Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt
Page 72
might disagree with a given course of action on Decke?s part, but one
understood how he had arrived at it. His "engineer's mind," said another,
grasped the "blocks and tackJes" of a complicated argument quicker than
most, and he was adept at spotting fallacies. Yet he never, according to the
third officer, used another man~s honest error to assert his own
superiority; he accepted others' mistakes compassionately, as long as they
were the products of best efforts, which he made sure to determine that they
had been. This, thought Loring, was not a liar's approach.
It was the secretary, however, who shed light on another side of Thomas
Decker not readily perceived from his service record and the statements of
his fellow naval officers. The heutenant commander apparently went to great
lengths to please and support his own superiors.
He was always so tactful, so generous in his appraisals of other people's
work even when you knew he thought it wasret very good. There was this
admiral . . . Then the White House put out a directive that choked him, but
still he ... And he gave his full endorsement to a ICS position which he
told me was really counterproductive.... You talk about tact--well, the
commander is about the most diplomatic man rve ever known.
Ile last person to talk with Charley Loring was the marine, a major and a
member of Decker's Nuclear Contingency Committee. He put his own assessment
of his colleague somewhat more succinctly.
He kisses ass something fierce, but what the hell, Ws damned good. Also,
that's not exactly an unknown exercise around here. Tact? . . . Christ,
yes, he's got tact, but he's not going to hang himself over something
really important. I mean, WU find ways of greasing an issue so the oirs all
over the table.
Translation: Spread the responsibility for disagreement, preferably as high
as it will flow, but if this attitude made for a dangerous Ifar, there were
few truthful men at the Pentagon-or anywhere else, for that matter.
Loring reached his car in the side parking area, settled back in the seat,
and pulled out the microphone from its cradle beneath the dashboard.
He'llipped the power switch and pressed the transmission button, making
contact with the VV7hite House mobile operator.
W8ROBERT LuDLum
"Patch me through to Sterile Five, please," be instructed. While everything
was fresh in his mind he would relay it all to Havelock. For all the good
it might do.
The Apache unit roamed the corridors of the Medical Center, one or the other
of the two men keeping Dr. Matthew Randolph in sight wherever he went.
Neither man approved of the arrangements and let Sterile Five know it; they
were inadequate for this particular subject. Randolph was an aging
jackrabbit who darted in and out of doors and hallways and outside exits
with determined alacrity. Whatever had prompted the doctor to cooperate
initially had evaporated as his contrariness reasserted itself. It was as
though he were consciously trying to draw attention to himself, to make
!omething happen, to challenge anyone who might be waiting for him in an
empty room or darkened comer to show himself. Beyond the intrinsic
difficulty of protecting such a person, the two men found it senselessly
unsafe to be forced to show themselves. Professionals were, by training and
nature, cautious, and Randolph was making them behave otherwise. Neither man
relished the thought of being picked off by a sharpshooter a hundred-odd
yards away as he followed the cantankerous doctor down a driveway or across
a lawn. There was nothing amusing about the situation. Two men were not
enough. Even one other man covering the outside would relieve the pressure;
more than one, they understood, might defeat the purpose of the strategy by
making the whole operation too obvious. One more, however, was mandatory.
Sterile Five accommodated. The emergency call from Apache had interrupted
Loring's report to Havelock concerning Decker. Since Loring was free, he
would be flown up by a Pentagon helicopter to within a few miles of the
Medical Center, where a car would be waiting for him. He would be there in
thirty-five to forty minutes.
"How will we know when he gets here?"
"Check the desk by an intercom phone. Hell come inside and ask directions
to-Easton. Then hell drive out and return on foot."
"Thank you, Sterile Five."
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The sun was at the treetop mark in the western sky, bathing the Virginia
countryside in soft bursts of yellow and gold. Havelock wearily got up from
the desk, his hand still warm from clutching the ever-present telephone.
"The Agency will dig all night, cross-cbecking with Cons Op and G-Two.
Theyve located two photographs; six are still missing."
"I'd think photographs would be the first consideration in these files,"
said Jenna, standing by the silver tray and pouring Michael a drink. -You
can't bring over such people if you don't know what they look like."
He watched her as be repeated the words be bad beard over the phone. "The
men you chose were never considered that important," Havelock said. "They
were marginal, to begin with; their value was limited."
"They were specialists."
"Psychiatrists, psychologists, and a couple of professors of philosophy.
Old men who were permitted the privilege of expressing their views-some
vaguely offensive, none earthshaking to the Kremlin."
"But they all questioned theories promoted by Soviet strategists. Their
questions were relevant to everything you've learned about Anton Matthias."
"Yes, I know. Well keep looking."
Jenna carried the short glass of straight whiskey to tho desk. "Here, you
need this."
"Thanks." Havelock took the glass and walked slowly toward the window. "I
want to pull in Decker," be said. "I've got to bring him down here. Hell
never tell me over the phone. Not everything."
"You~re convinced be's your man, tbenP"
"No question about it. I just bad to understand why."
"Loring told you. He fawns on superiors, says he agrees with them even when
be doesn't. Such a man would do Matthias's bidding."
"Strangely enough, tbat's only part of it," said Michael, shaking his bead,
then sipping his drink. "That description flts most ambitious men
everywhere; the exceptions are rare. Too rare."
"Then what?"
Havelock stared out the window. "He makes a point of justifying everything
he does," began Michael slowly. "He
570 RoBERT LUDLUM
reads Lessons at services instituted at his command; he plays at being
Solomon. Underneath that tactful, unctuous exterior there has to be a
zealot. And only a zealot in his position would commit a crime for whfch-as
Berquist says-Vd be summarily executed in most countries, and even here he
would spend thirty years in prison.... It wouldn't surprise me if Lieutenant
Commander Thomas Decker did it all. If I had my way, h6d be taken out and
shot. For all the good it would do."
The sun had dropped below the trees, mottled orange rays, filtered by
branches
, spreading across the lawns and bouncing off the white walls of the
Randolph Medical Center. Charles Loring crouched by the trunk of a tall oak
at the far end of the parking area, the front entrance and rear emergency
ramp in clear view, his radio in his hand. An ambulance had just brought in
the victim of a traffic accident and his wife from U.S. 50. The injured man
was being examined by Dr. Randolph and the Apache unit was in place in the
corridor outside the examining room.
The Cons Op agent looked at his watch. He'd been at his post for nearly
three-quarters of an hour-after a hastily arranged Right from the Pentagon
helicopter pad to a private field on the outskirts of Denton, eight minutes
away, where a car was waiting for him. He understood the Apache team's
concerns. The man they were assigned to protect was making things
difficult, but Charley would have handled it differently. He would have sat
on this Randolph and told the doctor he didn't give a good goddamn. whether
he was chopped down or not, that the primary objective of the stakeout was
to take even one of those coming after him, that that man's life was far
more important than his. Such an eKplanation n-dght have made Randolph more
cooperative. And Loring might have been having a decent dinner somewhere,
instead of waiting for God knew what on a cold, wet lawn in Maryland.
Charley looked up toward the intruding sound. A blackand-white patrol car
swerved into the rear parking area, turned abruptly, and came to a sudden
stop at the side of the emergency ramp. Two police officers got out quickly
and raced up toward the doors; one leaping on the platform, both
THE PARSIFAL MOSMC571
awkwardly holding their sides. Loring lifted the radio to his lips.
"Apache, this is Outside. A police car just drove up to the emergency dock
in a burry. Two cops are entering."
"We see them," came the reply, accompanied by static. "Well let you know."
Charley looked again at the patrol car, and what be saw struck him as odd.
Both doors were left open, something the police rarely did unless they
intended to stay close to their vehicles. There was always the possibility
that a radio might be tampered with, or a signal book stolen, or even
concealed weapons ...
The static erupted, words following. "Interesting, but no sweat," said an
Apache as yet unseen by the Cons Op Agent. "Seems the wreck on Highway
Fifty was traced to a prominent member of a Baltimore family. Mafia all the
way, wanted on a dozen counts. Theyve just been admitted for identification
and any possible last statements."
"Okay. Out." Loring lowered the radio and considered a cigarette, deciding
against it for fear the light would give him away. His eyes strayed again
to the stationary patrol car, his mind wandering. Suddenly, there was
something to think about, something immediate.
He had passed a police station on the road to the Medical Center, not five
minutes away. He had noticed it at first not from the sign but by the
cluster of three or four patrol cars in the side lot-not black-and-whites,
but red-and-whites, the kind of bright color scheme often adopted by shore
resort areas. And if a sought-after, major-league mafioso bad been taken
minutes ago to a local hospital after a collision, there certainly would be
more than one patrol car covering the action.
Open doors, men racing, amm at their sides-concealed weapons. Oh, my Godl
"Apachel Apache, come in]"
"What is it, Outside?"
"Are those police still in there?"
"They just went in."
"Go in after theml Nowl"
"What?"
"Don't argue, just do id With weaponsl"
By the time the radio was in his pocket and the .38 in his
572 ROBEItT LuDLum
hand, Charley was halfway across the parking lot, racing as fast as he could
toward the emergency dock. He reached the platform and sprang up with one
hand on it, legs scrambling, and lunged for the wide metal doors. He crashed
them open and dashed past a startled nurse behind a glass-partitioned
reception counter, his head turning in all directions, his eyes choosing the
corridor straight ahead; it conformed to the Apaches' position, their
immediate sighting of the policemen. He ran down to an intersecting hallway,
staring first to his left, then his right. There it was, ten feet awayl
EXAMINING noom. The door was shut; it did not make sense.
Loring approached swiftly, silently, taking long cautious steps, his back
pressed against the wall. Suddenly he heard two muted spits and the start
of a terrible scream from behind the heavy steel door, and he knew his
instincts had been as right as he now wished they had been wrong. He spun
around the frame so as to give his left hand free access to the metal
handle, then jammed the handle down and threw his shoulder against the
panel, sending the door open, then turned back for the protection of the
frame.
The shots came, exploding into the wall in front of him; they were high,-
the spits from deep inside the room, not close by. Charley crouched and
dived, rolling as be bit the floor, and fired into a blue uniform. He fired
low, bullets ricocheting off obstructing steel. Legs, ankles, feet! Amu, if
you have to, but not the chest, not the headl Keep him alive!
The second blue uniform lunged over an examining table-a rushing blur of
dark color-and Loring bad no choice. He fired directly at the attacking
man, who held a pipe-stock repeating weapon in his arms. The killer spun
off the padded table, plummeting to the floor, his throat ripped open.
Dead.
Keep the other alive, keep the other alive! The order kept screaming in his
head as Charley kicked the door shut and lurched, rolling, firing at the
ceiling and blowing out the bright overhead fluorescent tubes, leaving only
the harsh glow of a small high-intensity lamp on a faraway table.
Three spits erupted from the shadows, the bullets embedding themselves in
the plaster and wood above him. He rolled furiously to his left and
collided with two lifeless bodies-were they Apaches? He could not tell; be
only knew he could not let the man who was alive escape. And there
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were only two alive in that room-blood, shattered flesh, and corpses
everywhere.
It bad been a massacre.
A spitting burst of gunfire staccatoed across the floor, and he could feel
the searing heat of the bullet that bad punctured his stomach. But the pain
did an odd thing to him, which he had no time to think about. He could only
experience the reaction. His mind exploded in anger, but the anger was
controlled, the fury directed. He bad lost before. He could not lose again.
He simply could notl
He sprang diagonally to his right, crashing into a stretcher table and
sending it rolling toward the shadows where the staccato burst had come
from; he heard the impact and rose swiftly, held his gun in both bands and
aimed at another band in the shadows. He fired as the screams swelled in
the corridors beyond the closed door.
He had one last thing
to do. And then he would not have lost.
34
Lieutenant Commander Thomas Decker walked into the study of Sterile Five,
escorted by two men from the White House Secret Service. His angular face
was set, and he looked both purposeful and anxious. The broad-shouldered
frame under the well-tailored blue uniform was that of a man who kept in
shape not from enjoyment but from compulsion; the body was too rigid, with
too little fluidity in its movement. But it was the face that fascinated
Havelock. It was a hardshelled mask about to crack, and once that process
started, it would shatter. Strength, purpose, and anxiety aside, Decker was
petrified, and try as he might, he could not conceal his inner terror.
Michael spoke, addressing the Secret Service detail. "Thanks very much,
gentlemen. The kitchen is outside to the right, at the end of the hallway.
The cook will find you something to eat-beer, coffee, whatever you want.
I'm sure I've interrupted your dinner break and I don't know when well be
finished here. Make any phone calls you like, of course."
"Thank you, sir," said the man on Decker's left, nodding to his companion,
as they both turned and started for the door.
"You've also interrupted my dinner, and I expect-2'
"Shut up, Commander," broke in Havelock quietly.
574
THE PARsiFAL MosAic575
Ile door closed, and Decker took several angry steps toward the desk, but
the anger was too contrived, too forced. It bad been summoned to replace
the fear. "I have an engagement this evening with Admiral James at the
Fifth Naval Districtl"
"He's been informed that pressing naval business precludes your being
there."
"This is outrageousl I demand an explanationi"
"Yoifre entitled to a firing squad." Havelock rose as Decker gasped. "I
think you know why."
"Youl" The officer's eyes grew wide; be swallowed as the color left his
mask of a face. "You're the one who's been calling me, asking me those
questionsl Telling me . . . a very great man ... doesn't rememberl les a
liel"
"Ies the truth," said Michael simply. "But you can't understand, and ies
been driving you up the wall. ies all yolfve been thinking about since I