Second Opinion (6 page)

CHAPTER 10

'Please take off your clothes in that tent, sir, and throw them outside the door. Then put on the wet suit we have left for you. The suit should fit you, but snugly. Then, once we are certain you have no wires and no weapons, we'll be ready to go. It's not as if Mr. Rose doesn't trust you in particular, it's that he doesn't trust anyone.'

'I understand,' Gerald Prevoir said.

And he did.

Throughout his life, Prevoir had survived and supported himself by following directions to the letter. As a Marine in Afghanistan over most of a decade he had learned to kill and to enjoy it. Then he had dropped his honorable discharge, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star medal into the bottom drawer of his bureau and had signed on as a mercenary in Kazakhstan and later in central Africa.

It was five years ago that he came under his current employ. He was between jobs, spending time with his latest girlfriend at his beach house in the Keys when he saw the ad in
Soldier of Fortune.

WANTED: JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES WILLING TO GET IT AND GO, AND EXPERIENCED IN SAME. MUST BE ABLE TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS TO THE LETTER, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. SALARY NEGOTIABLE.

'Willing to get it and go,' in
Soldier of fortune
terms, meant willing to kill. That had never been a deal breaker for him, so he responded to the magazine box number listed. He never met his employer, nor had he to this day. An initial interview took place before a camera in a motel room in Kittery, Maine, during which he was questioned by a man—or woman—whose voice was electronically distorted.

After he was hired, his instructions arrived via cell phone or a CD sent to a post office box, and he responded the same way. The pay, deposited in Prevoir's blind account in a Cayman Islands bank, was excellent, and the work so far, with the exception of having to assist the Reverend Gideon Bohannan, had been clean.

Hatred, envy, and greed.
As long as there were hatred, envy, and greed, his employer had assured him, there would be business.

They were on a totally deserted beach on Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. Anchored a hundred yards off the coast was Gregory Rose's yacht,
Zoe May.
This would be Prevoir's second meeting with the shipping magnate, who was reputed to have begun amassing his considerable fortune from drug money, but had long since turned his illegitimate enterprises over to others. The previous meeting between them had taken place almost three months ago.

With Rose's man watching, Prevoir undressed unhurriedly, and meticulously folded his black pants, sports coat, and turtleneck, setting them on a towel outside the tent. Then he pulled on the short-sleeved, knee-length, eighth-inch-thick wet suit and zipped it up the back. He was a muscular man, six feet even, more wiry than bulky, and without a bit of flab. He honed his body through two or three hours a day of aerobic exercise, Kenpo karate, and weight lifting when he was not on the road, and at least an hour a day when he was. At the interview in the Kittery Motel, he had done a hundred push-ups for the camera and could easily have done more.

Rose's man inspected Prevoir front and back, but didn't bother patting him down. There was no need. Then he led him down to a ten-foot inflatable Zodiac powered by an eight-horsepower Yamaha, and drove him out to the
Zoe May,
a sleek though not particularly pretentious Palmer-Johnson yacht, which Prevoir estimated at 120 feet—maybe six or seven million depending on the add-ons. Gregory Rose was waiting for him at a table on the second deck. He was a slightly built man, with small, feral eyes.

Rose ordered two bottles of Dos Equis. By the time they arrived, Prevoir felt quite confident that if necessary, he could use the bottle and his skills to dispatch his host and both his bodyguards. At the moment, however, there was no reason to believe he would have to.

'So, Mr. Prevoir,' Rose said, 'you said there have been developments with our little snipe.'

'Very important developments,' Prevoir said. 'Namely, that she has cancer.'

'Of the pancreas.'

'Of the pancreas,' Prevoir echoed, genuinely impressed with the reach of the man's intelligence network. 'Exactly.'

'That is just so sad,' Rose said, his narrow eyes dancing.

'I told you when we last met that was going to happen.'

'Yes. Yes, you did.'

'And I also told you that we were aware that through her stubbornness and unwillingness to commit to a merger of her Wildwood Enterprises and your Seven Palms resort chain, Ms. Hayley Long was in the process of costing you, what was it
Forbes
estimated, one hundred and fifty million dollars?'

'You shouldn't believe everything you read in magazines,' Rose said, scowling. 'Their estimate of what she is costing me is low.'

'I'm sorry to hear that. If that indeed is the case, then we have strong grounds to believe what was written about the bad blood between you and the lovely Ms. Long, yes?'

There was a pregnant silence during which Rose finished his beer.

'Hayley Long is a bitch,' he said with sudden vehemence, 'a back-stabbing bitch, who delights in causing others pain.'

'You in particular, from all we have heard. Am I correct in believing that you have openly wished her ill?'

'If I wished for such a thing, then my prayers have been answered. Cancer is a bad business and cancer of the pancreas is one of the worst, most painful of all. Such a pity.'

'Mr. Rose,' Prevoir said, 'please don't ask me how we know, but we promise you that Hayley Long is going to receive chemotherapy for her cancer according to one of the latest experimental protocols, and is going to survive and be cancer-free. We guarantee it.'

'What an odd thing to guarantee.'

'But it's the truth. I promise you that.'

'But how^?'

'I asked you not to question me on this matter.'

'Now, I find that quite distressing. I was counting on a different outcome.'

'Without her in the picture, your Seven Palms/Wildwood merger will probably go through. There are those in Long's company that support it.'

'You people certainly have done your homework. How did you—?

'It doesn't matter. The point is we know, and the point is we can provide a service in which you should be interested.' Go on.

'I can promise you, Mr. Rose, that we have the power to see to it that Hayley Long does not recover from her cancer, and in fact, that she never leaves the hospital alive.'

Gregory Rose considered the statement and its implications.

'Without any suspicion or possibility that I was involved?' he asked finally.

'None whatsoever. Patients die in hospitals all the time.'

'Patients die in hospitals all the time.' Rose ruminated on the words as he repeated them.

'Your payment instructions will be delivered to you via a DVD,' Prevoir said. 'Terms are half in advance, half when Hayley Long, sadly, succumbs to her disease.'

'Half of how much?' Rose asked.

'Three million dollars. Not a penny more—ever.'

Rose didn't blink at the amount.

'And what if I don't come up with the second half?' he asked.

Prevoir grinned coldly.

'Let's see,' he said. 'Your doctor's name is Lance Goldfarb, 313 Paradise Road; Key Biscayne. You are blood type B positive. You had your appendix out seven years ago. You have hemorrhoids. You also have genital herpes which you got from someone other than your wife. You are severely allergic to sulfa and are having persistent nightmares, mostly around a fear of snakes that goes back to your early childhood. I think there's enough material in there to ensure that we'd know what to do if you decided to hold out on us.'

'I'll kill that son-of-a-bitch doctor,' he said, through nearly clenched teeth. 'I'll fucking kill him.'

'Then you'd be killing an innocent man, who incidentally seems to be a pretty decent doctor. By the way, your mother's doctor is—'

'Enough! Tell me what to do.'

'You'll get your instructions soon. Don't waste any time, though, Mr. Rose. Hayley Long's chemotherapy has already begun.'

CHAPTER 11

It was midday when Thea awoke in her childhood bedroom in Wellesley—a room that spoke in many ways to her early difficulties with so-called executive function. Posters of rock stars, supermodels, and Star Wars characters covered most of the walls and some of the ceiling, taped on at odd angles.

The only framed items (courtesy of her mother) were Xeroxed achievement certificates from various summer camps and schools, and later, as Dr. Carpenter's one-on-one therapy and groups took hold, report cards showing all As. There were stuffed animals and a couple of dolls, but what there were the most of were books—shelves and shelves of books. There were also stacks of books along the baseboards, in the corners, and even under the bed: novels, biographies, textbooks, comic books, manga, how-to manuals, self-help.

For a time, she lay in bed, images in her mind ricocheting from her father and his near death, to the twins and their anger, to the oddly eager hospital triumvirate of Amy Musgrave, Sharon Karsten, and Scott Hartnett, to Dimitri's animation and unappreciated theory of attempted murder, and finally to her own need to spend some time with Dr. Carpenter before returning to the Congo.

But connecting the dots of her rambling thoughts were those involving Dan Cotton. Put simply, she liked the man—liked him a lot. The caring way in which he dealt with the young thief; the dismay in his expression when she rattled off more than anyone might ever want to know about the word
bust;
the sadness when he responded to her asking whether he was at one time a cop—he was at once interesting and perplexing, confident and vulnerable, and very, very cute.

Gentle Dan.

They hadn't settled on a specific day to get together again, but he had said he wanted it to happen, and she felt certain it would. Now, she began worrying if she should try and help him understand her Asperger's before she inadvertently said or did something that put him off. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened with a guy. Like many Aspies, when she spoke, she inadvertently used words that simply weren't part of everyday conversation, often sounding like a professor addressing a class, despite the fact that, even as a voracious reader, her usage of some of the words wasn't always accurate.

Men were attracted to her looks, but were often intimidated by her intelligence or put off by what they perceived was pomposity. Despite some early efforts in improv groups, she had never been able to mask that trait, even though some of her very intelligent neuro-typical girlfriends easily and purposefully kept their vocabularies under wraps around men.

She rose, made the bed, and showered. Then she pulled on worn jeans and a turquoise blouse, checked herself front and back in the mirror she had first used as a child, and then lay down on the bedspread for a few more minutes of reflection, staring up at a twenty-year-old poster of KISS on the ceiling. She was, she acknowledged, intrigued with Dan Cotton's easy manner and rugged good looks—especially his eyes. However, if he turned out to be the sort who wouldn't give her the benefit of the doubt, who jumped to judgment, then she really didn't want him.

But she did.

Carrying a cup of coffee, Thea padded across the yard to the carriage house. She wanted to get Dimitri's approval to bring Dan Cotton by to discuss the possibility that their father had been hit deliberately. Of course, merely getting permission from her brother was no guarantee against some outrageous act, but she sensed Dan could handle just about anything, and asking Dimitri was at least a start. She also wanted to talk him into coming to the hospital with her. Steeled against another session with the 'Ride of the Valkyries,' she pressed her palms against her ears and eased open the heavy oak door.

The silence was breached by the theme from
Zorba the Greek,
playing through the high-tech speakers, but at quite a manageable volume.

'A few years ago,' Dimitri said as they ascended the broad staircase, 'I discovered a whole closet full of traditional costumes on the third floor. I guess the Lion must parade around in them when no one's home. Those zany Greeks.'

'Dimitri, need I remind you that
you're
one of those zany Greeks?'

'Very funny. I think it's sweet the way Dad hangs on to tradition.'

'Like the old Greek tradition of nitpicking your kids' egos to bits,' Thea said.

'Okay, okay, he's not perfect.'

'So, you want to come into the hospital with me?'

'I already went,' Dimitri answered.

'That's like saying don't buy me a book for Christmas, I already have a book.'

'You'll excuse me for being so logical, but if he's in a coma, what difference does it make if I'm there or not. Last time I went in, Aunt Mary was there stalking around the bed all hunched over, muttering about ridding the man of the evil eye.'

'The
mati,'
Thea said.

'She left one of those weird sets of eye beads.'

'Vaskania.'

'I don't know how you learned this stuff. It's all Greek to me.'

'Very funny, part two.'

'Is old Mary really our aunt?' Dimitri asked.

'If she says she's our aunt she's our aunt.'

'How about all the other Aunt Marys?'

'They're our aunts, too. It doesn't matter whether the genetics are there or not.'

'I think I'm going to pass on this one, sis. I've got some green meanies to destroy.'

A child with an IQ of 180, trapped in an adult's body. Thea looked at the screens and the costume, at the workbench and the unmade bed.

Could be worse,
she thought.
Could be worse.

'Okay, one other thing. You mentioned that Niko and Selene didn't take your theories about the accident very seriously.'

'They don't take anything about me very seriously.'

'I've met someone at the hospital—a security guard, but he used to be a policeman.'

'Alcohol problem?'

'I… I don't know. But I don't think so.'

'Did he shoot someone by mistake? Shoot someone on purpose? Rob the evidence room? Sleep with the commissioner's daughter? Give away Batman's identity?'

'Dimitri! This is someone who is willing to listen to you. Why are you challenging him when you don't even know him?'

'You like this guy?'

'I just met him.'

'You like him. I'll be happy to tell your new friend what I know and what I think I know.'

'That's big of you. I'll see how I feel about exposing him to you. Last chance to come along, cowboy.'

'Be sure to say hello to Aunt Mary for me.'