killed in a car accident on the road to Haifa. Next he found a stack of letters. The stationery was the color of honey and still smelled of lilac. Gabriel read a few lines and quickly put the letters aside. Vera . . . Benjamin's only love. How many nights had he lain awake in some wretched safe flat, listening to Benjamin complain about how the beguiling Vera had ruined him for all other women? Gabriel was quite certain he hated her more than Benjamin had.
The last item was a manila file folder. Gabriel lifted the cover and inside found a stack of newspaper clippings. His eyes flickered over the headlines. eleven Israeli athletes and coaches taken
HOSTAGE IN OLYMPIC VILLAGE . . . TERRORISTS DEMAND RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN AND GERMAN PRISONERS . . . BLACK SEPTEMBER . . .
Gabriel closed the file.
A black-and-white snapshot slipped out. Gabriel scooped it off the floor. Two boys, blue jeans and rucksacks. A pair of young Germans spending a summer roaming Europe, or so it appeared. It had been taken in Antwerp near the river. The one on the left was Benjamin, forelock of wavy hair in his eyes, mischievous smile on his face, his arm flung around the young man standing at his side.
Benjamin's companion was serious and sullen, as though he couldn't be bothered with something as trivial as a snapshot. He wore sunglasses, his hair was cropped short, and even though he was not much more than twenty years old, his temples were shot with
gray. "The stain of a boy who's done a man's job," Shamron had said. "Smudges of ash on the prince of fire."
Gabriel was not pleased about the file of newspaper clippings on the Munich massacre, but there was no way he could smuggle so large an item past Detective Weiss. The snapshot was different. He wedged it into Herr Landau's expensive wallet and slipped the wallet into his coat pocket. Then he sidestepped his way out of the storage room and closed the door.
Frau Ratzinger was waiting in the corridor. Gabriel wondered how long she had been standing there but dared not ask. In her hand was a small padded shipping envelope. He could see that it was addressed to Benjamin and that it had been opened.
The old woman held it out to him. "I thought you might want these," she said in German.
"What are they?"
"Benjamin's eyeglasses. He left them at a hotel in Italy. The concierge was good enough to send them back. Unfortunately, they arrived after his death."
Gabriel took the envelope from her, lifted the flap, and removed the eyeglasses. They were the spectacles of an academic: plastic and passe, chewed and scratched. He looked into the envelope once more and saw there was a postcard. He turned the envelope on end, and the postcard fell into his palm. The image showed an ocher-colored hotel on a sapphire lake in the north of Italy. Gabriel turned it over and read the note on the back.
Good luck with your book, Professor Stern.
Giancomo
Detective Weiss insisted on driving Gabriel to his hotel. Because Herr Landau had never before been to Munich, Gabriel was forced to feign awe at the floodlit neoclassical glory of the city center. He also noted that Weiss skillfully made the trip last five minutes longer than necessary by missing several obvious turns.
Finally they arrived in a small cobbled street called the Anna-strasse in the Lehel district of the city. Weiss stopped outside the Hotel Opera, handed Gabriel his card, and once more expressed condolences over Herr Landau's loss. "If there's anything else I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask."
"There is one thing," Gabriel said. "I'd like to speak to the chairman of Benjamin's department at the university. Do you have his telephone numbers?"
"Ah, Doctor Berger. Of course."
The policeman removed an electronic organizer from his pocket, found the numbers, and recited them. Gabriel made a point of jotting them down on the back of the detective's card, even though, heard once, they were now permanently engraved in his memory.
Gabriel
A D Holland
Grif Stockley
D. W. Collins
Jane Rusbridge
Christine Warren
Lily Evans
Selene Chardou
Samantha Young
Gary D. Svee
Unknown