A Death in Vienna

lying across the back seat of a car.
    “My—name—is—Sturmbannführer—Erich—Radek!”
    IN THE MUNICHsafe flat, the message flashed across Shamron’s computer screen: PACKAGE HAS BEEN RECEIVED.
    Carter clapped him on the back. “I’ll be goddamned! They got him. They actually got him.”
    Shamron stood and walked to the map. “Getting him was always the easiest part of the operation, Adrian. Getting him out is quite another thing.”
    He gazed at the map. Fifty miles to the Czech border.Drive, Oded, he thought.Drive like you’ve never driven before in your life.
    36
    VIENNA
    ODED HAD MADEthe drive a dozen times but never like this—never with the siren screaming and the blue light whirling on the dash, and never with Erich Radek’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring back into his own. Their flight from the city center had gone better than expected. The evening traffic had been persistent, but never so heavy that it didn’t part for his siren and flashing light. Twice, Radek rebelled. Each uprising was ruthlessly put down by Navot and Zalman.
    They were racing north now on the E461. The Vienna traffic was gone, the rain was falling steadily and freezing at the edges of the windshield. A sign flashed past: CZECHREPUBLIC42KM . Navot took a long look over his shoulder, then, in Hebrew, instructed Oded to kill the siren and the lights.
    “Where are we going?” Radek asked, his breathing labored. “Where are you taking me?Where ?”
    Navot said nothing, just as Gabriel had instructed.“Let him ask questions till he’s blue in the face,” Gabriel had said.“Just don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Let the uncertainty prey on his mind. That’s what he would do if the roles were reversed.”
    So Navot watched the villages flashing past his window—Mistelbach, Wilfersdorf, Erdberg—and thought of only one thing, the bodyguard he had left unconscious in the entranceway of Radek’s house on the Stöbbergasse.
    Poysdorf appeared before them. Oded sped through the village, then turned into a two-lane road and followed it eastward through snow-covered pine.
    “Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
    Navot could endure his questions in silence no longer.
    “We’re going home,” he snapped. “And you’re coming with us.”
    Radek managed a glacial smile. “You made only one mistake tonight, Herr Lange. You should have killed my bodyguard when you had the chance.”
    KLAUS HALDER OPENEDone eye, then the other. The darkness was absolute. He lay very still for a moment, trying to determine the position of his body. He had fallen forward, with his arms at his sides, and his right cheek was pressed against cold marble. He tried to lift his head, a bolt of thunderous pain shot down his neck. He remembered it now, the instant it had happened. He’d been reaching for his gun when he’d been clubbed twice from behind. It was the lawyer from Zurich, Oskar Lange. Obviously, Lange was no mere lawyer. He’d been in on it, just as Halder had feared from the beginning.
    He pushed himself onto his knees and sat back against the wall. He closed his eyes and waited until the room stopped spinning, then rubbed the back of his head. It was swollen the size of an apple. He raised his left wrist and squinted at the luminous dial of his wristwatch: 5:57. When had it happened? A few minutes after five, 5:10 at the latest. Unless they’d had a helicopter waiting on the Stephansplatz, chances were they were still in Austria.
    He patted the right front pocket of his sport jacket and found that his cell phone was still there. He fished it out and dialed. Two rings. A familiar voice.
    “This is Kruz.”
    THIRTY SECONDS LATER,Manfred Kruz slammed down the phone and considered his options. The most obvious response would be to sound the alarm Klaxons, alert every police unit in the country that the old man had been seized by Israeli agents, close the borders and shut down the airport. Obvious, yes, but very dangerous. A move like that would raise many uncomfortable questions.Why was Herr Vogel kidnapped? Who is he really? Peter Metzler’s candidacy would be swept away, and so too would Kruz’s career. Even in Austria, such affairs had a way of taking on a life of their own, and Kruz had seen enough of them to know that the inquiry would not end at Vogel’s doorstep.
    The Israelis had known he would be hamstrung, and they had chosen their moment well. Kruz had to think of some subtle way to intervene,