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.