The Scorpio Illusion (38 page)

“Those people are heavy cannons—”

“Also close friends and associates for many years,” Van Nostrand interrupted. “If you simply say, in effect, that in your current professional status I’ve asked to meet with you, I’m quite sure they’ll encourage you to do so.”

“Which eliminates the need to make the calls,” observed
Hawthorne. “I’m traveling with two associates, Mr. Van Nostrand.”

“Yes, I know. A Major Neilsen and a Lieutenant Poole, presently assigned to you by Patrick Air Force Base. I’m delighted to have them accompany you, but I’m afraid I cannot permit them to be at our meeting, There’s a fine motel several miles down the road. I’ll make reservations, billed to me, of course, and after you land, my car will take them there.”

“Christ
!” exploded Hawthorne suddenly. “If you had this information, why the hell did you wait so long to reach me?”

“It hasn’t really been that long, Commander, and for obvious reasons, the time is right.”

“Goddamn it, who’s the man in the photographs you
did
identify? I’m a professional, Van Nostrand, and I’ve carried around in my head the names of more doubles and triples than you can count—while having pleasant dinners with all of them!”

“You insist?”

“I insist!”

“Very well. The man you’ve suspected for five years. Captain Henry Stevens, currently head of naval intelligence.” Van Nostrand paused, then said, “He had no choice. It was either you killing him or the Soviets killing your wife. Stevens and she were lovers; they had been for several years. He couldn’t let her go.”

17

T
he figure moved in and out of the shadows along the path in Washington’s Rock Creek Park, the intermittent streetlamps no match for the summer foliage. He heard the rushing waters from the ravine below and knew he was near the meeting ground; there was a bench equidistant from two lights on the dirt path. Half darkness, mostly darkness, for neither man could ever be seen with the other; it was a commandment never to be broken. Each was a Scorpio.

Seeing his colleague already seated on the bench, the glow of a cigar in his hand, David Ingersol approached, glancing back and forth, making sure they were alone. They were; he joined the man.

“Hello, David,” said Scorpio Two, a heavyset, balding man with red hair, a puffed face, and a blunt nose.

“Good evening, Pat. Humid night, isn’t it?”

“They say it isn’t going to rain, but those assholes are usually wrong. I even brought an umbrella, one of that stupid kind that telescopes so short you can put it in your pocket, which is about all the damn thing’s good for.”

“I forgot one. I have a lot on my mind.”

“That’s pretty clear. The last time we met was over three years ago.”

“This is far worse.”

“Is it?”

“It’s insane, you must know that,” said Scorpio Three.

“I don’t make such judgments. I’m a pretty wealthy man for following orders, not questioning them.”

“To the point of your own self-destruction?”

“Hey, come on, Davey, we left the acolytes’ brigade years ago when we sold our souls to the Providers.”

“That sort of philosophical abstraction doesn’t interest me. What does is protecting the assets we’ve accrued, what we’ve earned. That twisted, sick old man is dead, and with him went the senile insanity that produced this madness.… Ask yourself, O’Ryan, what possible benefit can we expect from an assassination—multiple assassinations?”

“None, except for the fact that we didn’t stand in the way, which Could be one hell of a benefit. Say, between our living or our being killed.”

“Good God, by whom?”

“By the maniacs who are obsessed with this operation. She’s not acting alone; she has her followers just as Abu Nidal and his types do. Maybe it’s a smaller circle, but it’s no less committed and no less resourceful. No, David, we do what Scorpio One tells us to do, and should anything happen to derail this crazy locomotive, he can report that we fulfilled our obligations. No blame can be directed at us.”

“Report …?”

“Jesus, Counselor, don’t undermine my regard for your legal abilities by telling me you haven’t thought through the Scorpios’ place in the scheme of things. Well, maybe the law doesn’t require such devious analysis, which I don’t believe for a minute, but I’ve been an intelligence officer for twenty-six years, and I can spot a pyramid when a goddamn triangular quadrilateral mass is in front of my goddamned eyes. We may be three-quarters up; Scorpio One, seven-eighths, but there’s a higher level and we’re not it.”

“I’m fully aware of the hierarchy, O’Ryan. I’m also aware of something you know nothing about.”

“I find that hard to believe, since outside of Scorpio One I was the main man between the
padrone
and our small but important faction here. Frankly, as number two, I was the last person he spoke with before shutting down. He made that clear to me.”

“I suspect he made one more call.”

“Oh?”

“For all intents and purposes, by tomorrow morning,
I
will be Scorpio One. I’m afraid they saw fit to place me over you. All you have to do is call his secure number and you’ll find it reaches me. That’s your proof.”

The Central Intelligence Agency analyst stared in the dim light at the lean, hard features of David Ingersol’s face. Finally, he spoke. “I won’t try to hide my disappointment, because I’ve been a hell of a lot more valuable than you, and I’ve got a far less advertised profile. On the other hand, you have your firm and the ears of certain people, and, I suppose, on that level it was inevitable. However, in my professional capacity, I’ve got to warn you, Davey. Be careful, very,
very
careful. You’re too apparent.”

“You don’t understand, O’Ryan, that’s my shroud. I’m respectability personified.”

“Then don’t ever go back to Puerto Rico.”

“What?” It was as though Ingersol had been struck stark naked on the Beltway by a huge truck. “What are you …?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Let’s say I anticipated the news you just gave me. The fat Irish clown who eats too much and has a hot temper, and sometimes even wears white socks … passed over in favor of the fucking distinguished attorney with all the correct connections. Oh, you gotta believe he’s got the impeccable Ivy League background, a Supreme Court justice for a father, a fine family belonging to all the right clubs—that makes you Scorpio One? You really think I can take that?… The
padrone
knew I was his head conduit here,
and I can’t believe he gave those instructions. You have nowhere near the access I have to international intelligence.”

“Why Puerto Rico?” Ingersol asked in a terrified monotone, oblivious of Scorpio Two’s diatribe.

“I have affidavits—only
I
have them, no one else—from the whores in a house on the Calle del Ocho in Old San Juan.”

“I went there because Scorpio One instructed me to! I was checking up on the pilot!”

“To put it bluntly, S-Three, you went too far. One evening you even passed out—”

“Only briefly, barely a minute, and nothing happened! My money, my wallet, everything was intact! I was simply exhausted!”

“That doesn’t matter, does it? I have the photographs, courtesy of my own sources in the Calle del Ocho, having nothing to do with our small fraternity here.”

Ingersol repeatedly shook his head in slow, lateral movements, breathing deeply, his intensity lessening as he settled for a lawyer’s reality, his own defeat. “What do you want, Patrick?”

“Control. I’m far more equipped than you. Everything you know you’ve learned from me. I’m in the Little Girl Blood circle, you’re not.”

“I can’t change things, my name’s been sent up.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, keep the title, I wouldn’t think of taking it away from you. If I did, you’d have to disappear and that would raise too many questions. No, you’re Scorpio One and you’ll stay that way until your time comes, only I call the shots; it’s better for everybody. You won’t find it difficult; you’ll be informed of everything.”

“That’s generous of you,” said the attorney sarcastically.

“No, necessary. I’m not a generous man, but I can be amenable, isn’t that the classy word? For instance, I agree with you, this craziness has to be aborted. It can
only lead to the kind of chaos that hurts everyone. Every rock would be turned over and examined. We can’t afford that.”

“But in your words, we don’t dare stand in the way. If anything happens to derail it, the Scorpios will be the first to be suspected, and I don’t relish a Baaka Valley knife across my throat.”

“Then we can’t be in evidence; the credit has to go to our incredibly efficient intelligence service.”

“They could find you, you know.”

“A discovery I don’t think you’d cry over, Davey-boyo, but actually they won’t. I’ll be on record as sending the troops in another direction with loud apologies afterward. Where’s the woman now, do you know?”

“No one does. She and the young Latvian went underground, they could be anywhere.”

“I cleared him through Lauderdale immigration, where they both went on to West Palm Beach. According to S-Twenty-two, they were last registered at a fleabag motel, then they disappeared.”

“Anywhere,” repeated Ingersol. “We don’t know what they look like or where they are—no descriptions, no photographs—”

“MI-6 and the Deuxième sent us purported photographs of her; frankly, they’re useless. It could be one person or three separate women, and considering her talent for changing appearances, no help at all.”

“As you say, they’ve disappeared; we don’t even know if they’re traveling together or apart, or even what the young man’s function is.”

“He’s a combination strong arm—a dull-witted bodyguard who does what he’s told—and a necessary companion.”

“I don’t understand.”

“From what the customs personnel in Marseilles can recall, he’s a large, awkward Slovak kid they doubt can either read or write, but would probably break a man in half if ordered to.”

“What is a ‘necessary companion’?”

“The shrinks worked up a psychiatric profile based on everything they were fed by Israel’s Mossad, and by Paris and London. A lot of it’s psychobabble, but there’s also some good common sense.… Like most fanatics, this Bajaratt does everything to excess, the extremes supposedly justifying what the head boys call the ‘emotional intemperance’ of her commitments. The profile suggests that she may be sexually active to the edge of nymphomania, but too careful to hop into strange beds, unless she does it on purpose. So, as a result, she needs a dumb stud whom she can control.”

“They’ve vanished; they really could be anybody, anywhere, and always getting closer. What can we do? They could be simple tourists going through the White House, or protesters in front of it or on any side driveway with a bag full of grenades.”

“All tours through the White House have been suspended—due to renovations, of course—and presidential motorcades into Washington have been eliminated. Both are unnecessary, frankly, because what you suggest isn’t Bajaratt’s style. Her tactics are to outwit and strike, not outgun and get slaughtered. It goes back to her childhood.”

“Her childhood?”

“That’s part of the access I have and you don’t, Davey-boyo. It’s why I’ll be Scorpio One in all but the name.”

“But what can we do?” Ingersol repeated.

“We wait. Before she strikes, she’ll have to reach you, Scorpio One, if for no other reason than to facilitate her escape—that’s assuming she survives.”

“Suppose she’s made her own arrangements?”

“Nobody in the field of black operations relies on one set of circumstances to get the hell out of ground-zero. That’s another thing you don’t know, S-Three. I’ve had covert field agents who’ve made out-of-sanction deals
with three other departments, figuring I might not come through for them. It’s standard. Loyalty’s bullshit, survival is everything.”

“Then you think she’ll call me?”

“If she’s got a brain in her head, she will, and I understand she’s got a big one.… She’ll call.”

Amaya Bajaratt casually walked through the lobby of the hotel, very much the fortyish
contessa
, when she stopped, her whole body paralyzed. The blond-haired man at the front desk—the blond hair new, bleached—was a Mossad undercover agent, previously with dark brown hair, she had known in Haifa, slept with in Haifa! Gathering her thoughts, she hurried toward the elevators, instantly deciding the obvious. She and Nicolo had to move immediately—but
where
? And with what explanation? So many calls were coming to her at the hotel, calls from important men in the Senate and the House, politicians she was keeping on the Ravello string, not the least of whom was Nesbitt, the senator from Michigan, the man who could bring her to the ultimate confrontation, the final confrontation with the President of the United States. It was Wolfsschantze revisited, but she would be far more successful than the cadre of desperate generals who had opposed Adolf Hitler.…
Enough
! Now she had to get away from the hotel! She ran into an open elevator and pressed the button for the floor of her suite.