Death and Honor

[TWO]

Office of the Managing Director Banco de Inglaterra y Argentina Bartolomé Mitre 300 Buenos Aires, Argentina 1650 30 July 1943

“Well, that was quick, Cletus,” Humberto Valdez Duarte said as he waved Frade into his office. “We didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

Frade came into the office trailed by Captain Gonzalo Delgano. Frade wore aviator sunglasses, a battered long-brimmed aviator’s cap, khaki trousers, an open-collared polo shirt, a fur-collared leather jacket bearing a leather patch with the golden wings of a Naval Aviator and the legend C.H. FRADE 1LT USMCR, and a battered pair of Western boots. Delgano was in his crisp SAA pilot’s uniform.

They crossed the office to Duarte’s desk and shook his hand.

“The message we got,” Frade said, “was that you wanted to see us as soon as possible. So here we are.”

“The message was addressed to you, Señor Frade,” a voice said behind them. “Captain Delgano will not be required.”

Frade was surprised. He hadn’t seen anyone but Duarte when he and Delgano came into the office. Then he realized that the voice had come from the adjacent conference room. He walked to its doorway and looked inside.

South American Airways corporate counsel Ernesto Dowling—a tall, ascetic-looking, superbly tailored fifty-odd-year-old—was sitting near the head of a long conference table. Next to him was Father Kurt Welner, S.J., and beside the superbly tailored cleric was Doña Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, who wore a simple black dress adorned with what looked like a two-meter-long string of flawless white pearls. El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, in uniform, was sitting at the far end of the conference table.

“Not to worry, children,” Frade called to them cheerfully. “The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.”

That earned him a very faint smile from Father Welner. No one else smiled, and Dowling looked at him with disapproval.

Either they have never heard that before, or they don’t know what it means.

Or they’re all constipated.

“If I’d known there was going to be a meeting of the board, I’d have worn a necktie,” Frade then added.

He went to Claudia and kissed her, meaning it; next kissed Perón, not meaning it; and shook Welner’s hand, telling him that the Lord’s distinguished representative was again surrounded by sinners and thus had his work cut out for him.

Then Frade offered his hand to Dowling.

Fortunately, I don’t know the sonofabitch well enough to have to kiss him.

And what an arrogant sonofabitch!

Delgano is SAA’s chief pilot, not some flunky who can be dismissed with: “Captain Delgano will not be required.”

“Captain Delgano!” Frade called. “The party’s in here. We’ve apparently missed the champagne, but no doubt the dancing girls are on the way!”

Claudia shook her head. Everyone else seemed uncomfortable or reproachful.

I think I have just failed inspection.

Well, I’m not running for office.

Delgano came into the office.

“Sit here beside Colonel Perón and me,” Frade ordered. “With a little luck, we won’t have to talk to the civilians.”

Perón smiled at that.

Duarte came into the room and took the seat at the head of the conference table.

“Can I get either of you coffee or anything?”

“No, thanks,” Frade said. “What I’m hoping is that whatever this is won’t take long, and Delgano and I can go to the Círculo Militar for a couple of well-deserved jolts of their best whiskey. We’ll take you along with us, Tío Juan, if you’ll pay.”

Perón laughed, which earned him disapproving looks from everybody but Father Welner.

“ ‘Well deserved,’ Cletus?” the Jesuit asked.

“Delgano and I spent the day flying.”

“When I spoke with Dorotea, she said you were in Uruguay,” the priest said.

Frade nodded. “Back and forth thereto. Three times. Each.”

“In this weather? I could hardly see to drive in the fog.”

“Lesser men could not. Captain Delgano and myself can and did. Taking with us a total of eight SAA pilots who woke up this morning holding the erroneous belief that one cannot fly across the River Plate unless there are no clouds and the sun is shining. We converted them, though, didn’t we, Gonzo?”

“Yes,” Delgano replied with a grin, “we did.”

“And of course you and your superiors benefited,” Frade said seriously.

“And how is that, Cletus?” the Jesuit asked suspiciously.

“To a man, once we were out of sight of land, they put their hands together”—Frade placed his palms together in an attitude of prayer—“and solemnly vowed to God that if He would let them land safely, they would sin no more forever.”

The priest and Perón laughed out loud. Claudia and Humberto smiled.

“You’ve been flying back and forth to Uruguay, over the Río de la Plata, all day?” Dowling said.

Frade heard both surprise and disapproval in Dowling’s voice.

Fuck you, he thought, but said, “Yes, we have. Flying’s the only way to travel, Ernesto. You really should try it sometime.”

“You were almost certainly uninsured,” Dowling said. “I shudder to think what would have happened had you crashed, or gone lost.”

That sonofabitch is not talking about people getting killed.

What he’s shuddering about is money.

“Excuse me?” Frade said.

“Forgive me, Ernesto,” Duarte said politely. “But what I read in that was that SAA cannot fly passengers.”

“Perhaps I misread it,” Dowling said, and took a pink manila folder from his briefcase and began to paw through it.

“If SAA cannot start flying paying passengers,” Frade said, “and soon, we may have just a little trouble meeting the payroll.”

There were no smiles, much less laughter. And nobody replied.

Frade glanced around the room. “May I ask what the hell is going on here?”

“There has been a very disturbing development, Cletus,” Perón said. “Which I lay at the feet of the English.”

“The English ?”

“If this wasn’t such a serious problem, Cletus, I’d be amused,” Duarte said. “This will probably be a crushing blow to your ego, but Seguro Comercial, S.A., has notified us that you are not legally qualified to be flying passengers—that no South American Airways pilot is.”

Frade smiled, then said jokingly, “Tío Juan, tell the nice man that I have a commercial pilot’s certificate signed by the president of the Republic of Argentina himself.”

Perón, who did not look amused, did not reply.

Dowling began to read from a sheet of paper he had taken from the pink manila folder.

That looks like a Mackay Radiogram.

“ ‘Until you are able to provide us the appropriate documentation certifying that the pilots of South American Airways, S.A., have satisfactorily completed examinations leading to the ATR Rating in Lockheed Type 18 aircraft . . .’ ”

Dowling stopped and looked at Frade.

“ ‘Lockheed Type 18 aircraft’ would be the Lodestar,” Dowling said, almost seeming to enjoy himself. “Correct?”

“Correct,” Frade said.

Oh, shit!

Dowling’s eyes fell to the paper, and he went on: “ ‘. . . such examinations having been taken at either the manufacturer’s plant or at a facility approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the undersigned must regretfully decline to insure any South American Airways flights of Lockheed Type 18 aircraft while such aircraft are carrying passengers.’ ” Dowling stopped again, then added, “It’s signed ‘Geoffrey Galworth-Moore for Lloyd’s of London.’ ”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, please, Ernesto,” Duarte said, “but what I heard just now is that we can’t get insurance to fly passengers.”

Dowling considered that for a long moment.

“Yes,” he said. “It does imply that they will be willing to insure us if we don’t carry passengers.”

“My God!” Claudia exploded. “Why should we have an airline that can’t fly passengers?”

“Well, I’ve heard air freight is the wave of the future,” Frade said flippantly. “We could move polo ponies around, I suppose. And certainly chickens.”

Dowling looked as if he couldn’t believe what he heard. Duarte shook his head. Perón frowned. Claudia glared at him.

“That’s the sort of really stupid remark your father would make when he thought he was being clever!” she said.

Now Perón smiled.

Dowling’s attitude and behavior had had Frade boiling under the skin, and now something in Claudia’s attitude made him really angry. It pushed him over the edge, although he didn’t realize this until he had finished replying.

With an edge to his tone, Frade blurted: “I find it just a little difficult to behave as the managing director of this airline should behave because I have no idea what’s going on. You’re right, Claudia. That was a flip remark, and thus stupid. It won’t happen again.” He looked at Humberto Duarte. “I presume the meeting has been called to order?”

Duarte raised an eyebrow. “Actually, no, Cletus. I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Well, it is, and get your secretary in here to take the minutes.”

“Is that supposed to be clever, Cletus?” Claudia challenged sarcastically.

“I really hope so, señora. But not clever in the sense that you have been using the term.” He turned back to Duarte. “You going to get her in here or not, Humberto?”

Duarte picked up a telephone and politely asked his secretary to come right in and bring her notebook with her.

As she came through the door, Frade stood.

“Please sit here, señora,” he said. “You’ll be able to hear better.”

She sat down.

“I’d like to sit there, Humberto,” Frade said, pointing at the chair at the head of the table—which happened to be where Duarte was seated. “All right?”

Duarte’s face showed he didn’t at all think that it was all right, but he gave up the chair.

“Why don’t you sit by Claudia?” Frade said, then sat down at the head of the table.

“Are you ready, señora?” Frade asked Duarte’s secretary.

She nodded, her pencil poised over her stenographer’s notebook.

There was a large glass water pitcher sitting upside down on the table. Clete pulled from his right boot a hunting knife with a five-inch blade and gave the thick glass pitcher a healthy whack.

The sound was startling.

Frade then formally announced: “This special meeting of the board of directors and of the stockholders of South American Airways, S.A., is hereby convened in the Banco de Inglaterra y Argentina building, Bartolomé Mitre 300, Buenos Aires, Argentina, at seventeen hundred hours and eight minutes on 30 July 1943 by Cletus Howell Frade, managing director.”

He looked around the room.

“Also present are board members Señora de Carzino-Cormano, Señor Humberto Duarte, and Coronel J. D. Perón. Also present are Father Welner, SAA Chief Pilot Captain Gonzalo Delgano, and Señor Ernesto Dowling. There being a quorum present, I move the waiving of the minutes of the last meeting.”

They were all looking at him in bewilderment that bordered on shock.

“Am I going to hear a second of the motion on the floor, or will it be necessary for me to put the question to the stockholders?”

Duarte raised his hand and softly said, “Second.”

Frade nodded once. “The vote is called. All those opposed signify their opposition by raising their hands.” He silently counted a three-second pause, then went on: “The chair, seeing no opposition, announces the motion carries. There being no old business requiring action at this time, the chair calls for new business. Señor Dowling, would you be so kind as to brief the board in detail on any insurance problems SAA is experiencing or may experience in the future?”

Dowling looked as if he was going to stand but then changed his mind.

“May I ask a question, Don Cletus?” Dowling said.

Frade didn’t say anything but gestured somewhat impatiently for Dowling to ask what he wanted to ask.

“What did you mean a moment ago when you asked if it was going to be necessary for you to put the question of your motion to the stockholders?”

“Frankly, Señor Dowling, the question surprises me a little. As an attorney, as SAA’s corporate attorney, I would have thought you would understand, even if some of the others present might be a little fuzzy on the precise details, how things are supposed to be run around here.”

Frade kept eye contact with him as he let that sink in a moment, then went on: “So, for your edification, as well as theirs, the way things work around here is pretty much the way they work in the United States. I took the time to read the Argentine law on the subject.”

He glanced around the table and saw that he now had everyone’s rapt attention.

“The board of directors of a company like ours, as well as the managing director, are elected by the stockholders. The directors make recommendations to the managing director, and, presuming he agrees with them, he carries out what the board wants done.

“If the managing director doesn’t like the recommendations of the board and doesn’t think they should be carried out, he can appeal to the stockholders at the present or a future meeting of the stockholders. The stockholders can then by a simple majority of votes cast—one vote for each share of stock the stockholder owns—sustain either the managing director or the board of directors.

“I think everyone heard me convene both this meeting of the board and this meeting of the stockholders.

“Now, when I didn’t immediately hear a second to my motion—the chair’s motion—to waive the reading of the minutes of the previous meeting, I had two choices: either sit here and waste time while the secretary found the minutes and then read them, or take my motion to the stockholders.

“It didn’t get to that. There was a second to my motion, and the board in its wisdom voted to waive reading of the minutes. If there had been no second, or after there was a second the board had voted down the motion, then the managing director would have appealed to the stockholders.

“And I’m sure the stockholders would have voted to support the managing director for the simple reason that stockholder Cletus Howell Frade holds sixty percent of the stock of this corporation.”

Frade paused as he stared at Ernesto Dowling.

“Does that answer your question, Señor Dowling? And if there are no questions regarding my explanation of how things work around here, I’ll presume that now everyone understands where I fit in.”

There was a long silence before Perón broke it.

“You seem to be suggesting, Cletus,” he said just a little uneasily, “that you can do just about anything you want to do with the company, whether or not the rest of us agree.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, meeting El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón’s eyes. “That’s pretty much the way it is.”

Frade recalled a leather-skinned and leather-lunged Old Breed gunnery sergeant from shortly after he’d joined the Corps. The gunny had told Frade and the thirty other young men about to become Marine officers: “When you gotta tell somebody something they won’t like, look ’em in the goddamn eye! They damn sure won’t like you or what you’re going to make them do any better, but they’ll know you’re not afraid to fuck with ’em!”

Frade had found it sage advice in his service as a Marine Corps officer and in the OSS, and had put it into practice now.

Perón shifted his gaze to Humberto Duarte, who looked both surprised and uneasy.

“Is Cletus correct, Humberto?”

“I’m afraid he is, Juan Domingo,” Duarte said.

Frade slowly looked around the table. Father Welner appeared both curious and amused. Claudia Carzino-Cormano could have been angry or sad, or both. When he looked at Captain Delgano, Delgano was shaking his head in either surprise—even shock—or amusement. Ernesto Dowling looked quietly furious. And when he returned his gaze to Perón, he saw that Perón was looking at him very thoughtfully.

“As a practical matter, of course,” Frade went on, “I am delighted to defer to the greater expertise of every member of the board. But I thought it important that all of you understand where I stand.”

There was no response.

“Cletus, I’m impressed,” Father Welner said. “Where did you get that mastery of procedure?”

Frade saw that Perón was waiting with interest for his answer.

“From my grandfather. I watched him conduct meetings of Howell Petroleum. He’s the majority stockholder.” He paused. Then, without thinking first, added: “He once told his board that they should keep in mind they were window dressing, nothing more.”

Humberto Duarte and Ernesto Dowling looked almost as shocked as Claudia Carzino-Cormano.

Father Welner smiled. “He actually said that to his board, Cletus?”

“I believe it, Father,” Perón said. “I know Señor Howell. He is a . . . formidable . . . man.”

“So Jorge led me to believe,” the priest said dryly.

Frade looked at him and thought, You’re a slippery sonofabitch, Welner.

From that answer neither Dowling nor Delgano would suspect that my father and my grandfather loathed and detested each other.

And that you damn well know it.

“But I was just thinking,” Perón went on, “that there’s blood in here, too.”

Now what the hell are you talking about?

“Excuse me?” Claudia said.

“Not only of his grandfather,” Perón explained, “but of his father. Look at him standing there, Claudia, his eyes blazing, his chin thrust forward, his hands on his hips, just daring someone—anyone—to challenge his authority. That doesn’t remind you of Jorge?”

She looked and, after a moment, she nodded.

“Yes, it does,” she said. “I often told Jorge he was the most arrogant man I’d ever known.”

“It is arrogance, my dear Claudia, born of confidence,” Perón said. “And I, for one, applaud it.”

Claudia glared at him, whereupon Perón put action to his words: He began to applaud. Duarte and Dowling looked at him incredulously.

Then Father Welner, smiling, clapped his hands, and, a moment later, Delgano followed. Then without much enthusiasm Duarte and Dowling joined in, and finally Claudia, with no enthusiasm at all.

I will be goddamned! Frade thought, then cut short the applause by gesturing toward Dowling and announcing, “To the business at hand. If you please, señor?”

“Well, you heard me read the radiogram we got—actually Seguro Comercial got—last night from Lloyd’s of London—”

“It should be read into the minutes,” Frade interrupted, “but before you do that, tell me this: Did Seguro Comercial send a letter when they sent you that cable? If so, that should be read into the record, too.”

“What actually happened, Señor Frade, is that the radiogram was delivered to me when it arrived at Seguro Comercial last night.”

“That sounds a little odd,” Frade said. “Why would they do that?”

“I also represent Seguro Comercial, Señor Frade. I thought you knew that.”

“No, I didn’t,” Frade snapped. “How can you represent the both of us? It seems to me you have to be either our lawyer or theirs.”

“Is there some reason I cannot be both?”

“Yeah, there is. Whose side are you going to be on if we take them to court?”

“ ‘Take them to court’?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Frade said, “but we went to them for insurance. And they sold us insurance. We wrote them a very large check. Deal done. Right?”

“That was before they heard from Lloyd’s of London, of course,” Dowling said. “That obviously changes things.”

“Not for me. Not for SAA. Seguro Comercial sold us insurance; therefore, we’re insured. If Seguro Comercial can’t reinsure, that’s their problem, not ours. If they try to get out of our deal, so far as I’m concerned, it’s breach of contract, and we’ll take them to court.”

“Let me try to explain this to you, Señor Frade,” Dowling said, tight-lipped. “We purchased ninety days’ coverage, with the understanding that the price would be renegotiated before the ninety days were up and the contract extended—”

“I wondered about that,” Frade interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“I saw the contract. It was for fourteen aircraft. We have four, and when the ninety-day period is up, we may have eight or ten. But not fourteen. So why are we paying to insure either four or six airplanes we don’t have? I sent Señor Duarte a note asking that question.”

Dowling did not reply.

Frade turned to Duarte. “Humberto, did you raise the question with Señor Dowling?”

Duarte nodded, and looked at Dowling. “I sent you a memorandum asking about that, Ernesto.”

Frade said, “So what did Seguro Comercial say when you asked them, Señor Dowling?”

“I was planning to bring up the matter at renegotiation time,” Dowling said, more than a little lamely.

“Señor Dowling,” Frade went on, “did you not recognize that there was a flaw in the contract you negotiated between your two employers?”

“I take offense at that, Señor Frade.”

“About ninety seconds ago, Señor Dowling, I was going to offer you the choice between working for SAA or Seguro Comercial. But not now.”

“Cletus!” Claudia said warningly.

“What exactly does that mean?” Dowling asked.

“It means that thirty seconds ago, I decided that I don’t want you working for SAA. Your employment is terminated as of now.”

“You can’t do that, Cletus!” Claudia said furiously.

“Yes, I can. And I just did.” Frade looked at Dowling. “Good evening, señor.”

Dowling stuffed the Mackay Radiogram back in his briefcase and looked at Duarte.

“Cletus . . .” Duarte said.

“Good evening, Señor Dowling,” Frade repeated.

Dowling, white-lipped and with his dignity visibly injured, walked out of the conference room.

When there was the sound of the outer door closing, Duarte said, “Cletus, that was a serious mistake. Ernesto and I have been friends for years. We were at school togeth—”

“The matter is closed,” Frade interrupted icily.

“You’re out of control, Cletus!” Claudia said. “You simply can’t do things like that.”

“Will you take my word, Claudia, that I can, or are we going to have to go to the stockholders?”

“You went too far, much too far,” Duarte said. “Things just aren’t done that way in Argentina.”

“And that’s what’s wrong with Argentina,” El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón said.

Frade looked at him.

What the hell is this?

“Excuse me?” Claudia asked.

“I said that’s wrong with Argentina,” Perón said. “We do business with people we knew at school, and wink-wink when the rules are bent or broken. What we need here is what Cletus just demonstrated: an ability to see things as they are, even when that’s uncomfortable, and then to make the necessary corrections without regard to personal feelings.”

“I don’t know what to say, frankly, Juan Domingo,” Duarte said.

“Then say nothing, Humberto,” Perón said, coldly angry. “Or perhaps, ‘Thank you, Cletus.’ ”

“Thank him for insulting a man who not only is a close personal friend but one of the most respected members of the bar?”

Perón looked at Duarte a long moment with an expression that Frade thought could have bordered on contempt, then said: “If he’s one of the most respected members of the bar, I shudder for the legal system of Argentina. Good God, Humberto. Didn’t you hear what was said? Ostensibly as our attorney he said nothing when Seguro Comercial, whose attorney he also is, took our money to insure aircraft that we don’t even have. Did you hear that or not?”

“I heard it, Juan Domingo, and obviously that was wrong. But there are other ways to deal with it than the way—”

“And didn’t you just hear me say that the way to deal with such problems is to see them clearly—admit to them—then deal with them as brutally as necessary, paying no attention to our personal feelings?”

Duarte nodded slowly. “I heard you, Juan.”

Jesus Christ, Frade thought, where did all that come from?

And that wasn’t Tío Juan taking care of me.

He was as mad at Dowling as I was.

Frade’s eyes turned to Father Welner, who was looking at him with a strange expression.

Perón said, “May I suggest, señor managing director, that we now turn our attention to the insurance problem?”

“Ernesto took the Lloyd’s of London radiogram with him,” Claudia said.

“Well, why not?” Frade said. “It wasn’t addressed to us anyway. But we know what it said.”

Perón said, “The goddamn English are behind that, Cletus. I’m sure of it.”

Frade looked as if in thought, then said, “Before we turn to the problem, there’s one thing I would like to do.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask what that is,” Claudia said.

Frade formally announced: “The chair moves the election of Captain Delgano to the board of directors.”

“Splendid idea,” Perón said.

“I’ll take that as a second,” Frade said. “Are there any other comments?”

No one said anything.

“Are there any objections?”

The handle of the knife caused the water pitcher to resonate shrilly.

“Hearing none, the motion carries,” Frade said. “Welcome to the board, Gonzalo.”

“I don’t remember being asked if I wanted to be, as your grandfather would put it, window dressing,” Delgano said.

“You didn’t have to,” Frade said. “I read minds.”

Frade looked at Duarte. “Okay, Humberto, tell us what you think is really going on, presuming you agree with me that it has nothing to do with the qualifications of our pilots?”

“If I may, Cletus,” Perón said. “As I said, the British are behind this.”

“Explain that to me, please.”

“Before the war, the British controlled the Argentine railroads. They were already talking back then about either taking over Aeropostal or starting their own airline. That had to be delayed by the war, but there is no question that that is still their intention. From their viewpoint—I am not among those who think the British will win this war—they see two obstacles to doing that. Varig and Pan American Grace—”

“Not Aeropostal?” Duarte interrupted.

“A moment ago,” Perón said, “I said something about seeing things the way they are, not as we wish they were. As an Argentine, I am ashamed of Aeropostal. We can do better, Humberto. And you know it.”

Duarte shrugged. “No argument.”

“As I was saying, Cletus,” Perón went on, “the English simply do not understand that England no longer rules the waves. In their ignorance, their arrogance, they believe that as soon as the war is over—which they believe they will win—they can come back here and take control of our commercial aviation just as they did with our railroads.

“There’s not much they can do about Varig and Pan American, and they’re not worried about Aeropostal. But South American Airways? Better to nip that little flower in the bud—when it is easy to do so. Just step on it. How? By telling Lloyd’s of London to find some excuse not to insure us.”

Frade looked at Welner, who was nodding his agreement.

“You agree with that, Humberto?” Frade then asked.

“That’s probably part of it, but—”

“ ‘Probably part of it’?” Perón parroted indignantly.

“Let him finish,” Frade said curtly.

This earned him a look of both surprise and indignation from Perón, but after a moment Perón gestured regally for Duarte to continue.

“Cletus,” Duarte said carefully, “I was a little surprised to learn that you have been flying back and forth to Montevideo. That is, that the Uruguayan authorities permitted you to do so.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“I heard some talk at the Jockey Club that Varig is more than a little upset that South American Airways has started up and, worse, started up with aircraft they had been led to believe they were going to get.”

Frade raised an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t supposed to talk business at the Jockey Club.”

“That doesn’t apply to the steam bath,” Humberto replied absently, then went on: “And I would really be surprised if Varig hasn’t casually mentioned in passing to the Uruguayan authorities that Lloyd’s of London has canceled SAA’s insurance because our pilots are not qualified.”

“That would seem to buttress my argument,” Perón said. “Not refute it.”

“I wasn’t disagreeing with you, Juan Domingo, merely suggesting that there’s more here than Winston Churchill having a word with some school chum at Lloyd’s Coffee House. For example, I wouldn’t think Señor Juan Trippe of Pan American Airways was thrilled to learn he will have competition from another Argentine airline. And I don’t think he would be above trying to do something to inconvenience us.”

Duarte and Perón quietly looked at each other a long moment.

Frade thought: This problem can be solved overnight by messaging Graham that FDR’s airline is about to be shot down by an English insurance company or by Juan Trippe—or by both.

But if the problem suddenly went away, how could that be explained?

That would cause the OSS’s head to pop out of the gopher hole.

Okay. So we get insurance from the same place Eastern Airlines and Transcontinental and Western Airways get theirs.

And where is that? I don’t have the foggiest fucking idea.

Has to be America—so the solution is we get American insurance.

And how to do that?

There’s nothing wrong with our airplanes. They’re brand-new Lockheeds.

We’re back to the pilots. Nobody is going to write insurance on us if they think our pilots are a bunch of wild Latinos who learned to fly last week.

And that brings us right back to getting ATRs for our pilots.

“Gonzo,” Frade said, “how much time do our pilots have?”

Perón and Duarte looked at him in curiosity.

“That would depend on the pilot, Don Cletus,” Delgano said.

“How many have a thousand hours of multiengine time?”

“Maybe a dozen, possibly a few more than that.”

“And how many of that dozen speak English?”

“Most of them have enough English to fly.”

“ ‘Enough English to fly’?” Perón parroted.

“Mi coronel, English is the language of air traffic control in Uruguay and, in large matter, Brazil and Chile, as well. We’ve all flown there.”

“Why is the language of air traffic control English?” Perón challenged, as if this offended him personally.

“I don’t really know, mi coronel,” Delgano replied as if this outrage was his fault.

“The solution to this little problem of ours,” Frade said, “is to get American insurance, and the way to do that is to get our pilots an American ATR rating.”

Now everyone, including Claudia, was looking at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Anyone got a better idea?” Frade asked.

“How are you going to get our pilots this rating?” Delgano asked. “Where?”

“At the Lockheed plant in Burbank.”

“Where?” Perón said.

“California. Burbank is in California.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Duarte asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“May I play the devil’s advocate?”

“Go ahead.”

“To do that, you of course would have to get our pilots to Burbank, California. ”

Frade nodded and motioned impatiently with his hand Get to the point.

“To get them to California,” Duarte went on, “they would need two things. First, a visa. And if the English—and, for that matter, Mr. Trippe—have the influence to get Lloyd’s of London not to insure us, isn’t it possible they have the influence to suggest to the U.S. government that giving visas to a dozen Argentine pilots is a bad idea—”

“I take your point, Humberto,” Frade interrupted, and thought, I didn’t think about that; you’re probably right.

“—inasmuch as the time and effort to train them could be better spent, for example, training their Brazilian allies,” Duarte went on to sink his point home.

And Graham could fix that, too, except that would see the OSS’s ugly head again popping out of the gopher hole.

Frade said, “What’s the other thing you think we would need to get our pilots to Burbank?”

“A means of getting them there,” Duarte said. “Do you think Mr. Trippe might suggest to the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro—which issues the priorities necessary to get on any Pan American flight to the States—that there are more Americans or Brazilians deserving of a priority than some Argentines?”

Frade didn’t immediately reply because he couldn’t think of anything to say.

And again Duarte drove home his point: “And there is no other way but Trippe’s Pan American Airways to travel by air to the U.S., which means we’re talking of at least three weeks’ travel time by ship, and that’s presuming you could get the necessary visas . . .”

“Is that all that the devil’s advocate can think of?” Frade said.

“Isn’t that enough? I don’t like it, Cletus, but I’m following Juan Domingo’s idea that we should see things the way they are, rather than as we wish they were.”

Frade nodded. “True, but”—Where did this come from?—“there are two flaws in the devil’s argument.”

“Never underestimate the devil, Cletus,” Father Welner said.

Jesus, is he serious?

“Are there really?” Duarte said.

“First of all,” Frade went on, “Pan American is not the only way to fly to the States. The Lodestars were all flown down here; there’s no reason one couldn’t be flown back.”

“Could you do that?” Perón asked.

“It is possible, mi coronel,” Delgano said.

Frade added, “And it would also solve the visa problem. Aircrews don’t need visas.”

“They don’t?” Perón asked dubiously.

Delgano shrugged. “We don’t need them to fly to Chile, Brazil . . . anywhere. I can only presume the same is true of the United States.”

“It is,” Frade said with certainty.

I have no idea if that’s true or not.

The first question that comes to mind is whether I can call twelve guys sitting in the back “aircrew” just because they’re pilots.

But I have to run with this until I can get a message to Graham.

“When can you leave, Cletus?” Perón asked.

“At first light the day after tomorrow. It will take us that long to prepare. Right, Gonzo?”

Delgano nodded.

“Well, there you have it, Humberto,” Perón said.

“Excuse me, Juan Domingo?”

“An hour ago, I saw no solution to this problem,” Perón said. “And now, thanks to Cletus, we have one.”

Frade studied Perón.

Does he believe that?

Then Frade announced: “There being no other new business, is there a motion to adjourn?”

“So moved,” Claudia Carzino-Cormano said.

“Second?”

“Second,” Duarte said.

“Are there any objections? Hearing none, the motion carries, and this meeting is adjourned.”

He rapped the water pitcher with his knife again.