The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

  He had presumed that Neilsen and Poole would be waiting for him in plain sight on the strip with the two pilots. There was no one; something was wrong. He shoved the gatehouse log book under a bush, covering it with dirt, and looked up, studying the airfield.

  Silence. Nothing. Only the yellowish-white outlines of the Gulfstream jet.

  The something… movement! Where? It had come from the corner of his eye—to the right, obliquely across the tarmac, beyond it. He focused on the area, the shafts of moonlight now helping him, for the beams were reflected as if by mirrors. It was the control tower, inaccurately named, for it was not a tower but a one-story structure, mostly glass, with a dish antenna rising far above and anchored by wires to the roof. Someone had moved behind one of the large windows, caught in a refracted instant of a cloudless moon.

  The darkened sky returned and Hawthorne lowered himself to the grass, scrambling back to the tall hedgerow, where he stood and began running from broken space to broken space, around the end of the strip. In less than a minute he was within a hundred yards of the ground-level “tower,” gasping for breath, the sweat rolling down his face and neck, drenching his shirt. Had the two pilots overpowered Cathy and the armed, young air force lieutenant? Considering Poole’s skills, it did not seem likely without gunfire, and there had been none.

  Movement again! An opaque figure, or the shadow of a figure, had swiftly approached the huge glass window, then just as quickly receded from view.… They had seen him when he had run through the break in the hedgerow, and were watching for him now. Suddenly a recent memory came back to Hawthorne, the memory of three days ago—three nights ago—on an unnamed island north of the Anegada Passage.… Fire. One of the most potent images for man or animal, confirmed by the racing, snarling attack dogs on the padrone’s fortress in the sea.

  Remaining behind the hedgerow, Tyrell scraped the ground for dried twigs and fallen brush burned by the summer sun, then reached up, feeling within the thick foliage for brittle, breakable branches; the farther up he went, the more plentiful they were. In roughly four perspiring minutes, he had built a mound nearly a foot in height and two feet wide; it was a “starter” that could ignite wet charcoal. He reached into his trouser pocket for his ever-present book of matches—ever-present from his heavy smoking days; he tore one off, cupped his hands, and struck it. He lit the base, shoving the match-book into the pyre, then scrambled away on his hands and knees, circling deep to his right, behind the next section of the broken hedgerow, to the next after that. He was now parallel to the mostly glass structure, its metal door less than eighty feet away.

  The burning bushes spread far more rapidly than Hawthorne thought possible, and he thanked whatever gods there were for the scorching Virginia sun. The moist night breezes from the hills had not yet arrived; the tops of the hedges were dry and the middle greenery permitted the flames to surge upward, quickly spreading in both directions. In moments the fires became an ominous succession of erupting flames, surging to the right and to the left like bright dual fuses. Then two—no, three figures—appeared at the large rear glass window; they were excited; heads nodded and shook; hands shot out and retracted, the shadowed bodies lurching one way and the other, indecisive, panicked. The metal door opened and the three figures were in the frame, one in front, two behind. Tyrell could not see their faces, but he knew that none was Neilsen or Poole. He withdrew the .38 from his belt and waited, asking himself three questions: Where were Cathy and Jackson? Who were these people, and what did they have to do with the disappearance of the two air force officers?

  “Oh, my God, the fuel tanks!” shouted the man in front.

  “Where are they?” The voice of the second man was familiar to Hawthorne—the copilot of the Gulfstream jet.

  “Over there!” Tye could see the figure, gesturing wildly at some point on the airstrip. “It could blow the whole fucking place to the moon! They hold a hundred thousand gallons. High test, the highest!”

  “It’s all underground!” protested the pilot.

  “Sure, pal, and what keeps it there are iron screw plates! Those tanks are only half full; the gas fumes are on top and they can blow with red hot metal. Let’s get out of here!”

  “We can’t leave them!” cried the copilot. “That’s murder, mister, and we don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “Do what you want, you assholes, I’m leaving!” The man in front ran out on the grass, his racing silhouette passing the flames of the hedgerow behind him. The two pilots disappeared from view, running inside the building as Hawthorne lurched forward, lowering himself and scrambling, until he was at the corner of the glass-squared structure. He peered around the edge of the building. The hedgerow fires were moving steadily, rising to the sky. Suddenly, Poole and Neilsen, their hands bound behind them, their mouths strapped with gray pipe tape, were shoved out the door, Cathy falling as Jackson plummeted on top of her, covering her with his own body as if he expected gunfire. The pilots of the Gulfstream jet came out next, apparently frightened, unsure of themselves.

  “Come on, both of you!” the copilot demanded. “Get up, let’s go!”

  “You’re not going anywhere!” Tyrell was on his feet, the .38 swinging back and forth between the heads of the two pilots. “You lousy scum, help them up! Untie them, and remove those tapes!”

  “Hey, man, we didn’t do this ’cause we wanted to!” the copilot protested as he and his colleague quickly pulled Neilsen and Poole to their feet, untying them, and letting each remove the thick tape. “That lousy radioman had his gun on all of us.”

  “He told us to tie ’em up and gag ’em,” broke in the pilot. “Then he figured that since we were working for Van Nostrand—he ran the practice turns this morning—we were okay.”

  “More than okay,” the copilot interrupted, looking at the burning hedgerow. “He said we were cleared by ‘Mr. Van’s security,’ but he didn’t know these guys and he wasn’t taking chances.… Let’s get the hell out of here. You heard what he said, the fuel tanks!”

  “Where are they?” asked Hawthorne.

  “About four hundred feet west of this glass radio barn,” answered Poole. “I saw the pumps while Cath and I were waiting for you.”

  “I don’t care where they are!” the copilot shouted. “That bastard said they could blow us to the moon!”

  “They could,” said the lieutenant, “but it’s not likely. Those pumps have backup insulators, and the screw plates would have to be hit with a blowtorch to reach a combustible temperature.”

  “Could it happen?”

  “Sure, Tye, one chance out of maybe a couple of hundred. Hell, the No Smoking signs in gas stations make sense.”

  Hawthorne turned to the frightened pilots. “The odds are way in your favor, fellas,” he said. “Give me your wallets, your IDs. Also your passports.”

  “What is this, a goddamned bust?”

  “It won’t be if you do what I tell you to do. Come on, hand them over! I’ll give them back.”

  “Who are you, some kind of federal?” The pilot reluctantly reached into his pockets and handed Tyrell his wallet and passport. “I hope you realize that we were legitimately employed and carry no firearms or illegal substances. Search us and the aircraft if you want to. You won’t find a thing.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been through this sort of routine before … you, too, sky jock! That is the proper term, isn’t it?”

  “I’m a licensed pilot who free-lances his services, mister,” said the copilot, also handing Hawthorne the demanded items.

  “Get the names and pertinent information, Major,” Tyrell continued, giving the wallets and passports to Neilsen. “Go inside and turn on a light.”

  “Right away, Commander.” Cathy walked rapidly into the glass house.

  “Major … Commander?” cried the pilot. “What the hell is this? Gunshots, a burning airstrip on a fancy estate, and the military? What did those sons of bitches get us into, Ben?”

  “Ah’m
a lieutenant,” said Poole.

  “Damned if I know, Sonny, but if we get out of here, we’re taking our names off their list!”

  “And just what list is that?” asked Hawthorne.

  The flyers looked at each other. “Go on, tell him,” said the pilot. “They haven’t a fucking thing on us!”

  “Sky Transport International,” said the copilot. “It’s a placement service, sort of a class-act employment agency.”

  “I’ll bet it is. Where’s it located?”

  “Nashville.”

  “Even better. All those country millionaires.”

  “We’ve never knowingly flown a felon or any individual or individuals carrying illegal substances—”

  “Yes, you’ve said that, Mr. Pilot. Outside of your legal expertise, where were you trained? The military?”

  “Absolutely not,” replied the copilot angrily. “The finest civilian schools, top graded by the FAA with a combined five thousand hours logged.”

  “You got somethin’ against the military?” asked Poole.

  “The rigidity of the chain of command excludes individual initiative. We’re better pilots.”

  “Now, just wait a hog-damned minute …!”

  “Hold it, Lieutenant.” Catherine Neilsen came out of the radio house. “Any surprises?” asked Hawthorne, gesturing for the major to return the wallets and passports.

  “One or two,” replied Cathy, handing their property over to the pilots. “Our fly-boys are named Benjamin and Ezekiel Jones. They’re brothers. They’ve been traveling extensively during the past twenty months or so. Interesting places like Cartagena, Caracas, Port-au-Prince, and Estero, Florida.”

  “The lopsided rectangle,” said Tyrell. “The last leg over the Everglades.”

  “Drop zones alpha through omega,” commented Poole, disgust in his voice. “Pin-point releases the order of the day—like in OD, you bastards. Boy, did Ezekiel get the wheel!”

  “That’s Sonny!” said the pilot.

  “Can we get the hell out of here?” Sweat poured down the copilot’s face as he kept glancing at the hedgerow fires.

  “Oh, you’re going to leave right away,” answered Hawthorne, “and you’re going to leave the way I tell you and do what I tell you. The lieutenant informs me that you’ve been cleared for Charlotte, North Carolina—”

  “The departure time’s passed and we haven’t confirmed a new one!” Benjamin Jones objected. “We’d never get clearance for that routing—there’s traffic up there!”

  “You boys better go back to one of those top-rated schools,” said Jackson. “By the time you circle at a few hundred feet, I’ll either have you a new routing or confirm the old one.”

  “You can do that, Poole?”

  “Certainly, he can,” replied Cathy. “So can I. That equipment reaches towers from Dulles to Atlanta. As Ben here said on the way up, Van Nostrand goes first class.”

  “You expect us to fly right into a crowd of federals waiting for a passenger we haven’t got?” shouted Sonny-Ezekiel Jones. “You’re out of your fucking mind!”

  “You’re out of yours if you don’t,” said Tyrell calmly, reaching into his pocket for a small telephone pad and pencil, courtesy of the hotel in San Juan. “Here’s the number you’re to call when you get to Charlotte. Use a credit card, because it’s in the Virgin Islands, and you’ll reach an answering machine.”

  “You’re crazy!” yelled Benjamin Jones.

  “I really believe you should. You see, you’ll never fly a remotely legitimate plane again in this country if you refuse. On the other hand, if you do what I tell you to do, you’re home free—with one proviso, which I’ll get to in a moment.”

  “What proviso? What are we supposed to do?”

  “To begin with, you won’t be met by a crowd, but by Van Nostrand’s diplomatic escort—at best, one or two people. I want their names—you refuse even to speak to them until they sign a release.”

  “What release?”

  “The date, time, and signatures that match their identifications, and the name of the specific individual who cleared your passenger and authorized the escort. They won’t like it, but they’ll understand; it goes with the territory.”

  “So we get the information, then what?” asked the brighter Ben Jones. “We don’t have Van Nostrand to deliver!… Where is he anyway?”

  “Indisposed.”

  “So what the hell do we say?”

  “That it was a dry run; Van Nostrand’s orders. They may even understand that better. Then get to a phone and call this number.” Hawthorne shoved the small piece of paper into the copilot’s shirt pocket.

  “Hey, wait a fucking minute!” Sonny-Ezekiel said. “What about our bread?”

  “How much are you owed?”

  “Ten thousand—five apiece.”

  “For a day’s work? That’s really inflated, Zeke. I’ll bet it’s nearer two apiece.”

  “We’ll settle for four, that’s eight, and it’s Sonny!”

  “Tell you what, Sonny. I’ll okay four thousand if you deliver the information in Charlotte. If you don’t, it’s zip-zero.”

  “Words, Commander,” said Benjamin Jones. “They sound pretty, but how do we get paid?”

  “Easiest thing in the world. Give me twelve hours after your call from Charlotte. Then name a time and a place on that answering machine in St. Thomas, and a messenger will show up with the money.”

  “Words.”

  “Do I look or sound like a damn fool who’d give you a telephone drop you could trace?”

  “Suppose no one answers,” pressed the younger brother.

  “Someone will. Look, we’re wasting time and you don’t have a choice! I assume you’ve got the ignition key or whatever you call it.”

  “First thing I did,” replied Sonny. “Only it’s a key to the pilot’s door; the plane operates with switches, groundhog.”

  “Then get going.”

  “Don’t even consider screwing us,” said Benjamin. “We don’t know what happened here, but if you think we bought that shooting-gallery bullshit, think again, and the fact that our employer isn’t on the plane makes us wonder. I’ve read about this Van Nostrand—he’s news, if you understand me. We could go public for a price.”

  “Are you threatening an officer of the United States Navy—naval intelligence, to be precise?”

  “Are you bribing us, Commander? With United States taxpayers’ money?”

  “You’re pretty sharp, Jones, but then, I’ve learned that younger brothers often are—usually to their detriment.… Get out of here. I’ll check St. Thomas in a couple of hours.”

  “Circle and radio me at three hundred feet,” said Poole. “Keep your equipment tight to the area.”

  The brothers looked at each other. Sonny-Ezekiel shrugged, then glanced back at Hawthorne. “Reach that machine of yours, Commander. Then reach it again for our paycheck, only no check, hard cash.”

  “Ben,” said Tyrell firmly, looking hard at the younger Jones. “Deliver Charlotte to me, or I’ll track that Gulfstream to wherever you think you might sell it. And lastly, my proviso: Get out of the drug trade.”

  “Son of a bitch!” muttered the copilot as both men turned and raced toward the lower hedgerow which had begun to burn itself out, now more smoke than flames.

  “The fires are dying,” said Cathy.

  “The dry tops flare quickly,” observed Jackson. “More light than heat so the green won’t take.”

  “It’s still got a way to travel,” said Hawthorne.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Poole corrected him, heading toward the door of the radio house. “There’s at least a hundred feet of space between the bushes and the pumps.”

  “That’s why they wouldn’t blow,” observed Neilsen.

  “I didn’t care to be so specific, Cath.… I’ve got work to do. I know the tower at Andrews, and they’ll reach National for F.P. clearance before a computer can burp. That Gulfstream’s on its way to Charlotte.
”

  “Meet us at the house, in the library,” Hawthorne said to Poole as the lieutenant disappeared into the tower. “Come on,” he added, turning to the major. “I want to tear that place apart. We’ve got to find a way to contact that other limousine. Bajaratt’s in it.”

  “My God! Are you sure?”

  “I’ll prove it. I hid the gatehouse’s entry log across the field. That limo you saw was the last car to enter; the proof is in the name, come on, I’ll show you.” Together they ran below and around the smoking, smoldering hedgerow to the area where Tyrell had concealed the thick, ringed ledger. Out of breath, Hawthorne knelt down to retrieve it.

  It was not there.

  Like a starving man searching for edible roots, Tye ripped up the earth, lurching from one side to the other, controlling his panic. He stopped, his eyes blazing. “It’s gone!” he whispered, blinking, as rivulets of sweat rolled down his face.

  “Gone …?” Neilsen frowned, bewildered. “Could you have dropped it in the excitement?”

  “I put it right there!” Hawthorne lunged to his feet like an angry cobra, whipping the .38 out of his belt. “And I don’t drop things in excitement, Major.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So am I… I probably have dozens of times, but not this time. To begin with, it’s too big and too important.… Christ, someone else is here, someone we can’t see who’s watching us!”

  “The cook? Guards from the gatehouse?”

  “You don’t understand, Cathy. Everyone’s left, they’ve disappeared, even the cook—I let her out myself. Nobody can be reached by phone, she told me that.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Except for a guard who was killed, shot through the head at his desk.”

  “But if that entry log isn’t here—”

  “Exactly. Someone stayed behind, someone who knows Van Nostrand’s dead and wants to pick up whatever he can from an estate filled with high-priced goodies.”