"So tell me, Nikolas Ganz. How did those men find us tonight? Did you call them?"
The concierge nodded and began to cry. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Hecht said soothingly. "Why did you call them?"
"Two men came into the hotel a few days ago," he gasped between sobs. "They showed me a photo and said they would pay me ten thousand euro to call them if I saw the person they were looking for."
"Who were they? Police, BND, Interpol?"
Ganz shook his head. "I… I don't know…" he said haltingly. "They… they didn't say."
Hecht stood up and nodded at Konrad. At the signal, Konrad slapped the masking tape back down across Ganz's face before grasping his right hand. Shaking his head violently, Ganz tried to clench his fist into a tight ball, but Kon-rad prized his fingers apart and splayed them against the chair's flat wooden arm. The concierge began to scream, a muffled noise that in the garage's echoing silence sounded only vaguely human.
Konrad placed the blade of his knife against Ganz's index finger, just above the knuckle, and cut in. At the first sign of blood, Ganz fainted, his body slumping forward. Konrad continued anyway, resting the flat of his other hand against the top of the blade and rocking it slowly from side to side while pressing down as hard as he could. Ganz regained consciousness five or ten seconds later, just as the knife finally sliced through the bone and severed the finger with a sickening crunch.
Hecht picked up the bloody mess and held it in front of Ganz's bloodshot eyes. At the sight of it, Ganz began to retch, his shoulders heaving. Hecht pulled the tape from his mouth and he vomited down his front.
"Get him some water," Hecht ordered. A glass appeared and Hecht pressed it to Ganz's lips.
"Are you okay, Nikolas?" asked Hecht. Ganz nodded, his bottom lip trembling, his breathing snatched and shallow. "Good. Breathe deeply, that will help. Now, I'll ask you again. Who were they?"
"They didn't say!" Ganz half shouted, half sobbed his response. "They just showed me a photo and told me to call them. I didn't think to ask. I didn't care. Oh my God, my finger. My finger!"
"And who was on the photo? Me?" The concierge shook his head. "Him?" He indicated Konrad, who was still holding his knife, blood dripping from its shiny blade.
"No."
"Don't lie," Hecht shouted.
"I'm not!" the concierge screamed as Konrad grabbed his wrist again. "It was him—" The bloody stump of his index finger waggled furiously as he tried to point even though he couldn't move his wrists. "It was him — Herr Smith."
Renwick stood up in surprise. "Me?"
"Yes, yes, for God's sake, yes," the concierge moaned.
Hecht walked over to Renwick. "What does this mean?" he asked in a low voice.
"I have my own problems," Renwick said with a shrug. "They are no concern of yours."
"They are when they compromise our security," Hecht countered.
"Somebody got lucky, that's all. It just proves that, from now on, we need to stay out of sight."
"Well, that's one thing we agree on."
"Hey, boss, what shall we do about him?" Konrad called. Ganz had just been sick again.
"Kill him," Renwick said quietly.
"Kill him?" Hecht's tone made it clear he didn't agree.
"What for?"
"He has seen me, he has seen you, he has seen this place. Who knows what he's overheard. Kill him."
"We can do without the police sniffing around…"
"Pah!" Renwick pushed past him, snatched Konrad's knife, and grabbed a handful of Ganz's hair, yanking his head back. Then, in one swift movement, he sliced Ganz's throat open, the blade biting deep into his windpipe and opening a livid red smile across his exposed neck.
The concierge jerked furiously three or four times, lifting out of the chair as if he were being electrocuted, before collapsing lifelessly, head to one side, blood cascading from his neck.
Renwick handed the knife to Hecht, his eyes blazing. "From now on we do this my way, Johann. No witnesses. No risks. No loose ends."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The two men approached the chipped green bench from different directions. The older of the two sat down and took out that day's edition of L'Equipe — according to the front page, PSG were on the verge of another big-money signing. The other, younger man walked on for twenty or so yards, stopped, looked around, and then retraced his steps, sliding onto the bench next to him.
They both wore identical gold rings on the little finger of their left hand. Each was engraved with a twelve-box grid, with a small diamond set in one of the boxes. Where they differed was in the position of the diamond, the old man's being located in the bottom left box, the younger man's in the top right.
"Why have you asked me here?" the first man mumbled from behind his paper.
"The situation has deteriorated," the second man said, his lips barely moving as he stared across the small ornamental lake encircled by an unconvincing Roman colonnade. "I judged that you would want to hear this in person."
"You only call me when you have bad news, anyway," the first man complained. "I don't see why—"
"Kirk is making progress."
"Tsss," the older man snorted dismissively. "What sort of progress?"
"Enough for one of his associates to pay a visit to Lam-mers's niece yesterday."
A pause. In the distance, children's laughter echoed to the accompaniment of a musical carousel, brightly painted horses rising and falling as they chased each other tirelessly.
"She suspects nothing," the older man replied eventually. "Besides, we turned that place upside down before we set fire to it. It was clean. There was nothing there."
"Apart from the stained-glass window in the local church."
"What window?" The man put down his paper, all attempt at dissimulation now forgotten.
"A window that Lammers commissioned."
"Why didn't we know about this?"
"Because you had him killed before he could tell us."
"What does it show?" A hint of concern had crept into the older man's voice.
"A castle. A triangular castle."
"Merde!"
"That's not all. She gave him something. We weren't able to see what it was, but he arrived empty-handed and left with a bag."
Silence as the first man considered what he had just been told. "Where is he now, this associate? Where's Kirk, for that matter?"
"In Zurich. He went to see Lasche yesterday."
"Lasche!" the man exclaimed in disgust. "That old fool will never—"
"Sir," the second man interrupted, "if you'll forgive me, I think the time has come for more… radical measures. It is no longer enough to trust to providence and people's incompetence."
"What do you mean?"
"Kirk followed the trail from Weissman to Lammers in only forty-eight hours. It took us three years, albeit working in the opposite direction. Kirk discovered the window. A window that we didn't even know existed. He made contact with Lasche, a man who, whatever you may think of him, knows more about that period than anyone else. How long before he starts to make some connections? How long before he gets lucky?"
"And Cassius?" the man asked sullenly. "Did you get him at least?"
"No," replied the other, turning his head away. A dog trotted past them and then relieved itself in the middle of the gravel path. Its owner followed behind, smoking and chatting on his phone, studiously ignoring the polite signs telling him to keep his dog on a leash and to clean up after it. "We had him last night in Munich, but he got away. It seems he isn't acting alone anymore."
"You were right to call me here," the first man said grudgingly. "If Kirk finds out what's really down there, it will only make him more determined. We must take steps. Events are getting out of control. If we don't act now, it may be too late."