With a mind of its own, his head bent.
And he kissed her.
Just a light brushing of his lips against hers. But undeniably a kiss.
Here’s where you get whacked with her purse, you damned fool!
“I will be damned,” Marjie said softly, then raised her face to his and kissed him.
“Jesus Christ, Marjie,” Jimmy said, almost inaudibly.
“I’ve got to think about this,” she said, and quickly started up the stairs.
Halfway up, she had to stop and start back down. Two men in flight crew uniforms were coming down the stairs. The stairs were so narrow that squeezing past them would have been impossible.
When everybody was on the ground, one of the men said, “We’ll get the bags, sir.”
They picked one up.
Marjie then looked up at Jimmy and said, “Now that I’ve thought it over, I like it.”
When he started to lower his head to hers, she said, “Not now. Clete’s standing in the airplane door.”
[FIVE]
Apartment 4-C
1044 Calle Talcahuano
Buenos Aires, Argentina
0020 21 October 1945
“Very well,” Ludwig Mannhoffer said into the telephone receiver. “Now get back to the airport and see what else might develop. Call me at whatever hour if something significant, I repeat, significant happens. Otherwise, call me about half past eight.”
He broke the connection then, put the receiver in its base, and turned to Körtig.
“Gerhard, I think we can now get some sleep. I think, based on that last report, that everything of interest to us at Aeropuerto Coronel Frade has happened.”
“Specifically?”
“Well, the convoy with the Storch left several hours ago—we knew that. Kramer just reported that the three aircraft—the big Lockheed—”
“The Constellation?” Körtig asked.
“The four-engine Constellation,” Mannhoffer confirmed, “and the two smaller—two-engine—Lockheeds, the red Lodestar and a South American Airways Lodestar, have all taken off, all fully loaded.”
“Tell me about the red Lodestar. What’s that all about?”
“There’s a story going around—I don’t know how true it is—that it was a gift from the American President, Roosevelt, to Oberst Frade. Anyway, now it’s Oberstleutnant Frade’s personal airplane.”
“It must be nice to be rich enough to have your own personal airliner,” Körtig said.
“Well, if we can conclude the deal about the uranium oxide, I think you could consider getting your own airliner.”
“That’s an interesting thought, indeed,” Körtig said, then asked, “We don’t really know where these airplanes are headed, do we?”
“We know the Lodestars are going to Mendoza. The Constellation may be headed for Brazil or the United States—its passengers include all the women and children. They may be being taken out of Argentina for their protection. But I think it, too, is headed to Mendoza. That mountaintop fortress of his is as good a place to protect people as one can find.”
“Why did he build a mountaintop fortress, do you suppose?”
“Now, understand I’m getting this second- and thirdhand. Oberst Klausberger, who now commands the Tenth Mountain Regiment, told me that Oberst Schmidt, who commanded the regiment before Frade shot him—”
“Frade’s father, or the one we’re dealing with?”
“Ours. Klausberger told me that Schmidt told him it didn’t start out to be a fortress. The original house was built by an uncle of Oberst Frade as sort of a love nest to go with the vineyard. His name was Guillermo Frade. The place and the vineyard are known as Estancia Don Guillermo. It’s great wine, incidentally. The Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon is marvelous! Anyway, Guillermo was apparently a hell of a gambler. He almost lost the estancia betting on the wrong horse. His father got him out of trouble, but took the estancia and the house across from the racetrack away from him and gave it to his other son—‘our’ Frade’s father. He had just married and so built a magnificent house on the mountain. Then she died, and he never went back. But the place was used to stage that coup d’état in 1942. They cached arms there, held secret meetings, that sort of thing. Frade was then commanding the Húsares de Pueyrredón and he put them to work fortifying the place. He went so far as to blast a runway out of the mountain that those little American planes—Cubs?—could use.”
“Piper Cubs. They can’t hold a candle to a Storch of course, but the Americans used them successfully to direct artillery fire, that sort of thing.”
“That’s the plane he built a runway for. Then, after Oberst Grüner sent the colonel to whatever Valhalla the Argentines use, and the son took over, he fortified and expanded the place even more. He’s got all of General Gehlen’s people living up there now.”
“What are we going to do about Gehlen?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we’re finished crossing the one we’re on,” Mannhoffer said. “Anyway, Klausberger told me Schmidt told him that he had reconnoitered the place with the idea of taking it and maybe killing Frade in the process. Schmidt decided it couldn’t be taken without an unacceptable loss of troops.”
“Then how are we going to eliminate Frade and the traitors?”
“It’s forty kilometers from the airport to the estancia. Most of that is curving roads through the foothills of the Andes. We find out when one of their little convoys is carrying Frade and at least two of the others to or from the airport, and we shoot up the convoy from such point as you select in the next couple of days with Oberst Klausberger’s expert assistance.
“Which means I suggest we go to bed. Your train to San Martín de los Andes leaves the Retiro station at five past eight. And you don’t want to oversleep and miss it, do you?”
“No, I really don’t. I have to tell you, Ludwig, I’m actually looking forward to this operation.”
XII
[ONE]
Aeropuerto Internacional de Mendoza
Mendoza Province, Argentina
0405 21 October 1945
During the descent and approach to the airfield, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr., Cavalry, AUS, looking through the small window high in the navigation compartment, had enjoyed a spectacular view of the snowcapped Andes Mountains bathed in the light of a nearly full moon. But now, with the Constellation on the ground, he could see almost nothing out the window.
Cronley knew that Cletus Frade had put him in the navigation compartment because that provided the greatest distance between him and Marjie, whom Clete had seated in the far rear of the passenger compartment.
Jimmy had spent most of the flight thinking of her, mostly of the touch of her lips against his but also wondering if she knew that their airplane had been dubbed the Flying Brothel by the President of the United States and wondering what she thought about that.
And Jimmy wondered if Enrico Rodríguez, who sat on the navigation room’s other stool, was there to keep him away from Marjie or whether that stool was the only place Clete could find for the old soldier to sit.
—
After the aircraft engines had shut down, the door between the cockpit and the navigation compartment opened. Clete Frade appeared in it and, using his index finger, beckoned Jimmy out of the navigation room.
In the cockpit, Jimmy saw two new men with Clete. They were crowded in the space immediately behind the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats. The men wore civilian clothing. Both also had .45 ACP Model 1911-A1 pistols in shoulder holsters—making no effort to conceal them.
“Max, Siggie, this is Second Lieutenant Cronley,” Frade said. “Jimmy, Major Maxwell Ashton and Master Sergeant Sigfried Stein.”
The three wordlessly shook hands.
“Jimmy, take your bags,” Clete then ordered, pointing to the aircraft crew door, “and put them in the back of one of the station wagons.”
Jimmy went to the door and saw the narrow stairway—not much more than a
ladder—and the line of vehicles beside the airplane.
At the head of the line was a Ford pickup. It had been converted to a small stake-bed truck. It was painted a darker shade of olive brown than U.S. Army vehicles were painted, but it was obviously an Army truck. There were half a dozen soldiers sitting on rack seats in the bed, and two more leaning against the pickup’s front fender. Most of them were armed with bolt-action rifles—probably Mausers, Jimmy decided—but there were at least three armed with Thompson submachine guns.
Immediately behind the pickup was a Mercedes-Benz sedan painted olive brown and with a soldier leaning against its fender. Behind that was a custom-bodied 1940 Lincoln Continental, then three 1941 Ford wood-sided station wagons, and finally another stake-bed pickup, this one painted dark blue. In its bed were half a dozen men armed primarily with Thompsons.
“There’s no way I can carry those bags down that narrow ladder,” Jimmy announced.
“Then toss them down,” Frade suggested.
“If I did that, they would burst,” Jimmy argued reasonably.
“Then when everybody is out of the passenger compartment, take them down the passenger stairway.”
Jimmy nodded. “Much better idea, Clete.”
Frade turned to Stein.
“Siggie, why don’t you take a quick look and see if the 7.2 will fit in there?”
Stein went into the navigation compartment and quickly reported, “The rack installation is identical to the SAA Connies. I can get a 7.2 in here, and up and running, in a couple of hours.”
“When can you start?”
“Right now, if you want.”
“I want. We need to get this plane out of here and to Santiago as quickly as we can.”
“Santiago?” Ashton said. “Why Chile?”
“Are you also going to put a SIGABA in here?” Stein asked.
Frade ignored Ashton’s question and responded to Stein by asking, “How many do we have left?”
“There’s one here—plus a spare—and another at the airport. I hope you brought it.”
“Dammit! It slipped my mind,” Clete said bitterly, then added sarcastically, “I must have had other things on my mind.”
“Which our beloved commander, Sergeant Stein,” Ashton said, “will tell us all about soon. Won’t you, Colonel?”
Clete looked at him but didn’t respond.
“What the hell is going on, Clete?” Ashton pursued.
“We think we found where U-234, the sub with the uranium oxide, made landfall here,” Frade said.
“No fooling?” Ashton said, his surprise showing.
“Way down south,” Frade said. “Near the mouth of the Strait of Magellan.”
“And you’re going to try to grab it?” Ashton asked. “The uranium oxide?”
“That’s the idea.”
“How the hell did you find U-234?” Stein asked.
“Okay, that’s the last question until we get to the estancia,” Frade said. “Von Dattenberg had the landfall coordinates all the time in his safe on U-405. He didn’t know he had them, and they were of course in the Kriegsmarine code. Boltitz learned about that in Germany.”
“And Karl got his hands on the Kriegsmarine code?” Ashton asked.
Frade looked at Cronley.
“No,” Frade said.
“Then Karl must have broken it.”
“No,” Frade said. “Karl didn’t have a clue how to break the code.”
“Then what?”
Frade pointed at Cronley and, smiling, said, “Sometimes second lieutenants aren’t as dumb as legend has it. As hard as it is to believe, Jimmy broke it. And now—I meant it about that being the last question until we get to the estancia and I can bring everybody up to speed at once—let’s get everybody off the plane and up to Casa Montagna.”
If I didn’t know better, Cronley thought, I might think Clete just said something nice to me.
And with a smile.
[TWO]
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
0510 21 October 1945
Jimmy carefully watched as the station wagon in which he, three armed men, and his luggage had ridden from the airport came to a stop in front of a large house on the mountaintop. Floodlights lit the immediate area. Jimmy saw one of the other station wagons in their caravan now pulling away and several muscular servants, of both genders, carrying luggage into the house.
The luggage, Jimmy decided, belonged to the women, the babies, and Cletus Marcus Howell.
When two of the armed men in the station wagon opened the rear door and put Jimmy’s suitcases on the ground, he thought he would be next. Somebody would come out of the house, take care of the luggage, and show him where breakfast was going to be served.
That didn’t happen.
The men got back in the station wagon and drove off. And the floodlights that had illuminated the unloading point went out.
Jimmy was left with his three suitcases in the moonlit dark.
He would have tried to carry them into the house himself, but he didn’t feel up to that, and he didn’t know where to carry them to.
He sat down on the saddle leather case holding his new wardrobe and the Admiral Byrd Antarctic clothing and waited to see what would happen next. He yawned.
Five minutes later, Cletus Frade appeared.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demanded. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Since I can’t carry these goddamned suitcases by myself, I’ve been thinking of putting on an Admiral Byrd suit and catching some shut-eye.”
Frade ignored that.
“We have to talk, Jimmy.”
“About what?”
“In Buenos Aires, just before we took off, Martha jumped all over me for what I thought about you and the Squirt. She said my imagination is wildly out of control.”
“You don’t say?”
“And, now that I’ve thought it over, she’s right.”
“You don’t say?”
“So I apologize.”
“Not necessary.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You were right all along, Clete. The truth of the matter is that the Squirt and I are madly in love. We’re even thinking of eloping.”
Frade laughed.
“That’s absurd! Fuck you, Jimmy. I’m trying to make amends.”
“Is that why you left me out here in the dark?”
“That just happened. It wasn’t on purpose.”
“You don’t say?”
“Goddammit! Stop saying ‘You don’t say.’”
“Whatever you say, Colonel.”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now,” Frade said. “I’m going to go in the house and get somebody to deal with your luggage. The canvas cases might as well go to the BOQ, where we’ll work on the dossiers. My father’s case goes to your room in the house. As soon as the people come out for the luggage, you go into the house. Third door on the left off the foyer is the dining room. Get yourself some breakfast.”
“Okay.”
“And I really would be grateful, Jimmy, if you accepted my apology.”
“Accepted.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Frade went back into the house.
Sixty seconds later, three sturdy women came out. They picked up the luggage with no apparent effort and started off with it.
Jimmy walked to the house.
Just inside, Marjie was waiting for him in the dark foyer.
“Hi,” she said, a little shyly, and kissed him, a little shyly.
“We’re going to have to work on that,” Jimmy said. “I’m sure we’ll get better with a little practice.”
She shook her head and said, “What did Clete want?”
“Your mother made him apologize for the evil thoughts he had about us.”
“Really? He actu
ally apologized? What did you say?”
“I told him no apology was necessary. He was right. You and I are madly in love and thinking of eloping.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did. But I had the feeling he didn’t believe me.”
“Oh, Jimmy,” she said, laughing. “You’d better pray he didn’t!”
Then she kissed him again, this time not quite as shyly as before.
[THREE]
“The Officers’ Mess”
Estancia Don Guillermo
Km 40.4, Provincial Route 60
Mendoza Province, Argentina
0555 21 October 1945
When Clete led Cletus Marcus Howell, Captain Alfredo Garcia, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr., Doña Dorotea Mallín de Frade, and Enrico Rodríguez into the room, four men were already seated at the long table reserved for the senior “Good Gehlen” former officers. One was Major Maxwell Ashton III. The other three were Germans. All of them stood.
“Sorry to get everybody up so early,” Frade said, “but we have a hell of a lot to do, and the sooner we get started, the better. So, first things first—”
“Excuse me,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “I don’t believe I know these gentlemen.”
“Sorry,” Clete said. “Gentlemen, this is my grandfather, Cletus Marcus Howell, who is with us not in that role but as the representative of President Truman. And this is Lieutenant Cronley, who is the officer courier who brought us all that from Kloster Grünau.”
Frade then pointed to the stacks of documents already taken from the canvas suitcases and spread out on the table.
He went on: “And, Grandfather, these are the senior officers of the operation here.”
He pointed to the two men seated at the side of the table.
“That’s Alois Strübel and Wilhelm Frogger.”
Then he pointed to the tall, hawk-featured man in his mid-thirties standing at the head of the table.
“And that is the senior man of Operation Ost, Otto Niedermeyer.”
—
Lieutenant Colonel Cletus Frade had known former Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger the longest—having met him after first having Frogger’s parents forced upon him.
Empire and Honor Page 44