A Death in Vienna

convince Radek to come here?”
    “Have you read his mother’s testimony?”
    “I have, and I know what I’d do in his position. I’m afraid I’d put a bullet in the bastard’s brain, like Radek did to so many others, and call it a day.”
    “Would such an action be just, in your opinion?”
    “There’s the justice of civilized men, the kind of justice that is dispensed in courtrooms by men in robes, and then there is the justice of the Prophets.God’s justice. How can one render justice for crimes so enormous? What punishment would be appropriate? Life in prison? A painless execution?”
    “The truth, Prime Minister. Sometimes, the best revenge is the truth.”
    “And if Radek doesn’t accept the deal?”
    Shamron shrugged. “Are you giving me instructions?”
    “I don’t need another Demjanuk affair. I don’t need a Holocaust show trial that turns into an international media circus. It would be better if Radek simply faded away.”
    “Faded away, Prime Minister?”
    The prime minister exhaled heavily into Shamron’s face.
    “Are you certain it’shim, Ari?”
    “Of this, there is no doubt.”
    “Then, if the need arises, put him down.”
    Shamron looked toward his feet but saw only the bulging midsection of the prime minister. “He shoulders a heavy burden, our Gabriel. I’m afraid I put it there back in ’72. He’s not up for an assassination job.”
    “Erich Radek put that burden on Gabriel long before you came along, Ari. Now Gabriel has an opportunity to lose some of it. Let me make my wishes plain. If Radek doesn’t agree to come here, tell the prince of fire to put him down and let the dogs lap up his blood.”
    30
    VIENNA
    MIDNIGHT IN THEFirst District, a dead calm, a silence only Vienna can produce, a stately emptiness. Kruz found it reassuring. The feeling didn’t last long. It was rare that the old man telephoned him at home, and never had Kruz been dragged from bed in the middle of the night for a meeting. He doubted the news would be good.
    He looked down the length of the street and saw nothing out of the ordinary. A glance into his rearview mirror confirmed that he had not been followed. He climbed out and walked to the gate of the old man’s imposing graystone house. On the ground floor, lights burned behind drawn curtains. A single light glowed on the second level. Kruz rang the bell. He had the feeling of being watched, something almost imperceptible, like a breath on the back of his neck. He glanced over his shoulder. Nothing.
    He reached out toward the bell again, but before he could press it, a buzzer sounded and the deadbolt lock snapped back. He pushed open the gate and crossed the forecourt. By the time he reached the portico, the door was swinging open and a man was standing in the threshold with his suit jacket open and his tie loose. He made no effort to conceal the black leather shoulder holster containing a Glock pistol. Kruz was not alarmed by the sight; he knew the man well. He was a former Staatspolizei officer named Klaus Halder. It was Kruz who had hired him to serve as the old man’s bodyguard. Halder usually accompanied the old man only when he went out or was expecting visitors to the house. His presence at midnight was, like the telephone call to Kruz’s house, not a good sign.
    “Where is he?”
    Halder looked wordlessly toward the floor. Kruz loosened the belt of his raincoat and entered the old man’s study. The false wall was moved aside. The small, capsulelike lift was waiting. He stepped inside and, with a press of a button, sent it slowly downward. The doors opened a few seconds later, revealing a small subterranean chamber decorated in the soft yellow and gilt of the old man’s baroque tastes. The Americans had built it for him so that he could conduct important meetings without fear the Russians were listening in. They’d built the passage, too, the one reached by way of a stainless-steel blast door with a combination lock. Kruz was one of the few people in Vienna who knew where the passage led and who had lived in the house at the other end.
    The old man was seated at a small table, a drink before him. Kruz could tell he was uneasy, because he was twisting the glass, two turns to the right, two to the left. Right, right, left, left. A strange habit, thought Kruz. Menacing as hell. He reckoned the old man had picked it up in a previous life, in another world. An image took shape in Kruz’s mind: a Russian commissar chained to an