Dona Dorotea Frade, in the copilot seat of the Lodestar, pushed the intercom button on her microphone and said, "Let me land it, Cletus, please."
Frade glanced at her, then returned his attention to outside the aircraft as he said, "No. You shouldn't even be sitting there."
"Nonsense. There's nothing an eight-months-and-some-days pregnant woman can't do except lead anything that comes close to a normal life."
"You all right, baby?"
"No woman eight months pregnant is all right, Clete. But I can land this, and I want to. This will be my last flight for a while."
He glanced at her again. "You just decide that?"
"No, I decided it on the plane on the way to Buenos Aires. Once I got back to Mendoza, that was it."
He saw the airfield ahead and started to make a shallow descent to the right.
"I gather that means you are not going to grant the humble request of the mother of your unborn child?"
"No, it means I want to make a low pass over Casa Montagna."
"Why?"
"It's known as terrifying the natives. Puts a little excitement into their lives."
"They know we're coming, Cletus."
"Let's make sure," he said as he headed for Estancia Don Guillermo.
He made two low-level passes over the house on the mountain side, one to the south and one to the north, and then raised the nose.
I could get a Piper Cub in there easily. I wonder if my father had that in mind?
It couldn't have been cheap to dynamite all that rock out of the way and then make everything level.
He climbed to twelve hundred feet, leveled off, then picked up his microphone and pressed the intercom button.
"First Officer, you have the aircraft." He pointed out the windscreen. "The airfield's over thataway."
She put her hands on the yoke and he took his off.
"Thank you, my darling," the first officer said.
"That was a good landing," Clete said.
"Well, thank you, darling."
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."
"You bah-stud!"
He saw she was smiling.
If anything had gone wrong, I could have taken it away from her.
I think.
Looking out the windscreen, Clete Frade saw that a considerable number of vehicles were on hand to meet them. He was not surprised to see the four-door Lincoln Continental his Aunt Beatriz had rebodied or even the two dark green army-style trucks and two 1941 Ford sedans painted the same color that obviously went with the maybe a dozen members of the Gendarmeria Nacional standing near them. And he had expected the small bus parked beside the gendarmes. There were in all seven Mollers and Kortigs, plus the suitcases now holding the clothing Rodriguez and the nun had bought for everybody.
But he was surprised to see that the Little Sisters of Santa Maria del Pilar were also on hand, represented by their Mother Superior. She was standing by a small bus, much like the one the Little Sisters of the Poor had had at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.
I wonder what that's all about?
"Don Cletus?" a male voice behind him at the cockpit door said.
Clete turned and saw Inspector Peralta, one of the two Gendarmeria Nacional officers who had been waiting for him at Jorge Frade when he'd "refueled." The other officer was Subinspector Navarro. The best that Clete could figure was that Peralta was roughly the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel and Navarro a major. Inspector General Nervo's orders to them had been simple: "Place yourself at Don Cletus's orders and keep me posted--twice a day--on what's going on."
Frade made the introduction between Dona Dorotea and Inspector Peralta.
Then Peralta said: "With your permission, Don Cletus, rather than go directly to Estancia Don Guillermo, I will go to the Mendoza headquarters of the Gendarmeria and have a talk with Subinspector Nowicki--he came to meet us; I see his car--and join you later. May I bring Subinspector Nowicki with me when I do?"
He's being polite as hell, but he's sure running the show.
"Of course."
"Subinspector Navarro will escort you now with the trucks and men you see. If you would be good enough to show him the weapons cache, that would be helpful."
Does that mean the weapons will then get loaded on the trucks, and bye-bye weapons cache?
Oh, stop it, for Christ's sake! The next thing, you'll be eyeing Mother Superior suspiciously.
What other choice do I have?
"I'll have Rodriguez show him the cache as soon as we arrive."
"Do you think four of my men will be sufficient to guard the aircraft, Don Cletus? Or shall I arrange for more?"
I never even thought about that. The Constellations in Buenos Aires, yeah. But not the Lodestar here.
You're really on top of things, Senor Superspy!
"I'm sure that will be enough."
"Then I'll see you shortly," Peralta said, saluted, and backed out of the cockpit door.
Clete looked at Dorotea.
"Good man," he began before being interrupted by the voice of Mother Superior at the cockpit door.
"What in the world are you doing up here and in there?" she asked of Dona Dorotea, then turned to Don Cletus. "You really can be, can't you, quite as stupid as your father?" She looked at Dorotea. "Well, come on!"
"Where am I going?" Dorotea said.
"To the convent. The original idea was to examine the German women and children. Now I'll have to see what damage this husband of yours has caused to you."
Dorotea nodded. "I told him that I didn't think I should be sitting up here in my delicate condition."
She waited until Mother Superior was glaring at Cletus and couldn't see her face. Then, looking very pleased with herself, she smiled warmly at him and stuck out her tongue.
And then, with great difficulty, she started to hoist herself out of the copilot's seat.
[THREE].
Casa Montagna
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
1525 3 October 1943
Captain Madison R. Sawyer III had been playing polo--sort of--to pass the time when "Frade's Lodestar," as Sawyer thought of it, had buzzed the polo field.
He had found eight mallets--one of them broken, all of them old--hanging at various places on the walls of Casa Montagna, which had of course cut the number of players to three on each team, leaving one spare mallet.
Finding players and horses had posed no problem. When he had asked--at the morning formation of the former cavalry troopers of the Husares de Pueyrredon now guarding Casa Montagna--if anyone happened to know how to play polo, every hand had shot up. The horses were not, of course, the fine polo ponies he had grown used to at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. But even the worst of them seemed to have some idea what was expected of a polo pony.
The problem of no polo balls had been solved by purchasing at a very generous price three soccer balls--what the Argentines called footballs--from the children of peones who lived in the compound. He also promised to see that they would have replacement footballs just as soon as he could send someone into town to buy them.
The air-filled soccer balls of course behaved quite differently than a regulation solid-wood polo ball would have, but that just made the play more interesting.
One of the soccer balls had lasted about ten minutes in play and a second just a few minutes more. The third soccer ball--and the mallets, which surprised him--had endured the stress of play for two chukkers when the flaming red Lodestar had flashed over the field.
Sawyer had decided there was time for one--possibly two--more chukkers before Frade arrived from the aircraft, and they had played two more.
He had just had time to dismount and reclaim his Thompson submachine gun and his web belt holding his .45 Colt when the nose of the Lincoln Continental appeared at the end of the field.
He had not expected the brown vehicles of the Gendarmeria Nacional, and was a little worried until he saw Frade climb out from behind the wheel of the Lincoln.
"Subinspector Navarro, this is my deputy, Capitan Sawyer," Frade began the in troductions.
Sensing that he was expected to do so, Sawyer saluted.
"I'll explain this all later," Frade then said to Sawyer. "But right now, I want you to show Subinspector Navarro the weapons cache and explain the perimeter defense to him--"
"You make it sound as if we're going to be attacked," Sawyer interrupted.
"That's a strong possibility," Frade said, then went on: "These gentlemen are Senor Kortig and Senor Moller. They will be joined shortly by their wives and children. In the meantime, Enrico's going to--where's Stein?"
Sawyer looked around and then pointed. Stein was walking toward them from the house.
Clete waited until he had joined them, then, after introducing Kortig, Moller, and Subinspector Navarro to "Major" Stein, he asked where Senor Fischer was.
"With his father. You need him?"
"No. What I want you to do is ask him to stay with his father until I send for him."
Stein's raised eyebrows showed his surprise, but he didn't say anything.
"Then," Frade continued, "find the housekeeper and tell her (a) to prepare some of the rooms in one of the outbuildings for the Kortigs and the Mollers. That's two wives and three children--adolescents. They'll be staying here awhile. And (b) to prepare something to eat for everybody; we haven't had anything since breakfast."
"Where are the wives and children?" Stein said.
"With Mother Superior getting a physical; they should be here in forty-five minutes or an hour."
"Dona Dorotea didn't come with you?"
"She's with them. Captain Sawyer is going to show Subinspector Navarro the arms cache and the perimeter defense. He and another Gendarmeria officer will need rooms in the big house, and we'll need rooms for eight gendarmes in whatever outbuilding she wants to put the Mollers and the Kortigs. Enrico is going to take Senor Moller and Senor Kortig to the bar. As soon as you can, bring any messages from Mount Sinai to me there."
"No messages from Mount Sinai, Major," Stein said. "You expecting one?"
A very long one. When you don't know what the hell you are doing, ask somebody who presumably does.
And Graham has certainly had enough time to send me my orders.