by Daniel Silva
“Don’t worry, I have everything you need.”
“How bad is it?”
“Twelve on the Bishop Richter scale. But I’m afraid there’s a complication involving someone close to the previous pope. I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.”
“When will you be here?”
“I need to tie up one or two loose ends before I leave. And don’t even think about setting foot outside the Jesuit Curia until I get there.”
Gabriel killed the connection.
“Tell me something,” asked Lavon. “What’s it like to be you?”
“Exhausting.”
“Why don’t you sleep for a couple of hours while we pack up?”
“I’d love to. But I have one more question I’d like to ask our newest asset.”
“What’s that?”
Gabriel told him.
“That’s two questions,” said Lavon.
Smiling, Gabriel carried Estermann’s phone downstairs. The German was drinking coffee at the interrogation table, watched over by Mikhail and Oded. He was unshaven, and his right cheek was bruised. With a razor and a bit of makeup, he would be as good as new.
Warily, he watched as Gabriel sat down in the chair opposite. “What is it now?”
“We’re going to clean you up. Then we’re going to take a drive.”
“Where?”
Gabriel stared at Estermann blankly.
“There’s no way you’ll get past the guards at the checkpoint.”
“I won’t have to. You’ll do it for me.”
“It won’t work.”
“For your sake, it better. But before we leave, I’d like you to answer one more question.” Gabriel placed Estermann’s phone on the table. “Why did you go to Bonn after you spoke to Stefani Hoffmann? And why did you switch off your phone for two hours and fifty-seven minutes?”
“I didn’t go to Bonn.”
“Your phone says you did.” Gabriel tapped the screen. “It says you left Café du Gothard at two thirty-four p.m. and that you reached the outskirts of Bonn around seven fifteen, which is rather good time, I must say. At that point, you switched off your phone. I want to know why.”
“I told you, I didn’t go to Bonn.”
“Where did you go?”
The German hesitated. “I was in Grosshau. It’s a little farming village a few miles to the west.”
“What’s in Grosshau?”
“A cottage in the woods.”
“Who lives there?”
“A man named Hamid Fawzi.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a creation of my cyber unit.”
“Is he the reason bombs are going off in Germany?”
“No,” said Estermann. “I am.”
43
COLOGNE, GERMANY
GERHARDT SCHMIDT WAS NOT KNOWN for working long hours. Typically, he arrived at Bf V headquarters in Cologne with a minute or two to spare before the ten a.m. senior staff meeting, and barring some emergency he was in the backseat of his official limousine no later than five. Most nights he stopped at one of the city’s better watering holes for a drink. But only one. Everything in moderation, that was Schmidt’s personal maxim. It would be chiseled on his tombstone.
The bombings in Berlin and Hamburg had proven detrimental to Schmidt’s salubrious daily schedule. That morning he was at his desk at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock, a time when ordinarily he would still be in bed with coffee and the papers. Consequently, when his secure phone pulsed with an incoming call from Tel Aviv at eight fifteen, he was there to answer it.
He had been expecting to hear the voice of Gabriel Allon, the legendary director-general of the Israeli secret intelligence service. Instead, it was Uzi Navot, Allon’s deputy, who bade Schmidt a pleasant morning in perfect German. Schmidt had a grudging respect for Allon, but Navot he loathed. For many years the Israeli had worked undercover in Europe, running networks and recruiting agents, including three who worked for the Bf V.
Within a few seconds, however, Schmidt was deeply remorseful he had ever uttered an unkind word—indeed, that he had ever entertained a slanderous thought—about the man at the other end of the secure line. It seemed the Israelis, as was often the case, had tapped into a vein of magic intelligence, this time regarding the new cell wreaking havoc in Germany. Navot was predictably evasive about how he had acquired this intelligence. It was a mosaic, he claimed, a blend of human sources and electronic intercepts. Lives were at stake. The clock was ticking.
Whatever the source of the information, it was highly specific. It concerned a property in Grosshau, a tiny farming hamlet located on the edge of the dense German forest known as the Hürtgenwald. The property was owned by something called OSH Holdings, a Hamburg-based concern. There were two structures, a traditional German farmhouse and an outbuilding fashioned of corrugated metal. The farmhouse was largely unfurnished. In the outbuilding, however, was a ten-year-old Mitsubishi light-duty cargo truck loaded with two dozen drums of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and Tovex, the makings of an ANNM bomb.
The truck was registered to a Hamid Fawzi, a refugee, originally from Damascus, who had settled in Frankfurt after Syria erupted into civil war. Or so claimed his social media pages, which were updated frequently. An engineer by training, Fawzi worked as an IT specialist for a German consulting firm, which was also owned by OSH Holdings. His wife, Asma, wore a full-face veil whenever she left their apartment. They had two children, a daughter named Salma and a boy named Mohammad.
According to Navot’s intelligence, a single operative was scheduled to arrive at the property that morning at ten o’clock. He could not say whether it would be Hamid Fawzi. He was quite certain, however, about the target: the immensely popular Cologne Christmas market now under way at the historic cathedral.
Gerhardt Schmidt had a long list of questions he wanted to ask Navot, but there wasn’t time for anything more than an expression of profound gratitude. After hanging up, he immediately rang the interior minister, who in turn rang the chancellor, along with Schmidt’s counterpart at the Bundespolizei. The first officers arrived at the farmhouse at eight thirty. A few minutes after nine, they were joined by four teams from GSG 9, Germany’s elite tactical and counterterrorism unit.
The officers made no attempt to enter the outbuilding, which was sealed with a heavy-duty lock. Instead, they concealed themselves in the surrounding woods and waited. At ten a.m. sharp, a Volkswagen Passat estate car came bumping up the property’s rutted drive. The man behind the wheel wore dark glasses and a woolen watch cap. His hands were gloved.
He parked the Volkswagen outside the farmhouse and walked over to the outbuilding. The GSG 9 officers waited until he had opened the lock before emerging from the cover of the trees. Startled, the man reached inside his coat, apparently for a weapon, but wisely stopped when he saw the size of the force arrayed against him. This came as something of a surprise to the GSG 9 officers. They had been trained to expect jihadist terrorists to fight to the death.
The officers were surprised a second time when, after handcuffing the man, they removed his dark glasses and woolen cap. Blond and blue-eyed, he looked as though he had stepped off a Nazi propaganda poster. A rapid search found him to be in possession of a Glock 9mm pistol, three mobile phones, several thousand euros in cash, and an Austrian passport issued in the name Klaus Jäger. The Bundespolizei immediately contacted their brethren in Vienna, who knew Jäger well. He was a former Austrian police officer who had been relieved of duty for consorting with known neo-Nazis.
It was at this point, at half past ten, that the story broke on the website of Die Welt, Germany’s most respected newspaper. Based on an anonymous source, it stated that the Bundespolizei, acting on intelligence developed by Bf V chief Gerhardt Schmidt, had arrested one of the men responsible for the bombings in Berlin and Hamburg. He was not a member of the Islamic State, as previously suspected, but a known neo-Nazi with ties to Axel Brünner and the far-right
National Democratic Party. The attacks, reported Die Welt, were part of a cynical plot to drive up Brünner’s support before the general election.
Within minutes, Germany was thrown into political turmoil. Gerhardt Schmidt, however, was suddenly the most popular man in the country. After hanging up with the chancellor, he rang Uzi Navot in Tel Aviv.
“Mazel tov, Gerhardt. I just saw the news.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“There’s only one problem,” said Schmidt. “I need to know the name of your source.”
“I’ll never tell. But if I were you, I’d take a hard look at OSH Holdings. I suspect it will lead you to an interesting place.”
“Where?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“Did you and Allon know that Brünner and the far right were behind the bombings?”
“The far right?” Navot sounded incredulous. “Who could imagine such a thing?”
44
BAVARIA, GERMANY
THE SOURCE OF UZI NAVOT’S remarkably accurate intelligence left Munich at 10:15 a.m. in the trunk of an Audi sedan. He remained there, bound and gagged, until the car reached the Bavarian village of Irschenberg, where he was placed in the backseat next to Gabriel. Together they listened to the breaking news on ARD as the car began the ascent toward the Obersalzberg.
“Something tells me the Brünner boomlet just ended.” Gabriel looked down at Estermann’s phone, which was vibrating. “Speak of the devil. That’s the third time he’s called.”
“He probably thinks I’m behind the story you planted in Die Welt.”
“Why would he think that?”
“The bombing operation was highly compartmentalized. I was one of four people who knew the attacks were part of the Order’s efforts to help him win the general election.”
“Talk about fake news,” remarked Gabriel.
“You’re the one who engineered that story in Die Welt.”
“But everything I told them was true.”
In the front passenger seat, Eli Lavon laughed quietly before lighting a cigarette. Mikhail, who spoke only limited German, concentrated on his driving.
“I really wish your associate would put out that cigarette,” protested Estermann. “And must the other one tap his fingers like that? It’s very annoying.”
“Would you rather he tap on you instead?”
“He did quite enough of that last night.” Estermann worked his jaw from side to side. “Wolf is probably wondering why he hasn’t heard from me.”
“He will in an hour or so. Something tells me he’ll be relieved to see you.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“How many guards will be at the checkpoint?”
“I told you that already.”
“Yes, I know. But tell me again.”
“Two,” said Estermann. “Both will be armed.”
“Remind me what happens when someone arrives.”
“The guards call Karl Weber, the chief of security. If the guests are expected, Weber allows the car to proceed. If they’re not on the list, he checks in with Wolf. During the day, he’s usually in his study. It’s on the second floor of the chalet. The gospel is in the safe.”
“What’s the combination?”
“Eighty-seven, ninety-four, ninety-eight.”
“Not exactly hard to remember, is it?”
“Wolf requested it.”
“Sentimental reasons?”
“I wouldn’t know. Herr Wolf is rather guarded when it comes to his personal life.” Estermann pointed toward the Alps. “Beautiful, aren’t they? There are no mountains like that in Israel.”
“That’s true,” admitted Gabriel. “But there are no people like you, either.”
THESE DAYS, IT IS COMMON practice for politicians of every ideological stripe to line their pockets by writing—or hiring someone to write—a book. Some are memoirs, others are clarion calls for action on issues near and dear to the politician’s heart. Those copies that are not sold in bulk to supporters generally gather dust in warehouses or in the living rooms of journalists who are sent free copies by the publisher with the hope they might murmur something favorable on cable television or social media. The only winner in this charade is the politician, who typically pockets a large advance. He assures himself he deserves this money because of the enormous personal and financial sacrifice he has made by serving in government.
In the case of Adolf Hitler, the book that made him wealthy was written a decade before his rise to power. He used a portion of the royalties to purchase Haus Wachenfeld, a modest holiday chalet in the mountains above Berchtesgaden. He commissioned an ambitious renovation of the dwelling in 1935, based on a rough sketch he made on a board borrowed from Albert Speer, his minister of armaments and war production. The result was the Berghof, a residence Speer described as “most impractical for the reception of official visitors.”
As Hitler’s power and paranoia increased, so did the Nazi footprint in the Obersalzberg. Perched atop the summit of the Kehlstein was the Eagle’s Nest, a chalet used by senior party officials for meetings and social occasions; and within walking distance of the Berghof was the lavish teahouse where Hitler whiled away afternoons with Eva Braun and Blondi, his beloved Alsatian. Several hundred RAF Lancaster bombers attacked the complex on April 25, 1945, inflicting heavy damage on the Berghof. The German government razed the teahouse in the 1950s, but the Eagle’s Nest remains a popular tourist attraction to this day, as does the village of Berchtesgaden.
Andreas Estermann watched the snow falling on the tidy cobblestone streets. “It’s the first storm of the season.”
“Climate change,” replied Gabriel.
“You don’t really believe that nonsense, do you? It’s a weather pattern, that’s all.”
“Perhaps you should read something other than Der Stürmer now and again.”
Frowning, Estermann pointed out the postcard-perfect shops and cafés. “I think this is worth defending, don’t you? Can you imagine what this town would look like with a minaret?”
“Or a synagogue?”
Estermann was impervious to Gabriel’s irony. “There are no Jews down here in the Obersalzberg, Allon.”
“Not anymore.”
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. Directly behind them was the second Audi sedan. Yaakov was driving, Yossi and Oded were in the back. Dina and Natalie were following in the Mercedes van. Gabriel dialed Natalie’s number and told her to wait in the village.
“Why can’t we come with you?”
“Because things might get ugly.”
“Heaven knows we’ve never been in an ugly situation before.”
“You can file a complaint with Personnel first thing tomorrow morning.”
Gabriel killed the connection and instructed Mikhail to make a left turn at the end of the street. They sped along the banks of a granite-colored river, past small hotels and holiday cottages.
“We’re less than three kilometers away,” said Estermann.
“You do remember what will happen if you try to warn him?”
“You’ll drop me down a deep hole.”
Gabriel returned Estermann’s phone. “Place the call in speaker mode.”
Estermann dialed. The phone rang unanswered. “He’s not picking up.”
“I have a suggestion.”
“What’s that?”
“Call him again.”
45
OBERSALZBERG, BAVARIA
JONAS WOLF WAS NOT A regular watcher of television. He regarded it as the true opiate of the masses and the source of the West’s drift into hedonism, secularism, and moral relativism. On that morning, however, he had switched on the news in his comfortable study at eleven fifteen, expecting to see the first reports of a major terrorist attack at Cologne’s historic cathedral. Instead, he had learned that a truck bomb had been discovered at a
remote compound in western Germany and that a former Austrian police officer with known ties to the extreme right had been taken into custody. Die Welt had linked the man to the bombings in Berlin and Hamburg and, more ominously, to Axel Brünner and the National Democratic Party. The attacks were purportedly part of a ruthless operation by Brünner and the far right to inflame the German electorate on the eve of the general elections.
For now, at least, Wolf’s name had not been mentioned in the coverage of the unfolding scandal. He doubted he would escape scrutiny for long. But how had the Bundespolizei learned of the compound in Grosshau in the first place? And how had the reporter at Die Welt tied the bombings to Brünner’s campaign so quickly? Wolf had but one suspect.
Gabriel Allon …
It was for that reason Wolf did not answer the first call he received from Andreas Estermann’s iPhone. Now was not the time, he thought, to be talking to an accomplice who was calling from a cellular device. But when Estermann rang a second time, Wolf lifted the receiver hesitantly to his ear.
Estermann’s voice sounded an octave higher than normal. It was the voice, thought Wolf, of a man under obvious duress. It seemed a member of the Order who still worked for the Bf V had warned Estermann that he and Wolf were about to be arrested in connection with the bombings. Estermann was approaching the estate with several of his men. He wanted Wolf to be downstairs when he arrived. He had already instructed Platinum Flight Services, the fixed-base operator at Salzburg Airport, to prepare one of the Gulfstreams for departure. A flight plan had been filed for Moscow. They would be airborne in less than an hour. Wolf was to bring his passport and as much cash as he could fit in a single briefcase.
“And the gospel, Herr Wolf. Whatever you do, don’t leave it behind.”
The connection went dead. Wolf replaced the receiver and raised the volume of the television. A pack of reporters had cornered Brünner outside NDP headquarters in Berlin. His denials of involvement in the bombings had all the credibility of a murderer pleading his innocence while clutching a bloody knife in his hand.
