The Parsifal Mosaic (76 page)

“I’ve got it,” said Randolph, raising his eyes and staring at Michael. “He still could, you know. Pull me in, I mean.”

“So could I, but I won’t unless you destroy the information on that page. It’s not likely because I wouldn’t give you the chance. On the other hand, he’ll never come near you because I won’t give
him
the chance. He’s made the one mistake he can’t afford to make in his very strange life. It’s fatal. The name, please.”

“Colin Shippers. Chief pathologist, the Regency Foundation. It’s a private research center.”

It’s far more than that, Doctor. It’s where a
paminyatchik
can be found. The first concrete step toward Ambiguity. Toward Parsifal
.

“This is what I want you to do,” said Havelock. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to do it.”

It was vital to operate not only once removed but almost blindly, and that was the most difficult thing in the world for Michael to do. The highly concentrated surveillance had to be left to others, something Havelock hated because his team was operating totally in the dark, told only to follow instructions, given no clear reason for the job they were doing. There were always built-in risks in such methods; responsibility without knowledge or authority led to resentment, and resentment was the first cousin to carelessness. That could
not
be permitted. Nor, unfortunately, could inquiries be made regarding routine habits, friends, medical associates, places frequented … all the minutiae that might help them were denied them.

For if Mackenzie’s death linked Dr. Colin Shippers to the initial cover-up of Costa Brava—a cover-up that was no part of the White House strategy—he was at the Medical Center under orders from the mole at State, the
paminyatchik
who had assumed the Ambiguity code. And a
paminyatchik
in that position would never entrust an assignment as sensitive as the killing of a CIA black—operations officer to any but one of his own. Therefore they had to operate on the assumption that Shippers himself was a traveler, and that even the hint of an alarm would send him underground, severing the connection to Ambiguity, and, with it, any possibility of tracing the mole through the link. Sources of information were continuously covered by the travelers; personnel offices, bank and credit references, professional records—even FBI checks—all were assiduously scrutinized by informants—willing and unwilling, Russian plants and blackmailed clerks—who alerted these thoroughly Americanized Soviet agents that someone was interested in them. This practice, in concert with Amendments IV, V and VI of the Bill of Rights, made it virtually impossible to trap a
paminyatchik;
he was a citizen and entitled to the protection of the Constitution of the United States. By the time probable cause eliminated unreasonable search, or a grand jury returned a presentment or an indictment, and the accused was informed of the nature and cause of his possible crime the traveler had long since departed, only to surface in weeks or months with another identity, a wholly original résumé, and not infrequently a new face, courtesy of surgeons in Moscow.

However, as Rostov had pointed out in Athens, the irony
of this long-range Soviet penetration was found in the practical results. Far too often the American “experience” served to undermine the Soviet commitment. During his rare but necessary trip to Moscow’s Dzerzhinsky Square, the
paminyatchik
was made aware of the inevitable comparisons between the two countries. In the final analysis, the travelers were far less productive than the KGB felt it had a right to expect in light of the money and the effort it expended. Yet to threaten one was to court exposure of the whole program.

Futility was not always the province of those with God on their side, thought Havelock.

Yet, again, there were the exceptions, and exposure would never come from them. A mole called Ambiguity, who roamed the sacrosanct corridors of the State Department, and a bright, persuasive pathologist named Colin Shippers, who could grasshop from laboratory to laboratory—how often were these laboratories branches of United States intelligence?—these justified the expense and whatever manpower Moscow allotted to the
paminyatchik
operation. Ambiguity was obviously Shipper’s superior, the on-site control, and without doubt a respected satellite in the KGB firmament—but he was not keeping his normal KGB channels informed of the present crisis. Costa Brava, and all the madness it represented, was not only disavowed by Dzerzhinsky Square, but what little they did know about it alarmed men like Pyotr Rostov.

It had to; events had taken place that could
not
have taken place without complicity in Moscow. A VKR officer had been trapped and wounded in Paris by the central figure at Costa Brava, and it took litttle imagination to know that the orders the officer followed were obfuscated so as to be untraceable within the complex machinery of Russian intelligence. Of course Rostov was alarmed; the specter of the fanatical VKR was enough to frighten the most dedicated Marxist, just as it frightened Havelock. For the unknown Ambiguity obviously sent routine dispatches to his controls in the KGB but reserved his most explosive information for his masters in the Voennaya.

Rostov sensed it, but he could not pin it down, much less expose it. It was the reason for his offer to a former counterpart in Consular Operations.
He says he’s not your enemy any longer, but others are who may be his as well
.

If Rostov had any idea how valid his instincts were, he would risk a firing squad to make contact, thought Michael. But Rostov was wrong; the Russian
was
his enemy. Essentially neither could trust the other because neither Washington nor Moscow would permit such trust, and not even the horror of Parsifal could change that.

Futility in a world gone mad—as mad as its former savior, Anthony Matthias.

“How long do you think it will take?” asked Jenna, sitting across from Havelock in the small, sunlit alcove off the kitchen where they had their morning coffee.

“It’s difficult to tell. It’ll depend on how convincing Randolph is and how quickly Shippers suspects that an insurance company may be something else, something that alarms him. It could be today, tonight, tomorrow … the day after.”

“I’d think you’d want Randolph to force him to react immediately. Can you afford the time?”

“I can’t afford to lose him; he’s the only link we’ve got. His name didn’t appear in the laboratory report—which was easy for him to insist on in light of Randolph’s decision to cover up what he thought was a suicide. Shippers knows the only way he could surface would be for Randolph to incriminate himself, which he’d never do. Beyond practical considerations, his ego wouldn’t permit it.”

“But swiftness is everything, Mikhail,” objected Jenna. “I’m not sure I understand your strategy.”

Havelock looked into her eyes, his own eyes questioning. “I’m not sure I do, either. I’ve always known that to make things work in this business—this so-called profession of ours—was to think as your enemy thinks, to
be
him, then do what you’re convinced he doesn’t expect. Now I’m asked to think like someone I can’t possibly relate to, a man who literally has to be
two people.”
Michael sipped his coffee, staring now at the rim of the cup. “Think about it. An American childhood, adolescence—the Yankees, the Knicks, the Denver Broncos, the Lakers—friends at school and college; going out with girls, talking about yourself, confiding in people you really like. These are the years when secrets are for telling; it’s against human nature to keep them to yourself—part of growing up is revealing yourself. So explain it to me. How does a man like this, a
paminyatchik
, keep the one secret he can never reveal so deep inside him.”

“I don’t know, but you’ve just described someone I do know very well.”

“Who?”

“You, my darling.”

“That’s crazy.” Havelock put his cup down. He was anxious to leave the table; that, too, was in his eyes.

“Is it?” Jenna reached over, putting her hand briefly over his. “How many friends at school and in college, how many girls and people you really liked did you tell about Mikhail Havlíček, and Lidice? How many knew about the agonies of Prague and a child who hid in the forests and carried secret messages and explosives strapped to his person? Tell me, how many?”

“It was pointless. It was history.”

“I would never have known—
we
would never have known—except that our leaders insisted on a thorough background check. Your intelligence services have not always sent the best people into our part of Europe and we paid for the mistakes. But when the dossier of Havlíček and the Havlíček family was brought to us—all easily verified—it came sealed with a man from the highest office of your State Department, who took it away with him. It was apparent that your immediate superiors—our normal contacts—were not aware of your early days. For some reason they were concealed; for some reason—you were two people. Why, Mikhail?”

“I just told you. Matthias and I agreed; it was history.”

“You didn’t care to live with it, then. You wanted that part of your life to remain hidden, out of sight.”

“That’ll do.”

“I was with you so many times when older people spoke of those days and you never said anything, never let on that you were there. Because if you had, it could have led to your secret, the years you didn’t care to talk about.”

“That’s consistent.”

“Like this Shippers, you’d been there and you were staying out of sight. You
were there
but your signature didn’t appear anywhere.”

“It’s a farfetched parallel.”

“Different, perhaps; not farfetched,” insisted Jenna. “You can’t make even the usual inquiries about Shippers because informants might alert him and he’d disappear, protecting his
secret. You’re waiting for him to consider Randolph’s call; finally, perhaps—you hope—he’ll decide that he should find out whether or not this insurance company is really—How do you say it?”

“Balking,” offered Michael. “Asking last questions before agreeing to the final settlement on MacKenzie’s policy. It’s standard; they hate like hell paying money.”

“Yes, you believe he’ll do this. And when he discovers there
are
no questions, he’ll be alarmed, then make his move to contact his control, again you hope, Ambiguity.”

“I think that’s the way he
will
behave. It’s the best and the safest way I can come up with. Anything else would send him underground.”

“And each hour he …” Jenna shook her head, searching for words.

“Thinks about it,” said Havelock. “Concentrates.”

“Yes, concentrates. Every moment is a lost moment, giving him time to spot his surveillance, the men who worry you because you don’t know them and you can’t give them the true background material on their subject.”

“I don’t like it, but it’s been done before.”

“Hardly under these conditions, never with such terrible consequences for error. Swiftness is everything, Mikhail.”

“You’re trying to tell me something and I don’t know what it is.”

“You’re afraid of alarming Shippers, afraid he might disappear.”

“Terrified’ is a better word.”

“Then don’t go after
him
. Go after the man who was silent, who was at the Medical Center when MacKenzie died, but whose signature did not appear. As you were two men in Prague, he
is
two men here. Go after the one you
see
because you have no reason to believe he
is
two men, or has a secret to conceal.”

Havelock touched his cup, his eyes fixed on Jenna’s eyes. “Go after a laboratory pathologist,” he said quietly. “On the assumption that someone had to be there with Randolph.… Corroboration. The insurance company insists on a corroborating physician.”

“In my country five signatures are barely adequate for any one document.”

“He’ll refuse, of course.”

“Can he? He
was there.”

“He’ll tell Randolph he can’t support him, can’t agree openly to the diagnosis of aneurysm leading to aortal hemorrhage.”

“Then I think the doctor should be quite firm. If that’s Shippers’s medical position, why didn’t he take it before?”

Michael smiled. “That’s very good. Blackmail an extortionist with his own material.”

“Why not? Randolph has—how do you say it?—the leverage. Age, reputation, wealth; who is this Shippers to oppose him?”

“And none of it makes a damn bit of difference, anyway. We’re simply forcing him to move quickly. For his own protection—not as a traveler, but as a
doctor—
he’ll have to determine how serious the insurance people are. Whether it’s a routine measure or whether they mean it. Then he finds out there’s nothing; he’s got to move again.”

“What’s today’s schedule?” asked Jenna.

“Initial surveillance will pick up Shippers when he leaves his apartment this morning. Secondary will take over inside the Regency buildings.”

“How?… I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening last night when you were on the phone.”

“I know you weren’t, I was watching you. Are you going to have something for me?”

“Later, perhaps. How did your men get inside the buildings?”

“The Regency Foundation’s a private firm with its share of classified government contracts. That’s obviously the reason Shippers went there; a lot of those contracts are defense-oriented. Regency was the company that first projected the radius burn-level of napalm. It’s common for government technocrats and GAO personnel to be around there, shuffling papers and looking official. Starting this morning, there are two more.”

“I hope no one asks them questions.”

“They wouldn’t answer if anyone did; that’s standard. Also they’ve got briefcases and plastic ID’s on their lapels that identify them. They’re covered if anyone checks.” Havelock looked at his watch as he got up from the table. “Randolph’s making his call between ten and ten-thirty. Let’s go. I’ll reach him and give him the new word.”

“If Shippers reacts,” said Jenna, following Michael down the hall toward the paneled study, “he won’t use his office phone.”