Though stiff and a bit bruised from her ride in the trunk, Ingrid finally felt in a celebratory mood when Dietrich called. She insisted on opening a bottle of champagne, and she and Eva toasted their success, toasted Himmler, and toasted the Reich. Ingrid felt a great relief. She still had to deal with the German police, but with the gold safe, however that situation turned out—even if the police proved she had blown up her own house—it didn’t matter. In prison or out, Ingrid could now begin the work her grandfather had set her to do.

XV

XV

seventeen hours earlier
10:00 a.m.

The entire plan rested on the fact that Alex had seen a dump truck slowly descending the road from Brenner to Innsbruck as he drove up the opposite side. At that early hour of the morning, it had been one of the few other vehicles on the road and Alex, ever the admirer of German engineering, had seen the familiar medallion on the front grille and taken just enough notice that he was later able to identify it as a Mercedes 4144 K. “The cab was painted fire engine red,” he told the others when they had found a picture of the right truck on Franklin’s phone.

“And you’re sure it was the 4144 K?” said Nemo.

“Pretty sure,” said Alex.

“Pretty sure lands us all dead in a ditch and hands Ingrid Weiss a fortune in gold,” said Nemo stepping toward Alex. “Fuck pretty sure. I need you to be sure.”

“OK, OK,” said Alex. “Let’s just take it down a notch. I’m sure.”

“He’s not sure,” said Nemo, turning away.

Patton had never seen Nemo look this worried. “Look,” she said, “right now his intel is the best intel we’ve got. So we move forward. We proceed with caution but we move forward because it’s the only thing we can do.”

The seven of them sat squeezed into one room at the Hotel Wittelsbach in Oberammergau. They had used Bob’s credit card to book three rooms, but only one was ready this early so they plotted in a wood-paneled bedroom with windows looking out at the Alps. Because the three soldiers were not on the radar of either the police or Ingrid Weiss and her cronies, they suddenly had three cell phones they deemed safe to use. Since their arrival in Oberammergau an hour earlier, they had put those phones to good use.

“What was the investigator’s name again?” said Jean.

“Christian Ulrich,” said Ted, pointedly adding, “and yes, I’m sure,” when he saw Nemo turn toward him.

“Christian Ulrich,” repeated Jean. “Hallo, kann ich bitte mit Christian Ulrich sprechen?”

“He’s a lead investigator for the Bavarian State Police,” said Franklin, as his thumbs flew across his phone.