AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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.”
“She say anything?”
“Only that she—meaning him, too—will deal only with an ‘officer of suitable rank.’ ”
“And she pegged you as a sergeant?”
“She pegged me as a Jew—maybe something about my accent—and she can’t believe a Jew would be an officer.” He smiled. “I heard her tell him to tell the ‘Jüdisch Gefreiter’ that she was hungry.”
“Well, let’s go see her. I’ll tell her that you’re actually a Jüdisch Oberst.”
