every male figure that came into view, their hands on
their weapons as they did so. Their advantage was in their numbers, but be,
too, bad an advantage and it was considerable: he knew who they were.
The well-dressed American and his employee, the second gun, separated at
the road, the agent of record turning right in order to remove himself from
the execution ground, the killer going left and to the bridge. Two small
trucks clattered up the road from Monesi, one with only a single headlight,
the other with both headlights but no windshield. Neither the American nor
his hired weapon paid any attention; they knew the vehicle they were
waiting for, and it was neither of these.
If you know a strategy, you can counter a strategy-his father's words so
many years ago. He could recall the tall, erudite man patiently explaining
to a cell of partisans, calming their fears, channeling their angers.
Lidice was their cause, the death of Germans their objective. He remembered
it an now as he crept back to the driveway and raced across into the woods.
He got his first glimpse of the bridge from three hundred yards away on the
edge of the bend in the road that led to
178 ROBERT LuDLum
the country inn-the curve he had avoided by heading into the woods. From
what he could see, it was narrow and not long, which was a blessing for
drivers because two cars crossing at the same time would no doubt graze
fenders. A dual string of naked bulbs was now lit; it arced over the central
steel span, sagging between the struts; several of the bulbs had burned out,
to be replaced when others joined them. The checkpoint itself consisted of
two opposing structures that served as gatehouses, the windows high and
wide, each with a ceiling light fixture; between the two small, square
buildings a hand-winched barrier painted with intense, light-reflecting
orange fell across the road. To the right of the winch was a shoulder-high
gate that opened onto the pedestrian walk.
Two soldiers in their brown uniforms with the red and green stripes were on
either side of the second truck, talking wearily but animatedly with the
driver. A third guard was at the rear, his attention not on the truck but
on the woods beyond the bridge. He was studying the areas on both sides as
a hunter might when stalking a wounded mountain cat; he stood motionless,
his eyes roving, his head barely turning. He was the blond assassin. Who
would suspect that a lowly soldier at a border checkpoint was a killer with
a range of accomplishments that spanned the Mediterranean?
A fourth man had just been passed through the pedestrian gate. He was
trudging slowly up the slight incline toward the midpoint of the bridge.
But this man had no intention of crossing to the other side, no intention
of greeting the French patrols in Ligurian patois, claiming as so many did
that the air was different in la beUe France and thank God for slender
women. No, thought Michael, this crudely dressed peasant of the mountains
with the drooping trousers and the large, heavy jacket would remain in the
center shadows and, if the light was dim enough, would check his weapon, no
doubt a braced, repeating, rapid-fire machine gun, its stock a steel bar
clamped to the shoulders, easily concealed beneath garments. He would
release the safety and be prepared to race down to the checkpoint at the
moment of execution, ready to kill the Italian guards if they interfered,
intent on firing into the body of a man coming out of the darkness to reach
a woman crossing the border. This man, last seen at a
THE PAmrrAL Mosmc 179
center table in the country inn, was the backup support for the blond-haired
killer.
It was a gauntlet, at once simple and well manned, using natural and
procedural roadblocks; once the target entered, he was trapped both within
and without. Two men waited with explosives and weapons at the mouth of the
trap, one at its core, and a fourth at its outer rim. Well conceived, very
professional.
12
Ile tiny glow of a cupped cigarette could be seen in the bushes diagonally
across the dark road. Bad form. The agent of record was an indulgent man
denying himself neither chronometers nor cigarettes during the early stages
of a kilL He should be replaced; he would be replaced.
Havelock judged the angle of the cigarette, its distance to the ground; the
man was crouched or sitting, not standing. Because of the density of the
foliage it was impossible for the man to see the road clearly, which meant
that he did not expect the car with Jenna Karas for some time yet; he was
being too casual for an imminent sighting. The sergeant had said in the
driveway that the soldiers had an hour to fill their kidneys; twenty
minutes had passed, leaving forty. Yet not really forty. The final ten
minutes of the shift would be avoided because the changing of the guard
would require an exchange of information, no matter how inconsequential or
pro forma. Michael bad very little time to do what had to be done, to mount
his own counterstrategy. First, he had to learn all he could of Rome's.
He sidestepped his way back along the edge of the foliage until the distant
spill of light from the bridge was virtually blocked by the trees. He ran
across the road and into the underbrush, turning left, testing every step
to ensure the silence that was essential. For a brief, terrible moment he
was back 180
THE PAnsrFAL MosAic181
in the forests outside Prague, the echoes of the guns of Lidice in his ears,
the sight of screaming, writhing bodies before his eyes. Then he snapped
back to the immediate present, remembering who and where he was. He was the
mountain cat; the most meaningful lair of his life had been soiled, cor-
rupted by liars who were no better than those who commanded the guns at
Lidice-or others who ordered "suicides" and gulags when the guns were
stilled. He was in his element, in the forest, which had befriended him when
he had no one to depend on, and no one understood it better.
The agent of record was sitting on a rock and, true to his indulgence, was
playing with his watch, apparently pushing buttons, controlling time,
master of the half-second. Havelock reached into his pocket and took out
one of the items he bad purchased in Monesi, a four-inch fish-scaling knife
encased in a leather scabbard. He parted the branches in front of him,
crouched low, then lunged.
"Youl Jesus ChrW1 . . . Don'tl What are you doing? Oh, my Godl"
"You talk above a whisper, you won't have a facel" Michaers knee was rammed
into the agent's throat, the razor-sharp, jagged blade pressed against the
man's ebeek below his left eye. "This knife cleans fish, you son of a
bitch. I'll peel your skin off unless you tell me what I want to know.
Right now."
"Yoere a maniael"
"And you~re the loser, if you believe that. How long have you been here?"
"Twenty-six hours."
"Who gave the order?"
"How do I know."
"Because even an asshole like you would cover yourselfl Ies the first thing
we learn in dispatch, isn~t it? The orderl Who gave it?"
"Ambiguityl The code was Ambiguity," cried the agent of record, as the
scaling edge of the blade dug into his face. "I swear to Christ, that's all
I knowl Whoever used it was cleared by Cons Op-D.C. It can be traced back
therel Jesus, I only know our orders came from the codel It was our clear-
ancel"
"I'll accept it. Now, give me the step schedule. AU of ft.
182 RoBEnT Lmxum
You picked her up in Arma di Taggia, and shes been followed ever since.
HowP"
"Change of vehicles up from the coast."
"Where is she now? Whaesthe car? When's it expectedP"
"A Lancia. The ETA, as of a half hour ago, barring-"
"Cut it outl WhenP-
'Seven-forty arrival. A bug was planted in the car; theyll be here at
twenty of eight."
"I know you don't have a radio, a radio'd be evidence in your case. How
were you contacted?"
"Me phone at the inn. leswl Get that thing away from mel"
"Not yet, sane man. The schedule, the steps? Who's on the car now?"
"Two men in a beat-up truck, a quarter of a mile behind. In case you
intercept, tbeyll hear it and be on you."
"If Idon't, then what?"
"We've made arrangements. Starting at seven-thirty, everyone crossing the
border gets out of his car or truck or whatever. Vehicles are searebed-we
spread lire-so one way or the other shell have to show herself."
"Tbat's when you figured I'd come out?"
"If we . . . they . . . don't find you first. They think they'll spot you
before she gets here."
"And if they don't?"
"I don't knowl It's their plan."
"It's your planf" Havelock broke the skin on the agenes face; blood
streaked down his cheek.
"Cbristl Don't, pleasel"
"Tell mel"
"Ies made to look like you attacked. They know you've got a weapon whether
you show it or not. They nail you and pull it out if it's not in your hand.
Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt Page 23