Just then the front door opened and a woman in a sundress entered the lobby. The receptionist looked up and smiled.
“May I help you?”
THEY WALKED BACK to the hotel beneath a razor-edged sun. Gabriel translated the obituary for Chiara.
“It says he was born in Upper Austria in 1913, that he was a police officer, and that he enlisted in the Wehrmacht in 1938 and took part in the campaigns against Poland and the Soviet Union. It also says he was decorated twice for bravery, once by the Führer himself. I guess that’s something to brag about in Bariloche.”
“And after the war?”
“Nothing until his arrival in Argentina in 1963. He worked for two years at a hotel in Bariloche, then took a job on an estancia near Puerto Blest. In 1972, he purchased the property from the owners and ran it until his death.”
“Any family left in the area?”
“According to this, he was never married and had no surviving relatives.”
They arrived back at the Hotel Edelweiss. It was a Swiss-style chalet with a sloping roof, located two streets up from the lakeshore on the Avenida San Martín. Gabriel had rented a car at the airport earlier that morning, a Toyota four-wheel drive. He asked the parking attendant to bring it up from the garage, then ducked into the lobby to find a road map of the surrounding countryside. Puerto Blest was exactly where the woman from the newspaper had said, on the opposite side of the lake, near the Chilean border.
They set out along the lakeshore. The road deteriorated by degrees as they moved farther from Bariloche. Much of the time, the water was hidden by dense forest. Then Gabriel would round a bend, or the trees would suddenly thin, and the lake would appear briefly below them, a flash of blue, only to disappear behind a wall of timber once more.
Gabriel rounded the southernmost tip of the lake and slowed briefly to watch a squadron of giant condors circling the looming peak of the Cerro López. Then he followed a one-lane dirt track across an exposed plateau covered with gray-green thorn scrub and stands of arrayán trees. On the high meadows, flocks of hardy Patagonian sheep grazed on the summer grasses. In the distance, toward the Chilean border, lightning flickered over the Andean peaks.
By the time they arrived in Puerto Blest, the sun was gone and the village was shadowed and quiet. Gabriel went into a café to ask directions. The bartender, a short man with a florid face, stepped into the street and, with a series of points and gestures, showed him the way.
JUST INSIDE THE CAFÉ, at a table near the door, the Clockmaker drank beer from a bottle and watched the exchange taking place in the street. The slender man with short black hair and gray temples he recognized. Seated in the passenger seat of the Toyota four-wheel drive was a woman with long dark hair. Was it possible she was the one who had put the bullet in his shoulder in Rome? It didn’t much matter. Even if she wasn’t, she would soon be dead.
The Israeli climbed behind the wheel of the Toyota and sped off. The bartender came back inside.
The Clockmaker, in German, asked, “Where are those two headed?”
The bartender answered him in the same language.
The Clockmaker finished the last of his beer and left money on the table. Even the smallest movement, such as fishing a few bills from his coat pocket, made his shoulder pulsate with fire. He went into the street and stood for a moment in the cool evening air, then turned and walked slowly toward the church.
THE CHURCH OF Our Lady of the Mountains stood at the western edge of the village, a small whitewashed colonial church with a bell tower to the left side of the portico. At the front of the church was a stone courtyard, shaded by a pair of broad plane trees and enclosed by an iron fence. Gabriel walked to the back of the church. The cemetery stretched down the gentle slope of a hill, toward a coppice of dense pine. A thousand headstones and memorial monuments teetered among the overgrown weeds like a ragged army in retreat. Gabriel stood there a moment, hands on hips, depressed by the prospect of wandering the graveyard in the gathering darkness looking for a marker bearing the name of Otto Krebs.
He walked back to the front of the church. Chiara was waiting for him in the shadows of the courtyard. He pulled on the heavy oaken door of the church and found it was unlocked. Chiara followed him inside. Cool air settled over his face, as did a fragrance he had not smelled since leaving Venice: the mixture of candle wax, incense, wood polish, and mildew, the unmistakable scent of a Catholic church. How different this was from the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Cannaregio. No gilded altar, no marble columns or soaring apses or glorious altarpieces. A severe wooden crucifix hung over the unadorned altar, and a bank of memorial candles flickered softly before a statue of the Virgin. The stained-glass windows along the side of the nave had lost their color in the dying twilight.
Gabriel walked hesitantly up the center aisle. Just then, a dark figure emerged from the vestry and strode across the altar. He paused before the crucifix, genuflected, then turned to face Gabriel. He was small and thin, dressed in black trousers, a black short-sleeved shirt, and a Roman collar. His hair was neatly trimmed and gray at the temples, his face handsome and dark, with a hint of red across the cheeks. He did not seem surprised by the presence of two strangers in his church. Gabriel approached him slowly. The priest held out his hand and identified himself as Father Ruben Morales.
“My name is René Duran,” Gabriel said. “I’m from Montreal.”
At this the priest nodded, as though used to visitors from abroad.
“What can I do for you, Monsieur Duran?”
Gabriel offered the same explanation he had given to the woman at the Barilocher Tageblatt earlier that morning—that he had come to Patagonia looking for a man he believed was his mother’s brother, a man named Otto Krebs. While Gabriel spoke, the priest folded his hands and watched him with a pair of warm and gentle eyes. How different this pastoral man seemed from Monsignor Donati, the professional Church bureaucrat, or Bishop Drexler, the acid rector of the Anima. Gabriel felt badly about misleading him.
“I knew Otto Krebs very well,” Father Morales said. “And I’m sorry to say that he could not possibly be the man you’re searching for. You see, Herr Krebs had no brothers or sisters. He had no family of any kind. By the time he managed to work himself into a position to support a wife and children, he was . . .” The priest’s voice trailed off. “How shall I put this delicately? He was no longer such a fine catch. The years had taken their toll on him.”
“Did he ever talk to you about his family?” Gabriel paused, then added, “Or the war?”
The priest raised his eyebrows. “I was his confessor and his friend, Monsieur Duran. We discussed a great many things in the years before his death. Herr Krebs, like many men of his era, had seen much death and destruction. He had also committed acts for which he was deeply ashamed and in need of absolution.”
“And you granted that absolution?”
“I granted him peace of mind, Monsieur Duran. I heard his confessions, I ordered penance. Within the confines of Catholic belief, I prepared his soul to meet Christ. But do I, a simple priest from a rural parish, really possess the power to absolve such sins? Even I’m not sure about that.”
“May I ask you about some of the things you discussed?” Gabriel asked tentatively. He knew he was on shaky theological ground, and the answer was what he expected.
“Many of my discussions with Herr Krebs were conducted under the seal of confession. The rest were conducted under the seal of friendship. It would not be proper for me to relate the nature of those conversations to you now.”
“But he’s been dead for twenty years.”
“Even the dead have a right to privacy.”
Gabriel heard the voice of his mother, the opening line of her testimony: I will not tell all the things I saw. I cannot. I owe this much to the dead.
“It might help me determine whether this man is my uncle.”
Father Morales gave a disarming smile. “I’m a simple country priest, Monsieur Du
ran, but I’m not a complete fool. I also know my parishioners very well. Do you really believe you’re the first person to come here pretending to be looking for a lost relative? I’m quite certain that Otto Krebs could not possibly be your uncle. I’m less certain that you’re really René Duran from Montreal. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He turned to leave. Gabriel touched his arm.
“Will you at least show me his grave?”
The priest sighed, then looked up at the stained-glass windows. They had turned to black.
“It’s dark,” he said. “Give me a moment.”
He crossed the altar and disappeared into the vestry. A moment later he emerged wearing a tan windbreaker and carrying a large flashlight. He led them out a side portal, then along a gravel walkway between the church and the rectory. At the end of the path was a lych-gate. Father Morales lifted the latch, then switched on the flashlight and led the way into the cemetery. Gabriel walked at the priest’s side along a narrow footpath overgrown with weeds. Chiara was a step behind.
“Did you celebrate his funeral mass, Father Morales?”
“Yes, of course. In fact, I had to see to the arrangements myself. There was no one else to do it.”
A cat slipped out from behind a grave marker and paused on the footpath in front of them, its eyes reflecting like yellow beacons in the glow of the priest’s flashlight. Father Morales hissed, and the cat vanished into the tall grass.
They drew nearer the trees at the bottom of the cemetery. The priest turned left and led them through knee-deep grass. Here the path was too narrow to walk side by side, so they moved single file, with Chiara holding Gabriel’s hand for support.
Father Morales, nearing the end of a row of gravestones, stopped walking and shone his flashlight down at a 45-degree angle. The beam fell upon a simple headstone bearing the name OTTO KREBS. It listed the year of his birth as 1913 and the year of his death as 1983. Above the name, beneath a small oval of scratched and weathered glass, was a photograph.
GABRIEL CROUCHED AND, brushing away a layer of powdery dust, examined the face. Evidently it had been taken some years before his death, because the man it depicted was middle-aged, perhaps in his late forties. Gabriel was certain of only one thing. It was not the face of Erich Radek.
“I assume it’s not your uncle, Monsieur Duran?”
“Are you certain the photograph is of him?”
“Yes, of course. I found it myself, in a strongbox containing a few of his private things.”
“I don’t suppose you’d allow me to see his things?”
“I no longer have them. And even if I did—”
Father Morales, leaving the thought unfinished, handed Gabriel the flashlight. “I’ll leave you alone now. I can find my way without the light. If you would be so kind as to leave it at the rectory door on your way out. It was a pleasure meeting you, Monsieur Duran.”
With that, he turned and vanished among the gravestones.
Gabriel looked up at Chiara. “It should be Radek’s picture. Radek went to Rome and obtained a Red Cross passport in the name of Otto Krebs. Krebs went to Damascus in 1948, then emigrated to Argentina in 1963. Krebs registered with the Argentine police in this district. This should be Radek.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone else went to Rome posing as Radek.” Gabriel pointed at the photograph on the gravestone. “It was this man. This is the Austrian who went to the Anima seeking help from Bishop Hudal. Radek was somewhere else, probably still hiding in Europe. Why else would he go to such lengths? He wanted people to believe he was long gone. And in the event someone ever went looking for him, they would follow the trail from Rome to Damascus to Argentina and then find the wrong man—Otto Krebs, a lowly hotel worker who’d scraped together enough money to buy a few acres along the Chilean border.”
“You still have one major problem,” Chiara said. “You can’t prove Ludwig Vogel is really Erich Radek.”
“One step at a time,” Gabriel said. “Making a man disappear is not so simple. Radek would have needed help. Someone else has to know about this.”
“Yes, but is he still alive?”
Gabriel stood and looked in the direction of the church. The bell tower appeared in silhouette. Then he noticed a figure walking toward them through the gravestones. For a moment he thought it was Father Morales; then, as the figure drew nearer, he could see that it was a different man. The priest was thin and small. This man was squat and powerfully built, with a quick, rolling gait that propelled him smoothly down the hill among the grave markers.
Gabriel raised the flashlight and shone it toward him. He glimpsed the face briefly before the man shielded it behind a large hand: bald, bespectacled, thick eyebrows of gray and black.
Gabriel heard a noise behind him. He turned and shone the flashlight toward the woods along the perimeter of the cemetery. Two men in dark clothing were coming out of the trees at a run, compact submachine guns in their hands.
Gabriel trained the beam once again on the man coming down through the headstones and saw that he was drawing a weapon from the inside of his jacket. Then, suddenly, the gunman stopped walking. His eyes were fixed not on Gabriel and Chiara but on the two men coming out of the trees. He stood motionless for no more than a second—then abruptly he put the gun away, turned, and ran in the other direction.
By the time Gabriel turned again, the two men with the submachine guns were a few feet away and coming hard on the run. The first collided with Gabriel, driving him down into the hard soil of the graveyard. Chiara managed to shield her face as the second gunman knocked her to the ground, too. Gabriel felt a gloved hand clamp across his mouth, then the hot breath of his attacker in his ear.
“Relax, Allon, you’re among friends.” He spoke English with an American accent. “Don’t make this difficult for us.”
Gabriel pulled the hand off his mouth and looked into his attacker’s eyes. “Who are you?”
“Think of us as your guardian angels. That man walking toward you was a professional assassin, and he was about to kill you both.”
“And what are you going to do with us?”
The gunmen pulled Gabriel and Chiara to their feet and led them out of the cemetery into the trees.
PART THREE
THE RIVER OF ASHES
27
PUERTO BLEST, ARGENTINA
T HE FOREST FELL away sharply from the edge of the cemetery into the void of a blackened ravine. They clambered down the steep slope, picking their way through the trees. The evening was moonless, the darkness absolute. They walked single file, one American in front, followed by Gabriel and Chiara, another American at the back. The Americans wore night-vision goggles. They moved, in Gabriel’s opinion, like elite soldiers.
They came to a small, well-concealed encampment: black tent, black sleeping bags, no sign of a fire or stove for cooking. Gabriel wondered how long they’d been here, watching the cemetery. Not long, judging from the growth on their cheeks. Forty-eight hours, maybe less.
The Americans started packing up. Gabriel tried for a second time to determine who they were and whom they worked for. He was met by weary smiles and stony silence.
It took them a matter of minutes to break down the camp and obliterate any last trace of their presence. Gabriel volunteered to shoulder one of the packs. The Americans refused.
They started walking again. Ten minutes later, they were standing at the bottom of the ravine in a rocky streambed. A vehicle awaited them, concealed beneath a camouflage tarpaulin and pine branches. It was an old Rover with a spare tire mounted on the hood and jerry cans of extra fuel on the back.
The Americans chose the seating arrangements, Chiara in front, Gabriel in back, with a gun aimed at his stomach in the event he suddenly lost faith in the intentions of his rescuers. They lurched along the streambed for a few miles, splashing through the shallow water, before turning onto a dirt track. Several miles farther on, they came to the highway leading out of Puerto Blest.
The American turned right, toward the Andes.
“You’re heading toward Chile,” Gabriel pointed out.
The Americans laughed.
Ten minutes later, the border: one guard, shivering in a brick blockhouse. The Rover shot across the frontier without slowing and headed down the Andes toward the Pacific.
AT THE NORTHERN END of the Gulf of Ancud lies Porto Montt, a resort town and cruise-ship port of call. Just outside the town is an airport with a runway long enough to accommodate a Gulfstream G500 executive jet. It was waiting on the tarmac, engines whining, when the Rover arrived. A gray-haired American stood in the doorway. He welcomed Gabriel and Chiara aboard and introduced himself with little conviction as “Mr. Alexander.” Gabriel, before settling himself into a comfortable leather seat, asked where they were going. “We’re going home, Mr. Allon. I suggest you and your friend try to get some rest. It’s a long flight.”
THE CLOCKMAKER DIALED the number in Vienna from his hotel room in Bariloche.
“Are they dead?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“What happened?”
“To be perfectly honest,” said the Clockmaker, “I don’t have a fucking clue.”
28
THE PLAINS, VIRGINIA
T HE SAFE HOUSE is located in a corner of the Virginia horse country where wealth and privilege meet the hard reality of rural southern life. It is reached by way of a twisting, rolling roadway lined with tumbledown barns and clapboard bungalows with broken cars in the yards. There is a gate; it warns that the property is private, but omits the fact that, technically speaking, it is a government facility. The drive is gravel and nearly a mile in length. To the right is a thick wood; to the left, a pasture surrounded by a split-rail fence. The fence caused something of a scandal among the local craftsmen when the “owner” hired an outside firm to handle the construction. Two bay horses reside in the pasture. According to Agency wits, they are subjected, like all other employees, to annual polygraphs to make certain they haven’t gone over to the other side, whatever side that might be.