“Maybe,” said Patton.

“So let’s just put a pin in the whole revenge thing for now,” said Bob. “I’m not saying there isn’t still a part of me that’s dying to put a bullet in you, but I can ignore that voice for the time being.”

“Good,” said Nemo. “Ignore it. Because we’ve got work to do.”

“True,” said Patton, “and we have seven hundred million dollars to do it with.”

The Criminal Investigation Division of the Liechtenstein National Police has a total of sixteen officers. Eight of them arrived at the Park Hotel Sonnenhof shortly after 11:00 a.m. to arrest Ingrid Weiss and her three associates on a variety of charges filed by the Bavarian State Police and the Italian Polizia di Stato.

Christian Ulrich had received a call from Jean Simpson thirty minutes earlier, explaining exactly what had happened at the house in Munich and at the chapel in Brenner. She had, of course, said nothing about the gold. Simpson expressed a willingness to come to Munich and swear an affidavit. Simpson’s desire to remain anonymous would be only a slight stumbling block in pursuing his case, because everything she said fit the evidence now coming in from forensic teams in Germany and Italy. Weiss and her associates would be extradited to Germany later that day and would ultimately be convicted of fraud, terrorist activity, and attempted murder. In Italy, they were convicted in abstentia for destruction of a cultural artifact.

No law enforcement agency or government brought charges against Ruthie Drinkwater, who disappeared with the help of an advance payment she had received from Dietrich. After the trials ended, Ruthie received a message from Ingrid in prison and traveled to Switzerland where, with a phone call and voice print from Ingrid and a password and account number, she gained access to Weiss’s vault at the Central Bank of Zurich. There she stood slack-jawed before a stack of steel and aluminum blocks purchased from a building supply store in Innsbruck. On top of the pile she found an envelope containing a slip of paper reading simply, “Looks like the Allies win again.”

ARRT CODA

ARRT
CODA

When the British police discovered that the two bodies they found in Buckinghamshire belonged to men wanted for murder in the United States, they informed the Alta Vista authorities of the discovery. One of the men had died in a car accident, the other was an apparent suicide. Everyone agreed there was no need to investigate further and cases on both sides of the Atlantic were closed.

Jean Simpson phoned the Hotel Sacher and paid her bill with a credit card. The hotel manager agreed to ship the bag she had left with the valet back to the United States. A week later she ran into Peter Byerly at the Ridgefield library.

“How was your trip?” said Peter.

“Eventful,” said Jean.