the rain.
Two blocks from the archives, Ramirez reached into his shirt pocket and produced an immigration card. “Cheer up, Monsieur Duran,” he said, handing the card to Gabriel. “Sometimes, in Argentina, it pays to use the same underhanded tactics as the men in charge. There’s only one copier in that building, and the girl runs it. She would have made one copy for me and another for her superior.”
“And Otto Krebs, if he’s still in Argentina and still alive, might very well have been told we were looking for him.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel held up the card. “Where was it?”
“Nineteen forty-nine. I suppose Chela stuck one in the wrong box.”
Gabriel looked down and began to read. Otto Krebs arrived in Buenos Aires in December 1963 on a boat bound from Athens. Ramirez pointed to a number written in hand at the bottom: 245276/62.
“That’s the number of his landing permit. It was probably issued by the Argentine consulate in Damascus. The ‘sixty-two’ at the end of the line is the year the permit was granted.”
“Now what?”
“We know he arrived in Argentina.” Ramirez shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Let’s see if we can find him.”
THEY DROVE BACK to San Telmo through the wet streets and parked outside an Italianate apartment house. Like many buildings in Buenos Aires, it had been beautiful once. Now its facade was the color of Ramirez’s car and streaked by pollution.
They climbed a flight of dimly lit stairs. The air inside the flat was stale and warm. Ramirez locked the door behind them and threw open the windows to the cool evening. Gabriel looked into the street and saw Chiara parked on the opposite side.
Ramirez ducked into the kitchen and came out holding two bottles of Argentine beer. He handed one to Gabriel. The glass was already sweating. Gabriel drank half of it. The alcohol took the edge off his headache.
Ramirez led him into his office. It was what Gabriel expected-big and shabby, like Ramirez himself, with books piled in the chairs and a large desk buried beneath a stack of papers that looked as though it was waiting for the match. Heavy curtains shut out the noise and the light of the street. Ramirez went to work on the telephone while Gabriel sat down and finished the last of his beer.
It took Ramirez an hour to come up with his first clue. In 1964, Otto Krebs had registered with the National Police in Bariloche in northern Patagonia. Forty-five minutes later, another piece of the puzzle: In 1972, on an application for an Argentine passport, Krebs had listed his address as Puerto Blest, a town not far from Bariloche. It took only fifteen minutes to find the next piece of information. In 1982, the passport was rescinded.
“Why?” Gabriel asked.
“Because the holder of the passport died.”
THE ARGENTINE SPREAD a dog-eared roadmap over a table and, squinting through his smudged reading glasses, searched the western reaches of the country.
“Here it is,” he said, jabbing at the map. “San Carlos de Bariloche, or just Bariloche for short. A resort in the northern lake district of Patagonia, founded by Swiss and German settlers in the nineteenth century. It’s still known as the Switzerland of Argentina. Now it’s a party town for the ski crowd, but for the Nazis and their fellow travelers, it was something of a Valhalla. Mengele adored Bariloche.”
“How do I get there?”
“The quickest way is to fly. There’s an airport and hourly service from Buenos Aires.” He paused, then added, “It’s a long way to go to see a grave.”
“I want to see it with my own eyes.”
Ramirez nodded. “Stay at the Hotel Edelweiss.”
“The Edelweiss?”
“It’s a German enclave,” Ramirez said. “You’ll find it hard to believe you’re in Argentina.”
“Why don’t you come along for the ride?”
“I’m afraid I’d be something of a hindrance. I’m persona non grata among certain segments of the Bariloche community. I’ve spent a little too much time poking around there, if you know what I mean. My face is too well known.”
The Argentine’s demeanor turned suddenly serious.
“You should watch your back, too, Monsieur Duran. Bariloche is not a place to make careless inquiries. They don’t like outsiders asking questions about certain residents. You should also know that you’ve come to Argentina at a tense time.”
Ramirez rummaged through the pile of paper on his desk until he found what he was looking for, a two- month-old copy of the international edition of Newsweek magazine. He handed it to Gabriel and said, “My story is on page thirty-six.” Then he went into the kitchen to fetch two more beers.
THE FIRST TO die was a man named Enrique Calderon. He was found in the bedroom of his townhouse in the Palermo Chico section of Buenos Aires. Four shots to the head, very professional. Gabriel, who could not hear of a murder without picturing the act, turned his gaze from Ramirez. “And the second?” he asked.
“Gustavo Estrada. Killed two weeks later on a business trip to Mexico City. His body was found in his hotel room after he failed to show up for a breakfast meeting. Again, four shots to the head.” Ramirez paused. “Good story, no? Two prominent businessmen, killed in a strikingly similar fashion within two weeks of each other. The kind of shit Argentines love. For a while, it took everyone’s mind off the fact that their life’s savings were gone and their money was worthless.”
“Are the murders connected?”
“We may never know for certain, but I believe they are. Enrique Calderon and Gustavo Estrada didn’t know each other well, but their fathers did. Alejandro Calderon was a close aide to Juan Peron, and Martin Estrada was the chief of the Argentine national police in the years after the war.”
“So why were the sons killed?”
“To be perfectly honest, I haven’t a clue. In fact, I don’t have a single theory that seems to make any sense. What I do know is this: Accusations are flying among the old German community. Nerves are frayed.” Ramirez took a long pull at his beer. “I repeat, watch your step in Bariloche, Monsieur Duran.”
They talked awhile longer as the darkness slowly gathered around them and the wet rush of the traffic filtered in from the street. Gabriel did not like many of the people he met in his work, but Alfonso Ramirez was an exception. He was only sorry he’d been forced to deceive him.
They talked of Bariloche, of Argentina, and the past. When Ramirez asked about the crimes of Erich Radek, Gabriel told him everything he knew. This produced a long, contemplative silence in the Argentine, as if he were pained by the fact that men such as Radek might have found sanctuary in a land he so loved.
They made arrangements to speak after Gabriel’s return from Bariloche, then parted in the darkened corridor. Outside, the barrio San Telmo was beginning to come alive in the cool of the evening. Gabriel walked for a time along the crowded pavements, until a girl on a red motorbike pulled alongside him and patted the back of her saddle.
25 BUENOS AIRES • ROME • VIENNA
THE CONSOLE OF sophisticated electronic equipment was of German manufacture. The microphones and transmitters concealed in the apartment of the target were of the highest quality-designed and built by West German intelligence at the height of the Cold War to monitor the activities of their adversaries in the east. The operator of the equipment was a native-born Argentine, though he could trace his ancestry to the Austrian village of Braunau am Inn. The fact that it was the same village where Adolf Hitler was born gave him a certain standing among his comrades. When the Jew paused in the entrance of the apartment house, the surveillance man snapped his photograph with a telephoto lens. A moment later, when the girl on the motorbike drew away from the curb, he captured her image as well, though it was of little value since her face was concealed beneath a black crash helmet. He spent a few moments reviewing the conversation that had taken place inside the target’s
