For the first time since they had arrived at his house, Alex looked nervous. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. “You wouldn’t . . .”

“Trust me,” said Nemo, taking a threatening step toward Alex, “you don’t want to know what I would and wouldn’t do. So keep your fucking mouth shut and your door locked and maybe, if you’re extremely lucky, you’ll never see me again.”

“So your plan,” said Patton, in a voice clearly meant to ease the tension, “is to march into the office of the very person who has been hunting us across two continents and ask her to hand over something she might well consider her most valuable possession.”

“Well,” said Nemo, “when you put it like that . . .”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad plan,” said Patton. “I just wanted to get it clear in my head.”

“In what way could it possibly not be considered a bad plan?” said Ruthie.

“It’s just not a complete plan,” said Patton.

“It’s not an office,” said Alex. “I looked it up when she kept emailing me, and the address for Columbia House is literally just a house in suburban Munich. She actually lives on a street once named for Hermann Göring.”

“Of course she does,” said Patton.

“Aren’t we forgetting another possibility?” said Ruthie.

“What’s that?” said Patton.

“We send this Ingrid Weiss the decrypted message and go our separate ways.”

The room fell silent for a moment before Alex spoke. “But she’s the bad guy. Even I can tell that.”

“So,” said Nemo, “we just have to figure out a way to convince this bad guy and anybody else in her house to come out and leave the place unguarded, break in, find a book that we might not even recognize if we saw it, get out before anyone sees us, and not leave a trail when we go.” Nemo said this not in a tone of despair, but in one of excitement, as if he had already put together a plan.

Patton stepped toward Ruthie and took her hand. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “You won’t have to do anything but lie low for a few days. And all Nemo and I need is a way to send Weiss misleading information, someone who’s an expert on military-level surveillance, a few thousand euros in cash, a description of this catalog, and some serious chutzpah.”

“And, unless I’m mistaken,” said Nemo, “we have all of that right in this room. Now, Alex is right about one thing.”

“What’s that?” said Alex.

“Breakfast.”