Miracle Man (48 page)

“Were there any more calls?”

“A few more.”

Varneys glared. “And then what? Don’t sugar coat it, because if you do, you’ll be on the street in five minutes.”

Amaratto slumped in his chair and looked down. After pausing for a minute and then taking a deep breath, he mumbled, “In the last call, we agreed a day and time when I would leave the back door to the lab unlocked for twenty minutes.”

Perrrone shot up from his chair. “You son of a bitch.”

Varneys motioned Perrone to sit down. “And why did you think that the man you were speaking to wanted this information and wanted the door left open?”

“He told me he was going to plant some surveillance equipment in Austin’s office.”

“You don’t know his name?”

“No.”

“What did he sound like?”

“He had a heavy Latino accent.”

“Would you remember the voice?”

“It was pretty distinctive.”

“Did you ever see him? Did you see him come through that door.”

Amaratto shook his head. “No. He told me that if I tried to, he’d know and I wouldn’t get paid my money—and I’d lose my monthly gig, too.”

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. attorney general had finished questioning the notables whose names had been supplied by Turnbull: Neil Foster, Randall Lindsay, Graham Waters and Michael Petersen. While these heavy-weight politicos declined to indicate the precise nature of the videos with which McAlister was blackmailing them, they confirmed that they contained ‘material of a personal nature.’ On the understanding that the recordings wouldn’t see the light of day, they agreed to cooperate. The attorney general obtained warrants to search Lands End, McAlister’s other residences and the
My Time
yacht.

82

T
hree weeks after Bobby was admitted into the hospital, the surgeon general briefed the Cabinet:

“Severity of coma is measured on the Glasgow Coma Scale, the worst being 3 and the best 15. Dr. Austin’s score hasn’t improved beyond the 4 he had on admission. There still is no way to determine when and if he’ll ever come out of the coma, or what cognitive or physical impairments will remain from the neurological trauma he suffered. His intravenous feeding will continue, as will a vigorous regimen of physical and electrical pulse therapies to keep his muscles from atrophying and to avoid the onset of pneumonia, which often causes death in long-term comatose patients.”

There was no shortage of visitors. Bobby’s hospitalization deprived him of the anonymity and privacy that he had so carefully cultivated. His incapacity became the vehicle for luminaries to finally have the opportunity to “meet him.” In addition to visits from major U.S. politicians and religious leaders, Bobby’s hospital room became a “must-stop” on the itinerary of international dignitaries visiting Washington. The CIA cleared each person ahead of time, each visit was limited to ten minutes and no photographs were permitted. If she was there, Christina tried her best to be gracious, but as time went by, the visits increasingly took on the air of “paying last respects” and this further depressed her. Susan and Anna were her support system and Alan, who drove up from Florida every few weeks and called her regularly, took on the role of devoted father-in law.

Day after day, Christina sat in Bobby’s room. Frequently, she slept on a cot next to his bed and sometimes she’d squeeze in right next to him at night. She would talk to him animatedly and read to him, hoping he could hear her and that somehow her voice would lead him back to consciousness. Massaging his arms, legs, feet, and hands, she would kiss his forehead, whispering in his ear, “Come back, Bobby. Don’t leave me.”

Two months into the coma, the doctors were increasingly skeptical. As they advised the president, “The longer the coma continues unabated, the less likely he’ll come out of it. The mind becomes accustomed to the vegetative state and it settles in.”

Looking out the hospital window, Christina thought how pretty the hundreds of candle lights were, twinkling silently in the night. The vigils were always there—even in the bad weather. For the first few weeks, there were thousands of candles, glimmering their beacons of hope in the darkness. Now there were fewer—but she was still amazed that they were there, every night. The same thing was happening all over the world. People weren’t forgetting what Bobby had done for them. “You see, little one,” Christina said as she patted her protruding belly, her eyes streaming with tears, “Your daddy was a great man. A very great man.”

“Don’t say ‘was.’” Susan put her arm around Christina. “He
is
a very great man.”

83

A
black Suburban pulled up in front of 550 Park Avenue and parked in front of the “No Standing Anytime” sign. Thompson, McKenna, Perrone, Bick, and two uniformed armed Federal Marshals piled out of the vehicle. They walked quickly into the building, flashed badges and told one of the security guards to take them up to the floor on which they could find Colum McAlister. The guard reached for the phone, saying he’d call upstairs to announce them.

Agent Thompson removed the receiver from his hand, “That won’t be necessary. Let’s go.”

When the elevator doors opened on the sixty eighth floor, the first thing seen by the two beefy Bushings security guards positioned there were the marshals.

“Holy shit,” mumbled one of them.

He was told to go downstairs and wasted no time in complying. The other was asked to escort the troop to McAlister’s office, which he did. As the group entered the private reception area of McAlister’s office suite, they encountered the aquarium’s sharks, which were sullenly gliding through the water of the massive tank, their dead eyes peering through the wall of glass at the visitors. Perrone walked up to McAlister’s two breathtaking secretaries and asked, “Is he in?” While one of them was in the midst of saying, “Mr. McAlister is in a meeting” –Perrone flung open the oversized mahogany doors and led the group into the office. The size and opulence of McAlister’s lair took them by surprise and most of the law enforcement team seemed momentarily distracted as they looked around the palatial surroundings. Perrone muttered to Thompson, “You sure can live large leeching off of shareholders —geez look at this.”

McAlister’s face purpled at the intrusion. Rising from his desk, he shoved his chair back as he bellowed, “Who the hell are you?”

Six badges flashed in answer to his question. McAlister’s tan seemed to disappear instantly.

Bick stepped toward McAlister as he reached into his jacket pocket, removing a piece of paper that he unfolded. His six feet four inches towered over McAlister and his icy stare conveyed a disdain more effective than words. Bick spoke slowly, his patrician Beacon Hill drawl imbuing every word with extra gravitas. “I’m Jonathan Bick, chief United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.” He stopped and put on his reading glasses.

McAlister shifted from one leg to the other, poker faced.

Reading from the paper in his hand, Bick continued. “Colum McAlister— you are under arrest for multiple violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, the Cyber Security Act of 2002, extortion, blackmail, and conspiracy to commit the murder of Dr. Robert James Austin. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

McAlister looked around at the assembled public servants and began to laugh. It was a hearty spontaneous laugh that didn’t sound at all contrived. “You’ve got to be kidding. You’re all nuts.” He turned his head from side to side as he stretched his neck forward, like a prize fighter loosening up before a bout. Removing the white and blue striped silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his Saville Row suit, he patted his forehead lightly and then dabbed the corners of his mouth. Inserting the handkerchief back into its pocket, he took care to ensure that it protruded exactly two inches. McAlister’s eyes became snake slits as he looked over each of the men in succession. His face reddened. The street fighter kid who climbed from the slums of Brooklyn to the sixty eighth floor of Park Avenue wasn’t easily intimidated.

When he spoke, his voice had a hoarseness to it that belied his anger, but his words weren’t loud. “When my lawyers get through with you monkeys, you won’t even be able to get a job flipping burgers. You’re finished. All of you. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” One of the marshals yanked McAlister’s arms behind his back and attached handcuffs. McAlister craned his neck around. “Hey buddy—don’t scratch my watch. It cost more than you make in five years.”

As they left the reception area, McAlister barked orders to his assistants, whose disoriented expressions seemed to reflect their realization that it might be time to update their resumes. “Call Rosenberg at Cravath. I don’t care what he’s doing. Tell him to meet me downtown right now. He’ll know where.”

The procession filed into the elevators and no one seemed to notice the news alert that silently scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen in the reception area:
Dr. Robert James Austin wins his ninth, tenth and eleventh Nobel Prizes for TB cure, revolutionary bacteriophage techniques, and arteriosclerosis breakthrough making statins obsolete. Full report to follow.

84

A
fter four months, Bobby showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Susan had inadvertently created a public commotion when, during an interview, she said that Bobby was on the threshold of an AIDS cure. This gave the media’s talking heads something to debate and prompted endless internet noise about why Bobby’s doctors weren’t doing enough to bring him out of the coma. The president called Bobby’s team of doctors, which included the world’s two greatest coma experts, to the White House so they could brief him.

While a few of the physicians present lobbied for an aggressive regimen of experimental drugs, it was quickly knocked back as being too risky. Similarly, a method called “DPS,” in which electrodes are planted deep within the brain to deliver stimulating electric shocks, was rejected as too dangerous. The consensus was — ‘this brain is not the brain for us to experiment on’ and ‘let nature take its course.’ They advised the president that the prognosis for recovery was very poor.