To avoid unwanted attention, they climbed into Blanc’s unmarked sedan and made the short trip to Holcher’s house under cover of darkness. Dial wasn’t much of a historian, but he knew that this stretch of land was the site of the largest and bloodiest battle of World War II, known to many as the Battle of the Bulge. More than 100,000 people had been killed, injured or captured in the German offensive that lasted more than a month and extended into the mountains of Belgium and France. It was too early in the morning for irony, but Dial couldn’t help but think that it was an interesting spot for a gunsmith to call home.
Was that the reason Holcher chose to live here?
If so, he was one sick bastard.
Dial didn’t know what to expect as they approached the property. During the flight from Sweden, he’d imagined a prison-style compound with high walls, barbed wire and hostile guard dogs foaming at the mouth. Not rabid, just really hungry. So he was stunned — and a little disappointed — when Blanc turned down a long, wooded path leading to a scenic farmhouse that looked like it belonged in a fairy tale.
He glanced at Blanc. ‘Are you sure this is right?’
‘Oui.’
‘Yannick Holcher lives here?’
‘Oui.’
‘Come on. This looks … peaceful.’
Faber, a local officer, cleared his throat in the back seat. ‘Pierre is right. This is the Holcher farm. We are in the right place.’
Dial grunted his surprise. Maybe the police were right and Payne was wrong. Maybe he’d been given some bad information from his black-ops connection.
‘How do you want to play this, sir?’ Blanc asked.
Dial answered. ‘You guys stay out here. I’m heading in alone. I think he’ll be more receptive if he’s dealing with me and only me.’
‘What should we do out here?’ Faber asked.
Dial shrugged. ‘Beats the hell out of me. I brought you here as backup. Nothing more. If my life is in danger, you have my permission to come inside and save the day. Otherwise, I honestly don’t care what you do. Play with the cows or something.’
Blanc laughed, but Faber didn’t.
And Dial couldn’t have cared less.
He left the car and approached the front porch with extreme caution. Not because he was worried about being shot, but because there was an untethered goat eyeballing him from twenty feet away. He knew those creatures would eat anything, including the credentials he held in his hand. Paranoid, he stared at the goat while he knocked on the door.
The first round was soft.
The second round was louder.
The third was loud enough to wake the chickens.
Finally, a middle-aged woman cracked open the door.
‘Bonjour?’ she said through the gap.
Dial’s French wasn’t perfect, but it was passable after years of working in Lyon. ‘I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,’ he said as he held up his credentials, ‘but I must speak with Yannick Holcher. It is an urgent matter.’
Given Holcher’s profession, Dial could only imagine what sort of weapon was currently aimed at him from behind the door.
‘Can this wait until later?’ the woman asked in French.
‘It cannot,’ he stressed as he held his identification even higher.
She strained to read it. ‘Interpol?’
‘Yes — I mean, oui.’
‘You would prefer English?’ the woman asked as she opened the door. Dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, she was the only person in sight.
‘If that’s okay with you. I’m not always sure about my French.’
‘Your French seems good with me.’ She nodded toward the kitchen. ‘Coffee?’
‘Please,’ Dial answered. She led him to a spacious kitchen and offered him a seat at the sturdy, weathered table. He thought it was decidedly humble for a family whose weapons demanded staggering prices on the open market.
‘What is it that you need with my father?’ she asked as she set the kettle on the stove.
‘Yannick is your father?’
‘He is,’ she replied. ‘I am Josephine.’
‘Nick.’
‘Nick from Interpol — who has come to ask questions at four in the morning. So what are your questions?’
‘Your father has made some interesting weapons.’
‘That isn’t a question.’
‘And the people who bought those weapons used them to attack a colleague of mine in cold blood. He’s lucky to still be alive.’
She folded her arms in front of her. ‘Still not a question.’
He forced a smile. ‘Have you ever been arrested?’
‘Pardon?’
‘See, that time I asked a question, yet your response didn’t improve. That leads me to believe that I need to have a conversation with your father instead of you.’
She shook her head. ‘Not going to happen.’
‘Josephine,’ he said calmly, ‘this isn’t a hard decision for you to make. I came here quietly, in the dead of night, hoping to reach an agreement with your father. I’m not looking to cause problems, I’m truly not. But with one phone call, I can have a thousand agents descend upon your farm like locusts. It will be loud, and it will be messy. We will tear apart every inch of this property and interrogate everyone for miles. If only half of what I hear is correct, your father will spend the rest of his life in prison and your neighbors will never treat you the same. Or …’
‘Or what?’
‘Or you can wake your father for a short conversation.’
She took a deep breath before settling into the chair at the head of the table. ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. I tried to wake my father two years ago from his afternoon nap. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. You’re welcome to try, though. He’s buried out back in the flower garden. Shall I show you the grave, or do you want your agents to find it on their own?’
Dial furrowed his brow. ‘He’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yannick Holcher is dead?’
‘You can ask me a thousand times — my answer will not change.’
‘We have no record of his death at Interpol.’
‘That’s because I didn’t tell Interpol, or anyone, for that matter.’
From the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes, Dial knew she was telling the truth. ‘How’d he die?’
‘Parkinson’s,’ she said, bitterly. ‘First it took his hands. Then it took his legs. Then it took his life. Toward the end, he wanted to die.’
Dial wondered how a gunsmith could work with a crippling disease like Parkinson’s. Even with the best drugs and therapy, it would be impossible to build world-class weapons without an extra set of hands. And then it hit him — the reason Josephine never reported the death of her father. The reason no one knew he had even been sick. And most importantly, the reason they were making guns so far away from the public eye.
He leaned back in his chair and nodded. ‘I’ll be damned. You’re the craftsman. Not your father. You.’
‘I am now,’ she admitted with a shrug, ‘but it wasn’t always that way. My father was the best gunsmith in the world. He could take a hunk of metal and turn it into a work of art. But when his hands started to go, he had nowhere else to turn. Thankfully, I was shooting before I could walk, studying his designs before I could read. Over the years, he taught me everything he knew. All the tricks, the nuances that made his guns such prized possessions.’
‘Illegal possessions, I might add.’
She waved off his comment. ‘What is legal in our country may be prohibited in the next. We cannot be held accountable for that. Technically, by the laws of our land, we have done nothing wrong. Our facility is registered. We have the requisite manufacturer’s license, and we do not sell to the citizens of Luxembourg. Besides, many of our weapons are sold as collectibles. In many parts of the world, they qualify as art.’