The Parsifal Mosaic

by Robert Ludlum

  The unit had met at ten o’clock at Sterile Eleven down in Quantico, and had stayed up until four in the morning covering the variables of total surveillance—without knowing a damn thing about the Subject. They had a photograph, but except for an inadequate description furnished by Randolph that was about all they had, and it, too, was inadequate. It was a blowup made at Sterile Eleven from a 1971 Jefferson Medical School yearbook that had been located by the FBI office in Philadelphia. No reason was given the agents who found it, only that they should observe complete secrecy. Actually, it had been stolen out of the university’s library by an agent, who had concealed it under his coat. Examining the grainy blowup, the unit had to imagine a face considerably older than that in the photograph, and since no one they could speak with had seen Shippers in four months, the possibility of a beard or a moustache could not be discounted. And they could speak to no one about Dr. Colin Shippers, no one at all. Havelock’s orders.

  Initial surveillance had dispelled the conjecture about any hirsute additions to the subject’s face; tinted glasses and a heavier frame were the essential differences between his appearance now and the yearbook photograph. The men inside the Regency Foundation had radioed out twice; they had picked up Shippers. One man was down the hall from the laboratory where the pathologist worked; the other covered his office on the floor below. The waiting had begun, thought Loring. But waiting for what?

  The hours or the days would tell. All Charles Loring knew was that he had done everything he could to position the unit effectively: spaced apart and in contact to ensure maximum concealment. The cars were at one-way intersections, his own down the street and across from the research center with a full view of the entrance and the adjacent garage used for personnel parking.

  A sharp, high-pitched hum came from the dashboard console; it was a signal from one of the men inside. Loring reached for the microphone, depressed the switch, and spoke. “S-Five. What is it?”

  “S-Three. He just left the lab, seems in a hurry.”

  “Any clues?”

  “I heard a telephone ring in there a few minutes ago. He’s alone, so he could have talked, but that’s spec. I wasn’t able to overhear any conversation.”

  “It’s good enough. Stay where you are and stay out of sight.”

  Loring replaced the microphone, only to hear a second jarring signal before he could lean back in the seat.

  “S-Five.”

  “S-Two. Subject went into his office. From the way he walked—his general demeanor—he’s agitated.”

  “Good description; it fits upstairs. We may be moving faster than any of us—”

  “Hold it! Stay on the line,” instructed Surveillance 2 as static filled the speaker. The man had concealed his radio under his clothing without breaking the open circuit. In seconds his voice was back. “Sorry. Subject came right back out and I had to spin. He chucked the white coat and is in his street clothes. Same tan raincoat, same soft, floppy hat. I guess he’s yours.”

  “I guess he is. Out.” Loring held the microphone in his hand and turned to the driver. “Get ready, the package is coming our way. If I have to go on foot, take over. I’ll stay in touch.” He reached under his jacket and took out the small compact hand-held radio, checking by habit the battery charge. He then pulled back his left sleeve, revealing the flat miniaturized high-speed camera attached to the underside of his wrist. He twisted his hand and heard the muted click; he was ready. “I wonder who this Shippers is,” he said, watching the entrance of the Regency Foundation.

  The telephone rang, breaking Havelock’s concentration on his Pentagon notes. He picked it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Cross?”

  Michael blinked, recognizing Randolph’s strident voice. “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Maybe we can both keep our heads. Ben Jackson just called, angrier than a Point Judith squall.”

  “What about?”

  “Seems this lawyer phoned him asking why the final payment on MacKenzie’s policy was being held up.”

  “Shippers,” said Havelock.

  “You got it, and Ben was madder’n hell. There was no final payment. The entire settlement was mailed to Midge’s lawyer about eight weeks ago.”

  “Why did Jackson call you and not Mrs. MacKenzie’s attorney?”

  “Because Shippers—I figure it was Shippers or someone calling for him—got shook up and said there was some confusion over signatures on a medical report and did Ben know anything about it. Naturally, Ben said he didn’t; the money was paid—processed through his agency—and that was that. He also added that he didn’t appreciate his reputation—”

  “Listen to me,” interrupted Havelock. “I won’t lose my head, but you may have blown yours away. I want you to stay in your office and don’t see anybody until I can get a couple of men up there. If anyone tries to reach you, have the desk say you’re operating.”

  “Forget it!” shot back Randolph. “A mealy-mouthed snot like Shippers doesn’t worry me. He comes near here, I’ll have one of the guards throw him into a padded cell.”

  “If he did and you could, I’d kiss your feet at this point, but it won’t be Shippers. He may call you; that’s as near as he’ll come and it’d be the best thing that could happen to you. If he does, say you’re sorry for the white lie, but after long consideration, you wanted to cover yourself on that report.”

  “He wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Neither would I, but it’s a stall. I’ll have men up there within the hour.”

  “I don’t want them!”

  “You have no choice, Dr. Randolph,” said Michael, hanging up and immediately centering the page of telephone numbers in front of him.

  “Do you really think Shippers will go after him?” asked Jenna, standing by the window with the CIA report in her hand.

  “He won’t, but others’ll be sent up there, not at first to kill him, but to take him. Take him and get him alone where they can press his head until they find out who he’s dealing with, who he’s lying for. Killing could be nicer.” Havelock reached for the phone, his eyes on the page below.

  “On the other hand,” observed Jenna, “knowing Randolph lied, knowing he was involved, made Shippers move faster than we thought possible. How long ago was Loring’s last call?”

  “Over an hour. Shippers took a taxi downtown; they’re with him on foot by now. We should be hearing soon.” Michael dialed; the line answered quickly. “This is Sterile Five, Fairfax. Under that code name I was taken under escort up to the Randolph Medical Center yesterday. Talbot County, Maryland, Eastern Shore. Will you confirm, please?” While waiting, Havelock covered the phone and said to Jenna, “I just thought of something. With any luck we might turn a liability into an asset,” then returned to the phone: “… Yes, that’s right. Three-man team; departure was eleven hundred hours. Are you ready for instructions?… Return two men, up there immediately on a priority basis. Subject is Dr. Matthew Randolph; he’s to be given protection, maximum visual contact, but there’s a hook. I want the men to be part of the local scenery—orderlies or staff or whatever I can work out with Randolph. Tell them to get en route and call me on the mobile phone in twenty minutes; patch it through you.” Michael paused again, looking again at Jenna as the Secret Service dispatcher checked schedules. “Randolph may have done us another favor at a risk to himself he’ll never understand.”

  “If he cooperates.”

  “He hasn’t got a choice, I meant that.” The dispatcher returned; Havelock listened, then spoke. “No, that’s fine. Actually, I prefer men who weren’t up there yesterday. By the way, the code will be—” Michael stopped, his thoughts going back to the Palatine, to a dead man whose words had sent him to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “Apache,” he said. “They were hunters. Tell Apache to call me in twenty minutes.”

  Dr. Matthew Randolph roared his objections to no avail. He would either cooperate, Havelock told him, or they could all take their chances and the fallout “tanglin
g” with each other. “Mr. Cross” was prepared to press his suit to the limit even if it meant admitting the murder of a CIA operations officer named Steven MacKenzie. And Randolph, understanding that he was now between a rock and a hard place, entered into the dangerous charade with a fair degree of inventiveness. The Apache team would be two visiting cardiologists from California, complete with white jackets and stethoscopes.

  Havelock’s orders were explicit, no room for error. Whoever came for Matthew Randolph—and someone was bound to come—he or they were to be taken alive. Wounds were permitted, but only in the legs, the feet, nothing above the waist.

  It was a Four Zero order, none more sacrosanct in the clandestine services.

  “Havelock, if’s Loring.”

  “How goes it?”

  “My driver said he wasn’t able to raise you.”

  “I was talking with an irascible doctor, but if there was an emergency, your man could have broken in. He knows that.”

  “It wasn’t and it isn’t. It’s just weird.” Loring stopped. The pause was uncomfortable.

  “What’s going down, Charley?”

  “That’s just it. Nothing. Shipper’s taxi let him off in front of Garfinckle’s Department Store. He went inside, made a call from one of the phones on the first floor, and for the past hour or so he’s been wandering around the men’s shop on the fifth. I’m calling from there; I’ve got him in sight.”

  “He’s waiting for someone.”

  “If he is, it’s an odd way of doing it quietly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s buying clothes like he was going on a cruise, trying on things and laughing with the clerks. He’s a one-man gross for the day.”

  “It’s not usual, but be patient. The main point is he made the call, made his first outside move. You’re doing fine.”

  “Who the hell is he, Havelock?”

  Michael reflected. Loring deserved to be told more than he had been; it was the moment to bring him nearer to the truth. So much depended on the sharp, plainspoken Cons Op officer.

  “A deep-cover entry who’s going to meet a man who could blow Poole’s Island out of Savannah harbor. I’m glad you’re there, Charley. We have to know who that man is.”

  “Good enough, and thanks. All the floors and exits here are covered, we’re in contact and our cameras ready. If it’s a question of choice, do we drop Shippers and stay with his contact?”

  “You may not have to. You may recognize him. The others probably wouldn’t, but you might.”

  “Jesus, from State?”

  “That’s right. My guess is fairly high-level, forty-five to middle fifties, and some kind of specialist. If you do recognize him, stay far back until they separate, then pick up Shippers and bring him down here. But when you close in, be very fast and very careful and check for capsules.”

  “Shippers is that deep? Christ, how do they do it?”

  “Past tense, Charley. Did. A long time ago.”

  The waiting would have been intolerable had it not been for Havelock’s growing fascination with a Lieutenant Commander Thomas Decker, Annapolis ‘61, former skipper of the submarine Starfire, and a member of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Contingency Committees. Decker was a liar with no apparent reason for lying.

  Michael had spoken with all fifteen NCC senior officers, calling several twice, a few three times, ostensibly to put together a clear picture of the committees’ working methods for updated presidential comprehension. In most of the conversations the initial remarks were guarded—each, of course, demanding White House switchboard verification—but as the words flowed and the officers realized Havelock knew what he was talking about, they grew less wary and more specific within the bounds of maximum security. Hypothetical events were matched with theoretical responses, and beyond his fundamental reason for speaking to each man, Havelock was impressed. If the laws of physics determined that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction, the NCC teams had come up with a better equation. For any nuclear action on the part of an enemy the reaction was anything but equal; it was devastatingly superior. Even Lieutenant Commander Decker’s contributions were electric in this sense. He made it clear that a ring perimeter of undersea nuclear marauders could demolish all major enemy installations from the North Atlantic to the Black Sea and most points in between in a matter of minutes. In this area he did not lie; he did in another. He said he had never met Secretary of State Anthony Matthias.

  His name had appeared on three separate telephone logs from Matthias’s office, all within the past six months.

  It was, of course, possible that Decker’s statement was true, that he had not actually met Matthias, merely spoken with him on the phone. But if that was the case, why had he not volunteered the information? A man who was asked whether or not he knew a statesman of Matthias’s stature did not deny it readily without quickly offering the qualification that be did know him by way of the telephone. It was not natural, actually contradictory for an obviously ambitious naval officer rising fast in the Pentagon who would typically clutch ferociously at the coattails of Anthony Matthias.

  Thomas Decker, USN, had lied. He did know Matthias and, for obscure reasons, did not care to admit it.

  It was time for the fourth call to Lieutenant Commander Decker.

  “You know, Mr. Cross, I’ve given you about all I can or should in these matters. I’m sure you’re aware that there are restrictions placed on me that can only be countered by the President himself—in his presence, I might add.”

  “I’m aware of that, Commander, but I’m confused by one of my notes. It probably has nothing to do with anything we’ve talked about, but the Secretary of State didn’t understand it, either. You said you didn’t know him, never met him.”

  Decker’s pause was as electric as his data on undersea nuclear warfare. “That’s the way he wanted it,” he said quietly. “That’s the way he said it had to be.”

  “Thank you, Commander. Incidentally, Secretary of State Matthias was trying to pinpoint it this morning. He couldn’t recall where you and he last talked with each other.”

  “The lodge, of course. Sometime in August or September, I think.”

  “Of course. The lodge. The Shenandoah.”

  “That’s where it was, where it always was. No one knew anything. It was just ourselves. How is it possible he can’t remember?”

  “Thank you, Commander. Good—bye.”

  The Shenandoah.

  The bell was piercing, the ring unbroken; it was the switchboard’s way of signaling emergency. Havelock had been pacing. thinking; he rushed across the room and grabbed the phone. It was Loring.

  “You’ve got my tail on a plate and I’ll start carving it for you! Jesus, I’m sorry!”

  “You lost him,” said Michael, drained, his throat dry.

  “Christ. I’ll turn in my cards! Every fucking one of them!”

  “Calm down, Charley. What happened?”

  “A switch. A goddamned switch! I … I just wasn’t looking for it! I should have, but I wasn’t!”

  “Tell me what happened,” repeated Michael, sitting down as Jenna got up from the couch and started toward the desk.

  “Shippers paid for the stuff he bought, arranging for most of it to be delivered except for a couple of boxes he took with him. He went into the fitting room and came out dressed for the street, same raincoat, same soft hat, carrying the boxes.”

  “Held high,” Havelock broke in wearily, again the sense of futility spreading through him.

  “Naturally,” agreed Loring. “I followed him to the elevator, staying several aisles away—frankly looking at every son of a bitch in the men’s department, figuring one of them might be your man. One lousy son of a bitch who might have brushed up against Shippers and gotten something from him. The elevator door closed, and I raised the men on each floor, every stop covered, each man to head below and join the others at the outside exits the second that elevator passed his floor. M
y S-Nine picked him up at the Fourteenth Street entrance and followed him, radioing the rest of us his position; we spread out in cars and on foot. Jesus!”

  “When did it happen?” asked Michael.

  “On the corner of Eleventh, four minutes after I left the store, and I was the last one out. The man hailed a cab, threw the boxes inside and, just before he got in, took off his hat. It wasn’t Shippers at all. It was some guy ten, fifteen years older and mostly bald.”

  “What did your Nine do?”

  “The best he could. He tried to stop the cab, but he couldn’t; it shot right through a break in traffic. He called us, spelling everything out, giving the cab’s number and description. Five of us ran back to the store, covering what exits we could, but we all knew we’d lost him. S-Eleven and -Twelve went after the cab; I told them to stay with it if they had to break every traffic law on the books—since we’d lost the subject, we could still grab the plant. They picked it up six blocks west, and there was no one inside. Only the raincoat, the hat, and the two boxes lying on the floor.”

  “The driver?”

  “He said some nut got in, took off his coat, gave him five dollars, and Jumped out at the next light. The men are taking the boxes in for possible prints.”

  “They won’t find any matching anything in the Bureau’s computers.”

  “I’m sorry. Havelock, I’m really sorry. Shippers’s whole act was a diversion, and I bought it. Of all the goddamned times to lose an instinct, I had to pick this one.”

  Michael shook his head as he spoke. “You didn’t lose it, Charley, I pushed it out of your head. At least you sensed a break in the pattern and I told you to forget it. I told you to be patient and concentrate on a man who never intended to be there.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Loring. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”