They spoke only German in the flat. Shamron had decreed it. Radek was referred to as Radek and only Radek; Shamron would not call him by the name he’d bought from the Americans. Shamron laid down other edicts as well. It was Gabriel’s operation, and therefore it was Gabriel’s show to run. It was Gabriel, in the Berlin accent of his mother, who briefed the teams, Gabriel who reviewed the watch reports from Vienna, and Gabriel who made all final operational decisions.
For the first few days, Shamron struggled to fit into his supporting role, but as his confidence in Gabriel grew, he found it easier to slide into the background. Still, every agent who passed through the safe flat took note of the dark pall that had settled over him. He seemed never to sleep. He would stand before the maps at all hours, or sit at the kitchen table in the dark, chain-smoking like a man wrestling with a guilty conscience. “He’s like a terminal patient who’s planning his own funeral,” remarked Oded, a veteran German-speaking agent whom Gabriel had chosen to drive the escape car. “And if it goes to hell, they’ll chisel it on his tombstone, right below the Star of David.”
Under perfect circumstances, such an operation would involve weeks of planning. Gabriel had only days. The Wrath of God operation had prepared him well. The terrorists of Black September had been constantly on the move, appearing and disappearing with maddening frequency. When one was located and positively identified, the hit team would swing into action at light speed. Surveillance teams would swoop into place, vehicles and safe flats would be rented, escape routes would be planned. That reservoir of experience and knowledge served Gabriel well in Munich. Few intelligence officers knew more about rapid planning and quick strikes than he and Shamron.
In the evenings, they watched the news on German television. The election in neighboring Austria had captured the attention of German viewers. Metzler was rolling forward. The crowds at his campaign stops, like his lead in the polls, grew larger by the day. Austria, it seemed, was on the verge of doing the unthinkable, electing a chancellor from the far right. Inside the Munich safe flat, Gabriel and his team found themselves in the odd position of cheering Metzler’s ascent in the polls, for without Metzler, their doorway to Radek would close.
Invariably, soon after the news ended, Lev would check in from King Saul Boulevard and subject Gabriel to a tedious cross-examination of the day’s events. It was the one time Shamron was relieved not to bear the burden of operational command. Gabriel would pace the floor with a phone against his ear, patiently answering each of Lev’s questions. And sometimes, if the light was right, Shamron would see Gabriel’s mother, pacing beside him. She was the one member of the team that no one ever mentioned.
ONCE EACH DAY, usually in late afternoon, Gabriel and Shamron escaped the safe flat to walk in the English Gardens. Eichmann’s shadow hung over them. Gabriel reckoned he had been there from the beginning. He had come that night in Vienna, when Max Klein had told Gabriel the story of the SS officer who had murdered a dozen prisoners at Birkenau and now enjoyed coffee every afternoon at the Café Central. Still, Shamron had diligently avoided even speaking his name, until now.
Gabriel had heard the story of Eichmann’s capture many times before. Indeed, Shamron had used it in September 1972 to prod Gabriel into joining the Wrath of God team. The version Shamron told during those walks along the tree-lined footpaths of the English Gardens was more detailed than any Gabriel had heard before. Gabriel knew these were not merely the ramblings of an old man trying to relive past glories. Shamron was never one to trumpet his own successes, and the publishers would wait in vain for his memoirs. Gabriel knew Shamron was telling him about Eichmann for a reason.I’ve taken the journey you’re about to make, Shamron was saying.In another time, in another place, in the company of another man, but there are things you should know. Gabriel, at times, could not shake the sense that he was walking with history.
“Waiting for the escape plane was the hardest part. We were trapped in the safe house with this rat of a man. Some of the team couldn’t bear to look at him. I had to sit in his room night after night and keep watch over him. He was chained to the iron bed, dressed in pajamas with opaque goggles over his eyes. We were strictly forbidden to engage him in conversation. Only the interrogator was allowed to speak to him. I couldn’t obey those orders. You see, I had to know. How had this man who was sickened by the sight of blood killed six million of my people? My mother and father? My two sisters? I asked him why he had done it. And do you know what he said? He told me he did it because it was his job-his job, Gabriel-as if he were nothing more than a bank clerk or a railroad conductor.”
And later, standing at the balustrade of a humpbacked bridge overlooking a stream:
“Only once did I want to kill him, Gabriel-when he tried to tell me that he did not hate the Jewish people, that he actually liked and admired the Jewish people. To show me how much he cared for the Jews, he began to recite our words:Shema, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad! I could not bear to hear those words coming out of that mouth, the mouth that had given the orders to murder six million. I clamped my hand over his face until he shut up. He began to shake and convulse. I thought I’d caused him to have a heart attack. He asked me if I was going to kill him. He pleaded with me not to harm his son. This man who had torn children from the arms of their parents and thrown them into the fire was concerned about his own child, as if we would act like him, as if we would murder children.”
And at a scarred wooden table, in a deserted beer garden:
“We wanted him to agree to return with us voluntarily to Israel. He, of course, did not want to go. He wanted to stand trial in Argentina or Germany. I told him this was not possible. One way or another, he was going to stand trial in Israel. I risked my career by allowing him to have a bit of red wine and a cigarette. I did not drink with the murderer. I could not. I assured him that he would be given a chance to tell his side of the story, that he would be given a proper trial with a proper defense. He was under no illusions about the outcome, but the notion of explaining himself to the world somehow appealed to him. I also pointed out the fact that he would have the dignity of knowing he was about to die, something he denied to the millions who marched into the disrobing rooms and the gas chambers while Max Klein serenaded them. He signed the paper, dated it like a good German bureaucrat, and it was done.”
Gabriel listened intently, his coat collar around his ears, his hands crammed into his pockets. Shamron shifted the focus from Adolf Eichmann to Erich Radek.
“You have an advantage because you’ve seen him face to face once already, at the Café Central. I’d seen Eichmann only from afar, while we were watching his house and planning the snatch, but I had never actually spoken to him or even stood next to him. I knew exactly how tall he was, but couldn’t picture it. I had a sense of how his voice would sound, but I didn’treally know. You know Radek, but unfortunately he knows a bit about you, too, thanks to Manfred Kruz. He’ll want to know more. He’ll feel exposed and vulnerable. He’ll try to level the playing field by asking you questions. He’ll want to know why you are pursuing him. Under no circumstances are you to engage him in anything like normal conversation. Remember, Erich Radek was no camp guard or gas chamber operator. He was SD, a skilled interrogator. He’ll try to bring those skills to bear one final time to avoid his fate. Don’t play into his hands. You’re the one in charge now. He’ll find the reversal a shock to the system.”