He answered this with praise for her virtue. She had risen above her desire. He wished he could be as she was, but the world and his own flesh tore at him. He wanted more than a fantasy on top of a hill. Had they given in to temptation the world itself would have objected, he knew that. The world always did! Right as she was to refuse him, he would endure anything for her touch, her kiss, her surrender. Nor did his feeling lessen with time. It was exactly as she had said it was: the lance never ceased to bleed, the cup was never filled!

  Once he wrote about Dante's lovers - those two who had surrendered to temptation and then spent eternity circling one another without ever coming close enough to touch. Those who had resisted temptation, he said, the true lovers, found their reward in eternity! But for an hour with her he would surrender this life and the next, as long as he knew she could be spared divine wrath. . .

  The letters became an extended conversation of intoxicated desire and strange theology. They were by turns futile, desperate, and full of affection. 'I am no Cathar!' Rahn wrote in one letter. 'I am a man of the twentieth century!' In the next he said Elise was Esclarmonde, the light of the world, the bearer of the Grail, the Queen of the Pure Ones. If ever he found the Grail, he would take it at once to her and lay it at her feet...

  Elise felt her heart quicken each time she saw his letters. She felt herself giving over to desire when she finished reading his words. It would have been the same sensation, she thought, if she had kissed him goodnight after an evening of courtship. It was the thrill of a young girl who realises, he loves me! She inevitably wrote back at first opportunity. She described her garden in the city, her dreams from the night before - especially if he had sat close beside her at the ruins of Montségur. She wrote about the book he was writing. She promised him the world would go mad about it when it was published!

  Berlin, she said in one letter, had turned rainy. She was miserable. The city was unbearable with its riots and gunshots and anarchy. She could not imagine any other city in the world supporting so many newspapers, every one of them as certain as the political faction they supported that something was wrong, very wrong in Germany. She had rather climb a mountain in the sunny south searching for the lost Grail of the Cathars. In such a mood, she said, robbed of the opportunity to be with him there, the only solace was to pull his letters out and reread them.

  Not once in all their correspondence did either of them mention Bachman. Bachman sometimes brought the letters to her, however. He never asked what was written, and she kept them under lock and key. It would have been easy for him to break into the box where she kept them, but afterwards she would have known he had done it, and by some feat of unimaginable discipline he resisted the temptation. He watched her though. He studied her moods. Once, late at night, after having consumed too much wine, Bachman asked her if she was going to leave him for Rahn. She told him, 'You are my husband, Dieter. I will never leave you.' Other times he asked about her private talks. Had Rahn ever asked her to sleep with him?

  'Never,' she said and blushed at her lie.

  'Would you have been tempted, if he had?'

  'My feelings are my own, Dieter.'

  'But you are in love?' Bachman pressed.

  'It is not a choice one makes,' she told him. 'It is certainly not like being married to someone. We choose marriage, and we make a sacred vow before God.'

  Her one lie to Bachman tainted the purity she felt for her lover, and so she hated her husband for asking and pestering her for every word Rahn had spoken to her. He had kept track it seemed, maybe even had taken notes! She told him honestly that she did not remember some of the conversations. What did it matter, anyway? Nothing happened!

  'Are you disappointed that he did not at least try?'

  How could she confess such a thing to her husband? How could she take pleasure in her memories when they were all subject to interrogation? She had no glimpse yet of spiritual ecstasy, if that was the goal of a love affair such as this, but this much she knew, despair had become an old friend.

  Sometimes Bachman spoke with great affection about her beauty and her goodness. He was lucky to have such a wife. He knew some men who had no wives. As they got older they had nothing at all! He did not want to be like that! He came to her bed once after a fit of adoration. It had been years since they had made love. It had staggered to a close in such an uncertain way she could not remember the last time. Instead of the kisses and courtship of lovers, Bachman told her she could think of him - no name given. It was perfectly miserable.

  'Does Otto know. . .' began any number of conversations that winter. And she would tell him she was not sure or did not know. He told her to ask him about the matter, usually some piece of politics she knew Rahn would not understand.

  Another time he had some new theory he had encountered about the Cathars, he was a voracious reader about the Cathars now, some odd piece of information Rahn might enjoy.

  Her solace came one night when she realised that only Rahn could understand what she endured, because he endured it as well. She did not live in Bachman's world when she wrote to her lover or read his letters. She was not married, not rich, not lonely, not virtuous. In the letters his bedazzling smile and tanned handsome face was forever before her, so close it seemed they might kiss. In such a state she could be, for an hour or so, absolutely fearless and free. She could imagine their intimacy in every detail. Later, leaving her room, she inevitably bore the fresh, flushed complexion of a newlywed.

  Rahn came back to Germany that spring and sent a note to her to say he was in the city for a few weeks. He wanted to see her. She wrote back to him at his hotel, refusing to see him, begging him to stay away. He came to her door anyway. She sent her maid to tell him she was unable to see him. He tried twice more, demanding she tell him to his face that she had no desire to see him. Alone, waiting to hear how he had taken her refusal, Elise wept. No man would endure such an insult. It was over.

  There were no more letters after that. It was a death of sorts, going without his words, living without writing letters in response to wild flights of passion and fancy. Before Otto Rahn had appeared in her life, Elise had been vaguely content and called it happiness for want of a better word. Desire slept in her soundly as she busied herself with life. After meeting him, she felt isolated and the world seemed unbearably cruel. Only when she sat with him in the mountains of her imagination could she find some sort of peace, but once the letters stopped she found it increasingly difficult to see him as he had been on that glorious day on Montségur.

  It was not long after that before her entire summer in France began to fade.

  *

  Bachman told her one evening over dinner, 'Otto wrote me. Did he tell you?'

  'What did he say?' Elise asked. Her heart pounded. It was not desire that quickened her pulse this time. It was fear, though she could not understand why a letter to Bachman should inspire it. Perhaps it wasn't the letter, she decided. Perhaps it was the smug look on Bachman's face.

  'I have created a business opportunity for him and he wanted to thank me.'

  'What sort of opportunity?'

  'I have persuaded some associates of mine to take a ten year lease on Des Marronniers. Do you remember it?'

  Of course she remembered. That was the hotel where they had had lunch before their descent into the Grotto de Lombrives. 'I have arranged matters so that Otto will be the owner of record, and he wrote to say he is delighted at the prospect of managing the property.'

  'But he is a writer, not a hotel keeper!'

  'He's very excited, Elise. I think you ought to be excited as well.'

  'And why should I be happy about your ruining a man's life with a shady business deal?'

  'Because we are going to spend the summer in Otto's new hotel!'

  'You can't be serious.'

  'I thought you would be happy!'

  The Royal Meridien, Hamburg

  Saturday March 8, 2008.

  Malloy left the ship at the Alte Rabenstrasse dock and with the help of a city map found an underground station less than a quarter of a mile away. From there he headed back to the Royal Meridien and caught a couple of hours of sleep. Late in the afternoon he went to the courtyard behind Das Sternenlicht and picked up the Toyota Dale had arranged for him to use. The sun was setting, but there was enough light to get a clearer picture of the area now. Like Dale's one dancer bar, the lot itself was a grim piece of work: lined with the backsides of hotbed hotels, sex clubs, three stool bars, strip joints, and adult bookstores. The buildings, however, were actually well made. Directly across from the back of Das Sternenlicht, for instance, the upper storeys were made of palatial stone blocks running all the way to the roof. In any other part of town the flats and offices here might have appealed to an affluent set.

  There were two passageways into the courtyard. One was adjacent to Das Sternenlicht and was not much more than a walkway, though it could fit a small car. The other was large enough to accommodate delivery trucks. There were a few parking spaces in the middle of the square, but most of the parking slots were lined up close to the various buildings.

  Heading north by a series of side streets, Malloy passed through St. Pauli's working class neighbourhood. From there he worked his way as far as the Aussenalster. He parked the Toyota on a side street close to the Alte Rabenstrasse dock and walked ten minutes to the underground station. He was back at the Royal Meridien by eight.

  Jim Randal and Josh Sutter were in the hotel bar sipping on a couple of draft beers. They were cool, clearly disenchanted with their State Department accountant. 'Missed you this morning,' Josh Sutter told him without meeting his gaze.

  'Late night.'

  'Whatever.'

  'What's the problem, guys?'

  'We can't figure out what you're doing,' Randal said, his rough Queens dialect ripping out of his throat. 'You don't want to talk to the investigators. You don't tell us what you're up to. You want this telephone number and then, when you get it, you take off to buy yourself a threesome!' Randal had been rehearsing this.

  Sutter, the good cop to Randal's bad, leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together. His tone was conciliatory. 'Look, T. K., the thing is we're getting a lot of questions we can't answer.'

  'From the Germans?'

  'From our supervisor in New York. It's like. . . are you really here, are you working this thing? I mean what's up?'

  'Jack Farrell has put himself in Helena Chernoff's hands.'

  'Tell us something we don't know,' Randal grumbled.

  'Once I find out how he made contact with her I'll have Farrell and Chernoff, but this much I guarantee: Hans isn't going to be able to help me with that.'

  Randal wasn't satisfied. 'What about the money? I thought that was your specialty. Forensic accountant, right?'

  'What if I told you I've got a chance to find Farrell tonight, maybe even take him down?'

  Josh Sutter's face lost its tension. Jim Randal wasn't as confident. 'You don't play that card without giving us something real. Tell us what you're doing. Have you got something or is this just another Chinese dinner?'

  Malloy shook his head. 'It can't go on paper, gentlemen.'

  Malloy waited for the agents to look at one another, but he was disappointed this time. They were both staring at him as if he had just committed blasphemy. In their world everything went on paper.

  'You think you can find Jack Farrell tonight?' Sutter asked. A vein started ticking in his neck. The spook had something, and he loved it.

  Malloy nodded but said nothing else.

  'What's the catch?' Randal asked.

  'The catch is I don't want the Germans involved.'

  Sutter laughed. 'Seeing as how we're in the middle of Germany that might be kind of hard to do!'

  'You want to take the guy home or leave Without him?' Malloy asked.

  Randal swore as his eyes swept round the room. 'Who are you working for, T. K.? Because I'm sure not buying this accountant nonsense!'

  'Listen to me. The Germans aren't giving up Jack Farrell. If they arrest him, they'll keep him.' It was a cold-blooded lie, but Randal and Sutter didn't know that. From their perspective losing Jack Farrell to the Germans was nothing short of disaster.

  'Hey,' Randal answered, hot suddenly at someone besides Malloy. 'Farrell is ours!'

  'If the Germans get involved he's theirs.'

  Josh Sutter shook his head. 'Hans told us—'

  'The minute they arrest Jack Farrell Hans is going to disappear. You'll be meeting with guys who don't understand English. To make a long story a sad one, you'll fly home without Jack Farrell and the U.S. Attorney will get an earful about all the German laws Farrell broke when he came into the country under an alias.'

  'Why would they want to keep the guy?' Josh Sutter asked.

  Malloy smiled, 'I can give you half-a-billion reasons, but the short answer is because they can. It has happened before, and you both know it.'

  'But Hans said—'

  'Hans is telling you what his handlers tell him to tell you.'

  They were both suddenly angry, but they believed him. They didn't want to, but they did, and they also knew there wasn't anything they could do about it if the Germans wanted to charge Jack Farrell in a German court of law.

  'On the other hand,' Malloy told them, 'you pitch in with the take-down when and if it happens, and I'll get your man on American soil before the Germans even know we've got him.'

  Josh Sutter took this one. 'How? How are you going to do that, T. K.? Are you going to put him in your suitcase?'

  'We've got over a dozen U.S. military bases a few hours south of here. U.S. soil, gentleman. We get Jack Farrell to one of those and he's ours.'

  'Tonight?' Sutter asked.

  'Maybe tonight. Maybe at dawn. Maybe tomorrow night. Right now I'm still a step away. Nothing is certain. But if something breaks it's going to be after midnight, and I am going to need to know if I can count on you or not.'

  'What are you talking about?' Randal asked. 'I mean what exactly are you asking us to do?'

  'I have two people I'm using for the extraction and one person watching our backs. I'm not sure one person is going to be enough for that. What I'm worried about is we go in to get him and Chernoff brings a second line of defence in behind us. I need you on the perimeter to let us know if that is happening and how bad it looks. We'll handle what they throw at us, I don't need fire power, but we need some advance notice if they are coming. And that will be your job.'

  The two men looked at one another. 'How solid is your lead?' Jim Randal asked.

  'It's promising. Worse case scenario, it comes to nothing, but if something good happens, and I think it might, I'm not going to have time to explain myself. I'm going to need you two - or I'm going to have to do this on my own and hope I don't get sucked into a trap. If that's my only option, so be it, but you're not going to take credit for the arrest. On the other hand, if you pitch in, I'll crawl back into the woodwork and you two can take all the credit.'

  Jim Randal looked at his partner again and then at Malloy. 'I appreciate your levelling with us.'

  'I'm glad you do, because I just put you in the middle of a criminal conspiracy.'

  Both men looked as if they had been tapped in the jaw.

  'If you want out, you had better call Hans and tell him what I just told you. Otherwise, you are a part of this, whether or not you do anything tonight.'

  'Nobody is calling Hans,' Sutter answered.

  'If we get Farrell,' Malloy told him, 'and the Germans figure out what happened, which they will once they have enough time to look at the situation, they'll ask for you both to be extradited and brought back here to stand trial. Of course in New York you two are going to be a couple of heroes and absolutely no one is going to want to give you to the Germans.'

  They looked at one another, weighing the risks against the rewards. It was dangerous work and Malloy didn't care for them to get halfway into the thing before they realised this was a criminal matter. 'What are the Germans going to do if they bust us?' Josh Sutter asked.

  'They'll make a lot of threats - you know how cops are - but if you give them what they want, they'll let you go home. Of course they won't ever let you come back. . .'

  'I can live with that,' Randal answered. 'What are they going to want?'

  'Me. But that's fine. If the police end up in the middle of this thing, it will be my fault. You can tell the Germans everything you know and no hard feelings.'

  'What are they going to do to you?'

  'Don't worry about me. I do this for a living.'

  They looked at each other again. No way were they going to flinch - not if they could take Jack Farrell back to New York in handcuffs. 'We're in,' Randal said.

  'What I need from you tonight is to be ready for a call. Sometime between midnight and dawn - be dressed and ready to move the minute you hear my voice. He handed Randal a slip of paper with an address and cell phone number. Come to that address. It's a bar. One of you come inside and sit down and have a drink. The other needs to stay in the car and keep it running. Are you both armed?'

  'We've got a provisional license,' Randal told him, 'but Hans said it's like our ass if we actually have to draw our weapons - unless it's really a life-threatening situation.'

  'If we get into that kind of trouble, we're not going to be explaining it to the Germans. We'll take care of business and then go underground and wait for the cavalry. And if anything happens to me. . Malloy tapped the cell phone number he had written down on the slip of paper he had given Randal, 'call this number. The person who answers will get you out of the country.'

  'Does he have a name?' Randal asked.