The Parsifal Mosaic (39 page)

Havelock stared in astonishment at the old woman. “How did you figure
that?
”

“I went back over the restricted cables from your State Department looking for any mention of Jenna Karas. Indeed, it was there. A single insertion dated January tenth, detailing briefly the events at the Costa Brava. She was described as an infiltrator caught in a reverse trap where she had lost her life, her death confirmed by two separate sightings and forensic examination of bloodstained clothing. The file was closed to the satisfaction of Consular Operations.”

“The rotes have it,” said Michael. “Aye, aye, sir. Next case, please.”

“The implausibility was glaring, of course. Sightings can be erroneous, but a forensic laboratory has to work with materials. Yet they couldn’t have, not with any legitimacy. Not only was Jenna Karas very much alive and sitting in my office, but she had never gone to that beach on the Costa Brava. The forensic confirmation was a lie, and someone had to know it, someone who wanted the lie accepted as the truth.” Broussac paused. “I assumed it was you. Termination carried out, execution as scheduled. If you had been bought by the Soviets, what better proof could they have than from the Department of State? If you had been carrying out Washington’s instructions, you could not allow them to think you had failed.”

“In light of what she told you, I can understand.”

“But I wasn’t satisfied; the acceptance was too simple, so I looked further. I went to the data—processing computers and placed her name in the security scanner relevant to the past three months.… It was extraordinary. She appeared no less than twelve times, but never on State Department communiqués. They were all on cables from the Central Intelligence Agency, and couched in very odd language. It was always the same, cable after cable: the U.S. government had an alert out for a woman matching her description who
might
be using the name of Karas—but it was third or fourth on a list of a half-dozen
false
names. It was a highly classified search, but obviously an intense one, the widest cooperation sought. It was strange, almost amateurish. As though
one branch of your intelligence community did not want the other to know what it was doing.”

“That didn’t exonerate me?”

“On the contrary. You had been found out, the lie had been exposed.”

“Then why wasn’t there an alert out for
me?
”

“There was, is. As of five days ago.”

Five days, thought Havelock. The Palatine. “But you weren’t aware of it.”

“Those in the Quai d’Orsay who’ve listed you as an American liaison knew of it, and in time it would have crossed my desk as a matter of routine. However, neither you nor I have ever listed each other in our reports. That was the understanding between us.”

“It served the purpose. Is the alert specific? Am I given a label?”

“No. Only that it is imperative that you be located—as a matter of internal security. Again, I presumed: you had been exposed, either as a defector or as one who had lied to his superiors and disappeared. It really didn’t matter which. Because of Jenna Karas, you were the enemy in either case. It was confirmed for me when I called the embassy.”

“I forgot. I’m dangerous.”

“You are. To someone. I checked with London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Bonn. Both alerts have been circulated, both highest priority, but not connected.”

“You still haven’t answered the question. Why did you send her to the States?”

“I just did answer you; you weren’t listening. The search for her—and now you—is centered in Europe. Rome, the Mediterranean, Paris, London … Bonn. The curve is arcing north, the destination presumed to be the Eastern bloc. This is the line of progress they’re concentrating on, where their agents have fanned out, pulling in sources and contacts. They won’t think to look in their own barnyard.”

“Backyard,” said Michael absently.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“C’est americain. Peu importe.
When did she leave?”

“Three-thirty this afternoon … yesterday afternoon now. Air France to New York, diplomatic status, cover name drawn from a dead file—unblemished, of course.”

“And unknown.”

“Yes, it’s not relevant. It will be changed.”

“What are the arrangements?”

“She’s to see a man; no doubt she’s already seen him.
He
will make the arrangements, and it is our policy never to inquire what they are. You have the same sort of men over here—in Paris, London, Amsterdam, wherever. They do not speak with us directly.”

“The landlords of the halfway houses,” said Havelock, “guiding the people we send them into safe territories, providing identities, papers, families to live with, the towns and cities chosen carefully. We make our payments through blind conduits, and after contact we’re not involved. We’ve never heard of them; ignorance is the order of the day. But there’s another side, too, isn’t there? We don’t really know what happens to those people, do we?”

“With safe transfer, our obligations are fulfilled. They ask no more and we offer no more, that’s always been the understanding between us. I, for one, have never been curious.”

“I’m not
curious
, Régine, I’m going out of my mind! She’s in sight now, I
can find her
! I can find her! For Christ’s sake, help me! Whom did you send her to?”

“You ask a great deal, Michael. You’re asking me to violate a confidence I’ve sworn never to break. I could lose a valuable man.”

“I could lose
her
! Look at me! Tell me I wouldn’t do the same for you! If it was your husband and I was there and the Gestapo came for him, look at me and tell me I wouldn’t
help
you!”

Broussac closed her eyes briefly, as if struck. “The reference is unkind but not without truth. You are much like him.… Yes, you would have helped.”

“Get me out of Paris. Right away.
Please!
”

Régine was silent for a moment, her eyes again roaming his face. “It would be better if you did so yourself. I know you can.”

“It could take me days! I’d have to route myself through a back door in Mexico or Montreal. I can’t lose the time. With every hour she’s farther away. You know what can happen. She could get swallowed up, moving from one circle into the next, no one telling anyone anything. She could disappear and I’d never find her!”

“Very well. Tomorrow, the noon flight on the Concorde.
You’ll be French, a member of the United Nations delegation. Flush the papers down a toilet the minute you’re in the Kennedy terminal.”

“Thanks, Now the halfway man. Who is he?”

“I’ll get word to him, but he may choose to tell you nothing.”

“Get word to him. Who is he?”

“A man named Handelman. Jacob Handelman. Columbia University.”

The man with a single strip of tape on each cheek sat at the small table below the curved dais in the underground strategy room of the White House. The flesh on his square face was taut, held in place by the sutures beneath the brown adhesive; the effect was robotlike, macabre. His replies in a subdued monotone to the questions put to him heightened the image of a man not totally whole, yet over-controlled. In truth, he was afraid; the agent of record from Col des Moulinets would have been more afraid thirty-five minutes before, when the panel of men facing him was complete. There had been four men then; now there were only three. The President had removed himself. He was observing the proceedings from an unseen cubicle behind the platform, through a pane of coated glass that was part of the inner wall and indistinguishable from it. Words were being said in the room that could not be said in his presence; he could not bear witness to orders of dispatch at an Alpine pass, and prior communications that included the phrase “beyond salvage.”

The interrogation was at midpoint, Undersecretary of State Emory Bradford probing the salient points while Ambassador Brooks and General Halyard made notes on their pads under the harsh glare of the Tensor lamps.

“Let me get this clear,” said Bradford. “You were the field officer of record and the only one in contact with Rome. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’re absolutely certain no other member of the unit was in touch with the embassy?”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. I was the only channel. It’s standard, not only for the security blackout, but to make sure there’s no foul-up in the orders. One man transmits them, one man receives them.”

“Yet you say Havelock referred to two of the unit’s personnel as explosives specialists, a fact you were not aware of.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But as the field officer of record—”

“Agent of record, sir.”

“Sorry. As the
agent
of record, shouldn’t you have known?”

“Normally, I would have.”

“But you weren’t and the only explanation you can give us is that this new recruit, a Corsican named Ricci, hired the two men in question.”

“It’s the only reason I can think of. If Havelock was right; if he wasn’t lying.”

“The reports from Col des Moulinets stated that there were numerous explosions in the vicinity of the bridge’s entrance at the time.” Bradford scanned a typewritten page in front of him. “Including a massive detonation in the road that occurred approximately twelve minutes after the confrontation, killing three Italian soldiers and four civilians. Obviously, Havelock knew what he was talking about; he wasn’t lying to you.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I was unconscious … bleeding. The son of—Havelock cut me up.”

“You’re getting proper medical attention?” interrupted Ambassador Brooks, looking up from the yellow pad under the Tensor lamp.

“I guess so,” replied the agent, his right hand slipping over his left wrist, his fingers massaging the glistening stainless-steel case of his chronometer. “Except the doctors aren’t sure the wounds’ll require plastic surgery. I think I should have it.”

“That’s their province, of course,” said the statesman.

“I’m … valuable, sir. Without that surgery I’m
marked
—sir.”

“I’m sure Undersecretary Bradford will convey your feelings to Walter Reed,” said the general, reading his notes.

“You say you never saw this man Ricci,” continued Bradford, “prior to the briefing in Rome, just before the unit flew to Col des Moulinets. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. No, sir. I never saw him. He was new.”

“And you didn’t see him when you regained consciousness after the events at the bridge?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You don’t know where he went?”

“No, sir.”

“Neither does Rome,” added the undersecretary quietly, pointedly.

“I learned that an Italian soldier was hit by a truck and was pretty badly mangled, screaming his head off. Someone said he had blond hair, so I figured it was Ricci.”

“And?”

“A man came out of the woods—someone with a gash in his head—put the soldier in a car, and drove him away.”

“How did you learn this?”

“I asked questions, a lot of questions … after I got first aid. That was my Job, sir. It was a madhouse up there, Italians and French yelling all over the place. But I didn’t leave until I found out everything I could—without permitting anyone to ask
me
questions.”

“You’re to be commended,” said the ambassador.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Let’s assume you’re right.” Bradford leaned forward. “The blond man
was
Ricci, and someone with a head wound got him out of there. Have you any idea who that someone might be?”

“I think so. One of the men he brought with him. The other was killed.”

“So Ricci and this other man got away. But Rome hasn’t heard from Ricci. Would you say that’s normal?”

“No way, sir. It’s not normal at all. Whenever any of those people are damaged, they bleed us for everything they can get, and they don’t waste time about it. Our policy in black operations is clear. If we can’t evacuate the wounded—”

“I think we understand,” interrupted Halyard, an old soldier’s
antennae picking up a signal couched in a soldier’s vocabulary.

“Then it’s your opinion that if Ricci and this demolitions expert got away intact, they’d have reached our embassy in Rome as quickly as they could.”

“Yes, sir. With their hands out and shouting all the way. They would have expected attention pronto and threatened us with the kind we don’t want if they didn’t get it.”

“What do you think happened?”

“I’d say it’s pretty obvious. They didn’t make it.”

“What was that?” asked Brooks.

“There isn’t any other explanation. I know those people, sir. They’re garbage; they’d kill their mothers if the price was right. They would have been in touch with Rome, believe me.”

“ ‘Didn’t make it’?” repeated Halyard, staring at the man from Col des Moulinets. “What do you mean?”

“The roads, sir. They wind up and down those mountains like corkscrews, sometimes without lights for miles at a time. A wounded man driving, the other one banged up and screaming; that vehicle’s a candidate for a long fall up there.”

“Head wounds can be deceptive,” Halyard commented. “A bloody nose looks a hell of a lot worse than it is.”

“It strikes me,” said Brooks, “that same man acted with considerable presence of mind amid the chaos. He functioned—”

“Forgive me, Mr. Ambassador,” interrupted Bradford, his voice rising slightly but deferentially. The intrusion was not a breach of manners but a signal. “I think the field officer’s point is well taken. A thorough search of those roads will undoubtedly reveal a car somewhere at the bottom of a precipice.”

Brooks exchanged looks with the man from State; the signal was acknowledged. “Yes, of course. Realistically, there is no other explanation.”

“Just one or two more points and we’re finished,” said Bradford, rearranging his papers. “As you know, whatever is said here is confidential. There are no hidden microphones, no recording devices; the words spoken here are stored only in our memories. This is for the protection of all of us—not
just you—so feel perfectly free to speak candidly. Don’t try to soften the truth; we’re in the same boat.”