Avalanche

by James Patterson

  “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—Mandari
n, 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.”