“If they’re not on board by the time, I get to the driver’s seat, they’re on their own. If we wait any longer, those guys after us will realize we’re here and trapped in the bus with no place to run. It’s now or never.”
The two men made their way back to the area of the driver’s seat as quickly and quietly as circumstances allowed. Serge twisted his way into the driver’s seat and maintained a low profile. Hugues held a gun in each hand, tapped Serge on the shoulder to let him know that he was ready, then quickly reached out and pulled the door of the bus closed.
The noise was like a rocket went off there in the silent night. Hell broke loose as soon as the sound made it to the ears of the agents. The ignition on the powerful bus engine roared into action; the Israeli agents advanced on the bus with guns blazing at the area of the front of the coach compartment; and Hugues returned fire out the windows without any thought of having an actual target. Eban and Micah pounded on the front entry door, and Eliot and Enos attacked the rear door—without success. Haggai and Aaron ran to the opposite side of the bus and fired a heavy fusillade from that side with equally disappointing lack of success. Lev, Moises, Gavriel, and Ezra all gathered near the front of the bus and opened fire from protective positions behind nearby trees and vehicles, all to no avail. The ponderous bus roared straight ahead, scattering all of the agents. Ezra was too slow, and the bus ran over his left leg, crushing it. He was the only casualty in the opening gun battle.
Before they could do anything to halt the Pullman bus’s progress, it careered out of the parking lot and back onto Ruta 215.
“Pick up Ezra and the two prisoners and everybody get to our bus!” Lev ordered.
It took time to do that. They were also briefly hampered by curious Chileans and tourists coming out of the café to see what the commotion was about. Moises and Gavriel covered the rear as the agents hauled their human cargo onto their bus. The two rear guards were obliged to fire a few rounds into the roof of the café to discourge the onlookers, who scrambled back into the relative safety of the well-lit room.
Lev took the driver’s seat of the Via Bariloche bus and started the engine. It was sluggish and took two turns of the ignition before getting going, which wasted precious seconds.
“Which way?” asked Eliot who sat in the front row behind the driver.
“Fifty-fifty chance, but I’ll bet on south,” Lev answered and pulled out onto Ruta 215 and floored the accelerator.
Lev calculated that they would have just enough fuel to make it to Puerto Varas before they had to stop. Every agent on the bus strained his eyes looking at the darkness along the gravel road to see if there was any sign of the other bus or of any men walking. They actually stopped twice and frightened an ebriated husband headed home from one of the several small drinking establishments along the way. Nothing more than that was accomplished; the Pullman bus had too great of a head start on them to be seen, let alone be caught. The Via Bariloche bus had a much smaller and slower engine than its Pullman counterpart.
Manny, Aaron, and Micah worked to stabilize Ezra’s obviously fractured leg. The knee was bent at an obscene lateral angle from his thigh. Haggai and Enos assumed the role of interrogators of the two captured Nazi criminals; but even with not-so-gentle persuasion, they were unable to learn anything about the plans or present location of the leader of the group, the man known as Antoine. In fact, neither man knew the answers to either question. After a few good kicks just to vent anger, the agents left the criminals alone.
Chilean Dessert Recipes
Arroz con Leche de Chile—Rice Pudding with Milk and Raisins
Ingredients
-1 cp white rice, 2 cps water, 1 cup whole milk, 2 large eggs, ½ cp gran. sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp grated lemon peel, 1 tsp butter, 1 cp heavy cream, 1–2 cps raisins (dark, golden, or mixed), cinnamon for dusting.
Preparation
-Put rice and water in a med. saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook rice until soft~15–20 mins. Stir milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, raisins, and lemon peel in a medium bowl until blended. Add the rice and stir until all ingredients are well mixed.
-Butter a 9 in. pan and spoon the rice mixture into it.
-Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 25 mins. Remove rice pudding from oven, stir well, and allow to cool~15 mins. Whip cream to soft peaks with an electric mixer. Fold the rice pudding into the whipped cream. Transfer to a serving dish, dust with cinnamon (and maybe a little nutmeg).
-Serve warm or chilled.
Dulce de Leche
Ingredients
-1 qt whole milk, 12 oz sugar (~1 ½ cps), 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped ½ tsp baking soda.
Preparation
-Combine milk, sugar, vanilla bean, and seeds in a large, 4-qt saucepan and place over med. heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar has dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the baking soda and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low and cook uncovered at a bare simmer. Stir occasionally, but do not reincorporate the foam that appears on the top of the mixture. Continue to cook for 1 hr. Remove the vanilla bean after 1 hr. and continue to cook until the mixture is a dark caramel color and has reduced to~1 cp~1½—2 hrs. Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Store in the refrigerator in a sealed container (for up to a month).
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Municipal Bus Terminal, Puerto Montt, Chile, six a.m. the following day
Antoine’s Via Bariloche bus company trip on común class was a test of endurance. The passengers had had only one bathroom stop in seven hours and no stop for food. It was expected that passengers in común class would bring their own. He had not spoken a word to anyone. He was not inclined to have himself be remembered, and the peasants on the bus were a taciturn bunch who never warmed to strangers. He was parched and famished, but his fear overrode the temptation to rush into one of the restaurents near the bus terminal in Puerto Varas.
He relieved himself in a clump of bushes but was too nervous to find a place to eat. He expected to be accosted by his pursuers any minute and felt unsafe being in the attractive little tourist community. As quickly as he could, Antoine walked to Del Salvador to a waiting small blue-gray local bus and stepped aboard. He paid the driver and settled into an uncomfortable seat and listened to his empty stomach growl. The buses left the town every ten minutes; so, less than thirty minutes after having arrived in Puerto Varas, he was in Puerto Montt where—for some reason he could not explain—he felt safer. He was in the middle of town near the harbor. He stood for a moment or two on Diego Portales and Lillo streets and oriented himself. In English, he asked a tourist where he could find the best food.
“Just go down Avenida Diego Portales to Angelmó. The fish market is fun, and the restaurants are all pretty good. Lots of raw stuff and some fruits of the sea that I wouldn’t eat, but that’s just me.”
Antoine thanked the man and began walking briskly away from the bus station, taking care to look around and behind himself as he went. He saw no one who seemed to be interested in him or to be following him. The farther he went, the hungrier he got, and the less ill at ease. At intervals he could see the deep blue ocean to the west, and at others he could see the towering jagged peaks of the southern Andes to the east. Puerto Montt is the southernmost city on the mainland of Chile before the land breaks up into the islands of Tierra Del Fuego. The street on the way to Angelmó was crowded with little stalls selling traditional Chilean handicrafts, tourist souvenirs made of the alerce tree which grows in the Lake Region nearby, and leather products.
He meandered a little further down Ave. Diego Portales until he came to the fish markets and the restaurants. For a man as hungry as Antoine, Angelmó was a seafood extravaganza. He salivated at the large variety of fresh fish and frutes del mar which were guaranteed fresh because he could see his dinner being taken out of small boats a few yards from where he could eat them.
He exchanged his Argentine pesos for the Chilean var
iety and realized that Argentina’s money was not worth much on the international market. He checked out several restaurants in the artisan area—Pueblito Melipulli—and harbor open air places that served delicacies which had been on a boat ten minutes before. His final choices included: ceviche [minced raw sea bass in lemon juice] and almejas con limón [raw clams with lemon juice] as starters, then had a small bowl of Caldillo de Congrio [conger-eel soup with onions, potatoes, and carrots]. He ate slowly to avoid upsetting his very empty stomach or getting too full to enjoy a good variety. Next, he ordered ostiones a la parmesana [sea scallops on their shells in melted butter and covered with grilled Parmesan cheese] and Pastel de Jaiba [Chilean crab pie—the sweetest in the world—served in its own hard rough shell]. He left just enough room to have a small bowl of cinnamony Arroz con Leche [rice pudding—lit. rice with milk and raisins].
He drank bottled water, presuming that the water from taps was not fit to drink, just as it was in Argentina. He avoided taking any alcohol because he wanted to be as mentally sharp as he could be. He satisfied himself that no one had been observing or tailing him, then he made his way in an unnecessarily circuitous walk to the Club Aleman just off Ave. Diego Portales. During his stay in Bariloche and his preparation of an escape plan, he learned that the club not only catered to Germans, but was overtly accommodating when possible SS officers came by.
Antoine was confident that his German could pass for a native; so, he walked with confidence up the steep entry steps and knocked with the large brightly polished brass door knocker. The building was in the old colonial style, one of the few such buildings left in Chile.
He was greeted by a liveried butler who worked to hide his contempt for the blue-collar worker standing before him.
“Wie kann ich Ihnen behilflich zu sein, sir?” [“How may I be of service to you, sir?”]
“Ich bin hier mit bezeichnet Anton Friedrich Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, und ich bin in der Notwendigkeit von speziellen Unterkunft für die ich gut bezahlen.” [“I am referred here by Anton Friedrich Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, and I am in need of special accommodation for which I can pay well.”]
His delivery was that of an autocratic-ranking SS officer, and that and the mention of the head of the ODESSA in Germany had the instantaneous effect of leveling their social status despite his rough clothes. The butler showed him in and politely offered Antoine a chair.
A gentleman in a beautifully tailored three-button, three-piece gray suit, Armani power tie, and freshly pressed white shirt came to see Antoine in a few minutes and welcomed him.
“How can I be of help?”
“I will need a proper suit of clothing, shirts, ties, dress shoes, and some casual wear as well. First, however, I must make a telephone call to your brother club in Puerto Varas.”
“But of course,” the executive said smartly. “Follow me.”
Antoine made the call to the Puerto Varas club and left instructions for anyone with an authentic SS tattoo who asked for him to be directed to the Puerto Montt club.
“Now for clothing,” he said.
“I will take you personally. I presume that you would not care to be the object of interest from anyone on the street; so, it would be best for you to ride in the club limo and to keep your head down at all times.”
“That would be fine, Herr Butler.”
After the shopping trip—which was twice as expensive as it would have been for a local without the baggage of being a Nazi who was illegal in the country, Antoine realized how tired he was.
Antoine slept in his old clothes because he was too tired to remove them. The sleep lasted fourteen hours and concluded only because the butler nudged his shoulder to awaken him. It took a few moments for Antoine to return to a semi-sentient mental status.
“You have a telephone call, Mein Generalleutenant. Would you care to accompany me to the club’s office where you may speak with privacy?”
Antoine followed the butler down the two flights of stairs, shaking his head to get rid of the cobwebs.
“Altenhofen here,” he said, still not sure enough to use his Germanic credentials over the phone.
“Antoine, it’s Serge. Hugues and I are in Puerto Varas hiding out in the Club Aleman. You know the place?”
“I know about it. What about the others?”
“All dead or captured. We can only presume that we have been badly compromised.”
“Yes,” Antoine said thoughtfully and with regret. “Arrange a wire transfer of the Chilean funds to the club; they are more than willing to help. Be generous in sharing with the club to further its activities. Have them get you some seamen’s outfits, then have them get you here to Puerto Montt to the Club Aleman. Do it this morning. Trust no one but the butler there. He—like the one here—is a major ODESSA contact. I will arrange for us to get on a cargo ship bound for Lima and then another means of transportation to Indochina. I have some contacts in Saigon who will be glad to have us join their unit.”
“French Foreign Legion?”
“Perhaps, but don’t get ahead of yourselves.
“We will do everything we can to get to you before sundown.”
“Be here before noon. We need to get away as soon as possible. The Nazi hunting Jews from the Levant are efficient and effective; never underestimate them.”
Recipes for Frutes del Mar in Southern Chile
Chilean Sea Bass Ceviche—Serves 8
Ingredients
-2 lbs Chilean sea bass (may substitute pompano, red snapper, or sole), all bones removed, juice of 2 large lemons and 4–6 limes, ½ red onion thinly sliced and separated into rings, 1 clove minced garlic, 1 hot red chili, and 1 sweet orange pepper seeded and cut into thin strips, 2 tbsps chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, 3 tbsps minced fresh cilantro, coarse sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, and extra virgin olive oil to taste, 6 halved, peeled, and pitted ripe avocadoes.
Preparation
-Rinse fish; pat dry and slice thinly into bite-size pieces.
-In a 2-quart stainless steel bowl, combine the citrus juices, onion, garlic, peppers, parsley, and cilantro. Add the fish, making sure the citrus juices generously cover the fish. Season with salt and pepper. Allow the fish to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hrs—until the fish no longer looks raw. Season as desired and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Serve in avocado halves. As variety, may add shrimp, scallops, or different firm fish, octopus, and calamari.
Almejas con limón
Ingredientes
-½ kg. de almejas, 2 ajos, 1 par de ramitas de perejil fresco, 2 limones, aceite de olive, pimiento y sal.
Cómo preparer
-Antes de comenzar la elaboración de las almejas con limón, lo mejor será tener las almejas en agua
con sal durante un buen rato, para que expulsen la arena que pudieran tener dentro. Finalmente las escurrimos y las reservamos.
-Ponemos una cazuela al fuego con un chorrito de agua y un poco de zumo de limón y añadimos las almejas. Las tapamos y dejamos que se abran. Las que permanezcan cerradas deberán desecharse, ya que estarán malas y podríamos intoxicarnos.
-Quitamos las almejas con limón del fuego y las escurrimos. Reservamos el caldo aparte. -Ponemos una sartén al fuego con un chorreón de aceite de oliva, agregamos los ajos picados y dejamos que se doren un poquito. A continuación rociamos el zumo de los dos limones, un poco de perejil fresco picadito, una pizca de sal y pimienta molida y, por fin, el caldo de la cocción de las almejas con limón bien colado.
-Dejamos que reduzca y, cuando esté listo, lo echamos por encima de las almejas y a chuparse los dedos.
Clams with lemon
Ingredients
-½ kg clams, 2 garlic cloves, 2 sprigs of fresh parsley, 2 lemons, extra virgin olive oil, pepper and salt.
Preparation
-Before commencing preparation, soak clams in salted water for a while, to expel any sand. Drain and reserve.
-Heat a pan with a little water lemon juice and add the clams [
Open clamshells and leave open. If closed, clams must be discarded because they are poor and could be infectious.]
-Remove clams and drain. Reserve broth. Place in frying pan with a dash of olive oil, add garlic and let brown a little. Sprinkle juice of 2 lemons, some fresh chopped parsley, a pinch of salt and ground pepper, and finally the cooking juices from the clams with lemon. When ready, drizzle reduction over the clams and serve.
Caldillo de Congrio [Conger Eel Soup]
Ingredients
-2–3 tbsps extra virgin olive oil, 1 thinly sliced white onion, 3–4 minced garlic cloves, 1 tbsp paprika, 2 cps seeded and chopped tomatoes, 1 cp good white wine, 4 cps rich fish stock, 2 tbsps finely chopped parsley, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste, 1 lb conger eel fillets (may substitute white fish or a mixture of both) cut into chunks, ½ cp heavy cream, ½ bunch chopped cilantro.
Preparation
-Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute until translucent~3 to 4 min. Stir in the garlic and paprika and saute for another 1–2 mins.
-Stir in the tomatoes and simmer for another 4–5 minutes to cook the tomatoes down. Add wine and cook down for another~1 min.
-Pour in the fish stock and add the parsley, bay leaf, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15–20 min.
-Add the fish or eel and simmer until the fish is cooked through~5–8 mins.
-Stir in cream and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Serve in bowls, garnished with some of the chopped cilantro and a few dashes of salsa de ají or other hot pepper sauce.
Ostiones a la parmesana—Sea Scallops on Their Shells in Melted Butter and Covered with Grilled Parmesan Cheese
Ingredients
-1½ lbs bay scallops, 1 cp extra virgin olive oil, 2–3 large finely minced garlic cloves, 1 ají cacho de cabra or serrano chile, minced or dried to taste, salt.
Preparation
-Heat oil in a sauté pan until almost smoking, then add chile and garlic.
The Charlemagne Murders Page 57