Despite leaving San Francisco almost an hour late, the plane landed in Zurich within ten minutes of its scheduled arrival time. It had been a long time since Alison last took the red-eye to Europe. She knew she would be jetlagged today, but could handle it. She wasn’t meeting Emil’s contact until tomorrow, so she just needed to stay awake until eight or so tonight and then sleep the night through to wake up fully operating on Swiss time.
A taxi took her to the Hotel Villette where she did Sudoku puzzles until she received the call she was waiting for. It was a woman’s voice on the phone. The instructions were simple: Wear a white flower in her hair and sit in a booth on the left side of the pub next to the hotel tomorrow at 1:00 pm. The contact would find her.
Alison’s hotel room was ver
