an adjacent street was the spot where their car had been parked. Gabriel slowed involuntarily, paralyzed by memories. He recalled struggling with the straps of his son’s car seat and the faint taste of wine on his wife’s lips as he gave her one last kiss. And he remembered the sound of the engine hesitating—like a record played at the wrong speed—because the bomb was pulling power from the battery. Too late, he had shouted at Leah not to turn the key a second time. Then, in a flash of brilliant white, she and the child were lost to him forever.
Gabriel’s heart was tolling like an iron bell. Not now, he told himself as tears blurred his vision, he had work to do. He tilted his face to the sky.
Isn’t it beautiful? The snow falls on Vienna while the missiles rain on Tel Aviv …
He checked the time on his wristwatch; he had ten minutes to get to the safe flat. As he hurried along empty streets, he was gripped by an overwhelming sense of impending doom. It was only the weather, he assured himself. Vienna always depressed him. Never more so than when it snowed.
The safe flat was located across the Donaukanal, in a fine old Biedermeier apartment building in the Second District. It was a busier quarter, a real neighborhood rather than a museum. There was a little Spar market, a pharmacy, a couple of Asian restaurants, even a Buddhist temple. Cars and motorbikes came and went along the street; pedestrians moved along the pavements. It was the sort of place where no one would notice the chief of the Israeli secret intelligence service. Or a Russian defector, thought Gabriel.
He turned through a passageway, crossed a courtyard, and entered a foyer. The stairs were in darkness, and on the fourth-floor landing a door hung slightly ajar. He slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and padded quietly into the sitting room, where Eli Lavon sat behind an array of open notebook computers. Lavon looked up, saw the snow on Gabriel’s cap and shoulders, and frowned.
“Please tell me you didn’t walk.”
“The car broke down. I had no other choice.”
“That’s not the way your bodyguard tells it. You’d better let King Saul Boulevard know you’re here. Otherwise, the nature of our operation is likely to turn into a search and rescue.”
Gabriel leaned over one of the computers, typed a brief message, and shot it securely to Tel Aviv.
“Crisis averted,” said Lavon.
He wore a cardigan sweater beneath his crumpled tweed jacket, and an ascot at his throat. His hair was wispy and unkempt; the features of his face were bland and easily forgotten. It was one of his greatest assets. Eli Lavon appeared to be one of life’s downtrodden. In truth, he was a natural predator who could follow a highly trained intelligence officer or hardened terrorist down any street in the world without attracting a flicker of interest. He oversaw the Office division known as Neviot. Its operatives included surveillance artists, pickpockets, thieves, and those who specialized in planting hidden cameras and listening devices behind locked doors. His teams had been very busy that evening in Budapest.
He nodded toward one of the computers. It showed a man seated at the desk of an upscale hotel room. An unopened bag lay at the foot of the bed. Before him was a mobile phone and an ampule.
“Is that a photograph?” asked Gabriel.
“Video.”
Gabriel tapped the screen of the laptop.
“He can’t actually hear you, you know.”
“Are you sure he’s alive?”
“He’s scared to death. He hasn’t moved a muscle in five minutes.”
“What’s he so afraid of?”
“He’s Russian,” said Lavon, as if that fact alone were explanation enough.
Gabriel studied Heathcliff as though he were a figure in a painting. His real name was Konstantin Kirov, and he was one of the Office’s most valuable sources. Only a small portion of Kirov’s intelligence had concerned Israel’s security directly, but the enormous surplus had paid dividends in London and Langley, where the directors of MI6 and the CIA eagerly feasted on each batch of secrets that spilled from the Russian’s attaché case. The Anglo-Americans had not dined for free. Both services had helped to foot the bill for the operation, and the British, after much interservice arm-twisting, had agreed to grant Kirov sanctuary in the United Kingdom.
The first face the Russian would see after defecting, however, would be the face of Gabriel Allon. Gabriel’s history with the Russian intelligence service and the men in the Kremlin was long and blood-soaked. For that reason he wanted to personally conduct Kirov’s initial debriefing. Specifically, he wanted to know exactly what Kirov had discovered, and why he suddenly needed to defect. Then Gabriel would place the Russian in the hands of MI6’s Head of Station in Vienna. Gabriel was more than happy to let the British have him. Blown agents were invariably a headache, especially blown Russian agents.
At last, Kirov stirred.
“That’s a relief,” said Gabriel.
The image on the screen deteriorated into digital tile for a few seconds before returning to normal.
“It’s been like that all evening,” explained Lavon. “The team must have put the transmitter on top of some interference.”
“When did they go into the room?”
“About an hour before Heathcliff arrived. When we hacked into the hotel’s security system, we took a detour into reservations and grabbed his room number. Getting into the room itself was no problem.”
The wizards in the Office’s Technology department had developed a magic cardkey capable of opening any electronic hotel room door in the world. The first swipe stole the code. The second opened the lock.
“When did the interference start?”
“As soon as he entered the room.”
“Did anyone follow him from the airport to the hotel?”
Lavon shook his head.
“Any suspicious names on the hotel registry?”
“Most of the guests are attending the conference. The Eastern European Society of Civil Engineers,” Lavon explained. “It’s a real nerds’ ball. Lots of guys with pocket protectors.”
“You used to be one of those guys, Eli.”
“Still am.” The shot turned to a mosaic again. “Damn,” said Lavon softly.
“Has the team checked out the connection?”
“Twice.”
“And?”
“There’s no one else on the line. And even if there was, the signal
