quickly into the entrance. There another security guard, this one behind bulletproof glass, nodded and smiled a welcome.
The director entered the elevator, an anachronism in this ancient Alpine structure, inserted his digitally encoded identification card to unlock it, and made his way to the third, and top, floor. There he passed through three sets of doors, each unlocked by means of an electronic card reader, until he came to the conference room, where the others were already seated around the long burnished mahogany table. He took his place at the head of the table and looked around at the others.
"Gentlemen," he began, "only days remain before the fulfillment of our dream so long deferred. The long gestation period is nearly over. Which is to say, your patience is about to be rewarded, and beyond the wildest dreams of our founders." The sounds of approval around the table were gratifying, and he waited for them to subside before continuing. "As for security, I have been assured that very few of the angeli re belli remain. Soon there will be none. There is, however, one small problem."
Zurich
Ben tried to stand, but his legs would not support him. He sank to the ground, on the verge of becoming violently ill, feeling at once cold and prickly-hot. Blood roared in his ears. An icicle of fear was lodged in his stomach.
What had just happened? he asked himself. Why in the hell was Jimmy Cavanaugh trying to kill him? What kind of madness was this? Had the man's mind snapped? Had Ben's sudden reappearance after a decade and a half triggered something in a disturbed brain, a rush of twisted memory that for some reason had propelled him to murder?
He could taste liquid, brackish and metallic, and he touched his lips. Blood was seeping from his nose. It must have happened in the struggle. He'd gotten a bloody nose, Jimmy Cavanaugh a bullet in the brain.
The noise from the shopping arcade outside was subsiding. There were still shouts, the occasional anguished cry, but the chaos was diminishing. Steadying himself with his hands on the floor, he pushed himself up, managed to get to his feet. He felt dizzy, vertiginous, and knew it was not from any loss of blood; he was in shock.
He forced himself to look at Cavanaugh's body. By now he'd calmed down enough to think.
Somebody I haven't seen since the age of twenty-one turns up in Zurich, goes insane and tries to kill me. And now he lies here dead, in a tacky medieval-the med restaurant. No explanation to offer. Maybe there'd never be an explanation.
Carefully avoiding the pool of blood around the head, he went through Cavanaugh's pockets, first the suit jacket, then the pants, then the pockets of the trench coat. There was absolutely nothing there. No ID cards, no credit cards. Bizarre. Cavanaugh seemed to have emptied his pockets, as if in preparation for what happened.
It had been premeditated. Planned.
He noticed the blue-black Walther PPK still clutched in Cavanaugh's hand and considered checking the magazine to see how many rounds were left. He pondered taking it, just slipping the slim pistol into his pocket. What if Cavanaugh wasn't alone?
What if there were others?
He hesitated. This was a crime scene of sorts. Best not to alter it in any way, in case there was legal trouble down the line.
Slowly, he got up and made his way, dazed, into the main hall. Now it was mostly deserted, apart from a few clusters of emergency medical technicians tending to the wounded. Someone was being carried on a stretcher.
Ben had to find a policeman.
The two cops, one clearly a rookie and one middle-aged, looked at him dubiously. He'd found them standing by the Bijoux Suisse kiosk, near the Marktplatz food court. They wore navy-blue sweaters with red shoulder patches that read Zurichpolizei; each had a walkie-talkie and a pistol holstered to the belt.
"May I see your passport, please?" the young one asked after Ben had spoken for a few minutes. Evidently the older one either didn't speak English or preferred not to.
"For God's sake," Ben snapped in frustration, "people have been killed. A guy's lying dead in a restaurant down there, a man who tried-"
"Ihren Pass, bitte," the rookie persisted sternly. "Do you have identification?"
"Of course I do," Ben said, reaching for his billfold. He pulled it out and handed it over.
The rookie examined it suspiciously, then gave it to the senior man, who glanced at it without interest and thrust it back