“I heard voices,” she said. Her gaze found our visitors. “Ah. The American team. You decided not to wait. This is good.”
The CIA woman’s demeanor shifted instantly. All flirtation vanished, replaced by something crisp and professional. “No, ma’am. Time is too short for half measures.”
The Baroness studied her for a long moment. Apparently, whatever she saw satisfied her.
“Good,” she said. “Come. Everyone into the kitchen.”
We gathered around the farmhouse table.
The Baroness sat at the head—or what felt like the head, despite the table being round. Her bandaged hands rested on the wood. Bisch stood behind her. Thomas and I—now properly dressed—took one side, while the American team arranged themselves across from us. Thomas had thrown on a shirt, though he’d left it half unbuttoned, which I suspected was deliberately aimed at further teasing me even during a session as serious as this.
Maps covered the table, detailing Bern, the surrounding canton, and locations we’d identified as potential targets. The Sternberg documents sat in a neat stack.
“Before we begin,” the Baroness said, looking at the woman, “I must know what you are authorized to do.”
“Observe and report. We may also provide security, though even that is limited.” She paused. “Active intervention requires authorization, which I don’t have.”
“And your man Emu here”—the woman glanced at me—“was admirably tight-lipped when we met. All he would tell me was that a high-value asset was meeting with a general in the midst of an unknown threat level.” A hint of a smile. “He was very professional, but that means my team is walking into whatever this is blind. Before we plan anything, I need to know what we’re actually dealing with.”
The Baroness nodded slowly. “Yes. You do.” She looked around the table. “What I am about to tell you must not leave this room. If it reaches the wrong ears, people will die. More people than have already died.”
The woman’s expression sharpened. Her team straightened almost imperceptibly.
“Go on,” she said.
The Baroness began. “The immediate threat is an organization called the Order of Saint Longinus.They have been operating in Switzerland for decades—”
“The Order of Saint Longinus?” The CIA woman’s eyebrow rose as she interrupted. “The Catholic mystics?” She glanced at her team, and I caught a flicker of doubt. “I’ve seen the file on them. They’re little more than a handful of aristocrats playing at secret society, convinced they’re protecting Europe from godlessness.” She shook her head. “With respect, Baroness, we flew across the globe and drove through the night because we were told this was serious. Soviet agents with real threats—not religious cranks with delusions of—”
The Baroness’s hands came up.
It wasn’t a gesture. It was a display.
She held her shattered hands out over the table, her bandages stark white in the lamplight, the fingers beneath them twisted at angles that made my stomach turn even now.
“Do these look like the work of monks or priests? The acts of religious men?” Her voice was quiet.
That was what made it terrible.
“They held me in a room with no windows, very little light, and only the sounds of questions and screaming—and the screaming wasmine.” She didn’t look away from the woman’s face. “They broke my fingers one by one—and not quickly. They took their time. They wanted information, yes, but they also wanted me to understand whatI was facing and what happens to people who oppose them.”
The woman had gone very still.
“Otto Hartmann,” the Baroness continued, “was my aide for decades. He was my friend and the closest thing I had to family after my husband died.” Her voice cracked, just slightly, before she steadied it. “He came for me. He came alone—an old man with a pistol and more courage than sense. When these two”—she gestured at Thomas and me—“found him, he was dying from wounds he had sustained attempting to get me out of that place. He died in this farmhouse two days ago.”
No one moved. I barely breathed.
“Heinrich Schweizer, a journalist, was going to help me expose them. They killed him in his hotel room and made it look like a heart attack.” The Baroness’s eyes were bright with something that might have been tears—or rage. I couldn’t tell. “Ernst Vogel, Klaus Brenner, and Anna Richter. I could give you a dozen more names. Good people. Brave people. People who saw what was happening and tried to stop it. Each died at the hands of this Order and their Soviet masters.”
She lowered her hands slowly, again resting them on the table.
“So do not sit in this kitchen inmycountry and tell me about cranks.” Her voice was barely above a whisper now, but it filled the room. “Do not tell me that I am wasting time. I have givenforty years of my life to protecting this nation. I have given my hands. I have given my friends. I will give whatever I have left to stop these people, with or without your help.”
The CIA woman sat frozen. Whatever she had expected when she walked into the farmhouse, it wasn’t this.
Marcus shifted uncomfortably. Danny stared at the table. Eddie’s expression hadn’t changed, but something in his posture had shifted—respect, perhaps, or simple recognition of what they were dealing with.
“I apologize,” the woman said finally. Her voice was different now, softer and stripped of its earlier condescension. “Please—continue.”
