IT HAUNTED HIM. There was something wrong with the apartment, but every walk through was just like the last. There was the kitchen, the painter’s nook, the portrait. Isolda’s sensual bedroom of satin and lace, and her large bathroom, full of luxuries to pamper the body. Her clothes were still in the drawers of her bureau. The perfume bottle of Je Reviens still sat on her dressing table.
In the living room, the glass shards of the mirror twinkled on the rug, giving the room a surreal star shine in the morning light. In the bookcase, he perused the titles again, making note of the empty space where Mein Kampf had been.
If Isolda had come up to the apartment and been taken by the SD, they could have gotten her out of the apartment many ways without being seen. Kronbauer’s grandfather could have just missed her exit, somehow. Perhaps he’d been distracted by the agents. Perhaps he’d just stepped away as they escorted her through the lobby on their way to the Gestapo or the train station.
And yet, there was the niggling problem of what was missing. It was there at the edges of his conscious, ebbing and flowing like a tide, never quite still enough to be captured.
He went to the portrait and took it down. Between the stretcher bars and canvas, he checked for any silk messages stuck in there that others might have missed. There was nothing.
Slowly he sat down on the sofa that faced the wide-open double doors of the bedroom. Logically, he reviewed everything he knew. If she had come up to the apartment and was never seen to leave, then it was reasonable to wonder if she was still there. But where? The apartment was sumptuous but small. The spaces were all accounted for …
Except.
He stood, the realization running though him like a bolt of electricity. The bedroom, the bath, the bureau. All as they should be. But there was no wardrobe, and no closet. A woman of her means would have gowns and dresses. And goddamnit. A woman would have realized right away the closet was missing.
Stepping into the bedroom, he drew out the apartment’s floor plan in his head. The bathroom door was off to the right, with the huge Biedermeier bureau on the wall to the right of it.
The bathroom didn’t abut the living room wall. There was a space between them. Unless that space was taken up by the apartment next door, that was exactly where he figured a closet would be if the apartment had one.
He shoved the tall bureau aside, straining with its weight. Beyond, the plaster wall looked undisturbed. Not sure what there might be behind it, he got the toolbox he’d brought with him. He took out the large hammer and chisel, and went to the smooth plaster wall.
If there had been a closet there, perhaps he would find the outline. Perhaps there was even a hallway to an entirely new set of rooms. He wouldn’t know until the plaster came off.
Working diligently, he cracked away at the plaster where he supposed a door might have been. The more he chipped away, the more damning the evidence. Finally, when all the plaster had been removed, he stepped back amongst the dust, and stood in awe at his finding. There was the outline of a doorway, its door missing. And in its place was a wall of red brick.
“The SD had its own salt mines, like much of the Reich’s bureaucracy. They were acquired for document storage.” Rikhardsson referred to the dossier in his hand. “After the war, everyone was looking for valuables. They still look for Nazi gold and such. But the real gold for the SD was its files. Heydrich kept these little cards on everyone. And he protected them fiercely.”
“We have all the files, don’t we?” Sadler asked, irritated and weary that he’d been summoned to Zurich again. He was getting damn tired of being a lapdog.
“Not even close,” Portier said. “Between Heydrich’s nefarious little file cards and then Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who took over after Heydrich’s assassination, there’s a lot we don’t have.”
“We have the Berghof Memo in which Heydrich tells the Führer about a shipment of documents to be stored somewhere in the area, but it’s unclear where it is referring to. No other records survive that we know of.”
“Do you know how big an area that is? Berchtesgaden is a national park, not to mention all the surrounding mountains.” Portier was becoming annoyed as he so often did these days.
“And the fact that a lot of the entrances to these mines were dynamited in order to seal them when they knew the war was being lost. The chances of finding anything Heydrich might have hidden there is extremely slim.” Rikhardsson, with his cold logic, irritated Portier further.
“If Maguire is in Berlin, it’s because he knows something. We will find it. We have him covered,” Sadler said.
“Unless we have another incident.” Portier looked at Sadler.
Sadler didn’t miss the reference. “We’ve recalled every agent that Vanderloos sent out.”
“Every agent that you know of,” Portier shot back.
Sadler looked extremely uncomfortable. Rikhardsson, too.
“This is chaos,” Portier sighed. Wearily, he picked up his briefcase and buzzed for his car. “Until we have that bomb, I don’t want anyone leaving Zurich.”
“But I have several deals—” Sadler began.
“No one is leaving. If this thing’s around, I want everyone to have the full incentive of it being found.”
Sadler looked vaguely ill, as he usually looked.
Portier’s assistant arrived at the door to walk him to his limo. After he was gone, Rikhardsson said, “Let’s hope to God the thing is closer to Berchtesgaden than here.”
“If it exists,” Sadler snapped.
“Oh, it exists. Heydrich was power-hungry and no fool.”
“Then let’s hope it is nearer the North Sea.”
“Portier won’t bet on it.”
“And why not?” Sadler clenched his jaw in frustration. “Why does he insist on staying here if there’s a danger?”
“Because he doesn’t care.”
“Oh, he doesn’t? The man with the million-dollar watch, every luxury, every comfort, doesn’t care that he might one day be desperately licking the black rain off his briefcase in a search for water?”
“No, he does not.”
“And why would that be?” Sadler couldn’t control his anger any longer.
“Because he is dying,” Rikhardsson said.