“But her paychecks, her bank account ”
“She was paid in cash. Not unusual in this country. Her home address
was false. When we looked closely, everything about her was false. It
was as if she had been created just for this occasion, like some stage
set. And when the job had been accomplished, the set was struck.”
“Sounds like a professional backstopping job. I want to talk to the
nursing agency.”
“You’ll learn nothing. And I will not help you do that. I’ve already
told you too much. Please, leave at once. There are so many ways for
an overly inquisitive foreigner to be killed here. Especially when very
powerful people do not want things uncovered. Please–go.”
She knew he was completely serious. This wasn’t just a threat. She was
more stubborn than anyone she knew, and she hated giving up. But
sometimes you just have to move on, she told herself. Sometimes the
most important thing is just to stay alive.
Zurich
By the time Ben Hartman and Matthias Deschner were walking down the
Ldwenstrasse, it had begun to drizzle. The sky was steel gray. The
linden trees that lined the street rustled in the wind. A steeple clock
struck the hour of nine o’clock in a melodious chime. Trams passed by
down the middle of the street–the 6, the 13, the 11–each stopping with
a squeal. FedEx trucks seemed to be everywhere: Zurich was a world
banking capital, Ben knew, and banking was a time-sensitive business.
Bankers hurried to work beneath umbrellas. A couple of Japanese girls,
tourists, giggled. Unpainted wooden benches sat unoccupied beneath the
lindens.
It drizzled, it stopped, it drizzled again. They came to a busy
crosswalk where Lagerstrasse crossed the Lbwenstrasse. A building that
housed the Societe de Banque Suisse stood empty, undergoing construction
or renovation.
A pair of stylishly unshaven Italian men in identical black leather
jackets passed by, both smoking. Then a matron wafting Shalimar.
On the next block Deschner, who was wearing an ill-fitting black
raincoat over an ugly checked jacket, stopped at a white stone building,
resembling a townhouse, on the front of which was mounted a small brass
plaque. Engraved on it in graceful script were the words
HAND ELS
BANK SCHWEIZ AG.
Deschner pulled open the heavy glass door.
Directly across the street, someone with the slender build of an
adolescent was sitting at a cafe, under a red Coca-Cola parasol. He was
wearing khaki cargo pants, a blue nylon backpack, and an ME Solaar
T-shirt, and he was drinking an Orangina from the bottle. With languid
movements he flipped through a copy of a music magazine while speaking
on a cell phone. From time to time he glanced at the entrance to the
bank across the street.
A set of glass doors slid open electronically. They stood for a moment
between thick doors, and then with a low buzz, the next set slid open.
The lobby of the Handelsbank was a large marble-floored chamber,
completely empty except for a sleek black desk at the far end. A woman
sat behind it, wearing a tiny wireless telephone headset, speaking
quietly. She looked up as they entered.
“Guten morgen,” she said. “Kann which Ihnen helfen?”
“Ja, gut en morgen, Wir ha ben eine Verabredung mit Dr. Suchet.”
“Sehr gut, mein Herr. Einen Moment.” She spoke softly into her
mouthpiece. “Er wird gleich un ten sein, um She zu se hen
“You will like Bernard Suchet, I think,” Deschner said. “He’s a very
good sort, a banker of the old school. Not one of these
hustle-and-bustle young men in a hurry you see so much of in Zurich
these days.”
At this point, Ben thought, / don’t care if he’s Charles Manson.
A steel elevator pinged and slid open, and a round-shouldered large man
in a tweed jacket strode up to them and shook hands first with Deschner,
then with Ben. ” s freut which Dich wiederzusehen, Matthias,” he
exclaimed, and then, turning to Ben, “I am very pleased to make your
acquaintance, Mr. Hartman. Please, come with me.”
They rode up together in the elevator. There was a camera fens mounted
discreetly on the ceiling. Suchet wore a permanent pleasant face. He
had heavy rectangular-framed glasses, a double chin, and a large
potbelly. His shirt was monogrammed with his initials on the pocket. A
pocket square in his jacket matched his tie. A senior officer, Ben
thought. Tweed jacket, not a banker’s suit: he’s above such things as
dress code.
Ben watched him closely, waiting for any signs of suspicion. But Suchet
seemed all business as usual.
The elevator opened on a waiting area covered in a wall-to-wall oatmeal
deep-pile rug and furnished with antiques, not reproductions. They
moved through the waiting area to a door, where Suchet inserted a badge
that he wore on a chain around his neck, into an electronic card-reader.
Suchet’s office was just down the hall, a spacious, light-flooded room.
A computer was the only object on his long glass-topped desk. He sat
behind it, while Deschner and Ben sat across from him. A middle-aged
woman entered with two espressos and two glasses of water on a silver
tray and set them down on the desk before the two visitors. Then a
young male came in and handed Dr. Suchet a file.
Suchet opened it. “You are Benjamin Hartman, of course,” he asked,
moving his owlish gaze from the file to Ben.
Ben nodded, his stomach tightening.
“We have been provided with ancillary documentation certifying that you
are the sole heir to the ‘beneficial owner’ of this account. And you
affirm that you are, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“Legally I am satisfied with your documentation. And visually–well, it
is clear you are indeed Peter Hartman’s twin brother.” He smiled. “So
what can I do for you this morning, Mr. Hartman?”
The Handelsbank’s vaults were located in the basement of the building, a
fluorescent-lit, low-ceilinged area that was nowhere near as sleek and
modern as the upstairs. There were several numbered doors off a narrow
corridor, presumably room-sized vaults. Several larger alcoves off the
hallway appeared from a distance to be lined with brass, which upon
closer inspection Ben saw were safe-deposit boxes of various sizes.
At the entrance to an alcove numbered 18C, Dr. Suchet stopped and
handed Ben a key. He did not indicate which of the hundreds of vaults
in this area was Peter’s. “I assume you would like privacy,” he said.
“Herr Deschner and I shall leave you now. You can call me on this phone
here”–he indicated a white phone on a steel table in the center of the
room–“when you are finished.”
Ben looked at the rows upon rows of vaults, and didn’t know what to do.
Was this a test of some sort? Or did Suchet merely assume that Ben
would know the number of his vault? Ben glanced at Deschner, who seemed
to sense his discomfort but, curiously, said nothing. Then Ben looked
again at the key and saw a number embossed on it. Of course. The
obvious place.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m all set.”
The two Swiss left, chatting. Ben noticed a surveillance camera mounted
high in the room, where the ceiling met the wall. Its red light
He located vault 322, a small box at about eye level, and turned the key
to open it.
Oh, God, he thought, heart thrumming, what could be in here? Peter,
what did you hide here that was worth your life?
Inside was what looked like an envelope made of stiff wax paper. He
pulled it out the document inside was dismayingly thin and opened it.
There was only one item inside, and it was not & piece of paper.
It was a photograph, measuring about five inches by seven.
It took his breath away.
It showed a group of men, a few in Nazi uniforms, some in 1940s suits
with overcoats. A number of them were immediately recognizable.
Giovanni Vignelli, the great Italian industrialist out of Turin,
automotive magnate, his massive plants supplying the Italian military,
diesel engines, railroad cars, airplanes. The head of Royal Dutch
Petroleum, Sir Han Detwiler, a xenophobic Dutchman. The legendary
founder of the first, and greatest, American airline. There were faces
that he could not identify but had seen in the history books. A few of
the men wore mustaches. Including the handsome, dark-haired young man
standing next to an arrogant Nazi official with pale eyes who looked
familiar to Ben, though he knew little of German history.
No, please, not him.
The Nazi, whose face he’d seen before, he could not identify.
The handsome young man was unquestionably his father.
Max Hartman.
A typewritten caption on the white border at the bottom of the
photograph read: zurich, 1945. sigma ag.
He returned the photograph to the envelope and slipped it into his
breast pocket. Felt it burn against his chest.
There could no longer be any doubt that his father had lied to him, had