The Scorpio Illusion (78 page)

“Yes?” fairly shouted the voice from London.

“This is Stevens,” lied Hawthorne, hoping the rapidly spoken words would be accepted in the event the man from London knew Henry Stevens.

“For God’s sake, Captain, what are you people
doing
over there? I can’t get through to your DO, and I’ve been trying to reach you for damn near ten hours!”

“It’s been a difficult day—”

“I should hope to kiss a pig, it has! Since we’ve never met, my name is Howell, John Howell—there’s a Sir in front of it in case you’re checking a computer, but it’s very droppable, I assure you.”

“MI-6, Special Branch?”

“Well, I’m hardly the queen’s equerry, old man. I assume you’re taking all maximum precautions, God knows we are, and so is Paris. We haven’t heard from Jerusalem, but those chaps are usually way ahead of us. They’ve probably got their blighter in a tunnel beneath Mount Sinai.”

“So we’re in sync, John, and since I’ve been confined to a crisis meeting most of the day and may be out of the loop, bring me up to speed, will you?”

“You’ve got to be
joking
!” yelled Howell. “You
are
the running control of Commander Hawthorne over there, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” answered Tyrell, thinking quickly, desperately trying to find logic within the illogical. “Incidentally, thanks for recruiting him—”

“Geoffrey Cooke did that, rest his soul, not I.”

“Yes, I know, but as I say, I just got your message here at the house, there was nothing from you at my office.”

“Damn it, Captain, I certainly wasn’t going to leave my name or who I was. Your new director at the Agency and I agreed to keep this whole thing so bloody secret, it was to be restricted to the three of us; you were included because you’re Hawthorne’s control. What the hell
happened
? Didn’t your DCI contact you? His secretary, a damned arrogant bitch if I may say so, told me her chap got word from the unit and was on top of things, but how could he be without reaching you?”

“There was a Syrian-Israeli problem,” said Tyrell lamely. “It’s all over the radio and television now.”

“Utter nonsense!” interrupted the chairman of MI-6, Special Branch. “They’re simply posturing, both of them. As far as I’m concerned, they can blow each other to smithereens. What we’re facing makes their goddamned theatrics insignificant.”

“Wait a minute, Howell,” said Tyrell quietly, his face growing pale with the panic he had known was on his own personal horizon. “You mentioned a unit … are you referring to the coordinated telephone surveillance operation between you fellows and the Agency?”

“This is preposterous! Do you mean you don’t know?”

“Know what, John?” Hawthorne’s breath was suspended.

“It’s
tonight
! Bajaratt claims she’ll strike tonight!
Your
time!”

“Oh, my God …” said Tyrell, barely audible, exhaling slowly, his face white. “And you say the Agency unit relayed this to the director?”

“Of course.”

“You’re
sure
?”

“My dear man, I spoke with that bitch secretary myself. She said your DCI was in meetings all over Washington, and specifically, when I called the last time, with the President’s Cabinet at the White House.”

“The Cabinet?… What the hell for?”

“It’s
your
country, old chap, not mine. Of course, if it were
our
Prime Minister, he’d be under the protection of Scotland Yard—which he is—not meeting with his Cabinet at 10 Downing Street; too many of those fellows might just care to blow him away.”

“It’s a possibility here too.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forget it.… You’re telling me that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was aware of this information, and by extension, since he was in meetings, he had spread the word to all those in Washington who should
know
?”

“Look, old boy, he’s new and he obviously panicked, don’t be too harsh on him. Perhaps I should have been more circumspect. I took the word of our people who said he was an experienced hand, a splendid fellow.”

“They’re probably right, but there’s a small omission.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think he ever got the information.”

“What
?”

“You don’t have to alter this number, Sir John. I’ll burn it and get back to you on normal channels.”

“For the love of God, will you please tell me what’s going on over there!”

“I don’t have time. I’ll talk to you later.” Tyrell instantly hung up the blue telephone, picked up the red one, and pressed the
O
button; it was answered quickly. “This is Commander Hawthorne—”

“Yes, Commander, we spoke before,” said the operator. “I trust you reached the senior officer of the watch at naval intelligence?”

“Yes, I did, thank you. Now I need Secretary of State Palisser, preferably on this line, if you can manage a secure patch.”

“We can, and we’ll find him, sir.”

“I’ll stay on. It’s an emergency.” As he waited, Tyrell tried to formulate the words he could use to deliver the incredible news to the secretary of state, a revelation Palisser might well find impossible to believe. The coordinated telephone surveillance between London and Washington had
not
been a failure, it had
worked
! Bajaratt had been intercepted, her words recorded: She would strike sometime
tonight
! The insanity was that no one knew about it!… That was incorrect, mused Hawthorne,
someone
knew, and that someone had short-circuited the information. Where the hell was
Palisser
?

“Commander …?”

“I’m right here. Where’s the secretary?”

“We’re having a little difficulty tracing him, sir. We have your red line code, so when we locate him we can patch him directly through to you if you wish.”

“I don’t wish, I’ll stay on.”

“Very well, sir.”

Again the line was silent, the further delay aggravating the hollow pain that refused to leave his chest. It was past six o’clock, thought Hawthorne, turning his wrist to look at his watch—well past, it was nearing six-thirty. Daylight savings or no, the night had begun.
Goddamn it
, Palisser, where
are
you?

“Commander—”

“Yes?”

“I’m not sure how to put this, sir, but we simply can’t locate the secretary of state.”

“You’ve got to be joking!” shouted Tyrell, unconsciously echoing Sir John Howell.

“We reached Mrs. Palisser in St. Michaels, Maryland, and she said the secretary called her, saying that he was stopping at the Israeli embassy and would join her within an hour or so.”

“And?”

“We spoke to the ambassador’s first attaché—the ambassador is temporarily in Jerusalem—and he said Secretary Palisser was there for roughly twenty-five minutes. They discussed, as he phrased it, ‘State Department business,’ and then Secretary Palisser left.”

“
What
business?”

“We could hardly ask that question, sir.”

“Since when does the American secretary of state lapdog over to the Israeli embassy rather than the other way around?”

“I can’t answer that, sir.”

“Maybe I can.… Connect me to the Israeli attaché, and make sure you tell him this is an emergency call. If he’s not on the premises, find him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thirty-nine seconds later a deep voice came on the line. “This is Asher Ardis of the embassy of Israel. I’m told this is an emergency call from a ranking officer of U.S. Naval Intelligence. This is so?”

“My name’s Hawthorne, and I’ve been working closely with Secretary of State Bruce Palisser.”

“A lovely man. How may I be of service to you?”

“Are you aware of an operation called Little Girl Blood? We’re on red line, so you can talk.”

“I could talk, Mr. Hawthorne, but I know nothing of such an operation. May I assume it is coordinated with my government?”

“It is, Mr. Ardis. With the Mossad. Did Palisser talk to you about two Mossad agents who were flying over to deliver him a package? It’s very important, sir.”

“A package means so many things, doesn’t it, Mr. Hawthorne? It could be a slip of paper, or blueprints, or a case of our outstanding fruit, no?”

“I don’t have time for Twenty Questions, Mr. Ardis.”

“Neither do I, but I
am
curious. We extended the courtesy of putting your secretary of state in a private room with a secure telephone to Israel so he could reach Colonel Abrams, who is naturally with the Mossad. You’ll grant it was a most unusual request and an equally unusual courtesy, do you not?”

“I’m not a diplomat, I wouldn’t know.”

“The Mossad frequently operates outside normal channels, which is often irritating, but we try to understand its penchant for living up to its image of the clandestine octopus, a mollusk with far-reaching secret tentacles—”

“You’re not its biggest fan, I gather,” Tyrell interrupted.

“I give you Jonathan Pollard, currently in your prison system for an indeterminate number of years. Need you ask more?”

“Again, I’m not concerned with your interdepartmental rivalries, sir, I’m interested only in Secretary Palisser’s visit to your embassy. Did he reach Colonel Abrams, and if he did, what did he say? And since I’m on a red line, you can assume I’m entitled to privileged information—we’re working
together
, for God’s sake! If you want confirmation, press whatever your code numbers are and get it!”

“You’re very excitable, Mr. Hawthorne.”

“I’m sick of your
bullshit
”

“That makes sense to me. An intelligent man’s outrage reveals truth.”

“I don’t need a fucking Talmudic parable! What happened when Palisser reached
Abrams
?”

“In fact, he didn’t. The elusive Mossad colonel was unavailable, but when he returns to his office, he has an emergency message to reach your secretary of state, for which we have six telephone numbers, half secure, half not. Does that answer your question?”

In disgust, Tyrell slammed down the phone and walked back into the Stevenses’ living room. Phyllis greeted him just beyond the French doors. “A Lieutenant Poole called on the regular line, I took it in the kitchen—”

“Cathy
? A Major Neilsen? Was it about her?”

“No, it concerned General Michael Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He phoned you. He wants to meet with you right away. He said it’s urgent.”

“I’ll bet it is. He’s looking for ducks in his own personal shooting gallery.”

The limousine with the license plate DOS1 sped along Route 50, heading south on the eastern shore of Maryland toward the village of St. Michaels. In the back seat,
the secretary of state kept pressing the burtons on his secure mobile telephone with increasing irritation. Finally, in exasperation, he lowered the glass partition and spoke to his driver.

“Nicholas, what the hell is wrong with this phone? I can’t get anything on it!”

“I don’t know, Mr. Secretary,” replied the chauffeur provided by the Secret Service. “I’ve been having trouble with my base radio too. I haven’t been able to raise dispatch.”

“Wait a minute. You’re not Nicholas. Where is he?”

“He had to be replaced, sir.”

“Replaced? What for? Where did he go? He was in that seat when we reached the Israeli embassy.”

“Perhaps a family emergency. I was called to replace him, that’s all I know, sir.”

“That’s also highly irregular. My office should have informed me, that’s absolutely standard.”

“Your office didn’t know where you were, sir.”

“They have this number.”

“The phone isn’t working, Mr. Secretary.”

“Hold
it, mister! If my office didn’t know where I was, how did
you
know?”

“We have our ways, sir. We’re behind-the-lines oriented.”

“Answer me!”

“I’m only required to give my name, rank, and serial number. That’s what we do with the enemy.”

“What
did you say?”

“You set up the general last night, set him up so high the White House put him under surveillance. That’s a disgraceful thing to do to a great man like General Meyers.”

“Your name, soldier?”

“ ‘Johnny’ will do, sir.” The driver suddenly swerved to the left, entering a barely discernible dirt road. He instantly accelerated, racing over the rough, bumpy surface to a small clearing where the first object that struck
the eye was a Cobra helicopter. “You can get out now, Mr. Secretary.”

The shaken Palisser fumbled for the handle; the door swung open and he lurched outside into the harsh, leveled grass. Ten feet away stood the uniformed chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his right sleeve creased and folded neatly into his shoulder.

“You were a pretty fair soldier in World War Two, Bruce, but you forgot the lessons of combat incursion,” said the general. “When you walk into hostile territory, make damn sure which of the occupied can be trusted. You missed one in the White House. If he had interrupted the Security meeting to bring you your messages, he would have been shot.”

“Good Lord,” Palisser spoke quietly. “You’re everything Hawthorne said you were. You’re not only willing to stand by and permit the President to be assassinated, you’re actually helping the assassin.”

“He’s only a man, Bruce, a misguided politician on whose watch the armed might of the United States is being decimated. All that will change tonight, the world will change tonight.”

“Tonight
?”

“In a little more than an hour.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“That’s right, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing, would you? The messengers from the Mossad never reached you, did they?”

“Abrams,” said Palisser. “Colonel Abrams!”

“A dangerous man.” Meyers nodded. “Because of his warped morality, he can’t see the advantages. Incidentally, he rightly trusted no one, so he sent his two people to give you a name, the name of a nondescript little senator who’s going to make everything possible—in an hour or so.”

“How do you know this?”

“Through someone I’m sure you never noticed—a small, again nondescript, aide to the Security Council,
the same man who intercepted the messages for you this morning from that turncoat Hawthorne. Our White House mole’s a true yes-man; the President likes him a lot and they talk together. He’s also a former adjutant of mine, a lieutenant colonel—I got him the job. We talk too.” The general looked at his watch in the light of the descending summer sun. “In a little over an hour, the President, to accommodate this innocuous little senator, will hold a private, off-the-books audience with—guess who, Bruce? I see you just figured it out, and you’re right. Little Girl Blood.… Then
poof
! The explosion that’ll be heard around the world.”