The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

  (HAWTHORNE) Absolutely, sir. But was there anyone who stood out in your mind as you think back? I’m told you have an incredible memory. Your tactics against the Cong, I’ve been told, were based on aerial photographs no one else remembered.

  (MEYERS) Quite true, quite true, but then, I always had my aides, I won’t short them.… Yes, come to think of it, there were several members of the Senate whose presence did astonish me. Politically quite far to the left, if you read me, and it was common knowledge that David Ingersol was a friend to the Pentagon.

  (HAWTHORNE) Could you be more specific, General?

  (MEYERS) Yes, I can. That senator from Iowa, the one who keeps whining that the farmers are sacrificed for defense allocations, when who has more subsidies than the farm belts? He was, as usual, pontificating in that Midwest-deacon’s pose of his. Also a couple of other lefties whose names I can’t recall, but I’ll go over the congressional albums and I’ll call you.

  (HAWTHORNE) That’d be a great help, sir.

  (MEYERS) I’m not sure how.

  (HAWTHORNE) Anything unexpected is a plus, General. Such people could be throwing off suspicion by their presence. We’ve heard there’s dissension in the ranks of the Bajaratt conspiracy.

  (MEYERS, interrupting) There … is?

  (HAWTHORNE) It’s spreading. Within days, perhaps hours, we’ll have names.

  (MEYERS) That sounds incredible. Commander.… God knows I hope you’re right.

  “Okay, that’s the first one,” said Poole, shutting off the recorder. “Any comment? I didn’t choose it, you did, Tye.”

  “Because I was inside, watching from a corner in the hallway, and saw Meyers eating up a storm at the buffet table. There was no light problem for him; those candles were very bright, and there were sconces on the walls. As to whom he saw, I didn’t care, I just wanted to see the types he put down so I could agree with him.”

  “And throw a little scare into him about dissension in Bajaratt’s ranks?” said Poole, grinning.

  “These days they call it psych-imbalance, Lieutenant. I call it shoving a small poker up his ass. Let’s hear the second.”

  “It’s short, but I think it’s hog-wild, and you did too.”

  (HAWTHORNE) Did David Ingersol, who we now know was a traitor and dealing with Little Girl Blood, ever give you bad advice in your dealings with contractors?

  (MEYERS) By Christ, I certainly questioned a number of his legal decisions! Of course I’m not an attorney, but something smelled, I can tell you that!

  (HAWTHORNE) Did you follow up on your objections, sir?

  (MEYERS) I certainly did! Orally, if not in reports. Good God, he was a golfing partner of the President!

  “Perfect obfuscation,” said Poole. “Nobody can establish nuthin’ ‘orally.’ ”

  “Agreed,” agreed Tye. “Next, please.”

  “Also short, and we both caught it.”

  (HAWTHORNE) Edward White, Ingersol’s partner, told us that he asked you if you knew anything about a State Department investigation into David Ingersol’s affairs. Certainly you must have, General, because you constantly monitor the Little Girl Blood progress reports on the confidential equipment—

  (MEYERS) What’s your question?

  (HAWTHORNE) It’s not a question, sir, merely a thank-you for handling a deep-cover situation so well. Lesser men would have fallen into the trap.

  (MEYERS) Of revealing max-security information? Not on any staff of mine, I’d have the bastard shot. Of course I knew about it, but no one would hear it from me.

  “That’s a bingo,” Tyrell said. “I was off the books, so it was never sent out. Palisser got me the papers but kept everything quiet.”

  “That’s why I picked it up.” Poole nodded. “Let’s go on to the next one, okay?”

  (MEYERS) What do you think really happened here, Commander?

  (HAWTHORNE) I can show you what happened to me, sir. You can see the top of my head, General. It’s not pretty, but here it is.

  (MEYERS) Terrible, simply terrible—of course I’ve seen a lot worse, but that was combat-oriented, not at a suburban wake, for God’s sake!

  (HAWTHORNE) You were the finest combat officer in the army.

  (MEYERS) No, son, my boys were the finest—

  (HAWTHORNE) Your modesty is exceptional for a man with your record.

  (MEYERS) One shouldn’t blow one’s horn, especially when others blow it for you, right?

  (HAWTHORNE) Again, so right, sir.… But someone shot Richard Ingersol and attacked me in the garden before I could see who it was, and we’ve got to find out who!

  (MEYERS, interrupting) You should have had Ranger training, Commander. Except for the SEALs, I don’t imagine you get much of that in the navy. On the other hand, I heard you had a pretty close call down in the islands, running down the Little Girl. I gather two former spook colleagues of yours were killed, a Brit and a Frenchman, but you got out of it. You must be pretty talented yourself, Commander—

  “Hold it, Jackson,” said Tyrell, leaning forward in his chair as Poole stopped the recorder. “I wanted to make sure I heard it right. I did and it’s another bingo. At no time did London or Paris acknowledge that Cooke or Ardisonne was attached to MI-6 or the Deuxième. Meyers got that information from the Scorpio network. Washington never mentioned it in the Bajaratt progress reports; we don’t talk about allied intelligence personnel and they don’t talk about ours.”

  “One more nail in the Maximum’s pine box,” noted Poole. “Now, let’s peel away a couple of layers of the general’s psyche. We both chose this one ’cause it makes for one scary psychological profile. You did a hell of a job here, Tye.… Here we go.”

  (HAWTHORNE) Your service record, sir, is the top of the military, the envy and the glory of every soldier who’s ever served this nation—

  (MEYERS, interrupting) That’s very kind of you, but, as I have said, I was never alone. Even in the torture crates and tiger holes of the Viet Cong, I knew I had the American people supporting me. I never lost that faith.

  (HAWTHORNE) Then, General—and this is a personal question, having nothing to do with tonight—how can you accept the stripping of the military down to the bare bones? I ask you this as a great admirer of yours.

  (MEYERS) It won’t happen! It can’t happen! There are intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed at our shores from all points of the globe! We must arm and rearm! The Soviets may be finished, but others have taken their place. Rearm, for the love of God, rearm! Take us back to where we were!

  (HAWTHORNE) I agree, of course, sir, but how can it be done? The politicians in both parties are demanding cuts, promising the country a “peace-dividend,” mainly from defense.

  (MEYERS, voice lowered) How can it be done? Let me tell you, Commander, and now we’re talking just between ourselves—okay, okay?

  (HAWTHORNE) On my oath as a naval officer—under God and you, General.

  (MEYERS, voice barely audible) We must first destabilize, Hawthorne, alarm the nation, let it know there are enemies everywhere! And once alarmed, we resume our rightful place as the guardians of the country.

  (HAWTHORNE) What kind of alarm, sir? Against what?

  (MEYERS) Against the inevitable in a torn society ravaged by undesirables and malcontents. We must be strong and fill the void with leadership.

  “He’d be a joke,” said Poole, turning off the recorder. “A real comedian if he had a sense of humor. Instead, he’s one grotesque son of a bitch.”

  “He’s paranoid,” Tyrell added quietly. “The perfect, dedicated Scorpio for the Providers. Not only are his bank accounts filled—though he probably doesn’t give much of a damn about that—but he really believes his dreams of right-through-might are within reach. What’s so frightening is that it could happen in seconds, with a single bullet or a grenade, fired or thrown by someone we can’t find, someone who’s dedicated her entire life to this one kill. Where… where is she?”

  33

  It was
8:12 A.M. when the Carillon hotel welcomed back Madame Balzini and her nephew, all formalities confidentially taken care of by an accommodating concierge who was far richer for his labors. At 8:58 Bajaratt phoned the Baaka Valley’s bank of choice in the Cayman Islands, used her pass code, and was assured that the sum of fifty thousand American dollars would be delivered to the hotel within the hour, no mechanism of transfer sought nor one offered. The money arrived in a document envelope.

  “Should I take it?” asked Nicolo when the bank executive left.

  “You’ll take what I give you. I trust the noble dock boy understands that I may have made some provisions for myself. You shall have your twenty-five thousand, but the rest is for me, for my endeavors. Why are you looking at me so strangely?”

  “What’s going to happen to you, signora? Where will you go, what will you do?”

  “Everything will be answered for you tonight, my child lover, whom I adore.”

  “If you adore me so, why don’t you tell me? You say you will leave me tonight—you are vanished, gone, I am alone.… Can’t you understand me, Cabi? You’ve made me a part of you. I was nobody and now I am somebody because of you. I will think of you for the rest of my life. You cannot just disappear and leave me with confusion, a nothingness.”

  “There’ll be no confusion, and as for your being alone, you have your Angel, don’t you?”

  “It is a faraway hope only.”

  “Enough talk,” said Bajaratt, crossing to the desk and opening the envelope by breaking the three seals and ripping the tab of the striped tape. She removed twenty-six thousand dollars, handing Nicolo a thousand, placing twenty-five on the table, and leaving twenty-four thousand in the envelope. The Baj pressed the seals together and gave it to the dock boy from Portici, along with the thousand dollars. “That should be enough for your expenses to New York,” she said. “Can I be fairer or more honest with you than this?”

  “Grazie,” said Nicolo. “I will give the envelope to Angelina this afternoon.”

  “Can you trust her, dock boy?”

  “Yes. She’s not of your world, and not of the waterfront. I spoke to her a few minutes ago, she was on her way to the airport. She’ll be here at two twenty-five, gate seventeen. I cannot wait.”

  “What will you say to your famous lady?”

  “Whatever comes from my heart, signora, not from my head.”

  Bruce Palisser, secretary of state, had been awakened by the White House at 5:46 A.M. and was in his limousine, heading toward the Oval Office, by ten past six. Syria and Israel were at an impasse; hostilities—conceivably nuclear—were about to break out unless the combined efforts of the United States, England, France, and Germany could cool off the hard-liners of both countries. At six-thirteen Palisser’s wife took the call from Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne, asking to speak with the secretary right away. It was urgent.

  “Apparently something else is also,” Janet Palisser replied. “He’s at the White House.”

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve been ordered not to interrupt the Security Council meeting under any circumstances—”

  “Suppose,” interrupted a frustrated Tyrell, “just suppose a ballistic missile was in the air, headed directly at the White House! Could I get through then?”

  “Are you saying there is such a ballistic missile—”

  “No, I’m not saying that! I’m saying that I’ve got to reach the secretary of state on an extremely urgent matter!”

  “Call the State Department.”

  “I can’t call the State Department!… He made it clear that I was to speak only to him.”

  “Then call his emergency beeper—”

  “I don’t know how to—”

  “If you don’t have the number, you can’t be very important.”

  “Please, I’ve got to get a message to Secretary Palisser!”

  “Wait a sec—what did you say your last name was?”

  “Hawthorne.”

  “Jeez, I’m sorry, sir. Your name was added at the end of the list in the computer. The letters are so small, you know what I mean? The message, please.”

  “Have him call me immediately. He knows where, and I’ll be waiting. He’ll get it right away?”

  “I’m sending it down, sir.” There was a click and the line went dead.

  Hawthorne turned to Poole, who sat forward in an armchair, listening. “There’s an emergency meeting at the White House, and the switchboard has to read the small print to get me through to Palisser to tell him that a maniac general who’s probably in that room is aiding and abetting the assassination of the President.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We wait,” said Tyrell. “It’s the worst part.”

  * * *

  The couple walked out of U.S. Customs and into the main terminal of Dulles International Airport. Their manner was casual, their presence in the United States was not. They were agents of the Mossad and their assignment was as vital as any in recent memory. They carried the identity of the man who was the key figure in the Bajaratt enterprise, a senator named Nesbitt, who, beyond reasons of sanity, was leading the terrorist to her kill, a kill that would take place any day, any hour.

  They had arrived on El Al, Flight 8002, from Tel Aviv, and, as they had explained to the customs official, their stay would be brief. They were engineers employed by the Israeli government, in Washington to attend a fund-raising conference relative to further irrigation projects in the Negev desert. The uninterested clerk wielded his stamp, wished them a good day, and raised his head for the next applicant.

  The Mossad officers continued rapidly into the terminal, the woman dressed in a severe black business outfit, her male companion in a similarly somber gray suit. Each carried a fabric-covered flight bag and identical attaché cases. Together, they approached a row of public telephones; the dark-haired woman spoke.

  “I’ll telephone his private number at the State Department, the one Colonel Abrams gave us.”

  “Quickly,” said her colleague, a blond man whose hair had thinned perceptibly, the strands matching the flesh of his scalp. “But remember, if there’s no answer after the fifth ring, hang up.”

  “I understand.” After five rings the major replaced the telephone. “There’s no answer.”

  “Then we’re to call his house. We are to avoid all switchboards.”

  “I’ve got the number right here.” The major retrieved the quarter from the slot, inserted it, and dialed.

  “Hello?” A woman spoke.

  “The secretary of state, please. It’s most urgent.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” replied the irritated voice. “If you’ve got something urgent to tell the secretary, get in line and call the White House. I’m going to our beach house in St. Michaels.”

  “A rather angry woman hung up,” said the bewildered Mossad officer, turning to the captain. “She said to call the White House—”

  “Which we’re prohibited from doing,” broke in the subordinate. “We are to speak only to the secretary of state.”

  “He’s obviously at the White House.”

  “We can’t go through that switchboard—no one is to be trusted, only Palisser. Abrams sent word through diplomatic channels that he was to expect two visitors. The colonel and the secretary are friends, and coming from Abrams, Palisser will assume our urgency.”

  “Then I disagree with our instructions. Since Palisser’s at the White House, I see no reason why we don’t call the switchboard and get a message to him. Abrams said every hour was vital.”

  “What kind of message? We’re not to identify ourselves.”

  “We’ll leave word that the cousins of his friend Colonel David have arrived, and will call him as often as possible on his private line or his house, or even his office if we have to—”

  “His office?” the captain interrupted, frowning.

  “Every hour is vital,” said the major. “We’re not identifying
ourselves, and he can instruct an aide or a secretary or a servant how and where we can reach him. We must get Nesbitt’s name to him.… Let’s find a limousine—with a telephone.”

  The seemingly oblivious customs official waited several minutes until he was sure the couple would not return to watch him. Convinced they had left, he placed the red delay sign on his counter and picked up his telephone. He pressed three numbers, instantly reaching the head of immigration security in an upper office, the room itself having two rows of mounted television monitors on the wall slightly above the myriad electronic consoles.

  “The two Israeli possibles,” said the clerk. “Male and female, ages and descriptions roughly similar.”

  “Occupations?”

  “Engineers, verbal and written. It’s on their cards.”

  “Purpose of visit?”

  “Fund-raiser for projects in the Negev desert. They should be in the terminal by now. The female’s slightly taller and dressed in black, he’s in a gray suit, both carrying flight bags and attaché cases.”

  “We’ll pick them up on a monitor and check them out. Thank you.”

  The head of immigration security, an obese middle-aged man with a puffed face and neutral eyes, rose from his desk behind a large glass partition and walked into the outer room, where five people sat in chairs in front of their consoles and television monitors.

  “Look for a couple,” he ordered. “The woman’s taller and dressed in black, the guy’s in a gray suit.”

  “I’ve got ’em,” said a woman in the fourth chair barely thirty seconds later. “They’re talking by a telephone.”

  “Good work.” The security chief crossed to the female operator. “Give me a closer look.” The woman turned a dial on her console, which in turn activated a telescopic lens on a terminal camera. The figures came into larger focus, the sight only to be greeted with disgust by the chief. “Christ, they don’t look anything like the photographs. Forget it, kiddo. We got a trigger-happy stamper down there.”