Seth nodded, bent over the table, and started to sweep the piles of papers into his briefcase.

The entire business had taken more than two hours. Stratton would be impatient and worried by now. They would find him and take the Volvo to Alt Aussee. There, an old priest named Hans Morgen would help them find some answers. And in those answers there had to be solutions; a way to stop the killing that followed the shroud, a way to exonerate Ridgeway of the murder charges. There had to be a way. There had to be.

Seth held Zoe’s hand as they followed Mutters to the elevator. From the corner of his eye Seth saw two men at the end of the hallway walking toward them. He looked at them closely. One of them looked familiar, but Seth couldn’t remember from where. Cops and professors—and hunted men—see a lot of faces in their lives.

Mutters nodded at the men and smiled as the elevator doors began to open. He seemed to know the men. The man on the right stuck his hand into his coat, and when it appeared again, it was holding an automatic pistol with a long tubular cylinder attached to its muzzle. Seth felt his insides grow cold; a small gasp of surprise escaped from Zoe’s mouth. The man with the gun stopped suddenly about twenty feet from them and raised the weapon.

“No—” was all Mutters could say before the man shot him. The killer then trained his gun on Seth.

Operating on instinct, Seth shoved Zoe into the elevator car and frantically punched the button marked ZUMACHEN. From the hallway came the sounds of running feet muted by the tasteful plush carpeting. Still the door failed to close.

Seth grabbed Zoe by the upper arm and pushed her into the corner of the elevator by the control panel. Zoe watched as he gripped the handle of the black metal briefcase with both hands and hefted it like an Olympic hammer thrower. “Don’t move,” he said. He swung the case tentatively at first, then planted his feet firmly and put his entire weight behind it just as the gunman’s head entered.

The metal briefcase was heavy with the papers and documents inside. One sharp corner caught the killer just above his left ear, the metal edge easily penetrating the thin soft flesh. The next instant, a soggy cracking sound filled the interior of the car as the momentum split open the side of the man’s head like a rotten melon.

The silenced automatic flew out of the killer’s hand and clattered against the elevator wall. Seth kept his grip on the briefcase as the man’s body sagged, then fell heavily, torso in the car and legs in the corridor. The elevator doors finally began to close, slamming repeatedly against the body.

Seth tossed the bloodied briefcase toward Zoe as he lunged for the killer’s weapon. As the elevator doors slammed into the man’s kidneys again, then retracted, Seth saw the second man speaking into a small handheld radio. There were more of them. But where?