Authors: Mark Russinovich
At the Place du Marché, he climbed off the tram and walked the short distance to the Rue Jacques-Dalphin. He then turned onto his own narrow street, experiencing the first sensation of relaxation from work.
A heavyset olive-skinned man stood before him. “Franz Herlicher?” he asked with a becoming smile.
“Yes?”
Ali pressed the revolver against the man’s torso and pulled the trigger three times in quick succession. The sound was explosive and those nearby recoiled reflexively away. A woman screamed as Herlicher fell to the sidewalk. Ali turned away from him, pushing his hand with the gun into his pocket as he did.
Guido Thury, gendarme with the Commune de Carouge police, was driving past in his white police car with its distinctive broad orange stripe, when he heard the noise and spotted the trouble. He jerked the car to the side of the road, riding up on the sidewalk, then bolted from the vehicle even as he reached for his handgun. Those were gunshots!
Ali was running toward Thury, back to the Place du Marché where his car was parked. It was a short distance and he estimated it would take him less than one minute even with busy pedestrian traffic. Once in the car he’d drive a distance, ditch it, then make his way to the immigrant quarter on foot. All he needed was a bit of luck during this crucial minute.
“Arrêtez!”
Halt! Thury shouted at the running man.
Ali barreled down the sidewalk, knocking people left and right as he did, finally moving into the narrow street to give him a clear run.
“Arrêtez!”
Thury shouted again.
Ali spotted the officer, brandished his gun, and gave a shout as he rushed at the officer. Thury crouched, held his pistol with both hands, and fired once into Ali’s chest.
Ali staggered but kept moving, slowing with each step, his gun clattering to the cobblestone. After a few steps he was walking awkwardly, then he drew to a stop. He felt as if a heavy hammer had struck him. There was no pain but now it was as if all the air had been knocked from him. He willed himself to keep moving. Only in the car would he be safe. He took a step, then another, then dropped to his knees in an attitude of prayer.
There was more screaming very close. Behind, he could hear heavy footsteps. He placed his hand on his chest and felt a hot flow. He tried to breathe and it was as if a tight belt was choking him about the chest. He toppled face forward.
Everything around him slowed. He could no longer hear. The man who’d pointed a gun at him was beside him, mouthing something. Their eyes met for the first time. Ali moved his lips as if to speak. Thury knelt and moved his ear to the man’s lips but there was no sound except a harsh whisper, as he heard for the first time the death rattle.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
RUE DE LAUSANNE
HÔTEL MON-REPOS
5:11 P.M. CET
T
he system at the Italian border, Jeff discovered, was for the security officer to scan the passport of each incoming person. This produced an image of the page containing the photograph, which was stored along with the information that of the database search produced. To move people as rapidly as reasonable the system was limited to wants and alerts.
As the physical passport was scanned when the officer pressed it to a screen the quality of the photographs varied but was generally poorer than Jeff had anticipated. He had thought that the system would enable Italy, an EU country, to immediately access the passport database of each involved nation, especially if it also was part of the EU. That would have produced a clearer image but that was not the case.
The difficulty it presented him with was that because of the indifferent quality one dark-haired man in his thirties of a certain weight tended to look pretty much like another. He also could not discount the possibility of the use of glasses or presence of facial hair in photographs intended to make a visual search such as this more difficult if not impossible.
After several minutes, Jeff organized a system in order to speed the process. He passed through the 187 photographs with relative speed, noting those that roughly fit his recollection. He immediately discarded the obese or excessively thin, those with blond hair, and all women. He copied each of the other photographs and placed them in a separate file within his computer. This process consumed nearly two hours.
He then slowly went through the likely fifty-six photos in his computer, taking his time, trusting his instincts. It took half an hour to view them again and not one jumped out at him. The problem he realized was that he was searching for three men or any one of them. His mind could not conjure a single face and attempt to match it to what was on the screen. He had to recall three images.
He stood up and paced the room, trying to devise a means to make this happen. He could think of no additional screening device so sat back down and worked his way through the photographs, discarding once again those he was certain were not who he was looking for. When he finished he was down to a tentative nineteen.
Now he went through them very slowly, reminding himself that these men were professionals and would have made an effort in their photograph to present as bland an impression as possible. He thought of glasses again and paid special attention to the eleven wearing them.
And there he was. Jeff stared at the photograph, looked away, then stared again. He took a long drink of coffee. That was him. He was wearing glasses and sported a bushy mustache but that was the leader. His pulse quickened. One step closer to saving Daryl.
He examined the others again. Nothing. He went to his discards and then, almost at once, found another. He was much thinner and very young-looking in the photograph. This was the bigger man, the one who had stood guard over them. He looked diminished in the picture, as if it was the photograph of someone related to him.
Jeff segregated these two files into another folder. Now he went carefully back through the others until he was satisfied his third man wasn’t there. What did that mean? Was he assuming too much? Were these two leaving Switzerland innocently, leaving Daryl behind guarded by their confederate? Or was the third man smuggling her out of the country some other way, perhaps across a thinly guarded part of the border in some rural region?
He stopped and reminded himself that there was no way he could know what was taking place. He could only make his most educated guess and act accordingly. He was certain that time was against him. He had to take chances.
Neither of the two passports had raised an alert with the border security officer. The names and addresses were certainly aliases and false leads. What he did note was that both passports were from the Czech Republic, though their names were Middle Eastern. He performed a quick Internet search. Both addresses were for modest hotels in Prague. He ran the names. There were no matches.
Now what? The car. The two passports were matched to a VW Jetta. When he checked he found that the ACCESS system had automatically produced the registration and found the car clean. All it showed Jeff was that the country of original was the Czech Republic.
And that was it, nothing else.
Jeff rose and rubbed his forehead. What to do? What
could
he do? For all he knew, Daryl was right here in Geneva. That certainly made a lot of sense. The leader and one of the men had left the country, leaving her guarded by the third man. That was the simplest explanation.
Would they have risked smuggling her out in that car? Could she have simply been bound up and in the trunk? Would they have been so reckless?
He went back to the computer. There was no indication the vehicle had been searched but he didn’t know if such a record was kept.
What to do?
He glanced at the security officer’s code, which was the same for the two men and the car. He entered the number and located the sequence of the officer’s scans for his shift. He moved to the time slot for the scans. The officer had spent thirty-four seconds on the two men and car. There’d been no search.
Jeff rose again, feeling restless. In his work, all the action was on the screen. He was accustomed to focusing his attention there. Now, an instinctive desire for physical movement all but overwhelmed him. He wanted to do something,
anything,
rather than wait in this room. He sensed that in such a compulsion lay danger, the very real risk of making the wrong decision.
He couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning Daryl if she was nearby, but what if she was in Prague, waiting for him to come for her? What should he do? The tension and uncertainty was nearly more than he could stand.
There was a knock at the door, which startled him. He crossed the room and opened it to reveal a woman in police uniform. “Mr. Aiken. I’ve been asked to have you come with me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Please come. I am told it is urgent.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
COMMUNE DE CAROUGE
RUE JACQUES-DALPHIN
6:07 P.M. CET
A
s the officer slowed the car to a stop, Jeff spotted Henri Wille standing within a circle gathered in the narrow adjacent street. The area had been cordoned off. In the fading light of the dying day, enormous work lights set ablaze the scene where the police stood; farther away down the narrow street, bright camera lights shone on reporters speaking into microphones.
“This way,” the woman officer said as she opened his door.
There were bystanders but for the most part those present struck Jeff as officials of some sort or media. Henri spotted him.
“Mr. Aiken. Thank you for coming. I am sorry to say I must ask you to identify someone for me. He is dead. You understand?”
“A man?” Jeff’s voice shook with emotion.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. A man, of course. We have no new information at all about Miss Hagen. When you are ready?” He gestured toward a covered body.
Jeff nodded and walked over. A uniformed officer reached down and revealed the face, set in a grimace, the eyes mercifully closed.
“Yes. That is one of them.” Jeff experienced a sharp satisfaction followed at once by a sense of loss. He’d never learn anything from him now. “What happened?”
“He was shot by a police officer. This way,” Henri said, leading down the narrow street. “This man was waiting here and shot Mr. Herlicher to death as he was coming home.”
“Herlicher is dead?”
Henri nodded. “Frankly, it had not occurred to us that Herr Herlicher might be in danger. Do you have any idea as to why one of your abductors would do this?”
“Daryl and I were working on a virus found on Herlicher’s computer, so you have that as a connection. The virus was a potential security risk and unique. When they questioned us, that’s what they wanted to know about.”
One conclusion was self-evident to Henri. Someone of Middle Eastern origin was very worried about this computer virus. And they didn’t want it interfered with in any way. Kidnapping computer experts and killing a UN official struck him as extreme but that only served to impress on him how serious this was to someone.
“Did either of you mention Herr Herlicher’s name?” Henri asked. “It would be understandable if you had, under the circumstances.”
Jeff thought. “No. His name never came up.”
“You’re certain?” Henri asked.
“Absolutely. Had they more time and asked it would have come out. We aren’t heroes but we never reached that point.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Perhaps Daryl mentioned him after I left.”
“Yes,” Henri said. “That’s likely it, then.”
“Are the local police making any progress searching for Daryl?” Jeff asked.
“I regret that they are not,” Henri said. “Though she may still be in Switzerland, the local police think it most likely she was taken out of the country last night before they had time to raid the location you gave them. The officer in charge has requested the passport and vehicle records from the Italian and French entry points and hopes to have that information soon. It may prove valuable. He will need you to examine the photos at that time.”
For an instant, Jeff thought about telling him that he’d already done that. He hated to see the police waste their time but Bridget put herself at risk to give him access. “Is there anything else you need from me?”
“No. Thank you for coming. I will confirm your identification for the local officers. Just stay in your room.”
“I’ll wait for your call.”
The same female officer drove him back to his hotel. Once in his room Jeff returned to his computer. He sent the information he’d developed to Frank, surmising the Company would have the most ready access to the data he was after. He also brought him up to date.
Jeff quickly packed. He’d left cash, a credit card, and their passports in the room safe as he always did. He paused with Daryl’s passport in his hand, then placed it with his. She’d need it. He had to believe she would need it again.
Jeff now knew why the third man had not left Switzerland. He also knew with absolute confidence that the other two had taken Daryl out of the country. They would not have assassinated a United Nations official in Geneva and risked the heightened manhunt to follow unless they had already spirited her out of the country. And while he could not know with equal certainty where they’d gone—they would surely have access to safe locations throughout Europe—he believed they were in Prague.