“I said have a seat!” shouted Ingrid, spitting at Jean. In another instant, the two lovers had each grabbed one of Jean’s arms and forced her into the chair. Gottfried stepped toward her, the gun still trained on her face. She should have listened to Peter, thought Jean. She should have called the police first. But who knew that someone who stole library books would be a . . . a what? What was Ingrid Weiss? A kidnapper? A terrorist? Jean had no idea, and that, more than anything else, even more than the gun in her face, frightened her. If she didn’t know Ingrid’s game, she couldn’t play.

“What do you want?” said Jean as calmly as she could manage.

“She just came to us?” said Gottfried, switching to German and ignoring Jean.

“We followed her here,” said Eva, stepping forward. “She went to Dachau first and then she came here.”

“I rather doubt you followed her the whole time,” said Ingrid. “But that is not our concern at the moment. The question is, what do we do with her?”

“She’s perfect for Operation Waistcoat,” said Dietrich. “She came here of her own accord, the surveillance footage is already uploaded to the external server, and according to Gottfried, we have enough money now to relocate to the Fox’s Den. Operation Waistcoat turns a problem into an advantage.”

“And the money will pour in,” said Gottfried.

“Soon money will not be a problem anyway,” said Ingrid.

“Yes,” said Dietrich, “but until then it could come in handy.”

“Very well,” said Ingrid. “Will it fit her?”

Dietrich smiled what Jean could only think of as an evil grin as he said, “It’s adjustable.”

“Excellent,” said Ingrid. “Now we just need to wait to hear from Karl and Erich.”

Jean did not speak enough German to follow the whole conversation, but she caught bits and pieces—enough to be both puzzled and concerned.

The message came quicker than they expected but what they did not know, what they could not know, was that the message had been sent not by Karl and Erich but by an English-speaking cab driver whom Nemo had paid €1,000 to drive to Odelzhausen, just northwest of Munich, turn on Karl and Erich’s phone, and send a message to Weiss that translated roughly, “They got off the train in Stuttgart. Now in a car heading to final destination—Berchtesgaden. Meet us there for intercept and completion of Projekt Alchemie. HH.” The cabbie would type the message in German, and deliver the phone to Berchtesgaden, the small town on the German-Austrian border where Adolf Hitler had built his Eagle’s Nest retreat. There he would type one more message and then he would go about his business, €1,000 for the better. It was the easiest money he had ever made.

“I always thought it would be Berchtesgaden,” said Ingrid.

“We can be there in less than two hours,” said Dietrich.