A Death in Vienna

27 PUERTO BLEST, ARGENTINA

THE FOREST FELL away sharply from the edge of the cemetery into the void of a blackened ravine. They clambered down the steep slope, picking their way through the trees. The evening was moonless, the darkness absolute. They walked single file, one American in front, followed by Gabriel and Chiara, another American at the back. The Americans wore night-vision goggles. They moved, in Gabriel’s opinion, like elite soldiers.

They came to a small, well-concealed encampment: black tent, black sleeping bags, no sign of a fire or stove for cooking. Gabriel wondered how long they’d been here, watching the cemetery. Not long, judging from the growth on their cheeks. Forty-eight hours, maybe less.

The Americans started packing up. Gabriel tried for a second time to determine who they were and whom they worked for. He was met by weary smiles and stony silence.

It took them a matter of minutes to break down the camp and obliterate any last trace of their presence. Gabriel volunteered to shoulder one of the packs. The Americans refused.

They started walking again. Ten minutes later, they were standing at the bottom of the ravine in a rocky streambed. A vehicle awaited them, concealed beneath a camouflage tarpaulin and pine branches. It was an old Rover with a spare tire mounted on the hood and jerry cans of extra fuel on the back.

The Americans chose the seating arrangements, Chiara in front, Gabriel in back, with a gun aimed at his stomach in the event he suddenly lost faith in the intentions of his rescuers. They lurched along the streambed for a few miles, splashing through the shallow water, before turning onto a dirt track. Several miles farther on, they came to the highway leading out of Puerto Blest. The American turned right, toward the Andes.

“You’re heading toward Chile,” Gabriel pointed out.

The Americans laughed.

Ten minutes later, the border: one guard, shivering in a brick blockhouse. The Rover shot across the frontier without slowing and headed down the Andes toward the Pacific.

AT THE NORTHERN END of the Gulf of Ancud lies Porto Montt, a resort town and cruise-ship port of call. Just outside the town is an airport with a runway long enough to accommodate a Gulfstream G500 executive jet. It was waiting on the tarmac, engines whining, when the Rover arrived. A gray-haired American stood in the doorway. He welcomed Gabriel and Chiara aboard and introduced himself with little conviction as “Mr. Alexander.” Gabriel, before settling himself into a comfortable leather seat, asked where they were going. “We’re going home, Mr. Allon. I suggest you and your friend try to get some rest. It’s a long flight.”

THE CLOCKMAKER DIALED the number in Vienna from his hotel room in Bariloche.

“Are they dead?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What happened?”

“To be perfectly honest,” said the Clockmaker, “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

28 THE PLAINS, VIRGINIA

THE SAFE HOUSE is located in a corner of the Virginia horse country where wealth and privilege meet the hard reality of rural southern life. It is reached by way of a twisting, rolling roadway lined with tumbledown barns and clapboard bungalows with broken cars in the yards. There is a gate; it warns that the property is private, but omits the fact that, technically speaking, it is a government facility. The drive is gravel and nearly a mile in length. To the right is a thick wood; to the left, a pasture surrounded by a split-rail fence. The fence caused something of a scandal among the local craftsmen when the “owner” hired an outside firm to handle the construction. Two bay horses reside in the pasture. According to Agency wits, they are subjected, like all other employees, to annual polygraphs to make certain they haven’t gone over to the other side, whatever side that might be.

The Colonial-style house is located at the top of the property and surrounded by towering shade trees. It has a copper roof and a double porch. The furnishings are rustic and comfortable, inviting cooperation and camaraderie. Delegations from friendly services have stayed there. So have men who have betrayed their country. The last was an Iraqi who helped Saddam try to build a nuclear bomb. His wife was hoping for an apartment in the famous Watergate and complained bitterly throughout her stay. His sons set fire to the barn. Management was pleased to see them leave.

On that afternoon, new snowfall covered the pasture. The landscape, drained of all color by the heavily tinted windows of the hulking Suburban, appeared to Gabriel as a charcoal sketch. Alexander, reclining in the front seat with his eyes closed, came suddenly awake. He yawned elaborately and squinted at his wristwatch, then frowned when he realized it was set to the wrong time.

It was Chiara, seated at Gabriel’s side, who noticed the bald, sentinel-like figure standing at the balustrade on the upper porch. Gabriel leaned across the back seat and peered up at him. Shamron raised his hand and held it aloft for a moment before turning and disappearing into the house.

He greeted them in the entrance hall. Standing at his side, dressed in corduroy trousers and a cardigan sweater, was a slight man with a halo of gray curls and a gray mustache. His brown eyes were tranquil, his handshake cool and brief. He seemed a college professor, or perhaps a clinical psychologist. He was neither. Indeed, he was the deputy director for operations of the Central Intelligence Agency, and his name was Adrian Carter. He did not look pleased, but then, given the current state of global affairs, he rarely did.

They greeted each other carefully, as men of the secret world are prone to do. They used real names, since they were all known to each other and the use of work names would have lent a farcical air to the affair. Carter’s serene gaze settled briefly on Chiara, as though she were an uninvited guest for whom an extra place would have to be set. He made no attempt to suppress his frown.

“I was hoping to keep this at a very senior level,” Carter said. His voice was underpowered; to hear him, one had to remain still and listen carefully. “I was also hoping to limit distribution of the material I’m about to share with you.”

“She’s my partner,” Gabriel said. “She knows everything, and she’s not leaving the room.”

Carter’s eyes moved slowly from Chiara to Gabriel “We’ve been watching you for some time-ever since your arrival in Vienna, to be precise. We especially enjoyed your visit to Café Central. Confronting Vogel face to face like that was a fine piece of theater.”

“Actually, it was Vogel who confronted me. ”

“That’s Vogel’s way.”

“Who is he?”

“You’re the one who’s been digging. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I believe he’s an SS murderer named Erich Radek, and for some reason, you’re protecting him. If I had to guess why, I’d say he was one of your agents.”

Carter placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Come,” he said. “Obviously, it’s time we had a talk.”

THE LIVING ROOM was lamplit and shadowed. A large fire burned in the hearth, an institutional metal urn of coffee stood on the sideboard. Carter helped himself to some before settling with donnish detachment into a wingchair. Gabriel and Chiara shared the couch while Shamron paced the perimeter, a sentry with a long night ahead of him.

“I want to tell you a story, Gabriel,” Carter began. “It’s a story about a country that was drawn into a war it didn’t want to fight, a country that defeated the greatest army the world had ever known, only to find itself, within a matter of months, in an armed standoff with its former ally, the Soviet Union. In all honesty, we were scared shitless. You see, before the war, we had no intelligence service-not areal one, anyway. Hell, your service is as old as ours. Before the war, our intelligence operation inside the Soviet Union consisted of a couple of guys from Harvard and a teletype machine. When we suddenly found ourselves nose to nose with the Russian bogeyman, we didn’t know shit about him. His strengths, his weaknesses, his intentions. And what’s more, we didn’t know how to find out. That another war was imminent was a foregone conclusion. And what did we have? Fuck all. No networks, no agents. Nothing. We were lost, wandering in the desert. We needed help. Then a Moses appeared on the horizon, a man to lead us across Sinai, into the Promised Land.”

Shamron went still for a moment in order to supply the name of this Moses: General Reinhard Gehlen, head of the German General Staff’s Foreign Armies East branch, Hitler’s chief spy on the Russian front.

“Buy that man a cigar.” Carter inclined his head toward Shamron. “Gehlen was one of the few men who had the balls to tell Hitler the truth about the Russian campaign. Hitler used to get so pissed at him, he threatened to have him committed to an insane asylum. As the end was drawing near, Gehlen decided to save his own skin. He ordered his staff to microfilm the General Staff’s archives on the Soviet Union and seal the material in watertight drums. The drums were buried in the mountains of Bavaria and Austria, then Gehlen and his senior staff surrendered to a Counterintelligence Corps team.”

“And you welcomed him with open arms,” Shamron said.

“You would have done the same thing, Ari.” Carter folded his hands and spent a moment staring into the fire. Gabriel could almost hear him counting to ten to check his anger. “Gehlen was the answer to our prayers. The man had spent a career spying on the Soviet Union, and now he was going to show us the way. We brought him into this country and put him up a few miles from here at Fort Hunt. He had the entire American security establishment eating out of his hand. He told us what we wanted to hear. Stalinism was an evil unparalleled in human history. Stalin intended to subvert the countries of western Europe from within and then move against them militarily. Stalin had global ambitions. Be not afraid, Gehlen told us. I have networks, I have sleepers and stay-behind cells. I know everything there is to know about Stalin and his henchmen. Together, we will crush him.”

Carter stood and went to the sideboard to warm his coffee.

“Gehlen held court at Fort Hunt for ten months. He drove a hard bargain, and my predecessors were so hypnotized that they agreed to all his demands. Organization Gehlen was born. He moved into a walled compound near Pullach, Germany. We financed him, we gave him directives. He ran the Org and hired the agents. Ultimately, the Org became a virtual extension of the Agency.”

Carter carried his coffee back to his chair.

“Obviously, since the primary target of the Organization Gehlen was the Soviet Union, the general hired men who had some experience there. One of the men he wanted was a bright, energetic young man named Erich Radek, an Austrian who’d been chief of the SD in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. At the time, Radek was being held by us in a detention camp in Mannheim. He was released to Gehlen and was soon behind the walls of Org headquarters at Pullach, reactivating his old networks inside the Ukraine.”

“Radek was SD,” Gabriel said. “The SS, SD, and the Gestapo were all declared criminal organizations after the war and all members were subject to immediate arrest, and yet you allowed Gehlen to hire him.”

Carter nodded slowly, as if the pupil had answered the question correctly but missed the larger, more important point. “At Fort Hunt, Gehlen pledged that he would not hire former SS, SD, or Gestapo officers, but it was a paper promise and one that we never expected him to keep.”

“Did you know that Radek was linked to Einsatzgruppen activities in the Ukraine?” Gabriel asked. “Did you know that this bright, energetic young man had tried to conceal the greatest crime in history?”

Carter shook his head. “The scale of the German atrocities wasn’t known then. As for Aktion 1005, no one had heard the term yet, and Radek’s SS file never reflected his transfer from the Ukraine. Aktion 1005 was a top-secret Reich matter, and top-secret Reich matters weren’t put to paper.”

“But surely, Mr. Carter,” Chiara said, “General Gehlen must have known about Radek’s work?”

Carter raised his eyebrows, as though surprised by Chiara’s ability to speak. “He might have, but then, I doubt it would have made much difference to Gehlen. Radek wasn’t the only former SS man who ended up working for the Org. At least fifty others found work there, including some, like Radek, who were linked to the Final Solution.”

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t have made much of a difference to Gehlen’s controllers either,” Shamron said. “Any bastard, as long as he’s anti-Communist. Wasn’t that one of the Agency’s guiding principles when it came to the recruitment of Cold War agents?”

“In the infamous words of Richard Helms, ‘We’re not in the Boy Scouts. If we’d wanted to be in the Boy Scouts, we would have joined the Boy Scouts.’ ”

Gabriel said, “You don’t sound terribly distressed, Adrian.”

“Histrionics are not my way, Gabriel. I’m a professional, like you and your legendary boss over there. I deal with the real world, not the world as I would like it to be. I make no apologies for the actions of my predecessors, just as you and Shamron make no apologies for yours. Sometimes, intelligence services must utilize the services of evil men to achieve results that are good: a more stable world, the security of the homeland, the protection of valued friends. The men who decided to employ Reinhard Gehlen and Erich Radek were playing a game as old as time itself, the game of Realpolitik, and they played it well. I won’t run from their actions, and I sure as hell won’t let you of all people sit in judgment of them.”

Gabriel leaned forward, his hands folded, his elbows on his knees. He could feel the heat of the fire on his face. It only fueled his anger.

“There’s a difference between using evil individuals as sources and hiring them as intelligence officers. And Erich Radek was no run-of-the-mill killer. He was a mass murderer.”

“Radek wasn’t directly involved in the extermination of the Jews. His involvement came after the fact.”

Chiara was shaking her head, even before Carter had completed his answer. He frowned. Clearly, he was beginning to regret her inclusion in the proceedings.

“You wish to take issue with something I said, Miss Zolli?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “Obviously you don’t know much about Aktion 1005. Whom do you think Radek used to open those mass graves and destroy the bodies? What do you think he did with them when the work was done?” Greeted by silence, she announced her verdict. “Erich Radek was a mass murderer, and you hired him as a spy.”

Carter nodded slowly, as if conceding the match on points. Shamron reached over the back of the couch and placed a restraining hand on Chiara’s shoulder. Then he looked at Carter and asked for an explanation of Radek’s false escape from Europe. Carter seemed relieved by the prospect of virgin territory. “Ah, yes,” he said, “the flight from Europe. This is where it gets interesting.”

ERICH RADEK QUICKLY became General Gehlen’s most important deputy. Eager to protect his star protégé from arrest and prosecution, Gehlen and his American handlers created a new identity for him: Ludwig Vogel, an Austrian who had been drafted in the Wehrmacht and had gone missing in the final days of the war. For two years, Radek lived in Pullach as Vogel, and his new identity seemed airtight. That changed in the autumn of 1947, with the beginning of Case No. 9 of the subsequent Nuremburg proceedings, the Einsatzgruppen trial. Radek’s name surfaced repeatedly during the trial, as did the code name of the secret operation to destroy the evidence of the Einsatzgruppen killings:Aktion 1005.

“Gehlen became alarmed,” Carter said. “Radek was officially listed as missing and unaccounted for, and Gehlen was eager that he remain that way.”

“So you sent a man to Rome posing as Radek,” Gabriel said, “and made sure you left enough clues behind so that anyone who went looking for him would follow the wrong trail.”

“Precisely.”

Shamron, still pacing, said, “Why did you use the Vatican route instead of your own Ratline?”

“You’re referring to the Counterintelligence Corps Ratline?”

Shamron closed his eyes briefly and nodded.

“The CIC Ratline was used mainly for Russian defectors. If we’d sent Radek down the line, it would have betrayed the fact he was working for us. We used the Vatican route to enhance his credentials as a Nazi war criminal on the run from Allied justice.”

“How clever of you, Adrian. Pardon my interruption. Please continue.”

“Radek disappeared,” Carter said. “Occasionally, the Org fed the story of his escape by slipping false sightings to the various Nazi hunters, claiming that Radek was in hiding in various South American capitals. He was living in Pullach, of course, working for Gehlen under the name Ludwig Vogel.”

“Pathetic,” Chiara murmured.

“It was 1948,” Carter said. “Things were different by then. The Nuremberg process had run its course, and all sides had lost interest in further prosecutions. Nazi doctors had returned to practice. Nazi theoreticians were lecturing again in the universities. Nazi judges were back on the bench.”

“And a Nazi mass murderer named Erich Radek was now an important American agent who needed protection,” Gabriel said. “When did he return to Vienna?”

“In 1956, Konrad Adenauer made the Org the official West German intelligence service: the Bundesnachrichtendienst, better known as the BND. Erich Radek, now known as Ludwig Vogel, was once again working for the German government. In 1965, he returned to Vienna to build a network and make certain the new Austrian government’s official neutrality remained tilted firmly toward NATO and the West. Vogel was a joint BND-CIA project. We worked together on his cover. We cleaned up the files in the Staatsarchiv. We created a company for him to run, Danube Valley Trade and Investment, and funneled enough business his way to make certain the firm was a success. Vogel was a shrewd businessman, and before long, profits from DVTI were funding all of our Austrian nets. In short, Vogel was our most important asset in Austria -and one of our most valuable in Europe. He was a master spy. When the Wall came down, his work was done. He was also getting on in years. We severed our relationship, thanked him for a job well done, and parted company.” Carter held up his hands. “And that, I’m afraid, is where the story ends.”

“But that’s not true, Adrian,” Gabriel said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

“You’re referring to the allegations made against Vogel by Max Klein?”

“You knew?”

“Vogel alerted us to the fact that we might have a situation in Vienna. He asked us to intercede and make the allegations go away. We informed him that we couldn’t do that.”

“So he took matters into his own hands.”

“You’re suggesting Vogel ordered the bombing at Wartime Claims and Inquiries?”

“I’m also suggesting he had Max Klein murdered in order to silence him.”

Carter took a moment before answering. “If Vogel is involved, he’s worked through so many cutouts and front men you’ll never be able to pin a charge on him. Besides, the bombing and Max Klein’s death are Austrian matters, not Israeli, and no Austrian prosecutor is going to open a murder investigation into Ludwig Vogel. It’s a dead end.”

“His name is Radek, Adrian, not Vogel, and the question is why. Why was Radek so concerned about Eli Lavon’s investigation that he would resort to murder? Even if Eli and Max Klein were able to prove conclusively that Vogel was really Erich Radek, he would have never been brought to trial by the Austrian state prosecutor. He’s too old. Too much time had elapsed. There were no witnesses left, none except Klein, and there’s no way Radek would have been convicted in Austria on the word of one old Jew. So why resort to violence?”

“It sounds to me as if you have a theory.”

Gabriel looked over his shoulder and murmured a few words in Hebrew to Shamron. Shamron handed Gabriel a file containing all the material he had gathered in the course of the investigation. Gabriel opened it and removed a single item: the photograph he had taken from Radek’s house in the Salzkammergut, Radek with a woman and a teen-aged boy. He laid it on the table and turned it so Carter could see. Carter’s eyes moved to the photo, then back to Gabriel.

“Who is she?” Gabriel asked.

“His wife, Monica.”

“When did he marry her?”

“During the war,” said Carter, “in Berlin.”

“There was never a mention of an SS-approved marriage in his file.”

“There were many things that didn’t make it into Radek’s SS file.”

“And after the war?”

“She settled in Pullach under her real name. The child was born in 1949. When Vogel moved back to Vienna, General Gehlen didn’t think it would be safe for Monica and the son to go with him openly-and neither did the Agency. A marriage was arranged for her to a man employed in Vogel’s net. She lived in Vienna, in the house behind Vogel’s. He visited them in the evening. Eventually, we constructed a passage between the houses, so that Monica and the boy could move freely between the two residences without fear of detection. We never knew who was watching. The Russians would have dearly loved to compromise him and turn him around.”

“What was the boy’s name?”

“Peter.”

“And the agent that Monica Radek married? Please tell us his name, Adrian.”

“I think you already know his name, Gabriel.” Carter hesitated, then said, “His name was Metzler.”

“Peter Metzler, the man who is about to be chancellor of Austria, is the son of a Nazi war criminal named Erich Radek, and Eli Lavon was going to expose that fact.”

“So it would seem.”

“That sounds like a motive for murder to me, Adrian.”

“Bravo, Gabriel,” Carter said. “But what can you do about it? Convince the Austrians to bring charges against Radek? Good luck. Expose Peter Metzler as Radek’s son? If you do that, you’ll also expose the fact that Radek was our man in Vienna. It will cause the Agency much public embarrassment at a time when it is locked in a global campaign against forces that wish to destroy my countryand yours. It will also plunge relations between your service and mine into the deep freeze at a time when you desperately need our support.”

“That sounds like a threat to me, Adrian.”

“No, it’s just sound advice,” Carter said. “It’s Realpolitik. Drop it. Look the other way. Wait for him to die and forget it ever happened.”

“No,” Shamron said.

Carter’s gaze moved from Gabriel to Shamron. “Why did I know that was going to be your answer?”

“Because I’m Shamron, and I never forget.”

“Then I suppose we need to come up with some way to deal with this situation that doesn’t drag my service through the cesspool of history.” Carter looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. I’m hungry. Let’s eat, shall we?”

FOR THE NEXT hour, over a meal of roast duckling and wild rice in the candlelit dining room, Erich Radek’s name was not spoken. There was a ritual about affairs such as these, Shamron always said, a rhythm that could not be broken or rushed. There was a time for hard-nosed negotiation, a time to sit back and enjoy the company of a fellow traveler who, when all is said and done, usually has your best interests at heart.

And so, with only the gentlest prod from Carter, Shamron volunteered to serve as the evening’s entertainment. For a time, he played the role expected of him. He told stories of night crossings into hostile lands; of secrets stolen and enemies vanquished; of the fiascos and calamities that accompany any career, especially one as long and volatile as Shamron’s. Carter, spellbound, laid down his fork and warmed his hands against Shamron’s fire. Gabriel watched the encounter silently from his outpost at the end of the table. He knew that he was witnessing a recruitment-and a perfect recruitment, Shamron always said, is at its heart a perfect seduction. It begins with a bit of flirtation, a confession of feelings better left unspoken. Only when the ground has been thoroughly plowed does one plant the seed of betrayal.

Shamron, over the hot apple crisp and coffee, began to talk not about his exploits but about himself: his childhood in Poland; the sting of Poland ’s violent anti-Semitism; the gathering storm clouds across the border in Nazi Germany. “In 1936, my mother and father decided that I would leave Poland for Palestine,” Shamron said. “They would remain behind, with my two older sisters, and wait to see if things got any better. Like so many others, they waited too long. In September 1939, we heard on the radio that the Germans had invaded. I knew I would never see my family again.”

Shamron sat silently for a moment. His hands, when he lit his cigarette, were trembling slightly. His crop had been sown. His demand, though never spoken, was clear. He was not leaving this house without Erich Radek in his pocket, and Adrian Carter was going to help him do it.

WHEN THEY RETURNED to the sitting room for the night session, a tape player stood on the coffee table in front of the couch. Carter, back in his chair next to the fire, loaded English tobacco into the bowl of a pipe. He struck a match and, with the stem between his teeth, nodded toward the tape machine and asked Gabriel to do the honors. Gabriel pressed the Play button. Two men began conversing in German, one with the accent of a Swiss from Zurich, the other a Viennese. Gabriel knew the voice of the man from Vienna. He had heard it a week earlier, in the Café Central. The voice belonged to Erich Radek.

“As of this morning, the total value of the account stands at two and a half billion dollars. Roughly one billion of that is cash, equally divided between dollars and euros. The rest of the money is invested-the usual fare, securities and bonds, along with a substantial amount of real estate…”

TEN MINUTES LATER, Gabriel reached down and pressed the Stop button. Carter emptied the contents of his pipe into the fireplace and slowly loaded another bowl.

“That conversation took place in Vienna last week,” Carter said. “The banker is a man named Konrad Becker. He’s from Zurich.”

“And the account?” Gabriel asked.

“After the war, thousands of fleeing Nazis went into hiding in Austria. They brought several hundred million dollars’ worth of looted Nazi assets with them: gold, cash, artwork, jewelry, household silver, rugs, and tapestries. The stuff was stashed all through the Alps. Many of those Nazis wanted to resurrect the Reich, and they wanted to use their looted assets to help accomplish that goal. A small cadre understood that Hitler’s crimes were so enormous that it would take at least a generation or more before National Socialism would be politically viable again. They decided to place a large sum of money in a Zurich bank and attach a rather unique set of instructions to the account. It could only be activated by a letter from the Austrian chancellor. You see, they believed that revolution had begun in Austria with Hitler and that Austria would be the fountain of its revival. Five men were initially entrusted with the account number and password. Four of them died. When the fifth took ill, he sought out someone to become the trustee.”

“Erich Radek.”

Carter nodded and paused a moment to ignite his pipe. “Radek is about to get his chancellor, but he’ll never see a drop of that money. We found out about the account a few years ago. Overlooking his past in 1945 was one thing, but we weren’t about to allow him to unlock an account filled with two and a half billion in Holocaust loot. We quietly moved against Herr Becker and his bank. Radek doesn’t know it yet, but he’s never going to see a penny of that money.”

Gabriel reached down, pressed REWIND, then STOP, then PLAY:

“Your comrades provided generously for those who assisted them in this endeavor. But I’m afraid there have been some unexpected… complications.”

“What sort of complications?”

“It seems that several of those who were to receive money have died recently under mysterious circumstances…”

STOP.

Gabriel looked up at Carter for an explanation.

“The men who created the account wanted to reward those individuals and institutions who had helped fleeing Nazis after the war. Radek thought this was sentimental horseshit. He wasn’t about to start a benevolent aid association. He couldn’t change the covenant, so he changed the circumstances on the ground.”

“Were Enrique Calderon and Gustavo Estrada supposed to receive money from the account?”

“I see you learned a great deal during your time with Alfonso Ramirez.” Carter gave a guilty smile. “We were following you in Buenos Aires.”

“Radek is a wealthy man who doesn’t have long to live,” Gabriel said. “The last thing he needs is money.”

“Apparently, he plans to give a large portion of the account to his son.”

“And the rest?”

“He’s going to turn it over to his most important agent to carry out the original intentions of the men who created the account.” Carter paused. “I believe you and he are acquainted. His name is Manfred Kruz.”

Carter’s pipe had gone dead. He stared into the bowl, frowned, and relit it.

“Which brings us back to our original problem.” Carter blew a puff of smoke toward Gabriel. “What do we do about Erich Radek? If you ask the Austrians to prosecute him, they’ll take their time about it and wait for him to die. If you kidnap an elderly Austrian from the streets of Vienna and cart him back to Israel for trial, the shit will rain down on you from on high. If you think you have trouble in the European Community now, your problems will be multiplied tenfold if you snatch him. And if he’s placed on trial, his defense will undoubtedly involve exposing our links to him. So what do we do, gentlemen?”

“Perhaps there’s a third way,” Gabriel said.

“What’s that?”

“Convince Radek to come to Israel voluntarily.”

Carter gazed at Gabriel skeptically over the bowl of his pipe.

“And how would you suppose we could convince a first-class shit like Erich Radek to do that?”

THEY TALKED THROUGH the night. It was Gabriel’s plan, and therefore his to outline and defend. Shamron added a few valuable suggestions. Carter, resistant at first, soon crossed over to Gabriel’s camp. The very audacity of the plan appealed to him. His own service would have probably shot an officer for putting forward so unorthodox an idea.

Every man had a weakness, Gabriel said. Radek, through his actions, had shown he possessed two: his lust for the money hidden in the Zurich account, and his desire to see his son become chancellor of Austria. Gabriel maintained that it was the second that had led Radek to move against Eli Lavon and Max Klein. Radek didn’t want his son tarred by the brush of his previous life, and he had proven that he would take almost any step to protect him. It involved swallowing a bitter pill-making a deal with a man who had no right to demand concessions-but it was morally just and produced the desired result: Erich Radek behind bars for crimes he committed against the Jewish people. Time was the critical factor. The election was less than three weeks away. Radek needed to be in Israeli hands before the first vote was cast in Austria. Otherwise their leverage over him would be lost.

As dawn drew near, Carter posed the question that had been gnawing at him from the moment the first report of Gabriel’s investigation crossed his desk: Why? Why was Gabriel, an Office assassin, so determined that Radek be brought to justice after so many years?

“I want to tell you a story, Adrian,” Gabriel said, his voice suddenly distant, as was his gaze. “Actually, maybe it would be better if she told you the story herself.”

He handed Carter a copy of his mother’s testimony. Carter, seated next to the dying fire, read it from beginning to end without uttering a word. When finally he looked up from the last page, his eyes were damp.

“I take it Irene Allon is your mother?”

“She was my mother. She died a long time ago.”

“How can you be sure the SS man in the woods was Radek?”

Gabriel told him about his mother’s paintings.

“So I take it you’ll be the one who’ll handle the negotiations with Radek. And if he refuses to cooperate? What then, Gabriel?”

“His choices will be limited, Adrian. One way or another, Erich Radek is never setting foot in Vienna again.”

Carter handed the testimony back to Gabriel. “It’s an excellent plan,” he said. “But will your prime minister go for it?”

“I’m certain there will be voices raised in opposition,” Shamron said.

“Lev?”

Shamron nodded. “My involvement will give him all the grounds he needs to veto it. But I believe Gabriel will be able to bring the prime minister around to our way of thinking.”

“Me? Who said I was going to brief the prime minister?”

“I did,” Shamron said. “Besides, if you can convince Carter to put Radek on a platter, surely you can convince the prime minister to partake in the feast. He’s a man of enormous appetites.”

Carter stood and stretched, then walked slowly toward the window, a doctor who has spent the entire night in surgery only to achieve a questionable outcome. He opened the drapes. Gray light filtered into the room.

“There’s one last item we need to discuss before leaving for Israel,” Shamron said.

Carter turned around, a silhouette against the glass. “The money?”

“What exactly were you planning to do with it?”

“We haven’t reached a final decision.”

“I have. Two and a half billion dollars is the price you pay for using a man like Erich Radek when you knew he was a murderer and a war criminal. It was stolen from Jews on the way to the gas chambers, and I want it back.”

Carter turned once more and looked out at the snow-covered pasture.

“You’re a two-bit blackmail artist, Ari Shamron.”

Shamron stood and pulled on his overcoat. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Adrian. If all goes according to plan in Jerusalem, we’ll meet again in Zurich in forty-eight hours.”

29 JERUSALEM

THE MEETING WAS called for ten o’clock that evening. Shamron, Gabriel, and Chiara, delayed by weather, arrived with two minutes to spare after a white-knuckle car ride from Ben-Gurion Airport, only to be told by an aide that the prime minister was running late. Evidently, there was yet another crisis in his brittle governing coalition, because the anteroom outside his office had taken on the air of a temporary shelter after a disaster. Gabriel counted no fewer than five cabinet officials, each surrounded by a retinue of acolytes and apparatchiks. They were all shouting at each other like quarreling relatives at a family wedding, and a fog bank of tobacco smoke hung on the air.

The aide escorted them into a room reserved for security and intelligence personnel, and closed the door. Gabriel shook his head.

“Israeli democracy in action.”

“Believe it or not, it’s quiet tonight. Usually, it’s worse.”

Gabriel collapsed into a chair. He realized suddenly that he had not showered or changed his clothing in two days. Indeed, his trousers were soiled by the dust of the graveyard in Puerto Blest. When he shared this with Shamron, the old man smiled. “To be covered with the dirt of Argentina only adds to the credibility of your message,” Shamron said. “The prime minister is a man who will appreciate such a thing.”

“I’ve never briefed a prime minister before, Ari. I would have liked to at least had a shower.”

“You’re actually nervous.” This seemed to amuse Shamron. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous about anything before in my life. You’re human after all.”

“Of course I’m nervous. He’s a madman.”

“Actually, he and I are quite similar in temperament.”

“Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

“May I give you a piece of advice?”

“If you must.”

“He likes stories. Tell him a good story.”

Chiara perched herself on the arm of Gabriel’s chair. “Tell it to the prime minister the way you told it to me in Rome,” she said sotto voce.

“You were in my arms at the time,” Gabriel replied. “Something tells me tonight’s briefing will be a bit more formal.” He smiled, then added, “At least I hope so.”

It was nearing midnight by the time the prime minister’s aide poked his head into the waiting room and announced that the great man was finally ready to see them. Gabriel and Shamron stood and moved toward the open door. Chiara remained seated. Shamron stopped and turned to face her.

“What are you waiting for? The prime minister is ready to see us.”

Chiara’s eyes opened wide. “I’m just abat leveyha, ” she protested. “I’m not going in there to brief the prime minister. My God, I’m not even Israeli.”

“You’ve risked your life in defense of this country,” Shamron said calmly. “You have every right to be in his presence.”

They entered the prime minister’s office. It was large and unexpectedly plain, dark except for an area of illumination around the desk. Lev somehow had managed to slip in ahead of them. His bald, bony skull shone in the recessed lighting, and his long hands were folded beneath a defiant chin. He made a half-hearted effort to stand and shook their hands without enthusiasm. Shamron, Gabriel, and Chiara sat down. The worn leather chairs were still hot from other bodies.

The prime minister was in his shirtsleeves and looked fatigued after his long night of political combat. He was, like Shamron, an uncompromising warrior. How he managed to rule a roost as diverse and disobedient as Israel was something of a miracle. His hooded gaze fell instantly upon Gabriel. Shamron was used to this. Gabriel’s striking appearance was the one thing that had given Shamron cause for concern when he recruited him for the Wrath of God operation. Peoplelooked at Gabriel.

They had met once before, Gabriel and the prime minister, though under very different circumstances. The prime minister had been chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces in April 1988 when Gabriel, accompanied by a team of commandos, had broken into a villa in Tunis and assassinated Abu Jihad, the second-in-command of the PLO, in front of his wife and children. The prime minister had been aboard the special communications plane, orbiting above the Mediterranean Sea, with Shamron at his side. He had heard the assassination through Gabriel’s lip microphone. He had also listened to Gabriel, after the killing, use precious seconds to console Abu Jihad’s hysterical wife and daughter. Gabriel had refused the commendation awarded him. Now, the prime minister wanted to know why.

“I didn’t feel it was appropriate, Prime Minister, given the circumstances.”

“Abu Jihad had a great deal of Jewish blood on his hands. He deserved to die.”

“Yes, but not in front of his wife and children.”

“He chose the life he led,” the prime minister said. “His family shouldn’t have been there with him.” And then, as if suddenly realizing that he had strayed into a minefield, he attempted to tiptoe out. His girth and natural brusqueness would not permit a graceful exit. He opted for a rapid change of subject instead. “So, Shamron tells me you want to kidnap a Nazi,” the prime minister said.

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

He held up his palms-Let’s hear it.

GABRIEL, IF HE was nervous, did not reveal it. His presentation was crisp and concise and full of confidence. The prime minister, notorious for his rough treatment of briefers, sat transfixed throughout. Hearing Gabriel’s description of the attempt on his life in Rome, he leaned forward, his face tense. Adrian Carter’s confession of American involvement made him visibly irate. Gabriel, when it came time to present his documentary evidence, stood next to the prime minister and placed it piece by piece on the lamplit desk. Shamron sat quietly, his hands squeezing the arms of the chair like a man struggling to maintain a vow of silence. Lev seemed locked in a staring contest with the large portrait of Theodor Herzl that hung on the wall behind the prime minister’s desk. He made notes with a gold fountain pen and once took a ponderous look at his wristwatch.

“Can we get him?” the prime minister asked, then added, “Without all hell breaking loose?”

“Yes, sir, I believe we can.”

“Tell me how you intend to do it.”

Gabriel’s briefing spared no detail. The prime minister sat silently with his plump hands folded on the desk, listening intently. When Gabriel finished, the prime minister nodded once and turned his gaze toward Lev-I assume this is where you part company?

Lev, ever the technocrat, took a moment to organize his thoughts before answering. His response, when it finally came, was passionless and methodical. Had there been some way to plot it on a flow chart or actuarial table, Lev would surely have stood, pointer in hand, and droned on until dawn. As it was, he remained seated and soon reduced his audience to painful boredom. His speech was punctuated by pauses, during which he made a steeple of his forefingers and pressed them against his bloodless lips.

An impressive piece of investigatory work, Lev said in a backhanded compliment to Gabriel, but now is not the time to waste precious time and political capital settling scores with aged Nazis. The founders, except in the case of Eichmann, resisted the urge to hunt down the perpetrators of the Shoah because they knew it would detract from the primary purpose of the Office, the protection of the State. The same principles apply today. Arresting Radek in Vienna would lead to backlash in Europe, where support for Israel was hanging by a thread. It would also endanger the small, defenseless Jewish community in Austria, where the currents of anti-Semitism run strong and deep. What will we do when Jews are attacked on the streets? Do you think the Austrian authorities will lift a finger to stop it? Finally, his trump card: why is it Israel ’s responsibility to prosecute Radek? Leave it to the Austrians. As for the Americans, let them lie in a bed of their own making. Expose Radek and Metzler, and walk away from it. The point will have been made, and the consequences will be less severe than a kidnapping operation.

The prime minister spent a moment in quiet deliberation, then looked at Gabriel. “There’s no doubt this man Ludwig Vogel is really Radek?”

“None whatsoever, Prime Minister.”

He turned to Shamron. “And we’re certain the Americans aren’t going to get cold feet?”

“The Americans are anxious to resolve this matter as well.”

The prime minister looked down at the documents before rendering his decision.

“I made the rounds in Europe last month,” he said. “While I was in Paris, I visited a synagogue that had been torched a few weeks earlier. The next morning there was an editorial in one of the French newspapers that accused me of picking the scabs of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust whenever it suited my political purposes. Perhaps it’s time to remind the world why we inhabit this strip of land, surrounded by a sea of enemies, fighting for our survival. Bring Radek here. Let him tell the world about the crimes he committed in order to hide the Shoah. Maybe it will silence, once and for all, those who contend that it was a conspiracy, invented by men like Ari and myself to justify our existence.”

Gabriel cleared his throat. “This isn’t about politics, Prime Minister. It’s about justice.”

The prime minister smiled at the unexpected challenge. “True, Gabriel, itis about justice, but justice and politics often go hand in hand, and when justice can serve the needs of politics, there is nothing immoral about it.”

Lev, having lost in the first round, attempted to snatch victory in the second by seizing control of the operation. Shamron knew his aim remained the same: killing it. Unfortunately for Lev, so did the prime minister.

“It was Gabriel who brought us to this point. Let Gabriel bring it home.”

“With all due respect, Prime Minister, Gabriel is akidon, the best ever, but he is not an operational planner, which is exactly what we need.”

“His operational plan sounds fine to me.”

“Yes, but can he prepare and execute it?”

“He’ll have Shamron looking over his shoulder the entire time.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Lev said acidly.

The prime minister stood; the others followed suit.

“Bring Radek back here. And whatever you do, don’t even think about making a mess in Vienna. Get him cleanly, no blood, no heart attacks.” He turned to Lev. “Make certain they have every resource they need to get the job done. Don’t think you’ll be safe from the shit because you voted against the plan. If Gabriel and Shamron go down in flames, you’ll go down with them. So no bureaucratic bullshit. You’re all in this together. Shalom. ”

THE PRIME MINISTER seized Shamron’s elbow on the way out the door and backed him into a corner. He placed one hand on the wall, above Shamron’s shoulder, and blocked any possible route of escape.

“Is the boy up to it, Ari?”

“He’s not a boy, Prime Minister, not anymore.”

“I know, but can he do it? Can he truly convince Radek to come here?”

“Have you read his mother’s testimony?”

“I have, and I know what I’d do in his position. I’m afraid I’d put a bullet in the bastard’s brain, like Radek did to so many others, and call it a day.”

“Would such an action be just, in your opinion?”

“There’s the justice of civilized men, the kind of justice that is dispensed in courtrooms by men in robes, and then there is the justice of the Prophets.God’s justice. How can one render justice for crimes so enormous? What punishment would be appropriate? Life in prison? A painless execution?”

“The truth, Prime Minister. Sometimes, the best revenge is the truth.”

“And if Radek doesn’t accept the deal?”

Shamron shrugged. “Are you giving me instructions?”

“I don’t need another Demjanuk affair. I don’t need a Holocaust show trial that turns into an international media circus. It would be better if Radek simply faded away.”

“Faded away, Prime Minister?”

The prime minister exhaled heavily into Shamron’s face.

“Are you certain it’s him, Ari?”

“Of this, there is no doubt.”

“Then, if the need arises, put him down.”

Shamron looked toward his feet but saw only the bulging midsection of the prime minister. “He shoulders a heavy burden, our Gabriel. I’m afraid I put it there back in ’72. He’s not up for an assassination job.”

“Erich Radek put that burden on Gabriel long before you came along, Ari. Now Gabriel has an opportunity to lose some of it. Let me make my wishes plain. If Radek doesn’t agree to come here, tell the prince of fire to put him down and let the dogs lap up his blood.”

30 VIENNA

MIDNIGHT IN THE First District, a dead calm, a silence only Vienna can produce, a stately emptiness. Kruz found it reassuring. The feeling didn’t last long. It was rare that the old man telephoned him at home, and never had Kruz been dragged from bed in the middle of the night for a meeting. He doubted the news would be good.

He looked down the length of the street and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A glance into his rearview mirror confirmed that he had not been followed. He climbed out and walked to the gate of the old man’s imposing graystone house. On the ground floor, lights burned behind drawn curtains. A single light glowed on the second level. Kruz rang the bell. He had the feeling of being watched, something almost imperceptible, like a breath on the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing.

He reached out toward the bell again, but before he could press it, a buzzer sounded and the deadbolt lock snapped back. He pushed open the gate and crossed the forecourt. By the time he reached the portico, the door was swinging open and a man was standing in the threshold with his suit jacket open and his tie loose. He made no effort to conceal the black leather shoulder holster containing a Glock pistol. Kruz was not alarmed by the sight; he knew the man well. He was a former Staatspolizei officer named Klaus Halder. It was Kruz who had hired him to serve as the old man’s bodyguard. Halder usually accompanied the old man only when he went out or was expecting visitors to the house. His presence at midnight was, like the telephone call to Kruz’s house, not a good sign.

“Where is he?”

Halder looked wordlessly toward the floor. Kruz loosened the belt of his raincoat and entered the old man’s study. The false wall was moved aside. The small, capsulelike lift was waiting. He stepped inside and, with a press of a button, sent it slowly downward. The doors opened a few seconds later, revealing a small subterranean chamber decorated in the soft yellow and gilt of the old man’s baroque tastes. The Americans had built it for him so that he could conduct important meetings without fear the Russians were listening in. They’d built the passage, too, the one reached by way of a stainless-steel blast door with a combination lock. Kruz was one of the few people in Vienna who knew where the passage led and who had lived in the house at the other end.

The old man was seated at a small table, a drink before him. Kruz could tell he was uneasy, because he was twisting the glass, two turns to the right, two to the left. Right, right, left, left. A strange habit, thought Kruz. Menacing as hell. He reckoned the old man had picked it up in a previous life, in another world. An image took shape in Kruz’s mind: a Russian commissar chained to an interrogation table, the old man seated on the other side, dressed head to toe in black, twisting his drink and gazing at his quarry with those bottomless blue eyes. Kruz felt his heart lurch. The poor bastards were probably shitting themselves even before things got rough.

The old man looked up, the twisting stopped. His cool gaze settled on Kruz’s shirtfront. Kruz looked down and saw that his buttons were misaligned. He had dressed in the dark so as not to wake his wife. The old man pointed toward an empty chair. Kruz fixed his shirt and sat down. The twisting started again, two turns to the right, two to the left. Right, right, left, left.

He spoke without greeting or preamble. It was as if they were resuming a conversation interrupted by a knock at the door. During the past seventy-two hours, the old man said, two attempts had been mounted against the life of the Israeli, the first in Rome, the second in Argentina. Unfortunately, the Israeli survived both. In Rome, he apparently was saved by the intervention of a colleague from Israeli intelligence. In Argentina, things were more complicated. There was evidence to suggest that the Americans were now involved.

Kruz, naturally, had questions. Under normal circumstances he would have held his tongue and waited for the old man to say his piece. Now, thirty minutes removed from his bed, he showed none of his usual forbearance.

“What was the Israeli doing in Argentina?”

The old man’s face seemed to freeze, and his hand went still. Kruz had strayed over the line, the line that separated what he knew about the old man’s past and what he never would. He felt his chest tighten under the pressure of the steady gaze. It was not every day one managed to anger a man capable of orchestrating two assassination attempts on two continents in seventy-two hours.

“It’s not necessary you knowwhy the Israeli was in Argentina, or even that he was there at all. What you need to know is that this affair has taken a dangerous turn.” The twisting resumed. “As you might expect, the Americans know everything. My real identity, what I did during the war. There was no hiding it from them. We were allies. We worked together in the great crusade against the Communists. In the past, I’ve always counted on their discretion, not out of any sense of loyalty to me, but out of a simple fear of embarrassment. I am under no illusions, Manfred. I am like a whore to them. They turned to me when they were lonely and in need, but now that the Cold War is over, I am like a woman they would rather forget. And if they are now cooperating with the Israelis in some fashion…” He left the thought unfinished. “Do you see my point, Manfred?”

Kruz nodded. “I assume they know about Peter?”

“They know everything. They possess the power to destroy me, and my son, but only if they are willing to endure the pain of a self-inflicted wound. I used to be quite certain they would never move against me. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Keep the Israeli and American embassies under constant watch. Assign physical surveillance to all known intelligence personnel. Keep an eye on the airports and the train stations. Also, contact your informants at the newspapers. They might resort to a damaging press leak. I don’t want to be caught off-guard.”

Kruz looked down at the table and saw his own reflection in the polished surface. “And when the minister asks me why I’m devoting so many resources to the Americans and the Israelis? What do I tell him?”

“Do I need to remind you what’s at stake, Manfred? What you say to your minister is your business. Just get it done. I will not let Peter lose this election. Do you understand me?”

Kruz looked up into the pitiless blue eyes and saw once again the man dressed head to toe in black. He closed his eyes and nodded once.

The old man raised his glass to his lips and, before drinking, smiled. It was about as pleasant as a sudden crack in a pane of glass. He reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, produced a slip of paper, and dealt it onto the tabletop. Kruz glanced at it as it spun his way, then looked up.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a telephone number.”

Kruz left the paper untouched. “A telephone number?”

“One never knows how a situation like this might resolve itself. It might be necessary to resort to violence. It’s quite possible I might not be in a position to order such measures. In that case, Manfred, the responsibility will fall to you.”

Kruz picked up the slip of paper and held it aloft between his first two fingers. “If I dial this number, who’s going to answer?”

The old man smiled. “Violence.”

31 ZURICH

HERR CHRISTIAN ZIGERLI, special events coordinator at the Dolder Grand Hotel, was a good deal like the hotel itself-dignified and pompous, resolute and understated, a man who enjoyed his lofty perch in life because it allowed him to look down his nose at others. He was also a man who did not care for surprises. As a rule, he required seventy-two hours advance notice for special bookings and conferences, but when Heller Enterprises and Systech Wireless expressed a desire to conduct their final merger negotiations at the Dolder, Herr Zigerli agreed to waive the seventy-two-hour provision in exchange for a 15-percent surcharge. He could be accommodating when he chose to be, but accommodation, like everything else at the Dolder, came at a steep price.

Heller Enterprises was the suitor, so Heller handled the booking arrangements-not old man Rudolf Heller himself, of course, but a glossy Italian personal assistant who called herself Elena. Herr Zigerli tended to form opinions about people quickly. He would tell you that any hotelier worth his weight in sand did. He did not care for Italians in general, and the aggressive and demanding Elena quickly earned a high ranking on his long list of unpopular clients. She spoke loudly on the telephone, a capital crime in his estimation, and seemed to believe that the mere act of spending vast amounts of her master’s money entitled her to special privileges. Shedid seem to know the hotel well-odd, since Herr Zigerli, who had a memory like a file cabinet, could not recall her ever being a guest at the Dolder-and she was excruciatingly specific in her demands. She wanted four adjoining suites near the terrace overlooking the golf course, with good views of the lake. When Zigerli informed her that this was not possible-two and two, or three and one, but not four in a row-she asked whether guests could be moved to accommodate her. Sorry, said the hotelier, but the Dolder Grand is not in the habit of turning guests into refugees. She settled for three adjoining suites and a fourth farther down the hall. “The delegations will arrive at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “They’d like a light working lunch.” There followed ten more minutes of bickering over what constituted a “light working lunch.”

When the menu was complete, Elena lobbed one more demand his way. She would arrive four hours before the delegations, accompanied by Heller’s chief of security, in order to inspect the rooms. Once the inspections were complete, no hotel personnel would be allowed inside unless accompanied by Heller security. Herr Zigerli sighed heavily and agreed, then hung up the phone and, with his office door closed and locked, performed a series of deep-breathing exercises to calm his nerves.

The morning of the negotiations dawned gray and cold. The stately old turrets of the Dolder poked into the blanket of freezing fog, and the perfect asphalt in the front drive shone like polished black granite. Herr Zigerli stood watch in the lobby, just inside the sparkling glass doors, feet shoulder-width apart, hands at his sides, girded for battle. She’ll be late, he thought. They always are. She’ll need more suites. She’ll want to change the menu. She’ll be perfectly horrible.

A black Mercedes sedan glided into the drive and stopped outside the entrance. Herr Zigerli cast a discreet glance at his wristwatch. Ten o’clock precisely. Impressive. The bellman opened the rear door, and a sleek black boot emerged-Bruno Magli, noted Zigerli-followed by a shapely knee and thigh. Herr Zigerli rocked forward onto the balls of his feet and smoothed his hair over his bald spot. He had seen many beautiful women float through the famous doorway of the Dolder Grand, yet few had done it with any more grace or style than the lovely Elena of Heller Enterprises. She had a mane of chestnut hair, held in place by a clasp at the nape of her neck, and skin the color of honey. Her brown eyes were flecked with gold, and they seemed to grow lighter when she shook his hand. Her voice, so loud and demanding over the telephone line, was now soft and thrilling, as was her Italian accent. She released his hand and turned to an unsmiling companion. “Herr Zigerli, this is Oskar. Oskar does security.”

Apparently, Oskar had no last name. None needed, thought Zigerli. He was built like a wrestler, with strawberry-blond hair and faint freckles across his broad cheeks. Herr Zigerli, trained observer of the human condition, saw something he recognized in Oskar. A fellow tribesman, if you will. He could picture him, two centuries earlier, in the clothing of a woodsman, pounding along a pathway through the Black Forest. Like all good security men, Oskar let his eyes do the talking, and his eyes told Herr Zigerli he was anxious to get to work. “I’ll show you to your rooms,” said the hotelier. “Please, follow me.”

Herr Zigerli decided to take them up the stairs rather than the elevator. They were one of the Dolder’s finest attributes, and Oskar the woodsman didn’t look like the type who enjoyed waiting for lifts when there was a flight of steps to be scaled. The rooms were on the fourth floor. On the landing, Oskar held out his hand for the electronic cardkeys. “We’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind. No need to show us the inside of the rooms. We’ve all been in hotels before.” A knowing wink, a genial pat on the arm. “Just point us the way. We’ll be fine.”

Indeed, you will, thought Zigerli. Oskar was a man who inspired confidence in other men. Women too, Zigerli suspected. He wondered whether the delectable Elena-he was already beginning to think of her ashis Elena-was one of Oskar’s conquests. He placed the cardkeys in Oskar’s upturned palm and showed them the way.

Herr Zigerli was a man of many maxims-“A quiet customer is a contented customer” was among his most cherished-and therefore he interpreted the ensuing silence on the fourth floor as proof that Elena and her friend Oskar were pleased with the accommodations. This in turn pleased Herr Zigerli. He now liked making Elena happy. As he went about the rest of his morning, she remained on his mind, like the trace of her scent that had attached itself to his hand. He found himself longing for some problem, some silly complaint that would require a consultation with her. But there was nothing, only the silence of contentment. She had her Oskar now. She had no need for the special events coordinator of Europe ’s finest hotel. Herr Zigerli, once again, had done his job too well.

He did not hear from them, or even see them, until two o’clock that afternoon, when they congregated in the lobby and formed an unlikely welcoming party for the arriving delegations. There was snow swirling in the front court now. Zigerli believed the foul weather only heightened the appeal of the old hotel-a safe haven from the storm, like Switzerland itself.

The first limousine pulled into the drive and disgorged two passengers. One was Herr Rudolf Heller himself, a small, elderly man, dressed in an expensive dark suit and silver necktie. His slightly tinted spectacles suggested an eye condition; his brisk, impatient walk left the impression that, in spite of his advanced years, he was a man who could take care of himself. Herr Zigerli welcomed him to the Dolder and shook the proffered hand. It seemed to be made of stone.

He was accompanied by the grim-faced Herr Keppelmann. He was perhaps twenty-five years younger than Heller, short-cropped hair, gray at the temples, very green eyes. Herr Zigerli had seen his fair share of bodyguards at the Dolder, and Herr Keppelmann certainly seemed the type. Calm but vigilant, silent as a church mouse, sure-footed and strong. The emerald-colored eyes were placid but in constant motion. Herr Zigerli looked at Elena and saw that her gaze was trained on Herr Keppelmann. Perhaps he was wrong about Oskar. Perhaps the taciturn Keppelmann was the luckiest man in the world.

The Americans came next: Brad Cantwell and Shelby Somerset, the CEO and COO of Systech Communications, Inc., of Reston, Virginia. There was a quiet sophistication about them that Zigerli was not used to seeing in Americans. They were not overly friendly, nor were they bellowing into cell phones as they came into the lobby. Cantwell spoke German as well as Herr Zigerli and avoided eye contact. Somerset was the more affable of the two. The well-traveled blue blazer and slightly crumpled striped tie identified him as an Eastern preppy, as did his upper-class drawl.

Herr Zigerli made a few welcoming remarks, then receded quietly into the background. It was something he did exceptionally well. As Elena led the group toward the staircase, he slipped into his office and closed the door. An impressive group of men, he thought. He expected great things to come of this venture. His own role in the affair, however minor, had been carried off with precision and quiet competence. In today’s world, such attributes were of little value, but they were the coin of Herr Zigerli’s miniature realm. He suspected the men of Heller Enterprises and Systech Communications probably felt exactly the same way.

IN CENTRAL ZURICH, on the quiet street near the spot where the heavy green waters of the Limmat River flow into the lake, Konrad Becker was in the process of buttoning up his private bank for the evening when the telephone on his desk purred softly. Technically, it was five minutes before the close of business, but he was tempted to let the machine get it. In Becker’s experience, only problem clients telephoned so late in the afternoon, and his day had been difficult enough already. Instead, like a good Swiss banker, he reached for the receiver and brought it robotically to his ear.

“Becker and Puhl.”

“Konrad, it’s Shelby Somerset. How the hell are you?”

Becker swallowed hard. Somerset was the name of the American from the CIA-at least, Somerset is what he called himself. Becker doubted very much it was his real name.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Somerset?”

“You can drop the formalities for starters, Konrad.”

“And for the main course?”

“You can walk downstairs to the Talstrasse and climb in the back seat of the silver Mercedes that’s waiting there.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“We need to see you.”

“Where is this Mercedes going to take me?”

“Somewhere pleasant, I assure you.”

“What’s the dress code?”

“Business attire will be fine. And, Konrad?”

“Yes, Mr. Somerset?”

“Don’t think about playing hard to get. This is the real deal. Go downstairs. Get in the car. We’re watching you. We’re always watching you.”

“How reassuring, Mr. Somerset,” the banker said, but the line had already gone dead.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Herr Zigerli was standing at reception when he noticed one of the Americans, Shelby Somerset, pacing anxiously outside in the drive. A moment later, a silver Mercedes eased into the circle, and a small, bald figure alighted from the back seat. Polished Bally loafers, a blast-proof attaché case.A banker, thought Zigerli. He’d bet his paycheck on it. Somerset gave the new arrival a hail-fellow smile and a firm clap on the shoulder. The small man, despite the warm greeting, looked as though he were being led to his execution. Still, Herr Zigerli reckoned the talks were going well. The moneyman had arrived.

“GOOD AFTERNOON, HERR BECKER.Such a pleasure to see you. I’m Heller. Rudolf Heller. This is my associate, Mr. Keppelmann. That man over there is our American partner, Brad Cantwell. Obviously, you and Mr. Somerset are already acquainted.”

The banker blinked rapidly several times, then settled his cunning little gaze on Shamron, as if he were trying to arrive at a calculation of his net worth. He held his attaché over his genitals, in anticipation of an imminent assault.

“My associates and I are about to embark on a joint venture. The problem is, we can’t do it without your help. That’s what bankers do, isn’t it, Herr Becker? Help launch great endeavors? Help people realize their dreams and their potential?”

“It depends on the venture, Herr Heller.”

“I see,” Shamron said, smiling. “For example, many years ago, a group of men came to you. German and Austrian men. They wanted to launch a great endeavor as well. They entrusted you with a large sum of money and granted you the power to turn it into an even larger sum. You did extraordinarily well. You turned it into a mountain of money. I assume you remember these gentlemen? I also assume you know where they got their money?”

The Swiss banker’s gaze hardened. He had arrived at his calculation of Shamron’s worth.

“You’re Israeli, aren’t you?”

“I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the world,” replied Shamron. “I reside in many places, speak the languages of many lands. My loyalty, like my business interests, knows no national boundaries. As a Swiss, I’m sure you can understand my point of view.”

“I understand it,” Becker said, “but I don’t believe you for a minute.”

“And if Iwere from Israel?” Shamron asked. “Would this have some impact on your decision?”

“It would.”

“How so?”

“I don’t care for Israelis,” Becker said forthrightly. “Or Jews, for that matter.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Herr Becker, but a man is entitled to his opinions, and I won’t hold it against you. I never allow politics to get in the way of business. I need help for my endeavor, and you’re the only person who can help me.”

Becker raised his eyebrows quizzically. “What exactly is the nature of this endeavor, Herr Heller?”

“It’s quite simple, really. I want you to help me kidnap one of your clients.”

“I believe, Herr Heller, that theendeavor you’re suggesting would be a violation of Swiss banking secrecy laws-and several other Swiss laws as well.”

“Then I suppose we’ll have to keep your involvement secret.”

“And if I refuse to cooperate?”

“Then we’ll be forced to tell the world that you were the murderers’ banker, that you’re sitting on two and a half billion dollars of Holocaust loot. We’ll unleash the bloodhounds of the World Jewish Congress on you. You and your bank will be in tatters by the time they’re finished with you.”

The Swiss banker cast a pleading look at Shelby Somerset. “We had a deal.”

“We still do,” the lanky American drawled, “but the outlines of the deal have changed. Your client is a very dangerous man. Steps need to be taken to neutralize him. We need you, Konrad. Help us clean up a mess. Let’s do some good together.”

The banker drummed his fingers against the attaché case. “You’re right. Heis a dangerous man, and if I help you kidnap him, I might as well dig my own grave.”

“We’ll be there for you, Konrad. We’ll protect you.”

“And what if the ‘outlines of the deal’ change again? Who’ll protect me then?”

Shamron interceded. “You were to receive one hundred million dollars upon final dispersal of the account. Now, there will be no final dispersal of the account, because you’re going to give all the money to me. If you cooperate, I’ll let you keep half of what you were supposed to receive. I assume you can do the math, Herr Becker?”

“I can.”

“Fifty million dollars is more than you deserve, but I’m willing to let you have it in order to gain your cooperation in this matter. A man can buy a lot of security with fifty million.”

“I want it in writing, a letter of guarantee.”

Shamron shook his head sadly, as if to say there were some things-And you should know this better than anyone, my dear fellow-that one does not put in writing.

“What do you need from me?” Becker asked.

“You’re going to help us get into his home.”

“How?”

“You’ll need to see him rather urgently concerning some aspect of the account. Perhaps some papers need to be signed, some final details in preparation for liquidation and dispersal of the assets.”

“And once I’m inside the house?”

“Your job is finished. Your new assistant will handle matters after that.”

“My new assistant?”

Shamron looked at Gabriel. “Perhaps it’s time we introduced Herr Becker to his new partner.”

HE WAS A MANof many names and personalities. Herr Zigerli knew him as Oskar, the chief of Heller security. The landlord of his pied-à-terre in Paris knew him as Vincent Laffont, a freelance travel writer of Breton descent who spent most of his time living out of a suitcase. In London, he was known as Clyde Bridges, European marketing director of an obscure Canadian business software firm. In Madrid, he was a German of independent means and a restless soul who idled away the hours in cafés and bars, and traveled to relieve the boredom.

His real name was Uzi Navot. In the Hebrew-based lexicon of the Israeli secret intelligence service, Navot was akatsa, an undercover field operative and case officer. His territory was western Europe. Armed with an array of languages, a roguish charm, and fatalistic arrogance, Navot had penetrated Palestinian terrorist cells and recruited agents in Arab embassies scattered across the continent. He had sources in nearly all the European security and intelligence services and oversaw a vast network ofsayanim, volunteer helpers recruited from local Jewish communities. He could always count on getting the best table in the grill room at the Ritz in Paris because the maître d’ hôtel was a paid informant, as was the chief of the maid staff.

“Konrad Becker, meet Oskar Lange.”

The banker sat motionless for a long moment, as though he had been suddenly bronzed. Then his clever little eyes settled on Shamron, and he raised his hands in an inquiring gesture.

“What am I supposed to do with him?”

“You tell us. He’s very good, our Oskar.”

“Can he impersonate a lawyer?”

“With the right preparation, he could impersonate your mother.”

“How long does this charade have to last?”

“Five minutes, maybe less.”

“When you’re with Ludwig Vogel, five minutes can seem like an eternity.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shamron said.

“What about Klaus?”

“Klaus?”

“Vogel’s bodyguard.”

Shamron smiled. Resistance had ended. The Swiss banker had joined the team. He now swore allegiance to the flag of Herr Heller and his noble endeavor.

“He’s very professional,” Becker said. “I’ve been to the house a half-dozen times, but he always gives me a thorough search and asks me to open my briefcase. So, if you’re thinking about trying to get a weapon into the house-”

Shamron cut him off. “We have no intention of bringing weapons in the house.”

“Klaus is always armed.”

“You’re sure?”

“A Glock, I’d say.” The banker patted the left side of his chest. “Wears it right there. Doesn’t make much of an effort to hide it.”

“A lovely piece of detail, Herr Becker.”

The banker accepted the compliment with a tilt of his head-Details are my business, Herr Heller.

“Forgive my insolence, Herr Heller, but how does one actually kidnap someone who’s protected by a bodyguard if the bodyguard is armed and the kidnapper isn’t?”

“Herr Vogel is going to leave his house voluntarily.”

“A voluntary kidnapping?” Becker’s tone was incredulous. “How unique. And how does one convince a man to allow himself to be kidnappedvoluntarily?”

Shamron folded his arms. “Just get Oskar inside the house and leave the rest to us.”

32 MUNICH

IT WAS AN OLDapartment house in the pretty little Munich district of Lehel, with a gate on the street and the main entrance off a tidy courtyard. The lift was fickle and indecisive, and more often than not, they simply climbed the spiral staircase to the third floor. The furnishings had a hotel room anonymity. There were two beds in the bedroom, and the sitting room couch was a davenport. In the storage closet were four extra cots. The pantry was stocked with nonperishable goods, and the cabinets contained place settings for eight. The sitting-room windows overlooked the street, but the blackout shades remained drawn at all times, so that inside the flat it seemed a perpetual evening. The telephones had no ringers. Instead, they were fitted with red lights that flashed to indicate incoming calls.

The walls of the sitting room were hung with maps: central Vienna, metropolitan Vienna, eastern Austria, Poland. On the wall opposite the windows hung a very large map of central Europe, which showed the entire escape route, stretching from Vienna to the Baltic coast. Shamron and Gabriel had quarreled briefly over the color before settling on red. From a distance it seemed a river of blood, which is precisely how Shamron wanted it to appear, the river of blood that had flowed through the hands of Erich Radek.

They spoke only German in the flat. Shamron had decreed it. Radek was referred to as Radek and only Radek; Shamron would not call him by the name he’d bought from the Americans. Shamron laid down other edicts as well. It was Gabriel’s operation, and therefore it was Gabriel’s show to run. It was Gabriel, in the Berlin accent of his mother, who briefed the teams, Gabriel who reviewed the watch reports from Vienna, and Gabriel who made all final operational decisions.

For the first few days, Shamron struggled to fit into his supporting role, but as his confidence in Gabriel grew, he found it easier to slide into the background. Still, every agent who passed through the safe flat took note of the dark pall that had settled over him. He seemed never to sleep. He would stand before the maps at all hours, or sit at the kitchen table in the dark, chain-smoking like a man wrestling with a guilty conscience. “He’s like a terminal patient who’s planning his own funeral,” remarked Oded, a veteran German-speaking agent whom Gabriel had chosen to drive the escape car. “And if it goes to hell, they’ll chisel it on his tombstone, right below the Star of David.”

Under perfect circumstances, such an operation would involve weeks of planning. Gabriel had only days. The Wrath of God operation had prepared him well. The terrorists of Black September had been constantly on the move, appearing and disappearing with maddening frequency. When one was located and positively identified, the hit team would swing into action at light speed. Surveillance teams would swoop into place, vehicles and safe flats would be rented, escape routes would be planned. That reservoir of experience and knowledge served Gabriel well in Munich. Few intelligence officers knew more about rapid planning and quick strikes than he and Shamron.

In the evenings, they watched the news on German television. The election in neighboring Austria had captured the attention of German viewers. Metzler was rolling forward. The crowds at his campaign stops, like his lead in the polls, grew larger by the day. Austria, it seemed, was on the verge of doing the unthinkable, electing a chancellor from the far right. Inside the Munich safe flat, Gabriel and his team found themselves in the odd position of cheering Metzler’s ascent in the polls, for without Metzler, their doorway to Radek would close.

Invariably, soon after the news ended, Lev would check in from King Saul Boulevard and subject Gabriel to a tedious cross-examination of the day’s events. It was the one time Shamron was relieved not to bear the burden of operational command. Gabriel would pace the floor with a phone against his ear, patiently answering each of Lev’s questions. And sometimes, if the light was right, Shamron would see Gabriel’s mother, pacing beside him. She was the one member of the team that no one ever mentioned.

ONCE EACH DAY, usually in late afternoon, Gabriel and Shamron escaped the safe flat to walk in the English Gardens. Eichmann’s shadow hung over them. Gabriel reckoned he had been there from the beginning. He had come that night in Vienna, when Max Klein had told Gabriel the story of the SS officer who had murdered a dozen prisoners at Birkenau and now enjoyed coffee every afternoon at the Café Central. Still, Shamron had diligently avoided even speaking his name, until now.

Gabriel had heard the story of Eichmann’s capture many times before. Indeed, Shamron had used it in September 1972 to prod Gabriel into joining the Wrath of God team. The version Shamron told during those walks along the tree-lined footpaths of the English Gardens was more detailed than any Gabriel had heard before. Gabriel knew these were not merely the ramblings of an old man trying to relive past glories. Shamron was never one to trumpet his own successes, and the publishers would wait in vain for his memoirs. Gabriel knew Shamron was telling him about Eichmann for a reason.I’ve taken the journey you’re about to make, Shamron was saying.In another time, in another place, in the company of another man, but there are things you should know. Gabriel, at times, could not shake the sense that he was walking with history.

“Waiting for the escape plane was the hardest part. We were trapped in the safe house with this rat of a man. Some of the team couldn’t bear to look at him. I had to sit in his room night after night and keep watch over him. He was chained to the iron bed, dressed in pajamas with opaque goggles over his eyes. We were strictly forbidden to engage him in conversation. Only the interrogator was allowed to speak to him. I couldn’t obey those orders. You see, I had to know. How had this man who was sickened by the sight of blood killed six million of my people? My mother and father? My two sisters? I asked him why he had done it. And do you know what he said? He told me he did it because it was his job-his job, Gabriel-as if he were nothing more than a bank clerk or a railroad conductor.”

And later, standing at the balustrade of a humpbacked bridge overlooking a stream:

“Only once did I want to kill him, Gabriel-when he tried to tell me that he did not hate the Jewish people, that he actually liked and admired the Jewish people. To show me how much he cared for the Jews, he began to recite our words:Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad! I could not bear to hear those words coming out of that mouth, the mouth that had given the orders to murder six million. I clamped my hand over his face until he shut up. He began to shake and convulse. I thought I’d caused him to have a heart attack. He asked me if I was going to kill him. He pleaded with me not to harm his son. This man who had torn children from the arms of their parents and thrown them into the fire was concerned about his own child, as if we would act like him, as if we would murder children.”

And at a scarred wooden table, in a deserted beer garden:

“We wanted him to agree to return with us voluntarily to Israel. He, of course, did not want to go. He wanted to stand trial in Argentina or Germany. I told him this was not possible. One way or another, he was going to stand trial in Israel. I risked my career by allowing him to have a bit of red wine and a cigarette. I did not drink with the murderer. I could not. I assured him that he would be given a chance to tell his side of the story, that he would be given a proper trial with a proper defense. He was under no illusions about the outcome, but the notion of explaining himself to the world somehow appealed to him. I also pointed out the fact that he would have the dignity of knowing he was about to die, something he denied to the millions who marched into the disrobing rooms and the gas chambers while Max Klein serenaded them. He signed the paper, dated it like a good German bureaucrat, and it was done.”

Gabriel listened intently, his coat collar around his ears, his hands crammed into his pockets. Shamron shifted the focus from Adolf Eichmann to Erich Radek.

“You have an advantage because you’ve seen him face to face once already, at the Café Central. I’d seen Eichmann only from afar, while we were watching his house and planning the snatch, but I had never actually spoken to him or even stood next to him. I knew exactly how tall he was, but couldn’t picture it. I had a sense of how his voice would sound, but I didn’treally know. You know Radek, but unfortunately he knows a bit about you, too, thanks to Manfred Kruz. He’ll want to know more. He’ll feel exposed and vulnerable. He’ll try to level the playing field by asking you questions. He’ll want to know why you are pursuing him. Under no circumstances are you to engage him in anything like normal conversation. Remember, Erich Radek was no camp guard or gas chamber operator. He was SD, a skilled interrogator. He’ll try to bring those skills to bear one final time to avoid his fate. Don’t play into his hands. You’re the one in charge now. He’ll find the reversal a shock to the system.”

Gabriel cast his eyes downward, as if he were reading the words carved into the table.

“So why do Eichmann and Radek deserve the trappings of justice,” he said finally, “but the Palestinians from Black September only vengeance?”

“You would have made a fine Talmudic scholar, Gabriel.”

“And you’re avoiding my question.”

“Obviously, there was a measure of pure vengeance in our decision to target the Black September terrorists, but it was more than that. They posed a continuing threat. If we didn’t kill them, they would kill us. It was war.”

“Why not arrest them, put them on trial?”

“So they could spout their propaganda from an Israeli court?” Shamron shook his head slowly. “They already did that”-he raised his hand and pointed to the tower rising over the Olympic Park-“right here in this city, in front of all the world’s cameras. It wasn’t our job to give them another opportunity to justify the massacre of innocents.”

He lowered his hand and leaned across the table. It was then that he told Gabriel of the prime minister’s wishes. His breath froze before him as he spoke.

“I don’t want to kill an old man,” Gabriel said.

“He’s not an old man. He wears an old man’s clothing and hides behind an old man’s face, but he’s still Erich Radek, the monster who killed a dozen men at Auschwitz because they couldn’t identify a piece of Brahms. The monster who killed two girls by the side of a Polish road because they wouldn’t deny the atrocities of Birkenau. The monster who opened the graves of millions and subjected their corpses to one final humiliation. Infirmity does not forgive such sins.”

Gabriel looked up and held Shamron’s insistent gaze. “I know he’s a monster. I just don’t want to kill him. I want the world to know what this man did.”

“Then you’d better be ready to do battle with him.” Shamron glared at his wristwatch. “I’m bringing in someone to help you prepare. In fact, he should be arriving shortly.”

“Why am I being told about this now? I thought I was the one making all the operational decisions.”

“You are,” Shamron said. “But sometimes I have to show you the way. That’s what old men are for.”

NEITHER GABRIEL NOR Shamron believed in harbingers or omens. If they had, the operation that brought Moshe Rivlin from Yad Vashem to the safe house in Munich would have cast doubt on the team’s ability to carry out the task before them.

Shamron wanted Rivlin approached quietly. Unfortunately, King Saul Boulevard entrusted the job to a pair of apprentices fresh from the Academy, both markedly Sephardic in appearance. They decided to contact Rivlin while he walked home from Yad Vashem to his apartment near the Yehuda Market. Rivlin, who had grown up in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and was still vigilant when walking the streets, quickly noticed that he was being followed by two men in a car. He assumed them to be Hamas suicide bombers or a pair of street criminals. When the car pulled alongside him and the passenger asked for a word, Rivlin broke into a lopsided run. To everyone’s surprise, the tubby archivist proved himself to be an elusive prey, and he evaded his captors for several minutes before finally being cornered by the two Office agents in Ben Yehuda Street.

He arrived at the safe flat in Lehel late that evening, bearing two suitcases filled with research material and a chip on his shoulder over the way his summons had been handled. “How do you expect to snatch a man like Erich Radek if you can’t grab one fat archivist? Come on,” he said, pulling Gabriel into the privacy of the back bedroom. “We have a lot of ground to cover and not much time to do it.”

ON THE SEVENTH DAY, Adrian Carter came to Munich. It was a Wednesday; he arrived at the safe flat in the late afternoon, as the dusk was turning to dark. The passport in the pocket of his Burberry overcoat still said Brad Cantwell. Gabriel and Shamron were just returning from an outing in the English Gardens and were bundled in their hats and scarves. Gabriel had dispatched the rest of the team members to their final staging positions, so the safe flat was empty of Office personnel. Only Rivlin remained. He greeted the deputy director of the CIA with his shirttail out and his shoes off and called himself Yaacov. The archivist had adapted well to the discipline of the operation.

Gabriel made the tea. Carter unbuttoned his coat and led himself on a preoccupied tour of the flat. He spent a long time in front of the maps. Carter believed in maps. Maps never lied to you. Maps never told you what they thought youwanted to hear.

“I like what you’ve done with the place, Herr Heller.” Carter finally removed his overcoat. “Neocontemporary squalor. And the smell. I’m sure I know it. Carry-out from the Wienerwald down the block, if I’m not mistaken.”

Gabriel handed him a mug of tea with the string from the bag still dangling over the edge of the rim. “Why are you here, Adrian?”

“I thought I’d pop over to see if I could be of help.”

“Bullshit.”

Carter cleared a spot on the couch and sat down heavily, a salesman at the end of a long and fruitless road trip. “Truth be told, I’m here at the behest of my director. It seems he’s getting a serious case of preoperative jitters. He feels we’re out on a limb together and you boys are the ones holding the chainsaw. He wants the Agency to be brought into the picture.”

“Meaning?”

“He wants to know the game plan.”

“You know the game plan, Adrian. I told you the game plan in Virginia. It hasn’t changed.”

“I know the broad strokes of the plan,” Carter said. “Now I’d like to see the fine print.”

“What you’re saying is that your director wants to review the plan and sign off on it.”

“Something like that. He also wants me standing on the sidelines with Ari when it goes down.”

“And if we tell him to go to hell?”

“I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance someone will whisper a warning in Erich Radek’s ear, and you’ll lose him. Play ball with the director, Gabriel. It’s the only way you’ll get Radek.”

“We’re ready to move, Adrian. Now is not the time for helpful suggestions from the seventh floor.”

Shamron sat down next to Carter. “If your director had an ounce of brains, he’d stay as far away from this as possible.”

“I tried to explain that to him-not in those terms, mind you, but something close. He’d have none of it. He came from Wall Street, our director. He likes to think of himself as a hands-on, take-charge sort of fellow. Always knew what every division of the company was doing. Tries to run the Agency the same way. And as you know, he’s also a friend of the president. If you cross him, he’ll call the White House, and it’ll be over.”

Gabriel looked to Shamron, who gritted his teeth and nodded. Carter got his briefing. Shamron remained seated for a few minutes, but soon he was up and pacing the room, a chef whose secret recipes are being given to a competitor up the street. When it was finished, Carter took a long time loading the bowl of his pipe with tobacco.

“Sounds to me as if you gentlemen are ready,” he said. “What are you waiting for? If I were you, I’d put it in motion before my hands-on director decides he wants to be part of the snatch team.”

Gabriel agreed. He picked up the telephone and dialed Uzi Navot in Zurich.

33 VIENNA • MUNICH

KLAUS HALDER KNOCKEDsoftly on the door of the study. The voice on the other side granted permission for him to enter. He pushed open the door and saw the old man seated in the half-light, his eyes fixed on the flickering screen of the television: a Metzler rally that afternoon in Graz, adoring crowds, talk already turning to the composition of the Metzler cabinet. The old man killed the image by remote and turned his blue eyes on the bodyguard. Halder glanced toward the telephone. A green light was winking.

“Who is it?”

“Herr Becker, calling from Zurich.”

The old man picked up the receiver. “Good evening, Konrad.”

“Good evening, Herr Vogel. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I’m afraid it couldn’t wait.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Oh, no, quite the contrary. Given the recent election news from Vienna, I’ve decided to quicken the pace of my preparations and proceed as though Peter Metzler’s victory is a fait accompli.”

“A wise course of action, Konrad.”

“I thought you’d agree. I have several documents that require your signature. I thought it would be best for us to start that process now rather than waiting until the last moment.”

“What sort of documents?”

“My lawyer will be able to explain them better than I can. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to come to Vienna for a meeting. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

“How does Friday sound?”

“Friday would be fine, as long as it’s late afternoon. I have an appointment in the morning that can’t be moved.”

“Shall we say four o’clock?”

“Five would be better for me, Herr Vogel.”

“All right, Friday at five o’clock.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Konrad?”

“Yes, Herr Vogel.”

“This lawyer – tell me his name, please.”

“Oskar Lange, Herr Vogel. He’s a very talented man. I’ve used him many times in the past.”

“I assume he’s a fellow who understands the meaning of the word ‘discretion’?”

“Discreet doesn’t even begin to describe him. You’re in very capable hands.”

“Goodbye, Konrad.”

The old man hung up the phone and looked at Halder.

“He’s bringing someone with him?”

A slow nod.

“He’s always come alone in the past. Why is he suddenly bringing along a helper?”

“Herr Becker is about to receive one hundred million dollars, Klaus. If there’s one man in the world we can trust, it’s the gnome from Zurich.”

The bodyguard moved toward the door.

“Klaus?”

“Yes, Herr Vogel?”

“Perhaps you’re right. Call some of our friends in Zurich. See if anyone’s heard of a lawyer named Oskar Lange.”

ONE HOUR LATER, a recording of Becker’s telephone call was sent by secure transmission from the offices of Becker amp; Puhl in Zurich to the safe flat in Munich. They listened to it once, then again, then a third time. Adrian Carter did not like what he heard.

“You realize that as soon as Radek put down the phone, he made a second phone call to Zurich to check out Oskar Lange. I hope you’ve accounted for that.”

Shamron seemed disappointed in Carter. “What do you think, Adrian? We’ve never done this sort of thing before? We’re children who need to be shown the way?”

Carter put a match to his pipe and puffed smoke, awaiting his answer.

“Have you ever heard of the termsayan?” Shamron said. “Orsayanim?”

Carter nodded with the pipe between his teeth. “Your little volunteer helpers,” he said. “The hotel clerks who give you rooms without checking in. The rental car agents who give you cars that can’t be traced. The doctors who treat your agents when they have wounds that might raise difficult questions. The bankers who give you emergency loans.”

Shamron nodded. “We’re a small intelligence service, twelve hundred full-time employees, that’s all. We couldn’t do what we do without the help of thesayanim. They’re one of the few benefits of the Diaspora, my private army of little volunteer helpers.”

“And Oskar Lange?”

“He’s a Zurich tax and estate lawyer. He also happens to be Jewish. It’s something that he doesn’t advertise in Zurich. A few years ago, I took Oskar to dinner in a quiet little restaurant on the lake and added him to my list of helpers. Last week, I asked him for a favor. I wanted to borrow his passport and his office, and I wanted him to disappear for a couple of weeks. When I told him why, he was all too willing to help. In fact, he wanted to go to Vienna himself and help capture Radek.”

“I hope he’s in a secure location.”

“You might say so, Adrian. He’s in a safe flat in Jerusalem at the moment.”

Shamron reached down toward the tape player, pressed REWIND, STOP, then PLAY:

“How does Friday sound?”

“Friday would be fine, as long as it’s late afternoon. I have an appointment in the morning that can’t be moved.”

“Shall we say four o’clock?”

“Five would be better for me, Herr Vogel.”

“All right, Friday at five o’clock.”

STOP.

MOSHE RIVLIN LEFT the safe flat the following morning and returned to Israel on an El Al flight, with an Office minder in the seat next to him. Gabriel remained until seven o’clock Thursday evening, when a Volkswagen van with two pairs of skis mounted to the roof pulled up outside the flat and honked its horn twice. He slipped his Beretta into the waist of his trousers. Carter wished him luck; Shamron kissed his cheek and sent him down.

Shamron opened the curtains and peered into the darkened street. Gabriel emerged from the passageway and went to the driver’s side window. After a moment of discussion, the door opened and Chiara emerged. She walked around the front of the van and was briefly illuminated by the glow of the headlights before climbing into the passenger seat.

The van eased away from the curb. Shamron followed its progress until the crimson taillights disappeared around a corner. He did not move. The waiting. Always the waiting. His lighter flared, a cloud of smoke gathered against the glass.

34 ZURICH

KONRAD BECKER AND Uzi Navot emerged from the offices of Becker amp; Puhl at precisely four minutes past one o’clock on Friday afternoon. An Office watcher called Zalman, posted on the opposite side of the Talstrasse in a gray Fiat sedan, recorded the time as well as the weather, a drenching downpour, then flashed the news to Shamron in the Munich safe flat. Becker was dressed for a funeral, in a gray pinstripe suit and charcoal-colored tie. Navot, mimicking Oskar Lange’s stylish attire, wore an Armani blazer with matching electric blue shirt and tie. Becker had ordered a taxi to take him to the airport. Shamron would have preferred a private car, with an Office driver, but Becker always traveled to the airport by taxi and Gabriel wanted his routine left undisturbed. So it was an ordinary city taxi, driven by a Turkish immigrant, that bore them out of central Zurich and across a fogbound river valley to Kloten Airport, with Gabriel’s watcher in tow.

They were soon confronted with the first glitch. A cold front had moved over Zurich, turning the rain to sleet and ice and forcing Kloten Airport authorities to briefly suspend operations. Swiss International Airlines Flight 1578, bound for Vienna, boarded on time, then sat motionless on the tarmac. Shamron and Adrian Carter, monitoring the situation on the computers in the Munich safe flat, debated their next move. Should they instruct Becker to call Radek and warn him about the delay? What if Radek had other plans and decided to cancel the meeting and reschedule it for another time? The teams and vehicles were at final staging positions. A temporary stand-down would jeopardize operational security. Wait, counseled Shamron, and wait is what they did.

By 2:30, weather conditions had improved. Kloten reopened and Flight 1578 took its place in the queue at the end of the runway. Shamron made the calculations. The flight to Vienna took less than ninety minutes. If they got off the ground soon, they could still make it to Vienna in time.

At 2:45, the plane was airborne, and disaster was averted. Shamron flashed the reception team at Schwechat Airport in Vienna that their package was on its way.

The storm over the Alps made the flight to Vienna a good deal more turbulent than Becker would have preferred. To settle his nerves he consumed three miniature bottles of Stolichnaya and visited the toilet twice, all of which was recorded by Zalman, who was seated three rows behind. Navot, a picture of concentration and serenity, stared out the window at the sea of black cloud, his sparkling water untouched.

They touched down at Schwechat a few minutes after four o’clock in a dirty gray twilight. Zalman shadowed them through the terminal toward passport control. Becker made one more visit to the toilet. Navot, with an almost imperceptible movement of his eyes, commanded Zalman to go with him. After availing himself of the facilities, the banker spent three minutes primping in front of the mirror-an inordinate amount of time, thought Zalman, for a man with virtually no hair. The watcher considered giving Becker a kick in the ankle to move him along, then decided to let him have the reins instead. He was, after all, an amateur acting under duress.

After clearing passport control, Becker and Navot made their way into the arrivals hall. There, standing amid the crowds, was a tall, reedy surveillance specialist called Mordecai. He wore a drab black suit and held a cardboard sign that read BAUER. His car, a large black Mercedes sedan, was waiting in short-term parking. Two spaces away was a silver Audi hatchback. The keys were in Zalman’s pocket.

Zalman gave them wide berth during the drive into Vienna. He dialed the Munich safe flat, and with a few carefully chosen words let Shamron know that Navot and Becker were on time and proceeding toward the target. By 4:45, Mordecai had reached the Danube Canal. By 4:50, he had crossed the line into the First District and was making his way through the rush-hour traffic along the Ringstrasse. He turned right, into a narrow cobblestone street, then made the first left. A moment later, he drew to a stop in front of Erich Radek’s ornate iron gate. Zalman slipped past on the left and kept driving.

“FLASH THE LIGHTS,” Becker said, “and the bodyguard will admit you.”

Mordecai did as he was told. The gate remained motionless for several tense seconds; then there was a sharp metallic clank, followed by the grind of a motor engaging. As the gate swung slowly open, Radek’s bodyguard appeared at the front door, the intense light of a chandelier blazing around his head and shoulders like a halo. Mordecai waited until the gate was fully open before easing forward into the small horseshoe drive.

Navot climbed out first, then Becker. The banker shook the bodyguard’s hand and introduced “my associate from Zurich, Herr Oskar Lange.” The bodyguard nodded and gestured for them to come inside. The front door closed.

Mordecai looked at his watch: 4:58. He picked up his cell phone and dialed a Vienna number.

“I’m going to be late for dinner,” he said.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

A FEW SECONDS LATER, in Munich, the signal flashed across Shamron’s computer screen. Shamron looked at his watch.

“How long are you going to give them?” Carter asked.

“Five minutes,” Shamron said, “and not a second more.”

THE BLACK AUDIsedan with a tall antenna mounted to the trunk was parked a few streets over. Zalman pulled in behind it, then climbed out and walked to the passenger door. Oded was seated behind the wheel, a compact man with soft brown eyes and a pugilist’s flattened nose. Zalman, settling in next to him, could smell tension on his breath. Zalman had had the advantage of activity that afternoon; Oded had been trapped in the Vienna safe flat with nothing to do but daydream about the consequences of failure. A cell phone lay on the seat, the connection already open to Munich. Zalman could hear Shamron’s steady breathing. A picture formed in his mind-a younger version of Shamron marching through a drenching Argentine rain, Eichmann stepping off a city bus and walking toward him from the opposite direction. Oded started the car engine. Zalman was hauled back to the present. He glanced at the dashboard clock: 5:03…

THE E461, BETTER known to Austrians as the Brünnerstrasse, is a two-lane road that runs north from Vienna through the rolling hills of theWeinviertel, Austria ’s wine country. It is fifty miles to the Czech border. There is a crossing, sheltered by a high arching canopy, usually manned by two guards who are reluctant to leave the comfort of their aluminum and glass hut to carry out even the most cursory inspection of outgoing vehicles. On the Czech side of the crossing, the examination of travel documents typically takes a bit longer, though traffic from Austria is generally welcomed with open arms.

One mile across the border, anchored to the hills of South Moravia, stands the ancient town of Mikulov. It is a border town, with a border town’s siege mentality. It suited Gabriel’s mood. He stood behind the brick parapet of a medieval castle, high above the red-tile roofs of the old city, beneath a pair of wind-bent pine. The cold rain beaded like tears on the surface of his oilskin coat. His gaze was down the hillside, toward the border. In the blackness, only the lights of the traffic along the highway were visible, white lights rising toward him, red lights receding toward the Austrian border.

He looked at his watch. They would be inside Radek’s villa now. Gabriel could picture briefcases opening, coffee and drinks being poured. And then another image appeared, a line of women dressed in gray, making their way along a snowy road drenched in blood. His mother, shedding tears of ice.

“What will you tell your child about the war, Jew?”

“The truth, Herr Sturmbannführer. I’ll tell my child the truth.”

“No one will believe you.”

She had not told him the truth, of course. Instead, she had set the truth to paper and locked it away in the file rooms of Yad Vashem. Perhaps Yad Vashem was the best place for it. Perhaps there are some truths so appalling they are better left confined to an archive of horrors, quarantined from the uninfected. She had been unable to tell him she was Radek’s victim, just as Gabriel could never tell her he was Shamron’s executioner. She always knew, though. She knew the face of death, and she had seen death in Gabriel’s eyes.

The telephone in his coat pocket vibrated silently against his hip. He brought it slowly to his ear and heard the voice of Shamron. He dropped the telephone into his pocket and stood for a moment, watching the headlights floating toward him across the black Austrian plain.

“What will you say to him when you see him?”Chiara had asked.

The truth,Gabriel thought now.I’ll tell him the truth.

He started walking, down the narrow stone streets of the ancient town, into the darkness.

35 VIENNA

UZI NAVOT KNEW a thing or two about body searches. Klaus Halder was very good at his job. He started with Navot’s shirt collar and ended with the cuffs of his Armani trousers. Next he turned his attention to the attaché case. He worked slowly, like a man with all the time in the world, and with a monkish attention to detail. When the search was finally over, he straightened the contents carefully and snapped the latches back into place. “Herr Vogel will see you now,” he said. “Follow me, please.”

They walked the length of the central corridor, then passed through a pair of double doors and entered a drawing room. Erich Radek, in a herringbone jacket and rust-colored tie, was seated near the fireplace. He acknowledged his guests with a single nod of his narrow head but made no attempt to rise. Radek, Navot gathered, was a man used to receiving visitors seated.

The bodyguard slipped quietly from the room and closed the doors behind him. Becker, smiling, stepped forward and shook Radek’s hand. Navot did not wish to touch the murderer, but given the circumstances he had no choice. The proffered hand was cool and dry, the grip firm and without a tremor. It was a testing handshake. Navot sensed that he had passed.

Radek flicked his fingers toward the empty chairs, then his hand returned to the drink resting on the arm of his chair. He began twisting it back and forth, two twists to the right, two to the left. Something about the movement made acid pour into Navot’s stomach.

“I hear very good things about your work, Herr Lange,” Radek said suddenly. “You have a fine reputation among your colleagues in Zurich.”

“All lies, I assure you, Herr Vogel.”

“You’re too modest.” He twisted his drink. “You did some work for a friend of mine a few years back, a gentleman named Helmut Schneider.”

And you’re trying to lead me into a trap,thought Navot. He had prepared himself for a ploy like this. The real Oskar Lange had provided a list of his clients for the last ten years for Navot to memorize. The name Helmut Schneider had not appeared on it.

“I’ve handled a good many clients over the last few years, but I’m afraid the name Schneider was not among them. Perhaps your friend has me confused with someone else.”

Navot looked down, opened the latches of his attaché case, and lifted the lid. When he looked up again, Radek’s blue eyes were boring into his, and his drink was rotating on the arm of the chair. There was a frightening stillness about his eyes. It was like being studied by a portrait.

“Perhaps you’re right.” Radek’s conciliatory tone did not match his expression. “Konrad said you required my signature on some documents concerning the liquidation of the assets in the account.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

Navot removed a file from his attaché and placed the attaché on the floor at his feet. Radek followed the progress of the briefcase downward, then returned his gaze to Navot’s face. Navot lifted the lid of the file folder and looked up. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Sharp and electronic, it sounded to Navot’s sensitive ears like a scream in a cemetery.

Radek made no movement. Navot glanced toward the Biedermeier desk, and the telephone rang a second time. It started to ring a third time, then went suddenly silent, as though it had been muzzled midscream. Navot could hear Halder, the bodyguard, speaking on an extension in the corridor.

“Good evening… No, I’m sorry, but Herr Vogel is in a meeting at the moment.”

Navot removed the first document from the file. Radek was now visibly distracted, his gaze distant. He was listening to the sound of his bodyguard’s voice. Navot inched forward in his chair and held the paper at an angle so Radek could see it.

“This is the first document that requires-”

Radek lifted his hand, demanding silence. Navot heard footfalls in the corridor, followed by the sound of the doors opening. The bodyguard stepped into the room and walked to Radek’s side.

“It’s Manfred Kruz,” he said in a chapel murmur. “He’d like a word. He says it’s urgent and can’t wait.”

ERICH RADEK ROSE slowly from his chair and walked to the telephone.

“What is it, Manfred?”

“The Israelis.”

“What about them?”

“I have intelligence to suggest that during the past few days a large team of operatives has assembled in Vienna in order to kidnap you.”

“How certain are you of your intelligence?”

“Certain enough to conclude it’s no longer safe for you to remain in your home. I’ve dispatched a Staatspolizei unit to collect you and take you to a safe location.”

“No one can get inside here, Manfred. Just put an armed guard outside the house.”

“We’re dealing with theIsraelis, Herr Vogel. I want you out of the house.”

“All right, if you insist, but tell your unit to stand down. Klaus can handle it.”

“One bodyguard isn’t enough. I’m responsible for your security, and I want you under police protection. I’m afraid I have to insist. The intelligence I have is very specific.”

“When will your officers be here?”

“Any minute. Get ready to move.”

He hung up the telephone and looked at the two men seated next to the fire. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m afraid I have something of an emergency. We’ll have to finish this another time.” He turned to his bodyguard. “Open the gates, Klaus, and get me a coat.Now. ”

THE MOTORS OF the front gates engaged. Mordecai, seated behind the wheel of the Mercedes, looked into his rearview mirror and saw a car turning into the drive from the street, a blue light whirling on the dash. It pulled up behind him and braked hard. Two men piled out and bounded up the front steps. Mordecai reached down and slowly turned the ignition.

ERICH RADEK WENT into the corridor. Navot packed his attaché case and stood. Becker remained frozen in place. Navot hooked his fingers beneath the banker’s armpit and lifted him to his feet.

They followed Radek into the corridor. Blue emergency lights flashed across the walls and ceilings. Radek was next to his bodyguard, speaking quietly into his ear. The bodyguard was holding an overcoat and looked tense. As he helped Radek into the coat, his eyes were on Navot.

There was a knock at the door, two sharp reports that echoed from the high ceiling and marble floor of the corridor. The bodyguard released Radek’s overcoat and turned the latch. Two men in plainclothes pushed past and entered the house.

“Are you ready, Herr Vogel?”

Radek nodded, then turned and looked once more at Navot and Becker. “Again, please accept my apologies, gentlemen. I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience.”

Radek turned toward the door, Klaus at his shoulder. One of the officers blocked his path and put a hand on the bodyguard’s chest. The bodyguard swatted it away.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Herr Kruz gave us very specific instructions. We were to take only Herr Vogel into protective custody.”

“Kruz would have never given an order like that. He knows that I go whereverhe goes. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“I’m sorry, but those were our orders.”

“Let me see your badge and identification.”

“There isn’t time. Please, Herr Vogel. Come with us.”

The bodyguard took a step back and reached inside his jacket. As the gun came into view, Navot lunged forward. With his left hand, he seized the bodyguard’s wrist and pinned the gun against his abdomen. With his right, he delivered two vicious open-handed blows to the back of the neck. The first blow staggered Halder; the second caused his knees to buckle. His hand relaxed, and the Glock clattered to the marble floor.

Radek looked at the gun and for an instant thought about trying to pick it up. Instead, he turned and lunged toward the open door of his study and slammed it shut.

Navot tried the latch. Locked.

He took a few steps back and drove his shoulder into the door. The wood splintered and he tumbled into the darkened room. He scrambled to his feet and saw that Radek had already moved away the false front of a bookcase and was standing inside a small, phone-booth-sized lift.

Navot sprang forward as the elevator door started to close. He managed to get both his arms inside and grab Radek by the lapels of his overcoat. As the door slammed against Navot’s left shoulder, Radek seized his wrists and tried to break free. Navot held firm.

Oded and Zalman came to his aid. Zalman, the taller of the two, reached over Navot’s head and pulled against the door. Oded slithered between Navot’s legs and applied pressure from below. Under the onslaught, the door finally slid open again.

Navot dragged Radek out of the elevator. There was no time for subterfuge or deception now. Navot clamped a hand over the old man’s mouth, Zalman took hold of his legs and lifted him off the floor. Oded found the light switch and doused the chandelier.

Navot glanced at Becker. “Get in the car. Move, you idiot.”

They bundled Radek down the steps toward the Audi. Radek was pulling at Navot’s hand, trying to break the vise grip over his mouth, and kicking hard with his legs. Navot could hear Zalman swearing under his breath. Somehow, even in the heat of battle, he managed to swear in German.

Oded threw open the rear door before running around the back of the car and climbing behind the wheel. Navot pushed Radek headfirst into the back and pinned him to the seat. Zalman forced his way inside and closed the door. Becker climbed into the back of the Mercedes. Mordecai accelerated hard, and the car lurched into the street, the Audi following closely.

RADEK’S BODY WENT suddenly still. Navot removed his hand from Radek’s mouth, and the Austrian gulped greedily of the air.

“You’re hurting me,” he said. “I can’t breathe.”

“I’ll let you up, but you have to promise to behave yourself. No more escape attempts. Do you promise?”

“Just let me up. You’re crushing me, you fool.”

“I will, old man. Just do me a favor first. Tell me your name, please.”

“You know my name. My name is Vogel. Ludwig Vogel.”

“No, no, not that name. Yourreal name.”

“That is my real name.”

“Do you want to sit up and leave Vienna like a man, or am I going to have to sit on you the whole way?”

“I want to sit up. You’re hurting me, damn it!”

“Just tell me your name.”

He was silent for a moment, then he murmured, “My name is Radek.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t hear you. Can you say your name again, please? Loudly this time.”

He drew a deep breath of air and his body went rigid, as though he were standing at attention instead of lying across the back seat of a car.

“My-name-is-Sturmbannführer-Erich-Radek!”

IN THE MUNICH safe flat, the message flashed across Shamron’s computer screen: PACKAGE HAS BEEN RECEIVED.

Carter clapped him on the back. “I’ll be goddamned! They got him. They actually got him.”

Shamron stood and walked to the map. “Getting him was always the easiest part of the operation, Adrian. Getting him out is quite another thing.”

He gazed at the map. Fifty miles to the Czech border.Drive, Oded, he thought.Drive like you’ve never driven before in your life.

36 VIENNA

ODED HAD MADE the drive a dozen times but never like this-never with the siren screaming and the blue light whirling on the dash, and never with Erich Radek’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring back into his own. Their flight from the city center had gone better than expected. The evening traffic had been persistent, but never so heavy that it didn’t part for his siren and flashing light. Twice, Radek rebelled. Each uprising was ruthlessly put down by Navot and Zalman.

They were racing north now on the E461. The Vienna traffic was gone, the rain was falling steadily and freezing at the edges of the windshield. A sign flashed past: CZECH REPUBLIC 42KM. Navot took a long look over his shoulder, then, in Hebrew, instructed Oded to kill the siren and the lights.

“Where are we going?” Radek asked, his breathing labored. “Where are you taking me? Where?”

Navot said nothing, just as Gabriel had instructed.“Let him ask questions till he’s blue in the face,” Gabriel had said.“Just don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Let the uncertainty prey on his mind. That’s what he would do if the roles were reversed.”

So Navot watched the villages flashing past his window-Mistelbach, Wilfersdorf, Erdberg-and thought of only one thing, the bodyguard he had left unconscious in the entranceway of Radek’s house on the Stöbbergasse.

Poysdorf appeared before them. Oded sped through the village, then turned into a two-lane road and followed it eastward through snow-covered pine.

“Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”

Navot could endure his questions in silence no longer.

“We’re going home,” he snapped. “And you’re coming with us.”

Radek managed a glacial smile. “You made only one mistake tonight, Herr Lange. You should have killed my bodyguard when you had the chance.”

KLAUS HALDER OPENED one eye, then the other. The darkness was absolute. He lay very still for a moment, trying to determine the position of his body. He had fallen forward, with his arms at his sides, and his right cheek was pressed against cold marble. He tried to lift his head, a bolt of thunderous pain shot down his neck. He remembered it now, the instant it had happened. He’d been reaching for his gun when he’d been clubbed twice from behind. It was the lawyer from Zurich, Oskar Lange. Obviously, Lange was no mere lawyer. He’d been in on it, just as Halder had feared from the beginning.

He pushed himself onto his knees and sat back against the wall. He closed his eyes and waited until the room stopped spinning, then rubbed the back of his head. It was swollen the size of an apple. He raised his left wrist and squinted at the luminous dial of his wristwatch: 5:57. When had it happened? A few minutes after five, 5:10 at the latest. Unless they’d had a helicopter waiting on the Stephansplatz, chances were they were still in Austria.

He patted the right front pocket of his sport jacket and found that his cell phone was still there. He fished it out and dialed. Two rings. A familiar voice.

“This is Kruz.”

THIRTY SECONDS LATER, Manfred Kruz slammed down the phone and considered his options. The most obvious response would be to sound the alarm Klaxons, alert every police unit in the country that the old man had been seized by Israeli agents, close the borders and shut down the airport. Obvious, yes, but very dangerous. A move like that would raise many uncomfortable questions.Why was Herr Vogel kidnapped? Who is he really? Peter Metzler’s candidacy would be swept away, and so too would Kruz’s career. Even in Austria, such affairs had a way of taking on a life of their own, and Kruz had seen enough of them to know that the inquiry would not end at Vogel’s doorstep.

The Israelis had known he would be hamstrung, and they had chosen their moment well. Kruz had to think of some subtle way to intervene, some way to impede the Israelis without destroying everything in the process. He picked up the telephone and dialed.

“This is Kruz. The Americans have informed us that they believe an al-Qaeda team may be transiting the country by automobile this evening. They suspect the al-Qaeda members might be traveling with European sympathizers in order to better blend into their surroundings. As of this moment, I’m activating the terrorism alert network. Raise security at the borders, airports, and train stations to Category Two status.”

He rang off and gazed out the window. He had thrown the old man a lifeline. He wondered whether he would be in any condition to grab it. Kruz knew that if he succeeded, he would soon be confronted with yet another problem-what to do with the Israeli snatch team. He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and removed a slip of paper.

“If I dial this number, who’s going to answer?”

“Violence.”

Manfred Kruz reached for his telephone.

THE CLOCKMAKER, SINCE his return to Vienna, had scarcely found cause to leave the sanctuary of his little shop in the Stephansdom Quarter. His frequent travels had left him with a large backlog of pieces requiring his attention, including a Vienna Biedermeier regulator clock, built by the renowned Vienna clockmaker Ignaz Marenzeller in 1840. The mahogany case was in pristine condition, though the one-piece silvered dial had required many hours of restoration. The original handmade Biedermeier movement, with its 75-day runner, lay in several carefully arranged pieces on the surface of his worktable.

The telephone rang. He lowered the volume on his portable CD player, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G faded to a whisper. A prosaic choice, Bach, but then the Clockmaker found the precision of Bach a perfect accompaniment to the task of dismantling and rebuilding the movement of an antique timepiece. He reached out for the telephone with his left hand. A shock wave of pain shot down the length of his arm, a reminder of his exploits in Rome and Argentina. He brought the receiver to his right ear and cradled it against his shoulder. “Yes,” he said inattentively. His hands were already at work again.

“I was given your number by a mutual friend.”

“I see,” the Clockmaker said noncommittally. “How can I help you?”

“It’s not me who requires help. It’s our friend.”

The Clockmaker laid down his tools. “Our friend?” he asked.

“You did some work for him in Rome and Argentina. I assume you know the man I am referring to?”

The Clockmaker did indeed. So, the old man had misled him and twice put him in compromising situations in the field. Now he had committed the mortal operational sin of giving his name to a stranger. Obviously he was in trouble. The Clockmaker suspected it had something to do with the Israelis. He decided that now would be an excellent moment to sever their relationship. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I believe you have me confused with someone else.”

The man at the other end of the line tried to object. The Clockmaker hung up the phone and turned up the volume on his CD player, until the sound of Bach filled his workshop.

IN THE MUNICH safe flat, Carter hung up the telephone and looked at Shamron, who was still standing before the map, as if imagining Radek’s progress northward toward the Czech border.

“That was from our Vienna station. They’re monitoring the Austrian communications net. It seems Manfred Kruz has taken their terror alert readiness to Category Two.”

“Category Two? What does that mean?”

“It means you’re likely to have a bit of trouble at the border.”

THE TURNOUT LAY in a hollow at the edge of a frozen streambed. There were two vehicles, an Opel sedan and a Volkswagen van. Chiara sat behind the wheel of the Volkswagen, headlights doused, engine silent, the comforting weight of a Beretta across her lap. There was no other sign of life, no lights from the village, no grumble of traffic along the highway, only the rattle of sleet on the roof of the van and the whistle of the wind through the spires of the fir trees.

She glanced over her shoulder and peered into the rear compartment of the Volkswagen. It had been prepared for Radek’s arrival. The rear foldout bed was deployed. Beneath the bed was the specially constructed compartment where he would be hidden for the border crossing. He would be comfortable there, more comfortable than he deserved.

She looked out the windshield. Not much to see, the narrow road rising into the gloom toward a crest in the distance. Then, suddenly, there was light, a clean white glow that lit the horizon and turned the trees to black minarets. For a few seconds, it was possible to see the sleet, swirling like a cloud of insects on the windswept air. Then the headlamps appeared. The car breasted the hill, and the lights bore into her, throwing the shadows of the trees one way, then another. Chiara wrapped her hand around the Beretta and slipped her forefinger inside the trigger guard.

The car skidded to a stop next to the van. She peered into the back seat and saw the murderer, seated between Navot and Zalman, rigid as a commissar waiting for the blood purge. She crawled into the rear compartment and made one final check.

“TAKE OFF YOUR OVERCOAT, ” Navot commanded.

“Why?”

“Because I told you to.”

“I have a right to know why.”

“You have no rights! Just do as I say.”

Radek sat motionless. Zalman pulled at the lapel of his coat, but the old man folded his arms tightly across his chest. Navot sighed heavily. If the old bastard wanted one final wrestling match, he was going to get it. Navot pried open his arms while Zalman pulled off the right sleeve, then the left. The herringbone jacket came next, then Zalman tore open his shirtsleeve and exposed the sagging bare skin of his arm. Navot produced a syringe, loaded with the sedative.

“This is for your own good,” Navot said. “It’s mild and very short in duration. It will make your journey much more bearable. No claustrophobia.”

“I’ve never been claustrophobic.”

“I don’t care.”

Navot plunged the needle into Radek’s arm and depressed the plunger. After a few seconds, Radek’s body relaxed, then his head fell to one side and his jaw went slack. Navot opened the door and climbed out. He took hold of Radek’s limp body beneath the armpits and dragged him out of the car.

Zalman picked him up by the legs, and together they carried him like war dead to the side of the Volkswagen. Chiara was crouched inside, holding an oxygen bottle and a clear plastic mask. Navot and Zalman laid Radek on the floor of the Volkswagen, then Chiara placed the mask over his nose and mouth. The plastic fogged immediately, indicating that Radek was breathing well. She checked his pulse. Steady and strong. They maneuvered him into the compartment and closed the lid.

Chiara climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. Oded slid the side door shut and rapped his palm against the glass. Chiara slipped the Volkswagen into gear and headed back toward the highway. The others climbed into the Opel and followed after her.

FIVE MINUTES LATER, the lights of the border appeared like beacons on the horizon. As Chiara drew nearer, she could see a short line of traffic, about six vehicles in length, waiting to make the crossing. There were two border policeman in evidence. They had their flashlights out and were checking passports and looking through windows. She glanced over her shoulder. The doors over the compartment remained closed. Radek was silent.

The car in front of her passed inspection and was released to the Czech side. The border policeman waved her forward. She lowered her window and managed a smile.

“Passport, please.”

She handed it over. The second officer had maneuvered his way around to the passenger side of the van, and she could see the beam of his flashlight flickering around the interior.

“Is something wrong?”

The border policeman kept his eyes down on her photograph and said nothing.

“When did you enter Austria?”

“Earlier today.”

“Where?”

“From Italy, at Tarvísio.”

He spent a moment comparing her face to the photo in the passport. Then he pulled open the front door and motioned for her to get out of the van.

UZI NAVOT WATCHED the scene from his vantage point in the front passenger seat of the Opel. He looked at Oded and swore softly under his breath. Then he dialed the Munich safe flat on his cell phone. Shamron answered on the first ring.

“We’ve got a problem,” Navot said.

HE ORDERED HER to stand in front of the van and shone a light in her face. Through the glare she could see the second border policeman pulling open the side door of the Volkswagen. She forced herself to look at her interrogator. She tried not to think of the Beretta pressing against her spine. Or of Gabriel, waiting on the other side of the border in Mikulov. Or Navot, Oded, and Zalman, watching helplessly from the Opel.

“Where are you traveling to this evening?”

“ Prague,” she said.

“Why are you going to Prague?”

She shot him a look-None of your business.Then she said, “I’m going to see my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” he repeated. “What does your boyfriend do in Prague?”

“He teaches Italian,”Gabriel had said.

She answered the question.

“Where does he teach?”

“At the Prague Institute of Language Studies,”Gabriel had said.

Again, she answered as Gabriel had instructed.

“And how long has he been a teacher at the Prague Institute of Language Studies?”

“Three years.”

“And do you see him often?”

“Once a month, sometimes twice.”

The second officer had climbed inside the van. An image of Radek flashed through her mind, eyes closed, oxygen mask over his face.Don’t wake, she thought. Don’t stir. Don’t make a sound. Do the decent thing, for once in your wretched life.

“And when did you enter Austria?”

“I’ve told you that already.”

“Tell me again, please.”

“Earlier today.”

“What time?”

“I don’t remember the time.”

“Was it the morning? Was it the afternoon?”

“Afternoon.”

“Early afternoon? Late afternoon?”

“Early.”

“So it was still light?”

She hesitated; he pressed her. “Yes? It was still light?”

She nodded. From inside the van came the sound of cabinet doors being opened. She forced herself to look directly into the eyes of her questioner. His face, obscured by the harsh flashlight, began to take on the appearance of Erich Radek-not the pathetic version of Radek that lay unconscious in the back of the van, but the Radek who pulled a child named Irene Frankel from the ranks of the Birkenau death march in 1945 and led her into a Polish forest for one final moment of torment.

“Say the words, Jew! You were transferred to the east. You had plenty of food and proper medical care. The gas chambers and the crematoria are Bolshevik-Jewish lies.”

I can be as strong as you, Irene,she thought. I can get through this. For you.

“Did you stop anywhere in Austria?”

“No.”

“You didn’t take the opportunity to visit Vienna?”

“I’ve been to Vienna,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

He spent a moment examining her face.

“You are Italian, yes?”

“You have my passport in your hand.”

“I’m not referring to your passport. I’m talking about your ethnicity. Your blood. Are you of Italian descent, or are you an immigrant, from, say, the Middle East or North Africa?”

“I’m Italian,” she assured him.

The second officer climbed out of the Volkswagen and shook his head. Her interrogator handed over the passport. “I’m sorry for the delay,” he said. “Have a pleasant journey.”

Chiara climbed behind the wheel of the Volkswagen, slipped the van into gear, and eased over the border. The tears came, tears of relief, tears of anger. At first she tried to stop them, but it was no use. The road blurred, the taillights turned to red streamers, and still they came.

“For you, Irene,” she said aloud. “I did it for you.”

THE MIKULOV TRAIN station lies below the old town, where the hillside meets the plain. There is a single platform that endures a near-constant assault of wind pouring down out of the Carpathian Mountains, and a melancholy gravel car park that tends to pond over when it rains. Near the ticket office is a graffiti-scarred bus shelter, and it was there, pressed against the leeward side, where Gabriel waited, hands plunged into the pockets of his oilskin jacket.

He looked up as the van turned into the car park and crunched over the gravel. He waited until it came to a stop before stepping from the bus shelter into the rain. Chiara reached across and opened the door to him. When the overhead light came on, he could see her face was wet.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No, I can do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just get in, Gabriel. I can’t stand being alone with him.”

He climbed in and closed the door. Chiara turned around and headed back to the highway. A moment later, they were racing north, into the Carpathians.

IT TOOK A HALF-HOUR to reach Brno, another hour to get to Ostrava. Twice Gabriel opened the doors of the compartment to check on Radek. It was nearly eight o’clock when they reached the Polish border. No security checks this time, no line of traffic, just a hand poking from the brick bunker, waving them across the frontier.

Gabriel crawled to the back of the van and pulled Radek from the compartment. Then he opened a storage drawer and removed a syringe. This time it was filled with a mild dosing of stimulant, just enough to raise him gently back to the surface of consciousness. Gabriel inserted the needle into Radek’s arm, injected the drug, then removed the needle and swabbed the wound with alcohol. Radek’s eyes opened slowly. He surveyed his surroundings for a moment before settling on Gabriel’s face.

“Allon?” he murmured through the oxygen mask.

Gabriel nodded slowly.

“Where are you taking me?”

Gabriel said nothing.

“Am I going to die?” he asked, but before Gabriel could answer, he slipped below the surface once more.

37 EASTERN POLAND

THE BARRIER BETWEEN consciousness and coma was like a stage curtain, through which he could pass at will. How many times he slipped through this curtain he did not know. Time, like his old life, was lost to him. His beautiful house in Vienna seemed another man’s house, in another man’s city. Something had happened when he’d shouted out his real name at the Israelis. Ludwig Vogel was a stranger to him now, an acquaintance whom he had not seen in many years. He was Radek again. Unfortunately, time had not been kind to him. The towering, beautiful man in black was now imprisoned in a weak, failing body.

The Jew had placed him on the foldout bed. His hands and ankles were bound by thick silver packing tape, and he was belted into place like a mental patient. His wrists served as the portal between his two worlds. He had only to twist them at a certain angle, so that the tape dug painfully into his skin, and he would pass through the curtain from a dreamscape to the realm of the real. Dreams? Is it proper to call such visions dreams? No, they were too accurate, too telling. They were memories, over which he had no control, only the power to interrupt them for a few moments by hurting himself with the Jew’s packing tape.

His face was near the window, and the glass was unobstructed. He was able, when he was awake, to see the endless black countryside and the dreary, darkened villages. He was also able to read the road signs. He did not need the signs to know where he was. Once, in another lifetime, he had ruled the night in this land. He remembered this road: Dachnow, Zukow, Narol… He knew the name of the next village, even before it slid past his window:Belzec…

He closed his eyes. Why now, after so many years? After the war, no one had been terribly interested in a mere SD officer who had served in the Ukraine -no one but the Russians, of course-and by the time his name surfaced in connection with the Final Solution, General Gehlen had arranged for his escape and disappearance. His old life was safely behind him. He had been forgiven by God and his Church and even by his enemies, who had greedily availed themselves of his services when they too felt threatened by Jewish-Bolshevism. The governments soon lost interest in prosecuting the so-called war criminals, and the amateurs like Wiesenthal focused on the big fish like Eichmann and Mengele, unwittingly helping smaller fish like himself find sanctuary in sheltered waters. There had been one serious scare. In the mid-seventies, an American journalist, a Jew, of course, had come to Vienna and asked too many questions. On the road leading south from Salzburg he had plunged into a ravine, and the threat was eliminated. He had acted without hesitation then. Perhaps he should have hurled Max Klein into a ravine at the first sign of trouble. He’d noticed him that day at the Café Central, as well as the days that followed. His instincts had told him Klein was trouble. He’d hesitated. Then Klein had taken his story to the Jew Lavon, and it was too late.

He passed through the curtain again. He was in Berlin, sitting in the office of Gruppenführer Heinrich Müller, chief of the Gestapo. Müller is scraping a bit of lunch from his teeth and waving a letter he’d just received from Luther in the Foreign Office. It is 1942.

“It seems that rumors of our activities in the east have started to reach the ears of our enemies. We’ve also got a problem with one of the sites in the Warthegau region. Complaints about contamination of some kind.”

“If I may ask the obvious question, Herr Gruppenführer, what difference does it make if rumors reach the West? Who would believe that such a thing was truly possible?”

“Rumors are one thing, Erich. Evidence is quite another.”

“Who’s going to discover evidence? Some half-witted Polish serf? A slant-eyed Ukrainian ditchdigger?”

“Maybe the Ivans.”

“The Russians? How would they ever find-”

Müller held up a bricklayer’s hand. Discussion over. And then he understood. The Führer’s Russian adventure was not going according to plan. Victory in the east was no longer assured.

Müller leaned forward at the waist. “I’m sending you to hell, Erich. I’m going to stick that Nordic face of yours so deep in the shit you’ll never see daylight again.”

“How can I ever thank you, Herr Gruppenführer?”

“Clean up the mess. All of it. Everywhere. It’s your job to make sure it remains only a rumor. And when the operation is done, I want you to be the only man standing.”

He awakened. Müller’s face withdrew into the Polish night. Strange, isn’t it? His real contribution to the Final Solution was not killing but concealment and security, and yet he was in trouble now, sixty years on, because of a foolish game he’d played one drunken Sunday at Auschwitz.Aktion 1005? Yes, it had been his show, but no Jewish survivor would ever testify to his presence at the edge of a killing pit, because therewere no survivors. He’d run a tight operation. Eichmann and Himmler would have been advised to do the same. They’d been fools to allow so many to survive.

A memory rose, January 1945, a chain of ragged Jews straggling along a road very much like this one. The road from Birkenau. Thousands of Jews, each with a story to tell, each a witness. He’d argued for liquidation of the entire camp population before evacuation. No, he’d been told. Slave labor was urgently needed inside the Reich. Labor? Most of the Jews he’d seen leaving Birkenau could barely walk, let alone wield a pickax or a shovel. They weren’t fit for labor, only slaughter, and he’d killed quite a few himself. Why in God’s name did they order him to clean out the pits and then allow thousands of witnesses to walk out of a place like Birkenau?

He forced open his eyes and stared out the window. They were driving along the banks of a river, near the Ukrainian border. He knew this river, a river of ashes, a river of bone. He wondered how many hundreds of thousands were down there, silt on the bed of the River Bug.

A shuttered village: Uhrusk. He thought of Peter. He had warned this would happen. “If I ever become a serious threat to win the chancellery,” Peter had said, “someone will try to expose us.” He had known Peter was right, but he had also believed he could deal with any threat. He had been mistaken, and now his son faced an unimaginable electoral humiliation, all because of him. It was as if the Jews had led Peter to the edge of a killing pit and pointed a gun at his head. He wondered whether he possessed the power to prevent them from pulling the trigger, whether he could broker one more deal, engineer one final escape.

And this Jew who stares at me now with those unforgiving green eyes? What does he expect me to do? Apologize? Break down and weep and spew sentimentalities? What this Jew does not understand is that I feel no guilt for what was done. I was compelled by the hand of God and the teachings of my Church. Did the priests not tell us the Jews were the murderers of God? Did the Holy Father and his cardinals not remain silent when they knew full well what we were doing in the east? Does this Jew expect me now to suddenly recant and say it was all a terrible mistake? And why does he look at me like that? They were familiar, those eyes. He’d seen them somewhere before. Maybe it was just the drugs they’d given him. He couldn’t be certain of anything. He wasn’t sure he was even alive. Perhaps he was already dead. Perhaps it was his soul making this journey up the River Bug. Perhaps he was in hell.

Another hamlet: Wola Uhruska. He knew the next village.

Sobibor…

He closed his eyes, the velvet of the curtain enveloped him. It is the spring of 1942, he is driving out of Kiev on the Zhitomir road with the commander of an Einsatzgruppen unit at his side. They are on their way to inspect a ravine that’s become something of a security problem, a place the Ukrainians call Babi Yar. By the time they arrive, the sun is kissing the horizon and it is nearly dusk. Still, there is just enough light to see the strange phenomenon taking place at the bottom of the ravine. The earth seems to be in the grips of an epileptic fit. The soil is convulsing, gas is shooting into the air, along with geysers of putrid liquid. The stench! Jesus, the stench. He can smell it now.

“When did it start?”

“Not long after winter ended. The ground thawed, then the bodies thawed. They decomposed very rapidly.”

“How many are down there?”

“Thirty-three thousand Jews, a few Gypsies and Soviet prisoners for good measure.”

“Put a cordon around the entire ravine. We’ll get to this one as soon as we can, but at the moment other sites have priority.”

“What other sites?”

“Places you’ve never heard of: Birkenau, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Our work is done here. At the others, they’re expecting imminent new arrivals.”

“What are you going to do with this place?”

“We’ll open the pits and burn the bodies, then we’ll crush the bones and scatter the fragments in the forests and the rivers.”

“Burn thirty thousand corpses? We tried it during the killing operations. We used flamethrowers, for God’s sake. Mass open-air cremations do not work.”

“That’s because you never constructed a proper pyre. At Chelmno, I proved it can be done. Trust me, Kurt, one day this place called Babi Yar will be only a rumor, just like the Jews who used to live here.”

He twisted his wrists. This time, the pain was not enough to wake him. The curtain refused to part. He remained locked in a prison of memories, wading across a river of ashes.

THEY PLUNGED ON through the night. Time was a memory. The tape had cut off his circulation. He could no longer feel his hands and feet. He was feverishly hot one minute, and shivering with cold the next. He had the impression of stopping once. He had smelled gasoline. Were they filling the tank? Or was it just the memory of fuel-soaked railroad ties?

The effects of the drug finally wore off. He was awake now, alert and cognizant and quite certain he was not dead. Something in the determined posture of the Jew told him they were nearing the end of their journey. They passed through Siedlce, then, at Sokolow Podlaski, they turned onto a smaller country road. Dybow came next, then Kosow Lacki.

They turned off the main road, onto a dirt track. The van shuddered:thump-thump… thump-thump. The old rail line, he thought-it was still here, of course. They followed the track into a stand of dense fir and birch trees and came to a stop a moment later in a small, paved carpark.

A second car entered the clearing with its headlights doused. Three men climbed out and approached the van. He recognized them. They were the ones who had taken him from Vienna. The Jew stood over him and carefully cut away the packing tape and loosened the leather straps. “Come,” he said pleasantly. “Let’s take a walk.”

38 TREBLINKA, POLAND

THEY FOLLOWED Afootpath into the trees. It had begun to snow. The flakes fell softly through the still air and settled on their shoulders like the cinders of a distant bonfire. Gabriel held Radek by the elbow. His steps were unsteady at first, but soon the blood began flowing to his feet again and he insisted on walking without Gabriel’s support. His labored breath froze on the air. It smelled sour and fearful.

They moved deeper into the forest. The pathway was sandy and covered by a fine bed of pine needles. Oded was several paces ahead, barely visible through the snowfall. Zalman and Navot walked in formation behind them. Chiara had remained behind in the clearing, standing watch over the vehicles.

They paused. A break in the trees, approximately five yards wide, stretched into the gloom. Gabriel illuminated it with the beam of a flashlight. Down the center of the lane, at equidistant intervals, stood several large upright stones. The stones marked the old fence line. They had reached the perimeter of the camp. Gabriel switched off the flashlight and pulled Radek by the elbow. Radek tried to resist, then stumbled forward.

“Just do as I say, Radek, and everything will be fine. Don’t try to run, because there’s no way to escape. Don’t bother calling for help. No one will hear your cries.”

“Does it give you pleasure to see me afraid?”

“It sickens me, actually. I don’t like touching you. I don’t like the sound of your voice.”

“So why are we here?”

“I just want you to see some things.”

“There’s nothing to see here, Allon. Just a Polish memorial.”

“Precisely.” Gabriel jerked at his elbow. “Come on, Radek. Faster. You have to walk faster. We haven’t got much time. It will be morning soon.”

A moment later, they stopped again before a trackless rail line, the old spur that had carried the transports from Treblinka station into the camp itself. The ties were recreated in stone and frosted over by new snow. They followed the tracks into the camp and stopped at the place where the platform had been. It too was represented in stone.

“Do you remember it, Radek?”

He stood silently, his jaw slack, his breathing ragged.

“Come on, Radek. We know who you are, we know what you did. You’re not going to escape this time. There’s no use playing games or trying to deny any of it. There isn’t time, not if you want to save your son.”

Radek’s head swiveled slowly around. His mouth became a tight line and his gaze very hard.

“You would harm my son?”

“Actually, you would do it for us. All we would have to do is tell the world who his father is, and it would destroy him. That’s why you planted that bomb in Eli Lavon’s office-to protect Peter. No one could touch you, not in a place like Austria. The window had closed for you a long time ago. You were safe. The only person who could pay a price for your crimes is your son. That’s why you tried to kill Eli Lavon. That’s why you murdered Max Klein.”

He turned away from Gabriel and peered into the darkness.

“What is it that you want? What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about it, Radek. I’ve read about it, I can see the memorial, but I can’t picture how it could really work. How was it possible to turn a trainload of people into smoke in only forty-five minutes? Forty-five minutes, door to door, isn’t that what the SS staff used to boast about here? They could turn a Jew into smoke in forty-five minutes. Twelve thousand Jews a day. Eight hundred thousand in all.”

Radek emitted a mirthless chuckle, an interrogator who did not believe the statement of his prisoner. Gabriel felt as though a stone had been laid over his heart.

“Eight hundred thousand? Where did you get a number like that?”

“That’s the official estimate from the Polish government.”

“And you expect a bunch of subhumans like the Poles to be able to know what happened here in these woods?” His voice seemed suddenly different, more youthful and commanding. “Please, Allon, if we are going to have this discussion, let us deal with facts, and not Polish idiocy. Eight hundred thousand?” He shook his head and actually smiled. “No, it wasn’t eight hundred thousand. The actual number was much higher than that.”

A GUST OF sudden wind stirred the treetops. To Gabriel it sounded like the rushing of whitewater. Radek held out his hand and asked for the flashlight. Gabriel hesitated.

“You don’t think I’m going to attack you with it, do you?”

“I know some of the things you’ve done.”

“That was a long time ago.”

Gabriel handed him the flashlight. Radek pointed the beam to the left, illuminating a stand of evergreens.

“They called this area the lower camp. The SS quarters were right over there. The perimeter fence ran behind them. In front, there was a paved road with shrubbery and flowers in spring and summer. You might find this hard to believe, but it was really very pleasant. There weren’t so many trees, of course. We planted the trees after razing the camp. They were just saplings then. Now, they’re fully mature, quite beautiful.”

“How many SS?”

“Usually around forty. Jewish girls cleaned for them, but they had Poles to do the cooking, three local girls who came from the surrounding villages.”

“And the Ukrainians?”

“They were quartered on the opposite side of the road, in five barracks. Stangl’s house was in between, at the intersection of two roads. He had a lovely garden. It was designed for him by a man from Vienna.”

“But the arrivals never saw that part of the camp?”

“No, no, each part of the camp was carefully concealed from the other by fences interlaced with pine branches. When they arrived at the camp, they saw what appeared to be an ordinary country rail station, complete with a false timetable for departing trains. There were no departures from Treblinka, of course. Only empty trains left this platform.”

“There was a building here, was there not?”

“It was made up to look like an ordinary stationhouse, but in fact it was filled with valuables that had been taken from previous arrivals. That section over there they referred to as Station Square. Over there was Reception Square, or the Sorting Square.”

“Did you ever see the transports arrive?”

“I had nothing to do with that sort of business, but yes, I saw them arrive.”

“There were two different arrival procedures? One for Jews from western Europe, and another for Jews from the east?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Western European Jews were treated with great deception and fakery. There were no whips, no shouting. They were asked politely to disembark the train. Medical personnel in white uniforms were waiting in Reception Square to care for the infirm.”

“It was all a ruse, though. The old and the sick were taken off immediately and shot.”

He nodded.

“And the eastern Jews? How were they greeted at the platform?”

“They were met by Ukrainian whips.”

“And then?”

Radek raised the flashlight and followed the beam a short distance across the clearing.

“There was a barbed-wire enclosure here. Behind the wire were two buildings. One was the disrobing barracks. In the second building, work Jews cut the hair off the women. When they were finished, they went that way.” Radek used the flashlight to illuminate the path. “There was a passage here, rather like a cattle chute, a few feet wide, barbed wire and pine branches. It was called the tube.”

“But the SS had a special name for it, didn’t they?”

Radek nodded. “They called it the Road to Heaven.”

“And where did the Road to Heaven lead?”

Radek raised the beam of his light. “The upper camp,” he said. “The death camp.”

THEY WALKED FORWARD into a large clearing strewn with hundreds of boulders, each stone representing a Jewish community destroyed at Treblinka. The largest stone bore the name Warsaw. Gabriel looked beyond the stones, toward the sky in the east. It was beginning to grow faintly lighter.

“The Road to Heaven led directly into a brick building housing the gas chambers,” Radek said, breaking the silence. He seemed suddenly eager to talk. “Each chamber was four meters by four meters. Initially, there were only three, but they soon discovered that they needed more capacity to keep up with demand. Ten more were added. A diesel engine pumped carbon monoxide fumes into the chambers. Asphyxiation resulted in less than thirty minutes. After that, the bodies were removed.”

“What was done to them?”

“For several months, they were buried out there, in large pits. But very quickly, the pits overflowed, and the decomposition of the bodies contaminated the camp.”

“Which is when you arrived?”

“Not immediately. Treblinka was the fourth camp on our list. We cleaned the pits at Birkenau first, then Belzec and Sobibor. We didn’t get to Treblinka until March of 1943. When I arrived…” His voice trailed off. “Terrible.”

“What did you do?”

“We opened the pits, of course, and removed the bodies.”

“By hand?”

He shook his head. “We had a mechanical shovel. It made the work go much faster.”

“The claw, isn’t that what you called it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And after the bodies were removed?”

“They were incinerated on large iron racks.”

“You had a special name for the racks, did you not?”

“Roasts,” Radek said. “We called them roasts.”

“And after the bodies were burned?”

“We crushed the bones and reburied them in the pits or carted them off to the Bug and dumped them in the river.”

“And when the old pits were all emptied?”

“After that, the bodies were taken straight from the gas chambers to the roasts. It worked that way until October of that year, when the camp was shut down and all traces of it were obliterated. It operated for a little more than a year.”

“And yet they still managed to murder eight hundred thousand.”

“Not eight hundred thousand.”

“How many then?”

“More than a million. That’s quite a thing, isn’t it? More than a million people, in a tiny place like this, in the middle of a Polish forest.”

GABRIEL TOOK BACK the flashlight and drew his Beretta. He prodded Radek forward. They walked along a footpath, through the field of stones. Zalman and Navot remained behind in the upper camp. Gabriel could hear the sound of Oded’s footsteps in the gravel behind him.

“Congratulations, Radek. Because of you, it’s only a symbolic cemetery.”

“Are you going to kill me now? Have I not told you what you wanted to hear?”

Gabriel pushed him along the path. “You may take a certain pride in this place, but for us, it is sacred ground. Do you really think I would pollute it with your blood?”

“Then what is the point of this? Why did you bring me here?”

“You needed to see it one more time. You needed to visit the scene of the crime to refresh your memory and prepare for your upcoming testimony. That’s how you’re going to save your son the humiliation of having a man like you as a father. You’re going to come back to Israel and pay for your crimes.”

“It wasn’tmy crime! I didn’t kill them! I just did what Müller ordered me to do. I cleaned up the mess!”

“You did your fair share of killing, Radek. Remember your little game with Max Klein in Birkenau? And what about the death march? You were there too, weren’t you, Radek?”

Radek slowed and turned his head. Gabriel gave him a push between the shoulder blades. They came to a large, rectangular depression where the cremation pit had been. It was filled now with pieces of black basalt.

“Kill me now, damn it! Don’t take me to Israel! Just do it now, and get it over with. Besides, that’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, Allon?”

“Not here,” Gabriel said. “Not in this place. You don’t deserve to even set foot here, let alone die here.”

Radek fell to his knees before the pit.

“And if I agree to come with you? What fate awaits me?”

“The truth awaits you, Radek. You’ll stand before the Israeli people and confess your crimes. Your role inAktion 1005. The murders of prisoners at Birkenau. The killings you carried out during the death march from Birkenau. Do you even remember the girls you murdered, Radek?”

Radek’s head twisted round. “How do you-”

Gabriel cut him off. “You won’t face trial for your crimes, but you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars. While you’re in prison, you’ll work with a team of Holocaust scholars from Yad Vashem to compile a thorough history ofAktion 1005. You’ll tell the deniers and the doubters exactly what you did to conceal the greatest case of mass murder in history. You’ll tell the truth for the first time in your life.”

“Whose truth, yours or mine?”

“There’s only one truth, Radek. Treblinka is the truth.”

“And what do I get in return?”

“More than you deserve,” Gabriel said. “We’ll say nothing about Metzler’s dubious parentage.”

“You’re willing to stomach an Austrian chancellor of the far right in order to get to me?”

“Something tells me Peter Metzler is going to become a great friend of Israel and the Jews. He’ll want to do nothing to anger us. After all, we’ll hold the keys to his destruction long after you’re dead.”

“How did you convince the Americans to betray me? Blackmail, I suppose-that’s the Jewish way. But there must have been more. Surely you vowed that you would never give me an opportunity to discuss my affiliation with Organization Gehlen or the CIA. I suppose your dedication to the truth goes only so far.”

“Give me your answer, Radek.”

“How can I trust you, a Jew, to live up to your end of the bargain?”

“Have you been readingDer Stürmer again? You’ll trust me because you have no other choice.”

“And what good will it do? Will it bring back even one person who died in this place?”

“No,” Gabriel conceded, “but the world will know the truth, and you’ll spend the last years of your life where you belong. Take the deal, Radek. Take it for your son. Think of it as one last escape.”

“It won’t stay secret forever. Someday, the truth of this affair will come out.”

“Eventually,” Gabriel said. “I suppose you can’t hide the truth forever.”

Radek’s head pivoted slowly around and he stared at Gabriel contemptuously. “If you were a real man, you’d do it yourself.” He managed a mocking smile. “As for the truth, no one cared while this place was in operation, and no one will care now.”

He turned and looked into the pit. Gabriel pocketed the Beretta and walked away. Oded, Zalman, and Navot stood motionless on the footpath behind him. Gabriel brushed past them without a word and headed down through the camp to the rail platform. Before turning into the trees, he paused briefly to look over his shoulder and saw Radek, clinging to the arm of Oded, rising slowly to his feet.