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authorized to use. Dietrich, who liked to consider himself a man of action, sighed inwardly and looked toward the window, against which a pale brown blind had been drawn. He waited for Eidel to speak, but the SS officer had been silent some time, as if even his silences were intended to convey something of what he saw as his own importance.
    Dietrich looked at the portrait of the Führer hanging on the wall. When it came down to it, it didn’t matter what you might think of someone like Eidel—soft, shackled to his desk, pompous, locked away in miserable offices—because Eidel had a direct line of access to Hitler. So you listened, and you smiled, and you pretended you were of lesser rank. Eidel, after all, was a member of the inner circle, the elite corps of Hitler’s own private guard.
    Eidel smoothed his uniform, which looked as if it had been freshly laundered. He said, “I trust I have made the importance of this matter clear to you, Colonel?”
    Dietrich nodded. He felt impatient. He hated offices.
    Eidel rose, stretched on his tiptoes in the manner of a man reaching for a subway strap he knows to be out of range, then walked to the window. “The Führer has his mind set on obtaining this particular object. And when his mind is set, of course . . .” Eidel paused, turned, stared at Dietrich. He made a gesture with his hands, indicating that whatever passed through the Führer’s mind was incomprehensible to lesser men.
    “I understand,” Dietrich said, drumming his fingertips on his attaché case.
    “The religious significance is important,” Eidel said. “It isn’t that the Führer has any special interest in Jewish relics per se, naturally.” And here he paused, laughing oddly, as if the thought were wildly amusing. “He has more interest in the symbolic meaning of the item, if you understand.”
    It crossed Dietrich’s mind that Eidel was lying, obscuring something here: it was hard to imagine the Führer’s being interested in anything for its symbolic value. He stared at the flimsy cable Eidel had allowed him to read a few minutes ago. Then he gazed once more at the picture of Hitler, which was unsmiling, grim.
    Eidel, in the manner of a small-town university professor, said, “We come to the matter of expert knowledge now.”
    “Indeed,” Dietrich said.
    “We come to the matter, specifically, of archaeological knowledge.”
    Dietrich said nothing. He saw where this was leading. He saw what was needed of him.
    He said, “I’m afraid it’s beyond my grasp.”
    Eidel smiled thinly. “But you have connections, I understand. You have connections with the highest authorities in this field, am I right?”
    “A matter of debate.”
    “There is no time for any such debate,” Eidel said. “I am not here to argue the matter of what constitutes high authority, Colonel. I am here, as you are, to obey a certain important order.”
    “You don’t need to remind me of that,” Dietrich said.
    “I know,” Eidel said, leaning against his desk now. “And you understand I am talking about a certain authority of your acquaintance whose expertise in this particular sphere of interest will be invaluable to us. Correct?”
    “The Frenchman,” Dietrich said.
    “Of course.”
    Dietrich was silent for a time. He felt slightly uneasy. It was as if the face of Hitler were scolding him now for his hesitance. “The Frenchman is hard to find. Like any mercenary, he regards the world as his place of employment.”
    “When did you last hear of him?”
    Dietrich shrugged. “In South America, I believe.”
    Eidel studied the backs of his hands, thin and pale and yet indelicate, like the hands of someone who has failed in his ambition to be a concert pianist. He said, “You can find him. You understand what I’m saying? You understand where this order comes from?”
    “I can find him,” Dietrich said. “But I warn you now—”
    “Don’t warn me, Colonel.”
    Dietrich felt his throat become dry. This