The Parsifal Mosaic

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC

  “Ludlum delivers consistently—an implied promise of intricate plotting, an abundance of fast and usually violent action described with great immediacy, feverish love passages, and, at the center, a strong and resourceful man on the run from superior but often shadowy forces whom he must elude, identify, and then counterattack and destroy.… Engrossing.”

  —The Los Angeles Times

  “The new Bob Ludlum is out and you’ll want to get it as soon as you possibly can.… This guy’s a pro.… You’re in for a whale of a good time!”

  —Stephen King,

  The Washington Post

  “Quite clearly the best writing Ludlum has ever done.… Rare is the reader who won’t burn late—night electricity finishing this one.”

  —Denver Post

  “Nonstop action, precisely timed curtain—raisers, the darksome deeds of agent and double agent, a deadly secret ultimately revealed and an underlying theme of the whole world jeopardized by a few fanatics.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I’m positive this new adventure will send his legions of fans dancing out into the streets.”

  —Evan Hunter,

  The New York Times Book Review

  “Lavish.… Mesmerizing.… Byzantine plotting, constant action, treason in high places.… Ludlum comes on stream again with a sheer outpouring of raw narrative.”

  —The Buffalo News

  THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC

  A Bantam Book /published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Random House edition published March 1982

  A Selection of Literary Guild

  Bantam Export edition /April 1982

  Bantam edition /March 1983

  All rights reserved,

  Copyright © 1982 by Robert Ludlum.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81390-9

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books.” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway. New York, New York 10036.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Book Two

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Book Three

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Excerpt from The Bourne Identity

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  BOOK ONE

  1

  The cold rays of the moon streaked down from the night sky and bounced off the rolling surf, which burst into suspended sprays of white where isolated waves crashed into the rocks of the shoreline. The stretch of beach between the towering boulders of the Costa Brava was the execution ground. It had to be. May God damn this goddamned world—it had to be!

  He could see her now. And hear her through the sounds of the sea and the breaking surf. She was running wildly, screaming hysterically: “Pro boha živého! Proč! Co to děláš! Přestaň! Proč! Proč!”

  Her blond hair was caught in the moonlight, her racing silhouette given substance by the beam of a powerful flashlight fifty yards behind her. She fell; the gap closed and a staccato burst of gunfire abruptly, insolently split the night air, bullets exploding the sand and the wild grass all around her. She would be dead in a matter of seconds.

  His love would be gone.

  They were high on the hill overlooking the Moldau, the boats on the river plowing the waters north and south, their wakes furrows. The curling smoke from the factories below diffused in the bright afternoon sky, obscuring the mountains in the distance, and Michael watched, wondering if the winds above Prague would come along and blow the smoke away so the mountains could be seen again. His head was on Jenna’s lap, his long legs stretched out, touching the wicker basket she had packed with sandwiches and iced wine. She sat on the grass, her back against the smooth bark of a birch tree; she stroked his hair, her fingers circling his face, gently outlining his lips and cheekbones.

  “Mikhail, my darling, I was thinking. Those tweed jackets and dark trousers you wear, and that very proper English which must come from your very proper university, will never remove the Havlíček from Havelock.”

  “I don’t think they were meant to. One’s a uniform of sorts, and the other you kind of learn in self-defense.” He smiled, touching her hand. “Besides, that university was a long time ago.”

  “So much was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Right down there.”

  “It happened.”

  “You were there, my poor darling.”

  “It’s history. I survived.”

  “Many did not.”

  The blond woman rose, spinning in the sand, pulling at the wild grass, plunging to her right, for several seconds eluding the beam of light. She headed toward the dirt road above the beach, staying in darkness, crouching, lunging, using the cover of night and the patches of tall grass to conceal her body.

  It would not do her any good, thought the tall man in the black sweater at his post between two trees above the road, above the terrible violence that was taking place below, above the panicked woman who would be dead in moments. He had looked down at her once before, not so very long ago. She had not been panicked then; she had been magnificent.

  He folded the curtain back slowly, carefully in the dark office, his back pressed against the wall, his face inching toward the window. He could see her below, crossing the floodlit courtyard, the tattoo of her high heels against the cobblestones echoing martially up between the surrounding buildings. The guards were recessed in shadows—outlines of sullen marionettes in their Soviet-style uniforms. Heads turned, signifying appreciative glances directed at the figure striding confidently toward the iron gate in the center of the iron fence enclosing the stone compound that was the core of Prague’s secret police. The thoughts behind the glances were clear: this was no mere secretary working overtime, this was a privileged kurva who took dictation on a commissar’s couch till all hours of the night.

  But others, too, were watching—from other darkened windows. One break in her confident stride, one instant of hesitation, and a phone would be picked up and orders of detention issued to the gate. Embarrassments, of course, were to be avoided where commissars were concerned, but not if there appeared to be substance behind suspic
ions. Everything was appearance.

  There was no break, no hesitation. She was carrying it off … carrying it out! They had done it! Suddenly he felt a jolt of pain in his chest; he knew what it was. Fear. Pure, raw, sickening fear. He was remembering—memories within memories. As he watched her his mind went back to a city in rubble, to the terrible sounds of mass execution. Lidice. And a child—one of many children—scurrying through the billowing gray smoke of burning debris, carrying messages and pockets full of plastic explosives. One break, one hesitation, then … history.

  She reached the gate. An obsequious guard was permitted to leer. She was magnificent. God, he loved her!

  She had reached the shoulder of the road, legs and arms working furiously, digging into the sand and the dirt, clawing for survival With no wild grass to conceal her, she would be seen; the beam of light would find her, and the end would come quickly.

  He watched, suspending emotion, erasing pain, a human litmus accepting impressions without comment. He had to—professionally. He had learned the truth, the stretch of beach on the Costa Brava was confirmation of her guilt, proof of her crimes. The hysterical woman below was a killer, an agent for the infamous Voennaya Kontra Razvedka, the say age branch of the Soviet KGB that spawned terrorism everywhere. That was the truth; it was undeniable. He had seen it all, talked with Washington from Madrid. The rendezvous that night had been ordered by Moscow, the purpose being the delivery by VKR Field Officer Jenna Karas of a schedule of assassinations to a faction of the Baader-Meinhof at an isolated beach called Montebello, north of the town of Blanes. That was the truth.

  It did not set him free. Instead, it bound him to another truth, an obligation of his profession. Those who betrayed the living and brokered death had to die. No matter who, no matter … Michael Havelock had made the decision, and it was irrevocable. He had set the last phase of the trap himself, for the death of the woman who briefly had given him more happiness than any other person on earth. His love was a killer; to permit her to live would mean the killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands.

  What Moscow did not know was that Langley had broken the VKR codes. He himself had sent the last transmission to a boat a half-mile off the Costa Brava shoreline. KGB confirmation. Officer contact compromised by U.S. Intelligence. Schedules false. Eliminate. The codes were among the most unbreakable; they would guarantee elimination.

  She was rising now. Her slender body rose above the shoulder of sand and dirt. It was going to happen! The woman about to die was his love: they had held each other and there had been quiet talk of a lifetime together, of children, of peace and the splendid comfort of being one—together. Once he had believed it all, but it was not to be.

  They were in bed, her head on his chest, her soft blond hair falling across her face. He brushed it aside, lifting up the strands that concealed her eyes, and laughed.

  “You’re hiding,” he said.

  “It seems we’re always hiding,” she replied, smiling sadly. “Except when we wish to be seen by people who should see us. We do nothing that we simply want to. Everything is calculated, Mikhail. Regimented. We live in a movable prison.”

  “It hasn’t been that long, and it won’t last forever.”

  “I suppose not. One day they’ll find they don’t need us, don’t want us any longer, perhaps. Will they let us go, do you think? Or will we disappear?”

  “Washington’s not Prague. Or Moscow. We’ll walk out of our movable prison, me with a gold watch, you with some kind of silent decoration with your papers.”

  “Are you sure? We know a great deal. Too much, perhaps.”

  “Our protection lies in what we do know. What I know. They’ll always wonder: Did he write it down somewhere? Take care, watch him, be good to him … It’s not unusual, really. We’ll walk out.”

  “Always protection,” she said, tracing his eyebrows. “You never forget, do you? The early days, the terrible days.”

  “History. I’ve forgotten.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Live. I love you.”

  “Do you think we’ll have children? Watch them going off to school; hold them, scold them. Go to hockey-ball games.”

  “Football … or baseball. Not hockey-ball. Yes, I hope so.”

  “What will you do, Mikhail?”

  “Teach, I suppose. At a college somewhere. I’ve a couple of starched degrees that say I’m qualified. We’ll be happy, I know that. I’m counting on it.”

  “What will you teach?”

  He looked at her, touching her face, then his eyes wandered up to the shabby ceiling in the run-down hotel room. “History,” he said. And then he reached for her, taking her in his arms.

  The beam of light swung across the darkness. It caught her, a bird on fire, trying to rise, trapped by the light that was her darkness. The gunshots followed—terrorists’ gunfire for a terrorist. The woman arched backward, the first bullets penetrating the base of her spine, her blond hair cascading behind her. Three shots then came separately, with finality—a marksman’s eye delivering a marksman’s score; they entered the back of her neck and her skull, propelling her forward over the mound of dirt and sand, her fingers clawing the earth, her blood-streaked face mercifully concealed. A final spasm, and all movement stopped.

  His love was dead—for some part of love was a part of whatever they were. He had done what he had to do, just as she had done the same. Each was right, each wrong, ultimately so terribly wrong. He closed his eyes, feeling the unwanted dampness.

  Why did it have to be? We are fools. Worse, we are stupid.

  We do not talk; we die. So men with fluid tongues and facile minds can tell us what is right and wrong—geopolitically, you understand, which means that whatever they say is beyond our puerile understanding.

  What will you do, Mikhail?

  Teach, I suppose. At a college somewhere …

  What will you teach?

  History …

  It was all history now. Remembrances of things too painful. Let it be cold history, as the early days were history. They cannot be a part of me any longer. She cannot be a part of me, if she ever was, even in her pretense. Yet I will keep a promise, not to her but to myself. I am finished. I will disappear into another life, a new life. I will go somewhere, teach somewhere. Illuminate the lessons of futility.

  He heard the voices and opened his eyes. Below, the killers of the Baader-Meinhof had reached the condemned woman, sprawled out in death, clutching the ground that was her execution place—geopolitically preordained. Had she really been so magnificent a liar? Yes, she had been, for he had seen the truth. Even in her eyes he had seen it.

  The two executioners bent down to grab the corpse and drag it away—her once graceful body to be consigned to fire or chained for the deep. He would not interfere; the evidence had to be felt, touched, reflected upon later when the trap was revealed, another lesson taught. Futility—geopolitically required.

  A gust of wind suddenly whipped across the open beach; the killers braced themselves, their feet slipping in the sand. The man on the left raised his right hand in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the visored fishing cap on his head; it blew away, rolling toward the dune that was the shoulder of the road. He released his hold on the corpse and ran after it Havelock watched as the man came closer. There was something about him—About the face? No, it was the hair, seen clearly in the moonlight. It was wavy and dark, but not completely dark; there was a streak of white above his forehead, a sudden intrusion that was startling. He had seen that head of hair, seen that face somewhere before. But where? There were so many memories. Files analyzed, photographs studied—contracts, sources, enemies. Where was this man from? KGB? The dreaded Voennaya? A splinter faction paid by Moscow when not drawing contingency funds from a CIA station chief in Lisbon?

  It did not matter. The deadly puppets and the vulnerable pawns no longer concerned Michael Havelock—or Mikhail Havlíček, for that matter. He would route a cable to Washington through th
e embassy in Madrid in the morning. He was finished, he had nothing more to give. Whatever his superiors wanted in the way of debriefing he would permit, Even going to a clinic; he simply did not care. But they would have no more of his life.

  That was history. It had ended on an isolated beach called Montebello on the Costa Brava.

  2

  Time was the true narcotic for pain. Either the pain disappeared when it ran its course or a person learned to live with it. Havelock understood this, knowing that at this moment in time something of both was applicable. The pain had not disappeared but there was less of it; there were periods when the memories were dulled, the scar tissue sensitive only when prodded. And traveling helped; he had forgotten what it was like to cope with the complexities facing the tourist.

  “If you’ll note, sir, it’s printed here on your ticket. ‘Subject to change without notice.’ ”

  “Where?”

  “Down here.”

  “I can’t read it.”

  “I can.”

  “You’ve memorized it.”

  “I’m familiar with it, sir.”

  And the immigration lines. Followed by customs inspections. The intolerable preceded by the impossible; men and women who countered their own boredom by slamming rubber stamps and savagely attacking defenseless zippers whose manufacturers believed in planned obsolescence.

  There was no question about it, he was spoiled. His previous life had had its difficulties and its risks, but they had not included the perils that confronted the traveler at every turn. In his past life, on the other hand, whenever he got to where he was going, there was the movable prison. No, not exactly. There were appointments to keep, sources to contact, informers to pay. Too often at night, in shadows, far away from seeing or being seen.

  Now there was none of that. There hadn’t been for nearly eight weeks. He walked in daylight, as he was walking now down the Damrak in Amsterdam toward the American Express office. He wondered if the cable would be there. If it was, it would signify the beginning of something. A concrete beginning. A job.