“Gentlemen,” said Father Bandolini, addressing the two men seated in the monastery’s guest sitting room. “I’d like to introduce you to someone who will be staying with us for a while. This is Herr Doktor Hausner. Carlos Hausner.”

That was my new name. Father Lajolo had explained that when giving a man a new identity suitable for Argentina, the Comradeship recommended a name that implied dual South American and German nationality. Which is how I ended up being called Carlos. I had no intention of winding up in Argentina, but with two sets of police on my tail, I was hardly in a position to argue about a name.

“Herr Doktor Hausner.” Father Bandolini raised his hand in Eichmann’s direction. “This is Herr Ricardo Klement.” He turned toward the second man. “And this is Pedro Geller.”

Eichmann made no sign that he recognized me. He bowed his head curtly and then shook my outstretched hand. He looked older than he ought to have done. I estimated he was around forty-two, but with most of his hair gone, the glasses, and behind them a tired, hunted look like an animal that hears the hounds on its tail, he looked much older. He wore a thick tweed suit, a striped shirt, and a small bow tie that made him seem very clerkish. But there was nothing clerkish about the handshake. I’d shaken hands with Eichmann before, when his hands had been soft, almost delicate. But now his hands were the hands of a laborer, as if, since the war, he had been obliged to earn a living in some physically arduous way. “Pleased to meet you, Herr Doktor,” he said.

The other man was much younger, better-looking, and better turned out than his infamous companion. He wore an expensive-looking watch and gold cuff links. His hair was fair, his eyes were blue and clear, and his teeth looked as if he’d borrowed them from an American film star. Next to Eichmann, he was as tall as a flagpole and bore himself like a rare species of crane. I shook his hand and found that, by contrast with Eichmann’s, it was well-manicured and as soft as a schoolboy’s. Looking at Pedro Geller more closely, I supposed he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, which made it hard to imagine what war crime he could have committed as an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old that now necessitated him changing his name and escaping to South America.

Geller was carrying a Spanish-German dictionary under his arm, and another lay open on the table in front of the chair where Eichmann—Ricardo Klement—had been sitting. The younger man smiled. “We were just testing each other’s Spanish vocabulary,” he explained. “Ricardo is much better at languages than I am.”