A Death in Vienna (29 page)

“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.

T
HERE WAS CONSIDERABLE
debate over where to put him. Lev thought him a security risk and wanted him kept permanently under Office care. Shamron, as usual, took the opposite position, if for no other reason than he did not want his beloved service in the business of running jails. The prime minister, only half-jokingly, suggested that Radek be force-marched into the Negev to be picked over by the scorpions and the vultures. It was Gabriel, eventually, who carried the day. The worst punishment for a man like Radek, Gabriel argued, was to be treated like a common criminal. They searched for a suitable place to lock him away and settled on a police detention facility, originally built by the British during the Mandate, in a seedy quarter of Jaffa still known by its Arab name, Abu Kabir.

A period of seventy-two hours passed before Radek’s capture was made public. The prime minister’s communiqué was terse and deliberately misleading. Great care was taken to avoid needlessly embarrassing the Austrians. Radek, the prime minister said, was discovered living under a false identity in an unspecified country. After a period of negotiation, he had consented to come to Israel voluntarily. Under the terms of the agreement, he would not face trial, since, under Israeli law, the only possible sentence was death. Instead he would remain under permanent administrative detention and would effectively “plead guilty” to his crimes against humanity by working with a team of historians at Yad Vashem and Hebrew University to produce a definitive history of
Aktion
1005.

There was little fanfare and none of the excitement that accompanied news of Eichmann’s kidnapping. Indeed, word of Radek’s capture was overshadowed within hours by a suicide bomber who murdered twenty-five people in a Jerusalem market. Lev derived a certain crude satisfaction from the development, for it seemed to prove his point that the State had more important things to worry about than chasing down old Nazis. He began referring to the affair as “Shamron’s folly,” though he quickly found himself out of step with the rank and file of his own service. Within King Saul Boulevard, Radek’s capture seemed to rekindle old fires. Lev adjusted his stance to meet the prevailing mood, but it was too late. Everyone knew that Radek’s apprehension had been engineered by the
Memuneh
and Gabriel, and that Lev had tried to block it at every turn. Lev’s standing among the foot soldiers fell to dangerously low levels.

The half-hearted attempt to keep secret Radek’s Austrian identity was undone by the videotape of his arrival at Abu Kabir. The Vienna press quickly and correctly identified the prisoner as Ludwig Vogel, an Austrian businessman of some note. Did he truly agree to leave Vienna voluntarily? Or was he in fact kidnapped from his fortresslike home in the First District? In the days that followed, the newspapers were filled with speculative accounts of Vogel’s mystifying career and political connections. The press investigations strayed perilously close to Peter Metzler. Renate Hoffmann of the Coalition for a Better Austria called for an official inquiry into the affair and suggested that Radek may have been linked to the bombing of Wartime Claims and Inquiries and the mysterious death of an elderly Jew named Max Klein. Her demands fell largely on deaf ears. The bombing was the work of Islamic terrorists, the government said. And as for the unfortunate death of Max Klein, it was a suicide. Further investigation, said the minister of justice, was pointless.

The next chapter in the Radek affair would take place not in Vienna but in Paris, where a mossy former KGB man popped up on French television to suggest Radek was Moscow’s man in Vienna. A former Stasi spymaster who’d become something of a literary sensation in the new Germany laid claim to Radek as well. Shamron first suspected the claims were part of a coordinated campaign of disinformation designed to inoculate the CIA from the Radek virus—which is exactly how he would have played it had he been in their shoes. Then he learned that inside the Agency, the suggestions that Radek may have been plying his trade on both sides of the street had caused something of a panic. Files were being hauled out of the deep freeze; a team of elderly Soviet hands was being hastily assembled. Shamron secretly reveled in the anxiety of his colleagues from Langley. Were it to turn out that Radek was a double agent, Shamron said, it would be profoundly just. Adrian Carter requested permission to put Radek under the lights when the Israeli historians were finished with him. Shamron promised to give the matter thorough consideration.

T
HE PRISONER OF
Abu Kabir was largely oblivious to the storm swirling around him. His confinement was solitary, though not unduly harsh. He kept his cell and his clothing neat, he took food and complained little. His guards, though they longed to hate him, could not. He was a policeman at his core, and his jailors seemed to see something in him they recognized. He treated them courteously and was treated courteously in return. He was something of a curiosity. They had read about men like him at school, and they wandered past his cell at all hours just to have a look. Radek began to feel increasingly as though he were an exhibit in a museum.

He made only one request, that he be granted a newspaper each day so he could keep abreast of current affairs. The question was taken all the way to Shamron, who gave his consent, so long as it was an Israeli newspaper and not some German publication. Each morning, a
Jerusalem Post
arrived with his breakfast tray. He usually skipped the stories about himself—they were largely inaccurate in any case—and turned straight to the foreign news section to read about developments in the Austrian election.

Moshe Rivlin paid Radek several visits to prepare for his upcoming testimony. It was decided that the sessions would be videotaped and broadcast nightly on Israeli television. Radek seemed to grow more agitated as the day of his first public appearance drew nearer. Rivlin quietly asked the chief of the detention facility to keep the prisoner under a suicide watch. A guard was posted in the corridor, just beyond the bars of Radek’s cell. Radek chafed under the added surveillance at first, but was soon glad for the company.

On the day before Radek’s testimony, Rivlin came one final time. They spent an hour together; Radek was preoccupied and, for the first time, largely uncooperative. Rivlin packed away his documents and notes and asked the guard to open the cell door.

“I want to see him,” Radek said suddenly. “Ask him whether he would do me the honor of paying me a visit. Tell him I have a few questions I’d like to ask him.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Rivlin said. “I’m not connected to—”

“Just ask him,” Radek said. “The worst he can do is say no.”

S
HAMRON IMPOSED ON
Gabriel to remain in Israel until the opening day of Radek’s testimony, and Gabriel, though he was anxious to return to Venice, reluctantly agreed. He stayed in the safe flat near the Zion Gate and woke each morning to the sound of church bells in the Armenian Quarter. He would sit on the shadowed terrace overlooking the walls of the Old City and linger over coffee and the newspapers. He followed the Radek affair closely. He was pleased that Shamron’s name was linked to the capture and not his. Gabriel lived abroad, under an assumed identity, and he did not need his real name splashed about in the press. Besides, after all Shamron had done for his country, he deserved one final day in the sun.

As the days eased slowly past, Gabriel found that Radek seemed more and more a stranger to him. Though blessed with a near-photographic memory, Gabriel struggled to clearly recall Radek’s face or the sound of his voice. Treblinka seemed something from a nightmare. He wondered whether it had been this way for his mother. Did Radek remain in the rooms of her memory like an uninvited guest, or did she force herself to recall him in order to render his image on canvas? Had it been like this for all those who had encountered so perfect an evil? Perhaps it explained the silence that descended on those who had survived. Perhaps they had been mercifully released from the pain of their memories as a means of self-preservation. One idea turned ceaselessly in his thoughts: If Radek had murdered his mother that day in Poland instead of two other girls, he would have never existed. He, too, began to feel the guilt of survival.

He was certain of only one thing—he was not ready to forget. And so he was pleased when one of Lev’s acolytes telephoned one afternoon and wondered whether he would be willing to write an official history of the affair. Gabriel accepted, on the condition that he also produce a sanitized version of the events to be kept in the archives at Yad Vashem. There was a good deal of back and forth about when such a document could be made public. A release date of forty years hence was set, and Gabriel went to work.

He wrote at the kitchen table, on a notebook computer supplied by the Office. Each evening he locked the computer in a floor safe concealed beneath the living room couch. He had no experience writing, so, instinctively, he approached the project as though it were a painting. He started with an underdrawing, broad and amorphous, then slowly added layers of paint. He used a simple palette, and his brush technique was careful. As the days wore on, Radek’s face returned to him, as clearly as it had been rendered by the hand of his mother.

He would work until the early afternoon, then take a break and walk over to the Hadassah University Hospital, where, after a month of unconsciousness, Eli Lavon was showing signs that he might be emerging from his coma. Gabriel would sit with Lavon for an hour or so and talk to him about the case. Then he would return to the flat and work until dark.

On the day he completed the report, he lingered at the hospital until early evening and happened to be there when Lavon’s eyes opened. Lavon stared blankly into space for a moment; then the old inquisitiveness returned to his gaze, and it flickered around the unfamiliar surroundings of the hospital room before finally settling on Gabriel’s face.

“Where are we? Vienna?”

“Jerusalem.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m working on a report for the Office.”

“About what?”

“The capture of a Nazi war criminal named Erich Radek.”

“Radek?”

“He was living in Vienna under the name Ludwig Vogel.”

Lavon smiled. “Tell me everything,” he murmured, but before Gabriel could say another word he was gone again.

W
HEN
G
ABRIEL RETURNED
to the flat that evening, the light was winking on the answering machine. He pressed the
PLAY
button and heard the voice of Moshe Rivlin.

“The prisoner of Abu Kabir would like a word. I’d tell him to go to hell. It’s your call.”

T
HE DETENTION CENTER
was surrounded by a high wall the color of sandstone topped by coils of razor wire. Gabriel presented himself at the outer entrance early the following morning and was admitted without delay. To reach the interior, he had to travel a narrow, fenced passage that reminded him too much of the Road to Heaven at Treblinka. A warder awaited him at the other end. He led Gabriel silently into the secure lockup, then into a windowless interrogation room with bare cinderblock walls. Radek was seated statuelike at the table, dressed for his testimony in a dark suit and tie. His hands were cuffed and folded on the table. He acknowledged Gabriel with an almost imperceptible nod of his head but remained seated.

“Remove the handcuffs,” Gabriel said to the warder.

“It’s against policy.”

Gabriel glared at the warder, and a moment later, the cuffs were gone.

“You do that very well,” Radek said. “Was that another psychological ploy on your part? Are you trying to demonstrate your dominion over me?”

Gabriel pulled out the crude iron chair and sat down. “I wouldn’t think that under these conditions a demonstration like that would be necessary.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Radek said. “Still, I do admire the way you handled the entire affair. I would like to think I would have done as well.”

“For whom?” Gabriel asked. “The Americans or the Russians?”

“You’re referring to the allegations made in Paris by that idiot Belov?”

“Are they true?”

Radek regarded Gabriel in silence, and for just a few seconds some of the old steel returned to his blue eyes. “When one plays the game as long as I did, one makes so many alliances, and engages in so much deception, that in the end it’s sometimes difficult to know where the truth and the lies part company.”

“Belov seems certain he knows the truth.”

“Yes, but I’m afraid it’s the certainty of a fool. You see, Belov was in no position to know the truth.” Radek changed the subject. “I assume you’ve seen the papers this morning?”

Gabriel nodded.

“His margin of victory was larger than expected. Apparently, my arrest had something to do with it. Austrians have never liked outsiders meddling in their affairs.”

“You’re not gloating, are you?”

“Of course not,” Radek said. “I’m only sorry I didn’t drive a harder bargain at Treblinka. Perhaps I shouldn’t have agreed so easily. I’m not so certain Peter’s campaign would have been derailed by the revelations about my past.”

“There are some things that are politically unpalatable, even in a country like Austria.”

“You underestimate us, Allon.”

Gabriel permitted a silence to fall between them. He was already beginning to regret his decision to come. “Moshe Rivlin said you wanted to see me,” he said dismissively. “I don’t have much time.”

Radek sat a little straighter in his chair. “I was wondering whether you might do me the professional courtesy of answering a couple of questions.”

“That depends on the questions. You and I are in different professions, Radek.”

“Yes,” Radek said. “I was an agent of American intelligence, and you are an assassin.”

Gabriel stood to leave. Radek put up a hand. “Wait,” he said. “Sit down. Please.”

Gabriel returned to his seat.

“The man who telephoned my house the night of the kidnapping—”

“You mean your arrest?”

Radek dipped his head. “All right, my
arrest.
I assume he was an imposter?”

Gabriel nodded.

“He was very good. How did he manage to impersonate Kruz so well?”

“You don’t expect me to answer that, do you, Radek?” Gabriel looked at his watch. “I hope you didn’t bring me all the way to Jaffa to ask me one question.”

“No,” Radek said. “There is one other thing I’d like to know. When we were at Treblinka, you mentioned that I had taken part in the evacuation of prisoners from Birkenau.”

Gabriel interrupted him. “Can we please, at long last, drop the euphemisms, Radek? It wasn’t an
evacuation.
It was a death march.”

Radek was silent for a moment. “You also mentioned that I personally killed some of the prisoners.”

“I know you murdered at least two girls,” Gabriel said. “I’m sure there were more.”

Radek closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “There
were
more,” he said distantly. “
Many
more. I remember that day as though it were last week. I had known the end was coming for some time, but seeing that line of prisoners marching toward the Reich…I knew then that it was Götterdämmerung. It was truly the Twilight of the Gods.”

“And so you started killing them?”

He nodded again. “They had entrusted me with the task of protecting their terrible secret, and then they let several thousand witnesses walk out of Birkenau alive. I’m sure you can imagine how I felt.”

“No,” Gabriel said truthfully. “I can’t begin to imagine how you felt.”

“There was a girl,” Radek said. “I remember asking her what she would say to her children, about the war. She answered that she would tell them the truth. I ordered her to lie. She refused. I killed two other girls and still she defied me. For some reason, I let her walk away. I stopped killing the prisoners after that. I knew after looking into her eyes that it was pointless.”

Gabriel looked down at his hands, refusing to rise to Radek’s bait.

“I assume this woman was your witness?” Radek asked.

“Yes, she was.”

“It’s funny,” Radek said, “but she has your eyes.”

Gabriel looked up. He hesitated, then said, “So they tell me.”

“She’s your mother?”

Another hesitation, then the truth.

“I would tell you that I’m sorry,” Radek said, “but I know my apology would mean nothing to you.”

“You’re right,” Gabriel said. “Don’t say it.”

“So it was for her that you did this?”

“No,” said Gabriel. “It was for all of them.”

The door opened. The warder stepped into the room and announced that it was time to leave for Yad Vashem. Radek rose slowly to his feet and held out his hands. His eyes remained fastened to Gabriel’s face as the cuffs were ratcheted around his wrists. Gabriel accompanied him as far as the entrance, then watched him make his way through the fenced-in passage, into the back of a waiting van. He had seen enough. Now he wanted only to forget.

A
FTER LEAVING
A
BU
K
ABIR
, Gabriel drove up to Safed to see Tziona. They ate lunch in a small kebab café in the Artists’ Quarter. She tried to engage him in conversation about the Radek affair, but Gabriel, only two hours removed from the murderer’s presence, was in no mood to discuss him further. He swore Tziona to secrecy about his involvement in the case, then hastily changed the subject.

They spoke of art for a time, then politics, and finally the state of Gabriel’s life. Tziona knew of an empty flat a few streets over from her own. It was large enough to house a studio and was blessed with some of the most gorgeous light in the Upper Galilee. Gabriel promised he would think about it, but Tziona knew that he was merely placating her. The restlessness had returned to his eyes. He was ready to leave.

Over coffee, he told her that he had found a place for some of his mother’s work.

“Where?”

“The Museum of Holocaust Art at Yad Vashem.”

Tziona’s eyes welled over with tears. “How perfect,” she said.

After lunch they climbed the cobblestone stairs to Tziona’s apartment. She unlocked the storage closet and carefully removed the paintings. They spent an hour selecting twenty of the best pieces for Yad Vashem. Tziona had discovered two more canvases bearing the image of Erich Radek. She asked Gabriel what he wanted her to do with them.

“Burn them,” he replied.

“But they’re probably worth a great deal of money now.”

“I don’t care what they’re worth,” Gabriel said. “I never want to see his face again.”

Tziona helped him load the paintings into his car. He set out for Jerusalem beneath a sky heavy with cloud. He went first to Yad Vashem. A curator took possession of the paintings, then hurried back inside to watch the beginning of Erich Radek’s testimony. So it seemed did the rest of the country. Gabriel drove through silent streets to the Mount of Olives. He laid a stone on his mother’s grave and recited the words of the mourner’s Kaddish for her. He did the same at the grave of his father. Then he drove to the airport and caught the evening flight for Rome.