Patton understood that the way to get Ruthie on their side immediately was not to explain that Nemo was a professional assassin or that they were being chased by German killers who might possibly believe in alchemy. They could have spent an hour trying to accomplish with explanations and entreaties what Patton accomplished with a single embrace and a peck on the cheek. She knew Ruthie had been in love with her. She had felt guilty about that, but not so guilty that she said anything other than a breezy goodbye at the end of that summer. If she tried to win Ruthie over by explaining their situation they could easily be delayed by tears and accusations as the memory of that goodbye came back to Ruthie. The sort of greeting that suggested that Patton was sorry, that she had grown and matured and might even have latent feelings for Ruthie would bypass all that drama and get them straight to the Bombe.

“We have an Enigma message we need to decrypt,” said Patton after she had held the embrace for a count of twenty. “And we’d like to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“And,” added Nemo from the shadows, “we’re in a bit . . .” but Patton shot him a look that told him to shut up and let her handle this. “A bit of awe at your abilities,” improvised Nemo before pressing himself into a corner.

Using the flashlight on her cell phone, Ruthie led them into a room with glass cases around the sides displaying a variety of bizarre-looking cogs and wheels. On one side of the room, in a locked glass case, sat what Nemo recognized from Jasper Fleming’s workshop as an Enigma machine.

“So this is it,” he said, almost to himself, leaning over the case to take a closer look in the dimness. “It’s beautiful.”

“It is,” said Ruthie, with a touch of pride in her voice. “When I first heard about Enigma, I didn’t expect to have that reaction, but I did.” Unlike Jasper’s machine that sprouted wires and had sides of unfinished splintered pine, this had all the markings of a fine antique—a stained wooden box with polished metal hinges, that classic set of keys (not quite in the QWERTY arrangement, Nemo noticed) and the gleaming rotors and meticulously labeled plugboard. The whole thing was the size of a typewriter—heavy, but portable enough to be carried on a ship or in the battlefield.

“It’s compact, elegant, and almost perfect,” said Ruthie.

“Almost?” said Nemo.

“Well, we broke it, didn’t we,” said Ruthie. “Now, what have you got for me?”

Patton pulled the original Enigma message out of her notebook and set the plastic-covered paper on top of the glass case holding the Enigma machine. Ruthie bent over the message and gave a low whistle.

“This is from the H-Sonderkommando,” she said. “Or at least they received it.”