The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  The tall, slender figure in black climbed out of the car—a woman in mourning, an opaque veil of black lace falling from her wide—brimmed hat and covering her face. Havelock stared; the pain in his chest was almost unbearable. She was no more than twenty feet away, yet the gulf was filled with death, her death to follow shortly whether his came or not.

  “My regrets again, signora,” said the killer in uniform. “It will be necessary for you to remove your hat.”

  “Good Lord, why?” asked Jenna Karas, her voice low, controlled, but with a trace of a throb, which could be a sign of grief as well as of fear.

  “Merely to match your face with the photograph on the passport, signora. Surely you know It’s customary.”

  Jenna slowly lifted the veil from her face, and then the hat from her head. The skin that was so often bronzed by the sun was chalk-white in the dim, eerie light of the bridge; her delicate features were taut, the high cheekbones masklike, and her long blond hair was pulled back and knotted severely. Michael watched, breathing slowly, silently, a part of him wanting to cry out while another desperately, foolishly, placed them back in another time … lying together on the grass overlooking the Moldau, walking down the Ringstrasse, holding hands as children might, laughing at the irony of two deep-cover agents behaving like human beings.… In bed, holding each other, telling themselves they would somehow break out of their movable prison.

  “The signora has lovely hair,” said the blond killer, with a smile that denied his rank. “My mother would approve. We, too, are from the north.”

  “Thank you. May I replace my veil, Caporale? I am in mourning.”

  “In one moment, please,” replied Ricci, holding up the passport but not looking at it. Instead, he was glancing everywhere at once without moving his head, his anger obviously mounting. Jenna’s escorts stood motionless by the car, avoiding the soldier’s eyes.

  Behind the Lancia, on either side of the run-down truck, the support assassins were tense, peering into the shadows, then repeatedly looking in the vicinity of the country inn, anticipation on their faces. It was as though they all expected him to materialize out of the darkness, to appear suddenly, walking either casually or resolutely up the path from the inn, or from behind the thick trunk of a pine tree on the edge of the road, calling out to the woman by the automobile. It was what they expected; these were the moments they had calculated as the crisis span—the target would be found now if he had not been found before. And from their viewpoint, it had to happen. Everything was clean, nothing wrinkled. The target had not crossed over the bridge within the past twenty-six hours—and if he had crossed over prior to minus-twenty-six, it would have been stupid. There was no way he could know which vehicle carried Jenna Karas or which road it would take through Col des Moulinets. Beyond these deductions, there was no reason for the man marked for dispatch to know there was a unit from Rome at the checkpoint. It would happen now, or it would not happen.

  The tension at the scene was stretched to the breaking point. It was compounded by the two soldiers inside the gatehouse booth who were trying to open the door and shouting through the windows, their voices muted by the thick glass. Nothing was lost on Jenna Karas or her paid escorts; the driver had edged toward the door, his companion toward the border of the road and the woods. A trap was in the making, but for reasons they could not understand, it was clearly not a trap for them; if it were, they would have been summarily taken.

  Havelock knew that everything now was timing: the eternal wait until the moment came, and then that instant when instinct told him to move. He could not rearrange the odds to favor him, but he could reduce them against him. Against Jenna.

  “Finird in niente,” said the uniformed killer, just loud enough to be heard; he brought his hand to his waist and shook his wrist twice as he had done before, giving a signal as he had given it before.

  Michael reached into his pocket and took out a packet of plastic explosive and a module. The luminous readout was at oooo; he pressed the timer button delicately until he had the figures he wanted, then inserted the module into the self-sealing lip. He had checked and rechecked his position in the darkness; he knew the least obstructed path and used it now. He snaked his way eight feet into the forest, observed the outlines of the branches against the night sky, and threw the packet into the air. The moment it was out of his hand, he scrambled back toward the road, arcing to his left, now parallel to the run-down truck, ten feet from the backup killer dressed in mountain clothes. He had two shells left in the magnum; it was possible he would have to use both before he cared to, but the muted sounds were preferable to explosions from the Llama automatic. Seconds now.

  “Regrets again for the delay, signora and signori,” said the assassin sent by Rome, walking away from the Lancia toward the winch that operated the orange barrier. “Procedures must be followed. You may return to your automobile now, all is in order.” The blond man passed the windows of the booth, ignoring the angry shouts of the soldiers inside; he had no time to waste on minor players. A plan had failed, a finely tuned strategy had been an exercise in futility; anger and frustration were second only to his professional instincts to get out of the area. There was only one chore left to finish, which an agent of record was to know nothing about. He raised the orange barrier and immediately stepped back out into the center of the entrance, blocking passage. He removed a notebook and a pencil from his pocket—the border guard attending to his last procedure, taking down the numbers of a vehicle’s license. It, too, was a signal,

  Only seconds.

  Jenna and her two escorts climbed back in the car, the faces of the two men betraying bewilderment and cautious relief. The doors slammed shut, and at the sound a short, stocky man came slowly out of the foliage across the road near the trunk of the Lancia. He walked directly to the rear of the automobile, but his attention was not on the car but on the woods beyond the road. He raised his right hand to his waist, and shook his wrist twice, perplexed at the lack of response to his signal. He stood for a moment, his frown conveying minor alarm but not panic. Men in his business understood the problems of equipment malfunction; they were sudden and deadly, which was why the two specialists traveled as a team. He turned his head quickly toward the checkpoint; the blond assassin was impatient. The man knelt down, took an object out of his left hand and transferred it to his right. He reached under the car, the area directly beneath the fuel tank.

  There were no seconds left. The forget could not wait.

  Havelock had the man in the sights of his magnum. He fired; the specialist screamed as his body crashed up into the metal of the fender, the packet flying out of his hand as his arm whipped back; the bullet had lodged in his spine and his body arched in searing pain. Though in agony, the killer turned toward the source of the explosive spit, pulled an automatic from his pocket and leveled it instantly. Frantically Michael rolled out of the area until the dense underbrush stopped his movement. The gunshots echoed everywhere, bullets spaying the ground, as Havelock raised the magnum and fired its last round. The muffled report was followed by a loud gasp from the man by the truck as his neck was blown away.

  “Doo’è? Doo’è?” shouted the blond assassin at the checkpoint, racing around the Lancia.

  The explosion filled the air, the blinding light of the detonated plastique bathing the darkness of the woods, echoing throughout the mountains. The assassin lunged to the ground and, aiming at nothing, began shooting at everything. The Lancia’s engine roared, its wheels spun, and the sedan surged onto the bridge. Jenna was free.

  Seconds more. He had to do it.

  Michael got to his feet and raced out of the forest, the empty magnum in his belt, the Llama in his band. The assassin saw him in the light of the spreading flames in the woods; the blond man got up on his knees and, supporting his right arm with his left, aimed at Havelock. He fired rapidly, repeatedly; the bullets shrieked in ricochets and snapped the air above and to the right of Michael as he lurched for the cove
r of the truck. But it was no cover; he heard the scraping, then the footsteps behind him, and whirled around, his back against the door. At the rear of the truck the killer-driver came, crouching—the movements of a professional cornering a quarry at close range—as he raised his weapon and fired. Havelock dropped to the ground at first sighting and returned two shots; feeling the ice-like pain in his shoulder, he knew he had been hit, but not how seriously. The driver rolled spastically off the edge of the road; if he was not gone, he would be soon.

  Suddenly, the dirt exploded in front of Michael; the blond assassin was free to resume firing now that his associate was finished. Havelock dived to his right, then plunged under the truck, crawling in panic to the other side. Seconds. Only seconds left. He sprang to his feet and sidestepped to the door. The crowd of frightened people down at the inn were shouting at one another, running in all directions. There was so little time; men would race out of barracks, perhaps were racing even now. He reached for the handle and yanked the door open; he saw what he wanted to see: the keys were in the ignition as he had dared to think they would be. The unit from Rome had been in control, and control meant being able to get away from the execution ground instantly.

  He leaped up into the seat, his head low, his fingers working furiously. He turned the key; the engine caught, and at the first sound, gunfire came from the road ahead and bullets embedded themselves in metal. There was a pause, and Michael understood; the assassin was reloading his gun. These were the crucial seconds. He switched on the headlights; like the motor, they were powerful—blinding. Up ahead, the blond man was crouched off the shoulder of the road, slamming a clip into the base of his automatic. Havelock Jammed the clutch, pulled the gearshift, and pressed the accelerator to the floor.

  The heavy truck jolted forward, its tires screeching over rock and dirt. Michael spun the wheel to his right as the engine roared with the gathering speed. Rapid gunshots; the windshield was punctured and a web of cracks spread throughout the glass as bullets screamed into the cab. Havelock raised his head Just high enough to see what he had to see; the killer was centered in the glare of the headlights. Michael kept his course until he felt and heard the impact, accompanied by a scream of fury, which was abruptly cut short as the assassin lurched and twisted, but was held in place, his legs crushed under the heavy cleated tires of the truck. Havelock spun the wheel again, now to his left, back into the road proper; he sped past the two gatehouses onto the bridge, noting as he raced by that the two guards were prone on the floor of the booth.

  There was chaos on the French side, but no barrier to block his way. soldiers were running to and from the checkpoint, shouting orders at no one and everyone; inside a lighted booth four guards were huddled together, one screaming into a telephone. The road into Col des Moulinets bore to the left off the bridge, then curved right, heading straight into a silhouetted patchwork of small wood-framed houses, set close together, with sloping roofs, typical of a thousand villages in this part of the Alps. He entered a narrow cobblestone street; several pedestrians jumped onto the narrow pavement, startled as much by the sound as by the sight of the heavy Italian truck.

  He saw the red lights … the wide, rear lights of the Lancia. It was far in the distance; it turned into a street—God only knew what street, there were so many. Col des Moulinets was one of those villages where every long-ago path and pasture bypass had been paved with stone; some had been converted into streets, others merely into quaint alleyways, barely wide enough for produce carts. But he would know it when he came to it; he had to.

  The intersecting streets grew wider, the houses and shops set farther back; narrow pavements became sidewalks, and more and more villagers were seen strolling past the lighted storefronts. The Lancia was nowhere; it had disappeared.

  “Pardon! Ou est l’aéroport?” he yelled out the window to an elderly couple about to step off the curb into the cobblestone street.

  “Airport?” said the old man in French, the word itself pronounced in an accent that was more Italian than Gallic. “There is no airport in Col des Moulinets, monsieur. You can take the southern roadway down to Cap Martin.”

  “There is an airport near the village, I’m sure of it,” cried Havelock, trying to control his anxiety. “A friend, a very good friend, told me he was flying into Col des Moulinets. I’m to meet him. I’m late.”

  “Your friend meant Cap Martin, monsieur.”

  “Perhaps not,” called out a younger man who was leaning against the doorframe of a shop closed for the evening. “There is no real airport, monsieur, but there is an airfield fifteen, twenty kilometers north on the road to Tenda. It’s used by the rich who have estates in Roquebillière and Breil.”

  “That’s it! What’s the fastest way?”

  “Take your next right, then right again back three streets to Rue Maritimes. Turn left; it will lead you into the mountain auto route. Fifteen, eighteen kilometers north.”

  “Thank you.”

  Time was a racing montage of light and shadow, filled with peopled streets and leaping figures, small interfering cars and glaring headlights, gradually replaced by fewer buildings, fewer people, fewer streetlamps; he had reached the outskirts of the village. If the police had been alerted by the panicked border guards, he had eluded them by the odds of a small force versus a large area. Minutes later—how many he would never know—he was tearing through the darkness of the Maritimes countryside, the rolling hills everywhere that were introductions to the mountains beyond, barricades to be negotiated with all the speed the powerful truck could manage. And as the grinding gears strained and the tires under him screamed to a crescendo, he saw the silhouettes of paddle wheels; like the hills, they were everywhere, alongside houses by mountain streams and rivulets, slowly turning, a certain majesty in their never-ending movements—proof again that time and nature were constant. In a strange way, Michael needed the reaffirmation; he was losing his mind!

  There were no lights on the auto route, no red specks fat the darkness. The Lancia was nowhere to be seen. Was he even going in the right direction? Or had anxiety warped his senses? So close and yet so terribly far away, one gulf traversed, one more to leap. Traversed? We said it better in Prague. Přjezd said it better.

  Miluti vás, má drahá. We understand these words, Jenna. We do not need the language of liars. We never should have learned it. Don’t listen to the liars! They neutralized us; now they want to kill us. They have to because I know they’re there. I know, and so will you.

  A searchlight! Its beam was sweeping the night sky. Beyond the nearest hills, diagonally up ahead on the left Somewhere the road would turn; somewhere minutes away was an airfield and a plane—and Jenna.

  The second hill was steep, the other side of it steeper, with curves; he held the wheel with all his strength, careening into each turn. Lights. Wide white beams in front, two red dots behind. It was the Lancia! A mile, two miles ahead and below; it was impossible to tell, but the field was there. Parallel lines of yellow ground lights crossed each other at forty-plus degree points; the valley winds had been studied for maximum lift. The airfield was in a valley, sufficiently wide and long for small jets as well as prop aircraft—used by the rich who have estates in Roquebillière and Breil.

  Havelock kept the accelerator on the floor, his left foot grazing the brake for those instants when balance was in jeopardy. The road leveled out and became a flat track that circled the fenced-off airfield. Within the enormous compound were the vivid reflections of glistening wings and fuselages; perhaps a dozen stationary planes were moored to the ground in varying positions off the runways—the yachts of yesterday had been replaced by silver tubes that sailed through the sikes. The ten-foot-high hurricane fence was strung with barbed wire across the top and angled an additional four feet inside. The rich of Roquebillière and Breil cared for their airborne possessions. Such a fence—a double mile in length—carried a price of several hundred thousand dollars; and that being the case, would there be a security
gate and guards somewhat more attentive than the French and Italian military?

  There were. He screeched into the entrance roadway. The heavy ten-foot gate was closing three hundred feet in front of him. Inside, the Lancia was racing across the field. Suddenly its lights were extinguished; somewhere within the expanse of grass and asphalt its driver had spotted a plane. Lights would reveal markings, and markings were traces; if he could see the Lancia’s headlights several miles away in the darkness of the valley, his, too, could be seen. There were only seconds and half-seconds now, each minuscule movement of a clock narrowing the final gulf or widening it.

  While gripping the wheel, he jammed the palms of both hands on the rim of the truck’s horn, hammering out the only alarm code that came to him: Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! He repeated it over and over again as he sped down the entrance drive toward the closing gate.

  Two uniformed guards were inside the fence, one pushing the thick metal crossbar of the gate, the other standing by the latch, prepared to receive the sliding bar and insert the clamp. As the gate reached the three-quarter mark, both guards stared through the wire mesh at the powerful truck bearing down on them; the blaring series of notes was not lost on them. Their terrified faces showed they had no intention of staying in the path of the wild vehicle about to crash into their post. The guard at the crossbar released it and ran to his left; the gate swung back partially—only partially—when he withdrew his grip. The man by the latch scrambled to his right, diving into the grass and the protection of the extended fence.

  The impact came, the truck ripping the gate away, twisting it up off its hinges and smashing it into the small booth, shattering glass and severing an electrical wire that erupted in sparks and static. Michael raced the truck onto the field, his wounded shoulder pitched in pain; the truck careened sharply, narrowly missing two adjacent planes parked in the shadows of a single wide hangar. He spun the wheel to his left sending the trade in the direction the Lancia had been heading less than a minute ago.