By six o'clock, everyone at Rheinburg had become nineteen again. Old nicknames crossed the terrace; disputed exam marks resurfaced. Barbara, mistress of the castle above Gailingen, had just given instructions on how to use the grill.
Beyond the balustrade, the Rhine shone green beneath the September evening. Across the water stood St. Katharinental, its pale walls catching the last sunlight. Somewhere behind it, discreet among the trees, the SWIFT data center carried on its invisible business.
Oliver had brought a drone. "For the group photograph," he explained, as it vanished across the river.
"Your group appears to be in Switzerland," Barbara observed.
Then something flashed on his screen. He stopped smiling. Between the former monastery and the data center, a bright point winked from the old Klosterlinde infantry bunker, A5498. Oliver enlarged the image. A camera sat beneath the concrete lip, its bracket silver and new against the weathered wall.
"Perhaps they're protecting the monument," Beat suggested.
The camera turned. It followed the drone. On the return flight, Oliver's lens swept over the Cabema gravel plant. Among the familiar heaps lay a fresh streak of pale excavation spoil. A small truck stood beside it. On its door was the same blue flower as on a van parked at the rehabilitation clinic.
Jitka leaned over his shoulder. At school, she had always spotted the mistake on the blackboard first. "Go back through the recording."
They watched a man in a dressing gown emerge from a service door of the clinic. His head was heavily bandaged. He glanced around, lifted a bulging sack into the van, then carried another.
"Remarkable recovery," Jitka murmured.
Barbara put down the wine. "Save everything."
Within minutes, their phones lay across the table among bread baskets and mustard jars. One classmate marked the sightings on a map; another extracted still images. Barbara called the Swiss police. Oliver brought the drone home.
The officer asked precise questions. At the words "Klosterlinde bunker," she stopped interrupting. Then she said, "Please remain where you are. Do not approach anyone."
They obeyed. It was harder than expected. The sausages split on the grill. Conversation restarted in small, unconvincing bursts. Every few seconds someone looked across the river.
The first helicopter came low from the west. A second swept toward the monastery. Below them, a police boat drove a white wedge through the Rhine. Blue lights gathered along the Swiss bank. Reports reached the terrace: the roads from Schaffhausen to Diessenhofen and onward toward Wagenhausen were being blocked.
Barbara was passing a bowl of salad when Jitka gripped her wrist. "There." A narrow boat had slipped from the shadows below the clinic. Two men crouched inside it. One still wore a white bandage. The other pulled at an outboard motor that refused to start.
Oliver reached for his drone.
"Binoculars," Barbara said, thrusting them into his hand. "They've got enough in the air."
He found the boat just as its engine caught. It swung downstream, hugging the dark bank. The police launch was heading the other way.
Barbara was already calling back. "Two men. Small boat. Downstream from the clinic."
The helicopter continued east. For several terrible seconds, nothing changed. Then the police launch heeled around. The fleeing boat surged into open water. A searchlight caught it, lost it in the glitter, caught it again. One man stood, waving his arms; the other tried to turn. The little hull lurched sideways.
"Sit down," Jitka whispered.
The launch closed. An amplified command travelled across the water, flattened by the distance. Both men raised their hands.
Behind Barbara, something began to burn. Nobody moved to save dinner.
Only later did the pieces fit. An investigator telephoned to thank them and confirm that the suspects were in custody. The supposed brain-surgery patients had established their base inside the rehabilitation clinic, deceiving its staff. Beneath the former abbey, they had reopened an ancient passage, then followed a branch adapted during the years of military fortification near Klosterlinde.
The old workings had spared them much of the digging. A modern plasma-torch machine had broken through the remaining rock toward the data center. Excavated material had been smuggled into the gravel plant's stockpiles. The new camera watched their concealed access.
They had almost reached their objective. "How almost?" Barbara asked.
"Close enough that we're glad you had a reunion."
At eleven, she carried an old radio onto the terrace. Chairs scraped closer as the newsreader announced that an attempted intrusion into the SWIFT data center near Diessenhofen had been intercepted. No systems had been compromised. All members of the group were under arrest.
For a moment, the classmates listened to the river. Then Barbara raised the glass. "To the group photograph."
"We never took it," Jitka said.
Barbara stood and began arranging them beneath the terrace lights, just as she might once have marshalled them for a school excursion.
This time, Peter set the camera on a chair. Across the Rhine, the monastery clock struck. Everyone turned toward the sound. The photograph caught them as they were looking.
