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.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Your orders with regard to Havelock were unequivocal He was officially classified ‘beyond salvage’ and the word from Rome was to terminate with ‘extreme prejudice.’ Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In other words, he was to be executed. killed at Col des Moulinets.”
“That’s what it meant.”
“And you received those instructions from the senior attaché, Consular Operations, Roma. A man named Warren. Harry Warren.”
“Yes, sir. I was in constant touch with him, waiting for the determination … waiting for Washington to give it to him.”
“How could you be certain the man you spoke with was Harry Warren?”
The agent seemed perplexed, as if the question were foolish, though the man who asked it was not foolish at all. “Among other things, I worked with Harry for over two years. I knew his voice.”
“Just his voice?”
“And the number in Rome. It was a direct line to the embassy’s radio room, unlisted and very classified. I knew that, too.”
“Did it occur to you that when he gave you your final instructions he might have been doing so under duress? Against his will?”
“No, sir, not at all.”
“It never crossed your mind?”
“If that had been the case, he would have told me.”
“With a gun at his head?” said Halyard. “How?”
“The code had been established and he used it He wouldn’t have if there’d been anything wrong.”
“Explain that, please,” said Brooks. “What code?”
“A word or a couple of words that originate in Washington. They’re referred to when decisions are transmitted; that way you know the authorization’s there without naming names. If anything had been wrong, Harry wouldn’t have used the code, and I would have known something wasn’t right. I’d have asked for it and he would have given me a different one. He didn’t and I didn’t He used the correct one up front.”
“What was the code for Col des Moulinets?” asked Emory Bradford.
“Ambiguity, sir. It came direct from Cons Op, Washington, and will be listed in the embassy telephone logs, classified files.”
“Which is proof of authorization,” said Bradford, making a statement.
“Yes, sir. Dates, times and origins of clearance are in those logs.”
Bradford held up an eight-by-ten-inch photograph of a man’s face, adjusting the Tensor lamp so it could be seen clearly. “Is this Harry Warren?”
“Yes, sir. That’s Harry.”
“Thank you.” The undersecretary put down the photograph and made a check mark on the border of his notes. “Let me go back a bit; there’s something I’m not sure is clear. Regarding the woman, she was to be sent across the border unharmed, if possible. Is that correct?”
“The operative words were ‘if possible.’ Nobody was going to risk anything for her. She was just a needle.”
“A needle?”
“To stick into the Soviets. Let Moscow know we didn’t buy the plant.”
“Meaning she was a Russian device. A woman similar in appearance—perhaps someone who had undergone cosmetic surgery—whom the Soviets surfaced repeatedly at selected locations for Havelock’s benefit, letting him get close, but never close enough to take her. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The purpose being to shock Havelock into a state of mental instability, to the point of defection?”
“To drive him nuts, yes, sir. I guess it worked; the ‘beyond salvage’ came from Washington.”
“From Ambiguity.”
“Ambiguity, sir.”
“Whose identity can be traced in the embassy’s telephone logs.”
“Yes, sir. The logs.”
“So it was established beyond doubt that the woman at the bridge was not Jenna Karas.”
“Beyond doubt. She was killed at Costa Brava, everyone knew that. Havelock himself was the agent of record at that beach. He went crazy.”
Ambassador Brooks slapped down his pencil and leaned forward, studying the man from Col des Moulinets. The sharp, echoing crack of the pencil, and the movement itself, were more than an interruption; they combined to indicate an objection. “This entire operation, didn’t it strike you as … well, bizarre, to say the least? To be quite candid, was execution the only solution? Knowing what you all knew—presumed you knew—couldn’t you have tried to take the man, spare his life, get him back here for treatment?”
“With respect, sir, that’s a lot easier said than done. Jack Ogilvie tried in Rome and never left the Palatine. Havelock killed three men on that bridge that we know of; another two may be dead by now and probably are. He dug a knife into my face—He’s a psycho.” The agent paused, not finished. “Yes, sir. All things considered, we kill him. That’s ‘beyond salvage,’ and has nothing to do with me. I follow orders.”
“An all too familiar phrase, sir,” said Brooks.
“But justified under the circumstances,” Bradford broke in quickly, writing out the word Ambiguity on the page in front of him and continuing before anyone else could speak, or object. “What happened to Havelock? Did you learn?”
“They said an assassino pazzo—crazy man, killer—drove the truck hellbent across the bridge and out of sight. It had to be Havelock. There are alerts out all through the provinces—the towns and cities and up and down the Mediterranean coast. He worked the coast; he’ll get in touch with someone and they’ll find him. They said he was wounded; he won’t get far. My guess is a couple of days at the outside, and I wish I was there to take him myself.”
“Again quite justified,” said Bradford “And we want to thank you for your cooperation this evening. You’ve been very concise and helpful. You may leave now, and good luck to you.”
The man got out of the chair, nodded awkwardly and walked to the door. He stopped, touching his left cheek and the tape as he turned to face the powerful men on the dais. “I’m worth the surgery,” he said.
“I’m sure you are,” replied the undersecretary.
The agent of record from Col des Moulinets opened the door and stepped out into the white-walled corridor. The instant the door was shut, Halyard turned to Bradford and shouted, “Get hold of Rome! Get those logs and find this Ambiguity! It’s what you were trying to tell us, isn’t it? This is the link to Parsifal!”
“Yes, General,” answered Bradford. “The Ambiguity code was established by the director of Consular Operations, Daniel Stern, whose name appears in the embassy logs, entered by the Cons Op senior attaché, Harry Warren. Warren was clear in his entry; the transcript was read to me. He wrote the following”—the undersecretary picked up a note on top of his papers—“ ‘Code: Ambiguity. Subject: M. Havelock. Decision pending.’ ”
“ ’Pending?” asked Brooks. “When was it made?”
“According to the embassy logs, it wasn’t. There were no further entries that night making any reference whatsoever to Ambiguity, Havelock, or the unit at Col des Moulinets.”
“Impossible,” protested the general. “You heard that man. The go-ahead was given, the authorization code was delivered. He didn’t mince words. That call had to have come through.”
“It did.”
“Are you saying that the entry was deleted?” asked Brooks.
“It was never made,” said Bradford. “Warren never made it.”
“Then get him,” said Halyard. “Nail him. He knows who he talked to. Goddamn it, Emory, get on that phone. This is Parsifal!” He turned in his chair, addressing the wall. “Mr. President?”
There was no reply.
The undersecretary separated the papers in front of him and removed a thin manila envelope from the rest. He opened it, took out a second photograph and handed it to the former ambassador. Brooks studied it, a sharp intake of breath accompanying his first glance. Silently he passed it to Halyard.
“Jesus …” Halyard placed the photograph under the beam of the Tensor. The surface was grainy, the infinitesimal lines the result of a transmitting machine, but the image was clear. It was a photograph of a corpse stretched out on a white table, the clothes torn and bloody, the face bruised terribly but wiped clean for identification. The face of the dead man was the same as that in the first photograph Bradford had shown the agent from Col des Moulinets only minutes before. It belonged to Harry Warren, senior attaché, Cons Op, Rome.
“That was telexed to us at one o’clock this afternoon. It’s Warren. He was run down on the Via Frascatti in the early hours of the morning two days ago. There were witnesses, but they couldn’t help much, except to tell our people the car was a large sedan with a powerful engine; it roared down the street, apparently gathering speed just before impact. Whoever drove it wasn’t taking any chances of missing; he caught Warren stepping onto the curb and hammered him into the pole of a streetlight, doing considerable damage to the automobile. The police are searching for it, but there’s not much hope. It’s probably at the bottom of a river in the hills.”
“So the link is gone.” Halyard pushed the photograph toward Brooks.
“I mourn the man,” said the undersecretary, “but I’m not sure how much of a link he was.”
“Someone thought so,” said the soldier.
“Or was covering a flank.”
“What do you mean?” asked Brooks.
“Whoever made that final call authorizing ‘beyond salvage’ couldn’t know what Stern told Warren. All we know is that the decision hadn’t been made.”
“Please be clearer,” the statesman insisted.
“Suppose the strategists of Consular Operations decided they couldn’t reach a decision. On the surface, it wouldn’t appear that difficult—a psychopath, a rogue agent capable of causing extraordinary damage, a potential defector, a killer—the decision wasn’t one that stretched their consciences. But suppose they learned something, or suspected something, that called everything into question.”
“The Karas woman,” said Halyard.
“Perhaps. Or maybe a communication, or a signal from Havelock that contradicted the assumption that he was a maniac. That he was as sane as they were; a sane man caught in a terrible dilemma not of his own making.”
“Which is, of course, the truth,” interrupted Brooks quietly.
“The truth,” agreed Bradford. “What would they do?”
“Get help,” said Halyard. “Advice.”
“Guidance,” added the statesman.
“Or practically speaking,” said the undersecretary, “especially if the facts weren’t clear, they’d spread the responsibility for the decision. Hours later it was made, and they were dead … and we don’t know who made it, who placed that final call. We only know it was someone sufficiently cleared, sufficiently trusted to be given the code Ambiguity. That man made the decision; he made the call to Rome.”
“But Warren didn’t log it,” said Brooks. “Why didn’t he? How could it happen?”
“The way it’s happened before, Mr. Ambassador. A routed line traceable only to a single telephone complex somewhere in Arlington is used, the authorization verified by code, and a request made on the basis of internal security. There is to be no log, no tape, no reference to the transmission; it’s an order, actually. The recipient is flattered; he’s been chosen, deemed by men who make important decisions to be more reliable than those around him. And what difference does it make? The authorization can always be traced through the code—in this case through the director of Cons Op, Daniel Stern. Only, he’s dead.”
“It’s appalling,” said Brooks, looking down at his notes. “A man is to be executed because he’s right, and when the attempt fails, he’s held responsible for the death of those who try to kill him and labeled a killer himself. And we don’t know who officially gave the order. We can’t find him. What kind of people are we?”
“Men who keep secrets.” The voice came from behind the dais. The President of the United States emerged from the white-paneled door set into the white wall. “Forgive me, I was watching you, listening. It’s often helpful.”
“Secrets, Mr. President?”
“Yes, Mal,” said Berquist, going to his chair. “The words are all there, aren’t they? Top Secret, Eyes Only, Highly Classified, Maximum Clearance Required, Duplication Forbidden, Authorization to Be Accompanied by Access Code … so many words. We sweep rooms and telephone lines with instruments that tell us whether bugs and intercepts have been placed, and then develop hardware that misdirects those same scanners when we implant our own devices. We jam radio broadcasts—including satellite transmissions—and override the jamming with laser beams that carry the words we want to send. We put a national security lid on information we don’t want made public so we can leak selected sections at will, keeping the rest inviolate. We tell a certain agency or Department one thing and another something else entirely, so as to conceal a third set of facts—the damaging truth. In history’s most advanced age of communications, we’re doing our damnedest to louse it up, to misuse it, really.” The President sat down, looked at the photograph of the dead man in Rome, and turned it over. “Keeping secrets and diverting the flow of accurate information have become prime objectives in our ever-expanding technology—of communications. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, often vital, sir,” said Bradford.
“Perhaps. If only we could be certain when we applied them. I often wonder—late at night, watching the lights on the ceiling as I’m trying to sleep—if we hadn’t tried to keep a secret three months ago, whether we would be faced with what we’re faced with now.”
“Our options were extremely limited, Mr. President,” the undersecretary said firmly. “We might have faced worse.”
“Worse, Emory?”
“Earlier, then. Time is the only thing on our side.”
“And we have to use every goddamn minute,” agreed Berquist, glancing first at the general and then at Brooks. “Now you’re both aware of what’s happened during the past seventy-two hours and why I had to call you back to Washington.”
“Except the most relevant factor,” said the statesman. “Parsifal’s reaction.”
“None,” replied the President.
“Then he doesn’t know,” said Halyard rapidly, emphatically.
“If you’d get that written in stone, I could sleep at night,” said Berquist.
“When did he last communicate with you?” asked Brooks.
“Sixteen days ago. There was no point in reaching you; it was another demand, as outrageous as the others and now as pointless.”
“There’s been no movement on the previous demands?” continued the statesman.
“Nothing. As of fifteen days ago we’ve tunneled eight hundred million dollars into banks throughout the Bahamas, the Caymans and Central America. We’ve set up every—” The President paused as he touched the photograph in front of him, folding a comer until part of a bloodied trouser leg could be seen. “—every code and countercode he’s asked for, so he could verify the deposits whenever he wished, have the monies sent to blind accounts in Zurich and Bern where they would be accessible to him. He hasn’t moved a cent, and except for three verifications he’s made no contact at all with the other banks. He has no interest in the money; it’s only a means of confirming our vulnerability. He knows we’ll do anything he asks.” Berquist paused again; when he spoke, his voice was barely audible. “God help us, we can’t afford not to.”
There was silence on the dais, an acknowledgment of the unthinkable. It was broken by the general’s businesslike comment “There are a couple of holes here,” he said, reading his notes, then looking at the undersecretary. “Can you fill them in?”
“I can speculate,” replied Bradford. “But to do even that, we’ve got to go back to the very beginning. Before Rome.”
“Costa Brava?” asked Brooks disdainfully.
“Before then, Mr. Ambassador. To when we all agreed there had to be a Costa Brava.”
“I stand rebuked,” said the statesman icily. “Please go on.”
“We go back to when we learned that it was Matthias himself who initiated the investigation of Jenna Karas. It was the great man himself, not his aides, who relayed information from unnamed informants, sources so deep in Soviet intelligence that even to speculate on their identities was tantamount to exposing our own operations.”
“Don’t be modest, Emory,” Interrupted the President “We didn’t learn that it was Matthias. You did. You had the perspicacity to go around the ‘great man,’ as you call him.”
“Only with a sense of sadness, sir. It was you, Mr. President, who demanded the truth from one of his aides in the Oval Office and he gave it to you. He said they didn’t know where the information had come from, only that Matthias himself had brought it in. He never would have told me that.”
“The room did it, I didn’t,” said Berquist. “You don’t lie to the man sitting in that room … unless you’re Anthony Matthias.”
“In fairness, Mr. President,” said Brooks softly, “his intention was not to deceive you. He believed he was right.”
“He believed he should have been sitting in my chair, my office! Good Christ, he still believes it. Even now! There’s no end to his goddamned megalomania! Go on, Emory.”
“Yes, sir.” Bradford looked up. “We concluded that Matthias’s objective was to force Havelock to retire, to get his old student and one of the best men we had out of Consular Operations. We’ve covered that before; we didn’t know why then and we don’t know why now.”
“But we went along,” said Berquist, “because we didn’t know what we had. A broken foreign service officer who didn’t want to go on, or a fraud—worse than a fraud. Matthias’s lackey, willing to see a woman killed so he could work for the great man on the outside. Oh, and the work he could have done! The international emissary for Saint Matthias, Or was it Emperor Matthias, ruler of all the states and territories of the republic?”
“Come on, Charley.” Halyard touched the President’s arm; no one else in that room would have risked such an intimate gesture. “It’s over. It’s not why we’re here.”
“If it wasn’t for that son of a bitch Matthias we wouldn’t be here! I find that hard to forget. And so could the world one day … if there’s anyone left with a memory.”
“Then may we return to that infinitely more ominous crisis, Mr. President?” said Brooks gently.
Berquist leaned back; he looked at the aristocratic statesman, then at the old general. “When Bradford came to me and convinced me that there was a pattern of deception at the highest levels of State involving the great Anthony Matthias, I asked for you two—and only you two. At least, for now. I’d better be able to take your criticism, because you’ll give it to me.”
“Which I think is why you asked for us,” said Halyard. “Sir.”
“You’re a ball-breaker, Mal.” The President nodded toward the man from State. “Sorry. All right, we didn’t know then, and we don’t know now, why Matthias wanted Havelock out But Emory brought us the scenario.”
“An incredible scenario,” agreed Bradford, his hands on top of the papers, no longer needing his notes. “The case that Matthias concocted against the Karas woman was a study in meticulous invention. A reformed terrorist from Baader-Mein-hof suddenly appears looking for absolution; he’ll trade information for relocation and the cancellation of his death sentence. Bonn agrees—reluctantly—and we buy his story. The woman working with a Cons Op field officer then in Barcelona is actually a member of the KGB. A method of transferring orders is described, which entails the passing of a key, and a small overnight suitcase is located at an airport, her suitcase, filled with all the evidence needed to convict her—detailed analyses of the activities she and Havelock bad been involved with during the past five weeks, summaries of in-depth, classified information Havelock had sent back to the State Department, and copies of the current codes and radio frequencies we used in the field. Also in that overnight bag were instructions from Moscow, including the KGB code that she was to employ should contact with KGB Northwest Sector be required. We tested the code and got a response; it was authentic.”
Brooks raised his left hand no more than a few inches above the surface of the dais, the gesture of a man used to commanding attention. “General Halyard and I are familiar with much of this, albeit not the specifics. I assume there’s a reason for your restating it in such detail.”
“There is, Mr. Ambassador,” agreed Bradford. “It concerns Daniel Stern. Please bear with me.”
“Then while you’re at it,” said the general, “how did you verify that KGB code?”
“By using the three basic maritime frequencies for that area of the Mediterranean. It’s standard procedure for the Soviets.”
“That’s pretty damn simple of them, isn’t it?”
“I’m no expert, General, but I’d say it’s pretty damn smart. I’ve studied the way we do it—I’ve had to—and I’m not sure ours is more effective. The frequencies we select are usually the weaker ones, not always clear, and easily jammed if discovered. You don’t tamper with maritime channels, and no matter how much traffic, the codes get through within a reasonable period of time.”
“You’re very impressive,” said Brooks.
“I’ve had a series of crash courses during the past three months. Thanks to an executive order from the President, I’ve also had the benefit of the best brains in the intelligence community.”
“The reason for that executive order was not explained,” interrupted Berquist, glancing at the older men, then turning back to Bradford. “All right, you verified the KGB code to be authentic.”
“It was the most incriminating document in that suitcase; it couldn’t have been faked. So her name was put through the wheels at Central Intelligence—very deep wheels.” Bradford paused. “As you may or may not know, General—Mr. Ambassador—it was at this point that I came on the scene. I didn’t seek to be included; I was sought out by men I’d worked with during the Johnson administration … and in Southeast Asia.”
“Remnants of the benevolent AID in Vientiane who stayed with the Agency?” asked Halyard sardonically.
“Yes,” replied the undersecretary; there was no apology in his answer. “Two men whose wide experience in undercover operations—favorable and unfavorable—led them to become what’s called source controls for informants deep within the Soviet apparatus. They phoned me at home one night, said they were at a local bar in Berwyn and why didn’t I join them for a drink—old times’ sake. When I said it was late, the one I was talking to pointed out that it was also late for them, and Berwyn Heights was a long drive from McLean and Langley. I understood and joined them.”
“I’ve never heard this,” interrupted the former ambassador. “Am I to infer that these men did not report back through normal channels but, instead, went directly to you?”
“Yes, sir. They were disturbed.”
“Thank God for the communion of past sinners,” said the President. “When they returned to those normal channels, they did it our way. It was beyond their scope, they reported. They pulled out and left it in Bradford’s lap.”
“The information requested about the Karas woman was a basic intelligence query,” said Halyard. “Why were they dis-turbed?”
“Because it was a highly negative inquiry that presupposed the subject was too deep, too concealed for CIA detection. She was going to be found guilty no matter what the Agency came back with.”
“Then it was the arrogance that angered them?” suggested Brooks.
“No, they’re used to that from State. What disturbed them was that the supposition couldn’t possibly be true. They reached five separate sources in Moscow, none aware of the others—moles who had access to every black file in the KGB. Each probe came back negative. She was clean, but someone at State wanted her dirty. When one of the men routinely called an aide of Matthias to get further background from Cons Op, he was told simply to send back a nonproductive report—State had everything it needed. In other words, she was hanged no matter what the Agency returned, and the source control had the distinct impression that whatever was sent back to State would be buried. But Jenna Karas was no part of the KGB and never had been.”
“How did your friends explain the KGB code?” asked the soldier.
“Someone in Moscow provided it,” said Bradford. “Someone working with or for Matthias.”
Again the silence on the dais suggested the unthinkable, and once again it was broken by the general “We ruled that out!” he cried.
“I’d like to revive it,” said Bradford quietly.
“We’ve explored the possibility to the point of exhaustion,” said Brooks, staring at Bradford. “Practically and conceptually, there’s no merit in the theory. Matthias is inexorably bound to Parsifal; one does not exist without the other. If the Soviet Union had any knowledge of Parsifal, ten thousand multiple warheads would be in position to destroy half our cities and all our military installations. The Russians would have no choice but to launch, posing their final questions after the first strike. We have intelligence penetration to alert us to any such missile deployment; there’s been no such alert. In your words, Mr. Bradford, time is the only thing on our side.”
“I’ll stay with that judgment, Mr. Ambassador. still, the KGB code found its way into the manufactured evidence against the Karas woman even though she was clean. I can’t believe it was for sale.”
“Why not?” asked the general. “What isn’t for sale?”
“Not a code like that. You don’t buy a code that changes periodically, erratically, with no set schedule of change.”
“What’s your point?” Halyard interrupted.
“Someone in Moscow had to provide that code,” said Bradford, raising his voice. “We may be closer to Parsifal than we think.”
“What’s your thesis, Mr. Undersecretary?” Brooks leaned forward, his elbow on the dais.
“There’s someone trying to find Parsifal as frantically as we are—for the same reasons we are. Whoever he is, he’s here in Washington—he may be someone we see every day, but we don’t know who he is. I only know he’s working for Moscow, and the difference between him and us right now is that he’s been looking longer than we have. He knew about Parsifal before we did. And that means someone in Moscow knows.” Bradford paused. “That’s the reason for the most God-awful crisis this country has ever faced—the world has ever faced. There’s a mole here in Washington who could tip the balance of power—of basic global recognition of our physical and moral superiority, which is power—if he reaches Parsifal first. And he may, because he knows who he is and we don’t.”