The Scorpio Illusion (34 page)

“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.”

“You mean if your front door isn’t replaced—”

“They’ll stay away. Wouldn’t you?”

“Hey, Jackson—”

“Don’t bother,” the lieutenant said. “You got tools somewhere, whoremaster?”

“Downstairs, in the cellar.”

“I’ll go look.” Poole disappeared through the basement door.

“How long are those air controllers on duty during the seven to eight o’clock shift?”

“They come on at six and leave at one, which means
you’ve got an hour and twenty minutes to reach him—say an hour-minus, since you’re at least fifteen to twenty-five minutes to the airport, if you’ve got a fast car.”

“We don’t have a car.”

“Mine’s for rent. A thousand dollars an hour.”

“Give me the keys,” said Hawthorne, “or you’ve got a tunnel between your ears.”

“Be my guest,” the pilot replied, reaching to the side table and retrieving a ring of keys. “It’s in the back lot, a white Caddy convertible.”

“Lieutenant!” shouted Hawthorne, ripping out the only telephone in the room and backing toward the cellar door, his gun in his hand. “We’re moving, let’s go!”

“Hell, man. I found a couple of old doors down here that I could—”

“Stow it, and get up here. We’re going to the airport and we’ve got to get there in less time than we’ve got.”

“I’m on your side, Commander.” Poole raced up the steps. “What about him?” said the lieutenant, staring at Simon.

“Oh, I’ll be here, yo-yo,” the pilot replied. “Where the hell am I going?”

The aircraft controller was nowhere in the tower, although the others easily identified him by the description of his high-pitched voice. His name was Cornwall, and his colleagues had been erratically, dangerously, covering for him for the past forty-five minutes. So perilous was his absence that a controller who was taking a stress-relief break was called in to replace him.

The missing man was found by a cook in the galley, a bleeding red spot in the center of his forehead. The airport police were summoned and the questioning began, interrogations that lasted nearly three hours. Tyrell’s replies were those of a professional, an admixture of ignorance, innocence, and concern for a friend of a friend he had never met.

Finally released, Hawthorne and Poole raced back to the whorehouse in Old San Juan.

“Now I’ll fix the door,” said the confused, angry lieutenant, heading down to the basement as an exhausted Tyrell fell into a soft chair. The owner of the establishment had passed out on the couch. In moments, Hawthorne was asleep.

Sunlight burst through the room as Tyrell and the pilot sat up, rubbing their eyes, trying to adjust to the reality of day. Across the room, on a green chaise longue, lay Poole, his soft, winsome snoring somehow reflecting the essentially gentle man that he was. Where the shattered front door had been was a perfectly acceptable substitute; it was all intact, including a slat in the upper panel.

“Who the hell is he?” asked the severely hung-over Alfred Simon.

“My military chargé d’affaires,” answered Hawthorne, getting unsteadily to his feet. “Don’t make a move against me or he’ll smash you to smithereens with one foot.”

“The way I feel, Minnie Mouse could do that.”

“I gather you’re not flying today.”

“Oh, no, I’ve got too much respect for reflexes to get near a plane.”