A Death in Vienna

asked me if I was going to kill him. He pleaded with me not to harm his son. This man who had torn children from the arms of their parents and thrown them into the fire was concerned about his own child, as if we would act like him, as if we would murder children.”
    And at a scarred wooden table, in a deserted beer garden:
    “We wanted him to agree to return with us voluntarily to Israel. He, of course, did not want to go. He wanted to stand trial in Argentina or Germany. I told him this was not possible. One way or another, he was going to stand trial in Israel. I risked my career by allowing him to have a bit of red wine and a cigarette. I did not drink with the murderer. I could not. I assured him that he would be given a chance to tell his side of the story, that he would be given a proper trial with a proper defense. He was under no illusions about the outcome, but the notion of explaining himself to the world somehow appealed to him. I also pointed out the fact that he would have the dignity of knowing he was about to die, something he denied to the millions who marched into the disrobing rooms and the gas chambers while Max Klein serenaded them. He signed the paper, dated it like a good German bureaucrat, and it was done.”
    Gabriel listened intently, his coat collar around his ears, his hands crammed into his pockets. Shamron shifted the focus from Adolf Eichmann to Erich Radek.
    “You have an advantage because you’ve seen him face to face once already, at the Café Central. I’d seen Eichmann only from afar, while we were watching his house and planning the snatch, but I had never actually spoken to him or even stood next to him. I knew exactly how tall he was, but couldn’t picture it. I had a sense of how his voice would sound, but I didn’treally know. You know Radek, but unfortunately he knows a bit about you, too, thanks to Manfred Kruz. He’ll want to know more. He’ll feel exposed and vulnerable. He’ll try to level the playing field by asking you questions. He’ll want to know why you are pursuing him. Under no circumstances are you to engage him in anything like normal conversation. Remember, Erich Radek was no camp guard or gas chamber operator. He was SD, a skilled interrogator. He’ll try to bring those skills to bear one final time to avoid his fate. Don’t play into his hands. You’re the one in charge now. He’ll find the reversal a shock to the system.”
    Gabriel cast his eyes downward, as if he were reading the words carved into the table.
    “So why do Eichmann and Radek deserve the trappings of justice,” he said finally, “but the Palestinians from Black September only vengeance?”
    “You would have made a fine Talmudic scholar, Gabriel.”
    “And you’re avoiding my question.”
    “Obviously, there was a measure of pure vengeance in our decision to target the Black September terrorists, but it was more than that. They posed a continuing threat. If we didn’t kill them, they would kill us. It was war.”
    “Why not arrest them, put them on trial?”
    “So they could spout their propaganda from an Israeli court?” Shamron shook his head slowly. “They already did that”—he raised his hand and pointed to the tower rising over the Olympic Park—“right here in this city, in front of all the world’s cameras. It wasn’t our job to give them another opportunity to justify the massacre of innocents.”
    He lowered his hand and leaned across the table. It was then that he told Gabriel of the prime minister’s wishes. His breath froze before him as he spoke.
    “I don’t want to kill an old man,” Gabriel said.
    “He’s not an old man. He wears an old man’s clothing and hides behind an old man’s face, but he’s still Erich Radek, the monster who killed a dozen men at Auschwitz because they couldn’t identify a piece of Brahms. The monster who killed two girls by the side of a Polish road because they wouldn’t deny the atrocities of Birkenau. The monster who opened the graves of millions and subjected their corpses to one final humiliation. Infirmity does not forgive such sins.”
    Gabriel looked up and held Shamron’s insistent gaze. “I know he’s a monster. I just don’t want to kill him. I want the world to know what this man did.”
    “Then you’d better be ready to do battle with him.” Shamron glared at his wristwatch. “I’m bringing in someone to help you prepare. In fact, he should be arriving shortly.”
    “Why am I being told