A Death in Vienna (3 page)

I
N THE CORRIDORS
and conference rooms of the Israeli intelligence services, Ari Shamron was a legend. Indeed, he was the service made flesh. He had penetrated the courts of kings, stolen the secrets of tyrants, and killed the enemies of Israel, sometimes with his bare hands. His crowning achievement had come on a rainy night in May 1960, in a squalid suburb north of Buenos Aires, when he leapt from the back of a car and seized Adolf Eichmann.

In September 1972, Prime Minister Golda Meir had ordered him to hunt down and assassinate the Palestinian terrorists who had kidnapped and murdered eleven Israelis at the Munich Olympic Games. Gabriel, then a promising student at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, reluctantly joined Shamron’s venture, fittingly code-named Wrath of God. In the Hebrew-based lexicon of the operation, Gabriel was an
Aleph.
Armed only with a .22-caliber Beretta, he had quietly killed six men.

Shamron’s career had not been an unbroken ascent to greater glory. There had been deep valleys along the way and mistaken journeys into operational wasteland. He developed a reputation as a man who shot first and worried about the consequences later. His erratic temperament was one of his greatest assets. It struck fear into friends and enemies alike. For some politicians, Shamron’s volatility was too much to bear. Rabin often avoided his calls, fearing the news he might hear. Peres thought him a primitive and banished him into the Judean wilderness of retirement. Barak, when the Office was foundering, had rehabilitated Shamron and brought him back to right the ship.

Officially he was retired now, and his beloved Office was in the hands of a thoroughly modern and conniving technocrat called Lev. But among many quarters, Shamron would always be the
Memuneh,
the one in charge. The current prime minister was an old friend and fellow traveler. He’d given Shamron a vague title and just enough authority to make a general nuisance of himself. There were some at King Saul Boulevard who swore that Lev was secretly praying for Shamron’s rapid demise—and that Shamron, stubborn and steel-willed Shamron, was keeping himself alive merely to torment him.

Now, standing before the window, Shamron calmly told Gabriel what he knew about the events in Vienna. A bomb had exploded the previous evening inside Wartime Claims and Inquiries. Eli Lavon was in a deep coma in the intensive care ward of the Vienna General Hospital, the odds of survival one in two at best. His two research assistants, Reveka Gazit and Sarah Greenberg, had been killed in the blast. An offshoot of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization, a shadowy group called the Islamic Fighting Cells, had claimed responsibility. Shamron spoke to Gabriel in his murderously accented English. Hebrew was not permitted in the Venice canal house.

Chiara brought coffee and rugelach to the sitting room and settled herself between Gabriel and Shamron. Of the three, only Chiara was currently under Office discipline. Known as a
bat leveyha,
her work involved posing as the lover or spouse of a case officer in the field. Like all Office personnel, she was trained in the art of physical combat and in the use of weaponry. The fact that she had scored higher than the great Gabriel Allon on her final firing range exam was a source of some tension in their household. Her undercover assignments often required a certain intimacy with her partner, such as showing affection in restaurants and nightclubs and sharing the same bed in hotel rooms or safe flats. Romantic relationships between case officers and escort agents were officially forbidden, but Gabriel knew that the close living quarters and natural stress of the field often drew them together. Indeed, he had once had an affair with his
bat leveyha
while in Tunis. She’d been a beautiful Marseilles Jew named Jacqueline Delacroix, and the affair had nearly destroyed his marriage. Gabriel, when Chiara was away, often pictured her in the bed of another man. Though not prone to jealousy, he secretly looked forward to the day King Saul Boulevard decided she was too overexposed for fieldwork.

“Who
exactly
are the Islamic Fighting Cells?” he asked.

Shamron made a face. “They’re small-time operators mainly, active in France and a couple of other European countries. They enjoy setting fire to synagogues, desecrating Jewish cemeteries, and beating up Jewish children on the streets of Paris.”

“Was there anything useful in the claim of responsibility?”

Shamron shook his head. “Just the usual drivel about the plight of the Palestinians and the destruction of the Zionist entity. It warns of continuous attacks against Jewish targets in Europe until Palestine is liberated.”

“Lavon’s office was a fortress. How did a group that usually uses Molotov cocktails and spray-paint cans manage to get a bomb inside Wartime Claims and Inquiries?”

Shamron accepted a cup from Chiara. “The Austrian Staatspolizei aren’t sure yet, but they believe it may have been concealed in a computer delivered to the office earlier that day.”

“Do we believe the Islamic Fighting Cells have the ability to conceal a bomb in a computer and smuggle it into a secure building in Vienna?”

Shamron stirred sugar violently into his coffee and slowly shook his head.

“So who did it?”

“Obviously, I’d like to know the answer to that question.”

Shamron removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The message was unmistakable. Gabriel looked away from Shamron’s hooded gaze and thought of the last time the old man had sent him to Vienna. It was January 1991. The Office had learned that an Iraqi intelligence agent operating from the city was planning to direct a string of terrorist attacks against Israeli targets to coincide with the first Persian Gulf War. Shamron had ordered Gabriel to monitor the Iraqi and, if necessary, take preemptive action. Unwilling to endure another long separation from his family, Gabriel had brought his wife, Leah, and young son, Dani, along with him. Though he didn’t realize it, he had walked into a trap laid by a Palestinian terrorist named Tariq al-Hourani.

Gabriel, lost in thought for a long moment, finally looked up at Shamron. “Have you forgotten that Vienna is the forbidden city for me?”

Shamron lit one of his foul-smelling Turkish cigarettes and placed the dead match in the saucer next to his teaspoon. He pushed his eyeglasses onto his forehead and folded his arms. They were still powerful, braided steel beneath a thin layer of sagging suntanned skin. So were the hands. The gesture was one Gabriel had seen many times before. Shamron the unmovable. Shamron the indomitable. He’d struck the same pose after dispatching Gabriel to Rome to kill for the first time. He’d been an old man even then. Indeed, he’d never really been young at all. Instead of chasing girls on the beach at Netanya, he’d been a unit commander in the Palmach, fighting the first battle in Israel’s war without end. His youth had been stolen from him. In turn he had stolen Gabriel’s.

“I volunteered to go to Vienna myself, but Lev wouldn’t hear of it. He knows that because of our regrettable history there, I’m something of a pariah. He reckoned the Staatspolizei would be more forthcoming if we were represented by a less polarizing figure.”

“So your solution is to send
me
?”

“Not in any official capacity, of course.” These days Shamron did almost nothing in an official capacity. “But I would feel much more comfortable if someone I trusted was keeping an eye on things.”

“We have Office personnel in Vienna.”

“Yes, but they report to Lev.”

“He
is
the chief.”

Shamron closed his eyes, as if he were being reminded of a painful subject. “Lev has too many other problems at the moment to give this the attention it deserves. The boy emperor in Damascus is making troublesome noises. The mullahs of Iran are trying to build Allah’s bomb, and Hamas is turning children into bombs and detonating them on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. One minor bombing in Vienna is not going to get the attention it deserves, even though the target was Eli Lavon.”

Shamron stared compassionately at Gabriel over the rim of his coffee cup. “I know you have no desire to go back to Vienna, especially after another bombing, but your friend is lying in a Viennese hospital fighting for his life! I would think you’d like to know who put him there.”

Gabriel thought of the half-completed Bellini altarpiece in the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo and could feel it slipping away from him. Chiara had turned away from Shamron and was eyeing him intently. Gabriel avoided her gaze.

“If I went to Vienna,” he said quietly, “I would need an identity.”

Shamron shrugged, as if to say there were ways—
obvious ways, dear boy
—of getting around a small problem such as cover. Gabriel had expected this would be Shamron’s response. He held out his hand.

Shamron opened his briefcase and handed over a manila envelope. Gabriel lifted the flap and poured the contents on the coffee table: airline tickets, a leather billfold, a well-traveled Israeli passport. He opened the cover of the passport and saw his own face staring back at him. His new name was Gideon Argov. He’d always liked the name Gideon.

“What does Gideon do for a living?”

Shamron inclined his head toward the billfold. Among the usual items—credit cards, a driver’s license, a health-club and video-club membership—he found a business card:

GIDEON ARGOV

WARTIME CLAIMS AND INQUIRIES

17
MENDELE STREET

JERUSALEM
92147

5427618

Gabriel looked up at Shamron. “I didn’t know Eli had an office in Jerusalem.”

“He does now. Try the number.”

Gabriel shook his head. “I believe you. Does Lev know about this?”

“Not yet, but I plan on telling him once you’re safely on the ground in Vienna.”

“So we’re deceiving the Austrians
and
the Office. That’s impressive, even for you, Ari.”

Shamron gave a sheepish smile. Gabriel opened the airline jacket and examined his travel itinerary.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to travel directly to Vienna from here. I’ll accompany you back to Tel Aviv in the morning—separate seats, of course. You’ll turn around and catch the afternoon flight into Vienna.”

Gabriel lifted his gaze and stared at Shamron, his expression dubious. “And if I’m recognized at the airport and dragged into a room for some special Austrian attention?”

“That’s always a possibility, but it
has
been thirteen years. Besides, you’ve been to Vienna recently. I recall a meeting we had in Eli’s office last year concerning an imminent threat to the life of His Holiness Pope Paul the Seventh.”

“I have been back to Vienna,” Gabriel conceded, holding up the false passport. “But never like this, and never through the airport.”

Gabriel spent a long moment appraising the false passport with his restorer’s eye. Finally he closed the cover and slipped it into his pocket. Chiara stood and walked out of the room. Shamron watched her go, then looked at Gabriel.

“It seems I’ve managed to disrupt your life once again.”

“Why should this time be any different?”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

Gabriel shook his head. “She’ll get over it,” he said. “She’s a professional.”

T
HERE WERE MOMENTS
of Gabriel’s life, fragments of time, which he rendered on canvas and hung in the cellar of his subconscious. To this gallery of memory he added Chiara as he saw her now, seated astride his body, bathed in a Rembrandt light from the streetlamps beyond their bedroom window, a satin duvet bunched at her hips, her breasts bared. Other images intruded. Shamron had opened the door to them, and Gabriel, as always, was powerless to push them back. There was Wadal Adel Zwaiter, a skinny intellectual in a plaid jacket, whom Gabriel had killed in the foyer of an apartment house in Rome. There was Ali Abdel Hamidi, who had died by Gabriel’s hand in a Zurich alley, and Mahmoud al-Hourani, older brother of Tariq al-Hourani, whom Gabriel had shot through the eye in Cologne as he lay in the arms of a lover.

A mane of hair fell across Chiara’s breasts. Gabriel reached up and gently pushed it away. She looked at him. It was too dark to see the color of her eyes, but Gabriel could sense her thoughts. Shamron had trained him to read the emotions of others, just as Umberto Conti had taught him to mimic the Old Masters. Gabriel, even in the arms of a lover, could not suspend his ceaseless search for the warning signs of betrayal.

“I don’t want you to go to Vienna.” She placed her hands on Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel could feel his heart beating against the cool skin of her palm. “It’s not safe for you there. Of all people, Shamron should know that.”

“Shamron is right. It was a long time ago.”

“Yes, it was, but if you go there and start asking questions about the bombing, you’ll rub up against the Austrian police and security services. Shamron is using you to keep his hand in the game. He doesn’t have your best interests in mind.”

“You sound like a Lev man.”

“It’s you I care about.” She bent down and kissed his mouth. Her lips tasted of blossom. “I don’t want you to go to Vienna and become lost in the past.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “I’m afraid I’ll lose you.”

“To who?”

She lifted the duvet to her shoulders and covered her breasts. Leah’s shadow fell between them. It was Chiara’s intention to let her into the room. Chiara only talked about Leah in bed, where she believed Gabriel would not lie to her. Gabriel’s entire life was a lie; with his lovers he was always painfully honest. He could make love to a woman only if she knew that he had killed men on behalf of his country. He never told lies about Leah. He considered it his duty to speak honestly of her, even to the women who had taken her place in his bed.

“Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?” Chiara asked. “Everyone knows about Leah. She’s an Office legend, just like you and Shamron. How long am I supposed to live with the fear that one day you’ll decide you can’t do this anymore?”