“Otto Krebs, eh? Is that his real name, or an alias?”

“An alias.”

“How can you be sure?”

Gabriel handed over the documents he’d taken from the Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome. Ramirez pulled a pair of greasy reading glasses from his shirt pocket and thrust them onto his face. Having the documents out in plain sight made Gabriel nervous. He cast a glance in Chiara’s direction. The wristwatch was still on her left hand. Ramirez, when he looked up from the papers, was clearly impressed.

“How did you get access to the papers of Bishop Hudal?”

“I have a friend at the Vatican.”

“No, you have a very powerful friend at the Vatican. The only man who could get Bishop Drexler to willingly open Hudal’s papers isil papa himself!” Ramirez raised his wineglass in Gabriel’s direction. “So, in 1948, an SS officer named Erich Radek comes to Rome and staggers into the arms of Bishop Hudal. A few months later, he leaves Rome as Otto Krebs and sets sail for Syria. What else do you know?”

The next document Gabriel laid on the wooden tabletop produced a similar look of astonishment from the Argentine journalist.

“As you can see, Israeli intelligence placed the man now known as Otto Krebs in Damascus as late as 1963. The source is very good, none other than Aloïs Brunner. According to Brunner, Krebs left Syria in 1963 and came here.”

“And you have reason to believe he still might be here?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

Ramirez folded his heavy arms and eyed Gabriel across the table. A silence fell between them, filled by the hot drone of traffic from the street. The Argentine smelled a story. Gabriel had anticipated this.

“So how does a man named René Duran from Montreal get his hands on secret documents from the Vatican and the Israeli intelligence service?”

“Obviously, I have good sources.”

“I’m a very busy man, Monsieur Duran.”

“If it’s money you want-”

The Argentine held up his palm in an admonitory gesture.

“I don’t want your money, Monsieur Duran. I can make my own money. What I want is the story.”

“Obviously, press coverage of my investigation would be something of a hindrance.”

Ramirez looked insulted. “Monsieur Duran, I’m confident I have much more experience pursuing men like Erich Radek than you do. I know when to investigate quietly and when to write.”

Gabriel hesitated a moment. He was reluctant to enter into aquid pro quo with the Argentine journalist, but he also knew that Alfonso Ramirez might prove to be a valuable friend.

“Where do we start?” Gabriel asked.

“Well, I suppose we should find out whether Aloïs Brunner was telling the truth about his friend Otto Krebs.”

“Meaning, did he ever come to Argentina?”

“Exactly.”

“And how do we do that?”

Just then the waiter appeared. The steak he placed in front of Gabriel was large enough to feed a family of four. Ramirez smiled and started sawing away.

“Bon appétit, Monsieur Duran. Eat! Something tells me you’re going to need your strength.”

ALFONSO RAMIREZ DROVE the last surviving Volkswagen Sirocco in the western hemisphere. It might have been dark blue once; now the exterior had faded to the color of pumice. The windshield had a crack down the center that looked like a bolt of lightning. Gabriel’s door was bashed in, and it required much of his depleted reservoir of strength to pry it open. The air conditioner no longer worked, and the engine roared like a prop plane.

They sped along the broad Avenida 9 de Julio with the windows down. Scraps of notepaper swirled around them. Ramirez seemed not to notice, or to care, when several pages were sucked out into the street. It had grown hotter with the late afternoon. The rough wine had left Gabriel with a headache. He turned his face toward the open window. It was an ugly boulevard. The façades of the graceful old buildings were scarred by an endless parade of billboards hawking German luxury cars and American soft drinks to a populace whose money was suddenly worthless. The limbs of the shade trees hung drunkenly beneath the onslaught of pollution and heat.

They turned toward the river. Ramirez looked into the rearview mirror. A life of being pursued by military thugs and Nazi sympathizers had left him with well-honed street instincts.

“We’re being followed by a girl on a motor scooter.”

“Yes, I know.”

“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because she works for me.”

Ramirez took a long look into the mirror.

“I recognize those thighs. That girl was at the café, wasn’t she?”

Gabriel nodded slowly. His head was pounding.

“You’re a very interesting man, Monsieur Duran. And very lucky, too. She’s beautiful.”

“Just concentrate on your driving, Alfonso. She’ll watch your back.”

Five minutes later, Ramirez parked on a street running along the edge of the harbor. Chiara sped past, then swung round and parked in the shade of a tree. Ramirez killed the engine. The sun beat mercilessly on the roof. Gabriel wanted out of the car, but the Argentine wanted to brief him first.

“Most of the files dealing with Nazis in Argentina are kept under lock and key in the Information Bureau. They’re still officially off-limits to reporters and scholars, even though the traditional thirty-year blackout period expired long ago. Even if we could get into the storerooms of the Information Bureau, we probably wouldn’t find much. By all accounts, Perón had the most damaging files destroyed in 1955, when he was run out of office in a coup.”

On the other side of the street, a car slowed, and the man behind the wheel took a long look at the girl on the motorbike. Ramirez saw it, too. He watched the car in his rearview mirror for a moment before resuming.

“In 1997, the government created the Commission for the Clarification of Nazi Activities in Argentina. It faced a serious problem from the beginning. You see, in 1996, the government burned all the damaging files still in its possession.”

“Why create a commission in the first place?”

“They wanted credit for trying, of course. But in Argentina, the search for the truth can only go so far. A real investigation would have demonstrated the true depth of Perón’s complicity in the postwar Nazi exodus from Europe. It would also have revealed the fact that many Nazis continue to live here. Who knows? Maybe your man, too.”

Gabriel pointed at the building. “So what’s this?”

“The Hotel de Immigrantes, first stop for the millions of immigrants who came to Argentina in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The government housed them here, until they could find work and a place to live. Now, the Immigration Office uses the building as a storage facility.”

“For what?”

Ramirez opened the glove box and removed rubber surgical gloves and paper sterile masks. “It’s not the cleanest place in the world. I hope you’re not afraid of rats.”

Gabriel lifted the latch and threw his shoulder against the door. Across the street, Chiara killed the engine of her motorbike and settled in for the wait.

A BORED POLICEMAN stood watch at the entrance. A girl in uniform sat before a rotating fan at the registrar’s desk, reading a fashion magazine. She slid the logbook across the dusty desk. Ramirez signed and added the time. Two laminated tags with alligator clips appeared. Gabriel was No. 165. He affixed the badge to the top of his shirt pocket and followed Ramirez toward the elevator. “Two hours till closing time,” the girl called out, then she turned another page of her magazine.

They boarded a freight elevator. Ramirez pulled the screen shut and pressed the button for the top floor. The elevator swayed slowly upward. A moment later, when they shuddered to a stop, the air was so hot and thick with dust it was difficult to breathe. Ramirez pulled on his gloves and mask. Gabriel followed suit.