Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

“It usually is. That’s how we’ve managed to survive in a very dangerous neighborhood.”

“Are you ever going to tell me your source?”

“It would only complicate matters.”

“I don’t suppose this has anything to do with that missing Iranian diplomat.”

“What missing diplomat?”

By then, it was approaching noon. Shamron gave Gabriel a cardkey to a hotel room in the Innere Stadt and told him to get a few hours of rest. Gabriel wanted to survey the battlefield in daylight first, so he set out on foot along the Kärntnerstrasse, trailed not so discreetly by a pair of oafs from Kessler’s service. In the Stephansplatz, large crowds wandered a Lenten street fête. Gabriel briefly considered entering the cathedral to see an altarpiece he had once restored. Instead, he sliced his way through the colorful stalls and made his way to the Jewish Quarter.

Before the Second World War, the tangle of narrow streets and alleys had been the center of one of the most vibrant and remarkable Jewish communities in the world. At its height it numbered 192,000 people, but by November 1942 only 7,000 remained, the rest having fled or been murdered in the extermination camps of Nazi Germany. But the Holocaust was not the first destruction of Vienna’s Jews. In 1421, the entire Jewish population was burned to death, forcibly baptized, or expelled after a scurrilous charge of ritual murder swept the city. The Austrians, it seemed, felt compelled to slaughter their Jews from time to time.

The heart of the Jewish Quarter was the Stadttempel synagogue. Built in the early nineteenth century, when an edict by Emperor Joseph II required non-Catholic houses of worship to be hidden from public view, it was tucked away behind a façade of old houses on a tiny cobbled lane called the Seitenstettengasse. On Kristallnacht, the organized spasm of anti-Jewish violence that swept Germany and Austria in November 1938, the synagogues of Vienna went up in flames as firefighters looked on and did nothing. But not the Stadttempel. Setting it alight would have destroyed the neighboring structures, so the mobs had to be content with merely smashing its windows and vandalizing its glorious sanctuary. It was the only synagogue or prayer room in the entire city to survive that night.

Gabriel approached the synagogue along the same route the terrorists would take later that evening. At sunset, most of the congregants would be gathered inside, but a few would surely be clustered around the entrance. Protecting them from collateral harm would be Gabriel’s primary challenge. It meant that he and Mikhail would have to be extremely accurate and rapid in their use of firepower. Gabriel reckoned they would have only two seconds to act once the terrorists drew their weapons—two seconds to render four battle-hardened terrorists harmless. It was not the sort of thing that could be taught in a classroom or on a firing range. It took years of training and experience. And even then, an instant of hesitation could mean the difference between life and death, not only for the targets of the attack but for Gabriel and Mikhail as well.

He remained in the street until he had committed every crack and cobble to memory, then made his way to a quaint square lined with restaurants. One was the Italian restaurant where he had eaten his last meal with Leah and Dani, and in an adjacent street was the spot where their car had exploded. Gabriel stood motionless for a long moment, paralyzed by memories. He tried to control them but could not; it was as if he had contracted Leah’s merciless affliction. Finally, he felt a gentle tap on his elbow and, turning sharply, saw the powdered face of an elderly Austrian woman. He calculated her age. It was his other affliction.

“Are you lost?” she asked in German.

“Yes,” he replied forthrightly.

“What are you looking for?”

“Café Central,” he answered without hesitation.

She pointed to the southwest, toward the Hofburg Quarter. Gabriel walked in that direction until he was out of the woman’s sight. Then he turned and made his way back toward the cathedral. The hotel where the Office had booked a room for him was one street over. As Gabriel entered, he saw Yaakov and Eli Lavon drinking coffee in the lobby. Ignoring them, he walked over to the concierge to say he would be going upstairs to his room.

“Your wife arrived a few minutes ago,” the concierge said.

Gabriel felt as though a stone had been laid over his heart. “My wife?”

“Yes,” the concierge said. “Tall, long dark hair, dark eyes.”

“Italian?”

“Very.”

Gabriel felt himself breathe again. Turning, he walked past Yaakov and Lavon without a word and headed upstairs to his room.

A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the door latch. Gabriel inserted his cardkey into the slot and slipped quietly inside. From the bathroom came the sound of water splashing in the shower. Chiara was singing softly to herself. The tune was melancholy, her voice low and sultry. Gabriel padded over to the foot of the bed, where a change of his own clothing lay in a neat pile. Next to it was a gun, a sound suppressor, a box of ammunition, and a shoulder holster. The gun was a .45-caliber Beretta, larger than the 9mm he generally preferred but necessary for a quick and decisive kill. The ammunition was hollow-point, which would help to alleviate the threat of collateral casualties due to overpenetration. Gabriel loaded ten rounds into the magazine and inserted it into the butt. Then he screwed the suppressor into the end of the barrel and, extending his arm, checked the weapon for balance.

“What do you suppose normal people do when they come to Vienna?” Chiara asked.

“They have coffee and listen to music.”

Gabriel lowered the Beretta and looked at her. She was leaning against the doorjamb of the bathroom, her body wrapped in a toweling robe, her face flushed from the heat of the shower.

“I thought I told you to stay in Jerusalem.”

“You did.”

“So why are you here?”

“I didn’t want you to have to come back here alone.”

Gabriel ejected the magazine from the Beretta and unscrewed the suppressor.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Because the Austrians have never dealt with a scenario like this before. And even if they had, I wouldn’t be willing to entrust them with Jewish lives.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Why else would I be doing it?”

Chiara sat on the edge of the bed and studied him carefully. “You look dreadful,” she said.

“Thank you, Chiara. You look lovely as always.”

She ignored his remark. “I don’t know what that night was really like,” she said, “but I have a fairly good idea. You relive it in your dreams more often than you realize. I hear everything. I hear you weeping over Dani’s body. I hear you telling Leah that the ambulance will be there soon.”

She lapsed into silence and brushed a tear from her cheek. “But sometimes,” she continued, “everything turns out differently. You kill the terrorists before they can set off the bomb. Leah and Dani are unharmed. You live happily ever after. No explosion. No funeral for a child.” She paused. “No Chiara.”

“It’s just a dream.”

“But it’s how you wish things had turned out.”

“You’re right, Chiara. I do wish Dani hadn’t been killed that night. And I do wish Leah—”

“I don’t blame you, Gabriel,” she said, cutting him off. “I knew that when I fell in love with you. I always knew I would only have part of your heart. The rest would always belong to Leah.”

Gabriel reached down and touched her face. “What does any of this have to do with tonight?”

“Because you’re right about one thing, Gabriel. It is only a dream. Killing those terrorists tonight won’t bring Dani back to life. And it won’t make Leah the way she was. In fact, the only thing you might achieve is getting yourself killed in the same city where your son died.”