Death and Honor

[THREE]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo Near Pila Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1105 12 August 1943

“How’s your dead-reckoning navigation, Gonzo?” Frade had asked as they had begun the climb-out from Canoas, the sun still low on the horizon.

“I’m afraid to ask why we’re going to need it.”

“I don’t want to fly across Uruguay or Argentina to Jorge Frade. Nobody’s going to spot us if we fly fifty miles off the coast, then make a hard right to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo at Samborombón Bay.”

Delgano understood.

“And then go back out to sea, then up the River Plate to Jorge Frade, once we discharge our passenger?”

“You got it.”

“And you’re not going to call Jorge Frade with our ETA?”

Frade gestured at the instrument panel. “Our radios are out. Didn’t you notice that I couldn’t tell Canoas what our destination was when they asked?”

Delgano shook his head. He dug into his overnight bag and came out with an E6B flight computer, an unusual-looking slide rule.

“Where’d you get the Whiz Wheel?” Frade asked, surprised that Delgano had one.

“Courtesy of the Lockheed Aircraft Company. They gave everybody one.”

“Not me.”

“Well, they probably figured if Howard Hughes let you fly a Constellation, you probably already had one. Or they don’t like you. One or the other.”

“Compute time at three hundred twenty knots per hour to Punta del Este. I’ll come in close enough to see it. If you’re anywhere close, we can use that to plot where to turn for Samborombón Bay.”

Delgano had nodded his understanding.

Punta del Este, Uruguay, a point jutting into the Atlantic Ocean and marking the northern end of the 120-mile-wide mouth of the River Plate, became visible ninety seconds before Delgano’s calculations said it would.

And, about forty minutes later, so did Dolores, a village not far from the shore of Samborombón Bay. And, ten minutes after that, Frade made a pass over the runway at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

There was now only one more problem, which Frade had first seriously thought of when taking off from Canoas. In the passenger compartment, in addition to Mr. Wilhelm Fischer and his two genuine if somewhat battered South African leather suitcases, there was an assortment of spare aircraft parts that included an engine and a propeller. It all brought the Lodestar to just about maximum gross takeoff weight.

The runway at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo had not been constructed with an aircraft as large as a Lodestar in mind. Landing there had not been a problem so far, but never before had he attempted to land in such a heavily laden Lodestar.

Or tried to take off in one.

The worst scenario was that the wheels would sink into the runway during the landing roll, causing a crash. More probably, if they were going to sink through the macadam, they would do so when the aircraft had stopped, which wouldn’t cause a crash but would keep him from getting the Lodestar back in the air until most of the weight was removed.

Whatever the risk, Frade had decided it had to be taken. The priority was to get Frogger safely off the airplane. He would have to deal with whatever happened after that had been done.

The direction of the windsock told Frade that the wind was from the south, which meant that he would have to land passing over the big house and end the landing roll at the southern end of the runway.

The landing itself went well, and if the weight was tearing up the runway, he couldn’t tell it by feel. He braked carefully, and when the Lodestar had slowed until it was just moving, he immediately began to turn the airplane around. If it was going to sink into the ground, better that it do so near the hangar and the house. He had no trouble turning, and as he taxied toward the hangar, he could see no evidence of damage to the runway.

Frade first saw that his red Lodestar was parked in the hangar—but only as far in as its wider-than-the-hangar-doorway wings would permit. Then he saw Señora Dorotea Mallín de Frade standing in front of the hangar and waving.

As he drew closer, he could see the expression on her face. It was not that of the loving bride and mother-to-be joyously greeting her husband’s return home.

Frade grew concerned.

Something’s gone wrong.

From the look on her face, something terrible.

Then Clete saw Oscar Schultz, in his gaucho costume and a Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder. Standing just inside the hangar were Technical Sergeant William Ferris and Captain Madison R. Sawyer III. Ferris had a self-loading shotgun cradled in his arms, and Sawyer another Thompson, plus a Model 1911-A1 in a holster.

What the hell is going on?

“Shut it down, Gonzo,” Frade ordered. And then he changed his mind. “Leave Number Two running. We may have to get out of here.”

He unfastened his harness and made his way quickly through the passenger compartment. Frogger was about to unfasten his seat belt.

“Stay there,” Frade ordered as he wrestled with the door.

Dorotea ran to him and embraced him. He was conscious of the swell of her belly against him.

“What’s with all the guns?” Clete asked, his mouth against her hair.

She exhaled audibly and pushed away from him.

“We couldn’t be sure it was you in the plane,” she said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Sweetheart, what’s happened?”

“Oscar and I went out to Casa Chica yesterday afternoon to take supplies. Oh, God, darling! There was nobody there, and bullet holes all over. And a lot of blood on the verandah and the stairs from the landing strip.”

“The Froggers?”

She shook her head.

“Nobody was there. Not Enrico, not Rodolfo—he was out there, too—none of our gauchos, nobody.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Where the hell have you been? We didn’t even know where to call you.”

“I’ve been flying down here from Burbank. Delgano and me. And Oberstleutnant Frogger.”

Her face showed her confusion and surprise at that announcement. She said: “And Peter sent word—not much—telling me to be very careful.”

Clete looked over her shoulder at Schultz as he approached.

“Chief?”

“It looks like somebody figured out where you stashed the Froggers, Major, and went and took them out.” He held his hands out in front of him in a gesture of apology. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

“Forget sorry,” Frade said.

Delgano came out of the Lodestar, followed by Frogger, and walked up to them.

“We have a problem,” Frade announced to them, then looked at Frogger. “Colonel, somebody—somebody, hell, who else could it be?—SS-Obersturmbannführer Cranz found out where we had your parents. Now we don’t know where they are.”

“Mein Gott!”

“It gets worse. According to Lieutenant Schultz”—he nodded at Schultz and Frogger’s face showed surprise at that—“and my wife, they shot up the place pretty well. There was blood all over.”

“The house is a fucking mess, Colonel,” Schultz confirmed. “Looks like it’s been in a war. We picked up some nine-millimeter Parabellum cases, which is interesting.”

“You’re saying my parents are dead?” Frogger asked evenly.

“We don’t know that,” Frade said.

Frogger’s face showed that he was not in the mood for wishful thinking.

“But I think we have to accept that Obersturmbannführer Cranz’s order that they be killed when and where found has been carried out. I’m very sorry, Colonel.”

Frogger nodded just perceptibly.

“And now?” he asked.

“Now we have to keep the same thing from happening to you,” Frade said, then turned to Delgano. “And we have to keep your ass out of a crack, Gonzo.”

“Where did you have the Froggers?” Delgano asked.

“On a small estancia, Casa Chica, not that far from here.”

“How could Cranz have heard about that?”

“I don’t know. But it has to be him and the Germans. The Argentines would have just taken them and returned them to the embassy.”

“Unless the Germans are somehow going to make it look as if you’re responsible, ” Delgano said. “That would solve a lot of problems for them.”

Frade looked at him as he considered that, then said, “The problem right now is to keep the colonel alive, and keep you out of trouble.”

He waved for Captain Sawyer to come over. Sergeant Ferris came with him.

“This is Colonel Frogger,” Frade said. Both saluted.

“Take him out on the estancia. Make him comfortable. He’s very important. I can’t tell you why, but we can’t have him captured by either the Argentines or the Germans. We might have to take off for Uruguay—or Brazil—in a hurry, so be prepared for that. If he goes, everybody goes. Get my airplane out of the hangar and make it ready to take off in a hurry.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Jorge Frade, where Gonzo and I will know nothing about any of this. I’ll see what I can find out. The truth is we’re going to have to play this by ear. The priority is to keep Colonel Frogger safe.”