A waiter deposited the glass in front of Holcroft, then stepped back and drew the red-checked curtain across the booth.

"As I said, its part of the story." Noel drank.

"Take your time. Theres no hurry."

"You said you had guests at your house."

"A guest. A friend of my brothers, from Mnchen. Hes a delightful fellow, but long-winded. A trait not unknown among doctors. Youve rescued me for the evening."

"Wont your wife be upset?"

"Im not married. I was, but Im afraid university life was rather confining for her."

"Im sorry."

"Shes not. She married an acrobat. Can you imagine? From the academic groves to the rarefied heights of alternating trapezes. Were still good friends."

"I think it would be difficult not to be friendly with you."

"Oh, Im a terror in the lecture rooms. A veritable lion."

"Who roars but cant bring himself to bite," said Noel.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. I was remembering a conversation I had last night. With someone else."

"Feeling better?"

"Thats funny."

"What is?"

"Thats what I said last night."

"With this someone else?" Kessler smiled again. "Your face seems more relaxed."

"If it was any more relaxed, itd be draped over the table."

"Perhaps some food?"

"Not yet. Id like to start; theres a great deal to tell you, and youre going to have a lot of questions."

"Then I shall listen carefully. Oh, I forgot. Your briefcase."

The German reached beside him and lifted the attache case to the top of the table.

Holcroft unlocked the case, but did not open it "There are papers in here youll want to study. Theyre not complete, but theyll serve as confirmation for some of the things Im going to tell you."

"Confirmation? Are the things you say you must tell me so difficult to accept?"

"They may be," said Noel. He felt sorry for this good-natured scholar. The peaceful world he lived in was about to collapse around him. "What Im going to say to you may interrupt your life, as it has mine. I dont think that can be avoided. At least, I couldnt avoid it, because I couldnt walk away from it. Part of the reason was selfish; theres a great deal of money involved that will come to me personally-as it will come to you. But there are other factors that are much more important than either you or me. I know thats true, because if it werent, Id have run away by now. But I wont run. Im going to do what Ive been asked to do because its right. And because there are people I hate who want to stop me. They killed someone I loved very much. They tried to kill another." Holcroft stopped suddenly; he had not meant to go this far. The fear and the rage were coming together. He had lost control; he was talking too much. "Im sorry. I could be reading a lot of things into all this that dont belong. I dont mean to frighten you."

Kessler put his hand on Noels arm. "Frightening me isnt a concern. Youre overwrought and exhausted, my friend. Apparently, terrible things have happened to you."

Holcroft drank several swallows of whiskey, trying to numb the pain in his groin and his neck. "I wont lie. They have. But I didnt want to start this way. It wasnt very bright."

Kessler removed his hand from Noels arm. "Let me say something. Ive known you less than five minutes, and I dont think being bright is relevant. Youre obviously a highly intelligent man-a very honest one, too-and youve been under a great strain. Why not simply start at the beginning without worrying how it affects me?"

"Okay." Holcroft put his arms on the table, his hands around the glass of whiskey. "Ill begin by asking you if youve ever heard the names Von Tiebolt and ... Clausen."

Kessler stared at Noel for a moment "Yes," he said. "They go back many years-to when I was a child-but of course Ive heard them. Clausen and Von Tiebolt. They were friends of my fathers. I was very young, around ten or eleven. They came to our house frequently, if I recall, at the end of the war. I do remember Clausen; at least I think I do. He was a tall man and quite magnetic."

"Tell me about him."

"Theres not much I can remember."

"Anything can. Please."

"Again, Im not sure how to put it. Clausen dominated a room without making any effort to do so. When he spoke, everyone listened, yet I dont recall his ever raising his voice. He seemed to be a kind man, concerned for others, but extremely strong willed. I thought once-and remember, these were the thoughts of a child-that he was someone who had lived with much pain."

A man in agony had cried out to him. "What kind of pain?"

"I have no idea; it was only a childs impression. You would have to have seen his eyes to understand. No matter whom he looked at, young or old, important or not, he gave that person his full concentration. I do remember that; it was not a common trait in those days. In a way, I picture Clausen more clearly than I do my own father, and certainly more than Von Tiebolt. Why are you interested in him?"

"He was my father."

Kesslers mouth opened in astonishment "You?" he whispered. "Clausens son?"

Noel nodded. "My natural father, not the father I knew."

"Then your mother was ..." Kessler stopped.

"Althene Clausen. Did you ever hear anyone speak of her?"

"Never by name, and never in Clausens presence. Ever. She was spoken of in whispers. The woman who left the great man, the American enemy who fled the fatherland with their-You! You were the child she took from him!"

"Took with her, kept from him, is the way she puts it."

"Shes still alive?"

"Very much so."

"Its all so incredible." Kessler shook his head. "After all these years, a man I remember so vividly. He was extraordinary."

"They were all extraordinary."

"Who?"

"The three of them. Clausen, Von Tiebolt, and Kessler. Tell me, do you know how your father died?"

"He killed himself. It was not unusual then. When the Reich collapsed, a lot of people did. For most of them it was easier that way."

"For some it was the only way."

"Nrnberg?"

"No, Geneva. To protect Geneva."

"I dont understand you."

"You will." Holcroft opened his attache case, took out the pages he had clipped together, and gave them to Kessler. "Theres a bank in Geneva that has an account that can be released for specific purposes only by the consent of three people...."

As he had done twice before, Noel told the story of the massive theft of over thirty years ago. But with Kessler, he told it all. He did not, as he had done with Gretchen, withhold specific facts; nor did he tell the story in stages, as he had with Helden. He left out nothing.

"... monies were intercepted from the occupied countries, from the sales of art objects and the looting of museums. Wehrmacht payrolls were rerouted, millions stolen from the Ministry of Armaments and the-I cant remember the name, its in the letter-but from the industrial complex. Everything was banked in Switzerland, in Geneva, with the help of a man named Manfredi."

"Manfredi? I remember the name."

"Its not surprising," said Holcroft. "Although I dont imagine he was mentioned too frequently. Where did you hear it?"

"I dont know. After the war, I think."

"From your mother?"

"I dont think so. She died in July of forty-five and was in the hospital for most of the time. From someone else... I dont know."

"Where did you live, with your father and mother dead?"

"My brother and I moved in with our uncle, my mothers brother. It was lucky for us. He was an older man and never had much use for the Nazis. He found favor with the occupation forces. But please, go on."

Noel did. He detailed the conditions of competence required by the directors of La Grande Banque de Geneve, which led him into the dismissal of Gretchen Beaumont. He told Kessler of the Von Tiebolts clouded migration to Rio, the birth of Helden, the killing of their mother, and their eventual flight from Brazil.

"They took the name of Tennyson and have been living in England for the past five years. Johann von Tiebolt is known as John Tennyson. Hes a reporter for the Guardian. Gretchen married a man named Beaumont and Helden moved several months ago to Paris. I havent met the brother, but Ive ... become friends with Helden. Shes a remarkable girl."

"Is she the 'someone else you were with last night?"

"Yes," replied Holcroft. "I want to tell you about her, what shes gone through, what shes going through now. She and thousands like her are part of the story."

"I think I may know," said Kessler. "Die Verwnschte Kinder."

"The what?"

"The Verwnschte Kinder. Verwnschung is German for a curse. Or one damned."

"The Children of the Damned," said Noel. "She used the expression."

"Its a term they gave themselves. Thousands of young people-not so young now-who fled the country because they convinced themselves they couldnt live with the guilt of Nazi Germany. They rejected everything German, sought new identities, new life-styles. Theyre very much like those hordes of young Americans who left the United States for Canada and Sweden in protest against the Vietnam policies. These groups form subcultures, but none can really reject their roots. They are German; they are American. They migrate in packs and cling together, taking strength from the very pasts theyve rejected. The proddings of guilt are a heavy burden. Can you understand?"

"Not really," said Holcroft. "But then, Im not built that way. Im not going to take on a guilt that isnt mine."

Kessler looked into Noels eyes. "I submit you may have. You say you wont run from this covenant of yours, yet terrible things have happened to you."

Holcroft considered the scholars words. "There may be some truth in that, but the circumstances are different. I didnt leave anything. I guess I was selected."

"Not part of the damned," said Kessler, "but part of the chosen?"

"Privileged, anyway."

The scholar nodded. "Theres a word for that, too. Perhaps youve heard of it Sonnenkinder."

"Sonnenkinder?" Noel frowned. "If I remember, it was in one of those courses I didnt exactly shine in. Anthropology, maybe."

"Or philosophy," suggested Kessler. "Its a philosophical concept developed by Thomas J. Perry, in England in the nineteen-twenties, and before him by Bachofen, in Switzerland, and by his disciples in Mnchen. The theory being that the Sonnenkinder-the Children of the Sun-have been with us throughout the ages. Theyre the shapers of history, the most brilliant among us, rulers of epochs ... the privileged."

Holcroft nodded. "I remember now. They were ruined by that privilege of theirs. They became depraved, or something. Incestuous, I think."

"Its only a theory," said Kessler. "Were straying again; youre an easy man to talk to. You were saying about this Von Tiebolt daughter that life is difficult for her."

"For all of them. And more than difficult. Its crazy. Theyre running all the time. They have to live like fugitives."

"Theyre easy prey for fanatics," agreed Erich.

"Like the ODESSA and the Rache?"

"Yes. Such organizations cant function efficiently within Germany itself; theyre not tolerated. So they operate in other countries where disaffected expatriates such as the Verwnschkinder have gravitated. They want only to stay alive and vital, waiting for the chance to return to Germany."

"Return?"

Kessler held up his hand. "Please God, they never will, but they cant accept that. The Rache once wanted the Bonn government to be an arm of the Comintern, but even Moscow rejected them; theyve become nothing more than terrorists. The ODESSA have always wanted to revive Nazism. Theyre scorned in Germany."

"Still, they go after the children," said Noel. "Helden used the phrase 'damned for what they were, damned for what they werent. "

"An apt judgment."

"They should be stopped. Some of that money in Geneva should be used to cripple the ODESSA and the Rache."

"I wouldnt disagree with you."

"Im glad to hear that," said Holcroft. "Lets get back to Geneva."

"By all means."

Noel had covered the objectives of the covenant and defined the conditions demanded of the inheritors. It was time to concentrate on what had happened to him.

He began with the murder on the plane, the terror in New York, the rearranged apartment, the letter from the men of Wolfsschanze, the telephone call from Peter Baldwin and the subsequent brutal killings it engendered. He spoke of the flight to Rio and a man with thick eyebrows: Anthony Beaumont, ODESSA agent. He told of the doctored records at Rios Department of Immigration and the strange meeting with Maurice Graff. He emphasized MI Fives intrusion in London and the astonishing news that British Intelligence believed Johann von Tiebolt was the assassin they called the Tinamou.

"The Tinamou?" broke in Kessler, stunned, his face flushed. It was his first interruption of Holcrofts narrative.