Robin Cook - Seizure

“I have a feeling this is going to be one of those things that looks better from a distance than close-up,” Stephanie said.

“That’s part of the reason ruins are better viewed at night.”

They reached the structure and carefully made their way into the aisle that ran between the two rows of columns. Their eyes, adapted to the dark, had to squint against the glare of the outside illumination.

“This portion was roofed in its former life,” Stephanie said.

Daniel looked up and nodded.

Avoiding the debris underfoot, they stepped over to the inner balustrade. Both leaned on the ancient limestone handrail and peered into the central courtyard. It was about fifty feet square and filled with flat mounds of stone and shell fragments, plus a complicated interplay of shadows from the display lights and the intervening arches.

“It’s sad,” Stephanie commented. She shook her head. “Back when this was the center of a functioning cloister, this courtyard would have had a well and maybe even a fountain, plus a garden.”

Daniel’s eyes roamed around the enclosure. “What I find sad is that after lasting almost a thousand years in France, it’s not going to last very long here, exposed to the tropical sun and sea air.”

They straightened up and looked at each other. “This is a bit anticlimactic,” Daniel said. “Let’s go take that stroll you suggested on the beach!”

“Good idea,” Stephanie said. “But first, let’s give this structure the benefit of the doubt and a bit of respect. Let’s at least take one walk around the ambulatory.”

Hand in hand, they helped each other avoid the obstacles on the ground. With the glare of the outside lights, it was hard to see details. On the side opposite their hotel, they paused briefly to admire the view out over Nassau’s harbor. The illuminating lights made that difficult as well, and soon they were back on their way.

Gaetano was ecstatic. There was no way he could have planned things any better. The professor and Tony’s sister were now standing in a square of light that kept Gaetano all but invisible as he approached within striking distance. He could have approached back in the darkness of the garden, but he’d correctly guessed their destination, and he knew it would be perfect.

Gaetano had decided it was best for Tony’s sister to know without an ounce of doubt where the hit was coming from, so as not to think the professor was a victim of a random act of violence. Gaetano considered this significant, since she was going to be taking over the company. He thought it was important that she knew exactly how the Castigliano brothers felt about their loan and about how the company was being managed.

At that moment, the couple was on the far side of the ruins, making a slow circuit of the edifice. Gaetano had positioned himself just outside the pool of light along the western side. His intention was to wait until they were no more than twenty feet away before vaulting into the aisle to confront them.

Gaetano’s pulse began to race as he watched Daniel and Stephanie round the final corner and start toward him. With growing excitement, he extracted the gun from its makeshift holster and made sure a bullet was in the chamber. Holding it up alongside his head, he prepared himself for what he loved best: action!

“I don’t think we should be reopening this subject,” Stephanie said. “Not now, and maybe not ever.”

“I apologized for what I said back at the restaurant. All I’m saying now is that I would rather be groped than beaten up. I’m not saying that being groped isn’t unpleasant; it’s just easier to take than being beaten and physically injured.”

“What is this, a contest?” Stephanie questioned derisively. “Don’t answer that! I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Daniel was about to respond when he gasped, stopped in his tracks, and tightened his grip on Stephanie’s hand. Stephanie had been looking down at the ground so she could navigate over a large hunk of stone when Daniel’s response shocked her into raising her eyes. When she did, she gasped as well.

A hulking figure had leaped into their path, holding a huge handgun and pointing it at them with an outstretched arm. Daniel, more than Stephanie, was aware of a red dot just beneath the gun’s barrel.

Neither Daniel nor Stephanie could move, as the man slowly approached. He had a sneering expression on his broad, flat-featured face, which Daniel recognized with a shudder. Gaetano came within six feet of the stunned and immobile couple. At that point, it was abundantly clear that the gun was aimed directly at Daniel’s forehead.

“You made me come back, asshole,” Gaetano growled. “A bad decision! The Castigliano brothers are very disappointed you did not return to Boston to safeguard their loan. I thought you had gotten my message, but apparently not, and you made me look bad. So goodbye.”

The sound of the shot was loud in the humid stillness of the night. Gaetano’s arm holding the gun fell to his side while Daniel staggered backward, dragging Stephanie with him. Stephanie screamed as the body fell heavily, facedown, arms out to the sides. There were a few muscular twitches, but then all was still. A large exit wound on the back of his head oozed blood and gray matter.

9:48 P.M., Monday, March 11, 2002

For the duration of several heartbeats, Daniel and Stephanie did not budge. When they did move, it was only to allow their eyes to engage each other after having been transfixed on the prone body sprawled at their feet. In their befuddlement, they did not even breathe, each vainly hoping the other would explain what they had just witnessed. With their mouths agape, their faces reflected a mixture of fear, horror, and confusion, but fear quickly won out. Without saying a word and unsure of who was leading whom, they fled by scrambling over the low wall to their left and ran headlong back the way they had come in the direction of the hotel.

At first, their flight was relatively controlled, thanks to the illumination provided by the ground-level display lights directed at the cloister. But as soon as they passed into the darkness, they encountered trouble. With their eyes now accustomed to the cloister’s lights, they were like blind people rushing across an uneven, obstacle-filled landscape. Daniel was the first to trip over a low bush and fall. Stephanie helped him up but then fell herself. Both suffered minor abrasions, which they didn’t even feel.

Marshaling their willpower, they forced themselves in their blindness to walk to avoid further falls, even though their terrified brains were screaming at them to run. Within minutes, they reached steps leading down to the road. By then, their eyes were beginning to discern details in the moonlight, and by seeing the terrain, they could up their pace.

“Which way?” Stephanie demanded in a breathless whisper when they gained the pavement of the road.

“Let’s stick to the route we know,” Daniel hurriedly whispered back.

Hand in hand, they fled across the road and descended the first of the garden’s many flights of hand-laid stone steps as rapidly as their slip-on dress shoes would allow. The steps’ unevenness contributed to their difficulties, although on the intervening patches of grass, they sprinted full-tilt. The farther away from the cloister they got, the darker it became, but their eyes progressively adapted, and the moonlight was more than enough to help them avoid careening into any of the statuary.

After the third flight of stairs, their exhaustion slowed them to a jog. Daniel was more out of breath than Stephanie, and when they finally entered the sphere of illumination coming from the pool and what they felt was relative safety, he had to stop. Stooped over, he put his hands on his knees and panted. For a moment, he couldn’t even talk.