The Fallen Angel

he relayed the information that had been given to him by Massoud, the Austrians emitted no sound except for the occasional gasp of disbelief. Gabriel could scarcely blame them, for at that moment a four-member team of Hezbollah operatives was holed up in an apartment at Koppstrasse 34, preparing to carry out the worst terrorist attack in Austria’s history. Each member of the cell would be armed with a semiautomatic pistol and a suicide vest filled with dozens of pounds of explosives and lethal shrapnel. They would use their pistols to overpower the security guards who stood watch over the historic complex during services. Once the guards were neutralized, the team would split in half—two for the synagogue, two for the community center located directly across the narrow street. They intended to detonate their explosives simultaneously. Allahu Akbar.

“Why shouldn’t we simply move in and arrest them now?” asked Kessler.

“Because they’re not amateurs from the Muslim slums of Western Europe. These are hardened Hezbollah terrorists who cut their teeth fighting the Israeli military in southern Lebanon.”

“Meaning?”

“They went fully operational several hours ago. If you try to enter that apartment, they’ll detonate their explosives. The same thing will happen if you try to quietly evacuate the building or try to take them into custody at any stage along their journey to Paradise.”

“Why not simply cancel services this evening?”

“Nothing would make us happier. But if the terrorists arrive to find the synagogue closed, they’ll go in search of another target. At that hour, I’m sure they won’t have any trouble finding one. In fact, if I had to guess, they’ll go to the Kärntnerstrasse and kill as many innocent Austrians as they can.”

The Kärntnerstrasse was a busy pedestrian boulevard that ran from the State Opera House to the Stephansdom cathedral. The economic and social heart of Vienna, the street was lined with cafés, exclusive shops, and department stores. On a Friday evening, an attack there would be devastating. Jonas Kessler understood that, of course, which explained why he looked as though he had just swallowed his cuff links. When he finally spoke again, his voice contained none of its previous sarcasm. In fact, Gabriel thought he could detect the slightest trace of gratitude.

“What are you suggesting, Herr Allon?”

“I’m afraid there’s only one possible course of action.”

“And that is?”

“We wait for the terrorists to approach the synagogue and declare their intentions. And then we put them down before they can hit their detonation switches.”

“Kill them?”

Gabriel made no response. Neither did Shamron or Navot.

“We have a highly capable tactical police unit that is more than up to a job like this.”

“Einsatzkommando Cobra,” Shamron interjected. “Better known as EKO Cobra.”

Kessler nodded. “They’ve trained for just this kind of scenario.”

“With all due respect, Herr Kessler, when was the last time a member of EKO Cobra shot a living, breathing terrorist through the brain stem so he couldn’t detonate his bomb with a dying twitch of his fingers?”

Kessler was silent.

“I thought so,” Shamron said. “Do you happen to recall when EKO Cobra was formed, Herr Kessler?”

“It was shortly after the Munich Olympics massacre.”

“That’s correct,” Shamron said. “And I was there that night, Herr Kessler. We begged the Germans to let us handle the rescue operation at Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, but they refused. I had to listen to the screams of my people as they were being butchered. It was . . .” Shamron’s voice trailed off, as though he were searching for the appropriate word. Finally, he said, “It was unbelievable.”

“The people who will enter that synagogue tonight are Austrian citizens.”

“That’s true,” Shamron said. “But they’re also Jews, which means that we are their guardians. And we’re going to make sure they come out of that synagogue alive.”

34 VIENNA

AFTER THAT, THE DEBATE ENDED, and the two sides settled down to the business of hammering out an operational accord. Within a few minutes, they had the broad outlines of an agreement. Gabriel and Mikhail would see to the takedown; EKO Cobra, the surveillance. At Kessler’s insistence, the Austrians reserved the right to move against the terrorists at any point prior to their arrival in the Jewish Quarter if the opportunity presented itself. Otherwise, they were to give the Hezbollah team a wide berth—or, as Shamron put it, they were to quietly escort them to death’s door. Gabriel made the Austrians’ job easier by telling Kessler the exact route the terrorists would take to the synagogue, including the streetcars they would use. Kessler was clearly impressed. He suggested a café on the Rotenturmstrasse that Gabriel could use as a staging post. Gabriel smiled and said he would use the one next door instead.

“Why?”

“Better view.”

“When exactly was the last time you were in Vienna?”

“It slips my mind.”

Which left only the rules of engagement. On this point, there was no room for debate. Gabriel and Mikhail were to take no lethal action until the terrorists drew their guns—and if they killed unarmed men, they would be prosecuted to the full extent of Austrian law, and any other law Kessler could think of. Gabriel agreed to the provision and even signed his name to a hastily drafted document. After adding his own signature to the agreement, Kessler handed over several miniature radios preset to the frequency the EKO Cobra teams would be using that night.

“Weapons?” asked Kessler.

“It’s a little too early in the day for me,” said Gabriel.

Kessler frowned. “Your intelligence is very precise,” he said. “Let us hope it is also accurate.”

“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