jemla was right. Laughter was not inconsequential. Her laugh was not, he
suddenly wanted desperately to hear it. Wlu" was she? How long did it take
to find a roll of tape and a couple of bandages? Every sterile house was
fully equipped with all manner of medical supplies; they went with the
territory. Where was she?
He got up from the antique bench, suddenly alarmed. Perhaps other men-men
not assigned to sterile Five-were Prowling the grounds outside. He had a
certain expertise in such matters. Infiltration was made easier by a
profusion of woods and underbrush, and Sterile Five was a country house,
surrounded by trees and foliage-natuz-al cover for un-
THE PAPswAL Mosmc 479
natural experts bent on penetration. He could intrude, invade, undoubtedly
take out opposition silently, and if he could, others could. Where was she?
Havelock walked rapidly to the window, realizing as he approached it that
the thick glass which was impervious to bullets would also distort movement
outside. It did; be turned swiftly and started for the door. Then he
realized something else: he had no weaponI
The door opened before he reached ft. He stopped, his breath cut short,
relief sweeping through him as jenna stood there with one hand on the knob
and the other holding a plastic tray filled with bandages, scissors, tape
and alcohol.
"Mikhail, what is it? What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I ... I felt like getting up."
"Darling, you7re perspiring," said jenna, closing the door and coming to
him; she touched his forehead, then his right temple. "What is it?"
"rin sorry. My imagination went a little off the track. I ... I thought you
were gone longer than . . . I expected. rm sorry."
"I was gone longer than I expected." jenna took his arm and led him to the
bench. "IRes get the shirt off," she said, placing the tray down and
helping him.
" Just that?" asked Havelock, sitting down and looking at
'her while removing his arms from his sleeves. "Just longer
than you expected? That!s it?"
'Well, outside of two brief affairs under the staircase and a mild
flirtation with the cook, rd say it was sufficient. - - -Now, hold still
while I take this off." jenna carefully, expertly sliced through the
borders of the dressing on his shoulder and peeled it back, then removed
the bandage. "Actually, its healing quite well, considering what yoifve put
it through,* she said as she stripped the tape and reached for the alcohol
and cotton. "More initation than anything else. The salt water probably
prevented infection. This will sting a bit."
"It does," said Michael, wincing, as Jenna swabbed the flesh around the
wound, then stroked the residue of tape away. "Outside of that activity
under the staircase, what the bell were you doing?" he asked while she
placed squares of gauze over his sidn.
"Concentrating on the mild flirtation," she replied, reeling
480 ROBERT LUDLUM
out the surgical tape and strapping the clean dressing In place. 'Mere. You
won't feel any better, but you look better."
"And you're avoiding me."
"DonI you like surprises?"
"Never did."
'Kold&r she said, drawing out the word, while laughing and pouring alcohol
over his exposed skin. "In the morning we'll have kold&~" she added,
massaging his baclr-
"Sweet roW ... You!re crazy. You're positively out of your mind We've spent
twenty-four hours in a goddamned hell and you~re talking about hot cross
bunsl"
"We must live, Mikhail," said jenna, her voice suddenly soft beside hlm~
the movement of her hands slowing to a halt. "I did speak with our
armed-to-the-teeth cook, and I'm sure I flirted. In the morning hell make
sure we have apricots and dry yeast, nutmeg he has-and ground mace. He'll
order it all tonight. In the morning, koWe-"
"I don't believe you--2*
"IW and you'll see." She laughed again, and held his face in her hands. "In
Prague you found a bakery that made koU6e. You loved it and asked me to
bake some for you."
"in Prague there was another set of problems, not whaes facing us now."
"But it is us, Mikhail. Us once more, and we must have our moments. I lost
you once, and now yolire here, with me again. Let me have these moments,
let us have them
even knowing what we know."
He reached for her, pulling her to him. "You have them. We have them."
'rhank you, my darling."
"I love to hear you laugh, have I told you that?"
"A number of times. You said I laughed like a small child watching a
marionette show. Do you remember saying thatr
I do, and I was right." Michael tilted her head back- "It fits, a child and
sudden laughter ... a nervous child sometimes. Broussac saw it too. She
told me what happened in Milan, how you stripped that poor bastard, colored
him red, and stole his clothes."
"As well as an enormous si- of moneyl" interrupted jenna. "He was a
dreadful man."
THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC 481
wgine said you laughed about it like a small child remembering a joke or a
prank or something like thaL"
"I suppose I did." jenna glanced at the fire. "I was so frightened, hoping
so much that she would help me, thinking she might not. I think I was
holding on to a memory that amused me, that might calm me down. I don7t
know, but ies happened before."
"What do you mean?" asked Michael.
Jenna turned back to him, her wide eyes Inches from his but not looking at
him-instead, looking beyond, seeing images from the past. "When I ran away
from Ostrava, when my brothers were killed, and I was marked by the
antiDub6eks-when my life there was finished-I came into the world of Prague.
it was a world filled with hatred, a world so violent that I thought at
times I couldn7t stand it anymore. But I knew what I had to do, I couldn't
turn back to a life that wa=1 mine any longer. . . . So I would remember
things, relive the memories as if I were actually there, not in Prague, not
in that world of fear. I was back in Ostrava, my adoring brothers taking me
for rides, telling their sister outrageous stories to make me laugh. Durbig
those moments I was free, I wasn't afraid." She looked at him. "Those
memories were hardly like Milan, were they? But I could laugh, I did
laugh.... Enoughl rm not making sense."
"Yoere making sense," said Michael, pulling her to him again, his face
against hers. "Thank you for that. Not much sense is being made these days.
Anywhere~"
"Yo&e tired, my darling. More thari tired, you!re exhausted. Come on, lees
go to bed."
"I always obey my doctors.'
"You need rest, Mikhail."
"I always obey my doctors up to a poine
Ziot~,- said Jenna, laughing softly against his ear.
Strands of her blond hair were layered over his face, her arm across his
chest, but neither was asleep. The splendid, warm comfort of their
lovemaking did not bring sleep; the unthinkable was too much with them. A
soft shaft of light came from the partially closed bathroom door
.
"You didn7t tell me everything that happened to you on PooWs Lsland, did
you?" said Jenna, her head next to his on the pillow. "You told Bradford
that you did, but you di&t."
482 R013ERT LUDLUM
'Almost everything," replied Havelock staring at the ceilIng. "I'm still
trying to figure it out."
jenna took her arm away and, supporting herself on her elbow, faced him.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I don~t think anybody can. les the bomb in my head."
"What is, my darling?"
"I know Parsifal."
'You what ... ?"
'Maes what Matthias said. He said I saw them all coming and going, the
'negotiators of the world,' he called them. But there was only one and I
must have seen him. I must know him.11
-17hat was the reason he did what he did to you? To us? Why he wanted you
out?"
"He said I could never understandthe deadliest
treaties were the only solution."
"And I was the sacriflce."
'Yes. What can I say? He's not sane; he wasn~t when be ordered up the case
against you. You were to die and I was to live, live and be watched."
Michael shook his head in. frustration. "Thaes what I can~t understand."
"My deathP"
"No, my liting."
"Even in his insanity, he loved you."
'Not him. Parsifal. If I was a threat, why didn~t Parsifal kill me? Why was
it left to the mole to put out the order three months laterr
'Bradford explained that," said jenna. "You'd seen me; you were reopening
Costa Brava, and it could have led you back to the mole."
"It still doesWt explain Parsifal. He could have had me taken out twenty
times over. He didwt. Thaes the gap. What kind of a man are we dealing
with?"
"Certainly not rational. Thaes what so terrifying."
Havelock turned his head and looked at her. I wonder," he said.
The ringing was harsh, unexpected, reverberating throughout the room. He
bolted up from a deep sleep, his hand reached for a nonexistent weapon. It
was the telephone, and Michael stared at it before picking it up from the
bedside table. He
THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC483
glanced at his watch as he spoke. It was four-forty-five in the morning.
"Yes?"
"Havelock, it!s Bradford.*
"What!s the matter? Where are you?"
"In my office. rve been here since eleven. Incidentally, rve had people
working through the night. Everything you wanted will be at Sterile Five by
ten o'clock, except the records at PooWs Island. Therell be a few hours'
delay with those."
You called at this hour to tell me that?"
"Of course not." Bradford paused, an intake of breath fillIng the moment.
"I may have found him," he said rapidly. "I did as you suggested. I looked
for someone who might not have been where he was supposed to be. I won't
know for certain until late this morning; that!s the delay with Poole!s
Island. If its true, ies incredible; his record is as dean as they come,
his military service-"
"Don't say My more," ordered Michael.
"Your phone is as sterile as that house."
"Mine may be. Yours may not be. Or your office. just listen to me."
"What is it?'
"Look for a puppet. He could be alive or dead:'
"A what?"
"Someone filling in, the strings leading back to your man. Do you
understand that?'
"Yes, I think so. As a matter of fact, I do. les part of what rve found
already.-
"Call me when you know. From the street, from a booth. But donI close in,
don't do anything." Havelock hung up and looked at jenna. "Bradford may
have found Ambiguity. If he has, you were right."
"Paminyatchik?"
"A traveler."
29
It was a morning Sterile Five had never experienced before and would
probably never see again. A persuasive inmate had taken over the somber
asylum. Despite the tension, despite the anticipated call from Bradford, by
eight-thirty jenna had commandeered the kitchen, the gun-bearing Escoffier
relegated to the position of assistant. Ingredients were measured and mixed
to the accompaniment of glances of approval and the gradual breaking down of
culinary barriers; the armed cook began to smile. Pans were selected and the
outsized oven was turned on; then two additional guards emerged on the scene
as if their nostrils belonged to hounds and the kitchen had become a meat
market.
"Please call me jenna," said jenna to the others, as Havelock was demoted
to,a comer table and dismissed with a newspaper.
First names were exchanged, wide grins appeared, and before long there was
conversation interspersed with laughter. Hometowns were compared-bakeries
the basis of comparison-and a kind of frivolity took over the kitchen at
Sterile Five. It was as though no one had ever before dared lighten the
oppressive atmosphere of the security-conscious compound. It was lightened
now and jenna was the bearer of that light. To say that the men-these
professionals familiar with the deadly arts-were taken with her was too
modest an
484
THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC485
observation. They were actually having fun, and fun was not normal at
Sterile Five. The world was going to hell in a galactic basket and jenna
Karas was baking koWe.
At nine-fifty-five, however, after quantities of sweet rolls had been eaten
in the kitchen and dispensed throughout the grounds, the serious air of the
Sterile house returned. Static on a dozen radios erupted, as inside bells
and television monitors became operational. An armored van from the Depart-
ment of State had entered the long, guarded drive from the highway. It was
expected.
By ten-thirty Havelock and jenna were back in the ornate study to examine
the papers and photographs, which were separated by classification. There
were six stacks, some thicker than others: four on the desk in front of
Michael; two on the coffee table, where jenna sat reading on the couch.
Bradford had been thorough, and if more was more, his only error was in
duplication. An hour and twenty minutes passed, the near-noon sun filling
the windows; refracted in the bulletproof gjass, the rays scattered across
the walls. There was silence except for the turning of pages.
The approach they used was standard when dealing with such a mass of
diverse information. They read everything rapidly, concentrating on the
totality and not on specifies, trying first to get a feel for the
landscape; they would get to the details later and relentlessly scrutinize
them. Despite the concentration on reading, a comment was inevitable now
and then.
"Ambassador Addison Brooks and General Malcohn Halyard," said Michael,
reading a page that contained the names of all those involved-however
remotely, with or without knowledge-with the Parsifal mosaic. "Theyre the
Presidenes backups if he!s forced to expose Matthias."
"In what sense?' asked jerma.
"After Anton, they're among the most respected men in the country. Berquist
will need them."
Several min
utes later jenna spoke. "Yoxere listed here~*
"Where?"
"An entry in an early Matthias calendar.*
"How early?"
"Eight-no, nine months ago. You were a house guest of his. It was when you
were flown over for the Cons Op per~
486 RoBjmT LuDLum
sonnel evaluation, I think. We hadn't known each other very long..
"Long enough for me to want to get back to Prague as fast as I could. Those
sessions were usually a monumental waste of time."
"You told me once they serve a purpose, that the field often has strange
effects on certain men and they should be periodically checked."
"I wasn't one of them. Anyway, I said usually, not always. On occasion
they'd pick out a ... a gunslinger."
jenna put the page down on her lap. "Mikhail, could it have been then? That
visit with Matthias? Could you have seen Parsifal then?"
"Anton was himself nine months ago. There was no Parsi-
f4l.11
"You said he was tired-Aerribly tired' were the words you used. You were
worried about him."
"His health, not his sanity. He was sane~"
"Still-"
"You think I haven't gone over every minute in my mind?" interrupted
Havelock. "It was in Georgetown, and I was there two days, two nights, the
length of the evaluation. We had dinner twice, both times alone. I didn't
see anybody."
"Certainly people came to the house."
"They certainly did, they never gave him a momenfs peace, day or night."
"Then you saw them."
"I'm afraid I didn~t. Yoed have to know that old place; ies a maze of small
rooms in the front. There's a parlor to the right of the hallway, a library
on the left that one goes through to get to his office. I think Anton liked
it; he could keep people waiting who probably wouldn't see each other.
Petitioners in stages, moved from one area to the next. He'd greet them in
the parlor, then they'd be taken to the library and, finally, the sanctum
sanctorum, his office."
"And you were never in those rooms."
"Not with anybody else. When he was interrupted at dinner, I remained in
the dining room in the back. I even used a separate side entrance when
coming or going from the house, never the front door. We had an
Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt Page 61