A Death in Vienna

hand trembling, and pressed the button of the intercom. There was no reply. He rang the bell again. This time an adolescent voice greeted him in Italian. The Clockmaker, in German, asked to see the rector.
    “I’m afraid it’s not possible. Please telephone in the morning to make an appointment, and Bishop Drexler will be happy to see you.Buonanotte, signore.”
    The Clockmaker leaned hard on the intercom button. “I was told to come here by a friend of the bishop’s from Vienna. It’s an emergency.”
    “What was the man’s name?”
    The Clockmaker answered the question truthfully.
    A silence, then: “I’ll be down in a moment, signore.”
    The Clockmaker opened his jacket and examined the puckered wound just below his right clavicle. The heat of the round had cauterized the vessels near the skin. There was little blood, just an intense throbbing and the chills of shock and fever. A small-caliber weapon, he guessed, most likely a .22. Not the kind of weapon to inflict serious internal damage. Still, he needed a doctor to remove the round and thoroughly clean the wound before sepsis set in.
    He looked up. A cassocked figure appeared in the forecourt and warily approached the gate—a novice, a boy of perhaps fifteen, with the face of an angel. “The rector says it is not convenient for you to come to the seminary at this time,” the novice said. “The rector suggests that you find somewhere else to go tonight.”
    The Clockmaker drew his Glock and pointed it at the angelic face.
    “Open the gate,” he whispered.“Now.”
    “YES, BUT WHYdid you have to send him here?” The bishop’s voice rose suddenly, as if he were warning a congregation of souls about the dangers of sin. “It would be better for all involved if he left Rome immediately.”
    “He can’t travel, Theodor. He needs a doctor and a place to rest.”
    “I can see that.” His eyes settled briefly on the figure seated on the opposite side of his desk, the man with salt-and-pepper hair and the heavy shoulders of a circus strongman. “But you must realize that you’re placing the Anima in a terribly compromising position.”
    “The position of the Anima will look much worse if our friend Professor Rubenstein is successful.”
    The Bishop sighed heavily. “He can remain here for twenty-four hours, not a minute more.”
    “And you’ll find him a doctor? Someone discreet?”
    “I know just the fellow. He helped me a couple of years ago when one of the boys got into a bit of a scrape with a Roman tough. I’m sure I can count on his discretion in this matter, though a bullet wound is hardly an everyday occurrence at a seminary.”
    “I’m sure you’ll think of some way to explain it. You have a very nimble mind, Theodor. May I speak with him a moment?”
    The bishop held out the receiver. The Clockmaker grasped it with a bloodstained hand. Then he looked up at the prelate and, with a sideways nod of his head, sent him fleeing from his own office. The assassin brought the telephone to his ear. The man from Vienna asked what had gone wrong.
    “You didn’t tell me the target was under protection. That’s what went wrong.”
    The Clockmaker then described the sudden appearance of the second person on a motorcycle. There was a moment of silence on the line, then the man from Vienna spoke in a confessional tone.
    “In my rush to dispatch you to Rome, I neglected to relay an important piece of information about the target. In retrospect, that was a miscalculation on my part.”
    “An important piece of information? And what might that be?”
    The man from Vienna acknowledged that the target was once connected to Israeli intelligence. “Judging from the events tonight in Rome,” he said, “those connections remain as strong as ever.”
    For the love of God,thought the Clockmaker.An Israeli agent? It was no minor detail. He had a good mind to return to Vienna and leave the old man to deal with the mess himself. He decided instead to turn the situation to his own financial advantage. But there was something else. Never before had he failed to execute the terms of a contract. It wasn’t just a question of professional pride and reputation. He simply didn’t think it was wise to leave a potential enemy lying about, especially an enemy connected with an intelligence service as ruthless as Israel’s. His shoulder began to throb. He looked forward to putting a bullet into that stinking Jew.And his friend.
    “My price for this