Tom Hyman (19 page)

“Get her comfortable,” Goth directed. “I’ll summon the obstetrician.”

He darted across the hall and into his laboratory office.

Lexy helped Anne get undressed and into the bed. “What’s happening?

Any labor yet?” I Anne took a deep breath and uttered a low groan.

“Getting some pain now.” I “Jesus, we just made it. Do your breathing exercises.”

Anne started exhaling short puffs of air. I Lexy squeezed her hand.

“Christ, how can you be so calm? I’m twice as nervous as you are.”

Anne managed a wan smile. “We have to try Dalton again. The number’s in my bag.”

Lexy fished through Anne’s purse and dug out an address book.

“Where’d you list it? Despres? Dictator? Despot? What?”

“National Palace.”

“Of course.” Lexy found the number, grabbed the bedside phone, and dialed. “It’s ringing, but nobody’s answering.” She glanced up at the wall clock: 11:30. “Everybody there’ll be drunk.” She redialed but still got no answer. “I’ll try again in a few minutes. Maybe the clerk at the hotel already got him and he’s on his way.”

Anne’s labor pains became more frequent and intense. “I can feel her moving, Lexy!”

Lexy gritted her teeth in anguish. “Oh my God. Hold her in there, Annie. The cavalry is on the way.”

Goth reappeared with a nurse—a thin, elderly black woman.

She introduced herself as Katherine and immediately took charge, taking Anne’s blood pressure and taping a fetal heart monitor onto her belly.

“Where’s an obstetrician?” Lexy demanded.

Goth looked pained. “They’re trying to find him.”

“Him? There’s only one?”

“One on duty tonight, yes. The switchboard is paging him. If necessary, I can do the delivery.”

Lexy scowled at him. “Sure, and so can a cab driver, if he has to.

What do you know about it?”

Goth straightened up, offended. “I’ve delivered dozens of infants.

There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Katherine mopped Anne’s brow with a damp cloth. “How’s the pain, honey?” she asked.

“Getting up there,” Anne whispered. She was breathing rapidly.

The nurse gave Anne a shot of painkiller, then positioned herself between her thighs and examined her. “Fully dilated,” she declared in an authoritative voice.

Goth nodded nervously and wiped his glasses.

“What’s that mean?” Lexy demanded.

Goth pressed Anne’s belly with his hands. “Baby’s on the way.

She’s in a good position. Half an hour. Maybe less.”

“Start pushing, honey,” the nurse said.

Katherine and Lexy held Anne’s hands and helped her time her pushes.

Goth scurried frantically between the room and the adjacent lab to make sure he had in place everything he needed for the birth. Despite his assurances that he knew what he was doing, his obvious anxiety frightened Lexy. She watched him place a call to the hospital switchboard and once again demand the whereabouts of the obstetrician.

Told they had yet to locate him, Goth cursed and slammed down the phone.

Anne, meanwhile, was too preoccupied with her labor to pay much attention to what was going on around her.

Lexy tried another call to the National Palace, and this time someone answered.

“I need to find Mr. Dalton Stewart!” she shouted. “It’s an emergency. His wife’s having her baby! He’s there, at the party.

Please find him at once!”

The voice at the other end answered in French and then hung up. Lexy dialed the number again. The same voice answered.

“Il faut que je trouve Monsieur Dalton Stewart, immediatement!” she stammered loudly, in halting high-school French. “Je sais qu’il est la. Voulez-vous le trouver pour moi, s’il vous platt?

C’est tres urgent.”

The voice muttered something incomprehensible and put the phone down.

Lexy waited for several minutes, watching with mounting panic as Anne began writhing and groaning again.

“Push, honey!” Katherine cried. “She’s coming down. Push!

Push! That’s it!”

Goth kept checking the fetal monitor and talking to himself.

Lexy had never seen a doctor so nervous. It suddenly crossed her mind that he might be worrying that Anne was going to need an operation.

Clearly he wasn’t going to be able to handle that. Judging from the nurse’s confident coaching, Anne seemed to be doing fine. But Lexy had never seen anyone give birth before, so she really didn’t know what to think.

Goth discovered he needed something. He ordered the nurse to rush over to the maternity ward and fetch whatever it was.

Katherine hesitated. She glanced at her wristwatch. “Spasms are only fifteen seconds apart.”

“Then hurry up!” Goth shouted.

Lexy hung up the phone and came over beside Anne. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll take over.”

Katherine hurried out the door and down the corridor.

Lexy dried Anne’s brow with a towel. Anne had her eyes closed tight.

She was clenching her jaw.

“You okay, Annie?”

“It hurts like hell,” she gasped.

Goth slipped on a pair of latex gloves and probed Anne’s vagina with his fingers.

Lexy watched his face. Strange, she thought: here he was about to deliver her baby, and he never seemed to look at or talk to Anne directly. He acted almost embarrassed to be there.

I

Goth nodded to reassure himself. “Crown’s engaged,” he said.

“Just right. Shouldn’t be long now.”

A sharp series of spasms made Anne wail with pain. Lexy held Anne’s hand and coached her to push. Anne cried louder.

The cry seemed to echo down the corridor. Lexy looked at Anne. Her eyes were shut and she was panting. Another cry came from the same direction. It sounded like the nurse, Katherine.

Goth stepped over to the doorway to look out. No sooner had he stuck his head through than he pulled it back inside. He stood inside the doorway for a few moments, as if debating with himself what to do.

Lexy glanced over. “What is it?”

Goth didn’t reply. He seemed frozen in place, unable to move or think.

Lexy heard voices in the hallway. “What is it?” she repeated.

Goth pushed the door shut. He fumbled with the knob for a few seconds, searching in vain for a way to lock it. “There’s trouble,” he said.

He reached for the light switch. The room went dark. “Call the police. Hurry.” His voice was quaking.

“Police? What’s wrong?”

“Just call them!” he commanded. “And for godsakes protect the baby!”

The doctor hesitated by the door for a few seconds more, then opened it and vanished down the corridor.

The baroness was wearing high heels, and she caught her step slightly on the terrace stone as she walked toward Stewart. She appeared a little drunk. Some of the champagne in her glass spilled. He could smell her perfume: subtle, yet potent—like violets with a trace of something faintly pungent underneath.

“How is your darling little wife?” she asked, leaning close to him.

“Not so little these days.”

“Of course. She’s having a baby soon, ja?”

“About a week.”

“You must be very excited about it.”

Stewart nodded.

The baroness fastened her eyes on him. When she talked, especially when she wanted to command someone’s attention, she tended to stare.

The tactic invariably unnerved people. Stewart stared back. Except for the Seguridad men who paced the perimeters of the lawns beyond, they were alone on the terrace, standing barely two feet apart.

The baroness smiled suggestively. “We have a lot in common, the two of us. Don’t you think so?”

“I’ve never really thought of it.”

“Haven’t you?”

“No. Should I have?”

“I think I have been in your thoughts from time to time, Herr Stewart.

May I call you Dalton?”

Stewart felt his face grow warm.

The baroness laughed. “I’m making you uncomfortable. I apologize.”

She perched on the wide terrace parapet and patted the space beside her. Obediently, Stewart sat down.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said.

“Are you?”

“There must be some wonderful parties in Europe tonight.”

“But the Caribbean is so lovely in the winter. Look at tonight.

So beautiful. So mild. Quite romantic, don’t you think?”

“I guess it is. Yes.”

“Oh, and I must congratulate you.”

“On what?”

“Why, what do you think? Winning Dr. Goth and his Jupiter program.”

“That’s generous of you.”

“I’m not accustomed to being outmaneuvered. I confess you outsmarted me.”

Stewart tasted his scotch. Her compliments seemed out of character.

The baroness became thoughtful. She pressed the edge of her champagne glass against her cheek. “But you’ve made some mistakes, ja?”

“Have I?”

“You failed to tie up Herr Dr. Goth with a contract, for one thing.”

“That wasn’t a mistake. It was part of the plan. After all, he turned your offer down and accepted mine.”

“But you had no offer. You just gave him money. What kind of arrangement is that?”

He laughed. “A pretty good one, as it turns out.”

“But you’re taking too much risk.”

“Not at all. As soon as Goth demonstrates that Jupiter works, we’ll negotiate a contract. And we’ll get much better terms, because Goth knows I’ve already contributed to his success. He’s indebted to me.”

Stewart wanted to brag about how he had also persuaded Goth to put his program to the test by trying it out on Anne, but he thought better of it.

They gazed across the terrace at the party inside. The French doors had been opened to let in cooler air, and the noise inside was at a temporary lull, as if the crowd was catching its collective breath before the last mad dash to midnight.

“I could have made trouble for you, you know,” the baroness said.

“Oh?”

She ran a fingernail teasingly along the back of Stewart’s hand.

“President Antoine Despres and I are very close friends.”

“I’m not sure that’s something to boast about.”

The baroness laughed. “What I mean, of course, is that I have influence with him.”

“I see.”

“Certainly enough to keep him from causing you trouble.”

“He’s been no trouble at all.”

“But eventually he might be.”

“That’s occurred to me.”

“You should take me on as your partner. There could be great virtues in our working together.”

Was she serious? He couldn’t tell. “Do you think so?”

“Of course. We’d complement each other perfectly. And with my help you could get rid of Despres. I know a much less greedy individual who’d be very much in our debt if we helped him with a coup.”

Stewart glanced around anxiously at the guards patrolling the lawn.

The baroness was talking in a fairly loud voice.

“And let’s face it, Dalton—you need more money and more trained personnel to put into this project. And I have both. Things would move much faster. Together we’d be able to command a world market for Jupiter.”

“I’ll certainly think about it,” he replied. But he certainly didn’t intend to do anything about it. Taking on.the baroness as a business partner would be like inviting in the Mafia.

“There should be enough money for both of us, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty greedy.”

The baroness laughed. “So am I, Liebchen.”

Jupiter s L)aughter ù l

“How much profit do you think there’d be?” he asked. He was curious to know how seriously she had thought through the possibilities .

“I estimate five hundred million dollars in five years. In ten years, thirty billion. Perhaps even fifty billion.”

It was Stewart’s turn to laugh.

“Why is that so funny?”

“Your estimates are modest, Baroness.”

“Are they?”

“I expect to make that much in the first two or three years. In ten years, I’ll gross a trillion.”

The baroness’s flirtatious manner evaporated. “What did you say? A trillion?”

“Yes.”

“Dollars? ” “Dollars.”

She rotated the stem of her champagne glass thoughtfully between her thumb and forefinger. “How much is a trillion?” she asked. “A thousand billions?”

“That’s right.”

The baroness looked out across the dark Caribbean sea. She took a deep breath. Stewart watched appreciatively as her breasts heaved under the thin material of her gown.

“No one’s ever made so much money, have they?” she said.

“No one’s ever had anything to sell like Jupiter.”

“You don’t worry that it’s unproven?”

“No. I don’t worry about it,” he replied. Of course he worried about it constantly. But soon he’d know.

She regarded him intently. “That’s the risk you take, isn’t it?” she said. “If you want to be first, I mean.”

Stewart sipped his scotch. The ice in it had melted, and it tasted watery. “That’s the risk.”

The baroness had recovered her cozy manner. She squeezed his hand suggestively. It set his pulse racing. “You see how much we think alike?” she said. “We both enjoy taking risks. That’s when we feel most alive, ja?”

He nodded. Ja.

She moved her hand to his thigh. “I feel very alive right now,” she whispered.

Anne raised her head from the pillows. “What’s happening? Why are the lights off?”

“Some people out in the hall,” Lexy whispered. She tried to keep the fear out of her voice. “Probably a New Year’s party.

The doctor’s talking to them.”

They could hear Goth shouting in the corridor. Someone answered him.

Lexy couldn’t catch the words. Then Goth’s voice grew quiet.

Lexy groped in the dark for the telephone. She tried to dial the operator, but her hands were trembling so hard she kept hitting the wrong button. The hospital switchboard answered on the seventh ring.

“Get the police,” Lexy said in a harsh whisper. “We’re in the new wing. Someone’s breaking in!”

The operator made her repeat the request three times, then laughed at her. “They’ll all be drunk tonight, baby!”