"And how can I help you, Monsieur von Berg?" Gilbert asked.
"I've come to recover the contents of my grandfather's box."
Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "You have the key, of course?"
"No, you do," Conrad said. "Both of them. I have the box number and combination. And that's all that's required of me for this type of box."
Gilbert nodded. "You are correct. But you will forgive us for doing our best to protect the interests of our clients. You are the first person in seventy years to open"-he had to look at his computer screen-"box number 1740."
Gilbert called in his huissier-the brunette, who answered to the name of Elise-and handed her an envelope with the number on it. "Please escort Monsieur von Berg to the vault."
"Oui," she replied.
If they were letting her handle him, Conrad thought, that meant their guard was down-or they wanted him to let down his own.
Elise took him to the bank's antique elevator. As the polished brass cage began its slow two-hundred-foot descent to the vault beneath the bank, Conrad noted the Venetian mirrors on the elevator walls and the gray leather benches on three sides. He also noted a tiny hook in the corner of the floor. "This is an unusual elevator," he said. "It's the original?"
"Yes," she said. "It used to go down to an even lower level beneath the vault, where a secret tunnel to a park two blocks away would allow private clients like yourself to come and go without having to enter from the street. But the new owner filled the tunnel with concrete a few years ago."
Conrad nodded. Okay, so at least one alternative exit had been cut off.
The doors split open to reveal the safe deposit vault. The massive circular steel door was open, and a security guard standing beside a small desk nodded as Conrad followed Elise inside the vault.
As they walked past rows of gleaming boxes, Conrad could only imagine how much wealth was locked away here. Truly, this was the vault of the man called Midas. Finally, when they had reached the very back of the last row, Elise stopped and announced, "Box 1740."
Conrad turned to his right and saw the numbers. The box was at eye level. "That's right."
She took her key and inserted it into the box. "I will go first and then leave you to your box. You may take it to the private consultation room over there." She gestured to a small closet door, and Conrad nodded. "Then you will return the box, lock it, and call for me."
Conrad noted that she had failed to mention that if he got the combination wrong or blew the key toggle, the box's internal chemical lining would break and destroy whatever was inside.
Conrad eyed the brass doorplate with three brass fixtures. Left to right, there were the keylock, the four brass alphabetic dials set on top of a brass circular plate, and the small rectangular number plate that read 1740.
Conrad glanced at Elise, whose eyes grew ever wider as he turned the first dial to the letter "A," the second to the letter "R," the third to the letter "E," and the fourth to the letter "S." He heard an unmistakable click inside the box. He could also hear Elise catch her breath at the simplicity of the code.
"Now it is my turn," she said, and inserted the silver bank key into the keylock, gave it a twist, and then removed it. "I will leave you now."
Conrad waited until she was gone before he inserted his gold key into the lock. He turned it halfway and stopped. He then scrambled the dials and turned his key the full ninety degrees into a vertical position and felt the lock open with a satisfying click.
He opened the door and slid the box out. It felt light in his arms as he walked to the private consultation room. He grew anxious as he entered, shut the door behind him, and placed the box on the table.
He stared at it for a moment, took a deep breath, and with one hand opened the lid. As he stared inside the box belonging to SS General Ludwig von Berg, the Baron of the Black Order, he felt a pit form in his stomach. Then he reached in and removed the only item inside the box.
It was an old Swiss wristwatch.
23
At that very moment, the prince of Egypt himself, Abdil Zawas, was driving to the bank along Bern's River Aare in his armored Mercedes Pullman Level B6 bulletproof limousine.
In addition to windows made of 42mm bulletproof, shatterproof, multiple-layer reinforced glass, the vehicle sported special fuel tanks impervious to exploding upon impact from any projectiles. The remote starting system allowed Abdil to remotely detonate any explosive charges set to go off when the vehicle ignition or door locks were activated. Just the sort of vehicle a man of Abdil's stature-and Conrad Yeats's predicament-required these days.
Abdil was en route to pick up Yeats from the bank, just in case the American archaeologist had second thoughts about coming back for his ten million dollars. Abdil's imagination was already afire with speculation as to what SS General Ludwig von Berg had secreted in Midas's bank-and the expression on Midas's face when he finally saw the contents of the box in full display aboard the new mega yacht that Abdil was building to be the world's biggest.
What a moment that will be, Abdil thought with delight as the glass partition inside the limousine lowered and his driver, Bubu, said, "Police."
Abdil looked out his rear window to see a white Land Rover with orange stripes on the side and blue siren lights flashing. "See what he wants and don't make a scene," he said, and looked at his watch. He wanted to be parked outside the bank before Yeats came out.
Bubu pulled off the Aarstrasse at a riverfront park. The Land Rover parked directly in front of them. An officer stepped out in a dark raincoat and sunglasses. Abdil watched Bubu pull the registration papers from the glove compartment and lower his window.
"Yes?" asked Bubu as the officer approached the Mercedes.
The officer leaned through the open window. "The motorway pass on your windscreen is expired," he said, and shot Bubu in the head.
Instinct instantly took hold of Abdil, and he raised the glass partition in time to stop two bullets from the assassin, who removed his sunglasses to reveal an eyepatch and a face Abdil recognized as Midas's driver and bodyguard, Vadim. He knew the face from the fitness videos some of his girls used.
"You!" Abdil shouted into his two-way security intercom to the outside world for all to hear. "I am impregnable in here!" With a flourish, he picked up his phone and called his private emergency service.
A minute later, there was the comforting sound of a helicopter approaching, and Abdil started cursing Vadim, who had been patiently waiting outside. "Leave while you can, or the men jumping off that chopper will take your other eye for Bubu's sake."
Abdil heard a giant thud on the roof. The limousine lurched forward and back, then began to lift into the air. He looked out his window in time to see Vadim waving goodbye to him from the ground. Abdil started to shout as the chopper banked to the right with the entire limousine in tow, carrying him up and away.
24
Conrad frantically checked the box one more time, looking for any kind of hidden compartment or false bottom he may have missed. But there was none. There was only this damn watch.
He stared in dismay at Baron von Berg's sole piece of personal jewelry. The dial was stamped with rolex oyster and sported an unusual outer track of black-painted Roman numbers on top and Arabic numbers on the bottom. But that was all. In a vault filled with the wealth of dead Nazis, robber barons, deposed dictators, oil sheiks, and the like, why would SS General Ludwig von Berg have gone to such great lengths simply to preserve an old watch?
It felt like a bad joke.
Not only did Conrad have to get out of here in one piece, there was no way Abdil would believe that this watch was all he'd found, much less hand him millions in cash for it.
There had to be more to this watch than sentimental value to a crazy Nazi.
Just like the name of the Roman god of war carried some meaning for Baron von Berg, so, too, did the number 1740 for the box. The same had to be true of this watch, which had its hour and minute hands stopped at midnight
-or noon. That was no accident. The watch didn't stop winding down at that exact minute. Von Berg had left it that way.
A crazy thought seized Conrad. Von Berg may have been insane, but he was a military man, too. Military men, as Conrad knew all too well from growing up with the Griffter, used military time. And 1740 hours meant 5:40 p.m.
Conrad carefully pulled out the watch's side-turning knob and slowly adjusted the hands until the hour hand reached the number five on the dial and the minute hand reached the number eight.
When he pushed the thumb knob down again, the watch's two-piece screw-back case fell open. A coin hit the table and rolled onto the floor.
Conrad quickly snatched it up. It was an ancient Roman coin with a Caesar's bust and an eagle on the back. It was oddly familiar; it reminded him of the Tribute Penny that Serena wore around her neck. But that medallion was one of a kind.
Or was it?
Conrad quickly inserted the coin snugly beneath the gears of the watch and replaced the back case, inside of which was stamped oyster watch co. Then he strapped the watch to his wrist, closed the box, and stepped out into the vault with his shoulder bag. Without bothering to call for Elise, he slid the box back into its slot and walked out.
The security guard by the desk was already calling upstairs by the time Conrad stepped into the old brass elevator and let the doors close. As soon as they did, he dropped to the floor and reached into his bag to remove a knife.
He cut along the hidden seams beneath the carpet and then pulled the tiny hook in the corner he had seen to reveal a lower compartment. That was where the VIPs had entered and exited in secret from the old tunnel Midas had sealed up.
Conrad had seen this type of elevator only once before-Hitler's old Eagle's Nest retreat atop Mount Kelstein in Bavaria. The Nazis had bored a four-hundred-foot elevator shaft in the center of the mountain. That 1938 brass elevator was also a double-decker. Hitler and his important guests rode the brass-lined upper cabin to the top while his guards and supplies for the house rode unseen in the bottom cabin.
Conrad placed an explosive puck on the floor of the upper cabin and dropped into the bottom cabin and pulled the trapdoor shut. He then pulled out his hazmat gas mask and waited in the dark with a small detonator in his hand.
When the elevator stopped and the door in the top cabin opened in the bank's lobby, he heard shouts from security guards at the sight of the empty compartment. He then pressed the button and exploded the puck containing the knockout gas sufentanil. There was more shouting, and a body dropped with a crash in the cabin above him.
It took him a minute longer than he expected to pop the trapdoor open, but then he crawled out into the lobby and stood up, hearing loud hacking coughs as he stepped over the bodies.
The porter at the front door had managed to press a silent alarm before going down, and when Conrad finally stepped outside and ripped off his mask, the sound of sirens blared.
He walked quickly down the street, turned a corner, and hailed a cab. He was opening the door when the sound of a helicopter forced him to look up. To his astonishment, he saw the screaming face of Abdil Zawas pressed against the window of his limousine before it disappeared with the chopper over the roof of the UBS building.
Conrad quickly climbed into the back of the cab and said, "American embassy."
25
Midas stood in what he considered to be his rightful place next to the French president, his wife, and Papa Le Roche at the curb outside Saint Roch as they silently watched pallbearers load Mercedes's flag-draped coffin into the back of the hearse, which would take it to the more intimate burial service at the family's tomb at Pere Lachaise Cemetery.
Midas did his best to look somber before the crowds and cameras, but those next to him had more practice, and he had to work at keeping his chest from swelling with pride from his arrival at the pinnacle of European society. He'd had to buy his way in with the Brits, and even then his acceptance had felt forced. The Parisians were far more accommodating of his violent reputation, which for them only seemed to add a dash of romance to his otherwise mysterious background.
"Mercedes did love her rogues," he heard Papa Le Roche repeat outside, although the plural reference reminded Midas of Conrad Yeats, and the thought that he and Yeats had shared Mercedes disturbed him. He took comfort in the knowledge that shortly, Yeats would be joining the dearly departed in the afterlife. It was all Midas could do to keep from checking his BlackBerry for word from Vadim in Bern.
Papa Le Roche then clasped arms with Sarkozy, Carla, and Midas. To great effect, he upstaged Midas by climbing into the front of the hearse himself-there was room for only one passenger, presumably the most important man in Mercedes's life-to ride with his daughter to the cemetery.
As soon as the black Volvo hearse drove off down the Rue Saint-Honore past the throngs of onlookers held back by police and metal fences, Midas turned to Sarkozy. "Are you going to the burial?"
The French president shook his head. "Rhodes calls. The world is a mess. Turmoil in the markets. War in the Middle East. We do what we can. I am to give the opening and closing presentations at the summit. I am but a bookend."
"I will see you there, then," said Midas, and clasped arms with Sarkozy and then enjoyed a double kiss with Carla before France's first couple climbed into their presidential limousine.
As Midas watched their motorcade drive off, led by police on motorcycles, he felt the pleasant vibration of power in the form of his BlackBerry calling. He picked up the call from Vadim. "So we are rid of Yeats once and for all?"
There was a pause on the other end. Midas didn't like it. "We got Zawas. But Yeats escaped."
Midas felt stomach acid flare up in the back of his throat. "And the contents of the box?"
"Yeats."
Midas dropped the phone and leaned on a loitering pallbearer for support. Several cameras captured the moment, confusing the expression of loss on his face to be one for Mercedes. The Rhodes summit started tomorrow, and Midas needed that coin to join the Thirty. Even the Flammenschwert couldn't help that. All his leverage would be gone by Friday.
Midas scanned the crowds and saw Serena making for the side entrance and her car. He took a breath, stood up, and thanked the concerned onlookers. "I'll be fine. Life goes on. Thank you."
He retreated back to the church and then broke into a run to catch Serena before she drove off.
26
The U.S. embassy in Bern was at Sulgeneckstrasse 19, and Conrad's cabdriver took his sweet time getting across the city's River Aare. Conrad clocked it on his new official Black Order Rolex: almost nine minutes to make it over a four-lane bridge, merge into the far-right lane, and reach the next intersection just in time for the light to turn red.
"What are you waiting for?" Conrad demanded. "Take a right."
"This isn't America," the Syrian driver replied rudely in English. "There is no turn on red light unless permitted by green arrow."
"I'll pay you extra."
The Syrian looked over his shoulder at him with contempt. "I am a law-abiding citizen."
Two minutes later, they turned right onto Monbijoustrasse and then took another immediate right onto Giessereiweg. Two minutes after that, the road turned into Sulgenrain, and they followed it until finally turning left onto Sulgeneckstrasse.
The street was one-way for security purposes; Conrad spotted the embassy about two hundreds yards down the street on the right. It was a white office building surrounded by an ugly security fence.
"I'll look for your picture inside," Conrad said as he paid the driver and watched him drive off.
He started walking quickly to the gate. He was half a block away and passing a paid parking area when a Swiss police Land Rover started to drive slowly alongside him. As soon as the window lowered, Conrad didn't wait for the arm to pop out with a pistol. He dove behind a parked car just in time to see Vadim's ugly face in the car's side mirror before Vadim blew the mirror off.
Conrad m
ade a dash the opposite way up the one-way street, using the parked cars as a hedge. The Land Rover tried to back up, but oncoming traffic put a stop to that, and Vadim had to jump out and pursue on foot.
Conrad cut across the corner of Sulgeneckstrasse and Kapellenstrasse and ran downhill about three hundred yards to a blue arrow tram leaving the stop at Monbijou. He bought a ticket from the vending machine and hopped on just as Vadim ran up from behind, no doubt noting that it was Tram 9 Wabern heading for the city's train station just two stops away.
The tram began to snake beneath the storybook archways and through the arcades of old Bern. Conrad caught his breath as he stood among the tourists and commuters. The next tram was ten minutes away, so he had to assume Vadim would drive like a madman to beat him or radio someone at the end of the line.
As much as he hated the idea, he had to call Packard and ask for a secure pickup. He reached inside his pocket for the Vertu cell phone that Abdil had given him and realized that he must have lost it when he dove for cover near the embassy.
All too soon the tram stopped at Bubenbergplatz, opposite the main train terminal. Conrad had to make a run for it and hop a train out of Switzerland. Between the Swiss police, Interpol, and the Alignment, he was dead if he stayed here.
He scanned the plaza and was making a beeline for the station when he saw the Land Rover pull up and Vadim get out. He also saw legitimate police cars at the entrance and a number of patrolmen on foot talking into their radios.
In a heartbeat, he doubled back in the opposite direction to the towering Heiliggeist church. Built in the early 1700s, the Heiliggeistkirche, or Holy Spirit Church, was supposed to be the finest example of Protestant church architecture in Switzerland, with its magnificent baroque interior and encircling gallery.
The choir was rehearsing the "Easter Oratorio," as composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1735. Several soloists in costume sang the parts of the two Marys and the disciples who followed them to the empty tomb of Jesus. They were accompanied by three trumpets, two oboes, timpani, strings, and the church's massive organ. The musicians were considerably younger than the choir, the church organist considerably older.
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