Gottfried Bergman had been tapping away on a keyboard since he had arrived at Döbereinerstrasse an hour earlier. But airlines were hard to hack into.

“If they are headed for Bletchley, there are five flights leaving North Carolina for the UK tonight,” he said. “If we assume they are flying to Heathrow, that eliminates two, but those incoming flights are still spread over two terminals. And of course they could drive to Atlanta or Washington and have dozens of flights to choose from. Plus, he might have enough bankroll to fly privately. In any case, the earliest I can get our team out of the US is tomorrow morning after that detour into Tennessee.”

“Do we have pictures of them?” said Ingrid.

“Only her,” said Gottfried. “He has no name, no online presence, nothing. As you recall, that’s the reason we hired him.”

“What’s the worry?” said Dietrich Mueller, who had arrived from Amsterdam just moments earlier but had kept abreast of the situation via encrypted text message on his way from the airport. “We know where they’re going, so we go there and intercept them.”

“We think we know where they might be going,” spat Ingrid. “Just like we think they might have the paper. We’ve made mistakes by jumping to conclusions before. Besides, if they take an overnight flight, they’ll be hours ahead of our boys.” She kicked a trash can across the basement, the clattering echoing against the stone walls. “Fucking Erich! I swear to God if I lay eyes on him again I’ll rip that idiot’s lungs out.” She picked up a pistol from the table and fired two rounds into the trash can.

“Ingrid, calm down,” said Dietrich.

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” said Ingrid, slapping Dietrich hard across the face with the back of her hand. “I’ll calm down when I’m goddamn good and ready.”

Dietrich took a deep breath and a step away from Ingrid. “Look,” he said, “if we’re wrong about Bletchley, we’ll have lost them anyway. And if they do go there, who knows how long it will take them to crack the code. I say send Erich and Karl to England.”

“Maybe we should go to Bletchley ourselves,” said Gottfried.

“And fight it out with a professional assassin?” said Dietrich.

“What do you think, Eva?” said Ingrid, her anger suddenly evaporated.

Eva Klein was the quiet member of the group—always watching and taking notes in her large brown leather folio, but rarely speaking. Ingrid suspected Eva was smarter than the other two put together. Her ability to analyze a situation and come up with the best course of action had saved Columbia House on more than one occasion. She stepped up to Dietrich and examined the mark on his face where Ingrid had slapped him, running a finger gently along his jawline.