“Which were?” David said, listening, really, with only half an ear. He could not get his mind off meeting this antiquarian Sant’Angelo, and his eyes stared past his own reflection in the window to watch the night grow more turbulent. A smallish man, in a bulky jacket and hat pulled low, was lighting a cigarette at the entrance to the Metro station across the street.
“The members of the society—and most of the Nazis’ upper echelon, including the Führer, by the way, were members—believed that by pursuing esoteric knowledge and ancient teachings, they could awaken their latent vril.”
“Their what?”
“It’s a meaningless word, really, invented for a science-fiction story by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The vril was supposedly an essence in the blood, a mystical power, that could grant them virtual immortality.”
The waiter brought them more coffee, asked if they would like to see the pastry selections, and when David looked back at the window, he was surprised to see that the man with the cigarette was standing just outside the glass, studying them like fish in an aquarium.
And damned if it wasn’t the same man who had doctored their drinks on the train.
“I can’t believe it!” Olivia said on seeing him there, and they were both incredulous when he casually ground out his lighted cigarette, came inside the bistro, and, as if they were old friends, pulled up a chair at their table.
David thought Olivia was going to grab her fork and try to stab him, and he laid a calming hand on her arm.
“I don’t suppose you expected to see me again,” the man said, taking off his hat and calling for a glass of the house red. His curly hair was squashed down tight around his crown.
“No, I can’t say that I did,” David replied, automatically hooking his wrist tightly through the handle of his valise.
“But rest assured, I have no schnapps for you tonight. In fact,” he said, taking his wine from the waiter’s tray, “I have some advice I’d like you to take instead.”
He sipped his wine, while Olivia stared daggers at him and David wondered why on earth he would think that any advice he offered would be taken seriously.
“I regret what happened on the train,” he said. “I’m a doctor, and—”
“I thought you sold medical supplies,” David interrupted.
“In a manner of speaking, yes. But I am a doctor, and as such I have taken an oath to help, not to harm, people. I know that you are carrying something precious,” he said, nodding at the valise, “but I have not been told what it is. Frankly, I don’t care. But other people do care, very much, and you have already met some of their … employees.”
“Your friend with the knife?” In case he had had any doubts about that muddled night on the train, David had found the puncture wounds in his duffel bag when unpacking at the Crillon.
“Yes,” he replied. “But there are others.” The self-proclaimed doctor sipped his wine while David and Olivia waited. “My advice to you—and I tell you this at considerable risk to myself—is to drop your search immediately, pack your bags, and go home. Live a long and healthy life. Forget whatever it is you think you know because—trust me—you know nothing.”
“Then why are you here?” David asked. “If we know so little, why would anyone be bothering to pursue us?”
The doctor sighed, as if weary of trying to explain himself. “Because you’re like a couple of clumsy children playing with a loaded gun.”
Olivia bridled. “I am no child.”
“And when guns go off,” the doctor continued, “there’s no telling who will get hit.”
“Then tell us who these people are,” David demanded, “and what they want.”
“They’re people who have been playing this game a lot longer than you have. They have no scruples, they have no moral reservations, and they make their own rules. It doesn’t matter what they want—they will get it in the end.” He finished his wine in one big swallow and stood up, pushing his chair back. “That’s all you need to know,” he said, throwing enough money on the table to cover the entire bill. “Don’t say you haven’t been warned.” He pulled his hat down low over his ears, and as he turned to leave, Olivia put a hand on his sleeve and asked, “Why are you telling us all this?”
“Because I can’t have any more blood on my hands.”
With that, he left, and David watched as the doctor ducked out of the café doorway, waited for a rusty old taxi to pass, and darted, like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, down into the hole of the Metro station.
Chapter 26
That’s the second time I’ve seen that old taxi, Julius thought, as he waited on the train platform. And even here, he noted a couple of suspicious-looking travelers, one of them carrying a too-prosaic sack of groceries, the baguette sticking up out of the bag. Julius waited for the train to whoosh to a stop, got on board, then, just as the doors were closing, ducked out again. But no one else got out with him.