“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.”