A Death in Vienna

sound of Oded’s footsteps in the gravel behind him.
    “Congratulations, Radek. Because of you, it’s only a symbolic cemetery.”
    “Are you going to kill me now? Have I not told you what you wanted to hear?”
    Gabriel pushed him along the path. “You may take a certain pride in this place, but for us, it is sacred ground. Do you really think I would pollute it with your blood?”
    “Then what is the point of this? Why did you bring me here?”
    “You needed to see it one more time. You needed to visit the scene of the crime to refresh your memory and prepare for your upcoming testimony. That’s how you’re going to save your son the humiliation of having a man like you as a father. You’re going to come back to Israel and pay for your crimes.”
    “It wasn’tmy crime! I didn’t kill them! I just did what Müller ordered me to do. I cleaned up the mess!”
    “You did your fair share of killing, Radek. Remember your little game with Max Klein in Birkenau? And what about the death march? You were there too, weren’t you, Radek?”
    Radek slowed and turned his head. Gabriel gave him a push between the shoulder blades. They came to a large, rectangular depression where the cremation pit had been. It was filled now with pieces of black basalt.
    “Kill me now, damn it! Don’t take me to Israel! Just do it now, and get it over with. Besides, that’s what you’re good at, isn’t it, Allon?”
    “Not here,” Gabriel said. “Not in this place. You don’t deserve to even set foot here, let alone die here.”
    Radek fell to his knees before the pit.
    “And if I agree to come with you? What fate awaits me?”
    “The truth awaits you, Radek. You’ll stand before the Israeli people and confess your crimes. Your role inAktion 1005. The murders of prisoners at Birkenau. The killings you carried out during the death march from Birkenau. Do you even remember the girls you murdered, Radek?”
    Radek’s head twisted round. “How do you—”
    Gabriel cut him off. “You won’t face trial for your crimes, but you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars. While you’re in prison, you’ll work with a team of Holocaust scholars from Yad Vashem to compile a thorough history ofAktion 1005. You’ll tell the deniers and the doubters exactly what you did to conceal the greatest case of mass murder in history. You’ll tell the truth for the first time in your life.”
    “Whose truth, yours or mine?”
    “There’s only one truth, Radek. Treblinka is the truth.”
    “And what do I get in return?”
    “More than you deserve,” Gabriel said. “We’ll say nothing about Metzler’s dubious parentage.”
    “You’re willing to stomach an Austrian chancellor of the far right in order to get to me?”
    “Something tells me Peter Metzler is going to become a great friend of Israel and the Jews. He’ll want to do nothing to anger us. After all, we’ll hold the keys to his destruction long after you’re dead.”
    “How did you convince the Americans to betray me? Blackmail, I suppose—that’s the Jewish way. But there must have been more. Surely you vowed that you would never give me an opportunity to discuss my affiliation with Organization Gehlen or the CIA. I suppose your dedication to the truth goes only so far.”
    “Give me your answer, Radek.”
    “How can I trust you, a Jew, to live up to your end of the bargain?”
    “Have you been readingDer Stürmer again? You’ll trust me because you have no other choice.”
    “And what good will it do? Will it bring back even one person who died in this place?”
    “No,” Gabriel conceded, “but the world will know the truth, and you’ll spend the last years of your life where you belong. Take the deal, Radek. Take it for your son. Think of it as one last escape.”
    “It won’t stay secret forever. Someday, the truth of this affair will come out.”
    “Eventually,” Gabriel said. “I suppose you can’t hide the truth forever.”
    Radek’s head pivoted slowly around and he stared at Gabriel contemptuously. “If you were a real man, you’d do it yourself.” He managed a mocking smile. “As for the truth, no one cared while this place was in operation, and no one will care now.”
    He turned and looked into the pit. Gabriel pocketed the Beretta and walked away. Oded, Zalman, and Navot stood motionless on the footpath behind him. Gabriel brushed past them without a word and headed down through the camp to the rail platform. Before turning