The English Assassin

of his time in Vienna. He took one last look at the painting, then left the cathedral and headed for the Jewish Quarter.
     
    ADOLFHitler’s barbarous dream of ridding Vienna of its Jews had largely succeeded. Before the war some two hundred thousand had lived here, many of them in the warren of streets around the Judenplatz. Now there were but a few thousand left, mainly newer arrivals from the East, and the old Jewish Quarter had been transformed into a strip of boutiques, restaurants, and nightclubs. Among Viennese it was known as the Bermuda Triangle.
    Gabriel walked past the shuttered bars along the Sterngasse, then turned into a winding walkway that ended in a staircase of stone. At the top of the stairs was a heavy studded door. Next to the door was a small brass plaque:WARTIME CLAIMS AND INQUIRIES —APPOINTMENTS ONLY. He pressed the bell.
    “May I help you?”
    “I’d like to see Mr. Lavon, please.”
    “Do you have an appointment?”
    “No.”
    “Mr. Lavon doesn’t accept unscheduled visitors.”
    “I’m afraid it’s an emergency.”

    “May I have your name, please?”
    “Tell him it’s Gabriel Allon. He’ll remember me.”
     
    THEroom into which Gabriel was shown was classic Viennese in its proportions and furnishings: a high ceiling, a polished wood floor catching the light streaming through the tall windows, bookshelves sagging beneath the weight of countless volumes and files. Lavon seemed lost in it. But then, disappearing into the background was Lavon’s special gift.
    At the moment, however, he was balanced precariously atop a library ladder, flipping through the contents of a bulging file and muttering to himself. The light from the windows cast a greenish glow over him, and it was then Gabriel realized that the glass was bulletproof. Lavon looked up suddenly, tipping his head downward in order to see over the pair of smudged half-moon reading glasses perched at the end of his nose. Cigarette ash dropped into the file. He seemed not to notice, because he closed the file and slipped it back into its slot on the shelf and smiled.
    “Gabriel Allon! Shamron’s avenging angel. My God, what are you doing here?”
    He climbed down the ladder like a man with old pains. As always, he seemed to be wearing all his clothing at once: a blue button-down shirt, a beige rollneck sweater, a cardigan, a floppy herringbone jacket that seemed a size too large. He had shaved carelessly, and wore socks but no shoes.
    He held Gabriel’s hands and kissed his cheek. How long had it been? Twenty-five years, thought Gabriel. In the lexicon of the Wrath of God operation, Lavon had been an ayin, a tracker. An archaeologist by training, he had stalked members of Black September, learned their habits, and devised ways of killing them. He had been a brilliant watcher, a chameleon who could blend into any surroundings. The operation took a terrible physical and psychological toll on all of them, but Gabriel remembered that Lavon had suffered the most. Working alone in the field, exposed to his enemies for long periods of time, he had developed a chronic stomach disorder that stripped thirty pounds from his lean frame. When it was over, Lavon took an assistant professorship at Hebrew University and spent his weekends on digs in the West Bank. Soon he heard other voices. Like Gabriel, he was a child of Holocaust survivors. Searching for ancient relics seemed trivial when there was so much still to be unearthed about the immediate past. He settled in Vienna and put his formidable talents to work in another way: tracking down Nazis and their looted treasure.
    “So, what brings you to Vienna? Business? Pleasure?”
    “Augustus Rolfe.”
    “Rolfe? The banker?” Lavon lowered his head and glared at Gabriel over his glasses. “Gabriel, you weren’t the one who—” He made a gun of his right hand.
    Gabriel unzipped his jacket, removed the envelope he had taken from Rolfe’s desk, and handed it to Lavon. Carefully he pried open the flap, as if he were handling a fragment of ancient ceramic, and removed the contents. He glanced at the first photograph, then the second, his face revealing nothing. Then he looked up at Gabriel and smiled.
    “Well, well, Herr Rolfe takes a lovely photograph. Where did you get these, Gabriel?”
    “From the old man’s desk in Zurich.”
    He held up the sheaf of documents. “And these?”

    “Same place.”
    Lavon looked at the photographs again. “Fantastic.”
    “What do they