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assist you in your worthy endeavor. With best personal regards. Armande Hoffgeitz, President.”
    Günter stood. “I’ll have the letter ready for your signature in a few moments.”
    “We must indulge the association.” The banker pushed up the gold-rimmed spectacles that had slipped down his nose. “My poor colleagues have to pacify the damn Jews with a show of a diligent inquiry.”
    “I’m more concerned,” Günter said, “with the new computer system. My hard-copy records are locked up safely. But how can we keep our clients’ secrets when the information is stored as electronic signals? Wires everywhere, computer terminals on every desk—I’m very uncomfortable!”
    “With the computers or with Wilhelm?”
    Günter didn’t answer.
    “Look, my son-in-law is forcing us to adjust to the information age.” Herr Hoffgeitz smiled. “It’s uncomfortable, old hands that we are, but—”
    “I meant no disrespect, but he’s not one of us.”
    “Look, you remember that I also had my doubts. A young man without kin, not of Swiss ancestry, wants to marry my Paula? I was very concerned. But our investigation showed nothing but the tragic circumstances of his parents’ death.”
    Günter nodded.
    “And he did graduate from Lyceum Alpin St. Nicholas with honors.” Armande Hoffgeitz tapped his ring, which bore a serpent intertwined with the letters LASN . For two centuries, every man in the bank’s employ had worn the same alumni ring, a prerequisite to hiring.
    “Yes, but—”
    “His professional record was impeccable, and Paula loved him. Still does. How could I deny her this happiness?” The banker didn’t wait for an answer. “And he has proven himself. A hard worker, excellent with clients. And Klaus Junior is growing so nicely.”
    “I don’t—”
    “Wilhelm has been with us for how long?”
    “Thirteen years.”
    Herr Hoffgeitz nodded. “Let me speak with him about the computer situation. I’m sure the two of you can find common ground.”
    The assistant, himself not young anymore, bowed stiffly. As he walked to the door, his bespectacled face grew, filling Wilhelm’s computer screen. The edge of the door appeared for a second at the bottom, just below the camera, and disappeared as Günter exited.
    At the far end of the office, Armande Hoffgeitz got up and maneuvered his heavy girth between the chair and the desk. He turned to the window and looked out. Despite the distance from the miniature video camera above the door, the pleasure on the banker’s pudgy face came through. He loved his Zurich, where the Hoffgeitz Bank had operated for 216 years at the same stout building on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Augustinergasse, managed by a long line of Hoffgeitz males. The neighboring buildings housed other private banks with understated facades and long family traditions. A hundred feet under the neatly swept Bahnhofstrasse, thick walls of steel and concrete protected massive vaults that contained the formidable fortunes entrusted to Armande Hoffgeitz and his colleagues. They, and the institutions they ran, had made Zurich a financial mecca.
    Like the building in which his bank resided, Armande Hoffgeitz had weathered the years gracefully. At eighty-four, he was one of Zurich’s most respected private bankers, personifying the mystic aura surrounding the bank and its anonymous international clients. The bank’s investments in select private and public corporations were rumored to add up to several billion dollars. Diversifying among major industrial, agriculture, retail, construction, energy, and shipping companies, the Hoffgeitz Bank had refrained from accumulating a controlling position in any single public company, making it impossible to trace its investments.
    A minute after his head had disappeared from the computer screen, Günter Schnell knocked on Wilhelm’s door. With a single keystroke, he made Armande Hoffgeitz vanish from the screen, replaced by columns of numbers, and