The Geneva Decision Read Free Page A

glanced at her and sank his head to his chest. His eyes were red and a trail of snot trailed sideways off his face. The crying was over and he was living in abject fear. He glanced around the room before he returned to Pia.
    She patted her knees and opened her arms. “Hi. Do you speak English?”
    He shook his head and pulled his knees up. He folded his arms across them and sank his face into the box they formed.
    She said, “Mére?”
    He kept his head locked down. She realized that ‘mother’ and ‘sea’ probably sounded the same in her terrible accent. She tried desperately to remember something in French. Behind her, heels clicked rapidly across marble. The woman in off-white swished by her and swept the boy up in her arms. Neither boy nor mother spoke; instead they clenched their arms around each other.
    Pia stood, watching for a second before joining Marty a few steps away.
    Back in the restaurant , she signed the check and led her team outside. She zipped up her USA track suit. She said, “Where do we start?”
    Jonelle started to say something.
    Pia cut her off. “Because I’m in charge now, and things are going to be different. Discussion is over.”
    “I’m sure it was tough to witness another murder—”
    “Just…” Pia chopped the air with her hand. “Get started.”
    Jonelle shook her head. Pia’s agents huddled over Jonelle’s phone-map for a moment, pointing things out to each other, then looked up without saying a word. They started walking up the narrow lane beside the hotel. Marty shoved his hands in his pockets and took the left side. He scanned the buildings top to bottom. Jonelle took the right.
    Pia tagged along, three paces back. “What’re we looking for?”
    Marty looked over his shoulder from ten yards up the narrow Rue des Pâquis and held a finger to his lips. He went back to scanning the storefronts from the street to the roofline.
    Pia said, “Just trying to learn.”
    “Learn quietly,” Jonelle said. “Imagine you’re this al-Jabal guy. Your ride left without you. The city’s locked down, nobody goes in or out without a lot of scrutiny. Did you have a backup plan? If not, what’re you going to do?”
    “Lay low until the heat’s off?” Pia said.
    “You make it sound like a cheap thriller, but yes. He hides somewhere. Finds an empty apartment, a construction site, a flat roof. Maybe he has a friend.”
    “Why aren’t they doing that?” Pia pointed down the lane as a patrol car passed by on the well-lit four-lane cross street, Rue des Alpes.
    “Lazy police work,” Jonelle said. “It feels like you’re doing something when you seal off the checkpoints, bridges, trains, major streets. Lights and sirens and policemen everywhere you look gives people the impression you’re putting it all out there. Le Capitaine’s hoping the killer makes a break for it. He won’t.” Jonelle kept walking, looking at everything. “Sooner or later you have to do the work. You have to get out and walk the beat.”
    “We do the same in soccer. We call it ‘doing the work’. Finding open space when your teammate has the ball or marking your player when she loses it.” She paused and took a long breath. “At least… used to, when I played.”
    In the sickly orange light of the sodium lamp suspended five stories above the street, Jonelle stopped and stared at her.
    “OK, I’ll be quiet,” Pia said. “Do your thing.”
    Jonelle’s expression softened. “Sorry, I forgot to mention something. You’ve only been on the job for a day, and you got a lot done, considering. Not just taking down al-Jabal—spotting the accomplice, figuring them for soldiers, catching the make and model of the car. You put all those things together yourself?”
    Pia smiled. “Bodyguards talk about security everywhere I go. Been hearing it all my life.”
    “The assassin part—you really think that too?”
    “Only thing that makes sense,” Pia said. “Don’t you think?”
    “You don’t want