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Frade shook his head in resignation.
“Okay. Let’s start with President Farrell telling me to keep my nose out of this.”
“That no longer applies, Cletus,” Father Welner said.
“It doesn’t? Does General Farrell know that?”
“We came here from the Casa Rosada,” Welner said. “His message is now: ‘Sorry that you have to get involved, but I can see no other alternative.’”
I’m not sure I’d believe Martín telling me that; he’s really shaken up.
But I don’t think even the devious Jesuit would come up with that as an outright lie.
Clete looked at his watch.
“Pr
oblem two,” he said. “The reason I have not been drinking is that I take off for Europe at nine. That means I have to be at Jorge Frade at seven. That’s not enough time—”
“For God’s sake, Cletus!” Martín said. “Try to understand that we’re preventing a civil war—”
“And the loss of life that that means,” the priest interjected.
“—and that’s far more important than you flying anywhere,” Martín picked up. “You’re not SAA’s only pilot.”
“I’m the only one skilled at bringing back all those passengers traveling on Vatican passports,” Frade replied. “Let’s not forget that, Father.”
“You’re going to have to do this, my son,” the priest said. “Among other things, it’s your Christian duty to your godfather.”
Oh, Jesus H. Christ!
“How do you figure that?”
“For one thing, Juan Domingo loves you,” Welner replied. “If you don’t do this, he will be killed. And others will die, not only on Isla Martín García today, but all over this country in the civil war that will follow. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent people.”
Maybe he’s right.
“Bernardo said before,” Clete replied, “something about me flying ‘us’ to this goddamned island. Who’s ‘us’?”
“Father Welner and me,” Martín said.
“What’s Welner going to do on the island?”
“Several things,” Martín said. “For one, if he’s there—unless the both of you are there—el Coronel probably can’t be disabused of his suspicions that I’m party to the assassination. If he still believes that, he’ll refuse to get in the Storch with you.”
“He can’t anyway—you can get only three people in the Storch. Or are you planning to stay on the island?”
“I will stay there,” Welner said. “The idea is that after you have taken Juan Domingo off the island—before the Horse Rifles arrive—I can talk the Patricios out of resisting the Horse Rifles, and permit them to land. And once they have landed, with God’s help, I can talk whoever’s commanding the Horse Rifles into going back to La Plata.”
That’d work. Neither the Patricios nor the Horse Rifles is going to shoot a priest.
Or are they?
Hansel told me that in the Spanish Civil War priests were what the Marine Corps calls Targets of Opportunity.
A lot of them were shot on sight. By both sides.
But maybe he can talk them into going back to La Plata.
