Apparently he'd been on some Swiss-gold crusade before his death. She didn't know what to make of that except that it raised all sorts of questions.
And Benjamin Hartman, the tech told her, was loaded. The company he worked for, Hartman Capital Management, managed investment funds and had been founded by Hartman's father.
Who was a well-known philanthropist and a Holocaust survivor.
Possibilities suggested themselves. Poor little rich boy, son of a survivor, gets it in his head that the Swiss bankers haven't been doing right by the Holocaust victims. Now his twin takes up the same crusade, trying for some sort of misguided revenge on a Swiss banking bigwig. A rich boy's half-cocked vendetta.
Or maybe he was in it deeper working for whatever this Sigma outfit had morphed into. For some unexplained reason.
Then the question was, where did he get the names and addresses of all these old men in hiding?
And how was his brother's death connected if at all?
At a little after nine o'clock in the evening she returned to the hotel and was handed a message slip by the night manager. Thomas Schmid, the homicide detective, had called.
She called him back immediately from the room. He was still in his office.
"We have some of the autopsy results back," he said. "On that poison you asked the toxicology people to screen for?"
"Yes?"
"They found that neurotoxin in the ocular fluid, a positive match. Rossignol was indeed poisoned."
Anna sat down in the chair beside the phone. Progress. She felt the pleasant tingle she always had when there was a breakthrough. "Did they find an injection mark on the body?"
"Not as yet, but they say it's very difficult to find tiny marks like that. They say they will keep looking."
"When was he killed?"
"Apparently this morning, shortly before we got there."
"That means Hartman may still be in Zurich. Are you on top of that?"
A pause, then Schmid said coldly, "I am on top of that."
"Any news on the bank records?"
"The banks will cooperate, but they take their time. They also have their procedures."
"Of course."
"We should have Rossignol's bank records by tomorrow "
On her end of the line a beep interrupted Schmid. "One second, I think I've got another call coming in." She pressed the "flash" button. The hotel operator told her it was a call from her office in Washington.
"Miss Navarro, this is Robert Polozzi in ID."
"Thanks for calling. Turn up anything?"
"MasterCard security just called. Hartman used his card a few minutes ago. He made a charge at a restaurant in Vienna."
Kent, England
At his country estate in Westerham, Kent, Sir Edward Downey, the retired Prime Minister of England, was in the middle of a game of chess in the rose garden with his grandson when the telephone rang.
"Not again," eight-year-old Christopher groaned.
"Hold your horses, young man," Sir Edward snapped good-naturedly.
"Sir Edward, it's Mr. Holland," the voice said.
"Mr. Holland, is everything all right?" Sir Edward asked, suddenly concerned. "Our meeting is still going ahead as scheduled?"
"Oh, without a doubt. But a minor matter has come up and I wondered whether you might be able to help."
As he listened, Sir Edward gave his grandson a menacing scowl, at which Christopher giggled, as he always did. "Well, Mr. Holland, let me make a few calls and see what I can do."
Vienna
Jurgen Lenz's house was in an exclusive, densely wooded district in the southwest part of Vienna called Hietzing: an enclave of some of Vienna's wealthiest residents. Lenz's house, or, more properly, his villa, was large, modern, an intriguing and handsome mix of Tyrolean architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright.
The element of surprise, Ben thought. / need it when I confront Lenz. In part, it was a question of survival. He didn't want Peter's murderers to discover he was in Vienna, and, despite the seed of doubt that Hoff man had planted, the likeliest assumption was that Lenz was one of them.
Of course, he couldn't just show up on Lenz's doorstep and hope to gain admittance. The approach had to be more sophisticated. Ben ran through a mental list of the most prominent and influential people he knew personally who would vouch for him, even lie for him.
He remembered the head of a major American charity who had come to see him several times to ask for money. Each time the Hartman family, and the firm, had given generously.
Payback time, Ben thought.
The charity head, Winston Rockwell, was seriously ill with hepatitis, laid up in the hospital, last Ben had heard, and impossible to reach. This was terribly unfortunate for Rockwell-but