"Of course not." Volz smiled proudly. "We are a bank, after all. Our first duty is to our customers, not to the Jewish lobby." Tom bit his lip. "Here at Banque Volz, we never forget that."
"I'm glad to hear it. And our account…?"
"Is exactly as was initially instructed. Nothing has been touched."
"Excellent."
"Not since it was last accessed, at least."
"Which was when, exactly?" Archie asked.
Volz removed his glasses and consulted his screen. "May 1958."
Tom glanced at Archie. The same year Lammers had posted the photos of the three Bellak paintings to Weiss-man, according to the postmark.
"A long time," said Tom. "All the more reason — if you don't mind, Herr Volz — not to delay any longer."
"Of course, of course." Volz leaped to his feet. "Follow me, gentlemen."
He led them past the secretaries into the hall and then through another doorway into a large square-shaped stairwell. Here, three shallow flights of stone steps, each connected by a broad landing, marched their way up to the first and then to the second floor. Above, a slate sky glowered through a glass cupola.
A door was set into the wall under the staircase, and it was to this that Volz went. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door, reached in, and flicked a light switch, illuminating a narrow flight of dirty steps.
"The wine cellar," Volz explained.
The stairs led down into a low room, perhaps twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide, that smelled old and musty. The only light came from a couple of weak lightbulbs that hung forlornly from the unfinished ceiling. The room was lined with wine racks cradling row upon row of dusty bottles, their labels worn and stained.
"Nice little collection you've got down here," Archie observed appreciatively, pulling a bottle of Chateau Lafleur '61 from the rack.
Volz went to a rack at the rear of the cellar and pulled it toward him. It swung forward to reveal a large steel door. Reaching into his pocket, he took out another key and unlocked it.
As the door opened, the lights inside blinked on, revealing a room of almost antiseptic whiteness, from the tiled rubber floor to the whitewashed walls and ceiling. It was quite empty apart from a stainless-steel table that took up the middle of the room, a flat-panel computer monitor set at chest height on the far wall, and, to the right of it, what looked like a steel drawer. Strangely, there were no sharp edges: every corner and angle was subtly rounded, as if shaped and smoothed by thousands of years of glacial melt-water.
"How many accounts do you have here?" Tom asked, careful to keep his tone casual.
Volz rubbed his chin in thought. "Accounts like yours? We have about two hundred dating from the war that are still active."
"How do you define 'active'?"
"Ones for which we have contact addresses — post-office boxes mainly — for the designated account holders. That's where we send essential information, such as the new key that was sent out when we upgraded the security system about three years ago. If it doesn't get returned, we deem the account active."
"And if they are returned?"
"It usually means that the original owners or trustees have died, and with them all knowledge of the box's existence. But we hold the box for them all the same, just in case someone makes contact. You see, most of these boxes were taken out on ninety-nine-year leases, payable up front, so we have a duty to hold them until the end of the period. By the time the leases expire… Well, let's just say that it probably won't be my problem."
He laughed and turned to the computer panel, tapping it lightly with his finger. Immediately the screen pulsed into life, displaying ten white question marks across its dark surface. He paused, then turned back to face them.
"The account number again, please."
Tom typed in the code recovered from Weissman's arm, selecting each number from a list at the bottom of the screen. The screen went blank, then flashed a greeting:
Wilkommen
Konto: 1256093574
Kontoname: Werfen
Bitte Schlussel einfuhren
Account name Werfen, Tom mused. What or who was that? Volz interrupted his thoughts.
"Please insert your key," he translated, pointing at the small square hole beneath the screen.
Tom slipped the key into the hole and a few seconds later a small graphic of a padlock opening confirmed that it had been successfully read by the lasers.
"Now the infrared," Volz prompted.
Tom pressed the button on the key's rubberized handle until another graphic of a door opening confirmed that the algorithms had matched. So far, so good.
"Well gentlemen, your key matches your account. So all that is left is the palm scan."
"Herr Volz," Tom said, turning to face him. "I wonder whether you could give my colleague and me a little privacy?"
"Of course," said Volz. He was nothing if not the professional Swiss banker. "Just place your hand against this panel…" He indicated a glass plate on the left of the computer screen that Tom had not noticed before. "The system will retrieve your box and place it in here." He pointed at the drawer front. "When you are finished, replace the box in the tray and the system will reset. I will come down and close the room up myself after you have gone."
"Thank you for your help," Tom said, shaking his hand.
As soon as the sound of the banker's footsteps had receded up the stairs, Tom slid his briefcase onto the table and opened it. Weissman's arm had been packed with ice and then sealed inside a clear plastic bag that had itself been covered with further ice packs. Even so, outside of a properly refrigerated environment it had begun to smell, and the flesh had turned a funny shade of yellow.
"Christ!" muttered Archie, peering over Tom's shoulder. "That is rank."
Breathing through his mouth, Tom reached into the bag and extracted the arm from under the ice, holding it just above the wrist. It felt hard and slippery, like a dead fish.
Tom approached the glass panel and placed the lifeless hand against it. A crosshatch of red beams lit up from deep within the glass and scanned the hand's surface. The screen flashed a warning.
"Scan failure," Tom translated grimly.
"How many tries do we get?"
"Two more. Then it locks us out."
"I hope we've got this right."
"Turnbull told me that Weissman only traveled abroad once and that was three years ago to some conference in Geneva. The same time, according to what Volz just told us, that they upgraded the security system here. I doubt it's a coincidence. Weissman could easily have got the train here, had his palm scanned into the system, and then got back to Geneva in time for dinner. No one would have suspected a thing."
"Maybe the fingers need to be pressed harder against the glass," Archie suggested.
Tom pressed his own hand to the back of Weissman's, forcing it flat. The red grid flared into life once more, then extinguished itself.
"Scan failure," Tom said with a rueful shrug. "I think the reader's picking up the edge of my fingers where they overlap. Maybe you should try. Your hands are a bit smaller than mine."
"Okay," said Archie, taking the arm and pressing his hand against Weissman's so that the fingers were splayed across the glass. Again the laser grid scanned the hand. The screen went blank, then flashed up another message.
"Scan successful." Tom breathed with relief.
Holding the arm between his fingertips and as far away from his body as he could, Archie dropped it back into the plastic bag, sealed it, and shut the briefcase with relief.
There was a whirring noise from behind the wall. Tom glanced at Archie. They both knew what was happening, having studied the workings of these types of systems many times. Somewhere deep below where they were now stand-