“Of course, David. I understand completely.”
“All right, Patrick, let’s go!”
“Just a minute, I gotta take a leak, as I’ll be doin’ a lot of driving for the next hour or so. Keep your eyes on the bridge; we sure as hell don’t want anyone seeing us together.” O’Ryan took several steps into the woods, glancing at the attorney as he did so. However, instead of relieving himself, he bent down and picked up a large jagged rock the size of a softball. He walked silently back on the path, approached the excited lawyer, who was staring through the foliage at the bridge, and smashed the heavy rock with all his considerable strength into David Ingersol’s skull.
O’Ryan shoved the body off the path and whistled for the drunken young man he had temporarily employed; the response was immediate.
“I’m right here, man!” The hopped-up recruit came careening around the path. “I can smell the bread!”
It was the last thing he would ever smell, for he was greeted with a thick, jagged rock crashing into his face. Patrick O’Ryan again looked at his watch; there was plenty of time to move both corpses to the waters below. And to remove a few articles from the clothes of one body, placing them in the other. After that it was merely a question of timing the logistics. First, the visit to Ingersol’s office; second, an angry, humiliating apology to the director of the CIA—the Arab blind never showed up in Baltimore; third, several anonymous phone calls, perhaps one from an unidentified source who had spotted two bodies on the west bank below the Riverwalk Bridge.
It was 10:15 at night and Bajaratt paced the sitting room of the suite in the Carillon hotel while Nicolo was in the bedroom, watching television and gorging himself on room-service fare. He had accepted her explanation that they would be moving in the morning, not that night.
The Baj, too, had the television on, but it was the local ten o’clock news. She kept staring at it, with every look growing angrier. Then abruptly her anger subsided, a smile creased her lips as the anchorwoman suddenly stopped in midsentence, the fortunes of some baseball team interrupted as a paper was shoved before her on the desk.
“We’ve just been handed a bulletin. The prominent Washington attorney David Ingersol was found dead roughly an hour ago beneath the Riverwalk Bridge in Falls Fork, Virginia. At his side was the corpse of a man in soiled clothes, identified as Steven Cannock, a man the nearby restaurant claimed was intoxicated and ejected for drunkenness and inability to pay his bill. Both bodies were bloodied, giving rise to police speculation that Attorney Ingersol put up a violent struggle when the drunken Cannock tried to mug him.… David Ingersol, considered one of the capital’s most influential lawyers, was the son of Richard Abercrombie Ingersol, who startled the nation eight years ago when he retired from the Supreme Court, claiming ‘intellectual stagnation,’ bringing up the question of life tenure for Supreme Court justices.…”
Bajaratt snapped off the television. Ashkelon had another victory. The finest was yet to come, but come it would!
It was close to two o’clock in the morning when Jackson Poole burst into the bedroom he shared with Hawthorne. “Tye, wake up!” he cried.
“What …? I just fell asleep, damn it!” Hawthorne blinked his eyes and raised his head. “For God’s sake, what is it? There’s nothing we can do until morning. Davenport’s dead and Stevens is on top of—is it Davenport? A breakthrough?”
“Try Ingersol, Commander.”
“Ingersol …? The lawyer, the cipher?”
“The corpse, Tye. He was killed in someplace called Falls Fork. Maybe our pilot, Alfred Simon, gave you more than a cipher.”
“How do you know he was killed?”
“Frankly, I was watchin’ a rerun of Gone With the Wind—that’s a hell of a movie—and when it was over they put on the news.”
“Where’s the telephone?”
“Right by your head.”
Hawthorne whipped his legs from under the sheet and off the bed and grabbed the phone as Poole switched on the lights. He dialed naval intelligence, unnerved to find Stevens himself answering the phone. “Henry … Ingersol!”
“Yes, I know.” Stevens’s voice was weary. “I’ve known for damn near four hours. I’ve been expecting your call, but between an apoplectic Secretary of State Palisser, who’s activated his own channels over Davenport’s death, and the White House, where Ingersol was on the A list for invitations, and that killing in your parking lot that’s got the fucking New York Times on my ass—our asses—I haven’t had a hell of a lot of time to call you.”
“Ingersol, goddamn it! Impound his law office.”
“Done, Tye-Boy—you were called Tye-Boy in the islands, weren’t you?”
“You did?”
“No, I didn’t. I had the FBI do it. That’s the way it works.”
“Christ, what the hell now?”
“The sun will come up and everything will be messier.”
“Don’t you see what she’s doing, Henry? It’s the bottom line. Everybody’s running for and against the clock, colliding with one another. Destabilization. Who’s suspect, who isn’t? That bitch has got us racing around in circles, and the faster we run, the more collisions take place, and she’ll jump through one of the cracks!”
“Words, Tyrell. The President’s still in isolation.”
“You think. We don’t know who else she’s manipulated.”
“We’re running micros on everybody on your list.”
“Suppose it’s someone not on the list?”
“What can I tell you? I’m not psychic.”
“I’m beginning to think Bajaratt is—”
“That doesn’t help us, it only confirms the worst we’ve heard about her.”
“She’s got a group here, a cadre high up that’s beholden to her … or her resources.”
“That’s logical. Would you do us a favor and find it?”
“I’ll do my damnedest, Captain, because now it’s between her and me. I want Little Girl Blood, and I want her dead.” Hawthorne slammed down the phone.
But it wasn’t only Bajaratt he wanted, it was a living lie named Dominique who had ripped him apart in a way no human being should ever do to another. Taking love and mocking it, trading the innermost secrets of the manipulated for lies from the manipulator. For so long, so lovingly, so deviously. How often had the killer laughed at the fool who truly believed he had found the person he loved?
The killer.
She forgot something. He was a killer too.
23
Patrick O’Ryan sat in the deck chair, wishing to hell and back that summer was over and the brats were in school—away at school, thanks to the Providers. Not that he didn’t enjoy the kids, he did, especially since they kept his wife occupied and he and she had less time to fight. Not that he didn’t love his wife; in a way, he guessed he did, but they had grown too far apart, basically because of him, he understood that. The average guy could go home and bitch about his job or his boss or the fact that he didn’t make enough money, but he couldn’t do any of those things. Especially not the money, once the Providers had come into his life.
Patrick Timothy O’Ryan was a product of a large Irish family in the borough of Queens, New York. Thanks to the nuns and a few priests in the parochial school system, he was urged to forgo the traditional police academy that three of his older brothers had entered, following in the footsteps of their father and grandfather, and his father before him. Instead, the assumption was made that Patrick Timothy had an exceptional mind, so far above the average that he was encouraged to seek a scholarship to Fordham University; it was a foregone conclusion that he would receive one. Then, having impressed the Fordham professors, he had received another to pursue his master’s degree at Syracuse University, Foreign Service Department, one of the prime recruiting pools for the Central Intelligence Agency.
He had joined “the Company” three weeks after receiving his degree. Within a month he had been apprised by several superiors that there was a certain dr
ess code he should abide by; unpressed polyester trousers and an orange tie over a blue shirt beneath an ill-fitting jacket from a Macy’s sale simply would not do. He had done his best to comply, aided by his bride, an Italian girl from the Bronx, who thought her husband looked fine, but nevertheless cut out newspaper ads that showed how the proper Washingtonian male should be clothed.
The years progressed and, as those early nuns and priests had perceived, the higher echelons of the Agency came to understand that they had an extraordinary brain in Patrick Timothy O’Ryan. He was not the sort of fellow one ever sent up to testify on the Hill; his wardrobe had marginally improved, but his speech was blunt to the point of being crass, discourteous, and peppered with vulgarities. Yet withal, his analyses, like the man, were curt, sharp, and went directly to the issues without indulging in self-serving reservations or obfuscation. In 1987 he had projected the collapse of the Soviet Union within three years. This outrageous judgment was not only buried, but O’Ryan was called into a deputy director’s office and told to “shut the goddamned hell up.” The next day he was upgraded with an increase in pay, as if to emphasize the axiom that good boys got rewarded.
In the early days the O’Ryans had five children in eight years, a stressful economic situation for a low-ranking employee of the CIA. But Patrick Timothy could tolerate those circumstances because his working at the Agency made bank loans both available and relatively cheap. What O’Ryan could not tolerate was the fact that the results of his labors frequently were in the spotlight but no glare ever fell upon him. His words were repeated in congressional hearings by hotshot button-downs who spoke as though they should have been born in England, as well as by selected senators, representatives, and Cabinet personnel on the most-watched television shows. He had busted his ass over those analyses, but everyone except him was being given the credit for them. He was totally pissed off, and to further infuriate him, when he complained directly to the DCI after two weeks of waiting for an appointment, he was succinctly dismissed with the following words.
“You do your work, we’ll do ours. We know what’s best for the Agency, you don’t.”
Bullshit!
Then one Sunday morning, fifteen years ago, a dan-fancy who called himself Mr. Neptune came to his house in Vienna, Virginia, and brought with him an attaché case filled with many of O’Ryan’s ultraclassified analytical reports.
“Where the hell did you get this shit?” O’Ryan had demanded, alone with the man in his kitchen.
“That’s our business. Your business, as well as your concern, is fairly obvious. How far do you really think you can go at Langley? Oh, you might rise to a G-12, but that’s just money and not actually a great deal. Others, however, using what you provided, could well write books making hundreds of thousands, claiming to be experts when in reality they’ve relied on your expertise.…”
“What are you drivin’ at?”
“To begin with, you owe an aggregate of thirty-three thousand dollars to one bank in Washington and two in Virginia, Arlington and McLean—”
“How the hell—”
“I know, I know,” Neptune interrupted. “It’s confidential information but far less difficult to obtain. Beyond this, you have a substantial mortgage, and the parochial schools have raised their tuitions.… I don’t envy your position, Mr. O’Ryan.”
“Neither the fuck do I! You think I should quit and write my own book?”
“You can’t legally. You signed a document stating you wouldn’t—at least not without being vetted by the CIA. If you wrote three hundred pages, you’d probably end up with fifty when they got through with it.… However, there’s another solution, one that would eliminate your financial difficulties and allow your life-style to expand considerably.”
“What’s that?”
“Our organization is very small, very well financed, and has only the country’s interests at its core. You must believe that, for it’s true, and I will personally vouch for it. I also have an envelope that contains a check made out to you from the Irish Bank of Dublin in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars from the estate of your great-uncle, Sean Cafferty O’Ryan, of County Kilkenny, who died two months ago, leaving a rather strange but court-certified will. You are the only surviving relative he acknowledged.”
“I don’t remember any uncle by that name.”
“I shouldn’t bother myself with introspection if I were you, Mr. O’Ryan. The check is here and it’s certified. He was a successful breeder of Thoroughbreds, that’s all you have to remember.”
“Is it now?”
“Here’s the check, sir.” Neptune had reached into the attaché case and pulled out an envelope. “May we discuss our organization and its benevolent intentions regarding this nation?”
“Why the hell not?” answered Patrick Timothy O’Ryan, accepting the envelope.
All that was fifteen years earlier, and Christ almighty, had the following years gone whacko! Every month the Irish Bank of Dublin sent him a record of deposit in his name at the Banque Crédit Suisse in Geneva. The O’Ryans were rich by their lights, and the legend of a horse-breeding great-uncle became a truth, if only due to repetition. The brats went on to fancy boarding schools and the older ones to fancier universities, while his wife went gaga in the department stores and ultimately with Realtors. They moved to a larger house in Woodbridge and bought a substantial summer cottage on Chesapeake Beach.
Life was good, really good, and it bothered Patrick less and less when others took credit for his work because it was the work he basically enjoyed. This tolerance generally disappeared when some fatuous clown postured thoughtfully in a congressional hearing or on a Sunday morning television show and delivered one of Patrick’s painstaking conclusions.
And the Providers? He simply gave them all the intelligence information they wanted, from the routine to the top secret to the maximum classified. Always, of course, through Scorpio One or the padrone. Holy Mary, some of the stuff was so hot, the Oval Office hadn’t a clue, forget the Senate and the House; those people were either too politically harebrained or too dumb or just plain irresponsible.… In any event, the Providers were none of those. Whoever they were, they undoubtedly had motives below the level of sainthood, but O’Ryan had long since determined that the Providers’ driving force was primarily economic. They sure as hell weren’t Communists, and surer than that they had every reason to protect and defend the country they found so financially rewarding. Probably more effective than leaving it in the hands of politicians who were sworn companions of the polls and whose spines could be bent by a generous contributor’s fart. So if the Providers made a buck and a half with advance information, it was probably a good thing in the long run; they’d make damn sure the goose who produced so many golden eggs remained a healthy bird.… There was a last consideration, and the analyst from Queens, New York, would never forget it.
One afternoon in Langley, twelve years ago, three years after he became the silent Scorpio Two, he was emerging from a procedural conference with a group of other analysts, when a tall, well-dressed—elegantly dressed—man walked down the corridor directly toward the door of the DCI’s office. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it was Neptune! Without thinking, the younger O’Ryan approached him.
“Hey, remember me …?”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the man coldly, quietly, his eyes two orbs of ice. “I have an appointment with the director, and if you ever approach me in public again, your family will be penniless and you’ll be dead.”
It was not a greeting one forgot.
But now, right now, today, tonight, thought O’Ryan, looking out at the water from the deck of their house on Chesapeake Beach, something had gone terribly wrong with the Providers. The late, unlamented Davey Ingersol had been right; the whole Bajaratt business was madness. Some group, or network, had inserted itself into the decision process—had the power to insert itself. Or was it simply one deranged, dying old man on a blown-up island in the Caribbean who
se orders still had to be obeyed? The answer did not really matter; a solution had to be found that maintained the status quo without damaging the Scorpios. It was why six hours ago he understood that he had to become Scorpio One, with all the rights and privileges thereof. The realization carra with Ingersol’s words: “She demanded that I be killed, that David Ingersol be killed!”
So be it. The Scorpios could not be damaged. Sometime, somewhere, a call would come to him and he would have a unique explanation: the truth. Now, right now, he had to bring into play all his reputed analytical prowess; he had to think and outthink not only Bajaratt and those behind her, but also the United States government. The Scorpios could not be damaged.
There was laughter on the beach; the brats and their friends and his wife were around a pit fire in the sand. It was a late evening clambake on the shores of the Chesapeake. Oh, Christ almighty, it was a good life!… No, the Scorpios could not be damaged, nothing could change.
A telephone erupted softly; it was a muted ring that everyone in the household understood could be answered only by the father. The whole family referred to it as the “spook-tune,” the kids frequently making fun of the single gray phone in their father’s small den. O’Ryan good-naturedly took the ribbing, knowing it reenforced the assumption that Langley was calling him, sometimes inventing melodramatic nonsense that had the younger children wide-eyed until the older boys would puncture the story. “They want Dad to deliver a pizza, right, Double-O?”
It was all fun, macabre but fun; it was also necessary. The gray telephone had nothing to do with the Agency. Patrick Timothy pushed himself out of the deck chair and walked across the short living room to his den. He picked up the secure phone, pressed the digits required, and spoke.
“Who’s this?” he asked quietly.