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“What the hell?”
“Much later, I found out that what had happened was that when the order had come down from the commander in chief to instantly send a Staggerwing painted Staggerwing red to Brazil, for further shipment to a Colonel Frade, there was a little problem. There were no Staggerwings in the Air Force inventory, and Beech had stopped making them in 1939. There was, however, a Lodestar fresh from the factory, with an interior designed for the comfort of some Air Force general. So they painted it Staggerwing red and flew it to Brazil.
“Gonzo was less than thrilled. He had permission ‘from his wife’ to bring a Staggerwing into Argentina, not a sixteen-passenger twin-engine transport. I told him he could watch from the ground as I took off for Buenos Aires in the Lodestar.”
“Where’d you learn to fly a Lodestar? In the Marines?”
“Well, I had some time in your dad’s Twin Beech, of course, and I had some time in the right seats of Gooney Birds, C-47s, on Guadalcanal. I lied about how much time I had doing that, then talked the Air Force guy who’d flown the Lodestar to Brazil into giving me a quick transition—I shot a couple of touch-and-goes.
“At the last minute, Gonzo says he’ll come with me if I agree to fly to Santo Tomé, in Corrientes, instead of Buenos Aires. I asked why, but he wouldn’t tell me. Turned out my father had built an airstrip at Santo Tomé for the Staggerwing when he commanded the Húsares de Pueyrredón. I found out later he and Martín wanted me to take the Staggerwing there from the git-go.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Telling me would’ve meant they’d have had to also tell me that General Rawson had decided he was going to have to take over for my father in Operation Blue, the coup d’état, and that was about to happen. If it fell apart, Rawson and the other senior officers would be jailed, or more likely shot. Unless they could get out of the country. To Uruguay.”
“In the Staggerwing,” Jimmy said, connecting the dots. “That nobody knew you had.”
“Right. You can cram eight people into a Staggerwing if you have to. So we flew to Santo Tomé. Gonzo called Martín, and Martín told me to fly the Lodestar to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, without being seen, and keep it under cover until I heard from him.
“By then I had pretty much figured out what was going on. I asked, and he told me.
“A week later I got a call, and flew the Lodestar to Campo de Mayo, the big army base, from where General Rawson was running the revolution.”
Jimmy smiled. “And because the revolution succeeded, the Lodestar wasn’t needed to get the brass out of Dodge City. But you still got to be a good guy by making it available.”
“Ahem,” Clete said theatrically. “Let me tell you how I got to be a good guy. The good guy. A hero of the revolution. Rawson had two columns headed for the Casa Rosada—the Argentine White House. Once they got there, the war would be over. But it didn’t look like they were going to get there anytime soon, if at all. Both column commanders had decided the other guys were the bad guys—and they were shooting at each other.
“Everybody in the Officers’ Casino, which was revolution headquarters, was running around like headless chickens. Rawson was in contact—by telephone, no radios worked—with one of the columns. He orders them to stop shooting at the other column.
“‘Not until they stop shooting at us!’
“Rawson could not reach the other column. ‘What am I supposed to do? I cannot go there personally and tell them to stop. It would take an hour and a half to get there—and everybody will have shot everybody else.’
“I politely volunteered: ‘General, if I may make a suggestion. There’s a soccer field at the Naval Engineering School. I can land one of your Piper Cubs there and you can personally tell them to stop shooting at the other good guys and resume shooting at the bad guys.’
“Rawson was desperate. He let me load him in the back of a Cub. He was terrified. It was his third flight in a Cub. Worse, knowing both columns had machine guns, I flew there on the deck. Around and in between the apartment and office buildings, instead of over them.
“All of which convinced Rawson, who became president, that not only was I the world’s best pilot, but at least as brave and willing to risk his life for Argentina as had been my great-great-grandfather Juan Martín de Pueyrredón.
“That paid off when we were starting up SAA and some bureaucrat discovered that I didn’t have an Argentine pilot’s license.”
“Tell me about that . . .” Jimmy said.
—
But somebody at Casa Montagna had come looking for Clete, and he never had the chance to tell that story.
—
“. . . that’s where the Squirt’ll be from now on. Next to my Uncle Jim,” Clete now said.
And then he drained his half-full glass of Dewar’s.
Jimmy held his glass out to be filled.
r /> “You sure? You don’t want to be shit-faced when we dine with the Schumanns.”
“I’m sure.”
