‘The same house?’

‘The same house. It’s been in the family ever since. The current Count von Adler is the great-great-great grandson. That’s as far as the historical record goes. But the house and title weren’t the only things that got handed down.’

‘I’m not getting it.’

‘This is the bit the history books don’t mention,’ Ben said, ‘because the letter that Richard Llewellyn discovered never made it into the historical record. Von Adler was The Eagle mentioned in the letter. We know from Arno that he was also Grand Master of the Order of Ra. A big part of those services to the Empire was the Order’s dirty work in helping to wipe out the Masons. He used his estate as his base.’

‘So?’

‘So they’re still there, Markus. Oliver found them.’

Kinski chewed it over for a moment. ‘Oliver knew?’

‘He was halfway to the truth,’ Ben said. ‘He knew about the historical connection with his Mozart research. Who knows what he thought he’d find in the house? Perhaps he thought he was opening up a hidden chapter of history. He had no idea what he was really walking into. He witnessed the execution by pure chance.’

‘This would explain why Meyer died the same night,’ Kinski said.

Ben nodded. ‘He was the hired pianist for the night, so his name was on the list. As soon as Oliver was out of there, they were already searching for the address of Meyer’s student digs. They got to him within minutes. But they’d have realized immediately that he wasn’t the same guy. With a gun to his head, he must have blabbed Oliver’s name pretty fast. They probably told him he was buying his life if he talked.’

Kinski scowled. ‘But the fuckers killed him anyway, just to keep him quiet. Then they went after Oliver.’

‘Faster than that,’ Ben said. ‘They’re not short of people. There would have been a team on its way for Oliver even while Meyer was still breathing.’

Kinski frowned. ‘Wait. How did they-’

‘Know where to find him? Police computer. They’ve got the right connections, remember? Oliver was a foreign visitor. He would have needed his passport to check into the boarding house. There couldn’t have been too many Oliver Llewellyns in the area. They picked him like an apple.’

Kinski grunted.

‘He just had time to burn the video-clip to CD and post it to the only person he could trust,’ Ben said. ‘Then they caught up with him. They took him out to the lake. Probably made him walk out onto the ice and then let loose with the nine-mil to crack it up around him. He never had a chance.’ He took a fat, shiny.45 Federal round from one of the cartridge boxes and used his thumb to press it into the magazine. It snicked into place.

‘So what now?’ Kinski asked.

Ben loaded the second round into the magazine, pushing down against the stiff spring. ‘I know where the house is,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it. It ends here.’

‘Where’s the house?’

‘Let me deal with it. You can read about it in the papers.’

‘You need my help.’

Ben loaded the third round. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not how it works. I don’t use partners, Markus. You’ll get in the way.’

‘You really are crazy.’

‘I’ve been crazier.’ He pressed the fourth round in on top of the first three.

The traffic was heavy. Kinski flipped on the indicator at a busy intersection, cutting across into the Burgring. His eyes darted from road to mirror and back, concentrating on the traffic. ‘I believe you,’ he said.

Ben didn’t reply. He took a fifth cartridge from the box and loaded it into the magazine.

Neither of them saw the dark blue truck until it was almost on them. It was a security vehicle, massive, heavily armoured, unmarked. As Kinski’s Mercedes cut across the street the truck surged through a red light and came on hard. Horns blared. Kinski saw it half a second after Ben. He hit the brakes an instant too late.

The truck caught the Mercedes broadside at fifty miles an hour and cut it in half.

Chapter Forty-Two

Slovenia

From where Clara had fallen in the snow, she could see the two black helicopters sitting side by side in the field on the other side of the convent buildings. There were more men getting out of them and striding quickly among the buildings. They wore some kind of white overalls and carried small black things. She gaped.

The small objects were guns. Like the one that the man standing over her was pointing at her head.

He grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. She let out a cry of fear and pain. He clamped his hand over her mouth.

A big black shape came streaking around the corner. Max’s eyes were alert and his body stiffened as he saw the man clutching Clara. He growled, advanced and charged at him. He grabbed the man’s arm and dragged him off the little girl, pulling him to the ground and shaking him like a rag doll. Clara was screaming. Two more men appeared through an archway. They aimed their guns at Max and fired. The dog howled and thrashed on the bloody snow.

Leigh saw it all from a distance as she ran through the snow towards the convent. The running figures vaulted the wall into the grounds and circled the buildings, kicking open doors and cocking their weapons. Over the noise of the helicopters she could hear a new sound. The nuns had stopped singing, and now it was their cries of terror and panic that were coming from the chapel’s arched windows. A sound that was cut short by the chattering of suppressed gunfire.

One of the men bundled Clara roughly under his arm and carried her kicking and thrashing and screaming towards the waiting choppers. Leigh’s heart was hammering furiously. As she watched, one of the nuns burst out of the chapel, her face contorted in horror. She made it halfway across the courtyard before she was cut down by a blast from a gun. She collapsed on her face, the black-and-white habit stained with red. They got her by the ankles and dragged her body towards the chapel, leaving a thick trail of blood on the snow. Through the open chapel door Leigh could see the men throwing dead nuns in a bloody, twisted heap at the foot of the altar.

She would have done anything to help Clara, but there was nothing she could do except run the other way. She sprinted back to the cottage. Nobody had seen her. She crashed through the door and ran inside. She was shaking violently.

The shotgun on the rack. She looked up at it for an instant, then grabbed it down. Her hands trembled as she rummaged in the drawer for some cartridges. She thrust a fistful of them into her jacket pocket, opened up the gun’s action the way Ben had shown her, and slipped a round in each barrel.

She burst out of the cottage.

Run like hell, Leigh.

She dashed through the passageway leading to the farm. She let out a cry as a man stepped out pointing a gun at her head.

His face was hard, his eyes serious as he stared down the twin bores of the shotgun. ‘Drop the weapon,’ he warned, levelling his own.

Leigh didn’t have time to think. She wrapped her fingers around the two triggers and let off both barrels. Right in his face. The gun kicked violently back, making her stagger.

The impact of the gun at extreme close range was devastating. The man’s features disintegrated. Blood flew up the wall. She could taste the thick saltiness of it on her lips. She spat and ran on again, jumping over him and away from the convent. As she stumbled through the snow she feverishly reloaded the shotgun the way Ben had shown her.

Another man saw her and gave chase. She reached the low perimeter wall and vaulted over it, making for the cover of the trees.

He had orders not to kill her unless necessary. He fired a warning spray at the snow around her feet as she ran. Passing the snowman she’d built with Ben the day before, she turned and let off a barrel. The boom echoed across the valley.