Point of Intersection

Douglas had never ventured very far from the familiar surroundings of his boyhood home in Squirrel Hill. He reluctantly goes to far-off Rio de Janeiro to present research papers at the Earth Summit Conference. Viviane is covering the conference for her newspaper and attends a session where Douglas is presenting a paper. Although he does not meet up to her expectations of the “ideal man,” she is attracted to him and asks for an interview. Although they are two very different people living in two very different places, they are drawn to each other and fall in love.

Douglas is asked to go to Europe on a business trip. Fearful of going alone, he asks Viviane to accompany him. In Paris, Viviane suddenly disappears and Douglas is driven to despair. He receives a mysterious telephone call instructing him to go to the Cathedral in Cologne where he is look for a paper hidden in the mouth of the “fifth gargoyle to the left of the entrance.” He finds the paper and it tells him to secure the release of Viviane he must deliver certain documents of very important historical value.

Douglas goes to the Federal police office in Frankfurt am Main, and Detective Max Schiller takes on the case. He assigns Constanza Rosenthal, a criminologist, to help in the search for Viviane. They puzzle over what the connection could be between the historical documents and Viviane. They discover an article published in Jornol do Brasil about an interview she had with Yaacov Feitman a Holocaust survivor. In the interview Feitman describes that right after the war ended in May 1945, he was leading a work party out of Dachau to recover salvageable equipment for the U.S. Army.

There had been rumors that in April 1945, just before the surrender of Nazi Germany there were important documents and other valuable items including the purported “Hitler Diaries” flown out of Berlin to a hiding place in the Bavarian Alps. One of the four airplanes that left Berlin crashed in a forest in Bavaria, a short distance north of Dachau. The location of the crashed airplane was close to the place described by Feitman in his interview with Viviane.

The kidnappers surmised Feitman and his work party might have found the airplane and hidden the missing documents. They apparently thought through Viviane they could get to Feitman and the documents.

Douglas flies to Rio, and with the help of Viviane’s sister Débora, locates Yaacov Feitman. Feitman describes how his group discovered the crashed Luftwaffe airplane in the woods north of Dachau. They removed the documents from the airplane, divided it among the members of the work party, and vowed to keep the existence of the documents secret lest it fall into the wrong hands.

Feitman, Débora and Douglas decide they do not want to turn the documents over to the kidnappers. Instead, they devise a plan to produce a set of fake documents, and using them to secure the release of Viviane. After that, the fact the documents were fakes would be announced to the world. Douglas then returns to Frankfurt where he confers with Max and Constanza.

Douglas is in deep despair over the kidnapping of Viviane. Constanza senses his need for solace and companionship. They fall deeply in love, but realize this is only for the moment. What will happen after Viviane is found is the unasked and unanswered question.

Douglas, Constanza and Max all work together to find Viviane. Finally they determine the precise location where Viviane is held captive. It is in a small cabin in a deeply wooded area in the hills overlooking the Rhine River. An ingenious plan is developed by Douglas to rescue Viviane. The plan is successfully carried out, and Viviane is set free unharmed.

Now Douglas has a very difficult and heartrending decision to make. Will he stay with Constanza or go with Viviane?

In the exciting conclusion of the book, Douglas' decision is revealed as well as the future of all of the principal characters, with some major unexpected surprises.