The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “You’re really going?”

  “How many years have I got left to spend with my lost love, my dearest love?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “He’ll find out and he’ll kill her. He’s sworn to do it.”

  “That bastard. Give me his name!”

  “My religious beliefs do not permit me to do that.”

  “So what the hell does? What have you got left?”

  “Complete secrecy. My money’s all here, and, naturally, I intend to pay every dollar of tax I owe my country, but I need the rest to be transferred confidentially, legitimately, to any bank of your choosing in Switzerland. Frankly, I’ve sold my estate for twenty million dollars. The papers are all signed, but nothing will be processed or made public until a month after I’m gone.”

  “So little? You should get at least twice that. I’m a businessman, remember?”

  “The problem is I don’t have the time to negotiate. My child is dying and my love is withering in despair and absolute terror. Can you help me?”

  “Send me a power of attorney for our records—buried records—and call me when you get to Europe. I’ll have everything for you.”

  “Don’t forget the taxes—”

  “After all you’ve done for us? We’ll discuss that later. Stay well and find what happiness you can, Nils. God knows you deserve it.”

  How easily the words came. Van Nostrand leafed once again through his personal telephone directory, which he always kept in a locked steel drawer of his desk when not in use; he would take it with him when he disappeared. He found the name and private number of his next appeal, the chief of Special Forces, Clandestine Operations, United States Army. The man was a quasi-psychotic who took as much pride in confusing his superiors as he did in obtaining his objectives, which he did with such alarming consistency that even the adversarial Central Intelligence Agency granted him grudging respect. His people had infiltrated not only the KGB, MI-6, and the Deuxième, but the holy, impenetrable Mossad. He had done so with highly selected, multilingual personnel who carried extraordinarily well-produced false papers that passed electronic scans … and with a great deal of input from the widely traveled, immensely informed Van Nostrand. They were friends, and the lieutenant general had enjoyed many a pleasant weekend at the Fairfax estate with well-endowed and most willing young women, while his wife thought he was in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.

  “I’ve never heard anything so rotten, Nils! Who does that fucker think he is? I’ll fly over myself and take him out! Christ almighty, your daughter dying, and her mother under a death threat for twenty-some years! He’s history, buddy!”

  “It’s not the way, General, believe me when I tell you that. Once our beloved child is gone, there is only disappearance. Killing him would make him a martyr in the eyes of his devoted followers—fanatics, really. They would immediately suspect his wife, for it’s rumored that she both loathes and fears him. She would instantly have that ‘accident’ he’s planned for her all these many years.”

  “Has it occurred to you that if he thinks she’s run away with you, and he will, he’ll hunt you both down?”

  “I sincerely doubt it, my friend. Our child will die, the public damage to him removed. A wife may quietly leave a powerful political figure and it’s not actually news. However, such a man living for over twenty years with a child he thought was his but wasn’t, that is news. If he was cuckolded once with concrete results, how many other times were there? That’s the damage. Embarrassment.”

  “Okay, so termination is out. What can I do?”

  “I need a rather unique passport by late this afternoon, a false passport of non-American origin.”

  “No kidding?” said the lieutenant general, his voice pleasantly warming to the subject. “How come?”

  “Partially because of what you suggested. He could trace us through computerized international traffic, although I don’t think he will, but basically I intend to purchase property. Since I’m not unknown, I don’t care to have my name picked up by the press. That would be an invitation.”

  “Gotcha! What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, as I spent several years in Argentina, building my international markets, and I speak fluent Spanish, I thought it should be Argentine.”

  “No sweat. As with twenty-eight other countries, we’ve duplicated their plates and I’ve got the best graphics anywhere. Have you figured out a name, a date of birth?”

  “Yes, I have. I knew a man who disappeared, as so many did in those days. Colonel Alejandro Schrieber-Cortez.”

  “Spell it, Nils.”

  Van Nostrand did, providing also a date and place of birth from memory—such memories. “What else do you need?”

  “Eye and hair color and a passport photo taken within the last five years.”

  “I’ll have all that hand-delivered to you by noon.… You understand, General, I could go to Bruce at State, but this really isn’t in his realm of expertise—”

  “That asshole couldn’t mount this kind of thing any more than he could handle the best-looking hooker in town. And that civilian at the Agency would fuck it up with a brushed photograph!… You want to come in here and have my boys work up a new picture? Hair color, contacts in the eyes?”

  “Forgive me, my friend, but you and I have discussed these procedures many times. You even gave me the names of several specialists off your books, remember?”

  “Remember?” The general laughed. “At your place? Those visits are out of my memory bank.”

  “One is coming over within the hour. A man named Crowe.”

  “The Bird? He’s got magic in his lenses.… Tell him to bring his stuff directly to me and I’ll take care of everything. It’s the least I can do, old buddy.”

  The last call was to the secretary of defense, a highly intelligent, civilized man who was in the wrong job, a fact he was beginning to realize after five months in office. He had been a brilliant executive in the private sector, rising to the position of chief executive officer of the third largest corporation in America, but he was no match for the competitive, gluttonous generals and admirals of the Pentagon. In a world where profit-and-loss sheets were not only meaningless but nonexistent, and massive purchase of product the difference between survival and Armageddon, he was out of his depth. In the acknowledged Darwinian environs of corporate ascendancy he was a master of calm reasoning, leaving the hatchets to rewarded subordinates; but in the brutal competition between the services for military procurement he was at a loss because it had nothing to do with profits. The Pentagon had applauded his appointment.

  “They want it all!” the secretary had said confidentially to his friend Van Nostrand, an unpaid public servant of like heritage, money, family, and brains. “And most of the time when I raise the subject of increasing budgetary constraints, they force-feed me a hundred scenarios, half of which I can’t understand, spelling out a military doomsday if they don’t get what they want.”

  “You must be far tougher with them, Mr. Secretary. Certainly, you’ve had to deal with reduced budgets before—”

  “Of course I have,” the secretary, Van Nostrand’s guest over brandy that evening, had said. “But implicit in those orders was always the possibility that one or another of my executives might lose his position if my demands weren’t carried out.… You can’t fire these sons of bitches! Besides, confrontations aren’t my style.”

  “So have your civilian aides do it.”

  “That’s what’s so stupid! Men like me come and go, but the bureaucratic staffs, those government G-7s or 8s, or whatever they are, are here to stay. And where do they get their perks, their flights on military aircraft to Caribbean resorts beholden to army engineers or naval coastal surveys? Don’t bother to answer, I’ve learned that much.”

  “A conundrum, then?”

  “An impossible situation, at least for someone like me—or even you, I suspect. I’ll give it another three or four months, then invent
some personal reason to resign.”

  “Health? One of the most celebrated halfbacks in Yale’s football history, a leading spokesman for the President’s fitness program? No one will believe it, you jog incessantly in all those government-sponsored television commercials.”

  “The sixty-six-year-old athlete.” The secretary laughed. “My wife loathes Washington. She’ll be delighted to be the object of my profound concern, and I’m not above bribing her doctor.”

  Fortunately for Van Nostrand, the secretary of defense had not yet announced his resignation. Therefore, quite naturally, the secretary was brought into the Little Girl Blood circle, and when Van Nostrand had called, stating that he believed there could be a connection between the current assassination conspiracy and an obscure former officer in naval intelligence named Hawthorne, the secretary had jumped into the breach at the financier’s request. What Van Nostrand had told him was both simple and alarming, and necessitated going around normal channels, namely bypassing Captain Henry Stevens, who would interfere. This Hawthorne had to be found, an inflammatory letter sent to him.… The world of the terrorist Bajaratt was an international netherworld, a world someone like Van Nostrand had to be aware of; and if through his scores of intermediaries and informants he had heard something, learned something, for God’s sake give him all the help one could!

  “Hello, Howard?”

  “My God, Nils, I was so tempted to call you, but you specifically said I shouldn’t. I don’t think I could have held out much longer.”

  “My deepest apologies, my friend, but there’s been a confluence of emergencies: the first, our geopolitical crisis; and the other so personally painful that I can barely speak of it.… Did Hawthorne receive my message?”

  “They processed the film last night and flew up the negatives—we won’t accept faxes—and it’s confirmed. Tyrell N. Hawthorne was handed your envelope at 9:12 P.M. in the courtyard café of the San Juan Hotel. We matched the photos under spectrographs and it’s him.”

  “Good. Then I’ll hear from the former commander and he’ll come to see me. I pray to God that our meeting will produce something of value for you.”

  “You won’t tell me what it is?”

  “I can’t, Howard, for the specific details could be inaccurate and cast disrepute on an honorable man. I can tell you only that my information speculates on the possibility that this Hawthorne may be a member of the international Alpha market. Of course, it may be totally untrue.”

  “Alpha market? What’s that?”

  “Assassination, my friend. They kill for the highest bidder, but most, as veterans of deep cover, black operations, they’ve eluded all traps. However, there’s no concrete proof regarding Hawthorne.”

  “Jesus Christ! Do you mean he could be working with the Bajaratt woman instead of hunting her down?”

  “It’s a theory based on logical assumptions, and could be terribly wrong or tragically right, we’ll know this evening. If all goes according to schedule, he’ll be here between six and seven tonight. Soon thereafter, we’ll learn the truth.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll confront him with what I know, and he’ll have to respond.”

  “I can’t permit it! I’ll have your place surrounded!”

  “Absolutely not. Because if he is who he’s reputed to be, he’ll send out scouts to survey the grounds; if your men are spotted, he’ll never arrive.”

  “You could be killed!”

  “Unlikely. My security personnel are everywhere, and they’re acutely thorough.”

  “That’s not good enough!”

  “It’s more than sufficient, my friend. However if it will ease your mind, send a single car to my entrance road after seven o’clock. If Hawthorne is driven away by my limousine, you’ll know my information was wrong, and you must never mention that I brought it up. If it’s not wrong, my own people will be on top of the situation and will reach you instantly, for I won’t have time to call you myself. My schedule’s extraordinarily tight. It will be a last act of patriotism by an old man who loves this land as no other.… I’m leaving the country, Howard.”

  “I don’t understand …!”

  “I mentioned to you a few moments ago about my facing two emergencies, and I know of no other way to say it. Two catastrophic events coming together at the same time, and although I am a deeply religious man, I have to ask where is my God?”

  “What happened, Nils …?”

  “It began years ago when I was in Europe. My marriage was falling apart—” Van Nostrand replayed his litany of sorrow, love, illegitimacy, and subsequent horror to the same effect he had evoked in his previous appeals. “I must leave, Howard, never, perhaps, to return.”

  “Nils, I’m so sorry! God, that’s terrible!”

  “We’ll find a life, my love and I. I am a fortunate man in many ways, and I ask nothing of anyone. My affairs are in order, my transportation arranged.”

  “What a loss for all of us.”

  “What a gain for me, my friend, the greatest prize in my long years of modest accomplishments. Good-bye, my dear Howard.”

  Van Nostrand replaced the phone, his mind instantly shutting out the saddened, self-pitying image of the boring secretary of defense, except for the lingering knowledge that Howard Davenport was the only person to whom he had mentioned Hawthorne’s name. He would think about that later. Now, however, Van Nostrand considered his pièce du combat, the death of Tyrell Hawthorne. It would be brutal and quick, but surgically precise, producing the greatest pain. The first bullets would be fired into the most sensitive organs. Then a pistol-whipped face, finally a long-bladed knife in the left eye, l’occhio sinistro. He would watch it all, avenging the death of his lover, the padrone. And, at the last, from far away, he would hear the whispered accolades accorded him in the corridors of power.… “A true patriot.” “A finer American there never was!” “What he must have gone through! With all his other problems.” “He never would have permitted it had that scum Hawthorne not made extraordinary threats!” “Keep it quiet! We can’t allow questions!”

  Mars undoubtedly would have screamed: “Ècco! Perchè? We buy these kills from the families! Why do you do it this way?”

  “La mente di un serpente,” would undoubtedly have been Neptune’s reply. “The cunning of a snake, padrone. I strike, then I must vanish into the underbrush, never to be seen again. But there must be those who know the snake was there, even if he was in the skin of a saint. Besides, your families talk too much, negotiate, ponder too long. The quickest way is to call in debts from men in high office, above suspicion, so that when my ‘death’ occurs, they can mourn together, confirming the loss of a saint. Finito! Basta!”

  After the death of Tyrell Hawthorne.

  “His name was Hawthorne?” Tyrell asked in astonishment of the half-drunken pilot and owner of a whorehouse in Old San Juan. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you what the spook told me,” answered Alfred Simon. He was slowly sobering up at the sight of the two weapons leveled at his head. “Also, what I could read in the flight deck’s light. The name on the ID was Hawthorne.”

  “Who’s your contact?”

  “What contact …?”

  “Who hires you?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “You have to get messages, your instructions!”

  “One of my girls. Somebody comes in to check out the merchandise and leaves a note with the broad and passes her a few extra dollars. I get the note an hour or so later. It’s standard, and I don’t even press for the extra bread, which, incidentally, because I treat my girls right, they’ve told me about.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “On a good night, which of these putas can remember who had her last, or next to last, or even next to last after that?”

  “He’s really an ‘X-rated outside,’ Commander,” said Poole.

  “ ‘Commander’?” The pilot had sat forward on the couch. “You
a big gun?”

  “Big enough for you, babe.… Which of your girls gave you the instructions for Gorda?”

  “The one I was porking—she’s one hell of a kid, only seventeen—”

  “You son of a bitch!” roared Poole, smashing his fist into the pimp’s face, sending the pilot back into the pillows, his mouth bleeding. “My sister was that age once, and I ripped the bastard to pieces who tried that shit on her!”

  “Stop it, Lieutenant! We’re interested in information, not reformation.”

  “I get goddamned pissed off at people like this scum.”

  “I understand that, but right now we’re looking for something else.… You asked if I was a commander, Simon, and the answer is yes, I am. I’m also wired into D.C. intelligence, way high up. Does that answer your question?”

  “Can you get them off my back?”

  “Can you give me something to make me try?”

  “Okay … okay. Most of my dark-flannel missions are made at night, between seven o’clock and eight, and always from the same runway. The same air controller gives me the green light for takeoff; it never varies, he’s always the same one.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “They don’t give names, but he’s bright, and he’s got a high-pitched voice and he coughs a lot, but he’s always the one assigned to my equipment. For a long time I thought it was just coincidence, then I began to think it was weird-plus.”

  “I want to talk to the girl who gave you the message for Gorda.”

  “Man, are you kidding? You boys blew ’em away! They won’t come back until the front door is fixed and everything looks normal.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Where does she live—where do they all live? Right here, with maids to clean their rooms, do their laundry, and fix them damn good meals. Let’s get something straight, big gun. I was an officer too, and I know how to keep my mechs in top form.”