“The police?” Hawthorne froze, but with the presence of mind to say casually but firmly, “Of course I am. United States Consulate, called by the police.”
“Go right in, señor.” The heavy door’s buzzer released the lock and Tyrell went inside, turning instantly to the security guard beyond the open counter of the cubicle. “The Cornwalls’ apartment number, please.”
“Nine-oh-one, señor. Everyone is up there.”
Everyone? What the bell …? Hawthorne crossed rapidly to the bank of elevators and repeatedly stabbed the button until a door opened. The floors passed slowly, interminably, until he finally reached the ninth. He rushed out into the corridor, stopping abruptly at the sight of the crowd and the reflections in the hallway of repeated flashbulbs from inside the door twenty feet to his right. He strolled toward the gathering, noting that the majority of men and women were in police uniforms. Suddenly, a short, heavyset man in a gray suit and blue tie came out of the apartment, parting the bodies in front of him, flipping the pages of his notebook. He glanced up at Tyrell, then abruptly looked again, his dark eyes steady, disturbed. It was the police detective who had been at the airport barely eight hours before.
“Ah, señor, I see neither of us has gotten much sleep between tragedies. Her husband was killed last night and she this morning—and you, a stranger to both—unaccountably show up at both places.”
“Cut it out, Lieutenant, I haven’t got time for your bullshit. What happened?”
“You seem to have an extraordinary interest in this couple. Perhaps to deny your own involvement.”
“Oh, sure, I dispatch each of them, then conveniently show up at the scenes of dispatch. Boy, am I smart. Now, come on, what happened?”
“Oh, be my guest, señor,” said the detective, leading Hawthorne through the crowd into the living room of the condominium. It was a mess, furniture upturned everywhere, and everywhere shattered glass and china. However, there was no blood, no corpse. “This is the scene of your ‘dispatch,’ exactly as you expected to find it, am I right, señor?”
“Where’s the body?”
“You do not know?”
“How could I?”
“Perhaps only you can answer that. You were at the airport galley last night where we found the body of the air controller, the husband.”
“Because someone kept screaming that he was in there!”
“And now you are here. Why is that?”
“That’s confidential.… We can’t have it all over your newspapers—we can’t allow it.”
“You cannot? Who are you, may I ask?”
“Tell me what happened, then maybe I’ll answer.”
“So the americano gives me orders?”
“It’s a request, sir. I have to know.”
“We will play your clever game, señor.” The detective led Tyrell through the kneeling and bent-over fingerprint personnel to the balcony. The sliding doors were apart, the floor-to-ceiling screen split, as if by a heavy, sharp knife, the screen itself bent outward. “That is where the woman was pushed to her death nine stories below. Is it not familiar to you, señor?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Put the handcuffs on him!” the detective ordered the police officers behind Hawthorne.
“What?”
“You are my primary suspect, señor, and I have my reputation to think of.”
Three hours and twenty-two minutes later, after vociferous arguing with a stubborn, self-important detective, Tyrell was permitted to make his very private telephone call. It was to Washington, and thirty-eight seconds after he hung up, a lower-echelon subordinate in the police department signed him out of jail with cursory apologies from his superiors. Hawthorne had no idea where Alfred Simon’s Cadillac was being held, so he took a taxi back to the hotel.
“Where have you been for the past five hours?” Catherine asked.
“I rented a car downstairs and was about to slam a few knockers around this town!” added Poole.
“I was in jail,” Hawthorne replied quietly, lying down on the couch. “Did you get Simon out?”
“With some difficulty,” answered Neilsen. “To begin with, a somewhat snockered Mr. Simon did, indeed, think I’d be a nice addition to his stable—which was more of a compliment than I got from you.”
“Mea culpa.”
“So we drove Simon to the base and poured a bucketful of coffee into him,” Cathy continued. “Frankly, I don’t think it helped much, he propositioned me twice in the wheelchair on the way to the aircraft.”
“He’s entitled. He’s a bona fide hero.”
“Entitled to me?”
“I didn’t say that, I only said he was entitled to ask.”
“Where do we go now?” asked Poole.
“What time is it?”
“Twelve minutes to three,” answered Neilsen, watching Tyrell closely.
“Then we’ve got twelve minutes until we find out,” said Hawthorne, sitting up, suddenly aware that he was perspiring … and the room was cool.
With each minute that passed, Tyrell’s anxiety grew, uncontrollable images of Dominique/Bajaratt adding fury to his anxiety. He knew it would happen—he wasn’t doing anything. Instead, he just kept moving, pacing aimlessly, almost grateful for the wasted hours at police headquarters, where the arguments and the pointless shouting had occupied him.
“It’s three o’clock, Tye,” said Cathy. “Would you rather we leave?”
Hawthorne stopped his erratic pacing; he studied both air force officers, his eyes shifting back and forth. “No,” he said. “I want you here because I trust you.”
“We care for you, Commander,” added the major. “That’s equally important.”
“Thank you.” Tyrell walked to the telephone and picked it up. He dialed.
“Yes?” The voice from Fairfax, Virginia, was cold, the single greeting drawn out as if the man speaking were reluctant to talk.
“It’s Hawthorne.”
“Please wait.” There followed a series of short beeps before NVN returned. “Now we may speak freely, Commander,” continued the voice, considerably more pleasant, “although our conversation would hardly be incriminating to either of us.”
“Are we on tape? Is that what the noises were for?”
“Quite the opposite, we’re on scrambler. A tape would only record garbled sounds. For both our sakes.”
“Then you can say what you want to tell me. About Amsterdam.”
“Not fully, for I need your eyes to complete the story.”
“What do you mean?”
“Photographs. From Amsterdam. They show your wife, Ingrid Johansen Hawthorne, in the company of three men at four separate locations—the Zuiderkerk Zoo, the Rembrandt House, aboard a tourist canal boat, and at a café in Brussels. Each photograph indicates a confidential and highly intense conference. I am convinced that one, if not all three, were responsible for your wife’s death, either by compromising her, or by the act itself.”
“Who are they?”
“Not even on scrambler, Commander. I said one if not all three, and in truth I’ve identified only one. However, I’m certain you can identify the other two, but I can’t. The files are closed, beyond my reach.”
“Why are you so certain I can do that?”
“Because I’ve learned that they were among your covert assets in Amsterdam.”
“That’s more than thirty, perhaps forty, people.… You write that there was a Baaka connection.”
“In the sense that the Baaka spreads its largess through Amsterdam as well as Washington.”
“Washington?”
“Most definitely.”
“And the ‘aborted strategy’ that may have come back? If two plus two is four, you’re relating it to a current situation.”
“I certainly am. Do you recall that five years ago, approximately three weeks before your wife was killed, the President of the United States was to attend a NATO conference in The Hague?”
<
br /> “Sure, the whole thing was called off and moved to Toronto a month later.”
“Do you remember why?”
“Of course. We’d picked up word that a dozen hit teams had been sent out of the Baaka to assassinate the President … and others.”
“Precisely. The Prime Minister of Great Britain and the President of France among them.”
“But where’s the relationship, the connection?”
“I will explain it to you when you get here—after you identify the two unknown men, which I’m sure you can do. My plane will be at the General Aviation area at the San Juan Airport by four-thirty; the counter will direct you.… Incidentally, my name is Van Nostrand, Nils Van Nostrand. And should you have any doubts about me, feel free to have your naval contacts put you in touch with the secretary of state, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the secretary of defense. For God’s sake, don’t mention a word of what I’ve told you, but I believe they’ll vouch for me.”
“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
The 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.”
The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel Page 28
