"So close," agreed Tyrell quietly, frowning intensely. "We dont have a choice-I dont have a choice-and theres no time to waste." He reached down for the telephone while there was a knocking at the door. "See who it is, will you, Poole?"

Standing in the hallway were two uniformed police officers. "Are these the rooms of a Major Neilsen, a Lieutenant Poole, and a relative, an uncle, from Florida?" asked the man on the right, reading from a clipboard.

"Yes, sir," answered the lieutenant.

"Your registration is incomplete, sir," said the second policeman, peering inside the room. "The laws of Virginia require additional information."

"Sorry, fellas," said Poole. "I wrote that out myself and we were in an awful hurry."

"May we see your identification?" The man with the clipboard pushed past the lieutenant into the room, his colleague following several steps behind, blocking the door. "And please account for your whereabouts during the past two hours."

"We havent left these rooms since we arrived well over two hours ago," said Hawthorne, replacing the phone. "And as were consenting adults, youve no right to interfere with our pursuits no matter how offensive they might appear to you."

"What?" Major Neilsen blanched, m.u.f.fling her throated protest.

"Maybe you dont understand, sir," said the clipboard holder. "A man was shot down there, murdered. Were questioning everyone on the premises, and, if you want it straight, especially anyone with a fishy registration, which yours seems to fit. Theres no name for Uncle Joe here and no address in Florida except a town, and no credit card number."

"Ah told you, we were in a hurry and we paid cash."

"At these prices, you must carry a lot of cash, then. Maybe more than a lot."

"Thats none of your business," said Tyrell sharply.

"Listen, mister, the victim down in that parking lot was set up," said the clipboard. "He brought a box of fancy chocolates for whomever he was going to meet. The card read, 'To my generous friend. "

"Oh, thats terrific!" exclaimed Hawthorne. "We shot him, stayed around for the parade, and didnt even take the chocolates!"

"Stranger things have happened."

"Definitely," agreed the officer at the door, reaching under his tunic and pulling out a police radio as he unsnapped the flap of his holster. "Sergeant, weve got three weirdos up here, all possibles, rooms five-oh-five and five-oh-six. Send a detail as fast as you can.... Guess what I just spotted? Hurry up!"

Following the gaze of the patrolman, four heads whipped around to the other side of the room. On the top of the bureau were Pooles Walther P.K. automatic and Hawthornes .38-caliber revolver.

Bajaratt looked out the window at the crowds below. She was not interested in the mayhem or the proceedings, she knew both only too well-the morbidly jostling onlookers beside themselves to catch a glimpse of a bloodied corpse, and the police trying to maintain a semblance of order until higher authority arrived to tell them what to do. Until then, the mutilated body had to stay in place; it was meat for the frenzied bystanders, a b.l.o.o.d.y sheet covering the corpse in no way diminishing their appet.i.tes.

The Baj was not concerned with the infantile activities of the useless; she was desperately trying to find Nicolo, whom she had sent downstairs the instant she returned to the suite, his instructions explicit. Something terrible happened and we must leave. Find a car even if you have to subdue the owner! Take the suitcases and use the fire stairs! There he was! In the shadows of a pole supporting a floodlight, raising his right hand, holding something in it, and nodding his head. He had done it!

Bajaratt checked the mirror, adjusting the wig of thin white hair. The liquid adhesive on her face held the accentuated lines together; the pale powder, the dark gray half-moons under her lidded eyes, and the thin, white-drawn lips produced the countenance of an old woman, an eccentric old woman who wore a mans brown hat over her head.

Bajaratt opened the corridor door, instantly astonished by the noise and the stream of running police who were converging on a room down the hall, their guns drawn. She proceeded toward the elevator, skirting the uniforms, a bent-over figure fighting the advancing years.

"You sons of b.i.t.c.hes, let go of me!"

"Dont get near me, you hogs, or yer all gonna be a lot f.u.c.kin sorrier than me!"

"Dont you dare touch me!"

The Baj was suddenly paralyzed, her every muscle, tendon, and joint inoperative. You sons of b.i.t.c.hes, let go of me. Only one voice, only one man. Hawthorne! Instinctively, she spun her bent-over body to the right, the chaos inside commanding her attention.

Between the bodies and the outstretched arms pinning Tyrell against the wall, their eyes met, hers narrowed in shock, his wide, bewildered, disbelief joining panic.

Howard Davenport, acknowledged powerbroker and giant of industry, yet withal a frustrated, defeated head of the insatiable Department of Defense, poured himself a second Courvoisier from the bra.s.s dry bar in his study and walked slowly back to his desk. He was a relieved man, the relief having come roughly two hours before when the D.O.D. security car had radioed the night watch, confirming that Van Nostrands limousine had left the estate with a pa.s.senger or pa.s.sengers in the back seat.

If Hawthorne is driven away by my limousine, youll know my information was wrong, and you must never mention that I brought it up.

Davenport had no intention of ever doing so. There was more than enough muted hysteria over the hunt for Little Girl Blood. To burden the hunters further with blatantly false rumors would only add to the panic-some intelligence zealot would factor them into an esoteric computer, thus spreading more confusion as some other zealot picked them up. Van Nostrand understood that only too well; it was the reason he gave his final instructions should it turn out that former Lieutenant Commander Hawthorne was not a member of the infamous Alpha market.... Good G.o.d, what kind of Defense secretary was he? considered Davenport. He had never heard of the Alpha, whatever it was!

No, the time had come, he thought. He wished his wife were home rather than in Colorado, visiting their daughter, who had just delivered her third child, but there was no separating mothers and daughters and emerging grandchildren; it was a given. He really did want her with him, because he had finally typed out his resignation on the old Remington his parents had given him a lifetime ago. The newspapers frequently made a point of the old typewriter; the scion of Short Hills wealth pecking away, making notes at the antique machine when he could have the finest computerized equipment, to say nothing of an army of secretaries. But the "old Rem" was an old friend, a friend he could think with, so Davenport saw no reason to change.

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 Jerseys 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 wouldnt be more honest to add the words "should be." The pa.s.sage 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 a.n.a.lysis it was up to the man who took the job. If he was the right man, hed 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 gla.s.s 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 petc.o.c.k and extending to the base of the door, its nozzle narrow and flat. He turned the k.n.o.b 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 nights damp, warm air slowly filled the room with the scents of a garden. The man walked to the typewriter stand and read Davenports 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 Davenports 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 a.s.siduously 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 its 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 Christs 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, "Its 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 wouldnt even sign the register downstairs because-catch this-she wasnt 'properly dressed; she had them bring it up to her. I checked her credentials with Immigration. Shes 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 arent exactly a Delta Force."

"All right, all right ... Ill 'get with it. I just cant 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. "Thats one h.e.l.l of a small equation when you figure the number of people in this world. 'Dont 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 dont know how youre going to do it, but youve got to."

"Got to what?"

"First, and tell me the truth, does anybody-could anybody-know that Van Nostrands dead?"

"No, the informations capped, the house sanitized and guarded. The Fairfax dispatcher and the two patrolmen are professionals and understand. So they cant be tracked down in case of a leak; all three are out of the area."

"Okay. Then you use every b.u.t.ton youve got and get me an appointment with the secretary of state. Tonight-this morning, now. We cant waste five minutes."

"Youre a lunatic. Its 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 dont believe you!"

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

"Jesus, so do I!"

"It wont 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 arent too many people inside the Beltway whom I trust. Tell him I claim to have information about Little Girl Blood that Ill give only to him, insofar as my British recruiter was killed. He wont refuse; hes close to the U.K.... You might even exaggerate and also tell him that despite the fact that we dont get along, I was once pretty good at my job and may really have something.... Theres 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 Deuxieme and tell them to put it under surveillance-total."

"Who is it?"

"A number Bajaratt has called, thats all you have to know. Its all Ill tell you."

The taxi pulled up to the curb in Georgetown, that select acreage of Washington that houses the capitals 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 bra.s.s hardware glistening. The steep concrete steps were whitewashed, the bordering wrought-iron railings enameled white, all obviously to aid a climbers sight at night. Hawthorne paid the fare and got out of the cab.

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

"I dont know how long Ill be," replied Hawthorne, frowning, "but youve got a point. If youre 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 Im not out here, take off."

"Its a slow night, Ill 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 bra.s.s 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 ant.i.thesis of his sartorial reputation-he wore faded blue denims cut off at the knees.

"Youve got bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s, Commander, Ill say that for you," the secretary announced. "Come on in, and as we walk into the kitchen, start telling me why you didnt go to the director of Central Intelligence, or the DIA, or G-2, or your own G.o.dd.a.m.ned superior, Captain Stevens of naval intelligence?"

"Hes 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 h.e.l.l didnt you reach them?"

"I dont trust Tower Street."

"You dont trust-"

"I also dont trust N.I., or CIA, or DIA, or-h.e.l.l, you name it, Mr. Secretary, theyre penetrated."

"My G.o.d, youre serious."

"Im not here to make points, Palisser."

"Palisser now?... Well, I suppose thats refreshing. Come along, Im 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 youve got and G.o.d 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 youve said." The secretary poured; the cups filled, Palisser spoke. "Now, you tell me why youre here, young man. Ill accept the penetrations, but you could have gone back to London, to the top as I understand it. You cant 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?"

"Shes here-"

"I know that, we all know it. The President couldnt be more secure."

"But thats not why I insisted on seeing you-personally."

"Youre a presumptuous b.a.s.t.a.r.d, 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?"

"Youre 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?"

"Ive 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 b.u.t.tons on its panel. He pressed one repeatedly, angrily. "Janet!" he cried. "Did I get any calls tonight?... Why the h.e.l.l didnt you tell me? All right, all right, I didnt look.... He what? Good Christ ...!" The secretary slowly hung up the telephone, his frightened eyes locked with Hawthornes. "He never got to Charlotte," he whispered as if asking a question. "I was out ... at my club ... Pentagon security called-what happened?"

"Ill answer your question if youll answer mine."

"You have no right!"