Tom Hyman (12 page)

Goth’s laboratory and clinic would eventually be expanded, he said. A constellation of special clinics would then be built, and they would, beyond any doubt, soon attract a great number of the world’s richest and most important people. And these people would demand luxury otels, restaurants, and stores to cater to their needs. El Coronado would eventually become one of the world’s most exclusive resorts, and the islanders’ standard of living would become the envy of the Caribbean.

But before any of that could happen, he explained, much had to be done.

If the promise of Goth’s research held UP? then a substantial capital investment had to be made in the country’s infrastructure. The airport had to be enlarged and modernized, the roads widened and repaved. This would cost many millions of dollars, which, despite His Excellency’s already heroic achievements in improving the economy, the island obviously could not afford on its own.

But he, Dalton Stewart, could solve this problem. He could make this dream happen. He could find the investors and get their commitments.

And even better, he could help His Excellency improve relations with the United States government. He even believed it was possible that he could help get U.S. aid flowing once again to El Coronado.

But to do all this, the president had to appreciate that he would need his full support and backing. He needed promises that bureaucratic obstacles would not be placed in his way, that red tape and the usual graft and corruption would be kept to a minimum, and that he would be allowed eventually to bring in thousands of foreign personnel to plan and execute these ambitious projects.

Stewart was careful to play to the president’s vanity and greed and to make clear that Despres’ ultimate authority would never be questioned or threatened in any way.

If Despres was excited by the scenario, he hid it well. “And what is it, exactly, about these clinics that will bring all these wonderful changes to this little island of ours?”

Stewart had anticipated the question. Obviously Despres already knew something of Goth’s work, and he was certain to find out more as time went on. So it was important to tell him the facts. The president had many more questions, and it took over an hour for the American to answer them all.

By the time Dalton Stewart left the palace, a fresh breeze had begun fluttering the palms along the avenue, lifting the oppressive weight of heat that had blanketed the island for the last three days.

Behind the breeze, purplish black thunderclouds towered high over the western horizon, promising an imminent cloudburst.

Stewart climbed into the Land Cruiser, pulled off his white jacket, and sank back against the seat cushion. Trabert, the chauffeur, put the jeep in gear and accelerated cautiously down the street, steering between the potholes.

Ajemian looked at him inquiringly.

Stewart grinned. “The little bastard can hardly wait for us to get started.”

His assistant settled his black leather attache case on his lap and snapped it open. “Well, we’ve got bad news on a different front. I just got a call from the real estate agent. Baroness von Hauser made an offer on the medical school property this morning.”

The news jolted Stewart. “How the hell did she manage that?”

Ajemian mopped his face with a damp handkerchief. “She offered a million two,” he said. “With a cash binder of a hundred thousand.”

Stewart fought down his anger. It was his own fault, he decided.

After beating out the baroness’s offer to Goth, he had assumed that she would just retreat from the field. He had underestimated the woman.

“Who owns the place, anyway?”

“A local bank. It was a foreclosure. Sort of. What really happened is that the government confiscated it and turned it over to the bank.

The bank, as you might guess, is owned by President Despres.”

Ajemian tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket and handed his boss a thick stack of overnight faxes from the New York office. To each item Ajemian had attached a sheet suggesting appropriate or alternative actions to be taken. He uncapped a pen and handed it across with the memos.

Stewart looked at the pile with distaste. He wanted to focus on the threat posed by the baroness. “Any urgent stuff here?”

“No. Routine.”

Stewart worked swiftly through the pile, scribbling his decisions on Ajemian’s sheets as he went.

“We could still make a higher offer,” Ajemian suggested. “Nobody’s signed any contracts yet.”

Stewart thought for a minute. “No. Let’s let it go. In fact, it may be a break. It’d take too damned long to rehabilitate that property anyway. You saw it. It’s a dump. Most of the buildings are ready for the wrecking ball. Let the baroness have it. We’ll just relocate Goth to a better spot.”

Ajemian looked at his boss questioningly. “Where?”

“There’s a small private hospital on the other end of the island,”

Stewart said. “What’s it called . . . ?”

“St. Bonaventure?”

“That’s it. Good location, not too big, relatively modern. Let’s buy it and turn Goth loose in it. Make him head of it, if we have to.”

“Will he go along?”

“Why shouldn’t he? It’ll be ideal for him—airconditioned research labs, clinics, the works. Find out who owns the place and set up a meeting.”

Dalton Stewart handed the pen and the stack of memos back to Ajemian, who promptly returned them to the attache case and closed the lid.

The skies suddenly opened up. Sheets of tropical rain cascaded like a waterfall against the windows of the jeep. Thunder and lightning boomed and crackled over the island like an artillery bombardment.

Stewart was pleased with his solution. He was going to stick the baroness with a worthless piece of real estate, just when she thought she had found a way to trump his deal with Goth.

But she had thrown him a scare. And he knew he had not heard the last of her.

Joseph Cooper awoke to hear the faint beeping of his satellite telephone, lying on the night table by his hotel bed. He picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Stare?”

“Speaking.”

“Please call your father.”

Juptler s LJaugner ù l Cooper muttered a groggy “Thank you,” but the voice had already vanished into the ether.

He dialed a memorized number located somewhere in Fairfax County, Virginia, and waited. The “call your father” business was a simple security precaution—a way for his control, a man he knew only by the name Roy, to make certain that it was Cooper on the other end of the line.

“Stare? You there?”

“Yes.”

“Goth is moving.”

“Oh?”

“St. Bonaventure Hospital. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

“Check it out, please.”

“You want it bugged, too?”

“That would seem appropriate.”

“Yeah. Okay….”

The baroness loved decisive moments.

Her opponent at the other end of the tennis court was Hans Dieterbach, secretary of foreign economic aid and development in the German government.

Dieterbach had played her even, six games apiece, and they were now playing a tiebreaker for the set. The score stood at 8-7. The baroness was serving.

Despite the chilly spring day, Dieterbach, a muscular man in his late forties, was sweating profusely. He had expected to win without much effort and had been irritated to discover that it was all he could do just to stay in the game.

Crouched at the baseline, waiting for her to serve, the sturdy German official looked stricken. His normally florid features had turned ashen. His mouse-brown hair, dripping with sweat, lay slicked back against his skull, as if he had just emerged from the shower.

The baroness bounced the ball on the baseline with a delicate, taunting leisureliness, giving Dieterbach plenty of time to reflect on his situation. She looked across at her opponent and smiled to herself.

The possibility of losing to a woman would be causing him great stress.

She tossed the ball skyward, arched her back, and swept the racket back far behind her head, as if to deliver an overhead smash. Instead, she sliced, whipping the racket face across the ball in a furious glancing blow, imparting tremendous spin but very little forward motion. The ball came off her racket

92 strings whirring like a gyroscope and began losing altitude before it had even reached the net.

Dieterbach, expecting a deep drive on first service, was momentarily paralyzed, thinking she had mishit the ball and that it was destined to fall short. By the time he realized what was going to happen, it was too late for him to save himself.

He lunged forward, his face a mask of acute desperation. The tennis ball, dropping almost vertically, struck Dieterbach’s side of the court about a foot from the net. Its spin caused it to bounce hard and low to Dieterbach’s right, on a course parallel with the net and well below the top. Even if he had been able to reach the ball in time, its trajectory made it virtually impossible to return.

The secretary made the maximum effort nevertheless. When he saw he wasn’t going to get to the ball in time, he launched himself into a dive. His racket went flying, and his 220-pound bulk pitched headfirst into the net.

The baroness suppressed her amusement. She recovered his racket, which had fallen into her back court, and carried it around to the other side of the net. Her opponent was still lying facedown in the dirt. “Are you all right, Herr Dieterbach?”

The secretary braced himself on one knee, then stood up, tottering and off-balance. He brushed off his shirt and shorts and took his racket back from the baroness. “I slipped,” he complained. “Your damned clay court. I’m used to the all-weather.”

“I’m sorry my court isn’t up to your standards,” she teased, walking alongside him.

Dieterbach snorted. “You’re not sorry at all.”

The baroness nodded. “You’re quite right, Herr Secretary. I’m not sorry at all.” She glanced at her watch. “Time for lunch.”

They strolled up the winding path from the tennis court toward the back entrance of the eighteenth-century castle that served as the baroness’s country retreat. The huge stone edifice, Schloss Vogel, was located in the mountains of the Bayerischer Wald, eighty miles north of Munich.

The baroness kept a town house in Munich, where her company’s headquarters were located, but she spent much of her time here at the castle.

The baroness served the secretary sandwiches and wine in an enclosed glass terrace she had had constructed on one of the castle’s higher ramparts. From this lofty height they could dine and view the surrounding mountains and valleys for many miles.

Dieterbach eyed the baroness appreciatively across the small table. He had made advances toward her in the past, and she had deflected them each time; but he hadn’t yet given up hope.

“I have a favor to ask,” she said, refilling his glass.

“I expected you would.”

The baroness batted her eyes flirtatiously. “I do enjoy your company, too, Herr Dieterbach.”

“Not as much as you could, Baroness.”

“Don’t be naughty. I have something serious to discuss.”

“I’m listening.”

“You know President Despres of El Coronado?”

“Yes. In our office he’s referred to affectionately as ‘that little black swine.”

“ “He needs foreign aid.”

“He needs a firing squad.”

“Fifty million marks. That’s all.”

“Never. He’s on the department’s shit list. Right near the top, in fact.”

“Take him off it, then.”

“On what grounds?”

“I don’t know. Recent evidence of reform. Whatever excuses you people traditionally make when you change your minds.”

“You’re a very cynical woman, Baroness.”

“I’m a very practical, realistic woman.”

“Why should we help him?”

The baroness explained about Goth’s program. She didn’t tell the secretary that Dalton Stewart had already beaten her out of it. She made it appear that the deal would be in the bag for her if Dieterbach could persuade his government to open the foreignaid tap for Despres.

“Why not give him the money yourself? Fifty million? You can afford it.”

“He’s already extorting me to the hilt.”

Dieterbach looked uncomfortable. “It won’t look good. Despres is an international pariah.”

“But you can do it, can’t you? It’s so little money.”

The secretary rubbed his chin and thought about it. “I suppose I could hide it in a larger program—the Caribbean Development Fund. But I’ll have to twist some arms even so.”

The baroness smiled and patted Dieterbach’s hand. “I knew I could count on you.”

Dieterbach gave her a pleading look. “I don’t have to be back in Berlin until tomorrow, and my wife’s in England….”

The baroness slapped his arm lightly. “No, no. I have a killing work load today. Look, when you’ve got this thing done for me, come back and we’ll celebrate. How’s that?”

Dieterbach persisted a few minutes longer, for his ego’s sake, then gave up.

The baroness saw the secretary to the front portico, where his car was waiting.

“You’re a most desirable woman,” Dieterbach announced in a solemn tone.

“Thank you, Herr Secretary.”

“But you’re not at all what you pretend to be, are you?”

The baroness affected surprise. “What do I pretend to be?”

Dieterbach stared at her knowingly. “You have enviable public relations, I’ll say that. The government should hire you to advise our diplomats. Auf Wiedersehen.”

The baroness went up to her study on the second floor. The arrogant bastard, she thought. Thinking he understood her. How little he really knew. His attitude tempted her to take him off her books altogether. As soon as he got the loan to Despres in the works, she’d review the situation. God, how much had she paid him in bribes these past three or four years? It must be over half a million marks.

Still, Dieterbach did deliver. That was more than one could say about many government figures she’d dealt with over the years.