I have access but no real responsibility. I sit in meetings and bide my time.”
“How much longer?”
“Maybe two years.”
“We won’t forget you, Werner. You’ve been good to us.”
The Austrian waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not some girl you picked up in a bar. Once I retire, you’ll struggle to remember my name.”
Navot didn’t bother with a denial.
“And what about you, Monsieur Laffont? Still in the game, I see.”
“For a few more rounds, at least.”
“Your service treated you shabbily. You deserved better.”
“I had a good run.”
“Only to be cast aside for Allon.” In a confessional murmur, Werner Schwarz asked, “Did he really think he could get away with killing an SVR officer in the middle of Vienna?”
“We had nothing to do with it.”
“Uzi, please.”
“You have to believe me, Werner. It wasn’t us.”
“We have evidence.”
“Like what?”
“One of the members of your hit team. The tall one,” Werner Schwarz persisted. “The one who looks like a cadaver. He helped Allon with that little problem at the Stadttempel a few years ago, and Allon was foolish enough to send him back to Vienna to take care of the Russian. You would have never made a mistake like that, Uzi. You were always very cautious.”
Navot ignored Werner’s flattery. “Our officers were present that night,” he admitted, “but not for the reason you think. The Russian was working for us. He was in the process of defecting when he was killed.”
Werner Schwarz smiled. “How long did it take you and Allon to come up with that one?”
“You didn’t actually see the assassination, did you, Werner?”
“There were no cameras at that end of the street, which is why you chose it. The ballistics evidence proves conclusively the operative on the motorcycle was the one who pulled the trigger.” Werner Schwarz paused, then added, “My condolences, by the way.”
“None necessary. He wasn’t ours.”
“He’s sitting on a slab in the central morgue. Do you really intend to leave him there?”
“He’s of no concern to us. Do with him what you please.”
“Oh, we are.”
The proprietor appeared and took their order as the last of the three luncheon parties made their way noisily toward the door. Beyond the windows of the dining room the Vienna Woods were beginning to darken. It was the quiet time, the time Werner Schwarz liked best. Navot filled his wineglass. Then, with no warning or explanation, he spoke a name.
Werner Schwarz raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“Know him?”
“Only by reputation.”
“And what’s that?”
“A fine officer who serves his country’s interests here in Vienna professionally and in accordance with our wishes.”
“Which means he makes no attempt to target the Austrian government.”
“Or our citizenry. Therefore, we let him go about his work unmolested. For the most part,” Werner Schwarz added.
“You keep an eye on him?”
“When resources permit. We’re a small service.”
“And?”
“He’s very good at his job. But in my experience, they usually are. Deception seems to come naturally to them.”
“No crimes or misdemeanors? No personal vices?”
“The occasional affair,” said Werner Schwarz.
“Anyone in particular?”
“He got himself involved with the wife of an American consular officer a couple of years ago. It caused quite a row.”
“How was it handled?”
“The American consular officer was transferred to Copenhagen, and the wife went back to Virginia.”
“Anything else?”
“He’s been taking a lot of flights to Bern, which is interesting because Bern isn’t part of his territory.”
“You think he’s got a new girl there?”
“Or maybe something else. As you know, our authority stops at the Swiss border.” The first course arrived, a chicken liver terrine for Navot and for Werner Schwarz the smoked duck breast. “Am I allowed to ask why you’re so interested in this man?”
“It’s a housekeeping matter. Nothing more.”
“Is it connected to the Russian?”
“Why would you ask such a thing?”
“The timing, that’s all.”
“Two birds with one stone,” explained Navot airily.
“It’s not so easily done.” Werner Schwarz dabbed his lips with a starched napkin. “Which brings us back to the man lying in the central morgue. How long do you intend to carry on this pretense he isn’t yours?”
“Do you really think,” said Navot evenly, “that Gabriel Allon would allow you to bury a Jew in an unmarked grave in Vienna?”
“I’ll grant you that’s not Allon’s style. Not after what he’s been through in this city. But the man in the morgue isn’t Jewish. At least not ethnically Jewish.”
“How do you know?”
“When the Bundespolizei couldn’t identify him, they ordered a test of his DNA.”
“And?”
“Not a trace of the Ashkenazi gene. Nor does he have the DNA markers of a Sephardic Jew. No Arabian, North African, or Spanish blood. Not a single drop.”
“So what is he?”
“He’s Russian. One hundred percent.”
“Imagine that,” said Navot.
The villa clung to the edge of a great crag in the hills of Andalusia. The precariousness of its perch appealed to the woman; it seemed it might lose its grip on the rock at any moment and fall away. There were nights, awake in bed, when she imagined herself tumbling into the abyss, with her keepsakes and her books and her cats swirling about her in a ragged tornado of memory. She wondered how long she might lie dead on the valley floor, entombed in the debris of her solitary existence, before anyone noticed. Would the authorities give her a decent burial? Would they notify her child? She had left a few carefully concealed clues concerning the child’s identity in her personal effects, and in the beginnings of a memoir. Thus far, she had managed only eleven pages, handwritten in pencil, each page marked by the brown ring of her coffee mug. She had a title, though, which she regarded as a notable achievement, as titles were always so difficult. She called it The Other Woman.
The scant eleven pages, the sum total of her labors, she regarded less charitably, for her days were nothing if not a vast empty quarter of time. What’s more, she was a journalist,