Chapter 8 Thomas
Thomas
Fr?ulein Hoffmann was dead before we could reach her.
We found out the next morning in a newspaper that carried the story in small print on page six:
Ministry Employee Found in Limmat River. Apparent Suicide. No Foul Play Suspected.
“No foul play suspected. Of course not. Because when a woman who had been asking inconvenient questions about government finances turned up floating in a river, the obvious explanation was that she had simply decided to take a swim in January.” I threw the newspaper across the table.
“They’re ahead of us,” Will said. “Every step we take, they’re already there. Every source we try to reach, they reach first.”
He picked up the newspaper, scanning the article. “The timing is too precise. We spoke to Engel yesterday afternoon. Hoffmann was found this morning. That’s less than eighteen hours.”
“Which means either Engel told them immediately after we left—”
“Or they were already watching her, and our meeting with Engel triggered the decision to eliminate her.”
“Or both.” I stood up, too agitated to sit still, and began pacing the length of the safe- house kitchen. “Either way, someone knew we were interested in her. Someone knew she was a threat.”
The Baroness sat at the head of the table, her face carved from stone.
She had barely spoken since Bisch brought the newspaper.
Her tea sat untouched before her, and her hands—usually so expressive, so precise in their movements—lay flat against the table as if she were afraid of what they might do if she let them move.
“I should have gone to her immediately,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The moment Engel mentioned her name, I should have seen her.”
“This isn’t your fault, Baroness,” Will said. “There’s no way you could’ve known this would happen.”
“I should have known. I should have anticipated.” Her jaw tightened. “Thirty years in this business, and I am still making mistakes that cost people their lives.”
I stopped pacing. “Baroness—”
“No?” She looked up at me, and I saw doubt. Real, corrosive doubt. “Weber is dead. Hoffmann is dead. Aldric is dead. Everyone I try to protect, everyone I try to reach, they die, Thomas. And the common factor in all of it is me.”
“The common factor is the Order and whoever is feeding information to them,” I said. “That’s not you.”
“Then who?” Her voice cracked, just slightly. “Who is telling them where to look? Who is handing them our contacts on a silver platter?”
The question hung in the air like smoke, poisoning everything it touched.
Bisch appeared in the doorway, his face unreadable. “I have more news.”
“Oh great, just what we need right now,” I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice.
“I have a lead.” We all perked up as he moved into the room, his limp more pronounced than usual. “I spoke with Maurer this morning, the forger in Basel. He is willing to meet, but he has conditions.”
“What conditions?” the Baroness asked.
“He wants a guarantee of safe passage out of Switzerland if things go wrong. And money. And a new identity. And he will only speak to you, Baroness. In person and alone.”
“Absolutely not,” Will and I said in unison, practically jumping up to restrain the Baroness from going.
“I only tell you what Maurer demands.” Bisch’s voice was flat, controlled. “I am not suggesting you accept.”
“Then tell him we don’t accept,” I said. “Tell him we meet on our terms or not at all.”
“If I do that, he will disappear. He is already frightened. He knows what happened to Aldric and Weber. He knows he could be next.” Bisch looked at the Baroness. “He trusts you, Baroness. Only you. If you send anyone else, he will run.”
The Baroness was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the rim of her teacup. “Where?”
“A warehouse in the industrial district tonight after dark.” Bisch pulled a folded paper from his pocket and set it on the table. “The address is here.”
I snatched the paper before anyone else could reach it. “You set this up? You arranged the meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Just like you arranged the meeting with Weber?”
The words came out harder than I intended. Bisch’s pale eyes met mine, and something flickered behind them. Anger, maybe? Or hurt? It was hard to tell with him.
“You suspect I betray the Baroness,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“I suspect everyone.” I held his gaze. “Someone is feeding information to the Order. Someone who knows our movements, our contacts, our plans. The list of people who knew about Weber is short, and the list of people who could have set up Hoffmann is even shorter.”
“And I am at the top of both lists.”
“You said it, not me.”
The kitchen went silent. I could feel Will’s tension and the Baroness’s careful stillness. Bisch stood motionless in the doorway, his face a mask of stone.
“I have served the Baroness for decades,” he said finally.
“I have bled for her, killed for her, and I have done things that haunt my sleep because she asked me to and because I believed in what we were doing.” His voice never rose, never wavered.
“If you believe I would betray her—betray everything I have sacrificed—then you do not understand loyalty. You do not understand me.”
“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “But I understand patterns, and the pattern says someone in this room is a traitor.”
“Thomas.” The Baroness’s voice sliced through the tension. “Enough.”
I turned to look at her. She was on her feet now, her imperial composure back in place, her eyes hard.
“I will meet with Maurer,” she said. “Alone, as he requires.”
“Baroness—”
“This is not a discussion,” she snapped. “Maurer knew Aldric better than anyone. He knows things that died with my source, things that could unlock this entire conspiracy. I will not lose that intelligence because we are too frightened to take risks.”
“It’s not about being frightened,” Will said quietly. “It’s about being smart. If this is a trap—”
“Then I will walk into it with my eyes open.” The Baroness picked up the paper with the address and tucked it into her pocket. “You and Thomas will pursue the other lead, the property Engel mentioned. Adlerhorst.”
I blinked. “You want us to go to the mountain estate? Tonight?”
“I want you to scout it. Learn what you can about the security, the layout, the activity. If that is where they are taking people, if that is where they took Aldric’s papers and where they are planning whatever happens on February 15th, we need to know.
” She took a breath. “Bisch will remain here, coordinating communications. If either operation encounters trouble, he will know.”
It was a neat solution. Split us up and give everyone something to do. It also kept Bisch in a position where he could help or, if my suspicions were right, betray us all.
“I don’t like this,” I said.
“I did not ask you to like it.” The Baroness moved toward the door, then looked back at us.
“We are running out of time. February 15th is less than three weeks away. Every day we delay, every hour we spend arguing among ourselves, our enemies grow stronger. I will not let caution become paralysis.” Her eyes met mine, and I saw the grit beneath the weariness.
“Trust me, Thomas. If you cannot trust anyone else, trust me.”
She left before I could respond.
The drive to Adlerhorst took four hours.
Otto was silent for most of it, his usual chatter replaced by the focused intensity of a man who understood that the mission had changed. We were no longer gathering information. We were hunting.
Will sat beside me in the back seat, poring over the documents Engel had provided. There were maps, property records, and financial statements, the paper trail of a conspiracy laid out in columns and figures.
“Huh,” he grunted without looking up.
“What?”
“Adlerhorst means ‘Eagle’s Nest’ in English.”
I let my head fall back onto the seat rest. “Oh, goodie. We’re getting poetic now.”
“The estate was purchased eighteen months ago,” he said quietly, ignoring my sarcasm. “Through a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Sternberg AG. The official owner is a holding company registered in Liechtenstein. The actual owner . . .” He shrugged. “Could be anyone.”
“What do you see about security?”
“It’s significant. Armed guards, around the clock, communication equipment, other line items I don’t understand.” He paused over one entry, then whistled. “Here’s generator fuel. Looks like enough to power a small village for a year.”
“They’re building a bunker,” I said. “Or a prison.”
“Or both.”
I leaned my forehead against the window and stared out.
We had left the gentle valleys behind and climbed into the mountains proper.
Everywhere I looked, we were surrounded by steep slopes, dense forests, and one road that wound back on itself like a snake trying to swallow its own tail.
It was the kind of terrain where you could hide anything, where you could make people disappear.
“I keep thinking about the personnel,” Will said. “The people Engel said they’ve been placing throughout Swiss institutions. He said they were placing communications officers, transportation coordinators, and security personnel.” He looked at me. “That’s not just corruption; that’s preparation.”
“Preparation for what?”
“Command and control. If you have the right people in the right positions, you can control information flow and movement. You can isolate entire regions and cut them off from the outside world.” He paused. “You can make it look like nothing is happening until it’s too late to stop it.”
I thought about that, thought about a network of operatives spread throughout a country waiting for a signal. If they moved together, if they struck simultaneously at communications, transportation, and government, there was no end to what they could accomplish in a single night.
“February 15th,” I said.
“February 15th.”
“We are approaching.” Otto’s voice cut through our conversation. “Another kilometer, perhaps. The estate is on the ridge ahead.”