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Critics' Opinion:
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First Published:
Oct 2001, 528 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2002, 672 pages
Ben and Anna race to uncover the diabolical secrets long hidden behind the code word Sigma, secrets that threaten everything they think they know about themselves, their friends and families, and everything they were ever taught about history itself.
American investment banker Ben Hartman arrives in Zurich for a ski holiday, the first time he's been back to Switzerland since his twin brother died there in a tragic accident four years earlier. But his arrival triggers something far more sinister than his brother's fate. When Ben chances upon Jimmy Cavanaugh, an old college friend, Cavanaugh promptly pulls out a gun and tries to kill him. In a matter of minutes, several innocent bystanders are dead - as well as Cavanaugh - and Ben has barely managed to survive. Plunged into an unspeakable nightmare, Hartman suddenly finds himself on the run.
Department of Justice field agent Anna Navarro is being stalked around the world by a relentless killer, managing to survive the killer's attacks only by a combination of luck, skill, and her own quick wits. These attacks are somehow related to her current assignment: investigating the sudden - and seemingly unrelated - deaths of a number of very old men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a file in the CIA archives, over a half-century old, marked with the same puzzling code word: Sigma. But someone or something is always seemingly one step ahead of her, the survivors are rapidly dwindling, and her own life is in ever-increasing danger.
Brought together by accident, Ben and Anna soon realize that their only hope for survival lies with each other. Together they race to uncover the diabolical secrets long hidden behind the code word Sigma, secrets that threaten everything they think they know about themselves, everything they believed true about their friends and families, and everything they were ever taught about history itself. For behind Sigma lies a vast deception that is finally coming to fruition, and the fate and future of the world is in their hands.<
Chapter One
Zurich
"May I get you something to drink while you wait?" The Hotelpage was a compact man who spoke English with only a trace of an accent. His brass nameplate gleamed against his loden-green uniform.
"No, thank you," Ben Hartman said, smiling wanly.
"Are you sure? Perhaps some tea? Coffee? Mineral water?" The bellhop peered up at him with the bright-eyed eagerness of someone who has only a few minutes left to enhance his parting tip. "I'm terribly sorry your car is delayed."
"I'm fine, really."
Ben stood in the lobby of the Hotel St. Gotthard, an elegant nineteenth-century establishment that specialized in catering to the well heeled international businessman--and, face it, that's me, Ben thought sardonically. Now that he had checked out, he wondered idly whether he could tip the bellhop not to carry his bags, not to follow his every move a few feet behind, like a Bengali bride, not to offer unceasing apologies for the fact that the car that was to ...
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