It was a good ploy, Seth thought. From a darkened window, the younger Yost would easily be able to identify Seth in the illumination shed by the lighter’s flame. Following Yost’s precise instructions, Ridgeway would now linger another five minutes while the Yosts observed him, and, more important, scanned the surrounding area to see if he was being followed. Plans—Yost didn’t specify them—would change if there were people following.

Time oozed past. Seth tried to pray again and the thoughts turned in his heart like sharp metal. Maybe God really was dead. The thought raised the pain of guilt in his heart. Fear for his mortal soul had just begun to pluck at Seth’s nerves when first one, then two candles lit up on the top floor of the building on the southwest corner of Rami Strasse and Zelt Weg.

Seth’s pulse quickened as he stepped across the street and made his way toward the building. Two candles! That was Yost’s signal that all was well. On the other side of the street, he had to wait as a truck carrying a load of concrete backed slowly into an adjoining construction site. As he paused behind the barrier, he watched as a huge hopper, with the dregs of a previous load of concrete slopping down its sides, was gingerly lowered from the tip of a huge cantilevered crane. Seth looked up and saw that the crane’s tip nearly touched the wall of Yost’s building. From the ground it looked as if it missed by only inches.

The concrete mixer truck roared with a cloud of diesel exhaust and lumbered its elephantine way through the gates of the construction site to replace a twin that had just pulled out, empty no doubt.

Finally, the barrier was lifted and Seth and one other pedestrian, a bent old woman with a wire cart full of groceries, were allowed to continue.

Seth approached the address Yost had given him and stepped up to a locked door with a row of numbered buttons, no names beside them. He pressed the button next to 874—once very quickly, then again for a full two seconds.

As soon as his hand had dropped to his side, the foyer door buzzed from its remote release. He pushed through quickly and walked toward the elevators. An empty car was waiting for him. He stepped in and pressed the button for the top floor, number eight.

The polished brass doors of the elevator slid shut Above him the noisy old mechanisms of the conveyance carried him gracefully upward.

When the car stopped, the doors did not open. For a moment, Seth thought the elevator was stuck, but then the telephone on the wall began to ring. He picked it up.

“Ridgeway?” It was Yost’s voice.

“Of course.”

“Step into the middle of the car and take off your coat.”

“What?” Seth replied. “Why would—”

“Look in the corner of the elevator,” Yost replied. “There’s a closed circuit video camera. I just want to make sure everything is as it should be.”