Hood would make his apologies and Hausen, gentleman that he was, would probably accept them. Besides, Hood had bared his own soul and men understood men that way. Where tragedies of the heart or mistakes of youth were concerned, men freely gave one another absolution.

Hausen was standing beside Stoll in the main office. Lang was still at Stoll's right.

Hausen met Hood with concerned eyes. "Did you get what you needed?" he asked.

"Pretty much," Hood said. He smiled reassuringly. "Yes, thank you. Everything okay here?"

Hausen said, "I'm glad we spoke." He managed to smile as well.

Stoll was busy typing in commands. "Chief, Herr Hausen wasn't forthcoming about where you'd gone," he said without looking up, "but I find it strange that Paul Hood and Superman are never around at the same time."

"Cool it," Hood warned.

"At once, Boss," Stoll replied. "Sorry."

Now Hood felt guilty for having jumped on him. "Never mind," he said in a gentler tone. "It's been a wicked afternoon. What have you found out?"

Stop brought the game's title screen back on the monitor. "Well," he said, "as I was just telling Herrs Hausen and Lang, this game was installed with a time-release command by the Deputy Foreign Minister's assistant, Hans--"

"Who seems to have vanished," Lang contributed. "We tried him at home and at his health club, and there's no answer."

"And his E-mail address at home isn't receiving," Stoll said. "So he's definitely on the lam. Anyway, the photo of Herr Hausen is from coverage of a speech he gave to Holocaust survivors, while this landscape is from here."

Hood leaned forward and read the caption. " 'The Tarn at Montauban, le Vieux Pont.' " He straightened. "France or Canada?" he asked.

"The south of France," Stoll said. "When you arrived, I was just about to bring up Deirdre's report on the place." He used the keyboard to bring up the file. Then he read, "It says, 'The route rationale, blah-blah, goes north and northwest with the River Garonne to meet the Tarn at Montauban, population 51,000. Town consists of such-and-such' "-- he skimmed the demographic makeup while scrolling the screen-- "and-- ah. Here. 'The building is a stronghold built in 1144 and has historically been associated with regionalism in the south. As a fortress, it helped fight off attacks by Catholics during the Religious Wars, and has remained a symbol of defiance to the locals.' " Stoll continued to scroll the screen.

Hood said, "Does it say anything about who owns the place?"

"I'm a-checkin'," said Stoll. He typed in the word "owner" and ordered a word search. The screen jumped several paragraphs and a name was highlighted. Stoll read, " 'Sold last year for the manufacture of software, with provisions that the owner not make alterations in-- yadda, yadda. Here," he said, "owner. A privately held French company named Demain, which was incorporated in the city of Toulouse in May of 1979."