“HE’S MOVING TO BRAZIL.”
“Brazil? When?” Fritz turned to face him. They were sitting on a bench under the ombu tree, an early meeting, waiting for her to come out.
“I don’t know. But she got him a visa. As Erich Kruger. So anytime.”
“What’s in Brazil? I thought all his friends were here.”
“But he’s supposed to be dead. Which cuts into your social life. He’ll make new friends. I think he spooked when you spotted him. And too many people here—” He let the thought finish itself.
“A visa,” Fritz said, thinking. “So he’s still traveling on an Argentine passport.”
“Or a German one. Or—any. Maybe an extra he’s had all along, in case he needed to run.”
“Still, it’s a name for Goldfarb. It’s easier with a name. Erich Kruger,” he said, repeating it to remember it. “Now he knows who to look for.”
“He’d better hurry up, then. Now that Otto’s got the visa, there’s nothing to stop him.”
“He doesn’t have it yet,” Fritz said.
“No. So how does she get it to him?”
“She leaves it somewhere. He picks it up.”
“It’s an expensive thing to leave. Look how careful so far. She pays Martínez, but no money changes hands. Nobody knows what’s in a deposit box.” He paused. “She has to give it to Otto. And that’s when we have him.”
“If you see her do it.”
He turned to Fritz. “We’re going to get him.”
Fritz nodded. “All right. I’ll call Nathan.”
“We don’t have him yet.”
“But he’s ready to run. It’s easier for Nathan to operate in Argentina.”
“Why?”
Fritz shrugged. “More people on the ground here. Besides, who knows how the Brazilians will react? We need Nathan to get him out. So why wait until the last minute? I know. You want to do this yourself. Something for Max. But it’s enough, to find him. You’d already be a hero.”
“I don’t care about—”
“No? I do. My page one. But what if he gets away? Then nobody’s a hero. We should call Nathan. Now.”
Aaron thought for a minute, then nodded. “I thought he wouldn’t come until we found him. No wild-goose chase.”
Fritz smiled and put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I’m going to tell him we did. So bring the cavalry,” he said, a Western fan. He looked again at her building. “What time does she usually—?”
“Not until later, but I don’t want to take any chances. Not now. She has to get it to him. You don’t want to walk around with a thing like that in your purse. She’s going to meet him.”
But what if she didn’t? After Fritz left, Aaron sat staring at the white building. She’d be making calls now, monitored by Jamie, her usual morning. A few women trickled in, maids. What would she do today? What she always did, just another day, if you weren’t looking closely, seeing what else she was doing. Yesterday she’d gone to a party and now Otto had an escape hatch. He went over everything he’d seen in the last few days, each errand a possible cover for something else. Harrods, where she might have met someone. By accident. Dos Pescadores, arranging a boat. The office building on Anchorena. Not the watch repair. Why not the travel agent? Picking up a ticket, a matter of minutes. Nothing to see, if you weren’t looking.
She came out a little after eleven and headed toward San Martín again, her route that first morning, when he hadn’t known what to look for. Another stop at the bank on Calle Florida, standing in line at the teller’s, so not a safety deposit box request, going down to the vault with the code and key. Just walking-around money.
She went back up Calle Florida to the belle epoque hotel at the top of Plaza San Martín and went in, asking for someone at the desk. Aaron waited outside, looking through the window. No messages written out, envelopes left. Instead she simply stood in the lobby, waiting, until another woman got off the elevator and hurried over, old friends. They left arm in arm, and for a second Aaron was afraid they’d get a taxi, but she turned left, heading home, pointing to the ornate buildings on the plaza, a guide. The other woman was talking excitedly, catching up. A friend from New York?
The day was pleasant, warm without the usual river humidity, and the walk through Recoleta seemed to have no plan, just a stroll through the neighborhood, the other woman barely noticing, still talking. When they reached the end of Alvear, Aaron thought they’d go up to the apartment, lunch at home, but they kept going across to the park, past the colonial church and finally to the big cemetery, passing through the Doric columns into the shady main avenue with the other tourists.
Aaron held back, waiting. He thought for a second of Ohlsdorf, when he’d first seen her. But that had been a cemetery of green hills, an Arcadia for the dead. This was a miniature city, all stone, a grid of narrow alleys sliced by diagonal paths, all lined with elaborate tombs, thousands of them, rising in some macabre competition, the owners building higher and higher, rich inlaid marble and bronze doors, so they wouldn’t be forgotten, generals and Jockey Club presidents Aaron had never heard of.
Hanna and her friend had stopped to sit on one of the benches, looking at a plan of the cemetery, and Aaron slipped into an alley behind. It was an easy place to follow someone, even the long straight lanes broken by niches and cross streets, a maze. And if you were spotted, there was even the plausible excuse of playing visitor. Everyone came to Recoleta sooner or later.
They were moving now, following the map and stopping from time to time to look at the names, alone in some of the streets, an eerie quiet, the city noise out behind the high walls. What struck Aaron was how many of the tombs were neglected, forgotten even by their own, mausoleum doors with rusty padlocks, old flower vases now filled with fallen leaves, the occasional broken glass. Was there actually anything to steal? Then ladders and paving stones and piles of sand—the maintenance tools of any city.
They were there an hour, walking one end to the other, but they didn’t meet anyone or leave an envelope on a quiet tomb for later pickup. She still had the visa.
They had lunch at the Café La Biela across the street, under a shady gum tree, waiters in vests sliding past the close tables. More chat, the lunch stretching on, another cup of coffee, and then finally they were done, the friend taking a taxi back, Hanna heading down Junin toward Santa Fe. Different streets but the same neighborhood as before, apartment buildings and shoe shops and fruit stalls, jogging west and south, no hurry, until they were back in Villa Freud, the polished brass nameplates on the doors, the quiet streets about to fill with people as the sessions neared their ends. Aaron smiled to himself and took an outdoor table at the café on the Plaza Güemes, looking toward Dr. Ortiz’s building. He checked his watch: 3:50. The changing began, just as before, people seeping out of doorways, some headed to the café for a drink. Others began to appear, a few in taxis, everyone on time, wanting the full session, neither group looking at the other. Shall we pick up where we left off Tuesday?
He glanced through a newspaper. The other tables were mostly singles, alone with their thoughts, maybe reviewing what they had said to their analysts. Fifty minutes was a long time. You could say things you hadn’t meant to say. Aaron wondered if the conversation was protected, like a priest’s or an attorney’s. Would a psychiatrist report a crime? A wanted man? Or was the couch as sacred as a confessional? Where would she go afterward? A taxi. He looked across the square. A small rank to the left of the church if he needed to get one in a hurry.
But she didn’t get a taxi. She came out on time, but instead of turning right, down Charcas, headed straight toward the café. For a second he couldn’t move. The newspaper was a prop, not a screen. She’d see him, even sense him. Do something. She was almost at the corner when the light turned. A minute. Aaron stood up, chair scraping, and ducked into the café, a blur of motion, out of the sunlight. Still just steps away from the sidewalk tables, but now part of the dark interior, not there unless she was looking for him. He stood at the bar, watching as her head appeared through the window, still moving steadily toward Salguero, passing his table now. Had he left anything there, some telltale—? But there was only the English-language paper, and she seemed not to notice it, preoccupied. He waited another minute, then went to the door to see her turning the corner. She was going up to Santa Fe. A block between them should be safe. Another minute.
A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He turned his head toward Charcas and saw the man coming out of Dr. Ortiz’s doorway. Maybe Ortiz himself, in a light summer suit and Panama hat, finished for the day. He looked up and down the street, then started for the café. Aaron glanced at his watch—give her another minute—then looked up again and froze. The unmistakable walk, the one Max would know anywhere, coming toward him. Not his back, what he’d seen at the Alsterpavillon, but him, full face under the brim of the hat, the picture in the visa. The walk. Aaron went still, as if any quick motion would scare him away. Still coming toward him, and for a panicked second Aaron wondered if he knew, had come to see him. But how could he know? The hat was disconcerting, tropical, and then in his mind’s eye Aaron saw the SS hat, the way he must have looked walking down the selection line, separating the fit from the doomed. Nonchalant, like this, as if he were heading for a café table.
He took one near the street, facing across the plaza to the church, and ordered coffee and a brandy, at ease with himself, not looking into the café, uninterested in the other customers, someone else’s patients. Except he didn’t have patients. Was there really a Dr. Ortiz? Jamie had said there was. They checked. Some arrangement then. The waiter appeared with the tray. Early for a brandy, maybe a private celebration, the papers he’d been waiting for. Aaron put his hand on the bar, fingers trembling, just being this close. He was here. Now what? Fritz. Photographs. Nathan. He was here, the same café.
“Un otro café, señor? ”
The waiter, wondering why he was standing there. Aaron nodded, not speaking, then started back to his table, deliberate, the trembling suddenly gone, his whole body alert. When he picked up the newspaper again, he was raising a rifle, looking through the sights, that moment of perfect calm before the trigger was squeezed, the end of the hunt. Afterward things might go wrong, a mistake, some unexpected mess. But not now. Now there was only the feeling of elation. Here he is, Max. In my sights.
Otto shifted in his chair, a glance around, as if he had sensed the invisible rifle. Aaron turned a page of the newspaper. Don’t avert your eyes. It’s perfectly natural to look up from the paper, see who had entered the café. Otto met his eyes for a second, then went back to his brandy. A man with a newspaper. Not Max Weill and all the other ghosts behind him. Here, in the café. Just when he thought it was safe.
Otto took his time with the brandy, sipping it, keeping his hat on. When he got up to leave, Aaron went still again. Too obvious to follow immediately, but what if he went up Salguero and found a cab? But he didn’t. He went back to Ortiz’s building and went in. It was only later, still at the café, that Aaron saw the lights go on and knew he was in for the night. Not just an office then, an apartment with a receiving room for patients, just like Freud’s. In a street where nobody noticed who came and went, where Otto had gone to ground.
Goldfarb owned a sewing factory in Once, just a few blocks from the station. He was a short man, stooped, as if he’d been bent over one of his machines for too many years.
“All the Jews are leaving,” he said to Aaron, waving a hand to include the whole neighborhood. “Belgrano. What’s in Belgrano? My business is here. You don’t just turn your back. It’s an honor to meet you. Max Weill’s boy.”
“Nephew,” Aaron said, only half-audible under the noise of the machines outside the office door.
Another wave. “You should have seen him in the camps. After the war, the DPs. I don’t think he slept. Always working.”
“Did he ever send you a picture of Schramm?” he said, trying to steer the conversation. “To help you look.”
Goldfarb shook his head. “We were working in the dark with that one. He had one in his files—laughing, I think, if you could imagine such a thing. But no copies. I saw it before I left Germany. So it was here,” he said, putting a finger to his head. “Anyway, he may not look like that now. We change over the years.”
“But nothing under Kruger? No passport?” Fritz said.
“Not yet. But if it’s Argentine, we’ll find it. If,” he said, a cautionary finger. “Anyway, if you know where he is, just photograph him now.”
“We will. But it’s useful to have a link to the other identities, compare the pictures.”
“So we’ll keep looking. Meanwhile, I have something else for you.”
Fritz raised his eyebrows.
“I was thinking. So it’s not Helmut Braun in that car accident. But it’s somebody. There’s a body. So who is it?”
“And?”
“I thought, a man, somebody must miss him. So I checked the Mar del Plata police records. Who didn’t come home? And I found a match, the right weight, the right height. Anyway, close enough. Here, take a look.”
He showed them a photograph.
“That doesn’t look anything like him,” Aaron said, impatient, not interested.
“Forget the face. It was unrecognizable. But the body—”
“So who recognized it?” Fritz said. “Who identified the body?”
Goldfarb shot him a look. “Rudel. That fascist.”
“And Bildener,” Aaron said. “Anyway, we know it wasn’t Otto.”
“So who’s this?” Fritz said.
“Giorgio Rinaldi. Still missing. Officially. Of course, we can’t say for certain it’s him, not now.”
“But Bildener says it’s Braun.”
“You notice, not the daughter. She can never be accused. Nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe it’s true,” Aaron said. “Maybe she didn’t know.”
Fritz looked at him. “Maybe. She does now.”
Aaron glanced at his watch. “I thought you said Nathan was coming.”
“He’ll be here. He’s setting up a team. To watch the house.”
“You understand, there had to be somebody in the police,” Goldfarb said, still back in Mar del Plata. “To tell Bildener. There’s an accident. What you’re looking for. So something changes hands and Rinaldi becomes— How else?”
There was a roar of machinery as Nathan came through the door, his bullet head shiny with sweat. The Hamburg sailor’s peacoat had been traded in for a warm-weather short-sleeved shirt that made him look uncannily like a young Ben-Gurion, stocky, with a wrestler’s chest and arms.
“How do you hear yourself think in here?” he asked Goldfarb, clutching his arm, old colleagues.
“I don’t think.”
“Good sound cover, though,” Nathan said, leaving the door open. “Fritz.” Another shake. “And the hunter.” He took Aaron’s hand. “Nice work, for a desk man.”
Aaron nodded, pleased. “I was lucky. He showed himself.”
“So stay lucky. We have a team on him now, so you don’t go to Villa Freud. He sees you twice, something clicks,” he said, his voice gruff, in charge.
“Assuming he comes out.”
“He has to buy food. She never brings anything, right? She’s seeing her shrink. So.” He turned to Fritz. “And we got lucky for you. There’s a room for rent across the street. Not right across, too far for a regular camera, but a telephoto would get to the door. And if he walks down Charcas, he’d be coming to you. Just keep snapping. We still need a positive ID. I can’t get more men without it. Christ, it’s loud out there.” He faced the factory floor.
“They wear earplugs,” Goldfarb said.
“You get the papers? For the boys. They need something to show.”
“You’ll get them, don’t worry.”
Nathan touched Goldfarb’s arm. “I know.”
“And me?” Aaron said.
Nathan looked at him. “You? You do what you’ve been doing—stay close to her. She have any idea?”
“No.”
“That must be interesting.”
Aaron said nothing.
“Maybe you have a talent for it.”
A sharp look now.
“All right, all right,” Nathan said, an apology. “Just don’t get confused. Remember who they are.”
“She’s not like that.”
Nathan looked at him, about to say something, then dropped it.
“She did what we wanted. She led us to him. But she doesn’t know that.” He paused. “She never has to know.”
“We just found him by ourselves.”
Aaron shrugged. “You’re Mossad. There’s a reputation now. He’s playing dead to get away from you. You don’t need help.”
“But we still need her. We don’t know his plans. She does. When does he go to Brazil? How?” He looked over at Aaron. “Luckily we have an inside source. Close to her. There’s no problem about that, is there?”
Aaron looked away. “What does it matter how he’s planning to go? Aren’t you going to—”
“What? Snatch him in the street? Another Eichmann?” He shook his head. “You staked out Villa Freud. What did you see? People in the street. Traffic. Cafés. Kids, for chrissake, in the playground. You can’t just grab somebody there. Eichmann, it was different. He lived out of town. Nobody around. So, easy. And then what? Safe houses until we could fly him out. That’s not going to work this time. We don’t have an El Al plane warming up on the runway.”
“So how do you get him to Germany?” Fritz said. “If you can’t fly?”
“We get him out of Argentina first. Then we fly. And it so happens he’s planning to get out of Argentina. So we follow him out.” He turned to Aaron. “If we know how he’s going. When. So we stay on her. Close.”
“Why don’t you just tail him? He goes to Brazil, you’ll know.”
Nathan nodded. “We have a team on him now. In shifts. One man at a time. But that only works if he stays put. Once he’s loose, one man can’t cover it. You need a whole operation. Otherwise, one slip and he’s gone. And I don’t have a whole operation. Yet. So, he comes out, we need to know where he’s going. Let’s hope he’s not in a hurry. We need a little time.”
“Why not just break the story?” Fritz said. “Once we have the pictures, we have him. Lazarus. Back from the dead. Everybody’ll pick it up.”
“But they’ll never extradite him. They can’t. Too many protected him. He’ll disappear again. A phantom. Like Mengele. Then all you have are rumors. He’s in Paraguay. He’s in Bolivia. And he never testifies. But in Brazil, we have a chance. Don’t worry,” he said to Fritz. “Get him to Germany and you’ve got headlines. For days. They can’t ignore him—he’s on German soil. They have to do something.” He turned to Aaron. “And Max gets his trial.”
“If the Brazilians—”
Nathan shook his head. “The Brazilians won’t know. You tell them, it could take forever. Even if they end up doing the right thing. Remember Eichmann? We need to do something like that. Right under their noses. A quick transfer. But it takes people. So let’s hope he gives us a few more days.”
“They’re not going to be happy about this. The Brazilians.”
“And that’s my job? To make them happy? I told you, back in Hamburg, it’s not nice, this work. You have to have the stomach for it. To cut a few corners.”
“A few corners.”
“And you’re not? With her?” He turned to Goldfarb. “Did you get the coroner’s report? For Helmut Braun?”
Goldfarb nodded.
“Any mention of the tattoo? The SS ID?”
“Bildener mentioned it,” Fritz said. “It’s one way they identified him as Schramm. That, and the dental records.”
“And tattoos don’t lie. If they’re there.” Again, to Goldfarb. “But the coroner doesn’t mention it?”
“No.”
“Odd, yes? A tattoo he doesn’t see.”
“Mengele doesn’t have one,” Goldfarb said. “It made it easier for him, after the war.”
“But Schramm did. And Bildener sees it, but not the coroner.” He looked at Fritz. “So it’s another story. Something else for Bildener to answer.”
He looked at his watch, as if he were setting an operation into action, all business.
“What else? We don’t want to be too long. Goldfarb has a business to run.” A sly smile to him. “But you’ll keep checking on Kruger, yes? Fritz, you get the pictures. See what else we can pick up in Mar del Plata. That’s going to embarrass the hell out of the Argentines. I’ll get more men. Meanwhile, we track his movements, get his routine. Maybe he’s like Eichmann, home every day the same time, like clockwork.” He looked over at Aaron. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just—to wait like this, when we have him. What if—?”
“We don’t have him. You’re like Max. He could find them—there was nobody like him for that. But you know, when you hunt, that’s the first part. You find him. Then you have to bring him down.”
She put on a slip afterward, covering herself.
“Why bother?”
“It’s not decent.”
He grinned. “But that is,” he said, nodding toward the slip.
“It makes me feel better. Anyway, it’s harder for you, to look,” she said, playful, handing him her lighted cigarette.
“So Rosas was right. A good girl. Nothing to confess.”
“Not to him.”
“You never had impure thoughts?”
She smiled. “Imagine if I had said that to him?” She took the cigarette back. “How many Hail Marys. No, not then. The thoughts came later.”
“I’m glad.”
“Yes, and now what?” she said, stubbing out the cigarette. “Are you really going to Bariloche or is that one of your stories?”
“I got sidetracked,” he said, stroking her arm. “Why don’t you come?”
“To Bariloche? It’s too German for me. Those funny hats. Strudel.”
“It’s supposed to be beautiful.”
“It is. I told you, my father—” She stopped, then turned to him. “What happened to your friend with the book? Or did you make him up?”
“No, he’d still like to talk to you. I just thought you’d—rather not.”
“Oh, rather not. Well. And when does that change anything?”
“All right. Just tell me when and I’ll set it up.”
She looked down. “Markus says I shouldn’t do it. It’s some plan you and Jamie have.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know. It’s Markus.” A smile. “He said you were rude to him.”
“I was.”
“He’s not used to that. He thinks you want to make trouble for me.” She took a breath. “Do you?”
“No.” He put his hand up to her head. “Is that what you think?”
She looked at him for a moment. “I don’t know. What happens now?”
“We go to Bariloche. We go hiking. Or we don’t go hiking.”
She smiled. “And what do I tell Markus?”
“Why tell him anything? What business is it of his?”
“He acts like my father now. They were close. In Gemany. They worked together. So he thinks that gives him the right—”
“Worked together. During the war?”
“You mean at Auschwitz. No, Markus was too high up for that. He was back in Berlin. In Dahlem. The Institut fur Rassenbiologische und Anthropologische Forschungen,” she said, the words flowing out in a perfectly accented stream, the German Hanna. He glanced over, in bed with someone else, but then she was back, her real voice. “He kept measurements. That’s what he says anyway. My father sent him reports. From his experiments. So they knew each other.”
“Measurements.”
“From Mengele, on the twins. From my father, I don’t know what. I never asked. What could they be? Something terrible. Listen to us. We talk about this as if it was some ordinary crime, a robbery. And Markus says ‘measurements,’ something innocent. My father says ‘exaggerations.’ Both of them pretending it was something else. Doctors. How can doctors do things like that?”
“Bildener was a doctor?”
“All of them. It had to have a scientific basis, what they were doing there. Someone in a white coat, how could it be wrong? And after, do they change how they think? They come here, a new name, but nothing else changes.”
“Who was he before? Bildener.”
“I don’t know. You didn’t ask. We were Braun. He was Bildener.”
“Is he—wanted?”
“In Germany, you mean? No, he was never at Auschwitz. Only at the Institute. So he was never accused. The bosses always get away, no? Anyway, it’s too late. Who could testify against him? The victims are dead. There was only my father and he would never—” She stopped. “And now he’s dead too.” The body identified, a stamped death certificate. “So Markus is safe.” She looked out from the bed. “You think it’s over and now here’s Markus, another crazy man to be my father.”
“But he’s not.”
“No. You know the difference? He never loved me. My father did. So who cares what Markus says?” She glanced at him, trying to smile. “What do you think? Should I talk to your friend? Will that make him go away? Bury him?”
“Who, Markus?”
“No, my father.”
Aaron looked at her. “I don’t know. I’m not a professional. Ask Dr. Ortiz.” Waiting.
“Ouf. In del Plata. They all go to the beach in the summer. When you need them. Everybody leaves Buenos Aires.” She put her hand up to his cheek. “Do you really want to go away? Not Bariloche. We could keep going, all the way down to Ushuaia. I’ve always wanted to go there—where the boats leave for Antarctica. The end of the world. Nobody would ever find us there.”
“Nobody’s looking for us.”
“No, that’s right.” She laughed a little. “So maybe Bariloche’s far enough. Warmer. To hell with Markus.” She looked at him, straight into his eyes, trying to see inside. “Maybe I should listen to him.”
He leaned forward, kissing her. “But he’s crazy.”
“Anyway, by that time—”
“What?”
“By the time we leave. Next week.”
“Why next week?” he said, kissing her again.
“I have something to do. But then I’ll be free.”
“Why not tomorrow?” he said, trying it.
“No, next week. I can’t leave yet. You can wait a few days. Then we can go anywhere. I’ll be free.”
“You’re sure it’s this week?” Nathan said.
Aaron nodded.
“Then we have to move. We can’t wait.”
They were sitting in Goldfarb’s office again, the sewing machines humming outside, the desk covered with photographs Fritz had taken—Otto in his Panama hat, drinking in the café, getting into a taxi. A new man, Ari, had been introduced but had said nothing, studying their faces, a professional. Nathan turned to Goldfarb.
“We’re going to need a safe house. Can you do it? Fast?”
Goldfarb opened his hands.
“I thought we were going to follow him out,” Aaron said. “To Brazil.”
“Maybe sit next to him on the plane?” Nathan said. “We don’t have enough men. Here or there. We’ll lose him.”
“But you have enough for a grab? Then to guard him?”
“We don’t have a choice. Let’s say he’s flying to São Paulo. Let’s say we even find out the plane. Your girlfriend slips something. Or we track him to the gate. We still need a team to pick him up when he lands and I don’t have it yet. So we have to move here.”
“We do that and everyone who’s helping him will know,” Aaron said. “Then he doesn’t fly at all. And we still have to get him out.”
“I know that. I didn’t say it was ideal. You work with what you have. And right now we have someone ready to fly this week. If you’re right.”
Aaron nodded again. “It’s this week.”
“I still say, let’s just run the pictures,” Fritz said. “Then everybody’s in on it. Schramm’s alive. They can’t walk away from that. It would be a scandal.”
“So the Germans request him. And the Argentines lose him. Checkmate. But we already have him. The Germans aren’t going to put him on trial unless they can’t do anything else. Unless he’s there. So, Ari, what do we have? There’s a routine?”
“Yes and no. What you saw,” he said, turning to Aaron, “was unusual. Following her out. He waits an hour, another session, different people in the street. Then he comes out. Sometimes the café where you saw him. An early dinner. Or he takes a taxi. Another café, up by the cemetery. Tourists. Where it doesn’t matter you eat early. Nobody notices.”
“The same one?”
“So far. Alone. He reads a newspaper. A cigar with coffee.”
“And a taxi home?”
“To the square, not the door.”
“He never walks?”
“Not to dinner. Once a little walk after in Palermo Viejo. Half an hour maybe, no more.”
“So?”
“The taxi’s our best bet. There’s a rank on the square, but if he sees one on the way, he hails it. So we make sure he sees one. Down Charcas, like always. We stop for the light at Bulnes, somebody else hops in. Off we go.”
Aaron frowned, trying to picture it. “There’s a café at Bulnes.”
“So what does anybody see? A man getting into a taxi.”
“And a man inside fighting him. What’s Schramm going to do? Nothing?”
“Not after he sees the gun in my hand,” Ari said. “It usually quiets them down.”
“A gun? Then it’s kidnapping,” Aaron said.
“And what’s your plan?” Nathan said.
Aaron ran the film clip in his head, the taxi pulling up, the man leaping in, the screech of tires as it drove off. He shook his head. “It’s too public.”
“You think we haven’t done this before?” Ari said, annoyed now. He turned to Nathan. “The taxi’s our best bet. Two men, me and the driver. Nobody sees. And then we’re at the safe house, wherever that is. Goldfarb?”
“Montevideo. Near Córdoba. From tomorrow.”
But Nathan was looking at Aaron. “So?”
Aaron said nothing for a minute, thinking, then looked up.
“He’s already in a safe house. We just need to make it our safe house.”
Nathan peered at him. “Go on.”
“He’s already in hiding. So let’s keep him hidden. With a guard. We don’t have to snatch him. In public. We have him and nobody knows where.”
“Except the daughter.”
Aaron nodded. “Except her. And she doesn’t want anything to happen to him, or why would she be doing this? So she does what you say. If anybody else knows he’s there, comes looking for him, then they’re part of Fritz’s story. Pictures and all. Ortiz? If he comes back early? Not the best publicity, hiding a war criminal. But I don’t think anyone knows.”
“Except her.”
“And you’ve got a gun on him.”
“After we break down the door. Which the neighbors will love.”
“There aren’t any neighbors. We haven’t seen anyone else come out.”
“You ever break down a door?” Ari said, a slight sneer.
Aaron shook his head. “We just knock. Right after she leaves. So he thinks it’s her. She forgot something. We have somebody in the street. Not me, somebody she won’t recognize. You, maybe,” he said to Ari. “The minute she hits the corner, you’re at the door. He doesn’t open, try this.” He took the passkey out of his pocket. “Fritz here likes to sneak around. It works—you’d be surprised. No noise.”
For a minute no one said anything.
“We might have to keep her there too,” Nathan said finally.
Aaron nodded. “Let’s see how she takes it. I don’t think she wants any trouble. And she’s probably the only one who can talk sense to him at this point.”
“And when he doesn’t show? For the plane. And his friends start wondering what happened?”
“But he does show,” Aaron said. “As soon as you have your people in place at the other end. Then it’s up to you. Maybe you get the Brazilians to fly him out for you. Maybe not. But he’s there, not here.”
“And he goes. Just like that.”
“With somebody sitting next to him. To keep him company.”
“When?”
“She sees him tomorrow—sees Ortiz—but I think that’s too soon. She said she’d be ready next week, so I think it’s the end of this week. Thursday. Her other day.”
“Although it could be any time.”
“It could.”
“But you think Thursday.”
“Does that give you enough time?”
Nathan looked at him. “Just a knock on the door. I like that.”
“There’s less risk.”
“You sit at a desk, there’s never any risk.”
He reached into his pocket and handed Aaron a gun.
“What’s this for?”
“We’ll babysit in shifts. Make him think you’d use it.”
She was late coming out. The 3:50 change had already begun, patients heading toward the plaza, the taxi rank, and she was still inside. Aaron watched the door through binoculars, the air still, just waiting. Fritz was fiddling with the telephoto lens, focusing on Ortiz’s building. In the street, Goldfarb was circling in an off-duty cab, Nathan’s backup plan, just in case.
“So where is she?” Fritz said.
“She’ll be there.”
“I want to get her coming out of the building.”
“No, get Ari going in. Leave her out of it.”
Fritz glanced over at him. “She’s part of it. The story.”
“She doesn’t have to be.”
Ari and Nathan were crossing the street from the square, entering stage right, the scene beginning. In a second everyone would be in motion, the extras melting into the café behind, the principals passing each other at the streetlight, but right now everything felt suspended, stopped in time, waiting for the music. Where was she? Aaron glanced up and down Charcas, the street emptying, the four o’clock patients already inside. A sleepy afternoon. A handful of people in the cafés. Witnesses. It had been easier with Eichmann. The walk from the bus stop down a dimly lit street, deserted. A stalled car on the side of the road, hood up, someone working on the engine. “Un momentito, señor.” And caught. Thrown into the car, a fast drive in the dark, blindfolded. Someone who didn’t come home. Days before his family reported him missing.
The camera clicked as she started coming through the door.
“No. Wait for Ari.”
Fritz lowered the camera an inch.
She was in a light summer dress and sandals, a full skirt that moved with her as she walked. No hesitation, no looking up and down, just heading toward Plaza Güemes as if she had heard the downbeat and had begun her steps. The rest came to life, Ari and Nathan passing her without looking at her, Goldfarb’s cab turning the corner, starting to circle the block to be back on Charcas if he was needed. She walked across to the café, and for a second Aaron thought she would sit down, ruin everything just by being there, but she kept going, heading up to Santa Fe, no longer part of it.
Another click. Ari and Nathan at the door. A glance back to make sure Hanna had gone, then in. Now Aaron would have to imagine the rest. Second-floor front, an elevator, but better to take the stairs. Standing on either side of the peephole, out of range, a light knock. Then what? Who’s there? Or a bemused, What did you forget? Or nothing, suspicious, playing dead, waiting for some explanation with the knock.
“They should be there now,” Fritz said, his voice nervous.
Knocking again. Or trying the passkey, the sound rattling Otto inside. Ortiz back early? Who else had a key? Maybe opening the door a crack with a chain lock. He hadn’t planned for that, Otto checking before he opened the door. What else had he missed? It would only take Otto a second, seeing Nathan’s head, Ari’s hawk-like eyes, to know who they were. What it meant. Still, then what?
“Who’s that?” Fritz said, raising the camera again. A click.
“Jesus, it’s him,” Aaron said. Not strolling, shooting out the door in a panic, turning down Charcas.
“That’s it, come to Papa. Good one.” Click.
No one behind him. A back door? Of course he’d have an escape hatch. Fire stairs, something. Which Aaron should have planned for. Walking fast, not running, head down, not wanting to draw attention. How long before Nathan and Ari knew he was gone? Getting away.
“Come on,” Aaron said, almost a yell. Already at the door, then starting down the stairs, Fritz clunking behind him.
Otto kept coming down Charcas, not seeing them on the other side through the little park that divided the street. Fritz raised the camera again and snapped, the sound faint but distinct, stopping him in a second of panic. Behind him, Nathan and Ari had come racing out of the building. Now Otto started to run, no longer caring if anyone saw. Aaron dodged a car to cross the street mid-block. Intercept him. Otto, running, looked up, startled, then looked behind, Ari running now too, fast, a leopard about to bring down a gazelle, all of them panting. Another click.
Otto swerved out into the street, barely missing a car. He was grunting now, breath coming in gasps. The driver who’d just missed him shouted something in Spanish. He looked around, Ari and Nathan still closing in, and started again for Bulnes, the café on the corner, anywhere public, no longer thinking, an adrenaline spurt. Aaron jumped, coming down on his shoulders, as if they really were animals, the kill moment. Otto fell, a sharp squeal, bringing Aaron down with him, two brawlers, what they had wanted to avoid, a scene. Otto wriggled, slipping out of Aaron’s grasp, and got up again, running back into the street, another car braking, Goldfarb’s taxi. Ari, there now, slammed him against it and opened the back door. Plan B. “Get in.” Barely words, just sounds.
Otto pushed away, fumbling in his pocket and pulling out a gun, pointing it at Nathan, who stopped, frozen. Otto took a step away from the car, testing the waters, ready to bolt. Another click. He whirled around to the sound, an instinct, one second of distraction, enough for Aaron to chop at his wrist. Otto half-turned, trying to hold on to the gun, loose now in his hand, and fired at them, an explosion in the quiet street. Heads turned in the café. Otto swung the gun, pointing it back at Nathan. A second, nobody moving. Then Aaron chopped again, grabbing the gun as it fell out of Otto’s hand.
“Fuck,” Ari said, clutching his leg, the blood already starting to spread. “The car,” he said, gasping.
Otto started to spring away, one last escape, and fell into Aaron, who smashed the gun against his head. A yelp, still trying to run but blocked now. Aaron hit him again, opening the skin, a streak of blood, and shoved him into the backseat, Ari climbing in after. Another click, Fritz still snapping.
“You go,” Nathan said to Aaron, nodding toward the front seat. He touched Fritz’s arm. “Come with me.” Pulling him away from the car.
“What about—?”
“Now. Here,” he said to Ari, handing him some handcuffs. “Cuff him. He’ll do anything.” He looked in the back. “What the hell?” he said, taking in Otto’s bleeding head. “He going to be all right? What about you?” he said to Ari. “You need a doctor?”
“What, because I have a bullet in my leg?”
“I know somebody,” Goldfarb said from the front.
Nathan turned from Otto to Aaron. “You weren’t supposed to hurt him.”
“He had a gun on you.”
Nathan stared at him for a second, then nodded, a thank-you. “Tough guy.”
A moan from Otto. “Who are you? Jews?”
“Here they come,” Nathan said, spotting someone at the café door. “Give me the gun.” He took it from Aaron and shot it into the air. The man ducked back inside the café. “That should give you a minute. Now get the fuck going.” He handed back the gun. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to.” He closed Aaron’s door. “So. Keep it simple. Now look.”
“We got him, didn’t we?” Aaron said, swiveling around to face the backseat, Otto slumped against it, groaning, his nose running with blood, his pale old man’s hands lying still in the cuffs.
Nathan followed his look. “Otto Schramm,” he said, shaking his head. “The fucking master race.” He glanced back at Aaron. “Maybe he knows where Mengele is. Then we get them all.”