The Scorpio Illusion (54 page)

He had joined “the Company” three weeks after receiving
his degree. Within a month he had been apprised by several superiors that there was a certain dress code he should abide by; unpressed polyester trousers and an orange tie over a blue shirt beneath an ill-fitting jacket from a Macy’s sale simply would not
do
. He had done his best to comply, aided by his bride, an Italian girl from the Bronx, who thought her husband looked fine, but nevertheless cut out newspaper ads that showed how the proper Washingtonian male should be clothed.

The years progressed and, as those early nuns and priests had perceived, the higher echelons of the Agency came to understand that they had an extraordinary brain in Patrick Timothy O’Ryan. He was not the sort of fellow one ever sent up to testify on the Hill; his wardrobe had marginally improved, but his speech was blunt to the point of being crass, discourteous, and peppered with vulgarities. Yet withal, his analyses, like the man, were curt, sharp, and went directly to the issues without indulging in self-serving reservations or obfuscation. In 1987 he had projected the collapse of the Soviet Union within three years. This outrageous judgment was not only buried, but O’Ryan was called into a deputy director’s office and told to “shut the goddamned hell up.” The next day he was upgraded with an increase in pay, as if to emphasize the axiom that good boys got rewarded.

In the early days the O’Ryans had five children in eight years, a stressful economic situation for a low-ranking employee of the CIA. But Patrick Timothy could tolerate those circumstances because his working at the Agency made bank loans both available and relatively cheap. What O’Ryan could
not
tolerate was the fact that the results of his labors frequently were in the spotlight but no glare ever fell upon him. His words were repeated in congressional hearings by hotshot button-downs who spoke as though they should have been born in England, as well as by selected senators, representatives, and Cabinet personnel on the most-watched television shows. He had busted his ass over those analyses, but everyone
except
him was being given the credit for them. He was totally pissed off, and to further infuriate him, when he complained directly to the DCI after two weeks of waiting for an appointment, he was succinctly dismissed with the following words.

“You do your work, we’ll do ours. We know what’s best for the Agency, you don’t.”

Bullshit
!

Then one Sunday morning, fifteen years ago, a dan-fancy who called himself Mr. Neptune came to his house in Vienna, Virginia, and brought with him an attaché case filled with many of O’Ryan’s ultraclassified analytical reports.

“Where the hell did you get this shit?” O’Ryan had demanded, alone with the man in his kitchen.

“That’s our business. Your business, as well as your concern, is fairly obvious. How far do you really think you can go at Langley? Oh, you might rise to a G-12, but that’s just money and not actually a great deal. Others, however, using what you provided, could well write books making hundreds of thousands, claiming to be experts when in reality they’ve relied on your expertise.…”

“What are you drivin’ at?”

“To begin with, you owe an aggregate of thirty-three thousand dollars to one bank in Washington and two in Virginia, Arlington and McLean—”

“How the
hell
—”

“I know, I know,” Neptune interrupted. “It’s confidential information but far less difficult to obtain. Beyond this, you have a substantial mortgage, and the parochial schools have raised their tuitions.… I don’t envy your position, Mr. O’Ryan.”

“Neither the fuck do I! You think I should quit and write my own book?”

“You can’t legally. You signed a document stating you wouldn’t—at least not without being vetted by the CIA. If you wrote three hundred pages, you’d probably
end up with fifty when they got through with it.… However, there’s another solution, one that would eliminate your financial difficulties and allow your life-style to expand considerably.”

“What’s that?”

“Our organization is very small, very well financed, and has only the country’s interests at its core. You must believe that, for it’s true, and I will personally vouch for it. I also have an envelope that contains a check made out to you from the Irish Bank of Dublin in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars from the estate of your great-uncle, Sean Cafferty O’Ryan, of County Kilkenny, who died two months ago, leaving a rather strange but court-certified will. You are the only surviving relative he acknowledged.”

“I don’t remember any uncle by that name.”

“I shouldn’t bother myself with introspection if I were you, Mr. O’Ryan. The check is here and it’s certified. He was a successful breeder of Thoroughbreds, that’s all you have to remember.”

“Is it now?”

“Here’s the check, sir.” Neptune had reached into the attaché case and pulled out an envelope. “May we discuss our organization and its benevolent intentions regarding this nation?”

“Why the hell not?” answered Patrick Timothy O’Ryan, accepting the envelope.

All that was fifteen years earlier, and Christ almighty, had the following years gone
whacko
! Every month the Irish Bank of Dublin sent him a record of deposit in his name at the Banque Crédit Suisse in Geneva. The O’Ryans were rich by their lights, and the legend of a horse-breeding great-uncle became a truth, if only due to repetition. The brats went on to fancy boarding schools and the older ones to fancier universities, while his wife went gaga in the department stores and ultimately with Realtors. They moved to a larger house in
Woodbridge and bought a substantial summer cottage on Chesapeake Beach.

Life was good, really good, and it bothered Patrick less and less when others took credit for his work because it was the
work
he basically enjoyed. This tolerance generally disappeared when some fatuous clown postured thoughtfully in a congressional hearing or on a Sunday morning television show and delivered one of Patrick’s painstaking conclusions.

And the Providers? He simply gave them all the intelligence information they wanted, from the routine to the top secret to the maximum classified. Always, of course, through Scorpio One or the
padrone
. Holy Mary, some of the stuff was so hot, the Oval Office hadn’t a clue, forget the Senate and the House; those people were either too politically harebrained or too dumb or just plain irresponsible.… In any event, the Providers were none of those. Whoever they were, they undoubtedly had motives below the level of sainthood, but O’Ryan had long since determined that the Providers’ driving force was primarily economic. They sure as hell weren’t Communists, and surer than that they had every reason to protect and defend the country they found so financially rewarding. Probably more effective than leaving it in the hands of politicians who were sworn companions of the polls and whose spines could be bent by a generous contributor’s fart. So if the Providers made a buck and a half with advance information, it was probably a good thing in the long run; they’d make damn sure the goose who produced so many golden eggs remained a healthy bird.… There was a last consideration, and the analyst from Queens, New York, would never forget it.

One afternoon in Langley, twelve years ago, three years after he became the silent Scorpio Two, he was emerging from a procedural conference with a group of other analysts, when a tall, well-dressed—elegantly dressed—man walked down the corridor directly toward
the door of the DCI’s office. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it was Neptune! Without thinking, the younger O’Ryan approached him.

“Hey, remember me …?”

“I beg your pardon,” replied the man coldly, quietly, his eyes two orbs of ice. “I have an appointment with the director, and if you ever approach me in public again, your family will be penniless and you’ll be dead.”

It was not a greeting one forgot.

But now, right
now
, today,
tonight
, thought O’Ryan, looking out at the water from the deck of their house on Chesapeake Beach, something had gone terribly wrong with the Providers. The late, unlamented Davey Ingersol had been right; the whole Bajaratt business was madness. Some group, or network, had inserted itself into the decision process—had the
power
to insert itself. Or was it simply one deranged, dying old man on a blown-up island in the Caribbean whose orders still had to be obeyed? The answer did not really matter; a solution had to be found that maintained the status quo without damaging the Scorpios. It was why six hours ago he understood that he had to become Scorpio One, with all the rights and privileges thereof. The realization carra with Ingersol’s words: “She demanded that I be killed, that David Ingersol be killed!”

So be it. The Scorpios could not be damaged. Sometime, somewhere, a call would come to him and he would have a unique explanation: the truth. Now, right
now
, he had to bring into play all his reputed analytical prowess; he had to think and outthink not only Bajaratt and those behind her, but also the United States government. The Scorpios could not be damaged.

There was laughter on the beach; the brats and their friends and his wife were around a pit fire in the sand. It was a late evening clambake on the shores of the Chesapeake. Oh, Christ almighty, it was a good life!… No, the Scorpios could not be damaged, nothing could change.

A telephone erupted softly; it was a muted ring that everyone in the household understood could be answered only by the father. The whole family referred to it as the “spook-tune,” the kids frequently making fun of the single gray phone in their father’s small den. O’Ryan good-naturedly took the ribbing, knowing it reenforced the assumption that Langley was calling him, sometimes inventing melodramatic nonsense that had the younger children wide-eyed until the older boys would puncture the story. “They want Dad to deliver a pizza, right, Double-O?”

It was all fun, macabre but fun; it was also necessary. The gray telephone had nothing to do with the Agency. Patrick Timothy pushed himself out of the deck chair and walked across the short living room to his den. He picked up the secure phone, pressed the digits required, and spoke.

“Who’s this?” he asked quietly.

“Who are
you
?” The female voice on the line was accented. “You are not the same man.”

“Temporary backup, nothing unusual.”

“I don’t like changes.”

O’Ryan thought quickly. “He’d rather keep his gallbladder too, so what? Even we get sick, you know, and if you think I’m going to give you his name and the hospital he’s at, forget it, lady. You have your results; Ingersol’s dead.”

“Yes, yes, I acknowledge that and I commend your efficiency.”

“We try to oblige.… The
padrone
told me we were to accommodate you in any way we could, and I think we’ve done so.”

“There is one other man who must be taken out,” Bajaratt said.

O’Ryan’s voice went cold. “We’re not in the killing business. It’s far too dangerous.”

“This must be,” Amaya Bajaratt whispered intensely. “I demand it!”

“The
padrone
’s gone, so perhaps there are limits to your demands.”

“
Never
! I will send out teams from the Baaka to find you through our routes in Athens, Palermo, and Paris! Do not joke with me, signore!”

The analyst was cautious; he was all too aware of the terrorist mentality, the proclivity for rash and violent behavior. “Okay, okay, cool down. What do you want?”

“Do you know of a man named Hawthorne, a former naval officer?”

“We know all about him. He was pulled in by MI-6, London, because of the Caribbean connection. The last we heard he was in Puerto Rico, sizzling his ass in San Juan.”

“He’s here, I saw him!”

“Where?”

“At a place called the Shenandoah Lodge in Virginia—”

“I know it,” O’Ryan interrupted. “He followed you?”

“Kill him. Send the
animales
!”

“You got it, lady,” said O’Ryan, his impulse to promise the fanatic anything. “He’s dead.”

“Now, as to the package—”

“What package?”

“The hospitalized
Scorpione Uno
said his predecessor left a package for me. I’ll send the boy for it. Where?”

O’Ryan pulled the phone away from his ear, thinking rapidly.
What the hell had Ingersol done
? What
package
?… Still, “the boy” could be had. Whatever his purpose, or wherever he fitted into Bajaratt’s agenda, he could be eliminated. “Tell him to drive south to Route 4 until it meets 260, then head for a place called Chesapeake Beach; there are signs along the way. When he gets here, have him call me from a diner down the road with a telephone outside. I’ll meet him ten minutes later on the rocks of a jetty on the first public beach.”

“Very well, I’m writing this down.… I trust you have not opened the package.”

“No way, it’s not my business.”

“Bene.
”

“I think so too. And don’t concern yourself about this Hawthorne. He’s
finito
.”

“Your Italian improves, signore.”

Nicolo Montavi stood in the rain on the rocks of the jetty, watching the taillights of the taxi that had brought him to this deserted spot recede. The taxi was literally commanded by the hotel’s stern doorman to take the young man where he wished to go or not to bother coming back for fares. The nearly two-hour trip had angered the driver; he left quickly. Nico trusted that Cabrini’s associate would find him a way back. The darkness was now complete, and the stevedore from the docks of Portici watched as the figure came into view in the wet, gray-black night. The nearer the man came, the more uneasy Nicolo felt, for there was no package in his hands; instead, they were in the pockets of his raincoat, and a person meeting another person at night in a heavy rain did not walk so slowly—it was not natural. The figure climbed up the irregular rocks of the man-made seawall; he slipped, both hands yanked out of his pockets to break his fall. In his right hand was a
gun
!

Nicolo spun around and plunged over the rocks into the dark waters as gunshots filled the night and the rain, a bullet grazing his left arm, another exploding above his head. He swam underwater for as long as he could, silently in panic thanking the docks of Portici for giving him the skill to do so. He surfaced less than thirty meters from the beach, spinning again until he could concentrate on the barrier of rocks. His would-be murderer now held a flashlight, its beam crisscrossing the water as he walked out to the end of the jetty, apparently
satisfied that the killing had taken place. Nico stayed in the water, slowly making his way back to the wall of stone. He took off his shirt, raising his hands in the darkness and wringing out the cloth as best he could; it would float for a minute or two before sinking. Perhaps it would be enough, if he could place it correctly; he sidestroked along the jetty as the figure headed back toward the beach. Only moments now; then it
was
the moment! He lobbed the shirt ahead of him as the flashlight beam waved back and forth over the water.