He pushed himself away from the windowsill and wandered aimlessly about the room, around familiar possessions in unfamiliar locations. He was not sure what to do; he supposed he should see if anything was missing. Nothing seemed to be, but it was difficult to tell.
The telephone buzzed: the intercom from the lobby switchboard. He answered it.
«It’s Jack, Mr. Holcroft. I just spoke to Ed and Louie. Neither of ’em know anything about anyone going up to your place. They’re honest guys. They wouldn’t screw around. None of us would.»
«Thanks, Jack. I believe you.»
«You want me to call the police?»
«No.» Noel tried to sound casual. «I have an idea someone at the office was playing a joke. A couple of the fellows have keys.»
«I didn’t see anybody. Neither did Ed or—»
«It’s okay, Jack,» interrupted Holcroft. «Forget it. The night I left we had a party. One or two stayed over.» It was all Noel could think of to say.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not looked in his bedroom. He went there now, his hand reaching for the light switch on the wall.
He expected it, but it was still a shock. The disorientation was now somehow complete.
Again, each piece of furniture had been moved to a different position. The bed was the first thing that struck his eye; it was oddly frightening. No part of it touched the wall. Instead, it was in the center of the room, isolated.
His bureau stood in front of a window; a small writing desk was dwarfed against the expanse of the right wall. As had happened minutes ago, when first he’d seen the living room, the images of what his bedroom looked like three days ago kept flashing before him, replaced by the strangeness of what he now observed.
Then he saw it and gasped. Hanging down from the ceiling, strapped together with dull black tape, was his second telephone, the extension cord snaking up the wall and across the ceiling to the hook that held it.
It was spinning slowly.
The pain shifted from his stomach to his chest; his eyes were transfixed on the sight, on the suspended instrument revolving slowly in midair. He was afraid to look beyond, but he knew he had to; he had to understand.
And when he did, his breath came back to him. The phone was in the direct path of his bathroom door and the door was open. He saw the curtains billowing in the window above the basin. The steady stream of cold wind was making the telephone spin.
He walked quickly into the bathroom to shut the window. As he was about to pull the curtains, he saw a brief flash of illumination outside; a match had been struck in another window across the courtyard, the flare startling in the darkness. He looked out.
There was the woman again! The blond-haired woman, her upper body silhouetted beyond another set of sheer curtains. He stared at the figure, mesmerized by it.
She turned as she had turned before, and walked away as she had walked away minutes ago. Out of sight. And the dim light in the window went out.
What was happening? What did it mean? Things were being orchestrated to frighten him. But by whom and for what purpose? And what had happened to Peter Baldwin, Esq., he of the intense voice and the command to cancel Geneva? Was Baldwin a part of the terror, or was he a victim of it?
Victim … victim?
It was an odd word to use, he thought. Why should there be any victims? And what did Baldwin mean when he said he had «spent twenty years with MI Six»?
MI Six? A branch of British intelligence. If he remembered correctly, MI Five was the section that dealt with domestic matters; Six concerned itself with problems outside the country. The English CIA, as it were.
Good God! Did the British know about the Geneva document? Was British intelligence aware of the massive theft of thirty years ago? On the surface, it would appear so… Yet that was not what Peter Baldwin had implied.
You have no idea what you’re doing. No one does but me.
And then there was silence, and the line went dead.
Holcroft walked out of the bathroom and paused beneath the suspended telephone; it was barely moving now, but it had not stopped. It was an ugly sight, made macabre by the profusion of dull black tape that held the instrument together. As if the phone had been mummified, never to be used again.
He continued toward the bedroom door, then instinctively stopped and turned. Something had caught his eye, something he had not noticed before. The center drawer of the small writing desk was open. He looked closer. Inside the drawer was a sheet of paper.
His breathing stopped as he stared at the page below.
It couldn’t be. It was insane. The single sheet of paper was brownish yellow. With age. It was identical to the page that had been kept in a vault in Geneva for thirty years. The letter filled with threats written by fanatics who revered a martyr named Heinrich Clausen. The writing was the same; the odd Germanic printing of English words, the ink that was faded but still legible.
And what was legible was astonishing. For it had been written more than thirty years ago.
NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT NOTHING IS AS IT WAS FOR YOU. NOTHING CAN EVER BE THE SAME…
Before he read further, Noel picked up an edge of the page. It crumbled under his touch.
Oh, God! It was written thirty years ago!
And that fact made the remainder of the message frightening.
THE PAST WAS PREPARATION, THE FUTURE IS COMMITTED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN AND HIS DREAM. HIS WAS AN ACT OF DARING AND BRILLIANCE IN A WORLD GONE MAD. NOTHING MUST STAND IN THE WAY OF THAT DREAM’S FULFILLMENT.
WE ARE THE SURVIVORS OF WOLFSSCHANZE. THOSE OF US WHO LIVE WILL DEDICATE OUR LIVES AND BODIES TO THE PROTECTION OF THAT MAN’S DREAM. IT WILL BE FULFILLED, FOR IT IS ALL THAT IS LEFT. AN ACT OF MERCY THAT WILL SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE WERE BETRAYED, THAT WE WERE NOT AS THE WORLD BELIEVED US TO BE.
WE, THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE, KNOW WHAT THE BEST OF US WERE. AS HEINRICH CLAUSEN KNEW.
IT IS NOW UP TO YOU, NOEL CLAUSEN-HOLCROFT, TO COMPLETE WHAT YOUR FATHER BEGAN. YOU ARE THE WAY. YOUR FATHER WISHED IT SO.
MANY WILL TRY TO STOP YOU. TO THROW OPEN THE FLOODGATES AND DESTROY THE DREAM. BUT THE MEN OF WOLFSSCHANZE DO SURVIVE. YOU HAVE OUR WORD THAT ALL THOSE WHO INTERFERE WILL BE STOPPED THEMSELVES.
ANY WHO STAND IN YOUR WAY, WHO TRY TO DISSUADE YOU, WHO TRY TO DECEIVE YOU WTTH LIES, WILL BE ELIMINATED.
AS YOU AND YOURS WILL BE SHOULD YOU HESITATE. OR FAIL.
THIS IS OUR OATH TO YOU.
Noel grabbed the paper out of the drawer; it fell apart in his hand. He let the fragments fall to the floor.
«Goddamned maniacs!»
He slammed the drawer shut and ran out of the bedroom. Where was the telephone? Where the hell was the goddamned telephone?
By the window—that was it; it was on the kitchen table by the fucking window!
«Maniacs!» he screamed again at no one. But not really at no one: at a man in Geneva who had been on a train bound for Zurich. Maniacs might have written that page of garbage thirty years ago, but now, thirty years later, other maniacs had delivered it! They had broken into his home, invaded his privacy, touched his belongings… God knows what else, he thought, thinking of Peter Baldwin, Esq. A man who had traveled thousands of miles to see him, and talk with him … silence, a click, a dead telephone line.
He looked at his watch. It was almost one o’clock in the morning. What was it in Zurich? Six? Seven? The banks in Switzerland opened at eight. La Grande Banque de Genève had a branch in Zurich; Manfredi would be there.