Philip Kerr - A Quiet Flame

“Why do you want to go there?” he asked.

“Because the last time I saw it, the Plaza was a hotel.”

“You should go to the Coventry. I could get you a rate there.”

“You and your brother, right?” I said, remembering the last time I’d been in Tucuman.

The driver laughed and looked around. “That’s right. You’d like my brother.”

“I’m sure I would. And I guess I couldn’t like him less than I liked the Coventry. Actually, I think they liked me there less than I liked them. Because I was covered in bites when I left. I don’t mind sharing my bed with anyone as long as they’ve got just two legs. When the Luftwaffe bombed Coventry in England, I figure they must have been thinking of the hotel here in Tucuman.”

We drove to the Plaza.

Like most good hotels in Argentina, it was trying to look like it was somewhere else. Madrid, probably. Or maybe London. There was the usual amount of oak panel on the walls and marble on the floors. I laid an arm on the front desk like I meant business and looked across at the clerk. He wore a dark suit that matched his mustache. His face and hair were shiny with the same stuff they used on the machinery of the little elevator cage that stood at right angles to the desk. He bobbed his head at me and showed me some teeth that were heavily stained with tobacco.

“We’d like a large room,” I told him. It sounded better than asking for a large bed, but that was what we really wanted. “With a bath. And what passes for a view in this city.”

“And not noisy, either,” Anna added. “We don’t like noise except when we make it ourselves.”

“There’s our bridal suite,” he said, firing a hungry-looking glance at Anna.

I was feeling kind of hungry myself. The clerk offered to show it to us. Anna asked to see the rate instead. Then she offered to pay about half of what he was asking, in cash. This would never have worked in Germany. But in Tucuman it was normal. In Tucuman, they haggled with the priest when he gave them a penance. Ten minutes later, we were in the room.

The bridal suite was adequate. There was a pair of French windows that opened onto a balcony with a view of the high Sierra and a strong smell of orange blossom that made a pleasant change from horses. There was a big bathroom with a view of the rest of the suite and a strong smell of soap that made a pleasant change from drains. Most important of all, there was a bed. The bed was the size of Mato Grosso. Before long, it had a view of Anna’s naked body and a strong smell of her perfume, which made a pleasant change from my own bachelor smell. We made a night of it. Every time I woke, I reached for her. And every time she woke, she reached for me. We certainly didn’t sleep very much. The bed was too hard for sleep, which was just fine by me. I certainly had not expected to enjoy Tucuman half as much as I did.

When morning finally came, I took a cold bath, which helped me wake up. Then I ordered us some breakfast. We were still eating it when Pedro Geller called up and said he was waiting for me downstairs in the hotel lobby. I met him alone. The fewer people knew about Anna’s involvement the better, I told myself. Geller and I went outside, to the spot where he’d left the jeep.

“I found out where Skorzeny is staying,” he said. “At a big ranch in a place called Wiederhold. It’s owned by a wealthy sugar farmer called Luis Freiburg. And when I say wealthy, I mean wealthy. He made millions in compensation when a couple of thousand acres of his estate were purchased by the government as part of the hydroelectric project. That land is due to be flooded when the dam at La Quiroga is finished.” Geller laughed. “Now, here’s the really interesting thing. It turns out that Freiburg is none other than that SS general you told me about.”

“Hans Kammler?”

“That’s right. According to Ricardo, Kammler is an engineer who oversaw all the major SS construction projects during the war. Like the Mittelwerk facility and all the extermination camps, like Auschwitz and Treblinka. Made himself a fortune in the process. Yes, he was quite a man, this Kammler. Ricardo told me that Himmler regarded Kammler as one of his most capable and talented men.”

“Ricardo told you all this?”

“He can get quite talkative when he’s had a few,” said Geller. “Yesterday evening, we were coming out of Capri’s technical branch office in Cadillal when we saw a big white American car driven by Skorzeny. Ricardo recognized Kammler immediately.”

“What did Kammler look like?”

“Thin, bony, hooked nose. Aged about fifty. Eagle-like, you might say. Had his wife and daughter with him. From Germany, I think. That’s one of the reasons Ricardo hates him. Because he’s got his wife and daughter with him. Although I rather think Ricardo’s jealous of anyone who got out of Germany with lots of money in his trouser pockets. That or anyone who’s made a better fist of life in Argentina than he has. You included.”

“Did Ricardo say why Skorzeny might be staying with Kammler?”

“Yes.”

Momentarily, Geller looked troubled. I offered him a cigarette. He took one, let me light it for him, and remained silent.

“Come on, Herbert,” I said, using his real name for once, and lighting one for myself.

Geller sighed. “This is top-secret stuff, Bernie. I mean even Ricardo looked a bit shifty when he told me.”

“Ricardo always looks shifty,” I said.

“Well, naturally he worries that his past will catch up with him. We all do. Even you, probably. But this isn’t past. This is now. Have you ever heard of Project Poplar?”

“Poplar? Like the tree?”

Geller nodded. “Apparently, Peron wants to build an atomic bomb. The scuttlebutt around Capri is that Kammler is the director of Peron’s nuclear-weapons program. Just like he was in Germany, at Riesengebirge and Ebensee. And that Skorzeny is his head of security.”

“You’d need a lot of money for something like that.” Even as I said it, I remembered that Peron already seemed to have access to hundreds of millions of dollars of Nazi money, and if Evita had her way, possibly billions more dollars in Switzerland. “You also need a lot of scientists,” I added. “Have you seen lots of scientists?”

“I don’t know. I don’t imagine they drive around wearing white coats and carrying slide rules, do you?”

“Good point.”

There was a map on the seat of the jeep, and a toolbox in the back. “Show me where Kammler’s ranch is,” I told Geller.

“Wiederhold?” Geller took the map and moved a finger southwest of Tucuman. “It’s here. Just a few miles north of the Dulce River. A few miles to the south and a little to the east, and the frosts make sugarcane impossible. Cane would be impossible in Tucuman, too, if it wasn’t for the Sierra del Aconquija.” He took a drag from his cigarette. “You’re not thinking of going there, are you?”

“No. I’m going here.” I pointed to one of the lagoons on the Dulce River. “Just north of Andalgala. To a place called Dulce.”

“Never heard of it,” said Geller. “There’s the Dulce River, but I’ve not heard of a town of that name.”

Geller’s map was more detailed than the one I’d bought in Buenos Aires. But he was right: there was nowhere called Dulce. Just a couple of anonymous lagoons. All the same, I didn’t think Melville would have dared to mislead me again. Not after the threats I had made against his miserable life.

“How accurate is this map?” I asked.

“Very. It’s based on an old muleteers’ map. Up until the beginning of the century, mules were the only way to get around this whole area. As many as sixty thousand mules a year used to get sold in Santa, north of here. Nobody knew these trails better than those old muleteers.”