"We were extremely thorough with him," said Berquist. "Under the
circumstances, we were able to bring in the Central Intelligence Agency and
those people were aggressive. What are you looking for?'
"I'm not sure. Someone who's not around anymore, perhaps. A puppet."
. I won't try to follow that."
"I may need your direct intervention in one area, however.
THE PARsiFAL MosAic511
You said before that the Pentagon frequently balks at being questioned by
White House personnel."
"It goes with the uniforms; they're not worn over here. I expect you're
referring to the Nuclear Contingency Committees. I saw them on your list."
"I am."
"They're touchy. Rightfully so, I'd say."
"I have to talk to every member of those three teams; that's fifteen senior
officers. Can you get word to the chairman that you expect them all to
cooperate with Mr. Cross? Not in the area of maximum restricted
information, but in terms of-progress evaluation."
"One of those phrases again."
"It says it, Mr. President. It would help if you could work Matthias irL"
"All right," said Berquist slowly. "III lay it on the great man. It's not
in character, but he can hardly deny it. I'll have my military aide convey
the word: the Secretary of State wants those committees to provide an
in-depth progress report for the Oval Office. A simple memorandum ordering
cooperation within the limits of maximum classification should do it ...
They'll say there's a crossover, of course. You can't have one without
violating the other."
"Then tell them to err on the side of classification. The final report's
for your eyes only, anyway."
"Anything else?"
"The psychiatric file on Matthias. Bradford was to have gotten it for me."
"I'm going to Camp David tomorrow. III detour to Poole's Island and bring
it back with me."
"One thing more. This Mrs. Howell; outside of calling in the Secret Service
if anyone approaches her about me, what has she been told to say? About me,
my functions?"
"Only that you're on a special assignment for the President."
"Can you change it?"
"To what?"
"Routine assignment. Researching old agendas so White House files can be
completed on various matters."
"We have people doing that. It's basically political-bow is this position
defended, or why did that senator buck us and how do we stop him from doing
it again."
512 ROBERT LuDLum
'Put me in with the crowd."
"You're in it. Good luck ... but then you'll need a great deal more than
luck. This world needs more than luck. Sometimes I think we need a miracle
to last another week. . . . Keep me informed; my orders are that whenever
Mr. Cross calls, I'm to be interrupted."
Bradford's secretary, one Elizabeth Andrews, was at home, the sensational
death of her superior having had its emotional impact. A number of newspaper
people bad telephoned her, and she had relayed the events of yesterday
morning sadly but calmly, until a gossip-oriented reporter, noting
Bradford's marital track record, hinted at a sexual entanglement.
"You sick bitch," Elizabeth had said, slamming down the phone.
Havelock's call came twenty minutes later, and Elizabeth Andrews was not
inclined to tell the tale again. He suggested she call him back at the
White House when she felt better, the ploy worked. The phone in the study
in Fairfax rang six minutes after Michael had bung up.
Tm sorry, Mr. Cross. les been a very trying time and some very trying
reporters."
"m be as brief as possible."
She recounted the morning's events, beginning with Bradford's sudden and
unexpected emergence from his offlee shortly after she had arrived.
"He looked dreadful. He~d obviously been up all night and was exhausted,
but there was something else. A kind of manic energy; he was excited about
something. Ive seen him like that lots of times, of course, but somehow
yesterday it was different. He spoke louder than he usually did."
Mat could have been the exhaustion," said Havelock. "It often works that
way. A person compensates because be feels weak.'
Perhaps, but I don't think so, not with him, not yesterday morning. I know
it sounds ghastly, but I think he'd made up his mind . . . that's a
horrible thing to say, but I believe it. it was as though he were
exhilarated, actually looking forward to the moment when it was going to
happen. Ies ghoulish, but he left the office shortly before ten, said he
was going out for a few minutes, and I have this terrible picture
THE PARsxFAL MosAic513
of him out on the street, looking up at the windowand
thinking to himself, Yes, this is it."
"Could there be another explanation? Could he have been going to see
someone?"
"No, I don't think so. I asked him if he'd be in another office in case a
call came for him and he said no, he was going out for some air."
"He never mentioned why he'd been there all night?"
"Only that he'd been working on a project that he'd fallen behind on. He'd
been doing a fair amount of traveling recently~"
"Did you set up the transportation arrangements for him?'" interrupted
Havelock.
"No, he usually did that himself. As you probably know~
--be often . . . took someone with him. He was divorced, several times
actually. He was a very private person, Mr. Cross. And so very unhappy."
"Why do you say that?"
Ms. Andrews paused, then spoke firmly. "Emory Bradford was a brilliant man,
and they didn't pay attention to him. He was once very influential in this
city until be told the truthas he saw the truth-and as soon as the applause
died down, they all ran away from him."
"You've been with him a long time."
"A long time. I saw it all happen."
"Could you give me examples of this running away from him?"
"Sure. To begin with, he was consistently overlooked when his experience,
his expertise could have been of value. Then he'd frequently write position
papers, correcting powerful men and women-senators, congressmen,
secretaries of this and that-who had made stupid mistakes in interviews and
press conferences, but if one out of ten ever responded or thanked him, I
never knew about it, and I would have. He'd monitor the early-morning
television programs, where the worst gaffes are made-just as be was doing
yesterday, right up to the end-and dictate what be called clariflcations.
They were always gentle, even kind, never offensive, and, sure enough,
'clarifications' were usually issued, but never any thanks."
"He was watching television yesterday morning?"
"For a while . . .- before it happened. At least, the set was
514 ROBEIRT LUDLUM
rolled out to the front of his desk. He moved it back ... before it
happened. Right up until th~ end he couldn't break the babit. He wanted
people to be better than they are; he wanted the government to be better."
"Were there any notes on his desk that could have told you whom he was
watching?"
"No, nothing. It was like h
is final gesture, leaving this world tidler than
he'd found it. I've never seen his desk so neat, so clean."
"I'm sure you haven't."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Nothing. I was agreeing with you ... I know you were at lunch, but were
there any people in the vicinity of his office door who might have seen
someone go in or out?"
"Me police covered that, Mr. Cross. There are always people milling around;
we all have different lunch breaks, depending on what's happening in what
time zone, but no one saw anything unusual. Actually, our section was
pretty much cleared out. We had a secretarial pool meeting at onethirty, so
most of us-"
"Who called that meeting, Miss Andrews?"
"This month's chairman-tben, of course, he said he didn7t, so we sat around
drinking coffee."
"Didn't you get a memo about the meeting?"
"No, the word was just passed around that morning. It frequently is; that's
'standard."
"Thank you very much. You've been most helpful."
"Ies all such a waste, Mr. Cross. Such a goddamned terrible waste."
"I know. Good-bye." Havelock bung up and spoke, his eyes still on the
phone. "Our man is good," he said. "Invisible paint."
"She couldn't tell you anything?"
"Yes, she did. Bradford listened to me. He went outside to a booth and
called for whatever it was be wanted. The number we need won't be found
charged to his office phone; it's among a couple of million lost in the
underground trunk lines."
"Nothing else?"
. Maybe something." Michael looked over at Jenna, a frown on his face, his
eyes clouded. "See if you can find a copy of yesterday's paper around here,
will you? I want to
TnE PARwAL Mosmc 515
know the name of every senior offleial at State who was interviewed on the
morning television programs. It's crazy. The last thing on Bradford's mind
was television."
jenna found the newspaper. No one from the Department of State had been
on television that morning.
31
If Talbot County, Maryland, had an esteemed physician in Dr. Matthew
Randolph, it also had an extremely unpleasant man. Born to Eastern Shore
money, raised in the tradition of privilege, which included the finest
schools and clubs, and possessing what amounted to unlimited funds, he
nevertheless abused everyone and everything within these rarefied circles in
the pursuit of medicine.
When he was thirty, having graduated magna cum laude from Johns Hopkins and
completed pathological and surgical r!sidencies at Massachusetts General
and New York, be decided he could not function at his talented best within
the stultifying, politicized confines of a normal hospital. The answer for
him was simple: he virtually extorted monies from the legions of the
Chesapeake privileged, threw in an initial two million dollars himself and
opened his own fifty-bed medical center.
It was run his way, which amounted to a none too benevolent dictatorship.
There was no exclusivity with regard to admission, but there was a
rule-of-thiLunb policy: the rich were soaked outrageously for services
rendered them, and the poor given financial consideration only after
enduring the ignominy of disclosing overwhelming proof of poverty and
listening to a lecture on the sin of indolence. Rich and poor alike,
however, continued in growing numbers to put up with these
516
THE PARsxFAL MosAic517
insults, for over the years the Randolph Medical Center had established a
reputation that was second to none. Its laboratory equipment was the finest
money could buy; its generously paid staff physicians were the brightest
graduates from the best schools and toughest residencies; the visiting
surgical and pathological specialists were flown in from all over the globe,
and the talents of the overpaid technicians and nursing corps were far in
excess of normal hospital standards. In essence, treatment at Randolph was
both medically superb and personally gratifying. The only way it might be
improved upon, some said, would be to remove the abrasive personality of the
sixty-eight-year-old Matthew Randolph. However, others pointed out that one
way to cripple a smoothly running craft in rough waters was to tear out the
throttle because the engine pitch was grating to the ears. And in Randolph's
case, short of his own death-which seemed unlikely for several
centuries-physically tearing him out was the only way to remove him.
Besides, who else could look down at a nephew of Emile du Pont just before
an operation and ask, "How much is your life worth to you?"
In the du Pont case, it was a million-dollar-plus tie-in computer with four
of the nation's leading research centers.
Havelock learned these details from CIA files as be researched the death of
a black-operations officer named Steven MacKenzie, the "engineer" of Costa
Brava. In Cagnessur-Mer, Henri Salanne bad by implication questioned the
veracity of the doctor who signed MacKenzie's death certificate. Michael in
his own mind had gone further; he had considered altered laboratory
reports, autopsy findings not consistent with the state of the corpse
and-after the President had mentioned X-rays-the obvious switching of
photographic plates. However, in light of the information on Randolph and
his Medical Center, it was difficult to credit these possibilities.
Everything connected to and with the official cause of death was processed
through Randolph's personal on-site attendance and his own laboratories.
The abrasive doctor might well be dictatorial, petulant, most definitely
opinionated and unpleasant, but if ever there was a person who deserved to
be called a man of integrity, it was Matthew Randolph. His Medical Center,
too, was irreproachable. All things considered--aU things-there was no
reason on earth for either to be otherwise.
518 Roi3ErtT LuDLum
And for Havelock, that was the flaw. It was simply too symmetrical. Pieces
rarely, if ever, fell into place-even negatively-so precisely. There were
always eaves to explore that might lead to hidden pools-whether they did or
not was irrevelant, the eaves were there. Here, there were none.
The first indication Michael had that there might be substance to his
doubts was the fact that Matthew Randolph did not return his first call. In
every other instance, including calls to eight senior officers of the
Pentagon's Nuclear Contingency Committees, Bradford's secretary, CIA and
NSC personnel, the phone in Fairfax bad rung within minutes after he placed
the contact call. One did not dismiss lightly a request to reach a
presidential aide at the White House.
Dr. Matthew Randolph apparently felt no such compulsion. And so Havelock
bad phoned a second time, only to be told: "The doctor is extremely busy
today. He said to say be'll get back to you, Mr. Cross, when be has the
free time."
"Did you explain that I'm to be reached at the White House?"
"Yes, sir." The secretary bad paused, embarrassment in her brief silence.
"He said to tell you the Center's paint
ed white, too," she added in a very
soft voice. "He said that, Mr. Cross, I diddt."
"Then tell Genghis Khan for me that III either bear from him within the
hour or be may find the sheriff of Talbot County escorting him to the
D.C.-Maryland border, where a White House detail will pick hina up and
bring him down here."
Matthew Randolph returned the call, in fifty-eight minutes.
"Who the hell do you think you are, Cross?"
"An extremely overworked nonentity, Dr. Randolph."
"You threatened mel I dodt like threats whether they come from the White
House or a blue house or an outhousel I trust you get my meaning."
"III convey your feelings to the President."
"Do that. He's not the worst, but I could think of better.0
"You might even get along."
"I doubt it. Sincere politicians bore me. Sincerity and politics are
diametrically opposed. What do you want? If it's any kind of endorsement,
you can start with a healthy govemmeat research grant."
ThE PAwirAL MosAjc519
"I have an idea President Berquist would entertain that idea only if you
openly opposed him."
Randolph paused. "Not bad," he said. "What do you want? We're busy here."
I want to ask you several questions about a man-a dead man-named Steven
MacKenzie."
Again the doctor paused, but it was a different silence. And when he
resumed speaking, it was in a different tone. Previously his hostility had
been genuine; now it was forced.
"Damn it, how many times do we have to go over that? MacKenzie died of
stroke-a massive aortal hemorrhage, an aneurysn-4 to be precise. I turned
over the pathology report and conferred with your spook doctors till hell
froze over. 7beYve got it all.-
"Spook doctors?"
'Mey sure as hell wereift from Mary-General or Baltimore's Mother of Mercy,
I can tell you. Nor did they claim to be." Randolph paused again; Michael
did not fin the moment. He was listening with a trained ear, silences and
audible breathing being a part of the abstract tonal picture he was trying
to define. The doctor continued, his phrases too rushed, the edge of his
voice too sharp; his previous confidence was waning, replaced by volume
alone. "You want any information on MacKenzie, you get it from them. We all
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