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“I completed the mission, but the news is not good,” he said. “The whole bunch are here, all six. Two are watching the lobby now, and two are having dinner down the street. They’re probably going to be the late shift. I don’t think we’ll see baldy and blondy again until morning.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take a turn worrying while you get showered and dressed. Your suit and white shirt are hanging over there in the closet. Albrecht will be here in a half hour.”
“Right. While you’re worrying, maybe you should call Henry again and see if he knows any great lawyers in Germany or Hungary.”
“I already did and he doesn’t. He’s going to e-mail me a recommendation from a friend of his while we’re at dinner. That reminds me. I’m starving, are you? I’ve been dreaming of smoked goose and champagne and marzipan cake since I heard someone talking about it in the salon.”
“Don’t. You’re making me hungrier.” Sam showered and dress
ed. Eight o’clock passed. When Albrecht was fifteen minutes late, Sam called his cell phone but it was turned off and the call went directly to voice mail. He called the front desk to ask whether their friend had come. Then he checked with the restaurant to find out whether Albrecht had been waiting for them there.
“Let’s hope he got distracted with his friend Friedrich and forgot the time. If he’s had colleagues here doing carbon dating, maybe he was getting other tests done and they distracted him,” Sam said with concern.
“Let’s try home.” Remi took out her phone and dialed.
“Hi, Remi.”
“Hi, Selma,” she said. “We seem to have lost track of Albrecht.”
“What do you mean ‘lost track’?”
“He was supposed to meet us at the hotel a half hour ago, but he hasn’t shown up, hasn’t called, and isn’t answering his cell. I thought he might have left a message with you, but I guess he didn’t. Do we have any other numbers on file for him? He was staying at some professor’s office at Humboldt University.”
“Just his home and his office at Heidelberg.”
“Probably that’s a dead end.”
“Anything else I can do?”
“Yes, actually. See what you can find out about a company called Consolidated Enterprises.”
“Are they American?”
“I read something that said they were based in New York, but we just saw six of them here.”
“I’ll get on it.”
“Thanks, Selma. They seem to be following us. And if they’ve already spotted Albrecht, we might have a problem. He’s so paranoid, he may have decided to walk to France to throw them off.”
“I’ll let you know who and what they are.”
“Good night, Selma.” Remi put her phone back into her purse and turned to Sam. “Nothing. Any other ideas?”
“Well, you can either stay here keeping your beauty pristine or you can put on something practical and go with me to see if we can find him.”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ve already shown myself to the only guy I was trying to impress. Take one last look before I put on a pair of jeans and sneakers.”
“Sorry.”
She kicked off her high heels and opened the small refrigerator, selected a chocolate bar, and took a bite. “Here. Have some dinner while I change.” She gave him the bar, then turned around so he could unzip her dress.
A few minutes later Sam and Remi walked briskly back along Unter den Linden toward Humboldt University. The streets were full of people—locals and tourists—enjoying the beautiful walk beneath the double row of linden trees on an early-summer night. The fourth time Sam looked over his shoulder at the walkway behind them he said, “I don’t see our stalkers.”
Remi said, “They probably knew we had a dinner reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant and figured we’d be accounted for over the next three hours.”
“Are you getting worried?”
“More and more,” she said. “Albrecht Fischer isn’t an absentminded professor. He’s used to running an academic department, teaching, writing, and putting together mental models of incredibly complex buildings with very little to go on. He doesn’t ask friends to come halfway around the world and then forget they’re here.”