“It came from people like my grandparents,” said Jean in answer to Patton’s question. “Eleven million people like my grandparents.” They all stood reverently for a moment looking at the gold and letting this grim proclamation about its provenance sink in.

Nemo stood on the altar to reach the top of the golden wall and remove one of the ingots. He knew gold would be heavy, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite this heavy, and the bar slipped from his hand and thudded to the floor. The four of them stood for a moment looking at the bar and its markings. Clearly stamped in the gold were two symbols. The first read 25 KG. The second was a swastika.

“Nazi gold,” said Nemo. “That son of a bitch Himmler wasn’t lying when he said Projekt Alchemie was a success.”

“Twenty-five kilograms,” said Patton, counting, “and this wall is . . . thirty-two ingots high and eighteen across. That’s just over . . . fourteen thousand kilos.”

“Anybody know the price of gold at the moment?” said Nemo.

“Around fifteen hundred dollars an ounce,” said Ruthie.

“Which makes the value of this wall . . .”

“Something north of seven hundred million dollars,” said Patton.

“We’re going to need a bigger van,” said Ruthie.

“We’re going to need more than a van,” said Nemo.

“And if Weiss and company are headed our way, we’re going to have to work fast,” said Patton.

“So we’re just going to steal seven hundred million dollars in gold?” said Jean. “Doesn’t this belong to someone?”

“It belongs to Heinrich fucking Himmler,” said Nemo. “You want to return it to him?”

“It doesn’t belong to him,” said Patton, laying a hand on Jean’s shoulder. “It belongs to all the people he stole it from, and for them, yes, we’re going to keep it away from Ingrid Weiss.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Jean. “What would Ingrid Weiss do with all that money anyway?”

“Are you kidding me?” said Nemo. “You want to know what an Aryan supremacist who walks in the footsteps of Heinrich Himmler and lives by the Fourteen Words can do with seven hundred million dollars? If the whole point of her project is to ‘secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,’ what won’t she do? Do you know how little it costs these days to hire Russian hackers to rig an election? How a small investment can turn whole populations against immigrants, against religious and ethnic minorities, against each other? You want to know how little it costs to hire an assassin to remove any opposition you might face, because I can tell you and it’s nowhere near seven hundred million dollars. Hate is cheap, and seven hundred million dollars will buy an awful lot of it.”

“But if Weiss is on her way here, how are we going to move all this before she arrives?” said Ruthie.