Navot tried the latch. Locked.
He took a few steps back and drove his shoulder into the door. The wood splintered and he tumbled into the darkened room. He scrambled to his feet and saw that Radek had already moved away the false front of a bookcase and was standing inside a small, phone-booth-sized lift.
Navot sprang forward as the elevator door started to close. He managed to get both his arms inside and grab Radek by the lapels of his overcoat. As the door slammed against Navot’s left shoulder, Radek seized his wrists and tried to break free. Navot held firm.
Oded and Zalman came to his aid. Zalman, the taller of the two, reached over Navot’s head and pulled against the door. Oded slithered between Navot’s legs and applied pressure from below. Under the onslaught, the door finally slid open again.
Navot dragged Radek out of the elevator. There was no time for subterfuge or deception now. Navot clamped a hand over the old man’s mouth, Zalman took hold of his legs and lifted him off the floor. Oded found the light switch and doused the chandelier.
Navot glanced at Becker. “Get in the car. Move, you idiot.”
They bundled Radek down the steps toward the Audi. Radek was pulling at Navot’s hand, trying to break the vise grip over his mouth, and kicking hard with his legs. Navot could hear Zalman swearing under his breath. Somehow, even in the heat of battle, he managed to swear in German.
Oded threw open the rear door before running around the back of the car and climbing behind the wheel. Navot pushed Radek headfirst into the back and pinned him to the seat. Zalman forced his way inside and closed the door. Becker climbed into the back of the Mercedes. Mordecai accelerated hard, and the car lurched into the street, the Audi following closely.
RADEK’S BODY WENT suddenly still. Navot removed his hand from Radek’s mouth, and the Austrian gulped greedily of the air.
“You’re hurting me,” he said. “I can’t breathe.”
“I’ll let you up, but you have to promise to behave yourself. No more escape attempts. Do you promise?”
“Just let me up. You’re crushing me, you fool.”
“I will, old man. Just do me a favor first. Tell me your name, please.”
“You know my name. My name is Vogel. Ludwig Vogel.”
“No, no, not that name. Yourreal name.”
“That is my real name.”
“Do you want to sit up and leave Vienna like a man, or am I going to have to sit on you the whole way?”
“I want to sit up. You’re hurting me, damn it!”
“Just tell me your name.”
He was silent for a moment, then he murmured, “My name is Radek.”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t hear you. Can you say your name again, please? Loudly this time.”
He drew a deep breath of air and his body went rigid, as though he were standing at attention instead of lying across the back seat of a car.
“My-name-is-Sturmbannfuhrer-Erich-Radek!”
IN THE MUNICH safe flat, the message flashed across Shamron’s computer screen: PACKAGE HAS BEEN RECEIVED.
Carter clapped him on the back. “I’ll be goddamned! They got him. They actually got him.”
Shamron stood and walked to the map. “Getting him was always the easiest part of the operation, Adrian. Getting him out is quite another thing.”
He gazed at the map. Fifty miles to the Czech border.Drive, Oded, he thought.Drive like you’ve never driven before in your life.
36 VIENNA
ODED HAD MADE the drive a dozen times but never like this-never with the siren screaming and the blue light whirling on the dash, and never with Erich Radek’s eyes in the rearview mirror, staring back into his own. Their flight from the city center had gone better than expected. The evening traffic had been persistent, but never so heavy that it didn’t part for his siren and flashing light. Twice, Radek rebelled. Each uprising was ruthlessly put down by Navot and Zalman.
They were racing north now on the E461. The Vienna traffic was gone, the rain was falling steadily and freezing at the edges of the windshield. A sign flashed past: CZECH REPUBLIC 42KM. Navot took a long look over his shoulder, then, in Hebrew, instructed Oded to kill the siren and the lights.
“Where are we going?” Radek asked, his breathing labored. “Where are you taking me? Where?”
Navot said nothing, just as Gabriel had instructed.“Let him ask questions till he’s blue in the face,” Gabriel had said.“Just don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. Let the uncertainty prey on his mind. That’s what he would do if the roles were reversed.”
So Navot watched the villages flashing past his window-Mistelbach, Wilfersdorf, Erdberg-and thought of only one thing, the bodyguard he had left unconscious in the entranceway of Radek’s house on the Stobbergasse.
Poysdorf appeared before them. Oded sped through the village, then turned into a two-lane road and followed it eastward through snow-covered pine.
“Where are we going? Where are you taking me?”
Navot could endure his questions in silence no longer.
“We’re going home,” he snapped. “And you’re coming with us.”
Radek managed a glacial smile. “You made only one mistake tonight, Herr Lange. You should have killed my bodyguard when you had the chance.”
KLAUS HALDER OPENED one eye, then the other. The darkness was absolute. He lay very still for a moment, trying to determine the position of his body. He had fallen forward, with his arms at his sides, and his right cheek was pressed against cold marble. He tried to lift his head, a bolt of thunderous pain shot down his neck. He remembered it now, the instant it had happened. He’d been reaching for his gun when he’d been clubbed twice from behind. It was the lawyer from Zurich, Oskar Lange. Obviously, Lange was no mere lawyer. He’d been in on it, just as Halder had feared from the beginning.
He pushed himself onto his knees and sat back against the wall. He closed his eyes and waited until the room stopped spinning, then rubbed the back of his head. It was swollen the size of an apple. He raised his left wrist and squinted at the luminous dial of his wristwatch: 5:57. When had it happened? A few minutes after five, 5:10 at the latest. Unless they’d had a helicopter waiting on the Stephansplatz, chances were they were still in Austria.
He patted the right front pocket of his sport jacket and found that his cell phone was still there. He fished it out and dialed. Two rings. A familiar voice.
“This is Kruz.”
THIRTY SECONDS LATER, Manfred Kruz slammed down the phone and considered his options. The most obvious response would be to sound the alarm Klaxons, alert every police unit in the country that the old man had been seized by Israeli agents, close the borders and shut down the airport. Obvious, yes, but very dangerous. A move like that would raise many uncomfortable questions.Why was Herr Vogel kidnapped? Who is he really? Peter Metzler’s candidacy would be swept away, and so too would Kruz’s career. Even in Austria, such affairs had a way of taking on a life of their own, and Kruz had seen enough of them to know that the inquiry would not end at Vogel’s doorstep.
The Israelis had known he would be hamstrung, and they had chosen their moment well. Kruz had to think of some subtle way to intervene, some way to impede the Israelis without destroying everything in the process. He picked up the telephone and dialed.
“This is Kruz. The Americans have informed us that they believe an al-Qaeda team may be transiting the country by automobile this evening. They suspect the al-Qaeda members might be traveling with European sympathizers in order to better blend into their surroundings. As of this moment, I’m activating the terrorism alert network. Raise security at the borders, airports, and train stations to Category Two status.”
