The Scorpio Illusion (17 page)

“Why not tell you, you won’t understand anyway? When certain people hunt for certain other people, they
look for the secretive, for the hidden, for the obscure. Not for what’s in front of their eyes.”

“You’re right, Cabi, I don’t understand.”

“That’s just fine,” said Bajaratt.

But Nicolo understood only too well as he hungrily returned to the pages in front of him. On the docks it was called
estorsione
, the selling back of a kissed, stolen boot for many times its value because its mere presence could bring about the destruction of the owner. His time would come, thought the dock boy from Portici, but until it did, he would enter into the signora’s game with enthusiasm, always remembering that she killed too easily.

It was 6:45 in the evening when the stranger walked into the lobby of the Virgin Gorda Yacht Club. He was a short, stout, balding man dressed in sharply creased white trousers and a navy blue blazer with the gold and black crest of the San Diego Yachting Association on his breast pocket. It was an impressive emblem, so closely connected as it was to the Americas Cup and all the racing glory that went with it.

He signed his name on the register. Ralph W. Grimshaw, attorney and yachtsman. Coronado, California.

“We, of course, have a courtesy exchange with San Diego,” said the tuxedoed clerk behind the counter, nervously checking his files. “I’m rather new on the job, so it may take me a while to figure the discount.”

“It’s not important, young man,” said Grimshaw, smiling. “The discount isn’t vital, and if your club, like ours, has troubles in these difficult times, why not forget the courtesy? I’d be happy to pay full price—as a matter of fact, I insist upon it.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.”

“You’re British, aren’t you, fella?”

“Yes, sir, sent over by the Savoy Group … for training, you understand.”

“I sure do. You couldn’t get any better training than in a place like this. I own a couple of hotels in southern Cal, and let me tell you, you send your best young people to the toughest spots to learn how rough it can be.”

“You really think so, sir? I rather thought otherwise.”

“Then you don’t know how hotel management works. It’s the way we determine who our most promising up-and-comers are—put ’em into the worst situations and see how they perform.”

“I hadn’t even considered that—”

“Don’t tell your bosses I let you in on the secret, ’cause I know the Savoy Group and they know me. Just keep your whistle clean and spot the heavy hitters when they come into town, that’s another secret, the most important one.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. How long will your stay be, Mr. Grimshaw?”

“Short, very short, a day, perhaps two. I’m checking out a boat we may purchase for our club, then it’s off to London.”

“Yes, sir. The boy will take your luggage to the room, sir,” said the clerk, glancing around the fairly crowded lobby for a bellhop.

“That’s okay, son, I’ve only got an overnighter; the rest of my stuff is back in P.R. for the London flight. Just give me the key, I’ll find it. Actually, I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“A hurry, sir?”

“Yes, I’m to meet our appraiser down at the marina and I’m an hour late. Man named Hawthorne. Know him?”

“Captain Tyrell Hawthorne?” asked the young Englishman, slightly surprised.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“I’m afraid he’s not here, sir.”

“What?”

“His charter left early this afternoon, I believe.”

“He can’t
do
that!”

“The circumstances would appear to be odd, sir,” said the clerk, leaning forward, obviously impressed by the “heavy hitter” familiar with the Savoy Group. “We’ve received several calls for Captain Hawthorne, all of which were transferred to our head of dock maintenance, a man named Martin Caine, who’s taking his messages.”

“That’s odd, all right. We paid the guy! Except the name Caine was somewhere in the basket.”

“Not only that, sir,” continued the clerk, warming up to his new association with the wealthy attorney-yachtsman who had such enviable connections in London. “Captain Hawthorne’s associate—Mr. Cooke, Mr. Geoffrey Cooke—left a large envelope in our safe for the captain.”

“Cooke?… Of course, he’s our money man. That envelope’s meant for me, young fella. It’s got the breakdown of the replacement cost specifications.”

“The what, Mr. Grimshaw?”

“You don’t buy a yacht for two million dollars if the cost of replacing worn-out equipment tallies up to another five hundred thousand or more.”

“Two
million
…?”

“It’s only a medium-size boat, son. If you’ll get me the envelope, I’ll unwind for the evening, then catch the first flight to Puerto Rico and be off to London.… Incidentally, let me have your name. One of our Anglo merger litigants is on the Savoy Group’s board—Bas-comb. Surely you know him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”

“Well, he’s going to know who
you
are. The envelope, please.”

“Well, Mr. Grimshaw, our instructions are to give it only to Captain Hawthorne.”

“Yes, of course, but he’s not here and I am, and I’ve fully identified both the captain and Mr. Cooke as our—well, basically our employees—haven’t I?”

“Yes, you have, sir, no question about it.”

“Good. You’ll go far with my London friends. Now, let me have your card, young fella.”

“Actually, I don’t have a card—it hasn’t been printed yet.”

“Then spell out your name on one of those registration slips, that’ll catch old Bascomb’s attention.” The clerk did so with alacrity. The stranger named Grimshaw took it and smiled. “Someday, son, when I’m staying at the Savoy and you’re the manager, you might send me a dozen of those great oysters.”

“With great pleasure, sir!”

“The envelope, please.”

“Of course, Mr. Grimshaw!”

The man named Grimshaw sat in his room, the telephone in his gloved hand. “I have everything they’ve got,” he said into the phone to Miami, “the whole enchilada, including three photographs of the Baj, presumably unseen since they were sealed in an official Brit envelope. I’ll burn them and then I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve no idea when this Hawthorne or the Sixer named Cooke will show up, but I can’t be here.… Yes, I understand the seven-thirty curfew on planes; what’s your suggestion?… A seaplane dead south on Sebastian’s Point?… No, I’ll find it. I’ll be there. Nine o’clock. If I’m late, don’t panic, I’ll get there.… There’s something I have to take care of first, a matter of communications. Hawthorne’s message center has to go.”

Tyrell stood with Major Catherine Neilsen and Lieutenant Jackson Poole in the holding room of the St. Martin’s airport, waiting for word from Master Sergeant Charles O’Brian, chief of security for the AWAC II.

Suddenly, the sergeant stormed through the double doors, his head turned, his eyes on the field outside, and
announced, “I’m staying on board, Major! No one in that detail speaks English, and I don’t like anybody who can’t understand me.”

“Charlie, they’re our allies,” said Neilsen. “Patrick cleared them, and we’re going to be here for the rest of the day and probably overnight. Let the bird go, nobody’s going to touch it.”

“Can’t do that, Cathy—
Major
.”

“Damn it, Charlie, loosen up.”

“Can’t do that either. I don’t like it here.”

Sundown. Then darkness, and Hawthorne studied the computerized printouts expunged from Lieutenant Poole’s airborne printer, the junior officer at his side in the hotel room. “It’s got to be one of these four islands, then,” said Tyrell, holding the lamp over the printouts.

“If we could have gotten low enough, like Cathy wanted to do, we’d have verified which one.”

“But if we had, they’d have known we were doing just that, correct?”

“So what?… My major was right, you’re pigheaded.”

“She really doesn’t like me, does she?”

“Oh, hell, it’s not you. She’s what we call in
Loosiana
a real
feminyne
firster, brass balls and all.”

“But you seem to get along with her.”

“ ’Cause she’s the best there is, why not?”

“Then you don’t object to the
feminyne
-first routine.”

“The hell I don’t, I sure do! She’s my boss, but I’d be a damn liar if I didn’t say I couldn’t get a letch for her—I mean look at her, man, that’s a
woman
. But like I say, she’s my superior. She’s air force to the core. Don’t mess.”

“She thinks the world of you, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, sure, like an idiot kid brother who happens to know how to tune in a VCR.”

“You really do like her, don’t you, Jackson?”

“Let me tell you something, I’d kill for that lady, but I’m not in her class. I’m a techno-nerd, and I know it. Maybe sometime—”

The rapping on the hotel door was frantic. “Goddamn it, open
up
!” screamed Major Catherine Neilsen.

Hawthorne reached the door first and unlatched the lock as the major burst inside. “They blew up our aircraft! Charlie’s
dead
!”

The
padrone
hung up the phone, the features of his gaunt, withered face rigid, resigned. Once again a coward had come through for him, for the luxuries he provided. A coward in the French Deuxième who was afraid to face life without the “inheritance” that the unknown force in the Caribbean could eliminate in the morning. The man was a weakling, forever succumbing to his elegant and elegantly carnal appetites, yet forever pretending to be above the corruption that both sustained him and potentially destroyed him. One always looked for an influential coward, puffed him up, and let his inflated carcass hang out to dry, his perpetual sweat keeping him functional. Now it was outrage piled upon outrage, from Miami to St. Martin, with an important theft on British Gorda they would soon learn about. The Baj’s hunters would be in panic, searching in all the wrong disparate places, peering into shadows when they should look toward the light. There would be no fancy American planes flying over the area for at least three hours or more, after which all transmission receivers would be shut down, all beams deflected back into nothing.

The infirm old man picked up the phone, leaned forward in his wheelchair, and carefully pressed a series of numbers on his electronic console. The ringing on the other end of the line stopped, interrupted by a flat, metallic voice. “At the signal, enter your access code.” The
long beep ceased and the
padrone
touched five additional digits; the ringing continued until another voice spoke. “Hello, Caribe, you’re taking a chance with this transmission, I hope you know that.”

“Not as of eight minutes ago, Scorpio Two. The flying intruder is no longer.”

“What?”

“It was just eliminated at its temporary resting place; there’ll be nothing in the air for at least three hours or so.”

“The news hasn’t reached us.”

“Stay by your phone,
amico
, it will soon.”

“You may have longer than you think,” said the man in Washington, D.C. “The nearest thing to that aircraft is at Andrews.”

“That’s good news,” the
padrone
said. “Now, Scorpio Two, I have a request, a necessity which I’d rather not discuss in depth.”

“I’ve never asked you to discuss anything,
padrone
. Thanks to my ‘inheritance,’ my children are getting fine educations. They certainly wouldn’t be where they are on my government salary.”

“And your wife,
amico
?”

“Every day is Christmas for that bitch, and every Sunday she offers prayers at Mass for a nonexistent horse-breeding uncle in Ireland.”

“
Molto bene
. Your life is in order, then.”

“In ways the government should have paid for long ago. I’ve been the brains here for twenty-one years, but they don’t think I dress right or walk right or look right, so the announcements are made to the press by idiots who use
my
findings, and my name is never even mentioned!”

“
Calma, amico
. As they say, you have the last laugh, the silent one, is it not so?”

“I sure do, and I’m grateful.”

“Then you must accommodate me now; it should not be a difficult task.”

“Name it.”

“In your official capacity you can order immigration and customs personnel to pass private aircraft flying into the country without examining those on board, am I correct?”

“Certainly. National security. I need the name of the company that owns the plane, its identification, the international airport of entry, and the number of passengers.”

“The name is Sunburst Jetlines, Florida. The number, NC twenty-one BFN; the port of entry, Fort Lauderdale. There’s a pilot, his copilot, and a single male passenger.”

“Anyone I ought to know?”

“Why not? We have no intention of withholding his name or bringing him into your country illegally—quite the contrary; within days his presence will be known in all the wealthy circles and he’ll be much sought after. However, he wants those few days to move about freely and see old friends.”

“Who the hell is he, the Pope?”

“No, but there are hostesses from Palm Beach to Park Avenue who will treat him as though he were.”

“Which means I probably never heard of him.”

“You probably haven’t and I assure you it’s no disgrace. Naturally, all his proper papers will be furnished your officials in Fort Lauderdale, who undoubtedly never heard of him either. We only prefer that he remain on board until he reaches the private field in West Palm Beach, where his limousine will meet him.”

“Since it doesn’t matter, what’s his name?”

“Dante Paolo, son of the baron of Ravello, the Ravello both his surname and the province which his family settled several centuries ago.” The
padrone
lowered his voice. “Confidentially, he’s being trained to assume extraordinary responsibilities. He’s the son of one of Italy’s wealthiest noble families. The barony of Ravello, to be precise.”

“Top-grade Fortune 500, is that it?”

“Enviably so. Their vineyards produce the finest Greco di Tufo, and their industrial investments rival those of Giovanni Agnelli. Dante Paolo will be studying potential acquisitions in your country and report back to his father. All very legitimate, I might add, and if we can do a great Italian family an incidental favor, perhaps at a later time we may be remembered kindly. Is it not the way of our world?”