Slaton tuned out all this activity to concentrate on what lay immediately before him—two finger docks that stretched into the lake from Quai du Mont Blanc. There were other, less substantial berths along the shore in either direction, but these were meant for small craft. The two main piers led to deep water, and each was apparently designed to sustain one large yacht at its T-shaped ending. The more distant pier was already occupied by an old paddle steamer, one of a quaint fleet that still plied the lake, a top-heavy-looking beast that rested low on the water, and whose broad white awnings would keep dry a profitable contingent of tourists. Other than its geometric positioning, however, the picturesque paddle steamer was of no interest to Slaton.

It was another ship he had in mind.

He already knew her name: Entrepreneur. According to Nurin’s file she was owned by a Frenchman, an octogenarian pharmaceutical magnate, and at one hundred and thirty feet along the waterline was nominally larger than the old relic moored in front of him. So it was the vacant dock, reaching into the lake with an empty grasp, that became Slaton’s primary focus. Come Sunday evening, this was where Entrepreneur would be berthed.

Her absence today was relevant in a number ways. It meant the yacht was not a permanent fixture here, not anchored to a wharf, as was sometimes the case, to serve as a billionaire’s overpriced barroom. It also meant that Entrepreneur was seaworthy, perhaps sailing at this very moment across fifty miles of blue lake, or possibly moored at a similar berth in Montreux or Lausanne. More likely still, she was in a shipyard with her crew swabbing decks and polishing fittings for the upcoming diplomatic mission, much as the staff of a mansion would prepare for a grand ball. Whatever the case, she was a vessel with captain and crew, and thus quite capable of a starlight cruise to view Switzerland’s gleaming showplace city. This point—that a voyage was planned Sunday evening—had been alluded to in Nurin’s information, but not confirmed. Of course, from the director’s viewpoint any cruise would be moot. If all went by his plan, Hamedi would never reach the ship.

Slaton examined carefully the sphere of possibilities around him, and he began to calculate. He estimated the dock to be two hundred feet in length. At a normal pace, a man might cover such a distance in twenty-five seconds. And there, in essence, was the challenge put to him by Director Nurin. In that interval, somewhere between Quai du Mont Blanc and Entrepreneur’s angled-steel gangway, Slaton was to put one well-placed, high-velocity projectile into the head of Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi.

*   *   *

The chief surgeon at Stockholm’s Saint Göran Hospital, Dr. August Brune, needed to make a decision.