had commenced, big downy flakes falling straight in the windless night. An ordinary visitor to the city might have found it picturesque, the trams slithering along sugar-dusted streets lined with empty palaces and churches. But not Gabriel. Vienna always depressed him, never more so than when it snowed.
The car waited in the street, the driver behind the wheel. Gabriel pulled the collar of his old Barbour jacket around his ears and informed Oren that he intended to walk to the safe flat.
“Alone,” he added.
“I can’t let you walk around Vienna unprotected, boss.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the chief now. And if something happens—”
“You’ll say you were following orders.”
“Just like the Austrians.” In the darkness the bodyguard handed Gabriel a Jericho 9mm pistol. “At least take this.”
Gabriel slipped the Jericho into the waistband of his trousers. “I’ll be at the safe flat in thirty minutes. I’ll let King Saul Boulevard know when I’ve arrived.”
King Saul Boulevard was the address of Israel’s secret intelligence service. It had a long and deliberately misleading name that had very little to do with the true nature of its work. Even the chief referred to it as the Office and nothing else.
“Thirty minutes,” repeated Oren.
“And not a minute more,” pledged Gabriel.
“And if you’re late?”
“It means I’ve been assassinated or kidnapped by ISIS, the Russians, Hezbollah, the Iranians, or someone else I’ve managed to offend. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for my survival.”
“What about us?”
“You’ll be fine, Oren.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near the safe flat,” said Gabriel. “Keep moving until you hear from me. And remember, don’t try to follow me. That’s a direct order.”
The bodyguard stared at Gabriel in silence, an expression of concern on his face.
“What is it now, Oren?”
“Are you sure you don’t want some company, boss?”
Gabriel turned without another word and disappeared into the night.
He crossed the Burgring and set out along the footpaths of the Volksgarten. He was below average in height—five foot eight, perhaps, but no more—and had the spare physique of a cyclist. The face was long and narrow at the chin, with wide cheekbones and a slender nose that looked as though it had been carved from wood. The eyes were an unnatural shade of green; the hair was dark and shot with gray at the temples. It was a face of many possible national origins, and Gabriel had the linguistic gifts to put it to good use. He spoke five languages fluently, including Italian, which he had acquired before traveling to Venice in the mid-1970s to study the craft of art conservation. Afterward, he had lived as a taciturn if gifted restorer named Mario Delvecchio while simultaneously serving as an intelligence officer and assassin for the Office. Some of his finest work had been performed in Vienna. Some of his worst, too.
He skirted the edge of the Burgtheater, the German-speaking world’s most prestigious stage, and followed the Bankgasse to the Café Central, one of Vienna’s most prominent coffeehouses. There he peered through the frosted windows and in his memory glimpsed Erich Radek, colleague of Adolf Eichmann, tormentor of Gabriel’s mother, sipping an Einspänner at a table alone. Radek the murderer was hazy and indistinct, like a figure in a painting in need of restoration.
“Are you sure we’ve never met before? Your face seems very familiar to me.”
“I sincerely doubt it.”
“Perhaps we’ll see each other again.”
“Perhaps.”
The image dissolved. Gabriel turned away and walked to the old Jewish Quarter. Before the Second World War it was home to one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the world. Now that community was largely a memory. He watched a few old men stepping tremulously from the discreet doorway of the Stadttempel, Vienna’s main synagogue, then made his way to a nearby square lined with restaurants. One was the Italian restaurant where he had eaten his last meal with Leah, his first wife, and Daniel, their only child.
In an adjacent street was the spot where their car had been parked. Gabriel slowed involuntarily, paralyzed by memories. He recalled struggling with the straps of his son’s car seat and the faint taste of wine on his wife’s lips as he gave her one last kiss. And he remembered the sound of the engine hesitating—like a record played at the wrong speed—because the bomb was pulling power from the battery. Too late, he had shouted at Leah not to turn the key a second time. Then, in a flash of brilliant white, she and the child were lost to him forever.
Gabriel’s heart was tolling like an iron bell. Not now, he told himself as tears blurred his vision, he had work to do. He tilted his face to the sky.
Isn’t it beautiful? The snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain on Tel Aviv …
He checked the time on his wristwatch; he had ten minutes to get to the safe flat. As he hurried along empty streets, he was gripped by an overwhelming sense of impending doom. It was only the weather, he assured himself. Vienna always depressed him. Never more so than when it snowed.
The safe flat was located across the Donaukanal, in a fine old Biedermeier apartment building in the Second District. It was a busier quarter, a real neighborhood rather than a museum. There was a little Spar market, a pharmacy, a couple of Asian restaurants, even a Buddhist temple. Cars and motorbikes came and went along the street; pedestrians moved along the pavements. It was the sort of place where no one would notice the chief of the Israeli secret intelligence service. Or a Russian defector, thought Gabriel.
He turned through a passageway, crossed a courtyard, and entered a foyer. The stairs were in darkness, and on the fourth-floor landing a door hung slightly ajar. He slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and padded quietly into the sitting room, where Eli Lavon sat behind an array of open notebook computers. Lavon looked up, saw the snow on Gabriel’s cap and shoulders, and frowned.
“Please tell me you didn’t walk.”
“The car broke down. I had no other choice.”
“That’s not the way your bodyguard tells it. You’d better let King Saul Boulevard know you’re here. Otherwise, the nature of our operation is likely to turn into a search and rescue.”
Gabriel leaned over one of the computers, typed a brief message, and shot it securely to Tel Aviv.
“Crisis averted,” said Lavon.
He wore a cardigan sweater beneath his crumpled tweed jacket, and an ascot at his throat. His hair was wispy and unkempt; the features of his face were bland and easily forgotten. It was one of his greatest assets. Eli Lavon appeared to be one of life’s downtrodden. In truth, he was a natural predator who could follow a highly trained intelligence officer or hardened terrorist down any street in the world without attracting a flicker of interest. He oversaw the Office division known as Neviot. Its operatives included surveillance artists, pickpockets, thieves, and those who specialized in planting hidden cameras and listening devices behind locked doors. His teams had been very busy that evening in Budapest.
He nodded toward one of the computers. It showed a man seated at the desk of an upscale hotel room. An