‘Late night?’ Nina asked.
‘There was a Security Council meeting concerning the Iranian nuclear programme. As ever, these things do tend to drag on. I had to excuse myself to meet you.’
‘What happened to us must be a big deal, then,’ said Eddie.
‘It certainly is. If you’ll come with me, there’s an office where we can discuss matters.’ He headed back across the lobby.
Eddie looked up at Foucault’s Pendulum as they followed. ‘Got to admit, Grant’s version of diplomacy is more interesting than the real thing. Even if his writers know fuck-all about how bullets work.’
‘If you mean “interesting” in the Chinese proverb sense, then yeah,’ said Nina. ‘I’d rather real-life diplomats stuck to sitting at tables talking things out, though.’
‘I dunno, sometimes you just have to shoot a bugger.’
‘That would explain the enormous backlog of IHA incident reports prominently featuring your name that I inherited from my predecessors,’ Seretse said as they reached the security checkpoint. IDs were quickly checked, and they went deeper into the building. ‘In here.’
The windowless room was a secondary conference area, a place for the small print of treaties to be hammered out by functionaries while their masters argued the bigger picture in the far more impressive main hall nearby. ‘Before we start, Oswald,’ said Nina, ‘I want to thank you for acting on my phone call so quickly. If you hadn’t got the State Department to intervene, God knows how long we would have been stuck in a police cell.’
The normally unflappable diplomat looked uncomfortable. ‘I must make an admission, Nina. I did call the State Department after we spoke in the hope of intervening on your behalf, yes… but they still have not replied to me. I suspect that I had little, if anything, to do with your release.’
‘Then who did?’
‘I don’t know.’
Eddie regarded the FBI agents. ‘You?’
‘We got orders from the top,’ said Petrelli. ‘But who gave them…’ He shrugged.
‘Looks like we’ve got friends in high places,’ the Englishman mused. ‘Makes a change.’
‘So what else do we have?’ Nina asked.
Seretse took several files from his briefcase. ‘I can give you as much as I know so far. Firstly, concerning the apparent threat against the archaeological excavation in Alexandria: is this the plan you saw in Los Angeles?’
He slid a sheet of paper across to her. Nina recognised it at once as the illustration of the tomb of Alexander the Great that Volker Koenig had thrust upon her. ‘Yes, although the one I saw had annotations. In German.’
‘German, eh?’ said Eddie, raising an eyebrow. ‘There’s a coincidence.’
Seretse took back the plan. ‘This was sent to me by William Schofield in Egypt. It’s the most up-to-date survey of the outer tomb, made in preparation for the opening of the inner chamber two days from now. It has not been released to anyone outside the IHA or the Ministry of State for Antiquities.’
‘Somebody leaked it, then,’ said Nina. She knew most of the IHA employees on the dig personally, and couldn’t imagine any of them committing such a security breach.
‘So it would seem.’ He opened another file, revealing several sheets of creased paper in protective plastic sleeves. ‘These are the documents you managed to save after your limousine… caught fire and broke in half.’ The pause was accompanied by a faint sigh, though Nina wasn’t sure if it was disbelief at the outrageousness of the situation, or the same kind of ‘oh no, not again’ resignation that she herself had learned to adopt many years ago. ‘I had one of the UN’s translators read them. What you told me on the phone appears to be correct — they are part of a plan to raid the tomb.’
The archaeologist felt a chill. ‘Have you warned Bill and the others in Egypt?’
‘Yes, we did so immediately. Unfortunately,’ Seretse leaned back, steepling his hands, ‘we do not know how the raid is to be carried out. There are references to an entrance, but it must have been described on one of the pages that was lost.’
‘They can’t just be planning to walk in through the front door, though,’ said Eddie. ‘There’s a lot of security, isn’t there?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Nina told him. ‘One of archaeology’s greatest long-lost sites, right in the middle of an Egyptian city? The whole dig’s been guarded from the moment the first tunnel was discovered. Half the country’s population fancies themselves as freelance relic hunters, especially after all the political upheavals. And by “freelance relic hunters”, I mean thieves,’ she added for the benefit of the two agents.
Beck shot her a sardonic smile. ‘I kind of got the picture.’
‘I think it wise that we not tell the Egyptian ambassador you said that, Nina,’ said Seretse. ‘However, I am sure that Dr Assad will increase security still further in light of this threat.’
‘And what about security for Nina?’ Eddie asked. ‘Whoever this lot are and whatever they’re planning to do in Egypt, they came over here and tried to kill her too.’
‘Why, though?’ said Nina. ‘I don’t even work for the IHA any more, so I’m not connected to the dig.’
‘Perhaps the FBI has some more information,’ Seretse suggested.
‘We might,’ Beck replied. He opened a file he had been given after landing. ‘These are the preliminary results of Jaekel’s autopsy. We rechecked the fingerprints and other biometrics; they’re a match for everything the DoJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section has on record for him. He and the other surviving members of his unit were processed when they were captured at the end of the war, so we’ve mugshots, prints and so on.’
He laid out eight photographs in a row on the desk. Jaekel’s was the first; the others were equally old and grainy. His finger tapped each one in turn. ‘Maximilian Jaekel, Garan Oster, Archard Walther, Herman Schneider, Steiner Henkel, Bren Gausmann, Ubel Rasche… and the leader, SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Kroll.’ The final picture showed a hard-featured man with close-cropped blond hair, a wide, downturned mouth and intense, malevolent eyes. ‘They committed war crimes across Europe — slaughtering civilians, murdering prisoners of war, stealing an untold amount of valuables — and Kroll was actually promoted for all of it just before the end.’
‘So what happened to them?’ Nina asked, taking a closer look at the faces from the past. None looked like anybody she wanted to meet.
‘No one knows. After they bribed their way free, they disappeared.’
‘Until one of them turned up in LA and tried to kill us,’ said Eddie.
Nina shook her head. ‘It can’t be the same guy. It’s just not possible.’
‘The fingerprints say it’s him,’ said Petrelli.
‘Maybe he’s a clone,’ Eddie offered. ‘Like in The Boys from Brazil? There might be a whole army of cloned Nazis goose-stepping around somewhere.’
‘Be serious, Eddie,’ sighed Nina.
‘We did find something unusual,’ Beck admitted. ‘We don’t know what it means, though.’ He took out another picture, this one in colour. ‘The man who shot at you in LA, Jaekel — he died trying to reach this. BHPD thought he was going for a gun and took him down.’
The image showed a flat silver flask lying on asphalt. ‘Yeah, I saw it,’ said Eddie. ‘I thought it was a gun too, from the way he was so set on reaching it.’
‘What was in it?’ asked Seretse.
‘Water,’ Petrelli replied, to his listeners’ surprise.
‘Water?’ Nina echoed. ‘Seriously? You’re telling me he was killed because he wouldn’t give up his flask of water?’
‘He was dying for a drink,’ Eddie said with a grin. ‘Dead thirsty.’
She held in a groan. ‘Maybe the flask had some sentimental value.’