The Black Sun (21 page)

“Welcome

to

Banque

Völz,

gentlemen.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

1:10 p.m.

My apologies. Please forgive the little misunderstanding earlier.” Völz’s frosty welcome had given way to candied smiles and a warm stream of apologies. “Don’t worry about it,” said Tom, sipping the coffee that Völz had insisted on ordering for them. “It’s just that we get so many people trying their luck that we have to be cautious.”

“What are they looking for?” Archie asked.

“What is everyone looking for in Switzerland? Money. In our case, either accounts abandoned by Holocaust victims or something else to sue us for. My father was wise enough to shut down the safety-deposit business and contribute all unclaimed assets to the Holocaust survivors’ fund to avoid any future . . . complications.”

“But not all the boxes were shut?” Archie again.

“Of course not.” Völz smiled proudly. “We are a bank, after all. Our first duty is to our customers, not to the Jewish lobby.” Tom bit his lip. “Here at Banque Völz, we never forget that.”

“I’m

glad

to

hear

it.

And

our

account

.

.

.

?”

the black sun 179

“Is exactly as was initially instructed. Nothing has been touched.”

“Excellent.”

“Not since it was last accessed, at least.”

“Which was when, exactly?” Archie asked.

Völz removed his glasses and consulted his screen. “May 1958.”

Tom glanced at Archie. The same year Lammers had posted the photos of the three Bellak paintings to Weiss-man, according to the postmark.

“A long time,” said Tom. “All the more reason—if you don’t mind, Herr Völz—not to delay any longer.”

“Of course, of course.” Völz leaped to his feet. “Follow me, gentlemen.”

He led them past the secretaries into the hall and then through another doorway into a large square-shaped stairwell. Here, three shallow flights of stone steps, each connected by a broad landing, marched their way up to the first and then to the second floor. Above, a slate sky glowered through a glass cupola.

A door was set into the wall under the staircase, and it was to this that Völz went. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, reached in, and flicked a light switch, illuminating a narrow flight of dirty steps.

“The wine cellar,” Völz explained.

The stairs led down into a low room, perhaps twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide, that smelled old and musty. The only light came from a couple of weak lightbulbs that hung forlornly from the unfinished ceiling. The room was lined with wine racks cradling row upon row of dusty bottles, their labels worn and stained.

“Nice little collection you’ve got down here,” Archie observed appreciatively, pulling a bottle of Château Lafleur ’61 from the rack.

Völz went to a rack at the rear of the cellar and pulled it toward him. It swung forward to reveal a large steel door. Reaching into his pocket, he took out another key and unlocked it.

180 james twining

As the door opened, the lights inside blinked on, revealing a room of almost antiseptic whiteness, from the tiled rubber floor to the whitewashed walls and ceiling. It was quite empty apart from a stainless-steel table that took up the middle of the room, a flat-panel computer monitor set at chest height on the far wall, and, to the right of it, what looked like a steel drawer. Strangely, there were no sharp edges: every corner and angle was subtly rounded, as if shaped and smoothed by thousands of years of glacial meltwater.

“How many accounts do you have here?” Tom asked, careful to keep his tone casual. Völz rubbed his chin in thought. “Accounts like yours? We have about two hundred dating from the war that are still active.”

“How do you define ‘active’?”

“Ones for which we have contact addresses—post-office boxes mainly—for the designated account holders. That’s where we send essential information, such as the new key that was sent out when we upgraded the security system about three years ago. If it doesn’t get returned, we deem the account active.”

“And if they are returned?”

“It usually means that the original owners or trustees have died, and with them all knowledge of the box’s existence. But we hold the box for them all the same, just in case someone makes contact. You see, most of these boxes were taken out on ninety-nine-year leases, payable up front, so we have a duty to hold them until the end of the period. By the time the leases expire . . . Well, let’s just say that it probably won’t be my problem.”

He laughed and turned to the computer panel, tapping it lightly with his finger. Immediately the screen pulsed into life, displaying ten white question marks across its dark surface. He paused, then turned back to face them.

“The account number again, please.”

Tom typed in the code recovered from Weissman’s arm, selecting each number from a list at the bottom of the screen. The screen went blank, then flashed a greeting: the black sun 181

Wilkommen Konto: 1256093574 Kontoname: Werfen Bitte Schlüssel einführen
Account name Werfen, Tom mused. What or who was that? Völz interrupted his thoughts.

“Please insert your key,” he translated, pointing at the small square hole beneath the screen.

Tom slipped the key into the hole and a few seconds later a small graphic of a padlock opening confirmed that it had been successfully read by the lasers.

“Now the infrared,” Völz prompted.

Tom pressed the button on the key’s rubberized handle until another graphic of a door opening confirmed that the algorithms had matched. So far, so good.

“Well gentlemen, your key matches your account. So all that is left is the palm scan.”

“Herr Völz,” Tom said, turning to face him. “I wonder whether you could give my colleague and me a little privacy?”

“Of course,” said Völz. He was nothing if not the professional Swiss banker. “Just place your hand against this panel . . .” He indicated a glass plate on the left of the computer screen that Tom had not noticed before. “The system will retrieve your box and place it in here.” He pointed at the drawer front. “When you are finished, replace the box in the tray and the system will reset. I will come down and close the room up myself after you have gone.”

“Thank you for your help,” Tom said, shaking his hand.

As soon as the sound of the banker’s footsteps had receded up the stairs, Tom slid his briefcase onto the table and opened it. Weissman’s arm had been packed with ice and then sealed inside a clear plastic bag that had itself been covered with further ice packs. Even so, outside of a properly refrigerated environment it had begun to smell, and the flesh had turned a funny shade of yellow.

“Christ!” muttered Archie, peering over Tom’s shoulder. “That is rank.”

182 james twining

Breathing through his mouth, Tom reached into the bag and extracted the arm from under the ice, holding it just above the wrist. It felt hard and slippery, like a dead fish. Tom approached the glass panel and placed the lifeless hand against it. A crosshatch of red beams lit up from deep within the glass and scanned the hand’s surface. The screen flashed a warning.

“Scan failure,” Tom translated grimly.

“How many tries do we get?”

“Two more. Then it locks us out.”

“I hope we’ve got this right.”

“Turnbull told me that Weissman only traveled abroad once and that was three years ago to some conference in Geneva. The same time, according to what Völz just told us, that they upgraded the security system here. I doubt it’s a coincidence. Weissman could easily have got the train here, had his palm scanned into the system, and then got back to Geneva in time for dinner. No one would have suspected a thing.”

“Maybe the fingers need to be pressed harder against the glass,” Archie suggested. Tom pressed his own hand to the back of Weissman’s, forcing it flat. The red grid flared into life once more, then extinguished itself.

“Scan failure,” Tom said with a rueful shrug. “I think the reader’s picking up the edge of my fingers where they overlap. Maybe you should try. Your hands are a bit smaller than mine.”

“Okay,” said Archie, taking the arm and pressing his hand against Weissman’s so that the fingers were splayed across the glass. Again the laser grid scanned the hand. The screen went blank, then flashed up another message.

“Scan successful.” Tom breathed with relief.

Holding the arm between his fingertips and as far away from his body as he could, Archie dropped it back into the plastic bag, sealed it, and shut the briefcase with relief. There was a whirring noise from behind the wall. Tom glanced at Archie. They both knew what was happening, having studied the workings of these types of systems many times.

Somewhere

deep

below

where

they

were

now

stand

the black sun 183

ing, a robotic arm was matching their access details to one of the hundreds of barcoded boxes that were stacked on shallow trays in a fireproof vault. Once located, the box slid from its housing into a tray that carried it to the drawer. On cue, the drawer front buzzed and jumped forward a few centimeters.

Archie pulled the drawer toward him. It contained a bat-tered-looking metal box that he lifted out and placed on the table. The box was about three feet long, a foot wide, and six inches deep.

“Ready?” Tom asked with an anxious smile.

He

slowly

lifted

the

lid

and

they

both

peered

inside.

CIA SUBSTATION, ZURICH

January 8—2:20 p.m.

Mobile One, this is Central. Come in, please.” “Go ahead, Central,” came the crackled response. “Are you in place, Roberts?” Agent Ben Cody leaned over the female operator’s chair and spoke into her microphone.

“Affirmative. Stand by to receive transmission.”

A few seconds later one of the three flat-screen monitors in front of the operator flickered into life. On the large overhead screen a live satellite feed showed the agent’s location as a blinking red dot. Five other dots pulsed around it, showing that the rest of the team were also in place.

“Are you sure about this?” Cody asked. “Sure about what?” Bailey couldn’t help but sound defensive in the face of Cody’s skeptical tone.

“I mean I’ve pulled people off three other teams to cover this thing.” Cody indicated the frantic activity that was consuming the CIA’s secure operations room—four operators were monitoring the ongoing transmissions with the six field agents, while behind them two more of his staff were fielding calls, accompanied all the while by the constant buzz of computers and the high-pitched shriek of encrypted fax machines. An armed sentry stood

by

the

swipe-card-acthe black sun 185

tivated door. “I wouldn’t have done it for anyone other than Carter. He’s a good man. One of the best. But, I gotta tell you, I’ve had enough bureau wild-goose chases to last me this life and the next.”

“I can’t promise anything,” said Bailey. “Let’s be clear, we’re following a hunch here. But Carter wouldn’t have sent me if he didn’t think it was worth running with.”

“Well, I guess we’ll soon find out whether you’re right.” Cody sighed. “Either way, we’ll get a fix on whoever goes in or out of that hotel. If your guy shows up, we’ll nail him.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

WIPKINGEN, ZURICH

January 8—2:32 p.m.

That’s it?” Tom understood the disappointment in Dominique’s voice. The lengths to which Weissman and Lammers had gone to guarantee the safety-deposit box’s safekeeping had had them all speculating feverishly about what exactly lay inside it. They had all been wrong.

No gold. No diamonds. No long-lost Vermeer. In the end, all it had contained was the thin brown leather pouch, cracking along the seams, that Tom had just placed on the tea chest in front of them.

“Someone’s having a laugh” was Archie’s typically forthright analysis. “It’s a practical joke. Must be.” “What is inside, please?” Dhutta inquired, his mustache twitching.

“A map,” Tom answered, flipping the pouch open and drawing out a yellowing document that had been folded several times to fit inside. “Where we can pin it up?”

“I have the very place.” Dhutta’s tongue flicked against the corners of his mouth with anticipation. “This way, please.” He darted through to the computer area and pointed the black sun 187

at the expanse of bare wall above the printers and scanners. “It will fit there, I believe.”

Standing on a chair, Tom tacked the four corners to the wall, then jumped down again.

“Deutsche Reichsbahn—German National Railways,” Dominique translated. “It’s a map of the Nazi rail network.”

“That’s right,” said Archie. “The various countries of the Reich are shaded the same color as Germany: Austria, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, Poland—”

“Given that the Nazis didn’t absorb that much of Poland until 1942 or ’43,” Tom butted in, “this was probably printed toward the end of the war. Before then, central Poland was governed from Krakow as a German colony.”

“June 1943,” Dominique confirmed, pointing at the date in the bottom right corner. Tom moved in for a closer look. “It shows all the major towns and cities. The thick black lines are the actual railways. The thinner lines must be sidings or branch lines or something.”

“And the dots are stations,” Archie added.

“So why keep it?” Dominique frowned.