The Scorpio Illusion by Robert Ludlum Read Free Book Online Page A

doing, or whom I was goingto meet, not even Hectra. You have the radios, the satellites—you showed me them yourself!”
    “You say no one knows what you’re doing, or, more precisely, what you intend to do? Do you think this decrepit figure before you has lost his mind before his body?… I assure you, I have not. Any more than I have lost my familiars from the Baaka to the French Deuxième to the brilliant MI-6 and their less than admirable American colleagues. I know exactly what your intentions are.… ‘Muerte a toda autoridad,’ is it not true?”
    “It is my life—the end of my life, no doubt, but I shall do it,
padrone
.”
    “Yes, I understand. No matter how much we inflict, each of us can take only so much pain. I’m sorry for your loss, Annie, your newest loss, the death in Ashkelon, of course. I’m told he was an outstanding man, truly a leader, decisive and fearless.”
    “I saw in him a great deal of you,
padrone
, of what you were at his age.”
    “He was somewhat more idealistic, I imagine.”
    “He could have been so many things, anything he wanted to be, but the world would not let him. Any more than it would me. The things we can’t control control us.”
    “Quite true, my daughter. I wanted to be a movie star, did I ever tell you that?”
    “You would have been brilliant, my only real father,” said Bajaratt. “But will you let me fulfill my final mission in life?”
    “Only with my help, my only real daughter. I, too, want all the controllers dead—for they have made both of us what we are.… Come and embrace me, as you used to do. You are home.”
    As Bajaratt knelt and extended her arms to the old invalid, he gestured toward the young man, who still crouched on the marble floor, taking in the scene with fascinated, frightened eyes.
    “Who the hell is he?” he asked.
    “His name is Nicolo Montavi, and he’s the essential core of my plan,” whispered the Baj. “He knows me as Signora Cabrini and he calls me Cabi.”
    “Cabrini? As in the beloved American saint?”
    “
Naturalmente
. For through my actions I will become the second American saint, won’t I?”
    “Delusions call for a great deal of rum and a very large meal. I’ll see to it.”
    “You’ll let me go on, won’t you,
padrone
?”
    “Of course I will, my daughter, but only with my help. The killing of such men—the world will be gripped by fear and panic. It will be our ultimate statement before we die!”

3
    T he Caribbean sun burned the earth and the rocks and the sand on the island of Virgin Gorda. It was eleven o’clock in the morning, prelude to the scorching hour of noon, and Tyrell Hawthorne’s “charters” protected themselves under the thatched roof of the outdoor beach bar, doing whatever they could possibly do to alleviate their nausea. When told by their captain that due to a mechanical emergency they could not sail until midafternoon at the earliest, four sighs of relief accompanied three one-hundred-dollar bills pressed into his hand by a banker from Greenwich, Connecticut, who pleaded, “For Christ’s sake, make it tomorrow.”
    Tyrell returned to the villa, where Mickey stood guard over Cooke and Ardisonne while his colleague, Marty, attended to the docks. By now the two intruders had been stripped to their shorts, their clothes deposited at the hotel laundry. Hawthorne slammed the door and turned to the mechanic. “Mick, do me a favor. Go to the chickee and bring me two bottles of Montrachet Grand Cru—forget it, two bottles of white wine and I don’t care if it’s Thunderbird.”
    “What year?” asked Ardisonne.
    “Last week,” replied Tyrell. Mickey left quickly and Hawthorne continued. “All right, you secret agents you, let’s ‘carry on,’ as the English say.”
    “You’re not funny,” said Cooke.
    “Oh, it’s great when you Euros come up with your fog-bound narrow streets and your trench coats lurkingaround waterfronts, but why don’t you face it? High tech has