Extraordinary Powers by Joseph Finder

Author:Joseph Finder [Finder, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781781850152
Google: fArpAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0312934912
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 1993-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Clearly, we had passed the first hurdle. The account number was correct.

“Now,” Eisler said, “what precisely can I do for you?”

I had deliberately chosen the seat closest to him. I leaned forward, focused.

Cleared my mind. Took advantage of the moment of silence. Focused.

It came. German, naturally, a tumble of phrases.

“Please?” he said, watching me sitting with head bent and brow furrowed.

Not enough to go on. I had learned German, had gone through intensive language training in it at the Farm, but he was thinking too quickly for me.

I couldn’t do it.

I said, “We’d like to know how much is in the account.”

I leaned toward him again, tried, focused, tried to isolate from the flow of German something, anything I could understand, grab on to.

“I am not permitted to discuss particulars,” Eisler said phlegmatically.

“In any case, I do not know.”

And then I heard a word. Stahlkammer.

Unquestionably, that was the word that leapt out at me. Stahlkammer.

Vault.

I said, “There is a vault attached to this account, is that correct?” “Yes, sir,” he admitted, “there is. A rather sizable one, in fact.”

“I want access to it at once.”

“As you wish,” he said. “Certainly. At once.” He rose from his couch.

His bald head glinted in the pinpoint lights recessed in the ceiling. “I assume you have the combination access code.”

Molly looked at me, signaling that she was out of her element.

“I believe it’s the same as the account number,” I said.

Eisler laughed once and then sat down again. “I really wouldn’t know.

Although for security reasons we would certainly discourage our clients from doing that. And in any case, it’s not the same number of digits.” “We may have it,” I said. “I’m quite sure we do-somewhere. My wife’s father left us quite a collection of papers and notes. Perhaps you can help us. How many digits are in the code?”

He glanced down at the file. “I’m afraid I can’t say.” But I heard it, a few times, a number he thought but was defiantly not saying, articulating somewhere in the speech center of his brain … “Vier” … Four digits, did that mean?

I said, “Might it be” a four-digit code?”

He laughed again, shrugged: this game is fun, his body language said, but now we are all through.

“There is a numbered account, which we administer and service,” he explained patiently as if to a slow child. “You are permitted by law to withdraw or transfer those funds, as you wish. But there is also a vault—in effect, a safe deposit box, which we are charged with keeping safe. But we do not have access to it. We never do, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. As the late Mr. Sinclair stipulated, in order to open the vault, an access code is required.”

“Then you can provide it to us,” Molly said, summoning all of her hauteur.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot.”

“As legal heir to his account, I request it.”

“If I could, I would gladly give it to you,” Eisler said. “But under the terms of the arrangement set up here, I cannot.

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