The Iranians spent another twenty minutes inside, probably getting a tour of the hotel’s security center, which Slaton imagined to be no more than a few closed-circuit video monitors and a bank of phones. When they all came outside and bundled back into the cars, Slaton counted from a bench near the distant carousel and got the number he wanted—five Iranians. This meant no one had been left behind to sanitize the room for listening devices or cordon the area against further incursions. The cars pulled away, and Slaton again noted the diplomatic tags. The vehicles had been drawn, he was sure, from the motor pool of the Iranian embassy in Bern, this a two-hour drive up the A1, the busiest highway in Switzerland.

Things were falling into place quickly. With the cars out of sight, Slaton stood and looked at the dock and the surrounding lake, working everything through a careful sequence. He challenged his blueprint, trying to identify fatal flaws and insert unexpected complications. All plans had them, no matter how well drawn, and in the end it always came down to a matter of probabilities. So he did the math, and was satisfied with the results.

He struck out at a brisk walk back to Sécheron Station, regulating his pace in order to meet the scheduled one-fifteen departure back to Rolle. Slaton’s planning was done. He knew what he was going to do.

Even better, he had an audacious idea of how to do it.

*   *   *

Sanderson was riding the number 6 bus, skirting the verdant edges of Geneva’s Botanical Gardens, when he saw Edmund Deadmarsh striding past on the sidewalk. His blue eyes went wide. He bolted up from his seat and watched Deadmarsh slip past the windows frame by frame, like a film clip in slow motion. The bus was maneuvering, weaving through a lane change, and Sanderson’s hips rattled against seat backs and shoulders as he scrambled up the aisle toward the front. He was halfway there when the driver veered into a right-hand turn.

“Stop!” Sanderson shouted. “Vous Arret! Polizei!”

Three languages. None worked. The bus continued onto the side street.

Sanderson looked back over his shoulder, but the angles had changed and he no longer saw Deadmarsh. The bus straightened out just as Sanderson reached the front.

“Stop!” he screamed.

Sanderson now had the driver’s full attention—a set of wary eyes looked back at him in the big central mirror.

“Polizei! Let me off here!”

He slapped the big silver arm that controlled the door, and as soon as the bus shuddered to a stop the driver was happy to comply. Sanderson half jumped, half fell to the pavement, and began running back to the corner. He made the turn without stopping, his eyes raking the sidewalks for a man in khaki trousers and a dark shirt. He was nowhere to be seen. Halfway up the street he stopped and spun a wobbling circle.