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“And now?” he asked.
“Now we have to keep the same thing from happening to you,” Frade said, then turned to Delgano. “And we have to keep your ass out of a crack, Gonzo.”
“Where did you have the Froggers?” Delgano asked.
“On a small estancia, Casa Chica, not that far from here.”
“How could Cranz have heard about that?”
“I don’t know. But it has to be him and the Germans. The Argentines would have just taken them and returned them to the embassy.”
“Unless the Germans are somehow going to make it look as if you’re responsible, ” Delgano said. “That would solve a lot of problems for them.”
Frade looked at him as he considered that, then said, “The problem right now is to keep the colonel alive, and keep you out of trouble.”
He waved for Captain Sawyer to come over. Sergeant Ferris came with him.
“This is Colonel Frogger,” Frade said. Both saluted.
“Take him out on the estancia. Make him comfortable. He’s very important. I can’t tell you why, but we can’t have him captured by either the Argentines or the Germans. We might have to take off for Uruguay—or Brazil—in a hurry, so be prepared for that. If he goes, everybody goes. Get my airplane out of the hangar and make it ready to take off in a hurry.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Jorge Frade, where Gonzo and I will know nothing about any of this. I’ll see what I can find out. The truth is we’re going to have to play this by ear. The priority is to keep Colonel Frogger safe.”
[FOUR]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1305 12 August 1943
They used up most of the runway getting the SAA Lodestar off the ground, but they made it.
“Write this down, Gonzo,” Clete said as they were climbing out. “Don’t try to take off from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo in one of these at max gross takeoff weight.”
Delgano didn’t reply.
Frade said: “What you’re going to do—what I hope you’re going to do, because I wouldn’t blame you if you went right to Colonel Martín—”
“I’m not going to do that. Did you really think I would?”
“Sorry. And thank you.” He was quiet in thought a moment, then went on: “Since I don’t think anybody saw us at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, maybe we can get away with acting as if we know nothing about what happened. We have just arrived from a very long flight from the States. I keep saying this, but keeping Frogger out of the hands of the Germans is the priority. He knows too much about the plot to take Hitler out.”
“There’s no way they can know we brought him with us,” Delgano said. “If . . . you for some reason can’t do it yourself, I’ll take your Lodestar and fly him anywhere you say.”
Frade looked at him. “That would be really putting your neck in the noose, you understand?”
“I understand.”
Frade nodded. “Okay. If that becomes necessary, take Captain Ashton and the others with you. They’ll—”
“Dorotea, too?”
Frade hesitated just perceptibly before saying, “Yeah, you’d better take her, too. She won’t want to go, thinking she can somehow help me if she stays. Tell her I’m already in Canoas.”
“I understand.”
Frade spent most of the just-over-one-hour-flight to Morón thinking of the worst possible scenarios for what was going to happen next. There were at least a half-dozen of them—and they were all frightening.
They called the Jorge Frade tower as soon as they could pick up the radio direction finder signal. They were then just inside the mouth of the River Plate, from there a thirty-minute flight to Morón. But they were not more than twenty minutes out when the tower responded.
