The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,71

family was unusual in modern Germany, where birth rates had fallen below replacement level.

Estermann again checked the time. 6:04 … He dialed Christoph Bittel’s number but received no answer. Then he dashed off a text message, explaining that he had left the office later than planned and was now stuck in traffic. Bittel replied instantly. It seemed he was running behind schedule as well, which was not like him. Bittel was usually as punctual as a Swiss timepiece.

At last, the traffic inched forward. Estermann saw the reason for the delay. The police were searching a delivery van outside the entrance of the station. The passengers, two young men, Arabs or Turks, lay spread-eagled on the pavement. Estermann took no small amount of pleasure in their predicament. When he was a boy growing up in Munich, he rarely saw a foreigner, especially one with brown or black skin. That changed in the 1980s, when the floodgates opened. Twelve million immigrants now resided in Germany, fifteen percent of the population. The overwhelming majority were Muslims. Unless present trends were reversed, native Germans would soon be a minority in their own land.

Estermann turned onto the Goethestrasse, a quiet street lined with elegant old apartment houses, and eased into an empty space along the curb at ten minutes past six. He lost three additional minutes purchasing a chit from the automatic dispenser and another two walking the rest of the way to Café Adagio. It was a dimly lit room with a few tables arranged around a platform where, later that evening, a trio of American jazz musicians would perform. Estermann did not care for jazz. Nor did he much like the clientele of Café Adagio. At a darkened table in the corner, two women—at least Estermann thought they were women—were kissing. A couple of tables away sat two men. One had a hard, pitted face. The other was thin as a reed. They looked like Eastern Europeans, maybe Jews. At least they weren’t queers. Estermann hated queers even more than he hated Jews and Muslims.

Bittel was nowhere to be seen. Estermann sat down at a table as far from the other patrons as possible. At length, a tattooed girl with purple hair wandered over. She looked at Estermann for a moment as though waiting for him to utter the secret password.

“Diet Coke.”

The waitress withdrew. Estermann checked his phone. Where the hell was Bittel? And why in God’s name had he chosen a place like Café Adagio?

ANDREAS ESTERMANN’S DISCOMFORT WAS SO transparent that Gabriel waited ten additional minutes before informing the German that, owing to a work emergency, Christoph Bittel would not be able to meet for a drink as planned. Estermann’s face, viewed through the camera lens of his compromised phone, twisted into a grimace. He sent a curt response, tossed a five-euro banknote onto the table, and stormed into the street. Fuming, he pounded along the pavements of the Goethestrasse to his car, where his rising anger boiled over.

A man was sitting on the hood, his boots resting on the bumper, a girl between his legs. His pale skin was luminous in the lamplight. The girl was very dark, like an Arab. Her hands were resting on the man’s thighs. Her mouth was on his.

Estermann would have only limited memory of what happened next. There was an exchange of words, followed by an exchange of blows. Estermann threw a single wild punch but was on the receiving end of several compact, carefully delivered elbows and knees.

Incapacitated, he crumpled to the pavement. From somewhere a van materialized. Estermann was hurled into the back like war dead. He felt a sharp pain in his neck, and instantly his vision began to swim. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the face of the woman. She was an Arab, he was sure of it. Estermann hated Arabs. Almost as much as he hated Jews.

40

MUNICH

THERE IS NO SUCH THING, practitioners of the secret trade like to say, as a perfect covert operation. The best a careful planner can do is limit the chances of failure and exposure—or, worse still, of arrest and prosecution. Sometimes the planner willingly accepts a modicum of risk when lives are at stake or his cause is just. And sometimes he must resign himself to the fact that a small measure of serendipity, of providence, will determine whether his ship reaches port safely or smashes itself to pieces on the rocks.

Gabriel struck just such a bargain with the operational gods