Unknown 9 by Layton Green (e reader txt) 📗

cobblestone streets of San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Located near the river, wedged between downtown and the crayon-box houses of La Boca, San Telmo had long been his favorite part of the city. Originally built to house dockworkers and brickmasons, it had experienced wild swings in fortune before settling into a bohemian district whose colonial mansions, erected in the latter half of the nineteenth century and abandoned after a cholera epidemic, now accommodated a scruffy, eclectic array of tango parlors, coffeehouses, artist studios, bars, antique shops, and restaurants.

With its wide boulevards, grandiose buildings, and well-planned green spaces, Buenos Aires often drew comparisons to Paris and Madrid. But the narrow lanes and markets of San Telmo were the city’s heart and soul, a place that came alive when the sun went down, and where students, intellectuals, and disheveled artists nursed their hangovers the morning after, clustered around a gourd, sipping maté through bombillas in one of the neighborhood’s parks and countless cafés.

Dr. Corwin had been to Buenos Aires a few times before. It looked the same except for the nervous faces of the populace. The year before, a military junta had staged a coup to depose Isabel Perón from power, and anyone who spoke out against the brutal new regime had a habit of disappearing.

A bell tinkled as he entered the Libreria Nueve Musas, the charming little bookstore whose owner claimed to have seen Ettore Majorana pass through on a number of occasions. Argentina, Dr. Corwin thought, was an excellent place to disappear, modernized but far removed from other urban centers, settled largely by Italians, and thus full of people who looked similar to Ettore. Even the Spanish accent in Argentina possessed a singsong Italian cadence.

Before Dr. Corwin left New York, not wanting to chase a false lead, he had talked to the owner, Diego Quiroga, on the phone. Diego had described a man much older than the one in the photo, but with the same oblong face, dark features, bewildered eyes, and shy, withdrawn demeanor that bordered on the hermetic. A man who had shuffled around the bookstore with his head down, avoided eye contact, and approached the counter when it was time to pay like a doomed sailor walking the plank.

His actions were of a man who does not want to be remembered, the owner had said, so of course I recalled everything about him.

After claiming to have memorized the preferences of every regular customer during his two-decade tenure, Diego further recalled that Ettore had paid cash for the latest physics and mathematics journals, and often took home a book of poetry. He gravitated toward the English Romantics and the postmoderns, especially T. S. Eliot. On rare occasion, he would purchase a work of philosophy or a metaphysical offering, though more often than not he would leave these at the counter unpurchased. He did not seem like a man of means.

One cannot buy all the books one desires in life, the bookseller had said, and not just because of time or money. Just as a person’s health depends on the food one puts into the body, the knowledge one consumes defines the person.

Wise words, Dr. Corwin had murmured in response.

Unfortunately, the last time Diego had seen the man was two years ago. Dr. Corwin did not know what this meant.

Had Ettore died? Moved on? Switched bookstores?

Still, it was exciting news. If Diego was not mistaken, then the long-lost physicist had visited Libreria Nueve Musas over a lengthy period. As Dr. Corwin had come to suspect, the message carved into the cannon had been a ruse. Ettore must have known his journey to Cartagena was risky, and had taken precautions in case anyone came looking for him, pointing them across the Atlantic. But he had stayed in South America after all.

The dumpling of a man behind the bookstore counter had neatly trimmed fingernails, a crown of cropped white hair around his bald spot, and a three-piece suit with no trace of a wrinkle. Diego’s store reflected his fastidious appearance. The front counter was as tidy as a colonel’s desk. Though stacks of books were everywhere, piled between the shelves and on the carpet and even on the stairs leading to the second floor, they were compiled in orderly stacks, and every single one had a label and a helpful note from the proprietor.

Unfortunately, the face-to-face interview provided no new information. The bookseller had no idea where Ettore might have lived or where he might have gone. When told his mysterious patron might be a famous physicist, Diego grew intrigued, and added to his narrative by telling Dr. Corwin that the customer he remembered, while respectful, was also awkward—as if he wanted to have a friendly conversation but didn’t really know how.

That sounds like the Ettore I’ve been reading about.

After thanking Diego profusely for his time, Dr. Corwin purchased a local map and decided to canvass the neighborhood. Ettore would now be an elderly man, and, as far as Dr. Corwin knew, had never owned a car. He had probably lived nearby and walked to the bookstore.

Ana had urged him not to go to Buenos Aires. Both the Society and the Ascendants knew the CIA had played a role in the recent coup. Toppling governments in the Americas with a socialist bent was part of an aggressive Cold War strategy called Operation Condor, and for years, the United States had supplied weapons and military training to brutal dictatorships all over Central and South America, bolstering regimes who toed the capitalist line.

As a US green card holder, Dr. Corwin should have been safe in Buenos Aires—except Hans was now a high-ranking CIA official stationed in the region, with direct access to the military junta in power.

He’ll kill you if he finds you there, Ana had said.

Then I’ll have to take precautions, Dr. Corwin had replied.

One of those safeguards, procured in response to the rising danger quotient of his assignments, was a new walking cane with a rapier hidden inside,