“He’s still got thirty minutes on them,” said Alex after hanging up. “That should be enough, right?”

“Maybe,” said Bob. “But Weiss’s goons better not get there before three.” Neither of the men said anything else until they reached the four-lane highway and saw a sign for Zurich.

“So how did you start collecting all this Nazi stuff?” said Bob.

“I grew up in London,” said Alex, “and they were building a new gymnasium at my school when they dug up an unexploded German bomb from World War II. It had been right underneath our playground. I found that fascinating, that something like that could still exist. As a teenager I started going to antiques markets like Portobello Road and Camden Passage and buying anything I could find from the war. I noticed pretty quickly that there were a lot fewer German artifacts for sale than British ones, so I decided to collect those. I liked the challenge. It started out with things like uniform buttons and medals and eventually led to . . . everything.”

“You ever serve in the military?” said Bob.

“No,” said Alex.

“I did nineteen years,” said Bob. “I loved most of it, made closer friends than I ever would have doing anything else. Brothers. And sisters, too. But I never understood why anyone would want to collect all those reminders of death and violence. Especially from the enemy. Maybe our worst enemy ever.”

“It’s hard to explain,” said Alex. “It does fascinate me—the way the minutiae of history can be revealed through ordinary objects. But when I look back on it, what really motivated me was trying to win the game. Trying to have a bigger collection than the other guys. It’s almost a coincidence I ended up collecting Nazi memorabilia. I think I would have had the same attitude whatever I collected.”

“I can’t imagine living with all that stuff,” said Bob. “It would . . . weigh on me, I think.”

“It does,” said Alex. “But then again, it got me involved in all this. It helped Patton and Nemo find the gold. Still, when this is over . . .”

“Gonna sell it all?”

“I don’t know,” said Alex. “Being away from it has been . . . liberating. It might be nice to escape it once and for all.”

“I can understand wanting to escape something that’s taken over your life,” said Bob.

“You mean something like wanting to kill the person who killed your friends?”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Bob, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

1:45 a.m.

Jean flicked off the headlights and eased to the side of the road a hundred meters or so behind where the black sedan had pulled over. Few cars passed in either direction, and when the road looked empty, the driver got out of the car and opened the trunk.

“What is he getting out of there?” said Jean.