Becker frowned at me, surprised. “You think I want to buy houses and cars? Retire to a desert island?” He shook his head at me. “Money buys much more than things. It buys influence.”

I stopped walking. I suddenly saw his plan. Katharina had told us about how merciless he’d been in his career, doing whatever it took to rise through the ranks. Then he’d collected blackmail information on politicians to ensure he kept getting promoted, right up to the top levels of Germany’s intelligence agency. But, stupidly, we’d assumed that was as far as his ambitions went. “You want to rule,” I breathed. “You want to be Chancellor.”

“This country needs a strong leader,” he explained, and pushed me forward.

My mind was spinning. He could already blackmail most of the country’s politicians. Now he was going to have millions of dollars to bribe the rest, and to spend on a huge election campaign. He could actually do it. And the thought of someone like him running a country… Oh God.

I’d let him have the bomb. I’d failed to keep the key away from him. This was all on me.

We entered a huge room, the ceiling thirty feet high. Four huge windows, each the size of a semi truck stood on its end, allowed the freezing winter light to flood inside in four diagonal shafts. Standing in one of those shafts, as if soaking up the winter, was a woman in her forties in a cream business suit. She had those curves that make men crazy, her cleavage smoothly tanned and perfectly presented by a low-cut black blouse. And she was beautiful, with black hair in a glossy, shoulder-length bob and the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen. But there was something about being in her presence that was deeply unsettling. She stared at me as we approached and I felt like a mouse being watched by a snake.

“Who’s she?” asked the woman. Her accent was British but nothing like Danny’s. This was an upper-class drawl, a razor wrapped in silk.

“No one,” Becker told her.

The woman arched an eyebrow suspiciously and then mercifully moved her gaze to Becker. “Your buyers should be here in a few hours,” she told him.

“Please let me know when they arrive,” said Becker. I’d never known him to be so deferential to anyone. Who was this woman? “Is there a room we can use?”

“The east tower bedroom.” She pointed to a door. Becker handed over the mover’s cart and led me towards the door. As we walked away, the woman raised her hands in the air and clapped twice. Two men hurried in from another room, took the cart from her and wheeled it away: apparently, she didn’t sully herself with such things.