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And now Delgano doesn’t want to subject Fischer to the “rigors and danger” of flying on Varig?
What the hell?
Get him to install the radios, then arrest him?
“I think we should not say unkind things about our competition, Gonzalo,” Frade said. “No matter how tempting that may be.”
“What I was thinking, Don Cletus, is that we should fly to Canoas in Zero One, taking these gentlemen with us”—he nodded at the pilots—“which would give them more time at the controls. You could serve as the instructor pilot on the way back here in Zero Zero Two.”
Thank you very much, Chief Pilot.
It didn’t take you long to forget who taught you to fly a Lodestar, did it?
“Otherwise,” Frade said, “Zero One would just be sitting here until you and I got back and no one would get any cockpit time. Right?”
Delgano nodded.
“Can we do that?” Delgano said. “I mean will they let us land there? I had the feeling that the American general doesn’t like you very much.”
“We’ll just have to find out,” Clete said. “I think that’s a hell of a good idea.”
“I thought you would agree,” Delgano said, smiling, and pointed to a fuel truck that had just rolled up beside Zero Zero One, one he’d clearly arranged for before bouncing his idea off Frade.
“Gonzo, I’d like to make sure nothing happens to the Collins while we’re gone. We turned it off, but . . .”
“I think the control tower should be manned around the clock starting right now,” Delgano said. “We know the runways are not yet usable, but a Varig pilot just might hear our RDF signal and think that they are. I will have operators there within the hour.”
Thirty minutes later, they took off for Canoas. Frade rode in the back, the first time he had ever been in a Lodestar passenger seat.
Once Frade felt the aircraft break ground and heard the hydraulic whine as its landing gear retracted, he heaved a mental sigh of relief. He had succeeded in getting Len Fischer—and equally important, perhaps even more important, the two cassettes of 3
5mm film—out of Argentina. In about two hours and thirty minutes, the Lodestar—and the film—would touch down at the U.S. Army Air Forces field at Canoas.
That left only one problem—that of protecting the Froggers—on what hours before had become The List of Things That Might—Probably Would— Go Wrong.
That remained a serious problem—Boltitz had told him that von Deitzberg had ordered their assassination when and where found—but that too looked as if it might go away.
When he had gone to Enrico to discuss that question with him, the old sergeant major told him he had already dispatched a dozen workers of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo—all retirees of the Húsares de Pueyrredón Cavalry Regiment—to Casa Chica.
“They will know what to do, Don Cletus,” Enrico had said confidently.
Frade had asked for an explanation.
“If the same kind of people who tried to kill you and who killed El Coronel and my sister—may they be resting in peace with all the angels—come to Casa Chica, they will be left on the pampas for the birds to eat.”
“And if it is the army or the police?”
“Then the Nazis will be taken onto the pampas. I know how to deal with this, Don Cletus.”
“I don’t want the Froggers killed unless it’s absolutely necessary—”
“So you have said, Don Cletus.”
“And when I have Fischer out of Argentina, we will have to find some other place to keep them.”
“There are places, Don Cletus. I will think on it.”
Frade now thought: I could very well be pissing in the wind, but this just might work out okay.
