Across the desk, Sprecher tittered.

"It's a shame about Mr. Cerruti. I suppose you've heard."

"Just a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact. Armin Schweitzer informed us."

"Under the circumstances, I wanted to schedule a time to meet with you to make sure you're settling in all right. I'm holding you to your promise of fourteen months." Nick thought he heard a smile in her voice. "I'd like to suggest a dinner, something a little more informal than usual. Let's say February 6 at Emilio's."

"February 6 at Emilio's," Nick repeated. He asked her to wait one moment, then put the phone on his shoulder while he checked an invisible calendar. "That would be fine. Yes, perfect."

"Seven o'clock, then. In the meantime I need to see you in my office. We have to cover some issues regarding our bank secrecy requirements. Do you think Mr. Sprecher could spare you tomorrow morning around ten?"

Nick glanced at Sprecher, who stared back, a bemused grin screwing up his face. "Yes, I'm sure Mr. Sprecher can do without me for a few minutes tomorrow morning."

"Very good. I'll see you then." Instantly she was gone.

Nick hung up the phone and asked Sprecher, "What?"

Sprecher chuckled. "Emilio's, eh? Can't recall seeing any personnel files in there. But it's bloody good grub and not cheap either."

"It's routine. She wants to make sure I'm not too worried about Cerruti."

"Routine, Nick, is the cafeteria. Third floor, down the hallway to your left. Wiener schnitzel and chocolate pudding. Dr. Schon has something else in mind for you. Don't think for a second she doesn't know of our august chairman's interest in you. She wants to make sure you're well fed and comfortable. Can't afford to lose you, can she?"

"You've got this all worked out, haven't you?"

"Some things even Uncle Peter can figure out on his own."

Nick shook his head in disbelief, laughing. He reached for his agenda and penciled in her name on the appropriate page. His date with Sylvia Schon- check that, his meeting with her- would constitute its first entry. He raised his eyes and saw Sprecher typing a letter on his computer. Bastard still had a smirk on his face. She has something else in mind for you, he'd said.

Nick ran the words through his mind a second time, and then a third. What exactly had Sprecher meant? As he pondered his colleague's comments, his unsupervised imagination wandered down to the first floor and tiptoed into Dr. Schon's cozy office. He saw her working diligently behind her cluttered desk. Her glasses were pushed into her hair, her blouse unbuttoned a notch lower than perfectly decent. Her slim fingers massaged a chain that dangled from her neck and brushed the swell of her cleavage.

As if reading his thoughts, Sprecher said, "Watch yourself, Nick. They're smarter than we are, you know."

Nick looked up, startled. "Who?"

Sprecher winked. "Women."

Nick averted his gaze, though if it was from guilt or embarrassment he didn't know. The frank sexual nature of his daydream surprised him. He had no doubt where it would have led had Sprecher not interrupted him, and even now he found it difficult to clear his mind of the seductive images.

Two months ago he'd been ready to bind himself to another woman for the rest of his life. A woman he'd loved and respected and relied on more than he ever knew was possible. Part of him still refused to believe that Anna Fontaine was gone. But as his vivid daydream made clear, another part of him had resolved itself to the fact, and was antsy to move on. One thing, though, was perfectly clear. A relationship with Sylvia Schon was not the place to start.

Nick returned to his task of verifying that their clients' portfolios met the proper strategic asset allocation model. It was a monotonous chore and in theory never ending, for the bank changed its investment mix every sixty days or so, just the amount of time he'd need to make it through every one of his section's seven hundred discretionary clients.

After a week at the bank, his days had assumed a familiar pattern. He rose each morning at six, then forced himself to withstand fifteen seconds of an ice-cold shower (an old habit from the Corps), the theory being that after suffering through the frosty agony the rest of the day didn't look so bad. He left his one-room apartment at 6:50, caught the 7:01 tram, and hit the office by 7:30, latest. Normally he was among the first to arrive. His morning's work invariably concerned gathering a group of client portfolios and studying them for stocks performing poorly or bonds that were due to expire. These noted, he issued sell recommendations that Sprecher approved uniformly.

"Remember, chum," Sprecher was fond of saying, "revenue is paramount. Commissions must be generated. It's the only true yardstick of our diligence."

But Nick's activities were not restricted to those set forth by Peter Sprecher. Each day he found time to pursue inquiries of a more private nature. His unofficial duties, he liked to call them, and these involved finding ways to dig into the bank's past, to see what nuggets he might discover about his father's work those many years ago. His first excursion, undertaken on the Wednesday after his arrival, was to the bank's research library, WIDO- Wirtschafts Dokumentation. There he scoured old annual reports, documents issued internally before the bank had gone public in 1980. He found a mention of his father in several of them, but only a passing reference or a notation in an organigram. Nothing that might shed any real light on his day-to-day tasks.

Other times, Nick studied the bank's internal phone directory searching for names of executives that sounded familiar (none did) while checking by rank who might have been at the bank with his father. It was a hopeless task. To approach every executive over the age of fifty-five and inquire whether he had known his father was to invite news of his activities to be publicly broadcast.

Twice Nick returned to Dokumentation Zentrale. He would slide by the door, daring himself to step inside, dreaming of the miles and miles of retired papers he'd find filed in meticulous order. He grew convinced that if his father's murder was tied in any way to his activities on behalf of the bank or its clients, the only extant clues would be found there.

The call came that afternoon at three o'clock, as it had the previous Monday and Thursday. As it had for the past eighteen months, maybe longer, said Peter Sprecher. Nick found himself guessing the amount the Pasha would transfer that day. Fifteen million dollars? Twenty million? More? Last Thursday the Pasha had transferred sixteen million dollars from his account to the banks listed on matrix five. Less than the twenty-six million he had transferred the previous Monday, but still a king's ransom.

Nick thought it odd, as well as inefficient, that they had to wait to check the balance of account 549.617 RR until the Pasha phoned. Rules forbade the perusal of a client's accounts. Why didn't the Pasha just leave a standing order at the bank asking that all moneys that accumulated in the account be transferred out every Monday and Thursday? Why this waiting until three o'clock to call, this causing such a rush to wire the funds out before closing?

"Twenty-seven million four hundred thousand dollars," said Peter Sprecher to the Pasha. "To be transferred on an urgent basis according to matrix seven." He was using a voice he'd labeled the disinterested monotone of the professionally jaded.

Nick handed him the orange file, opened to matrix seven, and silently read the banks listed: Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank; Singapore Trade Development Bank; Daiwa Bank. Some European banks were included: Credit Lyonnais; Banco Lavoro; even the Moscow Narodny Bank. A total of thirty internationally respected financial institutions.