AARON STOPPED FOR A second, listening for running, any footsteps, but the air was suddenly filled with the guard’s warning buzzer and then a shout in Spanish, evidently beginning a last sweep to empty the grounds. Aaron stepped back behind a tomb, out of sight. Which way had they gone? Maybe just around the corner, in one of the plaza streets, or deeper in, the maze of narrow alleys. But there was only one exit, back through the wrought iron gates. Wait here.
The guard was now using a police megaphone to say the cemetery was closing. Aaron followed the sound, moving in a circle left to right, and then jumped when it seemed to be coming from behind him, the odd acoustics creating echoes. He darted to the next tomb, hidden now from behind, a white stone Virgin Mary looking down from the roof. One more announcement from the guard and then he was shuffling toward the gates, finished. Where was Otto? He heard the clanging sound of the gates closing. No doubt a large, ornamental key. Did the guard stay the night, cozy in some station near the gates, or were the dead left to sleep? As the hill sloped down to Vicente López, the walls got higher and higher, impossible to climb. Any valuables in the mausoleums must have long since been picked over, like Egyptian tombs. Nothing to steal, nothing to protect. They’d be on their own, locked in.
It was then he felt the prickling at the back of his neck. What Otto wanted. All along, from the beginning, Aaron had imagined only one end—a newspaper exposé, a trial. Now he saw that there were two. He might die. Here. Otto wouldn’t shoot to wound. Before the gates opened again, one of them would be dead. He took a breath, looking around. And Otto wasn’t alone. He saw himself cornered in one of the alleys at the other end, a cul-de-sac, lined with granite tombs, no side passage to dart into, a shooting gallery. Let them come to him, to the center avenues with space between the tombs, somewhere to duck if you were dodging bullets.
The faint scrape of a shoe. He froze, trying to place the sound. With two they could be methodical, taking each end of a street, making sure it was clear, one after the other, until finally there was only the hiding place left. He had to keep moving. He ducked and ran across the avenue to a diagonal street, cutting back down toward the Junin side, crouching behind a tomb, waiting. Silence. And then, like a fluttering bird, a shadow flickered in the street, somebody coming with the sun behind him. Not closing in, heading west. They didn’t know where he was. He looked around. A tomb like a small bank vault, a statue inside, a vase for flowers, all of it dusty, unattended, and padlocked. He had noticed that before, the padlocks, which made the mausoleums impossible hiding places. The maintenance sheds were locked too. He had to stay outside, hugging the backs of the stone tombs, the stacked bags of sand at the repair sites.
More footsteps. Aaron raised his head, adjusting some internal antenna, feeling the blood pulsing in his ears. If this were a forest, he’d be listening for a twig to snap, the click of a gun lock, but here there seemed no sound at all, the city traffic a faint hum beyond the high walls, distant. Nothing to smell, just dust and heated stone, the occasional dying flower. Only sight mattered, picking out any movement, a change in the light, everything sharp and clear, survival vision.
At the end of the street, a few alleys down, Otto suddenly came into view, following the other man, but before Aaron could raise his gun, he was gone. Aaron tried to remember the map of the cemetery from his earlier visit, the Haussmann angles, the labyrinth at the west end, but it was guesswork. Now that Otto had passed, he could retreat back to the gate, try to raise some alarm, get out. But that wasn’t what they were doing here. And Otto would move faster than the guard, trapping him. The problem was that there were two of them. No matter what, he needed to take out the other one, wound him, to level the odds. But could he do it? Everyone at the Agency had been trained to handle a gun, but he’d never shot anyone, had never hunted anything. Still, what choice was there? He thought of Fritz, the necklace of purple bruises around his neck.
He moved out from behind the tomb, still crouching, and made his way to the next street, parallel to Otto’s. It was easier to hear the footsteps now, shoe leather on pavement, and he followed behind the sounds. He had thought Otto and the other man would split up, fan out through the streets, but they seemed to be moving together, careful as they passed down a block of tombs, then scurrying across when they reached an intersection. He imagined them all from above, figures moving through a hedge maze, unable to see each other. A whisper, the other two consulting. Aaron came to a cross street and peeked around the corner, then jumped back, some flash of movement in the corner of his eye. He waited, then looked again. Not Otto, a shadow, another Mary looking down, this one with a halo. A few other shadows, urns and saints and little domes, all reflecting down on the street. Aaron tiptoed across, huddling against the base of a two-story tomb rising to a circle of columns. The Ortiz family, presumably not the doctor’s. He listened. Still heading toward the cul-de-sacs, hoping to seal him off. Another extravagant tomb with bronze doors. A broader street now, darting across, closing in.
He heard the shot before he felt the slap against his upper arm, pushing him back against the wall. But no bullet, a miss, just the force of it enough to make him whirl backward. He gulped some air, panting. He’d been running, a moving target, or he’d be lying in the alley now, shoulder burning, blood welling up. Not tracking them, their prey. They knew where he was. Move. He raced back across the street, away from the cul-de-sacs. Another shot, after him, as loud as an explosion. Wouldn’t the guard hear? Unless he wasn’t there. People in the street? But he could barely hear the traffic. Outside the walls it might simply be a distant backfiring. He retraced his path, running hard, no longer worried about making noise, then veered off toward the avenues, the trees in the distance. He could hear them running behind him. A zigzag now, not staying in any street long enough to give them another shot. Head for the gates, get help somehow. But there were two of them. If he could only see the plan of the place, which streets led where, not run blind. He flattened himself against another bronze doorway, listening for them. Still running. Closer? The feet hard on the pavement.
He ran into the next street. More elaborate than the last, miniature churches with crosses, baroque statues, big enough to hide in, but every door locked, one even surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Footsteps louder. He was midway up the block, an easy target if one of them reached the corner. He looked to his side. A mausoleum with wedding cake setbacks. He climbed onto the first level, almost leaping, feeling a sharp ache in his shoulder, another near his elbow, still tender from the fall at the café. Never mind. Go. Another level, then one more climb onto the roof, finally above the maze, looking down, a sniper’s advantage. He looked to either side. If it came to it, he could jump from one roof to the other, the tombs nearly abutting, a cat burglar. Until the impassable dome a few tombs down.
He looked down into the street. At the far end, the other man was walking in a crouch, signaling to Otto behind him, neither of them looking up. Aaron ducked, his foot slipping backward, dislodging a loose tile. He grabbed it at the edge, just before it could slip away, gripping it. He looked around. The whole roof was a mess, tiles battered and loose, so overdue for repair that it might not hold his weight. He looked over to the next tomb. A flat roof with an angel jutting out over the street, like a ship’s prow.
He put the tile back gently and started for the edge, trying not to dislodge another one. One step over to the next roof. Now the other leg. He stopped. Someone below in the street. No, his shadow, moving with him. Something they’d see. Given away by the sun. He looked around the open roof, no cover, then down in the street again. His shadow still there, closer now to the other one, the angel spreading her wings. His guardian angel, the only shadow Otto would see. If she could hold him. The angel was lifting a figure in swirling robes, rising to the roof, maybe some version of the Assumption or just the tomb’s occupant being taken to heaven. Real stone or just plaster? Maybe as neglected and fragile as the tile on the next tomb. Below, Otto and the other man were near the corner. Aaron lunged for the angel and lay down on its uncarved back, his arms extending along the wings, ready for flight. No creaks, no crumbling plaster, solid stone. He looked down. One shadow, wings stretched, and two men creeping along the walls. Aaron took a breath, holding it.
They were almost past his tomb when the tile slid down from the next roof, smashing on the ground, a startling noise, followed by a feral cat, who jumped after it and with a screech went streaking down the street. A nervous exhaling, embarrassed by their own shock, then a look up to see where the cat had come from, the unnoticed roofscape. Now. Aaron moved the gun to the edge of the wing, a clear aim at the man’s shoulder, and fired. A deafening sound, close up, the man jerking back away from it, like the cat, only a second, but long enough for the bullet to catch him full in the throat instead. A spurt of blood. He fell over backward, a crunch as he hit the pavement, blood still gushing. Aaron looked down, stunned. Not a shooting game, real, blood in the street, and then the jerking stopped, everything. And Otto still there, crouching, ready to shoot back.
Aaron swept his hand left, aiming for Otto’s leg, and fired again. A hit, throwing Otto back against the wall with a scream of pain or surprise, clutching his side, his gun clattering as it fell. But how many seconds before he could pick it up? Aaron leaped across to the tiles, dislodging a few more, jumping down to the next level, then the street, his mind not registering anything but the distance to Otto, the second it would take before he could reach down for the gun. A sprint, what felt like his whole body in the air, then shoving Otto back against the wall, his face wincing in pain, Aaron’s gun at his chest.
“Leave it.”
Both of them breathing fast, staring at each other. Then, keeping his gun aimed, Aaron bent down and picked up Otto’s.
“Finish it,” Otto said, breath still ragged, head drooping.
“Not yet.”
Another moment, adjusting, his mind darting in several directions. The other man dead. But no sounds of footsteps running toward them. Still on their own. Otto groaned, looking down at his side, seeping blood. No hope of getting out through the gates now, visitors accidentally locked in. Some other way.
“Don’t move. I mean it.”
Aaron walked over to the other man and crouched down, one eye on Otto, and went through his pockets.
“Don’t bother,” Otto said, almost a taunt. “He didn’t have a—”
Aaron stopped for a second, a twisting in his stomach. In cold blood.
“Who is he?”
“Nobody. A messenger.”
Aaron finished rifling the pockets, pulling out an envelope. “Your ticket?” He glanced inside. “Let me guess. Herr Bildener?”
“Just finish it,” Otto said, weary.
Aaron put the ticket in his pocket and looked down at the man, the torn hole in his neck. “Nobody,” he said, Otto’s tone. “Anybody going to miss him?”
“I don’t know. We just meet at the café.” He looked over. “He wasn’t armed.” An accusation, using it.
“But you were. With Fritz’s gun,” he said, holding it up.
“So now you have both. What are you going to do?” Not really curious, poking him.
What? Aaron looked around, as if an idea might be hanging in the air.
“Kill me? Go ahead. No. Max’s boy,” he said, an edge of contempt. “You can’t.”
“I won’t have to,” Aaron said, emptying the bullets out of his gun and flinging them up over the tiled roof.
“What are you doing?”
“In case you get any ideas. It’s a murder weapon now. The bullet will match exactly. I’ll leave the gun with you so the police will know who used it. Make it easy for them. Unless you bleed out during the night. That doesn’t look good.” He nodded toward the wound.
“Don’t leave me here,” Otto said, blurting it out, unguarded, suddenly childlike. “Not here.”
“We can’t walk out the door now, not after this,” Aaron said, looking toward the dead man. “And I don’t think you’re in any shape to go over the walls. So—”
“Don’t,” Otto said, sliding down the wall, slumping on the ground.
Aaron raised the gun. “I said don’t move.”
“I’m dizzy. I don’t feel well.”
“That’s not good. It’s a long night.”
Otto looked at him for a minute, just breathing. “And you? You can’t let them see you either.”
“No. I’ll have to climb out.”
Otto shook his head. “Too high. You notice, no broken glass on the top. They don’t need it. Nobody can get up that high. You climb out, it’s too long a drop. You’d break your legs.”
“Not by the entrance. Only after you go down the hill. But nobody’s going to break in by the entrance. You’d have the guard all over you. Too many people. But getting out? Nobody’s inside to notice. And once you’re over, it’s a quick drop. Maybe somebody sees you, maybe they don’t. It’s a chance.”
Otto looked down for a moment, thinking this through. “If you leave me here, it’s the same as putting a bullet in my head.” He nodded toward the body. “Like him.” He moved his hand away from his side to check the blood.
“And you think I wouldn’t want that on my conscience?” Aaron shook his head. “It would be like squashing a bug.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” Otto said, voice weaker, not really expecting an answer. He closed his eyes, a minute’s rest, face haggard.
Aaron looked up and down the street, an unexpected panic. One dead man, another fading. Too heavy to move if he was unconscious. Aaron would have to leave him, the end of it. And how long before they were found? Unless they were hidden. Where? He caught the irony—a cemetery with nowhere to put a dead man. But Otto wasn’t dead, couldn’t be. That was the point. He had to get him out. There’d been some tarp covers at one of the repair sites. He could put the other man there, at least buy time. But Otto would have to help, not try to turn on him. Use anything. Jamie’s voice: You make the approach. Why not a convenient lie? Meanwhile, the shadows were lengthening in the street, the sun dropping. How long did they have? Recoleta in the dark, listening for rustlings, ghosts.
“Because we’d rather have you alive,” he said, his Agency voice, only a minute later, all the rest of it a flash through his mind.
“Israelis? Another glass box and then you kill me. Do it now.”
“I’m not Israeli. I don’t work for them. I let them find you, that’s all.”
Otto looked over at him, weighing every part of this.
“Why?”
“To put you on the front page. Then we had a better idea. Since you’re already dead. Erich Kruger goes to Brazil,” he said, tapping the pocket with the envelope. “Then flies on to Madrid. A new life. With old friends. Some of your oldest friends. Happy to see you again. Exile being what it is. And you’re happy to see them. Be of assistance, any way you can. And then talk to us about all the happy things you’re doing.”
Otto said nothing for a moment. “You’re lying. But why?”
“Then don’t do it. I didn’t say it was my idea. I’d rather see you dead. But I don’t run the Agency.”
“Spy for you? Why would I do that?”
“Consider your options.”
“And that’s why you lock me in that place. In handcuffs.”
Aaron nodded. “The Israelis. They can be a little heavy-handed. Especially with people like you. But here we are. And it’s getting late.”
“And I’m supposed to believe this? Someone who shoots me?” He glanced down at his side.
“After you missed.”
Otto took this in, then grunted.
“We need to move him. We can’t let him be found. Not yet. We need time.” He paused. “Unless you’re planning to spend the night.”
Otto looked up, still uneasy.
“Or I get us out of here.”
“I’m supposed to trust you.”
Aaron shrugged. “That cuts two ways. But I have this,” he said, waving the gun. “I’m not Fritz. I won’t turn my back. Even for a second. I saw what you did to him. I didn’t know you still had the strength. Big man. He must have—”
“Dummkopf. ”
“We can go back to the original plan if you like. Otto Schramm exposed. You don’t have to be alive for that story. You can stay here and bleed out. Messy for the others. Bildener. Martínez. The police in Mar del Plata. And Hanna.”
Otto looked up. “She had nothing to do with it. She didn’t know.”
“Or Otto Schramm died a few years ago. Everybody says so. And Erich Kruger’s been a great help to us.”
“Huh. Your lackey.”
“I don’t like it either. I think you should hang. But I’m just a messenger. Like him.” He pointed to the body. “Putting a package on a plane.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s a trap.”
Aaron looked around. “And what’s this? You want out, it’s a chance you’ll have to take.”
“Hola! Hola! El cementerio está cerrado! ” The guard, a few streets away.
Otto looked up, then at Aaron, neither of them moving. Drawn by the noise or just making rounds?
“El cementerio está cerrado! ” No closer, a touch of bravado, another way of asking, Is anyone here? Then more Spanish, lower pitched, talking to himself. Aaron’s eyes darted to the body, then to Otto, both of them staring at each other, waiting for a move. One shout and the guard would have to respond, look for whoever was there. Aaron took in the street again—a body, a gun, no time to move either, a crime scene. What explanation could there be? If the guard moved deeper into the cemetery, turned in to their street, they’d have to kill him. Another murder. He looked at Otto, their eyes meeting. One shout. No sound now, shallow breathing, listening for footsteps. A chance you’ll have to take. If he took it. Aaron gripped the gun, waiting.
“Alguien? ” The guard’s voice again, a hollow appeal, just going through the motions, then the murmur again, grumbling to himself, the sounds getting fainter, heading back to the gate. Another look at Otto, his last chance to give them away. Otto looked back, the silence itself an agreement, both of them in it now.
Aaron waited a few more minutes.
“So,” he said, then looked away, everything already said. “Help me move him.”
At first they tried to carry the body by its hands and feet, but the weight was too much for Otto, weakened by the bullet.
“Wrap his head,” he said, and then when Aaron looked puzzled, “For the blood. Use the jacket.”
Aaron struggled getting it off, then cradled the man’s head and wound the jacket around it. They each took a foot, Otto straining, and began to drag the body down the street. There was still a stain of blood on the pavement where he’d been shot, but no trail out, as if the angel had lifted him up too. Aaron guided them to the repair site near the Junin wall, the body making a scraping noise with each yank, another sound to unnerve the guard, some spirit movement among the tombs. Shadows longer now, dark enough for him to need a flashlight if he came back, a warning.
There was a ladder at the building site, tall enough to get a man to the roof of the tomb but not over the cemetery wall, at least twice Aaron’s height. No steps or protruding handholds, smooth stucco.
“Now what?” Otto said.
“First, deal with him.”
He pulled the tarp back. Stacks of bricks, half of them gone. He moved the remaining stacks closer together, creating a space for the body, then nodded to the man’s feet.
“Can you do it? One heave. On three.”
Otto winced, but the man went up and over, falling on the other side of the bricks. Aaron covered him with the tarp, then took out the empty gun and wiped it, placing it dangling from the man’s hand.
“Nobody’s going to believe that,” Otto said.
“It’ll buy us some time.” He looked over. “The other one’s still loaded.”
Otto ignored this, placing the ladder against the wall. “It’s not tall enough.”
“Not here. There’s a place closer to the gate. I was hiding there while you and— What’s his name?”
“Julio. Why?”
“I just wanted to know.” Somebody. “It’s somewhere along here.”
“It’ll be getting dark soon.”
And then, just as he said it, streetlights went on, the timing so quirky and unexpected that Otto almost smiled, a face Aaron hadn’t seen before. The lamps were for pedestrians outside, not the dead inside, but enough of their glow came over the wall to make it easier to see.
“Like a Roman temple,” Aaron said, still trying to spot it, the search now something they were doing together, a way out.
The side alley that ended at the wall was narrow, all its tombs looking oversized for the space. More bank vaults, a chapel with an obelisk, and then the temple at the end against the wall, just as he’d remembered. Dusty, under repair, but rising in setbacks, each stage wide enough to hold the ladder. The last platform put them halfway up the wall. Aaron wedged the ladder against the temple and started climbing.
“Hold it steady,” he said.
Otto gripped it with one hand, the other still at his side.
“You OK?”
Otto nodded.
When his hands reached the last rung, Aaron realized he would now have to hold them flat against the wall as his feet took the last few steps up. Nothing to hold on to. Would he be high enough to reach over the top? He looked down at Otto holding the ladder, face upturned, following the last steps, no support, no mat, a trapeze act. All Otto would have to do now was shake the ladder, make him lose his footing, a sudden fall, hands trying to hold on to something as he plunged to the ground. No effort at all, not the strength he’d needed to choke Fritz. Just a shake. But then how would he get out? A dash to the gate, some story. But what story? Two bodies to explain. He took another step.
His hands touched the edge of the rounded top. He’d been afraid of coming up short—the ladder was too unsteady to use as a springboard, taking the last few feet in a jump. He’d have to pull himself up. He slid his hands farther over the rim. Wider than he’d expected. A last step, top of the ladder. His arms reached across the wall, almost at the other rim. One push, feet no longer on the rung, kicking to find some leverage on the wall, the sudden weight pulling his arms down. Don’t slide back, hang on. Another push, putting everything into a final heave, grunting out loud, his chest hitting the top now, the weight finally in his favor, on his stomach, straddling it and moving his legs up behind him, stretched out on the wall. He lay there for a second, taking deep breaths, then looked down at Otto.
“Come on.”
Even the first steps were tentative, testing the ladder, nobody holding it now, and by the time he reached the last handhold he was sweating, looking down, then up, an impossible climb.
“I can’t do it.”
“I’ll help you up. But you need to be at the top of the ladder.”
“It makes me dizzy, to look.”
“Then don’t look. Come on.” He positioned himself across the top and reached down with one arm, a visual encouragement, like a dangling rope. “Grab my hand.”
“I’ll fall.” Only a whisper, panicking.
“Grab it.”
Otto took another step, only looking up now, eyes frightened. He slid his hand up the wall. Another step, the last, within reach. Aaron grabbed him, holding tight as Otto left the ladder, a second of free fall, an involuntary whimper, his eyes almost pleading now. And for a second Aaron realized that he held Otto’s life in his hands, and he wondered how it would feel to let go, to see in Otto’s eyes that he had done it, not just looked on at some impersonal hanging, but had deliberately opened his hand and let Otto’s life slide out of it. He pulled again.
“Grab the other side. Almost there.”
Otto grunted and lifted his chest over, still clutching Aaron’s hand.
“I need to rest,” he said, gasping.
“First get your legs up. Like riding a horse. It’s easier.”
Otto looked down into the street. Across Junin, the strip of park and then the cafés, but the sidewalk beneath them empty, the cemetery visitors gone.
“It’s too far to jump,” Otto said, talking to himself.
“We use the lamps,” Aaron said. Large wrought iron street lamps were bolted into the walls, another nostalgic piece of Europe, the gaslight making yellow pools of light all the way down Junin. The bottom of the lamp, a decorative swirl of iron, was several feet down the wall, a body dangling from it would be another six feet down, the rest of the drop manageable. If the lamp could hold their weight.
“I’ll go first,” Aaron said, sliding backward toward the nearest lamp.
“It’s too far.”
“If it is, you’re stuck,” Aaron said, then more gently, a parent to a child, “If I can do it, you can do it. Watch.”
He grabbed onto an ornamental crown near the top of the lamp and swung over, working his way down to the wall brace, finally to the bottom, holding on as he dangled. How far from here? Not quite his height. He tried to remember the Agency training about jumps, how to land, spring back after you touch down, but all he could see was the sidewalk a few feet below. Not grass, a hard landing.
He let go of the lamp and hit the ground in a crouch, absorbing the shock, and pushed up with his knees. Staggering a little, not used to it, but nothing broken. No one near, only a few cars. He looked up. Otto had started down the wall, gripping the brace, then dangling from the underside of the lamp, legs scissoring in the air. He was groaning, gravity pulling on his wound, obviously in pain.
“It’s too far. I’ll break—”
Aaron stood beneath him. “I’ll catch you. Just drop. Let go.”
“Catch me?”
“Quick. Before anyone comes.” He looked up and down the street to check, then back up at Otto. “Trust me.”
Otto looked at him with an expression Aaron couldn’t read. But hanging was its own agony. He nodded. “Now?”
“Now,” Aaron said, opening his arms, then suddenly knocked over as Otto fell on him, both of them down, piling on each other and rolling over, tangled together. Otto made a gasping sound.
“You OK?”
His answer was to clutch his side again and groan. Aaron got to his feet and pulled Otto after him, holding him upright, a kind of buttress, steadying him. Otto’s head had begun to dip, a drunk’s swaying, his body limp.
“Don’t pass out on me.”
Otto just nodded, speech too much of an effort.
“Lean on me. Here, on my shoulder. If anyone comes, I’m getting you home from a party. OK?”
Another nod.
They started up Junin, in a few minutes passing the entrance portico, a single light burning inside, probably the guard still listening for sounds. They kept to the park side, away from the cafés. Two women came out of Our Lady of Pilar, avoiding them as they passed, their faces clouded with disapproval. Otto slumped more heavily against him, as if the effort he’d put into the climb had drained him, his feet moving with an old man’s shuffle.
“I never checked his pockets for any ID,” Aaron said, just to say something, keep him awake. They were almost at the sloped plaza. “Just the ticket. How’s the side? You still bleeding?”
Some neutral sound, which Aaron took as “no.”
“Lucky about the lamps. If they used ordinary streetlights, we’d still be up on the wall.”
A man coming toward them, wary in the dark. Otto leaned into Aaron, hiding his face. “Noches,” the man mumbled.
Another antique gas lamp with its yellow pool. “Not far now,” Aaron said. He could see the dark ombu trees down the hill.
And then he felt it, the blunt metal in his pocket pushed up against him, Otto’s hand holding it. He jerked his head around and saw Otto’s blue eyes, steel, untamed, a wolf’s eyes. I won’t turn my back. But he had. So it would end now. In a second. Otto shoved the gun closer, Aaron holding still, any movement another trigger. In his mind he could see Otto’s finger, tightening.
“Jew,” Otto said, almost spitting it.
Aaron felt a tremor go through him, an actual shaking, then a numbness. All he was. Steel eyes, unforgiving. To the left.
“Jew,” Otto said again, fainter this time, his eyes closing, then pitched forward, sliding down, his knees at Aaron’s feet.
For a minute Aaron couldn’t move, as if he had actually died and needed time to come back. Then he reached down and took Otto’s hand out of his pocket, slowly, still afraid of any trigger movement, relieved when he felt the hand had gone slack, the gun slipping away from it as it came out of the pocket. He looked down. Never forget what you’re hunting.
He knelt down. “Otto,” he said, shaking his shoulder. “Get up.” Too heavy to carry. Deadweight.
Otto opened his eyes, the steel gone. A groan.
“Get up,” Aaron said again, trying to lift Otto to his feet. “It’s not far.” Otto closed his eyes again, drifting. “She’s waiting.”
A second’s delay, taking this in, then opening his eyes. “Who?”
“Hanna. She’s waiting. Get up.”
“Hanna’s waiting?” Confused, but making an effort now, finding his feet.
Aaron held him under the arms, helping him stand. Don’t turn your back. But something had changed, a shift of power. He had survived, in charge now, Otto suddenly feeble, done.
“Señor? ”
Two men, seeing Otto slump, some street emergency.
Aaron moved Otto’s body, putting the wounded side next to him, obscured. Think.
“Ivre,” Aaron said. No, that was French. What was Spanish for drunk? Ivro?
Otto raised his head. One last chance to sound an alarm. But Aaron was looking at him, eyes steady, holding him closer, snapping on a leash.
“Borracho,” he said, then, acting it out, “borracho.”
The two men giggled and Aaron saw that they were half-drunk themselves. A burst of Spanish, then one of them took Otto’s other side, throwing an arm over his shoulder, helping Aaron move him. “Dónde? ” He nodded toward the corner of Alvear and started walking.
“Borracho,” Otto said to the ground, playing. More giggling from the other men, a running conversation in Spanish, turning it into an adventure, getting a drunk home, the wound still unnoticed. Otto heavy, but easier to move with two of them, feet shuffling, dragging from time to time.
When they reached the corner, Otto pulled himself up. “Muchas gracias,” he said, dismissing them, leaning on Aaron, all he needed now to get home. To Aaron’s surprise, the men nodded, oddly formal, some Castilian point of honor, then laughed.
“We’ll be OK,” Aaron said, but they were already moving off, back toward the lights of the cafés. “Can you make it? It’s just here.”
Otto looked at him, disconcerted. Some missing piece of the puzzle, Aaron knowing where.
Aaron used his passkey at the downstairs door. No noisy buzzers. Another look from Otto. In the elevator he slumped against the rail, weak again.
Aaron used the doorbell this time, afraid she’d think someone was breaking in if he used the key.
“Sí? ”
The door opening a crack, then wider, all the way. She looked from one to the other, her face changing expressions, shock, fear, mouth open, unable to speak, and then back at Aaron, dismayed, as if she were trying to make up a story to explain things and none would work.
“Oh,” she said, just a sound, then couldn’t find the next word, looking from one to the other again.
“He’s been shot.”
“Shot?” Nothing making sense.
Aaron moved Otto in. “Close the blinds.”
She looked at him, surprised at his tone, then did what he said. Easier to act than think.
Aaron got him into the bedroom, a final heave to lay him on the bed. He looked around, everything the way he remembered it, the bureau, the closets of clothes. He got a towel from the bathroom, wet it, and came back to wash the bullet wound, blotting it. Otto winced.
“Hanna,” Otto said, voice still weak. “I’m sorry for this. There’s nowhere else—”
“We have to get him a doctor,” Aaron said.
“A doctor?” Some impossible idea.
“Who won’t call the police. Who knows.” He looked at her. “Bildener was a doctor. Could he handle this?”
“Call an ambulance,” she said. “If he’s dying—”
“He’s not dying. We can’t go to a hospital. Can Bildener do it?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s serious?”
“It’s a bullet wound. It will be if we don’t get it taken care of. Call him.”
“Now?” she said, a sleepwalker’s voice, still trying to wake.
“Now. Wait. Your phone’s tapped. Can you get him over here without anyone suspecting? Some story?”
“Tapped? You knew this?”
“We’ll talk later.”
She stood for a second, not moving, some light dimming in her eyes. “No,” she said finally. “What’s the difference?” She nodded to the bed. “I know how it ends.”
“Sorry about the mess.” The towel red from blood. “Will you call? We don’t want sepsis. The bullet has to come out. Bildener will need his bag, if he still has one.”
She nodded. “Who shot him?”
“I did.”
Another moment of silence. “Oh,” she said. “You did.” Her voice falling, a disappointment so unguarded that he had to look away, back to the wound.
“I’ll explain everything. But first call Bildener.”
“Explain,” she said. “More lies. Every man I’ve ever known lied to me.”
“We can’t stay here long. They’re bound to check again.”
“Who?”
“The Israelis.”
Her eyes opened wider, alarmed. “Israelis. You’re with them?”
“No. They think I am. Did you close the blinds?”
“Who, then? Tell me.”
“I’m not with anybody. Not now. That’s why I need your help.”
“My help? What, to kill my father?”
“No, to get him out of Buenos Aires. Before they kill him.”
“Hanna,” Otto said from the bed.
She glanced over, but didn’t go any closer. “And now this,” she said, then to Otto, “I’ll be right there. Let me call the doctor first.”
“Be careful what you say,” Aaron said.
“Oh, careful.” She started to go, then turned back to Aaron. “So it was all lies? Everything you said?”
“No. Not everything,” he said, looking at her.
“What a little friend you are. Tell me your story for my book.”
“My father’s death. How about that one?”
Her eyes flashed, another piece in place. “You knew.”
“That you were protecting him?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Which part?”
“Did you enjoy that? Watching me say those things—knowing.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No? How was it? Was there ever a book? Did that even exist? Your friend?”
Aaron nodded. “Until today. Otto killed him.”
“Otto killed—” she said, thrown by this, looking over to the bed, Otto’s eyes closed again. “Is that true?” A girl’s voice.
Aaron nodded again.
“And now you want to save him.”
“I want to get him out of Buenos Aires. I want him to stand trial.”
Her head came up. “Trial. That would kill him. And you want me to help you? Why would—?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
She looked at him, at a loss. “The right thing to do. You think you know what that is. You.”
“Right now, it’s get the doctor. Then we’ll talk.”
“You talk,” she said. “I don’t want to listen.” She stopped, eyes softening. “I thought it was different. What happened.”
“It was.”
She looked away. “Get another towel. I’ll call.”
Otto drifted, not really unconscious but not wanting to talk, waiting for Hanna. Aaron dabbed at the wound, beginning to crust, looking around, the room the same, but everything else different. He thought of the afternoon light, the lingerie drawer, the charm bracelet laid out and ready, Otto close, just follow her to him, everything simple, and now knotted and tangled. The look on her face. I thought it was different.
When she came back, she brought a nursing pan.
“I’ll do it,” she said, shooing him aside. “He’s a mess. So dusty. Where have you been?”
“The cemetery. We had to climb out.”
“What?” she said.
He took out the ticket and handed it to her. “I assume you have the passport? For Kruger.”
She held it for a second, then put it on the night table. “Where’s Julio?”
“He’s dead.” He took a breath. “Bildener doesn’t have to know that yet.”
“Did Otto kill him too?”
“No.”
She looked up at him, then let it go, pretending to concentrate on the wound, keeping her hand steady.
“Is he coming?”
She nodded.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I was thinking about him because I’d seen a movie on television about a doctor. How he would come to the house with his black bag, just like you when I was a little girl. In the movie a friend had been shot and he had to rush to save him. And how is Trude? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“He get it?”
“I think so. We’ll know soon.”
“A movie. That was good,” he said.
“I can do it too, make things up. We’re well suited.”
“Hanna—”
She glanced around the room. “Is the apartment bugged or just the phone?”
“Just the phone.”
“And you know that because you arranged it?”
“Yes.”
“And am I allowed to know? Who’s listening? Besides you.”
“The Agency.”
“Jamie?”
“Somebody there.”
“What did I say? Anything interesting?”
“You never mentioned him,” he said, gesturing toward Otto. “You never made a mistake.”
She looked up. “Not then,” she said, then, before he could answer, “There’s a clothes brush in the bathroom.”
In the living room he moved the blind a crack and looked down. A few people in the street, all of them moving, probably returning to the hotel. The ombu tree dark under its thick cover. Too soon for Bildener. Where did he live? Some grand house out near the park, a formal dining room, a good brandy while he waited for the Fourth Reich. Nobody standing in the street. Where Aaron was supposed to be, Nathan’s eyes on her apartment. Meet back at Goldfarb’s. Ari out at Ezeiza. How to do this?
She stayed with Otto awhile, then finally came out and lit a cigarette, standing in Aaron’s place at the window, looking down.
“If you sit here, anybody watching will see you alone.”
“I thought you did desk work,” she said, but took the seat, the light behind her. “What’s all this business about Madrid? He’s rambling. What does it mean?”
“The Agency thinks he could work there. An old friend of Perón. Keep his eyes and ears open and report back.”
“They know he’s alive?”
“They know I think he is. But I could be wrong. Mistaken.”
“Let me understand. Erich Kruger spies for—your people. And Otto Schramm stays dead.”
Aaron nodded.
“But you don’t want that to happen.”
“I want him to go to trial.”
“That’s right. The sword of justice. Hanging over us all. So you lied to him too. He thinks he’s going to Madrid?”
“We can’t drag him out. He has to be part of it.”
“And now you want me to lie to him.”
“We have to get him out.”
“For his day in court. The Agency will never forgive you. They’ll know you lied to them.”
“They’re going to know anyway, one way or the other.” He stopped. “Maybe I don’t like what they’re doing anymore.”
“With my father?”
“With a lot of things.”
“Your wife would be pleased. Maybe you should get back together.”
“I don’t want to get back together. I found somebody else.”
She looked at him through a wisp of smoke, the cigarette stopped in midair, then busied herself putting it out, moving on.
“You’d be throwing away your job.”
“I’ll get another one.”
“With the Israelis?”
“No. Not after this. I’m supposed to be telling them where Otto is.”
“You’re popular with everybody.”
“They’re going to kill him. I never wanted that.”
“Just the trial.”
“My uncle was Max Weill,” he said, watching for her reaction, the wary recognition. “I want to do this for him. No, that’s not right. I want to do it for all of them. Otto killed my mother. Him, or someone like him. I want him to say it happened.”
“He killed my mother too. I know,” she said, holding up her hand. “It’s not the same. But there are lots of ways to do it. And what will he say? That he’s sorry?”
“No. He’s not. He’ll say it happened. He’ll be evidence. So we’ll always know it happened. He’ll answer for it.”
“With his life.”
“We don’t know that. But what if he’s killed without answering for it? The Israelis think that’s enough. More efficient, anyway. A message to the others. But then nobody answers. Nobody’s guilty.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“Maybe. But we have to think it will. Or then what? There’s only—who has the gun.”
She took out another cigarette and lit it, taking a minute.
“Let me ask you something. How did you find him? Me?”
“I followed you.”
“Yes? I never knew. You must be good at it. Or maybe—maybe I wasn’t looking for that.” She drew on the cigarette. “So you—got close to me.”
“That was something else.”
“A bonus.”
“Stop. That’s not the way it was.”
“The way it was,” she said, an exaggerated wryness. “My lover. A man who just shot my father. Who wants to bring him to justice. Whatever that is.”
“You know what it is.”
“No, you know. It’s all you think about. I’m thinking about him. You don’t know what he’s like.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I don’t mean that. Those days. Or now that he’s so crazy. Since Eichmann, a crazy man. All that business with the accident, then living like a hermit. Afraid of everything. You want justice, there’s some kind of justice there. To be afraid of everything. No,” she said, slowing. “I meant what he was like to me. He would do anything for me in those days. There’s a debt there.”
Aaron said nothing, absorbing this, then met her eyes. “Now you can pay it. Help me. If I don’t get him out of Buenos Aires, they’re going to kill him.”
“So we save his life. So you can make an example out of him. Shame him. That’s my choice.”
“Hanna, he tortured children. Not just killed them, tortured them.”
A silence, everything in a dead stop, her eyes filling with tears. “I know,” she said, then raised her head. “My father.”
Another silence, broken by the buzzer from the downstairs door. Aaron jumped up, startled, and went over to the window.
“There’s a car out front. It must be him.”
Hanna wiped her face, then stood up, smoothing out her skirt.
“What do I say to him?”
“The Israelis. He was lucky to get away.”
“More lies.”
“We need his help. Hanna, it’s the right thing.”
“I don’t know what that is anymore.”
“Yes, you do. I know you. We know each other.” He looked at her. “I never lied to you. Not about that.”
She held his look for a second. “And that makes everything all right.”
She had the door open before Bildener got off the elevator, waving him in. Hurry.
“I came as soon as I could. Where—?” He stopped, seeing Aaron.
Hanna and Aaron looked at each other.
“He knows,” Hanna said finally.
“He knows? Him?” Not saying more, the surprise and contempt in his face enough. “You told him?”
Another glance at Aaron, then a turn to Bildener. “He’s helping for me,” she said, dropping it, taking Bildener’s arm. “He’s in here. You brought instruments? He’s been raving, some nonsense about Madrid.”
“Madrid.”
“Pay no attention. Some foolishness. I thought, maybe a fever, but I don’t know. You’ll see. I’m so grateful. You know that, yes? Who else could I call? Who knows.”
He looked back at Aaron. “It’s not good. Telling people. Something comes out and—”
“He’s all right, don’t worry. He’s here for me.”
“Another—”
She cut him off. “You can take out a bullet?”
“That depends where it is. Who shot him?”
“The Israelis.”
Bildener stopped, disturbed. “They know? They’re here?”
“We have to get him away. As soon as— I don’t mean to hurry you.”
“No, no. Did he meet Julio?”
“He must have. He has the ticket.”
“Markus,” Otto said, trying to sit up.
“So, where did they get you? Ah. You’re lucky. A few more inches here,” he said, touching his stomach, “and it’s real trouble. How many of them were there?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Well, tell me later. This will hurt.”
Otto clutched his hand. “Mein Freund.”
“What do they think? A bullet’s going to stop you? After everything. A little sting now. We have to cleanse the wound. It’s OK, not too much?”
Otto nodded, gritting his teeth against the pain, not making a sound.
“I’m sorry we can’t put you out. If you have to leave—” He turned to Hanna. “They know he’s here?”
“No.”
“But they know he’s alive. They’ll come to you.”
She moved her head toward Aaron. “They sent him. So we have a little time.”
Bildener blinked, working this out, then reached into his bag. “Hold him down,” he said.
Aaron went behind Otto’s head and pushed on his shoulders.
“Ready?” Bildener said to Otto. “Try not to move. I know it’s difficult.” He adjusted what looked like an elongated pair of pliers and leaned over Otto’s wound. “I can see it. It’s not deep.” The instrument now touching the wound.
Otto’s body jumped, a violent jackknife twitching, startling Aaron.
“Hold him,” Bildener said, impatient.
A sharp intake of air, Otto closing his eyes, clenching his fists, willing himself through it. And then suddenly Aaron felt the resistance in his shoulders go slack, no longer fighting. No.
“Is he OK?” Hearing himself, worried, wanting Otto alive.
Bildener touched the side of Otto’s neck. “He’s out, that’s all. A mercy. A man his age.” He looked at Aaron. “Such pain. Even a superman would feel it.” Implying somehow that Aaron wouldn’t have lasted as long. The master race. “You can let go.”
Aaron moved his hands away.
“I can finish here,” Bildener said, dismissing him, turning his back. “Hanna, some gauze, tape?”
Aaron waited in the living room. How much longer before Nathan sent someone else to look? They couldn’t move Otto if he was unconscious. Unless they went back to the driving plan, the bridge up beyond the delta. Hours.
Hanna came back, taking her seat by the window again.
“I couldn’t watch. He got the bullet, but the wound looks— He says it’s the antiseptic that makes it look like that.”
“But he’ll be OK?”
“You mean, will he be able to stand up in court? I suppose.”
“I meant, will he be OK.”
She shrugged, letting it go, and reached for a cigarette. “He gave him a pill for the pain. So he’s woozy. But maybe that’s better for you. He’ll think he’s going to Madrid. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To trick him. So he walks into the trap. After his daughter tells him to go. Tells him it’s all right.”
Aaron looked over, saying nothing.
“How are you going to do it? You have a plan?”
“More or less.”
“Mm. More, I think. I can see it in your face. That look you get.”
“What look?”
“Moving the pieces into place. Working things out.”
“I didn’t know I was that easy to read.”
“You weren’t. I thought it was something else.” She lit the cigarette. “So. You have a place to move him? He can’t stay here.”
“He can’t stay anywhere in Buenos Aires. Either Bildener and his friends hide him again. Or the Israelis get him. Either way, I lose. And the Argentines will never extradite him. So we can’t go to them.”
“So he goes to Brazil? That’s why you wanted the ticket from Julio?”
He shook his head. “The ticket was just a way to find him. He goes to Uruguay.”
“Uruguay.”
“It’s close and they have no reason to say no when the Germans ask for him. No friends in high places.”
“If the Germans ask for him.”
“We take him to the West German Embassy in Montevideo. I alert the prosecutor in Frankfurt—a friend of my uncle’s. There’s already a warrant for Otto’s arrest. If they don’t put him on a plane home, I make a fuss until they do. The Israelis can’t touch him in the embassy. They’ll make a formal announcement congratulating the Germans and go home.”
“And Markus?”
“Markus will lose a friend. Or do you mean all that business about identifying the body? I don’t think anyone wants to lift up that rock. Too embarrassing. The Argentines will keep it all filed away somewhere. Bildener’s friends will make sure.”
“And when does my father know? That he’s not going to Madrid?”
“At the embassy. He’ll have to know then.”
“If you can get him there.”
Aaron nodded. “If they think he’s going to Brazil, they’ll be out at Ezeiza. But the Uruguayan flights are short—they leave from Aeroparque. We just need somebody to get a new ticket, somebody the Israelis aren’t going to recognize if they do have someone watching. They can’t cover all the gates, so they’ll be at the counter. If he avoids that, we can get him out.”
“With you.”
“That’s right. Tickets for both of us. We won’t be able to order them from the travel agent on Anchorena this time.”
She looked up, caught off guard by this.
“You were there? You know what this feels like? Someone taking your clothes off. But you did that too, didn’t you?” She drew on the cigarette. “So you want me to buy the tickets.”
“No. Nathan’s men have been tailing you. So you might be recognized. Better not chance it.”
“You’re looking out for me,” she said, a theatrical archness.
He ignored this. “And I was thinking we might pass the tickets in the men’s room. It’s the easiest place. Then straight to the gate.”
“Who, then? You can’t do it. They know you.”
“But they don’t know Bildener.”
“Markus? Are you crazy? You think he would help you do this?”
“He won’t know what we’re doing. Just saving Otto from the Israelis.” He looked at her. “He’d do it if you asked him. He’d believe you.”
“He’d never forgive me.”
“No.”
She put out the cigarette, waving the smoke away from her face. “My head’s spinning with all this. Now trick Markus. And when did you have this idea? While you were following me?”
“Tonight. I’m making this up as we go. I didn’t know—it would happen like this. It just did. But now we have to get him out.”
“And I’m left here to explain. What else? I might as well know the rest. What else do you want me to do?”
“Talk to Markus. He’ll do it for you.”
“No, for Otto. For his daughter. They’re like— I don’t know, brothers. Family.”
“He ordered the experiments. From the Institute. That’s who we’re talking about.”
She got up, about to leave, then stood there for a minute, arms folded over her chest, as if she were holding herself in.
“But there’s no trial for him,” she said.
“No. He was clever. He never left his desk. Otto was at the camp. Where the evidence was.”
She said nothing for a moment. “But you can do a lot from a desk.” And then, before he could say anything, she turned toward the bedroom. “I’ll talk to him. And then it’s finished.”