Sixty-eight years old, lean, tan, with a craggy face etched in a permanent squint, Griffe was too vain to wear glasses. Alone among the antique armoires and gilt-framed paintings, he felt empty. He opened the glass balcony doors, stepping out into the frosty chill air. The vacant playground and fountains of the fenced Place des Vosges spread below him.

Why hadn't he ignored the minister? But he knew the reason why. As the silent architect of previous trade agreements and treaties, only his lobbying glued the EU delegates together. But did the trade summit have to be here?

Under the pigeon-spattered statue of Louis XIII straddling his horse, he'd said goodbye so many, many years ago to the only woman he'd loved. A Frenchwoman. A Jew.

Sarah.

The cooing of pigeons and soggy chill of an early November evening floated past his open balcony doors. His hands shook as he grasped the door handle. What if someone recognized him and screamed his past out loud?

Unter den Linden; that was an order. Also the Werewolves' codeword meaning: one day we will meet under the flowering linden trees in Berlin under a new Reich. The Third Reich reborn.

Unable to work, he gazed at the restored rose stone facades of the square opposite the window. I'm just an old man with memories, he thought. Everyone else had been ground into dust long ago.

Fifty years ago he'd been young, and the City of Light had spread before him, ripe for the plucking. Very ripe, for Hartmuth Griffe had been an officer with the SiPo-SD Sicherheitspolizei und Sicherheitsdienst Security Police and Gestapo, responsible for sweeping the Jews from the Marais.

THURSDAY