Martín saluted Perón, shook hands with Delgano, and offered his hand to Frade.
“Congratulations on your certification, Don Cletus,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“May I ask a layman’s question?”
“Certainly.”
“Why are you taking gasoline with you?”
“To make sure that I have enough gasoline to get back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
Martín’s face was questioning.
“But if you flew here from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo . . .”
You clever sonofabitch, you!
“Why do I need more gas to fly back than I did to get here?”
Martín nodded.
“It’s known as ‘winds aloft,’ ” Frade said. “If the wind is blowing on your tail, ‘a tailwind,’ you add the speed of the wind to the speed of the airplane to get your speed over the ground. However, if it is blowing against your nose, a ‘headwind,’ then you subtract the speed of the wind from the speed of the aircraft over the ground. I had a tailwind coming here, which meant that I had more than enough fuel. But I expect a headwind on the way back.”
“And what if you had had a headwind on your way here?”
“Then I would have had to turn back, come by car, and miss getting my license.”
“So, if you have to refuel on your way home, you will land on the pampas?”
“If I have to refuel, I will land on a road on the pampas, if I can find one. If not, then I would have to take a chance landing on the grassland.”
“Fascinating!”
“You must come fly with me sometime, Colonel.”
“I would like that, Don Cletus,” Martín said. “Actually, I came here for a quiet word with Colonel Perón. Normally, I would ask for a moment of the colonel’s time in private, but after that sterling tribute to your Argentine patriotism by General Rawson, I can see no reason I shouldn’t share this with you as well.”
“Share what, Martín?” Perón asked, more than a little impatiently.
“It would seem, sir, that the commercial attaché of the German embassy has disappeared.”
“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” Perón asked.
“They can’t find him or his wife,” Martín said, looking directly at Frade.
“What do you think happened to them?” Frade asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea right now, Don Cletus, but I think we’ll find out something soon.”
“If I happen to run into them,” Frade said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“This is not a joke, Cletus,” Perón said sternly. “This is serious business. I need to find a telephone to call Generalmajor von Deitzberg and assure him the Argentine government will do everything in its power to get to the bottom of this.”
[SIX]
Near Olavarría Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1540 14 July 1943
The navigation chart being used by newly licensed commercial aviation pilot Don Cletus Frade did not have, so far as he could see, the location of any airfield marked on it. It had been published by the Automobile Club of Argentina for the use of touring motorists.
It had proved perfectly adequate, however, to get him where he was now, at an indicated altitude of fifteen hundred feet and about that far to the right of National Route Three.
The only man-made break in the sea of grass that was the pampas was Route Three, and he had seen very few cars and trucks on that narrow two-lane highway.
Clete put the Cub in a gentle climbing bank to the right, taking him farther away from Route Three. When he no longer could see the highway, he saw that the altimeter showed he was at thirty-five hundred feet. He straightened out and looked slowly at the pampas from horizon to horizon. There was absolutely nothing down there but cattle, clumps of trees, and grass.
He put the nose down and dropped to five hundred feet.
Then, as he looked over his shoulder and indicated with a pointing finger that they were going down, Enrico smiled wanly and made the sign of the cross.
Clete retarded the throttle until he felt the little airplane show the first signs of a stall.
Then he dropped the nose further, flared, and put the Cub on the ground. There was no sense making a flyover to see if he could see any obstacles in the grass; the grass was high enough to conceal a rock or tree stump or something else that would cause him to dump the plane.
He had dumped Cubs a half-dozen times while landing on the Texas prairie, twice flipping over, but without hurting himself. He thought that was the worst that could happen here—he’d dump the Cub and have to take a long hike over the pampas to Route Three, then wait for somebody to pick them up.
He knew that he had to see what was going on with the German couple from the embassy as soon as he could, although he wasn’t sure why. It probably would have been smarter to go back to the Big House at the estancia, then drive over to Tandil. But he had given in to his gut feeling that it was important to get there as soon as possible, and that meant flying there from Campo de Mayo, knowing that he’d have to make a fuel stop in the middle of nowhere, and risk dumping the Cub.
Ten minutes after having transferred the gas in the can to the tank, he was airborne again.
And ten minutes after that, as a line of hills almost suddenly rose from the flat pampas, Enrico touched his shoulder and pointed at one of the higher hills. Clete turned toward the hill and in a few minutes saw that there was a house—and some small outbuildings—near the top of one of the hills.
Enrico touched his shoulder again and pointed.
Clete nodded, acknowledging that he had seen the landing strip. He was surprised a moment later to see a windsock to one side of the short strip.
He put the nose down and into the wind, looked at Enrico, and saw that Enrico was again invoking the mercy of the Deity.
As he landed, he got a pretty good look at the house—the strip had been carved out of the hill below the house. It was more of a cottage than a house, with a red-tile roof and a large plate-glass window in the front. There was even a small swimming pool.
A hilltop lovenest, he thought, and smiled at the thought of his father, with Claudia in the backseat, flying a Cub—maybe this one—into here with a weekend of whoopee on their minds.
He hadn’t seen the Horch or a truck, which meant that Dorotea was already on her way back to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, if not already there.
He turned the Cub around at the end of the runway and shut it down. From the house, two gauchos came trotting down a wide stairway; the steps appeared to be railroad ties.
One was Sargento Rodolfo Gómez, Argentine Cavalry, Retired. The other was Staff Sergeant Siegfried Stein, Signal Corps, U.S. Army. Gómez cradled a Mauser hunting rifle in his arms. Clete thought it was most likely the rifle— once his father’s—that Gómez had used to take out Oberst Grüner and Standartenführer Goltz at Samborombón Bay. Stein had a Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, and the butt of a Model 1911-A1 Colt could be seen sticking out of his wide gaucho belt.
When Clete had climbed out of the Cub, Stein saluted not very crisply. Gómez looked at him, then saluted.
Clete casually returned the salutes. To show he appreciated the incongruity of the situation, he smiled and, as a colonel might do on the parade ground, barked, “Stand at ease, men!”
Stein grinned. “I’m a little surprised you could find this place.”
“I had an ACA road map,” Frade said. “How’s our guests?”
“Several answers to that,” Stein said. “Physically fine. They’re in the living room.”
“And the other answer?”
“She’s a real Nazi bitch, Major.”
“She is?”
“I have the feeling that if she could find some Gestapo guy, it would take her about ten seconds to denounce her husband.”
“Then why did she come?”
“Women change their minds, and, oh boy, has this one changed hers.”