The Parsifal Mosaic Read Online Free PDF Page B

name.”
    “Gravet? He despises us. He’s civilized toward us only when he’s walking through the galleries of the Kremlin or the Hermitage in Leningrad. He might tell us anything.”
    “Why did you use him, then?”
    “Because he’s fond of you. It’s far easier to spot a lie when the liar is referring to someone he likes.”
    “Then you believed him.”
    “Or you convinced him and our people had no choice. Tell
me
. How did the brilliant and charismatic American Secretary of State react to his
krajan
’s resignation?”
    “I have no idea, but I assume he understood. It’s exactly what I told Gravet. I haven’t seen Matthias or spoken to him in months. He’s got enough problems; there’s no reason why those of an old student should be added.”
    “But you were far more than a student. His family knew your family in Prague. You became what you are—”
    “
Were
,” interrupted Havelock.
    “—because of
Anton
Matthias.”
    “It was a long time ago.”
    Rostov was silent; he lowered his weapon slightly, then spoke. “Very well, a long time ago. What about now? No one’s irreplaceable, but you’re a valuable man. Knowledgeable, productive.”
    “Value and productivity are generally associated with commitment. I don’t have it anymore. Let’s say I lost it.”
    “Am I to infer you could be tempted?” The KGB man lowered the weapon further. “In the direction of another commitment?”
    “You know better than that. Outside of personal revulsions that go back a couple of decades, we’ve got a mole or two in the Dzerzhinsky. I’ve no intention of being marked ‘beyond salvage.’ ”
    “A hypocritical term. It implies compassion on the part of your executioners.”
    “It says it.”
    “Not well.” Rostov raised his automatic, thrusting it forward slowly. “We have no such problems with verbal rationales. A traitor is a traitor. I could take you in, you know.”
    “Not easily.” Michael remained still, his eyes locked with the Russian’s. “There are corridors and elevators, lobbies to pass through and streets to cross; there’s risk. You could lose. Everything. Because I have nothing to lose but a cell at the Lubyanka.”
    “A room, not a cell. We’re not barbarians.”
    “Sorry. A room. The same kind of room we have reserved in Virginia for someone like you—and we’re both wasting money. When people like you and me get out with our heads still on, everything’s altered. The Amytals and the Pentothals are invitations to traps.”
    “There are still the moles.”
    “I don’t know who they are any more than you did when you were in the field—for those same reasons, those same rooms. None of us do on either side. We only know the current codes, words that take us where we have to go. Whatever ones I had are meaningless now.”
    “In all sincerity are you trying to convince me a man of your experience is of no value to us?”
    “I didn’t say that,” interrupted Havelock. “I’m simply suggesting that you weigh the risks. Also something else, which, frankly, you pulled off with reasonable success two years ago. We took a man of yours who was finished, ready for a farm in Grasnov. We got him out through Riga into Finland and flew him to a room in Fairfax, Virginia. He was injected with everything from scopolamine to triple Amytal, and we learned a lot. Strategies were aborted, whole networks re-structured,confusion the order of the day. Then we learned something else: everything he told us was a lie. His head was programmed like a computer disk; valuable men became useless, time was lost. Say you got me to the Lubyanka—which I don’t think you could—how do you know I’m not our answer to what you did to us?”
    “Because you would not expose the possibility.” Rostov pulled the gun back, but did not lower it.
    “Really? It strikes me as a pretty good blanket. I mean, you’d never know, would you? On the other hand, we’ve developed a serum—which I know nothing