"Yes," Peter said. "I can understand that."
"So, Peter," Gradny-Sawz said, "we've decided that you will meet the distinguished personage at the airfield. Using Oberst Gr?ners car and driver."
"Yes, Sir."
"In uniform, Peter," Gr?ner said.
"Yes, Sir."
"A complete uniform, meine lieber Hans," Gradny-Sawz added. "Modesty is a fine thing, but distinguished personages should be reminded that some of us who are waging war on the diplomatic front have also seen combat service."
That was a reference to von Wachtstein's Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. which he had received from the hands of the Fuhrer himself, and Gradny-Sawz's own Iron Cross First Class from service in the First World War.
Luftwaffe pilots and Wehrmacht infantry and panzer officers joked that the award of the Iron Cross First Class to well-born junior officers attached to the General Staff Corps was usually automatic if they had gone three months without contracting a social disease or making off with the mess funds.
"Yes, Sir."
"Oberst Gr?ner will arrange suitable accommodations for Herr Distinguished Personage at the Alvear Plaza, to which you will carry him from the airport. I will suggest to the Ambassador that he entertain Herr Distinguished Personage at dinner, at which time it will be decided whether or not Herr Distinguished Personage will accompany us to the Edificio Libertador for the official visit. You, my lieber Hans, are invited to the latter. Wearing your Knight's Cross. You are not invited to dine with the Ambassador."
"Yes, Sir."
"And I will stay here and try to coordinate everyone's schedule with the natives."
"Will you want me to send someone with you to handle the diplomatic pouches?" Gr?ner asked. "Or can you handle both?"
"I can handle both, Sir."
"You'd better be going then," Gr?ner said. "I told Loche to bring my car around and wait for you."
"Jawohl, Herr Oberst."
[TWO]
Aboard Pan American-Grace Airlines Flight 171
The Ciudad de Natal
Above Montevideo, Uruguay
1505 9 April 1943
There was a break in the cloud cover. Through it, 11,000 feet below, they could see Montevideo. But when they moved out over the river Plate toward Buenos Aires, the cloud cover closed in again, and there was nothing beneath them but what looked like an enormous mass of pure white cotton batting.
Buenos Aires was 105 miles away. At 165 miles indicated, call it forty minutes. Ten minutes out over the 125-mile-wide mouth of the River Plate, the First Officer looked at the Captain, and the Captain nodded.
They were flying a Mart?n 156, a forty-two-passenger flying boat powered by four 1,000-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines. The First Officer took the plane off Autopilot, made the course correction, then retarded the throttles just a tad, worked the trim control, and then put it back on autopilot.
They would make a long, slow descent for the next twenty-five minutes, and with a little luck, break out of the cloud cover at, say, 4,000 feet, with Buenos Aires in sight.
Two minutes later, the Ciudad de Natal slipped into the clouds, and there was nothing to be seen through the windshield but an impenetrable gray mass.
Ten minutes after that, with the altimeter indicating 8,500 feet, they broke out of the cloud cover. Now they could see the River Plate beneath them, and here and there a dozen assorted vessels, small and large, some under sail, and some moving ahead of the lines of their wakes. Neither the Captain nor the First Officer could see whitecaps; their landing therefore would probably be smooth.
"Tell the steward to pass the word we'll land in twenty minutes," the Captain ordered. Then he added, "I'll be damned, look at that."
The First Officer looked where the Captain was pointing, out the window beside his head.
"I'll be damned," the First Officer unconsciously parroted when he found what had attracted the Captain's attention.
A thousand yards away, on a parallel course at their altitude, was a very long, very slender, very graceful aircraft. It looked something like the Douglas DC-3, particularly in the nose. But it had four engines rather than two. It was painted black on the top of the fuselage, and off-white on the bottom. On the vertical stabilizer and on the rear of the fuselage were red swastikas, outlined in white.
"Is that a Condor?" the First Officer asked. (The Focke-Wulf 200B Condor, first flown in 1937. was a twenty-six-seat passenger airplane, powered by four 870-horsepower BMW engines, built for Lufthansa, the German airline. The 200C was a military modification, turning the aircraft into an armed, long-range reconnaissance/bomber aircraft.)
"I can't think of anything else it could be," the Captain said.
"He's come a hell of a long way in something that won't float," the First Officer said, a touch of admiration in his voice. "Nice-looking ship, isn't it?"
The Captain grunted, then said, "Tell the steward to ask that ex-Marine to come up here."
The First Officer nodded and got out of his seat.
They met the ex-Marine, a good-looking kid, in Weather Briefing in the Pan American terminal in Miami. The Weather Briefing facilities were off limits to the general public, but there he wasdressed in a tweed jacket, tieless button-down-collar shirt, gray flannel slacks, and cowboy bootsstanding in front of the wall-size maps holding the latest Teletype weather reports in his hands.
There was a brief conversation:
"I don't think you're supposed to be in here. Sir," the pilot said.
"Probably not," the young man said. "But I used to be an aviator, and I like to check the weather between where I am and where I'm headed."
"Used to be?"
"I used to be a Marine," the young man said.
"Where are you headed?"
"Buenos Aires," the young man replied, and then, when he saw the look of surprise in the Captain's eyes, added, "Probably with you. Panagra 171?"
"Right," the Captain replied. "What's it look like?"
"Not a cloud in the sky," the young man said. "Which probably means we'll run into a hurricane thirty minutes out of here."
"Let's hope not," the Captain said, and added, "See you aboard," which ended the conversation.
The Captain, as was his custom, checked the passenger manifest with the steward before takeoff. It was often useful to know who was aboard, whether some Latin American big shot, or some exalted member of the Pan American hierarchy. The Captain had once carried Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh in the back, the man who had not only been the first to cross the Atlantic alone, but had laid out manymaybe mostof PAA's routes to South America. If he had not checked the passenger manifest that day, he would never have known "Lucky Lindy" was aboard, and would have kicked himself the rest of his life for blowing the chance to actually shake the hero's hand and offer him the courtesy of the cockpit.
The steward reported that there was nobody special aboard 171 that day, just the usual gaggle of diplomats and Latins of one nationality or another. No Americans this trip. The captain wondered what had happened to the ex-Marine who said he was going to Buenos Aires.
When he took his ritual walk through the cabin, he saw him.
"I thought you were an ex-Marine," the Captain said, stopping by the Marine's seat. "The steward said we're not carrying any Americans."