The Geneva Decision Read online

  A secretary came in and offered coffee. She pointed out the window at the Saint Pierre Cathedral across the courtyard and said it dated to 1150. She dropped two newspapers on the coffee table, promised Mme. Marot would be with them in a few minutes, and left.

  Pia took a chair, looked at the headlines.

  The Financial Times of London read:

  Sabel Security Leadership Change

  Nepotism will work this time!

  And The Wall Street Journal European Edition read:

  Security & Soccer: Somehow Sabel Sees Synergy

  Pia stood and paced, looked out the window, let an f-word slip under her breath. Dark and drizzle outside granted a poor view of the cathedral. She glanced at the artwork on the walls and sat back down.

  “Have there been more resignations?” she asked.

  “Twelve yesterday,” Jonelle said. “Hundred twenty-three since you took over.”

  She stood up and looked out the window again.

  A plump, impeccably dressed middle-aged woman entered the small lobby, clutching crumpled tissues. She dabbed at her swollen eyes and nose before she approached Pia with an extended hand. She gestured to chairs in a meeting room off the lobby.

  “I’m Sara Campbell, our director general. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sabel.”

  “We came at Madame Marot’s request,” Pia said. “And to extend our condolences.”

  Ms. Campbell nodded again toward the meeting room a few steps away.

  “She’s still talking to the police. She should be out in a few minutes. We’re going to close the office for the day, send everyone home. It’s such a shock.”

  “We don’t want to keep you from anything,” Jonelle said.

  “No, no.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. “It’s good to see fellow Americans again. Please, have a seat. They just finished questioning me. I wanted to talk to you. Thank you for what you did last night.”

  Sara dropped into a gilded chair on the far side of a finely inlaid mahogany table. Pia and Jonelle took chairs opposite her. Marty stood near the door, feet apart and hands clasped in front of him, his field of vision taking in the hallway and the room at the same time.

  Sara eyed his nonthreatening yet commanding presence for a moment.

  “I see why Monsieur Marot wanted to hire your firm,” Sara said.

  “I hope this isn’t rude,” Jonelle said, “but we don’t know why he wanted to hire us. That is, he only sent us an agenda, no explanations. Could you tell us what he wanted? We expected to talk to him this morning to—”

  Sara’s eyes scrunched together, and the tissue came out again. Her shoulders shook for a minute. Pia reached across the table and patted Sara’s arm. The woman relaxed, took Pia’s hand and smiled at her.

  “We thought we’d see him this morning too,” Sara said. “I keep expecting him to step into my office—”

  She gave in to the tears for a few more seconds. Pia felt a surge of empathy. Sara took a deep breath and lifted her head.

  “What does a director general do?” Pia asked.

  “Clément is—was—what we would call the CEO. He owns the bank and the client relationships, the strategy, but I run the operations, the staff, the investments. Like a company president or chief operations officer.”

  “Do you know why he called us?”

  “He was worried. But I thought it was just drama of some sort.”

  “What was the problem?” Jonelle asked.

  “Too much money.”

  Pia and Jonelle raised their brows.

  “We’re a private bank, family owned,” Sara said. “We cater to Europe’s finest families. We invest their money in growing businesses. Because of the numbered accounts in Switzerland, we sometimes attract undesirable investors, money from criminal activity. Clément was, despite common opinions of Swiss bankers, a highly principled man. We never knowingly took deposits from dictatorships or drug cartels, nor did we invest in them. That’s why I can’t imagine what happened.”

  Pia glanced at Jonelle, who shook her head. She leaned forward.

  “Excuse me, I still don’t understand. What happened?”

  “We had too much money in the bank’s central accounts, the money we reserve for losses and downturns. It was growing, and we had no idea why.”

  Pia and Jonelle looked at each other.

  “Of course, if you don’t know where your money is coming from, that often means one of your fund managers is dabbling in something illegal. Or it could mean you’ve got an accounting problem, or a rogue trader, or any of a thousand other things, none of them good.

  “Clément hired me to run operations. I should have been the one to figure it out, but he wouldn’t let me. He spoke to Sandra Bachmann at Genève Banque International but not to me. I’m an expert on international accounting, I have a Harvard MBA, and I spent ten years at Chase. He hired me because he wanted my expertise. Yesterday I pinned him down, and he told me about engaging Sabel Security. And look what happened to Sandra and Clément. Oh god, it could have been me. Should have been. But he wouldn’t tell me…” She broke down in tears again. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

  Pia sensed a presence outside in the hall, and a polite knock on the open door followed. A thin figure in a black suit slipped past her and moved around the table. The son.

  She stood and reached her hand across the table. He was a couple of inches shorter than Pia and slightly built. He’d gelled his hair into a short faux hawk. Appropriate for his age but awkward under the circumstances. His sleepless eyes were hollow and empty. She fought an overwhelming urge to make him feel better.

  He shook her hand lightly as he introduced himself in French: “Philippe Marot.”

  Philippe patted Sara’s back and said something in French that sounded soothing.

  Pia introduced herself, then Jonelle and Marty. No one knew what to say next. Philippe looked at them with great sadness and nodded toward the door. They took their cue.

  Pia pushed back her chair. “I’m sure your father was a great man. It was a terrible loss.”

  Philippe forced a smile and said something in French.

  Without waiting for a translation, Pia blurted out, “I know how you feel. When I was little, my parents—”

  The wrong thing. At the worst time. She wanted to claw her words back. Marty and Jonelle stared at her. Philippe’s face was a blank slate. Her hands came up as if offering something, then dropped.

  Philippe spoke in French.

  Marty said, “He says his mother is waiting for us.”

  Jonelle touched her arm, nodded toward the open doorway. Pia’s mouth opened and closed. She walked out.

  A few steps down the hall, Marty said, “What flavor shoe polish do you use?”

  Pia said, “Shut up.”

  Jonelle ignored them. “Did it sound like she talked to the police about this?”

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  21-May, 9AM

  Capitaine Villeneuve came down the hallway toward them. She wore a fresh uniform, but her face showed the strain of a twenty-four-hour shift. An officer following close behind scribbled on a notepad as she dictated.

  Pia greeted her with a tentative smile.

  When Le Capitaine recognized her, both groups stopped. Le Capitaine offered a handshake and a smile. In French, Marty explained their imminent meeting with Mme. Marot. Le Capitaine said something back.

  Marty turned to Pia. He said, “She says your alibi has been confirmed with the hotel’s video cameras. With apologies for the intrusion, she wants to see our phones, Jonelle’s and mine.”

  “Give them to her.”

  “Um… that could be embarrassing,” Jonelle said.

  Pia raised a brow.

  “I might have sent some less-than-flattering texts about certain officers in certain investigations.”

  Pia shrugged. Marty and Jonelle handed their phones to Capitaine Villeneuve, who handed them to her uniformed officer. The officer fumbled
his notepad under one arm and checked the phones.

  Villeneuve looked at Pia and spoke a stream of French that took Marty by surprise. She stopped as suddenly as she’d started. In the silence, the officer checking the phones chuckled while staring at Jonelle’s. All eyes turned to him. He cleared his throat, handed the phones back to Marty and Jonelle, and shook his head at Capitaine Villeneuve. She turned to Marty and made one last remark, then smiled and nodded at Pia.

  Marty only nodded. The police went past them.

  “She wants us to leave the city because she cannot guarantee our safety with al-Jabal on the loose,” Marty said.

  Jonelle watched as Le Capitaine turned into the meeting room they’d just left. “And?”

  “And she pointed out that we show up wherever assassins and corpses are found. Plus something about American vigilantes.”

  Pia turned to Jonelle. “You were right. We’re on her turf and pushed our luck a little too much.”

  “Ah, you are here.” Mme. Lena Marot stood in the hallway ahead of them. She motioned to an open door. “Please. Come.”

  Pia and Jonelle walked into the spacious office while Marty took up watch in the hall. Mme. Marot gave Jonelle a once-over look and frowned.

  Jonelle stepped back. “I’ll be out in the hall if you need me.”

  Pia scrutinized Lena Marot. The widow wore flat black, from her pillbox hat to her shoes and purse. She seemed composed yet still haggard and weary.

  “The idioten let him escape,” Mme. Marot said in her thick German accent.

  “I heard,” Pia said.

  “And now three more. I have summoned bank security. Compared to you they are nothing. But they will have to do for now.”

  Pia followed her hostess across the office.

  “You are so brave,” Mme. Marot said. Tears filled her eyes. “The polizei are incompetent.”

  She shrugged, took a deep breath, and swung her arms out, showing off an office the size of two living rooms. She said, “Philippe’s office. It has good views of the mountains, more than he deserves. He tried to ski professionally after college but his father brought him to the bank. Clément made him start at the bottom but gave him an executive office. Always he spoils the son.”

  She motioned to two chairs around a table beyond a large, elaborately carved desk. As they took their seats, Pia noticed family photos on a shelf, some battered hockey sticks in one corner, a pair of shiny skis in the other, a view of the cathedral from the windows, and distinctive artwork covering the walls.

  “I didn’t know Philippe worked here,” Pia said. “He looked like he was still in college.”

  “Ja, two years ago he graduated.”

  “Do you work at the bank too?”

  Lena Marot laughed. “My love is the opera, the music. Business, numbers—they are not for me.”

  “Do you know why Clément wanted to hire us?”

  “No. He never told me the bank’s problems. All week he worried but never said a word. When I saw you at the party, I remembered you. You played the World Cup in Germany and the Olympics in London. And you captured the killer. No wonder Clément wanted you. A young woman from the good family. Sabel, it is Nordic?”

  “Swedish. It means ‘sword’ or ‘saber’, something like that. But I’m not—”

  “You have good bones, solid structure. You are the Valkyrie, the Morrigan.”

  Pia had no idea what that meant.

  Mme. Marot smiled at her, looking her over as if expecting something to happen. Pia had known fans to fantasize a whole conversation and future relationship before an introduction, but Lena Marot seemed to have some specific topic in mind. She leaned forward, took Pia’s hand, and stared at her for a long, awkward moment. Tears again filled her eyes.

  “They let him go. The killer. You will catch him again? For me? You can?”

  Pia looked over her shoulder, but Jonelle was outside.

  “I’ll do my best. I promise. Unfortunately, Capitaine Villeneuve suggested I leave Geneva.”

  “She likes to be top dog, the one in charge. You are a threat to her.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She is top dog.”

  Mme. Marot swatted the air with contempt. “She is a climber. The best mountaineer we could hope to have. But you are the one to catch killers. I have seen you play many times. In the game, the players are like an opened book to you. You frighten them, knowing their play before they make it, knowing their thought before they think it. You have the tiger’s eye. Even in darkness you see your prey.”

  Mme. Marot smiled. “You can do this, ja?”

  As Pia smiled back, she realized something had transpired. “Are you saying you want to hire Sabel Security?”

  Chapter 10

  * * *

  21-May, 10AM

  “Free?” Agent Jonelle said. “You told her we’d do it for free. Are you kidding me?”

  “Yes, I mean, no. No kidding, yes free. She’s a suspect—you said so yourself. So is everyone else around here. Besides, these guys tried to kill me.” Pia’s hands went up. “I want these guys, and I don’t want to answer to anyone.”

  “She wants to pay us,” Jonelle said. “That’s OK. It happens every day at nail salons, grocery stores, movie theaters. Someone wants a product or a service, they pay money for it. And I’ve lowered her on my suspect list. She made sense for the first murder but not the others. If it turns out she did it, and we get a conviction, she still has to pay for our service.”

  From the suite’s vestibule, Agent Marty said, “I’ll go find a bellman.”

  He disappeared.

  Jonelle said, “Pia, you have eighteen hundred employees working for you who struggle to put their kids through school, pay for healthcare, and put food on the table. Those people are counting on you to—”

  “I’ll reimburse the company, OK? I’ll pay for it. I want independence on my first job. This whole thing stinks, and I think integrity is important.” Pia paused. “Besides, Lena Marot gives me the creeps.”

  “OK. You’re buying with your money. That works this time. But in the future, you have to understand. My father didn’t give me a Lamborghini when I turned sixteen, and he sure as hell didn’t give me a billion-dollar company when I turned twenty-five.”

  “Don’t go there—I heard that crap every time I made the starting lineup. Her dad bought her the starter spot. No one said that when Alex Morgan took the field, because she earned it. So did I, but when your father’s rich, no one cares how good you are. Shovel it on someone who cares.”

  “I came to work for Alan Sabel a decade ago, with ten years of military training and experience on my resume. You earned your starting position on the soccer field the same way. But that’s soccer. At Sabel Security, you don’t even know what we do. You have too much to learn. And you have to do it fast, or a whole lot of people are going to lose their jobs.”

  “I’m not doing layoffs.”

  “Not your call. You saw those headlines. Nepotism will work this time—that’s what the business community thinks when they hear about the new Sabel Security. If our clients lose their confidence in us, they won’t hire us to rescue their executives in Columbia or their truckers in Mongolia, and a whole lot of our employees won’t have missions. If you don’t have missions, you can’t pay the employees.”

  Pia walked to the balcony, looked out at the drizzle. “Then I need a big win.”

  Her phone rang.

  “This phone is most helpful, thank you,” Alphonse said. “I’m catching up on witness statements. Some of them told me you jumped on a bench seconds before the killing and watched al-Jabal. They say it was as if you knew what he was going to do. Is this true?”

  In a thousandth of a second, she thought about telling him the truth. She thought about telling him of the extortionist’s demand for ten million dollars and the accompanying threat to murder ten-year-old Pia. And Alan Sabel’s one-word reply: No. Which necessitated the hiring of off-duty Secret Service agents, the world’s g
reatest experts at identifying assassins hidden among thousands of fans. Which led to the training and drilling of a child who was just as defiant as her father.

  The extortionist was never caught and was still out there somewhere. As time went on, the Secret Service agents became the first Sabel Security agents. The intense operation they put together to keep one rich kid alive, day after day, became the hottest thing in executive security. She thought of telling him all this but simplified it.

  “I saw his face,” she said. “I could tell he was going to kill someone—I just sensed it. I lost track of him in the crowd and stood on the bench to see where he’d gone. I was going to stop him, but I was too late.”

  Alphonse said nothing for a long time. Then, “I see.”

  There was shouting in the background behind him. He put her on mute for a few seconds then came back on to announce in a rushed voice that there was an emergency. He clicked off.

  Jonelle waited for an explanation. Pia shrugged.

  Both their phones buzzed with an incoming text from Marty:

  Sara Campbell shot at her house thirty minutes ago. DOA.

  Pia dialed her pilot. “Any change in schedule?”

  “No,” he said. “We can have wheels up five minutes after you board.”

  “On our way.”

  Pia dragged her suitcases into the hall as Marty and a bellboy arrived. Jonelle followed her out.

  “Where we going?” Jonelle said.

  “Lyon,” Pia said.

  “Why?”

  “I worked it out with the pilots. Best way to get from here to Cameroon while staying off the grid and away from facial recognition systems is to drive to Lyon, take the TGV to Brussels, and catch a flight from there. They have to be there by one o’clock to make the Brussels flight. But they have to drive, and I happen to have a Gulfstream handy. Ready?”