A Quiet Flame

“What did you expect?” said a voice behind me. “I warned you to leave it alone.”

My neck was painful from when I’d been slugged but, gritting my teeth, I turned my head into the pain to meet the colonel’s eye.

“I didn’t expect to find what I found,” I said. “I didn’t expect the unthinkable. Not again. Not here. This is supposed to be a new world. I didn’t expect it would be just like the old one. But you know, now that I’ve seen your national airline and how it handles double-booked passengers, suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so surprising.”

“This?” He shrugged. “It’s easier this way. There’s no evidence. No camps. No bodies. No graves. Nothing. No one can ever prove anything. It’s a one-way ticket. No one comes back to tell the tale.”

“Who were they, anyway? Those people who disappeared just now.”

“People like you, Gunther. People who asked too many questions.”

“Is that all you’ve got against me?” I got a grin going and tried to make my mouth hang on to it, like I still had an ace up my sleeve. It didn’t feel right. My lips were trembling too much, but from here on, a show-and-tell was all I had going for me. If he decided I was bluffing, I was in for a flying lesson. He knew it. I knew it. The two stooges by the still-open door of the Dakota knew it. “Hell, I’m a detective, Colonel. It’s my job to ask too many questions. To stick my nose in where it’s not wanted. You of all people should know that. Everything’s my business until I find out what I’ve been hired to find out. That’s the way this racket works.”

“Nevertheless, you were warned. Not to ask questions about Directive Eleven. I couldn’t have been more specific. I thought, after your trip to Caseros, you might appreciate that a little more keenly.” He sighed. “I was wrong, of course. And now you’re in a tight spot. Truly, I regret having to kill you, Gunther. I meant all I said when we first met. You really were a hero of mine.”

“Well, then, let’s get to it,” I said.

“You’re forgetting something, surely?”

“I don’t pray so well these days, if that’s what you mean. And my memory is not so good at altitude. How high are we, anyway?”

“About five thousand feet.”

“That explains why it’s so damned drafty in here. Perhaps if those two altar boys were to close the door, I might warm up a little. I’m like a lizard that way. You’ll be surprised what I can do for you if you just let me sit for a while on a nice warm rock.”

The colonel jerked his head at the door, and with a weary look of disappointment, like some French Catholic noblemen denied the pleasure of defenestrating a big-mouthed Huguenot, the two men closed it. “There,” the colonel said. “How’s your memory now?”

“Improving all the time. Perhaps when we’re on the ground again, I’ll remember Evita’s daughter’s name. That’s assuming she really is Evita’s daughter. To my untutored, cynical eye, she and the president’s wife looked very unalike.”

“You’re bluffing, Gunther.”

“Maybe. But you can’t afford to take a chance on that, can you? If you knew any different, Colonel, I’d be in the river, looking for my old comrades from the Graf Spee.”

“So why not tell me?”

“Don’t make me laugh. As soon as I’ve spilled my guts, there’s nothing to stop you from spilling me out the door.”

“Maybe. But look at it this way. If you tell me when we’re on the ground, there’s nothing to stop me killing you in a day or two. A week from now.”

“You’re right. I never looked at it that way. You’d better think of something to put my mind at ease about that possibility, or you’ll wind up not knowing anything at all.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. Really I don’t. You work it out. You’re the colonel. Perhaps if I had another cigarette and my hands free, we might reach some sort of understanding.”

The colonel put his hand in the pocket of his suit. It came out with a switchblade as big as a drumstick. He turned me around and sawed at the cord binding my wrists. While I was rubbing some pain back into my hands, he put the knife away and took out his cigarettes. He shook one loose from the pack, put it into my mouth, and then tossed me a book of matches. If I’d had any feeling in my hands, I might have caught them. One of the colonel’s thugs picked up the matches and got my cigarette going for me. Meanwhile, the colonel leaned through the open cockpit door and spoke to the pilot. A moment later, the plane began to turn back toward the city.

I was desperate to know if Anna had been one of those poor people thrown out of the aircraft. But I hardly knew how to ask the colonel. If I didn’t ask about Anna, he might get the idea there was no one important in my life who might be used against me. If I did ask, I’d be putting her in grave danger.

“We’re going back to Ezeira,” he said.

“I feel better already. Never was one for air travel.”