Tom Hyman (26 page)

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, suddenly solicitous.

“Yes. Black coffee.”

The baroness called an assistant on the intercom and gave the order.

They looked at each other. The baroness shrugged. “I’m really sorry, Dalton, but you’re not making me a realistic offer.

I’m surprised that you even came to me for help.”

He didn’t reply. He still had his hole card, and he was thinking how best to play it.

The coffee arrived. The baroness fussed impatiently with the ruffles of her blouse as he drank it. She had given her decision, and now she wanted him to leave.

Stewart picked up the RCD and held it out in front of him.

“Baroness, we once fought each other for this. Because we were both smart enough to know how much it could be worth. Now here it is. And I’m offering to cut you in on it—not just because I need your help but because there’s enough profit here for both of us. It could make us the two richest individuals on the face of the planet.”

“I’m sorry that I can’t help you.”

Stewart opened his attache case again. He put the cartridge back inside and pulled out a videotape. “Do you have a VCR?”

“Dalton, I’m a very busy woman….”

“It’ll only take a few minutes. It’ll be worth your time, I promise.”

The baroness opened a panel in the wall near a wet bar to reveal a large TV and VCR. He handed her the tape. She inserted it in the machine and waited.

“What is it, for heaven’s sakes?” she demanded.

“Watch. You’ll see.”

A little girl appeared, wearing a pink dress. She looked at the camera and smiled.

“Our daughter, Genny,” Stewart explained.

The tape showed Genny progressing in age through a series of standard home video scenes—breast feeding, playing with her dolls and stuffed animals, eating at her high chair, taking her first steps, running around the house, playing with her mother and father, playing with her nanny.

“This was put together from several hours of videotapes done over the course of Genny’s first year,” Stewart explained. “There she is down at the guest cottage last summer. She was walking at six months.”

The next scene showed Genny talking. Her mother’s voice offcamera was asking her to introduce her stuffed animals. She held up each one in turn and recited its name.

The baroness crossed her arms impatiently. “What is the point of this?”

“This last scene was taped a few months ago,” Stewart said, ignoring her. “Genny’s fourteen months old here.”

The camcorder zoomed slowly in on Genny, standing in front of a grand piano, rubbing her hands energetically along the bench seat. Suddenly she turned to face the keyboard and began playing the melody to “When You Wish Upon a Star.” She played it once through, perfectly, then stopped, turned, and smiled at the camera.

The tape ended. The baroness reached forward, stopped the VCR, ejected the videotape, and handed it back to Stewart without a word. She walked to her desk and then turned around to face him.

Stewart followed her across the room. “Do you need an explanation?”

She shook her head. “You do amaze me, Dalton. Mein Gott . . .”

There was genuine admiration in her tone. “I can see its advantages instantly. It let you be the first to know whether or not Jupiter worked. Quite inspired, really.”

Dalton returned the videotape to his attache case. His exhausted body felt a feeble but encouraging trickle of hope.

“But your wife was not afraid?”

“No.”

“She was quite brave.”

“Not exactly. I didn’t tell her.”

“How was that possible?”

Stewart explained that Anne thought Goth was making a single repair to one known genetic defect. “No one knew. It was between Goth and myself.”

“And your wife still doesn’t know?”

“I think it’s better not to tell her. At least not yet.”

“No one else knows?”

“You’re the first.”

The baroness kept shaking her head in disbelief. “You have had the girl tested?”

“I have her medical records with me. She’s completely healthy.

No problems at all. No abnormalities, nothing. She’s a superior child in every way.”

The baroness pulled a stack of letters from her In box, sat down, and began signing them. “Perhaps it’s only a coincidence.

There are such things as child prodigies, you know.”

“You don’t believe that.”

The baroness shrugged.

“Fifty-fifty share,” Stewart said. “Plus fifty million in stock, on whatever terms you want. All you have to do is put up twenty-four million cash, now.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I don’t have time.”

The baroness tossed the stack of signed letters into her Out box.

“Give me two hours, then. I’ll talk to my lawyers.”

“Of course.”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“I understand.”

“It’s three now. Come back at five-thirty. I’ll have an answer then.”

“Five-thirty,” Stewart repeated. He picked up his attache case and left.

The two and a half hours passed with excruciating slowness.

Stewart walked the streets of Munich, ate a bratwurst and drank a glass of beer in a cafe, then walked the streets some more.

He knew he was taking a tremendous risk. He was practically putting his future in her hands. But he believed that he could control her.

There was not a shred of evidence to suggest that she could be manipulated by him or by anybody—quite the contrary—but his ego wouldn’t permit him to think otherwise.

When he returned to her office, the baroness was no longer alone. A narrow-headed man in his forties, with slicked-back hair, a high collar, a toothbrush mustache, and a sour expression, was sitting beside the baroness’s desk. Stewart was immediately encouraged. This looked like her money man.

The baroness introduced him. His name was Richard Spengler—a company lawyer. Stewart shook his cold, damp hand and sat back down on the sofa.

“I wish to make a counteroffer,” the baroness said in a brisk voice.

“I’m listening.”

“I will loan you the twenty-four million dollars on the following conditions,” she began, dropping her gaze to a sheet of paper on the desk in front of her. “One, an equal share with you of all profits from the Jupiter program. Two, a fifty-one-percent interest in Stewart Biotech. The twenty-four million dollars will be paid back either out of your profits on Jupiter or directly from gross, pretax earnings of Stewart Biotech, whichever becomes available first.

For my part, I’ll agree to undertake all initial expenses for developing the program—finding a suitable test site, outfitting and staffing a clinic, arranging for trials, and so on. When you’ve recovered your financial position, we’ll share all future costs equally. There remain a lot of details to settle, of course, but those are the principal points. If you accept those, we can conclude an agreement.”

Stewart’s jaw tightened. “Fifty-one percent? You expect me to give you controlling interest in Stewart Biotech? For a twenty-four-milliondollar loan?” He said this in a very loud voice.

The baroness exchanged glances with Herr Spengler. He pursed his lips primly and nodded.

“The only way I can protect a loan that large is to have control over the company using it,” she replied.

“Even the banks aren’t that greedy.”

The baroness folded her arms.

“The answer is no,” Stewart said. “You’ll have to accept much less. I offered the stock as security. As collateral. That’s all. Until the loan is paid back.”

“That’s not good enough. I want stock.”

“If you want stock, you can’t expect a cash repayment of the loan as well. That’s absurd.”

“That’s my offer, Dalton.”

He thought the baroness was just staking out a tough bargaining position, but she wasn’t. She meant her original offer to stand.

That was it. Period. Take it or leave it. Stewart argued heatedly with her for half an hour, but she refused to budge.

He left her office, finally, telling her that he needed some time alone to think. He felt sick, confused, and angry. The woman was unbelievable. She knew she was his last hope, short of bankruptcy, and she intended to extract the maximum from him-strip him of everything she possibly could.

He went outside and walked the streets again. It had begun to rain hard. He pulled his coat collar up around his neck. He was shivering violently, and his joints and his muscles ached. His knees felt so weak and rubbery he feared that he might fall down.

He retreated into a bar, ordered a drink, and downed another Halcion.

She had calculated her offer with a brutal precision, he thought.

No matter how much he hated it, it still came out as the best alternative. It boiled down to a choice of giving control to her or to the banks. And the banks wouldn’t lend him the money he needed to develop the Jupiter program. And that was what mattered. If he could just get the baroness to back off from her demand of controlling interest, he decided, he’d accept her offer.

Then Jupiter would get developed, and it was Jupiter, after all, not Stewart Biotech, that held the key to a vastly richer future.

And he was pretty sure she’d accept less than controlling interest in Biotech. She was too smart—and too greedy—to hold out for the impossible.

And there was another reason. He had heard the men in the catacombs—the same men who had been watching Slater’s apartment—speak German. It was close to certain they had been sent there by the baroness. Despite her tough bargaining stance, she still wanted Jupiter as much as he did.

He called the baroness from his hotel. “Forty percent of all common stock,” he said. “And two seats on the board. Take it or leave it.”

“Fifty percent and four seats on the board. That’s the best offer I can possibly ever give you, Dalton.”

“Sure. Forty-five percent and three seats. And that is the best you’re ever going to get from me.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Stewart waited, holding his breath.

“Very well.”

“Good. Draw up the papers. I’ll initial a draft tonight. Tomorrow I’ll send Hank Ajemian over to hammer out the details. I’ll need you to transfer twenty-four million dollars to my bank in New York by noon tomorrow. I’ll give you the account number tonight.”

“I’m pleased,” the baroness admitted, when they had settled their deal.

Suddenly her voice was warm, sensuous. “It’ll be a great adventure, I think.”

Stewart didn’t reply.

“Oh, there is one other condition,” she added.

“What’s that?”

“Your daughter, Genny. I’d like to meet her very much. If she’s the living proof that Jupiter really works, I must see her myself, don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” Stewart said. “Why not?”

He hung up the phone and collapsed heavily onto the bed. He pulled the comforter up over himself and fell asleep, fully dressed.

A last hurried survey of the situation downstairs assured Anne that everything was in order. Amelia, the cook, was working furiously on the menu; the servers were properly dressed and instructed; the wines were chilled, the bar was set out, the hors d’oeuvres made; the newly decorated dining room was spotlessly clean, the silver was polished, the places set, the candles and the flowers arranged.

Anne rushed upstairs to change. Guests would be arriving in fifteen minutes. Dalton was already pacing the downstairs halls impatiently, drink in hand.

Her husband had so many times in the past reminded her that her performance as a hostess reflected on him that she was invariably in a state of nervous apprehension whenever they were entertaining.

But tonight she was more anxious than normal. This dinner was no ordinary affair. It was for Stewart’s business partner, the Baroness Gerta von Hauser. Every time Anne thought of the word “baroness” she felt her throat constrict. God knew what the woman was accustomed to, but it had to be pretty grand. She was not only a baroness, she was the head of a huge European business conglomerate.

Dalton had gone out of his way to reassure her. The baroness, he said, was really very likable and easygoing—not at all the demanding autocrat some had made her out to be. But beneath her husbands assurances Anne detected his own nervousness. Thewoman had recently saved Stewart Biotech from bankruptcy with a big cash loan. Dalton obviously wanted this dinner to make the best possible impression on her.

Lexy had helped Anne choose the wine and the menu. Anne had suggested they should try some German dish, in honor of the baroness, but Lexy had vetoed the idea. “Germans are not gourmets. They eat cabbage, potatoes, and a variety of vile sausages.

The menu has to be French.”

In consultation with Amelia they settled on quenelles of pheasant with morel sauce for the main course. It was a daunting choice, given the long preparation time required, and the difficulty of finding both fresh pheasant and fresh morel mushrooms in the same season. But Amelia was enthusiastic. For the wine, Lexy chose a great Rhone, Beaucastel’s Chateauneuf du Pape 1989. For dessert they agreed on something Amelia had found in an old French dessert cookbook—a rich, complicated winter holiday cake made with hazelnuts, Swiss bittersweet chocolate, and Dutch cocoa, called Gateau Castel Vallerien aux Noisettes.

“If the baroness has any taste, Amelia will astonish her,” Lexy said.

“If she doesn’t, at least the rest of us will all know we’ve had a great dinner.”

Lexy had also helped Anne pick out a new evening gown for the occasion, and Anne wished she’d hurry up and get here.

Anne slipped into the gown and fussed with it in front of her dressing room mirror. It was black, with long sleeves. It was also cut very low back and front, and decidedly clingy. She had never worn anything so daring before. She would never have chosen it herself, but Lexy had insisted. It was a matter of association, Lexy had explained. The baroness naturally expected to be in glamorous company.

Anne picked out a long string of pearls and wQund them twice around her neck. She decided they called too much attention to her bosom. She tried half a dozen other necklaces. None of them looked right. Where the hell was Lexy anyway?