The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

  “Per certo,” replied the tall dock boy, standing under the canopy, so striking in appearance that strollers’ eyes were drawn to him as though he were a celebrity they did not quite recognize, or a motion picture star whose name escaped them.

  At a pay phone across from the hotel’s front desk, the Baj dialed collect the number in Silver Spring. “It is I,” she said, “we have an emergency.”

  “You may speak, Amaya, we are secure,” the voice of the diminutive Arab from the northern suburb quickly broke in.

  “Nesbitt’s limousine is late, too late to be normal. Is be normal?”

  “He had a relapse this afternoon, but the doctor saw him—”

  “It cannot be!” whispered the Baj gutturally. “Then I shall go there myself. My appointment is scheduled!”

  “I’m afraid it’s not. It’s off the books and you’d never get through the gate without him.”

  “I will, I must. The Scorpios have turned against me! They’re trying to stop me. They’ve got Nesbitt!”

  “That’s entirely possible, my dear, for they enjoy the status quo and you now threaten it. But don’t do anything rash; stay on the phone. I’ll call the senator’s car on another line.”

  Bajaratt stood by the phone, her body rigid, her expression as though it were set in concrete. Suddenly, she was aware of a figure standing behind her; she turned around. Without betraying her shock, she stared at the expensively dressed woman from Palm Beach, the middle-aged hostess with bluish hair and teeth too large for her mouth. In her left hand she held a large green purse; it was partially open. Her right hand gripped the handle of an automatic, flesh and steel apparent. “This is as far as you go,” said the Scorpio.

  “What do you think you’ll gain other than a thousand knives across your throat by your action?” asked the Baj icily.

  “What do we lose if you fuck up what we’ve got?” said the leader of Palm Beach society.

  “Good heavens, such language from a matron of the social rich?”

  “And that’s the way it’s going to stay, Miss Baaka Valley,” answered the woman of fine breeding.

  “You are so wrong,” insisted Bajaratt calmly. “The Baaka is with you, has always been with you. Our mutual padrone proved it—”

  “He’s dead,” interrupted the socialite. “The island’s gone, we all know that; now we can’t reach any of the upper five. Everyone’s cut off, and the only reason can be you!”

  “Let us talk, but not here,” said the Baj as she hung up the pay phone. “This call is immaterial, and you certainly cannot shoot me here in the lobby, I believe the word is counterproductive. You’d be taken or shot yourself.… Come, there is a side entrance—for deliveries and diplomatic cars—we can talk there. And I assure you, I’m very aware of your weapon. I shall be most obedient, for I’m not armed.” As they crossed the lobby toward the brass-bordered side doors, Bajaratt continued. “Tell me, and I ask it only as a compliment to you, how did you find me?”

  “I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise that I’m quite well known in Washington,” said the woman, walking on the Baj’s right, her purse angled into Bajaratt’s side, the concealed gun episodically jamming the Baj’s hip.

  “Nothing surprises me where you are concerned—”

  “The fact that I’m a Scorpio, naturally.”

  “For starters, as you Americans say.… How did you find me?”

  “I knew you and the boy had gone under, obviously using different names, but you couldn’t change your appearances, at least not his. I had my secretary check all the elegant hotels with your descriptions, claiming that my poor husband had forgotten your names and where you were staying—a not-uncommon and also well-known habit of his. The rest was simple—Madame Balzini.”

  “How positively ingenious!” said Bajaratt, opening the door to a loud, exhaust-filled tunnellike area where there was a platform fronting the incessant traffic. “No wonder you were chosen to be a Scorpio.”

  “Where I’m going to remain,” interrupted the Palm Beach hostess vehemently. “Where we’re all going to remain! We know what you intend to do, and you’re not going any further!”

  “Do what, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Don’t lie to me, Miss Baaka!” exclaimed the socialite. “Another of our crowd is—was—the personal secretary of the DCI in Langley. Helen’s in Europe now, gone and forgotten, but she called me and told me what was happening. She was stunned, frightened to death, but the new Scorpio One demanded that she follow orders, leaving her no choice if she wanted to live and get away.… Well, we haven’t been given any orders and we like what we’ve got, and nobody’s going to change it. You think you’re going to be picked up by my old friend Nesbitt tonight?… Oh, cut the bulge in your eyes, sweetie, he calls me Sylvia and I introduced you two, remember? With what Helen told me and a call to his house, I put one and one together and came up with ‘This is it!’ I’m afraid his limousine was just in an accident, sorry about that. And now you’re going to have another one, a stray bullet during one of our nightly D.C. robberies—and what better place than this howling cavern, where you can barely see, much less hear beyond five feet.” The woman named Sylvia glanced around, and then started to remove the automatic from her purse.

  “I shouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the Baj, noting the approach of a huge, mechanized garbage truck stopping for admittance at the street gate.

  “You’re not me. I’m me.”

  “My life means nothing,” went on Bajaratt, “but I’m told you treasure yours, even to the betrayal of your Scorpios.”

  “What are you talking about …?”

  “Silver Spring, Maryland. Just yesterday I visited the royal house of the diminutive Arab queen bee—you’re on her payroll. You sold out the Scorpions for additional money. For money alone, as if you weren’t being paid enough.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  “Then explain it to Scorpio One. You cannot reach him, but I can. I have. If I don’t get to the White House tonight, a lengthy note detailing your betrayal will be on his desk in the morning.… You forget. I am the Baj. I never stop looking, searching, and when I find weakness, I do my best to convert it to a strength I might not have had.” Bajaratt moved slowly to her right as the hostess from Palm Beach, her mascaraed eyes wide, her upper teeth protruding between her gaping lips, stood immobile. “Now, tell me, signora, do you really wish to kill me?”

  The answer never came, for the Baj stepped back, as if tripping on the pavement, then fell forward, crashing her shoulder against the Scorpio, sending her into the path of the mammoth garbage truck racing toward the platform. The screeching brakes did nothing to abort the tragedy. The celebrated hostess from Palm Beach was crushed under the front wheels.

  “I’ll call an ambulance!” screamed Bajaratt, racing through the side doors. Instead, she instantly slowed down and walked rapidly, under total control, to the nearest pay phone. She inserted a coin and again dialed collect.

  “Yes?” said the Arabian cat from Silver Spring.

  “They found me,” said the Baj coldly in a monotone. “Nesbitt’s car was in an accident.”

  “We know. I have a limousine on its way, it will be there in a matter of minutes.”

  “The Scorpios, they’ve turned against me!”

  “It was to be expected, my child, we both agreed to that.”

  “Your bitch from Palm Beach, she was the one!”

  “It makes sense. She’s well connected in the city; she’s especially close to the Scorpios’ intelligence network.”

  “She made a point of that, but she’ll make no further points. She’s dead, under the wheels of a garbage truck, where she belongs.”

  “Thank you for saving us the trouble. As the Scorpions go down, and they will, we shall rise.… Now, to return the favor. The limousines will be switched, you’ll be picked up and proceed to the White House where everything’s in place. At eight o’clock, two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
their White House security clearances attached to their jacket pockets, will come down from the second-floor courtesy lounge. They will be joined by a liveried chauffeur, also cleared, who will be given a weapon inside in case there is trouble. The three will head down the Oval Office corridor, where they will wait for you to emerge. As I told you before, the code word is ‘Ashkelon.’ Follow them quickly.”

  “Agents from the Federal Bureau…?”

  “Where we penetrate, we penetrate deeply, Amaya Aquirre. It’s all you have to know. Now, proceed, child of Allah.”

  “I am no child of Allah, or anybody else’s child,” said the Baj. “I am only myself.”

  “Then go yourself, fulfill your mission.”

  Bajaratt and Dante Paolo, barone-cadetto di Ravello, climbed into the limousine, sitting beside the senator from Michigan in the spacious back seat. “I’m so sorry we were delayed,” exclaimed Nesbitt, “but can you imagine, we had an accident, our front end smashed to pieces, and the driver of the other car ran from the scene. However, my office is so efficient, they sent another car.”

  “Your staff is to be complimented, Signor Senatore.”

  “They’re fine people, and let me tell you, the President is so eager to meet you both. He told me personally that he believes he met the baron and his father—your father—when he landed at Anzio in the Second World War. He mentioned that many of the great landowners were very helpful. He was a young lieutenant then.”

  “Entirely possible,” said the contessa enthusiastically. “The family was against the fascisti from the beginning. While feigning loyalty to that pig, Il Duce, they worked with the partisans, making it possible for scores of downed pilots to escape.”

  “Then you’ll have something in common to talk about.”

  “Forgive me, Senator, but I was born after the war—”

  “Well, naturally, of course.”

  “My brother is quite a bit older than I.”

  “I never meant to imply that you were there, Countess.”

  “Non importa,” said Bajaratt, glancing at Nicolo and smiling. “I wasn’t so far behind.”

  The limousine cruised east in Washington’s twilight. Depending on the traffic, they would reach the White House in fifteen minutes or less.

  7:33 P.M.

  The red-line operator had given Hawthorne the number of Senator Nesbitt’s residence; the phone was answered by a woman who either did not know anything or refused to say what she knew. “I’m only the housekeeper, sir. The senator doesn’t tell me where he goes and I wouldn’t expect him to. I just make sure his meals are ready when he wants ’em.”

  “Damn!” roared Tyrell, slamming down the beige telephone.

  “You tried his office?” asked Phyllis, walking into the sun porch.

  “Of course. There’s an answering machine that spews out banalities for his constituents.… ‘The senator or a member of his staff will be in touch with you by phone or mail if you will leave your name, address, and number. The senator is always available’—et cetera, et cetera!”

  “What about his staff?” pressed the widow. “When Hank wanted information, he frequently managed to get it from a senior member of someone’s staff, quicker than the person he couldn’t reach.”

  “There’s a not-so-minor problem. I haven’t a clue about Nesbitt’s staff.”

  “Hank did,” said Phyllis, rushing to a solid piece of furniture roughly thirty inches high and two feet wide, its dark wood filled with ornate Oriental carvings, a lamp on the top. “This is a file cabinet,” she continued, bending down, her fingers roaming along the right side. “Good God, he locked it and I never had the combination; he said I shouldn’t have it.”

  “What are you talking about, Phyll?”

  “It’s a huge Chinese puzzle box, we picked it up years ago on his Hong Kong tour. If the side release doesn’t open it, you have to press various carved figurines in sequence.”

  “What I mean is, what’s in it?”

  “Henry kept up-to-date lists of everyone in Washington, as well as the senior staffs of anyone he might have to reach in an emergency, including all the senators and congressmen. He was a—”

  “I know,” Hawthorne interrupted. “He was a stickler about things like that. How do we open it?”

  “We smash it.” Phyllis Stevens reached for a heavy-based floor lamp, pulling the cord out of its socket. “Smash away, Tye!”

  Hawthorne crashed the thick, leaden base of the lamp repeatedly against the top of the chest. On the seventh assault it fell apart, and Tyrell and Phyllis crouched in front of the destroyed Chinese box, removing the debris, their hands plunging into the racks of folders.

  “Here it is,” exclaimed Henry Stevens’s widow, pulling out a thick file. “ ‘House and Senate.’ Everything’s in there!”

  The first person Hawthorne reached without an answering machine was not on the top of the senator’s staff list; he was a middle-level aide with a name that began with the letter A.

  “There were rumors that he was going to the White House tonight, Commander, but I wasn’t privy to the circumstances. I just joined the office, but I have a master’s degree in political science—”

  “Stay well,” said Tyrell, hanging up and turning to Phyllis. “Next, and look for someone with rank,” he added.

  “Here’s a better choice,” said Phyllis. “She takes dictation.”

  The second call reached Nesbitt’s personal secretary. Her words caused Tyrell to freeze and the sharp pain in his chest to explode, spreading to all points of his body.

  “It’s really quite wonderful, Commander. The senator has a private meeting with the President this evening. He’s escorting the Countess Cabrini and her nephew, the son of a very wealthy Italian baron who’s investing heavily—”

  “A countess and her nephew?” Tyrell broke in. “A woman and a young man?”

  “Yes, sir. I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but it’s quite a coup for my boss. All those millions into our state—”

  “When is this meeting?”

  “Around eight o’clock; between eight and eight-fifteen, I believe. The White House is always a little flexible about these private, off-the-record things.”

  “They’re meeting in the private quarters?”

  “Oh, no, sir, the First Lady was very specific about that, especially since their grandchildren are around. It’s in the Oval Office—”

  Hawthorne, his face the pallor of death, hung up the phone. “Bajaratt’s on her way to the White House!” he whispered. Then he yelled, “The kid’s with her! Christ, she snaked through every security fence they mounted!… That patrol outside, Phyll, are they good?”

  “They’re not allowed to leave the premises, Tye.”

  “And I don’t have time to set them loose. But I know the way, I passed 1600 to get to the highway, and I’ve got a State Department patrol car with a button that reads siren.”

  “You’re going alone?”

  “I don’t have a choice. I can’t reach Palisser, the CIA’s either out of the loop, or, worse, in collusion, the Pentagon’s off limits, the Secret Service won’t listen to me, and the police would put me into a straitjacket!”

  “What can I do?”

  “Reach every debt Henry had coming to him, every son of a bitch in naval intelligence, or any other spook department he ever worked with, and get me through the White House gate!”

  “I’ve got several in mind, including an admiral Hank got off the hook for giving advice to a defense contractor. He plays poker with the chief of 1600 security.”

  “Do it, Phyll!”

  7:51 P.M.

  The senator’s limousine stopped at the South Gate of the White House; his name was checked off on a list, and he was smartly saluted by the marine guard. In seconds, as prearranged, the driver sped right toward the main entrance rather than left toward the West Wing, where the Oval Office was located. Once at the curb, in front of the short flight of steps, Nesbitt ushered the countess and he
r nephew out, had short, polite words with the guards flanking the door, and brought them inside.

  “This is my colleague from Michigan,” he said rapidly. “The other senator from our state.” Handshakes were exchanged, names lost in the obvious haste as a photographer emerged from a doorway, his camera at the ready. “As I mentioned to you, Countess, my colleague is from the President’s party and was extremely influential in arranging this meeting.”

  “Yes, I recall,” said Bajaratt. “You wished a photograph with yourself, your colleague, and Dante Paolo, all together.”

  “You too, of course, if you’d like.”

  “No, signore, my nephew is your catalyst, not I. But please hurry.”

  Four successive photographs were taken as another figure appeared walking swiftly down the corridor. “I apologize!” cried the man in a dark suit as he approached them. “The instructions were somehow off the track. You were to come to the West Wing entrance.”

  “Off the track, my ass,” whispered the junior senator from Michigan to his legislative associate. “Can you imagine the Chief of Staff allowing us in a picture?”

  “Shh!” mumbled Nesbitt. “Accept the mistake, Josh.”

  “Sure.… Of course.”

  “If the guard hadn’t radioed us, you’d be standing here for quite some time,” said the escort, making light of yet another White House error. “Come along now, I’ll bring you to the West Wing.”

  Forty-six seconds later, the short journey traversed quickly through the hallways, the quartet reached the Oval Office and all were introduced—two reintroduced—to the President’s Chief of Staff. He was a slender man, not large, and with a pale face, perpetually creased, as if he expected a sudden assault from an area his eyes could not see. Yet, withal, his demeanor was pleasant, nonthreatening, and he spoke in the frank, weary voice of a man overworked.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” he said, shaking hands with the Baj and Nicolo. “The President’s on his way down now, but I hope you will understand, Countess, the meeting will necessarily be brief.”