The Order (Gabriel Allon #20) - Daniel Silva Page 0,74
him.” Gabriel paused. “Face-to-face.”
“You’ve got everything you need,” said Lavon. “Let’s get out of here before some nice German police officer knocks on the door and asks if we know anything about a missing senior executive from the Wolf Group.”
“We can’t release him until white smoke rises from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel.”
“So we’ll tape him to a tree somewhere in the Alps on our way down to Rome. With any luck, no one will find him until the glaciers melt.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I want to know why he has the private phone number of every major far-right leader in Western Europe. And I want that book.”
“It went up a chimney. You said so yourself.”
“Just like my grandparents.”
Gabriel turned without another word and headed downstairs to the cellar. There he instructed Mordecai and Oded to remove Estermann from the holding cell. Once again, the German offered no resistance as he was secured to the chair. At 12:42 a.m., the blindfold was removed. The camera of the Solaris phone captured the expression on Estermann’s face. Later, at King Saul Boulevard, all were in agreement on one point. It was one of Gabriel’s finest hours.
41
MUNICH
NATALIE GAVE ESTERMANN A HANDFUL of ibuprofen for his head and a plate of leftover Turkish takeaway. He swallowed the pain reliever tablets greedily but turned up his nose at the food. He likewise ignored the glass of Bordeaux she placed before him.
“She looks like an Arab,” he said when she was gone.
“She’s from France, actually. She and her parents had to immigrate to Israel to escape the anti-Semitism there.”
“I hear it’s very bad.”
“Almost as bad as Germany.”
“It’s the immigrants who are causing problems, not ethnic Germans.”
“Isn’t it pretty to think so.” Gabriel looked at the untouched wineglass. “Have some. You’ll feel better.”
“Alcohol is forbidden by the Order.” Estermann frowned. “I would have thought you knew that.” He looked down at his plate without enthusiasm. “I wonder if you might have any proper German food.”
“That would be rather difficult, given the fact we are no longer in Germany.”
Estermann adopted a superior smile. “I’ve lived in Munich most of my life. I know how it smells, how it sounds. If I had to guess, we’re in the city center, rather close to the Englischer Garten.”
“Eat your food, Estermann. You’re going to need your strength.”
He wrapped two pieces of grilled lamb in a bazlama flatbread and hesitantly took a first bite.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“A little takeaway near the Hauptbahnhof.”
“That’s where all the Turks live, you know.”
“In my experience that’s generally the best place to get Turkish food.”
Estermann ate one of the dolmades. “It’s quite good, actually. Still, it’s not what I would have chosen for my last meal.”
“Why so glum, Estermann?”
“We both know how this is going to end.”
“The ending,” said Gabriel, “has yet to be written.”
“And what must I do to survive this night?”
“Answer every question I ask.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll be tempted to waste a perfectly good bullet on you.”
Estermann lowered his voice. “I have children, Allon.”
“Six,” said Gabriel. “A very Jewish number.”
“Really? I never knew.” Estermann looked at the glass of wine.
“Have some,” said Gabriel. “You’ll feel better.”
“It’s forbidden.”
“Live a little, Estermann.”
He reached for the wineglass. “I certainly hope so.”
ANDREAS ESTERMANN’S STORY BEGAN, OF all places, with the Munich Massacre. His father had been a policeman, too. A real policeman, he added. Not the secret variety. In the early-morning hours of September 5, 1972, he was awakened with news that Palestinian guerrillas had kidnapped several Israeli athletes at the Olympic Village. He remained inside the command post during the daylong negotiations and witnessed the rescue attempt at Fürstenfeldbruck. Despite its failure, Estermann’s father was awarded his department’s highest commendation for his efforts that day. He tossed it in a drawer and never looked at it again.
“Why?”
“He thought it was a disaster.”
“For whom?”
“Germany, of course.”
“What about the innocent Israelis who were murdered that night?”
Estermann shrugged.
“I suppose your father thought they had it coming to them.”
“I suppose he did.”
“He was a supporter of the Palestinians?”
“Hardly.”
His father, Estermann continued, was a member of the Order of St. Helena, as was their parish priest. Estermann joined when he was a student at Munich’s Ludwig Maximillian University. Three years later, during a particularly chilly phase of the Cold War, he joined the Bf V. By any objective measure, he had a fine career, the failure to disrupt the Hamburg Cell notwithstanding. In 2008 he left the counterterrorism division and took command of Department 2,