A Death in Vienna

Star of David.”
    Under perfect circumstances, such an operation would involve weeks of planning. Gabriel had only days. The Wrath of God operation had prepared him well. The terrorists of Black September had been constantly on the move, appearing and disappearing with maddening frequency. When one was located and positively identified, the hit team would swing into action at light speed. Surveillance teams would swoop into place, vehicles and safe flats would be rented, escape routes would be planned. That reservoir of experience and knowledge served Gabriel well in Munich. Few intelligence officers knew more about rapid planning and quick strikes than he and Shamron.
    In the evenings, they watched the news on German television. The election in neighboring Austria had captured the attention of German viewers. Metzler was rolling forward. The crowds at his campaign stops, like his lead in the polls, grew larger by the day. Austria, it seemed, was on the verge of doing the unthinkable, electing a chancellor from the far right. Inside the Munich safe flat, Gabriel and his team found themselves in the odd position of cheering Metzler’s ascent in the polls, for without Metzler, their doorway to Radek would close.
    Invariably, soon after the news ended, Lev would check in from King Saul Boulevard and subject Gabriel to a tedious cross-examination of the day’s events. It was the one time Shamron was relieved not to bear the burden of operational command. Gabriel would pace the floor with a phone against his ear, patiently answering each of Lev’s questions. And sometimes, if the light was right, Shamron would see Gabriel’s mother, pacing beside him. She was the one member of the team that no one ever mentioned.
    ONCE EACH DAY,usually in late afternoon, Gabriel and Shamron escaped the safe flat to walk in the English Gardens. Eichmann’s shadow hung over them. Gabriel reckoned he had been there from the beginning. He had come that night in Vienna, when Max Klein had told Gabriel the story of the SS officer who had murdered a dozen prisoners at Birkenau and now enjoyed coffee every afternoon at the Café Central. Still, Shamron had diligently avoided even speaking his name, until now.
    Gabriel had heard the story of Eichmann’s capture many times before. Indeed, Shamron had used it in September 1972 to prod Gabriel into joining the Wrath of God team. The version Shamron told during those walks along the tree-lined footpaths of the English Gardens was more detailed than any Gabriel had heard before. Gabriel knew these were not merely the ramblings of an old man trying to relive past glories. Shamron was never one to trumpet his own successes, and the publishers would wait in vain for his memoirs. Gabriel knew Shamron was telling him about Eichmann for a reason.I’ve taken the journey you’re about to make, Shamron was saying.In another time, in another place, in the company of another man, but there are things you should know. Gabriel, at times, could not shake the sense that he was walking with history.
    “Waiting for the escape plane was the hardest part. We were trapped in the safe house with this rat of a man. Some of the team couldn’t bear to look at him. I had to sit in his room night after night and keep watch over him. He was chained to the iron bed, dressed in pajamas with opaque goggles over his eyes. We were strictly forbidden to engage him in conversation. Only the interrogator was allowed to speak to him. I couldn’t obey those orders. You see, I had to know. How had this man who was sickened by the sight of blood killed six million of my people? My mother and father? My two sisters? I asked him why he had done it. And do you know what he said? He told me he did it because it was his job—his job, Gabriel—as if he were nothing more than a bank clerk or a railroad conductor.”
    And later, standing at the balustrade of a humpbacked bridge overlooking a stream:
    “Only once did I want to kill him, Gabriel—when he tried to tell me that he did not hate the Jewish people, that he actually liked and admired the Jewish people. To show me how much he cared for the Jews, he began to recite our words:Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad! I could not bear to hear those words coming out of that mouth, the mouth that had given the orders to murder six million. I clamped my hand over his face until he shut up. He began to shake and convulse. I thought I’d caused him to have a heart attack. He