The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

  “But how did you ever get him back? I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

  “We didn’t, MI-6 did. We’re just paying his plus per diems; he got his contract from London.”

  “Good old Tye. Third class never appealed to him unless it was necessary for his cover.”

  “You really liked him, didn’t you?”

  “You would have, too, if you’d ever given him a chance, Hank,” said Phyllis, sitting down in a rattan armchair opposite her husband. “Tye was smart—covert smart, street smart—but not in your class, not a MENSA candidate with an IQ of a hundred and ninety, or whatever, but he had the instincts and the strength to follow them, even when upstairs thought he was wrong. He was a risktaker.”

  “You sound like you were in love with him.” “All the youngsters were, hardly me. Like him, yes; fascinated by what he did, of course, but ‘love’ in any sense of the word, no. He was like a talented, off-the-wall nephew, not even close enough to be a brother, but someone you watched with interest because he broke the rules and every now and then brought in the borscht. You yourself said that.”

  “Yes, I did. And he did get results. But he upset a lot of networks which took considerable work to put back together. I never told him about those assets who temporarily fled from us because they said there was a maniac loose in our underground. They were frightened; he was trying to make deals with our enemies—no more killings, that’s what they told us he was saying to them. But we weren’t doing the killings, others were!”

  “And then Ingrid was killed.”

  “She was killed. By the Soviets, not by us.”

  Phyllis Stevens crossed and recrossed her legs under her silk nightgown, studying her husband of twenty-seven years. “Hank,” she said softly, “something’s eating the hell out of you, and I know by now when not to intrude, but you’ve got to tell somebody. You’re living with something you can’t handle, but I have to tell you, dear, no one in the navy could have done what you did in Amsterdam. You held the whole organization intact, from the embassy to The Hague to NATO. You were the brains behind all our accomplishments in a time when one superior intellect was required to guide clandestine operations. You did that, Hank, rotten temper included, but you did it, dear. I don’t think anybody else could have, Tye Hawthorne, least of all.”

  “Thanks for that, Phyll,” Henry said. Suddenly, he sat forward on the couch, bringing both hands to his pallid face, his fingers spread, covering the tears that began to fall from his eyes. “But we were wrong in Amsterdam, I was wrong. I killed Tye’s wife!”

  Phyllis leapt out of the chair and sprang to the couch beside her husband, cradling him in her arms. “Come on, Hank, the Soviets killed her, not you. You said it yourself, and I saw the reports. The markings were there!”

  “I led them to her.… And now he’s here, and because I’ve been wrong and wrong and wrong again, he may be killed too.”

  “Stop it!” shouted Henry Stevens’s wife. “That’s enough, Hank. You’re exhausted, but you’re better than this, stronger than this. If that’s what’s eating your insides away, bring Tyrell in; you can do it easily.”

  “He’ll fight me; you don’t know how he feels. Friends of his were killed, too many friends.”

  “Send a unit and force him in.” And then a telephone rang, its bell deep-toned, unnatural. Phyllis rose from the couch and crossed to a small alcove on the sun porch, where, behind a short, louvered panel, three phones stood side by side; they were beige, red, and dark blue. “The Stevens’s residence,” she said, picking up the red phone, its light pulsating.

  “Captain Stevens, please.”

  “May I ask who’s calling? The captain’s been up for nearly seventy-two hours and really needs his sleep.”

  “Okay, I guess it doesn’t matter at this hour,” said the youthful voice on the line. “I’m Lieutenant Allen, N.I., and the captain should know that Commander—former Commander—Hawthorne was shot outside a diner in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. As near as we can determine, the wounds may not be life-threatening, but until the ambulance and the paramedics get here, we can’t be sure. However, the woman air force officer—”

  “Henry!”

  25

  Hawthorne and a tear-stained Poole sat opposite each other in the corridor outside the hospital operating room, Tyrell in a chair, crutches by his side, the lieutenant on a bench, leaning forward, his head in his hands. Neither spoke; there was nothing to say. Hawthorne’s thigh wound had required extraction of the bullet and seven stitches, which he barely lay still for on the table, demanding to be brought to the waiting area where, inside, Major Catherine Neilsen was fighting for her life.

  “If she dies,” said Poole, breaking the silence, his voice strained, barely audible, “I’m gettin’ out of this goddamned outfit, and if I have to, I’ll spend the rest of my life trackin’ down the fuckers who killed her.”

  “I understand, Jackson,” said Tyrell, looking over at the distraught lieutenant.

  “Maybe you don’t, Commander. One of ’em may be you.”

  “I can even understand that, as misdirected as I believe it to be.”

  “ ‘Misdirected’? You son of a bitch.” Poole removed his hands and raised his head, glaring at Tye. “In my vocabulary, which is a hell of a lot superior to yours, that’s as exculpatory as you can get. You’re not blameless, Mr. Hawthorne. You didn’t even tell Cath and me what this whole thing was about until I forced you to on that lousy island after Charlie was killed.”

  “Would it have made any difference—after Charlie was killed?”

  “How do I know?” exclaimed the lieutenant. “How do I know anything? I just figure you weren’t straight with us.”

  “I was as straight as I could be without unnecessarily jeopardizing your lives with information you shouldn’t have.”

  “That’s spook bullshit!”

  “It certainly is, but then, I was once a spook, and I saw men and women killed because they knew things—even fragments of things—that sealed their death warrants. I’ve been away a long time, but those people still haunt me.”

  The door to the operating room opened, and a white-jacketed doctor emerged, his loose-fitting hospital outfit splotched with blood. “I’ve been up here a long time,” he said wearily. “Which one of you is Poole?”

  “That’s me,” replied Jackson from the bench, his breath suspended.

  “She told me to tell you to cool it—that’s what she said.”

  “How is she?”

  “I’ll get to that.” The surgeon turned to Tyrell. “You’re Hawthorne, then, the other patient?”

  “Yes.”

  “She wants to see you—”

  “What the hogdamned hell are you talkin’ about?” Poole leapt to his feet. “If she’s gonna see anyone, it’s me!”

  “I gave her a choice, Mr. Poole. I didn’t even want to do that, but she’s a very stubborn lady. One visitor, two minutes maximum, and less is medically advisable.”

  “How is she, Doctor?” said Tye, repeating Jackson’s question but with an authority that required an answer.

  “I assume you’re replacing her immediate family?”

  “Assume whatever you like,” Hawthorne continued quietly. “We were brought here together and you’re certainly aware of the government’s concern.”

  “I certainly am. Two admissions off the books, no police reports, any and all inquiries turned aside by our having no knowledge of the events suggested … and the patients involved were shot. Highly irregular, but I can’t question the authority. I never spoke to anyone with such credentials in the intelligence community.”

  “Then answer my question, please.”

  “The next twenty-four hours or so will tell.”

  “Tell what?” Poole exploded. “Whether she’ll die or not?”

  “Frankly, I can’t promise you she won’t die, but I think we’ve eliminated the probability. What I also can’t promise is that she’ll be a whole person, with f
ull mobility.”

  Poole sank down on the bench, his head again in his hands. “Cath, oh Cath …” he sobbed.

  “Spinal?” asked Tyrell coldly.

  “Then you know about such wounds?”

  “Let’s say I’ve been here before. The nerve endings after trauma …?”

  “If they respond,” nodded the surgeon, “she could be in normal convalescence in a couple of days. If they don’t, what can I say?”

  “You’ve said enough, Doctor. May I see her now?”

  “Of course.… Here, let me help you up, I understand you had a bit of an invasive procedure yourself.” Hawthorne got to his feet, precariously balancing himself, and started for the door. “Your crutches,” said the surgeon, holding them out.

  “I’ve just de-requisitioned them, Doctor,” replied Tyrell. “Thanks very much anyway.”

  He was escorted into Catherine’s room by a nurse who said kindly but firmly that his visit would be timed. Hawthorne stared at the figure on the bed; strands of her blond hair fell in the back of her operation net, the precise, lovely features of her pallid face caught in the soft light of a bedside lamp. She heard footsteps and opened her eyes, turning her head, and, seeing Hawthorne, gestured with her hand for him to come closer, indicating the chair by her side. He did so, limping across the room and sitting down. Then slowly, hesitantly, their two hands drew nearer each other, finally clasping.

  “They told me you’re okay,” said Cathy, her voice weak, her wan smile approving.

  “So will you be,” said Tye. “Hang in there, Major.”

  “Come on, Tye, you can do better than that.”

  “I’m trying.… Jackson’s a little upset that you didn’t ask for him.”

  “I love him dearly, but it’s not the time for a brilliant child, and I’m not up to his predictable behavior.” Neilsen spoke in soft bursts of breath, with effort, but clearly, snaking her head when Hawthorne raised his left hand to slow her down. “Isn’t that the kind of decision we officers are trained to make? I think you tried to tell me something like that when Charlie was killed.”

  “I may have said it, Cathy, but I’m not the best teacher. This officer fell apart in Amsterdam, remember?”

  “You won’t now, will you?”

  “That’s an odd thing for you to say, but I would hope not. I’m an angry man, Cathy, as angry as I was in Amsterdam—and you’re part of it now.… Why did you say that?”

  “I’ve put a couple of things together, Tye, and I’m frightened—”

  “We’re all frightened,” Tyrell interrupted gently.

  “Frightened for you, for what I think you’re carrying around.… When you and Jackson came back from Old San Juan, from Simon’s place, you’d changed. I couldn’t put a name on it, I’m not sure I want to know, but it’s something deep, something terrible—”

  “I’d lost two friends,” Hawthorne broke in nervously, “just as you lost Charlie.”

  “Then later,” the major went on quietly, disregarding his interruption, “you had a message over the phone at the Shenandoah. I never saw a face change so much, it was suddenly pale white, then almost blue, and your eyes were on fire. All you said was that you’d heard from someone who made a mistake. Still later—I know you didn’t realize I could hear you—you gave Henry Stevens a telephone number in Paris.”

  “That was—”

  “Please.… Then tonight you raced out of that diner like a maniac, as though you wanted to kill the chauffeur.… I ran after you, and when I got to the door which was closing, just before the shots, you shouted—no, Tye, you screamed, you! And then the woman opened fire.”

  “Yes, she did,” said Tyrell, his eyes locked with Cathy’s.

  “Bajaratt, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know who she is, don’t you? I mean, you knew her.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s someone you knew very well, isn’t she?”

  “I thought I did. I didn’t.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tye.… You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

  “There’s no point. She’s not who she was, there’s no connection whatsoever.”

  “You have no doubts about that?”

  “None. Her world is in the Baaka Valley. I knew her in another world that had nothing to do with the Baaka.”

  “In that good world, the good life, where your boat cuts through the water from island to island and the sundowns are peaceful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will the number in Paris help?”

  “It could. I hope so. I want it to.”

  Catherine studied his tired face, the eyes that held such pain and such anger. “Oh, God, you poor, unhappy man. I feel so for you, Tye … and we’ll say no more about this.”

  “I appreciate that, Cathy.… Lying there, with what you’ve been through, you can think about me?”

  “Sure,” she whispered, growing weak but smiling. “It’s better than thinking about myself, isn’t it?”

  Tyrell leaned forward in the chair, removing his hand from hers and cupping her face. They drew closer until their lips met. “You’re lovely, Cathy, so very lovely.”

  “Hey, that’s better than ‘outstanding,’ Commander.”

  The door opened, the nurse in the frame; she cleared her throat softly. “Time’s up,” she said. “The best-looking patient in this hospital has to rest.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to everyone who’s been operated on,” offered Neilsen.

  “If I do, I lie a lot. But not here, not now.”

  “Tye?”

  “Yes?” said Hawthorne, standing up.

  “Use Jackson, make him a full partner. He can do everything I can do, and do it better.”

  “Of course I will, but you’re saying something else.”

  “It’ll take his mind off me.”

  Phyllis Stevens pounced on the telephone. It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, but it had taken until six-fifteen when she finally got her exhausted, guilt-ridden husband to bed. The woman air force officer had been operated on, the prognosis unknown, but Tye Hawthorne had not been seriously wounded, a fact that relieved Henry Stevens’s current concerns but did nothing to relieve his deeper anxiety—only inches and he might have been killed!

  “Yes, what is it?” said Phyllis quietly into the phone, pulling the cord to the far side of her bed.

  “FBI, Mrs. Stevens. May I speak with the captain, please.”

  “Frankly, I’d rather you didn’t. He’s had no sleep for nearly three days, and he’s finally getting some. Can’t you give me the message?”

  “Only part of it, ma’am.”

  “I understand completely.”

  “Phyll, what is it?” Henry Stevens bolted upright in the bed next to hers. “I heard the phone, I know I heard the phone!”

  “He’s all yours, federal man.” Phyllis sighed, handing the receiver to her husband, who had already swung his feet to the floor.

  “This is Stevens, what is it?”

  “FBI, sir, Field Agent Becker, on the Ingersol office detail.”

  “Anything?”

  “It’s hard to explain, sir. We found a telephone in a steel cabinet camouflaged by wood paneling as though it were part of the wall. We had to torch it open—”

  “Is it a regular phone, and if it is, why was it concealed?”

  “That’s what’s crazy, Captain. The tech men have been working on it most of the night and all this morning and have only gotten so far.”

  “How far is that?”

  “They found a satellite dish on the roof which accesses the hidden phone, but all they’ve been able to figure is that it beams up and beams down to the state of Utah.”

  “Utah? Where the hell is Utah?”

  “There could be a couple of hundred laser frequencies to a thousand receiving dishes out there, sir. Maybe more of both.”

  “That’s nuts!”

  “That’s the new technology, Captain.”


  “Then put your high-priced computers to work, those same magic machines that cost the taxpayers so goddamn much money, and come up with something.”

  “We’re working on it, sir.”

  “Work harder!” Stevens slammed down the phone, falling back on his pillows. “They have their own satellites up there in space,” he whispered. “It’s unreal!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hank, but if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, all of us everywhere made it possible. All it takes is money.”

  “Progress,” said Stevens, “isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Depends on who controls it, I imagine,” said his wife. “We all thought we would—the best and the brightest. Apparently we don’t.”

  It was late morning and the hospital had nothing new to report on Catherine Neilsen other than she was resting, her vital signs stable. Hawthorne, in shorts, tested his leg in the bedroom of the Shenandoah Lodge under Poole’s scrutiny. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” said the lieutenant. “You’re hurtin’.”

  “Not so bad,” replied Tyrell. “I slept halfway decently, which I didn’t expect to. The main thing is to keep the weight off the left side.”

  “It’d be better if you stayed off it completely for a couple of days,” said Poole. “Let the sutures set.”

  “We don’t have a couple of days. Get more of that tape and bind it tighter.” The telephone rang. “It’s probably Stevens. Phyllis promised she’d have him call me when he woke up.”

  “I’ll check it out,” said Jackson, going to the desk. “Hello?… Yes, yes, he’s here. Just a moment.” The lieutenant turned to Hawthorne. “It’s someone who says he’s your brother and I figure he is. He even sounds like you, except kinda nicer.”

  “He isn’t really; it’s an act he learned while teaching.” Tyrell limped to the bed, slowly sitting down. “I called St. Thomas from the hospital last night.” Tye picked up the bedside phone. “Hello, Marc, I figured you’d be mooring sometime today.”

  “About an hour ago, and it’s very kind of you to let me know you’re still around,” said Marc Anthony Hawthorne sarcastically. “You are still around, aren’t you?”

  “Cut it out, bro, I’ve been busy, and don’t be curious because that phone is off limits.”