Piranha

“If Lutzen’s work was so groundbreaking, why haven’t we heard of him?”

Eric shrugged. “I just did a quick search of the physics literature. He never published, and his work was never referenced in anyone else’s papers. If the work doesn’t show up in a peer-reviewed journal, it essentially doesn’t exist. Lutzen may have been preparing his findings for a paper when he died. That could be the journal that Kensit found. It’s also possible that his work was too groundbreaking.”

“‘Too groundbreaking’?”

“It’s possible Lutzen’s ideas were so novel that he had trouble getting his work published. Enrico Fermi, one of the scientists on the Manhattan Project, submitted a paper to the journal Nature in 1934, explaining the structure of the atom as we know it today, and it was rejected for being ‘too remote from reality.’ If Lutzen’s work was that far ahead of its time, he may have been trying to find more evidence to support it.”

“In the Caribbean?”

“We won’t know what he was looking for until I can see the thesis.”

“We’ll need just a couple of minutes with it,” Juan said. He still had his camera glasses with him. When they reached the library, they’d request the thesis, which would be brought to their carousel. Juan would flip through each page to get a high-resolution image of the entire document and then transmit it back to Overholt for a complete translation by the CIA.

Juan found a parking space on the street in front of the Grimm Center, a gray concrete building that was all right angles and which had narrow slits for windows. Given the austere façade, he thought the name Grimm was fitting in more ways than one.

He and Eric hustled inside, brushing away snowflakes as they approached the main desk. They were directed to a librarian on the sixth floor who could help them with the special collections.

Their path took them through the building’s central atrium, and Juan was momentarily taken aback. Unlike the center’s cold and uninviting exterior, the atrium was a stu

When they got to the librarian’s station, a ponytailed student wearing a name tag reading “Greta” said something in German. Though Juan was fluent in Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, his German was minimal.

“I don’t suppose you speak English,” he said.

“English, yes,” she said with a smile and a heavy accent. “A little.”

“We would like to look at a thesis from 1901 by a student named Gunther Lutzen.” Eric showed her the title of the thesis.

Greta furrowed her brow, then looked up at Juan. “You also want this document?”

Juan’s muscles tightened. “What do you mean ‘also’?”

“A man has come minutes ago to see it. The librarian, Herr Schmidt, has just taken him there.”

“What did this man look like?”

“He is . . . oh, how do you say . . . schwarz?” She rubbed the skin of her arm and pointed at a black stapler.

“He has dark skin?” Juan said.

Greta nodded. “Ja. Very dark.”

Bazin. He had anticipated their move yet again despite all of Juan’s precautions. If he got the thesis and destroyed it, they might lose their last link between Gunther Lutzen and Lawrence Kensit.

“Where did they go?”

“To the archives on this level,” she said, confused at Juan’s sudden urgency. “It’s there.” She pointed toward the other end of the building.

Juan and Eric took off ru

Still, Eric couldn’t come with him empty-handed. Juan removed the C-4 pack, detonator cap, and activation switch and shoved them into Eric’s hands.

“What should I do with these?” Eric asked.

“Not sure. You’ll think of something. Stay behind me.”

They continued on to a door marked “Archiv.” Juan eased it open, the oiled hinges making no sound. He crouched and pushed his way inside with his eye on the Colt’s iron sight. He swept the long room, which was filled with stacks of bound theses and rare books.

He crept along the row of shelves until he reached the end while Eric went the other direction. Juan swiveled around and saw Bazin behind a tall, thin man who had to be Schmidt. Juan would have had no compunction about shooting a murderer like Bazin without warning, but he was almost completely hidden by Schmidt, who had his back to Juan with his arms raised.

Bazin had a gun on Schmidt. The thesis was in Bazin’s other hand.

Juan didn’t have time to get a different angle on him.

“Let him go, Bazin!” he yelled, his pistol ready to fire.

Bazin pressed his gun to the bespectacled man’s temple, making sure to keep the terrified librarian between him and Juan. Bazin’s face was completely obscured behind Schmidt’s head. Even with the Colt’s Crimson Trace laser sight, Juan had no shot. The elbow of Bazin’s arm made a motion that looked like he was tucking the thesis in his coat.

No one else seemed to be in the archives with them.

“You’re quicker to get here than I expected, Cabrillo,” Bazin said with a French accent as he edged toward a door on the opposite side of the room.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“Ah, that is the question, isn’t it?” Bazin inched closer to the door.

“You couldn’t have tapped our communications to find out.”

“It’s definitely a puzzle. That was clever with the glasses, to get my identity.”

Juan kept his aim on Bazin, ready for any mistake by him. Eric was poised in the next row with the C-4 and detonator, but Juan subtly shook his head to back off.

“You must realize you’ll never make it out of Germany,” Juan said.

“I’m not worried.”

“What does worry you?”

Bazin was next to the door. “Nothing much, when you have the advantages I have.”

“I know you work for Lawrence Kensit.”

“And without this thesis, that’s all you will know.”

There was a polished metal plate beside the door with the name of the department in the next room. Juan could make out Bazin’s face in the reflection. “Bazin, I see you.”

Bazin looked at him in the mirrored finish. “You’ll have to shoot him to get me.”

“Not what I had in mind.” Juan shifted the Colt’s sight to the metal sign. He waited until Bazin eyed him with a sneer, then triggered the laser.

Bazin cried out as the powerful beam blinded him and he let go of Schmidt, who ran toward Juan in a panic. There was no way to fire again safely until he was out of the way.

“Down!” Juan shouted. Schmidt tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, bashing his head against a metal shelf. Juan had his first clear field of fire at Bazin, who was still blinking away the dazzling effect of the laser.

The door to the hall flung open and another Haitian charged in, dual pistols blazing. The clever Bazin had been stalling, waiting for his man to arrive and outflank Juan. Juan didn’t have time for more than a couple of wild shots as he dived for cover.

At the same time, the C-4 sailed over the shelf and landed on the floor next to the dual-wielding gunman. He looked with curiosity at the device before it detonated.

The blast hurled him like a rag doll against a shelf, knocking it over and causing a domino effect of tumbling shelves.