"Have you got a light?"
Michael reached into his pocket, took out matches and brought them over.
"What you've got to say had better make a great deal of sense-"
Oh, my Godl Whether it was the slight movement of the
136 RommT LuDLxTm
head of red hair below him, or the odd position of 0911v14A right hand, or
the flash of sunlight reflecting off the cigarette pack's cellophane, be
would never know, but in that confluence of unexpected factors, be knew the
trap had been sprung. He lashed his left foot out, catching the strategises,
right arm and reeling it back; the force of the blow threw Ogilvie off the
bench. Suddenly the air was filled with a billowing cloud of mist. He dived
to his right, beyond the path, holding his nostrils, closing his eyes,
rolling on the ground until he slammed into the remains of the jagged wall,
out of range of the gaseous cloud.
The collapsible vial bad been concealed in the pack of cigarettes, and the
acrid odor that permeated the arbor told him what the vial bad contained.
It was a nerve gas that inhibited all muscular control if a target was
caught in the nucleus; its effect lasted no less than an hour, no more than
three. It was used almost exclusively for abduction, rarely if ever as a
prelude to dispatch.
Havelock opened his eyes and got to his knees, supporting himself on the
wall. Beyond the marble bench the man from Washington was thrashing around
on the overgrown grass, coughing, struggling to rise, his body in
convulsions. He bad been caught in the milder periphery of the burst, just
enough to make him momentarily lose control.
Michael got to his feet, watching the bluisb-gray cloud evaporate in the
air above the Palatine, its center holding until diffused by the breezes.
He opened his jacket, feeling the pain of the scrapes and bruises made by
the magnum under his belt as a result of his violent movements. He took out
the weapon with the ugly perforated cylinder on the barrel, and walked
unsteadily across the grass to Ogilvie. The red-haired man was breathing
with difficulty, but his eyes were clear; he stopped struggling and stared
up at Havelock and then at the weapon in Michael's hand. "Go ahead,
Navajo," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Save me the trouble."
"I thought so." Havelock looked at the former field man's gaunt, lined face
that had the chalk-white pallor of death about it.
"Doet think. Shoot."
"Why should I? Make it easier, I mean. Or harder, for that matter. You
didn't come to kill me, you came to take me. And you don't have any answers
at all."
TAz PAnsrFAL MosAic137
"I gave them to YOU."
"When?"
"A couple of minutes ago ... HavltVek. The war. Czechoslovakia, Prague.
Your father and mother. lAdice. All those things that aren't pertinent."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Your head7s damaged, Navajo. I'm not lying about that."
OWha&"
"You didn't see the Karas woman. She's dead."
oSbE~s ali~ef" shouted Michael, crouching beside the man from Washington,
grabbing him by the lapel of his rumpled coat. "Goddamn you, she saw mel
She ran from mel"
"No way," said Ogilvie, shaking his bead. '-fou weren't the only one at
Costa Brava, there was someone else. We have his sighting; he brought back
proof-fragments of clothing, matching blood, the works. She died on that
beach at the Costa Brava."
"Thaes a liel I was there A nightf I went down to the road, down to the
beach. There weren't any pieces of clothfng; she was running, she wasn't
touched until after she was dead, after the bullets bit her. Whoever she
was, her body was carried away intact, nothing torn, nothing left on the
beachl How could there be? Why would there be? That sigbting's a liel"
The strategist lay motionless, his eyes boring up into Havelock's, his
breathing steadier now. It was obvious that his mind was racing, filtering
truth where he could find the truth. "It was dark," he said in a monotone.
'-fou couldn't tell."
"When I walked down to the beach, the sun was up."
Ogilvie winced, forcing his head into his left shoulder, his mouth
stretched, a searing pain apparently shooting up through his chest and down
his arm. "The man who made that sighting had a coronary three weeks later,"
said the strategist, his voice a strained whisper. "He died on a goddamned
sailboat in the Chesapeake. . . . If you!re right, there!s a problem back
in D.C. neither you nor I know about Help me. We've got to get out to
Palombara."
"You get out to Palombara. I don7t come in without answers. I told you
that."
"Yoeve got tol Because you're not getting out of here without me, and
that's Holy WrM"
138 ROBERT LuDLum
'You've lost your touch, Apache. I took this magnum from that pretty face
you hired. Incidentally, her gumbd is with her now, both resting at the
bottom of a marble bath."
"Not theml Himl" The man from Washington was suddenly alarmed. He pushed
himself up on his elbows, his neck craning, his eyes squinting into the
sun, scanning the hill above the arbor. "He's waiting, watching us," be
whispered. "Put the gun downl Get off the advantage. Hurry upf"
"Who? Why? What for?"
"For Christ's sake, do as I sayl Quicklyl"
Michael shook his head and got to his feet. "You're full of little tricks,
Red, but you've been away too long. You've got the same stench about you
that I can smell all the way from the Potomac-"
"Don'tl Nol" screamed the former field man, his eyes wide, straining,
focused on the high point of the hill. Then drawing from an unreasonable
reservoir of strength, be lurched off the ground, clutching Havelock and
pulling him away from the stone path.
Havelock raised the barrel with heavy cylinder attached and was about to
crash it into Ogilvie's skull when the snaps came, two muted reports from
above. Ogilvie gasped, then exhaled audibly, making a terrible sound like
rushing water, and went limp, falling backwards on the grass. His throat
was ripped open; he was dead, having stopped the bullet meant for Michael.
Havelock lunged to the wall; three more shots came, exploding marble and
dirt all around him. He raced to the end of the jagged wall, the magnum by
his face, and peered through a V-shaped break in the stone.
Silence.
A forearm. A shoulder. Beyond a cluster of wild bush. Nowl He aimed
carefully and fired four shots in rapid succession. A bloody band whipped
up in the air, followed by a pivoting shoulder. Then the wounded man
lurched out of the foliage and limped rapidly over the crest of the bill.
The bair on the hatless figure was close-cropped and black, the skin deep
brown. Mahogany. The would-be assassin on the Palatine was Rome's conduit
for covert activities in the northern sector of the Mediterranean. Had he
squeezed the trigger in anger, or fear, or a combination of'both, afraid
and furious that his cover and his network would be exposed? Or had he
THE PARsiFAL MOSAIC139
col
dly followed orders? Another question, one more shapeless fragment in the
mosaic.
Havelock turned and leaned against the wall, exhausted, frightened, feeling
as vulnerable as in the early days, the terrible days. He looked down at
Red Ogilvie-John Philip Ogilvie, if he remembered correctly. Minutes ago be
was a dying man; now be was a dead man. Killed saving the life of another
be did not want to see die. The Apache had not come to dispatch the Navajo;
he had come to save him. But safety was not found among the strategists in
Washington; they had been programmed by liars. Liars were in control.
Why? For what purpose?
No time. He bad to get out of Rome, out of Italy. To the border at Col des
Moulinets, and if that failed, to Paris.
To Jenna. Always Jenna, now more than everl
10
The two phone calls took forty-seven minutes to complete from two separate
booths in the crowded Leonardo da Vinci Airport. The flrst was to the office
of the direttore of Rome's Amministrazione di Sicurezza, Italy's watchdog
over covert foreign activities. With succinct references to authentic clan-
destine operations going back several years, Havelock was put through
without identification to the directoes administrative assistant. He held
the man on the line for less than a minute, hanging up after saying what he
had to say. The second call, from a booth at the opposite end of the
terminal, was placed to the redattore of 11 Progresso, Rome's highly
political, highly opinionated, largely anti-American newspaper. Considering
the implied subject matter, the editor was a far less difficult man to
reach. And when the journalist interrupted Michael for identification and
clarification, Havelock countered with two suggestions: the first, to check
with the administrative assistant to the direffore of the Amministrazione di
Sicurezza; the second, to watch the United States embassy during the next
seventy-two hours, with particular attention paid to the individual in
question.
Me=anil" fumed the editor.
"Addio," said Michael, replacing the phone.
140
TFm PAwxFAL MosAic141
Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Baylor Brown, diplomatic attach6 and a prime
example of America's recognition of minorities, was out of a job. The
conduit was finished, his network rendered useless; it would take months,
possibly a year, to rebuild. And regardless of how seriously he was wounded,
Brown would be flown out of Rome within hours to explain the death of the
red-haired man on the Palatine.
The first floodgate had been opened. Others would follow. Every day it
takes wiU cost you.
He meant it.
"I'm glad you got here," said Daniel Stem, closing the door Of the white,
windowless room on the third floor of the State Department building. The two
men he addressed were sitting at the conference table: the balding
psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Miller, going through his notes; the attorney named
Dawson gazing absently at the wall, his hand resting on a yellow legal pad
in front of him. "rve just come from Walter Reedthe Baylor briefing. It's
all confirmed. I heard it myself, questioned him myself. He's one tom-apart
soldier, physically and emotionally. But he's reining tight; he's a good
man."
"No deviations from the original report?" asked the lawyer.
"Nothing substantive; he was thorough the first time. The capsule was
secreted in Ogilvie's cigarettes, a mild diphenylamine compound released
through a C-O-Two cartridge triggered by pressure."
"Thaes what Red meant when he told us be could take Havelock if he got him
within amYs reach," interrupted Miller quietly.
"He nearly did," said Stem, walking into the room. There was a red
telephone on a small table beside his chair; he flipped a switch on the
sloping front of the instrument and sat down. "Hearing Baylor tell it is a
lot more vivid than reading a dry report," said the director of Consular
Operations, and fell silent; the two strategists waited. Stem continued
softly. "He's quiet, almost passive, but you look at his face and you know
how deeply he feels. How responsible."
Dawson leaned forward. "Did you ask him what tipped Havelock off? It wasn't
in the report."
"It wasn't there because he doesn't know. Until the last second, Havelock
didjYt. appear to suspect anything. Just as
142 RoBERT LuDLum
the report says, the two of them were talking; Ogilvie took the cigarettes
out of his pocket and apparently asked for a light. Havelock reached into
his pocket for matches, brought them over to Red, and then it happened. He
suddenly Ideked out, sending Ogilvie reeling off the bench, and the capsule
exploded. When the smoke cleared, Red was on the ground and Havelock was
standing over him with a gun in his hand."
"Why didn't Baylor shoot then? At that moment?" The lawyer was disturbed;
it was in his voice.
"Because of us," replied Stem. "Our orders were firm. Havelock was to be
brought in alive. Only a 'last extremit3e judgment could intervene."
"He could have been," said Dawson quickly, almost questioningly. "I've read
Brown~s-Baylor's-service report. He's a qualified expert in weapons,
special emphasis on side arms. There's very little be's not a 'qualified
expere in; be's a walking advertisement for the NAACP and the officer
corps. Rhodes scholar, Special Forces, tactical guerrilla warfare. You name
it, he's got it in his file."
"He's black; he's had to be good. I told you that before. What's your
point?"
"He could have wounded Havelock. Legs, shoulders, the pelvic area. Between
them, he and Ogilvie could have taken him."
"That's asking for a lot of accuracy from seventy-five to a hundred feet."
"Twenty-five to thirty yards. Almost the equivalent of a handgun firing
range, and Havelock was standing still. He wasn't a moving target. Did you
question Baylor about that?"
"Frankly, I didn't see any reason to. He's got enough on his mind,
including a shot-up hand that may spell him out of the army. In my opinion,
be acted correctly in a hairy situation. He waited until he saw Havelock
point his gun at Ogilvie, until he was convinced Red didn't have a chance.
He only fired then, at the precise moment Ogilvie lunged up at Havelock,
taking the bullet. Everything corresponds with the autopsy in Rome."
"The delay cost Red his life," said Dawson, not satisfied.
"Shortened it," corrected the doctor. "And not by much~"
"That's also in the autopsy report," added Stem.
'11is may sound pretty cold under the circumstances,"
7~IE PARSTFAL MOSAJC143
said the attorney, "and perhaps it's related. We overestimated him."
"No," disagreed the director of Cons Op. "We underestimated Havelock. What
more do you need? It's been three days since the Palatine, and in those
three days be's destroyed a conduit, frightened off the locals in Rome-no
one wants to work for us now-and collapsed a network. Added to this he
routed a cable through Switzerland to the chairman of Congressional
Oversight, alludin
g to CIA incompetence and corruption in Amsterdam. And
this morning we get a call from the chief of White House security, who
doesn't know whether to be panicked or outraged. He, too, received a cable,
this one in sixteen-hundred cipher, implying that there was a Soviet mole
close to the President."
"That comes from Havelock's so-called confrontation with Rostov in Athens,"
said Dawson, glancing at the yellow legal pad. "Baylor reported it."
"And Paul here doubts that it ever took place," said Stern, looking at
Miller.
"Fantasy and reality," interjected the psychiatrist. "If all the
information we've gathered is accurate, he slips back and forth, unable to
distinguish which. If our data is accurate. In all likelihood, there~s a
degree of incompetence, perhaps minor corruption, in Amsterdam. However,
I'd think ies just as unlikely that a Soviet mole could break into the
presidential circle."
"We can and do make mistakes here," offered Stern, "as well as at the
Pentagon, and, God knows, in Langley. But over there the chances of that
type of error are minuscule. I don't say it can't happen or hasn't
happened, but anyone close to the Oval Office has had every year, every
month, every week of his life put under the microscope, even the Presfdenes
closest friends. The bright recruits are researched as if they might be
Stalin's heirs; ies been standard procedure since '47." The director paused
again, again not finished. His eyes strayed to the sheaf of loose notes in
front of the doctor. He continued slowly, pensively. "Havelock knows which
buttons to press, which people to reach, the right ciphers to use; even old
ciphers have impact. He can create panic because he gives his information
authenticity. . . . How far will he go, PauIr
144 ROBERT Lurmum
"No absolutes, Daniel," said the psychiatrist, sbRking his head. "Whatever
I say is barely above guesswork."
"Trained guesswork," interrupted the lawyer.
"How would you like to try R case without the benefit of pretrial
examination?' asked Miller.
"Yoeve got depositions, statistics, a current on-site briefing, and a
detailed dossier. It's fair background."
"Bad analogy. Sorry I brought it up."
"If we can't find him, how far will he go?" pressed the director of Cons
Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt Page 18
