We PULL BACK along the aisle -- to where Gail sits at a windowseat, eyeing Fletcher Chace warily from behind dark glasses.
INT. ROME FIUMICINO AIRPORT -- BOARDING GATE -- EVENING The gate opens, and a flood of REPORTERS and PAPARAZZI are waiting for us. FLASHBULBS click and whirr like locusts.
REPORTERS:
Signora, Signora! Is your son stillalive? Signora!
CHACE:
Out of the way, fellas.
REPORTER 1 When will you pay the ransom foryour son's life?
GAIL:
I don't have the money.
The reporters laugh.
39.
REPORTER 2 You divorced the son of the richest man in the world, Signora! CHACE (O.S.) You don't have to answer questions.
GAIL:
No. I want to say something.
Gail's voice is tense with emotion, but she remains poised.
GAIL (CONT'D)
My son Paul must be very frightenedright now. I know I'm frightenedfor him. So to the people who tookhim:
I don't care why you did this, but as a mother I ask you to thinkof your own children, or of the childyou once were, and set my boy free.
A brief silence, then: REPORTER 3 (to Chace) Scusi. Why does the lady not cry?
GAIL:
Excuse me?
REPORTER 3 Your son is disappeared. A mother should cry for her son.
GAIL:
You want me to cry, is that it?
CHACE:
All right. Let the lady through.
The crowd parts before us to reveal the smartly-dressedInvestigating Magistrate ANTONIO DEL ROVERE flanked by twouniformed officers of the Italian POLICIA DI STATO. The flashbulbs pop and whirr, recording the moment:
DEL ROVERE:
Ms. Getty. I am Antonio Del Rovere of the Policia di Stato.
INT. QUESTURA POLICIA DI STATO (POLICE HEADQUARTERS) -- NIGHT Del Rovere leads Gail and Chace from a police sedan in theparking garage into the front lobby of a castle that hasbeen transformed into a police Questura.