The Scorpio Illusion (69 page)

The Baj inserted another coin and called the Carillon to get her messages from the concierge. They were numerous, supplicants all but one. That message was from the office of Michigan’s Senator Nesbitt, and the words were magnificently precise.
The countess’s appointment at the White House is scheduled for eight o’clock tomorrow evening. The senator will call her in the morning
.

Bajaratt walked back to the limousine, instinctively searching the parking lot for new arrivals and the dark sky for hovering aircraft.

“Take us back to the first hotel,” she said to the driver. “I was too hasty.”

Hawthorne stood over the butcher-block table in the secretary of state’s kitchen; his angry, reluctant host sat beside the ever-present coffeepot. Their exchange was heated.

“You sound like a jackass with a commensurate IQ, Commander! Have you lost all skepticism?”

“You’re the jackass if you’re not listening to me, Palisser!”

“May I remind you, young man, that I’m the secretary of state.”

“Right now, you’re the secretary of guacamole!”

“You’re not at all amusing—”

“You said that the last time, about Van Nostrand. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. Will you please
think
, and follow me?”

“I listened to everything your aide, what’s his name, told me, and my head’s still spinning.”

“His name is Poole, and he’s a first lieutenant in the
air force, and he’s a hell of a lot brighter than you or me, and everything he told you is true. I was there, you weren’t.”

“Let’s get this straight, Hawthorne,” said Palisser. “What makes you think that under the circumstances old Ingersol has any of his marbles left? He’s damned near ninety, his son was brutally murdered, and he’s been flying all day against six or seven time zones. Considering his age and the stress he’s under, a bereaved old man like Ingersol might well fantasize, conjure up an army of demons marching out of hell to wreak havoc, including the murder of his son.… Good God! A network of
Scorpions
with elite leaders who carry out the demands of a mystical order of the Providers? It’s all out of some outrageously implausible novel!”

“So was the
Schutzstaffel.
”

“The early Nazis?”

“The same thugs who had uniforms and several thousand pairs of leather boots when a wheelbarrow full of deutsche marks couldn’t buy a loaf of bread. Certainly not during the Weimar economic collapse.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“A very relevant pattern, Mr. Secretary. Somebody supplied all those uniforms and boots; they didn’t just materialize out of thin air—they were bought and paid for by very special interests who wanted a country! The Providers here aren’t much different. They intend to gain control of this government and one way they can do it is with the assassination of the President and the chaos that would follow. They’re in place in the Senate and the Pentagon, that much we know, and probably in the courts and communications, ready to jump into the power vacuum.”

“What do you mean, we know?”

“The Ingersols, father and son, put it together, from what the son knew as a reluctant Scorpio, and from what Van Nostrand told the old man on the Costa del Sol.”

“Van Nostrand …?”

“You heard me. That piss-elegant son of a bitch was at the heart of the whole thing. He laid it on the line to our former justice of the Supreme Court—made it clear that he and his crowd were going to run Washington and there was nothing Ingersol or his son could do about it. Those two were the proof—from generation to generation.”

“Absurd!”

“And as sure as you and our late secretary of defense, Howard Davenport, are clean, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs isn’t. He’s one of them.”

“You’re stark raving mad.…”

“I’m mad as hell, Palisser, but I’m as sane as I’ve ever been, and I’ve got a gash in my skull to prove it.” Hawthorne yanked off the Burberry hat he had stolen from the younger Ingersol’s closet, bent over, and revealed the bloody tape on his head.

“That happened at Ingersol’s place?”

“Roughly two hours ago, and Maximum Mike Meyers, the almighty chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was there. One of the Scorpios was described as ‘a heavyweight at the Pentagon, the
heaviest
.’ Do you need a roadmap to get from Ingersol’s house to the Pentagon, Mr. Secretary?”

“We’ll bring in the old man and question him with the appropriate doctors,” said Palisser gruffly, pensively.

“Forgive me for using an old technique.” Hawthorne lowered his voice and braced himself wearily on the butcher-block table, beads of sweat forming on his hairline. “It’s something I refined in Amsterdam. I used to call it the clincher, in case an asset was wavering.… You can’t bring in Justice Ingersol because he’s dead. A bullet from a .357 Magnum blew his forehead apart, and I was set up to take the kill as my own.”

Palisser’s chair screeched as he involuntarily scraped it backward across the stone floor of the kitchen. “What are you—”

“It’s true, Mr. Secretary.”

“it would be all over the news! I would have been reached!”

“Not by the Pentagon, and it’s entirely possible that no one at Ingersol’s house has walked back into an outside garden beyond the swimming pool. They may not find him until morning; tonight’s occasion at that house didn’t call for skinny-dipping in the pool, unless I’ve grossly underestimated my distaste for Washington get-togethers.”

“Who shot him and
why
?” Palisser’s face was white, his lips parted in shock.

“I can only guess, but it’s based on what I saw, what I was told when I was beat up and getting out of there. I watched as Meyers’s extremely agitated aide rushed up to him and damn near forced his boss to leave, not exactly the behavior of an underling to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Then old Ingersol’s grandson said the aide had been trying to get the general out of there for the past half hour. That would correspond to the time when Ingersol was killed and I took the fall.”

“Nothing makes sense. Why would anyone want to kill the old man?”

“Because the Scorpios exist, they’re real. I don’t know what the killer heard, but Ingersol was about to tell me the identities of two people who frequently visited Van Nostrand on the Costa del Sol. He felt that they were keys to the Scorpios—that was uppermost in his mind. He would do anything to break the hold they had on his son.”

“So you’re saying Meyers’s aide shot Ingersol?”

“It’s the only assumption that makes sense.”

“But if you saw him when you were leaving, why didn’t he see you—a man he bludgeoned half to death—and if he did, why didn’t he react accordingly?”

“The foyer was dark, I was wearing this hat, and the place was crowded. Besides, he raced past the kid and
me like a man possessed. He had only one thought on his mind, and that was to get the hell out of there.”

“And on those disjointed suppositions you want me to impugn the integrity and the patriotism of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a man who endured four years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, and have him taken into custody?”

“That’s the last thing I want you to do!” Tyrell said emphatically. “I want you to help me do what I started to do, go down and dirty, and insinuate myself into the core of these people just as fast as I can.… He’s part of the ‘circle,’ isn’t he, one of the few people who are apprised daily, even hourly, of the Little Girl Blood progress, right?”

“Naturally, he’s the—”

“I know who he is,” Hawthorne interrupted. “But he doesn’t know that
I
know he’s a Scorpio.”

“So?”

“Bring us together. Tonight. I’m the expert where Bajaratt is concerned, and I was almost killed at the Ingersols’.”

“For God’s sake, if you’re right,
he
tried to have you killed!”

“
I
don’t know that, I don’t even suspect it,” said Tyrell disingenuously. “I believe it was someone else at the house, and since he was there, I’m joining
him
to find out who it was.” Hawthorne suddenly turned and approached the dark glass of an upper oven, his voice becoming harsh, inquisitorial.
“Think
, General! Go back over every name, every face you can remember! It’s vital, General, someone in that crowd is working for Little Girl Blood!” Again Tyrell spun around, his eyes on Palisser. “You see how it’s done, Mr. Secretary?”

“He’ll see through you.”

“Not if I do it right. Incidentally, I’ll need one of those small tape recorders, the kind you can put in your shirt
pocket. I want to record every word that son of a bitch says.”

“I don’t have to tell you, Hawthorne, that if you’re right and Meyers even suspects he’s being recorded, he’ll kill you.”

“If he tries, he won’t have much of a future.”

General Michael Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood impatiently in his trousers, bare to the waist, as his aide removed the prosthetic right arm that had filled out the sleeve of his civilian suit. Once the straps were off, the general shook the flesh-encased stump protruding from his shoulder, annoyed to see that the skin was reddish; it was time for a new harness.

“I’ll get the salve,” said the aide, following his superior’s eyes and noting the resulting frown.

“Get me a drink first, and make a note to call the Walter Reed doctors in the morning. Tell them to get the damn thing right this time, okay?”

“That’s what we told them last time,” replied the middle-aged master sergeant, “and that was over a year ago. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, these things stretch, and when they’re loose they scratch. But no, you don’t listen.”

“You’re a pain in the ass—”

“Don’t insult me, you prick. You owe me big for tonight.”

“I hear
you,” said the general, laughing. “But be careful or I’ll take away that fancy Porsche you’ve got stashed in Easton.”

“Take
it. I’ll use the Ferrari you keep in Annapolis; that’s in my name too.”

“You are one unholy grunt, Johnny.”

“I know,” said the master sergeant, pouring two drinks at the bar and looking at Meyers. “We go back a long time, Michael. It’s been a good life, give or take a couple of interludes in gookville.”

“It’s going to get even better,” added the general, sitting down in an easy chair, his feet on a hassock. “We’re on our way back to where we should be.”

“Is that what tonight was all about?”

“You better believe it,” answered Meyers reflectively, quietly, staring at a wall. “The Ingersols, both of them, were greaseball shyster cowards. They connect with that bastard Hawthorne—either one of them—it’s bad news, the worst.”

“Hawthorne …? He’s the fall guy you wanted, the one with the old man? Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. I’m not curious, I just follow the leader.”

“Ed White told me he was with him outside. White wanted to know if I knew anything about a State Department investigation of his partner. It was a smoke screen. Hawthorne’s in another ballpark. Bad news.”

“There isn’t any news now, M.M. They’re both history.” The phone rang, diverting the master sergeant named Johnny from the drinks to the telephone. “General Meyers’s residence,” he said. “Yes, sir!” he exclaimed several seconds later, turning his head quickly to the general, his expression one of astonishment. “The chairman is in the shower, Mr. Secretary, but I’ll have him return your call the moment he’s out.” The master sergeant picked up a pencil and wrote on a notepad. “Yes, sir, I’ve got it. He’ll get back to you in a few minutes.” The middle-aged noncom hung up the phone, his eyes still on the general; he swallowed as he spoke. “It was the secretary of state! They must have found the bodies.… Christ, and you wanted to stick around longer!”

“You’re sure you weren’t recognized outside the place?”

“No way! I’m too good, and you know it. How many times did I do this kind of thing to the yellow crud snitches in Hon Chow? Nine kills and not a spit leading to me.”

“I believe you. What did Palisser say?”

“Only that something terrible happened and they—he said ‘they’—needed your help.… I don’t want anything to do with this, Max. I don’t want to drive you, I don’t want to be seen with you, not tonight!”

“You’ve got a point. Call your relief, Everett, from the car, tell him to get into a dark suit, and go over and pick him up. On the way back, fill him in on everything you did inside the house, including everyone you remember seeing, especially nodding at.”

“I’m on my way,” said Johnny, bringing Meyers his drink and heading for the door. “Don’t take too long calling Palisser. He’s really uptight.”

“You forget, Sergeant, you’ve got lousy handwriting. I’ll have to decipher it.”

“For Christ’s sake, Michael, he’ll call you back and it won’t look good!”

“No sweat. Your
sevens
look like
twos
, and your
threes
look like
eights
—”

“Asshole! You could ask we!”

“Not likely—and this part is true. I sent you out on an errand in the event the secretary’s conversation should be confidential. No one who isn’t cleared from on high can be privy to any information concerning a certain bloody girl.”

“What the
hell
are you
talking
about?”

“See what I mean? Get going, Johnny.” The aide shook his head and left, muttering vulgarities.

Maximum Mike Meyers sipped his Canadian rye whiskey, his eyes on the bar telephone, thinking. Bruce Palisser was smart, brave in war, and probably the most honest man in the administration, as the media frequently suggested. He called the shots as he saw them, frequently at the expense of fellow Cabinet officials, and amid rumors—always gracefully denied—that he had admonished the President over certain issues. He was this administration’s George Shultz, as the press often suggested, and a man like that did not play the Washington games, it was not in him. So if he called asking for
help, he wanted it; he was too honest to fake the request. Meyers did not basically like the secretary of state—he had little use for academicians in government; they were prone to endlessly debate too many sides of an issue without a firm commitment to one—but he respected the bastard.