Death and Honor

[TWO]

Aeropuerto de El Palomar Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1030 22 July 1943

South American Airways Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano was standing beside SAA’s Lodestar, tail number Zero Zero One, when Frade taxied up to it in the Piper Cub. Five other pilots of South American Airways also stood there. They were all in uniform, a powder blue tunic with four gold stripes on the sleeves, and darker blue trousers.

Frade wondered how Delgano had come up with the uniforms so quickly. He recognized several of the faces but couldn’t come up with a single name.

Delgano marched up to the Piper Cub as Frade and Fischer got out.

Then he spread his arms wide.

“Cletus,” he said emotionally. “El Coronel would be so proud!”

Then he wrapped his arms around Frade, wetly kissed both of his cheeks, and hugged him tightly.

Fischer looked uncomfortable.

Then one by one the other pilots marched up to Frade and solemnly shook his hand.

“And we are so grateful to you, Señor Fischer,” Delgano said, turning to him, “for your skill and hard work.”

He embraced Fischer and kissed him with almost as much emotional enthusiasm as he had shown with Frade. Fischer smiled bravely. Then the pilots advanced on Fischer and shook his hand.

“I’m happy to have been able to be of service, Captain,” Fischer said.

“El Señor Fischer will be going with us on the Varig flight, Gonzalo,” Frade said. “It is time for him to go home.”

“I have been thinking about that, Cletus,” Delgano said. “Perhaps it will not be necessary to subject our friend El Señor Fischer to the rigors—perhaps even the danger—of flying with our competition.”

Frade immediately thought, Oh, shit!

Getting Fischer safely out of Argentina—with the two rolls of high-speed 35mm film that when processed would show Fischer, looking uncomfortable, standing beside a scowling Frau Frogger holding a copy of La Nación—had become Priority One on the list.

Frade had considered, and decided against, having the film developed and copies made. If El Coronel Martín of the Bureau of Internal Security suspected—which was entirely likely—that not only was Fischer more than the technical representative of the Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but further suspected—which also was entirely likely—that Cletus Frade had something to do with the missing Froggers, he might suggest that the customs officials pay special attention to Fischer’s luggage before he was allowed to board the Varig flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

If the film were developed, there would be the proof that not only was Fischer more than a radio technician but—there he was, standing beside Frau Frogger—a kidnapper of a German diplomat and his wife.

Fischer—surprising Frade—said he was willing to take the risk.

After Frade accepted that, he said, “Then what you’re going to do, Len, if it looks as if you’re going to be searched, is ruin the film by pulling it out of the cassettes.”

“Those pictures are important to Mr. Dulles. You know that, Clete.”

Frade had then ordered, “What you’re going to do, Lieutenant Fischer, if it looks as if you’re going to be searched, is pull the film out of the cassettes. Say, ‘Yes, sir.’ ”

Getting Fischer on the Varig flight to Rio had depended on getting the Collins transceiver at Morón’s not-yet-completed Aeropuerto Jorge G. Frade up and running, so they could contact South American Airways Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano in SAA’s Lodestar, call sign Zero Zero One, and thus prove that his technical duties had been completed and he could leave Argentina.

When they had left Jorge Frade just now, Clete had decided that that much had been accomplished, and all that remained to be done was to get Fischer on the Varig flight to Brazil with himself and Delgano.

And now Delgano doesn’t want to subject Fischer to the “rigors and danger” of flying on Varig?

What the hell?

Get him to install the radios, then arrest him?

“I think we should not say unkind things about our competition, Gonzalo,” Frade said. “No matter how tempting that may be.”

“What I was thinking, Don Cletus, is that we should fly to Canoas in Zero One, taking these gentlemen with us”—he nodded at the pilots—“which would give them more time at the controls. You could serve as the instructor pilot on the way back here in Zero Zero Two.”

Thank you very much, Chief Pilot.

It didn’t take you long to forget who taught you to fly a Lodestar, did it?

“Otherwise,” Frade said, “Zero One would just be sitting here until you and I got back and no one would get any cockpit time. Right?”

Delgano nodded.

“Can we do that?” Delgano said. “I mean will they let us land there? I had the feeling that the American general doesn’t like you very much.”

“We’ll just have to find out,” Clete said. “I think that’s a hell of a good idea.”

“I thought you would agree,” Delgano said, smiling, and pointed to a fuel truck that had just rolled up beside Zero Zero One, one he’d clearly arranged for before bouncing his idea off Frade.

“Gonzo, I’d like to make sure nothing happens to the Collins while we’re gone. We turned it off, but . . .”

“I think the control tower should be manned around the clock starting right now,” Delgano said. “We know the runways are not yet usable, but a Varig pilot just might hear our RDF signal and think that they are. I will have operators there within the hour.”

Thirty minutes later, they took off for Canoas. Frade rode in the back, the first time he had ever been in a Lodestar passenger seat.

Once Frade felt the aircraft break ground and heard the hydraulic whine as its landing gear retracted, he heaved a mental sigh of relief. He had succeeded in getting Len Fischer—and equally important, perhaps even more important, the two cassettes of 35mm film—out of Argentina. In about two hours and thirty minutes, the Lodestar—and the film—would touch down at the U.S. Army Air Forces field at Canoas.

That left only one problem—that of protecting the Froggers—on what hours before had become The List of Things That Might—Probably Would— Go Wrong.

That remained a serious problem—Boltitz had told him that von Deitzberg had ordered their assassination when and where found—but that too looked as if it might go away.

When he had gone to Enrico to discuss that question with him, the old sergeant major told him he had already dispatched a dozen workers of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo—all retirees of the Húsares de Pueyrredón Cavalry Regiment—to Casa Chica.

“They will know what to do, Don Cletus,” Enrico had said confidently.

Frade had asked for an explanation.

“If the same kind of people who tried to kill you and who killed El Coronel and my sister—may they be resting in peace with all the angels—come to Casa Chica, they will be left on the pampas for the birds to eat.”

“And if it is the army or the police?”

“Then the Nazis will be taken onto the pampas. I know how to deal with this, Don Cletus.”

“I don’t want the Froggers killed unless it’s absolutely necessary—”

“So you have said, Don Cletus.”

“And when I have Fischer out of Argentina, we will have to find some other place to keep them.”

“There are places, Don Cletus. I will think on it.”

Frade now thought: I could very well be pissing in the wind, but this just might work out okay.

He took a cigar from a leather case and bit off a piece of its closed end.

“You don’t happen to have another of those, do you?” Len Fischer asked from his seat across the aisle.

Frade offered him the case and said, “I didn’t know you smoked cigars.”

"This will be my first ever,” Fischer said. “But I feel like celebrating, and a cigar ...”