“Smell like it too, I think,” Marielle said.
Hanna laughed in disbelief. “We’re really doing this?”
“We’re really doing this.”
“Wait,” Olivia said. “We have to stash our bags somewhere. We can’t walk into Interpol with a bag full of guns and marmalade.”
Marielle thought. “If we had a phone we could book lockers online at the one of the nearby hotels.”
Olivia grinned, reached into her bag, and pulled out a mobile phone. “Don’t worry, it’s a burner.”
They secured lockers at a chain hotel that was just a three-minute walk away, then strolled along the Rhône riverwalk from the headquarters to the hotel.
Hanna stopped at the stone wall outside the hotel. “I want to tell you what I know first. Before I tell them.”
Marielle and Olivia scanned the riverwalk. Olivia nodded, so Marielle pulled out the recorder and hit play.
Hanna took a breath, then the story poured out. “The business dealings—the shell companies, the financial transfers Poppy mentioned—it’s all a payoff. Idris’s father and his associates are Tunisian oligarchs. They’re paying the Vice President to look the other way while they overthrow our government. In exchange, they’re setting VP Hampton up with lucrative financial deals and …”
“And?” Olivia prompted quietly.
Hanna lowered her voice. “And they’re helping him plan to remove the President of the United States.”
Silence.
Olivia recovered first. “Remove him how?”
“However they have to.”
“’Mon dieu,” Marielle breathed. “That’s ... that’s treason. That’s?—”
“That’s why they want me dead,” Hanna said quietly. “I heard too much. Saw too much. I knew I was in trouble. That’s why I offered do give the CIA intelligence if they got me out alive.”
Marielle stopped the recording with a shaking finger and took a moment to collect herself. Then, with renewed urgency, she gathered the bags and ran into the hotel to deliver them to the locker service, leaving Olivia to steady Hanna.
Moments later, the three of them stood outside Interpol again. They raised their chins and walked into the security pavilion. Without their contraband, they easily cleared the medal detector and x-ray scanner and continued on to the glassed in reception desk, where they would trade their passports for visitor badges.
A guard looked up from his desk, took in their disheveled appearance, and raised an eyebrow.
Marielle took charge. “We have sensitive cross-border information and need to speak privately to an officer.”
“There are seconded law enforcement officers from one hundred and ninety-six member countries working here. Which borders?”
Marielle hesitated, trying to decide whether to say the U.S., Tunisia, or Spain.
The guard clocked her dilemma. “I understand it’s international. Pick a country.”
Not the U.S.
“Tunisia,” she said firmly.
He nodded, picked up his phone, and had a quiet conversation.
“Officer Sabban will be along shortly. Have a seat.”
They crossed the gleaming granite floor and sat on a long bench under a row of international flags. They waited in silence, staring out at the river through the glass walls until they heard the sharp click of high heels striking the glossy floor.
They swiveled their heads like a trio of owls to track a dark-skinned woman coming through the glass turnstiles that separated the lobby from the secure building. She wore an impeccable white pantsuit, a sheer black blouse, and black pointed-toe pumps.