We were all walking on thin ice. The only question was which of us would fall through first.
Friedrich Engel’s office was on the top floor of a building that breathed money. It was filled with marble floors, brass fixtures, and the hushed reverence of a cathedral dedicated to wealth. The banker himself was a soft-featured man in his fifties, impeccably dressed, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of endless work and mounting pressure.
He rose when we entered and crossed the room to take the Baroness’s hands in both of his. “Isabella.” His voice trembled slightly. “Thank God you are safe. When I heard what happened at St. Gallen—”
“I am well, Friedrich. Shaken, but well.” She gestured toward Thomas and me. “These are associates of mine. They are helping me with a rather delicate matter.”
Engel’s eyes swept over us.
“Please, sit.” He gestured toward a cluster of leather chairs. “Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“Information,” the Baroness said, settling into one of the chairs with imperial grace. Without so much as a preamble, she said, “I need to know what Sternberg AG is actually buying.”
Engel’s face went pale.
“Sternberg? Baroness, surely—”
“You are familiar with Sternberg, I see.” She cocked her head. “Let us not waste time, Herr Engel. Our presence puts you in danger. Answer me and we will leave.”
“Buying,” he repeated, running a hand over his face while pacing before his desk. For a moment, I wondered if he might jump out a window rather than speak to the Baroness, but he finally stopped pacing and turned to face us. “Isabella, the scope of what they are doing—it is not just ministers. It is not just government officials.” He swallowed hard, his soft features twisting with something that looked like anguish. “They are building an infrastructure.”
“Explain,” she commanded.
“Property, first. Sternberg has been acquiring real estate throughout Switzerland for the past eighteen months. There are warehouses in Bern and Basel, a printing facility in Bern, even office buildings in Geneva.” He paused, his hands tightening in his lap. “Oh, and three mountain estates near the Austrian border. They are remote properties, very difficult to access, especially in winter.”
Thomas leaned forward. “What are they doing in the mountains near the border?”
“I do not know, but the security expenditures for those properties are enormous. I have seen transactions for armed guards, communication equipment, even medical supplies.” Engel’s voice dropped. “One estate in particular—it is listed asAdlerhorst in the documents—receives weekly deliveries that are never itemized. The invoices simply say ‘operational materials.’ The amounts are . . . considerable.”
“What else?” the Baroness asked.
“Personnel.” Engel rose and moved to his desk, unlocking a drawer. He withdrew a folder and handed it to her. “I have compiled what I could find. Sternberg has been placing people throughout Swiss institutions—and not just government; military, police, the judicial system, the postal service, even the rail authority. These are low-level positions, mostly, the kind that no one notices, but the pattern . . .” He shook his head. “It is like watching someone build a machine piece by piece. Each component seems insignificant on its own, but together, they form something.”
The Baroness opened the folder and scanned the contents. I saw a flicker of recognition—and alarm—cross her features.
“These positions,” she said slowly. “Communications officers. Security personnel. Transportation coordinators.” She looked up at Engel. “They are not building a business. They are building a network capable of controlling the flow of information across the entire country.”
“Yes.” Engel’s voice was barely a whisper. “And in the past three weeks, the pace has accelerateddramatically. Whatever they are planning, it is happening soon.”
“How soon?”
“I do not know, but there is a date that keeps appearing in the transfer records. February 15th. Large sums are moving to the Adlerhorst property to pay security contractors. It goes into a dozen different accounts, all scheduled to clear by February 15th.”
Engel leaned against the edge of his desk and crossed his arms. “There is one more thing.”
Something in his tone made me look at him more closely. His fear was palpable, but there was something else beneath it, something that looked almost like guilt.
“A woman came to see me last week. She is a secretary from the Ministry of Finance called Fräulein Hoffmann. She had noticed irregularities in certain accounts—transfers that did not match the official records and authorizations that seemed to come from nowhere.” He paused. “She wanted to know if I had seen the same patterns.”
“And had you?”
“Yes, but I told her nothing.” Engel’s hands were shaking now. “I was afraid, Isabella. I am still afraid. My daughter is in Munich, and these people, they made it very clear what would happen if I—” He stopped, unable to continue.
TheBaroness stood, took a few steps, and covered his hand with hers. “I understand, Friedrich. Truly, I do.”
“Fräulein Hoffmann is still asking questions. She does not understand what she has stumbled into. She thinks it is simple corruption, something that can be exposed through proper channels.” Engel looked at the Baroness with something approaching desperation. “She will get herself killed the way Aldric was killed.”
“Where can we find her?”
