“You go back to the Costa Brava!”
“Certainly. We were on our way to the total compromise of one of the most powerful men in the Western world. We wanted to make sure it was done right. You didn’t have the stomach for it. We did.”
“But you didn’t know why. You still don’t!”
“It never mattered, can’t you see that? He was going in-sane. You, with your extraordinary expectations, were driving him insane; he was a gifted man doing the work of twenty. The Georgian syndrome, Emory. Stalin was a babbling idiot when he was killed All we had to do with Matthias was fuel his fantasies, gratify his every whim, grievance and suspicion-encourage his madness. Because that madness compromised this country into its own madness.”
“There’s no compromise now. Only annihilation. Extinction.”
“Pierce nodded his head slowly. There’s the risk, of course, but one can’t be afraid to fail.”
“Now you’re the one who’s insane!”
“Not at all The extinction would be yours, the annihilation yours. That court of world opinion you whiningly appeal to so frequently would see to it. And right now, all that matters is that we find the man who single-handedly ushered Anton Matthias into his disintegration, and we want those documents. Don’t worry about Havlíček; you were going to put him ‘beyond salvage,’ we weren’t.”
“You did. You did! You put him beyond salvage.”
“At the time it was right to order his execution. It isn’t now. Now he’ll help us. I wasn’t Joking before; he’s one of the most talented men you’ve ever fielded, a very accomplished hunter. With his expertise and what we know, we’ll find the man who’ll bring this government to its knees.”
“I’ve told people who you are!” whispered Bradford. “What you are!”
“I’d have been followed at the airport-especially the air-port-and I wasn’t. You didn’t tell anyone because you didn’t know until a few minutes ago. I’m far too important a figure for such speculations from a man like you. You’ve made too many mistakes; you can’t afford any more. This city doesn’t like you, Mr. Undersecretary.”
“Havelock will kill you on sight.”
“I’m sure he would if he could see us, but that’s his problem, isn’t it. We know Havlíček; he doesn’t know us; he doesn’t know me. That puts him at quite a disadvantage. We’ll just watch him; it’s all we have to do.”
“You’ll never find him!” Bradford lurched to his left, instantly blocked by Pierce, who shoved him against the wall.
“Don’t, Emory. You’re tired and very weak. Before you could raise your voice you’d be dead. As for finding him, how many safe houses are there? Steriles One through Seventeen? And who wouldn’t tell a man like me—a man involved with numerous diplomatic ‘defections’—which ones are available? I’ve brought in several enviable catches-or presumed catches.” Pierce took several steps, once again standing in front of Bradford. “Now, don’t die. Tell me. Where is this catastrophic document? I assume it’s a photostat. The original is held over your head, a nuclear sword hanging by a very thin thread.”
“Where you could never find it.”
“I believe you,” said the traveler. “But you could.”
“There’s no way … could or would.”
“Unfortunately, I believe that, too.”
There was a brief snapping sound as Pierce suddenly thrust out his right hand, gripping Bradford’s bare arm, pressing his palm into the flesh. With his left, the mole simultaneously reached up and clamped his fingers over Bradford’s mouth, twisting the undersecretary’s body, arching him to the side. In seconds, Bradford’s eyes widened, then closed as the choking sounds from his throat were muted. He collapsed to the floor as Pierce withdrew the palmed needle. The mole raced behind the desk and picked up the tape container; beneath it was a note on corporate stationery. He reached for the telephone, pressed the outside-line button and dialed.
“Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Office,” a voice answered.
“Internal Security, please. Field Agent Abrams.”
“Abrams,” said a male voice seconds later.
“Your travels went well, I hope.”
“A smooth flight” was the reply. “Go ahead.”
“There’s a network executive,” continued Pierce, reading the note, “an R.B. Denning at the Trans American News Division. He supplied library footage to the wrong man at State, an unbalanced man named Bradford, whose motives were offensive to the interests of the United States government. The tapes were destroyed by Bradford in a rage, but for the good of Trans Am’s news department—the entire company, as well, of course—Denning’s officially advised to say nothing. The Department of State feels it’s mandatory to contain the embarrassment, et cetera, et cetera. This is a very green light.”
“I’ll reach him right away even if he’s into his second martini.”
“You could add that State might be reluctant to deal with Trans Am in the future, insofar as they delivered company materials without checking the source of the request through proper channels. However, if everyone cooperates for the good of the country—”
“The picture will be clear,” interrupted the paminyatchik from New York. “I’ll get on it.”
Pierce hung up, walked to the television set, and carefully moved it back against the wall. He would have the video recorder taken away to another office. There would be no trace of the newsreel tapes or any way to trace them.
There was no prolonged, agonized scream, no cry of protest against offending gods or mortals—only the sound of shattering glass in the huge window as a body plummeted from the seventh floor of the State Department.
It was said by those who had seen him that morning that it was the way he had to go—in a moment of frenzy, of total despair, wanting it over with, not wanting to think any longer. The pressures had become overwhelming; he had never really recovered from those soul-searching days of the late sixties, everyone knew that. He was a man whose time had come and gone, and he had never reasoned out the role he had played in its arrival and departure. Substance had eluded him; at the end he was a voice in the shadows, a voice disturbing to many, but dismissed by many others because he couldn’t do anything.
The press printed it all in the evening editions, the obituaries ranging from kind to cool, depending on the editorial stripe. But it should be noted that none was very long; no one really cared. Inconsistency was not compatible with that most desirable of political sins: typecasting. To change was to be weak. We want Jesus or the strong-jawed cowboy. Who the hell can be both?
Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford, committed hawk turned, passionate dove, was dead. By his own hand, of course.
And there was no odd piece of equipment such as a video recorder in the stand beneath the television set. It had been delivered to the wrong office, a G-12 on the third floor confirming his original request. The set was rolled back against the wall. Apparently unused.
30
“You couldn’t have prevented it,” said Jenna firmly, standing in front of Havelock at the desk. “You’re not permitted to go to the State Department and it’s a condition you accept. If the mole saw you, he’d either kill you quietly and remain where he was, or bolt and run to Moscow. You want him, and your being seen isn’t the way to find him.”
“Maybe I couldn’t have prevented it, but I might have let his death—his life—mean more than it did. He wanted to tell me and I told him not to say any more. He said this phone was as sterile as the house and I wouldn’t accept that.”
“That’s not what you said. You told him his phone, his office, might not be sterile. From everything you’ve learned over the years, everything you’ve seen, you made the logical decision. And I still believe there are paminyatchiki in your State Department who would lie for this man, tap an office for him.”
“You know, a paranoid named McCarthy said things like that and tore this country apart thirty years ago. Tore it apart with fear and fren
zy.”
“Perhaps he was one himself. Who could have done it bet—ter?”
“It’s possible. The paminyatchik is the total patriot. He’ll call for a loyalty oath every time because he has no compunction about signing one.”
“That’s what you have to look for now, Mikhail. A total patriot; a man with an unblemished record. He will be the mole.”
“If I could find out what it was Bradford was waiting for yesterday, I think I’d have both. He said he wouldn’t know until ‘late morning.’ That means he expected something that would tell him where a man wasn’t, proof someone on the fifth floor wasn’t where he was supposed to be. The security desk said Bradford received a package at twelve-twenty-five, but no one knows what it was, and, naturally, it wasn’t there later.”
“There was no return address or company name?”
“If there was, nobody noticed. It was delivered by messenger.”
“Check the firms who provide those services. Certainly someone can recall the color of the uniform; that would narrow it down.”
“She wasn’t that kind of messenger. She wore a fur-collared tweed coat, and the only thing Security remembers is that she was pretty high-toned for delivering packages.”
“High-toned?”
“Attractive, well-spoken, direct. I think that covers it.”
“Someone’s secretary.”
“Yes, but whose? What sort of person would Bradford go to, what kind of proof?”
“What was the size of the package?”
“The guard who took it up said it was a large, padded envelope with a bulge on the bottom, and thick throughout. Papers and something else.”
“Papers?” said Jenna. “Newspapers? Could he have gone to a newspaper?”
“He might have. Four-month-old clippings that would describe an event or events during that time. Or he could have pulled in data from the CIA; he had friends there. Something from the files that pertained to the evidence against you, or perhaps Costa Brava … something we’ve overlooked. Or he could have been checking hospitals, or ski lodges, or hometown, small-town neighborhoods or divorce-court dockets—representation in absentia—or Caribbean resort reservations—signatures on meal and bar checks, a maître d’ or a beachboy who makes his money by remembering. All of it’s possible because everything I’ve said pertains to someone in these records.” Michael touched the sheaf of pages on the desk, running his thumb along the edge. “And a dozen other possibilities I haven’t even thought about.” Havelock leaned back in the chair, folding his hands under his chin. “Our man’s good, Jenna. He’ll cover himself with a layer of invisible paint.”
“Then go on to something else.”
“I am. A doctor in Maryland. Talbot County’s most revered physician.”
“Mikhail?”
“Yes?”
“Before … you were reading the reports of your own therapy at the clinic. After the Costa Brava.”
“How did you know?”
“Every now and then you’d close your eyes. Those pages weren’t easy for you.”
“They weren’t easy.”
“Did they tell you anything?”
“No. Other than describing your execution and my reactions to it, nothing.”
“May I see them?”
“I wish to Christ I could think of a reason to stop you. I can’t.”
“Your not wanting me to is reason enough.”
“No, it’s not. You were the one being killed; you have to know.” He opened the drawer on his right, reached in and pulled out a thick, black-bordered manila envelope. He gave it to her, their eyes briefly locking. “I’m not proud of it,” he said. “And I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life. I know what that means now.”
“We’ll help each other—for the rest of both our lives. I believed them too.”
She carried the envelope to the couch, sat down, and opened it, removing the file folders inside. They were in sequence; she picked up the first and leaned slowly back, looking at the object in her hands as though it were some horrible yet holy thing. She opened the cover and began reading.
Havelock could not move, could not concentrate. He sat rigid in the chair, the papers in front of him blurred, dark lines without meaning. While Jenna read he relived that terrible night; images flashed across his inner vision and exploded inside his head. Just as he had watched her die, she was now witnessing the naked thoughts of a mind in chemical therapy—his mind, his deepest emotions—and was watching him die also.
The phrases—the screams—came back to him; she was hearing them too. She had to be, for it was she who now closed her eyes and held her breath, a tremor developing in her hands as she went on … and on. She finished the third folder, and he could feel her staring at him. It was a look he could not return. The screams were pounding in his ears, thunderbolts of intolerable violence, unforgivable errors. Betrayal.
Go quickly! Die quickly! Leave me quickly! You were never mine. You were a lie and I loved a lie but you were never part of me! … How can you be what you are, yet so much that you are not? Why did you do this to us? To me? You were the only thing I had and now you’re my personal hell.… Die now, go now! … No! For God’s sake, let me die with you! I want to die … but I won’t die for you! … Only for myself, against myself! Never for you. You gave yourself to me but you gave me a whore and I took a whore … and I believed in the whore. A rotten slut of a whore! … Oh, Christ, she’s hit! She’s hit again. Go to her! For God’s sake, go to her! Hold her! … No, never to her! It’s over! It’s all over and it’s history and I won’t listen to the lies any longer. Oh, Jesus, she’s crawling, crawling in the sand like a cut—up, bleeding animal. She’s alive! Go to her! Hold her! Lessen the final pain—with a bullet if you have to! No! … She’s gone. There’s no movement now, only blood on her hands and streaked through her hair. She’s dead and a part of me is dead, too. Still, it’s got to be history, as the early days are history … Oh, my God, they’re dragging her away, dragging the lanced, dead animal away. Who? Who are they? Have I seen … photographs, files … it doesn’t matter. Do they know what they’ve done? Did she? Killer, slut, whore! … My once, my only love. It’s history now, it has to be history. A killer is gone … love gone. A goddamned fool survives.
She had finished. She placed the last file on the coffee table in front of her and turned to him; she was crying silently. “So much love and so much hatred. Hatred and self-hatred. I wasn’t forced to go through what you did; perhaps it was easier, if more bewildering, to be the victim. But when the bewilderment was replaced by anger, I felt the way you did. Hating you so very much, yet loathing myself for the hatred, never forgetting the love that I knew—I knew—had been there. It couldn’t have been false, not so much, not all of it. The anger took over at the border and later at the airfield in Col des Moulinets when I thought you had come to finally kill me. Kill me with the violence you had shown that woman on the pier at Civitavecchia. I saw your face through the window of the plane and—if there’s a God, may He forgive me—you were my enemy. My love was my enemy.”
“I remember,” said Michael. “I saw your eyes and I remember the hatred. I tried to shout, tried to tell you, but you couldn’t hear me; I couldn’t hear myself through the sound of the engines. But your eyes were weapons that night, more frightening than any I’d ever faced. I wouldn’t have the courage to see them again, but I suppose in a way I always will.”
“Only in your memory, Mikhail.”
The telephone rang; Havelock let it ring again. He could not take his gaze off Jenna. Then he picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Havelock?”
“Mr. President.”
“Did you get the information on Emory?” asked Berquist, the Minnesotan’s voice laced with sadness and exhaustion, yet forcing an illusion of strength.
“Nowhere near what I need.”
“What you need is a liaison. I’ll pick someone here at the White House, someone wit
h authority and a man I can trust. I’ll have to bring him on board, but that can’t be helped. Bradford’s gone and you do need a funnel.”
“Not yet, sir. And not anyone at the White House.”
There was a pause from Washington. “Because of what Rostov told you in Athens?”
“Possibly. The percentages are minor, but I’d rather not test them. Not now.”
“You believed him?”
“With all due respect, Mr. President, he was the only one who told me the truth. From the beginning.”
“Why would he tell you a truth like that?”
“I’m not sure. On the other hand, why did he send Cons Op that cable? In both instances the information was sufficiently startling to force us all to pay attention. That’s the first step in sending a signal.”
“Addison Brooks said very much the same thing.”
“He was talking diplomatically, and he was right. The Voennaya doesn’t speak for Moscow.”
“I understand. Bradford—” Berquist paused, as if he suddenly remembered he was referring to a dead man. “—Bradford explained it to me last night. So you really believe there’s a Soviet agent operating inside the White House?”
“As I said, I’m not sure. But there may be—or more than likely, may have been. I don’t think Rostov would have brought it up unless he could have substantiated the reality, present or past. He was probing, looking for responses. The truth provokes the most genuine answers in this business; he learned that when he brought up Costa Brava. In this case, I don’t want to take the risk.”
“All right, but then, how can you function? You can’t be seen walking around questioning people.”
The Parsifal Mosaic Page 56
