“OK, OK, don’t get your panties in a wad,” said Jean. “I’ll make the call.”

It took her nearly ten minutes to finally get put through personally to Christian Ulrich and then she was glad, despite her knowledge of German, that they had written out a script. She hadn’t felt the least bit nervous as her call was handed around to various underlings at the Bavarian State Police, but as soon as she heard Christian Ulrich’s personal cell phone ringing, her mouth went dry and her mind went blank. All at once, her insides realized this was no longer just a casual investigation into some missing library books. She remembered what Nemo had said back in Brenner—this was the final battle of World War II. For the first time, she felt like one of the soldiers.

“Mr. Ulrich, my name is Ingrid Weiss. I understand that you’d like to talk to me.”

“Frau Weiss,” said the surprised voice on the end of the line. Jean felt sure she heard the clatter of a fork being dropped onto a plate. She had interrupted Ulrich’s dinner. “How surprising to hear from you.”

“I will tell you everything you want to know,” said Jean, sticking to the script, “but first I need you to do something for me.”

“What could I do for you?” said Ulrich.

“If you do this, then tomorrow morning I will ring you and give you my location. You can send officers to bring me and my associates into protective custody and we will answer all your questions.”

Ulrich responded with a rush of German, the words coming far too fast for Jean to translate. This was where he was supposed to say, slowly and calmly, “Yes, of course, I will do whatever you like.” But he had spoken much longer than that sentence required and Jean had no idea what he had said. Did he already know where Weiss was? Had he detected an American accent behind her stilted German? Jean froze. The script in front of her became a blur and she felt the silence on the line stretching out far too long for comfort.

Her face must have telegraphed her panic because Nemo hissed at her, “Say something.”

Finally Jean managed to stutter, in German, “I did not hear.”

Ulrich seemed unfazed, speaking much more slowly this time. “I only said that I think we could keep you much safer than you are now, given the circumstances.”

Jean breathed an inward sigh of relief. The conversation was back on track. She noticed that Ulrich did not define the “circumstances.” She suspected he knew much more about both of the explosions than he had said in his press conference, and that he was withholding information in order to lure Weiss from hiding. Of course telling the press a blatant lie was a little different from not telling the whole truth, but she suspected Ulrich would cooperate.