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ISBN 978-0-316-50560-4

E3-20171107-NF-DA

Table of Contents

1. Cover

2. Letter from James Patterson

3. Title Page

4. Copyright

5. Chapter 1

6. Chapter 2

7. Chapter 3

8. Chapter 4

9. Chapter 5

10. Chapter 6

11. Chapter 7

12. Chapter 8

13. Chapter 9

14. Chapter 10

15. Chapter 11

16. Chapter 12

17. Chapter 13

18. Chapter 14

19. Chapter 15

20. Chapter 16

21. Chapter 17

22. Chapter 18

23. Chapter 19

24. Chapter 20

25. Chapter 21

26. Chapter 22

27. Chapter 23

28. Chapter 24

29. Chapter 25

30. Chapter 26

31. Chapter 27

32. Chapter 28

33. Chapter 29

34. Chapter 30

35. Chapter 31

36. Chapter 32

37. Chapter 33

38. Chapter 34

39. Chapter 35

40. Chapter 36

41. Chapter 37

42. Chapter 38

43. Chapter 39

44. Chapter 40

45. Chapter 41

46. Chapter 42

47. Chapter 43

48. Chapter 44

49. Chapter 45

50. Chapter 46

51. Chapter 47

52. Chapter 48

53. Chapter 49

54. Chapter 50

55. Chapter 51

56. Chapter 52

57. Chapter 53

58. About the Authors

59. BookShots.com

60. Newsletters

Chapter 1

Ken is a long way from home, he thinks, as the cab passes the minarets of the Blue Mosque and a towering Roman aqueduct, a stark contrast to his gated community. He chuckles to himself and the cabdriver eyes him suspiciously in the rearview mirror. When the car stops at a light, a beggar taps on the glass, glaring inside. Istanbul needs some fucking gated communities.

The light turns green. The cab pushes through the confusion, winds through the narrow streets, and stops in front of the Spice Bazaar. Ken gets out.

Inside, vendors display pyramids of cinnamon, ginger, marigold, cumin, and sumac. The crowd ebbs and flows. A Turkish melody twists in the air. The smell of seared steak makes Ken’s mouth water. He looks at his watch, wondering if he has enough time for a kebab. No.

To tourists the Bazaar is a labyrinth, but Ken navigates its corridors with precision.

He stops before a stall, picks up a dried date from a barrel, and throws it in his mouth. The vendor, wearing the traditional round white skullcap, can sense this transgression. He eyes Ken, beckons him to come close. Instead of harsh words, he gives him a paper bag. Ken slides the man a paper bag of his own.

Ken hastily walks to the men’s room. He enters a stall and puts his hand in the bag. He takes out an Iranian passport, opens it. In a black-and-white photo that looks much older than it is, as if through a distorted mirror, his other self—Kouresh—looks up at Ken. It brings impressions of his childhood in Tehran; the last days of the Shah; his family’s hasty, chaotic departure.

It’s sad to think of himself as an eleven-year-old boy, sitting in class in America, trying to learn English on the fly. But it paid off for his daughter, for the life she has.

Kouresh knows he has a job to do. Get back to the airport. Catch the five o’clock for Tehran. Maybe, he thinks, I can get that kebab to go.

Chapter 2

Robert Monroe can always find beauty, even curbside at the airport. If three white cigarettes sit smoldering in black sand, their smoke forming a question mark in the evening sunlight, he will say to anyone standing near, “Look. Beautiful, right?”

He can’t help himself. He has spent the last fifteen years trying to unlock the aesthetics and the meaning of pre-war art for college freshmen and sophomores. It’s one of the things that his wife, Ali, loves about him—and one of the things that she hates. “C’mon,” she says. “It’s an ashtray.” She pulls down the collar of his tweed jacket and fixes his hair. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

Robert ignores his appearance, but lucky for him, he is handsome. Without a gray hair on his head, Robert looks thirty-five but he’s really ten years older than that.

Ali gives him a peck on the lips and walks away in her perfectly pressed skirt and jacket. He glances one last time at the still life, then turns and drags an unruly roller bag with a broken wheel in her direction. It’s at moments like this when he is reminded how much he loves her, how much he needs her. “Coming. Sorry.”

“Sir, you’re in the wrong line,” the gate agent says.

“What? Impossible.”

“This isn’t where you check in.”

Robert looks over his shoulder at the long line of coach passengers. “Did you hear that, Ali? We waited in the wrong line.”

“Robert, I told you to ask,” says Ali. She’s handsome with an air of competence, even when frustrated.

“Ask who?”

Ali eyes the gate attendant’s name tag, notes the name, and asks, “Deondra, please don’t make us wait in another line. Can we just check in here?”

Deondra smiles. “There ain’t no line where I’m sending you.” She points a long fingernail in the direction of a red carpet, where a man in a suit stands sentry. He has a radio earpiece. “First class?” he asks.

“Deondra told us to come over here,” says Robert.

“Passports, please.” The man holds out his hand.

Robert fumbles in his pockets. Ali opens her leather folder, takes out two passports, and hands them over.

The man smiles. “The Monroes. We’ve been expecting you.” He lifts their bags with ease and says, “Follow me.”

They walk into the very exclusive First Class Lounge of Royal Swiss Airlines. The man invites them to sit on a soft leather couch. They are immediately served tea and delicate little cookies.

“First class? What is going on here?” Ali asks. “Who exactly do they think you are?” She watches a beautiful attendant walk by with a tray of shrimp cocktail.

Robert pretends to be hurt. “I’m an expert on Modigliani. I’m also an expert on the Fauvists, Cubists, and several other pre-war movements. Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

“I know. You’re brilliant. It’s just that usually when someone puts out this sort of expense they want you to do something…illegal.”

“Illegal?”

“Well, shady.”

Robert laughs.

“I’m serious,” she says.

“Well, you’re right—the reason these people love art is because it’s a way to move a hundred million dollars around tax free, under the radar. But what they’re asking me to do is legal. I’m just an insurance policy.”

“Insurance for what?”

“You know how many fake Picassos there are out there?”

“No.”

“Neither do I, but I bet there are a lot. Besides, this will be fun. When’s the last time we took a vacation? Just the two of us?”

“I can’t wait to ski.” Ali brightens. “You think I’ve still got it?”

“I know you do.”

A new attendant arrives. “Abdul will take you through security and to your gate.”

The line for security is endless, but the Monroes don’t wait at all. They follow Abdul to the first-class line. On the other side, a golf cart waits to speed them through the huge airport to the gate.

On board the 747, Robert and Ali are led to their giant seats in the nose of the plane. “And you said a Ph.D. in art history would never pay,” Robert says to Ali, and lifts his glass of champagne to hers.

Ali smiles and sips. The bubbles make her giggle. “This is good champagne. Here’s to higher education.”

“Here’s to higher highs. Nothing but the best for Mademoiselle.”

Chapter 3

Ken looks out the window at the serene lake and rugged mountains as his plane circles high above Geneva. Geneva is spotless. People always say it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

His shoes are off, his toes always touching the parcel, just in case he dozes off. The Iranian religious police are still fresh in his mind. But he has a job to do. Three countries, two identities—he’s almost done now.

The banker greets Ken and invites him into his office. Ken puts the parcel on the desk. The banker turns it once, then twice. “May I?” he asks.

“Yes, please.”

The banker takes an ivory-handled letter opener from its sheath and slices the brown paper and string. Inside are stacks of euro notes. The banker puts the bills in a counting machine. For some reason, the sight of the money makes Ken nervous. For just a second he looks away, but then, taking his job seriously, he watches the bills flutter, not wanting a single one to fly away.

The banker asks no questions. He doesn’t care where Ken flew in from this morning or where he will fly to later today. He just grins and counts the money.

The Swiss, Ken decides, have an uncanny ability to look right at something and not see it. They are pragmatic, but not troubled by ideology.

The banker leaves the room. Ken thrums his fingers on the desk, watches the clock on the wall. A Casio? Where’s the Rolex?

The banker returns, sits in his chair, and slides a safe deposit key across the table.

Ken picks it up and notices the round number tag.

“Downstairs?”

The banker stands, bows, and points toward the door.

A woman takes Ken into the vault. The walls gleam silver, substantial. They each put their key in the slot. The long rectangular box slides out.

Ken is brought to a private room. He bolts the door, opens the box, and finds only a USB thumb drive. It has a note attached—DO NOT TEST.

That’s it? Ken wonders. The end of the world? It’s so small. He puts the thumb drive in his pocket, tosses the key on the desk, and exits the small room.

Chapter 4

Ken arrives at the airport and waits in the line for security. When he is at the scanner, he puts the USB drive in his carry-on. He thinks of how the color of his skin, the curl of his hair, bring eyes in his direction. It’s always made him deferential and slightly bitter. He holds his hands above his head in the glass tube and watches his bag enter the X-ray machine.

A man places a hand in front of his chest, then lowers it. “You may go.” Ken grabs his bag, slips his hand inside, and palms the USB drive into his pocket.

The woman at the gate wears a small red hat. When she sees that Ken is in business class, she smiles and welcomes him. He walks the boarding bridge into the plane and takes his seat.

A family enters, two women and six small children. He guesses Saudi. I wonder what they did wrong to end up in business class? he thinks, amused. Then a Saudi man. Is that the father?

Ken motions to the tall, blond flight attendant. “Excuse me, is first class full?”

“No, sir. But I’m afraid it’s too late to upgrade.”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

The next couple to board makes his pulse quicken. A tall, fit man, who appears Korean, with a beautiful woman sits in front of him. What the fuck are they doing here?

The flight attendant leans over them and asks them, first in German, then in French, then in English, if they would like something to drink. The couple looks at each other. Then they look back at Ken.

The attendant makes a drinking motion with her hand.

“No,” one of them says.

Ken slips on his shoes, stands, and announces to everyone in the cabin, “I shouldn’t have had so much coffee.” He moves toward the restroom. When he gets near the door of the plane, he exits discreetly. In the bridge, he is swimming upstream against the horde of coach passengers. He looks over his shoulder and sees the Koreans about forty meters back. None of the three moves fast enough to elicit a panic.

At the entrance back into the airport, Ken spots two Saudis in black turtleneck sweaters.

Chapter 5

Ali and Robert walk groggily off their plane into the bright white Geneva Airport and part at the restrooms.

Robert rinses his face with hot water and applies shaving cream. He holds up a cellophane bag containing one blue, plastic Bic razor. This is what separates us from the cavemen, he thinks as he drags the razor across his cheek. The superego. Our parents’ undying words about hygiene now stuck in our subconscious, the never-ending unthinking desire to…

“Hey, buddy, you in town for the convention?”

A man stands there smiling at him. He’d guess Middle Eastern, but the accent is American.

“I’m going to Gstaad to give a lecture on art.”

“Nice,” says Ken. “I love art. What kind?”

Robert turns back to the mirror to finish his work. “Pre–World War II,” he says, bringing the razor under his chin.

Ken walks up beside him, reaches his hand up to the space by Robert’s ear, and says, “Hey, buddy, you missed a spot.” He lowers his hand and says, “I’ll look for you in Gstaad,” before briskly exiting the bathroom.

Nice guy, Robert thinks.

Ken walks quickly through the terminal. He knows the Koreans are behind him, the Saudis, too. Ken hears his name over the loudspeaker. He takes out his phone and dials. “I had to dump it. It’s going to Gstaad…art professor. Send a black car to Arrivals—now!”

Chapter 6

Ali and Robert sit in the backseat of a luxurious Mercedes Geländewagen. It speeds north on the autobahn. “I feel like Cinderella,” Ali says, as they watch the sun drop behind the Swiss Alps. The ridge is backlit, forming a jagged line against a breathless blue sky. “Is this chariot going to turn into a pumpkin?”

“Not for five days,” says Robert.

“Five days,” Ali says wistfully. “Thanks for taking this job. I know it’s not your kind of thing—catering to billionaires.”

“Are you kidding? To see you this happy, I’ll cater to anybody.”

Ali spreads her fingers on the soft white leather and smiles devilishly. “We’ve got a driver. And he’s named Klaus.”

“And Klaus has a feather in his cap, literally. Look.”

The feather on Klaus’s green Bavarian cap gently touches the suede headliner. “We should get you one of those hats,” says Ali.

“Absolutely. Step on it, Klaus.”

“Schnell, Klaus!” Ali says.

“To the hat store.”

“Ja, ja,” the older man with big ears says to the backseat. He launches the luxury four-by-four into the mountain pass.

They reach the crest and descend into the valley in the silvery dusk of twilight. Ali holds her palms against the glass and says, “It’s a fairy tale.”

With dusk falling, everything glistens in fresh snow and lamplight: A-frame houses, their rooftops heaped high with snow, pine trees laden with the fresh downfall.

The Geländewagen pulls up in front of the Gstaad Palace and both back doors open simultaneously. Robert steps out and moves to the trunk, but the valets already have the bags. He stares up at the castle-like hotel and says, “This place has turrets.”

“Ooh, I want to stay in a turret,” Ali says.

“I’m willing to bet the broom closet is pretty nice in a place like this.”

At the front desk they’re all smiles, until the rate sheet is slid over for Robert to sign.

“Whoa,” he says when he sees the price—€3,000 per night. “Actually, I’m here for Christie’s. I’m one of their speakers at the conference? They’re picking up the tab.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir. Christie’s actually had you in a less expensive room. You were upgraded by Mr. Al-Fayed. Still, you must sign.”

“Who’s Mr. Al-Fayed?” Robert asks.

“He’s quite well known here. Among other things, he’s the largest private shareholder in BioSwiss.”

“Pharmaceuticals…whoa, did you hear that, Ali? Some guy named Al-Fayed upgraded our room.” Robert looks from Ali back to the receptionist. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

“I assure you,” the receptionist says, “you will be very comfortable.”

“I’m sorry, but what does a pharma guy want with me?”

“He left you this note.” The receptionist slides a thick envelope across the counter.

“Wow, that looks like a wedding invitation,” Ali says. “Nice paper.”

Robert opens the envelope.

“What does it say?”

Robert reads it: “Mr. Abdul Al-Fayed requests the pleasure of your company for dinner at the Sommerset Restaurant. Répondez s’il vous plaît.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Hm. I thought this trip was just for the two of us. Our fairy tale?” Ali puts her arm around Robert’s waist.

He smiles mischievously, flips the invite to the receptionist, and pulls Ali to him.

The room is an aphrodisiac. Every texture is soft, exquisite. It’s not home. Ali kisses Robert passionately despite the presence of the tall valet, standing with their bags.

“Dis, is der sauna, unt minibar, unt coffeemaker.”

Ali unbuttons Robert’s shirt and kisses his neck.

“Und perhaps I leaf you alone.” The valet quickly exits and closes the door behind him.

As she works her way down his chest, Ali says, “There was a woman in the lobby with a lynx on a leash.”

Running his fingers through her hair, Robert says, “I saw a guy in a bearskin suit.”

Now at the bottom of his shirt, Ali continues, “She had a diamond the size of an ice cube around her neck.”

They drop onto the fur rug in front of the fire. “He had a bolo tie with an oil rig in the middle.”

“I love this place.”

A doorbell chimes.

“What is that sound?” Robert asks.

“Someone’s at the door. Maybe the valet wants to show us our robes.”

The doorbell chimes again. Someone raps firmly on the door.

“I’ll send him away.” Robert gets up and opens the door, shirtless.

Two imposing men in black suits stand at the door. One of them extends the envelope—the invitation that Robert had left at the reception desk. “Mr. Al-Fayed would like to know if you are pleased with the room?”

Robert closes the door behind him so the men cannot see his semi-naked wife. “Yes…Unexpected, but very kind.”

“Mr. Al-Fayed has extended his generosity to you. Now, he would like the favor of your reply. Shall you meet him for dinner tomorrow night?”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“He seeks your expertise on an urgent matter.”

Robert nods. “May I bring my wife?”

“Seven in the lobby. A driver will take you to meet Mr. Al-Fayed at Sommerset Restaurant. Mr. Al-Fayed will be most pleased.”

Chapter 7

When he steps back in the room, Ali is not lying on the bearskin rug. He hears running water and follows it to the bathroom, where steam billows. Robert quickly drops his clothes and follows Ali into the shower. “Whoa,” he says, grabbing for the knob. “Too hot!”

“No!” she says. “Now it’s cold.”

“It’s not cold.”

“Seriously, just get out of the shower. This never works.”

Robert leans back against the marble. “I’ll just wait,” he says. “It’s not good for your skin, you know, the extremely hot shower.”

“We’ve been over this a million times.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

Ali gets out and wraps a towel around her waist.

An hour later Robert finishes buttoning his shirt. “Ready?” he asks. She’s always late.

“Almost,” she replies, leaning into the mirror, lipstick in hand.

“I told the hostess we’d be down in five minutes. We don’t always have to be late.” He slips on his tweed jacket and thinks, I shouldn’t have said that.

“Seriously,” she says, looking him up and down, “are you trying to kill the romance? Why don’t you just put on some Teva sandals while you’re at it?”

He holds out his arms and looks at the sleeves. “Are you saying you don’t like the tweed jacket?”

“It was okay in the nineties because it was so retro. Now it’s just…No, I don’t like it.”

“But I wear it every day.”

“Exactly!” She lifts her palms and rolls her eyes.

“Is there anything about me that doesn’t subtly bother you?”

“You promised me you would change.”

Robert comes up with a plan. “Okay, Ali. I’ll meet you downstairs in five. A new man.”

The boutique in the lobby is foreign to Robert in more ways than one. He finds a tall, blond saleswoman and asks, “What’ve you got that’s cool? Something young, something an Internet billionaire or…a secret agent would wear.”

The saleswoman struts over to a rack and removes an iridescent blue hoodie. “This is very cool.”

“Kind of casual, wouldn’t you say?”

“You wear it under a more conservative jacket. Like this.” She holds up a black blazer. “It’s Tom Ford.”

Robert turns the price tag and winces. “Ouch. That costs more than my first car. But…anything to make my wife happy, right?”

“You know what they say,” the saleswoman says coyly. “It’s cheaper than a divorce.”

Robert puts on the hoodie, then slips the blazer over it.

“That’s the look,” she says.

Robert sees a foreign figure in the mirror. He holds out the tweed jacket, stares at it longingly. “We had a good run, friend, but now it’s time to say good-bye.” He turns to the saleswoman and asks her, “Do you have a charity box?”

She laughs. “This is Gstaad.”

Chapter 8

Robert stands at the elevator, shifting his weight from side to side. He looks down at his brown wingtips. “You guys are safe, for now.”

“Hey, buddy. You’re the art professor. Professor—?”

Robert looks up from his conversation with his shoes. “Monroe. Robert Monroe. You look familiar, too.”

“From the airport.”

“What a coincidence.”

“How do you like your room?” asks Ken.

“It’s…”

“A suite?”

Robert subtly nods. The doors to the elevator open up, and Ali steps out. She sparkles in the tiny bright halogen lights.

“Wow,” he says.

“Look at you,” she says. “A changed man.”

“Anything for you. How could I ever be so lucky?” says Robert, taking her hand. “This is…” Always polite, Robert turns to introduce the stranger, but he is gone.

Chapter 9

Ken steps out of the stairwell into a utilitarian world of large, stainless-steel front-loading laundry machines and loud dryers. He bumps into a woman wearing a black-and-white maid’s uniform under a black scarf. “Sorry,” he says as he subtly steals her ID card, palming it in his hand.

He swipes it at a computer terminal and enters MONROE.

At the door to the room, Ken looks both ways, knocks gently, then swipes the card.

Inside, he searches, going through everything in the room piece by piece. It must be on him, he thinks.

Ken hears a card slide in the door. There is no time to hide.

“Hello, Ken. Or is it Kouresh?”

“Hey, buddy.”

Ken feels a sting. He touches the feathers of a dart now lodged firmly in his neck.

Chapter 10

After dinner Ali and Robert decide to take a walk. Outside, large snowflakes tumble and swirl softly in the night sky. They wander down into the village.

They stop and kiss in the middle of the quiet, snow-covered street.

“You think Marcus is up?” Robert asks.

“Let’s FaceTime him.”

Robert gets out his phone and dials.

They wait. Marcus’s face comes up in the screen, his eyes groggy, his hair disheveled.

“Hey, panda bear, did we wake you?” asks Ali.

“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. What are you guys doing up? Is everything okay?”

“Your dad has a new look.”

“Check this out.” Robert hands the phone to Ali and slowly turns in a full circle so that Marcus can see everything.

“Whoa,” he says. “Are you trapped in a snow globe?”

“Nice observation, son,” says Robert.

“I love you, panda bear. Go to bed.”

“Okay. I love you guys, too.”

In the bedroom, at the end of the night, Ali tells Robert, “Lie naked, right there, on the duvet.”

He follows orders. She stands before him and searches deeply, silently in his eyes. She lifts her sweater over her head, then folds her hands behind her back, her arms reminding Robert of a swan. She leans forward, cups her breasts, and slides off her black bra.

The slow sound of the zipper on her leather skirt makes Robert a little breathless. It falls down her thighs to the floor. She is back to where the night began, in nothing but her black nylons. He sits up and reaches for her. She takes his hands in hers and they move across her hips to the small of her back. Her hands slide up his shoulders and meet at the back of his neck. He pulls her down on top of him and everything is new again.

Chapter 11

When Ken opens his eyes he is no longer Ken or Kouresh. Strapped to a table, he can only move his fingers and toes. The light is bright. It’s as if they are planning to operate.

He hears Arabic, which he does not understand, and some Farsi, which he knows perfectly. “Shia bastard…buying…computer…worm…” The words drift by like clouds.

Then someone is speaking in English, American English, Kentucky English.

“Hey there, Ken, or should I call you Kenny? Or Kenneth? Or Kouresh?” The two passports are dropped on his chest.

A large, round head blocks out the light. It brings a flame over and sucks that flame into a pipe, once, twice, three times, until the orange embers glow. Each time the flame rises out of the pipe and flickers, Ken can see a little bit more of the distorted face. It’s round and rubbery, with craters like the moon.

“Goddamnit, Ken. I’m talking to you! I hate to be ignored,” the man says, and exhales a plume of smoke into the light.

“Ah…Ah…Ah…Ken! I said call me Ken.”

“Do you smoke, Ken?”

“No. I quit a long time ago.”

“I never met a man who didn’t smoke, under the right circumstances. How ’bout after dinner?”

“No…”

“How ’bout after sex?”

“No…”

The distorted man would smile if his face moved that way. Instead, two pools of saliva form in the open corners of his mouth. He sucks air. “Have you ever made whiskey, Kenny?”

“No.”

“Well, of course not. It’s against the Koran. But do you like whiskey?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Well, let me tell you about the distillation process. When you heat up alcohol it evaporates quite quickly. Some of that evaporation turns into the best whiskey in the world—Kentucky kind. The other stuff will make you blind as a bat, might even kill you.”

Ken begins to sob a little.

The round face leans in close, puffs on his pipe. Ken can see the skin is opaque. Threadlike blue and red veins run beneath the surface. “Ken, what I’m trying to do here is to distill the truth.”

Ken snivels. “Okay.”

“Just the right amount of pain is like just the right amount of heat—the truth will rise from you like ether. I’ll capture it in a bottle. And I’ll have one of the most valuable things in this big, dirty, deceitful world of lies and half-lies.”

“The truth?”

“The truth, Kenny! Don’t say it like it’s a question.”

“I will tell you the truth. I swear to God.”

“Which god, Kenny? A man with two passports probably got more than one god, too.”

“No. I swear. I swear on the life of my children.”

“Just had to bring the children into it, didn’t you? That’s real heartwarming. Now, Ken, let’s go back to the first stumbling block in our relationship. Do you smoke?”

“No, sir.”

The man slaps his hands together in a brutal crunch. “Right back to square one! Okay, it’s time for science class.”

The rusty sickle drops down on Ken’s chest and slowly splits the seam to his pants. A small squeeze bottle fills his navel with gasoline. The contents of the pipe, the orange embers, are emptied onto Ken’s quivering chest. Ken screams in pain.

“Details, Ken. It’s all in the details.” The rusty sickle pushes down, in between the gasoline and the pipe embers. The fluid flows. The embers roll. They meet. The man called Pumpkin leans in and blows on the embers. The gas erupts in flames for ten excruciating seconds, then is out.

Two gloved hands pull at Ken’s hair and lift his skull. He sees his own charred skin smoldering.

“I’ll ask you one last time, Kenny. DO. YOU. SMOKE?”

In tears of pain, Ken blurts out, “I SMOKE! I SMOKE!”

“Hear that? Sounded to me like the truth.”

“What! What do you want to know?”

“Tell me, Ken, everything you know about the Italian.”

“He’s got a partner! A woman named Yøta!”

Chapter 12

When the sun is just up over the Alps, Ali and Robert hit the slopes. The crunch of the snow beneath their skis, the feel of the crisp mountain air, it’s invigorating. From the top, Ali takes off. It’s easy to keep her in sight, in her vintage cornflower-blue one-piece ski suit. It even has a yellow belt.

He gives chase. This is just like when we met at Dartmouth. I have missed this, thinks Robert.

She moves gracefully, effortlessly. As she gains speed, a vapor trail of snowy mist builds behind her. The tiny crystals frost Robert’s cheeks. The trail plateaus, then drops off between two thick groupings of pine trees. The steep path has just the perfect amount of room for them to ski side by side, their rhythms matching perfectly.

It’s a magical moment—until a skier in black pants and a silver jacket recklessly skis between them. His path forces Ali toward the trees, where she throws all her weight onto her skis’ edges, chattering to a stop on the side of the run.

Robert yells to her, “You okay?”

“Fine!” she yells back.

Robert turns his attention downhill and gets into a racer’s tuck.

He gains distance on the reckless skier, now entering a field of large moguls. Robert’s a little surprised that his legs still have the ability to absorb the shock of each bump, but they do. He’s running purely on instinct now, and it’s working.

Near the bottom of the mogul field, Robert overtakes the skier, gets in front of him, and stops cold, holding his hands out for the man to stop. The skier hits a bump as hard as he can and attempts to jump over Robert. Robert ducks down. The skier barely clears him, then loses a ski on a hard landing. He falls face-first into a large pile of snow.

Robert skis over to the fallen skier. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yes. But no thanks to you!” The man is young and speaks in a heavy Italian accent.

Robert offers a hand up. The man refuses it, standing on his own and dusting the snow off his silver jacket.

“You almost ran my wife into the trees up there.”

“What? You almost killed me down here. Let’s say we are even.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Robert says. “I just wanted to get your attention.”

“You did that with your skiing more than your attempt to stop me. You’re…not bad.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

“I’m Eugenio.”

“I’m Robert.”

Ali skis up to the two of them. “What was that all about?”

“Hey, honey, this guy who almost killed you is named Eugenio.”

Ali takes off her helmet and goggles and musses her hair. Ali’s eyes are bright, her smile big.

Suddenly Eugenio is penitent. “I’m so sorry. I was…a little wild. Forgive me. It’s just my nature.”

Robert is tickled by the candid self-appraisal. “No worries, Eugenio. I used to be a little wild, too.”

“And the mystery woman? What is her name?” Eugenio asks smoothly.

Ali is blushing, Robert notices, due to Eugenio’s combination of bravado, youthful, rosy cheeks, and big blue eyes.

“My wife’s name is Ali.”

Eugenio kisses her on both cheeks. “She is lovely,” says Eugenio. “Perhaps we could meet for drinks tonight? The first round is on me.”

“We have a—”

“That would be lovely,” Ali interrupts her husband.

“Very well. The bar at the Olden Hotel. Shall we say eight?”

“Eight,” Ali says, though she sees her husband squirm at the thought.

“Eight. Sounds good,” says Robert.

Eugenio clicks in and skis off.

“You meet your mysterious Arab for dinner. I’ll meet Romeo.”

“It was Eugenio.”

“I know,” Ali says with a playful kiss.

Chapter 13

The lobby of the Gstaad Palace is buzzing with the frenetic energy of cocktail hour, but Robert is still, his hands folded before him. When he left Ali she was fresh out of the shower, wearing nothing but black nylons, blow-drying her hair in the mirror. The way that she bent so lithely at the waist, he wanted her, but when he put his hands on her hips and kissed her neck she tossed her hair and said, “You’re the one who decided to have dinner with the billionaire.” As a poor consolation, she kissed him lightly on the lips, then giggled as she used her thumb to wipe off the lipstick she had left.

“Okay. I’ll meet you at the bar. Don’t go anywhere else,” said Robert.

“C’mon. I go where the night takes me. You can come find me.”

Her cavalier attitude made his blood boil, but it also made him want her like he hadn’t wanted her in years.

“Dr. Monroe?”

Robert is pulled from his daydream. “Yes?”

The larger of the two Al-Fayed bodyguards stands before him. “Come with me.”

Outside, Robert gets in the backseat of a Bentley SUV. Twenty minutes later, the car pulls into a parking garage beneath a large chalet.

“Is this the Sommerset Restaurant?” Robert asks.

“Change of plans,” says one of the bodyguards.

The door opens and Robert steps out into a room filled with pristine vintage Ferraris, each perfectly illuminated, each ready. He’s uncontrollably drawn to a long-nosed red 250 GTO. He reaches out his hand to touch the yellow crest on the side.

“Ah…I see your excellent taste in art extends to vintage cars as well.”

Robert turns to find a dashing older man with a long black beard, wearing an exquisitely tailored British suit and an Arab headdress.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Abdul Al-Fayed.”

“Good to meet you, Mr. Al-Fayed. Is this a ’sixty-two?”

“Call me Abdul. You are close. It’s a ’sixty-three. Only—”

“Thirty-nine were ever made.”

“Yes, and a few of them crashed.” Mr. Al-Fayed laughs.

“And rebuilt to factory specs. It’s…magnificent.”

“Would you like to drive it?”

“No, no. But…could you start it?” Robert asks, suddenly full of boyish glee. “I can’t imagine many people even know the sound or the smell.”

“Yes, of course.” Abdul slides behind the driver’s seat. “Well? Get in!”

Robert gets in and surveys the round gauges, the gleaming shifter. Abdul primes the engine, turns the key, and the twelve cylinders come to life in an orchestral growl. Al-Fayed revs the engine a couple of times and takes it down to a nice idle.

“Sublime,” Robert says.

“Truly,” Al-Fayed responds.

They are well into the third course of dinner, all served by a private chef in Abdul’s dining room that looks out over the valley, when Al-Fayed says, “I love art too much.”

“Oh. I don’t think that’s possible. Beauty has its own power. We can feel reinvigorated by that.” Robert rises to look for a second out the window at the gleaming snow and a barn in the near distance emanating soft, sunset orange from the creases around the large door.

“Yes. But it’s my desire to possess that beauty—that is what gets me in trouble.”

“How so?” Robert asks as he sits back down and gives Al-Fayed his full attention.

“You see, I have bought pieces of art of…questionable provenance. One in particular that plagues me. It’s not my fault. People know I collect. They come to me when they have a need for a discreet sale. Really I should have someone of your expertise on staff—full-time.”

“The important thing is that you love the piece.”

“No. A false work of art is like a false lover or a false friend. It should be destroyed.”

“Well, uh…” Robert says, unsure how to respond. “How can I help you?”

“I have a Modigliani, or so it seems—I need to know if it’s authentic. I hold it in the Geneva Freeport. You will go there tomorrow, fully inspect it, and tell me if I have wasted fifty-seven million dollars or made ninety. And I will pay you for your time.”

“Mr. Al-Fayed, your generosity is unequaled, but I have plans with my wife.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes—the reason I accepted the invitation from Christie’s. This little vacation is important to us…to rekindle a flame after drifting apart, if you know what I mean.”

“You would like to win her back? As if her heart was some kind of trophy?” Al-Fayed takes a sip of his drink and surveys the room thoughtfully.

“That’s one way of saying it. You find that…”

“Gallant.” Al-Fayed raises his glass toward Robert.

Robert smiles. “Thank you, sir.”

“Forgive me for being caught off guard. It’s just the relations you Westerners have with your wives are entirely foreign to someone like myself.”

“Thank you for understanding. It is very important to her that we spend this time together.”

“I shall pay you one hundred thousand euros.”

Robert swallows hard, lifts a shaky hand with cocktail to his mouth, and finishes off his drink. “Okay. First thing in the morning.”

Chapter 14

Robert gets a little lost in his thoughts standing outside the Olden Hotel. Small A-shaped pine trees twinkle, adorned in white Christmas lights. Green wooden shutters display intricate carvings. Three painted garlands of flowers across the white facade lend a hint of spring in the middle of winter. His son, Marcus, might say that it looks like a giant gingerbread house. But for Robert, he can feel the history, a few hundred years of hospitality, of people coming in to escape the cold and meet their friends by the fire.

Inside, nothing disappoints—from the warmth of the fire to the red-cheeked patrons. He makes his way to the Pinte bar. The intricate wood carvings on the ceiling and crown molding are evidence of craftsmanship rarely seen.

Robert sees a crowd of young, beautiful people huddled together at the bar and spots Eugenio in the center, talking to the bartender. The bartender hands Eugenio a wine sack. Eugenio puts the spout to a woman’s mouth and the chant starts. “Eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa!” Robert realizes suddenly that the woman is Ali. Eugenio lifts the sack above his head. Still, every drop goes in Ali’s mouth. “Zicke-zacke-zicke-zacke, hoi hoi hoi!” Eugenio brings the wine sack back to Ali’s mouth and lifts the spout. The crowd cheers. Ali wipes her chin, then waves her hands in triumph.

Eugenio spots Robert, runs over, and throws his arm around his shoulder. “The professor is here!” he yells to his friends as he drags Robert to the bar.

Ali is clearly a bit drunk, still lifting her arms like a prizefighter after a big win. She drops them around Robert’s neck and gives him a big, sloppy, wine-flavored kiss.

“Oh!” Robert says over the thump of the music. “This is the girl I remember from college.”

“Where have you been hiding this beautiful woman?” a drunken Eugenio barks at Robert’s ear.

“He knocked me up!” says Ali. “We were barely out of college. Now we live in the suburbs! Fucking Connecticut! Can you believe that?”

“Connecticut,” says Robert.

“You should move to Gstaad!” Eugenio says. “Everything is better in Gstaad!”

“I see that,” Robert says with a hint of irony.

“Let me introduce you to my friends! This is Gabriella!”

“Ciao!” she says to Robert before kissing him on both cheeks.

“Look at her fucking boots!” drunken Ali says to Robert and points. They are thigh-high, plush, chocolate-colored leather. Gabriella shows a little skin between her short dress and her high boots. “I want those fucking boots,” Ali declares.

“This is Vincenzo,” Eugenio says.

“Ciao!” says Vincenzo and extends his hand with the palm facing down.

Ali grabs Robert’s cheeks and turns his face toward hers. “Vincenzo is wearing a four-piece suit,” she says seriously. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

Robert smiles at Vincenzo. “Nice to meet you.”

“We need to learn from these people,” Ali says, and lifts her glass in their direction.

“Don’t embarrass them, Ali,” says Robert.

“Nonsense!” declares Eugenio. “To the professor! Kanpai!” He downs his drink and slams the glass on the bar. “A drink for my friend. What shall you have?”

“Bourbon.”

“Bourbon!” Eugenio yells at the bartender. “Where did you learn to ski like that?”

“Dartmouth. I was on the ski team with Ali.”

“No wonder you beat me to the bottom! We must ski tomorrow! I demand a rematch!”

“I’ve got to go to Geneva tomorrow.”

Ali frowns. “What? This is supposed to be our vacation!”

“I’m being paid—handsomely. Believe me, you’ll thank me later.”

“I wanted to ski with you.” Ali shrugs her shoulders with an exaggerated frown.

“What is this trip?” Eugenio asks.

“I’ve got to inspect a painting at the Freeport.”

“Who’s the artist?”

“Modigliani.”

“Modigliani! An Italiano!” Eugenio says and raises his glass to his friends. Robert watches Eugenio turn from their smiling faces to look around the room, glancing at a Korean couple by the door. Eugenio’s friends cheer, but his mood drags. “Modigliani, he died young. But he really did live.”

“To Modigliani!” Robert says, then takes a tentative sip of his bourbon.

“For the trip to Geneva you must take my Porsche. It goes two hundred kilometers an hour—IN REVERSE!” Eugenio takes the keys out of his pocket, shows them to everyone, and slaps them into Robert’s hand.

“You are too kind,” Robert says to Eugenio. “I don’t—”

“I demand it!” Eugenio replies.

Ali tries to whisper, but her voice is not quiet. “You’re the only one here that’s sober. You should take the keys.”

“Good thinking, hon.” Robert kisses her on the forehead and slips the keys in his pocket.

Eugenio holds out the wine sack with both hands as if he’s the priest and it’s the communion cup. “Professor? Let’s see if you can do as well as the beautiful woman.”

“No, no, no,” Robert replies, shaking his head and looking down at his brown wingtips. Don’t be boring. You’re in Gstaad, partying with young hip Italians, about to get paid a year’s salary for one day’s work. And the old Ali is back. “BRING ME THE WINE!” he calls out proudly.

Wild, radiant faces surround him. The wine sack is aimed at his open mouth.

“Eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa! Zicke-zacke-zicke-zacke, hoi hoi hoi!”

For Robert, the room goes sideways. The night wears on. He is helped to a banquette, and then to a car, then to his hotel room. He sees Ali with her arms around Eugenio. He sees it all as if in a dream. Some things he is conscious of, some things he thinks he is conscious of…My bicameral mind, my inability to distinguish my consciousness, one half of my mind speaks, the other half listens, but what if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing…It’s a hallucination. It’s a dream. It’s reality. It’s morning. And they are both gone.

One of Al-Fayed’s bodyguards stares down at Robert. “Professor. It is time to go to Geneva.”

In the bathroom Robert finds a note written in lipstick on the mirror.

“You drank too much!   I’ve gone skiing with Eugenio. See you at lunch.”

He wipes it away frantically with a towel.

“Let me call my wife,” Robert tells the bodyguard.

“Put on some pants. Come with me now—we have very little time.”

Robert gets in the back of the Bentley SUV and they start their journey down the mountain pass.

Chapter 15

The Freeport in Geneva is a large, innocuous office building. “I’ve heard of this place. Some say it holds more important works than the MoMA,” Robert says to the bodyguards. Neither one responds.

“You guys know I have to be back by three? I’m doing a lecture. For Christie’s.”

Still, no response.

Inside, Robert is led to a voluminous room with a plush leather sofa aimed at nothing in particular.

“Wait here,” instructs one of the bodyguards.

“Sit on the couch,” the other says.

Four men in periwinkle jumpsuits bring in a large wooden crate and place it ten feet in front of the couch. They begin meticulously removing screws. In a perfectly coordinated move, they remove the front of the crate, then the painting. Two of the four men bring in a stand. The final coat of plastic wrap is removed and there it is.

At first glance it certainly looks like a Modigliani. The palette is right and the subject, a reclining nude, is right. It’s going to come down to the minutiae.

“I need more light,” he says to the men in jumpsuits. They bring lamps over to the painting, running long cords this way and that.

Robert gets close, puts on his magnifying headset. He thinks the brushstrokes are good. “Why,” he wonders out loud, “couldn’t Modigliani have done any cataloging? The busy life of a true Bohemian. Between the absinthe, sculpture, hashish, liquor, women, and painting, when would he have had the time?”

No one responds.

“You guys speak English?” he asks.

One of the men smirks and nods.

“But that’s what makes it fun. Modigliani’s work is a free-for-all.” Robert inspects the signature, then walks around to the back. “Hey, bring those lights back here.”

The men in the jumpsuits comply. “Aha. The weave! I feel like Sherlock fucking Holmes,” Robert says triumphantly. The same man smirks but does not move.

“Come here. Let me show you something,” says Robert, slipping into professor mode. “This was either painted between 1917 and 1919, or it’s a forgery. Right?”

The man glances sideways at the painting.

“From 1917 to 1919, every canvas in Paris is made by hand. After that we get the machine-made canvases. So was this weave done by a machine or a man?”

The man in the jumpsuit bends to look closely, then shrugs his shoulders.

Robert takes out his phone and readies it for a photo, but one of the bodyguards snatches the phone from his hand. “No photos,” he barks. “You were never here. You saw nothing.”

Robert takes out a sketchpad. He draws the weave, folds the paper, and puts it in the breast pocket of his blazer.

He looks at his watch to see that it’s one. “We’ve got to go back to Geneva, I speak in two hours. Where is Mr. Al-Fayed?”

“He had an urgent matter he needed to attend to. He will contact you later. When will you have your report?”

“I…I’m close, but I need to do some research. Call a couple of my colleagues. Can I come back tomorrow?”

The bodyguard looks at Robert with cold disdain.

Chapter 16

The Bentley SUV pulls up in front of the Gstaad Palace exactly at three p.m. Robert dials his phone as he walks through the lobby. “Hey, I’m back at the Gstaad Palace. I’ve got to do my talk for Christie’s, then I’ll be free. Let me know where to find you guys.”

Standing at the podium in front of a large Christie’s sign, Robert looks out at a small crowd of international elites. As he starts to speak, three interpreters translate his every word into their headset microphones, one whispering in Russian, another in Mandarin, another in Arabic. The sound is sibilant and eerie. He tries not to imagine Ali and Eugenio together.

At four, Robert has finished his presentation. Mingling with this crowd is the last thing he wants to do, so he slips out the back door and finds a staircase. Ali still isn’t answering her phone, and with each stair his jealousy grows. “Hey, you’re probably still skiing. Give me a call. I’m done. I want to meet you guys.”

He fumbles for the key and opens the door to their suite. Inside he sends Ali a text—IN ROOM. He hears a bell tone. He texts her again, an exclamation point. The same bell tone sounds. Robert rifles through her things and there it is, Ali’s phone, under a sweater.

Why would she not bring her phone? Did she forget it—or did she not want to be reached?

Robert walks through the small town to the bottom of the gondola. The sun has now dropped below the ridge and a damp chill descends from the mountain to the valley. He watches the last few skiers come down the hill, appearing black on gray, indistinguishable at a distance.

A half hour later, the trickle of skiers has stopped and Robert sees the ski patrol, men with white crosses on red jackets, finishing their final run. Robert hurries over, nearly slipping several times on the snow. “Excuse me. Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Are all the skiers down?”

“Finis, kaput, fertig, all done.” The skier crosses his hands in front of his chest. “Tomorrow. You ski tomorrow.”

Robert walks back to the Gstaad Palace and restlessly paces the lobby, looking around. A Chinese businessman approaches him and begins, “Professor, you, I, talk now?” He has the Christie’s Mandarin interpreter in tow.

“No. I’m sorry. I can’t. Later.”

With nowhere else to go, Robert returns to the room and immediately his phone rings. It’s Al-Fayed. “Hello?”

“Hello, Robert. I trust your trip to Geneva was comfortable?”

“Yes…”

“And you found my men helpful?”

“Of course.”

“And what did you think of my nude? Is she beautiful?”

“Yes, she is beautiful.”

“And…is she real?”

“That’s the million-dollar question. I should know soon. I just have one resource to check…”

“I must warn you, I am not a patient man, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

“Of course, sir. You have my…undivided attention.”

“Very well. Until we speak again.”

Robert lies on the floor and stares at the rustic wooden beams that crisscross the ceiling. He closes his eyes and the bar scene at the Olden Hotel plays in his mind. Was she looking at Eugenio with desire or fascination? Was I drugged? But then he remembers their tender moments afterward, the black nylons, the serious look in her eyes. But that was before. It was before the Italian. His face feels flush, his eyelids heavy. He slips off to sleep.

Chapter 17

“Housecleaning,” a woman in a black-and-white outfit says as she stands in the open doorway. “Sorry,” she adds when she spots Robert on the floor.

“I was just getting up. What time is it?”

She smiles blankly at Robert. It occurs to him that housecleaning and sorry may be the only two words she knows in English.

She motions toward the bed. It’s just the turndown service, Robert realizes—it’s only been a couple of hours.

Returning to the lobby, Robert searches among the crowd of elite guests. For a second he thinks he hears someone speaking Italian, and follows the sound to find two old dandies wearing ascots and matching silk Chinese slippers. They look him up and down.

At the front desk Robert asks, “May I speak to someone in security, please?”

“Yes, of course,” the receptionist says, and lifts a phone to his ear.

In just a few seconds a man with a broad, hairless head extends his hand to Robert. “I am Claude, chief of security. How may I help you?”

“Hello, Claude, I’m Robert Monroe. My wife has gone missing, and I’d like to file a missing person’s report.”

“Oh. This is terrible. When did you last see her?”

“This morning. I mean last night.”

“And did you receive any communiqué from her?”

“Yes. She let me know that she was skiing with a friend.”

“Do you have this friend’s name?”

“Eugenio something. Young. Italian guy. Rich. He gave me the keys to his Porsche.”

“And you gave him your wife?”

“No. It’s not like that.”

“Now the two of them are…unaccounted for?”

“Yes. Exactly. We must find them.”

“Sir…” Claude chooses his words carefully. “Sir, discretion is a part of my job. You do not want me to advertise to the world that your wife and an Italian playboy have gone missing together. Do you?”

“I don’t give a damn about discretion. I want my wife back.”

Claude takes out a pen and a business card. He writes on the card. “Tell Hervé that you are a guest here and I sent you.”

Robert gets into a taxi and asks to be taken the police station. It’s on a back street, a short distance from the idyllic promenade and Olden Hotel, but worlds apart. For Robert, it has the feel of backstage or the other side of an amusement park. This is the utilitarian side of paradise that nobody wants to see, especially when they are on vacation.

“Hello, is Hervé here? I was sent by Claude at Gstaad Palace.”

A young man rises from his desk. “Follow me.”

Hervé is a small, compact man with curly black hair and a thin, low mustache. After these last few days in Gstaad, Robert is not even surprised to see that he is nursing a golden highball.

“Pour toi, Hervé,” the young man says.

“Vous!” Hervé replies sharply and puts his drink in his desk drawer. He hops to his feet, sizing up Robert, and says, “Bonsoir.” His suit is the first cheap thing that Robert has seen since he arrived in Gstaad.

“Hello, do you speak English?” asks Robert.

“French. German. English. What can I do for you?”

“My wife, she has gone missing.”

“I am so sorry…”

“Yes, well. I think she is with an Italian man.”

Hervé grimaces and sits back down. His hand twitches toward the drink in the drawer. “Have you ever been to Saint Tropez? Mr.…?”

“Monroe. No, I haven’t been to St. Tropez. How is that relevant?” Robert asks, wary of Hervé’s now-relaxed demeanor.

“Is your wife beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“Young?”

“Hervé, what is your point?”

“In St. Tropez, somebody’s always got a bigger boat. Sometimes the women get on the bigger boat. It is unfortunate, but off to sea they sail…au revoir.”

Robert experiences a sudden wave of rage and, before he can think better of it, lunges across the table to grab the little man by the lapels. “SHE IS MY WIFE!”

“HHHHHHHELP!” Hervé shouts. “HILFE! HILFE!”

Three young officers in blue sweaters run into the room and pull Robert off Hervé, who straightens his lapel and says indignantly, “Sperren ihn. Fucking American cowboy.”

Chapter 18

In the corner of the spotless white jail cell, Robert slowly bangs his head against the chicken-wire window. A loud buzzer sounds and a door clicks. He turns to find Hervé standing there, rolling his stubby fingers on his forearms. “You think because I’m little and French that I do not know my job?”

“Sir, I am sorry,” says Robert. “I just have a terrible feeling about all of this.”

“I know people. This is my job. I know vice.”

“It was not like me to get physical.”

“I can see that. But perhaps your wife has come into some misfortune. Go back to the Gstaad Palace. Lie in bed. If she comes in drunk and bowlegged in the middle of the night, consider it the lesser of two evils.”

Robert squeezes his fist but contains his rage.

“Good,” says Hervé, missing nothing. “Your frontal lobe is back in control. Keep it that way.” Hervé bangs on the door and yells, “Lassen sie ihn!”

Back out in the snow, Robert collects himself. He has no idea what time it is. His phone tells him that it’s one a.m., and still no text from Ali. Nothing. He follows the sound of people and finds himself standing in front of the Olden Hotel again. Maybe they’re in here, he thinks. Maybe Ali knew I would come looking for her.

The bar is packed with the usual crowd. Robert searches for Ali and Eugenio, but doesn’t see anyone familiar—except for the bartender, the same one from the night before. Robert pushes to the bar and gets his attention. “Hello,” he says. “Have you seen Eugenio?”

“You’re the second person to come in here looking for him tonight. What are you drinking?” he asks, clearly busy.

“Who was the other person?”

“Huh?”

“Who was looking for Eugenio?” asks Robert.

“She was.” The bartender points to a young woman sitting in a booth staring at her phone, looking wildly out of place. To Robert she resembles the anime characters that his son is obsessed with. She has her hair in pigtails and wears Moon Boots under a short skirt with sparkly metallic tights.

Robert sits in the booth next to her. “So I hear you’re looking for Eugenio, too?”

She squints her eyes, points at her ears, and says, “No sprechen sie English.”

“I need to find him. It’s very important.”

She scoots away from him in the booth and gets up to leave. Robert grabs her by the arm.

“I said, I don’t speak English, asshole!” she says.

Robert squeezes her arm tighter. “Please!”

She kicks Robert in the shin. “Fuck off, you goon!”

He buckles over for a second as she runs out the door.

Robert pursues her through the lobby and into the street. “He’s got my wife! You’ve got to help me!”

She sprints down the snow-covered street. Robert gives chase, and when he gets close, reaches for her swinging pigtail. It’s almost in his grasp—but then she turns quickly to the right down a suddenly appearing staircase. Robert follows, skipping steps, three at a time, until his heel hits a piece of wet ice and he’s upside down, flying forward. His head lands first with a decisive crack on the last step.

Chapter 19

Robert awakens with a metallic taste in his mouth, the taste of fear gone stale. The moon hangs crooked in the night sky. His head throbs and something terrible grows in his stomach. He gets to his knees and vomits a plume of clear liquid into a pile of ice. Exhausted, he rolls onto his back. Hot, humid, putrid air blows in his face. He opens his eyes to find the big, jolly face of a St. Bernard. The dog has a little wooden cask hanging from its collar.

“You are staying at the Gstaad Palace, no?” It’s a bellman out walking a guest’s dog. He holds the leash.

Robert groans and looks up. He misses the face but finds the funny little hat. He speaks to it. “Yes.”

“The drinks are very powerful in Olden Hotel. Do not be ashamed.” The bellman talks into a walkie-talkie earpiece. “Betrunken Gast. Sendewagen.”

“My. Wife,” are the only words Robert can pull together.

“We are very discreet.”

Robert’s mind is in fragments. His subconscious sews broken pieces together into what is at first a comforting narrative: Ali’s tender touch, a reclining nude. The two become the same, Robert the painter. Marcus laughs. Then Ali’s hands are around Eugenio’s neck. Robert is angry, even violent. Ali is hurt. Everything becomes gray and bright with unwanted light seeping in. Robert opens his eyes, reaches to his left, and she is not there. Reality. His head pounds. His heart aches.

He stands in the shower for ages waiting for the water to wash away his confusion. Something catches his eye. He turns to the mirror. The fog has revealed cursive writing done with nothing but a fingertip. The middle, where the note about skiing was written in lipstick, is wiped clean, but following perfect lines across the entire mirror is written:

I want a divorce. I want a divorce. I want a divorce…

Over and over.

Robert turns off the water and steps out of the shower, dripping before the scroll.

Did she write this while I was downstairs buying the new jacket? Did she write this as she left in the arms of Eugenio? We bicker, yes, every couple bickers; but when did she stop loving me? Are Claude and Hervé right?

In the lobby he throws down a quadruple espresso and a croissant, and he starts to feel a little bit like a human being again. He shows a photo of Ali on his phone to four bellmen, three valets, two waitresses, and three busboys. Nobody has seen her.

Robert walks into the bar. He holds out the photo of Ali to the bartender.

“She was with you?” the bartender asks.

“She’s my wife.”

The bartender shakes his head and says, “Sorry.”

An image catches Robert’s eye on the television behind the bar. It couldn’t be. They flash it again—a photo of a young man, an Italian, Eugenio. “Turn that up,” Robert says to the bartender.

The announcer speaks in German over images of the young Italian man, a helicopter, a rescue scene, and an ambulance.

“What are they saying?” Robert asks the bartender, almost frantic.

“There was an accident. This person was skiing off piste and there was an avalanche. They found his body this morning.”

Robert’s eyes fill with tears. “Did they find anyone else?” he screams.

“They do not say…”

Robert’s voice cracks. “My wife. She was with that man.”

The bartender is saddened. “I’m so sorry.”

“Give me your phone.”

“Of course.”

Robert takes out the business card that Claude had given him. He hands it to the bartender. “Call this number.”

The bartender punches the keys.

“Detective Hervé Dupuis, please. Tell him it’s Robert Monroe. Tell him it’s an emergency,” Robert says into the receiver. He taps his fingers, waiting.

“What is this about?” Hervé asks when he gets on the line.

“The Italian. The dead one. From the avalanche. That’s the guy who was with my wife.”

“Oh…I’m very sorry. Perhaps your wife is safe, but somewhere off piste. Perhaps lost.”

“We need to find her!”

“Yes, we do. I will pick you up outside the hotel in ten minutes.”

Chapter 20

When Robert and Hervé hop out of the red-and-white helicopter, where it landed between the trees on an expansive piece of ice, a Swiss rescue team is waiting. The men look like ski racers, wearing matching red-and-white sweaters with padding on the shoulders and elbows.

“This is Rega, the best alpine search team in the world. If your wife is out here, they will find her,” says Hervé.

Robert nods stoically.

“Gunter! Show me where the body was found,” Hervé says to a tall, well-built man, already leading them.

“Over here.” Gunter points. Robert looks up the mountain, which is absurdly steep. “They skied down this?”

“Perhaps came from the other direction,” says Gunter, pointing to the north.

“How did they get over here?” Robert asks. “Helicopter?”

“Have they checked the helicopter vendors?” Hervé asks.

“Ja,” says Gunter. “They were not booked on any helicopter service. But you could possibly get here with a very long traverse from the lift. Maybe.”

“Did the dead man have any hiking gear?” asks Hervé.

“No. But the snow and ice ripped through his jacket. It could’ve ripped off his backpack,” says Gunter. “If he had one.”

“Ali didn’t bring any hiking gear,” says Robert.

The deep bark of a Saint Bernard echoes through the canyon, and snowmobiles crisscross the wide-open terrain. Robert wants to run in every direction at the same time.

“How deep was he buried?” Hervé asks Gunter.

“Not deep. Two meters. It was the violence. He tried to outrun it.”

“If they were skiing together,” Robert adds, “the one that caused the avalanche would have a better chance of surviving.”

“How so?” asks Hervé.

“If you’re at the top of the avalanche you steer to the side and grab for something. A tree. Anything. Ali knows that.”

“So she lives and Eugenio dies? The avalanche could’ve pushed him a long way.”

“God.” Robert fights back his tears. “It’s our only hope. She would be up there. Maybe injured. I’m going up.”

“With the heavy snows of the last few days—and now that it is warm—the mountain is not stable. We have seen nothing from the helicopters,” says Gunter. “We cannot risk your life or the lives of our team.”

Before anyone can stop him, Robert strides over to a snowmobile, starts it, and speeds up the hill. He’s about four hundred feet up the side when the terrain becomes too steep and fragile for a snowmobile. He turns it sideways and sets its uphill edge with his weight on the running board.

He climbs in the ice and snow without crampons, digging with his bare hands to the top of a granite ledge. Fingers beginning to bleed, he looks over the side into an abyss. Where is she?

Robert hikes the ridgeline for hours, until his bone-deep chill subsides and he starts to feel sleepy. He knows this is hypothermia. Soon he’ll just sit down in a little mountain crook and fall peacefully asleep, forever.

But his thoughts turn to Marcus. He can’t do this to him. He slaps himself in the face with a fistful of snow, makes his way clumsily to the snowmobile, and descends at dusk to where the others are slowly packing up the search.

Chapter 21

The helicopter rises above the tundra, and Robert stares intently into the gloaming, willing something to move, something to wave at him. Feeling empty and ill, Robert wonders if he has been both cuckolded and widowed in just three days.

Hervé puts an unlit cigarette in his mouth, but one of the Rega crew shakes his head sternly and wags his finger. Hervé shrugs his shoulders in exasperation.

At the police station Robert is taken to a small room and put behind a desk. He notices a stainless-steel rail screwed onto the surface. “You bring me into an interrogation room? What is this all about?” he asks Hervé.

“We are short on space; I apologize. This is the form. Please fill it out.” Hervé puts a pen and paper on the table and walks out of the room.

Robert nods aimlessly and taps the pen on the Formica surface.

A tall blond woman comes in and sits down opposite Robert, her brow knitted in concern. “Hello, I’m Greta. I work for Interpol. Came up from Geneva to talk to you.”

“Okay,” says Robert.

Greta extends her hand to shake. “I’m so sorry but I need to ask some questions.”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever seen this man?” Greta slides a photo of Ken onto the table.

“Yes, I have met him.”

“Did he give you anything?”

“No.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Yes.”

“We have surveillance video of the two of you in the Geneva airport walking into the bathroom. And in the lobby in the Gstaad Palace.”

In his mind Robert replays the scene in the airport restroom. Ken’s finger on his cheek. Ken’s hand slipping down the tweed jacket and into his pocket.

“Jesus,” Robert says. “How could I miss that? Yes! He did give me something.”

“Ken works for us,” says Greta. “We have reason to believe he is in grave danger.”

“Is he CIA?”

“All I can tell you is he’s on our side.”

“God. Everyone falls in love with my wife,” Robert says, shaking his head.

“What does this have to do with Ken?”

“That Italian, Eugenio, he drugged me. He must have come back to my hotel room. I thought he wanted my wife, but really he wanted whatever it was that Ken gave me.”

“How did the Italian know you had it?”

“How did you know?”

“Ken radioed us, before he disappeared.”

“The Italian must have a mole inside your operation.”

“You catch on fast,” says Greta.

“And now he’s dead?” asks Robert. “A bit too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“All of it really. Whom exactly do you work for, Professor Monroe?”

Robert shakes his head. “We have to find Ali. I have to get her back.”

“Hervé tells me you were at the Freeport in Geneva doing business for Abdul Al-Fayed.”

“Yes.”

“What was that?”

“He hired me to authenticate a painting.”

“Is this the painting?” She slides out a photo of the Modigliani. Robert tries not to react but is sure she can read his expression.

“I can’t discuss his business.”

“Funny,” she says, “this painting was owned by an ayatollah. What do you think the religious police would think of that—a supreme leader owning a nude? Though you know, the Nazis had it before him.”

“If this doesn’t have something to do with finding Ali, I don’t want to waste another breath on it. Okay?”

“Look, Robert, we need to know who you work for. Is it Al-Fayed? Is it the CIA?”

Robert shakes his head, trying to clear his confusion. “I came here at the request of Christie’s.”

“You just said Al-Fayed paid you.”

“So?”

“We’re trying to figure out his part. The whole espionage world is abuzz right now—a major terrorist strike is coming. Somehow you’re in the middle of it. You’ve got to help us stop it.”

“Look, I’m just an art historian,” says Robert wearily. How had he landed in an international heist film? “A dad…a husband.”

“We’re offering you the chance to be so much more.”

“There’s only one thing I care about right now.”

“Al-Fayed made his fortune in private security, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some say he was both the sickness and the cure,” says Greta.

“What does this have to do with Ali?” Robert asks, exasperated.

“Sometimes, Robert, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

“My wife is missing and you’re calling me a pawn? To an unseen hand?”

“No, no, no. I’m asking for your help, and I’m warning you.”

Chapter 22

Greta leads Robert down a dark staircase. In the basement, the halls glow fluorescent green. Through the glass door, Robert sees bluish skin, a corpse laid out on a stainless-steel table, a troughlike moat around its edge. Eugenio.

Inside it’s cramped, with barely room for the three of them to move around the cadaver without touching it. The medical examiner is short and wearing a magnifying visor. It looms large above his drooping shoulders.

The medical examiner traces a long laceration from the shoulder to the waist. “Ja, das muss verletzt haben.”

“What does that mean?” Robert asks Greta.

“He says, ‘That must’ve hurt,’” Greta translates.

“Das auch!” The medical examiner holds up a purple and ballooned hand with mangled digits.

“‘This, too,’ he says.”

“Enough, I get it,” says Robert. “What about this color? Why is he blue? Is that normal after death?”

“Warum ist er blau?” Greta asks the medical examiner.

“Erstickung,” the ME responds.

“Asphyxiation.”

“Not hypothermia?” asks Robert.

“Nein,” the ME responds. “Hypothermia ist rosa.”

“Did you check the mouth?” asks Robert.

“For what?” asks Greta.

“A clue. It’s always in the mouth.”

The two of them stare at Robert as if he is completely insane. Then Greta says, “I knew you would be helpful.”

“Go ahead. Look.”

The ME pries open the mouth, sticks in his fingers. He digs in, tilting his visor upward, closing his eyes. “Here!” he says. He drops on the table a USB thumb drive.

“This,” says Greta, as she picks it up with tongs and drops it in a plastic bag, “is what Ken put in your pocket in the airport. The mystery is solved. This man drugged you. Took this from your room. And perhaps attempted to swallow it to hide it from his attackers. I’ll take it back to Geneva and test it.”

“But…?” asks Robert.

“You did it, Robert.”

“But what about Ali?”

“Ali?”

“My wife.”

“Oh, yes. Your wife. Hmm. It doesn’t fit. What happened that night? Did she spend the night with this man? Was she having an affair?”

Robert studies the dead man’s face.

Chapter 23

Robert walks out of the morgue, up the stairs, and outside into the sublime world of the living. The snow still falls. The world is white and precious, but not for him. The weight of it all hangs on his shoulders, pushes him to his knees. The Italian wanted the USB drive, but did Ali want the Italian? Did she really go skiing with him? A car alarm interrupts his thoughts. It’s deep in the distance.

As Robert walks toward the hotel, the car alarm gets louder. He turns a corner and sees the same girl from the bar at the Hotel Olden, the girl who looked like an anime character, the girl with the pigtails, the girl who ran. She has a rock in her hand and she’s banging it on the driver’s side window of a matte black Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Eugenio’s Porsche? The windshield is covered in tickets. A yellow boot clinches down on the left rear wheel. The alarm howls.

She hears footsteps and turns to see Robert running in her direction. She heaves the rock at him and sprints off in her Moon Boots, short skirt, and metallic tights.

But Robert is not going to let her get away again. He dives for her legs and tackles her, and both of them slide to a stop in a snowbank. She reaches for her small orange leather purse, which has slid away and rests near a gutter. “Get off me!” She unleashes a fury on Robert, clawing at his face with her nails and screaming.

Robert crams his hand over her mouth. “Is that his car?” he demands.

She points at his hand and violently shakes her head. Robert takes his hand away.

“Let me go or I will have you put in jail for attack.”

“Scream all you want. What was Eugenio doing with my wife?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“That’s not good enough.” Robert grabs her by the collar of her rabbit-fur jacket and lifts her to her feet. “We’re going to the police.”

She kicks him in the shin. He grunts but won’t let go. “I work for people a lot worse than the cops.”

“Fine. I’ll tell the cops you said that. What is going on?” asks Robert.

The car’s siren goes silent.

“Is that Eugenio’s Porsche?” asks Robert. He stops, holds her by both shoulders, and really looks at her for the first time. He can see that she is young and beautiful, and very scared.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Start talking. I know it wasn’t an avalanche—it was murder.”

“Yes. Murder.”

“Do you know who killed Eugenio?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“Please. You must tell the police. Any clue to find my wife.”

“If I am seen anywhere near the police, I’m dead. If I don’t get them what they want, I’m dead.”

“The police will protect you.”

“How? Am I going to live in a cell for the rest of my days? Bullshit.”

“It’s the USB you want.”

The girl is startled. She stares at him intensely, adding him up. “How did you know? Where is it?”

“The woman from Interpol has it. She’s taking it to Geneva,” he says.

“Fuck.” The girl stares off into space, then turns back to Robert. “How do you know this?”

“I just watched them pull it out of Eugenio’s mouth.”

Her eyes well up with tears. “No. It can’t be.” She shakes her head in dismay.

“Tell me what is on the thumb drive. Is it names? Accounts? Secret agents? What’s on the drive?”

“Better to not know the details.”

“Ali said that to me once. She was wrong. Tell me. If I don’t know it will drive me crazy.”

“Ali?”

“My wife.” Robert still clutches her jacket, unwilling to let her go.

“Is that what you want?” she asks.

“Yes. Eugenio took my wife. She was with him.”

“Okay. I will help you. Give me my purse. It has the keys to Eugenio’s apartment; we will look for her there.”

“Okay,” Robert says, and they turn back and walk toward the purse. “Run from me again, and it’s straight to the cops.”

“If you don’t want me to run, don’t scare me.”

“What’s your name?” Robert bends down and picks up the orange purse.

“Carola.” She curtsies.

He hands over the small purse.

She sticks her hand in, pulls it out, makes a fist in Robert’s direction, and asks, “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Suddenly, Robert’s face feels like it’s on fire. He wants to pluck his burning eyes out of his head and stick them in the snow. He swings his arms for where the girl was. Again he’s on his knees, but now he’s shoveling snow into his eyes, trying to put out the flame.

Chapter 24

Pumpkin’s black-gloved hand turns a matchbook. One side reads HOTEL. The other side shows a series of numbers scrawled in blue ink.

Pumpkin lifts a rusty old sickle off the barn wall. He surveys the edge with his thumb, holds the blade up to the ray of moonlight that comes from a high loft door. The sharp edge gleams.

Pumpkin walks over to a tarp. It’s laid across a low stone table. Pumpkin rips back the tarp to reveal Ali, shivering, naked, gagged, and chained to the stone table. “Hello, Yøta. My bosses are not too happy with your partner’s games.”

She screams, but her voice is stifled. Pumpkin leans his distorted face near Ali’s uneven breath. He sniffs the air, then stands up straight. “Should we share some feelings? Is it time?”

She nods, tears streaming from her eyes. Pumpkin lowers the gag on her mouth and puts his hands under his chin as if he’s posing for a portrait at the mall.

Considering she is naked and chained, she speaks with incredible composure: “I’m a lawyer from Connecticut. I’m on vacation with my husband. We met Eugenio. He invited us out for drinks. I went to a bar and drank too much. I don’t remember anything until the next morning; Eugenio and I were going skiing and—”

“Oh, yes, that’s where I enter the story. I’m afraid your version of events lacks verisimilitude. You see, a man died so I could learn about you. You, Yøta, were my little nugget of gold.”

“I’m not who you think I am.”

“Tell me where to get the USB and I will kill you quickly, painlessly.”

“I don’t know anything about a USB.”

“This is a broken record. Problem with a broken record is this.” Pumpkin holds up the sickle for Ali to see. “The needle won’t stay in the groove. How do we fix that?”

Ali screams. His black-gloved hand lands across her mouth, muffling the sound. She trembles in terror.

Pumpkin tries to smile, sucks air in the open corners of his mouth. “Let’s have some fun.”

Pumpkin leans in close, face to face with Ali. She sees every crevice on his disfigured face. “Tell me something, would it be worse for you to kiss me? Or for me to cut you?”

Ali bites the glove. He shakes it in the air. “A spirited filly—it will be fun breaking you in.”

“My husband is CIA! Call him! He’ll give you whatever you want!”

Pumpkin starts to chuckle until he wheezes and coughs. “You have a husband? I’m crestfallen. I thought we were really hitting it off.”

Chapter 25

When Robert walks in the lobby of the Gstaad Palace, a clerk immediately approaches him and hands over a note.

“Sir,” he says, “Mr. Al-Fayed needs you to contact him at once.”

Robert shakes his head and walks away.

“Sir, you missed the lecture this afternoon. Are you okay?”

Robert makes his way to the room. Numb and disoriented, this is a moment that he has been dreading. Robert stares at his phone. He imagines that somewhere on the other side of the world, Marcus is happy. Maybe he’s just drifted off to sleep. Maybe he’s been texting with that girl from his chemistry class. The early days of love. He wants to let Marcus stay there forever—it doesn’t last—but he can’t.

He presses HOME and the phone blinks black. A dead battery. He plugs it into the charger and searches for Ali’s fuchsia phone. He finds it on the dresser. He turns it on, enters her code, and presses HOME. This will be one of the defining moments of Marcus’s life. What will Robert say? Your mother is gone? She’s not coming back? Everyone leaves in the end. Robert’s face feels hot and flushed. Tears pour down. Before anyone answers, he hangs up.

He’s got to prep this, get someone over there to take care of Marcus; he can’t just drop this bomb on him. He stands up and tries to take a breath. His lungs feel tight.

The phone in his hand rings. The display reads CALLER ID UNAVAILABLE.

“Be strong,” he says, and presses the green button.

“Hey, panda bear,” says Robert.

A distorted, mechanized voice says, “I have your wife, or Yøta, whoever the fuck she is. If you ever want to see her alive again, you’ll bring us the sickness and its cure.”

“What? Who is this?”

“If you talk to the police, she’s dead.”

“What is the sickness? What is the cure? Is it…is it the USB?”

“Don’t play dumb, Robert Monroe. Bring us both USB drives or say good-bye to her forever.”

He hears Ali’s voice. “Robert, listen to him, help me!” The line goes dead.

Chapter 26

“Hello! Hello! Who is this?” Robert yells at the phone. He jumps to his feet and grabs his jacket.

Robert drifts like a ghost through the lobby of the Gstaad Palace. It’s a three-ring circus of wealth. One waiter is caught between two warring parties, each demanding a magnum of Dom Pérignon Rosé, the 1996 vintage.

“We do not have the 1996. We almost certainly have 1998! It was a very nice year. Let me bring you 1998!” says the waiter.

“No! 1996!” they cry.

Robert’s phone rings. “Hello?” he asks.

“Robert, it’s Greta. The USB drive, the one you found in Eugenio’s mouth? It was a fake.”

“Greta, you’ve got to bring the drive to me.”

“Why?”

“I must have it.”

“Robert, it’s evidence. I cannot give it to…”

“Then tell me, who is Yøta?”

“Yøta? How do you know about Yøta? Tell me, Robert, I must know, are you CIA?”

Suddenly Robert realizes that if he says the wrong thing, it could cost Ali her life. He presses the red button to end the call.

“Professor Monroe?” A British man in a suit stands before him. What now?

“Do I know you?” Robert asks warily. He hasn’t seen a mirror and doesn’t want to know what his face looks like right now.

“It’s time for your evening lecture. It starts in three minutes. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I can’t—”

“But you must.”

“Can you tell them…?”

“Come along.” The man takes Robert by the arm and leads him into a conference room, straight to the podium.

Behind him, sitting on stands, are a Cézanne, a Modigliani, and a Toulouse-Lautrec. Robert leans into the microphone. What am I doing? The words spill out automatically. “It all began with Paul Cézanne. He was not the first to realize that you could look at something from two, three, four different angles, but he was the first to try to incorporate that into his paintings. It was the end of the single-point perspective…”

As Robert speaks at length of changing perspectives, the interpreters echo his words in foreign, indiscernible sounds—Mandarin, Arabic, Russian. His head begins to spin, but he’s done this lecture for years. Just let it out.

“Pneumonia, consumption, and syphilis. Cézanne, pneumonia…Modigliani, consumption…Lautrec, syphilis…Now, of course, we know that all three of these are bacterial infections. They were all killed by something so small that they hardly knew it existed. Small, but powerful. And numerous. Fungi, bacteria, they outnumber the cells in our bodies ten to one. They are us. It’s these little things,” he says, and gets stuck in a train of thought. “The little things we do or don’t do. It’s flowers. It’s kind words. It’s cleaning up after dinner. It’s asking, How was your day?” Through the lights shining into his eyes, Robert spots someone waving to him from the back of the room, maybe trying to get his attention. He focuses and squints. Yes, he knows the man in tattered clothes—it’s Ken!

“So at this point I’m going to take a little break, and then we can continue and have questions.”

Robert motions for Ken to come around to the side door. He slips out to meet him in a service hallway, which is thankfully empty.

“Hey, buddy,” Ken says, “that was some interesting shit.”

“Cut the crap, Ken. Just tell me who you work for,” says Robert, forcefully.

“Whoa, Professor Monroe, no need to be a hard-ass.”

“Are you CIA?”

“CIA? Is that what you think? Then tell me, who did this to me?” Ken lifts up his shirt and shows Robert his charred skin. “That’s got CIA written all over it.”

“How did you get free?” asks Robert.

“He killed the Italian. He’s probably got Ali. You’ve got to give me the drive. It’s the only chance we have.”

“It’s gone. The Italian stole it.”

“C’mon, Robert, don’t jerk my chain. Everyone knows that one was a fake.”

“Look, I’m not stupid. If you’re CIA? Interpol? Whatever. If I give you the drive, Ali’s gone forever. Tell me, who’s Yøta?”

“Yøta? How do you know about her?”

“Is she CIA, too? Is she the mole?”

“Listen, buddy, you’re in way over your head. Just give me the USB and walk away.”

“No. My only chance is to trade the drive for Ali. In person.”

“You’re pretty smart.”

“I’m a professor.”

Ken pulls a gun and holds it under Robert’s chin. “Oh, yeah? Did you expect this, Professor Monroe?”

Robert’s head is finally clear. He stares into Ken’s brown eyes. “Go ahead. Kill me. Then you’ll never get the drive.”

Chapter 27

Strapped to the table, helpless, Ali knows that if she wants to live, she’s got to use her only weapons—her wits, her charm, her looks.

She catches Pumpkin’s attention with nothing but a stare. She’s been acclimating herself to his face so that she won’t look at him with horror or even hesitation.

“What?” he asks as he puffs on his pipe.

She nods and rolls her eyes down at the gag in her mouth.

He removes it. “Yes?” he asks her.

“Don’t you want to hear me scream?” Ali asks.

“So like a woman,” he says, and starts to put the gag back. “They like to hear themselves think, and they like to hear themselves scream.”

“No. For you. C’mon. You enjoy it. The sound of my pain.”

“So sweet of you to think of little old me, with your hands tied above your head and your lovely white breasts on display.”

“Someone should think of you.”

“Oh, they think of me—I’m the worst-case scenario.” Pumpkin chuckles. “You know—I broke my leg, but it could be worse. This is worse.”

“I’m sure it’s not easy. People can be cruel.”

Pumpkin puts his gloved hand on the spot where his cheek should be and asks, “Oh, dear, are you referring to my ruddy complexion?”

“How did that happen?”

“Listen, lovely, you’re missing the point. This isn’t about me. It’s about you. Confession time. You’re going to tell me all about your husband’s job at the CIA.”

“You’re a very intelligent, articulate man…”

“The things that made me a man were stripped away with a wire brush. This is what’s left.” He points to his scars. “Ready to tell me who sent him to Gstaad?”

“I can only tell you what I know. Which is nothing.”

He holds out a squeeze tube. “This is gasoline.” He holds out his pipe. “This is man’s first invention—fire.”

“I was going to leave my husband.”

“Are you telling me in some cryptic female way that you are emotionally available?”

“That depends who’s asking.”

He grins, leans down, and whispers in her ear, “Mmm. Yes. Want to be the bride of Frankenstein?”

“I’ll be anything you want,” she whispers back.

Pumpkin wipes at the corners of his eyes with his black gloves. He puffs on his pipe and shakes his head. Then he squeezes out some gasoline on Ali’s stomach.

“Is that how you want me?” Ali says, trying to stay calm. “Scarred?”

Pumpkin flips the gag back over her mouth.

Pumpkin holds his pipe sideways over Ali’s stomach, over the small pool of gasoline. She trembles but never looks away. Pumpkin sets down the pipe on the stone table next to her, thrums his gloved fingers on her thigh. Then he nods, picks his pipe back up, and leans in to whisper in Ali’s ear. “Change of plans, but hey, this has been fun.” He flings the tarp back over her body.

Chapter 28

Robert digs his fingers into the charred middle of Ken. Ken lets out a yelp of pain, and Robert snatches the gun, holding it now at Ken’s throat. “I’m sick of being in the dark. Start talking. What is the sickness? What’s on the USB?”

“Ever heard of Stuxnet?”

“Sure, I read about it.”

“So you know it was developed by the US and Israeli military. Made all the nuclear reactors in Iran go bananas. Practically created another Chernobyl.”

“Cyber warfare. Malicious code of the highest order.”

“It was a worm. It was like Hiroshima. Like nuclear fallout. They say every computer in the world has little bit of Stuxnet virus on it.”

“That’s what’s on the thumb drive? Stuxnet?”

“Eugenio and his partner, a woman they call Yøta, wrote a worm that makes Stuxnet look like a walk in the park. They had contracted to sell it to the Iranians. I intercepted it. Then, unfortunately, the North Koreans got involved. Apparently someone went behind our back and told them to take me out.”

“The mole.”

“I almost got killed. That’s why I had to drop it in your coat.”

“How does it work?”

“You stick the thumb drive in any computer on the server, and they all become slaves. The bad guys can then decide when to turn off the power, when to make planes collide, when the trains should run. But it’s also a ransom scheme: they said Eugenio had a cure that he would sell for ten times the price of the disease.”

“The cure. The kidnappers want the sickness and the cure.”

“Nice move. The cure’s worth more than the sickness.”

“So Yøta was his partner?”

“Yes, but no one knows what she looks like. I heard she’s hot. Where’s the drive?”

“You tell me where they’re holding my wife.”

“She’s in a barn, up in the mountains. We’re running out of time. Where’s the drive?”

“You put it in the pocket of my tweed jacket, right?”

“Yup.”

“It’s probably still in there. I gave the jacket to the woman in the boutique when I bought this.”

“Nice. I like the hoodie. You’re not totally too old for it.”

“Is that an insult?”

“If I wanted to insult you, I’d say something like, ‘Hey, man, your sweater’s got a foreskin.’ No, buddy, I dig it.”

The boutique is quiet. Ken struts up to the tall blond saleswoman. “Hey, did this crazy American guy right here come in and buy a hoodie and a fancy blazer from you a day or two ago?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling at Robert. “I remember him. He was trying to spice things up with his wife. Did it work?”

“It’s complicated,” says Robert.

“I hope he didn’t kill her.” Ken makes a face at the tall blonde.

“No, he’s a nice guy,” she says, oblivious to the joke.

“Remember my old tweed jacket?” Robert asks.

“Of course. You said you’d had it since college, right?” says the woman.

“Yes, it’s vintage. What did you do with it?” he asks, trying to sound casual.

“It’s in the closet. I was going to give it to a Syrian charity, but I’m not totally sure they would take it.”

“So my friend tells me that it might actually be cool again, due to its advanced age. Would you mind giving it back?”

Chapter 29

“I want a female companion that resembles this one.” Pumpkin wears a long blond wig, large mirror sunglasses, and a red bandana pulled up to his chin. He shows a cell phone photo in his black-gloved hand.

Madame Toison d’Or wears a gold Chanel jacket, displaying her cleavage heaped high. She takes the phone in her hand, her long pink fingernails like the legs of a sea star. “She’s pretty,” Madame says. “Scandinavian?”

“American.”

Soft jazz plays from unseen speakers. The parlor is elaborately decorated, white furniture with gold accents.

“Full girlfriend experience, and her remuneration will be excessive,” says Pumpkin. “How’s five hundred euros sound?”

“Your requests are complicated. Two thousand.”

Pumpkin is disgusted. “For a hundred they fellate corpulent corporate criminals, but you want two thousand from little old me? Because I wear a scar?”

“No. It’s not that. This girl is very high-end. That’s her rate. For that price, you can do anything you want.”

Pumpkin chuckles. “Fine. I will endeavor to realize the full value of my purchase.”

Pumpkin sits in a small but clean and luxurious bedroom. He pops a handful of blue pills and washes them down with a bottle of designer water that sits on the bureau. He takes a clean, fluffy towel and drapes it over the lamp. It brings a foreboding darkness to the room. Perfect, he thinks, this room is halfway between a luxury hotel and a psychiatrist’s office.

There’s a slight knock on the door. Here’s the moment he’s been waiting for—Christmas in January. A younger, harder version of Ali walks in—tall, blond, in a black dress. For a second, Pumpkin is delighted. “Oh, you are lovely, lovely.” He stands and walks over to her and runs his gloved hand along her cheek. He squeezes her thigh. “Can you talk like a Yankee? Please tell me you can talk like an uptight WASP from Connecticut.”

She forces a smile. “Please for meet you.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he says. “Your teeth…You from Ukraine?”

“Belarus. You like?” She runs her hand up her leg, lifting her dress, showing him what she thinks he wants.

Chapter 30

Ken and Robert sit in the back of a cab. Robert holds the USB in his hand and mutters, “We give them the drive. They give us Ali.”

“Simple transaction,” says Ken. “Save the chick. Screw the world.”

“There’s no other way.” Robert feels for Ken’s gun in his breast pocket. Finds it. “But what about Eugenio?”

“I thought you said he was dead? With a USB drive crammed up his ass.”

“No, it was in his mouth.”

“It should’ve been up his ass. That would be better. That sends a real signal.”

“To whom?”

“Next person who’s gonna fuck with the ayatollahs.”

“Didn’t you fuck with the ayatollahs?”

“Well, yes,” Ken says. “But I’ve got people. Eugenio’s only got Yøta.”

“Why was Eugenio in Gstaad?”

“He made this thing,” says Ken, pointing at Robert’s clenched fist. “The sickness. The worm. Sold it. Then he comes to Gstaad and starts trying to sell the cure. Even reached out to the agency. That takes some serious stones.”

“What about the guy who tortured you? Who does he work for?”

“In this business, you never really know who anybody works for. He’s ex-Army. Same thing. Highest bidder. He’s a bad man. He took pleasure in my pain.”

“How did you get away?”

“Romeo tooth.”

“What’s that?”

“You bite down and break a fake tooth. You start foaming at the mouth. You go unconscious. The bad guys think you pulled the rip cord and killed yourself. They dump your body. You wake up in a shallow grave and start digging like a motherfucker.”

“Shouldn’t it be called a Juliet tooth?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the one that faked her own death. Romeo drank real poison.”

“Fuck. I think you’re right. The service drills ’em both in your jaw. Is Romeo on the right, or is it the left? Shit. I should be dead. Glad I broke the wrong tooth.”

“I hope he doesn’t hurt Ali,” Robert says, staring out the window.

“Ah, a guy who still loves his wife,” Ken says sardonically. “That’s refreshing. My wife is probably wondering right about now what kind of life insurance policy the agency is carrying on me.” Ken takes a box of Tic Tacs out of his pocket. “You want one?”

Robert shakes his head. “Which agency?”

Ken swallows the Tic Tac whole. “You’ll know when you need to know.”

“Just tell me now.”

He follows Ken’s eyes to a Korean couple on the sidewalk, entering a convenience store. “Hey, can we stop at this store? I’m as thirsty as a fucking racehorse.”

“You mean you’ve got to piss like a racehorse.”

“All the same.”

“Excuse me, sir. Arrêtez ici,” Robert says to the driver. He pulls the car over.

“Whoa, shit. Look at that.” Ken holds out a fountain pen in his hand.

“What? Is it leaking?”

“Not yet,” says Ken. He breaks it and waves it in the air. The cab fills with fumes. The driver and Robert choke and gasp and go still. “Shoulda had a Tic Tac,” Ken says, taking the USB and his gun from the unconscious Robert.

The cab drifts slowly up onto the curb.

Chapter 31

“Are you comfortable, my lovely?” a Southern-inflected voice asks softly.

Ali opens her eyes and she sees light shine through the cross-stitch of the dark-green cotton tarp that covers her. “Where’ve you been?” she asks.

“I was seeking lower companionship.”

“With me here? We could’ve talked all night.”

“I was looking for something more than chitchat.”

“And did you find it?”

“Yes and no.”

“You make it sound like you’ve missed me,” she says.

“Maybe.”

“You don’t have to chain me up to have a conversation with me.”

“You’re chained up so you don’t leave. Even if I hurt you.”

A sudden desire to cry comes over Ali. She starts to say something but knows she can’t keep her composure right now. Her voice will crack. He will know. And like with any predator, the smell of fear is the quick predecessor to the taste of blood.

“Have I killed the conversation?” Pumpkin chuckles. “As the shrink would say, where did you go?”

“I’m right…” she says, her head a swirl but her voice firm, “where you left me.”

Pumpkin waits for more. Nothing comes. He looks up at the loft door, the snow outside. He steps into the quiet.

Chapter 32

Robert drifts out of a disturbed sleep. He searches the cab, feels for the gun. It’s gone. He feels for the USB drive—gone. “Damn it!” he yells. The cabbie makes a guttural sound. Robert hands him some francs and steps outside.

Robert remembers the pen, the Koreans on the sidewalk. How long has it been? He enters the convenience store.

Behind the counter, an old man with reading glasses propped at the end of his nose above a broad and bristly mustache has fallen asleep reading the paper.

“Hi, did an American man just walk in here?” Robert asks.

The man doesn’t move.

Robert gets an eerie feeling. He steps backward toward the door, but then decides to move closer, drawn by his curiosity. “Excuse me, sir…”

Robert nudges the old man on the shoulder, and he falls from his chair.

Then he notices a growing red-black slick of blood seeping out of the narrow aisle.

A cowbell clangs as someone steps into the store, and the air is pierced by a woman’s scream.

Robert peers behind the stacks of cans and boxes of cookies. Ken’s legs are splayed out unnaturally. His head is bent back impossibly, like a PEZ dispenser, above his gashed throat.

Robert is hot, flushed, and choking on the thick, stifling air. He kneels down and checks Ken’s pocket for the USB; then he hears the cowbell again. He stands and slips, almost falling to the floor in the blood. His bloody hands slap on the shelves. Boxes tumble. He runs toward the freezers in the back of the store. Two Swiss police officers rush after him, following the bloody footsteps. Robert pulls down the shelves to block their way and bursts out the back door into the fresh air. Someone yells, “Stop!” A shot is fired. Robert runs, reckless in the night.

Chapter 33

Hervé sits at his desk, nursing a highball. Madame Toison d’Or walks into his office. “Bonsoir, mon amie,” he says. “Is it the first of the month? Already?”

“I have something for you,” she says.

“And I have something for you.” Hervé grabs at his crotch.

“The woman you are looking for, the American. Her face was on the TV.”

“Yes?”

“A man—and, as always, I use the term with tremendous latitude—came in and showed me a photo of her on his phone. He asked for a girl that looked like her.”

Hervé hops to his feet. “Wait a second. This woman? Are you sure?” He rifles through his desk drawer, then holds out a photo of Ali and Robert to Madame Toison d’Or.

She nods.

“Please don’t tell me this was the john?” He taps at Robert’s image.

“No. The john was a freak. And I only say that about people that earn it.”

“Out with it.”

“First he tells her he wants a real orgasm. Nothing fake. And for two thousand euros he deserves it.”

“Okay. I get that.”

“But she needs to tell him exactly when she is going to come.”

“Still, nothing freaky about this.”

“I did not tell you that the ‘man’ was disguised.”

“Ha! It was a woman?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“He is making it with the look-alike, and he has told her that she must call out ‘Make me the bride! Make me the bride!’”

“Madame Toison d’Or, I work in vice. None of this is even close to shocking.”

“And when the woman calls out, ‘I’m…going…to…come…’”

“Get on with it—you’re such a tease.”

“He yanks a towel off the lamp where he has placed it, pulls off his wig and sunglasses, grabs her, and forces her to stare into his face—his half-melted face—while she orgasms.”

“Eh…ew.”

“He says to her, ‘You are the bride of Frankenstein!’”

“Disturbing. I want to talk to the girl.”

“She is done. Says she’s moving back to Belarus. She says she’d rather clean toilets for a living. She called me from the train station.”

A young officer bursts into the office. “Chief Inspector, there has been a double homicide. In the village. Come at once.”

Chapter 34

Robert runs down the alley. Somehow, all is quiet. He’s alone. He wipes his hands and shoes in a pile of snow and is amazed that he is not covered in blood.

It’s the North Koreans.

Robert remembers Ken saying something about them trying to get the USBs. He’s unsure what to do, but decides heading back to Eugenio’s Porsche is a good place to start.

When he returns to the Porsche’s parking spot near the Olden Hotel, a metal-flake gold Mercedes Geländewagen is parked where Eugenio’s Porsche once sat. Robert walks into the hotel and tells the receptionist, “I’m afraid my car has been towed. Could you give me directions to the tow yard?”

“They are closed until morning, sir. Would you like us to have someone retrieve your car first thing tomorrow?” asks the receptionist.

“I can retrieve it. Could you draw me a map?”

“But of course!”

With the map in hand, Robert wanders through the village. He stops on a quiet back street and looks around, overcome by the feeling that he is not alone. But there isn’t a sound. The snow has made every fresh footstep silent. It’s just some gut feeling or paranoia seeping into his mind, he knows.

He finds the tow lot surrounded by a wooden fence on a back street. He hops it easily, hearing a German shepherd begin to bark inside a small shack. He sees Eugenio’s Porsche right away, with the hood popped and all the doors open. The battery cables are hanging out the front, clearly cut and split at the end like a snake’s tongue. He moves quietly over to the car, peers into the backseat, and sees the long legs and metallic tights of Carola, on all fours digging between the seats. “Looking for something?” Robert asks.

She swings around and points her can of mace at Robert. She squeezes the trigger, but the can does nothing but gurgle, creating a bubble at the valve. Realizing its failure, she squirms away, but Robert grabs her ankle and pulls. She kicks him with her other leg, her heel landing squarely on his jaw. Startled for a second, he loosens his grip.

“Why don’t you just help me instead of running from me?”

She wriggles out the other door. Robert dives and misses, sliding out after her.

She’s looking over her shoulder at Robert, smiling wildly, running away, when she crashes into a tall Korean man in a black suit. He grabs her by the shoulders. From the shadows steps a beautiful Korean woman in a black leather duster. She says, “The infamous Yøta. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Fuck you!” yells Carola.

The Korean man pulls a gun and holds it to her head. Carola gets very still. She whispers, “If I had the fucking sickness, I’d fucking give it to you.”

“Oh, we’ve got the sickness.”

“What do you want?”

“We had a deal. Eugenio sold the sickness to the Iranians and the cure to my supreme leader. Pretty clever—until the Iranians found out. He’s going to have a hard time spending all their money now that he’s dead. So you need to finish your partner’s business.”

“Look, I don’t know anything about this. I just work on the code. Eugenio deals with the assholes like you.”

“Hey, this is who you guys are looking for,” says Robert to the woman. “So can you let my wife, Ali, go now?”

“Thanks a lot, jerk!” Carola yells at Robert.

“You’re not exactly good at making friends,” Robert retorts.

The tall man moves over to Robert, holds the gun under Robert’s chin, and leads him over to Carola.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” says the Korean woman. “You take us to get the cure, the USB drive, right now—or we kill you both very, very slowly.”

“Where are you keeping my wife?” asks Robert.

His question is met with blank stares.

“Did you kill Ken?” asks Robert.

The beautiful woman smiles deviously. “A CIA mule is no match for our trained assassins.”

Robert looks at the man who holds the gun under his chin. “You fucker!”

The tall man sneers at Robert.

Two shots ring out in the night, almost simultaneously. The top of the tall Korean man’s head is cracked open, and he falls to his knees.

“Give us what is ours,” a voice in the dark says.

The Korean woman pulls out a gun and starts firing indiscriminately into the darkness, until three sniper shots sever her arm and it falls in the snow. Carola flings the woman onto the ground and searches her pockets, pulls out the USB drive, and puts it in her pocket.

Robert takes the gun from the dead Korean man and aims it at the nearby streetlights. He manages to hit the nearest three, a small mercy. Total darkness.

Robert kicks the door to the small shack open, and the German shepherd charges out into the night, straight for whoever had joined them.

Robert grabs Carola by the hand. Together they leap the fence and run down the street, away from the sounds of a man and dog locked in combat.

More gunshots ring out in the night.

Chapter 35

Robert gasps for air and demands of Carola, who jogs by his side, “Quit lying to me! Quit running from me! Let’s work together, or we’ll both be dead.”

Carola stops, puts her hands on her knees, and tries to catch her breath. She extends her hand to Robert. “Okay,” she says, “we shake on it.”

“Let’s try Eugenio’s apartment. Maybe he left something there. A laptop. The USB.”

Carola nods. “Let’s find the cure; then we hold all the cards. I get my money. You get your wife, and we get the fuck out of Switzerland.”

“Agreed,” says Robert. “Give me the USB.”

“That trust thing, it didn’t last long. I thought we were on the same side.”

“Okay. I got this. You got the USB.” Robert displays the Korean’s gun.

Carola leads Robert to a three-story chalet. “He was renting the penthouse.”

“How do we get in?”

“There’s a balcony on the back side, and the snow is very high. We climb in.”

The snow is high, they find, but there is a gap between the snowbank and the top balcony. “How do we get across that?” asks Robert. “It’s three stories down.”

“Jump.”

“No. Look over there.” Robert points to an old toboggan leaning against the wall. “That’s an eight footer. That thing will make it.”

They climb to the top of the snowbank, pulling up the sled. Robert lowers the toboggan like a drawbridge over the gap. Carola tiptoes across while Robert holds it steady. She pulls on the sliding glass door. It opens and she enters.

“Hey! Come back here and hold for me.” But she’s already inside. Robert crawls across the toboggan gingerly, lunging onto the balcony as the toboggan starts to slide and tip.

Robert walks inside. “Thanks for your help out there.”

“What? You made it.”

Inside it’s a large and airy modern apartment, the ceiling angled above wooden crossbeams. There are signs of a struggle, a search, or a party; it’s hard to tell the difference. Eugenio’s clothes are thrown all over. All the cabinets and drawers are open. Three wigs rest in a row, nesting on a shelf. They make their way, searching, not finding.

Carola walks over to a pile of clothes and lifts out a gold pair of metallic tights.

“You and Eugenio were a couple?” Robert asks.

She shrugs her shoulders and walks toward the spacious bathroom. She starts to close the door.

“What are you doing?” Robert asks.

“I’m going to change. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for two days. Maybe I’ll even take a shower first.”

“Change here.”

“Okay.” She turns coquette. “You starting to like me? Don’t want me out of your sight?” She stares at Robert and pulls her shirt off. She reaches behind and unstraps her bra. “Why don’t we shower? Together.”

Turning away, Robert looks at a glass-topped coffee table.

“Now my feelings are hurt. You don’t want to even look at me, do you?” She fondles her breasts. “Do I make you uncomfortable now? Wait till I have to take a shit. This is going to get interesting.” She starts to slowly pull down her tights. “Don’t you want to see?”

“Fine! Get in the bathroom. But don’t lock the door and don’t take a long time. And leave the USB out here.”

Robert looks out the window at the starry sky. “Why is the world so exceedingly vibrant in some moments and drained of life in others?” he asks.

“To see the beauty, you have to look.”

“That’s what I tell my students.”

“Robert?”

He turns and meets her eyes. “Yes?” he asks.

“Do you want me?” she asks, seeking his eyes.

He shakes his head. “It’s about getting my wife back, remember?”

Suddenly she’s sullen. She steps into the bathroom and shuts the door. Robert hears the water run in the shower and relaxes for just a second. Then he hears the lock slowly click over. He looks for the USB, but it is nowhere to be found.

He turns the handle. “Open up, Carola!”

“In a second,” she calls.

Robert runs over to the fireplace and grabs a heavy andiron. He hammers at the lock once, twice, and the third time, the wood splits. He bursts in, not surprised to see no one in the shower stall. Carola is nowhere. He feels a cold breeze, looks up, and sees that the skylight is open. “Damn it, Carola!”

Robert crawls up the towel rack to the top of the shower stall and precariously leaps for the opening. His fingers grab hold, and he labors to pull himself up and through to the steep roof.

The sun is now up in the distance, and the large chunks of snow are melting. Carola scampers off toward the other side. She turns to look back at Robert, all smiles—then she slips and disappears.

On all fours, Robert scurries across the roof. He finds Carola hanging on by her fingernails to the rain gutter, the USB drive clenched in her teeth. Her eyes cry out for help.

Chapter 36

Hervé stands in the tow yard. He turns from the mangled door of the little wooden shack to the deconstructed Porsche. He looks down in the snow by his feet, where the wolf-like carcass of the German shepherd lies in silhouette, its mouth open, its teeth covered in blood.

A nearly headless man’s corpse is slumped in the snow.

A delicate woman’s arm rests on a pillow of white snow, as if it were a display in some very twisted jeweler’s window.

“This was the dead Italian’s car, non?” he asks one of his officers.

“Oui.”

“I am willing to wager that the blood on this canine’s teeth is that of a human being. I order DNA testing, vite, vite. This will lead us to our murderer.”

The officer looks at the arm lying in the snow and asks, “She could not have gone far. The hospitals report no armless woman requiring surgery.”

“Do we have surveillance video?”

“Oui. But it must be decoded.”

Chapter 37

Carola is dangling, kicking her feet.

Robert lies down on his stomach and reaches for the USB drive between her teeth. He can’t get it. Carola’s eyes tear up. The slippery moss-covered roof tiles won’t hold. He extends his hand. “Grab hold of me!”

She shakes her head.

Robert edges his body farther toward the ledge and just barely gets his hand around her thin wrist. He pulls with all the strength he can muster. She swings her leg up onto the copper gutter. He pulls the rest of her up and rolls over on top of her. She hugs him and wraps her legs around him.

“C’mon,” he says. “You’re safe now.”

This time, Carola really takes a hot shower. Robert sits on the bathroom countertop and studies the USB drive in his cut-up hands. “You warmed up yet?”

Carola turns off the water and reaches out of the stall.

Robert hands her a towel. “Why did you run?”

“Grazie,” she says, stepping out of the shower and using the towel to dry her legs. “I’m scared. I never got into this thing to see people killed.”

“What did you expect?”

“I didn’t think about it all the way through. I was just sick of writing code in a cubicle.”

“What does Yøta mean?”

She cracks a demure smile. “None of you assholes know how to even say it right—it’s Y-not-T-A. It’s a handle. I’m a hacker. I write malicious code, other shit. No one uses their real names.”

“Can’t you just make another one of these USB drives? What makes this one so valuable?”

“Part of the hacker code. It’s like walking in the snow—we cover our tracks. Secure delete everything after we’re done. It’s the only way to keep this shit from going global.”

“We’re running out of time to save Ali. If they call, I’m giving them this thing.”

“But they wanted the sickness and the cure,” says Carola.

“If Eugenio made a deal with the North Koreans but never completed it, maybe the cure doesn’t exist.”

“Eugenio decided that he wouldn’t give the sickness to the Iranians unless he designed a cure first. We’re anarchists, not fucking nihilists. We don’t want to destroy the world. We just want to get paid and have some fun.”

“You got a weird idea of fun. Let’s retrace Eugenio’s steps. Did he do drugs?”

“Of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

“No.”

“I mean everybody…cool.” She wraps the towel around her middle and lights a cigarette.

Robert wonders out loud, “Would he have left the USB at a drug dealer’s house?”

“Ever heard of room service?” asks Carola. “This is fucking Gstaad. You throw a Snapchat, they bring you whatever you want.”

“Snapchat?”

She laughs. “Snapchat. Not just for teenagers.”

“Did he go to brothels?” Robert asks.

Carola laughs. “That’s a funny question.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding? Look at me.” She drops the towel, holds out her hands and turns slowly, dressed in nothing but the sunlight.

“You never know,” Robert says, averting his eyes.

“Why won’t you look at me?” Carola asks.

“Why do you want me to look at you?”

“It’s fun. Sort of like a magic trick. Sleight of hand. If I want you to look away, I touch my tits.”

“Remember, I’m married.”

“Then why did she go with Eugenio? Tell me.”

“I’ve been asking myself that.” Robert thinks of the scrawl on the hotel mirror. “I think she wanted a divorce.”

“And you’re risking your life to save her?”

“Of course.”

“Wow. Well, women love a man on a horse. You come rescue her, she’ll fuck your brains out,” Carola says. “Or if she won’t, I will.”

Robert carries on. “Why are you so obsessed with Eugenio’s car?”

“He kept a fake key in his car.”

“That makes no sense.”

“He had a USB drive that was shaped exactly like a Porsche key—he fucking loved it. It was like, the two things he loved in life the most. His fucking car and his fucking malicious code.”

“Holy shit!” Robert jumps as if he’s been electrocuted.

“What?” Carola yells back.

“He gave me his keys, that first night. Maybe it’s on the key ring!”

“Holy shit! Where?”

“Back at the Gstaad Palace. In our room!”

“Let’s go,” Carola says, pulling up her tights.

Chapter 38

The valets have seen it all before. Despite the refined clientele, it’s not uncommon to see stragglers pulling into the Gstaad Palace in the early morning hours after a long night of hard partying. This couple fits the bill.

Robert is unshaven, and his Tom Ford jacket has a rip under the arm where it caught on the skylight while he was crawling back into Eugenio’s apartment. But at least it helps to hide the large bulge under his shirt at the waistline, where he hides the Korean’s gun.

Beneath Carola’s short rabbit jacket, the gold gleams in her pierced belly button. Her skirt is too high, her Moon Boots too big, and her golden metallic tights sparkle a little too much. An older man waiting outside the hotel, dressed in his one-piece ski outfit with a giant embroidered eagle on the back, grabs Robert by the shoulder and asks in a low voice, “Where’d ya get her?”

“What?” Robert says.

“Is she one of the madam’s girls?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Haha! Sure you don’t. I’m like you—I like ’em wild,” says the old man.

“No you don’t, Carl!” says the tan woman beside him, probably in her fifties, with bright coral lipstick. She turns to Robert. “He’s all talk. A threesome for us is a dinner date. He’ll drop a little extra drool in his soup and call it a night.”

“She lies. I’m a tiger. Grrrrrrowl!” The old man paws the air at Carola. “Tomorrow night, you’re mine!”

Robert pulls her under his arm and moves for the elevator.

At the door to his room, he pauses. Carola looks up at him with her big almond-shaped eyes. “What?” she asks.

“Seriously, if you take the USB thing and run, I’ll hunt you across the globe and I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I’ve changed. I promise,” she says with a wink.

“So have I.” Robert slides the card in the door and opens it slowly—to find Hervé sitting in a wingback chair.

“Bonjour. I arrived, waiting to meet my grieving widower, yet instead I find you pulling into port in the early morning hours with a—”

“Watch it, asshole,” says Carola.

“With a charming young lady,” says Hervé.

“Hello, Hervé. What are you doing in my room?”

“What are you doing NOT in your room? That is the question.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Everything is my business,” says Hervé.

“We met in a bar. He was lonely. He gave me three hundred euros. We drank and fucked all night,” says Carola. “We were going to fuck some more. You mind?”

Hervé lets out a short burst of air. “Every time I meet someone in this town that I think is not motivated by power, prestige, sex, or money—shortly thereafter I’m proven wrong.” He extends his arm toward the bed. “Please, don’t let me slow you down.”

“Why are you here?” Robert asks.

“A man showed up at a high-end whorehouse in town with a picture of a woman that the madam thought with some certainty was your wife. He asked for a girl that resembled her.”

“What?” Robert is aghast. “Is Ali okay? Who was this guy?”

“All I know is that he was disfigured. An American. And disguised.”

“Hervé, you’ve got to find out!”

“That is not all. Someone broke into the tow yard and disassembled Eugenio’s Porsche last night. They even killed an innocent dog. I am French; I love dogs. This is an outrage.

“But back to the Porsche: I did not know you had the key?” Hervé holds out the keys to the Porsche and dangles them from his stumpy index finger.

“That’s mine!” says Robert, a little too forcefully.

“No. It is evidence.” Hervé slips it in his pocket. “I’m going to my office. We have some video from last night. I’m getting closer to cracking the case. Maybe it was our disfigured man at the lot. I will save your wife—if she is alive.”

“Listen, Eugenio gave me those keys. It’s from the last night I saw Ali. They’re mine.” Beads of sweat form on Robert’s brow.

“When the case is closed, I will give them back to you. As a keepsake of your trip to Gstaad. For now, first things first—we must find your wife.”

Carola exchanges a nervous look with Robert and then stretches her hands over her head and says, “I really need a shower. You mind?”

Robert shakes his head no.

She drops her jacket to the floor, lifts her sweater over her head, and undoes her bra. She fondles her breasts and smiles at the salacious Hervé.

She moves closer. So close he can smell her perfume.

He cannot help but lick his lips and nod as if in agreement to something her breasts are saying.

Robert pulls out the gun and holds it at Hervé’s temple. He cocks the trigger.

“This was unexpected,” says Hervé.

Chapter 39

“You are a kinky bastard,” says Hervé, while Robert uses a pair of nylons to tie him to a chair. “Did you kill your wife? Is that what’s going on? For this slut? If so, you are the best actor in the fucking world. You are a better actor than Gérard Depardieu. And coming from a Frenchman, there is no higher compliment.”

“Look, Hervé, I’m really sorry about this,” says Robert. “I’ll explain the whole thing to you at some point. Just not right now.”

“You’ll explain it from a jail cell while you are losing your ass virginity. I will arrange it. Don’t do this, Monroe!”

“I have to.” Robert stuffs a sock in Hervé’s mouth and secures it with the strap from a pair of ski goggles.

Carola pushes her breasts in Hervé’s face one last time. “I’m not a slut.”

Robert grabs both his phone and Ali’s phone. And puts them in his coat pockets. “No hard feelings, Hervé.”

Hervé looks down at his stubby little fingers, his wrists tied to the armrest, and frees the middle finger from each fist.

Robert and Carola put the SILENCE S’IL VOUS PLAÎT marker on the door handle and stand outside the room. Robert takes the Porsche key out of his pocket. They both look at it intently. “How does it work?” asks Robert.

“Like this.” Carola slides the top off one of the keys, revealing a USB connector. “There it is, Eugenio’s masterpiece: the cure. Fucking weird, right? Worth ten times as much as the sickness.”

“Yeah.” Robert grabs it from her hand and puts it in his pocket.

She wraps her hand around his waist. Wary, he peels it off.

“Aww. Just when I thought you were starting to like me,” she says.

“I’ve always liked you. I just don’t trust you.”

Down in the lobby, it is quiet. The skiers have left for the day.

“What do we do now?” asks Carola.

“Wait for them to call. It’s almost been twelve hours.”

“Tell them I want my fucking money. Bearer bonds. And Eugenio’s cut, too.”

“How much are we talking?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“A fucking lot.”

“So, crime does pay.”

“I’m going to get some gum. Can I have some francs? I’ll hit you back when I’m a billionaire.”

Robert hands her a few bills from his wallet and watches her walk away toward the gift store. He feels in his pocket to make sure she didn’t just swipe the USBs. The plastic on his fingers gives him relief.

“Bonjour, Mr. Monroe!” says a man with a broad, hairless head as he grabs Robert’s hand and shakes it vigorously. “Remember me? I am Claude. Chief of security for the esteemed Gstaad Palace. I am terribly sorry about Mrs. Monroe. I should have…well…you know…It is Gstaad…Italian playboy…But Hervé tells me he has a strong lead. Did he talk to you? I let him in your room. I hope you don’t mind. Anything to find Mrs. Monroe, right?”

“Hello, Claude. Of course. Anything to find Ali.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“To?”

“To Hervé. He’s in your room.”

“Yes, I talked to him.”

“And?” Claude asks.

“Well, you know Hervé.”

“Yes. I do know Hervé.” Claude stares at Robert inquisitively.

Carola approaches and stuffs a piece of gum in Robert’s mouth. “Spearmint,” she says. “Nice for breath.”

“And who is this young lady?” Claude asks.

“She is?” Robert is not sure how to respond.

“Well?” Claude asks and leans in closer to Carola.

“I was a friend of Eugenio, the Italian man,” says Carola. “Our grief and worry has brought us together. Now we are friends.”

Robert is shocked that she told the truth.

“I’m sure the police would like to talk to you, miss,” says Claude.

Carola nods. “I’ve shown them everything. Well, almost everything.”

One of the phones in Robert’s jacket begins to ring. He grabs Carola by the hand and pulls her away. “We must go. Good-bye, Claude.”

Chapter 40

“Have you got the sickness and the cure?” the mechanized voice asks.

“In my hand,” says Robert as he walks outside, past the valets. “Let me talk to Ali.”

“You don’t make the rules. Bring it to the tow yard. At dusk.”

“No. Let me talk to my wife. Let me talk to Ali right now.”

“Robert, is that you?” Ali asks.

“Yes.” Robert fights to hold it together. “I’m coming to save you. Are you okay?”

“Pumpkin has been very good to m—” The phone is yanked away.

“Tow yard. Dusk.” The mechanized voice repeats.

“No. Center of town. In front of the Olden Hotel in one hour. Bring Ali. And the money for Yøta. And Eugenio’s cut, too. And make sure Ali is unharmed. You touch a hair on her head and the USBs go away forever.” Robert hangs up.

“What the fuck?” asks Carola. “Where did that guy come from?”

“C’mon. We’ve got to beat them down there. Set this thing up. Ever heard of someone named Pumpkin?”

“No.”

“She was trying to give me a clue. Should we go ask Hervé if he knows about Pumpkin?” asks Robert. “Must be the mastermind.”

“Why don’t we just give ourselves up to the cops right now? Fuck you. I want my money. They owe me. They killed my friend and fucked my world. They need to pay.”

“I’ve got an idea.” Robert hails a valet. “Hey, buddy, you got a piece of paper?”

“Oui,” he says, and hands them a scrap.

Robert writes:

The man tied to Eugenio’s murder is named Pumpkin.

He hands the note to the valet and instructs, “Go inside and give this to Claude. Tell Claude to give it to Hervé.”

“Yes, sir.”

Robert takes Carola by the hand, and they head down the picturesque street, down the hill, toward the center of town.

Chapter 41

An hour later, Carola and Robert walk out of a bank on the main street in Gstaad. “Insurance, isn’t that what you call it?” asks Carola.

“I hope this works,” says Robert, cradling a safe deposit key in his hand.

They stand together on the esplanade in front of the Olden Hotel. At midmorning in this seemingly idyllic Swiss village, it’s quiet. Carola has her hands in the pockets of her rabbit jacket and continually turns, looking in every direction.

“Give me the drive or the key,” she says.

“No,” says Robert.

“Give me the gun.”

“No.”

“Don’t be a fucking hero,” she says.

“Hey, somebody’s gotta be.”

“Fine. You leave me out here with nothing. How am I supposed to stay alive?”

“Stick to the plan and everything will be fine.”

“Nobody told me any fucking plan.”

“Look,” says Robert. “There she is.”

A couple is walking down the promenade. The man wears an Arab’s headdress, mirrored sunglasses, and a stringy, shiny black beard. The woman wears a retro, cornflower-blue one-piece ski outfit with a magenta hijab wrapped around her blond hair and draped across her mouth.

When the couple gets about thirty feet from where Robert and Carola stand, the man holds out his palm in the woman’s face. As if she is a dog, she heels. He points down and she settles on her knees.

The man approaches. As he gets closer, Robert can see it’s a disguise. Elastic string holds up the beard. Beneath the synthetic hairs, Robert sees opaque patterns, melted, permanent rivers of seared flesh. “You must be Robert,” the man says with a strong Kentuckian accent. “I’ve had the best time getting acquainted with your spouse, inside and out.”

Robert’s blood boils. “Bring her over here. I want to talk to her and know she’s unharmed.”

“I make the rules.”

“Where’s my bearer bonds, you prick?” asks Carola.

“You must be Yøta. Eugenio told me all about you. He had a soft spot in his heart for you. I offered to carve it out. Pity he had no endurance. Not like Ali. She can go all night.”

“I’m gonna blow your fucking head off!” says Robert, trying and failing to keep his cool.

“Not a good idea. We’ve got four snipers set up and only three targets. Give me the USBs. Both of them.”

“No. Not until I talk to Ali.”

“And I want my fucking money,” Carola adds.

“I’ll say this one more time—you don’t make the rules. We want to make sure it works first. Then you’ll get your money. You could’ve picked up a USB from any drugstore in town.”

“You can’t do that, asshole,” says Carola. “You plug it in. You let it out. No getting it back in the box.”

“Hand it over.”

“No,” Robert says.

“Fine. I call out ‘target and fire,’ and the three of you are dead. I pull it out of your pocket. Walk away.”

“It’s not on me.”

“Really?” Pumpkin asks.

Robert nods. “Ali, are you okay?” he yells.

No response.

“You’re lying,” Pumpkin says.

“Maybe, but is it worth losing the USBs forever? Ali, say something!” Robert squints to see her frightened blue eyes. She blinks, and tears run down her nose.

“Go get it,” Pumpkin says.

“Why won’t she talk?” asks Robert.

“I gagged her.”

“This is fucked. No respect!” yells Carola. “Deal is off.” She grabs Robert by the shoulder and tries to lead him away.

Robert resists. His gaze is set thirty feet away. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do to Ali?”

“She loved every second of it,” says Pumpkin. “Hand over the drives. I won’t ask again.”

In the blink of an eye, Carola’s hand is in Robert’s pocket. She grabs the USB and sprints away.

Robert reaches out, pulls in Pumpkin by the shoulder, and holds the gun to his head. “Run, Ali!” he yells as loudly as he possibly can. She stays on her knees, unmoving.

Pumpkin yells, “Target! Fire!”

Robert spins around and several bullets hit Pumpkin in the chest, leaving him gasping for air. The two fall in the snow.

More rounds ricochet in the snow at Carola’s feet as she runs away.

The magenta hijab explodes in red.

Robert can’t breathe. He’s empty, aching, thoughtless. He crawls toward Ali.

The town is filled with screams and sirens.

Robert pulls her lifeless body to him, peeling away the bloody hijab, rubbing the red from her face, and revealing a gagged woman who is not Ali.

Pumpkin is on his feet and limping off toward a waiting black SUV. How? He must be wearing a Kevlar vest, Robert thinks. The woman was not so lucky. Robert drops her corpse and runs in the direction of Carola.

Chapter 42

Claude stands at the door to Ali and Robert’s room with a bellman. The bellman slides a card in the lock. They open the door to find Hervé struggling against the wingback chair.

“I am so sorry. I called your office. When you were not there I came up here immediately. There has been a shooting in town,” Claude says, and then removes the gag over Hervé’s mouth.

“Claude, you are as keen as a cabbage.”

Hervé stands in the middle of town studying the dead woman’s body. He holds out his arm, imagining the trajectory of the bullet, and turns it toward a rooftop. He shakes his head and looks down at the note from Robert in his hand. Who is Pumpkin?

Hervé notices the resemblance between this woman and Ali. “Call the madam,” he tells a nearby officer. “I am willing to bet this woman is from Belarus. Apparently she never made her train. Round up the eyewitnesses. Tell the ME to use a rape kit on her. Get me DNA.”

He takes out his phone and dials. “Allô, Greta. This is Hervé. We have an execution-style murder in the middle of my town in the middle of the day and a note that someone named Pumpkin is responsible.”

“No…I did not think he was real,” Greta murmurs.

“Who? What?”

“The legend of Pumpkin. Video surfaced on the dark web of a torture, something out of your worst nightmare—a disfigured man setting fire to parts of a hostage. Enjoying it.”

“But what was the purpose of releasing it?”

“Psychological warfare. A curriculum vitae. Pumpkin works for the highest bidder.”

“What else do we know?”

“Rumor is he’s an American. A vet, from Iraq or Afghanistan. We are not sure.”

“Ah, just like our friend Al-Fayed.”

“You think the two may be connected?”

“We must find out.”

Chapter 43

Robert is alone, hiding between cars in a parking garage. His black blazer is covered in an unknown woman’s blood. He has a gun, a key to a safe deposit box, and two cell phones, each with a little bit of battery. No Carola. No USB drive. No Ali. He’s wanted by the police. He could just give himself up. Perhaps that is best. Maybe Hervé really does know what he’s doing. A little more than an hour ago, the nightmare seemed close to over. He heard Ali’s voice. He had a plan. Now, a call to the police could mean her death. It would certainly mean the end of Carola. His only chance to retain her help was that she still wanted the money, but now she doesn’t need him for that. She has the sickness. She could make her own deal.

But he has the key that leads to the cure.

He must find Carola. She’s his only chance. But how?

He takes out his phone. What was that thing? The whole underworld is on it? Chat something? Snapchat!

Robert goes to the app store, finds it, hits DOWNLOAD. He enters his code with his clawed-up hands. He waits and waits until he can open the app. It wants his name. His handle. His location—NO. He goes to the search area. Find Carola—too many. Find Yøta—none. Find Y-not-T-A—yes! It’s her, pigtails in a silhouette. He enters, “Carola, it’s Robert. I’m in the parking garage on the fourth floor. Please help me.” He enters his number.

His phone rings. Robert is filled with hope. He answers.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Robert. It is Abdul Al-Fayed.”

“Hello, Mr. Al-Fayed.”

“Time is up. Do you have good news for me about my painting?” Al-Fayed asks.

“Mr. Al-Fayed…” Robert wipes his sweaty brow and pulls the sketch of the canvas weave out of his breast pocket. He’s amazed it’s still there.

“Well?”

“No. I’ve been trying to get my wife back.”

“Has the issue been resolved?”

“No. It has not.”

“This is regrettable. Tell me, Robert, are you in the CIA?”

“What? No!”

“That makes sense. I see you are in trouble with the police. Your face is on the television. If you were CIA, this would not happen.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You are wanted for kidnapping and murder. This sounds like you did something wrong.”

“It’s all a misunderstanding. I’m just trying to get my wife back from the kidnappers.”

“Tell me where you are. My men will come and pick you up. I will fix your problems, you will fix mine.”

“How?”

“I’m in the favor business. You will sign an affidavit proving the authenticity of my Modigliani. The people who hold your wife—I will trade them something they really want for something they have acquired by accident.”

“Okay. I’m on the fourth floor of the parking garage.”

“Is Yøta with you? Do you have the cure? We will sell it together. You will be rich beyond your wildest dreams.”

“What? How do you know about that?”

“We will trade Yøta for your wife. And sell the cure to the highest bidder.”

“They’ll kill her.”

“You and your wife can stay in the Freeport. I will get you out of the country. I have people in customs, people in the government.”

Robert hears tires screeching. His head goes light. He looks over the railing and sees a black SUV speeding through the parking garage, racing up the ramp.

The black SUV is one level below. Robert hangs up his phone and sprints for the door to the staircase. He swings it open. And standing right in front of him is Carola. She wraps her arms around him.

“C’mon,” he says. “They know we’re in here.”

They sprint down the staircase and out into the alley.

Chapter 44

Robert and Carola run up the alleyway. The back doors of a small van are open. A gigantic flower arrangement teeters above the deliveryman as he attempts to unload it, carefully, slowly, without bending a bud.

“Get in!” yells Robert to Carola. She dives in the passenger side. He starts the van and floors it. The little sewing machine of an engine revs. The deliveryman spins in a circle but doesn’t drop the arrangement. The back doors swing wildly. Robert slams on the brakes and the doors bang together, shut.

“Nice,” says Carola.

“Thank you,” says Robert.

“For what?”

“For coming back.”

“I like you. I just don’t trust you. And I want my money.” She holds out the USB drive on the end of her finger. “Those assholes gave me an idea. I ran in a drug store and swiped this. For insurance.” She holds out a second USB drive, almost identical, in her other hand. “I scratched an X on the real one.”

The van speeds out of town and up the mountain pass. Heavy snow piles on the windshield, piles on the road. At every intersection Robert jogs his memory. They stop at the top of the valley. Robert eyes a deluxe chalet situated on the side of the mountain in the middle of a bucolic snow-covered paradise, complete with old wooden barn.

“What do we do now?” asks Carola.

“We take it to them.”

“What does that mean?”

Robert takes out his phone and makes a call, “Mr. Al-Fayed, this is Robert. Yes. I accept your offer, all of it…and the money.…We are hiding in a chalet that was rented by the Italian. Grubenstrasse eighteen. Yes, come here right away.” He hangs up.

“I don’t know what you’re doing. But I know it won’t work,” says Carola.

“It has to. Al-Fayed. He is in on it. I just know it. Ken told me they were keeping Ali in a barn in the mountains. It must be that one. I saw it. It’s next to Al-Fayed’s house. I’m going to distract him and rescue her. You can take the van.”

“But what about the money?” she asks.

“I’m taking the sickness. You take the cure. Here’s the key to the safe deposit box. Okay?”

She nods and takes the key.

“Mail it to the cops with directions. It’s the only safe thing to do,” says Robert.

“Fuck that! Eugenio and I, we made that thing. Cops can’t be trusted.”

“Make sure it gets in the right hands!”

“Okay.”

From a distance they watch a black SUV pull out of the long driveway and head down the mountain. “It worked. They’re going to town.”

Robert pops out the clip in the Korean’s gun to see that it’s got five bullets left. He slides the clip back in. He leans over and kisses Carola on the lips. “Do the right thing with the cure.”

“She’s lucky, you know. You’re the man on a horse.”

Chapter 45

As dusk approaches, Robert watches the small flower truck head down the serpentine road toward the lights of town, then turns to the barn, scarcely visible in the twilight, and tromps through the snow.

At the barn, Robert slides the old wooden door open, the iron rollers at the top creaking. Everything is silent. A single lightbulb illuminates a workman’s desk complete with scissors, clamps, sickles, and scythes.

Then he hears something stirring on the ground nearby, something covered by a tarp. Heart pounding, Robert pulls on the cloth—slowly revealing Ali, her hands tied above her head, shaking. When she sees Robert instead of Pumpkin, her eyes tear up with joy. Robert’s eyes are tearing up, too, but there’s no time for a reunion.

He removes the gag from Ali’s mouth as she trembles violently and tries to speak in a raspy voice. “Quickly! Pumpkin will be back.”

Robert attempts to untie her hands and feet, but his fingers fumble over the endless knots in the poor light. He gets up and lunges toward the workman’s bench to get something to cut the ropes.

Without warning, the steel rollers on the barn door creak again. Robert jumps into the shadows.

A hulking figure enters the room—one of Al-Fayed’s bodyguards.

Ali immediately begins to squirm, acting to make it seem like she has managed to spit out the gag and move the tarp that usually covers her.

The bodyguard bends above her and palms her breast. “I think we’re alone now. It’s not fair for Pumpkin to have you all to his self.”

“Get off me,” says Ali.

The bodyguard stands up, unbuckles his belt, and unzips his pants. “I’m gonna get on you. You’re gonna like this. I’m not like Pumpkin—I know how to please a woman.”

Robert steps from the shadows and swings the scythe with all his might, wedging it into the bodyguard’s ankle. He buckles and screams. From the ground, he pulls a gun and lifts himself on his elbows, ready to shoot, but he can’t see Robert behind him.

Robert drops on the big man’s back, lifts the sickle high, then plunges its blade into the side of the man’s neck. The hulking figure shakes, then stills.

Robert runs over to the desk and lifts up a pair of scissors to cut Ali free.

Ali screams, “Robert!”

The bodyguard has opened his eyes and reached out his hand, holding the gun. He squeezes the trigger.

The bullet rips through Robert’s jacket. Am I hit?

Robert falls to his knees.

With blood flowing from his ankle and neck, the bodyguard takes aim at Robert again.

Robert wildly casts about through the cloud of pain. Has he come this far only to fall short? This man will surely not miss again.

Robert remembers his gun and rips it out of his waistband with his good arm to point it at the bodyguard. His thumb brings back the hammer—but Ali is right behind the big man. If he misses, or the bullet deflects, she could die.

The bodyguard takes one last breath, grits his teeth, and expires.

Is he really dead? Robert pushes him with his foot to make sure. He comes to his knees to inspect the body and finds a key card hanging around the man’s nearly severed neck. Getting to his feet, gingerly keeping his arm still by his side, Robert removes the key card and puts it in his pocket.

Ali is still tied up, and Robert dimly realizes that the sound of the gunshot will surely bring more of Al-Fayed’s people. Using the scissors, he frees Ali.

“You came for me,” she says.

“Of course,” he says, taking off his hoodie and jacket. He puts them on Ali, then turns his attention to his bloody shoulder. Rotating the arm, he winces. He cranes his neck to look and sees that the bullet only grazed him.

“Thank God,” Ali says wearily. “I couldn’t get out of here alone.” Robert lifts her and carries her outside into the still night. Upstairs in Al-Fayed’s house, he sees lights but there are no silhouettes behind the curtains.

He places the key card on the downstairs door and it opens into Al-Fayed’s magnificent garage. He lays Ali gently in the seat of the 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO. He remembers everything Al-Fayed did to start the car—pull the choke twice, turn the key. The vintage race car comes to life. Robert gets out and presses a button on the wall. The garage door rises. He gets in, cranks the knob for the heater to red. “It’ll warm up in a second; I know you’re cold.”

“Thank you,” she says.

He puts the car in gear.

“Where are we going?” asks Ali.

“Straight to the police.”

Robert floors it.

Chapter 46

The 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO growls eloquently as it winds down the hill. “I saw what you wrote on the mirror in our bathroom at the hotel,” says Robert.

“About skiing?” she asks.

“The other thing.”

“Oh. That. Really?” asks Ali.

“Is it true?”

“You want to talk about that at a time like this?”

“You want a divorce?” asks Robert.

“Let’s talk about it when we get home.”

“Did you…like that Eugenio guy?”

“He was nice.”

“Nice? He created a virus to end the world. He worked for the bad guys.”

“Robert, don’t be a dick. You rescued me.”

“I did. Didn’t I?” Robert’s pride slips out in a smile.

“You should just enjoy that for now.”

Robert thinks of himself from a little, tiny point of distance, and he starts to laugh. “I killed a guy for you.”

“You did. A big one, too.” Ali smiles for a second. One of her favorite things about Robert is that despite his intelligence, he never really takes himself too seriously.

“How about we go to couples counseling when we get home?” asks Robert.

“Deal,” she says.

Robert’s phone rings. He looks at the number. It’s Al-Fayed. “Oh, shit.”

“Robert, I’ve got someone who would like to speak to you,” says Al-Fayed.

He hears a woman’s voice. “Robert, tell these assholes to fuck off. They’ve got nothing. You have the sickness and your wife. I don’t care if they kill me.”

Al-Fayed gets back on the phone. “Robert, you know how this works. If you call your friend Hervé, Pumpkin will eviscerate Yøta from the inside out. Unlike you, I’m a man of my word. Bring me the drives, and I will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams; then I will set the three of you free.”

“Okay. It’s a deal. I’ll trade the USB drives for Carola. But I come alone.”

“No, Robert, you’ve shown yourself to be a liar. Bring your wife or I kill the girl. There’s an abandoned mine on the north side of town. Meet me there at sunrise.”

Chapter 47

The snow comes down sideways, in sheets, like rain. There’s too much of it. It piles up against everything: trees, boulders, cars. It sounds like salt on the Ferrari.

Robert parks the car in front of Eugenio’s apartment. “Let’s get you some clothes. And we can rest here for a little while. Warm up.”

Once again, Robert uses the toboggan to get in the back patio door and lets the half-naked Ali in the front door.

Ali finds some of Carola’s clothes—tights, short skirts, an extra pair of Moon Boots. She sneers before putting them on. Robert finds some of Eugenio’s ski clothes, nicer than anything he owns.

“How’s your shoulder?” Ali asks.

“Hurts.”

Looking at Ali, Robert sees her face freeze in horror, staring at something behind him. “You Americans, you don’t know pain. But you will.”

He turns to find the beautiful North Korean woman. At the end of her one remaining arm is a pistol pointed in their direction.

“You’re alive!” Robert gasps.

“I pinched my subscapular artery until I could sear it.” She smiles and wobbles. “Then I cauterized my wounds with a hotel room iron.”

“Jesus. I guess my shoulder’s not that bad.”

The woman’s face is expressionless now. “Are you CIA?” she demands.

“No. But I’ve got what you want,” says Robert. “I don’t give a shit. You can have it. Just let us go.” Robert reaches in his pocket and takes out the two USB drives.

“Bring them to me. Very slowly.”

“Put the drives…” She seems to realize that a one-armed woman, holding a pistol, has nowhere to hold a couple of USBs. “Put them…”

Robert looks around, feeling Ali’s nervousness. “Robert, how do we know she won’t kill us?”

The woman smiles. “You don’t. Put them between my breasts.”

While she holds her gun inches from his head, Robert tentatively inserts the drives down into her clothing.

She says something in Korean, then her eyes flutter and her knees buckle for just a second before she recovers.

It’s enough time. “Drop it!” Ali screams. She points Robert’s gun at the woman, who swivels to face her.

Robert reaches down and grabs the andiron that rests against a nearby cabinet.

“Die, American bi—” Before she can get out the word, Robert bludgeons her across the head with the heavy tool. He looks down at her, still a stylish figure on the ground.

“Shit. Call me a chauvinist, but I feel bad hitting a woman.”

“Get over it,” says Ali.

Robert picks up the extra gun and gently removes the drives from where he has just placed them. He looks at the clock on the wall. “You should just go to the cops.”

“Can you call them? How will he know if you do?” asks Ali.

“I can’t be one hundred percent sure he doesn’t have someone on the inside.”

“What do we have?”

“Two guns. He doesn’t know that. Pictures of the layout of the mine from Google.” Robert points to some images on Eugenio’s computer.

“What else?” she asks.

Robert smiles helplessly. “Each other.”

Chapter 48

Just before daybreak, the Ferrari pulls up at a small shed nestled between two large mountains. The entrance to the mine is about thirty feet away. The boards that once kept people out are broken and covered in graffiti. All is still but not quiet. Sounds from the road are barely audible.

Two black SUVs pull up the snow-covered road and park, as the sun breaks through the clouds above the western ridge of the mountain.

Robert walks out in front of the small wooden shack and stands by himself.

The doors of the first vehicle swing open, and two bodyguards step out holding machine guns. They assess Robert, the Ferrari, and the hut. The lead man yells, “Hands up!”

Robert holds his empty hands above his head.

“Lift up your shirt.”

Robert lifts his shirt and turns slowly in a circle.

Al-Fayed and Pumpkin step out of the first car. Pumpkin holds an aluminum briefcase.

“Professor Monroe. Where’s your wife?” Al-Fayed asks.

Robert nods at the Ferrari. Ali’s blond hair is visible in the passenger seat.

“Where’s Carola?” asks Robert coolly.

The man signals to the second SUV. The doors open and one more thug exits, with Carola by his side.

Her eyes flash, but her thick lips pout.

“She called us, to finish the deal. We are halfway there.” Al-Fayed holds out Eugenio’s Porsche key. “I have the cure. You have the sickness.”

“What?” Robert doesn’t bother to hide the disappointment in his voice. “How could you?”

“It’s okay, Robert. It’s for the best,” says Carola. “We’ll all be rich.”

“These guys killed Eugenio. Did you forget that?” asks Robert.

Carola shakes her head. “Eugenio,” she says sadly. “He shouldn’t have gone to the North Koreans.”

“Professor Monroe, tell your wife to come over here.”

“She is not well. It’s been a traumatic experience. She is…a little weak,” Robert says.

Al-Fayed grins. “I see you have come around to my way of thinking about women. Nevertheless, you must bring her out. I do not intend to give you one hundred million and my 250 GTO.”

Robert eyes Carola intensely. “One hundred million?”

Pumpkin opens the briefcase and displays a stack of papers.

“Bearer bonds issued from a Cayman bank,” Al-Fayed says. “Show me the USB.”

Robert holds up a USB drive.

“Let me see that thing,” says Carola. “I can tell you if it’s real.” She takes the USB and nods at Al-Fayed.

“Now, your wife,” Al-Fayed continues. “Get her from the car.”

“Okay. As you wish.” Robert walks deliberately over to the Ferrari and opens the door. The woozy, one-armed Korean woman sits tied to the passenger seat, her hair tucked neatly under a blond wig, a piece of duct tape across her mouth. Robert swiftly reaches his hand in the glove box and removes a pistol and box cutter. He slices the woman loose and lifts her from the car, slumped over his shoulder.

Robert carries her like a rug over to where Pumpkin stands and reaches for the briefcase.

“I’ll trade,” says Pumpkin. “Your wife for the money.”

Robert holds out his hand and shakes his head.

“Too bad. I had plans for her.” Pumpkin turns to walk away.

Robert glances over at Al-Fayed, unsure what to do.

Pumpkin swings around and bludgeons Robert across the head with the aluminum case. Robert falls on the ground, the woman landing by his side facedown in the snow.

Al-Fayed extends his hand to Carola. She gives him the USB drive, and Pumpkin hands her the briefcase.

Robert opens his eyes. A stream of hot blood runs in a serpentine pattern across his forehead.

“Professor Monroe, one last thing. My Modigliani, my nude—tell me, is she real?”

“The weave,” Robert says, unable to move, staring into the blood-spattered snow. “The canvas weave is all wrong. It’s machine made. It’s a fake.”

Al-Fayed exhales. “Kill them,” he says coldly.

Carola stands next to one of the SUVs, about to leave, but whirls around and shouts at Al-Fayed, “What was all that bullshit about being a man of your word? We had a deal! You said the Americans go free.”

“These words? From your mouth? Yøta, they are filled with irony. Eugenio was a fool to ever trust a woman like you.” Al-Fayed turns back to his bodyguards. “I said kill them.”

“Later,” Pumpkin says. “I’d like to play with her some more.”

“Now! Kill them now!”

Pumpkin taps the woman he thinks is Ali on the shoulder. “Wake up, honey.” He rolls her over and is disgusted. “Who is this bitch? Where’s Ali?”

“Over here.” Ali stands at a distance behind a boulder and aims a gun at Al-Fayed. “Let Robert go, or I kill the beard.”

“Really?” says Al-Fayed. “From that distance? With a handgun? A woman?” He extends his arms in a cross and walks slowly in her direction. “Go ahead. Take your best shot. You will miss. My men will not.”

“I’m not kidding. I’ll shoot!”

The three bodyguards raise their Uzis and point in Ali’s direction. Robert looks over to Carola. Their eyes meet. He shows her the gun under his chest. She nods.

Al-Fayed moves closer to Ali. “This is hard for you. Your kind shrinks from violence, even when it is absolutely necessary. I will help you, count it out for you. One! Two!”

Ali narrows her eyes, aims.

“Three!”

She squeezes the trigger. The air rips at the sound. Al-Fayed doubles over—gut shot. He touches his stomach and lifts a bloody finger. His bodyguards look on with amazement. “Kill her,” Al-Fayed utters with a choked voice. “What are you waiting for?”

Robert rolls over and fires at one of the thugs, hitting him in the face. Robert continues rolling on the ground until he is under the first SUV. Carola turns to the closest man and wrestles with him for the gun. Robert takes aim at the man’s calves and fires two shots—one in each leg. The man falls, and amazingly enough, Carola is left standing with the machine gun. “Hey, assholes! This is for Eugenio!” she screams. She squeezes down on the trigger and sprays lead indiscriminately. The third bodyguard is hit in his shoulder, in his thigh. He turns and unloads his own gun.

Before Robert’s eyes, it’s a double annihilation.

The bodyguard jerks like he’s hooked up to a car battery. Carola flails in the first rays of sunlight.

Riddled with bullets, Carola appears in strobes, her hands above her head, her hair tossed about, her blood splashing through the air. She spins. She falls.

The bodyguard, as if suddenly unplugged, collapses.

The mountain rumbles in the distance.

Robert hears the sound—and realizes that the gunfire has set off an avalanche. He knows they have very little time. “Ali! Get to the mine!”

“Oh, how divine.” Pumpkin surveys the surrounding area and sniffs the air like a hound. “I was hoping for a hunt.” He sees Ali run and follows her.

Al-Fayed limps over to where his last living bodyguard lies groaning on the ground, holding his legs. “Worthless!” he spits. He leans down and picks up an Uzi and the aluminum briefcase. He looks under the SUV for Robert, but he is not there.

Al-Fayed limps down to his Ferrari and settles in the leather seat.

A wall of snow fifteen feet high can now be seen tumbling down the mountainside. Like a great broom, it sweeps up trees and rocks and everything in its path.

The heavy-breathing engine of the 250 GTO comes to life. Al-Fayed is pleased. He has his car, his money, and the two USBs. He will have a private surgeon at his house in less than an hour. And the Modigliani—he still may be able to unload it on an ignorant drug dealer.

He will put out a contract on the Americans, and they will disappear. He puts the car in gear and speeds down the mountain pass.

Chapter 49

The wall of snow tumbles down the mountain, a giant wave of ice and debris. Ali is the first to the mine’s entrance. She turns to look for Robert. He’s still twenty yards away, and the sound of breaking trees, tumbling rocks, and snow is deafening. “Run, Robert! Run!”

Suddenly Pumpkin stands before her. “Oh, my lovely!” he sings out. He flips open a butterfly knife and holds his arms out. “Come to me.”

“No!” Ali aims the gun. She fires, hitting him dead center in the chest. The impact pushes him back, but his arms only fall for a second. He even smiles. “Do you really want to hurt me?” he asks. She fires again to the same result.

“It’s fate. We should be together,” he says. “Forever.”

She realizes now that he is wearing a Kevlar vest. She aims higher, at his distorted face. She closes her eyes and pulls the trigger. The gun clicks empty. Robert grabs Pumpkin’s shoulder, swings him around, and punches him.

Pumpkin staggers back toward the cave entrance, then drops his blade across Robert’s cheek, slicing the skin. He laughs. “Not so pretty anymore. That’s only the begin—”

A wall of ice falls and crashes violently into Pumpkin. He cartwheels, then is swallowed up.

Ali pulls Robert into the cave and falls on him. She holds his bleeding face and kisses him.

In an instant, Carola, the bodyguards, the North Korean woman are all buried. The SUVs are flipped upside down as if they were children’s toys. They float off in the river of snow. The sound is deafening, until it’s over, and everything is quiet.

Chapter 50

Al-Fayed pulls his Ferrari into his garage. He gets out, bent over, and limps toward the staircase holding an Uzi in one hand and the aluminum briefcase in the other.

“Drop zee gun!”

Al-Fayed turns to see Hervé, Greta, and four police officers standing at the open garage door, all aiming guns at him.

“This is private property. You have no warrant,” says Al-Fayed. “Be gone. Or I will have your jobs.”

“You are under arrest,” says Hervé.

“For what?” demands Al-Fayed.

“For holding illegal weapons.”

Al-Fayed looks down at the gun in his hand. He laughs. “This is nothing we can’t work out. I have right here in this briefcase one hundred million dollars in bearer bonds. I could put it down and walk away.”

“Now we have two charges,” says Hervé. “Attempting to bribe a law enforcement official. Shall we go for three?”

“Yes! Indeed! We shall!” says Al-Fayed. He lets the Uzi blaze. Three of the officers fall. Hervé fires three shots, each one landing squarely in Al-Fayed’s chest. He falls backward.

Hervé and Greta run to his side.

“Where are the Americans?” asks Hervé.

“Where are the USB drives?” Greta asks.

Blood pours from Al-Fayed’s mouth. His eyes go dim.

She reaches in the pockets of his finely tailored suit and pulls out a USB drive and Eugenio’s Porsche key.

Hervé calls on his cell. “Three officers down. We need an ambulance. Immediately! Send a helicopter.”

Chapter 51

The entrance to the cave is now a dimly illuminated wall of ice.

The broken boards have been pushed inside. Together, Ali and Robert jam them in the ice, making a ladder to the opening at the top of the cave entrance. They climb to the top.

Robert takes one step in the snow and sinks to his shoulders.

He climbs back down into the cave and comes out with the four extra boards. “We’re gonna have to walk on these until we get down to where the snow is hard-packed.”

After an hour-long hike, a Rega helicopter circles overhead and lands in front of Ali and Robert.

Hervé hops out and runs up to the couple. “This must be the beautiful Ali Monroe.” He extends his hand.

“It’s Al-Fayed!” Robert says raggedly. “He was behind the whole thing. The kidnapping, the USB drives…”

“Yes, we were waiting for him back at his chalet.”

“Is he in custody?”

“He is dead.”

“Carola and the others are buried up by the abandoned mine, in the avalanche.” Hervé nods.

“We must get you medical attention. Greta tells me you are something of a hero.”

Robert laughs.

“He is!” says Ali as she puts her arm in his.

Chapter 52

Robert’s arm is in a sling. Fine thread holds his cheek together. He sits at the interrogation desk in the Gstaad police office reading over a typed statement before signing his name at the bottom.

“We found the girl. They are bringing her in right now,” Hervé says to Robert.

“May I see her?” he asks.

“Yes, but I must tell you: it is not a pretty sight.”

In the morgue, Robert bends over Carola’s corpse. He pushes the hair from her face and brushes her cheek.

“She’s still beautiful, even in death,” he says to Hervé.

“’Tis a tragic waste.”

“Yes. It is.”

Outside the police station, Robert sips in the clean mountain air. His phone rings. He answers it.

“Hello, Robert. It is Greta. I hate to give you déjà vu, but the USB drive—there was nothing on it.”

“Eugenio’s key?”

“No. This one had a great deal of code. But you told me this one is only the cure. We are missing the sickness. It is still out there somewhere. Do you have any idea where it may be?”

“No.”

“Aside from its catastrophic effects, the code could be very useful to us.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m going back to my normal life. I don’t know anything about this stuff anymore.”

“Okay. Well, thank you for your help,” Greta says before she hangs up.

Robert walks over to a stone wall. He wedges free one of the rocks and glances over both shoulders. He slips his hand in his pocket. He pulls out a USB drive with a small X carved in the plastic. “This is for Carola,” he says as he puts the drive on the wall and smashes repeatedly with the rock until it is nothing but broken bits of plastic and metal. He sweeps the pieces up in his hand and drops them in the nearest trashcan.

Chapter 53

Robert and Ali sit at either end of a black leather couch. A balding man with bright eyes and a dark mustache sits across from them.

“Robert, Ali, what brings you two to couple’s counseling?” the man asks.

“She ran off with an Italian playboy half her age,” says Robert.

“Not half!” she says. “Three quarters.”

“And she left me a little note on the mirror, saying she wanted a divorce.”

“And how did that make you feel?” the therapist asks.

“How do you think it made me feel?” asks Robert.

The therapist pushes on. “Did you feel abandoned?”

Robert nods. “That was in there.”

“He killed a man with a sickle and scythe,” Ali says seriously. “So maybe angry was more like it.”

The man cannot hide his concern. “Is this true?” he asks.

“Actually, I killed two or three, depending on if you count Pumpkin or not.”

Ali flashes a sly smile. “It kind of turned me on.”

“I’m not sure it’s sustainable. I mean, I don’t want to kill a man every time I want to have sex with my wife.”

“This is…legitimate,” says the therapist. “Ali, do you hear Robert’s concern?”

“Yes,” Ali replies, biting her lip. “But it was pretty hot.”

“I drove a thirty-million-dollar car,” Robert adds.

“And how did that make you feel?” asks the therapist.

“Really, really good.”

About the Authors

James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

David Inglish has inadvertently led police on a high-speed chase, shaken hands with a bishop, jammed with Neil Young, and tubed in Bali. His novels Before the Flock and W. B. Bugg’s Change of Heart are available in paperback and on Kindle.

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Table of Contents

Letter from James Patterson

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

About the Authors

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