The Geneva Decision (5 page)

“They tried to kill me, Dad. Bad for business if that goes unanswered.”

“Send the professionals after them. It’s too dangerous.”

Pia waited a beat. “Danger doesn’t matter. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I’m not having that discussion again. Your attitude toward staying alive is…” His voice quaked before trailing off.

“I believe what I believe,” she said. “You just don’t get what it’s like for women, Dad. When a man walks down the street, only one out of a thousand people is even capable of hurting him. When the average woman walks down the street, more than half could kill her. I have two advantages: I’m not afraid to die; and I hit first. You know that rule from
The Art of War
: walk away from a fight if you can?
The Art of War
was written about men fighting other men of equal strengths. Women don’t have that kind of equality. Remember when my college roommate, Rachel, was attacked? That rapist could have beaten me, but I put him down before he had a chance to think. I can’t worry about the danger—I just wade in.”

“It’s your afterlife theory I don’t like,” he said.

“That I’ll be with my parents?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, Dad.” Pia took a moment to think. “You moved the world for me. You took me in and gave me everything I needed to succeed. But I’m taking the helm my way. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“Pia, you come home this inst—”

“Not happening. I traded my shares in Sabel Capital for fifty-one percent of Sabel Security. We both signed. It’s a done deal.”

She paused and listened to him breathe. Or was he steaming?

“You know what I learned from you? When you take over a company, you take total control. You’ve been taking me to board meetings since I was nine, and I listened. You always tell the executives that you make all the decisions, so you can tell whose decisions are working and whose aren’t. That’s what I’m doing.”

“And I always take the brightest executive and make him my mentor,” he said. “I keep my ears open to the voice of experience. I don’t have mass resignations.”

That stung.

“You’re right. I’ll come home in a day or so,” Pia said. “I need to pick up more agents, do something about the employee confidence problem, and pick a mentor.”

“Wait—”

“Gotta go. Love you. Bye.”

She clicked off while he was drawing a breath. What followed that breath would have been a rant about who controlled what, and who built which company, and how gratitude should manifest itself.

Pia called her pilot and asked him to look up all possible routes, by rail, car, or air, out of Geneva that would get a fugitive to Brussels. No matter which option the assassins chose, she intended to intercept them. She told her pilot to file flight plans for any routes the police might have left unguarded. All she needed to know was: when would they make their break?

Chapter 7

21-May, 3:30AM

T
he morning 10K was sacred to Pia, a necessity for a clear mind. She chose the city streets over the hotel’s treadmill, reasoning that unless al-Jabal and his spiky-haired pal knew of her lifelong battle with insomnia, they wouldn’t expect her on the streets at three-thirty. Besides, she hated treadmills. She told Agent Marty only that she was going for a run when she walked through the suite’s outer room.

Running along the empty Quai des Bergues on the Rhone’s northern shore, she drank in the cool alpine air. She crossed over on the Rue des Deux-Ponts, her path taking her into an industrial neighborhood. Fresh bread, newspapers, and dairy were being loaded from warehouses to trucks. Then diesel fumes stung her nose as each truck pulled out of a bay and trundled by.

She changed her route to escape the smoke and made a turn back toward the lake, which brought her to the University of Geneva’s impressive campus. She circled it and found Rue Henri-Fazy, which led her into
Old Town
. The district dated back to the first millennium and was made of narrow passages paved with uneven cobblestone. Not the best footing for a runner.

As she looked for the quickest route back to a smooth surface, the flash of police lights caught her eye. Farther down the Grand Rue, harsh blue and white light shot out from a narrow side street. She slowed to a walk and approached the corner, where an ambulance backed into a tight lane. An officer moved scooters to one side, widening the path. As she resumed her run, the officer saw her, stopped what he was doing, and ran toward her.

He called out, “Arrêtez!”

She stopped twenty yards away and waited for him.

He issued rapid-fire commands in French and made frantic hand gestures that looked like he wanted her on the ground, something she wasn’t willing to do without good cause.

She shrugged. “American. I don’t understand.”

He stopped two yards away, holding his hand up, and talked into a microphone dangling from his shoulder. He held a short conversation over the radio. The policeman stared at her. They waited in a tense standoff until a tall silhouette squeezed past the ambulance and approached them, his windbreaker pulled tight against the chill.

Lieutenant Alphonse Lamartine.

He called her name. She jogged to him. Alphonse stood just outside the glow of the ambulance headlights, rumpled and ruffled. He trotted out to meet her halfway.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

She stopped, still three yards away. His tone.

He continued toward her, stopped an arm’s length from her, stiff and formal.

“You are out late tonight, oui?”

“No, I’m an early riser.” She nodded toward the ambulance. “Did something happen?”

He stared.

Overcome by his unexpected scrutiny, words spilled out of her. She explained her insomnia, her run, where she’d been, the empty streets. Still he said nothing. She pulled up her running app on her phone, handed it to him, and showed him how it mapped and timed her.

He nodded, looked at the phone, and stayed quiet for a full minute. His face scrunched up as if to say something, then relaxed.

Finally, he said, “Sixteen minutes, over five kilometers, this is quite rapid.”

She shrugged.

“No wonder you gave al-Jabal the slip on the bridge.” He waited. “Were you seen at the hotel before you left?”

“Agent Marty is on night duty. He can confirm it. If the hotel has cameras—”

“On your run, did you see anyone?”

“Bread trucks.”

“Not al-Jabal?”

Pia’s breath hung for a second. Her fingers slid across her runner’s pack, checked the Glock holstered there. “He’s still loose?”

“Oui. Two more murdered bankers.”

They looked at each other in the dim light without speaking.

She said, “Wait, you left me on the bridge because of a murder—now there’s another one?”

“Two more. First Marot at the park. Then, Madame Bachmann of Genève Banque International at her home. Now we discover the president of Genève Banque and his partner, both murdered within the few hours.”

“And I’m out running through the neighborhood.”

“Oui.” He sighed. “You make yourself the target for interrogation. So often, the criminal returns to the scene to examine the police progress. You are here, at the scene. No doubt the alibi will prove true, you have no motive, you subdued the killer, yet procedure says you must be questioned.”

Pia pursed her lips. “Guess so.”

Alphonse pulled out his phone, still holding Pia’s in his hand. He dialed the hotel and checked her story. The desk clerk had noticed her leave, and video cameras recorded all the exits. A technician would make them available for inspection during business hours. Alphonse hung up and stared at her phone.

He asked, “These calls you make, the few minutes ago. Who are they?”

“Alphonse, I’m not connected to this.”

“My question requires the answer.”

“My pilot and my father.”

Alphonse hit redial. He spoke for a few moments in French, then handed the phone to Pia. She reassured her father that everything was fine and hung up.

“Your father speaks languages,” Alphonse said. “And you?”

She glanced away and blew a breath. “I studied soccer. Every day. All day. Learned a little German.”

He ran through a series of quick, short questions about her running habits, her route, her departure from the main boulevard toward Old Town, her reason for running past the ambulance. She answered with quick, short replies.

“Look, Alphonse,” she said. “You know I’m not involved, and I don’t know how to explain it any better than that. Jesus, they tried to kill me. If you like, I’ll give you one of our security phones. It’ll tell you where I am at all times. You can follow me or call me or text me, everywhere I go.”

Alphonse drew a deep breath and kept his eyes on the phone.

“Le Capitaine will require the thorough investigation. She may not assign this task to me. Come to think, I am certain she will not. She thinks I do not have the dispassionate observations where you are concerned.”

“I have nothing to hide.” She pulled her spare phone out of her pack and handed it to him. “Keep this. I want you to know where I am.”

At the last statement, he stepped back and took a long look at her. He forced a nervous smile. He said, “No boyfriends will call this number?”

She smiled. “No boyfriends. I break phones all the time. My people give me a spare. Consider this your personal satellite phone, works anywhere above ground. You can text me, call me, video chat, locate, anything you want. I don’t want you to have any doubts.”

He smiled and pocketed the phone. “The good policeman should never believe the thing until he can prove it. But I do. I believe you. Anyway, I will keep the phone. Maybe I will have good news to text you soon.”

After a quick glance over his shoulder, he began walking backward.

“Wait,” Pia said. He stopped. “I have two experts with me. Jonelle was an MP in Iraq and Afghanistan; she’s investigated many murders. Same for Marty. I’d like to offer their services for the investigation. They can help—”

“It is the generous offer, but improper to accept before we clear your name. Even then, impossible for Le Capitaine. She already has the black mark for losing al-Jabal. Also, she is the outsider who would bring in more outsiders? No. This cannot work. But merci.”

“You never told me what happened,” she said.

“The last two, executed in the street behind the bank. Each one separately. First Monsieur Wölfli, then perhaps some minutes later, Monsieur Affolter.”

“How awful. Are they tied to Marot?”

“The same weapon, but this gun is common. The only thing we know is that the victims were all at the party. Madame Bachmann left suddenly, just the few minutes before the first murder. Wölfli and Affolter went home later, with everyone else.”

“Didn’t they have police protection? Wouldn’t they be worried after what happened to Marot?”

“We alerted them after Madame Bachmann was killed,” he said. “Neither man was home, and their wives knew nothing—only that they spoke to each other and left on urgent business. Before we discover their bodies, it was thought they were meeting Madame Bachmann’s family.”

“Any video cameras around here?”

Alphonse pointed across the rooftops. “One there. Too far, no doubt.”

“No cameras at Bachmann’s?”

“No.”

“You know what that means?” Pia asked.

“Oui. They know the city.”

“No, it means they were—”

“I have told too much already. You see?” Alphonse held up his hands. “This is why Le Capitaine does not trust me with you.”

“Sorry.” She looked away. “But why did they come here without bodyguards?”

“The guards are normal for you, not for the banker of Geneva,” he said. “It is the shame. It was the executioner shot, in the back of the head. They were beaten first.”

“Why kill them like that? Why take them one at a time? Why not bomb the building?”

Alphonse shook his head and held out his hands, palms out.

“We do not yet know if it was al-Jabal. All we have is the odd clue—none of the bankers have the cell phone with them. Au revoir.” He disappeared behind the ambulance still wedged in the side street.

Pia called Agent Marty to escort her back to the hotel. While waiting, she stepped around the ambulance and watched as three men loaded a black body bag.

The killers had gotten that close to their victims yet tried to shoot her in the dark, standing forty yards away? Someone would have warned the bankers about the murders of their friends. They would have been vigilant. There were video cameras. And the phones—everyone carried a phone.

Then it came to her: a theory that explained the phones. Should she tell Alphonse?

Chapter 8

21-May, 8AM

“T
hey’re killing a secrets trail,” Pia said.

Agent Jonelle scraped the bottom of her bowl for the last spoonful, ate it, and dropped the spoon in the bowl. “You’re right—Greek yogurt is great.”

“Double the protein, half the sugar,” Pia said. “What about my theory?”

“It’s possible,” Jonelle said. “You’d need to see the phones to prove it. If you’re right, the killers tossed them in the river, and we’ll never know. Doesn’t matter—it’s not our case.”

“Why not retribution?” Marty asked.

“What do you mean?” Pia said.

“Bankers for Syria’s Assad had prices on their heads at one point. If these people were hiding funds for the wrong dictator, it could have gone badly.”

“If it were something they knew about, like banking for a dictator, they’d have been more cautious,” Jonelle said. “Especially if they were in some conspiracy with Marot. They’d have hunkered down somewhere after his killing. Instead they went to their offices in the middle of the night without calling the police. They didn’t know what it was—they were just finding out.”

“Like I said, Marot told Bachmann something that shocked her enough to leave the party,” Pia said. “She confirmed it and texted Wölfli; he called his guy, whatshisname. None of them were sure about it, so they didn’t tell the police. Maybe it made them look bad. After each murder, the killers read the texts, looked at the call log, and knew who to kill next.”