The Sinai Secret

FIFTY-THREE

Subahnhof Police Station

Wiedner Gurtel

Vienna

The Next Morning

Chief Inspector Rauch reread the e-mail from Scotland Yard and shook his head. Langford Reilly had been in England only long enough to disappear again, slipping through the much-heralded fingers of the world's most famous police organization. Of course, in dealing with British or American police, suspects frequently went free even after being captured. Writs of habeas corpus, jury trials, rights against self-incrimination-it was a wonder the English-speaking justice system convicted anyone.

Nonetheless, Rauch's superiors had authorized Reilly's extradition for questioning, and the inspector's life would go a lot easier once he had been found, interrogated, and either charged or released. It was as if Rauch himself were responsible for English incompetence.

The one bit of useful information from the Englishman-Fitzwilliam was his name-was that Reilly had entered Great Britain under the name of Couch. A few minutes at the computer confirmed that no such person had passed through customs and immigration anywhere in Europe in the last week or so.

Undaunted, Rauch called up the Web site for Reilly's charitable organization, the Janice and Jeff Holt Foundation. A few minutes later he learned the corporation had a private jet. Another site and a few more minutes revealed that the aircraft was a Gulfstream and its most recent trip had been Paris-Marseilles-Tel Aviv-Atlanta.

Now he was getting somewhere. The Israelis kept careful records of those entering their country.

He stared at the screen, unable to believe what it told him. The jet's international flight plan had been duly recorded and promptly closed on arrival at the noted time. But the space for names of the persons on board was blank. Either the plane had made the trip with no passengers or… or somebody with something to do with Israeli national security had been on board.

What could Reilly have to do with…?

Rauch slid his chair back from his desk and glared at the computer's screen as though it were the one withholding the information.

With almost any European country he could simply call some official, explain his interest in the passengers on that flight, and, more likely than not, get the information.

Not necessarily with the Jews.

First, the Israelis had a bit of a prickly personality to begin with, trusting no one.

Second was the Kurt Waldheim matter.

Kurt Waldheim had been secretary general of the U.N. and was elected president of Austria in 1986. He had become friendly with a number of world celebrities, including a young Austrian who was a minor American movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with his American wife, a member of the politically connected Shriver family. Waldheim had been in office a short time when someone came up with papers that demonstrated he had not served in the Wehrmacht, regular army, during the war, been wounded, and come home to go to law school, as he claimed. Instead he had served a full five years in the SS. Worse still, in an Einsatzgruppe that had specialized in rooting out and deporting "undesirables."

It had been a diplomatic disaster.

After forty years of Austria's painting itself as the land of pastries, Mozart, and The Sound of Music, the old and hopefully forgotten connection with Nazis had been resurrected. The world started to recall that, although the von Trapp family were Austrian, so was Hitler.

The Jews worldwide screamed bloody murder. The United States listed the president of the sovereign state of Austria as a person to whom entry would be denied.

The Austrians took the view that they and only they elected their national officials. One woman was shown on international television, saying something to the effect that the Jews wanted to run everything but they wouldn't run Austria.

Some wag noted that that was because there were so few left.

World opinion was less than sympathetic.

Austria's relationship with the state of Israel did not benefit. Forty-plus years hadn't done a lot to dim the memory, and relations with Israel were diplomatically correct but far from cordial.

Even so, surely the Jews wouldn't deny a request for extradition of someone involved in a murder investigation, particularly someone who was hardly in a position to claim political persecution or some such. If he were to act as though he knew Reilly was on that flight, surely even the Israelis would be obligated to honor his request.

He picked up the phone.