“Yes!” Behrouz barked into his lapel-clipped microphone. “Do it!”

The commander gave the order.

Six men materialized in less than a minute. Two came from a car parked at the northern foot of the bridge. Another two had been circling as tourists, disposable cameras now dropped to the street. One was tending a skiff moored to the quai, and the last had been changing a tire on a rented bicycle. In an assault that had been mapped out hours ago, they all reached the support span in the allotted sixty seconds, and soon were dropping over the sides of the bridge from six different angles. Behrouz heard torrid chatter on the radio, and his eyes padlocked on the base of the bridge.

The first shots were muted—the Iranians had committed to sound suppressors in order to keep the Swiss authorities out of things as long as possible. The response was not so quiet. An explosion of rifle shots shattered the night.

“Two is down!” came a call on the radio.

More shots.

“Target moving west!”

Another voice, “Four is hit!”

The next round of unsuppressed fire was answered with a nearly continuous volley of muted shots. Behrouz saw a black shadow fall from the underside of the bridge and land in a heap on the concrete buttress ten feet below. The body began moving, crawling to get away, until a final barrage finished the job. The black-clad figure went still.

“Target is hit! He’s down!” came the commander’s breathless voice.

Soon Behrouz saw his team—the three that were left—surround their target. The final verdict crackled to his earpiece. “We got him!”

The commander of the tactical team was soon at Behrouz’s side. “It is done,” he said. “The area is secure and the Swiss police have been notified. Three of our men were hit, but two are still alive. We’ve called for ambulances.”

Behrouz saw a police car on the bridge, and then another. A pair of the local gendarmerie had already made their way to the understructure and were shining flashlights on the dead assassin. Sirens blared in the distance, and Behrouz heard a new voice in his earpiece.

“Two minutes from the curb.”

The transport detail. Hamedi’s arrival was imminent.

He could divert the motorcade, of course, send the problematic scientist to the safety of the nearby hotel. But that would be like admitting defeat. He watched a pair of men who could only be Hamedi’s colleagues—thick glasses and unkempt beards—present their invitations to the armed guards at Entrepreneur’s gangway. They seemed completely oblivious to the carnage at the nearby bridge.

“We have a picture,” said the tactical commander.

Behrouz referred to his phone and saw a grim photo of their victim. The eyes stared blankly skyward, and one cheek had been ripped away by a bullet. A fitting end for a hired gun, he thought.