Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt
Page 75
and closing, stretching the bruised flesh. But no sound came.
"Ies an emergency," continued Havelock. 'Tverybody knows ies an emergency
. . . an emergency. We've got to hurry, hurry ... hurry up."
"Hurry hurry up." The whisper emerged, tentative, uncertain.
"But how can we be sure?" Michael raced on. "We have to be certain."
'Me flight ... the flight was smooth. We heard it twice. That's all we have
to know. Tbe flight ... smooth."
"Of course. A smooth flight. We're all right now. We can hurry.... Now,
lees float back . before the emergency. Relax. Sleep."
"Very good," said the doctor from across the dimly ht, squalid room. "You
centered him as quickly as rve ever seen it done. That was a response."
"It wasn't difficult," replied Havelock, rising from the bed and studying
the traveler. "Since be was given his orders hes had three things on his
mind. Emergency, speed and clearance. His instructions were to kfll-an
extreme order, also a dangerous one-so clearance was vital. You heard him,
be bad to bear it twice."
"The code was a 'smooth flight.' He gave it to you, and now you'll give it
back to him. You're closer."
"And yoiere no amateur, Doctor. Get me a chair, will you? rve also got
speed and emergency on my mind. Things may
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get rough." Taylor brought a straight-backed chair over to the bed; Michael
sat down; the chair was unsteady but serviceable. He leaned forward, arms on
the edge of the bed, and spoke again to the bound man. 'Ve have a smooth
flight ... a smooth flight ... a very smooth flightf Now, kill your
partnerl"
Ile traveler whipped his bead to the right, his clouded eyes blinking, lips
moving-protest without sound.
"You beard mel" shouted Havelock. 'Ve have a smooth flight, so kill himl"
"What ... ? Why?" The whispered words were guttural.
"Are you married? Tell me, since we're on a smooth flight, are you
married?"
"Yes ... yes, married."
"Kill your wife?"
"Why?"
"We're on a smooth flightl How can you refuse?"
"Why ... why?"
"Kill your partnerl Kill your wifel Do you have children?"
"Nol" The traveler's eyes widened, the glaze within on fire. "You could
never ask ... neverl"
"I dol A smooth flightl What more do you need?"
'Clearance. I demand clearancel I ... must have itl"
"From where? From whom? rve already told you. We're on a smooth fligbtl
That's itl"
"Please ... I Me, kill me. rm ... confusedl"
"Why are you confused? You heard my orders, just as you beard the orders
for today. Did I give you those orders?"
"No."
"No? You don't remember? If not me, who?"
'Ile trip ... the smooth flight. The ... control."
"The control?"
"Me source."
"The source controll Your source control. T am your source controll Kill
your partnerl Kill your wifel Kill the childrenl AV the childrenl"
'I ... 1. You can't ask me ... please don't ask me."
"I doiA ask. I demand, I give ordersl Do you want to sleep?"
"Yes."
"You caWt sleepl" Michael turned his head and spoke to
592 ROBERT LuDLux
Taylor, his voice soft, barely audible. "How long will the dose last?"
"The way you're eating it up, half the normal time. Another ten minutes,
tops."
"Prepare another. I'm taking him up."
"It'll blow him into space."
"Hell come down."
"You~re the doctor," said the doctor.
"I am your source controll" shouted Havelock getting out of the chair,
leaning over the traveler's face. "You have no one else, paminyatchikl You
will do as I tell you, and only what I tell youl Now, your partner, your
wife, the children . . .-
"Ahhh... I" The scream was prolonged, a cry beyond helplessness.
"I've only begun. .
The bound, narcotized killer strained against the leather and the cloth,
body and features twisted, his mind in a labyrinth of terror, with
sacrifice demanded upon sacrifice, pain upon pain, no way out of the
impossible maze.
"Now," said Havelock to the doctor beside him.
Taylor plunged the hypodermic needle into the traveler's arm; the reaction
was there in moments, drug accelerating drug. The screams turned into
animal screeches, saliva flowing from the killer's mouth-violence the only
answer to violence.
"Give it to mel" yelled Michael. "Prove it to mel Or be killed with
everyone elsel Partner, wife, children ... you all die unless you can prove
yourself to me. Right now, this momend ... What is the code for your source
control?"
"Hamnter-wro-twol You know itl"
"Yes, I know it. Now tell, me, where can I be reacheddon't Uel"
"Don't know . . . don't knowl I'm called . . . we're all called."
"When you want clearancel When you have information to deliver. How do you
reach me when you want clearance, when you have information that has to be
relayed."
"Tell them . . . need it. We all do. Everyone."
"Who?"
"Orphan. Reach ... Orphan."
'wOrphanP*
THE PAjRsxFAL MosAic593
"Ninety-six."
"Orphan-ninety-six? Where is he? WhereP"
"0 ... r ... p . . . h . . ." The final scream was shattering. The traveler
thrashed his full strength and weight against the belts and broke one,
which freed his left arm, as he lunged up, then arched his back in a spasm
and fen unconscious over the far side of the bed.
"Hes had it," said Taylor, reaching across Havelock and holding the
prisonees wrist in his fingers. "His pulse is a jackhammer; it'll be eight
hours before he can sustain another jolt. Sorry-Doctor."
"Ies all right, Doctor," said Michael, walking away from the bed and
reaching into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. "We could have done
worse. You're a hell of a good chemist."
"I don't consider it my lifes work."
"If it weren't right now, you might not have--:' Havelock stopped to light
a cigarette.
"What?"
"Nothing. I meant you might not have time for a drink, but I do."
"Sure, I do. III get Boris here down to a chnia"
"Boris? ... You know?"
"Enough to know he's not a Boy Scout."
"That's the funny thing. He probably was."
"Tell me," asked the red-baired doctor, "would a source control order him
to do that? Kill his wife and kids, people that close to him?"
"Never. Moscow wouldn't risk it. These people are like robots, but ies
blood inside, not oil. They're monitored oontinuously, and if the KGB wants
them taken out, an execution squad is sent in to do it. A normal family is
part of the cover; it's also a powerful secondary hook. If a man's ever
tempted, he knows what will happen."
"You used it the same way, didn't you? Only in reverse."
"I'm not wildly proud of the accomplishment, but yes."
"Jesus, Mary and Paddy O'Rourke," muttered the doctor.
Michael watched as Taylor reached for the bedside phone to issue his
instructions through Bethesda Central. The
telephone. Orphan-96. "Wait a
minutel" Michael cried suddenly.
"Whaes the matter?"
"Let me use that phonel" Havelock rushed to the table,
594 RoBERT LuiDLum
picked up the telephone and dialed, saying aloud as he did so, "O-r-p-b-a-n
... nine-six."
"Operator," said the female voice on the line.
"What?"
"Is this a collect call, billed to a credit card, or to another number?"
"Credit card," Michael stared at the wall to remember his untraceable,
State-assigned number. He gave it to the operator and heard the subsequent
ringing.
"Good evening and thank you for calling the Voyagers Emporium, luggage for
the sophisticated globe-trotter. If you'll state the numbered item or items
from our catalog you wish to purchase, you will be connected to the proper
representative in our twenty-four-hour service department."
Havelock replaced the phone. He needed another code; it would be found in
a clinic. It had to be found.... We aU do. Everyone ... Ambiguity was at
the end of that code.
"Anything?" asked the bewildered Taylor.
"Thatll be up to you, Doctor. Ever beard of the Voyagers Emporium? I don!t
know it, but then, for years I've bought most of my stuff in Europe."
"The Voyagers? Sure, they've got branches all over the place. They're the
Tiffany of the luggage business. My wife bought one of those carry-on bags,
and I swear to God when I got the bill I thought she'd picked up a car.
Theyre firstclass."
'Iley're also a KGB proprietary. That's what you're going to work on.
Whatever your schedule is, scratch it. I want you down at the clinic with
our globe-trotter here. We need another series of numbers. just one more
set."
There was a sound of heavy footsteps outside the cabin, followed by a harsh
rapping on the door.
'Vhat is it?' asked Havelock, loud enough to be heard outside.
"Sterile Five, you're wanted. Urgent call over the state police radio.
YoWre to be taken to the airfield pronto."
"On my way." Havelock turned to Taylor. "Make your arrangements. Stay with
it-with him. IT be, in touch. Sorry about the drink."
"So~s Paddy O'Rourke."
'Vho the hell is Paddy O'Rourker
Tim PAwiFAL MosAic595
"A little man who sits on my shoulder and tells me not to think too much."
Michael climbed into the marine helicopter as the giant overhead blades
thundered and the pilot beckoned him forward to the flight deck.
"There's a patch phone back therel" shouted the pilot. "It'll be quieter
when the hatch is closed. We'll put your call through."
"Who is it?"
"We'll never knowl" yelled the radioman, turning from his console against
the bulkhead. "Our link is filtered. Were by6passed."
The heavy metal door was electronically swung into place, shutting out the
spill of the airfield's searchlights and reducing the thunder of the rotors
to a muffled roar. Havelock crouched in the flashing darkness and gripped
the phone, holding it to his right ear, his free hand covering the other.
The voice that came last on the line was that of the President of the
United States.
"Yoifre being flown directly to Andrews Air Force Base to meet with Arthur
Pierce."
"What's happened, sir?"
"He's on his way to Poole's Island with the vault specialist, but wants to
talk with you first. He's a frightened man, and I don~t think he frightens
easily."
"The Soviets?'
"Yes. He can't tell whether they bought his story or not. They listened to
him in silence, nodded and showed him the door. He has an idea that during
the past eighteen hours theyve learned something major, something they
won't talk about-something that could blow everything apart. He warned them
not to make any precipitous moves without communication at the highest
levels."
"What was their response?"
"Deadly. 'Look to yourselves,' they said."
'17hey've got something. Pierce knows his enemy."
"In the last extremity, we'll be forced to parade Matthias-hoping to deter
a launch, no guarantee that it will. I don't have to tell you what it will
mean-well be a government of lepers, never trusted again. If we're on the
map."
596 ROBERT LUDLUM
"What can I doP What does Pierce want?"
"All you've got, everything you've learned. He~s trying to find something,
anything, he can use as a lever. Every hour he can present a countercharge
and prevent escalation, every day he can buy us, is a day for you. You are
making progress?"
'-fes. We know the Ambiguity connection now, where he sends and receives.
By midmorning we should learn just how he does it, through whom. When we do
well flnd hirn-~
"Then you could be a step away from Parsifal."
"I think so."
"I don't want to hear tbatf I want to bear 'yes.'"
"Yes, Mr. President." Havelock paused, thinking about the few, brief words
they needed to break the Voyagers code. They would be heard and recorded in
a clinic. I believe it."
"You wouldn't say it otherwise, thank God. Get down to Pierce. Give him
everything you~ve got. Help him]"
35
The intersecting runways were lined with amber airstrip lamps, and the beams
of searchlights crisscrossed and penetrated the dense cloud cover as routine
patrols and cbeck-out flights soared off into the night sky and swooped down
from the darkness onto the floodlit open field. Andrews was a vast, guarded
military city unto itself. The activity was intense both on the field and
off. As headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Systems Command, it had
responsibilities as far-ranging as they were endless. For thousands there
was no such thing as day or night-merely duty hours and assignments. Banks
of computers in a dozen buildings coexisted with the constant flow of
expertise from the human interpreters, all forming judgments that affected
NORAD, CONAD, the DEW line stations and SAC. The base occupied some forty-
four hundred acres east of the Potomac and west of Chesapeake Bay, but its
interests circled the globe, its purpose being the defense of the North
American continent.
The marine helicopter was given clearance to enter a lowaltitude pattern
and set down on a pad north of the main field. Searchlights caught them a
quarter of a mile away from ground zero as radar, radio and a pilot!s sharp
eyes eased them into the threshold from which they could make the vertical
descent. Among the instructions radioed from the 597
598 ROBERT LunLum
control tower was a message for Sterile Five. A jeep would be standing by to
take Havelock to a runway on the south perimeter. It would wait there until
his business was concluded and return him to the helicopter.
Havelock climbed out of the hatch and jumped to the ground. The damp chill
of the air was accentuated by the rushing wash of the decelerating rotors,
and as he walked rapidly away from it he pulled the lapels of his topcoat
around his throat, wishing he had worn a bat-but then he remembered that
; the only hat he owned at the moment was a ragged knit cap that he'd left
somewhere down on Poole's Island.
"Sirl Sirl" The shout came from Michael's left, beyond the tall assembly of
the helicopter. It was the driver of the jeep, the vehicle itself barely
visible in the shadows between the blinding, arcing lights of the pad.
Havelock ran over as the sergeant behind the wheel started to get out as a
gesture of courtesy. "Forget it," said Michael, approaching the side panel,
his band on the windshield frame. "I didn't see you," he added, stepping
over and lowering himself into the seat.
"Those were my instructions," explained the air force noncom. "Stay out of
sight as much as possible."
Why?"
"You'll have to ask the man who gives the orders, sir. rd say be's careful,
and since nobody's got a name, I don't ask questions."
The jeep shot forward, expertly maneuvered by the driver onto a narrow
asphalt road fifty yards east of the helicopter pad. He turned left and
accelerated; the road virtually circled the massive field, passing lighted
buildings and enormous parking lots-flickering black structures and dark,
spacious blurs-interspersed with the glare of onrushing headlights;
everything at Andrews was seemingly always at triple time. The wind whipped
through the open vehicle, the slapping damp air penetrating through
Michael's coat and making him tense his muscles against the cold.
"I don't care if he calls himself Little Bo Beep," said Havelock, as much
for conversation as for anything else. "So long as there's heat wherever
we're going."
The sergeant. glanced briefly at Michael. "Sorry, again," he replied, "but
the man doesn't have it that way. My instruo-
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tions are to take you to a runway on the south perimeter. rm afraid that's
it. A runway."
Havelock folded his arms and kept his eyes on the road ahead, wondering why
the undersecretary of State was being so cautious within a military
compound. Then his thoughts dwelt briefly on the man himself and he found
part of the answer-the blind part, but nevertheless intrinsic: there had to
be a reason. From what he had read about Arthur Pierce in the State
Department dossier, coupled with what he had known from a distance, the
undersecretary was a bright, persuasive spokesman for American interests at