Sanderson arrived at the library thirty minutes before closing time. He spent the entire half hour researching archived news articles about the head of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, in particular the years Hamedi spent at the University of Hamburg and the names of colleagues he worked with. The most promising findings Sanderson printed for later study, and at 6:02 that Friday evening he was the last patron to leave the building, a stack of papers under his arm and a stern-faced librarian bolting the door behind him.

*   *   *

Slaton arrived at the warehouse outside Basel at eight o’clock that same evening. A city that clawed outward into both Germany and France, Basel had long been an industrial center, with a particularly vibrant presence in the pharmaceutical field. As such, it was a place with no shortage of office parks and warehouses. Of specific interest to Slaton was an address owned by LMN Properties, a shell company whose vague title—the late Benjamin Grossman freely admitted—had been lifted shamelessly from the middle of the Roman alphabet.

Slaton had been to the building twice before in his dealings with the arms merchant, so he was sure he could find it. He was equally sure that the property remained in Grossman’s holdings, this confirmed by the detailed inventory records provided by the estate lawyer, Herr Holmberg. The only open question was what remained inside. Slaton knew what the storage facility had once housed, and it was not, as alleged in Holmberg’s Addendum Three, a waypoint for pass-thru inventories of “seat cushions, wicker baskets, and scented candles.”

Slaton steered the Rover through blocks of low office buildings and disjointed parking aprons. The buildings varied in size from stand-alone corporate headquarters to space-sharing small businesses, all interspersed with the odd vacant property awaiting new tenants. He saw a handful of other cars in the area, and lights blazed brightly in random windows. Building 17G, however, nestled in an inconspicuous and ill-lit corner, rendered no more than four empty parking slots and a pitch-black entrance. Slaton maneuvered into the nearest spot and backed the Rover tight to the front door. He retrieved the bolt cutters, already hidden in one of the canvas rucksacks he’d purchased, and made his way to a threshold that had likely not been crossed in months.

The sign on the front door was stenciled in simple block letters: LMN, followed by GmbH to denote the Swiss equivalent of a limited liability corporation. There was no accompanying corporate logo, nor any artful designs or feathered script. Indeed, he saw only two other bits of information posted at the entrance. A phone number to call should the place catch fire, and beneath this perhaps the most telling detail—notice that this particular LMN facility would be open, BY PRIOR APPOINTMENT ONLY.