The cabdriver looked at him a long time, his dark brown eyes staring from his nut-brown face.

“Please,” Seth said as he pulled several Swiss franc notes from his wallet. “I would have had to pay a taxi anyway.”

“If it would make you feel better,” the driver said. Seth nodded as he folded the notes into a wad the size of a matchbook and passed them across to the Turkish driver.

“Thank you,” said the driver as he stuffed the bills into the pocket of his coat. Seth pulled on the door handle and opened the door. “Be careful, my friend,” the cabdriver said.

Ridgeway turned to him. “You too.” And with that, Seth got out and closed the door. Behind him, he heard the taxi’s motor race and then slow as the driver let out the clutch. The horn honked once as the taxi passed him, then disappeared into the bright weavings of traffic, making its way onto and off of the Quai Brucke.

Seth stood there for a moment, smiling to himself. The driver would be home before he discovered the thousand-dollar bill wrapped inside the Swiss francs.

Pushing the thought aside, Seth looked at his watch and noted that according to Jacob Yost’s instructions he still had five minutes to reach the first checkpoint. He walked slowly along the Limmat Quai, pausing in measured turns to look into the display windows of shops along the way.

The night was almost warm and Ridgeway loosened the snaps of his parka to keep from sweating. Die Fohn is what they called it, the cabdriver had said. Sometimes during the winter, great high-pressure systems over North Africa would muscle warm masses of Sahara air north toward the polar low-pressure systems that normally dominated Europe in the wintertime. The result was a blast of warm air that melted snow and—in the snowcapped Alps—ski slopes. The avalanche danger always soared during die Fohn. It was sort of like the Santa Ana winds that blew through southern California in the winter, Seth thought as he walked along. Only die Fohn didn’t spark great grass and range fires and make people crazy. At least not yet.

Seth stopped to look through metal burglar bars into a shop window displaying racks of rings crusted with gems of all colors: red, green, white, blue, yellow. The shops weren’t as fancy here as they were across the river on the Bahnhofstrasse. Neither were the prices, he thought.

Then suddenly from behind him and to his left, Seth heard a pair of footsteps scrape along the sidewalk and come to a halt. His next breath solidified in the middle of his chest as he whirled toward the noise, his hand going for the Magnum in his pocket.

Nothing! Seth felt his heart flailing in his chest like an angry fist as he turned from side to side. He was absolutely alone on the sidewalk for half a block in each direction.

Still cautious, Seth retraced his steps past several doorways. There was no one hiding in a doorway. Puzzled, Seth continued his walk, looking suspiciously in doorway after doorway. He was sure he had heard something.