The Parsifal Mosaic (53 page)

“There isn’t time—”

“Shhh.”
She placed her fingers on his lips. “There must be time, because there’s nothing else.”

“I thought the same when I was walking over here, and when I was looking down at you.” He smiled as he stroked her hair and gently caressed her lovely face. “You played well,
prěkrásně.”

“I’ve hurt you.”

“A minor cut and a few major scratches. Don’t be insulted.”

“You’re bleeding … your neck.”

“And my back, and a fork scrape—I guess you’d call it—on my stomach,” said Michael. “You can nurse me later and I’ll be grateful, but right now it fits the picture they have. I’m bringing you back on Aeroflot.”

“Do I continue fighting?”

“No, just be hostile. You’re resigned; you know you can’t win. It’ll go harder for you if you struggle.”

“And Kohoutek?”

“He says you’re to stay in the back seat with him. He’ll have us both under a gun.”

“Then I shall smoke a great deal. His hand will drop.”

“Something like that. It’s a long trip, a lot can happen. A gas station, a breakdown, no lights. He may be a mountain bull but he’s close to seventy.” Havelock held her shoulders. “He may decide to drug you. If he does, I’ll try to stop him.”

“He won’t give me anything dangerous; he wants his money. I’m not concerned. I’ll know you’re there and I know what you can do.”

“Come on.”

“Mikhail.”
She gripped his hands. “What
happened?
To me … to
you?
They said such dreadful things, such
terrible
things! I couldn’t believe them, yet I had to believe. It was
there!
”

“It was all there. Down to my watching you die.”

“Oh,
God
 …”

“I’ve been running away ever since, until that night in Rome. Then I started running in a different direction. After you, after them—after the liars who did this to us.”

“How did they do it?”

“There’s no time now. I’ll tell you everything I can later, and then I want to hear
you
. Everything. You have the names, you know the people. Later.”

They stood up and embraced, holding each other briefly, feeling the warmth and the hope each gave the other. Michael pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it against his neck. Jenna took his hand away and blotted the deep scratches herself; she touched the bridge of his nose, where she had struck him with her knee, then smoothed his hair at the temples.

“Remember, my darling,” she whispered. “Treat me sternly. Push me and shove me and grab my arm firmly as you do it. A man who’s been scratched by a woman, whether she’s his enemy or not, is an angry man. Especially among other men; his masculinity suffers more than the wounds.”

“Thank you, Sigmund Freud. Let’s go.”

The guard in the black leather jacket smiled at the sight of Havelock’s bleeding neck while the Cuban nodded his head,
his expression confirming a previous Judgment. As instructed, Michael held Jenna’s arm in a viselike grip, propelling her forward at his side, his mouth set, his eyes controlled but furious.

“I want to go back to Kohoutek and get out of here!” he said angrily. “And I don’t care for any dicussion, is that understood?”

“Did the great big man get hurt by the little bitty girl?” said the guard, grinning.

“Shut up, you goddamned idiot!”

“Come to think of it, she’s not that little.”

Janos Kohoutek was dressed in a heavy mackinaw coat, a fur-lined cap on his head. He, too, smiled at the handkerchief held in place on Havelock’s neck. “Perhaps this one’s a witch from the Carpathians,” he said, speaking English, his stained teeth showing. “The old wives’ tales say they have the strength of mountain cats and the cunning of demons.”

“Spell it with their
b, příteli
. She’s a
bitch.”
Michael pressed Jenna toward the door. “I want to get started; the snow will make for a longer trip.”

“It’s not so bad, more wind than anything,” said the bull, taking a roll of thick cord out of his pocket and walking toward Jenna. “They keep the turnpike clear.”

“What’s that?” asked Havelock, gesturing at the cord.

“Hold out her hands,” ordered Kohoutek, addressing the guard. “You may care to put up with this cat, but
I
do not.”

“I smoke,” protested Jenna. “Let me smoke, I’m very nervous. What can I
do?”

“Perhaps you would prefer a needle? Then there will be no thought of smoking.”

“My people won’t accept drugs,” interrupted Michael firmly. “The airports are watched, especially our departure gates. No narcotics.”

“Then she’ll be tied. Come, take her hand.” The guard in the leather jacket approached Jenna; haltingly she put out her hands, so as not to be touched more than necessary. Kohoutek stopped. “Has she been to the toilet?” he asked harshly of no one, and no one answered. “Tell me, woman, have you been to the toilet?”

“I’m all right,” said Jenna.

“For a number of hours? There’ll be no stops, you understand?
Even to sit on the side of the road with a gun at your head, there’ll be no stop.
Rozumíš?”

“I said I’m all right.”

“Tie her, and let’s go.” Havelock took several impatient steps toward the door, passing the Moravian and glancing at Jenna. Her eyes were cool glass; she was magnificent. “I assume this refugee from a žalář will take us up in the truck.”

The guard looked angry as Kohoutek grinned. “You are not far wrong, Havlíček. He’s been put away for aggravated assault several times. Yes, he’ll take us.” The bull pulled the cord tight around Jenna’s hands, then turned and shouted,
“Axel!
”

“He has my weapon,” said Michael gesturing at the man in the leather jacket. “I’d like it back.”

“You shall have it. At a street corner in New York.”

The second guard entered the room from the hallway, the same man who had first seen Havelock awake on the floor.

“Yes, Mr. Kohoutek?”

“You’re handling the schedules tomorrow, no?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Stay in radio contact with the north trucks and have one pick me up in Monongahela after my plane arrives tomorrow. I will phone from the airport and give you the time of the flight.”

“Right.”

“We go,” said the mountain bull, heading for the door.

Michael took Jenna’s arm, the guard in the leather jacket following. Outside, the wind was stronger than before, the snow angrier, whipping in circles and stinging the face. With Kohoutek leading, they ran down the farmhouse path to the truck in the road. A third guard, wearing a white parka, stood by the gate fifty yards away; he saw them and walked to the center latch.

The truck was enclosed; there were facing wooden benches in the van for transporting a cargo of five to six on each side, and coiled ropes hung on the walls. At the sight of the covered, windowless quarters Jenna was visibly shaken, and Havelock understood. Her country—his native country—had seen too many such vehicles over the years, heard too many stories told in whispers of convoys carrying away men and women and children who were never seen again. This was Mason Falls, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., but the owners and
drivers of these trucks were no different from their brothers in Prague and Warsaw, late of Moscow—before then, Berlin.

“Get in, get
in!
” shouted Kohoutek, now waving a large .45 automatic as the guard held the handle of the rear door.

“I’m not your prisoner!” yelled Havelock. “We negotiated! We have an agreement!”

“And part of that agreement,
příteli
, is that you are my guest as well as my hostage until we reach New York. After delivery—both deliveries—I shall be happy to put away the gun and buy you dinner.”

The mountain bull roared with laughter as Jenna and Michael climbed into the van. They sat next to each other, but this was not to Kohoutek’s liking. He said, “The woman sits with me. You move across.
Quickly.”

“You’re paranoid,” said Havelock, moving to the other side, seeking out the shadows.

The door was closed, the latch and lock manipulated by the guard. A dim light came through the windshield. In seconds, thought Michael, the headlights would be turned on, the reflected spill partially illuminating the van. In the darkness he pulled up his coat and reached behind him with his right hand, inching toward the knife clipped to his belt in the small of his back. If he did not remove it now, it would be infinitely more difficult later when he was behind the wheel of his car.

“What’s
that?”
shouted the bull, raising his gun in the shadows, pointing it at Havelock’s head. “What are you doing?”

“The bitch cat clawed my back; the blood’s sticking to my shirt,” said Michael in a normal voice. Then he yelled, “Do you want to see it,
feel
it?”

Kohoutek grinned, glancing at Jenna. “A Carpathian
čarodějka
. The moon’s probably full but we can’t see it.” He laughed his crude mountain laugh once more. “I trust the Lubyanka is as tight as it ever was. She’ll eat your guards up!”

At the mention of the word “Lubyanka,” Jenna gasped, shuddering. “Oh, God! Oh, my
God!
”

Kohoutek looked at her again, and again Havelock under-stood—she was covering for him. He quickly pulled the knife out of the scabbard and palmed it in his right hand. It had all taken less than twelve seconds.

The driver’s door opened; the guard climbed in and switched on the lights. He looked behind; the old bull nodded and he turned the ignition key. The vehicle had a powerful engine, and a minute later they had passed through the gate and were climbing the steep hill, the heavy-treaded tires crunching the snow and the soft earth beneath them, lurching, vibrating, rolling with the uneven pitch of the ground. They reached the wall of trees where the road flattened out; there was perhaps three-eighths of a winding mile to go before the Fourforks Pike. The guard-driver gathered speed, then suddenly stepped on the brake, stopping the truck instantly. A red light was flashing on the dashboard. He reached over for a switch, then another, and snapped both. There was a prolonged burst of static over the radio as an excited voice shouted through the eruptions: “Mr. Kohoutek! Mr. Kohoutek!”

“What is it?” asked the guard, grabbing a microphone from the dashboard and depressing a button. “You’re on the emergency channel.”

“The sparrow in New York—he’s on the phone! Handelman’s dead! He heard it on the radio! He was shot in his apartment, and the police are looking for a man …”

Havelock lunged, twisting the handle of the knife into his clenched fist, the blade protruding downward, his left hand reaching for the barrel of the .45 automatic. Jenna sprang away; he gripped the long, flat steel as Kohoutek rose, then slamming the gun back down on the wooden bench, he plunged the knife through the mountain bull’s hand, the point embedding—through flesh and bone—in the wood, the bloody hand impaled.

Kohoutek screamed; the guard in the front seat spun around as Jenna threw herself at him, crashing her roped hands down on his neck, and pulled the microphone out of his grip, cutting off the transmission. Havelock swung the gun up into the old bull’s head; Kohoutek lurched back into the wall and fell forward on the floor of the van, his arm stretched out, his hand still nailed to the wooden bench.

“Mikhail!
”

The guard had recovered from Jenna’s blows and was pulling the Llama out of his leather jacket. Michael sprang forward and jammed the heavy barrel of the .45 into the
man’s temple; reaching over his shoulder, he pressed down, holding the Llama in place.

“Mr. Kohoutek? Have you
got
it?” yelled the voice through the radio static. “What should the sparrow do? He wants to know!”

“Tell him you’ve got it,” ordered Havelock, breathing hard, thumbing back the hammer of the gun. “Say the sparrow should do nothing. You’ll be in touch.”

“We’ve got it.” The guard’s voice was a whisper. “Tell the sparrow not to do anything. Well be in touch.”

Michael yanked the microphone away and pointed to the Llama. “Now, Just hand it to me slowly,” he said. “Use your fingers, just
two
fingers,” he continued. “After all, it’s mine, isn’t it?”

“I was going to give it back,” said the frightened guard, his lips trembling.

“How many years can yon give back to the people you drove in this thing?”

“That hasn’t anything to do with me, I swear it! I just work for a living. I do what I’m told.”

“You all do.” Havelock took the Llama and moved the automatic around the man’s head, pressing it into the base of his skull “Now, drive us out of here,” he said.

The slender, middle-aged man with the straight dark hair opened the door of the telephone booth at the corner of 116th Street and Riverside Drive. The wet city snow was clinging to the glass, blurring the rotating red lights of the police cars up the block. He inserted the coin, dialed
o
, then five additional digits; he heard the second tone and dialed again. In moments a private phone was ringing in the living quarters of the White House.

“Yes?”

“Mr. President?”

“Emory? How did it go?”

“It didn’t. He’s dead. He was shot.”

The silence from Washington was interrupted only by the sound of Berquist’s breathing. “Tell me what happened,” said the President.

“It was Havelock, but the name wasn’t reported correctly. We can deny the existence of any such person at State.”

“Havelock?
At …? Oh my God!”

“I don’t know all the details, but enough. The shuttle was delayed by the snow and we circled LaGuardia for nearly an hour. By the time I got here there were crowds, police cars, a few press and an ambulance.”

“The
press?
”

“Yes, sir. Handelman’s prominent here. Not only because
he was a Jew who survived Bergen-Belsen, but because of his standing at the university. He was respected, even revered.”

“Oh, Christ … What did you learn?
How
did you learn it? Your name won’t surface, will it?”

“No, sir. I used my rank at State and reached the precinct up here; the detective was cooperative. Apparently Handelman had an appointment with a female graduate student, who came back to the building twice before ringing the superintendent. They went up to Handelman’s apartment, saw the door was unlocked, went inside, and found him. The superintendent called the police, and when they got here, he admitted having let in a man who had State Department credentials. He said his name was Havilitch; he didn’t recall the first name, but insisted the ID was in order. The police are still in Handelman’s apartment getting fingerprints, cloth and blood scrapings.”