The Geneva Strategy

  “Why?”

  “Interpol issued a red notice for my arrest.”

  Arden groaned. “So I assume that they’ve decoded the video feed?”

  “Yes. The U.S. ambassador is trying to convince the Saudis to drop the matter and get it quashed.”

  “It never seems to work.” Arden sounded disgusted. “Interpol issues red notices far too quickly. They allow oppressive regimes to manipulate them into issuing notices against political dissidents. There’s basically no oversight.”

  “The Saudis are relying on diplomatic immunity to shield them from the consequences of their actions while hammering me for the rescue mission,” Smith said.

  “The joys of international law in the modern age,” Russell said.

  “Switzerland is a part of the Schengen area. Which means that the crossings are lightly staffed, nearly a pass-through. Even so, deserved or not, every border patrol in over one hundred and fifty countries will be looking for us. You two should cross on your own just to be safe,” Smith replied.

  “Then we’ll need another car and we all should get some sleep somehow. We can’t keep going without it. Russell and I will head out separately,” Beckmann said.

  “I’m all for obtaining another car. Where and when?”

  “Head toward the U.S. embassy in Paris. I have an idea how we can get our hands on some vehicles with diplomatic immunity. Two can play the Saudis’ game,” Russell said.

  “And how do you intend to do that?” Beckmann asked.

  “I have friends in high places. Or in this case, in a red-notice-free zone. Ambassador Eric Wyler is in Paris while the situation in Turkey settles down. I’m fairly certain he’ll help me.”

  “This one would have to be off the books. Would he be willing to do that?” Smith asked.

  “I think so,” Russell replied.

  “What about the CCTV cameras?”

  “Fewer cameras in Paris than London. Lots of areas aren’t monitored.”

  “But the residence of the U.S. ambassador to France won’t be one of them.”

  “He’s not staying there. He’s at a private home rented for his use while he waits out the situation in Turkey. I have the address.”

  “How will you call him? Likely his phone is bugged,” Smith said. “And yours.”

  “The old-fashioned way. Stop halfway down the street from his house. I’ll go over and toss a rock at his back window.”

  Arden gave a short laugh. “Watch for cameras.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “All right. I’ll let you know when we get closer.”

  An hour later Smith pulled onto a narrow street in a nicer section of Paris. Russell got out and headed to the door of an impeccable town house. A camera attached to the front corner captured a view of the front door and so she circled around and disappeared between the houses.

  “I hope the stones at the window don’t set off the house alarm.” Arden said. Ten minutes later Russell returned and Smith rolled down the window.

  “Wyler’s offered me a place to sleep tonight and the use of one of his cars with diplomatic plates. I think both offers are a good idea. I’m exhausted and I’m not prepared to face the border and the cameras in this condition. You and Arden should take the car. No one will bother you once they see the diplomatic plates. Beckmann and I will stop here for the night, get some sleep, and meet you in Geneva.”

  “Not necessary,” Beckmann said from the backseat. “I’m going to walk a bit and then find a cab.”

  “To where?” Smith asked.

  “My ex-wife’s house.”

  “She lives in Paris?”

  “She does,” Beckmann replied.

  “And she’ll let you in?” Russell asked with a smile.

  “I’m pretty sure she will. We’ve remained on good terms. She’s one of the best people I know. She just couldn’t handle my covert lifestyle and I couldn’t handle any other type of job.”

  He swung out of the car. “I’ll be at the safe house in time for any briefing.” He walked away, crossed the street, and turned a corner.

  “Beckmann never fails to surprise me,” Russell said.

  “Agreed,” Smith said.

  “Want to take the official vehicle?”

  Smith shook his head. “I’d rather just keep rolling. You use it tomorrow.”

  She tapped the jeep’s door. “See you in Geneva.”

  Smith and Arden continued through the night.

  50

  Russell sat in an armchair while Wyler poured a drink from a crystal decanter. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled and the tail out over a pair of thin sweatpants. His feet were bare. He handed the glass to her.

  “What is it?”

  “Armagnac,” he said. He poured himself a shot, placed the decanter back on the wet bar counter, and walked over to tap his glass on hers.

  “To your health,” he said.

  She sipped the liquid. The cognac was smooth and she welcomed its warmth. Wyler settled onto a couch opposite her.

  “I was surprised to see you tonight. I wasn’t sure that you’d gotten my texts about the move.” He paused a beat. “Or the suggestion to have dinner.”

  “I had, but before I could reply I had to go dark.”

  “How much can you tell me?”

  She sighed. “Not a lot, I’m sorry.”

  He waved her off. “Don’t be. I know how things work. Can I assume that this house won’t explode with a well-placed device?”

  She smiled. “I would hope not. Thanks for letting me stay. I’m beat and have to be up and out tomorrow very early.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Out,” she said.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Wow, you really can’t tell me much, can you?”

  She shook her head. “Does the car have a GPS tracker on it? If it does I’ll have to disable it.”

  He nodded. “It’s armored, has a tracker, a listening device, a high-powered antenna that can obtain a satellite signal for calls, a secret compartment in the side panel that houses a gun, money in six currencies, and three fake passports.”

  “Impressive. How does an ambassador get assigned a car with all of those toys? They’re generally reserved for cabinet-level officials.”

  He took a sip of his drink. “Since Turkey I’m considered a target. Well, at least that’s what I argued when I asked for twenty-four-hour bodyguards. My request for the manpower was declined, but they threw me a bone and delivered the car.”

  “And moved you here.”

  “And moved me here.”

  “Is it safer in Paris?”

  He nodded. “I think so. Turkey is a real conduit. Its borders are porous and lots of contraband crosses from there into the EU proper. I miss Ankara, though. It’s a great city. Although it got significantly less interesting after you left.”

  She smiled and finished her drink. For a moment she stared at the empty glass and the small U of amber-colored liquid left at the bottom.

  “You look pensive,” he said.

  She nodded. “I always am the night before a mission. I can never be sure if it will be my last, so I guess some concern is natural.”

  “You say that so casually,” he said.

  “I’m used to the danger.”

  “It’s hard for me to be that blasé. The idea of this night being your last is disturbing, to say the least. Is there anything you can tell me about the mission?”

  Russell inhaled while she thought about what to say. She couldn’t tell him about any of her activities for the CIA and tomorrow’s trip to Geneva for a Covert-One mission was even more secret. For a moment the isolation of her existence hit home.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” Wyler raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He seemed to have expected her response.

  “Why do you do it?”

  “I can’t imagine doing anything else. Sitting at a desk all day would drive me crazy. And it’s good to know that I’m making a dif
ference in the world.” She could see that her comments had disturbed him and she mentally shook herself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  He watched her for a moment and then came to her chair and gently took the glass out of her hands. He put it on a side table and bent his head down to kiss her.

  Russell kissed him back, tasting the liquor on his tongue. She reached up and put her hand on the side of his face, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. Russell knew she should care that the world was receding and the only thing that mattered was kissing this man, but the heat between them rose so quickly that she didn’t want to stop it or analyze it. When he responded by running his hand up from her neck and sliding his fingers into her hair, pulling her even closer, she stayed with him. After a moment he shifted a scant distance away and looked at her with a serious expression. She smiled into his eyes.

  “Come upstairs?” he asked.

  She searched his face, not surprised by the request, but more surprised by her own response to it. He’d been telegraphing his interest for the entire time she was in Turkey and he’d gotten her to drop her usual defenses on more than a few occasions. The nature of her work required her to keep her distance from others, but he’d chipped away at her bit by bit. Even though he hadn’t realized she was CIA until he saw her react at the bombing, that knowledge hadn’t cooled his interest. In fact, the revelation seemed to free both her and him. She no longer had to hide her true reason for being in Turkey, and he’d taken the change of perspective in stride. Now she wanted nothing more than to go upstairs with him. She nodded.

  He reached out and switched off the lamp, straightened, and held his hand out to her. She walked with him across the Persian carpet in the sudden gloom, through the living room and up the stairwell. He guided her into a back bedroom that held a king-sized bed covered in a gray duvet. A bench with a navy throw blanket ran the length of the footboard. He unbuttoned his shirt halfway down and then yanked it over his head before tossing it in the direction of the bench, where it slid off and landed on the carpet. She did the same, reaching to the edges of her button-front cotton shirt and lifting it off.

  She saw him pause as he took in the shoulder holster and gun. He glanced up at her and raised an eyebrow. She held his gaze while she unfastened it and placed it gently on the bench. She kept undressing, stepping out of her dark jeans and dropping them on the carpet. His gaze traveled down her bare legs before pausing again, this time at the knife in the holster at her ankle. Both his eyebrows flew up and he shook his head with a bemused expression on his face. She rested her foot on the bench while she unbuckled the holster and placed it next to the gun. She continued removing each of her remaining pieces of clothing in a slow sequence. He watched her in silence, and when she was naked he followed suit and removed the thin sweatpants. His body was lean and lightly muscled.

  He reached for her and they resumed their kiss while he walked her toward the bed. He gave a soft laugh as she lay across it, naked, and he joined her, gathering her in his arms. She pressed against him, rolling him onto his back and stretching out to lie fully on top of him. She used her arms to rise up and see his face one more time before she lowered again.

  Russell woke some time later. The room remained dark and Wyler was on his side with one hand, palm down, lying on her naked shoulder. His even breathing told her that he still slept. She cast her attention wider, trying to hear what it was that had woken her. In the distance she heard the klaxon call of a police siren and the whirring noise of car tires on the street below. After a moment the sound returned: a creak in a floorboard from the hardwood floor below.

  She slipped out of bed and went to the bench to unclip her gun from the holster. She grabbed the navy throw to try to cover her nakedness, but quickly rejected it in favor of Wyler’s shirt on the carpet at her feet. She lowered it over her head and put one arm through, transferring the gun to the other hand to put it on completely. It gaped open and she buttoned it one more button while she moved back to the headboard. She placed a hand on Wyler’s shoulder and shook him gently awake, putting a finger to her lips when he opened his eyes. She held the gun at the ready and soft-stepped toward the door, detouring back to the bench to pick up her knife kit. From the bench she could see that the house alarm keypad next to the bedroom door displayed “Off.” She was sure that Wyler had set it when she first entered the house.

  She took a position to the right of the door, with her back against the wall. Wyler slipped out of bed, swiped his sweatpants off the floor, and put them on before crossing the room to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She handed him the knife.

  The complete silence told Russell that the intruder had reached the heavily carpeted landing. She strained to hear anything that would reveal how many attackers there were, but the carpeting made an estimate impossible. For both her and Wyler’s sake she hoped there was only one.

  Her heart pounded as she watched the doorknob rotate in a slow turn and she felt the familiar surge of adrenaline fizz in her veins. The door opened equally slowly and a man, dressed all in black and wearing a ski mask, stepped into the room. He aimed a gun complete with a silencer at the bed, but raised it back up when he saw that it was empty. Russell took two steps and placed her gun against the back of his head.

  “Lower it. Slowly,” she said.

  The man lowered his arm. Russell nodded at Wyler and he stepped forward and reached for the weapon. The man jerked sideways, spun, and aimed a fist at Russell’s face. She fired and he staggered back, bringing his own weapon up to shoot. Wyler dove at the man’s legs and Russell catapulted sideways to get out of the line of fire. She heard the compressed sound of the silenced weapon. The shot went wide, the glass on a picture frame on the opposite wall shattering. Russell staggered a bit from her sudden shift in direction and grunted when what felt like a pile driver slammed into her from behind. She landed on the carpeting face-first under the weight of another attacker who seemed to appear out of nowhere and her gun hand was trapped under her body. His was as well, and she could feel the cold form of his weapon pressing under her rib cage. She twisted to put even more weight in that direction to hold his hand in place and he fired.

  The heat of the bullet seared her skin as it passed and she heard a man cry out. She pushed upward and managed to successfully upend the weight from her back and he rolled to the side, but not far enough to give her clearance to shoot him. Wyler loomed over them both and she saw his hand holding the knife. He hammered it into the upper part of the attacker’s shoulder and she transferred her gun to her left hand and fired. The man collapsed onto the carpet. Both she and Wyler gasped in the sudden stillness. From below she heard a door slam.

  “There are more,” Russell said. She scrambled to her feet, lurched to the door, slammed it, threw the lock, and hit the panic button on the alarm keypad. A screeching filled the room and a mechanical voice repeated “intruder” over and over again. Wyler held the dripping knife in his hand; his own blood pumped from a wound in his forearm. He looked a bit dazed by the sudden violence.

  “Window,” she said, and took three long steps to the glass, which faced into an area enclosed by other buildings and bisected by a narrow gangway. She discarded the idea. The configuration gave them limited options to escape and it was likely both ends of the gangway were being watched. “Too risky. Bathroom.”

  She headed to the master bathroom, which had the advantage of a different exposure. Something big threw itself against the bedroom door with a thud and she turned and pumped four bullets into the panel, sending bits of wood flying in all directions before continuing into the bathroom.

  “Lock the door,” she told Wyler. He did and grabbed a hand towel from a rack to press against his wound.

  The master bath had a glass-block window in the shower area off to the side and a skylight overhead. No other windows or possible exits. Russell cursed under her breath. They’d gone from bad to worse when it came to escape paths, and glass-block windows were extrao
rdinarily difficult to break. They’d have to go up. She put her gun on the vanity and used her arms to hike herself onto the marble to stand between the two sinks. Wyler aimed a small remote at the skylight and it whirred open forty-five degrees to allow fresh air inside. Russell rose on her toes to try to reach the light, but even though she was tall for a woman she could only touch the edges with her fingertips.

  “Hand me the garbage can,” she said.

  Wyler handed up a small, round metal garbage can and Russell used it as a step stool. With the vented skylight open she could hear the sound of police sirens converging on the house. From inside the bedroom a loud cracking noise followed by a splintering sound told her they had breached the bedroom door. Wyler leapt up to join her on the marble vanity and helped her push against the skylight. The screws holding the crank mechanism pulled free from their housings and the glass panel fell backward, clattering as it fell down the slanted roof.

  “I need my gun,” Russell said. Wyler picked it off the vanity and handed it to her.

  “They’re going to come through that door any minute,” he said.

  “They’re going to shoot through that door, just like I did. They’re not stupid enough to walk in first.”

  As if they’d heard her, a shower of bullets punched through the bathroom door, but the vanity was in a recessed area and they flew by, embedding themselves in the far wall. Russell used her arms and pulled up until her shoulders were through the skylight. She felt Wyler’s arms wrap around her legs to help her go higher. She was out and sat down, holding on to the skylight’s edge as she swung her legs free. Wyler came next, first stepping onto the can and then levering himself upward. He performed the same maneuver. The police sirens came to a halt below. The cool night air flowed around them, but Russell was sweating despite it. The pistol grip was slick and wet, and she clutched it tight so as not to lose it.

  “Keep moving in case they shoot through the roof,” Russell said. She began a slow shuffle toward the back of the town house where she originally had hoped to escape. The slanted roof ended only a few feet from the flat roof of the house next to it. One section of the other house’s roof had a finished deck surrounded by a three-foot-high fence. She skittered over until she was opposite. Wyler joined her.