The Black Sun

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Apassing storm had left the sky bruised and the pavements slick and shiny. Turnbull was waiting for them outside number 52, a handsome Victorian redbrick house identical to all the others on the terrace. Standing up, he looked even larger than he had the previous day, a situation not helped by a cavernous dark blue overcoat whose heavy folds hung off his stomach like the awning of a Berber tent.

"Thanks for meeting me here," Turnbull said, holding out his hand. This time, Tom and Archie shook it, though Archie made no attempt to disguise his reluctance. Turnbull didn't seem to mind. "And for helping."

"We're not helping yet," said Tom firmly. "Well, for turning in the arm, at least. You could have just got rid of it. Others would." Tom noted that he glanced at Archie as he said this.

"What are we doing here?" Archie demanded impatiently. "Meeting Elena Weissman. The victim's daughter." Turnbull opened the gate and they made their way up the path under the watchful gaze of the bearded face that had been carved into the keystone over the front door. There was no bell, just a solid brass knocker in the shape of a lion's head. Turnbull gave it a loud rap, and they waited patiently until they heard the sound of approaching footsteps and saw a shadow through the rippled glass panels.

The door opened to reveal a striking woman with jet-black hair, secured in a chignon by two lacquered red chopsticks, which matched her lipstick and nail polish. Tom put her age at forty, or thereabouts. She was wearing foundation that gave her skin a bronzed, healthy glow, although it couldn't fully disguise the dark circles under her sad green eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep. She was dressed very sharply though, a black cashmere cardigan worn over a white blouse and black silk trousers, her feet clad in what looked like a very expensive pair of Italian shoes.

"Yes?" She had an immediately arresting, even formidable presence, her voice strong, her manner ever so slightly superior. Tom found himself wondering what she did for a living.

"Miss Weissman? My name is Detective Inspector Turn-bull. I'm with the Metropolitan Police." Turnbull flashed a badge which, Tom noticed, was different from the one he had shown them yesterday. No doubt he had a drawer full of badges to choose from, depending on the situation. "It's about your father…"

"Oh?" She looked surprised. "But I've already spoken to—"

"These are two colleagues of mine, Mr. Kirk and Mr. Connolly," Turnbull continued, speaking over her. "Can we come in?"

She hesitated for a moment, then stepped aside. "Yes, of course."

The house smelled of wood polish and lemon-scented floor cleaner. Faint squares on the walls showed where pictures had hung until recently, their outlines preserved where they had shielded the aging wallpaper from forty-odd years of London pollution.

She showed them into what Tom assumed had once been the sitting room. It had been stripped, brass rings clinging forlornly to the curtain rail, a single naked lightbulb drooping from the yellowing ceiling. A sofa and two armchairs were covered in large white dustsheets, and several cardboard boxes stood in the far left-hand corner, their lids taped down.

"I apologize for the mess," she said, flicking the dust-sheets onto the floor and indicating that they should sit. "But I've got to go back down to Bath. I run a property business down there, you see. I'm going to have to leave the place empty until all the legal and tax issues are sorted. I'm told it could be weeks before you even release the body." She flashed an accusing stare at Turnbull.

"These matters are always very difficult," he said gently, settling onto the sofa beside her while Tom and Archie sat on the two armchairs opposite. "I understand how very painful this must be, but we must balance the needs of the family with the need to find those responsible."

"Yes, yes of course." She nodded and swallowed hard.

Tom, with the benefit of a childhood spent in a country where the open display of human emotion was applauded, marveled at her uniquely English struggle to balance grief with the need to maintain dignity and self-control in front of strangers. Just for a second, he thought she would succumb and cry, but she was clearly a proud woman and the moment passed. She looked up again, her eyes glistening and defiant.

"What did you want to ask me?"

Turnbull took a deep breath. "Did your father ever talk about his time in Poland? In Auschwitz?"

She shook her head. "No. I tried to talk to him about it many times, to find out what happened, what it was like there. But he said he couldn't, that he had locked it away in a dark corner of his mind that he couldn't look into again. In a way, that told me all I needed to know."

"And the tattoo on his arm — his prisoner number — did he ever show you that?"

Again she shook her head. "I saw it, of course, now and again. But he seemed to be embarrassed by it and usually wore a long-sleeved shirt or pullover to cover it up. I've known other survivors who regarded their tattoos as a badge of suffering, something they were proud of showing, but my father wasn't like that. He was a very private man. He lost his entire family in that place. I think he just wanted to forget."

"I see," said Turnbull. "Was he religious?"

She shook her head. "No. People tried to bring him back into the Jewish community here, but he had no time for God. The war destroyed his faith in any force for good. Mine too, for that matter."

"And politics? Was he involved in any way? Jewish rights, for example?"

"No, absolutely not. All he was ever interested in was railways and birds."

There was a brief pause before Turnbull spoke again. "Miss Weissman, what I'm about to tell you may be difficult for you to hear."

"Oh?"

Turnbull, looking uncomfortable for the first time since Tom and Archie had met him, hesitated before speaking. "We have recovered your father's arm." He snatched a glance at Tom as he said this.

"Oh." Her reaction was one of relief, as if she'd been dreading a more traumatic revelation. "But that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Yes… Except that his tattoo, his concentration camp number, had been… removed."

"Removed?" Now she did look shocked.

"Sliced off."

Her hand flew to her mouth in horror. Now that he was closer to her, Tom saw that her carefully painted nails were chipped and worn where she'd clearly been biting them.

"Oh, my God."

"However, by analyzing the scar tissue and pigment discoloration in some of the deeper skin layers," Turnbull continued quickly, as if the technical language would help lessen the impact of what he was saying, "our forensic experts were able to reconstitute his camp number."

He paused and she looked from him to Tom and Archie, then back at Turnbull.

"And…?"

"Are you familiar with the coding system employed at Auschwitz?" She shook her head silently. He gave a weak smile. "Neither was I, until this morning. It seems Auschwitz was the only camp to tattoo its prisoners systematically. This was made necessary by the sheer size of the place. The numbering system was divided into the regular series, where simple consecutive numbers were employed, and the AU, Z, EH, A and B series, which used a combination of letters and sequential numbers. The letters indicated where the prisoners were from, or ethnic groupings. AU, for example, signified Soviet prisoners of war — the original inmates of Auschwitz. Z stood for Zigeuner, the German word for gypsies. The numbers on Jewish prisoners mostly followed the regular unlettered series, although in many cases this was preceded by a triangle, until the A and B series took over from May 1944."

"Why are you telling me all this?" There was a slightly hysterical edge to her voice now. Tom sensed that this time she really was on the verge of breaking down.

"Because the number on your father's arm didn't follow any of the known Auschwitz numbering series."

"What?" Even her makeup couldn't disguise how white she had gone.

"It was a ten-digit number with no alphabetical or geometric prefix. Auschwitz numbers never rose to ten digits…" He paused. "You see, Miss Weissman, it is possible that your father was never actually in a concentration camp."

CHAPTER TWENTY

They sat there in embarrassed silence as she rocked gently in her seat, hands covering her face, shoulders shaking. Tom gently laid his hand on her arm. "Miss Weissman, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said, her voice muffled by her fingers. "I've almost been expecting something like this."

"What do you mean?" Turnbull leaned forward, his brow creased in curiosity.

She lowered her hands and they could see now that, far from the tears they'd been expecting, her face shone with a dark and terrifying anger. With rage.

"There's something I have to show you…"

She got up and led them out into the hall, her heels clip-clipping on the tiles.

"I haven't touched anything in here since I found it." Her voice was strangled as she paused outside the next door down. "I think part of me was hoping that one day I would come in and it would all just be gone as if it had never been here."

She opened the door and led them inside. Compared to the rest of the house, it was dark and smelled of pipe smoke and dust and dogs. Boxes of books were stacked in one corner of the room, their sides compressing and collapsing under the weight. At the other end, in front of the window, stood a desk, its empty drawers half-open and forming a small wooden staircase up to its stained and scratched surface.

She walked over to the window and pulled the curtain open. A thick cloud of dust billowed out from the heavy material and danced through the beams of sunlight that were struggling to get through the filthy panes.

"Miss Weissman…" Turnbull began. She ignored him.

"I found it by accident."

As she approached the bookcase, Tom saw that it was empty apart from one book. She pushed against the book's spine. With a click, the middle section of the bookcase edged forward slightly.

Tom sensed Archie stiffen next to him.

She tugged on the bookcase and it swung open to reveal a flaking green door set into the wall. She stepped forward and then paused, her hand on the door handle, flashing them a weak smile over her shoulder.

"It's funny, isn't it? You love someone all your life. You think you know them. And then you find out it's all been a lie." Her voice was flat and unfeeling. "You never knew them at all. And it makes you wonder about yourself. About who you really are. About whether all this" — she waved her arm around her—"is just some big joke."

Tom had to stop himself from nodding in agreement, for she had described, far more coherently than he'd ever managed, the way he'd felt when he unmasked Renwick. It wasn't just that he'd lost a friend and a mentor that day. He'd lost a good part of himself.

The door swung open and Tom gave a start as a featureless white face suddenly loomed out of the darkness. It took a moment for him to realize that it was a mannequin in full SS dress uniform. Behind it, on the far wall of what appeared to be a small chamber, a vast swastika flag had been pinned, the excess material fanning out across the floor like a sinister bridal train. The right-hand wall, meanwhile, was lined with metal shelving that groaned under the weight of a vast collection of guns, photographs, daggers, swords, identity cards, books, badges, leaflets, and armbands.

Turnbull gave a low whistle and Tom immediately wished he hadn't. The sound seemed strangely inappropriate.

"You never knew about this?" Tom asked.

She shook her head. "He would lock himself in his office for hours. I thought he was reading. But all the time he must have been in here."

"It's possible this was some sort of post-traumatic reaction," Tom suggested. "A morbid fascination brought about by what happened to him. Stress, shock… they make people do strange things."

"That's what I hoped and prayed too," she said. "Until I saw this—"

She reached past them and removed a photograph from the top shelf, then took it across to the window. Tom and Turnbull followed her. As she angled it to the light, the photo revealed three young men in SS uniform standing stiffly in front of a bookcase. They looked rather serious, even a little aloof.

"I've no idea who the other two are, but the man in the middle… the man in the middle is… is my father." Her voice was completely expressionless now.

"Your father? But he's wearing…" Tom trailed off at the pained expression on her face. "When was this taken?"

"In 1944, I think. There's something else written on the back, but I can't read it. I think it's Cyrillic."

"December — that's Russian for December," said Turn-bull, peering over Tom's shoulder.

"Tom, we should take this…" Archie's voice came, slightly muffled, from inside the chamber. He appeared a moment later, carrying the mannequin's jacket and peaked hat.

"Why?" Turnbull asked.

"You ever seen anything like this before?" He pointed at the circular cap badge, which appeared to show a swastika with twelve arms rather than the usual four, each shaped like an SS lightning flash. "I know I haven't."

"You think Lasche can help?" Tom asked.

"If he'll see us," said Archie, sounding unhopeful.

"Who?" Turnbull butted in.

"Wolfgang Lasche," Tom explained. "He used to be one of the biggest dealers in military memorabilia. Uniforms, guns, swords, flags, medals, planes, even whole ships."

"Used to be?"

"He's been a semi-recluse for years. Lives on the top floor of the Hotel Drei Konige in Zurich. He trained as a lawyer originally. Eventually made a name for himself pursuing German, Swiss, and even American companies for alleged involvement in war crimes."

"What sort of war crimes?"

"The usual — facilitating the Holocaust; helping finance the Nazi war effort; taking advantage of slave labor to turn a profit."

"And he was successful?"

"Very. He won hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation payments for Holocaust survivors. Then, rumor has it, he hit the jackpot. He uncovered a scam by one of the big Swiss banks to slowly appropriate unclaimed funds deposited by Holocaust victims and shred the evidence. It ran to tens of billions of dollars and went all the way to the top. So they bought him off. The Hotel Drei Konige belongs to the bank he investigated. He gets to live on the top floor and they pay him just to keep quiet."

"So his antiques dealership…?"

"Part of the deal was that he got out of the Nazi blame game. With his contacts and backing, it was an easy switch. He's a major collector in his own right now. Nobody knows that market better than him."

"And he never goes out?"

"He's sick. Confined to a wheelchair with twenty-four-seven nursing care."

"And you think he might be able to identify that?" Turn-bull indicated the jacket and cap.

"If anyone can, he can," said Tom.

"I could have forgiven him, you know…" While they had been talking, Elena Weissman had disappeared into the chamber. "I loved him so much. I could have forgiven him anything if he'd told me…" she sobbed as she reemerged.

Tom saw that she was clutching a Luger pistol in her right hand.

"Even this," she continued, her strained voice rising to a hysterical scream as she raised her eyes to the heavens. "You could have told me."

She lifted the gun to her mouth, the black barrel slipping between her lips, bright red lipstick smearing along it.

"No!" Tom leapt to knock the gun out of her hand before she could pull the trigger.

But he was too late. The back of her head exploded across the room, a fine mist of blood spraying in short bursts from the severed blood vessels as her body slumped to the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Paul Viggiano fetched himself another cup of filter coffee from the machine. There was a tidemark in the glass jug where the coffee had evaporated since the last fresh pot had been made that morning. The remaining liquid looked dark and thick, like molasses. With scientific precision, he poured in one and a half servings of creamer, added one level teaspoon of sugar, then stirred it three times.

Satisfied with his handiwork, he turned to face Sheriff Hennessy and his attorney, Jeremiah Walton. A wiry, aggressive man with a thin face, hornbill nose, and sunken cheeks, Walton seemed unable to sit still on the molded plastic seats, forever shifting his weight from one bony buttock to the other. Bailey was sitting on the opposite side of a flimsy-looking table that had been screwed to the floor, staring at Hennessy with hostile intensity, his pen suspended motionlessly over a notepad. A tape recorder hummed gently to his right.

"Face it, Hennessy, it's over," Viggiano said, trying to sound calm but struggling to contain the excitement in his voice. Less than forty-eight hours ago he'd been wondering what he was doing with his life. Now here he was running a multiple homicide investigation. Funny how someone else's bad luck could be just the break you've been praying for. "Whatever little scam you've been running up there is finished now. So you might as well tell us what you know and make this a whole lot easier on yourself."

Hennessy stared at Viggiano stonily, dabbing himself every so often with a handkerchief that his sweat had turned from pale red to deep vermilion.

"My client wants to talk about immunity," Walton said in a high-pitched, nasal whine, pinching his right earlobe between finger and thumb as he spoke.

"Your client can go to hell," Viggiano snapped. "I got twenty-six corpses out there." He waved in what he assumed to be the direction of Malta, Idaho, although in the small windowless room it was difficult to be sure. "Women. Kids. Whole families. That's twenty-six people — dead. Immunity isn't even in the dictionary as far as your client is concerned." His fingers made quote marks in the air.

"You got nothing. Just one man's word against another." Walton glanced at Bailey. "A throwaway comment made in the heat of the moment that has been taken completely out of context. A pillar of the local community has seen his integrity questioned and his reputation dragged—"

"For an innocent man, he sure got you down here pretty damn quick," Viggiano interrupted.

"My client has a right—"

"Hell, maybe you're right," said Viggiano. "Maybe we don't have much. But we'll find it." He leaned across the table toward Hennessy. "You see, we're going to go through your bank records and high school reports and college files. We're gonna turn your life upside down and shake it real hard and have a good long look at everything that drops out. We're gonna go through that farmhouse that you claim you've never been to before with a ten-man forensic team that'll find out if you even so much as farted in its general direction in the last six months. Whatever we need, we'll find it."

Walton flashed a questioning glance at Hennessy, who raised his eyebrows in response and then gave a brief shrug, suggesting that they had planned for this outcome.

"Very well, then," Walton conceded, pinching his left earlobe now. "We want a deal."

"This is the biggest homicide investigation in Idaho since the Bear River Massacre in 1863," Bailey reminded him in a cold voice, his eyes never leaving Hennessy.

"The best deal he'll get is avoiding the Row," Viggiano added. "Accessory to multiple homicides before and after the fact. Criminal conspiracy. Armed robbery. Hell, by the time you get out, if you ever get out, the Jets might have won the Super Bowl again."

"And if he cooperates?" Walton whined, licking the corners of his mouth.

"If he cooperates, we won't push for the death sentence. And there may be the chance of parole down the line."

"A minimum-security facility?"

"We can do that," said Viggiano. "But we want every-thing — names, dates, locations."

"I want this in writing."

"You tell me what you got, then I'll tell you if it's enough. You know how it works."

Hennessy glanced at Walton, who bent toward him and whispered a few words in his ear. Hennessy straightened and nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll talk."

"Good." Viggiano pulled a chair away from the table and sat on it back to front. "Let's start with some names."

"I don't know his name," Hennessy began. "Not his real one, at least. Everyone just called him Blondi."

"This is the guy who you think did this?"

"Uh-huh."

"Where was he from?"

"Not sure. He approached us."

"Who's us?"

"The Sons of American Liberty."

"Now, Bill," Walton cautioned him, with a nervous twitch of his wrist, "let's not get into details."

"Why? I'm not ashamed," Hennessy said defiantly, before turning back to face Viggiano. "Yeah, I was one of them. Why the hell not? It's like I said before, they're patriots." He locked eyes with Bailey. "True Americans. Not a bunch of lazy, drug-dealing immigrants."

"Oh, they're patriots, all right," Bailey snapped angrily, his pen digging into the notebook and blotting the paper with a rapidly growing ink spot. "They're patriots who more or less executed a security guard up in Maryland."

"I didn't know anything about that," Hennessy said sullenly.

"Where was this Blondi from?" Viggiano continued. "Europe."

"That's two hundred and fifty million people," Bailey observed drily.

"I'm telling you what I know," Hennessy hissed. "It's not my fault you don't like it."

"What did he want?" Viggiano again.

"He said that he wanted an Enigma machine. That he would pay us to get him one."

"How much?"

"Fifty thousand. Half up front, half on delivery."

"And you agreed?"

"Who wouldn't? That sort of money was big news for us. Besides, it wasn't the first time."

"Now, Bill," Walton cautioned.

"Blondi worked for someone else," Hennessy continued, ignoring the warning. "We never knew who and, to be honest, we didn't care. When he needed to get hold of something, we'd get it for him. He never asked how we'd got it or where it had come from, and he always paid in full and on time."

"Then what?" Viggiano pressed.

"He had all the plans and blueprints and everything. Three guys volunteered and they hit the museum. From what I hear, the whole thing went pretty smooth."

"Apart from the guard they lynched."

"I guess he got in the way." Hennessy shrugged. "Besides, one more or one less… Who gives a shit?"

"One more or one less what?" Bailey was on his feet, his pen spinning to the floor. "Go on, say it. One more or one less nigger, is that what you mean?" He clenched his fists so hard the tips of his fingernails went white. "Say the word. I dare you."

Hennessy smirked but seemingly had the good sense to say nothing.

"And then what happened?" Viggiano intervened again, laying a hand on Bailey's trembling shoulder and pressing him back down into his chair. "After they got the machine?"

"I don't know. I wasn't there."

"Yeah, let's talk about that for a second."

"Talk about what?"

"Talk about how come he managed to get everyone else into that room apart from you. Did you know what he was planning? Is that why you weren't there? Did you cut a deal to help lure them there? Did you help kill them?"

"Back off, Agent Viggiano." Walton sprang to Hennessy's defense, his long, bony finger wagging at him angrily. "There is no way that my client knew—"

"No," Hennessy's vehement denial interrupted him. "I was meant to be there, but there was a snowstorm that night and I couldn't get through." Viggiano glanced at Bailey, who confirmed this piece of information with a reluctant nod. Three inches of snow had fallen in town, so it would easily have been double that up in the mountains. "All I knew was that it was meant to be a straight swap. The cash for the machine. The first I heard about there being a problem was when you guys showed up saying that you were going to raid the place."

"So you're saying it's just dumb luck you're the only person who's met him who's still alive?" Bailey's tone was disbelieving.

"Hey, I never said I met him."

"But you said—"

"We never met. I only ever saw him twice, and each time I was on the other side of the compound. The boys were careful to keep me away from outsiders in case word got out that I was part of the group."

"You're lying," Bailey snapped.

"I'm not. These people were my friends. Some of them were just kids, for Chrissake. If I knew the son-of-a-bitch who'd done this, I'd tell you. I want you to find him."

"And how do you suggest we do that if everyone who has met him is dead?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Tom gazed through the window, his finger tapping ab-sentmindedly against the table's pitted and cigarette-charred surface. Outside, the Thames slid past, slate gray and viscous from the cold.

"How are you feeling?" Archie sat down opposite him and handed him a pint of Guinness. Tom went to take a mouthful but pushed it away, untouched.

"That poor woman," he said, shaking his head. "I know," Archie agreed. "Jesus, I can still see—"

"It was our fault, Archie. We should have broken it to her more gently. We should have known she might do something like that."

"No, it wasn't," Archie reassured him. "We didn't tell her anything she hadn't guessed already from seeing that photo. We had no way of knowing she'd do that."

"At least Turnbull dealt with the cops." Turnbull had told them both to leave him to handle the police, perhaps not wanting to field too many awkward questions about why he'd brought two ex-criminals to a murder victim's house. To be honest, they'd been more than happy to accept his of-fer — anything to escape the Met's suspicious embrace.

"What do you make of him — Turnbull?" Tom shrugged.

"Well, he clearly knows more than he's telling us. No surprise there. Spooks love their secrets. But, given that he's in their antiterrorist unit, it's clearly these Kristall Blade people he's really after. Renwick… that was just the bait to get us on board."

"Do you buy his story?" Archie reached for his cigarettes and lit one.

"About Weissman?" Tom pushed the ashtray across the table as a signal to Archie to keep the smoke away from him. "I guess so. A lot of people had secrets to hide at the end of the war. About things they'd done. About things they'd seen or heard. Posing as a concentration camp survivor would have been one way to escape and start a new life."

"Bit extreme, isn't it?"

"Depends what or whom he was escaping from. I'd say it was even more extreme to have to live the rest of your life as a lie. To fabricate an entire family history to back up your story. And all the while concealing the truth in that little room."

"And the tattoo?"

"Who knows? Maybe it's just a botched attempt to fake a concentration camp serial code. Maybe there's more to it than that. Somebody obviously thinks it was worth having. Hopefully Lasche will be able to explain some of this."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me," Archie said with a smile. "Hand me the uniform, will you?"

"What for?" asked Tom, reaching down and opening the bag at his side, hoping that no one would notice.

"I found something else in that room. Something I thought you'd want to keep Turnbull well away from." Archie took the jacket from Tom and reached into the inside pocket. His hand emerged clutching a faded brown envelope, from which he removed a dog-eared photograph. "Recognize this?"

He handed the photograph to Tom, who looked up, eyes wide with surprise.

"It's the Bellak from Prague — the synagogue. How…?"

"That's not all," Archie continued triumphantly. "There are two more." He flicked the faded black-and-white photographs down on the table one on top of the other, as if he was dealing a hand of poker. "A castle somewhere… and look at this one—"

"It's the portrait." Tom breathed heavily, taking it from him. "The one my father was looking for. It must be."

"No oil painting, was she?" Archie grinned at his own joke.

"Is anything written on the back of them?" Tom asked, turning over the photograph he was holding.

"No, I already looked. But there is this…" On the reverse side of the envelope someone had written a return name and address in cramped italic script, the black ink now a dark brown, the white paper yellowed and frail. "Kitz-biihel, Austria."

"Until we know exactly what Renwick wants with these paintings, let's keep this to ourselves. It's got nothing to do with Turnbull."

"Too bloody right," Archie agreed, then paused as if he had been on the point of saying something else and had thought better of it.

"What is it?" Tom inquired.

"It's just that, the more we find out, the uglier this gets. We should leave the whole mess for Turnbull to sort out. Stay out of it."

There was a long pause as Tom returned the items to the bag. Then he took his key ring from his pocket and placed it on the table between them.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked.

"Looks like a chess piece," Archie said with a shrug. "A rook. Made from ivory."

"It was a gift from my father, a few weeks before he died. It's one of the only things he ever gave me. I know it sounds strange, but I think of him every time my fingers rub against it in my pocket. It's like it's a tiny piece of him." He looked up and locked eyes with Archie. "Whatever Renwick's doing, it involves something my father was working on. Something that mattered to him. Another small piece of him. So I'm not going to just stand by and watch Renwick steal it like he's taken everything else from me. As far as I'm concerned, I'm already involved. I've always been involved."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Harry Renwick walked into the hotel and up to the main reception desk. The concierge, steel-rimmed pince-nez teetering on his nose, looked up with tired eyes. Renwick noticed that the golden crossed keys he wore pinned to the lapel of his black suit coat had twisted around, suggesting he was approaching the end of a long shift. "Guten Abend, mein herr."

"Guten Abend. I am here for Herr Hecht."

"Ah, yes." He switched seamlessly to English. "I believe he is expecting you, Herr…?"

"Smith."

"Smith, yes." He gave a distracted smile as he searched through the entries on the screen in front of him. "He is in the Bellevue Suite on the seventh floor. You'll find the lifts on the other side of the lounge. I'll ring ahead and let Herr Hecht know you are here."

"Thank you."

The concierge, his hand shaking a little from what Renwick guessed was tiredness, reached for the phone as

Renwick turned on his heel and walked toward the bank of elevators at the far end of the lobby.

Places like this disquieted him. Not because of any increased security risk; if anything, hotels offered a multiplicity of escape routes and the comfort of civilian cover. Rather, the hotel offended him aesthetically. It was, in his view, a Frankenstein creation, the bastard child of a monstrous marriage between an idealized vision of a British colonial club and the uncompromising functionality and ugliness of an airport executive lounge.

Although the lobby was luxurious, it was in an impersonal, mass-market sort of way. The dark wooden paneling was laminate, millimeters thin. The carpet was bland and soulless and industrial. Reproduction antiques had been "casually" scattered. The mahogany-effect furniture was squat and square, lacking any delicacy or subtlety, the chairs upholstered with a coordinated palette of indifferent reds and golds and browns. Its very inoffensiveness offended him. Even the elevator music, it seemed, had been sanitized, with complex orchestral pieces reduced to a syrupy flute solo.

A sign on the seventh floor pointed him toward the Bel-levue Suite. Renwick knocked, and a few moments later Hecht opened the door. Renwick stared at him, unable to tell whether his toothy grimace was a genuine smile or a byproduct of his scar. Hecht held out his right hand, but Ren-wick offered his left instead, still not able to bring himself to let others feel his prosthetic hand's unnatural hardness. Hecht swapped sides with an apologetic nod.

The suite, although large, replicated most of the lobby's failings. The ceiling was low and oppressive, the furniture thick and ungainly, the curtains and cushions and carpets all in varying shades of brown, the walls red. Hecht led Ren-wick through to the sitting room and waved him to a beige sofa, then sat down heavily on the one opposite. This time he smiled, Renwick was sure of it.

"Drink?"

Renwick shook his head. "Where is Dmitri?"

"He is here."

Renwick got to his feet and looked around him. The room was empty. "We agreed — no games, Johann."

"Calm yourself, Cassius."

The voice came from a speakerphone that Renwick had not noticed until now. It had been placed in the middle of the white marble-effect table between the sofas. The accent was a mixture of American vowels and clipped German consonants, no doubt the product of some expensive East Coast postgrad program.

"Dmitri?" he asked uncertainly.

"I apologize for the rather melodramatic circumstances. Please do not blame Colonel Hecht. He was adamant that we should meet in person, but unfortunately it is very difficult for me to travel unobserved."

"What is this? How do I even know it is you?" Renwick, suspicious, had remained standing.

"We are partners now. You must trust me."

"Trusting people do not live long in my business."

"You have my word of honor, then."

"The difference being…?"

"The difference being nothing to a businessman like yourself, but everything to soldiers like Johann and me. To a soldier, honor and loyalty count above all else."

"A soldier?" Renwick gave a half-smile. "In whose army?"

"An army fighting a war that has never ended. A war to protect our Fatherland from the hordes of Jews and immigrants who daily defile our soil and desecrate the purity of our blood." As Dmitri's voice grew in intensity, Hecht nodded fervently. "A war to remove the shackles of Zionist propaganda, which for too long has choked the silent majority of the German nation with guilt, when it is we, the true Germans, who suffered and died for our country. When it is we who continue to suffer, and yet are condemned to silence by the lies of the Jewish-controlled press and the undeserved power of their financial and political institutions." Dmitri paused as if to compose himself, then continued. "But the tide is turning in our favor. Our supporters are no longer ashamed to show where their loyalties lie. In the cities and the towns and the villages they march for us once more. They fight for us. They vote for us. We are everywhere."

Renwick shrugged. The speech sounded rehearsed and left him unmoved. "Your beliefs are no concern of mine."

There was a pause and when Dmitri next spoke his voice was almost gentle. "Tell me, what do you believe in, Cas-sius?"

"I believe in me."

Dmitri laughed. "An idealist, then?"

Renwick sat down again. "A realist, certainly. I think I will have that drink now." He turned to Hecht. "Scotch."

"Excellent," the speakerphone chuckled as Hecht raised himself to his feet and shuffled over to the liquor cabinet. "Let's get down to business."

Hecht returned with Renwick's drink and then sat down again.

"Your war is no concern of mine," said Renwick. "But what I have to tell you will give you the means to win it."

"I have here in front of me the little toy that you gave to Colonel Hecht in Copenhagen. Most amusing. He mentioned a train. A gold train?"

"There is more to this than gold," said Renwick. "Much more."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The hotel, lovingly crafted from the careful blending of four or five separate medieval town houses, had a timeless, almost rustic quality that gave it a feeling of permanence and history that even the incongruously fresh mortar couldn't erode.

The interior, however, could not have been more of a contrast. Here, only the faintest traces of the original building survived in a few rough stone walls and oak beams that had been left exposed. The rest was uncompromisingly modern: the floor a shiny gray marble, the walls white, the furniture black, recessed halogen lights washing everything with a bleaching glare. Most impressively, a huge glass-and-steel staircase and elevator had been inserted through the center of the building like some shiny medical implant.

Tom, gripping a large brown leather carryall, walked up to the semicircular walnut reception desk. The attractively fresh-faced girl behind it smiled a welcome. "I'd like to see Herr Lasche, please." Her smile vanished as quickly as it had materialized. "We have no guest here by that name."

"I have something for him." He deposited the bag on the desk.

"I'm sorry, but—"

"Believe me, he'll want to see this. And give him my card."

He slipped one of his business cards across the desk. Tom had to admit that after years of striving never to alert the authorities to his existence, there was something rather therapeutic about advertising himself in such a public way. The design was simple: just his name across the center together with his contact details. His one extravagance had been to have the reverse printed in a deep vermilion, with the firm's name, Kirk Duval, in white. It was only later, when Dominique commented on the similarity to his father's business cards, that he realized he had chosen exactly the same color scheme. The receptionist shook her head. Then, still holding his gaze, she reached under the counter and pressed a button. Almost immediately a burly man wearing a black tur-tleneck and jeans appeared from the room behind her.

"Ja?"

Tom repeated what he had just said to the girl. The man's face remained impassive as he opened the bag and unzipped it, feeling gingerly around inside. Satisfied that it contained nothing dangerous, he jerked his head toward an opening in the wall.

"Wait in there."

Tom stepped into what turned out to be the bar. It was empty apart from the barman, who stood in front of a wall of bottles, polishing glasses. The remaining walls were covered with a soft reddish leather to match the stool and bench upholstery and, together with the dimmed lighting, combined to give the room a relaxed, almost soporific feel. No sooner had Tom sat down than two men entered and seated themselves opposite him. Neither said a word as they both fixed him with a disconcertingly steady gaze, as if it were a blinking contest. A few minutes later, the receptionist beckoned him back through to the lobby. The two men followed close behind.

"Herr Lasche will see you now, Mr. Kirk. If you don't mind, Karl will search you before you go up."

Tom nodded, knowing he had little choice.

The first guard approached Tom with a black handheld scanner that he passed over his body, pausing only when it bleeped as it went over his wrist. Tom lifted his sleeve to reveal his watch, a stainless steel Rolex Prince that he wore whenever he traveled abroad. The guard insisted that he hand it over for closer inspection. Tom winced as the man grasped its fragile winder in his thick hands and roughly turned it a few times to check that it worked. Satisfied, he returned it to Tom and escorted him to the elevator.

Tom stepped inside but, rather than follow him, the guard simply leaned in, waved a card across a white panel, and then stepped back. Tom's last sight before the doors closed and the elevator started up, was of the three men standing in the lobby staring at him, arms folded with menacing intent.

The door opened into a large room where the decor left Lasche's interests in little doubt. Three windows ran along the left-hand wall, but their shutters were closed, narrow fingers of light seeping through the slats. In between, ornate arrangements of antique swords, pistols, and rifles radiated like steel flowers, the polished metal glinting fiercely.

Looking up, Tom saw that the ceiling had been removed, allowing the room to extend right up into the attic space. Overhead, naked joists were exposed like the ribs of a wrecked ship. And from each joist a regimental flag had been suspended, the once bright colors now sun-bleached and battle-worn, even bloodstained in a few places. Along the right-hand wall, brass helmets were displayed in glass cases, their polished domes adorned with a mixture of eagle feathers, bear fur, and horsehair. Beneath them, a second tier of cabinets was crammed with artifacts — guns, bullets, medals, cap badges, ceremonial daggers, bayonets. Even the desk had been assembled from an uncompromising slab of black granite supported by four huge brass shell casings.

But Tom's attention was immediately grabbed by a massive bronze cannon that sat parallel to the desk on two thick oak plinths. He stepped closer to study the strange characters that encircled its girth. In the room's dimmed light, the cannon's tarnished hulk glowed with a dark menace that was at once terrifying and utterly compelling. He found himself unable to resist stroking its smooth flanks, the metal tight and warm like a racehorse who had just come off the track.

"Beautiful, isn't she?"

The sound of Lasche's voice made Tom jump. A door had opened to the right of the desk to admit a man in a wheelchair, closely followed by what appeared to be a male nurse, his white coat worn open over a shiny gray suit, his blond hair clipped short. He was eyeing Tom sourly, gripping the brown bag in one hand.

Lasche himself was almost bald, the few remaining wispy hairs scraped back across his scalp, which was pink and covered with liver spots. The skin hung off his face like an oversized glove and seemed thin and papery, the red capillaries beneath the surface lending a faint thread of color to his unhealthy yellow sheen. His gray, misty eyes peered at Tom through thick steel-framed glasses. Tom thought he detected a few crumbs from an interrupted snack on his lapel.

"It's a sister to the cannons the British melted down in order to provide the metal for the Victoria Cross," Lasche continued in a German accent that seemed almost comically thick, although frail and weak compared to the robust whirring of the wheelchair's electric motor as he drew near. Strapped to the undercarriage and back of the wheelchair were a variety of gas bottles and small black boxes from which ran wires and tubes that disappeared into the front of his pajamas and the sleeves of his brown silk dressing gown.

"I was hoping to sell this one to the British government when they ran out of metal…" He spoke haltingly, drawing breath with a deep, rasping, asthmatic rattle between sentences. "Unfortunately for me, however, their stock at the Central Ordnance Depot in Donnington remains unexhausted. It seems that British heroism has been in short supply recently."

The wheelchair jerked to a halt a few feet from Tom, and Lasche smiled at his own joke. His lips were blue and veiny, his teeth yellow and worn. An oxygen mask hung limply around his neck like a loose scarf.

"So it's Chinese?" Tom asked.

Lasche nodded laboriously. "You know your history, Mr. Kirk," he said, obviously impressed. "Most people think the metal used to make the Victoria Cross came from Russian cannons captured at the battle of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. But, yes, in fact it came from Chinese weapons. Apparently, the man sent to retrieve them confused Cyrillic with Mandarin. The sort of clerical error that is all too common in the military. Unusually, though, this one did not cost any lives. Still, I don't suppose that's why you're here…?"

"No, Herr Lasche."

"I don't normally receive visitors. But, given your reputation, I thought I would make an exception."

"My reputation?"

"I know who you are. Difficult to be in my business and not to know of you. Not to have heard of Felix, at least." Felix was the name that Tom had been given when he first got into the art-theft game. Once a shield to hide behind, it sat uneasily with him now, reminding him of a past life and a past self that he was trying to escape. "I'd heard you'd retired."

Lasche began to cough, and the nurse, who had been following the exchange with mounting concern, leapt forward and slipped the oxygen mask over his face. Slowly, the coughing subsided and he signaled at Tom to continue.

"I have retired. But I'm looking into something that I wanted your help with."

Lasche shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by the mask. "You're referring to the bag you sent up? I haven't opened it. Like you, I'm also retired."

"Please, Herr Lasche."

"Herr Lasche is unable to help," the nurse intoned protectively.

"Just take a look," Tom appealed, ignoring the nurse. "It will interest you."

Lasche's large gray eyes considered Tom for a few moments, and then he summoned the nurse forward, his raised arm shaking with the effort. The nurse handed the bag to Tom, fixing him with an accusing stare. Tom drew back the zipper and removed the jacket. The jet-black material was rough against his hands and seemed to radiate a sinister, malevolent presence.

Lasche put the wheelchair in reverse and navigated his way to the far side of his desk, then indicated that Tom should hand the jacket to him. He pulled the oxygen mask away from his face and looked up. For a second, Tom saw in his eyes the man he had once been, strong and determined and healthy, not the shriveled shell he had become.

"The light, please, Heinrich," he muttered to the nurse, who turned on the desk lamp. The lamp shade consisted of six leather panels sewn together with thick black thread and decorated with flowers, small animals, and even a large dragon. It cast a sickly yellow glow across the granite surface. Tom shuddered as it dawned on him that the "leather" was in fact human skin.

"A lone survivor from the extensive private collection of Ilse Koch, wife of the former camp commandant at Buchen-wald," Lasche said softly, noticing Tom's reaction. "I'm told she had a handbag made from the same material."

"But why keep it? It's… grotesque," said Tom, struggling for a word equal to the horror of the lamp, his eyes transfixed by it as the light revealed a spider's web of red capillaries still trapped within the skin.

"War produces great beauty and great ugliness." Lasche pointed first at the cannon, then the lamp shade as he said this. "And people pay handsomely for both. I keep this here to remind me of that."

He turned his attention to the jacket, his hands shaking as he held it, although it was hard to know if this was from anticipation or old age.

"It's obviously an SS uniform," he said between strained breaths, pointing at the distinctive silver double lightning bolts on the right-hand collar badge. "And its owner was probably German, since in theory only Germans were allowed to wear the Siegrunen. And you see the national eagle and swastika worn high on the left sleeve? Only the SS did this. Every other fighting service wore it on the left breast. The uniform is based on the M1943 design, but from the fabric and quality I'd say it was tailor-made rather than produced by the SS-Bekleidungswerke, which is strange…"

Tom tilted his head at the unfamiliar word.

"The SS clothing works," Lasche explained. "Tailoring was common for senior officers, but not for an Unterscharf-tihrer." He pointed at the left-hand collar badge, a single silver pip on a black background.

"A what?"

"It's the owner's rank. I suppose it would translate as corporal. So either this particular officer was very rich or…"

Lasche had just caught sight of the cuff title, a thin strip of black material embroidered with gold that had been sewn to the left-hand sleeve just below the elbow. The sight seemed to trigger a hacking cough and a frenzied gasping for breath that had the nurse behind him pressing the oxygen mask to his face and feverishly adjusting taps on the gas bottles until he was able to speak again.

"Where did you get this?" he croaked, waving the nurse away.

"London. Why?"

"Why? Why? Because, Mr. Kirk, this jacket belonged to a member of Der Totenkopfsorden. The Order of the Death's

Head."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Order of the Death's Head?" The voice from the speakerphone sounded skeptical. "Never heard of it."

"Not many people have." Renwick got up and began to pace back and forth behind the sofa as he spoke. Hecht observed him with a detached leer. "It has taken me years to piece together the little that I know. But it existed, I promise you that."

"I know every regiment, every division, every company that the Third Reich ever formed. And I have never heard of this so-called Order," Hecht said dismissively.

"Let him speak, Colonel," Dmitri snapped. Hecht shrugged, heaving his booted feet up on the coffee table and settling back into his seat.

"As you know, Heinrich Himmler turned the SS into the most powerful force within the Reich, a state within a state, its tentacles reaching into almost every facet of German life and influencing agricultural, racial, scientific, and health policies."

"It was a marvel," Dmitri agreed. "The pride of the Fatherland. In charge of the police, the secret service, and the death camps, as well as running its own businesses and factories."

"Not to mention controlling an army of nine hundred thousand men at its peak," Hecht added enthusiastically.

"Right from the start, Himmler realized that loyalty could more easily be bought by ensuring that people felt they were part of something special. So everything about the SS, from the black uniforms to the runic symbols and badges, was designed to enhance their mystique and elite status. And it worked. Almost too well…"

"How can it have worked too well?" asked Hecht, frowning.

"Because with increasing power came the need for the SS to expand. It was forced to recruit in such numbers that there was no choice but to draw from a wider and less exclusive pool of applicants than had originally been the case."

"Which threatened its integrity and exclusivity," Dmitri said thoughtfully.

"Exactly. So Himmler began to look to romanticized history and pagan ritual to unite the disparate groups that made up the SS. He longed for a return to a more feudal age, a time of myth and legend and chivalric ideals. He was particularly obsessed with King Arthur and the story of how he gathered his twelve bravest and most noble knights at a round table to defend the Celtic way of life. Inspired by this story, he chose twelve men, all of Obergruppenfuhrer rank, to be his knights. These twelve were to stand for everything that was best about the Aryan nation and the SS brotherhood."

"How is it I have never heard of this?" The voice from the speakerphone was laced with skepticism.

"The existence of the Order was unknown even to the Fuhrer himself. They wore no outward badge or sign that they belonged to the SS's most exclusive club — except when they were together. For their secret meetings, they swapped their normal uniforms for ones that declared their status."

"In what way?"

"Standard SS uniforms display the regimental title on their cuff."

"Of course" — Hecht dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward—"Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler; Das Reich, Theodor Eicke. These are names that have gone down in history."

"The Order was no different, except they used gold rather than silver thread."

"Why has this never come out before?" Hecht asked, his impatience clear.

"Because every single member of the Order vanished in early 1945, and with them their secret. Some say that they escaped abroad. Others that they died defending Berlin. But I believe that they lived… Or, at least, they lived long enough to carry out one last order."

"Which was?"

"To protect a train."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The season was in full swing and Kitzbuhel's snow-laden streets were buzzing with people. The skiers were beginning to make their way off the slopes, squeezing themselves onto sweaty buses or clomping noisily along the treacherously icy roads in their unfastened boots, skis precariously balanced on one shoulder. The nonskiers were emerging from long, late lunches and steeling themselves for the heavy dinner that lay ahead, the women, especially, dressed in billowing curtains of fur. A few dogs danced through the legs of the cafe chairs lining the pavements, or in between the expensive SUVs that purred effortlessly along the narrow streets, their owners fruitlessly calling them to heel.

Archie picked his way through the traffic, one eye on his map and the other making sure he didn't knock anyone over. Luckily, the house he was searching for was conveniently located on a large plot only a short way from the town center, and he pulled into the drive with relief.

The house looked better cared for than its overgrown garden; the walls had been painted a bright yellow, and the wooden cladding that surrounded the upper story looked to have been recently replaced and treated. To the left, a makeshift carport constructed of rough timber and plastic sheeting was sagging under a fresh blanket of snow.

The front door was to the right of the main building, up some steps and under a separate covered porch. Archie rang the bell. There was no reply.

He stepped back from the porch and looked up at the house with a pained sigh. It was bad enough being abroad, he thought, but it would be worse still if this turned out to be a wasted trip.

He stepped forward and rang again. This time the door opened almost immediately, taking him by surprise.

"Ja?" It was a woman, about thirty years old, her hair tied up in a blue polka-dot scarf, her hands sheathed in bright yellow rubber gloves. She was wearing tennis shoes and a baggy tracksuit. In the hall behind her he could just about make out the shape of a kid's tricycle and a football.

"Guten Tag," Archie said haltingly.

Unlike Tom and Dominique, Archie had a vocabulary extending little beyond hello and good-bye in any language other than French, and the latter only because he had mastered the principal phrases used in Baccarat.

"I'm looking for Mr. Lammers — Herr Manfred Lam-mers," he said, reading from the back of the envelope he had found at Weissman's house. Fearing that his pronunciation might be more hindrance than help, he held out the envelope so she could read the name for herself. She studied the handwritten name and address, then looked up at him with a sad expression on her face.

"I'm sorry," she replied with a thick accent, "but Herr Lammers is dead. Three years ago."

"Oh." His face fell. Back to square one.

"Can I help? I am his niece, Maria Lammers."

"I don't think so," Archie said with a resigned shrug. "Not unless you recognize these." He handed her the three photographs. "Your uncle sent them to someone in England. I was hoping to find out where the original paintings were."

She took the photographs and leafed through them, shaking her head. "Nein …no, sorry. I have never…" As she came to the last picture, she paused midsentence.

"What?"

"This one" — she held up the photograph showing a painting of a castle—"this I have seen before."

"Where?" Archie stepped forward eagerly. "Do you have it here?"

"No."

"Can you show it to me?"

A pause as she weighed her answer. "You have come from England to see this?"

"Yes, yes, from England."

She slowly peeled off her rubber gloves and then pulled the scarf off her head. Her hair, dyed a vivid henna, fell around her face in a scruffy bob.

"Come."

She grabbed a coat off the back of the door, tugged it on, and led him down the drive and back out onto the street. Turning left, she cut through a small park where children were hurling snowballs at each other. Quickly leaving their laughter and screams behind, they passed under a large arch and down a hill, Archie treading carefully to avoid patches of ice that remained unsanded. Along the way, Maria passed several people she knew, greeting them with a wave as they looked Archie up and down, obviously curious as to who he was.

Eventually they came to a steep staircase cut into a buttressed wall that led up to the main parish church, its snow-covered gothic steeple towering above the surrounding roofs.

Despite the church's rather drab external appearance, its interior had clearly benefited from a Baroque renovation at some stage in the eighteen hundreds and was, as a consequence, surprisingly ornate and bright. Everything of value appeared to have been gilded, from the picture frames that lined both walls, to the icons benevolently peering down from their elevated vantage points on each of the four central pillars, and the intricately decorated altarpieces that flanked each side of the chancel. The apse, meanwhile, was dominated by an enormous black and gold-leaf reredos, that reached almost to the top of the high, ribbed ceiling.

"Kommen Sie."

She led him down the nave to the marble-floored chancel and then turned right into the side chapel. "You see?"

The light outside was fading fast, and Archie peered into the gloom in confusion. Although the ceiling had been decorated attractively enough with painted plaster moldings, there was nothing else there apart from a rather gaudy icon of the Virgin and Child mounted high up on the left wall, and a massive marble font.

But then, instinctively almost, he looked up to the stained-glass window overhead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

So there were twelve members of the Order?" Tom asked. "Yes. Like the Knights of the Round Table. Himmler himself selected them, not only for their Aryan looks and racially pure bloodlines, but also for their total loyalty to him. They were his own Praetorian Guard."

"But you said that the twelve knights were all Obergrup-penfuhrer rank and above. Yet that uniform belonged to a corporal. How can that be?"

"I'm not sure." Lasche shook his head. "As far as I know, no one outside the Order has ever seen one of these uniforms before. It's possible that in some act of ritual humility they all assumed lowly rank to emphasize their brotherhood and unity."

"Or maybe, if they were knights, they had retainers? Someone to assist them in the performance of their duties," Tom speculated.

"Yes. Yes, that is also a possibility."

"It would certainly explain why someone so young got to wear such a coveted uniform."

"Who?"

"The man this uniform belonged to. He died ten days ago.

He was in his eighties. There was a photo, taken in 1944, of him wearing the uniform. That would have made him about twenty at the time."

"What was his name?"

"Weissman. Andreas Weissman." Tom saw the surprised look on Lasche's face. "It's a Jewish name, I know. He adopted an alias in order to escape after the war. Passed himself off as a concentration camp survivor — even tattooed a fake camp number on his arm. We don't know his real name."

"You know, many members of the SS had their blood type tattooed on their left underarm, twenty centimeters up from the elbow. It was done so that field medics might quickly determine a wounded man's blood type. After the war, Allied investigators used the blood group tattoo to identify potential war criminals. Many SS members burned or disfigured their underarm to avoid capture."

"Or perhaps tattooed another number over the top to disguise it…?" Tom mused, recalling the difficulty Turn-bull's forensic people had had in deciphering some of the numbers recovered from Weissman's arm.

"Possibly."

"Did the Order have any specific symbols or images that they used, apart from the regular SS ones?"

"Just one. A black disc surrounded by two concentric circles with twelve spokes radiating from its center in the form of SS lightning bolts. One for each member of the Order. They called it the Schwarze Sonne — the Black Sun."

"Like this?" Tom asked, handing Lasche the cap recovered from Weissman's house and pointing at its badge. Las-che grasped it unsteadily, a glimmer of recognition flickering across his face.

"Yes, yes. It is as I thought!" He looked up at Tom excitedly, straining to get the words out between breaths. "This is the symbol of the Order, a corruption of an Alamannian sun-wheel from the third century AD. It was intended as a reference to a time when the SS would shine down on the world as their racial masters."

There was a pause as Tom let this new piece of information sink in.

"What happened to the Order in the end?"

"Ah," said Lasche, "the, how you say, six-million-dollar question. The answer is simple: nobody knows."

"Nobody?"

Lasche gave a smile, more gums than teeth. "Not for certain. Although… Well, let's just say I have my own ideas."

"Go on," Tom urged him with a nod.

"Himmler, for all his failings, had a clearer view of the way the war was going than Hitler did. He even tried to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies in the final days of the war. And with the specter of defeat looming, he would never have been able to contemplate his precious knights being captured or imprisoned or otherwise humiliated by their enemies."

"So what do you think he did?"

Lasche paused, as if to collect his strength. "Are you aware what happened to King Arthur when he lay dying?" he wheezed.

"He asked one of his knights to throw Excalibur into the lake."

"Yes. Sir Bedivere — who refused three times, like Peter denying Christ. And then, when eventually he did comply, a ship with black sails appeared and carried Arthur to Avalon, from where it is said he will rise one day to save his people when they are next in mortal peril."

Tom frowned. "I don't follow."

"Many cultures have a similar legend. In Denmark, it is believed that Holger the Dane sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle, from where he will emerge when the fatherland is in need. In Germany, Emperor Frederick II — Barbarossa — is said to sleep beneath the Kyffhauser mountain, from where he will return at the end of time. In my opinion, Himmler wanted a fittingly epic end for his own knights. In December 1944 he summoned the Order for one last meeting. It's not known what instructions he gave them, but not long afterwards they disappeared and were never seen again."

"You think they escaped?"

"Who knows? Maybe they were killed by the advancing

Soviet army. Maybe they lived out their days on a banana plantation somewhere in Paraguay. Or maybe, as we speak, they are waiting beneath some mountain or castle for the time when they will be called upon to restore the German Reich."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Finally, we get to the train." Hecht sighed sarcastically. "It's what was on the train that I want to know about!" came the voice from the speakerphone.

"And you would be right," said Renwick. "Because that is where the story gets really interesting. You see—"

Before he could continue, the door burst open and three uniformed men with shaved heads sprang into the room, machine guns slung around their necks. Renwick snapped his eyes to Hecht, but he seemed unperturbed.

"What is it, Konrad?" Hecht asked the first man, a square-set blond with a flat, stupid face.

"Filnf Manner," Konrad panted. "Mehr draussen. Stellen unten fragen."

"Problem?" Renwick asked Hecht, setting aside his annoyance at Hecht's breaking his promise that they would not be interrupted. The tension in Konrad's voice suggested this was not the moment to raise it. "We've got company."

"Police?"

Hecht looked questioningly at Konrad, who responded, "Ja. UtBundesnachrichtendienst."

"The secret service?" It was Dmitri's turn to speak. "How the hell did they get on to us so fast?"

"The concierge," said Renwick slowly, recalling the man's fingernails tapping nervously on the counter and the anxious look in his eyes. "I thought he was just tired, but he knew something. He was expecting me."

"We'll deal with him later," Dmitri snarled. "Have you got a way out, Colonel?"

"Of course, sir."

"Gut. Use it. We'll continue this later." He hung up and the line hummed noisily until Hecht leaned forward and punched the off button.

"How are we going to get past them?" Renwick asked casually, masking his concern. Normally he wouldn't have been too worried. He had been in worse situations, much worse, and still slipped away unnoticed. But on those occasions he had been operating alone, able to think for himself, to react as he saw fit, to take whatever steps he deemed necessary. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was relying on others for his safe passage, people he didn't know or trust. He didn't like it.

"With these—" Konrad reappeared carrying several uniforms identical to the ones he and the other two men were wearing. He threw them to the floor and then indicated that Renwick should put one on. "Schnell."

Renwick picked up a thick blue jacket and examined it skeptically. "What is it?"

"Fireman's uniform," said Hecht, grabbing one and pulling it on.

"Where is the fire?" Renwick asked as he buttoned up the jacket, then stepped into a pair of trousers, pulling them up over his suit.

"Right where you're standing. Karl, Florian—"

The two men disappeared into what Renwick assumed to be the bedroom, returning with a couple of large jerry cans.

Rapidly and methodically they made their way around the room, sloshing gasoline over the carpet, sofa, and curtains. The smell, sweet and metallic, hit the back of Renwick's throat.

Meanwhile Hecht and Konrad were busy wiping the door handles, table, whiskey bottle, and anything else that any of them might have touched or used, even smashing Renwick's glass against the wall. It was slick and professional, and within thirty seconds the room was clean. Renwick felt his concern easing.

"Take this." Konrad handed him a pale yellow helmet, its surface chipped and covered in soot in a way that suggested its owner was a veteran of many years' hard-fought fire-fighting experience. When on, the built-in respirator and goggles almost completely obscured the wearer's face.

"Ready?" Hecht asked. They all nodded, put their helmets on, and followed him out into the hall. Hecht walked up to the fire alarm between the twin elevator shafts and smashed it with a jab of his right elbow.

The corridor was immediately filled with a piercing shriek as the alarm sounded, followed a few seconds later by the sound of doors opening and faces peeking out of rooms farther down the corridor. The sight of Renwick and the others standing there in full firefighting gear turned their expressions from concern, and in some cases annoyance, to undisguised fear and panic. Within seconds, guests in various states of undress were stampeding toward the fire escape and the safety of the ground floor.

"The alarm automatically shuts off all the lifts, making it impossible for our friends downstairs to get up here that way…"

"…And the crowd heading down the fire escapes should delay their progress if they try to use the stairs." Renwick completed his sentence for him, admiring the simplicity of the tactic. "But how do we get out?"

"There's a lift at the rear of the building that remains operational even in a fire, provided you have a key." Hecht dangled a small key in front of Renwick's face. "The fire brigade will be here within three minutes. As soon as they arrive, we'll take the lift down to the basement and then go through the car park. In the confusion, no one will notice five more men in uniform."

Hecht slipped a box of matches out of his pocket and shook to check it was full. He turned to face the suite's open doorway.

"May I?" Renwick inquired.

"Of course." Hecht handed over the matches with a small bow and an amused grin. "You look like you're going to enjoy this."

Renwick took one last, disdainful look at the clumsy furniture, beige carpet, gold cushions, and brown curtains before striking the match and holding it in front of him.

"More than you could possibly know."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Given that it was the only stained-glass window in the entire church, Archie felt rather foolish for not having noticed it sooner. What made it special, though, was not its uniqueness but the fact that it was an identical copy of the painting of the castle in Weissman's photograph.

"How long has this been here?" was his slightly bemused question.

"It was gift from my uncle. In memory of my aunt."

"When did she die?"

Maria shook her head. "Before I was born. In fifty-five, fifty-six. Cancer. He used to come here to pray for her…"

"Do you mind if I take a picture?"

She looked nervously over her shoulder, saw that the church was empty, and shrugged her consent.

"Ja, okay. No problem."

Archie slipped the digital camera Tom had loaned him out of his pocket and took several shots of the window and the plaque underneath it, the flash spitting its incongruous white light into the church's gloom.

The window was unmistakably modern, the glass smooth, the lead fittings crisp, with none of the rippled imperfections or sagging geometry typical of older church windows. Yet, for all that, it had been classically executed, depicting a castle on a hill, a couple of birds wheeling overhead and, in the foreground, a few trees clustered around a bubbling spring.

When he was satisfied that he had enough shots, he turned to face Maria again.

"What did he do, your uncle? You know, for a job."

"He was professor at Universitat Wien," she said proudly. "The oldest German-speaking university in the world."

"Teaching…?"

"Physics."

"And before that? In the war?"

She snorted, half in frustration, half in amusement. "Pah. Always the war with you English. It is obsession for you, ja?"

"No, it's just that—"

"Uncle Manfred didn't fight," she said. "He told me. He was too young."

They had begun to walk back toward the entrance as they were speaking and were now standing by the door. Archie pulled his collar up in anticipation of the sharp slap of cold air when they stepped outside.

"Just one last thing" — Archie had almost forgotten to mention it—"Would you take a look at this for me? Tell me if you recognize anyone."

He handed over a copy of the photograph of three men in SS uniform that they had found at Weissman's house. She took it from him and studied it carefully. When she looked up her eyes were angry and her voice hard.

"Is this English sense of humor?"

"No, why?"

"You have made this as a joke, yes? To make fun of me?"

"No, of course not."

"I not believe you. This picture is a lie." She was almost shouting now, her voice resonating off the whitewashed stone walls. "Why you come here? To trick me?"

"Is one of those men your uncle?" Archie guessed.

"You know this. Why else are you here?"

"We found this picture yesterday in London, together with the envelope I showed you," Archie explained. "I swear, until just now I had no idea your uncle was in it. Which one is he?"

She looked down at the photo again, gripping it tightly. "The man on the left. That was Uncle Manfred."

"I'm sorry." Archie sighed.

"Sorry? Why?" Her tone switched from anger to indifference. "This is mistake. Simple mistake. He was too young to fight. He told me."

"I'd love to believe you," said Archie. "But you see the man in the middle? His daughter didn't think he had fought either. She was wrong. He'd lied to her. He'd lied to everyone."

"He had a daughter?" She sounded less sure of herself now.

"Older than you, but not by much. She was the one who discovered this photo, not me."

"And she thinks… she thinks this is real?" Maria seemed to have shrunk before his eyes, her voice fading to a whisper, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Oh yeah," Archie said gently, trying to erase the image of Elena Weissman's bloody corpse that had been burned into his mind. "You see, she discovered a room, a secret room where her father had kept all his wartime mementos hidden from her. Uniforms, flags, guns, medals."

"Medals?" She looked up, wiping the palm of her hand across her cheek. "War medals?"

"Yes." Archie frowned. "Why?"

"Folgen Sie mir." She drew herself up straight once again. "I must show you. Kommen Sie'"

She threw the door open and hurried out through the churchyard. As she reached the top of the steps leading down to the road, she hesitated for a second, her head swiv-eling to the left, then back again, muttering under her breath all the while.

Archie turned his head to see what she'd been looking at. It was a black marble gravestone, newer than those that flanked it. Although he couldn't read the epitaph, the name, picked out in large gold letters, was clearly visible.

They retraced their steps in silence. Maria's shock seemed to have been replaced by an unsmiling resolve. Once inside the house, she directed him to the sitting room and disappeared into one of the rooms at the back.

Archie stepped into the room, removed his coat and gloves, and sat down on the cream sofa. The self-assembly furniture looked new and cheap. A gaudy brass and crystal-effect chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling, casting a yellow wash over the clip-frames that adorned the white walls, each containing a shiny Picasso print.

Maria came back into the room carrying a small wooden box made from an attractive polished walnut that glowed like the dash of an old sports car. Archie's eyes lit up at the sight of something old and well made. It was about eight inches across and five inches wide, with a small brass key protruding from the lock. The lid was flat and sat slightly raised above the sides, which rose four inches above a flared base.

But it was the symbol inlaid into the lid that grabbed his attention. Two concentric circles with a black disc at their center and runic lightning bolts radiating out from the middle, twelve of them in all. It was identical to the symbol he had seen on the cap badge of Weissman's uniform.

"He died in a fire." She placed the box on the white plastic coffee table in front of him. "The house had to be almost completely rebuilt. This was the only thing that survived. I found it in his car. I thought he had bought it at a fair somewhere, that it wasn't his. Now…" Her voice faded and she sat down opposite him, staring at the box with an expression halfway between fear and suspicion. "Please take it with you. I don't want it in the house anymore."

Archie turned the key and gingerly opened the lid. Inside, on a red velvet lining, lay a medal, its black, red, and white ribbon folded underneath it. The shape was unmistakable.

A Nazi Iron Cross.

CHAPTER THIRTY

As he approached Viggiano's office door, Bailey heard raised voices, then the sound of something being thrown or kicked across the room. Whatever it was, he guessed that it must have made a rather large dent in the wall.

Before he had a chance to knock, the door flew open and Viggiano marched out, his face red with rage. He paused midstride and looked Bailey up and down with disdain, his left eye twitching furiously, both his hands clenched. Then, with an angry snort, he shouldered roughly past him toward the exit.

Bailey watched his retreating back until he disappeared from view, then turned to face the open doorway. Regional Director Carter was sitting at Viggiano's desk. In front of him, neatly arranged on the blotter, were a service revolver and an FBI badge. An upended wastepaper basket lay beneath a deep scar in the wall.

"Bailey" — Carter's voice was cold and businesslike — "get in here. And shut the door."

Bailey closed the door behind him and sat down nervously at the chair indicated by Carter. The story was that the director had joined the FBI after a car accident and a collapsed lung had ended his professional football career before it had even begun. It was a story that the director's appearance did little to dispel; tall, broad-chested, with a tanned, square face, deep-set brown eyes, and an aggressive manner that seemed more suited to calling plays than running an investigation. The irony was that he was often mistaken for a realtor, having a seemingly endless supply of striped polyester ties and button-down white cotton shirts.

He fixed Bailey with a silent, slightly questioning gaze, his hands steepled pensively under his chin. Bailey's eyes flicked nervously to the floor, the silence increasingly awkward as he waited for Carter to speak. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, Bailey coughed and mumbled an apology.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, sir."

"You weren't disturbing anything. As you can see, Agent Viggiano and I were just clearing up a few… administrative details." His eyes drifted to the gun and badge. "After what went down in Idaho, it's best for him and for us that he sits out the next few months until we get a clear picture of exactly what happened up there. Anyway, it's out of my hands now."

Bailey felt his heart sink. He'd been around long enough to see where this was heading. With twenty-six civilians confirmed dead, the suits in DC were looking for scapegoats. Everyone who'd been up in the mountains that day was going to get sucked in. By the time it was over, he'd be lucky if they gave him a job in the car pool.

"Vasquez tells me you cautioned against opening that door. Is this true?" asked Carter.

"Eh…" Bailey hesitated, the question catching him off-guard. "Yes, sir. I thought I saw someone signaling at us not to come in."

"But Viggiano overruled you?"

"Well…" Bailey wavered. The last thing he wanted was a reputation as a snitch.

"Don't worry, Vasquez gave me the full rundown." Carter smiled, his earlier, rather distant manner melting away. "Said you saved his life. Way I see it, you did a great job up there. A great job. If Viggiano had listened to you instead of… Well, let's just say you did a great job."

Bailey's smile quickly faded at the memory of the body bags arranged on the fresh snow outside the farmhouse like the spokes on a wheel.

"It would have been a great job if we'd saved those people, sir."

"You did the best you could. I can't ask anyone to do any more than that."

"No, sir."

"So where are you taking this next?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, sir." Bailey frowned.

"Viggiano's off the case, but you don't get off so easy. What leads have you got?"

"We've got a composite sketch of our Unsub, based on Hennessy's description."

"Any use?"

"European male. Five ten. Cropped blond hair. Unshaven. About a hundred and ninety pounds."

"That's it?"

" 'Fraid so. And now Hennessy's attorney is arguing that, until he sees a written offer, that's all we'll get."

"A written offer for what in return?" Carter demanded. "I mean, he's not given us much, has he? No ID, no distinguishing marks, just some bullshit story and a name that's probably an alias."

"Blondi?"

"Yeah."

"You know that was the name of Hitler's dog."

"What?" Carter looked nonplussed.

"Hitler's favorite dog was called Blondi."

"You think that might be relevant?"

"Well, so far we've got someone using the name of Hitler's dog, the theft of a Nazi Enigma machine, and the involvement of a neo-Nazi group. It sure doesn't sound like a coincidence."

"You could be right," Carter said. "Let's get everything we can on the Sons of American Liberty and any other extremist groups they might have links to. See if this Blondi surfaces anywhere else. Let's check out the Enigma machine too — see if we can come up with a list of likely buyers."

"Actually, sir, I've already done some work on that." Bailey laid the file he'd been clutching on the desk. "You have?"

"An Enigma machine is a pretty unusual item to steal. I figured that Blondi might be working for a collector or dealer. So I ran down all the major military memorabilia auctions over the last five years and cross-referenced the lists of buyers."

"And?" Carter asked expectantly.

"There are about twenty dealers who account for about eighty percent of the volume."

"I hate to sound negative, but it could take us years to link one of them back to our guy."

"I've narrowed the list down to European dealers, since that's where Hennessy said Blondi was from. That cuts it down to seven."

"Still too many."

"That's why I asked Salt Lake City International to supply security footage for all flights to the cities where those seven dealers are based. I figured Blondi would want to be out within forty-eight hours of picking up the Enigma machine from Malta, so it was worth taking a look through the tapes in case any of the passengers matched our sketch."

"When did you last get some sleep?" Carter asked.

"It's been a long day," Bailey conceded.

"And?"

"One man. Boarded the American flight to Zurich under the name Arno Volker." Bailey opened the file and pointed at a fuzzy still taken from a surveillance tape, then laid the sketch next to it. There was a definite resemblance.

"That could be him," said Carter. "That could be him, all right. Good work."

"Thank you, sir," Bailey said proudly.

"What's your next move?"

"Track down the dealer in Zurich and put him under surveillance," Bailey said confidently. "If Blondi is working for him, the chances are he'll surface there, given that he doesn't know we're on to him yet."

Carter sat back in his chair, as if weighing the merits of Bailey's plan.

"Okay," he said eventually. "I want you to run with this."

"Sir?"

"It's unusual, given your inexperience, but I'm a big believer in giving responsibility to those who show they can handle it. I'm going to hook you up with an Agency buddy of mine in Zurich. Ben Cody."

"You want me to fly to Zurich?" Bailey couldn't believe what he was hearing. A few minutes ago he'd thought Carter was going to ask for his badge.

"Let's be clear — I'm not cutting you loose out there. I just want you to observe and report back to me on anything you learn or see, you got that? Nothing happens without the green light from me."

"Yessir. Thank you, sir." Bailey hoped that the slight tremor in his voice was not as obvious as it sounded to him.

Carter leaned across the desk and shook his hand. "By the way," he said as he turned to leave, "what did you say this dealer's name was?"

Bailey consulted his notes before answering. "Lasche. Wolfgang Lasche."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was a Friday night and the station was busy. A large group of teenage snowboarders were waiting in the middle of the concourse for their train to appear on the overhead monitors. They were huddled around a boom box as if it was a campfire, the continuous thump of its bass drowning out the occasional shrill whine from the PA system.

The cafe that Tom had chosen afforded him a good view of the platforms as commuters spilled off the trains on their way home. Settling into a chair strategically positioned under a heat lamp, he ordered a strong black coffee from the bored-looking waiter. This was as good a place as any to kill time. But no sooner had his coffee arrived than his phone rang. It was Turnbull.

"Any news?" said Turnbull, clearly in no mood for small talk. That suited Tom just fine. Theirs was a working relationship, a transaction based around a shared need and simple convenience that would end as soon as they both had what they wanted.

"Yeah. But none of it makes any sense."

Tom summarized Lasche's account of the Order of the

Death's Head and its disappearance in the dying days of the war.

"How does that help us?" Turnbull's response echoed the conclusion Tom himself had reached. "What's a Nazi secret society got to do with all this?"

"Beats me. I feel I know less now than when I started. And I still don't see what Renwick or Kristall Blade's angle on all this is."

"Didn't Lasche come up with anything else?"

"Not much. Just that the badge we found on Weissman's cap was the symbol of the Order. And that some SS officers had their blood group tattooed on their inner arms. If Weiss-man had tried to disguise his so he could pass it off as a prison tattoo, it would explain why your forensics people had a problem reading some of the numbers."

"That ties in." Turnbull's tone was more positive now.

"What about your end? Any further intel on Weissman?"

"Well, as you can imagine, the records from back then are pretty thin. First sighting we have is in northern Germany. One of the war crimes investigators reports Weissman being picked up, half-starved, near the Polish border by a patrol looking for Nazi officials. He claimed he'd been liberated from Auschwitz and had given the Russians the slip so he could find what was left of his family. Our boys wanted to check that he didn't match the description of anyone they were looking for. He didn't, and the tattoo sort of clinched it for him. Eventually he was offered the choice of asylum in the U.S., Israel, or Britain. He chose us. He'd trained as a chemist before the war and got a job working for a pharmaceutical company. After that, nothing. Not even a parking ticket. He paid his taxes. Lived a quiet life. The model citizen."

"Did he ever travel abroad?"

"He renewed his passport three years ago. Went to Geneva, according to his daughter's statement, to attend some bird-watching conference. Apart from that, he stayed put."

"Clearly he had, or knew, something. Something Ren-wick and your Kristall Blade people wanted enough to kill him for."

"Seems that way." A pause. Then, "Did Connolly find anything in Austria?"

Tom drained his coffee. "I'll tell you in a couple of hours. I'm meeting him for dinner as soon as he gets in."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tom had arranged to meet Archie in a restaurant a short walk from the station in the old town. The building, originally a carpenters' guildhall, dated back to 1336. From the outside it resembled a small castle perched on the banks of the river, complete with turret and flagpole.

Inside, a baroque staircase led up to a baronial dining room, oak paneling covered the walls, thick stone mullions separated stained-glass windows emblazoned with various coats of arms. It was a favorite with local banking grandees and tourists alike, but at this hour it was relatively quiet.

"Whiskey," Archie called out as he approached the table where Tom sat waiting for him. "No ice." The waiter looked to Tom in confusion. "Ein Whiskey," Tom confirmed. "Ohne Eis. Danke" Archie dropped his bag to the floor and sat down with a sigh as the waiter disappeared. "Good trip?"

"Delayed, and the stewardess had a mustache. Apart from that, perfect." Tom laughed. "And what did Lammers have to say?"

"Not much. I think the six feet of earth and the gravestone may have been muffling the sound of his voice."

"He's dead?" Tom exclaimed. "Three years ago. House fire."

"Shit!" Tom shook his head ruefully. "So we're right back where we started."

"Not quite." Archie smiled. "It turns out that his niece now lives in his old house. I showed her the photos of the paintings and she took me to see this…" He took Tom's digital camera from his pocket and handed it over.

"It's the same castle as in the painting," said Tom, scrolling through the images.

"You mean it's an exact bloody copy. Lammers donated the window in the fifties after his wife died of cancer."

"Meaning that he must have had access to the original."

"Exactly. Question is, where is it now? Assuming it survived the fire, of course." Archie sniffed. "Do you mind?" He held out a box of Marlboro Reds questioningly. Tom shook his head. He lit up.

"What I'd like to know is what was so important about the painting that he had the window made in the first place?"

"Presuming that it wasn't just because he liked it," said Archie, wrinkling his nose to suggest how unlikely he thought that was.

"What about the niece? Did she know anything?"

"This was all news to her. You should have seen her face when I showed her the photo of Weissman and the two other men in uniform. Guess who she recognized?"

"Uncle Manfred?"

Archie nodded. "She didn't take it very well. But she did give me this." He reached into his bag and pulled out the walnut veneer box. "Said she didn't want it in the house anymore. Open it." Tom turned the small key in the lock and eased back the lid. "It's an Iron Cross," said Archie, drawing heavily on his cigarette.

"Not quite…" Tom had taken the medal out of the box and was studying it intently. In his palm, the forbidding black shape pulsed malevolently under the candle's bluish glow. He rubbed his thumb across it, feeling the raised swastika and the date, 1939, beneath it.

"It's a Knight's Cross," he said. "I've come across them before. Looks the same, but there's a different finish. The ribbon clasp is much more ornate, the edge is ribbed rather than smooth, and the frame is made from silver rather than just lacquered to look like silver."

"So it's a higher award?"

"It's one of the highest the Third Reich could give. I think only about seven thousand were ever awarded, compared to millions of Iron Crosses. They're very rare."

"Meaning that either Lammers was a collector, or…"

"Or it was his and he'd done something that merited special recognition." Tom turned it over and then looked up with a frown. "That's weird."

"What?"

"These normally had an embossed date on the back — 1813, from when they were first issued in the Napoleonic wars."

"What's that one got? I didn't really look."

"You tell me." Tom held it out, reverse side up. It was engraved with a series of seemingly random lines and curves and circles that looked for all the world like the mindless doodling of a young child.

"You know, there was a medal like this round the neck of that mannequin at Weissman's house. I had to unclip it before I could get the jacket off."

"Worth checking out," Tom said. "Anything else in here?" He picked up the box and shook it.

"I don't think so," Archie said with a half smile. "Take a look for yourself."

Tom opened the box again, carefully studying its interior. Finding nothing, he put his index finger into the main compartment to measure its depth. It came up only to his second knuckle.

"That's strange," he muttered, frowning.

He pressed his finger against the side of the box. This time, it came right up to his knuckle. The inside was an inch shallower than it should have been.

"There's a false bottom," Tom exclaimed.

"I think so," said Archie. "Christ knows how to open it, though. I thought you might have seen something like it before, so I didn't muck about too much. Didn't want to break it."

"It's like one of those Russian trick boxes. Normally you have to slide one of the pieces of wood to get inside."

Given the lack of dents or telltale ridges in the box's glossy, unbroken veneer, it was not immediately apparent which section might move. So Tom tried each side in turn, pressing his thumb against the wood, just above the bottom edge, and pushing it away from him.

Nothing.

He repeated the exercise in reverse, tugging each side toward him. Again nothing moved initially, but his persistence was finally rewarded by the bottom section of the right side moving maybe a quarter of an inch to reveal a tiny hairline crack. But there his progress stalled, for no matter how hard he pulled the lip of wood that sat raised above the front of the box, nothing would come free.

"Try the opposite side," Archie suggested. "Maybe there's some sort of locking mechanism. It might have released a panel on the other side."

Tom tried to slide the opposite panel sideways, then down, then up. On his last attempt it moved easily, rising about two inches and exposing a small drawer with an ivory handle. His eyes wide with anticipation, Tom slid the drawer out.

"What is it?" Archie asked, straining to see.

Tom looked up, his eyes shining. "A key, I think."

The drawer, like the main compartment, was lined in red velvet. Under the restaurant's dimmed lighting the object it contained glinted like tarnished silver. Archie reached in and grasped it, the metal fat and solid in his square fingers.

"Funny sort of key."

About two inches long, the key was square rather than flat, and it had no teeth. Instead, each of its gleaming surfaces was engraved with a series of small hexagonal marks.

"I think it's for a digital lock. You know, like the one in that private bank in Monte Carlo."

"And what do you make of this…?"

The key's sleek steel shaft was housed in an ugly triangular handle made of molded rubber. On one side of the handle was a small button, but nothing happened when Archie pressed it. The other side had been stamped with a series of interlocking calligraphic letters. Tom thought he could make out a V and a C, but it was hard to tell. "Owner's initials? Maker's logo? Could be anything."

"How are we going to find out?" Archie asked, returning the key to the secret drawer and shutting it again.

"We're in Zurich — how do you think I'm going to find out?" Tom asked with a smile.

"You're not serious."

"Why not?"

"Raj?" Archie sounded deeply suspicious.

"Who else?"

"Can we trust him?"

"I guess there's only one way to find out," Tom said with a shrug.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Away from the town center, the river Limmat flexes its way northwest into Zurich's industrial zone, an uninspiring agglomeration of low-level warehouses and soaring concrete factories, black slate tiles slung over oppressive cinder grey walls, chimneys and heating vents coughing smoke.

Tom and Archie made their way across the Wipkingen bridge, along Breitensteinstrasse and finally left down Am-perestrasse, then negotiated the steep steps leading down to a poorly lit path that ran parallel to the river.

"Are you sure it's down here?" Archie asked, his tone suggesting that he found it highly unlikely. An embankment loomed nearly thirty feet above their heads, its brickwork obscured at ground level by decades of graffiti and flyer posting. On the opposite bank a few dull and greasy windows punctuated the blank gaze of a factory's rear elevation like embrasures in a castle wall.

"It was, last time I came," Tom answered.

"You've been here before? When?"

"Three, four years ago. When we did that job in Venice, remember?"

"Oh yeah." Archie chuckled. "If only they were all like that."

"If it hadn't been for Raj, I'd have had to drill my way into that safe."

"All right, all right," Archie conceded. "So he's a good locksmith."

"He's the best in the business and you know it."

"Mmm…" Archie shrugged noncommittally.

Tom sighed. Six months out of the game had done little to dull Archie's natural wariness toward almost every other living being he came across — especially when money was involved. Dhutta still owed them a couple thousand bucks for some information they had supplied him a few years before, and he had proven remarkably elusive ever since, hence Archie's misgivings. To Archie, debtors — especially anyone in debt to him — were to be treated with the utmost caution.

Tom stopped beside a steel door set into the embankment, its original black paint barely visible under a thick collage of posters advertising raves, DJ nights, and various other local events. Above the door was a bright yellow sign showing a lightning bolt within a black triangle.

"You must be joking!" Archie gave an impatient laugh.

"Here?"

"You know what he's like about personal security. This helps keep most people at a safe distance."

Tom ran his hand over the brickwork to the right of the door at about waist height. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a single brick that protruded a little beyond those around it. It sank slightly under his touch, then sprang back to its original position. From somewhere deep within the embankment, they heard a bell ring.

"I want you on your best behavior, Archie. Don't get started. Raj is jumpy enough without you stirring things up."

Archie growled a response that was interrupted by the hum of an invisible intercom.

"Yes, hello?" A high-pitched, almost feminine voice.

"Raj? It's Tom Kirk and Archie Connolly."

There was a long silence, then: "What do you want?"

"To talk."

"Look, I haven't got the money, if that's what this is about. I can get it. Tomorrow. I can get it tomorrow. Today's no good. I'm busy. I've been very, very busy. Tomorrow, okay?" Dhutta spoke quickly with a strong Indian accent, barely pausing between sentences.

"Forget the money, Raj," Tom said, earning himself an angry look from Archie. "We need your help. Let's just call it quits on what you owe us."

There was another, even longer pause, then the door buzzed open.

"Half that money's mine, don't forget," Archie reminded Tom as they stepped inside. "Next time, you might want to ask me before just giving it away."

"You drop more than that every time you pick up a hand of cards," Tom said quietly. "I don't think you'll miss it."

They found themselves in a steel cage, half blinded by the powerful lights trained on them from the far side of the room. Several dark shapes loomed on either side of them, none of them moving, while the smell of decay rose from the damp concrete floor.

"Raj?" Tom called, holding his hand up to his face and peering through his fingers in an attempt to see beyond the glare. A silhouette appeared in front of the lights.

"Quits?" came the voice again.

"That's right," said Tom. "We're not here to make any trouble, Raj. Just to get some advice."

The lights snapped off and Tom made out a slight figure approaching the cage, fumbling with a huge bunch of keys. Raj Dhutta was a willowy five foot four, with slender arms and skinny wrists. He had wavy black hair with a knife-edge part on the left-hand side, and a narrow, feline face, his eyes furtively skipping between them, his black mustache quivering nervously.

He selected a key and inserted it into a lock. Then he repeated the action with a second and then a third lock, pausing before the final turn of the key.

"We have a gentleman's agreement?" said Dhutta, his tone still disbelieving.

"Yes, we've got an agreement," Tom confirmed.

"Excellent!" Dhutta's face broke into a broad smile. "Excellent." The cage door finally swung open and Tom and Archie were able to step into the room, Dhutta immediately slamming the cage shut behind them and sliding the dead-bolts into place.

"Let's shake on it." He grabbed Tom's hand and pumped it up and down vigorously, his grip surprisingly fierce.

"This is the first time you two have actually met, isn't it?" asked Tom, retrieving his hand.

"Yes, indeed." Dhutta turned his smile on Archie. "It is a pleasure to meet you finally, Mr. Connolly."

They shook hands awkwardly, as if renewing a dimly remembered acquaintance.

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Tom asked.

"My apologies." Dhutta gave a half bow. "I am indeed a poor host. Come, come."

He scampered across to the far side of the room, Tom and Archie now able to see that the dark shapes they had noticed previously were large pieces of rusting industrial equipment, long since decommissioned.

"What is this place?" Archie asked, watching where he was stepping. "Or rather, what was it?"

"An old electricity substation." Dhutta led them up a short flight of stairs to another steel door, which he unlocked with a second set of keys.

"You live here?" Archie again.

"No, no, no. This is merely my workshop. I reside on the street overhead. There's access through the cellar so I never have to go outside. Come, come," he urged, stepping through the doorway.

On his previous visit, Tom had not been invited into this part of the complex, Dhutta having insisted that he wait within the gloomy confines of the anteroom they had just come from. Now he saw that the door opened onto a vast hall, the arched brick ceiling rising twenty feet above their heads. A series of lights hung down at regular intervals, their steel shades as big as umbrellas. The concrete floor had been whitewashed and covered in an uneven quilt of overlapping rugs that felt soft and warm beneath their feet.

"Tea?" asked Dhutta. "I have many different varieties from my uncle in Calcutta — Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri… Whatever tickles your fancy. I have just boiled the kettle."

"Earl Grey," Archie replied distractedly, still taking the room in.

"Coffee. Black," said Tom, to Dhutta's obvious disapproval.

"As you wish. Please make yourselves at home."

Dhutta waved them to two battered and threadbare sofas arranged around an old tea chest on the left-hand side of the room as he darted to the sink and busied himself with mugs and milk. Tom and Archie both dropped their small overnight bags by the door and sat down.

"I must admit, I am surprised to see you, Mr. Tom. I had heard that you would no longer have need of my services."

"It's true. Archie and I have moved on."

"The business is losing all its gentlemen." Dhutta sighed. "The young people coming through have no respect."

"Things change, Raj," Tom replied.

"In the Hindu religion, we would say that you have moved on to Vanaprastha, or retirement, when you will delegate responsibility to the younger generation and perform selfless social services yourself," Dhutta said solemnly.

"And after that?" Tom asked in mock seriousness.

"Sanyas. The complete renunciation of the world for union with God."

Tom laughed. "I think I'm a few years from either of those."

Dhutta handed them their drinks and sat down opposite.

"You not having anything?" Archie asked.

"Just this." Dhutta reached behind him for a bottle of brightly colored cough mixture. Tom and Archie watched in disbelief as he unscrewed the white cap and took a long swig, emptying almost a quarter of the bottle.

"That can't be good for you," Archie observed with a frown.

"Prevention is better than cure, Mr. Archie." Dhutta nodded toward a shelf above the sink that was stacked with medi-

cine bottles full of pills and vitamins and other unidentifiable supplements, not to mention a rainbow of neon-colored syrups and liquids. "Would you like to try something?" he suggested eagerly. "Maybe for hay fever or malaria?"

"We're just here for some information," said Tom.

"Information?" Dhutta's gaze flicked regretfully from the shelf, back to Tom. "What sort of information?"

"There's something I want to show you," said Tom. "Obviously, what we're about to discuss doesn't leave this room."

"Of course."

Tom placed the walnut box on the tea chest's rough surface.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Dhutta pulled the box toward him, then hesitated before opening it, his fingers rubbing across the twelve-armed swastika on the lid.

"This?"

"No. Something inside it."

Dhutta flicked the box open, frowning when he saw it was empty. He picked it up and shook it, then examined it again. Tom eyed him with amusement, wondering how long it would take him to work out that the box had a false bottom, let alone how to get into it. But in four quick movements, Dhutta slid the various interlocking pieces of the box aside and exposed the secret drawer.

"I see you've not lost your touch," Tom said with a smile.

But Dhutta had already slid the drawer out and snatched up the key and didn't seem to be listening. He looked at them, his mustache quivering as he turned the key over between his fingers.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "Interesting. Very interesting. May I ask where you obtained this, Mr. Tom?" Tom arched his eyebrows and pressed his lips together, unwilling to divulge any more than he had to at this stage. Dhutta shrugged. "Not everything has changed, I see," he observed wryly.

"What do you think it's for?"

"A safe? A deposit box? Something like that. Somewhere with tip-top security."

"What about the initials? Do they mean anything to you?"

Dhutta squinted at the italic script etched into the key's rubber grip. "It looks like a V and a C," he said, shaking his head. "But that's impossible."

"Why impossible?"

"It's the logo for Volz et Compagnie, the private bank. But they do not offer safe-deposit boxes. Not anymore."

"I've never heard of them," said Tom.

"You wouldn't have, unless you had an account there." Dhutta twirled the key between his fingers. "They're based here in Zurich. Very prestigious. Very secretive. They don't advertise, don't even have a sign on their building. If they think you are suitable, they find you."

"Well, if their logo's on it, the key must have some connection with the bank," Tom insisted.

"Come, gentlemen" — Dhutta jumped up, tossing the key in the air and deftly catching it again—"I want to try something."

The hall was divided into three main areas. The smallest was the one they had just come from, a sort of makeshift sitting room on the left. Steel shelving formed a ten-foot-tall metal barricade separating this area from the rest. Dhutta led them through a gap in the shelving to his workshop area.

Several industrial metalworking machines — grinders, drills, saws, and the like — were bolted to the low workbench or freestanding, and small piles of metal shavings crunched under their feet. The shelves were full of baskets that contained further pieces of cutting and shaping and welding equipment. At the far end of the workshop area, thousands of keys dangled from huge black boards that had been screwed to the shelves. House keys, car keys, safe keys, shop keys: every possible combination of size, shape, and color glinted in the overhead light like the individual links in some enormous chain-mail shirt.

Without pausing, Dhutta led them to a gap in the next bank of shelving and through to the far end of the hall. As he walked into the third area, Tom's eyes widened. Where the workshop had been primitive and grimy, reeking of oil, this final area was a sleek, symbiotic amalgam of stainless steel and silicon.

Along the far wall were half a dozen LCD panels, each plugged into a different piece of hardware, their screens small puddles of light. In the left corner two large racks groaned and hummed under the combined weight of the computer and telecom equipment loaded on them. Scanners, printers, CD burners, and other unidentifiable pieces of electronic hardware jostled for space along the right-hand wall, their displays flashing like a Times Square billboard. Three plasma screens dominated the left-hand wall, each tuned to a different news channel; one, Tom noticed, was showing a cricket match. Dhutta caught sight of Tom's surprised expression.

"The steady march of progress," Dhutta explained with an excited sweep of his arm. "Nowadays people are preferring to place their trust in passwords and firewalls rather than springs and tumblers. But a lock is a lock, and I have to keep ahead of the game, whether the key is made from metal or from binary code."

He pulled a chair out from under the worktop and, switching on a desk lamp, examined the key carefully.

"It is as I thought," he exclaimed after a few seconds. "A three-dimensional laser-tooled varying matrix." He sounded impressed.

"Which means what, exactly?" Archie asked.

Dhutta turned to him with a smile. "The key has no teeth, Mr. Archie, as you can see. Instead, when you insert it into a lock, four separate electronic eyes examine these laser-burned markings to ensure that they are correctly sized and positioned. It's almost impossible to duplicate."

Tom's eyes met Archie's.

"And if I'm not mistaken…" Dhutta pointed the key at a black box screwed to the wall and pressed the small button in the key's rubber grip. Almost immediately a long series of numbers flashed on the screen beside him.

"What's that?" Tom asked.

"When the key has been inserted into the lock and successfully read by the laser, you press this button to trigger an infrared data exchange with the locking mechanism. Based on this" — he indicated the display on the screen—"it seems to be an algorithm, probably a 128-bit key. Very hard to break. A complex mathematical formula changes the code at regular intervals — once a day, once a week, depending on how it has been programmed. Unless the codes match, the lock won't open."

"You ever see anything like this before?"

"Only once, on a system developed for the Israeli military for access to their missile silos. Except that they insisted on one extra level of security."

"Which was?"

"A key can be lost, stolen even." He flashed his teeth at Tom and gave him a knowing wink. "Biometric analysis was therefore deemed a necessary additional precaution to ensure that the person inserting the key was indeed meant to have it."

"Analysis of what?"

"In the Israeli case, palm prints."

"So we've no way of getting in without—"

"Raj," Archie interrupted, "how many numbers are there in a typical Swiss bank account?"

"Between eight and sixteen. It depends on how many accounts they have and the security setup."

"So ten digits, for example, could make up an account number?"

"Oh, certainly," said Dhutta.

"What are you thinking?" Tom took a step toward Archie, curiosity in his voice.

"I'm just wondering whether that's why Cassius wanted Weissman's arm. Maybe the tattoo was an account number, not a camp number."

"But why would Weissman have had the account number and not the key?" asked Tom.

"Just because we didn't find a key, doesn't mean he didn't have one."

"And we don't know for sure that Lammers had the key but no account number," Tom said, picking up on Archie's logic. "They probably both had access."

"It would make sense," Archie agreed. "Especially if what they were hiding was valuable. The only problem is, they're both dead. Even if we're right about the key and the account number, there's no way we can get into that box."

Tom smiled. "Isn't there?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The garage was small but well equipped, with tools hanging neatly along the far wall and oil sumps and inspection hatches set into the concrete floor. Toward the rear stood two large hydraulic car lifts, squat as tanks, their stainless-steel pistons gleaming in the muted light.

"Could we not have met here rather than the hotel?" Ren-wick asked angrily. "Then we could have avoided tonight's little circus."

Although, in the end, their escape from the hotel had gone well enough, he had since had time to reflect on the evening's events. It had been a mistake, he realized now, to place himself in the hands of people he did not know or trust. He had made himself vulnerable.

"Because the staff would still have been here then," Hecht explained patiently. "The owner is a sympathizer. He lets us use his premises after hours if we need to, but that's it." There was a pause. "Besides, Dmitri is cautious…" Hecht spoke with an apologetic tone now. "He prefers not to let outsiders get too close to our operation."

"His caution very nearly got us all caught," Renwick snapped, gingerly rubbing the place where the prosthetic hand joined his arm. "Next time, I will choose the venue and you can leave the fancy dress at home." He flipped a hand at the fireman's uniform he had just discarded.

"Next time, there will be no need," Hecht reassured him. "You're with us, now."

"I am with nobody," Renwick corrected him. "We have an arrangement. Nothing more."

"As you wish," Hecht conceded. "And your plan… You're still confident?"

"If I'm right that the painting's sitting in some private collection somewhere, then he's the one to find it."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because he is the best. And because he has every incentive to succeed."

"What incentive is that?"

"Stopping me. All we need to do is watch him and make our move at the right time." Renwick pulled his gold watch from his top pocket and glanced at it. "Talking of which, what is keeping them?"

"I don't know." Hecht frowned. "They should have been back… Ah."

A car had pulled up outside, its yellow headlights flooding in through the cracks around the sides of the steel roller shutter, before being extinguished. The sound of doors opening and closing was followed by the murmur of voices, then footsteps and something heavy being dragged. A minute or two later the shutter rattled as someone knocked heavily on the narrow door cut into it.

Hecht opened the door. Konrad stepped in first, followed by the two men from the hotel, Karl and Florian, heaving a large sack, which left a smeared trail of oil and dust in its wake. All three were still wearing their fireman's trousers but had stripped down to T-shirts, the tapestry of angry, twisting tattoos that adorned their arms and torsos slick with sweat.

"Any problems?" Hecht asked.

"Nein," Konrad answered. "Except he cries like a girl." Karl and Florian both laughed as they heaved the sack upright. Konrad produced a heavy-duty hunting knife from inside his left boot and slit the rope that secured the top of the bag. The material concertinaed to the floor like a thick curtain to reveal the concierge, his mouth covered by packing tape, his face addled by fear. Konrad pushed him into a wooden chair, swiftly taping his ankles to the chair legs and his wrists to the wide, flat armrests.

Hecht approached the man. Without a word, he punched him — a heavy blow across the cheek that jerked his head sideways as if it were on a spring. The concierge slowly turned his head back to face them, his eyes wide, his lip split open, blood pouring from the wound. Hecht punched him again, so hard this time that the chair toppled over and sent the concierge crashing to the cold concrete floor. The sharp tang of urine rose into the air.

"He's wet himself," Karl laughed. "The dirty pig."

"Pick him up," Hecht barked. The smile vanished from Karl's face and he heaved the chair upright.

"Now that you're listening" — Hecht leaned toward the concierge so that their faces were only inches apart—"I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to tell me the answers. Every time I think you're lying — if you even hesitate for just one second before answering — Konrad will cut off one of your fingers. When we've run out of fingers, we'll move on to more sensitive organs…" He indicated the damp patch between the man's legs. "Do you understand?"

The concierge nodded furiously, trying to blink away his tears.

"Good." Hecht signaled to Konrad, who ripped the masking tape from one side of the concierge's mouth. It hung limply off one cheek, fluttering every time he breathed out, like a ribbon tied to a fan.

"What's your name?"

"Nikolas," came the unsteady reply. "Nikolas Ganz."

"So tell me, Nikolas Ganz. How did those men find us tonight? Did you call them?"

The concierge nodded and began to cry. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Hecht said soothingly. "Why did you call them?"

"Two men came into the hotel a few days ago," he gasped between sobs. "They showed me a photo and said they would pay me ten thousand euro to call them if I saw the person they were looking for."

"Who were they? Police, BND, Interpol?"

Ganz shook his head. "I… I don't know…" he said haltingly. "They… they didn't say."

Hecht stood up and nodded at Konrad. At the signal, Konrad slapped the masking tape back down across Ganz's face before grasping his right hand. Shaking his head violently, Ganz tried to clench his fist into a tight ball, but Kon-rad prized his fingers apart and splayed them against the chair's flat wooden arm. The concierge began to scream, a muffled noise that in the garage's echoing silence sounded only vaguely human.

Konrad placed the blade of his knife against Ganz's index finger, just above the knuckle, and cut in. At the first sign of blood, Ganz fainted, his body slumping forward. Konrad continued anyway, resting the flat of his other hand against the top of the blade and rocking it slowly from side to side while pressing down as hard as he could. Ganz regained consciousness five or ten seconds later, just as the knife finally sliced through the bone and severed the finger with a sickening crunch.

Hecht picked up the bloody mess and held it in front of Ganz's bloodshot eyes. At the sight of it, Ganz began to retch, his shoulders heaving. Hecht pulled the tape from his mouth and he vomited down his front.

"Get him some water," Hecht ordered. A glass appeared and Hecht pressed it to Ganz's lips.

"Are you okay, Nikolas?" asked Hecht. Ganz nodded, his bottom lip trembling, his breathing snatched and shallow. "Good. Breathe deeply, that will help. Now, I'll ask you again. Who were they?"

"They didn't say!" Ganz half shouted, half sobbed his response. "They just showed me a photo and told me to call them. I didn't think to ask. I didn't care. Oh my God, my finger. My finger!"

"And who was on the photo? Me?" The concierge shook his head. "Him?" He indicated Konrad, who was still holding his knife, blood dripping from its shiny blade.

"No."

"Don't lie," Hecht shouted.

"I'm not!" the concierge screamed as Konrad grabbed his wrist again. "It was him—" The bloody stump of his index finger waggled furiously as he tried to point even though he couldn't move his wrists. "It was him — Herr Smith."

Renwick stood up in surprise. "Me?"

"Yes, yes, for God's sake, yes," the concierge moaned.

Hecht walked over to Renwick. "What does this mean?" he asked in a low voice.

"I have my own problems," Renwick said with a shrug. "They are no concern of yours."

"They are when they compromise our security," Hecht countered.

"Somebody got lucky, that's all. It just proves that, from now on, we need to stay out of sight."

"Well, that's one thing we agree on."

"Hey, boss, what shall we do about him?" Konrad called. Ganz had just been sick again.

"Kill him," Renwick said quietly.

"Kill him?" Hecht's tone made it clear he didn't agree.

"What for?"

"He has seen me, he has seen you, he has seen this place. Who knows what he's overheard. Kill him."

"We can do without the police sniffing around…"

"Pah!" Renwick pushed past him, snatched Konrad's knife, and grabbed a handful of Ganz's hair, yanking his head back. Then, in one swift movement, he sliced Ganz's throat open, the blade biting deep into his windpipe and opening a livid red smile across his exposed neck.

The concierge jerked furiously three or four times, lifting out of the chair as if he were being electrocuted, before collapsing lifelessly, head to one side, blood cascading from his neck.

Renwick handed the knife to Hecht, his eyes blazing. "From now on we do this my way, Johann. No witnesses. No risks. No loose ends."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The two men approached the chipped green bench from different directions. The older of the two sat down and took out that day's edition of L'Equipe — according to the front page, PSG were on the verge of another big-money signing. The other, younger man walked on for twenty or so yards, stopped, looked around, and then retraced his steps, sliding onto the bench next to him.

They both wore identical gold rings on the little finger of their left hand. Each was engraved with a twelve-box grid, with a small diamond set in one of the boxes. Where they differed was in the position of the diamond, the old man's being located in the bottom left box, the younger man's in the top right.

"Why have you asked me here?" the first man mumbled from behind his paper.

"The situation has deteriorated," the second man said, his lips barely moving as he stared across the small ornamental lake encircled by an unconvincing Roman colonnade. "I judged that you would want to hear this in person."

"You only call me when you have bad news, anyway," the first man complained. "I don't see why—"

"Kirk is making progress."

"Tsss," the older man snorted dismissively. "What sort of progress?"

"Enough for one of his associates to pay a visit to Lam-mers's niece yesterday."

A pause. In the distance, children's laughter echoed to the accompaniment of a musical carousel, brightly painted horses rising and falling as they chased each other tirelessly.

"She suspects nothing," the older man replied eventually. "Besides, we turned that place upside down before we set fire to it. It was clean. There was nothing there."

"Apart from the stained-glass window in the local church."

"What window?" The man put down his paper, all attempt at dissimulation now forgotten.

"A window that Lammers commissioned."

"Why didn't we know about this?"

"Because you had him killed before he could tell us."

"What does it show?" A hint of concern had crept into the older man's voice.

"A castle. A triangular castle."

"Merde!"

"That's not all. She gave him something. We weren't able to see what it was, but he arrived empty-handed and left with a bag."

Silence as the first man considered what he had just been told. "Where is he now, this associate? Where's Kirk, for that matter?"

"In Zurich. He went to see Lasche yesterday."

"Lasche!" the man exclaimed in disgust. "That old fool will never—"

"Sir," the second man interrupted, "if you'll forgive me, I think the time has come for more… radical measures. It is no longer enough to trust to providence and people's incompetence."

"What do you mean?"

"Kirk followed the trail from Weissman to Lammers in only forty-eight hours. It took us three years, albeit working in the opposite direction. Kirk discovered the window. A window that we didn't even know existed. He made contact with Lasche, a man who, whatever you may think of him, knows more about that period than anyone else. How long before he starts to make some connections? How long before he gets lucky?"

"And Cassius?" the man asked sullenly. "Did you get him at least?"

"No," replied the other, turning his head away. A dog trotted past them and then relieved itself in the middle of the gravel path. Its owner followed behind, smoking and chatting on his phone, studiously ignoring the polite signs telling him to keep his dog on a leash and to clean up after it. "We had him last night in Munich, but he got away. It seems he isn't acting alone anymore."

"You were right to call me here," the first man said grudgingly. "If Kirk finds out what's really down there, it will only make him more determined. We must take steps. Events are getting out of control. If we don't act now, it may be too late."

"What sort of steps?"

"The window must be destroyed."

"Obviously. And Kirk?"

"They must all be dealt with — Kirk, his colleague, and anyone else they have come into contact with. Find them and kill them. We can't afford to take any more chances."

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tom had slept badly. Although the two sofas that Dhutta had offered them for the night had been comfortable enough, his overactive mind had kept him awake into the small hours and then woken him again shortly after six. Renwick, Weissman, Lammers, Bellak… What was it that tied them all together? What did they know of the Order?

Eventually, unable to bear Archie's steady snoring any longer, he had got up, showered, and dressed in his usual jeans and a fresh open-necked shirt.

He waited until nine thirty before waking Archie with a cup of coffee that Archie accepted grudgingly, protesting about the hour. He was not a morning person, Tom knew, rarely struggling into the office before midday but then working into the small hours. For Tom, it had always been the other way around.

"What's the hurry?" Archie said reproachfully, pulling his sheets around him as he nursed the coffee cup in both hands.

"I got through to Turnbull last night and explained what we'd found out. He agreed to send Weissman's arm over by medical courier first thing. It should be here any time now."

"You got me out of bed for a courier!" Archie remonstrated.

"Don't tell me you were actually comfortable on that thing." Tom kicked the sofa and a cloud of dust danced above the seat cushion.

"Fair point," Archie conceded.

A bell rang and a few moments later Dhutta appeared, his mustache freshly waxed, his hair still glistening from the shower. In his hand was a small set of amber beads that he was fingering nervously.

"Good morning, gentlemen," he called cheerily. "I hope you both slept well. If you will excuse me, it seems I have a visitor."

"Actually, I think it's for me," Tom admitted.

"Oh?" Tom sensed a flicker of concern in Dhutta's voice.

"I needed something delivered and gave them the directions to the back door. Don't worry," he added, seeing the look on Dhutta's face. "You can trust them."

"You gave a courier company the directions to this place?" Archie laughed. "What did you tell them, second brick on the right and straight on till morning?"

"Something like that." Tom smiled. He turned back to Dhutta as the bell rang again. "I'm sorry, I should have told you yesterday, but I didn't want to disturb you any more than we already had."

Dhutta waved his apology away, although Tom could tell from the stiffness in his shoulders that he was annoyed. Unfortunate, but, given the circumstances, unavoidable.

"If you say I can trust them, Mr. Tom, then that's good enough for me. I will go and let them in."

Archie got up and yawned. He was wearing blue boxer shorts and a white T-shirt, the material as crumpled and creased as his face where he'd been sleeping on it. Tom realized that it was probably only the second time he'd ever seen Archie in anything but a suit. He looked strangely out of place without it.

The sound of voices filtered through the open doorway, one Dhutta's, the other female. Archie looked up in surprise as the voices drew nearer.

"This way, please," came Dhutta's muffled instruction.

Moments later, Dominique stepped into the room, her blond hair coiled up on her head like a fine silk rope and held in place with a silver grip. Archie snatched up his bedclothes and held them in front of him.

"Dom?" he said in surprise.

"Morning, boys!" She grinned. "Here you go, Archie — got you a little present." She tossed a carton of duty-free cigarettes to him. He instinctively reached out to catch it, letting go of the bedclothes, which fell to the floor. "Gott-cha!" she laughed.

"Very funny," Archie muttered as he stooped to gather his sheets up around him again.

"The look on your face!" Tom laughed.

"You're like a bloody pair of kids, you two," Archie said, shaking his head disapprovingly. Grabbing his suit from its hanger, he stumbled to the bathroom, struggling to keep the bedclothes around him.

"I've just made some coffee," Tom said as Archie disappeared with a final, accusing glare in their direction. "You want some?"

"Sure," she said, stripping off her thick ski jacket and tossing it over the back of one of the sofas.

"I'm guessing you don't want any, Raj?"

"No." Dhutta pulled a disapproving face before disappearing into his workshop.

"You weren't followed?"

"No," Dominique confirmed. "I doubled back a few times, just to be certain, but there was no one there."

"And Turnbull met you at the airport this morning, as agreed?"

"Yeah, although I think he was a bit surprised that I was a woman."

"That's because he doesn't know what sort of woman you really are." Tom grinned. "No problems with Customs or anything?"

"None." She smiled her thanks as he handed her a mug. "I never thought it would be so easy to transport a human body part across Europe."

"Oh yeah." Tom sat down next to her. "It's great cover. Archie and I used to do it all the time. As long as the paperwork checks out, they don't touch the box. Last thing they want is some poor kid in need of an organ transplant dying because they contaminated his new heart or kidney. What about the medals?"

"He gave me those too. Archie was right. Weissman did have a Knight's Cross."

She pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to Tom. He opened it and slid the medal it contained into the palm of his hand, flipping it over so he could see the reverse, before giving her a satisfied nod.

"It has the same markings as the one we got from Lam-mers's niece," Tom confirmed. "Raj," he called. "Come and have a look at this."

Dhutta reemerged from his workshop and took the medal from Tom with interest, studying it closely.

"I brought the Bellak painting, as well," Dominique added. "Thought it might be useful."

"Good thinking."

"By the way, did you notice the holes in it?"

"In the painting? Yes. What about them?"

"They struck me as odd, that's all. They're very neat. All exactly the same size. They don't look accidental."

"Why would someone have made them deliberately?" Tom frowned. "Unless they wanted to deface it."

Archie reappeared from the bathroom, his composure seemingly restored now that he had his suit on.

"I meant to ask, Mr. Tom — what is this?" Dhutta pointed at the design on the lid of the walnut box that the key had been hidden in.

"A Nazi symbol," Tom explained. "A type of swastika with twelve arms instead of four, one for each of twelve men. It's known as the Black Sun. Have you seen it before?"

"No…" Dhutta shook his head, his finger stroking the veneer. "Although the swastika has been a Hindu religious symbol for thousands of years. It can be found in architecture all over the world, from the ruins of ancient Troy to the floor of Amiens Cathedral. Rudyard Kipling even used to decorate the dust jackets of all his books with it, to bring him good luck."

"How did the Nazis come to use it?" asked Archie.

"From what I understand, Hitler considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders. He saw the swastika as an inviolable link to the Aryan descent of the German people," Dhutta explained. "Under the Nazis, the swastika became the Hakenkreuz or hooked cross, the symbol of the Aryan master race."

"Does the word swastika mean something?" asked Tom.

"The word is derived from Sanskrit. The literal translation is 'good to be.' In holy texts it can mean Brahma, which is luck, or Samsara, which is rebirth." He looked up, his voice suddenly thoughtful. "I wonder, which will it be for you, Mr. Tom?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Banque Volz et Cie occupied a corner lot in one of Zurich's most expensive districts. It was a neoclassical affair, probably mid-1800s, although inconsistently executed, with the huge stone columns supporting the entrance portico comprising an architecturally jarring combination of Ionic and Corinthian styles.

More telling perhaps, was that while the soaring cost of real estate had compelled the owners of neighboring lots to rebuild higher and higher to maximize the yield of their land, the Volz building remained only two stories high, dwarfed by the towering structures around it. This said more about the bank's wealth and power than the tallest skyscraper ever could.

A smartly dressed man wearing a lightweight blue flannel suit greeted Tom and Archie in the small marbled entrance vestibule. It was more reminiscent of a private house than a bank — two side tables, travertine marble resting on ebony legs engraved with gold leaf, flanked a large bronze door that Tom assumed led into the main hall. Each table supported a large iron urn.

"Guten Morgen, meine Herren."

"Guten Morgen," Tom answered, before switching to English. "We're here to see Herr Volz."

The man frowned and looked them skeptically up and down, Tom especially in his faded jeans and sneakers.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

The corner of the man's mouth twitched, as if he had just been told a mildly funny joke. "I'm sorry, but Herr Volz is a very busy man. If you leave your name and number, I will ask someone to call you." He jerked his head toward the door to indicate that they should leave.

"We have a safety-deposit box here. We wish to inspect it immediately."

Now the man laughed outright. "There are no boxes here. We are a bank, not a left-luggage office."

"Tell Herr Volz that we have the key," Tom insisted, dangling it in front of him. "And that we're not leaving until he sees us."

There was a pause as the man stared at the key uncertainly.

"Wait here," he snapped eventually, walking over to the side table on the left and retrieving a black phone from behind the urn. His eyes never left them as he dialed a three-digit number.

"Herr Volz?" He turned away from them so that they couldn't hear him, at one stage glancing at the key Tom was still holding outstretched, while talking rapidly into the phone. He nodded silently as he listened to what was being said in reply, his shoulders visibly stiffening. Replacing the handset in its cradle, he paused, and then turned to face them, an apology flickering around his lips but left unsaid.

"Herr Volz will see you immediately. This way, please."

He threw open the bronze door and ushered them through. As Tom had suspected, this gave onto the main entrance hall, where a series of somber portraits lined the walls. Their footsteps echoing on the checkerboard marble floor, they followed the man into a small office where two secretaries were furiously typing away, their computers' flat screens housed in mahogany and brass boxes, as if the naked display of plastic might tarnish the bank's patrician image.

"Your coats, please." The man's voice had dropped to an ecclesiastical whisper. He took their coats, hanging them carefully on a cast-iron hat stand. He gestured to take Tom's briefcase, but a firm shake of Tom's head and an unblinking glare seemed to convince him otherwise. Then he knocked gently at the massive wooden door that loomed between the secretaries' desks. A brass plaque indicated in swirling copperplate similar to the design on the key that this was the office of RUDOLF VOLZ, DIREKTOR.

There was no response from within, and Tom followed the man's eyes to a miniature set of traffic lights positioned to the left of the door. It was on red, so they stood there patiently, the chattering of the secretaries' nails on their keyboards echoing like gunfire until finally the light flashed to green. The man opened the door, indicated with a flip of his hand that they should go in, and then shut it behind them.

Volz's office followed the same traditional lines as the rest of the building — soft red carpet underfoot, books lining one of the walls, an indifferent full-length portrait over the elaborate fireplace. The low winter sun streaming through the left-hand window had cut the room diagonally in two, leaving half swathed in shadow while flooding the other with a blinding light.

"What do you want?"

The voice was clipped and immediately hostile. Tom, squinting, had difficulty in making out where it was coming from. Eventually, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a dark shape hunched over the desk on the far side of the room.

"Herr Volz?" Tom walked toward the desk, while Archie hung back.

"What are you? A journalist? Some hack trying to make a career for yourself on the back of my family's good name?" The shape stood up and ignored Tom's outstretched hand. "Or another ambulance-chaser trying to make a living from our hard work."

"I can assure you that I am none of those things."

"The boxes are all gone. An ill-advised diversification strategy by my grandfather during the war that my father wisely dismantled in the 1960s with the full cooperation of the Swiss Banking Commission — as you would know, if you had done your research. You have no business here."

The man leaned forward as if to emphasize his point. This time Tom was able to see the face. Still quite young, perhaps in his early forties, Rudolf Volz had the same unflinching gaze and proud demeanor as the portraits Tom had seen out in the hall. His dark brown hair was neatly cut, with just a hint of gray. A closely cropped beard covered the line of his jaw like a strap, extending up around his mouth to frame his pinched lips. The underside of his chin and the flat of his sunken, hungry-looking cheeks were clean shaven. His glasses were frameless with clear plastic arms.

"The sixties?" Tom asked, throwing the key they'd discovered in the walnut box onto the desk. "In case you don't recognize it, that's your crest on the key. And, unless I'm very much mistaken, the lock that it opens is state-of-the-art."

Volz sat back into his chair, staring at the key as it lay on the desk. "Do you have an account number?" Tom nodded. "Give it to me."

Tom recited the numbers Turnbull had given him the previous night: 1256093574.

Squinting, Volz removed his glasses and typed the digits into his computer, then hit Return. After a pause, he looked up with a smile.

"Welcome to Banque Volz, gentlemen."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

My apologies. Please forgive the little misunderstanding earlier."

Volz's frosty welcome had given way to candied smiles and a warm stream of apologies.

"Don't worry about it," said Tom, sipping the coffee that Volz had insisted on ordering for them.

"It's just that we get so many people trying their luck that we have to be cautious."

"What are they looking for?" Archie asked.

"What is everyone looking for in Switzerland? Money. In our case, either accounts abandoned by Holocaust victims or something else to sue us for. My father was wise enough to shut down the safety-deposit business and contribute all unclaimed assets to the Holocaust survivors' fund to avoid any future… complications."

"But not all the boxes were shut?" Archie again.

"Of course not." Volz smiled proudly. "We are a bank, after all. Our first duty is to our customers, not to the Jewish lobby." Tom bit his lip. "Here at Banque Volz, we never forget that."

"I'm glad to hear it. And our account…?"

"Is exactly as was initially instructed. Nothing has been touched."

"Excellent."

"Not since it was last accessed, at least."

"Which was when, exactly?" Archie asked.

Volz removed his glasses and consulted his screen. "May 1958."

Tom glanced at Archie. The same year Lammers had posted the photos of the three Bellak paintings to Weiss-man, according to the postmark.

"A long time," said Tom. "All the more reason — if you don't mind, Herr Volz — not to delay any longer."

"Of course, of course." Volz leaped to his feet. "Follow me, gentlemen."

He led them past the secretaries into the hall and then through another doorway into a large square-shaped stairwell. Here, three shallow flights of stone steps, each connected by a broad landing, marched their way up to the first and then to the second floor. Above, a slate sky glowered through a glass cupola.

A door was set into the wall under the staircase, and it was to this that Volz went. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, reached in, and flicked a light switch, illuminating a narrow flight of dirty steps.

"The wine cellar," Volz explained.

The stairs led down into a low room, perhaps twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide, that smelled old and musty. The only light came from a couple of weak lightbulbs that hung forlornly from the unfinished ceiling. The room was lined with wine racks cradling row upon row of dusty bottles, their labels worn and stained.

"Nice little collection you've got down here," Archie observed appreciatively, pulling a bottle of Chateau Lafleur '61 from the rack.

Volz went to a rack at the rear of the cellar and pulled it toward him. It swung forward to reveal a large steel door. Reaching into his pocket, he took out another key and unlocked it.

As the door opened, the lights inside blinked on, revealing a room of almost antiseptic whiteness, from the tiled rubber floor to the whitewashed walls and ceiling. It was quite empty apart from a stainless-steel table that took up the middle of the room, a flat-panel computer monitor set at chest height on the far wall, and, to the right of it, what looked like a steel drawer. Strangely, there were no sharp edges: every corner and angle was subtly rounded, as if shaped and smoothed by thousands of years of glacial melt-water.

"How many accounts do you have here?" Tom asked, careful to keep his tone casual.

Volz rubbed his chin in thought. "Accounts like yours? We have about two hundred dating from the war that are still active."

"How do you define 'active'?"

"Ones for which we have contact addresses — post-office boxes mainly — for the designated account holders. That's where we send essential information, such as the new key that was sent out when we upgraded the security system about three years ago. If it doesn't get returned, we deem the account active."

"And if they are returned?"

"It usually means that the original owners or trustees have died, and with them all knowledge of the box's existence. But we hold the box for them all the same, just in case someone makes contact. You see, most of these boxes were taken out on ninety-nine-year leases, payable up front, so we have a duty to hold them until the end of the period. By the time the leases expire… Well, let's just say that it probably won't be my problem."

He laughed and turned to the computer panel, tapping it lightly with his finger. Immediately the screen pulsed into life, displaying ten white question marks across its dark surface. He paused, then turned back to face them.

"The account number again, please."

Tom typed in the code recovered from Weissman's arm, selecting each number from a list at the bottom of the screen. The screen went blank, then flashed a greeting:

Account name Werfen, Tom mused. What or who was that? Volz interrupted his thoughts.

"Please insert your key," he translated, pointing at the small square hole beneath the screen.

Tom slipped the key into the hole and a few seconds later a small graphic of a padlock opening confirmed that it had been successfully read by the lasers.

"Now the infrared," Volz prompted.

Tom pressed the button on the key's rubberized handle until another graphic of a door opening confirmed that the algorithms had matched. So far, so good.

"Well gentlemen, your key matches your account. So all that is left is the palm scan."

"Herr Volz," Tom said, turning to face him. "I wonder whether you could give my colleague and me a little privacy?"

"Of course," said Volz. He was nothing if not the professional Swiss banker. "Just place your hand against this panel…" He indicated a glass plate on the left of the computer screen that Tom had not noticed before. "The system will retrieve your box and place it in here." He pointed at the drawer front. "When you are finished, replace the box in the tray and the system will reset. I will come down and close the room up myself after you have gone."

"Thank you for your help," Tom said, shaking his hand.

As soon as the sound of the banker's footsteps had receded up the stairs, Tom slid his briefcase onto the table and opened it. Weissman's arm had been packed with ice and then sealed inside a clear plastic bag that had itself been covered with further ice packs. Even so, outside of a properly refrigerated environment it had begun to smell, and the flesh had turned a funny shade of yellow.

"Christ!" muttered Archie, peering over Tom's shoulder. "That is rank."

Breathing through his mouth, Tom reached into the bag and extracted the arm from under the ice, holding it just above the wrist. It felt hard and slippery, like a dead fish.

Tom approached the glass panel and placed the lifeless hand against it. A crosshatch of red beams lit up from deep within the glass and scanned the hand's surface. The screen flashed a warning.

"Scan failure," Tom translated grimly.

"How many tries do we get?"

"Two more. Then it locks us out."

"I hope we've got this right."

"Turnbull told me that Weissman only traveled abroad once and that was three years ago to some conference in Geneva. The same time, according to what Volz just told us, that they upgraded the security system here. I doubt it's a coincidence. Weissman could easily have got the train here, had his palm scanned into the system, and then got back to Geneva in time for dinner. No one would have suspected a thing."

"Maybe the fingers need to be pressed harder against the glass," Archie suggested.

Tom pressed his own hand to the back of Weissman's, forcing it flat. The red grid flared into life once more, then extinguished itself.

"Scan failure," Tom said with a rueful shrug. "I think the reader's picking up the edge of my fingers where they overlap. Maybe you should try. Your hands are a bit smaller than mine."

"Okay," said Archie, taking the arm and pressing his hand against Weissman's so that the fingers were splayed across the glass. Again the laser grid scanned the hand. The screen went blank, then flashed up another message.

"Scan successful." Tom breathed with relief.

Holding the arm between his fingertips and as far away from his body as he could, Archie dropped it back into the plastic bag, sealed it, and shut the briefcase with relief.

There was a whirring noise from behind the wall. Tom glanced at Archie. They both knew what was happening, having studied the workings of these types of systems many times. Somewhere deep below where they were now stand-

ing, a robotic arm was matching their access details to one of the hundreds of bar-coded boxes that were stacked on shallow trays in a fireproof vault. Once located, the box slid from its housing into a tray that carried it to the drawer. On cue, the drawer front buzzed and jumped forward a few centimeters.

Archie pulled the drawer toward him. It contained a battered-looking metal box that he lifted out and placed on the table. The box was about three feet long, a foot wide, and six inches deep.

"Ready?" Tom asked with an anxious smile.

He slowly lifted the lid and they both peered inside.

CHAPTER FORTY

Mobile One, this is Central. Come in, please."

"Go ahead, Central," came the crackled response. "Are you in place, Roberts?" Agent Ben Cody leaned over the female operator's chair and spoke into her microphone. "Affirmative. Stand by to receive transmission." A few seconds later one of the three flat-screen monitors in front of the operator flickered into life. On the large overhead screen a live satellite feed showed the agent's location as a blinking red dot. Five other dots pulsed around it, showing that the rest of the team were also in place. "Are you sure about this?" Cody asked. "Sure about what?" Bailey couldn't help but sound defensive in the face of Cody's skeptical tone.

"I mean I've pulled people off three other teams to cover this thing." Cody indicated the frantic activity that was consuming the CIA's secure operations room — four operators were monitoring the ongoing transmissions with the six field agents, while behind them two more of his staff were fielding calls, accompanied all the while by the constant buzz of computers and the high-pitched shriek of encrypted fax machines. An armed sentry stood by the swipe-card-ac-

tivated door. "I wouldn't have done it for anyone other than Carter. He's a good man. One of the best. But, I gotta tell you, I've had enough bureau wild-goose chases to last me this life and the next."

"I can't promise anything," said Bailey. "Let's be clear, we're following a hunch here. But Carter wouldn't have sent me if he didn't think it was worth running with."

"Well, I guess we'll soon find out whether you're right." Cody sighed. "Either way, we'll get a fix on whoever goes in or out of that hotel. If your guy shows up, we'll nail him."

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

That's it?" Tom understood the disappointment in Dominique's voice. The lengths to which Weissman and Lammers had gone to guarantee the safety-deposit box's safekeeping had had them all speculating feverishly about what exactly lay inside it. They had all been wrong.

No gold. No diamonds. No long-lost Vermeer. In the end, all it had contained was the thin brown leather pouch, cracking along the seams, that Tom had just placed on the tea chest in front of them.

"Someone's having a laugh" was Archie's typically forthright analysis. "It's a practical joke. Must be."

"What is inside, please?" Dhutta inquired, his mustache twitching.

"A map," Tom answered, flipping the pouch open and drawing out a yellowing document that had been folded several times to fit inside. "Where we can pin it up?"

"I have the very place." Dhutta's tongue flicked against the corners of his mouth with anticipation. "This way, please." He darted through to the computer area and pointed at the expanse of bare wall above the printers and scanners. "It will fit there, I believe."

Standing on a chair, Tom tacked the four corners to the wall, then jumped down again.

"Deutsche Reichsbahn — German National Railways," Dominique translated. "It's a map of the Nazi rail network."

"That's right," said Archie. "The various countries of the Reich are shaded the same color as Germany: Austria, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, Poland—"

"Given that the Nazis didn't absorb that much of Poland until 1942 or '43," Tom butted in, "this was probably printed toward the end of the war. Before then, central Poland was governed from Krakow as a German colony."

"June 1943," Dominique confirmed, pointing at the date in the bottom right corner.

Tom moved in for a closer look. "It shows all the major towns and cities. The thick black lines are the actual railways. The thinner lines must be sidings or branch lines or something."

"And the dots are stations," Archie added.

"So why keep it?" Dominique frowned.

"Good question," Archie agreed. "They must have produced tens of thousands of these maps."

Tom pinched the end of his nose in thought. "This one must be different in some way… Raj?" Dhutta sprang forward at the sound of his name. "Have you got a projector here?"

"Of course."

"Great. Dom, see if you can find a 1943 map of the German railway network on the Web. We'll blow it up to the same size as this one and overlay the images. That way, if there are any differences, we should be able to see them."

Dominique busied herself at the computer while Tom readied the projector, raising it to the same height as the map so as not to create a distorted picture. A few minutes later, Dominique turned around with a smile.

"Got it?" Archie asked.

She nodded. "You were right: the 1943 printing was standard issue. I found a copy on a university Web site. We may need to play with the sizing a bit, but it should work."

The image flashed up on the wall, and Tom adjusted the focus and the proximity of the projector until he was satisfied that he had got as close a fit as he could. Then all four of them approached the overlaid maps and studied them carefully.

It was almost ten minutes before anyone spoke. Predictably, it was Archie.

"Well, if they are different, I can't see where."

"Me neither." Tom rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Same here," Dominique chimed.

"What about ultraviolet light?" Dhutta suggested brightly. "It might show something. I have a black light here."

"UV?" Archie exclaimed. "Did they know about that back then?"

"It was discovered in the early eighteen hundreds by Jo-hann Ritter, a Polish scientist," Dominique confirmed.

Archie shrugged, experience clearly having taught him not to challenge Dominique on factual matters such as this.

"Have you got something we can use, Raj?" Tom asked.

Dhutta dived into his workshop, emerging a few moments later with a handheld fluorescent tube trailing a long black cord. Dominique killed the lights. Tom, taking the black light from Dhutta, approached the wall and began to move the tube across the map's surface, his face lit with an unnatural purple glow. Almost immediately, black marks began to appear — small circles around place-names, and next to them, numbers.

"You guys seeing this?" Tom asked excitedly.

Archie nodded.

"I'll read them out to you."

A few minutes later, Dominique had compiled a list from the names Tom had called out. "There's a funny mark here too," he said, pointing at a large L shape that had been drawn in the bottom left-hand quadrant of the map. He marked it with a pencil.

Dhutta turned the lights back on.

"Read them back," Archie suggested.

"I've arranged them alphabetically," she said. "Brennberg — 30/3, Brixlegg — 21/4, Budapest — 15/12, Gyor — 4/2, Hopfgarten — 15/4, Linz — 9/4, Salzburg — 13/4, Vienna — 3/4, Werfen — 16/5."

"Werfen?" Archie turned to Tom. "Wasn't that the name of the safety-deposit account?"

"That's right," said Tom.

"So what do you think this is?"

"Maybe those numbers are dates," Tom suggested. "You know, the day followed by the month. What do you get if you order them that way?"

Dominique quickly reordered the place-names and then read them back.

"Budapest — 15/12, Gyor — 4/2, Brennberg — 30/3, Vienna — 3/4, Linz — 9/4, Salzburg — 13/4, Hopfgarten — 15/4, Brixlegg — 21/4, Werfen — 16/5."

"Look" — Tom had placed a small pin in each place as it had been read out—"the place-names move east to west as if this is some sort of itinerary. A journey that was made or planned from Budapest, across Europe, to… well, look where it was headed until it got to Brixlegg." Tom pointed to the border just a hundred miles from the small village.

"Switzerland." Archie this time.

"And by the looks of things it almost made it, but then turned back to Werfen." Tom tapped the map with his neatly clipped right index finger. "We should go and see Lasche again, find out whether he knows anything about this."

"What about that?" asked Archie, pointing at the L shape that Tom had faintly penciled on the map.

"We'll ask him about that too."

"Whatever Lasche knows, I doubt it'll explain why this map was hidden behind armor-plated security with a couple of town names circled in invisible ink," observed Dominique.

"Not invisible ink," Dhutta said, his voice suddenly serious. "Although the tint has faded over time, in my experience there is only one substance that you would expect to fluoresce less than its surroundings and yet show up under black light in this way."

"Which is…?" asked Archie.

"Blood."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

It was, as Tom had remembered, an awe-inspiring sight — battle flags shimmering from the rafters, petals of Napoleonic swords winking from the walls, polished pistols reclining in display cases like fine jewelery. To Archie, though, it was all new, and he had leaped from piece to piece like an eager child.

"Where did he get all this stuff?" Tom knew that Archie was attempting a whisper. It wasn't working. His increasingly excited voice whistled noisily in the room's stillness. But Tom understood why he was trying, at least. On his previous visit Tom had been struck by the polished martial grandeur of his surroundings; this time it was the dark, soulless intensity that overwhelmed him.

The room, he could see now, nurtured a leaden heaviness that reminded him of an El Greco painting. It had a strange, haunting quality that hinted at death, without ever fully expressing it. Tom felt that his presence was somehow inappropriate, that he had stumbled into the forbidden annex to some secret library and was having to balance the desire to find his way out with a terrifying hunger to study the exhibits for as long as he could before he got caught. Under the circumstances, a whisper seemed the very least the room required.

"Have you seen this?" The suit of armor Archie had paused in front of was an intriguing piece that seemed to be seated rather than standing. The black lacquer that had originally covered it had long since cracked and crumbled, although the faded remains of intricately painted gold characters could still be seen on the wide, fearsome helmet and the chest plate. The arms and the neck were also made from metal, wide flat links tied together with colored string. The remainder, however, seemed to be made of bamboo and patterned cloth.

"It's samurai," Archie explained breathlessly, although Tom had already worked that much out for himself. "From the helmet design, I'd say Muromacho Period. Fifteenth, maybe fourteenth century. Must be worth a small fortune."

"Rather a large fortune, in fact, Mr. Connolly."

Lasche had entered the room unseen and was now advancing rapidly toward them in his electric wheelchair. Archie spun around, clearly surprised that Lasche had known who he was.

"Yes, I know who you are." Lasche gave a rasping laugh. "When you pay as much as I do to supplement my collection, it's essential to know all the key players. You, I was given to understand, are one of the best."

"Was. I've retired now. We both have, haven't we, Tom?"

Tom didn't answer. He had noticed that Lasche's voice was surprisingly strong, compared to their last meeting. And his breathing, while still strained and wheezy, seemed much improved; almost normal.

"It's good of you to see me again, Herr Lasche. You seem… much better."

"Full blood transfusion." Lasche gave a red-gummed smile. "I have one every four weeks. For a few days I almost feel human again." He stroked the front of his jacket, and Tom noticed that he had swapped his pajamas and dressing gown for a suit and tie, although the top button had been left undone to allow the shirt's starched fabric to accommodate the fleshy folds of his neck.

"Why is he back here?" Lasche's nurse growled from the doorway.

"Forgive Heinrich" — Lasche gave a small shake of his head—"he is very protective. His question, however, is an appropriate one. Why have you returned, Mr. Kirk? I hope it is not regarding the Order, for you will have made a wasted journey. You have already quite exhausted the little I know."

"Only indirectly, I can assure you. It is regarding a map. Or perhaps, more accurately, a journey. A train journey."

"A train journey?" Lasche wet his white lips with a flick of his tongue. "You certainly have the gift of the mysterious. I suppose I will have to hear you out, one final time."

Lasche steered his chair back over to the other side of the room and parked himself behind his desk, indicating with a wave that they should sit opposite, his gruesome lamp still casting its sickly glow.

"Now, tell me about your train journey."

"We came across a map. A railway map. It seemed to indicate a train journey that was made in the war."

"And no doubt you think it leads to some fantastic hidden treasure," Lasche said dismissively. "Some long-lost masterpiece."

"Why do you say that?" Tom couldn't mask his surprise. Did Lasche know more than he was letting on?

"Because why else would you, of all people, be here, Mr. Kirk? You know your history. You know that Hitler understood the cultural significance of art — its emotional pull on people's imaginations and their sense of identity. War offered him an opportunity to reshape the world's perception of great art."

"You're talking about Sonderauftrag Linz, aren't you?" said Tom. "The unit dedicated to building an art collection that exemplified everything that was best about Aryan art."

"Sonderauftrag Linz yes, but also Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and the SS-Ahnenerbe. They all played their part in the most sophisticated, well planned, and thoroughly executed theft in history. The plunder of Europe and the genocide of its Jews walked hand in hand. Millions of items were taken. Tens of thousands remain lost to this day. Hundreds still surface every year, never having been returned to their rightful owners. And now I expect you think you may have found some small crumb that has fallen from their table."

"All we think we've found at the moment is a train journey," Tom said firmly. "A journey that we hoped you might know something about. Perhaps if we read you the names of the places the train passed through…"

Lasche scratched his head, the pink skin flaking in several places under his touch and dropping to his collar.

"I very much doubt it. Of all the millions of journeys that were made during that period, why should one mean more to me than another?"

"Because we think this one might have been special," Tom said confidently, although he realized with a sinking heart that Lasche was probably right, and that this was even more of a long shot than he'd first feared.

"Then by all means, read away." Lasche shrugged. "But I wouldn't hold out too much hope."

Tom began to read from the list Dominique had prepared. "Budapest, Gyor, Brennberg, Vienna, Linz…" Lasche's face remained impassive, just a little shake of his head with the mention of each successive name to indicate that they meant nothing to him. "…Salzburg, Hopfgarten," Tom continued. "Brixlegg, Werfen."

Lasche's eyes narrowed. "Werfen? Did you say Werfen?"

"Yes." Tom nodded eagerly.

"You want to know about a train that started in Budapest and ended up in Werfen?"

"Why, does that mean something to you?"

"You are forcing an old man to operate at the limits of his memory." He turned to his nurse, who had remained standing at the rear of the room. "Heinrich, please go and fetch me file number fifteen. Oh, and sixteen too. It's in one of them, I'm sure of it."

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Tom and Archie swapped questioning glances, but Lasche was not to be drawn out, staring pensively up at the ceiling until the nurse returned a few moments later clutching two large red files bound with string. Lasche opened the first one, leafed through it, then turned his attention to the second. Eventually, he seemed to find what he was looking for.

"Read me those place-names again," he demanded, his nose buried in the file.

"Budapest, Gyor, Brennberg, Vienna…" Tom began. "Linz, Salzburg, Hopfgarten, Brixlegg, Werfen." Lasche completed the list in a perfunctory manner and looked up. When he spoke next his tone was curious. "Well, it seems I may know your train after all. What you have just described is the exact itinerary of the Hungarian Gold Train."

"Gold train?" Archie turned to Tom, his staring eyes underlining the excitement in his voice.

"How familiar are you with what was happening in Hungary during the closing days of the war?"

"Not very," Tom admitted.

"Well, then, let me set the scene for you," Lasche said, pouring himself a glass of water and helping himself to a mouthful.

"By December 1944, overwhelming Russian forces had almost totally encircled Budapest. The Germans were in disarray, their thousand-year Reich collapsing around their ears. So, by express order of Adolf Eichmann, a train was prepared."

"Adolf Eichmann?" Archie frowned. "Wasn't he the bloke the Israelis kidnapped from Argentina and executed?"

"The same," Lasche confirmed. "He is notorious now as the architect of the Final Solution, but at that time, Eichmann was in charge of the Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. The train he had commandeered was to take vast quantities of treasure plundered from some of the half-million or so Hungarian Jews he had sent to their deaths, and carry it far beyond the reach of the advancing Russian troops."

"What sort of treasure?" Tom this time.

"Gold, obviously. More than five tons of it, ranging from ingots seized from national banks to teeth broken out of their owners' mouths. They say that the wedding bands alone, stripped from the fingers of their victims, filled three crates. Beyond that…" Lasche consulted his file and read: "Nearly seven hundred pounds of diamonds and pearls, one thousand two hundred and fifty paintings, five thousand Persian and Oriental rugs, over eight hundred and fifty cases of silverware, fine porcelain, rare stamps, coin collections, furs, watches, alarm clocks, cameras, topcoats, typewriters, even silk underwear. The list goes on and on." He looked up. "The spoils of war. The fruits of murder."

"It must have been worth millions."

"Two hundred and six million dollars in 1945 money, to be exact. Several billion dollars today."

"And all this on one train?"

"One train of fifty-two carriages, of which" — Lasche consulted his file again—"…twenty-nine were freight cars. Heavy-duty and, in some cases, specially reinforced freight cars, the best that the Nazis could lay their hands on at the time."

"So it got away safely?" Archie asked. "The Russians didn't capture it?"

"It left Budapest on the fifteenth of December." Tom checked his list as Lasche spoke. The train's departure date tallied with the date marked on the map. "Then it stopped in Gyor, where its load was increased by a hundred old masters from the local municipal museum. Over the next three months it traveled barely a hundred miles, its journey hampered by the battles raging around it and ten unsuccessful robbery attempts — nine of them by rogue elements of the SS — which the Hungarian soldiers detailed to protect the train's special cargo successfully fought off."

"Where was it headed?" Archie again.

"In all probability Switzerland. But by the time it reached the outskirts of Salzburg, the war was almost over. And although it had successfully outrun the Russians, the Allies were making rapid progress into Austria. On the twenty-first of April, the 405th Bombardment Group of the Fifteenth Air Force destroyed the railway bridge at Brixlegg, and a few days later the Seventh Army joined up with the Fifth Army at the Bremner Pass. Austria was effectively split in two and the train's route to Switzerland blocked."

"So it was captured?"

Lasche smiled. "I think found would be a more accurate description. The 3rd Infantry Division of the 15th Regiment discovered it in the Tauern tunnel, only a few miles from Brixlegg, where the Germans had abandoned it, still crammed with its precious cargo. The Americans moved it to Werfen and then on to Camp Truscott on the outskirts of Salzburg, where all twenty-seven freight cars were unloaded into secure warehouses."

"And what happened to it then?" Tom asked.

Lasche shook his head ruefully, his voice suddenly hard. "Although it was known that the assets on the Gold Train were Hungarian Jewish in origin, they were designated 'enemy property,' making it possible for high-ranking U.S. officials to requisition the entire load."

"Requisition?" said Archie.

"A euphemism for legalized theft. Rather than return the remaining goods to the Hungarian State for restitution to the survivors and relatives of those who had been robbed and killed, a few greedy and unscrupulous American officers simply helped themselves to what they wanted, decking out their field offices with all the trappings of a conquering army and then shipping most of the remainder home to the United States." Lasche sounded almost angry now. "The Americans handed over a thousand works of art to the Austrian rather than the Hungarian government and then auctioned the remainder in New York."

Tom shook his head, his tone suspicious. "Forgive me for asking, Herr Lasche, but you seem remarkably well informed about this one train."

"You forget, Mr. Kirk, before I was reduced to pissing into a bag" — Lasche patted the side of his leg disconso-lately—"I used to pursue foreign companies and governments on behalf of Holocaust victims. It was my job to know about incidents such as these." He tapped his finger on his file. "Rumors about the Gold Train have been floating around for years, but it was only after I'd retired that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets finally admitted to what I have just told you. A class-action suit was mounted by survivors. Predictably, the U.S. Department of Justice opposed all attempts at compensation, at first denying the charges, then saying that the events were too long ago for a contemporary court to consider. But the courts ruled in the survivors' favor, and they received a payout of close to twenty-five million dollars. A tiny fraction of what they were owed."

"Hang on a minute—" Archie had been frowning in concentration for the past few seconds. "You just said that the Yanks unloaded twenty-seven freight cars? But earlier you said there were twenty-nine."

"Indeed I did." Lasche turned to Archie, seemingly impressed at his alertness. "Because it appears, Mr. Connolly, that somewhere between Budapest and Werfen, two carriages disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Archie frowned. "Two railway carriages can't just vanish into thin air!"

"That would indeed be the logical assumption," Lasche agreed. "And yet the fact remains they were gone. And what was in them, and where they are now, is something I fear we will never know."

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

It's him!" Bailey exclaimed, tapping the screen excitedly with his finger. "It must be."

"Are you sure?" Cody urged. "We only get one shot at this. If we tail him and someone else shows up, we'll miss them."

"Sure as I can be. Stocky, cropped blond hair, early forties, smoker. He matches the description we were given. And, according to your guy on the inside, he's just come down from Lasche's floor."

"Fine. Get a still off to the lab and have them run it through the system," Cody instructed the girl standing next to him. "See if they come up with a match."

"What about his buddy?" Bailey asked, angling his head slightly for a better view of the jittery picture being beamed in from the agent stationed opposite the hotel entrance. "We should check him out too."

"Good idea," said Cody. "Chances are, he's not acting alone."

The girl nodded and then disappeared into the adjacent room.

"What do you want to do, sir?" asked one of the operatives, looking over her shoulder at Cody.

"Our FBI friend says he's a match" — he winked at Bai-ley—"so tell Roberts to roll."

She turned back to face her screen. "Mobile One, this is Central. Be advised that the subject has been confirmed as our primary mark. Track and hold your distance."

The image on the monitor jerked unsteadily as the agent wearing the concealed camera set off, the shifting red dot on the plasma screen above confirming that he was on the move.

"All agents," the operator continued, "primary mark is leaving the hotel and heading north toward the river. Move to intercept at grid point—"

"Correction, Central," the speaker hissed. "Primary mark has turned east. I repeat, primary mark has turned east toward Bahnhofstrasse."

"Bahnhofstrasse? Shit," Cody muttered, approaching the back of the operator's chair. "Who else have we got down there?"

"Mobile Two and Three are—"

"Their names, Jesus, give me their names," Cody snapped. "We haven't got time for all this code-word bullshit."

"Marquez and Henry can be there in sixty seconds. Jones, Wilton, and Gregan will take about two minutes to get in position."

"Get them all down there, ASAP. I need as many pairs of eyes on this guy as we've got."

"What's the problem?" asked Bailey.

"The problem is that Bahnhofstrasse at this time is like Fifth Avenue on the first day of the winter sales," Cody replied with an anxious shake of his head. "If he gets down there and we're not sticking to him like a hot date on prom night, we'll lose him in the crowds."

Bailey glanced up at the plasma screen. Six red dots were rapidly converging on Bahnhofstrasse.

"Okay, here we go," Cody said with a rueful sigh, as the image on the camera showed the backs of the two men as they filtered into the thick stream of rush-hour shoppers and commuters. "Stay with him, Roberts," he muttered. "Don't lose him."

The man identified by Cody as Roberts stayed close, the image he was beaming back suggesting that he was only twenty feet behind the two men. That was much closer than was typically safe or advisable, but under the circumstances it was an unavoidable risk. Two more agents closed in on the targets, one from each side, so that they now had three camera feeds of the same scene, each showing a slightly different angle, on the small monitors in front of them.

The targets paused in front of one of the innumerable jewelers, paused, shook hands, and then separated, heading briskly off in different directions.

"What do you want to do?" Cody spun to face Bailey.

"Shit!" Bailey anxiously rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. I need to ask Carter."

"Carter isn't here. This is your call now."

Bailey was silent as he considered what to do. Carter had told him that he was there to observe, not to make decisions. But if he didn't make one now, both men would get away.

"Seconds count, Bailey," Cody urged.

"Blondi. Follow Blondi."

"You sure?"

"That's who we came here for," said Bailey, hoping his gut instinct was the right one. "We can't lose him now."

"You got it. Roberts, Marquez, Henry — stay on the primary mark," the operator intoned. "Jones, Wilton, Gre-gan — take up your positions and be prepared to relieve the others as they come past. I don't want him seeing the same face more than once."

"Roger," came the crackled response.

The man known as Blondi moved on, casually surveying the shop windows, pausing momentarily in front of one particularly gaudy display. And then, without warning, just as a tram came past, he broke into a run.

"Shit, he's made us," Cody exclaimed. "Okay, all units move in. Repeat, move in. Let's take him down."

"What do you mean, he's made us?" Bailey took a worried step toward the screen. "How did he make us?"

"Because he's good."

"He's getting on the tram," the speaker crackled.

"Well, get on it with him. Don't lose him."

The images being beamed back bounced wildly as the three agents broke into a run, the sound of their breathing echoing through the room. No one was talking, their eyes and attention totally focused on the screens.

Rapidly closing the gap on the tram, the two agents leaped aboard, one closely followed by the other, just as the doors shut behind them.

"Where is he?" Bailey whispered.

"Find him and get him off," Cody ordered.

The images showed the tram's interior and close-ups of other passengers' surprised faces. But there was no sign of the man they had followed.

"There!" Cody exclaimed, thumping his finger against the screen.

On one of the monitors they could see, through the tram window, a man standing on the pavement, waving them good-bye.

"How did he do that?" Bailey asked, his voice a disbelieving whisper.

"Because he's a pro." Cody banged the table in front of him with the palm of his hand. "Jesus, it's like he knew we'd be waiting for him."

"Maybe he did, sir." Returning from the room next door, the young operator handed Cody a piece of paper.

"What's that?" asked Bailey.

"Austrian police have just put out an APB on a man they are looking for in connection with the murder of a woman, Maria Lammers, and the fire-bombing of a church in Kitz-biihel in the Austrian Alps early this morning," Cody replied, reading from the sheet.

"What's that got to do with this case?"

"Several witnesses have reported seeing a stranger with the victim the previous day. They were able to give a description."

Cody held up the composite sketch faxed through by the Austrian police and next to it the still photo just taken of Blondi leaving the Hotel Drei Konige.

It was unmistakably the same man.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

What's wrong?" Dominique's eyes were wide with concern.

"Is Archie back?" Tom was breathing heavily, his voice strained.

"Why, what's happened? Are you okay? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No, I'm fine. It's Archie I'm worried about. A man followed us when we came out of the hotel." Tom took off his overcoat and threw it over the arm of one of the worn sofas. "He was waiting for us." He turned to Dhutta. "Have you told anyone we're here?"

"No, Mr. Tom, I can assure you that—"

"I hope for your sake you haven't," Tom said coldly. "I can think of several people who would be very interested in your current whereabouts. If you've breathed so much as a word about us to anyone…"

"We have made a deal," Dhutta pleaded, furiously rolling something invisible between his right thumb and forefinger. "I would never betray that trust. It's all people like us have left."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence until the shrill sound of the bell broke the spell.

"Maybe that's him," Dominique said with a hopeful smile. Dhutta slipped gratefully out of the room, then reappeared moments later with Archie only a few steps behind him.

"Sorry I'm late." Archie sat down heavily on one of the sofas. "Spot of bother. I'm sure Tom filled you in."

Dhutta made straight for his medicine shelf, ran his fingers along the line of brown bottles, selected one, opened it, took a swig, and replaced it. Whatever it was, it seemed to calm his nerves.

"Any idea who it was?" Dominique asked.

"I didn't exactly hang around to find out."

"What the hell did he want with us?" Tom asked.

"They, you mean," Archie observed drily. "I counted at least three. And in case you hadn't noticed, it was me they were after, not you."

"You been up to anything I should know about?" Tom eyed Archie suspiciously. "You've never had heat like that before."

" 'Course not." Archie sounded almost offended.

"Your recent American trip, for example. You never did say what that was about."

"Oh, come on," Archie protested. "I'm out of play, and you know it."

"What were you doing there, then?"

"Nothing that's got anything to do with this. That should be enough for you."

"You're right, I'm sorry," Tom conceded. "Guess I'm a bit jumpy. Anyway, I'd say it's about time we moved on. I don't know about you, but I don't want to hang around to find out who they were and what they wanted. Besides, we got what we came here for."

"Did we?" said Archie. "Fine, so we found out that Weiss-man and Lammers were both members of some secret order of SS knights. We know that they spent a small fortune protecting a map that concealed the final journey of a train loaded with stolen Jewish treasure—"

"Lasche told you that?" Dominique asked excitedly.

Tom quickly recounted the story of the Hungarian Gold

Train. Dhutta's eyes widened with each new revelation, the feverish twirling of a pen through his fingers increasing, until it was a blur of black plastic.

"The point is, two carriages were taken from that train and we haven't got a bloody clue what was on them or where they are," Archie said resignedly. "So I'm not sure we did get what we came for."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Dominique said, a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

Tom looked around, recognizing the tone in her voice. "You've found something, haven't you?"

"The map wasn't the only thing they were protecting in that safety-deposit box," she said.

"Wasn't it?" Archie frowned.

"This was kept in there too." She picked up the frayed leather satchel that the map had been kept in.

"It's just a regular satchel," said Tom. "German made, late forties. Probably one of millions."

"Come on, Dom," Archie said impatiently. "What are you getting at?"

"Well, after an hour of turning it up and down and shaking it, nothing. But then I noticed this." She pointed at the front flap.

"The stitching?" Archie eyed it carefully, then looked up with interest. "It's a different color."

"It's newer than the rest. So I unpicked it. And I found something inside."

"Another map?" Dhutta suggested eagerly, moving in for a closer view.

"No. Not even close." She slipped her hand between the two pieces of leather that made up the satchel's front flap and withdrew a small flat shard of what initially looked to be orange-brown plastic. She handed it to Tom, who examined it, then passed it silently to Archie.

"It's lined with gold leaf," Dominique said.

"No." Archie shook his head, turning the shard over in his hands. "It isn't. It can't be."

"Why not?" Tom said quietly. "It makes sense. It makes perfect sense. Why else would the Order have been involved with that train? That must have been what was on those missing carriages."

"Christ!" Archie looked up, his voice caught somewhere between fear and reverence. "You realize what this means?"

"No, Mr. Archie, I'm afraid I don't," said a confused-looking Dhutta. "What is this, please?"

"It's amber," Dominique said slowly. "Jewelry-grade amber."

Tom nodded. "Renwick is after the Amber Room."

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

The room was quiet, the only sound the muted commentary from an unseen cricket match being screened on one of the plasmas in the other room. All eyes were on the small shard of amber that lay cradled on Archie's rough palm. It was Dhutta who broke the silence first.

"Please forgive my ignorance, but what is this Amber

Room?"

Tom paused. How to describe the indescribable? How to frame in base words the jeweled essence of an object of such ethereal beauty that it seemed to have been created by sheer force of imagination rather than by human hands?

"Imagine a room so beautiful that it was called the eighth wonder of the world. A room commissioned by Frederick the Great of Prussia, gifted to Peter the Great of Russia, and completed by Catherine the Great. A room created from tons of Baltic amber resin, which at the time was twelve times more valuable than gold, infused with honey, linseed, and cognac, and then molded into a hundred thousand panels backed with gold and silver — nine hundred and twenty-six square feet of it, accented with diamonds, emeralds, jade, onyx, and rubies. Then imagine that it disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Dhutta asked, his eyebrows raised quizzically.

"When they were laying siege to St. Petersburg in 1941, the Nazis removed the room from the Catherine Palace and reinstalled it at Konigsberg Castle before dismantling it again in 1945 because they feared a British bombing raid."

"Then it vanished," Archie continued. "Not a whisper. Until now, maybe."

"You really think that's what was on the train?" Dominique said excitedly. "The actual Amber Room?"

"Why not?" said Tom. "It was one of the greatest works of art ever made. It must be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. What else would have warranted Himmler assigning his most elite troops to guard duty? What else would they have gone to such lengths to conceal?"

"Remember how fascinated your father was with the story of the Amber Room," Dominique reminded Tom.

"He'd been looking for it for as long as I can remember." Tom nodded. "Hoping to pick up some whisper of its fate, however tenuous. Dreaming of bringing it back from the dead."

"That's what this is all about," said Dominique. "The Bellak portrait must contain some clue to where the Amber Room is hidden."

"But what would Renwick — or Kristall Blade, for that matter — do with the Amber Room? It's not as if they can sell it," Archie pointed out.

"Not whole, no. But they could break it up. Sell it piece-meal — a panel here, a panel there. Maybe even enough to line a small room. There's no shortage of people who'd pay hundreds of thousands for a fragment of the Amber Room and not ask too many questions about where it came from. They could clear fifty, maybe even sixty million easy."

"Enough for Renwick to get back on his feet and for Kristall Blade to fight their war," said Archie.

"Which is why we've got to stop them." Tom's eyes blazed with determination. "Now more than ever. This isn't just about Renwick anymore. This is about protecting one of the world's greatest treasures from being broken up and lost for ever."

"If Renwick's got the portrait, we'll never catch up with him now," Archie said ruefully.

"But he doesn't have it," Tom observed. "If he did, he wouldn't have left Weissman's arm and the other Bellak painting for me to find. It's lost in some private collection somewhere and he's trying to use us to connect the dots."

"What did you say?" Dominique's eyes narrowed, her forehead creasing into a quizzical frown.

"I said, why else would he have left Weissman's arm and—"

"No. About the dots?"

"What dots?"

"Connecting the dots. Isn't that what you said?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Dom?" Archie said impatiently.

She didn't answer. Instead, clicking her tongue with frustration, she hurried through to the far room and unpinned the railway map from the wall. The others followed, swapping confused glances.

"Here, lay it out on the floor," she said, handing it down to Tom. "I wondered what those holes were for," she continued, shaking her head ruefully.

"What holes?" asked Archie.

"The holes in the painting." She snapped her fingers impatiently, indicating that Archie should hand her the rolled Bel-lak painting that lay on the desk. "They'd been made too carefully to be accidental." She unscrolled the canvas and laid it flat on the map, aligning the bottom left corner with the L shape that had revealed itself under the black light. "Give me a pencil." Dhutta pulled one from the neat row of pens he kept clipped in his shirt pocket and handed it to her.

Gripping the pencil tightly, she pushed its end into the first hole and swiveled it around so as to mark the surface of the map underneath. She then did the same in each of the nine other holes until, satisfied that she had covered them all, she peeled the map away and let it spring shut, revealing the pencil marks she had just made.

Archie whistled slowly.

"They show the same route we revealed before," Dhutta exclaimed.

"It's like you said" — Dominique was beaming proudly — "connect the dots."

Tom stared silently at the map, hardly believing what he was seeing. Dhutta was right, the pencil marks had fallen precisely on the towns revealed by the black light earlier and confirmed by Lasche as the route of the Gold Train.

All the dots apart from one. A small village in northern Germany whose name he had to squint to read because the pencil mark had gone right through it. Above it was a small symbol which the key told him denoted a castle.

Wewelsburg Castle.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

So you lost him?" Even the several thousand miles between them could not hide the disappointment in Carter's voice.

"Yes, sir." Bailey winced, picturing Carter's face. "And he doesn't show up on any of the systems."

"I'm sorry, Chris." Cody sighed, leaning in toward the speakerphone. "I put my best guys on this. I guess we didn't figure he'd read us so fast."

"I know you did what you could," Carter reassured him. "And I really appreciate all your help on this. All of it."

"I guess at least next time you'll know what he's capable of," Cody added. "I'd suggest taking him down as soon as you see him."

"If there is a next time," Carter said with a hollow laugh, his voice booming around the room. "He was our one and only lead."

"Not quite," said Bailey thoughtfully. "We've still got Lasche to follow up on. And there's the guy we saw with Blondi as well. He did show up on the system."

"It's about time we caught a break," Carter said with relief.

"It turns out he's got form. Some sort of high-end art thief. His name is Tom Kirk, also known as Felix."

"A thief!" Carter exclaimed. "That makes sense. He must be in on this whole thing too."

"Except that it turns out he cooperated with one of our agents on a case last year and got his slate wiped clean by way of a thank you. Now the general view is that he's gone straight."

"Which agent?"

"Jennifer Browne. You know her?"

"Name rings a bell," Carter said slowly. "She was mixed up in some shooting a couple of years back. I'll check into it."

"Meanwhile, we could get his name and description out to all airports, railway stations and border police," Bailey suggested. "That way, if he tries to leave the country, we'll know about it. With luck, his friend Blondi may not be far behind."

"Make it happen," Carter agreed. "And next time, let's make sure we bring at least one of them in."

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

It was clear from their journey up the hill that Wewelsburg Castle occupied a commanding position over the neighboring countryside.

More surprising, perhaps, was its design. Wewelsburg was the only triangular castle in Europe, with one large round tower in the north corner and two smaller ones south of it, each linked by heavily fortified walls. But then, as Dominique had told them during the seven-hour drive from Zurich, so far as she had been able to establish from the research she had been able to do whenever her laptop was able to get a good phone signal, its design was just one of the ways the castle broke with convention.

In 1934, a hundred-year lease had been taken out on the castle and its grounds. The signatory? A certain Heinrich Himmler. His plan, which was rapidly put into effect, was to establish the castle not just as an Aryan research and learning center but as the spiritual home of the SS, a place as sacred to the Aryan race as Marienburg had been to the medieval Teutonic Knights.

To that end, each room commemorated a legendary Nordic hero or a pivotal moment in Aryan history. One room had even been set aside to house the Holy Grail, on the assumption that Himmler's men would eventually succeed in their quest to find it.

Himmler's own quarters had been dedicated to King Heinrich I, founder of the first German Reich. Apparently not only had Himmler believed himself to be the earthly reincarnation of Heinrich's spirit, he had also believed he would be endowed with supernatural powers once he was able to locate the legendary island of Thule — a supposedly lost civilization that he spent vast sums trying to locate — and make contact with the "Ancients."

To Tom, it all sounded horribly familiar, echoing Lasche's account of the hate-filled ideology with which Himmler had shaped and inspired the SS to new heights of inhumanity. But there was an even darker edge to the story. A concentration camp, brutal even by Nazi standards, had been established close by in order to provide slave labor for the alterations needed to bring the castle in line with Himmler's aspirations. And even though the castle was never fully operational, or indeed finished, it was rumored that pagan, even satanic rituals had been conducted within its dark walls.

As if to emphasize Tom's thoughts, the castle chose that moment to loom out from behind the skeletal vault of interlocking branches that had previously masked it, its mul-lioned windows glinting like animals' eyes in the yellow sweep of their headlights before slinking back into the cold embrace of the surrounding forest.

A small church stood silhouetted against the night sky as they rounded the final corner, its steeple casting a long shadow on the ground. Tom killed the lights and put the car into neutral, and they silently coasted the final hundred yards in the moonlight, a fox slinking lazily back into the undergrowth as they approached. Archie broke the silence as the car came to rest in front of what Dominique identified as the old SS guardhouse, now a museum.

"Well, we're definitely in the right place," he said. Tom nodded. The castle was unquestionably the one in the photo of the Bellak painting recovered from Weissman's secret room and the stained-glass window commissioned by Lammers.

"I thought you said Himmler had had it destroyed?" Tom asked.

"He did," Dominique replied. "Or at least, he tried to. Following his orders, it was blown up in March 1945, but the ceremonial hall and the crypt in the north tower survived pretty much intact. The rest of the castle was rebuilt after the war."

Tom turned to face Archie and Dom's expectant faces. "You're sure it's empty?"

"It's a youth hostel and a museum these days, but it's pretty quiet this time of year. There won't be anyone around until morning."

They got out of the car. It was drizzling, a thick, icy rain. Tom opened the trunk and took out two large packs; he handed one to Archie and strapped the other to his back. Then he turned to survey the castle walls.

The wide moat, no doubt once a formidable obstacle, had long since been drained, its formerly treacherous banks now sheltering a manicured garden. A narrow stone bridge supported by two arches led across the void to the castle's main entrance, an arched doorway surmounted by an ornately carved bay window. This was presumably a later addition, given its frivolous variance from the building's stern aspect.

They crossed the bridge to the imposing main gate, a solid wall of oak inset with six large roundels. Unsurprisingly, it was bolted shut, so Tom set to work on the narrow door set into it. Within a few seconds the rudimentary lock sprang open.

They stepped into a short vaulted passageway that in turn gave onto the castle's triangular courtyard, the yellow glow from a few lanterns vanishing into the shadows. Apart from the muted drumming of the rain, it was eerily quiet and still, the wind seemingly unable or unwilling to penetrate this cobbled sanctuary.

Dominique gestured toward a doorway in the base of the North Tower, a wide, squat circle of stone that loomed portentously above them, blocking out the night sky. By comparison, the two other, more delicate, towers that they could just about make out above the roof's steep slope seemed as if they might flex in a strong wind.

They approached the door, the walls closing in on them as the sides of the triangle met, an ancient inscription indicating that this had once been the entrance to a chapel. The door was unlocked and they stepped inside, only to find an iron grille blocking their way.

Tom reached for his flashlight and pointed it through the bars, revealing a large chamber. Twelve stone pillars encircled the room and supported a succession of low arches that gracefully framed the slender windows set into the tower walls. But his eyes settled almost immediately on the floor. At the center of the floor, black marble had been laid in the now familiar shape of a disc surrounded by two further circles, with twelve runic lightning bolts radiating from its center. The Black Sun.

"This was the Hall of the Supreme Leaders," Dominique whispered. "A place where the SS staged ritual ceremonies."

"You make them sound almost religious," observed Archie.

"In many ways, they were," Dominique agreed. "Him-mler's doctrine of unquestioning obedience was inspired by the Jesuits. The SS was more like a fanatical religious sect than a military organization, with Himmler as Pope and Hitler as God."

"Is all this original?" Tom asked, surprised at the room's condition.

"It's been restored."

"Well, in that case, whatever we're looking for won't be here, or they'd have found it," Tom said. "Where's the crypt you mentioned?"

"As far as I recall, directly underneath us. But we need to go back outside to get to it."

She led them back through the main gate, which they shut behind them, and across the bridge, the wind whistling through the two arches below. To their left, a flight of steps led down to the floor of the moat, where two doors had been set into the base of the east wall.

"That one," she whispered, pointing at the right-hand door.

It was locked, although again it was only a matter of seconds before Tom had it creaking open. They stepped into a vaulted passage, and Dominique indicated with a wave of her flashlight the narrow staircase that led off to their right. The staircase ended at another iron grille, which Tom had to pick open. Dominique located the light switch on the wall outside before following Tom and Archie inside.

The circular crypt was about twenty or thirty feet across and looked to be of solid construction, the walls built from carved stone blocks, the floor of polished limestone. A vaulted ceiling climbed perhaps fifteen feet above their heads. In the middle of the room was a round stone pit with two steps leading down to a shallow depression at its center.

It was to this smaller circle that Tom went, stopping in the middle, directly beneath the apex of the ceiling.

"Look." Archie pointed his flashlight up above Tom's head. The outline of a swastika, made from a different-colored stone, was clearly visible above.

"What was this place?" Tom asked.

"A sort of SS burial ground, apparently," said Dominique. "Presumably a final resting place at the center of the universe for the spirits of the Order when they passed away." Her voice had a strange deadened timbre, no echoes despite the confined space, as if every sound was being absorbed into the walls.

Tom looked curiously around him. Four light wells were set high into the thick walls, narrow shafts that angled steeply toward the night.

"According to Himmler, the center of the world lay not in Jerusalem or Rome or Mecca but here, in the hills of Westphalia," she explained. "He planned to build a massive SS complex composed of a series of concentric fortifications, barracks, and houses that radiated out for miles from where you're standing."

Tom looked down at his feet and shifted uncomfortably.

"At that precise spot an eternal flame was to be lit," she continued. "And although the guidebooks don't mention the Order by name, the theory is that the ashes of senior SS leaders were to be placed on one of these…" She crossed to the wall and indicated a low stone pedestal that Tom had not noticed before. He looked around him and saw that there was a total of twelve identical pedestals spaced around the chamber's walls. "Clearly, the Order were to remain united in death as they had been in life."

"Then this is where we'll start," said Tom, stamping on the stone floor. "Where the flame was to have burned. Right under the swastika. At the center of their world."

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Crouching in the pit, Tom and Archie set to work chiseling away at the mortar surrounding the large stone set into the center of the floor. It was slow, painful work, the hammer handles slippery in their grasp, the vibrations through the steel chisel stinging their fingers despite the strips of rubber used to muffle the blows. After five or ten minutes, however, the sound of metal striking stone gave way to another, unexpected sound.

"There's something under here," said Archie excitedly.

They levered the first stone out, then set to work on the ones surrounding it, eventually clearing a wide area and revealing the outline of a three-foot-square metal plate, about half an inch thick.

"Use this." Dominique handed Tom a long metal spike from one of the packs. Tom banged it under one side of the plate, then used it to pry the heavy metal slab away from the ground until there was a big enough gap for Archie to slip his fingers into. Archie hauled the plate upright until it was standing on edge, then pushed it away, sending it toppling to the floor with a crash. As the cloud of dust cleared, a thick, fetid stench rose slowly from the dark hole.

Dropping to their hands and knees, they crawled to the hole's edge and peered into it, their hands covering their mouths in an unsuccessful attempt to filter out the smell. A dark, impenetrable nothingness stared back at them, and for a few moments they were all silent.

"I'll go down first," Tom volunteered. He grabbed a rope and secured one end to the gate, then threw the other end down the hole. Gripping his flashlight between his teeth, he lowered himself into the inky void, allowing the rope to slide slowly through his hands, controlling the speed of his descent with his legs.

The floor appeared to be made from some sort of white stone, although he could also make out a dark disc at its center, directly beneath where he was coming down. It was only when his feet unexpectedly landed on the disc that he realized it was, in fact, a large table. He let go of the rope and took the light from his mouth.

The table was made of wood and was surrounded by twelve high-backed oak chairs, each adorned with a tarnished silver plaque engraved with a different coat of arms and a family name. But Tom's eye was drawn less to the chairs than their motionless, grinning occupants.

For assembled around the table, like macabre guests at some apocalyptic dinner party, were twelve gleaming skeletons in full SS dress uniform.

Hardly daring to breathe, he let his flashlight beam play across chests gleaming with medals and ribbons, down to the lower left arm where he found their embroidered cuff-bands.

The gold lettering glowed against the black material, revealing their owners' regimental title: Totenkopfsorden. The Order of the Death's Head.

CHAPTER FIFTY

There you go." Lasche pointed to the typewriter-sized wooden box on his desk. "I've only sold one Enigma before. A few years ago now. He was a Russian collector, if I remember rightly."

"And the other components?" The voice was soft and lilting, hinting at lazy, humid evenings on a porch somewhere in South Carolina or Louisiana.

"Already in the machine. Of course, the final settings are up to you, Mr.… I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name." The beneficial effects of the blood transfusion were already beginning to wear off, and Lasche was feeling tired and a little more unfocused than he would have liked for this meeting. It was unavoidable, given the hour. He'd had little warning, merely a phone call informing him that someone would be coming to make the exchange and to ensure that he was alone.

"Foster. Kyle Foster." He was a large, rugged-looking man, his thick beard melting into wild, unkempt light brown hair, his steel gray eyes still and watchful. A dangerous man, thought Lasche. "Any problems getting hold of this?"

"Not really. I have my contacts. People I trust for this sort of job. They're reliable and discreet and keep themselves to themselves. Besides, they're the last people on earth anyone would imagine I was involved with."

"You mean the Sons of American Liberty?" Foster asked with a smile.

"How do you know that?" Lasche was at once amazed and angry. Amazed that they knew, angry because it meant that they'd been watching him. That they hadn't trusted him.

"Cassius does not take chances. Just because he asked you to get him an Enigma machine, doesn't mean he didn't care how you did it. As soon as he was certain that your man Blondi — was that his name?" Lasche nodded dumbly. "As soon as he was certain that your man Blondi had taken delivery of this" — Foster patted the wooden box protectively — "and was on his way home, he asked me to go and… meet with your people."

The hesitation, the slight edge that Lasche detected in Foster's voice, hinted at some sinister implication to this seemingly innocent remark. Though he feared he already knew the answer, Lasche couldn't resist putting the question: "Meet with them? What do you mean?"

"I mean that I locked them all in a booby-trapped room and tipped off the Feds so that they'd be the ones to set it off." Foster seemed to smile at the memory. "They'll be too busy blaming each other to ever figure out what really happened."

"All of them?" Lasche gasped, feeling his chest tightening, his breathing becoming ragged. "Why?"

"Loose ends." Foster reached into his pocket and pulled out a silenced 9mm pistol. "Cassius won't stand for loose ends. Which brings us to you…"

Lasche locked eyes with Foster, saw his cold and unblinking gaze, the gun pointed at his chest.

"I assume there's no possibility of a reprieve?" His voice remained calm and businesslike. He had been around long enough to know that neither tears nor tantrums would have any effect. "No amount of money that would convince you to put down your gun and walk out of here?"

Foster gave a half smile. "Then I'd be the dead man and not you."

"I see." A pause.

"But my employer did have one offer to make you."

"Which is?" Lasche's voice was fired by a faint glimmer of hope.

"You get to choose."

"Choose?" He frowned in confusion. "Choose what?"

Foster jerked his head at the room full of weapons behind him. "How you die."

Lasche gave a rueful shake of his head. He had been foolish to expect anything else from Cassius. Even so, it was a concession. A concession that Lasche valued because it gave him some element of control in his passing. Ridiculous as it may have seemed, he really did appreciate the gesture.

"Tell him… tell him thank you."

Lasche reversed his wheelchair out from behind his desk and slowly rolled past the display cabinets along the left-hand wall, appraising their contents. Foster followed him, his gun still drawn, the sound of his footsteps like the steady, inexorable beat of the drum as the tumbrel rolled toward the steps of the guillotine.

Lasche's eyes skipped from item to item, weighing the merits of each against the other. A Kukri knife presented itself as the first possible candidate. It had belonged to a Gurkha in the British Army who had died in the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The hooked slash of its blade was covered, for legend has it that a Kukri can never be unsheathed without drawing blood.

Then there was the polished elegance of the pistol used by Alexander Pushkin in a duel fought on the banks of the Black River in 1837. The poet had entered into the duel to defend his wife's honor against the unwanted advances of a dashing officer. Mortally wounded, he died a few days later, plunging the whole of Russia into mourning.

Another possibility was the Winchester M1873 — the rifle that "won the West" with its fearsome accuracy and reliability. Lasche's two examples were especially rare, modern ballistics having confirmed them as two of the eight 73s used by Native Americans at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

But he kept going, past these and many more like them, until his wheelchair hummed to a halt in front of the suit of samurai armor. At its feet, carefully mounted on their stand, were two swords. In the end, he knew now, these had been the only possible choice.

"A samurai wore two swords," Lasche said softly. He could sense that Foster was standing behind him, although he did not look around. "The katana and the wakizashi" He pointed first at the long sword, then the shorter one mounted above it. "They were a symbol of prestige and pride, and along with the Sacred Mirror and the Comma-Shaped Beads, are said to be one of three sacred treasures of Japan."

"They're old?" Foster sounded uninterested. "Edo period — about 1795. So old, yes, but not as old as the armor."

"And that's what you want?" Foster had stepped forward so that he was alongside Lasche, his voice skeptical. Lasche nodded.

"Okay." Foster bent toward the display, then looked up to see which of the swords Lasche wanted.

"Have you heard of Bushido?" asked Lasche.

"No." There was irritation in Foster's voice now, as if he wanted to get it over with. Lasche took no notice.

"Bushido is the way of the warrior, the code by which the samurai ruled their lives. It teaches that, to save face, a samurai may commit seppuku, a form of ritualized suicide."

"You want to do it to yourself?" Foster looked worried, as if this fell outside the remit that he had been given. "You sure?"

"Absolutely. You will be kaishakunin, my officer of death. You'll need both swords."

Shrugging, Foster took both swords from their ebony stand and followed Lasche back over to the other side of the room where he had stopped, just in front of the large cannon.

"Traditionally, I would be wearing a white kimono and in front of me would be a tray bearing a piece of washi paper, ink, a cup of sake, and a tanto knife, although the wakizashi will suffice. I would drink the sake in two gulps — any more or less would not show the correct balance of contemplation and determination — and then compose a fitting poem in the waka style. Finally, I would take the sword" — he took the shorter sword from Foster and unsheathed it, throwing its black lacquered scabbard to the floor—"and place it against my belly, here." He pulled his shirt out of his trousers and exposed his soft, sagging stomach on the left-hand side, pressing the tip of the blade against it. "Then, when I was ready, I would push it in and slice across from left to right."

Foster had already discarded the scabbard from the longer sword and was feeling its weight in his hand, tapping his foot impatiently as he stood behind him.

"Then you," Lasche continued, "as my kaishakunin, would step in and take off my head. This was intended to—"

Lasche never finished his sentence. With a flash of steel Foster decapitated him, the impact knocking his body out of the wheelchair so that he slumped forward onto the cannon, his head rolling across the floor.

"You talk too much, old man," Foster muttered.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

They're here," Tom shouted as he jumped down from the table between two of the skeletons and walked around the table behind them, flicking his light from one corpse to the next. The heads of a few had rolled onto the floor, but most were remarkably intact, peaked hats perched on white skulls, empty eye sockets seeming to follow Tom's every movement like some grotesque Mardi Gras carnival float. "They're all here," he whispered to himself, not sure whether he should feel exhilarated or horrified by the discovery. "Who?" Archie shouted from the floor above. "The Order." He noticed a small hole in the right temple of one of the skulls, saw the same wound in the others, then a gun on the floor next to one of the chairs. "Looks like they killed themselves in some sort of suicide pact."

"I'm coming down," Archie announced. A few seconds later, his large frame momentarily eclipsed the small circle of light from the crypt above before sliding down the rope and landing in the center of the table.

"Christ!" he exclaimed as his flashlight picked out the Nazi skeletons, the silver plaques behind their heads winking as the light caught them. "You weren't joking." He sounded genuinely shocked. "I wouldn't have thought it possible, but they're an even creepier bunch dead than when they were alive. Gathered together for a last supper like the twelve apostles."

"They must have lowered themselves in here, got someone else to replace the stones upstairs, then pulled the trigger."

"And assured themselves of a much more pleasant death than they had ever allowed anyone else," Archie said with feeling as he jumped down to the floor, shaking his head in disgust. "See anything else?"

"Not yet. Let's take a look around, see what was so important about this place."

"Wait for me—" Dominique had noiselessly lowered herself down the rope onto the table behind them, clutching a lantern.

"I thought you were meant to be watching our backs?" Tom admonished her.

"And let you two have all the fun?" She grinned, holding up her lantern so she could get a good look at the corpses. "Look at them. It's almost like they're waiting for us."

"For us or someone else," Tom agreed, realizing that he should have known better than to assume Dominique wouldn't want to get stuck in alongside them. "Come on, let's see what else is down here."

She hopped off the table, and all three of them turned their attention to examining the chamber itself. It was about thirty feet across, and the walls were rounded as if they were in a large stone barrel. A brief survey confirmed that the only way in or out seemed to be the hole above them, for the walls were uninterrupted by any kind of opening. They reassembled near the middle of the room.

"Well, if there's something down here, I can't see it." Archie shone his flashlight disconsolately around him.

"Agreed," said Tom. "But there's one place we haven't looked."

"The bodies," Dominique whispered. "You mean the bodies, don't you?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned toward the table and walked slowly around it, her forehead creased with concentration. The flickering light from the lantern threw rippling shadows across the skeletons' faces, until they seemed almost alive, the occasional glint of a tooth or a shadow dancing across a vacant eye socket suggesting that they might be on the point of waking from their long slumber. Finally she came to a halt behind one of the chairs. "Let's try this one first."

"Why that one?" Tom asked. The skeleton looked no different from the others, although arguably slightly more grotesque, the lower jaw having fallen into its lap, with one eye socket covered by a frayed silk patch.

"Look at the table."

Tom directed his light where she was pointing and saw that the table's surface had been divided into twelve equal slices, one opposite each knight. And each slice had been inlaid with a different type of wood.

"Oak, walnut, birch…" She pointed each one out in turn, her lantern moving around the table like a spotlight. "Elm, cherry, teak, mahogany…" She paused when she came to the segment of table facing the chair she had stopped behind. "Amber."

"It's worth a try," Archie agreed.

Her jaw set firm, Dominique gingerly unbuttoned the skeleton's jacket, two of the silver buttons coming away in her hand where the thread had dissolved. Then, pulling the jacket to one side, she began checking the pockets, inside and out. There was nothing in any of them.

"What about around his neck?" Tom suggested. "He might have hung something there."

Keeping her face as far away from the skeleton as possible, Dominique unbuttoned its shirt, the material clinging to the desiccated rib cage underneath where the flesh had rotted and then dried. But again, there was nothing. Just the empty void of the chest cavity and the remains of his heart where it had fallen through to the chair and dried like a large prune.

"No, nothing," she said, sounding disappointed. "I must have got it wrong."

"I'm not so sure," said Archie, peering down at the glittering array of medals pinned to the jacket Dominique had just unbuttoned. "He's wearing a Knight's Cross."

He pulled on the remains of the red, white, and black striped ribbon and drew the medal out from under the uniform's collar.

"Does it have any markings on the back?" asked Tom.

Archie flipped the medal over. "Just like the others," he confirmed with a nod.

"Dom, have you got the other two?"

She nodded and removed them from her coat pocket, placing them facedown on the table so that the markings were visible. Archie laid the one they'd just found alongside the other two.

"They must mean or do something," Tom said. "They must go together somehow."

"Maybe it's a picture," Dominique suggested. "Maybe the lines meet up to show you something that you can't see when they're apart…"

She grabbed the medals and began to slide them around, placing them against each other in a variety of positions to see if any of the lines matched up.

It was a fruitless exercise. And after ten minutes exhausting every positional combination they could think of, Tom was on the verge of suggesting they try something else when Dominique suddenly clicked her fingers.

"Of course! It must be three-dimensional."

"What?"

"The medals. They don't go next to each other, like a normal flat puzzle. They go on top of each other."

She grabbed one medal and placed it on top of another, sliding it this way and that to see if a pattern emerged. Then she tried changing one of the medals, and then changing the other to make a third combination, until finally she looked up with a smile. "Here you go."

By sliding the second medal over to the left and up from the center of the bottom one, she'd managed to align several of the marks. Then she took the final medal, placed it on top of the others, slid it to the right and then up from the second medal. As she moved it into place, the lines suddenly came together to form an image that could only be seen by looking down from above. Two elaborate crossed keys.

"The keys of Saint Peter," Tom said in a hushed voice. "Saint Peter? As in Rome?" asked Archie. "Well, it can't be there."

"It's unlikely, I agree," Tom said pensively. "Crossed keys. What else could that mean?"

"Your father said the portrait was the key. Maybe this relates to that particular painting," suggested Dominique.

"Or maybe it refers to the key on a map? Like our railway map?" Tom ventured.

"Well, while you two think that one through," Archie said, stooping to pick up the lantern where he had placed it on the ground, "I'll see whether our friends here have got anything else interesting on them. You never know — hang on," he interrupted himself as he raised his head level with the table. "What's that?"

He pointed at the side of the table where a small shape had been cut into the wood. A very distinctive shape.

"I wonder… Here, give me one of those…"

Dominique handed him one of the medals and he lined it up with the hole. It was a perfect fit. He slipped the medal inside.

"I'll bet you any money you like there are two more holes just like this one," Archie said excitedly.

"Here's one!" said Dominique, pointing at a section of the table's edge to Archie's right.

"And here," Tom confirmed, having moved around to the other side of the table so that they were now standing at three points of a large triangle.

"Put them in," Archie said, sliding the remaining two medals across the table.

Both Tom and Dominique did as he suggested and then straightened up, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.

"Well, they must do something," Archie insisted.

"What about if we press them in?" said Dominique. "They might release something."

They duly pressed, but still nothing happened.

"Let's try pressing at the same time," said Tom. "On three. One, two, three—"

Again they all pressed on the medals, and a firm click echoed around the chamber.

"Where did that come from?" asked Archie.

"The table," said Tom. "Look at the middle of the table."

He shone his light at a roundel in the center of the table that had popped a few millimeters higher than the surrounding surface. Kneeling on the table, Tom pulled out his knife and levered the roundel free, revealing a small but deep recess. He reached inside with the tips of his fingers and removed a dagger that the table had apparently been designed to house. From the way the blade had been elaborately engraved with a series of runic symbols, Tom guessed that it must once have fulfilled some long-forgotten ceremonial function. A piece of paper had been carefully wrapped around its ivory hilt. The others crowded around him as he hopped to the floor.

"What does it say?" demanded Archie.

Tom unscrolled it gently, not wanting to rip it.

"It's a telegram," he said. "Here, Dom, you read it. Your German's better than mine."

He handed the piece of paper to her and shone his flashlight on it so she could read.

" 'All is lost. Stop. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse overrun. Stop. Gudrun kidnapped. Stop.' " She looked up questioningly. "Gudrun? Wasn't that Himmler's daughter's name? The one in the portrait?"

"Yes," Tom confirmed with a nod. "And Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was Himmler's HQ. What else does it say?"

"'Hermitage most likely destination. Stop. Heil Hitler.'" She looked up. "It's dated April 1945. It's addressed to Him-mler."

"The Hermitage," Tom said, shaking his head in frustration. "That's what the keys of Saint Peter meant. It's got nothing to do with maps or Rome — we're meant to be looking in St. Petersburg." He looked up excitedly and locked eyes with first Archie and then Dominique. "My father was wrong. The missing Bellak isn't in a private collection. It's in the Hermitage Museum."