The Parsifal Mosaic Read online

  He looked at his watch again, annoyed at the sight of the seconds ticking off; he had to move swiftly. He did so, staying below the crest of the field, working his way around toward the broken stone trench that led to the well of the Roman bath. Huge weeds sprang up from the sides and from the cracks in the trench, covering it and giving it the appearance of an ugly giant centipede. Havelock parted the moist, filthy overgrowth, slid forward on his stomach, and crawled along the jagged marble ditch. Thirty seconds later he emerged from the weeds into the ancient remains of the circular pool that centuries ago had held the oiled, pampered bodies of emperors and courtesans. Seven feet above him—eight decayed steps away—was the woman whose function was to kill him should her current employer be incapable of doing so. Her back was to him, her thick legs planted like those of a sergeant major commanding a machine-gun squad.

  He studied the remains of the marble staircase; it was fragile, and was protected by a twelve-inch iron fence on the second rung to prevent onlookers from venturing farther down. The weight of a body on any single step could cause the stone to crack, and the sound would be his undoing. But what if the sound was accompanied by the impact of a severe physical blow? He knew he had to decide quickly, move quickly. Every minute that went by was adding to the growing alarm of the assassin in Domitian’s arbor.

  Silently he moved his hands about under the tangled weeds; his fingers struck a hard, rough-edged object. It was a fragment of marble, a chiseled part of an artisan’s design two thousand years ago. He gripped it in his right hand and, with the other, removed from his belt the Llama automatic he had taken from the would-be mafioso in Civitavecchia. Long ago he had trained himself to fire with his left hand as well as with his right, a basic precaution. The skill would serve him now; it was his own particular backup. If his tactic failed, he would kill the woman hired to make certain he died on the Palatine. But it was a backup, merely an option to make sure he stayed alive. He wanted to keep his rendezvous in Domitian’s arbor.

  He brought his legs slowly into a crouch and, extending a knee, prepared to spring. The woman was less than four feet away, directly above him. He raised his right arm, the heavy, jagged fragment in his hand, and lunged as he hurled the heavy piece of marble at the wide expanse of gabardine between her shoulders, whipping his arm with all the force he could muster, sending the rock at enormous speed over the short distance.

  Sound triggered instinct. The woman started to turn, but the impact came. The jagged fragment crashed into her neck at the base of her skull, blood matting her dark hair instantly. Havelock surged up the steps and, grabbing her coat at the waist, pulled her down over the small iron fence while jamming his forearm against her mouth and choking off the scream. The two of them plunged down into the marble well, Michael twisting the woman’s body as they fell. They hit the hard surface; he rammed his knee into her chest between her breasts and thrust the barrel of the Llama deep against her throat.

  “You listen to me!” he whispered harshly, knowing that neither the embassy nor Ogilvie would employ a backup who was not fluent in English and might misinterpret orders. “Get on your radio and tell your friend to come over here as fast as he can! Say it’s an emergency. Tell him to use the woods below the archway. You don’t want the American to see him.”

  “Cosa dici?”

  “You heard me and you understand me! Do as I say! Tell him you think you’ve both been betrayed. Prudente! Io parlo italiano! Capisci?” added Havelock, applying further pressure both with his knee and the barrel of the gun. “Presto!”

  The woman grimaced, sucking her breath between her clenched teeth, her broad, masculine face stretched like that of a striking cobra caught in a snake fork. Haltingly, as Michael removed his knee, she raised her right hand to her lapel and folded it back, revealing a transistorized microphone in the shape of a thick button, attached to the cloth. In the center was a small, flat transmission switch; she pressed it. There was a brief hum, the signal traveling three hundred feet due west on the Palatine; she spoke.

  “Trifoglio, trifoglio,” she said rapidly for identification. “Ascolta! C’è un’ emergenza…!” She carried out Michael’s orders, the whispered urgency of her voice conveying the panic she felt as the Llama was shoved deeper into her throat The response came in the sound of startled, metallic Italian.

  “Che avete?”

  “Sbrlgotevi!”

  “Arrivo!”

  Havelock spun off the woman and pulled her to her knees, ripping her coat apart as he did so. Held in place above her waist by a wide strap was an elongated holster; protruding from it was the handle of a powerful magnum automatic. The outsized leather case accommodated an added appendage attached to the barrel: a perforated cylinder—a silencer, permanently secured and zeroed for accuracy. The woman was, indeed, a professional. Michael quickly removed the weapon and shoved it under his belt. He yanked the woman to her feet and pushing her violently into the curving stairs, forcing her up to the second step so both of them could see—between the spikes of the small iron fence—over the top of the ancient bath. He was behind her, his body pressed into hers locking her in place, the Llama at her right temple, his left arm around her neck. In seconds he saw her companion, crouching as he raced through the foliage below the arbor; it was all he had to see. Without warning, he snapped his left arm back, choking the breath out of the woman’s throat and forcing her head forward into the crushing vise. Her body went limp; she would remain unconscious until it was dark on the Palatine. He did not want to kill her; he wanted her to tell her story to the patriots who had hired her. He moved to the side, and she slid down the cracked marble to the weed-infested well below. He waited.

  The man emerged cautiously on the sloping field, his hand beneath his tweed jacket. Too many minutes; time was passing too swiftly, the span half over. Much longer, and the assassin sent by Washington would become alarmed. If he walked outside the arbor he would know that his guards were not in place, that his control was lost; he would run. It must not happen! The answers Havelock sought were fifty yards away inside a remnant of antiquity. Once the control was shifted—only if it was shifted—could those answers be learned. Make your move, employee, thought Havelock, as the Italian approached.

  “Trifoglio, trifoglio!” said Michael in a sharp whisper as he grabbed debris from the steps and threw it over the top of the marble casement to his right, at the opposite end of the circular enclosure.

  The man broke into a run toward the sound of the voice repeating the code and the sight of flying dirt. Havelock moved to his left and crouched on the third step, his hand on a spoke of the fence, his feet constantly testing the stone beneath; it had to hold him.

  It did. Michael lurched over the top as the Italian reached the marble rim, so startling the man that he gasped in shock, his panic immobilizing him. Havelock lunged, swinging the Llama into the Italian’s face, shattering bone and teeth; blood burst from his mouth and splattered his shirt and jacket. The man started to collapse; Havelock rushed forward to grab him, then turned and propelled him over the side of the marble bath. The Italian plummeted, arms and legs flailing; at the bottom he lay motionless, sprawled over the body of the woman, his bloody head on her stomach. He, too, would have a story to tell, thought Michael. It was important that the strategists in Washington hear it, for if the answers were not forthcoming during the next few minutes, the Palatine was only the beginning.

  Havelock forced the Llama into the inside pocket of his jacket and felt the uncomfortable pressure of the outsized magnum automatic beneath his belt. He would keep both weapons; the Llama was a short piece and easily concealed, while the magnum with its permanently attached silencer could be advantageous in circumstances demanding the absence of sound. Suddenly a cold wind of depression swept through him. Twenty-four hours ago he had thought that he would never again hold a gun in his hand for the rest of his life—his new life. In truth, he loathed weapons, feared and hated them, and for this reason he had learned to mast
er them so that he could go on living and use them to still other weapons—the guns of his childhood. The early days, the terrible days; in a way they were what his whole life had been about, the life he had thought he had put finally to rest. Root out the abusers, permit life to the living—destroy the killers of Lidice in any form. He had left that life, but the killers were still there, in another form. And now he was back again. He buttoned his jacket and started toward the entrance of the arbor, and the man who had come to kill him.

  As he approached the decrepit marble archway his eyes instinctively scanned the ground, his feet avoiding stray branches that could snap underfoot, announcing his presence. He reached the jagged wall of the arch and silently sidestepped his way to the opening. Gently he pushed away the cascading vines and looked inside. Ogilvie was at the far end of the stone path by the pedestaled bust of Domitian. He was smoking a cigarette, studying the hill above the arbor to his right, the same hill—the same area with the cluster of wild bushes—where Michael had concealed himself nineteen minutes before. The Apache had made his own assessment, the accuracy of his analysis apparent.

  There was a slight chill in the air, and Havelock noted that Ogilvie’s wrinkled, ill-fitting jacket was buttoned. But he also saw that this did not prevent swift access to a gun. Then Michael focused on the strategist’s face; the change was startling. It was paler than Havelock could remember ever having seen it. The lines that had been there before were chiseled deeper now and drawn longer, like the ridges of decay in the faded marble of the ancient arbor. One did not have to be a doctor to know that Ogilvie was a sick man and that his illness was severe. If there was a great deal of strength left in him, it was as concealed as the weapons he carried.

  Michael stepped inside, watching intently for any sudden movement on the part of the former field man. “Hello, Red,” he said.

  Ogilvie’s head turned only slightly, conveying the fact that he had seen Havelock out of the corner of his eye before the greeting. “Good to see you, Navajo,” answered the strategist.

  “Drop the ‘Navajo.’ This isn’t Istanbul.”

  “No, it isn’t, but I saved your ass there, didn’t I?”

  “You saved it after you damn near got me killed. I told you the bridge was a trap, but you, my so-called superior—a label you overworked, incidentally—insisted otherwise. You came back for me because I told you it was a trap in front of our control in the Mesrutiyet. He would have racked you in his briefing report.”

  “Still, I came back” pressed Ogilvie quickly, angrily, color spreading across his pallid face. Then he checked himself, smiled wanly and shrugged. “What the hell, it doesn’t matter.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I think you’d risk blowing yourself and all your kids apart to justify yourself, but as you say, you did come back. Thanks for that. It was quicker, if not necessarily safer, than jumping into the Bosporus.”

  “You never would have made it.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  Ogilvie threw his cigarette on the ground, crushed it underfoot, and stepped forward. “Not the kids, Havelock. Me, yes. Not the kids.”

  “All right, not the kids.” At the reference to children—his unthinking reference—Michael felt momentary embarrassment. He recalled that Ogilvie’s children had been taken away from him. This suddenly old man was alone in his shadow world with his personal furies.

  “Let’s talk,” said the man from Washington, walking toward a marble bench on the border of the stone path. “Sit down … Michael. Or is it Mike? I don’t remember.”

  “Whatever yon like. I’ll stand.”

  “I’ll sit. I don’t mind telling yon, I’m beat It’s a long way from D.C., a lot of flying time. I don’t sleep well on planes.”

  “You look tired.”

  At the remark, Ogilvie stopped and glanced at Havelock. “Cute,” he said, and then sat down. “Tell me something, Michael Are you tired?”

  “Yes,” said Havelock. “Of the whole goddamned lie. Of everything that’s happened. To her. To me. To all of you in your sterile white offices, with your filthy minds—God help me, I was part of you. What did you think you were doing? Why did you do it?”

  “That’s a large indictment, Navajo.”

  “I told you. Drop that fucking name.”

  “Like from a cereal box, huh?”

  “Worse. For your enlightenment, the Navajos were related to the Apaches, but unlike the Apaches, the tribe was essentially peaceful, defensive. The name didn’t fit in Istanbul, and it doesn’t fit now.”

  “That’s interesting; I didn’t know that. But then, I suppose it’s the sort of thing someone not born in a country—brought over after a pretty harrowing childhood somewhere else—would find out about. I mean, studying that kind of history is a way of saying “Thanks,’ isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure, you do. A kid lives through wholesale slaughter, sees friends and neighbors machine-gunned down in a field and thrown into ditches, his own mother sent away to God knows what, knowing he’ll never see her again. This kid is something. He hides in the woods with nothing to eat except what he can trap or steal, afraid to come out. Then he’s found and spends the next few years running through the streets with explosives strapped to his back, the enemy everywhere, any one of them his potential executioner. All this before he’s ten years old, and by the time he’s twelve, his father’s killed by the Soviets.… Christ, a kid like that, when he finally gets to a safe harbor, he’s going to learn everything he can about the place. He’s really saying “Thanks for letting me come here.’ Wouldn’t you agree … Havlíček?”

  So the inviolate was not impenetrable by the strategists. Of course they knew, he should have realized that; his own actions had brought it about. The sole guarantee he had been given was that his true file would be provided only on a need-to-know basis to the highest levels of personnel screening. Those below would be shown the British M.I.6 adderdum. A Slovak orphan, parents killed in a Brighton bombing raid, cleared for adoption and immigration. It was all they had to know, all they should know. Before. Not now.

  “It’s not pertinent.”

  “Well, maybe it is,” said the former field man, shifting his position on the bench, his hand casually moving toward his jacket pocket.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Your hand. Keep it out of there.”

  “Oh, sorry … As I was saying, all that early stuff could be pertinent. A man can take just so much over the years; it accumulates, you know what I mean? Then one day something snaps, and without his realizing it, his head plays tricks on him. He goes back—way back—to when things happened to him—terrible things—and the years and the motives of people he knew then get mixed up with the years and the people he knows now. He begins to blame the present for all the lousy things that happened in the past. It happens a lot to men who live the way you and I have lived. It’s not even unusual.”

  “Are you finished?” asked Havelock harshly. “Because if you are—”

  “Come on back with me, Michael,” interrupted the man from Washington. “You need help. We can help you.”

  “You traveled five thousand miles to tell me that?” shouted Havelock. “That’s the data, your explanation?”

  “Take it easy. Cool it.”

  “No, you take it easy! You cool it, because you’re going to need every cold nerve you’ve got! All of you! I’ll start here in Rome and work my way up and over, through Switzerland, Germany … Prague, Krakow, Warsaw … right up into Moscow, if I have to! And the more I talk, the more of a mess you’ll be in, every one of you. Who the hell are you to explain what or where my head is? I saw that woman. She’s alive! I followed her to Civitavecchia, where she faded, but I found out what you said to her, what you did to her! I’m going after her, but every day it takes will cost you! I’ll start the minute I get out of here and you won’t be able to stop me. listen to the news tonight and re
ad the morning papers. There’s a conduit here in Rome, a respected first-level attaché, a member of a minority—one hell of a screen. Only, he’s going to lose his value and his network before the sun goes down. You bastards! Who do you think you are?”

  “All right, all right!” pleaded Ogilvie, both hands in the air, pressing the space in front of him.” You’ve got it all, but you can’t blame me for trying. Those were the orders. ‘Get him back so we can tell him over here.’ that’s what they said. “Try anything, but don’t say anything, not while he’s out of the country.’ I told them it wouldn’t work, not with you. I made them give me the disclosure option; they didn’t want to, but I hammered it out of them.”

  “Then talk!”

  “Okay, okay, you’ve got it.” The man from Washington expelled his breath, shaking his head slowly back and forth. “Jesus, things get screwed up.”

  “Unscrew them!”

  Ogilvie looked up at Michael, raising his hand to the upper left area of his rumpled jacket. “A smoke, do you mind?”

  “Pull it back.”

  The strategist peeled back his lapel, revealing a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket Havelock nodded; Ogilvie took out the cigarettes and a book of matches behind the pack. He shook a cigarette into his right hand and flipped open the matchbook cover; the book was empty. “Shit,” he muttered. “Have you got a light?”

  Michael reached into his pocket, took out matches and brought them over. “What you’ve got to say had better make a great deal of sense—”

  Oh, my God! Whether it was the slight movement of the head of red hair below him, or the odd position of Ogilvie’s right hand, or the flash of sunlight reflecting off the cigarette pack’s cellophane, he would never know, but in that confluence of unexpected factors, he knew the trap had been sprung. He lashed his left foot out, catching the strategist’s right arm and reeling it back; the force of the blow threw Ogilvie off the bench. Suddenly the air was filled with a billowing cloud of mist. He dived to his right, beyond the path, holding his nostrils, closing his eyes, rolling on the ground until he slammed into the remains of the jagged wall, out of range of the gaseous cloud.