"Someones alive. Someone very wealthy and powerful."

"Obviously."

"So the compulsion to catch the Tinamou is replaced by an obsession with the Nachrichtendienst."

"A logical transfer, Id say," agreed Payton-Jones. "And I should add, theres another reason-quite professional, but also part personal. Im convinced the Nachrichtendienst killed a young man I trained."

"Who was he?"

"My assistant. As committed as any man Ive ever met in service. His body was found in a small village called Montereau some sixty miles south of Paris. He went to France initially to track Holcroft, but found that Holcroft was a dead end."

"What do you think happened?"

"I know what happened. Remember, he was after the Tinamou. When Holcroft proved to be only what he said he was-a man looking for you because of a minor inheritance-"

"Very minor," interrupted Tennyson.

"... our young man went underground. He was a first-rate professional; he made progress. More than that, he made a connection. He had to have made a connection. The Tinamou, the Nachrichtendienst ... Paris. Everything fits."

"Why does it fit?"

"Theres a name on that list. A man living near Paris-we dont know where-who was a general in the German High Command. Klaus Falkenheim. But he was more than that. We believe he was a prime mover of the Nachrichtendienst, one of the original members. Hes known as Herr Oberst."

John Tennyson stood rigidly by the chair. "You have my word," he said. "Ill print nothing."

Holcroft sat forward on the couch, the newspaper in his hand. The headline reached from border to border. It said it all.

ASSASSIN TRAPPED, KILLED IN LONDON.

Nearly every article on the page was related to the dramatic capture and subsequent death of the Tinamou. There were stories reaching back fifteen years, linking the Tinamou to both Kennedys and to Martin Luther King, as well as to Oswald and Ruby; more recent speculations touched on killings in Madrid and Beirut, Paris and Lisbon, Prague and even Moscow itself.

The unknown man with the rose tattoo on his hand was an instant legend. Tattoo parlors from cities everywhere reported a surge in business.

"My God, he did it," said Noel.

"Yet his name isnt mentioned anywhere," Helden said. "Its unlike Johann to give up credit in something as extraordinary as this."

"You said hed changed, that Geneva had affected him. I believe that. The man I talked to wasnt concerned with himself. I told him that the bank in Geneva didnt want complications. The directors would be looking for anything that might disqualify one of us, that would put the money in potentially compromising circumstances. A man whos placed himself in a dangerous situation, whos had to deal with the kind of people your brothers had to deal with in tracking the Tinamou, could scare the hell out of the bankers."

"But you and my brother say theres someone more powerful than the Rache or the ODESSA-or Wolfsschanze-whos trying to stop you. How do you think the men in Geneva will accept all that?"

"Theyll be told only what they have to be told," said Holcroft. "Which may be nothing, if your brother and I find out who it is."

"Can you?"

"Maybe. Johann thinks so, and God knows hes had more experience in these matters than Ive had. Its been a crazy process of elimination. First were convinced its one thing-one group-then another; then it turns out to be neither."

"You mean the ODESSA and the Rache?"

"Yes. Theyre eliminated. Now were looking for someone else. All we need is a name, an identity."

"What will you do when you find it?"

"I dont know," Holcroft said. "I hope your brother will tell me. I just know that whatever we do, weve got to do it quickly. Miles will get to me in a few days. Hes going to connect me publicly to homicides ranging from Kennedy Airport to the Plaza Hotel. Hell ask for extradition, and hell get it. If that happens, Genevas finished, and for all intents and purposes, so am I."

"If they can find you," said Helden. "We have ways ..."

Noel stared at her. "No," he replied. "Im not going to live with three changes of clothing and rubber-soled shoes and guns with silencers. I want you to be a part of my life, but I wont be a part of yours."

"You may not have a choice."

The telephone rang, startling them both. Holcroft picked it up.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Fresca."

It was Tennyson.

"Can you talk?" asked Noel.

"Yes. This telephone is fine, and I doubt the George Cinq switchboard is interested in a routine call from London. Still, we should be careful."

"I understand. Congratulations. You did what you said you would."

"I had a great deal of help."

"You worked with the British?"

"Yes. You were right. I should have done so a long time ago. They were splendid."

"Im glad to hear it. Its nice to know we have friends."

"More than that. We have the identity of Genevas enemy."

"What?"

"We have the names. We can move against them now. We must move against them; the killing must stop."

"How?..."

"Ill explain when I see you. Your friend Kessler was close to the truth."

"A splinter faction of ODESSA?"

"Be careful," interrupted Tennyson. "Lets say a group of tired old men with too much money and a vendetta that goes back to the end of the war."

"What do we do?"

"Perhaps very little. The British may do it for us."

"They know about Geneva?"

"No. They simply understand a debt."

"Its more than we could ask for."

"No more than we deserve," said Tennyson. "If I may say so."

"You may. These ... old men. They were responsible for everything? Including New York?"

"Yes."

"Then Im clear."

"You will be shortly."

"Thank Christ!" Noel looked at Helden across the room and smiled. "What do you want me to do?"

"Its Wednesday. Be in Geneva Friday night. Ill see you then. Ill take the late flight from Heathrow and get there by eleven-thirty or midnight. Call Kessler in Berlin; tell him to join us."

"Why not today, or tomorrow?"

"Ive got things to do. Theyll be helpful to us. Make it Friday. Do you have a hotel?"

"Yes. The dAccord. My mothers flying to Geneva. She got word to me to stay there."

There was a silence on the line from London. Finally, Tennyson spoke, his voice a whisper. "What did you say?"

"My mothers flying to Geneva."

"Well talk later," said Heldens brother, barely audibly. "Ive got to go."

Tennyson replaced the phone on the small table in his Kensington flat. As always, he detested the instrument when it was the carrier of unexpected news. News in this case that could be as dangerous as the emergence of the Nachrichtendienst.

What insanity had made Althene Clausen decide to fly to Geneva? It was never part of the plan-as she understood the plan. Did the old woman think she could travel to Switzerland without arousing suspicions, especially now? Or perhaps the years had made her careless. In that event she would not live long enough to regret her indiscretion. Perhaps, again, she had divided loyalties-as she understood those loyalties. If so, she would be reminded of her priorities before she took leave of a life in which she had abused so many.

So be it. He had his own priorities; she would take her place among them. The covenant of Wolfsschanze was about to be fulfilled. Everything was timing now.

First the lists. There were two, and they were the key to Wolfsschanze. One was eleven pages in length, with the names of nearly sixteen hundred men and women-powerful men and women in every country in the world. These were the elite of the Sonnenkinder, the leaders waiting for the signal from Geneva, waiting to receive the millions that would purchase influence, buy elections, shape policies. This was the primary list, and with it would emerge the outlines of the Fourth Reich.

But outlines required substance, depth. Leaders needed followers. These would come with the second list, this one in the form of a hundred spools of film. The master list. Microdot records of their people in every part of the globe. By now, thousands upon thousands, begat and recruited by the children sent out of the Reich by ship and plane and submarine.

Operation Sonnenkinder.

The lists, the names. One copy only, never to be duplicated, guarded as closely as any holy grail. For years they had been kept and updated by Maurice Graff in Brazil, then presented to Johann von Tiebolt on his twenty-fifth birthday. The ceremony signified the transfer of power; the chosen new absolute leader had exceeded all expectations.

John Tennyson had brought the lists to England, knowing it was imperative to find a repository safer than any bank, more removed from potential scrutiny than any vault in London. He had found his secret place in an obscure mining town in Wales, with a Sonnenkind who would gladly give his life to protect the precious documents.

Ian Llewellen: brother of Morgan, second-in-command of Beaumonts Argo.

And it was nearly time for the Welshman to arrive. After he had delivered his cargo, the loyal Sonnenkind would make the sacrifice he had pleaded to make only days ago when they drove down the highway from Heathrow. His death was mandatory; no one could be aware of those lists, those names. When that sacrifice was made, only two men on earth would have the key to Wolfsschanze. One a quiet professor of history in Berlin, the other a man revered by British Intelligence-above suspicion.

Nachrichtendienst. The next priority.

Tennyson stared at the sheet of paper next to the telephone; it had been there for several hours. It was another list-light-years away from the Sonnenkinder-given him by Payton-Jones. It was the Nachrichtendienst.

Eight names, eight men. And what the British had not learned in two days he had learned in less than two hours. Five of those men were dead. Three remained, one of them now close to death in a sanatorium outside of Stuttgart. That left two: the traitor, Klaus Falkenheim, known as Herr Oberst, and a former diplomat of eighty-three named Werner Gerhardt, who lived quietly in a Swiss village on Lake Neuchtel.

But old men did not travel in transatlantic aircraft and put strychnine in glasses of whiskey. They did not beat a man unconscious for a photograph. They did not fire guns at that same man in a French village or assault that man in a back alley in Berlin.

The Nachrichtendienst had indoctrinated younger, very capable disciples. Indoctrinated them to the point of absolute commitment ... as the disciples of Wolfsschanze were committed.

Nachrichtendienst! Falkenheim, Gerhardt. How long had they known about Wolfsschanze?

Tomorrow he would find out. In the morning he would take a plane to Paris, and call on Falkenheim, on the hated Herr Oberst. Consummate actor, consummate garbage. Betrayer of the Reich.

Tomorrow he would call on Falkenheim and break him. Then kill him.

A car horn sounded from outside. Tennyson looked at his watch as he walked to the window. Eight oclock precisely. Down in the street was the Welshmans automobile, and inside, sealed in a steel carton, were the lists.

Tennyson took a gun from a drawer and shoved it into the holster strapped to his shoulder.

He wished the events of the night were over and he was on the plane to Paris. He could hardly wait to confront Klaus Falkenheim.

Holcroft sat silently on the couch in the semidarkness, the glow of an unseen moon filling the windows. It was four in the morning. He smoked a cigarette. He had opened his eyes fifteen minutes ago and had not been able to go back to sleep, his thoughts on the girl beside him.

Helden. She was the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life, yet she would not tell him where she lived or whom she lived with. It was past flippancy now; he was not interested in games any longer.

"Noel?" Heldens voice floated across the shadows.

"Yes?"

"Whats the matter, darling?"

"Nothing. Just thinking."

"Ive been thinking, too."

"I thought you were asleep."

"I felt you get out of bed. What are you thinking about?"

"A lot of things," he said. "Mostly Geneva. Itll be over soon. Youre going to be able to stop running; so am I."

"Thats what Ive been thinking about." She smiled at him. "I want to tell you my secret."

"Secret?"

"Its not much of one, but I want to see your face when I tell you. Come here."