At 9:06 p.m. on May 10, 2005, on the north side of the Pont de la Machine, the small iron bridge virtually separating Lake Geneva from the Rhône river, negotiations were begun, the outcome of which would affect the fates of thousands of people. Termination or the failure of this conference would have amounted to a catastrophe. This meeting was about information that had fallen into the wrong hands and that were not to be made public under any circumstances.

Thomas Müller felt safe. He was trained in conducting such talks and was charged with bringing the information back – and had received virtually unrestricted authorization in order to achieve this. But the longer he talked, the more he realized that his arguments began to dissolve into thin air, that he was already negotiating against himself. He started to abandon his positions, forgot his training and failed in his arrogant greed for success.

Roughly 2 hours later, at the southern end of the bridge, the conversation ended in disaster. From that point, the criminal psychologist had mere minutes to find that one law that would dissuade an insulted, humiliated, bitter and hate-filled, highly intelligent, highly educated computer technician fluent in seven languages from detonating a bomb. A bomb that would most certainly have led to profound changes in the societies of numerous countries.