ANGELIKA ARADI WALKED through the passenger terminal of Zürich Airport, heading toward the cabstand. There was a private plane available to her at all hours through the corporation, but when she went deep, she sometimes found it more useful to travel commercial. That way it was harder for Tarnhelm to track her. Not impossible, of course, but they had no reason to keep an eye on her when they thought she was still in Berlin, studiously pursuing her quarry from there.
She grabbed her wheelie and stepped to the front of the cabstand.
“Hotel Baur au Lac,” she said to the cab driver as she got into the back seat. They drove to Old Town, and in her mind’s eye, she pictured all the maneuvers Maguire had used to evade the Tarnhelm men rather artfully in the subway. Of course, he was an amateur. But he was one helluva amateur. And now he was nowhere they could find.
Except for her.
They pulled up to the columned front of the old hotel. She paid the driver and immediately a distinctive Baur au Lac white cap-and-coat bellman lifted her luggage to the curb.
“Welcome,” he said politely.
She got out of the cab and looked up at the old hotel, its striped awnings giving it a bandbox freshness one didn’t see except in Switzerland.
“Will you be staying long with us?”
She smiled at the bellman. “We’ll see.”
Chief Aldernay Troost logged notes onto his computer. Maguire still hadn’t called, nor had he returned to the Adlon. It seemed he may have disappeared, and on Troost’s watch. He didn’t like it. He could feel the frustration mount as he typed in the details.
The American had no idea how much trouble he was in. Not just with Interpol and its potential to issue a Red Notice, but with the little spook. The blond. She was full of bad tidings, indeed. For Maguire. For him. Perhaps everybody.
He slammed the laptop closed and stared across his desk to Special Agent Jones who stared back.
“I want to know the minute he calls.”
Jones nodded.
“Has anybody got an explanation for these letters our men got from the Bundesarchiv? What’s Maguire’s interest there?”
“We don’t know yet. The letters seem pretty clear cut, but no one knows where Vaterhimmelstrasse is. That’s what’s taking so long.”
Troost stood and rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “The minute they know anything, I want a report. Anything, okay?”
“You think they’ve got him?” Jones asked.
“No.”
“Which worries you more?”
Aldernay Troost gave him the truth. “I don’t know.”