Seizure

twenty-two

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.

With her own chest heaving, Stephanie reluctantly glanced back the way they had come. After the shock of what had happened, her imagination had them pursued by all manner of demons, but the moonlit view of the garden was as idyllic and peaceful as it had been earlier. Somewhat relieved, she turned her attention back to Daniel. “Are you okay?” she managed between breaths.

Daniel nodded. He still couldn’t speak.

“Let’s get into the hotel,” she added.

Daniel nodded again. He straightened up, and after a brief glance of his own back the way they had come, he took Stephanie’s outstretched hand.

Permitting themselves to walk, albeit quickly, they skirted the pool and started up the flight of limestone stairs that led up to the Baroque balustrade.

“Was that the same man who assaulted you in the clothing store?” Stephanie asked. She was still breathing heavily.

“Yes!” Daniel was able to answer.

They passed the villas and entered the candlelit, deserted reception area of the spa, which also functioned as a pass-through into the hotel from the pool complex. After the shocking carnage they’d witnessed up in the ruined cloister, and the subsequent terror it had engendered, the spa’s simple Asian aura, cleanliness, and utter serenity seemed otherworldly to the point of being schizophrenic. By the time they entered the Courtyard Terrace restaurant filled with smartly dressed diners, live music, and tuxedo-clad waiters, they felt even more discombobulated. Without speaking to anyone or each other, they passed into the hotel proper.

In the high-arched reception area, Stephanie pulled Daniel to a stop. To their right was the living room, with guests carrying on quiet conversations punctuated with muted laughter. To their left was the open entrance of the hotel, leading out to the porte cochere. Liveried doormen stood at the ready. Ahead were the individual reception desks, only one of which was occupied. Above, tropical fans turned lazily.

“Whom should we talk to?” Stephanie questioned.

“I don’t know. Let me think!”

“What about the night manager?”

Before Daniel could respond, one of the doormen approached. “Excuse me,” he said to Stephanie. “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” Stephanie responded.

The doorman pointed. “Do you know your left leg is bleeding?”

Stephanie glanced down and for the first time realized how bedraggled she looked. The fall she had taken in the darkness had soiled her dress and torn its hem. Her thigh-high hose were in worse shape, particularly below her left knee, where they were shredded. Runs extended all the way down to her ankle, along with a rivulet of blood descending from her knee. She then noticed that her right palm was also abraded, with tiny pieces of broken shell still clinging.

Daniel had not fared much better. There was a tear in his trousers just below the right knee, with an associated bloodstain, and his jacket was peppered with broken shell fragments and had all but lost its right side pocket.

“It’s nothing,” Stephanie assured the doorman. “I wasn’t even aware I’d hurt myself. We tripped out by the pool.”

“We have a golf cart right outside,” the doorman said. “Can I give you a ride to your room?”

“I think we’ll be fine,” Daniel said. “But thank you for your concern.” He took Stephanie’s arm and urged her ahead, toward the door that would take them back to their room.

At first, Stephanie allowed herself to be led forward, but just before they got to the door, she pulled her arm free. “Wait a second! Aren’t we going to talk to someone?”

“Lower your voice! Come on! Let’s get to the room and get cleaned up. We can talk more there.”

Confused at Daniel’s behavior, Stephanie let herself be guided outside onto the walkway, but after a few steps, she stopped. She again took her arm out of Daniel’s grasp and shook her head. “I don’t understand. We saw a man get shot, and he’s seriously injured. An ambulance and the police have to be called.”

“Keep your voice down!” Daniel urged. He glanced around, thankful no one was in earshot. “That thug is dead. You saw the back of his head. People don’t recover from that kind of injury.”

“All the more reason to call the police. We witnessed a murder, for God’s sake, right in front of our faces.”

“True, but we sure as hell didn’t see who did it, nor do we have the slightest clue who could’ve done it. There was a shot, and the guy fell down. We saw nothing except the victim fall: no people and no vehicles! We were eyewitnesses only to the fact that the man was shot, which certainly will be clear to the police without our help.”

“But we still witnessed a murder.”

“But we would not be able to add anything from having seen it. That’s the point. Think about it!”

“Hold on here!” Stephanie said, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts. “What you are saying may be true, but as I understand it, it’s a crime not to report witnessing a crime, and we definitely saw a crime.”

“I have no idea whether keeping quiet is a crime or not here in the Bahamas. But even if it is, I think we should take the risk of committing it, because at this moment in time, I don’t want us to be involved with the police. On top of that, I have zero sympathy for the victim, which I suspect is your feeling as well. Not only was he the one who beat me up, he was threatening to kill me, for Christ’s sake, and maybe you too. My worry is that if we go to the police and get drawn into a murder investigation, which we will not be able to aid in any way, we’ll risk putting the Butler project in jeopardy, and we are so close to finishing. The long and short of it is that we’d be risking everything for nothing. It’s as simple as that.”

Stephanie nodded a few times and ran a nervous hand through her hair. “I suppose I see your point,” she said reluctantly. “But let me ask you this: You thought my brother was involved when you were beat up. Do you think he was involved this time?”

“Your brother had to be implicated in the first instance. But this time, I have my doubts, since the thug didn’t keep you out of it like he obviously did on the previous occasion. Yet who’s to know for sure?”

Stephanie stared off into the distance. Her mind and emotions were a jumble. Once again, she felt conflicted concerning what she should do, thanks to a strong sense of guilt. Ultimately, she felt responsible for involving her brother, who had involved the Castiglianos, who certainly had now proved themselves to be mobsters.

“Come on!” Daniel urged. “Let’s go to the room and clean up. We can talk some more if you’d like, but I have to tell you, my mind is made up.”

Stephanie allowed herself to be guided along the pathway toward their suite. She felt almost numb. Although she was hardly saintly, she’d never knowingly broken the law. It was a strange sensation to think of herself as some sort of miscreant because she failed to report a felony. Equally strange was the thought that her brother was involved with people capable of murder, especially since such an association gave a whole new meaning to his racketeering indictment. Adding to her agitation were the residual physiological effects of having witnessed violence. She could feel herself trembling, and her stomach was doing flip-flops. She had never seen a dead person, much less one killed in front of her in such a graphic manner.

Stephanie shook off a wave of nausea at the horrid image now etched for life into her memory. She wished she was anyplace but where she was. From the moment Daniel had suggested surreptitiously treating Butler, she had thought it was a bad idea, but never in her wildest imagination did she think it could have gotten as bad as it was. Yet she was caught in the affair as if it were a bog of quicksand, sinking in deeper and deeper, unable to get out.

Daniel was feeling progressively more confident about his decision. At first he’d not been so sure, but that had changed when his memory of Professor Heinrich Wortheim’s prophecy of disaster came back to haunt him. Daniel had vowed from the outset that he was not going to fail, and to avoid failure, Butler had to be treated, meaning entanglement with the police had to be avoided. Since he and Stephanie would be the only leads associated with the murder, if not outright suspects, even a slipshod investigation would invariably involve what they were doing in Nassau. At that point, Butler would have to be apprised of the situation, because after his arrival, his involvement would most likely be discovered in the course of the inquiry, which would ignite a media firestorm. With the threat of such a scenario, Daniel doubted Butler would come at all.

When they got to their suite, Daniel keyed open the door. Stephanie went in first and turned on the lights. The turndown service had come and gone, and the room was the picture of tranquility. The drapes were closed, classical music issued softly from the bedside radio, and the beds were prepared, with candies on the pillows. Daniel secured the door using all the locks.

Stephanie lifted her dress to look at her knee. She was relieved that her injury wasn’t as bad as suggested by the amount of blood, which by now had run all the way down into her shoe. Daniel checked his own knee by dropping his pants. Similar to Stephanie’s wound, he had an abrasion the diameter of a golf ball. Both injuries had some embedded seashell fragments, which they knew had to come out or there would be an infection.

“I feel awfully jittery,” Daniel admitted. He stepped out of his pants before holding out his hand. It shook as if he was shivering. “It must be the adrenaline rush. Let’s open a bottle of wine while we draw a bath. We should soak these abrasions, and the combination of wine and bath should calm us both down.”

“Okay,” Stephanie said. A bath might help her think more clearly. “I’ll run the tub. You get the wine!” She turned on the hot water full-blast after adding some bath salts to the tub. The room quickly filled with steam. Within minutes, the aroma and the soothing sound of the rushing water had a calming effect on her. When she emerged from the bathroom in a hotel robe to tell Daniel the bath was ready, she felt significantly recovered. Daniel was sitting on the couch with the yellow pages open on his lap. There were two glasses of red wine on the coffee table. Stephanie picked one of them up and took a sip.

“I’ve had another thought,” Daniel said. “Obviously, these Castigliano people were not as impressed as I hoped about the reassuring conversations you’ve been having with your mother.”

“We can’t be sure my brother told the Castiglianos what we wanted him to.”

“Whatever,” Daniel said with a wave of his hand. “The point is, they sent this thug down here to do me in and maybe you. They are unhappy people, to say the least. We don’t know how long it will take for them to learn that their henchman isn’t coming back. Nor can we guess what their reaction will be when they do learn it. For all we know, they’ll think we killed him.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We use Butler’s money to hire twenty-four-hour armed security. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a legitimate expense, and it’s only for a week and a half, two weeks tops.”

Stephanie sighed with resignation. “Are there any listings in the phone book?”

“Yeah, there are quite a few. What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Stephanie admitted.

“I think we need some professional protection.”

“All right, if you say so,” Stephanie said. “But it might be more important for us to start being even more careful in general than we have been. No more walks in the dark. I mean, what were we thinking?”

“In retrospect, it was foolish, considering my having been beaten up and warned.”

“What about the bath? Do you want to get in first? It’s ready.”

“No, you go ahead. I’ll make some calls to these agencies. The sooner we have someone, the better I’ll feel.”

Ten minutes later, Daniel came into the bathroom to sit on the edge of the tub. He was still sipping his wine. Stephanie was up to her neck in sudsy water, and her wineglass was empty.

“Do you feel better?” Daniel asked.

“Much. How did you do on the phone?”

“Good. Someone will be here in a half hour to be interviewed. It’s a company called First Security. They were recommended by the hotel.”

“I’ve been trying to think of who could have shot that guy. We haven’t voiced it, but he was like our savior.” Stephanie stood and wrapped herself in a towel and stepped out of the tub. “It had to be someone who was a damn good shot. And how did he happen to be there just when we needed him? It was like Father Maloney at the Turin airport but ten times more critical.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Only one, but it is far-fetched.”

“I’m listening.” Daniel felt the bathwater and began adding more hot.

“Butler. Maybe he’s had the FBI keep an eye on us for our own protection.”

Daniel laughed as he got into the tub. “That would be ironic.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“Not one,” Daniel admitted. “Unless it had something to do with your brother. Maybe he sent someone down here to watch over you.”

Now Stephanie laughed in spite of herself. “That’s even more far-fetched than my idea!”

As the nighttime security supervisor, Bruno Debianco was accustomed to calls from his boss, Kurt Hermann. The man had no life other than as head of Wingate security, and since he lived on the grounds, he was always around hassling Bruno with all sorts of minor requests and orders. Some of them were unexpected and ridiculous, but tonight’s took the cake. A little after ten, Kurt had called on his cell phone to instruct Bruno to drive one of the black Wingate vans out to Paradise Island. The destination was to be the Huntington Hartford cloister. Bruno was only supposed to stop if the road was clear, and if it was clear, he was to turn off his headlights before slowing down. Once stopped, he was supposed to walk up to the cloister but avoid stepping into the light. At that point, Kurt would accost him.

Bruno waited for the traffic light to turn green before accelerating up onto the bridge leading to Paradise Island. Never had he been ordered to leave the Wingate Clinic on a mystery mission, and what made it particularly strange was the request to bring a body bag. Bruno tried to think of what possibly could have happened, but nothing came to mind other than the trouble Kurt had gotten into in Okinawa. Bruno had served with Kurt in the Army’s Special Forces and knew the man had a love-hate reaction to whores. It had been an obsession that had suddenly erupted into a personal vendetta on the Japanese island. Bruno had never quite understood it, and he hoped he wasn’t currently being drawn into a recrudescence of that problem. He and Kurt had a good thing going with Spencer Wingate and Paul Saunders, and Bruno didn’t want it to get screwed up. If Kurt had started up his old crusade, it was going to be a problem.

The main east-west road that ran along Paradise Island had moderate traffic, but it dropped off after Bruno passed the shopping areas. It dropped off even more after the first few hotels, and after the turnoff to the Ocean Club, it was deserted. Following orders, Bruno switched off the lights as he neared the cloister. With the moonlight and the white stripe in the middle of the road, he had no problem driving in the dark.

Passing the final coppice of trees, the illuminated cloister came into view on Bruno’s right. He pulled across the road into a shoulder parking area and stopped the car. He turned off the engine and got out. To his left, he could see down the hill to the Ocean Club’s lighted pool.

Bruno went around to the back of the van and opened the rear door. He pulled out the folded body bag, and with it under his arm, he mounted the steps leading up to the cloister. Before he got into the light, he stopped. Ahead, the cloister was deserted. His eyes scanned the surrounding area, trying to peer into the darkness of the trees. He was about to call out Kurt’s name when the man materialized out of the shadows to Bruno’s right. Like Bruno, he was dressed in black and almost invisible. He waved for Bruno to follow him and said, “Move it!”

With the moonlight, it was fairly easy for Bruno to walk, but once they were within the trees, it was a different story. After a few steps, he stopped. “I can’t see a blasted thing.”

“You don’t have to,” Kurt said quietly. “We’re here. Did you bring the body bag?”

“Yeah.”

“Unzip it and help me load it up!”

Bruno did as he was told. Gradually his eyes adjusted, and he could make out Kurt’s form. He also could see the vague outline of the body on the ground. Bruno extended the end of the body bag toward Kurt, who took it and stepped down to the corpse’s feet. Together they pulled it taut, placed it on the ground, and folded back the edges.

“On three,” Kurt said. “But watch the head. It’s a little messy.”

Bruno got his hands under the corpse’s armpits, and at the appropriate moment lifted the torso while Kurt lifted the legs.

“Good grief!” Bruno grunted. “Who is this guy, an exlineman for the Chicago Bears?”

Kurt didn’t answer. The two of them got the body into the bag, and Kurt drew up the zipper from the foot.

“Don’t tell me we have to carry this two-ton guy down to the van,” Bruno said. The idea was daunting.

“We’re not leaving him here. Run down and open the van’s back door. When we get down there, I don’t want there to be any delay getting him inside.”

A few minutes later, they shoved Gaetano’s upper body, encased in the body bag, into the van. To get the rest in, Bruno had to climb in himself and pull while Kurt pushed. Both were winded when they were finished.

“So far so good,” Kurt commented, as he closed the door. “Let’s get out of here before our luck runs out and someone drives by.”

Bruno went around to the driver’s side and got in. Kurt put his black rucksack in the backseat before climbing into the front passenger side. Bruno started the engine. “Where to?” he asked.

“The Ocean Club’s parking lot,” Kurt said. “The guy had keys to a rent-a-car Jeep in his pocket. I want to find it.”

Bruno made a quick U-turn before switching on his headlights. They drove in silence. Bruno was dying to ask who in the hell the stiff in the back of the van was, but he knew better. Kurt had a habit of only telling him what he thought he needed to know and got pissed whenever Bruno asked questions. Ever since Bruno had known him, Kurt had been a man of few words. He was always tensed up and on edge, as if he was constantly angry about something.

It only took a few minutes to get to the parking lot, and when they did, it only took a few more minutes to find the car. It was the only Jeep in the lot and was positioned close to the exit, with nothing blocking it. Kurt had gotten out to check to see if the keys opened the doors. They did. The car’s papers were in the glove compartment, and Gaetano’s carry-on was on the backseat.

“I want you to follow me to the airport,” Kurt said when he came back to Bruno’s window. “Needless to say, drive carefully. You don’t want to get stopped and have them discover the body.”

“That would be embarrassing,” Bruno agreed. “Especially since I don’t know a blasted thing.”

Bruno thought he detected a glare in Kurt’s eyes before he went back to climb into the rent-a-car. Bruno shrugged and started the van.

Kurt got the Cherokee started. He hated surprises, and the day had been nothing but surprises. With his Special Ops Army training, he prided himself on careful planning, as was necessary for any military mission. Accordingly, he had been observing the two doctors for more than a week, and he thought he understood their mind-set and situation. Then the woman doctor had broken into the egg room; that had been totally unexpected and had caught him unprepared. Even worse was what had happened tonight.

As soon as they got through town and on open road, Kurt pulled out his cell phone and pressed the preprogrammed number for Paul Saunders. Although Spencer Wingate was the titular head of the clinic, Kurt preferred dealing with Paul. It had been Paul who had hired him back in Massachusetts. Besides, Paul, like Kurt, was always at the clinic, which was in sharp contrast to Spencer, who was always out looking for loose women.

As per usual, Paul answered after only a few rings.

“I’m on my cell,” Kurt warned before saying anything else.

“Oh?” Paul questioned. “Don’t tell me there is another problem.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Is it related to our guests?”

“Very much so.”

“Does it have anything to do with what happened today?”

“It’s worse.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. Can you give me some idea what it is about?”

“I think it is better that we meet.”

“When and where?”

“In three quarters of an hour in my office. Let’s say twenty-three hundred hours.” By force of habit, Kurt still used military time.

“Should we involve Spencer?”

“That’s your call.”

“See you then.”

Kurt ended the call and slipped the phone into its holder on his belt. He glanced into the rearview mirror. Bruno was following at a comfortable distance. Events seemed to be back under control.

The airport was all but deserted, save for the cleaning crews. More specifically, the rent-a-car concessions were all closed. Kurt nosed the Cherokee into one of the appropriate rent-a-car slips. He locked the car and took the keys and the papers over to the after-hours deposit box. A moment later, he climbed back into Bruno’s van. Bruno had kept the engine idling.

“Now what?” Bruno asked.

“You are going to drive me back to the Ocean Club to get my van. Then we are both going to drive out to Lyford Cay Marina. You’ll be taking a moonlight cruise on the company yacht.”

“Aha! I’m starting to get the picture. My guess is that we’ll soon be in the market for a new anchor. Am I right?”

“Just drive,” Kurt said.

True to his word, Kurt pushed open the door to his office almost to the second of his eleven o’clock commitment. Both Spencer and Paul were already there, accustomed to his signature punctuality. Kurt brought his rucksack over to the desk and dropped it. It made a resounding thud against the desk’s metal surface.

Spencer and Paul were sitting in the two chairs facing Kurt’s utilitarian desk. Their eyes had followed Kurt from the moment the security chief had walked through the door. They were waiting for him to say something, but Kurt took his time. He took off his black silk jacket and draped it over the chair. Then he pulled out his gun from its holster in the small of his back and carefully placed it on the desk.

With obvious exasperation, Spencer exhaled noisily and rolled his eyes. “Mr. Hermann, I am forced to remind you that you work for us and not vice versa. What the hell is going on? And it better be good, for having dragged us in here in the middle of the night. I happened to have been pleasurably occupied.”

Kurt peeled off his form-fitting gloves and put them next to his automatic. Only then did he sit down. He reached out and lifted his computer monitor and put it to the side to have an uninterrupted view of his visitors.

“I was forced in the line of duty to kill someone tonight.”

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.”