When Nash was gone, Johanna reappeared from inside the hotel. She joined him at the outside table near the railing. He noticed that her hands were shaking. She grabbed a seeded cracker from the basket in front of her and began breaking it into pieces without eating any of it. The mountain air blew wisps of her long blond hair like string across her face and brought a flush to her pale cheeks. Once again, he found himself uncomfortably aware of his attraction to her.
“That man,” she murmured. “I know you told me to stay here, but I saw him come in, and I just knew he was the one from the Mercedes. I hid down one of the hallways before he got out of the lobby. I didn’t want him to see me.”
“Nash has that effect on people,” Jason said.
“Who is he?”
“A man I’ve known for a long time. He’s not part of the group that’s after me, but you did the right thing by staying away from him. I don’t want him knowing we’re together.”
“Why not?”
“Because Nash made it clear that he doesn’t want me to go after Monika. He’s hiding something. He wants me to leave it alone, and if he finds out we’re together, he’ll look for a way to stop us. He knows you can help me, so his first step would be to get you out of the way.”
“You don’t think he’d—” Johanna began. Her face paled. “I mean, what would he do?”
“Nash can justify pretty much anything to get what he wants.”
Johanna reached across the table and took hold of his hands. “Does this mean you’re going to keep looking for her? Despite what this Nash wants you to do?”
Bourne didn’t need to think about it. “Yes, I’m going to find her.”
“Thank you,” she replied, sighing with relief.
“Actually, we’re going to find her. I need your help.”
“Of course. Anything.”
Jason stared over the railing at the Swiss town spread out below them. From up here, he could isolate the gray stone buildings of the Stiftsschule Obwalden and the monastery that was connected to it. The sharp geometric wings and rows of identical square windows made the facility look like a prison. It had seemed like a prison to him back then, too, the teachers in dark suits, the students in uniforms, the voices hushed in the corridors.
“Johanna, I can’t tell you everything about what happened ten years ago, or why,” he said. “It’s not safe. But there are some things you need to know. What Monika said in that last phone call to you was true. People got killed. I killed them. They were going to kill me, and they were going to kill Monika, too.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“An extremist organization was recruiting at the school. My job was to infiltrate them. I failed. I’m the one who put your sister in danger, and I’m the one who forced her to go away and adopt a new identity. The trouble is, with my memory gone, I don’t know who she is or where she is.”
Johanna shook her head. “Then how do we find her?”
“I had to have help in creating a legend for her. I was new, I was young. I didn’t have any kind of network back then, and according to Nash, I didn’t use his resources in arranging her escape. Even so, I would have needed a pro to forge identity papers for me, in order to get Monika set up somewhere else under a new name. Somebody helped me do that. Odds are, it was someone here in town. Or I would have turned to someone I knew to make a connection.”
Johanna’s eyes showed her frustration. “But I was never here. How can I help you?”
“You talked to Monika. She wrote to you, too, right? Letters or e-mails? You said she told you about me. Did she talk about anyone else? Mutual friends of ours. People we hung out with at the school or in town. Or did she mention things we did? The thing is, Johanna, as crazy as it sounds, you know more about that summer than I do.”
“That’s not saying much,” she protested. “Monika was private. She didn’t share a lot with me.”
“Is there anything you do remember?”
She ran her fingers through her blond hair. “Well, Zurich obviously. The two of you went there a lot. And Mont Saint-Michel, where you got engaged. I heard about that.”
“What about here in town?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything.” She nibbled on a piece of dry cracker and stared off at the mountain peaks. Then a little crinkle spread across her smooth forehead. “Well, I mean, there was one funny story. But I don’t see how it could help you.”
“What was it?” he asked.
“She told me that one of her favorite students had gotten into trouble. His parents had bought him a drone. This was when they were first getting popular. I guess he was flying it around the school grounds, and he accidentally—well, he said it was an accident—managed to get video of one of the male teachers doing yoga in the buff. All hell broke loose when word got out about it. It looked like he’d be expelled, but the head of security stepped in, confiscated the drone, deleted the video, and got the kid a reprieve. Monika was really relieved.”
Jason frowned. “What’s the connection?”
“Like I said, I don’t see how it can help, but she told me you made it happen. You asked the security guy to go easy on the kid, and he did. Apparently the two of you were best friends back then.”
Bourne booked a room at the Hotel Waldegg and told Johanna to wait for him. Then he drove the Audi to the east edge of town, where he parked outside the sprawling facility of the Stiftsschule Obwalden. Beyond the college’s stone archway, he found a large inner courtyard that resembled the grounds of New England schools. Walkways crisscrossed the green grass, and the four-story gray walls of the school surrounded the college quad. The area was empty except for two male students, both muscular and blond, kicking a soccer ball back and forth between them.
His memory fought with itself, trying to assemble the missing pieces. He was back in a place that had been his home for nearly a year. When he looked at the school windows, he could picture the desks, blackboards, and wooden floors of the classrooms. He had visions of his own one-room apartment that looked down on the quad from the uppermost floor. The place was familiar to him, but that was all. The people were gone.
Monika was gone.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a soccer ball hurtling his way. He threw up his arms and grabbed it out of the air before it collided with his head. One of the two blond students came running toward him.
“Entschuldigung!” he called to Jason in a surprisingly deep voice.
“Kein Problem,” Bourne replied with a smile. “Aber Sie brauchen mehr Übung.”
The young man, who was probably twenty years old, detected the American accent in Jason’s voice and switched smoothly to English. “Yes, you are correct, sir. One can never get enough practice. I do apologize that Josef’s kick got away from him. I trust you’re unhurt.”
“I’m fine,” Jason replied, tossing the ball back to him.
“Excellent. My name is Manfred. Josef over there is my clumsy roommate.”
Manfred was a solid young man, six foot three and built with the strength of one of the mountainside trees. His blond hair curled up over his head like a rising wave, and his long face made sharp angles down to the point of his cleft chin. He had pale, penetrating blue eyes and eyebrows that were much darker than his hair. He wore a white jersey and red nylon shorts, both of which emphasized his honed muscles.
“Welcome to Obwalden,” Manfred went on. “Are you an alumnus, sir? Or possibly seeking employment here?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Manfred smiled with only his lips, and his politeness barely hid suspicion. “Well, perhaps I can direct you to your destination.”
Bourne didn’t have time to respond. Manfred’s companion, Josef, skidded to a stop in front of them. Josef was younger, no more than eighteen, and slight compared to his friend. He smiled nervously at Bourne but didn’t join the conversation, obviously deferring to the other boy and dreading the reaction to his errant kick. Manfred turned on Josef with angry impatience, his blue eyes glinting like two knives. He juggled the soccer ball nimbly on his feet, then whipped the ball into Josef’s groin so hard that the boy screamed and doubled over.
“Fehler erfordern Strafe,” Manfred hissed.
Mistakes demand punishment.
“Ja, ja, es tut mir Leid,” Josef choked out an apology.
“Gehen Sie weg. Jetzt!”
“Jawohl!”
Josef picked up the soccer ball where it had bounced into the grass. He cupped a hand between his legs and limped back to the middle of the field.
“Children must be taught lessons,” Manfred told Bourne, calm returning to his face.
“That’s quite the lesson.”
Manfred shrugged. “Discipline is expected here. Now, sir, may I direct you somewhere on campus?”
“Yes, I’m looking for the head of security.”
“Of course. Proceed to the building on the opposite side of the field. His office is on the third floor, northwest corner.” Then the boy added, “Is there a problem? I’m happy to offer assistance.”
“Oh, no, no problem,” Bourne replied. “I’m in the country on vacation, and I thought I’d look up an old friend. I think he used to head the security office here, but that was years ago. He may have moved on.”
“What is your friend’s name?” Manfred asked.
Jason made up a name at random. “Gerhard Fauss.”
The boy shook his head. “No, the head of security here is Rudolph Graz, and he has held that position for a very long time.”
Rudolph Graz.
Rudy!
The name registered immediately in Bourne’s mind. He saw a man twenty years older than himself, dark hair, a trimmed beard, an easy laugh. He had a vision of the two of them skiing the slopes of Mount Titlis, powder erupting in their faces.
Yes, Johanna was right. They’d been good friends.
“Well, perhaps I was mistaken about the name of the town,” Jason said. “I’ll check with Herr Graz and see if he’s heard of Gerhard at a different school. Thanks for your help, Manfred.”
“Of course, sir.”
Bourne nodded at the boy and headed across the green field. He passed the other soccer player, Josef, who shot to attention as if Bourne were a superior officer. The kid looked scared out of his mind, a fish swimming in shark-infested waters. Jason gave him an encouraging smile, then continued to the next building. As he let himself inside, he glanced across the quad and noticed that Manfred was watching Bourne’s every move with his arms crossed solidly over his chest.
He shut the heavy door behind him. The building was silent and appeared to be mostly deserted. The floors were made of glossy wood, giving a hollow echo to his footsteps as he marched down the corridor. He passed classrooms furnished in a severe style, no modern technology, just rows of old desks and chalkboards. One of the doors was open, and decades of dust seemed to waft from inside. He tried to remember being here, teaching here, but he couldn’t. Nothing of those days was left.
However, the school itself gave him a reminder of his past.
Photographs lined the wall, group pictures of teachers in suits and dresses that went back for years. Nobody smiled. This wasn’t a college for levity. He noted the dates on the pictures, and in the middle of the hallway, he found one labeled from ten years earlier. The photograph wasn’t in perfect focus and included about thirty teachers. He saw men standing in the back row and used his index finger to move from face to face.
There he was.
David Webb. The young man he used to be. Before Cain. Before Treadstone. He recognized the blurry image of himself, but that man may as well have been a stranger.
He glanced at the other teachers in the picture. A handful of names came back to him with flashes of memory. He remembered debates. Faculty dinners. Arguments. He made a point of examining the women in the picture—there weren’t many—but none of the faces matched the woman from the photo Johanna had shown him at the Drei Alpenhäuser.
Monika wasn’t there.
Why not?
Maybe she’d simply missed the photo shoot that day. Even so, he found it strange.
Jason reached the end of the hallway and climbed to the third floor. Across from the stairs, he spotted a corner office labeled with the name Rudolph Graz. He pushed open the door and found a man napping on a threadbare sofa. The man’s face was older, well into his fifties now and more gray in his beard, but it otherwise matched Jason’s recollection from the ski slopes. Behind him on a small end table was a framed photograph of a pretty, plump Swiss woman with dark hair, smiling at the camera from a wheelchair.
“Hello, Rudy.”
The man’s eyes shot open at the unexpected voice. He blinked, as if what he was seeing had to be part of a dream. Then shock spread across his sunburnt features, and he leaped to his feet.
“Gott im Himmel. David! What are you doing here? Why did you come back? Are you trying to get us both killed?”