Chapter 4 Thomas #2
“I was living in Munich then. I had a wife, a daughter, and a small business repairing automobiles. It was nothing grand, but it was enough. We were happy.” His voice had lost its jovial edge entirely.
“Then the Gestapo came. Someone informed on me. I still do not know who. They claimed I had been helping Jews escape across the border. It was true, of course. My wife’s sister was Jewish.
What was I supposed to do, let them take her? ”
I felt Will tense beside me, so I reached over and took his hand.
“They arrested me. I never saw my wife or my daughter again. I learned later that they were sent east . . . to the camps.” Otto’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“I was being transported to a work detail when the truck was ambushed by resistance fighters. In the chaos, a woman appeared. She was elegant, imperious, and utterly out of place. She pulled me from the wreckage and told me to run.”
“The Baroness,” Will said quietly.
“The Baroness.” Otto’s eyes found hers in the mirror, and something passed between.
“She had no reason to save me. I was no one, a mechanic from Munich of no strategic value whatsoever. She risked her life to pull me from that truck and then risked it again to smuggle me across the border into Switzerland.”
“Why?” Will asked.
Otto smiled despite the grief beneath it.
“I asked her the same question once we were safe. Do you know what she said?” He affected a surprisingly accurate imitation of the Baroness’s imperious tone.
“‘Because it was the right thing to do, you ridiculous man. Now stop asking foolish questions and help me change this tire.’”
The Baroness laughed. It was bright and unguarded, a sound I hadn’t heard from her before.
“I have been with her ever since,” Otto continued. “She gave me a purpose when I had none. She gave me a family when mine was taken. There is nothing I would not do for her. Nothing.”
The car pulled to a stop outside a narrow building in the Niederdorf, its facade unremarkable, its windows shuttered.
“We are here,” Otto announced. “Bisch is waiting inside.” He turned to look at us, and his jovial mask evaporated. “The Baroness is in danger. I feel it in my bones. Whatever you can do to help her, please do. She is too proud to ask for herself, but I am not. Keep her safe.”
“Otto—” the Baroness began a protest.
“We will,” I cut her off.
Otto held my gaze. Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him, because he nodded once and stepped out to open the Baroness’s door.
The safe house was a maze spanning three stories of cramped rooms and narrow staircases. The walls were lined with books and maps and filing cabinets that probably contained enough secrets to topple governments.
The Baroness led us through the labyrinth to a sitting room on the second floor where a fire crackled in a stone hearth and a man stood waiting.
Bisch was exactly as I remembered him: wiry and weathered, with a face like a granite cliff and eyes the color of dirty ice.
He stood with a pronounced lean to the left, favoring his right leg, and the look he gave Will and me was pure professional assessment.
I could hear his mind calculating our threat level, our usefulness, and our likelihood of becoming problems.
I knew the look well. I’d given it to plenty of people myself.
“Baroness.” His Austrian accent was clipped. “You made good time.”
“The train was punctual. Bisch, you remember our American friends, yes?”
He shook our hands without warmth. He wasn’t hostile, just distant. His was the handshake of a man who had learned not to waste energy on social niceties.
“I have heard a great deal about your recent . . . travels. Rome, Vienna, and that business in Berlin.” His pale eyes lingered on me. “You have a reputation for surviving situations that should have killed you.”
“What can I say? It’s a gift,” I said lightly. “Also, I’m very good at running away.”
“I see.” Something that might have been amusement flickered across his face.
He turned back to the Baroness. “I have prepared the files you requested. Also, there have been developments while you were away. Inspector Gerhardt, the Landj?ger1 officer who agreed to meet with you, was found this morning in the river. The official report states suicide.”
The Baroness closed her eyes briefly. “And the others? The remaining officers from the St. Gallen investigation?”
“Transferred or resigned, all of them. As of yesterday, there is no one left in the Landj?ger who has any connection to the case.” Bisch’s expression didn’t change, but something cold moved behind those pale eyes. “Someone is cleaning house, Baroness, thoroughly and efficiently.”
“Then we will work faster.” She moved to the desk, where stacks of documents waited.
“Bisch, I need everything you have on Sternberg AG. Also, find the surveillance reports on Lüthi and Brenner, and see if you can locate any of Aldric’s former contacts, anyone who might know what he discovered before he was killed. ”
“Of course, Baroness.” He inclined his head, then paused at the door. “Ma’am, it is good to have you back.”
“Thank you, Bisch. It is good to be home.”
He left without another word, his uneven footsteps fading down the corridor.
“So,” I said, settling into a chair by the fire. “Where do we start?”
The Baroness looked up from the documents. I saw the familiar light of battle in her eyes. It was sharp, determined, and utterly refusing to be defeated.
“We start at the beginning,” she said. “At St. Gallen, the place where Brother Aldric died.” She spread a map across the desk, her finger tracing the route.
“Tomorrow, we visit the monastery. We will speak with the surviving monks to find out what Aldric knew and why it was worth killing him to keep it secret.”
1. The Landj?ger is the Swiss national police force, similar to the American FBI. It is fictional, created by the author for this novel.