Seth lit the small gas stove, and in the gentle blue light it cast, they made their way along the trail of carbon black that Zoe had so carefully laid down on the way in.

The anemic light of the gas stove took them as far as the massive minefield that guarded the immediate entrance to the chamber. Ridgeway pulled out the flashlight then and used its remaining minutes of light to guide them through the minefield step by step.

The rest of the going was made easy by the dark trail that snaked around mines and booby traps. In several places they could see where Stratton had tried to obliterate the carbon black. But his efforts only smudged the trail.

Stratton had also tried to isolate them by pulling the bridge boards from the roiling underground stream in Gunther’s tunnel. But after only a dozen or so tosses, Seth was able to entangle the far end of one of the boards with the climbing rope and pull it to them. With the rope tied around his waist, he crossed the single shaky board while Zoe and Morgen hung tight onto the rope’s other end.

Once on the other side, he replaced all of the boards so the others could cross.

It was dark by the time they reached the entrance to the abandoned mine. The snowstorm had cleared completely, leaving a dark moonless sky filled with stars. A sharp wind keened up from the valley.

One of the snowmobiles was gone and Stratton had removed the distributor wires from the other two. He had either taken the wires with him or thrown them into the snow, where they would remain hidden until the spring thaw.

Ridgeway looked first at one of the snowmobiles and then the other. He removed a sparkplug wire from one, and, taking it over to the other vehicle, fastened it first to the distributor and then to the high-voltage coil. The engine roared with the try of the starter.

The three of them mounted the snowmobile with Ridgeway at the controls.

“He has gone to Innsbruck,” Morgen said flady, breaking out of a nearly catatonic silence. “Stratton has gone to Innsbruck.”

“How do you know?” Seth asked, raising his voice above the roar of the snowmobile engine.

“Brown,” Morgen said.

“What?” Seth asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I told you I would tell you what that meant, didn’t I?” Morgen said.

Seth nodded slowly, afraid that the events of the day had unhinged the old priest’s mind.

“It was not brown, the color,” Morgen said quietly. Seth turned off the snowmobile engine to hear him better. “No, it was Braun.” He paused, looking off into a place where neither Seth nor Zoe could go. “Braun. He mentioned the name just before he died as if Braun were to blame. I prayed it would not be him. But it must be.”

Morgen fixed Seth with pain-filled eyes.

“Braun lives in Innsbruck,” Morgen said. “Stratton has taken the Sophia Passion to him. We must go there.”