The hell one doesdt."
228 RoBERT LUDLUM
"It they are trusted.-
You ask for a source. You donI leave a station and fly to a city hundreds
of miles away without being pretty damn sure the source can be confirmed."
'Very well," said the VKR officer, gliding confidently with the
cross-currents again. 'There was an investigation; a man was found in
Civitavecchia. He said you were on your way to Paris."
"When did you get the word?"
"Yesterday, of course," replied the Russian impatiently.
"When yesterdayr
"Late afternoon. Five-thirty, I believe. Five-thirty-five, to be precise."
Lie number two, the falsehood found in the precision. The deciWon to head
for Paris was forced on him after Col des Moulinets. Eight o'clock at
night.
'You're convinced that what I can divulge about our European intelligence
operations is of such value to you that you are willing to accept the
retaliations that come with defection at my level?"
"Naturally."
'Mat opinion Wt shared by the directors' committee of the KGB."
'Mey're fools. Frightened, tired rabbits among the wolves. Well replace
them."
"You're not troubled that I may be programmed? That whatever I tell you
could be poison, useless?"
"Not for a moment. les why you~re 'beyond salvage.'"
'Or that rm paranoid."
"Never. You're neither paranoid nor hallucinatory. You are what you have
always been, a highly intelligent specialist in your field."
Lie number three. Word of his supposed psychotic condition had been spread.
Washington belleved it, the dead OgX vie had confirmed it on the Palatine.
"I see," said Havelock, grimacing, feigning pain that needed very little
pretense. 'Trn so goddamned tired," he said, lowering the magnum slightly,
turning slightly to his left, his eyes millimeters from making contact with
the mirror on the wall. "I took a bullet. I haven't had any sleep. As you
said, I just keep running, trying to figure it out. . ~"
"What more Is there to figure?" asked the Russian, his
TkE PARsrrAL Mosmc229
voice now gliding into compassion. "It's basically an economic, time-saving
decision, you know that. Rather than altering codes, networks and sources,
they've decided to eliminate the man who knows too much. Sixteen years of
service in the field and this is your retirement bonus. 'Beyond salvage.' .
Michael lowered the gun further, his bead bent down but his eyes now on the
mirror. "I have to think," he whispered. "Ies all so crazy, so impossible."
Lie number four--the most teUing liel The Russian went for his gunt
Havelock spun around and f1red; the bullet snapped into the wall. The VKR
officer grabbed his elbow as blood erupted through his shirt and dripped
onto the floor. 'Ubliudokl" he cried.
We've only fust begunl" whispered Michael with cantrolled fury. He
approached the Russian and pushed him against the wall, then removed the
exposed weapon from the holster and threw it across the room. "Yoere too
sure of yourself, comrade, too sure of your factsf Never state them so
confidently; leave room for error because there may be one. You bad
several."
The Russian answered him with silence, his eyes full of both loathing and
resignation. Havelock knew those eyes, knew the combination of batred and
the recognition of mortality; they were intrinsic to the nature of certain
men, trained for years to hate and die. By any name they were recognizable:
Gestapo, Nippon Kai, Palestinian Liberationists, Voennaya.... And there
were lesser leagues, amateurs who knew nothing beyond arrogance and
bate-tbeir own deaths being no part of their childish bargains-screeching
fanatics who marched to the drimis of sanctimonious loathing.
Michael returned silence for silence, look for look. And then be spoke.
"Don't waste the adrenaline," be said quietly. "Im not going to kill you.
You're prepared for that; yoeve been ready for it for years. Damned if Im
going to accommodate you. Instead, Im going to blow off both your
kneecaps-and then your hands. You're not trained to live with the results.
No one is, really, especially not your kind. So many routine things'll be
beyond you. Simple things. Walking to a door or
230 RoBLmT LuDLum
a locked file cabinet, opening either one. Dialing a phone or going to the
toilet. Reaching for a gun and pulling a trigger."
The Russian~s face went pale and his lower lip began to tremble. -Nyet," he
whispered hoarsely.
"Da," said Havelock. "There's only one way you can stop me. Tell me what
happened at Costa Brava."
"I told youl Nothingl"
Michael lowered the magnum and fired Into the Soviet's thigh; blood
splattered against the wall. The Russian started to scream, collapsing on
the floor, Havelock gripped his mouth with his left band.
"I missed the kneecap. I won't miss now. Either one." He stood up, leveling
the weapon downward.
"Nol Stopf" The VKR officer rolled over, clutching his leg. He was broken;
he could accept death, but not what Michael had promised him. "ru tell you
what I know."
"rU know if youre lying. My finger's on the trigger, the gun pointed at
your right hand. If you lie, you won~t have it anymore.
'What I told you is true. We were not at Costa Brava that night."
"Your code was broken. Washington broke it. I saw it, I wnt itl"
"Washington broke nothing. That code was abandoned seven days prior to the
night of January fourth. Even if you sent it and we accepted it, we could
not have responded. It would have been physically impossible."
"Why?"
'We were nowhere near the area, any of us. We were sent out of the sector."
The Russian coughed in pain, his face twisted. "For the period of time in
question, all activities were canceled. We were prohibited from going
within twenty miles of the Montebello beach on the Costa Brava."
"Liarl"
"No," said the VKR officer, his bleeding leg pulled up under him, his body
taut, his eyes staring at Michael. "No, I am not lying. Those were the
orders from Moscow.-
7
BOOK
TWO
is
It was raining that night in Washington. Angry, diagonal
sheets were driven by erratic winds, making drivers
and
U mistrust their vision; headlights refracted,
=Vd7bli= in suddenly shifting angles. The chauffeur
at the wheel of the limousine heading down 14th Street
toward the East Cate of the White House was not immune
to the problem. He slammed on his brakes and swerved to
avoid an onrushing compact, whose high beams gave the il
lusion of a huge attacking insect. The small car was well to
his left on its side of the line, so the maneuver had
been un
necessary. The chauffeur wondered if his very important pas
sengers had noticed the error.
"Sorry, sirs," he said, his voice directed at the intercom, his eyes on the
rearviewmirror and the glass partition that sel>arated him from them.
Neither man responded. it was
as if neither had heard him, yet he knew both
had; the blue intercom light was on, which meant that his voice was
transmitted. The red light, of course, was dark; he could not hear anything
being said in the rear seat. The red light was always off, except when in-
structions were being given, and twice every day the system was checked in
the garage before he or any other driver left the premises. It was said
that tiny circuit breakers had been 233
234 RoBImT LunLum
installed that tripped at the slightest tampering with the Intercom
mechanism.
Ile men who rode in these limousines had been assigned them by the
President of the United states, and the chauffeurs who drove them were
continuously subjected to the most stringent security cheeks. Each of them
was unmarri d and without children, and each was a combat veteranproven
under fire-with extensive experience in guerrilla warfare and diversionary
tactics. The vehicles they drove were designed for maximum protection. The
windows could withstand the impact of A5-cahber bullets; homing devices
were Implanted throughout the undersides, and small jets that released two
separate types of gas with a flick of a switch were positioned at all
points of the frame-one gas merely numbed and was used for riots and unruly
protestors, while the other was a lethal dioxide compound, which was
designed for terrorists. The chauffeurs were told: "Guard your passengers
with your lives." Ilese men held the secrets of the nation; they were the
Presidenes closest advisers in times of crisis.
. The driver glanced at the dashboard clock. It was nine. twenty, nearly
four hours since he had driven the same vehicle back into the garage after
completing a previous Usignment, waited for the electronics check, and left
for the night. Thirty-five minutes later he had been having a drink at a
restaurant on K Street and was about to order dinner when the jarring
one-note signal of his beeper erupted from its case on his belt. He had
telephoned the unlisted number fir Security Dispatch and was ordered to the
garage fmmediately: Aqum*js One anergency, Scorpio descending. Out of
context and out of orbit, but the message was clear. The Oval Office had
pushed a button; the senior drivers were now on duty, all prim schedules
aborted.
Back in the garage he had been mildly surprised to see
ie
d 'an"
'e for b
I - -s
thatonl tw vehi es~ p rep
d
tO ve blackh Ab A
Y
d 0 sestretcr ams
d
of their d an re~dyinstead ' there
were ~ered to an a ~Yn Heig hts
e dn B
s s_
to
I to
M ;d ndF da t
th two~~g flo~9 rmy .
b a 3 s from arate islands in the Caribbean. Times
had b coordinated, the ETXs were within fifteen minutes of
each other.
The Younger of the two old men had arrived first, and the
THE PARsiFAL MosAic235
driver recognized him instantly; not everyone would have done so. His name
was Halyard, like the line on a sailboat, but his reputation had been made
on land. Lieutenant General Malcohn Halyard: WW II, Korea, Vietnam. The bald
soldier had started off commanding platoons and companies in France and
across the Rhine, then battalions in Kaesong and Inchon, and, finally,
armies in Southeast Asia, where the driver had seen him more than once in
Danang. He was something of an oddball in the upper ranks of the military;
he was never known to have held a press conference, and he had been known to
bar photographers-military and civilian alike-from wherever be happened to
be. "figbtrope Halyard was considered a brilliant tactician, one of the
flrst to state for the Congressional Record that Vietnam was nowin idiocy.
He avoided publicity with the same tenacity that he showed on the
battlefleld, and his low proffle, it was said, appealed to the President.
The general had been escorted to the limousine and, after greeting the
driver, had waited in the back seat without another word.
The second man had arrived twelve minutes later. He was as far removed from
"righbrope" Halyard as the eagle is from the lion, but both were superb
examples of their species. Addison Brooks bad been a lawyer, an
international banker, a consultant to statesmen, an ambassador, and finally
an elder statesman himself and adviser to presidents. He was the embodiment
of the Eastern Establishment aristocracy, the last of the old-school-tie
crowd, the ultimate WASP, who tempered the image with a swift wit that
could be as gentle and compassionate as it could be devastating. He had
survived the political wars by exercising the same agility displayed by
Halyard on the battlefleld. In essence, both men would compromise with
reality, but not with principle. This was not, of course, the driver's own
judgment; he had read about it in the Washington Post, his interest having
been drawn to a political column that had analyzed the two advisers because
he knew the ambassador and had seen the general in Danang. He had driven
the ambassador on a number of occasions, flattered that old Brooks
remembered his name and always bad a little personal something to say to
him: "I have a grandson who swears he saw you play your one two-minute game
for the Steelers, Jack." Or: "Damn it,
238 RoBLPnT LuDLUM
Jack, d0111 YOU ever put on weight? My wife makes me drink my gin with some
God-awful diet fruit juice." The last had to be an exaggeration; the
ambassador was a tall, slender man, his silver heir, aquiline features and
perfectly groomed gray moustache making him look more English than American.
Tonight, however, there had been no personal greeting at Andrews Field, and
no jokes. Instead, Brooks bad 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 spreeting.
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 fen silent, or so it appeared, at least,
whenever the drivez~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 tumed into the short drive that
led to the East Cate 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 concem us, Yahoo," had been the rePly. "Your likes and
dislikes have yet to become policy around here. just do your job."
THE PARWAL MOSAic 237
Of course that was the point-the job. if part of the job was to protect
Bradfords 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 flrm 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-Anwrican. 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 didiA give a doodilly
shit about anything except their hides and their proflts. They were the
ones who were spitting and burning everything that could not be traded or
sold, and laughing lesus, were they lauglungl At their so-called savfors,
the pink-faced, round-eyed suckers who took the fire and the land mines,
and lost heads and faces and arms and legs.
Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt Page 30
