Ballon looked at Hood. Hood continued to look at Hausen. He felt the same way he did on the jet. He wanted to believe in this man's sincerity. But there were lives at risk and despite everything Hausen had said, there was still the hint of a doubt.

Hood took the phone from his pocket. He punched in a telephone number. John Benn answered.

"John," Hood said, "I want to know when Maximillian Hausen died."

"The suddenly ubiquitous Nazi," Benn said. "That'll take a minute or two. Do you want to hold on?"

"I do," said Hood.

Benn put him on hold. Hood regarded Hausen. "I'm sorry," Hood said, "but I owe this to Matt and Nancy."

"I would do the same," said Hausen. "But I tell you again, I despise Gerard Dominique and the New Jacobins and the neo-Nazis and everything they represent. If it hadn't smacked of Nazism itself, I might have turned in my own father."

"You've had some difficult choices to make," Hood said.

"That I have," said Hausen. "You see, Gerard was wrong. It takes a coward to operate outside the law."

John Benn came back on. "Paul? Hausen the Elder died two years ago next month. There was a short obituary in a Bonn newspaper-- ex-Luftwaffe pilot, private pilot, etcetera."

"Thanks," Hood said. "Thanks very much." He hung up. "Again, Herr Hausen, I'm sorry."

"Again, Mr. Hood," said Hausen, "there's no need to--"

"Paul!"

Hood and Hausen looked at Stoll. Ballon was already running over.

"What've you got?" Hood asked as they followed Ballon.

"Bupkis, " he said. "I mean, however I poke and prod it, my machine isn't fast enough to do an analysis before 2010. I was about to call Op-Center for help when Nancy found something better."

She rose and said to Ballon, "In other Demain games you can skip to the next level by pausing the game and pushing the arrows on the keypad in a certain sequence-- down, up, up, down, left, right, left, right."

"And?"

"And we're already on level two of this game," she said, "without having played level one."

"Would Dominique really have been stupid enough to put the same cheat codes in one of these games?" Hood asked.

"That's just it," Nancy said. "It's already in the computer. It has to be removed, not put in. Somewhere along the line somebody forgot to delete it."

Ballon was standing very tall and looking toward the factory.

"How about it?" Hood asked the Colonel. "Is that good enough for you?"

Ballon snatched the radio from his belt. He looked at Matt. "Did you save the game on your computer?"

"The jump from level one to level two has been copied and stored," he said.

Ballon turned on his radio and put it to his mouth. "Sergeant Ste. Marie?" he said. "Allons!"

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Thursday, 10:12 P.M.,

Wunstorf, Germany

Manfred attacked with the knife stabbing down toward Bob Herbert in his wheelchair.