The Parsifal Mosaic

  “What the hell is that, a plate of spaghetti?”

  “He was killed.”

  Randolph shot forward in his chair. “He was what?”

  “Murdered. We might have prevented it if we’d taken the proper precautions. That’s our problem, Doctor, and a growing number of people know it. Mac, as you call him, didn’t die of a stroke on his sailboat, he was killed. We’re aware of it, but we don’t want to acknowledge it.… Now you can understand why I don’t have any taping device concealed anywhere. The picture I just painted is uglier than yours.”

  “It sure as hell is—if it were true. But I’m afraid it isn’t. We’ll stick to the aortal hemorrhage because it works. You bastards couldn’t be further off base. You blew it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Steven MacKenzie committed suicide.”

  32

  “That’s impossible!” cried Havelock, rising to his feet. “You’re wrong!”

  “Am I? Are you a doctor, too, Mr. Cross?”

  “I don’t have to be. I know men like MacKenzie. I am one!”

  “I figured as much, and that statement is about on a par with my assessment of the lot of you.”

  “No, don’t mistake me,” said Michael quickly, shaking his head emphatically. “It’s no sophomoric generalization. I’m the first to admit that the thought of packing it in can become a recurrent fixation, obsessive, but not this way. Not alone on a boat. That doesn’t work!”

  “Sorry. The pathology—the evidence—is against you. I wish to Almighty God it weren’t, but it is.”

  Havelock could not help himself; he leaned over Randolph’s desk and shouted, “There was evidence against a woman very close to me and that evidence was a lie!”

  “I don’t know what that’s got to do with the price of perfume in Alaska, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “In this case it does. There’s a connection!”

  “You’re downright incoherent, young fella.”

  “Please. Listen to me. I’m not a ‘young fella’ and I’m not a raving idiot. Whatever you found you were meant to find.”

  “You don’t even know what it was.”

  “I don’t have to! Try to understand me, Doctor. A black—operations officer like MacKenzie—”

  “A what? Mac was white!”

  “Oh, Jesus! An engineer, a manipulator … a man in sanction, with the authority to bring about events in which people might be killed, usually are killed—because it has to be done. More often than I can tell you, men like this have very painful doubts, enormous feelings of guilt, feelings of … goddamn it, futility! Certainly, depression sets in; sure, they’ve considered blowing their brains out, but not this way! There are other ways that make sense, because if there’s one thing ingrained in such men it’s function, function, function! For Christ’s sake, take yourself out, but accomplish something when you do it! And, do it right.”

  “That’s subkindergarten psychobabble,” protested Randolph.

  “Call it whatever you like, but it’s true. It’s the first thing, the most important thing recruiters look for in a candidate. It’s the single overriding factor.… You said it yourself. You said MacKenzie had to compete—angrily compete—for the highest stakes he could find.”

  “Ultimately, he did. Himself.”

  “No, that’s waste! That’s not even making a statement.… Look, I’m not a doctor, not a psychiatrist, and I probably can’t convince you, but I know I’m right, so let it pass. Just tell me what you found, what you did.”

  “Mac gave himself a needle and let it all drift away.”

  “Never.”

  “Sorry. He was damned smart about it too. He used a steroid compound of digitoxin combined with enough alcohol to float an elephant. The alcohol blood count overshadowed everything else, but the digitoxin blew the heart. It’s one hell of a combination.”

  “Then the X-ray was valid?”

  Randolph did not reply at first. Instead, he pursed his thin lips and fingered his glasses. Then he spoke. “No.”

  “You did switch the plates.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “To carry out what Mac intended. To make sure.”

  “Go back.”

  The doctor leaned forward. “He knew what he’d put Midge and the kids through all these years, and it was his way of trying to make up for it, make peace with himself. Midge had had about all she could take; she was finished pleading. She told him he had to get out of the Agency or get out of the house.” Randolph stopped briefly, shaking his head. “Mac knew he couldn’t do either, so he Just decided to get out, period.”

  “You’ve skipped something.”

  “He had a whale of an insurance policy, and considering the work he did—work the insurance company didn’t know a damned thing about—it was understandable. Those kinds of policies don’t pay on suicide. I was going to be damned before Midge and those kids were cheated out of what they deserved.… That’s the story, Mr. Cross. You made him what he was, and together, he and I made him better.”

  Havelock stared at the physician, then turned and sat down in the chair, his eyes still on Randolph. “Even if you were right,” he began wearily, “and, believe me, you weren’t then—you’re not now—you could have spelled it out for the Agency and they’d have gone along with you; the last thing they want is for this sort of killing to get into print. Instead, you put everyone off, wasted valuable time and the damage you’ve done is incalculable.”

  “What in hell! Twenty minutes ago you said you wanted it my way! Yesterday on the phone you said you wanted to shut up some troublemakers!”

  “I lied. Just as you lied. But at least I knew what I was doing; you didn’t. If you’d told the truth—if only to one person—every minute of MacKenzie’s day would have been examined; something might have turned up, somewhere a connection.…. No one even bothered to go over the boat. Oh, Christ!”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me!” shouted the physician, his eyes wild, his face apoplectic. “Midge MacKenzie had given her ultimatum! He was between a rock and a hard place. He couldn’t, as you put it, function anymore! He fell apart!”

  “That accounted for the alcohol, I don’t doubt it.”

  “And when he was plastered, he made his final decision. It’s all there!”

  “It’s not there,” said Michael, feeling far older than the elderly doctor in front of him. “I don’t expect you to accept this, but the last thing a man like MacKenzie would do is make a decision when he’s drunk.”

  “Hogwash!”

  “Let me ask you something. I assume you take a drink now and then, and when you do, you know when you’ve had a few.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Would you ever operate if you knew you were high?”

  “Certainly not, but there’s no parallel!”

  “Yes, there is, Dr. Randolph. Because when men like MacKenzie or myself—twenty or thirty more I could mention—are in the field, we’re surgeons. They even call most of the jobs we do ‘operations.’ It’s hammered into us from our first day of school that every reflex, every observation, every reaction has to be as accurate and as fast and as clear as we can make them. We’re primed—our machines are honed.”

  “You’re playing with words—yours and mine! Mac wasn’t in the field.”

  “If what you believe is true, he was, and the highest stakes were himself.”

  “Goddamn it, you’re twisting everything I said!”

  “No, I’m not. Because a lot of what you said was as perceptive as I’ve ever heard it expressed. I respect it.… Don’t you understand? MacKenzie wouldn’t have killed himself this way because—everything else aside—the digitoxin might not have worked! And that he couldn’t accept. It was too much a part of him, had been for too many years. If it was going to be his final decision, the one thing he couldn’t afford was a mistake! Can’t you see that?”

  It was as though Matthew Randolph had been struck. H
is eyes were wide and fixed, the muscles of his face taut, his mouth rigid. When he spoke, it was a whisper. “God Almighty …” he said, his voice drifting off into silence. Then softly, unexpectedly, he rose from his chair, and stood motionless, a helpless old man struggling with a massive error he did not want to confront. “Oh, my God,” he added, taking off his glasses, breathing deeply.

  Havelock watched him, moved to make things easier. “You did the right thing by your lights. Mine, too, if I’d been you. But at the wrong time, the wrong way. Still, we can go back over everything. We might find something.”

  “Shut up!”

  It was the last thing Michael had expected to hear. “What?”

  “I said,‘Shut up!’ ”

  “You’re full of surprises.”

  “I may have a real one for you.”

  “MacKenzie?”

  Randolph did not answer. Instead, he walked rapidly to a file cabinet against the wall; taking out a small chain of keys, he selected one and literally jammed it into the upper lock. “These are my private files, very private. A lot of broken marriages and altered wills could result if they were read. Mac’s in here.”

  “What about him?”

  “Not him. The staff pathologist who put it all together. Who worked with me to convince those fellas from Langley it was a cardiovascular, pure and simple.”

  “A question,” interrupted Havelock. “The CIA report says everything was processed here. Your laboratories, your equipment—your staff. How come they didn’t remove the body to Bethesda or Walter Reed?”

  The physician turned, his hands in an open file drawer, his long fingers inserted between the folders. “Some pretty strong language on my part with the promise of a lot stronger from Midge MacKenzie if they tried. I told them she’d kick up a mess of feathers the like of which they haven’t seen since the Bay of Pigs, that she hated their guts, figured the strain killed Mac and the least they could do was leave him in peace.”

  “Did they talk to her?”

  “They tried to. She gave them five minutes, answered their questions, and told them to go to hell. They got the picture; they didn’t want any loud trouble from her.”

  “I’ll bet they didn’t.”

  “Also,” said Randolph, turning back to the files, “we’ve got a hell of a reputation here, treat some of the most important people in the country. Who’s going to call us liars?”

  “You counted on that, didn’t you?”

  “You’re damn right.…Here it is.”

  “What did your pathologist find that you think might help?”

  “It’s not what he found. Like I said, it’s him. He was a temporary.”

  “A what?” Michael could feel a sudden, hollow suspension of breath in his chest.

  “You heard me,” Randolph continued, carrying the file back to his desk and sitting down. “He was a temporary replacement, took over for our regular man, who was out with a case of mono.”

  “Mononucleosis?”

  “Herpesvirus. Easiest damn thing to transmit, if you’ve a mind to.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “Catch up,” said the surgeon, turning the pages in the folder. “Several days before Mac’s death our pathologist comes down with mono. Then, thank you very much, a highly qualified man shows up; he’s in the middle of a transfer, has a month or so free, and is staying with a sister in Easton. Jesus, I grabbed him.”

  “And?”

  “Mac’s body’s brought in; he does the initial work, and asks to see me in my office. I’ll never forget it; the first thing he says to me is, ‘How well did you know this MacKenzie?’ ”

  Havelock nodded. “One thing led to another, and the bottom line was that MacKenzie’s body couldn’t stand an independent autopsy.”

  “He’d found minute traces of digitoxin,” said Randolph.

  “And a puncture wound, the position and angle indicating that it was probably self-inflicted,” Havelock added.

  “You got it.”

  “I’m sure he also inquired about MacKenzie’s work, his mental state, his family—and, somewhere along the line, brought up the subject of insurance.”

  “He did. Oh, Christ!”

  “Don’t cut your throat, Doctor. These people do their homework like no one else on earth.”

  “What people?”

  “If I’m right, they’re called paminyatchiki.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. And don’t bother looking for holes in there. He covered himself; he didn’t tell you a single lie, that’s his blanket. He simply knew it all in advance. You couldn’t touch him without incriminating yourself and ruining your Center.”

  “I’m not looking for holes,” said the doctor, rapidly scanning the pages.

  “A sister in Easton? Forget it. She never was, and he’s gone, and you won’t find him.”

  “That’s just it. I know where he is.”

  Michael bolted forward in the chair. “You what?”

  “His name came up several weeks ago. I was talking to a salesman from a surgical supply house and he mentioned that he had to check our purchase orders because a pathologist wanted to duplicate a piece of equipment we had. I recognized the name, of course, but not the place. It wasn’t where I thought he’d transferred to.” Randolph stopped and looked up from the file. “I did an odd thing,” he continued. “Childish, I suppose. It was as though I didn’t want to acknowledge him, or think about what he and I had done … just wanted to keep tabs on him. I didn’t tell my secretary—as I usually do—to list his current position in our personnel records. Instead. I came in here and wrote it in Mac’s file. Somewhere.” The doctor went back to the pages.

  Stunned, Havelock sat rigidly on the edge of the chair. Over the years in his shadow world, he had learned that the most incredible turns of circumstance generally had the most credible reasons for happening. He barely found his voice as he explained. “Your pathologist kept the name because he knew that you of all people could never come after him. He had his hooks into you with the name, not without it. Believe me, Doctor, sooner or later he would have pulled you in, viciously and effectively.”

  “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.