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From the moment the spotter was shown in, his eyes missed nothing. He took no notes, but no detail escaped and none were forgotten. The receptionist checked his credentials, phoned upstairs to confirm he was expected, and the commissionaire took him up—all the way to the austere wooden door, upon which he knocked. Never was the spotter out of sight.

Upon the command “Herein,” the commissionaire opened the door and ushered the American visitor in, withdrawing and closing it behind him before returning to his desk in the lobby.

Herr Wolfgang Gemütlich rose from his desk, shook hands, gestured his guest to a chair opposite him, and resumed his place behind his desk.

The word Gemütlich in German means “comfortable,” with a hint of geniality. Never was a man less aptly named. This Gemütlich was thin to the point of cadaverous, in his early sixties, gray-suited, gray

-tied, with thinning hair and face to match. He exuded grayness. There was not a hint of humor in the pale eyes, and the welcoming smile of the papery lips was less a grin than the rictus of something on a slab.

The office conveyed the same austerity as its occupier; dark paneled walls, framed degrees in banking in place of pictures, and a large ornate desk, whose surface was bare of any hint of clutter.

Wolfgang Gemütlich was not a banker for fun; clearly, all forms of fun were something of which he disapproved. Banking was serious—more, it was life itself. If there was one thing that Herr Gemütlich seriously deplored, it was the spending of money. Money was for saving, preferably under the aegis of the Winkler Bank. A withdrawal could cause him serious acidic pain, and a major transfer from a Winkler account to somewhere else would ruin his entire week.

The spotter knew he was there to note and report back. His primary task, now accomplished, was to identify the person of Gemütlich for the yarid team out in the street. He was also looking for any safe that might contain the operational details of the Jericho account, as well as security locks, door bolts, alarm systems—in short, he was there to case the joint for an eventual burglary.

Avoiding specifics of the amounts his client wished to transfer to Europe but hinting at their immense size, the spotter kept the conversation to inquiring as to the level of security and discretion maintained by the Winkler Bank. Herr Gemütlich was happy to explain that numbered accounts with Winkler were impregnable and discretion was obsessive.

Only once during the conversation were they interrupted. A side door opened to admit a mouse of a woman, bearing three letters for signature. Gemütlich frowned at the nuisance.

“You did say they were important, Herr Gemütlich. Otherwise ...” said the woman. At second glance, she was not as old as her appearance would have indicated—perhaps forty. It was the scraped-back hair, the bun, the tweed suit, the lisle stockings, and flat shoes that suggested more.

“Ja, ja, ja...” said Gemütlich, and held out his hand for the letters. “Entschuldigung...,” he asked his guest.

He and the spotter had been using German, after establishing that Gemütlich spoke only halting English.

The spotter, however, got to his feet and bobbed a small bow at the newcomer.

“Grü ss Gott, Fräulein,” he said. She looked flustered. Gemütlich’s guests did not usually rise for a secretary. However, the gesture forced Gemütlich to clear his throat and mutter:

“Ah, yes, er—my private secretary, Miss Hardenberg.”

The spotter noted that, too, as he sat down.

When he was shown out, with assurances that he would offer his client in New York a most favorable account of the Winkler Bank, the regimen was the same as for entry. The commissionaire was summoned from the front hall and appeared at the door. The spotter made his farewells and followed the man out.

Together they went to the small, grille-fronted elevator, which clanked its way downward. The spotter asked if he might use the men’s room before he left. The commissionaire frowned as if such bodily functions were not really expected within the Winkler Bank, but he stopped the elevator at the mezzanine. Close to the elevator doors, he indicated to the spotter an unmarked wooden door, and the spotter went in.

It was clearly for the bank’s male employees: a single stall, a single booth, a handbasin and towel roll, and a closet. The spotter ran the taps to create noise and did a quick check of the room. A barred, sealed window, run through with the wires of an alarm system—possible, but not easy. Ventilation by automatic fan. The closet contained brooms, pans, cleaning fluids, and a vacuum cleaner. So they did have a cleaning staff. But when did they work? Nights or weekends? If his own experience was anything to go by, even the cleaner would work inside the private offices only under supervision. Clearly, the commissionaire or the nightwatch could easily be taken care of, but that was not the point. Kobi Dror’s orders had been specific: No clues to be left behind.

When he emerged from the men’s room, the commissionaire was still outside. Seeing that the broad marble steps to the lobby half a floor down were farther along the corridor, the spotter smiled, gestured to it, and strode along the corridor rather than take the elevator for such a short ride.

The commissionaire trotted after him, escorted him down to the lobby, and ushered him out of the door.

The spotter heard the big brass tongue of the self-locking mechanism close behind him. If the commissionaire were upstairs, he wondered, how would the female receptionist admit a client or messenger boy?

He spent two hours briefing Gidi Barzilai on the internal workings of the bank, so far as he had been able to observe them, and the report was gloomy. The head of the neviot team sat in, shaking his head.

They could break in, he said. No problem. Find the alarm system and neutralize it. But as for leaving no trace—that would be a bastard. There was a nightwatchman who probably prowled at intervals. And then, what would they be looking for? A safe? Where? What type? How old? Key or combination or both? It would take hours. And they would have to silence the nightwatch. That would leave a trace. But Dror had forbidden it.

The spotter flew out of Vienna and back to Tel Aviv the next day. That afternoon, from a series of photographs, he identified Wolfgang Gemütlich and, for good measure, Fräulein Hardenberg. When he had gone, Barzilai and the neviot team leader conferred again.

“Frankly, I need more inside information, Gidi. There’s too much I don’t know still. The papers you need—he must keep them in a safe. Where? Behind the paneling? A floor safe? In the secretary’s office?

In a special vault in the basement? We need inside information here.”

Barzilai grunted. Long ago, in training, one of the instructors had told them all: There is no such thing as a man with no weak point. Find that point, press the nerve, and he’ll cooperate. The following morning the whole yarid and neviot teams began an intensive surveillance of Wolfgang Gemütlich.

But the acidulous Viennese was about to prove the instructor wrong.