choppers had Kellerman Namcorp inscribed on the side. Its propellers were already turning.
David turned to Angus and said: 'But where are we going?'
'Amsterdam — '
'Yes, but then?'
'Zbiroh! An SS castle. Bohemia! I'll explain later — mate, we gotta hurry, Miguel is still out there — '
They ran across the flatness. A man with a low slung sub-machine gun was standing by the helicopter, he stared at them, astonished, as they ducked under the whumping blades.
'Angus?'
'Roger!'
The black man smiled.
'Angus my man!'
Angus was shouting above the loud churn of the spinning chopper blades. Something passed between them. Something from the black velvet pouch? David guessed it was diamonds. Maybe. Roger did a nodding salute.
'Get in!' said Angus. Roger was shouting at all of them, gesturing them into the chopper. Quickly!
David and Amy climbed in, and sat on the first seats they could find. Angus joined them, his face strained and exhausted. They strapped up, and even as their safety belts clicked, the chopper lifted up.
They were flying.
David stared down. Roger was a small figure now. Looking up at them with a hand to shield his eyes from the sand. David blinked and looked a kilometre south. A wild horse was cantering across the wasteland.
Then the clouds of dust intervened, and all was blank.
45
2:58
2:59
3:00
There was no sign of him. David glanced warily at the station clock.
3:02
3:03
3:04
Angus was by his side, saying nothing — for once. The tension evident in his face. Amy looked pensive to the point of depression.
What did she know? She had been noticeably different since they landed in Amsterdam and made their way across Germany, to Nuremburg Station where they had agreed to meet Simon. Why? Maybe she now suspected he was Cagot, or maybe she was merely reacting to his changed mood, his sudden intense anxiety. His distant chilliness, his violent moodswings, as he ransacked himself for answers or solace or quiescence.
He'd stopped making love to her. He couldn't do it any more. Once they had been rough, playful, sharply passionate. And now? He could see himself biting her, that white female flesh, and drawing blood.
It was an abyss, and he had to look into it, he had to reach far inside his soul, to get a hold of his essential self. Because he needed his last reserves of equanimity, for the crucial hours ahead. The crucial days, the crucial minutes.
3:07
3:08
3:09
Maybe Simon wasn't coming. They had sent one email from Amsterdam, and had got one quickly in return: Yes.
There had also been one other email in David's inbox, a very surprising email — from Frank Antonescu. His granddad's old lawyer in Phoenix had been doing some research of his own, and, through a contact at the IRS — who apparently owed him a favour — had eventually, 'after a lot of grafting and grifting!' worked out where the money came from.
The Catholic church.
The money was, Antonescu wrote, 'Paid not just to your grandfather but to a number of people immediately after the war. It was known as 'Gurs money'. I have no idea why. The fellow at the IRS was similarly mystified.'
So that was another joist of an answer — in the rising structure of a solution. But the full edifice would only be revealed when they got to Zbiroh. And found the Fischer results.
3:16
3:17
3:18
Was Simon ever coming? Maybe something terrible had happened to him. Maybe Miguel had got there first.
'There!' said Amy.
A slightly scruffy, breathless, freckled, fair-haired man of about forty came running along the concourse. He stared at Amy and David -
'David Martinez!'
'Simon Quinn?'
The older man, the Irish journalist, glanced at the three of them, and smiled, shyly.
'You must be Amy. And you…'
'Angus Nairn.'
Hands were shaken, formal introductions made. But then David and Simon looked long and hard at each other and the absurdity of their formality became apparent to both of them — at the same time.
They hugged. David embraced this man he had never met — like a lost brother. Or like the sibling he'd never had.
And then the tension, the spiralling terror of the situation, recrudesced. Amy reminded them, as she had reminded them repeatedly for the last three days:
'Miguel is still after us…'
Amy's fear of Miguel seemed to have grown since they fled Namibia. And maybe, David surmised, that was adding to her depression. The relentlessness of their pursuer was destroying her will. Perhaps she was actually resigned to Miguel's triumph. He always found them in the end; maybe the Wolf would find them this time, and finish the job.
Unless they got to the data first.
They went quickly to the hire car.
Angus was in charge of the map. He directed them out of the suburbs of Nuremburg, into the undulating countryside, and onto the Czech border. As they went, Simon confessed: he told them of his brother being held by the Society. Kidnapped and brutalized.
Even from the driver's seat, David could see the grief in Simon's eyes. The grief — and the guilt. No one spoke for a good few minutes when Simon finished his confession. The fate of this man, Tim, was also in their hands.
It was too much.
The frontier approached. The old Iron Curtain. In nearby fields, useless and rusting, stood derelict watchtowers and old coils of barbed wire. But the contemporary border was just one bright glass office — entirely empty. They didn't even have to show passports.
Simon spoke:
'Why Nuremburg? Why meet there?'
Angus explained that they wanted to convene in a big anonymous city, across the border from the Czech Republic. To confuse anyone who might be following.
Simon nodded.
