New York, November 1936

At the foot of the tallest tower in Manhattan, a small red van, boasting THE BEST DOUGHNUTS IN THE NEW WORLD in yellow letters, was permanently parked. An arrow pointing at a right angle indicated the direction of the shop, two streets away.

Gordon’s Bakery, which had nearly hung up its oven mitts the previous summer, had doubled its customers in a matter of days. A mysterious donor had provided this free publicity, as well as paying for the parking place on Fifth Avenue. The baker and his wife had recruited three apprentices to meet the demand for doughnuts.

Zefiro licked the sugar from his fingers. He was polishing off his third doughnut of the evening.

“Well?” he asked.

Vango and Zefiro were hidden inside the red van, opposite the Empire State building.

“Nothing.”

Vango’s eye was pressed against a hole in the middle of the first O of Gordon’s. He was sitting on a box of doughnuts.

Zefiro was behind the second O, spying on the main entrance on the other side of the street. They’d had the idea for the van after trying to follow one of Voloy Viktor’s visitors. By the time they had rushed down every story of their tower under construction, the man had vanished into thin air.

So they now spent half their time in the new hideout. Zefiro had a notebook on his lap and a flashlight attached to his forehead.

“You can go up for a rest, Vango.”

Vango didn’t answer.

“I know you didn’t sleep last night,” Zefiro went on. “Where did you go this time?”

“Out for a walk.”

“The man you’re looking for is dead; you know that.”

Vango took his eye away from the side of the van.

When he had visited Sing Sing prison, several months earlier, he had been told that Giovanni Cafarello had just been executed. Vango had asked to sit down in a chair. He had remained speechless for several minutes in front of the old guard, who had offered him a glass of water.

“Bad timing, my boy.”

Gradually, Vango had perked up. He had explained that he wished to collect the prisoner’s personal effects. He had come on behalf of his father, who lived in Sicily. The guard had entrusted him with a small parcel of clothes and an empty wallet. This was the sinister luggage with which Vango had left the penitentiary of Sing Sing.

As he was crossing the road in front of the prison, he had heard a voice calling out after him. He had turned around to see a short man whose double chin was propped by a stiff collar. The man had walked up to Vango and glanced at the clothes tucked under his arm.

“You haven’t wasted your day,” remarked the man, chewing a piece of gum.

Vango didn’t know what to say.

“At least you’ve come out of this with a three-piece suit,” the man went on. “You needed that to make the trip worthwhile.”

“Who are you?” asked Vango.

“Lewis Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison. I won’t shake your hand. The prisoner had no family when he was in court. And no family in the visiting room. But now that he’s dead, he’s got family popping up all over the place. Are you the same person who came by yesterday?”

“No.”

“A man came to collect his belongings. He’d gotten the wrong day. He didn’t even want to speak with the prisoner — just said he would be back.”

“I see.”

“Some people are that impatient. . . .”

“I’ve come on behalf of his father,” said Vango, “who lives on an island, in Sicily.”

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” declared Lawes through gritted teeth. “He needed you six months ago when his attorney did an appalling job of defending him. The worst attorney in the world, I’d say.”

“I’ve come from Sicily,” Vango explained in a thick accent.

“Cafarello didn’t even know how to say hello in English. He only ever repeated the same words. So, tell your brothers, your uncles, and your distant cousins that I never want to see them at my door again.”

Vango stared at the ground. Lawes spat out his gum.

“I’ve got a better idea now of why he kept saying what he said. I understand why he denied all of you right up until his final breath. Peace be upon him. And dishonor to grave pillagers.”

Lewis Lawes turned on his heels and headed for the walls of his prison.

“Mr. Lawes!”

The warden spun around to discover that Vango had followed him.

“Mr. Lawes, just tell me what he kept saying against his family.”

Lewis Lawes came to a stop.

“‘I am not Giovanni Cafarello.’ That’s what he said, over and over again.”

And, fixing Vango with his stare, the warden of Sing Sing prison had added, “He was ashamed of his name.”

In the gloom of the van, Zefiro put his hand on Vango’s shoulder.

“Your Cafarello is dead, Vango.”

“He’s not my Cafarello.”

Zefiro sighed.

“Go and rest. I don’t need you right now. The lawyer won’t come out again tonight.”

Acting as if he hadn’t heard, Vango resumed his surveillance duties.

For several weeks now, the man they both referred to as “the lawyer” had been the main focus of their attention. Zefiro noted down his comings and goings in a black notebook. This log of his movements gave some odd results. The padre had noticed that when the lawyer appeared each evening in Voloy Viktor’s sitting room, he had not been seen, a little earlier, passing through the revolving door at the bottom of the tower. Zefiro had concluded from this that there must be another passage to gain access to Voloy Viktor’s fortress.

Discovering the secret entrance was of paramount importance to Zefiro. Not only that, but according to the padre, the lawyer was Viktor’s closest confidant. He arrived in the evening and very early in the morning, but never in the presence of other visitors. And during their meetings, Viktor gave him free run of the office while he remained screened from view by the bedroom curtains.

With the flashlight on his forehead, Zefiro was examining his notebook again.

“He’s coming out!” Vango suddenly signaled.

Zefiro put on his hat.

“I’m off.”

“No, Padre. Don’t move. They know you too well. I’ll follow him.”

He half opened the rear door of the van.

“Vango!” whispered Zefiro, already having misgivings.

But Vango had disappeared.

Despite the late hour, the district was still busy. Nobody noticed the boy slipping out of the Gordon’s Bakery van.

Vango immediately saw the lawyer turning down the second street. He quickened his step to catch up, staying discreetly on the opposite sidewalk. A chilly autumn wind gave him the perfect excuse to wear his collar up around his face.

The lawyer, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be cold. He was wearing a long coat in gray cashmere with a hat to match. His patent leather shoes glided over the dead leaves. He walked briskly past all the night owls. Some were smoking in front of darkened shop windows. Others sauntered in groups of two or three. These were the last few nights when it was still possible to step out, before the first snow of winter arrived.

Vango didn’t really know what he was looking for. He just wanted to find out more about the man. His name, his address, anything he could get hold of. Was he even a lawyer? Above all, Vango was determined not to let this character out of his sight, because he wanted to observe him entering the secret passage to Viktor’s suite the following morning.

A hundred paces back, a small shadow was following Vango. It clung to the walls, not wanting to be noticed. It belonged to Tom Jackson, the young street urchin from midtown, and Zefiro’s employee.

At eleven o’clock that evening, the lawyer walked into a restaurant on the corner of a square. Vango stayed outside for a little while. It was a French establishment, La Bohème, where, despite its frugal name, a glass of wine would set you back the price of a barrel of oil. Two porters guarded the entrance, subtly dressed as sapper grenadiers from Napoleon’s army.

Vango was only fifty meters from the main entrance to the restaurant, but he still hailed a taxi.

“Are you going far?” inquired the driver.

“To La Bohème, on the other side of the square.”

The man stared at him as if Vango had taken leave of his senses. But the young man held out a bill. He guessed that it wasn’t the done thing to arrive on foot at this sort of eatery. The taxi drove on for another few meters, did a U-turn, and proceeded to park in front of the two Napoleonic soldiers, who opened the doors.

Vango thanked the taxi driver in a French accent. He walked in as if he were a regular. Someone was playing slow numbers from light operas on the piano. Over at the back of the restaurant, Vango spotted the lawyer from behind: he was sitting with a couple. Vango particularly noticed the young woman, who seemed to be daydreaming rather than listening to the others.

Vango made his way over to a low table set to one side. A waitress, in a traditional peasant’s costume from Brittany, was already trying to take his coat. He resisted.

“I’d just like a drink,” he said.

He sat down on a long upholstered seat at the low table, next to a man who was asleep. The Breton peasant girl relaunched her attack. What did he want to drink? Vango pointed to his neighbor’s glass.

“I’ll have what he’s having.”

The waitress scowled and headed off.

Vango was pretending to listen to the music. He tapped the arm of the sofa in time to the rhythm, prompting the man to open an eye. Vango seized his chance.

“Do you come here often?”

“If it’s required.”

His response did little to encourage conversation. The man seemed rather unsociable: his face was expressionless and his right eye was weeping. But Vango persisted. In order to strike up some kind of connection, he pointed to the glass that had just been brought to him.

“I ordered what you’re having.”

“It’s tap water.”

Now Vango understood why the Breton girl had made a face.

“Tell me,” he persisted, “the man who’s got his back to us, over there, under the mirror, isn’t that Wallace Bridges?”

Vango had made up the name on the spot. His neighbor’s eye began weeping a bit more as he glanced in the direction of the lawyer.

“Don’t know him.”

“And the couple?”

“It’s the Irishman and his wife.”

“The Irishman?”

Vango had never seen the Irishman. He knew he owned the tower that was being built, and which Zefiro was occupying in order to keep Viktor under surveillance. The man was a banker, but there was no limit to his business interests: he was rumored to own a ranch in New Mexico and vineyards in California. For all Vango knew, he might even own the water Vango was about to drink.

“His wife looks very young,” Vango remarked.

The man turned to face him, grabbed a napkin, and wiped his right eye, without taking the other eye off Vango.

“D’you want her address?”

“No,” Vango replied. “I just thought —”

“Don’t think.”

And then something odd happened. The woman they had been talking about stood up and stared straight at Vango. She picked up her handbag and, without saying good-bye to her husband or the lawyer, walked slowly toward Vango’s table. She looked annoyed.

Vango glanced away, but the woman was now standing right opposite him.

“He wants me to go home. They’re talking business, and I’m bored. He says it’s private. Will you take me home?”

Vango could feel his head pounding. He opened his mouth to speak, when a voice right next to him answered.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll bring the car around.”

Vango’s neighbor stood to attention, holding a black-and-gold cap in one hand. Now it all made sense. The man was her chauffeur, and her words had been directed at him.

The woman left first, followed by the chauffeur with the watery eye.

Vango let out a long sigh and sank back into his seat.

So Viktor’s lawyer was also working with the Irishman. This was the only piece of information he had gleaned from the evening. Vango saw a table become free just next to them. He hesitated. Would it be dangerous to move any closer? The lawyer wouldn’t recognize him. He might look after Voloy Viktor’s business affairs, but he was unlikely to be familiar with the faces of each of his client’s enemies. Vango signaled to the Breton peasant girl.

“I’d like to have dinner after all. Could you get that table ready for me, in the corner? I’ll be over in a moment.”

She nodded, aloof. The boy didn’t look like the kind to leave tips in double figures.

At last, Vango stood a chance of hearing something. For two months, he and Zefiro had been distant spectators. They had merely tossed a piece of meat into the anthill, then watched to see what happened.

The piece of meat in question was the promise of a huge contract.

It was Zefiro’s great ruse to catch Viktor. He had forged a letter in which he had passed himself off as an intermediary, writing on behalf of the Nazi regime, to offer Voloy Viktor the most important armaments contract in history. The factories would be established in Germany, and Viktor was tasked with finding investors from across America to finance them. It looked set to be a highly lucrative deal, and the figures were astronomical. Madame Victoria had probably counted out the zeros on her ten polished nails many times over.

For every ten billion dollars’ worth of investment, Viktor would be entitled to two, making this the greatest scam of all time.

The offer, which was completely fictitious, had been invented by Zefiro. Through their binoculars, he and Vango had been able to observe the fever that had taken hold of Voloy Viktor’s penthouse suite in the Plaza Hotel. The anthill was humming. Visitors came from far and wide to this private club. Viktor showed his guests the letter of patronage accompanying the proposal. It was signed by Hugo Eckener, director of the Zeppelin Company, an irreproachable figure who was acting as guarantor for the contract. The Hindenburg-headed notepaper inspired everyone’s confidence.

Around Viktor, glasses of bourbon clinked and checks circulated. But perhaps the guests were also talking about their Christmas holiday plans for the family, or how fast their children were growing up. They might have been talking about hare hunting and their country houses on Long Island. As they signed the contracts on the baize of the bridge tables, each of them conveniently forgot that they were dealing in tanks, guns, and the graveyards of the future as big as polo fields, planted with white crosses beside the sea.

As for Zefiro, he was trying to forget that he had used the signature of his friend Eckener, without asking him and in the knowledge that he was severely compromising him.

Just as Vango was about to stand up and go over to his table, one of the two Napoleonic grenadiers entered the restaurant. He scoured the room and spotted Vango.

“There’s a gentleman outside who’d like to have a word with you.”

“Me? I think there must be some mistake.”

“He said ‘the young man sitting by himself.’ He doesn’t want to come in.”

“Did he give you his name?”

“He didn’t give me his or yours.”

Vango glanced at the two men who were talking at the other end of the room. He was about to miss his chance.

“Tell him he’s got the wrong person,” Vango said, standing up.

“I think it’s urgent,” said the grenadier.

“But who is it?”

“That’s him.”

And Vango saw a very pale Zefiro appear, his head sunk into his shoulders, and proceed to sit next to him, in the place vacated by the chauffeur.

“Sit down,” he whispered.

Vango did as he was told. Zefiro held himself very stiffly. The soldier had disappeared.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said the padre.

His lips barely moved. An accordionist had joined the pianist, and together they were playing a soporific rendition of a French cancan.

“I’ve understood,” Zefiro went on. “I’ve finally understood everything.”

Vango, on the other hand, was completely baffled.

“When you left . . .” Zefiro trailed off.

“Yes . . .”

“I climbed back up the tower to keep an eye on Viktor’s bedroom through the binoculars. There was a window cleaner at work, and I suddenly had a suspicion. I went back down and telephoned the Plaza Hotel.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I asked for Madame Victoria’s room. I let it ring for a long time.”

“Did he answer?”

“No,” said Zefiro, even more quietly. “He couldn’t answer.”

“Why not?”

There were beads of sweat on Zefiro’s nose.

“Because he’s sitting right opposite us.”

Vango looked up.

He was staring at the lawyer’s neck.

The mysterious man who went away when Viktor went to bed, the man who reappeared briefly first thing in the morning, who seemed to wake up Voloy Viktor before disappearing again . . .

That man was Viktor.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” said Vango.

“I know that,” echoed Zefiro in a voice from beyond the grave. “Our faces are etched in acid in his mind. I am the man who betrayed him fifteen years ago when I was his confessor. I am the man who tried to deliver him to Boulard. He hasn’t forgotten me. He would recognize us even in a crowd, even in a stadium. If he turns around, we are —”

“Why did you come in here? You should have stayed outside.”

“Because four cars heaving with men just pulled up and parked outside while I was waiting for you by the door. I know that they’ve all got a photo of the two of us in their wallets. They’re by the exit.”

Vango felt a shudder run down his body.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Thanks to someone I couldn’t have done without: my friend, young Tom Jackson. He followed you.”

And, majestically, as if waiting for his name to be announced in order to make his grand entrance, Tom Jackson stepped out from behind the curtain by the door. He was holding the hand of the exasperated sapper grenadier.

“Sir, you left your child outside; he’s had a fall. He’s crying, he’s bleeding, he’s asking for you, and I don’t know what to do!”

Zefiro’s eyes bulged. Tom leaped into his lap. Vango kept his eyes trained on Viktor’s back.

The soldier clicked his heels and set off again.

“Take me in your arms,” whispered Tom, “and leave, hiding your face in my neck.”

“Jesus,” breathed the padre.

He had never picked up a child before. And Tom had never been held. Just the idea of burying their faces in each other made them feel embarrassed. They stared at each other in a state of shock. Two of Viktor’s men had just walked into the restaurant.

“Do as he says,” muttered Vango. “The three of us can’t leave together. I’ll manage.”

The padre stood up with Tom in his arms, hugging him close as they walked toward the door.

The lawyer hadn’t moved. The Irishman was listening to him.

When Tom and Zefiro had disappeared, Vango surveyed the premises.

The kitchens were at the back, next to a painting of some clams on a beach in Normandy. He could have gone that way, but he was suspicious of kitchen exits, emergency exits, and back exits, which were always under as much surveillance as the main exits. To the right of the pantry was something more interesting: a stairwell disappearing into the gloom could be glimpsed behind two drapes. For Vango, escaping always meant moving upward.

He stood up very gently, as if he didn’t want to wake anybody, and tiptoed toward the curtains.

“Your glass of water, young sir.”

Vango turned around.

“You need to pay for your glass of water.”

The waitress was staring at him with both hands on her hips, her Breton headdress rocking backward and forward. Viktor’s men were up at the bar, just behind her.

Vango jangled his pockets and held out some change.

“You said you were going to have dinner,” she grumbled.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Well, in that case, the exit’s the other way.”

“I thought —”

“It’s private, over there. That’s for the boss.”

“Ah, yes, the boss.”

With her finger, she pointed somewhere behind him. He turned around and saw the Irishman bent over a plate of pasta. Vango could see only his wide forehead. So he was the boss. Vango’s gaze slid across that forehead to meet the eyes of a man who appeared to be sitting next to the Irishman on the banquette, but this was in fact the reflection of Viktor in the mirror just behind the Irishman.

Voloy Viktor was staring hard at Vango in the mirror.

He even smiled at him, like an old acquaintance you stumble on somewhere unexpected. Then in one movement, Viktor took out a silver pistol from his belt, politely excused himself to his host, turned sharply around, and aimed at Vango.

Zefiro and Tom were already some distance away when they heard the gunshot.

“Was that him?” asked Tom, stopping under a street lamp.

Zefiro remained in the shadow. He didn’t want Tom to see his distraught face.

Silence.

Zefiro gave the wall a few violent kicks. He took his head in his hands. If that really was the case, he would never forgive himself.

Tom went over to him.

“Padre?”

There was a final bang.

“Come on, little one,” the monk said without turning around. “I don’t know what it was. Come on now.”