“I know what you mean,” Seth said as he looked warily about him. Death had come out of nowhere before. This time he wouldn’t let it take him by surprise. “He struck me the same way when I first met him. But you have to admit he’s come through every time. Neither of us would be alive if not for him.”

“Still…” Zoe’s voice trailed off. “He has the connections to get you on the Interpol watch list.”

“Why in hell would he want to do that?”

“To make you dependent on him. Keep you from seeking help anywhere else.”

“Well, it’s the only hand we’ve got. Might as well play it.”

They passed the Salvation Army band, which was playing a rigid tune that sounded as if it had been written by a Calvinist who felt that musical notes were a work of the Devil. Seth dropped a ten-franc note in the donation pot as they passed.

“Danke schön,” the woman called after them.

Ridgeway stopped and looked up at the building, his heart thudding in his chest. The eye of the former policeman probed deeper than the grillwork and the secure-looking stone and found what he expected: the discreet and nearly invisible metallic glintings that betrayed a variety of modern security devices behind the facade of old elegance. Ridgeway had heard talk of these banks, how they employed scanners built into doorjambs, lobbies, and elevators to check for weapons. Each anteroom, office, and elevator in the building was built to be automatically sealed off from the others, to isolate possible thieves, terrorists, or the merely suspicious.

Swiss banks were too discreet to allow publicity concerning their security systems, but it was known in law enforcement circles and—Seth presumed in the underworld—that once sealed off, each of the compartments was as secure as the best prison cells ever devised. Soundproof, bulletproof, able to resist substantial explosive charges, they could hold a fugitive for police without his disturbing the daily business conducted by the bank’s other, legitimate, customers.

Seth looked at the door. He rubbed his moist palms against each other and then reached for the knob. Would the door be one that led ultimately to their freedom? Or would the people inside see them as the fugitives that they really were and trap them in some impenetrable room to await the arrival of the Swiss police? He had the uncomfortable feeling that this was not a place he wanted to go inside. He swallowed against the fear in his throat and pushed the door open for Zoe.

The room was not at all like a bank. To one side were a sofa and two armchairs separated by a cocktail table. A brass lamp burned on an end table next to the sofa. They stood on midnight-blue carpeting that seemed ankle deep. The walls were paneled in dark wood hung with hunting prints. A large man with blond hair sat behind a massive wooden desk at the far end of the room. He rose to greet them. It would all have been very corporate or ordinary had it not been for the fact that other than the door through which they had entered, there seemed to be no other way in or out of the room.