“Have you seen what’s happening in Geneva?” Sjoberg asked, not bothering with any preliminaries.

“We saw something on television earlier,” Bloch replied. “A private yacht was attacked, and there was a shootout between an assassin and Hamedi’s security people.”

Sjoberg’s eyes remained fixed, and for a moment Christine thought he was going to chastise her, say something along the lines of, You knew this was going to happen all along, didn’t you? What he said was, “There was a second confrontation soon afterward on a nearby bridge. The Iranian scientist, Hamedi, turned up. He was being held hostage by a second assailant, a man dressed in black. One of my men, Detective Sanderson, shot and killed the suspect. It was your husband, miss.”

Christine’s knees buckled and she collapsed onto the side of Bloch’s bed.

“Are you certain?” Bloch asked.

“The body went into the river. Until they’ve recovered it we can’t confirm his death. But as for the identity—yes, I’m sure. Sanderson interviewed Mr. Deadmarsh at length when he was here in Stockholm. He was positive. I can also tell you that Sanderson is an expert marksman. He was very close and wouldn’t have missed.”

The pain was unlike anything Christine had ever experienced. “No!” she whispered hoarsely. “Please, no!” Then, as Bloch put an arm around her, the torment arrived in full.

Oh, David, she thought, I did this to you! Christine doubled over, folded her arms across her stomach, and began to sob uncontrollably.

*   *   *

Dr. Ibrahim Hamedi was quickly identified by the surviving members of his security contingent, which was now under emergency leadership after Farzad Behrouz had been confirmed as a fatality of the attacks, and soon all were being whisked to Geneva International Airport under a heavy police escort. There were tepid protests from quarters of the canton gendarmerie, the detectives there wanting to interview Hamedi as a witness, but a beleaguered Swiss foreign minister intervened, and when Hamedi’s chartered jet departed at half past eleven that evening there were substantial sighs of relief both in the air and on the ground.

The second man recovered from the bridge that night was taken briefly into custody, but soon confirmed to be a detective on the Stockholm police force. His gun was taken into evidence, and Detective Inspector Arne Sanderson, who seemed quite ill, did his best to answer questions from a hospital bed at Universitaires de Genève. He gave a precise, if broken, account of his engagement with the assassin, a story that the local detectives decided fit well with the evidence given by young Kammerer.