"Oh, I shouldnt care to do anything illegal-"

"Its not illegal, Countess, its your right. Our hotels are interested only in payment; theyre not concerned with why you choose anonymity. My office will guarantee your reliability; what name would you like to use?"

"I feel so-how do you say it?-unclean doing such a thing."

"Dont, youre not. What name?"

"I suppose it should be Italian ... I shall use my sisters. Balzini, Senator. Madame Balzini and her nephew."

"Its done. Where can I call you back?"

"Its ... its better if I call you."

"Give me fifteen minutes."

"Oh, you are wonderful!"

"I wont press the point, but Id be grateful if youd tell the baron that."

"Certo, signore!"

The new, elegant hotel was perfect, confirmed by the Bajs recognizing four minor members of the Saudi royal family in Savile Row clothes. In the early days she would have shot them on sight and raced away, but now the stakes were so high, the rewards so magnificent, she nodded politely as the quartet of the blood-stained Saudi inheritors pa.s.sed her in the lobby.

"Nicolo!" she called, getting up from the desk in the suites sitting room, suddenly noticing the lighted b.u.t.ton on the telephone. "What are you doing?"

"Im calling Angel, Cabi!" replied the voice from the bedroom. "She gave me her number at the studio."

"Please hang up, my darling." Bajaratt rushed to the bedroom door and opened it. "Im afraid you must do as I say."

The young man did so angrily, his bewilderment obvious. "She did not answer. She told me to let the telephone ring five times and then to leave a message."

"You left a message?"

"No, there were only three rings when you shouted at me."

"Bene. Im sorry I spoke so harshly, but you must never use the telephone unless you tell me first and I say its all right."

"Use the telephone ...? Who else would I call? Are you so jealous-"

"Really, Nico, you can sleep with a princess or a wh.o.r.e or a donkey and it makes no difference to me, but you may not place calls that can lead back to us."

"You told me to call her when we were at the other hotel-"

"There we were registered under the names we are using, here we are not."

"I dont understand-"

"You dont have to; its not part of our contract."

"But I promised to call her!"

"You promised ...?" The Baj reflected while glaring at the dock boy from Portici. Nicolo had been acting strangely contrary, given to brief outbursts of temper like a young caged animal increasingly annoyed by his confinement. That was it; the restrictions had to be loosened. At this point, so near to her magnificent kill, it would be foolish to have an even more resentful dock boy on her hands. Besides, there was a call she had to make, and, as others might follow, forming a "pattern," as Van Nostrand had warned, it should not be made from the hotel phone. "Youre right, Nico, Im being far too strict. Ill tell you what well do. I need a few things from the farmacia across the street, so Ill go downstairs and youll have privacy. Call your bella ragazza, but do not give her the number here or the name of the hotel. Tell her the truth, Nico, for you should not lie to your lovely friend. If you have to leave a message, say were moving within the hour and youll reach her later."

"We just got here."

"Something happened; our plans have changed."

"Madre di Dio, what now?... I know, I know, it is not part of our contract. If we ever get back to Portici, I should bring you to Ennio Il Coltello. He frightens everyone, for they say he kills; he shaves men below the beard with his knife when he is displeased, and one never knows where h.e.l.l be next or what he will do. I think, Cabi, that you would frighten him."

"I did, Nico," Bajaratt said simply, a slow smile on her face. "He helped me find you, but no one on the docks should fear him any longer."

"Che?"

"Hes dead.... Make your call to your beautiful actress, Nicolo. Ill return in fifteen minutes." The Baj picked up her purse from a chair, walked to the door adjusting her veil, and let herself out.

Alone in the elevator, she silently repeated the telephone number Van Nostrand had given her, the number now programmed to reach the new Scorpio One. The order she was about to issue had to be obeyed without question and within twenty-four hours, preferably far sooner. If there was the slightest hesitation, the wrath of the Baaka Valley, especially the Ashkelon Brigade, would descend on all the Scorpio leadership. Death to those who would interfere with Ashkelon!

The doors opened and Bajaratt stepped out into the small, tasteful lobby, crossing directly to the gold-filigreed entrance. On the pavement outside she nodded to the uniformed doorman.

"May I get you a cab, Madame Balzini?"

"No, grazie, but how gracious of you to know my name." The Baj studied the man from beneath her veil.

"Its the Carillons policy to know our guests, madame."

"Very impressive.... Its such a lovely afternoon, I thought Id get a bit of air."

"A fine day for a walk, madame."

Bajaratt nodded again and strolled down the sidewalk, stopping at several storefronts, ostensibly to admire the expensive merchandise but in reality to further appraise the courteous doorman with casual glances as she touched her hair or her veil. She did not trust such polite employees who could relay the comings and goings of hotel guests; she had bribed too many in the past. Her concerns vanished rapidly, however, as the doorman aimlessly glanced at pedestrians but never once in her direction. That would not be the case, she considered, had she dressed normally, without the matronly padding Nicolo so detested. She continued down the pavement, seeing what she hoped to find: a public telephone near the corner across the street. She hurried to it, once more repeating the number that was now so vital to Ashkelon. So vital!

"Scorpione Uno?" said the Baj softly but sharply enough to be heard over the occasional automobile horn on the quiet street.

"I a.s.sume youre speaking Italian," replied the flat, hesitant voice on the line.

"And I a.s.sume that the numerous odd sounds that followed my dialing this number have led me to the man I must speak with-in total confidentiality, without fear of being overheard."

"You may be a.s.sured of that. Who is this?"

"I am Bajaratt-"

"Ive been waiting for your call! Where are you? We must meet as quickly as possible."

"Why is that?"

"Our mutual friend, who is now somewhere in Europe, left you a package he said was crucial to your ... enterprise."

"What is it?"

"I gave my word I would not open it. He told me it was for my own benefit not to know the contents. He said youd understand."

"Of course. You could be interrogated with chemicals, with drugs.... So Van Nostrand survived, then?"

"Survived ...?"

"There were gunshots-"

"Gunshots? I dont-"

"Never mind," Bajaratt instantly interrupted herself. Van Nostrands security had saved him from his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, Hawthorne. At the last, the retired intelligence agent was no match for the serpentine Neptune. Van Nostrand had Hawthorne followed, then arrested at the Shenandoah Lodge, no doubt leaving a corpse or two at the estate directly implicating the troublemaker from naval intelligence. Arrested! She had seen it for herself! How delicious, how exquisitely devious. "Then our previous Scorpion is safely in another country, no longer to be heard from?" she added.

"Oh, yes, thats been confirmed," said the new Scorpio One. "Where are you now? Ill send a car for you-and the boy too, of course."

"As eager as I am to have the package," the Baj broke in, "theres another matter that must be attended to immediately, immediately. I met with a young man, a red-haired political consultant youll read about in the papers. His name was Reilly and hes dead, but the information he thought he was selling is devastating to our mission and must be cut off at the source."

"My G.o.d, what is it?"

"An attorney named Ingersol, David Ingersol, has put out an alarm among the lower elements in your ghettos to look for a woman and a young man, foreigners probably traveling together, and whoever finds them will receive a hundred thousand dollars. The sc.u.m of the world will murder their mothers and brothers for such an amount! The search must be stopped, aborted, this lawyer killed!... I dont care how its done, but it must be done in time to appear in the morning papers. It must be!"

"Jesus Christ!" whispered the voice on the phone.

"Its two-thirty in the afternoon," continued Bajaratt. "This Ingersol must be dead by nine oclock tonight, or all the blades of the Baaka Valley will cut the throats of the Scorpions.... Ill call you for my package when I hear the news on the radio or the television. Ciao, Scorpione Uno."

David Ingersol, attorney-at-law, and newly elevated Scorpio One, if in name only, hung up the black secure phone that resided in a steel cabinet hidden in the paneled wall behind his office desk. He stared out the window at the clear blue Washington sky. It was incredible. He had just received the order for his own death! It wasnt happening to him, it couldnt be happening to him! He had always been above the violence, above the filth; he was the catalyst, a coordinator, a general orchestrating events through influence and position, not in the trenches with the "sc.u.m of the world," as this Bajaratt so accurately described the lower Scorpios.

The Scorpios. Oh, G.o.d, why? Why had he done it, why had he been so easily recruited?... The answer was all too simple, all too pathetic. His father, Richard Ingersol, prominent attorney, celebrated judge, a giant a.s.sociate justice of the Supreme Court-and a man on the take.

"d.i.c.kie" Ingersol had been born into riches that were diminishing at an alarming rate. The thirties were not kind to the warlords of Wall Street, by and large the products of inherited wealth who were unable to discard the memories of their great estates of the twenties, with platoons of servants they gradually realized they could no longer afford any more than they could their limousines or their cotillions or their summer tours of Europe. It was an unfair world they were entering, unfair and untenable, and then the war came at the end of the decade, and for many it was a proper Armageddon for an era, for a way of life few could abandon. They would lead charges or go down in flames or fill the battleships with an aristocracy of an officer corps. Many did not wait for the draft, much less Pearl Harbor; more than a few of "their crowd" joined the ranks of Britains services, romantics all, above the hoi polloi in tailored uniforms and with clean-cut features. As one of the Roosevelts phrased it-the Roosevelts of San Juan Hill and Oyster Bay, not that traitor to his cla.s.s from Hyde Park-"My G.o.d, its better than driving a Ford!"

Richard "d.i.c.kie" Ingersol was among the first to enlist in the United States Army, the Air Corps his promised objective, the wings on his tunic guaranteed. However, the army learned that Richard Abercrombie Ingersol had recently pa.s.sed the New York State bar exam. So much for the wild blue yonder; he was a.s.signed to the armys legal division, for there was a lack of bona fide attorneys, certainly few who had pa.s.sed bar exams above the "barely qualified" cla.s.sification, and none who had weathered the stiff New York bar.

d.i.c.kie Ingersol spent the war prosecuting and defending courts-martial from North Africa to the South Pacific, loathing every minute of his toils. Finally, America won the war on both sides of the globe, and d.i.c.kie found himself in the Far East; it was the occupation of j.a.pan, and war crimes trials were under way in abundance. Many of the enemy were tried and hanged under Ingersols aggressive prosecutions. Then, on a Sat.u.r.day morning he received a telephone call from New York at his B.O.Q. in Tokyo. His family fortunes had collapsed; there was nothing left but bankruptcy, ignominy; a way of life had disappeared.

But the army owed him, d.i.c.kie believed, the nation itself owed him, owed his entire cla.s.s which had led the country since its inception. So deals were made, dozens of "war criminals" were exonerated or their sentences reduced in exchange for j.a.panese money funneled to secret accounts in Switzerland from the great industrial families in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. Along with these payments were doc.u.ments of "partic.i.p.ation" in the projected corporations that would rise like phoenixes out of the rubble that was the defeated j.a.pan.

Back in the United States, and once more secure in his wealth, Ingersol jettisoned the "d.i.c.kie," became Richard, and started his own firm with more capital than any other lawyer his age in the city of New York. He rose rapidly, the upper firmaments welcoming back one of their own, applauding when the Second Court of Appeals named him a judge, exulting when the Senate confirmed him to the Supreme Court. One of "their crowd" had made it, reaffirming their rightful place in the celestial legal heavens.

And then one day years later, now years ago, on another Sat.u.r.day morning a man who called himself only "Mr. Neptune" arrived at the home of a.s.sociate Justice Ingersols son, David, in McLean, Virginia. By now Ingersol fils, his background impressive and the legal furrows plowed for him, was the sought-after partner of Ingersol and White, a highly respected firm in Washington, although it was a given that the son would never argue a case before the highest court in the land. (The majority of clients did not really think it was necessary; their pet.i.tions would reach the proper ears.) The unexpected visitor to the house in McLean had been admitted pleasantly by Davids wife, his elegance overriding his unannounced appearance.

Mr. Neptune courteously asked the brilliant young attorney to grant him a few minutes of his time for an urgent matter; there had been no minutes to waste seeking out Ingersols unpublished telephone number. It was an emergency that concerned his father.

Alone in Davids study, the stranger produced a sheaf of financial statements that had evaded the sanct.i.ty of one of the oldest banks in Bern, Switzerland. The portfolio contained not only the history of original j.a.panese deposits dating back to 1946, but also current and ongoing payments to the account of "Zero, zero, five, seven, two thousand," revealed and doc.u.mented to be that of a.s.sociate Justice Richard A. Ingersol of the United States Supreme Court. These payments were from many of j.a.pans highly successful companies as well as several worldwide conglomerates controlled by j.a.panese interests. Finally, attached to the portfolio was a record of the decisions rendered by Justice Ingersol that favored those companies and conglomerates with respect to their operations in the United States.

Neptunes "solution" was as clear as it was concise. Either David joined their highly selective and restricted organization, or "those above" would be forced to make public the entire story of Richard Ingersols postwar wealth as well as his actions on the Supreme Court, thus destroying both father and son. There had been no alternative; the son had confronted the father, who resigned from the Court, claiming weariness and intellectual stagnation, a burnout that required a more active life after a period of rest. So universal did his explanation appear that Justice Ingersol was hailed for his courage and forthrightness, raising similar questions about several other members of the aging contentious Court. In reality, Ingersol pere moved to the Costa del Sol, in southern Spain, his "active life" centering around golf, horse racing, croquet, and deep-sea fishing, along with formal dinner parties and colony dances. Behaviorally, if not geographically, d.i.c.kie had come home. And David Ingersol, the son, became Scorpio Three.

Now, as Scorpio One, he had been given his own death sentence. Insanity! David reached for the intercom on his desk. "Jacqueline, hold all calls and cancel whatever appointments I have for the rest of the day. Phone the clients and say theres been an emergency that I must attend to."

"Certainly, Mr. I.... Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Im afraid not-yes, there is. Call the rental agency and have them bring a car around right away. Ill meet them downstairs at the side entrance in fifteen minutes."

"Your limousines in the garage, sir, and your drivers in the mailroom-"

"This is personal, Jackie. Ill be using the freight elevator."

"I understand, David."

The lawyer swung around to the hidden telephone in the open wood-paneled wall. He picked it up and dialed; following a series of signals, Ingersol pressed five additional digits and spoke clearly. "I a.s.sume youll get this within the next few minutes. To use your language, this is a four-zero problem. Meet me along the river, as we discussed. Hurry!"

Across the Potomac, at his office in the Central Intelligence Agency, Patrick ORyan-Scorpio Two ... in name only-felt the slight vibration from the electronic device beneath his jacket in his shirt pocket. He counted the tiny jolts and understood: There was an emergency that concerned the Providers. It was also awkward, as there was an L.B.G. conference with the director in forty-five minutes, and Little Girl Blood was the Agencys very top priority. G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Yet there was nothing else to do; the Providers came first, always first. He picked up his phone and dialed the DCIs office.

"Yes, Pat, what is it?"

"Its about the conference, sir-"

"Oh, yes," the director interrupted. "I understand youve got a new slant you want to present. I cant wait to hear it; in my opinion, youre the best a.n.a.lyst weve got."

"Thank you, sir, but its not quite complete. I need an extra couple of hours to pull it together."

"Thats disappointing, Patrick."

"More to me than anyone else. Theres an Arab, a blind I think, who could fill in a couple of gaps that need filling. I just got word from him; hes agreed to meet me, but its got to be in an hour-in Baltimore."

"h.e.l.l, go to it! Ill postpone the conference, give you as long as you like. Call me from Baltimore."

"Thank you, sir, I will."

The Riverwalk Bridge did not span the river at all, but a minor offshoot of the Potomac, deep in the Virginia countryside. On the east bank was a rustic restaurant of limited quality that catered to the young in search of hoagies, hot dogs, burgers, and beer, and on the west side various paths into the woods, where it was said more boys and girls became men and women than in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was a public relations exaggeration; the paths were too narrow and the ground was filled with rocks.

Patrick ORyan swung into the parking lot, relieved to see that only three other cars were there; the restaurant saw little action until dark. Scorpio Two got out, checked his pocket for his portable telephone, and started toward the bridge while lighting a cigar. David Ingersol had sounded panicked on Patricks untraceable answering machine and that was not a good sign. The WASP quasi-f.a.g was a bright legal, but he had never been tested when the mud was slinging and a little blood was in the offing. Davey-boyo was a weak son of a b.i.t.c.h despite his lawyer smarts; the Providers would learn that sooner or later. Maybe sooner than later.

"Hey, mister!" A drunken young man came reeling out of the restaurants door. "Those p.r.i.c.ks cut me off, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Lend me five and Im yours for life, man! I mean Im coming down off a high, man!"

An a.n.a.lysts instincts, which were always projections of the possible and the impossible, came into play. "Suppose I gave you ten, say maybe twenty, will you do what I tell you to do?"

"Hey, man, Ill climb all over you naked if thats what you want. I need bread, man!"

"Thats not what I want. And you may not have to do anything."

"Im on your side, man!"

"Follow me after I cross over the bridge, but keep out of sight when I go into the woods. If I whistle for you, you run like h.e.l.l and reach me. Got it?"

"h.e.l.l, yes, man!"

"Maybe Ill even give you fifty."

"Heaven, man, pure heaven! Fifty would set me free, yknow what I mean?"