The Scorpio Illusion Part 58

"What about the wound?"

"It was a big blade and also thick, extremely rare, they say."

"Who are they? Who told you that?"

"Secretary Palisser. Since Director Gillettes heart attack, or whatever it was, Palissers inserted himself insofar as youre working on behalf of the State Department. Hes running the show."

"Then you talk directly to him?" asked Tyrell.

"Its a little scary for a silver bar, but yes, I do. He gave me his private numbers, both at home and at the Department."

"Listen carefully, Jackson, and take notes, and stop me if theres anything you dont understand." Hawthorne told Poole in detail everything that had happened at the Ingersol home in McLean, Virginia, specifically detailing his discussion with Richard Ingersol and the former justices violent death in the garden.

"How badly are you hurt?" asked the lieutenant.

"Ill survive with a couple more st.i.tches and a h.e.l.l of a headache. Now reach Palisser and tell him everything Ive told you. I want him to arrange for me to have immediate access to the Central Intelligence files of every senator on the intelligence committees and all the upper-level officers in the Pentagon, anyone high enough to be a decision-maker."

"Im writin as fast as I can," said Poole. "Jeezuss, what a scenario!"

"Have you got it all?"

"I dont make too many mistakes, Commander. I happen to have whats called an aural memory. What you told me, h.e.l.l get.... Incidentally, your brother Marc called again. He was upset."

"Hes usually upset. What is it now?"

"Those pilots from Van Nostrands place, the Jones boys. Youve got twelve hours to get back to them or theyll go public."

"To h.e.l.l with them. Let them go public. Itll panic the whole Scorpio network, and one of them is right here in this house! Whoever it is saw me go outside with the old man, Scorpio Threes father. Threes gone, so are ORyan and Van Nostrand. That leaves two of the upper five. The panics just begun."

"Tye, how bad is your head?"

"A little messy and it hurts like h.e.l.l."

"Find some tape somewhere and crisscross it over your hair. Make it tight and steal a hat."

"The checks in the mail, Doctor.... I have to get out of here. Tell Palisser Im on my way to Langley. Itll take me at least twenty minutes, so he has enough time to get me admitted and have the first of those CIA files spewing out of the computers in one of their secret rooms with no windows. Tell him to move his a.s.s, and make it clear I ordered you to say it."

"You love spittin in the face of authority, dont you?"

"Its one of the few joys left."

In the secure off-limits forensic laboratory at Walter Reed Hospital, the two doctors working over the corpse of Captain Henry Stevens, U.S.N., looked at each other, astonished. On the sterile stainless-steel table at the foot of the operating table was an a.s.sortment of blades, some thirty-seven, from a medium vegetable knife to the largest cutlery available.

"My G.o.d, it was a bayonet," said the doctor on the right.

"Some psycho was sending a message," agreed the doctor on the left.

Bajaratt proceeded through the crowds to the platforms electronic doors. Inside the El Al terminal she veered to the right, away from the counters, toward a bank of storage lockers. She unzipped the side of her purse, took out a small key that had been given to her in Ma.r.s.eilles, and began studying the numbers of the locked panels. Finding the one marked 116, she opened it, reached her hand inside, and, fingers stretched, probed the unseen upper part, where there was an envelope taped to the surface. The Baj ripped it off, tore it open, and shook out a claim check which she quickly dropped into the side pocket of her purse, replacing the key that remained in the now-empty locker.

She walked back into the crowds and over to the El Al checkroom, where she casually removed the claim check and gave it to the girl behind the counter. "I believe one of our pilots left a package for me," she said, smiling sweetly. "The older we get, the more we need perfume from Paris, no?"

The clerk took the check. Several minutes pa.s.sed while Bajaratts anxiety mounted. It was taking far too long. As the Bajs eyes darted around like a potentially ensnarled animal nearing a trap, the woman returned.

"Im sorry, but your pilot friend got his countries mixed up," explained the clerk, handing Bajaratt a heavily taped package, roughly a square foot in bulk. "This isnt out of Paris, its straight from Tel Aviv.... Between you and me, we store the homeland packages in a separate area. People are so anxious when they come here to get things, yknow what I mean?"

"Not entirely, but thank you." The Baj took the package; it was light; she shook it. "That naughty pilot must have flown home first and given half my share to another woman."

"Men," the clerk agreed. "Who can trust em, especially pilots?"

Bajaratt carried the package back through the milling bodies to the entrance. She was elated; the procedure had worked. If the neutralized plastic explosive material had pa.s.sed through Israeli security, it would pa.s.s through anything the White House could produce! Less than twenty-four hours! Ashkelon!

She walked through the electronic doors out to the platform area only to see that the limousine was not there; it was obviously circling the no-parking area. She was irritated but not angry; the success of her packages arrival filled her with purpose. It had gone undetected not only through the airport equipment but through the checkroom scans, which were constant since the explosions in the Tel Aviv terminal in the seventies. Little did anyone know that in the lower seam of the detonating purse was a single strand of black steel thread, no more than a half inch in length, that when pulled out activated the tiny lithium batteries, producing a bomb equivalent to several tons of dynamite, set off by merely moving the hands of an enclosed diamond wrist.w.a.tch to twelve noon and pressing the crown three times. She felt like a girl of ten again, when she had plunged a hunting knife into the Spanish soldier who was hungrily, furiously breaking her virginity. Muerte a toda autoridad!

"If it isnt the sabra from the kibbutz Bar-Shoen." The words came like a bolt of lightning, firing her brain, fragmenting her thoughts. She looked up to see a stranger who was not a stranger at all! It was the once-dark-haired Mossad agent, now bleached blond, whom she had slept with years before, the man she had seen at the Carillon hotels front desk. "Except I dont think the name is Rachela," he continued. "I believe it starts with the letter B, as in Bajaratt. We knew you had colleagues in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, so where better to receive messages or parcels but in the one place no one would think youd appear. It was only a hunch, but then, were rather good at hunches-"

"Its been so long, my darling!" shouted the Baj. "Hold me, kiss me, my dearest, dearest love!" Bajaratt flung her arms around the Mossad intelligence officer under the smiling, sympathetic glances of the crowds on the platform. "Not since the kibbutz Bar-Shoen! Come inside, to the cafe. We must talk and talk and talk!"

The Baj gripped his arm, pulling the agent through the willing, parting crowds back into the terminal, all the while singing his praises in Hebrew. Once they were beyond the doors, she led the embarra.s.sed Israeli toward the nearest and fullest lines in front of the ticket counters. Suddenly she screamed, her screams rooted in sheer terror.

"Its he!" Bajaratt shouted hysterically at no one and everyone, her eyes wide in fright, the veins in her neck p.r.o.nounced. "It is Ahmet Soud, of the Hezbollah! Look at his hair, its bleached, but it is he! He murdered my children and raped me in the border war. How can he be here? Call the police, call our officials! Stop him!"

Men broke from the lines and converged on the Mossad officer as the Baj raced through the platform doors and ran against the stream of one-way traffic.

"Get out of here!" she roared, stopping the slowly approaching limousine by banging on the window and leaping into the rear seat beside a startled Nicolo.

"Where to, maam?" asked the driver.

"The nearest hotel, as decent as possible," answered the Baj breathlessly.

"There are several right here at the airport."

"Then the best will do."

"Basta, signora!" said Nicolo, his large dark eyes riveted on Bajaratt and continuing in Italian as he closed the gla.s.s part.i.tion between the chauffeur and the rear of the limousine. "For the last two hours I have tried to talk to you but you will not listen. You will listen now."

"I have a great deal on my mind, Nico. I have no time-"

"You will make time now, or I will stop the car and get out."

"Youll what? How dare you?"

"It is not such a dare, signora. I simply tell the driver to stop, and if he does not, I will force him to."

"You are an insolent child.... Very well, I will listen to you."

"I told you, I spoke to Angelina-"

"Yes, yes, I heard you. The actors are on strike in California and she is flying home tomorrow."

"Shes flying into Was.h.i.+ngton first, and we shall meet at two oclock in the afternoon at National Airport."

"Its out of the question," said Bajaratt firmly. "I have plans for tomorrow."

"Then make them without me, Aunt Cabrini."

"You cannot-you must not!"

"You dont own me, signora. You tell me you have a great cause and people die because you say they will stop this great cause of yours ... although I cannot see how an island servant and a driver can be so important-"

"They would have betrayed me, killed me!"

"So you have told me, but you tell me nothing else. You give me too many orders that I do not understand. If this great cause of yours is so good and so virtuous, so cherished by the Church, why must we pretend to be people we are not?... No, I think perhaps I will not touch the lire in Napoli, and you will not give me orders any longer, or tell me I cannot see Angelina. I am strong and I am not stupid. I will find work-perhaps Papa Capelli will help after I tell him the truth, and I will tell him the truth."

"h.e.l.l throw you out of his house!"

"I will have a priest accompany me, with the blessings and absolution of my confession. He will know Im sincere, that I am truly repentant for my sins of falsehood ... however, I will not speak of the man who tried to kill me. He has paid his debt, and I will not be punished for what I had to do."

"You would speak of me?"

"I will tell them that you are not the countess, but a wealthy woman of high birth who enjoys the games among the rich that we on the docks know are very fas.h.i.+onable. How many times have we prepared yachts in Portici and Napoli for the grand signores and signoras, who in truth are pimps and wh.o.r.es from Rome?"

"You cannot do that, Nicolo!"

"I will not speak of the bad things-I know nothing of them, and you deserve my silence for bringing Angelina Capelli into this poor young mans life."

"Nico, listen to me. Only one more day and you are rich and free!"

"What are you saying ...?"

"Tomorrow-only tomorrow. In the evening, just the evening, for a short while! Thats all I ask of you, and I shall be gone-"

"Gone ...?"

"Yes, my adorable boy, and then the money in Napoli is yours, a great family in Ravello ready to accept you as their own-its all for you, Nicolo! The dream of a thousand children on the piers; dont throw it away!"

"Tomorrow evening?"

"Yes, yes, barely an hour of your time.... And certainly you may meet Angel in the afternoon-I was preoccupied and not listening. I myself will go with you to the airport. Its settled, then?"

"No more lies or fast stories, Signora Cabrini. Remember, I am a dock boy from the streets. I think I hear the truth quicker than you do. It is much less complicated."

Hawthorne hung up the phone in Ingersols study and looked around. He walked inside the private bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. There were various medications, including Valium tablets, antacid pills, two styptic pencils, shaving cream, a bottle of shaving lotion, a small can of Band-Aids, and a roll of adhesive tape. On the counter was a marbled box containing facial tissues. He pulled out five or six layers, angled his head into the mirror, pressed the gash in his skull together, and placed the tissues over the wound. Frantically manipulating his fingers, he tore off strips of tape and stretched them over the tissues, locking his hair and the wound together as best he could. He went back into the study, found a Burberry checkered hat in the dead attorneys closet, and clamped it on his head. The rough dressing would absorb the blood until he reached Langley-he sincerely hoped.

He walked out into the hallway, suddenly wondering if he could find a way to steal the guest book, so obviously placed and signed by the mourners who were so eager to be noted. The gatehouse log at Van Nostrands had been selectively helpful-and someone in this house was a Scorpio. The death of an old man was proof, the unfamiliar weapon in Tyrells belt further evidence. However, all thoughts of the theft were voided when he reached the front door.

"Are you leaving, sir?" asked young Todd Ingersol, joining Hawthorne in the foyer.

"Im afraid I have to," answered Tyrell, sensing a quiet anger in the boy-mans voice. "My business was official because I have a job to do, but your family has my sympathies."

"I think weve had enough of them, sir. This place is beginning to look like a dull, half-smashed fraternity party, so Id like to find my grandfather."

"Oh?"

"Hes as sick of this c.r.a.p as I am. After a short sentence about my father, everyone in there is talking about himself. For starters, look at that Cro-Magnon, General Meyers, hes really holding forth. Dad hated his guts; he just pretended to tolerate him."

"Im sorry. This is Was.h.i.+ngton." Suddenly a burly man with close-cropped hair and wearing a plain blue suit rushed through the front door, pa.s.sing Hawthorne and Ingersols son. He walked rapidly up to Meyers and spoke intently into his ear, almost as though he were giving orders to the general. "Whos that?" asked Tyrell.

"Maximum Mikes aide. Hes been trying to get him out of here for the last half hour. I actually saw him grab the generals arm a little while ago.... Wheres my grandfather? Mr. White said he was talking to you. He can throw these ball-breakers out nicely-I cant, because I wouldnt be nice and my mother would be mad as h.e.l.l."

"I see." Hawthorne had studied the young mans face briefly. "Listen to me, Todd-your name is Todd, isnt it?"

"Yes, sir."

"This wont make sense to you right now, but your grandfather loves you very much. I dont know a great deal about him, but the few minutes I spent with him told me that hes a very superior man."

"We all know that-"

"Cling to it, Todd, believe it.... At least as far as youre concerned."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Im not sure. I just want you to know that Im leaving this house with clean hands."

"Your face, sir. Look at your face!"

Tyrell felt the rivulets of blood rolling down his cheeks. He turned and ran out the door.

Hawthorne was halfway toward Langley when he slammed on the brakes, propelling the State Department car into the shoulder of the road. Meyers! Maximum Mike Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A "heavyweight" at the Pentagon-ORyans description-was it possible? The name at first had meant nothing to Tyrell; he was not a follower of military structure, in fact, he avoided most articles pertaining to the services. But the nickname Maximum Mike had stuck in his memory, if for no other reason than he loathed it, loathed everything the sobriquet stood for. And the last name was Meyers. The heaviest of the heavyweights!

Tyrell yanked out the dedicated line to Poole and pressed the b.u.t.ton.

"Here I am," replied the lieutenants voice instantly.

"Whats the word on Cathy?"

"She moved her left leg, thats supposed to be a maybe, not conclusive. How about you?"

"Scratch Langley. Call Palisser and tell him Im on my way to his house. Weve got a new tornado."

30.