Free The Parsifal Mosaic by Robert Ludlum Page A

painful irony struck him. It had been a suitcase in a coin locker at an airport in Barcelonathat had condemned Jenna Karas. The defector from the Baader-Meinhof—in exchange for the quiet cancellation of a death sentence pronounced in absentia—had led them to it. The German terrorist had told Madrid that
das Fräulein Karas
kept secret, updated field records within her reach at all times. It was a Voennaya custom dictated by the strange relationship the violent and clandestine branch of Soviet intelligence had with the rest of the KGB. Certain field personnel on long-range deep-cover operations had access to their own files in the event that their superiors in Moscow suddenly were not accessible. Self-protection sometimes assumed odd forms; no one had questioned it.
    No one had questioned. Not even he.
    Someone makes contact with her and gives her a key, stating a location. A room or a locker, even a bank. The material is there, including new objectives as they are developed
.
    A man had stopped her one afternoon two days before Michael left for Madrid. In a café on the Paseo Isabel. A drunk. He had shaken her hand, then kissed it. Four days later Michael had found a key in Jenna’s purse. On Sunday, two days later, she was dead.
    There had been a key, but whose key was it? He had seen photocopies verified by Langley of every item in that suitcase. But whose suitcase was it? If not hers, how did three sets of fingerprints confirmed to be hers get inside? And if the prints were hers, why did she permit it?
    What had they done to her? What had they done to a blond woman on the Costa Brava who had screamed in Czech and whose spine and neck and head had been pierced with bullets? What kind of people were they who could put human beings on strings and blow them up as calmly as one might explode mannequins in a horror show? That woman had died; he had seen too much death to be mistaken. It was no charade, as the elegant Gravet might have put it.
    Yet it was all a charade. They were all puppets. But on what stage and for whose benefit were they performing?
    He hurried faster on the Via Galvani; the Via della Mamorata was in sight. He was only blocks now from the massive railroad station; he would begin there. At least, he had an idea; whether it made sense or not the next half hour would tell.
    He passed a garishly lighted newsstand where tabloidscompeted with glossy magazines. Capped teeth and out-sized breasts battled for attention with mutilated bodies and graphic descriptions of rape and mayhem. And then he saw the famous face staring up at him from the cover of the international edition of
Time
. The clear eyes behind the hornrimmed glasses shone as they always did, full of high intelligence—cold at first glance, yet somehow warmer the longer one looked at them, softened, perhaps by an understanding few on this earth possessed. There he was, the high cheekbones and the aquiline nose, the generous lips from which such extraordinary words poured forth.
    “A man for all seasons, all peoples.” That was the simple caption beneath the photograph. No name, no title; none was necessary. The world knew the American Secretary of State, heard his reasoned, deliberate voice and understood. This
was
a man for all; he transcended borders and languages and national insanities. There were those who believed—and Michael was one of them—that either the world would listen to Anthony Matthias or it would be blown to hell in a mushroom cloud.
    Anton Matthias. Friend, mentor, surrogate father. Where Costa Brava was concerned, he, too, had been a puppet.
Who would dare?
    As Havelock put several lira notes down on the counter and picked up the magazine, he remembered vividly the handwritten note Anton had insisted the strategists in Washington include with the Four Zero file flown to Madrid. From their few brief conversations in Georgetown, Matthias had grasped the depth of his feelings for the woman assigned to him for the past eight