different assignments, all in this area, and all very well. Suddenly, the regular night nurse assigned to Prosperi fell ill, and the substitute was available, and ..."
"They have no way to reach her?"
"As I said, she disappeared."
"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