“Helicopter,” I said. “If we could get them alone, Kaylee and Leo, and get them to the helipad, with a chopper standing by, and if the weather was good enough to fly. Fly them to Zurich. Timing it so they could get right on a flight, before Grigor or his crew or his lawyers could intercept them at the boarding gate, and it should be nonstop to the states, so they can’t be intercepted changing planes in Paris or Munich or someplace.”

“Can we make that work?” she said.

“No,” I said.

We were in my hotel room. I went to the minibar. I took out four bottles, three candy bars, and a bag of nuts. “Here’s the helipad,” the bag of nuts. “Now we have three pairs,” each of them a bottle and a candy bar, “and one single security guy,” just a bottle. “Let’s say that we get lucky, and Grigor and Pavel are fairly far away, off-piste,” I pushed that pair, a vodka and a package of Manner Wafers, way over to the left. “Here’s Kaylee and Yvetta,” another vodka and a Mozart Ball, near the middle of the table. “Here’s Leo,” I said, ecstatic that I had a Milka candy actually called a Leo, the biggest achievement of my planning so far. I paired it with a half bottle of a rather ordinary red wine, “and Lev.” I put them over on my right. “And here,” a bier, right in front of me, home base, “is Tomas. It’s daytime. Maybe he’s at the chalet, sleeping, or eating, or whatever. But he’s on call. There’s a car at the chalet and the helipad is right on the road. Tomas gets there…I don’t know, five minutes, seven at the most.”

“Really what we have to worry about,” Allison said, “is two people. Lev and Yvetta.”

“If we’re lucky. We only have a few days to pull it off. Bad weather, meaning no-fly weather, or Grigor decides to ski with his son, or hang nearby to watch, and the plan doesn’t work. Also…” I took out another candy bar. I tore the wrapper off, broke it into thirds, and put a piece with each pair. “The skiführers. What do they do, when Kaylee and Leo head for the helicopter? Say OK? Or call someone? Or call Grigor? Or help the keepers stop them?”

Allison said, “If a mother wants to go somewhere with her son, won’t they accept that?”

“Maybe. Probably. Unless Grigor’s already had a word in their ear, ‘My wife is a little unstable, please be careful, don’t let her run off, especially with our boy, we have a restraining order,’ and his money in their pocket.”

“But if we make it happen, there’s a lot of money, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“How much are we talking about? For me.”