They all sat back.

‘That’s about it,’ said Simon. ‘Jesus Christ.’

David spoke:

‘OK. We need to go. We got the answer. We have some leverage. We’re gonna run out of light…’

Angus was clutching that last document.

‘David. You should see this.’

The dread crept through David’s soul. The moment had come.

‘Yes. No. Why?’

‘I found it. A name caught my eye.’ He paused. ‘Martinez…’

He offered the paper under the torchlight.

David grabbed the single sheet and read it, avidly, his hand shaking, a tightening sensation in his chest. He read it twice. He looked at Amy, and then at Angus, and then back at the list of names. He had enough German to glean the meaning; his mind swayed with the shock. His own hand was shaking now. He handed it back to Angus. And said: ‘Read it out…’

Nairn carefully took the document. And he read it out: it was the story José hadn’t told David…couldn’t tell him.

‘Your grandfather…thought he was a Cagot. But of course he wasn’t. It was a lie. It says it all here. After a year in the camp, he was seen as a troublemaker, a teenage Basque rebel. So the Germans humiliated him, and silenced him…by putting him in the Cagot section. The barracks of the hated pariahs. They convinced him he was of Cagot blood. Yet he was Basque. And so, David, are you. You are a Basque.’

David looked at Amy. He felt the most intense relief, a kind of shameful joy. But her face was strained, and tense: he saw no joy there, no gladness, he saw distraction and fear.

And then his own joy vanished, replaced by an equally intense terror. Provoked by just one word.

‘Epa!’

49

Simon watched, aghast. Miguel flashed a brief smile, and a gun, at Angus and David. The terrorist was surrounded by men, carrying weapons, cans of gasoline and flat silver packages. Explosives maybe. The men set to work: in the shadows at the edge of the vault.

They had been so engrossed in their unravelling of the story, they hadn’t even heard the stealthy approach of the Wolf and his men. And now here he was.

Smiling at Amy.

‘Amy. Esti. Muchas gracias, senorita.’

She was gazing back at him; her voice was an eerie monotone. ‘Yes…I did…what I promised.’

‘You did.’

Miguel laughed a richly sad laugh. David felt the anger surging inside, like an oncoming storm:

‘You. Amy? You? You betrayed us?’

She didn’t turn his way. She couldn’t even bear to look at him.

Miguel strode close to David. His breath was sweet, and fragranced with red wine. It mingled with the reek of the petrol, that Miguel’s silent men were splashing over the wooden cases. David was instantly reminded: the stench of the bonfire in Namibia. When Amy saved him. And now she had betrayed him.

Miguel nodded, almost sympathetically. ‘Yes, of course, she betrayed you. She loves me. She always did. What is your life to her…’

David ignored the terrorist; instead he spoke, angrily, ferociously, at Amy. She was hunched and averting her eyes, maybe crying.

‘So it was you? All along? Who told them where we were going? Namibia? You fucking bitch -’

Miguel intervened: ‘Enough!’

David swore once again at Amy, who was now deep in the shadows.

Miguel’s smile faded.

‘Do not blame her. She is a woman. Arrotz herri, otso herri. And besides, Davido, she did the correct thing, the moral choice, she is correct. Because I am the good guy. The hero. We are the good guys. Do you not understand? We are on the side of the good.’ Miguel’s eye was faintly twitching. ‘If the information in this cellar was ever to become known by others, then nations, races, tribes…would be forced into war. Humans who are not human? One race provably superior to another? Imagine. Human species fighting human species. Racial hierarchies confirmed. Nazi science vindicated. The democratic multiracial world – in ruins.’

Angus spoke up:

‘But you can’t stop science. One day a lab will repeat these results on genomic diversity, it is inevitable -’

‘Is it, Nairn?’ Miguel swivelled, turning on the scientist. ‘Is it true? We closed down the Stanford Project. We closed down GenoMap. The Cagots are all dead, so the Fischer experiments can never be repeated. We have won. We have to win, or do you want us to be like animals, like rats, fighting each other, fighting always? Do you want that?…Umeak! You are children!’

He glanced along the vault; his men had set the charges, the flat, sinister grey packages were tucked snug against the walls. The crates, doused in petrol, were ready to burn.

‘Good. We are nearly done. Bai.’

Was there any way of escape? David urgently counted the number of men: there were seven or eight of them. Armed, dressed in dark clothes, and quietly efficient. Finishing their task.

There was no escape. And what did it matter anyway? They were finally cornered; they had lost; and he, David Martinez, was going to die, betrayed by the woman he loved. Even as he discovered the truth. A generous and bitter irony.

‘Are we ready?’

One man turned.

‘Bai, Miguel.’

‘Excellent.’ The Wolf turned back to the captives. ‘I must also thank you for helping us locate the Fischer results. People, agencies – governments – have been searching for these for many decades.’

Miguel gazed first at Simon, then Angus, then David, as if he wanted to gain their entire attention for his following words, which he enunciated very carefully.

‘Of course, you thought it was the church, didn’t you? You realized it must be the Society of Pius the Tenth, and therefore you decided the entire church was involved, behind the scenes. The Holy Church.’ He shook his head, with a contemptuous smile. ‘Well, maybe we have a little help, some cooperation at a certain level…but do you really think Rome would have the money and the means and the will and the savagery to do all this, to take all these lives, mmm? Cardinals with guns and missiles? Really? Bai? Does that really make sense? Do you want to know where our money actually came from?’

The lamplight was dim, the air was stale. Miguel continued:

‘The money came from much higher than that. Let us just say…Washington, and London, and Paris, and Jerusalem, and Beijing, and, of course, Berlin. Such a lot of money and assistance from Berlin. There is one government which sees it as its duty and, yes, its destiny, to make sure Nazism is never reborn in any form. They would do almost anything to rid Germany of her shame, and save the world from scientific racism. They would recruit any zealots or terrorists, for instance…They would make sure these zealots worked at a distance, in the darkness. So as to give everyone…in that succulent English phrase “plausible deniability”.’

He stepped back. ‘Bai…David – and you…Angus Nairn…and you, the journalist. Quinn. Obviously we cannot let anyone survive. Consequently, you will be buried in here, along with the Fischer results, forever. Nola bizi, hala hil. The passage will be concreted. The barroom demolished and the passage filled in.’ He held up a box, the trigger for the explosives. ‘You will be in the most impressive of tombs. Which is nice for you.’ He smiled in the torchbeams. ‘But dead, nonetheless.’

Even as his last words faded, Amy stepped out of the shadows. Her face was alive, now, alive and angry:

‘Miguel, you said you’d let them go.’

‘Mazeltov. Of course I lied.’

‘But Miguel – you said you’d spare them, for me – you promised -’

She stared at the terrorist. He scowled.

‘You think I love you that much? My little piglet? The whore that fucked with the Amerikako? Eh?’

Amy’s face was uplit by the paraffin lamp. There was a glow there, a pleading in her expression. She stumbled over her words.

‘But I never slept…with David.’