The Geneva Decision Read online

  The hotel’s restaurant sparkled in white with gold trim. Pia set her knife and fork on the china and pushed it away. She said, “You were an MP for, what, ten years?”

  “Twelve.”

  “And how many murders did you investigate?”

  No one spoke as the bus boy cleared the plates. The waiter stepped in, scraping the crumbs from the linen with a silver scraper. Pia caught his eye and signaled for the check.

  “Too many,” Jonelle said. “You put ten thousand eighteen-year-old boys in the desert for months on end, something bad’s going to happen. No worse crime rate than anywhere else per capita.”

  “And they had at least twenty lethal weapons each,” Marty said. “Identical weapons. Worst conditions for finding evidence.”

  Jonelle shot a glance his way. “You’re not helping.”

  “I looked up Chamonix while I was changing,” Pia said. “It’s a ski village in the mountains an hour from here. Guess how many murders they’ve had in the last ten years.”

  Jonelle sighed. “OK, so she pulls drunks out of gutters and cars out of snowbanks. She’s still a trained peace officer—you’re a rich kid who was lucky enough to tackle a killer without getting hurt. You gave them the bad guy, and they blew it. Big problem, but not our problem. Our client—potential client—is dead. We have no legal standing here. No ethical reason to get involved.”

  “Moral reason.”

  Agent Marty said, “She’s right.”

  Jonelle glared at him. He put his hands up and leaned back.

  “Your father made significant financial promises to me if you remain in the job and are successful over the next five years.” Jonelle stabbed a finger toward Pia. “I don’t have stacks of money stashed in my Gulfstream’s cargo hold. That means I want to do what’s right for Sabel Security, what’s right for the business. At the moment, we’re looking at good press: Pia Sabel Captures Killer. That’s a win. Leave it alone.”

  “He murdered my client.”

  “Your client is a banker. A Swiss banker. Who caters to the ultra-rich. Not a sympathetic person.”

  “I should have stopped him.”

  “Not true,” Marty said. “You might have prevented it, or you might have been killed trying. You might have scared him into a rampage killing and ended up with a lot more dead bodies. You could have made it worse, not better.”

  “Look,” Jonelle said, “we meet with Madame Marot in the morning, give her our condolences, and head home. Either she hires us or she doesn’t hire—”

  “We’re here, and the locals aren’t equipped,” Pia said. “They’re nice enough, but they lack the experience you and Marty bring.”

  “They didn’t ask for our help. We can’t help them.”

  “That’s not how we make decisions at Sabel anymore. We don’t help people based on whether we can or can’t, should or shouldn’t, or if it’s convenient. We help people who need help.”

  Pia’s gaze wandered outside the restaurant windows where spotlights clicked off in the park. Police were clearing out. A reporter lingered with a cameraman, trying to dig one last word out of an officer who kept his head down and his mouth shut. Just as her gaze was moving on, Pia spotted the woman in the off-white dress running across the park. The woman approached the officer. Her hands outstretched, her knees and waist bent, she was still frantic an hour later.

  Pia glanced at Marty. He followed her gaze outside and shrugged.

  She said, “The boy in the lobby?”

  “Want me to get the mom?” he said.

  Pia nodded and stood.

  Jonelle looked up at her. “What’s going on? Where are you going?”

  “There’s someone who needs help,” Pia said with a nod out the window. She ran to the lobby while Marty ran outside.

  Two chairs faced each other over a small table in a secluded corner. In one chair sat a boy of six or seven playing with two toy cars. If his mother had come through looking for him, she could have easily missed him. Pia and Marty had seen him because they looked in secluded corners out of habit and training. Pia dropped to her knees six feet away and observed him. He glanced at her and sank his head to his chest. His eyes were red and a trail of snot trailed sideways off his face. The crying was over and he was living in abject fear. He glanced around the room before he returned to Pia.

  She patted her knees and opened her arms. “Hi. Do you speak English?”

  He shook his head and pulled his knees up. He folded his arms across them and sank his face into the box they formed.

  She said, “Mére?”

  He kept his head locked down. She realized that ‘mother’ and ‘sea’ probably sounded the same in her terrible accent. She tried desperately to remember something in French. Behind her, heels clicked rapidly across marble. The woman in off-white swished by her and swept the boy up in her arms. Neither boy nor mother spoke; instead they clenched their arms around each other.

  Pia stood, watching for a second before joining Marty a few steps away.

  Back in the restaurant, she signed the check and led her team outside. She zipped up her USA track suit. She said, “Where do we start?”

  Jonelle started to say something.

  Pia cut her off. “Because I’m in charge now, and things are going to be different. Discussion is over.”

  “I’m sure it was tough to witness another murder—”

  “Just…” Pia chopped the air with her hand. “Get started.”

  Jonelle shook her head. Pia’s agents huddled over Jonelle’s phone-map for a moment, pointing things out to each other, then looked up without saying a word. They started walking up the narrow lane beside the hotel. Marty shoved his hands in his pockets and took the left side. He scanned the buildings top to bottom. Jonelle took the right.

  Pia tagged along, three paces back. “What’re we looking for?”

  Marty looked over his shoulder from ten yards up the narrow Rue des Pâquis and held a finger to his lips. He went back to scanning the storefronts from the street to the roofline.

  Pia said, “Just trying to learn.”

  “Learn quietly,” Jonelle said. “Imagine you’re this al-Jabal guy. Your ride left without you. The city’s locked down, nobody goes in or out without a lot of scrutiny. Did you have a backup plan? If not, what’re you going to do?”

  “Lay low until the heat’s off?” Pia said.

  “You make it sound like a cheap thriller, but yes. He hides somewhere. Finds an empty apartment, a construction site, a flat roof. Maybe he has a friend.”

  “Why aren’t they doing that?” Pia pointed down the lane as a patrol car passed by on the well-lit four-lane cross street, Rue des Alpes.

  “Lazy police work,” Jonelle said. “It feels like you’re doing something when you seal off the checkpoints, bridges, trains, major streets. Lights and sirens and policemen everywhere you look gives people the impression you’re putting it all out there. Le Capitaine’s hoping the killer makes a break for it. He won’t.” Jonelle kept walking, looking at everything. “Sooner or later you have to do the work. You have to get out and walk the beat.”

  “We do the same in soccer. We call it ‘doing the work’. Finding open space when your teammate has the ball or marking your player when she loses it.” She paused and took a long breath. “At least… used to, when I played.”

  In the sickly orange light of the sodium lamp suspended five stories above the street, Jonelle stopped and stared at her.

  “OK, I’ll be quiet,” Pia said. “Do your thing.”

  Jonelle’s expression softened. “Sorry, I forgot to mention something. You’ve only been on the job for a day, and you got a lot done, considering. Not just taking down al-Jabal—spotting the accomplice, figuring them for soldiers, catching the make and model of the car. You put all those things together yourself?”

  Pia smiled. “Bodyguards talk about security everywhere I go. Been hearing it all my life.”

  “The assassin part—you really think that t
oo?”

  “Only thing that makes sense,” Pia said. “Don’t you think?”

  “You don’t want to prejudice your intake of the evidence. Compartmentalize your theories until you have something solid to back them up.”

  “That wasn’t solid?”

  “No,” Jonelle said. “But as theories go, not bad.”

  “What’s your theory, then?”

  “I don’t have one. But I do have statistics, and those show that the vast majority of murders involve a family member. On top of that, women are involved in most noncontact murders like poisoning and assassination. I’d take a close look at the wife.”

  Jonelle turned in a slow circle, looked up at the buildings, roof lines, the doors of restaurants and shops that opened into the lane.

  Pia looked at the same buildings, unsure what a hiding place might look like. Still close to the hotel, they were surrounded by offices closed for the night. Few places to hide. They walked up Rue Sismondi, working a grid uphill from the lake.

  After looking at buildings the others already checked, Pia pulled out her phone and turned to the Internet. Jonelle and Marty kept pacing the grid, their eyes working every door and window. In the space of a city block, the neighborhood changed from tourist shops and cafés to sex shops and bars. A scattering of people strolled on the main streets. They turned down another narrow lane and worked it up to Rue Docteur Alfred-Vincent, then turned uphill again and made their way toward the next cross street, Rue de Berne.

  “We’re trying to keep a low profile here,” Jonelle said. “It’s bad enough that you’re wearing your USA track suit, but put the phone away. You’re lighting up the street and making yourself a target.”

  Pia clicked it off. “I was looking up the Objet Trouvé.”

  “And?”

  “It was hijacked by pirates in Cameroon.”

  Jonelle raised a brow. “Cameroon? Like the bus ticket?”

  Up the hill, Agent Marty gave a low whistle and waved them over. They trotted to his position. From the edge of a building, he pointed down Rue de Berne at a group of narrow storefronts: Cartes Telephoniques, Barillon Hotel, Marrakech, Parfums de Paris, Funny Horse Saloon, Berne Shop.

  Jonelle followed Marty’s gaze, checking the street, turned back to him and nodded. She said, “Worth a look. You take the back.”

  Marty looked right down a long block, then left. And looked back at Jonelle. He shook his head. “No alley. Probably a closed courtyard inside the block. Access could be difficult. Let’s do a walk-by first.”

  Jonelle and Marty turned into the larger street and took the sidewalk opposite the shops.

  Pia tagged along, quiet for a few steps. Then she said, “Wait. What did you see?”

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  20-May, 10PM

  “We’re looking for an Arab.” Jonelle pointed across the street. “In twelve blocks that’s the only place we’ve seen with Arabic in the window.”

  Pia glanced at the storefront and recognized two words: Marrakech and a huge OUVRET on a sign hung in a darkened window. Was the store open or closed? She crossed the street to have a look. Jonelle hissed her name, calling her back. She kept going—just a closer look from a public sidewalk, no big deal. She cupped her hands on the glass and looked inside. A modest store of fashionable dresses with Arabic motifs. Everything was dark except for a sliver of light coming from the back room.

  She tried the door. It swung open and a bell tinkled. Pia stepped inside.

  Jonelle crossed the street, pushed in behind her and hissed in her ear. “Jesus, what are you doing?”

  Marty crossed to their side, looking left and right as he came.

  Jonelle tiptoed through the small showroom, circling wide around a doorway at the back of the shop and disappeared from Pia’s sight. Light from the street did nothing but create silhouettes and cast shadows. The scent of Arabian jasmine filled the air. Pia found herself standing in the middle of the room, unsure of her next move. Her confidence drained away and left her cold.

  A man’s voice called out in Arabic.

  Her heart rate exploded into high gear. From his tone Pia assumed he expected someone, hence the open door, and was agitated by the silent approach. Jonelle gestured from behind a rack of clothing. Pia had no idea what the hand signal meant. Sounds of movement and another Arabic greeting floated from the back room, the voice sounding closer.

  Pia pulled two hijabs off a shelf. She wound the cloth around her knuckles.

  Lights erupted overhead.

  A big man appeared through the small doorway. He shouted and pointed a gun in Pia’s face.

  Jonelle pulled her gun and crouched, but she was two display racks away at the back of the showroom.

  Half frightened and half angry, the man approached Pia, gun held steady.

  Pia put her hands up, not quite raising them above shoulder level. The man took another step toward her. He glanced at the merchandise in her hand and demanded something of her in Arabic, then in French.

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Do you speak English?”

  He peered at her, his fear gone, his anger rising, and shouted again in Arabic. She took a step closer putting her left foot forward, tilting her ear toward him as if straining to understand him. She moved her shoulder just inside his gun, her hands still slightly above her shoulders but closing in, her face scrunched as if she were trying to translate his words.

  He shouted again.

  A face popped in from the back room: swarthy complexion, trim beard, haircut high and tight.

  Al-Jabal.

  He turned and fled into the back room.

  The big man craned behind him, following Pia’s gaze. As he turned back, she burst off her back foot, snapping two lightning fast jabs to the big man’s right eye. Her surprise attack went as expected: he dropped his gun, brought up his hands, and leaned away. Twisting her body and springing from her legs, she landed an uppercut under his jaw that snapped his head backward. He staggered. She finished him off with a right cross, smacking his temple with the heel of her hand. He collapsed at her feet.

  Jonelle walked up and shot him, leaving the small dart in his neck.

  Marty burst in through the door and aimed at the back room. Jonelle ran to the open doorway and crouched near the jamb, covering the left side of the room. Marty stepped close enough to peer inside and lowered his gun.

  “Gone,” he said. “There’s a courtyard out back.”

  Jonelle shot a nasty look at Pia. “What the hell did you think you were doing—”

  “He’s getting away!” Pia started for the back door.

  Marty grabbed her collar and yanked her back.

  Jonelle said, “If I were him I’d be standing outside, waiting to shoot anyone who pops out that door. Wouldn’t you?”

  Pia winced.

  Jonelle held her palm in Pia’s face: Stay.

  Pia gritted her teeth.

  Marty grabbed the door handle, waited for Jonelle’s nod, then burst outside, rolling across the small courtyard’s brick. A shot pinged off the wall behind him. Marty popped into a crouching position and took aim. Jonelle leaned out the door, aiming downrange but holding her fire. The sound of running feet echoed off the surrounding walls. Marty gave chase, ran a few feet, looked back and shook his head. Limited by the dart’s short range.

  Sabel Security darts were powered by miniature rocket motors that limited range and accuracy. There were downsides: less range and less accuracy. But Pia felt the tradeoff was worth it: less noise and less collateral damage. Not to mention fewer lawsuits and they were relatively legal in most countries.

  “He’s gone,” Marty said. “The construction site must go through to the street.”

  They came back inside. Jonelle shook a finger in Pia’s face.

  “Let’s get a couple things straight. When you’re on an operation with a former Army major like me and a former Marine lieutenant like Marty, you stay behind us, not in front of us
. We had an unspoken plan based on years of experience, and we had the element of surprise—”

  “He looked pretty surprised after my first jab.”

  Marty burst out laughing. After a glance from Jonelle, he choked his laugh, turned away, and pulled out his phone.

  “You were aggressive and lucky,” Jonelle said. “What if al-Jabal had been the first through that door? He’d have recognized you and shot you in the head. In my book, the only thing that ranks lower than working for a spoiled rich kid is working for a dead rich kid. Bad for my street cred.”

  “Police are on their way,” Marty said.

  Jonelle knelt next to the shopkeeper, pulled out an injector and stabbed it into his leg. Pia knelt next to her and checked the man’s pulse.

  “Why did you shoot him?” Pia asked.

  “Wanted to make sure he didn’t shake it off and come at us from the back.”

  “When I put them down, they stay down.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Jonelle said. “But yeah, that was one hard hit.”

  Pia grinned. “Been working on it for ten years.”

  “Don’t get carried away by the danger-rush. It can kill you and your team if you’re not careful.” Jonelle stood. “OK. Let’s look for evidence. Something to explain ourselves to Le Capitaine.”

  Stacks of clothes labeled in Arabic, a pair of men’s sneakers, a small desk, two chairs near the door. Nothing incriminating and no sign of al-Jabal. They returned to the front room and checked the storeowner’s gun, a Sig Sauer P225.

  “Same gun al-Jabal used to kill Marot,” Pia said.

  “Standard issue for the Swiss militia,” Marty said. “That’s every Swiss male between nineteen and thirty-four. Must be a million of these in Switzerland.”

  Within minutes, the small shop filled with paramedics and police. Lieutenant Alphonse Lamartine arrived and took statements from them. Shortly after he finished, the officers in the room stood a little straighter, concentrated a little harder on their tasks. Capitaine Villeneuve’s commanding air preceded her into the shop.

  Pia was impressed. In the store’s light, she could see Le Capitaine a bit better. She had auburn hair, maybe mid-thirties, and wore a yellow shirt with a red logo under her bright blue windbreaker. As bad a color combination as Pia could imagine.