A Death in Vienna
basalt engraved with some of history’s most infamous names: Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Bergen-Belsen, Chelmo, Auschwitz. . . .
In the Hall of Names, there were no flames or statues, just countless file folders filled with Pages of Testimony, each bearing the story of a martyr: name, place and date of birth, name of parents, place of residence, profession, place of death. A gentle woman named Shoshanna searched the computer database and located the Pages of Testimony for Gabriel’s grandparents, Viktor and Sarah Frankel. She printed them out and handed them sadly over to Gabriel. At the bottom of each page was the name of the person who had supplied the information: Irene Allon, Gabriel’s mother.
He paid a small surcharge for the printouts, two shekels for each, and walked next door to the Yad Vashem Art Museum, home of the largest collection of Holocaust art in the world. As he roamed the galleries, he found it nearly impossible to fathom the undying human spirit that managed to produceart under conditions of starvation, slavery, and unimaginable brutality. Suddenly, his own work seemed trivial and utterly without meaning.What did dead saints in a museum of a church have to do with anything? Mario Delvecchio, arrogant, egotistical Mario Delvecchio, seemed entirely irrelevant.
In the final room was a special exhibit of children’s art. One image seized him like a choke hold, a charcoal sketch of an androgynous child, cowering before the gigantic figure of an SS officer.
He glanced at his watch. An hour had passed. He left the art museum and hurried back to the archives to hear the results of Moshe Rivlin’s search.
HE FOUND RIVLINpacing anxiously in the sandstone forecourt of the archives building. Rivlin seized Gabriel by the arm and led him inside to the small room where they had met an hour before. Two thick files awaited them. Rivlin opened the first and handed Gabriel a photograph: Ludwig Vogel, in the uniform of an SS Sturmbannführer.
“It’s Radek,” Rivlin whispered, unable to contain his excitement. “I think you may have actually found ErichRadek !”
13
VIENNA
HERR KONRAD BECKER,of Becker & Puhl, Talstrasse 26, Zurich, arrived in Vienna that same morning. He cleared passport control with no delay and made his way to the arrivals hall, where he located the uniformed driver clutching a cardboard sign that read HERRBAUER. The client insisted on the added precaution. Becker did not like the client—nor was he under any illusions about the source of the account—but such was the nature of private Swiss banking, and Herr Konrad Becker was a true believer. If capitalism were a religion, Becker would be a leader of an extremist sect. In Becker’s learned opinion, man possessed the divine right to make money unfettered by government regulation and to conceal it wherever and however he pleased. Avoidance of taxation was not a choice but a moral duty. Inside the secretive world of Zurich banking, he was known for absolute discretion. It was the reason Konrad Becker had been entrusted with the account in the first place.
Twenty minutes later, the car drew to a stop in front of a graystone mansion in the First District. On Becker’s instructions, the driver tapped the horn twice and, after a brief delay, the metal gate swung slowly open. As the car pulled into the drive, a man stepped out of the front entrance and descended the short flight of steps. He was in his late forties, with the build and swagger of a downhill racer. His name was Klaus Halder.
Halder opened the car door and led Becker into the entrance hall. As usual, he asked the banker to open his briefcase for inspection. Then it was the rather degrading Leonardo pose, arms and legs spread wide, for a thorough going over with a hand-held magnetometer.
Finally he was escorted into the drawing room, a formal Viennese parlor, large and rectangular, with walls of rich yellow, and crown molding painted the color of clotted cream. The furniture was Baroque and covered in rich brocade. An ormolu clock ticked softly on the mantel. Each piece of furniture, each lamp and decorative object, seemed to complement its neighbor and the room as a whole. It was the room of a man who clearly possessed money and taste in equal amounts.
Herr Vogel, the client, was seated beneath a portrait that appeared, in the opinion of Herr Becker, to have been painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder. He rose slowly and extended his hand. They were a mismatched
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher