She wondered how much she could trust the local police.

  This was no theoretical question. Hartman was in there meeting with a man who …

  A thought occurred to her. “This guy, Lenz,” she said, her eyes burning from the smoke. “This may be a strange question, but does he have anything to do with the Nazis?”

  Heisler stubbed out his cigarette in the car’s overflowing ashtray. “Well, this is a strange question,” he said. “His father—do you know the name Dr. Gerhard Lenz?”

  “No, should I?”

  He shrugged: naive Americans. “One of the worst. A colleague of Josef Mengele’s who did all kinds of horrifying experiments in the camps.”

  “Ah.” Another idea suggested itself. Hartman, a survivor’s son with an avenging spirit, was going after the next generation.

  “His son is a good man, very different from his father. He devotes his life to undoing his father’s evil.”

  She stared at Heisler, then out the windshield at Lenz’s magnificent villa. The son was anti-Nazi? Amazing. She wondered whether Hartman knew that. He might not know anything about the younger Lenz except that he was the son of Gerhard, son of a Nazi. If he were really a fanatic, he wouldn’t care if Lenz Junior could turn water into wine.

  Which meant that Hartman might already have given Jürgen Lenz a lethal injection.

  Jesus, she thought, as Heisler lit another Casablanca. Why are we just sitting here?

  “Is that yours?” Heisler suddenly asked.

  “Is what mine?”

  “That car.” He pointed at a Peugeot that was parked across the street from Lenz’s villa. “It’s been in the area since we get here.”

  “No. It’s not one of yours?”

  “Absolutely not. I can tell from plates.”

  “Maybe it’s a neighbor, or a friend?”

  “I wonder could your American colleagues be involving in this, maybe checking on you?” Heisler said heatedly. “Because if that’s the case, I’m calling this operation off right now!”

  Unsettled and defensive, she said, “It can’t be. Tom Murphy would have let me know before sending someone in.” Wouldn’t he? “Anyway, he barely seemed interested when I first told him.”

  But if he were checking up on her? Was that possible?

  “Well, then who is it?” Heisler demanded.

  “Who are you?” Jürgen Lenz repeated, fear now showing on his face. “You are not a friend of Winston Rockwell’s.”

  “Sort of,” Ben admitted. “I mean, I know him from some work I’ve done. I’m Benjamin Hartman. My father is Max Hartman.” Once more, he watched Lenz to gauge his reaction.

  Lenz blenched, and then his expression softened. “Dear God,” he whispered. “I can see the resemblance. What happened to your brother was a terrible thing.”

  Ben felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “What do you know?” he shouted.

  The police radio crackled to life.

  “Korporal, wer ist das?”

  “Keine Ahnung.”

  “Keiner von uns, oder?”

  “Richtig.”

  Now the other team wanted to know whether the Peugeot was one of theirs; Heisler confirmed he had no idea who it was. He took a night-vision monocular from the backseat and held it up to one eye. It was dark on the street now, and the unidentified car had switched off its lights. There was no street lamp nearby, so it was impossible to see the driver’s face. The night-vision scope was a good idea, Anna thought.

  “He has a newspaper up before his face,” Heisler said. “A tabloid. Die Kronen Zeitung—I can just make it out.”

  “Can’t be easy for the guy to read the paper in the dark, huh?” She thought: Lenz Junior could be dead already, and we’re sitting here waiting.

  “I do not think he’s getting much reading done.” Heisler seemed to share her sense of humor.

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  He handed her the scope. All she saw was newsprint. “He’s obviously trying not to be identified,” she said. What if he really was Bureau? “Which tells us something. O.K. if I use your cell phone?”

  “Not at all.” He gave her his clunky Ericsson, and she punched out the local number of the U.S. embassy.

  “Tom,” she said when Murphy came on the line. “It’s Anna Navarro. You didn’t send anyone out to Hietzing, did you?”

  “Hietzing? Here in Vienna?”

  “My case.”

  A pause. “No, you didn’t ask me to, did you?”

  “Well, someone’s screwing up my stakeout. No one in your office would have taken it upon himself to check up on me without clearing it with you first?”

  “They better not. Anyway, everyone’s accounted for here, far as I know.”

  “Thanks.” She disconnected, handed the phone back to Heisler. “Strange.”

  “Then who is in that car?” Heisler asked.

  “If I may ask, why did you think I was CIA?”

  “There are some old-timers in that community who have rather taken against me,” Lenz said, shrugging. “Do you know about Project Paper Clip?” They had graduated to vodka. Ilse Lenz had still not returned to the sitting room, more than an hour after she had so abruptly left. “Perhaps not by that name. You’re aware that immediately after the war, the U.S. government—the OSS, as the CIA’s predecessor was called—smuggled some of Nazi Germany’s leading scientists to America, yes? Paper Clip was the code name for this plan. The Americans sanitized the Germans’ records, falsified their backgrounds. Covered up the fact that these were mass-murderers. You see, because as soon as the war was over, America turned its attention to a new war—the Cold War. Suddenly all that counted was fighting the Soviet Union. America had spent four years and countless lives battling the Nazis and suddenly the Nazis were their friends—so long as they could help in the struggle against the Communists. Help build weapons and such for America. These scientists were brilliant men, the brains behind the Third Reich’s enormous scientific accomplishments.”

  “And war criminals.”

  “Precisely. Some of them responsible for the torture and murder of thousands upon thousands of concentration-camp inmates. Some, like Wernher von Braun and Dr. Hubertus Strughold, had invented many of the Nazi’s weapons of war. Arthur Rudolph, who helped murder twenty thousand innocent people at Nordhausen, was awarded NASA’s highest civilian honor!”

  Twilight settled. Lenz got up and switched on lamps around the sitting room. “The Americans brought in the man who was in charge of death camps in Poland. One Nazi scientist they gave asylum to had conducted the freezing experiments at Dachau—he ended up at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, a distinguished professor of space medicine. The CIA people who arranged all this, those few who survive, have been less than appreciative of my efforts to shed light on this episode.”

  “Your efforts?”

  “Yes, and those of my foundation. It is not an insignificant part of the research that we sponsor.”

  “But what threat could the CIA pose?”

  “The CIA, I understand, did not exist until a few years after the war, but they inherited operational control of these agents. There are aspects of history that some old-guard types in the CIA prefer to have left undisturbed. Some of them will go to quite extraordinary lengths to ensure this.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t believe that. The CIA doesn’t go around killing people.”

  “No, not anymore,” Lenz conceded, a note of sarcasm in his voice. “Not since they killed Allende in Chile, Lumumba in the Belgian Congo, tried to assassinate Castro. No, they’re prohibited by law from doing such things. So now they ‘outsource,’ as you American businessmen like to say. They hire freelancers, mercenaries, through chains of front organizations, so the hit men can never be connected with the U.S. government.” He broke off. “The world is more complicated than you seem to think.”

  “But that’s all ancient, irrelevant history!”

  “Scarcely irrelevant if you’re one of the ancient men who may be implicated,” Lenz pressed on inexorably. “I speak of elder statesmen, retired diplomats, former dignitaries who did a stint with the Office of Strategic Services in their youth. As they putter around their libraries and write their memoirs, they cannot avoid a certain unease.” He gazed into the clear fluid in his glass as if seeing something there. “These are men accustomed to power, and deference. They would not look forward to revelations that would darken their golden years. Oh, of course, they’ll tell themselves that what they do is for the good of the country, sparing the good name of the United States. So much of the wickedness men do is in the name of the commonweal. This, Mr. Hartman, I know. Frail old dogs can be the most dangerous. Calls can be made, favors called in. Mentors drawing on the loyalty of protégés. Frightened old men determined to die with at least their good names intact. I wish I could discount this scenario. But I know what these men are like. I have seen too much of human nature.”

  Ilse reappeared, carrying a small leather-bound book; on its spine Ben made out the name Hölderlin, lettered in gilt. “I see you gentlemen are still at it,” she said.

  “You understand, don’t you, why we can be slightly on edge,” Lenz told Ben smoothly. “We have many enemies.”

  “There have been many threats against my husband,” Ilse said. “There are fanatics on the right who view him, somehow, as a turncoat, as the man who betrayed his father’s legacy.” She smiled without warmth and repaired to the adjoining room.

  “They worry me less, to be frank, than the self-interested, ostensibly rational souls who simply don’t understand why we can’t let sleeping dogs lie.” Lenz’s eyes were alert. “And whose friends, as I say, may be tempted to take rather extreme measures to ensure that their golden years remain golden. But I go on. You had certain questions about the postwar period, questions you hoped I might be able to answer.”

  Jürgen Lenz examined the photograph, gripping it in both hands. His face was tense. “That’s my father,” he said. “Yes.”

  “You look just like him,” Ben said.

  “Quite the legacy, hmm?” Lenz said ruefully. No longer was he the charming, affable host. Now he peered intently at the rest of the photograph. “Dear God, no. It can’t be.” He sank into his chair, his face ashen.

  “What can’t?” Ben was unrelenting. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Is this genuine?” The same reaction that Carl Mercandetti, the historian, had had.

  “Yes.” Ben took a deep breath, and replied with the utmost intensity. “Yes.” The lives of Peter, Liesl, and who knew how many others had been its guarantors of authenticity.

  “But Sigma was a myth! An old wives’ tale! We’d all satisfied ourselves that it was.”

  “Then you do know of it?”

  Lenz leaned forward. “You have to remember that in the tumult following the war, there were all sorts of wild tales. One of those was the legend of Sigma, vague and shrouded as it was. That some sort of alliance was forged among the major industrialists of the world.” He pointed at two faces. “That men like Sir Alford Kittredge and Wolfgang Siebing, one revered and one reviled, made common cause. That they met in secrecy, and forged a clandestine pact.”

  “And what was the nature of that pact?”

  Lenz shook his head hopelessly. “I wish I knew, Mr. Hartman—may I call you Ben? I’m sorry. I’d never taken the stories seriously until now.”

  “And your own father’s involvement?”

  Lenz shook his head slowly. “You’re exceeding my own knowledge. Perhaps Jakob Sonnenfeld would know of these things.”

  Sonnenfeld—Sonnenfeld was the most prominent Nazi hunter alive. “Would he help me?”

  “Speaking as a major benefactor of his institute,” Lenz replied, “I am certain he’ll do his best.” He poured himself a fortifying quantity of spirits. “We’ve been dancing around one issue, haven’t we? You still haven’t explained how you came to be involved in all of this.”

  “Do you recognize the man next to your father?”

  “No,” Lenz said. He squinted. “He looks a little like … but that’s not possible either.”

  “Yes. That’s my father next to yours.” Ben’s voice was flatly declarative.

  “That makes no sense,” Lenz protested. “Everyone in my world knows about your father. He’s a major philanthropist. A force for good. And a Holocaust survivor, of course. Yes, it looks like him—like you, in fact. But I repeat: that makes no sense.”

  Ben laughed bitterly. “I’m sorry. But things stopped making sense for me when my old college buddy tried to murder me on the Bahnhofstrasse.”

  Lenz’s eyes looked sorrowful. “Tell me how you found this.”

  Ben told Lenz about the events of the past several days, trying to stay as dispassionate as he could.

  “Then you, too, know danger,” Lenz said solemnly. “There are filaments, invisible filaments, that link this photograph to those deaths.”

  Frustration welled up in Ben as he struggled to make some sense of everything Lenz was telling him, tried to rearrange the pieces of information to make a coherent picture. Instead of becoming clearer, things were even more bewildering, more maddening.

  Ben was first conscious of Ilse’s return to the room from the scent of her perfume.

  “This young man brings danger,” she said to her husband, and her voice was like sandpaper. She turned to Ben. “Forgive me, but I cannot keep silent any longer. You bring death to this house. My husband has been menaced by extremists for so many years because of his fight for justice. I am sorry for what you have undergone. But you are careless, the way you Americans always are. You come to see my husband under false pretenses, pursuing some private vendetta of your own.”

  “Please, Ilse,” Lenz interjected.

  “And now you have brought death here with you, like an unannounced guest. I would be grateful to you if you would leave my house. My husband has done enough for the cause. Must he give his life for it, too?”

  “Ilse is upset,” Lenz said apologetically. “There are aspects of my life that she has never grown accustomed to.”

  “No,” Ben said. “She’s probably right. I’ve already put too many lives in jeopardy.” His voice was hollow.

  Ilse’s face was a mask, the muscles immobilized by fear. “Gute Nacht,” she said with quiet finality.

  Walking Ben to the foyer, Lenz spoke with murmured urgency. “If you want, I’ll be glad to help you. To do what I can. Pull strings where I am able to, provide contacts. But Use is right about one thing. You can’t know what you’re up against. I’d advise you to be cautious, my friend.” There was something familiar about the harrowed look on Lenz’s face, and after a moment Ben realized that it reminded him of what he’d seen on Peter’s. Within both men, it seemed, a passion for justice had been worn down by vast forces, and yet it could be mistaken for nothing else.

  Ben left Lenz’s house, dazed. He was far over his head: why couldn’t he just admit that he was powerless, hopelessly unequipped for a task that had defeated his own brother? And the very facts he had already established now ground deeper into his psyche, like glass shards under his feet. Max Hartman, philanthropist, Holocaust survivor, humanitarian—was he, in fact, a man like Gerhard Lenz, a confederate in barbarity? It was sickening to contemplate. Might Max have been complicit in Peter’s murder? Was the man behind his own son’s death?

  Was this why he’d suddenly disappeared? So he wouldn’t have to face his own exposure? And what about the complicity of the CIA? How the hell did an Obersturmführer in Hitler’s SS come to emigrate and settle in the States, if not with help from the U.S. government? Were allies of his, very old friends indeed, behind the horrific events? Was there some chance they were doing it on his father’s behalf—to protect him and themselves as well—without the old man’s knowledge?

  You talk of things you cannot understand, his father had said, speaking past him as much as to him.

  Ben was seized with conflicting emotions. Part of him, the devoted, loyal son, wanted to believe that there was some other explanation, had wanted to since Peter’s revelations. Some reason to believe his own father was not a … a what? A monster. He heard his mother’s voice, whispering as she died, pleading with him to understand, to try to heal the breach, to get along. To love this complicated, difficult man who was Max Hartman.

  While another part of Ben felt a welcome clarity.

  I’ve worked hard to understand you, you bastard! Ben found himself shouting inwardly. I’ve tried to love you. But a deception like this, the ugliness of your real life—how can I feel anything but hatred?

  He had parked, once again, a good distance from Lenz’s house. He did not want his license plates to be traced back to him; at least, that had been his thinking before, when he had assumed Lenz was one of the conspirators.

  He walked down the path in front of Lenz’s house. Just before he reached the street, he saw, in his peripheral vision, a light come on.

  It was the interior dome light of a car, just a few yards away.

  Someone was getting out of the car and walking toward him.

  Trevor saw a light come on across the street and turned his head to look. The front door was open. The target was chatting with an older gentleman, whom he assumed was Lenz. Trevor waited until the two men had shaken hands and the target was strolling down the front path before he got out of the car.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “I want you to run the plates,” Heisler said on the police radio. He turned to Anna. “If is not you, and not us, then who is it? You must have some idea.”

  “Someone who’s also staking out the house,” she said. “I don’t like this.”

  She thought: Something else is going on here. Should I tell Heisler my suspicions about Hartman? Yet it was such a half-baked bit of speculation—after all, what if Hartman was there simply to get information out of Lenz, information about where some of his father’s old friends might be living—and not to kill him?