“My God!”
“I want you to call President Rawson . . .”
“The president?”
“Are there two of them?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“I haven’t so much as sniffed a cork,” Frade said. “Tell el General that I would be very pleased if he, and such members of his staff as he sees fit, would have a glass of champagne with me at five o’clock this afternoon at Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade.”
“What?”
“I think you heard me, Humberto. If he shows reluctance, insist. If he’s really reluctant, go so far as to remind him that he told me if there was anything I ever wanted from him, all I had to do was ask. Just get him there, Humberto.”
“What the hell are you up to? You really haven’t been drinking?”
“Boy Scout’s Honor, I haven’t had a drop in four days.”
“I asked what this is all about, Cletus,” Duarte said as sternly as he could manage.
“Take him up in the control tower. Have him there at five,” Frade said, ignoring the question. “And once he’s agreed to be there, get on the horn, call Claudia and tell her to be there, too—with both daughters, if possible, and von Wachtstein. And Father Welner. I suppose I’d better ask my beloved Tío Juan. I’d hate to hurt his feelings for not getting invited. And call my beloved father-in-law, speaking of people who don’t like me. Get him out there, too. The more the merrier, in other words. Oh, hell! And call el Coronel Martín, too. And you better call La Nación, La Prensa, and the Herald, too. And tell them where el Presidente is going to be at five.”
“Cletus, you listen to me,” Duarte said sternly. “I’m not going to do any of this until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Just goddamn do it, Humberto. It’s really important.”
“I said no.”
“And I said have everybody at the field at five o’clock. Just do it, goddamn it!”
There was a click, and Duarte realized that Cletus had hung up.
He took the handset from his ear and looked at it for a moment. Then he slowly replaced it in the base. He stared at that for a very long moment, exhaled audibly, then reached for the handset.
When his secretary came on the line, he said, “Call the Casa Rosada, please, and tell whoever answers the phone in the president’s office that I am calling on behalf of Don Cletus Frade.”
[TWO]
The Control Tower
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1700 19 September 1943
General Arturo Rawson, president of the Republic of Argentina, and his aide-de-camp were both in uniform as they stood with Señora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, Señor Humberto Duarte, and Reverend Kurt Welner, S.J., in the control tower. They all held stems and sipped champagne. The windows of the tower provided them an excellent view of the airfield’s runways, tarmac, and the surrounding buildings and area.
There were six Lockheed Lodestars visible. President Rawson had commented what beautiful aircraft they were, and had watched intently as one had landed and two others had taken off.
Behind the hangar, the parking lot was crowded with large automobiles. Their passengers—those not in the control tower; there was regrettably only so much room—were standing on the tarmac in front of Base Operations, where a table had been set up so that white-jacketed waiters could serve champagne and canapés.
As the sweep second hand of the large clock approached the numeral twelve, indicating the time to be precisely 17:00:00, a familiar voice came over the tower’s loudspeakers.
“Jorge Frade, this is South American Three Zero One.”
“That’s Cletus,” Señora Carzino-Cormano declared unnecessarily.
“Señor Duarte, we don’t have an aircraft with that tail number,” the controller announced.
“Answer him,” Duarte snapped.
“South American Three Zero One, Jorge Frade, go ahead.”
“Three Zero One is at fifteen hundred meters, indicating four hundred kilometers per hour, fifty kilometers north of your station. Request approach and landing.”
“How fast did he say he was going?” General Rawson asked.
“He said four hundred kilometers, mi general, but that can’t be right,” the general’s aide-de-camp said.
“Three Zero One, Jorge Frade. Descend to one thousand, report when the field is in sight.”
“Three Zero One, leaving fifteen hundred for one thousand,” Frade’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
Two minutes later, Frade’s voice announced, “Three Zero One at one thousand meters, indicating three hundred kilometers. Request straight-in approach to runway Three Three.”
“He said three hundred kilometers this time,” General Rawson announced. “I could hear him clearly.”
“Three Zero One, Jorge Frade clears you for a straight-in approach and landing as Number One on runway Three Three. Report when the runway is in sight.”
“Three Zero One has the airfield in sight. Understand cleared as Number One on Three Three,” the loudspeaker announced, and then: “Put the wheels down, Gonzo. It’s smoother if you do that.”
“My God,” Claudia Carzino-Cormano said. “What is that? It’s absolutely enormous.”
The Lockheed Constellation, landing gear and flaps down, touched down at the far end of the runway.
Then it taxied to the terminal. As it got closer, everyone in the tower could now see that it had SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS lettered in red on the fuselage, the flag of Argentina painted on all three of its vertical stabilizers, and the legend CIUDAD DE BUENOS AIRES lettered beneath the cockpit windows.
As it got really close to the terminal, small side windows in the cockpit opened, hands came out, and a moment later Argentine flags on holders were fluttering in the wind.
Frade’s voice came over the speakers again.
“How about somebody getting a ladder out here so we can get out of this thing?”
“Oh, Claudia,” the president of Argentina said emotionally, thickly, dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. “If only our Jorge were here to see this!”
“Arturo, I know in my heart he’s watching,” Claudia said.
The two embraced.
Humberto Duarte thought: I have no goddamn idea what Cletus is up to.
But whatever it is, he just got away with it.
[THREE]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1710 19 September 1943
It is entirely likely, Cletus Frade thought as he looked out the cockpit window, that there’s not a ladder within miles of here that’s long enough to reach up to the door, which will tend to put a damper on the triumphal arrival of the Big Bird.
He looked down at the people standing on the tarmac, most of them holding up champagne stems in salute as they looked with what approached awe at the Lockheed Corporation’s latest contribution to long-distance commercial aviation.
Claudia probably set that up; Humberto wouldn’t think of it.
Whoever did it, it was a good idea.
Frade saw that Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, who was not in uniform, was almost feverishly taking photographs of the airplane with a Leica camera.
Just like the one we used to take pictures of the Froggers.
And, of course, of Tío Juan’s map of South America after the Final Victory. He spotted el Coronel Juan Domingo Perón standing beside el Coronel Martín.
And you’re here, aren’t you, you sonofabitch?
And what the hell were you talking about, Martín, when you said you had to see me as soon as possible on a matter of “life and death”?
Well, at least it doesn’t concern Dorotea or anyone at Casa Montagna. I talked to her just before we took off from Canoas. I told her I was about to fly here. I didn’t tell her in what I was about to fly here, just that I was, and that I would see her there just as s
oon as I could deal with what I had to do in Buenos Aires.
There was a Collins Model 7.2 transceiver installed in the Connie; it had connected easily from Canoas with the Collins transceiver at Casa Montagna and with the one at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. As a result of the latter call, there would be at least three of the estancia’s station wagons, three sedans, and a stake-bodied truck waiting at the airfield to transport the Connie’s passengers and their luggage. Frade’s Horch was, he presumed, parked where he had left it in the hangar.
Among the passengers aboard were three ASA people from Vint Hill Farms Station: Second Lieutenant Len Fischer and two young enlisted men who were both T-3s. T-3 was an Army rank Fischer had to explain to Frade, as there was no such rank in the Marine Corps. Their staff sergeants’ chevrons had a “T,” meaning “Technician.” And staff sergeant was Pay Grade Three, hence T-3.
The ASA people, however, were not in uniform. They all wore civilian clothing and carried passports, draft cards, and other identification saying they were employees of the Collins Radio Corporation, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
There were other civilian technicians aboard, some of them actually civilians. One of the bona fide civilians was an employee of the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Engine Company. He would stay in Argentina only long enough to ensure that two other “employees of Curtiss-Wright”—actually, two U.S. Army Air Force technical sergeants—both were qualified to care for Curtiss-Wright R-3350-DA 3 18-cylinder supercharged 3,250-horsepower radial engines and were prepared to teach their art to employees of South American Airways. Four of the Curtiss-Wright radials powered the Constellation.
Additionally, there was a bona fide civilian employee of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and two more Army Air Force noncoms in mufti, who would both care for the airframe and see to the necessary instruction of South American Airways personnel to function as flight engineers.
At Howard Hughes’s suggestion, Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano had decreed that the flight engineers would have to be fully qualified pilots.
Six of these pilots were also aboard, getting their training hands-on.
Which meant that three of SAA’s Lodestars, which the pilots had flown to Canoas, would have to sit there on the tarmac until Frade and Delgano could figure out how to get them back to Argentina.
That problem being compounded by the delivery to Canoas of the second Constellation and, within the week, the expected arrival of the third Connie.
They would have to be stripped of their U.S. Army Air Force markings, then repainted in the South American Airways scheme—one as the Ciudad de Mendoza and the other as the Ciudad de Córdoba—and then flown to Buenos Aires, that problem compounded by the fact that only two SAA pilots—Frade and Delgano—had as many as fifteen takeoffs and landings, and neither Frade nor Delgano was willing to turn one of the Constellations over to less experienced pilots no matter how high their enthusiasm.
There were also aboard two slightly older bona fide civilians. Both were accountants, and looked like it, but for obvious reasons their identification did not indicate that they in fact practiced their profession as employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The accountants would stay in Argentina—Frade had not decided whether in Buenos Aires or in Mendoza—to keep track of and make sense of whatever the Froggers, father and son, would tell them and what could otherwise be learned from other sources on how the German Operation Phoenix money was being invested—hidden—in the Argentine economy.
The voice of an SAA pilot who had been taking on-the-job training as a flight engineer came over Frade’s earphones: “Captain, they’re bringing a ladder.”
“Thank you,” Frade said. “Keep me posted.”
He turned to Delgano. “You get off first, Gonzo, that guy next, and you give the impression you’re the pilot and he’s the number two. I’ll get off later.”
Delgano made a thumbs-up gesture, unfastened his harness, got out of the copilot’s seat, and walked into the passenger compartment.
Where the hell is Humberto? Frade wondered as he carefully looked out a side window.
More important, where the hell is General Rawson?
If Humberto couldn’t get him to come out here, this whole thing is going to blow up in my face!
Frade, ten minutes later, looked out the side window again.
The last time he had looked, Peter von Wachtstein had been one of six or eight photographers taking pictures of the Constellation. Now he was alone.
Where the hell are the others?
What’s going on?
Then he saw that the photographers were backing toward the airplane, taking pictures of General Rawson, Humberto Duarte, Father Welner, and Claudia de Carzino-Cormano. Their party had just come out of the building and was walking toward the Constellation.
The president of the Argentine nation was smiling broadly.
And with the exception of my beloved father-in-law, so is everybody else out there.
“Captain,” Delgano’s voice came over the headset. “The ladder they brought is a meter too short.”
“Shit! Now what?”
“They sent for a truck. They’re going to put the ladder in the bed of the truck.”
Frade tried to take a look from the cockpit window. The only thing he could see was a Chevrolet pickup truck approaching the aircraft. He couldn’t see the door to the passenger compartment.
He quickly unstrapped himself, went into the passenger compartment, and looked out a window there. The pickup truck was backing up toward the airplane. In it, supported by four men, was a stepladder—a very long one. Then he no longer could see the truck.
He looked down the aisle. Delgano was standing in the door, facing inward, one leg gingerly extended downward out the door.
Then, very slowly, he disappeared.
Clete could see nothing out the window.
Then the SAA pilot/flight-engineer-in-training backed into the door and warily reached for the ladder with his leg.
“Change of plans!” Clete announced. “All SAA pilots go down the ladder!”
The five remaining SAA pilots formed a line by the door.
Out the window, Clete could see that Delgano had made it safely to the bed of the pickup, from which he jumped to the ground. Then the first SAA pilot came into view.
God, don’t let any of them take a dive off that damn ladder with all those cameras trained on them!
Finally, everybody had gone down the ladder, jumped off the truck, and had lined up behind Gonzo and Pilot Number One. They all adjusted their uniforms.
Delgano issued a command. Everybody marched six steps forward. Delgano issued another command and everyone halted.
They were now facing General Rawson, his entourage, Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, Father Welner, and Humberto Duarte.
Delgano saluted.
“Señor Presidente, mi general,” he barked. “I have the honor to present Argentina’s first international passenger aircraft!”
Frade couldn’t actually hear what Delgano was saying, but he had spent thirty minutes rehearsing him on what he was to say before they left Canoas.
General Rawson saluted, then took three steps forward, kissed—more or less—Delgano on both cheeks, then each of the other pilots. Colonel Juan D. Perón appeared and joined Rawson’s entourage as they walked after the president, each of them shaking each pilot’s hand.
By then, Frade was at the door.
Enrico Rodríguez came to him, carrying his shotgun.
“Leave that on the airplane,” Clete commanded. Then he raised his voice and ordered: “Everybody sit tight. I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”
He backed out the door, found the top step of the ladder with his left leg, then the step below it with his right, and went down the ladder into the bed of the pickup.
As he jumped to the tarmac, he saw that General Rawson had seen him and was smiling happily. When Rawson had finished kissing—more or less—the last SAA pilot, he head
ed right for Clete.
The president embraced Frade and kissed him—fully and wetly—on both cheeks, then again embraced him, then finally, holding on to both of Frade’s arms, backed away and looked into his eyes.
“Cletus, your father would be so proud of you!”
Rawson was so sincere that the cynicism with which Frade had been viewing the entire performance instantly vanished. He felt his eyes water, and his voice was not firm when he replied, “Muchas gracias, mi general.”
“Cletus, as much as I want to see inside the airplane, the Papal Nuncio is at this moment waiting for me at Casa Rosada. But I will be back.”
“By then, mi general, there will be proper aircraft steps for you when you can find time in your schedule for us.”
Rawson squeezed both of Frade’s arms, then turned and marched off.
El Coronel Juan D. Perón marched up to Frade. He kissed—pro forma—Frade’s cheeks. “I am presuming, Cletus, that there is some good reason why I didn’t hear about this—”
He gestured at the airplane, at Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, at Humberto Duarte, and at General Rawson.
“—until an hour ago.”
“There certainly is, Tío Juan,” Frade said enthusiastically. Then he kissed Perón wetly on the cheek and said, “You’re going to have to excuse me.”
Frade walked quickly to Claudia, kissing her fondly but not wetly.
Perón’s face tightened and for a moment it looked as if he might follow Frade. At the end, he marched toward his car.
“How’s my favorite stockholder?” Clete asked Claudia.
She shook her head in resignation.
“Frankly, wondering what the hell is going on around here.”
“I saw an opportunity and took it. We gringos call that ‘striking while the iron is hot.’ I have no idea what that really means, but that’s what we say.”
“How much did that cost?” Claudia asked, gesturing toward the Constellation.
“A lot,” Clete admitted. “And we have three of them.”
The Honor of Spies Page 26