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Chapters (25)
  1. SECTION ONE: ALTA VISTA
  2. I
  3. II
  4. III
  5. SECTION TWO: BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
  6. IV
  7. V
  8. VI
  9. VII
  10. SECTION THREE: MUNICH
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. SECTION FOUR: PRAGUE
  14. X
  15. XI
  16. SECTION FIVE: BRENNER
  17. XII
  18. XIII
  19. SECTION SIX: OBERAMMERGAU
  20. XIV
  21. XV
  22. ARRT CODA
  23. Author’s Note
  24. Acknowledgments
  25. About the Author

Franklin and Ted had wives, families, and careers far from Alta Vista and while they stayed in touch by phone and text, they visited far less often than Bob, who was still a bachelor, still suffering the effects of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” which, as he and Patton had discussed, made it easy to have a one-night stand and virtually impossible to have a committed relationship.

Franklin and Ted did, however, come to Alta Vista for a quiet evening at Patton’s house celebrating the establishment of the Jasper Fleming Fund for International Civil Rights. Jasper, after all, had protected the key to discovering Himmler’s cache of gold, and had made all this possible. Jean Simpson was there, and Art Handy’s widow, Renée, had accepted an invitation to join their group. The only board member who did not attend the dinner was Alex Lansdowne, who had, it seemed, retreated back into the sanctuary, or perhaps the prison, of his collection. Patton and the others rarely heard from him.

For dessert that night, Patton served chocolate ganache–filled profiteroles. She had finally mastered the choux pastry. It turned out the trick was to make it without coming under sniper fire.

CSHN GKN
THE END

Note: For those who have an Enigma machine the starting settings to decode the Enigma message and the sections headings of this novel are:

Plugboard: AT CL EK HI JO MY PR

Rotors: III, I, II

Rotor Setting: R, H, H

Ring Settings: A, U, G

Reflector Umkehrwalze A

Author’s Note

Author’s Note

Heinrich Himmler is, of course, a real historical figure, and the words he speaks in Chapter I are taken from the transcript of a speech he delivered in January 1937. Many of his other actions and words in this novel are my own invention. Other historical characters act more or less in keeping with the historical record including Alan Turing, Dilly Knox, Gordon Welchman, Mavis Batey, Heinz Kurschildgen, and Karl Malchus (the last two of whom really did try to convince Himmler that they had mastered alchemy). The workings of the Enigma machine and the breaking of the code using the Bombe, the checking machine, and some first-class deduction and mathematics have been simplified somewhat but are essentially the same in this novel as the heroic work conducted at Bletchley Park during World War II.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments