Robert Ludlum - The Parcifal Mosaic.txt

by The Parcifal Mosaic [lit]

  'I'm really sorry, I don7t have time."

  Michael pressed himself away from the bar and started for the door. He did

  not see a man at the far end of the room get off his stool and walk to the

  telephone.

  Fourforks Pike became a slowly curving, interminable backeountry road less

  than a mile west of the old railroad depot. The first post-office box was

  marked 5; prominently anchored In the ground on his right, it was clearly

  visible through the snow in the glare of the headlights. The next, however,

  Havelock would have missed had he not suddenly become aware of a break in

  the foliage; it was a narrow dirt

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC349

  road on his left, and the box could not be seen from the pike. It was number

  7, negating the rule that said odd and even numbers meant different sides in

  a delivery route. He would have to drive more slowly and keep his eyes more

  alert.

  The next three boxes were all within a half mile, each in sequence, the

  last number 10. Two hundred yards beyond, the road split-the first of

  presumably four forks on the pike. He took the straighter line, the fork on

  the right. Number 11 did not appear until he had driven nearly a mile and

  a half; when he saw it he briefly closed his eyes in relief. For several

  agonizing moments he had been convinced he had taken the wrong road. He

  pressed his foot on the accelerator, his mouth dry, the muscles of his face

  rigid, his eyes straining.

  If the road was interminable-made worse by the spiraling snow against the

  windshield-the wait for the final sighting was torturously so. He entered

  a long, seemingly endless stretch of flat, straight ground, which, as near

  as he could determine, was bordered by fields or pastures; but there were

  no houses, no lights anywhere. Had he passed it? Was his vision so

  distorted by the silent pounding of the snow that the post-office box had

  gone by without his spotting it? Was there an unseen road on his right or

  his left, a metal receptacle off the shoulder, covered perhaps? It was not

  logical; the snow was heavier, but not yet heavy, and the wind was too

  strong for the snow to settle.

  It was therel On the right. A large black mailbox, shaped like a miniature

  Quonset hut, the covered opening wide enough to receive small packages. The

  number 12 was stenciled in white-thick white enamel that threw back the

  light as though challenged in the darkness. Havelock slowed down and peered

  through the window; again there were no lights beyo:~ no signs of life

  whatsoever. There was only what appear to be a long road that disappeared

  into a wall of trees and further darkness.

  He drove on, eyes straining, looking for something else, something he could

  not miss if and when he came across it. He only hoped it would be soon, and

  several hundred yards beyond box number 12, be found a reasonable

  facsimile. Not ideal but, with the snow, acceptable. It was a bank of wild

  foliage that had crept toward the edge of the road, the end of a property

  line, or a demarcation signifying no responsibility. Whatever it was, it

  would do.

  350 ROBERT LuDLum

  He drove the car off the shoulder and into the cluster of bushes and high

  grass. He extinguished the headlights and opened his suitcase in the front

  seat. He removed all identification and shoved it into the elasticized rear

  pocket, then took out a heavy leaded plastic bag impervious to X-rays, the

  kind often used for transporting exposed film. He peeled it open and

  removed the Llama automatic; the magazine was full. Last, he reached into

  the suitcase for the scaling knife he had used at Col des Moulinets; it was

  sheathed in a thin leather scabbard with a clip. Awkwardly be pulled up the

  sides of his topcoat and shoved it behind his trousers into the small of

  his hack, clipping it. to his belt at the base of his spine. He hoped

  neither weapon would be called for; words were hifinitely preferable,

  frequently more effective.

  He got out of the car, locked it, pushed the snow-swept fohage up around

  the sides, obliterated the tracks, and started down the Fourforks Pike

  toward P.O. Box 12, RFD 3, Mason Falls, Pennsylvania.

  He had walked no more than thirty feet off the highway into the long,

  narrow road that seemed to disappear into a wall of darkness beyond when he

  stopped. Whether it was the years he had spent instinctively studying alien

  groundaware that an unknown path at night might hold lethal surprises-or

  the wind off the fields that caused him to angle his head downward against

  it, he could not tell. He was merely grateful that he saw it: a tiny

  greenish dot of light on his right about two feet above the snow-patched

  earth. It appeared to be suspended, but he knew it wasn't. Instead, it was

  wired to the end of a thin black metal tube that was sunk at least another

  two feet into the ground for stability. It was a photoelectric cell, its

  counterpart across the road, an invisible beam of light crossing the

  darkness, connecting both terminals. Anything breaking that beam for more

  than a second or with a weight density of more than fifty pounds would

  trigger an alarm somewhere. Small animals could not do it, automobiles and

  human beings could not fail to do it.

  Michael sidestepped cautiously to his right through the cold, wet

  overgrowth to pass beyond the device. He stopped again at the edge of the

  tangled bushes, aware of a line of flickering white parallel with his

  shoulders, knowing suddenly that there was another obstacle. It was a

  barbed-wire fence bordering an adjacent field, flakes of snow clinging

  THE PARsnrAL MosAxc351

  briefly to the barbs before being whipped away. He had not seen it entering

  the side road marked by post-office box number 12; he looked back and

  understood. The fence did not begin until the foliage was high enough to

  conceal it. And that meant he understood something else; again, weight den-

  sity. Sufficient pressure against the thinly spaced wires would et off

  further alarms. Janos Kohoutek was very security-concious. ConsideFing his

  location, he had paid for the best he could get.

  This, then, was the path, thought Havelock. Between the green trip light

  and the shoulder-high barbed-wire fence. For if there was one photoelectric

  alarm, there were others along the way because the expectation of

  malfunction was an innate part of protection technology. He wondered how

  long "the way" was; he could see virtually nothing but foliage and darkness

  and swirling snow in front of him. He started to literally push ahead,

  bending the tangled brush and webbed branches with his hands and arms, as

  he kept his eyes riveted on the ground for dots of.eerfe green light.

  He passed three, then four, each spaced roughly two hundred and fifty to

  three hundred feet apart. He reached the wall of tall trees, the fence

  growing higher as if commanded by nature. He was soaked now, his face cold,

  his brows iced, but movement was easier through the thicktrunked trees that

  seemingly had been planted at random but nevertheless formed a visual wall.

  Suddenly he realized he was heading downwar
d, descending. He looked over at

  the road; the decline there was sharper, the mottled surface of dirt and

  snow no longer in sight. There was a break in the trees; the narrow,

  sloping path he bad to take was still overgrown, the high grass and untamed

  bushes bending in the wind and glazed with white.

  And then spread below him was a sight that both hypnotized and disturbed

  him, in the same way he had reacted to the first sight of Jacob Handelman.

  He plunged down through the thickets of brush, falling twice into the cold,

  prickly bushes, his eyes on the bewildering view below.

  At first glance it was like any farm buried in the deeper countryside,

  protected in the front by sloping fields, endless woods beyond. There was

  a group of buildings, solid, simple, constructed of heavy wood for severe

  winters, the lights in various windows flickering in the snowfall: a main

  house and

  352 ROBEnT LuDLum

  several barns, a silo, tool sheds and shelters for tractors and plows and

  harvesting equipment. They were indeed what they seemed to be, Havelock was

  sure, but he knew they were more. Much more.

  It began with the gate at the end of the sloping road. It was framed

  unpretentiously with iron piping; the mesh was ordinary mesh, but it was

  higher than it had to be, higher than it should be for the entrance to a

  farm. Not higher to a conspicuous degree, but simply higher than seemed

  necessary, as if the builder had made a slight error In the height

  specification and had decided to live with the mistake. Then there was the

  fence that spanned out from both sides of the unprepossessing gate; it,

  too, was strange, somehow askew, also higher than it had to be for the

  purpose of containing animals in the ascending grazing fields before it.

  Was it just the height? It was no more than seven feet, Michael judged as

  he drew closer; it had appeared much shorter from above-again nothing

  strange ... but somehow wrong. And then he realized what it was, why the

  word "askew" had come to mind. The top of the barbed-wire fence was angled

  inward. That fence was not meant to keep animals from breaking in, it was

  designed to keep people from breaking outl

  Suddenly the blinding beam of a searchlight shot out from the upper regions

  of the silo, it was arcing around-toward him.

  This was the 1980s, but he was standing in front of a symbol of human

  carnage that went back forty years. It was a concentration campl

  "We wondered how long it would take you," said a voice behind him.

  He spun around, reaching for his weapon. It was too late.

  Powerful arms gripped him around the neck, arching him backwards, as a pair

  of hands plunged a soft, wet, acridsmelling cloth into his face.

  The beam of the searchlight zeroed in on him. He could see it, feel it, as

  his nostrils began to bum. Then the darkness came, and he could neither see

  nor feel.

  21

  He felt the warmth first; he found it not particularly pleasant but merely

  different from the cold. When he opened his eyes, his vision blurred, coming

  into focus slowly, he simultaneously became aware of the nausea in his

  throat and the stinging sensation on his face. The pungent odor lingered in

  his nostrils; he had been anesthetized with pure ethyl ether.

  He saw flames, logs burning behind a black-bordered screen, in a large

  brick fireplace. He was on the floor in front of the slate hearth; his

  topcoat had been removed, and his wet clothes were heating up

  uncomfortably. But part of the discomfort was in the small of his back; the

  scaling knife was still in place, the leather scabbard irritating his skin.

  He was grateful for the pain.

  He rolled over slowly, inch by inch, his eyes half closed, observing what

  he could by the light of the fire and several table lamps. He heard the

  sound of muffled voices; two men were talking quietly beyond a plain brown

  sofa at the other end of the room; they stood together in a hallway. They

  had not noticed his movement, but they were his guards. The room itself was

  in concert with the rustic structures outsidesolid, functional furniture,

  thick plaited rag rugs scattered about over a wide-beamed floor, windows

  bordered by redM

  354 RoiwnT Lumum

  checkered curtains that might have come from a Sears Roebuck catalogue.

  It was a simple living room in a country farmhouse, nothIng more or less,

  and nothing suggesting it might be something else-or someplace else-to

  disturb a visitor's eye. If anything, the room was Spartan, without a

  woman~s touch, entirely male.

  Michael slid his watch slowly into view. It was one o'clock In the morning,

  he had been unconscious for nearly forty-five minutes.

  "Hey, he's awakel" cried one of the men.

  "Get Mr. Kohoutek," said the other, walking across the room toward

  Havelock. He rounded the sofa and reached under his leather jacket to pull

  out a gtm. He smiled; the weapon was the Spanish Llama automatic that had

  traveled from a mfst-laden pier in Civitavecchia, through the Palatine and

  Col des Moulinets, to Mason Falls, Pennsylvania. "This Is good hardware,

  Mr. No-Name. I haven't seen one like it in years. Thanks a lot."

  Michael was about to answer, but was interrupted by the rapid, heavy-footed

  entrance of a man who walked out of the hallway carrying a glass of

  steaming liquid in his hand.

  "You are very free with odds and ends," thundered Janos Kohoutek. "Be

  careful or you'll walk barefoot in the snow."

  Nie shodz sniegu bez butow.

  Kohoutek's accent was that of the dialect of the Carpathian Mountains south

  of Otrokovfce. The words alluding to bare feet in the snow were part of the

  Czecb-Moravian admonition to wastrels who did not earn their keep or their

  clothes. To understand the cold, walk barefoot in the snow.

  Kohoutek came around the guard and was now fully in view. He was a bull of

  a man, his open shirt emphasizing the thickness of his neck and chest, the

  stretched cloth marking the breadth of his heavy shoulders; age had not

  touched his physique. He was not tall, but he was large, and the only in-

  dication of his years was in his face-more jowl than facedeeply lined, eyes

  deeply set, the flesh wom by well over sixty years of driven living. The

  hot, dark brown liquid in the glass was tea-black Carpathian tea. The man

  holding it was Czech by birth, Moravian by conviction.

  'So here is our invaderl" he roared, staring down at Havelock. "A man with

  a gun, but with no identification-not even

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC355

  a driver's licence or credit card, or a billfold to carry such things

  in-attacks my farm like a commandol Who is this stalker in the night? What

  is his business? His namep"

  "Havli6ek," said Michael in a low, sullen voice, pronounoing the name in an

  accent close to Moravian. "Mikhail Havlf6ek."

  Cesk#?-

  "Ano' -

  "Obchodni?" shouted Kohoutek, asking Havelock his business.

  "Md Lerm," replied Michael, answering. "The woman."

  "Co, Lena?" demanded the aging bull.

  "The one who was brought here this morning," said Havelock, continuing in />
  Czech.

  "Two were brought in this momingl Which?"

  "Blond hair ... when we last saw her."

  Kohoutek grinned, but not with amusement. "Chlipn#,- be said, leering.

  "Her body doegn7t interest me, the information she has does." Michael

  raised himself. "May I get up?"

  'VMdnim phpad&" The mountain bull roared again as he rushed forward,

  lashing his right foot out, the boot catching Havelock in the throat,

  making him reel back on the slate hearth.

  "Proklat&" shouted Havelock, grabbing his neck. It was the moment to react

  in anger, the beginning of the words that mattered. "I paidl" he yelled in

  Czech. "What do you think yoxi~re doingl"

  "You paid what? To ask about me on the highway? To sneak up on my house in

  the middle of the night? To carry a gun into my farm? I'll pay youl"

  "I did what I was toldl"

  By whom?-

  "Jacob Handelman."

  "Handelman?" Kohouteles full, battered face was stretched into an

  expression of bewilderment. "You paid Handelman? He sent you?"

  "He told me he would phone you, get in touch with you~" said Michael

  quickly, using a truth from Paris that the halfway man had denied in New

  York, denied for profit. "I waset to call you under any circurnstances.

  Lwas to leave

  356 RoBERT LUDLUM

  my car on the highway past your mailbox and walk down the road to your

  farm."

  "The highway? You asked questions about me in a caf46 on the highwayl"

  "I didn~t know where the Fourforks Pike was. How could I? Did you have a

  man there? Did he call you?"

  The Czech-Moravian shook his head. `It doesn't matter. An Italian with a

  truck. He drives produce for me sometimes." Kohoutek stopped; the menace

  returned to his eyes. "But you did not walk down my road. You came in like

  a thief, an armed thieff"

  "I'm no fool, pHteli. I know what you have here and I looked for trip

  alarms. I was with the Podzemi. I found them and so I was cautious; I

  wanted no dogs on me or men shooting at me. Why do you think it took me so

  long to get here from that caf6 on the highway?"

  '-fou paid Handelman?"

  "Very handsomely. May I get up?'

  "Get upl Sit, sitl" ordered the mountain bull, pointing to a short deacon's

  bench to the left of the fireplace, his expression more bewildered than