Daniel Silva - The Fallen Angel

“How long do you intend to do that?” asked Gabriel.

“Until I see those four boys from Hezbollah.”

“It’s giving me a headache.”

“You’ll live.” Mikhail’s fingers went still. “I wish we didn’t have to let him go.”

“Massoud?”

Mikhail nodded.

“I gave him my word.”

“He’s a murderer.”

“But I’m not,” said Gabriel. “And neither are you.”

“What if he wasn’t telling you the truth? Then you wouldn’t have to live up to your end of the bargain.”

“If four suicide bombers from Hezbollah come walking up that street in a few minutes,” Gabriel said, nodding toward the window, “we’ll know he was telling us the truth.”

Mikhail started drumming his fingers again. “Maybe we don’t actually have to kill him,” he said philosophically. “Maybe we could just . . . forget him.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Yossi and the others could just drive away from that house in Denmark with Massoud still chained to the wall. Eventually, someone would find his skeleton.”

“A dishonest mistake? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“Shit happens.”

“It would still be murder.”

“No, it wouldn’t. It would be death by negligence.”

“I’m afraid that’s a distinction without a difference.”

“Exactly.” Mikhail opened his mouth to continue, but he could see Gabriel was listening to the radio.

“What is it?”

“They’re getting off the train.”

“Where?”

“The Stephansplatz.”

“Right where Massoud said they would.”

Gabriel nodded.

“I still think we should kill him.”

“You mean forget him.”

“That, too.”

“We’re not murderers, Mikhail. We are preventers of murder.”

“Let’s hope so. Otherwise, they’re going to have to pick us off the street with tweezers.”

“It’s better to think positive thoughts.”

“I’ve always preferred to dwell upon the worst-case scenario.”

“Why?”

“Motivation,” said Mikhail. “If I imagine a rabbi soaking up my blood for burial, it will motivate me to do my job properly.”

“Just wait until the guns appear. We can’t kill them until we see the guns.”

“What if they don’t draw their guns? What if they just detonate themselves in the street?”

“Positive thoughts, Mikhail.”

“I’m a Jew from Russia. Positive thoughts aren’t in my nature.”

The waitress placed a check on the table. Gabriel gave her a twenty and told her to keep the change. Mikhail glanced at the four EKO Cobra men.

“They look more nervous than we do.”

“They probably are.”

Mikhail turned his gaze to the street. “Have you given any thought to what you’re going to do next?”

“I’m going to sleep for several days.”

“Make sure you turn the phone off.”

“This is the last time, Mikhail.”

“Until some terrorist comes along who decides he wants to reduce the world’s population of Jews by a few hundred. Then we’ll be right back here again.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it without me next time.”

“We’ll see.” Mikhail looked at Gabriel. “Are you really sure you’re up for this?”

“If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to shoot you.”

“That would be a very bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Look out the window.”

In the crisis center of the Austrian Interior Ministry, Ari Shamron stared at the video monitors, watching intently as the four Hezbollah terrorists turned into the narrow cobbled alley leading to the synagogue, followed by Gabriel and Mikhail. And at that moment, he had a chillingly clear premonition of disaster unlike any he had ever experienced before. It was nothing, he assured himself. The Stadttempel had survived Kristallnacht; it would survive this night, too. He ignited the Zippo lighter and stared at the jewel-like flame. Two seconds, he thought, maybe less. Then it would be done.

They had arranged themselves in a boxlike formation, with two in front and the other two trailing a few steps behind. Gabriel couldn’t help but admire their tradecraft. With their winter coats and false casual demeanor, they looked like four young men out for an evening in Vienna’s famed Bermuda Triangle—anything but four Hezbollah suicide bombers who were minutes from death. Gabriel knew a great deal about them. He knew each of their names, the villages where they had been born, and the circumstances of their recruitments. For now, though, they were simply Alef, Bet, Gimel, and Dalet—the first four letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Alef and Bet belonged to Gabriel; Gimel and Dalet, to Mikhail. Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet . . . Then it would be done.

The street rose at a pitched angle and curved slightly to the right. After a few more paces, Gabriel could see Yaakov and Oded standing in a pool of white light outside the synagogue’s entrance. Oded was cross-examining a pair of American Jews who wished to attend Shabbat services in the city of their ancestry, but Yaakov was watching the four young men coming toward him up the street. He stared at them for an appropriate interval before forcing himself to look away. Oded seemed not to notice them. Having admitted the two Americans, he was now working his way through the rest of the small line of congregants waiting to enter. A dozen more, including a pair of young children, stood in the street, unaware of the horror that was approaching.

From the moment Gabriel and Mikhail had left the café, they had been gradually closing the distance between themselves and their targets. Twenty-five feet now separated them—four terrorists, two secret soldiers, each committed to his mission, each certain of his cause and his God. Tonight the ancient war for control of the Land of Israel would once again be played out on a pretty Viennese street. Gabriel couldn’t help but feel the weight of history pressing down upon his shoulders as he climbed the sloping cobbles—his own history, the history of his people, Shamron . . . He imagined Shamron in his youth stalking Adolf Eichmann along a desolate lane north of Buenos Aires. Shamron had tripped over a loose shoelace that night and nearly fallen. After that, he had always double-knotted his laces whenever he went into the field. Gabriel had done the same tonight in Shamron’s honor. No loose shoelaces. No nightmare of blood and fire at a synagogue in Vienna.

Gabriel and Mikhail quickened their pace slightly, closing the gap further still. As the terrorists passed through a cone of lamplight, Gabriel noticed the wire of a detonator switch running along the inside of Alef’s wrist. All four of the terrorists wore their overcoats tightly buttoned, and, not coincidentally, all four had their right hands in their pockets. That’s where the guns would be. Draw them , thought Gabriel. Two seconds, maybe less. Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet . . . Then it would be done.

Gabriel quickly glanced over his shoulder and saw the EKO Cobra team trailing quietly behind. Yaakov and Oded had managed to usher most of the crowd inside, but a few congregants were still milling about in the street, including the two young children. Mikhail drew several long, heavy breaths in an attempt to slow his racing heart, but Gabriel didn’t bother. It wouldn’t be possible. Not tonight. And so he stared at Alef’s right hand, his heart beating in his chest like a kettledrum, and waited for the gun to emerge. In the end, though, it was one of the children, a young boy, who saw it first. His scream of terror set fire to the back of Gabriel’s neck.

There would be no explosion.

There would be no funeral for a child.