“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.”
twenty-three
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.
“Well, well, my dear Carol,” Ashley voiced, drawing out the words in his Southern drawl but with a newly acquired monotone. “What is your first impression of this modest establishment?”
“Modest may be the last adjective that would come to my mind,” Carol answered. She knew Ashley was merely playing to the hotel staff audience.
“Now, what adjective might you believe to be more befitting?”
“Whimsical but impressive,” Carol said. “I wasn’t prepared for such theatrical grandeur. The lobby downstairs is truly creative, particularly with its textured columns and golden, seashell-coffered dome. I would be hard put to guess how tall it is.”
“It soars to seventy feet,” Mr. Halpern said over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Mr. Halpern,” Ashley called ahead. “You are so kind and admirably well-informed.”
“At your service, Senator,” Mr. Halpern said without slowing down.
“It pleases me that you are impressed with the lodging,” Ashley said, lowering his voice and leaning toward his chief of staff. “I am sure you are equally impressed with the weather as compared with Washington at the end of March. I hope you are glad to be here. Truth be known, I feel guilty for not having had you accompany me here last year on my reconnaissance visit, when I was putting this whole endeavor together.”
Carol shot a surprised glance at her boss. Never had he expressed any guilt in relation to her about anything, much less a trip to the tropics. It was another small but curious example of the unpredictability he had displayed on and off during the past year. “You needn’t feel guilty, sir,” she said. “I’m delighted to be here in Nassau. How about yourself? Are you glad to be here?”
“Most assuredly,” Ashley said, without a trace of accent.
“Aren’t you a little scared?”
“Me, scared?” Ashley questioned loudly, suddenly reverting back to his histrionics. “My daddy told me that the proper way to face adversity is to do your homework and everything else in your power to do, and then put yourself in the Good Lord’s hands. And that’s what I have done, plain and simple. I’m here to enjoy myself!”
Carol nodded but said nothing. She was sorry she had asked the question. If anyone felt guilty, it was she, since she was still conflicted about the outcome she hoped for the current visit. For Ashley’s sake, she tried to convince herself she wanted a miraculous cure, while for herself, she knew she hoped for something less.