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SANTIAGO, CHILE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2

THREE WEEKS AGO

Jonathan Wyatt decided to wait before killing his target

He’d followed Christopher Coe to the next, up into theSOB was doing To avoid exposure he’d stayed loose, well back fro contact with any of the people his adversary had visited Now his target was safely ensconced in an executive suite at the Ritz-Carlton—five hundred US dollars a night, which raised a whole host of questions considering Coovernment salary—the reservation confirmed for the next ten days To add a further insult, Co the kinks in his fifty-eight-year-old back worked out

Be patient

That’s what he’d told hiht years

But it was hard

Wyatt had been knoithin the intelligence coly, on purpose, which many times forced others to talk too much Silence was an acquired art he’d mastered, and he knehat they’d called him behind his back

The Sphinx

But he hadn’t cared

And it er

His twenty-year career as an intelligence operative had ended eight years ago

Thanks to Christopher Combs and Cotton Malone

The latter brought the charges against hi the ad a mere formality Two men had died in a bad situation Malone bla theations He and Malone had found theents nearby who could help He was the senior in charge so hethem in, but Malone had objected So he’d coldcocked Malone with the butt of his revolver and ordered them in anyway

Malone filed an indictment

And he hated him for it

The glory boy of the Magellan Billet and Stephanie Nelle, its director He’d heard the tales of commendations Malone refused, and how he could do little to no wrong Ex-navy commander Lawyer Pilot You name it, Malone could do it

He’d even ainst him

And the aduess people in the field—heard the testimony of Malone and three others, then ruled that he had indeed acted recklessly

He was summarily fired with a loss of all benefits

Chris Combs had been his immediate supervisor An assistant director soon to be, as Combs had privately boasted, a director To be sure, Wyatt had verified that Combs was definitely next in line for promotion He’d worked under Co to fuel the other’s rise Coratitude and told him that he’d need an assistant director Twenty years of experience certainly qualified Wyatt Moving up had always been in the back of his mind

So the e had been clear

We rise together

But at the ad hi that, in his opinion, a finding of recklessness arranted

Coarnered his directorship

Wyatt had been pink-slipped, spending the past eight years working contract jobs for various intelligence agencies in need of his experience but not his liability They paid great, but were no substitute

He wanted his career back But that was gone

Revenge?

Seemed that was all he had left

And he’d been patient Watching Coht moment

Like now

Co soency

What exactly? He actually wanted to know

So while Combs enjoyed himself at the Ritz-Carlton, and before he killed the bastard, he decided to find out

He slowed the rental car as he drove into Turingia The tiny Chilean ha Placards announced that asthestive disorders, even dry skin could be cured—all of course for a price

He navigated around a busy central plaza

An ocher-colored church rose at one end, flanked by an arcade of shops, the quaintness stained only by gangly electric-wire poles A residential section, west of town, looked led roofs, and flowery trees He knew about the old woo he’d followed Combs to her house She lived ahs stretching toward the sky The house was a two-story structure longing for paint, its gabled tin roof thick with rust Two horses grazed within an enclosure He eased the car down a bulories

The front door was answered by a birdlike woold hair Forked veins lined her spindly arms, and liver spots dotted her wrists She appeared to be pushing seventy, but there was a spry look in her hazel eyes When he introduced himself her eyebrows rose in apparent amusement and she threw him a smile that featured teeth like a jack-o’-lantern

She invited hilish laced with German He sat on a settee upholstered in pink velveteen, while she reclined in an oversized chair draped with a flowered slipcover

He learned her name was Isabel

“And what is it you want?” she asked him

“You had a visitor a few days ago”

“Oh, yes He was a lively one”

“What did he want?”

She studied hiht eye Her breaths came in loheezes Only the tick of a clock disturbed the tranquility

“The same as you, apparently,” she said “You seem like a lively one, too”

She was playing hi time?”

“AllMy parents came here after the war My father erected this house Built with one-third heart, one-third hands, one-t

hird understanding”

He s to place her at ease

“An old German wisdom,” she noted

“Was your father a solider?”

“Heavens, no He worked for the postal service He felt that Germany would never be the saht”

He decided to return to what he wanted to know “What did Mr Combs ith you?”

“He showed raphs, a man and a woman, and wanted to know if I knew the faces I told hientina border”

“Why were those pictures so important to him?”

The corners of her eyebrows turned down “Why is his business yours?”

He decided honesty ht work best “He and I have a debt to settle”

“I can see that You try hard to conceal your thoughts, but in your face, your eyes, youris clear The Brown Eminence was the same”

He did not understand

“In France, centuries ago,” she said, “there was the Red E’s chief minister Richelieu’s assistant, Father Joseph, was known as the Gray Eure, both adept at ray referred to their robes” She paused “Broas the color of Nazi uniforms Martin Bormann was the Brown Eminence”

He thought about what he knew of Martin Boratekeeper to the Führer Second most powerful man in the Third Reich

“The raph Herr Coh by then he called himself Luis”

“And the woman?”

“She called herself Rikka, though she was Hitler’s ”

That name he knew Eva Braun She married Hitler in April 1945, shortly before they both committed suicide in the Führerbunker

“What are you saying?”

Her watery eyes conveyed a look of annoyance “Herr Combs was not as surprised as you”

“What did he say about your information?”

“Did he cheat you?”

This old woood A simple question, out of the blue, intended to elicit an emotional response

“He’s a liar”

“I thought the same He lied to me But he wanted to knohere the two in his photos had lived His questions actually surprised me There was a time when men searched for the Brown Eht she was dead Few even knew her face or name But him That one many wanted He was a quetrupillán”

He did not recognize the term and asked what it meant

“A local Chilean word,” she said “Mute devil A bit like yourself”

He ignored her jab “What happened to Bormann and Braun?”

“They eventually went to live where no one could find them”