A Death in Vienna

informed him that we couldn’t do that.”
    “So he took matters into his own hands.”
    “You’re suggesting Vogel ordered the bombing at Wartime Claims and Inquiries?”
    “I’m also suggesting he had Max Klein murdered in order to silence him.”
    Carter took a moment before answering. “If Vogel is involved, he’s worked through so many cutouts and front men you’ll never be able to pin a charge on him. Besides, the bombing and Max Klein’s death are Austrian matters, not Israeli, and no Austrian prosecutor is going to open a murder investigation into Ludwig Vogel. It’s a dead end.”
    “His name is Radek, Adrian, not Vogel, and the question iswhy. Why was Radek so concerned about Eli Lavon’s investigation that he would resort to murder? Even if Eli and Max Klein were able to prove conclusively that Vogel was really Erich Radek, he would have never been brought to trial by the Austrian state prosecutor. He’s too old. Too much time had elapsed. There were no witnesses left, none except Klein, and there’s no way Radek would have been convicted in Austria on the word of one old Jew. So why resort to violence?”
    “It sounds to me as if you have a theory.”
    Gabriel looked over his shoulder and murmured a few words in Hebrew to Shamron. Shamron handed Gabriel a file containing all the material he had gathered in the course of the investigation. Gabriel opened it and removed a single item: the photograph he had taken from Radek’s house in the Salzkammergut, Radek with a woman and a teen-aged boy. He laid it on the table and turned it so Carter could see. Carter’s eyes moved to the photo, then back to Gabriel.
    “Who is she?” Gabriel asked.
    “His wife, Monica.”
    “When did he marry her?”
    “During the war,” said Carter, “in Berlin.”
    “There was never a mention of an SS-approved marriage in his file.”
    “There were many things that didn’t make it into Radek’s SS file.”
    “And after the war?”
    “She settled in Pullach under her real name. The child was born in 1949. When Vogel moved back to Vienna, General Gehlen didn’t think it would be safe for Monica and the son to go with him openly—and neither did the Agency. A marriage was arranged for her to a man employed in Vogel’s net. She lived in Vienna, in the house behind Vogel’s. He visited them in the evening. Eventually, we constructed a passage between the houses, so that Monica and the boy could move freely between the two residences without fear of detection. We never knew who was watching. The Russians would have dearly loved to compromise him and turn him around.”
    “What was the boy’s name?”
    “Peter.”
    “And the agent that Monica Radek married? Please tell us his name, Adrian.”
    “I think you already know his name, Gabriel.” Carter hesitated, then said, “His name was Metzler.”
    “Peter Metzler, the man who is about to be chancellor of Austria, is the son of a Nazi war criminal named Erich Radek, and Eli Lavon was going to expose that fact.”
    “So it would seem.”
    “That sounds like a motive for murder to me, Adrian.”
    “Bravo, Gabriel,” Carter said. “But what can you do about it? Convince the Austrians to bring charges against Radek? Good luck. Expose Peter Metzler as Radek’s son? If you do that, you’ll also expose the fact that Radek was our man in Vienna. It will cause the Agency much public embarrassment at a time when it is locked in a global campaign against forces that wish to destroy my countryand yours. It will also plunge relations between your service and mine into the deep freeze at a time when you desperately need our support.”
    “That sounds like a threat to me, Adrian.”
    “No, it’s just sound advice,” Carter said. “It’s Realpolitik. Drop it. Look the other way. Wait for him to die and forget it ever happened.”
    “No,” Shamron said.
    Carter’s gaze moved from Gabriel to Shamron. “Why did I know that was going to be your answer?”
    “Because I’m Shamron, and I never forget.”
    “Then I suppose we need to come up with some way to deal with this situation that doesn’t drag my service through the cesspool of history.” Carter looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. I’m hungry. Let’s eat, shall we?”
    FOR THE NEXThour, over a meal of roast duckling and wild rice in the candlelit dining room, Erich Radek’s name was not spoken. There was a ritual about affairs such as these, Shamron always said, a rhythm that