On the highway, Peter shifted into overdrive, where he was happiest. “You admit you made up the story about Bayern-Franconia and Benz. Why did you choose my grandfather’s bank? Why call him?”

“I saw a letter he wrote to Benz.”

“Do you have the letter?”

“No.”

“Did you read the letter?”

“No.”

Kilometer marks flashed by. Overpasses roared above them.

“Don’t you have a partner back in Moscow? Couldn’t you give him a call?” Peter asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Renko, do you ever feel like the plague?”

Peter must have been keeping track of where they were because suddenly he downshifted and braked to the footing of a black ramp shaded into ash-white. Tommy’s Trabant was gone.

Peter let the BMW roll back slowly. “You can see the concrete is not just burned, it’s chipped. I asked myself, how could a feeble little Trabi hit with that kind of force? Doors folded, locked shut. Steering wheel bent. There are only tire prints of the Trabi and no sign of any broken glass or taillights. But as we come back onto the road, see the skid marks.”

Two dark apostrophes tailed away from the road toward the ramp.

“Did you test them?”

“Yes. Poor-quality carbon rubber. You can’t even recap tires like that, can’t burn them or recycle them. Trabi tires. The investigators think Tommy fell asleep and lost control. Fatal one-man, one-car accidents are always the most difficult to reconstruct. Unless it was a two-car accident, and a larger vehicle came from behind and smashed the Trabi into the ramp. If Tommy had any family or any enemies, the investigation would still be open.”

“It’s closed?”

“Germany has so many highway accidents, terrible accidents on the autobahn, we can’t investigate them all. If you want to kill a German, do it on the road.”

“Were there any flash marks in the car, any sign of arson?”

“No.”

Peter raced in reverse, and with no more than a tap of the brake snapped the car around so that it followed its nose. Arkady remembered that he had flown jets. In Texas, where there was less to hit.

“When Tommy was burning you shouted that you saw a fire like that before. Who?”

“A racketeer.” Arkady corrected himself. “A banker named Rudik Rosen. He burned up in an Audi. Audis burn well, too. After Rudy died he got a fax from the machine that we saw at the station.”

“The sender thought he was alive.”

“Yes.”

“What kind of car fire was it? Electrical? Collision?”

“Different from this. It was arson. A bomb.”

“Different? I have another question. Before this Rosen died, were you in his car with him?”

“Yes.”

“Why is that the first thing I completely believe? Renko, you’re still lying about everything else. There’s more than Benz involved. Who else? Remember, there’s a plane leaving for Moscow tomorrow. You could still be on it.”