The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  Tonight, however, there had been no personal greeting at Andrews Field, and no jokes. Instead, Brooks had nodded absently when the driver opened the rear door for him; then he had paused as his eyes made contact with the general inside. At that moment only one word was spoken. “Parsifal,” the ambassador said, his voice low, somber; it was the sole greeting.

  After Brooks had climbed in beside Halyard, they talked briefly, their faces set, glancing frequently at each other, as if asking questions neither could answer. Then they fell silent, or so it appeared, at least, whenever the driver’s eyes strayed to the rearview mirror. The few times he had looked at them, as he was looking at them now, both the diplomat and the soldier had been staring straight ahead, neither speaking. Whatever the crisis that had brought them to the White House, each from an island in the Caribbean, it was obviously beyond discussion.

  The driver’s memories were stirred as he turned into the short drive that led to the East Gate guardhouse. Like many collegiate athletes whose ability was somewhat greater on the playing field than in the classroom or laboratory, he had taken a course in music appreciation that had been suggested by his coaches. They had been wrong; it was a bitch. Still, he remembered. Parsifal was an opera by Wagner.

  The driver of Abraham Seven turned off the Kenilworth Road into the residential section of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He had been to the house twice before, which was why he had been selected for the route tonight despite his previous request not to be given Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford as an assignment again. When Security Dispatch had asked why, he could only answer that he did not like him.

  “That doesn’t really concern us, Yahoo,” had been the reply. “Your likes and dislikes have yet to become policy around here. Just do your job.”

  Of course that was the point—the job. If part of the job was to protect Bradford’s life at a risk to his own, he was not sure he could comply. Twenty years ago the cold, analytical Emory Bradford had been one of the best and the brightest, the new breed of young pragmatists who skewered adversaries right and left in the pursuit of power. And the tragedy at Dallas had done nothing to slow this pursuit; the mourning had been quickly replaced by adjustment to a changed situation. The nation was in peril and those endowed with the capacity to understand the aggressive nature of factionalized Communism had to stand firm and rally the forces of strength. The tight-lipped, unemotional Bradford became an impassioned hawk. A game called dominoes was suddenly a theory on which the survival of freedom was based.

  And in Idaho a strapping farm boy was caught up in the fever. He answered the call; it was his personal statement against the long-haired freaks who burned flags and draft cards and spat on things that were decent and—American. Eight months later the farm boy was in the jungles watching friends getting their heads blown away, and faces and arms and legs. He saw ARVN troops running from firefights and their commanders selling rifles and jeeps and whole consignments of battalion rations. He came to understand what was so obvious to everyone but Washington and Command Saigon. The so-called victims of the so-called atheistic hordes didn’t give a doodilly shit about anything except their hides and their profits. They were the ones who were spitting and burning everything that could not be traded or sold, and laughing. Jesus, were they laughing! At their so-called saviors, the pink-faced, round-eyed suckers who took the fire and the land mines, and lost heads and faces and arms and legs.

  And then it had happened. The frenzied hawk that was Emory Bradford in Washington saw the light, a different light. In an extraordinary public display of mea culpa he appeared before a Senate committee and announced to the nation that something had gone wrong, the brilliant planners—himself included—had erred grievously. He advocated immediate withdrawal; the impassioned hawk became a passionate dove.

  He was accorded a standing ovation. While heads and faces and arms and legs were scattered over the jungles, and a farm boy from Idaho was doing his damnedest not to want to die as a prisoner of war. A standing ovation, goddamn it!

  No, Mr. Emory Bradford, I will not risk my life for you. I will not die for you—again.

  The large three-story Colonial house was set back beyond a manicured lawn that promised a pool and a tennis court hidden somewhere. The best and the brightest also frolicked; it was part of their life-style, intrinsic to their worth and their image. The farm boy from Idaho wondered how Under secretary of State Emory Bradford would behave in a river cage infested with water rats in the Mekong Delta. Probably very well, goddamn it.

  The driver reached under the dashboard and pulled out the retractable microphone. He pressed the button and spoke.

  “Abraham Seven to Dispatch.”

  “Go ahead, Abraham Seven.”

  “Have reached location. Please raise cargo by phone.”

  “Will do, Seven. Good timing. You and Abraham Four should reach Aquarius at about the same time.”

  “Glad you approve. We try to please.”

  The three descended in the elevator together, the two older men astonished that the conference was to take place in one of the underground strategy rooms and not in the Oval Office. The undersecretary of State, briefcase in hand, seemed to understand why. The advantages, of course, were found in the equipment. There were computers and projectors that threw images and information onto a huge wall screen, communications devices that linked the White House to just about anybody anywhere in the world, and data-processing machines that isolated facts from volumes of useless scholarship. Yet all the sophisticated equipment in Washington was in itself useless without a breakthrough. Had it happened? wondered the older advisers as each looked questioningly at the other. Had the breakthrough come? If it had, the summons from the President had given no indication of it. Instead, the opposite had been conveyed. “Scorpio descending” was akin to catastrophe, and each felt the tightening of his stomach muscles as the lower level was reached and the elevator door opened onto the pristine white-walled corridor. They emerged and walked in unison down the hallway toward the assigned room and the President of the United States.

  President Charles Berquist greeted each man curtly, and each understood It was not in the nature of the stocky Minnesotan to be cold—tough, yes, very tough, but not cold; he was frightened. He gestured impatiently at the raised U-shaped conference table at the end of the room; it faced the wall screen thirty feet away where images would be projected. The three men walked up the two steps with the President and took their places at the table; at each place was a small Tensor lamp angled down on a note pad. Addison Brooks sat on Berquist’s right, General Halyard on his left, and the younger Emory Bradford beyond the statesman, one chair removed so he could address the three. It was a pecking order rooted in logic; most of the questions would be directed at Bradford, and he in turn would ask most of the questions directed at anyone brought in for interrogation. Below the U-shaped table and facing it midway to the screen was another table, smaller, rectangular, with two swivel chairs that enabled whoever sat in them to turn and watch the images projected on the wall.

  “You look tired, Mr. President,” said Brooks, once all were seated and the lamps adjusted.

  “I am tired,” agreed Berquist. “I’m also sorry to bring you and Mal back to this rotten weather.”

  “Insofar as you saw fit to call us back,” commented Halyard sincerely, “I’d say the weather is the least of our problems.”

  “You’re right.” The President pressed a button embedded in the table on his left. “The first slide, if you please.” The overhead lights were extinguished and only the Tensors remained on; the photographs of four men appeared on a split screen at the end of the room. “Do you know any of these men?” asked Berquist, then added hastily, “The question’s not for Emory. He does.”

  The ambassador and the general glanced at Bradford then turned to the photographs. Addison Brooks spoke. “The fellow on the upper right is named Stern. David or Daniel Stern, I believe. He’s over at State, isn’t he? One of the Eu
ropean specialists, bright, analytical, a good man.”

  “Yes,” confirmed Berquist quietly. “What about you, Mal? Recognize anybody up there?”

  “I’m not sure,” said the retired general, squinting at the screen. “The one below this Stern, lower right. I think I’ve seen him before.”

  “You have,” said Bradford. “He spent time at the Pentagon.”

  “I can’t picture the uniform, the rank.”

  “He didn’t wear one, have one. He’s a doctor; he testified before a number of panels on P.O.W. trauma. You were seated on two or three, I believe.”

  “Yes, of course, I remember now. He’s a psychiatrist.”

  “One of the leading authorities on stress behavior,” said Bradford, watching the two old men.

  “What was that?” the ambassador asked urgently. “Stress behavior?”

  The words startled the advisers. The old soldier leaned forward. “Is there a connection?” he demanded of the undersecretary.

  “To Parsifal?”

  “Who the hell else would I mean? Is there?”

  “There is, but that’s not it.”

  “What isn’t?” asked Brooks apprehensively.

  “Miller’s specialization. That’s his name. Dr. Paul Miiler. We don’t think his link to Parsifal has anything to do with his studies of stress.”

  “Thank God,” muttered the general.

  “Then what is?” the elder diplomat pressed impatiently.

  “May I, Mr. President?” asked Bradford, his eyes on the Commander in Chief. Berquist nodded silently; the undersecretary turned to the screen and the photographs. “The two men on the left, top and bottom, respectively, are John Philip Ogilvie and Victor Alan Dawson.”

  “Dawson’s an attorney,” interrupted Addison Brooks. “I’ve never met him but I’ve read a number of his briefs. He’s brilliant in the area of international treaty negotiations. He has a gut feeling for foreign legal systems and their nuances.”

  “Brilliant,” agreed the President softly,

  “The last man,” continued Bradford rapidly, “was no less an expert in his line of work. He was an undercover agent for nearly twenty years, one of the most knowledgeable tacticians in the field of covert operations.”

  The undersecretary’s use of the past tense was not lost on the two advisers. They looked at each other, and then at President Berquist. The Minnesotan nodded.

  “They’re dead,” said the President, bringing his right hand to his forehead, his fingers nervously massaging his brows. “All of them. Ogilvie died four days ago in Rome, a misplaced bullet, the circumstances acceptable. The others were not accidents; they were killed here. Dawson and Stem simultaneously, Miller twenty miles away at the same time.”

  The ambassador leaned forward, his eyes on the screen. “Four men,” he said anxiously. “One an expert in European affairs and policies, another an attorney whose work was almost exclusively in international law, the third a veteran undercover agent with broad tactical experience, and the fourth a psychiatrist acknowledged to be a leading specialist in stress behavior.”

  “An odd collection of targets,” concluded the old soldier.

  “They’re connected, Mal,” said Brooks. “To each other before Parsifal. Am I correct, Mr. President?”

  “Let Emory explain,” replied Berquist “He has to take the heat, so let him explain.”

  Bradford’s glance conveyed the fact that the explanation might be his to give but responsibility should be shared. Nevertheless, his slow intake of breath and the quiet delivery of his voice also indicated that he expected the worst.

  “These men were the strategists of Consular Operations.”

  “Costa Brava!” The name exploded in a whisper from the ambassador’s lips.

  “They peeled it away and found us,” said Halyard, his eyes filled with a soldier’s angry acceptance. “And they paid for it.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bradford, “but we don’t know how it happened.”

  “How they were killed,” said the general incredulously.

  “We know that,” replied the undersecretary. “Very professionally, the decision made quickly.”

  “Then what don’t you understand?” Brooks was annoyed.

  “The connection to Parsifal.”

  “But you said there was a connection,” insisted the elder statesman. “Is there or isn’t there?”

  “There has to be. We just can’t follow it.”

  “I can’t follow you,” said the soldier.

  “Start from the beginning, Emory,” interrupted the President. “As you understand the beginning. From Rome.”

  Bradford nodded. “Five days ago the strategists received a priority cable from our conduit in Rome, a Lieutenant Colonel Baylor—cover name Brown. He oversees the clandestine-activities network.”

  “Larry Baylor?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “One hell of a fine officer. Give me twenty Negroes like him, and you can throw out the War College.”

  “Colonel Baylor’s black, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Apparently, Mr. Undersecretary.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Emory,” said Berquist.

  “Yes, Mr. President. To continue, Colonel Baylor’s cable referred to a meeting he had with—” Bradford paused. He delivered the name reluctantly: “Michael Havelock.”

  “Costa Brava,” muttered the soldier quietly.

  “Parsifal,” added Brooks, halting briefly, then continuing, his words a protest. “But Havelock was ruled out. After the clinic and his separation, he was watched, tested, his every move placed under what I believe is called a microscope. We were assured there was nothing, absolutely nothing.”

  “Less than nothing,” agreed the man from State. “Under controlled circumstances he accepted a teaching position—an assistant professorship—at Concord University in New Hampshire. For all intents and purposes, he was completely out and we were back with the original scenario.”

  “What changed it?” asked the soldier. “What changed Havelock’s status?”

  Again Bradford paused, once more his delivery reluctant. “The Karas woman,” he said quietly. “She surfaced; he saw her. In Roma.”

  The silence around the table conveyed the shock. The faces of the two old men hardened, both pairs of eyes boring into the undersecretary, who accepted the looks with granite resignation. Finally the ambassador spoke. “When did this happen?”

  “Ten days ago.”

  “Why weren’t we informed, Mr. President?” continued Brooks, his eyes still on Bradford.

  “Quite simply,” replied the undersecretary before the President could speak, his eyes locked with the statesman’s, “because I wasn’t informed.”

  “I find that unacceptable.”

  “Intolerable,” added the old soldier sharply. “What the hell are you running over there?”

  “An extremely efficient organization that responds to input. In this case, perhaps too efficient, too responsive.”

  “Explain that,” ordered Halyard.

  “These four men,” said Bradford, gesturing at the projected photographs of the dead strategists, “were convinced beyond doubt that the Karas woman was killed at Costa Brava. How could they think otherwise? We played everything out—carried everything out—down to the smallest detail. Nothing was left to speculation; her death was witnessed by Havelock, later confirmed by bloodstained clothing. We wanted it accepted and no one questioned it, least of all Havelock himself.”

  “But she surfaced,” insisted Halyard. “You say he saw her. I presume that information was in Colonel Baylor’s cable.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why wasn’t it reported immediately?” demanded Brooks.

  “Because they didn’t believe it,” answered Bradford. “They thought Havelock was crazy—hallucinating-crazy, the real thing. They sent Ogilvie to Rome, which in itself was extraordinary, indicating how serious they considered the situation to be. Baylor confirmed it. He said
Ogilvie told him Havelock had gone over the edge, seeing things that weren’t there, the hallucinations brought on by deep, latent hostilities and years of pressure. He simply exploded; at least that’s what Ogilvie implied.”

  “That’d be Miller’s judgment,” interrupted the President. “It’s the only one he could have arrived at when you think of it.”

  “Havelock’s behavior deteriorated rapidly,” continued the undersecretary. “He threatened to expose past and present covert operations, which would have compromised us all over Europe, if he wasn’t given answers, explanations. He even sent disrupting cables to show what he could do. The strategists took him very seriously. Ogilvie was in Rome either to bring Havelock back—or to kill him.”

  “Instead, be was killed himself,” said the soldier. A statement.

  “Tragically. Colonel Baylor was covering Ogilvie’s meeting with Havelock on the Palatine Hill; it was an isolated area. There was an argument, a premature eruption of nerve gas triggered by Ogilvie, and when the device failed, Havelock went after him with a gun. As Baylor tells it, he waited until he couldn’t wait any longer. He fired at the precise moment he believed Havelock was about to kill Ogilvie, and apparently he was right. Ogilvie must have felt the same thing; at that same moment he lunged up and caught the bullet It’s all in Baylor’s report, available to you both, of course.”

  “Those were the acceptable circumstances, Mr. President?” asked Brooks.

  “Only in terms of explanation, Addison.”

  “Naturally,” said Halyard, nodding, looking at Bradford. “If those are Larry Baylor’s words, I don’t need the report. How’s he taking it? That buck doesn’t like to lose or goof up.”

  “He was severely wounded in his right hand. It was shattered and may not come back. Naturally, it’ll curtail his activities.”