Robin Cook - Seizure

Both Spencer and Paul’s mouths slowly dropped open. They stared in consternation at their security supervisor, who calmly stared back at them. For a beat, no one moved and no one spoke. It was Paul who first found his voice. He spoke hesitantly, as if afraid to hear the answer: “Could you tell us who it was you killed?”

Kurt used one hand to open the buckle on his rucksack and the other to pull out a billfold. He pushed it across the desk at his bosses and then sat back. “His name is Gaetano Baresse.”

Paul reached out and picked up the wallet. Before he could open it, Spencer slammed his palm down on the surface of the metal desk hard enough to make it sound like a kettledrum. Paul jumped and dropped the wallet. Kurt didn’t visibly flinch, although all his honed muscles tensed.

After pounding the desk, Spencer leaped to his feet and began to pace with both hands clasped on top of his head. “I don’t believe this,” he wailed. “Before we know it, it will be Massachusetts all over again, with the Bahamian authorities instead of U.S. marshals knocking at our gate!”

“I don’t think so,” Kurt said simply.

“Oh, yeah?” Spencer questioned sarcastically. He stopped pacing. “How can you be so sure?”

“There’s no body,” Kurt said.

“How can that be?” Paul asked, as he bent over to retrieve the wallet.

“As we speak, Bruno is dumping the body and its effects into the deep. I returned the man’s rent-a-car to the airport as if he left the island. The man is just going to disappear. Period! End of story.”

“That sounds encouraging,” Paul commented, as he opened the wallet and pulled out Gaetano’s driver’s license, which he examined.

“Encouraging, my ass!” Spencer shouted. “You promised me this…” Spencer pointed at Kurt while searching for the right descriptive word, “… this half-assed Green Beret wouldn’t kill anybody, and here we are, barely with our doors open, and he’s already iced somebody. This is a disaster in the making. We can’t afford to move the clinic again.”

“Spencer!” Paul said sharply. “Sit down!”

“I’ll sit down when I feel like sitting down! I’m the head of this freaking clinic.”

“Suit yourself,” Paul said, gazing up at Spencer, “but let’s hear the details before we fly off the handle and conjure up doomsday scenarios.” Paul looked at Kurt. “You do owe us an explanation. Why was killing this Gaetano Baresse from Somerville, Massachusetts, in the line of duty?” Paul put both the wallet and the driver’s license on the desk.

“I told you I got the bug in Dr. D’Agostino’s phone. To monitor it, I had to stay close. After dinner, they took a walk in the Ocean Club’s garden. As I followed at a distance, I realized this Gaetano Baresse was also following them, but much closer. So I closed in on them. It soon became apparent that Gaetano Baresse was a professional hit man, and he was about to do in the doctors. I had to make an instantaneous decision. I thought you would want the doctors alive.”

Paul glanced back up at Spencer with arched eyebrows to question Spencer’s reaction to what he had just heard. Spencer leaned over and picked up the driver’s license. He stared at the photo for a second before flipping it back onto the desk. He yanked his chair back to where he was standing and sat down, slightly apart from the others.

“How are you so sure this Baresse guy was a professional hit man?” Spencer asked. His voice had lost most of its bluster.

Using his left hand, Kurt again opened his rucksack. Reaching in with his right, he pulled out Gaetano’s gun. He pushed it across the desk as he had done with the wallet. “This is no Saturday night special, particularly not with a built-in laser and a suppressor.”

Paul picked up the weapon gingerly, glanced at it, and extended it back toward Spencer. Spencer motioned that he didn’t care to touch it. Paul put it back on Kurt’s desk.

“With my mainland contacts, I may be able to learn more about this man,” Kurt said. “But until then, there is no doubt in my mind he is a professional, and with a weapon like this, which he had to have gotten since his eight o’clock arrival, he’s connected.”

“Talk in English!” Spencer commanded.

“I’m talking about organized crime,” Kurt said. “He was undoubtedly connected to organized crime, probably drug-related.”

“Are you suggesting our doctor guests are into drugs?” Spencer asked with disbelief.

“No,” Kurt said simply. He stared back at his bosses, challenging them to put it all together as he had while waiting for Bruno to show up at the cloister.

“Wait a minute!” Spencer said. “Why would a drug kingpin send a professional killer over here to the Bahamas to do away with a couple of researchers if the researchers weren’t into drugs?”

Kurt stayed silent. He stared back at Paul.

Suddenly, Paul nodded a few times. “I think I’m getting Kurt’s drift. Are you suggesting the mystery patient might not be connected with the Catholic Church?”

“I’m thinking he might be a rival drug lord,” Kurt said. “Or at least some sort of Mob boss. Either way, his rivals do not want him to get better.”

“Goddamn!” Paul remarked. “You know, it makes sense. It would certainly explain all the secrecy.”

“It seems far-fetched to me,” Spencer said skeptically. “Why would a couple of world-class researchers be willing to treat a drug lord?”

“Organized crime has many ways to put pressure on people,” Paul said. “Who knows? Maybe some drug cartel laundered money by investing in Lowell’s company. I think Kurt has something here. I mean, a sick drug lord from South America or a sick Mob boss from the Northeast would probably be Catholic, which could explain the Shroud of Turin part.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing,” Spencer said. “All this is souring me about finding out the patient’s identity, and it’s not just because of this killing. There’s no way we would try to lean on some organized-crime figure. We’d be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

“What about our involvement in general?” Paul asked. “Do we want to reconsider allowing the treatment to go forward?”

“I want that second payment,” Spencer said. “We need it. We should just remain passive, so as not to anger anyone.”

Paul turned to Kurt. “Was Dr. Lowell aware he was in danger?”

“Most definitely,” Kurt said. “Gaetano had confronted him and had his gun aimed at Lowell’s forehead. I took him out at the last second.”

“Why do you ask that?” Spencer questioned.

“I’m hoping Lowell will look to his security,” Paul responded. “Whoever sent Gaetano might send someone else when they learn Gaetano failed and is not coming back.”

“That’s not going to be for some time,” Kurt said. “I went to great lengths to make the guy disappear for that very reason. And as far as Dr. Lowell is concerned, I can assure you he was scared shitless. Both of them were.”

2:50 P.M., Saturday March 23, 2002

The clutch of people exited the Atlantis resort’s Imperial Club elevator on the thirty-second floor of the Royal Towers west wing and started down the carpeted hallway. In the lead was Mr. Grant Halpern, the hotel manager on duty, followed by Ms. Connie Corey, the day-shift reception supervisor, and Harold Beardslee, Imperial Club director. Ashley Butler and Carol Manning were a few steps behind, slowed by Ashley’s shuffling gait, which was more pronounced now than it had been a month earlier. Bringing up the rear were two bellmen; one pushed a hotel cart stacked with Ashley and Carol’s checked suitcases, and the other carried their hand luggage and garment bags. It was like a miniature safari.