Charlatan: Chapter 2

“FISK TAKES OVER MOUNTAIN FOR EXCLUSIVE HOLIDAY”
— Telluride Gazette, November 2

Telluride, Colorado….

Forty feet above the snow, they rose up the mountain. There was no one else on any of the lift’s chairs or on the mountain below.

He had bought exclusive use of all the resort’s skiing facilities for the weekend. Privacy was important to both of them.

Fisk’s brash empire building had brought him many enemies whom he sought to avoid. And Dr. Mai Lindstrom was a deputy secretary general of the United Nations, not tabloid fodder.

Conspicuously older than she, his craggy weathered features contrasted sharply with her face’s soft beauty.

Mai: “What a day — great weather, great powder, great runs.”

Fisk: “Ready for a double black?”

Mai: “How about ‘The Plunge’?”

Fisk: “Perfect. That should take our minds off Indonesia for awhile.”

Indonesia had become a big problem for Fisk. A religious uprising threatened his oil interests there. He had sent his troubleshooter, Carlos Madrid, and his agent provocateur, Tarita Lee, to vet the situation.

Suddenly Fisk jerked to his right, shouldering into Mai.

Fisk: “What the hell…?”

Mai: “What happened?”

Fisk: “Something just whizzed by my head — something like a bullet.”

Mai: “You can’t be serious.”

Without warning, the metal chair rail beside Fisk severed with a loud crack, its broken ends twisting up sharply.

Fisk: “We’re under fire! And we’re sitting ducks up here.”

He locked his loose foot into his snowboard’s binding and threw the chair’s safety bar up.

Fisk: “They’re obviously after me, not you. So I’ll make it a bit harder for them. Sit tight!”

Before Mai could say anything, Fisk pushed himself off the seat.

Mai: “Fisk… my God!”

Holding on to the erratically swinging chair, she watched in alarm as Fisk fell.

Keeping his snowboard beneath him, he twisted 180 degrees in the air and hit the snow facing downhill. Mai gasped, expecting him to crash. His knees buckled and his butt banged into the packed snow. He bounced up, arms flailing, and somehow regained his balance as he sped downhill.

Phew! Mai exhaled, as amazed as she was relieved and that Fisk had been able to land on his feet and stay upright. Incredible body control for a man his age, or any age!

A big chunk of bark flew off an aspen tree to Fisk’s left.

Mai saw a glint of metal in the trees to his right.

Peering sharply, she could make out the figure of someone holding a rifle pointed toward Fisk.

Bending low, almost kneeling on his Snowboard, Fisk became a smaller, faster moving target. He would not be easy prey.

Fisk and Mai had come to Telluride by private plane. They were staying in a private home from which they could ski directly onto one of the major runs.

Caps, goggles and parkas further protected their privacy. Yet they had been found and identified. Or at least Fisk had.

Arguably the most powerful non-government individual in the world, Fisk had more economic power than most heads of state. He controlled 52 major business enterprises operating in 68 countries. His sudden demise on the slopes of Telluride would cause a tremor in world markets.

Mai had reached the top of the lift and lost sight of Fisk as he skittered around the side of a cliff.

Shielded from the trees that had hidden his assailant, he skidded to a stop. His screaming thighs needed a few moments of respite.

Fisk bent down to adjust a binding. And that fortuitous movement saved his life….

Phttttt…

Sounding like an angry hornet, something whizzed by where Fisk’s head had just been. It thunked into the tree behind him. Another near miss!

‘Goddamit,’ Fisk muttered. ‘Am I running a gauntlet of snipers?’

Glancing uphill, Fisk saw a skier coming down toward him. The man held a rifle at the ready.

Fisk hoped that this was the same person who had shot at him before. One assassin was better than a gauntlet.

Fisk jump-started his board, headed for the steepest, fastest way downhill. This was one time he’d have preferred being on skis with ski poles to help him accelerate.

Another glance behind told him the killer was gaining. A patch of mogul bumps loomed ahead. Fisk plowed into them, with good reason. The man following him was on skis and could move faster through moguls than Fisk could on his snowboard. But nobody could aim a gun accurately while negotiating moguls.

The many quick turns through the treacherous bumps were exhausting Fisk. But just in time, the moguls ended. Now he could zip ahead while his pursuer was still twisting through the patch of speed bumps.

Accelerating, Fisk looked back to see…no one. The hill behind was empty.

Had his enemy fallen or abandoned the chase? Not likely, he thought. What, then?

The answer materialized in front of him. About twenty feet ahead, the snowy surface ended. There was nothing beyond. He was heading toward a sheer drop-off, and he was going like hell.

He threw himself back down onto the snow, landing on his side. Forcing the edge of his board into the snow in front of him, he braked desperately.

The snowboard crunched to a stop inches from the edge of the precipice. Peeking over the edge, Fisk looked down — about 300 feet straight down.

No wonder his pursuer had abandoned the chase. He’d obviously known about this deadly dead-end, and had held back to let the mountain take Fisk.

Or had he? Fisk heard snow squeaking under footsteps. He looked up… into the barrel of a gun twenty feet away.

The man holding the gun was walking toward Fisk. He had skirted the moguls and schussed down the hill while Fisk was bumbling into this trap.

Now the hunter had an easy kill….

To be continued in Chapter 3…