The Scorpio Illusion

by Robert Ludlum

  He sat down, swiveling his chair to the right, facing the typewriter stand, rereading his short letter to the President. Yes, his wife should have been with him, for she loathed Washington, longing for their horse farm in New Jersey’s hunt country, and delighted in their joint conspiracy. She especially enjoyed it as the doctors at the Mayo Clinic, where they both went for their annual summer checkups, had pronounced her in excellent health. Davenport sipped his brandy, smiling.

  Dear Mr. President:

  It is with enormous regret that I must submit my resignation, effective immediately, due to the recent discovery of a severe health problem within my immediate family.

  May I say it has been an honor to serve under your superb leadership, secure in the knowledge that following your precepts, the Department of Defense stands tall and committed. Finally, may I thank you for the privilege of being part of “the team.”

  My wife, Elizabeth, may the good Lord comfort her, sends you her affectionate best wishes as, of course, do I.

  Sincerely,

  Howard W. Davenport

  The secretary again sipped his cognac, chuckling at the sight of the phrase that caught his eye and for a few seconds lingered there. He wondered, to be consistent with his image of integrity, whether it wouldn’t be more honest to add the words “should be.” The passage would then read, “… following your precepts, the Department of Defense stands tall and should be committed.”… No, there would be no recriminations, no telltale books placing the blame of excess on others. Perhaps a series of articles might be helpful to those who would succeed him—they would certainly garner attention—but in the final analysis it was up to the man who took the job. If he was the right man, he’d see the flaws of the procurement system and correct them with a steel fist. If he was not the right man, his hands barren of steel, no amount of extraneous warning would help him. And Howard Wadsworth Davenport understood that he fell in the latter category; in fact, he had fallen in office.

  He put the brandy glass on the desk, only to have it slip off the edge and crash on the parquet floor. Odd, Davenport thought, he had placed it on the blotter—or had he? His eyesight was becoming blurred, his breathing suddenly audible, difficult—where was the air? Unsteadily, he got to his feet, thinking the central air-conditioning had malfunctioned and the night was hot, humid, increasingly suffocating. Then there was no air! Instead, a sharp pain formed in his chest and spread rapidly through his whole upper body. His hands trembled; his arms in seconds became uncontrollable, then his legs could no longer bear his weight. He fell facedown on the hard floor, his nose smashed, bleeding, and with an agonizing effort pushed himself up, spastically twisting, finally collapsing again, his eyes wide, focused on the ceiling, yet he saw nothing.

  Darkness. Howard W. Davenport was dead.

  The study door opened, revealing the figure of a man dressed in black, a filtered mask covering his face, black silk gloves on his hands. He turned and crouched beside a metal cylinder of deadly gas, roughly two feet in height with a rubber tube attached to the petcock and extending to the base of the door, its nozzle narrow and flat. He turned the knob on top, twice checking the closure with strong twists. He rose to his feet, crossed to a pair of French doors leading to a patio, and opened them. The summer night’s damp, warm air slowly filled the room with the scents of a garden. The man walked to the typewriter stand and read Davenport’s letter of resignation. He yanked it out of the platen, crumpled it, and stuffed it into a trouser pocket. He then inserted a blank page of Davenport’s stationery and typed the following:

  Dear Mr. President:

  It is with the utmost regret that I submit my resignation, effective immediately, for reasons of personal health that I have assiduously kept from my dear wife. Quite simply, I can no longer function, a fact to which a number of my colleagues will no doubt attest.

  I have been under the care of a doctor in Switzerland whom I have sworn to secrecy, and he informs me it’s now only a question of days—

  The letter ended abruptly, and Scorpio 24, under orders given him the previous morning by the original Scorpio One, gathered his lethal equipment, leaving by way of the French doors and the patio.

  The Fairfax, Virginia, police had left the adjoining rooms at the Shenandoah Lodge, and in their place stood the uniformed Captain Henry Stevens.

  “For Christ’s sake, Tye, get with it!”

  “I will, Henry, I will,” said a still-pale Hawthorne sitting on the edge of the bed, Neilsen and Poole anxiously leaning forward in chairs across the room, “It’s just so crazy! I knew her, knew those eyes, and she knew me! But she was an old woman, barely able to stand up, but I knew her!”

  “I repeat,” Stevens said, standing over Tyrell. “The woman you saw is an Italian countess named Cabarini or something, and very vain, according to the front desk. She wouldn’t even sign the register downstairs because—catch this—she wasn’t ‘properly dressed’; she had them bring it up to her. I checked her credentials with Immigration. She’s golden, right to the top, her millions and all.”

  “She left—why did she leave?”

  “So did twenty-two other guests, and the place holds only thirty-five. A man was killed in the parking lot, Tye, and these tourists aren’t exactly a Delta Force.”

  “All right, all right … I’ll ‘get with it.’ I just can’t get that face out of my mind!” Hawthorne repeated, shaking his head slowly. “The age, she was so old, but I knew the eyes—I knew them.”

  “Geneticists say there are exactly one hundred thirty-two variations of eye shape and eye color, no more and no less,” Poole announced. “That’s one hell of a small equation when you figure the number of people in this world. ‘Don’t I know you?’ is one of the more common questions people ask.”

  “Thanks for nothing.” Hawthorne turned back to Henry Stevens. “Before all this craziness began, I was calling you. I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you’ve got to.”

  “Got to what?”

  “First, and tell me the truth, does anybody—could anybody—know that Van Nostrand’s dead?”

  “No, the information’s capped, the house sanitized and guarded. The Fairfax dispatcher and the two patrolmen are professionals and understand. So they can’t be tracked down in case of a leak; all three are out of the area.”

  “Okay. Then you use every button you’ve got and get me an appointment with the secretary of state. Tonight—this morning, now. We can’t waste five minutes.”

  “You’re a lunatic. It’s almost midnight!”

  “Yes, I know, and. I also know that Van Nostrand was getting out of the country secretly because the secretary of state cleared the way for him. Very officially.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Believe. The elegant pinstriper, Bruce Palisser, made the arrangements, including a military escort and a maximum security passage out of Charlotte, North Carolina. I want to know why.”

  “Jesus, so do I!”

  “It won’t be that difficult. Tell him the truth—he probably knows it anyway—that I was recruited by MI-6, not by you or anybody else in Washington, because there aren’t too many people inside the Beltway whom I trust. Tell him I claim to have information about Little Girl Blood that I’ll give only to him, insofar as my British recruiter was killed. He won’t refuse; he’s close to the U.K.… You might even exaggerate and also tell him that despite the fact that we don’t get along, I was once pretty good at my job and may really have something.… There’s the phone, Henry. Do it.”

  The chief of naval intelligence did so, his words to the secretary of state containing the proper mixture of alarm, urgency, and respect. When he had finished, Hawthorne pulled him aside, handing him a piece of paper. “This is a telephone number in Paris,” said Tyrell quietly. “Contact the Deuxième and tell them to put it under surveillance—total.”

  “Who is it?”

  “A number Bajaratt has called, that’s all you have to know. It’s all I’ll
tell you.”

  The taxi pulled up to the curb in Georgetown, that select acreage of Washington that houses the capital’s elite. The imposing four-story brownstone stood atop a three-tiered rolling lawn, punctuated by a brightly lighted brick entrance, the black-enameled door polished, the brass hardware glistening. The steep concrete steps were whitewashed, the bordering wrought-iron railings enameled white, all obviously to aid a climber’s sight at night. Hawthorne paid the fare and got out of the cab.

  “You want me to wait, mister?” asked the driver, glancing at Tyrell’s informal open-collared safari jacket and obviously aware of the late hour, if not the home of the secretary of state.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be,” replied Hawthorne, frowning, “but you’ve got a point. If you’re free, why not come back in, say, forty-five minutes, that should do it.” Tyrell reached into his pocket, withdrew a ten-dollar bill, and dropped it through the open front window. “Give it a shot; if I’m not out here, take off.”

  “It’s a slow night, I’ll give you some time.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hawthorne started up the steps, briefly wondering why anybody over fifty would live in a place where one had to be part mountain goat to reach the front door. Then his silent question was answered, for above, on the brick porch, was a large electric escalator chair, and below the right railing a second, wide metal strip that carried the current. Secretary Palisser was no fool where creature comforts were concerned; he was no fool in a lot of ways. Tyrell was not a fan of the Washington establishment, but Bruce Palisser seemed to be a cut above most of the crowd. Hawthorne did not know much about him, but from what he had read in the newspapers and had seen on his televised press conferences, the secretary had a quick mind and a pleasant wit, even a sense of humor. Tyrell held suspect anyone in political power who lacked those qualities. Anywhere. In any country. Yet at the moment he was very wary, suspicious in the extreme, of the secretary of state. Why had he done what he had for Nils Van Nostrand, friend and accommodator of the terrorist Bajaratt?

  The shiny brass knocker was more an ornament than a practical instrument, so Hawthorne rang the brightly lighted doorbell. In seconds the heavy door was opened by a shirt-sleeved Palisser, his familiar features creased but distinguished below a crown of wavy gray hair; his trousers, however, were the antithesis of his sartorial reputation—he wore faded blue denims cut off at the knees.

  “You’ve got brass balls, Commander, I’ll say that for you,” the secretary announced. “Come on in, and as we walk into the kitchen, start telling me why you didn’t go to the director of Central Intelligence, or the DIA, or G-2, or your own goddamned superior, Captain Stevens of naval intelligence?”

  “He’s not my superior, Mr. Secretary.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Palisser, stopping in a foyer and eyeing Tyrell. “He mentioned something about the Brits, MI-6 I believe. So why the hell didn’t you reach them?”

  “I don’t trust Tower Street.”

  “You don’t trust—”

  “I also don’t trust N.I., or CIA, or DIA, or—hell, you name it, Mr. Secretary, they’re penetrated.”

  “My God, you’re serious.”

  “I’m not here to make points, Palisser.”

  “Palisser now?… Well, I suppose that’s refreshing. Come along, I’m brewing some coffee.” They walked through a swinging oak door into a large white kitchen with a butcher-block table in the center, an old-fashioned electric percolator at the end, plugged into a side receptacle; it was bubbling away. “Everyone has those plastic things that drip and tell time and how many cups you’ve got and God knows what else, but none of ’em fills the room with the good old aroma of real coffee. How do you like it?”

  “Black, sir.”

  “First decent thing you’ve said.” The secretary poured; the cups filled, Palisser spoke. “Now, you tell me why you’re here, young man. I’ll accept the penetrations, but you could have gone back to London, to the top as I understand it. You can’t have any problem with that man.”

  “I have problems with any communications that can be internally tapped.”

  “I see. So what have you got about the Little Girl that you can tell only me—personally?”

  “She’s here—”

  “I know that, we all know it. The President couldn’t be more secure.”

  “But that’s not why I insisted on seeing you—personally.”

  “You’re a presumptuous bastard, Commander, annoying too. Tell me.”

  “Why did you arrange for Nils Van Nostrand to leave the country in a way that can be described only as highly secretive?”

  “You’re out of order, Hawthorne!” The secretary slammed his free hand down on the table. “How dare you interfere with confidential State Department business?”

  “Van Nostrand tried to kill me less than seven hours ago. I think that gives me a lot of ‘dare.’ ”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’ve only just begun. Do you know where Van Nostrand is now?”

  Palisser stared at Tyrell, concern turning rapidly into fear, fear close to panic. He sprang to his feet, spilling his coffee, and walked rapidly to a telephone on the wall, a phone with numerous buttons on its panel. He pressed one repeatedly, angrily. “Janet!” he cried. “Did I get any calls tonight?… Why the hell didn’t you tell me? All right, all right, I didn’t look.… He what? Good Christ …!” The secretary slowly hung up the telephone, his frightened eyes locked with Hawthorne’s. “He never got to Charlotte,” he whispered as if asking a question. “I was out … at my club … Pentagon security called—what happened?”

  “I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine.”

  “You have no right!”

  “Then I’ll leave.” Tyrell got to his feet.

  “Sit down!” Palisser walked back to the table and grabbed his chair, brushing the spilled coffee to the floor with the back of his hand. “Answer me!” he ordered, sitting down.

  “Answer me,” said Hawthorne, still standing.

  “All right—sit down … please.” Tye did so, noting the sudden painful expression on the secretary’s face. “I took advantage of my position for personal reasons that in no way compromised the State Department.”

  “You can’t know that, Mr. Secretary.”

  “I do know it! What you don’t know is what that man has been through and what he’s done for this country!”

  “If that’s your explanation of why you did what you did, I think you’d better tell me.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “If nothing else, someone who can answer your question.… Wouldn’t you like to know what happened? Why he never got to Charlotte?”

  “I damn well better,” said Palisser. “There’s an angry army brigadier in G-2 who’d love to call me an intelligence screwup.… All right, Commander, I’ll give it to you, but unless you can give me overriding security reasons to the contrary, it remains confidential information. I won’t sacrifice a fine man and the woman he loves for unsupported intelligence garbage. Is that clear?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Years ago, in Europe, Nils was in a marriage that was falling apart—it doesn’t matter whose fault, it was finished. He met and fell in love with a nationally known political figure’s wife—an abused wife, I might add—and they had a child, a girl who now, twenty-odd years later, is dying.…”

  Hawthorne sat back in his chair and listened, his expression neutral until the secretary had finished his tale of love, betrayal, and vengeance. Then he smiled. “My brother, Marc, would probably call it pure nineteenth-century Russian, as in Tolstoy or Chekov. I call it bullshit. Did you ever check on that European marriage?”

  “Good Lord, of course not. Van Nostrand’s one of the most respected—even revered—men I’ve ever known. He’s been an adviser to agencies, departments, and even to presidents!”

  “If there was a marriage, it was solely for the books; and if there was ever a child, he
had to work like hell for it. Van Nostrand wasn’t the marrying kind. He lied to you, Mr. Secretary, and right now I’m wondering how many others he flimflammed.”

  “Explain yourself! You haven’t explained anything!”

  “That’ll all come later, but right now you deserve my answer to your question.… Van Nostrand’s dead, Mr. Secretary, shot while ordering my execution.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “You might as well, because it’s true … and Little Girl Blood was across the road in one of his guest cottages.”

  “What happened, signora? Why was that man in the parking area killed?” The dock boy paused, his question angry as he briefly took his eyes off the Virginia road and stared at Bajaratt. “Oh, my God, was it you?”

  “Have you lost your mind? I was writing letters while you watched television in the bedroom, the volume so loud I could barely think!… I heard the police say it was a jealous husband; the dead man was having an affair with his wife.”

  “You have too many words, too many explanations, Contessa Cabrini. Which should I accept?”

  “You accept what I tell you or you go back to Portici and be killed on the docks, along with your mother, your brother, and your sisters! Capisci?”

  Nicolo was silent, his face, unseen in the racing shadows, flushed. “What do we do now?” he asked finally.

  “Drive into the woods somewhere, where it’s dark, and we will not be seen. We’ll rest for a few hours, then early in the morning you will pick up the rest of our luggage at the hotel. We will then resume our roles as Dante Paolo and his aunt, the contessa.… Look! There’s a field with tall summer grass, like the high grass at the foot of the Pyrenees. Drive into it.”