When the Wrath of God unit was formally disbanded, neither Gabriel nor Lavon wanted anything more to do with intelligence work or killing. Gabriel took refuge in Venice to heal paintings while Lavon fled to Vienna, where he opened a small investigative bureau called Wartime Claims and Inquiries. Operating on a shoestring budget, he managed to track down millions of dollars' worth of looted Holocaust assets and played a significant role in prying a multibillion-dollar settlement from the banks of Switzerland. Lavon's activities earned him few friends, and in 2003 a bomb exploded inside his office, seriously wounding him and killing two of his employees. Lavon never attempted to rebuild in Vienna, choosing instead to return to Israel and pursue his first love, archaeology. He now served as an adjunct professor at Hebrew University and regularly took part in digs around the country. And twice a year he returned to the Office academy to lecture the new recruits on the fine art of physical surveillance. Invariably, one would ask Lavon about his work with the legendary assassin Gabriel Allon. Lavon's response never varied: "Gabriel who?"
By training and temperament, Lavon was prone to handle delicate objects with care. That was especially true of the single sheet of paper he accepted in the sitting room of a suite at the Ambassade Hotel. He examined it for several moments in the half-light before placing it on the coffee table and peering curiously at Gabriel and Chiara over his gold half-moon reading glasses.
"I thought you two were hiding out from Shamron in the deepest corner of Cornwall. How in the world did you get this?"
"Is it real?" asked Gabriel.
"Absolutely. But where did it come from?"
Gabriel gave Lavon an account of the investigation thus far, beginning with Julian Isherwood's unannounced appearance on the cliffs of Lizard Point and ending with the story of Lena Herzfeld. Lavon listened intently, his brown eyes darting back and forth between Gabriel and Chiara. At the conclusion, he studied the document again and shook his head slowly.
"What's wrong, Eli?"
"I've spent years searching for something like this. Leave it to you to stumble on it by accident."
"Something like what, Eli?"
"Proof of his guilt. Oh, I found scraps of corroborating evidence scattered across the graveyards of Europe, but nothing as damning as this."
"You recognize the name?"
"Kurt Voss?" Lavon nodded his head slowly. "You might say that SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Kurt Voss and I are old friends."
"And the signature?"
"To me, it's as recognizable as Rembrandt's." Lavon glanced down at the document. "Whether you ever manage to find Julian's painting, you've already made a major discovery. And it needs to be preserved."
"I'd be more than happy to entrust it to your capable hands, Eli."
"I assume there's a price involved."
"A small one," said Gabriel.
"What's that?"
"Tell me about Voss."
"It would be my distinct displeasure. But order us some coffee, Gabriel. I'm a bit like Shamron. I can't tell a story without coffee."
25
AMSTERDAM
Eli Lavon began with the basic facts of Kurt Voss's appalling biography.
Born into an upper-class trading family in Koln on October 23, 1906, Voss was sent to the capital for schooling, graduating from the University of Berlin in 1932 with degrees in law and history. In February 1933, within weeks of Hitler's rise to power, he joined the Nazi Party and was assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, the security and intelligence service of the SS. For the next several years, he worked at headquarters in Berlin compiling dossiers on enemies of the Party, both real and imagined. Ambitious in all things, Voss courted Frieda Schuler, the daughter of a prominent Gestapo officer, and the two were soon wed at a country estate outside Berlin. Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was in attendance, as was SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, who serenaded the happy couple on the violin. Eighteen months later, Frieda gave birth to a son. Hitler himself sent a note of congratulations.
Voss soon grew bored with his work at SD headquarters and made it clear to his powerful backers he was interested in a more challenging assignment. His opportunity came in March 1938, when German forces rolled unchallenged into Austria. By August, Voss was in Vienna, assigned to the Zentralstelle fur judische Auswanderung, the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. The bureau was led by a ruthless young SS officer who would change the course of Voss's life.
"Adolf Eichmann," said Gabriel.
Lavon nodded his head slowly. Eichmann...
The Zentralstelle was headquartered in an ornate Viennese palace appropriated from the Rothschild family. Eichmann's orders were to cleanse Austria of its large and influential Jewish population through a mechanized program of rapid coerced flight. On any given day, the splendid old rooms and wide halls were overflowing with Jews clamoring to escape the wave of virulent anti-Semitic violence sweeping the country. Eichmann and his team were more than willing to show them the door, provided they first pay a steep toll.
"It was a giant fleecing operation. Jews entered at one end with money and possessions and came out the other with nothing but their lives. The Nazis would later refer to the process as the 'Vienna model,' and it was regarded as one of Eichmann's finest accomplishments. In truth, Voss deserved much of the credit, if you can call it that. He was never far from Eichmann's side. They used to prowl the corridors of the palace in their black SS uniforms like a pair of young gods. But there was one difference. Eichmann was transparently cruel to his victims, but those who encountered Voss were often struck by his impeccable manners. He always carried himself as though he found the entire process distasteful. In reality, it was just a disguise. Voss was a shrewd businessman. He would search out the well-to-do and pull them into his office for a private chat. Invariably, their money would end up in his pocket. By the time he left Vienna, Kurt Voss was a wealthy man. And he was just getting started."
By the autumn of 1941, with the Continent engulfed in war, Hitler and his senior henchmen decided that the Jews were to be exterminated. Europe was to be scoured from west to east, with Eichmann and his "deportation experts" operating the levers of death. The able-bodied would be used as slave labor. The rest—the young, the old, the sick, the disabled—would immediately be subjected to "special treatment." For the nine and a half million Jews living under direct or indirect German rule, it was a catastrophe, a crime without a name.
"But not for Voss," said Lavon. "For Kurt Voss, it was the business opportunity of a lifetime."
As the lethal summer of 1942 commenced, Voss and the rest of Eichmann's team were headquartered in Berlin at 116 Kurfurstenstrasse, an imposing building which, much to Eichmann's delight, had once housed a Jewish mutual aid society. Known as Department IVB4, these were the men who kept the Continent-wide enterprise of mass murder humming along smoothly.
"Voss had an office just down the hall from Eichmann," Lavon said. "But he was rarely there. Voss had a roving commission. He approved the deportation lists, supervised the roundups, and secured the necessary trains. And, of course, he expanded his thriving side business, robbing his victims blind before dispatching them to their deaths."