"But it didn't happen like that," Seth said. Halloway resumed. "Some members of the group disappeared simultaneously. Besides, that still leaves the question, how did the enemy find the first man who disappeared? No." Halloway's voice became hoarse. "Our fathers didn't unwillingly betray each other. The information about them came from outside the group."

"How?"

"I told you--the common denominator. The one man who knew about all of them. A different kind of father. A priest Cardinal Pavelic." Icicle suddenly remembered the last thing Kessler had said to him in Sydney.

"Cardinal Pavelic! He disappeared as well."

"Find out what happened to the cardinal, and you'll find out what happened to my father," Halloway said, "and yours and--"

"Mine," Seth said. "And everyone else's." 'the horror, THE horror"

Vienna. Saul stood respectfully in the background, holding

Christopher's hand, as Erika morosely surveyed her father's living room.

It occupied the second level of a three-story rowhouse on a quiet tree-lined street three blocks from the Danube. Outside, a heavy rain made the day so drab, the room so glum, that even in early afternoon

Misha Pletz had been forced to turn on the lights when they entered. The room was simply furnished, a rocking chair, a sofa, a coffee table, a plain dark rug, a hutch with photographs of Erika, Christopher, and

Saul. No radio or television, Saul noticed, but he did see a crammed bookshelf--mostly histories and biographies--and several reading lamps.

Prom studying the austere room, a stranger would not have guessed that

Erika's father, retired from the Mossad, received an adequate pension from Israel. With supplementary dividends from a few modest investments, her father could have surrounded himself with more belongings and better ones. But after disposing of his wife's possessions when she died five years ago, Joseph Bernstein had preferred to live ascetically. The sole luxuries he allowed himself were morning and evening cups of hot chocolate at a small cafe that bordered the

Danube. A pipe tobacco, the fragrance of which permeated the furniture and walls of the apartment. Saul himself had never smoked--another legacy from Eliot But the sweet lingering odor pleasantly widened his nostrils. Though he didn't see any photographs of Erika's father, Saul remembered him as a tall stocky man in his late sixties, slightly stooped, with thick white hair that never stayed in place, dense white eyebrows, and a thin inch-long scar along (he right ridge of his narrow jaw. On his own initiative, the man had never commented on the scar, and when asked, he'd never explained what had caused it. "The past,"

was the most he'd ever allowed himself to murmur, and the expression in his gray eyes, behind his glasses, would grow sad. Occasionally rubbing his son's back to reassure him, Saul watched Erika turn her gaze slowly around the room. 'Tell me again,"

she said to Misha. 'Tour days ago"--Misha sighed--"Joseph didn't come to the cafe for his morning cup of hot chocolate. The owner didn't think much about it till your father failed to show up that evening as well.

Even if your father wasn't feeling well, if he had a cold for example, he always went twice daily to mat cafe."

"And my father seldom even had a cold."

"A strong constitution."

"A man of habit," Saul interrupted. Misha studied him. "I'm assuming the cafe owner is one of you," Saul said. "Mossad." Misha didn't respond.

"Joseph's visits to the cafe weren't just for hot chocolate, were they?"

Saul asked. "Despite his retirement, he still kept a schedule, a customary routine that made it easy for a contact to reach him without attracting attention." Misha stayed silent

"Not mat his skills would probably ever be needed," Saul said. "But who can tell? Sometimes a knowledgeable old man, no longer officially a member of his network, to all appearances divorced from intelligence work, is exactly what a mission requires. And this way, it made Joseph feel he still had a purpose, was being held in reserve as it were. Even if you didn't have a use for him, you were kind enough to make him feel he hadn't been discarded." Misha raised his eyebrows slightly, either a question or a shrug. "Plus... and this was probably your network's principal motive

... his schedule, dropping in twice a day, was a subtle way for you to make sure he was doing all right, wasn't helpless at home, hadn't suffered a stroke or a heart attack, for example. You also made sure he wasn't being victimized by an old enemy. In a way (hat didn't jeopardize his pride, you protected him." Erika stepped close to Misha.

"Is that true?"

"You married a good man."

"I knew that already," she said. "Is Saul right?"

"What harm was done? We took care of our own and made him feel he had worth."

"No harm at all," she said. "Unless..."

"He wasn't working on anything for us, if that's what you mean," Misha said. "Though I'd have welcomed him on an assignment Nothing violent, of course. But for stakeouts or routine intelligence gathering, he was still a first-rate operative. You have to remember, Erika. Your father's retirement was his choice, not ours."

"What?"

"You mean you didn't know?" She shook her head. "Despite his age, I could have bent some rules and kept him," Misha said. "We're not so rich with talent we can afford to throw away a seasoned specialist But he asked for retirement. He demanded it"

"I don't understand," she said. "His work meant everything to him. He loved it."

"No question. He loved his work and his country."

"But if he loved his country so much," Saul asked, "why did he choose to live here? In Vienna? Why not in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or... Erika agreed. "That bothered us. Saul's arrangement with his network was if he stayed out of sight they'd leave him alone, and the other networks would leave him alone as well. In exchange for the information he gave them, they agreed to ignore the rules he'd broken. As long as he lived where we did, in a village on the edge of the world. But my father didn't have to Have here. Repeatedly we asked him to join us, to add to our family, to watch his grandson grow up. And he repeatedly refused.

It didn't make sense to me. The comforts of civilization weren't important to him- As long as he had hot chocolate and tobacco, he'd have been content anywhere."

"Perhaps," Misha said. Erika watched his eyes. "Is there something you haven't told us?"

"You asked me to explain it again, so I will After your father missed his morning schedule and didn't complete the evening rendezvous, the cafe owner--Saul's right, he is one of ours--sent an operative who works for him to bring some sandwiches and hot chocolate as if your father had ordered them over the phone. The operative knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. He tested the doorknob. The lock had not been secured. When the operative unholstered his weapon and entered, he found the apartment deserted. The sheets"--Misha pointed toward the door to the bedroom-"were tucked in, stretched taut, in military fashion."

"The way my father always makes his bed," Erika said. "He's addicted to order. He tucks in the sheets as soon as he wakes up."

"Correct," Misha said. "Which meant that whatever had happened, your father either didn't go to bed the night before, when he came back from the cafe, or else he made his bed the morning of his disappearance and for some reason didn't go to the cafe again as he normally would have."

"So the time frame is twenty-four hours," Saul said. "And Joseph wasn't sick at home. The operative briefly concluded that something had happened to Joseph while he was coming to or from his apartment. A traffic accident, let's imagine. But the police and the hospitals had no information about him."

"A moment ago, you used the word 'briefly,'"

Saul said. Misha squinted. "You said, the operative briefly suspected

Joseph had left the apartment and something happened to him. What made the operative change his mind?" Misha grimaced, as if in pain. He reached in a jacket pocket and pulled out two objects. "The operative found these on the coffee table." Erika moaned. Saul turned, alarmed by her sudden pallor. "My father's two favorite pipes," Erika said. "He never went anywhere without at least one of them."

"So whatever happened, it happened here," Misha said. "And he didn't leave willingly." 2

The room became silent The rain lashed harder against the window. Our people are searching for him," Misha said. "We're about to ask friendly networks to help us. It's difficult to focus our efforts. We don't know who'd want to take him or why. If the motive was revenge for something Joseph did while he still worked for us, why didn't the enemy merely kill him?"

"Unless the enemy wanted"--Erika swallowed--"to torture him."

"As a means of revenge? But that would make it personal not professional," Misha said. "In my twenty years of intelligence work,

I've never heard of an operative allowing his emotions to control him so much he violated protocol and used torture to get even with someone.

Assassination? Of course-- on occasion. But sadism?" Misha shook his head. "If other operatives found out, the violator would be shunned, despised, forever mistrusted, judged undependable. Even you, Saul, with all the reason you have to hate Eliot, you killed him but didn't torture him." The memory filled Saul with bitterness. "But we all know there's one circumstance in which torture is acceptable."