The Confessor (5 page)

IT HAD
been a year since Gabriel had seen him last. Shamron had grown visibly older since that day. As they set off round the
campo
in the gathering darkness, Gabriel had to resist the urge to take him by the arm. His cheeks had hollowed, and the steel blue eyes—eyes that had once struck fear into his enemies and his allies alike—were clouded and wet. When he raised his Turkish cigarette to his lips, his right hand trembled.

Those hands had made Shamron a legend. Shortly after he joined the Office in the 1950s, Shamron’s superiors noticed that he possessed an unusually strong grip for a man with such an ordinary physique. He was trained in the art of street snatches and silent killing and sent into the field. He preferred the garrote and used it with deadly efficiency from the cobbled streets of Europe to the filthy alleyways of Cairo and Damascus. He killed Arab spies and generals. He killed the Nazi scientists who were helping Nasser build rockets. And on a warm night in April 1960, in a town north of Buenos Aires, Ari Shamron leapt from the back of a car and seized Adolf Eichmann by the throat as he was waiting for a bus to take him home.

Gabriel was the only person who knew one other salient fact about that night in Argentina: Adolf Eichmann had nearly escaped because Shamron had tripped over a loose shoelace. That same edge-of-disaster quality would mark his many stopovers in the executive suite at King Saul Boulevard. Prime ministers never knew quite what to expect when Shamron appeared outside their door—word of another shocking success or a secret confession of another humiliating failure. His willingness to take risks was both a potent operational strength and a crippling political weakness. Gabriel had lost count of how many times the old man had been cast into exile, then recalled to colors with great fanfare.

Shamron’s hold on the executive suite had finally been broken, though his exile would never be permanent. He retained the dubious title of special administrative advisor, which gave him just enough entrée to make a general nuisance of himself, and from his fortresslike villa overlooking the Sea of Galilee he still exercised considerable clandestine power. Spies and generals regularly went there to kiss his ring, and no major decision regarding the security of the state could be taken without first running it past the old man.

His health was a carefully guarded secret. Gabriel had heard rumors about prostate cancer, a mild heart attack, recurring problems with his kidneys. It was clear the old man didn’t have long to live. Shamron did not fear death—only that in his absence would spring complacency. And now, as they ambled slowly around the old ghetto, death walked beside them. Benjamin’s death. And Shamron’s. The nearness of death had made Shamron restless. He seemed like a man anxious to settle accounts. An old warrior, desperate for one last fight.

“
DID YOU
go to the funeral?”

Shamron shook his head. “Benjamin feared his academic achievements would be tainted if it ever became known he’d worked for us. My presence at the burial would only have raised uncomfortable questions, in Israel and abroad, so I stayed away. I have to admit I wasn’t anxious to attend. It’s difficult to bury a child.”

“Was anyone there? He had no other family in Israel.”

“I’m told there were some old friends from the overt world and a few members of the faculty from Hebrew.”

“Who sent you here?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters to me. Who sent you?”

“I’m like a parolee,” Shamron said wearily. “I cannot move or act without the approval of the supreme tribunal.”

“And who sits on this tribunal?”

“Lev, for one. Of course, if it were up to Lev, I’d be locked in a room with an iron cot and bread and water. But fortunately for me, the other person on the tribunal is the prime minister.”

“Your old comrade in arms.”

“Let’s just say we share similar opinions about the nature of the conflict and the true intentions of our enemies. We speak the same language and enjoy each other’s company. He keeps me in the game, despite Lev’s best efforts to wrap me in my burial shroud.”

“It’s not a game, Ari. It never was a game.”

“You don’t need to remind me of that, Gabriel. You spend your time here in the playgrounds of Europe while every day the
shaheeds
are blowing themselves to bits on Ben Yehuda Street and Jaffa Road.”

“I work here.”

“Forgive me, Gabriel. I didn’t mean that to be as harsh as it sounded. What are you working on, by the way?”

“Do you really care?”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

“The Bellini altarpiece in the Church of the San Zaccaria. It’s one of the most important paintings in Venice.”

Shamron’s face broke into a genuine smile. “I would love to see the look on the patriarch’s face if he ever found out that his precious altarpiece was being restored by a nice Jewish boy from the Jezreel Valley.”

Without warning, he stopped walking and coughed violently into a handkerchief. When he drew a few deep breaths to steady himself, Gabriel could hear a rattle in his chest. The old man needed to get out of the cold, but he was too stubborn ever to admit physical weakness. Gabriel decided to do it for him.

“Do you mind if we sit down someplace? I’ve been standing on my scaffolding since eight o’clock this morning.”

Shamron managed a weary smile. He knew he was being deceived. He led Gabriel to a bakery on the edge of the
campo
. It was empty except for a tall girl behind the counter. She served them without taking their order: cups of espresso, small bottles of mineral water, a plate of rugelach with cinnamon and nuts. As she leaned over the table, a mane of dark hair fell across the front of one shoulder. Her long hands smelled of vanilla. She covered herself in a bronze-colored wrap and went into the
campo,
leaving Gabriel and Shamron alone in the shop.

Gabriel said, “I’m listening.”

“That’s an improvement. Usually, you start off by yelling at me about how I’ve
ruined
your life.”

“I’m sure we’ll get to that at some point.”

“You and my daughter should compare notes.”

“We have. How is she?”

“Still living in New Zealand—on a
chicken
farm if you can believe that—and still refusing to take my telephone calls.” He took a long time lighting his next cigarette. “She resents me terribly. Says I was never there for her. What she doesn’t understand is that I was busy. I had a people to protect.”

“It won’t last forever.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, neither will I.” Shamron took a bite of rugelach and chewed it slowly. “How’s Anna?”

“I suppose she’s fine. I haven’t spoken to her in nearly two months.”

Shamron lowered his chin and peered disapprovingly at Gabriel over his spectacles. “Please tell me you didn’t break that poor woman’s heart.”

Gabriel stirred sugar into his coffee and looked away from Shamron’s steady stare.
Anna Rolfe . . .
She was a world-renowned concert violinist and the daughter of a wealthy Swiss banker named Augustus Rolfe. A year earlier, Gabriel had helped her track down the men who had murdered her father. Along the way he had also forced her to confront the unpleasant circumstances about her father’s wartime past and the source of his remarkable collection of Impressionist and Modern paintings. He had also fallen in love with the tempestuous virtuoso. After the operation, he’d lived for six months at her secluded villa on the Sintra coast of Portugal. Their relationship began to crumble when Gabriel confessed to her that each time they strolled the streets of the village it was the shadow of his wife Leah he saw at his shoulder—and that some nights, while they made love, Leah stood in their bedroom, a silent spectator to their contentment. When Francesco Tiepolo offered him the San Zaccaria altarpiece, Gabriel accepted without hesitation. Anna Rolfe did not stand in his way.

“I’m very fond of her, but it would never have worked.”

“Did she spend any time with you here in Venice?”

“She performed at a benefit at the Frari. She stayed with me for two days. I’m afraid it only made things worse.”

Shamron slowly crushed out his cigarette. “I suppose I’m partly to blame. I pushed you into it before you were ready.”

As he always did on occasions such as these, Shamron asked if Gabriel had been to see Leah. Gabriel heard himself say that he had gone to the secluded psychiatric clinic in the south of England before coming to Venice; that he had spent an afternoon with her, pushing her about the grounds; that they had even had a picnic lunch beneath the bare limbs of a maple. But while he spoke, his mind was elsewhere: the tiny street in Vienna not far from the Judenplatz; the car bomb that killed his son; the inferno that destroyed Leah’s body and stole her memory.

“It’s been twelve years and she still doesn’t recognize me. To be honest with you, sometimes I don’t recognize her.” Gabriel paused, then said, “But you didn’t come here to discuss my personal life.”

“No, I didn’t,” Shamron said. “But your personal life is relevant. You see, if you were still involved with Anna Rolfe, I couldn’t ask you to come back to work for me—at least, not in good conscience.”

“When have you ever let your conscience get in the way of something you wanted?”

“Now there’s the old Gabriel that I know and love.” Shamron flashed an iron smile. “How much do you know about the murder of Benjamin?”

“Only what I read in the
Herald Tribune
. The Munich police say he was killed by neo-Nazis.”

Shamron snorted. Clearly, he did not agree with the findings of the Munich police, no matter how preliminary. “I suppose it’s possible. Benjamin’s writings on the Holocaust made him extremely unpopular among many segments of German society, and the fact that he was an Israeli made him a target. But I’m not convinced that some skinhead managed to kill him. You see, whenever Jews die on German soil, it makes me uneasy. I want to know more than what the Munich police are telling us on an official basis.”

“Why don’t you send a
katsa
to Munich to investigate?”

“Because if one of our field officers starts asking questions, people are going to get suspicious. Besides, you know that I always prefer the back door to the front.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“In two days, the Munich detective in charge of the case is going to meet with Benjamin’s half brother, Ehud Landau. After briefing Landau on the investigation, he will allow him to take inventory of Benjamin’s possessions and arrange a shipment back to Israel.”

“If memory serves, Benjamin doesn’t have a half brother.”

“He does now.” Shamron placed an Israeli passport on the table and slid it toward Gabriel with the palm of his hand. Gabriel opened the cover and saw his own face staring back at him. Then he looked at the name:
EHUD LANDAU
.

Shamron said, “You have the best eyes I’ve ever seen. Have a look around his apartment. See if there’s something out of place. If you can, remove anything that might tie him to the Office.”

Gabriel closed the passport, but left it lying on the table.

“I’m in the middle of a difficult restoration. I can’t go running off to Munich now.”

“It will take a day—two at the most.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

Shamron’s temper, always seething below the surface, broke through. He pounded his fist on the table and shouted at Gabriel in Hebrew: “Do you wish to fix your silly painting or help me find out who killed your friend?”

“It’s always that simple for you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, but I wish it were so. Do you intend to help me, or will you force me to turn to one of Lev’s oafs for this delicate mission?”

Gabriel made a show of contemplation, but his mind was already made up. He scooped up the passport with a smooth movement of his hand and slipped it into his coat pocket. Gabriel had the hands of a conjurer and a magician’s sense of misdirection. The passport was there; the passport was gone. Next, Shamron reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a mid-sized manila envelope. Inside, Gabriel found an airline ticket and an expensive Swiss-made wallet of black leather. He opened the wallet: Israeli driver’s license, credit cards, membership to an exclusive Tel Aviv health club, a checkout card for a local video store, a substantial amount of currency in euros and shekels.