A Death in Vienna

of newspapers.”
    “You’re suggesting a leak?”
    “Why don’t we light a fire under Vogel and see how he reacts?”
    “Bad idea,” Gabriel said. “Remember Waldheim and the revelations about his Nazi past? They were dismissed as foreign agitation and outside interference in Austrian affairs. Ordinary Austrians closed ranks around him, as did the Austrian authorities. The affair also raised the level of anti-Semitism inside the country. A leak, Ari, would be a very bad idea.”
    “So what do you suggest we do?”
    “Max Klein was convinced that Ludwig Vogel was an SS man who committed an atrocity at Auschwitz. According to the documents in the Staatsarchiv, Ludwig Vogel was too young to be that man—and he was in the Wehrmacht, not the SS. But assume for argument’s sake that Max Klein was right.”
    “That would mean that Ludwig Vogel is someone else.”
    “Exactly,” Gabriel said. “So let’s find out who he really is.”
    “How do you intend to do that?”
    “I’m not sure,” Gabriel said, “but the things in that envelope, in proper hands, might yield some valuable clues.”
    Shamron nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a man at Yad Vashem who you should see. He’ll be able to help you. I’ll set up an appointment first thing in the morning.”
    “There’s one more thing, Ari. We need to get Eli out of Vienna.”
    “My thoughts exactly.” Shamron removed the telephone from the console and pressed a Speed-dial button. “This is Shamron. I need to speak to the prime minister.”
    YAD VASHEM,located atop Mount Herzel in the western portion of Jerusalem, is Israel’s official memorial to the six million who perished in the Shoah. It is also the world’s foremost center for Holocaust research and documentation. The library contains more than one hundred thousand volumes, the largest and most complete collection of Holocaust literature in the world. Stored in the archives are more than fifty-eight million pages of original documents, including thousands of personal testimonies, written, dictated, or videotaped by survivors of the Shoah in Israel and around the world.
    Moshe Rivlin was expecting him. A rotund, bearded academic, he spoke Hebrew with a pronounced Brooklyn accent. His special area of expertise resided not with the victims of the Shoah but with its perpetrators—the Germans who served the Nazi death machine and the thousands of non-German helpers who willingly and enthusiastically took part in the destruction of Europe’s Jews. He served as a paid consultant for the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, compiling documentary evidence against accused Nazi war criminals and scouring Israel for living witnesses. When he was not searching the archives of Yad Vashem, Rivlin could usually be found among the survivors, looking for someone who remembered.
    Rivlin led Gabriel inside the archives building and into the main reading room. It was a surprisingly cramped space, brightly lit by large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the hills of west Jerusalem. A pair of scholars sat hunched over open books; another stared transfixed into the screen of a microfilm reader. When Gabriel suggested something a bit more private, Rivlin led him into a small side room and closed the thick glass door. The version of events Gabriel provided was well sanitized, but thorough enough so that nothing important was lost in translation. He showed Rivlin all the material he had gathered in Austria: the Staatsarchiv file, the photograph, the wristwatch, and the ring. When Gabriel pointed out the inscription on the inside of the band, Rivlin read it and looked up sharply.
    “Amazing,” he whispered.
    “What does it mean?”
    “I have to gather some documents from the archives.” Rivlin stood. “It’s going to take a little time.”
    “How long?”
    The archivist shrugged. “An hour, maybe a little less. Have you ever been to the memorials?”
    “Not since I was a schoolboy.”
    “Take a walk.” Rivlin patted Gabriel’s shoulder. “Come back in an hour.”

GABRIEL WALKED ALONGa pine-shaded footpath and descended the stone passage into the darkness of Children’s Memorial. Five candles, reflected infinitely by mirrors, created the illusion of a galaxy of stars, while a recorded voice read the names of the dead.
    He emerged back into the brilliant sunlight and walked to the Hall of Remembrance, where he stood motionless before the eternal flame, flickering amid black