The Sigma Protocol

  Too late.

  After a pause, the secretary said, “You must be reachable at the U.S. embassy general telephone number, yes?”

  He hung up.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The train to Semmering left Vienna’s Südbahnhof at a few minutes after nine. Ben had left Vienna without checking out of the hotel.

  He was wearing jeans and sneakers and his warmest ski parka. The ninety-kilometer journey would be brief, much faster than renting a car and driving along the twisting alpine roads.

  The train cut through the dense terrain, plunged into long tunnels and skirted high above steep mountain passes. It passed gently rolling green farmland, whitewashed stone buildings with red roofs, the iron-gray mountains rising up behind; then it climbed slowly, over narrow viaducts, and sliced through breathtaking limestone gorges.

  The train compartment was mostly empty, its interior amber-lit, the high-backed seats upholstered in ugly orange twill. He thought about Anna Navarro. She was in some kind of peril. He was sure of it.

  He felt he knew her well enough to be certain that she’d never simply vanish of her own accord. Either she’d abruptly gone somewhere from which she couldn’t call, or she’d been forcibly taken somewhere.

  But where?

  After they’d rejoined each other in the Vienna hotel, they had spent a long time discussing Lenz. Ben recalled what Gerhard Lenz’s widow had blurted out—why does Lenz send you? You come here from Semmering? And Strasser had told them of having electron microscopes shipped to an old clinic in the Austrian Alps known as the Clockworks.

  But what was in Semmering now that the old woman was so afraid of? Obviously something ongoing, perhaps connected to the string of murders.

  Anna was determined to locate that clinic in the Alps. She was convinced she’d find answers there.

  Which suggested that she might have gone looking for the Clockworks. And if he were wrong—if she wasn’t there—then at least maybe he’d be a step closer to finding her.

  He studied the Freytag & Berndt map of the Semmering-Rax-Schneeberg region he’d picked up in Vienna before he left, and tried to devise a plan. Without knowing where the clinic or research facility was, though, he had no idea how to get inside.

  The Semmering station was a modest two-story structure in front of which stood only a green bench and a Coke machine. As soon as he stepped off the train he was hit by an icy wind; the climate difference between Vienna and the Austrian Alps to the south was striking. Here it was bracingly cold. After a few minutes of hiking up the steep, winding road into the town, his ears and cheeks stung from the chill.

  And as he walked he began to feel misgivings. What am I doing? he asked himself. What if Anna’s not here, then what?

  The village of Semmering was tiny. It was one street, Hochstrasse, lined with Gasthauses and inns, set into the south face of a mountain, above it a couple of sprawling luxury resort hotels and sanatoriums. To the north was Höllental, Hell’s Valley, a deep gorge carved out by the Schwarza River.

  Above the bank on Hochstrasse was a small tourist office presided over by a plain young woman.

  Ben explained that he was interested in hiking around the Semmering region and asked for a more detailed Wanderkarte. The woman, who clearly had nothing else to do, provided one and spent a good deal of time pointing out particularly scenic trails. “You can go, if you want, along the historic Semmering Railway—there is a panoramic vista where you can watch the train go through the Weinzettlwand Tunnel. There is also a wonderful place to stop where they took the picture for the old twenty-shilling banknote. And a magnificent view of the ruins of the castle of Klamm.”

  “Really,” Ben said, feigning interest, and then added casually, “I’m told there is some sort of famous private clinic around here in an old Schloss. The Clockworks, I think it’s called.”

  “The Clockworks?” she said blankly. “Uhrwerken?”

  “A private clinic—maybe more of a research facility, a scientific institute, a sanatorium for sick children.”

  There seemed to be a quick flash of recognition in the woman’s eyes—or did he imagine it?—but she shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir, I’m sorry.”

  “I think someone said this clinic was owned by Dr. Jürgen Lenz…?”

  “I am sorry,” she repeated, too quickly. She had suddenly turned sullen. “There is no such clinic.”

  He continued down Hochstrasse until he came to what appeared to be a combination Gasthaus and pub. In front was a tall black chalkboard topped with a green placard for Wieninger Bier and an invitation on a painted scroll beneath it: “Herzlich Willkommen”—A Hearty Welcome. The day’s specials were advertised in bold white chalk letters.

  It was dark inside and smelled of beer. Although it was not yet noon, three portly men were sitting at a small wooden table drinking from glass steins of beer. Ben approached them.

  “I’m looking for an old Schloss around here that houses a research clinic owned by a man named Jürgen Lenz. The old Clockworks.”

  The men gazed up at him suspiciously. One of them muttered something to the others, who murmured back. Ben heard “Lenz” and “Klinik.” “No, nothing here.”

  Again, Ben sensed unmistakable antagonism. He was certain that these men were concealing something, and slipped several thousand-shilling notes on the table, toying with them idly. No time for subtlety. “All right, thank you,” he said, turning halfway to leave. Then, as if he’d forgotten something, he turned back. “Listen, if any of you guys have any friends who might know something about this clinic, tell them I’ll pay for the information. I’m an American entrepreneur looking for some investment opportunities.”

  He left the pub and stood for a moment in front of the building. A cluster of men in jeans and leather jackets strolled by, hands in pockets, speaking Russian. No sense in asking them.

  A few seconds later he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was one of the men from the pub. “Em, how much will you pay for this information?”

  “I’d say if the information is accurate, it’s worth a couple thousand shillings to me.”

  The man glanced around furtively. “The money first, please.”

  Ben regarded him for a moment, then handed him two banknotes. The man led him down the road a few meters and then pointed up toward the steep mountain. Set into the side of the snow-covered peak and surrounded by tightly packed, snow-frosted fir trees as dense as crabgrass, was an ancient medieval castle with a baroque facade and a gilded clock tower.

  Semmering.

  The clinic where Hitler’s science adviser, Josef Strasser, had shipped sophisticated scientific equipment decades ago.

  Where Jürgen Lenz invited a few lucky children afflicted with a terrible disease.

  Where—piecing together what he’d learned with what Lenz’s secretary had said—a delegation of world leaders and dignitaries had come to visit.

  And where Anna might have gone. Was it possible?

  Certainly it was possible; in any case, it was all he had.

  The Clockworks had been there all along, hidden in plain sight, and he had seen it walking up from the train station. It was by far the biggest property visible anywhere around.

  “Magnificent,” Ben said softly. “Do you know anyone who’s ever been inside?”

  “No. No one is allowed. There is much security there. It is very private, you can never go in.”

  “Well, they must hire local workers.”

  “No. All workers are flown in by helicopter from Vienna, and they have living quarters there. There is a helipad, you can see it if you look closely.”

  “What do they do there, do you know?”

  “I only hear things.”

  “Like what?”

  “They do strange things there, people say. You see strange-looking children arriving in buses…”

  “Do you know who owns it?”

  “Like you say, this Lenz. His father was a Nazi.”
>
  “How long has he owned it?”

  “A long time. I think maybe his father owned it after the war. During the war the Schloss was used by the Nazis as a command center. It used to be called the Schloss Zerwald—this is the old name for Semmering from the Middle Ages. It was built by one of the Esterházy princes in the seventeenth century. For a while at the end of last century it was, how you say, abandoned, then it was used for about twenty years as a clock factory. The old-timers around here still call it the Uhrwerken. How do you say—?”

  “Clockworks.” Ben took out another thousand-shilling note. “Now, just a few more questions.”

  A man was looming over her, a man in a white coat whose face kept going in and out of focus. He had gray hair and was speaking softly, even smiling. He seemed friendly, and she wished she could understand what he was saying.

  She wondered what was wrong with her that she couldn’t sit up: had she been in an accident? Had a stroke? She was overtaken by a sudden panic.

  She heard “… to have to do that to you, but we really had no choice.”

  An accent, perhaps German or Swiss.

  Where am I?

  Then: “dissociative tranquilizer…”

  Someone speaking English to her with some sort of Middle European accent.

  And “… as comfortable as possible while we wait for the ketamine to leave your system.”

  She began to recall things now. The place she was in was a bad place, a place she had been very curious about once but now wished she wasn’t in.

  She had vague memories of a struggle, of being grabbed by several strong men, of being jabbed with something sharp. After that, nothing.

  The gray-haired man, who she now felt was a very bad man, was gone, and she closed her eyes.

  When she opened them again, she was alone. Her head had cleared. She felt bruised all over, and she realized that she was tied down to a bed.

  She lifted her head as much as she could, which was not very far because there was a belt around her chest.

  But it was enough to see the cuffs and belts in which she was locked and fastened to a hospital gurney. They were polyurethane medical restraints, the kind that also came in leather and were used in mental hospitals for their most violent and dangerous patients. They were called “humane restraints,” and she had used them herself back in her training days.

  Her wrists were cuffed and locked and attached by a long chain to a waist belt that was also locked. The same for her ankles. Her arms were chafed and painful, indicating that she had struggled mightily.

  The restraints were color-coded: red for the wrists, blue for the ankles. These were of more recent vintage than the leather ones she had used, but surely the lock hadn’t changed. The key, she remembered, was small and flat with no teeth on it, straight on one side, tapered on the other to a wedge-shaped point.

  She remembered that hospital restraints were actually quite easy to pick if you knew how, but she would need a paper clip or something like it, a straight and rigid piece of metal wire.

  She craned her head to one side and examined the bulky anesthesia machine on one side of her bed, and, on the other side, the metal cart just a few tantalizing feet away.

  It had eight drawers. On top of it were scattered medical supplies, bandages and forceps, scissors, and a sterile package of safety pins.

  But there was no way to reach it.

  She tried to shift her body to the left, toward the gleaming cart, hoping for slack in the restraints, but there was almost none. She shifted to the left, this time violently, a sudden hard jerk that did nothing; the only thing that moved at all was the bed itself, which had to be on wheels.

  Wheels.

  She was silent for a moment, listening for approaching footsteps. Then she lurched against the restraints again and felt the wheels give what she imagined was another inch or two.

  Encouraged by the movement, tiny as it was, she lurched again. The wheels moved another minuscule distance.

  But the cart still looked as distant and unreachable as the mirage of a lake to a thirsty man in a desert.

  She rested a moment, her neck spasming in pain.

  Then she summoned her strength again and, trying to ignore how far away the cart was, she jerked at the restraints and gained maybe an inch.

  An inch, out of several feet, felt like a single step in the New York Marathon.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway and voices that grew louder, and she froze, resting her strained neck while she waited, and the voices passed.

  A lunge to the left and the gurney gave up another couple of inches.

  She did not want to think about what she would do once she reached the cart; that was another challenge entirely. She would have to take this a step at a time.

  An inch at a time.

  Another inch or so. Another. The cart was not much more than a foot away. She jerked again and gained another inch and the silver-haired man entered the room.

  Jürgen Lenz, as he called himself. But now she knew the astonishing truth.

  Jürgen-Lenz-who-was-not-Jürgen-Lenz.

  Chapter Forty-two

  At the end of Hochstrasse Ben found a sporting goods store that featured a wide variety of equipment for the tourist and sportsman. He rented a pair of cross-country skis and asked where he could rent a car.

  No place for miles.

  Parked at the side of the shop was a BMW motorcycle that looked old and decrepit but still functional. He struck a deal with the young man who managed the place, and owned the bike.

  With the skis strapped to his back he set off across the ridge of the Semmering pass until he came to a narrow unmarked dirt road that wound steeply uphill through a ravine to the Schloss. The road was rutted and icy; it had evidently been used recently by trucks and other heavy vehicles.

  When he had managed to climb perhaps a quarter of a mile, he came to a red sign that said BETRETEN VERBOTEN—PRIVATBESITZ: No Trespassing—Private Property.

  Just ahead of the sign was a barrier gate whose arm was striped in yellow-and-black reflective paint. It appeared to be electronically controlled, but Ben was easily able to hop over it and then wheel the bike underneath, tipped at an angle.

  Nothing happened: no Klaxon, no alarm bells.

  He continued up the road, through dense snow-covered woods, and in a few minutes reached a high, crenellated stone wall. It looked centuries old, though recently restored.

  From atop the wall rose several feet of thin, horizontally strung wire. At a distance, this addition was not visible, but Ben saw it clearly now. It was probably electrified, but he did not want to scale the wall and find out the hard way.

  Instead, he followed the wall for a few hundred feet until it came to what appeared to be the main gate, about six feet wide and ten feet high, constructed of ornately scrolled wrought iron. Upon closer examination, Ben realized that the fence was in fact steel painted to look like iron, entirely backed with a screen of woven wire fabric. This was certainly high-security, designed to foil intruders.

  He wondered whether it was made to keep people out—or in.

  Had Anna somehow gotten inside? he wondered. Was it possible? Or was she being held prisoner?

  The dirt road came to an end another few hundred meters from the gate. Beyond it was glistening virgin snow. He parked the motorcycle, put on his skis, and set off across the snow, staying close to the wall.

  His idea was to survey the entire perimeter of the property, or at least as much as was possible to examine, in hopes of discovering any holes in the security, any possible points of entry. But it did not look promising.

  The snow was soft and deep, so he sank into the powder, and the even deeper drifts and dunes made maneuvering difficult. It was no easier once he got the hang of it, because the terrain became steeper, the skiing ever more arduous.

  The ground next to the wall became higher, and pretty soon Ben could see over it.

  Glare coming off the snow forced him to
squint, but he could now make out the Schloss, a great rambling stone structure, more horizontal than vertical. At first glance this could have been a tourist attraction, but then he saw a couple of guards in military-style tunics, carrying submachine guns, patrolling the property.

  Whatever was happening inside these walls was not simple research.

  What he saw next was a profound shock. He didn’t understand it, but within the enclosed area were children, dozens and dozens of ragged-looking children, milling outside, in the cold. He peered again, squinting against the snow glare.

  Who were they?

  And why were they there?

  This was no sanatorium, that was for sure; he wondered whether they were prisoners.

  He skied uphill a short distance, close enough to get a better look, but not so close that he lost his line of sight behind the high stone wall.

  Inside, next to the wall, was a fenced-in area the size of a city block. Within it were several large military-style tents jammed with children. It seemed to be a makeshift shantytown, a tent city, its inhabitants youth from some Eastern European country. The steel fence that enclosed it was topped with coils of razor wire.

  It was a strange vision. Ben shook his head as if to clear it of an optical illusion, then looked again. Yes. They were children, some toddlers, some teenagers, un-shaven and rough-looking, smoking and shouting to one another; girls in headscarves, shabby peasant dresses, and tattered coats, children swarming all around.

  He had seen news footage of people like this. Whoever they were, wherever they were from, they had that unmistakable look of impoverished youth driven out of their homes by war—Bosnian refugees, escapees from the conflicts in Kosovo and Macedonia, ethnic Albanians, perhaps.

  Was Lenz sheltering war refugees here, on the grounds of his clinic?

  Jürgen Lenz, humanitarian, giving shelter to refugees and ailing children?

  Unlikely.

  For this was hardly a shelter. These peasant children were packed into their tent city, inadequately dressed, freezing in the cold. And there were the armed guards. This looked like some kind of internment camp.