“This is Professor Heinrich.”
“This is the Sunshine Tours Bus Company. You were in Switzerland on the fourteenth of this month?”
“Why do you wish to know?”
“Because we found a briefcase of yours on one of our buses, Professor, and …”
“You have the wrong person. I have been on no tour buses.”
“You did not take a tour of ours to the Jungfrau?”
“I just told you, no.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
The third call was to Munich. “Professor Otto Schmidt?”
“Yes.”
“Professor Schmidt, this is the Sunshine Tours Bus Company. We have a pair of your glasses that you left on our bus a few days ago, and …”
“There must be some mistake.”
Robert’s heart sank. He had struck out. There was nowhere left to go.
The voice went on. “I have my glasses here. I have not lost them.”
Robert’s spirits soared. “Are you sure, Professor? You were on the Jungfrau trip on the fourteenth, were you not?”
“Yes, yes, but I told you, I have not lost anything.”
“Thank you very much, Professor.” Robert replaced the receiver. Jackpot!
Robert dialled another number and within two minutes he was speaking with General Hilliard.
“I have two things to report,” Robert said. “The witness in London I told you about?”
“Yes?”
“He died in a fire last night.”
“Really? Too bad.”
“Yes, sir. But I believe I’ve located another witness. I’ll let you know as soon as I check him out.”
“I’ll wait to hear from you, Commander.”
General Hilliard was reporting to Janus.
“Commander Bellamy has located another witness.”
“Good. The group is getting restless. Everyone is worried that this story will surface before SDI is operational.”
“I’ll have more information for you soon.”
“I don’t want information, I want results.”
“Yes, Janus.”
Plattenstrasse, in Munich, is a quiet residential street with drab brownstone buildings huddled together as though for protection. Number five was identical to its neighbours. Inside the vestibule was a row of mailboxes. A small card below one of them read “Professor Otto Schmidt”. Robert rang the bell.
The apartment door was opened by a tall, thin man with an untidy mop of white hair. He was wearing a tattered sweater and smoking a pipe. Robert wondered whether he had created the image of an archetypical college professor, or whether the image had created him.
“Professor Schmidt?”
“Yes?”
“I wonder if I might talk to you a moment. I’m with …”
“We have already talked,” Professor Schmidt said. “You are the man who telephoned me this morning. I am an expert at recognizing voices. Come in.”
“Thank you.” Robert entered the living room. The walls were crowded from floor to ceiling with bookcases filled with hundreds of volumes. Books were stacked everywhere; on tables, on the floor, on chairs. The sparse furniture in the room seemed to be an afterthought.
“You’re not with any Swiss tour bus company, are you?”
“Well, I …”
“You are American.”
“Yes.”
“And this visit has nothing to do with my lost glasses that were not lost.”
“Well … no, sir.”
“You are interested in the UFO I saw. It was a very upsetting experience. I always believed they might exist, but I never thought I would see one.”
“It must have been a terrible shock.”
“It was.”
“Can you tell me anything about it?”
“It was … it was almost alive. There was a kind of shimmering light around it. Blue. No, maybe more of a grey. I … I’m not sure.”
He remembered Mandel’s description: It kept changing colours. It looked blue … then green.