“Ha!”
The gates were opened and the Horch drove into the basement garage. There in the garage was a 1940 Ford station wagon and a 1938 Ford coupe, but Perón’s official Mercedes was nowhere in sight.
“Good!” Dorotea said. “He’s not here. Now I won’t have to smile and pretend to be charmed.”
“You’re sure it’s here? The portrait?”
“I called and checked on that, too. I also told the housekeeper to find a well-worn comforter or two and some twine to pack it.
“And while you and Enrico are doing that, I think I might have a glass of my nice wine. Presuming he left me some.”
“Would you be shocked to hear, my darling, that I was just now trying to think of some reasonably tactful way to keep you from offering your expert advice as to how I might better pack the portrait?”
“You want a glass?”
“I’ll wait, I think, until we’re in the house we have to live in because Guess Who is living here. But thank you just the same.”
“Cletus! I think you’d better come up here!”
“Yes, my love.”
He was sitting, his legs stretched out before him, on one of the eight high-backed chairs that lined the walls of the foyer. He pushed himself out of the chair, drained his glass of merlot, set the empty glass on a side table, then trotted up the wide stairs to the second floor.
When he got there, he saw a large flat object leaning against the wall. It was cushioned with what had to be at least two well-worn comforters held in place by what looked like three hundred feet of sturdy twine.
Dorotea and Enrico were nowhere in sight.
Uh-oh! She’s in the bedroom!
Two significant things had happened to Clete in the master bedroom of the mansion.
The first involved two Argentine assassins-for-hire who had tried to eliminate Cletus Howell Frade on behalf of the German government while he slept in his granduncle’s bed. They had failed—and died for their efforts—but not before killing the housekeeper, who happened to be Enrico’s sister.
And shortly thereafter, in the same bed, the former Señorita Dorotea Mallín had not only lost her right to the title of the Virgin Princess but had become with child.
It was this last that made Clete worry about what she was up to in the bedroom—now Tío Juan’s bedroom. Clete would not have been surprised to find her doing something really outrageous.
Or, more likely, she has already done something outrageous—and now I have to make it right.
At first, Clete didn’t fully comprehend what he was looking at.
Dorothea was standing at the head of bed and Enrico at the foot. She was holding the Leica I-C 35mm camera in one hand.
Dorotea said, “Maybe you better do this, darling, and I’ll hold the map flat.”
“What map?” Clete said.
“This one,” she said unnecessarily. “I found it in that thing.” She pointed to a meter-long leather tube that he recognized as an Ejército Argentino map case. “It’s off the coast south of Mar del Plata. There are marks and notes on it around Necochea. I’ll bet when Peter sees the photo I’m making, he’ll say it’s where the submarine landed. Isn’t that interesting that Tío Juan would have a map of that area?”
“Why the hell did you go in his map case?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
She looked at him unapologetically, then said, “I thought maybe it would contain something naughty.” She paused. “But this is better, isn’t it?”
“It is if he doesn’t walk in on us taking a picture of it.”
“Well, then take the damned camera and make the picture!”
The rolled map would not go back in the case. There was something else inside that stopped it.
“Baby, when you took out the map, was it by itself or rolled with something else?”
“There was another map, of South America, rolled around it.”
Clete, not without effort, got the map of South America out of the map case and unrolled it on the bed.
“Now give me that one, sweetheart,” he said, motioning for the first one that they’d photographed. He casually glanced at the second map. “Wait a minute. What the hell is this?”
He looked more closely, and saw clearly that it was a map of the South American continent. But something about it did not look right.
The map bore a label stating that it had come from the Map and Topographic Office of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht in Berlin. It was labeled VERY SECRET and carried the title Sud-Amerika Nach der Anschluss.
“Oh, shit!”
That translates as “South America, After the Annexation”!
He scanned the map and noticed that Uruguay and Paraguay no longer existed as sovereign countries; they now were part of Argentina, much as Austria had become part of Germany Nach der Anschluss. The map also showed Peru and Bolivia divided more or less equally between Argentina and Brazil.
“What is it?” Dorotea said.
“It’s why Tío Juan hopes the Germans will win the war. Put a fresh roll of film in the camera, honey. I want to take pictures of this to Washington, too.”
XIII
[ONE]
Office of the Director Office of Strategic Services National Institutes of Health Building Washington, D.C. 1425 1 August 1943
“Waiting to see me, Alex?” the director of the Office of Strategic Services inquired of the OSS deputy director for Western Hemisphere operations, who was sitting in an upholstered chair in Donovan’s outer office, holding a copy of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Oh, you are a clever fellow, aren’t you? You take one look at someone and you can tell just what they’re up to.”
“I asked him if he wanted to go in, General Donovan,” Donovan’s secretary said, just a touch self-righteously.
Donovan signaled for Graham to go into his office, then turned to his secretary. “Bring me and the Latin Bob Hope here some coffee, will you, please, Margaret?”
“I’ve never been called that before,” Graham said.
“And I’m sorry I did,” Donovan said. “I hope Hope doesn’t hear about it. I really like him.”
Graham waited until Donovan took his seat behind his desk, then handed him a manila folder stamped TOP SECRET in red.
“I hope this is good news,” Donovan said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it is,” Graham said, and sat in one of the two leather armchairs facing Donovan’s desk.
Donovan opened the folder and read the message.
URGENT
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
2100 LOCAL 30 JULY 1943
FROM TEX
TO AGGIE
SEGURO COMERCIAL IS ABOUT TO INFORM SOUTH AMERICAN AIRWAYS THAT SINCE LLOYD’S OF LONDON HAS REFUSED TO REINSURE SAA THEY ARE FORCED TO CANCEL OUR INSURANCE.
LLOYD’S REASON FOR REFUSING TO REINSURE IS THAT OUR PILOTS DO NOT HOLD US AIR TRANSPORT RATINGS. STRONGLY SUSPECT THAT LLOYD’S GOT THEIR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR PILOTS FROM CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS AT VARIG WHO THINK THAT SAA’S LODESTARS SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THEM, AND WHO NOW ARE TRYING TO CUT OFF COMPETITION. IT IS EQUALLY PROBABLE THAT PAN AMERICAN, EITHER INDEPENDENTLY OR WORKING WITH THOSE AT VARIG, HAS ALSO MENTIONED OUR NON-ATR-RATED PILOTS TO LLOYD’S BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT ANY COMPETITION EITHER.
TIO JUAN THINKS THAT THE BRITISH ARE INVOLVED IN THE CANCELLATION, EITHER ALONE OR IN CONJUCTION WITH VARIG AND/OR TRIPPE, BECAUSE THEY PLAN TO RUN ARGENTINA’S AVIATION AFTER THE WAR THE WAY THEY RUN THE ARGENTINE RAILROADS AND WANT TO NIP COMPETITION IN THE BUD.
WHILE IT SEEMS PRETTY CLEAR TO ME THAT OUR FRIEND IN SWITZERLAND PROBABLY COULD FIX THINGS WITH LLOYD’S, AND THE MAN WHOSE AIRLINE IDEA THIS WAS CERTAINLY COULD DO SO, HAVE THEM BUTT OUT REPEAT HAVE THEM BUTT OUT UNTIL I HAVE A CHANCE TO TRY TO FIX THIS MYSELF.
FORCING LLOYD’S TO REVERSE ITSELF WOULD NOT ONLY ANNOY THEM, WORD ALSO WOULD GET OUT ABOUT IT AND THEN QUESTIONS ASK
ED ABOUT WHO IT IS THAT’S LEANING ON THEM. NO DOUBT VARIG AND PAN AMERICAN WOULD BE ANNOYED AND PROBABLY WOULD START ASKING THE SAME QUESTION. THAT WOULD CERTAINLY SCREW UP THINGS FOR ME AND SAA BOTH IMMEDIATELY AND IN THE FUTURE.
UNLESS I AM GIVEN SOME GOOD REASON NOT TO DO SO, I INTEND TO FLY FOURTEEN (14) SAA PILOTS TO BURBANK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, PROBABLY WITHIN THIRTY-SIX (36) HOURS, AND GET THE PILOTS THEIR ATRS. AS I DOUBT THIS WILL SATISFY LLOYD’S OR SEGURO COMERCIAL FOR REASONS STATED ABOVE, I WILL HAVE TO GET SOME U.S. INSURANCE COMPANY TO INSURE SAA. ANY IDEAS?
TEX
“Two questions,” Donovan said when he had finished reading. “Why do you think this is good news? FDR will have a fit when he hears about it.”
“You said two questions?”
“This is dated two days ago. You just got it?”
“I got it two days ago. I was waiting for the second message I just gave you”—he gestured toward the manila folder—“the one you chose to ignore.”
“I didn’t see the second message,” Donovan said as he went back into the manila folder, found the message, took it out, and began to read it:
URGENT
TOP SECRET LINDBERGH
DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN
1000 LOCAL 1 AUGUST 1943
FROM COWGIRL
TO AGGIE
TEX AND FRIENDS LEFT FOR BURBANK 0645 TODAY
TEX BRINGING WITH HIM PHOTOS OF TWO VERY INTERESTING MAPS OF THIS AREA
EL JEFE AND I HOLDING THE FORT AND CARING FOR TOURISTS
COWGIRL
Donovan looked up from the sheet. “ ‘Cowgirl’?”
“The feminine of ‘cowboy.’ Taking a wild guess, Señora Dorotea Mallín de Frade.”
“She knows too much, period.”
“They’re newlyweds; he tells her everything. And beneath her really extraordinary beauty there is a highly intelligent and very, very tough young woman.”
Donovan looked past Graham a long moment as he considered that. “Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Now, tell me why you think this is good news. The maps?”
“I have no idea what they are.”
“Then what, Alex?”
“You think Juan Trippe is capable of going to Lloyd’s?”
Donovan thought about that for perhaps two seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, Juan’s capable of that. Especially if he heard, and I’m sure he has, that the airline in Argentina is Roosevelt’s idea.”
“You think he’s heard?”
Donovan nodded again. “He’s heard that an Argentine airline is starting up. Hell, that was in the newspapers down there. And then he wondered where they were getting their airplanes. And then he wondered how neutral Argentina was getting Lodestars that allies—for example, Canada and Mexico—would love to have. Who would have the authority to order that besides FDR? Sure, he knows.”
“What about Varig going to Lloyd’s?”
“Same story. They wanted the Lodestars. Argentina got them. ‘Let’s knock off the competition before it gets off the ground.’ ” He paused. “I heard the pun. Unintentional. It just came out that way.”
“And the Brits? Do you think somebody there, wanting to make sure nobody else starts an airline in Argentina before they get around to it, went to Lloyd’s?”
“Why not? All of the above.”
“What about Allen Dulles? Do you think he might have gone to Lloyd’s?”
“Why would Allen want to do . . . ? Alex!”
Graham nodded, then explained: “As part of the Air Transport Rating examination, there is a cross-country flight. Frade will be one of the first pilots to take the check-ride. His flight will take him to Jackson, Mississippi, which is a half-hour’s car ride from Camp Clinton.”
“You’ve got the whole damn thing set up.”
“I did the setup. But it was Allen’s idea. He really wants to turn Colonel Frogger—”
“All this to track the Operation Phoenix money in Argentina?” Donovan interrupted.
“I suspect there probably is more, but Allen didn’t say anything.”
“And you didn’t ask him?”
“Allen does things one step at a time. If Frade can turn Frogger, and there is more, I suspect Allen will tell me.”
“Why not now?”
Graham shrugged. “Of the three of us, who would you say really knows what he’s doing?”
Donovan could have taken offense, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Point taken.” After a moment’s silence, he asked, “When does this happen?”
“Sometime in the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours they’ll have to land in Mexico to get permission to enter the United States. Probably Nogales, maybe Sonora.”
“You don’t know?”
Graham shook his head.
“Allen’s idea. Frade believes everything he sent in that message. If he doesn’t know anything, he can’t let anything slip. Anyway, the Air Force’s North American Air Defense Command, which issues the clearance to enter U.S. airspace— and normally would issue it to an airliner of a neutral country in maybe an hour—has been told to wait five hours. That’ll do several things. It will almost certainly give the pilots with him—at least one of whom is an Argentine intelligence officer taking notes—a chance to witness Frade showing genuine frustration and maybe even losing his temper.”
Graham took a sip of his coffee, then added, “And it will give me a little time to get out to Burbank.”
He drank again from the cup, then said, “The permission will finally come, and they’ll fly to the Lockheed plant in Burbank, where they will not be expected, and will be met by indignant and curious immigration officers and by curious Lockheed officials who more than likely will be annoyed. Frade and his group won’t be arrested, but they will be escorted to their hotel by an immigration officer and told not to leave it until everything is cleared up.
“Sooner or later, somebody at Lockheed is going to call the War Production Board and ask what to do with the SAA pilots who have just dropped in on them unexpected and uninvited—”
“How do you know they’ll do that?” Donovan interrupted.
“Because, if they don’t, Howard Hughes will tell them to do so.”
“Howard Hughes is in on this?”
Graham nodded. “But only him.”
“How much did you have to tell him?”
“Only that I needed a favor. He knows Frade, you know.”
“You told me that.”
“Anyway, when somebody at Lockheed calls the War Production Board, there will be a couple of hours’ delay and then someone will tell Lockheed to do whatever South American Airways wants done.”
“And how do you know that will happen?”
“Julius Krug, the chief of the War Production Board, knows that the airline is Roosevelt’s idea.”
“There’s a long list of things that could go wrong in that scenario, Alex.”
"O ye of little faith!”
“But even if nothing goes wrong, what if Frade can’t turn the Afrikakorps colonel—?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Frogger,” Graham furnished. “If Frade and Fischer—and of course me—can’t turn him, then because he will have heard too much to be allowed to go back in the POW cage, I’ll have to decide what to do with him.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. He’s entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.”
“If that gets to be a real problem—which means if he does—we’ll talk again about his having an accident. But right now I’m thinking of sending him to the Aleutian Islands, where he can sit out the war with our homegrown Communists. ”
“You’re serious?”
“There would be a certain poetic justice in that, don’t you think? A devout Nazi being guarded by American Communists?”
“Before you do that, Alex, I’ll want to talk about it again.”
Graham shrugged, then drained his coffee cup.
[TWO]
Lockheed Air Terminal Burbank, California 1805 4 August 194
3
Clete had moved into the Lodestar’s pilot’s seat as they had approached the U.S.-Mexican border. He decided that it would be better to have an American voice—and one familiar with American procedures—dealing with the en route controllers and the Lockheed Terminal tower than a Spanish-tinged one who didn’t really know what he was doing.
And as there were military air bases all over Southern California, he had also thought it possible, even likely, that they would be intercepted by Air Force or Navy—or even Marine—fighters because someone hadn’t got the word about an Argentine airliner having been cleared to enter the country. He knew how to talk to another American fighter pilot; none of the others did.
But no fighter had appeared off his wing, and when he called the Lockheed Terminal tower for approach and landing instructions, the air traffic personnel matter-of-factly gave them to him.
When Frade turned the Lodestar on final and felt he could finally relax, a warning message came from a remote corner of his brain:
Not yet, stupid.
You’ve come too far to get sloppy at the last minute and dump the airplane on landing.
If Lindbergh—probably then as tired as I am now—had dumped the Spirit of Saint Louis while trying to land at LeBourget, he wouldn’t have been remembered as “Lucky Lindy, America’s Hero.”
No, he’d now be remembered—or forgotten—as just one more crazy man who had tried and failed to complete a flight across the Atlantic.
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that when Lindbergh was on final to LeBourget, he told himself, “Careful, Charley, don’t fuck it up now!”
Ninety seconds later, Frade greased the Lodestar in. For a moment he was elated, but then he had the further presence of mind to tell himself: And not yet either, stupid. You won’t be finished until they put the wheel chocks in place. You really don’t want to run over the Follow-Me truck before you’re parked.
Three minutes later, when the ground handler signaled that he should cut his engines, and he had done so without anything falling off or blowing up, he smiled at Delgano.
“Gonzo, we have apparently cheated death again.”
Delgano smiled back and shook his head, then started to unfasten his shoulder harness.
Death and Honor Page 45
