A Death in Vienna

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.