"But how did your mother and father survive?"

"They were young and strong. They agreed to do the work--removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning them--that even the SS couldn't stomach. That's why my parents didn't talk about the war. They survived at the expense of other Jews."

"What other choice did they have? As long as they didn't collaborate with the Nazis, as long as they didn't participate in the killing, they had to do what they could to stay alive."

"The first and last time my father talked to me about it, he said he could justify what he did in his mind--but not in his soul. I always thought that's why he joined the Mossad and dedicated his life to

Israel. To try to make amends."

"But even helping to dispose of the bodies would have given your parents just a temporary reprieve. The Nazis fed slave laborers almost nothing.

Eventually your parents would have been too weak to work. The SS would have killed them and forced other Jews to dispose of the bodies."

Treblinka," she said. "Remember where this happened." He suddenly realized what she meant. The prisoners at Treblinka had revolted against their guards. Using shovels and clubs as weapons, more than fifty bad subdued their captors and managed to escape. "Your parents took part in the revolt?"

"First in Warsaw, then at Treblinka." She smiled wanly. "You've got to give them credit for persistence." Saul felt her pride and shared it, squeezing her hand again. He scanned the wall. "An obsession. A lifetime's worth. And you never suspected."

"No one else did either. He couldn't have kept his position in the

Mossad if they'd known what was festering in his mind. They don't trust fanatics." She seemed startled by a thought.

"What's wrong?"

"My mother died five years ago. That's when he asked to retire from the

Mossad, moved from Israel to here, and in secret began setting up this room."

"You're saying, your mother was the controlling influence?"

"Subduing his obsession. And when she died..."

"His obsession took over." Saul imagined ghosts around him. "God help him."

"If he's still alive."

"This room... Have we found the reason he disappeared?"

"And if we have, was he taken?" Erika asked. "Or did he run?"

"From what?"

"His past" As Erika's expression became more grim, he spoke before he realized. "You don't mean... suicide?"

"An hour ago, if anyone had suggested it, I'd have said my father was too strong to give up, too brave to destroy himself. But now I'm not sure. This room... His guilt must have been intolerable."

"Or his hatred for those who'd made him feel guilty." On the counter, an open book--spread with its pages flat, straining the spine--attracted

Saul's attention. He picked it up and read the tide. The Order of the

Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. The author was Heinz Hohne, the text in German, its publication date 1966. Where the pages had been spread open, a passage was underlined in black. Saul mentally translated.

The sensational fact, the really horrifying feature, of the annihilation of the Jews was that thousands of respectable fathers of families made murder their official business and yet, when off duty, still regarded themselves as ordinary law-abiding citizens who were incapable even of thinking of straying from the strict path of virtue.

Sadism was only one facet of mass extermination and one disapproved of by SS Headquarters. Himmler's maxim was that mass extermination must be carried out coolly and cleanly; even while obeying the official order to commit murder, the SS man must remain "decent"

"Decent?" Saul murmured with disgust In the margin beside the passage, a cramped hand holding a black-inked pen had scribbled several words in

Hebrew--two groups of them. "My father's handwriting," Erika said.

"You're the expert in Hebrew."

"They're quotations. Prom Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I think. The first group says, "The horror, the horror.'"

"And the second group?" She hesitated. "What's the matter?"

She didn't answer. "You're having trouble translating?"

"No, I can translate."

"Then?"

"They're from Heart of Darkness as well... "Exterminate the brutes.'"

An hour of searching brought them back to the confusion with which they'd started. In that shadowy room, Saul finally couldn't bear it any longer. He had to get away. Erika closed a box of documents. "How could my father have come back repeatedly to pin those photographs to the wall and go through these records? The persistent exposure must have affected him."

"There's still no proof he committed suicide."

"There's no proof he didn't either," Erika responded grimly. They extinguished the lamp and stated up the stairs. In the darkness, Saul suddenly remembered something. He gripped Erika's shoulder. "There's one place we didn't look." He guided her back down the stairs, scanning the flashlight along the floor. "What are you.."

"Misha wouldn't tell us what we'd find down here. He didn't want us to have preconceptions. But inadvertently he did tell us something about this room. During the war, the doctor hid his sick est Jewish patients down here. And also hid their files."

"He said that, yes. But how does... ?" Erika's voice dropped. "Oh."

"Yes, job" The doctor hid the files beneath the floor, Misha said. There must be a trap door."

Saul scanned the flashlight across the floor. In a corner, behind a stack of boxes, he found a layer of dust mat seemed contrived. He felt a niche where fingers could grab and lifted a small section of concrete.

A narrow compartment. The stark gleam from the flashlight revealed a dusty notebook. Saul flipped it open. Though the words were written in

Hebrew, Saul couldn't fail to recognize a list. Of names.

Ten of them. All Jewish.

The rain persisted. Christopher slept on the sofa. Beside him, Misha stared toward the open bedroom door. Saul stepped through, gesturing angrily with the notebook. "So you found it," Misha said. Erika entered, even more angry. "We almost didn't. That makes me wonder if you meant for us to find it."

"I wasn't sure."

"Whether you wanted us to find it, or whether we would?"