Yost smiled broadly. “But you don’t have to look further,” he said. “Your wife is here in Zurich. I spoke with her just an hour or so before you arrived.”

Seth jerked forward in his chair as if he had been jolted by high voltage. “Zoe? In Zurich? How did… why—why did she call you? Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Where is she?”

Yost raised his hand for silence. “One question at a time, one at a time please.” He paused and moistened his dry chapped lips with his tongue.

“She called me because I am sure that Willi Max mentioned my name to her,” Yost began. “She knows my connection to the art at Kreuzlingen, and not just the fact that I have framed nearly every piece that Max had… collected. But she called me not about art, but in hopes that I had heard from you.” He smiled.

“But why didn’t you tell me about her sooner?”

“Because I knew that you would hear nothing else of what I said if I had told you that first,” Yost replied. “And what I have told you is extremely important to me, to your wife, and to the rest of the world.”

Seth stared blankly at Yost through wide, stunned eyes.

“Where?” Seth’s voice was cracked and faint with joy. “Where is she?”

“At your hotel,” Yost replied. “At the Eden au Lac.”

Abruptly Seth stood up. “All this time…” His voice was full of wonder. “We’ve been apart all this time, and we wind up at the same hotel.”

He stood silently for a long moment, his eyes gazing past the depths of the flames in the hearth. Then he snapped out of it

“Thank you for your time and your hospitality, Mr. Yost I—”

“Wait” Yost’s face was suddenly filled with fear. “Promise me you will go to Alt Aussee to meet with Hans. He’s put himself in a great deal of danger to meet with you.”

“I—”

Seth was about to say that he would have to ask Zoe about it when the floor shuddered beneath his feet followed by the rumbling roar of an explosion.

“Damn construction crews,” Yost bellowed. “They’ve hit the side of the building with that crane again!”

But it was not the crane. Suddenly, from beyond the stout oaken doors that led to the study, they heard the short choppy bursts of the younger Yost’s H&K MP5A, then the softer coughing responses of silenced automatic weapons.

“Father!” They heard the young Yost scream. “They’re here! They’re here.” And suddenly they knew the son was dead.

“Quick! Close the door, Mr. Ridgeway,” Yost said. “It is very strong.”

From the hallway Seth heard running feet and the sound of men’s hushed and hurried voices.

Seth leaped to his feet and lunged toward the oaken door. Just as the doorknob rattled, his hand found the latch to the dead bolt and turned it swiftly.

Ridgeway heard curses from the other side of the door, followed by the rattle of hinges as someone threw himself against it. The door groaned, but held fast.