AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So you are involved with that Argentine airplane,” Dieter said. “What the hell is that all about?”
“Involved? I’ll have you know I’m the pilot-in-command of that airplane. On which you will shortly—tomorrow morning—be flying to Buenos Aires.”
“Just like that?” Dieter asked.
No!
“Not quite just like that, I’m afraid,” Mattingly said. “It’ll take a little time to get the documentation, passports, et cetera. Have you been through a De-Nazification Court?”
“We were never POWs,” von und zu Aschenburg said. “We were both in Silesia when the war ended. If we’d entered a Russian POW cage, they would probably have sent us to Siberia. And we’d already been there and didn’t want to go back.”
“You were together in Silesia?” von Wachtstein asked.
“First in the fighter squadron and then in Volkssturm.”
“And when you were run over by the Red Army you hid out?” Boltitz asked.
Von und zu Aschenburg nodded. “We’re still hiding out.”
“Well, we’ll work something out,” Mattingly said. “It shouldn’t take long, no more than a week or two.”
But long enough to keep you off von Wachtstein’s Constellation tomorrow.
“Not necessary,” von Wachtstein said. “I just happen to have both the passports and the libretas de enrolamiento of these Argentine gentlemen in my luggage. All I have to do is glue their photographs onto them.”
Mattingly saw on von Wachtstein’s face that he did, in fact, have passports and identity cards requiring only the addition of photographs for his friends.
Okay. I give up.
There’s nothing I can do to stop von Wachtstein from taking them with him tomorrow.
That means all I have to do between now and then is drive to Kloster Grünau, pick up Cronley, then get him and the two suitcases to Rhine-Main by oh-nine-hundred tomorrow.
That sounds fairly simple. So why does an experienced, senior intelligence officer such as myself think that I am somehow, in some way, going to royally fuck it up?
[FIVE]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1605 18 October 1945
“Jorge Frade, SAA Six One Six,” Cletus Frade called from the cockpit of the Lodestar.
“Six One Six, Jorge Frade.”
“Get General Martín on the radio,” Frade ordered.
Martín’s voice came over Frade’s headset almost immediately, which told Frade that he was in the control tower.
“This is General Martín. Who is this?”
“Christopher Columbus. Who else could it possibly be?”
“My God, Cletus, are you never serious?” Martín asked. It was impossible to tell from his tone if he was amused or grossly annoyed.
“Right now, I’m as serious as I get.”
