The Scorpio Illusion: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “Anything from the CIA?”

  “Not a thing. I spoke with the interim director himself and he’s heard nothing. Obviously London was a bust, otherwise MI-6 and our own unit would light up all the panels. Also, there appear to be so many leaks over there that I don’t dare make further inquiries even through our supposedly secure channels.”

  “There’s an old adage, Mr. Secretary. When an exercise fails, let it die fast and silently; and if anyone mentions it, you don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

  “What should we do now, Hawthorne? Or, more precisely, what can you do?”

  “Something I’d rather not but damn well should. I’m going over to see Phyllis Stevens.”

  “You think she might know something, be able to tell you something?”

  “She could and not even know it herself. She was always overly protective where Henry was concerned. She was the concrete wall around him, nobody got past her. It’s an area we haven’t explored.”

  “The police have kept everything quiet, but they haven’t a clue—”

  “The people we’re dealing with don’t leave clues,” Tyrell interrupted. “At least not the kind the police would find. What happened to Henry Stevens had something to do with me.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “No, not really, but the odds are fair.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Hank made a mistake, the same mistake he made in Amsterdam. Despite his normal professional reticence, he talked too much when he shouldn’t have. He did just that in Amsterdam.”

  “Would you explain, please?”

  “At this point, why not? Your director, Gillette, knew there was bad blood between us; he told me himself. Infinitely more dangerous, he knew the root cause of the problem, which was intensely personal. Bad move on Henry’s part.”

  “I fail to see the significance. As I recall, you made no secret of your hostility where Captain Stevens was concerned. It was common knowledge that he failed to recruit you; that was left to the British.”

  “Hostility, yes, but I never elaborated on it to you or anyone else. I simply made it clear that he wasn’t my superior.”

  “I think you’re splitting hairs.”

  “I am. That’s what this business is all about.… There’s another axiom that goes back to when the pharaons sent spies up into Macedonia. The abused can make all the accusations he likes, but the abuser keeps his mouth shut. Why would Henry tell anyone of consequence about the trouble between us? It would raise questions about his own conduct. The salient point here is, who else might he have told? Someone who would immediately see the advantage of taking him out, cutting off my control since I couldn’t be reached.”

  “I really don’t see the connection,” protested the secretary of state. “What control?”

  “He was my inside man until I found you, Mr. Palisser.”

  “I still don’t understand—”

  “Neither do I,” said Tyrell, interrupting. “Maybe Phyllis can help us out.”

  4:29 P.M.

  The vapor was so dense that the figure in the corner of the steam room could barely be seen. The hissing came to a stop, the door opened, and a second person came inside, propping the door open and carrying a large towel to the sole naked inhabitant on the tile seat. The steam rushed out in billows and streaks, revealing the sweat-drenched body of Senator Nesbitt. His eyes were in that phase between glazed and focused, his mouth open, sucking in the remaining vapors.

  “I blacked out again, didn’t I, Eugene?” he said hoarsely as he rose unsteadily to his feet, accepting the towel that was draped over his shoulders by his driver-bodyguard.

  “Yes, sir. Margaret spotted the signs just after lunch—”

  “My God, it’s afternoon?” broke in the senator, close to panic.

  “You haven’t done that in a long time, sir,” said the bodyguard, leading his disturbed employer out of the steam room toward a shower several feet away. “Only one or two slips,” he added.

  “Thank heavens it’s summer and the Senate’s in recess.… Did you take me to … Maryland?”

  “We couldn’t, there wasn’t time. The doctor came down here instead. He gave you a couple of shots and told us what to do.”

  “There wasn’t time …?”

  “You have an appointment at the White House, Senator. We have to pick up the countess and her nephew at seven-fifteen.”

  “Oh, Jesus, I’m a wreck!”

  “You’ll be fine, sir. After your shower Maggie will give you a massage and a B1 shot, then you rest for an hour before dressing. You’ll be in top shape, boss.”

  “Top shape, Eugene?” Nesbitt’s expression was pathetic. “I’m afraid not, my friend, that’s a luxury I may never know. I live with a horrible nightmare, in that nightmare. It strikes without warning and I have no control over it. I sometimes think almighty God tests me to the edge of my endurance, to see if I will commit the mortal sin of taking my own life to remove the pain.”

  “Not while we’re around, sir,” said the bodyguard-keeper, gently placing his naked charge on a white plastic stool beneath the shower head and slowly turning on the lukewarm water, gradually making it colder and colder until icelike sprays pounded the politician’s body. “Your head’s a little messed up at certain times, sir, but like the doctor says, you can function otherwise better than the best of them.… We’re getting a little cooler now, sir. Stay here, please.”

  “Aughh!” cried Nesbitt as the cold spray assaulted him. “That’s enough, Eugene!”

  “Not yet, sir, just a few moments longer.”

  “I’m freezing!”

  “I’ll shut it off in about fifteen seconds, that’s what the doctor said.”

  “I can’t stand it!”

  “Four, three, two, one—off, sir.” Once again the nurse-cum-guard threw the heavy towel over his patient and helped him to his feet. “How’s that, Senator? You’re back in the land of the living, sir.”

  “They say there’s no cure, Eugene,” replied the senator softly, his eyes clear, his facial muscles in place as he stepped out of the shower with his driver’s assistance. “They say it either goes away with time and therapy, or yon take massive drugs to contain it. Naturally, they diminish the assaulted brain to the point of dysfunction.”

  “There’s none of that crap while we’re around, sir.”

  “Yes, I understand, Eugene, and my gratitude is such that you and Margaret will be well compensated after I’m gone. But, good God, man, I’m two people! And I never know when one takes over the other. It’s pure hell!”

  “We kinda know, sir, and so do your friends in Maryland. We’ll all take care of you.”

  “Do you realize, Eugene, that I haven’t the vaguest idea where those friends of mine in Maryland ever came from?”

  “Sure you do, sir. Their doctor came down to see us after we had that little problem in the adult movie place in Bethesda. You didn’t do anything wrong; it was just that a couple of people thought they recognized you.”

  “I have no memory of that.”

  “That’s what the doctor figured.… Hey, it’s all gone, right, boss? You’re back on track, and you got a big night, right? The President, sir! You’re gonna make a lot of points with the voters with this rich countess and her richer kid nephew, right?”

  “Yes, I guess I will, Eugene. Let’s have Margaret’s massage and a short nap.”

  5:07 P.M.

  The permanent secretary to the interim director of the Central Intelligence Agency had for the third time taken the call from London, finally making it clear that the newly installed temporary DCI, having “gotten the word from the Little Girl Blood unit,” was up to his neck in emergency meetings all over Washington, currently with the President’s Cabinet at the White House, and would get back to the chairman of MI-6, Special Branch, as soon as the crisis passed. She had been as firm as her position allowed, perhaps dangerously firm, but there was no alternative. With Dulles air
port successfully executed, she was the final checkpoint; the news from London could not get past her. She looked at the crystal clock on her desk; it was her last few minutes in that office.

  Scorpio Seventeen gathered up the materials in front of her, rose from the desk, and approached her emplover’s door; she knocked. “Come in,” said the voice inside.

  “It’s that time of day, sir.” The secretary opened the door and walked through, carrying the papers and a stack of messages. “Here are the notes you wanted, as well as the calls that’ve piled up while you were on the phone. My Lord, it’s like the Who’s Who in Washington; everyone’s trying to reach you.” She placed the papers on the director’s desk.

  “Everybody’s got advice and wants me to know how much they think of me. Naturally, it’ll all disappear once the President nominates his permanent choice for this job.”

  “I thought you knew—”

  “Knew what?”

  “The Beltway rumor is that he likes you, respects your record here, and knows that the Agency upper levels want you to take over rather than some amateur from the political hat box.”

  “I’ve heard it, but I wouldn’t bank my mortgage on it. The Man’s got a lot of political debts, and a deputy director isn’t one of them.”

  “Well, if that’s all, I’ll head for home and hearth, sir.”

  “Nothing from the Little Girl unit? I was to be informed immediately.”

  “The message’s in the pile. You were on the phone with the Vice President.”

  “Damn it, you should have broken in!”

  “There was nothing to break in with, sir. I don’t know all the circumstances, but I assumed that ‘no dice in London’ meant what it usually means. The operation didn’t pan out.”

  “Goddamn!” exploded the temporary DCI. “If I could have delivered on this one, I might have had a chance!… Where’s what’s-his-name, the fellow that headed up the unit?”

  “He and the others have been here since three this morning, over fifteen hours with very little sleep before that. The way he put it was that he was closing up shop and hopes for a better day tomorrow—after they got the red out of their eyes.”

  “All right, I’ll speak to him tomorrow. You, too, of course.”

  “I’ll stay if you like.”

  “What for? To watch me lick my wounds and start my good-byes to this pretty damned impressive office? Go home, Helen.”

  “Good night, Mr. Director.”

  “It has a nice sound, doesn’t it?”

  The secretary drove into the nearest shopping center in Langley, Virginia, locked her car, and walked to a pay phone on the pavement next to a supermarket. She inserted a coin, dialed a number long committed to memory, and waited for the usual series of beeps. She then dialed five additional digits and in moments, a voice was there. “Utah, I presume?”

  “Number Seventeen.… As it must eventually happen with most of us, my time has come. I can’t go back in the morning.”

  “I kind of figured that. I’ll get you out of the country tonight. Take as little as possible with you.”

  “There’s basically nothing. Everything I want is already in Europe, has been for several years.”

  “Where?”

  “That I won’t tell even you.”

  “Fair enough. When do you want to leave?”

  “As soon as I can. There’s nothing I need from my apartment except my passport and some jewelry. I’ll get there in a taxi. Everything should remain the way it is, as if I’d never returned. I live near here, so I can be ready in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “Then take the cab to Andrews and go to security. You’ll be cleared for the next diplo-military shuttle to Paris.”

  “Good choice. When is it?”

  “In about an hour and a half. Have a good life, Seventeen.”

  “I intend to. I’ve earned it.”

  36

  Having instructed Poole to stay by the phone at the Shenandoah Lodge, basically for news about Catherine Neilsen, Hawthorne drove down the tree-lined suburban street, swinging into the curb in front of the house of Captain Henry Stevens, murdered head of naval intelligence. In the driveway was a gray Navy Department vehicle, a security patrol car. An armed and uniformed chief petty officer admitted Tyrell; the man nodded toward the living room, where a woman dressed in black stood looking out a window at the far end.

  The meeting between Phyllis and Tye was at first the awkward reunion of two former friends grown apart by the distance born of a deep personal loss, now seeing each other again under circumstances that painfully, inevitably, recalled the earlier tragedy in Amsterdam. More was said in silence, and in their eyes, until Hawthorne approached her and she rushed into his arms, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “It’s all so rotten, so goddamned rotten!” she cried.

  “I know, Phyll, I know.”

  “Of course you do!”

  They held each other, the unspoken words understood, two decent people who had lost a part of their lives, the folly of those deaths essentially incomprehensible. The long moment passed and Hawthorne slowly released Henry Stevens’s wife.

  “May I get you something, Tye? Tea, coffee, a drink?”

  “No, thanks,” said Hawthorne, “but a rain check’s accepted.”

  “Then it’s offered. Sit down, please. I’m sure you didn’t come out here simply to be kind; you’re far too busy for that.”

  “How much do you know, Phyll?”

  “I’m an intelligence officer’s wife, not necessarily a highly intelligent one, but I’ve pieced together perhaps more than Henry suspected. My God, that man went nearly four days without sleep … and he was worried sick about you, Tye. You must be exhausted.”

  “You know we’re hunting someone, then?”

  “Obviously. Someone extremely dangerous, with equally dangerous people behind her—”

  “Her? You know it’s a woman?”

  “Hank told me that much, a female terrorist from the Baaka Valley. If he hadn’t been so tired, I doubt he would have.”

  “Phyllis,” said Hawthorne, leaning forward in a chair next to the widow, looking hard at his old friend from the embassy in Amsterdam. “I’ve got to ask you some questions about the days before Hank was killed. I know it’s not the time, but we don’t have any other—”

  “I understand. I’ve been around this scene for years, remember?”

  “You’re alone here?”

  “Not now. My sister flew down from Connecticut to be with me; she’s out now.”

  “I mean you and Hank lived here alone—”

  “Oh, yes, with all the usual trappings. Armed navy vehicles cruising around the clock, limousines to pick him up and bring him back from the office, and an alarm system that would frighten rocket scientists. We were secure, if that’s your question.”

  “Forgive me, but obviously you weren’t. Someone came in and killed Henry while he was on the phone with me.”

  “I didn’t know it was you, but I discussed that with both the navy and the police; the regular kitchen phone was off the hook. But in one area you’re right—obviously. We have the usual deliveries and repairmen; you can’t stop them all, we’d be stigmatized, and probably couldn’t order a pizza. Hank generally called the patrols when we expected guests, but over the months he frequently forgot; it was so unnatural here, not like Amsterdam. He called it paranoid.”

  “In other words, a guy in overalls with a toolbox, or a man in a business suit carrying a briefcase, or a military in uniform might not be challenged,” said Tyrell, not asking a question.

  “Probably not,” agreed the widow, “but to anticipate you, both the navy and the police have this information, the patrol on duty at the time was interrogated at length. The two S.P.’s said that except for a newspaper boy, no one came near the house.”

  “And they were parked outside the whole time?”

  “Not actually, not like the security outside now, but I’d have to say it’s not terribly re
levant. As I mentioned, they cruised. Hank insisted on that for both practical purposes and neighborly relations.”

  “Cruised …?”

  “Around the block, a distance that takes less than a minute and ten seconds to drive.”

  “And Hank’s ‘practical purpose’ was just that,” said Hawthorne, nodding. “A stationary patrol, marked or not, is a target.”

  “Unmarked,” Phyllis interrupted. “And our neighbors would certainly not appreciate a series of unfamiliar cars parked in front of the house for long periods of time. It’s not the turf for it, although it might spice up the street. If I weren’t so old, they might think I was running my own cat house.”

  “You’re not old, Phyll, you’re a very beautiful woman.”

  “Ah, the charmer returns. I missed that when you left the embassy.”

  “So anybody who had access to the security routine here could be Henry’s killer. A minute and ten seconds is an hour and ten minutes in tactical, nonchronological time.”

  “You mean someone in the navy?”

  “Or high enough in the military to have access.”

  “Please be clearer,” said Phyllis sternly.

  “I can’t, not now.”

  “He was my husband!”

  “Then I’ll tell you what your husband would have told you, and I’ll be as honest as I can. There are things I can’t log you into yet.”

  “That’s pure shit, Tyrell! I have a right to know! Twenty-seven years’ worth of privilege, sir!”

  “Come on, Phyll.” Hawthorne grabbed Phyllis’s hands, holding them in his grip. “I’m doing exactly what Henry would do if he were me right now. Contrary to what I often told him, he was a terrific analyst—maybe not the best in the field, that wasn’t his bag—but in the foreseeables department there weren’t many in his league. I respected him for that … even more for having you as his wife.”

  “Oh, stop it, you snake-oil salesman,” said Phyllis Stevens, smiling briefly, sadly, as she squeezed his hands and withdrew hers. “Get on with your questions.”

  “It really comes down to three. When and how often and to whom did he mention my name?”