The Scorpio Illusion (37 page)

“Which raises a question,” interrupted Tyrell. “Where did they get the money to buy that kind of annuity?”

“There’s another question that might be the answer to that,” said Stevens. “How does an air controller in San Juan, where the pay doesn’t compare to O’Hare, buy a six-hundred-thousand-dollar condominium on the beach in Isla Verde? Her restaurant share could barely cover a third of it.”

“Isla Verde …?”

“The beachfront there is the better part of town.”

“I know, it’s where we’re staying. Anything else on our mobile Cornwalls?”

“Opinion time, nothing in concrete.”

“Translation, please?”

“They put air controllers through a battery of tests to see if they can handle the job. Cornwall passed among the elite—cold as ice, quick and methodical—but it
seems he preferred night duty, in fact, insisted upon it, which is pretty unusual.”

“He did the same down here, that’s how my source fingered him. What was the opinion in Chicago?”

“That his marriage was on the rocks, maybe beyond repair.”

“It obviously wasn’t, since they came down here together and bought a condo for six hundred thousand.”

“I said it was opinion time, not fact.”

“Unless it’s based on information that had him chasing women.”

“The tests don’t go that far. They need controllers. It just appeared that he didn’t care to stay home nights.”

“I’ll follow up,” said Hawthorne. “What about the subterranean, our pilot, Alfred Simon?”

“He’s either lying to you or he’s the sickest joker I’ve ever heard of.”

“What?”

“He’s pure Clorox with a couple of medals waiting for him if he ever surfaces. There’s no mention of his taking over any Lao aircraft, illegitimately or otherwise. He was a very young air force second lieutenant who volunteered for hazardous operations out of Vientiane, and if he ever stole anything, no one ever reported it. If he walked into the Pentagon tomorrow, they’d hold a ceremony, hand him a few clusters for his air medals, and give him some hundred and eighty thousand-plus dollars in hazardous pay and pension accruals that he’s never picked up.”

“Jesus Christ. I’ll tell you straight, Henry, he doesn’t know anything about this!”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m damn sure where he’d send the money.”

“You’re beyond me.”

“I hope so. The bummer is that he’s traded a lie that’s strangled him for years for a reality that could kill him today.”

“Still beyond me—”

“He’s been blackmailed into working for the wrong people. Bajaratt’s crowd.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Stevens.

“I’m not, you are. I’m sending Second Lieutenant Alfred Simon to the naval base here, and you’re going to fly him up to Washington and put him under a blanket until it’s safe for him to come out and become a quiet hero with a few extra dollars.”

“Why now?”

“Because if we delay, it could be too late, and we need him.”

“To identify Neptune?”

“Among others we may not know about yet.”

“One Simon, first-class military to D.C.,” said the head of naval intelligence. “What’s next?”

“Air Controller Cornwall’s wife. What’s her first name?”

“Rose.”

“Somehow I think her petals have withered.” Hawthorne hung up the phone and looked over at Cathy, leaning against the door frame. “I want you and Jackson to go back to Old San Juan and get Simon over to the naval base. Quickly.”

“I hope he doesn’t misinterpret and try to recruit me.”

“You’re not the type.” Tyrell lifted a telephone directory out of the bedside table shelf and leafed through the Cs.

“I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“Whores don’t wear guns, the bulge spoils the curves, so make damn sure yours is in evidence.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“Take mine, it’s on the bureau.… Here it is,
Cornwall
, the only one in Verde.”

“What do you know?” said the major, taking the Walther P.K. automatic from the top of the bureau. “It’s so small, it can fit into my purse.”

“You’ve got a purse?” Hawthorne glanced up as
he scribbled the Cornwall address on the hotel memo pad.

“Well, normally I suppose I should wear a knapsack strapped to my back, but I’ve been carrying this lovely pearl-beaded handbag for the past twenty-four hours. It goes with the dress—Jackson approved.”

“Hate the bastard.… Will you two get going?”

“He’s just out of the shower, I can tell. He’s still singing country, but it’s too loud to be underwater.”

“Then go dress the kid and get out of here. I really don’t want another corpse on my hands, this one named Simon.”

“Aye, aye, Commander.”

Tyrell drove Alfred Simon’s white Cadillac convertible into the parking lot of the Cornwalls’ condominium complex. As Stevens had projected, it was the high-rent district of Isla Verde, not only on the beach, but with each apartment possessing its own wide, screened-in balcony overlooking the ocean and a huge, terraced pool below on either side.

Hawthorne got out of the car, walked up the path to the entrance, and gestured to the man on duty. As in all such buildings in the area, there was a uniformed doorman seated at a desk in a walled-off cubicle behind a sheet of thick glass; he pressed a button in front of him and spoke. “
Español
or
Ingles
, señor?”

“English,” replied Tyrell. “I must see Mrs. Rose Cornwall, it’s most urgent.”

“Are you with the police, señor?”

“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?”

“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.”