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.