A Death in Vienna

man who shot first and worried about the consequences later. His erratic temperament was one of his greatest assets. It struck fear into friends and enemies alike. For some politicians, Shamron’s volatility was too much to bear. Rabin often avoided his calls, fearing the news he might hear. Peres thought him a primitive and banished him into the Judean wilderness of retirement. Barak, when the Office was foundering, had rehabilitated Shamron and brought him back to right the ship.
    Officially he was retired now, and his beloved Office was in the hands of a thoroughly modern and conniving technocrat called Lev. But among many quarters, Shamron would always be theMemuneh, the one in charge. The current prime minister was an old friend and fellow traveler. He’d given Shamron a vague title and just enough authority to make a general nuisance of himself. There were some at King Saul Boulevard who swore that Lev was secretly praying for Shamron’s rapid demise—and that Shamron, stubborn and steel-willed Shamron, was keeping himself alive merely to torment him.
    Now, standing before the window, Shamron calmly told Gabriel what he knew about the events in Vienna. A bomb had exploded the previous evening inside Wartime Claims and Inquiries. Eli Lavon was in a deep coma in the intensive care ward of the Vienna General Hospital, the odds of survival one in two at best. His two research assistants, Reveka Gazit and Sarah Greenberg, had been killed in the blast. An offshoot of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization, a shadowy group called the Islamic Fighting Cells, had claimed responsibility. Shamron spoke to Gabriel in his murderously accented English. Hebrew was not permitted in the Venice canal house.
    Chiara brought coffee and rugelach to the sitting room and settled herself between Gabriel and Shamron. Of the three, only Chiara was currently under Office discipline. Known as abat leveyha, her work involved posing as the lover or spouse of a case officer in the field. Like all Office personnel, she was trained in the art of physical combat and in the use of weaponry. The fact that she had scored higher than the great Gabriel Allon on her final firing range exam was a source of some tension in their household. Her undercover assignments often required a certain intimacy with her partner, such as showing affection in restaurants and nightclubs and sharing the same bed in hotel rooms or safe flats. Romantic relationships between case officers and escort agents were officially forbidden, but Gabriel knew that the close living quarters and natural stress of the field often drew them together. Indeed, he had once had an affair with hisbat leveyha while in Tunis. She’d been a beautiful Marseilles Jew named Jacqueline Delacroix, and the affair had nearly destroyed his marriage. Gabriel, when Chiara was away, often pictured her in the bed of another man. Though not prone to jealousy, he secretly looked forward to the day King Saul Boulevard decided she was too overexposed for fieldwork.
    “Whoexactly are the Islamic Fighting Cells?” he asked.
    Shamron made a face. “They’re small-time operators mainly, active in France and a couple of other European countries. They enjoy setting fire to synagogues, desecrating Jewish cemeteries, and beating up Jewish children on the streets of Paris.”
    “Was there anything useful in the claim of responsibility?”
    Shamron shook his head. “Just the usual drivel about the plight of the Palestinians and the destruction of the Zionist entity. It warns of continuous attacks against Jewish targets in Europe until Palestine is liberated.”
    “Lavon’s office was a fortress. How did a group that usually uses Molotov cocktails and spray-paint cans manage to get a bomb inside Wartime Claims and Inquiries?”
    Shamron accepted a cup from Chiara. “The Austrian Staatspolizei aren’t sure yet, but they believe it may have been concealed in a computer delivered to the office earlier that day.”
    “Do we believe the Islamic Fighting Cells have the ability to conceal a bomb in a computer and smuggle it into a secure building in Vienna?”
    Shamron stirred sugar violently into his coffee and slowly shook his head.
    “So who did it?”
    “Obviously, I’d like to know the answer to that question.”
    Shamron removed his coat and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The message was unmistakable. Gabriel looked away from Shamron’s hooded gaze and thought of the last time the old man had sent him to