“Isn’t that what the gun’s for?”
The question was rhetorical and we both knew it. We had arrived at our destination. I didn’t realize it at the time, even when I looked up and saw the big blue and white AIR ZERMATT garage opening in front of us to reveal a drive-in elevator the size of an aircraft carrier.
We drove in and the elevator began to rise, the doors opening at the top, allowing us to roll out onto the roof.
The helicopter was waiting for us.
The fuselage was red with white call letters painted on the side. Its propellor was already running, making that unmistakable pop-pop-pop of the blades accompanied by the high-pitched whine of turbines. I’d read somewhere about Vietnam veterans who couldn’t stand the sound of rotors because it gave them flashbacks to the war, and at that moment I totally understood. Even though it was half a world away, the second I heard that familiar sound and smelled the exhaust, it was like I was right back in midtown Manhattan, gunfire and shouting, exploding glass and broken promises on the forty-seventh floor.
I glanced back down at Zermatt spread out below us, sirens and fire at the far end of the street, where, from the sound of it, the battle of the Hotel Schoeneweiss was apparently still in progress. Up above it all, the mountains stood almost lost in the distance except for a few faint beacons, tiny lights at their peaks.
Gobi and I got out of the car just as the chopper’s hatch opened.
The woman who stepped through it was familiar too.
“Hey, Stormaire,” Paula shouted across the helipad. She was wearing a black knit ski cap and parka, and grinning like she’d just won the Big Air competition at the Winter X Games. Even from here, I could see the bruise on her face where Gobi had ax-kicked her back in Venice. “Written any good songs lately?”
This time her pistol was pointed right at Gobi.
33. “Cold Hard Bitch” — Jet
For a second, nobody moved. We all just stood there, our clothes flapping like windsocks in the rushing air high above the lights of Zermatt.
Then I saw a red dot appear on Gobi’s forehead, and traced it to a man in a long coat poised inside the helicopter, holding a rifle outfitted with a laser-scope, fifteen yards away. He was bald, with a long, almond-shaped face that tapered down to a trim silver-gray goatee, making him look vaguely satanic.
It took me a second to recognize him, but I made the connection soon enough. The last time I’d seen him he’d been wearing a priest’s collar in the Grand Canal, when he’d come bursting out of the Louis Vuitton steamer trunk and opened his eyes, alive despite all the bullets that had been fired in his direction. Gobi’s target, the one she’d failed to finish off. Right away I could tell that Gobi recognized him just by the subtle shift in her posture.
You should have killed him in Venice, I thought.
The man gave us both an amused glance, and in the chopper’s interior lights I saw his lips tightening at the corners, like the spontaneous pucker of a time-lapse scar. I looked back at the red dot on Gobi’s forehead. Counting the rifle and the pistol, she had at least two guns trained right on her, maybe more if Paula had another sniper waiting somewhere else. With the two of us standing out here exposed on the helipad, with all these mountains and rooftops around us, the idea didn’t seem the least bit paranoid.
It had started snowing. White flakes began to drift down, little sugar-spun strands and helices swirling almost weightlessly through the landing lights. Lit by the rifle’s laser-scope, they looked downright magical.
“Paula,” I shouted over the helicopter’s roar. “Where’s my family?”
“They’re safe,” she said. “For now.”
“Where?”
“You know, I was thinking maybe we should take some time apart.” Her eyes flicked to Gobi. “See other people.” She gave a sympathetic shrug. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Hey.” Paula wrinkled her nose at me. “It was fun while it lasted, though, right?”
I glanced at Gobi. She’d turned her head so I couldn’t see her expression, and even if I had, it would have been impossible to say what was going through her mind. She still had the machine gun from Erich’s place, but I didn’t know how much ammo she had left, and even if she was fully loaded, we were simply outgunned. She might have been able to take out one of the shooters, but not both of them, and that kevlar vest wasn’t going to do any good against a headshot at fifteen yards.
“Once we’re out of here with Gobi,” Paula shouted, “you’ll get a phone call. Your parents and your sister will be released unharmed.”
“What if I don’t believe you?”
“Who says you have a choice?”
She had a point. It was snowing harder now, big fat flakes drifting down from the sky, clogging my eyelashes. I brushed them away and took in a deep, throat-aching breath of cold air.
“Who’s in charge now that Armitage is dead?” I asked.
That adrenalized grin came blazing back again. How had I never noticed how white her teeth were before?
“That depends,” Paula said, “on who ends up with Gobi.”
“What do you mean?”
Paula gazed appreciatively at Gobi. “She’s a human weapon, Stormaire. The best mercenary around. One in a million. Armitage seriously underestimated her capabilities, and it cost him his life. I won’t make that mistake.”
“It’s not like she’s programmable,” I said. “She’s not just some machine that will do whatever you tell her.”
“I think she will, once she finds out what I’m offering.”
“And what’s that?”
“Clearly more than you ever could.”
“She doesn’t kill people for money, Paula.”
“You’re standing up for her. How gallant.”
Throughout all of this, Gobi still hadn’t said anything. Some part of me was just waiting for her to snap into motion, dodging bullets while she opened fire on Paula and the helicopter. Paula must have been waiting for it too. The grin disappeared and her eyes went cold, and when she spoke again her voice was both louder and sharper, an announcement of ultimatum marking the close of play.
“Gobija Zaksauskas,” Paula said.
Gobi didn’t budge.
“This is the situation. If your next move is anything except putting down that gun and coming with me now, Perry’s whole family is going to die in the most horrible way that you can imagine.” Paula kept the gun pointed straight at her. “Let me repeat that. Either you come with us now, or I will kill Perry and his family. Is there anything about this scenario that you don’t understand?”
Nobody spoke. I realized that I was holding my breath. We all knew the stakes. If there was one miracle left in the night, I prayed for it to happen now.
Gobi raised the machine gun, turned, and looked at me.
“As atsiprasau,” she said. “I am sorry, Perry.”
“Wait,” I said. “Just-”
Behind the pistol, Paula tensed, getting ready. I saw the bald sharpshooter on the helicopter coil tighter around his rifle. The red dot on Gobi’s head held perfectly still between her eyes, the punctuation mark that waits for all of us somewhere in the end.
But, Gobi just put down her weapon on the tarmac and walked over to the helicopter. She got onboard without a backwards glance.
It lifted up and flew away, leaving me standing there alone.
34. “I Will Buy You a New Life” — Everclear
A half-hour later I found myself back in the center of town. The fire was finally out at the Hotel Schoeneweiss, leaving Main Street smelling like the biggest ashtray on the planet. Everywhere I looked, dozens of scorched and blinking Santa Clauses were still roaming the streets, dazed and bewildered, and the singed ClauWau banner was dangling from one of the buildings. Blue flashing police and fire truck lights flickered off the blackened foundation of the old liquor store, which had already been cordoned off by emergency crews. An upside-down sleigh lay half buried under a pile of bricks. A reindeer dipped its head to drink from a black puddle with a Santa cap floating in it.