“He served his purpose,” said Himmler. “He reminded me of the true nature of alchemy. The transformation of that which is base and worthless into that which is priceless—bit by bit, nugget by nugget. Malchus taught me that it will be a slow process, yet it can, in the end, assure the future of the Reich.”

Himmler took out a sheet of paper and began to write a series of numbers and letters on it. “These are my private Enigma settings,” he said. “You will memorize them and then destroy this sheet. I want you to go to the Enigma room and send this message. Only six officers of the SS have my private settings, so only they will be able to read this, though the time is coming when we will send it to more.”

Himmler wrote hastily on the paper, then handed it to Helmut. Below the Enigma settings the heading of the message read “Projekt Alchemie.”

“Projekt Alchemie?” said Helmut, nonplussed. “But surely you do not still hope to solve the problem of alchemical transformation?”

“My boy, you misunderstand,” said Himmler, turning to Helmut and laying a hand on his shoulder. “I have already solved it.”

“I’ve got a possible crib,” said Patton, “but I don’t remember how to turn it into a menu.”

“Because you didn’t pay attention in class,” said Ruthie.

“I paid attention,” said Patton, laying a hand on Ruthie’s bare forearm. “I just didn’t pay attention to the professor.”

“Projekt Alchemie Erfolgreich,” said Ruthie, reading out of the notebook. “Project Alchemy Successful. That’s a good crib, if it’s correct. So we line up the crib with the cipher text . . .”

“I have that,” said Patton, turning the page in her notebook. There she had arranged the crib under the cipher text, inserting an X for each space between words.

“So we just need to number the letter positions and then we can create a loop that will give us the menu to program the Bombe,” said Ruthie. “Pencil?”

Patton pulled a pencil out of her purse and handed it to Ruthie who numbered the letters on the page before them from one to twenty-eight.

“Now we look for a loop,” said Ruthie, scanning the letters.

The room fell silent and Patton was suddenly aware of the sound of her own pulse and of Nemo’s breathing. For the first time since their arrival, Ruthie had turned her attention away from her old lover and Patton felt she could hazard a quick glance at Nemo. She nodded at him and gave him a thumbs-up, which she hoped he would interpret as Don’t worry, this is all going well. Still lurking in the shadows, Nemo nodded back. Message received.

“Got one,” said Ruthie a minute later.

“That was fast,” said Patton.