Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

  secondary target.

  The tall, slender f1gure in black climbed out of the car-a woman in

  mourning, an opaque veil of black lace falling from her wide-brimmed hat

  and covering her face. Havelock stared, the pain in his chest was almost

  unbearable. She was no more than twenty feet away, yet the gulf was filled

  with death, her death to follow shortly whether his came or not.

  190 ROBERT LUDLUM

  "My regrets again, signora,. said the killer in uniform. "It will be

  necessary for you to remove your hat."

  "Good Lord, whyP" asked Jenna Karas, her voice low, controlled, but with a

  trace of a throb, which could be a sign of grief as well as of fear.

  "Merely to match your face with the photograph on the passport, signora.

  Surely you know it's customary."

  jenna slowly lifted the veil from her face, and then the hat from her head.

  The skin that was so often bronzed by the sun was chalk-white in the dim,

  eerie light of the bridge; her delicate features were taut, the high

  cheekbones masklike, and her long blond hair was pulled back and knotted

  severely. Michael watched, breathing slowly, silently, a part of him

  wanting to cry out while another desperately, foolIshbr, placed them back

  in another time ... bring together on the grass overlooking the Moldau,

  walking down the Ringstrasse, holding hands as children might, laughing at

  the bony of two deep-cover agents behaving like human beings. . . . In bed,

  holding each other, telling themselves they would somehow break out of

  their movable prison.

  'Me signora has lovely hair," said the blond killer, with a smile that

  denied his rank. "My mother would approve. We, too, are from the north."

  'rhank you. May I replace my veil, Caporale? I am in mourning.*

  "In one moment, please," replied Riect holding up the passport but not

  looking at it. Instead, be was glancing everywhere at once without moving

  his head, his anger obviously mounting. jenna's escorts stood motionless by

  the car, avoiding the soldier's eyes.

  Behind the Lancia, on either side of the run-down truck the support

  assassins were tense, peering into the shadows, then repeatedly looking in

  the vicinity of the country inn, anticipation on their faces. It was as

  though they all expected him to materialize out of the darkness, to appear

  suddenly, walking either casually or resolutely up the path from the inn,

  or from behind the thick bunk of a pine tree on the edge of the road,

  calling out to the woman by the automobile. It was what they expected;

  these were the moments they had calculated as the crisis span-the target

  would be found now if he had not been found before. And from their

  viewpoint, It had to happen. Everything was clean, nothing

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC191

  wrinkled. The target bad not crossed over the bridge within the past

  twenty-six hours-and if he had crossed over prior to minus-twenty-six, it

  would have been stupid. There was no way he could know which vehicle carried

  jenna Karas or which road it would take through Col des Moulinets. Beyond

  these deductions, there was no reason for the man marked for dispatch to

  know there was a unit from Rome at the checkpoint. It would happen now, or

  it would not happen.

  The tension at the scene was stretched to the breaking point It was

  compounded by the two soldiers inside the gatehouse booth who were trying

  to open the door and shouting through the windows, their voices muted by

  the thick glass. Nothing was lost on jenna Karas or her paid escorts; the

  driver had edged toward the door, his companion toward the border of the

  road and the woods. A trap was in the making, but for reasons they could

  not understand, it was clearly not a trap for them; if it were, they would

  have been summarily taken.

  Havelock knew that everything now was timing: the eternal wait until the

  moment came, and then that instant when instinct told him to move. He could

  not rearrange the odds to favor him, but he could reduce them against him.

  Against jenna.

  "Finirti in niente," said the uniformed killer, just loud enough to be

  heard; he brought his hand to his waist and shook his wrist twice as he had

  done before, giving a signal as be had given it before.

  Michael reached into his pocket and took out a packet of plastic explosive

  and a module. The luminous readout was at oooo, he pressed the timer button

  delicately until he had the figures he wanted, then inserted the module

  into the selfsealing hp. He had checked and rechecked his position in the

  darkness; be knew the least obstructed path and used it now. He snaked his

  way eight feet into the forest, observed the outlines of the branches

  against the night sky, and threw the packet into the air. The moment it was

  out of his hand, he scrambled back toward the road, arcing to his left, now

  parallel to the run-down truck, ten feet from the backup killer dressed in

  mountain clothes. He had two shells left in the magnum; it was possible he

  would have to use both before he cared to, but the muted sounds were

  preferable to explosions from the I.Jama automatic. Seconds now.

  192 ROBERT LuDLum

  'Regrets again for the delay, signam and signori," said the assassin sent

  by Rome, walking away from the Lancia toward the winch that operated the

  orange barrier. "Procedures must be followed. You may return to your

  automobile now, all is In order." The blond man passed the windows of the

  booth, ignoring the angry shouts of the soldiers inside; he had no time to

  waste on n-dnor players. A plan had failed, a finely tuned strategy had

  been an exercise in futility, anger and frustration were second only to his

  professional instincts to get out of the area. There was only one chore

  left to finish, which an agent of record was to know nothing about. He

  raised the orange barrier and immediately stepped back out into the center

  of the entrance,, blocking passage. He removed a notebook and a pencil from

  his pocket~the border guard attending to his last procedure, taking down

  the numbers of a vehicles lieme. It, too, was a signal.

  Only seconds.

  Jenna and her two escorts climbed back in the car, the

  faces of the two men betraying bewilderment and cautious

  relief. The doors slammed shut, and at the sound a short,

  stocky man came slowly out of the foliage across the road

  near the hunk of the Lancia. He walked directly to the rear

  of the automobile, but his attention was not on the car but

  on the woods beyond the road. He raised his right hand to

  his waist, and shook his wrist twice, perplexed at the lack of

  response to his signal. He stood for a moment, his frown con

  v r alarm but not panic. Men in his

  business un

  d==e problems of equipment malfunction; they were

  sudden and deadly, which was why the two specialists trav

  eled as a team. He turned his head quickly toward the

  checkpoint-, the blond assassin was impatient. The man knelt

  down, took an object out of his left hand and transferred it

  to his right. He reached under the car, the area directly

  beneath the fuel tank.
>
  There were no secon& ". The target couW not wait.

  Havelock had the man in the sights of his magnum. He fired; the specialist

  screamed as his body crashed up into the metal of the fender, the packet

  flying out of his hand as his arzn whipped back; the bullet bad lodged in

  his spine and his body arched in searing pain. Though in agony, the killer

  turned toward the source of the explosive spit, pulled an automatic from

  his pocket and leveled it instantly. Frantically

  TnE PARwAL MosAic 193

  Michael rolled out of the area until the dense underbrush stopped his

  movement. The gunshots echoed everywhere, bullets spraying the ground, as

  Havelock raised the magnum and fired its last round. The muffled report was

  followed by a loud gasp from the man by the truck as his neck was blown

  away.

  "Doeg? Doear shouted the blond assassin at the checkpoint, racing around

  the Lancia.

  Ile explosion filled the air, the blinding light of the detonated plastique

  bathing the darkness of the woods, echoing throughout the mountains. The

  assassin lunged to the ground and, aiming at nothing, began shooting at

  everything. Ile lAncia!s engine roared, its wheels spun, and the sedan

  surged onto the bridge. jerma was ftee.

  Seconds more. He had to do it.

  Michael got to his feet and raced out of the forest, the empty magnum in

  his belt, the Uama in his hand. The assassin saw him In the light of the

  spreading flames in the woods; the blond man got up on his knees and,

  supporting his right arm with his left, aimed at Havelock. He fired

  rapidly, repeatedly; the bullets shrieked in ricochets and snapped the air

  above and to the right of Michael as he lurched for the cover of the truck.

  But it was no cover; he heard the scraping, then the footsteps behind him,

  and whirled around, his back against the door. At the rear of the truck the

  killer-driver came, crouching-the movements of a professional cornering a

  quarry at close range-as he raised his weapon and fired. Havelock dropped

  to the ground at Ent sighting and returned two shots; feeling the ice-like

  pain in his shoulder, be knew he bad been hit, but not how seriously. The

  driver rolled spastically off the edge of the road; ff be was not gone, he

  would be soon.

  Suddenly, the dirt exploded in front of Michael; the blond assassin was

  free to resume firing now that his associate was finished. Havelock dived

  to his right, then plunged under the truck, crawling in panic to the other

  side. Secon&. Only second& left. He sprang to his feet and sidestepped to

  the door. The crowd of frightened people down at the inn were shouting at

  one another, running in all directions. There was so little time; men would

  race out of barracks, perhaps were racing even now. He reached for the

  handle and yanked the door open; he saw what he wanted to see: the keys

  were in the

  194 RoELrRT LuDLum

  Ignition as he had dared to think they would be. The unit from Rome had been

  in control, and control meant being able to get away from the execution

  ground instantly.

  He leaped up into the seat, his head low, his fingers working furiously. He

  turned the key; the engine caught, and at the first sound, gunfire came

  from the road ahead and bullets embedded themselves in metal. There was a

  pause, and Michael understood; the assassin was reloading his gun. These

  were the cmcial seconds. He switched on the headlights; like the motor,

  they were powerful-blinding. Up ahead, the blond man was crouched off the

  shoulder of the road, slamming a clip into the base of his automatic. Have-

  lock jammed the clutch, pulled the gearshift, and pressed the accelerator

  to the floor.

  The heavy truck jolted forward, its tires screeching over rock and dirt.

  Michael spun the wheel to his right as the engine roared with the gathering

  speed. Rapid gunshots; the windshield was punctured and a web of cracks

  spread throughout the glass as bullets screamed into the cab. Havelock

  raised his head just high enough to see what he bad to see; the killer was

  centered in the glare of the headlights. Michael kept his course until he

  felt and heard the impact, accompanied by a scream of fury, which was

  abruptly cut short as the assassin lurched and twisted, but was held in

  place, his legs crushed under the heavy cleated tires of the truck.

  Havelock spun the wheel again, now to his left, back into the road proper;

  he sped past the two gatehouses onto the bridge, noting as he raced by that

  the two guards were prone on the floor of the booth.

  There was ebaos on the French side, but no barrier to block his way.

  Soldiers were running to and from the checkpoint, shouting orders at no one

  and everyone; inside a lighted booth four guards were huddled together, one

  screaming into a telephone. The road into Col des Moulinets bore to the

  left off the bridge, then curved right, beading straight into a silhouetted

  patchwork of small wood-framed houses, set close together, with sloping

  roofs, typical of a thousand villages in this part of the Alps. He entered

  a narrow cobblestone street, several pedestrians jumped onto the narrow

  pavement, startled as much by the sound as by the sigbt of the heavy

  Italian truck.

  He saw the red lights . . . the wide, rear lights of the

  THE PARWAL MOSAIC 195

  Lancia. It was far in the distance; it turned into a street- God only knew

  what street, there were so many. Col des Mouhnets was one of those villages

  where every long-ago path and pasture bypass had been paved with stone; some

  had been converted into streets, others merely into quaint alleyways, barely

  wide enough for produce carts. But he would know it when he came to it; he

  had to.

  The intersecting streets grew wider, the houses and shops set farther back;

  narrow pavements became sidewalks, and more and more villagers were seen

  strolling past the lighted storefronts. The Lancia was nowhere; it

  haddisappeared.

  "Pardml Ou est ra&opoitr he yelled out the window to an elderly couple

  about to step off the curb into the cobblestone street.

  "Airport?" said the old man in French, the word itself pronounced in an

  accent that was more Italian than Gallic. 'There is no airport in Col des

  Moulinets, monsieur. You can take the southern roadway down to Cap Martin."

  "There iR an airport near the village, rm sure of it'" cried Havelock,

  hying to control his anidety. "A friend, a very good friend, told me be was

  flying into Col des Moulinets. rm to meet him. rm late."

  "Your friend meant Cap Martin, monsieur."

  "Perhaps not," called out a younger man who was leaning against the

  doorframe of a shop closed for the evening. 'flere is no real airport,

  monsieur, but there is an airfield fifteen, twenty kilometers north on the

  road to Tenda. it's used by the rich who have estates in Roquebilli&e and

  Breil."

  "That's itl Wbat's the fastest way?"

  "Take your next right, then right again back three streets to Rue

  Maritimes. Turn left; It will lead you into the mountain auto route.

  Fifteen, eighteen kilometers north."
<
br />   'Thank you."

  Time was a racing montage of light and shadow, filled with peopled streets

  and leaping figures, small interfering cars and glazing headlights,

  gradually replaced by fewer buildings, fewer people, fewer streetlamps; he

  had reached the outskirts of the village. if the police had been alerted by

  the panicked border guards, he had eluded them by the odds of a small form

  versus a large area. Minutes later-how many he would never know-he was

  tearing through the darkness of the Maritimes countryside, the rolling

  hills everywhere

  196 RoBERT LuDLum

  that were introductions to the mountains beyond, barricades to be negotiated

  with all the speed the powerful truck could manage. And as the grinding

  gears strained and the tires under him screamed to a crescendo, he saw the

  silhouettes of paddle wheels; like the hills, they were everywhere, along-

  side houses by mountain streams and rivulets, slowly turning, a certain

  majesty in their never-ending movements-proof again that time and nature

  were constant. In a strange way, Michael needed the reaffirmation; he was

  losing his mindl

  There were no lights on the auto route, no red specks in the darkness. The

  Lancia was nowhere to be seen. Was be even going in the right direction? Or

  had anxiety warped his senses? So close and yet so terribly far away, one

  gulf traversed, one more to leap. Traversed? We said it better in Prague.

  PfeJezd said it better.

  Miluff vd&, md drahd. We understand these words, Jenna. We do not need the

  language of liars. We never should have learned it. Don't listen to the

  liarsl They neutralized as; now they want to kill us. They have to because

  I know thet(re there. I know, and so will you.

  A searchlightf Its beam was sweeping the night sky. Beyond the nearest

  hills, diagonally up ahead on the left. Somewhere the road would turn;

  somewhere minutes away was an airfield and a plane-and Jenna.

  The second hill was steep, the other side of it steeper, with curves; he

  held the wheel with all his strength, careening into each turn. Lights.

  Wide white beams in front, two red dots behind. It was the Lancial A mile,

  two miles ahead and below; it was impossible to tell, but the field was

  there. Parallel lines of yellow ground lights crossed each other at