A Quiet Flame

Then, out of the trees, came a fourth man, riding a fine white horse and very different from the other three. He wore an immaculate white short-sleeved shirt, a black military-style cap, a pair of gray riding breeches, and black boots that were as shiny as the gold watch on his slim wrist. He had a head like a giant bird of prey.

“The fence has been cut,” he told the pockmarked gaucho.

“Not by us,” said Anna.

“Claims they stopped here for a quiet fuck,” said the head gaucho.

Silently, the man on the white horse rode around us while we finished dressing. My holster and gun were still on the ground somewhere, only I hadn’t been able to find them.

He said, “Who are you, and what are you doing in this part of the country?”

His castellano was better than mine. There was something about his mouth that made it better for speaking Spanish. The size and shape of the chin governing the mouth caused me to suspect that maybe there were a couple of Habsburgs in his family. But he was German. That much I was certain of, and instinctively I knew this must be Hans Kammler.

“I work for the SIDE,” I said. “My identification is in my coat pocket.”

I handed the coat to the head gaucho, who quickly found my wallet and handed it to his boss.

“My name is Carlos Hausner. I’m German. I came here to interview old comrades so that they can be issued the good-conduct passes they’ll need to obtain an Argentine passport. Colonel Montalbán at the Casa Rosada will vouch for me. So will Carlos Fuldner and Pedro Geller at Capri Construction. I’m afraid we got a bit lost. As I was saying to this gentleman, we stopped to take a look at the map and, I’m afraid, one thing led to another.”

The German on the white horse looked through my wallet and then tossed it back to me before turning his attention to Anna. “And who are you?” he asked.

“His fiancée.”

The German looked at me and smiled. “And you say you’re an old comrade.”

“I was an officer in the SS. Like you, Herr General.”

“It’s that obvious, is it?” The German looked disappointed.

“Only to me, sir,” I said, clicking my heels together and hoping that my show of Prussian obsequiousness might excuse Anna and me.

“A job with SIDE, a fiancée.” He smiled. “My, you have settled in here, haven’t you?” The horse shifted under him and he wheeled it around so that he could keep staring down at us. “Tell me, Hausner. Do you always bring your fiancée along when you’re on police business?”

“No, sir. The fact is, my castellano is fine in Buenos Aires. But out here it lets me down sometimes. The accent is a little difficult for me to understand.”

“Most of the people in this part of the world are of Guaraní stock,” he said, speaking German at last. “They are an inferior Indian race, but on a ranch, they have their uses. Herding, branding, fence mending.”

I nodded toward the barbed-wire fence. “Is this your fence, Herr General?”

“No,” he said. “But my men keep an eye on it. You see, this is a high-security area. Few people ever venture this far down the valley. Which leaves me with something of a dilemma.”

“Oh? What’s that, sir?”

“I should have thought that was obvious. If you didn’t cut the fence, then who did? You see my problem.”

“Yes, sir.” I shook my head awkwardly. “Well, we certainly haven’t seen anyone. Mind you, we haven’t been here that long.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps.”

The horse lifted its tail and did what horses do. He didn’t seem to believe my story, either.

The general nodded sharply at the head gaucho. “You’d better bring them along.” He spoke in castellano, and it seemed evident that neither the head man nor the two Guaraní spoke any German.

We walked back to where we’d left the jeep. Three horses were waiting patiently for their riders. The two Guaraní mounted up and took the third horse’s bridle, while the head gaucho climbed in the back of the jeep. I noticed that his holster was unbuttoned, and decided he looked like the type who might be quick on the draw. Besides, under his belt was a knife as long as Chile.

“Just stick to the story,” I told Anna in Russian.

“All right. But I don’t think he believed it.”

She climbed into the passenger seat, lit a nervous-looking cigarette, and tried to ignore the head gaucho’s brown eyes on the back of her head. “Who was that Nazi, anyway?”

“I think he’s the Nazi who built that camp,” I said. “And many others like it.” I climbed into the driver’s seat, took the cigarette from her mouth, puffed it for a moment, and then put it back, only it didn’t stick. Her jaw was hanging down like the ramp on a truck. So I put the cigarette in my own mouth.

“You mean?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” I started the jeep. “Which makes him extremely dangerous. So do exactly what I say and maybe we’ll live to know better than to tell the tale.”

The head gaucho tapped me impatiently on the shoulder. “Drive,” he said in castellano. He pointed farther up the road toward the three horsemen and the high Sierra.

I put the jeep in gear and drove slowly along the road.