The guard respectfully returned Seth’s glance as the trio got off the elevator.

Abels led them to a door at the end of the hall and unlocked it with a key he took from his pocket The room, which occupied a corner of the building that overlooked the Bahnhofstrasse and the lake, was decorated in a tasteful opulence as if designed to please those who had a great deal of money but didn’t want to spent it frivolously.

“Please make yourselves comfortable,” Abels said, “while I notify one of our officers that you are here.” Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned, executing a perfect military about-face, and left the room. The door slid shut as firmly and solidly as a vault door. Seth tried the knob. It was locked.

He and Zoe looked silently about them. The room was the size of a luxury hotel room and furnished in much the same way. Besides the sofa and chairs, there was a television set, a rack of current magazines, a small computer terminal displaying financial quotes, and a wet bar stocked with liquor. Seth went to the wet bar, set the wrapped painting down on the counter, and filled a tumbler with water from a chilled bottle of Perrier.

“Some bank, huh?” Zoe said with a false cheerfulness. “The fascist droids at NationsBanc could learn a few things from these people.”

Seth walked over to the window and looked down at the street The Salvation Army was playing its heart out competing for the odd franc here and there. “Maybe,” he said tersely. “They’re all the same, bankers—the big ones anyway.” He turned to look at her. “Honest people rarely profit from dealing with them.”

“My, we’re touchy this afternoon,” she said, half joking. She walked over to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I was just thinking about how this fellow Abels is falling all over himself in a half swoon. But then he locks us in this room just to make sure. Bank procedure. They all have procedures. Bankers are all like a bunch of Nazis strutting around saying: “Ve haf our orders, und you vill like it!” And when they screw you, accidentally or on purpose, it’s always because they were just following orders.” He paused. “It’s just business. Anytime you hear somebody say that, you can be sure they checked their sense of morality at the door.”

He looked at her and saw the depth of patience in her eyes. She said: “It’s good to know you haven’t changed in the past six months.”

Seth looked at her for a long moment, then laughed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m a little nervous.”

“I know,” she said.

Just then, they heard a key grumble into the lock. It clicked open and a distinguished man with gray hair and a tightly clipped mustache entered the room. His face was patrician, his suit Savile Row. He spoke English with the terribly proper accent of one who had studied at the best of schools.