“One percent,” said Ruthie. “And one percent of seven hundred million dollars is a tidy sum. The money I inherited from my great-aunt is pretty thin on the ground these days, and one has to keep the lights on, you know. Getting my revenge on you for dropping me all those years ago, well that was an unexpected coincidence and a lovely bonus.

“Did you get the truck?” Ruthie addressed this last question to Dietrich.

“How did they know they would need a—” said Nemo.

“You all were busy tearing down a wall,” said Ruthie. “Easy enough for me to send a text message.”

“It should be here in about ten minutes,” said Dietrich. “Along with a two-man crew. If we back it up to the other side of that wall and knock a hole through, we should be able to get it loaded in a couple of hours.”

“As long as it’s before dawn,” said Ingrid.

“And what about . . .” said Jean, not sure how to finish the question.

“What about you?” said Ingrid with a smile. “I’m afraid the three of you have finished your job. You’ve done well, but this time it won’t be so easy to escape the explosion. Is there someplace we can lock them up?”

“That room over there,” said Ruthie, pointing to the sacristy. Although the heavy wooden door stood open, there was a key in the lock and in another moment Patton felt the barrel of Ingrid’s rifle urging her forward into yet another small, dark space.

The door of the sacristy was thick enough to prevent their having any hope of breaking it down, but not so thick that they couldn’t hear the approach of the truck, the thudding of sledgehammers against the outer wall, and the grunts as the crew loaded one twenty-five-kilogram bar after another. The process seemed to last forever.

“Are you all right, Patton?” said Nemo.

“Weirdly, yes, I am,” said Patton. “For the moment at least.” She had expected to plunge into a full-blown panic attack when locked up in the pitch-dark sacristy, but her mind was apparently still so busy trying to process Ruthie’s treachery that it didn’t grasp the fact that this situation would normally trigger her PTSD. And the mere fact that Nemo had asked if she was OK, had acknowledged her condition, comforted her in a small way. She knew she might not be OK at any minute, and that, even if she remained perfectly calm, they still faced a dire situation, but she did everything she could to focus on the sounds coming from outside that locked door, to glean any information she could that might help them. If only she spoke German.