The Parsifal Mosaic by Robert Ludlum Read Free Book Online

imperative. Internal protection, of course.”
    Havelock sat forward on the bed, confusion joining the anger in his eyes. “Say what you’re trying to say and say it quickly. There’s a smell about you,
priyatel!”
    “I suspect there is about all of us, Mikhail Havlíček. Our nostrils never quite adjust, do they? Perversely, they become sensitive—to variations of that basic odor. Like animals.”
    “Say it.”
    “There is no listing for a Jenna Karasova or the Anglicized Karas in any branch or division of the KGB.”
    Havelock stared at the Russian, then suddenly he spun off the bed, gripping the sheet and whipping it into the air, obscuring the Russian’s vision. He lunged forward, hammering Rostov against the wall beyond the balcony doors. He twisted the KGB man clockwise by the wrist and smashed his head into the frame of a cheap oil painting as he whipped his right arm around Rostov’s neck in a hammerlock. “I could kill you for that,” he whispered, breathless, the muscles of his jaw pulsating against Rostov’s bald head. “You said I might break your neck. I could do it right
now!”
    “You could,” said the Russian, choking. “And you’d be cut down. Either in this room or on the street outside.”
    “I thought you didn’t have anyone in the hotel!”
    “I lied. There are three men, two dressed as waiters down the hallway by the elevators, one inside the staircase. There’s no final protection for you here in Athens. My people are out there—on the street as well—every doorway covered. My instructions are clear: I’m to emerge from a specific exit at a specific time. Any deviations from either will result in your death. The room will be stormed; the cordon around the Arethusa is unbreakable. I’m not an idiot.”
    “Maybe not, but as you said, you’re an
animal
!
”
He released the Russian and hurled him across the room. “Go back to Moscow and tell them the bait’s too obvious, the stench too rotten! I’m not taking it,
priyatel
. Get out of here!”
    “No bait,” protested Rostov, regaining his balance and holding his throat. “Your own argument: what could you really tell us that would be worth the risks, or the reprisals, perhaps?
Or
the uncertainties? You’re finished. Without programming, you could lead us into a hundred traps—a theory that has crossed our minds, incidentally. You talk freely and we act on what you say, but what you tell us is no longer operative. Through you we go after strategies—not simple codes and ciphers, but supposedly long-term vital strategies—that Washington has aborted without telling
you
. In the process we reveal our personnel. Surely you’re aware of this. You talk of logic? Heed your own words.”
    Havelock stared at the Soviet officer, his breathing audible, anger and bewilderment compounding the emotional strain. Even the shadow of a possibility that an error had beenmade at Costa Brava was more than he could face.
But there was no error
. A Baader-Meinhof defector had set off the revealing chain of events. The evidence had been sent to Madrid, and he had pored over it, sifting every fragment for a shred to the contrary. There was nothing; there was everything. Even Anthony Matthias—
Anton
Matthias, friend, mentor, surrogate father—had demanded indepth verification; it had been returned: Positive.
    “No! The proof was there!
She
was there! I saw for myself! I said I had to see for myself and they agreed!”
    “‘They’? who is ‘they’?”
    “You know as well as I do! Men like you! The inside shell—strategists! You didn’t look hard enough. You’re
wrong
!
”
    The Russian moved his head slowly in circles, his left hand massaging his throat; he spoke softly. “I won’t deny that the possibility exists—as I said, the VKR is maniacally secretive,
especially
in Moscow—but that possibility is remote.… We were astonished. An unusually productive decoy conduit is led into a terrorist trap by her own people, who then