"Im counting on it ... man." ORyan approached the st.u.r.dy, thick bridge that spanned the rushing waters below, crossed it, and entered the second path on the right. Stepping on the dirt and the rocks, he had progressed roughly thirty feet when the figure of David Ingersol suddenly emerged from behind a tree.

"Patrick, its crazy," cried the attorney.

"You heard from Bajaratt?"

"Its insane. She demanded that I be killed! That David Ingersol be killed. Me, Scorpio One!"

"She doesnt know you, boyo! Why would she make such a demand?"

"I sent the word out on the streets, the worst elements, of course, to look for them-"

"Oh, did you now, Davey? That wasnt too smart a move. You didnt clear it with me."

"For G.o.ds sake, ORyan, we both agreed this madness had to stop!"

"Yes, we did, boyo, but not that way. That was just dumb, Davey, you should have used a cover. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, they traced the word back to you? Youd last twelve minutes in the field, yninny!"

"No, youre wrong, I thought it out completely; the angles were covered. The raison dtre had all the appearance of legitimacy and thus immensely tempting-"

"The raison dtre, is it?" the CIA a.n.a.lyst interrupted. "That sounds grand, Ill give you that. And just how was all this legitimacy so tempting while it covered the angles, whatever the h.e.l.l that means?"

"The firm was looking for these people, not an individual, not me! I was merely the one who should be contacted for the reward. I even backed up the search with a notarized affidavit clearly stating that the woman and the young man were the inheritors of a great deal of money, the implication being seven figures. A finders fee of ten percent is perfectly normal."

"Oh, thats splendid, Davey, only I think you forgot that the searching parties you were appealing to wouldnt be able to spell affidavit and couldnt give a s.h.i.t about legitimacy. However, they can smell out a rogue hunt faster than a spraying skunk in a jail cell.... No, boyo, you wouldnt last five minutes in the field."

"What are we going to do-what am I going to do? She said my death had to appear in the papers tomorrow, or the Baaka Valley-oh, Christ, its all getting out of control!"

"Calm down, Scorpio One," said ORyan sardonically, looking at his watch. "I suspect that if your 'disappearance is in the papers, thatll suffice for a day or so."

"Oh?"

"Its only a diversion, Davey, I know what Im talking about. For starters, youve got to get out of Washington right away-youre kind of a minor celebrity, Counselor, and for a few days you dont want to be seen. Ill drive you to the airport; well stop and get you sungla.s.ses-"

"I have a pair in my pocket."

"Good. Then buy a ticket to wherever you like, in cash, not a credit card. Do you have enough?"

"Always."

"Good again.... Theres only one problem, and it could be a toughie, boyo. For the next day or so weve got to program your S-One number to me. If Bajaratt calls and doesnt get an answer or isnt contacted after leaving a message, the Baaka could explode, especially her hotheaded tribe of lunatics. The padrone guaranteed as much to me."

"Id have to go back to the office-"

"You shouldnt do that," the a.n.a.lyst broke in. "Take my word for it, Davey, I know how these things are done. Who did you last speak to?"

"My secretary ... no, it was the man from the rental agency who brought me a car. I drove out here alone; I didnt want to use my limousine."

"Very good. When that cars found here, theyll start looking. What did you tell your secretary?"

"That there was an emergency, a personal problem. She understood; shes been with me for years."

"Ill bet she did."

"Thats hardly called for."

"Neither was Puerto Rico.... Did you have any plans tonight?"

"Oh, my Lord," exclaimed Ingersol. "I forgot! Midgie and I are going to the Heflins place for their annual anniversary dinner."

"No, youre not." Patrick Timothy ORyan smiled benignly at the panicked attorney. "Its all falling into place, Davey. Your disappearance for a couple of days, I mean.... Lets go back to the S-One telephone in your office; where is it?"

"In the wall behind my desk. The panel opens by a switch in my lower right-hand drawer."

"Good. Ill program the phone to my number after I drop you off at the airport."

"It does it automatically if I dont respond after five hours."

"With this Bajaratt, we need it done right away, boyo."

"Jacqueline, my secretary, would never let you in. Shed call security."

"She will if you tell her to, wont she?"

"Well, of course."

"Do it now, David," said ORyan, yanking the portable telephone out of his jacket pocket. "This thing doesnt work too well in a car-all that steel and no ground-and we wont have time at the airport. Ill just drop you off and get out of there."

"You really mean it, dont you? You think I should take a plane out of Washington right away, this afternoon. What will my wife think?"

"Call her tomorrow, wherever you are. Its better she spend one miserable night worrying than the rest of her life without you. Remember the Baaka Valley."

"Give me the phone!" Ingersol called his office and spoke to his secretary. "Jackie, Im sending a Mr.... Johnson over to pick up some papers in my office for me. Its extremely confidential, and Id appreciate it if, when the reception desk announces him, youd leave our doors unlocked and go out for coffee. Would you please do that, Jackie?"

"Of course, David. I understand completely."

"All right, Patrick, lets go!"

"Just a minute, I gotta take a leak, as Ill be doin a lot of driving for the next hour or so. Keep your eyes on the bridge; we sure as h.e.l.l dont want anyone seeing us together." ORyan took several steps into the woods, glancing at the attorney as he did so. However, instead of relieving himself, he bent down and picked up a large jagged rock the size of a softball. He walked silently back on the path, approached the excited lawyer, who was staring through the foliage at the bridge, and smashed the heavy rock with all his considerable strength into David Ingersols skull.

ORyan shoved the body off the path and whistled for the drunken young man he had temporarily employed; the response was immediate.

"Im right here, man!" The hopped-up recruit came careening around the path. "I can smell the bread!"

It was the last thing he would ever smell, for he was greeted with a thick, jagged rock crashing into his face. Patrick ORyan again looked at his watch; there was plenty of time to move both corpses to the waters below. And to remove a few articles from the clothes of one body, placing them in the other. After that it was merely a question of timing the logistics. First, the visit to Ingersols office; second, an angry, humiliating apology to the director of the CIA-the Arab blind never showed up in Baltimore; third, several anonymous phone calls, perhaps one from an unidentified source who had spotted two bodies on the west bank below the Riverwalk Bridge.

It was 10:15 at night and Bajaratt paced the sitting room of the suite in the Carillon hotel while Nicolo was in the bedroom, watching television and gorging himself on room-service fare. He had accepted her explanation that they would be moving in the morning, not that night.

The Baj, too, had the television on, but it was the local ten oclock news. She kept staring at it, with every look growing angrier. Then abruptly her anger subsided, a smile creased her lips as the anchorwoman suddenly stopped in midsentence, the fortunes of some baseball team interrupted as a paper was shoved before her on the desk.

"Weve just been handed a bulletin. The prominent Washington attorney David Ingersol was found dead roughly an hour ago beneath the Riverwalk Bridge in Falls Fork, Virginia. At his side was the corpse of a man in soiled clothes, identified as Steven Cannock, a man the nearby restaurant claimed was intoxicated and ejected for drunkenness and inability to pay his bill. Both bodies were bloodied, giving rise to police speculation that Attorney Ingersol put up a violent struggle when the drunken Cannock tried to mug him.... David Ingersol, considered one of the capitals most influential lawyers, was the son of Richard Abercrombie Ingersol, who startled the nation eight years ago when he retired from the Supreme Court, claiming 'intellectual stagnation, bringing up the question of life tenure for Supreme Court justices...."

Bajaratt snapped off the television. Ashkelon had another victory. The finest was yet to come, but come it would!

It was close to two oclock in the morning when Jackson Poole burst into the bedroom he shared with Hawthorne. "Tye, wake up!" he cried.

"What ...? I just fell asleep, d.a.m.n it!" Hawthorne blinked his eyes and raised his head. "For G.o.ds sake, what is it? Theres nothing we can do until morning. Davenports dead and Stevens is on top of-is it Davenport? A breakthrough?"

"Try Ingersol, Commander."

"Ingersol ...? The lawyer, the cipher?"

"The corpse, Tye. He was killed in someplace called Falls Fork. Maybe our pilot, Alfred Simon, gave you more than a cipher."

"How do you know he was killed?"

"Frankly, I was watchin a rerun of Gone With the Wind-thats a h.e.l.l of a movie-and when it was over they put on the news."

"Wheres the telephone?"

"Right by your head."

Hawthorne whipped his legs from under the sheet and off the bed and grabbed the phone as Poole switched on the lights. He dialed naval intelligence, unnerved to find Stevens himself answering the phone. "Henry ... Ingersol!"

"Yes, I know." Stevenss voice was weary. "Ive known for d.a.m.n near four hours. Ive been expecting your call, but between an apoplectic Secretary of State Palisser, whos activated his own channels over Davenports death, and the White House, where Ingersol was on the A list for invitations, and that killing in your parking lot thats got the f.u.c.king New York Times on my a.s.s-our a.s.ses-I havent had a h.e.l.l of a lot of time to call you."

"Ingersol, G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Impound his law office."

"Done, Tye-Boy-you were called Tye-Boy in the islands, werent you?"

"You did?"

"No, I didnt. I had the FBI do it. Thats the way it works."

"Christ, what the h.e.l.l now?"

"The sun will come up and everything will be messier."

"Dont you see what shes doing, Henry? Its the bottom line. Everybodys running for and against the clock, colliding with one another. Destabilization. Whos suspect, who isnt? That b.i.t.c.h has got us racing around in circles, and the faster we run, the more collisions take place, and sh.e.l.l jump through one of the cracks!"

"Words, Tyrell. The Presidents still in isolation."

"You think. We dont know who else shes manipulated."

"Were running micros on everybody on your list."

"Suppose its someone not on the list?"

"What can I tell you? Im not psychic."

"Im beginning to think Bajaratt is-"

"That doesnt help us, it only confirms the worst weve heard about her."

"Shes got a group here, a cadre high up thats beholden to her ... or her resources."

"Thats logical. Would you do us a favor and find it?"

"Ill do my d.a.m.nedest, Captain, because now its between her and me. I want Little Girl Blood, and I want her dead." Hawthorne slammed down the phone.

But it wasnt only Bajaratt he wanted, it was a living lie named Dominique who had ripped him apart in a way no human being should ever do to another. Taking love and mocking it, trading the innermost secrets of the manipulated for lies from the manipulator. For so long, so lovingly, so deviously. How often had the killer laughed at the fool who truly believed he had found the person he loved?

The killer.

She forgot something. He was a killer too.

23.

Patrick ORyan sat in the deck chair, wishing to h.e.l.l and back that summer was over and the brats were in school-away at school, thanks to the Providers. Not that he didnt enjoy the kids, he did, especially since they kept his wife occupied and he and she had less time to fight. Not that he didnt love his wife; in a way, he guessed he did, but they had grown too far apart, basically because of him, he understood that. The average guy could go home and b.i.t.c.h about his job or his boss or the fact that he didnt make enough money, but he couldnt do any of those things. Especially not the money, once the Providers had come into his life.

Patrick Timothy ORyan was a product of a large Irish family in the borough of Queens, New York. Thanks to the nuns and a few priests in the parochial school system, he was urged to forgo the traditional police academy that three of his older brothers had entered, following in the footsteps of their father and grandfather, and his father before him. Instead, the a.s.sumption was made that Patrick Timothy had an exceptional mind, so far above the average that he was encouraged to seek a scholarship to Fordham University; it was a foregone conclusion that he would receive one. Then, having impressed the Fordham professors, he had received another to pursue his masters degree at Syracuse University, Foreign Service Department, one of the prime recruiting pools for the Central Intelligence Agency.

He had joined "the Company" three weeks after receiving his degree. Within a month he had been apprised by several superiors that there was a certain dress code he should abide by; unpressed polyester trousers and an orange tie over a blue shirt beneath an ill-fitting jacket from a Macys sale simply would not do. He had done his best to comply, aided by his bride, an Italian girl from the Bronx, who thought her husband looked fine, but nevertheless cut out newspaper ads that showed how the proper Washingtonian male should be clothed.

The years progressed and, as those early nuns and priests had perceived, the higher echelons of the Agency came to understand that they had an extraordinary brain in Patrick Timothy ORyan. He was not the sort of fellow one ever sent up to testify on the Hill; his wardrobe had marginally improved, but his speech was blunt to the point of being cra.s.s, discourteous, and peppered with vulgarities. Yet withal, his a.n.a.lyses, like the man, were curt, sharp, and went directly to the issues without indulging in self-serving reservations or obfuscation. In 1987 he had projected the collapse of the Soviet Union within three years. This outrageous judgment was not only buried, but ORyan was called into a deputy directors office and told to "shut the G.o.dd.a.m.ned h.e.l.l up." The next day he was upgraded with an increase in pay, as if to emphasize the axiom that good boys got rewarded.

In the early days the ORyans had five children in eight years, a stressful economic situation for a low-ranking employee of the CIA. But Patrick Timothy could tolerate those circ.u.mstances because his working at the Agency made bank loans both available and relatively cheap. What ORyan could not tolerate was the fact that the results of his labors frequently were in the spotlight but no glare ever fell upon him. His words were repeated in congressional hearings by hotshot b.u.t.ton-downs who spoke as though they should have been born in England, as well as by selected senators, representatives, and Cabinet personnel on the most-watched television shows. He had busted his a.s.s over those a.n.a.lyses, but everyone except him was being given the credit for them. He was totally p.i.s.sed off, and to further infuriate him, when he complained directly to the DCI after two weeks of waiting for an appointment, he was succinctly dismissed with the following words.

"You do your work, well do ours. We know whats best for the Agency, you dont."

Bulls.h.i.t!

Then one Sunday morning, fifteen years ago, a dan-fancy who called himself Mr. Neptune came to his house in Vienna, Virginia, and brought with him an attache case filled with many of ORyans ultracla.s.sified a.n.a.lytical reports.

"Where the h.e.l.l did you get this s.h.i.t?" ORyan had demanded, alone with the man in his kitchen.

"Thats our business. Your business, as well as your concern, is fairly obvious. How far do you really think you can go at Langley? Oh, you might rise to a G-12, but thats just money and not actually a great deal. Others, however, using what you provided, could well write books making hundreds of thousands, claiming to be experts when in reality theyve relied on your expertise...."

"What are you drivin at?"

"To begin with, you owe an aggregate of thirty-three thousand dollars to one bank in Washington and two in Virginia, Arlington and McLean-"