Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt
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fall in diagonal sheets. The man reached for his hat but it was too late.
Caught in an updraft, the hat was lifted off his head and hurled against
the side of the coupe.
294 Roi3ERT LuDLum
He walked across the grass to retrieve ft. Even In the darkness the shock of
white could be seen streaking from his forehead through his wavy black hair.
In truth, Nikolai Petrovich Malyekov was annoyed, and his dripping hair was
only part of his irritation. Time was running short. In his identity as
Undersecretary of State Arthur Pierce, he would have to change his clothes
and make himself presentable. A man in his position in the United States
government did not run around in the mud and the pouring rain; he would
phone for his limousine the minute he reached home, He bad agreed to have
late-nigbt drinks with the British ambassador, as there was another OPEC
problem, matters of state to be attended to.
It was not what his people in Moscow wanted, but knowledge of another
Anglo-American oil strategy was not to be dismissed. All such information
brought the Voennaya closer to the power they bad been seeking since Yagoda
set them on their path over a half century ago. Yet only the man who could
not be found, the man who knew the secret of Anthony Matthias, could lead
the Voennaya to its destinyfor the good of the world.
Arthur Pierce, raised as an Iowa farm boy but born in the Russian village
of Ramenskoye, turned toward his car in the rain. There was no time to be
tired, for the charade never stopped. Not for him.
Ambassador Addison Brooks stared at Bradford across the dais. "You say this
mole knows who Parsifal is, knew about him before we didl" be exclaimed. "On
what basis do you make that extraordinary statement?"
"Costa Brava," said the undersecretary. "And the past seventy-two hours."
"Take them in sequence," ordered the President.
'In the final hours of Costa Brava, Havelock was provided with a radio
transmitter whose frequency calibrations bad been altered by CIA
technicians in Madrid ' They were working under blind orders; they had no
idea what the transmitter was for or who was going to use it. As you know,
the entire Costa Brava assignment was controlled by a man named Steven
MacKenzie, the most experienced black-operations officer in Central
Intelligence; the security was guaranteed."
"Completely," interrupted Berquist. "MacKenzie died of a
TrrE PArtsrFAL Mosmc295
coronary three weeks after we pulled him out of Barcelona. There was nothing
suspicious. The doctor's a respected, well-known physician and was
thoroughly questioned. Macm Kenzie's death was from natural causes."
"Only he knew all the details," continued Bradford. "He'd hired a boat, two
men, and a blond woman who spoke Czech and was to scream in the distance-in
the dark-during the grisly scene they were performing on that beach. The
three of them were the dregs-small-time narcotics dealers and a
prostitute-picking up a sizable fee. They didn't ask questions. Havelock
sent out his transmission in KGB code to what be thought was a
Baader-Meinbof unit in the boat offshore. MacKenzie caught it on his
scanner and signaled the boat to come in. A few minutes later Havelock saw
what we wanted him to see-or be thought he saw it. The Costa Brava
operation was over."
"Again," interrupted the ambassador impatiently, "General Halyard and I are
aware of the essentials-"
"It was over, and except for the President and the three of us, no one else
knew about it," said the undersecretary, rushing ahead. "MacKenzie bad
structured it in fragments, no one group knowing what the other was doing.
Tbe only story we issued was the trapped-double-agent version, no buried
reports, no flle within a file that contradicted it. And with MacKenzie's
death, the last man on the outside who knew the truth was gone."
"The last man, perhaps," said Halyard. "Not the last woman. jenna Karas
knew. She got away from you, but she knew."
"She knew only what she was told, and I was the one who spoke with her at
the hotel in Barcelona. The story she was given had a dual purpose. One, to
frighten her into doing exactly what we asked of her so we could ostensibly
save her life; and two, to put her into a disturbed frame of mind that
would startle Havelock, help convince him she was a KGB officer if be had
any last doubts or emotional hurdles. If she'd followed my instructions
she'd be safe. Or if we'd been able to find her, she wouldn't be running
from the men who have to kill her now-and kill Havelock-so as to keep the
truth about Costa Brava secret. Because they know the truth.-
Ambassador Brooks whistled softly; it was a low, swelling
296 ROBERT LuDLum
whistle, the sound made by a man genuinely astonished. We've reached the
last seventy-two hours," be said, "beginning with an untraceable call to
Rome preceded by an authorization code established by Daniel Stem."
"Yes, sir. Col des Moulinets. I saw the outlines of the connection when I
read the agent of record's report, but nothing was clear. just shapes,
shadows. Then it became clearer when be told us here tonight the things be
did."
"A man named Ricci he'd never seen before," said Brooks, "two demolitions
experts he knew nothing about."
"And a massive explosion that detonated some twelve minutes after the
gunfire at the bridge," added Bradford. "Then his description of the woman
as a 'needle' for the Soviets, a Russian plant that Moscow could have back
and be taught a lesson."
'I"feb was a lie," objected Halyard. "That bomb was meant for the car she
was in. It killed how many? Seven people on the road to the bridge? Christ,
it was powerful enough to blow that vehicle out of sight and everyone in it
beyond recognition. And our own people weren't to know a goddamned thing
about it."
"By way of a man named Ricci," said Bradford, "a Corsican no one knew and
two so-called small-arms backup personnel who were in reality explosives
experts. They were sent by Rome, but the two who escaped never tried to get
in touch with the embassy afterward. In our agenes words, that's not
normal. They didn't dare return to Rome."
"They were sent by our people," said Berquist. "But they didn't come from
our people. They bad a separate arrangement with the same person who made
the last untraceable call from Washington to Rome. Ambiguity."
"That same person, Mr. President, who was able to reach into Moscow and
pull out an authentic KGB code-anything less would never have been accepted
by Havelock. Someone who knew the truth about Costa Brava, and was as
anxious, perhaps as desperate, as we are to keep a blackout on it."
"Why?" asked the general.
Because if we went back and examined every aspect of the operation we might
find be was there.-
The President and the general reacted as though each had been told of an
unexpected death; only Brooks remained im.
TIM PAItSWAL MOSMC297
passive, watching Bradford carefully, a first-rate Mind acknowledging the
presence
of another.
"That's a bell of a jump, son," said Halyard.
"I can't think of any other explanation,. said Bradford. "Havelock's
execution bad been sanctioned, the sanction was understood even by those
who respected his record. Hed turned; he was a 'psycho,' a killer,
dangerous to every man in the field. But why was the woman at Col des
Moulinets to be sent across the border? Why was the point made that she was
a 'needle,' a plant? Why was her escape supposed to be a lesson to the
Soviets, when all the while a bomb timed to explode minutes later would
have blown her away beyond recognition?"
"To maintain the illusion that she had died at Costa Brava," said Brooks.
"If she remained alive, she'd ask for asylum and tell her story; she'd have
nothing to lose."
"Forcing the events of that night on the beach to be reexamined," the
President said, completing the thought. "She bad to be killed away from
that bridge while still preserving the lie that she bad died at Costa
Brava."
"And the person who made the call authorizing Havelock's execution," said
Halyard, frowning, with uncertainty in his voice, "who used the Ambiguity
code and put this Ricci and the two nitro men in Col des Moulinets by way
of Rome
. you say be was on the beach that nightr
"Everything points to it, yes, General."
"For Chrises sake, why?"
"Because be knows Jenna Karas is alive' " replied Brooks, still watching
Bradford. "At least, he knows she wasn't killed at Costa Brava. No one else
does."
"naes speculation. it may have been kept quiet, but we've been looking for
her for nearly four months."
'Vithout ever acknowledging it was her," explained the undersecretary,
"without ever admitting she was alive. The alert was for a person, not a
name. A woman whose expertise as a deep-cover agent could lead her to
people she'd worked with previously under multiple identities. The emphasis
was on physical appearance and languages."
"What I caet accept is your jump." Halyard shook his bead, the gesture of
a military strategist who sees a practical gap in a plan for a field
maneuver. "MacKenzie put Costa Brava together in pieces, reporting only to
you. The CIA in
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Langley didn~t know about Madrid, and Barcelona was kept away from both.
Under those conditions, how could someone penetrate what wasn't there?
Unless you figure MacKenzie sold you out or loused it up."
"I don7t think either." The undersecretary paused. "I think the man who
took over the Ambiguity code was already involved with Parsifal months ago.
He knew what to concentrate on and became alarmed when Havelock was ordered
to Madrid under a Four Zero security."
"Someone with maximum clearance right here hi the State Department," the
ambassador broke in. "Someone with access to confIdential memoranda."
'Yes. He kept tabs on Havelock's activities and saw that !omething was
happening. He flew to Spain, picked hirn up in Madrid, and followed him
back to Barcelona. I was there; so was MacKenzie. He almost certainly would
have recognized me, and as I met with MacKenzie twice, ies reasonable to
assume we were seen together."
"And presuming you were, ies also reasonable to assume that Moscow had a
file on MacKenzie thick enough to alarm Soviet intelligence." Brooks leaned
forward, once again locking his eyes with Bradfords. "A photograph wired to
the KGB, and the man we're looking for, who saw you together in Barcelona,
knew a black operation was in progress."
'It could have happened that way, yes."
'With a lot of conjecture on your part," said Halyard.
"I don't think the undersecretary of State is finished, Mal." The
ambassador nodded his head at the papers Bradford bad just separated and
was scanning. "I don't believe he'd permit his imagination to wander into
such exotic regions unless something triggered it. Am I right?"
"Substantially, yes."
"How about just plain yes," said the President.
'Yes," said the man from State. "I suppose I could be prosecuted for what
I did this afternoon, but I considered it essential. I had to get away from
the phones and the interruptions; I had to reread some of this material and
provoke whatever imagination I have. I went to the classified files of Cons
Op, removed Havelock's summary of Costa Brava under 'Chemical Therapy and
took it home. rve been studying it since three o'clock-and remembenng
MacKenzie!s verbal
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report after he came back from Barcelona. There are discrepancies."
"In what way?" asked Brooks.
"In what MacKenzie planned and in what Havelock saw."
"He saw what we wanted him to see," said the President. 'You made a point
of it a few minutes ago."
"He may have seen more than we think, more than MacKenzie engineered."
"MacKenzie was there," protested Halyard. "What the hell are you talking
aboutr
"He was approximately seventy yards away from Havelock, with only a
peripheral view of the beach. He was more concerned with watching
Havelock's reactions than with what was taking place below. He'd rehearsed
it a number of times with the two men and the blond woman. According to
those practice sessions, everything was to take place near the water, the
shots flred into the surf, the woman falling into the wet sand, her body
rolling with the waves, the boat close by, within reach. Ile distance, the
darkness-everything was for effect.-
"Visually convincing," interrupted Brooks.
"Very," agreed Bradford. "But it wasn't what Havelock described. What he
saw was infinitely nwre convincing. Under chemicals at the clinic in
Virginia be' literally relived the entire experience, including the
emotional trauma that was part of it. He described bullets erupting in the
sand, the woman running up to the road, not down by the water, and two men
carrying the body away. Two men."
"Two men were hired," said Halyard, perplexed. "What's the problem?"
"One bad to be in the boat; it was twenty feet offshore, the engine
running. The second man was to have fired the shots and pulled the woman
into the water, throwing her 'dead body' into the boat. The distance, the
darkness, the beam of a flashlight-these were part of MacKenzie's scene,
what he'd rehearsed with the people he'd hired. But the flashlight was the
only constant between what MacKenzie planned and what Havelock saw. He
didr* witness a performance; he saw a woman actually killed."
"Iesus." The general sat back in his chair.
"MacKenzie never mentioned any of this?" said Brooks.
"I don7t think he saw it. All he said to me was 'My em- 300 Roi3ERT LuDLum
ployees must have put on abell of a show.' He stayed where he was on that
hill above the road for several hours watching Havelock. He left when it
began to get light; be couldn't risk Havelock's spotting him."
Addison Brooks brought his right hand to his ebin. "So the man we're
looking for, the man who pulled the trigger at Costa Brava, who was given
the Ambiguit
y code by Stem and put Havelock 'beyond salvage,' is a Soviet
agent in the State Department."
'Yes," said the undersecretary.
"And be wants to find Parsifal as desperately as we do," concluded the
President.
"Yes, sir."
"Yet, if I follow you," said Brooks quickly, "theres an enormous
inconsistency. He hasn't passed on his astonishing Information to his
normal KCB controls. We'd know it if be had. Good God, we'd know itl"
"Not only has he held it back, Mr. Ambassador, he's purposely misled one of
the ranking directors of the KGB." Bradford picked up the top page of his
notes and slid it respectfully to the silver-haired statesman on his right.
"I've saved this for last. Not, incidentally, to startle you or shock you,
but only because it didn't make any sense unless we looked at everything
else in relationship to it. Frankly, Im still not sure I understand. It's
a cable from Pyotr Rostov in Moscow. He's director of External Strategies,
KGB."
"A cable from Sotiet inteUigence?" said Brooks, astonished, picking up the
paper.
Contrary to what most people believe," added the undersecretary,
"strategists from opposing intelligence services often make contact with
one another. They're practical men in a deadly practical business. They
can~t afford wrong signals.... According to Rostov, the KGB bad nothing to
do with the Costa Brava and he wanted us to know it. Incidentally, Colonel
Baylor in his report said that Rostov trapped Havelock in Athens, and
although be could have gotten him out of Greece and Into Russia by way Of
the Dardanelles, he chose not to..
"When did you get this?" asked the statesman.
"Twenty-four hours ago," answered the President. "We've been studying it,
trying to figure it out. Obviously, no response is called for."
Tim PARsYrAL MosAic301
"Read it, Addison," said Halyard.
"It was sent to D. S. Stem, Director of Consular Operations, United States
Department of-" Brooks looked up at Bradford. "Stern was killed three days
ago. Wouldn't Rostov have known tbat?'
"He wouldn't have sent it if he bad. He wouldn't have permitted the
slightest speculation that the KGB was involved in Stem's death. He sent