Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

  The hell one doesdt."

  228 RoBERT LUDLUM

  "It they are trusted.-

  You ask for a source. You donI leave a station and fly to a city hundreds

  of miles away without being pretty damn sure the source can be confirmed."

  'Very well," said the VKR officer, gliding confidently with the

  cross-currents again. 'There was an investigation; a man was found in

  Civitavecchia. He said you were on your way to Paris."

  "When did you get the word?"

  "Yesterday, of course," replied the Russian impatiently.

  "When yesterdayr

  "Late afternoon. Five-thirty, I believe. Five-thirty-five, to be precise."

  Lie number two, the falsehood found in the precision. The deciWon to head

  for Paris was forced on him after Col des Moulinets. Eight o'clock at

  night.

  'You're convinced that what I can divulge about our European intelligence

  operations is of such value to you that you are willing to accept the

  retaliations that come with defection at my level?"

  "Naturally."

  'Mat opinion Wt shared by the directors' committee of the KGB."

  'Mey're fools. Frightened, tired rabbits among the wolves. Well replace

  them."

  "You're not troubled that I may be programmed? That whatever I tell you

  could be poison, useless?"

  "Not for a moment. les why you~re 'beyond salvage.'"

  'Or that rm paranoid."

  "Never. You're neither paranoid nor hallucinatory. You are what you have

  always been, a highly intelligent specialist in your field."

  Lie number three. Word of his supposed psychotic condition had been spread.

  Washington belleved it, the dead OgX vie had confirmed it on the Palatine.

  "I see," said Havelock, grimacing, feigning pain that needed very little

  pretense. 'Trn so goddamned tired," he said, lowering the magnum slightly,

  turning slightly to his left, his eyes millimeters from making contact with

  the mirror on the wall. "I took a bullet. I haven't had any sleep. As you

  said, I just keep running, trying to figure it out. . ~"

  "What more Is there to figure?" asked the Russian, his

  TkE PARsrrAL Mosmc229

  voice now gliding into compassion. "It's basically an economic, time-saving

  decision, you know that. Rather than altering codes, networks and sources,

  they've decided to eliminate the man who knows too much. Sixteen years of

  service in the field and this is your retirement bonus. 'Beyond salvage.' .

  Michael lowered the gun further, his bead bent down but his eyes now on the

  mirror. "I have to think," he whispered. "Ies all so crazy, so impossible."

  Lie number four--the most teUing liel The Russian went for his gunt

  Havelock spun around and f1red; the bullet snapped into the wall. The VKR

  officer grabbed his elbow as blood erupted through his shirt and dripped

  onto the floor. 'Ubliudokl" he cried.

  We've only fust begunl" whispered Michael with cantrolled fury. He

  approached the Russian and pushed him against the wall, then removed the

  exposed weapon from the holster and threw it across the room. "Yoere too

  sure of yourself, comrade, too sure of your factsf Never state them so

  confidently; leave room for error because there may be one. You bad

  several."

  The Russian answered him with silence, his eyes full of both loathing and

  resignation. Havelock knew those eyes, knew the combination of batred and

  the recognition of mortality; they were intrinsic to the nature of certain

  men, trained for years to hate and die. By any name they were recognizable:

  Gestapo, Nippon Kai, Palestinian Liberationists, Voennaya.... And there

  were lesser leagues, amateurs who knew nothing beyond arrogance and

  bate-tbeir own deaths being no part of their childish bargains-screeching

  fanatics who marched to the drimis of sanctimonious loathing.

  Michael returned silence for silence, look for look. And then be spoke.

  "Don't waste the adrenaline," be said quietly. "Im not going to kill you.

  You're prepared for that; yoeve been ready for it for years. Damned if Im

  going to accommodate you. Instead, Im going to blow off both your

  kneecaps-and then your hands. You're not trained to live with the results.

  No one is, really, especially not your kind. So many routine things'll be

  beyond you. Simple things. Walking to a door or

  230 RoBLmT LuDLum

  a locked file cabinet, opening either one. Dialing a phone or going to the

  toilet. Reaching for a gun and pulling a trigger."

  The Russian~s face went pale and his lower lip began to tremble. -Nyet," he

  whispered hoarsely.

  "Da," said Havelock. "There's only one way you can stop me. Tell me what

  happened at Costa Brava."

  "I told youl Nothingl"

  Michael lowered the magnum and fired Into the Soviet's thigh; blood

  splattered against the wall. The Russian started to scream, collapsing on

  the floor, Havelock gripped his mouth with his left band.

  "I missed the kneecap. I won't miss now. Either one." He stood up, leveling

  the weapon downward.

  "Nol Stopf" The VKR officer rolled over, clutching his leg. He was broken;

  he could accept death, but not what Michael had promised him. "ru tell you

  what I know."

  "rU know if youre lying. My finger's on the trigger, the gun pointed at

  your right hand. If you lie, you won~t have it anymore.

  'What I told you is true. We were not at Costa Brava that night."

  "Your code was broken. Washington broke it. I saw it, I wnt itl"

  "Washington broke nothing. That code was abandoned seven days prior to the

  night of January fourth. Even if you sent it and we accepted it, we could

  not have responded. It would have been physically impossible."

  "Why?"

  'We were nowhere near the area, any of us. We were sent out of the sector."

  The Russian coughed in pain, his face twisted. "For the period of time in

  question, all activities were canceled. We were prohibited from going

  within twenty miles of the Montebello beach on the Costa Brava."

  "Liarl"

  "No," said the VKR officer, his bleeding leg pulled up under him, his body

  taut, his eyes staring at Michael. "No, I am not lying. Those were the

  orders from Moscow.-

  7

  BOOK

  TWO

  is

  It was raining that night in Washington. Angry, diagonal

  sheets were driven by erratic winds, making drivers

  and

  U mistrust their vision; headlights refracted,

  =Vd7bli= in suddenly shifting angles. The chauffeur

  at the wheel of the limousine heading down 14th Street

  toward the East Cate of the White House was not immune

  to the problem. He slammed on his brakes and swerved to

  avoid an onrushing compact, whose high beams gave the il

  lusion of a huge attacking insect. The small car was well to

  his left on its side of the line, so the maneuver had

  been un

  necessary. The chauffeur wondered if his very important pas

  sengers had noticed the error.

  "Sorry, sirs," he said, his voice directed at the intercom, his eyes on the

  rearviewmirror and the glass partition that sel>arated him from them.

  Neither man responded. it was
as if neither had heard him, yet he knew both

  had; the blue intercom light was on, which meant that his voice was

  transmitted. The red light, of course, was dark; he could not hear anything

  being said in the rear seat. The red light was always off, except when in-

  structions were being given, and twice every day the system was checked in

  the garage before he or any other driver left the premises. It was said

  that tiny circuit breakers had been 233

  234 RoBImT LunLum

  installed that tripped at the slightest tampering with the Intercom

  mechanism.

  Ile men who rode in these limousines had been assigned them by the

  President of the United states, and the chauffeurs who drove them were

  continuously subjected to the most stringent security cheeks. Each of them

  was unmarri d and without children, and each was a combat veteranproven

  under fire-with extensive experience in guerrilla warfare and diversionary

  tactics. The vehicles they drove were designed for maximum protection. The

  windows could withstand the impact of A5-cahber bullets; homing devices

  were Implanted throughout the undersides, and small jets that released two

  separate types of gas with a flick of a switch were positioned at all

  points of the frame-one gas merely numbed and was used for riots and unruly

  protestors, while the other was a lethal dioxide compound, which was

  designed for terrorists. The chauffeurs were told: "Guard your passengers

  with your lives." Ilese men held the secrets of the nation; they were the

  Presidenes closest advisers in times of crisis.

  . The driver glanced at the dashboard clock. It was nine. twenty, nearly

  four hours since he had driven the same vehicle back into the garage after

  completing a previous Usignment, waited for the electronics check, and left

  for the night. Thirty-five minutes later he had been having a drink at a

  restaurant on K Street and was about to order dinner when the jarring

  one-note signal of his beeper erupted from its case on his belt. He had

  telephoned the unlisted number fir Security Dispatch and was ordered to the

  garage fmmediately: Aqum*js One anergency, Scorpio descending. Out of

  context and out of orbit, but the message was clear. The Oval Office had

  pushed a button; the senior drivers were now on duty, all prim schedules

  aborted.

  Back in the garage he had been mildly surprised to see

  ie

  d 'an"

  'e for b

  I - -s

  thatonl tw vehi es~ p rep

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  tO ve blackh Ab A

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  d 0 sestretcr ams

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  of their d an re~dyinstead ' there

  were ~ered to an a ~Yn Heig hts

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  s s_

  to

  I to

  M ;d ndF da t

  th two~~g flo~9 rmy .

  b a 3 s from arate islands in the Caribbean. Times

  had b coordinated, the ETXs were within fifteen minutes of

  each other.

  The Younger of the two old men had arrived first, and the

  THE PARsiFAL MosAic235

  driver recognized him instantly; not everyone would have done so. His name

  was Halyard, like the line on a sailboat, but his reputation had been made

  on land. Lieutenant General Malcohn Halyard: WW II, Korea, Vietnam. The bald

  soldier had started off commanding platoons and companies in France and

  across the Rhine, then battalions in Kaesong and Inchon, and, finally,

  armies in Southeast Asia, where the driver had seen him more than once in

  Danang. He was something of an oddball in the upper ranks of the military;

  he was never known to have held a press conference, and he had been known to

  bar photographers-military and civilian alike-from wherever be happened to

  be. "figbtrope Halyard was considered a brilliant tactician, one of the

  flrst to state for the Congressional Record that Vietnam was nowin idiocy.

  He avoided publicity with the same tenacity that he showed on the

  battlefleld, and his low proffle, it was said, appealed to the President.

  The general had been escorted to the limousine and, after greeting the

  driver, had waited in the back seat without another word.

  The second man had arrived twelve minutes later. He was as far removed from

  "righbrope" Halyard as the eagle is from the lion, but both were superb

  examples of their species. Addison Brooks bad been a lawyer, an

  international banker, a consultant to statesmen, an ambassador, and finally

  an elder statesman himself and adviser to presidents. He was the embodiment

  of the Eastern Establishment aristocracy, the last of the old-school-tie

  crowd, the ultimate WASP, who tempered the image with a swift wit that

  could be as gentle and compassionate as it could be devastating. He had

  survived the political wars by exercising the same agility displayed by

  Halyard on the battlefleld. In essence, both men would compromise with

  reality, but not with principle. This was not, of course, the driver's own

  judgment; he had read about it in the Washington Post, his interest having

  been drawn to a political column that had analyzed the two advisers because

  he knew the ambassador and had seen the general in Danang. He had driven

  the ambassador on a number of occasions, flattered that old Brooks

  remembered his name and always bad a little personal something to say to

  him: "I have a grandson who swears he saw you play your one two-minute game

  for the Steelers, Jack." Or: "Damn it,

  238 RoBLPnT LuDLUM

  Jack, d0111 YOU ever put on weight? My wife makes me drink my gin with some

  God-awful diet fruit juice." The last had to be an exaggeration; the

  ambassador was a tall, slender man, his silver heir, aquiline features and

  perfectly groomed gray moustache making him look more English than American.

  Tonight, however, there had been no personal greeting at Andrews Field, and

  no jokes. Instead, Brooks bad nodded absently when the driver opened the

  rear door for him; then he had paused as his eyes made contact with the

  general inside. At that moment only one word was spoken. "Parsifal,the

  ambassador said, his voice low, somber; it was the sole spreeting.

  After Brooks had climbed in beside Halyard, they talked briefly, their

  faces set, glancing frequently at each other, as if asking questions

  neither could answer. Then they fen silent, or so it appeared, at least,

  whenever the drivez~s eyes strayed to the rearview mirror. The few times he

  had looked at them, as he was looking at them now, both the diplomat and

  the soldier had been staring straight ahead, neither speaking. Whatever the

  crisis that had brought them to the White House, each from an island in the

  Caribbean, it was obviously beyond discussion.

  The driver~s memories were stirred as he tumed into the short drive that

  led to the East Cate guardhouse. Like many collegiate athletes whose

  ability was somewhat greater on the playing field than in the classroom or

  laboratory, he had taken a course in music appreciation that had been

  suggested by his coaches. They had been wrong; it was a bitch. Still, he

  remembered. Parsifal was an opera by Wagner.

  The driver of Abraham Seven turned
off the Kenilworth Road into the

  residential section of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He had been to the house

  twice before, which was why he had been selected for the route tonight

  despite his previous request not to be given Undersecretary of State Emory

  Bradford as an assignment again. When Security Dispatch had asked why, he

  could only answer that he did not like him.

  "That doesn~t really concem us, Yahoo," had been the rePly. "Your likes and

  dislikes have yet to become policy around here. just do your job."

  THE PARWAL MOSAic 237

  Of course that was the point-the job. if part of the job was to protect

  Bradfords life at a risk to his own, he was not sure he could comply.

  Twenty years ago the cold, analytical Emory Bradford had been one of the

  best and the brightest, the new breed of young pragmatists who skewered

  adversaries right and left In the pursuit of power. And the tragedy at

  Dallas had done nothing to slow this pursuit; the mourning had been quickly

  replaced by adjustment to a changed situation. The nation was in peril and

  those endowed with the capacity to understand the aggressive nature of

  factionalized Communism had to stand flrm and rally the forces of strength.

  The tight-lipped, unemotional Bradford became an impassioned hawk. A game

  called dominoes was suddenly a theory on which the survival of freedom was

  based.

  And in Idaho a strapping farm boy was caught up in the fever. He answered

  the call; it was his personal statement against the long-haired freaks who

  burned flags and draft cards and spat on things that were decent

  and-Anwrican. Eight months later the farm boy was in the jungles watching

  friends getting their heads blown away, and faces and arms and legs. He saw

  ARVN troops running from firefights and their commanders selling rifles and

  jeeps and whole consignments of battalion rations. He came to understand

  what was so obvious to everyone but Washington and Command Saigon. The

  so-called victims of the so-called atheistic hordes didiA give a doodilly

  shit about anything except their hides and their proflts. They were the

  ones who were spitting and burning everything that could not be traded or

  sold, and laughing lesus, were they lauglungl At their so-called savfors,

  the pink-faced, round-eyed suckers who took the fire and the land mines,

  and lost heads and faces and arms and legs.