The Parsifal Mosaic (35 page)

The ambassador and the general glanced at Bradford then turned to the photographs. Addison Brooks spoke. “The fellow on the upper right is named Stern. David or Daniel Stern, I believe. He’s over at State, isn’t he? One of the European specialists, bright, analytical, a good man.”

“Yes,” confirmed Berquist quietly. “What about you, Mal? Recognize anybody up there?”

“I’m not sure,” said the retired general, squinting at the screen. “The one below this Stern, lower right. I think I’ve seen him before.”

“You have,” said Bradford. “He spent time at the Pentagon.”

“I can’t picture the uniform, the rank.”

“He didn’t wear one, have one. He’s a doctor; he testified before a number of panels on P.O.W. trauma. You were seated on two or three, I believe.”

“Yes, of course, I remember now. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“One of the leading authorities on stress behavior,” said Bradford, watching the two old men.

“What was that?” the ambassador asked urgently. “Stress behavior?”

The words startled the advisers. The old soldier leaned forward. “Is there a connection?” he demanded of the undersecretary.

“To Parsifal?”

“Who the hell else would I mean?
Is
there?”

“There is, but that’s not it.”

“What isn’t?” asked Brooks apprehensively.

“Miller’s specialization. That’s his name. Dr. Paul Miiler. We don’t think his link to Parsifal has anything to do with his studies of stress.”

“Thank God,” muttered the general.

“Then what is?” the elder diplomat pressed impatiently.

“May I, Mr. President?” asked Bradford, his eyes on the Commander in Chief. Berquist nodded silently; the undersecretary turned to the screen and the photographs. “The two men on the left, top and bottom, respectively, are John Philip Ogilvie and Victor Alan Dawson.”

“Dawson’s an attorney,” interrupted Addison Brooks. “I’ve never met him but I’ve read a number of his briefs. He’s brilliant in the area of international treaty negotiations. He has a gut feeling for foreign legal systems and their nuances.”

“Brilliant,” agreed the President softly,

“The last man,” continued Bradford rapidly, “was no less an expert in his line of work. He was an undercover agent for nearly twenty years, one of the most knowledgeable tacticians in the field of covert operations.”

The undersecretary’s use of the past tense was not lost on
the two advisers. They looked at each other, and then at President Berquist. The Minnesotan nodded.

“They’re dead,” said the President, bringing his right hand to his forehead, his fingers nervously massaging his brows. “All of them. Ogilvie died four days ago in Rome, a misplaced bullet, the circumstances acceptable. The others were not accidents; they were killed here. Dawson and Stem simultaneously, Miller twenty miles away at the same time.”

The ambassador leaned forward, his eyes on the screen. “Four men,” he said anxiously. “One an expert in European affairs and policies, another an attorney whose work was almost exclusively in international law, the third a veteran undercover agent with broad tactical experience, and the fourth a psychiatrist acknowledged to be a leading specialist in stress behavior.”

“An odd collection of targets,” concluded the old soldier.

“They’re connected, Mal,” said Brooks. “To each other before Parsifal. Am I correct, Mr. President?”

“Let Emory explain,” replied Berquist “He has to take the heat, so let him explain.”

Bradford’s glance conveyed the fact that the explanation might be his to give but responsibility should be shared. Nevertheless, his slow intake of breath and the quiet delivery of his voice also indicated that he expected the worst.

“These men were the strategists of Consular Operations.”

“Costa Brava!” The name exploded in a whisper from the ambassador’s lips.

“They peeled it away and found us,” said Halyard, his eyes filled with a soldier’s angry acceptance. “And they paid for it.”

“Yes,” agreed Bradford, “but we don’t know how it happened.”

“How they were
killed
,” said the general incredulously.

“We know that,” replied the undersecretary. “Very professionally, the decision made quickly.”

“Then what don’t you understand?” Brooks was annoyed.

“The connection to Parsifal.”

“But you said there was a connection,” insisted the elder statesman. “Is there or isn’t there?”

“There has to be. We just can’t follow it.”

“I can’t follow you,” said the soldier.

“Start from the beginning, Emory,” interrupted the President. “As you understand the beginning. From Rome.”

Bradford nodded. “Five days ago the strategists received a priority cable from our conduit in Rome, a Lieutenant Colonel Baylor—cover name Brown. He oversees the clandestine-activities network.”

“Larry Baylor?”

“Yes, General.”

“One hell of a fine officer. Give me twenty Negroes like him, and you can throw out the War College.”

“Colonel Baylor’s black, Mr. Ambassador.”

“Apparently, Mr. Undersecretary.”

“For Christ’s sake, Emory,” said Berquist.

“Yes, Mr. President. To continue, Colonel Baylor’s cable referred to a meeting he had with—” Bradford paused. He delivered the name reluctantly: “Michael Havelock.”

“Costa Brava,” muttered the soldier quietly.

“Parsifal,” added Brooks, halting briefly, then continuing, his words a protest. “But Havelock was ruled out. After the clinic and his separation, he was watched, tested, his every move placed under what I believe is called a microscope. We were assured there was nothing, absolutely
nothing
.”

“Less than nothing,” agreed the man from State. “Under controlled circumstances he accepted a teaching position—an assistant professorship—at Concord University in New Hampshire. For all intents and purposes, he was completely out and we were back with the original scenario.”

“What changed it?” asked the soldier. “What changed Havelock’s status?”

Again Bradford paused, once more his delivery reluctant. “The Karas woman,” he said quietly. “She surfaced; he saw her. In Roma.”

The silence around the table conveyed the shock. The faces of the two old men hardened, both pairs of eyes boring into the undersecretary, who accepted the looks with granite resignation. Finally the ambassador spoke. “When did this happen?”

“Ten days ago.”

“Why weren’t we informed, Mr. President?” continued Brooks, his eyes still on Bradford.

“Quite simply,” replied the undersecretary before the
President could speak, his eyes locked with the statesman’s, “because
I
wasn’t informed.”

“I find that unacceptable.”

“Intolerable,” added the old soldier sharply. “What the hell are you running over there?”

“An extremely efficient organization that responds to input. In this case, perhaps too efficient, too responsive.”

“Explain that,” ordered Halyard.

“These four men,” said Bradford, gesturing at the projected photographs of the dead strategists, “were convinced beyond doubt that the Karas woman was killed at Costa Brava. How could they think otherwise? We played everything out—
carried
everything out—down to the smallest detail. Nothing was left to speculation; her death was witnessed by Havelock, later confirmed by bloodstained clothing. We wanted it accepted and no one questioned it, least of all Havelock himself.”

“But she surfaced,” insisted Halyard. “You say he saw her. I presume that information was in Colonel Baylor’s cable.”

“Yes.”

“Then why wasn’t it reported immediately?” demanded Brooks.

“Because they didn’t believe it,” answered Bradford. “They thought Havelock was crazy—hallucinating-crazy, the real thing. They sent Ogilvie to Rome, which in itself was extraordinary, indicating how serious they considered the situation to be. Baylor confirmed it. He said Ogilvie told him Havelock had gone over the edge, seeing things that weren’t there, the hallucinations brought on by deep, latent hostilities and years of pressure. He simply exploded; at least that’s what Ogilvie implied.”

“That’d be Miller’s judgment,” interrupted the President. “It’s the only one he could have arrived at when you think of it.”

“Havelock’s behavior deteriorated rapidly,” continued the undersecretary. “He threatened to expose past and present covert operations, which would have compromised us all over Europe, if he wasn’t given answers, explanations. He even sent disrupting cables to show what he could do. The strategists took him very seriously. Ogilvie was in Rome either to bring Havelock back—or to kill him.”

“Instead, be was killed himself,” said the soldier. A statement.

“Tragically. Colonel Baylor was covering Ogilvie’s meeting with Havelock on the Palatine Hill; it was an isolated area. There was an argument, a premature eruption of nerve gas triggered by Ogilvie, and when the device failed, Havelock went after him with a gun. As Baylor tells it, he waited until he couldn’t wait any longer. He fired at the precise moment he believed Havelock was about to kill Ogilvie, and apparently he was right. Ogilvie must have felt the same thing; at that same moment he lunged up and caught the bullet It’s all in Baylor’s report, available to you both, of course.”

“Those were the acceptable circumstances, Mr. President?” asked Brooks.

“Only in terms of explanation, Addison.”

“Naturally,” said Halyard, nodding, looking at Bradford. “If those are Larry Baylor’s words, I don’t need the report. How’s he taking it? That buck doesn’t like to lose or goof up.”

“He was severely wounded in his right hand. It was shattered and may not come back. Naturally, it’ll curtail his activities.”

“Don’t wash him out; it’d be a mistake. Put him behind a field desk.”

“I’ll recommend that to the Pentagon, General.”

“Let’s get back to the Cons Op strategists,” said the statesman. “It’s still not clear to me why they didn’t report Colonel Baylor’s information, especially the reasons behind Havelock’s actions—those ‘disrupting cables,’ I believe you called them. Incidentally, how disrupting were they?”

“ ‘Alarming’ is a better word; ‘false-alarming’ better still. One message came here—in a recent sixteen-hundred priority cipher—stating that there was a deep-cover Soviet agent in the White House. Another was sent to Congressional Oversight; it claimed there was CIA corruption in Amsterdam. In both instances the use of the cipher and naming names in Amsterdam obviously lent authority to the data.”

“Any substance?” asked the soldier.

“None whatsoever. But the reactions were volatile. The strategists knew they could get worse.”

“All the more reason why they should have reported Havelock’s motives,” insisted Brooks.

“They may have,” answered Bradford softly. “To someone. We’ll get to that.”

“Why they were killed? What’s their connection to Parsifal?” The general lowered his voice. “To Costa Brava.”

“There was no ‘Costa Brava’ until we invited it, Mal,” said the President. “But that, too, has to be told in sequence. It’s the only way we can make sense out of it … if there is any sense.”

“It never should have happened,” interjected the silver-haired statesman. “We had no right.”

“We had no
choice
, Mr. Ambassador,” said Bradford, leaning forward. “Secretary of State Matthias built the case against the Karas woman, we know that. His objective, as near as we can determine, was to remove Havelock from service, but we could never be certain. Their friendship was strong, going back years, their family ties stronger, reaching back to Prague. Was Havelock part of Matthias’s plans or not? Was he a willing player following orders, pretending to do what others would call perfectly understandable, or was he the unknowing victim of a terrible manipulation? We had to find out.”

“We
did
find out,” protested Addison Brooks quietly, indignantly. “At the clinic in Virginia. He was probed with everything doctors and laboratories can probe with; he knew absolutely nothing. As you said, we were back to the original scenario, completely in the dark ourselves. Why did Matthias want him out? It’s the unanswered, perhaps now unanswerable, question. When we understood that, we should have told Havelock the truth.”

“We couldn’t” The undersecretary leaned back in the chair. “Jenna Karas had disappeared; we had no idea whether she was alive or dead. Under the circumstances Havelock would have raised questions that cannot be raised outside the Oval Office—or a room like this.”

“Questions,” added the President of the United States, “which, if exposed, would plunge the world into a global nuclear war in a matter of hours. If the Soviets or the People’s Republic of China knew this government is out of control, ICBM’s would be launched from both hemispheres, a thousand submarines poised in both oceans for secondary tactical strikes-obliteration. And we are out of control.”

Silence.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” said Bradford finally. “I had him flown in from an Alpine pass called Col des Moulinets. He’s out of Rome.”

“Nuclear war,” whispered the President, as he pressed the button on the huge, curved desk, and the screen went dark.

Havelock drew two lines through the seventeenth and eighteenth names on the list, hung up the telephone on the wall and left the shabby café in Montmartre. Two calls per phone were all he permitted himself. Sophisticated electronic scanners could pick up a location in a matter of minutes, and should any of those he reached be patched into equipment at the American embassy, it would be no different from his calling the Paris conduit of Cons Op and setting the time for his own exècution. Two calls per phone, each phone a minimum of six blocks from the previous one, no conversation lasting more than ninety seconds. He had gone through half the list, but now the rest of the names would have to wait. It was nearly nine o’clock; the gaudy lights of Montmartre battered the streets with frenzied eruptions of color that matched the frantic cacophony of the district’s nighttime revels. And he was to meet Gravet in an alley off the Rue Nor-vins. The art critic had spent the afternoon tracking down anyone and everyone in his peculiar world who might have knowledge of Jenna Karas.