The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  “Young man, you are—”

  “Don’t talk! Listen. I can put out a trace on a man named Jacob Handelman, going back fifty years. Everything about him—old pictures, Germans still alive who knew him, if he ever existed. Then circulate a photograph of you, minus the beard, of course, in certain sections of Prague. You were there; I saw you later and wanted to kill you. A boy of nine or ten wanted to put a knife in your back in the street. And someone still living in Prague or Rudna or Kladno would want to do the same even now. That’s the bottom line, you bastard! So don’t talk to me about people who weren’t here last night, tell me about the one who was. Where is she?”

  “I am a very valuable man—”

  “I’ll bet you are. Who’d know more about finding safe territories than someone who did it so well And who could protect himself better than someone who could expose the whereabouts of so many. You’ve covered yourself, Mörder. But not with me, do you understand that? Because I don’t care. Now, where is Jenna Katas?”

  “While not addressing myself to the preposterous accusations you make,” whined the German, “there are considerations of exchange.”

  “You have your life,” said Havelock. “I’m not interested in it It’s enough that you know I’m out there and can end it anytime I like. That’s your exchange. Where is she?”

  “The top drawer of the desk.” The halfway man gestured with his trembling hand, his eyes unseeing behind the shattered glasses. “Lift up the pencil rack. There’s a folded green paper.”

  Michael went to the desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out the concave receptacle for pens and pencils. There was the light green paper; he picked it up and unfolded it. It was a page of memorandum stationery from the Columbia University Graduate Faculty of Philosophy. In precise, handwritten block letters was the information Havelock would have killed for; it was everything.

  BROUSSAC. APPLICANT FOR DOCTORAL CANDIDATE

  NAME: ARVIDAS CORESCU. C/O KOHOUTEK

  RFD 3, MASON FALLS, PENNA.

  “Is Corescu the name she’s using?” asked Havelock sharply.

  “Temporarily. The papers are only temporary; they had to be manufactured in a few hours. Others will follow … if they are to follow.”

  “Which means?”

  “They must be paid for. Nothing is for nothing.”

  “Naturally; the hook’s sunk in and the line keeps reeling out. You must have some very impressive fish out there.”

  “You could say I have powerful—friends. In many places.”

  “Who’s this Kohoutek?”

  “A Slav,” said the halfway man, shrugging derisively. “He has farm land.”

  “When did she leave?”

  “She was picked up this morning.”

  “What’s her cover?”

  “Another destitute refugee a niece, perhaps—gotten out of the Balkans, or wherever. Away from the Bear, as they say. Kohoutek will get her work; he has friends in the textile unions.”

  “From which she pays him and you, or the papers don’t follow.”

  “One needs papers,” whined Handelman, “to drive a car, or use a bank—”

  “Or to be left alone by immigration,” interrupted Michael “That threat’s always there, isn’t it?”

  “We are a nation of laws, sir.”

  “You make me sick,” said Havelock approaching the chair, looking down at the animal from Lidice. “I could kill you now, feeling nothing but joy,” he added quietly. “Can you understand that, philosopher? But I won’t, because I want you to know what it’s like to realize it can happen any moment, any day, any night With a knock on your door. You live with that, du altes Luder. Hail Hitler.”

  He turned and started for the door.

  There was a sharp sound, as of something cracking, behind him. He spun around to see the long blade of a knife streaking toward him directly at his chest. The halfway man had torn the shattered glasses off his face and seized the weapon concealed in the overstuffed chair; the musty smell of Academe was suddenly the putrid odor of a no-man’s-land in a faraway battlefield. Havelock Jumped back, but not before the blade had ripped through the jacket of the suit, the razor-sharp edge sitting his flesh and marking his white shirt with a line of blood.

  His right hand whipped under his coat for the Llama automatic. He kicked wildly in front of him, hoping to make contact with any part of the German’s body. As the blade came arcing back he spun away from its trajectory and raised his gun, aiming at the face.

  He fibred twice; the halfway man fell to the floor, his head soaked in blood, one eye blown away.

  A gun had stilled another gun from Lidice. But there was no joy; it had ceased to matter.

  There was only Jenna. He had found her! She could not stop him from reaching her now. She might kill him, but first she would have to look into his eyes. That did matter.

  He shoved the Llama into his belt, the page of green paper into his pocket, and raced out of the apartment.

  20

  “The name’s Broussac Mr. President,” said Emory Bradford into the phone at his desk in the State Department. “Madame Régine Broussac. The Quai d’Orsay, Foreign Ministry, Section Four. She contacted the embassy the night before last, instructing a radio-car unit to be in the vicinity of Argenteuil for the purpose of picking up a former American intelligence officer who was to meet her there. Under highly unorthodox circumstances, she said.”

  “Havelock?”

  “She’s admitted that much, yes.”

  “And?”

  “The car drove up and down the streets of Argenteuil all night It was never contacted.”

  “What did this Broussac say? I assume she’s been questioned.”

  “Angrily. She claims he never showed up.”

  “Well.”

  “Our people think she’s lying.”

  “Why?”

  “One of our men went around to her flat and asked some questions. He learned that she returned home by one o’clock in the morning. If that was the case—and apparently it was; two neighbors confirmed it—why didn’t she phone the embassy and call off the car?”

  “Has the been asked about this?”

  “No, sir. Our people are waiting for instructions. It’s not customary for embassy personnel to go around asking questions surreptitiously about officials of the Quai d’Orsay.”

  Charles Berquist paused, then spoke flrmly. “Have Ambassador Richardson call Madame Broussac and respectfully request that she accept an invitation to come to the embassy as soon as it’s convenient, preferably within the hour. A limousine will be sent for her, of course. The President of the United States wishes to speak with her on a confidential basis.”

  “Mr. President—”

  “Just do as I say, Mr. Undersecretary.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And, Emory?”

  “Sir?”

  “How’s the other task coming? The seventy-odd diplomats who may have been out of town during the Spanish problem?”

  Bradford paused before answering. When he spoke, it was apparent he was trying to control his voice. “As of this moment, five are missing.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything until noon, until I have all the information, but the last report indicates that nineteen personnel were off the premises. Fourteen are accounted for, five aren’t.”

  “Get it! Get all your information!”

  “I’m trying.”

  “By noon! Get it!”

  The cold rain of the night before had lingered with diminishing strength, and the sky outside the Oval Office was dark. A drop of only a degree or two in temperature and there would be thin, erratic patches of snow on the White House lawn. Berauist stood by the window, briefly wondering how deep the drifts were in Mountain Iron, Minnesota. And how he wished to Christ he were back there now. There was a buzzing from his telephone console. He glanced at his watch as he walked to the desk; it was eleven-fifteen.

  “Yes?”r />
  “Your call from Paris, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Berquist pushed the appropriate red button. “Madame Broussac?”

  “Oui, Monsieur le Président. It is an honor, sir. I am flattered to have been summoned to speak with you.” The old woman’s voice was strong, but not without astonishment. And a measure of fear.

  “And I’m most grateful, madame. As I instructed, are we alone?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le Président. Ambassador Richardson most courteously permitted me the use of his office. Quite honestly, I am, as you might say, bewildered.”

  “You have the word of the President of the United States that we are alone, Madame Broussac. There is no interference on this telephone, no third parties or mechanical devices to record our conversation. will you accept that word?”

  “Assuredly. Why would such an august figure deceive a mere functionary of the Quai d’Orsay?”

  “For a lot of reasons. But I’m not.”

  “Mais oui. Then I am convinced.”

  “Good. I need your cooperation in a matter of the utmost importance and delicacy. It in no way affects the government of France, but any help you might give us could only be in its ultimate interests. Again, you have my word on it, the word of this office.”

  “It is sufficient, Monsieur le Président.”

  “It’s imperative we reach a retired foreign service officer recently separated from the Department of State. His name is Michael Havelock.”

  “S’il vous plait. Monsieur le—”

  “No, please,” interrupted Berquist. “Let me finish. This office has too many staggering concerns to be involved with the work you do, or with the activities Mr. Havelock was engaged in. I only ask you to help us locate him. A destination, a routing, a name he might be using. Whatever you tell me will be held in the strictest confidence; no detail will be compromised, or ever used against you or your operations. I promise you that.”

  “Monsieur—”

  “Lastly,” continued the President, overriding her voice, “no matter what he may have told you, his government has never meant him harm. We have too much respect for his service record, too much gratitude for his contributions. The tragedy he thinks is his alone is all of ours, and that is all I can tell you, but I hope you consider the source—the office from which it comes. Will you help us, help me, Madame Broussac?”

  Berquist could hear the breathing over the line from Paris, as well as the pounding tattoo in his own chest. He looked out the window; fine flecks of white were intermingling with the mottled drizzle. The virgin drifts in the fields of Mountain Iron were the most beautiful at sundown; one caressed them with the eyes, touched the colors from a distance, never wanting them to change.

  “As you are trying to find him,” began Broussac, “he is looking for someone else.”

  “We know that. We’ve been looking for her too. To save her life. To save his.” The President closed his eyes; it was a lie he would remember back in the hills of the Mesabi country. But then, he would remember, too, Churchill and Coventry. Enigma … Costa Brava.

  “There is a man in New York.”

  “New York?” Berquist sat forward, startled. “He’s here? She’s—?”

  “It surprises you, Monsieur le Président?”

  “Very much.”

  “It was intended to. It was I who sent her. Sent him.”

  “This man in New York?”

  “He must be approached with a great deal of—as you mentioned—delicacy. He cannot be compromised. You have the same such people in Europe; we all need them, Monsieur le Président. Even when we know of those who belong to other—companies, we leave them alone.”

  “I understand perfectly.” Berquist did; the warning was clear. “This man can tell us where he is?”

  “He can tell you where she is. That’s what you need to know. But he must be convinced he is not compromised.”

  “I’ll send only one man and only he will know. My word.”

  “Je le respecte. I must tell you, I do not know him, except through his dossier. He is a great man with much compassion, a survivor, monsieur. In April of 1945, he was taken out of the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany.”

  “He will be accorded all the respect this office can summon, as well as the confidentiality I promised you. His name, please.”

  “Jacob Handelman. Columbia University.”

  The three men listened intently as Emory Bradford slowly, methodically delivered his findings in the strategy room in the underground complex of the White House. Speaking in a deliberate monotone, he described the confirmed whereabouts of all nineteen State Department personnel from the fifth floor, L Section, who were not in Washington during the week of Costa Brava. When he finished, each man’s expression conveyed both pain and frustration, none more so than the President’s. He leaned forward on the dais, his heavy Scandinavian face worn and lined, his intelligent eyes angry.

  “You were so sure this morning,” he said. “You told me five were missing, five not accounted for. What happened?”

  “I was wrong, Mr. President.”

  “Goddamn it, I didn’t want to hear that.”

  “Neither did King Richard when news reached him that Richmond had landed,” said Addison Brooks quietly. “He struck down the messenger.”

  Berquist turned to his ambassador, studying him before replying, “Richard the Third had already received two messages he considered lies. He could have been testing the latest.”

  Brooks shook his head, admiration in his eyes. “You constantly amaze me, Mr. President.”

  “I shouldn’t. You worked for Truman. He knew more about history than all the Commagers and Schlesingers put together. I’ve done some reading myself, and this is a waste of time.” Berquist turned back to the undersecretary of State. “Who were the five?”

  “The woman who was having surgery. It was an abortion. Her husband’s a lawyer and has been in protracted litigation at The Hague for several months. They’ve been apart. The picture was pretty clear.”

  “How could you even consider a woman?” demanded Halyard. “No double standard implied, but a woman would leave her mark somewhere.”

  “Not If she—through Moscow—controlled men. Actually, I was quite excited when her name surfaced. I thought, Good God, it’s perfect. It wasn’t.”

  “Keep it surgery, and tell that to whomever you spoke with. Who were the others?”

  “The two attachés at our embassy in Mexico. They’d been recalled for change-of-policy briefings, then didn’t return to Mexico City until January fifth.”

  “Explanation?” asked the President.

  “Furlough time. They went their separate wavs and their families joined them. One to a ski lodge in Vermont, the other to the Caribbean. Credit-card charges confirmed everything.”

  “Who else?” pressed Berquist.

  “Arthur Pierce.”

  “Pierce?” interrupted the general, startled. “The fellow at the U.N. now?”

  “Yes, General.”

  “I could have straightened you out there. So could have Addison here.”

  “So would Matthias,” agreed Bradford. “If there was anyone at State who maintained clear access to Matthias for a longer period of time, I don’t know who it is. He appointed Pierce to the U.N. with the obvious intention of submitting him for the ambassadorship.”

  “If you’ll permit me the correction,” said Berquist, “I appointed him after Matthias gave him to us and then took him away. He worked over here with the NSC for a couple of months last year before the great man said he was needed in New York.”

  “And he was one fellow I told the Pentagon to bribe the hell out of,” exclaimed the general. “I wanted to keep him in the army; he was too good to lose. He didn’t like that mess in Southeast Asia any more than I did, but his record was as good as mine.… Let’s face it; it was a damn sight better.”

  The ambassador leaned back in his chair. “I know Pierce. He was brought to my attention by an
old-line career foreign officer. I suppose I was as responsible as anyone for bringing him into the State Department. Knowing what I do, Iowa farm boy, rather humble beginnings, I believe, and then a brilliant academic record, everything on scholarship. He was one of the few in this day and age who really went from rags to riches. Well, influential if not literally rich, but he could have been. A dozen or so of the country’s largest corporations were after him, not to mention Rand and the Brookings Institution. I was persuasive and quite practical. Patriotism aside, I pointed out that a tour of duty with the Department of State could only enhance his value in the marketplace. Of course, he’s still a relatively young man; with his accomplishments, if he leaves government, he’ll be able to name his own price anywhere. He’s cornstalk American success story—how could you possibly conceive of a Moscow connection?”

  “I didn’t preconceive anything, especially not in this case,” said Bradford. “Arthur Pierce is a friend—and I don’t have many. I consider him one of the best men we have at State. But in spite of our friendship, I went by the reports given me. Only me, incidentally. Not to my secretary or any assistant. Only to me.”

  “What did you get that made you think Pierce could possibly have anything to do with Soviet intelligence? Christ, he’s mother, God, apple pie and the flag.”

  “An error in the U.N. message logs. The initial report showed that during the last days of December and the first three days of January—the week of Costa Brava—Pierce hadn’t responded to four separate queries from the Middle East Section. Then, of course, they showed up—four replies that could he entered in a diplomatic analyst’s handbook. They were as penetrating as anything I’ve read on that area and dovetailed with the specific proceedings in the Security Council. As a matter of fact, they were used to block a particularly aggressive Soviet proposal.”

  “The error in the logs was the explanation?” said Brooks.

  “That’s the maddening thing. There’s always an explanation, then a confirmation of an explanation. Message traffic’s so heavy, twenty percent of it gets misplaced. Pierce’s responses had been there all along.”